Tarry Flynn by Patrick Kavanagh

enemy. Considering that he was nearly thirty he would have preferred not being asked. He told the man he was twenty-five. The monk began to chastise Tarry for his outlook and was telling him that he was heading for the downward path when Charlie came by on a bicycle. With a smile like a full moon the monk saluted the calf-dealer and the joke he cracked was warmly enjoyed by Charlie.
    Charlie had overheard the missioner’s chastisement of Tarry and when they parted with the monk, Charlie, catching hold of the side-board of the cart while still keeping on his bicycle, ranalongside Tarry inquiring what the hell he was saying to the poor missioner.
    â€˜You wouldn’t know,’ said Tarry.
    Charlie was very vexed. ‘You’re a desperate man to be making little of the priests like that, Flynn. We’re all Catholics, aren’t we?’
    â€˜I don’t know so much about that, Charlie. Some of us are doubtful.’
    â€˜Oh, I see, you don’t believe in religion.’
    â€˜No, but you do, Charlie,’ Tarry sneered.
    The way Charlie raised his eyebrows and pretended to be angry made Tarry mad; for he knew that this dishonest attitude was the stuff out of which ignorant bigotry is made. This encounter with the monk and the calf-dealer took most of the good out of his journey to the village which was usually such a pleasant holiday from the drag of his existence.
    As he feared, his mother wasn’t long hearing about the tiff. She heard it before the day was ended, though she did not accuse him of it till the day after. She talked as if she were terrified, but for all that there was humour in her terror which she couldn’t conceal.
    â€˜What the devil’s father did you say to him?’ said she.
    â€˜Not one thing.’
    â€˜We’ll be the talk of the country – like the Carlins. Did you hear that one of the missioners was up with them this evening, trying to get them to come out to the Mission?’
    â€˜They’re not going?’
    â€˜Going, how are you… Give us up that long potstick from the door… O, going, aye! And you’re taking pattern by them.’
    Tarry was disgusted with the Carlins; they were liable to give the impression that having a respect for oneself was a sign of madness. If, in the cause of his self-esteem,
he
stayed at home from the chapel he’d be put down as a queer fellow. Not that he had any intention of missing the carnival spirit that was to be found around the church these days or of revolting against the Church – he had only intended staying away one evening. He would remain away that one evening – and he did. He ran overto the field to take a last look at a heifer that was due to calve and then went down the road as if he were going off to pray. Eusebius had to go off earlier, he being an official.
    He crossed the hills into Miskin, intending to come out on the railway line. Passing Petey Meegan’s house he saw the crooked old bachelor owner hurrying off up Kerley’s hill on his way to hear more about sex.
    The shadowy lane with the hedges that nearly met in the middle was filled with midges and flies buzzing over cow-dung. Here he was in another world. It was almost a year since he had gone up that lane and it evoked nostalgia. He remembered as a child coming home from second Mass on Sundays with Eusebius by this lane and how fairylike it seemed to him then. Old Petey’s old father used to come out hobbling on his two sticks and like the Ancient Mariner try to get them to listen to his stories of the Sleeping Horsemen who were enchanted under a hill near Ardee. One day they would awaken to fight against the enemies of the Church. It was to be a deadly fight and the time would be the End of the World. There was an apocalyptic flavour about all those stories and the memory of them influenced the heavy-smelling fungi and flowers that grew in the dark ditches.
    A great row was going on in