My Oedipus Complex (21 page)

‘Oh, Christ, don't remind me what you were. 'Tis only myself, the poor fool, wouldn't know, and all the old chat I had about the man I drew blood from, as if I was a terrible fellow entirely. I might have known to see a
handsome woman living lonely that she wouldn't be that way only no man in Ireland would look at the side of the road she walked on.'

He did not see how the simple flattery of his last words went through her, quickening her with pleasure; he noticed only the savage retort she gave him, for the sense of his own guilt was growing stronger in him at every moment. Her silence was in part the cause of that; her explanation would have been his triumph. That at least was how he had imagined it. He had not been prepared for this silence which drew him like a magnet. He could not decide to go, yet his fear of her would not allow him to remain. The day passed like that. When twilight came she looked across at him and asked:

‘Are you going or stopping?'

‘I'm stopping, if you please,' he answered meekly.

‘Well, I'm going to bed. One sleepless night is enough for me.'

And she went, leaving him alone in the kitchen. Had she delayed until darkness fell, he would have found it impossible to remain, but there was no suspicion of this in her mind. She understood only that people might hate her; that they might fear her never entered her thoughts.

An hour or so later she looked for the candle and remembered that she had left it in his room. She rose and knocked at his door. There was no answer. She knocked again. Then she pushed in the door and called him. She was alarmed. The bed was empty. She laid her hand to the candle (it was lying still where she had left it, on the dresser beside the door) but as she did so she heard his voice, husky and terrified.

‘Keep away from me! Keep away from me, I tell you!'

She could discern his figure now. He was standing in a corner, his little white shirt half way up his thighs, his hand grasping something, she did not see what. It was some little while before the explanation dawned on her, and with it came a sudden feeling of desolation within her.

‘What ails you?' she asked gently. ‘I was only looking for the candle.'

‘Don't come near me!' he cried.

She lit the candle, and as he saw her there, her face as he had never seen it before, stricken with pain, his fear died away. A moment later she was gone, and the back door slammed behind her. It was only then he realized what his insane fear had brought him to, and the obsession of his own guilt returned with a terrible clarity. He walked up and down the little room in desperation.

Half an hour later he went to her room. The candle was burning on a chair beside the bed. She lifted herself on the pillow and looked at him with strangely clear eyes.

‘What is it?' she asked.

‘I'm sorry,' he answered. ‘I shouldn't be here at all. I'm sorry. I'm queer. I'll go in the morning and I won't trouble you any more.'

‘Never mind,' she said, and held out her hand to him. He came closer and took it timidly. ‘You wouldn't know.'

‘God pity me,' he said. ‘I was distracted. You know I was distracted. You were so good to me, and that's the way I paid you out. But I was going out of my mind. I couldn't sleep.'

‘Sure you couldn't.' She drew him down to her until his head was resting on the pillow, and made him lie beside her.

‘I couldn't, I couldn't,' he said into her ear. ‘I wint raving mad. And I thought whin you came into the room – '

‘I know, I know.'

‘I did, whatever came over me.'

‘I know.' He realized that she was shivering all over.

She drew back the clothes for him. He was eager to explain, to tell her about himself, his youth, the death of his father and mother, his poverty, his religious difficulties, his poetry. What was wrong with him was, he was wild; could stick at no trade, could never keep away from drink.

‘You were wild yourself,' he said.

‘Fifteen years ago. I'm tame now in earnest.'

‘Tell me about it,' he said eagerly, ‘talk to me, can't you? Tell me he was bad. Tell me he was a cruel old uncle to you. Tell me he beat you. He used to lock you up for days, usedn't he, to keep you away from boys? He must have been bad or you'd never had done what you did, and you only a girl.'

But still she said nothing. Bright day was in the room when he fell asleep, and for a long while she lay, her elbow on the pillow, her hand covering her left breast, while she looked at him. His mouth was wide open, his irregular teeth showed in a faint smile. Their shyness had created a sort of enchantment about them, and she watched over his sleep with something like ecstasy, ecstasy which disappeared when he woke, to find her, the same hard quiet woman he knew.

After that she ceased making his bed in the small room, and he slept with her. Not that it made any difference to their relations. Between them after those few hours of understanding persisted a fierce, unbroken shyness, the shyness of lonely souls. If it rasped the nerves of either, there was no open sign of it, unless a curiously irritable tenderness revealed anything of their thoughts. She was forever finding things done for her; there was no longer any question of his going, and he worked from morning until late night with an energy and intelligence that surprised her. But she knew he felt the lack of company, and one evening she went out to him as he worked in the garden.

‘Why don't you go down to the village now?' she asked.

‘Ah, what would I be doing there?' But it was clear that it had been on his mind at that very moment.

‘You might drop in for a drink and a chat.'

‘I might do that,' he agreed.

‘And why don't you?'

‘Me? I'd be ashamed.'

‘Ashamed? Ashamed of what? There's no one will say anything to you. And if they do, what are you, after all, but a working man?'

It was clear that this excuse had not occurred to him, but it would also have been clear to anyone else that she would have thought poorly of such as gave it credit. So he got his coat and went.

It was late when he came in, and she saw he had drunk more than his share. His face was flushed and he laughed too easily. For two days past a bottle of whiskey had been standing on the dresser (what a change for her!) but if he had noticed it he had made no sign. Now he went directly to it and poured himself out a glass.

‘You found it,' she said with a hint of bitterness.

‘What's that?'

‘You found it, I say.'

‘Of course I did. Have a drop yourself.'

‘No.'

‘Do. Just a drop.'

‘I don't want it.'

He crossed to her, stood behind her chair for a moment; then he bent over and kissed her. She had been expecting it, but on the instant she revolted.

‘Don't do that again,' she said appealingly, wiping her mouth.

‘You don't mind me, do you?' he sniggered, still standing behind her.

‘I do. I mind it when you're drunk.'

‘Well, here's health.'

‘Don't drink any more of that.'

‘Here's health.'

‘Good health.'

‘Take a drop yourself, do.'

‘No, I tell you,' she answered angrily.

‘By God, you must.'

He threw one arm about her neck and deliberately spilt the whiskey between her breasts. She sprang up and threw him away from her. Whatever had been in her mind was now forgotten in her loathing.

‘Bad luck to you!' she cried savagely.

‘I'm sorry,' he said quickly. ‘I didn't mean it.' Already he was growing afraid.

‘You didn't mean it,' she retorted mockingly. ‘Who taught you to do it then? Was it Jimmie Dick? What sort of woman do you think I am, you fool? You sit all night in a public-house talking of me, and when you come back you try to make me out as loose and dirty as your talk.'

‘Who said I was talking of you?'

‘I say it.'

‘Then you're wrong.'

‘I'm not wrong. Don't I know you, you poor sheep? You sat there, letting them make you out a great fellow, because they thought you were like themselves and thought I was a bitch, and you never as much as opened your mouth to give them the lie. You sat there and gaped and bragged. That's what you are.'

‘That's not true.'

‘And then you come strutting back, stuffed with drink, and think I'll let you make love to me, so that you can have something to talk about in the public-house.'

Her eyes were bright with tears of rage. She had forgotten that something like this was what she knew would happen when she made him go to the village, so little of our imagination can we bear to see made real. He sank into a chair, and put his head between his hands in sulky dignity. She lit the candle and went off to bed.

She fell asleep and woke to hear him stirring in the kitchen. She rose and flung open the door. He was still sitting where she had seen him last.

‘Aren't you going to bed at all tonight?' she asked.

‘I'm sorry if I disturbed you,' he replied. The drunkenness had gone, and he did look both sorry and miserable. ‘I'll go now.'

‘You'd better. Do you see the time?'

‘Are you still cross? I'm sorry, God knows I am.'

‘Never mind.'

‘ 'Twas all true.'

‘What was true?' She had already forgotten.

‘What you said. They were talking about you, and I listened.'

‘Oh, that.'

‘Only you were too hard on me.'

‘Maybe I was.'

She took a step forward. He wondered if she had understood what he was saying at all.

‘I was fond of you all right.'

‘Yes,' she said.

‘You know I was.'

‘Yes.'

She was like a woman in a dream. She had the same empty feeling within her, the same sense of being pushed about like a chessman, as on the first night when she carried him in. He put his arm about her and kissed her. She shivered and clung to him, life suddenly beginning to stir within her.

One day, some weeks later, he told her he was going back home on a visit; there were cousins he wished to see; something or other; she was not surprised. She had seen the restlessness on him for some time past and had no particular belief in the cousins. She set about preparing a parcel of food for him, and in this little attention there was something womanly that touched him.

‘I'll be back soon,' he said, and meant it. He could be moved easily enough in this fashion, and she saw through him. It was dull being the lover of a woman like herself; he would be best married to a lively girl of eighteen or so, a girl he could go visiting with and take pride in.

‘You're always welcome,' she said. ‘The house is your own.'

As he went down the boreen he was saying to himself ‘She'll be lost! She'll be lost!' but he would have spared his pity if he had seen how she took it.

Her mood shifted from busy to idle. At one hour she was working in the garden, singing, at another she sat in the sun, motionless and silent for a long, long time. As weeks went by and the year drifted into a rainy autumn, an astonishing change took place in her, slowly, almost imperceptibly. It seemed a physical rather than a spiritual change. Line by line her features divested themselves of strain, and her body seemed to fall into easier, more graceful curves. It would not be untrue to say she scarcely thought of the man, unless it was with some slight relief to find herself alone again. Her thoughts were all contracted within herself.

One autumn evening he came back. For days she had been expecting him; quite suddenly she had realized that he would return, that everything was not over between them, and very placidly accepted the fact.

He seemed to have grown older and maturer in his short absence; one felt it less in his words than in his manner. There was decision in it. She saw that he was rapidly growing into a deferred manhood, and was secretly proud of the change. He had a great fund of stories about his wanderings (never a word of the mythical cousins); and while she prepared his supper, she listened to him, smiling faintly, almost as if she were not listening at all. He was as hungry now as the first evening she met him, but everything was easier between them; he was glad to be there and she to have him.

‘Are you pleased I came?' he asked.

‘You know I'm pleased.'

‘Were you thinking I wouldn't come?'

‘At first I thought you wouldn't. You hadn't it in your mind to come back. But afterward I knew you would.'

‘A man would want to mind what he thinks about a woman like you,' he grumbled good-humouredly. ‘Are you a witch?'

‘How would I be a witch?' Her smile was attractive.

‘Are you?' He gripped her playfully by the arm.

‘I am not and well you know it.'

‘I have me strong doubts of you. Maybe you'll say now you know what happened? Will you? Did you ever hear of a man dreaming three times of
a crock of gold? Well, that's what happened me. I dreamt three times of you. What sign is that?'

‘A sign you were drinking too much.'

‘ 'Tis not. I know what sign it is.'

He drew his chair up beside her own, and put his arm about her. Then he drew her face round to his and kissed her. At that moment she could feel very clearly the change in him. His hand crept about her neck and down her breast, releasing the warm smell of her body.

‘That's enough love-making,' she said. She rose quickly and shook off his arm. A strange happy smile like a newly-open flower lingered where he had kissed her. ‘I'm tired. Your bed is made in there.'

‘My bed?'

She nodded.

‘You're only joking me. You are, you divil, you're only joking.'

His arms out, he followed her, laughing like a lad of sixteen. He caught at her, but she forced him off again. His face altered suddenly, became sullen and spiteful.