They talked of grass and the weather and cattle.
“Of course I saw you on Monaghan Day,” Ruttledge said. “I heard you got great prices.”
“Prices were never as high since,” he said. “I made the mistake of buying in some that day,” and he went on to explain how he had seen Ruttledge but had a rule never to greet anybody in the mart or he would spend his whole day greeting and speaking. “There are people in the parish who complain that I shouldn’t be in the mart at all. They’d turn you into some sort of doleful statue if they could.”
“What do you think of that?”
“It’s obvious what I think,” he said bluntly. “I suppose you know or guess the errand I’m on?”
“He was down here a few hours ago, all dressed up, and told me you’d bought him the clothes.”
“I didn’t buy them for him. I got help in that,” the priest said with surprising distaste. “I did pay for them but not with my own money.”
“I hope he’ll be happy in the town,” Ruttledge said.
“We all hope he’ll be happy,” he said with a hint of aggression as he rose. “Whether he will or not is another matter. Sometimes I think it may be better to let these mistakes run their course. Attempting to rectify them at a late stage may bring in more trouble than leaving them alone. We shall see.”
“I’m glad he’s having his chance no matter what happens,” Ruttledge said. “What else did any of us have?”
The priest looked at Ruttledge in plain disagreement but was unwilling to argue or to linger. “I’m not going to be very welcome up there. They are losing quite a bit of money, the State pays them every week as well as their man.”
“I doubt if I’d be any support,” Ruttledge smiled grimly.
“None.”
“What are they going to do for water?”
“Can’t they make it?” the priest said without humour as he turned away.
Preparations were made for the Saturday. The house was scrubbed and aired, shopping done in the town, the best steaks bought, heads of lettuce picked from the glass house. The iron grill was cleaned and set in place between the bars of the grate. The vases around the house were filled with fresh flowers. In the centre of the table was a bowl of white roses. A bottle of red wine was opened.
They came in a new white station wagon. Soon after two o’clock it moved through the spaces between the big trees along the shore. The sun was blinding on the glass when it turned in at the alder tree. They were all dressed for a big occasion. Mary had a natural elegance no matter what she wore and was in her Mass clothes. Lucy wore a shawl of white lace over a blue silk dress and white shoes. Jim’s blue shirt was open-necked and he was wearing a soft brown wool jacket with slacks. The four children were dressed in the fashionable shirts and denim and trainers of their age, but they appeared strangely downcast and grave.
“You’re welcome. It’s great you were all able to come.”
“You are great to have us. Are you sure you won’t change your mind now that you see the crowd? They were all mad to come.” The Ruttledges knew at once that there was something wrong, and waited.
Jamesie was missing and before they had time to enquire they saw him slumped in the front seat of the station wagon, his head on his chest, dead to the world.
“We didn’t know whether to leave him in the house or bring him with us. Mother said you wouldn’t mind,” Jim explained.
“Bad luck to him,” Mary added. “He went to the village on the excuse of getting messages. In the end Jim had to go looking for him. That’s the way he came home.”
“Granda always has to be that bit different,” Lucy said tentatively.
“I think I’ve only seen him like that once. The Christmas he bought turkeys in the town,” Ruttledge said.
“Then you’ve never seen him when Johnny comes home. He’s this way every year they come from the station,” Mary said.
“What will we do?”
“Leave him there to hell,” she said. “He’ll only fall in the fire or something if we bring him in.”
They trooped dolefully into the house. The house was praised, Lucy praising it excessively. She and Jim had a glass of chilled white wine. The children had lemonade.
“I suppose we might as well join him,” Mary said sourly when Kate offered to make her a light hot whiskey, knowing she disliked the taste of wine.
Ruttledge lit a fire beneath the grill with seasoned oak. They gathered to watch it blaze, the shadows leaping on the white walls, and soon the room was full of the charcoal smell mixed with the faint tang of the oak. Smelling the meat, the black cat came into the room to cry and rub her fur against the children’s legs. They were excited by the fire, and when it died to a red bed of glowing embers Ruttledge got them to help him put the pieces of meat on the grill and gave them plates to hold and other small tasks.
“Our friend hasn’t moved,” Jim remarked from the window. “He’s still sleeping the sleep of the just.”
“That was all so simple, so perfect, so beautiful,” Lucy said as they moved from the front room to the table. All the children asked for second helpings. Everything was praised many times over and yet reflected in the excessive praise was a pall. He who would have been such fun and life were he in the room was a stronger presence by his absence.
“He made a great impression on everybody he met in Dublin at Christmas. People are always asking after him,” Lucy said as if it was a source of wonderment.
“I suppose they weren’t used to the like of him. What’s strange is always wonderful. They wouldn’t be too impressed if they saw him now,” Mary tried to make light of the uncertain praise.
“What Lucy says is true. Tom Murray, the secretary of the department, talked several times of making an excursion down to see him in his own place,” Jim said quietly. “He got on with everybody. He didn’t care who they were. You’d think he knew them all his life.” He spoke with an affection that reached back to his parents and was generally hidden. With it came a quiet courtesy, deepened by reserve. It was too early yet to tell how the grandchildren would turn out but they looked alert and interesting. They would not have to undergo the uprooting and transplantation of their father. In them the old learned strengths could show up in a new way.
“Granda won’t know what he missed,” Lucy said cheerfully as she helped remove the plates at the end of the main course. “That was wonderful, Kate. We have been looking forward to this all week.”
“I’ve never tasted steaks as good,” Jim said.
“It’s the butcher,” Ruttledge said.
Ruttledge knew that Jamesie would have dreaded the formality of the meal and its slow ceremony. When the cake and cheese and ice cream were brought in, he stole out to the station wagon by the back of the house. Jamesie sat slumped as before in the front seat. Ruttledge opened the door gently and put his hand on his shoulder. “What have you done to yourself, my old friend?”
Slowly Jamesie opened his eyes and looked at him out of a great distance of tiredness or sleep or stupor, and then shut them. Ruttledge pressed his shoulder and closed the door as softly as it had been opened.
“How is he?” Mary asked sharply when he returned, not fooled by the use of the back door.
“He’s still asleep but he’s all right.”
“You didn’t talk to him?” she asked sharply, as if they might have conspired together.
“No, but I could see he’s not sick or anything much wrong with him.”
“Bad luck to him,” she said. “I don’t know why he had to go and get ossified this day above all days. He’ll be the very same the day Johnny comes home. Anything he can’t face …” she said, and left the sentence unfinished to enter more completely into her own thought.