Читать книгу The Road to Nowhere - Maurice Walsh - Страница 7

Table of Contents

Along the pony-track, not more than a score of yards above the tent, came a tramper—not a tramp—a middle-sized youngish man in well-worn flannels, with a light knapsack slung on his shoulders and a silk oil-coat slipped under the straps. But he was not hasting. His head was doggedly down, his hands deep in his pockets; his slow long stride had something purposeful yet aimless about it—as if he were gloomily determined to get somewhere, yet had no interest in the end of the road.

Level with the tent the odour of the frying fish pierced his concentration, and his slow stride halted of itself. He turned and looked down at the camp and smiled contemplatively. He stood there very still for a matter of seconds, feet apart and head forward, and then brought right hand out of pocket and up to the level of an ancient felt hat.

‘God save the good work!’ he saluted quietly.

‘God save you kindly!’ Paddy Joe Long gave back the ritual. He liked the way that lad smiled. A pleasant, reserved smile with some strange touch of wistfulness in it, the mouth scarcely moving, but a crinkling about the deep eye-sockets and a narrowing of the full eye. And at the same moment Paddy Joe felt a queer psychic impulse flow into him. He smiled back, and swung to his frying-pan, gave the trout a final turn, moved one away from the others, and tapped it lightly with the iron fork.

Alistair was speaking in his easy American drawl with its quaint touch of Highland.

‘Plenty early on top of the road this morn—all the way from Corullish?’

‘Not this morn. I bedded in the bracken last night.’ And there was the real Highland note.

‘Wow! Cold?’

‘As charity—but no, sir!’ Again he smiled. ‘Charity is not cold, nor my breakfast far in front of me. The Red-Indian gentleman has already chosen me a trout.’

Alistair laughed. ‘I saw him. Come away down, travelling man.’

In that simple unconventional way was this man drawn fatefully into this company. He came down through the thin and worn heather, seated himself on a convenient boss of lichened stone, and slipped the strap of his knapsack loose. ‘I am extremely grateful to you, gentlemen,’ he said apologetically. ‘Hope you don’t mind me butting in?’

‘Sure, we’re all Christians,’ said Paddy Joe, ‘and every man is entitled to his bite and sup. Reach me that tin platter, Alistair.’

Alistair was measuring spoons of ground coffee from a rusty canister into a steaming kettle. ‘Just a moment, and I’ll slice you some bread and butter. You haven’t the barbarous taste for morning tea, Mr——?’

‘Stuart—Rogan Stuart.’ His voice hardened as in momentary challenge, and then: ‘No, I like coffee.’

At that name—Rogan Stuart—Paddy Joe looked up quickly and closely, and looked away again. His jaw muscles tightened, as if a stab of memory, not pleasant, had pierced him, but his voice was carelessly easy.

‘Alistair MacIan making coffee Américaine!’ he introduced with a hand gesture. ‘My name is Long—Patrick Joseph Stanislaus Long——’

‘Paddy Joe for short,’ the other finished for him. ‘I have heard of you, Mr Long—and read your last book.’

‘Why wouldn’t you?’ said Paddy Joe. ‘I won’t hold it against you. Two years ago I saw Rogan Stuart play stand-off half for Scotland at Lansdowne Road.’

The other looked at him steadily out of deep-set eyes. ‘I no longer play rugby, Mr Long.’ He paused, and then: ‘Two years is a long time.’

‘A hell of a long time, often,’ agreed Paddy Joe gloomily.

Alistair MacIan sensed some undercurrent of meaning between the two, something to be avoided, something unpleasant—yet something not shameful.

‘Grub-pile!’ he cried, beating two tin platters together. ‘Let us eat.’

Like practised outdoor men, they used their iron forks handily and made no crumbs. The soft morning air flowed softly about them; the sun, not yet done climbing Slievemaol, poured its young brilliance on them; below them the green waters of the bay rippled and dazzled between the green-draped breasts of the hills.

‘You are old hands at this game,’ said Rogan Stuart, his eyes admiring the rigid economy of the camp.

‘A pan and a tin kettle,’ said Paddy Joe, ‘and the width of Ireland to forage in—enough! Anything more, and one might as well stay safe home with one’s wife——’ He stopped suddenly, but Rogan Stuart ignored the pause and went on making small talk.

‘I was lucky this morning.’

‘Luckier than you knew, Mr Stuart,’ said Alistair blandly. ‘You very nearly ran into a vegetarian breakfast. We are trying out that stunt——’

Paddy Joe swallowed hastily and lifted up his long neck. ‘Ho, ho, ho! Vegetarian stunt, be Japers! Three days ago he ate two pounds of mountain mutton at Corullish Inn; and yesterday, Mary Whelan at the head of the bay roasted a chicken for him. Look at the elegant cartons in our pantry, and only one seal broken—a thing that with a spoonful of water and a lump of dripping turns into a beefsteak in the pan.’

Breakfast over, they filled leisurely pipes, and the two campers, waiving Rogan’s offer to help, did a practised clean-up. When finished the camp was housewifely tidy. The morning air flowed under the looped-up fall of the tent, and the closed lid of the big box, draped with a ground-sheet, hid away the few utensils.

While the campers were completing their toilet within the tent, Rogan Stuart sat leaning forward on his boss of lichened stone and smoked contemplatively. His half-closed eyes were on the sheening waters of the bay, and he was feeling comfortable, lazy, a little somnolent. Yes, he was lucky this morning. These were two real men. MacIan—probably Scots with American experience—or the other way about! And all Ireland knew Long—Paddy Joe Long, the rising novelist, married rather romantically to Norrey Carr, the famous actress. A wise bird Paddy Joe! He knew. The twitch of nostril, the flicker of eyelids had shown that he had not forgotten Rogan Stuart’s tragedy. Queer—most men had. Self-centred beasts men were—and none more so than himself. Yes! but no one—except one black hound—could know the completeness of the tragedy—the completeness that made this seeming entity that was Rogan Stuart nothing more than—than a dead man walking. Alive, yet dead, the trammels of life loose about him, and yet some dour spirit in him refusing to take the easy road. Never more would he be eager, or hungry—or even sorrowful. He would just drift and drift and drift for a little while by this serene, sea-washed Irish shore, and after that—go on drifting. Nothing—nothing—nothing—that was life. Oh merciless God!

Alistair and Paddy Joe came from the tent, and Rogan lifted his head, and his eyes, deep under brow, smiled wistfully. Oh, my fine, tall, easy-going men with life in your clear eyes and a joyful appreciation of life flowing from you!

‘On top of the road?’ he enquired, rising to his feet.

‘No hurry,’ said Paddy Joe carelessly.

There followed a little waiting pause, and then Alistair grinned happily. ‘We have a sort of nefarious date this morning with the harbour-master round the corner at the pier jump,’ he said tentatively.

‘Nefarious is right,’ said Paddy Joe. ‘This fellow suggests that a salmon may be caught in more ways than one.’

‘There’s a dandy way we used try—in Canada,’ said Alistair.

‘With a net,’ amplified Paddy Joe, ‘and the night not too dark.’

‘And Tom Whelan, the harbour-master, is a mine of information.’

‘So we are going up to interview him. Care for a lift?—the coracle below holds three.’

Rogan looked down at the cockle-shell moored at the foot of the sloping boulder. The framework was of fragile lath and the skin of tarred canvas; it would carry three in smooth water, but the fit would be a tight one.

‘Thank you. I think I’ll stroll round.’

‘Look in at the harbour-master’s office,’ invited Alistair, ‘and if no one is there, try the bar at the Harty Arms.’

‘Where one MacIan will be standing us a seldom drink,’ added Paddy Joe.

‘I’ll try the Harty Arms first,’ smiled Rogan.

He sat on his boss of stone and watched the two clamber down to water-level and gingerly board the bobbing little craft. Alistair took the narrow-bladed oars, Paddy Joe cast off the line from an empty petrol-tin that served as a mooring buoy, and the coracle slid and dipped with the lightness and security of an eggshell.