The Ikon Maker

by Desmond Hogan

  ‘Yes, he’s in Harrow. I’ll get his address.’

  Susan sat down. A boy came in and played the guitar. The music was soothing, calming; the boy wore a white shirt with pink embroidery.

  They didn’t say anything to one another.

  The boy played with love in his music and Susan was grateful for having heard him.

  28

  She went to Mass before going to see Diarmaid. It was as though she were preparing for an extraordinary event. Halfway through the Mass – she’d been drinking port wine with Bridget the previous night – she realized she was attending a Jewish ceremony.

  It hadn’t occurred to her to look at what was going on. Hedonism had gripped her that hard.

  She sought the entrance but a Jewish boy smiled at her so benevolently that she stayed.

  29

  Across a bridge in Harrow she went. Underneath the trains passed. The day was passionately grey. She’d plucked a rose from a bush and she threw it in the air.

  People passed, looked.

  The dramatics over she went on, feeling more at peace than she’d ever felt before.

  30

  She met a man who asked directions of her. Naturally she couldn’t give them, but instead they spoke about the weather.

  He was Irish; in a moment he was launching into names. Did she know so-and-so? He came from quite near her.

  She knew or didn’t wish to know anybody.

  She turned. This was the road leading towards Diarmaid’s house.

  31

  And then – like a huge sensation – she passed a graveyard. What was it? Why was it? She remembered something. A graveyard in Harrow, a boy she’d known in Galway buried here.

  She entered.

  Sure enough after an hour of searching she found it.

  David Kelly, Died 1942, Durham.

  Native of Kilconnell, Co. Galway.

  May God have mercy on his soul.

  She knelt and tasted the earth with her mouth. It was like tasting another woman’s nipple or the sexual organ of a man.

  She leant and tasted life.

  For this was it, what her life was. It could be no more, a love relationship with a boy – George – her husband. For that’s what he’d always be, a boy. Then a sneaking glimpsory relationship with another boy, David Kelly, a grocer’s assistant, a boy she’d actually gone to a Joan Crawford film with once while her husband-to-be was in Athenry. Nothing had ever come of it but they’d loved one another passionately. His destiny as a gardener in Durham was her destiny. His death her death, the death of a dream. And on top of that, both of them, was Diarmaid like a sum. George, David, Diarmaid, the summation of her life, the three people she’d really loved, openly, defiantly.

  She stood weeping. Tears flowed. Her whole being became like a tidal wave.

  Here now it was over.

  Whatever would happen had already ceased to happen. Life couldn’t go on beyond this point.

  They were locked in a dream, Diarmaid, David, George, all heads together, locked into a misfit spirit.

  Before she departed from David’s grave she left a prayer as she’d been taught to do as a child and wandered away, other figures retreating, women in black stockings, mourning their dead.

  32

  A girl answered the door. She had a wiry, unwholesome face and she was dressed mainly in black.

  ‘Hello.’ Her lips, thin, hardly seemed to open.

  ‘How are you? Do you know Diarmaid O’Hallrahan?’

  ‘Yes. Are you a relation? His mother?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Come in.’

  Susan entered.

  Inside the hallway was bleak.

  It was dark and brown and very, very unhealthy-looking.

  The girl showed her into a room.

  And immediately Susan was reminded of the Men’s Social Club in Ballinasloe except that here hung a picture of Patrick Pearse and the Republican colours.

  Under Pearse was an array of pictures of people regarded as criminals by English newspapers, regarded as heroes among certain sectors in Ireland.

  In pubs, in schools, in the mouthpieces of the Republican movement, columns in Irish newspapers.

  ‘Sit yourself down. I’ll make tea.’ Susan was immediately struck by the quietness of the girl.

  She didn’t dare open her mouth. The girl moved like a very betrayed virgin.

  Her movements were quiet, shielded, pathetic almost.

  While sitting there Susan was sure she heard a baby’s squeal somewhere. Then maybe the tight little scratching of a mouse.

  ‘I hope you didn’t come here hoping to see Diarmaid,’ the girl said almost in a murmuring voice.

  ‘Why? Is he gone?’

  ‘He left yesterday.’

  Susan was amazed. For one moment she thought it might be back to Ireland he was gone. She was thrilled, delighted.

  Maybe he was going to University College, Galway, after all.

  ‘He left with a young man, a very weird young man, for Yugoslavia.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Some friend of his. I forget his name.

  You see Diarmaid had been staying here for a while; he’d often looked after the baby and Tommy was very fond of him. Tommy is my husband.

  They weren’t militant Republicans as the papers say. I suppose just both of them believed in a cause.’

  ‘A cause?’

  ‘Yes, Ireland. You see Tommy is from Derry and –’ with peculiar viciousness to the older woman she said ‘ – he had his balls cut off by the British army.’

  Susan smarted; the woman was sorry. She seemed to withdraw part of the statement.

  ‘He’s fine now. He’s got over it – maybe physically he’s adjusted, but you can’t get over it mentally.

  You can’t forget. You can’t forget what they’re doing to your houses, your families, your children. Can you put torture, murder, humiliation out of your mind?

  I love Derry but we couldn’t get a house there. Anyway after Tommy was interned no one wished to know us. Even a lot of Catholics, bloody cowards. We came here.

  Tommy got a job but the rest of his life he’ll dedicate himself to the freedom of Ireland.’

  ‘How?’

  The girl looked quizzical.

  ‘By serving the Republican movement. There’s no other way.’

  ‘With bombs?’

  Susan was unsure of her footing but she knew in herself what was wrong and hysterical.

  ‘Yes if we have to.’

  ‘Did Diarmaid – subscribe to these beliefs?’

  Susan felt like an inspector.

  ‘For a while. For a while.’

  ‘And what happened?’

  The baby was crying.

  She went in and fetched it.

  ‘This guy came and collected him.

  Some friend of his from the North.

  He wasn’t bad but God knows it looks a bit funny a young guy going off with a fellow like that to Yugoslavia.’

  ‘What did he look like?’

  Susan got a description of Michael. Anyway she hadn’t really needed to ask.

  A grim toll was taken.

  She couldn’t believe that Diarmaid had gone off to Yugoslavia with Michael.

  She couldn’t understand it.

  She listened.

  ‘The trouble started when Tommy and I weren’t getting on too well.

  Diarmaid came then. Tommy had met him in a pub.

  He was in need of a home.

  He looked starved. But also he was in need of friends.

  Tommy took an immediate liking to him.

  He liked the look of the fellow, the sincerity.

  They drank, joked, talked about politics together.

  But what neither of them understood was that I was lonely and when Diarmaid began to talk a lot to me Tommy became jealous. You know the way.

  One night in a pub Tommy smashed a bottle of Guinness over Diarmaid’s head.

  I think it
was afterwards Diarmaid wrote to his friend in the North and then they telephoned one another and arranged to go away together. It sounds peculiar, doesn’t it, live, young men going away together.’

  Susan was shattered.

  Quietly the other woman withdrew. She was making lunch. ‘Tommy will be home soon,’ she said. It suddenly occurred to Susan that she didn’t want to meet Tommy and she left, saying she had to meet some people.

  33

  It was almost incredible. Had they really gone away? To Yugoslavia. Was it on holiday or to live? Both of them together again. What had come into Diarmaid? Had he realized the Republican movement wasn’t really him and he had to go back, not to gentle Diarmaid of before, but to his relationship with Michael?

  Two young men with strange faces, they suited one another.

  She got a bus. A Jewish funeral pulled about Golders Green. A lady in black led the mourners. All around the hearse were garlands of flowers, reds and blues and greens.

  She wanted to know, quietly, desperately, Michael and Diarmaid were both part of her now. Had Michael gone behind her back and taken Diarmaid on the last league of the journey, abducted him to sin, to sodomy?

  What was it? Why was it?

  ‘Susan, Diarmaid was here,’ Bridget said when she got home.

  ‘What?’

  ‘He called for a jumper.’

  ‘Where is he now?’

  ‘Gone to Yugoslavia. There was a young man with him. They were both going to live there, they said. The young man apparently got hold of a house together.’

  ‘Did you tell him I was here?’

  ‘Yes. But they were in a hurry. They had to catch a ferry to Ostend.’

  ‘They didn’t wait?’

  ‘They were in a hurry.’

  ‘But Diarmaid.’

  Bridget took her arm.

  ‘Your son has changed, Susan.’

  ‘Diarmaid.’

  ‘Listen, love.’

  Susan wept, she wept openly on the floor.

  ‘The young man with him said he knows you. He told me to give you his regards.’

  34

  He’d left behind a jumper in Bridget’s apartment. He’d called for it, a white jumper.

  Susan singled out her clothes, preparing to go home. She found a white jumper of her own. She tossed it on the floor.

  She didn’t wish for any reminders.

  35

  ‘He was wearing a blue-neck shirt,’ Bridget said, describing Michael – though Susan didn’t want to hear.

  She was left astonished by the whole business, she wanted to forget. Though Bridget, pressed on by something, made it seem that the Mafia had called at her doorstep.

  She hadn’t an idea why Michael and Diarmaid had gone off together, they could be going on a boys’ outing for all she knew. But to Susan it was blatantly, obviously clear.

  They’d gone. They’d deserted her because she was old and unbeautiful. They’d gone in the stride and the eternal cruelty of youth.

  In the fullest sense both were traitors.

  36

  She thought of it that night.

  Outside the lights looked like skeletons.

  All their heads like skulls.

  People passed; the curtains were fraught with wind.

  He’d gone, he’d left because he was rejecting, rejecting all. And his rejection had led to hatred, hatred of his home, his mother, the gentleness she’s brought on him, the loveliness of vision, of life.

  Long ago Ireland had mangled him, twisted him, embittered him.

  Now his mother embittered him because she’d made him quiet and loving.

  He’d gone towards the I.R.A. to tear out the terribleness of loving, the niceties of behaviour and the warmth, the humours of a country kitchen his mother had imposed on him.

  And when it hadn’t worked – the I.R.A. – he’d gone back to another sort of rejection, this time adapting it not only to reject Ireland and the people who’d driven Derek O’Mahony to murder, but to reject his mother, her veniality, her sympathy with him.

  He didn’t want her sympathy; it was clear and ugly now. He didn’t want her love. He didn’t want her.

  37

  When I find myself in times of trouble,

  Mother Mary comes to me,

  Speaking words of wisdom,

  Let it be.

  The radio was blaring when Susan was eating her breakfast in the morning.

  But the music was pleasant and the words calm.

  ‘I’ll miss you,’ Bridget said as she decapitated an egg. ‘On Sundays I’ll pray for you.’

  Susan was comforted by the words.

  Before breakfast was finished though, Susan asked,

  ‘Didn’t Diarmaid say anything before he left?’

  ‘Yes, yes. He was asking for you.’

  But something of fatality overcame Bridget’s reply and Susan kept silent. He hadn’t even waited to say goodbye.

  38

  Trains whistled, Euston was crowded.

  As Bridget stood before her images ran through Susan’s brain, the time both Diarmaid and Derek played girls in a school play, a hangman’s tree.

  ‘Goodbye, love. You’ve brought me great luck.’

  Bridget’s kiss was wet.

  Susan cried.

  ‘Goodbye, love. Goodbye.

  I must rush.

  Goodbye.’

  39

  War, Blitz, these are the things she thought of. The September night was dark; London sped by.

  This was probably the last time she’d see the city where she welcomed George’s arms after the war. She sat back in her seat, frozen.

  40

  After a while she noticed a woman opposite her.

  ‘Hello.’

  She vaguely recognized the smile.

  Yes, it was Mrs Hanratty, a teacher from Ballinasloe.

  ‘How are you? I know you but I can’t place you.’

  ‘I’m Susan O’Hallrahan.’

  ‘Yes, yes. You’re a dressmaker. I see your little shop on the Galway Road.

  I’ve seen you passing on the way to Galway. I was doing a B.A. by night there last year and I’d often spy on you.

  With your son it must have been.’

  ‘Diarmaid.’

  The woman smiled broadly.

  She had on a pink dress. She looked tanned, healthy, but inevitably aged.

  ‘I’ve just been in Italy,’ she announced.

  ‘In Trieste.

  And in Venice. Oh, it was gorgeous.’

  ‘How lovely,’ Susan said, all of a sudden very English.

  ‘It was beautiful. I was saving so long for a holiday like this. Now I’ve got my way. I can still hear it,’ she said, arms in the air, ‘the chorus of Aida echoing down the Grand Canal.’

  41

  Liverpool vacated the shelves of her mind, all the lights, all the boats, a deeply depressed sort of beauty about them.

  She was going back to Ireland. But not as a countrywoman.

  For years she’d camouflaged herself as one, but the last weeks had shown one thing; she was capable of being accepted by any culture. She was a woman of intelligence and beauty, and if she’d spent her life listening to curlews and watching the rainbow side of the sky it was because all the time, inside, she was performing her own private part in history, rejecting Ireland, the evil of conformity by outwardly accepting it, but inside taking on George’s body against hers on a starry night in 1939.

  She was without shame. She’d given birth. She’d loved her son. He’d gone from her now, indeed far from the land, but always he’d wear the camouflage inside him, behind the barrier of social rejection, of casting off society, he’d wear a very private idea of love, an idea amounting to teddy bears when he was two and the grey ikons he created at seventeen.

  42

  ‘Susan.’

  Miss Hanratty was calling. ‘Come in. It’s raining. Look what I’ve found.’

  She produced a bottle of wine.
‘An Italian friend made it.’

  The colour was yellow, homely.

  ‘Let’s drink it,’ she said.

  Her nose ran with rain.

  She sat down, Susan did.

  Miss Hanratty had on a raincoat.

  They sat close and drank the wine.

  In the morning – as the boat entered the North Wall – they woke to find their bodies lying on top of one another.

  EPILOGUE

  1

  The priest had an affair with a young girl that autumn. The whole parish knew. She was bundled off, pregnant, to a convent near Dublin where she’d wash dirty linen before having her offspring.

  So therefore aspects changed and people gossiped less, a whole conviction gone astray, the Christ in the church looking rather numb and insane on the cross.

  They watched Ironside instead, television cops and robber games, and more than one woman had to take sedation in Ballinasloe mental hospital.

  2

  Mrs O’Hallrahan returned like Joseph from Egypt, reinstated in her dressmaking shop, no one supposing anything, leaving her aside.

  3

  ‘Good morning, Mrs O’Hallrahan,’ the parson called one morning. ‘How are you?’

  ‘Fine. Grand, thanks.’

  ‘You’re looking well tanned after your holiday.’

  ‘You’re grand yourself.’

  ‘Thanks. I was in County Wexford. Beside the sea.’

  ‘Gorgeous. ‘

  ‘You were in York, I believe.’

  ‘Yes, I was there once. Long ago.’

  ‘It’s a beautiful town.’

  Susan smiled. ‘I loved it.’

  ‘What I came to ask you was would you make a dress for my daughter. She’s becoming engaged.’

  ‘Oh that’s wonderful.’

  ‘To a young man from Bristol,’ the parson said before she asked. ‘They met at a party in Dublin.’

  On and on it went, the parties and the garden parties, the whole Church of Ireland ethic, Protestantism sinking with a grubby face.

  ‘I hope they’re happy,’ Susan said.

  ‘Soon your own son may be thinking of marriage. It’s surprising how early they wed these days.’

  ‘He might well do that.’

  Susan’s smile was a damaged one, but it was not too unhappy.

  She liked talking to the old man. No matter what he said.

  ‘I’d be delighted to make a dress for your daughter.’

  ‘You’ve got her measurements?’

  ‘Yes.’