A Goat's Song

by Dermot Healy

  “And don’t ask me what normal was or what normal is. I didn’t want to go to the States. I didn’t want to be sitting around gurning in some pub in Manhattan. We could have gone anywhere within reason, but we decided to live in Ireland. She wanted it and so did I. You see, I had been fighting for that. That I might live in Ireland. I knew where, too. In Mayo. Because when I took the name De Largey I began to read up on my roots. Who the fuck were the De Largeys? I wondered. They were a tribe that had been driven out of Mayo by the Cromwellians and taken by boat right round Ulster and forcibly settled in the Glens of Antrim.

  “So why shouldn’t a De Largey return to Mayo? It was only right. I was coming home.

  “There you have it. We booted for Galway. And some months later Mayo. I liked Mayo. Through contacts I set myself up as a house-painter. One of the first jobs I got was painting the cop shop in Tuam. I painted the new government offices in Castlebar. I painted the library. And bit-by-bit time went by. The guys don’t think of me and I don’t think of them. But I keep in contact. It’s in my interest.

  “It’s history now.

  “The guys might see me on the street and they call across and that’s it. They don’t intrude. That’s how I want it. And that’s hopefully how it’ll stay. I can handle that. But I could not handle the guilt-tripping.”

  De Largey lifted his pint.

  “Once ye don’t start guilt-tripping,” he said, “you’ll be all right.”

  Daley the skipper came lumbering over from the bar and laid his hand on Jack’s shoulder. In his other hand he was holding by the stems three balloon glasses of brandy.

  “Is it any harm to ask what you boys are talking about?”

  “We’re not talking about you anyway.”

  “That’s good,” said the skipper, “yous are two nice fellows, believe me. For animal lovers,” he added ironically. The three men drank the brandies in silence. “It’s all fast cars in Killybegs these days,” said Daley after a while. “The boys up here have it made.”

  Just before closing time Catherine stepped into the bar. She ran across the room into Jack’s arms. From the moment she saw him the involuntary happiness that flooded up into her being was impossible to control; it welled up in her like hysteria.

  “Are you not introducing us to the lady?” asked Daley.

  Catherine, very adroitly, took each of their hands, and then a few moments later, drained by the encounter, she let Jack go. Squeezed him and let him go. She began to speak of her journey. The men got up from the table to leave them together.

  She looked at him coolly, judging his response to her sudden appearance and what she was about to say.

  “I’ve come down to live with you,” she said.

  He startled her by laughing.

  “C’mon, say something,” she said embarrassed.

  “That’s great.”

  “Is that all you can say?”

  They knocked up a bed-and-breakfast overlooking the midnight sea and an amusement arcade of expensive trawlers. The landlady seemed not to hear their apologies about the late hour, but led them, in her pink dressing gown and fur-lined booties, to a bedroom saturated with holy pictures, memoirs of Los Angeles and photos of the Niagara Falls. The minute she was gone, Catherine turned the Virgin of Sorrows and Christ in the Garden of Gethsemane to the wall.

  “Who was that fellow in the bar?” she asked.

  “The skipper?”

  “No, the quiet one with the eyes.”

  “Oh, Theo?”

  “Yes, Theo,” she said. “He’s from Belfast.”

  “Yes.”

  “And what’s he doing here?”

  “Fishing.”

  “He’s dangerous,” she said.

  “You think so?”

  “I do,” she replied. “First you leave me with a British soldier lying asleep on a sofa in the house in Belfast, and now I come here to find you tagging along with a Provo.”

  “He’s not a Provo.”

  “In fact, I think you might be getting out of your league. You don’t discriminate.”

  “He’s all right.”

  “No, he’s not all right.”

  “You’re paranoid.”

  “No,” she answered severely. “I’m Protestant.”

  She slipped off her jeans, tights and knickers in one go and stood in a man’s shirt before him in the centre of the room.

  “Will you stand back from the window,” whispered Jack.

  “The only person that could be found out there at night looking in at women as they undress,” she answered, “is you.”

  “Tell me all your dirty stories,” asked Jack feverishly.

  “They only make you sad, you know,” she said, “and then you get these unexplainable white spots on your cheeks. It’s not good for you.” She held him to her shoulder. “If only you’d hold me and talk to me and kiss my breasts it would be enough.”

  He smelt of oil, sweat and fish. His face had a travelled, distant look as he lay beside her smoking.

  “Did you go off with anyone?” he asked with a beating heart.

  “Not consciously.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “It means I didn’t.”

  She cradled his fist in her hands. His breathing matched hers. But already their night together was over. He turned the religious pictures so that they faced into the room again. They descended the stairs in the dark house. On the coat stand he left £20. She walked with him down to the pier. In the darkness men were moving past the lights in the cabins. The radars were already turning, radios were spinning across various frequencies. Food was being passed down by hand. Gas canisters lowered.

  No one talked.

  The engines began to hum. Then started a deeper throb. The engine coolers shot out jets of seawater. The pier bristled with light. And before she knew it, the Blue Cormorant was casting off its ropes. At the point where he was about to step down onto the boat she said: “Don’t go.”

  “I have to.”

  “It was very beautiful last night,” she said.

  “It was,” he said.

  “When do I see you again?” she called.

  “The weekend after next in Belmullet.”

  “What?”

  “Belmullet!” he shouted over the roar of the engines. “In Belmullet!” he roared through cupped hands.

  She stood grim-faced as black smoke worked its way through the dampers of the Blue Cormorant. The boat seemed to brace itself. The fishermen stood with averted eyes. Water pouring from its sides, the trawler pushed off, the tractor tyres were hauled in. The last thing she heard was Daley screaming something obscene.

  30

  Corrloch

  When they arrived back from the sea, a taxi took Jack and all his belongings from Thady’s. The Adams’ house in Corrloch was empty. The door was unlocked. The remains of a breakfast were on the kitchen table. He lit fires in all the rooms, set out his work in Jonathan Adams’ old study, hung his clothes in a wardrobe in her room, then sat by the kitchen table running the possibilities of certain phrases through his mind. It was here that he looked into a chaos that he had glimpsed before only during the worst hangovers.

  He got up immediately and hoovered the rooms. He made her bed. Washed the dishes.

  He relit the fire in her room and in the kitchen. The anticipation of her arrival made him giddy, as if he were standing on a great height feeling lightheaded from vertigo. He began to pack scattered turf into a stack at the gable of the house.

  He took out the clippers and trimmed the hedge of oleria. Went indoors and stoked the fires. He sat down to dream. Later he took down two pairs of her black shoes from the low ledge in the kitchen and began polishing them. He lifted her clothes that were strewn in a corner of her room. He collected her intimate garments that lay under the bed, and carried them to the kitchen sink and washed them. He hung them out to dry in the Atlantic wind.

  He listened, as evening fell, for the sound of her car. He s
tood outside and searched the peninsula for the sight of the headlights coming.

  A furious wind was blowing. Streams, dancing over stones, had turned into torrents. Blue blackness was raging in the heavy, ominous sky. He walked between the low ditches on the white sandy road. Cattle appeared and looked at him as they stood seeking shelter behind the gable of a ruin. The bark of a dog flew by. He turned down an old lane that took him eventually within the spray from the ocean. A smell of burning turf blew past, and then a smell of dung, a handful of bitter salt; a call from a bird he couldn’t place; and once a sort of overwhelming non-human presence raced across the dunes.

  “I’m tipsy,” she said as she came through the door. She kissed him and sat down.

  Jack placed her dinner in front of her and she pushed it away.

  “I had an audition for a film,” she said.

  She went out to the car and returned with a few bottles of Rioja. She poured out two glasses of wine.

  “How did it go?”

  “It was terrible. And I have to go back tomorrow.”

  “Where to?”

  “A disgracefully luxurious house in Pontoon.”

  They sat in front of the fire silently watching nothing till Catherine suddenly said: “Do you think we should keep up this silly vow of fidelity?”

  “It was you who asked me to keep it,” he replied sharply.

  “Well, I was thinking that we should be loyal without entering into some prehistoric oath,” she continued. “We would just have to act responsibly.”

  “I don’t think we are responsible people,” said Jack. “You can drop it if you like, but I’m going to keep it.”

  “Oh, I don’t intend to drop it if you don’t.”

  “Neither of us,” said Jack, “is strong enough to be able to be true to the other.”

  “Perhaps you are right,” she said tactfully.

  They drank till the bottles were gone. Then she stood by the table carefully picking bits of the dinner off the plate.

  “Why do you cook bacon and cabbage?” she asked him.

  “It’s a traditional Irish dish,” he replied.

  “Not where I come from,” she replied, “and certainly not steeped in grease.”

  “I like it like that.”

  “Well I don’t like it.”

  “That’s the way that it’s done.”

  “It looks revolting.”

  “Fuck you, Catherine,” he said.

  The following night she did not come back at all. He phoned the producer’s home.

  “I would like to speak to Catherine Adams,” said Jack to his secretary.

  “Is she one of the actresses?”

  “Yes.”

  “I think they are all finished for the day.”

  “Could you check?”

  “Look, I’m certain they’ve all gone.”

  “She has not returned home.”

  “Oh.”

  “So will you please take a look for her?”

  “I think not.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “If Miss Adams is having an audition, I would not like to see her interrupted.”

  “It will only take a minute to tell her I’ve called.”

  “Could I have your name.”

  “Jack,” he said. “Jack Ferris.”

  When Hugh called to collect him, he did not go. The boat left without him. He stalked the house all day. He tried to imagine who Catherine was with. He went through all manner of vivid recreations of her love-making with another. He loaded the fire with turf and stood at the window. He walked the road over and back through the dunes. He stood in a hollow down from the house and watched through the blowing sands for any oncoming traffic. Every car that appeared, he followed its path along the low peninsula. He watched the headlights coming up the road, and then sweeping by. No car went to the Adams’ house. He felt like he might kill her now. He went in and filled a glass.

  He walked around under the stars.

  “God damn you,” he said.

  He was standing in a field across from the house at four in the morning when the Lada pulled in. He waited where he was, watching. She entered the house running. Jack watched the order in which the lights came on. First the kitchen, then the bathroom, and lastly her room.

  He entered the house and stamped involuntarily into the bedroom.

  “Where the hell were you?”

  “I could ask you the same.”

  “I rang.”

  “I heard.”

  “I was demented.”

  “I was working till late. I could not get back.” She sounded practical and at ease. “They’ve called me back for a third test in the morning.” He said nothing. “The least you could do is congratulate me. They’re even sending a car. If I get the third test the part is mine.”

  “Fucking great, Catherine.”

  “Jack, if you are going to act like that, I’d prefer if you slept elsewhere.”

  “You wicked bitch.”

  “I want to sleep now. And I’d like to remind you that this is my house, do you understand?”

  “I understand perfectly.”

  He started in the bedroom. He moved his clothes into a heap on the floor, then he carried them out to the kitchen. He went back and switched off Catherine’s light. Then he went into the study and collected his books. He piled them beside his clothes. Lastly he carried in his typewriter.

  He sat down and took a drink. He tried to think of some coherent plan. He lay down on the sofa.

  He became aware of her standing in her nightdress watching him.

  “Don’t go, Jack.”

  “I should never have come here,” said Jack. “This is your house. It’s madness, fucking madness.”

  “Please stay,” she cried. “Don’t leave me. I mean it.”

  He looked into the fire.

  “Please come to bed.”

  “No.” He stood up and faced her. They stayed like that, a long time, in silence.

  “I had to stay overnight,” said Catherine.

  “Why didn’t you come home?”

  “I was drinking. I was too drunk to drive.”

  “Who were you drinking with?”

  “Oh, just a couple of the crew.”

  “I thought you couldn’t stand the crew. As far as you were concerned a few days ago they were all buffoons.”

  “I was seeking sympathy from them. The sympathy I can’t get from you. At least they’re civilized.”

  “Men or women?”

  “A man and a woman, actually,” she said guardedly. “They were very supportive.”

  “I know you were with someone,” he said. “I always know. The other day you talk about breaking the vow you’d wanted me to keep. The night before last you don’t come home. Now you’re out till all hours. I know you were with someone,” he said.

  “I don’t want to talk about it.”

  “That makes it even worse.”

  “Nothing happened, Jack. Nothing,” she said, growing anxious. “I was only trifling with the implications of having an affair. I am proud of my fidelity to you.”

  “Did you fuck with him, whoever he was?”

  “I was happy to feel that I was not open to a sexual invitation. A man asked me the other night to go to bed with him, but I did not.”

  “And the next night?”

  “Last night I began to entertain a romantic notion of him. It’s because of all this uncertainty. I wanted company. We had arranged to meet for drinks. We drank too much. I was trying to skim over the squalor of the situation by flirting with him. I told him I had sworn a vow of fidelity to you. He said that was very old-fashioned.”

  “Did he now!” he spat.

  “He wanted me to go to bed with him. I said it would be on his terms, in that I would keep it a secret from you. Therefore I would only be using him.”

  “That would not come as something new to you.”

  “I can see no point in continuing this conversation
!” Then she screamed: “And how about that bitch you were with?”

  “Jesus Christ, you’re not going to start that again.”

  “Start what!” she hissed. “Start what!”

  “Keep your voice down,” he said.

  “Well then, stop interrogating me. I would have left,” said Catherine, “but I couldn’t drive back drunk. So I fell asleep there on a mattress on the floor. It was as simple as that. He went to his bed and I fell asleep in mine.”

  “Yes?”

  “Do you have to know?”

  “Yes.”

  “I fell asleep on the floor,” said Catherine, “and woke to find him moving against me. We started moving, then we stopped.”

  “Did you come?” he said in a dry, even voice.

  “Stop interrogating me, Jack.”

  “Did you come with him?”

  “Stop it,” she called.

  She hit him. He kept his face exactly where it was and she hit him again. Then all of a sudden he bounced his forehead lightly off hers. It happened so suddenly that for a moment she did not respond. Then she opened her mouth to scream. He put his hand tightly over her mouth till the scream passed. Her eyes widened in terror. Then the terror passed. Jack went outside and sat on the step of the house. She opened the door and stood behind him.

  She said: “There were no orgasms. Nobody came, I swear that. I told him I loved you. That we had made a vow.”

  She started to move towards him, crying. “You’ve asked me,” she said, “and I’ve been honest. I’ve told you everything.”

  “I need to get out of here,” said Jack. “I need to walk.”

  “Can I go with you?” she asked timidly.

  A fog had settled on the shore.

  The sea was thunderous. They walked out along the pier. Midway it became dangerous to go any further because the sea every few seconds was breaking across it. They stood watching the seas meeting. Then Jack suddenly, during a lull in the mountainous waves, ran to the far side. He called to her to follow him. But she couldn’t hear him. He waved her over. Come on! Come on! But she was too afraid to follow him. So he ran back to her. He took her arm. Count three, he said. The waves leapt the pier again. No, she screamed. Then he pulled her across with him. They continued on to the end of the wet pier with the sea breaking behind them, and each side of them. She slipped and fell. Roughly, he picked her up. She held on to him. They could not see anything. The mist was intense and moist. They stood holding the bollards at the farthest point of the pier while the wind tore at them.