Free The Collected Stories by John McGahern Page A

for the others. We can’t order our days. They are willed. We have to trust in the mercy of God.’
    ‘I’ll have nobody.’
    ‘You have the key. You’ll open the box with the key when the news comes? Now we have to go to bed. It matters not how long the day.’ He lifted the box by its handle, moved towards the stairs, its weight dragging his right shoulder down. ‘Blow out the lamp. I’ll wait for you.’
    Painfully the slow climb of the stairs began. His breathing came in laboured catches. He leaned on the banister rail. Three times he paused, while I kept pace below, the key in my palm, weak moonlight from the window at the top of the stairs showing the hollowed wood in the centre of the steps, dark red paint on the sides of the way.
    ‘I want you to come to my room to show you where to find it when the news comes.’
    He opened the door of his room that stank from the stale air and senna leaves and sweat. The moon from the river window gave light enough, but he gave me matches to light the glass lamp, and grew impatient as I fumbled the lighting.
    ‘Under the wardrobe,’ he said as he pushed the box between the legs of the plywood wardrobe, its brass handle shining and the silver medallions of the police caps on its top.
    ‘You’ll pull it out from under the wardrobe when the news comes. You have the key?’
    ‘But I don’t want you to die.’
    ‘Now,’ he put his hand on my head, ‘I love you too, but we can’t control our days, we can only pray. You have the key?’
    The key lay in the sweat of the palm.
    ‘You’ll open the box with the key when the news comes.’
    The train took him to the hospital the next day but before the end of the same week he was home again. He asked at once if his room was ready and immediately went there. He said he didn’t want anything to eat and didn’t want to be called the next morning. No one ventured near the door till Bannon climbed the stairs. When no answer greeted the timid twice-repeated knock he opened it a small way.
    ‘You’re home, Sergeant. Are you any better?’
    The Sergeant was sitting up in bed with spectacles on, going through the medical dictionary. He looked at Bannon over the spectacles but didn’t answer.
    ‘I just came up to see if there was anything I could do for you? If you wanted me to ring Neary or anything?’
    ‘No. I don’t want you to do anything. I want you to get to hell down to the dayroom and leave me in peace,’ he shouted.
    A scared and bewildered Bannon closed the door, came down the stairs, and there was no sound from the bedroom for several hours till suddenly a loud knocking came on the floorboards.
    ‘He wants something.’ ‘You go up.’ ‘No, you go up.’ ‘No.’ It spread immediate panic.
    The next knock was loud with anger, imperative.
    ‘Nobody’ll do anything in this house.’ I spoke almost in his voice as I went up to the room.
    It had been relief to see him come home, even joy in the release. None of us knew what to make of him shutting himself away in the upstairs room. The shouts at Bannon had been loud. I still had the key.
    ‘It took you long enough to come.’
    He was lying down in the bed, and the medical book was shut on the eiderdown to one side.
    ‘I was in the scullery.’
    ‘You weren’t all in the scullery.’
    ‘They didn’t want to come.’
    ‘I want something to eat,’ he said.
    ‘What would you like?’
    ‘Anything, anything that’s in the house.’
    ‘Bacon and egg or milk pudding?’
    ‘Bacon and eggs’ll do.’
    I held the key in my hand. I wanted to ask him what to do with the key, if he wanted it back; and my eyes kept straying under the plywood wardrobe where the bomb box must be; but the face in the bed didn’t invite any questions.
    That day and the next he stayed in the room, but at five o’clock the third morning he woke the whole house by clattering downstairs and even more loudly opening and closing cupboard doors and presses, muttering all the time. When we