by Dermot Healy
“Excuse me,” objected Catherine, “that’s the neighbour’s house you’re moving.”
“Oh.” He studied the bar counter intently. He touched the salt cellar with uncertainty and looked at Catherine. She shook her head. “Hell and damnation!” he exclaimed. He drank again. He lifted the ashtray. “This lad was it?”
“No,” replied Catherine. “I do believe that’s the field.”
“Christ! Where did you get this lady?”
He studied the position, his arms gripped round his chest.
“The penny, is it?” he asked tentatively.
Catherine saw his mother at the uncurtained window as they crossed the street. She was not looking at them. Her arms were folded under her heavy breasts. When they entered the house they could hear a radio playing. Pictures of musicians hung from the walls. There was a piano in the room to the left and next to it a sideboard packed with bizarre trophies. They climbed a small staircase. As they came into the dining room, which had a wall devoted to medals, more trophies and green-fringed certificates, his mother continued to look out onto the street.
“Mother,” said Jack, “this is Catherine.”
The woman turned.
“I saw you go into the pub across the street hours ago,” she said. “And I said to myself, I won’t see them again today.”
She shook Catherine’s hand, then she lowered the radio. She was a tall full woman with a hat wrapped to the back of her head like a clenched fist. There was a white smoothness to her shins. She took Catherine’s hand and held it between her breasts. She drew the younger woman’s image into her unglazed brown eyes.
“You have lovely skin,” Mrs Ferris concluded. “I remember when I was like you.” With a sigh she let her go. “Would you like a drink?”
Jack filled the glasses with whiskey. His father appeared at the back of the room followed by a dog. Doc Ferris had priestly, groomed hair and a dark-shaved chin that constantly moved as he chewed on his thoughts. His blue, larkish eyes took in, with quick movements, what was happening each side of Catherine. “Isn’t it wonderful,” he said.
“Catherine.” Still holding her hand, he surveyed Jack. Then, returning to her, he said: “So this is Catherine. You’re looking at our display.”
“I was just wondering.”
“So you’re not into the music?”
“When I was young I used to play the trumpet.”
“I’m a Comhaltas man myself,” he explained and he tapped a certificate on the wall. “I was in on its founding. And these –” he indicated the trophies – “these belong to that boy there.”
“Do they?” she said peering down to read the gold scrolls.
“I’m surprised Jack did not tell you that he was once an All-Ireland step-dancer.”
“He never mentioned it,” she said wide-eyed.
“There you are.” He turned courteously to his son. “Oh, Jack was the boy that could dance. We drove together to every Fleadh in the country from when he was six years of age.”
“They were always on the road, affirmed his wife.”
“Listowel, Mullingar, Wexford – we were there.”
“It was dancing from morning to night,” agreed Mrs Ferris.
“Any place you care to mention. I played and he danced.”
“That was it.”
“Then he took up the writing. And that was the end of the dancing.”
“And the end of the medicine too,” said his mother.
Doc Ferris sat down. Catherine and Jack sat down. She was vaguely conscious of the collie dog as he spun by her feet. He dug his snout into the carpet and turned on his back to display his loins. “I know you,” she said. “Aye,” said Jack, “that’s Daisy.” Catherine was suddenly embarrassed that the only person in the room she could talk to was the dog. She patted him. He rested his wet snout on her shoe.
“Was there many across in Leyden’s?”
“A few,” said Jack.
“Has this fellow told you,” asked Ma Ferris, “that he was a bit of a playboy?”
“Yes,” said Catherine, fretfully.
“He left others,” she said. “And if he left others he’ll leave you.”
“You should not say that to the girl,” announced the doctor.
“There was no one could advise him,” continued Ma Ferris. “He could have stepped into the practice across the street if he had finished the medicine. But no! Galway destroyed him. And now he’s out there in the wilds of Mullet. Fishing! My good God! But what’s the use?”
“I saw the salmon in the fridge,” said the doctor helpfully.
“Oh, but this is a terrible life, isn’t it, daughter?” Ma Ferris pressed the balls of her hands into her flowery thighs and shook her head.
Catherine felt like a big frightened child.
“How is Thady?” asked Doctor Ferris.
“He’s fine.”
“Another lost cause,” said Mrs Ferris. “My brother had everything.”
“Back in the old days we had it terrible,” announced Doc Ferris. “Now there’s a question that never can be answered – why did the people near the coast die of starvation during the Famine and they a stone’s throw from the sea?”
“I hadn’t thought of that.”
“It’s simple. You can’t fish in winter, and that’s six months of the year gone. And you can fish buck-all if you have no boats. And they had no boats. That’s the way it was.”
“You were not half-fed,” agreed Jack. “And that’s why you are like you are today. The balance was upset.”
“Too much white bread,” said Ma Ferris, “that’s what’s wrong with Ireland.”
“Too much white bread,” agreed Jack, “and the dog will have fits.”
“We are all touched,” declared the doctor. “Do you know who the insurance companies in England consider the highest risk in life insurance?” he asked Catherine.
She answered immediately. “RUC men.”
“No,” he said, “dentists. And why? Because they are always doing away with themselves. For you see looking into someone else’s mouth day-after-day drives you demented.”
“Then there’s laughing gas,” said his wife.
“There is. Now a doctor is not under such pressure.”
“Can’t the bully boy deprecate himself when he wants to,” Ma Ferris murmured low.
“Is plenty of money good? I often ask myself,” the doctor said, and he moved and sat down beside Catherine. “Is plenty of money good, daughter?” he asked her.
“Why don’t you quit driving the poor girl wild with your questions,” said Ma Ferris, “and go down to the piano.”
The four of them went down the stairs followed by the dog. The doctor put on a wild green jacket with the Comhaltas crest on the top pocket and sat down with his back to them at the piano. He assumed a new personality and struck a chord. The dog fled under the settee. The doctor struck another chord, looked round once and nodded. Watched by the two women, Jack, with his arms perfectly straight down by his side, stood in the centre of the small room. His father found the tune. Jack went up onto his toes.
She hung her clothes in what used to be his room as a child. It was just off the dining room. He stayed outside talking to his mother after the father had returned across the street to his surgery. She looked at the photographs on the wall of him at his first Communion, at his Confirmation, in the arms of some young woman. She looked at photos of him bare-legged as he danced in a kilt and check waistcoat. Late that night he came into the room.
“Come in here beside me,” she said fondly. He sat on the edge of the bed. She stroked his shoulder, “I have been warned about men like you.” She turned his head in her hands. “And I thought my family were odd.”
He laughed.
“Did you like them?”
“I do, and I’m afraid of them. This is all new to me, you must understand.” She hesitated. “And your mother can be very severe.”
“She’s disappointed in
me.”
“And so she should be.”
“Will you come for a walk down the village?”
“Wait a minute till I hold you.” She reached out to him. “I have a desperate longing for a kiss.” She kissed him gently. She kissed him softly. “Will you come to live with me?”
“In Belfast?”
“Yes.”
“Why not,” he said.
“I like your room. I suppose you had much vigorous exercise here in your day.”
“If you start talking like that,” laughed Jack, “you’ll only disturb yourself.”
“I used to fantasize about Engelbert Humperdinck when I was a young girl.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“Yes, and male wrestlers. The bigger the better.”
“That’s disgraceful.”
“I always liked stout people.” She blew softly into his ear. “It gives me anxious moments thinking of you as a boy sleeping here.”
“Careful,” said Jack.
She kissed his ear. “So you were a dancer.” She grew playful. “And you have lovely legs. Will you do a little dance in the nude for me?”
“Whisht, Catherine.”
“Go on. You’re great on your feet.”
“She’ll hear you. She’ll hear you laughing.”
“Go on Jack! Just for me. Off with the trousers and dance!”
“Sh!”
“I want to see it swinging round.”
“Ca-th-er-ine!”
The earth was steaming. She went out to take her clothes in from the line. A flat expanse of fog was rushing in from the sea across Corrloch. As she took her clothes down she handed them on to him. He saw that nearly all her garments were black. Black tights, black knickers, black skirts. Black blouses, black shawls, black T-shirts. Black.
“And I had a black heart,” she said, “till I met you.”
Then through the fog a group of hares came bounding down the garden.
“Jack,” she whispered.
“I see them,” he said softly.
The hares stopped for a long uncertain moment to look at the couple. They were leathery and brown and honey-eyed. With slow thrusts of their hips they moved off, then sat and listened. Then ran away a little, then stooped and squatted again. Their eyes were skilful and wild. Their coats weathered and grim. They loped off.
22
Through the Downhill Tunnel
I’ve found a red-brick two-storey house with a small garden. It’s in the east suburbs, off the Hollywood road. There are two bedrooms with fireplaces, and a sitting room with a huge blue-tiled fireplace and mantelpiece. The walls are a terrible pink, but we could get rid of that. There are beautiful leaded lights to the front of the house.
You can see Belfast Lough from where your study will be. Will I rent it?
I think I should. I know you’ll come. I can’t wait to see you. The only thing that frightens me is that this is strictly a Protestant area. But no one will know you are there – you’ll be safe. I’ll hide you away from everyone. Is it possible that we will be happy?
I’m opening in a show at the Guild Hall in Derry in a couple of weeks. It’s a big break for me. Get the Derry Express. Come to the show on the last night. We can travel back to Belfast together. I’ll have everything ready. A place for your books, a desk. You’ll be happy to know that I spied a well-stocked off-licence down the road.
I wake sometimes at night with an awful longing for you. And full of sordid imaginings that you might be with someone else. My carnal desires are dreadful and ludicrous.
I loved last summer. I can’t believe that soon we’ll be living together. And then we will be faithful to each other, for that’s the most important thing of all.
All my love,
Catherine
“Are you waiting on the bus?” an auld fellow asked as he plucked his hat.
“I am,” said Jack.
“I came across the eyes bitten out of a sheep,” he explained, “just this very morning.”
“Could be the golden eagle,” another suggested.
“The golden eagle?” the old man gasped, “Oh sacred! Do they get down this far?”
“Or it could be the mink,” the second speculated.
To their left Christian Brothers were belting golf balls along the sand dunes. From above came the high, unending call of a lark. Out of a bed-and-breakfast a group of mental patients streamed onto the street chaperoned by two female nurses who the night before had led them in song in a lounge bar. Now everyone was looking sheepishly at the ground. They climbed into a minibus and were spirited away. On the other side of the street the pensioners and Jack stepped on board the Ballina bus. One behind the other, the two buses travelled across West Mayo till they went their separate ways at the crossroads by the power station.
They bounced into Derry station late in the evening to the area marked out for the Lough Swilly buses, and while the driver sat separating sterling from punts, the few passengers alighted. Jack rang the Guild Hall to hear that the play Catherine had been appearing in had in fact finished the night before. By some freak of fate he had missed her. No message had been left. He sat in the station wondering what to do.
He moved to the nearest pub, and rang Catherine’s number in Belfast.
“Where are you?” she asked in an excited voice.
“I’m in Derry.”
“What happened?”
“I don’t know. I must have got the dates mixed up.”
“Well look – book yourself in somewhere – then come up on the first train, and I’ll meet you. And Jack?”
“Yes.”
“Watch yourself.”
“I will.”
“I don’t want to lose you just yet.”
He returned to his drink.
“Is there a hotel round here?”
“Not here, fellow,” said the barman.
“Could you give me the name of any place I could book into?”
“There’s boarding houses. And there’s the Blue Tit.”
“You see I have a gig in town tonight,” Jack explained unnecessarily.
“What are you – some class of a chanter?”
“That’s right. A classical musician.”
“Classical.” He spun a glass in his hand. “Do you play cricket?”
“No.”
“I never met a classical musician who didn’t play cricket. Cricket is big in Derry.”
“Oh.”
“We get all kinds of serious clients in here.”
“Well look, I’ll be seeing you.”
“Look after yourself.”
By the time he was happily drunk, Jack had risen in rank to be a researcher with the BBC. As a musician again, he lay down to sleep in a lodging house, not far from the station, where all night he heard voices from downstairs that he imagined were discussing him.
I wish, Jack Ferris thought, I was with someone. He moved towards the railway station. Everybody around him looked bitterly sane. The hangover had left a dark gap in his mind. The human spirit was flush against its walls. A distant cramp attacked the calf of his right leg. I could take a drink, he thought. He hurried across a bridge over the Foyle. Rats scurried through the mud below. A shaven-headed chap approached from Waterside like an old man. A policeman looking down at the River Foyle below, dabbed his forehead and sighed. An over-sized gull landed on a rail and turned one bad eye to look at Jack.
Cold sweat dribbled down his forearms.
I feel awful, he said to himself.
He descended the steps. A cold wind blew along his knees. There was a man hauling a case ahead. After him, a raspberry-haired woman, her shoulders sleek as a starling’s, flitted forward in short bursts. He saw the train draw up at the makeshift depot. The original cut-stone station, which had been bombed, lay empty. Within a wire mesh on the roadway a JCB was screaming as it tore at stone. Chippings flew like hail. Jesus! A stake was being driven home. Under his feet the station vibrated.
> He bought his ticket.
“One way?” asked the booking clerk.
“I suppose so,” said Jack.
“Well now, lad, it’s you that’s travelling.” He looked closer at Jack. “Are you the boy I met last night that’s on the radio?”
“That’s me,” said Jack thankfully.
“You were fairly high, son,” the clerk laughed, and he peeled off a ticket.
The train pulled away round the swerve of the river. Jack saw smoke rising from the mountains to his left. They were burning something up there. Herons stalked the river, wild duck scouted the edge of the low marshes. A glider came alongside them and then soundlessly pulled away.
Jack was dreaming ahead. When the half-dream stopped, the occupants of the train, the sea, himself, again fell back into place, each thrown together unwittingly and housed in a multi-layered consciousness. He became aware of a man in a grey suit who was watching his every move with a sour look. He was one of those white-haired, rosy-cheeked men with steel-blue eyes that he had seen everywhere throughout the North. Jack looked away, only to find the man’s eyes still on him when he returned his gaze seconds later. The stare was making him nervous.
He lit a cigarette. Immediately, his neighbour pounced.
“This carriage is for non-smokers.”
“Jesus!” said Jack.
He doused the cigarette, then got up and humped his bags along two carriages till he thought he had put a safe distance between himself and the ominous man in the grey suit. He was sweating profusely. In the final carriage he found a single seat that faced back the way he had come.
On a trolley beside Jack sat tinkling miniatures of whiskey, brandy and gin. Biscuits in cellophane. A coffee urn piped quietly. Plastic cups were piled high. Sitting around him were people drinking. He ordered a coffee, and talked to the woman opposite him. Then he ordered a whiskey to put in the coffee. He praised whiskey in coffee. He praised whiskey. And although the answers he got were without warmth, he persisted. He took off his jacket, and with the driver belling ahead they burst into the tunnel at Downhill, rocked through the darkness, emerged into a brief flash of daylight and the swerving sea, then they were underground again.