Goodbye to the Hill

by Lee Dunne

  The feeling was so rich for a while that I tried to make myself quit seeing Breeda - it just didn’t fit me right to be having her with Maureen so in love with me. But I couldn’t stay away from her. All she had to do was phone me and I had no defence.

  Twice a week, give or take, we drank in the little boozer where I’d first met her and, we usually went straight back to the flat for a session in the bed.

  Larry still saw her too, and he and I told each other all that we did with her, but Breeda never mentioned his name when I was alone in her company.

  She didn’t talk much about herself either, but Larry had filled me in on part of her story. She was a civil servant and according to him she had degrees to burn. She must have had, because she spent serious money and she lived so well that her wages must have been a bomb. And in the civil service, to earn the kind of money that she spent you’d have to be a right egg-head.

  Larry said that a married man in her home town had put her in the puddin’ club and that she’d left home then and gone over to England for an abortion before coming back to Dublin. I often wondered if that was why she went all sad sometimes. It must have been an awful thing for a mot to have to go through, especially if she’s on her own. But she never mentioned it, and neither did I. As far as I was concerned she was a good skin, and she never once mentioned how intelligent she was or anything like that. She just wasn’t the kind of female to wear it like a badge.

  ***********

  About six weeks after the fight with Egan, Maureen rang me one morning to cancel a date that we had for that night. She didn’t give me any reason but she promised to tell me all about it the next night. I can’t say why, but somehow I had the feeling that it had something to do with Willie Egan, and when I thought about him I felt bad. I should never have hit him like that.

  The next night, I met her outside Flood’s pub in Terenure, and she held my hand as we walked up in the direction of Templeogue. It was still fairly light, and Maureen was so quiet that I talked of the weather and summer evenings. It struck me as fairly funny that after all we’d been through we seemed to be at a new beginning.

  It’s odd that I should have thought that, just then, like before a new beginning there’s always an end.

  We walked for miles and we found a little country pub and in the bar there was an open turf fire, even though the night wasn’t cold. And there were dark beams strung across the low ceiling and I thought it would be a great place in which to sit and get quietly pissed.

  Maureen asked for whiskey. No water or soda, just bottoms up. It was then my guts turned over on me. I knew from the way she drank the Jameson that there was something very wrong.

  ‘You believe I love you?’

  ‘Sure I do, Maur, what makes you ask that?’

  Her voice was flat when she answered and her face was pale and drawn like a mask. ‘I’m overdue with my monthly.’ She looked at me and her eyes were sad enough to make the heart bleed. ‘I’m going to marry Willie Egan.’

  There was a mist across her eyes like a pain, and just for once, without thinking of myself, I pitied her, and I felt a sort of overwhelming love for her. And it was some seconds later before I managed to say: ‘It was that night in the garden wasn’t it?’

  ‘Yes it was. My fault, don’t blame yourself. I started you off that night.’

  ‘Does Willie know?’

  She shook her head. ‘Nobody knows but you.’ She fiddled with the glass. ‘I let him make love to me last night. He’ll marry me tomorrow if I say yes.’

  ‘But you don’t love him.’ As the stupid words tumbled out of my big mouth I knew it was a lousy thing to say. As if the poor cow didn’t have enough on her plate, without my ego.

  ‘Of course I don’t love him. How the hell can I when I’m daft about you? For Christ’s sake, Paddy, don’t be stupid.’

  ‘But you’re definitely going to marry him.’

  ‘Well, I can’t marry you, can I?’

  ‘No,’ I hear the hopeless ring in my own voice. ‘You can’t marry me.’

  ‘Well, it’s settled then.’

  She didn’t say any more and I didn’t know what to say. As usual, I’d created a situation that I couldn’t do anything about.

  ‘I’ll get you another drink?’

  ‘No. I just want to get out of here and go and lie down with you somewhere.’ She aimed for a smile but I could see she was heart broken. ‘It’ll be the last time for us.’

  And it was. The last time I ever held onto her and loved her with my body, filled with rememberings of how marvellous she’d always been to me.

  From our first beginnings she had been too good for me, but had I tried to live up to her, meet her standards, the end wouldn’t have seemed so bad, and so very sad.

  I felt an awful lot older. Weary too, as we came out of the field, and when I kissed her goodbye and put her into a taxi, I stood and watched until the cars rear lights were swallowed up by the night.

  She was gone out of my life, and when she married Willie Egan a month later she carried part of me with her, in every sense of the word.

  I saw her climb into the car outside the church, but I made sure she didn’t see me. She stood and smiled for the photographer and she looked happy. I stood, believing it was all an act, that she was torn asunder because it wasn’t me that was getting into the car beside her.

  For about a month after that I did some really hard drinking, and even on the nights that I saw Breeda, I passed out before I could touch her. She didn’t like it, and if I hadn’t come round when I did, she would have broken it off with me.

  When I felt alright I told Larry and he listened to the whole story. When it was finished he told me straight that I’d been very lucky to get out of it as I had done. And he was right, another girl would have lumbered me all the way, and apart from the fact that I’d have been married, and me only just out of short trousers, it would have killed Ma, to see me shot-gunned into a wedding. So, as Larry said, I’d been very lucky that Maureen had been so practical.

  It was just after that, in the middle of August, that I finally managed to get down to Wicklow to see Claire Kearney.

  I was due a holiday from the office and I told Ma that I was going Youth Hostelling with some guys that I worked with. She was delighted to hear that, glad that I would be getting some fresh air into my lungs, and the fact that I was going with people from the office made it more than alright. Breeda was a different problem, so I told her that I was going off for a week with my mother, that she hadn’t been very well, and that I wanted to try and give her a nice break for the seven days.

  She thought it was good that I cared so much about my mother, and I brought a few tears to my eyes, and told her that Ma hadn’t had much of a life and, that I was only doing what I could to give her a rest. And Breeda looked at me as though I was something special.

  She asked me to stay with her on the Friday night before I left, so I told Ma that I was going to an all night party from the office. Ma said it was alright and I knew she wouldn’t worry about me. The word office had a magical effect on poor Ma.

  Drinking a lot was a pretty stupid thing for me to do, when I was faced with a sixty-mile bicycle ride the next afternoon, especially as Breeda seemed to expect a fortnight’s sex in advance.

  She woke me up at half past eight, and I felt as though I’d been dead for a couple of years. I drank the black coffee that she made, and as I was going to be seriously late for the office, she phoned for a taxi. I said I couldn’t afford it and she was very decent about paying for it. So I arrived at the office in great style, but when Larry saw me he nearly threw a fit at the state of my eyes.

  ‘Jesus wept! They’re like piss-holes in the snow. Breeda, yeh!’

  I nodded and he grinned, with that shake of his head that I’d gotten used to. ‘Listen kid, yo
u’ll kill yourself if you keep on like this. You’ll have to slow down.’

  ‘Don’t worry,’ I said, ‘I’m slowing down whether I want to or not. I’m worn out.’

  ‘Get out and lash coffee into yourself.’

  I nodded. ‘I need to do something. You go on. I’ll see you in about ten minutes.’ He nodded and went out of the office. Cahill wasn’t in, thank the lord. It was his Saturday morning off. and it made things a bit easier for me. If he’d seen the state of me he’d have found something to keep me nailed to the desk all morning.

  I went to Mr. Hayes’ office and knocked on the door. His voice came through the glass panel and I went in.

  ‘I’m sorry to trouble you, sir.’ ‘That’s all right, Mister Maguire. What can I do for you?’ ‘To tell you the truth, sir, I’ve been up all night. It’s my sister, sir, she’d not too well. I was out for the doctor just before I came to the office and I didn’t even have time for a cup of tea. I was wondering sir, if I could go out and get myself a sandwich?’ He looked at my face and he could only have been thinking that I looked dog rough, and fortunately for me he was a man who always thought the best of everyone. ‘You do look rather tired, Mister Maguire,’ he said, and taking out his wallet he put a ten bob note on the desk in front of me. ‘A small gift for your holiday, go out and get yourself a good breakfast.’

  Believe it or not, I tried to refuse the money. I didn’t want it, not after giving him such a load of bullshit, but he really did insist and when I got to the coffee bar I was ten bob to the good. Larry had a coffee waiting for me on the counter and I drank that down, followed by two more, and I began to feel a bit of life creep back into me. I told him what had happened with Mr. Hayes and he put on his resigned expression. ‘And me sitting here wondering if you’d get out. Honest to Christ, it’s you should be looking out for me.’ ‘It was an accident, Larry. I didn’t want to con him for a half-note.’

  ‘I know,’ he said, ‘that’s just the point. When you’re bull-shitting you believe every word you’re saying, and poor fellas like Hayes just go for it. You can’t lose.’

  We had some more coffee and he told me to take it easy in Wicklow. I think he really was worried that I’d kill myself if I didn’t watch it. And from the way I felt after spending the night with Breeda he was more than half right. Honestly, I felt that if a strong puff of wind came round the corner at me I’d take off like a bloody plane.

  Ma had told me to hang onto my weeks holiday pay and I was glad about that because I’d had to buy a few bits and pieces for the trip and I wasn’t all that flush.

  Not that I ever had much money in my pocket. I knew that Ma knew I liked a drink but, I kept out of her way when I was jarred, and somehow, in those days, it was something that never came up between us. She didn’t drink and she didn’t approve of people that did. I think she felt that if it wasn’t mentioned it was less likely to seem important.

  As I checked my bike before take-off I couldn’t help thinking of the way things had changed for me in such a short time. There I was with just over three quid in my bin, off for a weeks’ holiday in the country, and I just felt okay about it. Yet, only yesterday, or so it seemed, I was glad to earn a dollar for a twelve-hour day in the butcher’s shop or for a whole week’s paper round. Now, a dollar to me was the price of a few drinks, so not only was I drinking heavily I was thinking like a drinker.

  *********

  It was a good afternoon for the bike, the sun warm with just enough of a breeze to stop me from sweating too much. Poor Ma had been hopping about like a hen on a hot griddle, worrying if I had this, that and the other. Not that there was much chance of me forgetting anything, the way she kept on.

  I cycled down through Ranelagh, and I felt great to be going off for a while. I didn’t know what Wicklow was going to be like but,I didn’t give a damn. Anything would be a nice break from The Hill and the oul’ones with their bags of turf for the fire. Not that there weren’t a few ‘well got’ families in the flats. It was just that they seemed so out of place that it was difficult to think of them belonging there.

  I worked my way down through Donnybrook. It was a nice little village, sort of oldey-worldly, a place that should never have had to put up with petrol fumes and the rest. Horses and carts and ponies and traps and Donnybrook were as right together as tea and sugar. Next to Rathmines I liked it better than any other place I knew, and I remember in a pub one night a woman sang: ‘He promised to take me to Donnybrook Fair, and buy me silk ribbons to tie up my hair.’ An older woman she was, but she sang sweetly and she meant the words, although it was only a song.

  The wheels of the bike hummed along the Stillorgan Road. It was a wide road and its surface was good and I felt like a bird as I flew along and I hadn’t a care. Not even the length of the journey ahead of me could cost me a thought. I was off for a week with money in my pocket to a warm reception from a woman who was waiting for me, and that could hardly be a bad thing.

  At Blackrock I took the coast road, going on out by Seapoint and Dunlaoghaire, with the breeze from the sea coming up across the cottages, warming my face, so as the wheels zipped along under me, eating up the road, it took no effort at all to feel what I’d call happy.

  Just beyond Bray I rested on a grass verge, and I drank from a pint of Guinness that I’d stuck into the kitbag. I drank it too fast and it gave me a pain in my stomach, so that I had to sit for longer than I intended.

  My shirt was now sticking to my back, and the rough trousers that I’d bought for a dollar in the army supply stores in Aungier Street were hot on my legs. But I set off again and I settled back into my couldn’t have cared less routine and as for the cheap trousers, wearing them was saving the suit trousers, and that was the important thing.

  I was riding through country now, fields and trees flying by and me speeding along a ribbon of road that wound its way like a pale snake through the greenery. There were plenty of signposts and I didn’t have any trouble getting to Newtown Mount Kennedy.

  It was just as well that I was looking for the place. Otherwise, I could have gone through it and not known about it, since it was only the size of a spit in the road.

  A mile further on, it was a relief to get off the bike for a few minutes and I lit up a Woodbine. I wasn’t a big smoker or anything like that, but it was something to do. Then I saw two young fellas. About fifteen they were, playing pitch and toss by the roadside. I walked over and asked for directions to Claire Kearney’s cottage. Nice kids they were and they had a few bottles of cider lying on the grass where they were pitching. I gave them each a cigarette and took a drink of the scrumpy they offered. They drank quite a bit they said. All the girls left for Dublin or England as soon as they could, and there wasn’t a picture house for miles. So all they could do was drink, or play pitch and toss, or take one off the wrist. Without a picture house to while away the time, you had to do something, they said.

  When I got back up on the bike, they went back to the pitch and toss. One of them tossed the coins in the air and the other one drained a cider bottle. It didn’t seem right to me that fellas of that age had to drink to pass the time. I’d been a drinker at that age, but that was my own doing, and if it got me into trouble that was my own fault. But there didn’t seem to be much justice if guys of that age were driven to it just because there wasn’t anything else to do.

  Chapter 13

  Claire was at the window when I pulled up outside the house and I wasn’t a bit surprised, my mid-morning phone call from the office guaranteeing she’d be looking for a sight of me.

  It was a beautiful evening and the house looked grand. It was laid out in two stories and built into the side of a hill. It was well painted in a very pale blue, with a nice big front garden, long and wide and filled with all kinds of flowers. The sort of place you would expect Claire to have.

  She was at the door as I pushed the bike throug
h the gate and she was blushing with pleasure, like a schoolgirl who had just won a prize. I kissed her and it was good to hold her after all this time, and I could feel her warm tears on my face as we held onto each other.

  ‘Oh, thank God, you’ve come!’ was all she could say and I felt a right louse for having taken so long to get there.

  *********

  She stood in the bathroom and talked to me as I soaked in the hot water and her eyes were alive as I dried myself with the towel. She must have seen the bruises on my body, but she didn’t pass any remarks. I don’t think it would have occurred to her that a woman had put them there.

  She looked well, and though I was really knackered after the bicycle ride I couldn’t resist the touch of her when she kissed me there in the bathroom. Her breasts bulged against me and she was fierce in her wanting, and it wasn’t long before we were making up for all the weeks that we’d been away from each other. And it was good and comfortable, and much better than it had ever been in the house in Terenure.

  The bed was soft and warm and I lay deep in the flock mattress while Claire went downstairs to bring up the Guinness and a tray of food. We didn’t leave the bedroom at all that night. We just lay together and made love that was good, and I didn’t wake up until I heard the birds singing on the Sunday morning.

  After breakfast I went out and stood looking about the valley. It was a little way to the side of the main road that led into Aughrim and there was a patchwork quilt of fields, climbing up from a short winding river. All shades of green abounded and the green and brown leaves, some suggesting russet to come, of a hundred trees made a natural pattern that had me holding my breath for the sheer beauty of it. And I thought of a word that I’d once seen in a catechism at school: tranquillity. That was something that valley really did have, and I thought too that it was about as near to heaven as I was ever likely to get.