Important Digression: Our “football” in Ireland refers to Gaelic football, a game that looks a little like soccer, and a little like rugby, and nothing like either. It is played with a round ball and fifteen men on a team, and a player is allowed to handle the ball but not throw it; bounce it, but not too often; run with it, flipping the ball from hand to toe (considered an exercise in great skill); field it—the higher the better; and kick it as far and as accurately as possible. End of Important Digression.
I played it in school, and (excuse the immodesty, but you need to know this) I was the star player and became the senior team captain, playing at midfield—which is where the traffic of the game gets controlled. These players, in their everyday clothes, seemed about my age, and I asked to join in.
For the next hour or so I had a good time. The confusion of encountering my father dissolved; the hero returned. It took me a few minutes to warm up, and I had to decide how much clothing to discard. Sunshine or no, the air still had a nip in it, which gave the exercise a sharp edge.
It’s a violent game. When you leap to field a ball coming from on high, you make yourself vulnerable from the fingertips down, leaving the length of your body open to attack by a shoulder-charging opponent running at you. But when you’re up there, your feet three or four feet off the ground, in a leap that you’ve achieved by running into a takeoff, and you feel your fingertips touching and then closing on the leather of the ball—there’s no feeling like it. Also, it’s almost impossible not to do it elegantly.
How I played! I had joined an ordinary, casual game of football, dragged together by lads from the town and nearby countryside, all of whom no longer went to school—some were apprentices or clerks—and who played like this, weather permitting, every week.
Like a bird, or a salmon at the weir, I rose above the others, fielding impeccably. Nobody reached me up there, nobody rose as high, and when I came down to earth I strode among them like the giant I had become.
The ball went where I sent it—to the hands of a player on my team or between the goalposts. When I made a run, it came from my toe to my hand as though connected by elastic string. My shoulders went into challenges fearlessly. I ran as fast as I’d ever done.
Energy, energy—that’s all I was, a mass of energy, heat, and speed. And urgency—I wanted to spend energy, I wanted to put force about me, to send force from me out across the earth, to express strength, to see what power was. That afternoon I could have done anything I wanted.
At the end we took our farewells. The exercise had been exactly what I needed. They asked me back, they asked me where I lived and if I would play for their team. But I avoided disclosing whence I came.
The boys gathered around the car and for ten minutes or so I had to tell them all about it. Like monkeys, they poked here, picked there, sat in the driver’s seat, the passenger seat, the rear seats, touching it, stroking the leather, turning the wheel.
One boy, red-haired, asked me if I’d give him a lift home, that he’d love his father to see the car; he had been the other outstanding player in the field. He sat beside me, we drove away, and that’s how I came to eat my next meal.
They had a good farm, not as clean as ours, and not as modern. A horse and a pony did their work—the horse for the heavy fields, the pony for lighter jobs such as taking the churns to the creamery or the family to Mass on a Sunday morning.
Many children and their mother came out to see the car. When the husband and oldest son came in from the fields, they had to see it too. Inside the house, I was given full plates of food—and an unpleasant shock.
Having eaten, the children scattered. The father, when I told him, roughly, my address, asked me if I knew “that immoral fellow who was after running away with some dirty woman.”
I said I knew nothing of it; his wife spoke words like “scoundrel,” “scandal,” and “disgraceful.” As soon as I could, I left the house, trying not to look hasty—but hurt to the core.
En route to the show I got lost in the maze of small roads around Ballingarry. Not all signposts had been reinstalled since the War of Independence, when local people removed them to confuse the British soldiers. By the time I got to Adare, the show had begun; I paid my ticket to somebody I’d never seen before and squeezed into a tight standing space at the back.
Portia had just begun the “quality of mercy” speech. How odd to see her onstage again, and how thrilling. On account of my height I had a clear view; I hoped that she could see me, but I wasn’t close enough to check whether her eyes found me. Nor could I see my father, but from that I deduced nothing—impossible to find anybody in so packed a hall.
Other than the Shakespeare, they had revamped the repertoire a little. Michael had a new tumbling act, and it required the entire stage, because he rolled across it like a wheel with spokes. The rude lovers had again become a milkmaid and her randy farmer, with much chasing around a wooden cow. And, as I’d hoped, “Lochinvar” appeared—Venetia’s next starring piece.
So daring in love and so dauntless in war,
Have ye e’er heard of gallant like young Lochinvar?
She told it like a story almost, yet never failing to hit the rhyme and keep its ballad shape, and she extracted from it every drop of romance. I don’t care what the audience thought—I know it was meant for me, and I know that it was about me. That’s what life is like at that age, especially for an only child.
I found the show much improved—or was my heart so engaged that my objectivity had dissolved? Yet the audience bore me out, shouting and stamping their feet. And then came the biggest cheer of the night—Blarney.
This time he arrived sitting like a monkey on Venetia’s shoulders. She sat on a chair, brought him down, and plonked him on her knee. Now the wooden horse stood nearby—I’d first seen it in Cashel.
“Whassup with you?”
Venetia looked at him, puzzled. “What do you mean, Blarney?”
“Why aren’t you on the horse?”
“I’m resting him. He has a race on Saturday.”
Blarney peered around her, twisted his head in a cunning leer at the audience, and looked up at Venetia.
“He. Has. A race. Is that what you said?”
“Yes, Blarney.”
“He—races?” Doubt hung in icicles from his voice.
“Yes, Blarney.”
“But he’s wooden.” And just as Venetia was about to retort, he warned, “Don’t say it.”
The audience loved it. Blarney winked at them. Then he sat back, his head against Venetia’s upper arm, and looked up at her.
“Venetia?” His voice sounded plaintive.
“Yes, Blarney.”
“Venetia, do you love me?”
“Yes, Blarney.”
“Say it.”
“I’ve just said it.”
“No, you only said, ‘Yes.’ Tell me you love me.”
“I love you.”
“You do?”
“I love you, Blarney.”
“That’s good, Venetia. And do you love only me? No, don’t answer that question.” Blarney sat up in alarm and stared wide-eyed and open-mouthed around the audience. Then he cocked his head to one side and looked up at her. “Give me a hug, Venetia.”
“Of course I will, Blarney.”
She coiled an arm around him and pressed his face to her bosom.
We heard him saying a muffled “I can’t breathe,” and she released him. He spent some time getting himself to rights on her knee again and looked out at the audience.
“If I tell you a joke will you give me a kiss?”
“I will, Blarney.”
“It’s a joke about drinking.”
“Yes, Blarney.”
“It’s a joke about the Irish and drinking.” “Yes, Blarney.”
“An Irishman walked out of a pub.”
He paused. Venetia looked down at him; he swiveled his head from the audience and looked up at her.
“Go on, Blarney.”
“Th
at’s the joke. An Irishman walked out of a pub.”
The crowd began to get it. Venetia pretended not to, and he explained.
“No Irishman would ever walk out of a pub. Even if they wanted to, most Irishmen wouldn’t be able to walk out of a pub. They’d fall out of a pub.”
He got a huge cheer.
“Where’s my kiss?”
Venetia kissed him on the forehead and Blarney pretended to swoon. He sat up again and composed himself.
“Venetia?”
“Yes, Blarney.”
“Do you love me?”
Venetia looked away, a little miffed. Blarney banged his head against her arm. “Do you love me?”
“I told you I do, Blarney.”
“Would you ever love somebody else?”
“I might, Blarney.”
Blarney turned his head into Venetia’s bosom and began to sob; the audience said a huge “Awww …”
“Blarney, it’s all right. There’s nobody like you.”
He lifted his head. “You have the look of somebody in love with somebody. Are you sure ’tis me?”
“Blarney, I love you.”
“Venetia, what’s wrong with you?”
“What do you mean, Blarney?”
“What kind of a woman are you?”
“I don’t know what you mean, Blarney.”
“A fine woman like you loving a wooden dummy.” And he cackled.
I didn’t attempt to meet anybody after the show. Venetia had been so emphatic, so specific about our appointment next day, and I didn’t want to breach her arrangements or jeopardize my own interests. Which, by now, had become considerable. I thought of nothing but her, I imagined nothing but being with her. As to how it might work out regarding my father—I had no idea what to do, and it didn’t seem to be troubling me very much.
Anyway, I had a more immediate problem—I had no place to stay. Having got lost on my way to the show had left me without a chance to find a place for the night. I can best describe my state and attitude as “light-headed”—not quite irresponsible and wild but getting there fast. Yet for all my feckless mood I didn’t want to sleep in the car—so I reversed my earlier decision and decided to sleep at home. That’s how consistent I was!
I knew how to do it without being detected. If I cut the headlights before rounding the corner, I could leave the car parked on the driveway; I could even face it back toward the road for a quick dawn getaway.
All went according to plan. I tiptoed from the parked car onto the grass verge and walked along to the yard, then slipped through the back door. With the flashlight I had taken from the car I found bread, cheese, and milk, and ate in the kitchen.
The house had an uneasy feel, but I couldn’t say why. Things seemed to have been put back in wrong places; the bucket of spring water for the kitchen (drawn every day from the well, usually by Billy, Lily, or me) always lived on a small wooden platform inside the scullery door; now it had been moved along the wall to a more inconvenient place. Two empty mugs sat on the table, something never allowed by Mother, who liked all surfaces clean and clear. The aprons hung on a hook in the scullery, and not on the rear of the main kitchen door.
I headed upstairs, feeling disjointed. And—shock! I found my bedroom door locked. I stopped and listened—not a sound anywhere. Again I tried the doorknob, and pressed the door hard in case something had jammed. No, this door was locked. But it had never been locked; there was a key; it lived above the door on the lip of the frame—but I’d never seen it used in my life.
We had four bedrooms—my parents’ room, mine, and two guest rooms. I tried the two empty rooms first—all doors locked. No keys anywhere, nothing on top of any doorframe. I figured that I had to brave Mother, so I knocked on her partly open door. Had she been locking these rooms for a reason? I needed to know. No answer. I knocked again, slightly louder, then I beamed my flashlight and tipped open the door an inch at a time. And found an empty room.
The bed remained as impeccably dressed as she left it every day. I lit the large oil lamp on my father’s night table and looked all around. Some decision had been taken about this room. It felt abandoned. Everything might have seemed normal—but there’s more to a room than the way the furniture is arranged.
I then lit her lamp, and the two together gave me a very full light. Walking here and there, I looked at this and that, uncomfortable at the hugeness of the sinister shadows I made—but that wasn’t what disturbed me. Something here was very wrong; I had come home to an empty house.
Everywhere I went, I found the same impression—although things seemed more or less normal, they also felt different. Downstairs, some chairs had been moved around in the parlor; the settee in the hall had been dragged a foot or two along the hall and no longer sat under the painting of Connemara; no coats hung on the racks in the porch.
I opened the front door and walked out—a frosty night and the stars doing their best to light the world. With heavy footsteps I made deliberate noise as I walked into the yard—but no bark. In the first loose box, Bobbie Boy lay asleep. In the second box, the pony stirred—but what was going on? Where was the dog? And Miss Kennedy, the cat?
Typically we took the cows in during November, and they stayed in the cowshed until March or thereabouts. Saint Patrick’s Day, the seventeenth, always had significance for dairy farmers, because by then we probably had enough new grass to let them out—though we had to be sure of having enough hay scattered in the fields. The cows were fine; they turned their heavy heads to look at my flashlight. One or two lumbered up in alarm.
That’s where I should have slept that night—with the cows. Instead, I lay in my parents’ bed—and on my father’s side. If you assume that such a deed might have given me gyp, you’re right—a very odd feeling indeed. When I lay down, I saw that my legs reached longer than my father’s did. On how many past occasions had I seen him in this bed? Since early childhood, for instance, when I’d climb on top of him in the morning and insist on his getting up.
And this had been the bed of my parents’ wedding night. Their honeymoon had been delayed due to some international tension or fracas somewhere, and they cleared the house of all the people, so that they had their first night alone together—in this bed. Shouldn’t that remembrance have made me queasy in some way? It didn’t. I’d never heard the word taboo and I didn’t know I wasn’t supposed to have such thoughts.
Perhaps you’re finding this strange—but I knew nothing whatsoever about what we call “the facts of life.” Not a thing. I had no anatomical knowledge; I had no emotional knowledge.
None of that would feel surprising to any man or woman who grew up in the Irish countryside during the early twentieth century. Who was to teach us anything? Certainly not our parents—because all of that was only to be learned within marriage. What a crash course! Outside of marriage any discussion of sex was a sin. In short, we all knew there were taboo subjects without knowing the subjects, or their language.
So I lay there, on my father’s side of his marriage bed, and wondered what to think about—I mean about him and Mother in this bed. Instead I began to think of Venetia—again. These were romantic thoughts. Rivers came into it, and misty valleys, and flowers and snatches of poems and songs, and possible gifts, and once again the idea of making great riches so that I could shower her with beautiful things. I fell asleep.
Next morning I woke up early. The clatter of buckets in the yard felt so normal that I forgot the oddities of last night. Yet, there I found myself in my parents’ bed. I turned my head, half-expecting to see my mother—a weird moment: The relief that she wasn’t there surged through me. Can feelings get any more confused than that? I came close to laughing.
The house, though, disturbed me even more in daylight, with its atmosphere so different from normal. I dressed quickly—still half dark outside—and headed downstairs. Too early for Lily, but from the yard came the noises of milking. Not many cows milk all through the winter, so I wondered
which of the two men would be here.
Ned Ryan, little Ned, had taken charge that morning. He saw me as I saw him, and he turned away so rapidly that I thought he couldn’t have seen me. I followed him. He dropped the empty bucket and ran into the cowshed. I ran after him and we had a ridiculous chase—ridiculous because he could never get away from me; he was three times my age.
When I cornered him at last, down the driveway, near where I’d parked the car, he wouldn’t look at me. Nor would he speak to me.
“Ned, what’s going on? Where’s my mother?”
He kept his head turned away, his face downcast.
“Ned, is she ill?”—of which I’d been afraid.
Now he turned completely away and I assumed the worst.
“Where is she?”
“She’s at her sister’s. There’s nothing wrong with her. But, Ben, get outta here, go on, go on.”
Now I made a great error—or did I? I did what he had suggested; I climbed into the car and drove away. My reasons are perfectly simple—I wanted nothing to interfere with the promise of the day and the crucial appointment that I had to keep that afternoon.
How any young man of my day ever fell in love I simply do not know. Correction: How any young Irishman of my day conducted the business of falling in love remains a mystery. Without language, without knowledge, without schooling—what did we have? Instinct, I suppose, and in my case that’s more or less what I used.
My thoughts as I drove away from our gate don’t show me in a good light. I behaved recklessly; I pursued only my own immediate interests. It was disgraceful. Or was it? The events of that day brought about redemption, even if it did take some time.
Not far from our house, a hill sits high above the river. I know the place very well; I often return. The river bends as it approaches the hill, and through a quirk of geography widens to its broadest point in its one-hundred-mile journey to the sea.
I’ve seen that bend in all weathers—when the sun shines on the flat waters; when the wind feathers the stream; I’ve even been there in snow, but that hasn’t happened often.