The Barracks by John McGahern

scullery, watched the steam rapidly rise up to cloud the mirror in the window, and took a clean towel from the clothes-horse to hand to one of the waiting girls.
    â€œWhen he’s finished,” she said, for the ritual of these court mornings never varied.
    The child waited till the scraping of the razor stopped and he was sousing himself with water. She was beside him when he turned, his eyes blind with soap, the large hands groping.
    They were quiet in the kitchen as he sat to his breakfast, but the alarm had gone down in the dayroom. Mullins was up, pounding upstairs with mattress and load of bedclothes, dragging the iron bed in against the wall of the lock-up. His poker and tongs banged on the concrete as he set the fire going. They heard him unlock the outside door and the boots go on the frozen ground down to the ashpit at the bottom of the garden, with his bucket and piss-pot.
    He came up to the kitchen in his greatcoat and cap a little later. His red face was burning blue, the pores plainly visible in the swollen flesh. He hadn’t washed.
    â€œThat’s a powerful smell, the fryin’, Elizabeth, on a frosty morning. It has me driven wild already with the hunger. Freeze the arse of a brass monkey, this mornin’ would. A holy terror to get out of bed,” he spoke.
    â€œThat’s six days of frost,” she said, the social makeweight of these comings and goings was always left to Elizabeth.
    â€œSix days surely, though anything’s better than the wet. But wouldn’t we be worse off if we had nothing at all to be complainin’ about,” he remarked and chuckled over his own wit at the door.
    â€œThat’s true, I suppose,” she smiled.
    â€œWe’re all off today,” he said. “Casey’ll be holdin’ the fort on his own.”
    He turned to Reegan and stated that he was going to get his breakfast and shine himself up for the court, he’d be back soon after nine to leave the books in order and go with them to the town.
    â€œThe door’s left open, so you’ll hear the phone if be any miracle it rings. The day in town’ll be a bit of a change,” he said.
    Reegan continued with his meal in silence after Mullinswent. Sometimes he watched out past the sycamore and netting-wire to the white field that went down to the river, the calm strip of black water moving through the whiteness, and the thorn hedge half-way up the white hill beyond. Sometimes he watched his own face eating in the sideboard mirror, completely silent. He disliked Elizabeth asking, “Are there many cases today?” “Not many,” he said.
    He’d give her no information. His mind had been a painless blank, watching his own face and the images of white field and river and white hill, and not relating them to anything and not thinking. Now she had forced her way into this total blankness and disturbed him with thought of her and the day.
    â€œNot many,” was meant to cut her out again but he could not.
    â€œI only wanted to know whether you’d be home early for your dinner or not,” he had to listen to her injured tones. He had to wake to some sense that she’d been hurt.
    â€œOnly one big case—last month’s crash at the quarry,” he imparted. “It’ll depend on when it’s called. We might be out in an hour and we might be there till night. If we’re not home before two you’ll know we’ll be fairly late.”
    She nodded. There were tears in her eyes that she held back. She felt her strength draining and sat on the side of one of the wooden chairs, her arm on its back. It was early morning, excited with the preparations for the court, and she was as worn as if she’d been on her feet for days. She felt herself go weak. She had to grip the back of the chair fiercely, use all her determination not to go down. She could not let herself collapse. The fit passed; but she’d not be able to go on