Tarry Flynn (8 page)

Tarry saw the possibilities in that move, but not all the possibilities his mother saw.

He had already another small problem in his mind – how to slip off with that sleeper before Eusebius returned for it. He knew what he would do. He would simply change the hiding place and if Eusebius found it well and good – well and good.

Tarry shook the clay out of the heel of his boot and pulled his sock, which had been creeping towards his toes till the heel part was half-way up, tightly on his shin.

He watched his mother as she walked along the bottom headland, slowly sauntering along it sideways looking up the drills with all the contentment that a good crop in a bad season can give to a tiller of the soil.

‘There's a drill there,' she shouted, ‘and what the devil happened it? You mustn't have put any dung on it.'

She did not expect an answer, and did not wait for one, but opened the wooden gate that led into the field where the cows
were. The gate dragged and Tarry could sense her silent criticism as she pulled it open and shut.

About this time Molly was in the habit of coming to the well, and as Tarry had not given up hopes of seducing her in reality as successfully as he did so often in his daydreams he was hoping that his mother would not delay too long with the cows.

A ploughman runs a risk when he daydreams in a stony field – unless his horses are extremely slow-moving and cautious.

The mare seemed to know every turn and twist of her master's mind; instinctively, like a woman. When she stepped over a hidden rock she went still slower. Sometimes she twisted her head round to have a good look at the driver, and sometimes she seemed to be laughing at him.

His mother wandered slowly through the grazing field, musing on the grass.

Tarry settled himself down to enjoy moulding the potatoes. So interested did he get in his work that he didn't ‘loose out' till one o'clock. He threw the harness on top of the plough and let the mare eat around the headland.

How pleased his mother was that he hadn't come home before the dinner was ready as he usually did, ‘coming in roaring for his dinner like a lion', as his mother expressed it.

He returned to work in an hour, very satisfied, luxuriating in the big feed of potatoes, cabbage and bacon which he had eaten.

He left word with Bridie not to forget to get the paper off the breadman when she went for the bread. Going to look for the sleeper he found it missing, and this vexed him plenty.

Thus was life, and a sensitive man bogged in it.

The nettles, thistles and docks bloomed wildly at the backs of ditches. Life was very rich.

A spirit still buried in the womb of emotion. Tarry hardly ever had experiences that could be named. But one evening shortly afterwards a young heifer had to be brought to the bull, and on that evening he came into contact with something that almost awakened him.

His mother and sisters helped him with the heifer to the gate.
They had intended bringing her to Kerley's bull, the fee for which was only a half-crown, but when the heifer got out the yard gate she dashed up the Drumnay lane, and it's a principle with the people to let a young beast go the way she chooses in a matter of this description. His mother handed him the five shillings which was the service fee for Reilly's bull, a prize shorthorn, and Tarry was considering if he'd be able to slip back when his mother and sisters were gone into the house and ring her to Kerley's bull and save a half-crown for himself. He had done that once before and saved not only a half-crown but the whole five bob, for he got the cow bulled by a young unlicensed bull that was grazing in McArdle's field. He had encouraged his mother that a calf out of the famous double-dairy shorthorn that Reilly's had at that time would be a real wonder, and when the calf grew up his mother was never done praising it. The only trouble in a case like this was that the cow mightn't keep the bull the first time, and then you'd have to go back and would have the money spent. So he let the heifer go as she was inclined. She galloped up the road. He had a mind to go back for the bicycle, but changed his mind and slowly followed the heifer. He wondered if he would see Mary and he also hoped that the father had not been a joke and a jeer about his mother's remarks in the market the previous week.

Callan's gate was open but luckily enough she did not see it. The heifer went out of sight round the turn where the hedge was high and overhung the lane. A slight shower had fallen making the dust of the road like velvet. His business seldom took him up this way, so that this evening's walk was for him a mystical adventure.

Places which he had not seen for a week seemed so mysterious, like places in a fantastic foreign land.

As he passed Callan's back lane he looked up towards the house where the trees were dark with greenery. He could see Mrs Callan standing on top of a pit of rotten mangolds staring into the distances of the southern townland. The father's whistle which never became an air – he had no ear for music, nor one belonging to him for that matter – could be heard from the
region of the dunghill behind the wooden sheds. May was not visible.

He hurried to catch up with the heifer and found when he went round the next turn that she had strayed into Cassidy's haggard and was nibbling in her wild way at some wizened old potatoes that lay against the wall of the boiler house. Mat Ward, the half-wit (an iron fool really), who worked off and on for Eusebius was squaring a dunghill in the yard; it was strange how Eusebius and his father could always get these loose-idiots to work for them for jaw-wages.

‘Will you give us a hand with this heifer?' said Tarry.

Mat laid down the graip with an air of profound wisdom and came slowly towards Tarry and the heifer.

‘Nice wee stuff ye have,' said he. ‘A bit rough o' the head all the same.'

‘She'll have to be doing, Mat,' said Tarry, anxious to get the beast away from the dangerous potatoes which could easily choke a cow beast.

‘She'll take no hurt,' said Mat.

They drove the nervous animal on to the road again; Mat's knowing scrutiny as he tried to get a line on the heifer from behind, amused Tarry very much.

‘She has the makings of a good bag,' he said, ‘a bit shy in the left back quarter, but the makings of a good bag all the same.'

Mat helped Tarry with the heifer round the next turn. Then he stood rubbing the seat of his trousers as he stared after them. There were no gates or gaps on the next stretch of road – until he would be passing Toole's house. He was able to relax and nibble at the leaves of whitethorn as he went along. He wondered if he would see Mary Reilly. He did not wonder too much for she was far beyond his dreams. A man cannot love the impossible.

On either side of him were the little fields. Three fields across was Carlin's half-derelict house. The thatched part of the dwelling was down. The three brothers and two sisters lived in the small slated part. Queer.

A woman was coming down the grass-grown path from Carlins', and Tarry hung on to see who it might be. The gap onto
the main Drumnay lane was at this point, so she'd have to pass him. The woman was Eusebius' mother, a very fresh woman for her years and light on her feet. She had a sharp tongue, Tarry knew.

‘You'll soon have a free house down there,' she said right out for a start as if she had been thinking about the matter for some time previously.

‘How?' asked Tarry, stupidly.

‘I hear that Mary is getting a man. If one goes they'll all go.'

‘
I
never heard a word about it,' said Tarry, truthfully.

‘Oh, and a good man, too.' Changing the subject with that suddenness which one finds among people with something on their minds, she said: ‘I was just over at Carlins' with a wee can of milk – their cow is dry – and do you know what I'm going to tell you, they're a proud family. I left her a wee can of cow's milk on the wall beside the garden every morning and evening, and when I come back for me empty can there it is – full of goat's milk. Poor Maggie is up there, and to listen to her you'd swear that they didn't owe anyone a penny. Nothing for her but talk of ladies and gentlemen. One of my girls is coming on her holidays next month, Tarry, and do you know, the last time she wrote she said not to forget to tell you that she was asking for you.'

Tarry suspected nothing.

But he knew why Mrs Cassidy was being so considerate for the Carlins. They were manoeuvring for an opening. Already they had got to store – by the way – several articles of value which the Carlins wanted to put out of the way of the bailiffs. A good Ransome mowing machine that Tarry could have been doing with, and the best iron land roller in the country. And never during saecula would these articles be given back. Oh, never.

Tarry passed Jenny Toole's whitewashed house and skirted the waste land which was the tail-end of what was once a big estate, ‘Whitestone Park'. At the moment there was some agitation to have the lands divided up among the small farmers, but as Tarry did not expect to be given any of this land he was inclined to frown on such greed.

Now he had arrived at the entrance to Reilly's farm. The heifer turned in the entrance without any trouble.

Tarry rubbed his face and cursed himself for not shaving, in case he met Mary. The patch on the knee of his trousers also disturbed his self-confidence. If he had only put on his good trousers! He took off his cap and ran his fingers through his hair. He softened the stare of his eyes so as to look more gentle and poetical. Mary had been going to the convent and Tarry knew that convents taught girls to appreciate the poetic things. He giggled to himself thinking on the foolishness of nuns. Poetry is the most lustful and egotistical of spirits.

Young Paddy Reilly saw the heifer coming and had the gate open. From some unseen place beyond the haggard the low, awful roar of the bull could be heard. Then he appeared profound and massive, pawing the earth in the corner of the big field beside the haggard.

The Reillys were not aristocrats. The father was a small farmer's son who by hard work and the capacity for making others work for him had graduated into the ranks of the semi-gentleman farmers. His farm ran to the Louth border and partook of some of the qualities of a Louth farm – big fields, big horses, big carts.

Returning with his heifer, Tarry felt very disappointed at not having seen Mary Reilly.

He was trying to sneak up close to the heifer to give her a smart blow of the ash plant on the spine – to take the hump off her back – when who should appear coming slowly around the bend only Mary. She was dressed in a light blue cotton dress and her long black hair hung loose over her shoulders. He had seen this girl many times before, but this was the first time she was revealed to him. Like the average tiller of the soil he could not see men and women in terms of sex. A mare was as big and strong as a horse, a cow was, in her way, as impressive as a bull. Women and men were just people living, not sexes.

Tarry had never observed the sexual differences between men and women until this moment. Mary Reilly was tall, and if as Tarry's mother had said she had a large bottom, Tarry suddenly realized now that this part of her was different from the bottoms
of the ordinary country girls. All the girls, with the exception of May Callan, were squat, and as the country phrase had it – ‘duck-arsed'. They were made for work, for breeding, their centre of gravity was low. But here was someone who was made for joy, a breaker of hearts.

Tarry's mind was paralysed by the sight of her. He tried hurriedly to think of something appropriate to say, but decided in the end that the best thing to do would be completely to ignore her until such time as he had some sort of plan. So when they met and she moved up on the bank to let the heifer pass, he gave all his attention to the heifer to avoid having to make a decision, and so he only guessed that she smiled and said, ‘Hello, Tarry.'

She was only about nineteen, nearly ten years younger than he was, but she carried within her what Tarry knew was a terrible power of which she was as yet unconscious.

He didn't recover himself till he was passing Toole's house, and then he had begun to daydream all the fine things he had said to her and she to him. So excited was he that he was now thinking his thoughts aloud. Being accosted by Jenny Toole, who came to the entrance to her street and was leaning on a graip watching him approach, he quietly changed his talk into a song.

‘You were at Reilly's bull,' she said. ‘Ah, indeed, nothing for some people only the rich.'

Jemmy Kerley was her first cousin.

‘That's right,' said Tarry with the suggestion of a sneer. He did not like Jenny Toole, a bitter old maid, and she was one of the few people of whose evil power he was afraid.

Although he was fairly scientific-minded he harboured old superstitions that a bad wish from someone like that could do him – or the heifer – no good. He knew that was all nonsense, but just to be on the safe side – the answer if it did no good could do no harm – he said quietly to himself, directing the remark back at the woman – ‘God bless your eyes and your heart', which was the traditional remark in cases of this kind.

The summer sun was going down in a most wonderful yellow ball behind the hills of Drumnay. It turned the dirty upstairs windows of Cassidy's house into stained glass.

O the rich beauty of the weeds in the ditches, Tarry's heart cried. The lush nettles and docks and the tufts of grass. Life pouring out in uncritical abundance.

Tarry was lifted above himself now in a purer kind of dream. He concentrated on observing, on contemplating, to clean his soul. He enumerated the different things he saw: Kerley's four cows looking over a hedge near a distant house waiting to be milked. A flock of white geese in the meadow beside Cassidy's bog. He heard the rattle of tin cans being picked up from the stones outside a door – somebody going to the well for water. But what bird was making that noise like the ratchet of a new free-wheel? He stared through the bushes where the blue forget-me-nots and violets were creeping. No bird was there.