The Country Girls Trilogy (Omnibus [1-3]) by Edna O'Brien

Author:Edna O'Brien [O'Brien, Edna]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Literature
ISBN: 9780374537357
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Published: 1960-01-02T00:00:00+00:00

“Who was Johnny Jones?” I used to ask.

“A boy,” she would say dolefully.

Standing in the middle of the road, thinking of all this, I almost got run over by the mail van. He had to swerve toward the ditch.

“I’m sorry,” I said, shaking all over with fright. He laughed at me. He was a good-humored boy and asked if I wanted a lift. A notice gummed to the windshield said NO PASSENGERS, but two women sat in the back of the car on bags of mail. I thought ridiculously of what would happen if the mail bags contained turkey eggs from the turkey station or a gilt clock on its way as a wedding gift to someone. I asked him to post a letter for me in Limerick that evening. He drove out from Limerick every morning to deliver mail in the various villages along the way and then went back in the evening, collecting more letters.

“Right you be,” he said, and I gave him the letter for Baba and two shillings for himself.

Then I got on my bicycle and cycled toward home. It was a downhill ride most of the way, so I did not have to use the pedals much. They were stiff and needed oiling. The tires hissed, the spokes hummed, and the road was a winding, tarred ribbon of blue. I was planning what I would tell my aunt, and I did not feel a bit guilty as I cycled up our own field and came home.

I nearly fell when I saw the parish priest sitting in our kitchen drinking tea from one of the good cups.

“Here she is now,” my aunt said. The priest looked at me.

“Well, Caithleen! I imagined that something had detained you, so I dropped over to see how you were.”

“You were gone when I called,” I said hastily.

He stared at me very hard.

“If you’ll excuse me, Father,” my aunt said, and disappeared, so that he could talk to me alone.

Father Hagerty began at once. “Caithleen, I’ve heard some bad news from your father. Sit down and tell me about it.”

I sat opposite him. My aunt had put a cushion between his back and the wooden rungs of the chair, and he looked as if he was settling in for a long talk.

“It’s nothing very much; I met a man, that’s all,” I said, trying to be casual. He frowned. The frown produced four deep lines on his grayish forehead, and for no particular reason I remembered back to the time when he was collecting funds to build a new chapel and held dances in the town hall on Sundays. He served behind the mineral bar himself, and people said that he drained the dregs of bottles to make new bottles of lemonade. Hickey once handed in a pound for one ticket and got no change and, after that, always brought the exact money, which was two shillings.

“You are walking the path of moral damnation.”

“Why, Father?” I said quietly, folding my hands on my lap to try to look composed.

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