The bar was empty, but there was a bright fire of logs at one end. Owen Beirne ordered a hot whiskey with cloves and lemon. The barman seemed to like and respect him. I had a glass of lemonade.
‘Don’t you take a drink?’
‘Seldom.’
‘I drink too much. It’s expensive and a waste of time. During the times I don’t drink I read far more and feel better in every way. Unfortunately, it’s very pleasant.’
He told me his father had been a teacher. ‘My poor father had to go to the back door of the presbytery every month for his pay. The priest’s housekeeper gave it to him. It was four pounds in those days. I’ll never forget my mother’s face when he came back from the presbytery one night with three pounds instead of four. The housekeeper had held back a pound because the priest had decided to paint the church that month. One of the great early things the INTO got for the teacher was for the salary to be paid directly into his own hands — to get it through the post instead of from the priest or his housekeeper.
‘All that was changed by my time. The inspectors, the dear inspectors, were our hairshirts. A recurring nightmare I have is walking up and down in front of a class with an inspector sitting at the back quietly taking notes. Some were the roaring boys. One rode the bucking mule in Duffy’s Circus in Ballinasloe, got badly thrown, but was still out before nine the next morning to check if the particular teacher he’d been drinking with was on time. They were like lords or judges. Full-grown men trembled in front of them at these annual inspections. Women were often in tears. The best hams and fruit cakes were brought out at lunchtime. For some there had to be the whiskey bottle and stout in the schoolhouse after school.
‘Then, during the war, the Emergency, we had an inspector in Limerick called Deasy, a fairly young man. I was teaching in his area at the time. He was a real rat. In Newcastle West there was an old landed family, a racehorse and gambling crowd, down on their luck. An uncle was the Bishop of Cashel. One of the sons was a failed medical student, and God knows what else, and as part of a rehabilitation scheme didn’t the Bishop get him a temporary teaching job. Deasy was his inspector. I’m sure the teaching was choice, and what Deasy didn’t say to his man wasn’t worth saying. This crowd wasn’t used to being talked to like that. He just walked out of the school without saying a word. Deasy sat down to his tea and ham sandwiches and fruit cake with the schoolmistress. They were still having lunch when your man arrived back. He sat down with them, opened his coat nice and quietly, produced the shotgun and gave Deasy both barrels. He wasn’t even offered the Act of Contrition. I was in the cathedral in Limerick the night Deasy’s body was brought in. It was a sad sight, the widow and seven children behind the coffin. Every inspector in the country was at the funeral. Things were noticeably easier afterwards.’
‘What happened to your man?’
‘He was up for murder. He’d have swung at the time but for the Bishop, who got him certified. They say that after a few years he was spirited away to Australia. He was as sane as I was.’
‘It seems to be a more decent time now,’ I said.
‘It’s by no means great, but it’s certainly better than it was.’
A few people had come into the bar by this time. They looked our way but no one joined us at the fire. He’d had four drinks, and his face was flushed and excited. He wanted to know what poets my generation was reading. He seemed unimpressed by the names I mentioned. His own favourite was Horace. ‘Sometimes I translate him for fun, as a kind of discipline. I always feel in good spirits afterwards.’
Almost absently he spilled out a number of coloured capsules from a small plastic container on to the table, got a glass of water from the bar. ‘It’s the old ticker. I’m afraid it’s wobbly. But I hope not to embarrass my friends,’ he said.
‘I’m sorry. That’s lousy luck to have.’
‘There’s no need,’ he answered laughing as we took leave of one another. ‘I’ve had a good innings.’
Kennedy didn’t call to the digs next morning, and I made my own way to the school. As I came through the gates I saw that he had all the classes lined up on the concrete, and he was looking so demonstratively at his watch that I checked the time on my own watch. I was in time but only just. Before I got any closer he’d marched his own classes in, disappearing behind a closed door. Instead of coming round with the roll books that morning, he sent one of the senior boys, and at the mid-morning break I found myself alone on the concrete for several minutes, but when he did join me his grievance spilled out at once.
‘I heard yourself and Mr Beirne had a long session in the Bridge House last night.’
‘He called at the digs. It was more comfortable to cross to the Bridge.’
‘I suppose plenty of dirt was fired in my direction.’
‘None. He said the fact that you’re not in the INTO must be no concern of mine. It was the only time you were mentioned.’
‘That was very good of him. There are many people around here who would think him not fit company for a young teacher,’ he said angrily.
‘Why?’
‘Every penny he has goes on booze or books and some of the books are far from edifying, by all accounts. He’s either out every night in the bars, or else he shuts himself off for weeks on end. They say his wife was dead in the house for most of a day before he noticed. The priests certainly think he’s no addition to the place.’
‘He seemed an intelligent man.’
‘He knows how to put on a good front, all right.’
‘He seemed very decent to me.’ I refused to give way.
‘He’s no friend of mine. You can take my word for that. All that crowd would have had my guts for garters if they got the chance. They’ll have a long wait, I can tell you. When I came to this town we hadn’t two coins to clink together. Every morsel of food we put in our mouths that first month here was on credit. But I worked. Every hour of private tuition going round the place I took, and that’s the lousiest of all teaching jobs, face to face for a whole hour with a well-heeled dunce. Then I got into surveying work with the solicitors. I must have walked half the fields within miles of this town with the chains. I was just about on my feet when that strike was called. The children were in good schools. Why should I put all that at risk? It wasn’t my strike. Some of the ones that went on strike will be in hock for the rest of their days. And if it had lasted even another month they’d have had to crawl back like beaten dogs. Do you think that it was easy for me to pass those pickets with their placards and cornerboy jeers every school day for the whole of seven months? Do you think that was easy?’
‘I know it wasn’t easy.’
There was a Mass that Friday for the teachers and children of the parish, an official blessing on the new year, and we were given the day off to attend the Mass. Kennedy called for me and we walked up the town together to the church. At the top of Main Street we ran straight into Owen Beirne. Rather than cut us openly, he crossed to a fish stall and pretended to be examining the freshness of a tray of plaice as we went by.
‘Your friend Beirne hadn’t much to say to you today. You were in the wrong company.’
‘I don’t mind,’ I said.
As we came up to the railings of the church, a red-faced hulk of a man, obviously a teacher, the gold fáinne and metal tricolour in his lapel, stared at Kennedy in open hostility, cleared his throat, and spat out into our path. Kennedy said nothing as we hurried into the church. After Mass little groups of teachers stood about in the church grounds, shaking hands, joking, but as soon as we approached they fell silent or turned away. Not a single person spoke to us or raised a hat or even bowed. We passed out in total silence. I had never run such a gauntlet. I had the feeling as we walked back through the town that Kennedy was desperately searching for something to say but that he was too disturbed to settle on any one phrase.