The Bay

By L. A. G. Strong

The Bay tells the story of Luke Mangan, who begins to have an adulterous affair with a woman who soon dies.Crippled by guilt for the part he played in her demise, Mangan decides to atone by marrying humbly, with the help of a Parish priest.

Written in his inimitable style, Strong deals with elemental passions in a thoughtful, and sensitive way.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
• Release date: Sep 28, 2011
• ISBN: 9781448204526

L. A. G. Strong

L.A. Strong (1896-1958) was born in Plymouth, of a half-Irish father and Irish mother, and was educated at Brighton College (where in later life he was a governor) and at Wadham College, Oxford (Open Classical Scholar). There he came under the influence of W. B. Yeats. He worked as an Assistant Master at Summer Fields, Oxford, between 1917-19 and 1920-30, and as a Visiting Tutor at the Central School of Speech and Drama. He was a director of the publishers Methuen Ltd. from 1938 until his death. For many years he was a governor of his old school, Brighton College. He was a versatile writer of more than 20 novels, as well as plays, children's books, poems, biography, criticism, and film scripts. Some of his poems were set to music by Arthur Bliss. His novel The Brothers was filmed in 1947 by the Scottish director David MacDonald. Selected Poems appeared in 1931, and The Body's Imperfections: Collected Poems in 1957. He also collaborated with Cecil Day-Lewis in compiling anthologies. He formed a literary partnership with an Irish friend, John Francis Swaine (1880 – 1954), paying Swaine a percentage of royalties for five novels and numerous short stories, published between c.1930 and 1953, which were attributed to Strong. These include the novels Sea Wall (1933), The Bay (1944) and Trevannion (1948). Swaine's short stories described the thoughts and experiences of an Irish character, Mr Mangan, a fictional version of Swaine himself. Strong wrote many works of non fiction and an autobiography of his early years, Green Memory (published posthumously in 1961).

Book preview

Chapter I

What will we do with him? said my Uncle John, giving me a wink, as if to suggest that the whole problem was a joke. What will we do with him at all?"

My aunt drew her thin lips tighter. She did it so often there were little vertical furrows in them.

I have told you twice already, John, I am perfectly prepared to take the child.

You see, said my uncle, with a mild candour, George and myself, we’re no real guardians for him. George is never here, and I—well, I’m here, there, and everywhere, as you might say.

He stroked his full yellow moustaches, and shook his head gently, looking at my aunt with big, mock-sorrowful eyes, like a dog.

I repeat, said my aunt, I am only too ready to take the boy. I know my duty, and I hope I shall do it.

You will, you will indeed, assented my uncle warmly. He sighed, looked at the carpet, then lifted his head. And Ann Dunn will always be by to lend ye a hand.

Thank you, John. I shall not need any help.

You take me up wrong, woman, said Uncle John jovially. Sure I only meant she could take the weight of him off you. It’s not easy, you know, for a woman that has none of her own.

My aunt did not reply to this. She drew in her breath sharply through her nostrils. Uncle John saw that he was making matters no better. He affected to be intent upon the carpet, prodding it with his umbrella, and finally taking a swipe at some imaginary object. He sighed again.

It’s a pity, he said. It’s a pity. A few more years would have made all the difference to the boy.

My aunt sat stiff.

It’s not for us to question the ways of Almighty God.

Bedad, said my uncle with animation, you’re right there. Once we began, we’d never stop.

John!

Oh, yes. He gave me another wink. "Maxime debetur. Mum’s the word. He got up from the chair, automatically brushing his waistcoat, though there were no crumbs on it, as he hadn’t been eating anything. Well now—since all that’s settled —I’ll be taking Luke for a walk. What do you say, little son?"

My eyes glowed at him. I went over and stood by his side.

Don’t drag him all over Dublin, and bring him home dog-tired, as you did last time.

Uncle John and I avoided each other’s eye. The allusion was painful. I had disgraced us both, and had endangered future excursions, by getting a chill and being sick.

Ah no. Ah no. Sure we won’t go far.

Well. Get your coat, Luke. There’s a sharp wind. Mind yourselves, now.

We got out of the room, I wriggling round Uncle John’s bulk in the doorway, as he turned to say something more to my aunt. He had the fear of her that severely respectable people inspire in scallywags, however the latter may deride them. Everything he felt was plain to me. I suffered for him, I plotted for him, I tried to steer him past: danger, mostly in an agony of silence.

I ran upstairs for my coat, and heard Uncle John in the hall as I came down. You could always hear him, or sense his presence in some way. He was so big, he breathed loudly, enormous rumblings came from his stomach, his braces creaked, odd indeterminate sounds came from his clothes, money clinked in his pocket. There was never silence where he was. He stood, in front of the hatstand, filling up the tiny dark hall, and my heart ached with love of him as I came downstairs, holding on to the banister that was cold and clammy under my hand.

He was meditating, his head down, and didn’t see me till I was near the bottom step.

There y’are, he said, with an obvious effort to switch back into cheerfulness: and we stood for a moment, looking at one another, child and man, the hall full of our unhappiness and our wordless understanding. Then the kitchen door opened. My uncle turned his head, and saw Ann Dunn standing in the doorway.

She stood there, not saying a word, her grey hair parted in the middle and drawn down so tight on either side of her face that it seemed to be compressing it. Ann had the stillest face I’ve ever seen. Its expression never changed. She’d always looked like that, always had her hair parted in the middle and drawn down so tight that the surface of it shone, but I’d never noticed it consciously till that moment. She’d been a fact I accepted and loved without noticing particulars about her.

Ah, Ann Dunn, said my uncle. There you are. It’s good to see you.——

Ann Dunn stood back, to let us into the kitchen. She treated my uncle much as she treated me. The movement was at once an invitation to shelter and a command, though Ann Dunn would never have thought of it as such. She put me to the kitchen table, and gave me a glass of milk and a bun.

It’s cold, she said to my uncle. The child’s stomach.

My uncle nodded enormously in tribute to her sagacity.

Oh ah, he assented. Aye, to be sure.

I hadn’t known I wanted anything, but I ate without question. Neither Uncle nor I ever dreamed of questioning anything Ann Dunn did.

Don’t eat too fast now, Luke, she admonished me, and said something in an undertone about excitement.

To be sure, cried Uncle John. Take your time, little son. Take your time. A bad thing to hurry over food; a very bad thing.

He stood, shaking his head over the badness of it, with a look of sorrowful concern on his face. I loved him with a warm pang, feeling the older of the two, grand big important man though he was to me, because he was feckless and disorderly in his life, as even I could see, yet with Ann Dunn he always tried to put on an air of propriety and respectability. It didn’t deceive her for an instant: indeed, it wasn’t meant to. It was Uncle John’s concession to good principles, made for my sake, and out of respect to Ann Dunn. He felt the greatest respect for her, and his behaviour was a tribute as real as the gallantries with which he would greet a young woman, or the deference he showed to an old.

But my perception of all this, though complete, was brief. I ate seriously and with absorption, as a child will, conscious all the time of the constraint that held the other two silent. The room was loud with it. Ann Dunn kept silent without effort: but it was an effort for Uncle John. He boomed and muttered a thing or two about the weather. Then there was a long silence, in which I heard my own munching, the small, secret coal-noises inside the stove, and the faint, half-asleep purring of Janey, Ann Dunn’s cat, which she always made when people had just come into the room. Then, with a suddenness that made me jump, Uncle John turned aside and blew his nose loudly, making Janey open one grey-green eye in reproach.

Ann Dunn looked at him, and a faint tremor crossed her face, like the smallest, most transient of ripples on a pool. She had compassion for him. Then her face was as it always was, and she stood, her hands folded, watching me eat.

Uncle John spent some time with his back turned. If he blew his nose, he always went through a sort of polishing ritual, finishing up with his moustaches.

Well, he said at last. We must trust it’s all for the best.

Ann Dunn did not move, and her expression did not change, but she managed to convey scepticism. Uncle John felt it, for he went on, almost apologetically, We must do all we can to meet the situation: to see that it turns out as well as possible.

Ann Dunn’s stillness suggested that she was doing her best already. I swallowed the last bite of sponge cake, and reached for the milk.

In sips, now, Ann Dunn warned.

Aye, cried my uncle in relief. Don’t go gollop it down.

And he explained to Ann Dunn, for my benefit, that if you took a cold drink slowly, the pipes had time to warm it before it reached the stomach, whereas, if you golloped it down— his pantomime was violently expressive—sure, it all fell down into you in a cascade, and the pipes had no chance at all.

Ann Dunn gave a slight nod, and said, Yes, sir. She didn’t like physiological detail. .She held that the workings of the body were a mystery, and best left so.

I sipped obediently, though I didn’t like taking my milk that way, as I got in a lot of air between sips, and had ado not to hiccup. On the other hand, if I took it all in a gollop, I never had to give it another thought.

Uncle John blew out a sigh of relief.

There’s me man, he said. He straddled his thick legs apart, brushed his moustache with his knuckle, then strode over to Ann Dunn.

It’s the mercy of God you’re here, he exclaimed, and wrung her hand.

Another tremor crossed her face, perhaps because his grip was so strong. She came to me, and did up my muffler, and pushed me into my reefer coat. Next minute we came in the street, Uncle John puffing and blowing, as he always did when he first came out, holding my hand in his large hand, and swinging his other hand round, clenched, so as to hit himself in the small of the back.

Aa-ah! he said, with deep relish, drawing the air in, and blowing it out so strongly it lifted his moustaches. I trotted beside him, utterly content. The wind blew cold, and the streets seemed to have been stripped bare to let it through. They looked empty and spacious. A bit of newspaper rushed round a corner, hesitated, gathered itself up, rose in the air, and sailed off towards the Liffey. The line of the mountains showed through a gap in the houses. They lay low and cold.

Uncle John stopped blowing, and began to hum. This too was ritual. I glanced up at him, and saw his face set and mysterious, confronting the winds of life.

My Uncle John was the grandest of all my relations. He was an uncle by marriage only, the husband of my father’s second sister. She was dead, and I barely remembered her, but the stories I heard of her since made her far more real to me than most of the living. The trouble was, they didn’t fit the dim figure I remember, and I had to hitch them to her portrait. But he, and his brother George, who was no connection at all, dominated the whole pack of uncles and aunts by weight of character and sheer masculinity.

Uncle John was, I suppose, about five foot ten or eleven, but looked more. This was odd, because he was very broad in the shoulders, and had a good belly on him. It was characteristic that his obesity made him look taller instead of shorter. The rules didn’t apply to him that governed other men. His head was big, and his face round, quite round. His eyes were china blue, a little bleared in the whites, and his red cheeks and his nose had a great number of small crimson veins, due to alcohol. He wore wide turn-down collars, and, instead of knotting his tie, he pulled the two ends of it through a broad gold ring. Despite the strict uniform called for by his profession, he affected fancy waistcoats, all of them, even the so-called white one he was wearing today, equipped with tarnished flat brass buttons. These he clung to against all protest, wearing them with the bowler and black broadcloth coat needed for a professional appearance.

Uncle John was an auctioneer, and a real authority on furniture, tapestry, and carpets. He was manager and general boss of a large furniture concern in the city, and by dint of his life’s experience he had acquired a vast and expert knowledge of brass fenders, steel fire shovels, punch spoons in Queen Anne silver, carpets, curtains, armchairs, spindley chairs and tables for drawing-rooms, divans, and goodness knows what else. He knew, too, about pictures—not from an artistic point of view; of that he knew nothing; but he could tell exactly the sort of picture that would sell, and what you might expect to get for it.

He had been to a school in the country, and everything he had learned at it he remembered perfectly. He knew the five books of Euclid, he knew mensuration, he was a master of arithmetic in its more commercial aspects, and he had a prodigious and quite undiscriminating memory for verse. He could recite perches of Shakespeare, he could reel off furlongs of Goldsmith’s Deserted Village—Goldsmith was his pet—he knew a lot of Byron, and quite a bit of Milton. At the same time, and with equal accuracy, he could repeat to you the libretti of seven or eight operas, and never seemed to distinguish between the words, however silly, and the best of Milton or Shakespeare. There was a simple reverence in his mind for what had been given him with authority, and it was all lumped together into a sort of sacred canon. He’d amassed it all at school and when he was a very young man, and there it stayed, undisturbed. To the best of my knowledge, since he was twenty-five or so he never added to it, or read anything except the racing news. He backed an odd horse, but infrequently, and never without seeing it: and as a rule he won. He was apt in quotation, simple in his appetites, firm in his religious faith, innocent in his worldly outlook, smoked large Kapp pipes, and was a master of the art of cutting up plug with the keenest of knives. He was a superb razor-sharpener, and a glorious carver of meat and fowl. His prowess at carving was universally allowed, even in the family. He had powerful natural teeth, loved lots of blood-red gravy on his meat, and would go to any lengths to get it. He was very greedy about his food, and had a hatful of amusing stratagems to get the best rashers and the nicest-looking fried eggs out of the hot dishes at breakfast. At the same time he loved to press the best on other people, so that it was a real sorrow to him, a deep and troubling conflict, if there wasn’t enough. He was never sick or bilious, even after a drinking bout. He never had resort to the saline aids of nowadays, and was always ready for bacon and eggs, haddock and porridge.

Uncle John was broadminded, big hearted, and for all his simplicity he had a kind of vulpine cunning which saved him time and again in places where another man must have tripped. He was not rich, but he was more than comfortably off. Having no children, he lived up to all he made, and there can have been few houses in Clontarf as well furnished as his, or with such old and genuine stuff in them. He had a passion for mirrors, I remember, big tall ones, and he put them in all sorts of odd places. Many’s the time I got a shock in the dusk of a winter afternoon to meet a small boy, a white-faced staring fetch of myself, where I least expected. His wife never cared for them either, though he excused his own passion for them by pretending that they were put in for her benefit.

A woman always likes to be seeing herself in the glass, Luke.

I remember him telling me that, with his man to man conspirator’s wink, when I couldn’t have been above four years old. Maybe he believed it. Maybe he only liked mirrors for her sake, or began to collect them, when he married her, in the mistaken belief that he was gratifying her. I don’t know. I’ve wished, how often I’ve wished, that he was here now, so that I could question him. There’s so much I could say to him, so much I understand now. That’s one thing I’ll get by writing this book. I’ll be able to talk to some of the figures of my youth with a man’s understanding, and atone to them, in my own mind anyhow, for the things I didn’t know when they were with me. Uncle John, Martin, Captain Callaghan, Doctor Marcus—what a carouse we’d have together, if I could hop back in time the way these new scientists seem to envisage. It won’t be the same in Elysium. Even if we can re-create your shop, Martin, down to the last split board and fly-blown notice, it won’t be the same.

I knew where Uncle John would walk me. He would walk me to Hegarty’s, on the quay. We wouldn’t go straight to it, any more than he would approach the subject directly. We would do a sort of cast around, just as he would do a cast around in his mind. He began to blow again.

Phooph, do you know, little son, that’s a cold wind. Isn’t it?

Yes, Uncle John.

Sahara or Siberia, I’d have agreed with him.

"Oh, it is so. There’s a nip in that wind. Do you feel the cold of it?"

Yes, Uncle John.

But not too much? He looked down at me in large-eyed concern, as a huge seal might look down at its baby. You’re warm enough?

Oh yes, Uncle John.

Ah well, you’ve a good right, bless you, with the warm muffler and good reefer coat. And the snack inside you, that Ann Dunn gave you. Now there’s a good woman for you. A jewel. Ah-ha.

He sighed, blew again, and paused. All the while my heart was in an agony of love for him, longing that he would come straight to the point, wishing I could tell him he needn’t go through all this circumlocution.

He gave a sudden jovial laugh that rang false.

Do you know, son—seeing you have had your meal like that—I wish—faith, I wish I’d asked her to give me a bite and a sup. Bedad, I’m quite peckish. I made a good breakfast, too. It must be the air: the nip in the air. That’s what it is, son. The nip in the air.

Hadn’t you better have something, Uncle?

My voice was timid. I can hear it this minute. I can feel his huge paw holding mine, I can see the big tanker at the quay beside us, with the patches of red paint on her hull, I can hear the winding of a winch, and the screaming of gulls in the grey empty sky.

Uncle John stopped.

Bedad, son, that’s an idea. That’s a great idea. A nice ham sandwich, and something to wash it down. Not too much, you know: nothing to spoil our dinner. Just a little snack. Will ye look where we are—just around the corner from Hegarty’s. All handy as can be.

We rounded a warehouse, ducking our heads to the wind that rushed down the bare alley. For a second or two I had to stand still, leaning against it. Uncle John grasped his hat.

Faith, that’s terrible boisterous, he said, his moustaches blowing to one side. George’ll be glad he isn’t out in this.

Are we going to see Uncle George?

We are so, when I’ve had my snack.

We turned another corner, and came to Hegarty’s. Uncle John pushed open the stiff door, all varnish and frosted glass. It swung viciously shut behind us, and at once we were sucked up in the familiar warm smell, compounded of beer and whiskey and sawdust, with a prevailing tang I never smelt in any other pub in the world, and I’ve sampled a thousand—the smell of a chandler’s shop, the tang of turpentine that hung about it always, and that I’ve never been able to explain.

There were only four men in the place, beside Leary at the bar. I can see them now, two seafaring men playing dominoes, in jersey, reefer coat, and peaked cap, one with a grey beard, one young and dark: a commercial traveller with a bag and postcards, and a man whose eyes watered and who was pretending to be interested in the postcards and the low-toned monologue which went with them.

Uncle John gave them all a hearty good morning, to which they responded with no great enthusiasm. He then spoke almost severely to Leary, as if the barman were tempting him.

Now, mind you, it’s only to be a snack. And the one glass only, not a sup beyond. We have to go and see the boy’s uncle, and mustn’t spoil our meal.

Leary nodded, poured my uncle half a glass of John Jameson, and went away for a moment. Uncle John tossed the whiskey off at a gulp. Leary came back with two ham sandwiches, picked up the glass, and poured in another dram. Uncle John took sandwiches and dram, and moved to a table next the commercial traveller. As if profiting by the diversion, the man with the watery eyes got up swiftly and went out.

Uncle John looked at the sandwiches meditatively, picked one up, made to bite it, then appeared to change his mind, and hurriedly drank his whiskey. Leary did not move. Uncle John sat quite still for a few seconds. Then he addressed himself to the traveller.

A cold morning, sir.

The traveller grinned weakly. He had very few front teeth. No one’ll contradict ye there, he said.

Ah, said my uncle. That’s what I like about you gentlemen of the road. You’re broadminded. You’re broadminded. There’s nothing like travel for broadening a man’s mind. A man stays in one place all his life, sitting on his arse, and you come and make a proposition to him—no matter what: you may just say, It’s a fine day, or, That’s a pretty woman. You may say the sky is blue, or the mustard wants mixing—God knows, any little thing, for civility’s sake: and, likely as not, he’ll contradict ye. But a man like yourself, that goes around and meets all manner of people, is ready to exchange civilities, and meet a person half way. Am I right?

While my uncle was speaking, Leary came out from behind the bar with a duster, and flicked one of the tables. Reaching our table, he picked up my uncle’s glass, and took it away with him. My uncle never batted an eyelid. He made no sign, either, when Leary came back and set it once more before him, with the same golden dose.

The traveller had at first seemed a little disconcerted. Then he rallied.

Oh, bedad, he said, ye meet all sorts.

"Very true. Very true. You do. All sorts. I can endorse that, for I meet so many myself. My calling, sir, takes me around the country at frequent intervals. I meet all sorts. Next to a doctor, and a priest—and, of course, yourself, sir—an auctioneer sees deepest into the secrets of the human heart. Now, said my uncle, leaning forward and waving a finger up and down, that may surprise ye?"

No, no, said the traveller. His gaze, following my uncle’s finger, came to rest, fascinated. I felt sure I knew what he was looking at, for I’d often looked at it myself: the big thumb-stall Uncle John wore always on the thumb of his left hand. When I first noticed it, I thought he’d cut his thumb, and asked him, but got an evasive reply. Next time I saw him, he still had it, though there’d been time for the worst of cuts to heal. I always looked after that, and he always wore it. After much speculation, I was content to leave it a mystery, part of the glorious personality of my Uncle John.

The occasions, said my uncle, raising his glass—may it be to your good health, sir. Will you join me? You will? Grand. I’d have asked you before, only I didn’t see this rascal here had filled my glass. Leary—one for the gentleman, and another for me. The occasions on which an auctioneer sees his fellow creatures are such as to shed a ray of light upon their inmost hearts. Have you watched the play of passion over the faces at an auction? Greed, concupiscence, avarice, running from face to face like wind in a field of wheat? Have you seen the shocking incidence of grief, frustration, hate, on the face of the baffled bidder? You have not, God help you—and how should you? Only the auctioneer on his dais sees that. Again, do you penetrate into houses in times of bereavement? When the deceased—maybe he was of your own calling, sir—when the deceased has not only left no money, but has left a second establishment, unknown to the first, and the first unknown to the second, and both women appear as claimants to the proceeds of the same enforced sale? Ah, sir, I tell you—here, Leary. The gentleman would like another, and I must keep him company. Oh, but you must, sir. I positively insist. I won’t take no for an answer . . .

Leary came, but slowly. I knew what he was thinking. Sure enough, he made a sign to Uncle John, and nodded towards me. But Uncle John, on the full tide of munificence and speech, would not see him. After a marked hesitation, Leary took the glasses away, and came back. The traveller began to talk. Uncle John’s whiskey loosed his tongue, and he started to interrupt, telling Uncle John of the dramas he, too, had seen. Uncle John didn’t like being interrupted. He raised his hand to check the traveller, but the traveller did not heed it, and Uncle John presently forgot what he was going to say.

I became sleepy, and stopped listening. The voices roared and ebbed, ebbed and roared. The traveller began a story about a woman, and presently I realised that Uncle John was stopping him, with reproofs on my account.

Then we were all on our feet. Uncle John went over to the bar. He had the traveller by the arm, and was pressing him to have another drink. The traveller didn’t want it. Leary joined in, and the argument became a quarrel. How they got there I don’t know, but the next thing I noticed, they were talking about Ireland.

It’d be a damn sight better for Ireland, said Uncle John clearly, if she’d stop talking about herself and thinking about herself. No man or woman is ever the better of always standing on their dignity and thinking about themselves. And it’s the same thing with a country.

Suddenly he stooped, picked me up, and sat me on the counter.

Ah, little son. Sure we don’t want to talk politics, do we?

Bedad, agreed the traveller, you’re right there. Well—I must be off.

Be off, then, said Uncle John, and let out a roar of laughter. The traveller looked surprised, but rallied as before with his weak grin, and disappeared. Uncle John wiped his eyes and his moustache.

Oh, begod, he said. That’s a queer fella, now.

Leary and Uncle John and I all looked at one another. Leary jerked his head at me.

I thought you were going to take the young lad to see your brother.

I was, Uncle John said composedly. But sure, it’s too late now before dinner. What do you say, little son? Shall we have dinner first, and go and see Uncle George after?

Anything you like, Uncle John.

That’s my good boy. He lifted me down. Ah, I declare, now, you’re a grand boy to take out. A real treat. Not like some, that are always nagging at ye and exacting ye. He turned to Leary. I’m saying, Leary, he’s a good boy to take out. A nice quiet boy.

Leary gave me an approving nod. Uncle John sat down at the table again.

What have you, Leary?

Liver and bacon. It’ll not be ready yet.

Not ready yet! Uncle John frowned. That’s bad, Leary. That’s bad. What’s the hour? *

It wants five minutes of one. Sure it’s never ready till one or a quarter past.

Uncle John considered this with the same worried look on his face. It was in little ways like that you could tell when he’d had a drop. The sort of fluent, bombastic talk that would sound drunk in another man was simply Uncle John’s public manner, his way with men he didn’t know. The sign of liquor on my Uncle John was just those sudden small punctiliousnesses he’d discover. Leary regarded him, with complete understanding. He knew, and he knew that I knew. If he had shown the slightest sign of complicity, if he had grinned or winked at me behind my uncle’s back, I would have wished him dead, and wished to die of shame myself. But not by a muscle of his face did he betray us. It’s there, among simple people, among the uneducated and the poor, that you’ll find perfect consideration and tact—in certain human situations, that is, situations they can understand.

Uncle couldn’t make up his mind. He knew some decision was called for, but he couldn’t focus it. Leary helped him.

Will I go and ask Bridgie how long it’ll be?

Uncle John’s face cleared. Relief shone on it like sweat.

Aye, do, Leary. There’s a good man.

Leary went. Uncle John filled in the interval by looking straight in front of him and humming, Yes, let me like a soldier fall. When he came to the high G, his voice cracked and sputtered. He cleared his throat self-consciously, and repeated the phrase, making the same cracked noise on purpose, as if he’d intended it the first time.

Leary came back.

Bridgie says it won’t be above ten minutes.

Ten minutes. Uncle John turned to me. Will that do us, Luke? Can you manage that?

Yes, Uncle.

That’s good. Two portions, Leary, then. By the way— you like it, Luke? You can eat liver and bacon?

I love it, Uncle.

"You’re sure, now. Don’t be rash. Take your time and be sure. We don’t want——"

He broke off, as I blushed at the painful memory.

No, truly, Uncle. Ann Dunn gives it to me, sometimes. For a treat.

I wish I could convey to you the joy and pleasure that beamed from my uncle’s face as those words reached him. The happy combination of circumstances was almost too much. He nearly wept with delight.

There’s potatoes in their jackets, and mashed turnips, supplemented Leary.

Do you like turnips, Luke?

Yes, Uncle. Very much.

Bedad, then, we’re in luck. He rubbed his hands. We’re in luck. I think, you know, Leary, we did as well to wait, and go to see the boy’s uncle afterwards. It’s treacherous weather to be traipsing the quays on an empty stomach. We’ll do better in an hour’s time, with the weight of food inside us.

Leary nodded, moved behind the bar, and began to polish it with a dirty rag. He was a man of indeterminate age—anything from twenty-seven to forty-five. I suppose, if I had to guess, I’d put him in the late thirties. I can see him very clearly at this minute, pale, blue-shaven, with long jaws, a leathery face, and one eye that had something odd about it, neither a cast nor a blindness, but a lack of expression you only noticed by realising that the other eye was brighter. He was in his shirt sleeves, despite the cold weather—I never saw him any other way—and a blue tattooed anchor showed dimly through the jungle of hair on his forearm.

Uncle John began to go through his pockets, whistling softly to himself. I don’t know what he was looking for, and I doubt if he did himself, for he never found it, and didn’t seem to mind. A wild gust of wind hit the front of the pub. A second came, with a spatter on the frosted glass. Leary looked up.

That’s the rain, he said.

Rain? Uncle John heaved himself round, and gazed affronted at the window.

Aye. I thought it was coming. I felt it in me foot.

There’s small company here today, Leary, Uncle said irrelevantly. You’ll be ruined at this rate.

They’ll be along, Leary said.

You’re often full for dinner. How will you do, with all your nice liver and bacon spoiling on you?

It won’t spoil, Leary said. Sure, we don’t have it ready till a quarter after one.

I would have wagered, Leary—I’m not a betting man— but I would have wagered you’re full before the hour.

One day we are, the next day we aren’t. Ye must be thinking of Nolan’s. We’re depending on the boats. We don’t work to fixed hours here, like in the city. All the same, he went on quickly, seeing a dignified expression coming over my uncle’s face, we often do get a rush about twenty after one.

He withdrew, leaving Uncle John and me together. There was a silence. Uncle John shut his eyes, and frowned. He lowered his head for a moment, then raised it.

"‘Time hath, my lord, a wallet at his back

Wherein he puts alms for oblivion,

A great sized monster of ingratitudes:’"

he began, and stopped, staring at the wall. He cleared his throat.

Listen to this, Luke. It’ll do ye good.

He shut his eyes again, and started in a clear, strong voice, ringing an echo from the bottles on the shelves. The door opened behind us, and a gust of air rushed in. Uncle took no notice.

’Perseverance, dear my lord,’ he chanted, ’Keeps honour bright.’ (Don’t forget that, Luke.) ‘To have done, is to hang Quite out of fashion, like a rusty mail, in monumental mockery.’ (When I was learning that, I didn’t observe it carefully, and read out ‘like a rusty nail’. Glory, how I caught it!)

There was a quiet sound behind us of the door closing again. Evidently the customer had been daunted. Uncle’s voice rose in triumph.

"‘For emulation hath a thousand sons

That come by even pressure: if you give way—’"

he waved a jovial hand to Leary, who came in again—

                "‘if you give way, Leary,

Or budge aside from the direct forthright,

Like to an entered tide they all rush by

And leave you hindmost.

Or, like a gallant horse fallen in first rank,

Lie there for pavement to the abject rear’—

—take notice of that, you two: let that soak into you.

‘Lie there for pavement to the abject rear.—’"

The door behind was opened again timidly. Leary looked up, and, in answer to an obvious enquiry, gave a reassuring nod. The newcomer, a little, elderly man with his collar up, crept in and sat at a table. Uncle acknowledged his entry with a wave of the hand, but did not stop.

                "‘Then what they do in present

Though less than yours, in past, must o’ertop yours.

For time is like a fashionable host——’"

he made a flourish towards Leary, who was coming to lay knives and forks for us—

"‘That lightly shakes his parting guest by the hand,

And with his arms outstretched, as he would fly,

Grasps in the comer.’"

He made to embrace Leary, who sidestepped skilfully.

The newcomer, reassured, gave a diffident smile. He could understand this.

‘Welcome ever smiles …’

Uncle stopped, and a blank look came over his face. He was forgetting what came next. At once his hand went to his hip pocket. He pulled out his cheque book, and mechanically fingered the used stubs. Suddenly his face lightened, and he went on in a louder voice.

                "‘Welcome ever smiles,

And farewell goes out sighing. O, let not virtue seek

Remuneration for the thing it was:

For beauty, wit,

High birth, vigour of bone, desert in service,

Love, friendship, charity, are subjects all

To envious and calumniating time.’"

The street door opened again, and he turned to it with a flourish.

"‘One touch of nature makes the whole world kin.’ (Good morning, gentlemen. Come in.)

‘One touch of nature makes the whole world kin.

That all, with one consent, praise new-born gauds,

Though they are made and moulded of things past,

And give to dust that is a little gilt

More laud than gilt o’er-dusted.’"

I wished terribly that he would stop, even though the new arrivals did not seem put out. They appeared to find it quite natural that a Shakespearian speech should be going on in a quayside bar at one o’clock. Indeed, looking back on it, I don’t know that I should be surprised myself. But I was ultrasensitive, as a child is. I knew my uncle was vulnerable, that he’d had a drop too much: and I was terrified they would laugh at him. I was afraid, too, lest he’d forget again. As I told you, I never saw him stumped in all the years I knew him. He’d go blank sometimes—again, only when he’d had too much—but the cheque book was an infallible talisman. What in heaven’s name it did to him, I can’t imagine. He’d often take it out when he was reciting from memory. Sometimes he’d have it in his hand all through, fingering the stubs one after another, turning them over, even scrutinising them earnestly in some calm or philosophic passage. They were an unfailing aid to memory for him, God knows how.

The speech ended, and Uncle began to comment on it, and explain to the