The Trick of the Ga Bolga by Patrick McGinley

Author:Patrick McGinley
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781448209552
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Published: 2019-11-27T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 8

“It was a good try,” said Timideen a week later. “Scratch an Englishman and you’ll find a sportsman, that’s what I always say.”

Coote was in the barn, mending the crosspiece of his spade. He did not look at Timideen and neither did he reply.

“The whole glen is buzzing with the news, how you were willing to face arrest to get Salmo off the hook. It was an act of self-sacrifice which has had the effect of self-canonisation. Your halo, Mr. Coote, is secure. From now you can do no wrong. What we’re seeing is folklore in the making with you as folk hero.”

“Rot and codswallop,” Coote said.

“I even heard someone say in John Oweneen’s kitchen last night that you were holier than McNullis himself; and I thought, as I heard it, that a good man could easily become a temptation to baser natures. ‘Therefore let us lie in wait for the righteous; because he is not for our turn, and he is clean contrary to our doings.’ Do you know it?”

“No.”

“Wisdom of Solomon. ‘He was made to reprove our thoughts. He is grievous unto us even to behold: for his life is not like other men’s, his ways are of another fashion.’ It’s a measure of the goodness of the Glen people that you do not excite envy but admiration. Of one thing you can be sure: they will never lie in wait for you. But if you don’t want to be a hero, I could easily arrange for you to become an ogre. I could put out the story that you’re descended from Sir Charles Coote who trounced us Ulstermen at Scarrif-hollis and after the battle ordered Hugh Roe O’Neill’s only son to be murdered. I think that would do the trick.” Timideen smiled.

“I’d rather be a hero, it’s less demanding.”

“Everyone here wants to believe in you. We’ve had three hundred years of absentee English landlords and their bailiffs, every man jack of them bent on bleeding us dry. Everyone here remembers Arthur Spragg as the first good Englishman to come in Cashel Hill, and everyone sees you as Spragg Redux. Whether you’re a good Englishman or a bad Englishman doesn’t matter. We want to believe you’re good, and, as I told you before, what everyone believes must be true.”

“You have the knack of talking more balls than any other man I know. I wish you’d talk sense at least once a week.”

“Then, try this for size. Every hero needs a heroine. He must have a back garden that he knows will be lovingly tended even when his back is turned. Marriage is a means of ensuring it. When you marry, marry a young woman with at least two decades of breeding in her. You needn’t have a large family, but the possibility of a large family must exist. In the marriage bed you need the excitement of Russian roulette, otherwise onanism would serve as well. What I said, I’ll say again: marry youth.”

He was pleased when Timideen left.

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