by Colm Toibin
Your loving brother, Jack
Eilis read the letter a few times and then she realized that she could not stay on her own now, she could hear Jack’s voice in the words he wrote, she could feel him in the room with her and it was as though he had come in from a hurling match and his team had lost and he was breathless with the news. If she had been at home she could have spent time talking to Jack, listening to him, sitting with her mother and Martin and Pat, going over what had happened. She could not imagine Rose lying dead; she had thought of her as asleep and being laid out like someone who was sleeping but now she had to think of her like stone, all the life gone out of her, and her closed in the coffin, all changed and changing and gone from them. She almost wished Jack had not written but she knew that someone had to write and he was the best at writing.
She moved around the room, wondering what she should do. It struck her for a second that she could get a subway to the harbour and find the next boat going across the Atlantic and simply pay the fare and wait and get on the boat. But she realized quickly that she could not do this, they might not have an empty place and her money was in the savings bank. She thought of going upstairs, and in her mind she went through each of her fellow lodgers but none of them could be any use to her now. The only person who could be any use to her was Tony. She looked at the clock; it was ten thirty. If she could get there quickly on the subway, then she could be at his house in less than an hour, maybe a bit longer if the late trains did not come so often. She found her coat and went quickly into the corridor. She opened and closed the basement door and went up the steps trying not to make a sound.
His mother answered the door in her dressing gown and took her upstairs to the door of the apartment. It was clear that the family had retired for the night and Eilis knew that she did not seem now in a deep enough distress to justify her intruding at this hour. She saw through the door that Tony’s parents’ bed was already folded out and she came close to telling Tony’s mother that it was fine, she was sorry for disturbing them and would go home. But that, she realized, would make no sense. Tony, his mother said, was getting dressed and he was going to go out with her; he shouted from the bedroom that they could go to the diner around the corner.
Suddenly, Frank appeared in his pyjamas. He had moved so quietly that she did not notice him until he was standing nearly in front of her. He seemed immensely curious and stealthy, almost comically so, like a figure in a movie who has just witnessed a robbery or a murder on a dark street. And then he looked at her openly and smiled at her and she had no choice but to smile in return just as Tony appeared and then Frank had to go back to his bedroom, having been told to mind his own business and leave Eilis alone.
From Tony’s appearance, she knew that he had been asleep. He checked in his pockets for his keys and then he slipped back into the kitchen, where she could not see him, and whispered something to his mother or his father and then came out again, the expression on his face grave and responsible and concerned.
As they walked down the street towards the diner Tony held her close to him. They moved slowly and did not speak. For a second, as they had made their way down the stairs of his building, she had felt that he was angry with her for calling so late, but now she understood that he was not. He had a way of snuggling in close to her when they walked together that made her know that he loved her. He was doing this now even more intensely than usual. She also knew it would matter to him that if she needed help like this she would feel secure coming to him rather than Father Flood or Mrs. Kehoe, that he would come first for her. More than anything else she had ever done, she thought, this was the most direct and emphatic way she had ever made clear to him that she would stay with him.
In the diner, once they had ordered, he read Jack’s letter slowly, almost too slowly, she thought, letting his lips move with some of the words. It struck her that she should not have shown it to him and should not have come to his house like this. It would be impossible for him to read the parts about her mother wanting to see her, her mother unable to be alone, without his feeling that she might go and that this was her way of breaking the news to him. As she watched him reading, his face pale, his expression deadly serious, as he seemed to be fiercely concentrating, she guessed that he was going over those parts of the letter that seemed to suggest she was needed by her mother in Enniscorthy. She was sorry now that she had not managed to contain herself earlier, that she had not foreseen this. And she felt stupid because she knew that no matter what she said it would be impossible to convince Tony that she wasn’t going to go back to Ireland.
When he handed her the letter there were tears in his eyes.
“Your brother must be a very nice man,” he said. “I wish…” He hesitated for a moment and then reached across the table and held her hand. “I don’t mean I wish, but it would have been right if you and me had been there at the funeral, if I could have been there with you.”
“I know,” she said.
“And soon your mother will write,” he said, “and you must come to my house before you even open her letter.”
She could not tell if he meant it when he suggested that she should not be alone when she opened her mother’s letter because he should be close by to comfort her. Or if he really meant, in fact, that, since he could not read her mind or guess precisely what her intentions were, he would like to see what her mother had to say about her going or her staying.
All this was a mistake, she thought again, as she set about apologizing for having disturbed him. When she realized how cold this sounded and how it seemed to set her at a distance from him, she told him how grateful she was for him coming out with her now when she needed him. He nodded, but she knew that he was disturbed by the letter, or maybe he was just as upset by it as she had been, or maybe he was a puzzling mixture of both.
He insisted on taking her home, even though she protested that he could easily miss the very last subway back. Once more, they did not speak, but as he walked her from the subway station through the dark cold empty streets to Mrs. Kehoe’s, she felt that she was being held by someone wounded, that the letter had somehow, in its tone, made clear to him what had really happened and made plain to him also that she belonged somewhere else, a place that he could never know. She thought that he was going to cry; she felt almost guilty that she had handed some of her grief to him, and then she felt close to him for his willingness to take it and hold it, in all its rawness, all its dark confusion. She was almost more upset now than she had been when she had ventured out in search of him.
When they reached the house he held her but did not kiss her. She moved as close to him as she could until she felt the warmth of him and they both began to sob. She wished that she could tell him, in a way that would make him believe her, that she would not go, but then it struck her that Tony might feel she should go, that the letter had made him see where her duty lay, that he was crying now for everything, for Rose who was dead, for her mother who was lonely, for Eilis who would have to go, and for himself who would be left. She wished she could say something clear, or even wished that she could tell what he was thinking or why he was crying now harder than she was.
She knew that she could not walk alone down the steps into the basement and turn on the light in her room and be on her own there. And she knew also that he could not turn from her and walk away. As she produced the door key from the pocket of her coat, she pointed to Mrs. Kehoe’s window and put her finger to her lips. They tiptoed down the steps to the basement and she opened the door and turned on the light in the hall and closed the door without making a sound and opened the door of her room for him before turning off the light in the hall.
The room was warm and they both took off their coats. Tony’s face was puffed and raw from crying. When he tried to smile she moved towards him and held him.
“Is this where you live?” he whispered.
“Yes, and if you make one sound, I’ll be evicted,” she said.
He kissed
her gently and responded with his tongue only when she opened her mouth for him. His body was warm and seemed strangely vulnerable to her now as she pulled him against her. She ran her hands down his back and under his shirt until she was touching his skin. They moved towards the bed without speaking. As they lay beside each other, he lifted her skirt and opened his trousers enough for her to feel his penis against her. She knew that he was waiting for a sign from her, that he would do nothing more as they continued to kiss. She opened her eyes and saw that his were closed. Quietly, she moved away from him and took off her panties and by the time she lay beside him again he had pulled his trousers down further and his underwear too so that she could touch him. He tried to put his hands on her breasts but could not easily unloose her brassiere; he put his hand on her back and concentrated on kissing her fiercely.
When he moved on top of her and entered her she tried not to gasp as she began to panic. It was not only the pain and the shock but the idea that she could not control him, that his penis was pushing into her deeper than she wanted it to go. With each thrust it seemed to move further into her until she was sure it was going to injure something inside her. She felt a relief as it pulled back but only to find it worse each time as it pushed up into her. She tightened as much as she could to stop it and she wished she could call out or indicate that he should not push in so hard, that he was going to break something.
That she could not shout made her panic even greater; she put her energy into tightening her whole body with all the force she could gather. And as she did so he gasped, he made noises that she did not imagine anyone could make, a sort of muffled whining that did not let up. As he stopped moving she tightened more, hoping that he would now take his penis out, but instead he lay on top of her, gasping. It seemed to her that he was unaware of anything except his own breathing, that in these minutes as she lay with him quietly on top of her he did not know or care that she existed. She had no idea how they were going to face each other now. She did not move as she waited for him to do something.
What he did once he moved away from her surprised her. He stood up without saying anything, looked at her, smiled and took his shoes and socks off and then removed his trousers and underpants. He knelt on the bed and slowly undressed her, and when she was naked, with her arms covering her breasts, he took off his shirt so that he was naked too. He approached gently, almost shyly, and lifted the bed covers and they both moved in between the sheets and lay together for some time quietly. She realized when she touched him once more, his penis erect again, how smooth and beautiful he was, and how much stronger he seemed naked than when he was with her in the street or in the dancehall, where, compared to men who were taller or bigger, he had often appeared almost frail. When she understood that he wanted to enter her again she whispered to him that he had pushed in too far the first time.
“I thought you would go up into my neck.” She laughed under her breath.
“I wish I could,” he said.
She pinched him hard.
“No, you don’t wish you could.”
“Hey, that hurt,” he whispered and kissed her, moving slowly on top of her.
This time the pain was almost worse than before, as though he were hitting against something inside her that was bruised or cut.
“Is that better?” he asked.
She tightened as much as she could.
“Hey, that’s beautiful,” he said. “Can you do that more?”
Once again, as he pushed in further, he seemed to become unaware that she was with him. He seemed lost to the world. And this sense of him as beyond her made her want him more than she had ever done, made her feel that this now and the memory of it later would be enough for her and had made a difference to her beyond anything she had ever imagined.
The next day he was waiting for her after work and they walked from Fulton Street to the subway station without speaking. Once there, they arranged to meet again outside the college when the classes had finished. He appeared grave, almost angry with her, as they parted. Later, when he had walked her home, she turned before going down the basement steps and saw he was still standing there. He gave her a grin that reminded her so much of his brother Frank’s way of grinning, so full of mischief and innocence, that she laughed and pointed at him in mock accusation.
It was clear, once she arrived in the kitchen and was waiting for the kettle to boil, that Mrs. Kehoe, who was alone at the table, was not speaking to her. She felt a lightness that almost caused her to ask Mrs. Kehoe what the problem was, but instead she moved around the kitchen pretending that she noticed nothing strange.
It struck her then that Mrs. Kehoe, who generally, Eilis believed, heard every sound and missed nothing, had heard Tony either entering or leaving the basement or, perhaps worse indeed, heard him during the night. In all the outrages that could be committed by the lodgers, this had never even been mentioned as a possibility by the lodgers themselves or by Mrs. Kehoe. It was in the realm of the unthinkable. While Patty and Diana often talked freely about boyfriends, the idea that one of them would spend an entire night in the company of her boyfriend, or allow him access to her bedroom, was out of the question. As Eilis sat in the chilly silence created by Mrs. Kehoe, she determined to deny emphatically and brazenly that Tony had been near her room and declare that such an idea shocked her as much as it did her landlady.
She made poached eggs and toast and was relieved when Patty and Diana came in with news about a coat that Patty had seen and was going to buy if it was still there on Friday when she got paid. Mrs. Kehoe stood up without speaking and left the kitchen banging the door.
“What’s biting her?” Patty asked.
“I think I know,” Diana said, looking at Eilis, “but as God is my witness I heard nothing.”
“Heard what?” Patty asked.
“Nothing,” Diana said. “But it sounded lovely.”
Eilis slept deeply and woke in the morning exhausted and sore. It was as though Rose’s death had happened long ago, and her night with Tony remained with her as something powerful, still present. She wondered how she would know if she was pregnant, how early the signs would come. She touched her stomach, asking herself if at this very moment something could be happening there, some tiny connection like a small knot, or smaller even, smaller than a drop of water but with everything in it that was needed for it to grow. She wondered if there was anything she could do to stop it, if there was something she could wash herself with, but as soon as she thought of that she knew that even the idea was wrong and that she would have to go to confession and make Tony go too.
She hoped that he would not grin at her again as he had done the previous evening and that he would realize the trouble she was in if she was pregnant. But if she was not pregnant, she hoped he would understand, as she did now, that what they had done was wrong, and more wrong because it had been done when Rose was barely in her grave. Even when she went to confession, Eilis realized, and told the priest what they had done, she would never be able to tell anyone that just half an hour before they had been crying. It would seem too strange.
As soon as she saw Tony that evening she told him that they would both have to go to confession the following evening, which was Friday, and that she presumed he understood this.
“I couldn’t go to Father Flood,” she said, “or any priest who might recognize me. I know it shouldn’t matter, but I couldn’t.”
Tony suggested that they should go to his local church, where most of the priests were Italians.
“Some of them don’t understand a word you’re saying if you speak in English,” he said.
“That’s not a real confession, then.”
“But I think they recognize some key words.”
“Don’t make jokes. You are going to confession too.”
“I know that,” he said. “And will you promise me something?” He moved close to her. “Will you promise to be kind to me after the confession? I mean to hold my hand and talk to me
and smile?”
“And will you promise me to make a good confession?”
“Yes, I will,” he said, “and my mom wants you to come to lunch on Sunday. She’s worried about you.”
The following evening they met outside his church. Tony insisted that they go to separate priests; hers, he said, a priest called Anthony with a long Italian surname, was young and nice and spoke English. He himself, he said, was going to go to one of the older Italian ones.
“Make sure he understands what you say,” she whispered.
When she told the priest she had had sexual intercourse twice with her boyfriend three nights earlier, he left silence for a long time.
“Was this the first time?” he asked when he spoke eventually.
“Yes, Father.”
“Do you love one another?”
“Yes, Father.”
“What will you do if you are pregnant?”
“He will want to marry me, Father.”
“Do you want to marry him?”
She could not answer. After a while, he asked her again, his tone sympathetic.
“I would like to marry him,” she said hesitantly, “but I am not ready to marry him now.”
“But you say you love him?”
“He is a good man.”
“Is that enough?”
“I love him.”
“But you are not sure?”
She sighed and said nothing.
“Are you sorry for what you did with him?”
“Yes, Father.”
“For your penance I want you to say just one Hail Mary, but say it slowly and think about the words, and you must promise to come back in one month. If you are pregnant, we will have to talk again, and we will help you in every way we can.”
When she got back to Mrs. Kehoe’s she discovered that a lock had been put on the basement gate and she had to let herself in by the main door. Mrs. Kehoe was in the kitchen with Miss McAdam, who had decided that she was not going to the dance.
