OLD-AGE PENSIONERS

On Friday evening as I went up the sea road for my evening walk I
heard the row blowing up at the other side of the big ash-tree, near
the jetty. I was sorry for the sergeant, a decent poor man. When a
foreign government imposed a cruel law, providing for the upkeep of
all old people over seventy, it never gave a thought to the policeman
who would have to deal with the consequences. You see, our post office
was the only one within miles. That meant that each week we had to
endure a procession of old-age pensioners from Caheragh, the lonely,
rocky promontory to the west of us, inhabited—so I am told—by a
strange race of people, alleged to be descendants of a Portuguese crew
who were driven ashore there in days gone by. That I couldn’t swear
to; in fact, I never could see trace or tidings of any foreign blood
in Caheragh, but I was never one for contradicting the wisdom of my
ancestors. But government departments have no wisdom, ancestral or any
other kind, so the Caheraghs drew their pensions with us, and the
contact with what we considered civilization being an event in their
lonesome lives, they usually brought their families to help in
drinking them. That was what upset us. To see a foreigner drunk in our
village on what we rightly considered our money was more than some of
us could stand.

So Friday, as I say, was the sergeant’s busy day. He had a young guard
called Coleman to assist him, but Coleman had troubles of his own. He
was a poet, poor fellow, and desperately in love with a publican’s
daughter in Coole. The girl was incapable of making up her mind about
him, though her father wanted her to settle down; he told her all
young men had a tendency to write poetry up to a certain age, and that
even himself had done it a few times until her mother knocked it out
of him. But her view was that poetry, like drink, was a thing you
couldn’t have knocked out of you, and that the holy all of it would be
that Coleman would ruin the business on her. Every week we used to
study the _Coole Times_, looking for another poem, either a heartbroken
‘Lines to D—’, saying that Coleman would never see her more, or a
‘Song’. ‘Song’ always meant they were after making it up. The sergeant
had them all cut out and pasted in an album; he thought young Coleman
was lost in the police.

When I was coming home the row was still on, and I went inside the
wall to have a look. There were two Caheraghs: Mike Mountain and his
son, Patch. Mike was as lean as a rake, a gaunt old man with mad blue
eyes. Patch was an upstanding fellow but drunk to God and the
world. The man who was standing up for the honour of the village was
Flurry Riordan, another old-age pensioner. Flurry, as you’d expect
from a bachelor of that great age, was quarrelsome and scurrilous.
Fifteen years before, when he was sick and thought himself dying, the
only thing troubling his mind was that a brother he had quarrelled
with would profit by his death, and a neighbour had come to his
cottage one morning to find Flurry fast asleep with his will written
in burnt stick on the whitewashed wall over his bed.

The sergeant, a big, powerful man with a pasty face and deep pouches
under his eyes, gave me a nod as I came in.

‘Where’s Guard Coleman from you?’ I asked.

‘Over in Coole with the damsel,’ he replied.

Apparently the row was about a Caheragh boat that had beaten one of
our boats in the previous year’s regatta. You’d think a thing like
that would have been forgotten, but a bachelor of seventy-six has
a long memory for grievances. Sitting on the wall overlooking the
jetty, shadowed by the boughs of the ash, Flurry asked with a sneer,
with such wonderful sailors in Caheragh wasn’t it a marvel that they
couldn’t sail past the Head—an unmistakable reference to the
supposed Portuguese origin of the clan. Patch replied that whatever
the Caheragh people sailed it wasn’t bum-boats, meaning, I suppose,
the pleasure boat in which Flurry took summer visitors about the bay.

‘What sailors were there ever in Caheragh?’ snarled Flurry. ‘If they
had men against them instead of who they had they wouldn’t get off so
easy.’

‘Begor, ’tis a pity you weren’t rowing yourself, Flurry,’ said the
sergeant gravely. ‘I’d say you could still show them a few
things.’

‘Ten years ago I might,’ said Flurry bitterly, because the sergeant
had touched on another very sore subject; his being dropped from the
regatta crews, a thing he put down entirely to the brother’s
intrigues.

‘Why then, indeed,’ said the sergeant, ‘I’d back you still against a
man half your age. Why don’t you and Patch have a race now and settle
it?’

‘I’ll race him,’ shouted Patch with the greatest enthusiasm, rushing
for his own boat. ‘I’ll show him.’

‘My boat is being mended,’ said Flurry shortly.

‘You could borrow Sullivan’s,’ said the sergeant.

Flurry only looked at the ground and spat. Either he wasn’t feeling
energetic or the responsibility was too much for him. It would darken
his last days to be beaten by a Caheragh. Patch sat in his
shirt-sleeves in the boat, resting his reeling head on his oars. For a
few minutes it looked as if he was out for the evening. Then he
suddenly raised his face to the sky and let out the wild Caheragh
war-whoop, which sounded like all the seagulls in Ireland practising
unison-shrieking. The effect on Flurry was magical. At that insulting
sound he leaped from the wall with an oath, pulled off his coat, and
rushed to the slip to another boat. The sergeant, clumsy and
heavy-footed, followed, and the pair of them sculled away to where
Sullivan’s boat was moored. Patch followed them with his eyes.

‘What’s wrong with you, you old coward?’ he yelled. ‘Row your own
boat, you old sod, you!’

‘Never mind,’ said Mike Mountain from the top of the slip. ‘You’ll
beat him, boat or no boat. ... He’ll beat him, ladies and gentlemen,’ he
said confidently to the little crowd that had gathered. ‘Ah, Jase,
he’s a great man in a boat.’

‘I’m a good man on a long course,’ Patch shouted modestly, his eyes
searching each of us in turn. ‘I’m slow getting into my stroke.’

‘At his age I was the same,’ confided his father. ‘A great bleddy man
in a boat. Of course, I can’t do it now—eighty-one; drawing on for
it. I haven’t the same energy.’

‘Are you ready, you old coward?’ shrieked Patch to Flurry who was
fumbling savagely in the bottom of Sullivan’s boat for the rowlocks.

‘Shut up, you foreign importation!’ snarled Flurry.

He found the rowlocks and pulled the boat round in a couple of neat
strokes; then hung on his oars till the sergeant got out. For
seventy-six he was still a lively man.

‘Ye know the race now?’ said the sergeant. ‘To the island and back.’

‘Round the island, sergeant,’ said Mike Mountain plaintively. ‘Patch
is like me; he’s slow to start.’

‘Very good, very good,’ said the sergeant. ‘Round the island it is,
Flurry. Are ye ready now, both of ye?’

‘Ready,’ grunted Flurry.

‘Yahee!’ shrieked Patch again, brandishing an oar over his head like a
drumstick.

‘Mind yourself now, Patch!’ said the sergeant who seemed to be torn
between his duty as an officer of the peace and his duty as
umpire. ‘Go!—ye whoors,’ he added under his breath so that only a
few of us heard him.

They did their best. It is hard enough for a man with a drop in to go
straight even when he’s facing his object, but it is too much
altogether to expect him to do it backwards. Flurry made for the _Red
Devil_, the doctor’s sailing boat, and Patch, who seemed to be
fascinated by the very appearance of Flurry, made for him, and the two
of them got there almost simultaneously. At one moment it looked as if
it would be a case of drowning, at the next of manslaughter. There was
a splash, a thud, and a shout, and I saw Flurry raise his oar as if to
lay out Patch. But the presence of the sergeant probably made him
self-conscious, for instead he used it to push off Patch’s boat.

‘God Almighty!’ cried Mike Mountain with an air of desperation, ‘did
ye ever see such a pair of misfortunate bosthoons? Round the island,
God blast ye!’

But Patch, who seemed to have an absolute fixation on Flurry,
interpreted this as a command to go round him, and, seeing that Flurry
wasn’t at all sure what direction he was going in, this wasn’t as easy
as it looked. He put up one really grand spurt, and had just
established himself successfully across Flurry’s bow when it hit him
and sent him spinning like a top, knocking one oar clean out of his
hand. Sullivan’s old boat was no good for racing, but it was grand for
anything in the nature of tank warfare, and as Flurry had by this time
got into his stroke, it would have taken an Atlantic liner to stop
him. Patch screamed with rage, and then managed to retrieve his oar
and follow. The shock seemed to have given him new energy.

Only gradually was the sergeant’s strategy beginning to reveal itself
to me. The problem was to get the Caheraghs out of the village without
a fight, and Flurry and Patch were spoiling for one. Anything that
would exhaust the pair of them would make his job easier. It is not a
method recommended in Police Regulations, but it has the distinct
advantage of leaving no unseemly aftermath of summonses and
cross-summonses which, if neglected, may in time turn into a regular
vendetta. As a spectacle it really wasn’t much. Darkness had breathed
on the mirror of the water. A bonfire on the island set a pendulum
reflection swinging lazily to and fro, darkening the bay at either
side of it. There was a milky light over the hill of Croghan; the moon
was rising.

The sergeant came up to me with his hand over his mouth and his big
head a little on one side, a way he had of indicating to the world
that he was speaking aside.

‘I see by the paper how they’re after making it up again,’ he
whispered anxiously. ‘Isn’t she a changeable little divil?’

It took me a moment or two to realize that he was referring to Coleman
and the publican’s daughter; I always forget that he looks on me as a
fellow-artist of Coleman’s.

‘Poets prefer them like that,’ I said.

‘Is that so?’ he exclaimed in surprise. ‘Well, everyone to his own
taste.’ Then he scanned the bay thoughtfully and started
suddenly. ‘Who the hell is that?’ he asked.

Into the pillar of smoky light from the bonfire a boat had come, and
it took us a little while to identify it. It was Patch’s, and there
was Patch himself pulling leisurely to shore. He had given up the
impossible task of going round Flurry. Some of the crowd began to
shout derisively at him but he ignored them. Then Mike Mountain took
off his bowler hat and addressed us in heart-broken tones.

‘Stone him!’ he besought us. ‘For Christ’s sake, ladies and gentlemen,
stone him! He’s no son of mine, only a walking mockery of man.’

He began to dance on the edge of the slip and shout insults at Patch
who had slowed up and showed no inclination to meet him. 

‘What the hell do you mean by it?’ shouted Mike. ‘You said you’d race
the man and you didn’t. You shamed me before everyone. What sort of
misfortunate old furniture are you?’

‘But he fouled me,’ Patch yelled indignantly. ‘He fouled me twice.’

‘He couldn’t foul what was foul before,’ said his father. ‘I’m
eighty-one, but I’m a better man than you. By God, I am.’

A few moments later Flurry’s boat hove into view.

‘Mike Mountain,’ he shouted over his shoulder in a sobbing voice,
‘have you any grandsons you’d send out against me now? Where are the
great Caheragh sailors now, I’d like to know?’

‘Here’s one of them,’ roared Mike, tearing at the lapels of his
coat. ‘Here’s a sailor if you want one. I’m only a feeble old man, but
I’m a better man in a boat than either of ye. Will you race me,
Flurry? Will you race me now, I say?’

‘I’ll race you to hell and back,’ panted Flurry contemptuously.

Mike excitedly peeled off his coat and tossed it to me. ‘Then he took
off his vest and hurled it at the sergeant. Finally he opened his
braces, and, grabbing his bowler hat, he made a flying leap into his
own boat and tried to seize the oars from Patch.

‘’Tisn’t fair,’ shouted Patch, wrestling with him. ‘He fouled me
twice.’

‘Gimme them oars and less of your talk,’ snarled his father.

‘I don’t care,’ screamed Patch. ‘I’ll leave no man lower my spirit.’

‘Get out of that boat or I’ll have to deal with you officially,’ said
the sergeant sternly. ‘Flurry,’ he added, ‘wouldn’t you take a rest?’

‘Is it to beat a Caheragh?’ snarled Flurry viciously as he brought
Sullivan’s boat round again.

Again the sergeant gave the word and the two boats set off. This time
there were no mistakes. The two old men were rowing magnificently, but
it was almost impossible to see what happened then. A party of small
boys jumped into another boat and set out after them.

‘A pity we can’t see it,’ I said to the sergeant.

‘It might be as well,’ he grunted gloomily. ‘The less witnesses the
better. The end of it will be a coroner’s inquest, and I’ll lose my
bleddy job.’

Beneath us on the slip, Patch, leaning against the slimy wall, seemed
to have fallen asleep. The sergeant looked down at him greedily.

‘And ’tis only dawning on me that the whole bleddy lot of them ought
to be in the lock-up,’ he muttered.

‘Sergeant,’ I said, ‘you ought to be in the diplomatic service.’

He brought his right hand up to shield his mouth, and with his left
elbow he gave me an agonizing dig in the ribs that nearly knocked me.

‘Whisht, you divil you! Whisht, whisht, whisht!’ he said.

The pendulum of firelight, growing a deeper red, swayed with the
gentle motion of an old clock, and from the bay we could hear the
excited voices of the boatful of boys, cheering on the two old men.

‘’Tis Mike,’ said someone, staring out into the darkness.

‘’Tisn’t,’ said a child’s voice. ‘’Tis Flurry. I sees his blue smock.’

It was Flurry. We were all a little disappointed. I will say for our
people that whatever quarrel they may have with the Portuguese, in
sport they have a really international outlook. When old Mike pulled
in a few moments later he got a rousing cheer. The first to
congratulate him was Flurry.

‘Mike,’ he shouted as he tied up Sullivan’s boat, ‘you’re a better man
than your son.’

‘You fouled me,’ shouted Patch.

In response to the cheer Mike rose in the rocking boat. He stood in
the bow and then, recollecting his manners, took off his hat. As he
removed his hand from his trousers, they fell about his scraggy knees,
but he failed to perceive that.

‘Ladies and gentlemen,’ he said pantingly, ‘’twasn’t a bad race. An
old man didn’t wet the blade of an oar these twelve months, ’twasn’t a
bad race at all.’

‘Begod, Mike,’ said Flurry, holding out his hand from the slip, ‘you
were a good man in your day.’

‘I was, Flurry,’ said Mike, taking his hand and staring up
affectionately at him. ‘I was a powerful man in my day, my old friend,
and you were a powerful man yourself.’

It was obvious that there was going to be no fight. The crowd began
to disperse in an outburst of chatter and laughter. Mike turned to us
again, but only the sergeant and myself were listening to him. His
voice had lost its carrying power.

‘Ladies and gentlemen,’ he cried, ‘for an old man that saw such hard
days, ’tis no small thing. If ye knew what me and my like endured ye’d
say the same. Ye never knew them, and with the help of the Almighty
God ye never will. Cruel times they were, but they’re all
forgotten. No one remembers them, no one tells ye, the troubles of the
poor man in the days gone by. Many’s the wet day I rowed from dawn to
dark, ladies and gentlemen; many’s the bitter winter night I spent,
ditching and draining, dragging down the sharp stones for my little
cabin by starlight and moonlight. If ye knew it all, ye’d say I was a
great man. But ’tis all forgotten, all, all, forgotten!’

Old Mike’s voice had risen into a wail of the utmost poignancy. The
excitement and applause had worked him up, and all the past was rising
in him as in a dying man. But there was no one to hear him. The crowd
drifted away up the road. Patch tossed the old man’s clothes into the
boat, and, sober enough now, stepped in and pushed off in silence, but
his father still stood in the bow, his bowler hat in his hand, his
white shirt flapping about his naked legs.

We watched him till he was out of sight, but even then I could hear
his voice bursting out in sharp cries of self-pity like a voice from
the dead. All the loneliness of the world was in it. A flashlight glow
outlined a crest of rock at the left-hand side of the bay, and the
moonlight, stealing through a barrier of cloud, let a window of
brightness into the burnished water. The peace was safe for another
week. I handed the sergeant a cigarette and he fell into step beside
me.

‘He’s in the wrong job altogether,’ he whispered, and again I had to
pull myself together to realize the way his mind had gone on, working
quietly along its own lines. ‘’Tis in Dublin he ought to be. There’s
nothing for a fellow like that in our old job. Sure, you can see for
yourself.’


(1951)
FP: Travellers Samples; 1951
Source: The Best of Frank O’Connor; 2009