Essential Stories Page 6

  “The way it is,” the Yank explained when he went in to Ballady alone for a drink now and then. “The poor bloody brother he’s after having a breakdown.” The Yank was a wild, tall, lean, muscular fellow, straight and springy as a whip, with eyes like dark pools, with bald brows, lips loose and thin, and large ears protruding from his bony skull. His black hair stood up straight and was cropped close like a convict’s, so that the skin could be seen through it; his nose was straight and his face was reddened by the wind. He went about with a cigarette in the corner of lips askew in a conquering grin, and carried a gun all day. A breezy, sporting chap. He wandered up and down the bog and the fields or lay in the dunes waiting; then, bang went his gun, the sea-birds screamed over the sand and up he got from his knees to pick up a rabbit or a bird. The sun burned him, the wind cut him, the squalls pitted him like shot. He had no secrets from anyone. Fifteen years of Canada, he told them, four years of war and now for a good time while his money lasted. Then, he said publicly to all, he would go back. All he wanted now was a bit of rough country, a couple of drinks, and a gun; and he had got them. It was what he had always wanted. He was out for the time of his life.

  How different Charlie was, slight and wiry, nervous and private as a silvery fish. His hair was fair, almost white, and his eyes were a keen dark blue in the pupils and a fairer blue was ringed round them. His features were sharp and he kept his lips together and his head down as he walked, glancing nervously about him. He looked like a man walking in his thoughts. If, when he returned from the sea, he saw someone in his path, he dodged away and made a long detour back to the house. If taken by surprise and obliged to talk to a stranger, he edged away murmuring something. His voice was quiet, his look shrill, pleading and shy. He was absorbed in the most private of all pieties, the piety of fear to which his imagination devoted a rich and vivid ritual.

  He did not badger his brother with speech. He followed him about the house, standing near him, asking with his eyes for the virtue of his brother’s strength, courage, company and protection. He asked no more than his physical presence and to watch. In the mornings at first, after they had established themselves in the house, there was always this situation: Micky restless, burning to be out with his gun and Charlie’s eyes silently asking him not to go. Micky bursting to be free, Charlie worrying to hold him. Sometimes Micky would be melted by an unguarded glance at his brother. For a moment he would forget his own strength and find himself moved by an awed tenderness for this clever man who had passed examinations, stayed in the Old Country, worked his way up in a bank and then, when the guns had started to popple, and “the troubles” began, had collapsed.

  Micky was kind and humoured him. They would sit for hours together in the house, with the Spring growing in the world outside, while Charlie cajoled him with memories of their boyhood together, or listened to Micky’s naive and boasting tales of travel. In those hours Charlie forgot the awful years, or he would have the illusion of forgetting. For the two surrounded themselves with walls of talk, and Charlie, crouching round the little camp fire of his heart, used every means to keep the talk going, to preserve this picture of life standing as still as a dreamy ship in haven and himself again a child.

  But soon the sun would strike through the window and the fairness of the sky would make Micky restless. He would lead his brother, by a pretext, into the garden and slyly get him to work there, planting lettuces or digging, and when he had got him to work he would slip away, pick up his gun and be off to the dunes.

  Shortly after moving into the house Micky went into Dill, got drunk as was his habit, and returned with a dog, a young black retriever very strong, affectionate and lively. He did not know why he had bought it and could hardly remember what he had paid for it. But when he got home he said on the impulse to Charlie:

  “Here, Charlie boy. I’ve bought you a dog. One of the priest’s pups.”

  Charlie smiled slightly and looked in wonder.

  “There y’are, man,” Micky cried. “Your dog.”

  “Hup! Go to your master,” said Micky, giving the dog a push and sent it over to Charlie, who still incredulously gazed.

  “Now that’s kind of you,” he murmured, flushing slightly. He was speechless with pleasure. Micky, who had given the animal to his brother on the spur of the moment, was now delighted with himself, sunned in his generosity.

  “Sure now ye’ve got yer dog,” Micky kept saying, “ye’ll be all right. Ye’ll be all right now ye’ve got the dog.”

  Charlie gazed at Micky and the animal, and slyly he smiled to himself; Micky had done this because he had a bad conscience. But Charlie put these thoughts aside.

  Both brothers devoted themselves to the retriever, Micky going out and shooting rabbits for it, and Charlie cooking them and taking out the bones. But when Micky got up and took his gun and the retriever jumped up to go out with him, Charlie would whistle the dog back and say:

  “Here! Stay here. Lie down. Ye’re going out with me in a minute.”

  It was his dog.

  At last Charlie went out and the watchful creature leaped out with him. Charlie drew courage from it as it loped along before him, sniffing at walls and standing stiff with ears cocked to see the sudden rise of a bird. Charlie talked to it in a low running murmur hardly made of words but easing to the mind. When it stopped he would pass his clever hands over its velvety nose and glossy head, feeling the strange life ripple under the hair and obtaining a curious strength from the tumult. Then he would press on and whistle the creature after him and make across the fields to the long finger bone of rock that ran down to the sea; but as the retriever ran it paused often, as Charlie began to note with bewilderment and then with dread, to listen for Micky’s voice or the sound of his gun.

  When he saw this Charlie redoubled his efforts to win the whole allegiance of the dog. Power was renewing itself in him. And so he taught the dog a trick. He called it over the rocks, slipping and yelping to the sea’s edge. Here the sand was white, and as the worlds of clouds bowled over the sky to the mountains where the light brimmed like golden bees, the sea would change into deep jade halls, purple where the weeds lay and royal blue under the sparkling sun, and the air was sinewy and strong. Charlie took off his clothes and, shivering at the sight of his own thin pale body, his loose queasy stomach and the fair sickly hairs now picking up gold from the light, and with a desire to cleanse himself of sickness and fear, lowered himself cautiously into the green water, and wading out with beating heart called to the dog. It stood up whining and barking for a while, running up and down the rock, and at last plunged in pursuit. Then the man caught hold of its tail and let himself be towed out to sea, and for minutes they would travel out and out until, at a word, the dog returned, snorting, heart pumping, shoulders working and eyes gazing upwards and the green water swilling off its back until it had pulled Charlie back into his depth.

  Then Charlie would sit drying himself and listening to the scream of the birds while the black retriever yelped and shivered at his side. And if Micky were late for his meal when he returned, through drinking with the schoolmaster or going away for a day to the races, Charlie would say nothing. He would build up a big turf fire in the empty room and wait with the dog at his side, murmuring to it.

  But it took Charlie hours to make up his mind to these expeditions, and as time went on they became irregular. There were days when the absences of his brother left him alone with his fears, and on these days he would helplessly see the dog run after Micky and go off with him. Soon it would hardly obey Charlie’s call.

  “You’re taking the dog from me,” Charlie complained.

  “Sure if ye’d go out the dog’d follow you,” said Micky. “Dammit, what’s the use of staying inside? I don’t want the dog, but the poor bloody creature needs a run an’t follows me. It’s only natural.”

  “Natural. That’s it,” Charlie reflected. From him that hath not shall be taken even that which he hath. But he cried out sharply:

>   “Sure you have it trained away from me.”

  Then they quarrelled, and Micky, thinking his head was getting too hot for his tongue, went out to the dunes and stood in the wind staring at the sea. Why was he tied to this weak and fretful man? For three years since the end of the war he had looked after Charlie, getting him out of hospital and into a nursing home, then to houses in the country, sacrificing a lot of his own desire to have a good time before he returned to Canada, in order to get his brother back to health. Micky’s money would not last for ever; soon he would have to go, and then what would happen?

  But when he returned with cooler head, the problem carelessly thrown off, he was kind to his brother. They sat in eased silence before the fire, the dog dreaming at their feet, and to Charlie there returned the calm of the world. His jealousies, his suspicions, his reproaches, all the spies sent out by his reconnoitring fears, were called in and with Micky he was at peace and no shadow of the future was on him.

  Yet as the months climbed higher out of July into August and swung there awhile, enchanted by their own halcyon weather, before declining into the cooler days, the question had to be faced. Micky knew and Charlie knew, but each wished the other to speak.

  It was Micky who, without warning, became impatient and spoke out.

  “Lookut here, Charlie,” he said one evening as he washed blood off his hands in the kitchen—he had been skinning and cleaning a couple of rabbits—“are you coming back to Canada with me in September?”

  “To Canada is it?” said the brother putting his thin fingers on the table and speaking in a gasping whisper. He stood incredulous. Yet he had expected this.

  “And leave me here alone!”

  “Not at all,” said Micky. “I said ‘You’re coming with me.’ You heard me. Will ye come with me to Canada?”

  Charlie drew in his lips and his eyes were restless with agony.

  “Sure, Micky, ye know I can’t do that,” he said.

  “But what’s to stop ye? Ye’re all right. Ye’re well. Ye’ve got your bit of pension and ye’ll be as comfortable as in your own home. Get out of this damn country, that’s what ye want. Sure ’tis no good at all except for old people and children,” cried Micky.

  But Charlie was looking out of the window towards the mountains. To go out into the world, to sit in trains with men, to sleep in houses with them, to stand bewildered, elbowed and shouldered by men in a new country! Or, as the alternative, to stay alone without Micky, left to his memories.

  “You’ll not leave me, Micky boy?” he stammered in panic.

  Micky was bewildered by the high febrile voice, the thin body shivering like a featherless bird. Then Charlie changed. He hunched his shoulders, narrowing himself and cowering round his heart, hardening himself against the world, and his eyes shot out suspicions, jealousies, reproaches, the weapons of a sharp mind.

  “ ’Tis the schoolmaster has been putting you against me,” he said.

  Micky ridiculed the idea.

  “Ye knew as well as I did, dammit, when we took the place, that I’d be going now,” he said. Yes, this was true, Charlie had known it.

  Micky took the matter to his friend the schoolmaster. He was a stout, hard-drinking old man with a shock of curly grey hair. His manner was theatrical and abrupt.

  “ ’Tis the poor bloody brother,” Micky said. “What am I to do with him at all?”

  “Ye’ve no more money,” said the schoolmaster.

  “Ye’ve been with him for years,” he went on. He paused again.

  “Ye can’t live on him.”

  “And he must live with you.”

  He glowered at Micky and then his fierce look died away.

  “Sure there’s nothing you can do. Nothing at all,” said the schoolmaster.

  Micky filled their glasses again.

  He continued his life. The Summer glided down like a beautiful bird scooping the light. The peasants stood in their long shadows in the fields and fishermen left their boats for the harvest. Micky was sad to be leaving this beautiful isolation.

  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. Ch
arlie 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.