“Thanks,” she said. “Will you have a small drop with me?”
While we were drinking she went into the cold pantry where I remembered rabbits and game birds hanging before roasting, and I heard her drink on her own. She brought out a plate of lamb chops. After the secret drink she was relaxed and started to prepare me a meal. While I was eating, the hall door opened and she went still to listen. “It’s Cyril,” she whispered, and started to tidy away the glasses. “Say nothing about the brandy. He’s against taking the brandy for the pain. He says I should take the pills instead.”
I listened to his feet come up the hallway. The loose brass knob of the door rattled as it opened. The handsome face had coarsened but the hairline was the same, oiled and parted in the centre. He’d been drinking.
“Well, if it’s not our friend from the city, eating like a king,” he said sarcastically.
“Cyril,” she warned sharply but he ignored her.
The silver cups and medals of his footballing days shone on the dark sideboard, in the small coffin-like mirrors. I got up from the table.
“I didn’t mean to disturb you,” he said. “I meant for you to go on eating.”
“You didn’t disturb me,” I said.
I saw her eyes plead: be easy with him, he doesn’t know what he does, be easy with me.
“And did you find your aunt that loves you so dearly all right?”
“She seems improved.”
“She seems improved. She’s improved when she’s half-crazed with brandy. Nobody will tell the truth. It’s pills she should be taking not the brandy. They’re far better than the brandy and a damned sight cheaper. You might see that I’ve even taken to a little drinking myself.”
“I can see that,” I said, and for a moment it looked as if he was about to hit me.
I thought I might see her cower by the stove, but instead she stood at her full height, all her thought for him. “Cyril’s upset that it’s taking me so long to get better, when we just have to be patient,” she said as if she was straightening his tie.
“I have to go to see the boss,” I said. “I’ll be back in an hour.”
“We’ll see you in an hour, so,” they both said, his aggression gone.
She followed me to the door, “Don’t mind what he said. Cyril doesn’t mean what he says. It just flashes out. And you’ll not forget to come back?” she seized me by the arm.
“I’ll be back,” I said as we quickly kissed.
She mumbled something like. “God bless you,” as I walked quickly towards the car.
The mill was four or five miles outside the town, towards the mountains. All the woods that had once surrounded the mill had been cut down. The new woods on the lower slopes of the mountains hadn’t matured yet, so most of the timber had to be brought in. As I drew close to the mill I saw my uncle high on the back of a big truck, unloading pine trunks with a lift, the iron fingers jerking down to fasten about the trunks before swinging them free. As I drew closer I could feel the spring of years of sawdust beneath my feet and the sharp sweet smell of fresh resin. My uncle waved to me but continued unloading the truck. Away at the mill proper — a large crude shed of timber and galvanized iron — I saw Jim getting a trunk into position on the rollers. From one of the smaller sheds came the harsh, brutal clanging sound of a saw sharpening.
Having unloaded all the pine trunks and turned the engine off, my uncle stretched out his hand. “You’re welcome,” as slow and confident here as he was dwarfed in the city.
“Things are going well,” I gestured toward the sheds and saws.
“Well, not too bad. The price of timber keeps going up, but that doesn’t bother us. We just shove up our prices as well, we’re not behind in that,” he laughed. “Are you down for long?”
“Just for a few hours. I have to be back.”
“And you’ve seen the patient?”
“I’ve just come from there. Cyril has a few over the top.”
“I never see him any other way. I was thinking if things get much worse I might even move out to your place?”
“You don’t have to ask me that. You can move any time you want.”
“I know that,” he said with feeling.
“Would you be able to manage?”
“The house is in perfect shape. I could move in tomorrow as far as the house goes.”
“How’d you manage the cooking for yourself?”
“I’d not cook,” he started to laugh. “There are restaurants in the town. What do you think I did when your aunt was in the hospital? I got all my meals in Caffrey’s. Any fool can get a bit of breakfast for himself!”
“Why don’t you move, then?”
“Well, I wouldn’t like to just now,” he said awkwardly. “Your aunt might think I was moving out on her. Are you going out to take a look at your own place at all?”
“I suppose I might as well. John Hart still has the grass?”
He nodded, “John Hart is all right. If you put it up for bidding you might get a few more pounds, but someone might come and eat the heart out of it. You’ll be down soon again?” he had work to do.
“If I go to see the place I’ll not have time to see her, and I promised her that I’d go back. But will you just tell her that I ran out of time — that I’ll be down again very soon.”
“I’ll tell her,” he nodded. “You might as well go over and have a few words with Jim before you go or we’d never hear the end of it. He’s not been in the best of humour this weather either.”
“Well, how are things in the big smoke?” Jim greeted.
“The same as usual,” I said, and we talked that way.
“I suppose you’ll want to be off,” he was the first to change. “Your uncle will have been glad to see you. He’s not been in the best of humour lately.”
I drove straight out to the house. There were several signs of recent fires having been lit all through the house. New firebricks had been put in the grate of the Stanley cooker in the kitchen and the stone floor had been swept. Except for flaking paint on the wall it looked as if it had been prepared for someone to move in.
I had so lost connection with the house and fields that I felt I was walking through a graveyard. For the first time I thought that except for my uncle I’d be glad to sell it.
I felt easier outside in the fields, the crowns of the lime trees, the glint of water through the moss-grown orchard, and the mountains beyond. In the fields down by the lake I met John Hart. He had a cattle cane and hat and collar and tie. He obviously did no other work except look after dry cattle now.
At the end of the formal pleasantries he started to complain of the lack of young people in the countryside.
“The only person I see regular around is your uncle, more than I used ever see him. Only last week I was passing the house, after cattle just like I am now, and I saw smoke and happened to look in. And there he was, sitting in the rocking chair, looking into the big fire. He never even noticed me at the window.”
As I took leave of John Hart and what he told me, I thought how sure and well people act in their instinct. Sensing an approaching death, my uncle was already beating himself a path to a new door.
I went early to the Green Goose and waited for her beneath the red and green peacocks’ eyes.
She looked harassed when she came, as if she hadn’t been sleeping much.
“How did your weekend go?” I asked when I’d got drinks.
“It was awful. I suppose the worst was nothing had changed. My sister has her two children. She is happy. Now that she is, her husband’s handicap will fall by two strokes. In the evening Father Paul came in from the Augustinians. He was so glad to see me. He joked about me getting married soon, that I must hurry, since he wanted to be the priest at the wedding. We drank too much sherry. And suddenly we both found ourselves crying in front of the fire. He asked me if I had someone I was interested in and I told him about you. I told him that you didn’t love me,” there were tears in her eyes.