Read Online The Barracks by John McGahern - Free Book Online

great barrack kitchen. She could scream and it’d only bring Casey hurrying up to see what had happened: and all she could tell him was that nothing had happened, nothing at all, she had only become frightened, frightened of nothing. Reegan was at court, the children were at school, she was in the kitchen, and did all these things mean anything?
    She had believed she could live for days in happiness here in the small acts of love, she needing them, and they in need of her. She’d more than enough of London that time, no desire left for anything there, no place she wanted to go to after she’d finish in the theatre or wards, the people she wanted to talk to grown fewer and fewer, her work repetitive and menial and boring—and had she married Reegan because she had been simply sick of living at the time and forced to create some illusion of happiness about him so that she might be able to go on? She’d no child of her own now. She’d achieved no intimacy with Reegan. He was growing more and more restless. He, too, was sick, sick of authority and the police, sick of obeying orders, threateningto break up this life of theirs in the barracks, but did it matter so much now? Did it matter where they went, whether one thing happened more than another? It seemed to matter less and less. An hour ago she’d been on the brink of collapse and if she finally collapsed did anything matter?
    She should never have sat down, she told herself: she should have kept on her feet, working, her mind fixed on the small jobs she could master. A simple trap this half-hour of peace and quiet was, she’d have had more peace if she’d kept busy to the point of physical breaking-strain. She couldn’t ever hope to get any ordered vision on her life. Things were changing, going out of her control, grinding remorselessly forward with every passing moment.
    As she stood hopelessly there she saw Mrs Casey come through the old stone archway that was covered with ivy and cotoneaster, the incredibly shiny leaves still on the crawling branches, the last of the scarlet berries devoured in the December snows. The woman coming was in her late twenties, tall and pale, her flaxen hair drawn straight back in a bun, wearing spectacles with fine gold rims. She turned in towards the dayroom and Elizabeth heard the door open and shut and her voice in conversation with Casey’s. She’d have her with her for most of the morning, she knew. She must surely be twenty years younger than Casey and it wasn’t easy for her in this small village. Mullins’s wife and Brennan’s never lost a chance to make her feel her childlessness,parading their own large families before her like manifestoes.   They never tried this with Elizabeth: she was too detached; her age and years in London gave her position in their eyes; and with Reegan’s three children she hadn’t the appearance of either the leisure or money that could rouse their envy.
    The dayroom door opened and she came up the hallway as she always did—smoking.
    â€œThey’re gone to court today, Elizabeth,” she greeted.
    â€œNed is on his own today,” Elizabeth answered in the same manner.
    â€œReadin’ the papers. He’s talkin’ about comin’ up to you after the dinner to listen to some soccer match or other on the B.B.C.”
    She sat and threw the wasted cigarette into the fire, the cork tip stained with the crimson lipstick she wore. “Isn’t it strange you don’t smoke, Elizabeth? Nearly all doctors and nurses are heavy smokers,” she said as she lit another.
    â€œI used,” Elizabeth smiled in memory. “But never much, it was easy for me to give them up.”
    â€œWe smoke forty a day—between us. It’s a constant expense, that’s the worst. We tried to give them up once for Lent, but it only lasted three days! There was nearly murder done.… They say that doctors and nurses