Essential Stories (7 page)

But he had to return to the question. He and Charlie began to argue it continually day and night. Sometimes Charlie was almost acquiescent, but at last always retired within himself. Since he could not sit in the safety of the old talk, his cleverness found what comfort it could for him in the new. Soon it was clear to Micky that Charlie encouraged the discussion, cunningly played with it, tortured him with vacillations, cunningly played on his conscience. But to Charlie it seemed that he was struggling to make his brother aware of him fully; deep in the piety of his fear he saw in Micky a man who had never worshipped at its icy altars. He must be made to know. So the struggle wavered until one night it came out loudly into the open.

“God Almighty,” cried out Micky as they sat in the lamplight. “If you’d been in France you’d have had something to cry about. That’s what’s wrong with this bloody country. All a pack of damn cowards, and ye can see it in their faces when they stare at you like a lot of bleating sheep.”

“Oh, is that it?” said Charlie gripping the arms of his chair. “Is that what you’re thinking all these years? Ye’re saying I’m afraid, is it? You’re saying I’m a coward. Is that what you were thinking when you came home like a red lord out of hell in your uniform, pretending to be glad to see me and the home? But thinking in your own heart I’m a coward not to be in the British army. Oh, is that it?”

His voice was quiet, high and monotonous in calculated contrast to Micky’s shouting anger. But his body shook. A wound had been opened. He
was
a coward. He
was
afraid. He was terrified. But his clever mind quickly closed the wound. He was a man of peace. He desired to kill no one. He worshipped the great peace of God. This was why he had avoided factions, agreed with all sides, kept out of politics and withdrawn closer and closer into himself. At times it had seemed to him that the only place left in the world for the peace of God was in his own small heart.

And what had Micky done? In the middle of the war he had come home, the Destroyer. In five minutes by a few reckless words in the drink shop and streets of the town he had ruined the equilibrium Charlie had tended for years and had at last attained. In five minutes Charlie had become committed. He was no longer “Mr. Lough the manager,” a man of peace. No, he was the brother of “that bloody pro-British Yank.” Men were boycotted for having brothers in the British army, they were threatened, they were even shot. In an hour a village as innocent-looking as a green and white place in a postcard had become a place of windows hollow-eyed with evil vigils. Within a month he had received the first note threatening his life.

“ ’Twas yourself,” said Charlie—discovering at last his enemy. “ ’Twas yourself, Micky, that brought all this upon me. Would I be sick and destroyed if you hadn’t come back?”

“Cripes,” said Micky, hearing the argument for the first time and pained by this madness in his brother. “Cripes, man, an’ what was the rest of ye up to? Serving God Almighty like a lot of choir boys, shooting up some poor lonely policeman from a hedge and driving old women out of their homes.”

“Stop it,” shouted Charlie, as the memories broke upon him and he put his fingers to his ears.

Micky threw his cigarette into the fire and took his brother by the shoulder in compassion. He was sorry for having spoken so; but Charlie ignored him. He spoke, armouring himself.

“So it’s a coward I am, is it!” he said. “Well, I stayed when they threatened me and I’ll stay again. You’re thinking I’m a coward.” He was resolute. But behind the shrubs brushing against the window, in the spaces between the cool September stars, were the fears.

There was nothing else for it. Charlie watched Micky preparing to go, indifferent and resigned, feeding his courage on this new picture of his brother. He turned to it as to a secret revelation. Micky was no longer his brother. He was the Destroyer, the Prince of this World, the man of darkness. Micky, surprised that his good intentions were foiled, gave notice to the landlord, to force Charlie. Charlie renewed the agreement. He spoke little; he took no notice of the dog, which had now completely deserted him. When Micky had gone it would be his. Charlie kicked it once or twice as if to remind it. He gave up swimming in the sea. He was staying here. He had all the years of his life to swim in the sea.

Micky countered this by open neglect of his brother. He entered upon a life of wilder enjoyment. He gave every act the quality of a reckless farewell. He was out all day and half the night. In Ballady he drank the schoolmaster weeping under the table and came staggering home, roaring like an opera, and was up at dawn, no worse for it, after the duck.

“This is a rotten old wall,” Micky said in the garden one day, and started pushing the stones off the top of it. A sign it was his wall no longer. He chopped a chair up for firewood. He ceased to make his bed. He took a dozen empty whisky bottles and, standing them at the end of the kitchen garden, used them as shooting targets. He shot three rabbits and threw two of them into the sea. He burned some old clothes, tore up his letters and gave away a haversack to the fisherman and a second gun to the schoolmaster. A careless enjoyment of destruction seized him. Charlie watched it, saying nothing. The Destroyer.

One evening as the yellow sun flared in the pools left by the tide on the sand, Micky came upon Charlie.

“Not a damn thing,” Micky said, tapping his gun.

But as they stood there, some gulls which had been flying over the rocks came inland and one fine fellow flew out and circled over their heads, its taut wings deep blue in the shadow as it swung round. Micky suddenly raised his gun and fired and, before the echoes had broken in the rocks, the wings collapsed and the bird dropped warm and dead.

“God Almighty, man,” cried Charlie, turning away with nausea, “is nothing sacred to ye?”

“It’s no damned good,” grinned Micky, picking up the bird by the wing, which squeaked open like a fan. “Let the fish have it.” And he flung it into the sea. This was what he thought of wings.

Then with a week to go, without thinking he struck a bad blow. He went off to Dill to say good-bye to the boys, and the retriever followed him although Charlie called it back. The races were on at Dill, but Micky spent most of the time in the pubs telling everyone he was going back to Canada. A man hearing this said he’d change dogs with him. His dog, he said, was a spaniel. He hadn’t it with him but he’d bring it down next fair. Micky was enthusiastic.

“I know ye will,” said Micky. “Sure ye’ll bring it.”

“Ah, well now,” said the man. “I will bring it.”

“ ’Tis a great country the west,” said Micky. “Will ye have another?”

“I will,” said the man, and as he drank: “In the three countries there is not a place like this.”

Micky returned the next day without the dog.

“Where’s the dog?” said Charlie suspiciously.

“Och sure,” began Micky evasively, realising for the first time what he had done. “D’you see the way it is, there is a man in Dill—”

“Ye’ve sold it. Ye’ve sold my dog,” Charlie shouted out, rushing at his brother. His shout was the more unnerving because he had spoken so little for days. Micky drew back.

“Ah now, Charlie, be reasonable now. Sure you never did anything for the dog. You never took it out. You didn’t care for it . . .”

Charlie gripped a chair and painfully sat down, laying his head in his hands on the table.

“You brought the war on me, you smash me up, you take the only things I have and leave me stripped and alone,” he moaned. “Oh, God in heaven,” he half sobbed in pleading voice, “will ye give me gentleness and peace!”

Now the dog was gone Charlie sat still. He would not move from the house, nor even from the sitting-room except to go to bed. He would scarcely speak. Sulking, Micky repeated to his uneasy conscience, sulking, sulking. He’s either mad or he’s sulking. What could he do? They sat estranged, already far apart, impatient for the act of departure.

When the eve of his departure came Micky was relieved to see that Charlie accepted it, and was even making it easy: and so touched was Micky by this that he found no difficulty in promising to spend that last night with Charlie alone. He remained in the house all day, and when the night came a misted moonlight gleamed on the cold roof and the sea was as quiet as the licking of a cat’s tongue. Charlie drew the curtains, made up the fire and there they sat silently listening to the clock. They were almost happy: Charlie pleased to have this final brief authority over Micky; Micky relieved by the calm, both disinterested. Charlie spoke of his plans, the work he would do in the garden, the furniture he would buy, the girl he would get in to cook and clean.

“ ’Twould be a fine place to bring a bride to,” said Micky, giving Charlie a wink, and Charlie smiled.

But presently they heard footsteps on the drive.

“What’s that?” exclaimed Charlie sharply, sitting up. The mild mask of peace left his face like a light, and his face set hard.

Without knocking at the door, in walked the schoolmaster. He was in the room before Charlie could get out. He stood up and retreated to the corner.

“Good evening to ye,” said the schoolmaster, pulling a bottle out of his pocket, and spreading himself on to a seat. “I came to see your brother on his last night.”

Charlie drew in his lips and gazed at the schoolmaster.

“Will ye have a drink?” said Micky nervously.

That began it. Gradually Micky forgot his promise. He paid no attention to Charlie’s signs. They sat drinking and telling stories. The world span round. The alarm clock on the little bamboo table, the only table in the bare room, ticked on. Charlie waited in misery, his eyes craving his brother’s, whose bloodshot eyes were merry with drinking and laughter at the schoolmaster’s tales. The man’s vehement voice shook the house. He told of the priest at Dill who squared the jockeys and long thick stories about some Archbishop and his so-called niece. The air to Charlie became profane.

“Isn’t your wife afraid to be up and alone this time of night?” Charlie ventured once.

“Och, man, she’s in bed long ago,” shouted the schoolmaster. “She is that.”

And Micky roared with laughter.

At two o’clock Charlie went to bed and left him to it. But he was awake at five when Micky stumbled into his room.

“Before God, man,” Micky said. “I’m bloody sorry, Charlie man. Couldn’t turn out a friend.”

“It’s too late now,” said Charlie.

Micky left at seven to catch a man who would give him a lift to the eight-o’clock train.

The Autumn gales broke loose upon the land a month after Micky’s departure and the nights streamed black and loud. The days were cold and fog came over the sea. The fuchsias were blown back and the under leaves blew up like silver hands. The rain lashed on the windows like gravel. There were days of calm and then the low week-long mist covered the earth, obliterating the mountains, melting all shapes. All day long the moisture dripped from the sheds and windows and glistened on the stone walls.

At first Charlie did not change. Forced to go to the village for groceries he would appear there two or three times a week, saying little and walking away quickly. A fisherman would call and the post-boy lingered. Letters came from Micky. Charlie took little heed of all this. But as the weather became wilder he hung curtains over the windows day and night and brought his bed down to the sitting-room. He locked the doors upstairs, those that had still keys to them. He cooked on the sitting-room fire. He was narrowing his world, making a smaller and closer circle to live in. And as it grew smaller, the stranger the places beyond its boundaries seemed. He was startled to go into the empty kitchen, and looked with apprehension up the carpetless stairs to the empty landing where water dripped through the fanlight and was already staining the ceiling below. He lay awake in the night as the fire glowed in the room.

One morning when he found the noises of his isolation supportable no more, he put on his hat and coat and packed his things and walked out of the house. He would stay no longer. But with his fear his brain had, as always, developed a covering cunning. He went up the lane to see if anyone was coming first. He wanted to be away from people, yet among them; with them, yet alone. And on this morning the Ballady sailor was reloading a load of turf that had fallen off his cart. Charlie returned into the house. He took off his hat and coat. He had not been out for a week because of this dread.

There was still food in tins for a few days. It was the thought that he could last if he liked, that he could keep the world off, that made him satisfied. No letters came now. Micky no longer wrote; effusive in the first weeks, his letters had become rare. Now there had been no news for a month. Charlie scarcely thought of him.

But when late in December the mists held the country finally, the twigs creaked on the drive like footsteps and the dark bushes divided in the wind as if they had been parted by hidden hands, he cowered into his beating heart, eating little, and the memories began to move and creep in his head. A letter threatened him with death. He drove alone with the bank’s money. At Carragh-cross road the signpost stood emptily gesticulating like some frightened speaker with the wind driving back the words into his mouth, and the two roads dangling from its foot. He knew what had happened at Carragh-cross road. He knew what had been found there lying with one leg out of the ditch. He saw it. And Micky, the Destroyer, with his convict’s head and his big red ears, shooting down the Holy Ghost like a beautiful bird, grinned there blowing smoke down his nose.

These memories came and went. When they came they beat into his head like wings, and though he fought them off with prayers, they beat down and down on him and he cried out fast to the unanswering house:

“God give me peace,” he prayed. “Holy Mother of God, give me peace for the sake of thy sweet Son . . .”

When the beating wings went his cleverness took possession of him again. He prepared a little food, and once or twice walked around the garden within the shelter of the walls. The ground was frozen, the air still and a lace of snow was on the paths. But if the days passed in peace, his heart quickened at the early darkness, and when the turf smoke blew back down the chimney it was as if someone had blown down a signal. One night he had a terrible dream. He was dead, he had been caught at last on the road at Carragh-cross. “Here’s the man with the pro-British brother,” they cried and threw him into a bog pool, sinking deeper and deeper into soft and sucking fires that drew him down and down. He was in hell. And there in the flames calling to him was a woman with dark hair and with pale insects walking over her skin. It was the schoolmaster’s wife. “And he thinking you were in bed,” said Charlie, amazed by the justice of revenge. He woke up gasping in the glow of the sitting-room fire, and feeling that a load was still pressing down on his chest.