Night

by Edna O'Brien

  *

  The next landing post after Coose was Liverpool. It looked different to what I had expected. I had expected it to be cosmopolitan but it was black, even the birds were black, and the tram lines were old and rutted. I loved it. In the mornings I could hear the railway carriages shunting and still half asleep I used to think that I was just arriving, and walking up the platform wondering where I would look for digs. We were a happy lot, four lodgers, all peculiar mind you. There was a very shy girl and she was called the “Maid”, a lady called Moira who worked in a club and a man who believed he was going to be a Count. We knew he wasn’t, but it began to grow on us too, his daydream, and we waited for his big legacy. His plan was that he was going to move to Northumberland and take a big house and show films on a projector on Sundays. We were to be invited for week-ends. Some days, he’d put on a canary waistcoat and go somewhere and come back and say he had seen policewoman, Colonel Porter’s daughter, parting her hairs. He used to act it for us. Thursdays he always drew the dole.

  Moira was boss, telling us how to stand, what to do with our spine, how to use our wrists to advantage, making us walk around the room with a dictionary on the head. Her boyfriend was a wrestler but we never met him. He was in London. We all aimed for London, even the Maid.

  At Christmas, the wrestler sent a card with a snow tiger on it and Moira kissed it and kept saying how beautiful and how proud. It had no greeting, only his name, a pseudonym as it happened. He called himself Prince. That was a whale of a Christmas. We clubbed together for the eats, helped in the kitchen and had the television on all morning. There we were cracking nuts and telling lewd jokes and pouring whisky in our tea. Even the Maid came out of her shell. She worked in a drapery, in a glove department, and was able to tell us about the toffs and how stingy they were, wanting the prices left on, as if by mistake. She gave each of us gloves, and apologised, pointing out that they were seconds. After extreme coaxing Moira did her act for us, got out her furs and her green shoes, and her green stockings, and got up on the table, and kicked her feet and said things like “Mister”, or “Give us a fag”, or “Cha Cha” and curled her finger. The Count being the only male got the bulk of her smiles and her erotica. Then in a loud belting voice she sang Biddy the Whore. The goose was simmering away and every so often the landlady, Meg, would bruise it with a fork to get the fat out.

  I’ll tell you the story of Biddy the whore,

  She lived in a hotel without any door . . .

  Meg told her little girl that a “whore” was a seamstress and the little girl kept fitting on everyone’s new gloves, saying bye-bye and Adieu and then putting them back in their tissue paper. Down on the floor, she was imitating Moira’s steps and strutting and wagging her bottom. Meg kissed us all and said we were her children, her little uns. There was no such thing as margarine that day and we all had clean serviettes, very starched ones. We were a little intoxicated because of the mixtures – whisky in the tea, porter and then a wine punch, for the dinner proper. There was no rowing, no grabbing of the gravy jug or the landlady ticking off the Count for the way he used the lavatory the night before.

  “When a man comes in late at night, he is to pee on to the enamel quietly and not pull the chain”; that was a frequent edict.

  But Christmas Day was not unclouded. Moira cried and said she should have been the country’s ballerina, only she’d grown too tall and the little girl then put on unmatching ballet shoes and pirouetted around, refusing to eat. Her mother would put a choice bit to her mouth, but the little girl would only kiss it and run away. For no reason the Maid cried, and said it wasn’t to be married or anything like that, but she would love to be in the maternity hospital, having a baby, her own, whereupon Moira ran to the mantelpiece and clutched the Christmas card and said it was the most beautiful snow-tiger, the most lone animal of all and that her man was lone too. It seems she had shown her weak side by crying the last time she had had sex with him. Meg jumped up, blessed herself and said there was to be no profanity in front of children, and then the Count who was stotious and overwrought by the various emotions, removed his canary waistcoat and declared “I am not going to be a Count, I am going to be a lavatory attendant, and I am going to work my way up until I am chief lavatory attendant of the Northumbrian District Area.” We all laughed but he took huff and said did we not know the sacrifice he was making, by relinquishing being Count of China.

  It was soon after that I met Dr Flaggler. He came through the shop and asked where the food hall was. I worked in stationery. Very aristocratic he seemed compared with the Count or the Coose Romeos and I was carried away with his airs and the interest he showed in me. He brought me out from the City to show me the mouth of the sea and to point to Llandudno. There was big preparation the first night I was going out with him. “I hope you are not thinking of wearing those shoes,” Meg said. They were new shoes, procured at the January sale, red, with ankle straps. The Maid had done my hair with the curling tongs and Moira had loaned a muff. Meg kept asking about him, was he a gentleman and was he anyone of “note”. She was very avid to meet somebody influential in the theatre to help her daughter’s career. Her daughter was about ten at the time and is now an usherette in the cinema.

  After the Christmas dinner we stacked the dishes and went straight into the front room, to pull crackers and lounge. Very soon the landlady and the Count fell asleep. The Maid kept opening her locket, (a present) with her thumb nail, and in the end she put a little bit of hair in there, her own hair as she said, for the time being. The little girl asked was a whore really a seamstress and we said no, and Moira began teaching her the words of the song, and they sang it under their breath. Poor Meg’s face was contorted in sleep as if she was expecting someone to evict her. She’d lived in one house after another always having to flit, out the back door with her orange boxes and her holy pictures. She suddenly sat up and thought she was back in her caravan days and then seeing all of us she smiled and lay back again. In the evening we had fried plum pudding and totted up with tremendous satisfaction the different concoctions that had gone into us since morning.

  *

  More mortification. Another room, another window, that I found myself standing by, looking out, not actually looking, glazed. There was a garden underneath. A small garden jammed with climbing things. The big wide leaves were like big tongues, bladed, going up the brick wall. For some reason I expected lizards. I like lizards, their dartingness, their stealth. He was right behind me, my pick-up and I could feel his urgency. In removing my coat he said “Mmm”. It was a ponyskin, one of Tig’s. I have managed to pick the lock of the wardrobe and am on the lookout for a crowbar to invade the cellars. After he had removed the coat he comes and places his hands under my armpits and feels the little forlorn muscles there. I thought how as a baby one must have minded, riled against being picked up under the arms, picked up, or held up to be winded, or shown to others, to be teased, or be made smile, or to go gougougou, pinched maybe, or scratched, or prevailed upon.

  We met in the park. It was an easy coup because his dog, a red setter, jumped on me. He called him off and then we paused for a bit.

  “I’d like to sleep with you,” I said, wiping the mud off my lapels. I had no idea about his status but when we got there I could see he was a bit of a nob. He was dressed in cashmere and the upholstery was leather. To tell you the truth I was a bit quaky. I lost my daring. There was a lot of machinery, tapes, purring softly, tapes moving slowly and various speakers and amplifiers. There was also a machine for polishing stones, whirring away. He gathers the stones on seashores on week-ends. His hand was sliding down over the texture of my dress, her dress, satin as it happened, dark blue satin with pleats. I was dressed incongruously, I was asking for trouble. He drew the curtains and put the dog out. Needless to add the curtains met without a hitch. I sat on a chair exactly as he prescribed, and took off my shoes. Then I stood up. He put his hands on my bum, for me to sit upon. His hands like a shooting sti
ck, or a walking stick, the kind that toffs use at the races as seating place. I heard horses galloping and had the bright idea that if we would turn on his huge television set we might be treated to a bit of sporting. Eyeing me, eyeing me. A rum place. The machines purring. I got the impression that everything was being recorded. I didn’t care. We were strangers. He said the word over and over again. It was like a little ghost in the room. There were so many chairs, episcopal chairs as in a cathedral or a great hall, as if each one was reserved for a dignitary. He said Close your eyes. He led me backwards. He knew which chair. He proceeded to remove my clothes from me, they came away without a hitch. I did nothing in the way of desisting. He said it was the only time it would ever occur. He said we were bound to become friends and our friendship would strangle our desires. He said not so rigid, not so rigid. He said to play. Play where? I wished for an instrument – plectra and lyre. There was something very secretive about him, suave, an animal, but with a velvet pounce. He had booked a phone call for Munich at a certain hour and kept referring to his watch, with its six little alarming devices. He only removed trousers and underpants. On his instructions I kissed him. He was pearled. He towered above me. So far away, or perhaps it was I who was far away. It seemed impossible to get any nearer, to get friendly or bawdy or wicked or wild. It was all too sedate. The park would have been a better place even at the risk of scandalising one of the keepers. I could see everything, his pupils dilating. It was like having my eyes tested, his eyes as torches peering into mine. We knelt upon our respective haunches, we exchanged no words, he said “Ready, steady, go.” He had to tremble, he induced his own trembling, then he had to break away from himself, like a horse, bolt, become lost, convulse, let his throat muscles wobble; he had to ordain everything that he was doing, commentate, address his old valve, say “Now, now,” time it, and then drowning his laver in his own cries, I cried too and Christ, I heard the screams of unborn mites in those two friendless siggers.

  Oh deary me, so many base things. No longer like people, but bits of meat, uncooked, flinching, and still infants betimes looking for some little balsam, a crumb, the gob-stopping tit. When he opened his eyes they were wary, animal’s eyes in a lair. It had been disastrous. There was no forgetfulness in it or no spark.

  “Look out,” he called sharply as I rose. Threads were hanging from me, the threads that were erstwhile his, in loops, suspended. There I stood at that moment foolish and gaunt but then I put both hands under it and walked, or rather hopped, to the exit, clowning so as to put some complexion on the amiss. Thought of the cows and their composure. He was afraid the maid would see me, the frau. He went to reconnoitre, then gave me the beck, the permit. He let the dog back in and stroked it and nuzzled it. I was covetous for that animal then, for its uncalculating affection.

  His bathroom was filled with perfumes and lotions. There were beaded bottles which were purely ornamental, and there were six different plys of lavatory paper. I let go of my hanging jewel, then flushed it, so that like everything else it commenced on its rickety journey out to sea. I weighed the same on his scales as on Tig’s. Nothing had altered. I hadn’t played enough. I hadn’t played at all, I’d simply participated the way he wanted. I needed practice. When I got back to fetch my clothing he asked where I would like to dress. I plumped for his bedroom. It was utterly dark except for a slice of light coming through at a point where the end of the black blind had got torn, ripped from its slat. His eiderdown was on the floor, in a heap, cremeled. He too must have perspired in the night as I so often did, do, here; I mound myself with clothes in order that I can rise up in agitation and throw them off and say Begone and Fie. It is hard to imagine that I won’t always be here, that this night will join the others, be a blur of half-remembered itchings and scratchings, be a tableau.

  I knew it was time for me to be getting on my Pegasus again but I went back to take my leave. He made a few civil inquiries about myself, my interests, my hobbies, my friends, my other lovers. He was quiet and most considerate about everything. I told him about the lad and he said perhaps one day they would meet. I said “It was a gas,” for some flap-doodle reason.

  “I don’t even rate you,” he said, and hurried to pick up his ivory telephone. Maybe Munich was on the line.

  It was bright out in the street, that winter brightness that comes when there is no sun and the sky’s being looks to be tempered with steel. I often think people can read faces if only they would bother, people could have read mine then, which was mostly one of stupefaction. I couldn’t breathe. There was a great boulder in my chest that I wanted to blast, to smash, to dislodge, to reduce to gravel or smithereens. I wanted to be pounded by Lil’s potato pounder, be a spud, ridded of all life’s paraphernalia.

  I thought I would go home and masturbate, that was what I would do, but it was early, it was so early, so early, so bright. The sales were on and there was fifty per cent off everything.

  I wouldn’t mind a visit from the Holy Ghost, the paraclete with his tongues of fire. I can’t master languages, and for a very simple reason, too thick a tongue, the words curdle. That’s why I haven’t been to Baden Baden or the Hermitage.

  *

  The lad sleeps out in fields, sometimes under a mosque wall. He has no bed covers, not even a net. I expect it’s scorching and there are times when he looks down at his own feet and finds them skinned or blistering. Jesus feet they used to call him in the public baths. I can chart it all, the way he graduated from fuzzy socks to knitted boots to buckskin boots, to plimsolls to wellington boots, to leather boots, to football boots and then back to the merest sandal when he was free to decide his own footwear. Minor epistles he used to write whenever I was out of his sight. “You are a big nit.” “Pam pam pipe.” “Remember the plum jam.” “I need paints.” Always in block letters. Daftness itself. I can tell the different years from the different style of the lettering. In the very beginning the letters were like numbers, they were bold and assertive. Then he wrote in capitals, then he developed his own style of handwriting which was spidery. “Come to my tree house for a Punch and Judy show, entrance 1d.” Perfected a code, a semaphoric system, the hanging of rags and utensils from a tree. Once he douched me when I stepped under it and said, “Aren’t I the witty boy?” That was from the time we lived on the big estate, in one of their cottages. We had a commode that we didn’t dare use, had it in case of dire emergency. In the nights we used to gab. He loved hearing about the thanes and knackers of Coose. Above all else he relished the yarn concerning a joxer who came upon us in the middle of the night, surprised us, Boss, Lil and I, his lorry revving and squelching in the mudded field, and Boss declaiming Who goes there, and Sarsfield is the word, and Sarsfield is the man, and clothes getting donned, a trespass through the kitchen that was already inhabited by a different spirit, the lantern pumped, then lit, even its flame shifty and enigmatic. It was inferred that the joxer was an emissary of the supernatural. His attire was earthly enough, baggy trousers, twine round the middle, his gansy mottled, full of miscellaneous-sized holes. He had come with the express intention of covering the hayshed with his miracle spray to protect it from the rude elements and he demanded a commission there and then in the form of five readies, and upon such a demand Boss told him to scutter off but he held his ground, saying Up the Republic, and he had to be beaten away with lantern and the jut of the broom and afterwards in lofty tones Lil was heard saying that she had a hunch he had been sent to squeeze the foot-and-mouth disease into the crops and Boss tut-tutting and saying, “I bested him, I cut the ground from under him, I told him who’s landlord around here,” although in fact he had quaked like the rest of us and insisted we congregate near him. And there he was, complimenting himself, and there she was, rambling on about dead beasts, the economic war, a sacked land, dead beasts gaping at us, the workhouse, and Boss saying the intruder could go up the river on a bicycle. All of a sudden there was a bout of recitation suggested by Boss, to exorcise the panic, a snatch of verse f
rom the eviction days.

  On the ninth of December, it being a fair day,

  We boycotted Dick Studdard I’m sorry to say.

  With sticks and with stones we wattled him away,

  Three cheers for the boys of old Erin.

  The lad loved that, used to bounce up and down in his bed to it. And no sooner having heard it but he would say Tell it again. He loved the swear words and details of the joxer’s gansy and Boss letting on to be braver than he was. He even asked to see a photo of them, his grandparents. It is a muzzy photo where they are both leaning on a pier and are curiously allied to each other, an alliance brought about by perseverance.