My Oedipus Complex (16 page)

But it was the sight of the brother of the boy that had been murdered
rather than the beating she had had or the despair at seeing her little share of delft smashed on her, that brought home to Jumbo's wife her own utter humiliation. She had often thought before that she would run away from Jumbo, even, in her wild way, that she would do for him, but never before had she seen so clearly what a wreck he had made of her life. The sight of Pa had reminded her that she was no common trollop but a decent girl; he had said it, ‘your decent poor wife', that was what Pa had said, and it was true; she was a decent poor woman. Didn't the world know how often she had pulled the little home together on her blackguard of a husband, the man who had 'listed in the army under a false name so as to rob her of the separation money, the man who would keep a job only as long as it pleased him, and send her out then to work in the nurseries, picking fruit for a shilling a day?

She was so caught up into her own bitter reflections that when she glanced round suddenly and saw the picture that had been the ostensible cause of Jumbo's fury awry, the glass smashed in it, and the bright colours stained with tea, her lip fell, and she began to moan softly to herself. It was a beautiful piece – that was how she described it – a beautiful, massive piece of a big, big castle, all towers, on a rock, and mountains and snow behind. Four shillings and sixpence it had cost her in the Coal Quay market. Jumbo would spend three times that on a drunk; ay, three times and five times that Jumbo would spend, and for all, he had smashed every cup and plate and dish in the house on her poor little picture – because it was extravagance, he said.

She heard the postman's loud double knock, and the child beside her woke and sat up. She heard a letter being slipped under the door. Little Johnny heard it too. He climbed down the side of the bed, pattered across the floor in his nightshirt and brought it to her. A letter with the On-His-Majesty's-Service stamp; it was Jumbo's pension that he drew every quarter. She slipped it under her pillow with a fresh burst of rage. It would keep. She would hold on to it until he gave her his week's wages on Friday. Yes, she would make him hand over every penny of it even if he killed her after. She had done it before, and would do it again.

Little Johnny began to cry that he wanted his breakfast, and she rose, sighing, and dressed. Over the fire as she boiled the kettle she meditated again on her wrongs, and was startled when she found the child actually between her legs holding out the long envelope to the flames, trying to
boil the kettle with it. She snatched it wildly from his hand and gave him a vicious slap across the face that set him howling. She stood turning the letter over and over in her hand curiously, and then started as she remembered that it wasn't until another month that Jumbo's pension fell due. She counted the weeks; no, that was right, but what had them sending out Jumbo's pension a month before it was due?

When the kettle boiled she made the tea, poured it out into two tin ponnies, and sat into table with the big letter propped up before her as though she was trying to read its secrets through the manilla covering. But she was no closer to solving the mystery when her breakfast of bread and tea was done, and, sudden resolution coming to her, she held the envelope over the spout of the kettle and slowly steamed its fastening away. She drew out the flimsy note inside and opened it upon the table. It was an order, a money order, but not the sort they sent to Jumbo. The writing on it meant little to her, but what did mean a great deal were the careful figures, a two and a five that filled one corner. A two and a five and a sprawling sign before them; this was not for Jumbo – or was it? All sorts of suspicions began to form in her mind, and with them a feeling of pleasurable excitement.

She thought of Pa Kenefick. Pa was a good scholar and the proper man to see about a thing like this. And Pa had been good to her. Pa would feel she was doing the right thing in showing him this mysterious paper, even if it meant nothing but a change in the way they paid Jumbo's pension; it would show how much she looked up to him.

She threw her old black shawl quickly about her shoulders and grabbed at the child's hand. She went down the low arched laneway where they lived – Melancholy Lane, it was called – and up the road to the Keneficks'. She knocked at their door, and Mrs Kenefick, whose son had been dragged to his death from that door, answered it. She looked surprised when she saw the other woman, and only then Jumbo's wife realized how early it was. She asked excitedly for Pa. He wasn't at home, his mother said, and she didn't know when he would be home, if he came at all. When she saw how crestfallen her visitor looked at this, she asked politely if she couldn't send a message, for women like Jumbo's wife frequently brought information that was of use to the volunteers. No, no, the other woman said earnestly, it was for Pa's ears, for Pa's ears alone, and it couldn't wait. Mrs Kenefick asked her into the parlour, where the picture of the murdered
boy, Michael, in his Volunteer uniform hung. It was dangerous for any of the company to stay at home, she said, the police knew the ins and outs of the district too well; there was the death of Michael unaccounted for, and a dozen or more arrests, all within a month or two. But she had never before seen Jumbo's wife in such a state and wondered what was the best thing for her to do. It was her daughter who decided it by telling where Pa was to be found, and immediately the excited woman raced off up the hill towards the open country.

She knocked at the door of a little farmhouse off the main road, and when the door was opened she saw Pa himself, in shirt-sleeves, filling out a basin of hot water to shave. His first words showed that he thought it was Jumbo who had been at her again, but, without answering him, intensely conscious of herself and of the impression she wished to create, she held the envelope out at arm's length. He took it, looked at the address for a moment, and then pulled out the flimsy slip. She saw his brows bent above it, then his lips tightened. He raised his head and called, ‘Jim, Liam, come down! Come down a minute!' The tone in which he said it delighted her as much as the rush of footsteps upstairs. Two men descended a ladder to the kitchen, and Pa held out the slip. ‘Look at this!' he said. They looked at it, for a long time it seemed to her, turning it round and round and examining the postmark on the envelope. She began to speak rapidly. ‘Mr Kenefick will tell you, gentlemen, Mr Kenefick will tell you, the life he leads me. I was never one for regulating me own, gentlemen, but I say before me God this minute, hell will never be full till they have him roasting there. A little pitcher I bought, gentlemen, a massive little piece – Mr Kenefick will tell you – I paid four and sixpence for it – he said I was extravagant. Let me remark he'd spend three times, ay, and six times, as much on filling his own gut as I'd spend upon me home and child. Look at me, gentlemen, look at me lip where he hit me – Mr Kenefick will tell you – I was in gores of blood.' ‘Listen now, ma'am,' one of the men interrupted suavely, ‘we're very grateful to you for showing us this letter. It's something we wanted to know this long time, ma'am. And now like a good woman will you go back home and not open your mouth to a soul about it, and, if himself ask you anything, say there did ne'er a letter come?' Of course, she said, she would do whatever they told her. She was in their hands. Didn't Mr Kenefick come in, like the lovely young man he was, and save her from the hands of that dancing hangman Jumbo? And wasn't
she sorry for his mother, poor little 'oman, and her fine son taken away on her? Weren't they all crazy about her?

The three men had to push her out the door, saying that she had squared her account with Jumbo at last.

At noon with the basket of food under her arm, and the child plodding along beside her, she made her way through the northern slums to a factory on the outskirts of the city. There, sitting on the grass beside a little stream – her usual station – she waited for Jumbo. He came just as the siren blew, sat down beside her on the grass, and, without as much as fine day, began to unpack the food in the little basket. Already she was frightened and unhappy; she dreaded what Jumbo would do if ever he found out about the letter, and find out he must. People said he wouldn't last long on her, balloon and all as he was. Some said his heart was weak, and others that he was bloated out with dropsy and would die in great agony at any minute. But those who said that hadn't felt the weight of Jumbo's hand.

She sat in the warm sun, watching the child dabble his fingers in the little stream, and all the bitterness melted away within her. She had had a hard two days of it, and now she felt Almighty God might well have pity on her, and leave her a week or even a fortnight of quiet, until she pulled her little home together again. Jumbo ate placidly and contentedly; she knew by this his drinking bout was almost over. At last he pulled his cap well down over his eyes and lay back with his wide red face to the sun. She watched him, her hands upon her lap. He looked for all the world like a huge, fat, sulky child. He lay like that without stirring for some time; then he stretched out his legs, and rolled over and over and over downhill through the grass. He grunted with pleasure, and sat up blinking drowsily at her from the edge of the cinder path. She put her hand in her pocket. ‘Jim, will I give you the price of an ounce of 'baccy?' He stared up at her for a moment. ‘There did ne'er a letter come for me?' he asked, and her heart sank. ‘No, Jim,' she said feebly, ‘what letter was it you were expecting?' ‘Never mind, you. Here, give us a couple of lob for a wet!' She counted him out six coppers and he stood up to go.

All the evening she worried herself about Pa Kenefick and his friends – though to be sure they were good-natured, friendly boys. She was glad when Jumbo came in at tea-time; the great bulk of him stretched out in the corner gave her a feeling of security. He was almost in good humour again, and talked a little, telling her to shut up when her tongue wagged too much, or sourly abusing the ‘bummers' who had soaked him the evening before. She had cleared away the supper things when a motor-car drove up the road and stopped at the end of Melancholy Lane. Her heart misgave her. She ran to the door and looked out; there were two men coming up the lane, one of them wearing a mask; when they saw her they broke into a trot. ‘Merciful Jesus!' she screamed, and rushed in, banging and bolting the door behind her. Jumbo stood up slowly. ‘What is it?' he asked. ‘That letter.' ‘What letter?' ‘I showed it to Pa Kenefick, that letter from the barrack.' The blue veins rose on Jumbo's forehead as though they would burst. He could barely speak but rushed to the fireplace and swept the poker above her head. ‘If it's the last thing I ever do I'll have your sacred life!' he said in a hoarse whisper. ‘Let me alone! Let me alone!' she shrieked. ‘They're at the door!' She leaned her back against the door, and felt against her spine the lurch of a man's shoulder. Jumbo heard it; he watched her with narrowed, despairing eyes, and then beckoned her towards the back door. She went on before him on tiptoe and opened the door quietly for him. ‘Quick,' he said, ‘name of Jasus, lift me up this.' This was the back wall, which was fully twice his own height but had footholes by which he could clamber up. She held his feet in them, and puffing and growling, he scrambled painfully up, inch by inch, until his head was almost level with the top of the wall; then with a gigantic effort he slowly raised his huge body and laid it flat upon the spiny top. ‘Keep them back, you!' he said. ‘Here,' she called softly up to him, ‘take this,' and he bent down and caught the poker.

It was dark in the little kitchen. She crept to the door and listened, holding her breath. There was no sound. She was consumed with anxiety and impatience. Suddenly little Johnny sat up and began to howl. She grasped the key and turned it in the lock once; there was no sound; at last she opened the door slowly. There was no one to be seen in the lane. Night was setting in – maybe he would dodge them yet. She locked the screaming child in behind her and hurried down to the archway.

The motor-car was standing where it had stopped and a man was leaning
over the wheel smoking a cigarette. He looked up and smiled at her. ‘Didn't they get him yet?' he asked, ‘No,' she said mechanically. ‘Ah, cripes!' he swore, ‘with the help of God they'll give him an awful end when they ketch him.' She stood there looking up and down the road in the terrible stillness: there were lamps lighting behind every window but not a soul appeared. At last a strange young man in a trench-coat rushed down the lane towards them. ‘Watch out there,' he cried. ‘He's after giving us the slip. Guard this lane and the one below, don't shoot unless you can get him.' He doubled down the road and up the next laneway.

The young man in the car topped his cigarette carefully, put the butt-end in his waistcoat pocket and crossed to the other side of the road. He leaned nonchalantly against the wall and drew a heavy revolver. She crossed too and stood beside him. An old lamplighter came up one of the lanes from the city and went past them to the next gas-lamp, his torch upon his shoulder. ‘He's a brute of a man,' the driver said consolingly, ‘sure, I couldn't but hit him in the dark itself. But it's a shame now they wouldn't have a gas-lamp at that end of the lane, huh!' The old lamplighter disappeared up the road, leaving two or three pale specks of light behind him.

They stood looking at the laneways each end of a little row of cottages, not speaking a word. Suddenly the young man drew himself up stiffly against the wall and raised his left hand towards the fading sky. ‘See that?' he said gleefully. Beyond the row of cottages a figure rose slowly against a chimney-pot; they could barely see it in the twilight, but she could not doubt who it was. The man spat upon the barrel of his gun and raised it upon his crooked elbow; then the dark figure leaped out as it were upon the air and disappeared among the shadows of the houses. ‘Jasus!' the young man swore softly, ‘wasn't that a great pity?' She came to her senses in a flash. ‘Jumbo!' she shrieked, ‘me poor Jumbo! He's kilt, he's kilt!' and began to weep and clap her hands. The man looked at her in comical bewilderment. ‘Well, well!' he said, ‘to think of that! And are you his widda, ma'am?' ‘God melt and wither you!' she screamed and rushed away towards the spot where Jumbo's figure had disappeared.