“Hi,” Ron said rather breathlessly.
“How was France?” Stevie asked.
I smiled. Right on target. I took a gulp of cider.
“Oh, terrific. I mean, the weather was fantastic, as you see.” He giggled. “Besides that, you know, I was with my parents.”
Stevie nodded. “Listen, what are you having?”
“Oh.” Ron looked around; it was obvious he had forgotten that he was in a pub. “Em...”
“Come up to the bar with me and you can make up your mind,” suggested Stevie. The next minute, they were gone.
Jeff seemed puzzled. “How do they know each other?” he asked. His voice was no longer slurred.
I said nothing.
Jeff lit a Marlboro. He offered me one. I took it.
“Very interesting,” he observed.
I smoked away, still saying nothing. I wanted Jeff to come to the right conclusion without me having to say a word.
Jeff had a strange expression on his face. “You know, Susie calls me a bar-room philosopher. Sometimes I get things and sometimes I don’t. Sometimes I put two and two together, sometimes I don’t.” He paused.
What surprised me was that I was enjoying this scene. I felt as if I were one step ahead of Jeff all the time. It could turn ugly, though, I mused, it could definitely turn a bit ugly.
“I just don’t like being faced with something like that. And to act like it’s so natural, you know. When it isn’t, at all. It’s disgusting.”
“What?” I said. “I don’t follow you.”
He gulped, uneasy now. “Well, I mean ... I mean, homosexuality.” He cleared his throat. “All societies think it’s wrong. And the Church...”
“You don’t even go to Mass.” His mention of the Church irritated me.
“I used to,” he said earnestly.
“We all used to.”
“Oh, of course, a lot of it’s crap, but some of it’s important. Like, you know, abortion and all that. That’s really wrong.”
I winced. His mind was less predictable than I’d thought. Who would ever have expected him to start babbling about the Church? That was one thing that I couldn’t bear. Much better if he just hated queers. Without even trying to justify it. But he obviously had to, and that falsened his position.
“So... ” He started, then stopped.
“Spit it out.”
“So... they’re lovers, are they?”
In his mouth the word sounded odd. It was probably the first time that he’d ever said it.
“No, no,” I said, outwardly serious. “They’re just good friends.”
Trying not to smirk, I stubbed out my cigarette. End of conversation, I hoped. Jeff looked disturbed.
“It doesn’t bother you at all, does it, this kind of talk?”
“No, not really. Why should it?”
“Well, doesn’t it embarrass you?”
“It embarrasses you. That’s obvious.”
He frowned. Suddenly I glimpsed a familiar face. “There’s Susie!” I said, with some relief. “Bring her over.”
Jeff glared at me. “If you think I’m staying at this table, you’re mistaken. If you want to sit with us, you’re welcome, as far as I’m concerned.”
“I’ll think about it,” I said.
Ron and Stevie returned. Stevie set a glass of cider down at my place.
“Thank you,” I said politely. “That took a long time.”
“Is your pal Jeff gone?” asked Stevie.
“Yes, he saw Susie and decamped.”
“Leaving you alone?” put in Ron, a little maliciously.
“Not before he’d told me about the Church’s position on homosexuality.” Their faces froze. “Seriously,” I added.
“Loathsome bastard,” said Stevie casually. “He ought to be put down.”
Ron nodded. “The sooner the better.”
“I like him,” I said cheerfully. “He’s stupid, but he’s got a core of integrity.”
“You’re drunk,” Stevie said flatly. I could tell he was angry with me. I didn’t care.
“And he suggested that I come and join him and Susie at another table. So perhaps I will.” I got up; my legs seemed very light. “Leaving you to have your little tête-à-tête.”
I picked up my glass.
“Come back when you want to go,” Stevie said. “We’ll go home together.”
“Oh, you don’t have to do that.”
“Don’t get too pissed,” he said quietly.
A wave of shame and anger swept through me. Ron was looking down at the table, hoping that I’d go, I knew.
“Oh, what were your results, Ron?” I asked, genuinely curious.
He looked up. “Three A’s, one in English, one in French, one in History. Three B’s, one in— ”
“God, how absurd.” I turned away. Three A’s! It occurred to me that he probably got the highest marks in our whole year. How dare he? I hurried away from them in disgust, slopping my drink and bumping into people. Perhaps Jeff and Susie had already left.
* * *
“We’re pissed,” said Susie in greeting, “and we’re going to get pisseder.”
“I’d like to join you then,” I said.
“Mum gave me ten quid to celebrate!” She started laughing and her head bent lower and lower till her fringe was brushing the edge of the table.
“That was decent.”
My comment seemed to increase her mirth. Finally, red-faced, she looked up. “Come on, sit down, sit down!” she said impatiently.
I fell into a seat. Jeff was smoking, his head resting on his hand. He didn’t seem to register my arrival. I began sipping at my drink.
“Well, Cathy,” she said, seriously, “Jeff’s been telling me about the two lovebirds, your brother and his ... friend.”
“It was clever of Jeff to pick that up. You see, they were just chatting normally...”
“What’s normal?” said Jeff in a hollow voice.
Susie burst into giggles, pounding her fist on the table. She was in a manic mood.
“That’s the question, isn’t it?” I said, gloomily. I was beginning to feel morose, deeply morose. The pleasant elation I’d felt earlier, the sensation that I was in control ... all these were wearing off.
“There is no normality. There is no reality,” droned Jeff. Susie greeted this new gem of wisdom with another explosion. Tears began to fall down her flushed cheeks. “Oh, Christ,” she murmured. “What a day!”
* * *
“Time to go home now,” Stevie said, standing at my elbow. The pub was at its loudest and most chaotic; it was a minute before closing-time.
“Fuck off,” I murmured. I could hardly speak, or move.
“Oh God.” He sounded upset. To Susie I heard him say: “How’d she get in this state?”
“Sorry?” Susie was acting as if she didn’t know what he was talking about.
“How much has she had?”
“With us, only about two pints. Isn’t that right, Jeff? Jeff!”
For the last half hour, Susie had been carrying on a long monologue. Jeff had gone to sleep, and I had come close to it.
“Oh, he’s off. Now how am I going to get him home?” Susie enquired in blasé tones.
“What about her? Cathy, get up. Come on.”
“No,” I could hear myself saying in a strange, drugged voice.
“Well, this is pathetic. I’m going to have to get her some coffee, damn it.”
He must have left. I opened my eyes, peering at Susie, who went into giggles at the sight of my bleary face.
“Did you and Jeff share a valium, by any chance?”
I smiled wearily.
“Jesus, you should be happy. You did so well.”
“Ron did better,” I said with a sigh. “He got three A’s. Can you believe it? Three A’s.”
She shook her head. “Jealous, are you?”
“It’s just not fair,” I said to no one in particular. “Not fair.”
“Next year you’re going to have to make some changes, aren’t you?”
I looked at her. How drunk was she? Not very, compared to me.
“No,” I said, with finality.
“You’re going to have to go out with somebody.”
“I don’t want to.”
“You’re so negative,” she said sadly. “What made you that way?”
“You used to be negative too,” I said. “I liked you better then.”
She was quiet.
“Time!” chanted the bartender, hitting a brass gong at the side of the bar with his fist.
Stevie was at my side, telling me to drink a cup of coffee. “I don’t drink coffee, I hate it,” I heard myself whining. Susie and Jeff were both silent as Stevie forced me to down the stuff. When it was finished I staggered to my feet.
“I feel sick,” I said plaintively.
“That would be the best thing,” Stevie said. “OK, we’ll get you to the Ladies.”
He stood at the door of the Ladies while I stumbled in. Catching sight of myself in the big, wide mirror over the sink, I took in my appearance: glazed, shining brown eyes, rumpled hair, face flushed. I turned on the cold tap and splashed my face. Then my stomach turned. Leaning over the sink, I vomited a stream of thick liquid which eased out of me without the gut-wrenching spasms I’d experienced when I’d had the flu during my childhood. And I felt a lot better as I washed the stuff down the drain. Yes, there would be changes next year, I thought, in a sudden burst of optimism. I would be strong, and I wouldn’t let it get to me. I would go easier on myself. I wouldn’t pay as much attention to Stevie, or my parents. I would try to become more independent. I wouldn’t be vulnerable.
Susie came in. “Cathy, what are you doing in here? Your brother’s worried. Oh God! Couldn’t you have used the toilet?”
“No,” I said sharply. “I hate kneeling down over a toilet.”
Without saying goodbye, I went out. Stevie caught me by the arm.
“Just try to act sober!” he said in a scolding tone. “Dad will still be up. Remember that.”
I shook his hand off. “I can walk by myself.”
We began going along the road, the breeze in our faces.
Chapter 8
I returned to school on September 1st, full of fear. Despite my vow in the ladies room of the Droppin’ Well, I soon found myself unable to cope with the isolation that I was in, day in, day out. Sitting alone in classes and feeling marked out by that was very hard.
Susie had taken up with a girl called Carlotta Keefe. She was tall, heavy, with frizzy orange hair, freckles, and an insolent look in her eyes. She despised me, I knew. I sat with them at lunch a few times, a lump in my throat from nervousness and despair—the sadness of knowing that I wasn’t welcome and that I would no longer be tolerated by Susie. As if to punish me for the scene in the pub, she hardly talked to me. She pointedly ignored me, in fact, chatting about Carlotta’s boyfriends and escapades with drugs while Carlotta coolly glanced over at me, as if to say: “This is our turf. You wouldn’t understand.” She was right; I didn’t want to hear these things.
It seemed so corrupt, Carlotta’s life did, and I could not find it titillating or amusing, like Susie, who was tired of being a good girl. I began to let go, as I knew she wanted me to, and it was made easier by the fact that we only had a couple of classes together. In Biology she sat with Carlotta and I sat with someone else, a tall lanky girl called Louise, whom I talked to about books and started sitting with at lunch.
But Louise was only in a couple of my classes. Most of the day had to be got through without a friend to talk to. It surprised me how desolate this felt. How unendurable. I began to fantasize about leaving St. Fintan’s and blame myself for having waited this long to do it.
My parents, when I brought up the subject, had a brutally practical attitude. “D’you think it’d be better anywhere else?” My father said with a gloomy face, implying, I knew, that I would have “the same problems” (he was not clear on what they were) anywhere. My mother shook her head and hinted at how much trouble it would be to find a new school at this stage.
“Fintan’s is so convenient, now isn’t it?” was her comment. My father added in a sarcastic tone that he thought it was a bit late to hand me over to the nuns now. Basically, my parents did not want to know. And I was almost glad that they were not going to do anything about it. I was always afraid of change, and had got used to Fintan’s, much as I hated it. I had got used to being alone there, being around people who I considered intellectually and morally inferior. There was some bitter pleasure in that, actually.
A handful of new students had come to Fintan’s after the Inter. A few of them seemed pleasant, but I noticed that after a week or two they soon blended in. There was such pressure to do that at Fintan’s. Individuality was liked neither by the teachers nor the students. It was arrogant, and un-Irish. And suspect.
It seemed I just hadn’t been born with the instinct to blend in. There were times, of course, when someone threw me a kind word, and I felt briefly touched and warmed by their caring or their concern. And if someone had decided to take me in hand, I might have yielded almost gracefully. But nobody approached me in the way I wanted to be approached. It’s true, too, that I scarcely knew what I wanted.
One day in the middle of history class the door opened and Mrs. McHenry stepped in, followed by a blushing, embarrassed looking girl who glanced around at the class with an uncertain smile and then returned her gaze to the floor. “You all looked so much older ... so sophisticated,” she would tell me a few weeks later.
Her hair was short, glossy and black. She had full lips and a fresh face. I watched her with interest.
“This is Jeanette,” Mrs. McHenry said to the teacher, who nodded. “She’s joining the class. Amanda, would you look after her for now?”
Amanda, an efficient blonde with a no-nonsense air about her, indicated that she would. The girl sat down beside Amanda. Mrs. McHenry exited and the class continued.
We were about two weeks into the school year. It was rather odd to have someone just appear like that, and to be ushered in by the Principal, but unusual things often did occur at Fintan’s. Mrs. McHenry put herself out for people and presided over the school in as personal a way as she could. Sometimes this worked, sometimes not. Usually it didn’t, and the atmosphere of the school was unpleasantly chaotic, a kind of vacuum at the center, the teachers either sucking up to or feuding with Mrs. McHenry. But occasionally the personal touch was rather charming. I reflected on this as I returned to my notes. And then, looking up, I began to stare at the new girl, her head bent over Amanda’s history book (she was sharing), the blush still on her cheek. I liked the shy way she had smiled.
* * *
She began sitting beside me in history, as if something unspoken had drawn us together. This pleased me so much that if we hadn’t become close friends it would have been enough: the fact that she had sat beside me when she could have continued to sit by Amanda. But it struck me from the moment I saw her that I wanted her for my friend.
Jeanette was full of high spirits, of a type that Susie, for example, did not possess. There was something innocent about her then, so innocent that beside her I felt worldly-wise and enlightened. And I liked that. So to enlighten her, to teach her things and to earn her gratitude—this became the pattern of our friendship for a while. She made me laugh. We would giggle together like fools, write silly notes to each other during class, and sit together at lunch and talk earnestly while Louise, feeling a little shut out, would glance at her watch, exclaim “Right! I’m off!” and leave after about fifteen minutes, giving Jeanette and I private time on our hands before the bell rang and classes resumed.
She gave me a little potted history of herself. She’d been at a convent school up until the Inter ... she had a younger sister and two younger brothers ... her mother was a heavy smoker ... didn’t work, it seemed ... her father was away on business a lot ...
they lived in Finglas, they’d always lived on the North side of Dublin ... in poverty, she implied.
“We have twenty cats!” she said unexpectedly one day in Irish class.
And she began reciting their absurd names, while I listened, grinning, fighting skepticism. “Albert, Lucky, Brownie, Flat Foot, Stripe, Clementina...”
“Jeanette and Cathy! No talking!” The Irish teacher said. We shut up, briefly, but I knew we’d soon be whispering again. It didn’t worry me to be told to be quiet, and it didn’t seem to worry Jeanette either. Classes that we had together were oases for both of us in what was always a rather dull and disheartening school day. Jeanette said she liked Fintan’s better than the school she’d been in before, because it was less rigid, but I knew it intimidated her still. People like Carlotta especially scared her. And then there were boys.
So we clung together. There was something of the clown or the court jester about Jeanette. Part of the fun was that her outside life seemed quite unreal, and therefore amusing, intriguing, unlike mine. Bizarre things kept happening to her there. “I’m accident prone,” she confessed. She would lose or break her glasses constantly, and have to use a magnifying glass to read the page in front of her. Like Stevie, she was long-sighted.
I never got a good sense of what her life at home was like, but it didn’t seem to matter. I wasn’t curious. I sensed that she needed to keep some things a mystery, and that was fine with me. I felt that she would reveal more and more of herself to me as time went on. It was amusing never to be sure if she was telling the truth or not.
I was uncharacteristically indulgent of Jeanette. She had come just at the right time; I didn’t want to alienate her in any way. What I liked most about her was the way in which she seemed eager to please me. I had never felt so endlessly forgiving, so loving. She could do no wrong in my eyes; I, it seemed, could do none in hers. She’s perfect, I thought happily, and we’ll always be friends.
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