The Whore-Mother (32 page)

“She might have sent him there,” Mrs. Sullivan said in support. Maybe the man would leave now? Go somewhere else?

“Write it down,” Powers said, and the doctor wrote it down in block capitals.

“I want a doctor's bag n'food and drugs t'keep down the pain.” They got it for him.

“I want all the money y'have in the house.” They emptied their cash box and their pockets and purses. One hundred and twenty pounds in English ten-pound notes.

“I want another shot.” He got it. The man was preparing for a journey. In his anguish the doctor had no mind for his brother-in-law's summer habits. He did not think of them. So he did not mention them. The man was going. Thanks be to God.

“Get your car out.” The doctor brought it to the front door.

“You're drivin me to Cork Airport.”

“Have some compassion, man. I have patients. They need me.” There was Sorahan, who would be a cripple for life, dependent on the skill of a harassed country doctor. There was Mrs. Burke, sitting in Deasy's house like the plague.

“I
need
you, mister. The two of you away on, in the front. I'm gonta sleep in the back. If you stop or change speed, I'll wake up and beat the faces off you.”

And at Cork Airport, he said, “By Jasus, I'm tellin you, no polis if you want to live till next week.
I'm tellin
you.”

“No police.” There were weeks and months and years to be conserved beyond next week. The man was going. The nightmare that fell over the widow-woman's half-door, half-dead, was going away.

He was flyin.

Soarin. L-e-a-p-in in the sky. The hound of fuckin heaven.

He sat very still, his head roaming. Disassociated. All that had been was not. They were not here they were there and he was not there therefore they were not. He was moving. Traveling. Away. Alone. He was the measure of all that was. His head roamed and sang and he closed his eyes and was feather-light. He could fly without this plane. He was smiling, not in the face, but inside his head. Seventy minutes of sweet levitation, Cork to Heathrow. His face and head full of sweet secrets. Ahhh, if you good people knew what I know ... who I am ... where I'm goin.

Courtesy on the ground, sweet courtesty, sweet syrup. I beg your pardon, m'am, my fault entirely. I'll pick it up. Victoria Station, if you please, driver. Thank you, driver. That was the grand bloody ride. Lovely fuckin weather.

Day return to East Grinstead, sir. Thank you, sir. The platform on the far right?
Thank
you, sir,
thank
you!

Euphoria by the bellyful. Wackadoo, wackadoo, wackadoo. Won't Mother England be surprised!

Judge Jeffreys' house, lunches, teas, dinners. Can I have lashins of scrambled eggs? The arm, y'see. Fell offa bridge on a Saturday night.... Gimme a spoon and H.P. sauce, missus. Judge Jeffreys lived in this house, is that a fact? The Hangin Judge? They abolished
him
, didn't they? Hangin Judge Quta Work!

Fuckin English bitch. Can't take a joke, by Jasus. Would that be funny in Belfast? Snippity-snip!

Stoneleigh House? That's one for the book—ask a bobby! Excuse me, officer, can you direct me to Stoneleigh House? First left past the parish church, the big house on the left on the edge of town? Thank you, officer. (Fuckers like you wouldn't last long on the Falls.)

The gate was open. It hadn't been closed for years. His euphoria sank into hardness. He stood in the gateway, looking up at the bend in the drive, looking at nothing, his mind settling to its work.

Then the hardness heated. The eyes warmed. McManus McManus McManus you Antrim Road cunt McManus McManus. He walked slowly up the drive and saw the house around the bend, a monument of stone, in a large open circle of gravel and grass. Aye, aye, it would be a place like this for you, boyo. High class. Like a Protestant fuckin squire. McManus McManus McManus. He was beginning to love the sound of it in his head. He went up the steps to the front door and put his gun in the sling.

The door was closed. In the column of the door frame, a small white button with PRESS on it. It was a wee bell for a big house. Nobody answered it. He tried again and again. He leaned on the button. He could hear the bell inside, like an alarm clock in an empty packin case. Nobody rose to it.

He came down the steps and wandered round the house, through a well-trimmed hedge arch into a rose garden and beyond it a vegetable garden. An old man said from behind a box hedge to his right, “Was there somepin?”

“I was ringin the bell. Nobody came.”

“Nobody'll come. They're away.”

“Away where?”

“Spain.”

“Spain?”

“Spain.”

“What for?”

“Howzat?”

“For how long?”

“All summer. Every summer. They'll be back next month.”

“There's nobody here?”

“Me.”

“Who're you?”

“Gardener. You after a job?”

“I got a job. D'you live here?”

“I live a'tome.”

The doctor got rid of him, lied to him, made a fool of him. His head was full of black, blacker than darkness but like a bloody empty hole with nothing but black in it. He couldn't see.

“Somepin wrong?” the old man asked him.

Powers didn't hear. He walked blind round the house lifting his feet by instinct and was at the road again. A cricket match was in progress in a field across the road. Perhaps he saw it. He went across to the field, sat down at the foot of a grass bank, and stared at the players. They were like white spots before his eyes. The doctor's face obstructed his vision, and the doctor's wife sitting in her corner and the doctor's wife's sister lying naked on the bed. There were no words in his head, only intentions. When the pain came hurrying back sight came with it and the cricketers had gone. He groped in his bag, opened his shirt, and cried out when the needle went into his shoulder. The pain sank and he sank with it. Massive dejection took him over, he was drowning in it, crying self-pity to the green grass, till he looked across the road at Stoneleigh House and felt the spurs of resentment and soon, revenge, and mounted on the wings of taloned eagles.

He walked into the town, bought a heavy clasp knife and went down the main street and at Sainsbury's bought four pounds of sliced ham, a pound of butter, a sliced loaf, a bunch of bananas, a packet of tea, and a bottle of milk. With his groceries in a paper shopping bag and his doctor's bag clutched in the same hand, he went to the movies.

When he came out, it was almost dark. He went back to Stoneleigh, found a short ladder in a garden shed, shot the latch on the kitchen window, locked it again behind him, went out the back door, put the ladder back, and took his possessions inside.

The house had three floors. He went up to the top; a billiard room and quarters for two maids. He had a place to sleep. On the second floor, a drawing room and the family's suite; four bedrooms, bathrooms, and a small kitchen for preparation of teas, snacks, and morning coffee. Handy for servants. Fuckin rich.

He scouted the ground floor for exits and the routes to them and went back upstairs. The small kitchen would do him. By candlelight he ate ham and bread and butter and drank tea, put his food in the fridge, cleaned his mess, and went to the attic and to bed.

He needed sleep.

In the mornin, back to that doctor, and his wife and thon fuckin widow-woman....

On his right side. God, I'm wore out.

Ahhhhh. A long stretch, feet against the end-board. Jasus, that's lovely.

Then he drew his knees up to his belly. The fetal position. Sleep came at once.

M
cMANUS,
suddenly, felt young. His age. Unencumbered. He laughed and wanted to laugh. Delight danced in his blood. It was quadrangle delight, campus delight, immediate, levitating.

He kept hold of her hand and forgot he had lately forgotten her name. “Brendine Healy of Boston,” he said, “I've got to talk to you. I've got to apologize . . .” He guided her away from the ticket counter.

“Our tickets . . . ?”

“In a minute. There's a coffee place upstairs,” he trundled her along. She was laughing.

“You were awfully sick,” she was still laughing.

“Yes. Yes, I was. God, I'm glad to see you.” He didn't know why. There was no need to know why. She was young. His own age. Another port. Not touched by . . . but put that out of mind. . . . “Sit down here. I'll fetch the coffee.”

She watched him at the cafeteria counter, full of her own delight. Company. Somebody about her own age. She remembered how he had needed her. His beard was more like a beard now. It made him look younger. He was a nice-looking boy too. . . .

He brought the coffee. “Sugar?” Attentive.

“No. Figure. You know.” They laughed at that too. With her figure, who would worry?

“Look.” The going was a little harder here. He stirred his coffee. “Look. I feel bad . . . very badly . . . I'm . . .” He laid the spoon in his saucer “I'm going to tell you something. It's terrible. I'll explain. I want to apologize.” He needed to tell. When up from the depths you arise, you need to tell, to talk, to shed bad blood like bad dreams.

“Tell me,” she said. “I looked for you, you know.”

“Thank you. I wish you'd found me.”

He told her. Almost everything, from the beginning. “I meant well,” he said at the end.

She stirred her sugarless coffee, looking into its little whirlpool. “Where are they now?”

“Still in West Cork, still searching for me, I suppose. But I've lost them now.” Get thee behind me, Satan; I am out.

“We know it all, don't we? When we're young, I mean.”

“I did. There were reasons, mind you. Don't think there weren't. But I'm a fool. God, the suffering I've caused. Such terrible trouble . . . . My sister, my parents . . . other people. . . .” like Mrs. Burke, and the doctor, and his wife . . . Mrs. Burke warmed his mind. . . .

“Don't think about it. It's over, isn't it?”

“Yes. Yes,” he said, thinking of Mrs. Burke, looking at Brendine Healy of Boston.

Young lives, in need of young laughter.

She dipped her head, and tossed it and smiled shyly and said, “I never even
heard
your name.”

“Johnny McManus.”

“You wouldn't make a good gunman, Johnny. I don't think you're the kind.” She sounded wisely immature, playing at maturity.

“No. No.” It was known. “You agree with all the people I love.”

“Look.” She glanced about quickly, as if to make sure the coast was clear, and laid her hand on his. “Why don't we go by boat? I mean, the car ferry?”

“I haven't a car.”

“We can hire one.” She tightened her hold on his hand. “Why don't we? Come on.” Little adventures; young laughter. The summer was almost over and there hadn't been much to show for it. In a week or two she'd have to fly back to Boston and in another week she'd be slogging away at Boston U. There'd been something for the mind, but very little laughter. She could get an essay out of it; she couldn't curl up under the electric blanket and smile herself to sleep, remembering. “We were . . . you remember . . . we were going to. . . .”

“I have this house to go to,” he said. “Mrs. Burke gave me a letter.” He passed it to her. “You mean, drive to East Grinstead? All the way across Wales and southern England?”

“Why
don't
we?” Summer's dying, winter's coming.

“If we go halves on it.”

“It'll be great fun.
Gosh,”
she said, very young. “Gosh, I'm glad I was here when you walked in. I was over there, just sitting . . . you looked so
cross
. . . I'm real glad I saw you. . . .” Eager and young. “Halves. I'll get the car ferry. You get the . . . meals . . . gas. Petrol.” She hop-skipped beside him to her baggage. The car ferry would cost more. It wasn't halves, but he probably didn't have much money and Daddy wouldn't know the difference . . . children at play . . . they hired a bright blue two-door Opel from Cahill's on her international driver's license and she made the ferry reservations, happy little mother with something to do with somebody her own age and the car ferry didn't leave till eight and the day was bright and cool and glorious, and they had to spend it.

They spent it at Old Head of Kinsale, the button-head on a little peninsula jutting out into the ocean. They went down through soft Cork pastoral land of pale green and yellow in the summer's end. Not like the harsh stained-rock glory of West Cork, not gold and orange and red and white and rose and purple and brown, full of power, the crash of angry water on stubborn rock, the gang cries of sea birds, the lyrics of the wood pigeon, the crass squawk of the crow, the wind's howl; not the gorse and fern and thistle plucking spitefully at the legs. . . . Here, soft land and the flat and endless glaring ocean.