“You’re lying. Who told you? Somebody’s been packing you.”
“The Shah told us.”
“How does he know? He’s in the town.”
“The Shah’s not lying. He wouldn’t care one way or another. He thinks all who marry are fools.”
“He could be right there,” Mary said.
“Missus Maguire who owns the Central told him. They are great friends.”
“I know. I know. He drives her to Mass every Sunday. They are like an old married pair.”
“The wedding breakfast is already booked for the Central. We are all going to be invited.”
Jamesie was silent a long time before deciding that Ruttledge wasn’t playing or lying, and then instead of saying anything he cheered.
“Where did John find the omadhaun of a woman who’ll have him?” Mary asked.
“Out of the Knock Marriage Bureau.”
“He could have. It gets better and better,” Jamesie said. “There’s notices up on the church door about the Bureau. John would try anything. He’s been getting and sending a sight of letters in the post. He’s been going places lately.” Jamesie rubbed his hands together in glee as if he believed it for the first time.
“One thing sure is that John Quinn isn’t paying for a wedding reception for half the country,” Mary said.
“Maybe the wife is paying. Maybe she has money.”
“Then she’s even a bigger fool.”
“And it could all turn out a pack of lies,” Jamesie said.
“We better make a start at the bales unless we intend to get married ourselves,” Ruttledge said.
The buckrake could be lowered or raised with the lift at will and it was easy to sling the bales on to the long spears. As the bales rose in the shed, Jamesie and Mary stayed behind and Ruttledge worked the meadows on his own. Sometimes Margaret rode with him between his knees and steered the big tractor. The bales rose towards the roof of the shed in stairs. In some ways the heaviest work fell to Mary. She took the bales from Ruttledge and then lifted them to Jamesie higher up, who took the binder twine in his enormous hands and swung them lightly into place. With the man’s cap turned back to front to keep the hayseed and dust from her hair, she looked wonderfully boyish whenever she smiled, but by evening she was visibly wilting. When Ruttledge suggested that she had more than enough done for the day and he and Jamesie would be able to finish on their own, she would not hear of giving up.
“What is it but another small while? I wonder what the poor old father would make out of the shed now if he ran and put his nose to the window?” she laughed.
“He’d go out of his mind,” Jamesie said. “He’d think the world had gone mad.”
“We may all be the father at the window yet,” Ruttledge said.
“And that’s life!” Jamesie shouted down from the stifling heat of the hayshed.
“I suppose when we are lying below in Shruhaun, Margaret will be talking about us the way we are talking about the father,” Mary said.
“She’ll be talking nice and sweet to her young man. She’ll be saying they were decent enough people, God rest them, but they never went to school and they had no money and never learned manners but they weren’t too bad. They were decent old skins when it was all added up,” Jamesie said.
“I will not,” Margaret stamped her foot.
“That’s right, Margaret,” Mary said. “He’s had his own way for far too long. Joe here went to school and is an educated man, not like that comedian up on the hay who has enough to say for ten scholars.”
Jamesie cheered the speech defensively and Ruttledge said, “Don’t you see where it got me, Mary?”
“An important job with the government,” Jamesie shouted down, and they stood and laughed before swinging back to work.
They were gathering in the last few stacks when a big green car drove in on the street. The car wasn’t a substantial statement, like the Shah’s heavy Mercedes, but it was a statement of sorts — brand-new, expensive, an open sun roof and silver wheels that looked like the spokes of the sun. Music was playing from speakers in the car.
“Margaret’s holiday is over,” Mary turned to the child, who drew closer to Mary and looked apprehensive. The parents were the first to emerge from the car, Jim in casual golfing clothes and Lucy in a summer dress. The children looked subdued. They were at an awkward age and stood on the street without moving towards Margaret or she to them. For a still moment the scene appeared frozen in uncertainty, until Jamesie shouted out and with nimble quickness came down the rows of bales.
“You’re welcome. Welcome.” He shook everybody by the hand, but did not kiss or embrace. In an instinctive move to harness his excitement, he swooped to lift the three grandchildren one by one and then pretended he was no longer able. “You are all growing up past me and this poor old fella is going down,” he pulled his doleful clown’s face so that they all laughed. By then he had regained his old watchful, humorous presence. In contrast, Mary’s face was mute with devotion as she waited to receive her son’s kiss as if it were a sacrament.
“Is he still treating you badly, Mother?” her son joked.
“Sleepy fox,” Jamesie cried but Mary remained silent.
“How are you, Gran? Great to see you,” Lucy said effusively as the two women kissed.
“You are as welcome as ever anybody could be,” Mary said, but all the uncertain pauses of her heart were audible in the simple string of words.
“You’re welcome,” Ruttledge shook their hands in turn.
“Helping Mom and Pop with the hay? The extended family. How is Kate?” Lucy asked with a breeziness that had the effect of a voice singing out of tune though well intentioned.
“She is well. She’ll be sorry to have missed you. How was Florence?” Ruttledge asked.
“Fantastic. Just fantastic,” Lucy said. “The experience of a lifetime.”
“We were glad enough to get home,” her husband added quietly.
“How did Margaret behave herself?” the mother asked, smiling forcefully down at the child.
“Margaret was wonderful. She lifted us all in the meadows,” Ruttledge said, feeling out of place. “She gave us heart.”
“It must be some weight off this man’s mind to get the hay in the shed. He used always go a bit bananas about this time of year,” their son laughed.
“Pay no heed. I never heard. They’d all have you circling if you paid them heed,” Jamesie answered jauntily while engaged with the three children who had been joined by Margaret and the pair of dogs. “They’d have you so that you wouldn’t know whether you were coming or going.”
“He has an answer for everything. He’s a character,” Lucy said in glorious condescension.
“A quare hawk,” her husband echoed, but defensively, uncertainly, and laughed.
“A poor old fella. A decent poor skin. May the Lord have mercy on his soul,” the subject himself answered, still engaged with his grandchildren.
The flurry and excitement of the arrival died away. The brown hens returned to their pecking in the dirt, raising a yellow eye sideways from time to time to inspect with comic gravity the strangely crowded street. From within the house one of the clocks began to strike an earlier hour. A blackbird landed with a frenzied clatter in the hedge beside the hayshed. Completely alone though a part of the crowd, Mary stood mutely gazing on her son and his wife as if in wonderment how so much time had disappeared and emerged again in such strange and substantial forms that were and were not her own. Across her face there seemed to pass many feelings and reflections: it was as if she ached to touch and gather in and make whole those scattered years of change. But how can time be gathered in and kissed? There is only flesh.
To Ruttledge, Jim was a quiet, courteous man without the vividness or presence or the warmth of his parents. He had the habit of attention and his face was kind. It was as if he had been prematurely exhausted by the long journey he had made and discovered little sustenance on the new shores of Kildare Street and Mount Merrion. Already he had gone far but was unlikely to advance much further without luck. The people who could promote him to the highest rung would have to be interacted with, and could not be studied like a problem or a book.