A Goat's Song

by Dermot Healy

  “Thank you, Jack.”

  “Good luck,” he shouted to the cast.

  Embarrassed they mumbled greetings in reply. The girl followed him with her eyes as he walked through the foyer. The doorman opened the door but kept his eyes aloft. “Thank you,” said Jack. He went into a bar down the street, and found a place where he had the theatre under view. He stayed there watching the front door and everyone that came and went, but Catherine did not appear.

  At five Eddie and the rest of the cast came out. With a sick feeling he wondered what he should do. Then he saw that Eddie was heading straight for the pub he was in.

  He heard the door swing open. Now what?

  “Jack – you didn’t go back,” he said.

  “Not yet.”

  “Can I get you a drink?”

  “I’ll have something small. A whiskey. I have a train to catch.”

  “Look,” Eddie said, leaning towards him, “you’re going through a bad time. I understand that.”

  “Did you read the new pages?”

  “And you look dreadful.” He laid the script on the bar. “No, I didn’t read them.”

  “Why not?”

  “I didn’t have time.”

  “Tell her I just want one word with her.”

  “Sober up. Go home and rest a few days.”

  “I can’t rest.”

  “You only think that. One day you’ll look back on this and wonder why you acted so stupid.”

  “You think so?”

  “Yes, I do.” Eddie wearily handed back the handwritten notes to Jack. “You’d better take these with you.”

  “Why?”

  “They belong to another play. They don’t belong to this play.”

  Jack drank the whiskey.

  “I thought you didn’t read them?”

  “I’d be grateful if you made no more phone calls to the theatre,” Eddie continued, “and interrupted no more rehearsals.”

  “I’m out of my head with grief,” said Jack.

  They sat in silence.

  “I thought you were my friend.”

  “I am. That’s why I’m trying to keep you out of the way. Do you need some more money?” Jack looked at him. “How much do you need?”

  “I need a hundred.”

  “Here’s a cheque for two.”

  He wrote out the cheque and Jack put it in his shirt pocket and took a taxi to the railway station. From there he shared a table on the westbound train with a Westmeath nurse who worked in St John of God’s hospital for the insane.

  Some days later, after making a light meal in the cottage, Jack lay down on the bed, brought Catherine to mind and settled his member in the palm of his hand. He was feeling sexually wild. Just then the gardener’s face appeared at the window. He was standing shading his forehead with his hand, the better to see into the unlit room. Then he moved on. Startled, Jack pulled his trousers up and swung his feet onto the floor. He went to the window.

  By then the face had disappeared.

  He went out through the kitchen and opened the front door to find an elderly Irish playwright of the absurd standing there with his wife. Jack looked askance at them.

  “Good man, Jack,” the playwright said turning, “that’s a big lump of a sea out there.”

  “It’s a big sea,” agreed Jack. “For a minute there I took you to be the gardener.”

  “You have a gardener?” asked the playwright, astounded.

  “No,” said Jack, “but I have a dog.”

  “I don’t doubt it. This is Manie. We’ve been searching for you for hours.”

  “This gardener is haunting me. I could not believe it when I saw him at the window.”

  “Well, it wasn’t him, was it?”

  “No. It wasn’t, but it could have been.”

  “Do you take a drink in the middle of the day?”

  They went to the Erris Hotel, where Jack was entertained lavishly. At one stage he asked the playwright for his jacket.

  “You want my jacket?”

  “I do. It looks fierce like one I used to have.”

  “And you want it?”

  “I’ll give you mine for it,” said Jack.

  “Right,” said the playwright, and started to take off his sports jacket as Jack took off his blue shop-coat.

  “Keep that on you,” said Manie to her husband. “Can’t you see, it won’t fit?”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Of course I’m sure.”

  “That’s a pity,” said the playwright. They toasted each other. “You should be happy. I see they are saying nice things about you in the newspapers, Jack.”

  “I have to go to the toilet.”

  “He must have something against compliments,” the playwright laughed at his wife.

  “I have the runs.”

  “Oh dear,” said Manie, and she closed her eyes.

  “Can I tell you something in confidence?” Jack said when he returned.

  “Yes?”

  “I’m thinking of calling it off!” he confided. He came closer. “Did you know they won’t allow me into rehearsals.”

  “I didn’t know that.”

  “That’s what’s going on now,” he whispered in a self-righteous voice.

  “Why?” asked the woman.

  “And they’ve refused to accept my changes to the script,” he continued.

  “You should tell them to fuck off,” declared the playwright, “and get yourself a solicitor.”

  “Do you think so?”

  “I do.”

  “But there must be some reason,” Manie persevered.

  “Say nothing,” Jack suddenly whispered.

  “What?”

  “That’s him now,” Jack nodded secretively and winked.

  “Who?” asked the playwright, looking round anxiously.

  “That fucking gardener.”

  “And he is actually a little like you,” said Manie in wonder.

  “Could you excuse me a moment?” asked Jack.

  “Are you off again?”

  “I am.”

  He went to the public phone in the village, taking with him the correct change. When the girl answered he whispered in a strong Northern accent: “There’s ah bomb in the theatre.”

  “What!” screamed the girl.

  “A’m telling you nagh, and awl tell yee na more, there’s a bomb set ta go off in five minutes.”

  “You must be joking.”

  “Fuck, lady, you’ll fucking find out whether I’m joking or not,” he said savagely. “Just say Shamey Coyle rang, OK?”

  He replaced the phone. Then he returned and took his place beside the playwright and his wife in the restaurant. There was hilarity in the confidences exchanged. The night ended in confusion.

  They drove him home. He found himself lying alone in bed and he thought of her and cursed her: May she not have the memory of the good times.

  Jack answered a timid knock at the door of his cottage in his trousers. Daisy was leaping madly on the white road and barking.

  “Hello, Jack,” said Bernie Burke. He was pale and blue-lipped.

  “You got back,” said Jack.

  “I did. Joe Love must have dropped these off for you while I was away,” and he handed Jack a bunch of letters bound by an elastic band. The top one, he saw, was addressed to him in Catherine’s handwriting.

  “Someone is thinking of you,” Bernie said.

  “And how are you now, Bernie?”

  “I’m not well, thank you. I lost a lung.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that.”

  “This is it,” said Bernie. “You’re doing a good job on the place. I came up a couple of times but you weren’t about.”

  “I’m sorry. I was away.”

  “Well, you have them now. I hope they bring you luck.”

  “I’m sure they will.”

  “I’ll go now, thank you.”

  “Good luck, Bernie.”

  The old fisherman steered hi
s way up the path through the blinding wind. Stood a moment to look at the sea then turned into the valley towards his own house. Jack opened the first envelope and found a card inside. He put the card on the kitchen table. Then he opened the others. Each contained a letter and he laid them out one on top of the other.

  He felt terrible shame. The full force of his curse was returning on himself. He looked at the envelopes, knowing that they would be dated weeks previous, before all this nightmare began. It would be better if he didn’t know, if he threw them away altogether. They contained possibilities that were no longer available to him. Then he searched through the cottage for something he couldn’t find. He was sick and shaking. With the usual distress of the drinker he fought to establish his physical terrain. He started to sweep out the kitchen. Today he was going to start again, right from the beginning. As he started each morning. He began at the back door. He cleaned every item in the kitchen, then he brushed out the bedroom. He settled his papers in the third room. He lit a fire and put on water to boil. He sat down before the fire and smoked a cigarette which brought on waves of nausea.

  He lifted the envelopes and looked at them. He looked at the stamps. He looked at the Dublin postmarks. He looked at the handwriting on the letters without trying to understand what was written there. He lifted the postcard, and read the first line again – Jack, I love you. Then he replaced it on the table. Dizzy with anxiety, he made tea.

  He boiled cloths in a saucepan, he fed Daisy, he fed the wild cat, he cleaned the gas stove again. Today, he said. It will happen today. He stood in a basin in the middle of the floor and washed himself.

  He lifted the postcard up to the light of a window. Dear Jack, I love you. Whatever bad things we’ve done should be forgotten. I am always yours. We have only each other. I’ve written to you over and over explaining everything. I’m sending you this card because of the picture on the front. He turned it over. There was a picture of a corncrake. Do you remember? We’ll have good days again. Every day from now I will write to you. You are never out of my mind. I am sober, she wrote, you are sober and I love you. I love you dearly.

  It was what he had prayed she’d write to him and now he could not take it in. His eyes clouded over. I still have a chance, one part of his mind was saying. A few weeks ago she wrote this. He read the eight letters, but with each declaration of her love, the worse his despair became. Each day I will write to you. And he had been walking the peninsula, oblivious.

  He cursed himself.

  For days he had been tormented by despair while the letters awaited him in the sick man’s house. While he was lying sleepless her love notes were sitting in Bernie’s house down the road. And by the time he had read them the affair was over. She had never intended coming down. Not from the moment the gardener told her I was back drinking. All that waiting was in vain. Words for which he had waited day after day now arrived when it was too late, and yet, like the first letter, they bore the news he craved. He lay on the bed, his heart beating. Is this it now? The same flesh-coloured light shone down. He jumped up and sat on the chair. But it was not hard enough. He lay on the cement floor in front of the smouldering fire. Again he was down to the one second. The minute that contained it. And the hour that contained the minute. The minutes that contained the seconds. The half-second.

  Once more he made the journey to a phone.

  He rang the theatre, but there came only a reply from the answering machine: Leave a message after the beep! The tape turned, but he said nothing, only whispered: “Catherine”. He did not know what to do. He went back to the cottage carrying a bottle of vodka. Terrible memories propelled him round the three rooms. But he could find no place where the reconciliation might begin.

  “Jack!” Hugh cried from the kitchen. Hugh came into the bedroom. “Are you all right?”

  “Of course I’m all right.”

  “You’d better get up.”

  “I am up!”

  “No you’re not. You’re in bed.”

  “I can see that.”

  “Did you have anything to eat?”

  “I’ve just had my breakfast, haven’t I,” he replied bad-temperedly. “Hugh?”

  “Yeh.”

  “Go away.”

  “No.”

  “Jesus Christ!”

  “The kettle is on.”

  “OK, OK. I’ll be with you in a minute.” He pulled on his yellow cape and green waterproof trousers.

  “Jack,” said Hugh, “we’re not going out to sea.”

  Jack sat on a kitchen chair.

  “Where are we going?”

  “That’s up to you.”

  “I think we’ll go for a drink,” Jack said eventually.

  “I’d like that,” said Hugh cheerfully.

  Jack pulled off the oilskins.

  “Will you drive me to Castlebar?”

  “I will.”

  “Will you look after the livestock? I’ll be a few days away.”

  “The children will like that.”

  “Take what it costs out of that.”

  “I don’t need your money,” but Jack pressed a twenty-pound note into his pocket. He packed a bag. Put the wild kitten in a cardboard box. Called Daisy, and the dog leapt into the back of the car.

  They drove down to O’Malley’s pub in Corrloch.

  The bar was empty.

  “Now I know what’s happening,” Jack declared.

  “That’s good.”

  “At last I have it all worked out.” He threw what money he had on the bar. “Two pints,” Jack said to the barman, “and one for yourself, and then do you know what I’m going to do?” – he looked at Hugh – “I’m going away for a while.” The barman refused to accept any money.

  “It’s Christmas Eve,” he said, “put your money away.”

  “Get something for the childer.” Jack pressed a tenner down between the keys of the till. “And give me the price of a phone call to Dublin. There’s one more job to be done before I have a drink.”

  He went out and lifted the phone in the small alcove. He felt light-headed and sad as he heard it ringing away. Then came a voice which wished him a Happy Christmas and told him to leave a message – after the beep.

  He waited on the beep. He heard it, but seconds passed and he could not speak. Dull sounds came across the earpiece. Shrieks. Warbles. Screeches from demons in space. “This is Jack Ferris here,” he said at last, looking up at the wall. “I want to wish everyone the best of luck.” He considered what he should say next. “I’m sorry about the telephone calls.” He searched for further words to say. Something for Catherine. A message for Catherine. “Goodbye,” he said.

  “That’s it,” said Jack.

  They walked back to the car. The cat was pawing frantically at the cardboard box. Daisy leapt into Jack’s lap. In Belmullet the animals got out and Isobel and the kids got in. “I haven’t shopped in Castlebar in ages,” she said. They drove through Bangor, Largan and Bellacorrick. Then Beltra. They walked round the town of Castlebar with Isobel as she stepped through the various shops. Laden down with bags they entered a pub for a farewell drink.

  “Do you want me to drive you where you are going?”

  “You could drive me as far as the hospital.”

  “Are you going to visit someone there?” Isobel asked, as she shepherded the children into the car.

  He did not answer. They pulled out into a line of cars that moved slowly along Main Street under Christmas bulbs that were strung like bunting overhead. A Santa, his beard blowing wildly in the wind, walked out of a bar and sneezed.

  “Jack is crying,” said Sandra, their daughter.

  They drove some way in silence.

  “Why is Jack crying?” the girl asked.

  “You could come and spend Christmas with us,” said Hugh.

  “No, no,” said Jack.

  The car pulled into the dark foreground of the hospital. He looked at the hospital windows with their familiar vertical blinds and horizo
ntal fluorescent lights and felt inordinate relief, as if some tiring journey he had been on for years was at last coming to an end.

  4

  Shangrila

  The first night he slept in a high bunk at sea facing the porthole. Through the porthole could be seen the city they were leaving at a steady, remorseless pace.

  The ship was moving so slow that all night he could see the city through the round porthole.

  They were moving painfully slow, and no matter how he turned in his bed he’d look up to see the city was still there.

  They were making no headway.

  The men in the other beds had made that journey many times. They slept easily and heavily while all night Jack looked at Catherine. Through a fall of light, left on lest anyone stumble in the dark, he had pinned her icon to the wall above bed No. 7.

  All night the painful image stared unflinchingly back at him.

  As it would sometimes in the future from a splinter of wood. A splinter of wood told her face. From blurred print on a page her features would one day emerge. For a long time her face would enter inanimate objects. Then her likeness began to haunt the living. And one day he would see a picture of Our Mother of Perpetual Succour on the TV before the evening news and even see Catherine’s face there. This was what he had feared ever since he was a child, a fear that he would forever be followed by the face of one he loved and yet never be able to make contact.

  Every second signified no change in the icon. The night-light was unerring. Her gaze, a distilled distance.

  A man’s heart clicked like a wristwatch in the dim ward.

  “Take no notice,” the man in the next bed said in his sleep.

  “We’re all neighbours here,” the Leitrim man explained. “We’re all in the shit. I lost two stone because my brain was moving too fast.”

  “Never listen to all the things that are said on both sides when your mind is astray,” advised Leitrim. “Why do I wear galoshes? I wear them because I have poor hips.”

  The patients, Jack among them, sat around drinking in each other’s thoughts. It was a glasshouse. A shudder ran through the roses when the wrong person entered. But today everything was perfectly normal. The nurses had their feet up.

  Jack felt impure in there.

  The rest were touched by a violet light.