The River Capture

by Mary Costello

  Her eyes are fixed on him.

  His heart is thumping. ‘Something else … full disclosure.’

  Nothing to lose at this stage. Remember Dadda: the truth at all costs. Not that he always reveals this. Only when he really likes … Madness, this. She’ll hightail it out the door, like the girl from Cork last year.

  ‘I’m attracted to both men and women,’ he says. He pauses, scans her face for a reaction. ‘Though I’ve dated mostly women and my longest relationship was with a woman.’ Always the need to mitigate.

  Her face is completely composed, neutral, betraying nothing. Not as much as a blink. If she’s shocked she’s hiding it well.

  ‘So you’re bisexual. You identify as bisexual.’ Again, a neutral tone. Not a question, a statement.

  He shrugs. He has been here before. I identify as me, he wants to say. ‘I like to think of myself as just … sexual, not bisexual or straight or gay or any other label.’ Trying not to sound defensive.

  She looks down. Impossible to know what she’s thinking. All the knowledge we can access, but the mind of another is still impenetrable.

  ‘I don’t like to categorise gender or pigeonhole human attraction,’ he says. ‘The old paradigm of gender is irrelevant, yes. Sexuality is not immutable and, well, we’re all human and – you know that saying – nothing human is unnatural?’

  He has spoken softly, with a conciliatory tone, but the atmosphere is changed, the mood graver. What did he expect? Hardly comedy, this.

  ‘So when – have you always …?’

  Her tone is distant, impersonal, almost professional. She’ll feign an interest now for a while, then skedaddle.

  ‘No. Not until I was twenty-seven. I always liked men, admired their bodies, loved their minds, their company … just like I did women. But I never … kissed a guy or anything. Then I was out one night with a friend and … it just happened. The old cliché – it started with a kiss.’

  Nothing to lose now. He can see it in her eyes – she’s gone. Always a problem for women. Gay sex. See it as gross. Most women wouldn’t touch him with a forty-foot pole. Thinking of him shoving his … Younger women are more open. Gay men don’t mind as much – they don’t believe in bi anyway. Want to give every man the gay card.

  ‘Out of the blue, just like that?’ she asks. A new note in her voice, faintly irritated, a hint of accusation, or doubt even.

  ‘If you mean was I, or am I, a latent homosexual, then no. If I was gay, I’d have been out at fifteen. I had tolerant parents – understanding parents. They never believed in repressing the truth. And what other people thought never mattered to them.’

  ‘I didn’t mean to offend you.’

  ‘You didn’t offend me. Honestly. It’s the person we fall in love with, not the sex, not the gender and – forgive me – not the genitals either. It’s not hard to understand … And, despite the perception, it’s not about being greedy or promiscuous or any of that crude stereotyping that goes on.’ He stops suddenly. He’s over-explaining, sounding like he’s confessing to some transgression that requires forgiveness.

  She looks away, then back. ‘Why are you telling me this?’

  ‘I don’t go around telling people this. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t conceal it either, but it’s private and—’

  ‘So why are you telling me?’

  ‘I thought it was obvious … I like you. I thought it was mutual. Did I misread you?’

  She shakes her head.

  She cannot look him in the eye now. Poor girl. Hadn’t expected this. Images crossing her mind. Aids victims, rent boys, saunas, glory holes, tops, bottoms … The pox. Jesus, she’ll think I have it.

  ‘Let’s say I’m in a committed life-long relationship with a man,’ he says, ‘or in a committed life-long relationship with a woman – married to a woman, say, for twenty-five years. Well, what am I? Am I straight then? Or am I still regarded by the labellers as bisexual? How long would I have to be in a committed monogamous relationship with either a man or a woman to be regarded as either fully-fledged gay or fully-fledged straight? Do you see what I mean? How senseless labels are?’

  She nods, looks out the window, then around at the room. He came on too strong, too forceful. He does not want things to end this way.

  ‘I should probably get going,’ she says. She leaves her mug down and looks at him. ‘I’ll call you … And won’t you let me know if Paddy is any trouble?’

  His heart sinks. This is the way it will be, now and always, with women. Cannot put the genie back in the bottle. Must resign himself to men only.

  He gets up and crosses the hearth and they stand facing each other. Without a word he leans in and kisses her on the mouth, and she lets him. Then he leads the way to the front door.

  THE OLD PALL descends. He sleeps late. The cats gather at the front door, dishes pile in the sink. House of decay again, this.

  He rises at noon, feeds the cats, lets Paddy out. He checks his phone incessantly, drinks strong coffee, smokes, watches Lynch’s Friesians turn slowly towards the south. Turning and turning in the widening gyre. Stray bits of poems always dropping down. Feelings and sensations brought on by such lines. Moments that mattered most in his life. In his teenage years, in the back seat of the car, coming home from Cork on Saturday evenings. The car crawling out of the city, a book from the bookshop on Carey’s Lane on his lap. Titles previously only heard of. The Waste Land, Dubliners, Last Exit to Brooklyn. Trying to read bits under the streetlights before the darkness of the countryside. Eyes on the words for the first time, joy and expectation surging up.

  The week passes with no word from her. On Thursday he drives Ellen to Waterford for her eye clinic appointment and afterwards they have lunch at the Granville Hotel. When they have eaten she takes an envelope from her handbag and hands it to him.

  ‘Instructions for my funeral,’ she says. ‘No unusual requests. No brass bands or gun salutes.’

  He groans and takes the envelope. ‘I won’t be needing this for a long time, Ellen. Who knows who’ll be buried first?’

  ‘I’m not being morbid, you know,’ she says. ‘Just practical. I’m eighty-one years of age, Luke. The day can’t be that far off. And I’m tired. Some days I think I’ve outstayed my welcome. At this stage I’m only biding my time. Hopefully, when the time comes I’ll expire in my sleep, or nod off in my armchair watching CNN News. Obama’s the last voice I hear as I go out.’

  She’ll be buried down at the end of the graveyard. She bought a double plot for herself and Josie when she came back from America, but then Josie went into the family grave with Dadda and his parents. Then Luke’s mother joined them two years ago. That grave is bursting at the seams. Big expensive caskets. All the wood that’s wasted. Bloom said they should bury people vertically – they’d fit more in if they put the coffins standing up.

  ‘You’re a mighty woman, Ellen O’Brien,’ he says. ‘You have a great attitude.’

  ‘Ah, I don’t know. Most people my age are down on their knees morning, noon and night praying for their salvation. I don’t even go to Mass. God knows what’s ahead of me!’

  ‘Oh, you’ll be all right. Sure all you ever did was good.’

  ‘It’s hard to know what to believe, isn’t it? I don’t know if there’s a God or not, or a heaven or a hell … And I don’t know which is worse – the possibility of an afterlife, or nothing at all. It might be better if there’s nothing. But the thought of never seeing Mamma or Josie or your father … or Mrs Clark … ever again … I couldn’t bear it.’

  Her words catch him off guard. He lowers his head. All he can offer are platitudes, more platitudes. Better to be silent. Sit here with her. With her thoughts … Wonder what form we’ll take then, if any. After our physical extinction. We might not go far. Might continue to exist in some other realm, some parallel universe maybe only inches from here. The soul close by … Don’t know. There must be something. Some kind of energy operating in the universe. In all realms. Infinite realm
s. Wouldn’t mind that. World without end.

  ‘Did I see you out and about last week with a young lady at your side?’ Ellen asks.

  He is taken aback. She hasn’t asked about his personal life in a long time. She had been fond of Maeve and sorry they broke up. What to say now. Five days and no word from Ruth. ‘You did,’ he says. You did indeed. A young lady.

  ‘You’re a good lad, Luke. You deserve to be happy. The next time she’s around, come up and say hello. Just ring the bell, I’ll be there.’ She looks at him. ‘If you feel like it, of course.’

  In the evening he opens first a bottle of red wine and then the envelope with Ellen’s funeral instructions.

  The open casket is to be placed in the living room (horizontal to the fireplace) for viewing. For easy flow of movement, people should enter from the hall and exit through the double doors into the dining room. NB: Cover the mirror.

  Give the job to Feeney’s Undertakers. Choose a light oak casket, like we had for Josie. Not those dark mahogany ones.

  I’d like Maura Lynch to lay me out.

  I’d like to be laid out in my navy bouclé suit, and the cream silk blouse with the bow. They’re hanging together on a single hanger in the wardrobe in the guest bedroom.

  Notify the Dept. of Social Welfare of my death so they can cancel my pension.

  Please do not leave me in the church overnight. Bring me straight from the house for Requiem Mass, then on for burial.

  Book the Sullane Valley Hotel for a full three-course meal after the burial. Guests to be treated to two drinks.

  As you know, Aidan Farrell has the original will (and you have a copy). He’ll know the right time to read it, but if Lucy comes home for the funeral, it can be read the day after my burial.

  Thank you, Luke, I’ll always be grateful for all you’ve done for me, and for all you did for Josie too. With all my love, Ellen.

  Floored, blindsided with sorrow now. As if she’s already gone. Speaking from beyond the grave … Cannot imagine being without her. The backbone of the family since Dadda died. No, longer. And now … Only a matter of time. He will be truly alone then. For the first time.

  He folds the pages and returns them to the envelope. He should leave instructions for his own funeral. What does it matter? Who will care? Just so long as I’m well dead before they bury me. Next stop Eternity Junction. Bloom was right – there should be some law to pierce the heart to make sure you’re dead. Poor Bloom. No Papa, no Mama, no Rudy, and no Milly or Molly either, in a way. His mother’s maiden name was Higgins. Ellen Higgins! Coincidence, remembering that now. Bloom was thinking of his mother during Paddy Dignam’s funeral in Glasnevin. Not clear if she’s buried there, don’t think so … Bloom is always thinking about death. Because of Rudy. His father, too. Death in Ennis. Suicide … That hotel is still there. Looked it up online a while back. Still trading, imagine! The Queens Hotel. Church Street now named Abbey Street. Fine nineteenth-century building, wrought-iron balcony above the front door. Traditional signage. Óstán na Banríona. Interior a different story. Photographs of earlier times too. The Joyce connection given only a brief mention. Seems to specialise in hen parties now. Queens Nite Club. Customer reviews. Excellent party for 32 hens. A lad called Ronnie looked after us … Felt close to Bloom looking at the earlier pictures. Must go there sometime, ask for the room it happened in. Venetian blinds and hunting pictures on the wall. Sunlight coming in, the room stuffy. The boot-boy gave evidence at the inquest. They thought he was asleep. Rudolph Virag. Yellow streaks on his face. They must be used to Joyce fans … Wonder if they have a room named after him. The Rudolph V. Bloom suite. No. No market in suicide. Aconite he took. They should allow assisted suicide. Do it for animals, so why not? Have to go to Switzerland. Digitalis. No, Dignitas. Digitalis is a flower, foxglove … Aconite is a flower too, that’s why I … No mention of where he’s buried … Surprising Joyce never went in for cremation. Best solution all round. That theologian who wrote The Imitation of Christ was buried alive by accident; discovered the lid of his coffin gouged and clawed with his fingernails when they dug him up. Poor devil. Was up for sainthood but they wouldn’t give it him – not saintly enough because he didn’t willingly surrender to the will of God who had buried him alive.

  On Saturday morning there is no sign of Lily. He calls and calls and finally she appears down the back stairs. She runs into the kitchen, tail in the air, her two sides beat together. Her litter has landed. She gobbles down her breakfast, then stands at the door, waiting for him. She leads the way up the back stairs and into the blue room. Hops into the wardrobe. Maternity ward. Five tiny, blind mewling kittens birthed on his mother’s caramel coat. Marvel of nature. She steps daintily over them, folds herself down and lies back as they trample over each other to suckle. Such a good little mother. Worn out. This is your last little family, I promise, he whispers.

  The doorbell rings. Startled, he runs to the window. Parked below, the little yellow car. His heart jumps and he races down the stairs, glancing at himself quickly as he passes the hall mirror. Then she’s standing before him at the door.

  ‘Ruth, come in.’

  Paddy comes running from the yard and dives in the gap as the door is closing.

  ‘Well, look at who it is!’ she exclaims, bending down to pet him. ‘Hope you’re behaving yourself, buster.’

  They make small talk about the dog. Then he says, ‘I’m going to put him out now again, just for a little while. I’ve something to show you.’

  He leads her up the back stairs and puts a finger to his lips before entering the blue room. Inside, he says Lily’s name softly and opens the wardrobe door a fraction wider. Ruth squats down and looks inside.

  ‘Oh … the little darlings,’ she whispers. ‘How many?’

  He holds up five fingers.

  She is trying to make them out in the semi-darkness. ‘You’re a great girl, Lily,’ she whispers. Then she stands and moves back. ‘I don’t want to distress her.’

  ‘I’m sorry for the silence all week,’ she says.

  They are sitting at the kitchen table.

  He shrugs. ‘No problem. I understand. And there was no obligation to speak.’ She looks different. Younger. No mascara, that’s the reason, her eyes are bare.

  ‘The last day … you said you liked me,’ she says.

  ‘I did. I do.’

  ‘I like you too, Luke. And …’

  He waits. And is better than but. Then a thought strikes him: what if she just wants to experience something exotic, a little deviant even? Wants to appear open-minded and evolved.

  ‘I’d like to get to know you,’ she says haltingly, then shrugs. ‘I want to know you.’

  ‘I want to know you too,’ he says. ‘But, you know, I’m not some curiosity, some experiment. And I’ll never apologise for who I am.’

  ‘I know that.’

  They talk for an hour or more. She asks tentative, half-apologetic questions about his past. The who, when, where, how long? Not the what, or the who put what where. He wouldn’t have answered anyway. Sacrosanct, always, the intimacy between two people.

  ‘If, as a teenager, I had kissed a boy,’ he says, ‘and had never kissed a girl, then desire for men only might have been awoken in me, and I might never have been attracted to women … Until I met you, of course,’ he teases. Need to lighten things up. ‘Conventions, societal taboos – they prevent us from following desires that are completely natural. Why do we think desire can only be awoken in us by certain people, certain genders? How do we know?’

  ‘You think it’s that simple?’ she asks. ‘You’re saying if I’d kissed a girl when I was fifteen I might now be a lesbian?’

  ‘Maybe. Maybe not. Maybe you’d be attracted to both sexes … We’re just people, Ruth. Not straight or gay or bisexual or trisexual. It’s nobody’s business who we’re attracted to. It’s a private matter between two people. Have you never been attracted to another woman?’

  She smiles, gives a cheeky
little look, makes a wavy maybe signal with her hand.

  He opens his eyes wide in mock astonishment. ‘Ah-ha!’ he says. ‘I feel an admission coming on.’

  ‘Once – just once,’ she says, ‘at the airport en route to Paris, there was this girl in the queue behind me … It came out of nowhere. Honest to God! Our eyes met and she smiled at me. She was very beautiful, petite, brown-eyed, very French-looking, wearing a tight white shirt. I kept turning around – I couldn’t take my eyes off her. She was very attractive. Sexually too.’

  He keeps looking at her. ‘And?’ he says, signalling her to continue.

  ‘That’s it.’

  ‘That’s it? Ah, God, I thought you were about to confess to some act of wild abandon in public.’

  ‘Fraid not. Wrong woman. I’m even mortified telling you that.’

  He keeps his eyes on her. ‘No need to be mortified.’ He reaches across, takes her hand and kisses it.

  She comes again the next day, dashing from the car to the front door in a downpour. A shy hug, lips brushing cheeks.

  He lights a fire in the drawing room and they sit together on the sofa.

  ‘When you asked me, that first day,’ she says, ‘if I had kids, I said no. And I don’t. But I lost a child – a stillbirth – when I was married.’

  He puts his arm around her shoulder and squeezes it. ‘I’m sorry,’ he says and he can feel her lean against him.

  ‘It’s okay, it’s in the past. I’m not trying to elicit sympathy or anything. People have far worse stories than mine.’

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘We never knew. One of those things … It was a boy, full term. We had a little service in the chapel in the Coombe with just the two families. Then we drove across the city to Glasnevin. He’s buried in the Angels’ Plot there – they put ten or twelve little coffins in each grave, stacked on top of each other. I got a shock when we arrived. I thought he’d have his own little grave.’