Far From the Land

Chapter 10: The Auction One day you finally knew What you had to do, and began, Though the voices around you Kept shouting Their bad advice… (Mary Oliver: The Journey) “Two weeks! Are you out of your mind? Do you have any idea what we have to do to get ready? The auction is not the half of it… I can’t believe you accepted that date.” This was my mother reacting to what Jimmy O’Connor, the auctioneer, told me after I rode my bike into Borris that rainy December morning to inquire about an opening in the schedule. Peering at the appointments book from behind his horn-rimmed glasses, without looking up, he broke the news: “January 2nd…that’s all’s open. After that, it’ll be late March, if you’re lucky. That’s when things start to pick up and the real auctions begin.” I thought ours was real enough, but no matter. He didn’t mean anything by the comment; just that he wasn’t going to make any real money on our little public humiliation. I took the January opening. March seemed like eternity right then in the confines of his little office behind The Green Drake, the pub that was his main business. I was not about to give this this thing a chance to unravel. A lot could happen if there was too much time to reflect. “What was I supposed to do, wait for a miracle ? We can be ready if we put our minds to it. I don’t see what’s so hard about putting a bunch of auld farm implements out in the yard? I can do it by meself if I have to.” As I’d expected, this just bought more of the same. “Why did I ever let you talk me into this? You have no idea what you’ve gotten us into. We’re supposed to get ready to auction our life’s belongings, lease the land, book our fares to Sheffield, buy luggage and pack for the trip, settle up with the bank and Tom Dalton and say goodbye to everyone…all inside of two weeks. Oh, in case you forgot… there’s Christmas in there too, as I recall.” It was already December 19th and I knew the implications of the deadline . But I didn’t care. Delay only invited disaster—all sorts of opportunities for her to get cold feet. Or for my sisters to talk her out of it. More time for the chattering to seep in, for doubt to undermine our gossamer resolve. Spring would soon be in the air. The adrenalin rush of lambing season would be upon us. The light would return and, with it, hope, rising like sap in the sycamores . The cycle would continue, only to come around to another dreary, dreaded December. No! It was now or never. We battled back and forth for another day, then decided it was… now. That meant we had to book our passage to England, lease the land, get our travel papers inorder, buy luggage and pack our belongings to vacate this Ballinvalley inside of twelve days. All this left unspoken our emotional Everest, the auction: putting our cherished life-long possessions, including many of the animals we’d raised and loved , to the public gavel. Without further debate, we set the wheels in motion. There would be no turning back. The auction was announced for January 2rd, 1959, the first working day of the New Year. Christmas was a gloomy affair, without even our usual minimalist decorations or gifts. My sisters—all in England, except for the oldest, Ann— emphatically denounced our decision . They registered their upset by not coming home for Christmas, a first. They saw our move as ill-advised, a dismantling of the family touchstone they called home . Predictably, some were more vocal than others. But no one, except Maureen, supported the decision. They thought it was simply a whim of their sixteen-year-old brother, one that would surely pass with a little time. He was just being an ungrateful brat. They could not understand what had precipitated such a hasty departure, a sentiment shared by most in a culture prone to suspicion and a voracious appetite for scandal . The truth: that we simply wanted a better life, didn’t cut it. Something didn’t add up here. What were we not telling ? Was Sonny—my nickname—in some kind of “trouble”—meaning some girl knocked up ?(It was not my virtue that they underestimated so much as the effectiveness of the priestly chastity patrol.) If not that , what had changed so suddenly? Why now, just when you’re having such fabulous success? What will you do? You have no education? Sure you don’t want to be a ditch-digger in England ? And what about your mother? What is she going to do with no training to fall back on? Do you want her to be a servant, again, for some rich family in England? Wouldn’t it be far better to stay in Ballinvalley and be your own man on your own farm? That’s a dream many a man would give his right arm for but never had the choice. You don’t know what you’re throwing away here… And so it went…in relentless pursuit of unmasking the inexplicable. Just as I’ d feared, curiosity turned to inquisition as the auction date loomed. If Mother felt doubts, she kept them to herself. Over the Christmas holidays, the neighbors—visiting in steady relays-- grew more insistent, more intrusive in their questioning, some from an honest sense of concern for us; others from pure schadenfraude. Mother intuitively knew the difference and it bolstered her resolve. I didn’t see a distinction or care. All I knew was that we were selling out and clearing out. The snow-tinged hills and foggy vistas no longer held either mystery or romance for me. In my mind’s eye, I’d already embarked on the grand adventure. It only remained for my body to gather itself and spring into the great unknown. It could not come too soon. At last, it was January 2nd, auction day. Up at dawn after a restless night, I watched the sunrise emerge from the Irish Sea to the east, slowly raising the curtain on the Blackstairs Mountain Range. With a new awareness, it struck me for the first time the aching beauty I was leaving behind. Now that the die was cast, everything took on a new meaning. The funerial use of ‘last’ clung to every gesture , ritual or task. The last sunrise. The last milking. The last ghost story. The last cardgame. The last hornpipe. The last laugh . The last song. The auction would have the distinction of being both our first and last. It was an ordeal to be endured, but I’d given no thought to the emotional impact it would have. Jimmy ‘Connors’—as we called him—and and his son, Liam,(“O’Connor and Son, Auctioneers”, the sign read over their pub in Borris) had worked with us to be sure nothing was ‘encumbered’ or contingent on meeting reserve bids. We assured them they had a free hand. Everything, even the dogs, had to go. We needed every penny if we were to pay off all our creditors and have enough to survive for a few months with unknown prospects in Sheffield, a smoggy steel town with little to recommend it—except that my sister Maureen had a boarding-house there. The bidding began at 10A.M. The farm machinery went first. Then the livestock, with the horses, sheep, and dogs going last in that order. First out was the pony, Toby, a crusty five-year-old bay who suffered fools( like me) lightly. I led her out without any particular sense of loss and turned her over to her new owner , a distant neighbor named Mickey Nolan. No problem; this was business. Next up was Billy, the promising young Belgian I’d just trained and who’d been with me at my moment of truth. As I pulled the halter over his beloved head, complete with white star on the forehead, I was seized with a spasm of grief that almost knocked me down. I clung to his blond mane, sobbing uncontrollably and begging his forgiveness for selling him to strangers. He reached back and rubbed his soft nostrils against my back, with characteristic playfulness. If the hand of fate had dropped me right there, I would have felt only relief. .