Lantern Slides

by Edna O'Brien

  The doctor’s wife saw it, too, and said, “Have you put on weight, Nancy?” Nancy said it was fluids. She had fluids on her lungs and they had travelled down. Meg felt very queer all of a sudden, as if she were being turned inside out on a skewer, the way she always felt when she got a fright. She knew then that some terrible thing was going to befall them, and she even made the wish that they would crash on the way home—go into a wall, all of them, die together before this worse calamity happened.

  * * *

  THE DRIVER HAD TO GO VERY SLOWLY because of the fog, and they had all run out of conversation, so it was a silent, anxious journey as the car crawled along, and from time to time the driver had to stop to look at the signs. When they finally reached their own gate, the mother apologized to the doctor’s wife for not asking her in, grieving at the lateness of the hour. Inside, the house was cold, and the dog rushed in after them, yelping for food. The mother fetched the torch and told the father to go and shut the hens. He asked Meg to go with him, because he was afraid to go to the yard at night alone, but he pretended it was just for company’s sake. In their coop, the hens clucked and made as if to leave their perches, thinking because of the glimmer of light that it was morning, and one got out in spite of them. There was a smell of soft, warm dung, and this, along with the low croak of the hens, made her envious of their existence, which she saw as trouble-free. He said they weren’t to tell Mother that a hen got out, as she would be raging.

  Inside, the invalid had gone to bed; her mother said, “She was all in,” and expressed pity for her, for the first time. The father had tea and bread, and as there was school next day, Meg put a bit of polish on her shoes—but only on the saluting part of her shoes. She was sleeping in the same room as her sister; she dreaded it and hoped that Nancy was in bed by now and fast asleep. She did not want to see her undressed. Her mother told her to carry up a cup of cocoa for her poor sister and say her prayers, and that she had been a good girl, apart from the incident with the coat. Her father put what was left of his change on the dresser and said that James, the driver, could break the bank of Monte Carlo with the amount of sandwiches he consumed.

  In the bedroom, Nancy was crying. She was in dreadful pain. She said it was appendicitis, she knew it was. Other girls at school had had it, and unless the appendix was taken out she would die of peritonitis. Between each sentence she gripped the quilt—first with her hands and then, as the pain got worse, with her teeth. Then she paused and waited for another spasm to overtake her. Meg knew different; she knew it was not appendicitis—she knew without knowing, like the day she knew without knowing what it was when she saw her sister with her gabardine coat up at the back. However, she was not going to say it. She had just taken a vow of silence, and she did not answer her sister’s pleas to help her, to go downstairs and tell them that she needed a doctor, as she had an appendix that was on the point of bursting. She would not do it, she could not do it. The doctor would come and all would be revealed.

  “Please, please, little mite!” her elder sister begged, the tears rolling down her face and her mouth opening and shutting to alleviate the spasms.

  “Let’s say a prayer,” Meg said, relenting.

  In a few hours’ time their lives would be destroyed, she thought. There was no knowing what would happen. It was awful. Possibly one if not two people would get killed; this new arrival would be done away with first. She saw it as a monster with two heads. She heard it in her mind’s ear—bawling, then quelled. The longer she delayed going to the landing to call, the longer she could postpone the catastrophe. But at that moment her sister let out a cry so piercing no one could avoid hearing it, and as Meg rushed out onto the landing she met her mother, and she knew with a terrible clarity that her mother knew, because she said, “The demon, the demon, what has she done?” As her mother rushed into the room, her angry voice was swamped by a series of roars that forestalled any further questioning … and it was clear now that the doctor would have to be summoned.

  “I’ll put water on to boil,” Meg said, and then she began to hum in a loud, screechy voice. In no time at all their house would be a battlefield.

  DRAMAS

  WHEN THE NEW SHOPKEEPER arrived in the village he aroused great curiosity along with some scorn. He was deemed refined because his fingernails looked as if they had been varnished a tinted ivory. He had a horse, or as my father was quick to point out, a glorified pony, which he had brought from the Midlands, where he had previously worked. The pony was called Daisy, a name unheard of in our circles for an animal. The shopkeeper wore a long black coat, a black hat, talked in a low voice, made his own jams and marmalades, and could even darn and sew. All that we came to know of, in due course, but at first we only knew him as Barry. In time the shop would have his name, printed in beautiful silver sloping script, above the door. He had bought the long-disused bakery, had all the ovens thrown out, and turned it into a palace which not only had gadgets but gadgets that worked, a lethal slicer for the ham, a new kind of weighing scale that did not require iron weights hefted onto one side but that simply registered the weight of a bag of meal and told it by a needle that spun round, wobbling dementedly before coming to a standstill. Even farmers praised its miraculous skills. He also had a meat safe with a grey gauze door, a safe in which creams and cheeses could be kept fresh for an age, free of the scourge of flies or gnats.

  Straightaway he started to do great business as the people reneged on the shops where they had dealt for years and where many of them owed money. They flocked, to look at him, to hear his well-mannered voice, and to admire dainties and things that he had in stock. He had ten different flavored jellies and more than one brand of coffee. The women especially liked him. He leant over the counter, discussed things with them, their headaches, their knitting, patterns for suits or dresses that they might make, and along with that he kept an open tin of biscuits so that they could have them if they felt peckish. The particular favorite was a tiny round biscuit, like a Holy Communion wafer with a thin skin of rice paper as a lining. These were such favorites that Barry would have to put his hand down beneath the ruffs of ink paper and ferret up a few from the bottom. The rice paper did not taste like paper at all but like a disk of some magical metamorphosed sugar. Besides that coveted biscuit, there were others, a sandwich of ginger with a soft white filling that was as sturdy as putty, and another in which there was a blend of raspberry and custard, a combination that engendered such ecstasy that one was torn between the pleasure of devouring it or tasting each grain slowly so as to isolate the raspberry from the custard flavour. There were also arrowroot and digestives, but these were the last to be eaten. He called the biscuits “bikkies” and cigarettes “ciggies.”

  He was not such a favorite with the men, both because he raved to the women and because he voiced the notion of bringing drama to the town. He said that he would find a drama that would embody the talents of the people and that he would direct and produce it himself. Constantly he was casting people, and although none of us knew precisely what he meant, we would agree when he said, “Rosalind, a born Rosalind,” or, “Cordelia, if ever I met one.” He did not, however, intend to do Shakespeare, as he feared that, being untrained, the people would not be able to get their tongues around the rhyming verse and would not feel at home in bulky costumes. He would choose something more suitable, something that people could identify with. Every time he went to the city to buy stock, he also bought one or two plays, and if there was a slack moment in the shop he would read a speech or even a whole scene, he himself acting the parts, the men’s and the women’s. He was very convincing when he acted the women or the girls. One play was about a young girl who saw a dead seagull, and in seeing it, her tragedy was predestined: she was crossed in love, had an illegitimate child, and drove a young man to suicide. Another time he read scenes about two very unhappy people in Scandinavia who scalded each other, daily, with accusation and counter-accusation, and to buoy himself up, the man did a frenzie
d dance. Barry did the dance, too, jumping on and off the weighing scales or even onto the counter when he got carried away. He used to ask me to stay on after the shop closed, simply because I was as besotted as he was by these exotic and tormented characters. It was biscuits, sweets, lemonade, anything. Yet something in me trembled, foresaw trouble.

  The locals were suspicious, they did not want plays about dead birds and illegitimate children, or unhappy couples tearing at each other, because they had these scenarios aplenty. Barry decided, wisely, to do a play that would be more heartening, a simple play about wholesome people and wholesome themes, such as getting the harvest in safely. I was always privy to each new decision, partly because of my mania for the plays and partly because I had to tell him how his pony was doing. The pony grazed with us and consequently we were given quite a lot of credit. I shall never forget my mother announcing this good news to me flushed with pride, almost suave as she said, “If ever you have the hungry grass on the way from school, just go into Barry and say you feel like a titbit.” By her telling me this so casually, I saw how dearly she would have loved to have been rich, to entertain, to give lunch parties and supper parties, to show off the linen tablecloths and the good cutlery which she had Vaselined over the years to keep the steel from rusting. In these imaginary galas she brandished the two silver salvers, the biscuit barrel, and the dinner plates with their bouquets of violets in the center and scalloped edging that looked like crochet work. We had been richer, but over the years the money got squandered.

  Barry to her did not talk wisely about dramas but about the ornaments in our house, commenting on her good taste. It was the happiest half year in my life, being able to linger in Barry’s shop and while he was busy read some of these plays and act them silently inside my head. With the customers all gone, I would sit on the counter, swing my legs, gorge biscuits, and discuss both the stories and the characters. Barry in his white shop coat and with a sharpened pencil in his hand would make notes of the things we said. He would discuss the scenery, the lights, the intonation of each line, and when an actor should hesitate or then again when an actor should let rip. Barry said it was a question of contrast, of nuance versus verve. I stayed until dark, until the moon came up or the first star. He walked home, but he did not try to kiss one or put his hand on the tickly part of the back of the knee, the way other men did, even the teacher’s first cousin, who pretended he wasn’t doing it when he was. Barry was as pure as a young priest and like a priest had pale skin with down on it. His only blemish was his thinning hair, and the top of his head was like an egg, with big wisps, which I did not like to look at.

  Business for him was not quite as flush as in those first excitable weeks, but as he would say to my mother, things were “ticking over,” and also he was lucky in that his Aunt Milly in the Midlands was going to leave him her farm and her house. Meanwhile, if there were debts she would come to the rescue, so that he would never be disgraced by having his name printed in a gazette where all the debtors’ names were printed so that the whole country knew of it.

  As it neared autumn Barry had decided on a play and had started auditions. “All for Hecuba and Hecuba for me,” he said to the mystified customers. It was a play about travelling players, so that, as he said, the actors and actresses could have lots of verve and camp it up. No one knew quite what he meant by “camp it up.” He mulled over playing the lead himself, but there were objections from people in the town. So each evening men and women went to the parlour that adjoined the shop, read for him, and often emerged disgruntled and threatening to start up a rival company because he did not give them the best part. Then an extraordinary thing happened. Barry had written on the spur of the moment to a famous actor in Dublin for a spot of advice. In the letter he had also said that if the actor was ever passing through the vicinity he might like “to break bread.” Barry was very proud of the wording of this letter. The actor replied on a postcard. It was a postcard on which four big white cats adhered together, in a mesh. Spurred by this signal Barry made a parcel of country stuffs and sent them to the actor by registered post. He sent butter, fowl, homemade cake, and eggs wrapped in thick twists of newspaper and packed in a little papier-mâché box.

  Not long after, I met him in the street, in a dither. The most extraordinary thing had happend. The actor and his friend were coming to visit, had announced it without being invited, said they had decided to help Barry in his artistic endeavour and would teach him all the rudiments of theatre that were needed for his forthcoming production. “A business lunch à trois” was how Barry described it, his voice three octaves higher, his face unable to disguise his fervid excitement. My mother offered to loan linen and cutlery, the Liddy girl was summoned to scrub, and Oona, the sacristan, was cajoled to part with some of the flowers meant for the altar, while I was enlisted to go around the hedges and pick anything, leaves, branches, anything.

  “His friend is called Ivan,” Barry said, and added that, though Ivan was not an actor, he was a partner and saw to the practical aspect of things. How he knew this I have no idea, because I doubt that the actor would have mentioned such a prosaic thing. Preparations were begun. My mother made shortbread and cakes, orange and Madeira; she also gave two cockerels, plucked and ready for the oven, with a big bowl of stuffing which the Liddy girl could put in the birds at the last minute. She even put in a darning needle and green thread so that the rear ends of the chickens could be sewn up once the stuffing was added. The bath was scoured, the bathroom floor so waxed that the Liddy girl slipped on it and threatened to sue, but was pacified with the gift of a small packet of cigarettes. A fire was lit in the parlour for days ahead, so as to air it and give it a sense of being lived in. It was not certain if the actor and Ivan would spend the night, not clear from the rather terse bulletin that was sent, but, as Barry pointed out, he had three bedrooms, so that if they did decide to stay, there would be no snag. Naturally he would surrender his own bedroom to the actor and give Ivan the next best one and he could be in the box room.

  Nobody else was invited, but that was to be expected, since after all it was a working occasion and Barry was going to pick their brains about the interpretation of the play, about the sets and the degree to which the characters should exaggerate their plights. The guests were seen emerging from a big old-fashioned car with coupe bonnet, the actor holding an umbrella and sporting a red carnation in his buttonhole. Ivan wore a raincoat and was a little portly, but they ran so quickly to the hall door that only a glimpse of them was caught. Barry had been standing inside the door since after Mass, so that the moment he heard the thud of the knocker, the door was swung open and he welcomed them into the cold but highly polished corridor. We know that they partook of lunch because the Liddy girl told how she roasted the birds to a T, added the potatoes for roasting at the correct time, and placed the lot on a warmed platter with carving knife and carving fork to one side. She had knocked on the parlour door to ask if Barry wanted the lunch brought in, but he had simply told her to leave it in the hatch and that he would get it himself, as they were in the thick of an intense discussion. She grieved at not being able to serve the lunch, because it meant both that she could not have a good look at the visitors and that she would not get a handsome tip.

  It was about four o’clock in the afternoon when the disturbance happened. I had gone there because of being possessed by a mad hope that they would do a reading of the play and that I would be needed to play some role, even if it was a menial one. I stood in the doorway of the drapery shop across the street, visible if Barry should lift the net curtain and look out. Indeed, I believed he would and I waited quite happily. The village was quiet and sunk in its after-dinner somnolence, with only myself and a few dogs prowling about. It had begun to spatter with rain. I heard a window being raised and was stunned to see the visitors on the small upstairs balcony, dressed in outlandish women’s clothing. I should have seen disaster then, except that I thought they were women, that other visitors, the
ir wives perhaps, had come unbeknownst to us. When I saw Barry in a maroon dress, larking, I ducked down, guessing the awful truth. He was calling, “Friends, Romans, countrymen.” Already three or four people had come to their doorways, and soon there was a small crowd looking up at the appalling spectacle of three drunk men pretending to be women. They were all wearing pancake makeup and were heavily rouged. The actor also wore a string of pearls and kept hitting the other two in jest. Ivan was wearing a pleated skirt and a low-cut white blouse, with falsies underneath. The actor had on some kind of toga and was shouting wild endearments and throwing kisses.

  The inflamed owner of the drapery shop asked me how long these antics had been going on.

  “I don’t know,” I said, my face scarlet, every bit of me wishing to vanish. Yet I followed the crowd as they moved, inexorably, towards the balcony, all of them speechless, as if the spectacle had robbed them of their reason. It was in itself like a crusade, this fanatic throng moving towards assault.

  Barry wore a tam-o’-shanter and looked uncannily like a girl. It gave me the shivers to see this metamorphosis. He even tossed his neck like a girl, and you would no longer believe he was bald. The actor warmed to the situation and starting calling people “Ducky” and “Cinders,” while also reciting snatches from Shakespeare. He singled people out. So carried away was he by the allure of his performance that the brunette wig he was wearing began to slip, but determined to be a sport about this, he took it off, doffed it to the crowd, and replaced it again. One of the women, a Mrs. Gleeson, fainted, but more attention was being paid to the three performers than to her, so she had to stagger to her feet again. Seeing that the actor was stealing the scene, Ivan did something terrible: he opened the low-cut blouse, took out the falsies, tossed them down to the crowd, and said to one of the young men, “Where there’s that, there’s plenty more.” The young man in question did not know what to do, did not know whether to pick them up and throw them back or challenge the strangers to a fight. The actor and Ivan then began arguing and vied with each other as to who was the most fetching. Barry had receded and was in the doorway of the upper room, still drunk, but obviously not so drunk as to be indifferent to the calamity that had occurred.