Short Story: Living in Day Dreams

Timaru Herald, Volume CXXXVII, Issue 19803, 19 May 1934, Page 9

Short Story: Living in Day Dreams

By LIAM O’FLAHERTY.

ONE summer’s day while I was cycling along the Connemara coast, I came across a lonely public-house and entered the place for a badly-needed drink. “God save all here,” I said. “You, too,” said a man who sat on a chair near the door. * There was nobody else in the place. The man on the chair was smoking his pipe and looking out the door with his elbows on his knees. He could see the ocean and the islands in the distance. It was a fine view and he evidently enjoyed it, for he took no further notice of me until I asked him whether there was anybody in the house to serve me with a drink. “Amn’t I enough?” he said, rather gruffly, getting to his feet. “And what have you on your mind? A pint of what?” “Make it a pint,” I said. He might be sixty years of age, a man of powerful build, rather fleshy,

with arms like a butcher and great thighs that shook when he walked. Although the distance from his chair ot the half-barrel behind the counter was only five yards, I felt that he would never reach it without lying down somewhere on the floor for a rest. Never in my life have I seen such a bored and listless human being. I could swear, looking at him, that the man had never thought. His heavy, stupid face had the expression of utter melancholy and solemnity only seen on the faces of great comedians. It was the face of a man who could not smile to save his neck from the halter. His dress made him look still more odd. A tattered black hat covered whatever hair remained on his bald skull. His trousers were patched at the seat and let out at the waist. His braces were tied as a belt. An old grey shirt he wore was open on his hairy bosom and the sleeves were rolled up to the biceps of his monstrous arms. He sat down to draw my pint from the half-barrel. “You might as well draw one for yourself, now that you are there,” I said. “Keep me company, man. It’s a thirsty day.” He glanced at me In a cunning way from under his bushy eyebrows. Then he shrugged his shoulders slowly, as if that simple movement were a great labour. “Ah! Sure. I hardly ever taste a drop of the stuff,” he said. "However,” he said with a weary sigh, “just to oblige a stranger, I’ll try to swallow a few drops.” We began to drink our pints. “This is a nice place you have here,” I said. “Ah! Don’t be talkin’ man,” he answered; “sure my heart is broken in this hole, me that travelled three-quarters of the known globe, inside out and upside down.” “So you’ve travelled,” I said. “Yes,” he cried, spitting out the door. “I was a sailor for thirty years. Then I got married.” He emptied his pint and added:— “She’s gone into the town to see a doctor. That’s how it is. I’m a sad man.” I ordered two more pints, and this time he walked a trifle more briskly to the barrel. We talked and he became more friendly, but his face did not alter its expression of utter melancholy. While we were drinking our fourth pint he suddenly struck the floor a great blow with the flat of his foot. “You’re a civil sort of man,” he said, “and I suppose you have travelled a little bit yourself. All the same, i could tell you a story queerer than anything you ever heard or saw in your natural life.” He winked and looked at me with his head on one side like a bird. "I can well believe you,” I said. “No, then,” he said. “You won’t believe a word of it, but it’s the truth all the same.” He was silent for several moments, and then put his pint on the floor between his legs. He leaned back in his chair and pointed at me with his left hand, shaking his fat forefinger. Then he bawled out in a solemn tone, slowly;—

“I’ve seen naked men dancing on a rope at the bottom of the sea.”

“Heavens!” I cried, rather startled, 1 confess, by the almost insane glitter in his eyes. “That’s hardly possible. Naked Men?”

"Ho!” he cried. "Didn’t I tell you that you wouldn’t believe a word of it?” We remained silent for some time, staring at one another. Then the fat man took a powerful swig at his pint, wiped his mouth and folded his arms. “It was when I was pearl fishing around the islands of the Southern Seas,” he said, “sailing with a schooner out of Sydney, New South Wales. We came one day to a small island that, we knew well, a place where we often got a load of fine jewels. The natives used to work for us, and when they used to see our ship coming they would crowd down to the shore, the poor creatures, to welcome us. This time I’m talking about, however, the shore didn’t have e’er a creature at all on it, except a few white birds that were standing on the sand at the far corner. “ ‘Where are the niggers at all?’ said the skipper.’ ” He looked up and down the shore through his glass, but he saw nobody. “Is it a plague that has struck them, or were they wiped out in a war, or did the unnatural ruffians ate one another?”

“Upon my soul, we all thought it queer. There was the ship at anchor, the divil a nigger was to be seen. Me and the two other fellahs were ordered to row the skipper ashore. We

did so, and on the way he shouted from the stern where he was sitting. “‘Tare an’ ouns!’ says he, and he looking through his spy-glass. “Yerrah, lads, will ye look, at the litte lad and he half naked?’ ” “I looked over my shoulder and saw a little man walking down the beach towards where we were going to land. “ ‘He’s a white man, sir,’ says I”

“ ‘He’s a white man, sure enough, 1 said the skipper. ‘ls it how he’s marooned there or what? Row on, lads. He’ll tell us what happened to the niggers.’ ”

“We soon grounded our boat on the strand and stepped ashore. There was the little man about ten yards away, as large as life and he strolling towards us. It was a sight to make a cat laugh. Re was naked to the waist and his feet were bare. A pair of white flannel pants and a monocle was all he wore. Yes, by the hammers of hell, he had a monocle stuck in his eye. Begging your pardon, stranger, I was near forgetting the big revolver he had stuck in a belt that was tying up his pants about his waist. Aye! ’Faith, he carried a walking stick, too, a sort of a cane that wouldn’t knock the head off a daisy, it was so thin and dandified. It had a silver knob to it. His pants were so creased that you could shave yourself on the edges. His hair was neatly parted and oiled. His face didn’t have the root of a hair on it. “By Gorries! There he was, strolling along the beach, three parts naked and at the same time as smart as a loafer on the side walk of a big city. Swinging his cane, the little devil, with his head in the air and the monocle stuck in his eye, you’d think he was monarch of all he surveyed. All we could see of his skin was as brown as a berry. “ ‘Good day to you,’ said the skipper, in a nice civil way, when the lad reached us. “The little man halted, leaned on his can and settled his monocle to get a better look at us. You’d think we were some sort of vermin by the way he looked us up and down. Then he spoke in a funny little voice, like a woman almost, but all the same he had the accent of a proper gentleman. I know one when I hear one. “ ‘Excuse me,’ said the little codger, ‘but I haven’t the pleasure of your acquaintance.’ “With that he turned on his heel and marched away, swinging his cane, without as much as a nod to us. “ ‘Blood in ouns! ’ said the skipper, or words to that effect. ‘Sure, I only want to ask you a plain question. What happened to the natives that were here?’ “The lad looked back over his shoulder and said with a little grin:*-^— “ ‘You’d better inquire at the police station.’ “Then he waved his stick and continued to march away. “ ‘The police station! ’ shouted the skipper. ‘Did anyone ever hear the like of it?’ “Right enough, it was mortal queer, on a wild island like that, down there in the barbarian waters of the Southern Seas, next door to the hereafter, you might say, to meet a little man

like that, talking about making inquiries at the police station. Sure, the nearest police station was how many miles away. “ ‘Come on,’ said the skipper, ‘let’s pay no heed to the little worm. We’ll search the island and maybe we might find the niggers hidden somewhere on it.’ , “We did so. but we were no wiser at the end of our search. The little man was the only person on the island. All the huts where the niggers used to live were empty except one. In the one hut that was occupied we found the little man. He must have doubled back around a hill, for he was standing in the doorway when we reached

this hut. He had his big revolver levelled in his hand. “‘l’ll shoot anyone that comes within ten yards of this door,’ he said. “We could see he meant it, too, so we took to our heels without any further palaver with him. It was clear as daylight to us that the lad was stark mad. The skipper was as scared as the rest of us, and when we got on board the ship he wanted to clear out of the place there and then. The mate, however, asked him to let us try our luck and send down a diver to look for pearls. “ ‘Don’t let a little wart like that frighten us away from the island,’ says he. “ ‘All right,’ said the skipper.

“We rigged out a diver and we lowered him into the sea. He was hardly down when he tugged at the rope and we had to pull him up again. He reached the deck half unconscious with fright. After we gave him a tot of brandy he began to blab like a frightened child. “ ‘There are naked men down there,’ he said, ‘at the bottom of the sea. They are dancing on a rope down there.’ “You could have knocked us all down with a feather. After the little madman ashore, here was one of our crew gone daft as well. “ ‘ls it out of your mind you are?’ said the skipper. “ ‘lt’s the truth I’m telling you,’ said the diver. He was a lad named Coonan, with a ginger mop of hair and a big wart behind his right ear. ‘I saw them dancing on a rope. Like this.’ “Poor Coonan opened his mouth, threw back his head and began to flap his arms, like a crow’s wings rising from a field. ’Faith, it put a shiver down my back. “ ‘The man is mad,’ said , the skipper. ‘You go down instead of him, Reilly.’ “That’s my name, Tommy Reilly. I’ve been a courageous man in my day and I’ve been in many a rough hole one way and another, but I'll give my solemn oath that I was frightened to death when they put the diving kit on. me. To make bad worse, when they were going to lower me into the sea, a revolver was fired on the island and then somebody screeched. Down I went, praying as hard as I could. Were you ever in them seas down there, stranger?” “No,” I answered. “I’ve never been in the South Seas.” “Then you have no idea at all, man alive,” said Mr. Reilly, “of what them seas are like, or of the strange things that do be growing at the bottom of them. There are weeds growing down there as tall as trees and they painted all the colours of the rainbow, and they winding to and fro with the tide, you’d swear on your mortal oath they were alive. And then the rocks lying about, without you ever knowing but maybe a shark is hiding behind one of them, or one of them fishes they call octopus, that squeeze the life out of an unfortunate man. There I was then, working my way among these weeds that towered above my head and I afraid every step I took would bring me up against the naked men. It was all right laughing at Coonan up on the deck, but down below there was another thing. And then at last I walked around a big rock and caught sight of them. Ugh! The thought of it puts the heart crosswise in me yet.” He shuddered and then he emptied his pint and cried:— “It was a sight I’ll never forget to my dying day. There they were, about ten yards away, thirty seven of them, for I counted them with the fright, dancing on a big rope that lay stretched along the bottom of the sea. I

couldn’t move for a little while, I was struck that limp and useless with fright. Then I said a prayer and I got back the control of my limbs and reason. I began to move towards

them little by little. Then I saw that they were the corpses of the poor creatures that lived on the island, all dead and dancing on this rope, tied to it by the feet. They were standing up, trying to rise to the s'Urface of the sea, to look for decent burial, but they couldn’t budge an inch, on account of the way their feet were tied and the rope 1 held down at each end with a big stone. They swayed back and forth i with the tide, with their arms flap- . ping like heron’s wings and their heads t bobbing and they jig-acting like as if they were doing a queer sort of comi- > cal dance. Great Heavens! It was horrifying to stand there among the I unnatural painted weeds, looking at , unholy cemetery. The eyes were eaten out of their heads and their jaws hung loose, but the devil a bite a fish had eaten of them. Maybe the poor dumb creatures of the deep were as i niuch afraid as I was myself and they ran away instead of eating them. I was as close to them as I was to you, and I stood there gaping at them for nearly three minutes, until, all of a sudden, one of them jerked towards me, and the two flapping arms, all dripping with water and clammy with death, fell around my neck. It was a female. I pushed her away, and as she fell back I saw she had a little hole in the centre of the forehead. She had been shot dead. Every one of them had been shot in the same way, for they all had the same little hole in their foreheads. Then I knew the cause of it all, and I signalled to the men and came on deck and told them what I saw and the why and the wherefore. Eh? Do you know what the little worm had done?” “The little man with the monocle?” said I. “Yes,” said Mr. Reilly. “The little man with the monocle shot every one of them with his big revolver. Then he tied their feet to a rope and chucked them into the sea.” Mr. Reilly got to his feet, hitched up his trousers, stared at me in silence and then said:— “Have one on me now. It's my round. It’s thirsty work talking.” While he was drawing the pints from the barrel he said:— “It was the best way out for him, for niggers though they were, he’d be hanged in Sydney for the crime.” “Did he shoot himself?” said I. “Of course he shot himself,” said Reilly. “We found him dead in his hut, with the monocle in his eye and a little hole in the middle of his forehead.” “What an amazing story!” I said. “And did you find out who he was, why he was there, and why he had shot the natives?” “Oh, I heard various accounts of the little fellow here and there,” he said, “but I forget them. Arrah! Sure, what does it matter who he was, this little man with the monocle? There’s no use prying too much into the why and the wherefore. People that know too much know nothing. What put it into your head to ask me that question?” He looked at me in a very sly fashion. I replied that I was merely interested in the astonishing little man with the monocle and wished to know more about him. Reilly waved me aside with a large hand. “Don’t you believe the story?” he shouted. “Of course I believe the story,” I said. “Ah! You're to fly. you poor foolish creature,” said Reilly. “You have a foxy look in your eyes. It’s little you believe in. and in God least of all. The world is an empty place for you. Look at me now. I never stirred out of this parish in all my life, except to go to the town on fair days, or to see a hurling match. But I’ve travelled ! the’world all the same, for I have the i power of belief and of make belief. I do read old books that a sister of mine in America sends me, and then I spin yarns to while away the time with the neighbours. Or if a stranger like you comes along. I tell him a good one to take a rise out of him.” I laughed and said:— “So it was only a yarn after all. t a Lout the dead men dancing on a i rope: something you read in an Ameri- j can magazine.” • t “Never a fear of it,” said Reilly. “It s came out of my own head, and I never t read a word of it in a magazine. It's i like this. I live half my time dream- i ing about those lovely islands in the c Southern Seas. I do be always doing t this and that down there among them, a sailing along and loading up my ship c with pearls and making love to the t brown wenches that do be roaming e under the warm trees. I get great c enjoyment out of it, far more than fc

men that have been there and seen them. It’s not what a man has seen he dreams about, but what he’d like to see. It’s not what a man has done that counts, but what he’d like to do. The luckiest of us never get or see or do what we want, so why run after this and that? It’s better to sit still and dream and make believe. That's the real truth. The truth is here.” He tapped his forehead and glared at me fiercely. t “Believe it or not, stranger,” he cried, . “I’ve seen naked men and women rj dancing on a rope at the bottom of the y Southern Seas. I’ve seen them with . my eyes and I see them yet and they D dancing back and forth, like crows’ _ wings rising from a field.” e | Then he suddenly lost interest in me. e He folded his arms on his bosom and y stared out the door, towards the ocean ’ and the distant islands that were now turning golden under the rays of the setting sun. I passed a few polite rej marks, but he did not answer. Then I rose and quietly left the place, wishing him a good evening, to which he ’ barely nodded. ' He had returned to his islands and his pearls and his brown beauties.