As a child, Ruttledge used to travel on the train with his mother to this town. The low-grade Arigna coal the train burned during the war gave so little power that on the steepest hills the passengers had to dismount from the carriages and walk to the top of the slope where they climbed aboard again. In his mind he could see the white railway gates clearly, the high white signal box, the three stunted fir trees beside the rails, the big hose that extended from the water tank and hung like an elephant’s trunk over the entrance to the boiler shed. For a moment, the old living railway station stood there so vividly in his mind, like an oil painting of great depth, that the substantial square looked deranged. Nobody could ever have imagined that the little station, then the hub of the town, would become this half-wasteland with the Shah lord of it all. Unease had brought Ruttledge to this edge of town. Ever since the sale he had been afraid his uncle could be riding for a fall. He had relinquished power without relinquishing place and was as vulnerable as a child to loss of face. The business was Frank Dolan’s now.
He walked very slowly back. The traffic was more chaotic, the horns blowing wildly, the doors of lorries open while their drivers went in search of whatever was blocking the way, which must have been even more frustrating still since it was nothing less than the whole disordered town. Several of the lorries were full of cattle coming from the mart and their lowing added to the pandemonium. Ruttledge met a few people he knew. The small shops were all busy. The pleasure was in walking among the human excitement and eagerness of the market. The cabbage man and his van were still parked outside Luke’s. He returned a friendly wave to Ruttledge’s. Only a few bundles of plants remained unsold.
The bar was more crowded than when he left. Jamesie was sitting in a corner with other small farmers, comparing sales’ slips and descriptions of the animals they had sold. As always with Jamesie, he was using his hands to block out the descriptions. Patrick Ryan was with the Molloys, a family of contractors who owned and worked heavy machinery for whom he had often built and repaired houses and sheds. As soon as he entered the bar, Patrick detached himself from the Molloys and joined Ruttledge. Patrick’s face was flushed but he was rock-steady and coldly charming. “You have been so long away you must have bought the town,” he chided. “You’ll have a large brandy.”
“It’d kill me,” Ruttledge said, and shook his head to the girl’s silent enquiry. “I’ll have a pint of stout. And besides it’s my round and I have to drive.”
“What the fuck matter whose round it is? — all we are on is a day out of our lives. We’ll never be round again,” Patrick said belligerently and insisted on paying for the pint.
“It doesn’t matter. We are as well to try to keep it middling straight,” Ruttledge said, and ordered a large brandy for Patrick and a pint of stout for Jamesie, who was still absorbed in discussion.
“We’ll have to get that shed up of yours before the summer, lad,” Patrick Ryan said. “It’s just been going on for far too long.”
“You know there’s no rush. There’s nothing depending on it,” Ruttledge said easily, used to the dialogue.
Patrick went on to say how sick he was of working for the country, of travelling from house to house and listening to all their wants. A man would want six hands to keep all of them happy. The material for the roof for his own house had been bought and stored away for more than twenty years and it was time the house was re-roofed and lived in again, he said. Sick to his arse he was of travelling, he would settle down on his own fields among the neighbours and a few cattle until the hearse came.
Luke Henry must have been preparing food and drink since the early morning. Now he sat with arms folded on a high stool inside the counter, leaning back against the shelves that rose high above him, glinting with amber and blue and pale lights from the rows of bottles. The red wig failed to hide the grey of his hair along the sides and at the back. The expression on his face was kindly and contented as he watched the young people he had hired for the day go about their work. Occasionally, with great charm, he rose from the stool to lean across the counter to an old customer who wasn’t receiving attention or to greet or say goodbye to someone entering or leaving. His movements were slow but precise; they had been refined by practice to their essentials. Then he slipped back again into repose on the stool.
“Me old comrade.”
Ruttledge suddenly felt a heavy blow on his shoulder, and before he turned he knew that his friend was well under the weather.
“We are having a great day,” Jamesie said, and Ruttledge handed him the pint he had brought.
“It’s only starting,” Patrick Ryan said, but Jamesie didn’t rise to the bait. He was too tired.
There was no attempt to buy another round. Ruttledge said he could drink no more and drive. He would prefer to head for home and Jamesie said he would leave as well.
“God hates a coward,” Patrick Ryan, who had no intention of leaving, reminded him playfully.
“He lives to fight another day,” Jamesie said absently and made his way to say goodbye to the people he had been talking with. There were many promises they would meet again before too long. It had been a great Monaghan Day.
“A pure child,” Patrick Ryan repeated as he and Ruttledge waited.
“Are you sure you don’t want to be left to the house?”
“Unlike yourself there’s nobody waiting up for me, lad. I have several clients lined up to see in the town yet. It’ll be night before I leave.”
“You have somewhere to stay?” Ruttledge enquired, and Patrick Ryan flushed a deeper red.
“Did you ever yet see the actor that wasn’t able to find a bed?” he responded sharply, and all trace of drink and tiredness fell from his handsome features. “If you did, lad, you were looking at one that wasn’t any good.”
“I was just asking,” Ruttledge said.
Out on the street Jamesie was uncertain on his feet but soon steadied purposefully. On none of the faces that came and went beneath the lights did he make a single comment. They passed the three detectives in the alleyway across from Jimmy Joe McKiernan’s without a word. Once outside the street lamps, it was dark but the cattle mart blazed with a white light. Huge lorries continued to pass in and out. The auctioneers droning out the bids over the crackling loudspeakers sounded more than ever like prayers.
“God bless us,” Jamesie said when they saw the number of trucks and trailers still in the grounds. “There are poor souls who won’t be out of there before daylight.”
“We had a good day and got good prices,” Ruttledge said when they reached the car. Many of the cars and tractors parked ahead of them had already left. There was space to turn without going back into the mart or the town.