The Lonely Passion of Judith Hearne (7 page)

Sober now, he opened the front door quietly and looked down the hall to see if the light was on in his sister’s ground floor nest. All was dark. Painstakingly (only be an argument if she smelled it off me again) he went up the stairs, past Miss Friel’s door, past Miss Hearne’s, and turned towards the flight that led to the third floor and his room.

There was a noise up there, a whispering. He waited again. May? With Bernie maybe. No. He tested each step when he moved again. The light in Bernard’s room was out. Lenehan’s door was ajar and the noise of Lenehan’s snores could be heard in the landing. Mr Madden went past this door to his own and turned the handle.

Behind him, he heard a loud sudden giggle. He swung around, open-mouthed, in the rage of a man caught ill a foolish action.

‘O, no,’ he heard. ‘No, no.

A woman’s voice, soft, worried, sensual. It came from the half flight of stairs that led to the attic. Jesus, it’s the maid. I wonder what…?

He went up. The light was on under her door. Giggles, a creak of bedsprings, a whispering. He waited, an old hotel doorman, waited.

‘0, Bernie, Bernie don’t.’

Mr Madden wrenched the door open.

‘What’s goin’ on here?’

Mary, transformed by nudity, sat on the edge of the narrow broken-down bed. She wore only coarse black lisle stockings and a pair of faded blue knickers.

And Bernard. Mother naked. Mr Madden came inside and closed the door. So that’s it. And her only a kid. But what a kid. What a build.

Bernard found his red silk dressing-gown, dragged it around

him like a wrestler preparing to leave the ring.

‘Want something?’

Mr Madden’s face bled red with anger. ‘What do you mean, want something? What the hell do you think this is, a whorehouse? A kid of her age, I should…’

‘Go back to your room,’ Bernard said venomously. ‘At once. It’s none of your business.’

‘None of my business?’ Madden watched as the girl pulled a blanket offthe bed, wrapping it around the white nakedness of her body. Only a kid, but…

Chris, what’m I thinking? (Briefly, the picture of Sheila and that Hunky swam before his eyes. It’s guys like him that - and young girls like her) ‘What the hell you mean, my business? Whose business is it? What would your mother say, h? What’s your mother goin’ to say?’

Mary began to weep, black curls tumbling over her face.

‘Never mind my mother. What are you, a Peeping Tom, or something?’

With an effort Madden took his eyes offthe girl. ‘So it’s me is in the wrong, eh? Well, we’ll see about that. What about y ou? What about her? What would her father say, dirty little oor, a nice thing for a Catholic home.’

Righteous indignation filled him, flooding his brain with the near-ecstasy of power. The day’s futile drinking, the loneliness, the frustrations, all swam away and left this glorious rage in their stead. No respect. Sheila, listen to your father! Laughing at me-taking her pants down behind my back, that Hunky. And her. As bad. Listen to your father. I’ll show… I’m your father! Old brawler, old underdog authoritarian, he moved towards the terrified girl. ‘And you - get your clothes on. Tramp, hoot in a decent house.’

His fingers tore the blanket away from her body. Master of the room, he smacked, open-handed, leaving red marks on her thighs.

‘Dirty little hoor!’ He grabbed her, fondled her in rage, sprawled her across the bed.

‘0, mister, please mister. Don’t mister.’

‘Leave her alone I’

‘Dirty little hoor I’ Standing over her, he flailed her buttocks. Sheila, the woodshed, should of paddled you sooner. I’ll teach you, teach you.

‘Leave her alone! thv IaR aLOr I’

Bewildered, he allowed Bernard to pull him away. He keeled over on his crippled foot, his breathing harsh and painful. Weak, giddy, he watched ever widening circles explode before his eyes.

It cleared. He saw Bernard’s face. ‘Come on,’ he said. ‘Get

back in your room.’ ‘You too.’ ‘Okay.’

They went out together, leaving the girl whimpering on the bed. Stood in the darkness of the corridor in the exhaustion

follows passion.

tha, it should tell May. I should tell your mother. A kid like

that, you could be arrested. I could fix you, all right.’

‘Fix who? You went mad in there. Stark mad. You’d have

raped her if…’

‘I’d of what?’

Bernard put a pudgy finger to his lips. ‘Shh! Keep your voice down. You’ll waken the whole house. I could make it sound bad against you too. And Mary would back me up. It would be two against one, remember that.’

‘You’re crazy…’ But what happcned? Wearily, Madden tried to remember. Saw her. Only a kid. Like Sheila. I paddled her. Lost my head. That’s all. That’s art.

‘You screwed her, not me,’ he said angrily. ‘Don’t forget that.’

‘All right. But you pulled the blanket offher.’

Did I? What’s the matter with me? What a shit I am. Lost my head. The drink, my trouble. But him, he’s as bad. Worse. Did it sober. ‘All right, forget it,’ he said. ‘Let’s go to bed.’

In uneasy alliance they descended the stairs.

CHAPTER 4.

Sunday was the great day of the week. To begin with, there was Mass, early Mass with Holy Communion, or a late Mass where you were likely to see a lot of people. The special thing about Sunday Mass was that for once everyone was doing the same thing. Age, income, station in life, it made no difference: you all went to Mass, said the same prayers and listened to the same sermons. Miss Hearne put loneliness aside on a Sunday morning.

And on Sunday afternoons there was the visit to the O’Neills, the big event of the week. It began with a long tram ride to their house which gave you plenty of time to rehearse the things you could tell them, interesting things that would make them smile and be glad you had come. And then there was the house itself, big and full of children, all shapes and sizes, and to think you had known even the big ones since they were so high. It was as though you were a sort of unoffidal aunt. Almost.

On her first Sunday morning in Camden Street, Miss Hearne decided to go to eleven o’clock Mass. After all, Saint Finbar’s was now her new parish and it would be nice to see the other parishioners. She would wear her very best. Besides, some of the boarders might be going to eleven. Mr Madden, perhaps.

But when Mr Madden came down to breakfast, she saw that he looked ill, or (because she knew the dreadful signs of it) as if he had been drinking. Still, he said good morning to her very pleasantly. Although it was embarrassing the way he said it. Because all the others were there and Mr Madden did not speak to any of them.

Bernard said good morning to his uncle, unusually polite, Miss Hearne thought. But Mr Madden gave Bernard a very odd glance. As for Mr Lenehan, you could see he was still angry about what Mr Madden had said yesterday.

But thank heavens Mrs Henry Rice carried the conversation with a complaint about how, when she came home from

eight o’clock Mass, she found that Mary had run off” to nine o’clock and left her with the breakfast to make.

‘And with kippers to fry,’ Mrs Henry Rice said, passing a kippered herring and a slice of fried bread along to Miss Hearne. ‘It wouldn’t be any other morning she’d take it into her head to go to early Mass. No, she has to do it on Sunday and me left here with the biggest breakfast of the week.’

Miss Hearne agreed that you couldn’t be after the maids nowadays, they had it far too much their own way.

Miss Friel closed her book. ‘It’s a good thing the girl is attentive to her religious duties. It’s when they start missing Mass and Holy Communion that you should be worried. That’s when they’re up half the night with boys.’

‘No fear of Mary getting mixed up with boys,’ Mrs Hcnry Rice said. ‘Sure, she’s only a child, just out of school.’

‘This is a nice piece of kipper,’ Mr Madden said. ‘Nice to have a change. I mean, instead of toast and tea.’

Nobody could say ailything to that, agree or disagree, without insulting Mrs Henry It.ice to her face. So nobody said anything. The meal continued in silence, Mr Madden being the first to stop eating. He wiped his lips like an actor finishing a stage meal and put his napkin down in great satisfaction.

‘Do you have the time, by any chance, Miss Hearne?’

She blushed. Of course the little wristlet watch was not working, only there for show, and she hadn’t the faintest.

‘O, I’m sorry, but my watch must have stopped. I forgot to wind it.’

‘I think the clock’s right,’ Bernard said. ‘It’s twenty to eleven.’

Miss Hearne put down her napkin. ‘Goodness, I must hurry. I’ll miss the eleven o’clock if I don’t get a move on.’

‘I’m going to eleven o’clock Mass myself,’ Mr Madden said. ‘Mind if I walk along with you?’

‘O, not at all. I’ll be very glad of the company.’

Mrs Henry Rice looked at Bernard. ‘Are you going to eleven, Bernie?’

I’ll go to twelve,’ Bernard said, and the way he said it, Miss Hearne knew he had no intention of going at all. No wonder he talked like an atheist.

She and Mr Madden went upstairs to get their coats and hats. They met in the hall a few minutes later and he opened the front door for her, offering his arm as they went down the steps. She did not take it. It seemed]ust a little bit forward, the way he did it.

She was thinking of things to say as they went down Camden Street. Then she saw his dragging walk and all words left her. He has a bad leg, why did I never notice it? His walk, dragging his left leg, and that shoe is specially built. OmyGod, he’s a crippled.

At the corner of the street they came face to face with the reddish Gothic facade of Queen’s University. He looked up at it.

‘That Bernie. A college education, well they certainly didn’t teach him much.’

‘He is a little queer,’ she said tentatively.

‘Queer? He’s no queer, believe me. He’s just a no good mama’s boy, never did a day’s work in his life. Don’t let that poetry stuff fool you. That’s just a gimmick, so’s he can say he’s working. No, he’s got a cinch. Why should he work when May keeps him?’

He looked sideways at Miss Hearne. ‘You been to college? You seem like an educated woman,’

‘No, I’m afraid the Sacred Heart convent in Armagh is as far as I went,’ Miss Hearne said pridefully, because, after all, the Sacred Heart convent was the best in Ireland. The best families sent their girls there. Would he know that, being an American? ‘It’s considered the best convent, though,’ she added.

‘I never went to college. Had to get out and hustle for myself. I made out too, did fine.’

I wonder if he’s rich? Out walking on a Sunday morning with a strange man, what would Aunt D’Arcy have said? Still, he looks quite prosperous and respectable. That limp, you would hardly notice it. After all, I never noticed it before.

All Americans have money, they say. I wonder what he did in the hotel, would it be rude to ask him?

‘And did you go into the hotel business right away, when

you arrived in America?’

‘No.’

They walked in silence for a while. ‘Always had my own car,’ Mr Madden told the wind. ‘Always had my ovn car, even in the depression.’

She didn’t know quite what to reply to this, but something had to be said. ‘People earn a lot of money in America, don’t they?’

‘Some people. But it’s a young man’s country. They got no use for you when they figure you’re over the hill. Y’see, I always had it in mind to come back to ireland when I was older. Maybe marry again and settle down.’

Miss Hearne felt something turn over in her breast. ‘And did your poor wife pass on long ago?’

‘The year we went over. She’s dead goin’ on thirty years. It was the crossing that killed her, the boats were different in those days. Had the baby about a week after we landed. Sheila, my girl.’

‘O, so you have a family then.’

‘Well, just the one. She’s married now. I was living with her and the husband before I come home. I figured I was in the way, lying up around the house after my accident. This leg, y’see. So I told them I’m goin’ back to Ireland, kids, I said. Back home.’

He’s lonely, thinking of his old age like that. But how odd that he would discuss his private affairs without really knowing her at all. It was like something in a story, people meeting, struck by a common rapport, a spark of kinship or love.

Although that was silly and she was being daydreamy again. ‘I’m sure your daughter must miss you, all the same.’ ‘Some chance. Kids nowadays don’t care.’

They crossed the street as the light flashed green. He took her arm as they stepped off the pavement. She did not reject his aid.

‘0, children of the present generation are awfully

thoughtless. Even here in Ireland. Friends of mine, the O’Neills…’

‘Same thing here,’ he interrupted. ‘Come back to settle down anti you can’t even get respect from the likes of Bernie.’ ‘So you’re planning to stay here?’

‘Maybe. I got a couple of deals cooking. I might go to the West Indies, I hear there’s a lot of possibilities there. Depends. Or I might go into business in Dublin. If I had a partner.’

I wonder if he sold? Over fifty certainly. Maybe younger. But big, well-preserved, a man full of life and vigour. Did he retire, I wonder, or was it the accident to his leg? They don’t retire early in the hotel trade, remember Mr Bunting that was the manager of the Arcady hotel in Dublin, seventy, if he was a day.

‘Did you have a lot of running about to do in your job? In hotel work, I mean? It must have been a terrible strain.’

‘No, it was okay.’ He did not elaborate. He did not speak again until they reached the church and then only to ask if she preferred to sit up at the front. They made the Sign of the Cross together and his fingers brushed against hers in the Holy Water font. Then they walked up the aisle and he stood’ aside to let her pass into the pew before him. The seat he had chosen was directly under the pulpit. Before he knelt down, Mr Madden took a clean white handkerchief out of his trousers pocket and spread it on the dusty board to protect the knees of his trousers. He found his large brown rosary, wrapped it around liis knuckles, and placed himself in an attitude of prayer.