Collected Stories (122 page)

“You don't want to see the Bossi mantelpiece, Clancy?” says the major, going off into a roar as he filled my glass.

“If 'tis one of those fireplaces you can't put your boots on, I don't,” said I.

“Or the historic plaster ceiling in the saloon, Clancy?” he says. “I'm sure you'd love the historic plaster ceiling. Wonderful for shooting at the champagne corks. Pop!”

“Don't forget to show them your ghost!” said I. “Was it some priest ye hanged or someone ye put out of his house?”

“Look at him!” said the major. “You can see the sort of chap he is, sitting there drinking my whiskey and hating me.”

Nan gave me a look meaning that she didn't know where her wits were when she married me, but I was past caring. The younger ones went out to the garden, and after a while the others joined them. Nan was collecting her slips. The major was taking advantage of me beyond my capacity. I knew what he'd say after when his wife studied the decanter. That 'twas my doing.

They all came back for a drink and Sullivan was talking to Mrs. Hopkins about the backwardness of “the peasants” and she was telling him about her club for peasant reform. He mentioned the subject of bathrooms, and I could see he had Bridgie on his mind. The major couldn't get it out of his head that I was trying to sell something to the Americans and using his house as a blind. He kept looking at me and roaring. And, God forgive me, there was I roaring too, calculating how many gallons of petrol it would take to send his historic old house blazing to Heaven. I was excited and when I have a few drinks in I'm very wicked.

By the time we left, the Sullivans were arranging to take Bella out on their way back through London. I tore back the road with the rocks rising up at me like theatre scenery, thinking of the couple that travelled the same road on their tin trunk so long ago. Sullivan had the same thought in his mind.

“That was a delightful end to a remarkable day,” he said.

“It was,” I said. “Almost as remarkable as the day.”

“You probably can't appreciate what it meant to me,” he said.

“You might be surprised,” I said.

“All my life,” he said, “I wanted to stand in the spot where the old couple set off on their journey, and now I feel something inside me satisfied.”

“And you laid a wreath on the grave of the man who evicted them as well,” said I. “Don't forget that.”

The funny thing was, it was his wife that knew what I meant.

“What's that?” she said, leaning forward to me. “You mean the Hopkins were the landlords who evicted them?”

“They were,” said I. “And cruel bad landlords, too.”

I knew 'twas wicked of me, but the man had roused something in me. What right had any of them to look down on the Sullivans? They were country people as I was, and it was people like them that had gone crying down every road in Ireland to the sea. But they were delighted, delighted! Mrs. Sullivan and Nan and Bob and Rose, they couldn't get over the coincidence of it. You'd think 'twas an entertainment I put on for their benefit. But Sullivan wasn't delighted, and well I knew he wouldn't be. The rest were nice, but they were outside it. They could go looking for ghosts, but he had ghosts there inside himself and I knew in my heart that till the day he died he would never get over the feeling that his money had put him astray and he had turned his back on them.

About the Author

Frank O'Connor (1903–1966) was born in Cork, Ireland, and fought for the Irish Republican Army in the war for independence. He was a prolific author of short stories, plays, literary criticism, memoir, and poetry, and the managing director of the Abbey Theatre in Dublin. In addition to being a renowned writer whom W. B. Yeats famously described as “doing for Ireland what Chekhov did for Russia,” O'Connor was also a highly regarded teacher and translator of Irish literature. The world's richest prize for short fiction is named in his honor.

All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.

These are works of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Most of the stories in this collection have been previously published in
The Common Chord, Apple Jelly, Domestic Relations, Guests of the Nation, More Stories, A Set of Variations, The Stories of Frank O'Connor
, and
Traveller's Samples
by Frank O'Connor.

The following stories were originally published in the
New Yorker
: “Achilles' Heel,” “An Act of Charity,” “The American Wife,” “The Babes in the Woods,” “The Cheapjack,” “Christmas Morning,” “The Corkerys,” “Darcy in the Land of Youth,” “The Drunkard,” “Expectation of Life,” “Fish for Friday,” “A Great Man,” “The Long Road to Ummera,” “The Man of the House,” “Masculine Protest,” “The Mass Island,” “News for the Church,” “An Out-and-Free Gift,” “The Pretender,” “Requiem,” “A Sense of Responsibility,” “A Set of Variations on a Borrowed Theme,” “The Study of History,” “The Teacher's Mass,” “Unapproved Route,” and “The Weeping Children.”

Copyright © 1931, 1936, 1937, 1944, 1945, 1946, 1947, 1948, 1949, 1950, 1951, 1952, 1953, 1954, 1955, 1956, 1957, 1958, 1959, 1960, 1965 by Frank O'Connor

Copyright © 1945, 1955, 1957, 1958, 1966, 1967, 1969, 1981 by Harriet O'Donovan Sheehy, Executrix of the Estate of Frank O'Connor

Cover design by Mauricio Diaz

ISBN: 978-1-4976-5503-4

This edition published in 2014 by Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.

345 Hudson Street

New York, NY 10014

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EBOOKS BY FRANK O'CONNOR

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