Soon she would die, as the old priest had, six months ago. She would fall down, or she would die in her sleep. And before any of it happened she might become muzzy in her thoughts, unable to explain to Justin Condon and properly to ask for his forgiveness. Father Finn had known also in the end, death banishing his illusions. ‘We did a terrible thing,’ the old priest had said, sending for her specially.
The record came to an end and she sat there for a moment longer, listening to the scratchy sound of the needle. She had once, long before the child had come into her life, tried to become Father Finn’s housekeeper. ‘Ah no, no,’ he had murmured, gently rejecting her because it wouldn’t have done.
‘Arid how were things in West Waterford?’ his father inquired. ‘Has Joe Bolger retired from Merrick’s?’
Glistening, as if he had just scrubbed his face with a nailbrush, Mr Condon held a glass of whiskey in his right hand. As well as his face, the backs of his hands glistened, as did his glasses, his even false teeth, the dome of his hairless head. Justin imagined him with Miss Murphy in her shop, telling a joke, driving out into the country with Miss Murphy when it was dark, the way Fahy said he’d had to with some woman in Claremorris before he got going with Mrs Keane.
‘I didn’t see Joe Bolger,’ Justin said. ‘I think maybe he’s retired.’
‘I always liked West Waterford.’
They were in the sitting-room. His father was standing in front of a coal fire that was too hot for the time of year. In the kitchen Justin’s mother was frying their evening meal. Recently Mr Condon had taken to giving himself a glass of whiskey at a quarter to six in the evening instead of making his usual journey to McCauley’s at the corner. When he’d eaten his food he returned to the sitting-room and occupied the chair nearest the television, pouring himself another glass of whiskey at a quarter past seven. Justin’s mother said the whiskey was bad for him but he said it was doctor’s orders. ‘It’s ready for you,’ she shouted from the kitchen, reminding Justin of Thomasina Durcan calling out in Mrs Keane’s that the breakfast was ready.
‘I could eat an elephant,’ said Mr Condon, swallowing the last of his whiskey.
Between them, his brothers and sisters had brought thirty-seven children into existence: Justin often thought of that. At Christmas they all crowded into the house, shouting and quarrelling and reminding Justin of what the house had been like in his childhood. On Saturdays there were visits from one or another of those families, and on Sundays also.
‘There was a time I was below in Dungarvan,’ Mr Condon recalled in the kitchen, ‘the day Golden Miller won at Fairyhouse. Joe Bolger was footless behind the counter.’
Mrs Condon cut slices of loaf bread, and pushed the butter past her husband in Justin’s direction. Mr Condon had never been known to pass anyone anything.
‘God, you’d have died laughing.’ As if to lend greater verisimilitude to this claim, Mr Condon laughed rumbustiously himself, exposing egg and bread partially chewed. ‘He was handing out skeins of wool and not charging for it. He gave a gross of safety-pins to a farmer’s wife by the name of Mrs Quinn. “Sure, aren’t they always handy,” he said, “in case you’d have something falling down?” ’
Mrs Condon, who did not always care for her husband’s humour, asked what the weather had been like down the country. Justin replied that it had been fine.
‘There was another time,’ Mr Condon went on, ‘when the boys in the digs took poor Joe’s clothes when he was asleep in bed. I didn’t see it myself but didn’t he have to descend the stairs with the sheets on him?’
‘It rained on Wednesday,’ Mrs Condon said. ‘It didn’t cease the whole day.’
‘There Wasn’t a drop down the country.’
‘Well, isn’t that strange?’
‘It’s often that way.’
‘They say it’s settled in Dublin for the weekend.’
Mrs Condon was as thin as his Aunt Roche, with a worried look that Justin couldn’t remember her ever having been without. She wore flowered overalls even when she went shopping, beneath her black coat.
‘The wildest lads in West Waterford was in Joe Bolger’s digs,’ continued Mr Condon. ‘There wasn’t a trick they didn’t have knowledge of.’
Justin, who had heard about these exploits in West Waterford before, nodded. Mrs Condon poured more tea.
‘They went into the Bay Hotel one night when a pile of boxes containing young chicks had just come off the bus. Your men had them released in the hall before anyone could lift a hand. They had them flying up and down the stairs and into the dining-room, knocking down the sauce bottles. The next thing is, didn’t they have them fluttering about the bedrooms?’
‘You told us, Ger,’ Mrs Condon said.
‘I did of course. Didn’t I come back that Friday and go through the whole thing? It could kill you stone dead to wake up in your bedroom and find chickens squawking all over you.’
‘It must have been unpleasant certainly.’
‘Well, that’s West Waterford for you. Are you still telling that story, Justin?’
Justin nodded again. He wouldn’t have known how to begin telling such a story, and he had never attempted to. He thought about the symphony, hearing the theme that the queen and her consort in their palace bed had inspired. A slow movement, lyrical in tone.
‘Is that girl still stopping at Mrs Keane’s?’ his mother inquired. ‘The dentist.’
He’d once mentioned Thomasina Durcan in order to fill a gap in some conversation; he wished he hadn’t because his mother had somehow sensed his apprehension and appeared to have mistaken it for interest.
‘Yes, she’s still there.’
‘Sounds a nice type of girl.’
Fortunately, Mr Condon had begun to laugh in anticipation of some further antics on the part of the lodgers in
