“What if he’s not able for it?”
“Not able for what?”
“To make the payments.”
“The place and business would revert to you just as it would to the bank if they gave the loan. There’s no way you can lose.”
In the bank, Ruttledge had agreed with Joe Eustace that a fair rate of interest should be midway between the current bank rate and the lending rates. Frank Dolan would pay less than if he had borrowed from the bank and the Shah would get a higher interest than if his money were on deposit there.
“It’ll do better than that. I’ll give it to him for even less,” he said expansively when the proposition was put.
He spoke as if he had been set free from anxiety and constraint. All the time he had wanted Frank Dolan to have the place but it had remained hidden because of the fear that he might be seen as unmanly or unbusinesslike or even perhaps of going outside the family.
“You can give him any rate you want. But I’d leave it. It’s fair at that. There’s no use going overboard,” Ruttledge said.
“Leave it so, then,” he agreed readily. “But will he be up to it at all?” He began to shake slowly at the thought.
“You realize that once you sign the place over he can have you out on your ear at any time?”
“I’d be delighted to go in the morning,” he said.
“Many think that and then are hurt.”
“I’d glory. I’d sit in the station house and look across. I’d be at my pure ease.”
“Then you are all right,” Ruttledge said.
“Will he be able for it though?” he asked again.
“Of course he will. That is unless he takes to the drink in a big way or something like that.”
“Oh Lord,” he said. “That’d be the last straw.”
When Ruttledge told Frank Dolan that the loan had been secured and that it was the Shah who had advanced the money, he went stone silent. Only when pressed if he still wanted to go ahead did he respond.
“I certainly do. They complain about him a lot but he’s far from the worst. They are a lot worse themselves,” he said.
September and October were lovely months, the summer ended, winter not yet in. The cattle and sheep were still out on grass, the leaves turning.
The little vetch pods on the banks turned black. Along the shore a blue bloom came on the sloes. The blackberries moulded and went unpicked, the briar leaves changed into browns and reds and yellows in the low hedges, against which the pheasant could walk unnoticed. Plums and apples and pears were picked and stored or given around to neighbours or made into preserves in the big brass pot. Honey was taken from the hives, the bees fed melted sugar. For a few brilliant days the rowan berries were a shining red-orange in the light from the water, and then each tree became a noisy infestation of small birds as it trembled with greedy clamouring life until it was stripped clean. Jamesie arrived with sacks of vegetables and was given whatever he would take in return.
When the All-Ireland finals in Croke Park were live on television, Ruttledge walked round the lake to watch the match with Jamesie. Jamesie poured whiskey and Mary made tea and sandwiches. The irregular striking of the clocks from every quarter of the house throughout the match served as a cool corrective to the excited commentary. The team Jamesie supported nearly always won, his support completely based on which of the teams he thought most likely to win and provide a triumphant, satisfying ending to the year. Once they lost, it was as if his judgement had been impugned.
“No use,” he thrust out his hands. “They should have been ashamed to turn out. It wasn’t worth even looking at.”
When the match ended and was talked over for a while, Ruttledge and Jamesie, accompanied by the two dogs, walked out to the lake.
“Thanks for the game. It was great fun,” Ruttledge said.
“The right team won this year anyway,” he remarked complacently.
“We’ll watch it again next year.”
“With the help of God,” Jamesie said firmly as they separated.
The shore was dry, the fallen leaves rustling against his tread. Not until he reached the alder at the gate did he see the Mercedes stationed in front of the porch. Once he entered the house, he could hear his uncle chatting happily with Kate.
“Will he be able for it, Kate? That’s the sixmarker!”
They were discussing the sale and transfer of the business. As he listened to the two voices he was so attached to and thought back to the afternoon, the striking of the clocks, the easy, pleasant company, the walk round the shore, with a rush of feeling he felt that this must be happiness. As soon as the thought came to him, he fought it back, blaming the whiskey. The very idea was as dangerous as presumptive speech: happiness could not be sought or worried into being, or even fully grasped; it should be allowed its own slow pace so that it passes unnoticed, if it ever comes at all.
The leaves started to fall heavily in frosts, in ghostly whispering streams that never paused though the trees were still. They formed into drifts along the shore. Jamesie could now see everything that went on around the Ruttledges from the brow of his own hill. Traceries of branches stripped of their leaves stood out against the water like veins. Under each delicate rowan tree lay the pale rowan stones, like droppings. In the cold dry weather the hedges were thinned for firewood, the evenings rent with the whining rise and fall of other chain saws similarly working. In this new weather, sounds travelled with a new cold sharpness.
The streetlights were already lit in the town when people gathered for the late Saturday shopping. The Ruttledges generally went with Jamesie and Mary and had a drink in Luke Henry’s after the shopping was done. One Saturday night they met up with Patrick Ryan in the bar. As they had not met for a long time he was at his most charming but would not go home with them. He had driven into the town with other people and they were waiting for him somewhere else.
Into another Saturday evening in Luke’s John Quinn walked.
“It’s a beautiful thing to see good neighbours out enjoying themselves and getting on peaceable and well together as if they belonged to the same happy family and having a little sociable drink together at the end of the shopping,” he greeted the bar. “A bottle of stout, Luke. It’s good for the health and even better with a little raw egg.”
“We could get you that too, John,” Luke glanced mischievously beyond the partition where the groceries were sold.
“I know that, Luke, and thank you but there is a time and a place for everything, even the raw egg in the little glass of stout.”
“You have let the land, John?” Jamesie enquired innocently. “Yes, Jamesie, I have let the land on the eleven months at a fair rent to a good decent man who’ll look after it as if it was his own until I’m in a position to take it back. Yes, I’ve been up in Westmeath quite a bit, a great rich part of the country with very industrious hard-working people. We’re getting on far better now than could be expected but of course these things take time and can’t be rushed. But I expect to be going up there permanently before too long. If everything works out as God intended the two of us could be still as happy as larks in the clear air moving between the two places and even crossing for stays to the children in England, who took a great shine to her and she to them. Of course it’s much better and happier if these things are settled agreeably and peaceably but of course when you get married there’s a matter of the law as well and people have rights,” he warned darkly. “Anyhow, either way I expect to be moving permanently for a time to Westmeath in the not too distant future. And so I have let the land.”
“We wish you health and happiness and long life, John.”
“Not faulting any of the company, I’ll be leaving you now. When a man is deprived of his helpmate there are many things he has to attend to on his own.”