Thales

Thales and Castro
‘So guys, still solving the world’s problems I see?’ Sonia said as she cleared the empty coffee cups from the table.
‘If only the world would listen’ Thales lamented, not lifting his eyes from the chess board that sat in the middle of the table. Castro had his king in check and he was trying to find a way out.
‘So Bee, have you told everyone it’s my baby yet?’ Castro said with typical candour. Without missing a beat Sonia replied ‘I told you Castro, not until you make an honest woman out of me!’
‘Ah! Now that would break my Una’s heart, maybe you could be my mistress instead?’ ‘Maybe, but you’d have to cut back on your chess!’
‘Would you look at that, she’s already trying to change me….I’ll have to get back to you on that’.
Sonia smiled and said ‘just make sure you do’ before walking back into the kitchen. When she left Castro turned to Thales and said ‘gotta love that spunk’ with genuine affection, ‘sure she’s a firecracker true enough’ Thales replied with equal respect and promptly reversed the check position he was in, moving his queen into the centre to protect his king and at the same time exposing Castro’s king at the corner of the board.

Castro, a retired black surgeon from Los Angeles and Thales, a retired farmer from Co Clare had been unlikely best friends for the best part of four years. They met in Regrette’s and bonded over a mutual relish of philosophical debate and schoolboy banter. From stopping to chat when their paths crossed they had eventually progressed to meeting every afternoon to play chess and pontificate in a way that life’s world weary veterans like to do. Today they were discussing patriotism.

‘I just don’t understand it’ Castro said, moving his rook across the board into a defensive position. ‘What is it about a flag or an anthem exactly that turns an ordinarily rational, considered man into a testosterone fuelled fool, I never got it?’
‘Your looking it at it too objectively Castro, too intellectually. Patriotism is something that comes from the heart not the head. Pride is a feeling like any other, it can’t be dissected and quantified or turned into a mathematical formula, like any other emotion, it is primal and innate’
Warming to the subject, Castro continued, ‘but does it not strike you as almost being like a form of social control?’
‘Ah, you and your conspiracy theories! There’s always a puppet master pulling the strings somewhere in your explanations!’
‘Well from my experience, patriotism redirects people’s attentions away from the real issues that affect people. To push through unpopular policies or pass legislation that will negatively affect those on whose approval it depends, politicians will often play the patriotism card, someone whips out a flag or starts chanting “U.S.A., U.S.A., U.S.A.” and everyone drops what they’re doing and joins in lest they be called un-American. Its submission to a higher power, letting someone else do the thinking for you asking only for your unconditional support in return.’
‘Sounds like 56 years of marriage to me!’ Thales retorted, ‘Essentially it comes down to the basic human desire that everyone has to belong. Patriotism to my mind has many forms; your country, your town, your football team, whatever, it’s a great feeling when you’re with bar full of strangers and an Ireland match is on telly and everyone is singing the anthem together, it’s a bonding with your fellow man, a synergy, a belonging to something bigger than you. Don’t tell me Castro, that you’ve never had that feeling?’
‘The only feeling I’ve had in that situation is fear! It’s like everyone is a member of some secret cult and a burning pride in some symbol or jingoistic nonsense is the secret handshake. Personally, I find it as exclusive as it is inclusive for others.’
Thales was still pondering his next move as he spoke with Castro. As was often the case, he found himself getting distracted by the conversation at the expense of his performance on the chess board. He was not as dispassionate and distant as Castro and often found it hard to argue against a position he vehemently objected to while at the same time perform on the board. He moved his knight into an attack position, a move designed to put Castro on the back foot, he was now free to take up the debate although he felt the game as a whole was slowly falling from his grasp.
‘You can’t seriously believe that patriotism is only the fancy of the ignorant and aggressive? I think your trying to get a rise out of me!’
‘I’ve seen enough flustered culchies to last me a lifetime, I don’t need to see another one today.’
‘But you’re an American, the most powerful, influential, culturally pervasive society in the world. Don’t you feel any pride in that?’
Castro pondered the question for a moment before responding. ‘For me, Ireland is a large rock jutting out of the ocean, America is a concept and nationality is an accident of birth. If I was born in Canada to a Jamaican mother and a Finnish father and then raised in Greenland before emigrating to Thailand, than what country would I be expected to burn with pride for? I don’t even know what “country” is anyway; for me its an eclectic mixture of different races, creeds, languages, religions and personalities, the borders are arbitrarily defined and often change, its ruled by different ideologies at different times, with varying degrees of wealth and connectedness enjoyed by its inhabitants. Sometimes it is only some vague, unspecified sense of patriotism that maintains a national identity, keeping the whole thing from falling apart, look at what happened in Iraq when people finally got the freedom to speak out for what they wanted, Iraq as we used to know it ceased to be a cohesive nation.’
‘You should have been a politician Castro, you missed your calling!’
‘So I’m making sense then?’
‘No, I feel sleepy listening to you go on!’
‘Ah that’s your age showing old man!’
‘And what about the famous American writers, artists, philosophers, Scientists and political leaders that inspired us and had such a huge impact on 20th century culture?’
‘I didn’t help them write, paint, think, experiment or lecture, in what way am I more connected to them than you? Sure, Joyce, Beckett and Wilde all haled from here but what have they got to do with you? The most militantly patriotic have probably not even read them.’
‘The surgeon in you keeps coming out in these conversations. You tend to overanalyse everything, to intellectualise at the expense of an emotional connection.’
‘I just think it’s funny that America gets so much flak for its approach, when an allegedly more sophisticated, ironic, post-modern Europe is, albeit more in a more subtle way, exactly the same. The easy going Irish, for example, turn into goose stepping Nazis at the merest suggestion that Ireland is not the greatest nation on earth!’
‘Are you saying its not?’
‘Of course not! But seriously, it’s only because we live here that it’s so important to us. I know your not a fan of analogies, but consider this for a moment’-
‘Ah yes, what chat would be complete without some abstract reference to something completely unrelated to the topic at hand? The intellectual equivalent to saying “look behind you!” then running away.’
‘I’m sitting in a coffee shop in Palau, some small insignificant island republic in the south pacific, a place most people are unaware exists much less able to find it on a map. There is a guy sitting at the table next to me, watching a football match against a neighbouring island. This guy hates the neighbouring island; wearing a Palauan shirt, singing the national anthem when it comes on, hand on his heart with a tear welling up in his eye, a picture of national pride. Would you find this man to be mildly ridiculous, even pathetic? If you’re honest you would. You would think to yourself, who cares, why is this guy so wound up, so tense when in the grand scheme of things it doesn’t matter a jot? Well, we are all like that guy, it’s only because our countries are bigger or more visible that patriotism is given some sort of legitimacy, it’s just as ridiculous as that guy on a bigger scale.’
Thales felt the strength of his argument being undermined like his queens defence on the board. His whole being believed in the unifying power of patriotism, he resented being made to feel petty for loving his country but he found it difficult to argue against Castro’s ruthless dissection of group dynamics and the lack of substance behind the euphoria of national pride. He decided to bluff it out.
‘That one didn’t work for me I’m afraid, I lost interest half way through!’
‘O.K., smart guy how do you like this one; if everyone my family greeted each other by slapping the other persons face you would say we are crazy’
‘I say that anyway!’
‘Well, imagine everyone in the world being brought up to greet each other with a good, healthy slap in the face. Patriotism has as much sense and logic to it as a slap in the face and I’m just one of those people lacking the face slapping enthusiasm of my compatriots!’
‘I know whose face I’d like to slap right now! So you don’t feel American at all, Mr. International, just a free spirited man of the earth?’
‘Of course I feel American; you make me aware of that everyday God bless you, but I also feel like a man, I feel black, I feel old, I feel like lots of things I don’t feel the need to salute or sing about! Patriotism is something from which the pleasure cannot be enjoyed without it being at the expense of something else, which is ironic as it is supposed to be a celebration of the things that unite us all.’
Thales had by now conceded defeat to himself on both fronts. He looked at the board half-heartedly for an escape as he pondered Castro’s last statement. He knew the game was all but over but he decided on one last throw of the dice, hiding his king behind his last pawn.

‘The life of man is nasty, brutish and short, my good friend, much like this game’, Thales hadn’t noticed the castle at the other end of the board and with one final move to a parallel square, Castro put Thales in checkmate to end the game.
‘That was a slow death, you seemed to like that, tell me Castro…have you ever killed a man?’
‘Well, I killed a man in Reno just to watch him die once’
‘What happened?’
‘I wrote a song about it, but Johnny Cash stole it on me!’
‘So what’s that now, 44 to 47?’
‘Nice try, its 45 to 47 and the coffee is on you today’
‘It must be the hole in my lip!’
‘Ah, the old ones are the best are they not?’
‘That’s what I said to Sonia before you came today, but she was having none of it!’
‘Ah…nothing to be done’
‘Nothing to be done’
both men relished the mindless banter that offset the weighty chess conversations they had, it was like warming down after a run and they were honest enough to have a self deprecating laugh at their own expense at their wordy ways by comparing themselves to Vladimir and Estrogan in waiting for Godot.
‘Set them up again if you feel up to another beating’ Castro said as he stood up to go to the bathroom.
‘Famous last words’ Thales retorted meekly.
Their chess games had almost come to symbolise their respective positions and beliefs. Castro, the former surgeon, was ruled by his head more than his heart, he was as emotionally distant from the abstract conversations they had as he had been on the patients he had operated on in a way that Thales who wore his heart on his sleeve, could never be.
Thales, on the other hand, was a former farmer who had educated himself in later years with a result that he had a passion for knowledge and debate undiluted by years of critical thinking and analysis, this passion carried over to their conversations. He reacted instinctively to things while Castro was more deliberate and thoughtful. Thales had worked all his life in a job based around interdependence and cooperation, he was an idealist who believed that if everyone acted according to the common good, people’s lives would be the richer for it.
As they debated their beliefs over coffee and chess, the success of their arguments was reflected in the game. When one was losing a debate, he would become distracted, thinking and reaching deeper, trying to find the definitive way to express how they felt and why they thought they were right in an attempt to regain the upper hand. This would inevitably distract them from the game allowing the other to get the upper hand in the game. After several games of chess together, Thales had brought this peculiar coincidence to Castro’s attention and now both men had had the added pressure of simultaneously fighting on two fronts, the game, and more importantly to both men, the merits of their respective philosophy. After 92 games together, Thales and the idealists were marginally in front.

At a superficial level both men were admirable and someone we would probably all aspire to be like in our autumn years; they were both happily married, Castro for 31 years, Thales for 56, both men were still mentally astute, due in no small part to their friendship and both men had grown old with an earthy dignity and candour that endeared them to others.
Yet underneath the charm and banter, each hid a secret that no one else knew, a secret that ate them up every day of their lives. They had hid this secret from each other and from everyone else but they couldn’t hide it from themselves. There lies a darkness in every human heart; it is the measure of the man as to how much he indulges it. Thales and Castro are strong men, admirable men, but at night time, when the chatter of the daytime has been silenced by the unforgiving darkness of the night and the sunshine thoughts of the afternoon give way to harsh reflection, mental scars from distant memories have a habit of itching, an itch that often cant be sated. Old age tends to bring with it a penchant for reflection on a life’s work, a weighing up of the good and the bad, and just as a happy memory relived can bring a tear to the eye, so too can wrongs we unjustly caused others.

Reliving these troubling memories had preoccupied Thales mind of late.

Thales had moved to Dublin in 1999 with his wife June to be nearer his children, his hard life of toiling in the fields of Clare seemed a million miles away from the comfort of retirement. But as much pride as he got from his years on the farm and from raising four healthy and happy children, an incident that occurred on October the 16th in 1965 stopped him fully enjoying the pleasures of reminiscing. It was a constant throbbing at the back of his mind and as much as he had tried to suppress it with the activities of daily life it somehow managed to resurface, each time more potent than before.
Over time, the human mind can adapt to almost anything, life’s tragedy is that given enough time everyone has their cross to bare and Thales was sure that like a sickness or disease, the memory of 1965 would be one of those pains he would carry to his grave. What it made it so difficult to accept was that it was something he had done knowing the ramifications, knowing the hurt it would cause.

Family trees held no mystery for Thales O’Brien. His father had worked the same fields he sons worked and his father before him, ‘an O’Brien tilled the garden of Eden’ they used to say and the family was held in high esteem within Ennis, the main town in co Clare in the west of Ireland as pious Christians who actively participated in community life.
Thales had two brothers; Cormac and Jacob. Cormac, the eldest, joined the seminary when he was a teenager as was the tradition of the time and to this day is still the parish priest in Lisdoonvarna. Jacob worked on the farm with Thales and when their father died they were left to divide the farm between them. At almost 490 acres the holdings where the largest in the county, and there was more than enough for both brothers to work and raise families on.
In the summer of 1960, Jacob spent every spare minute of the day helping his younger brother build his own family home near to his. It had been a hot summer and it was gruelling work on top of the daily farm work, but the close bond the brothers held overcame the difficulties and together they got it done in four months.
Everyday after work the two families would meet in one of the houses for dinner, their children would play together like brothers and sisters in the back garden fully absorbed in the games they had created, the detailed intricate rules that oftentimes is overlooked by adults demanding all their attention and creativity.
June and Fidelma, the two men’s wives, would prepare the food together, comparing dinner recipes and relishing the housekeeping tips and ideas they shared with a genuine pleasure that women later on would come to condescend but never fully understand. And of the two brothers, best friends from childhood, would sit in silence by the fireplace on winter evenings with a glass of stout in their hands, exhausted after a days work, content in a limited way but perhaps a more profound way than a generation of men that followed them with more money and free time could appreciate.
This was the life the two men shared in the early sixties, it was difficult and tiring, there wasn’t too much money and aspirations never extended beyond a bumper crop and an extra few shillings for food or drink, but what these people realised was that if you have a close, loving family around you and you have security in your life, than the world beyond the village is not necessarily something you aspire to join as soon as you can. Happiness can’t be measured by GNP or acquisitions, most times it is the people that those more educated or affluent tend look down on or somehow feel superior to that have the happiest lives which is, if we are honest with ourselves, the only thing worth caring about and striving for.

Louise, Jacob’s eldest daughter, was the most gifted child from the group. Like the other children she spent a lot of her free time helping out on the farm, particularly working with the animals with whom she seemed to have a particular affinity but it was in school work and academia however that she showed the most promise. Children of that generation were not encouraged to stay on in school past a particular age; especially girls who were expected to marry and start a family in their early twenties. For rural, conservative families of that time, tradition played a big part in ones future prospects. Louise was unique in many ways however; she stood head and shoulders above the rest of the children in her school and had a passion for learning that her parents, initially reluctant, eventually supported. It was decided that she would stay on in school and to go to the University of Limerick to study veterinary medicine; an aspiration from childhood that had never faltered with the fickle passions of youth.
College was an impossible dream for most working class families back then and Jacob had to sacrifice a lot to meet the fees. His father’s inheritance had not been insignificant but was not enough to cover the expenses of tuition so over a period of 4 years, the family scrimped and saved every penny they could to build up a college fund.
Thales had spent his money on building up his new house and splashing out on some treats for his family, treats that Jacob had to deny his, but still he contributed the little he had left whenever he could and by the time Louise had finished her leaving certificate exam and got the required number of points for college, Jacob had finally made up the four years college fees and could send his only daughter to college.
It had been difficult but Jacob had given Louise a chance at a better life, the years of sacrifice had been worth it. On the day when the college places where offered he found himself standing by his wife’s side in the kitchen, both beaming with pride as they stared out of the window at Louise who was running up the driveway clutching the offer in her hand, squeezing it tight as if it might somehow fall from her grasp and be lost forever, shouting at the top of her voice ‘I did it! I did it!’ At that moment Jacob thought to himself that if for no other reason; he could stand proud and hold his head high on judgement day for what he had done for his daughter and what it meant to her.

While the atmosphere in Jacob’s house was one of joy and promise, things were darker in Thales’s house. Thales had been moody and distant with his family at that time, he was spending a lot of time away from the home at night and wasn’t the life force he usually was. He had even become irritable with Jacob and refused to explain his behaviour or moods, preferring to work silently during the day, and staying out late at night. June worried that he was involved with another woman but the truth turned out to be more damaging than that.
Instead of spending his time with another woman, as June initially feared, Thales had in fact been spending more and more time at a local bar, but it was not a drink problem he was nurturing.

In co Clare at the time, there were 5 big farms that covered an area almost half the size of the county, Jacob and Thales were the head of the household for two of them, then there was also the Doyle’s, the Finnegan’s and the Murphy’s. While Jacob preferred to spend his evenings with his wife and children, Thales occasionally liked to get away from the house to meet up with his these three men and play cards. The played as hard as they worked and most times they met up the games would continue in the back room of the pub, finishing long after the landlord had locked the front doors.
There was a certain amount of ego involved in these competitive games, family pride was at stake and the games would sometimes involve stakes that would be beyond the means of the players ability to pay it back if they lost. One particular game in October 1965 involved stakes that would change the lives of the two players involved forever.
Joe Murphy and Thales found themselves going head to head in the final game of the session. It had been a long night with more ups and downs for the four players than usual, lady luck had been quite indecisive that night, as she jumped from shoulder to shoulder she left a erratic and inconsistent game in her wake, no one was pulling away from the pack as was normally the case and at 4am, when Finnegan and Doyle decided to call it a night, Thales decided to go one last round with Murphy in a winner takes all hand. Thales was marginally ahead and when he was dealt a house with aces high, he was sure lady luck and the pot would be leaving with him that night. He got that excited adrenaline rush in the pit of his stomach he always got when the cards we good, he was tired and had to try hard not to show any tells to Murphy who was the best reader of the game of the group.
Murphy bought in one card and Thales assumed he was holding two pair, not enough to beat him, and was surprised when he opened the pot with half of his cash. Thales hesitated for a moment, Murphy was not an unpredictable player and such a raise would usually indicate that he was holding a good hand. But it was getting to the end of the night, everyone was drunk and an inebriated Thales was so focused on the strength of his own hand that he went with his gut instinct, a rule he lived by, and re-raised.
‘What would your missus say if she saw you betting your pocket money like that’ Murphy said, goading Thales deliberately in his usual manner.
Murphy was the joker of the group, popular for his razor sharp wit and anecdotes but he was as ruthless as he was funny and Thales always liked to get the better of him when he could. He didn’t like to be mocked and Murphy, knowing this, would poke and prod him as much as he could get away with, always trying to provoke a response. Thales was determined to go out with a bang tonight, Murphy had been particularly scathing of him most of the evening and he felt the best way to get him back was where it hurts the most, his pocket.
‘She’d say “take him for everything he’s got”, which is what I’m going to do’. A bitter tone had entered into the final game, all the men sensed it and when Murphy went all in, none of the men felt it would end there.
‘You don’t have the balls to take me on O’Brien’
‘You’ve a big mouth Murphy; do you have a wallet to match it? I’ll go all in too and raise you 50 livestock, your choice’ With that challenge Thales had brought the game to a different level, something that went beyond losing a few shillings at the table but living to see another day, what was unfolding meant there would be serious consequences.
Finnegan, always the voice of reason and moderation, tried to calm things down ‘Lads, it’s only a game, take it easy now, why don’t we leave it at that and show your cards?’
‘Fine by me’ Thales said with a patronising tone designed to infuriate Murphy but belying the tension he was feeling and the doubts he had going into a battle like this with his beatable aces high house.
‘I’ll see your feckin sheep and raise you all of them, the whole lot’. Doyle started to shout ‘this is crazy’ and Finnegan, who for most of the night had been trying to mediate between these two men and alleviate the tension that was steadily building, groaned quietly to himself before once again trying to defuse an anxious situation. By now however, the game had gone beyond the cards the players were holding and to the heart of what was going on, the dislike these two men had for each other, a contempt that usually bubbled under the surface most of the time but was now coming to the fore.
Pride makes fools of us all and at that table with its dimly lit overhead light, the empty bottles of whiskey on the floor, overflowing ashtrays of cigar stubs and cigarette butts, the claustrophobia and tension, it all combined to blur the senses of these two players and despite the best efforts of Doyle and Finnegan, the stakes had risen within a matter of minutes to the deeds of their respective farms. It was everything the two men had, all they had to offer; they were literally putting their life and livelihood on the line. Hindsight is 20/20 vision and this was a moment in his life that Thales would replay more than any other, each time he would make a different move; backing out meekly, avoiding that last hand altogether and even not turning up at all, each time a different action to the one he took that night which was to shape the rest of his life.
When it came to the crunch and both men had to turn over their cards, the attitude and bravado had dissipated somewhat, both men could only concentrate on what was about to happen. Both men had wives and families, the devastating repercussions and consequences that was about to befall one of the two men was ignored, this moment; short lived but long remembered, was about to ruin one of them forever.
‘Right, looks like there’s only one thing left to do’ Finnegan said with such doom in his voice that for an instant, Murphy and Thales couldn’t move. Both men were on the precipice secretly hoping and wishing that someone or something could help them back out without losing face, but stubborn pride and mutual dislike pushed them reluctantly forward into the unknown.
Eventually Thales turned over his cards to reveal his aces high house, no one said a word or moved a muscle, instead all the focus was on Murphy’s reaction. He didn’t do anything initially, he knew who had won and who lost and it was if he was trying to digest what that meant before he shared it with anyone else. His face gave no indication of what he was holding and just as Thales reached boiling point and was about to explode, Murphy threw down his cards and the four men stared on in silence for what seemed like an eternity at what they revealed.
Through the window by the sink where the new morning’s daylight was pouring in, illuminating the darkened, dreary room, a cockerel calling in the new day outside was the only interruption to the silence. Not one of the men at the table registered it or even heard it.
Poker of fives. With those four cards Thales’ life came crashing down around his ears, the excitement and anticipation his body had been running on for the last five minutes turned cold in an instant, he felt so nauseas that he jumped up and ran to the sink and vomited up the nights whiskey, coughing, spitting and moaning over the drain, the other three men stayed fixed to their spot, no one spoke, they just stared into each others eyes in shock. Even Murphy couldn’t enjoy the victory, realising how close he came to losing everything he had worked his life for took the pleasure away from it, he was feeling almost as nauseas. The three men packed up the table and cleaned the room in near silence as Thales left for home without saying a word.
Despite the fact that he had lost everything, Thales couldn’t bring himself to ask Murphy for any favours like a repayment plan or some sort of alternative settlement, and Murphy, realising that he would have given his farm up had he lost wasn’t inclined to offer an alternative anyway; for these men, honour came before everything and if you were foolish enough to gamble everything you had on the throw of a dice you have to be prepared to go all the way with it for pleading or begging was shameful and humiliating and was believed to be a fate worse than the one Thales faced that morning.


When Thales woke up the next morning after sleeping just 2 hours he had a lot to think about. He sat up in bed and hit the hangover that loomed over his pillow like a rain cloud. His whole body throbbed and he craved the comfort of sleep like a magnet but Thales, who had never missed a days work in his life, fought back and dressed himself slowly before going downstairs to eat breakfast. He ate in silence with his wife who knew him well enough not to ask him about his night before leaving for the fields to herd the cows in for their morning milking.
The feeling of dread that had accompanied him home a few hours previous followed him out to the fields as he racked his brains to find a solution, a way out of his predicament. For all his faults, he thought to himself, Murphy doesn’t seem like the kind of guy that would call in that bet in full, he’ll probably ask for something smaller, he might even forget the whole thing, if I had won that hand, he thought to himself, I’m sure he wouldn’t have paid up, he’s got a wife and kids, he’s not going to turf another family out onto the street. After convincing himself of Murphy’s better nature, he felt a little better and although he still had the nagging feeling of a problem not yet resolved, he was sure there was a solution that would satisfy both men.
That evening when work was finished he decided to make the trek across town to Murphy’s family home to talk things out with him and try to come to an amicable arrangement, talking in the presence of his wife and kids might even soften him up a bit he thought.
What Thales underestimated was Murphy’s steely resolve to acquire as much farm land and property as he could. Murphy was driven by money more than anything else, a sharp departure from the communal egalitarianism that characterised the rest of the town. It humiliated Thales to have to beg someone that had been his equal the previous night; it crushed him when that approach cut no ice.
‘If you can’t pay the price you shouldn’t have played the game, it was a tough break but I put myself on the line too. I would have given you the deeds had I lost but I didn’t, that’s just life’
‘How am I supposed to pay you, the farm is everything I have? What will I do?’
‘You should have thought about that before you started making pledges you couldn’t cover. Don’t embarrass yourself further by begging me to change my mind, what’s done is done’
The conversation was a short one, Thales saw that not only was Murphy determined to get his money from him, he also saw that he was enjoying every minute of his pathetic pleading. Murphy took the deeds of the house from him and told him the only way to get them back was to buy them for the full value, he gave Thales 3 weeks to organise himself and his family with accommodation and work, and then he had to go.
Devastated and stunned Thales walked home to his house trying to think of a way to break the news to his wife that they would have to move into Jacob’s house, that they had no money and no land and that for the rest of his days he would have to work as a farm hand on someone else’s land, that everything they have now belongs to the Murphy’s and console her about the shame associated with that that will be felt by all of the family as soon as news spreads through the village. Before he went into his home he walked into the woods that surrounded his home and when he was sure there was no one around, he did something he never did before; he cried to himself.
While he wept silently by an old oak tree, feeling sorry for himself and the state he had got himself into, he thought of something that was so immediately abhorrent he dismissed it out of hand. In the desperation he found himself in however, the thought kept coming back to him and while normally it was something he would condemn anyone else for thinking much less acting on, at that moment it seemed like the only solution to his problem.

The O’Brien’s, like most of the families in the village where conservative and pious, the church was at the peak of its power and tradition ruled most peoples approach to life. It was an insular world and globalisation as a concept had not even been thought of yet. Such small town thinking explained why people only trusted their immediate family and why Jacob would do something so unusual like keeping his life savings in a tin box underneath his bed. In the four years he spent saving and adding to his initial fathers inheritance he had built up a substantial amount for his daughters college fees, Thales of course knew about this and it was the thought of taking this money, of denying his niece and saving his family that so disgusted him as he sat by the tree, yet it appeared to be the only solution available.
That night he was forced to act, Jacob had mentioned that the fees deadline for the first year of college where due soon and that he planned to bring the box down to the local bank.

It was almost 7:30pm when Thales got back home. All the lights in the house where on which meant that Jacob and his family where probably over for dinner. He took a deep breath at the front door and decided to keep what had just happened with Murphy to himself.
When he entered he heard talking coming from the kitchen so he went in to see who was there. June and Fidelma were drinking tea and talking happily by the table, the smell of food filled the room.
‘Ah, your home, we were just talking about you’ June said jumping up to get him a drink and glass.
‘What were you saying’ Thales replied.
Not picking up on his guarded response and clearly glad to see him home June said ‘I was wondering if you were going to come back for dinner tonight. I’m going to be serving up in about twenty minutes, its potatoes, carrots and sprouts with pork chops and I made that gravy that you like too. Jacobs inside so I’ll call you both when it’s ready’
She handed Thales the can of stout and glass and as she did he had to fight back the urge to cry, he was suddenly aware of what an amazing woman she was. As is often the case in marriage, we can sometimes take for granted the love and support we get from our partners and with all the misery he was about to inflict on the family he realised that after 15 years of marriage he had never told her exactly how much he loved her, he didn’t kiss her passionately like he used to. He had never been a man comfortable with his emotions and had never felt particularly bothered about it but right then, as she looked at him with love and affection he was immediately aware of his inadequacies as a man and husband. He made a promise to himself that whatever happened in the future he would be a better man for her.
He took the glass and drink from her hand, leaned forward and kissed her tenderly on the cheek and said ‘I’m so lucky to have you’ before walking into the sitting room to see his brother. He didn’t see the tear welling up in June’s eye as he left the room.
‘How’s it going Jake?’ Thales said as he sat down in the seat beside his big brother and poured the contents of the can into his glass. Jake who had been staring quietly into the ambers of the fire apparently lost in thought looked up and said with genuine surprise ‘ah, ‘tis yourself’ before adding timidly ‘didn’t think you’d be back tonight’. Cut from the same cloth, Jacob was also a man uncomfortable expressing himself but Thales, perhaps overly sensitive tonight due to the secrets he had on his mind, sensed in his brothers voice a trace of sadness. It suddenly occurred to him that his brother missed him. While Thales was out most night’s playing cards with his friends he had left Jacob at home and while he knew Jacob didn’t like gambling he had never invited him to go. Jacob and Thales had been best friends more than brothers for all their life and Thales realised that his brother missed his company and perhaps felt a little lonely without him. The guilt he felt at that moment hit him like a punch in the stomach and he struggled to say in an even voice ‘I’ll probably be giving the cards a miss for a while’
Both men continued to sit in silence by the fireplace, both wanting to say more than they could. The sadness felt by both men, each for different reasons, was palpable, best friends sitting side by side who couldn’t have been further away from each other. It was only when dinner was called that the mood was lifted.
The dinner was as usual a rowdy and boisterous affair. The big table in the centre of the kitchen sat June and Thales and their 3 children and Fidelma and Jacob and their 5. Louise, who had been upstairs with the younger children playing games, was the centre of attention that night. A rejuvenated Jacob beamed with pride as he boasted about his daughters achievements and told the other kids how they should work hard in school if they wanted to be like her. He told his brother how he planned to take the following morning off to go to town to lodge the money for her studies and to buy her the things she needs for the start of term. The pride felt by Jacob was felt by everyone there, June and Thales had almost been as big a part of Louise’s life as her parents, both families at moments like these felt as one, all sharing in the excitement. Only Thales couldn’t share the same enthusiasm as the others. He faced the biggest choice of his life that night; no one at the table knew what he planned to do or would have ever thought him capable of it.
When dinner finished the children washed the dishes and the four adults went into the sitting room to talk. The topic of conversation inevitably centred on the big things that were going on in Louise’s life.
‘You know, I wasn’t so sure about all this when it started off’ Fidelma started with Jacob nodding in agreement, ‘but her teachers were so adamant and Lou herself was so excited about the thoughts of college that we thought “why not just try and save and see what we can come up with’. June, engrossed in the story, added ‘what amazes me is that ever since she was a little girl she wanted to be a vet and after all these years she’s never changed her mind. Not once!’ Thales sat quietly at the edge of the sofa half listening to the conversation and privately weighing up the options over and over. He couldn’t think of anything else to do, his palms were sweating and his heart was racing, he kept trying to justify what he was about to do and the enthusiasm with which the other three were talking was making him feel ill. As the thoughts in his head raced faster and faster, his heart beating in his chest and a trace of perspiration ran down the side of his face it all combined to reach a crescendo from which he thought he would explode. He stood up abruptly and said ‘I have to go’ before realising how strange that must have sounded and followed with ‘I’m running low on tobacco so I’m just going to run over to Walsh’s to buy some more, does anyone want anything?’ when everyone said no he got up and left the room, the conversation back in full flow as he left the house.


Thales started to walk across the field in the direction of the bar as a precaution, and then when he was safely out of view he cut back across the field in the darkness to Jacob’s house, his walk turning into a run as panic set in. He took off his muddy shoes at the door so as not to leave a trail and opening the unlocked front door he ran up to his brothers bedroom, took the tin box from under the bed and ran back out the front door. He put his boots back on and ran back across the field and entered the clearing at the front of his house via the trees along the side. He took a minute to catch his breath, hid the box in the ground beside the side of his house then entered through the back door.
The others barely registered him coming into the room but he felt as if all the eyes of the world were on him. The guilt of what he had just done was eating him up inside, and while the others continued their conversation which had moved on to some gossip involving the neighbours, a subject Jacob clearly had no interest in, he sat silently by June’s side, sitting uncomfortably in his seat, his palms sweating, trying to justify the unjustifiable and feeling at any time that he might burst into tears. He was glad of the respite in the previous subject; it allowed him to block out to a certain extent what had just happened. The paranoia he felt at that moment, however, eventually got the better of him and he excused himself early and went to bed knowing well that he would sleep little that night.
He was glad he made it to his room in one piece; it had been a long, stressful day for Thales. He undressed and left the clothes on the floor instead of folding them and putting them on the chair as he usually did. He crawled into bed and turned his back to the bedroom door leaning in against the wall on the side normally reserved for his wife who got up a little later than him. A solitary tear ran down his cheek, for the first time in the last two days he finally realised the significance of what he had done, he had robbed his little brother of his life savings and had ruined the future of a potentially gifted niece, for the first time in his life this life long church going man genuinely feared for the safety of his soul. As low as he felt at this moment however, he knew it was merely the calm before the storm, tomorrow would be the day when his betrayal would be discovered by everyone else.

The missing college fund was indeed discovered the next morning before Jacob and Louise set off for the village. Thales was out in the fields when everyone found out, he wanted to be as far away from the ensuing commotion as possible but his cowardly approach was thwarted when Jacob came running out to the field to tell him the news.
With tears in his eyes his frustrated brother told him what had happened. He told him how they woke up early and had breakfast and when everyone was getting dressed how he went up to the bedroom to get the money only to find the tin was missing.
Jacob went on to tell him that he thought initially that he misplaced the tin although that seemed unlikely and that all seven of them turned the house upside down, the search becoming more frantic and desperate the longer the money was missing. After an hour of searching every nook and cranny in the house Jacob told a clearly shaking Thales how he suspected one of the kids took it. He told him how he screamed at the kids, verbally abusing them when they pleaded ignorance; sure that one of them took it until finally he gave up. The house had been turned upside down, all the kids were devastated that their normally unflappable dad could fly off into such a rage, Louise was crying in her room and Fidelma was trying to console them all. Clearly at the end of his tether a dejected and crestfallen Jacob made his way out to the back fields that Thales was working on to ask his brother and best friend for some advice.
Having decided during Jacob’s story that it was now too late to go back on what he had done, and still mindful of what would befall his family if he lost the deeds to the farm, he decided to merely console his brother and steer him in another direction by telling him he should have locked his front door before calling over last night and that it must have been a thief.
‘But it doesn’t make any sense, I’ve never locked my door in all the years we’ve called up and nothing ever happened, sure we know ever person that lives here within a twenty mile radius’
‘It’s not the same world it was when we were kids Jake; we’re just not as safe as we used to be. The best thing you can do now is to call in the police and tell them what happened, maybe they know something we don’t, you know?’
As Thales cynically tried to console his disconsolate brother while at the same time protect himself and his secret, he felt a part of him die inside, something almost tangible that never came back, it was a feeling that was to haunt him for the rest of his life.

News of the theft spread quickly and when Thales called over to Murphy the following week he was shocked to find that it was Jacob’s brother that had taken the money.
‘That’s nearly all that I owe you there, you’ll get the rest of it in the following few weeks’ Thales said to him as he gave him the big wad of notes.
Murphy took the money and looked at it almost bemused, ‘but how did you….’ Thales shot Murphy a look and said in a low growl ‘this never happened’. Murphy nodded, he didn’t need to be warned, if it ever got out that the money stolen from a talented girl that the whole town had been rooting for was used to pay off a poker debt, he would have been shunned as much as Thales for taking it. Finnegan and Doyle also kept quiet; they had nothing to gain from exposing the secret and were mildly embarrassed to be involved in the whole sordid affair to begin with. And with that the secret died.
The police were called in and reiterated what Thales said about it probably being a theft and that he should be more safety conscious in future.
The whole incident had two immediate consequences; firstly, everyone in the town became more suspicious of each other, something of the innocence of the community was lost as people were more wary of strangers and more conscious of safety with their property and business’. The second and more important outcome was that Louise didn’t get to go to college that year despite a collection organised by the people of the town. In fact Louise didn’t get to go to college at all, the following year she met a boy and they left Ennis, and Clare altogether, to start a new life in Dublin, she got a job working in a supermarket and over the years worked her way up in the company to be a store manager. She lives in Dublin still with her husband and two kids.
As the mystery and the heartache of the stolen money faded into the collective memory of the town, life went on as normal for most people. Thales eventually paid off the rest of the debt to the ruthless, unforgiving Murphy and the issue was forgotten by everyone except Thales who never forgave himself. He never earned enough to pay his brother back, overtly or covertly, and the whole incident served to drive a wedge between the close bond that linked the brothers, which in turn affected the relationships of the two families. June and Fidelma never understood it but it was a guilt ridden Thales rather than a suspicious Jacob that pulled back, he was never able to look his brother in the eye again. Whenever the two families met up Thales would feel ashamed and impotent to change the situation and would avoid spending time with his brother to the extent that they saw less and less of each other as the years went by. The plans the two couples had of growing old together and sharing their autumn years together faded as they moved in separate directions and by the time Thales and June moved to Dublin in 1999, despite spending their whole life living within ten minutes of each other, the two men hadn’t spoken to each other for almost seven years.

In 2002 Jacob and Fidelma died in a car accident on their way back from a holiday in cork to see their son. The funeral was the first time Thales had seen his beloved brother in nearly 14 years. It was something he never recovered from.