by Brian Moore
‘Well — O, I know she’s your mother and so forth, but really!’
Bernard nodded. ‘Yes, Mama’s a bitch, poor dear. Do you know what she told Uncle James about you? You’ll not believe this, but she actually told him that you said he wasn’t good enough for you. That you’d had enough of him!’
‘But I didn’t. I wouldn’t dream . . .’
‘I know. But Mama said you did, and he believed her. He’s a very proud man, you know. That’s why he was cruel to you today. His pride was hurt.’
‘But it couldn’t be that. Why, I made myself perfectly clear. I — well, anyway, it isn’t that at all. He’s going to Dublin to do some business. That’s why he was rude.’
‘What business? There’s no business, believe me. The only place he wants to go is the States and he can’t think of a good excuse to go back after boasting to all his friends over there that he was coming to Ireland to settle down. But if he got married, that would be another thing. He could go back then. To show his wife America, so to speak.’
‘It’s true,’ she said. ‘He wants to go back.’
‘Of course he wants to go back. With you. He told me. After all, I’m his nearest male kin. But that was in confidence, you mustn’t say I said it.’
‘No, no.’ She held out her empty glass. What if it could be true? It would explain so much, his cruelty, all a fraud, you could see he was hurt the way he spoke, maybe, maybe . . .
Bernard tilted the neck of the bottle into her tumbler. ‘And he’s not a bad catch financially,’ he said. ‘That’s another consideration.’
‘But even if he wanted to marry me — which is not the case — even if he did, your mother has poisoned him against me.’
‘If you want him,’ Bernard said. ‘You’ll have to go after him. You’ll have to fight for him. And you will. Because you want him, you want him badly.’
‘How dare you!’ she cried drunkenly. ‘How dare you. Want him indeed, whatever gave you that idea?’
‘I’ve watched you these last weeks. You’re in love with him. But you allowed Mama to walk roughshod over you. Didn’t you?’
‘Well, she certainly had no business . . .’
‘That’s right. She had not. Now, what are you going to do about it?’
‘Well, I — there’s nothing more to do.’
‘You won’t catch a man by sitting in your room sopping up whiskey, Miss Hearne. No, I’ll tell you what you’re going to do. You’re going to tell him you love him. That you want to marry him. You’re going to keep on telling him, no matter what he says. Because at first he won’t listen. . . .’
‘But I couldn’t. I wouldn’t dream . . .’
‘Yes, you could. And you will. Ask him, ask him, don’t take no for an answer. He’ll balk, he’ll fuss, but he’ll do it. Because he wants to. And you’ve got to.’
‘But it’s unheard of — I couldn’t bring myself . . .’
‘You must,’ Bernard said quietly. ‘You need him badly.’
‘How dare you!’
‘It’s either that or drink yourself into a madhouse. And you know it.’
‘Get out!’ she screamed. ‘Get out this instant!’
‘I’m sorry, Miss Hearne, I didn’t mean to upset you. Keep your voice down, there’s a good girl. You don’t want Mama to come up and find you half seas over again, now do you?’
‘No,’ she sobbed. ‘No, no.’
‘Or Uncle James. If he found you like this, he might believe Mama’s stories. And that would be terrible, wouldn’t it?’
‘O, dear God,’ Miss Hearne sobbed, holding her face in her hands. ‘Leave me alone, leave me alone. Please!’
‘Don’t get hysterical, Miss Hearne, I’m trying to help you. Let’s be sensible. You and I are going to hook him, if you do what I tell you.’
She stopped crying then and sat up straight in her chair.
‘What do you mean, hook him? Have you no morals? Have you no shame at all? And me, I’m as bad as you, listening to you, you horrid sneaky thing, poking your nose into other people’s affairs.’
‘Come off it,’ Bernard said blithely, picking up the bottle.
‘Put that bottle down! Taking what doesn’t belong to you, have you no manners? A boy like you, what were you taught at school, where’s your religion, you good-for-nothing little sneak, plotting the way you do?’
He laughed. ‘Religion is it? And what has religion ever done for you, may I ask? Do you think God gives a damn about the likes of you and me? I don’t know what got you into this mess. I can guess — you’re no beauty and this is a hard country to find a man in — but I know what’s keeping you this way. Your silly religious scruples. You’re waiting for a miracle. Look at yourself: a poor piano teacher, lonely, drinking yourself crazy in a furnished room. Do you want to thank God for that?’
‘So you’re an atheist!’ she cried. ‘A rotten atheist. No wonder you think the way you do.’
His fat face suffused with blood, his long blond hair, falling over one eye, he leaned forward and caught her by the elbows. ‘I think, Miss Hearne. At least I do some thinking. I ask myself a few simple questions. Perhaps you can answer them for me. Your god is omniscient and omnipotent. That’s what the Church says. Do you know what that means, omniscient and omnipotent? Knows everything and can do everything. All right. Then how can we hurt Him? Why does He allow all this suffering in His world? Why doesn’t He answer your prayers, my mother’s prayers? Has He ever repaid your faith in Him? Has He some secret reason for behaving the way He does, some reason He can’t tell us? All right! Then why should I be expected to know His secret reasons? Why should I be expected to understand Him when an omniscient, omnipotent God can’t give me the answers? It’s stupid, stupid! Why are you alone tonight, if it isn’t for your silly religious scruples? Answer me that, Miss Hearne.’
‘Don’t you dare take the Holy Name in vain,’ Miss Hearne cried. ‘God’s ways aren’t our ways. This life is a cross we have to bear in order to store up merit in the next. Don’t you know your Catechism at all?’
‘Is that your answer?’ He looked at the picture on the wall. ‘You and your Sacred Heart. What the hell good has it done you? It’s only an idealised picture of a minor prophet. It won’t work miracles. You’ve got to make your own miracles in this world. Now, listen to me. I can help you, if you’ll forget this nonsense and do what I say. You want a man. You can have Uncle James. But don’t bore me with this nonsense, with these silly scruples. Your God is only a picture on the wall. He doesn’t give a damn about you.’
‘Stop it!’ Miss Hearne screamed. ‘Stop it, taking the Holy Name in vain. Get out of here this instant!’
‘Shh!’ Bernard said. ‘You’re waking the whole house. Sit down and keep quiet. I’m sorry I lost my temper. I’m sorry.’
‘I will not sit down,’ she cried. ‘You rotten atheist!’ She struck at him. ‘Get out of here, get out of here.’
But he had moved aside and her flailing arm met no resistance. She blundered against the bedside table, spilling the remains of the whiskey bottle on to the floor.
‘Look what you’ve done!’ she screamed. ‘You’ve made me spill it!’
His fat white hand caught her throat. He pressed her close as a lover. ‘Shut up,’ he whispered. ‘Shut up, for God’s sake. You’ll wake everybody up.’
Caught in his flabby grasp, she fought to get free. Her fists beat against his face, his chest. He swayed back, catching his heel on the worn fibre threads of the carpet. He fell and she fell with him, close to the fire. Something hurt her head. But she became warm, sleepily warm, as her mind slipped into unconsciousness.
When she opened her eyes, she heard Mrs Henry Rice’s voice, saw Mrs Henry Rice’s feet in carpet slippers, a few inches from her face.
‘A nice thing in a respectable house,’ Mrs Henry Rice said.
‘I just came in to see what was wrong and she was lying there. She must have hit her head,’ Bernard said.
‘It’s
a wonder she didn’t kill herself. O, come on in, Jim, I want you to have a look at your dear friend, Miss Hearne.’
‘Accident?’
‘Accident, my eye! Drunk as a lord and screaming all over the house. Well, it’s my own fault, I should have asked for references. Out she goes, bag and baggage, first thing in the morning. Would you look at the cut of her, Jim!’
‘Put her on the bed,’ Madden’s voice said. ‘She might have hurt herself. You can’t leave her lying there.’
Then hands, Madden’s hands, slipped under her shoulders. Other hands lifted her feet. She kept her eyes shut, her mind shut as they lifted her on the bed. The shame of it, the shame. I must say something. Something.
But her arms would not obey when she tried to sit up. She fell back.
‘Thanks be to God, Miss Friel is still out, or I’d have lost two boarders instead of one. I never saw such a sight.’
Somebody was bending over her. A man. Him? She opened her eyes a little and saw Bernard, his fat face near, his eyes worried.
‘Go away,’ she cried. ‘You rotten atheist, go away!’ She managed to sit up, her hair about her shoulders, her dressing-gown loose. ‘Filthy little liar,’ she cried.
Mrs Henry Rice, menacing, bent over the bed. Her great white arms reached out to seize Miss Hearne by the shoulders. She began to shake her. ‘Sober up!’ she shouted. ‘Sober up. Have you no shame, carrying on like that?’
‘Easy there, May,’ Madden said. ‘Let her be. Let her be.’
But Mrs Henry Rice continued to shake until Miss Hearne jerked up and down like a rag doll.
‘Leave her alone,’ Madden said, louder now. ‘She’s loaded, she doesn’t know what she’s saying.’
Released, Miss Hearne turned her head, weeping, and pointed straight at Madden.
‘You!’ she cried. ‘And I thought you were a man. A man who could do his own asking, not a man that would send a rotten fat atheist around to talk for him. You’re as bad as the rest of them.’
‘What did she mean by that?’
‘Never mind her. Never mind, she’s off her rocker,’ Bernard said.
‘Just a minute. Just a minute! What d’you mean by that, Judy? Judy?’
Miss Hearne fell back on the pillows, her hand over her eyes. ‘You know what I mean,’ she whispered. ‘You know.’
‘What?’
‘He said you want to marry me. Tonight, he said it. He said you were afraid to ask.’ She looked up at him, her face a ruin of tears. ‘Why?’ she cried. ‘Why?’
But Madden had grabbed hold of his nephew. ‘Leave me alone, Uncle James, leave me alone.’
‘What’s this? What the hell’s going on? What you up to, you creepin’ jesus?’
‘Leave me go, leave me go. It’s nothing. Nothing.’
‘Leave my Bernie alone this minute. Leave him alone, you big bully.’
‘Please, Uncle James, you’re breaking my arm!’
‘Don’t hit him. Don’t, Jim, don’t!’
‘You sonofabitch, I got your number. Trying to get rid of me, eh? Telling her lies so’s she’ll chase me, eh?’
‘No, no.’
‘I’m going, don’t you worry. But I got a few things to say before I do.’
‘No!’ Bernard shrieked again. ‘You were in it too, remember!’
‘Sleeping with the kid upstairs, your darlin’ boy, that’s what’s worrying him. Shacking up every night with Mary. Look at him, May, look at him, if you don’t believe me.’
‘Don’t listen to him, Mama, he’s telling lies. It was him, it was him that did it.’
Mrs Henry Rice sat down on the armchair and keened back and forth. ‘No, no,’ she moaned. ‘You wouldn’t do that, Bernie. You wouldn’t do that to your poor mother.’
‘He would and he did,’ Madden shouted. ‘And then sneaking in here, trying to ruin me with that poor woman.’
‘Don’t listen to him, Mama. Mama, please! He nearly tore Mary to pieces himself. Ask her, ask her, she’ll tell you.’
‘I don’t want to hear it,’ Mrs Rice shrieked. ‘I don’t want to hear it, that child’s only sixteen, O my God, the police could have you up, Bernie — Bernie, why did you do that to me?’
‘Sixteen?’ Madden said.
‘Mama, you don’t believe what he says? Mama darling—’
‘Sixteen?’ Madden said. ‘Christ!’
‘Mama, listen, Mama—’
‘I don’t want to hear about it,’ Mrs Rice cried. ‘I don’t want to hear it. For the love of God, keep quiet, the pair of you, you’ll have us all ruined, so you will. Away to bed with you, I don’t want to hear any more. And for God’s sake don’t say a word to a single soul, promise me now? Promise? O Merciful Mother, what have I done to deserve this?’
‘Come on,’ Bernard said. ‘I’ll put the lights out. Mama darling, don’t worry, it’s not true, it’s not true.’
‘What about her?’ Madden said, staring at the bed.
‘Let her lie,’ Mrs Rice cried. ‘Let her lie, she’s asleep. O, it’s that woman brought bad luck on this house. Away to bed now, away to bed, both of you.’
‘Mama . . .’
‘O Jesus, Mary and Joseph, let me alone!’ Mrs Henry Rice cried.
The lights went out. Madden closed the door. The red glow from the gas fire flickered over the walls of the room. The woman on the bed lay quiet, staring at the ceiling. She did not hear the whispering as Mrs Rice, Bernard and Madden finally separated and went to their rooms. After a long time she turned her head and her nervous dark eyes searched for the bottle. It was lying by the grate. Spilled. All spilled.
CHAPTER XIV
NEXT morning, when Miss Hearne did not come down for breakfast, Mrs Henry Rice went to see her in her room. She found Miss Hearne sitting by the fire, neatly dressed, wearing her hat and coat. The room had been tidied and the bed had been made.
‘Good morning,’ Mrs Rice said, rumbling into the room like a tank with all guns at the ready.
Miss Hearne nodded. She was shivering, although the room was very warm. The effects of the drink, Mrs Rice said to herself, it’s a miracle I never noticed it before.
‘Miss Hearne, I’ll have to ask you to leave. After last night, you understand, there can be no question . . .’
Miss Hearne nodded again. It’s as though she doesn’t understand what I’m saying, Mrs Rice thought. I wonder could she be a bit off? Some of these single women, the change of life comes early.
‘I’d prefer to see you go as soon as possible. After what happened, I think it would be better.’
‘I’ll go today,’ Miss Hearne said, without interest.
‘Well, then, I’ll refund the balance of the month from today, if that’s satisfactory. I want to be fair.’
Miss Hearne was looking at the gas fire. ‘Yes,’ she said.
‘Well . . .’ Mrs Rice hesitated. ‘If you’re leaving, you’ll have a lot to do. I won’t keep you. You haven’t had any breakfast. Would you like a cup of tea sent up?’
‘No, thank you,’ Miss Hearne said, still staring at the gas fire.
Mrs Henry Rice shut the door with a bang. She might at least have apologised, after what happened last night, I wonder does she remember what was said, about Mary? I hope not. No, she was too far gone in drink. An apology, it’s the least she could do after the way she carried on.
When she heard the door slam, Miss Hearne began to weep. Within a few minutes, her face was wet and her whole body shook with the sobs. She wept very easily these days, but weeping did not help. It was exhausting though, and after a while, she closed her eyes and fell asleep, sitting in the chair.
She woke up when Mary put her pail down with a clatter on the landing outside. She got out of the chair and locked her door to keep the girl from coming in. Then she sat down again and looked at the gas fire.
If only I could stay in this room for ever. Never have to go out, never have to see anybody at all. Meals? They could leave them on a tray outside. No, better if I
were sick, sick with something tragic; cancer or heart, then everybody would be sorry. The priest coming, whispers in the hall, same as aunt, people coming into the sick room, Moira O’Neill with calves’ foot jelly and young Una, no smiles on her face, I would take her hand, my own hand white on the covers, and I would thank her for the grapes she had brought. And Owen O’Neill, asking me what the doctor had said, nodding his head, concerned. Mr Heron might come, making his small jokes about things at the Tech, telling me the class would be waiting for me, whenever I was up and about again. And Sister Imelda and the other nuns, a knitted bed-jacket, all in tissue paper, they’d lay it on the bed and tell me they were saying special prayers. The whole convent offering up a Holy Hour. And then Doctor Bowe sitting by the bed, his gold watch in his hand, his fingers on my pulse. Keep her on a light nourishing diet. Yes, wasting away slowly, everyone sorry. Everyone wanting to help. And her, Mrs Rice, all apologies, I’m tired now, Mrs Rice, would you mind? And him. His man-face weeping at my funeral. His only love. Standing in the rain at Nun’s Bush while the others waited, a small sorrowing group and Father Quigley shovelled the earth. Memento homo, what is it? Remember man that thou art dust and unto dust thou shalt return. Then close the grave, close it quickly, the two men at my aunt’s funeral, shirts and braces, shovelling the rest of the earth in. Owen O’Neill standing there to give them five shillings apiece for their trouble. The limousines at the gates of the cemetery with young Kevin O’Neill holding the pall-bearers’ hats. Big black limousines waiting, Connelly’s would do it, five cars and the hearse. And on the way back to Belfast, all saying how sorry, a devoted life really, fine woman, such a tragedy, spent the best years of her life looking after her aunt, yes, a saint really, a saint of heaven. And him, love-lorn, alone in a rented car, everyone wondering who he was and why an American at the funeral? A relative? No, they say he was going to marry her, poor man, you can see he’s terribly upset. In grief, alone, year after year, never getting over it, never forgetting, never forgiving himself for his thoughtlessness.
Death. Beyond earthly cares. And then? Summoned before the judgment seat of heaven. The brilliance, the light, the Presence. Remember thy last end. Remember the four last things, the missioner said: death, judgment, hell and heaven.