John alighted from the train and pulled his two big suitcases onto the platform behind him. He picked them up and walked out through the barrier and onto the street. The station opened onto a square with a large monument in the middle. John put down his bags and was looking at the figure on top of the monument when a voice beside him said: "Is it John Brennan?"
"It is."
"We heard you were coming by train and I thought I’d bring you to your ‘digs’. Paddy Conroy, I’m from the branch."
They each took a case and put them into the boot of Paddy’s car.
John had been in the bank five years and this was his first posting outside Dublin. In fact he had never lived outside Dublin before. For his two previous postings he had lived at home with his mother. This suited both of them; John was an only child and his father had left his mother when he was a small boy.
At school John was bright but when it came to leaving there was nothing in particular he wanted to do. Under pressure from his mother he applied for the bank. The only thing that he ever enthused about was model railways, but even that waned when he got older. He spent most of his spare time watching football and drinking in the bar of the club where some of his friends played.
At the bank he was quietly efficient and got on well with everybody. He was particularly popular with the girls as he didn’t harass them, and they liked the fact that if he had ambition he didn’t wear it on his sleeve.
"How do you think you’ll like the country?" asked Paddy, "though a county town isn’t exactly country it isn’t Dublin either."
"I don’t know. I’m sure I’ll like it."
Paddy drove by a circuitous route to let John see something of the town. He was reminded of a poem by Donagh MacDonagh he had learned at school:
Dublin made me and no little town
With the country closing in on its streets
………………………
………the teacher, the solicitor and the bank-clerk
In the hotel-bar drinking for ten."
They arrived at the ‘digs’. The three-storied Georgian terrace house opened onto the footpath in a narrow street leading to the Main Street where the bank was.
"Whatever else it is, it’s handy for work" said Paddy, opening the boot and going to the door to press the bell, leaving John to take the cases.
A small lightly built woman in her mid-fifties opened the door. Miss Roddy had been taking lodgers since her mother died nearly twenty years before. She was a neat and tidy person and considered her boarding house a cut above any other in town. The truth is that it probably was, and she prided herself that the bank approved her accommodation. Not that these days they stayed long. As soon as the young bank staff found their feet they usually found somebody who would share a flat.
Paddy introduced John to Miss Roddy and left.
"You can leave one of those cases there and come back for it" she said, as she led the way through the hall and up the stairs.
"No smoking, except in the sitting room and no alcohol or members of the opposite sex in your bedroom" she declaimed before she had reached the half-landing.
"And no noise of any kind after ten o’clock" she added before reaching the top.
"Apart from that there are no rules," she continued, "dinner is at six-thirty. If you haven’t had lunch I’ll give you a cup of tea when you come down."
"I won’t have tea thank you" replied John, and Miss Roddy turned leaving him in a medium-sized bedroom with a single bed, a chest of drawers, a wardrobe and walls covered in the most garish flowery wallpaper.
John shook off his shoes, threw himself on the bed and muttered under his breath "the ould bitch".
He lit a cigarette, and not till he couldn’t find an ashtray for the match did he remember the prohibition. He opened the window and topped the cigarette on the sill. He lay down again on the bed.
He awoke to a knock on the door and Miss Roddy’s voice: "Mr Brennan, there’s somebody here to see you."
"I’ll be down right away."
In the hall was a man much his own age.
"How’ya, I’m Mick Leahy, I work at the bank. Would you like to come out for a jar?"
They went to the hotel. The bar was big enough but dark. John wondered which were the teacher and the solicitor. Mick came back with the drinks.
"This is a terrible feckin’ kip," said Mick.
"The hotel?"
"No, the town."
John soon became used to the routine, and discovered that Miss Roddy wasn’t a bad old skin after all. He was out from work at about five o’clock and as dinner wasn’t until half-past six he got into the habit most evenings of going for a drink with Mick. At first he was very punctual arriving in for dinner, but as time went on he became more casual. Miss Roddy didn’t seem to mind. When he was late, his dinner was left in the oven and he helped himself.
The only relief to the routine was the Wednesday night poker school. Mick was already a member and John was invited to join. The school was six people, John made seven. However it seldom happened that all seven were there on the same night. Apart from John and Mick there was Father Dunne the senior curate, Betty Moran the young widow of a Guard who had died three or four years ago. There were two men of substance: Jack Freyne a publican and Paddy Finch a grocer. The seventh was Brendan Mullin a county councillor.
John looked forward to the cards on a Wednesday night, as much for the company and the banter as for the game itself. He was well received in the group and liked the feeling of being accepted. When the banter started he would sit back and take it all in. Mick was often the one to start it.
"I see the Church is laying down the law again, Father." And before the priest has a chance to open his mouth, "look Father, it’s as simple as this; the whole thing is either about people or power, the Church chose power and they’re losing out now because the people aren’t as gullible as they used to be."
At first John was embarrassed at these salvoes, hut he soon realised that the others weren’t, and anyway Mick didn’t always get away with it. On this occasion the priest without lifting his gaze from his cards came back: "I suppose the bank is there to serve the people."
"No," said Mick "but it doesn’t claim that it is."
"You wouldn’t think that from its ads," replied Father Dunne. And so it went on.
Mick wasn’t the only one to start the banter, and the county councillor, as might be expected, often got it in the neck.
Occasionally things got a bit hot, as when Jack Freyne made a crack about Garda pensions when Betty opened for the limit. Paddy, the quietest one, jumped in: "That’s not fair Jack" and there was an embarrassed silence.
Apart from Mick none of them took a rise out of John. He wished they would but was glad they didn’t. Though quite happy that he was accepted he felt at one remove from the group. He wasn’t sure why, but despite this, the Wednesday nights were very important to him. He could relax at the cards in a way he couldn’t at any other time.
John enjoyed Mick’s company up to a point. He was grateful to him for showing him around and helping him to meet people. They went to dances together at weekends, and though John didn’t enjoy dancing he would dance and ask the girl to have a drink at the bar. He would stay there until she wanted to go back to dance, and stay on drinking until the end or until Mick, wrapped around some girl, would find him out to say he was leaving. Either way John would end up going home on his own.
John was quite content on his own and often went alone to the pictures. He went at least once every week.
One evening at the cinema during the interval he saw Betty Moran a couple of seats to his right in the row in front. She was by herself; they spoke briefly and she invited him home for a cup of coffee after the film.
Betty was six or eight years older than John. He liked her and was glad she was in the card school. Her presence kept a check on Mick’s tongue, which even the presence of Father Dunne did not. She was medium height with straight auburn hair that she kept in a ponytail, making her look younger than her age. It was summer. They walked back to Betty’s flat, which was at the top of an old house on the quay.
"How do you like it here?" she asked.
"Fine, it’s different from Dublin."
"Do you mean better or worse?"
"A bit of both, I think."
They arrived at the door. Betty opened it and led the way through the dark hall picking her way past two or three bicycles and a large pram. John followed her up the stairs, which was covered with worn lino, to the top flat.
They entered a room with two big windows looking out over the harbour and the bay beyond. John stood looking at the view. Betty called from the kitchen "tea or coffee?"
"Tea please."
The sea was calm and the sun was about to set behind a fence of crimson cloud. John was spellbound. An unreal feeling still lingering from the fantasy of the cinema was dispelled by the beauty of the sunset.
Betty arrived with the tea and biscuits, pulled the curtains and turned on some lights. The flat was comfortable and well kept. John was conscious of it being Betty’s home. It was very different from the sitting room at the ‘digs’.
The doorbell rang. Betty went to answer it. John could hear Mick’s voice coming up the stairs.
"What’s he doing here?"
"I invited him."
Mick who wasn’t entirely sober looked at John, and in an offhand way said
"How’ya."
"Hello Mick."
"Will you have some tea?" Betty asked.
"Have you no coffee?"
Betty went to the kitchen to get the coffee. Mick scrutinised himself in the mirror over the fireplace. He stood up close to the glass and pulled down each lower eyelid in turn as if to confirm his condition.
"You know they’re cutting back on staff in the office," he said, without turning.
"I didn’t."
"Now that the women can work that feckin’ new computer one of us will have to go."
"When did you hear this?"
"Conroy told me this morning."
Betty came back with the coffee.
"What’s that?" she asked.
"One of us will have to go," said John.
"Well don’t you go, I invited you."
There was an embarrassed silence, which Mick ended.
"So that’s the way it is," he said, standing with his back to the fireplace. I get the picture. I’m sorry for interrupting," he said sarcastically.
"You’re not interrupting anything," said John.
Betty handed Mick the coffee, which he put straight down on the mantelpiece, spilling half it.
"Well whether I’m interrupting anything or not," he said, "I know when I’m not wanted."
He made for the door, banging it behind him and stumbled down the stairs. When they finally heard the hall-door slam John explained the misunderstanding to Betty, who laughed at the fortuitous way she had finally got her message over to Mick.
"I’m fed up with him calling late at night the worse for wear and I’ve been wanting to tell him for a long time."
John didn’t relish meeting Mick in the office in the morning but for the moment he felt something he hadn’t felt before. He was in a home for the first time since he had come to the town, and the incident with Mick confirmed that he was there on his own account.
The next morning in work Mick’s greeting to John was: "Well, you’re the cute ‘hoor’. I didn’t know that’s the way it was."
"It isn’t. I met her at the cinema and she asked me back for a cup of coffee."
"Oh work ahead, it’s all right with me."
John took Mick at his word since he enjoyed Betty’s company. They started to see each other more often. She was strong and warm. They talked easily and were even at ease sharing long silences together. Once a week they went to a film and at least one other evening they went for a walk or watched television. More and more of John’s dinners were shrivelling up in Miss Roddy’s oven.
One evening at Betty’s watching television but not seeing it, John began to feel that if ever he wanted to be with a woman it was Betty, but it suddenly hit him that he didn’t. He wanted the convenience, the company, the companionship but not the woman. He had a feeling of panic. His breathing became shallow. He stood up suddenly and said: "I’d better go."
"It’s early." Betty was surprised.
"I’m tired. I’d like an early night," he lied.
When he got out onto the street he breathed more freely. He didn’t go straight home but walked along the quay. By the time he arrived at the ‘digs’ the panic had eased but was still there. He went straight to bed but couldn’t sleep. He tried to read. For the first time since the day he arrived he smoked in his room…at the open window. In the small hours he got to sleep.
Next morning he woke early. He was taut as a bowstring. The only thing he knew for sure was that he could not longer go on seeing Betty, but he felt he couldn’t tell her, as he wasn’t sure that he understood why and would find it hard to explain to her. He took the coward’s way out. Now that the computer was working well in the office, as Mick had said, one of them would have to go, and John knew it would be him – last in first out. Word was around that the changes were imminent so he made excuses to Betty while waiting for word of his transfer to come through.
The following week on the Monday morning Paddy Conroy called John into his office.
"John," said Conroy, "Mick is in with the manager, we’re changing staffing arrangements. Mick has been transferred to Dublin and you’ll be taking over some of his work."
John’s heart sank and he didn’t hear another word that Conroy said.