by Helen Cullen
To think of that schmuck in Fibbers last night, shouting at Murtagh for wearing a Horslips badge at a Blades gig. I hate that we are all supposed to pick a side, march in just one musical tribe and scoff at anyone who plays for a different team. “Music is a whole universe,” I shouted at him, “and you’re stuck in one spot listening to the same song on repeat.” I thought he was going to slap me for a second, felt Murtagh tensing beside me, but then he screamed and poured a pint of cider over his own head and dived back into the mosh pit.
Poor Ma, if she could have seen me.
She tried to hide a Mary Immaculate statue of holy water in the pocket of my tuxedo jacket that she sent me. I think Ireland is the one place she doesn’t have to worry about a shortage of holy water. I hid Mary I. on the bookcase behind Edna O’Brien. I don’t want her judging me and know Edna would understand.
For Maeve, music wasn’t entertainment. It was an ointment, a lighthouse, a hot-air balloon. When she sang along with Ian Curtis, she felt legitimate. Like the rage she felt wasn’t unique to her alone; that others suffered, and others survived. The songs allowed her to articulate what she felt but often struggled to find words to express. She shivered to think of what might have become of her in the past if she hadn’t incubated her troubled mind with the songs of Nina, Bowie and Leonard. They made her feel less alone when no one knew what to say to her, the right questions to ask or advice to offer; inspired her to perform; made her long to get better. Eventually the fear of never creating art herself somehow became more powerful than the fears of facing the world again. They could never know it, but on many nights these musicians saved her life.
It gave her such pleasure to see the albums from home integrated now with those she’d collected that summer; records she’d found trawling markets with Murtagh and those that had been for sale at gigs and signed by the band themselves. TV Tub Heart by The Radiators from Space was signed by Philip Chevron and Pete Holidai with a red lipstick Pete had found in the pocket of his leopard-print fur coat, and Bob Geldof and Pete Briquettes had scribbled across The Boomtown Rats in a barely legible blue pencil. The albums were stacked now in a red crate in alphabetical order. To be handled with care. She changed the record on the player to The Rads and continued the letter to her parents.
Don’t worry, nothing bad has happened. Only good things. But, those good things do mean I will be away from you a little longer. I applied to transfer my final year to Trinity and they’ve accepted me, and honored my scholarship, too, so I’ve accepted. I know you will feel I should have discussed this with you first, and I’m sorry that you haven’t had more warning, but I didn’t want us to spend hours discussing something I know I have to do. You couldn’t have changed my mind and I didn’t want the pain of us arguing while you tried—especially when I didn’t yet know if I’d been accepted.
There are so many reasons I want to stay. You know about Murtagh, of course, but I promise, much as I love him (and I’m convinced that I do), he’s not my only motivation for staying. I feel like, in three months, I’ve settled down here in a way that I could never manage at home; I’m more grounded, peaceful, in control. It helps that everyone expects me to be that way. At home I feel like my personality is all wrapped up in how sick I was.
People looked at me and saw that first.
And it’s not their fault.
Here, people see the theater student, the vinyl collector, the poet, Murtagh’s girlfriend, the American, the actress; so many different things, and none of them are the sick girl, or the other far worse things we know some folks called me.
I can’t express how free that makes me feel. My body now is a vehicle for me to live and be happy in; not something I inhabit resentfully, judging it based on how I see others judge it.
Maeve lay down on the bundle of clothes that sat on her bed and considered how to proceed. She flicked through the pages of her journal, pausing every so often when a date, or a doodle, or the tone of her handwriting caught her eye.
May 15
Murtagh is still sleeping, curled on his side, both hands tucked under his pillow. I didn’t notice last night that his pillows are covered in tiny daisies. Sweet.
I can’t resist leaning over to kiss that strange little tuft of blond hair that grows on his right shoulder blade, but he doesn’t stir. Such a deep sleeper, when I awaken at the slightest thing. He’s so close, but couldn’t be further away inside his secret, private dreams while I wait for him in the waking world.
I hope things won’t be strange between us when he wakes up, that last night wasn’t a disappointment to him. It felt to me like all the electricity that had been crackling between us somehow imploded when we touched.
It all suddenly became very quiet.
Maybe we were both just nervous.
I hope I didn’t imagine the sparks.
She smiled, remembering how moments later Murtagh had woken up and, without saying a word, took the notebook from her hands, dropped it on the floor and pulled her to him. And what came next was the opposite of silence.
Later she had read Keats to him while they both lay naked in bed.
Darkling I listen; and, for many a time
I have been half in love with easeful Death,
Call’d him soft names in many a musèd rhyme,
To take into the air my quiet breath;
And from that day on he often called her his darkling, whenever what he really wanted to say was I love you.
June 25
Murtagh met his mother for afternoon tea at Bewley’s on O’Connell Street today. He didn’t invite me along. Too complicated, apparently. It seems you don’t get introduced to the folks here until wedding bells are ringing. That’s what Finola tells me—I’m so lucky to have made a friend like her. I never dreamed I could build these connections in such a short space of time. That I could create my own family here.
I guess the fact that Murtagh didn’t invite me to meet Mammy means he has doubts about me.
I guess I can understand—the ticket for my flight home is pinned to the bulletin board over my bed like a warning sign not to get too close. We don’t talk about it, but the question lingers between us, especially when friends discuss plans that are happening after our expiry date. Sometimes I wish he would ask me to stay, or admit how he feels about me leaving at least, but he shies away from that sort of chat.
I couldn’t resist getting a look at his ma, though; Finola and I crammed into the phone box outside to watch her arrive, her heavily hairsprayed perm giving me compulsive sneezes. It was strange seeing Murtagh standing waiting, how lost he looked when no one was watching, and then witnessing the smile that turned on like a flashlight when the woman we assumed was Mother Teresa bustled over to him.
She was all sewn up in a navy two-piece suit, cream blouse with a pussycat bow and pillar-box hat firmly secured over tight silver curls. A formidable gray leather handbag was tucked under her right arm; it matched her shoes exactly and there was no doubt she was wearing pantyhose, despite the heat. They didn’t kiss, or hug, but she immediately fussed with the tie he’d grudgingly worn and pulled his chin toward her to frown at the golden beard he has started to grow. I had thought it would be funny to see them together, but it just left me sad for how much time we spend pretending to be what others want us to be. Does Mrs. Moone’s behavior make her happy? Or is she behaving the way she believes a mother should? Has she been trained to behave like that by another unhappy mother before her?
Maeve never told Murtagh that she’d spied on him; in advance she had presumed she would but, in reality, it had felt like a betrayal that she didn’t want to admit to.
What she didn’t know was that he had seen her and Finola hiding in the telephone box but had pretended not to notice. He assumed she had her reasons, and reasons for the silence that followed, but he didn’t ask.
Maeve closed the diary without reading a
ny more; the entries from the recent weeks were too familiar to hold any surprises or nostalgia for her. With a sigh, she returned to her letter.
So, you know Finola? Well, she and I are moving into lodgings in Rathmines; what Ms. Hoskins, the terrifying landlady, calls “respectable accommodations for respectable ladies.” The university scholarship covers my board there, and you would love her—it’s still the 1950s in her house—so you’ve nothing to worry about.
I’ll be so nervous before speaking to you on Sunday, but please don’t be too disappointed in me and please don’t try to change my mind. I am so happy with how things have evolved, but I would love your blessing.
She signed off, leaning heavily on the pen nib, as if it were possible to impress all her love on the page with it, and then rested her head on the desk, exhaling slowly. She folded the letter carefully into an airmail envelope and sealed it.
Maeve turned her face toward the wall and picked at the remnants of Blu-Tack that remained following the removal of her Zeppelin and Ziggy Stardust posters. What she told her parents was the truth; this summer, she had metamorphosed. Six days out of seven, her legs worked perfectly fine. She could shower, get dressed, crimp her hair, buy bananas, catch a bus, go to rehearsals, make small talk, walk past two wild cats fighting over an abandoned sausage roll, use a public toilet, queue in the post office, stir sugar in her coffee without her hands shaking, keep some food down.
Maybe even nine days out of ten. But expectation of a slip prickled her skin like the tag left inside a new dress.
On the windowsill sat two red ceramic Wellington boots that Murtagh had made for her in his workshop; each held a cactus: Spike and Mike. It gave her so much pleasure to sit quietly in the studio watching him work at the wheel, always self-conscious at first but slowly connecting with the clay to the point of forgetting she was there. Observing his deep concentration was meditative in itself, as if she were in the company of grace.
She placed the letter between the cacti for safekeeping and tied the curtains up so she could clear the windowsill of the miscellaneous objects she had assembled there: eggshell-blue eggcups, lavender candles, a tiger-print pencil case, a cellophane bag of costume jewelry, Polaroid photographs. She would miss those ugly green-and-white curtains, she decided; they had set the stage of a whole new world.
Dublin: September 18, 1978
ON AN UNSEASONABLY warm Tuesday, Maeve came undone. Like so many times in the past, it wasn’t a major obstacle that triggered her, but a tiny wrinkle.
Rehearsals finished early and she lagged behind, foraging in the kitchen for a piece of fruit while she waited for Murtagh. A strawberry yogurt slipped from her hands onto the yellow tiles and, in that moment, she could not stand up to herself anymore.
Watching the sticky pink puddle spread and coagulate in the grout caused her knees to weaken. A dampness to form on her hairline. Her heart to pound. A dry mouth. Trembling hands.
Her vision blurred as the fluorescent light bulb seemed to grow as large as the sun.
Maeve crouched in the corner on a pile of old newspapers, counting backward from one thousand, her eyes squeezed tight.
Nine hundred and ninety-nine.
Nine hundred and ninety-eight...
Clasping her hands between her knees, she stamped her feet on the tiles to stop herself from floating away.
Nine hundred and sixty-six...
The thought of Murtagh waiting outside made her shoulders heave.
Eight hundred and forty-two...
She counted louder, beating out the rhythm on her thigh with a clammy fist.
Eight hundred and twenty-seven...
Eight hundred and eleven...
Eight hundred and one...
Seven hundred and ninety-nine...
Voice scratching.
Seven hundred and thirty-three...
Her breathing slowly steadied.
Heartbeat settled.
The dizziness in her mind calmed, and she risked opening her eyes.
The room was still, and she felt numbness tingling in her fingers and toes.
Questions buzzed around her mind like angry wasps.
Why? What? How? When?
Murtagh arriving and waiting outside.
In the new light, she felt ridiculous as she cleaned the tiles, and reprimanded herself for losing it over something so trivial.
Where the yogurt had been, the yellow tiles gleamed, exposing how dirty the rest of the kitchen floor was. So, she remained on her hands and knees and kept on scrubbing. Tried not to think of Murtagh still waiting.
When she was done, her purple nail polish was faded and chipped, her hands red raw from the detergent. She plunged them deep in the pockets of her leather jacket as she walked home.
Reluctantly, Maeve acknowledged the warning to herself and prepared a mental checklist of what must come next.
Rest
Nourishment
Exercise
Peace
If she was careful, things might not progress. Sometimes she found a way through before the fog completely descended. She would listen to music, read, get out into nature, practice her yoga, sleep, eat well. It was not always enough, but she could try.
* * *
When Murtagh collected her to go to the movies the following evening, he didn’t comment on her absence the previous day. His eyes asked the question, though, and there was a soft hurt there, but she chose not to answer it. Glad that in the cinema they wouldn’t have to talk as they focused on The Buddy Holly Story. He walked her home after the film, as usual, but unusually, she didn’t invite him in. “A small headache,” she offered, and he accepted it with a sad nod. She sat up all night at her desk, rehearsing lines she already knew by heart, afraid to look out of the window, unable to close her eyes.
She hated herself for the doubts she gave him, but wasn’t ready yet to tell him the truth.
To test the depths of his feelings for her.
And she already loved him too much to lie.
Thirteen weeks and two days later
MURTAGH STOOD UNDER Clery’s clock on O’Connell Street. He shuffled a few feet to the left and tilted his canopied gray umbrella back, craning his neck to see how many degrees those golden hands of time had swept through since he had last looked. The department store was adorned in white lights for Christmas, with festive scenes painted on the windowpanes and garlands of tinsel stretching between the doorways. A statue of Santa Claus leered at him from atop a green papier-mâché sleigh: How long are you going to wait, you silly fool?
Murtagh gazed at the GPO, trying to imagine the scene at the post office when from its steps the Irish rebellion declared the country a republic. He remembered his father pushing his fingers into the bullet holes in the stones: “Can you hear the gunfire, son? Close your eyes and picture what it was like.” He pretended he could to show his father he loved him. The memory drew a terrible loneliness upon him as the droves of shoppers, buskers and tourists jostled past. It was six o’clock now. The whole city was ready for its tea. Himself included.
A punk, dressed top to toe in black leather and studs, nodded to him as he maintained his own impatient position at the next window. He clutched a bunch of wilting snowdrops wrapped in tinfoil, the flowers’ hue echoed in the white stripe running through his Afro. When his date turned up, resplendent in what appeared to be a pink lace wedding dress, Murtagh gave him a discreet thumbs-up and the punk winked in return. It was gratifying that his own floral Led Zep–inspired blouse and corduroy flares hadn’t come between them.
The arms of his brown leather mac squeaked when they brushed his sides. Aggravating. It called attention to how many times he turned to look at the clock. He squeezed and released his toes inside his brogues.
Tap right foot.
Squeeze toes.
Release.
Maeve was late again.
Tap left foot.
Squeeze toes.
Release.
But this was particularly bad. Even for her.
Turn to look in the window.
Rotate to face the GPO again.
And repeat.
Annie Hall had started twenty minutes ago. He wondered if they could use their tickets at eight o’clock instead. Not that it mattered if they were late; Maeve had already seen it so many times she could recite most of the lines by heart. She had been so excited to hear it was running at the Ambassador again. Tentatively, he poked the brown paper bag of chocolate peanuts squashed in his pocket. Where was she? If she hadn’t arrived by seven o’clock, he would telephone her lodgings. Brave speaking to Ms. Hoskins.
She didn’t approve of gentleman callers.
Or gentlemen at all, it seemed.
The dread of it gave him patience.
At seven fifteen, he bundled himself inside a telephone box on the corner of Henry Street. On a little silver shelf, plastered in stickers for club nights, pornography and taxis, he counted out a pile of five ten-pence pieces, dialed the number committed to memory—2272111—and counted the rings as they echoed down the line. He could picture the receiver of the glossy black Bakelite telephone where it sat outside Ms. Hoskins’s room, trembling with the attention of his request. Positioned anywhere else, she wouldn’t have been able to eavesdrop on every call her tenants received. In his mind’s eye, he saw her oak-paneled front door opening wide, exposing the floral chintz calamity of her busy living room, and Ms. Hoskins emerging with a self-importance that belied her lilac paisley housecoat, furry pink slippers and fading auburn hair set in curlers.
And yet, the door didn’t open.
The call disconnected and his coins clattered back to him.
Could he risk it a second time? He would! He would eat the peach.