The Misremembered Man

by Christina McKenna

  Jamie lowered himself into the plump, cushioned chair at the pig-patterned table. Rose slid the trays of buns and tarts into the roasting oven, eased the door shut and set the timer.

  “Now, that’s the thing.” She creaked to her feet, satisfied with another job well done. “And Paddy here sez to me when he came into me last night, he sez: ‘Jamie’s accordjin playing was partickirly good, terrible good, so it was.’ Isn’t that right, Paddy?”

  “Aye, that’s right, Rose. That’s just what I was sayin’.” Paddy folded the paper and handed it to Jamie.

  “Did y’hear about…did y’hear about poor Doris Crink? The post office was—”

  “Was robbed yesterday.” Rose couldn’t abide her husband being the sole bearer of such earth-shattering news.

  “God oh, I’ve got all me savin’s with Doris!”

  Jamie grabbed the paper, shocked, and found the headline: Tailorstown Post Office Raid. No suspects yet. He read the accompanying report.

  “Now Jamie, your money’s safe enough,” Paddy assured him, “because, because it sez there…it sez there that the…that the bugger—”

  “That the bugger only got away with a fiver,” Rose called out. She lifted the teacups out of the cupboard. Every time she saw Jamie, the circuitry of her brain fizzled and crackled and sent out the three-letter command: tea. “Poor Doris didn’t need that,” she declared in a final curtain voice. “Must a been a terrible shock for the wee creatur.”

  “Sez here a gun was used,” said Jamie, as he continued to peruse the article. He was relieved by the knowledge that his nest egg was safe. “Lord save us, but that must-a been an ordeal.”

  “Aye, a terrible ordeal for any man, let alone…let alone a woman,” Paddy agreed. “But you know it coulda…it coulda been one a them watter-pistols. They say they can make them now to look like a…look like a…”

  “A hammer?” Jamie offered.

  “Naw, not a hammer…to look like…” Paddy couldn’t think straight. “Christ, what was it I was gonna say…to look like a…”

  “A rifle?” put in Rose.

  “Aye, but wee-er than that.”

  “A gun?” shouted Jamie.

  “Aye, that’s the very thing,” Paddy said relieved. “Aye, they say they can make them watter-pistols to look like a gun these days.”

  “I don’t know what the world’s comin’ to,” said Rose. She poured the tea and handed the mugs round. “A wee rock bun, Jamie? Fresh made, so they are.” She pushed a plate under his nose. It was only at the sight of the buns that he realized he hadn’t eaten anything all day and was, as they say, as hungry as a homeless tapeworm.

  Jamie pulled the letter from his pocket and placed it reverentially on the table.

  “She’s a Ly-dee-a Devine, so she is.”

  “Well, what d’you know? Isn’t that a good one. D’you see that, Paddy?”

  Paddy couldn’t comment, since his dentures were struggling with an entire rock bun. So he nodded and raised an affirming hand instead.

  Rose wiped her hands on her apron and fetched her glasses from the pouting lips of the guppy on the mantelpiece. Paddy understood that matchmaking was Rose’s terrain and decided to leave her to it. He got up.

  “I’ll go on here and get this bit-a paintin’ finished,” he announced to the cuckoo clock above the stove, sensing his presence would not be missed.

  “Yes, you do that Paddy,” said Rose, “and mind ye don’t dribble on me clematis!” she shouted after him as he retreated down the hallway to continue ruining the front door with a tin of Dublin Bay Green gloss.

  “Are them the wee purple boys ye have climbin’ about the door, Rose?”

  “They are indeed, Jamie, but Paddy would have an unsteady hand on him betimes when he’s doin’ an important job like paintin’, and ye know—”

  “Oh, I know what you’re sayin’ right enough,” Jamie cut in, aware of Rose’s spectacular ability to wander off the point and eager to get her opinion on Miss Devine’s letter.

  “God-blisses-an-save-us, what grand handwritin’, Jamie!” Rose read the letter, quietly nodding and sighing her approval, whilst Jamie slurped the tea and demolished his rock bun in two mouthfuls.

  “Well!” Rose removed her glasses. “A very fine, well-rounded lady indeed, Jamie.” Since a depleted teacup and an empty side plate in front of a man signaled neglect on her part, she automatically replenished Jamie’s mug and pushed more buns toward him.

  “But it looks like she’s a Protestant, Rose. That Sunday service bit.”

  “Now, I saw that, Jamie, too meself, and that doesn’t matter atall as I told you before. We all worship the same God, do we not.”

  She broke a rock bun into pieces and slipped morsels into her mouth. It was a mouth that rarely experienced any notable periods of respite between eating and speaking, and often—as now—engaged itself in both activities at the same time.

  “And this religion thing: it’s only a wee blot on the horizon, if a body chooses to see it that way. And between you and me, Jamie,” she leaned conspiratorially toward him, “me and my Paddy have never had anything against the other sort. Truth be told, they’re more hardworkin’ and not as lazy as our own lot, who can stand about in a field for hours, scratchin’ their arses and not gettin’ nothing done. Now I’m not sayin’ you and my Paddy come into that caty-gory, but you know, Jamie, there’s many’s the one that does.”

  “Aye, I s’ppose you’re right about that, Rose.”

  “’Deed I am, Jamie, ’deed I am. God, I had an Uncle Eustace, but y’know he got called Useless for short, ’cause he set about so much he wore the arse outta all the trousers he had. Me mother, God rest her soul, was never done patchin’ and darnin’ and footerin’ for him. I wouldn’t a been surprised if he’d bedsores on him when he was a nipper. So ye know, a hardworkin’ Protestant woman isn’t to be sniffed at, because she could end up being more useful to you than a lazy oul’ clat of a Fenian, that would lie around all day with a fag in her gob, paintin’ her toenails. And you know just when I mention fags, most a them Protestant women neither smoke nor drink, because they’re so busy workin’, so they are—terrible well doing—and for that reason, Jamie, would be very easy to run.”

  “God-oh,” was all Jamie could say, the thought of a Protestant wife becoming more attractive by the minute.

  “Now, let’s look at all the good things about this lady.”

  Rose spread the letter out in front of her and, using the fingers of her left hand as counters, rehearsed what she saw as Lydia Devine’s undoubted attributes.

  “Now, Jamie, one: She’s around the same age as yourself, which means she’s sensible and not no fibberty-gibbit of a thing that would go turnin’ a man’s head with stuff not of a serious nature. And even though at that age she probably wouldn’t tear at the pluckin’, God-blisses-an-save-us—sure none of us would, because none of us is getting’ no younger, but that’s just the way of it, so it is.”

  Jamie nodded and reached for another bun, his diet quite forgotten.

  “Two: She’s got a good job, and God knows there’s few a them about these days, and she must like children because she wouldn’t be working with them if she didn’t like them, and I sez that’s always a good sign in a woman because it means that maybe you and she could start a family, might it not.” She took a long draught of tea.

  Jamie’s eyes widened. He had never even thought of children, never mind envisioning the intimate process by which they came into being.

  “Now don’t look so surprised, Jamie. You’re the forty-one yourself, a grown man, and if she’s about the same age as she sez here, well, she still has time. My cousin Martha give birth to triplets at the forty-two, eighteen months ago. And even though wee Mary has a squint, wee Molly a harelip, and wee Martin a head on him the size of a turnip, heaven’s-above, God musta been in a terrible hurry at the makin’ a them, but if you put all that aside there’s not a bother on them. Because you know a woman over the forty
can expect a wee bit of retardment, because she mighta left things a bit late, like.”

  Rose halted her racing discourse and reached for another bun.

  “There’s them that sez it was a miracle they lived atall, atall, my Paddy included, but it was no miracle, sez I, because if a woman wants a child, it’ll come to her no matter the age, for God never closes one door but he bangs another one shut, if you unnerstand me, Jamie?”

  Rose raised her Giant’s Causeway mug to her lips once more, while Jamie sat in embarrassment, not knowing what to say, letting his eyes drift between the gamboling pigs on the tablecloth and a set of ceramic geese flapping their way up the wood-chipped wall toward the ceiling.

  “Now where was I?” She looked down at the page again, hooked the index finger of her right hand round the middle finger of her left and continued.

  “Yes, number three. She likes animals—which is a terrible good sign altogether, because it means she wouldn’t be afeard of feedin’ a pig or milkin’ a cow or two if you were not able, for whatever reason, Jamie, to do it yourself. And I’m not sayin’ anything’s gonna happen you or the like—far be it from me to be sayin’ a thing like that—but you did have that lambago and maybe still have, truth be told.”

  “Oh aye, I still have a wee touch of it now an’ again, Rose.”

  “There you are then! If you couldn’t get outta the bed of a cold morning—and God knows they’ll be getting colder soon enough—sure wouldn’t she be there to take over for you and the like?” Rose was pleased; Jamie’s eager nodding to all she said meant that he’d understood her completely.

  “That reminds me, Rose, just when you say it. I’ll be takin’ that wee day or two in Portaluce next Monday and Tuesday, with me back and all…”

  “I unnerstand you completely, Jamie. You want my Paddy to feed the things, and that’s no bother atall, as you well know.”

  “Well, y’know Dr. Brewster said that gettin’ away for a coupla days would take me outta meself. And now that I’m gonna be meetin’ this woman, I’m a bit un-aisey, so maybe it’d help me to get outta bit beforehand and meet some different people.”

  “Now, Jamie, there’s no need for you to feel uneasy about meetin’ this lady ’cause truth be told she’ll maybe be as uneasy meetin’ you too, her being a lonely heart like yourself. Sure for all y’know, she’s maybe been sittin on her own lookin’ into the fire like yourself, talkin’ to nobody from one end-a the week to the other but a grumpy oul’ lump of a brother or mother or whatever, and a coupla cats.”

  “Never thought a that, Rose, but when ye put it like that…”

  Rose smiled broadly, thrilled that Jamie was appreciating her “agony aunt” wisdom.

  “And may I say also, Jamie, I’m glad you’re gettin’ away with that back a yours, ’cause you said you were still gettin’ the odd wee touch of it, did ye not?”

  “Aye, the odd wee touch of it now and again, Rose.”

  “I know all about it, Jamie! Our Martha had a leg she couldn’t get rid of after the births of the wee ones. It blew up the size of a Mullingar heifer’s, so it did, and I went down and helped her out, because you know she couldn’t get about atall, atall. And it’s a terrible thing when a body is incapissitated in such a way. May your belly always be full and your bones enjoy their stretching, as me Great-grandmother Murphy used to say.”

  Rose broke up another rock bun on her side plate and looked back at the letter. “Now, Jamie, where were we with this lady?”

  “I think we were coming to the books, Rose.”

  “Yes, Jamie, I believe you’re right. That and the cookin’ bit. But y’know, the cookin’ being the most important thing, I’m leavin’ that to the last.” Rose got up. “Excuse me one wee minute, Jamie. I needa see if me buns have riz.”

  She pulled the cat-faced oven gloves on again and opened the stove door. A gust of hot air burst into the already sweltering room. She carried one of the steaming trays over to the table and left it on the cooling rack.

  “But I haven’ read no books, Rose! Maybe one or two on farming and the like.” The last was a lie. In truth, Jamie’s reading extended no farther than deciphering the heating instructions on a can of Campbell’s chicken soup now and again. “But I think she means them novels and things, her being a teacher like.” He looked longingly at the jam tarts.

  “Now, they’re a wee bit hot at the moment, Jamie, but I’ll give you a bag o’ them to take home with you, so I will.”

  She hung the oven gloves on a bracket above the stove: a laminated plaque of a bull’s head whose protruding horns served as hooks for items of kitchen apparel.

  “Now, my Paddy has some cawntry-an’-western cowboy books down here, so he has.” She got down on bended knee and opened a cupboard to the right of the stove. “He doesn’t bother with the readin’ no more, his eyesight not being what it used to be.” She spoke into the depths of the dark cupboard. “And y’know what they say, Jamie: A blind hawk will never find his nuts in the dark.”

  Presently she got up, her joints popping with the effort, her face as pink as the Sam McCready roses patterned across her generous bosom, and handed Jamie two shabby, yellowed paperbacks: The Virginian by Owen Wister and Riders of the Purple Sage by Zane Gray.

  “Now that’s the books seen to, Jamie. Maybe you should take a wee read at them before you meet her, just in case she might ask you what they were about, and you wouldn’t like to be caught with your horns in the hay or your flies in the ointment, or whatever it is they say.”

  Jamie studied the books, flicking through the pages and wondering why meeting this woman was beginning to resemble sitting an exam.

  “That’s great, Rose,” he said, with a touch of resignation in his voice. “Thank you very much. So, there’s just the cookin’ left.”

  “Yes, Jamie, the cookin’ is the most important part of the whole letter; that’s why I left it to last,” Rose said, taking a palette knife from a drawer and arranging the jam tarts on a bedoilied plate. “Now I’m no scholar meself, but them fancy words ‘culoon-in-ary process’ I suppose might be another way of sayin’ cookin’ and bakin’ and the like.”

  She offered Jamie a tart and took one herself. She replaced her glasses and retrieved the letter, frowning.

  “‘What dishes do you like making most?’” She read the salient sentence aloud again. “‘What ass-pect of the culoon-in-ary process interests you most?’”

  Rose peered over her glasses.

  “Well, d’you know, Jamie, aren’t you eatin’ the answer to that one?”

  “Huh?” He looked in bemusement at the half-eaten jam tart on his plate.

  “Them wee jam tarts. Well y’know, a monkey with no eyes in the back of his head could make them! Not that I’m sayin’ you’re a monkey, Jamie. Far be it from me to be sayin’ such a thing, if truth be told. But a jam tart and a rock bun you could make with your eyes closed and your hands tied behind your back, sitting on a lamppost in the middle of a field on a dark night, so you could. They’re that simple.”

  She went to a cork board above the fridge and, from below a novena of a girlish-looking St. Joshua (Patron Saint of Fruitless Endeavours) standing in a plastic pocket, unpinned a cornflake packet coupon featuring a recipe for rock buns. She handed it to Jamie.

  “There you are, you can hold on to that and study it. Now I’m gonna give my Paddy a wee drop more tea and then we’ll get down to the writin’ of it, so we will.”

  She left Jamie in the kitchen in a profound study, wondering how the faceless Lydia could involve him in such demanding feats as reading books and learning recipes, before he even had the chance to meet her and speak to her.

  Life was indeed strange. One minute you were contemplating ending it all with a rafter and a length of rope, the next you were studying a recipe for rock buns with a view to meeting a lady. It was all very strange indeed.

  Chapter eighteen

  The Ocean Spray, a large, three-storied, detached guesthouse, was situat
ed in a prime spot—facing the sea and catching the sun—on the main thoroughfare of the coastal resort of Portaluce.

  Gladys Millman, sixty-five, glamorous widow, and younger sister of Elizabeth Devine, considered her establishment superior to others, due to its enviable location. Also on account of this, she felt justified in charging higher rates than her rivals. She prided herself on running a spotless guesthouse, demanded impeccable standards of herself and her workforce, and reserved a healthy contempt for those she considered to be of the lower, or indeed peasant, classes.

  Whenever she encountered anyone she deemed a threat to this ideal—those from the farming community, factory workers, tradesmen, dowdy women over thirty and still unmarried—she would raise her rates even more, to scare them off. And if this ploy didn’t work, she would skimp on elements of their breakfast so as to compensate for having to endure such riffraff under her roof. So next morning, Farmer Murphy and his wife would have set before them—but probably did not notice—margarine instead of butter, shop-bought jam instead of homemade preserves, thinly diluted squash instead of freshly squeezed orange juice.

  Gladys had started the business with her husband Freddie (Freddie had been an accountant and she a secretary) after their daughters Bertha and Lillian had graduated, married and left home to settle in Canada and California, respectively.

  Within two years, the childfree, carefree couple had built up the Ocean Spray as a successful and respectable venture; the success was due to Freddie’s eye for profit and Gladys’s skill in the kitchen. But the idyll was not to last. One morning at breakfast, Freddie died suddenly of a heart attack, going face-first into his Ulster fry-up (a specialty of the house) as he and Gladys squabbled over the virtues of serving French toast instead of fried potato bread, Freddie arguing more forcefully for the cheaper potato alternative, which was a personal favorite and which—in a way—had unfortunately and most acutely been the death of him.

  Gladys was a vain woman, proud of her appearance and her status as a successful entrepreneur. She had an admirer whom she saw from time to time—“my secret lover”—who encouraged and appreciated the efforts she made to look her best.