by Dermot Healy
“I went walking,” he said. “Walking and walking.”
“Oh, Jack,” said Catherine.
24
Madame George
“Hey Jack,” asked Christopher, “are you a Republican?”
“No.”
“It’s all right, then.”
“I’m just a dancer.”
“Yeah, mate. But you have to admit the IRA have got it sussed.”
“I wouldn’t know.”
“They have the hardware. They have the men.”
“I don’t know anything about those things.”
“These UVF blokes here don’t have sweet fuck all. They have only the one bleedin’ shooter. It’s the same bloody gat does all the damage. I don’t know. The Provies, they’re something else, aren’t they, Jackie?”
“Look, Chris, I don’t know, right.”
“Well, you know I was in the British army.”
“It makes no difference to me.”
“I did my term, Jackie. And you learn things. You get to know that the Provies know more than you do. Fucking hell. They’re fucking technicians, right?” He drank a shot of vodka. “An’ you know what we discovered at Ballymena?”
“I haven’t a clue.”
“A fucking witches’ coven.”
“What?”
“There were these geezers running around in the nude and young boys laid out on a bleedin’ altar.”
“Once you keep taking the tablets.”
“It’s true mate. Bloody right it’s true.”
“And what did you do?”
“We did fuckin’ nothing! Now, if we had found the president of your Sinn Fein running round in the buff, that’d be another story. But these were fucking businessmen and farmers. That’s why this country is like it is. Your priests and your parsons is all witches. Right?”
“Right.”
“It’s not on, is it? See, your Provos have it sussed.”
“Why are you bringing all this up about the Provos?”
“Because I was asked to, Jackie. Because I was asked. Don’t get me wrong. But I said you were all right. I was asked – about you – OK? I said ‘Old Jackie’s all right.’”
“And so I am.”
“Yeah. ‘Old Jack’s all right,’ I said.” He shifted his immense bulk and ran a finger across his lips. “I was there on Bloody Sunday, did I tell you that?”
“No.”
“Well I was there, mate, and they were shooting at us. Did you know that?”
“I heard it said.”
They listened to “Nights in White Satin” as they looked out through the dark curtains on folk going uphill.
The woman who lived next door came knocking on Jack’s door one morning. He had fallen asleep on the sofa after Catherine had gone to work and he came to the door with a blanket thrown over him. She was a small cheerful woman of about twenty-two with dark wavy hair and a racy laugh.
“Yes,” he said.
“You look like you had a rough night.”
“Don’t mention it.”
“Would you have a tin opener?”
“Yes”
The two of them walked into the kitchen. He began searching in a drawer.
“Excuse me,” he said.
Jack walked into the bathroom and steadied himself against the sink. “Christ,” he said. He went back to the living room.
“Will you have a drink?” he asked.
“I will, aye.”
He took down two fresh glasses and placed them on a tray each side of a bottle of Russian vodka and a carton of orange juice. The bottle looked like the old-style bottle of lemonade. He lifted it to his lips and took a snort. Outside two drums suddenly started to beat. In an archway opposite the house two men in their ordinary working clothes were beating up a storm on a pair of Lambeg drums.
“The marching season will soon be starting,” the woman said behind him.
He poured her a vodka and a separate glass of orange. Then he filled a glass with orange and another with vodka for himself. He upended the vodka into his mouth, then swallowed the orange.
“So that’s how it’s done,” she said, and did the same. He prepared the two drinks again.
“Are you a Catholic?” she whispered.
“I’m a Mohammedan,” he replied.
“It’s a pity the boys didn’t get Maggie Thatcher,” she suddenly said.
“Sh!” said Jack. “I don’t want to hear about that.” He waved the palms of his hands in front of his face. He sat down. The vodka made a clear path to his brain.
Then she said confidentially: “Isn’t it terrible, living here?”
She had Derry eyes and fine white teeth. She was wearing a blue jump-suit with the zip lowered to her breasts. Her thighs were large. She was laughing.
“You’re enjoying that,” she said.
She poured out two more.
“What’s your name?” he asked.
“My name is Jill. We must be the only two Fenians in this neck of the woods. I know the woman you live with to see.”
“Catherine.”
“Catherine, yes. She’s an actress isn’t she?”
“She is.”
“Does she like you?”
“I think so.”
“Well, that’s all right then. That’s good. It’s less dangerous that way, if the two of ye are happy.” She poured out more orange. “You’re looking better now.”
“I feel a lot better.”
“You have a very happy countenance.”
“Countenance?” he laughed.
“Yes,” she said. “Have I used the wrong word?”
“No,” he replied, laughing even more. “It was just kind of unexpected.”
“Would you rather I said you had a happy bake,” she sniggered.
She reached up and kissed him. With her fingers she closed his lips and then held them between hers as she kissed him again.
“It’s nice, the kiss, isn’t it?” Catherine whispered.
“If you are ever disloyal to me, you’ll tell me, won’t you?” she asked.
“Yes,” he said.
When dawn came, the city appeared like a deserted card table. Rain was thrashing down outside. The people who were setting out to work were wearing the wrong hats and the wrong suits. The first cars sounded like the horn section of jazz band warming up before the jam begins. A cat climbed a tree outside and jumped in the window. It was soaking wet. Its fur could not be distinguished from the colour of the carpet. The jacket of a man’s evening suit hung on one wall. Flat blue sea stones from Scotchport sat in a pile on the mantel. On the bedside table sat a collection of poems, Nights in the Bad Place by Padraic Fiacc.
“Have you ever worn a sari?” Harry Bunting asked Jack.
“No,” said Jack.
“You should get yourself one. They’re perfect. I wear one I bought in India about the house. They’re beautiful and cool next to the skin.”
The other two men grinned. Jack had seated himself by three men in light summer suits when he came into the pub. They were watching an indoor tennis match on television. He was attracted into their company because they had mentioned players from the old days. They talked tennis. Rod Laver. Miss Goolagong. Ille Nastase. And somewhere back there, John Newcombe. They talked of Chinese restaurants, which Belfast proportionate to its population had more of than any other city in Europe. They said that below the counters the owners kept machetes. They talked of the long-distance Ethiopian runners. Then saris again.
“I should buy you all one,” said Harry Bunting. “They’re nice to cook in.”
The others smiled at the thought of Harry baking scones in his sari. The pint of lager Jack was drinking soon became a double gin and tonic bought by Harry. They were joined by another older man, George, who was distant to begin with, and tried to withdraw when he heard Jack’s accent.
“Jack’s all right,” Terence Bellue said. “He’s a Southerner.” Jack told them he wrote plays. They told him that no police
man was safe walking in Protestant areas.
“Are you not afraid of talking of these things in front of me?” asked Jack.
“If you wanted to leave our company you could have gone long ago,” Freddie said.
They were young policemen, healthy, intimate, open featured, with a great relish for vodka. They would not allow Jack buy them a drink. Each shared reminiscences with him. Jack said it would not be believed that Protestants were attacking the RUC.
“Why don’t you come out with us one night?” said Harry.
“Could I?” asked Jack.
“It’s no problem.”
“Then you can write it all down,” said Terence, “and tell them in the Free State.”
“You just give us a ring at that number,” said Freddie, and he wrote it down on the top of Jack’s evening paper.
“Then you can see for yourself,” said Harry.
“You’ll be safe with these lads,” nodded George.
“Just call and ask for me – Freddie Wilson.”
“I will,” said Jack.
On the pretext of going to the toilet Jack managed to order a round of drinks at the bar. By now he had drunk about five double gins, he was hungry and ready to get away. He sat back down, the drinks arrived. Just then Catherine came in. She stopped at their table. He was about to introduce her when she said coldly: “I’ll see you in the lounge.”
He said goodbye to the men, who were jovial and understanding, and carried his drink on in.
“Who were those sleazy fuckers you were with?” asked Catherine.
“Tennis fans,” he said. “Will you have a drink?”
“I’ll have what you’re having,” she said.
He went to the bar, ordered a double gin, then went to the toilet. When he sat down beside her he knew something was wrong.
“Who do you know at Donegal Pass Police Station?” she asked coldly.
“No one,” he replied.
“Then what are you doing with their number?” and she pointed to the top of the newspaper where the young policeman had written it down.
“Oh fuck,” he said.
“Jack what are you at? Are you trying to get yourself killed?”
He explained. She got up abruptly and he followed her out into the lane.
“Are you a fool?” she snarled. “You’d be found on some waste dump in the morning.”
“I don’t believe it.”
“I know them,” she snapped crossly, and she walked on. He followed her. She stopped and faced him.
“But your father was a policeman.”
Her face twisted in scorn. “That’s why I know.”
“I need to do these things, he said.”
“How can you be so stupid?” Then her tone changed. “Promise me you won’t go.”
“I think I should go.”
“If you go with them,” she said, “then don’t return to the house.”
Estranged, they walked towards the taxi rank.
Each Tuesday he went to the dole and stood silently in the queue. Then he spent all the cash between the Chinese supermarket and the Pakistani grocer who sold spices and spoke with a strong Belfast accent. He never wanted to find himself owing to Catherine. He had accepted advances from two theatres towards scripts that did not exist. Then, in the guilty throes of a hangover, he prepared an outline for a play, and sent it off to Eddie Brady, who had produced two of his plays.
“What’s it about?” she asked him.
“I don’t know yet.”
She saw no finished texts and yet it was always by the typewriter that Catherine would find him when she came home. “Do you write at all?” she asked him. “Sometimes,” he said. Each evening a bottle of wine was opened. He’d try to straighten up and talk sense after his afternoon rambles. Her evening’s drinking began. So his day was divided into two drinking bouts, his on his own, and then his with her.
When he was out she looked through the notes on his desk which were often filled with nonsense rhymes or Belfast speech patterns he had written down as he heard them. Notes about Mayo. Descriptions of what people wore. A collection of voices and moods that had no relation to each other. Speech overheard in pubs, on the street, in the back gardens, by the docks.
She found umpteen sheets of paper on which he brought the curtain across in some play that never started. Curtain opens, he’d written. Or: Lights up. No further words. Nothing else. Jack drew back the curtain on a garden seat. On a café table. The interior of an old antique shop. All unoccupied. He drew back the curtain on a bar in the village. Suddenly nothing. Then one day, when he brought the lights up, she found it was a version of herself she saw standing there, midstage.
He jumped to his feet in the Hatfield Bar.
“Name the fucking thirty-two counties.”
“You must be joking.”
“I’ll give any man here a fiver that can name the thirty-two counties of Ireland,” Jack called to the drinkers at the bar. Immediately the old men and the young punters took out their pens, turned over racing slips brought from the betting shop next door and started to go through the four provinces. Jack strolled round the bar looking over their shoulders. People totted up their score to find that they were four, maybe five, counties short.
“Where are you from?” someone shouted.
“Leitrim,” said Jack.
“Nice one,” the man replied. “I’d missed that wee county completely.”
But still everyone was a few counties short. Louth, the Northerners called Dundalk. Offaly gave problems. Everyone got Laois because one of the main Southern prisons was there. Roscommon was difficult. By some grace of luck they all remembered Carlow. Eventually they had between them reached thirty-one counties, but one remained unfound.
“And yous call yourself Republicans,” said Jack.
A young fellow, slightly touched, sat down by Jack and said: “You’ve set them a mystery.”
“I have,” said Jack.
“Do you know the answer yourself?”
“No. I’ve forgotten.”
“Well then, we’ll just have to wait and see.”
“Kildare,” someone shouted eventually.
“Kildare it is,” said Jack.
“You’ll feel better now that you know that,” said the young fellow. “You’re one nice fellow, but I have to go now.”
He got up from his chair and slowly looking back at Jack he went through the door onto the Ormeau Road.
Catherine rang. “Look, I’m going to Dublin to see Sara. She’s opening in the Abbey tomorrow night. Do you want to come down?”
“No,” he said, “I’ll work.”
“You sound wretched.”
“Catherine, I love you.”
“And I love you.”
“There’s something wrong,” he said.
“What do you mean?”
“I can feel it. There’s something dreadfully wrong.”
“Come in and meet me before I go,” she said quickly. “We can eat out.”
“OK.”
“Jack – are you angry over something.”
“I’m angry with myself.”
“Don’t be.”
“I’ll see you in half-an-hour.”
He lifted the bottle and poured two measures of vodka into two glasses. One after another he drank them down to prepare him for the journey into town. He wrote down the name of the play that he had not yet begun, then stepped onto the street.
Catherine returned on the last train on Saturday night and took a taxi out to the house. He had spent the entire day walking round in one of those exhilarating hangovers that teeter on the edge of despair. Everything he looked at – people, leaves, water – he became engrossed in. Now he was sitting by the fire reading.
“Sit down here,” he said.
He lay his head on her breasts.
“How did it go?”
“Sara was good, I have to admit. But she surrounds herself with dreadful people.”
“Did you enjoy yourself?”
“I suppose I did. But I missed you.”
He heard something wrong in her voice.
“Catherine,” he said, “you’ve been with someone.”
She looked shocked, and a little scared, and immediately admitted that, yes, she had. “I didn’t intend for this to happen. It will never happen again,” she said. But he looked at her in such a way that she felt mortified.
“I knew there was something wrong,” he said.
She did not answer him.
“Tell me everything, in great detail, that happened,” he demanded.
“Down, I suppose, to the size of his penis?” He did not answer. “Do I have to do this?”
“That way I can get over it.”
And slowly she told him, as if in a way she was repeating one of her dreams. The only difference being that in this case he knew he would remember every detail. She was shocked, as he was himself, by how easy he was taking her confession once she had begun. He sought out each salacious moment. He interrogated her until her lovemaking was as familiar to him as if he himself had been there.
“There’s no more,” she said, “unless you want me to start inventing things?”
“I wish you would,” he said hopelessly.
Then at last she said: “How did you know? It’s like you’ve been reading my mind.”
“I always suspect you.”
First she grew arrogant and high-principled. Then mellow and sad. They began undressing each other.
“I promise you,” she said, “it’s all over now. I want to love every ounce of you. I don’t want remotely to be with anyone else. I’m obsessed with you.”
“Did you bring some drink home?”
“Is the vodka gone?”
She opened the wine and began to cry.
“I want us to be happy and safe and free,” she said. “Free from all this fighting and estrangement. I know I did wrong. I know the damage I’ve done.” But he just sat there drinking and looking at her. “I couldn’t fall in love with anyone else. I am in love with you, Jack. Don’t go off with anyone else, please. Please.”
“What,” he said, “if I already have?”
“You wouldn’t put me through all that, and then tell me that you’ve been unfaithful as well?”
“I might.”
She sat nude by the window looking out. He sat on the armchair with his trousers round his shins.
