Venetia Kelly's Traveling Show: A Novel of Ireland

by Frank Delaney

  That morning I went there too late to see the moment of dawn. In mid- to late February the sun begins to reach the river bend a little before eight o’clock. It had come up red, meaning rain later. And it had come up wonderfully, slowly coloring the stream and bringing a red-gold tinge to the bare, overhanging branches.

  I tried to imagine the day ahead. Will we walk? Will we talk? Where will my father be? I felt no pang of guilt about him; instead, an ever-deepening annoyance had settled on me, lit by ever-brighter flashes of anger. Look at the trouble he has caused. And then my thoughts returned to Venetia. Will we hold hands? Will we kiss again?

  That was a curious kind of excitement—I haven’t felt it since. Although I was riven and thrilled at the prospect of meeting her—especially as she had been so particular in making the arrangements—I felt patient; I could wait, almost like eyeing a delicious food one has saved for later.

  The sunlight came down the river like a miracle. Soon the surface of the water became too bright for the eyes. I got out of the car and stepped forward to the clearest view. Cold, yes, and the morning had some damp in it, but this channel of red light seemed to have leaked through the floorboards of Heaven.

  The sun fleshed out the morning, and now I was hungry. I made my plans—food, a newspaper, pace myself through the day until two o’clock. At breakfast in the Royal Hotel, in an empty dining room, I scanned the newspaper, and I know now that I was seeking to establish the size of world events too, and weld them to my own life.

  In China, the Japanese were denying a major victory being claimed by the Chinese. Astounding rows were taking place in the German Parliament, where the Chancellor’s denunciations of the Nationalist party “aroused the Nazi deputies to violent outbursts of rage.” In South Africa a man who suffered a fractured skull in a mining blast was able to walk to his doctor’s surgery.

  And at home, Mr. Cosgrave, the defeated leader, threatened that if de Valera’s policies went through, “England would come back here with all their force, and immediate and terrible war would be the result.”

  I read the newspaper from cover to cover. At half past eleven I left the hotel—150 minutes to go. The barber had opened; my beard hadn’t yet become an issue, too fair-skinned; nevertheless I had a shave and a haircut—that took me to one o’clock.

  At just before two o’clock, after an hour along winding roads, some no bigger than farm lanes, I drove into Charleville and parked around the corner from the house.

  Unexpectedly, I found the door closed. When I rapped the satisfying lion’s-head knocker, I heard immediate footsteps. Venetia opened the door wide and gestured me in. She closed the door, bolted it, and put her arms carefully around me. Then she led me by the hand upstairs to the very top floor, to a room I had never seen, a large and airy, bright place shouldered by the sloping mansards of the roof. Outside it had begun to rain.

  She took my coat and, as though handling a golden cloak, hung it in a closet. I sat down where she directed, and she lay on a chaise covered in raspberry-pink velvet. She wore a long, loose shift of dove gray, and as I attempted to speak she put her fingers to her lips and indicated that I must say nothing, adding that we should simply look at each other.

  All my inner awkwardness disappeared. In her company I felt assured and easy about myself; I’ve never known that feeling with anybody else. To illustrate how composed I was—I never flinched when, after some minutes, she stood, removed her robe, and lay down again on the chaise, completely naked.

  With her hands she indicated that I must look at her all I wanted, and she raised herself a little, this way and that. But now you have, I feel sure, recalled how I reported interviews with Sarah, in which she described the relationship with Mr. Anderson.

  I didn’t know about that until long after this February day. Not that it would have made a difference, because after many delighted and fascinated minutes of my scrutinizing her, Venetia again rose from the couch and said, “Now it’s your turn.”

  Looking back, I marvel at my own boldness. Think of the leap I made—from virginal farm life to this. With no shyness, I undressed. She rose, took each garment from me, folded it, and laid it like a vestment on a chair. I lay down as she had; she looked at me as I had at her; she closed her eyes in delight and pleasure as I had, and opened them again to gaze.

  After some length of time—it might have been twenty minutes, it might have been an hour, it might have been three minutes—she rose from the chair in all her glory, took my hand and walked with me to her bed. A wide bed, more like a sultan’s couch, cushions everywhere, and, on the wall above, a framed portrait of an Elizabethan gentleman with a beard, whom I recognized as William Shakespeare.

  We lay down facing each other, and the world as I knew it came to an end and a new world began, the universe I have lived in—to varying degrees—ever since.

  The human spirit knows how to suspend matters—some things weigh too heavily to be experienced in full at the time. And shock comes in many forms. I know one old gentleman who told me that he exhibited all the symptoms of stroke the day after his wedding night. The effects of great emotional moments often have to be deferred in order to manage them: grief; success; love.

  Did I defer my fullest responses? It wasn’t like that. My deferrings came much later and for different reasons. I took to love like I took to breathing. No angst, no depressed or worried feelings, not a hint of sadness; I was never anything but delighted and happy with Venetia.

  It had to be like that; it felt as though we were one person. We clanged together like a couple of magnets and we stayed deeply, deeply united, in every imaginable way from that moment until—well, you shall see.

  The rain poured down on the roof, inches above our heads, and made the experience even more delightful—a couple of children hiding from the storm. We scarcely talked, too busy. She took pains to establish how identical we were in experience; I didn’t know how to tell anyway.

  The softness of her skin remains my abiding memory—and the shock of how beautiful I found her to look at. Naturally I had seen illustrations of the undraped female form—in art books at home, and in what the boys at school called “nudie pictures” that somebody’s brother had brought home from England.

  And the scent from her skin—no picture can convey that. And the stillness—we had silences, and we had sounds. My mind filled with images of hunting.

  Here, I wish to stop; I have no words that I want to use; there are some memories that must never be shared; if you rob the nest, the bird won’t come back.

  Let’s leave it with Miss Dora Fay’s words. Of my relationship with Venetia, she said to me long, long afterward, “My word, wasn’t it all very complicated and wonderful?”

  That evening, as we drove to the show, I found myself in a new experience—clarity. The air seemed clearer; I could see farther, hear more keenly, feel more sensitively. And I could think with a new and powerful brilliance, and in thinking so, I understood what I had been evading since that morning—the farm was gone. Mother, exhausted, fearful, tearful, had handed it over. The mounting anger at my father rose up inside me afresh, and built into a new kind of rage—unfamiliar and very hot. I had enough control to say nothing. Venetia sat beside me in the car, her hand always touching my knee or my arm. We rarely spoke, didn’t want to; anyway, they weren’t quiet cars like today’s models; easy speech was a problem with the wind whistling in everywhere, and the engine roaring like a dragon.

  Isn’t it disappointing, when we look in the mirror, that we can’t see instant change? Isn’t it a shame that we have no means or mechanism by which our faces, our eyes can record what has just happened? I’d just had the experience of seeing my mother develop a grayness on the skin of her face—a color that hadn’t been there before.

  Yet, I’d have given a lot if, that afternoon, as I looked in the mirror before leaving the house, I’d seen something of the massive change that I felt had taken place in me. I didn’t and was disappointed.

&nb
sp; It feels clichéd, doesn’t it, to discuss a loss of virginity in terms of “becoming a man”? And anyway that’s not how it felt at all. Yes, I was changed profoundly—but it was a change deriving from having found another human being who was the other half of myself. And knowing it at the time, and knowing it would be true for all time. As it has been.

  And for her? This is what she said.

  “You’re the antidote to the bad parts of my life. I can be as odd as I like and you’ll think me normal.”

  I didn’t go to the show that night. She didn’t want me to, didn’t give an explanation, and said, “One day you’ll understand.” I expected to feel hurt; I didn’t want this girl out of my sight, but my compliant nature—as it always had been—accepted her wish, and turned it into something positive.

  Instead, I enjoyed waiting, standing outside the hall and listening to the cheering. I could tell who was leaving the stage—or indeed who was onstage—by the force and length of the applause. Oddly, it felt as though her own solo appearances excited people just as much as her stint with Blarney—though the laughter for him hit the highest notes on the night’s scale.

  My feelings about Venetia as I stood there, leaning against the venue’s wall? No guilt, no confusion, no anxiety—how could I? I didn’t know enough. The excitement almost drove me. I wanted more, more, more. Part of it was physical, that softness, that comprehensive embrace—I’d never known anything like it; I still haven’t. I wanted to see her every second of every minute, wanted the feel of that skin, the look in those eyes.

  Then the abiding emotion arrived, clearing its way through everything else, through the urgency, the desire, the sheer “everything-ness” of the experience—responsibility. That was what I mostly felt, responsible for this woman, this “girl,” as I thought of her. I wanted to care for her, protect her, simply look after her every minute of every day.

  It must be the case, mustn’t it, that I learned that behavior. I must have seen it in my father’s life. I’ve already told you how attentive I’d always seen him—the cups of tea, the rescues from depression. Learned behavior—that’s what produced this sense of responsibility. It felt good too; I felt powerful—even though I didn’t have anything like the language to express it that way.

  The feeling of responsibility also enabled me to cope with not watching the show. When she emerged later I would be able to swing into action and begin my intended project of taking care of her. We had already established that I would take her back to the house in Charleville, and that from now on I would spend every night in the same bed with her.

  I know it seems fanciful to look back after all these years and insist that those were my feelings—that driven sense of responsibility. But I assure you—I’ve given it intensive and extensive thought, and that is truly what I believe I was feeling at that time.

  And as I stood there, a figure walked toward me, the maker perhaps of that responsibility gene—my father. Not saying a word at first, he patted me on the shoulder and leaned against the wall right beside me.

  We stood there for long minutes, smiling and chuckling at our separate—but I’m sure not very dissimilar—thoughts, as we heard the laughter and applause coming from inside the hall.

  During a lull he said to me, without turning his head, “I-I-I often do this. I often wait here so that I have the pleasure of looking forward to seeing her.”

  I had been thinking the same.

  The likely problem facing me hadn’t yet surfaced. I was so lost in my new, white-hot, tumbling emotions that I never focused on any difficulty for long. Nor did I when he made that remark—“the pleasure of looking forward to seeing her.” Nor did I say to him, as I was supposed to, “When are you coming home?” or “Please come home.” I said nothing, not a word.

  He said it again, in different words. “It’s such a joy to be with her when the night ends; she’s always so tired and I can look after her.”

  And I wasn’t even jolted by this. Nor did I give any thought to the next moves of the night, which were now approaching, because we could hear Blarney’s voice from inside, and we could hear the laughter, and Blarney was always top of the bill—meaning the evening would end within half an hour or so.

  I stood there with my father in what I now see was a most unreal situation. He closed his eyes, a smile on his face, and settled back to enjoy the laughter.

  “Oh, by the way,” he said suddenly. “Could you come over with the car tomorrow? I want to go to a funeral.”

  “What time?”

  “Your uncle Denny is dead. In Kilmallock.” In an instant I saw him again: the man under the lamplight, the affable host, the much beloved, walking weakly home.

  Loud applause, loud and louder—the show was over. My father pulled his shoulders off the wall and bounded away like a colt. Now the reality rode in. I stood there, not knowing what to do, and fending off the idea of what might happen next. Instinct is the oxygen of love. I remained where I stood.

  The crowd departed in the usual glee, laughing and reminding one another of the evening’s highlights. I moved a few yards around to the front of the hall, to stand in the light coming from the open doors. As I did so, I saw Venetia jump from the stage and run down the shabby hall between the chairs. At the door she grabbed my hand and led me away, running from the place. I had parked the car out of sight, to keep the curious from pawing it; we left town within minutes.

  “He’s staying with the company,” she said.

  I looked at her; she had fixed this. Should I ask how? I didn’t.

  Sometime before dawn we fell asleep. Our last remarks to each other had to do with how much better could this get, with how much older than eighteen I seemed to be, and with the future. The future—ah, yes, the future; it and its possibilities became the subject of challenge while we were still asleep.

  I heard the knock. Then I heard the door open. I’m a light sleeper. Somebody looked in and I saw a disappearing arm, a woman’s. Venetia woke too, took no action, and went back to sleep. I lay there, wide awake, and now the implications sailed in like menacing ships. I didn’t own a watch in those days and always guessed the time by the light of day—not more than eight o’clock. Once again the noises floated up of a small town waking—a door slam, the clang of some utensil somewhere, a cyclist whistling, the clop of a horse’s slow hooves: sleepy sounds, but important in their assuring-ness. Typically they’d have lifted me into the morning; I had no intention of leaving that bed, not that day, if I could help it.

  Venetia slept for another hour, and I lay there, shifting between the delight of recent memory, anticipation of the imminent, and fear engendered by the implications.

  We didn’t rise until late. She sent me downstairs first, and the darkness of the day under heavy overcast, gave us night at noon. Ravenous, I went straight to the kitchen, Mrs. Haas’s exclusive domain; I had never seen anybody else in there. She’d heard me coming and stood in front of the black stove with its driving flames seen through the grid. As I walked in she clasped her hands in front of her like somebody receiving an award.

  “Oh,” she said, and said it again. “This is so good, so good.”

  I mustn’t have been quite sure of what she meant, because she crossed the floor and stood close to me.

  “She is a lovely young voman and I am pleased, pleased. This is the right way, not the other way, the other way was bad and wrong, this is good. Oh, yes, and I am going now to make you such food.”

  Mrs. Haas, when she first met me, told Venetia that the fates had intervened and that the “right man” had arrived. Apparently, those two spent most of their lives discussing the possibility of a loving life partner for Venetia. When my father showed up Mrs. Haas had wondered at first if this was indeed the direction that the world had chosen—but then decided that my father had been only the pathfinder, which is where Venetia got that idea.

  She turned and marched back to the stove, beside which she had arranged all her pans and ingredients, and o
nce again I heard her noises, this time a small song, almost beneath her breath. As she began to cook she looked at me again and winked, then went on arranging pans on the stove. I stood and watched—and she turned, looked gravely at me, and said, “Run away. The two of you. I don’t know how you vill do it. But run away.”

  Mrs. Haas stood over me as I ate the bacon, the eggs, the potato cakes—the mound of food. Now and then she muttered, “Strength, strength.”

  I felt some undercurrent; I couldn’t say what it was. If I’d known enough, I’d have said I was being oversensitive, that all my senses were now heightened and everything magnified. If I could sum up what I felt—Mrs. Haas was showing an unseemly sense of triumph, and I knew not why.

  When I finished the first batch of food, she strode across, took my plate, went to the stove, renewed my plate, and came back. I didn’t protest. As I began to thank her, she looked away at something else, and began to step backward; her face had turned white as a gravestone.

  I looked where she stared. Three people, one behind the other, blocked the wide doorway of the kitchen. Nearest me stood the man with the black hair oil, from the cottage, from the secret blue-shirted drilling. He was holding a rifle with a shining wooden butt and he had pointed the gray-blue barrel straight at me. Behind him stood King Kelly. And behind him, holding her face in her hands as though expecting something awful to happen, stood Sarah, Venetia’s mother.

  Everybody froze. The tableau stayed rigid for maybe ten long seconds. I felt some food coming back up my throat into my mouth, a sign of intense fear. My stillness—which came from fright, nothing else—may have persuaded them that they were dealing with somebody of a cooler and braver temperament. King Kelly spoke.

  “Go closer,” he directed the gunman.

  “No,” said Mrs. Haas, who began to scream.

  You have never heard a scream like Mrs. Haas’s. She opened her mouth just as the gunman put the muzzle as close to my left eye as he could without actually impaling me on the gun.