Collected Stories (49 page)

Then the handle of their door turned softly and Janet tiptoed in in her bathing-wrap, her usual competent self, as though arriving in men's bedrooms at that hour of night was second nature to her. “Ready Chris?” she whispered. Chris was a lad of great principle and Mick couldn't help admiring his manliness. With a face like death on him he went out, and Janet closed the door cautiously behind him. Mick listened to make sure he didn't hide in the toilet. Then Janet switched off the light, drew back the black-out, and, shivering slightly, opened the window on the darkened inn yard. They could hear the Klaxons from the street, while the stuffy room filled with the smells and rustlings of a summer night.

I
N THE
middle of the night Mick woke up and wondered where he was. When he recollected, it was with a feeling of profound satisfaction. It was as if he had laid down a heavy burden he had been carrying all his life, and in the laying down had realized that the burden was quite unnecessary. For the pleasantest part of it was that there was nothing particular about the whole business and that it left him the same man he had always been.

With a clearness of sight which seemed to be part of it, he realized that all the charm of the old town had only been a put-up job of Janet's because she had been here already with someone else. He should have known it when she took them to the pub. That, too, was her reason for suggesting this pleasant old inn. She had stayed there with someone else. It was probably the American and possibly the same bed. Women had no interest in scenery or architecture unless they had been made love to in them. And, Mick thought with amusement, that showed very good sense on their part. If he ever returned with another woman, he would also bring her here, because he had been happy here. Happiness, that was the secret the English had and the Irish lacked.

It was only then that he realized that what had wakened him was Janet's weeping. She was crying quietly beside him. At first it filled him with alarm. In his innocence he might quite easily have made a mess of it without even knowing. It was monstrous, keeping men in ignorance up to his age. He listened till he could bear it no longer.

“What is it, Jan?” he asked in concern.

“Oh, nothing,” she replied, dabbing her nose viciously with her handkerchief. “Go to sleep.”

“But how can I and you like that?” he asked plaintively. “Was it anything I did?”

“No, of course not, Mick.”

“Because I'm sorry if it was.”

“Oh, it's not that, it's not that,” she replied, shaking her head miserably. “I'm just a fool, that's all.”

The wretchedness of her tone made him forget his own doubts and think of her worries. Being a man of the world was all right, but Mick would always be more at home with other people's troubles. He put his arm about her and she sighed and threw a bare leg over him. It embarrassed him for a moment, but then he remembered that now he was a man of the world.

“Tell me,” he whispered gently.

“Oh, it's what you said that night at the Plough,” she sobbed.

“The Plough?” he echoed in surprise.

“The Plough at Alton.”

Mick found it impossible to remember what he had said at the Plough, but he was used to the peculiar way women remembered things which some man had said and forgotten, and which he would have been glad if they had forgotten too.

“Remind me of it,” he said.

“Oh, when you said love was a matter of responsibilities.”

“Oh, yes, yes,” he said. “I remember now.” But he didn't. What he remembered mostly was that she had told him about the other men, and he had argued with her. “But you shouldn't take that too seriously, Jan.”

“Oh, what else could I do but take it seriously?” she asked fiercely. “I was mad with you, but I knew you were right. I knew that was the way I'd always felt myself, only I blinded myself. Just as you said; taking up love like a casual job you could drop whenever you pleased. I'm well paid for my own bloody folly.”

She began to sob again. Mick found it very difficult to readjust his mind to the new situation. One arm about her and the other supporting his head, he looked out the window and thought about it.

“Oh, of course, that's perfectly true, Janet,” he agreed, “but, on the other hand, you can take it to the fair. You have to consider the other side of the question. Take people who're brought up to look at the physical facts of love as inhuman and disgusting. Think of the damage they do to themselves by living like that in superstitions. It would be better for them to believe in fairies or ghosts if they must believe in some sort of nonsense.”

“Yes, but if I had a daughter, I'd prefer to bring her up like that than in the way I was brought up, Mick. At least she wouldn't fool with serious things, and that's what I've done. I made fun of Fanny because she didn't sleep around like the rest of us, but if Fanny falls for Chris, the joke will be on me.”

Mick was silent again for a while. The conversation was headed in a direction he had not foreseen, and he could not yet see the end of it.

“You don't mean you didn't want to come?” he asked in astonishment.

“Oh, it's not that,” she cried, beating her forehead with her fist. “Don't you see that I wanted to prove to myself that I could be a decent girl for you, and that I wasn't just one of the factory janes who'll sleep with anything? I wanted to give you something worth while, and I have nothing to give you.”

“Oh, I wouldn't say that,” Mick said in embarrassment. He was feeling terribly uncomfortable. Life was like that. At one moment you were on top of the world, and the next you were on the point of tears. At the same time it was hard to sacrifice his new-found freedom from inhibitions, all in a moment, as you might say. Here he had lain, rejoicing at being at last a man of the world, and now he was being asked to sacrifice it all and be an ordinary decent fellow again. That was the worst of dealing with the English, for the Irish, who had to be serious whether they liked it or not, only wanted to be frivolous, while the one thing in the world that the English seemed to demand was the chance of showing themselves serious. But the man of the world was too new a development in Mick to stand up to a crisis.

“Because you don't have to do it unless you like,” he added gently. “We could always be married.”

That threw her into positive convulsions, because if she agreed to this, she would never have the opportunity of showing him what she was really like, and it took him a long time to persuade her that he had never really thought her anything but a serious-minded girl—at least, for most of the time. Then she gave a deep sigh and fell asleep in the most awkward manner on his chest. Outside, the dawn was painting the old roofs and walls in the stiff artless colors of a child's paint-box. He felt a little lonely. He would have liked to remain a man of the world for just a little longer, to have had just one more such awakening to assure him that he had got rid of his inhibitions, but clearly it was not to be. He fell asleep soon after, and was only wakened by Chris, who seemed to have got over his ordeal well.

Chris was furious when Mick told him, and Mick himself realized that as a man of the world he had been a complete washout. Besides, Chris felt that now Fanny would expect him to marry her as well. She had already given indications of it.

Later, he became more reconciled to the idea, and when last heard of was looking for a house. Which seems to show that marriage comes more natural to us.

My Oedipus Complex

F
ATHER
was in the army all through the war—the first war, I mean—so, up to the age of five, I never saw much of him, and what I saw did not worry me. Sometimes I woke and there was a big figure in khaki peering down at me in the candlelight. Sometimes in the early morning I heard the slamming of the front door and the clatter of nailed boots down the cobbles of the lane. These were Father's entrances and exits. Like Santa Claus he came and went mysteriously.

In fact, I rather liked his visits, though it was an uncomfortable squeeze between Mother and him when I got into the big bed in the early morning. He smoked, which gave him a pleasant musty smell, and shaved, an operation of astounding interest. Each time he left a trail of souvenirs—model tanks and Gurkha knives with handles made of bullet cases, and German helmets and cap badges and button-sticks, and all sorts of military equipment—carefully stowed away in a long box on top of the wardrobe, in case they ever came in handy. There was a bit of the magpie about Father; he expected everything to come in handy. When his back was turned, Mother let me get a chair and rummage through his treasures. She didn't seem to think so highly of them as he did.

The war was the most peaceful period of my life. The window of my attic faced southeast. My mother had curtained it, but that had small effect. I always woke with the first light and, with all the responsibilities of the previous day melted, feeling myself rather like the sun, ready to illumine and rejoice. Life never seemed so simple and clear and full of possibilities as then. I put my feet out from under the clothes—I called them Mrs. Left and Mrs. Right—and invented dramatic situations for them in which they discussed the problems of the day. At least Mrs. Right did; she was very demonstrative, but I hadn't the same control of Mrs. Left, so she mostly contented herself with nodding agreement.

They discussed what Mother and I should do during the day, what Santa Claus should give a fellow for Christmas, and what steps should be taken to brighten the home. There was that little matter of the baby, for instance. Mother and I could never agree about that. Ours was the only house in the terrace without a new baby, and Mother said we couldn't afford one till Father came back from the war because they cost seventeen and six. That showed how simple she was. The Geneys up the road had a baby, and everyone knew they couldn't afford seventeen and six. It was probably a cheap baby, and Mother wanted something really good, but I felt she was too exclusive. The Geneys' baby would have done us fine.

Having settled my plans for the day, I got up, put a chair under the attic window, and lifted the frame high enough to stick out my head. The window overlooked the front gardens of the terrace behind ours, and beyond these it looked over a deep valley to the tall, red-brick houses terraced up the opposite hillside, which were all still in shadow, while those at our side of the valley were all lit up, though with long strange shadows that made them seem unfamiliar; rigid and painted.

After that I went into Mother's room and climbed into the big bed. She woke and I began to tell her of my schemes. By this time, though I never seem to have noticed it, I was petrified in my nightshirt, and I thawed as I talked until, the last frost melted, I fell asleep beside her and woke again only when I heard her below in the kitchen, making the breakfast.

After breakfast we went into town; heard Mass at St. Augustine's and said a prayer for Father, and did the shopping. If the afternoon was fine we either went for a walk in the country or a visit to Mother's great friend in the convent, Mother St. Dominic. Mother had them all praying for Father, and every night, going to bed, I asked God to send him back safe from the war to us. Little, indeed, did I know what I was praying for!

One morning, I got into the big bed, and there, sure enough, was Father in his usual Santa Claus manner, but later, instead of uniform, he put on his best blue suit, and Mother was as pleased as anything. I saw nothing to be pleased about, because, out of uniform, Father was altogether less interesting, but she only beamed, and explained that our prayers had been answered, and off we went to Mass to thank God for having brought Father safely home.

The irony of it! That very day when he came in to dinner he took off his boots and put on his slippers, donned the dirty old cap he wore about the house to save him from colds, crossed his legs, and began to talk gravely to Mother, who looked anxious. Naturally, I disliked her looking anxious, because it destroyed her good looks, so I interrupted him.

“Just a moment, Larry!” she said gently.

This was only what she said when we had boring visitors, so I attached no importance to it and went on talking.

“Do be quiet, Larry!” she said impatiently. “Don't you hear me talking to Daddy?”

This was the first time I had heard those ominous words, “talking to Daddy,” and I couldn't help feeling that if this was how God answered prayers, he couldn't listen to them very attentively.

“Why are you talking to Daddy?” I asked with as great a show of indifference as I could muster.

“Because Daddy and I have business to discuss. Now, don't interrupt again!”

In the afternoon, at Mother's request, Father took me for a walk. This time we went into town instead of out the country, and I thought at first, in my usual optimistic way, that it might be an improvement.

It was nothing of the sort. Father and I had quite different notions of a walk in town. He had no proper interest in trams, ships, and horses, and the only thing that seemed to divert him was talking to fellows as old as himself. When I wanted to stop he simply went on, dragging me behind him by the hand; when he wanted to stop I had no alternative but to do the same. I noticed that it seemed to be a sign that he wanted to stop for a long time whenever he leaned against a wall. The second time I saw him do it I got wild. He seemed to be settling himself forever. I pulled him by the coat and trousers, but, unlike Mother who, if you were too persistent, got into a wax and said: “Larry, if you don't behave yourself, I'll give you a good slap,” Father had an extraordinary capacity for amiable inattention. I sized him up and wondered would I cry, but he seemed to be too remote to be annoyed even by that. Really, it was like going for a walk with a mountain! He either ignored the wrenching and pummelling entirely, or else glanced down with a grin of amusement from his peak. I had never met anyone so absorbed in himself as he seemed.