The Dark by John McGahern Page B

gather to drip the long evenings from the eaves.
    Though that was far ahead, it didn’t remove your presence from this actual day, in this black leather armchair, a vision of green laurels through the window. The best thing was to go somewhere.
    “No. It’s worse than home,” Joan had said the night before, it was impossible to know what was wrong, you’d not remembered it much either, too squalidly involved in your own affairs. It brought new lease of energy, at least that much. It’d be better to tell John before going. He was in his shirt-sleeves, baking, when you went down, the smell of stewing apples mixed with the dough.
    “I’m sorry,” you had to apologize when he started. “I wondered is the town far?”
    “Three miles or about, sir.”
    “You could walk it in an hour?”
    “Yes. Easy, sir.”
    “I think I’ll go so—to see my sister. Did you see her since she came?”
    “She was out two Sundays, sir,” he said everything guardedly, there was no use.
    “Will you tell Father where I’ve gone if he comes before me?”
    You looked at John, you wished you could talk, whether he was happy here or not, how long more he’d stay with the priest and where he’d go then, if he had interest in books or sports or anything, but you couldn’t, and the more you heard of the sirring the more unreal it got.
    “Good-bye so, John.”
    “Good-bye so, sir.”
    Across the stone stile out by the front of the church you went into the cool of the sycamores, a few hundred yards down the road the Protestant church where the funeral bell had tolled. The sycamores gave way there, and the narrow dirt-track ran between high grass margins with thorn hedges out of which ash saplings rose. You had to carry your coat on your arm the day was so hot. Close to the town tar replaced the earth and stones, the day full of the smell of melting tar, sticking to your shoes to gather the dust and fine pebbles. The gnawing in the guts started as you came into the town and kept on towards Ryan’s.

15
    R YAN WAS SELLING SANDALS TO A CUSTOMER, AND NO SIGN OF Joan in the shop. He smiled recognition, the teeth more than the servility of the eyes said he was sorry to be engaged, he’d be finished in a minute, he’d consider it a great favour if you could possibly wait.
    Eventually the sale was completed. He rattled out assurances as he covered the box with brown paper and tied it with twine. With fawning gratitude and wishes of good luck he saw the woman far as the door.
    “A pleasant surprise to see you,” he shook hands with you smiling. “I’m sorry to have kept you waiting. It’s such bad weather for business, everyone making too much use of the sunshine, and hard to blame them to come to the shops. You get fed up waiting and fixing the shelves. But the rain, the rain will come, and it’ll be different.”
    “I hope it’s alright to come,” you said when the flood subsided.
    “Perfectly alright. You come to see Joan, isn’t it? It’s perfectly alright.”
    “Father Malone is away. So I thought I’d come in to see Joan for an hour.”
    “Perfectly alright, she’ll be delighted. She’s in the kitchen.”
    He led the way in through the counter, and opened the kitchen door to let you in the first. Joan was scrubbing at the sink, and she looked up startled.
    “I have a pleasant surprise for you, Joan. Your brother has come to take you out on the town. So run and change.”
    “But I’m almost finished,” she reddened.
    “It doesn’t matter, it’ll wait for again. You better make use of the sunshine while it lasts.”
    She went sideways to the stairs, drying her hands as she went in the apron, smiling in servile gratitude or apology. You were glad when she went, you took the idiotic formal smile of pleasantness off your own face, and turned to Ryan who stood at the open door to the shop. He offered a cigarette and joked, “No bad habits I see,” when it was refused, and he was lighting his own.
    Through the big window