#divney

There is not a lot to be said about the aftermath of the murder, but a few details from earlier in the story are made more clear. First, the narrator specifies that he was inseparable from Divney after the murder for three years before he retrieves Mathers’s cash box. (p. 18) That would make him 27 when the murder occurred, as he said he was about 30 at the time they had been known to be inseparable and he began to explain why. (p. 12)

Second, the narrator explains that the physical intimacy between he and Divney was imposed by the narrator in an effort to make Divney so uncomfortable that he would relent to the narrator’s demands to give up the cash box. Although explained, this is still a little hard to believe, even in this context, without more insight into the narrator’s psyche, which isn’t really given. So while I thoroughly enjoy this introduction to the story, in all its weirdness and color, it does require a little too much of a leap.

The narrator ends up having to bury Mathers nearly entirely by himself because Divney ducks out (probably to hide the cash box) while the narrator is pummeling Mathers’s head. Divney finally returns and, after a funny line about the narrator thinking Divney left to attend to a call of nature, they finish the job together.

The narrator starts to ask about the cash box on their ride home and frequently thereafter. Divney won’t tell him where it is until the heat is off. The narrator doesn’t believe there’s any heat because no one misses Mathers, who travels frequently.

We get a window into Divney’s true nature when he laughs uncontrollably after recounting their line to distract Mathers, “Would that be your parcel on the road?” It is the second most disturbing thing in the story so far, after the murder.

After three years of the narrator not letting Divney out of his sight, and after the narrator's starting to even carry a pistol, Divney finally agrees that things have quieted down and says he will go get the cash box.

“We will get the box,” he says. Divney gives a hurt look. But I think that’s only because he realizes now that he’s going to have to kill the narrator. I think his plan was to tell the narrator he was going to get the box and then disappear, probably to Cloankilty. 

To carry out his plan to kill the narrator, Divney slyly convinces the narrator to get the cash box by himself–a little reverse psychology. He convinces the narrator that it would be “just” for the narrator to get the box alone since Divney had withheld it for so long. I can actually see how this might work because it ostensibly shows some trust on Divney’s part. Or it would show trust if Divney’s weren't actually going to murder the narrator too. I suppose the narrator is just too trusting, but it could also be taken as naivete to the point of idiocy. The narrator does suspect that Divney might use the time when the narrator goes to get the box to go get the box himself, but this doesn't make a lot of sense after three years. In either case, I can overlook the lack of believability here because the author wouldn’t want to give away or make too obvious at this point that the narrator is going to die.

The duo later walk to Mathers’s house, and the narrator agrees to go get the cash box inside under the floorboards because Divney will never be out of his sight, as he stays leaning against a stone wall across the road. 

It sounds a little worse when it is made clear, doesn’t it? The murder of Mathers is described in a few short paragraphs on page 16 of the book. Though it is not described in elaborate detail, the raw brutality of the crime is jarring:

Damn.

In a flashback to explain why he never left Divney’s side for several years--the murder and Divney’s refusal to give the narrator the proceeds of the concomitant robbery. This is explained to have occurred “several years” before, but well after the Wrastler was introduced at the pub, when the narrator was about 24. So, the murder of Mathers would seem to have occurred when the author was probably 26 or 27.

At that time, the narrator explains that Divney started reading “or pretending to read” the narrator’s exhaustive, collated index on De Selby and his commentators. Divney effusively praises the book, saying that the narrator could make a fortune in royalties. He encourages him to “put it out.” The narrator demurs, explaining that an unknown like him would have to self-publish, at great personal expense. (That sounds familiar!) 

Divney then again laments that the farm is losing money for lack of fertilizer, caused, according to Divney, by the “Jewmen and Freemasons.” The author knows this is not true, yet he says nothing. 

The narrator fast-forwards some to when he is nearing 30. He explains that by that time an event had transpired resulting in his, quite literally, never leaving Divney’s side. Eventually, after walking with Divney is a cold, wet storm, they begin sharing the same bed--ostensibly to keep warm. The situation is described by the author as a “queer” one that neither of them liked, though they smiled at one another and had the reputation of being the best of friends, or, “the two best Christians in all of Ireland.” (p. 13) No mention is made of their being any sort of homosexual relationship between Divney and the narrator, nor would there likely be in a novel written in Ireland in 1939, even if not published until 1967. Nonetheless, you can’t help but wonder, given the narrator’s lack of any female interests. On the other hand, given the novel’s general weirdness, it may not be out of place for them to sleep together just to illustrate in the extreme how closely the narrator distrusts Divney. But why?