“I’d change. I’d love to have been de Valera,” Jamesie said.
“Then you’d be dead,” Ruttledge said, and from the expression on Jamesie’s face he saw that he felt that his words were no joke at all.
By early evening they were looking down at the complete emptiness of the meadows under the stillness of the big trees. All over the country for a week or more these reaped meadows would give back their squares and rectangles of burned yellow light amid the green of hedges and pastures. A number of times Ruttledge suggested that they finish and go into the house but Jamesie continued to dawdle and fuss over the last few rows as if he was waiting for the rain. When it came, in the complete silence of the trees and the birds, the first spare drops were loud on the iron.
“Isn’t Patrick Ryan the most hopeless man?” Jamesie said as he looked across the lake at the bare hill where Patrick’s few cattle were grazing. “Not a blade of grass cut yet and all that good weather gone. A most hopeless man and he couldn’t care less if there wasn’t a dry day between now and Christmas.”
The surfaces of the lake between the trees were now pocked with rain. Water was splashing heavily down from the big sycamore leaves on to the roof of the shed.
“I’m going to enjoy this rain. I’m going to sit with a glass in my hand at the window and watch it pour down,” Jamesie said as they prepared to run towards the house.
The ground softened quickly and the drains were loud with rushing water. When the rain stopped, it was followed by broken weather, wind and light showers racing over the face of the lake.
On a showery Sunday the Shah came grim-faced to the house and said that he had made up his mind.
“Have you spoken to anybody since?”
“Just that woman in the hotel.”
“What did she say?”
“Much what you said yourself. She’s made a will. The children will take over the place but not till she decides and how long they’ll last is another matter,” he said. “One thing sure is they’ll never fill her shoes.”
“What did she think of giving Frank Dolan his chance?”
“She thought it was fair enough. If he can come up with the washers. What do you think?”
“It doesn’t matter what I think.”
“Well, what do you think?”
“He’s worked for you all his life. He’s as much entitled to the place as anybody. That said, people don’t always get what they’re entitled to.”
“You can say that again,” he said with relish.
“You can always take it to an auctioneer.”
“No,” he said in alarm. “That crowd of crooks. They’re not all like Jimmy Joe McKiernan. You’d be annoyed as well with people beating round the place and the taxman snooping.”
“There are times when they are necessary,” Ruttledge said.
“Will the other fella be able for it though? Will he have the washers? Will he be able to pay?” he asked, and it was clear to Ruttledge that his mind was made up.
“I don’t know. You’ll have to find out first if he wants the place.”
The Shah found this unbelievable: he couldn’t imagine anyone not desiring the place.
“There are people who don’t want responsibility,” Ruttledge explained.
“What’d happen if some other man walked in?” he asked.
“He could be out on his ear,” Ruttledge said.
“Now you’re talking. Now you see,” he declared confidently.
“What are you going to do?”
“That’s what I’m asking.”
“You’ll have to have a word with him. The two of you will have to talk.”
The Shah stopped, dumbfounded. Close by, the berries of a rowan were starting to redden. On the branches of a whitethorn a small bird, a robin, was singing. A single crow lighted silently in the bare field.
“We don’t talk,” he said.
“He must be with you twenty years by now.”
“A good deal more than that but we still don’t talk,” he said stubbornly.
It was Ruttledge’s turn to be dumbfounded. He had assumed that people who were so close for so long talked with one another. Now he had to acknowledge that in all the times he had seen them together never once had he witnessed even a brief conversation. From time to time they made statements that were intended to be overheard, sometimes with their backs turned or delivered sideways but never face to face. These communications were received in silence and then they went back to whatever they had been doing.
Their ways and habits helped. The Shah liked to rise early. Frank Dolan seldom got out of bed before midday but would work late into the night. They were agreeable to their many customers but always separately. The customers they disliked soon learned not to come about the place. However it was communicated — and it was as sure and quick as radar — there was never the slightest disagreement about the unwanted customers. Whether they met Frank Dolan or the Shah they were unceremoniously shown the door. If the other happened to be close by, they would generally lift their heads from whatever they were doing to observe what was going on but never to comment or take any part.
“What do you want me to do?” Ruttledge asked.
“Would you have a word with him?”
“Are you sure? Are you sure you wouldn’t be better going on as you are for a while longer?”
“No. It’s time to make a move and nobody else but Frank knows anything about the place. It wouldn’t be much use to anybody else. They wouldn’t know how to get on with the people.”
“I take it you are not selling your house or the cottages or the fields. Just the business?”
“I’m bad but I’m not that bad. I’m not putting out every light in the house in the one go,” he shook gently for the first time that day, restored to his old self. “Frank is due for a big awakening,” he said with gusto.
“He may not want the responsibility,” Ruttledge warned.
“Then we can go to your auctioneer and he’ll get an even bigger awakening. Some of these fellas think life is a picnic.”
Not many days later John Quinn came to the house in a new second-hand green Vauxhall. He parked beneath the alder tree where he had parked the old white Beetle years before. This time he placed no big stone beneath the tyre to ensure it didn’t roll towards the lake. In a new dark pinstripe suit, he could have been a distinguished politician or businessman.
“It’s wonderful to see a young couple happy and getting on so well in the world and going from strength to strength and turning their backs on nobody and bringing everybody else along with them,” he began as he entered the house.
“I’m afraid, John, we are not all that young any more,” Ruttledge said.
“All in the mind. It’s all in the mind. You are as young as you feel. I myself intend to be a permanent twenty-two or twenty-three till night falls. I come with good news and I won’t be staying long,” he said when he was offered a chair. “I have work to do and you have your work to do and I don’t want wasting good time or good neighbours’ time.”
All through the brief visit he remained standing but his eyes were restless about the room and only paused when he looked at Kate. His small eyes and a few missing teeth were the only blemishes in his handsome head. “The Lord God has said, ‘Tis not good for man to live alone,’ and John Quinn always took this to heart,” he continued smoothly, softly; “and when the mountain doesn’t go to Mohammed then Mohammed must go to the mountain. So John went to the Marriage Bureau in Knock where Our Lady appeared to the children. Everything was vetted and proved to be above board. They found me a most respectable person. She lost her good husband after bringing up her family and like myself did not think it good to live alone. There is a small trouble with her family but that will pass given time. Young people sometimes find it hard to understand that older people need the same little things and comforts and enjoyments that they need. So we are having the wedding here among good friends and neighbours instead of in her part of the country, which would be more according to the book. So it’s no wild goose errand that has brought me here but to invite you to join with us in our happiness,” and he named the date and time of the wedding and the reception at the Central Hotel.