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Introduction to THE KINGSWOOD BLACK BOOKS

THE KINGSWOOD BLACK BOOKS forms the second


subcycle and comprises the four novels, THE FOURTH
MAN, LUPITA, CROW STATION and SOLOMON’S
DREAM. The origins of the tetralogy lie in an initial
unconscious impulse in the 1960s which only came to full
conscious in the early 1980s, after the trilogy, NOTHING
DARKER THAN THE LIGHT, had been completed.
In a very real sense, perhaps owing to the way in which the
first elements of the tetralogy – which now form much of
THE FOURTH MAN – came into being, the biography of
Richard Butler is an unavoidably provisional affair. Little of
it has been revised – and that only for reasons of clarity of
sense – and even less has been rewritten. Each novel had in a
way only one chance of being written and we get only what
could be captured on the first attempt.
There is no standard against which Richard Butler can be
measured. He exists in a void, and his whole world therefore
exists in a void. That is the nature of freedom.
The interesting question for me now is this: does the reader
get more than one chance to read the tetralogy?

THE FOURTH MAN – Introduction

This in a way is the first novel. It was not conceived as such


but it was composed in most of its parts before THE WHITE
CITY, the first novel to be written as such. THE FOURTH
MAN has roots in stories begun in the sixties and composed
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from then until the early eighties. A mixture of overweening
ambition and fundamental spiritual timidity would have
prevented the realisation of the work before the NOTHING
DARKER THAN THE LIGHT trilogy had been completed.
However, once the novel had been compiled, its four by four
structure was seen to provide the underlying structure for the
whole cycle of novels. The Introduction to the DARK
LIBERATION cycle can be found under that name.
THE FOURTH MAN itself is the first novel of the Richard
Butler tetralogy, THE KINGSWOOD BLACK BOOKS,
which comprises the second sub-cycle of the whole series.

THE FOURTH MAN – Summary


The novel is about the sentimental education of an Irish man,
Richard Butler. Given the limited possibilities of the
biographical novel, the experiences of Butler are conveyed by
means of sixteen episodes that concentrate on the key
incidents in his life between childhood and his mid-thirties.
These sixteen episodes are arranged in four sections of four
episodes each. The sections are not titled but they concern, in
turn, the family, the group, the social, and the individual, the
final section indicating the meaning of the title of the work:
the moral imperative that we achieve (what can best be called
for now) individuality.
THE FOURTH MAN is an attempt to achieve a sense on one
hand of the fragmentary nature of modern life, the experience
of disconnection and decentred-ness, yet on the other hand,
the intense aura of significance that accompanies certain key
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experiences in this alienated life, and how by reflection on
these intense moments some sense can be made of our lives
by tracing the implicit connections between these moments.
A number of narrative techniques have been used to achieve
this end, ranging from first and third person narration,
variable focus on Butler, rhetorical devices like figuration,
reinforcement and connotation, and a variety of settings in
Ireland, England and Europe. It is hoped that THE FOURTH
MAN succeeds in conveying the early life of Richard Butler
in a convincing way, and that it also provides for the reader
an example of how we ought to interpret the moments of
illumination that occur in all our lives.
THE FOURTH MAN is about 84,000 words long.

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THE FOURTH MAN

PHILIP MATTHEWS

© Philip Matthews 1984

5
EPISODES

Apple 8
Friday Afternoon 12
Passion 19
Edge 31

II

Dancing in the Dark 44


Bona Festa 72
In the Land of the Prodigal 112
Return 134

III

Snow 163
True Love 180
Masque 203
Strict Neutrality 225

IV

Inertia 233
Chance Meeting 298
Űber etwas, űber irgend etwas 307
Rehearsals 315

6
I

7
THE APPLE

8
The tiff that was the cause of the fight between Jimmy
Sullivan and Richard Butler occurred quite suddenly during
one of their childish games. Antipathies in their natures
predisposed them to it.
But by the time Gussie Hanrahan had found a quiet
spot in the lane behind Richard’s house and had arranged the
rules of the fight, both had forgotten the reason for it. The
result was that while Gussie performed his role as referee
with gusto – as leader, by age, of the group of boys he was
used to assuming it during times of conflict – Richard stood
to one side of him, arms slack by his side, faintly
embarrassed by the prospect of action, for it was his nature to
be passionate of mind and word and, beyond necessity,
thoroughly inactive in the world. Jimmy, who faced Richard
from Gussie’s right side, managed to put a good face on it, a
ferocious one; for though he was more puzzled than
embarrassed by the prospect of a fight, a memory of the
emotion of the tiff remained in him to give authority to his
grimace and flexed arms.
The remaining boys in the group stood in a semicircle,
with the wall to complete the rough ring, and displayed
various degrees of interest in the proceedings.
Just when Gussie thought he had worked everyone,
including himself, up to the proper pitch, Richard’s younger
brother appeared at the backdoor to their house and in all
innocence shouted to tell him that mother was home. By
reaction Richard made his excuses and ran the short distance
to the door and up the garden to the house. His mother had
just laid down a large shopping bag and was smiling in relief.
In the matter of fact voice she used with the two boys, which
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mingled mockery and pleasure, she complained lightly of the
weight of the bag and wondered why they didn’t arrange to
come and meet her and help her with it. As she had made this
suggestion many times before the boys merely smiled, their
eyes flickering from her face to the bag on the table. She
caught these glances, and laughed. She produced two large
red apples and handed one to each of them. Richard took his
and bit into it immediately, his hand tremoring with tension.
A warm feeling of anticipation flushed his body as the
thought struck him that now his mother was home from her
shopping, tea would soon be ready. By then his father should
be home and they would sit around the table together, as they
did every evening.
He heard Gussie’s impatient voice calling him. He
quickly thanked his mother for the apple and dashed up the
garden path. She automatically called after him to care he
didn’t dirty himself. His brother chose to sit on the grass in
the garden and eat his apple in the sunshine.
Almost half the apple was eaten by the time he
rejoined his friends. Jimmy was still stanced, ready for the
fight. Gussie grasped Richard’s shoulder impatiently and
squared him up against Jimmy. Seeing the apple, he pulled it
from his hand and told him to fight now. Then he released
Richard, stood back and shouted ‘Go!’
Jimmy hit Richard one panicky punch low down in the
solar plexus. Richard’s eyes glazed as he staggered back to
the wall. Jimmy stood watching him, hoping the fight was
over and he had won. Some of the audience complained that
the punch had been a foul and appealed to Gussie to do
something about it.
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But Gussie was busy gorging the apple. (Except for the
core, for he believed that apple seeds were poisonous.)
He took one final look of satisfaction at the butt before
throwing it away. As he licked the last of the juice from his
lips he took note of the situation and cried ‘Foul!’ Then he
announced it was time for tea and led the gang up the lane in
the general direction of their homes.

11
FRIDAY AFTERNOON

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Brother Desmond made a quick flourish, of relief, on
the board with the chalk as he scratched the figure two: the
last piece finally unravelled from the jigsaw of the equation
for the benefit of his pupils. Then he turned on his heels and
walked quickly to the window and looked out. The day had
remained calm and bright: early spring. On the third floor of
the new wing: Dublin stretched away below him to the west,
a grey waste of low slate roofs extending as far as the reddish
bulk of the brewery. Very few trees were to be seen, but
luckily those few were directly below, bordering the
playground: plane trees, squat in this temperate climate, buds
clearly seen at this height.
Brother Desmond sighed. The city still puzzled him,
even after twelve years. Perhaps it really frightened him.
He spun on his heels, soutane swishing through the air.
Some of the boys had finished copying the equation into their
exercise books and were gazing docilely before them. Brother
Desmond scanned the forty boys. When he came to the big,
straw-headed boy at the back, he paused. Instinct told him
that this strong, gangling youth would very soon become
rebellious. He could see it growing in his eyes as a kind of
terror.
It was the age they were at: twelve going on thirteen.
Brother Desmond didn’t know why. At least, he didn’t think
he did. He could not remember himself at that age. Living in
the country had perhaps made a difference. What he
remembered most clearly from his teens were the evenings on
the playing fields, a hurly in his aching hands, staring at the
bright sky with the euphoria of exhaustion.

13
And then there was Corrigan. Nothing but the foulest
filth issued from that slack, reptilian mouth of his. With him
there would be trouble of another sort. Already he had had to
move him three times since Christmas. He couldn’t punish
him, for he couldn’t draw attention to the boy’s peculiarities.
He had spoken to Brother Robinson, the Head Brother, about
him, and had been told to try to understand the lad’s tastes.
Understand? Tastes? That hadn’t helped at all.
Most of the boys had finished copying the equation by
now. Brother Desmond glanced across at the electric clock
over the door. Five to three. He would wait one more minute.
He knew who would be the last in finishing: Purcell. Grime
ingrained into his neck and his skin glazed as a result of an
unhealthy diet. His stupidity was a goad, though Brother
Desmond knew it was really apathy. Twice already this term
he had thrashed him, stung beyond endurance by the youth’s
inability to answer even the most elementary question.
He turned back to the window and gazed up at the
puffs of cloud approaching from the southwest. Against his
will, the desire for the open country surged in him. Dark
woods and bright meadows: the lowing of the milch cows in
the evening light. Sometimes the structures of the abstract
knowledge he imparted day after day escaped him and he was
left hollow and vertiginous. Then he would remember his
father’s voice out in the byre, encouraging the cows or
bullying the dog, and he would crave the simplicity of
childhood.
‘Now.’ He spoke the word to the world at large beyond
the high window, though intending it to draw his class’s
attention. All but a few had transcribed the equation. He went
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to the board and began to rub out the figures, starting at the
top and working his way slowly down. He was conscious of
both punishing the slower boys and yet of teasing them. He
did not have to look around to know that they were now
scribbling feverishly. Charitably, he left x = 2 untouched.
He turned to the class and buried his hands in the folds
of his soutane. ‘Now,’ he said in his baritone southern accent.
‘For Monday do the first six questions on page twenty six.
The example I have given will show you how they are to be
done.’
Higgins, one of the seen-to-be-bright boys occupying
the front desks, immediately raised his hand and piped
ingratiatingly: ‘Please, Brother, could you go over it again? I
don’t fully understand it.’
Brother Desmond gave him the hard eye. ‘What don’t
you understand?’ he said, unwillingly warming to the boy.
When Higgins opened his mouth to speak, his eyes bright
because of the attention he was receiving, Brother Desmond
cut him off by saying: ‘Well, go up to the board and do the
first question.’
Higgins blanched, but then he manfully took hold of
himself and carried the thick algebra book to the board.
Fussy, conscious of being in everyone’s sight, he picked a
fresh stick of chalk from the runnel under the board. To the
unbounded delight of the class it broke as he laboriously
wrote the first figure. However, he solved the problem
without any trouble, which didn’t surprise Brother Desmond.
‘Sit down, Higgins.’ The boy slipped happily back to
his desk.
It was ten past three.
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‘Open your history books.’ He went to his desk and
lifted out a pile of exercise books, ignoring the scramble as
the class searched schoolbag, case, even paper bag, for the
appropriate book. He sat down, watching them sternly, and
waited until quiet had settled once again on the room.
‘O’Callaghan,’ he barked suddenly. A red-headed boy
with a long freckled face started and leaped to his feet.
‘Yes, Brother?’
‘When was the battle of the Yellow Ford fought?’
O’Callaghan blushed a bright crimson and began to
twist his fingers. Everyone in the class knew why the
question had been asked. Every period began with this
tension as corrected work was given back. They knew there
could be some very grim post-mortems.
The boy gulped and tugged the lapel of his blazer.
‘1593?’ It was a question. He had written 1596 in the test on
Wednesday.
‘Butler,’ Brother Desmond snapped. ‘Tell him.’
Butler wasn’t paying attention. He had been gazing out
the window. Nevertheless, he got slowly to his feet and said
in a dry voice, while yet half erect: ‘1598.’
Brother Desmond was aggrieved that Butler knew the
answer. It was a kind of victory for him.
‘Right. Sit down, both of you.’
O’Callaghan disappeared as though a trapdoor had
been sprung under him.
Brother Desmond stared at his class for a while, then
he spoke sarcastically, for he was as weary as they:
‘For Irishmen, you know precious little about the most
tragic period of your history. Most of you, and not only
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O’Callaghan, got the dates wrong. One of you, who remains
nameless, even included the massacre of Drogheda in the
wars of the Ulster Princes.’ He paused. ‘It is not good
enough. I think I would be justified in punishing three
quarters of you for the slovenly work done on Wednesday.
Instead, I give you fair warning that I will set a paper on the
same subject on Monday and that I expect you all to write
perfect answers. Do you understand?’ Forty heads nodded.
‘You have the weekend to study your books... Remember, I
will make no allowance.’ He paused again, letting his words
sink in. He felt the rising tension in the room. They know
what to expect, he thought with a certain finality.
‘The sooner you understand that the man who does not
know his nation’s history cannot claim his place among his
people the better.’
He brought his open hands down on to his desk with
hollow thuds.
‘Now, move up three to a desk and I will read the
chapter to you.’
The cloud of apprehension evaporated as quickly as it
had formed. The boys at the back came forward and squeezed
into the front desks, so that the class crowded up close to
him.
Half-three. Fifteen minutes to go.
A flash of movement caught his eyes. Caden and his
sweets.
Brother Desmond opened his dog-eared history book
and looked down at the woodcut of Hugh O’Neill:
VGO
CONTE DI TIRONE.
17
Tomorrow they played the Brothers of O’Connells on
the playing fields at Dolphin’s Barn. He could hear the hard
leather ball strike the ash and hear the cries thin and urgent in
the open under the bright spring sky.

18
PASSION

19
The three of us had been away, rambling, talking and
poking about, not quite sure of the object of our escapade,
through a wood at the edge of the city on one of those long
summer evenings when the sun sets over a period of hours in
a blaze of white light.
They were evenings of grace, when the inhabitants of
the city – well, my parents, at any rate – would sit out in their
gardens and enjoy the relief of the cool air and the security of
a cloudless sky, it being a rare thing. Though if the flies
became too much of a nuisance, or my mother grew
apprehensive of the bees that buzzed very audibly among the
roses and chrysanthemums, they would go indoors and sit in
the front of the house, where the sun never shone at all, and
watch the bright sky with greater ease.
But for my part, I was in my early teens then, I could
not be easy. As an evening such as this came on, and the
compress of the heat of the day was dissipated, I would
become restless. Something in the outside world seemed to
call to me and I would well up inside and go to meet it.
It was usual for the three of us, Ben Scott, Tommy
Hagan and myself, to venture out of the old suburb in which
we lived and make our way through Harold’s Cross and
Terenure, our eyes always on the mountains before us, at
least mine were, until we came to this wood, when, realising
the impossibility of reaching the foothills in the time we had
available, we would decide to wander through it. The
evenings, long as they were, were not endless.
But the mountains were always my secret objective. I
knew that there, high in the clear air, I would find peace.
Tommy, as I had come to recognise, would go where-ever he
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was led; he would always desire for himself what others
desired for him. He would go far in the world, and he did, for
he could take a hint like nobody else I knew. Ben, on the
other hand, was a different case. He was older than Tommy
or I, going on seventeen at the time of this particular incident,
and much taller; almost a different species in fact. Where
Tommy and I were slim and brown headed, he was heavy
boned and blond, with a pink, pockmarked face. And where
his expression was one of strained attention, accentuated by a
slight cast in his right eye, Tommy’s was one of
watchfulness, knowing already in his fourteen years that most
of the important things occur on the edge of vision, where the
masks begin to dissolve. My expression, if photographs of the
time are of any use, seems to have been one of apprehension,
a form of watchfulness also, although defensive and lacking
in ingenuity.
Tommy had joined my class at school a year
previously, coming with his family to Dublin from
somewhere in Munster, his father, a civil servant, having
been promoted.
We came out of the wood and stood at the edge of a
rough meadow that sloped down to a ruined boundary wall. It
had been part of an estate once upon a time. We stood there,
bits of stick in our hands, which we had used to slice through
the lower branches of the trees, staring non-plussed at the
evening, realising perhaps that it was almost at an end and
that our duty, or so it appeared to us in our disappointment,
had been done and that we could go home and look forward
to tomorrow as a new day.

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It was Tommy – of course – who spotted the girls.
They were sitting in a corner of the meadow, close to the
wall, their heads barely showing above the tall grass. And
once he had told us, our attention was riveted to the spot
where they lay. The evening turned about and the light which
had been fading flared and intensified on our eyes as we
peered down towards them, so that we were obliged to squint.
Ben took two steps ahead into the long grass and halted,
gazing down. Then he turned and beckoned us abruptly with
his hand, his face deeply shadowed in the light, his eyes
glistening and odd, the cast no doubt creating this impression.
Tommy moved quickly enough, but I hesitated. Behind Ben’s
authoritative gesture I sensed bravado. He had lost his mother
six years before and it was said that his family had become
wild as a result, his older brothers being the example to prove
this observation. Ben, the mother’s favourite, was thought to
be more restrained and considerate – hence the reason for his
being allowed to be my friend. But I had always doubted the
sincerity of his consideration, sensing that it sprang from
helplessness; for why else would a youth of his age seek
friends among us who were nearly three years his junior. I
was afraid of him, because of his helplessness: he was also
more inclined to discuss things with Tommy than with me,
because, as he said a number of times, I looked at him too
intently while he spoke. Perhaps he was conscious of the cast
in his eye; perhaps he thought I indulged him, as my parents
did. He never realise that I was afraid of him and was trying
hard to anticipate him, though what I was to expect I didn’t
know, much less what to do in defence.

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Ben set off down the meadow, making a great deal of
noise, followed by Tommy, who picked his way carefully
through the flattened grass in his wake. Throwing my piece
of stick away, I trailed behind, looking about me, wondering
what had happened to the evening – everything had been
thrust at a distance and had become strangely merciless. The
sky was greatly enlarged, the colours drained from it so as to
leave only the harsh white light.
Ahead of me, Ben called to the girls in a casual voice
that tried to embrace. One of the girls squealed, and I knew
instinctively that they had seen us coming out of the wood
and were lying there waiting for us. Why had they not stood
up and come forward to meet us, I wondered, or at least
moved away? We had never approached girls before in this
manner, though we had often passed groups of girls in the
wood or the public park nearby, when we had given them no
more than a searching glance. Besides, what sort of girls were
they to sit alone like this in the dusk?
When I reached the spot where they sat, Ben was
standing over them, pushing his stick into the ground and
pulling it out with effort, his large hands embracing the top of
the stick. Tommy stood a little to one side of him. He rested
his stick on the ground, holding it with one hand while the
other was jammed in his trouser pocket.
Ben was laughing, his nose high in the air as he averted
his face, hoping no doubt that they would not see the cast.
The girls too were laughing, plucking at the long grass as
they did. Tommy smiled, and smiled.
For my part, I was terrified by the sight of them. They
were so restless: laughing, fidgeting and pulling
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unconsciously at the grass. One of them, seeing me, pointed
at me and cried:
‘Here he comes, Paddy Last!’ and shrieked with
laughter, in which the three remaining girls joined.
‘Paddy Last,’ Ben repeated, his mouth twisting slightly
as he grinned.
Tommy bent forward, Ben blocked his vision, and
smiled, his eyes twinkling.
‘And what are four girls doing sitting in a lonely place
like this?’ Ben asked rhetorically.
‘We’re waiting for the last bus,’ the oldest girl replied.
The four girls screamed with laughter and made eyes at
each other. Ben, imitating his religious teacher, smiled a
smile at the horizon before looking directly at the girl who
had spoken.
‘Where do you live?’ he asked her, this time speaking
in his normal voice, though it was edged with strain.
‘What do you want to know for?’ the girl retorted,
speaking to him alone and scrutinising him. Ben continued to
watch her, but did not reply. He clenched his stick, which
was stuck deep in the soil.
Finally, with a toss of her lank, dark hair, the girl
replied, ‘Kimmage.’
Ben sighed and pulled the stick out of the ground. Then
he went and sat beside her, his legs crossed under him.
Tommy, moving with alacrity, hunkered down in such a
position as not to align himself with anybody, girl or boy.
I remained standing, looking at the girl who was
nearest to me. In awe I saw that she was gazing up at me.
Though I was sure she was older than me, sixteen or
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seventeen, she did not seem much taller than me. She had a
thin face, pale, with a small pointed nose above compressed
lips. Her eyes were a dull blue and wore a dazed expression.
She had on a hand-knitted cardigan of green wool that was
faded in comparison with the translucence of the olive green
buttons that held it fastened about her. The collar of her dress
was turned out over the cardigan; it emerged again at her
waist and was spread out over her legs and feet. Though it
was freshly washed, it had not been ironed.
Timidly I sat down beside her and said ‘Hello’ lamely.
She nodded to me, biting her lower lip as she did. She
was pulling frantically at the grass beside her.
In the small space of time between joining the group
and sitting down with them, the world had taken several more
violent turns before me. In the twilight the landscape had
finally come to rest at an immense distance from me, even the
white light had ebbed appreciably; but most of all I felt as
though I was suspended naked in a place as dark as it was
light, for the darkness was pierced by light, and the
brightness throbbed with shadow. And I was glad of it,
content with it, for all I had to do now was reach out and
touch the hand that rested on the grass beside me, and things
would remain as they were and I would not be frightened.
But the hand jerked away when I touched it. I said something
which I knew instinctively would reassure her, though what
the words were I did not know. Again I grasped the hand, and
this time it remained in mine, quiet and unmoving, as I
wanted it to be. Then I squeezed the hand, and feeling the
response, hesitant as it was, I was filled with peace.

25
When I focused back on to the world, I saw that Ben
was lying over the girl he was with, kissing her. She had her
hand in his hair; the other was out of sight, trapped by her
side, I assumed, by the weight of his body. His stick lay to
one side, where he had tossed it.
Tommy was hunkered down, leaning on his stick,
facing the two remaining girls, who talked quietly together.
He appeared to be unmoved by it all.
Suddenly Ben’s girl pulled away from him and sat up.
She looked at him for what seemed a long time, amused by
his confusion. Then she pushed his arm away and stood up
and brushed her dress down.
‘Home, girls,’ she said loudly, ‘we’re keeping these
children from their beds.’
In the twilight her face seemed drawn and worn: she
must have been in her twenties. When she turned I could see
that the back of her dress was hopelessly creased; it struck me
as being absurd that a girl could dress like that in public. I
wanted to laugh at her, but the sight of Ben’s face stopped
me. What pain there was in it!
I released the hand of the girl beside me. Mutely, she
scrambled to her feet and joined the other girl. I was vaguely
embarrassed to see her standing there, separated from me.
As the girls moved away through the grass, the big girl
shouted back: ‘Mind you go straight home to your mammies
now. And don’t get lost in the dark.’
Two of the girls linked her on either side, the
remaining girl, the one I had sat with, linked the girl on the
right. Abreast, they marched through the grass towards the
boundary wall, singing at the top of their voices.
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We watched them go, at least I did, and I’m sure Ben
did, for he was so attentive as he looked in their direction and
rubbed his lips together. I suspect Tommy watched us, or the
sky; but whatever he did for those five minutes, he did not
look after those girls as we did. After all, what was the use?
When they had finally disappeared, through a gap in
the wall, and their singing had become a murmur, Ben turned
to Tommy and said:
‘That was a change, eh, Tommy?’
He clapped him on the shoulder.
‘Well, it’s getting late, we’d better head off home.’
Tommy smiled at Ben, who was looking about for his
stick, and then smiled at me. But I, being aware of the
moistness of my hand, glared back at him. I wanted no
conspiracy with him.
When the stick had been found we set off in file
through the grass, Ben leading, with Tommy immediately
behind him, angling away from the direction the girls had
taken. We climbed over the wall at a point where it had been
reduced in height by a fall and landed in the public park.
Ben paused for a moment to look about him, tapping
the side of his shoe as he did. Back and forth his eyes
swivelled: I guessed he was looking for the girls. Naively, I
thought he was living in hope. I was: but it had very little to
do now with that slip of a girl.
Just then a cyclist came whizzing along the path, head
down, pumping with all his might on the pedals. Ben chose
this moment to resume walking. I shouted to the world at
large to look out. (Where was Tommy?) The cyclist looked
up. Seeing Ben in his path, he swerved away on to the grass,
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one foot dragging along the ground. Ben leaped back, raising
his stick in fright. The cyclist arced back on to the asphalt,
braking his slithering machine furiously.
‘Watch were you’re going,’ Ben bellowed after him
and swore violently.
The cyclist managed to stop. He placed his two feet on
the ground and looked back at us.
‘You blind bastard,’ Ben raged, ‘you nearly killed me.’
His pink cheeks deepened in colour, showing up more clearly
the pockmarks high on his cheeks.
The cyclist dismounted, pushing the bicycle onto the
grass and laid it on its side. Then he turned to face the
approaching Ben.
‘You should keep your eyes open,’ the cyclist said
dully, peering into Ben’s eyes. He was slightly taller than
Ben, and older, but slimmer.
They stood facing each other, both squinting in the
poor light. Tommy, quick off the mark as usual, sidled up to
Ben and stood at his side. He placed his hands behind his
back and allowed the stick to dangle. I hung back. I could
find no entry into what was happening; and even with my
limited appreciation, I was not going to join Ben and Tommy
in fighting this stranger, with such little cause.
The cyclist bent down slowly, not taking his eyes off
Ben – he ignored Tommy – and pulled out his bicycle clips
and slipped them into his pocket. Ben broke his gaze and
stood back, and began tugging his jacket off. The cyclist went
over to his bicycle, stripped off his jacket, folded it and laid it
across the saddle. When Ben had his jacket off, Tommy was
beside him, his arm outstretched to receive it.
28
Incredulously, I realised what was happening. I still
stood some distance away, barely able to see the contestants.
Tommy came across to me and said, ‘You keep an eye on
that other boy’. He narrowed his eyes meaningfully,
completely in control. Before I could reply, he had returned
to the fighters.
Not knowing any better, I went and took my place
beside the bicycle. The owner threw a glance at me, but I
must have seemed harmless to him, for he returned his
attention to the business of rolling up his sleeves. Ben, his
arms hanging loosely at his sides, waited for him.
For fifteen minutes they stood up to each other,
punching and slapping and whirling about on the grass. They
fought at first without a sound. Soaked in perspiration, their
hair was splayed across their faces. Ben’s shirt was torn at the
armpit, while his opponent had lost some buttons when Ben
had clutched at him on one occasion to keep his balance. The
right eye of the cyclist was swollen and already darkening,
but he had bloodied Ben’s nose. Towards the end, Ben,
sensing victory, began to cry out as he struck his opponent. It
was an animal cry, beginning with a grunt and becoming a
loud sigh as his fist struck home. The cyclist remained silent
as he fought back.
Finally, Ben charged in and pummelled the cyclist,
who was forced to retreat. He tripped and fell back, his head
striking the ground. As he lay dazed, Ben leaped forward and
stood over him, his two fists bunched and jerking as his
muscles throbbed. Looking down at the figure he straddled,
he whimpered and then jammed his lips together. All at once

29
he opened his fists and walked away towards Tommy and his
jacket.
Assuming it was my duty, I ran forward to help the
cyclist to his feet, intending to administer to him as best I
could. But he was on his feet before I reached him, rubbing
his knuckles and gazing up at the sky, as if he was
experiencing the first tremors of pain.
Ben came back, his jacket gripped in his left hand. In
silence, he extended his right. The cyclist gravely took it and
they shook hands.
Passing me on his way to his machine, the cyclist
nodded. I nodded in return, realising as I did what had been
required of me: I should have brought his jacket to him.
Ben was standing on his own. There was no sign of
Tommy.
‘I shouldn’t have beaten him like that,’ he said.
I realised with shock that he was crying. His eyes
shone with tears as he spoke, snuffling the blood in his nose.
‘I shouldn’t have done that to him. But I just couldn’t
help it.’
Now I know why Tommy had gone off. As I saw it, he
had little use for such passions; not where he was going,
anyway.

30
EDGE

31
The consensus of the group was that they should go
round by road to the hostel in Glenmalure. Only Richard so
far had not agreed.
There was still the clatter of breakfast-making,
coughing, a grudged, chilled shuffling. The gas-rings used for
cooking had done little to warm the air in the long bare room.
The atmosphere was testy: habitual comforts were missed. It
would be counted a good weekend afterwards by most, but at
the moment many asked, privately, why they had volunteered
to put themselves out like this.
‘It’ll be like a tomb...There’s turf there?’
‘And paraffin...Last week.’
In any case Julie was warden: she had to get there
early. There would be others coming over, from Imaal and
Valleymount. She had to be there. You couldn’t expect
people to sit around in the snow waiting for her, hungry and
exposed.
No one was arguing with them, still they gave one
another good reasons for going by road rather than over the
mountain. Richard cleared up after his breakfast and went
into the dormitory to pack his ruck. The curtains were still
drawn, the air not warm but close and soporific.
‘Bloody freezing.’
Someone lay under a pile of blankets on one of the
lower bunks.
Richard drew the curtains with deliberate abruptness.
‘It’s almost ten.’
‘Oh bloody hell.’
When he returned to the kitchen with his pack, he was
asked, ‘Aren’t you coming round by the road, Dick?’
32
Richard dropped the ruck by the door. It was only then
that he saw that the sun was shining into the room. The light
was yellow. He snatched a shallow breath, the better to push
through his own torpor. He opened the door.
‘Hey! Shut the door for God’s sake!’
Derry Bawn scintillated above the forest. The snow at
his feet was crystalline in the sunlight. The sky was brittle
pale blue. It hurt his eyes. The sharp cold pinched his dry
unshaven face.
‘Dick...’
But the air was like chilled wine: clear and biting,
without flavour or scent.
‘Some of them aren’t ready yet...Shay is only coming
out now.’
Barry was rubbing his eyes with his red meaty hand.
Alcohol had weakened them. Paraig was in shirt-sleeves,
shivering.
The ridge above ran clear to the west against the sky,
an unbroken gleam of crystal.
Julie came out into the light. Richard breathed in
deeply for the first time. The heaviness across his face was a
barrier: his eyes were still warm with sleep.
‘Aren’t you coming along the road with us, Dick?’
She felt as he did, Richard could sense: they all did.
Inwardly, there was an intensity: the clear cold air and
brilliant slopes heightened some part of them. It rose up and
up, wanting to expand without limit. It was like a long, long
scream – of terror, of joy: a terrible joy that rose up without
end, striving for goodness knows what.

33
Richard heard it in his own voice: ‘No. I’ll go over.’ It
was there at least – his face was still pinched – a low but
precise timbre. He felt he was wrapping himself around these
words with such a powerful intention. He was momentarily
on the other side of the torpor: he could walk a thousand
miles today.
‘Oh...On your own?’
He put his boot down on to the snow beyond the door.
It crunched with a finite precision. He had entered that world.
It was simple: flat blue sky, crystal slopes, flaring buttery
sun. He locked into it, and then felt what was left over in
himself – what was not simple.
‘Yes.’ His voice was still precise: but it had an
overtone of assertion now. It was the complex part of him
that was torpid. It was a jumble, known to be an entity only
through its desire for expansion. The assertion was made on
behalf of that desire: Richard realised he had become hostage
to the desire of his complexity.
Julie heard the assertion too. She knew there was no
point in attempting to match it. ‘Be careful, Dick.’ She was
chagrined by the simplicity of the frozen world. It was an
unnecessary challenge: it excluded so much.
‘Excuse me...Are you going up there? May I come
with you?’
Heavy handknit polo-neck, corduroys, embellished
brogues. Richard looked at the camera hanging at his breast.
‘I want to photograph the deer in the snow.’
‘They’ll be down in the forest.’
‘Oh...’ Fondling the taut strap. ‘There’ll be other
animals.’
34
The camera is the motive, Richard saw.
‘Sure...Are you ready?’
‘Just get my anorak and bag.’
Richard stepped out on to the virgin snow. The torpor
was gone. Already he saw the mountains through the eyes of
the youngster. The camera and the animals that might be
photographed short-circuited joy and terror and the rest of the
jumble. The mountains became picturesque.
‘I’m ready.’
‘Let’s go then.’
Richard led the way down past the hotel and along the
lower lake, under the trees, working up a good pace. The
youngster drove himself to keep up, head down in
concentration. Out in the sun again, on the path beside the
upper lake, Richard pulled up the sleeves of his jumper and
shirt, rolling their ends back under to keep them above his
elbows.
‘Don’t you feel the cold?’
‘There’s no wind.’ On his own or with the usual group,
Richard would not have rolled up his sleeves. He had done it
because, thanks to the camera, the mountains were
picturesque. He wanted to fill the limits of that.
‘Maybe I should take my anorak off?’
‘Would you feel warm enough?’ Richard glanced at
the camera.
The youngster caught the glance. He looked at the
sheer slope on the other side of the lake. The jutting pines
were blue-green against the snow.
Richard saw him subside within his zipped-up anorak,
his brown corduroys and shining brogues. The
35
picturesqueness now had its boundary in the youngster.
Richard was outside that boundary. The mountains were
irrelevant: the desire in him was suddenly expanded, the
jumble gone.
‘What’s your name? Mine is Dick Butler.’
‘Tony...Tony Hackett..’
‘Well, let’s go, Tony. You might get something to
photograph up there.’ Richard pointed towards the bare ridge
beyond the lake, etched against the pallid sky.
Above that ridge there was another ridge. Its
remoteness accentuated by the long narrow valley that led up
to it. The snow was blinding. Tony looked up the broad slope
of Lugduff to the left, but Richard said, ‘We’ll go up the
valley. You might see something here.’
The slope was unbroken white, a desert. Tony nodded
and followed Richard along the valley floor, beside a stream.
Richard knew that the slope was the direct route over,
but he abhorred the idea of traversing that plane: it would re-
immerse him in the picturesque. He preferred to work
towards the high ridge: it reduced the world to a line, to an
edge.
At the very top he heard Tony suck in his breath. His
eyes were wide, with both wonder and fear. The world was
mountain-peak after peak, all white, silent, still and remote.
The camera clicked a few times. Tony stared again, this time
puzzled.
‘It’s hard to catch with a camera, isn’t it?’ Richard
said. Tony was trying to restore the picturesque. ‘They’ll look
like eggs.’
Tony nodded. ‘There’s no depth.’
36
Richard unslung his ruck and took out a bar of
Bournville. He broke off half and offered it to Tony.
‘I have my lunch here...Thanks all the same.’
He took out some tins.
‘You should keep those till this evening. The food will
make you lethargic. Do you have any chocolate?’
Tony took out a paper bag. There were sweets, bars of
Milk Tray, Kit-Kat. Richard extracted a bar of Milk Tray.
‘Eat that – while you walk. It’s too cold to sit about.
Come on.’
Richard walked on. Tony hurriedly repacked his
haversack and ran after him. The few minutes alone among
the bare mountains had worked on him. He feared the
attenuation. Breathlessly he asked:
‘Where are we?’
‘That’s Conavalla over there. We’ll go up there. To its
right is Table Mountain. The Glen of Imaal is below it.
Behind you – over there – that’s Tonelagee. Then
Mullaghcleevaun – Moanbane. You can see Kippure beyond,
where they’ve put the television transmitter.’
‘What’s that over there?’
‘Lugnaquilla.’
‘That’s the highest one, isn’t it?’
‘Yes. It doesn’t look it?’
‘No.’
‘It’s just a big lump of granite from here.’
Tony stared at Lugnaquilla, the highest mountain, then
he relaxed. The remoteness was gone, and with it his fear of
the attenuation.

37
‘Don’t chew the chocolate. Let it dissolve in your
mouth.’
‘Don’t you feel hungry?’
‘No. You let your stomach close up. That way you stay
fresh.’
‘There’s a ton of stuff here.’
‘You haven’t climbed before?’
‘No – my father gave me the camera for Christmas.’
‘You shouldn’t bring tins. Too heavy.’
‘My mother...’ Tony snorted maliciously.
On Conavalla, Tony shouted:
‘Look! There’s someone else. Over there.’
Richard studied the distant figure striding rapidly
across the snow, climbing the long slope of Lugnaquilla.
‘Conor McNally.’
‘You know him?’
Richard smiled. ‘I’d know his walk anywhere.’
‘Where’s he going?’
‘Up on to Lug. But it’s a bit late in the day for that. I
suppose he can’t resist – he loves these hills.’ Richard turned
away. ‘Come on. We’ll go back towards Lugduff. You might
find something to photograph there.’
They came upon the tracks of a fox, which Tony
photographed. Richard spotted a hare bounding down
towards Glendalough. He pointed it out to Tony. Later, they
heard deer barking in the distance.
‘Can we go over there, Dick?’
‘They’re down in the forest above Glendalough. You’d
never find them in there.’
‘You’d never know.’
38
Richard shrugged and led the way towards Mullacor.
When Tony saw the extent of the forest, he sighed with
disappointment.
‘Come on, we’d better think of going down.’
He led Tony back towards Lugduff, sighting from time
to time at Lugnaquilla. They worked slowly along the
shoulder. Tony hitched the straps, of his haversack and
camera, with increasing frequency as he tired. By the time
they reached the point at which Richard said, ‘Down here’,
the day was ebbing and a powdery light was flaring above the
col between Glenmalure and the Glen of Imaal.
Sensing Tony’s growing dejection, Richard said:
‘This will bring us down near a foot-bridge over the
river. The hostel is beside it.’
In the dusk, what had been remote now began to seem
alien. The gloomy mountains were withdrawing into
themselves.
Richard saw Tony’s compressed mouth and realised he
had never seen true night before.
‘The night is always like this, Tony. Everywhere.’
The slope became steeper. Richard was tempted to
forewarn Tony, to share it with him, but he knew it would
serve no purpose. Instead, he said casually:
‘Follow in my footsteps, Tony. Don’t try to see things
more clearly. Let your eyes relax. Let your body follow the
evidence of your eyes directly. Don’t interfere consciously.
Don’t think about it.’
Richard kept to the steep slope as much as he could,
avoiding the temptation of the level protrusions. He couldn’t
judge whether the snow covered a rock or a bush of gorse.
39
‘Walk crabwise, Tony. On the sides of your boots.
That’s it. Change sides. Regularly but not too often. Follow
my footsteps.’
Then it was dark. The snow was phosphorescent. It
created a warm sensation.
The slope was becoming more littered with
protrusions. Richard felt himself grow numb and spread out.
Don’t think.
In the starlight Richard’s eyes began to discern the
difference between the snow covering rocks and the snow
covering bushes.
He began to tread the rocks and skirt the bushes. He
concentrated only on maintaining an even pace, so Tony too
would become mesmerised by his feet.
Now he leaned back, feeling his way steadily down the
slope. Stepping on to rocks, he worked his way back off them
at an angle, back towards the slope. His track twisted back
and forth, like a serpent, but he felt Tony follow closely, as
though following the radiation of his presence rather than the
intricate details of his footprints.
Then the bush became more dense. Snow flurried
against Richard’s arms and face. Thorns snagged his clothes.
The ground could no longer be seen.
‘Dick...’
Richard became conscious of the silence. His name
marked the silence by its absence. Then he became aware that
he was negotiating a steep slope in the snow at night.
The world turned, vertiginous.
But his feet went on finding their way.
‘Sing, Tony.’ If one of them slipped. ‘Out loud, Tony.’
40
‘What? What will I sing?’
‘Anything at all. A pop song. Anything.’
Tony mumbled drily, stricken.
‘Louder...louder!’
‘She loves you, yea yea yea. She loves you, yea yea
yea...’
The singing filled up the silence. The world became
the square inches around Richard’s boots. Outside that, there
was a terrible void.
Tony sang Danny Boy. Richard accompanied his boots,
twisting and turning from rock to slope to rock, pressing
between the bushes, avoiding the thorns as best he could.
Tony followed closely, singing hoarsely, voice breaking,
always out of key.
A light flashed below.
‘Look, Dick! A light!’
‘Diiiiick!’
The call was faint, its echo fainter.
‘Keep singing!’
‘Okay, Dick. A paaale moon was riiiising upooon the
greeee...’
There were fewer rocks now. The slope was less steep.
Soon the bushes would thin.
The light was steady below, shining in their direction.
Their tracks were less twisted now. Richard
deliberately slowed his pace. The temptation to run was very
great. They would trip out of exhaustion long before they
reached the valley floor.
He cleared the bushes. The snow was like milk below.
‘Diiiick!’
41
‘Yeeeooooh!’
The torch swung and lit them. Richard waved.
‘Okay, Tony. You don’t have to sing anymore – if you
don’t want to.’
The beam of light was unsteady at that distance, but it
lit the ground before him.
He was no longer leaning backwards. The muscles up
the back of his thighs were clenched.
He rolled down his sleeves.
Tony came down to his side, his arm grazing
Richard’s.
‘The hostel is there. Not far beyond the torch.’
Tony nodded, a tired but trusting gesture.
The snow, frozen again, crunched under their feet.
‘Was it dangerous, Dick?’
‘Nothing happened.’
Tony looked up behind him.
‘Is that why the others wouldn’t come over this way?’
‘No. They would have crossed further down the
valley.’
Tony studied Richard, seeing him for the first time. He
wondered what Richard had been doing.
‘What were they afraid of, then?’
Richard smiled tautly. ‘What do you think, Tony?’

42
II

43
DANCING IN THE DARK

44
Jane said, ‘You won!’ She said it with uncharacteristic
elation. As an expression of radical triumph, Richard felt it
should have been more assured, more exultant. ‘You won,’
she repeated, as though subliminally aware of Richard’s
reservation. ‘You beat her, Richard.’
Walking towards the sea-wall in the midsummer dawn,
Richard glanced at Jane beside him. She was excited: but a
compressed excitement, veiled behind her quick intelligence.
She spoke as an observer, Richard suddenly realised.
She praised his victory; she did not express the benefit such a
fundamental clash ought to have brought her. The
displacement made him uneasy. He had no sense of victory:
but Jane ought to be more deeply affected by what she
regarded as a defeat of her mother.
They sat side by side on the sea-wall, looking across
Bull Island towards Howth Head, where the sun was rising.
The waves of excitement radiating from Jane were the more
intense because they originated in her intellect rather than in
her emotions. She held his hand in her habitual deliberate
way, but she was nonetheless self-absorbed – still, Richard
now saw, working her way through the implications of the
night-long clash. Watching the fiery line of the horizon,
Richard attempted to follow her mind.
After thirty minutes he had become aware that Jane’s
mother was dominating the working of the ouija board. Then
he saw her naked, released by alcohol or some drug,
dominating Jane, her stout friend and her nineteen years old
brother. He had set out to thwart her for their sakes. They did
not seem conscious of how they were being subordinated and
restricted by the purely egotistical desire of Mrs Blake. At
45
first, he simply diverted the pointer to an adjacent letter in an
arbitrary manner. Mrs Blake became aware of the new
control over the movements on the board, but it took her
some time to pinpoint Richard. She did so only when she
realised that he was no longer shunting the pointer arbitrarily.
His finger controlled its movements, but he no longer
controlled his finger. He heard Mrs Blake hiss, and looked up
to find her glaring at him with round enraged eyes.
Even so soon after the event, Richard could not
remember clearly what had happened then. Mrs Blake had
carped at him behind the pretence of continuing to play her
game with Jane, Sheila and Edward, trying to intimidate him
while hiding her own desire from them. Richard couldn’t
remember what questions were asked or what answers were
given. But there must have been some sense in them, because
it was only when Mrs Blake drove the pointer right off the
board that they realised something was wrong.
Sheila went home then; Edward went into the kitchen.
Richard, though possessed by the antagonism, had answered
Jane’s mother with assured clarity, identifying himself with
the truth of his own insight. Then Richard was in the kitchen
talking to Edward, drinking tea, a more muted and
competitive antagonism between them: a resentment on
Edward’s part; in Richard a desire to pierce the more
pervasive feeling shared by the whole family, a sullen, dark
brooding over a past wrong that turned them inwards,
downwards and backwards. Then Mrs Blake again, in the
bare untidy kitchen, rancour without name or reason. Edward
over by the sink, fiddling with unwashed cutlery...And Jane?

46
Richard had averted his eyes from the risen sun
without knowing it...Jane?
Oh God, Jane!
He jumped down off the wall onto the compact tidal
sand.
‘Come on,’ he said. Jane jumped and Richard caught
her in his arms. Holding her, he was aroused suddenly by the
intensity in them both. Barriers fell away within him; he felt
the spaciousness of the morning.
Jane thought he was exultant too. She said, ‘She had it
coming to her, Richard.’ She squeezed him in her precise
way. Her eyes were precise too: sincere but deliberate. ‘You
did it. I knew you could do it, Richard.’
It was a statement of appreciation. It contained
gratitude for what he had done to her mother, but it was
merely an objective summation.
Oh Jane! In his spaciousness, Richard crushed Jane
within his arms, trying to transmit his deep spirit to her. Then
he released her and looked down into her eyes. His heart
expanded: it shone in his eyes.
Jane! Jane!
She returned his gaze, caressing the nape of his neck
with her fingertips.
It exploded in him: ‘I love you, Jane. I do.’
She smiled, the bliss modified by her consciousness of
the gestures. Then she pressed her cheek to his.
‘And I love you, Richard.’
Yet his expansion found no echo in her. He held her,
the after-shock of his declaration throbbing in him, but stiffly,

47
feeling that her responses were not sufficient to meet his own
release.
As though waiting for this instant, Jane pulled her head
back and looked at him reachingly.
‘Richard. Richard,’ she said, drawing his full attention
to her. Richard felt his searching expression become
expectation of revelation as he looked into her eyes. Their
precise expression of her intellectual control added an
intensity to his expectation. He gasped at the beauty he saw
in her eyes.
‘I want to have your children, Richard.’
Her eyes remained precise, underlining the sincerity
she projected in her voice.
Children! It cut through everything in him, putting a
name, a motivation, a future on his expansion.
‘Oh Jane, Jane...’ Richard’s heart was full: there was
substance in it now.
His own mind leaped and he said:
‘We must go away, Jane.’
His expansion took her up now. He was conscious that
he would always have some reason for whatever he would do
in the future.
Then he realised that he could do anything he wished.
He kissed Jane, hugged her, held her, a unity in him:
here now in the dawn and in the substantial future before
him.

When Pauline recrossed her legs he heard the familiar


low rasp of the meshes as her nylons slid one over the other.
48
By association, Richard sensed the solidity of her, the
immediate presence that was rooted in her body of flesh and
bone and blood.
Pauline sensed his response. She ducked her head, her
permed hair bobbing neatly. The fingers that held the
cigarette bent, her curved painted nails coming to point back
towards her breasts as just that particular angle.
Richard reached for his glass on the low table. He
drank the stout, then felt his arm press hers as he lowered the
glass to his lap.
The toes of her suspended foot came up. He gazed at
the bright shine of the tip of her shoe.
The sexual tension in him reached its crisis: could it
grow outwards or must it be curbed and dissipated within?
Then, as always at this point, he remembered that it was
Pauline who had created this specific situation in the
beginning, and who had accepted it on their first night out by
simply opening her thighs when he touched her knees.
The crisis past, Richard breathed deeply and looked at
Pauline with hazed euphoria. She laughed: her dark blue eyes
dancing, her rounded cheeks dimpling, her mouth open, red
and moist.
Richard laughed with her, as happy as she was, as
content to wait. Then, responding to the limitation of the
moment, he looked around the crowded cellar lounge. In the
low red light, the flushed skin, the rounded bodies, the play
of gesture were familiar. He saw it all clearly from behind the
screen of his euphoria. He could read the meaning of every
sign there, how a glass was held, the disposition of a body,
the colour of a blouse, the fingers clutching an earlobe. He
49
could understand the whole room because it was part of the
limitation of the moment.
Pauline’s voice came to him behind the screen: ‘What
do you see, Dick?’ Her voice was expectant: Richard was to
break the spell of the place. Then they would leave.
Aware of her arm against his and her thigh against his,
Richard gestured with his head: ‘There...Do you see how that
girl sits?’
‘With the red hair?’
‘Yes...That’s her boyfriend beside her, on her left. She
sits with her body angled so that her head is towards him.’
‘Yes...’ Pauline nodded, her eyes keen in the dim light.
‘The fellow facing her is her boyfriend’s friend. See
how her body is presented to him. She points her hip at him
and has crossed her legs so that he can see the line of her
thigh. Wait...When she puts her glass down. Watch...She lays
her arm along the curve of her hip and thigh, and spreads her
fingers a little over the roundness of her thigh.’
‘And?’ Richard felt Pauline’s thigh press his as she
leaned forward.
‘She leaves her breasts clear...’
‘Uhh...yes.’ Pauline’s fingers clutched at his knee. She
grasped the danger there at once. ‘Her boyfriend...’
‘He can’t see. She forces him back in his seat.’
‘The other fellow...He’s watching her.’
‘He’s not conscious of it...Ha, Pauline,’ Richard turned
to look at her, smiling. ‘Neither is she.’
He felt Pauline’s body start beside him.
‘No?’ Her eyes widened, surprised yet ready to laugh,
expecting Richard to find a joke there.
50
Richard paused, his eyes quizzical. Mirth bubbled on
Pauline’s lips. She gazed at him, waiting. Suddenly she
frowned slightly, as though a shock rippled through her. At
the same time she realised that the scene he had described
was not funny.
Pauline uncrossed her legs and Richard stood up.
Out in Grafton Street, Richard stretched himself and
said, ‘Let’s walk out.’
Pauline kept her face mobile as she watched him. ‘I’ll
pay the taxi, if you like.’
Richard looked up at the twilit sky. ‘It’s not that. It’s
midsummer.’ He looked at her, smiling to reassure her. ‘The
sun doesn’t set this time of year. Wait till you see’.
They walked out, Pauline linking his arm, leaning
slightly against him. Richard, euphoric still and full of the
evening, talked easily, not listening to himself. He felt
Pauline’s weight against him, from shoulder down to his hip,
and felt the mass of her breast on his arm. Gradually the
roads became empty of traffic and silent. Pauline’s heels
clicked on the pavements. Richard rubbed leaves between his
palms, sniffed them and offered them to Pauline to sniff also.
The sun set and the residual midsummer glow remained,
moving around the northern arc towards the east.
Richard’s talk petered out, like a charge run down.
They walked in silence, Pauline’s heels clicking, Richard
absently smoothing leaves between his fingers. He became
aware of Pauline’s contentment, her here-and-now
satisfaction with an adequacy that was sufficient in itself. By
reaction, he felt his own expectation and his certainty of
fulfilment. He glanced at Pauline, seeing the familiar shape of
51
her, from her tidy hair and characteristic nose, to her
particular style of clothes, formal rather than fashionable, and
the sharpness of her patent-leather shoes. Pauline caught his
glance and turned to him, laughing, her eyes dancing. He
moved towards her, feeling their union of adequacy and
expectation, of contentment and fulfilment. But when he
embraced her, he felt a nameless anxiety invade him, so that
instead of expressing affection and contentment, his embrace
became a demand for closure and reassurance.
Pauline was surprised by the urgency of his embrace.
She squeezed him once, then lifted her head and sought his
eyes. For the first time, Richard saw her from the outside. He
saw that mirth was her chosen persona, and saw also what he
had known from the beginning, when it had been a virtue,
that he could not be dependent upon her. He could depend
upon her, as she depended upon him, but there was, because
of the nature of their mutual dependence, a strict limit beyond
which she would not help him.
Pauline stepped away, her eyes twinkling, watching
him.
He stared back, sensing the apprehension in her. But he
realised that this apprehension was abiding, and that it was
overlaid by a... He couldn’t put a name on it, because it
seemed so many things. Confidence, defensiveness, an
assertion, an understanding of something utterly beyond
him... Then he saw her more clearly and sensed her
acceptance of something. And the hurt that underlay that
acceptance.

52
Pauline moved in some small way and it hit Richard: it
wasn’t that she wouldn’t help him beyond a certain point, she
couldn’t help him, no more than she could help herself.
The anxiety rose in Richard again. To keep outside the
vastness of the mood, he projected himself back within the
limits of his relationship with Pauline. But relief was
momentary only. The limit Pauline had placed on their
relationship could include only part of him. The limit existed
because she had a history of her own; there was an event in
her past which defined her whole life. What she aroused in
him and satisfied frankly had its origins in that event.
Because of all this, Richard realised, he was also defined for
Pauline by this event.
Pauline tilted her head to one side, appraising him with
her twinkling mobile eyes. She thinks she know what I’m
thinking, Richard thought. Pauline looked very happy at that
moment, though it was a helpless kind of happiness, that
might not last and which she was grasping fully for its
present value.
Then she smiled. It was fatalistic, the other side of
acceptance: she was encouraging Richard.
Why had she created the desire in him? Why had she
chosen him to bind with this gift?
Richard smiled back, feeling the anxiety recede as the
consciousness of her gift drew him back within her orbit.
She had done it because of something in him that
corresponded to the origins of her history: an event in his life
that made them equals.

53
He nodded his head in understanding. Pauline reached
for him and said: ‘I’m dying for a cup of tea. We don’t have
far to go now.’
When he asked himself what the event in his life was,
the anxiety loomed again. In the face of that, he could do
nothing else but press her arm in against his side and say
insinuatingly: ‘Let’s hope your mother is asleep tonight.’
Pauline turned to him in a compulsive way and
exploded in mirth. She broke from his grasp and threw her
arms heavily about his neck, pressing herself to him, letting
his arms around her take the whole burden of her body.

In the lull, before conversation took the place of the


music, Jane chanted: ‘Why don’t they all fa-fa-fade away.’
Then, without incongruity, she took up the backing refrain:
‘Talk-ing ‘bout my gen-eration.’ Turning to Richard,
abstracted bliss on her face, she repeated, imitated the song
itself: ‘Talkinngg about my gen-eraaa-shuuun...Myy gerer-
ashuun.’ She shook her head, as though wondering at her
own silliness.
Richard moved in his own bliss, feeling her presence
beside him, light with the proudfulness of his own happiness.
‘I like that song, Richard,’ Jane said to him
confidingly, deliberate within her own abandonment.
Illustrating, she sang to him: ‘Why don’t they all fu-fu...’
laughing again, the keen, deep desire surfacing in this dark
room, the hum of conversation rising in the background.
Richard read volumes in what she said. He saw the
whole dark bloc she gestured towards in her abstraction. The
54
specifics of the bloc rose before him, the parts he knew
named but the part that haunted Jane unnamed. Buoyed by
her presence, he faced the bloc and then in his imagination
turned his back on it and faced the future. It was clear blue,
pure possibility for him.
He touched Jane’s slim, so-precise hand with his
finger-tips, feeling it to be an ample gesture, redolent with the
promise of so much for his whole sense of his own existence.
The amplifier squawked. The voice boomed in the
bass-bias, though it wasn’t loud. Then the music started
again, drowning the voices around him. The first notes of the
tenor saxophone thrilled Richard. He gestured on Jane’s hand
with his finger-tips and she turned back towards the dark
square of the dance-floor.
Light and shadow played across Jane’s face as they
turned and turned. He felt in the way she held him, not too
close and not too far away, the measured balance that gave
him a sense of his whole rhythmic self as well as the sense of
what she was for him. His bliss merged with hers at every
point, but nothing in their individual selves had to be
abandoned or ignored. She moved her head, looking at the
dancers nearby, abstracted, turning and turning to the music.
He delighted in the awareness that informed the movement of
her head, the steadiness of her eyes and mouth.
Suddenly, the music, the rhythm, Jane, himself, and
their future rolled up into a single ball of pure unadulterated
happiness. He sighed deeply, drawing Jane to him,
instinctively maintaining the balance between them and the
third thing, the promise. She moved her arms around his
shoulders and neck, fondling the hairs on his nape, her chin
55
pressing into the soft niche below his collar bone. His pure
happiness expanded and expanded until, the appetite satisfied
or the ball drained, it began to slacken and the dim room take
on shape again. As it slackened, so Jane drew back, and when
it had finally melted away, she turned and led them off the
floor to a table away from the band.
Jane had to peer slightly to see Richard. The air of
silliness was gone. ‘Where will we go, Richard? We have no
money.’
The power of her promise was such that, even deflated,
he did not lose confidence. ‘Away,’ he said evenly, to show
her that confidence.
‘Don’t be silly, Richard.’ Jane spoke in a tone that did
not challenge his confidence. She wanted to draw his
attention to her own concern. ‘Away where?’
‘Anywhere.’ He looked at her, not smiling, wanting her
to trust him.
‘How would we live?’
Richard saw that she was looking downwards, not
backwards as he first suspected. ‘We’ll work.’ But she should
look forwards, so he added: ‘To start with, anyway.’
Jane frowned and Richard saw for the first time that for
him there seemed to be another future beyond the future she
had given him. There was something after the ‘to start with’.
‘England?’ Jane asked. Richard felt she was caught in
something, but he couldn’t name it.
‘Yes. England.’ And ‘to start with’ echoed there too.
‘Daddy is in Leeds. I could stay with him.’ She looked
at him, and Richard felt he was the circumference to her
centre. ‘Could you find work there?’
56
‘Why not?’ Richard added the tone of confidence to his
voice this time. He saw by the way she looked vacantly out
towards the dance-floor that she had committed herself to
leaving Dublin. At least that. He sat back, letting her look
away and think.
He knew what he would say next, when the time came.
It would be crucial. Her father supported his family in
Dublin. But she was prepared to leave her mother now.
Jane turned back to him. With a stab of sympathy, he
reminded himself that she was only seventeen. He leaned
forward, prepared to press her up to his own level of
emotional awareness: ‘Jane.’
But she said, her voice a little lost, the consciousness
of her commitment steadying her: ‘When will we go?’
He embraced her with his sympathy, feeling the
strength of his three years’ seniority and his willingness to
face all the possibilities their being together brought. ‘I have
to give a month’s notice.’ He searched her face, to bring her
out to him. But she seemed lost in her awareness of what they
were deciding. ‘I’ll give it tomorrow.’
Now she looked at him, searching his eyes. She saw
what she wanted to see, yet to Richard’s surprise and, more
tenuously, to his delight, she accepted what he offered, as
though as a matter of course, while remaining unmoved. He
was glad she accepted it, because it was all he could give her
at present for the inevitability of her situation. He was
delighted she was unmoved because the situation he
sympathised with was one that must be overcome.

57
‘I’ll write to daddy tomorrow.’ She touched his cheek
and stood up. She swayed, then quickly expanded her
awareness to her body and her surroundings.
Richard leaped up. ‘Are you alright?’ In her calming
gestures he read the state of her emotions. They compressed
and compressed her.
‘The gin was stronger than I expected.’
‘It’s too strong...’ he gestured towards her head, alert to
the overload on the word ‘gin’. Her mother drank gin. And it
was the first time Jane and he had been in a pub together.
‘Let’s go then. The air outside...’ His words failed again as he
sensed the simplicity of the emotion that pressed her. Though
it was powerful and weighed heavily on her, he didn’t want
to fragment it into specifics or cause her to concentrate on
only one contributing factor. For good or bad, he believed it
should work through it as a whole.
Outside in George’s Street, Jane said, when Richard
turned to the left: ‘No, Richard. Mother won’t let you into the
house again.’
Richard smiled wryly. ‘I expected that. I was only
going to walk you into town so you could get a taxi.’
Jane seemed to be searching the deserted street.
Around her mouth was uncharacteristically slack. She
swayed again, and just as quickly brought it under control.
Richard took her hand.
‘Can we go up to your house?’
‘Sure.’ Richard reactively stepped closer to her in his
delight at the prospect of spending more time with her. ‘Will
we get a taxi – or do you want to walk?’

58
‘Walk.’ She turned to the right, leaning on his hand.
‘Richard...’
Richard put his arm around her shoulder. He saw that
she couldn’t let it out. He spoke to get her attention, ‘Jane.’
When she looked up he saw that she was miserable behind
her habitual light. Richard bent to her and spoke fervently:
‘It’s alright, Jane.’ He squeezed her shoulder and buried his
face in her hair. ‘It’s alright.’ His feeling was like an agony.
Something was wrenching and wrenching his heart. ‘Oh, I
love you, Jane. I love you.’
Jane swooned into his embrace, her cheek against his
chest. Concerned about her as the wrenching eased, Richard
strained his eyes downwards to look at her. Her stare was
stony. There was no light. The wrenching returned, but now it
was as though it had been turned over. The agony was cold,
implacable, immovable. He felt it push in between them.
Jane looked up. ‘Will we go now? It’s chilly. I’ve
practically nothing on me.’ She looked down at the short
party dress and her bare legs.
Richard had to moisten his mouth before he could
speak. ‘Maybe you should go home, Jane.’ His only concern
now was for her. There was something they had together,
even if cold implacability was part of it. He was suddenly
terrified in case some small trivial thing, like a chill, should
destroy it. Jane was as fragile as a glass rose for him just
then.
‘No.’ And the light was in her eyes again. She looked
at him. The light in her was fanned by a sudden surge of
conviction: ‘I want to stay with you, Richard.’

59
Richard’s heart somersaulted again. He took her hand
and began walking. The future he had lived with for a week
now shrank until it was defined by the bend in the road a
hundred yards away. But that was enough for him at this
moment.

Pauline suddenly said, though it was obvious to


Richard that she had waited for the right moment to say it:
‘She was a virgin. That’s why she was shy – of the other
fellow, I mean.’
She had surrendered her woollen jacket because of the
warmth of the evening. She felt exposed in white blouse,
wine cotton skirt, wine shoes and tan nylons. Richard could
see that from how she held her arms, stiffly, elbows jutting
slightly. She was an indoor person, a rosy light, rosy glow on
her cheeks, body over-warm and lubricious.
Richard caught the implication of what she had said.
‘Do you think so?’ He had suggested taking a walk, because
of the heat, rather than going to their usual haunt. Without the
alcohol and the intimacy of the cellar lounge, there was no
euphoria. Instead, there was an edgy conflict in him, a
temptation to be wilful. ‘I thought she didn’t want to know
what was going on.’ He looked at Pauline. She, too, was
edgy. But she was passive before it, not wilful. Richard
realised that her strength, and power, lay in her acceptance.
‘She seemed the sort of girl whose virginity lies between her
ears.’
Pauline started, her eyes dilating. Her acceptance was
her capacity to start over again at every moment. She would
60
not be hurt by his decision to go away, Richard realised. She
would be returned to the original hurt. She would start out
again from there. ‘It depends on what she wants.’
Richard felt his complex of conflicts cross the complex
in Pauline. The word ‘wants’ nagged him. It would be better
if Pauline spoke about needs. But ‘needs’ created a new
ambiguity; one that included him too. The word touched
depths he could not cope with. He vented the stress by
humming a tune. The words sang in his mind: ‘your
debutante knows what you need, but I know what you
waaant.’ The insinuation in the words triggered an ever-
widening vista of his will acting on the outside world. But it
did not take long for this sphere to become an horizon of
profound frustration.
Richard looked up at the high twilit sky. He felt
vulnerable: but immediately he was suffused with pleasure. It
wiped out the conflict in him. What was external to him was
not his space: he had his own space now. His will was strong
there.
This was the moment to tell Pauline. But he found
himself saying instead: ‘What do you think she wants, then?’
Pauline looked at him, her eyes bright so that nothing
could be read in them. Then she laughed suddenly and said:
‘I don’t know!’ Richard heard the gap that told him she was
being rhetorical.
Richard waited, conscious of his warm body moving
with unaccustomed ease in the warm air. He realised that this
consciousness of warmth arose because of the gap he had
heard in Pauline’s voice.

61
In the mounting silence, Pauline relented and offered:
‘She wants to keep her virginity for the man she marries.’
Richard heard the gap again. It was arousing him. And
it was arousing Pauline too. The gap opened the way to the
heart of Pauline: to her deepest wish.
Into the gap, Richard said: ‘That’s not what I meant.
She doesn’t want at all. She’s been reared not to want sexual
pleasure.’
The word ‘need’ rose again in his mind. But it evoked
the idea of passivity, which was irrelevant here. Richard
ignored it.
‘But the signals she was sending the other fellow,
Dick?’
‘She’d be shocked if you told her about that.’ He
looked into Pauline’s eyes. ‘She didn’t know what she was
doing.’
Pauline stopped and faced Richard. ‘She wanted him
anyway.’
Richard stopped, looking absently from Pauline’s eyes
to her hair and back again. ‘How do you know?’
‘The way she showed herself off!’ Richard had never
seen Pauline so vehement. ‘It was in her, Dick. She’s crazy
about him!’
‘So that all the other fellow had to do was seduce her?’
The word ‘seduce’ was the wrong word, but Richard wanted
to throw the source of Pauline’s sudden passion into relief.
He pressed on: ‘Anyway, he didn’t seem to notice what she
was up to.’
She laughed again, her eyes wide open, as though
pushing back at Richard: ‘That’s what you think!’
62
Richard turned away to deflect her, sensing he could
no longer hide from her his awareness of what they were
talking about. He looked at a distant tree outlined against the
bronze sky. Then he nodded and looked at her. He asked,
already knowing the answer: ‘Why didn’t he take her up on
it?’
Pauline jerked her head forward. ‘He will.’ Her earnest
tone showed Richard that she was trying one last time to
draw him out into the open.
Richard made his own clinching move, relying on his
intuition: ‘What about her boyfriend?’
The gap in her suddenly closed. The flicker of reproach
in her eyes told Richard that his intuition had been right. He
walked on slowly, so that Pauline could catch up quickly.
Now was the moment. As she came abreast and looked
at him in order to regain contact, Richard said: ‘I’m planning
to go away, Pauline.’
The act of walking allowed her to brace herself without
visible effort, but Richard saw it in the way she held her
head. When she spoke, her eyes were again the bright masks:
‘Why?’
Richard faltered in his step, surprised. He had not
expected her to ask that question: ‘When?’ and ‘Where to?’,
yes, but not ‘Why?’ At once he realised he could not answer
the question for her.
Pauline walked beside him, watching him, waiting.
Then she asked again, pressing him: ‘Why?’
A plausible answer would not form in Richard’s mind.
He had no intention of telling her the actual circumstances

63
that had led to his decision. In any case, that wouldn’t answer
her question.
Pauline opened her handbag, still walking, and took
out a newspaper clipping. She gave it to Richard, saying
matter-of-factly. ‘I meant to give it to you last week. I
forgot.’
The clipping looked older than a week to Richard. He
stopped to read it under a street lamp:

BODY OF MISSING CLIMBER FOUND


The body of Conor McNally(23) of
Terenure, reported lost in the Wicklow
Mountains last January, was discovered
yesterday by a local farmer among rocks at the
foot of Lugnaquilla. Gardaí said the remains
were identified by the youth hostelling card
found on the body. An inquest will be held in
Dublin tomorrow.

‘How old is this?’ Richard asked sharply. He felt what


seemed by now an abiding anxiety come into a new, definite
focus. He saw Conor walking up the side of the snow-clad
mountain, and imagined his up-tilted head, the depth of his
habitual calm.
‘When did you decide to go away?’ Pauline retorted,
her eyes filled with her mirth.
Then relief came to Richard as a broad composure, like
a wide river at night. There was nothing new in the report.
Conor’s death had already had its effect on him. What had
64
been working on him for the last six months was some part of
himself, set in motion by Conor’s death. The relief he felt
was part of that too,
Richard smiled at Pauline to make peace with her.
When she smiled in return, the mirth in her face, he said, to
stop her trying to cajole him again, ‘There’s someone else,
isn’t there?’
She bit her lip like a spoiled little girl and nodded. Her
acceptance made frankness possible: that was why she
seemed wilful now.
‘And he wants to marry you?’
Again she nodded. This time in the repeated gesture
Richard saw that her frankness acted as a mask: it covered the
deeper hurt. Then he saw in its entirety the façade she had
created for him. Her mirth, her sexual openness, like her
frankness now, were signs of an abandonment in her, an
enslavement to her acceptance of that past event.
Pauline spoke to his back: ‘I felt you wouldn’t, Dick.’
She paused and Richard caught a glimpse of what lay beyond
the façade. It was some kind of mistake, a failure of
understanding: her own mistake, no one else’s. It was a
mistake she was condemned to repeat over and over again:
that was what her acceptance amounted to. ‘Dick...’ He
turned to her. She seemed isolated from him now, her
limitation giving her a rounded, tender quality. ‘We clicked.’
Her mirth came back, now that they were in contact again.
She laughed, ‘I couldn’t resist it, Dick!’
Richard nodded for her sake. On the other level, he
saw the question for him beyond the façade Pauline had
created: Why had Conor gone up Lug so late in the day? He
65
was surprised by that question. It was not about death, as he
had all along feared.
He put his arm around Pauline and turned her about,
back towards the city centre. She pressed into him, moving
her head to catch his eyes: ‘You couldn’t resist it either, sure
you couldn’t?’
The façade came back. But that was all it was. He
hadn’t breached the façade, Richard realised: Pauline had
done it by holding the clipping back. He was relieved he had
not gone that far. He might never have learned the truth about
his own anxiety.
He laughed along with her mirth as he drew her to
begin walking.

On the slope above the trees they had a view of the


western peaks of the mountains. In the clear air they were like
sentinels. But to Richard now their watch was either pointless
or profound in a tenuous, wearying way.
Jane shielded her eyes against the sunlight, studying
the mountains, and asked: ‘Which one did he die on?’
Richard hunkered down beside her, bringing his head
level with hers. He was aware of the warmth the closeness
raised in him. He pointed at the high granite ridge that
formed the horizon to the south. ‘Beyond that. You can’t see
it from here.’
‘How could it happen, Richard? You said he was the
most experienced walker among you.’
‘He was, Jane. And he was tireless.’ He sat down and
looked at her profile. Her short blue corduroy skirt had ridden
66
up on her thighs. Her white legs seemed part of the heather
on which they lay. Richard was surprised by that recognition:
Jane wasn’t at ease in this open country. Then he understood
that he was making her a part of this familiar heathery world.
He was giving her slim white body a home here.
She turned to draw his attention back to her, to her
awareness of him. Richard smiled blissfully at her. Jane
frowned slightly, sensing something in Richard but not
understanding it.
Her consciousness could not give her body a home,
Richard realised.
‘I love you, Jane.’ It was so simple to say, so unified,
that Richard knew he could repeat it over and over for the rest
of his life, like a litany.
He saw the effect of his words on her. They shaped
her; yet they made her apprehensive. They gave her
something she could not look at, that she could not hope for
or accommodate with any finality. But it was there, there.
Richard knew that if he repeated the words so soon
again she would be overwhelmed. Joyfully, he withdrew their
pressure and their threat. He must leave her free of that
power. He must give her time to grow, nourished and
protected by his love.
Jane relaxed and moved all of her body slightly. ‘What
happened, then?’
‘The ridge he followed narrows near the summit. There
are cliffs on either side. He must have gone too close to the
edge and fallen into one of the Prisons.’
She nodded and looked south again. Richard knew she
was concentrating on how he had spoken. She looked back at
67
him, her eyes steady but alive with what she was surmising.
‘Is that why you don’t climb anymore?’
He touched her insight, loving the delicacy of the
contact: ‘Because Conor died up there, you mean?’
Instantly her eyes were alert to him, studying what was
evident in his eyes. ‘What, then, Richard?’
The way opened. He could tell her. He was at once
pent up, heart-full: ‘Conor walked these mountains as though
on a pilgrimage, Jane.’ She nodded and he saw his own light
go into her directly for the first time. ‘It’s as though he had to
walk a certain number of miles first. He was always tireless
and always calm.’ He saw that she understood the word
‘calm’ fully, as he did now. After a pause, he continued: ‘He
looked for something outside him, Jane. He wanted to give
himself up.’ When she nodded, Richard knew that Conor’s
death had receded into the past: it was Conor’s own death.
Now there was only Jane and himself.
‘And you?’
Richard declined to talk about himself alone yet. ‘It’s
not outside us, Jane. We must build it up in ourselves.’ Jane’s
eyes glazed, becoming mirrors were they had been beams,
showing Richard her withdrawal. But Richard had expected
that: he had the greater understanding here. Otherwise, how
could he come to love her? He spoke softly now, lingering on
the sounds he made: ‘Coming out on the bus this morning,
Jane, I realised what I should do with my life.’ The reference
to himself eased the pressure on Jane. Her eyes became
intelligent again. ‘I thought of all the things I might do. But
they all seemed to close in around me. They seemed to stop
up something in me. Except one thing, Jane.’ He paused,
68
holding her eyes with his. ‘The best way to do it is by
writing.’
The formulation surprised him. It surprised Jane too.
She frowned again, and Richard felt her withdraw into her
own thoughts. In the silence, he saw that what he had said
and how he had said it went beyond her in a simple, obvious
way. But he had been talking about himself, as she had asked
him to do.
Suddenly she asked in an objective tone, ‘You’re not
afraid?’
The image of fear in Richard’s mind then was of a dark
hole behind him. He knew the image had been prompted by
Jane’s tone of voice. Looking for his own image of fear, he
saw instead the image of himself pressing forward on a white
slope. He knew that was his reaction to the idea of fear: it
was the strength of his will.
When he returned his attention to Jane, he realised that
they had drifted even further apart. When he spoke, he knew
that what he was saying was a judgement on their future
together: ‘I’ve no intention of throwing my life away, Jane.’
What made his love for her possible also made his decision a
necessity: he could not have come to love her if he had not
been moving towards the decision to... He saw his fear
clearly. It was the fear of delusion: why Conor had climbed
so late in the day.
Jane’s thighs seemed far away, like white marble
embedded in the green earth. He caressed her cool smooth
thigh. The way Jane’s hand hovered above his showed
Richard her helplessness. Her body became an object to her
whenever he touched her – that he saw now: he made her
69
conscious of it. ‘Jane.’ She heard his voice as an object too,
something coming from outside the arena of her
consciousness: it distracted her from what preoccupied her
intelligence. Yet his love cut through all of that. He gripped
her thigh, while knowing that this was her worst fear with
him, that he would finally demand too much of her. But his
love for her must cut through even that. She was the
projection of both his fear and his weapon against that fear.
She embodied both the temptation of self-abandonment and
his intention to build himself to withstand that temptation.
He lifted his hand from her thigh and touched her hand.
‘It’s alright, Jane.’ The reassurance released her to herself.
Richard felt himself deflate. But he was content for the
moment: he had told her everything. Everything.
When Jane turned her body to face him, he knew she
had something to tell him: ‘Sheila is coming to Leeds with
me, Richard. Mother asked her.’
Richard nodded. The prospect of going away returned,
now with a new density, as though he was about to enter a
tunnel. But the tunnel was there anyway: that’s what starting
out is like. He got to his feet and stretched. ‘Do you mind?’
Jane shrugged. ‘She’ll stay for a few weeks only.
Daddy is out most of the time.’ When she looked up, Richard
saw in her expression how much she was still in her family.
But it was too soon to expect otherwise. He turned away and
looked at the mountains.
But they just waited, as they always did.
Richard sighed as the melancholy swept over him:
what alternative do I give her anyway?

70
He watched Jane get to her feet, brush down her skirt
and pick up the matching blue corduroy jacket. Seen from
aside like this, Richard recognised how unconscious her
bodily movements were: Jane did not finally care about
herself. The emptiness he saw in her found a bleak echo in
himself: Does she really want me to love her at all?
Jane turned to him, waiting to go. She seemed small
and distant against the green expanse of the slope.
But he had to love her in any case. It was his love that
had made his decision possible: it was the bridge between his
fear and his decision to struggle against it.
He saw for the first time what he had undertaken to do.

71
BONA FESTA

72
Richard started with the shock of awakening. Screwing
up his eyes against the blue glare of the tent, he twisted
himself on to his back. In the moment of innocence between
sleeping and awakening his mind sought to retrieve the calm
oblivion with its half-sense of dreams and thoughts, while the
sounds of the morning intruded themselves as unidentified
noises, solidly demanding his attention and labelling. Nearby
a voice called out in French: ascending and broadening freely
into the clear coolness of the morning. Grasshoppers rattled
in the grass. A bird called, a wind shivered the walls of the
tent. The voice called again – a woman’s voice. Two voice
replied in ragged accord: ‘Oui, Maman!’ A mother’s voice,
warm and intimate. One of the other voices laughed shrilly. A
girl’s. Spain!
The seal was broken.
He unzipped his sleeping bag and sat up. Along the
opposite of the tent lay Michael Johnson, his harsh face still-
smooth in sleep. He lay twisted in his bag, his face cast
upwards like a defiant Captive who had yielded to sleep
alone.
Outside the tent Richard dressed discreetly and
hurriedly. When he had finished, he bent down to the flap and
shouted roughly:
‘Right, Michael, rise and shine. There’s another day in
it.’
Michael stiffened and awoke. He smiled.
‘Good morning, Irish twit.’
Richard waved his hand in reply and moved away.
Michael lifted his stiff back by means of his elbow and
settled it flat on the mattress. He raised his arms towards the
73
apex of the tent and stretched and yawned. For him the profit
of the moment was the peace and serenity that lay in his
mind. Through habit he reached out for his cigarettes,
extracted one and lit it. His mind right out to his eyes was
smothered by its effect – chaos and displeasure filled him and
produced a feeling of gnawing incompleteness. He arose
from his couch without grace and shuffled out into the early
sun, carrying his stiff back like a weight that pressed his head
forward and forced his arms away from their natural line
along his body, to hang forward and outsplayed.
Richard was hunched against the side of the car in
front of a small stove on which lay a saucepan of water. He
was absorbed in some vague pleasant mood and watched with
mesmerised attention the commonplace phenomenon of
water being boiled. At the moment the surface trembled
slightly and popped small bubbles. Michael leaned on the
bonnet of the car. ‘Tea nearly ready?’ he asked in a sardonic
tone. The sagging of the car on its springs broke Richard’s
reverie. He looked up at his friend.
‘Obviously not,’ he replied defensively, and to redress
the balance he asked, ‘How is your head? You were very
drunk last night.’
‘How about no post-mortems on last night,’ the other
replied. But it was too strained and too easily lost in the
morning air to make any impression on Richard. He returned
his attention to the pot of water, the surface of which was
more agitated now and the bubbles rising in hurried strings
and bursting with greater force.

74
When they had drunk tea they drove down to the coast.
Michael drove, holding firmly the steering wheel. He was
filled with the freshness of a new day and pleasure at the
prospect of driving. Richard sat beside him and mused over
the dark mantle of the pine woods that covered the small hills
inland. So far he had not looked seawards, as that would
bring Michael into his line of vision and cause the
embarrassment of their looking at each other without
anything to say. Michael shifted his back against the seat. It
was beginning to pain him again: the slow nagging pain deep
in the bones of his spine that could easily be put out of mind
when active but which returned to his consciousness as a
curse when he relaxed. He called to Richard above the hum
of the motor and the clashing of the tires against the small
stones on the road and said in a crisp voice: ‘We’ll go down
to the hotel and see Desanova. Remember? I told you about
him. I’ve known him for years. We can have breakfast there
as well. It’ll be a bit more civilised than usual for us.’
He looked quickly in Richard’s direction. Richard
responded and looked towards him and nodded in agreement.
Then he looked beyond him to the sea. The sea, with the
sparkle of the early sun, pleased him, as did the cork-oaks
that dotted the slopes of the sea-edged hills. Out on the sea a
ship, a small tanker, ploughed its black hulk, leaving a trail of
confused water.
‘Look, Michael,’ he said, pointing. ‘The commerce of
the seas. Men earning their keep out there.’
Michael followed the line of the finger, grunted, and
looked back to the road ahead.

75
‘Don’t be so depressing,’ he said in a testy voice.
‘We’re on holiday here and should be enjoying ourselves.
That sort of thing is back there.’ He nodded in the general
direction of home.
‘But it’s the first sign we’ve had in the last fortnight
that they do that sort of thing here. You see, they don’t only
run hotels and restaurants.’
‘Oh, shut up.’
The car rushed around a long curve and picked up
speed on the downhill gradient. A valley opened out below
them to the left, running like a great gash towards the sea.
‘Stand by,’ called Michael in a sea-captain’s voice. The car
swung sharply to the right. Richard was thrown towards the
door. His face passive, he allowed his body yield to the
pressure. Michael, gripping the wheel firmly, judged the
sweep of the car through the bend and, on the moment,
accelerated. The car surged ahead towards the sea.
Richard straightened himself in his seat with great self-
possession.
‘That was a small one,’ Michael said above the whine
of the engine. ‘The next bend is tighter.’ He sat rigid and
alive behind the wheel; his hair flopped on his forehead and
his blue eyes gleamed with private exhilaration. ‘There’s the
hotel now. Right on the water’s edge.’ The tension of
anticipation had pursed his lips.
‘Where?’ Richard asked, turning to look down at the
coast.
Three white cubes lay by the sea, pulsing with light:
tidy and inert. Clustered alongside them were the houses of
the village. On the sea small boats rested at anchor, or
76
moved, chugging about with little leaps on the waves. Further
out, a skier and his boat left two angles of wash, one within
the other. The sunlight made all colours sharp and hard-
edged.
‘It’s a very neat hotel,’ Richard said carefully.
‘One of the best appointed along this part of the coast,’
Michael replied with emphasis.
‘Very neat,’ Richard confirmed.
Michael braked savagely and turned right into the
bend. Again Richard surrendered to the dictates of the car’s
motion and lay against the door. Michael braked again and
changed gear, double-clutching with swift, practised
movements. He pulled on the big wheel, turning the car into
the following left bend. Richard was lifted away from the
door. He was filled with dull inertia: a droplet trickled coldly
from his armpit. Michael’s face was concentrated as he
guided the car, wheels slipping, through the bend. Again, at
the right moment, he accelerated out into the straight. He
raised his hands to the roof in exultation. ‘That was a
beauty!’ he shouted.
Richard, fighting the torpor of his inactivity, lit a
cigarette as they entered the narrow street of the village.
After parking the car opposite the hotel, they agreed to
stroll over to the sea-wall before eating. Except for one of the
villagers and a small group of tourists, the village seemed
dead. The row of houses and cottages were set in the shade
beneath the cliff, their windows and doors gaping, like
useless idols. They sat on the harbour wall and studied the
high and square bulk of the hotel front. It was sectioned into

77
squares of open suntraps, one for each room. here and there
people sat absorbing the hot dry rays.
The sun on Michael’s back warmed his ache, suffusing
it with heat and producing a desirous discomfort. He braced
his arms against the stone, gripping it with outstretched
fingers. Richard sat beside him with his arms folded across
his chest, studying the large anchor set upright nearby as a
pagan symbol. For Michael the sun was a curious dream,
desired through months and rain in Yorkshire; to Richard it
was a novelty of the holiday, strangely harsh and unyielding
in the eternal blue of the sky.
Michael hoisted himself to his feet. Turning his body at
the waist towards Richard, he said, ‘Well? Shall we
breakfast?’
They walked across the carpark towards the glass
doors of the hotel. Within, they could see people looking out
at their approach, or perhaps out to sea at the skier, whose
boat disturbed the air with its high-pitched whine.
‘It’s a dreadful box, Michael,’ Richard said almost
coyly.
‘That may be so to your aesthetic mind, but it is still
the finest hotel hereabouts.’
‘What do you get? One room, one bath, one suntrap?’
‘You’re envious. These people have worked for the
pleasure and comfort of this place.’
Richard started slightly and wondered.
‘No,’ he said. ‘If I had sufficient money to afford this
place, I would hire a small house or at least select a place
with more character than this.’

78
Michael stopped and said sharply: ‘You may do what
you like with your money, but don’t criticise these people for
choosing this place. It’s better than our grotty tent.’
‘I don’t, Michael. But I doubt the value of their
choice.’
Michael replied angrily: ‘My parents brought me here
several years ago after my operations. I enjoyed it and I was
treated kindly by the guests who were here at the time.’
Richard acknowledged these remarks silently and
walked on. He felt graceless and troubled.
Inside, the hotel was cool and dark. Through the high
windows they could see the sea and cliffs, a silent panorama
which, without the attendant heat, gleamed with a brilliance
that was near to bursting beyond limits in its intensity. In the
foyer people sat about in casually arranged chairs. They
drank and talked quietly, hardly moving. Michael continued
through the foyer to the bar and asked the serving girl:
‘Where is Señor Desanova? I would like to see him.’
When the girl had nodded and disappeared through a
door behind the counter, Michael half-turned his torso
towards Richard, who dawdled a few feet from the counter.
He smiled. ‘What will you have for breakfast? Coffee? Roll?’
Richard answered ‘Yes, yes’ quickly to rid himself of
Michael’s invitation to join him in a partnership of
familiarity.
The girl returned and began speaking volubly in
staccato Spanish. The two visitors stood and listened with
respect. As she spoke, the concerted gaze of the two upset
her. Her eyes looked from side to side, over their heads and
down to their waists. Her flow of words came slowly to a
79
broken halt. Richard leaned forward and said gently, ‘We
don’t understand one blessed word.’ He though quickly, then
said with irony: ‘Yo no comprendo.’
The girl turned and ran back through the door.
Michael smiled at Richard, and he in return said, ‘I still
don’t like the damned place.’
Michael swore kindly at him.
With a bustle Señor Desanova entered, beaming
broadly at the two young men who had put his maid to flight.
He rubbed his hands together, palm over back, around and
around.
‘Ah, gentlemen. Can I help you? My girl, she does not
understand the English. I apologise for her.’
Michael leaned forward stiffly over the counter. ‘Señor
Desanova, do you remember me? Michael Johnson? I was
here with my parents some years ago.’ Richard withdrew to
study the rolls stacked in a glass case at the end of the bar.
Michael explained the circumstances of their previous
meeting to the hotel owner. At last he burst out in an
exclamation of memory.
‘Of course, Señor Johnson, now I remember you,’ he
said loudly and smote his brow with his palm. ‘It was silly of
me not to remember. But I have so many people coming here
every year, you understand, and you must give me time to
bring your face to my mind.’
They shook hands and both simultaneously became
aware of Richard standing nearby, watching them without
expression.
‘Richard, come over and I will introduce you to Señor
Desanova.’
80
Richard shook the warm, moist hand.
‘Do you come from the same part of England as Señor
Johnson.’
‘No,’ Richard replied. ‘I come from Ireland, from
Dublin. But I live in London now.’
‘Ah, the Irish. I do not have many coming here. But I
have met some in Barcelona. A very warm and generous
people.’
Richard bowed slightly in acknowledgement.
Desanova raised his hands to shoulder height and smiled
broadly. A silence followed.
‘Señor Desanova,’ Michael said, as if coming out of a
trance. ‘May we have some breakfast.’
‘Why of course, certainly.’ He turned and clapped his
hands. ‘Maria!’
The young girl reappeared. As Desanova spoke, she
eyed the two young men with apprehension. He took her by
the arm and led her to the counter.
‘You will have coffee and rolls? Yes?’
Maria fled to the rear of the hotel clutching and order
in her hand. Desanova insisted that while they waited for the
food they should each have a brandy.
‘I see you have enlarged the hotel,’ Michael said after
he had tasted the brandy.
‘Sí. I have built two blocks, one at each side.’ He
spoke in a rush, pointing in opposite directions. ‘Business,
you know, has increased. More people drive to Spain now,
and here, along this part of the coast’ – he waved an arm in
the direction – ‘has become very popular.’

81
Richard looked about him at the residents. They had
come from tense, crowded Northern cities to rest. They sat
poised, well dressed, well nourished, as if awaiting
something: something that would justify all the effort of
living. Was it, he thought, because of his youth or out of envy
that he thought that of them?
He turned to the hotel owner.
‘Señor, you get state aid, of course, for these
extensions.’
Desanova started with surprise. ‘Sí, but they are very
small.’ He suddenly became impassioned. ‘What we give to
Madrid in taxes is very great, but we receive little in return.
We, in these hotels along the coast’ – again he waved his
hands – ‘we make much money for Spain. We pay taxes,
much money in taxes, but what do we get in return...?’ he
paused and reflected, then continued more quietly, appealing
to both Michael and Richard. ‘Spain is a large family of
races, and we have a saying that the family is supported by
two of its sons, the Basques and we, the Catalans.’
Maria reappeared carrying a large tray covered by a
napkin.
‘Ah, gentlemen, your breakfast.’ He escorted them to a
table in lounge, followed closely by Maria. As she set out the
food and coffee, Desanova shook hands with his two guests
and wished them ‘Adios’ and departed.
‘Michael, will you be mother?’ Richard asked when
they were seated. ‘The pot is closer to you.’
While pouring the coffee, Michael said in undertones:
‘You shouldn’t have set him off like that.’
‘Like what?’ Richard asked in surprise.
82
‘About central government and taxation. They haven’t
forgotten what happened in the Civil War. They don’t like
Franco’s regime. And Franco won’t let them forget him.’
Richard felt the inertia invade him: the weight of
history.
‘The Catalans have always been good businessmen and
traders,’ he said heavily, ‘since the time of the Carthaginians.
In the Middle Ages they had independence for a while and
actually controlled the western Mediterranean.’ Though
Michael was listening to him, Richard was talking to himself,
seeking to rationalise the weight on him. ‘But that was the
time of Aragon, when kings ruled in Saragossa and the
traders lived in Barcelona.’ He smiled a quick smile of relief
at Michael. ‘I bet they complained about taxes even then.’
He lifted his cup to his mouth. Discovering it to be
empty, he reached over for the coffee pot. But Michael
intervened and poured coffee for him, bidden by an obscure
guilt for Richard’s sensitivity.

The sun reached its zenith on time, and then began its
gradual descent to the Pyrenees. The sky was vast and brittle,
full of brightness that reflected on land and sea. The sea
slapped and shifted aimlessly, breaking the light into a
million refractions. But beneath the surface all was cool:
green and silent.
Richard’s head bobbed up into the surface. Fixing his
position, he swam towards the sailing dinghy, his body
surging through the wavecrests. When close to the boat he
called out:
‘Ship ahoy! Permission to come aboard.’
83
‘Go and feed the fishes,’ Michael called in an easy
voice.
‘What?’ shouted Richard, trying to shake the water
from his ears.
Grinning, Michael made a rude sign and pointed to the
shore: ‘Swim back. You’re too clumsy for this art of sailing.’
Richard trod water and turned in the direction of the
shore. Through the waves he could see the distant outline of
the coastal slopes and the villas set on them like sugar cubes,
squat and inert. Embraced by the warm freedom of the sea, he
felt a tingle of fear at the sight of those definite shapes which
remained unmoved by the heat and sun.
‘Stand by for boarding party,’ he called.
With sudden energy he dived beneath the green surface
and swam frog-like under the keel. Surfacing directly under
Michael, he reached up and gripped him about the waist and
pulled him back into the water. Then he scrambled aboard.
When Michael surfaced, spitting water and screwing up his
eyes, he leered at him. Michael threshed water and shook his
head violently. Richard, seeing the pain in his eyes, reached
out and pulled him aboard.
When he had helped him into the boat, Richard ran up
the sail. The wind caught it and set the spar swinging from
side to side. He grabbed it and tried to secure it to one side
and then to the other side of the boat.
‘Not that way, for God’s sake,’ Michael shouted. ‘Set
the boat’s head first.’ He pulled himself up and edged down
the boat. Taking the rope, he guided the boat about till it
faced the shore. Setting the sail at the desired angle, he tied it
down. ‘That’s how it’s done,’ he said with satisfaction.
84
Richard smiled with ironic contrition and insisted that he
‘skippered’ the boat while Michael rested.
Once ashore, they returned the dinghy to its owner and
walked up the crowded beach to a café. They sat on the
veranda overlooking the beach and ordered wine and bread.
Michael, who sat with his back to the sun, leaned forward and
placed his elbows on the table.
‘You needn’t have been so solicitous in the boat,’ he
said harshly. ‘It was the sudden shock of the water that
caused the pain.’
‘What else could I have done?’ Richard replied in
annoyance. ‘You were obviously in agony.’
‘Even so, I could have managed it alone.’
‘Surely if I needed help and you gave it,’ Richard’s
voice was hard and he pronounced each word precisely, ‘I
would have the sense to realise that you had helped me from
your own good judgement and would be accordingly
grateful.’
‘Gratitude!’ Michael hissed with suppressed anger,
keeping his voice low in self-conscious regard for the people
seated nearby. ‘Don’t be so damned conceited. What help
would you need from me anyway.’
Richard shrugged his shoulders. ‘It’s supposed to be a
part of friendship that one helps the other without keeping a
balance sheet.’ He slumped in his chair. ‘Now, for heaven’s
sake, let’s stop this arguing – it’s far too hot.’
In silence both looked down on the beach, at people
with brown skins and others with burnt red skins, who were
moving about, sitting down, going into the water or coming
out of it. The heat was heavy and tiresome – the blazing heat
85
of noon being maintained now by the lowering sun. Two
young women with white skins, newcomers to the beach,
looked in their direction a few times. But, because of the heat
or perhaps the constant nervous attention they received from
their escort, an effeminate Cockney who wore a garish
jockey’s cap, any interest that had been aroused evaporated.
Later, Michael drew Richard’s attention to a child playing in
the sand. The child was digging a hole. Scooping the sand
into his small bucket, he carried it patiently to a spot six feet
away and emptied it on a growing mound. Though the mound
was growing, the projected hole had not deepened
appreciably, as sand trickled continuously into it.
‘I wonder what he’s doing?’ Richard mused distantly.
‘Digging a hole or building a mountain?’
‘Simply passing the time, I expect,’ Michael replied,
smiling.
Richard threw his head back to ease a tension: ‘Maybe.
But building mountains seems to be easier than digging
holes.’
Michael stretched his arms, jerking his eyes off the
labouring child. Then he consulted his watch: ‘I think it’s
time we went back, Dick, and had a rest before dinner.’
They collected their swimming gear and shirts and
walked through the cool café into the street. When they
reached the car, Michael said, ‘Hang on, I want to check that
front spring.’ He lowered himself awkwardly to the ground
and pulled his head beneath the car. Richard got into the car
and absently took an old and ragged book from the glove
compartment. He flicked through the pages, reading small
pieces here and there, with no apparent object. Michael
86
clambered to his feet and gave a thumbs-up. Getting into the
car, he said, ‘It’s keeping together. We might not have to do
that welding job, after all.’
‘I hope not,’ Richard replied. ‘I don’t fancy scrambling
around the engine, holding parts together for you.’
Michael laughed. ‘It would do you good to use your
hands for a change.’
By way of reply, Richard opened the book and said,
‘Listen to this:

As in all the Bagur beaches, the seriousness of nature,


the lack of picturesqueness, the ever-present sea,
produce on the beach an atmosphere of solitude and
remoteness.

Michael wrenched the ignition key.


‘Ballocks,’ he said flatly.
A group of English holidaymakers passed them in the
direction of the beach. Some carried skis, and a tall venerable
middle aged man moved among them, checking names off a
list.
‘Hallo,’ Michael said suddenly. ‘I know that girl.’ He
pointed to one of the group. ‘They must be staying
hereabouts as usual. Hold on, I must talk to her.’
He switched off the motor and got out of the car.
Walking towards the group, he called, ‘Deborah, I say,
Deborah.’ A girl turned in surprise. Her face lighted in
recognition. She waved and cried, ‘Michael, Michael
Johnson! Are you down here too?’ She detached herself from
the group and came to meet him. Instinctively, they shook
87
hands. As they spoke Michael shuffled his feet, put one arm
akimbo and stroked the flank of his nose. The girl allowed
her arms to dangle loosely at her sides, but her head jutted as
she spoke.
Richard watched them for a moment, then returned to
his book. He did not look up until Michael sat back in behind
the wheel. ‘Right,’ he said, elated, ‘everything is arranged for
tonight. No more wandering about the province looking for
fun.’
He started the engine and put the car in gear.
‘Where?’ Richard asked.
‘I said we would go over to Tamariu tonight,’ Michael
replied as he drove out on to the road.
‘Well, a fitting object for the end of our odyssey,’
Richard said ironically.
They drove easily up towards Bagur. The sun had sunk
behind the line of coastal hills and the shady coolness gave a
calm relief to the evening. Michael hummed as he drove and
Richard read from his book, flipping from page to page.
‘Listen to this,’ he said suddenly, raising the book:

The littoral is a succession of entrances and exits, of


bays and points, of corners and minute capes of a
continuous diversity. This sinuosity of the coast seen
against the mountains whole – and this view is best
appreciated above all from the sea going out for a half
mile – is of suggestive vivacity.

‘What on earth are you reading?’ Michael asked. ‘It


goes on and on.’
88
‘A chap called Pla. He lived in the last century.’
‘He obviously had plenty of time on his hands,’
They breasted a ridge. Before them the sun was settling
down into the Pyrenees. Banks of cloud hung between the
high peaks and filled the valleys below them. The plains of
Spain stretched from the mountains to the foot of the ridge:
bronze-misted with little shadow-black poplars in lines here
and there. To their right the sea was calm and pastel, with the
currents around the islets a deeper hue. The immense
mystical world before them put them in awe. Both were
silenced, caught between the rational and the sentimental, by
this fabled Spain in all its sublime splendour. The instincts of
both measured the evening’s effect and, for a moment, held
the balance between the glory and the poignancy it effected in
them. Then Michael spoke, his voice husky with emotion:
‘You see, Richard, why we all come here. We must
have some of this now and again.’
Richard felt the sadness. But his response was
disturbed by the noise and vibration of the car. He was
suffused with a kind of intense anger.
‘Joy,’ he said shortly, ‘is what we should feel.’
The road dipped down into the next valley and they
were carried down into the shadow again. With relief both
relaxed; one to his reading, the other to his driving.
‘Richard,’ Michael said after a short while. Richard
looked up. ‘Surely something like that makes the holiday
worth while? I mean, the beauty of the country itself should
satisfy.’
‘What?’ Richard said. ‘Like a painting? And after
viewing it, you stroke your girl’s hand and go off for a drink.’
89
‘No, no. not like that,’ Michael replied quickly. ‘I
mean that it should satisfy completely.’
‘Here, like this, you mean.’ Richard pointed to the
book on his knees. He read:

The sky, first ochre, then purple, then carmine, is lit up


by a great mass of smoke, blood red and dramatic. The
distant mountains, at first covered with the thinnest of
veils, takes on all the shades of blue and purple. From
the wide and fruitful plain, the smoke of the land and
the evaporation of the waters, seem to rise gently to the
heavens.

Richard closed the book. ‘You see? Tremulous amid


the blood and smoke. That’s sublimation, not liberation.’
They crossed the narrow valley and began climbing
towards Bagur through terraced fields set like gigantic steps
up to the city. They entered the sad, stony city and crawled
through the narrow streets. Everything was grey: the streets,
the faceless churches and gaping houses – a foreign place
filled with foreign lives and foreign habits. It reminded
Richard of Connaught towns. Michael saw streets and people
and felt the returning ache in his bones.
‘Will you close up your window, please, Richard? It’s
getting chilly.’

They parked the large red Fiat in the carpark opposite


the police barracks in Palafrugell. While awaiting Michael,
who was locking and testing the doors, Richard leaned his
weight on the front of the car. He springs sighed under the
90
pressure. Stepping back and rubbing his hands with his
handkerchief, he asked Michael if the faulty spring would
hold out for the journey back to England. Michael replied that
he thought it would. He completed his task and joined
Richard at the front of the car. They had showered and
changed after an hour’s rest at the campsite. Michael wore an
electric blue shirt and white slacks; Richard, a beige cotton
shirt and fawn trousers. As they walked from the carpark
Richard complained of the poor quality of Michael’s razor,
saying how his face stung in the night air. Michael was
amused by the complain and replied facetiously.
Before them, across the street, was the police barracks,
its face impassive, the few windows let into it barred thickly.
The massive doors were open wide and they could see into
the badly lit courtyard. Two policemen entered the yard
through a door at the rear and walked towards the street. In
reaction, Michael walked on, followed closely by Richard.
Going down the sloping street, they leaned back slightly to
arrange their centres of gravity for the best comfort. Michael
reminded Richard that there were two police forces in Spain:
the local or provincial force and the Federales. He said that
the local chaps were decent enough, settled in the area and
dealing usually with misdemeanours. The Federales, on the
other hand, were drafted in to handle the greater crimes
against the state and keep a finger on the local pulse. He
asked Richard if he remembered the incident reported last
week when six striking workers had been shot in the south of
the country. Richard remembered and cast a curious glance
back at the building. The two policemen were lounging
against the door jambs. One of them hitched his belt and
91
resettled his holster on his thighs. The other took a final draw
of his cigarette and casually flicked it into the middle of the
road. Mollified, they walked on.
An old peasant came towards them, leading a donkey
and a cart. Richard called ‘Buenos noches’ in an amiable
voice, but it was lost in the abrasive racket made by the large
wheels on the gritty road. The old man noticed Richard
looking at him and after surveying him quickly returned his
eyes to the ground before him.
They crossed a road and entered a more narrow street.
Small shops lined the right side and threw shafts of light on
to the roadway. Michael offered Richard a cigarette and lit it
for him. Three girls, native of the town, passed by, laughing
together and utterly ignoring them. Michael remarked on the
loneliness of the male when separated from his loved one and
suggested a practical remedy for such loneliness. Richard
wondered if such loneliness was of the Spirit or the Flesh.
Michael replied that it was both, but that the callings of the
flesh were stronger than the aspirations of the spirit; but it
had been the object of his upbringing and education that he
should control such callings, that the spirit was in all ways
superior to the flesh. Richard asked him if he believed that.
No, he was told, but I am unfortunately conditioned to such a
belief. They passed the shops and walked on into the gloom
of a street faced on both sides with dark houses. Richard
questioned him again. Do you find copulation a traumatic
experience? Michael replied that he did, and, he continued,
that coupled with a sense of inferiority because of my
ailment, the most ordinary advance to a girl can become a
source of anguish. A pity, Richard said sympathetically. Do
92
you feel then that your loved one back in Yorkshire keeps
you on sufferance alone? Michael tensed his free hand until
his fingers were stiffly splayed. Looking down at them, he
said, Yes, yes, I believe that.
They turned another corner. The lights of the town
centre glowed in the night sky before them. Michael threw
away the butt of his cigarette. And you, he asked, which do
you believe is the stronger. Life corrupts and the spirit
renews, Richard replied, but living is a thing of beauty.
Therefore we carry on living and try to keep abreast of the
corruption. That, Michael said, smells of your religion.
Richard laughed outright at this – his laughter became a shout
that resounded in the dim streets about and finally produced a
hollow echo somewhere in the darkness to their right.
At the end of the street lay their destination, a
restaurant. They stood without in the pouring light, offering
each other first entrance in the style of old-time gentlemen.
Richard, seeing the nonsense of this impasse, took the fore
and entered. Tantalised by the smell of food in the hot air,
they walked down the broad entry, past the huge chicken spit,
where dozens of carcasses turned and turned, crackling and
spitting, over a charcoal fire. The eating room proper was a
bedlam of noises: the clashing of cutlery, shouted orders in
Catalan, a cacophony of divers tongues. Muted and polite,
they edged their way through the diners, apologising for the
disturbance they created. Seated at last at a table to the rear of
the room, they allowed their moods adapt to the atmosphere.
The adobéd walls and wattled ceilings reflected the light of
the guttering fat candles distributed about the tables. The

93
nets, cork-floats, leather harness and gutting knives which
hung on the walls underlined the smell of seafood and wine.
While Michael looked out for the waitress, Richard
gazed about absorbing the milieu. A private and petite group
of French, one of them a woman of great beauty with spiteful
eyes, sat close by eating in silence, as though overawed by
the bustle and noise about them. Beyond, in a corner, three
Germans huddled, one of them demonstrating his method of
spearing fish underwater. Their eyes were bright and zealous.
Beside them an English family ate: their children shouting
and calling for more of this and more of that. Their parents
answered self-consciously, constantly looking about to see if
their conduct was noticed. Michael called his attention to the
wine, which he had poured. While reaching for his glass,
Richard saw with surprise that his arm was brown and
veined. A feeling of physical and mental wellbeing suffused
him. An eagerness for night-life flowed through him: a
subjective energy which comes to a man when there is no sun
to humble him or to make absurd his egoism; when all light is
human light and comfort light, made by man for man’s
comfort. He raised his glass in toast to Michael and drank.
The rough wine stung their tongues with vinegar sharpness
and flowed, by sensation, into their veins.
Throughout the meal Michael talked, as if freed from
some constraint that had lain on his during the physical
activity of the day. He de-shelled his prawns, cut his meat,
drank his measure of wine and bobbed his head to his fork as
he talked. Initially, while reminiscing on his previous holiday
in Spain, he spoke shyly, watching Richard’s face carefully to
gauge his reactions. He related the practicalities of the
94
holiday first: the operations and the need for convalescence;
the comfort and convenience of the hotel; the cheer he
received from the guests; the heat of the sun and the pleasure
and release it had given him; the quick uplift in morale and
the indulgence of his parents. Then, glad to have done with
these preliminaries, he gradually introduced what he
considered the essence of his memory – his mood at the time,
and the girl. He reassembled images of the girl, Deborah, as
she had been then, and their time together. Carried on by his
emotion, he recalled incidents and his reactions to them; he
talked around the essence, unable to break out of orbit
towards it. His sense of oppression grew and all at once he
became aware of his outflowing and in panic at the thought of
his folly went silent.
Richard looked at him nonplussed, chewing slowly on
a morsel of meat. Resourcefully he smiled and shrugged his
shoulders very slightly. Catching sight of the French party, he
remarked on the beauty of the woman in their company.
Michael turned to look. The woman had her wine glass raised
to her lips. Seeing his gaze, she arched her brows and quizzed
him with her eyes. Michael turned away abashed, and
relieved.
A child’s voice shouted in pain and anger. The English
father was drawing himself back across the table, his arm still
upraised. His son howled and threw things on the floor, his
other hand clutching the side of his head. His mother called
on him to quieten and, in a changed tone, rebuked her
husband. The diners looked at the scene: some with disgust,
others with annoyance, a few with relish. Except for the

95
Germans. They were silent, each looking down at the area of
table immediately before him.
Richard suggested that they leave.
During the walk to the central plaza, Michael talked of
a secret of his. The wine and the warmth of the restaurant had
eased his pain to the extent that he was unaware of it now. He
said he would like to settle in this part of the country. He
knew of a small house, situated in the valley above Sa Riera,
which he could rent. For a living he would instruct tourists in
the handling of sailing boats, hoping to earn enough money in
the summer to tide him over the winter. Richard nodded
constantly as the plan was unfolded. When Michael finished,
he asked if he would not find the very conservative society
repressive; that having once settled here he would find liberal
amusements, similar to those of Yorkshire, hard to find.
Michael dismissed this immediately, and said that the quiet
rhythm of life in Sa Riera would absolve him of the need for
such trivia. Richard shrugged his shoulders. He could not
picture Michael’s projected life: but, he wondered, would the
change be an achievement or a compensation.
The square was crowded, filled with the hubbub of
voices. Waiters hurried through the concentration of tables,
chairs and people, carrying loaded trays aloft. Michael
pointed out that most of the congregation sat, or contrived to
sit, facing a particular side of the square. On that side, in front
of a large café, chairs were arranged in rows, on which lay
various musical instruments. Richard asked a man close by,
in irregular school Spanish, what was to be expected. The
man maintained his native reserve and simply pointed to a
coloured notice tacked to the trunk of a tree. The notice
96
proclaimed the opening of the Festival Primavera, which
would continue for a week. He drew Michael’s attention to it,
and said, with a smile, that the Irish celebrate the beginning
of spring in the depths of winter, and lo! The Spanish
celebrate it in the middle of summer. Michael, busy looking
around for a vacant table, only half heard. Discovering that
none was available, he swore. Richard said no matter, and led
the way to the nearest bar.
Inside, they chose stools that gave them a view of the
bandstand and ordered coffee and brandy. A waiter rushed in
bearing a tray filled with glasses and crockery. After shouting
his orders to the barmaid, he wiped his face with a convenient
cloth and began talking, complaining of the heat and the
pressure of work. The barmaid jeered him, throwing her arm
out in his direction as though to present him as a lazy old
fool. Rebuked, he quietened and stood leaning against the bar
and stared vacantly at the ceiling. As Richard counted out
pesetas to pay for the drinks, a boy ran in shouting at the top
of his voice. Richard lost his concentration and dropped the
coins remaining in his hand on to the counter. A very red-
faced woman was carried in. The waiter jumped away from
the bar and told the two locals carrying her where she was to
be placed. An old peasant sitting at the back of the room
cried, Huh, Inglés, and laughing, fanned his face with mock-
fussiness. The waiter turned and spoke sharply to him, but
when others joined in the laughter he returned his attention to
the fainted woman, who had by now been seated, and began
slapping the back of her hand, saying soothingly, Al right,
ladee. Michael watched the scene with increasing distaste.
Turning, he offered to buy Richard one more drink before
97
they got to hell out of the town. When he had paid for the
drinks he began talking again, picking up the threads of his
earlier monologues. His voice was harder and more guttural
now. Once, when he looked at him to add force to some point
he had made, Richard was surprised by the fierce dogged
stare of his eyes. A ragged applause came from the square.
Richard looked out and saw the musicians file out of the café
opposite and take their places among the arranged chairs. Are
you listening to me, Michael asked peevishly. Richard said he
was and turned his attention to him. A trickle of perspiration
eased its way out from Michael’s hairline and rolled over his
forehead. Richard finally murmured, Take it easy, and braced
himself for the reaction. But Michael deflated and nodded in
agreement.
Outside in the square, a shrill instrument piped a series
of notes, and, in reply, the band began playing, taking the
series for a theme. Richard nodded to Michael to come out
into the open. Without waiting for a reply, he left the bar.
Here and there around the square, where there was room,
circles of dancers had formed. They danced gravely, their
bodies swaying in rhythm to the steps of the dance.
Within the circle of sycamores the audience sat at rest,
watching the dancing. The splayed branches caught the light
of the street lamps and created a magical roof. The buildings
that lined the squares were the walls, lit by their own various
lighting. The square was successfully enclosed away from the
night.

98
Michael drove fast and recklessly, braced over the
wheel as if drawing strength from it. Richard, through habit,
looked out blankly on to the dark countryside.
After a while Michael sat back and said gruffly, ‘I
thought you were keen on coming to this place in Tamariu.’
‘An hour won’t make much difference. It will go on till
five in the morning. They usually do.’
‘That’s not the point. We came here for fun and games.
Instead, you want to watch the natives dancing, like some
bloody tourist.’
He drove into a bend. The tyres screeched on the
gravel, causing the car to tremble and buck. Michael made a
panic adjustment to the wheel. The car swerved slightly and
sped out of the turn.
‘That was dangerous,’ Richard said with deliberate
calm. ‘Try to be a bit more careful. Don’t forget you’ve been
drinking.’
‘Oh, for Christ’s sake! Can’t a man have a little fun,’
Michael shouted, his voice pitched with strain.
Trees and bushes rushed by in the headlights.
Richard’s eyes were heated and moist and, consequently, he
could no longer judge the line of the road. He looked across
at Michael, in whose hands and skill he must put judgement.
Michael drove with an intention. His face, illuminated by the
dashboard light, was masked by his cold preoccupation with
his object.
Another bend. Again the car bucked in the struggle of
conflicting forces. A pair of headlights suddenly shone in
their faces: a small French car apparently skipped into sight.
While its occupants looked at them, shocked and
99
mesmerised, Richard experienced an instant of submission to
the events and returned their stares helplessly. Michael
muttered to himself and swung the wheel, first one way and
then the other. The car mounted the verge, showering stones
against the underside with a fierce clatter. As the other car
swept past, the whine of its motor audible for a second, the
driver glanced over in vague admonishment. Michael pulled
back on to the road and completed the turn without reducing
speed.
Richard was suddenly aware that Michael wasn’t
driving anywhere in space: he was driving something out of
himself. Nothing would happen for him tonight, except what
had happened on previous nights: he would get drunk and
angry. He ran at death, but was too good at his expression to
kill himself. His expression eased his pain, but did not
absolve him from it. And the easing gave him pleasure.
Michael self-consciously broke the silence.
‘That was close. Did you get a fright?’
‘I don’t know. It wasn’t real enough.’
But the moment of danger had given him insight.
‘Not real enough? It was for me. You’re being the
intellectual again, trying to be profound.’
He was laughing good-naturedly, with condescension.
‘I don’t know about that. You were actively involved
in the crisis, while I was passive. You experienced the fear
that is part of responsibility. I had the submission of the
powerless.’
‘Nonsense. You were as much involved as I was. You
are in the car with me. You simply don’t want to admit to
being afraid.’
100
‘I assure you, Michael, that I would rather be in fear of
my fate than in submission to it.’
‘There was no need to fear,’ Michael said sharply. ‘I
had everything under control.’
They rumbled and tumbled easily down the curving
road into the village. At Richard’s suggestion they went to a
bar on the promenade, the night being cool and silent, to have
a drink before entering the clamour of the nightclub. The
atmosphere so affected Richard that he would not leave when
Michael stood up and drained his glass. Exasperated, he
cursed him for his moodiness and walked off. Richard sat in
apparent meditation, though, in fact, his mind was a blank.
Behind him a large Spanish family, comprising three
generations, were grouped about a number of tables. Their
conversation was desultory and intimate, interspersed by easy
laughter. The children ran among them, running to
whosoever called to them, to be fondled and hugged in
simple affection. The patriarch, a baby on his knee, presided
complacently over the gathering. Any utterance he chose to
make from time to time was received with respect and
usually answered by one of his older sons. Richard listened to
the unintelligible language as if listening to music and
allowed its gentle mood to relax him.
Four policemen walked on to the promenade from the
village. They came two by two: in front, local police, who
smoked and chatted; behind were two Federales, who, being
conscious of their duty, were grim. As they passed the bar the
family fell silent. Richard felt the hackles rise at the sight of
their weapons. When they had walked on a few yards, one of
the sons said something and spat. The old man rebuked him
101
and addressed the group in a louder voice, commanding all of
them to be silent.
Richard finished his drink and walked across the
promenade and down to the beach.

Richard entered the nightclub and stood in the


doorway, blinking dazedly in the light and noise. Michael
saw him with a start and raised his glass to him.
‘Ho, my wild Irish dreamer! Have you communed with
your god?’ He looked down his body insolently. ‘Your feet
are wet. Have you been swimming again?’
Richard looked down at his dark-stained shoes and
trousers. He replied mildly in a bantering voice: ‘It was warm
and the sea was cool.’
Michael turned to his companion at the bar. As he
spoke the loudness of his voice drew the attention of others.
‘This is my holiday partner – Richard, from Dublin in
Ireland.’ He laughed, almost falling off the stool as he did.
‘Listen. We had a near thing on the way down here. We
almost hit a car on a bend and in avoiding it almost ran off
the road. When I asked him if he had been frightened, he said
it wasn’t real enough!’
Richard leaned between Michael and his drinking
companion and called the barman.
‘Well? What do you think of that?’ Michael asked,
thrusting his head forward so as to look into Richard’s face.
Richard pulled back. The insistent tone tensed him.
‘I’ve already answered that,’ he said simply.
‘Don’t loose your cool, whatever you do. Otherwise
you’ll make a fool of yourself.’
102
Richard turned away and caught sight of a girl coming
towards them. ‘Watch out, here comes your girlfriend,’ he
said quickly.
‘This is your friend, Michael, isn’t it?’ she said with
deliberate politeness, turning to Richard.
‘Yes. It is he, at last.’ Michael was suddenly adrift,
unable to focus himself.
But he introduced them. Deborah beckoned to another
girl, who stood in the background.
‘Richard, this is Sandra. She wanted to meet you.’
Michael cut between the three. His voice was slurred
and abstracted: ‘He’s been swimming in the sea. That’s what
kept him.’
The girls looked at Richard with new interest.
‘How lovely,’ Sandra said loudly. ‘It must be beautiful
on the beach at this time of night.’
Richard smiled reflectively. The floating joy had
carried him out over the phosphorescent sea. Joy welled in
him again like swelling and poised at their peak. The gentle
tension held him, thrilled him...
‘Spain,’ he said, gesturing with his hands.
Michael was moved to speak, ‘Will we all have a
drink?’ As he spoke he reached out and clutched Deborah’s
wrist. She pulled away in distaste and then walked off.
Sandra stood uncertain, until Richard said, ‘Don’t go. We can
sit over by the window presently.’ Michael brought the drinks
and handed them from the counter without ceremony. Then
he returned to talk to his companion beside him.
Richard paused, then took Sandra by the arm and
guided her through the crowd to the window seat. The moon
103
had risen. Though they could not see it, its light illuminated
the low slopes beyond the road outside.
‘Have you known Michael before?’ Richard asked.
‘Yes. I met him when he was here before.’
‘You mean you come here every year?’
‘Yes, we do. That is, my parents and I,’ she replied.
Looking out the window, she continued, ‘It’s so beautiful
here. These warm nights and the long hot days. It’s
enchanting just to lie about and do nothing but doze and soak
up the sun.’
Richard stroked the side of his glass. ‘Has Michael
changed very much since you last knew him?’
‘He has become very hard, and bitter. He is very
sensitive, you know. When he was here before he was almost
in love with Deborah. But tonight he cut her cold. She was
quite hurt by it.’
‘So is he, I think.’
She looked at him quickly. ‘Oh, I never realised that.
He tried to take her away from her friends when she
introduced him. He made no attempt to be friendly towards
them.’
‘He may have had the wrong idea about tonight. He
expected a lot on the strength of his last time here.’
Sandra made no reply. She continued looking out the
window. To distract her from her mood, Richard asked,
‘Have you seen the dancing in Palafrugell?’
She brightened immediately. ‘The Sardanas? Isn’t it a
wonderful spectacle?’ she said with feeling. ‘I first saw it
three years ago. And it has started again? We must see it
tomorrow night.’
104
‘I won’t be here then. We’re leaving tomorrow.’
‘I didn’t mean... Are you going home tomorrow? What
a pity. You must be sad to leave. You give me the impression
that you really love Spain.’
‘I’m afraid it’s something of a novelty,’ he said. ‘But I
would have liked to see that dancing again.’
‘I would have included you in the party,’ she said
seriously. ‘But you had little time for us today. What were
you reading? Whatever it was must have been interesting,
because you were so engrossed in it.’
Richard watched her as she spoke. She was tall and
well-fleshed, a comfortably reared girl with her childhood
still close to her. Her face was round and plump, her fair hair
lying salt-matted on her shoulders. In his joyousness she
scintillated in the fact that she was young and alive.
She had returned to looking at the moonlight on the
slope outside. Now she started and looked at him.
‘Why are you watching me like that?’
Richard felt the resonance in him. It affected the timbre
of his voice, making it gay: ‘You’re a woman. You should be
complimented.’
She lowered her eyes as though to renounce that
responsibility. Richard lifted her face gently.
‘Tell me about the Sardanas, Sandra,’ he said
winningly. ‘I would like to hear your impressions of the
dance.’
She brightened again. ‘Well, first let me recite you a
short poem about the dance. I’m sure you’ll like it.’
She paused and pursed her lips in concentration.

105
La Sardana es la dansa mes bella
De totes les dances que es fan y es desfan.
Es mobil magnifica a nella,
Que amb mida y amb pause valenta oscillant.

She smiled and shook her hair.


‘Do you understand it?’ she asked brightly.
‘Most of it. My Spanish is a mixture of school learning
and overheard conversation.’
Sandra looked out the window as she spoke about the
dance. She stroked the wood of the sill with strong, puffy
fingers. It was no objective description: the images she
produced took complete command of her mind. Richard was
not affected by her emotion, but he felt he understood it. It
was not innocence; it was a rebirth of innocence.
When she had finished, she suddenly asked: ‘Did
Michael enjoy the dancing? I don’t think he saw it before. He
was too sick to stay up late.’
‘I don’t think so. He was too impatient to get down
here.’
Reminded of Michael’s existence, Richard looked
around to where he had left him. But he had moved to a table
and was now in deep conversation, making vague descriptive
gestures with his hands. To Richard’s surprise, he was
speaking to two of the Germans who had been in the
restaurant earlier in the evening.
‘It’s a pity he and Deborah argued as they did,’ Sandra
lamented, letting her earlier mood run. ‘They would be so
much happier now otherwise.’

106
But Richard moved against the sentiment: ‘I don’t
know how Deborah is feeling, but Michael might be happier
at the moment than you think.’
Then he straightened in his seat and touched her lightly
on the cheek. ‘Don’t worry yourself about them. I’m sure
they’re old enough to fend for themselves.’ He spoke
caressingly, more to draw attention to himself than to impart
information.
She nuzzled her face against his touch. ‘Tell me,’ she
asked intimately. ‘Did you really walk through the waves?’
‘Yes I really did,’ Richard replied with the same
intimacy, bringing his face close to hers. ‘I did it for joy...
Freude.’
She drew her head back, laughing suddenly. Richard
laughed with her. He took her hand from the sill and
squeezed it. Sandra sighed, as though in regret, and looked up
at him. Her eyes were moist and they glistened in the light.
Generous eyes, Richard saw, all young. Pure receptiveness.
He felt an upsurge of desire for her. She squeezed his hand in
return with earnest appeal.
‘Would you like to walk on the beach?’ Richard asked.
Without replying, Sandra stood up and walked towards
the door.
Outside, the change in atmosphere, from the smells and
noise of the club to the sweet silence of the night, made them
quiet and self-conscious. They walked side by side, without
touching, down the gentle gradient towards the sea. Richard
gazed up at the stars, identifying the familiar constellations,
attempting to grasp the reality of his changed latitude in the
changed inclination of the stars. But the presence of the warm
107
body beside him made it too difficult. Sandra hummed some
vague melody. ‘They’re beautiful, aren’t they,’ Richard said,
pointing up. She paused to look up. Richard, walking a little
behind, reached forwards and grasped her hips. She stopped
and seemed to wait. Richard’s head hammered with the
combined effects of alcohol, nicotine and desire. He drew her
back to him and pressed his face into her hair. Sandra
responded by turning her face to him, her mouth slack and
gaping. Their kiss was too rough at first and Sandra pulled
back. But then they rejoined for the sheer pleasure of it. Her
desire leapt in her and she pressed back against Richard.
When they parted, both shaking with the force of their
passion, Sandra looked at him with a mixture of irony and
regret. She put her fingers on his lips and said ambiguously:
‘Bastard.’
Then she threw her arms about his neck. Richard had a
fleeting feeling of pity for her, but it passed and was replaced
by one of eagerness.
They crossed the promenade on to the beach. The
family had gone. Nothing was left but the street lights and
some pieces of paper that waffled weakly in the night wind.

When Richard returned he saw that Michael was


slumped in his chair. He was trying very hard to pour coke
into a glass of white rum. The bottle shook in his hand,
jarring against the rim of the glass, which set his teeth on
edge and tingled along his diseased spine. But he had to do it.
He could not drink the rum on its own: it should be mixed
with coke. The two Germans sat opposite him and
108
encouraged him along in their own language, and Michael
now and again looked over at them and smiled in gratitude.
The eyes of the Germans were alive and bright with the force
of life.
Richard’s eyes were hollowed and dark and his face
raw about his mouth and cheeks. He took the bottle from
Michael’s hand. As he poured the liquid his hand shook
slightly, but he held the bottle high over the glass and
allowed the coke splash and froth. This completed, he made a
small bow to the Germans and raised the glass and drank.
‘Hoi! That’s my drink. You can’t do that,’ Michael
shouted, coming out of his stupor. ‘Oh, it’s you.’ He looked
closely at Richard. ‘Did you get it?’
Richard replaced the glass and bent down to Michael.
‘Are you ready?’ he said with residual gaiety.
‘Am I ready? No, I’m not. I’m going to sit here all
night and talk to my friends.’ He indicated the two Germans.
‘They at least had the decency to talk to me while you went
off with that female.’
‘It’s after four and the sun is rising,’ Richard said,
looking over at the Germans. ‘Come on, the night is over.’
‘No. Leave me alone. I don’t want to go.’
‘Very well. Will you give me the car keys then? I’ll
come and collect you in the morning.’
Michael fumbled in his pockets. When he found the
keys, he handed them over with a look of defiance.
‘Don’t kill yourself in it,’ he said. As Richard walked
towards the street he called after him: ‘And don’t forget,
motorcars are real: they’re made of steel.’

109
Seated behind the wheel, Richard plugged the key into
the ignition and sat back. The array of knobs and instruments,
the smell of burnt oil and dust, the familiar smell of their
presence and the memories all these inspired, of racing and
bumping down through England and France, of the torpor at
the end of a day’s driving, and, finally, the prospect of
making the return journey beginning that day, filled him with
a loathing for the machine.
He lit a cigarette and closed his eyes, content to sit
there until the morning proper, when he would fetch Michael
from where-ever he found to sleep off the drink.
But before he had finished the cigarette, Michael came
down the avenue. He called out Richard’s name in a sing-
song voice and stumbled on the gravely surface. When he
reached the car he tapped on the window and said, too loudly,
‘I thought you were going back to the campsite.’
Richard got out of the car.
‘I didn’t feel like driving it.’
Michael looked at him askance.
‘Were you afraid of it?’ His eyes were puffed, but the
blankness was gone. ‘Give me the keys.’
‘They’re in the ignition,’ Richard said. He walked
around the car, raising his voice. ‘I had a revulsion for the
whole machine.’
Michael shrugged stiffly and then clambered
awkwardly into the driving seat. As Richard got in beside
him, he asked: ‘Are you sure you weren’t afraid?’
‘Yes, I’m quite sure,’ Richard said sharply, feeling the
mood of the car close about him. ‘Why should I be ashamed
of admitting it if it were true?’
110
Michael switched the key. ‘Nothing, nothing,’ he said
insinuatingly. ‘I just wondered.’
He drove slowly up to Palafrugell and around the now
empty square; then out along the road to Bagur. The sun was
risen a few degrees above the sea and its light cleared the
land of night.
‘It’s a beautiful country, Richard,’ Michael said as they
crossed one of the many ridges on the road. ‘I’m sorry we’re
leaving it tomorrow...Or rather, today.’
Richard mumbled in reply. On the point of sleep, his
head throbbed with the emotion of memories.

111
IN THE LAND OF THE PRODIGAL

112
Claire Burke came to London shortly after Christmas.
‘A change of scenery’ she told her friends in Dublin with the
bravado that characterised her then. She took a position in a
bank, but discovering that it lacked the status she expected,
she left. Various types of work followed and status, as
satisfied self-respect, didn’t seem important so long as she
kept to herself.
She shared a large roomy flat on the corner of a square
not far from Earls Court tube station with an Australian
draughtswoman and two English nurses. She found their
reserve striking at first, it served as a topic in letters to family
and friends, but she soon learned to accept it and even to
respond to it in like manner.
But outside the flat she ‘talked to everyone’, as she told
her mother. She struck up acquaintances with many people,
regardless of age, race or class, and though she made no
friends she found them all ‘very interesting’.
Under these circumstances, her strong face came to
express a capacity for enduring the inertia of the individual
life coupled with its disavowal in a secretive piety. This
expression, together with her red hair, indifferently kept
though usually tidy, and her flat blue eyes, reminded many of
an Irish woman writer then living in London.
Within the fog of this temporising life she managed to
come in contact with Richard Butler. While he had been
resident in a less impenetrable London for two years, he lived
what was for her a frighteningly anonymous life as editor and
writer of a small literary-cum-political magazine. She found
him shabby, distracted and naively passionate. More
disturbing was his habit when they met of insisting that she
113
choose what to do and where to go. But she never would
choose, for though she often stood on her dignity to curb him,
she really wanted to be led, in order that she might retain
some element of caprice.
The great expedition during this first part of their
intimacy was to Greenwich. The journey down the river, the
city crouched in concrete confusion along the banks, the roll
of the water a medium for freedom and gaiety, released them
from their individual Londons and prepared them for the
wistful serenity of the observatory on the ancient hill. For
Richard, with Claire a captive audience, the day became an
extended and much digressed essay on the beauty of earlier
civilisations, reaching back to the dawn of human activity.
Though it was a humid day of early summer, with the trees
only now achieving their limp fullness of foliage, their mood
was autumnal, chilled and symmetrical. They had moments
of delight, especially Claire; moments of quiet, when they
paced side by side in silence; moments of strange, heart-
twisting melancholy, when they were driven apart only to be
reunited in tender, speechless, moist-eyed affection. The day
ended in a quiet restaurant, the gratification of hunger a
metaphor for their discovered love.
That evening Richard was convinced he had plumbed
the depths of woman, for he had glimpsed in Claire a black,
bottomless pool of existence that could never be ruffled.
Claire, for her part, realised that Richard did not really
like women.

In July, it was now hot and sticky in the city and she
had taken to dressing in a casual, indifferent manner, Claire
114
chanced to meet Catherine Hackett, a girl she had known at
school in the convent on the Green. Catherine was about two
years younger than Claire and there had been a short-lived
friendship between them when Catherine had been fourteen
and Claire sixteen, the latter something of a heroine, someone
to be flattered, but also to be studied carefully. It had been
short-lived because there had been little to learn about Claire,
or else because she was extraordinarily close.
Against Claire’s diffused greeting, full of hesitancies,
Catherine was direct and blandly social, almost at times
peremptory. It was she who suggested a coffee in a nearby
shop: Claire agreed, an expression of surprise and vaguely
condescending amusement on her face, the latter springing
from memories of Catherine at school. Over coffee Catherine
did most of the talking. Only a month in London, she was
like a terrier finally let off the leash, after having long been
teased with the prospect of this freedom. Already she had
made a circle of friends, she described some of them at length
with dispassion, and had established a steady relationship
with a Dublin man who was half her age again older than her.
She was reticent about this man, but without losing the
rhythm of her monologue. Addresses were exchanged and
then Catherine was gone and Claire was surprised to feel first
an emptiness before the flat colours and the inconsequent
bustle of the coffee shop rushed in upon her to fill the
vacuum and oppress her.
Claire made only a passing remark to Richard about
meeting Catherine, and he smiled and nodded and let it pass.
Catherine again burst upon the scene a few days later when
she visited Claire at her flat. With her pacing up and down
115
behind the enormous sofa drawn up before the fireplace, her
hands skimming over its rough fabric, the large room became
remote and staid, and Claire realised with a pleasing
resignation how much she took the adjuncts to her life for
granted. She sat all the while, watching Catherine pace and
listening to her, feeling herself expand to pure
amorphousness to fill the space of the room. Catherine
seemed distant, like the flickering of a light far away, and it
was pleasant to be hypnotised in this way by another person,
to feel herself being lived by someone else. It was a relief to
trust someone like this, for everything became peaceful and
opaque: she had no wishes for herself and yet the wishes of
others for her were rendered impotent in this silencing
universe.
Then Catherine was gone again and the room and its
furnishings became stark and implacable. Trembling
inwardly, she had to drag herself off to bed, where she lay for
hours rigid like a newly-trapped animal, outwardly plumply
furred but as taut as a trigger within. Dreamlessly, sleep
finally took her and released her.
Richard was present at their next meeting and after an
initial sharp exchange of leading questions and witty answers,
both Richard and Catherine seemed to call a truce and accept
each other on appearance. Claire was surprised, and then
bewildered, by the incident itself, by their intense probing
reaction to each other, and soon felt in some way left outside
of the undercurrent that came to exist between them in their
mutual forbearance. That evening limped along, reduced to
banality, in which none of the three could get to grips with
any topic, and ended in a trough of sullenness. However, an
116
invitation to Claire from Catherine to spend the weekend with
her and her man, still unnamed, was necessarily extended to
Richard, who couldn’t help overhearing.
Catherine’s arrangement that they drive down with
them on Friday evening was accepted by Claire. Richard then
discovered that he could not make it and would have to
follow by train on Saturday morning. It occurred to him to
ask Claire to stay over and travel with him, but instinct told
him that she would rather go with Catherine. He was not put
out by this.

Friday evening was one of those replete evenings of


the Home Counties in summer, when the sun settles on a day
well worth the trouble and effort. But Claire felt that there
was a superfluity in this scene. She compared it with Dublin
landscapes, where the presence of the mountains and the sea
contrasted inescapably with the human endeavour of the city
and the day dies on a primitive gyre. This sense of the
superfluous made her uneasy, for taken on its own terms it
made her life seem futile. Claire had never experienced this
before, and Catherine was more than willing to go into
details, dwelling most of all on the fact that this region had
enjoyed over a thousand years of continuous peace and well-
being, which when compared with the history of any region
of Ireland – or of Europe for that matter – was unique.
The driver of the car, a plump silent man, was a source
of embarrassment to both girls. Claire had expected someone
different, Catherine had led her to expect it. Catherine was
quick to sense the disappointment, and she felt the need to
draw in her horns until Claire had regained her composure.
117
The stream of comment issuing from Catherine, twisted about
in her seat to face Claire in the back, served well to cover up
the feeling of betrayal.
It was dark when the silent man, George Hallion, who
had by now been reabsorbed by the girls, unlocked the front
door of the cottage. With the ground-floor rooms flooded
with white electric light, and while Catherine took meat from
the freezer and drew water for coffee, he stood in the centre
of the lounge, his arms now folded across his chest, now
restless at his sides, and spoke to Claire:
‘I had terrible trouble with the pipes, you know. They
were ancient. Ancient! They hammered when the pipes were
closed and hummed when they were open. Then I had to fight
with the local council to get them to connect me with the
sewage they laid on for those new houses across the road. I
had all the pipes ripped out, every one of them – luckily they
were external – but even so there was a terrible mess. A
terrible mess. When I finally persuaded the council to extend
the sewer, I decided to put the plumbing in properly. Then I
discovered the dry rot. Floors, ceilings were all rotten.
Rotten! Even the oak beams in here. So all that had to come
out. I had a fire burning in the back for three days solid.
Three days! Then the first joist that was put in knocked lumps
out of the wall. It must have been about three hundred years
old. I tapped it with a hammer and then cemented all the
holes and gaps. You wouldn’t believe the amount of work I
put into this place. Or the money. I got the place cheap but
I’m sure I’ve spent as much again fixing it up. If I had known
what the place was like in the beginning I wouldn’t have

118
bought it. Never! There are plenty of good bargains all over
the south-east!’
George was in business in a modest way. Of a long line
of entrepreneurs, he was bred to a philosophy of precarious
independence.
‘It’s lovely,’ Claire said. There was a faint smile of
amusement on her lips. ‘It was well worth the trouble.’
Then Catherine brought in the coffee and George
slipped out to fetch a bottle of whisky from the car.
‘Do you like the place?’ Catherine asked.
‘I’ve just told George that it was well worth the
trouble. I think it’s lovely.’
‘Trouble? What trouble?’
‘Fixing the plumbing and floors.’
‘He didn’t tell me about that.’
‘It’s not important.’
Catherine stiffened. ‘All the same, he should have told
me.’
When George returned he said that he had never
thought of telling her; he didn’t think she would have been
interested.
Then they sat, Catherine and George drinking whisky,
and Claire, who didn’t trust alcohol, contented herself with
coffee. Catherine spoke and held the attention of the other
two without much difficulty: perhaps because she was in fact
thinking aloud, an action that both revealed her private self
and yet also involved them as she used their past actions and
words to illustrate her discourse, made both Claire and
George an entranced audience. She could be thrillingly
insistent, pausing to repeat a significant point, seemingly
119
finding new insights there, and her feeling for pace and
rhythm buoyed them up and swept them along as they sensed
the creative success in her struggle between content and
rhetoric. Her thin face was a mask of many faces; her thin
body a tense accumulator of passions: sculptured, she would
have been an abstract figure as many-faceted as a diamond,
with all the subtle fire of a thing created under high pressure
from muddy amorphous clay.
George did not come in to Catherine as he usually did
when they stayed in the cottage and she lay awake for a
while, bright and thoughtless, and then rose up and went into
Claire. Her manner amused Claire’s slack, now sated, powers
of attention.
Catherine inhaled her cigarette with exaggerated force,
‘Do you miss Richard?’
Claire smiled, shaking her head, and parried, ‘Should
I?’
‘How do I know?’ Catherine replied sharply. ‘Don’t
you love him?’
‘What is love?’
It was beginning to annoy Catherine again, as it used to
at school, that when she wanted to, Claire could maintain a
distance between them.
‘You’re still a virgin, aren’t you?’
Claire paused, choosing between evasion and
admission, then said:
‘Yes.’
‘How is that? I thought you were more attractive to
men than I am.’
Surprised, and gratified, Claire said:
120
‘Do you really think so?’
‘Of course. You’re turgid. Men like that. It makes them
feel they are children again.’
‘What does turgid mean?’
‘Swollen, full... Expanded.’
‘Am I really like that?’
‘Yes!’ This with impatience. ‘Don’t you know what
you are like?’
‘I can never decide.’
‘Decide? You don’t decide, Claire, you discover it in
what you do and the way you do it.’
‘Oh.’ Claire increased the distance between them.
‘I thought you were intelligent.’
Claire laughed and so broke the spell. Catherine leaned
over her and stared at her. Claire smelled whisky and
tobacco.
‘You’re not stupid. I’m sure of that.’ Catherine seemed
to be arguing with herself. Then she caught Claire’s shoulder
through the bedclothes and squeezed it. ‘What are hoping for,
Claire?’
Claire’s eyes dilated and lost focus. ‘I hope for
nothing. Can’t I be left alone with myself?’ She clutched
Catherine’s wrist.
Catherine released her hold and stood erect.
‘I don’t understand you, do you know that? What does
the likes of Richard find in you?’
Claire stared at her, wide-eyed and tense, no longer
hearing her.
Catherine left. Alone in the dark Claire knew that she
should be afraid of Catherine. But she wasn’t. She knew that
121
she should have admitted to fear a long time ago, but she had
managed to evade it all this time. Because of this, shame had
long since become interwoven with the fear.

Richard arrived at about eleven in the morning,


walking up the short path from the road with a disgruntled
expression on his face. Claire watched him from the window
and he greeted her with:
‘The taxi from Didcot cost me two pounds.’
She laughed at his aggrieved tone and so Richard
gripped her arms and squeezed them till her face contorted
with pain and she pleaded with him to let her go. He did and
then they kissed.
George was formal and asked him if he liked the
surrounding countryside. Catherine stood in the door
appraising the three of them.
‘It was bloody murder getting here,’ Richard said
cheerfully.
George was placid and logical:
‘You should have come down with us last night.’
The girls sensed the antipathy immediately.
Richard asked Claire and then Catherine for food. He
had been up since seven. Claire didn’t move; Catherine
grimaced and went and scrambled some eggs. When he had
eaten, he stated that he had consulted a map and intended
walking the ridge that lay about a mile to the south. Claire
bubbled with laughter, as though this was the most absurd
thing in the world, and refused point blank to go with him.
George said ‘No’ and left it at that, though a trace of

122
resentment could be detected in his voice. But Catherine was
willing.
George offered Claire a game of tennis in the garden
and she accepted, but only because everyone else was
determined to be active.
Richard and Catherine walked for over an hour in
silence. Catherine had recognised before now that Richard
was of that brand of Irishman for whom everything had its
opposite and contradiction, who knew that one of the
elements in a dualism should be preferable to the other, but
who could find no way of separating it from its antithesis. He
was no audience: he was a critic, for whom encounter was a
confrontation that produced exhaustion and an experience
similar to that of hearing cymbals crashing at close range.
(Damn him, she thought.)
Richard, for his part, thought that Catherine was too
ruthless and that she exposed herself too much in the process.
Nevertheless, there was naturally an impulsive
sympathy, a wary respect, between them. And both hated the
barriers each felt forced to erect against the other.
But the day brooded on them as they walked along the
ridge towards the west, and they brooded on the day. The
landscapes were at first serene and relieving, but as the
business of tramping along the rough trackway wearied them,
all those trees and fields below them in the broad shallow
valleys became monotonous and inert. In a deeply frustrating
way, the countryside came to seem dead. And this unnerved
Catherine. She felt herself draw closer to Richard’s company.
She took his hand and his manner softened, as though to
accommodate her.
123
By the time they reached Richard’s objective both
were exhausted, their minds numbed. Richard stood at the top
of the slope and stared down at the oblique and from that
angle unrecognisable Uffington White Horse. He had a
memory of an aerial photograph of the site. But Catherine
hadn’t. She didn’t know what she was looking at or what she
was supposed to see. Realising how she had been led, she
was at first angry. But there was a mystery in it, standing
before something she didn’t understand. Richard had brought
her; she had submitted to his judgement and leadership.
Whether she liked it or not, she felt grateful to him.
Having stared down at the patches of bare chalk among
the short, very green grass for some time, savouring this
relief of gratitude, she turned and glanced askance at Richard.
He appeared to be in a trance, staring down with a grim, tight
expression. Then his face lit up in a way that frightened her
and he laughed aloud. She thought he was being ironic, with
all the harsh, inward-turned malice of his kind. Then she saw
how revealing the laugh was. There was mockery and the
release of pent-up forces in it as mystery was dissolved.
The laugh cut into her.
She turned and walked away from him, back up the
slope. She quaked inside and shivers shot up and down her
spine. She bit her lip till it hurt and the aftermath of pain was
a thrill of release. Her body vibrated in tune with this
sensation of release and she had to stop and concentrate on
not losing her balance. She stood in the one spot for what
seemed a long time, shoulders bowed, her hand clenched
against her belly and her eyes tightly shut.

124
When it had passed and she felt drained and lucid, she
looked up and saw that Richard was watching her. She saw
that he understood. If he were to come over to her...
Then everything was transparent and she couldn’t see
Richard, or anything else.
She discovered she was crying...

The tennis game was long ended and George and


Claire sat at lunch in the spacious kitchen when Catherine
and Richard arrived back. George was crouched over his
plate while Claire sat away from him at the far end of the
table, picking at her food.
‘We walked to the White Horse,’ Catherine announced
loudly as soon as she crossed the threshold.
George raised his head, coughed as though he had not
spoken for some time, and said:
‘Oh yes? Did you? I meant to take you down to see it.
It’s only a few miles along the road, you know.’ He glanced
at Richard. ‘But I didn’t think you were interested in that sort
of thing.’
‘If you had taken the trouble to ask me...’ Catherine’s
voice was sharp and confident.
‘You could have said something. How was I to know?
How am I to know what you like if you don’t tell me?’
‘I didn’t know it existed until Richard showed it to
me.’
George looked at Richard again, then at Claire.
Catherine glanced at Claire, shrugged her shoulders, and
went and piled salad from the bowl and gave it to Richard.

125
The meal was eaten in silence. Afterwards Catherine
said she would go and lie down for an hour or so, saying
‘Whoops, I’m exhausted after that walk – Richard fairly
steams along when he gets going,’ which struck both Claire
and George as being uncharacteristic of her. Neither could
put a finger on it, but there was an unusual sense of
spaciousness and acceptance in it.
Ten minutes later George got up from the table, his
coffee hardly touched, and said that he too would rest
upstairs. At the door he turned to Richard and Claire and
waved his hands in the air. About to say something, he
gulped and sighed ‘You know.’
Richard followed Claire out into the garden and lay
down beside her on the grass in the sun. They stretched out
without touching and dozed until Claire said:
‘Do you know what George said about me?’
‘No. What?’
‘He said I have a man’s head on a woman’s body.’
Richard lazily turned his head to her, smiling:
‘Did he then?’
‘I wonder what he meant. Do you think I have a man’s
mind?’
‘I’ve never thought of you like that. What caused him
to say it?’
‘I don’t know. We played one set and I got fed up. It
was far too warm for running around like that. I threw my
racquet in a corner and went inside.’
‘Maybe it was your wilfulness.’

126
‘Yes. It might have been something like that.’ She
paused, screwing her face against the sunlight. ‘But what
about Catherine? Don’t you think she is very intellectual?’
‘After a fashion. But she’s a woman in spite of herself,
in any case.’
Claire’s face was suddenly uneasy: ‘I don’t know what
you mean.’
‘I’ll explain it some other time if you really want to
know. Right now it’s too warm.’
Then they heard Catherine’s voice, piercing and
querulous. Her voice was suddenly cut off.
In the ensuing silence the hum of the summer’s day
seemed to fill up the world. Claire sighed audibly. She rolled
over until she lay against Richard. Very soon she was
sleeping gently.

Catherine stayed in her room that evening but George,


Richard and Claire drove over to Wantage, the nearest town,
for a drink. The two men became interested in the game of
billiards that some of the locals were playing. They left Claire
sitting up at the bar – she turned her nose up at the suggestion
that she come and watch also. Richard caught George looking
over at her several times. His curiosity was casual yet furtive,
almost habitual. Then he leaned in Richard’s direction, until
their shoulders touched, and squinting in a gesture of
confidence he said:
‘I like robust women.’
Richard stared at him. George was forced to expand:

127
‘Take Claire now. She’s a fine woman.’ He looked
over at her, inviting Richard to do the same. Richard’s
continued stare stopped him at this point.
They returned their attention to the game of billiards.
Once Richard had mastered the rules of the game he lost
interest. As he turned to go and join Claire George spoke out
of the corner of his mouth, an edge of malice in his tone:
‘But you know, Richard old son, she’s far too pally.
She’s one of these modern types. She doesn’t want to be a
woman.’

The drive back was made in silence. Going up to his


room, George stopped in the door and said:
‘You know, you two, you have the run of the house.
You know what I mean?’ he didn’t wait for their reply.
‘Anyway, do what you like.’ He grimaced violently and left
them.
‘What do you make of that?’ Richard asked.
Claire made a moue. ‘He’s drunk.’
Richard went and looked out the window at the intense
rural darkness.
‘We should have gone back to London this evening,’
he said.
‘Why? Aren’t you enjoying yourself?’
‘Not much. It’s dull here.’
‘Oh Dick!’ There was exasperation in her voice. But
Richard heard something else, a plea that seemed to say ‘Be
happy! Be happy at any price. Be happy, if only for my sake.’
‘I thought you were happy today. You seemed to enjoy
your walk with Catherine.’
128
‘You should have come.’
‘Oh, it was too hot.’
‘Yes, I suppose it was. But it’s not often we get out of
London.’
‘Perhaps. But anyway, you certainly made Catherine’s
day.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I’ve never seen her so open as she was when she came
back from that tramp.’
‘I didn’t do anything special.’
‘But you know she likes you. You arouse her
curiosity.’
‘I don’t particularly like her, if you want to know. She
can’t be trusted.’
‘That’s Catherine.’
‘She looks for attention so as to escape from herself.’
‘Attention? My God, but you can be coldminded at
times, Dick.’
Richard came away from the window.
‘I’m going up.’
‘Goodnight then.’
Lying in bed, he heard her moving about downstairs.
The disembodied sounds were witnesses to her existence.
Richard remembered George’s comments. They drew
attention to her in a new, objective way. In seeing her
reposed, he realised that he should try now to make love to
her. The insight carried with it the poignancy of regret.
He heard her on the stairs. Then in the short corridor,
her steps hollow on the thinly carpeted floor. She knocked
and came into his room, whispering ‘Are you still awake?’
129
‘Yes.’
She came and sat on the side of the bed. She appeared
to be self-possessed and serious.
‘I just wanted to tell you that you are not coldminded.’
‘That’s alright. Maybe it seems different to you. As a
woman, I mean. To me she wants attention and praise. I
suppose you would say she wanted to be loved.’
‘Yes. As a child wants love.’
‘But she’s not a child.’
‘But she’s very vulnerable, don’t you see that?’
‘Yes, I do. That’s what makes her so passionate.’
Claire laughed, a reflective laugh. She murmured the
word ‘passion’, as though she thought the key to Catherine
lay there.
Richard suddenly saw Claire as he had not seen her
before: right down into her core. There he saw what she
wanted of him: she wanted him to make her perfectly happy.
Then he felt he was being sucked into her, into her existence
of blood and muscle and cells. He felt as though his own
body was being matched with hers, cell for cell. The yearning
this aroused was intense and yet not sexual. The call came
from within her, not from within herself – it came from the
deep unruffled part of her.
‘You call it passion,’ Claire said, as though nothing
had happened. ‘I call it utter selfishness.’
‘Isn’t passion selfish?’
Claire moved with a start.
‘But she wants too much from the world and in the end
she will get nothing.’
Now it hit him: ‘And yet you envy her, don’t you?’
130
‘Yes. In a way. She’s much more alive than I am.’
‘She’s just a different type of person.’
‘No! Not in this way. She’s always been able to stir
herself into action.’
‘She takes chances.’
‘If you call it that.’
‘But she never wins.’
‘Never? I like to think she does.’
‘When? Like this afternoon, when George forced
himself on her?’
‘Is that what happened?’ He felt her shudder.
‘Didn’t you know that?’
‘No. I didn’t give it much thought... That’s terrible. I
didn’t think George could be like that.’
‘Well he is.’
Claire began plucking at the bedspread. ‘Why did he
do that?’ Her curiosity was genuine.
‘Women like Catherine won’t make rules. They want it
to be the first time every time.’
‘You make her out to be a whore of some kind.’
‘No, not a whore. They make the most elaborate rules.’
‘They don’t. They’re lost women.’
‘I won’t argue with you. It’s too late.’
Claire went still. ‘Poor Catherine. She really has the
most awful life, hasn’t she?’
‘Perhaps that depends on what she wants.’
‘And what about me, Dick?’ She paused, her voice
shaking with sudden self-pity. ‘Why do you bother with me?
I give you nothing at all.’

131
He laid his hand on her arm, feeling the warm flesh
give way to his pressure.
‘But I don’t,’ she insisted.
He pulled her arm and she sank down beside him. She
was shaking all over. He kissed her brow, feeling very alone
with her.
When she whispered ‘Please don’t’ Richard murmured
‘I know, I know’ and she calmed and let herself go slack
against him, clinging to him. He felt the shape of her against
him through the bedclothes. Now that she was close to him
he saw beyond the image of repose to the terrible otherness of
her: closest, she seemed furthest away. In this insight he saw
also his own aloneness, and the terrible helplessness of it.
When he tried to break out of this knowledge, his
passion became the abstraction of a force applied elsewhere,
and in its stunning obliquity Claire became expansive as a
dark bubble waiting to enclose him in its own image.
Claire lay passive at first, her body smooth and cold,
rigid in an agony of shame and fear. Then she saw it all quite
clearly. There was no going back from this point: this was
what she had sought, even though she had never admitted it
to herself. But she could not see how she could go on from
this point either: she could never accommodate this other
world Richard was bringing her. Instead she felt as though
she was stepping aside and leaving this grotesque business to
do with her body, and her passions, to Richard.
Released, her arms embraced Richard, and she felt the
cold sear in her body, the desperate outburst shame had
dammed for so long. She saw their frantic tussle, its blind
secularity, and turned inwards towards the peace and
132
obscurity of her silencing universe. But it was no longer
there. Stepping sideways had not done the damage, the
knowledge she could not avoid had.
She discovered she had made a profound mistake. She
no longer had any excuse, and crying was futile now, when it
was too late.
Someone had fooled her.

133
RETURN

134
It was the off-season: eight-thirty in the evening in the
great concourse of Euston Station, London.
The intended traveller, of average height and build,
with brown hair straggled out over the collar of his jacket,
gripped a new blue suitcase in his hand. His face was pale,
the skin puckered about his eyes. He was gazing up at the
electronic departure board above the platform.
His earlier feelings of eagerness and anticipation, that
had consumed him during the tube ride across the city, were
now fading. Instead, he became uneasy. Apparently there
were really no heroics in taking a train home to Dublin:
besides, the station was almost deserted, and an empty Euston
Station is an insult to the homegoing Irishman.
He reckoned he had twenty minutes to spare before he
need take his seat on the train. Time enough for a drink. He
had heard all the stories about drinking from Euston to Dun
Laoghaire – but never before had he felt less like drinking
than he did now. One drink at least he would have, if only as
a gesture to tradition.
During the short walk across the concourse to the bar
he experienced a curious sensation. It was as though
something inside him melted and ran down his spine. And
unused to this sensation as he was, he was immediately aware
of the feelings that lay behind it. Interrogated, these feelings
at once gave up the insight that to a child affection and family
relations were pre-literate, impossible to express in words,
because of the complexity inherent in simplicity, but absolute
in the experiencing of them. In this knowledge the child
became, not the father, but the teacher of the man. He showed
that what had been vertical could become horizontal; what
135
had been the straight line of ambition could once again
become the spatial, emotional thing called life.
It was with a strange trepidation the Richard Butler
approached the bar counter and excused his way through the
drinkers, most of whom seemed to be passing the time before
boarding the same train as he.
While waiting for his drink to be served he noticed a
man of his own age who was crouched in the centre of the
room, one hand in his jacket pocket, the other poised before
him on a level with his chin, who swivelled his eyes from
side to side sizing up the drinkers. He was dressed in a greasy
grey suit, the trouser-ends suspended two or three inches
above his ankles. A soiled white shirt was open to his waist,
exposing a dark hairy chest. His hair, jet-black and straight,
hung down on his forehead. Catching sight of Richard
watching him, he shambled over and grinned, showing
brilliant white teeth. He made gestures with two fingers as his
mouth to mime smoking. His eyes were bright with
cleverness and trickery. There was a joke in all this, Richard
thought, raising his brows. He took a cigarette box from his
pocket, opened it and extracted two cigarettes. The man took
one of them, his smile broader now. Richard gestured that he
was to take the second cigarette also. The man hesitated,
sensing some trap. Richard gestured again.
‘Two?’ the man asked carefully.
Richard nodded. ‘Keep it for later,’ he said. ‘Have it
before you go to bed.’
What bed? He thought as he finished speaking.

136
The man looked narrowly at Richard, then he took the
second cigarette. He overtly placed it with care in the top
pocket of his suit.
‘You’re a great man,’ he said, grinning again.
‘That’s alright now,’ Richard said to conclude.
The man turned to stand at right angles to Richard.
‘We’re not all poor, thank God,’ he said, eyeing the
crowd at the bar.
‘Thank God we’re not,’ Richard said firmly.
‘A match. I can’t even afford a match,’ the man said.
Richard produced a box and gave the man a dozen or
so matches. ‘There now,’ he said simply.
‘You’re a great man,’ the man said, putting the
matches away. He put the cigarette between his lips. He
waited expectantly, looking from Richard’s face to the box of
matches in his hand.
Richard struck a match and lit the man’s cigarette. He
puffed vigorously, inhaling deeply with obvious pleasure, and
exhaled a great cloud of smoke. Then he insisted on shaking
Richard’s hand, saying over and over what a great man he
was.
Richard suspected a joke somewhere.
Left alone, Richard paid for his drink and stood at the
bar sipping the whiskey. The minutes ticked by to the
accompaniment of the chatter and laughter of the bar. He was
struck by the note of relief among the motley dressed crowd:
he had expected excitement, a holiday mood, but it was as
though they were leaving a prison.
He drained his glass and turned to leave. The begging
man, now drinking a hurriedly poured bottle of stout over at
137
the far side of the room, caught Richard’s eye. Grinning, he
mimed smoking with his two fingers and nodded his head as
though to encourage Richard. Richard cut the air sharply with
the edge of his hand and quickened his step.

The train wasn’t crowded, but what passengers there


were had spread themselves thinly over the length of the
train, with one, or sometimes two, to a compartment. Richard
hauled his suitcase the length of the train looking for a
compartment that was empty – for he too, as if by instinct,
wanted to be alone. In the end he had to compromise. He
could not find an empty compartment. He settled for one that
was empty of people but which contained two large, strong
suitcases, one on the floor, the second jammed precariously
on the overhead rack.
He sat by the door of the compartment, allowing the
absent owner of the cases the right to the seat by the window.
The train soon after jerked into motion. With the journey
started, Richard felt at peace, knowing that he was in the
hands of others. It drew across the complicated points outside
the station, clattering, and gathered speed. Soon the suburbs
of London were flashing by, the dull, metallic amber lights
damping whatever character and beauty the Victorian houses
might have.
As the full meaning of what was happening came home
to him he experienced an instant’s elation, but at once its
place was taken by unease. He did not know why he should
feel uneasy, unless some memory pricked him. He lit a
cigarette and tried to regain his equilibrium within the
habitual actions of smoking. Then the compartment was too
138
warm: then he thought he was too close to the engine – he
could imagine the strain on the carriage, caught as it was
between the pull of the huge electric unit and the resistance of
the trailing carriages.
The train had by now cleared the city and its
surrounding dormitory towns and was racing through the
countryside. Villages and farms, their lights dotting the night
on either side of him, seemed chock-a-block on the land. The
population of England, crowded on to its part of the island,
was foreign to him and he felt a defensive contempt for the
existences he passed so quickly in the night.
The whirr of the wheels on the continuous-weld track
began to calm him. He took a book from his case and settled
more deeply into his seat. But it was difficult to read as the
pulseless sound about him reduced the significance of the
words. Wearily, he put the book down and gazed across the
compartment and out the window. In time he began to doze.
His last thought before he fell asleep was one of contempt for
himself: he was so Irish.
He was awakened by the return of the owner of the two
cases, who slid the compartment door open savagely and
tripped over Richard’s outstretched feet. He looked down at
Richard with exaggerated force, apparently unable to decide
whether he should be aggressive or merely malicious. He was
thick-set and middle-aged, with a large wart at the corner of
his left eye. His face was red, his eyes narrowed by folds of
flesh. He was also drunk, with the tension of the loner who is
an habitual drinker. He glared at Richard for some time; then
without a word he went and sat by the window, on the
opposite side to Richard. For a few minutes he fumbled about
139
lighting a cigarette and darting hard looks out the window
from time to time, as though the task was beyond him and
someone else was to blame. It struck Richard that he was
acting. At last, while puffing the cigarette, the man spoke,
though with apparent reluctance, for he continued to look out
the window.
‘Going across for a holiday?’ His voice was gruff, with
a southern accent.
Richard stiffened at the note of belligerence. Here was
loneliness grown to self-sufficiency that produced a bluntness
born of curiosity that lacked sympathy.
‘Yes,’ Richard replied, though he was not. He had
made the most convenient answer because he did not feel
beholden to do otherwise.
The man looked at him sharply, suspicious of mockery.
‘What part of London are you in?’ he asked.
What part? Richard asked himself quickly. Somewhere
general make it.
‘Camden Town,’ he replied, though it was not true.
‘I know it. A lot of Greeks there, and Irish.’ The man
grinned tightly, as though he had successfully tested Richard.
Silence. The train was slowing, passing through the
outer suburbs of some town. The man looked out the
window.
‘Crewe,’ he said simply, obviously familiar with the
route. ‘We change engines here.’
He looked quickly at Richard, to see how he was
taking this stream of information.
Richard took his cue.
‘Why?’ he asked.
140
‘Why what?’
‘Why change engines?’
‘Because...because this is the end of the electrified line.
They’ll put a diesel engine on now.’
Richard said ‘I see’ and felt everything go rushing into
the vacuum that followed. He looked at his watch. He must
have been asleep for over two hours.
The man stretched his legs out before him and yawned.
His expression was much kindlier now.
‘You come from Dublin, don’t you,’ he said, looking
directly at Richard.
‘Yes. Born and bred,’ Richard replied lightly.
The man laughed shortly, coughing moistly. He rubbed
his chin with a large red hand and Richard could hear the
rough sandpapery sound caused by his stubble.
The stationary train jerked slightly as the diesel engine
was shunted into place and coupled up. Two uniformed
porters slouched by along the platform, their night-faces
smooth, with merry, boozy eyes. The platform was large and
deserted: a lighted oasis in this limbo of night and strange
places.
Imperceptibly at first, the train began to move, gliding
away from the light and out into the darkness once more.
Now it beat a tattoo on the rails, the beat becoming more
staccato as the train picked up speed.
The man spoke again.
‘Won’t be long now. A quick run across Wales and
we’re there.’ There was confidence in his voice, as if Richard
was at last being admitted into a secret world.

141
Richard wondered what he should say now. He did not
want the tenuous link between them to collapse again.
‘I’m afraid I don’t know the line at all,’ he said, setting
himself behind a small rampart of formality, the better to be
seen.
‘No? How long have you been away then?’ the man
said, his voice freer. ‘It must have been a couple of years at
least, judging by your accent?’
Richard started at this. Accent?
‘Three years.’
‘And did you not go home on holiday in that time at
all?’ The man was shaking his head.
‘No.’
The man continued to shake his head.
‘What about your Mammy? Didn’t she write to ask you
to come for a holiday?’
‘I suppose she did, but she didn’t insist on it.’
The man shook his head more slowly and seemed sad.
But when he glanced up, Richard was surprised to see that his
expression was one of incredulity.
‘Sure I’ve been in London for twenty years and I go
home twice a year, and sometimes three times,’ he said with
open admission.
Again Richard sensed a slackening of the tension
between them. The man was begging too many questions; he
must divert the conversation.
‘Do you always travel by boat?’ he asked, getting
behind his rampart again.
‘I do.’

142
The man was staring out the window. Richard could
see his face reflected in the glass. His eyes were screwed up
as he tried to organise some statement in his mind.
‘It’s easy-going, you see. You can take your time
and...and have a drink and a chat. I flew only the once, that
was when the Mammy died, and I flew over to Cork.’ He
shuddered in memory. ‘Sure there was no peace at all, going
here and then there, waiting for hours. And I was stuck in this
little seat by a small round window where I could see the
wing jumping up and down.’
Richard nodded sympathetically.
‘Then why don’t you take to boat to Cork or Rosslare,
so you would have less travelling to do?’ he asked when the
man had slumped back into silence, the outburst having
apparently exhausted him.
‘Ah, I’ve always come this way,’ the man said.
‘Breakfast and a wash in Dublin, then the train from
Kingsbridge in the afternoon. I get there time enough.’
Richard felt he was butting again into private worlds.
But before he could speak, the man spoke out again, this time
waving his hand as though to brush away some obstruction.
‘There’s only the old man and the sister there now, and
damned little peace with the two of them fighting all the
time.’
Before he could stop himself, Richard blurted out,
logically enough:
‘Then why do you bother to go?’
This brought the man up sharply. He looked at Richard
full in the eye. He looked at him fiercely for half a minute,
his mouth pursed and his cheeks puffed out as if ready to
143
shout. Then his brows twitched and his eyes slid away to
gaze at Richard’s chest.
Richard felt the tension between them slacken and
finally die. He sat back in his seat and lit a cigarette.
The train was hurtling through the night: a driver sat up
front, unflinching and probably unthinking, as this monster
charged from point A to point B. For no good reason Richard
had a thought: man must be sober in his relations with
machines.
The thought chilled him through and through.
The man, from his corner of the compartment, said to
the night, though presumably it was meant for Richard’s ears:
‘Jesus.’

At Holyhead there was unreality. Behind the harbour


the town slept, its gables, spires and roofs ghastly against the
night sky in the amber street lights. The boat, floodlit by
white light, towered over the train and the station. In the rush
from train to boat, beneath the glare of the lights, the boat
was reduced to gangplanks and much-repainted steel hull
plates. Porters, men of the night and cheerful, huddled here
and there in heavy black overcoats with collars turned up
against the sea-chill.
The first class lounge had an unreal, temporary air –
the furniture and colours too solid; one knew it was a ship,
for here was the usual trick of too much solidity to lull the
traveller into believing that ships were as stable as land.
Richard was surprised to find the bar open and the
barman eager to serve him. He pushed his suitcase behind
some chairs and went and bought himself a drink.
144
Few people were in the lounge: they had travelled up
on the earlier train. As Richard had seen throughout the
journey, and as he himself had done – or tried to do – these
people huddled by themselves, a drink of one kind or another
before them on small circular tables. One, a small tubby man,
sat away in a corner, a pipe in his mouth. He gazed steadily
before him. Two other occupants were women, both nearing
middle age, with stout figures and round homely faces. No
one seemed particularly sad or anxious. Among them there
seemed an acceptance of inertia and patience, as if these were
the real conditions of human life.
Richard sat at peace. His mind took advantage of this
state and wandered away from his body and along the
tenuous chain of memory. It fretted through time, settling
here and there as it had done at Euston Station. This time,
however, it produced a memory from the greatest distance.
He was a child, with the complete existence of the
preoccupied child, showing his mother a shell he had found
on the seashore. She sat on a canvas chair, a floppy white hat
on her head. It was really his hat, he knew, but it had fallen
from his head so often as he played on the sand that his
mother, having picked it up for the hundredth time, finally
placed it on her own head. He held the white shell in his little
hand towards her, his face twisted to the left and his eyes
screwed up against the glare of the declining sun. She smiled,
gazing at the shell. He could see that the sun made her
drowsy, but still he insisted that she admire the shell he had
brought her. Behind her the land was flat and green, with
erect trees away on the skyline. At last she reached out and
took the shell from him and put it in the pocket of her dress.
145
Contented, he ran away to play again, down across the soft
sand on to the firmer tidal sand and so towards the sea’s edge,
all the time looking back to the spot where he thought his
mother sat. When he reached the sea, he looked carefully in
that direction, his eyes screwed up against the sunlight, but
could not see her. Instead, he saw only sand dunes and
summer chalets and the trees beyond the beach, on the
skyline.
Richard was awakened by the arrival of a group of
four, three men and a woman. While they arranged chairs
around a table, one of the men, bearded and comfortably
ascetic-looking, talked in a loud slurred voice. He seemed to
be trying to resume an interrupted monologue. He was
saying:
‘I live in the imagination, you see.’ The other two men,
having sat down, bent their heads forward in mute attention.
The woman had already composed herself in her chair, her
two hands lightly clasped on her knees. ‘In this world,’ he
continued, holding his chair, ‘there is only one state worth
our attention...and that is the imagination.’ He sat down and
leaned forward towards the two men. ‘I work. Yes, I must
work. I have to do that. But when it’s done, I am free to enter
my imagination.’ One of the men tried to speak, but the
bearded man raised his hand to stop him. ‘Why, when I was
in hospital that time.’ He turned now to the woman.
‘Remember, Ann? They carried out test after test and
couldn’t find anything wrong with me.’ He turned his
attention to the two men. ‘Well, in that three weeks I read all
the plays of Shaw.’ With this last sentence his voice changed.
As with the delivery of the final conclusive proof of an
146
argument, he delivered this sentence harshly and with pride.
The stout man, who had earlier tried to interrupt him, nodded
his head, murmuring, ‘Shaw. Yes, yes.’
The third man stood up. He was dapper, with a
gleaming high forehead. ‘Drink, drink,’ he cried.
The stout man raised the beer-can he had been holding
and said, ‘Ask them if they have this brand.’
The bearded man said he would have a whiskey.
When the dapper man asked the woman what she
would have, the bearded man laughed loudly and said,
‘What? Another one? You’ve had four already. You’ll have
us all under the table.’
The dapper man grinned, swaying slightly, and said to
the woman, ‘Irish. Have an Irish.’ He half-turned towards the
bar and the waiting barman. ‘They’ll have Irish on this boat,
surely.’
The bearded man suddenly shouted, ‘Yes, we’re
leaving Sassenachland at last!’ and while the dapper man
walked unsteadily to the bar, he continued impulsively:
‘Those English! I never know how to take them. They’re so
damned literal I mean, I’m good at my work, even if I say so
myself. Yet they give me the feeling that I’m so...so...thick...’
This last word was blurted out as if freshly conceived in his
mind. He screwed up his face. It was apparent that he had
intended using some other word, perhaps one with a finer
meaning.
The dapper man at the bar called to him, asking him
for help in carrying the drink.
While away at the bar, where he got into conversation
with the barman, the stout man leaned forward to the woman.
147
She had sat gazing at the bearded man while he spoke, but the
stout man had watched her. Now he said something to her
and put two fingers lightly on her cheek. She smiled stiffly,
shaking her head, and raised her hand to the spot. The stout
man grasped her hand gently, almost unconsciously, and
continued talking. His voice was bass and thickened by drink,
the words coming gutturally. She watched him sceptically as
he spoke, the scepticism acting as a barrier to his specific
proposal, though judging from the continuous dilation of her
eyes, his words affected her as a general possibility.
When the drinks were brought by the two other man,
and even after they had sat down, the stout man went on
talking to her. The dapper man tried to draw her attention to
the glass he was holding out to her. He cleared his throat, the
glass wavering in his hand. Catching her eyes, he thrust the
glass into her hand and apologised for it being Scotch. Using
the entry gained, he began talking to her. It was his idea to
sing a song. He hummed, paused to explain the tale it had to
tell, but each attempt he made to sing failed as his voice went
flat. She laughed at him, tossing her dark hair.
The bearded man, who had been watching the dapper
man with a sarcastic expression, now took the opportunity the
pause in the gallantries offered and suggested to the stout
man that they come and visit him at his home in Skerries
while they were in Dublin. The stout man said he wanted
plenty of warning before they descended on his peace and
quiet. The bearded man said loudly, ‘Jesus, it would take too
long to arrange like that. We haven’t the rest of eternity.’ He
wanted to meet the stout man’s wife and children. Hearing

148
this, the woman asked him how many children he had. ‘Four’
was the reply. She smiled sweetly at him.
The dapper man stood up and gripped the back of his
chair. He was definitely going to sing a song about the Earl of
Clare. The bearded man rejected this with a wave of his hand.
‘Sing one of our own,’ he cried. ‘We’ll never be our
own men so long as we take any notice of them.’
The dapper man looked up, surprised and puzzled by
his vehemence. The bearded man sat upright and addressed
the whole group.
‘Listen. I’ll tell you something. During the war I was a
captain in the Western Desert, under Monty. One night,
during a booze-up in the mess, one of the English officers,
one of the old order, said that the Irish were the greatest
fighting men in the world. At this, another officer, also
English, mind you, disagreed and said that for his money the
Gurkhas were the best. Then they all started arguing about
the merits of their particular favourites. Of course I was left
out of this and I went on drinking to one side, listening to
them, until I got browned off with it all. When the first
chance came, I stepped into the circle and asked them, “What
about your own bloody soldiers, the English?” They all to a
man dismissed them as worse than useless. Needless to say I
was pretty pissed by then, and angry. “Then what’s all the
bull about the British Empire,” I shouted, “if the English
didn’t conquer it?” One of the senior officers patted me on
the shoulder and said gently, “Don’t you see, old man. We let
them do it.” There you are! They let them do it!’ He shook
his head. ‘What do you make of that?’

149
The dapper man laughed and said it was damned
funny. The stout man sat silent, head down.
Suddenly everyone noticed that the ship was moving
away from the dock. The dapper man cheered. A pulse of
vibration throbbed the floor under their feet. The dapper man
was told to sit down before he fell down. This he did. They
fell silent, save for short comments passed from time to time.
Richard had watched all this as though he was
watching a play. He felt excluded from the group, as though
they were aliens. To him they were stage Irish.
However, he noticed the interest taken in them by one
of the lone women. She had been to the bar and as she waited
to be served she had turned to watch them. When the stout
man had taken the woman’s hand her eyes had narrowed
intently. Back in her seat, quite close to Richard, she
continued to stare at them until the two men returned from
the bar and interrupted them, when she resumed her
contemplation of the glass before her, listening.
Once she had turned and looked at Richard, to see if
the drama had the same interest for him. He had smiled. It
had been easy to smile because their respective personalities
had been united in the third, the drama they both watched.
Now, with the stage silent as though between acts, she
lost interest and sat with her hands pushed deep into the
pockets of the heavy tartan jacket she wore, her chin resting
on her breast.
Richard went to buy another drink. The combined
effects of the alcohol, the removal of responsibility for
himself, especially now that he was at sea, and the loud
conversation of the group, had thrust him out of himself. The
150
energy, and the consequent impression of size, of the men
finally touched him, stirring within him a desire for this
freedom of action and expression. The coquetry of the
woman had moved him. It too stirred a memory. But she had
baffled him. Being an outsider watching on, she had been
open and vulnerable to him. This had excited him. But he had
also experienced a strong desire to protect her, though seeing
no object from which she needed protection, for she could
obviously handle the stout man, had made him want to create
an enemy. This is what baffled him. In looking for an enemy,
he had found himself.
Returning with his drink, the ship was rolling slightly
as it turned towards the harbour mouth and he had to walk
slowly and carefully, he glanced at the lone woman out of
sudden curiosity. She sensed him and looked up. She looked
at him blankly, her eyes shining moistly with the effect of the
drink. Her mouth was small, he noticed, the lips compressed
and down drawn. As he passed he looked at her again, but
she did not look up. The sight of her bowed head and her
strong black hair, which was streaked with grey, gave him a
curious excitement.
When he sat down, he was overcome by a feeling of
desolation. He was angry with himself for no apparent
reason. And in attempting to escape this anger he discovered
there was no refuge for his mind. Irritated, he gulped his
drink.
The ship was rolling more violently now as it passed
through the harbour mouth. A steward ducked his head
around the door, looked about him and then disappeared.
Once the ship reached the open sea beyond the harbour it
151
wallowed deeply and rose in a great heave against both wind
and sea.
‘Holy God,’ the dapper man shouted. ‘A bloody
storm.’
‘Sit down,’ the bearded man said impatiently. ‘It’s only
the currents along the coast. She’ll settle in a few minutes.’
The stout man stood up, pushing back his chair, and
ran his fingers through his untidy hair. He was dejected.
‘Have another drink,’ he said tonelessly.
He leaned over the woman, bringing his face close to
hers, and asked her if she wanted a Scotch. When she
nodded, the bearded man shouted across that if she had
another one of those she would definitely be sick. The stout
man turned and glared at him, then shuffled heavily to the
bar.
The dapper man, who had been dozing in his chair, the
curt order to sit down having annoyed him, now looked up.
He was obviously passing over the threshold in the stages of
intoxication from the drowning of consciousness into the
stage where instinct took over and the man is wakened for his
final fling. He staggered to his feet, feeling behind him for
the back of the chair. He was going to sing. He smiled
vacantly at the woman, who was sitting with her arms folded,
her face tensed. He began to sing She moves through the fair
in a quavering voice that was guided by a desire for a real
musical quality that was not there. The bearded man, his nose
twisted in contempt, joined in, bellowing hoarsely at first by
way of comment on the other’s singing. But as they
progressed through the song and reached its emotional
climax, his tenor voice broke loose from the constraint that
152
accompanying the dapper man demanded and swiftly surged
to his own level, bell-like, and shivered sweetly at the peak of
one long-held note.
‘There now, there now,’ he said when he had ended,
embarrassed and proud, pawing the empty air before him and
throwing glances about the lounge.
The stout man applauded from the bar. The barman
behind him grinned broadly, glad that his customers were
enjoying themselves.
The woman looked at him with a look that amounted to
hostility.
Hearing the singing persuaded Richard to accept the
group as real people. The pleasure he felt reminded him of
something.
The boat began to wallow and roll once more, this time
with greater violence. The dapper man, who had remained
standing, was thrown to one side. His grip on the chair
slipped away in the sudden shock and he fell heavily against
the woman. She jerked her head back in fright and put her
two hands to her mouth. The stout man, suddenly agile,
rushed from the bar to help the fallen man to his seat. The
woman stood up, fighting to retain her balance against the
lurching of the boat. The bearded man asked her where she
was going. She glanced quickly at him, her eyes sightless
with nausea, and walked out of the lounge, supporting herself
by holding the backs of chairs.
The stout man turned to the other two men and said,
‘Someone should go with her to the cabin. You never know,
she might fall and hurt herself, considering the state she’s in.’

153
The bearded man, who had watched her going without
moving and who could see down part of the corridor outside,
said, ‘No need. She’ll look after herself.’
The stout man made as though to follow her. There
was a querulous and ambiguous tone in his voice as he said,
‘One of us will be a gentleman, at least. I’ll go and see if she
is alright.’
‘I tell you there is no need. She’s gone to the jacks to
puke up her dinner and drink,’ the bearded man said. He was
shaking with anger.
The stout man turned and sat down, murmuring, ‘I was
only trying to do the best for her.’
After a moment’s silence the dapper man began talking
to the bearded man, who sat primly with pursed lips. He
talked incoherently, gulping constantly, trying to console the
other.
The stout man drank beer from a can and stared
moodily at the floor, his head nodding. Finally he spoke.
‘Someone should go to see if she’s alright. After all,
she’s been a long time away.’
The bearded man looked at him with passion.
‘I told you there was no need. Besides, you should
mind your own business.’
He stood up abruptly. ‘I’ll go and do it myself.’
When he had gone, the stout man leaned forward to the
dapper man and said, ‘An unfortunate couple.’
The dapper waved his hand at him.
‘You don’t know the half of it,’ he said and continued
in a lower tone. ‘Sure they don’t...you know... Ah, he’s a
strange one.’ Having left unsaid what he had intending saying
154
and hoping the hint would suffice, he went on, ‘They fight
something terrible, you know. But let you interfere and
they’ll both go for you like two hounds at a hare.’
The stout man was shaking his head.
‘Fair play to everyone, I say, but I don’t like to see
anyone unhappy. God knows, life’s short enough without
fighting into the bargain.’
He shook his head dismally. ‘I don’t like to see anyone
unhappy, I tell you.’
The dapper man nodded in sympathy with this
sentiment. Then he brightened, straightening his shoulders.
‘Will you have one more drink before turning in,’ he
asked.
‘Aye, I will.’ The stout man was still overcome with
mortification.
As the dapper man went to the bar the stout man began
humming to himself. He lay his head against the back of his
chair, and slowly the humming formed itself into a song:
The bells of hell
Go ting-a-ling-a-ling
Go ting-a-ling-a-ling
Go ting-a-ling-a-ling
The bells of hell
Go ting-a-ling-a-ling
For you but not for me.

O Death where is
Thy sting-a-ling-a-ling
Thy sting-a-ling-a-ling
Thy sting-a-ling-a-ling
155
O Death where is
Thy sting-a-ling-a-ling
Or grave thy victory.

The dapper watched the stout man singing for a while,


at first quizzically, then a look of cuteness crossed his face.
He whispered to the barman, to cancel the order he had made,
and quietly left the lounge.
As the stout man came to the end of his song he nestled
down more snugly in the chair and folded his arms over his
paunch. Within a short time he was snoring, indifferent to the
rolling of the boat.
The lone woman near Richard stood up and lifted her
jacket more comfortably on her shoulders. She glanced in
Richard’s direction. He had been watching her from the
instant she stood up. She smiled at him. Richard smiled in
return.
‘Grand lively lads,’ she said, nodding in the direction
of the sleeping man.
‘Yes,’ Richard replied guardedly. He couldn’t be sure
whether she was joking or not.
‘It’s a rough night,’ she continued amiably, brushing
down her skirt. ‘I wonder if any sleep could be got on a night
like this.’
‘He did,’ Richard replied, glancing towards the snoring
figure. He thought she might still be joking.
‘It’s cold here for sleeping,’ she stated.
Richard grinned. ‘It will have to do.’
The woman darted him a side glance.

156
‘It will then, right enough,’ she said. She bent down
and picked up her large handbag.
‘Goodnight then,’ she said, moving away towards the
door.
‘Goodnight,’ Richard replied. He suddenly realised
that she had been deadly serious. To let her know that he
knew, he called after her, ‘Sleep well.’
She paused at the door and turned her head. Richard
smiled. She left the lounge.
With the exception of the sleeping man and himself,
the lounge was now empty, everyone else having gone below.
Perhaps because of the lack of distraction, the ship’s rolling
was now more noticeable. Richard felt a slight surge of
nausea. He lay back in his chair and relaxed his body,
allowing it to roll in sympathy with the ship. As he dozed he
remembered sharply what the woman had offered. A stronger
wave of nausea passed over him. Then he slept, troubled, and
dreamed again of playing by the seashore. But this time he
couldn’t be sure whether he had the seashell or not, or if he
was supposed to be looking for it on the wet sand that edged
the sea.

When he awoke the sea was calmer. He felt cold. The


stout man still slept, his nose raised in the air. He stood up
and stretched, feeling uncomfortably stiff. Then he decided to
go on deck for a few minutes’ air.
The area that composed the leeward deck was defined
at one end by a stout wire fence, separating the first class
from the second, and at the other end by a gangway leading
up to the bridge, from which passengers were prohibited. He
157
crossed to the rail and saw lights low on the sea forward of
the ship.
Dublin. He felt cold, hungry and soiled. A piercingly
cold wind eddied about him.
Dublin. The dull taste on his mouth and the dryness of
his taste put him off smoking.
Dublin. Dublin. He regretted having left London –
after all, he had been reasonably comfortable there.
Dublin. Dublin. Dublin. He was shivering continuously
now.
DUBLIN!
The face of the beggar at Euston station sprang into his
mind, grinning.
Dublin. He was lonely and desolate.
He went and huddled on a bench.
When the sky had lightened, a blue-purple light
distinguishing the low racing clouds, and the sea could be
seen, greasy and rolling, Richard took to pacing the deck to
warm himself. Later he met a Galwayman who shivered in
his shirtsleeves and held a tray with two cups of tea and two
plates of buttered toast on it. The Galwayman said good
morning and complained of the cold.
‘Did you ever see such a night as last night?’ he
continued, his white skin blue against the mass of wiry black
hair.
‘No. it was rough,’ Richard replied, resenting the
intrusion.
‘The wife was sick all night,’ the Galwayman said,
‘and I thought I was the great one looking after her, until I
got sick myself.’
158
‘I must have been the only one aboard who wasn’t
sick,’ Richard replied, eyeing the tea.
The Galwayman raised the tray.
‘Will you have one of these?’ he asked.
‘What about you and your wife?’
‘She won’t touch it. You can take the toast too. Neither
of us want any of it.’
Richard lifted a cup from the tray and gulped down
half of the hot tea. Nothing had ever tasted so sweet. He felt
his body come to life.
When he had drained the cup he put it back on the tray.
The Galwayman was staring out to sea. Richard took out his
cigarettes.
‘Will you have one of these?’ he offered.
The Galwayman flinched.
‘God, even the thought of it makes me feel sick.’
Feeling the warmth of the tea radiating his body,
Richard lit a cigarette.
‘Have the second cup,’ the Galwayman urged, raising
the tray again. ‘It’ll only go to waste.’
‘Are you sure?’ Richard asked.
‘Sure. Take it. I don’t want it.’
Richard drank the second cup more slowly, savouring
its warmth and flavour.
‘Going over on holiday?’ he asked the Galwayman
between sips.
The Galwayman grinned and nodded.
‘Train to Galway?’ Richard asked, suddenly curious to
know how the man felt about landing in Ireland.
‘No. The car’s in the hold.’
159
‘Tricky. Slinging it, I mean.’
‘Ach. They’re well used to it.’
Richard nodded in comprehension.
‘Like London?’ Richard asked, growing amazed, and
delighted, at his own curiosity.
‘Not much. But when you’re married and have a
couple of kids, you can’t move around so easily,’ the
Galwayman said pensively.
‘Would you not think of moving back to Ireland then?
I hear it’s a boom country now,’ Richard said in a man-to-
man voice. This is what comes of curiosity, he thought.
The Galwayman looked at him with caution.
‘Aye, I’ve thought of that. But it’d cost a lot of
money.’
‘No more than London does, I’m sure,’ Richard said.
‘The wife wants to. She takes the children over for the
summer every year.’
‘And do you look after yourself then?’ Richard asked,
more and more amazed at his curiosity.
‘I do,’ the Galwayman said in a surprised tone.
Richard drained the cup.
‘Thanks for the tea. It was very kind of you,’ he said.
‘Ha, don’t think of it,’ the Galwayman said. ‘Sure it
would have gone to waste.’
They stood together then, watching the sea in silence.
Some gulls flew about above the ship. The Kish light came
into sight close by.
‘Nearly there,’ Richard said.
‘Aye,’ the Galwayman replied. He paused, then he
asked delicately, ‘From Dublin?’
160
‘Yes.’
‘You’ve been away a long time,’ the Galwayman
stated.
‘Three years.’
‘It’s your accent, you see,’ the Galwayman said with
even greater delicacy. ‘I thought you’d been away a long
time.’
Silence. The Kish light flashed strongly at them.
‘Looking forward to seeing your people, are you?’ the
Galwayman asked, looking intently at the Kish light.
‘I suppose so,’ Richard said, suddenly daunted.
‘They’ll be glad to see you,’ the Galwayman said,
turning towards the entrance to the cabins. ‘It’s a great
country in the end.’
Richard looked at him, wondering if he was joking.
‘Goodbye now,’ the Galwayman said. ‘I’m going down
now to see if the wife is any better. She was sick something
terrible last night.’
When he had gone, Richard braved the wind and
walked around to the front of the ship and looked across at
the land. The amber-lit ring of the coast roads defined the
city, with Howth Head to the right and the mountains to the
left. He caught his breath when he saw the mountains –
purple, with cloud in long streams down their flanks.
He hadn’t thought it all still existed. The solidity of it
all stunned him.
He wanted to cry out and embrace the hills, as if they
were his mother.

161
III

162
SNOW

163
In the morning room a young woman moved about
preparing breakfast. It was a long rectangular room with two
windows facing each other in the shorter walls. In one, facing
south, through which the early sun shone, Muckish mountain
was framed, half in the red light of the sun and half black and
sombre in shade. The second window looked down across the
lowering valley to the mudflats and out beyond to the sea,
which was edged by the hills that lined the much-indented
lough. The young woman moved with unconscious grace,
fully occupied with her task of preparation. A silence lay on
the room, clear and fresh: the silence accentuated by the
guttering frizzle of frying bacon from the adjoining kitchen.
The front door opened. There was a bustle of clothing
and the pace of footsteps down the short hall. The young
woman paused in her work and turned expectantly towards
the opening door.
‘Morning, sir,’ she said with quiet gay irony.
Richard’s face, puckered and red above his beard,
smiled a lop-sided smile.
‘Morning, bean-a-tigh,’ he replied. Speaking the words
seemed to loosen him from some fixed state of mind, to open
him again to the conscious human world. He crossed the
room to the fire, placed his hands close over it and rubbed
them firmly together.
‘I’m ravenous, Mags,’ he said, turning his head to her.
‘What chance some food?’
‘Almost ready,’ she replied. She came over and stood
close to him without touching.’ Did you enjoy your walk?’
‘I walked up the valley there,’ he said. ‘There was not
a sinner soul on the roads, except for one old woman working
164
in a farmyard, who watched me with curiosity as I passed.
She seemed rather taken aback when I wished her good
morning. She obviously took me for a half-witted visitor out
walking at that hour of the day.’
Margaret laughed, her gaiety bubbling up and shining
in her eyes. She put her arm around his waist and reached and
kissed him lightly on the beard.
‘Come on,’ Richard said, drawing back. ‘This won’t
get the breakfast ready.’
‘That was just a little kiss to start the day,’ she said,
pouting slightly.
While she continued preparing the meal, Richard
crossed to the south window and looked out at the mountain.
The sunlight had whitened, allowing the countryside to show
its own colours. The way I have come, he thought, and tried
to place himself in the view. Too soon after the event. He had
been down a small road surrounded by trees, standing on a
narrow bridge and looking down at a stream that gurgled and
splashed. At its edges grass swayed in the water, and in
comparison to the damp odorous grass further up on the
banks it seemed washed and pure. The sharpness of the air
made it difficult for his pinched and tingling nose to breathe,
and the saliva on his tight lips wet the tip of his cigarette. It
became such a damp miserable squib, the paper blackened
and smouldering, that he finally threw it away in disgust.
Looking at it lying in the grass, the thin blue smoke that rose
from it wavering in the light wind, he felt soiled and poor.
Even now, standing in the warm room, he experienced a
desire to spit out the acrid taste that lay on his tongue. He
turned away in disconsolation.
165
He crossed the room and sat in an easy chair by the
fire. The emanations of warmth made him drowsy. Margaret
entered carrying tableware. As she laid the table the contact
of delft and cutlery made ringing melodious sounds through
the silence. He watched her as she worked. Her slim body
was bent forward over the table, causing her hair to fall in
black waves about her face. Through his aimless thoughts
came the awakening sensations of confusion. Today again the
indecisions of yesterday and the revisions of last week slip
away. Each morning he must gather them together, note them
and try to form new decisions. At times like this confusion
was his only link with his immediate past.
Sensing his eyes on her, Margaret turned to him. As
she did she put up her hand and drew the waves of hair back
off her face. She smiled, questioning his gaze. Her face was
one thing, her beauty another. Her face was at times angular
and severe, especially when drawn and tired, except for the
roundness of the jawbone, which gave the impression of
childishness. Margaret’s beauty was her joy in life, her own
sense of beauty that created an aura of light, a subtle
sparkling that flowed out from her eyes. These eyes, dark and
opaque, even now drew from him what every woman wanted
– submission. Margaret called to him: ‘Breakfast is ready.’
While they ate, Margaret’s father came in and joined
them. He rubbed his hands briskly together and looked from
Richard to Margaret.
‘Good morning,’ he greeted them. ‘That’s a fine
morning.’ His eyes had a strong evenness that neither dared
nor retreated.

166
‘Morning, Daddy,’ Margaret said and leaned over and
kissed him lightly on the cheek.
‘Yes,’ Richard replied. ‘And a fine morning for
walking.’
‘I heard you getting up. Did you meet anyone on the
road?’
‘Only an old woman in a farmyard. I think she thought
me mad.’
Joseph Stewart laughed.
‘Aye. She would. Only visitors go out walking like that
on a holiday.’
‘Daddy,’ Margaret interjected. ‘There was a blackbird
in the garden this morning. That means we’ll have snow,
doesn’t it?’
‘Aye, cutty, and it’s cold enough for it.’
‘They’ve had snow in the south and in England,’
Richard said. ‘But Scotland seems to have escaped it. I doubt
if it will snow here.’
‘But it always snows in Donegal at Christmas,’
Margaret insisted. ‘And it’s always so beautiful when it
does.’
Joseph looked with good humour at the couple.
‘Well,’ he said deliberately, ‘Old John Gallagher, who
lives up by Muckish, hopes it won’t. He says his sheep have
wandered far up the mountain and he’ll have the devil’s job
getting them in. But he thinks it will snow. He feels it in his
bones.’
After the meal Richard sat with Joseph by the fire
drinking whiskey. Margaret was in the adjoining room
washing the breakfast things and singing absently to herself.
167
‘How is your father?’ Richard asked.
‘Sinking slowly. It won’t be long now,’ Joseph replied.
‘Can’t the doctor do something for him? Injections or
drugs?’
‘He’s a tired old man,’ Joseph said, staring into the
fire. ‘He’s had a good life and now he’s tired.’
‘Surely a man who loved life as your father did would
have fought to remain alive.’
Joseph looked up at him with barely concealed irony in
his eyes. Good God, Richard thought, I spoke as if he was
already dead.
Margaret entered the room.
‘I’ve washed up everything. Now I must go up and
clean the bedrooms.’
Her feet made dull thuds on the stairs.
‘She’s had a lot to do over Christmas,’ Joseph said,
‘with her mother away in London. She’ll be glad to get back
to Dublin tomorrow and have a rest.’
Richard smiled.
‘If you ask me, she’s enjoying herself,’ he said. ‘It
gives her a sense of responsibility and something to talk
about.’
‘Aye. She never could be easy,’ Joseph replied.
‘Always cleaning this or that. She used to drive her mother
mad.’
He finished his drink and stood up.
‘Tell Margaret that I’ve gone up to Rows to see my
father,’ he said. ‘Tell her I won’t be back until this evening.’
‘Right. Take care, there was ice on the roads when I
was out.’
168
When he had left Richard sat back in his chair. The
whiskey lay heavy in his stomach and his head throbbed
warmly with the first waves of intoxication. The whine of a
starter cut the silence; Joseph’s car coughed and revved.
Richard turned his head away. There was a click of gears, the
engine revved again and the car moved away, taking its
sound with it. Peace settled again like a warm transparent
shroud about him and the room. Unused to such complete
absence of sound, Richard tensed. His body lay inert and
heavy like the furniture; its potential, in having no object,
was reduced to a state of tense expectancy.
Then an image in his mind: a white house,
symmetrical, with two wings and a body, spread out above an
arc of forest. Rows. High up on Ards peninsula and
overlooking the sea, gamely facing the surrounding hills,
refusing to nestle in some hollow with carefully planted trees
and pretend to merge with its surroundings. And an old man
who danced at a wedding, showing how it was done in his
day. The short movements stating the step and answering the
rhythms with the greatest economy, jerking his arms by his
side and hitching his shoulders in an almost threatening
manner, the ancient manliness of the music and dance being
expressed by his virile vigour. Now his time was up. This,
Richard could not accept.

Joseph sat by the bed with his three brothers. Four


sons, four children looking at a large man with white hair
who gripped the pillow with his left hand. They noted the
loss of colour in the extremities of his face and in his hand.

169
They were at a loss for words or thoughts, so instead they
prayed.

Margaret stood at the window watching a blackbird


that sang. It was perched on a rose bush, the flowers of last
summer brown decayed remains on its branches.
Richard watched her. A living force, he thought. A
joyful energetic force that had momentarily sated itself.
‘Have you finished your housewifely duties?’ he
asked.
She crossed the room and sat down opposite him.
‘Yes, at last,’ she said, ‘For all the help you gave me.’
It irritated him that she should attempt to involve him
in her work.
‘Your father has gone to Rows,’ he said, his voice
harder and without warmth. ‘He said he would be back later
in the evening.’
‘Will he be here for dinner?’ she asked, a little
agitated.
‘I don’t know,’ Richard replied sharply. ‘I’ve told you
what he said and that’s all I know.’
She looked at him quickly; her eyes glinted with
incipient anger. Abruptly she turned away. She reached
beneath her chair and drew up her handbag. From it she took
a bottle of white lotion. She poured some into the palm of her
hand.
‘Did he say how grandfather was?’ she asked
impersonally.
‘Sinking slowly.’

170
He watched her as she patted the lotion onto the back
of her hand. Then she rubbed it in, massaging it down the
ridges of the bones towards her wrist. Neat, habitual
movements: graceful and personal.
‘Why doesn’t the doctor do something?’ he said. ‘You
said yesterday that his heart was still strong.’
‘He’s old and tired, and he feels his time has come,’
she replied. She formed her fingers into a bracelet about her
wrist and turned her arm back and forth within this ring.
‘How long has he been ill?’ Richard asked.
‘He took to his bed about three weeks ago. He said he
felt dizzy and didn’t want to eat. He’s lain there ever since.’
‘Has anybody tried to feed him?’
‘Oh yes. Uncle Jim fed him glucose and brandy.’ She
smiled. ‘Since last week he’s refused the glucose, but not the
brandy.’ She rubbed the lotion on to her other hand and wrist.
‘On Christmas Eve he woke up and blessed himself. Then he
gripped the pillow and asked to be left alone in peace. Daddy
says he hasn’t moved since then.’
She screwed the cap back on to the bottle and placed it
on the floor beside her. Next she took from her bag a small
tube, squeezed some brown liquid into her palm and began
stroking it on to her face. Richard was taken aback by her
apparent unconcern. She had closed her eyes, and leaning
back her head she smoothed the cream over her eyelids.
‘Sure the doctors...’ Richard began.
‘Dick, grandfather is dying.’ There was reverence and
acceptance in her voice. She opened her eyes and looked at
him. ‘And there is nothing you or I can do for him.’
She suddenly pointed out the window.
171
‘Look!’ she said eagerly. ‘See how those dark clouds
are gathering about the top of Muckish. It will snow today.’
Richard shook himself in annoyance.
‘Oh, damn your snow. There are some things more
important than snow.’
Margaret laughed.
‘Poor Dick. He doesn’t like the snow.’

Later in the day, after dinner, Margaret’s brother,


James, arrived. Richard and he greeted one another with
reserve and shook hands. They had met only twice previously
in the year that Richard had known Margaret. Neither tried to
contrive his standing with the other to a forced friendship,
and consequently they regarded each other with a respect that
was the product of unfamiliarity and based on their different
affections for Margaret.
James was tall and strong and, like Margaret he had
black wiry hair that poised over his forehead like a wave. His
movements were economical and neat. Richard, watching
him greet his sister, was reminded of their father and how he
also moved with the same neatness and sureness as if to avoid
upsetting some fine balance between himself and a much
more powerful and unpredictable force. Richard looked out at
the mountain. Once again the natural colours had been
overwhelmed by the sun’s light, which cast a bronze mantle
on the land and emphasised the brilliance of the steely blue
sky.
Seeing that brother and sister were in conversation,
Richard allowed the mood of the evening to enter him and
lying back in his chair, he luxuriated in the pleasing shadows
172
and sounds that were there. The sounds organised themselves
as music: carefully, he played through the last movement of
Beethoven’s Choral Symphony.

In Rows, on top of the hill, Joseph Stewart beckoned to


his brother, Jim, and pointed to the light-switch. The redness
of the sun haunted the room, covering everything with a still
bronze. When the small lamp by the bed had been lighted,
Joseph took the bottle and glass from the table and poured a
measure. He crossed to the bed and gently shook the old
man’s hand. After a moment he opened his eyes and stared
blankly at his son as it from a great distance. Joseph raised
the glass into father’s sight and attempted to lift his head. The
rheumy eyes stared unmoved. Helplessly, Joseph placed the
glass on the table and retreated to his chair.

‘Dick! Dick! Wake up!’


The music faded from Richard’s mind as he sat
upright.
‘James has brought a message from Daddy,’ Margaret
told him.
Richard turned his sleepy eyes to James.
‘The doctor says that granddad is very ill,’ James said.
‘He says that if he survives tonight, he would survive
tomorrow night.’
‘But if he survives tonight...’ Richard began in
puzzlement.
‘It’s just our way of putting it,’ James said quickly.
They took their evening meal seated about the fire,
balancing plates on their knees. Margaret again wished for
173
snow. Her brother indulgently assured her that she would
have it. Richard, however, insisted that the snow-front was
moving down a trough to the south-east of Donegal and
therefore it would not snow. Moreover, he concluded, the sky
was clear.
There was a noise at the door.
‘I’ll answer it,’ Richard said, carefully placing his plate
on the floor beside his chair. ‘I’m nearest to the door.’
Opening it, he peered out into the lane. It was quiet and
dark. Puzzled, he returned and reported.
‘It must have been the wind,’ he said in explanation.
As he sat down he heard a noise at the top of the stairs.
He froze, half crouched above his chair, and looked quickly
at the other two. Open-eyed, they sat stock-still. The hair on
Richard’s neck bristled.
‘I’ll go and check,’ he said evenly. ‘There might be a
window open.’
Crossing the room he remembered that there had been
no wind of any strength that day. He checked all the rooms
and found nothing unusual. His hands were clammy and his
spine tingled: gently and persistently. Back downstairs he
assured Margaret and James that they were the only people in
the house.
There was another sound, this time directly overhead.
‘That’s Daddy’s room,’ Margaret said with
satisfaction.
Richard’s nerve endings opened and reached out and
probed every corner and niche of the house, while his mind
frantically sought for reasons. Even the noise was
unidentifiable.
174
James looked at Margaret. His eyes showed strong
reaction which settled into acceptance of some realised
knowledge when Margaret nodded slightly. Richard noted
absently that neither of them was afraid.
‘Grandfather is dead,’ Margaret announced, and James
agreed.
Nonsense, Richard thought. But he looked at his
watch: seven forty five, he noted mentally.
‘Do you remember, James, when Mammy’s mother
died,’ Margaret said. ‘We heard noises – three raps like the
ones tonight – and she sat down here, where I’m sitting, and
cried.’
Richard shook himself and moved from his frozen
position in the centre of the room.
‘I’ll go and check again,’ he said.
Upstairs, his eyes wide in wariness, he passed from
room to room. Deep in his mind he expected something new
and hitherto beyond his experience to happen, and he steeled
himself for what he might find. Except for a sensation, like a
weak current of electricity, passing along his spine, there was
nothing. Everything seemed in its place in the half-light that
reflected into the rooms from the light on the stairs. He went
to a window and stared over in the direction of Rows, now
unseen in the dark. What had happened there, he wondered.
He was suddenly aware of the powerful force the Stewarts
negotiated. The empty rural night had a density that was both
terrifying and yet comforting.
Then it was gone from him.
Margaret looked up at him as he entered the room. She
seemed excited but relieved.
175
‘He must be dead,’ she said.
‘Beyond me,’ Richard replied. He shivered. ‘Let’s go
up to the village and have a drink.’ The room seemed to be
closing in on him.
While they waited for Margaret, James watched
Richard with amusement.
‘There are still things in this world that we don’t
understand, Richard,’ he said carefully.
‘Quite,’ Richard said, shivering again.

At about ten someone brought news of the old man’s


death. He had died peacefully.
At what time did he die?
‘I’m sure I don’t know. Earlier in the evening, I
suppose.’
The drink eased Richard’s shocked nerves. He left
James and Margaret to talk together and let his mind probe
into the mystery. He laboured over the incident, trying to find
causes, until he tingled with fear. He remembered his feeling
of rejection that morning and realised that he was excluded
from understanding though not from experiencing some
things.
He had to be content with that solution.
Shortly afterwards, Joseph Stewart stepped into the
bar. His shoulders were slack and his face pale and drawn.
Richard saw two persons contending in him: a man who had
witnessed an old man die a justifiable death, and a son who
had seen his father die.
‘You’ve heard, have ye?’ he said. ‘Daddy is dead.’

176
Richard realised that the second force had won. He felt
a great sympathy for him and his loss.
James stood up and crossed to stand beside his father.
‘You’ll have a wee drop, father?’
‘Aye, I will.’
While James went to the bar, his father sat between
Richard and Margaret. Out of respect for the bereavement,
Richard refrained from asking the question that buzzed
around in his head. Margaret eventually asked it instead.
‘At what time did he die, Daddy?’
‘I can’t remember,’ he replied evenly. ‘The first time I
saw a clock after his death, it was nine o’clock.’
‘We heard three raps in the house this evening,’ she
said without ceremony.
Joseph looked quickly at Richard and saw the curiosity
in his eyes.
‘Ah sure, there are always noises in old houses like
ours,’ he said carefully.
‘Richard heard them too,’ she persisted. ‘Didn’t you,
Dick? First at the door, then at the head of the stairs, and
finally in your room.’
‘And when did you hear these noises?’ Joseph asked
Richard.
‘At about a quarter to eight,’ he replied.
‘Well, now, the death was later than that, I’m sure of
it.’
James returned and handed his father a glass almost
full with whiskey. The father looked up at him and then
turned to Richard again.

177
‘There are always noises in these old houses, do ye
know. And I suppose you were all keyed up after sitting all
day in the house,’ he said. ‘I think it was just your
imagination. Isn’t that right, James?’
James said he supposed that was true.
‘But we all heard the noises,’ Margaret said firmly.
Richard reached and gripped her arm lightly.
‘It’s all right, Margaret. It’s not very important,’ he
said soothingly.
Joseph stood up and hitched his coat about his
shoulders.
‘Will ye all have another drink?’ he asked. ‘I have to
go back and arrange things.’
At last Richard found the key to the mystery.
‘Tell me, Mr Stewart,’ he asked, speaking carefully.
‘Were you actually present when your father died?’
‘No,’ Joseph answered quietly. ‘I was in the bathroom,
do you know, and when I came back he was gone.’

Margaret and Richard stood in the garden behind the


house. Through the gloom of the night they could see the
pinpoints of lights strung unevenly around the lough. Richard
pointed in the direction of Rows.
‘It’s uncanny,’ he said. ‘I just don’t know what to
make of it.’
‘You don’t mind father trying to cover up the incident
of the noises?’
‘No, of course not.’
‘He thought you might make fun of his ways.’

178
‘I’m obviously less open to these influences than your
father is. He’s lived all his life among them.’
Margaret reached and kissed him.
‘I’ll make tea for us. Don’t stay out her too long. It’s
very cold.’
Alone, Richard lit a cigarette and inhaled deeply. He
looked at it in amusement: the beginner of my daily troubles,
he thought. In Dublin such a mood at that morning’s would
have produced a secure disgust, and the knowledge that if life
was bad in one place, it would be no better anywhere else.
The anchor and comfort of the place must at least balance
with that which had to be endured.
Something light fell on his nose. Another dropped
gently on to his eyelid.
Good God!
Snow.

179
TRUE LOVE

180
Another car edged into the sandy drive. Its driver
peered through the heavy rain, looking for a space among the
cars already lined against the boundary fence that surrounded
the house. In the doorway Elsa waited. She had been elected
by the literary society to prepare the house for their annual
party. Though the previous year’s affair had been voted a
success, the society had chosen to ignore the hotel in which it
had been held. Instead, they arranged that this year’s
celebration would take place in a holiday house, belonging to
the parents of one of the founder members of the society, in a
seaside resort north of Dublin called Portrane. The reason for
this change of venue reads thus in the minutes of the relevant
meeting: That the affair would not have to end at a given time
and would take place in an atmosphere of the utmost
informality and conviviality.
Elsa greeted the occupants of the car as they ran to the
porch. Her accent was flat. People unfamiliar with Dublin
would call it a typical Dublin accent. But those of Dublin
would note the sluggish, nasal quality in her speech and think
otherwise. She was a German, resident in the city since the
end of the war. She was also efficient and hardworking, and
the more lackadaisical members had been only too glad to
vote her the privilege of making all the preparations for the
night. She had spent the day cleaning out the house, which
had been closed since the previous summer, sweeping sand
and crushed seashell out into the drive, removing long-wilted
brown flowers and dusting the furniture. But though she had
sprayed the rooms with a floral air freshener, not merely
once, but four and even five times in some rooms, the place
still smelled of decayed flowers and seasalt. Grains of sand,
181
impossible to remove since the first season of the house’s
existence, grated underfoot.
John Walsh came bustling down the hall. He greeted
the newcomers absently, pointing out to them the two
cloakrooms and telling them to go into the large room on
their right when they had taken off their coats. He then
confused them by saying that they could also go into the
room at the end of the hall, as some people had gathered
there, but, he continued, the record player is in the large
room. He edged past them in the confined space, still
pointing and repeating himself, and came up to the front
door, where he said to Elsa, ‘Elsa, Elsa, has Dick come yet?’
Elsa looked out into the night and then turned back to
John.
‘I haven’t seen him yet. Perhaps he has come in
without my seeing him.’
John looked at his watch, then settled his glasses more
firmly on his nose.
‘It’s almost eleven and he’s not here yet. He’s the
president. He should have been here to welcome the
members. Elsa, did he tell you how he intended getting out
here?’
Elsa remained impassive in the face of his agitation.
‘No. But he may have come by train. He might be
sheltering up at the station.’
‘That’s it. I remember now. He said he might come out
by train or by car. But Margaret was against using the car,
because of the drinking. Then he said he wasn’t sure how he
would get out. Lord, he should have taken a lift from
someone, then we’d know where he was.’
182
‘There’s a car coming down the track,’ Elsa said.
‘Where? Where? He might be in this one.’
The car lumbered across the wet sand and stopped in
front of the house. A middle-aged women got out and
literally ran around behind the car to the porch. Mary
Higgins, a widow and a lively woman, called greetings to
John and Elsa. As she passed them she shouted back to the
car,
‘Mind how you park it, Pat.’
‘Yes, Ma,’ came the tired answer.
‘And don’t get wet coming in,’ she continued and
ducked out of view down the hall.
The rear doors of the car swung open. John recognised
the figure and rushed forward.
‘Stephen, have you seen Dick Butler? It’s after eleven
and he’s not here yet.’
Stephen turned his sad eyes to John. He was tall and
lightly bearded and carried his knowledge and the confusion
of his knowledge like a heavy weight that sagged his
shoulders and lengthened his face.
‘He’s down in a pub by the station with his girlfriend.
That teacher – what’s his name – Paul something or other,
will bring him up in his car.’
‘Thank God for that. We’ve been expecting him since
nine.’
They walked together over to Elsa. Stephen and Elsa
greeted each other. Behind them stood the other passenger in
the car, who had shared the back seat with Stephen, a young
man with a pale, tense face and quick, secretive eyes. He was
a furtive devourer of books and reckoned to be inarticulate.
183
John called out in a tenor voice that could not shout to
know if anyone had brought records and if so would they
please give them to him. He explained to the unheeding
gathering that Tony Hackett and his sister, Catherine, had
brought a record player, that they had it going now and
intended playing records. He also told them that he himself
had bought a record in Eason’s. Holding it above his head, he
told them it was by Tom Jones and called She’s a Lady. He
explained that he had heard it on the radio yesterday morning
while dressing and had so liked it that he had gone into the
city this morning especially to buy it.
Tony Hackett came to his side. He was smiling at
John’s speech.
‘John, John,’ he said urgently in his ear.
John turned to him and said brightly, ‘I was telling
them about the record player, Tony. But devil the bit of
notice they’re taking.’
‘I know,’ Tony replied. He often found it impossible to
attract John’s attention and used the device of appearing to
absorb and understand everything that John said to him,
while in reality he was only trying to get a word in edgeways.
‘But listen, we’re putting on a record of some band music, so
don’t worry.’
John interrupted him. ‘I bought this record this
morning, it’s called...’
‘I know, John. We’ll put it on afterwards.’
‘But I was going to put it on now.’ For a second his
face was blank, then it suddenly brightened again. ‘It’s very
sexy. Tom Jones has a very strong voice.’
184
Music burst upon them: a brassy rendition of American
Patrol. Some people began to dance, almost in reaction to the
sound, and the din of conversation rose in competition.
Catherine Hackett came over to them. Her long hair swung
on her shoulders as she moved. She was laughing.
‘That young chap,’ she pointed to the corner by the fire
– it was the silent bookworm, who sat on a stool and stared at
the record player. ‘He saw me holding our record of
Beethoven’s concertos and thought I was going to put it on.
You should have seen him jump when the music started.’
She was now fully developed at twenty one and still
with a strong feeling for life. But since returning to her
cramped and highly regulated family, this feeling only
sometimes found expression. More often it was frustrated, so
that release, when it occurred, was explosive.
John chided her for her cruelty.
‘Oh, for goodness sake, John,’ she said, the passion in
her voice silencing him. ‘He’ll get over it.’
Then she saw someone in the crowd and moved away,
calling, ‘Margaret, you’ve got her at last.’
Tony also saw her.
‘John, I think the president has arrived.’
‘Where is he?’ he looked at his watch. ‘Half eleven.
I’ll kill him for being late.’
Richard Butler came through the crowd.
‘Good evening,’ he said, looking about him. ‘We seem
to have a good crowd, I see. Are there as many as expected?’
He was holding a glass in one hand and a bottle of stout in
the other.

185
‘We expected you long before now, Dick,’ John said
severely. ‘What delayed you?’
‘Oh. We were down in some pub. Didn’t someone tell
you?’ He turned to Tony. ‘What happened to you? I thought
you were taking the train out.’
‘We missed it, so we took a bus as far as Swords and
John came over and collected us.’
‘Just as well. The train was miserable.’ His eyes were
red and strained. He had been drinking all evening, John
supposed.
Stephen came over.
‘You took a long time getting here, Dick,’ he said.
Richard laughed. ‘They’re not too fussy about the time.
The place is still open.’
John started to move away. ‘I’m going to help Elsa
with the food. It’s a shame the way we’ve left everything to
her.’ He turned to Richard. ‘Don’t you stray. You have a
speech to give.’
Richard nodded and began pouring the Guinness into
the glass. When he had done it, he held the bottle away from
him, trying to find a place to put it. Margaret appeared from
nowhere and took it from him.
‘Don’t drink too much,’ she said, half teasingly.
He shook his head in habitual annoyance.
‘Don’t you know we’re at a party?’
She smiled bravely at him and put the bottle on a
nearby table. Meanwhile, Richard took Tony by the elbow
and suggested they tour the house. It didn’t take long, the
house was modest, and they ended up on the porch. The sea-
smells were strong here and with them their memories of
186
childhood holidays by the sea. They talked about those days,
making much play of the winter’s night around them. Tony
was relatively complacent, his memories of Renvyle were
part of an unbroken continuum of experience in which his life
was comfortable, regular, whole. Richard couldn’t avoid an
element of bitterness. He felt that his life by comparison was
broken and that he looked back on his summers in Rush
across a pile of negating memories. But they complemented
each other: one with the desire for experience, the other for
the effacement of experience.
Margaret came up behind them.
‘The meal is ready, Dick. Are you coming in?’
‘We’ll be right in.’ he watched her as she walked
away. To Tony he said, ‘Margaret. It’s an unsuitable name.
It’s so clumsy on such a slip of beauty. Surely she should
have a two syllable name, an iambic foot, that would stress
the effect of her beauty. Unstress for her, stress for her
beauty.’
Tony looked sideways at him, frowned and then
smiled.
‘You don’t agree?’ Richard asked.
‘Margaret is a human being, Dick,’ Tony said softly.
‘Come on, Tony. Humanity in a person is an
assumption, an unknown quality. We seek symbols for
personality – beauty, goodness, intelligence, and the like.
Margaret’s is beauty.’
Tony frowned again, and then asked teasingly, ‘What’s
my symbol?’
‘The Age of Reason, on wheels.’

187
Tony grimaced and walked down the hall. Richard
followed.
‘And what’s yours?’ Tony asked over his shoulder.
‘I don’t know. I’m stuck with my own humanity,
unproven.’
Tony turned and stared hard at him and looked as
though about to speak. But Richard forestalled him.
‘Perhaps truth, as something I must keep close to,’
Seeing the scepticism in Tony’s face as they entered the
room, Richard continued, ‘Of course, that is true for all of us
subjectively.’
John Walsh saw them at once and cried out, ‘At last,
our president, Richard Butler.’ He stood up in an old-
fashioned way to greet him.
Most of the crowd at the party were in the room, eating
chicken and salad from paper plates. Some waved their
plastic forks, others cried out, almost in mockery, ‘Hear,
hear.’ Richard spoke across the room to John, ‘Should I
address them as “Ladies and Gentlemen”?’
There was some doubtful laughter.
‘Say whatever you want,’ John replied, suddenly testy.
Michael Delahunty, whose father owned the house,
called from the back of the room,
‘Call us “fellow members”.’
‘Now, none of that socialism here,’ Tony said behind
Richard.
Richard turned to him, ‘Surely you mean democracy?’
Tony laughed out.
‘Now, none of that social democracy here,’ he
corrected.
188
Richard asked Elsa, when she brought food to him, to
give him a bottle of stout. There was some fuss as he sought a
place to put his plate and glass. Margaret came over.
‘How are we going to get home?’
‘I don’t know, dear, but I’m sure something will be
arranged.’
‘I hope so. It’s still raining heavily.’
John overheard them. ‘Are you going home tonight,
Dick? Some of us are staying over till morning.’
‘We’ll walk home, won’t we, Mags? Oh, but I forgot.
You wouldn’t wear your boots.’
‘I couldn’t wear boots coming to a party.’
John was listening with an absentminded look on his
face.
‘Of course you could. We wouldn’t mind. Come
whatever way you like,’ he concluded generously. He peered
at her with wide-open eyes. Margaret instinctively shrank
back. Richard was amused by John’s stilted mannerisms. He
was proud of his unIrish origins, claiming descent from
Palatine farmers settled in County Limerick. But he had an
ascetic Irish face, supplemented by the traditional Irish
problems: Church, Mother, and static ideas.
‘Are you going to sing tonight, John?’ Margaret asked
him.
‘No, no. I’m hoarse with the talking. I’ve been
shouting and bawling trying to organise this place while you
were down in that pub.’
‘That’s a pity.’
Elsa came up and said, ‘Will you say your few words,
Dick, so we can get the plates cleared away.’
189
Richard stepped forward and the room gradually
quietened. The silence clouded his mind and he felt the effect
of the alcohol.
‘I can’t for the life of me be formal,’ he began. ‘The
very idea of holding the annual get-together of a city literary
society in the depths of the country in February unnerves me.
However, we are, as I said, a literary society and therefore
eccentric enough to do it. Those of you from Dublin may feel
some nostalgia for the summer in a place like this. I’m sure
Elsa,’ he bowed to her, ‘has cleaned the house out
thoroughly, but even so there is still sand on the floor and the
smell of the sea in the atmosphere of the place.’
He was rambling, he knew, and he thought hard for a
subject. Seeing Stephen McArdle looking at him gave him
his idea.
‘I have been your president for the last three months,
but I have attended many meetings over the last year and
have witnessed this dichotomy: that some of you are well
established in life, for whom literature is a source of
entertainment and interest – it is essentially a hobby. But the
younger members tend to take their reading more seriously,
trying to find there a philosophy for their future life.’
He looked about the room to stress this point. His head
was fogged and he craved a cigarette.
‘Now, though our society is of little social consequence
outside of its members, and those with ambition don’t stay
very long with us, we have enjoyed our weekly meetings and
from all appearances we will continue to do so for a long
time to come.’

190
He had withdrawn himself a great distance from his
voice.
‘But the dichotomy I mentioned, it will also be with us.
Recently, one of the younger members read a fine and
intelligent paper on the philosophy of Existentialism. It
puzzled all of us because of its obscure words and references.
The younger members remained puzzled, but the older
members greeted it with derision.’ Richard paused, staring at
the ring of faces before him. ‘This greatly troubled the
author.’
He took out a box of cigarettes and extracted one. His
audience moved restlessly.
‘That’s all. Thank you.’
Some clapped, but most seemed surprised by the
abrupt ending.
John came over.
‘What were you going on about at all, Dick?’
Richard laughed to release tension. ‘I don’t honestly
know myself.’ But he did know, and he knew that he did.
Tom Jones burst on them, telling them that she’s a
lady. John became excited and told everybody nearby that he
had bought it and asked them if they thought it was a good
record. The Widow Higgins asked Tony if he would dance
with her. He replied with mock diffidence and led her
graciously on to the floor. John asked Richard and Margaret
if Margaret would dance with him. In no time the room was
jammed with dancing couples, who created a terrific din.
Richard decided he would drink another bottle of stout.
Edging down the room, he saw the silent bookworm sitting
with a stout young girl, whose face was alive with a hesitant,
191
smiling eagerness. He was caressing her white arm and
whispering in her ear. As Richard passed them she leaned
sideways and brushed her ear along his lips. An emotion
heaved itself in Richard’s heart, an emotion that had long
been dormant. His will pushed it down again. While he
poured the stout, the record came to an end. He discovered he
was closest to the record player and so decided he would
change the record. He put on a ballad, in which a girl sang of
her lover who had left her to go to the city.
Stephen was seated in the corner between the table and
the fire, staring morosely at the flames.
‘Here, Stephen, have a drink,’ Richard said and gave
him the newly poured stout.
He took up another bottle and searched for a glass.
Finding one, he poured the Guinness, not caring that the glass
had been used by someone else.
‘You needn’t have defended me like that in your
speech,’ Stephen said.
‘I wasn’t just defending you, Stephen. I was trying to
get something out of my system.’
‘Did it work?’
‘Of course not. How could you upset these people with
things they don’t understand or care about?’
Stephen shrugged. Richard noticed how the firelight
flickered and darted on and about him. His face was haggard.
How could he absorb knowledge, Richard thought, when he
is eternally tired? He remembered that Stephen had planned
to tour the continent last summer. He had talked about it to
him, asking his advice. Richard had told him what he knew of
the places Stephen intended visiting. Then, when everyone
192
thought he was in Paris or Italy, Tony had run into him in
Grafton Street. Both had been embarrassed. Afterwards Tony
had shown contempt for what he called Stephen’s failure.
John, Catherine and Margaret had expressed pity. Richard
had asked him why he hadn’t gone. His father had been ill,
Stephen had said, and he had to help out in their shop.
Richard had accepted this, not questioning it. If it were true,
it was adequate justification; if it were false, then Stephen
would carry the burden of it within himself, quietly and
privately.
But beyond these considerations, Richard suspected
that Stephen was a masochist, nursing perhaps a deep
religious guilt.
John Walsh hurried down the room towards them.
‘Dick, Margaret is looking for you. I’m going to put
Tom Jones on again. I think he’s a hit here tonight.’
The crowd had thinned. The bookworm and the stout
girl – Richard remembered her name, May – were kissing,
wrapped in an awkward embrace. Again that vague emotion
stirred in him. As he walked across the room he discovered to
his surprise that he was swaying. Margaret and Catherine
were in a corner talking. Tony had his arms about the
shoulders of the widow, kissing her on the lips. His eyes were
open. Richard smiled: he was sure Tony was studying
himself kissing the woman. But Mary Higgins gripped her
man convulsively, extracting what juices she could from him.
Her son, Pat, was stretched out on a sofa, dozing.
Richard went down the hall on to the porch. The rain
had stopped. He crossed the garden at the back of the house
to the fence that separated the house from the public beach.
193
Below him, the waves frothed in the seaward wind,
producing long curving lines of phosphorescent milk that fell
with calm sound on to the wet sand. He pissed out through
the fence on to the sand. A new freshness arose in him,
created by an emptying bladder, a clean wind and the regular
pulse of the ghostly sea. For an instant he was enmeshed in
these things, sustained by them. There was clarity, peace. For
an instant he longed to believe in something absolute. But
then his mind responded to the impulse by repeating: a clean
mind is a scrubbed mind, regardless of how it is effaced.
Unhappiness he could accept, but dissatisfaction was
intolerable.
Margaret came across the garden, calling his name. He
answered quietly.
‘I thought you were sick or something.’
‘No, dear. I see the waves upon the shore, like light
dissolved in star-showers, thrown. See.’
She stood beside him and looked out to sea. Her face
was white in the frame of black hair. Her throat, and the two
lines of muscle that angled down to her breast and produced a
hollow of shadow, were subtly lit and shaded like a rare
miniature of ivory. He was inspired to kiss her, but realising
it would involve him in a chain of reactions too soon, he
simply said:
‘It’s cold out here. Come along in.’
They met Elsa at the door. She was on her way home.
Her tasks were finished, she told them, and tomorrow, she
looked at her watch, or rather today, was Sunday and she had
her children to prepare for Mass and Communion. They
waved her goodbye as she drove out on to the track.
194
Inside, the air was heavy and smelled of stale food and
drink. John was unsteady on his feet as he stood with his back
to the fire. He was calling for attention.
‘I’m going to give a small recitation,’ he called
hoarsely.
Tony was sitting with the widow in the gloom of a
corner. Both were agitated. The young couple were still
embraced, pressed cheek to cheek, and the bookworm’s lips
moved constantly at her ear. Stephen sat in the corner, his
feet stretched out to the fire. Beside him sat Michael
Delahunty, who listened to him; he was crouched forward to
Stephen’s mouth. Stephen looked over his head at the
breastwork.
Richard stepped forward.
‘John, I’ll listen to you.’
This caused some people to look up and pay attention.
John smiled and composed himself, then spoke slowly:
A lesbian lass from Khartoum
Took a nancy boy up to her room,
She said, Let’s get this right,
Ere we switch off the light,
We do what and with which and to whom?
He came down through the laughter to Richard. He
was elated.
‘I used to do that at parties. It works every time.’
Catherine marched into the room. She was followed by
Pat, the widow’s son.
‘Good God,’ Richard ejaculated. ‘Him?’
She looked back and wrinkled her nose.
‘He is pretty awful,’ she admitted.
195
Pat yawned hugely and looked about for his mother.
Not seeing her, he went and lay on the sofa. They noticed
then that Tony and the widow had disappeared.
Catherine went away, taking Margaret with her.
Richard invited John to have a drink with him in the back
room.
The house was quiet. Sitting facing each other across a
card table, they drank and talked. John was outlining his
projects and ambitions for the Society to Richard, who
listened and nodded, while drawing his finger through the
froth of his stout. His head was heavy and John’s words
seemed to come from a great distance.
‘We must arrange outings during the summer, Dick.
Create a greater interest for the members – you know, we
must keep at them to take a bigger part in the running of the
Society.’
It was John’s acquired vocation, the organisation and
running of the Society, but all words, only words, thousands
of them, spreading out in a great cloud of confusion around
John.
Stephen came into the room, ducking his head
instinctively in the doorway,
‘Any stout left?’ he asked gently.
John delved into a corner and produced a bottle, which
he opened and handed to him.
‘By the way, Dick,’ John suddenly said, ‘some of the
members took exception to your remarks tonight. They
wondered what right you had to make statements like that
about them. I told you before that it’s only a social club.’

196
‘Stephen,’ Richard asked. ‘How did you feel after that
meeting?’
‘It didn’t matter much. I just wrote pages of stuff on
the subject. It wasn’t very well organised. You can’t blame
them for not understanding.’ Even the glass in his hand
seemed to much for him to support.
‘Well, you looked pretty down after it.’
‘Yes, that’s it,’ John said quickly. ‘I’ve just told you,
Dick. We must organise these things better than we have
done in the past.’
Tony stepped through the doorway. He was smiling
broadly.
‘There you all are,’ he said expansively. ‘Any stout
left?’
‘Enjoy yourself?’ Richard asked, his voice pitched in
irony.
Tony raised his hand before his face and rubbed his
thumb across his finger tips.
‘It was very fine. Her emotion was particular and
organised to set ends.’
‘She’s old enough to be your mother,’ John said in
disgust.
Tony replied dispassionately. ‘It happens all the times
in the best books. Besides, young girls are so disorganised in
their emotions that they can be very trying.’
Stephen smiled wanly and Richard laughed loudly.
‘The happy ending to a happy book,’ he said.
John snorted and turned on Richard.
‘Trust you. Even that piece you wrote for the magazine
ended with sex. So much of today’s literature has sex, sex,
197
and nothing but sex in it. They’re not true writers at all, only
dirty-minded scribblers.’
‘There was nothing explicit in it. You thought it was
“poetical” at the time.’
John ignored what Richard said. ‘Literature should be
beyond all that.’
‘Whatever else, Michael Delahunty and a friend of his
roused up two girls by getting them to read it.’
Just then the house erupted into music, Irish dance
music. Catherine shouted from the big room, calling for men
to dance with her. There was sudden activity as John, then
Tony and Stephen made for the door. Richard knelt and
searched for a bottle of stout. He could hear feet scraping and
hammering the floorboards and the ringing exultations of
wild dancing yells. He changed his mind about the drink and
decided he must join in, but by the time he got to the door the
record ended and silence settled again on the house. He heard
the mutter of words coming from one of the bedrooms.
Curious, he went to the door of the bedroom. It was ajar and
surrendering to the temptation he peeped in. The bookworm
and the stout girl were lying side by side on the narrow bed,
pressed close together. The whiteness of her body was
startling and she smiled blissfully, eyes lightly closed, and
listened to his measured speech.
Richard started back into the hall. He was as though
transfixed by the emotion that finally heaved through to
recognition. He stared down the hall and out into the night.
Margaret came out of the big room.

198
‘Dick, what are you doing out in the hall? Listen, Mrs
Higgins has offered us a lift home.’ She came closer to him.
‘Why are you so sad?’
‘I’m not sad.’
‘Your eyes are all bright and warm.’
She put her arms on his shoulders. Her eyes were moist
with love.
‘Dick, Dick,’ she whispered in sudden passion. She
was so close that he could feel her warm breath on his neck.
‘You look so sad and loving. How beautiful you are like that.
Oh dearest,’ she hugged him tightly. ‘We’ll be home in less
than an hour.’
She put her arm about his waist and drew him into the
big room.
While they waited for the widow and her son to find
their coats, the bookworm entered. He rubbed his eyes and
yawned. The stout girl followed on his heels. Her face was
very slack and her plump arms hung limply at her sides. They
sat together by the fire, both silent. Richard couldn’t take his
eyes off them. Margaret noticed this.
‘Why are you staring at them? Do you know them?’
‘No reason. They remind me of something, that’s all.’
‘Remind you of what?’
‘Nothing, nothing. Just a memory.’

Sitting together in the back of the car, Margaret


snuggled in close to Richard. She stroked his hands, which he
had entwined in his lap. Mrs Higgins laughed a lot and
repeated over and over how much she had enjoyed herself. It

199
was raining again and it drummed on the roof and hissed
beneath the wheels.
Margaret looked up at Richard’s face. It was lit in the
flash of the streetlamps then hidden. Lit and unlit. Passive
and white. She followed the line of one eyebrow with a finger
and then crossed the bridge of his nose on to the other brow;
then down his nose, with its bump that made it cruel-looking
– like a Norman, she thought. His lips were pursed and
attractive: she put her fingers lightly on them. He jerked his
head away. In one of his thinking moods. Daren’t touch him
when he’s like that, stuck away with his thoughts. He rarely
told her what he thought about. Still, most men were like that:
the thing was to ignore them while it passed. Catherine called
it their ‘periods’. She said their minds are like wombs, only
more confused their ours. She stroked his fingers. But when
he’s warm and relaxed, he’s the best man in the world. His
eyes an hour ago. A feeling of love and contentment filled her
body. Love, she whispered, love.
In the flat he refused tea and began to undress
immediately. She was delighted. As he bent to pull his
trousers over his feet she lay across his back and kissed his
neck.
‘I love you,’ she whispered.
He turned to her slowly, his trousers in his hand. She
was shocked to see how cold and remote his eyes were.
‘What’s wrong? I love you. What more can I say?’ She
was suddenly very near to tears.
‘Say nothing. Best policy for now.’
‘What was is it you remembered at the party?’

200
‘Nothing that would concern you.’ He had his back to
her and she could hear the rapid clicks as he wound his
watch.
‘Tell me. I have a right to know.’
‘Well, if you must.’ He was intense with restraint.
‘That young couple you noticed me watching – the one they
call the bookworm and the girl, May – they reminded me of a
girl I knew some years ago. I was in love with her, but it
didn’t work out.’
She was derisive.
‘Is that all? Sure, that happens to everyone.’
‘Perhaps. But I suffer only my own experience. And as
I discovered this evening, it’s impossible to escape such an
experience.’
‘Don’t be silly. It was only teenage romance.’
‘Again perhaps. I did believe then that I loved her,
though I am not sure now what the word means. Even so,
who can take her place, now that she is a dream in my mind?’
‘But it happened so long ago. You were younger and
more innocent then. Why should it interfere with you so?’
He had settled himself down in the bed and lay looking
up at the ceiling.
‘Because out of it all there are three or four incidents
remaining in my memory that will never be surpassed for as
long as I live.’
She felt her stomach turn over.

He was fast asleep.


She watched him as she would study a painting: as a
medium for unlocking her mind. She who had held herself for
201
the day she would meet the man she truly loved. How many
had she refused, without turning a hair? Coupled now with a
man she could love wholeheartedly, but who could not, or
would not, love her completely. She crossed to the window.
Rain teemed down on the Gothic spire opposite. He was
fascinated by that spire in moonlight. She looked over at him:
she had been so sure of him, that it was he who spoke to her,
when all the time it was only half of him, or quarter, or only a
tiny fraction that she knew and felt. No. She must get him to
tell the whole story. It was sure to be sentimental. But that
wouldn’t really solve the whole problem. It wasn’t only that
girl that was the cause. She nodded slowly to herself in
understanding. She remembered she had once told him that
she hoped he would die before her, because men are lost and
useless when they have to carry burdens like that. And that
she was sure was love: the willingness to carry the whole
burden of the other.
It was true love.

202
MASQUE

203
By the time Richard had led Margaret through the
market, waiting while she bought this and that item she
needed and stoically endured her pleas to come and look at
various things which took her fancy in shop-windows, he was
fairly gasping for a drink and determined to ignore her
demand to return home now because she was hungry. The
large rectilinear parcel, containing two newly framed antique
maps, jammed edgeways in the door of the pub. Margaret,
coming unheeding behind him, hit against him and almost
tipped the vegetables out on to the pavement.
‘For God’s sake, Dick, can’t you look where you’re
going?’ she said in exasperation, giving him a withering look
that was designed to make him feel as if eight years old and
not more than two feet tall.
Richard, being used to this, ignored her and
concentrated instead on getting himself and his parcel
through the stiffly sprung door. Once inside and having found
an empty table, he gratefully laid down his burden, relaxed,
stretched his arms and finally rubbed his hands in
anticipation.
‘Well, what will you have, Mags?’ he asked. ‘A half
pint of something?’ He wanted her to take something
alcoholic so she would relax, knowing that if she didn’t there
would be a cold war between them by the time he had
finished his first pint.
‘I’ll just have a bitter lemon,’ she replied. Seeing his
frown of dissatisfaction, she continued: ‘I’m not having
anything stronger on an empty stomach. You can if you want,
it’s your idea to come in here. I want to eat.’

204
By the time he had drunk the first pint, he knew that a
second could only improve his sense of wellbeing, and that
regardless of Margaret’s mute censure. She drank frugally of
her beverage, ignoring Richard and gazing about at the
patrons with disdain. But he had been over this course
enough times in their three years together to know the
outcome and to know it wasn’t worth worrying about.
Margaret would grumble for a while afterwards until she felt
she had appeased her outraged self-respect. Meanwhile she
would tap her foot, reduce the crowd in the bar to its proper
moral stature and fall back on her dignity, upon which she
would stand. Richard sighed gently and groped for his
cigarettes. Three years together; two years of literary
endeavour for him, and two years of growing rectitude for
her. As he became immersed in his work, she seemed to
retreat into the security of her childhood values, learned in
the depths of Donegal and hardly suited to life in London.
He drained his glass and rhetorically asked Margaret if
she would have another drink.
‘Are you going to have more?’ she feigned. ‘Are you
not hungry?’
Ignoring this, he took his glass and went to the
crowded bar. Behind the counter three barmaids scurried to
and fro, filling glasses, decapping bottles and operating the
cash register, all of which, when added to the calls of the
drinkers, created a cacophony that stimulated Richard’s
freshly addled senses. As a bird will respond to human music
which, though art, must seem to the bird to be an unearthly
clamour, so Richard began to whistle. He softly whistled the
theme from the opening movement of Mozart’s Clarinet
205
Quintet, all the while trying to catch a barmaid’s eye. At last
a youth pocketed his change, took up his filled glasses and
moved away, leaving a space free at the bar. Richard quickly
sidled around the seated figure who had blocked his access
and immediately found a barmaid awaiting his command.
The seated figure turned to Richard and said:
‘I wasn’t going to move for you.’
Richard realised that he must have been whistling
directly into the fellow’s ear. Contrite and good-humoured,
he said:
‘Did my whistling annoy you? I didn’t intend it to.’
‘I know there shouldn’t be seats at a bar like this,
especially a crowded one, but I got tired walking back and
forward for a drink from over there.’ He pointed vaguely to
the back of the bar.
As Richard paid for his drink, he replied:
‘I wasn’t trying to hassle you, as the Americans say, by
whistling. I’ve had the piece in my head all morning
threatening to break into song at the slightest chance.’
The seated stranger laughed at Richard’s indulgence
and seemed to find relief in it from his own self.
‘What is the piece? It’s half familiar, though, with
respect, I don’t think you render it too accurately.’
‘I dare say I don’t. It sounds far more agreeable inside
my head than when I whistle it,’ Richard replied, finding
himself taking the role of wit in the face of the more literal-
minded English, a role he had become used to assuming.
‘However, it’s from the first movement of Mozart’s Clarinet
Quintet. Do you know it?’

206
‘Mozart...Mozart...?’ the stranger said, obviously
trying to recall something, though not the piece Richard had
mentioned. His face cleared and he said: ‘Mozart. I bought a
record of his recently for my daughter... a popular piece...’
Richard was amazed to see the man’s lips suddenly
pucker, as if he were on the point of crying. Even his eyes,
blue, clear and apparently steady, became baleful. As he
continued to grope for the words he wanted, his eyes settled
on Richard’s face and assumed an expression of pleading, the
expression that precludes intimacy with lonely people. The
stranger turned his head away and gulped some beer from his
glass. Refreshed and recollected, he said:
‘You must know it. It was played everywhere for
weeks. It goes on and on.’ He laughed suddenly. ‘On and on,
like all Mozart, the same piece of music over and over. It’s
absolutely marvellous, you just sit back and enjoy it.’
Partially relieved, Richard took a sup of his beer and
said:
‘Was it Symphony number forty? I know that was all
the rage last summer. Though it sounds a damn sight different
in the original.’
‘That must have been it,’ the other said. ‘Well, as you
seem familiar with classical music, can you tell me what this
is.’ And he began to hum some notes.
After listening for a minute, in which the melody was
hummed four or five times, the stranger all the time gazing
earnestly into his face, Richard shook his head and said:
‘I give up. Tell me what it is.’
‘It’s from Carmen. I’m surprised you don’t know it. I
thought everyone knew that.’
207
Richard took another sup of his beer and thought: Oh
hell. He turned to Margaret and smiled. She eyed him sternly.
The stranger, who Richard judged to be about fifty, was
intoning to his glass, ‘If music be the food of love...’
‘Listen,’ Richard said. ‘I must go back to my
girlfriend. Will you come across and join us?’
When the stranger sat down and introduced himself to
Margaret, which he did with a grace that surprised Richard,
as Robert Emmet, she laughed out loud, her manner totally
changed, sure she was being fooled.
‘But call me Bob,’ he said to her, his voice a tone or
two lower. He looked at Richard, grinning, happy to have
caused a minor sensation. When he sensed Margaret’s
curiosity take precedence over her amusement, he explained:
‘It’s a Yorkshire name: O-T-T, not E-T. I know he’s
one of your patriots. In fact Ian Paisley told me that he was
the greatest of them.’
‘Hardly,’ Richard said. ‘A man who marches into the
stronghold of his enemies with a handful of followers, and
then makes an impassioned speech before being sentenced to
death, the greatest patriot? A pretty suicidal patriotism, isn’t
it?’
When Bob heard this, he figuratively ducked his head
and drank his beer. But Margaret’s interest had been taken
and she began to question him. She put on her distant
manner, to lull the chap while she probed him unmercifully.
Richard, seeing things looked well for another half an hour or
so, interrupted them and asked Bob what he would have. He
wasn’t surprised when Margaret said she too would ‘have
something’.
208
‘Tell me, Richard, can you guess what I do?’ Bob
asked him when he returned with the drink.
‘Not for the life of me,’ Richard replied cheerfully.
‘Well try anyway, otherwise there’ll be no fun in it.’
‘Bob, I haven’t a clue what you are. You could be
anything from a truck driver to a company director for all I
know – they all dress pretty much the same nowadays.’
Bob was crestfallen. He told them in a quiet, winded
voice:
‘A painter.’
Richard said to himself: Oh Christ.
Margaret became newly interested.
‘What do you paint?’ she asked.
‘The sea, the sea. In all its moods and colours.’
‘All the time?’ Richard asked sceptically.
Again Bob ducked his head figuratively, and switched
facets of his personality.
‘What do you do?’ he asked Richard.
‘I write. At the moment I’m writing the history of the
bicycle in Ireland, carrying on the work of another Irishman,
Flann O’Brien.’
Both Margaret and Bob looked at him: the former with
surprise, the latter with near joy.
‘Is that what you are?’ Bob cried. And rushed on:
‘Even when I was in Art School, all those years ago, what I
really wanted to do was write!’
Bob had gripped Richard’s arm; now in his excitement
he was shaking it vigorously, while Richard grinned.
‘Whose style do you copy?’ Bob asked.

209
‘Nobody’s really. The stuff seems to have it’s own
style.’
‘Do you like Hemingway? His short stories?’ Here he
gave what was almost an exultant cry. ‘How he could catch
mood... Just the right word in the right place... I’m sure I
could do a story if I put my mind to it.’
‘Do you know someone who would publish it?’
Richard asked, a hint of dryness in his voice.
Bob turned to Margaret. Again his eyes brightened as
he spoke to her.
‘What do you do?’
‘I’m the breadwinner... Well, so far anyway,’ she
replied. She looked sideways at Richard, as if to create the
intimacy such a reply needed.
A bell sounded from the direction of the bar. Bob leapt
up, looking at his watch, saying:
‘It’s almost closing time. Will you have another
drink?’
When he returned with the drinks, Bob asked Richard
and Margaret if they intended going anywhere in particular
when they left the pub.
‘Because if you are not, I hope you’ll come with me... I
enjoy your company... There’s a club up in the city that I
know, where we can have our fill.’
Margaret wasn’t sure, she had this bag of shopping,
and she was hungry... Richard said ‘Yes’, it was a long time
since he had immersed himself in an open-ended booze-up.
Walking through the afternoon crowds of Brixton, Bob
seemed to frisk about. One moment beside them, shooting off

210
comments on the state of things, on the immigrants who
jostled about them, on the negroes... Until he asked Richard:
‘Who is it the British look to for civilisation?’
Then before Richard could reply, he was separated and
forced ahead, to be shunted like driftwood into a shop arcade.
When Richard and Margaret breasted him, he said:
‘Well? Do you know?’
‘I don’t follow you. Surely they would look to
themselves by now.’ He had to shout to be heard over the
clamour.
Bob shook his head, overjoyed.
‘No, you don’t understand,’ he said, his blue eyes
twinkling. ‘The Phoenicians.’
Richard tried hard to collect his scattered wits.
‘I thought you meant who they look to nowadays,’ he
said.
‘No, who brought them the first contact with
civilisation...’
A large negro bore down on them, scattering Bob once
more. His head bobbed about in front of them. Margaret
smiled at Richard, a semblance of pity in it. She was
beginning to enjoy herself; she was being entertained. The
discontinuities stimulated Richard. He had a growing desire
for boisterous disorder.
They regrouped as they descended the steps into the
Tube station. Bob was livid with enjoyment.
‘You see, the Phoenicians gave them saffron...they
wore it on their faces as a cosmetic. The Britons like it, so
they traded it to them...’

211
On the escalator Bob said, speaking over Margaret’s
head (she was between them, with Richard first and lowest):
‘It’s taken from the crocus, which grows in Poland.
The Phoenicians had civilisation, they appreciated colours.’
Seated in the train, his lips puckered, his eyes baleful,
like a stricken Madonna, he commented:
‘They brought civilisation in peace, unlike the Romans,
who brought war.’
The hollow rumbling of the train gave Richard the
excuse to shout, something he desired to do in order to
release his feelings.
‘For goodness sake, Bob, you’re telling us only part
truths. If the Phoenicians did not attempt to conquer the
Britons, it was because it was unnecessary or impossible.
They did, after all, conquer parts of the Mediterranean, and
with the necessary bloodshed. The attitude of the Phoenicians
to the Britons would be similar to that of the British in the
nineteenth century to a small and economically unimportant
tribe in New Guinea or Polynesia.’
Bob listened to this in silence, letting his head sway
limply to the motion of the train. Margaret surveyed the half
dozen people in the carriage. The conversation did not
interest her: she was hungry again, but she was patient.
‘Yes, yes,’ Bob said wearily. ‘But the colour, saffron,
was the symbol of our earliest civilisations. It lifted those
tribes by giving them joy and pride in themselves.’
In Leicester Square Richard delayed them while he
tried to purchase a copy of the Irish Times, explaining, by the
way, as he left them standing outside the Tube station, that he
always made a point of buying Saturday’s edition when in
212
town. He liked to know what was happening on the literary
and political scenes. He mentioned names, but his voice was
drowned in the roar of traffic. When he returned without a
copy, they were sold out, he insisted on having something to
eat. Margaret, looking at the eating houses in sight, turned up
her nose and asked Bob if they could get food in his club. He
said no, and began apologising in advance for the patrons and
the condition of the place. Margaret looked doubtful; the
wind chilled her. What on earth was she doing in this part of
the city when she should be cooking lunch and cleaning out
the flat? Richard laughed and took the other two by the arm
and, after asking Bob the way to the ‘trough’, led them up a
side street past second-hand book shops and strip clubs.
In the club, which was really a convenience for those
who wished to continue their drinking during the late
afternoon, when other licensed premised were closed, the
three of them sat about a formica-topped table at the back of
the room, away from the hubbub at the counter. Margaret
said she was cold, and when little notice was taken of her
complaint, the two men realising that little could be done
about it, she sat upright in her chair with a stiff smile,
intending to suffer it, as if it was the common lot of
womankind. Bob threw his luggage on the floor beside him: a
windcheater (Navy Stores: £2.00); a newspaper (Daily
Telegraph: 4p); a worn kit bag (NV); a paperback (A Man
Could Stand Up, Ford Madox Ford: 2½p, Brixton Market);
and a wrapper containing the remains of a sandwich (West
Kensington, the previous evening; Liability). Richard placed
his rectilinear parcel carefully against the legs of his chair,
with a stern warning to Margaret to be careful and not to kick
213
against it, as it was adjacent to her feet. Margaret put her bag
of shopping standing upright on the floor near her chair:
value of foodstuffs: £1.25 approx., plus four black buttons (to
replace the three remaining on her tartan coat): 2½p: Brixton
Market.
‘Oh the prints,’ Richard said in reply to Bob’s query.
‘Just two I picked up cheap and decided to have framed. One
of Dublin and one of the British Isles, both eighteenth
century.’ He demurred at Bob’s request to open the package
so he could see them, saying it wasn’t worth it.
While Margaret sat with her set smile, Bob pointed out
to Richard some of the better known members of the club. A
tall man dressed in heathery tweeds who gripped the bar and
nodded his head stiffly as he listened to his interlocutor. He
was very intelligent and had an important position in the
university nearby. Bob wanted to take him over and introduce
him, but the sight of the man trying to put his glass to his
mouth made him reluctant. A very fat woman dressed in blue,
French, who sat at the bar and held court before two men of
small stature. She constantly patted one of the men on the
cheek and only interrupted it to pinch his chin. ‘The Small
Fellow’ at the end of the counter: underworld and had been
missing from the club for three months. ‘This Chap Here’
looking foolishly at the floor – Scottish, be off to the West
End when the pubs open. Doubtful activities. The
Manageress, Irish and a ‘Fine Woman’.
It was now Richard’s turn to buy the drinks. The stout
woman said, ‘Helloo’. Richard smiled uncertainly, fascinated
by the mountain of flesh. The two men looked sharply at him
and then at the table where Bob and Margaret sat in
214
conversation. As the two men relaxed, secure, Richard was
repelled by the heavy perfume that surrounded the woman
like an aura of decay. The price of the drink shocked him,
which the smile of common citizenship of the manageress did
nothing to soften.
On his return, Bob condemned a certain Irish television
personality for prompting a certain Irish writer to swear on
British television, thus showing the unfortunate man’s
personality in public and hastening his destruction. Richard
offered Bob a cigarette. Bob, as he took it, said he had that
from the man’s wife. Richard asked him if he knew such-and-
such, a well known Irish writer. Bob said no, but wondered if
Richard was acquainted with thinga-me-jig, the equally well-
known Irish writer. No, Richard wasn’t. Margaret mentioned
an Irish sculptor. Bob was gulping his drink and held his
hand up to her, the cigarette transfixing his fingers. He shook
his head as he sucked the last essence of beer off his teeth.
When this was completed he confirmed his negative answer,
but, on the other hand, he knew what’s-his-name, who had
done that church. Or was he an architect, he wondered.
And then Bob had it. Why didn’t Richard write a story
based on their meeting and subsequent adventures. He could
use Hemingway as a model. Richard shook his head. Too
arbitrary, he said, both subject matter and stylist. But Bob
insisted. After all, he said, a writer should be capable of
turning any incident he heard or experienced into an
entertaining piece of prose. Richard, while shaking his head
to clear the mist of alcohol which was embracing it, replied
that he could see neither scheme or idea in the events of the
day. He then suggested that Bob write it, as his introduction
215
to the world of letters. Bob’s face puckered at this, and
Richard, bravado aroused by the drink and becoming careless
of his self-regard, slapped himself on the knee and said: ‘Ah,
that baleful look again! You look like a wretched spaniel.’ At
which Bob smiled a graceful feminine smile of deprecation.
‘Do it,’ Richard insisted, ‘and show it to me next week.’ Bob
hid his head figuratively and noticing that their glasses were
empty, stood up and insisted on buying another round. This
time he asked Margaret particularly to have something
special, outside the usual run. She, having fallen into that
mood of female self-regard, needed a few seconds in which
to regain her more public composure. In the end, after some
disjointed dialogue, she agreed to take some Danish beer,
which Bob assured her was the nicest tasting beer available.
Before getting her to accept the lager, Bob had suggested she
take sherry or wine or whisky instead. But she tossed her
head in horror and said, ‘At this time of day?’ She kept in
mind the fact that a meal needed cooking and rooms needed
cleaning, and that she must keep herself in fit condition for
these tasks.
While Bob was away, she leaned over to Richard and
said:
‘I don’t like this place. It’s dirty. And look at that
awful woman there, look at the carry-on of her. Can’t we
finish up now and go home. What time is it?’
‘Twenty to five.’
‘Is it that late? Oh Dick, the day’s gone and I’ve
nothing done.’
Richard was annoyed. The unusual course of events
had thrown his groatsworth of knowledge of the female
216
psyche into disorder, and he felt himself faced with the
superficial mannerism of female revolt, without his secret
knowledge to guide him through the storm.
‘Patience,’ he said limply, waving his hand between
them.
When Bob returned, she smiled sweetly at him, as if
she was guilty of some misdemeanour. Bob placed the drink
before her with some ceremony. Then he asked Richard if he
would come and help him carry the other drinks over, as he
felt a little unsteady. While walking to the counter, Bob
explained that he had been drinking all morning, and that
without recovering from the previous night’s binge. The
newly filled glasses stood at the French woman’s elbow.
Manful, because of his relative youth, Richard edged around
the two small-sized worshippers to grasp them. The woman
said to Bob, in her loud voice:
‘I’ll give you the gamaroosh, my friend. I’d love to –
you’re such a baby of a man.’
Bob looked apologetically at the two courtiers, and
gabbled in his throat.
‘I’ve seen you in here before: slinking about the place
like a lost puppy,’ she continued. She reached majestically
and chucked his chin.
Bob looked at her balefully. Richard, who was
standing in the background, a glass gripped in each hand,
laughed joyously. The scene tickled his fancy, the cruelty of
it. As Richard moved away, Bob, catching sight of him, did
likewise.
When they had resettled at the table and had taken a
sup of their drinks, Richard gave a great horse-laugh in
217
memory of the incident. Margaret looked at him in
puzzlement. Bob hung his head. Richard told her.
‘What’s the gamaroosh?’
The two men disagreed as to what it was, Bob thought
it was for the satisfaction of the woman; Richard, for the
satisfaction of the man. Margaret was disgusted, and said so.
She gave the French woman a venomous look. By
coincidence, the French woman was looking in their
direction. She waved. Bob literally squirmed.
‘Are you married?’ Margaret asked, wishing now to be
sure of the type of company she was keeping.
‘I was. She died fifteen years ago.’
‘Oh, I’m sorry to hear that. You must be very lonely.’
‘He has a daughter,’ Richard interjected.
‘Then it’s not so bad,’ she said. ‘It’s awful to be lonely
in this world.’
‘She’s married,’ Bob said. ‘Married to an engineer and
lives abroad.’
Margaret, her maternal feelings now aroused, said,
‘Then you must be lonely.’
This seemed to make Bob feel lonely. His head sagged.
Richard watched this with disgust.
‘Damn it all,’ he said in exasperation. ‘Who the hell
isn’t lonely? And no amount of mothering will resolve it. A
man must seek his own resolution elsewhere. In philosophy,
for instance.’
‘No, not philosophy,’ Bob said at once. ‘Love.’
Richard, now well soaked, was in a fit condition to
enter the lists.

218
‘No. Thought and understanding,’ he said
grandiloquently. ‘What you want to do is escape from
yourself, to lose identity in something else.’
‘The Romance,’ Bob replied forcefully. ‘The Wisdom
of the Emotions. To Become Part with Everything.’
Richard took a large gulp of his drink and set off. The
Intellect: Logos: Man as the Inheritor of the Earth, of the
Stars, of the Universe, in fact of All that Man could Grasp:
The Great Thoughts: The Past: History.
Here Bob interrupted him. He had been sitting
watching with his mouth agape, not really listening but
responding to the emotions of the words. No, he said. Love:
At Oneness: Peace: Art: The Sea and its Motions: Colour
(Here he said, as an aside to his main theme, that Richard in
terms of one colour, most likely grey, the colour of brain
tissue.): Here and Now.
Richard mentioned the Great Flux: Becoming: Essence
(He said here that Existence could not conceive of itself
without first conceiving of Essence, because otherwise there
would be nothing to talk about: we would be as the beasts of
the field.): Heraclitus.
Bob, getting a word in edgeways, said: Being: Robert
Emmet...
Richard went further: the Mystery of the Universe: the
Soul nourished before Time in the Cradle of the Universe,
awaiting its Great Destiny which had been Foreordained.
Bob responded, not to be outdone: the Mystery of the
Sea; of Colour; of Form: the Sinuosity of Shape: the
Malleability of Matter: the Mistiness of Reality.

219
Richard sat upright in his chair, charged with the awful
responsibility for man, while Bob leaned forward, his eyes
bright and kindly, filled with hope and willingness-to-please.
Margaret said, in a lull:
‘You’re making fools of yourselves. Everybody is
watching you.’
She looked at her watch.
‘Do you know what time it is, Dick? It’s a quarter past
six.’
Bob started and said.
‘The pubs will be open. Let’s go to one of them. The
drink will be cheaper there.’
Richard agreed and finished off his drink in one long
gulp. As they left, their respective bundles held untidily in
their grasps, the French woman, who now had five men about
her, called:
‘Au revoir.’
The evening air revived them. The larger world of
London invigorated them. They made a course roughly for
Leicester Square.
‘Will we have something to eat?’ Richard said. ‘I’m
starving.’
At his elbow Margaret said:
‘It’s about time you thought of that. I’ve been sitting in
that place for the last three hours dying of the hunger.’
They entered the first restaurant they came to. They
took a table by the window and Margaret immediately
pointed to the aquarium, especially the black fish the
resembled a trout, in general form if not size. The fish flicked
its tail and was gone into a clump of green plants. A waiter
220
came, and he and Bob had great difficulty finding a
convenient place for his belongings. Then Margaret and Bob
had a curry each. The waiter, yellow skinned and pretty,
blinked, poised to obey their commands, if only they would
be clear as to what they wanted. Richard took a menu and
immediately grasped that they were in an Indian, not a
Chinese, restaurant. The waiter gave a dazzling smile when
he heard Richard say:
‘It’s an Indian place, not Chinese.’
Bob nodded, puzzled. Margaret turned up her nose and
said they should go – she didn’t like Indian food. Bob
obligingly agreed and half rose. Richard said he was quite
comfortable, that the dishes were tempting. Relieved, the
waiter finally got their orders and departed with alacrity to
see to them. Bob fumbled in his pockets and produced
cigarettes. His eyes were moist, their blueness piercing and
cold. As Richard accepted a cigarette and Margaret, for the
hundredth time, politely and patiently declined, Bob said:
‘You must write a story of this day. Think of all that
has been said by us.’
‘No,’ Richard replied, thinking with a chill in his spine
what it would be like to make head or tail of the adventure.
‘If you think it is important, you should do it yourself.’
‘I would certainly like to. But you are supposed to be
the writer.’
The waiter returned with soup for Richard. While he
drank, Margaret turned her attention to the aquarium. The
black fish had returned and swam lazily back and forth, his
tail flicking in little darts. Bob gazed at Margaret. He had
reached that stage in his drinking where he needed to pause
221
and rest himself in coyness with a woman: to let his
personality float in freedom, its boundaries set only by the
caprice of the woman. Margaret, noticing his gaze, responded
in her true Donegal way: her eyes said, Well?
Richard, finished his soup, wiped his mouth and
sniffed the spicy odours that hung in the air about him.
Momentarily satisfied, he turned to Bob, his eyes bright and
moist, his brain sweetly addled, and said:
‘You must invite us to your place to see some of your
work. We might even buy a painting, that is, if we can afford
your prices.’
Bob hung his head. His mouth puckered.
‘I haven’t pained in four years,’ he said. ‘I simply can’t
do it anymore.’
Margaret and Richard were non-plussed. Margaret
thought of her untidy rooms, sure in her heart that Richard
was to blame for the wasted day, what with his nonsense
about writing and philosophy. Richard gazed at a group of
middle class Indians nearby: a middle aged couple, an older
woman – obviously the mother of one of them, and three
children. The man seemed prematurely grey; his wife had a
look of self-justified satisfaction on her face, she marshalled
her children efficiently; the children were clean and well-
dressed, but with veiled eyes. Further away, a youth with red,
rough skin and dressed in a bright red shirt, open at he neck,
spooned soup into his mouth while he read Weekend. Two
waiters lounged by the cash register, talking in their native
tongue, perfectly at home in the place. For the first time he
noticed the music: sitar and tabla: distant and melancholy,
mysterious, the circle turning and turning in cycles of vast
222
lengths of time – he slipped down unguarding into the ring of
time, uncared for, uncaring, helpless, fluid, female...
Bob was trying to gather up his belongings, as he did
he mumbled:
‘I can’t wait any longer here... Having to sit about in
places like this... I’m going...’
When Richard said ‘Wait’ he paused, and seemed
about to resume his seat, but as if he had decided anew, he
went back to collecting his things.
‘Hell, Bob,’ Richard said, infected by Bob’s mood but
his voice indifferent. ‘Can’t you suffer the mere rituals of
living? When we have enjoyed our food, we’ll go and enjoy
some more drink.’
Bob paused at the door, his things clutched untidily
against his breast. He nodded his head quickly in farewell. He
looked utterly vulnerable, a lost child. Then he was gone.
Eating his kebab, Richard said it was terrific: he was
sure there was garlic in it, and it amazed him that he could eat
it, for he had a revulsion for it.
‘I must ask the waiter if he can get me the recipe,’ he
said to Margaret. ‘I’ll make it some evening as a surprise.’
Margaret was picking at her food. It wasn’t her
familiar Chinese curry and she didn’t like it: too greasy.
‘Poor man,’ she said. ‘He’s lonely in the world.’
‘He’ll get by.’
‘Don’t be so hard,’ she said, suddenly angry. ‘You act
as if you are some kind of god, far above all this.’
‘And don’t you go pitying him. It’s degrading.’
Then Richard noticed that Bob had dropped his book.
He picked it up. On the inside of the front cover was written:
223
R.A. Emmott, and his address in Norbury. Below that were a
group of letters: S-L--A-E and C------/MARKET, and below
that, written in a less formal script, as if written in
excitement: COVERED MARKET. The other word Richard
knew: SELFSAME. He had worked it out this morning while
waiting for Margaret and listening to Mozart. But the other
clue had eluded him.
‘Has he forgotten his book?’ Margaret asked.
‘Yes.’
She reached for her handbag.
‘Well, I’m finished. I’m going to clean up. Will you be
ready when I come back.’
‘No. we’ll have coffee first.’
As she stood up from the table, Margaret said:
‘The day’s wasted. Look at the time. And you’re not a
bit worried.’
When she had gone, the waiter approached Richard.
‘Will there be anything else?’ he asked, poised to obey.
‘Coffee for two,’ Richard said, absently opening the
book at chapter one. ‘Oh, and can you give me the recipe for
the kebab you served me? It was delicious...’
He was laughing at the opening paragraph of the story.
He was delighted and happy:
‘...of being a part of the supernatural paraphernalia of
inscrutable Destiny…’

224
STRICT NEUTRALITY

225
Margaret and I have been together for five years now.
In that time we have lived in Dublin, London, and for a short
time in Paris. We sometimes live together, like husband and
wife, and sometimes apart, meeting like lovers on street-
corners or in public houses in the evening. We once thought
to try North America, but the effort required to amass
sufficient capital and to clear ourselves with the immigration,
health and security departments of several governments led to
so much stress and argument that we finally gave up the idea.
I would like to try Paris again; Margaret, Greece and the sun.
At the moment we are living in London, sharing a
small flat out in Streatham. I don’t much like the place – too
suburban – and I would prefer to be in Belsize Park again, but
Margaret has this hankering after the security of quiet tree-
lined streets and anonymous but tidy semis.
It is now July and we have come to a small village in
county Donegal, in the far north-west tip of Ireland, to spend
a week or so with Margaret’s people. It is quiet, perhaps too
quiet. I gave up dreaming of the peace of the countryside
many years ago, and no longer does my heart clamour at the
sight of well-arranged trees, mountains, rivers, etc. However,
objectively speaking, the scenery is good in this part of the
world. From Margaret’s bedroom (naturally she and I have
separate rooms here) I can see the sea and the purple hills of
the peninsula. The strands are golden at low tide: the colour
fits in well with the blues and purples of the land, sea and
sky. From the window of my room I can see the mountain
that rises from the front door to a height of over two thousand
feet, an impressive height as Irish mountains go. It is quite
friendly in the sunlight of a summer’s day and I have often
226
been tempted to climb it – I have even plotted my route. But
the stories I hear about it – mists, sudden squalls, pockets of
bog – always dampen my enthusiasm.
The village is quiet: four pubs, two petrol stations, two
shops and about a score of houses, all straggled along a mile
of road. This is my third holiday here and so far I have been
in one pub, one shop and two houses, one that of Margaret’s
parents, the other that of a relation. (The rest of her relations
farm in various parts of the surrounding townlands.) I have
never had sufficient reason to visit the remaining three pubs
or the other shop. The villagers nod to me along the road,
knowing by now who I am and probably a lot more besides. I
respond in like manner; on earlier visits I often made a fool
of myself by overdoing the greetings, treating them like
mandarins. I have actually spoken to very few of them; only
in the evenings, drinking in the pub, have I crossed the subtle
line that separates outsider and local, and then only to find
myself adrift among the impenetrable and yet highly
tendentious mutterings of sheep farmers deep in their drink. I
suspect I am being mocked, but what can I do? I chose to
enter their society.
The house is quiet these days. Six children were reared
here and the atmosphere remembers them with a deep dusty
pensiveness. I bow to this and go gently. There is no doubt
that there were hard times in the early years: I feel the weight
of an enduring patience, a view of the world that does not rise
above the practical effort to secure simple basic ends. I grow
tired of it at times, for I have not the patience nor will to
submit to it. Yet it is hard to escape it. The surrounding
countryside, beautiful, as I have said, partakes of this
227
endurance and compounds it by the fact that it has existed for
millions of years. I silently cry out at times, whether in
frustration and spite, or perverse worship, I do not know, and
comfort myself with the belief that a man’s life is mercifully
short. All the same, I have tried to evade this concrete sense
of inertia. Often I have taken myself off alone to walk the
lough, walking hard and long until my mind is numb and at
rest, kicking stones and cutting at the hedges as I go. It is a
foolish gesture, this walking, for I merely unite myself with
the natural state and I awake hours later feeling I have lost
some superior spark, be it human intelligence or mere
wilfulness.

It is early morning as I write this. My body aches and


my head pounds. Four cigarettes since rising have not helped
an acid stomach. I dare not go down to make tea for fear of
disturbing the still-sleeping family.
Last night Margaret’s father came home as usual from
the farm he manages for a religious community. We ate
together, and afterwards he pulled on a pair of heavy boots
and announced his intention of footing turf on his acre of
bog. He looked tired and I felt vaguely curious and so I
volunteered to help him. Margaret and her parents showed
surprise at this and stared at me with provocative
condescension. I reacted and insisted upon helping, forcing
myself against my better judgement to be modest and willing
to do my utmost. This seemed to relieve them of any
responsibility for what might happen to me and on this silent
understanding Margaret’s father agreed to let me accompany

228
him. I went upstairs, changed into older clothes and heavy
shoes, and hopped into the car beside him.
He drove along narrow rutted boreens, climbing
around the flank of the mountain to a remote hanging valley.
He parked the car at the end of the metalled road and we
walked along a stony track for over a mile, then followed a
path that led between worked bogland, mucky sods of turf
and pools of ruffled water abounding, until we reached a
working no different from all the others we had passed. He
threw off his jacket and jumped down from the bank into the
trench. He sank until water welled up over the toes of his
boots. With mixed feelings of duty and bravado, I followed
him. He led me to the end of the trench and showed me but
once how to foot turf so that the wind could pass between the
sods and so dry them. I nodded and set to the job with a will
that was essentially charitable. I was not doing this for myself
and therein entered the element of play. I took care to pile the
sods with a certain elegance, for I liked the balance and
dignity of the simple structure.
Time passed. The wind gusted and the sun sank in the
west. It was really very pleasant. Then I looked up. Joseph
Stewart was about ten feet ahead of me, his body bent
throbbing with effort as he expertly threw sod upon sod. I
said loudly that it was a beautiful evening, wanting to break
the silence. He threw me one look and resumed his labour.
Now, this quick glance was reserved, very reserved,
but in it was a reproach so overwhelming that I started as
though he had struck me. This reproach was not righteous, it
did not presume on some expectation – rather it originated in
a deep well of experience, called necessity. It was an
229
expression no words could articulate; it could not be justified,
proven or exploited. It came to me, it touched me, and then it
went away. I looked about me – I wanted desperately to joke,
to find reason to laugh out. The mountain was unchanged, as
was the ridge opposite: the wind swept me and sunlight fell
on me – yet I realised that I was merely accidental within
their order. I did not stand in a bog, did not see mountains,
did not feel the sun or the wind: they were simply a series of
accidents and collisions that implied nothing whatever about
my personal existence.
I was thoroughly alone then. I shrank away and saw the
enormity of my helplessness. I looked at Joseph in panic. He
was four yards away now, labouring with an even intention
over those sodden sods. I didn’t pity him – what would be the
point of such a pretension? I saw him for what he was and
loved him in my need for his company. Fuelled by this love, I
groped towards him, eagerly footing the four yards of wet
resisting turf. I did not think as I laboured, nevertheless
thoughts came to me. I was ahead of the world. I was free. In
my freedom I sought the company of others. My body came
to be racked with pain and my smoke-stained lungs were
unceasingly stabbed by the force of my breathing. I went
towards Joseph Stewart – proud of myself as I drew closer...
He had a name for every ridge and outcrop on the
mountain – animals and birds. The bog had features for him –
faces and curious statuary. The sky heralded a good day on
the morrow.
We had a few drinks together afterwards before going
home, resting against the high counter and talking easily

230
Margaret and I return to London tomorrow. I am
relieved. There is more human life in a city and, after all, I
am a city man.
I will rest today because every muscle in my body
aches. I overdid it last night. In the light of this morning it
seems a foolish thing to have done. But it has taught me that
my foolishness has been even greater than that.

I hear Margaret’s father on the stairs.


I will have some tea now.

231
IV

232
INERTIA

233
‘I still can’t get over the energy you have,’ John Walsh
said, his eyes wide behind his glasses.
Richard Butler half smiled, half grimaced in reply to
the rather obvious remark. In response to the enthusiasm
which lay behind the remark, Richard felt flattered, knowing
the other’s impulsiveness. But at the same time he felt
cheated to think that John characterised him in this way,
because it did nothing to reassure him in the face of the
ambiguity of this ‘energy’.
‘You drive up here from London, sit down and gulp a
cup of coffee, and then jump and begin pacing about the
room, wondering what’s next,’ John went on, his eyes
enlarging even further behind the lenses, his face lengthening
in his peculiar smile. ‘It’s amazing.’
Richard while listening had paused by the window. He
gazed out at the buildings that composed the western part of
the university campus and at the countryside beyond, running
away into Cheshire. He stood with his hands clasped behind
him, hidden beneath the vented flap of his jacket. His face
was flared in the light of the closing evening. Round,
handsome, with incipient jowls, his face was heavy and lined
by habitual tension. His green eyes gazed attentively at the
squat concrete structures, drowning now in the richness of the
sunset. His lips were pursed, mouthing forward as if to place
a kiss. They were ripe and sensual, though their sensuality
was more subjective sensation than outward expression.
John Walsh had sat on in the tubular steel chair by the
cluttered desk after speaking, waiting with expectancy for
Richard’s reply. One hand clutched the arm of the chair while
the other rested lightly on his chest, slim knuckled fingers
234
outspread and bent. The face that seemed to pop out of the
black, wrinkled sweater, like the head of an ostrich from its
plumage, was long and thin, with clear tanned skin stretched
on prominent, though shapely, bones. The brow was high and
slender, half shadowed by a wave of wiry brown hair. His
lips were thin and naïve, unformed by self-awareness. The
brown eyes that goggled behind the thickish lens set the mark
of startled enthusiasm that dominated all his activities.
The protracted silence came to agitate him. Leaning
forward in his chair, he said, ‘You really haven’t come to see
me again so soon, have you? I mean, my life and studies are
not so particularly attractive to you. They wouldn’t bring you
back here a month after your last visit.’ Still Richard
remained silent, gazing out the window. ‘Admittedly there
were some interesting people to meet the last time, and you
had your little romance into the bargain. But things are
quieter this weekend. Most of the students are away on Easter
vacation.’
At last Richard turned away from the window. His face
vanished in the dusty gloom of the room.
‘How is Bahrsan? Is he here?’ he asked.
‘Yes, he’s here. And he’s as well as can be expected.
You know he’s up to his eyes in work, preparing his thesis.’
Richard crossed the room to the bookcase. Idly, he
picked up a tattered volume of Walter Scott and flipped over
the pages, drawing his head back to avoid the dust and musty
smell he released.
‘Can we go and see him?’ he asked.
‘Yes, yes, of course we can,’ John said quickly. ‘He’ll
be glad to see you, I’m sure. He’s very cut off here.’
235
Suddenly he was all activity. He jumped to his feet and
hurried to the bed and pulled his shoes from under it. As he
slipped them on he talked in fits and starts: short bursts of
speech that hopped from subject to subject. He pulled an old
frayed leather jacket from the wardrobe, the metal hanger
falling with a clatter to the floor. Then he sought his keys,
talking on and on. Richard had replaced the book and stood
watching John, pinned down, as it were, by the sudden
confusion of words and action. When at last he had found his
keys and stuffed them in his pocket, he turned to Richard and
asked, ‘Are you ready?’ Richard nodded. John opened the
door, allowed the other to exit, and then carefully locked up.
They walked down a short corridor and out into the twilight.
As they followed a downward sloping path through a lawn
bordered by tall beeches, the night seemed to close in and
breathe about them, as if by having removed the distractions
of colour and form, it could now allow the pulse of the world
to be sensed.
They walked in silence for some minutes. John was
some two or three inches taller than Richard, but the latter’s
bulky figure and slightly hunched shoulders gave the
impression of greater density and force. Then, as if
remembering a last piece of news, John turned his head in
askance and said:
‘Oh, did you hear that Catherine Hackett is getting
married in the autumn? Tony says they’re well matched. But
from what I’ve heard he’s a steady sort of man, a solicitor,
with his head screwed on right.’

236
Richard shrugged his shoulders and said indifferently,
‘Oh.’ Then in response to John’s continued gaze he said,
‘Well perhaps they are. Who knows?’
John suddenly darted his head at Richard. ‘But you
know she used to fancy you. I thought you two would be well
matched.’
Richard laughed in a settled way, as though his
response to this was typical: ‘But I don’t have the prospects a
solicitor might have, especially a steady one.’
John looked away, suddenly testy. ‘That’s because you
don’t bother,’ he said with barely concealed censure.
‘Anyway,’ Richard said to end the discussion,’ I hope
she’ll be happy.’
They crossed the ageometric area of macadam bounded
by the library, church and students’ union, and open on the
uneven fourth side to a small hill on which a radio dish was
situated. It was full darkness now, and the area was lit by
high sodium lights. Few people were to be seen. The library
and the church were unlit, and except for the low rumble of
the nearby motorway, the silence was intense. While John
walked with swinging arms, silent now, having abandoned
any attempt at conversation, Richard felt anonymous and
isolated. Used to being always surrounded by people, each
hidden by his share of convention, this gaunt silent place
seemed to beckon to him, as if to say that here he could do as
he wished and nobody would be the wiser. They passed
between two blocks then and walked towards a door set in a
wall, went through it and across a garden into a two-storied
building.

237
Bahrsan smiled broadly when he saw Richard and
John, and swung the door open wide to admit them. His
glasses lay, thrown down on a sheet of foolscap beside an
open book on his desk. The air in the room was warm and
heavy with an obscure sweet perfume. Richard shook hands
with the Turk, noting automatically the moist warmth of his
hand and the loose palpy grip. Throwing out his arm to
embrace the room in its sweep, Bahrsan invited them to sit.
Richard chose to sit on the bed. John stood on the threshold,
one hand adjusting his glasses, as Bahrsan occupied himself
with greeting Richard. Then, as the Turk turned to him, he
jerked his head quickly and sat on a chair beside the door.
The other, seeing this, waved his hand weakly in the air, as if
to confirm John’s choice, but also as if in weak
admonishment. Slightly bowed, he went and sat in the swivel
chair by the desk and sprawled his legs out before him.
‘So you have returned to visit us again, Richard?’ he
said. ‘What you find attractive in us, I don’t know. We are
like monks, locked away in our cells, there to study our books
without apparent purpose.’ He pointed wearily at the
bookcase that occupied the wall from the desk to the door.
John spoke suddenly and dispassionately. ‘I’ve already
asked him that, and got no answer. Except that we come and
see you.’
Richard remained silent, gazing at the bookcase before
him. There were two shelves, and he could read the titles and
authors on the spines of the books, the room was so narrow.
The top shelf held volumes on Plato, ranging from academic
tomes to slim popular works in paperback. On the lower shelf
were books on Locke and the German Idealists. In the corner
238
of this shelf, beside the desk, a half dozen novels lay in a
stack, their paper and gum spines cracked and creased. Above
the bookcase a photograph of a blond nude girl was taped to
the wall.
Richard became aware that the other two were
watching him, awaiting his reply.
‘If it doesn’t seem to arrogant, I came out of curiosity,’
he said, smiling. ‘I came to see if it was true that I have
missed something through not going to university. You see, I
don’t think I will ever go now.’ He glanced at John. ‘I think I
have become too impatient with my life now.’
Bahrsan sat forward, intent on Richard. ‘Yes, you have
life, Richard. Your impatience proves it.’ He gestured at John
and himself. ‘We have surrendered it. Instead, we try to
understand it as you and those like you make life.’
Richard stretched on the bed, raising his feet from the
floor. Again he felt that tension in him when faced with
acquiescence.
‘How is your thesis coming along?’ he asked.
Bahrsan tapped first the sheet of foolscap on the desk,
then a drawer of the desk, and said, ‘So far so good. But it is
very difficult. Especially working alone.’ He turned to John.
‘I haven’t seen you for nearly four weeks. Have you dropped
the idea of working together?’
John started in his chair and sat up straighter.
‘No, no, nothing like that. I suppose I got tied up in
something or other, and thought it better to work alone.’
‘Working together disciplined us,’ Bahrsan said sadly.
Then, intent on explaining, he turned to Richard. ‘John used

239
to come here each day, or I would go to his room, and work.
It served to reinforce the atmosphere and reassure us.’
Though he had not been in the room for long, Richard
decided he must get out to someplace where he could move
as he spoke or listened.
‘Can we continue this over in the Union? This room is
too close for me. Do you mind?’
John nodded his head. He, too, was glad to escape.
Bahrsan stood up immediately, excused himself and left the
room. As soon as the door closed, John leaned forward and
hissed,
‘He’s so possessive, Dick. When he’s studying with
you, he never gives you a moment’s peace. He’s always
talking about his studies or complaining of loneliness, which
sets him off about Turkey and its social system. He can’s do
the work before him without dragging the whole of his life
into it.’ He paused, and then repeated, as if to himself: ‘He’s
so possessive.’
‘Can’t you see he’s lonely here, John? Can you
imagine how foreign this country must seem to him?’
‘I’ve never bothered him with mine. We’re foreigners
too, but we don’t make a song and dance about living here.’
‘Foreigners? By the time you and I had finished school
we knew as much about England and its history and literature
as we did of Ireland’s. So long as we don’t get too
nationalistic, we won’t see too much difference between the
two countries.’
John nodded his head and quietened. Richard’s
bluntness always quietened him, but never convinced him.
He believed Richard’s reasoning served expediency rather
240
than truth and that it was a result of his need for action. He
nodded, this time to himself, waiting for Bahrsan’s return,
and watched Richard, who peered at the nude, his lips pursed
in concentration. What Richard lacked, he thought once
again, is a private life. Unlike himself, who was protected by
a reserve, a warm feeling of greater control and restraint,
Richard always pointed his attention to the world outside, as
though there was some secret to be learned there. But he was
lost there. Nobody needed him to turn his attention to a
person and see the inner world there. He lacked any sort of
spiritual identity.
Bahrsan re-entered the room, wearing a brown
corduroy suit, his black hair brushed till it shone like coal. By
the time John had awakened from his reverie, Richard and
Bahrsan were already walking down the corridor. Hurriedly
he jumped up and followed, surprised to find himself
suddenly straining within himself and feeling pathetic.
Outside, he came abreast of them, to walk alongside
Richard. Though the air was warm enough for the two
Irishmen to feel no discomfort, Bahrsan was shivering
slightly. He had his hands dug into his trousers’ pockets, his
jacket buttoned up, and his form bent, as if to reduce his
exposure to the night.
‘Have you heard from your family lately?’ John asked
Richard in a quick, shrill voice.
‘Not since I saw you last. As I’ve told you, I think they
feel that I have rejected them and their world. I suppose they
feel now that I wouldn’t be interested in the local news,
seeing as how I’m out in the greater world.’ He laughed with
a gentle irony.
241
‘But don’t you miss them? It was a shock to them that
you simply dropped everything as you did.’ He paused. His
voice took on a probing quality again. ‘You hurt Margaret
terribly, you know.’
Richard nodded. ‘Yes. We should have ended it
sooner.’
John was testy in an abstract way. ‘But what about
love? I thought you loved her. After all, you seemed to us to
be planning to marry.’
‘It was becoming too restrictive, John. We wanted
different things from life.’ He said this as a simple statement.
After a pause he went on in a louder voice, so loud that
Bahrsan looked up at them from his musings. ‘Anyway, who
said anything about love? When have you ever seen love that
wasn’t destroyed by compromise? Have you ever seen lovers
who know each other?’
‘You’re a disappointed man, Dick,’ John said with
feeling, shaking his head. ‘And you’re becoming bitter. Not
to believe in love is to die.’
‘Perhaps. But it’s a belief that’s beyond evidence,’
Richard said, sensing once again the immense void that lay
between them. John, on one hand, accepting and believing;
while he on the other was the sceptic, caught between the
desire to believe and the knowledge that he could never
submit to believing. And once again, brought to this
knowledge, he felt the old plummeting of unease that made
him so restless. He felt that his life served someone or
something else’s purpose, without his ever understanding
what that purpose was. And yet he felt stronger than that
someone or something, more actual, capable of destroying it,
242
not physically, but with his doubts and growing bitterness.
But he knew that if he were to destroy it, he would have to
destroy himself after his moment of release, for he did not
think that he would be able to face the great void that he
would create. With the completion of this familiar line of
reasoning, he felt the old rush of feeling for everything
around him that amounted to love and the will to defend and
protect everything.
‘Yes, belief without evidence,’ he repeated in a
abstract tone. ‘It’s like religion in that it demands faith. But
unfortunately, love is always put to the test, unlike religion.
Unlike religion, too, there is nothing beyond the beloved to
bolster one’s faith in love. That puts an impossible burden on
human beings, John.’
John made a sound in his throat, as though clearing it,
and said firmly, as though instructing a schoolboy: ‘You must
simply believe it, Dick.’
They came out on to the area of macadam, having
walked down between the church and the library, and crossed
in the direction of the students’ Union.
Bahrsan who had been listening to their conversation,
suddenly said in an oblique way? ‘Love? We only love that
which is unobtainable.’ There was a deep resignation in his
voice.
Richard looked at him briefly, appreciating what he
had said. Then, drawn to it, he looked over at the open side of
the square, at the low hill outlined against the night sky that
glowed softly with stars, and at the snub inert mass of the
radio dish, which now resembled, from that angle, a gigantic
figure praying with outstretched arms.
243
Again he felt isolated and tempted.
‘Will Peter Yorke be here, do you think?’ he asked
John.
John pondered, and then replied: ‘I don’t know. I
haven’t seen him for some time now. You know, he
disappears from here from time to time to stay with a crowd
down in the village.’
Richard nodded. ‘I wanted to see him.’
John turned and looked at him sharply. ‘Why? What
interest have you in poetry? You rather patronised him the
last time, though I expect he didn’t mind that so much.’ He
paused, suddenly realising why Richard had made his second
visit. His voice became edged with cunning, knowing he was
going to unsettle Richard. ‘Now I know. You’ve come to see
that girl, Grace, the one you spent the night with. Isn’t that
it?’
Richard was suddenly oppressed by the place. John’s
insight had deflated the expectancy that had buoyed him. He
was taken with a crushing sense of inertia and in reaction he
looked around, wanting to get out of the university, to lose
himself in the group of towns below.
‘No. no,’ John cried, stopping and pointing at Richard.
‘There’s more to it than that. You’ve come to look at your
handiwork, to see how Peter has reacted to your taking his
girl from him.’ His voice softened, and again became edged
with cunning, filled with a sense of its own cleverness. ‘But
don’t you know that he has dozens of girls, especially among
the younger students? I expect he wasn’t put out by your need
for a Sabine.’

244
As they entered the Union and ascended the stairs to
the bar, John, resenting Richard’s silence, said, ‘We’ll see,
we’ll see.’
Except for a few groups of students huddled around
tables about the room, the bar was deserted. Through the
plate glass windows which composed the wall of the room on
their right, the tower of the library and the twin squat nipple-
like spires of the church reflected the sodium light of the
square like shivered pale memorials.
With a strong sense of obscure courtesy, Bahrsan
insisted on buying the drinks. When he had gone off to the
bar, their drinks firmly memorised, John said to Richard:
‘Well, I don’t see Peter here, nor that girl. And if you
do want to find them, God knows where they are tonight.’
Richard sat down in a deliberate way. He was surprised
by his calmness. There was, he felt, a great space about him.
He was further surprised to discover that he had achieved this
calm space by means of an abandonment of himself.
‘Why don’t you sit down, John?’

In the pub in the old part of Stoke, Peter Yorke played


skittles with Bahrsan, who knew next to nothing about the
game, while Peter was an expert who played with keen
concentration and self-effacing asides to the Turk, to ease his
discomfort at being beaten so consistently. Richard sat with
John and some other students about a small fire, talking in a
casual way. The untidy old woman who ran the place laid her
huge breasts on the bar and watched Peter’s game avidly,
returning his many kindnesses to her with this worship. The
air in the room was sweet with drink smells, musty and
245
ancient, matching the atmosphere of the locality in its
superseded brownness.
Grace Athena Saunders sat back in the corner, between
the fireplace and the window, watching the room. She
shivered still, though they had been here for almost an hour,
unable to warm over the prickly sensation of the rain which
had come on during their walk from the university. Her
brown hair was cut in a fringe above her rounded brow. Her
eyes, also brown, gazed fixedly at the scene before her. They
were controlled by some tension within, rather than held by
any interesting activity in the room itself, for they started cat-
like when they perceived any movement at the outer range of
vision and sought to nail the movement down and bring it
under her control. Her lips were small and slightly agap and
moist with cider. Her body was hidden in the folds of a
shapeless white cardigan and long draped skirt, except for her
arms, which gave a clue to her body. They were small-boned,
the flesh smooth and rounded with almost hairless sallow
skin. The hands grasping the pint glass were firm and
attractive, for they conveyed a sense of practicality and
precision that with purpose could give pleasure to another.
Though she was small, not more than five feet two in height,
she did not give the impression of petiteness: she was too
short and sturdy, almost aggressive, in her manner. Instead
she was as supple as a cat, but with a will-power that was a
product of a self-consciousness that left her straining between
what she ought to be and what she wished to be.
She focused her eyes on Peter, who was about to swing
the ball, which was suspended by a chain from a pole on the
edge of the table, looking at his frail figure as it braced for the
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shot. His withered left arm was clutched in against his breast
like the leg of a newly-born bird, held there for protection as
a useless but loved object, while the tensed fingers of his
good hand swayed the ball to and fro as he prepared to take
the shot. Then she switched her eyes to the group nearby,
who bent their heads forwards towards the fire in
conversation. Except for the visitor, who had laid his head
back against the mantleshelf and swallowed from time to
time, in boredom or tension, she couldn’t tell which. His
clothes stood out significantly against the motleyness of the
others. There was a flair in it, an agreeable self-awareness
that showed discipline with colour but also a cheerful liking
for it. She felt vaguely relieved while looking at him. She felt
that though he might be toughened by his life in London,
there were many parts of his mind untouched by study and
unmarked by cynicism, which enclosed the minds of most of
those she knew, except perhaps Peter. He would have a
tremendous capacity for tenderness, she thought: he could be
caught unawares by a woman.
She drained her glass and asked: ‘Whose round is it?’
One of the students jumped up, his face turned like a
surprised spaniel’s.
‘Mine, I think,’ Richard said, raising his hand to the
student. He thought for a moment, trying to remember the
order of buyers. ‘Yes. It’s mine.’
He stood up and asked the students what they wanted.
He did it with a seriousness that was either mocking or
intended to maintain a neutrality between his world and
theirs, except towards his fellow Irishman, John, with whom
he was instead light and bantering. Last of all, he turned to
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Grace and extended his hand for her glass. The hand, she
saw, was clean, fleshed and sure. Keeping her head down, she
thrust the glass at him and said:
‘Cider. Draught.’ And then inadvertently: ‘My fourth
so far.’
He took the glass and moved away to the bar, returning
twice to take the other glasses.
At that moment Peter cried, ‘Howzatt!’ and grinning,
he touched Bahrsan lightly on the arm. The latter shrugged
and smiled, grateful to have it over and done with. Peter then
turned and walked to the fireplace.
‘Will you have a game, John?’ he asked. As he spoke
he resettled his crippled arm to his breast. It had not moved,
but it was his habit to balance it lightly in his good hand for a
moment and then press it back into its usual crooked position.
John peered at him through his glasses, his head started
forward. ‘Oh no. The last time I played it I almost killed
myself with the swings I put on the ball.’
Grace, watching his movements, especially the nervous
clutching at his spectacles, could well believe it. But more
than that, she felt a tiny revulsion at his willingness to please,
to be of service. It was so sincere. Were all the Irish so naïve,
so eager to invade another person with their personalities, as
if to transfer responsibility, as would a child?
Richard began carrying the filled glasses across.
Seeing that Peter and Bahrsan had joined the group, he asked
them if they would have a drink. Bahrsan nodded quickly in
reply. Peter smiled, thought, then nodded. Grace thought that
by the tone of his voice, Richard was being patronising. The
picture of the two of them standing facing each other
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reinforced the suspicion. While Richard was attractively
dressed, Peter wore his old tweed jacket, a little large,
rumpled slacks, and an indifferently coloured knitted scarf
wrapped many times about his neck, the ends dangling below
his waist. But Peter smiled, and seemed to have a genuine
affection for Richard.
When all the drinks had been passed around, Richard
insisted that Peter take his seat, if only because he was tired
sitting and Peter had been on his feet since they came in.
Peter, as considerate as ever, declined at first; but as Richard
insisted, he finally accepted. Grace watched Richard as he
stood behind the chairs, looking first at the rustic print over
the fireplace, then turning to the bar, to study the bottles and
advertisements, some of which were pre-war. In comparison
to the students, he seemed far more mature and balanced. He
did not gaze idly at the trappings of the room, but seemed to
absorb the details, as though comparing them with others he
had seen elsewhere. More than that, as she continued to study
him, he seemed greatly aware of them, almost affected by
them. Her skin prickled as she realised how sensual was his
concentration, how much for the moment he was intent and
lost in his surroundings. She was taken by his innocence, and
again became aware of his potential for tenderness.
‘Richard,’ she said matter-of-factly, not moving from
her semi-reclined position on the chair. He started at hearing
his name called. As he turned his head, Grace continued,
‘Have you ever played skittles?’
‘Never,’ he replied, looking at her fully for the first
time since they had been introduced two hours previously. He
had then only looked at her superficially, giving her due
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attention, no more. Now he saw what he wished to see: the
untidy clothes, and the affectation in them, for he considered
that only the most pitiable of the students looked natural in
them. Beyond that he noticed how compressed her lips
seemed to be, and the masculine hold she had on her glass.
Her eyes stared at him firmly, but glazing from time to time.
Having spent the previous five minutes studying fixed,
inanimate objects, the sight of her vulnerability and, he
sensed, her recession from him, made him feel suddenly
stronger. But knowing that he could make no advance to her,
he experienced a rush of feeling that softened him towards
her.
‘Shall we play? I’ll show you, though it’s easy to play
it,’ Grace said, rising from her chair and flicking the folds of
her long skirt forward. ‘But first let me get some more of
this.’ She raised her glass before his eyes.
‘No,’ Richard said quickly. ‘I’ll get the drink. You go
and prepare the board.’
Both had a sudden feeling of comradeship, as though
they were preparing for guests.
Richard stood head and shoulders over Grace as she
leaned forward over the table, holding the small black ball,
and explained how he should swing it. As he listened,
standing close to her, he became aware of something lacking:
she had no scent, no body odour, nothing. It caused her
reality to recede from him into the inertness of a statue. She
poised the ball and swung it. The chain vibrated as the ball
curved out and then back sharply to strike the pins squarely,
knocking six of them over.

250
‘There,’ she said. ‘Swing it outwards, so as to put it
among the pins.’ She looked up at him, her face lacking the
usual female feint of helplessness when dealing with kinetics.
‘But if you wish to strike the outer pins, you must swing the
ball back to your left.’ She paused, aimed and swung it
gently, rhythmically. The ball grazed the corner pin without
knocking it and completed its swing by wrapping round the
metal pole. ‘Missed,’ she said, suddenly serious. She
shrugged her shoulders, keeping her face turned away from
Richard.
‘I should be able to pick it up quickly enough,’ he said
quickly. ‘It seems to be a judgement of instinct that’s needed
more than anything else. Let’s play a few games and see how
I get on.’ He recognised the doggedness in her, the moral
seriousness of intent that made her nation so miserable and
self-pitying at times.
She set up the nine pins in three rows of three and
offered Richard first swing. His playing was irregular, a good
swing would make him boisterous, so that he would ruin the
following swing. He laughed a lot, taking his jacket off after
ten minutes and loosening his tie. Grace played with
concentration, carefully calculating each swing, and easily
won the first game. While Richard set up the pins for the
second game, Grace went and brought more drink. The
second game was closer. Richard was more sure of his aim,
but not feeling competitive he still played half-heartedly.
Grace studied her game closely and played consistently.
During this game, as Richard stood back and watched
Grace prepare a swing, Peter appeared at his side.

251
‘Are you enjoying it?’ he asked. ‘I don’t suppose you
have played it before. It’s hardly known south of here.’
Richard smiled, flushed. ‘Yes, it’s interesting,’ he
replied.
‘Well, if you are up to it, I’ll give you a game when
you two are finished.’
‘Right, if I’m up to it.’
He stepped up to the table, Grace having completed her
turn. As he set up the pins and then crouched to swing the
ball, he could not help noticing how Peter and Grace stood
apart from each other, as if strangers, though he had been told
by John that they were lovers. Grace was watching him
intently. He took more care this time and pleaded a little to
fortune to help him. Eight of the pins went crashing and
spinning off the pedestal. Grace gave a cheer and clapped her
hands, while Peter said: ‘Jolly good.’
Nevertheless, Grace won the game and Peter, having
got Richard’s agreement to play one game, went off to buy
another round of drinks. Grace remained beside Richard, her
head bowed, swaying slightly.
‘You played well,’ she said, her voice muffled. ‘But
you could do better if you tried harder.’
‘I’m sorry I couldn’t take it seriously enough. But I
hope you enjoyed it as much as I did.’
She nodded, her fringe tapping against her forehead.
Quickly and with sudden nervousness, she put her glass to
her lips and gulped down the cider. She seemed to become
smaller before his eyes, and harder, her flesh becoming an
armour and taking on a sheen. The politeness of his answer
appeared to oppress her as she turned away the pleasantry of
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it. He looked over her head to gaze down the room. Peter
talked with the old woman, who listened intently, her small
blue eyes sparkling like little moist stones. The group at the
fire were huddled in conversation. He looked down at Grace
again, aware of a new unease that cut him off from the others
gathered in the room.
Peter returned and handed Richard his drink. His face
was pleasant, long, and pointed at the chin. A sparse growth
of hair covered his upper lip and straggled down the sides of
his face. His eyes were kind, pained but without bitterness.
When Richard’s first ball knocked over seven pins,
Peter said, ‘Jolly good.’ His second swing missed the
remaining pins, the third clipped one and it toppled over
reluctantly. Peter nodded at this and said again, ‘Jolly good.’
Then with his first swing he knocked over all the pins.
Richard could appreciate Bahrsan’s glum face. Peter smiled
modestly, as though to apologise for his skill. Richard noticed
that Grace had returned to her seat in the corner. Dismissing
her from his mind, he settled down to play more carefully
than before, and though his first swing was good enough to
knock over six or seven pins, he could not eliminate the
trembling in the chain to aim more accurately. Peter swung it
cleanly each time, the chain taut as it described a hyperbola,
and usually managed to level the board. When he realised
that Richard was playing within his limits and allowing him
to show his mastery, he stopped making consoling remarks.
Richard on his part sensed that Peter would not play this
game if he was not master of it, and that his modesty and
willingness to cheer his opponent served to allay his own

253
misery at being so good at the game and yet unable and, he
guessed, unwilling to test himself.
Peter won, reaching the required number of points
while Richard still needed twenty. Relieved, Peter took him
by the arm and drew him to the fire.
‘Did he win?’ John asked, looking up and resettling his
glasses on his nose.
‘Of course. The man is an expert.’
Peter raised his hand in deprecation.
‘No, it was not a fair game. If Richard had more
practice he would be as good as me.’
‘It would need more patience than I have to practice
that much,’ Richard said, laughing, his face flushing with
momentary impatience.
Peter smiled and clasped his useless hand in the palm
of his good one as though to warm it, for it was like a piece
of white porcelain compared to the dusty ruddiness of the
hand that held it. Richard was embarrassed to see the hurt in
the poet’s eyes. He turned to the others in reaction. They
looked at him with resentment, even John. Just then, like a
guardian angel, the old woman rapped on the counter with an
empty bottle, calling as she did, ‘Time, young gen’lmen.
Time.’
She shuffled around the counter and switched off the
light above the skittle table.
The students drained their glasses as though they had
been waiting for this moment and stood up, pushing back
their chairs. They to a man looked in Peter’s direction, and
when he nodded, began to drift towards the street door. Peter
was talking to Bahrsan and John. Together, the three of them
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followed. Richard drained his glass and went to the back of
the bar to the toilet. One of the students, a tall red-headed one
with a long shaggy beard, came in from the street and pulled
Grace by the arm. She raised her head, nodding sleepily, and
squinted up at him. Then she lifted her glass to her mouth and
bit on it, making a resounding cracking sound. Then she
drank, embracing the glass with both hands. When it was
empty, she held it before her for a few seconds before
opening her hands.
Richard heard the glass smash as he re-entered the bar.
He saw Grace pull her arm from the red-haired student’s
grasp and lean forward. The student bent over her. Richard
walked smartly up the bar towards the street door, intent upon
ignoring them. The student, hearing Richard’s approach,
turned and looked towards him, his eyes wide and wary.
Richard returned the look, his lips curling involuntarily.
In the brown gloom of the street, Peter was clutching
John’s arm as he spoke to him. John’s head was bent in his
direction, nodding repeatedly in excitement. The other
students huddled nearby. Bahrsan stood alone, standing
beneath a street-light, hands in his pockets and head sunk into
his body against the chill of the air. As Richard came up to
Peter and John, he said loudly:
‘Why the hell didn’t we drive down here? Must we
walk back along that muddy footpath, Peter? Because if we
do, our clothes will be ruined.’
Peter smiled widely. ‘Don’t worry, Richard, we’ll walk
back by the road. It won’t take long. It’s only a mile or so.’
Grace and the red-haired student joined them. Richard
glanced at her quickly, but she kept her head down. Richard
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thought she looked pathetic. He felt a sudden flow of feeling
for her smallness, her bent form and her vulnerability. He
wanted to make her laugh, to pull her out of her dogged
seriousness and away from the influences that seemed to
weigh her down. He wanted her to be clear and gay and quick
– Good God, he thought, she can’t be more than twenty one
or two.’
‘Will you come back with us, Richard?’ Peter asked
gently, watching Richard watching Grace. ‘We’re going to
read some Hardy.’ He paused. ‘I’m sure you’ll enjoy it.’
Distracted, Richard nodded.
Peter made some sound, like a calling to order, and
started up the street with John and Bahrsan. The students fell
into a ragged column behind him. Richard paused, his feeling
for Grace holding him still. She was standing near him,
deserted now even by the red-haired student. She looked up
at him. Then she walked to his side and put her arm within
his. He looked down at her. She was like a nineteenth century
work-girl, even her hand was grimy. A sharp sensation of
desire and pathos passed from him like a charge into her, and
met with resignation and submission, and wilfulness. She
turned her head to him and smiled, a wan and flicker of a
smile that betrayed her feeling of triumph, small and deeply
hidden in her as it was, where she did not have to face it or
rationalise and project it into a future for meaning. Richard
felt a cold wind about his heart, his past receded from his,
swallowed into the vortex caused by the suddenness of
events.

256
A hundred yards away, Peter turned and looked back at
them. His face was flat and calm in the dim light and Richard
saw the acknowledgement and loss there.
‘We’ll have to take a taxi,’ Grace said in a practical
tone.
‘Why? Can’t you walk the distance to the university?’
‘I don’t live at the uni. I live in a cottage in a village
near Crewe.’
They walked together until they came to a telephone
box, where Richard rang for a taxi. It soon arrived, its sides
emblazoned with the company’s name and telephone number
like an American cab. It was absurd. The driver spoke a pure
local dialect, the car was small and cramped. Richard allowed
himself to relax as it sped along the quiet narrow roads.
Grace was slumped against him, holding his arm tightly. She
began to hiccup. Suddenly she gripped his arm urgently and
called to the driver to stop. Groping, she found the door,
opened it and tumbled out, her dress caught about her legs.
She stood in the centre of the road, breathing deeply and
swaying. Alarmed, Richard clambered out and caught her by
the shoulders.
‘Are you alright?’ he asked.
‘Oh, oh.’ Her eyes were screwed tight. ‘We must walk
from here. I can’t stay in that car.’
Richard explained to the driver that they would walk
the rest of the way, adding that they had not very far to go.
He paid the fare. The driver, who had the butt of a hand-
rolled cigarette in his mouth, unlit and stained with his saliva,
looked at Richard, then at Grace, and back again to Richard,
his brows arching. His eyes mocked Richard.
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Grace was fumbling in her bag when he returned to
her.
‘Cigarettes,’ she said, her voice now more controlled.
Richard searched her bag and found them. The taxi,
having turned, passed them going in the direction of the
towns. Its gentle hum faded into the silence of the night. The
match scraped loudly against the sandpaper of the matchbox
and flared, causing both to start back. Grace inhaled deeply
and expelled the smoke in a long ebbing sigh, which seemed
to Richard to be uncharacteristic of her, for the sound was
languid and complete. He touched her arm and said:
‘How do you feel now?’
She slid her arm around him without replying and held
herself tight against him. In the silence Richard could hear
the cigarette crackle and hiss behind him. He felt powerful
and complete then, and could afford tenderness. At first he
held her small still body against him as he would a child’s –
protectively, with a desire for constancy and harmony, and
gazed half-consciously at the dark countryside, the shapes of
the trees and hedges outlined against a purple, star-massed
sky. Then an uneasiness moved him to think of her as a
woman and to desire her. She stiffened her body then, and
slowly she drew away from him.
He stared down at her, a small vulnerable pulse, and
felt the rise of a huge temptation to let go, to do something
that would be complete and final. It seemed at first to be a
response to her vulnerability, then to the silent, living night,
then again to her. But Grace could not carry the burden of his
overwhelming desire to let go and so it faded, leaving him
vibrant with a gentle joy that was, he quickly recognised,
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only a compensation. Then his earlier feeling returned. He
sensed a comradeship with her. He could not pity her, he had
no resources in him for pity. He could only feel sympathy
with her. As he touched her elbow gently to attract her
attention, he felt larger and more expanded than he had for
years.
Grace looked up at him when she felt his touch and
saw the bright warmth in his eyes. It looked foolish. To her
reduced range of feeling and to her mind that sought for
conscious equilibrium, the vacuity of uncensored expression
of emotion was naïve and threatening. She was afraid he
would laugh or cry, or go swinging her about. Grimly she
nodded to herself and took his arm and drew him to begin
walking.
It took them half an hour to walk to the cottage. To
break the silence between them Richard tried to express an
emotion by commenting on the night and its silences. He
compared it with the noise and light of the city. Grace
remained silent, apparently not listening, until he began to
reminisce on his childhood. Here she looked up at him, her
eyes beseeching him. Confronted by the directness of her
attention, he felt shy, fearing she was more than merely
curious. He spoke haltingly and generally, making sure to
relate concrete memories and opinions, and not slide away to
the emotions of memories. He was suddenly aware of her
independence, and that her condition as he saw it was not a
call for assistance or pity: it was the result of the singularity
of her. The condition of her life, her doggedness, her way of
dressing, her drinking, all were Grace Saunders. She was the
only person present: nothing gay and shining and laughing
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could ever come out of her. Somehow, she had never been
innocent: she could not change. And watching her face as she
listened to his memories uncoil for her, he could see the
greedy light in her eyes. She was devouring his purposely
simple anecdotes. Did she believe they were real, he
wondered, or does she accept them for the fictions, the partial
truths they were? He was momentarily repelled by her. Her
greedy humourless eyes seemed to eat him up without any
inclination to share in the joke of it all.
The cottage was on the edge of the village. A short
driveway led up to a dilapidated garage at the side of the
house and a path ran from it at right angles to the front door.
It was modest, with smooth, dull white plastered walls and a
slate roof. Grace led him around to the back of the house to a
door sheltered by a small wooden porch. She fumbled for
some time looking for the key, first under the doormat, then
on the ledges of the small windows flanking the door. As she
searched she explained that her two friends had gone away
for the weekend and had hidden the key for her, if she
decided to return before they did. She found it tucked into a
corner of one of the ledges. They entered a long shabby room
with an open staircase ascending on their left. Before them at
the end of the room was a small black fireplace, a large
ancient sofa facing it. To the right were a sink, a cooker and a
cupboard, the sink piled high with crockery. Old dark beams
crossed the ceiling in parallel lines.
Grace motioned in the direction of the fireplace and
sofa, while she went and filled the kettle. There was a small
guttering fire in the grate with the ashy debris of its day’s

260
consumption lying in the hearth. Feeling the damp chill of the
house, Richard asked her if he should stoke it up.
‘If you want to,’ she replied, her back to him as she put
the kettle on the cooker.
He found firelighters in a paper bag of coal lying
nearby and broke them and set the pieces among the half
consumed coals. When their lazy greasy flames began to
spread and glint on the facets of the coals, he stood up and
surveyed the room. He felt dizzy, because he had crouched
for so long. The drabness of the room filled him with a sense
of lethargy. Grace had left the house. He could hear her
calling names in the garden. When she reappeared she carried
two cats in her arms and three more ran about her feet, trying
to brush against her.
‘Five cats?’ Richard asked in surprise.
‘There should be six. I don’t know where Thomas has
got to.’ She put the cats on the floor. ‘But I’ll leave the door
ajar for him.’
She emptied a pint of milk into a large bowl on the
floor, and stood watching with satisfaction as the cats rushed
forward and began lapping the milk.
‘The fire is lighting,’ Richard said. ‘I used some
firelighters I found.’
She nodded, continuing to watch the cats.
‘These rooms are damp, you know,’ Richard
continued, looking about him as if to prove he had made
some obscure tests to arrive at this conclusion. ‘You should
be careful, or else you’ll catch pneumonia or something.’
Again she nodded. She left the cats and took the kettle
off the cooker and poured water into two cups. Richard
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watched her speculatively. The breach of tenderness was
sealing off and desire was growing again. He saw that he
desired her because she was a woman, not because she was
Grace Saunders. The image of her preoccupation with coffee-
making made her vulnerable in its simplicity and
commonness. It was any woman anywhere, and he was
everyman, and the ritual softened the edges of their
individual and unknown selves. And he could not help
making her innocent now that he had a definite and tangible
purpose for her. She came towards him with a cup in each
hand, the steam rising and condensing quickly in the cold air.
She thrust one cup at him and sat on the edge of the sofa and
huddled forward towards the fire, her cup at her lips and the
steam warming her face.
‘John told me you were a writer,’ she said in a muffled
voice.
Richard sipped the coffee and then made a sound. ‘I
write, anyway.’
She darted a glance at him and he knew he had
suddenly disappeared for her. But she remained practical.
‘He loaned us some of your stories. Peter liked them.
He thought you very brave. He says you keep denying
yourself.’
Richard sipped the coffee again, uncomfortably self-
conscious. ‘That depends on which stories he’s read.’
She looked at him more deliberately this time. But he
realised then that she wasn’t interested in his writings. It was
provoking another line of thought.
‘But I said that all artists do that.’ She looked back to
the fire. ‘All artists are free.’
262
The regret in her voice was so uncharacteristic of her
that Richard bent slightly to look at her more closely. Her
eyes were moist.
‘Everyone is free, Grace,’ he said softly but with
emphasis. ‘But only artists, as you call them, and criminals
and saints know it.’
Grace clenched the rim of the cup between her teeth
and stared hard into the fire. Then she said with a tremor of
annoyance:
‘No, you misunderstand me, Richard. Only artists are
free. The rest of us are...sinners.’
The last word seemed to surprise her and make her
more angry. Richard sat down beside her and lay back,
wanting to avoid her subjective anger. Grace turned to look at
him, preparing to speak again. But when she saw that he had
cut himself off from her, she clamped her lips together and
looked back into the fire.
Richard let himself drift as a way of avoiding the lines
of abstract thought which the word ‘sinners’ stimulated. Then
he found himself thinking of his childhood again, then of his
parents. Freed of dependence on them, he saw how accidental
was their parenthood, their motherhood and their fatherhood.
There was pathos in their self-limitation: his childhood
happiness and security, seen from his present position, had
not been worth their efforts, even though it was valuable to
him.
‘Richard,’ Grace said beside him. ‘Do you know that
John had a visitation from his mother? She even spoke to
him, calling his name.’
He broke from his reverie and its regret.
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‘She died nearly six years ago... He was very attached
to her, I know.’
‘Did she really come to him?’ Her voice was touched
with eagerness.
‘I don’t know. It may have been an hallucination. He’s
under great strain here and he’s lonely... But he was very
close to her, as I’ve said.’
‘Imagination? Only that?’ The smooth skin of her face
puckered about the eyes and mouth. It frightened her a little.
‘Do you believe in God?’ she asked, recovering some
of her eagerness.
Richard looked at her, startled by her effrontery.
‘God?’ He thought for a while. ‘Let me put it this way.
I’ve a feeling of always being observed and that every action
is recorded, or anyway, significant... I’m not religious, if that
is what you imply. I think everything that happens can be
known.’
Grace showed some satisfaction when she heard this.
‘You’re a Roman Catholic?’ she asked.
‘I suppose so, though it’s years since I practised it.’
She nodded. ‘Then why can’t you accept that John’s
mother did appear to him? If the universe is as complete as
you believe it, then she must be somewhere in it.’
‘No. that’s too mystical. There’s no reason for
believing that she is anywhere now that she is dead, other
than in John’s mind and memory.’
‘Pah,’ Grace said, turning her face away. ‘You Irish
never answer the questions you’re asked.’
Richard laughed at her petulance. He put his arm
around her shoulder and drew her to him. She lay stiffly
264
against him, like a dispossessed waif, her cottage damp and
untidy and distant. The iron re-entered her. The glimpse she
had again of Richard’s naivety had given her a moment’s
ease. But his laughter had cut her, forcing her back into
herself. She saw that his tenderness and amiability were
general, not particular. He would be tender towards any
woman, she needed only to arouse his pity. The grip of his
hand on her shoulder suddenly frightened her. Those clean,
healthy fingers were strong and steady: they clamped her
down. She realised that he could kill her, without meaning to.
He was too strong and uncontrolled. While nerving herself to
break from his grip, she thought of Peter. He had looked back
at them as they left. No more than that. She was alone with
Richard.
She resolved to be practical.
‘Richard,’ she said softly but firmly to convey
confidence and purpose. As she spoke, she lifted his arm off
her.
Richard bent his head to her, smiling, and kissed her
lips. His lips were thick, but their sensitivity surprised Grace.
She suffered it, knowing that his hand had dropped away
from her. Then, when she thought he had had enough, she
broke away from him and stood up. Her lips trembled.
‘I want to see if Thomas has come in.’
She went to the door and looked back once at
Richard’s form before going out. In the small garden,
bounded by high bushes, she called the cat’s name softly,
feeling herself to be distracted, even fussy. As she vented her
feelings on the name ‘Thomas’, she felt a thrill run along her

265
body. She had had pleasure from his kiss. She panicked and
called the cat more urgently.
‘There are six cats in here.’ Richard was standing in
the doorway. He had taken his jacket off and stood with his
hands jammed in his trouser pockets. ‘You should have
counted them before you went out.’
Grace was uncertain. The chill of the night made her
shiver.
‘Come in,’ Richard said easily, ‘or you’ll catch your
death in that wet grass.’
She stepped through the uncut grass, her head bent.
When she reached the door, Richard took her gently by the
shoulders and said:
‘You silly girl. You should have counted them first.’
‘I was suddenly worried about him.’
He bent down to her face. She caught the whiff of him
– part shaving scent, part perspiration – she had a vision of
his energy. It went pulse pulse in him, and never ceased. How
many men were like him, she wondered. Pumping and
thudding, half kindness, half brutality.
‘Come in. It’s late. You should go to bed and sleep off
all the drink you’ve had tonight. As they say, tomorrow is
another day.’
He led her across the room by the arm. He had placed
his jacket neatly over the back of the sofa. Now he gripped
his tie at the knot and with one clean swoop pulled it loose
and broke the knot with practised fingers.
‘Give me a blanket and I’ll sleep on the sofa here,
before the fire. I’ll pile on some more coal so it’ll keep until
morning.’
266
Grace opened a door to the right of the fireplace and
went into the front room, her bedroom. The front door of the
cottage opened into this room, but she had sealed it off and
put a trunk before it. She picked her way through the debris
of four years’ residence to the bed. Most of the bedclothes
were on the floor, where they had fallen that morning. She lit
a candle and placed it on the chair by the head of the bed. The
room flickered into vision. Shadows loomed up on the walls.
Her own shadow was cast up on the wardrobe and seemed to
dominate her. Sketches of fantastic and grotesque figures,
men and animals, with grossly enlarged heads and feet, hung
about the dark-painted walls. On the mantleshelf, above the
bed, were some volumes, small tarnished caskets, and bottles
of pills and tonics. Blank and perplexed, she made up the
bed, conscious of the wrinkled sheets and soiled pillow. She
could hear Richard moving about next door. He was pacing
the room restlessly. With quick movements she laid the
blankets and tucked them in. Her mind was affright.
Practicality had gone to the wind. She steeled herself as she
listened to Richard’s paces. He was humming softly to
himself. Her reserve and suspicion of feelings were still
protecting her. She undressed quickly, throwing her skirt and
cardigan on to a nearby chair. She shivered in the cold air.
Still he paced. He could lie down, she pleaded to herself. She
took her night-dress from where it hung on the headboard and
slipped into it. Icily it fell down her body like a shower of
cold water. Her body was suspended below her, half numb.
Self-conscious, she felt her stomach tighten. She was
completely distracted now, shivering uncontrollably. She
touched one of her breasts, quickly, softly.
267
‘Grace,’ Richard called from the other room. Hearing
no reply, he called again, ‘Grace.’
It was the first time he had called her name.
‘What is it?’ she asked, her voice broken.
‘The blanket. Where is the blanket?’
Silence. Richard resumed his pacing. He disliked the
room, it was far too untidy. But he liked the beams of oak.
Obviously, he thought, they had built the newer frontage
about an older skeleton. The open staircase was dull oaken
too. At the door leading to the garden he turned and walked
back towards Grace’s room. The cats had disposed
themselves about the place. Some were foraging under the
sink and one had settled down on some clothes on a chair
under the stairs, its form rounded and sleek. Two lay before
the fire, silently watching the flames. Passing, he picked up a
book from the desk under the side window. Sociology. Must
belong to one of the other girls, he mused. At the end of the
beat he looked at the door to Grace’s room, partially open. It
was silent in her room. Had she gone to bed, he wondered,
and forgotten about the blanket? He tensed. He desired her:
that was the truth. He turned and walked with measured
threads down the room. She had stiffened against him each
time he had touched her. He couldn’t force her. He had
sympathy with her, for something in common was shared by
them. But he sensed that they were suspended at the moment
in polarity. He had liked her earnestness, her habit of
constantly creating purpose. If she could be gay, she would
be so petite, he thought, charming and quick. Then he
remembered her claustrophobia and her frigidity, and angrily
he flung the book across the room. It hit the wall and fell on
268
to the stairs. The cats looked about quickly, tensing, and
watched the spot where the book had fallen, expectant. When
he turned at the garden door Grace was standing in front of
the fire in a long night-dress, her hands limply by her sides
and empty.
‘Don’t sleep out here,’ she said simply. ‘It will be too
cold by morning. Come inside.’ She knew there were empty
beds upstairs.
In his mind Richard saw Peter smiling, his childlike
arm clutched to his chest.
Grace had already clambered into bed when Richard
entered the room. She lay with her face towards the wall, into
the dark. Richard undressed slowly, having found a place to
hang his clothes. He looked about him as he did, noting with
pursed disapproving lips the sketches and the untidiness.
Grace turned in the bed when she heard the soft lapping
sound of his feet, and saw his stark white monkish body and
the quick illusion of his pendulating sex among the clutch of
dark hair. She fell away, dreading him. He surged down
beside her, grunting as he felt the shock of cold. She hated his
eagerness and his childish noises as he rummaged like a dog
to make himself comfortable.
He lay on his back, his arms bent under his head,
looking at the flickering shadows on the ceiling. When he
spoke, his voice was rich in his throat in the half light and
echoed distantly in the corners of the room.
‘Grace, are you going to sleep?’
She stirred and rolled on to her back. She was dull with
self-pity. ‘Not yet,’ she replied with resignation.

269
‘Do you believe in God? You seemed to attach some
importance to the question when you asked it earlier on.’
‘Not really.’ She paused. ‘I honestly don’t know.
Sometimes I try to, but then everything seems so distant and
mocking. Other times it comes in a flash that there is.
Something I see or a feeling I have.’
‘Did you think I did, because I was raised as a
Catholic?’
‘Yes... I thought all Roman Catholics believed in God,
especially the Irish.’
Richard laughed easily, almost merrily. He was a
different person to Grace now. She felt a comradeship with
him, as though he were her husband.
‘Superstition,’ he said. ‘You’re confusing superstition
with belief.’
‘Is there a difference?’ She was bracing to argue this.
‘Not essentially. Belief as rationalisation seems to
obscure the terror to which superstition is the response.’
‘But what about the complete universe you spoke of
earlier, and the someone who watches all the actions in it? Is
that not the same as believing in God?’
‘Of course not,’ he said sharply.
Grace stiffened. She was surprised by his seriousness.
‘Then how are they different?’
Lulled by the night and by his repose, Richard spoke to
the ceiling.
‘Let me put it this way, as I see it. The universe of
things and actions is inert, it goes on and on as it is. But what
stands against it is individual consciousness. To such a
consciousness the universe is an accident, and the life of the
270
individual is also an accident. By accident I mean that the
individual can find no adequate cause or causes to explain the
existence of the universe or the self. It is the awareness of
these accidents that produces the freedom of the individual.
You see, freedom is an aspect of consciousness, and a matter
of awareness.’
Grace shifted and Richard rolled over to face her.
‘Look, if this is too pedantic, say so. I’m only saying it
because otherwise we’ll be arguing in circles all night.’
Grace’s eyes were wary in the candlelight. But she
shook her head for him to go on.
‘OK, then,’ Richard said to her. ‘There are two – well,
levels, here. The act of knowing is always complete, because
it is part of consciousness, not of the object of knowing. But
because it is a complete act, the object of knowing always
appears as complete in consciousness.’ He paused, staring at
Grace. ‘But on another level the words or concepts used to
express acts of knowing also appear to be complete, because
they are believed to partake of the act of knowing itself.
That’s probably why people nowadays believe that freedom
lies in the expression of knowledge. But this kind of
completeness is illusory. For instance, take the word
“universe”. It is used to refer to something complete, like the
contents of the perceived environment. But it is impossible
for any person or group to list all those contents.’ Richard
shook himself, self-conscious. ‘Freedom then lies between
the unavoidable act of knowing and the consciousness of the
impossibility of saying what you know...’
‘But what about God?’ Grace asked with sudden
impatience.
271
‘God is the big all-inclusive word or concept.’ His
smile seemed a smirk or a sneer. ‘So it is the greatest
illusion.’
Grace suddenly grabbed his hand. ‘But people believe
in God!’ she said angrily.
At once sublime, Richard laughed softly. ‘And belief is
the rationalisation of terror.’
Grace tried sarcasm: ‘You had better tell me now what
the terror is.’
Feeling too confined by her coldness, Richard rolled
away. ‘Freedom, of course.’ He turned back to her, conscious
of taunting her. ‘Putting it metaphorically, freedom is the
dark pit into which we are continuously falling.’ Something
dropped away from him, but he sounded resentful: ‘Is that
good enough for you?’
Grace rolled on to her back with a deliberate abrupt
movement. She stared at the shadow-play on the ceiling, then
said: ‘Then freedom is not the truth. It can be rejected.’
Richard laughed in a yelp and rolled over and kissed
her. His delight made her cold again and she pushed him
away without trying to make her actions seem as something
else.
He stared down at her, laughing at her.
‘Would you like to be a Catholic?’
She started and stared at him in a speculative way,
appreciating his power of intuition, feeling at the same time a
new exposure to him.
‘Sometimes. But not your intellectual church. I’m
attracted to the mystery of it.’
‘And the authority,’ he said, guessing immediately.
272
‘I suppose so.’ It was true, she realised. Seen thus
objectively, the idea horrified her. But it was true.
Richard fell back on the bed, laughing and replete. In
the following silence the candle guttered, throwing shadows
in splurges up the wall and ceiling. Richard saw the hours of
darkness that were before him. He put gentle pressure on the
hand that still gripped his. Grace’s fingers responded,
brushing lightly along his palm. Thinking of what they had
said, he murmured ruefully, to bring her closer:
‘I suppose we all seek power in one way or the other.’
And it worked. Grace felt all the tightness in her flow.
She seemed to wilt down against his side and he felt her
small smooth form press him. His desire flared.
Grace realised she had walked into a trap. She had
desired the tenderness he seemed to offer so as to obtain
temporary relief. But she had equated tenderness with
softness, with sentimentality. Now she knew it was bait. It
was part of him essentially, not something he gave to others
in need out of charity. How cold, she thought, how cold he is.
And she had submitted to it.
He turned and faced her. The bed shook and grated and
she felt the bedclothes pull over her shoulders and tighten on
her. Drawing up her night-dress, he embraced her, gently but
firmly, and stroked her smooth back. She could feel his
swelling penis nod against her thigh. Abruptly she darted
forward her head and gripped her teeth into his neck, just
below the ear. She lay now half under him, her head buried
by him in the blackest darkness she had ever known. A warm
salt taste tanged her mouth. Convulsively she ate him. She
had never felt so free. She had never approved so much in her
273
life any action as she did this one of eating him... But then he
entered her and...
‘Will I have a baby?’ were her first words as she came
back to herself, panting and licking her teeth. Richard rolled
away, taking away the moist, hot compress under which she
had been submerged.
‘No, don’t worry, you won’t,’ he replied, equally
breathless. He was rubbing his face and chest with the sheet.
‘It’s rarely so complete the first time. Besides, you jumped
away at the moment.’
‘Oh.’ She was disappointed. She had thought that this
blind compulsive operation must yield a baby.
‘Why do you ask?’ Richard asked, staring at her. ‘Do
you want a baby?’
‘I thought...’ Her voice trailed away, confused. Did she
want a baby? As she realised she did, the whole moment
passed away and her head cleared.
Richard was lying beside her gazing at the ceiling, his
arms above the covers. He seemed at peace, but abstracted
away from her. Grace suddenly yearned for him to come
closer. She was afraid. She wanted him to reveal himself to
her and approve, with her, of their act together. But he
remained away, contented with himself. The residual peace
was dissolving, and in its place the fear became horror.
‘Are you a virgin?’ Richard asked softly.
‘No,’ she replied matter-of-factly, controlling herself.
‘The thought just struck me that you might be. You’re
such a strange mixture of daring and retreating.’
What horrified her most was that she had been so
unthinking. She felt as though she had failed to clear her
274
action with some higher ruling authority. She had acted on
impulse, and in doing so had submitted totally to this man
beside her, who was a stranger. She had forgotten herself –
she had abandoned herself. And yet, she realised, fascinated
by the knowledge, she had acted.
Richard turned to her again and touched her nipple
with a finger.
‘Well?’ he asked lightly, almost gaily.
She looked at him closely, wondering if he had
abandoned himself too. If he had, then he had not killed her.
She realised that that amazed her.
Now she felt radiation from her breast. She knew this
time that the tension growing in her was an indication of her
readiness to submit again.
‘Well?’ he asked again. ‘Do you feel good?’
‘Oh.’ She realised his intention and allowed herself to
relax. ‘Yes, I do. But I can hardly remember what happened.’
He laughed. Her tone had been ironic and brave. He
liked that in her.
‘Is that important? Your body knew.’
‘Well, bully for my body,’ she bantered, grateful to
hear him speak so openly. ‘But what about me?’
He fondled her breast, communicating his well-being
to her. ‘You are your body. This is sex, not school.’
She moved her body against the thrill he was passing
into her, more aware of that than his words. Between her
thighs was damp and chilled.
‘You’ve soaked me,’ she said.
‘A million babies.’
‘Poor things.’
275
‘Names?’
‘What?’
‘How would we name them all?’
‘I don’t know... Yes, I do... Paul one, Paul two and so
on.’
Richard laughed. ‘Paul?’
‘Well, Richard if you like.’
‘Would they all be boys, do you think?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Do men make boys, and do women make girls out of
boys then?’
‘I don’t know,’ she replied, suddenly chilling. ‘What
peculiar things you think of.’
She put her fingers on his lips.
‘Now hush.’
Everything is alright then, she thought: he approves.
She touched his sex where it lolled across his thigh. The
frizzled hair tickled her hand.
She had a sudden sense of possessing him. He was
naïve. She slid her hand over the lumps of his testicles and
gripped them tightly. He stiffened, sighing hissingly through
his teeth.
‘Am I hurting you?’
‘No. it’s nice. I feel you very deeply now.’
‘Peter hated me to touch his balls,’ she said
dispassionately. ‘They hurted.’
Richard heard the cold possessive woman in her. He
knew she was commenting to herself on her property,
comparing one piece with another.

276
‘Do you often have sex?’ he asked, slipping behind her
coldness.
‘Hardly ever now. A year ago, yes. It hurts him, he
says.’
‘How long have you known him?’
‘About two years.’ She paused. When she continued,
her voice was withdrawn. ‘Just think, we were both in this
university for two years without knowing of one another’s
existence. We probably passed each other every day without
knowing it...But that’s hardly possible. I would have noticed
his arm immediately.’
‘And did he satisfy you two years ago, when you first
met?’
Satisfy, she thought: what does he mean?
‘Satisfy me?’ she said. ‘Yes. As I wanted to be
satisfied.’
‘Love.’ It was a statement, though Grace understood it
as a question.
‘Yes. Love.’
There was no triumph as Richard had expected. It was
reflective. He could not imagine her innocent even then.
‘Why did you ask in that tone?’ she said. ‘Weren’t you
ever in love?’
‘Like that? Of course.’
So final, she thought. He’ll say now that he’s grown
out of it.
But he didn’t. He asked: ‘You’re still in love with
him?’
She heard the questioning, but couldn’t decide if he
spoke out of curiosity or jealousy.
277
‘I don’t know, Richard,’ she said forthrightly, allowing
the question to move in her. ‘I was to stand by him while he
wrote his poetry and help him.’
She squeezed his gonads again until Richard gasped
and clutched her arm.
‘We had a purpose in life,’ she said more loudly,
fighting resignation. ‘He’s weak and needs looking after...
His arm is so withered.’
‘You only pity him,’ Richard said harshly.
‘No, no,’ she pleaded. ‘He needs me.’
‘You don’t know what a man is, or what he wants, if
you think he wants to be treated as a misfortunate child.’
Something snapped in Grace. The whole world rolled
away from her and in its place loomed a feeling, a desire. She
welled up to it. The tears were like hot needles on her tired
eyes. The feeling taunted her, remaining just beyond the
reach of her straining awareness. She fell back into the
forbidden past of her childhood, hunting that which eluded
her. Her secret charity sought her father, her dream man –
goodness striving for wholeness in the man who conceived
her in a unique act, his one ball shot up into her stunted
singularity...
Richard held her firmly, sure of his resources of
strength, whispering, ‘There now, there now’. He brushed her
hair from about her ears. His sympathy with her reached out
after her, trying to draw her back.
But she returned herself. Slowly she quietened,
sobbing less and less. Richard held her still, rocking her
gently as if she were a child. But it was only a gesture now:
she had escaped him.
278
He got out of bed when she pulled away from him and
padded over to where he had laid his clothes and returned
with his handkerchief. The candle was guttering
spasmodically, almost burnt down. The room about him was
barren. Clothes, textbooks and bric-a-brac lay about on the
odd pieces of furniture. Grace propped herself up on the
pillow and wiped her face with the handkerchief. The bed
was rumpled, the sheets creased in a million ways. Beside her
was the hollow in the mattress that he had occupied for the
last few hours.
He could not face up to climbing in beside her again.
He walked around the room, absently looking at things. From
the far corner, over by the trunk, he asked:
‘Do you have any of his poetry here?’
Grace was lying on her back now, staring at the
ceiling. She had pulled her night-dress down.
‘Are you interested in his poetry?’
‘I want to see what it is like.’
‘There are some on the trunk beside you. They’re
typed on blue paper.’
He caught sight of a corner of blue paper sticking out
from under a pile of lecture notes. He drew it out and brought
it over to the bed. Sitting on the edge, his back to Grace, he
recited the lines he found there.
‘I’ve never heard it recited before,’ Grace said, as if
out of nowhere, with a note of hesitation.
Richard still strained to meet the mood of the poem, to
find it worthy of Grace’s tears. The elegiac Romantic quality
of the imagery chimed, but the cadence was all wrong. It was

279
as though Peter had one foot in a ‘poetical’ world and one in
a contemporary reality that was totally prosaic.
‘Did he write this for you?’
‘No.’
‘Some other girl?’
‘I don’t think so.’
‘Do you think it is good?’
Grace looked at him. ‘I can’t remember it.’
‘You mean you don’t care about it at all?’
‘Oh, how can I read them!’ she flared. ‘It’s his
business to be a poet. It’s mine to look after him.’
Richard carefully folded the sheet in two and placed it
beside the candle on the chair.
Grace spoke as though from a distance: ‘What do you
think of it?’
Richard paused, searching. The mood of the poem
hung on the air in the memory of his own voice reciting. It
was a definite force.
‘I’m not sure how to evaluate modern poetry.’ He
looked at her, trying to be sincere. ‘Most of it is prosy, you
know. The only difference that I can see between what I do
and their poetry is condensation. The horizon – the reality –
is the same.’
Grace looked at him with contempt, hating what she
saw as his egotism. ‘But do you like it, Richard?’
He rubbed his hands, looking down at his genitals. The
tension in the room was suddenly ferocious.
‘I don’t...’ he shook his head, feeling passion as he
broke through his puzzlement. ‘I’m indifferent to it,’ he said
coldly.
280
Grace stared at him with hate. Then the hate
evaporated and was replaced by a childish vulnerability.
‘He believes in it,’ she said shakily.
The passion seized Richard again. ‘Of course he does,’
he heard himself saying. ‘It’s a matter of intention. The poet
is valued nowadays for what he aims to do, not for what he
produces.’ He turned and bent towards her. ‘Do you see,
Grace? It is the poet that counts, not the poetry. The poet
dares to constitute himself as a poet. Like Yeats, for
instance.’
The candle flickered, its light increasingly more
yellow. Instinctively looking up, Richard saw that two
grotesques on the opposite was seemed to form themselves
into a death mask, grinning obscenely. Then he distinctly
heard a voice say in a generous tone:
‘Jolly good.’
Peter Yorke was standing at the wall, above a table. He
held his baby-fingers in his good hand and laughed
contentedly. His face was worn and white, his mouth open
grinning and moist. His eyes sparkled as indifferently as
gems, like seeds of innocence, taunting and bright with
hysteria. Frightfully, Richard thought they were the Devil’s
eyes, but immediately he knew they were not. They were all
too human. They were every human being’s eyes, expressing
the truth everyone knew. Peter laughed again and hiked up
his hand on his breast to make it more comfortable.
‘Jolly good.’
And was gone.
‘What are you staring at?’ Grace repeated.

281
‘Eh? Oh nothing...I think,’ Richard said distractedly,
standing up. He went across the room. The current along his
spine grew stronger. He nodded and turned back to Grace.
‘I had a vision of Peter telling me that it was “Jolly
good”.’
Grace raised her brows.
‘What was jolly good? Oh, you’re as bad as that other
Irishman, John.’
‘No. I know I only imagined it.’ Richard’s voice
faltered on the last two words. Then he abandoned himself
and said: ‘In any case, what if it was real?’ He sat on the edge
of the bed. ‘You remember he came to watch us playing
skittles? Well, he said “Jolly good” when I swung that good
shot. It must have stuck in my mind afterwards.’ He looked
back at the wall with a regret for the passing of the passion.
‘He said it to encourage me.’
‘You’re overtired,’ Grace said, too drained to care
much. ‘Come into bed or you’ll catch a cold.’
He got in beside her. Then the candle gave a last flare
of yellow light and went out. A smell of wax wafted over
them. Richard shivered as a huge chill ran down his body. He
experienced again the feeling of regret. The passion had
consumed him. But did Peter know that all expression, even
the highest art, only served as reminders? All knowledge in
defining something positive also defined something that it
was not. With an element of certainty, Richard looked at that
which was not, the pit. He could do it without much fear
because it was Peter in his poem who revealed it for him this
time, not himself.

282
I am nothing, he said in his mind. For an instant it was
true. Then curiosity grew.
Grace stirred beside him.
‘You’re awake?’ she asked softly.
Grace had also been thinking. Her head was clearer
now that the alcohol had run through her system. She had
been thinking of Peter and their early days together in a mood
of acceptance. She had vowed herself to him and she would
stand by him, doing what she could for him. That resolve had
given her satisfaction and a return of purpose.
Even so, the darkness weighed upon her, prickling her
in a way she didn’t like. She felt haunted by an emotion more
immediate than her feeling for Peter. The impulsive urge that
had made her ask Richard if he had given her a baby awoke
in her a possibility. It might not happen again that she would
have the chance she had now. Spontaneity was its own moral
justification.
And Richard was strong and energetic.
‘Are you sleepy?’ she asked.
‘Not particularly.’ In the dark, he felt no distance
between them.
‘Is your neck sore?’
‘How? Where?’
She groped around the side of his face and neck and
felt the small punctures on his skin.
‘There. I bit you.’
He jerked his head away in reaction to the sting of the
wounds.
‘And I never felt a thing. You’re a cat, Grace.’

283
She stroked the area about the wound, her fingers
moving surely and lightly, knowing it would arouse him. She
shifted closer to him, feeling the heat of his penis in her
groin.
‘It was nice to bite and bite. You could take it,’ she
murmured, expressing a cold and secret voluptuousness that
was her abandonment. She could eat him up, consume him.
But Richard moved with the earlier sympathy to think
that he could love her. She was sure and purposeful, taking
command of that part of him that was beyond his reach.
In the morning she cried when Richard left to return to
the university. She was convulsed by the knowledge that the
night and its secrets was over.
Richard was deeply moved again and he promised to
come again soon.

When the barman set about putting up the shutters of


the bar, the three of them, John, Bahrsan and Richard,
emptied their glasses with mixed feelings: of relief, glad that
the evening together was at an end; of regret, because there
was no more drink and they had to go out into the night.
Together they walked slowly down the stairs and out into the
night. They were a relaxed trio then, their various moods
soothed by alcohol. About them was peace, the few students
who had been in the bar already dispersed to their quarters.
They strolled across the square and back along the pathways
they had come.
At the point where their ways parted, Bahrsan drew
Richard aside with a diffident, confiding gesture. John
glanced at them and walked on, hands by his side, head
284
thrown back so that the light of the lamps glinted on his
glasses. Bahrsan asked Richard if he would come back to his
flat for coffee. He explained that not being used to drink, he
inevitably became lonely because of the feeling of
helplessness it created. Richard tried to be as decent as he
could about it as he turned down the offer.
Unable to bring himself to leave Richard, Bahrsan
began speaking. Richard, compromised by the other’s
sincerity, remained and listened, making conventional
comments whenever necessary. Finally, after trying very hard
to explain what he was attempting to do in his thesis, putting
Plato on Locke or Locke on Plato, Bahrsan grasped Richard
by the elbow and said:
‘I envy you, Richard. You are a happy man.’
He saw that Richard’s face was set and pursed, as
though resolved on some purpose. He admired the energy of
the man and his effectiveness, having seen him sweep Peter’s
girlfriend off her feet the last time he was here. He wished for
himself such energy and resolve, rather than his impotent
struggle for a synthesis of thought.
Richard snorted a laugh, looking up at the dark sky.
‘I think you are a lucky man, Richard,’ Bahrsan
continued in a pedagogic tone, shaking Richard’s arm as
though to stress his point. ‘You get what you want because
you limit your ambition. You are happy and that is good.’
A wave of pity rose in him as he said this. He wanted
Richard to admit all this so that he could go off to his bed
with the thought that he had been in the company of a happy
man, that such a being existed. But more deeply, as he knew

285
but was not at that moment acknowledging, he wanted to hear
that ambition had a limit.
Richard looked at the Turk, seeing the confusion of
loneliness, sexuality and intellectual presumption. He looked
about at the night, savouring it in his awareness of the other’s
ardent gaze. Then he looked at Bahrsan again, feeling a
massive complacency and satisfaction. He saw there the
superstition of the intellectual: the belief that the pursuit of
knowledge of itself was worthy of the suffering it
engendered.
Yet Richard nodded his head in assent and said:
‘Well, who knows? You might be right, Bahrsan.’
He drew his arm away from the other’s grasp and
began to walk away into the dark.
Bahrsan lifted his face in gratitude and smiled farewell.
Then he set off along the path towards the gate in the wall,
his hands thrust deep in his pockets.

Richard walked along the road from the university to


the village. The early sun glared silently down on to the open
country to the left that lay, quilt-like, spread out to the
horizon and Wales. On a small hill to the right stood the
church, its spire soaring above the headstones scattered about
the slopes of the hill. The few red-bricked houses of the
village seemed to cluster beneath this aspiring finger, as if to
make sure of being included in its appeal to the heavens. He
reached the public road and crossed to the tiny island in the
middle that surrounded a tall spreading oak. He paused while
traffic passed, heading for the six towns below. Immediately
before him was the village inn, its doors wide open. He
286
decided to have a quick drink. It would loosen him up, for the
last twenty four hours lay on his head like a compress of
cotton wool, something he was unused to and which made
him feel strangely defensive. The road cleared, and with a
hop, step and jump he landed at the door of the pub.
The pub had an atmosphere of contentment. At the
back of the room darts were being thrown. Just inside the
door on the right old men played dominoes, placing them
down in a line with their stumpy fingers. A group of students
sat about a table in the middle of the room. As he walked the
few paces to the counter, almost everyone turned to look at
him, as though to recognise him and claim him for their own.
But he being a stranger, they quickly returned to their
recreations. He ordered whisky and paid for it. The liquid
fired his throat and he winced as its cold fury slid down to his
stomach. The shock was such as to transform his mood in a
subtle way. He remained standing at the bar, one hand resting
beside his glass on the counter. Behind him the voices of the
locals murmured, rising from time to time to a rich burr. The
sluggishness left him, his world broadened, exposing places
and thoughts and people that composed his life until that
moment. He pictured quickly and with a start of feeling his
childhood world. The house and the neighbourhood of his
childhood now seemed meaner. But they also seemed hidden,
brooding on a time completely gone now. The inner and outer
of that world dismayed him: he could not bring them
together. He remembered his parents then, younger, complete
and important to him, a happy focus. Teachers in soutanes
and tight, odorous suits. Even neighbours, so many of them
dead or old or grown up and like him departed from there.
287
Their features were fixed now forever in a point of view, an
uncritical and bitter memory stamped in his mind. But that
was because he saw them from the outside across a great
chasm, and because his feelings in response to these images
were feelings that couldn’t help see the vulnerability of
innocence, of lack of consciousness, and recognise there the
terrors of insecurity and exposure that surrounded his
childhood. He had been so at risk: but only now did he see
that. He could see it now because he had finally turned away
from the past.
He drank again. It brought him back to his present, in
this country pub.
The whisky was clouding his consciousness. The
present seemed to lose focus. He realised he had been bathing
in the stunning light of innocence even while he viewed it
with bitterness. In the fading of that innocence he felt his grip
on the present weaken. That frightened him, until he
reminded himself that his present was in any case
momentarily in abeyance. The act of writing seemed from
this point of view a strangely dishonest act. Yes, he could see
that clearly. Abstractly, he portrayed it for himself and for
others as the act of a self-aware and constitutionally isolated
individual consciousness, addressing perhaps other isolated
individuals. Here he posited the act of writing as a gesture of
self-realisation against the background of a silencing void.
But was that true or just a bit of self-glorification? From the
historical point of view, writing appeared to be a reaction to
something he could not control. Isolation was either wilful or
unavoidable: a vanity of self-pity or something truly
terrifying. Loneliness was either a posture of monstrous
288
egotism or a fundamental condition of man that could not be
faced without risking suicide or madness as the destruction of
consciousness itself.
He drank again, tremoring.
Concentrate on the act of writing, he told himself. With
that he saw it as something that did grow from reaction. It
was a reaction to a society that had threatened to drown his
identity and turned him into a ritual that bridged an animal
routine from birth to death. That routine constantly pushed
the hope of human realisation into a future that seemed never
to approach, as those people were either helpless before that
ever-present hope or else afraid of it. What he had done was
to break away from that treadmill, to seek the truth at least
about himself at least. And one thing he had discovered was
that while the hope was ever-present, the possibility of
realisation was also ever-present. It had to be.
Then suddenly he didn’t know what he was trying to
think about. He watched the barman come and glance at him
and his drink. He was pot-bellied and dour, his face tanned
and slack, with a receding hairline and a domed smooth
brow. He had an air of animal satisfaction: so long as his
needs of bed, board and habits were attended to he would
remain passively content. Richard felt an unreasoning
hostility towards the man and felt tempted to shake the man’s
complacency. But in his anger he suddenly realised, as
though it had crept in behind the distraction of anger, that his
writing was inessential, that it was a distraction in the way
the barman’s needs were distractions.
The feeling of helplessness was total. He would have
cried except that his thoughts were abstractions with the
289
distance of theory. So he questioned his helplessness. At once
he understood. Men have the pride and energy to do
something worthwhile. But they have nothing worthwhile to
do. Human activity is therefore driven by necessity or a
reactive wilfulness.
He drained his glass. Putting it back on the counter he
nodded to the barman with a comradeship the barman would
not recognise. He went out into the sun.
The cars dashing past were inconsequential. He heard
the hubbub behind him in the bar, the clink of glasses, a
sudden laugh. Richard clenched his fists tightly, his arms
trembling with tension at his sides. Oh God, he thought with
a real anguish, how much I love!
But instead of crying, he returned self-consciously to
thinking. We do everything for each other, whether we like it
or not, whether it is exploitation or servility. Behind
everything, all the honesty and dishonesty, the sincerity and
the cheating, we are always approaching one another. What is
that if it is not love? Left alone, any of us would simply die.
Fully projected out of himself, he looked around to see
that the sun was now quite high in an almost cloudless sky,
shining with the same steady permanence on the countryside.
A breeze gusted from the south-west, chilly and sharp, a
spring wind. Richard turned down by the pub and took the
narrow road that led to the students’ residences. The
university was hidden in a hollow and further sheltered by
trees. Close by, the church towered, the white stained
headstones strewn about it, evidence of generations. He
walked past a ploughed field, the earth brown and moist, the
walls of the furrows glazed where the plough had pressed.
290
Before him a wooded knoll rose, the pines cold-green and
austere, glancing away the sunlight. The cluster of modern
buildings came into sight. In his projection, Richard had the
sensation of stepping lightly, as though his presence was only
a gesture on his part and the surrounding countryside an
arrangement of two dimensional props. He wasn’t fooled by
the necessity of its presence.
He turned down an inclining track, passed the carpark
and entered a courtyard between the apartment blocks. In
some of the windows students gazed out. They watched him,
the only active human within their view. Richard pulled a
scrap of paper from his pocket and read the address on it,
written in John’s careless hand. He walked towards the block
ahead of him and entered the foyer.
Richard could hear music on the other side of the door.
He paused, his hand poised at the bell, feeling himself being
shaped by the sound. It was rock music, peculiarly elastic in
tone, as if the musicians wished to remove the emphasis from
the blues beat. He pressed the bell. At once someone shouted
‘Come in.’
Pushing the door open, Richard was confronted by the
red-haired student, whose hand was raised to open the door.
Peter Yorke was leaning against the radiator by the window
across the room, his shrunken arm resting across his thighs.
He held a slim volume in his good hand. Behind the red-
haired student Grace was bent over an untidy cooker.
‘Hello,’ Peter said warmly. ‘We heard you were here
for the weekend.’
The red-haired student stepped away slowly, then
turned and walked to the window, to stand beside Peter.
291
Grace looked up at Richard, pushing the fringe of hair from
her eyes as she did.
‘I thought I’d drop by and see you,’ Richard said
lamely. The music was too loud, it unnerved him. He looked
intently at Grace, seeking some sign of recognition.
‘Well, glad to see you again.’ Peter was jovial, there
was no trace of malice or embarrassment. ‘Have you been
down to play skittles? No? You should have got in touch with
me yesterday. I would have gone down with you and played a
game. You have a definite talent for it.’
While Peter spoke, Richard continued to look down at
Grace. Her small brown face, oval and smooth like a child’s,
was turned to him. But her eyes were like moist pebbles,
abstracted, as they sighted on him. Then they dropped to the
ground, having shown no reaction to his presence.
Dumbfounded, Richard turned to Peter.
‘No, I haven’t played it again. Just a quiet visit to John
this time,’ he said not sure what he was saying to cover up his
turmoil.
‘Ah I see. How is he? I haven’t seen him for – how
long is it? – times seems to fly – almost three weeks. Exams,
you see. We have our finals soon.’
Grasping at the straw, so as to stop himself turning and
leaving the room, Richard said, ‘What will you do
afterwards? Teach?’
‘Oh, I don’t know yet. First of all I shall rest at home.’
‘Ah yes. You’d need to rest.’
The record came to an end and silence crept into the
room on the tail of the arm’s automatic return to rest.
In the silence, Richard said to Grace:
292
‘What will you do for the summer, Grace?’
It was pointed. It would give her a chance to speak.
She looked at him in an unfocused way. Then her eyes
were startled for an instant, then they lost expression again.
She seemed to be drugged.
‘I’m not sure yet. I’ll probably spend it with Peter.’
She spoke impersonally, as though it was a question she had
answered many times.
Peter spoke to her, his voice loud in the silence and a
little strained.
‘Probably? Are you thinking of going to your mother?
After all that has happened?’
The red-haired student moved away from this
exchange and hunkered down before a rack of records. Grace
seemed distressed. She threw a pleading glance at Peter.
‘No. no. it’s not that.’ She touched her forehead in a
gesture of self-reassurance. ‘Of course I’ll spend it with you.
Where else would I go?’
Peter pursed his lips and nodded. He looked at Richard.
‘There,’ he said with sudden irony. ‘Two months
sunning in County Durham before anything else.’
The red-haired student slid a record from its cover and
went to the record player.
Richard looked at Peter and then at Grace. He was
numb with shock. Yet he was not surprised.
At the door, Richard said:
‘By the way, I read...’ The music blared and drowned
his words. Peter looked at the red-haired student with
annoyance. Then he came over to Richard, lifting his
withered arm to his chest as he walked.
293
‘I can’t hear you in here, Richard,’ he said close to the
latter’s ear. ‘Let’s go into the hall.’
He closed the door. The silence was like a mercy.
Richard turned to face towards the stairs, to signal that
he was not staying long.
‘I said that I read one of your poems, Peter,’ he said,
weary at having to repeat himself.
Peter bent towards him, his head bobbing as though to
catch every word that Richard uttered. But when Richard said
no more, he spoke himself, his eyes rising to meet Richard’s.
‘So Grace told me.’
Richard glanced back towards the closed door in
reaction to hearing Peter speak her name.
Peter started to walk towards the stairs, his lips pursed
as though considering whether he should break a barrier or
not. Richard followed him, feeling a tension rise between
them.
At the head of the stairs, Peter grasped Richard’s
elbow with diffidence. He suddenly looked very frail.
‘Grace is not well, Richard.’ He looked into Richard’s
eyes again. ‘That’s why she’s so distant.’
When Peter clasped his lips together and looked away,
Richard decided to push through the barrier of unfamiliarity
too.
‘What is it? Is it serious?’ He realised he was
responding to Peter’s concern, not his own.
‘Vertigo.’ Peter looked ready to cry. ‘It’s a bad attack
this time. She’s on all sorts of drugs.’

294
Peter was looking at his baby fingers. They were
flexing in a spasmodic way, as though they had a life of their
own.
‘She said you had some kind of vision, Richard. She
doesn’t remember it very clearly.’
Richard felt the space left for him to speak, to tell Peter
about it. Remembering it, he remembered the lesson of it. He
put his hand on Peter’s shoulder, feeling the thinness of it,
and shook him playfully, laughing.
‘You know what the Irish are like for seeing ghosts,
Peter.’
Peter laughed too. The tension between them
dissolved.
‘Do you write poetry, Richard?’ Peter suddenly asked
into the ease between them.
Richard resisted the intimacy, remembering the vision
or whatever it was. ‘No, I don’t, Peter.’
‘Why not?’ Peter asked, showing a doggedness similar
to Grace’s. ‘I’ve read some of your stories, and I’ve
wondered why you don’t write poetry.’
Richard wanted to laugh again, but he couldn’t find the
right perspective for laughter. He let the words flow out of
himself:
‘I choose not to, Peter.’
But Peter wasn’t satisfied. He waited, seeming to
presume on some past intimacy. Richard was forced to
expand.
‘I don’t believe I could find words to bear the weight.
Any poem I would write would seem a lie. Do you
understand that, Peter?’
295
‘But your stories, Richard. How can you write those?’
Now Richard did laugh, gently.
‘Ah, Peter, I can maintain the surface there. There are
more words to spread out, like a net.’
Peter nodded in a professional way.
‘Why do you write, Peter?’ Richard took up the
reciprocation available to him.
‘Because I want to.’ He looked at Richard with an
intent expression. ‘I believe in poetry. It’s...’ Suddenly silent,
Peter lifted his wasted arm in his good hand and seemed to
weigh it.
Richard gave an aimless chuckle and shrugged his
shoulders. He turned and put his hand on the stair-rail.
‘I’ll keep an eye out in London for a book of your
poems, Peter.’
The poet looked gaunt. He obviously wanted to say
something more. When Richard made as if to go, he said,
blurting it out:
‘Writing is a serious business, Richard.’
Richard threw his head back, resenting the
admonishment. Then he laughed easily, seeing the nature of
his own commitment, and said, knowing the irony and
trickery of his retort:
‘Sure Peter. But it’s also a first-class pain in the arse.’
He waved farewell, not looking back.
He felt very relieved.

John stood by the car, dressed as usual in his greasy


black sweater and leather jacket. Richard turned the ignition
key. The engine burst into life.
296
‘Will you make a good teacher, John?’ Richard asked,
looking up from checking the petrol gauge.
‘Yes, yes. It’s not what you teach that counts. It’s how
you teach it,’ John replied with determined enthusiasm.
‘Remember, I did a lot of amateur dramatics while I was in
the Bank. I’ll make it interesting for them.’
As he put the car in gear, Richard remembered that
John’s mother had been a teacher.
‘Do that, John,’ he said, looking up and letting in the
clutch. As the car moved, he called, ‘Look me up if you are
ever in London. Take care.’
When he got to the motorway, he crossed to the fast
lane and pushed his speed up to eighty five. A high-pitched
squeal filled the interior of the car. He shot along, untouched
by the elements outside, feeling a great force welling up
inside him.

297
CHANCE MEETING

298
The meeting was very casual. He was turning the
corner into a narrow street near the Luxembourg Gardens,
hurrying through the chilly streets to a nearby Metro station,
having completed some small piece of business. She was
turning away from gazing into the window of a dress shop,
just one of the many she had inspected during a stroll that
afternoon. Their eyes met, crossed, and returned to meet once
again. She was dark, with a long sloping Cretan face –
features recorded on the walls of Knossos – and simply,
though attractively dressed. He was very pale, as befits the
North in late autumn, with sharp, attentive eyes, and a
concentrated, forceful walk.
She paused in the act of turning away from the shop
window and seemed to hesitate, as though drawn back to
reconsider a possible purchase among the display; then she
raised her hand up towards her face, towards her mouth – lips
and nails painted the same brilliant hue of red – but stopped
when the hand was breast-high, and raised her plucked brows
in his direction.
He was passing on, his mind digesting the image of
her, filing it, comparing it to other images of other women
picked up that day, last week, all his life – it was by now a
habit – commenting upon her strange, singular beauty while
yet knowing she was not beautiful, that her face was too
stark, too lacking in the placid smoothness of the Northern
beauty – it reminded him of the sharp diet of the
Mediterranean peasant, something monotonous and eternal,
something that only compassion could comprehend: black
olives, white bread and red, grapey wine. He caught her
appeal just as she slid from his sight and the decision to stop,
299
to turn and re-approach her, took a fraction of a second: a
space of time in which he tested a number of personalities –
the passer-by, the man-in-a-hurry-somewhere, the virile-man-
confronted-by-an-attractive-woman. He stopped walking,
turned, and discovered he was looking at her back, at her
delayed action of turning to face him and make the request
she wished to make. He saw her plump calf twist away, her
green shoe pivot on its heel, her full skirt tremble and fill and
swing, her slim shoulders under the bistre-rich jacket change
in perspective and then reveal the slight swell of her small
breasts. Her face came towards him, starkly attractive, a
speculation of beauty and its temptations, her eyes brown and
impassive, her crimson lips changing shape, filling,
broadening, then silkily drawing apart – the hint of saliva
along the inner borders of the lipstick.
She came closer to him: he felt like encircling her, like
walking around and around her – let her eyes follow him,
expressionless, impassive – let him put his own feelings into
them; let her lips move as they did now, soundlessly
mouthing words that did not fall on his ears, that did not
awaken his mind – let him put words on them, meanings that
would be meaningless to her. But she came forward with a
card in her hand. She raised it gently to his eyes, and her eyes
narrowed and asked him to read.
Yet he felt himself go towards her, growing larger,
growing more potent, more embracing, reckless – free... He
took the card she offered him – the scarlet nails were short
and carefully shaped, the cuticles trimmed and even – and
while he read the card he went down after the retreating
fingers, hungry for them, for their soft touch...
300
She retired from him while he read the card, one leg
thrust out, her body poised on the heel of the other. He read
the card with a fury, knowing that she was examining him,
that she would see the flat colouring of the Northerner, pallid
skin, the yellowed eyes, the light, undistinguished hair. It
would be poor food indeed when compared with the rich
organic servings of her land! How could the presumption of a
straining will, the sheer egomania, compare with the lithe,
disarming grace and ritual of her people, of her kind and
blood?
He read the card and realised that it was the address of
an hotel near the Opera. He raised his eyes to her: green,
objective, appropriating her with the sacrilege of
presumption; and met the calm, mediating brown of hers. He
spoke – harshly, he thought; she replied in French, a touch of
the comic in her face. He filled the space left by the comedy,
growing larger, ever larger, but becoming attenuated in will
and growing larger in service of her. He thought for her,
reasoned for her, persuading himself on her behalf.
Her face flickered with complacency: she watched him
impassively, knowing full well what he was doing for her.

He described the route to the Metro station; then he


walked with her to the Metro station, keeping close to her,
but taking care not to touch her. She stood by him in the
station as he showed her the route on the plan of the Metro
system. She stood too close to him, her jacket several times
grazed his hand, as he bade farewell to her, so that he offered,
and then presumed to do it, to escort her to her hotel.

301
They sat side by side in the train. His two hands rested
rather brutishly on his knees, he could do nothing else with
them; she composed her plump hands in her lap, all ten
scarlet nails in full view. Frequently he glanced at her from
the corner of his eye, at first submitting to the resistance of
her bistre outfit, but soon he grew bold or more in need
(really, it was because he thought he was unseen) and saw
through the fabrics to her flesh and her body, to the brown
starkness of it, to its enduring physicality, but also to its
responses and surrenders; he saw it then in the completeness
of its activities, and was ashamed. He withdrew his gaze and
speculations from its truth, and contented himself instead
with the public display of her hands.
In the street outside the hotel, she took his hand in hers
and led him through the crowded foyer, she oblivious to
everything, natural in her natural needs; he not there, but
retired to another purpose more respectable, where intention
could be sincere.

In her room, she embraced him once and then sat him
on the bed and went into the tiny bathroom. He heard the
surge of flushing water and she returned, smoothing her
dress, and sat by him. She placed her hand in his with
complete equanimity.
He looked at the hand in his own open palm, feeling
himself grow rigid: the hand was small and dark, folded
along its length, within the square of his pink palm. He
wanted to talk to her, to regain some conventional mode with
her, for the shock of being taken to this room had been too
much, if only because he had not planned for it, and he
302
needed to regain some command of her, through the object-
making trick of conversation. He would have asked her about
her life and used it to project her into a past, so that he might
know her away from the immediacy of this moment in the
hotel room and then bring the image forward to join them on
the bed and protect him from the solid and silent vision of her
now, her hand lying in his, her strange face upon him, lit by
the naked light of her most natural need. She was shameless.
He would prefer her not to see his own desire, for that would
expose him totally.
She sat patiently beside him for many minutes; her
hand moved a few times in his, but caused no reaction; and
then she withdrew it and stood and walked across the room.
She stopped at the door, in the light of his vision, and literally
posed herself before him. His face was set and stern, he was
not himself; his cheeks were flushed, his eyes seemed to
bulge, as though with the force of will they tried desperately
to reduce the world outside to being their object. She didn’t
pity him: presumption deserves no pity – let it be its own hell.
Unable to satisfy her, cut off from her pity, he became as
inert as a rock, as natural and as final, and she felt her body
sag with disappointment. She sagged with her body, slipping
down into a new pleasure, the pleasure of future possibility,
not of some future act that replaced her present
disappointment and compensated for it but of pure
anticipation and faith in her own being and its future.
He saw that her position by the door was an invitation
to leave, that she was releasing him, and the thought of it
pushed him to a crisis. Now he felt shame: he was going to
fail – he was going to fail himself. He rehearsed the
303
possibility of rising and approaching her, of re-engaging with
her; though he tried, he could not tie the new beginning on to
the earlier rupture: it involved a request, really a submission
on his part – there was something he would have to admit and
he did not want to admit it: he did not want his failure made
public between them, for he believed that a past wrong could
never be righted, that experience in time laid down layers of
memory, as a sea lays layers of sediment on its bed, and to
pretend that one layer could be connected with another was
insincere and committed the impiety of connecting good with
evil. He saw her sag and saw the light go from her sloping
face; one leg buckled forward and her knee dented the gentle
flow of her skirt; he saw the hand rise slowly until the scarlet
tips touched her throat. He filled with tenderness for her and
it embraced her forlorn figure, the down-turned, hooded eyes,
the sensitive hand, the kink of her knee in the skirt. He saw
her now, the might-have-been; she was intensely beautiful –
because she was beyond him – and she was chaste and cool.
The tenderness grew fierce and began to masquerade as love;
but love could not find its object and so he began to pity her;
and his pity found an object and he came to see that he could
serve her. He shook as he rose to his feet and went to her.
She watched him come towards her. His eyes were
bright and moist, as though with love; but she felt no
response to him, so she knew he didn’t desire her. He came
close to her and paused, staring at her face. She returned his
gaze, knowing that her disappointment showed as a gentle
chiding. He didn’t realise that the moment was past, that she
had passed on to the future, there patiently to await the
opportunity. He took her hand from her throat and kissed it.
304
The act was reverent and she felt the laughter rise in her
breast: Pitre! Pitre! – the word sang in her head. But when he
dropped on to his knees before her and wrapped his arms
about her hips and laid his face into her groin, she was
shocked: it was a grievous wrong, she was no longer a
woman; he divided her, part chaste virgin, a mental thing, and
part an object for his service, a part that was no longer her
own. She shuddered when she saw the savagery of it.
He was abject and serious before her, wanting only to
serve her, to abolish his own will and submit entirely to her
dispositions. (That his wish to abolish his will was false he
knew deep down; he knew well that it was his will that
guided him, but it was necessary that he disown it, for then it
would be a better agent on his behalf.) He kissed her hand
and the contact with her was so powerful – it blazed his mind
with the knowledge that he was in command, for he took the
hand and he kissed it: it had not been offered, the kiss had not
been accepted – that he felt compelled to take a greater hold
on her. He slipped to his knees and threw his arms about her
and pressed his face into her body, feeling his mind and body
grow icy with love for his own success. The shudder was
transmitted to him through his face: he knew he had won.

She refused at first to go with him to the bed, but


agreed when it became obvious that he would take her there
by the door. He aroused her, but that was never at issue, she
had known from the first moment that this was possible, and
aroused, she submitted. She did not submit to him, she
submitted to the act that joined them, to the ritual of
lovemaking; but he did not realise this; he believed she
305
submitted to him, to his masculine will and force, and he
acted accordingly, feeling that he had the freedom of her, of
her being. He was not intentionally cruel, nevertheless she
experienced pain; he liked her cries and her sudden
thrashings, they replaced her potential love for him, now
gone; his use of her was a survey of the possible
gratifications to be gained from a woman’s body – he would
not believe it was a search, for she was not an end in herself.

Afterwards he went to the nearest Metro station and


took a train to his hotel. He fell on his bed and cried. For the
next week he felt as though he was dead.
Afterwards she didn’t cry, but she grieved, not for her
mistreated body, but for loss of innocence. The next day she
made the long journey home to Marseille, the grief tearing
her heart out.

306
ÜBER ETWAS,
ÜBER IRGEND ETWAS

307
His fellow workers in the Mannheim plastics factory
called him ‘Valsch’. He was an Irishman from County
Limerick, who had recently completed his studies for a
degree in English Literature at an English university. He was
in his early thirties, and whether he had decided to throw up
his career in a Dublin bank after fifteen years service in order
to improve himself or had reacted to what he might have felt
to be the growing barrenness of his life, no one was sure. He
was unmarried, though not without his reminiscences of
‘timely escapes’ from the clutches of a number of
Irishwomen bent on matrimony and children.
John Walsh’s fellow workers were, with the exception
of the chargehands, immigrant labour imported from Turkey
and Portugal. They had very little German and no English.
John had some German, Grundstufe and Hoch, which he used
sparingly and with trepidation.
These swarthy workers, naive but cunning within their
own societies, were cheerful or melancholy by turns during
working hours, their frame of mind determined by the pettiest
incidents. But in one thing they were unanimous: ‘Valsch’
afforded them endless amusement. His tendency to adopt
poses and attitudes best suited to humouring them, he was
shy of their bustle and tactile familiarity, made him appear a
clown in their eyes. John walked a tightrope of inspired social
tact between pits of appeasement and malice, and they
responded like a good audience, half aware that John buoyed
them up just above the realities of envy and outrage, and
contempt.
In the evenings they parted company and went their
own ways: the Turks and Portuguese to their hostels, John to
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walk in the city, to explore, to calm his unease. His studies
were completed and what followed from a total of six years
of effort, five years of correspondence courses and a final
year’s residence, lay within the scope of the formalities of an
examining body and the entrants board of a Catholic teacher
training college near London. Consequently he had nothing to
think about, but a lot to worry about, an irrational but
compulsive preoccupation with matters he could neither
control nor decide.
He discovered bars, clubs and brothels. He patronised
swank and grub indiscriminately, and found one big blond
whore to whom he returned regularly, having no reason for
this choice but experiencing however a mindless gratification
on her ample moist consoling flesh.
Between these visits he continued to haunt the town
with his silent gaunt form and penetrating stare. He absorbed
the names over shops and factories, cars parked outside
suburban homes, the alien pedestrians; he heard the trains
rumbling, going off into the darkness of Germany, the cars
and trams, the rapid, flat dialect of the natives, and the
laughter of those at home in familiar surroundings.
Then one night one of the Mannheim girls was
sufficiently attracted to him for him to offer to buy her a
drink. He made a serious attempt to speak his German. The
girls, brunette, nonchalant but genetically purposeful, laughed
frankly and bared his penis under the table and masturbated
him briskly, all the while clinking glasses with him and
shouting ‘Prosit!’ He walked with her afterwards, the arm he
laid over her firm shoulders tremoring. She pressed him with
her hip and dawdled with him in a doorway, her blouse open
309
for him, until a car pulled up at the kerb, its horn tooting. She
tapped John’s cheek, her eyes so bright, and ran towards the
rear door that was swung open for her. John distinctly heard
the driver shout to whoever sat beside him:
‘Über etwas!’
That night he walked for hours through the dark,
silencing streets, feeling released and anxious, until he came
upon the railway station in the early hours of the morning.
Here he fell in with a group of hippies, two Americans, one
French and five Germans: five men and three girls. They took
him with them to a cellar where more hippies lay about
listening to rock music and smoking. The small backroom,
separated by a dull-red curtain, disappointed him: several of
the brighter hippies sat on the floor talking in a mixture of
German and American slang. He was invited to join them,
but John preferred the blurring of the senses that the music
imposed. In any case, they gave him a joint and a light.
With the exception of an occasional ‘Hi’ from the
Americans, as an invitation to group, he was left to himself.
He puffed a few times on the joint before it went out and then
threw it away. He felt brittle and nauseated for a while after
afterwards.
At sunrise, about four in the morning, a fat middle-
aged man came through a door that John had not noticed and
threw the lot out. It took him a half hour to do so, but his
tolerance pointed to repeated experiences of this ritual.
Discovering that nobody had a home to go to, John
tagged along with them as far as the station. An American
talked to him non-stop about Vietnam, addressing him as
‘Man’. Intimidated, John tried to follow his monologue, all
310
the time overwhelmed by the brilliant clarity with which he
saw his surroundings.
At the station the sight of so many down-and-outs, of
all ages and races, brought him to his senses. He ran away.
Towards the end of his stay in Mannheim, John began
to extend the range of his excursions. He went by train to
Karlsruhe and Bonn, and once crossed the frontier to visit
Nancy. But his favourite jaunt was to Heidelberg, to the
famous university town of wide streets and gardens and, as it
was that year, grey wet skies. He drank beer in the student
taverns, amongst the tourists, and strolled about the campus,
hands deep in his pockets, eyes swivelling over the dark
buildings.
One Sunday evening he took a roundabout route from
the station to his room and came upon a small dingy tavern.
When ordering his second glass of beer, he suddenly
recognised the barmaid as the brunette he had met weeks
before. He stared at her. With his third glass she looked at
him in a significant way. John stayed at the bar and tried to
talk to her in his broken German. The Gastwirtin came up
then and was introduced as her father. He spoke English well,
with a slight northern accent. As he remarked, and in a way
that indicated that he often remarked, things hadn’t been the
same since the British troops left.
A three-way conversation ensued, in reality between
John and the daughter, whose name was Rutta, with the
father translating when necessary. But as John spoke to Rutta,
and Rutta responded in her practical way, the father seemed
to intrude himself between them. The conversation continued
in an offhand manner, made difficult by the language barrier
311
and the fact that the father’s blunt body stiffened and filled
the spaces between the words.
John went to his room and thought about Rutta. Later
that night he dreamed of her. In the factory on the following
day his preoccupation with Rutta dampened the spirits of his
fellow workers. He went that evening to the tavern and sat at
a table at the back of the room and watched Rutta. Tuesday
and Wednesday likewise in the factory and the tavern. In the
factory, malice and anger; in the tavern, mounting
desperation and significant looks. Thursday evening he asked
her to come out with him. She shook her said and said, ‘Nein,
nein. Mein Vater’. She threw a frightened glance towards the
backroom of the tavern. She tried to explain, but John could
not understand.
On Friday his fellow workers dropped all pretence
and cursed him roundly in Turkish and Portuguese. They
would have beaten him up if things warranted that, but John,
when it finally came to it that day, was even more wretched
than they to their way of thinking. Even so, the chargehand
came and dismissed him on the spot, pointing a stubby finger.
On Friday evening Rutta slipped him a small square
of cardboard on which was written: Morgen abend, 2O30,
beim Bahnhof.
John arrived at the station at eight feeling extremely
tense. This tension reached its first peak at eight-thirty and
then sagged as the minutes passed and Rutta did not appear.
At nine-thirty the dull ache across the back of his skull
became intolerable and he had to decide on a course of
action.

312
He walked quickly to the tavern and discovered it in
darkness. Above the silent bar, he saw Rutta silhouetted
against the drawn blind in what was obviously her room.
John shook with excitement at seeing this apparition. He
guessed why she had not come, and that she was not to
blame. He whistled softly, but his mouth was too dry. He
moistened his mouth and began to sing instead. The
silhouette moved. He recognised the air, it was The Rose of
Tralee. The blind was lifted and Rutta’s face was pressed
against the window for an instant. She shook her head
violently. John saw that she was crying. He continued
singing, afraid to break his last tenuous line with her. She
stood erect before the window and fumbled at her waist.
John’s singing faltered and he became weak at the knees,
fascinated to see her pull her blouse up over her head.
Then she turned at an angle and unhooked her bra. She
cupped her breasts in her hands and stood there, head thrown
back, hearing John sing and knowing he saw her.
John was close to the point of ejaculation when a
second silhouette suddenly entered the frame of the window.
This was shorter and stockier. It grasped Rutta’s shoulder and
jerked her away from the window. John sang more loudly.
Rutta reappeared at the window, her breasts quivering as she
fought to break her father’s grasp. This brought John to his
climax, and the shock of it threw him to his knees.
From that position he saw the father embrace his
daughter and finally drag her away from the window.
Still on his knees, head bowed and silence all around
him, John was surprised to find calm in him in place of the

313
habitual clamour. He grasped at this calm, sinking into it.
Then a totally irrelevant thought came to him:
Was Rutta the same girl?
He instantly dismissed the thought and sought the calm
again. But then he saw her breasts again and the thought
return in a more frightening form:
Was Rutta the same girl as... who?

Then he knew he would never escape this moment. All


he could do was to return home. But to... who?
There was no one there.
Like a prayer, John breathed, ‘Oh, Mamma.’

314
REHEARSALS

315
The two of them stood apart from the crowded and
noisy red room, one on either side of the unlit gasfire, which
was surmounted by an alcove faced with copper sheet, both
turned slightly away from the room and in towards this
alcove. They did not look at each other, though they were
obviously aware of each other’s presence. Reluctant friends,
spancelled by habits of companionship? I had never seen
either before.
I asked the older of the two. She must have been in her
mid-twenties – her body had that mature fullness, her face
that rather fixed handsomeness. She started when I spoke to
her and looked at me with unapproachable disdain, yet she
condescended to dance with me. I had been about to change
my expression from polite interest to one of So-what?-I-was-
only-doing-you-a-favour when she decided to accept my
offer, and I quickly replaced both with an ironic, if mildly
self-protective, curiosity. She took two steps away from the
fireplace and began to wave her arms and kick her feet out. I
remained a respectable distance from her, waving my arms
and kicking my feet out, and watched her while giving both
of us time to settle down together in this ritual of dance. Her
breasts were full under the blue silk-like dress and they
swung nicely to the rhythm of the rest of her body. My eyes
remained there and I became agreeably enthralled by them.
She danced, as did most of the people at the party, with
a certain inward concentration. She did not even once glance
at me. I watched her breasts swing and tremble, and felt nice.
When the record came to an end, and I realised she was
not going to run back to her station by the fire, I stepped
closer to her and said ‘Enjoying yourself?’ I could have
316
answered this question for myself without troubling her, but I
had to say something, something neutral and uncontroversial.
I am too worn down by these parties by now to play the role
of hero-as-an-original-man. She did no more than throw me
one silencing glance and return to gazing at some obscure
segment of the wallpaper on the opposite wall. I didn’t mind.
I stood close to her and looked down at her shoulders and
chest, and at the upper reaches of her breasts. By straining my
eyes I could see a couple of inches down into her cleavage,
but I did that only once and then returned to studying her
shoulders. Not obviously stimulating, perhaps, but they had a
nice shape to them: fleshy, lightly tanned and freckled. They
smelled nice, too.
She had taken trouble with her dress and toilet. This
raised my enthralment a notch. However, I was cool, hoping
for nothing; I simply enjoyed the sight and knowledge of her.
A new record was put on, this time in slow tempo, and
I let her make the first move. If she had wanted to jig and
swing to it I would have submitted gracefully. However, she
turned and stanced herself before me, arms out, just waiting
for me to take her in my arms. I did so coolly, not hurrying it,
and laid a limp arm about her waist and took her slightly
moist palm in against mine. She did not once look at me
during this manoeuvre, which was a pity, for now I was
dancing with a stranger when a friend, even a one-look-and-
one-smile friend, would have been preferable. So. Our steps
were elementary, lift right, lift left, and so on. I held her hand
out from her hip, putting a little tension into it so as to put a
little tension into our dancing, if it could be called that. She
remained inert, moving around with a certain amount of
317
rhythm, but if I had been a tailor’s dummy it would have
made no difference to her. No matter. As usual, I made the
most of it. Her cheek was close, so I studied it. Her make-up
was heavy, an assortment of creams layered on with some
expertise, a number of subtle shades of pink/red were
discernible before one reached the opacity of the undercoats
and her skin. I could make out the light down that covered
her cheek and trailed down from her hair on her neck and
forehead. Her eyes had been given a lot of attention.
Mascaras and shadow, brows trimmed and darkened – the
white of her eye was brilliant marble by contrast, a
surprisingly pleasing contrast at that distance. And her iris
was hazel, with reaches of green and flecks of yellow, a full-
scale world of its own, tremulous in reaction to the lights and
atmosphere of the room, contracting and expanding as though
a heart alive. Then the eye rolled and her pupil lit upon me
and I saw an elongated version of my own head in it. Which
means she looked at me looking at her. I lifted my head back
and focused upon the wall nearby, seeing at the edge of my
vision her brown dark hair. The record came to an end.
I kept my arm about her waist and she did not struggle
to escape its patronage. In fact, her hand rested on my
shoulder. It was a non-plus moment. I wanted to kiss her
brow. Not because I was violently in love with her all of a
sudden, nor because I had reached the peak of some burning
desire for her body equally as suddenly. No, because it was a
reflex. A habit. She was attractive and kissable, so why not?
However, I didn’t. Instead, I let my eyes drop down her body.
The dress reached just below her knees and hung in such a
way as to cover her legs and ankles from this angle.
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I record a fact: it wasn’t important at that moment.
There was enough to see as it was without needing the
supplementary delights of her legs. Her breasts were full, as I
have said; from this angle they filled my vision, full, round
and ample, and, I was sure, very soft. They were lightly
protected, for her nipples were embossed on the fabric of her
dress.
Another record, again slow. We took our places in each
other’s arms again and recommenced our two-step shuffle.
We danced, and the pale wallpaper, tinted red by the lamps of
the room, slid past my eves. In an instant, between two steps,
I was cold and depressed. To save myself, I tightened my
embrace of her waist. What were another girl’s breasts,
regardless of how full, how soft they were, among so many
girl’s breasts, some full and soft? What was another girl?
another rehearsal of some well-worn mystery of sex? when
there had been many girls, many rehearsals. What new thing
could be discovered at another party? when all the new things
had been revealed during the first dozen or so parties. It was a
small, quick plunge of depression and it passed quickly. I
tightened my embrace of her waist and nothing happened,
except that now and again her breasts grazed my chest. This
had happened before, many times, so there was nothing to go
wild about. Her breasts grazed my shirt front and if I had
wanted to concentrate enough perhaps I could have separated
the minor impression of her nipples within the major
impression of her breasts. But why bother? I knew without
having to concentrate that hidden within the soft resistance
and then the trembling waver there was another encounter,
this time pluckier because the flesh was more alive and
319
assertive. I thought this and knew then that I was not going to
evade the depression that easily. It returned with the
knowledge that though the images of her breast and nipple
were true, they were neither real nor moving. Something else
would have to be done. And the easiest thing to do is to
change. So I contemplated a drink and a cigarette. I was
comforted.
Suddenly then, her style of dancing changed. She came
closer to me, her arm about my shoulder reeling me in and
closing about my neck. She loosed my hand and wrapped her
now free arm across my back. Her breasts crushed against
me, soft but now amorphous. Her belly and groin confronted
mine.
Why this change? I didn’t know, except that perhaps
the caressing of her breasts had caused her to lose control of
herself. I didn’t think too much about it. I laid my freed hand
across her back and returned her hugs to encourage her to
continue them. She did. Her mouth turned and opened upon
my neck. Her hair fell across my face. Her hand in my hair.
And here the mystery began again and I was ever young, like
the first time, at some long forgotten party for teenagers, my
arms around a slimmer girl: delighted arms, blessed body, a
generous acknowledgement of what was granted by us both
to both – a cleaner hinterland, more trusting, oh more loving
for being more innocent. I caressed the back presented to my
hands and pressed the breasts in against my chest the more to
please her and myself: in time I reached her buttocks and
skated over them speculatively, liking their projection: this
was reflex, but none the worse for that: touch her buttocks
and her groin pressed mine; press her back and so squash
320
further her breasts – and she encouraged this by pressing and
gouging her own breasts of her own accord against my
manly, bonehard chest. Paroxysm. I traced her cleavage down
and she came in against me as though we were mated... Then
the record was over and she was away, head down, and back
with her friend, standing on her side of the fire. As though
nothing had happened.
I trembled all the way down the short hall into the
kitchen. I poured some gin into a glass and splashed in tonic.
No ice. I drank the sweet concoction with little pleasure. The
trembling subsided and I poured more gin and tonic. If the
dance had lasted another five seconds I would have spilled. I
was glad it hadn’t and I hadn’t. Is there anything more
useless than a walking-wank with a one-dance-girl? Is there
anything as bitter? I lit a cigarette and very soon I was quite
elated. What had happened wasn’t all that unusual. A shy girl
suddenly tearing loose. A kind of panic: trying to escape the
unavoidable by rushing it to its conclusion. She had nearly
succeeded. I realised then that I had reacted to my depression
by doing the same thing. I had brought her close to me so I
too could get over the top as quickly and as cleanly as
possible and get it over with before the deja vu and the regret
got there first. Better a bad ejaculation than being lost in time.
I poured myself another drink. Yet it hadn’t ended like that.
And another thing: the compulsion to force a hurried climax
betrayed an underlying desire to make love in a more amiable
and extended manner. Yes, she was very desirable.
Time to rejoin the party.

321
The two of them still stood apart from the crowded and
noisy red room. One on either side of the unlit gasfire. Each
turned slightly away from the room and in towards the
copper-faced alcove. I lit a cigarette. The younger girl looked
no more than eighteen. She expressed a clean nubility and an
unsure mixture of smugness and grace. They were an
intriguing couple. What did it imply? Something sinister?
The girl I had danced with stood with one knee bent forward,
so that it left its imprint on her dress. Significant? What
coursed in her blood? Had she not recovered as quickly as
me? One hand rested, fingers splayed, on the wall beside the
alcove; the other hung loosely at her side. The fingers,
however, were bent and pressed together. Another sign? This
was her left hand and on the third finger a slim band of gold.
Ah. I was piqued. I became somewhat abstracted, buoyed up
by a nostalgia for what might have been. The rise and fall of
her breasts, the delicate shading about them creating
perspective and allowing me to envisage their depth as well
as their contour.
The slight concavity of her back above the swell of her
buttocks. I tingled in memory: it was poetic, and in the poetry
the pain of regret...
Suddenly, the two of them ran from the room. Surprise,
surprise. Both threw me glances as they ran. Both, you will
note. Surprise. Surprise? If it was, it was also comical.
Who, I wondered, is protecting who? They ran, and the
room was darker and duller for their absence. And it was
further darkened by the appearance of a young man with a
sallow face and long lank black hair in the centre of the room,
among the few couples that danced. He searched the room
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with every indication of panic and potential violence. A
husband or a serious boyfriend. And drunk. One and one
makes two. A missing wife or girlfriend. And a searching
husband or boyfriend. Let him search. He was a husband and
he searched for his wife in the blue silk-like dress. That much
I guessed. The Teenager was much too smug to deserve this
chap on her tail. He looked at everybody, including me, but
found no spoor. Helplessly, he hurried from the room. I was
not necessarily curious, but I decided I would go and pour
myself another drink. Before I had reached the door I heard
the shouts, the general rumpus of enforced restraint, and a
bottle or two crash.
The kitchen was in emotional disorder. Most people
present were wide-eyed. The lank-haired husband was
saying, tensely and almost in entreaty (he was back to the
wall, one hand flat against it, finger-joints white, shapely
nails begrimed): ‘Paula Nicholson!’ as though this explained
everything, his panic, his bad manners, his utter futility.
Sandra, whose house and party it was, stood opposite him: a
slim, athletic figure with pretty blond hair. She did not wait
for her husband to come and protect her (he was in the front
room talking to Paul and Jill Macmahon). Instead, she threw
out an arm, as though throwing down the gauntlet of I-dare-
you-and-I’ll-kick-your-balls-in and said with great precision:
‘I don’t know where she is’. He repeated ‘Paula Nicholson’ a
few times and Sandra replied ‘I don’t know where she is’ in
response and then both of them seemed to deflate. If it had
been a play or a film I would have laughed at this point. But
it wasn’t and I didn’t. It was fairly real and therefore it could
bite. And I had a part, a small part offstage, I knew what he
323
was after better than Sandra, for instance, did. Perhaps better
than he did himself.
By now Mr Nicholson had levered himself away from
the wall and was approaching the company in the room with
an air of generalised menace. Just then, Sandra’s husband,
Simon, came into the room. Being taller than anyone else and
physical to boot, he managed to bring the room to some kind
of order. The lank-haired Mr Nicholson explained himself
and Sandra explained something and Simon listened patiently
to both of them. Patience is his finest point. He immediately
ordered a search of the house, and even led Mr Nicholson up
the stairs to the bedrooms. If it had been the police, with or
without a warrant, he would not have acted with more
alacrity. Some followed the two of them. I did not. Nor did
Sandra. She saw me and came over. Her smile was bright,
glazed. She pushed her hair off her forehead, a habit of hers
when she is excited:
‘Christ, he was ready to wreck the place.’
I nodded in acknowledgement and looked over her
shoulder to see if the bottle of gin had survived. It had. Two
bottles of Algerian red lay in pieces, their contents like weak
blood on the imitation parquet flooring. I reached over for it
as Sandra continued: ‘How on earth did he get in? I gave
strict instructions that no gate-crashers were to be let in. I told
Simon before that this would happen if he didn’t keep an eye
on the door. Anyone could slip in as someone went out.’ I
found the tonic easily enough and splashed some in on top of
the gin. Sandra and I had escaped once from a party up the
road and slipped in through this front door. We had
celebrated the novelty of its being her first time with a man
324
other than Simon on the floor of the front room, where I had
danced with Mrs Nicholson. It had been a bright beginning
but it had not lasted long. Sandra is a truly wilful person.
Simon had known about it from the start; when it was over
between Sandra and I he had called to see me. With a pathetic
diffidence he had explained patiently that it was not my fault.
He had not told me whose fault he thought it was and I had
not asked him.
Sandra continued talking and I nodded now and again.
She didn’t seem to notice that I wasn’t listening to her;
perhaps she did and chose not to show it. She wore a pair of
wellcut blue denim overalls and a rather coy shirt of cherry
pink cotton. She exuded good physical condition, her skin is
perfect, her figure is perfect: yet she knows she cannot hold a
man’s attention for more than a minute.
Simon and Mr Nicholson returned with three or four
other men in the rear. It was an all-male search party. And it
was without success. Mr Nicholson was contrite but his panic
was so great that he could not command either good manners
or a little grace: he shouted something and barged out
through the body of the search party and soon we all hear the
front door slam.
That slam is like the prick of a pin to a balloon: the
party deflates. Goodbye, enthralling party. A few more gins
and I will be away to my bed. I pour the first of these gins.
Simon has taken Sandra away. I know other faces in the
room, but I feel no desire to socialise. I drink the gin down in
one swallow and I am suddenly faced with a vacuum. I stand
on its brink. This is not depression: this is a more pervasive
feeling, boredom. I tell myself that I am bored, as I have done
325
many times before, and as usual nothing happens. The word
‘boredom’ does not kill boredom. I don’t honestly know what
boredom is. Apathy? Ennui? Well-worn despair?
I pour the second of my last gins as I think this. For
one thing the future has disappeared and nothing has taken its
place. I will sleep this night and tomorrow read the papers
and supplements; I will eat at one and at seven and then go
out for the evening. The future is there alright, but I have
already lived it. Lived it five hundred times. I light a
cigarette. The flavour is so familiar. I look at the cigarette.
Very sweet Virginia: plain and strong. I look and see it very
clearly: the clean white paper cylinder, the gold lettering. I
smell the burning tobacco. Suddenly I love the cigarette. I
drink some gin and tonic. I love the gin and tonic; love the
imitation crystal glass that contains it. I love the rather
chintzy kitchen, with its bright purposeful homeliness. I
expand and love the world. My throat tightens. This love
hurts: I’m alive again and back in time. Through excess is the
way home. You may not believe it, but I live a life that runs
constantly to excess.
I pour my last gin. I had intended drinking four, but
three will be sufficient. I want to move. I want to get into my
car and drive through this well-worn suburb to my flat. I want
to drive through the quiet streets, through the ghastly amber
light, under the trees (it is summer) and past the modest
semis.
I want to move, to move with the world I love.
I finish my last gin and tonic. I was ready for the world
now...
I wasn’t. Not quite. My bladder called...
326
I mounted the stairs two at a time...

As endings go, it was good. Mounting the stairs two at


a time... An ending in the minor key: relief, a poetic bliss of
sorts. Answering the minor call of nature before the major
call...
The bathroom was occupied. I pushed heavily against
the door before I realised this. ‘Just a sec,’ called a muffled
voice, someone bent over, or crouched on the pot. It was
Sandra. ‘Who is it?’ she said next, sounding less muffled, less
bent over or crouched. I heard the rustle of clothing. ‘It’s me,
Richard.’ I am always Richard to Sandra; as Pete is Peter and
Madge is Margaret. ‘Are you in a hurry?’ Afraid of what
replying ‘no’ might walk me into, I said ‘Yes’. ‘Just a sec,’
she repeated, ‘I’m almost finished.’ She sounded carefree.
Perhaps she feels more secure in her own bathroom. Then the
latch was drawn. I waited for the door to open. It didn’t. ‘It’s
open,’ Sandra invited. Nothing loath, I slipped in. The
bathroom is fairly small: a bath to the left, the bowl in the
right corner and a washbasin towards the door. Sandra was
struggling with the straps of her overalls in front of the basin.
Hot water gushed into the basin. Obviously she was trying to
do two jobs at once. Except that she was fouled up in one of
them. She looked up and smiled a public sort of smile: we
were not in the bathroom and her clothes were not undone: it
was all something else, somewhere else. ‘Will you help me
with these straps, Richard?’ She asked me in a voice she
would use to ask the help of a stranger, say to open the door
of her car at the supermarket. I helped her. Our hair mingled
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twice and I had to wrench forcefully a couple of times to get
the straps down to the buttons on the bib. Buttoning them, the
backs of my hands lay against her small breasts: back of left
hand upon right breast and right on left. It was nice, but not
that nice, they might have been plastic coated foam rubber.
She watched me with a cocky smile. Dressed, she thanked me
and turned her attention to the gushing tap. I went to the
bowl, thinking it the best place to wait until she had finished
her ablution. She had forgotten to flush the bowl. A thin stool
and a few pieces of floating shit betrayed a dry run. The
single piece of tissue was hardly creased and was marked
with nothing more than a light brown stain. I flushed it all
away into the sewers. I waited then. The water still gushed
behind me. Then Sandra interrupted my peace, for bathrooms
are peaceful places, with: ‘You know you were dancing with
her.’ ‘Who?’ I asked absently. ‘That man’s wife.’ I turned to
her. She had been watching me: but she was not embarrassed
about not having flushed her crap away. I was merely an
attendant in her home. ‘Oh,’ I replied, my eyebrows lifting. It
expressed everything or nothing. She turned the tap off and
lifted a nice clean towel from the rail beside the basin. She
watched herself drying her own hands. ‘I thought he would
go for me in the kitchen.’ She said this reflectively, she could
have been talking about a dream. She looked at me: ‘The way
his eyes stared. I thought he would foam at the mouth or
something. He might be an epileptic, you never know.’
Something crossed my mind, a suspicion. ‘Do you know her?
His wife, I mean.’ ‘Oh, yes. She cleans for me.’ Surprise,
surprise. What had Sandra been planning? ‘I thought she
would bring her husband. It seemed a good idea at the time to
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invite her.’ Nothing sinister, after all. Now she looked at
herself in the mirror. ‘You go ahead, Richard. Don’t mind
me.’ She smiled at me in the mirror: ‘After all, I’m a married
woman. You won’t shock me.’ She said this as though we
had never fucked. However, I obeyed her and unzipped. My
piddle spurted against the side of the bowl and hissed down
into the reservoir of water. With the clearing of my bladder
came the clearing of my head. I felt reasonably good and
remembered my mood downstairs. ‘It’s funny you’ve never
married, Richard. You can easily afford it now.’ Sandra was
now brushing her hair. It struck me suddenly that she might
be stalling. A thought crossed my mind: Does she want me to
fuck her here in the bathroom? Surely not. We’d had our
fling years ago. Besides, her overall thing was almost a
chastity belt. ‘Uh huh,’ I said noncommittally. ‘You must be
in your middle thirties now.’ ‘Uh huh.’ I heard her put the
comb down, then she was at my side. I was in the process of
shaking the last few drops from my penis. She looked down
at it. ‘You’re an absolute scoundrel,’ she said calmly. It looks
like affectionate abuse on paper. It wasn’t: it was arch,
Imitation Victorian. Calmly, I stuffed my penis away and
zipped up, asking: ‘Why?’ ‘The way you led that woman on.
Honestly, there were others down there who are more your
sort.’ I flushed the bowl with sudden fury. She was smirking
when I turned to her. I said: ‘Who for instance? You?’ It
wasn’t a good counterstroke. She should have been prepared
for it. To my deep satisfaction, she wasn’t. She threw her
head up and marched out of the bathroom. I let her go. I
could make up later. I ran my hands under the cold water and
splashed some on my face. I dried myself. The gin had made
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me slow and I didn’t like that. I should have anticipated her.
But it was impossible to explain what had happened during
that dance with the woman in blue. It would seem as though I
was making excuses for myself. It was too complicated. I
dipped into depression. Too late and too much drink for
thoughts like this. I made for the door: the easiest thing to do
is to change. I had one foot on the stairs: the front door was
open below and I could see the sterile glow of the street-
lighting, when:
‘Excuse me.’
‘Yes?’ I said politely before turning. Not knowing
what would happen next, I was neutral. It was Teenager.
‘You’re the one who danced with Paula.’ It was a flat
statement delivered in Neo-Cockney, the sort suburban
Cockneys who have been through school speak. I made my
‘Uh huh’ speech. ‘I thought you were,’ she said with
satisfaction. ‘I saw you come up the stairs.’ She came into the
light on the landing. She looked tired: way past her bedtime.
‘Will you come in here. I want you to help me.’ Indeed, I
thought. Her self-possession was comical, otherwise it would
have been presumptuous. I followed her into the spare
bedroom. On the bed sat or lay the woman in blue: Mrs Paula
Nicholson. She propped her head on her right hand, her
elbow resting between the pillow and the headboard; her legs
were drawn up under her bottom – the nylon stocking about
her knees ready to burst apart under the pressure, and her left
hand was buried between her thighs. Her breasts trembled as
the rest of her shook with sobs. I noticed her breasts
immediately: they were my introduction to her, the part I
knew best. Teenager came and stood beside me and imitated
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my study of her. ‘She’s been like this since we came up
here.’ ‘What’s wrong with her?’ I asked clinically. ‘I don’t
know. She won’t tell me,’ Teenager said disarmingly. ‘I
thought she might tell you.’ Well, wise old adult that I am, I
sent Teenager downstairs to fetch some water. I explained
something about fresh water and tank water. Away she went,
eager to do my bidding. Then I sat down beside the woman in
blue. I shook her shoulder gently. Her flesh was hot and it
quivered violently at my touch. She turned a bruised-looking
face to me, eyes red, mascara all down her cheeks: the layers
of translucent cosmetic had long been ruined. ‘Hi,’ I said, a
little out of character: ‘Remember me?’ I thought it best to
get over this potentially traumatic memory first. She bit her
lower lip and nodded. ‘Mind if I smoke?’ I asked
conversationally. She pulled her hand from between her
thighs and signalled that I could go ahead. I lit a cigarette. As
I did I prepared my opening gambit (Right, tell me all about
it./What’s the matter then?) but she saved me the trouble by
blurting out: ‘He’ll beat me. He’ll beat me, I know it.’ The
important point about this statement is that I had no answer
for it, except perhaps an incredulous stare. She began to
repeat it, but I stopped her by asking: ‘Why didn’t he come
with you?, This produced results: ‘I didn’t tell him about it. I
wanted to come on my own, see, and enjoy myself. I asked
Angie to come so we could have an adventure. Angie has
never been to a party like this before and she said she would
enjoy it too. He went out to play football and I knew he
would drink with his mates afterwards and I thought we
would be back before he got home. I didn’t know the party
wouldn’t get going till nearly twelve o’clock and I couldn’t
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pull myself away without having just one dance or something
to make the night worthwhile. And then he came in like a
madman and I knew he would beat me if he found me here.
He would beat me in front of all these nice people. I was
ashamed and we ran up here and hid under the bed and
waited till he was gone. I don’t know how he found out we
were here. Angie’s Mom must have told him. Maybe she was
worried too, because I told her that Angie would be home
before twelve.’ She looked up at me. She seemed relieved by
this confession. Her sobbing subsided. I said: ‘Has he beaten
you before?’ ‘Oh yes, but it wasn’t anything serious. This is
the first time I’ve lied to him. He’ll murder me for that,
because he’s straight.’ I felt pity for her. A distant, because
strange, and awesome. because intense, pity. It frightened me.
I checked myself and said: ‘Look, you fix yourself up and I’ll
take the two of you home. I don’t know how you’ll pacify
him, but we’ll think of something.’ I remembered Teenager
and the water. She should have been back long before now. I
opened the door and discovered her bent before it, hands on
her knees and her mouth open. She had no water. She jumped
back and looked at me with defiance. I went to the bathroom
and filled the tooth-glass, ignoring my earlier distinction
between fresh and tank water. Teenager followed me in.
‘Will he beat her?’ she asked me, more eager curiosity than
concern in her voice. ‘I don’t know,’ I replied curtly. I should
have shown anger or disapproval, but I couldn’t. Her naivety
charmed me. I brought the water to Paula and she gulped it
down. Then she sat on the edge of the bed, wringing her
hands and staring at the floor. ‘Fix yourself,’ I reminded her.
She threw me one look and ran her fingers through her hair. I
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turned to Teenager and told her to help her. She leaped to
obey me and in a second it was as though I wasn’t in the
room: they began to bicker at once about what should be
done. Paula wanted to replace her make-up and Angie wanted
her to go and wash the whole lot off. Still bickering, Paula
applied cream and lipstick; then she suddenly broke off doing
this and agreed with Angie. She went into the bathroom.
Angie made as though to follow her, then she stopped and
glanced at me and came back. She waited until the door of
the bathroom closed before saying: ‘She liked you. She
thinks you’re sexy.’ This was frankly said. I smiled.
However, to business: ‘Why did she come without him? She
must have known there would be trouble.’ Angie flopped
down on the bed and patted that I was to follow suit. I did so.
She composed her hands in her lap, wrinkled her young face
and then turned to me. ‘She didn’t think of that. She could
only think of the fun she was going to have here. When the
party was over and she had to go home again was like the end
of the world to her, not worth worrying about.’ ‘But,’ I
interjected, ‘She couldn’t have enjoyed herself. She danced
only once as far as I know.’ And I couldn’t help adding: ‘You
must have had a worse time. You never got to dance at all.’
She paused before replying: ‘Oh, I thought it was interesting.
Anyway, I thought you would dance with me next.’ She
threw me a very sweet look as she said the latter. ‘How can
you be so sure?’ I bantered. ‘Because I’m young and not
married.’ I smiled openly: ‘That’s no guarantee.’ She was
suddenly crestfallen, and she fought against it: ‘But you
would have. You’re no different than the other men.’ Now I
was surprised. Had I been wrong about her? ‘How do you
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mean?’ ‘Oh,’ she flounced, ‘men are always asking me to go
to bed with them.’ I had asked for that. Nevertheless, I stuck
it out: ‘And do you?’ She gave me a long theatrical look:
‘What do you think?’ Then she looked clever and superior: ‘I
wouldn’t give them the satisfaction.’ I decided not to pursue
the subject. We were getting on to thin ice: I didn’t know
how serious she was trying not to be. I sat back and lit
another cigarette. Angie mistook this for rebuff. She turned
quickly to me and said: ‘But you are nice.’ I was in again
with a chance in her own private tragi-comedy. ‘Thank you,’
I said too-stiffly. I did feel rebuffed. This was getting too
deep. But I wasn’t to escape so easily. She stood up and
stanced herself with parted legs before me. ‘Look at me,’ she
said with a mixture of defiance and entreaty. ‘I saw you look
at Paula downstairs as though you would like to eat her.’ She
made sure she was in the light and that I could see her clearly
– when:
Paula came back. She looked ungainly. All arse and
tits. She had washed her face and combed her hair. She
looked less of a disaster area now and more of a woman fat
and old before her years. I said: ‘Feeling better?’ She smiled
wanly and nodded. ‘Don’t worry,’ I continued, ‘we’ll think of
something.’ I stood up and told Paula to sit on the bed. Then I
turned quickly on Angie, still poised in the centre of the
room, and told her, with affectionate brusqueness, to run and
wash her face. She put her hand to her face in surprise and
ran out. I sat beside Paula and offered her a cigarette, which
she accepted in silence. I lit it for her. I waited until she had
exhaled her first lungful of smoke before speaking: ‘How
many children have you?’ She replied glumly: ‘Four.’ I had
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always thought that children were a source of happiness for
women. ‘Are you not happy?’ I asked her tenderly. She
looked at me as though I had broken into a foreign language.
I returned her stare. Her eyes were very red. ‘I had the first
one when I was seventeen.’ This was meant to explain
something. She had spoken with a mixture of emotions:
resentment, pain, ingratitude, but also with pride and
satisfaction. I think she meant it to explain everything. I
suddenly saw her stools: bumper, moist, steaming; in a word,
generous. ‘Did you enjoy yourself at all tonight?’ I asked her.
She was disarmingly shy: ‘Yes.’ Then she was defiant: ‘I
did.’ She looked me in the eye in a provocative way.
‘Really?’ I countered. She tossed her head as though to defy
me further: ‘Yes, I got enough... I was tensed up, see?’ I
lowered my eyes. I did not want her to see my blush. ‘Will
you go to more parties?’ I said. She laughed: an atavistic
laugh. ‘Yes!’ No more than that. It seems unconvincing on
paper. In actuality it wasn’t: her whole body expressed it. I
felt it wash over me. I put my hand on her fine knee and said:
‘I’ll tell Mrs Amesbury.’ She patted my hand; it wasn’t
encouragement – it was charity. ‘Don’t you dare. She
wouldn’t have me in to clean if she thought that.’ I squeezed
her knee and she smiled at me and pressed down on my hand.
My breath caught. I moved my hand slowly up her thigh and
her hand remained resting on mine, though not in any way
hindering me. It sank down between her thighs and she jerked
convulsively and sobbed. I stared at her heaving breasts –
then:
Angie came back. She marched in with a set face and
said offhandedly: ‘Don’t mind me.’ I was sure she had been
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listening at the door again. I minded her. I pulled my hand
away and Paula’s face lost that bland, doting expression. I
pulled myself together. I had difficulty in hiding my erection
when I stood up. ‘Well,’ I said breezily, ‘are we ready?’ I
caught Angie’s glance at Paula: she was jealous, violently so.
And what was worse, Paula recognised it and smiled sweetly
in return. I hadn’t thought of jealousy, but thinking of it now
I realised it explained a lot of their behaviour in the bedroom.
I got out of the room and hurried down the stairs. In the hall
Sandra stopped me: ‘Richard, I thought you had gone hours
ago.’ She seemed friendly. Over her shoulder I saw Simon
and the Macmahons, and a few others, sitting around the now
lit gasfire. They were drinking coffee and listening to Simon
and Garfunkel. ‘I’m dropping some people off,’ I said by way
of apology or explanation: not knowing which was required
at this moment. Everyone heard Paula come down those
stairs. Sandra looked up. ‘Why, Paula,’ she said in her most
public voice, ‘I thought you had gone absolutely ages ago.’
She paused before continuing: ‘Your husband was looking
for you, you know. He was terribly upset. I’ve never seen
such a worried man.’ Paula came down into the hall,
followed by a murderous looking Angie. ‘He’ll get over it,’
Paula said loudly, damning accent and volume. It came
straight from the shoulder and Sandra got it between the eyes.
Paula pushed her head over Sandra’s shoulder and called into
the cosy room: ‘Goodnight, everybody. Great party, Mr
Amesbury.’ Simon was on his feet, considerate and physical.
He came to the door with us – Sandra had disappeared. While
Angie walked with me to the car, Paula stayed for a moment
to talk with Simon and we heard both of them laughing,
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loudly. The laughter broke upon the sleeping street like the
instant of creation. I could picture Simon’s growing flush.
There would be war in the Amesbury household on the
subject of Paula’s continued employment as cleaner. Then
she came out on to the pavement, still laughing, waving to
Simon. She was chuckling as she got in beside me. Angie
gave a long theatrical sigh of boredom.
It wasn’t far to the council estate. Paula had quietened
as we neared her home, but she didn’t lose heart. I stopped
outside on the road. ‘Let’s all go up and try to explain to your
husband what happened,’ I volunteered. Paula wrenched at
the unfamiliar door-handle, saying: ‘Billy won’t listen to
anything we have to say. I lied to him and that’s that.’ ‘No
matter,’ I insisted, ‘we’ll all go up.’ Then Angie in the back
muttered: ‘Not me. I don’t want to have to fight him off.’ I
decided to be firm with her: ‘OK. You go home and I’ll walk
Paula home.’ We got out of the car. Angie hesitated, threw
one killing look at Paula and went off down a path towards a
block of the flats. Paula glanced at me, to see how I had
reacted to Angie, then she smiled and shrugged. We walked
in silence down the same path, under the harsh sodium lights
the council had provided. She was quiet now, obviously
beginning to steel herself for the coming trouble. I could do
little to protect her. I don’t think she either expected or
wanted me to do anything. We passed the first block and then
came to some trees. It was quiet, with only a few lights on in
the flats. I remarked on the rather stark beauty of the trees in
the white light of the sodium lamps. Paula stopped walking
and grasped my arm. ‘What’s wrong?’ I asked, my voice
betraying tension. ‘It’s not that,’ she said. ‘Come in here.’
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She pointed towards the trees. Once in the dark of the little
grove, she said: ‘Kiss me.’ She spoke with urgency rather
than passion. ‘But shouldn’t you go in?’ I asked. ‘It’s late,
you know.’ She caught my hand. ‘Don’t you want to?’ she
asked, suddenly querulous. I stepped closer to her. She lifted
my hand and pressed it fitfully against her breasts. They were
as soft as I had imagined them to be. So were her lips. Her
mouth was huge, her tongue very ticklish and wet. She
seemed to struggle, then she broke away. She caught me by
the shoulders and stared up at me. When she had finally
caught my eye, she said almost in desperation: ‘Do it to me,
please.’ I squeezed her breasts and her face crumpled as she
sighed loudly. I did not believe then that I was either the true
cause or true object of her intense desire. Nevertheless, her
desire had a pattern that was familiar to me, and it was this I
responded to. Perhaps unavoidably, she became an object of
my service. Her eyes were closed and her mouth hung open.
When I lifted her dress, she immediately bent and
pulled/pushed her panties and stockings down and pulled
them over her foot. She leaned back against a tree, bent her
knees apart and held up her dress to further facilitate me. I
was mechanical in unzipping and pushing my own clothes
down. It was awkward at first, until she thrust forward and
lifted her body, then I entered her: ample, well-worn, much
fucked from early years, four children, and very moist. It was
this realisation which prompted me to let go. Though it didn’t
last very long, our passions were furious and utterly
abandoned.
Afterwards, she quickly pulled up her stockings and
panties and settled them upon her with a complicated twist
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and push of her hips. Then she kissed me clumsily and said in
a low voice: ‘Thanks. That was lovely.’ She was abstracted. I
don’t think she knew who she was speaking to.
She giggled a lot between the trees and the stairs that
led up to her flat. ‘Better be hung for a sheep as a lamb’ was
the motto. She repeated it often. At the foot of the stairs I
said: ‘Will he beat you?’ I was uneasy for her, though less
now than earlier. ‘Not now he won’t,’ she said, seemingly
returning to earth. I was puzzled. Had she been leading me
along with some obscure scheme? ‘He’ll be asleep,’ she
explained. ‘The light’s out. I’ll sleep on the settee.’ ‘Won’t he
have locked you out?’ ‘No. He took the bolt off so I wouldn’t
hear him coming in when he’s drunk.’ The last thing I did
before she went was to shake her hand. It was a complicated
gesture – as wise as I could be at four in the morning.
I felt muzzy and slightly self-conscious as I walked
down the path to my car. I had a nagging feeling that I had
left something behind. Perhaps it was shame, but I thought
then that it was regret. It wasn’t that I felt guilty for leading
Paula on, for being the cause of her troubles. I wasn’t. It was
because I saw, though perhaps not for the first time, that our
passions are ultimately not our own.
Anyway, I also saw that the sky was light in the east.
Day had come.

...It was four in the morning: the start of a bright


Sunday.

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The story should have ended there for sure: night-
thoughts ending with the greeting of a new day, a kind of
protective wrapping for the reader.
But it didn’t...
Angie sat on my car, swinging her legs, looking up at
the bright new day with confident expectation. The sun
always rises...
I had had time to look at her in the bedroom before
Paula returned from the bathroom (Angie had been right: I
hadn’t paid much attention to her downstairs). I have not
hitherto mentioned this because there was no reason to. The
two things most obvious about her are (1) her unusually
spherical breasts and (2) how badly she dressed. The skirt she
wore was far too tight on her hips (the zip at the back was
broken and didn’t fasten fully, exposing a diamond of mud
coloured panties) and hung unevenly. It looked as though it
had been hastily run up, using material that had been woven
on a home-made loom by either a blind or crippled person. It
colour was indeterminate: either a blue of sorts or a purple of
sorts. The blouse was as bad: again too tight (bare flesh
between the buttons down the front), made of a cheap nylon
fabric that had been washed to a shade of dull white with a
hint of pale blue. The bra that showed plainly through it was
all humps and bumps and too small for its purpose. She wore
no make-up except a clashing (clashing with what?) lipstick.
She had obviously raked her hair, which was sun-bleach in
colour, once or twice – while cleaning her teeth or something.
Don’t misunderstand me: this is not an example of Welfare
State poverty. These people no longer know what poverty is –
neither do they know what richness is. It was an example of
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Welfare State indifference; an evasion of social pride and
self-respect, and that for better or worse. She was not a pretty
sight, but she did look tremendously fit and sane. And
sceptical, keeping some kinds of personal truths to herself.
She was not sexy, but she looked as though she could
undertake it as a practical activity without doing anything
foolish. So. She was a private person; a suburban person.
She waved a careless hand offhandedly: ‘You took
your time.’ It was matter-of-fact: but it betrayed a remnant of
her earlier jealousy.
I didn’t play: I was oblique: ‘I thought you had gone
home.’ I left her out there on her own.
‘I changed my mind. I don’t feel like going home.’
I rattled my keys. ‘Well, I’m off. It’s after four.’
She tilted her head: ‘Enjoy yourself?’ Yes, the jealousy
was still there. It rankled against her will. I nodded with
studied complacence: I would give her nothing.
This annoyed her: ‘Did you get what you wanted?’ I
had a suspicion that she had been watching.
‘Paula did,’ I said levelly, challenging her eyes. It
stung. By rights she should go home now. She slipped off the
car and murmured, ‘Oh’. She sounded as though she was
deeply puzzled by something.
I opened the door and got in behind the wheel. Before I
had the key in the ignition she was in beside me. She sat quite
still for at least a half minute, her hands in her lap, her eyes
straight ahead. I should have spoken then, but I didn’t.
She looked over at me: ‘Take me to your flat.’ She
suddenly stretched her hands above her head, pressing them
against the roof. Her blouse underwent terrific strain.
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I knew that her request, or instruction, promised
nothing. Jealousy was prompting her. Anyway, I was tired.
‘No. You go home. Your parents will be worried about you.’
She shook her head with instant annoyance and slid
lower in the seat. She lifted her left foot on to the shelf under
the glove compartment. ‘They don’t know,’ she said wearily,
as though my remark about her parents betrayed my
stupidity. Her knee was level with my eye, bare and white.
Her skirt slid slowly back up her thigh. Two more inches and
I would have seen the crotch of her mud yellow panties. My
penis, stiff and sticky with Paula, moved. Angie, as I have
said, wasn’t sexy as such, she didn’t ordinarily make appeals
of this sort. She was direct and very physical. Her bare legs
were real, were themselves in a daunting way: they could not
be turned into something else.
‘Come on now, Angie. The party’s over.’ It was the
first time I had called her by name and she noticed it:
‘What’s your name?’ She said this while continuing to
gaze straight ahead.
‘Richard. But you can call me Dick, if you wish.’
‘No. I’ll call you Richard. You’re more of a Richard
than a Dick.’ She looked at me in triumph. Was this how she
gained her victories? Where Paula gave you her breasts to
reduce you, did Angie subvert your whole ego? Did one seek
only the appropriate means for release while the other sought
the whole man?
Angie returned to looking out the windscreen. She had
a pronounced face: stubby nose, regular, hard-looking lips,
and steady blue eyes. But she was not a subtle girl.
‘And your proper name is Angela?’
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‘Yeah.’ Toughly said. Then relinquishing: ‘Angela
O’Brien. But I don’t like it.’
‘What if I called you Angela?’ I teased, my way of
matching her toughness.
She threw her eyes to the roof. ‘Just like you.’ She was
flattered. How easily she was flattered. Her need for attention
made her more human.
‘Now, Angela, will you go home.’ I tried to sound firm
and final. The sun was almost up. The red sky just above the
line of chestnut trees on the edge of the estate was turning to
pure fire. The street had a clean, fresh quality that I was not
used to seeing. It struck me that each day began like this.
Angie had taken her foot down. Was this an
experiment that had failed? I suddenly doubted it. She didn’t
seem that self-conscious of her body.
‘Let me go home with you,’ she asked face to face. ‘I
won’t be a nuisance, honest. I want to talk to you. I know I
can talk to you.’
‘But it’s so late. Look, the sun is up.’
She glanced in that direction and dismissed it with a
twist of her nose. Then she turned and grasped my hand:
‘Please! I won’t stay long. You needn’t drive me back.’
Her hand was dry and strong. She won some kind of
victory. Yet it wasn’t jealousy that drove her. I relented and
said dispassionately, while switching on the engine:
‘Alright. But remember, this is your idea.’
She sat upright and clasped her hands about her knee:
‘Don’t worry. I can look after myself.’

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Indeed. She was trying to have it all her own way. First
she pleads with me to take her to my flat, then she warns me
off rape!
I put the car in gear and moved off as quietly as
possible:
My flat is modest, by any standards, with little more
than the necessities in it.
Angie put her hands on her hips, looked around,
nodding and beginning to smile:
‘Nice’ was all she said. But it was appreciative. While
I switched the kettle on she went into the other rooms. We
met back in the sitting room.
She waved one hand at me. She smiled in a way that I
can only describe as intimate. ‘It is really good, Richard.’ She
said this as though it was a hard-earned judgement. ‘I never
guessed it would be like this. It’s so...so simple.’
I motioned that she should sit where-ever she wished.
She chose a straight-backed chair by the table. ‘What did you
expect?’ I asked.
She waved that hand again: ‘Oh, you know. Lousy
furniture, bits of this and that. You know, sentimental.’
She looked at me with intimacy: ‘I must tell you this,
Richard. When I first saw you I thought you were queer.’
‘Why?’
‘The way you seemed apart from everybody at the
party. As though you were different from them all.’
I was defensive. We were, after all, strangers.
‘I’m not different.’

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‘Oh, you are,’ she shouted, unexpectedly boisterous.
Was she trying to programme me again? ‘You’re modest and
you’re independent!’
Independence, perhaps. But modesty?
‘Hardly modest, Angie.’
‘Oh, you are! That’s why I thought you were queer.
Because you were so patient with Paula.’
The kettle! I hurried into the kitchen. It was boiling. I
asked Angie whether she wanted tea or coffee.
‘Whatever you are making for yourself,’ she sang in
reply.
I made tea.
‘Are you hungry?’ I called. I waited for her to answer,
but she came into the kitchen. ‘Are you hungry?’ I asked her
again.
‘What have you got?’
‘Bread, cheese.’ I opened the fridge. ‘Eggs? Some
bacon. Tomatoes.’
She came over to the fridge. ‘Let me fix something.’
I fell back. ‘Do you want any thing?’ she asked me.
‘Some cheese and tomato.’
She busied herself. Efficiently. In no time at all she had
some sandwiches prepared. I poured the tea.
‘Oh good. You made tea. I don’t like coffee.’
We went back to the sitting room. She resumed her
seat by the table and I sat opposite. It was difficult to eat
much: I would have preferred sleep to food. Angie ate
everything before her. When she had finished, she said:
‘You know he’ll beat her.’
‘You mean Paula?’
345
‘Yes.’
‘How do you know?’
‘He does it regularly, she says. I think she actually
likes it. That’s why she got into such a state tonight.’
‘But she said he would be asleep.’
‘She was only trying to stop you worrying about her.
He’ll still be up. He’s crazy about her.’
‘Why then did she do it?’
‘She wanted to enjoy herself, as she said. And she did
enjoy herself. You made her night for her. And because she
enjoyed herself and was happy, she knew she would be
punished.’
I must have looked shocked, for she went on:
‘They’re all like that. The minute they’re happy they
get guilty and expect to be punished. Funny thing is, they are
usually punished in some way or other.’
‘That’s nonsense. You’re being morbid.’
‘Don’t you believe that?’
‘No, of course not.’
‘Are you ever happy?’
‘Yes, I am.’
She went to get the teapot. I looked out the window.
The rays of the sun fell on the chimney pots of the houses on
the other side of the avenue. Everything was very quiet.
The beauty of the morning didn’t distract me. It
seemed little more than a silent still image. Even so, studying
that image released something in me: in contrast to the
morning scene, I was aware of the constant movement within
myself.
Angie came back. She poured tea for both of us.
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‘Are you happy, Angie?’
She didn’t answer. I watched her walk out with the
teapot and come back and sit down. Her face was grim.
‘No,’ she said shortly.
‘Are you afraid of being punished?’
‘I don’t know. I don’t know why they’re always
punished.’ She looked at me with a peculiar dogged
intentness and I knew she was going to confess something
private. ‘I just don’t have the nerve, Richard.’
‘Nerve?’ I prompted. I knew what she meant.
‘Yes. I can’t let go. Not the way Paula does. She takes
it both ways. But I want everything to be peaceful. I don’t
want to be touched by people and things, because you never
get to the bottom of them.’
I finished my tea. The sun was still shining on the
chimneys. It was beginning to touch the roofs. I realised that
one can be very aware of the movement of the sun when it is
rising.
‘You’re like that too, Richard, aren’t you?’ Angie’s
voice was tender, but it seemed a weakness in her, a pose.
From her, it was an appeal of the wrong kind. It let in more of
life than she could safely handle. She was trying to wrap the
two of us in a cocoon of rational passivity. That’s what she
meant by ‘talk’: she wanted to kill life with words. But she
didn’t seem to realise that she was also trapping life in the
cocoon with us.
So I said: ‘Angie, you’re always letting go. You’re just
refusing to acknowledge that.’

347
She didn’t like that. It frightened her. She shook her
head with a kind of intimidating authority. ‘No. I don’t do
what Paula and her likes do.’
‘No. Not like that. But look, you punish yourself even
so. Look at how you dress.’
She did. Then she took up her cup and drank, to cover
her self-consciousness. When she had drunk, she said ‘Yeah’
into the cup with a tone of contempt that showed her refusal
to be convinced.
I stood up. The talk was ended. ‘Come on. I’ll drive
you home.’
She looked at me in surprise. ‘Not yet. I’ve only just
got here.’
I glanced at my watch. Five fifteen. ‘I want to get to
bed.’
‘Look,’ she said directly to me. ‘You go in and I’ll let
myself out when I’m ready. I told you I’d walk home, didn’t
I?’
I felt too weary to argue with her. I rubbed my chin and
waited in silence.
‘Look,’ she said again, just as forthrightly. ‘Would you
like me to go in with you? Go to bed with you, I mean.’
Once she said that I wasn’t surprised. But it was hard
to know what was motivating her: jealousy, loneliness, or a
means to go on talking.
‘I thought you didn’t give satisfaction,’ I said, my
teasing sounding malicious.
She showed no reaction to this. Instead, she was totally
preoccupied and serious, as though something else was on
her mind. But she said: ‘I didn’t mean it that way. I was
348
talking about the guys who hang around the estate. You’re
different, I’ve told you that. I can talk with you. Really talk, I
mean. I wouldn’t mind it with you.’
Her passivity made her a sexual object, of course, and I
responded to that. But that’s always a chimera. But she was
being different to her usual self, that much was true. So I
said:
‘You’re still jealous of Paula, aren’t you?’
It worked. She flared: ‘That fat old bitch!’ Then she
quietened and said insinuatingly: ‘How could you fancy an
old bag like that, Richard?’
I suppose there were deeper motives, but that was
enough. Anyway, my bladder was full after the tea. As a
parting shot, I asked:
‘You know why Paula gets punished, Angie?’
She didn’t like talking about her. ‘I suppose you’ve got
some religious reason about sex,’ she threw at me, gesturing
that she wasn’t really interested.
‘Goodness, no. Though she might have. Well,
superstition anyway. No. It’s her selfishness. She steals her
gratification from others.’
‘But he’s crazy about her!’ she shouted.
I stepped back towards the door. ‘Crazy about what,
Angie? Her tits? Her cosmetics? Or the children?’ I went to
the door. My bladder was insistent. ‘Here’s another thing,
Angie. Is she crazy about him?’
I darted to the bathroom. Pissing, my head cleared. I
didn’t think of what I had just said, nor did I anticipate her
reaction, as I had planned to do. Instead I suddenly realised
what happiness is. Everyone knows what happiness is. The
349
difficulty lies in saying what it is. But like love, it is a form of
active identification. I mean something which is done rather
than thought. I had been happy earlier in the night. And from
the quiet centre of my bathroom in the early hours of Sunday
morning, I realised that I am in fact a happy person. But I
don’t have to think about it, it just is. Then I saw that it is also
like passion, in that it is recognised only when it is past.
That’s when you do think about it, because that’s the only
way to experience it, in memory. So, like love and passion,
happiness is transcendent. Then everything went clunk and
everything was in place. I had to make a note of it
immediately. It may not be true, but it was a crest of insight.
I flushed away my piss.
Angie was poking about my few books on the shelf
beside the fireplace. She was bent over and her skirt was
drawn tightly across her buttocks, the diamond of mud
coloured cloth stretched into a new and irregular shape. The
backs of her knees were blue.
She heard me come in and turned, a book in her hand.
‘Hey, Richard, is this you? Richard Butler?’
I glanced at the spine. ‘Yes.’
She seemed amazed. She began to flip through it,
reading passages.
I searched the drawer of my desk, not sure which
notebook to use. It didn’t seem a story insight and I’m not a
philosopher. I decided to put it into my old red diary, into
which I sometimes put those profound thoughts which are
both too personal and far less profound on second reading.
‘Is this where you write?’ Angie was standing beside
me. She picked up a pencil and I grabbed it from her.
350
‘Leave that alone.’
I found a pen. She leaned over, watching me write:
Transcendence: a state/mood/passion which
consciousness of can radically affect. Love. Passion.
Happiness. Perhaps there’s only one constant/
pervasive state (etc) and many words which touch it at
different points. Do words then fragment the whole?
Yes, yes. But I write. Why? Return to the whole – can’t
lose consciousness why?
Angie jumped back when I straightened up. I knew she
would like nothing better than dive into that notebook, the
whole drawer.
But it’s all around her as it is. It’s the word she wants,
like everyone.
‘Are you a virgin, Angie?’ It’s quantum physics. But
so what, if it’s true. She answered without hesitation: ‘No.’
Then she said, ‘Is it important?’ I nearly missed that, because
I was thinking that either knowledge is a tissue of illusions or
else there was truth in it. Anyway, I finally caught what she
had said and replied, ‘No. I just wondered.’
She came closer. She was still buzzing and holding the
book. ‘It was one of the kids in the block.’ She looked down.
I concentrated on her: she wanted to confess again.
‘He said I was too cold and dry.’
Suddenly I got it. To Angie I said as I went back to the
desk: ‘Take your clothes off.’ Instinct told me to say this. She
has to be allowed to maintain her autonomy: she must be
allowed do things her own way as far as possible.
I got the notebook again. The pen was beside it:

351
Consciousness is human: it is always there, even
in madness. Transcendence is ‘wider’? than human: it
must be allowed its place.
Therefore(!) consciousness must become
transcendent.
Enough of that, I thought. The words are running away
with themselves.
When I turned I caught my breath.
Angie has a superb body. I stared, naturally. I was right
to tell her to undress. She seemed very relieved to be nude.
She looked down herself momentarily unsure and self-
conscious. Then she looked at me: ‘Now you.’
Of course. My penis was semi-erect. Her eyes on it
reminded me. ‘I must wash myself.’
She walked over, loosening as she did, letting her
hands fall by her sides. ‘Don’t bother. I don’t mind.’
‘I do.’ I let her put her arms about me and press herself
against me. Then I released myself and went into the
bathroom. She followed me in. She watched me for a while,
arms folded under her breasts.
‘I didn’t realise you were passionate, Richard.’ She
said this as though she was slowly releasing herself to
something that could be dangerous.
Then she went and sat on the bowl. Her piss hissed and
spluttered.
‘You’ve a nice soft body,’ she said behind and below
me.
I glanced down. She put her hand out in a careful way
and stroked my bottom, pulling gently on the hair. I dried
myself. The sight of her drying herself, slightly bent and
352
opened, prompted me to turn suddenly and embrace her. I
caught her by surprise and she tipped back, frightened,
clinging to me and arching her body. But then she regained
her balance and laughed and hugged me with not too
surprising strength.
My desire calmed somewhat and we broke apart and
went into the bedroom. She glanced at me once and I saw a
curious elation in her, as though she had finally found
something. She went to the bed, stopped, then came back to
me, her eyes bright, and said directly to me: ‘Can I read your
book, Richard?’ She pulled up her shoulders in a kind of
exultation: ‘I’d love to read everything you’ve written!’
I heard the word ‘talk’ again. She went to the bed again
and this time she bent to pull back the clothes. It was a dutiful
act, as though she was alone. But the urge came on me again
and I reached my hand between her legs and grabbed her sex.
I must have hurt her, though it wasn’t just that, for she spun
on me with blazing eyes. ‘Don’t do that!’ she said in a
childish, long-suffering way. She glared at me, her hands
across her breasts and groin. She was fighting fear with a
cold counter-passion.
I stepped back. ‘What are you afraid of? You can
always go home, as I’ve told you.’
‘It’s not that,’ she said abstractly. Under the cover of
the words she went around the bed and got in on that side.
‘Don’t sneak up on me like that, Richard. I don’t like it.’
I sat on this side of the bed. ‘There’s only one way to
do it, Angie.’
She lay down and covered herself, only her head
showing.
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She seemed to be thinking. Tired, I began to feel chilly.
I got in beside her. She didn’t move when my body touched
hers.
‘That’s the way you were like with Paula.’ She paused.
‘Like dogs.’
It was so apt that it made me laugh. Laughing, I felt all
the kinks in me loosen.
When I looked, I saw that she was puzzled by my
laughter. So I said, just to remind her: ‘You were jealous of
her.’
She was coldly livid in response. She rolled and
dropped down on me, pinning me with her weight. Glaring at
me, she shouted: ‘Oh, fuck you, Richard Butler. I wasn’t
jealous of what that tart could do. I was jealous that you
preferred her to me!’
She was right. But it was still only female rivalry. So I
said, hearing it echo as a kind of fundamental question:
‘Why me, Angie?’
She caught my ears and pinned them back, shouting
into my face: ‘Because you’re different, that’s why!’
She was hurting me and I was losing my temper. I said,
‘I’m not,’ and to prove it I reared up and threw her over.
Before she could get over her surprise, I lay on her and
spread her arms. She resisted me at first, then she relented
with a sobbing sigh. I straddled her, looking down at her
body and face. She was passive, fearful and resentful. I
finally saw what she wanted.
I got off her and sat up in the bed. Like most people,
she saw that sex and violence intersected. Those were the two

354
ways. That’s what she meant by punishment. Angie wanted a
third way, what she called ‘talk’. Words instead of actions.
I went into the sitting room and took out the notebook
again. I read what I had written earlier. Now I added:
A transcendent consciousness would be
impossible.
Consciousness arises in difference – it couldn’t
be both sameness and difference.
I paused, feeling both the brightness of insight and the
dissolution of the earlier synthesis.
Between the transcendent and consciousness lies
the world of action, that is, difference. If it was to be
argued that union could be achieved by the
abandonment of action, this might also lead to the loss
of consciousness.
I could see the next step, but I don’t like philosophy. It
goes in circles. I went back to the bedroom, taking the
notebook and pen with me.
Angie lay as I had left her, the blankets across her legs.
I drew the curtains on the brightening sunlight. I crossed and
looked down at her. She was silent now, waiting to see what I
would do next.
She has a beautiful body: perfectly proportioned and
with alabaster skin. But what good is it to her if it only
arouses proprietary desire? Even so, I said with a deliberate
wry humour:
‘You have a beautiful body, Angie.’
I bent and kissed her tight dry lips.
‘Try to be happy.’ I got into bed beside her and pulled
up the clothes. In the notebook I wrote:
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So only transcendence is possible – love
happiness passion. But how to escape
consciousness????
I dropped it on the floor, aware that I was back where I
started. I turned away from Angie and snuggled down,
feeling drowsiness coming with the growing warmth.
Then Angie turned and snuggled in against me.
It was delightful to feel her perfect body warm my
back.
But I couldn’t tell her that. I had to trust her to know it.
I sighed contentedly. It had been a long night.
We slept.

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