The Silence in the Garden Page 10

  ‘Fold the postal order, Tom,’ Mrs Rolleston said in her bedroom. ‘Then stick the envelope and put a stamp on it.’

  ‘Fifteen shillings, is it?’

  ‘Fifteen shillings. Don’t lose the note now.’

  He said he wouldn’t, knowing he wouldn’t because he never had, because there wasn’t a hole in his trousers’ pocket. ‘I don’t know what I’d do without you,’ Mrs Rolleston said, but he knew she was only saying it. She was always nice like that, which was why he never minded going up to her bedroom.

  ‘I’ll tell you one thing,’ the ferryman was saying on the ferry when Tom climbed on to it. ‘Ireland was always famous for its bachelors.’

  The ferryman hadn’t started his engines yet. He was sitting on a side seat, where the passengers usually sat, beside one of the girls from Renehan’s, who was conveying a basket of turkey eggs which she had placed on the boards at her feet. One of the girl’s hands was bandaged, and Tom guessed she couldn’t work in the fish sheds because of it. When the ferryman asked him, he had to confess he was uncertain about what a bachelor was.

  ‘It’s a man,’ the ferryman said, ‘that wouldn’t have married a woman. D’you see that, boy? This lassie here has her eye on young Briscoe, only I’m after telling her that in my opinion Briscoe’s the kind to remain a bachelor.’

  Other bachelors were cited. The ferryman was a bachelor himself. So was Guard Ryan, and Sheehy in the coal yard, and Mr McGrath and Mr Tobin. Tom knew them all by sight. Sheehy always had a cigarette behind one of his ears. Guard Ryan was red-complexioned. Briscoe had white eyelashes and a broad flat face like a holy wafer. Mr McGrath and Mr Tobin were the two boarders in the Rose of Tralee boarding-house, Mr Tobin employed in the corn offices, Mr McGrath in the gasworks.

  ‘I would have stated one time,’ the ferryman ponderously continued, ‘that Mr Balt was the kind to have remained a bachelor also, but I am proved mistaken.’

  ‘Won’t it be a great wedding?’ interjected the girl, is it soon, Tom?’

  ‘On the twenty-sixth.’

  The ferryman nodded his square, brown head. He was invited to the house, he said; he had not been forgotten. He’d heard Mr O’Hagan was assisting Haverty with the transport. ‘Now, that’s another bachelor we have. Mr O’Hagan. Are you going into the post office, Tom?’

  ‘I am.’

  ‘Will you tell Mr O’Hagan from me that Butt Nolan says hold back off Drummer’s Lady?’

  ‘I will.’

  ‘Good man yourself.’

  Nothing was said for a moment. Then the girl remarked that she had to leave the turkey eggs in at Dungan’s and had half a stone of sugar to buy. She was the best-looking of the girls who went over to the fish sheds, Tom had always considered, even though she had a gangling stance when she stood up. She had bright white teeth and was always pushing her hair out of her eyes. Tom had heard the other girls teasing her about Briscoe, the bank porter.

  ‘Take care with that fellow,’ the ferryman advised her, and then he started the engines. In the usual way, no further conversation took place until the boat drew in at the quay, where Tom was reminded about the message for Mr O’Hagan. He walked along the quays with the girl, who explained that she had to go slowly in case she’d swing the basket and break one of the turkey eggs. ‘I always wanted to ask you, Tom, only I couldn’t because I wasn’t alone with you. Does it feel like you’d be different?’

  ‘I don’t think it does,’ he said.

  ‘But if you would think about it, Tom? Would you feel different in yourself if you would think about it?’

  ‘You don’t feel anything at all.’

  The girl lowered her voice, ‘I once said a prayer for you, Tom.’

  ‘There’s no need for that.’

  ‘Ah sure, I’d say a prayer for anyone. Sure, what does it cost me?’ She turned into Dungan’s grocery and Tom walked on. He felt in his pocket for the ten-shilling note and the extra coins. All the way over on the ferry and on his walk with the girl he’d been able to feel the corner of the envelope sticking into him in his other pocket. ‘Hullo, Mr O’Hagan,’ he said in the post office, and the post-office clerk regarded him as though he’d never seen him before. Nor did his expression change when eventually he spoke. ‘Are you all right for yourself?’

  ‘I am, Mr O’Hagan. I want a postal order for fifteen shillings.’

  ‘I don’t know have I one.’

  ‘The ferryman says hold back off Drummer’s Lady.’

  Mr O’Hagan immediately ceased his search for the postal order. He looked hard at Tom, as though suspecting him of trickery. His face had lost some of its colour.

  ‘Was it Butt Nolan told him that?’

  ‘It was.’

  ‘Did he mention anything else? Did he refer to Mister Fun?’

  ‘He didn’t.’

  ‘I have money placed on Drummer’s Lady. Isn’t Nolan slow off the line on that one? Now, listen to me, young fellow. Go into Byrne’s and ask for Mr O’Hagan’s two shillings to be transferred off Drummer’s Lady on to Mister Fun. Will you remember those names now? Say them over to me.’

  Tom repeated the racehorses’ names. Mr O’Hagan nodded his satisfaction. With a swiftness that was unusual in him he supplied Tom with the postal order and told him to go quickly. ‘Tell Mr Byrne I’d be down myself only I’m tied in behind the counter here.’

  ‘Right you are, Mr O’Hagan.’

  Tom folded the postal order into the envelope, stuck the envelope down and posted it. Then he walked down South Main Street to Byrne’s the turf accountant’s, where he explained that Mr O’Hagan’s wager had gone on the wrong horse in error, that it should have been placed on Mister Fun. The man behind the counter released an incredulous guffaw. ‘Will you listen to this?’ he shouted through a door behind him, and caused a series of further guffaws in someone Tom couldn’t see. ‘Go back to the post office,’ he instructed Tom, ‘and ask Mr O’Hagan is he under the impression Artie Byrne was born in a pot?’

  So Tom returned to the post office and had to wait behind a woman who was buying stamps for a parcel before he could put the question he’d been entrusted with to Mr O’Hagan. ‘The old bags,’ muttered Mr O’Hagan, at once becoming melancholy. Tom went quickly away before he was asked to return to the turf accountant’s with some further plea, or a retaliation of abuse.

  He bought a packet of lemonade powder in Buckley’s, where the packets were bigger than the ones in Cush’s or Barry’s. He spilled it on to the palm of his hand and ate it walking along the street. He loitered outside Coyne’s Garage in case Mr Coyne, who was filling a tin with petrol from his pump, had a message for the ferryman about a horse. ‘How’re you doing?’ Mr Coyne enquired.

  ‘I’m all right, Mr Coyne.’ He told him about Drummer’s Lady, how there’d been a warning from Butt Nolan only it hadn’t reached Mr O’Hagan in time. He told him how Mr O’Hagan had asked him to go into Byrne’s and try to get the wager transferred to Mister Fun. Mr Coyne laughed, though not as heartily as Artie Byrne or the person Tom hadn’t been able to see. ‘I wouldn’t consider either of those animals anything only doubtful,’ Mr Coyne confided. ‘To tell you the truth, there isn’t an animal in that race I’d associate myself with.’

  ‘I never saw horses racing, Mr Coyne.’

  ‘You will one day, Tom. Maybe at Clonmel. Or Lismore. Did you ever see greyhounds?’

  Tom shook his head.

  ‘You have everything ahead of you so.’

  ‘I heard you have a wireless set, Mr Coyne. They were saying it in the class one time.’

  ‘They were right about that.’

  ‘I never heard a wireless set yet.’

  Having filled the tin with petrol, Mr Coyne was leaning against the pump. He began to say something; then Tom saw him changing his mind. He bent down to pick up the tin. Tom knew he’d been about to invite him to come into his house to hear his wireless set. ‘I have work I must do,’ he said instead.

  So Tom walked on
. He would have to tell his mother a lie if she asked about the broken biscuits, but she probably wouldn’t. As he passed Traynor’s Picture Palace, he wondered if he’d ever see a picture there. In the class the pictures that had been seen were sometimes talked about because Miss Welsh, the lay teacher, always wanted to know if anyone had gone to something good. The Covered Wagon was showing now.

  ‘How’re you, Tom?’ Holy Mullihan said, and Tom had the same feeling Holy Mullihan always gave him: that he’d been waiting specially.

  ‘I was out to see the bridge, Tom. Isn’t it coming on grand?’

  ‘It’s good all right.’

  ‘I was asking one of the priests the other day would it be blessed. Father Foyle, d’you know him? He’s newly arrived with us.’

  Tom shook his head. He’d never even heard of Father Foyle.

  ‘The Bishop will come in to bless it, Tom. Every new building has to be blessed. Every room of a new house has to be sprinkled with holy water. Where’re you going, Tom?’

  ‘I’m hanging about. My mother’s coming over on the ferry.’

  ‘Wait till I’ll tell you this. There was a saint, you wouldn’t have heard of him, Tom, by the name of St Albert of Cashel. A great saint, Tom. There was a time St Albert was walking along a road and a certain type of woman came up to him. “I’d rather die where I’m standing,” he said to her, “than have anything to do with you.” She went down on her knees, Tom, and from that day out she changed her habits. Does your mother go to the well with the women, Tom?’

  Tom said she did. Every year she went to the well when the date came round in August. Usually Tom went with her because she wanted him to. They’d gone this year.

  ‘Did your mother ever go to Lough Derg or up Croagh Patrick, Tom? D’you know Croagh Patrick, Tom?’

  ‘It’s a mountain. We mark it in on the maps we do.’

  Down a side street Tom caught a glimpse of the girl from the fish sheds. She was talking to Briscoe. She was swinging the basket she’d had the eggs in. Briscoe was leaning against the side of a house, with a cigarette going.

  ‘You climb up Croagh Patrick on the last Sunday in July, Tom. There’s a lot go on that pilgrimage. If a person wasn’t at peace, or was in sin, the prayers made on the mountainside would uplift the soul. Father Foyle went one time, he was telling me. In the days before he entered the priesthood he was in doubt as regards his vocation. He found guidance on holy Croagh Patrick, Tom.’

  Holy Mullihan then told a story about St Cronan of Roscrea, after which he outlined the death of St Peter Martyr. ‘D’you know what it is, didn’t he dip his finger in the blood that came out of his head and didn’t he write in the dust with it? Credo in Deum, Tom. Then he was hit another blow.’

  Holy Mullihan crossed himself. All the time he was talking, Tom thought about Mr Coyne and how he had changed his mind about inviting him into his house. ‘My father said to keep distant from you,’ a girl in the class had said, Dorrie Deavy it was. Another girl had said the same. It was maybe that if he’d gone into the house one of the Coyne girls would have stood too near him when they were listening to the wireless set, or even tried to take his hand, not knowing.

  ‘There’s stories you’d hear that wouldn’t be true, Tom. There’s one relating to St Cronan, where St Cronan performed a miracle in order to extend the amount of stout they had in the monastery and the result was the whole crowd of them got drunk. There’s not a word of truth in that, Tom. If you’d ever hear it repeated contradict the whole thing.’

  Tom said he would.

  ‘D’you ever think of Father Quirke, Tom? I thought of him that night when we attended the knife-throwing. It was the intention that Father Quirke’s park would be a place where people could rest themselves. What happened was, there was a big disaster in America and the poor man who gave us the bit of land got left without a penny. I often tell that story to illustrate a point I’d have to make. D’you know much about Father Quirke, Tom?’

  Tom shook his head.

  ‘He carried temperance with him, Tom. The temperance was like a path he made. As soon as it’s suitable, Tom, take a pledge that you won’t ever consume strong drink. You’ll be the better man for it.’

  Holy Mullihan gave a sideways wag of his head. There was a little booklet about Father Quirke which he’d lend Tom the next time he saw him. It told about his boyhood in the poor part of the town and how he’d seen a man falling down after drink at the top of Michael Davitt Hill, only it hadn’t been called that in those days. He had taken the pledge himself, Holy Mullihan said, and was the better for it. There was never stout in a monastery, he said, which was how you’d know the story about St Cronan was made up.

  ‘Father Quirke would have walked where we’re walking now, Tom. We could be going in his footsteps.’

  ‘Was it the truth when you said people mightn’t like to touch me?’

  There were small pimples around Holy Mullihan’s mouth, some of them almost obscured by the growth of soft hair that flourished there also. The tips of his fingers investigated these before he began to reply. He pursed his lips into a knot. He said:

  ‘It’s a thing that isn’t easy to explain, Tom. It’s like a stain you’d carry on you. Like you’d get a stain on a garment. There’s a thing called contamination, Tom, which these people would be worried about.’ Holy Mullihan paused. He pointed in the direction of the Church of Our Lady. ‘Will we go inside?’

  Tom said there wouldn’t be time. Any minute now his mother would be arriving on the ferryboat. He had promised to be ready.

  ‘D’you ever think about Our Lady, Tom?’ Not waiting for an answer, Holy Mullihan recited the great feasts that had to’be kept in the Virgin’s name: the Annunciation, the Assumption, her Birthday, her Immaculate Conception, her Immaculate Heart, her Motherhood, her Presentation, her Purification, her Sorrows, her Visit to Elizabeth. ‘Say them off to your mother, Tom. Tell your mother about Croagh Patrick, Tom.’

  ‘I will.’

  ‘I’ll be seeing you so.’

  Tom went away quickly. He’d once gone into the church with Holy Mullihan and they’d knelt there for ages. Holy Mullihan had done everything slowly, taking the holy water, crossing himself, making his obeisance. He’d knelt in a special way, a bone sticking out of the back of his neck when he bent it in prayer. He’d asked Tom if he’d any money so that they could light a candle, but Tom hadn’t.

  On the quays Tom stood in the doorway of a warehouse. He could see the boat just beginning its journey and he watched it making its way across, people stepping off it and the returning travellers being greeted by the ferryman. When it had drawn out into the water he went to the quayside and sat on a bollard. The ferryman never talked to his mother the way he did to the girls from the fish sheds or to the other passengers. Going over with her to Mass on Sundays, Tom had noticed it, and he noticed it when she arrived now: she was the only passenger, and when the engines were turned off the ferryman didn’t begin a conversation. His mother had the stain too, was what Holy Mullihan had meant.

  Together, they walked from the quays. Neck Daly and Deso Furphy were picking at the paint blisters on the shutters of the closed-up shop in South Main Street, and Tom hoped they’d call across the street to him so that he could tell his mother who they were—older boys who were already at the Brothers’, who even so would bother to address him. But they didn’t see him, nor did Father Pierce, who was going into Barry’s. Tom had never before gone to the promenade with his mother, which was where she said they were going now, although he’d thought they would be walking out to his grandmother’s house. They passed the hall-doors with the brass plates. Ikely the dentist had a nickname in the class, he told his mother. ‘Feathery Ike,’ he said.

  His mother was hurrying and distracted, not interested in the nickname. There was a rhyme that went with it:Feathery Ike, Feathery Ike, give us a ride on your buttery bike. He hadn’t understood it until Neck Daly explained it had been made up because the dentist bore a
resemblance to a parrot, and because a pound of butter had once melted in the basket on his bicycle. Sister Teresa Dolores had had a tooth drawn by him once and it wouldn’t stop bleeding. She’d had to keep a towel in her mouth all night.

  ‘Hullo,’ his mother said to a woman in a black shawl. The woman had seen them approaching her and had risen from the promenade seat where she’d been sitting. ‘Well, is that Tom?’ she said. He thought she was going to kiss him but she didn’t.

  She was a slight woman, with grey hair hardly showing under the edge of her shawl. ‘You’re looking well, Brigid,’ she said.

  ‘You’re looking well yourself.’

  ‘I have my health, thank God, Brigid.’

  ‘Did you walk it in?’

  ‘I did walk it. I came on the back road. It’s better the back way.’

  ‘It is.’

  The conversation ceased. The shawled woman examined Tom closely. After a while she said:

  ‘Is a weekday hard for you with your work?’

  ‘I can fix it.’

  ‘He’d know what I’d be up to on a Sunday. I’d be frightened he’d follow me.’

  ‘Is he the same about it?’

  ‘He’ll always be the same about it.’

  For a long time the two women again sat in silence. The promenade was crowded, an excursion train having recently arrived. New powder pictures had been completed on the sand, peacocks in a garden, a waterfall and a glen. The elderly man who created them was just beginning another, skilfully working his garish powders. Tom drew his mother’s attention to them, but she hardly looked.

  ‘Tom looks after the holy well,’ she said. ‘He was asked would he do it by Father Pierce.’

  ‘Father Pierce was good to you, Brigid.’ She’d never visited the well, she said to Tom; she’d never been over on the island, ‘I’ve heard tell it has holy clay.’