storytime

The Dinner

In the spring of that year I was employed in clerical work at O�Donough�s depot, just a half mile from the railways that stretched through the hills into the country. The depot was peculiarly musky for such a lofty and open warehouse. Smells of country men and lamb droppings deposited from their dirty boots were forever accumulated in the high, dark rafters. The odors would settle in the fabric of my clothes and follow me throughout the city until wash day. Few of my days I had alone in the office, as often one of the shop-boys would fail to appear without warning. I had been saving every pence during the day towards university, and absorbed most of my nights studying in the flat I�d rented in the city.

A stream of faces just off the train from Millin, or Lough Modan, or Darrowmere, was constantly through O�Donough�s in the day. Their stock were in the back cars, and their pudgy and whiskered faces were traced with soot from the smokestack. They bore strongly the smell of animals. They handed me their lists which were more or less the same: feed, knives, casks of nails and rolls of wire. The most adventurous of them might get a set of polished buckles. I packed wagons while they herded hundreds of lambs into bitter old O�Donough�s pens. The proud among them would bid me look at their labor, jammed in till nearly bursting the wire and post fences, animals pushed haunch to haunch, most of them perfectly identical, trying to force out a little space before they were sold to the butchers and the meat packers.

         Laird was a young man of about my age, who�d come in on the trains with his father a number of times. He�d befriended me the summer of the prior year. I�d tried to shut up the office door when he came around, but consoled myself that a man can only be allowed so much solace. This day Laird had come to the depot alone. His talk was placid, but distracting for his laughter. He was talking that his father had taken him as a full hand this year, and entrusted him with things like the trip to O�Donough�s, where he was to buy his own knife and a new pair of boots. Thinking me his closest of partners in the city he went on about having some kind of celebration of his good fortune; he felt he should have a great deal more loafing time away from the eyes of his elder, and sought me as his envoy to the city at large. I told him it was down Clay Alley where the girls and women wore their skirts high and were engaged for the company of a man.
          �Come on, then. The day�s nearly out for you, get your hat and we�ll go down to the Alley to have a go at the ladies for sport,� he insisted.
          �I�ve to go at my French this evening.�
          �You still poking at that book by that Frenchman? The one who had syphilis? Come on, don�t give me that.�

         I sensed a much sharper barb in wait between the layers, and I assented out of a desire for revelry. Bypassing Mister O�Donough we slid into the streets when the sun was going down, setting the roofs and the nearby sky ablaze with celestial fury. The streets through the old town were pressed with a mass of people as the day let out. Women in dark dresses led small children, and masses of men held tightly together trundled in and out of the taverns. Turning down Clay Alley Laird and I were faced with the spectacle of many men passing through the women who lined the buildings full of rooms. The purveyors of goods were as diverse as could be; some attired as sweepers and rat catchers, many gave the impression of men of position, with brushed hats in suits cleaned with coal-oil. Laird stared at many a woman, probably much older than he, with color painted upon their cheeks. A few called out to him but he hadn�t the nerve to answer them. I admit I too issued a few stares, but in such a way that I was not hailed by them. Laird said that we should retire from the street, saying he wanted to have a drink. He drank, I did not.
          He said, �You ought come back with me and supper with mine. My old man will recognize you.�
          �Supper, eh?�
          �Yeah, at my family. You�ll meet my sister. She�s a bonnie one.�
          By surprise, he had made himself personable to me in the past hour, and the uncomfortable passage of the alley had been shared. My flat across the city felt suddenly much farther away and the walk more wearisome. What�s more there was a smile upon his face, behind the thin grime. I presumed it was the drink giving him the kind of merriment that men such as him enjoyed. I assented, and we were bound for the station to catch a train to take us wherever it was he lived. The train out was full of men, but despite the air of the fields coming in through the windows it still smelled of beasts. The car rattled along until Laird informed me that the stop was near, and he pushed our way towards the vestibule. The train crawled to a halt in front of a grey, wood-planked station without a platform. We discharged along with a number of others. The sun had disappeared, but the lane still bore the offensive heat of the day. The distant houses had lights in the windows, and figures playing shadows against the curtain. He pointed out his, and led me up the lane.
          I followed Laird through the door and we were immediately greeted by a bright young girl in a dress made of a kind of fabric sold at O�Donough�s. She was smiling and looked at Laird as though for some sign, and then looked at me with a broad smile stretched across her face. This was his sister, I was told. Introductions were made, and the girl made a wobbling and deep curtsy, as though she were meeting a prince or member of a fanciful royalty. Her brother left us and departed towards the back parts of the house; I thought I detected that same smile upon his face which he�d worn in the tavern. The girl offered to take my hat and hang it up, so I gave it to her. As she moved around, I caught a strange fragrance around her, like perfume, but it did not make me think of her as more desirable. The lamps were burning brightly in the house and I thought I heard the sound of someone at work in the kitchen.
          �The meal will be on soon. Father�s down in the basement. We have a pelting operation,�
          �Oh, I see.�
          She smiled throughout and proceeded to show me what a pelting operation was. She led me through the house by my hand and past the kitchen, where there was a woman at work by the stove. I presumed her mother. She had just put her finger to something hot and had it in her mouth, but smiled still at me. Her dress was cut the same as her daughter�s. Behind the house there were extensive pens for animals, small ones with white fur. I recognized them as foxes. There was the smell of the warehouse where I worked, but this �pelting operation� somehow made the scent I was used to seem filtered and minimal compared to its impact in person. The girl was describing just what the pens and other bits of scattered impedimenta were used for, at times point and touching my arm to be sure of my attention. I nodded, and listened to some of it. I was distracted to see a few stamped metal instruments which I remembered from my work; I hadn�t known at all what they were used for.
          Satisfied that I knew the nature of the business of which Laird was now to be a partner, the girl grasped me by my elbow and led me to show me the barn. There was a bright light coming from a lantern that cast a dim glow on her face. She prattled about the horses they had and something about how they were treated. Looking at her it occurred to me that by her features she would never be mistaken for the kind of girl found in Clay Alley. But in her manner there was something eager that pressed me. She put her hand on my shoulder to walk me back to the house, and it was not a stroll but I felt as though she were guiding me like an animal being put in a pen. Feeling her hand upon me I recalled the way I�d seen the girls in Clay Alley lead men upstairs, and I felt that I had struck upon the reason for my sudden invitation. I silently cursed Laird�s name, and wished to recoil where his sister touched me.

Touch the magic word for cowardice.

Tublekane.

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