by Shaun Herron
Day return to East Grinstead, sir. Thank you, sir. The platform on the far right? Thank you, sir, thank you!
Euphoria by the bellyful. Wackadoo, wackadoo, wackadoo. Won’t Mother England be surprised!
Judge Jeffreys’ house, lunches, teas, dinners. Can I have lashins of scrambled eggs? The arm, y’see. Fell offa bridge on a Saturday night.... Gimme a spoon and H.P. sauce, missus. Judge Jeffreys lived in this house, is that a fact? The Hangin Judge? They abolished him, didn’t they? Hangin Judge Quta Work!
Fuckin English bitch. Can’t take a joke, by Jasus. Would that be funny in Belfast? Snippity-snip!
Stoneleigh House? That’s one for the book—ask a bobby! Excuse me, officer, can you direct me to Stoneleigh House? First left past the parish church, the big house on the left on the edge of town? Thank you, officer. (Fuckers like you wouldn’t last long on the Falls.)
The gate was open. It hadn’t been closed for years. His euphoria sank into hardness. He stood in the gateway, looking up at the bend in the drive, looking at nothing, his mind settling to its work.
Then the hardness heated. The eyes warmed. McManus McManus McManus you Antrim Road cunt McManus McManus. He walked slowly up the drive and saw the house around the bend, a monument of stone, in a large open circle of gravel and grass. Aye, aye, it would be a place like this for you, boyo. High class. Like a Protestant fuckin squire. McManus McManus McManus. He was beginning to love the sound of it in his head. He went up the steps to the front door and put his gun in the sling.
The door was closed. In the column of the door frame, a small white button with PRESS on it. It was a wee bell for a big house. Nobody answered it. He tried again and again. He leaned on the button. He could hear the bell inside, like an alarm clock in an empty packin case. Nobody rose to it.
He came down the steps and wandered round the house, through a well-trimmed hedge arch into a rose garden and beyond it a vegetable garden. An old man said from behind a box hedge to his right, “Was there somepin?”
“I was ringin the bell. Nobody came.”
“Nobody’ll come. They’re away.”
“Away where?”
“Spain.”
“Spain?”
“Spain.”
“What for?”
“Howzat?”
“For how long?”
“All summer. Every summer. They’ll be back next month.”
“There’s nobody here?”
“Me.”
“Who’re you?”
“Gardener. You after a job?”
“I got a job. D’you live here?”
“I live a’tome.”
The doctor got rid of him, lied to him, made a fool of him. His head was full of black, blacker than darkness but like a bloody empty hole with nothing but black in it. He couldn’t see.
“Somepin wrong?” the old man asked him.
Powers didn’t hear. He walked blind round the house lifting his feet by instinct and was at the road again. A cricket match was in progress in a field across the road. Perhaps he saw it. He went across to the field, sat down at the foot of a grass bank, and stared at the players. They were like white spots before his eyes. The doctor’s face obstructed his vision, and the doctor’s wife sitting in her corner and the doctor’s wife’s sister lying naked on the bed. There were no words in his head, only intentions. When the pain came hurrying back sight came with it and the cricketers had gone. He groped in his bag, opened his shirt, and cried out when the needle went into his shoulder. The pain sank and he sank with it. Massive dejection took him over, he was drowning in it, crying self-pity to the green grass, till he looked across the road at Stoneleigh House and felt the spurs of resentment and soon, revenge, and mounted on the wings of taloned eagles.
He walked into the town, bought a heavy clasp knife and went down the main street and at Sainsbury’s bought four pounds of sliced ham, a pound of butter, a sliced loaf, a bunch of bananas, a packet of tea, and a bottle of milk. With his groceries in a paper shopping bag and his doctor’s bag clutched in the same hand, he went to the movies.
When he came out, it was almost dark. He went back to Stoneleigh, found a short ladder in a garden shed, shot the latch on the kitchen window, locked it again behind him, went out the back door, put the ladder back, and took his possessions inside.
The house had three floors. He went up to the top; a billiard room and quarters for two maids. He had a place to sleep. On the second floor, a drawing room and the family’s suite; four bedrooms, bathrooms, and a small kitchen for preparation of teas, snacks, and morning coffee. Handy for servants. Fuckin rich.
He scouted the ground floor for exits and the routes to them and went back upstairs. The small kitchen would do him. By candlelight he ate ham and bread and butter and drank tea, put his food in the fridge, cleaned his mess, and went to the attic and to bed.
He needed sleep.
In the mornin, back to that doctor, and his wife and thon fuckin widow-woman....
On his right side. God, I’m wore out.
Ahhhhh. A long stretch, feet against the end-board. Jasus, that’s lovely.
Then he drew his knees up to his belly. The fetal position. Sleep came at once.
FOURTEEN
McMANUS, suddenly, felt young. His age. Unencumbered. He laughed and wanted to laugh. Delight danced in his blood. It was quadrangle delight, campus delight, immediate, levitating.
He kept hold of her hand and forgot he had lately forgotten her name. “Brendine Healy of Boston,” he said, “I’ve got to talk to you. I’ve got to apologize . . .” He guided her away from the ticket counter.
“Our tickets . . . ?”
“In a minute. There’s a coffee place upstairs,” he trundled her along. She was laughing.
“You were awfully sick,” she was still laughing.
“Yes. Yes, I was. God, I’m glad to see you.” He didn’t know why. There was no need to know why. She was young. His own age. Another port. Not touched by . . . but put that out of mind. . . . “Sit down here. I’ll fetch the coffee.”
She watched him at the cafeteria counter, full of her own delight. Company. Somebody about her own age. She remembered how he had needed her. His beard was more like a beard now. It made him look younger. He was a nice-looking boy too. . . .
He brought the coffee. “Sugar?” Attentive.
“No. Figure. You know.” They laughed at that too. With her figure, who would worry?
“Look.” The going was a little harder here. He stirred his coffee. “Look. I feel bad . . . very badly . . . I’m . . .” He laid the spoon in his saucer “I’m going to tell you something. It’s terrible. I’ll explain. I want to apologize.” He needed to tell. When up from the depths you arise, you need to tell, to talk, to shed bad blood like bad dreams.
“Tell me,” she said. “I looked for you, you know.”
“Thank you. I wish you’d found me.”
He told her. Almost everything, from the beginning. “I meant well,” he said at the end.
She stirred her sugarless coffee, looking into its little whirlpool. “Where are they now?”
“Still in West Cork, still searching for me, I suppose. But I’ve lost them now.” Get thee behind me, Satan; I am out.
“We know it all, don’t we? When we’re young, I mean.”
“I did. There were reasons, mind you. Don’t think there weren’t. But I’m a fool. God, the suffering I’ve caused. Such terrible trouble . . . . My sister, my parents . . . other people. . . .” like Mrs. Burke, and the doctor, and his wife . . . Mrs. Burke warmed his mind. . . .
“Don’t think about it. It’s over, isn’t it?”
“Yes. Yes,” he said, thinking of Mrs. Burke, looking at Brendine Healy of Boston.
Young lives, in need of young laughter.
She dipped her head, and tossed it and smiled shyly and said, “I never even heard your name.”
“Johnny McManus.”
“You wouldn’t make a good gunman, Joh
nny. I don’t think you’re the kind.” She sounded wisely immature, playing at maturity.
“No. No.” It was known. “You agree with all the people I love.”
“Look.” She glanced about quickly, as if to make sure the coast was clear, and laid her hand on his. “Why don’t we go by boat? I mean, the car ferry?”
“I haven’t a car.”
“We can hire one.” She tightened her hold on his hand. “Why don’t we? Come on.” Little adventures; young laughter. The summer was almost over and there hadn’t been much to show for it. In a week or two she’d have to fly back to Boston and in another week she’d be slogging away at Boston U. There’d been something for the mind, but very little laughter. She could get an essay out of it; she couldn’t curl up under the electric blanket and smile herself to sleep, remembering. “We were . . . you remember . . . we were going to. . . .”
“I have this house to go to,” he said. “Mrs. Burke gave me a letter.” He passed it to her. “You mean, drive to East Grinstead? All the way across Wales and southern England?”
“Why don’t we?” Summer’s dying, winter’s coming.
“If we go halves on it.”
“It’ll be great fun. Gosh,” she said, very young. “Gosh, I’m glad I was here when you walked in. I was over there, just sitting . . . you looked so cross . . . I’m real glad I saw you. . . .” Eager and young. “Halves. I’ll get the car ferry. You get the . . . meals . . . gas. Petrol.” She hop-skipped beside him to her baggage. The car ferry would cost more. It wasn’t halves, but he probably didn’t have much money and Daddy wouldn’t know the difference . . . children at play . . . they hired a bright blue two-door Opel from Cahill’s on her international driver’s license and she made the ferry reservations, happy little mother with something to do with somebody her own age and the car ferry didn’t leave till eight and the day was bright and cool and glorious, and they had to spend it.
They spent it at Old Head of Kinsale, the button-head on a little peninsula jutting out into the ocean. They went down through soft Cork pastoral land of pale green and yellow in the summer’s end. Not like the harsh stained-rock glory of West Cork, not gold and orange and red and white and rose and purple and brown, full of power, the crash of angry water on stubborn rock, the gang cries of sea birds, the lyrics of the wood pigeon, the crass squawk of the crow, the wind’s howl; not the gorse and fern and thistle plucking spitefully at the legs. . . . Here, soft land and the flat and endless glaring ocean.
They ran barefoot on the beach, bought sandwiches at the hotel, and threw bread to the gulls that were tame people-hangers waiting to be fed; beach bums on wings. Not like the wild things in the western coves. Brendine lay on the shore, playing with the sand—young, gentle, slender, safe, without spot or blemish, without past or present. Sane. Sane. Sane. Not like Kate Burke—hard, severe, plain, full of power and lust and fear and courage and some great wild beauty. Crazy. Go away, Kate. Out of my head, you devouring old whore. . . .
Lying in the sand, on their backs, fingers woven, faces under the sun, eyes closed against the glare, “What will you do, Johnny?”
“I don’t know. I can’t go home. I can’t stay in Ireland at all.”
“Do you care?”
“Oh yes. Oh yes.”
She looked quickly at him, at the tightness of his lips, of his eyes.
He pulled his hand free and turned on his face. “Oh yes. She’s the whore we never leave,” he said, his eyes shut tight to filter tears. “No matter where we go we’re always here. Somebody called her the old sow that eats her farrow. . . .”
“What does that mean?”
Christ! Kate Burke knows. “An old pig that eats her litter.”
“I see,” she said, and, in a small voice of apology. “I don’t really.”
She was very young; honest; not one of us. But we understand. Ourselves alone. “We talk at her and about her all the time,” he said. “Did you do Austin Clarke in that Irish literature course you told me about?”
“I haven’t met that name,” she said solemnly, a Litt. One student for a sterile moment. Why do I have to read that stuff at all, she wondered? I like arranging things, helping out. I’m good at helping out, I’m not good at that stuff, really.
“He’s a bitter man, an anti-clerical man, a poet,” he said. “I wish I could be a poet. I’d write the poems Austin Clarke wrote, and this one most of all. . . .” He dug his fingers into the sand to grip and grind it.
Then he said, his eyes tight, his voice tight,
“Come on. Time to go,” he said, so that she might not speak, and sprang up and hauled her to her feet. “We’re off to Philadelphia in the mornin.” Get out of my guts and my groin, Kate, you old whore.
“Ours?” he said, leaning against the berth.
“I thought it would be cheaper,” she said. “It’s a nine-hour sea trip from Cork to Swansea. It’s in my name. I wouldn’t see you for hours if we were in separate cabins. You know? You should have company, Johnny.” Little mother.
“I’ll toss you for the bottom berth.”
She won. They climbed to the top berth and sat with their backs to the bulkheads, their legs out, their hocks mingling. “We’re off to Philadelphia in the evenin,” she said, pleased about something. “What will you do, Johnny?” Still with the same questions. Persistent.
“Find work,” he said. “In ‘the building,’ likely.”
“What building?”
“The building trade. That’s what Irish immigrants call laboring in the English construction industry. It’ll keep me alive till I can find a decent job.”
“Johnny.”
“Yes.”
“I was thinking.”
“What about?”
“Why don’t you come to the States?”
“Four reasons. The fare, a job, a sponsor, the quota. They all add up to no visa.”
“I could get Daddy to help.”
“What does . . .” he almost said Daddy “. . . he do?”
“He has companies.”
Ah. People have companies. Rich people have companies. Rich people have power. Except a grain of wheat fall and is watered in fertile ground it cannot grow?
“They have subsidiaries in Canada. Sometimes when he wants to bring people to the States, he gets them jobs in the companies in Canada and then has them transferred to the States. It’s quick and easy that way, he says.”
“I’d never really thought of going anywhere till this happened. . . . Let’s go up and watch her leave.”
They were through the channel, cutting the long swell. There she was, lying on her back, the cool evening air nibbling at her green paps. Piteous Jesus, Kate, call me. Sleight of voice. Sleight of mind. He lashed at his heart. “D’you know what Kavanagh said about us and that old whore over there?” It was almost a shout, a whip in the tongue to beat the past out of the head.
“Who is Kavanagh?”
“Another poet. They’re the hardest working men in Ireland. He said, ‘It would never be spring, always autumn.’ In Ireland, you know. Us, you know? The way we talk. The way we think and feel. . . .
“Who’s Brendan?”
“A seafaring monk. They say he discovered America.”
Sleight of voice. Sleight of mind. There’s the word. America. “Why would you want me to go to America, Brendine?”
She took his arm and leaned her head against his shoulder and said nothing. Then she said, “It’s cold. Let’s go down.”
Sleight of voice. Sleight of mind. He turned without looking again at her green paps, and they went below. America. Time future. No skull of Irish bard, no thigh of Irish chief there, no young sprout cursed for being in the way; time future. Tears to laughter.
“Do you think your father might?” God, that would be something! Leap from death to life. Leap from sorrow to joy. Leap from goal to goal. Leap from foot to foot. He closed the cabin door. “D’you think . . . ?”
“He would. His family came over on
a coffin ship in the famine. I’ll tell him what he has to know. They never forget. . . .” Little mother.
“I could kiss you.”
“Why don’t you, Johnny?”
He took her face in his hands and put his mouth gently to hers. Her mouth was sweet and soft. Smaller than Kate’s. Not consuming like Kate’s. Get out of my head, Kate.
“Johnny?”
“What?”
“Brendine Healy of Boston, are you a virgin? Remember?”
“Yes.”
“I am.” She kissed him, her arms round his waist. “Are you?” He kept his mouth on hers, wondering. “No,” he said.
“Many girls?”
“No.” Exorcise Kate. “Mrs. Burke,” he said. “She taught me.” He nibbled her lips.
“Johnny?”
“Yes.”
“Teach me.”
“Yes.”
Naked and a little shy, they went to bed in the bottom berth. The way you taught me, Kate. Yesterday was a long day, full of consuming anger and anxiety. Last night was a long night, full of Cleery’s vengeance and Kate’s consuming lust. Today was a long day, full of sleight of mind, sleight of voice.
“Johnny?”
He was asleep.
Very early in the morning, while it was yet dark, off Port Eynon Point on the run home into Swansea Bay, they stirred.
“Johnny? Now?” she whispered. “Please.”
“Yes.”
He was slow and gentle and careful.
She was not Kate. These were not Kate’s strong cunning thighs, Kate’s hips not these little hips were for lustful, luxurious wallowing, this little belly was not Kate’s warm hungry belly, these little breasts . . . this was not Kate. Get out of my head, Kate. Let me go, Kate.
“Johnny? Did I please you?”
He lay on her belly. “Yes. Oh, yes.” Make the voice right. Be kind.
“Johnny? Why don’t we drive to the house today? Not stop anywhere. Tonight I’ll be better. You tell me what you like. Tell me what to do. Yes?”
“Yes.”
But it was a happy drive and a happy day. Leap from past to future, from land to land, from skull of bard and thigh of chief to daughter company to mother company, leap from foot to foot, from old to young, woman to woman. Leaping transitions, instant transitions. The day’s laughter grew. Kate was distance. Brendine was presence. His warmth for her grew. On the phone the estate agent said, “Yes, well, bring Mrs. Burke’s letter to my house and let me see. I have a key here.”