I Dream Alone

by Gabriel Walsh

  Over a barbeque in the back yard I related as much as I could remember about my life in Dublin to Muriel’s parents. When I got stuck for words or when I was feeling self-conscious Muriel filled in for me. She told her parents all about how, when I worked in the Shelbourne Hotel in Dublin, I met a great opera diva who orchestrated my journey to New York. Mr. and Mrs.Anderson seemed impressed by the circumstances that had me standing in front of them in their back yard. What they thought or imagined about me dating their beautiful daughter they kept to themselves.

  They did express a curiosity about my relationship with the Axes. When I tried to explain it to them I only underlined the fact that I really didn’t have a full comprehension of the situation myself. I told them as much as I could and as much as I knew about Mr. and Mrs. Axe and how I often felt like I was living in a kind of limbo, floating between Mrs. Axe and Mr. Axe. Muriel’s father expressed concern that neither of the Axes had ever asked to meet his daughter. I attempted to defend them on that point by telling him that they were rarely ever home at the same time and when they were it was late at night. Deep down I accepted the fact that Mr. and Mrs. Axe did not seem interested in meeting anyone I had got to know since my arrival.

  During dinner Mr.Andersoncongratulated me on having endured the struggle that had got me as close to graduating as I was. Muriel also made a special effort to lift my spirits by reminding me about the senior prom. Prom Night was coming up and that would be such an occasion of youthful pageantry that I wouldn’t have the time or the inclination to worry about graduating on schedule from Sleepy Hollow High. By custom the senior prom was a celebration and a dance into adulthood. The adulthood part of the ritual was something that I paid little heed to. The compass of my present emotional odyssey was pointed away from the actual reality of being a grown-up. Such a concept didn’t reflect beautiful skies and gentle sunsets. My present seemed to overlap on itself each time I considered my state of affairs. Having brought Maggie Sheridan her breakfast every morning while she lived in the castle and presently delivering Mrs. Axe her breakfast before I took off for school every morning also contributed to a dilution of my present identity. In school, seniors displayed indications of who, what and where they wanted to go in life when they took on some of the responsibility for their own lives after high school. An inner cloud or darkness of some kind blocked my impulses and thoughts with regard to reaching out and owning a part of tomorrow.

  I wanted to cry, protest and present my past as an excuse for my lack of intellectual acumen but the splinters of my yesterdays were still stuck in my ass and every so often when I tried to sit down on my early upbringing a volt of pain ran up my spine and I ran as far away from it in my mind as I possibly could.

  * * *

  Two weeks after Muriel and her parents commiserated with my plight the senior class was abuzz with a crescendo of excitement regarding plans for the senior prom. The social celebration was a ritual my classmates were obsessed with. As was evident to everyone who knew her, Muriel had a flair for the artistic and she was elected by her classmates to choose the theme for the dance. The theme she submitted to the class officers was an Oriental one and it was accepted enthusiastically. It was promised that on the night of the dance the gym would be adorned with a motif of Japanese lotus blossoms and all things Oriental.

  * * *

  While serving Mrs. Axe her breakfast a week or so later I told her about the possibility of me not graduating with the senior class and she responded by telling me yet again that I was spending too much time on weekends with individuals at the local bar and not focusing on my homework. She was on the verge of demanding that I not frequent the bar at all. I had not in the past mentioned Frank Dillon to her but I guessed she had heard about him from Mr. Axe. I had eventually told him about Frank’s flair for quoting Shakespeare. When I jokingly told Mrs. Axethat at least I learned a bit of Shakespeare from Frank she didn’t find it funny. She also remarked that when I spent time in the research office at the castle, where I was supposed to be learning “the business”, I was often late and showed little interest in what her executives were showing me. A proclivity for sitting behind a desk watching and listening to businessmen talk about the stock market to each other was not an exciting way for me to spend my spare time. Although I was persistently encouraged to go to the office by Mrs. Axe on school holidays and even on Saturdays, I did my best to avoid it. Looking over charts, spread-sheets and graphs and other financial indicators was like a reincarnation of doing Catholic Church penance for sins I didn’t commit. Mrs. Axe wasn’t impressed when I made the comparison and reminded me that I needed to pay attention to my future. By that I assumed she meant that I should concentrate on having a profession, or learning something useful that would serve me when I got older. When I reminded her of my ambitions to be somehow involved or connected with the theatre or the arts in general, she fell back into talking about her own time when she wanted to be a violinist. Her attitude always changed when she talked about her own past, particularly if it had anything to do with her youthful ambitions to play the violin. She said she still kept the violin she’d had since college but hadn’t opened the case in years and wasn’t likely to do so. Unlike Mr. Axe, however, she didn’t usually elaborate on the subject of music. For Mrs. Axe the subject was a reminder of something she had apparently abandoned at an earlier age.

  After a long pause she reverted to the subject of attending college, implying that I had avoided that reality altogether. Not knowing if and when I’d graduate from high school was akin to having a migraine headache that wouldn’t go away. Consequently I developed an insecurity about college that kept me from bringing up the subject at all. When Muriel and other classmates queried me on the matter I unhesitatingly changed the subject and told them I’d probably be returning to Ireland. Muriel, of course, didn’t believe this and I reassured her in private that it wasn’t true and was only a ploy on my part to cover up my insecurity.

  When I defensively told Mrs. Axe that I would have liked to exchange thoughts and ideas on whatever my academic future held with her, she confessed that, apart from not having any experience with a younger person’s life and world, her busy schedule and life didn’t permit it. She volunteered however that the activity of me serving her breakfast gave her an opportunity to talk to me and be knowledgeable about my social life and school activities.

  With this encouragement and with my last encounter with Mr.Anderson still in mind, I found a modicum of courage to tell herall about Muriel and her family. She listened but didn’t respond in a manner that I would have liked or wished for. I was always hoping for approval from Mrs. Axe and partly because of that need I had minimised the existence of Muriel in my social life. It hadn’t taken long for me to fall into the same psychological pattern of avoidance that I attributed to the Axes, Mrs. Axe in particular. Whether it was courage or foolhardiness, I pursued the subject of Muriel and how important she was to me in my life. Mrs. Axe, to my surprise, didn’t seem to acknowledge my half-protesting attitude while at the same time she didn’t hesitate to remind me of her promise to my mother and Maggie concerning my welfare in general.

  Before she had finished her breakfast most of what she didn’t know about me and what I didn’t know about her became clearer. Mrs. Axefound herself in a situation she had no experience of and wasn’t well versed in: what were fundamentally emotional equations as opposed to financial ones. I, on the other hand, had no inkling on how to relate to the person who was directly responsible for me being in her home and her world, without a compass that pointed to an understanding of the present much less a clear picture of the future.

  When I added the fact that I would be taking Muriel to the prom Mrs. Axe implied that I had been socialising too much with Muriel as well and not paying enough attention to my teachers in school. She even admitted that, unbeknownst to me, she had made several private calls to the school and spoken with some of my teachers there. The report from the teachers, according to Mrs.
Axe, was that I had a “sharp intelligence” but it was essentially “dream-like” in nature. Hearing this assessment of myself brought a smile to my face because I not only understood it, I agreed with it. Mrs. Axe however didn’t find it funny or amusing. She informed me that I needed to plant my feet on terra firma and pay attention to my school work. I defended myself and told her that part of the reason my focus and concentration was blurred was the fact that I had to get up too early every morning and serve her breakfast. Mrs. Axe retaliated by saying I didn’t have to do it and that I was complaining about that chore much too late. She said I should have told her that I was in need of sleep and that I didn’t like serving her breakfast. I replied that I didn’t mind serving her breakfast but on some mornings, if I was out late or tired from playing a soccer match for the high school, I wouldn’t be as alert when I traipsed off to school that particular morning. There was the odd morning when I was late in getting Mrs. Axe her breakfast and consequently also late for school and at school it was difficult to explain to my classmates that I had a chore to do every morning before I arrived in class. When I presented this information to Mrs. Axe sheignored it. For every excuse that I could come up with Mrs. Axe retaliated. She chastised me on the fact that I was delinquent in corresponding with my family in Dublin. I defended my inactive connection with my parents back in Ireland by reminding her that it was only my mother and sister Rita who took it upon themselves to see me off the day I left two years earlier and that no one back in Dublin ever wrote to me or inquired about my life since I departed. Father Clifford’s name came up again and Mrs. Axe reminded me that I had on several occasions refused his invitation to visit him in New Jersey at the religious campus or institution he lived on. That hit home because the truth was I was frightened of going to New Jersey to visit the priest and maybe being pressurised into confessing to him about everything I’d done since I arrived in America. I didn’t want to tell him about my relationship with Muriel in the confession box. The memories of confessing all my thoughts, words and deeds in a confession box when I lived in Dublin were still prevalent and active in my brain, even though they didn’t haunt me like they had done two years earlier.

  Certain aspects of my life had changed for the better since I’d come to Tarrytown and the thought of returning to some of the practices of my religion was overwhelmingly unpleasant. The ritual of confessing and admitting to sins was beginning to reveal itself as a betrayal of my inner self. I had long given up on receiving Communion and at this point my attendance at Mass was only once in a blue moon. However, Mrs. Axe didn’t seem concerned about my lackadaisical attitude towards my church attendance, mainly because I had never seen her attend any church at any time. She and Mr. Axe expressed no particular liking for any brand of religion and never in my presence, before this morning, had brought up the subject.

  When the conversation regarding Father Clifford passed Mrs. Axereminded me that I was failing to take advantage of walking about the estate with Mr. Axe when he was exercising. She was insinuating that I was avoiding Mr. Axe and his penchant for talking about serious subjects. I reminded her that I was always available and happy to walk with him and it was he who always initiated wanting my company. The occasional walk about the estate with Mr. Axe not only exercised my body but my mind as well and I very much enjoyed it. I reminded her that I had learned more from Mr. Axe in a month than I had learned in high school in two years. This particular piece of information seemed to irritate her and for the first time since I was in her presence she was loudly argumentative with me. She reminded me that I was in reality close to disappointing her and by extension Maggie Sheridan. As she continued to berate me for what she characterised as my unproductive use of time I found myself wanting to crawl into a hole.There was no place to hide, however, so I picked up her breakfast tray and walked towards the door. As I was halfway out Mrs. Axe called after me and told me she was going out of state for a week and that obviously meant I could and should get a bit more rest every morning.

  The night of the prom arrived. I donned a white jacket and black pants and almost sailed out of my room at the castle. When I got down the marble steps I bumped into Mr. Axe who was coming in from his daily walk. He seemed surprised to see me all dressed up. Before I opened the front door or could close it behind me he told me he had spoken to Mrs. Axe, who happened to be somewhere in Connecticut, and that she passed along her best wishes for me to have a great night at the prom. I was happy to hear that she hadn’t forgotten about me and appreciated the fact that she had said something nice. Three days had passed since she berated me for being lax in just about everything I did and I got the feeling she was apologising to me – even if it was only indirectly. Mr. Axe added that if the weather was good, and since I wouldn’t be bringing Mrs. Axe her breakfast, he’d be interested in having me walk with him the following morning. I was tempted to tell him I would be out late and would probably be too tired in the morning to walk, but I didn’t. For reasons I didn’t question in myself I had fallen into the habit of not saying no to anything I was asked by either Mr. or Mrs. Axe. Maybe it was because I was still sensitive to Maggie’s memory and I didn’t want to betray her almost daily instructions when she was alive on how I should behave. At the same time I began to realise how emotionally and materially dependent I had become on both Mr. and Mrs. Axe. Mr. Axe’s companionship, particularly when I took walks with him as well as when I attended the opera and theatre, kept my mind alive and even hungry.

  As the time passed for me while living in the castle I felt increasingly that my life was akin to a pendulum in a clock. One day I’d feel like I was a member of the family. The next day I’d come to believe that there was no family to be a member of. In the need and perhaps search to find a centre for my existence I had, intentionally or not, replaced both my mother Molly and Maggie in my life with Mrs. Axe and most of my emotions were influenced by what she observed and even thought about me. Her concerns regarding my welfare made me want to please her and live up to what I imagined her standards to be. The problem I had with that illusive perception was that I was never sure what she truly wanted of me. On drives or on weekends at the castle when she had a few glasses of wine under her belt she’d talk about me working my way up in the company and learning everything there was to learn about her business. She talked about how I would make a good lawyer and that I had some natural instincts that would auger well for me being a successful executive in her company. Almost always her conversations with me were peppered with anecdotes about Maggie. She would, even though it was infrequent, ask me about my parents and how they managed to get along with having so many children. When I related that I had never heard either of my parents speak an affectionate word towards each other Mrs. Axe would end the conversation. There were also times when she’d be impatient, cool and indifferent: when she displayed these characteristics in my presence I retreated from her emotionally and became intellectually confused. Although it was less frequent and even impersonal at times my relationship with Mr. Axe was more succinct and definitive. When such thoughts about my see-saw life at the castle permeated my mind I usually retreated to either Muriel’s home, which because of school could only be on weekends, or to the dingy bar in town where Frank Dillon held court and waxed on about his theatrical fantasies. For longer than I wished, my mind and sense of self bobbed between more realities than I could comprehend and feel comfortable with.

  The advent of the school prom had beckoned to me like some sort of coming-of-age ritual, except in this case I felt it was my mind and not my body that had evolved and a sense of confidence followed. The formal new suit and the collective association of camaraderie that I looked forward to floated through my head. It was akin to being washed ashore on a new island that had me excited by the possibility that I would be the first to explore it and discover the world around me and even facets of myself that I wasn’t fully sure I understood.

  As I approached my newly washed and polished 49 Ford, Pat and Jim
pulled into the parking lot in their old antique green-and-white Pontiac. The car looked as old as the castle itself. Jim had told me that they’d had the car since it was new and he was attached to it as if it was a member of his family. He talked and even bragged about how many times it had broken down and how he learned to be a mechanic by his attempts and efforts to fix the thing. He blabbered on about how the old car had on several occasions acted as a home and a shelter when he and Pat went travelling about the country years earlier. He glanced at his wife for confirmation about their relationship with the old Pontiac but Pat ignored his silent invitation for affirmation with a smile and a shake of her head. When I asked Jim what year the car came off the assembly line he had trouble remembering.

  The McCluskeys had been away on a week’s vacation that coincided with Mrs. Axe’s departure. They had driven to the State of Maine where they originally came from and where they still had relatives. Both of them bragged about being of New England Yankee stock. That meant almost nothing to me at that point. I was under the assumption that everybody in America was a Yank, as we called them back home. Pat was anxious to set me straight on the term ‘Yankee’, explaining that it properly referred to the descendants of colonial English settlers in New England. But Jim differed from her when he confessed to having some Irish blood in him. Pat retreated slightly also when she admitted a forebear of hers on her mother’s side was a Cajun Indian with roots in New Orleans.

  When they saw me in my prom attire they gave out a happy and excited yell. Seeing me dressed in my white formal jacket and black slacks was a pleasant shock to them. Jim said I looked more like a ‘Yank’ than anyone he had seen in a long time. Pat reminded me of the first day I arrived when my attire was not so fancy – in her words I was“lost like an unremembered dream”.