The Misremembered Man (9 page)

L
ydia and Daphne studied their menus. They had met for lunch at the Golden Gate café, a place that believed in frying, frittering, and battering most of the ingredients that were delivered at its kitchen door. Of late, however, Lydia had noticed one or two healthier options nosing their way onto the menu. For this small concession she was grateful.

The friends sat opposite each other in a booth appointed with vinyl upholstery, a table laid with green-patterned oilcloth between them. All about, on walls of simulated knotty pine, hung prints of Killoran in a gentler, sepia-tinted, age.

The café was not busy. A group of youths were consuming cola and fries in a corner. At another table a lone farmer shoveled away at a fry-up, halting every so often to snorkel from a mug of tea. He ate with all the gusto of a porker at the trough. Lydia quietly noted that the place had gone down terribly, and vowed that she and Daphne would seek a more genteel establishment next time. Although she thought that this might prove difficult in Killoran.

Daphne was glad of the break from the library, and Lydia was glad to have time away from her mother. She had dropped her off at Beatrice Bohilly’s home. Beatrice had finished her paint-by-numbers picture,
Horse and Foal by Lake
, and wished to have her friend’s opinion and praise. Lydia knew that when the two ladies got together, time became stretched and lost in a great labyrinth of reminiscing gossip. For this Lydia was thankful. She could spend as much time as she liked with Daphne and her mother wouldn’t notice.

A young waitress approached them, bearing a notepad, a pen, a dishcloth, and an expression of terminal boredom.

“Are yous getting, are yous?”

“The quiche and salad for me, thanks,” Lydia said. “And you, Daphne?”

“I think I’ll try the scampi and French fries. I know I shouldn’t, but oh to have your willpower, Lydia.”

The glum waitress was jotting on the notepad.

“Nonsense, eat what you enjoy,” Lydia said. “Life’s too short. I mean to say, I’d—”

“D’yous want anything to drink with that?” the waitress interrupted.

“A pot of tea for two would be nice, please.” Daphne said. “But y’know I’ve been very lazy about my walking,” she continued to Lydia. “In the evenings I seem to have no energy and just want to collapse on the sofa with a book.”

The girl stuck the pen behind her ear, tore the duplicate page from the pad and shoved it under the salt shaker. She then slapped the dishcloth down on the table and circled the surface lethargically three times. “Right ye be,” she said, and slunk off in the direction of the swing kitchen doors.

“Well, you have more energy than that one.” Lydia’s eyes followed the girl, “and she’s probably half your age. Terrible to give up and stop making an effort when one is so young. I blame the parents.”

But Daphne was more concerned about Lydia’s replies to her advertisement. “The letters, Lydia,” she said impatiently. “I’m just dying to see them.”

Her friend reached into her faux-crocodile purse. “Now, have a read of each and tell me what you think.” She got up. “I’ll just nip to the ladies if you don’t mind.”

When she returned, Daphne was immersed in the contents of McPrunty’s envelope. She looked over her spectacles, a smile developing.

“‘Frank the Fixer.’ My word, he sounds the racy sort!”

“You know, I don’t know what to make of him. But what about this one?” Lydia tapped a single page. It was the letter written so painstakingly by Jamie McCloone.

“Well now,
he
sounds terribly solid. Although…”

Daphne was looking across at the farmer who, having consumed his meal, sat picking his dentures. The table before him was littered with stray fries and scattered peas. It looked as though he’d been having a food fight instead of a meal. His eyes were locked fixedly on the ketchup bottle as if he were witnessing an apparition of the Virgin Mary put on just for him.

“Now personally, I’ve nothing against farmers. Goodness me, I’ve been going out with one for over a decade, but they can be very—”

Two plates of food were thumped down in front of them without ceremony.

“Will yous be wantin’ brown sauce or ketchup or whatever with that?” the waitress demanded.

Daphne shook her head. “I will say this, though,” she said to Lydia, “they can be terribly untidy. I think it comes from working with livestock and being out of doors most of the time.” She speared a fry.

“Yes, I
do
see what you mean.” Her companion began to saw at the quiche. The pastry case seemed as resilient as the bark of a gum tree; she gave up and scooped up some filling with her fork.

“But Daphne, I’m not intending to
marry
one of these men, just take him to Heather’s wedding for the day. By the way, did you get your invitation?”

“I did, but wouldn’t it be great if you met someone nice?” Daphne wistfully considered her friend, imagining how a future husband would “complete” her.

The pot of tea arrived, and two cups and saucers were rattled into place beside their plates.

“So which one d’you think I should meet?”

“Well, why don’t you cover all eventualities and meet both? Wouldn’t do any harm.”

“I suppose not. But I’m not really ready to meet them just yet. I need more information.”

“I agree. I would write back to them both and ask some pertinent questions.”

“Like what, for instance?”

Daphne picked up Mr. McPrunty’s letter again. “Well, this one says he’s retired, but he doesn’t give his age—rather suspect, so he could be anywhere between sixty-five and ninety. Also ask if he’s been married before. And our Mr. McCloone says he likes reading, so ask what he reads. And cooking; would be interesting to find out what he cooks.” She pulled a face. “Because if I’m any judge, ‘cooking’ in bachelor-farmer speak means the ‘fend-for-myself fry-up’ for breakfast, dinner and supper.”

The farmer in the corner rose to go, and broke wind most audibly in the process. The ladies glared at him in disgust, but he appeared unaware of the social indiscretion.

“How utterly rude!” Daphne said aloud, hoping she might be heard. Lydia flapped a hand under her nose and reached into her purse for a handkerchief.

“Gosh, I sincerely hope Mr. McCloone has more decorum than him.” Daphne sat back in her seat. “Now where was I?” She referred to the letters. “Yes, now I remember: inquire as to what they look for in a woman. That should throw up some interesting insights, don’t you think?”

Just then, across the square, a car horn blared. They looked out, to see an Austin Princess limousine, bedecked in ribbons, pull up outside the church.

“A wedding! How fitting, Lydia. I think that’s a sign, don’t you?”

“Yes, quite.” Lydia’s voice was laden with skepticism.

The work-shy waitress had run to the window and was gazing raptly out at the commotion. All three watched the bride, radiant on her father’s arm, ascend the steps, yards of nylon tulle spilling out behind her. When they reached the church porch they turned and smiled for an array of popping flashbulbs.

“Oh, isn’t she lovely!” enthused Lydia.

“I think all brides are lovely,” said Daphne, swept up, like her friend, in the romance of the occasion. Because, deep down, both looked on the marriage bond as the ultimate prize for a woman’s endeavor. If only for the acceptance to be gained in the eyes of society. For Daphne and Lydia the gold wedding band was a badge of honor, desired as much by their mature selves as by the young waitress who stood beside them, her girlish dreams reflected in her look of entrancement.

In Daphne’s case, that longing for attachment had made her look on men as superior beings, no matter how flawed; it was an idea that corroded her judgment and rendered her infinitely flexible and tolerant. She had endured ten years of courtship by a man who showed little interest in marriage, who used his mother as an excuse for not committing. Daphne went along with this unhappy situation because to return to the manless state was unthinkable. Better to be attached and unhappy than unattached and sad—like Lydia.

Poor Lydia, she mused, because if she were honest, she
did
pity her friend. Poor Lydia; she rarely could think of her without that negative prefix. Her connection with the weak-willed John had given her a head start in the race that Poor Lydia hadn’t even entered yet. How things had changed from their schooldays! Back then it was Clever Lydia, always ahead of her in every subject, the bright one who sailed through exams to claim an exalted place at teacher training college, while she, Daphne, hampered by an unhealthy home life—alcoholic father, overworked mother—had struggled with rejections and examination re-sits.

Where once Daphne had looked up to Lydia, the balance of power had shifted, and now it was Lydia who admired and wanted a little of what Daphne had. She often mused on this reversal of roles with a satisfaction not befitting the confidante and friend she gave herself out to be.

As she lost herself in the wedding taking place opposite, she reflected with a smug kind of certainty that one day she’d climb those same steps, dressed all in white, but did not think that her friend ever would.

Soon the bride and her father had disappeared into the church, followed by a multicolored retinue of guests, the ladies in flimsy frocks and wide-brimmed hats, the men suffering in suits, forced to observe decorum in spite of the warm weather. With a sigh, the waitress returned to her chores and the ladies turned back to their plates.

“I
do
love weddings.” Daphne poured more tea. “I’m really looking forward to Heather’s, aren’t you?”

“Well, I’d feel happier about it if I knew who I was going with.” Lydia held up the two letters. “Right: questions. What did you say I should ask?”

“Oh, yes. Let me see.” She took the pages from Lydia and scanned them again. “Yes, now I know. Mr. McPrunty: ask his age, if he’s been married before and…and Mr. McCloone, what he reads and cooks.”

“That’s all?”

“Yes, I think that about covers it. Anyway, I’m sure you’ll think of more interesting things to ask when you’re writing.” Daphne looked at her watch. “Good, I’ve time for dessert.”

Lydia smiled and returned the letters to her purse. “Do you know, dear, you should have been a sleuth or an agony aunt.” She gave a mock salute.

“The pleasure is all mine. Now let’s have some ice cream to celebrate, having solved that little problem.”

S
ister Bernadette strode alongside her charges, through the mist of another murky morning, her habit belling out like a spinnaker in the wind. Her thoughts shut off from any softer refinements, running only the most negative footage in her head. She moved through her day like she moved through her life, keeping well within the narrow confines of her ruthless self. She dished out the cruelty and reveled in the hurt, in the mouths that screamed, the eyes that wept, seeing a small body ball up tight under her wounding lashes.

They entered a long tunnel, continued down it for a time until they came to a small square. Sister Bernadette blew the whistle once more and they halted. Before them gaped the doors of the chapel, and within its walls stood a priest waiting to say Mass.

Every day, at 6
A.M.
, God was served before breakfast.

They traipsed soundlessly to their appointed seats, at once kneeling down on the prie-dieux, their bony knees on the unyielding wood, their toes curled up on the stone floor. And there they would remain for the hour’s duration; no standing, no sitting, no stirring that might give them a moment’s reprieve. Their lips moved in prayer and their hands moved to cross themselves. No other gestures—smiling, talking, coughing—were permitted. Any sound that broke the silence would annoy the priest, and so it came with a heavy price.

Eighty-Six was running a fever. He had had little sleep because of a tearing cough, his head ached and his limbs were sore. He wanted desperately to cough now. His ribcage trembled with the pressure of keeping it in. Then a pain welled in his throat, so sharp that his will could fight against it no longer. He put his hand over his mouth and coughed and coughed and coughed.

In no time he heard the dreaded sounds: the quick, angry, frantic heels upon the tiled floor. Hard hands hauled him from the seat.

Sister Bernadette frogmarched him outside. The wind whipped at his sodden clothes as the rain lashed and pummeled him.

“Open your mouth!” she ordered, and shoved in the cake of black soap.

“Breakfast!” she snarled, and slapped him several times across the face. And he was made to stand in the rain, pondering his sin and suffering the penance it had brought him.

At 2
P.M
., Sister Veronica ordered him to her lesson.

The schoolroom was a dusty, draughty place, with five long benches for the pupils. It smelled of ancient ink and chalk dust. At the front of the room, on a raised platform, sat a large blackboard on an easel, with the teacher’s desk before it. On the desk was a globe that swiveled on a wooden stand. On the walls, pictures of Jesus and Mary. Pictures of animals and birds, too, and a cracked, glossy map of Ireland weighted with mahogany rods.

Sister Veronica stood by the blackboard, her cane poised below the first line of verse. This was her room. This was her world. Within its walls she drilled and taught. Where she exercised her rigid control, her commanding of attention and her steadfast refusal to ever give praise when she ought.

“Now, after the count of three, I want you all to recite the poem in chorus. One, two, three…”

“Good. That’s enough for the present. Now take out your slates and copy it down from the board.”

Something caught her eye.

“Eighty-One, did you hear me?” She hammered her desk with the cane. “Stand up. What were you doing just now?” She whisked to the back of the room, her black robes flying out behind her.

“Stand up, Eighty-One! Now, what were you doing under the desk?”

The boy, gangly, tall for his eight years, stood up awkwardly. His shaved head showed a bruise of mauve and yellow spreading from the left temple. The previous day his head had been banged against the corridor wall, punishment for having dropped his breakfast bowl. He had a cold sore on his lip, and like the rest of the boys, the sickly pallor and soulless eyes of the undernourished and uncared for.

“I dropped my slate, Sister.” He held it out in his trembling hands as if to prove the point, because he did not know what else to do.

“And why did you drop it?” she snapped back. The room was hushed. The boy did not know how to answer because he knew that whatever reason he gave would be wrong.

“Well, we’re all waiting. Aren’t we, class?” She swept an arm in a giant arc to encompass the group.

“Yes, Sister!” the class chorused back. But Eighty-One remained silent, staring down at the bench.

“Well, since you are so stupid as to not know why you dropped it, I shall have to tell you. You dropped your slate because you were not paying attention.” Her heartless words struck him like so many sharp stones. She placed the end of the cane under his chin and used it to force his head up. “How many times this month have you dropped your slate in my class, Eighty-One?”

“Two times, Sister.”

“Not ‘two times.’ The correct answer is ‘twice.’ Now, can we try that again, using a complete sentence?”

The boy swallowed hard and began.

“I have…dro…drop…dropped my slate…twiced, twice this…mon…month, Sister.”

“Good. And now today will be the third time, won’t it?” She grabbed him by the shoulder as he struggled to get his legs over the bench, and marched him to the front of the room.

“Hands out!” she ordered.

She pulled up the sleeve of her habit and, taking careful and calculated aim, brought the cane down again and again, like a door opening and closing on trapped hands. As she thrashed him, she screamed out the words of reprimand.

“You. Dirty. Filthy. Useless. Boy. You. Will. Not. Drop. Your. Slate. In. My. Class. Again.”

Fifteen words and fifteen lashes of the cane. The room quivered with her anger and the boy’s fear.

When she’d finished, she ordered Eighty-One to go and stand in the corner. But, instead of obeying, he swayed, before collapsing at her feet, his bruised head and ashen face hitting the floor with a dull thud. There was a gasp from the class as Sister Veronica leaned over the supine figure.

“Get up, you lazy wretch!”

But the boy did not flinch. He was unconscious. There was a trickle of blood coming from his left ear and pooling onto the floor.

The nun ran to the door and shouted for Bartley, the caretaker. He came presently and removed Eighty-One from the room.

“Take him to the infirmary,” she ordered.

Then she turned back to the class. “The rest of you, get the verse copied out
now
.”

Twenty heads dropped to the task.

They had suffered and seen so much violence that their fainting comrade did not upset them unduly. Their only consolation was that, so far, they had escaped the nun’s fury. Their only goal was for the situation to continue so, until they reached the close of the lesson.

Eighty-Six sat uneasily, changing his weight from one hip to the other, trying not to attract notice. The cake of soap he’d been forced to swallow earlier was exacting a scorching revenge: burning a steady path from the top of his gullet all the way down to his stomach. His whole body ached, his clothes were sodden, and the cough that had brought him so much grief threatened to betray him yet again. He wanted desperately to cry out, wanted desperately to die. But never having experienced—even for one minute—freedom from fear, he knew that even the bleakest choices were not his to make. In those agonizing circumstances he did what was demanded of him, and strove, trembling, to twist out the letters with his chalk; for now, his redemption lay in a labor of meaningless words that formed a meaningless verse.

He was on the fourth line: “And stare as long as sheep or cows.” He did, however, know what sheep and cows looked like. There were pictures of them on the wall under the heading “Old MacDonald’s Farm.” When he grew up he wanted to be a farmer. He pictured himself like Mr. MacDonald, with a cocked hat and a crooked staff, standing out in a green field, a collie dog with muddied paws cavorting about him. He could hear the bleating and mooing animals, and see them run toward him to be fed.

“You’ve stopped writing, Eighty-Six. You are finished then?” The nun bent over him.

“No, Sister.” He looked up.

“Then stop daydreaming and get on with it.” She moved to the next boy, and then turned back to him, prodding him with the cane. “And sit like a Christian on that seat.”

He sat properly, as instructed, and the pain properly beat through him, and his daydream blurred and ran. At the end of the lesson he was left with the ungraspable meaning of the chalked letters on the slate, the sight of the blood upon the floor and the vision of his comrade toppling.

None of them knew, as they filed out of the room, that they would never see Eighty-One again.