The Whore-Mother (15 page)

He made a weary sound.

She translated it and pushed on. “Yes. Lady Gregory. W. B. Yeats . . . you know . . . their marvelous fight for Irish freedom. . . .”

“Christ . . . debased currency,” he said. An irrational excitement stirred in his belly. He wanted to shout something and had nothing to shout. It came from his belly, he knew that: not from his head.

“What did you say?”

He fell back in the sand, laughing, his head propped up on a tump of salt grass. Laughing at nothing. No, not at nothing. Laughing at their marvelous fight for Irish freedom. His hair was wet with sweat. Sweat poured down his temples, making them itch, and down his forehead into his eyes, making them sting. He brushed the wet away, laughing in little spasms, full of a sensation of frivolous delight.

“About ‘debased currency'? What did you say?”

He didn't care what he said or would say. He felt disassociated. That was what the look and the feel of Ireland did to Irishmen. It made you feel disassociated—from any kind of responsibility, from anything tangible, from the rest of the world. The world was so very far away from Ireland—at a great distance over the hills and through the mists and far far away. It was far off in the present. That's why God's important to us, he thought, and tried to dig his head into the tumped grass; and laughed a good fat laugh. God is an Irish mist, he thought: now you see it, now you don't. God is great—except when He is inconvenient. “Old bitch,” he said, and listened to himself.

“Who? Lady Gregory?”

“Lady Gregory? How did she get in here? What's your name?”

“Brendine.”

“What?” What sort of name was that? Some Irish-American concoction?

“Brendine Healy. I'm from Boston.”

He felt bold, he didn't give a damn, he was too weak to give a damn; he was phantasmagorical. That was a good word! He said it aloud. What was there to care about or be afraid of? “Are you a virgin, Brendine Healy of Boston?” He hadn't said anything so funny or so daring for nine months.

“What?”

He stretched his legs and drifted into a shallow doze.

“What was that about Lady Gregory and Yeats?” He opened his eyes. The sun was a sheet of light off the sea. He could see nothing but a sheet of light.

“Yes. I was talking about Lady Gregory, Yeats, and their marvelous fight for Irish freedom.” As if she'd learned the form of words from a favorite professor.

“Were you, by God.”

He was struggling to sit up and face the girl. “Their marvelous fight for Irish freedom, is it?” He struggled harder to stand up. His sight was like the sight of a man just awakened into the glare of a bright light. “Have you ever heard of the quarter-acre clause?”

“No. What's that?”

“That,” he said, swaying on his feet, “was a clause in the relief law of 1847 which said that before a starving farmer and his family could draw relief he had to divest himself of all tenant holdings over one-quarter of an acre.” He wasn't sure the voice he heard was his own.

“Oh?” It wasn't the sort of thing she cared about, but if she had to for the moment, she would.

“It was called the Gregory clause. Do you know who Gregory was?”

“No.”

“He was Lady Gregory's old husband. Do you know what she thought of her husband's legal gimmick for getting the farmers' land back into the hands of the landlord?”

“No.”

“She thought it was a bloody good idea. How's that?”

“I don't know.”

He couldn't see at all now. Where the hell was she? “You're a virgin, did you say? Where are you, girl?”

“I'm here.”

“Where?” He was falling. The pains were back in his chest. She had him under the armpits, trying to hold him up, her feet braced apart. He liked the falling feeling. For . . . ward. He landed lightly, going down by stages, talking, cushioned.

“W. B. Yeats,” he mumbled. “Bloody old windbag. . . .”

She folded backwards into the sand, McManus between her legs, and couldn't raise his dead weight.

The driver and two old men from the tour came over the top of the sand and pulled him off the girl.

“Dirty bastard,” the driver shouted, and drew back a vengeful and heavy arm.

“Don't!” the girl yelled. “He's sick. He fell. I was trying to keep him from falling. He's sick!”

“Like hell he's sick. He had you on your back. He was between. . . .” He seemed to enjoy putting it that way.

“You dirty bastard,” she said surprisingly, and stung the old men to her defense.

“Look at him,” one of them said. “He's sick. Sweating like a sow.”

They humped him to the coach and laid him out on the back seat. “He needs a doctor,” one of the old men said. Brendine sat on the edge of the seat, holding him on, all the way to Killarney. She got him a room in the tour hotel, saw that his pack was taken to it, and got a porter to call a doctor. Two of the old women came with the doctor to McManus's room and found Brendine trying to undress him.

“Oh, no no no dear, not you. We'll do that.” They were gentle, resolute, and unsuccessful.

“You can help me do it. I didn't know stripping a man was so difficult.”

The doctor who might have been mistaken for a retired farmer said, “You're the right age to find out,” and gave her a prescription for McManus and the name of a chemist's shop where she could get it filled. Brendine felt immensely useful and mature.

“We can't leave him naked,” one of the old ladies said. They were kindly old women. No doubt they had sons.

“I'll find something.” Brendine went through his pack and found something. She pulled out his pajamas and said nothing about his gun. But when the porter brought his medicine from the chemist's shop and they had fed McManus some soup and bathed his face and their husbands had come to take them to dinner, firmly they took Brendine with them and left the room key on McManus's dressing table where she couldn't get at it again, and saw her to her room after dinner and set up a patrol to see that if she did not stay there at least she did not go back to the sick man's room. She outwaited them till age outwitted them and they went to sleep.

Through it all, McManus was vaguely present, affected more by a tingling inertia than by any awareness of a dangerous collapse. He accepted their help drowsily and gratefully. He was buried in their midst; shielded by their protective coloring. The American shield, he thought. He would leave it at Bantry, tomorrow. Then he must do something about this flu. When they left he went quickly to sleep. He was awake again and feeling better when Brendine knocked on his door. His watch said midnight.

She closed the door quickly and took charge. “Back to bed,” she ordered, and perched on the end of it. They watched one another with shy curiosity.

She's playing mother, he decided. And she's nice looking, with an erongenous face. He'd looked the word up once because somebody used it to describe a married woman they knew, and liked the idea that it really meant a face that made you think of sex. Her brown legs were showing up to the hips. They made him think of sex too.

“That was a funny turn you had today,” she said.

“I haven't been feeling well. Thank you for your help.” It was very formal, and careful.

“You
are
a writer, aren't you?” It was almost an appeal, as if she'd be disappointed if he said no.

He didn't care about her disappointment. He considered her uses and couldn't think of any. Tomorrow they'd be in Bantry and he'd leave them. What's the harm? “Yes,” he said.

“I knew it. The driver thought you were trying to rape me.”

He'd heard how frank these American girls could be, as if words had no value and less effect. Then they slapped your face. “I just fell,” he said. “I was dizzy. Thank you for your help.”

“You said that.”

“Oh. I'm sorry.”

“You're shy, aren't you?” she said.

“I suppose so. With girls. I am, yes. I don't know many. Girls, I mean.”

“Where are you going?”

“I don't know. West. Down near Mizen Head, maybe. Somewhere very quiet.”

“To camp?”

“I was going to, but not now. I'll have to get rid of this flu.”

“Are you going there to write?”

He'd heard how they asked questions, as if another person was just an information bank. “Yes.”

“What do you write?”

What did he write? He answered on the run, half-enjoying her curiosity. She sounded and looked very young. Her voice was very young. “How old are you?” He expected an evasion.

“Twenty. What do you write?”

He'd heard of their persistence.

“Poetry.”

“Have you any with you?”

“Only in my head.”

“Recite me a poem.” Like a little girl.

He ought to have foreseen that one. Did they read James Stephens in America? He'd heard they preferred Frank O'Connor's translations from the Gaelic, so Stephens was safer. Which one? “The Coolin”? Very well known. “The Canal Bank”? Not well known.

Shyly he tried “The Canal Bank” on her. He said,

He surprised himself and delighted her.
“Marvelous! Wonderfull”
She clapped her hands with extravagant enthusiasm. And then, quietly, “If you're not camping, where will you live?”

“Oh. There are some cottages for rent in the summer down there. The English usually rent them but they're not coming any more. There'll be plenty of places.”

“I have to spend all summer over here.”

“In Ireland?”

“In Europe. My parents think it's good for me.”

“Is it?”

“Yes. It's going to be.”

“Oh? In what way?” Well, it was a harmless way to spend an hour.

“Why do you carry a gun in your pack?”

It caught him completely off guard. Deliberately or not? Not deliberately, he decided. She had no guile. She simply asked what she wanted to know. He composed his mind carefully. “It's my father's,” he said. “Years ago when I was walking . . . sleeping in barns, you know . . . ? a tramp attacked me with a knife . . . I always bring it now. . . .” It was true and far enough from the truth. But it didn't seem important to her.

“I know. A lot of people do that . . . take guns with them, I mean . . . in the States. I was wondering. . . .”

He was relieved and he waited to hear what she was wondering.

“I was wondering . . .” she said shyly, “. . . I don't want to travel anymore with these old people. . . .”

“They are a bit old for you.”

“Could I travel with you?” It came out quickly, as if to ensure that it came out at all.

“Travel with me?” That was what she said. That was what he proposed the first time he tried to have sex with a girl. They'd been necking in a meadow and her enthusiasm seemed to promise all sorts of things. “Why don't we go hiking next weekend and camp out?” he asked her, and she liked that too. So he decided to make a bid for it on the spot.

She bled his nose. “You dirty-minded wee guttersnipe,” she said, and he never ventured again. In a sense his sister became his girl. It was safer; free from possible humiliation and rejection. He was always afraid of rejection. What did this one mean?

“Was that awful?” she said.

“No. No.” He didn't know what it was but he was thinking hard.

“I mean, young people nowadays . . . you know . . . ? travel together . . . you know the sort of thing? I can cook too. . . . You're really not well, are you? I have nothing better to do . . . I don't mean that the way it sounds . . . nothing
else
to do. . . . These tours I go on . . . you don't really learn anything with old people, do you . . . ?”

“But your people? What about . . . ?” They stumbled forward together.

“They're in Maine, at the cottage there. I'm supposed to be improving myself . . . I could put my bags in the hotel at Bantry . . . I could buy a sleeping bag . . . I can pay my way, you know . . . I wouldn't keep you from your work and any time you wanted to talk I'd be around . . . you know?”

A young couple in a cottage? Looking very normal? All people cared about was, Can you pay in advance? They could look married; there were always at least two bedrooms? Who'd pay them any heed, and when he felt it was time to make a run for England, she'd be cover. “If you feel all right about it . . . ?”

“Oh, yes. I'd love it.”

“All right. I'd certainly like to have your company.”

“We'll leave the tour at Bantry, is that it?”

“That's what I planned.”

“I'm glad we met.”

She put out his light. “We can plan in the morning, on the coach. It'll be fun.”

In the corridor she thought: I forgot to ask his name, but I handled it very nicely. She wondered what he had in mind. “Are you a virgin, Brendine Healy of Boston?”