The Dark by John McGahern Page A

Munro’s funeral is there today, sir.”
    It brought you to a halt, the sirring was so strange, you’d never been sirred by anyone before, and there seemed no reason for it now either. It was as uncomfortable as any pretending.
    “Why do you call me sir , John? We’re not much different in years or anything.”
    He stopped. A quick flash showed in the eyes, and the pale face flushed.
    “I don’t know, sir. You’re stopping here, sir,” he said doggedly, after a long embarrassed pause, a dogged defiance in the voice, you’d blundered, though you’d never discover how from him. The slow tolling of the Protestant bell continued.
    “Have you to go far?” you tried to make conversation on the gravel.
    “Just to the church to ring the Angelus, sir. It’s probably better to wait till the funeral’s over now, sir.”
    “Are there many Protestants here?”
    “About half as many as Catholics but they have the good land, sir.”
    At the church door he caught the wire bell-rope in his hand but he didn’t pull it till he was sure the last funeral toll had sounded. You blessed yourself and tried to pray but couldn’t, his white arms went up and down with the bell-rope, that was all.
    “What time would you like your lunch at, sir?” he asked when he’d finished.
    “I’m not particular, whatever time is easy for you.”
    “In about an hour so, sir. At one.”
    “That’ll be all right, if it’s easy for you then.”
    “Thanks, sir.”
    You watched him on the gravel to the front door. The sirring was strange, the boy housekeeper, you here alone in the day, it was all baffling and strange.
    What was there to do for the hour but wander, from gravel to grave to garden, examine the cactus leaves, wonder what your father was doing at this time, shudder at the memory of the night before, the mind not able to stay on anything for long. When the hands touched anything they wanted to grip it tight enough for the knuckles to whiten and the hour went hours long, real relief when the absurd gong was struck at exactly one for lunch.
    You’d no hunger but you forced yourself to eat. There was too much clamminess even with the doors and windows open. From time to time you had to lay down the knife and fork to crush a sucking leg. John came and went but would not be drawn into conversation.
    Afterwards you stood in front of the mantelpiece of white marble with its bulldogs and St. Martin de Porres before you tried the bookcase again. You took out several books and it was the same performance each time. Your eye roved angrily over the print, you replaced it and took out another, replaced it, on and on, till you hurled a big history on the floor, and jumped on it with rage, crying, “I’ll do for you, I’ll do for you, do for you.”
    The fit brought release once it spent itself. You wondered if John had heard in the kitchen, you must be half going crazy. You wondered if the damage to the book on the floor would ever be noticed. Then you picked it up and with senseof foolishness replaced it in the press and turned the key. You sat again in the chairs. The collection of clocks started up the confused medley of another half-hour.
    This utter sense of decrepitude and dust over the house—the clocks, the bulldogs, the mahogany case of books, the black leather armchairs, the unlived in room. At least in your own house there was life, no matter what little else.
    In these houses priests lived, you’d be alone in one of them one day too, idling through the pages of books, reading the Office as you walked between the laurels. Girls in summer dresses would stroll past free under the sycamores, You could go to the sick rooms to comfort the defeated and the dying. People would come to the door to have Masses said for their wishes and their dead, they’d need certificates of birth and marriage, letters of freedom. It was summer now. It’d be hardly different with newspapers and whiskey watching the pain of the leaves fall and the rain