The Leaving

by Gabriella West

  I sounded brusque, I knew.

  “In the summer, then, maybe.”

  “Yeah,” I said doubtfully. “We’ll see.”

  A gloomy silence followed. In the hopes of clarifying the situation I murmured:

  “I don’t really go out a lot.”

  “I don’t either.”

  “Well, what I mean is, I’d rather be with a group of people, not alone with one person.”

  “Oh,” he said.

  I shrugged, sighed. Had I been desperately rude? Probably. It seemed absurd that he wanted to see me again. I had been such a silent, dispirited companion.

  On the bus we both sat poker-faced while Susie and Jeff nibbled each other’s ears and demonstrated for the thousandth time their deep affection for each other and their playful high-spirited natures. I eyed them sourly. At least Susie had hardly noticed the way Joe and I got on, I thought.

  At last we were outside my house. It was 11.45. Watched by the other two, Joe and I politely shook hands. Susie tittered and Jeff said, “Ah Jesus, is that all you’re going to do?” so Joe leaned over and kissed me on the cheek. I thought that was rather sweet of him.

  Then Susie hugged me and said brightly: “I’ll ring you. Hope you don’t get into trouble,” and they ambled off.

  I walked up to the house and opened the door with my own key. I took a deep breath, let it out, and shut the door behind me.

  * * *

  There was silence in the house, but a light in the kitchen. I peeped in, hoping that my father would not be sitting at the table with a grim expression on his face. Instead Stevie was there, reading Hamlet, a sheaf of notes beside him, sipping a cup of tea.

  He looked up, smiled.

  “Weird day. I slept for most of it. Now I’m still wide awake. I’m memorizing a speech for my English exam, want to hear it for me?”

  “All right,” I said, dropping my bag. I sat down; he handed me the book.

  “It’s Hamlet’s speech to Horatio before the duel with Laertes.”

  I nodded.

  He had a good voice. I often wondered why he wasn’t interested in acting. He had the short speech word-perfect.

  “‘And I will wear him in my heart’s core, nay in my heart of hearts, as I do thee,’” he finished.

  “You got it,” I said.

  He smiled. “Good old Shakespeare. We’re doing some of the sonnets too. Can I say one to you?”

  “Sure.”

  “‘When to the sessions of sweet silent thought...’” he began.

  The words moved me. Stevie spoke in almost a conversational tone. He was never self-conscious when he recited; he enjoyed it far more than he let on. The lines resonated in the quiet kitchen.

  But if a while I think on thee, dear friend

  All losses are restored and sorrows end.

  He smiled at me. “Very optimistic man, Shakespeare. I agree with him, though, about losses.”

  “What losses do you mean?” I enquired.

  “Oh, losses ... I just mean, you think you’ve lost something, but you may find that things don’t just disappear.”

  “But people do,” I said bitterly.

  He looked at me, his face serious. “Cathy, I’m around. And I’m going to stay around for at least another year, OK?”

  I shook my head. “I’m sorry. That doesn’t make me feel any better.”

  It made me feel, in fact, a lot worse. I swallowed and got up.

  “How was your evening?”

  “Oh ... the usual.”

  “But it’s the first time you’ve been out.”

  “Yeah, but it was exactly what I expected.”

  “So—you didn’t like him much?”

  “Oh, he was OK,” I said wearily. I went over to the sink and splashed cold water on my face, which was burning. “He said he wanted to see me again.”

  “That’s good,” said Stevie encouragingly.

  “He bores me.”

  “Well, give him a chance.”

  I smiled, facing him.

  “What’s the point?”

  He sighed. “Cathy, take my advice and give people a chance. Give yourself a chance.”

  “Why?”

  “Don’t be difficult. You’ve got to put yourself out there, that’s why. Find out what you want, who you are. You know.”

  “I know who I am,” I said coldly. “I don’t see why I have to lower myself to other people’s standards.”

  “Don’t condemn yourself to being alone. You don’t have to be.”

  “Being with someone like that is worse than being alone, in my opinion.”

  “You’re so hard.”

  I frowned. “You just don’t understand what it’s like to force yourself to go out with someone you despise.”

  “That’s true,” he said. “But I went through a lot of struggling to get to where I am now.”

  “Yeah, but you didn’t go out with girls you weren’t interested in.”

  “You’re comparing our situations.” Stevie’s voice rose; I could hear the anger in it. “That’s a stupid thing to do. Just because this particular boy doesn’t interest you doesn’t mean you have to dismiss the whole human race!”

  I shrugged. “Do we have to get so upset?”

  “It’s important. No one else is going to say this to you, are they?”

  “Look, I think about it a lot and I’m just different, that’s all.”

  “But try to find some way of being different and also meet other people. Don’t just be different by yourself up in your room. That’s my advice.”

  We stared at each other. I resented his words. They rang true, but it was humiliating to hear them. “I want her out of my hair,” he had written. That was the thing. He wanted me to go out with boys so he could feel satisfied that my life was working out and hadn’t been affected by his sexual problems. But I wouldn’t do it just to please him.

  “I just want you to be happy,” he said.

  I nodded. “Maybe I can be, but I need to do it my own way.”

  “I don’t like what I see you doing.”

  “And I don’t like feeling ashamed because you won’t sympathize with me! Won’t understand that I’m just not interested... ”

  “You’re shy,” he observed, as if that was the cause of everything.

  “Oh, that’s highly original! No, I’m just. . .”

  Just what? His eyes seemed to say. Just what? And they were not unsympathetic, but they were clear and they wanted me to be clear too.

  “Just freaky, I suppose.”

  He smiled sadly. “I hate to hear you call yourself names like that.”

  “I don’t dislike myself as much as you think I do.”

  “Yes, but you don’t have any confidence in yourself. That’s what you need, Cathy, to get by.”

  I nodded in spite of myself, feeling lost suddenly, as if Stevie were guiding me from some incredibly distant place, and I was stumbling around in the dark, straining my eyes.

  “What is this?”

  We both jumped. My father stood at the kitchen door scowling, his eyes narrow slits.

  “Do you two numskulls have any idea what time it is? D’ you realize your voices can be heard from upstairs? D’you think you can just waltz in an hour late—” (he was glaring at me) “and sit in the kitchen for the rest of the night? What the hell do you think you’re up to?”

  “I was just giving Cathy some advice,” said Stevie, looking embarrassed. “That’s all we were up to.”

  “And who do you think you are, to be giving your sister advice?”

  They stared at each other. The scorn and venom in Dad’s words was so unmistakable, so shocking, that neither Stevie nor I were able to meet his gaze. Flushing, Stevie looked down. He looked angry.

  My father spat out the words “Get to bed,” and turned away. We listened to him stomp upstairs.

  “What an ogre that man is!” I said, hoping that Stevie would feel better by my voicing of this undeniable fact.

>   “Being treated like a dog is becoming tedious,” was all he said, as he gathered up his books.

  “We must have been louder than we thought. I mean, I didn’t think we were shouting at each other, or anything.”

  Stevie touched me lightly on the shoulder. “Well, Dad seems to agree with you, Cathy. He thinks you don’t need my advice.”

  “Yeah,” I said shakily. “That’s good to know.”

  “I’m glad we said these things, “ he told me. “Believe me, I know it isn’t simple. It’s so easy to get discouraged. Everyone does.”

  Everyone, everyone, I thought as I climbed into bed. I’m not everyone. Why is there no one else like me? Why do I have to be like everyone else?

  Stevie was right, but I didn’t want to admit it. I had become rigid.

  There was no flexibility in my attitude, no desire to compromise. There was a move away from other people, from putting my trust in them. It seemed natural to me, to rely only on myself.

  After long silence, Stevie was suddenly lecturing me. He didn’t approve of me. He pitied the bareness of my life, and he wanted to help. But he didn’t realize that all he had to do was to be my friend again. That’s all, I told myself. Then things would be the way they used to be. Still, I had got the picture. What he’d been saying tonight was that we couldn’t go back. And I had got to change.

  I closed my eyes, dismissing that thought. A pair of lovers came to me and I made them go through the motions. Then, more quickly than usual, I fell asleep.

  Chapter 6

  “So, you didn’t like Joe?” Susie asked me in a casual voice.

  She hadn’t phoned me as she had promised, which I had actually felt relieved about. We were sitting in an empty room in school; our Civics class was over. Susie obviously wanted to “have a chat” with me.

  “He was OK. A bit childish.” I began slipping my books into my schoolbag.

  “He told Jeff that he asked you out again, but you didn’t want to, he said.”

  “I’m just so busy, you know?”

  Susie shook her head. “I’m working hard as well. But don’t you ever want to go out with someone else?”

  “Not now, no.”

  “Well, if that’s the way you feel!”

  There was an awkward silence. I mooched over to the wall to look at the Civics quiz third year students had put up. Pictures of politicians, actors and athletes—famous people—had been pasted onto a board. You had to guess who they were; anyone who answered all fifty questions correctly got a prize. Susie joined me and we stared at the pictures together for a moment.

  “That’s easy,” she said, pointing to a color photo of Chris Evert Lloyd, whom we would be watching play at Wimbledon on TV in a few weeks. She was crouched, attentive, awaiting her opponent’s serve.

  “Look how strong her thighs are,” I mused.

  “Jesus! You’re not a lesbian, are you?” was Susie’s withering retort. I looked at her in amazement. She sauntered out of the classroom. I followed slowly, not really wanting to catch up with her.

  After this conversation, it seemed harder for us to make any connection. But school being what it was, we appeared to be friends still. Even I sometimes believed we were. I don’t think Susie did.

  * * *

  Now the Inter was upon us. Every day after school I went over piles of notes, reread textbooks, memorized pieces of information. The Inter was, in a way, a pleasant distraction, terrifying but challenging. I couldn’t help but feel competitive; I knew that my results would be among the best in the class. That was poor consolation for my general isolation and alienation from my schoolmates, but it was something. This was, after all, what I was supposed to be going to school for. I vowed that I would perform well. Many other students, viewing the looming series of exams with resentment and disgust, simply gave up, mitching off school and getting drunk in pubs. I pitied them. There was no way to get out of doing the Exam; they would undoubtedly have to repeat the year and go through the whole process again. Why do that to yourself? I thought.

  Stevie, I assumed, had his own memories of the Inter. To my surprise, he seemed hardly to remember it. “Don’t worry,” he assured me, “It’s nothing, really.” His advice was vague and not very helpful, and when he showed me his Inter results, which came on a printed card, I was not particularly impressed. He had got no A’s, just lots of B’s and C’s. “Yeah, but I did all Honors subjects,” he reminded me. “A “B” in Honors Maths? Come on, that’s not bad!”

  I had to agree. Maths was my weakest subject, and however hard I worked at it the theorems and equations somehow managed to slip out of my brain every night. Equally, Irish grammar and vocabulary simply refused to lodge in my mind.

  I had to admit it, though; by and large the Irish academic system was made for people like me. I would get high marks all through school, go to college, and though I would remain unskilled and unqualified for anything (with my Arts degree), that didn’t matter, since no amount of practical training would guarantee anyone a job. It wasn’t only Arts graduates who were leaving the country; it was doctors, engineers, biochemists, physicists.

  There was even a name for it, the “brain drain.” Nobody liked it, but that was the way things were. It was possible to stay and work here, but it required such commitment, effort and self-sacrifice that only a statistically negligible amount bothered.

  These realities dawned on me only gradually. It seemed very hard, and quite absurd, that most of my brother’s class, for example, would be emigrating in the next few years. If you didn’t, it seemed, you regretted it, when you realized what freedom and different types of lifestyles lay elsewhere. But while people of Stevie’s age were thinking about it, people of my age had no plans for the future. At least I didn’t myself. None of the people I hung around with talked about it. And when I thought about it I went blank. I could not see myself going to America or Australia; it would require too much courage. I might perhaps follow my brother to London. But something told me not to think that far, not to count on that relatively easy solution coming to pass.

  * * *

  It was the morning of my first exam, English. The gym at Fintan’s had been converted into a huge exam hall. I sat at my desk, staring at the blue answer book, the exam paper lying face downwards, my assortment of pens and a packet of sweets. Other girls, including Susie, had brought stuffed toys in as mascots. I noticed lucky charms on some people’s desks. I had nothing. I tried to breath slowly, but my heart was beating and my stomach was fluttering. There was almost total silence in the big room.

  Stevie was far away from me, on the other side of the gym with the sixth years doing the Leaving. He was a blur. Surreptitiously I opened my glasses case and put my glasses on. I had been prescribed them a few years before, but mostly I did not wear them. Not many girls at Fintan’s did, and wearing glasses was another sign that you were a swot and neglected your appearance.

  Everything was so much clearer. Now I could make out my brother’s face. It was comforting to gaze at him from so far away.

  Suddenly he turned and looked at me. He smiled. Then he raised his own glasses to show me. He was long-sighted and needed them to read small print. He put them on with a theatrical air. They made him look quite distinguished. Mine, I knew, made me look like an owl.

  “You may start. Please turn over your papers,” intoned the examiner. “You will be informed when you are halfway through the exam, and five minutes from the end.”

  A rustle of papers and a nervous clearing of throats followed. Glancing up from the page, I happened to see Ron, a few seats up from me, staring pensively across in Stevie’s direction. I decided not to follow his gaze. I had to concentrate; I had to do the exam. I couldn’t afford to get irritated or depressed. Or jealous.

  Well, I thought, scanning the page, Mr. Casey’s instructions about what would appear on the paper had been pretty spot-on. He had been standing there as I passed through to the gym, wishing his pupils good luck and giving them last m
inute little bits of advice. I had been too shy to stop and talk to him, but he had smiled at me and said, “You’ll do fine, Cathy,” as I walked by.

  “Thanks, Mr. Casey,” I had murmured.

  I looked over at Ron again. He was writing steadily. So was Stevie.

  It was up to me now; there could be no more distractions. I wanted to do at least as well as Ron. Think how happy Mr. Casey would be if we both got an A.

  Chapter 7

  Time lay heavily on my hands during that warm summer in the mid-eighties. I had nothing to do, nowhere to go, it seemed. My parents did not appear to notice that I got up late, spent hours in my room, and watched a lot of television throughout the day—when they didn’t watch it. In the evenings I sat reading in the kitchen; my bedroom seemed too cold and lonely at that point. I helped my mother for short periods each day, and I went out shopping or to the post office for her. Sometimes she took me shopping with her. Once or twice she enquired, vaguely: “Do you need anything in the way of clothes for school in September?” and I replied “No.”

  There was a sadness for me in the exchange. I probably did need new clothes, but I didn’t even know how to pick them out, and it embarrassed me, somehow, the whole ritual of choosing and buying “nice” clothes. Any new clothes that did come my way got worn a couple of times and then stashed away in my musty-smelling wardrobe along with old coats that I had worn when I was 10. I continued wearing jeans and shirts all year around, putting on heavy woolen sweaters in the cold weather. My mother, who did not herself possess a pair of jeans (she would sometimes wear “slacks”), seemed oblivious to the fact that I dressed so plainly and so unfemininely. Maybe she approved of my utilitarian dress sense, but if she did, I’m sure she was the only one. Even I was ashamed of myself at moments when I saw myself the way other girls of my age saw me. “You could at least make an effort.” That voice sometimes rang in my head, and I shut it off quickly.

  It was, I suspected, what Susie would say if she ever sat me down for a heart-to-heart talk about my image. Yes, I was supposed to be making an effort, but for what? For whom? I thought then that it was all done to make oneself attractive to boys; it seemed as simple as that. It would take me years to realize that when someone looked good, and knew they looked good, they felt better about themselves. I didn’t feel good about myself, but I blamed the rest of the world.