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The Constable Calls

By Seamus Heaney

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A Constable Calls is the second in a sequence of six poems entitled 'Singing School' which concludes Heaney's fourth collection 'North' (1975). The poem is a vivid description of an incident from the poet's childhood - a policeman making an official visit to his father's farm at Mossbawn to record tillage returns. There is something grotesquely bizarre about an armed representative of the law travelling by bicycle around the Ulster countryside to record agricultural statistics. Although the incident is described through the impressionable eyes of a child, we are also aware of the wiser presence of the adult Heaney. On a broader level the poem accurately records the sense of resentment and alienation felt by the Catholic Nationalist minority community in an artificially created State governed by the descendants of Protestant planters. The constable is an agent of this repressive sectarian regime. The Royal Ulster Constabulary has always had a predominantly Protestant membership and has traditionally been unequivocally pro-Unionist.

In the opening movement of the poem the constable's bicycle is described in language that is detailed, unemotional.

His bicycle stood at the window-sill,
The rubber cowl of a mud-splasher
Skirting the front mudguard,
Its fat black handlegrips

Heating in sunlight, the 'spud'
Of the dynamo gleaming and cocked back,
The pedal treads hanging relieved
Of the boot of the law.

However, its different component parts are subliminally associated with the repressive power of an alien law. The 'handlegrips' suggest handcuffs and the 'dynamo gleaming and cocked back' becomes a gun primed for firing. The second verse climaxes with the pedals 'relieved Of the boot of the law', hinting at the brutal physical force used by the R.U.C. against Catholics at different periods in the troubled history of the Northern Ireland State, but particularly during the Civil Rights marches of 1969. By contrast the image of the 'spud' emphasises how incongruous the armed representative of British law is in this rural community. 'relieved' anticipates the young Heaney's feeling when the constable thankfully departs. An unpleasant, tense atmosphere is created by the use of sinister 's', hard 'c','g','b' and harsh 'r' consonants, combined with ugly broad vowel sounds.

In the second movement the constable himself is described seen through the eyes of the 'staring' child. The man is described purely in terms of his uniform - the 'cap, the polished holster With its buttoned flap, the braid cord Looped into the revolver butt' - and the visual symbol of the purpose of his visit - the ominous-sounding 'heavy ledger'. The description

The line of its pressure ran like a bevel
In his slightly sweating hair

cleverly emphasises that the uniform is the man, making him the visible embodiment of the hated Protestant government, endowed with no more humanity than his bicycle. The absence of any physical description emphasises that for the Catholic community the constable has no existence as an individual human being - he is a non-person, no more than an unwelcome, intrusive representative of an alien, repressive regime. To emphasise this, there is a total absence of hospitality - the visitor's hat is not hung up; although he is 'slightly sweating' he is not offered a drink and there is no exchange of pleasantries. The visit is strictly professional and impersonal.

In the third movement the constable goes about his business of recording Heaney Senior's tillage returns. Significantly, this is done in British imperial measures - 'acres, roods, and perches' - subtly suggesting the presence of occupying British planters on Irish soil. There is a bitter irony in the representative of an oppressive alien power cataloguing returns from the land belonging to the native Irish. The constable's curt questions

Any other root crops?
Mangolds? Marrowstems? Anything like that?

introduce a palpable atmosphere of tension and the exchange assumes the nature of an interrogation. The father's surly, monosyllabic reply

'No'

effectively captures the resentment felt by a member of the Catholic Nationalist community at being called to account by this arrogant representative of British imperialism. The phrase 'Arithmetic and fear' links the adult and child worlds. While the men are concerned with totals, the boy is frightened by the constable's revolver.

In the fourth movement Heaney brilliantly captures the mind of a child (himself) through his fearful questioning of self which maintains the tension

But was there not a line
Of turnips where the seed ran out
In the potato field

The 'black hole in the barracks' convincingly, yet humorously, expresses the child's frightened sense of the enormity of his father's guilt, and his own, in withholding information about the illegal row of turnips. On a more serious political level the 'black hole' anticipates (with hindsight?) the detention centres which would be set up by the R.U.C. and the British army during the Troubles. The phrase 'Small guilts' betrays the presence of the adult Heaney.

In the fifth movement the young boy's feeling of relief at the imminent departure of the constable is qualified by the sight of his 'baton-case' (another frightening symbol of his official power), of his ledger, the 'domesday book' where the Heaneys' 'crime' has been officially recorded. The reference to the 'domesday book' is richly allusive, but again it makes the reader aware of the controlling presence of the adult Heaney.

The Domesday Book was commissioned in 1086 by the first Norman king of England, William the Conqueror. The new king suppressed Saxon uprisings and introduced Norman customs and institutions into England. The Book contained an extensive survey of the lands of England in order to establish an informed basis for taxation. The unpopular survey was given its name because, like the Biblical Day of Judgement, there could be no appeal against it. There is also an implied allusion to another William, the Protestant William of Orange, also an intruder, who defeated the Catholic King James and imposed his rule on Northern Ireland. There is an ironic hint too at Catholic guilt in the allusion to the Domesday Book. The line

Fitted his cap back with two hands

echoes the 'fat black handlegrips' of the opening verse, emphasising the constable's lack of humanity by linking him to his bicycle. The action also conceals the one hint of his humanity, his 'slightly sweating hair'. The fact that he

looked at me as he said goodbye

is open to several interpretations. It could suggest the child's fear that the constable is aware of the 'crime' that has been committed and of his (silent) complicity in it. It could represent an attempt by the constable to intimidate the boy. On a positive note it could indicate an (unsuccessful) attempt by the constable to elicit a positive reaction through establishing eye-contact. The word 'shadow' implies that the constable is not a real person, but also that he has cast a (temporary) shadow over life at Mossbawn, so idyllically described in the poem Sunlight. The verb 'bobbed' echoes 'bobby', ironically a friendly British colloquialism for a policeman. 'His boot pushed off' is both literal and metaphorical - the feeling of repression departs with the intruder. The final line

And the bicycle ticked, ticked, ticked

has been dismissed as an implausible, melodramatic ending. However, it is deliberately ambiguous. On one level it suggests the boy's fear of delayed punishment for his 'crime'. Heaney may also be saying (with the benefit of hindsight) that the political situation in Northern Ireland when he was a boy was like a time-bomb ready to explode, metaphorically blowing up in the faces of the repressive Protestant government and literally blowing many members of the R.U.C. sky-high. There is a strong contrast between this ominous 'ticked, ticked, ticked' and the rhythmic 'tick of two clocks' in the same setting of Mossbawn in Sunlight.

A Constable Calls is a memory poem, narrated in the past tense. However, the detailed descriptions bring the past vividly to life and are evidence of how indelibly this incident from his childhood has been imprinted on the poet's mind, like the bevel marks of his cap on the constable's hair.

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