The Last Hurrah: a Novel by Edwin O'Connor

Author:Edwin O'Connor [O’Connor, Edwin]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Published: 1956-01-15T00:00:00+00:00

Nine

IT was the next night that Adam, at last, told Maeve his news. They had spent the evening quietly at home, and now, in bed, as she lay close against him, relaxed and warm and fragrant in his arms, he decided reluctantly that it was the time for revelation. He said, “Maeve?”

“Mmmm?” she said drowsily.

“I just remembered: I didn’t tell you what happened to me last night.”

Half asleep, she murmured, “What did happen to you last night?”

“Well, nothing terribly exciting, but it was interesting, and pretty odd. I went to a wake. A huge wake on the other side of the city. It was completely unexpected: all of a sudden I found myself there.”

“That was funny,” she said, still sleepy. “Whose wake?”

“Nobody you’d know, actually: a man named Minihan. But the point wasn’t that so much; it was how I happened to go, and who with.”

He waited; she said dutifully, “Who?”

“None other than the great man himself. By name, Uncle Frank.” It was an attempt to establish the proper tone of light mockery; once delivered, he was confident of its failure. He felt her body stir at the name, and he knew that instantly she had become wide awake; Skeffington, like Macbeth, he thought, both murder sleep. He began to talk with greater speed.

“He called me at the paper last night, saying that he was coming by, and that he’d stop to say hello. He added that he was on his way to a wake, and thought that I might like to come along. More than that, he thought I should: the grounds being, apparently, that the old-style wake was on its way out, and that I owed it to myself as a citizen of the place to see one in operation while the seeing was still available. I wasn’t quite so sure of that myself, but off we went, anyway, and it turned out that he was absolutely right. It was amazing, Maeve. It wasn’t at all like any other wake I’ve ever been to; it was like going back to what it must have been like about fifty years ago. I wish you’d been there to see it!”

He went on to tell her about Knocko’s wake in some detail. He took care to play down the name of Skeffington, and to emphasize the strange and comic aspects of the evening; here the memory of Charlie Hennessey was of great assistance. Adam was a good raconteur and a fair mimic, and as he talked the evening came back to him vividly, strengthening his performance. After a while he was rewarded with a small, subdued giggle. It was the first hint of encouragement; heartened, he continued. There were further and louder signs of enjoyment and when, a few minutes later, he finished his story, he knew that this part of his task, at least, had been completed successfully. Now then, for the graceful elision into Part Two of his peculiar apologia; about this he felt more apprehension. . . .

“All

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