‘It was no trouble. Ye had the brains. There are people in this part of the country digging ditches who could have been engineers or doctors or judges or philosophers had they been given the opportunity. But the opportunity was lacking. That was all that was lacking.’ The Master spoke again with great authority.
‘The same again all round, Charlie,’ a voice ordered. ‘And a large brandy for the Master.’
‘Still, we kept sailing, didn’t we, Master? That’s the main thing. We kept sailing.’
‘Ye had the brains. The people in this part of the country had powerful brains.’
‘If you had to pick one thing, Master, what would you put those brains down to?’
‘Will you hush now! The Sergeant wouldn’t even have to be passing outside to hear yous. Soon he’ll be hearing yous down in the barracks,’ Charlie hissed.
There was a lull again in the voices in which a coin fell and seemed to roll across the floor.
‘Well, the people with the brains mostly stayed here. They had to. They had no choice. They didn’t go to the cities. So the brains was passed on to the next generation. Then there’s the trees. There’s the water. And we’re very high up here. We’re practically at the source of the Shannon. If I had to pick on one thing more than another, I’d put it down to that. I’d attribute it to the high ground.’
Sierra Leone
‘I suppose it won’t be long now till your friend is here,’ the barman said as he held the glass to the light after polishing.
‘If it’s not too wet,’ I said.
‘It’s a bad evening,’ he yawned, the rain drifting across the bandstand and small trees of Fairview Park to stream down the long window.
She showed hardly any signs of rain when she came, lifting the scarf from her black hair. ‘You seem to have escaped the wet.’ The barman was all smiles as he greeted her.
‘I’m afraid I was a bit extravagant and took a taxi,’ she said in the rapid speech she used when she was nervous or simulating confusion to create an effect.
‘What would you like?’
‘Would a hot whiskey be too much trouble?’
‘No trouble at all.’ The barman smiled and lifted the electric kettle. I moved the table to make room for her in the corner of the varnished partition beside the small coal fire in the grate. There was the sound of water boiling, and the scent of cloves and lemon. When I rose to go to the counter for the hot drink, the barman motioned that he would bring it over to the fire.
‘The spoon is really to keep the glass from cracking’ — I nodded towards the steaming glass in front of her on the table. It was a poor attempt to acknowledge the intimacy of the favour. For several months I had been frustrating all his attempts to get to know us, for we had picked Gaffneys because it was out of the way and we had to meet like thieves. Dublin was too small a city to give even our names away.
‘This has just come.’ I handed her the telegram as soon as the barman had resumed his polishing of the glasses. It was from my father, saying it was urgent I go home at once. She read it without speaking. ‘What are you going to do?’
‘I don’t know. I suppose I’ll have to go home.’
‘It doesn’t say why.’
‘Of course not. He never gives room.’
‘Is it likely to be serious?’
‘No, but if I don’t go there’s the nagging doubt that it may be.’
‘What are you doing to do, then?’
‘Go, I suppose.’ I looked at her apprehensively.
‘Then that’s goodbye to our poor weekend,’ she said.
We were the same age and had known each other casually for years. I had first met her with Jerry McCredy, a politician in his early fifties, who had a wife and family in the suburbs, and a reputation as a womanizer round the city; but by my time all the other women had disappeared. The black-haired Geraldine was with him everywhere, and he seemed to have fallen in love at last when old, even to the point of endangering his career. I had thought her young and lovely and wasted, but we didn’t meet in any serious way till the night of the Cuban Crisis.
There was a general fever in the city that night, so quiet as to be almost unreal, the streets and faces hushed. I had been wandering from window to window in the area round Grafton Street. On every television set in the windows the Russian ships were still on course for Cuba. There was a growing air that we were walking in the last quiet evening of the world before it was all consumed by fire. ‘It looks none too good.’ I heard her quick laugh at my side as I stood staring at the ships moving silently across the screen.
‘None too good.’ I turned. ‘Are you scared?’
‘Of course I’m scared.’
‘Do you know it’s the first time we’ve ever met on our own?’ I said. ‘Where’s Jerry?’
‘He’s in Cork. At a meeting. One that a loose woman like myself can’t appear at.’ She laughed her quick provocative laugh.
‘Why don’t you come for a drink, then?’
‘I’d love to. With the way things are I was even thinking of going in for one on my own.’
There was a stillness in the bar such as I had never known. People looked up from their drinks as each fresh newsflash came on the set high in the corner, and it was with visible relief that they bent down again to the darkness of their pints.
‘It’s a real tester for that old chestnut about the Jesuit when he was asked what he’d do if he was playing cards at five minutes to midnight and was suddenly told that the world was going to end at midnight,’ I said as I took our drinks to the table in one of the far corners of the bar, out of sight of the screen.
‘And what would he do?’
‘He’d continue playing cards, of course, to show that all things are equal. It’s only love that matters.’
‘That’s a fine old farce.’ She lifted her glass.
‘It’s strange, how I’ve always wanted to ask you out, and that it should happen this way. I always thought you very beautiful.’
‘Why didn’t you tell me?’
‘You were with Jerry.’
‘You should still have told me. I don’t think Jerry ever minded the niceties very much when he was after a woman,’ she laughed, and then added softly, ‘Actually, I thought you disliked me.’
‘Anyhow, we’re here this night.’
‘I know, but it’s somehow hard to believe it.’
It was the stillness that was unreal, the comfortable sitting in chairs with drinks in our hands, the ships leaving a white wake behind them on the screen. We were in the condemned cell waiting for reprieve or execution, except that this time the whole world was the cell. There was nothing we could do. The withering would happen as simply as the turning on or off of a light bulb.
Her hair shone dark blue in the light. Her skin had the bloom of ripe fruit. The white teeth glittered when she smiled. We had struggled towards the best years; now they waited for us, and all was to be laid waste as we were about to enter into them. In the freedom of the fear I moved my face close to hers. Our lips met. I put my hand on hers.
‘Is Jerry coming back tonight?’
‘No.’
‘Can I stay with you tonight?’
‘If you want that.’ Her lips touched my face again.
‘It’s all I could wish for — except, maybe, a better time.’
‘Why don’t we go, then?’ she said softly.
We walked by the Green, closed and hushed within its railings, not talking much. When she said, ‘I wonder what they’re doing in the Pentagon as we walk these steps by the Green?’ it seemed more part of the silence than any speech.
‘It’s probably just as well we can’t know.’
‘I hope they do something. It’d be such a waste. All this to go, and us too.’