My Oedipus Complex (38 page)

She knew he blamed her. After being taken in like that it would be weeks before he started again. Weaker sex, indeed! One would think it was he that was trying to start the baby. But Katty blamed herself as well. It was the final year in Dublin and the goings-on with the drunken medico that had finished her. For days on end she sat over the range in the kitchen with a little shawl over her shoulders, shivering and tight-lipped, taking little tots of brandy when Ned's back was turned and complaining of him to the servant girl. To make it worse, the daughter of another shopkeeper came home on holidays from England; a nurse with fast, flighty ways that appealed to Ned. He was always in and out there, full of old-fashioned gallantries. He kissed her hand and even called her ‘a rose'. It reached Katty's ears and she clamped her lips. She was far too well bred to make vulgar scenes. Instead, with her feet on the fender, hands joined in her lap, she asked in the most casual friendly way:

‘Ned, do you think that was a proper remark to make to the Dunne girl?'

‘What remark?' asked Ned, growing crimson – it showed his guilty conscience.

‘Well, Ned, you can hardly pretend you don't know, considering that the whole town is talking about it.'

‘Are you mad, woman?' he shouted, his voice brassy with rage.

‘I only asked a simple question, Ned,' she said with resignation, fixing
him with her clear blue eyes. ‘Of course, if you prefer not to answer there's no more to be said.'

‘You have me driven distracted!' cried Ned. ‘I can't be polite to a neighbour's daughter but you sulk for days on me.'

‘Polite!' said Katty to the range. ‘However,' she added, ‘I suppose I have no cause to complain. The man that would do worse to me wouldn't be put out by a little thing like that.'

‘Do worse to you?' shouted Ned, going purple as if he was in danger of congestion. ‘What did I ever do to you?'

‘Aren't you planning to leave me in my old age without a roof over my head?' she asked suddenly, turning on him.

‘I'm not planning to leave anything to anyone yet,' roared Ned. ‘With the help of the Almighty God, when I do 'twill be to a child of my own.'

‘Indeed, I hope so,' said Katty, ‘but after all, if the worst came to the worst – '

‘If the worst came to the worst,' he interrupted solemnly, ‘we don't know which of us the Lord – glory and praise to His holy name – might take first.'

‘Amen, O Lord,' breathed Katty piously, and then went on in her original tone. ‘I'm not saying you'll be the first to go, and the way I am, Ned,' she added bitterly, ‘I wouldn't wish it. But 'tis only common prudence to be prepared for the worst. You know yourself how Julia went.'

‘My God,' he said mournfully, addressing his remarks out the empty hall, ‘the foolishness of it! We have only a few short years on the earth; we come and go like the leaves of the trees, and instead of enjoying ourselves, we wear our hearts out with planning and contriving.'

‘Ah, Ned,' she said, goaded to fury, as she always was by his philosophizing and poetry talk, ‘ 'tis easy it comes to you. I only wish the money would come as easy. I didn't work myself to the bone in the shop to be left a beggar in my old age.'

‘A beggar?' he cried. ‘Do you think I wouldn't provide for you?'

‘Provide for me?' she gibed. ‘Con Lynch in the shop and me in the back room! Fine provisions I'd get!'

‘I never said I'd leave it to Con Lynch,' said Ned chokingly.

‘Then what is he coming here for?' she shrieked, suddenly bounding into the middle of the kitchen and spreading out her arms. ‘What is he
doing in my home? Can't you do what any other man would do and let them know you're leaving the shop to me?'

‘I can't,' he shouted back, ‘and you know I can't.'

‘Why not?' she said, stamping.

‘Because 'tis an old custom. The property goes with the name.'

‘Not with the people I was brought up with,' she said proudly.

‘Well, 'twas with those I was brought up with,' said Ned. ‘Women as good as you were satisfied. Ay, and better than you! Better than you,' he added with a backward glance as he went out.

She dropped back beaten into her chair. She was afraid to cross him further. He looked like a man that might drop dead at any moment. She was only a stranger, a foreigner, with no link at all between herself and him. Con Lynch was more to him now than she was. It was only then she realized it was time to stop looking after the shop and look after herself instead.

In the autumn she said she was going to Dublin to see a specialist. Ned didn't say anything to dissuade her, but it was clear he had no faith in it. She didn't see a specialist. Instead she saw a nurse she had known in Dublin, another old flame of the medico's. Nurse O'Mara kept a maternity home on the canal. She was a tall, handsome woman with a fine figure and a long face that was growing just the least shade hard. She listened to Katty with screwed-up eyes and a good-natured smile. She was tickled by the situation. After all, if she hadn't got much out of the medico, Katty hadn't got much more.

‘And you don't think that 'tis any use?' asked Katty doubtfully.

‘I wouldn't say so,' said the nurse.

‘And I suppose there's nothing else I can do?' asked Katty in a low voice and an almost playful tone, never taking her blue eyes from the nurse's face.

‘Unless you'd borrow one,' said the nurse mockingly.

‘That's what I mean,' said Katty slyly.

‘You're not serious?' said the nurse, her smile withering.

‘Haven't I reason?' asked Katty, her smile growing broader.

‘You'd never get away with it.'

‘Why not, girl?' asked Katty almost inaudibly. ‘Who's to know? If there was someone that was willing?'

‘Oh, hundreds of them,' said the nurse, with the bitterness of the childless woman.

‘You'd know where to find one I could ask,' murmured Katty, still with her eyes steadily fixed.

‘I suppose so,' said the nurse doubtfully. ‘There's nothing illegal about it. I'm not supposed to know what you're up to.'

‘And to have my letters addressed to your place,' continued Katty.

‘Why not?' asked Nurse O'Mara with a shrug. ‘For that matter, you can come and stay any time you like.'

‘That's all I want,' said Katty with blazing eyes. ‘I have a hundred or so put on one side. I'll give it to you, and you can make whatever arrangements you like.'

She returned to town triumphant with two new hats, wider and more girlish than those she usually wore. Then she set about a reorganization of the house, running up and down stairs and chattering with the maid.

‘Well?' said Ned lazily, interpreting her behaviour with a touch of anxiety. ‘He gave you some hope?'

‘I don't know if you'd call it hope,' said Katty, furrowing her brow. ‘He thought I mightn't come out of it. Of course, I'll have to go back to him if anything happens.'

‘But he thought it might?' asked Ned.

‘Wisha,' said Katty, ‘like the rest of them he wouldn't like to give an opinion.'

That, she saw, impressed Ned more than any more favourable verdict could have done. Almost from that on, he looked at her every morning with a solicitous, questioning air. Katty kept her mouth shut and went on with the housework. One night she said with her nunlike air: ‘I think I'll sleep in the spare room for the present.' Even then she could see he only half believed her, but as the weeks passed, he started coming up to her in the evenings, settling the fire, and retailing whatever gobbets of gossip he had picked up in the bar. He started to tell her about his own boyhood, a thing he had never done before.

Jerry called once with Con and was brought upstairs with appropriate solemnity. She knew he had only come to see for himself, and she watched while the electric-blue eyes roved distractedly about the room till they alighted like a bluebottle on her stomach. That settled it so far as Jerry was concerned. He was crafty but not long-sighted. When the game looked like going against him he threw in his hand. He didn't come back, nor did
Tom, though Con dropped in once or twice out of pure good nature. To Katty's surprise, Ned noticed and resented it.

‘Ah,' she said charitably, ‘I wouldn't mind that. They're probably busy on the farm this weather.'

‘They weren't so busy they couldn't go to Hartnett's,' said Ned, who made it his business to know all they did.

‘Ah, well, Hartnett's is near enough to them,' said Katty, protesting against his unreasonableness.

‘This place was near enough to them too when they thought they had a chance of the money,' said Ned resentfully.

She looked at him archly from under her brows. She felt the time was ripe to say what she had to say.

‘They didn't send you any more anonymous letters?' she asked lightly.

‘They can say what they like now,' said Ned, growing red.

Her smile faded as she watched him go out of the room. She knew now she had made herself secure against any suspicions the Lynches might have of her, but the change in Ned himself was something she hadn't allowed for and it upset her.

It even frightened her the day she was setting out for Dublin. She saw him in the bedroom packing a little case.

‘What do you want that for?' she asked, going cold.

‘You don't think I'm going to let you go to Dublin alone?' he replied.

‘But I may be there for weeks,' she said despairingly.

‘Ah, well,' he said as he continued to pack, ‘I'm due a little holiday. I have it fixed up with Bridie.'

Katty sat on the bed and bit her lip. Somehow or other the Lynches had succeeded in instilling their suspicions into him and he was coming to see for himself. What could she do? Nothing. She knew O'Mara wouldn't be a party to any deception; it would be too much of a risk. ‘Mother of God, direct me!' she prayed, joining her hands in her lap.

‘You're not afraid I'll run off with a soldier?' she asked lightly.

‘That's the very thing I am afraid of,' said Ned, turning round on her. Suddenly his eyes clouded with emotion. ‘It won't be wishing to anyone that tries to get you,' he added, with a feeble attempt to keep up the joke.

‘Wisha, Ned,' she cried, rushing across the room to him, her heart suddenly lightened of a load, ‘ 'tisn't the way you think anything will happen to me?'

‘No, little girl,' he said, putting his arm about her. ‘Nor I wouldn't wish it for a thousand pounds.'

‘Ah, is it a fine strong woman like me?' she cried skittishly, almost insane with relief. ‘What fear there is of me! Maybe I'll let you come up when the next one is arriving.'

From Kingsbridge she took a taxi to the maternity home and got rid of some of her padding on the way. O'Mara opened the door for her herself. Katty sat on the edge of a sofa by the window, her hands joined in her lap, and looked expectantly up at the nurse.

‘Well,' she asked in a low voice, ‘any luck?'

‘You'd better not try this game on too often,' said O'Mara with amusement. ‘You'd never get past me with that complexion.'

‘I'm not likely to try, am I?' asked Katty complacently. ‘That girl you wrote about,' she added in the same conspiratorial tone, ‘is she still here?'

‘She is. You can see her now.'

‘I suppose you don't know anything about her?' Katty asked wistfully.

‘She's a school-teacher,' replied the nurse cautiously.

‘Oh, Law!' said Katty in surprise. She hadn't expected anyone of her own class; it sounded too good to be true; and as plain as if it were written there, her pinched little face registered the doubt whether there wasn't a catch in it somewhere. ‘I don't know her by any chance, do I?' she added innocently.

‘I hope not,' replied the nurse smoothly. ‘What you don't know won't harm you.'

‘Oh, I'm not asking for information,' protested Katty a shade too eagerly. ‘But you think she'll agree?' she said, dropping her voice again.

‘She'll be a fool if she doesn't.'

‘Of course, I'll pay her well,' said Katty. ‘I wouldn't ask anyone to do a thing like that for nothing.'

‘I wouldn't mention that, if I was you,' said O'Mara dryly. ‘She's not trying to make a profit on it.'

‘Oh,' said Katty, suddenly beginning to shiver all over, ‘I'd give all I ever had in the world to be out of it.'

‘But why?' asked O'Mara in surprise. ‘You're over the worst of it now.'

‘It's Ned,' said Katty with a haggard look. ‘He'd murder me.'

‘Ah, well,' said O'Mara with gruff kindness, ‘it's a bit late in the day to be thinking of that,' and she led Katty up the stairs past a big Venetian window that lit the well and overlooked the canal bank. The lights were already lit outside. Through the trees she saw brown-red houses with flights of steps leading to hall doors, and a hump-backed limestone bridge.

There was a girl in bed in the room they entered; a young woman of twenty-eight or thirty with a plump pale face and a helmet of limp brown hair. Her face at any rate was innocent enough.

‘This is the lady I was speaking about, Monica,' said the nurse with a crooked smile. (Obviously she took a certain malicious pleasure in the whole business.) ‘I'll leave ye to discuss it for a while.'

She went out, switching on the electric light as she did. Katty shook hands with the girl and then glanced shyly at the cot.

‘Oh, isn't he lovely?' she cried with genuine admiration.

‘He's sweet,' said the girl called Monica, in a curiously common voice, and then reached out for a cigarette.

‘I never smoke, thanks,' said Katty, and then hastily drew a chair over to the bed, resting her hands on her lap and smiling under her big hat in a guilty, schoolgirl way that was curiously attractive.