by Edna O'Brien
“Get out of this dive—be something—somebody. An actor, something exciting,” Martha said as she looked in the mirror and squeezed a blackhead out of her chin.
“Were you famous, Mammy?” Baba asked the face in the mirror. The face raised its eyes and sighed, remembering. Martha had been a ballet dancer. But she gave up her career for marriage, or so she said.
“Why did you chuck in?” Baba asked, knowing the answer well.
“Actually I was too tall,” said Martha, doing a little dance away from the mirror and across the room, waving a red georgette scarf in the air.
“Too tall? Jesus, stick to the same story,” Baba reminded her mother, and her mother went on dancing on the tips of her toes.
“I could have married a hundred men, a hundred men cried at my wedding,” Martha said, and the children began to clap.
“One was an actor, one was a poet, a dozen were in the diplomatic service.” Her voice trailed off as she went over to speak to her two pet goldfish on the dressing table.
“Diplomatic service—better than this dump,” Baba mourned.
“Christ,” Martha replied, and then a car hooted and they all jumped.
“The chicken, the chicken,” said Martha, and she put it in the wardrobe with an old bed jacket over it. In the wardrobe there were summer dresses and a white fur evening cape.
“Get out, be doing something in the kitchen—your exercises,” Martha said as she got down her toothbrush and began to wash her teeth over the handbasin. Their house was very modern, with hand-basins in the two front bedrooms. Later she followed us down to the kitchen.
“All right?” she asked, breathing close to Baba.
“He’ll say you give your damn teeth great care.” Baba laughed, and then made a straight face when she heard him come in the back door. He was carrying an empty Winchester, an open packet of cotton, and a shoebox full of garden peas.
“Mammy. Declan. Baba.” He saluted each of them. I was behind the door and he couldn’t see me. His voice was low and hoarse and slightly sarcastic. Martha knelt down and got his dinner out of the lower oven of the Aga cooker. It was a fried chop that had gone dry and some fried onions that looked very sodden. She put the plate on an elaborately laid silver tray. The Brennans, my mother always claimed, would make a meal on cutlery and doilies.
“I thought we had chicken today, Mammy,” he said, taking off his glasses and cleaning them with a large white handkerchief.
“That half-wit Molly left the meat safe open and Rover got off with the chicken,” Martha said calmly.
“Stupid fool. Where is she?”
“Gallivanting,” said Baba.
“Molly will have to be chastised, punished, do you hear me, Mammy?” and Martha said yes, that she wasn’t deaf. It was then I coughed, because I wanted him to see me, to know that I was there. He had his back to me, but he turned around quickly.
“Ah, Caithleen, Caithleen, my lovely child.” He came over and put his arms on my shoulders and kissed me lightly on either cheek. He had had a few drinks.
“I wish, Caithleen, that others, others,” he said, waving his hand in the air, “others would be as clever and gentle as you are.” Baba stuck her tongue out, and as if he had eyes in the back of his head he turned around to address her.
“Baba.”
“Yes, Daddy?” She was smiling now, a sweet loganberry smile, and the dimples in her cheeks were just the right hollowness.
“Can you cook peas?”
“No.”
“Can your mother cook peas?”
“I don’t know.” Martha had gone into the hall to answer the telephone, and she came back writing a name into an address book.
“They want you to go to Cooriganoir. People by the name of O’Brien. They have a heifer dying. It’s urgent,” she said, as she wrote directions on how to find the place into the notebook.
“Can you cook peas, Mammy?”
“They want you to go at once. They said you were late the last time and the horse died and a foal was born lame.”
“Stupid, stupid, stupid,” he said. I didn’t know whether he meant his wife or the family at Cooriganoir. He drank milk from a jug that was on the dresser. He drank it noisily, you could hear it going down the tunnel of his throat.
Martha sighed and lit herself a cigarette. His dinner had gone cold on the tray and he hadn’t touched it.
“Better look up how to cook peas, Mammy,” he said. She began to whistle softly, ignoring him, whistling as if she were walking over a dusty mountain road and whistled to keep herself company, or to recall a dog that had followed a rabbit through a hedge and over a field. He went out and banged the door.
“Is he gone?” Declan called from the pantry, where he had locked himself in. His father often asked Declan to go with him, but Declan preferred to sit around smoking and talking to Martha about his career. He wanted to be a film actor.
“Are we going to the play tonight, Martha?” Baba asked.
“With knobs on! He can cook his own bloody peas. Such arrogance. I was eating peas when his thick lump of a mother was feeding them nettle tops. Jesus.” It was the first time I saw Martha flushed.
“You better not come to the play. Your aul fella might be getting sick and puking all over the damn floor,” Baba said to me.
“She is coming,” said Declan. “Isn’t she, Martha?”
Martha smiled at me, and said I was, of course.
“Well, if Mr. Gentleman is there, I’m sitting next to him,” Baba said, tossing her black plaits with a shake of her head.
“No. You are not. I am,” Martha said, smiling. Martha had dimples, too, but they were not so hollow as Baba’s and not so pretty, because her skin was very white.
“Anyhow, he has some dame in Dublin. A chorus girl,” Baba said, and she lifted up her dress to show her knees, because that was how chorus girls behaved.
“Liar. Liar,” Declan called her, and he threw the box of peas at her. They scattered all over the floor and I had to get down on my knees to pick them up. Baba opened several pods and ate the delicious young peas. I put the empty pods in the fire. Martha went upstairs to get ready and Declan went into the drawing room to play the gramophone.
“Who told you about Mr. Gentleman?” I asked timidly.
“You did,” she said, giving me one of her brazen, blue-eyed stares.
“I did not. How dare you?” I was trembling with anger.
“How dare you say how dare you to me—in my own house?” she said as she went off to bathe her feet before going to the play. She shouted back from the hallway, to ask if my mother still washed hers in a milk bucket at the end of the kitchen table. And for a second I could see Mama in the lamplight bathing her poor corns, to soften them, before she began paring them with a razor blade.
The grandfather clock in the hall struck five, and the sky was very dark outside. A wind began to rise, and an old bucket rattled along the gravel path. The rain came quite suddenly, and Baba shouted down to me to bring in the clothes off the line, for Christ’s sake. It was a shower of hailstones and they beat against the window like bullets, so that you expected the glass to break. I ran out for the clothes and got wet to the skin. I thought of Mama and I hoped that she was in out of it. There was very little shelter along the road from our village to the village of Tintrim, and Mama was very shy and wouldn’t dare ask for a shelter in a house that she passed by. The rain was over in ten minutes and the sun appeared in a rift between the clouds. The apple blossoms were blown all over the grass, and there was a line of water on the branch of the tree that rose outside the kitchen window. I folded the sheets and smelled them for a minute, because there is no smell so pleasant as that of freshly washed linen. Then I put them to dry on the rack over the Aga cooker because they were still a little damp, and after that I went upstairs to Baba’s room.
5
We set out for the town hall just before seven. Mr. Brennan was not home, so we left the table set, and when Martha was u
pstairs getting ready, I put a damp napkin around his plate of sandwiches. I was sorry for Mr. Brennan. He worked hard and he had an ulcer.
Declan went on ahead. He thought it was sissyish to walk with girls.
The sun was going down and it made a fire in the western part of the sky. Running out from the fire, there were pathways of color, not red like the sun, but a warm, flushed pink. The sky above it was a naked blue, and higher still, over our heads, great eiderdowns of clouds sailed serenely by. Heaven was up there. I knew no one in heaven, except old women in the village who had died, but no one belonging to me.
“My mammy is the best-looking woman around here,” Baba said. In fact I thought my mother was—with her round, pale, heartbreaking face and her gray, trusting eyes—but I didn’t say so because I was staying in their house. Martha did look lovely. The setting sun, or maybe it was the coral necklace, gave her eyes a mysterious orange glow.
“Bbbip bbbip,” said Hickey as he cycled past us. I was always sorry for Hickey’s bicycle. I expected it to collapse under his weight. The tires looked flat. He was carrying a can of milk on the handlebar and a rush basket with a live hen clucking in it. Probably for Mrs. O’Shea in the Greyhound Hotel. Hickey always treated his friends when Mama was away. I supposed Mama had the chickens counted, but Hickey could say the fox came. The foxes were always coming into the yard in broad daylight and carrying off a hen or a turkey.
In front of us, like specks of brown dust, the hordes of midges were humming to themselves under the trees and my ears were itchy after we had passed through that part of the road near the forge, where there was a grove of beech trees.
“Hurry,” said Martha, and I took longer steps. She wanted seats in the front row. Important people sat there. The doctor’s wife and Mr. Gentleman and the Connor girls. The Connor girls were Protestants but well-thought-of. They passed us just then in their station wagon and hooted. It was their way of saying hello. We nodded back to them. There were two Alsatians in the back of the car and I was glad they hadn’t offered us a lift. I was afraid of Alsatians. The Connor girls had a sign on their gate which said BEWARE OF DOGS. They spoke in haughty accents, they rode horses and followed the Hunt in wintertime. When they went to race meetings they had walking sticks that they could sit on. They never spoke to me, but Martha was invited there for afternoon tea once a year. In the summertime.
We mounted the great flight of concrete steps and went into the porch that led to the town hall. There was a fat woman in the ticket office and we could see only the top half of her. She was wearing a puce dress that had millions of sequins stitched onto it. There were crusts of mascara on her lashes, and her hair was dyed puce to match her dress. It was fascinating to watch the sequins shining as if they were moving on the bodice of her dress.
“Her bubs are dancing,” Baba said, and we both sniggered. We were sniggering as we held the double doors for Martha to enter. Martha liked to make an entrance.
“Children, stop laughing,” she said, as if we didn’t belong to her.
An actor with pancake makeup beamed at us and went on ahead to find our seats. Martha had given him three blue tickets.
The country boys in the back of the hall whistled as we came in. It was their habit to stand there and pass remarks about the girls as they came in, and then laugh or whistle if the girl was pretty. They were in their old clothes, but most of them probably had their Sunday shoes on, and there was a strong smell of hair oil.
“Uncouth,” Martha said under her breath. It was her favorite word for most of her husband’s customers. There was one nice boy who smiled at me; he had black curly hair and a red, happy face. I knew he was on the hurley team.
We were sitting in the front row. Martha sat next to the oldest Connor girl, Baba next to her, and I was on the outside. Mr. Gentleman was farther in, near the younger Connor girl. I saw the back of his neck and the top of his collar before I sat down. I was glad to know that he was there.
The hall was almost dark. Curtains of black cloth had been put over the windows and pinned to the window frames at the four corners. The light from the six oil lamps at the front of the stage barely showed people to their seats. Two of the lamps smoked and the globes were black.
I looked back to see if there was any sign of Hickey. I looked through the rows of chairs, then along the rows of stools behind the chairs, and farther back still I searched with my eyes along the planks that were laid on porter barrels. He was at the end of the last row of planks, with Maisie next to him. The cheapest seats. They were laughing. The back of the hall was full of girls laughing. Girls with curly hair, girls with shiny black coils of it, like bunches of elderberries, falling onto their shoulders; girls with moist blackberry eyes, smirking and talking and waiting. Miss Moriarty was two rows behind us and she bowed lightly to acknowledge that she saw me. Jack Holland was writing in a notebook.
A bell gonged and the dusty gray curtain was drawn slowly back. It got stuck halfway. The boys at the back booed. I could see the actor with the pancake makeup pulling a string from the wings of the stage, and finally he came out and pushed the curtain back with his hands. The crowd cheered.
On stage were four girls in cerise blouses, black frilly pants, and black hard hats. They had canes under their arms and they tap-danced. I wished that Mama were there. In all the excitement I hadn’t thought of her for over an hour. She would have enjoyed it, especially when she heard about the scholarship.
The girls danced off, two to the right and two to the left, and then a man carrying a banjo came on and sang sad songs. He could turn his two eyes inward, and when he did everyone laughed.
After that came a laughing sketch where two clowns got in and out of boxes, and then the woman in the puce dress sang “Courting in the Kitchen.” She waved to the audience to join in with her and toward the end they did. She was awful.
“And now, ladies and gentlemen, there will be a short interval, during which time we will sell tickets that will be raffled immediately before the play. And the play, as you probably know, is the one and only, the heart-warming, tear-making East Lynne,” said the man with the pancake makeup.
I had no money, but Martha bought me four tickets.
“If you win it’s mine,” said Baba. Mr. Gentleman passed his package of cigarettes all along the front row. Martha took one and leaned forward to thank him. Baba and I ate Turkish Delight.
When the tickets were sold the actor came down and stood under the oil lamps; he put the duplicate ones into a big hat and looked around for someone to draw the winning numbers. Children were usually picked to do this, as they were supposed to be honest. He looked down the hall, and then he looked at Baba and me and he chose us. We stood up and faced the audience, and she picked the first number and I picked the next one. He called out the winning numbers. He called them three times, but nothing happened. You could hear a pin drop. He said them once more, and he was just on the point of asking us to draw two more tickets when there came a shout from the back of the hall.
“Here, down here,” people said.
“Now you must come forward and show your tickets.” People liked winning, but they were ashamed to come up and collect the prizes. At last they shuffled out from among the standing crowd and the two winners came hesitantly up the passage. One was an albino and the other was a young boy. They showed their tickets, collected their ten shillings each, and went back in a half-run to the darkness at the end of the hall.
“And how about a little song from our two charming friends here?” he said, putting a hand on each of our shoulders.
“Yes,” said Baba, who was always looking for an excuse to show off her clear, light, early-morning voice. She began: “As I was going one morning, ‘twas in the month of May, a mother and her daughter I spied along the way,” and I opened and closed my mouth to pretend that I was singing, too. But she stopped all of a sudden and nudged me to carry on, and there I was, seen by everyone in the hall with my mouth wide-open as if I had lockjaw. I
blushed and faded back to my seat, and Baba went on with her song. “Witch,” I said under my breath.
East Lynne began. There was dead silence everywhere, except for voices on the stage.
Then I heard noise in the back of the hall, and shuffling as if someone had fainted. A flashlight traveled up along the passage, and as it came level with us, I saw that it was Mr. Brennan.
“Jesus, it’s about the chicken,” Baba said to her mother, as Mr. Brennan called Martha out. He crossed over, stooping so as not to be in the way of the stage, and he whispered to Mr. Gentleman. Both of them went out. I heard the door being shut noisily and I was glad that they were gone. The play was so good, I didn’t want to miss a line.
But the door was opened again and the beam of the flashlight came up along the hall. A thought struck me that they wanted me and then I put it aside again. But it was me. Mr. Brennan tapped me on the shoulder and whispered, “Caithleen love, I want you a minute.” My shoes creaked as I went down the hall on tiptoe. I expected it was something about my father.
Outside in the porch they were all talking—Martha and the parish priest, and Mr. Gentleman and the solicitor and Hickey. Hickey had his back to me and Martha was crying. It was Mr. Gentleman who told me.
“Your mother, Caithleen, she’s had a little accident”; he spoke slowly and gravely and his voice was unsteady.
“What kind of an accident?” I asked, staring wildly at all the faces. Martha was suffocating into her handkerchief.
“A little accident,” Mr. Gentleman said again, and the parish priest repeated it.
“Where is she?” I asked quickly, wildly. I wanted to get to her at once. At once. But no one answered.
“Tell me,” I said. My voice was hysterical and then I realized that I was being rude to the parish priest, and I asked again, only more gently.
“Tell her, ‘tis better to tell her,” I heard Hickey say behind my back. I turned around to ask him, but Mr. Brennan shook his head and Hickey blushed under the gray stubble of his two-day beard.
