The Mask and Other Stories

by Nesta Tuomey

  ‘Why don’t you then?’ The barman moved away to serve a customer and Higney replaced the object in his pocket. Perhaps a tenner was a bit steep, he thought. Next time he’d do better to suggest half and work up to it more slowly.

  In the church the aisles were filled to capacity. Coming from the confessional she found a space and burrowed in. Light after darkness. Ten Hail Mary’s lengthily explored. I am the light of the world, says the Lord. Anyone who follows me will have the light of life.

  ‘Do not come back so soon. There isn’t need,’ the priest had said, head drooping wearily forward, an image just discernible beyond the mesh of wire. Then silence. Was he asleep? But no, a frail hand upraised in benediction. ‘Do your best. No more is asked of any of us.’ One more approach sealed off with the clicking shut of the little wooden door. Do not come back so soon! One more contact with living breathing humanity severed, or at least discouraged.

  All about the congregation stood close pressed raising their voices to mingle with the leader.

  Have mercy on us, O Lord, for we have sinned.

  Youthful applicant at the lectern confessing to offences only barely guessed at. What is evil in your sight I have done.

  Oh, Lord, have mercy.

  Higney finished his whisky and went to the counter for another. A man propped himself on his elbow staring into his glass. Higney paid for his drink and stood beside him. He spoke quietly, asking if he wanted a room. He knew where one could be had, he said. Not cheap but not expensive either. He’d only to indicate, and for a little extra company could be had there too without further ado. The man seemed not to hear. Higney laid a hand on his arm. It only needed a coat of paint, he promised, and it would be a palace.

  ‘Would you like to go and see it,’ he persisted. ‘It’s not far from here.’

  The man knocked away Higney’s hand and expressed himself succinctly in a few sharp sentences. Higney drew back abruptly. ‘Here, there’s no call for that,’ he said angrily. ‘I was only trying to do you a favour.’ The man turned his back on him. Aggrieved, Higney withdrew to his seat.

  She struck her chest, aware of her concentration wavering, her breath laborious. Deprived of her share of oxygen by the too close proximity of the faithful she experienced a strange though not unfamiliar disembodiment. She might have been a saint of old in the act of levitating. That her only warning, and she was in it. Back arched, head flung sideways, strange sounds emitting from the larynx, she jerked and swayed. Was it ecstasy? The roof, how far away it seemed. How unyielding the tiles beneath the plastic rainhat. The implement of speech grown suddenly unwieldy, slipping and gagging in an agony of involuntary movement. Restraining hands and hushed faces curiously bore down on one who strived to communicate or perhaps resist.

  Give her air. With the approach of one in authority the situation, fast deteriorating, gained not before time a sense of direction. Loosen her clothing.

  The commands distantly heard set up an echo in the void of her consciousness. Eager to participate, the faithful moved in on her. But where to begin, the plastic mac a fortress around whose perimeter access vainly sought, deterred all but the most valiant. At last, Chinese fashion, each layer peeled away to reveal yet another until the prize was reached, surprisingly pale and young after a lifetime of hibernation.

  Leaving the premises of the Big Tree Higney pushed his bicycle along the North Circular road. He’d like to have mounted but he wasn’t sure he could keep his balance. After he’d had words with the man at the counter he’d gone back for another whisky. ‘Make it a double,’ he’d said as the barman stuck a fresh glass under the Powers Gold label. ‘Sure why not... isn’t the evening young.’ When he’d sat back in his seat he’d found himself going over in his mind what the man had said to him. There was no call for it that he could see. He’d spoken to him civil enough. What right had he to suggest that Higney was a pimp or, worse still, a gigolo? All he’d done was to offer him the chance of renting a room. ‘Bloody cheek,’ he’d said out loud and the barman glanced over, at once scenting trouble. ‘Off you go now,’ he’d urged, catching Higney’s arm and pressing him towards the door. ‘Time to go while you still can.’

  At the intersection Higney waited for the flow of traffic to ease. Seizing his chance he swung his leg over the saddle and pedalled along Sherrard Street. A horn blared close to his rear wheel causing him to wobble dangerously.

  ‘Get out of it, he shouted. Drawing level he rested his hand on the back window and peered intimidatingly in at the occupants. The car moved forward, landing Higney in the roadway. Surprised, he remained where he was until a fresh blasting of horns spurred him to his feet.

  Shaken, he wheeled his bicycle around the corner and slowly made his way along the path. An ambulance stood at the kerb and from the lighted doorway of the church white-coated men carried a recumbent figure. Higney halted to allow them pass and something about the shape caused him to draw closer. Surely there was only one made in that mould? For a brief moment his eyes rested on the apparition, then it was slotted into place and the doors of the van slammed shut. Siren moaning, it sped away to Jervis Street with its aged captive; one more casualty not yet dust.

  Within, the doxology continued, unaware of any drama other than that on the altar; transubstantiation. Without, her only other witness, the dog Major, nosing at fallen seed cake, the product of Mrs Breen fashioned in another age.

  Sisters

  It was nearing teatime when Felicity turned in the entrance to ‘Stella Maris’ and sped swiftly up the driveway in her white mini, manoeuvring her way past animals and children with frightening dexterity while one stride ahead of her, her brother-in-law Jim, flung tricycles hastily to one side before doubling back on his tracks to close the gates before any of the children escaped.

  ‘Felicity,’ her sister called, coming out of the house to greet her as she stepped from the car. ‘You’re late. I was expecting you hours ago.’

  ‘Sorry,’ Felicity said. ‘The traffic was simply appalling. Held me up the whole way.’ She touched her cheek lightly against her sister’s.

  ‘Is this all you have?’ Moira asked, her ample breasts straining the buttons on her blouse as she bent to pick up the beige pigskin travelling case.

  ‘You’ve lost weight,’ Felicity said encouragingly, linking her sister’s free arm. She still kept up the fiction whenever they met that her sister was becoming slimmer even though it was so blatantly, painfully untrue. Moira had lost her figure with the birth of her first child and with each successive pregnancy her waistline had further receded until she was now a mass of solid, unindented fat from bosom to thigh.

  ‘I only wish I had,’ Moira said with a rueful laugh, leading the way into the house. ‘I think I’ve put it on if anything.’

  ‘Well, anyway you’re looking marvellous,’ Felicity countered warmly, tittupping along beside her on red, stiletto-heeled sandals. She was not being insincere. It was all part of her policy to boost her sister’s sadly flattened ego which was the result of having too many children too fast and over-exposure to a husband twenty years her senior, possessed of a Jansenistic streak where life and pleasure were concerned.

  In the kitchen the two sisters took up comfortable positions. Felicity angled a chair to a better vantage point beside the Aga and sat down with a sigh of pleasure, crossing her knees to show off long, white, immaculately creased pants. Beside her on the table she stacked her lighter and several packs of duty-free cigarettes in readiness for the marathon chat session which inevitably took place on her infrequent visits to her sister’s home. Moira sank into the rocking chair, her stout legs in stretch slacks spread mannishly apart, her arms dangling loosely over the sides.

  ‘I’m sure you’re dying for your tea,’ she said.

  ‘There’s no hurry,’ Felicity answered. What she would have liked was a gin and tonic but she didn’t like to say so.

  ‘When I get the children fed we’ll be able to relax,’ Moira said. ‘I’ll make us a cup
pa in a minute.’

  Around the door peeped the two younger children, eleven months between them in age, their romper suits distended grotesquely by double layers of unwieldy nappy cloth. Felicity stretched her arms out welcomingly to them. ‘Come and say hello to Auntie Felicity,’ she cried, pulling them both impetuously on to her knee. ‘Hello, gorgeous,’ she said, squeezing them tightly to her. A brown stain appeared on her jacket as she let them down again and a heavy odour hung disturbingly in the air.

  ‘Conor’s done a goatie,’ the older child confided to his mother, his eyes swivelling at the same time back to his aunt.

  ‘What’s he saying?’ Felicity wondered, her face flushed from the heat of the room. ‘You’re not shy of me, are you?’ she asked. Feeling the heat she slipped off her jacket and seeing the stain gave a cry of dismay. ‘Oh, dear, how did that happen?’ she said. She looked at the two little boys. ‘Oh, dear,’ she said again, her surprise giving way to annoyance. Why would her sister never put plastic pants on the children, it was decidedly anti-social of her. ‘Honestly, Moira,’ she said, turning to her sister, ‘You might have warned me. I mean, really!’

  ‘Oh, Felicity, your beautiful suit,’ Moira cried in consternation, ‘Is it ruined? Oh, I am sorry.’

  ‘Never mind. It’ll come out in the wash,’ Felicity felt forced to say as she carried her jacket to the sink and dabbed at it with warm water. She should have had more sense than to come to a house full of small children in a white linen suit. ‘It’s all right,’ she called reassuringly to Moira, ‘It’s coming out. I don’t think it will leave a stain.’

  Her brother-in-law came in from the yard surrounded by children and stood in the doorway watching them, his suit hanging creased and baggy on his spare frame, already jealous of the whispered confidences, the imagined neglect, the attention that would be taken from him by her visit.

  ‘What kind of journey had you?’ he asked, assuming a look of polite interest as he removed a pile of drying nappies from the clothes rack and began folding them domesticatedly.

  ‘Terrible,’ Felicity cried, glad of a subject to discuss. She never knew what to talk to her brother-in-law about. Now she launched into a diatribe on the hectic rush of weekend traffic streaming headlong out of the city that Friday afternoon.

  ‘Felicity, your godchild is awake,’ Moira interrupted, nodding at the moses basket on its wicker stand from which faint whimpering cries were coming. Felicity jumped up and went over to stare in at the baby, her cigarette high in the air, the glowing tip away from the child. ‘He’s gorgeous,’ she said, making kissing sounds, ‘Aren’t you, my pet.’ She turned to the silent children grouped inside the kitchen door. ‘Your brother is real cute,’ she said, her voice unconsciously taking on an American twang. ‘Are you crazy about him?’ The children stared, then nodded. Auntie Felicity, they knew, worked in a travel agency and had been all over the world.

  ‘What age is he now?’ Felicity asked. She had no children of her own and could never remember details like that.

  ‘Just six weeks,’ Moira said. ‘He’s far bigger than any of the others were at that stage,’ she added.

  ‘He can’t be that old. Six weeks already,’ Felicity said over-dramatically. ‘It seems only a week or two since he was born.’ The way her sister’s children seemed to grow up overnight always amazed her. She had only a vague idea how painfully slow the whole business actually was.

  Moira went to the Aga and stooped to take out a tray of meringues. ‘Now don’t tell me you’re on a diet,’ she said, as she filled the crusty, fawn shells with cream and carried them to the table. ‘I made them as a special treat.

  ‘Ooh, my favourite,’ Felicity cried. ‘I honestly don’t know how you manage to do so much,’ she said in genuine admiration. ‘Even one baby would have me permanently in a heap.’

  The significant way her sister immediately eyed her stomach was not lost on Felicity. She laughed openly. ‘I’m not if you want to know,’ she said, with careless disregard for her brother-in-law’s presence. She pressed her small stomach complacently. ‘Any bulge you see there is from sheer greed. Nothing else, I assure you.’

  Jim muttered something unintelligible and disappeared out the door. ‘Gone out to his precious garden,’ Felicity thought. Apart from begetting children it seemed to be his only other interest.

  Moira gazed thoughtfully at her sister. ‘Have you thought of going to see a doctor,’ she said, her mind obviously still on Felicity’s childless state. ‘You know it might be something quite simple.’ Like all people with big families she was anxious to see everyone else similarly endowed.

  Felicity shrugged, not meeting her eye. ‘Yes. Well, maybe it’s for the best,’ she said, ‘Quite honestly I’d hate to give up my job now and I’d have to if I were pregnant.’

  In actual fact she had no intention of having children and was on the Pill since her marriage but it was not something she felt she could admit to Moira who had gone so eagerly, dedicatedly, even religiously into the whole business of having children. Her sister had become even more conservative since her marriage to Jim who actively discouraged her from ever engaging in anything that might distract her from the all important task of looking after him and his children. Once she had said to Felicity: ‘He’s insane about them, you know. I could be dying and he wouldn’t notice but just let one of them cry ‘Dada’ and he runs at once.’

  In Felicity’s liberated view her brother-in-law was nothing short of a bluebeard. Six children in little over seven years. It was unbelievable. It had never ceased to astonish her how he got away with it in an age where women were more and more demonstrating their right to an existence other than that of homemaking and childminding. Clearly Women’s Lib had never been allowed to gain a foothold inside the hallowed portals of ‘Stella Maris.’

  She lit another cigarette from the butt of the first and murmured insincerely, ‘Of course I’d give anything for the patter of tiny feet. Frank too but – well, not everyone is blessed like you.’

  In an effort to change the subject Felicity pulled her case towards her. Snapping back the locks, she took out the presents she had brought. Expensive French perfume for Moira ‘To drive Jim even wilder,’ she had said wickedly to her husband on leaving home; a blue pramsuit for her godson and for the older children the usual lavish bag of lollipops and chocolate bars that Jim would confiscate the minute he saw them as ‘ruinous’ for their teeth.

  ‘Aren’t you going to try it?’ she cried disappointed when after thanking her, Moira left the perfume down again unopened. ‘Oh, go on. Do. I’m dying to see what it’s like.’

  Influenced by Jim’s famine mentality, Moira, she knew, was inclined to hoard things for that special ‘someday’ and felt guilty if she ever discarded anything before it was used up to the last. ‘The human dustbin’ she sometimes referred to herself as she compulsively consumed the last of the children’s milk or leftover cereal.

  ‘Oh, all right. Why not,’ Moira cried, her face brightening as she tore the cellophane wrapping off the box. ‘No point in keeping it for a special occasion. I never go anywhere.’ She broke the seal on the perfume flask and pressed a minute spot of scent on her wrist. A flowery fragrance was suddenly released bringing a hint of Paris into the small, overheated room.

  ‘Ooh, la-la-la,’ Felicity sang and inhaled ecstatically. ‘May I?’ she begged reaching for the bottle. The difference in the sisters’ natures was never so clearly demonstrated as in their individual handling of the perfume. In direct contrast to Moira’s frugal, almost miserly husbanding of the essence, Felicity lavishly and ritualistically anointed her various pulse spots before replacing the stopper. ‘I got it at the airport last week,’ she said with a satiated smile. ‘Gorgeous, isn’t it?’

  Later when all the children had been put to bed, the prayers said, and the baby hopefully fed for the night, the sisters sat in the kitchen chatting. Jim had gone into the dining-room to do some work but although he was out of sight he was still li
nked to them by the service hatch which joined the two rooms.

  ‘Who do you think I met in town last month?’ Moira asked, excitement ringing in her voice, ‘Miss Burke! Do you remember she used have us for Maths and Geography. Big woman with a great hearty laugh.’

  ‘Was she the one with the Afro hairstyle long before it ever came into fashion,’ Felicity asked, remembering only hazily. She had not her sister’s intense preoccupation with schooldays, rarely if ever thinking of them anymore, unlike Moira, who was forever returning in memory at least, to childhood. Was this, Felicity sometimes wondered, because her life since then had not quite lived up to her expectation of it?

  ‘No, no, you’re thinking of Miss Philips. Burke had mousey brown hair, not a kink in it. She was at least thirteen stone,’ Moira said, exasperated. ‘She wore gold, gypsy earrings. You must remember her.’

  ‘Oh, yes, of course,’ Felicity said, wishing Moira would get on with the story.

  ‘Well, believe it or not she’s married. Remember how we always thought no one would ever look twice at her. But there she was with this really quite presentable looking man. Oh, sixty if he’s a day – but still, a man, nicely dressed and obviously well off. She was hanging on his arm adoringly and at least four stones lighter than when we knew her. I mean – who would have believed it?’

  Felicity laughed out loud. For the first time she felt her affinity with her sister. They had been girls growing up together. Nubile. Conscious of their worth. Now she was reminded pleasurably of herself and Moira in their youthful arrogance assessing the competition and passing judgement on poor plain Miss Burke’s chances of romance.

  Jim’s grey head suddenly appeared in the hatch. ‘You both sound very merry,’ he said in a doubting voice as though their merriment was in some way suspect. He remained framed in the opening, his long face mooning in at them.

  ‘Why don’t I help you with the washing up, Moira,’ Felicity suggested brightly, jumping to her feet. She no longer felt comfortable with her brother-in-law eavesdropping so blatantly on their conversation. She seized a dishcloth from off the rail in front of the Aga and then took up position beside her sister at the sink. As she wiped dry the plates and cups Moira handed her she kept up a gay barrage of talk, carrying Moira with her through time and space as she described the high points of her recent travels with amusing and sometimes daringly explicit detail. The small warm room became in turn a night club in Puerto Banus thronged with celebrities, a wine cellar in Perpignan, a barbeque on the beach at Masapalomas.