A grey suit was bought, black shoes, a white shirt, and matching wine tie.
“You must be proud today,” the manager said to the father. “You deserve great credit for the way you brought these children up.”
“We only try to do our best, what more can we do,” he diminished but he bloomed in the praise.
“There’s more than that to it. And now I want to make my own contribution to the happy occasion,” and he presented brown leather gloves with the compliments of the house.
“The best shop in the town is Curleys. We got everything we ever wanted here, the best shop in the town.”
“We do our best. We value and appreciate our good customers,” the manager was pleased too before his staff and came smiling with them to the door.
“The next time it’ll be for his father he’ll be buying for, we hope, and driving round in a car,” Mahoney joked as he backed through the door, so absorbed that he almost flattened a woman passing with parcels. It brought him slightly down to earth, he restored a fallen parcel, and said, “Sorry,” to her murderous stare and mutterings.
He was determined on a round of the town, every shop they were known in.
Flynn’s where they got Ireland’s Own.
O’Loan’s, the hardware shop.
Even Cassidy’s where they got the luxuries of oranges and raisins for Christmas and Easter.
“They have the money but not the brains. This’ll be a shake-up for them,” he boasted between the shops.
“O’Carroll of Cavan had a son in St. Patrick’s and he could be learned nothing. As thick as a solid ditch. So the Reverend President sent for O’Carroll and said, ‘You better take away your son, Mr. O’Carroll, we can make nothing of him here,’” he began to recount.
“‘That’s alright,’ said O’Carroll. ‘I’ll pay you what you want.’
“‘But he has no brains, Mr. O’Carroll,’ the Reverend President said.
“‘Brains, what does he want brains for, I’ll buy him brains, the best brains in the country. So keep him.’”
Mahoney laughed loudly at his own story as they paused at the Public Lavatory in the Shambles, the cobbler’s shop in the archway and straw about an abandoned raker in Foley’s yard, the cattle pens all around, and lorries from Donegal with bags of cheap potatoes.
“That’s one thing can’t be bought is brains. Only God can give brains. And they don’t come off the wind either.”
He made no answer except some phrase of agreement. There was a certain cruelty in the way he watched his father caper but there was the pleasure of attention mixed with the frightful embarrassment of these capers from shop to shop, he was uncomfortable but half-pleased centre of praise.
“The one thing to beware of is a swelled head. That’s the ruination of brains. Pride! But if you can keep a cool head you’ll show some of them round here how it’s done.”
26
THE DAY WOULD NOT END PROPERLY WITHOUT THE ROYAL Hotel, its promise of celebration in style. One day they’d dress up and go to town and dine in the Royal Hotel, it was come true at last.
Mahoney ran the comb through his hair, smoothed his lapels, before he pushed through the swing-doors. He demanded the whereabouts of the dining-room from the girl at the cash-desk, trying to cover his unease by aggressiveness. The dining-room was half full, anglers from England for the Arrow trout, commercial travellers, people breaking their journeys. They looked about for a retreat in a corner, or by the river windows, but there were none vacant, and when they did settle for a table they found it was engaged.
“First in first served. There’s no fence around it, is there?” Mahoney attracted the attention of the room by complaining loudly as the waitress led them to another table.
There Mahoney sat at bay, handing the menu card across the table with an assertive flourish.
“Pick what you want. It’s your day. It’s not every day people get a University Scholarship,” he said loud enough for the room to hear, a show of mild interest creeping over the faces, smile of condescending understanding.
Why, why could he not be quiet, why had he to attract attention? What need was there to come here at all, the strain was too shocking, why couldn’t they have eaten in a cheap place or gone home? Resentment grew with hot embarrassment. He was beginning to hate the Scholarship. It had been dragged sick through town all day. Now everyone knew here too.
“Whatever you think but shut up about the Scholarship,” the first direct protest came.
“You care too much about what people know or think, that’s what’s wrong with you.”
“I don’t care and shut up.”
“Alright. Alright but there’s no need to get so hot. It’s your day.”
He called the waitress, he was bothered and disturbed, the strange atmosphere, there was no union between them.
“We want the best in the house,” he said.
“The chicken is extremely good, sir. Or the duck?” her face remained impassive. He saw on the menu that the duck was the more expensive.
“Duck. Duck for two,” he said.
“What will you have with it, sir?” And the rest of the meal was laboriously chosen.
It was not easy to sit through in quiet. Why had the father to try and bulldoze everything through by brute force? The girl was a person too even though she wore the uniform of a waitress. Could he not be quiet just as easy, and ask for what he wanted, the other person had need of dignity too, and he’d get his meal the same in the end.
“You’ll have to learn to have more confidence in yourself if you’re to be anything in the world. People take you at your own face value. You must stand up for your rights. Never be afraid to go into any place and ask for what you want long as you have money in your pocket. I’m not afraid,” he said while she was away.
He didn’t answer. This brute assertion made him sick.
“She’s a person too,” he wanted to say but watched instead the shallow river flowing broken on its stones through the windows, long tresses of green weed swaying in the flow.
The meal was served, embarrassment of not knowing how to use the different knives and forks. They’d been told in school to begin on the outside and work in, but if there happened to be a fault in the arranging, one knife where it shouldn’t be, he couldn’t think what a country ass he’d seem.
He waited for Mahoney but he plainly didn’t know either, watching covertly round at the other tables to see what they were using, joking to cover his unease.
“You’d be able to manufacture a carcass with all this machinery never mind a piece of bloody duck. But this is a meal in style. It must be one of the best hotels this in the West.”
Mahoney was in the Royal Hotel, silver and a meal with sauces, he’d have to pay dear, he was determined that he was going to enjoy it. As people left their tables and others came, as the meal wore, he relaxed into a kind of pondering sentimentality.
“We got to the Royal Hotel at last, after all the years. It’s a fine meal and a happy day. We’ve come into our own at last. We’re celebrating in style and something to celebrate at last.”
“It’s a fine meal. Thank you for bringing me.”
A vision of how happy the others must be with their tea and bread, free in the house, no burden of what they were not accustomed to.
“No, no thanks at all, it’s your day. We’ve had our differences over the years, there’s no house that hasn’t, but that’s not what counts.”
“No. That’s not what counts.”