The Misremembered Man (25 page)

J
amie lay in his crumpled bed with Paddy at the bedside. Shep was at Paddy’s feet, looking hopefully up at his master.

“See that wee dog there, Paddy? He’s the only friend I have.” Jamie propped himself up on an elbow and looked fondly at Shep. “That wee dog and yourself and Rose.”

“Och now, Jamie, me and Rose’ll always help you out, so we will.”

Three weeks had gone by since his encounter with Miss Devine, and twenty days had passed since he’d made that telephone call to her home. The call in which he was cruelly snubbed by that strange woman. He could only conclude that Miss Devine had not been honest with him. She had given him a wrong number in order to get rid of him.

“Jamie now, it doesn’t do any good to be lyin’ in the bed every day.”

Paddy shook a cigarette from a crumpled pack and stuck it in the corner of his mouth. He handed another to his friend.

“There’s more trout in the river, ye know. Sure maybe ye could answer another advertymint. Wouldn’t do any harm, now would it?”

“Och now, Paddy, I couldn’t put meself through all that again.” Jamie hoisted himself into a sitting position against the bolster and puffed the cigarette into life. “Her and me got on so well, and a don’t think a could meet the likes of her again.”

Since that call to Lydia, when he was snubbed by the rude woman, he’d blamed the whole world for his failure. But most of all he blamed God and the wretched toupee. He’d stopped saying his prayers, had thrown the hairpiece on the fire and watched it melt and shrivel, as its remains turned to ash and vanished up the chimney.

He’d lost interest in eating and had started drinking instead. He had stopped tending to the animals, until finally Paddy had intervened and rescued things.

“Rose made an appointment with Dr. Brewster for you, Jamie.”

“I’m not goin’ near no doctor, Paddy.”

“Now, Jamie…it’s in an hour or…an hour or so. Rose sent me…she sent me…to drive you there. And she sez…she sez if you don’t go she’ll go herself and get the doctor to come to see you here.”

Paddy sucked on his cigarette, noting the alarm in Jamie’s eyes.

“I know now, Jamie, that ye wouldn’t want the doctor to be comin’ into your house and seein’ ye in the bed an’ all…”

Paddy was looking meaningfully about him, taking in the full measure of Jamie’s abhorrence of tidiness. The floor was strewn with dust balls, chicken feathers, bread crusts and stray bones—from prehistoric pots of soup, he supposed—which Shep had carried into the room to gnaw on and hadn’t carried out again. Under the bed there was a cat’s cradle of boots, twinless shoes, odd socks, and scattered amongst them several Guinness cans—crushed and bent up with the careless befuddlement of the elated drunk—two empty naggin bottles of John Powers whiskey, and innumerable discarded Gallaher’s Green cigarette packs.

On the bedside table a bowl and saucer did double duty as ashtrays, the table top and everything else upon it dusted in gray ash. There was a throng of objects which Jamie considered useful: a Tate and Lyle bag of sugar with spoon protruding, a bottle of Dr. Clegg cough mixture, a pack of Mrs. Cullen’s headache powders, a delft leprechaun whose belly doubled as a clock-face—which he’d bought in Portaluce—a cracked ceramic jug holding a monkey wrench and a spirit level; hung about the jug was a string of wooden rosary beads, and propped against it, a novena to Saint Jude, with the inscription,
Patron Saint of Hopeless Cases
, printed in heavy type across the bottom.

“Aye, a s’pose you’re right,” Jamie agreed reluctantly. He could see that there was no way out; he’d have to go and see the doctor.

“You’ve just got a wee touch a that day-pression, and it’s unnerstannable because you’ve been badly put about by that woman.”

“Aw, now. You may stop talkin’, Paddy. I never thought it would turn out so bad.”

Jamie put his hand up to his now-bald head, as if remembering the terrible sacrifices he’d made. His scalp was still red and scarred from the toupee adhesive, and more shaming was the fact that he could not conceal the evidence of his foolishness. His comb-over was gone. Another good reason for his not going out to face his friends in the pub. A dirty oul’ cap could not be worn out on a Saturday night, when everyone else was dressed up, nor could it be worn to Mass, if indeed he’d had a mind to attend a church of a Sunday.

Paddy got to his feet.

“I’m goin’ out now, Jamie, to collect the eggs and footer about a bit, so when I come back you’ll be up and ready now, won’t you?”

“Aye, a s’ppose I will, since there’s nothing else for it.” Jamie yawned widely and rubbed his eyes.

Shep followed Paddy across the bedroom floor, his paws tip-tapping on the linoleum. In the open doorway the dog turned and looked beseechingly at Jamie, willing his master back to his old self.

“Go on there now, wee Shep,” Jamie said, shooing the dog away with a dismissive hand, and heaving himself out of bed. “I’ll be up in a minute.”

One hour later, Jamie was sitting in Dr. Brewster’s waiting room. He was alone, save for a mother with a baby in a stroller. The young woman looked as tired and depressed as Jamie, though he guessed for very different reasons. The child cried every time the phone rang, setting off a howling that would only cease when the receptionist had finished the call.

The baby served as a sad reminder for Jamie, forcing him to look back through time at a younger, fragmented version of himself. It was a time he did not want to face. The screaming child in the stroller had a mother to tend it. He’d had no one. All the anger he bore toward his faceless mother came flooding back. It was because of her that he now found himself in this sorry state. All at once he wanted to strike the young woman, who was carrying the baby up and down trying to soothe it. Hit her and all she represented for all the years he’d been made to suffer, for the beatings he’d taken from the women in black, and the men who’d corrupted his innocence. But Jamie knew he could never give full voice to his anger, so he did the only thing he could do. He held his head in his hands, stared down at the floor and let the tears rain down inside himself.

“Well, James, good to see you.” Dr. Brewster was seated behind his desk as usual, peering over his bifocals. “How’s the form? The lumbago clear up, did it?”

Jamie sat down meekly and removed his cap. He was unsure of what to say.

“Oh, the back’s fine doctor, but that’s…” He stared down, twisting the cap in his hands, unable to finish what he wanted to say.

The doctor adjusted his glasses and leaned forward. “You don’t look at all well, James.” He was alarmed at Jamie’s weight loss—not only that, but his patient seemed to be suffering from some curious scalp infection.

“Can’t eat or sleep, doctor, and I have no interest in nothing.”

“Sounds as if your depression is back again.”

He referred to his notes. Mr. McCloone’s prescription for Valium had not been renewed in a number of weeks.

“And it’s no wonder, because I see that you’ve stopped taking your medication.” He peered over his glasses.

“I thought I could do without them, doctor.”

“Now, James, how many times have we had this conversation? You can only come off your medication with my agreement and supervision. It is very dangerous to do otherwise.”

“I know that.” Jamie continued to stare down at his hands. He could not tell the doctor the real reason for his present malaise.

“Did you have that break by the sea that I suggested?”

The doctor remembered being reprimanded by Gladys Millman for encouraging the like of James McCloone to the Ocean Spray. He’d told her that Jamie’s money was as good as anyone else’s, and his comment had caused Gladys to huff and puff for hours, which Humphrey considered a triumph of sorts, because he got to watch the golf for most of that afternoon uninterrupted.

“Oh I did indeed, doctor! Had a great time at the Ocean Spray.” Jamie brightened when he thought back to that carefree couple of days. “It’s a very fine place.”

Dr. Brewster sat back in his great leather chair and removed his spectacles.

“Well, you know, James, it wouldn’t do any harm to take another break. Stay longer this time; say, a week perhaps.”

“No, I couldn’t do it, doctor. It isn’t so good when you’re on your own all the time.”

Jamie sighed. He looked past the doctor’s shoulder, out the window, onto the sun-splashed high street of the town. And there seemed to be no remove between the boy he’d once been and the present man. He was right back in Keaney’s quarters, staring through the window at the wind-torn laurels in the cemetery. And once more sitting in Mother Vincent’s office, watching the snow build up on the windowsill to the right of her black shoulder.

It seemed then to Jamie that he’d traveled no real distance at all. The scene beyond the glass might have changed, the circumstances of his life might have become more tolerable, the adult in the chair before him infinitely more compassionate, but essentially he, himself, had not really changed. He was still the fearful, solitary boy he’d always been, yearning for the mother who’d never come. He was still helplessly alone.

“I’m tired of being on me own,” he said finally, and stared down at the floor. “Just tired of it.”

“Nonsense! You’re a young man. Think positively; you’ve got the best years of your life ahead of you. All you need is to have more confidence in yourself.”

The doctor sat forward again and laced his fingers together as if he were about to intone an earnest prayer.

“Now, James, I know it hasn’t been easy for you, but you’re a good man and you’d be a prize for any woman. But you must stay on the medication. You see what happens when you stop. You lose all belief in yourself and that’s not good for you. Do you understand what I’m saying, James?”

“Yes, doctor.” Jamie began to feel better. He was recalling that the wise words of the good doctor had helped him over many a bad patch.

“And depression is nothing to be ashamed of,” Dr. Brewster continued gently. “Everyone suffers from it to a greater or lesser degree. Life isn’t easy. God knows if it was, there’d be no need for people like me, and thankfully we’ve got medication to get us over the rough parts.”

Dr. Brewster reached for his prescription pad.

“Now, I’m going to increase your dosage.” He began to scribble the cure for Jamie’s ills. “And I want to see you back here in two weeks’ time, to see how you’re faring.”

He handed over the prescription. Jamie prepared to take his leave, trying not to weep in front of the doctor. He’d remembered Richard Widmark in
Broken Lance
say that real men didn’t cry. Like the heat of an insult suffered once but remembered always, those challenging words burned in him now as he turned to go.

“Not so fast, James,” Dr. Brewster said. “I’d like to take a look at that nasty rash on your head.”

Jamie’s hand shot up to his crown. He was suddenly conscious of how awful it must look.

“Oh, that’s nothing atall, doctor. I fell against the wall when I was cleanin’ out the barn.”

“Really?” Dr. Brewster smiled to himself. He knew the after-effects of liner tape toupee glue all too well, having battled with the evil substance himself when he was younger, and vainer—just like Jamie in fact.

“Well, in that case you’ll need an antiseptic soap,” he said and went to a cabinet behind his desk. “There you go, James.”

“Now remember,” he patted Jamie’s arm and smiled, “in two weeks’ time I’ll see you back here and you’ll be a new man.”

After the door shut, the doctor stood a while, staring at the space Jamie had vacated.

It saddened him that he could not give the farmer what he most wanted: roots, a base, a family. All those essentials had been denied to him in his early life. How was it possible to erect something solid and make a life when you’d been given no building blocks to start with?

The medication he prescribed was not the answer; it simply made him forget what he never had. The only thing that would make James happy would be for his mother to appear. And there wasn’t much chance of that ever happening, conceded the doctor with a sigh.

Before driving him back to the farm, Paddy insisted that Jamie have Rose make some supper for him.

He was worried about his friend since he’d discovered that most of the food he’d brought him had lain in Jamie’s kitchen untouched. He had scraped it into the hog trough, tut-tutting at the waste—a wondrous mixture of his wife’s cookery. What a shame, Paddy had thought, about all those lovely things: the Irish stew, the marble cake, the devils on horseback, the pork cheeks in apple sauce, rhubarb pie, leek and sausage quiche, not to mention an assortment of buns and scones. Rose was fast running out of utensils and needed her plates and vessels back. They now sat chattering on the back seat of the Morris Minor, as the two friends bumped and jounced their way over the winding lane that led to the McFadden farmhouse.

Rose’s attention was on a raging pan of potato bread, eggs and bacon. She had not seen Jamie since the hotel incident and was distressed at his appearance.

“God, Jamie!” she cried in alarm. “You don’t look well atall.”

Jamie stood in the doorway with his cap in his hands, miserable, for he was remembering with a painful clarity that it was Rose who had done everything to help him meet the mystery woman and how, in the end, all the effort had been wasted.

There was nothing he could say, so he did something that he’d never done in front of any adult since his childhood. He broke down and wept freely.

“Och now, Jamie, dear, dear, dear!”

Rose rushed to him, took him by the arm and led him to the armchair.

“Sit down there an’ I’ll make you a nice wee cup of tea.” She signaled to Paddy to put the kettle on, as she slid the sizzling skillet to one side of the stove.

“You just feel a bit down after being to the doctor, Jamie,” she said with great understanding. “And goodness knows nobody likes goin’ to see a doctor, because God knows what they might hear.”