August Is a Wicked Month

by Edna O'Brien

  She walked down the terrace of steps and crossed the road to walk under the trees, along the path that led to the town. Passing the church, she blessed herself and said, ‘Oh God, grant I have not got syphilis,’ before she said, ‘Lord have mercy on his soul.’ The two things uttered in the same breath shocked her. Even if the church were open she could not have gone in to pray. Farther down she stopped at the chemist’s and bought four different bottles of disinfectant and some more talcum powder.

  ‘Could you wrap them up?’ she said. They produced a toilet bag, then a suitcase. They sold travel goods as well as medicines.

  ‘Paper,’ she said. It took several minutes to get a strong paper bag.

  Outside it was warm. She’d put on a heavy skirt just in case and compared with everyone else she was dressed for Arctic weather. It was a tense night, the palm quills deathly still, motors going by, slowing down, whistles. A man whistled at her, but only to cover up for himself. Walking directly in front of her was a girl in gold lamé trousers and gold toplet who moved like a half-set jelly. Two cars had stopped for her at exactly the same moment. She got in the bigger car, and the other driver, not wanting to seem ignored, had propositioned Ellen.

  ‘You wouldn’t want to have anything to do with me, mate,’ she said, bitterly.

  ‘Enchanté…’ he said.

  She shook her head and crossed the road as if she were going to meet someone at the corner restaurant. The place where people met.

  A clown performed and rode around on an old-fashioned bicycle, tempting death by swooping in and out in front of motor-cars, shaving their headlamps, getting squeezed between car doors, raising his hat to danger, making a squeak by pressing a toy that he had concealed under his arm; sometimes his legs were on the handlebars, sometimes his chest was. Just when he seemed to have escaped death he darted forward again in front of a speeding car and she heard the brakes screech, and she called out, ‘Don’t, don’t,’ and closed her eyes in case of something terrible. Nothing fatal. The car just overturned some tables, and the people, once they were over the shock, laughed again and the clown was safe. He saw her stand in terror and he rode in her direction madly, as if he was going to ride through her, then barely missing the tail of her heavy skirt he rode right into a bookshop and around the racks of books and magazines, jerking the handlebars. She drew into a side street while his back was turned.

  In that street there were fewer people walking, but many sat at tables eating. It was the street where the eating was done, and later the people would move around to the main corner and watch the man on the bicycle and read the scraps of news on the neon lit ticker tape, and drink. She walked slowly past the tables, looking for an English doctor. She had no way of recognizing one but she thought that if someone fainted a doctor would come forward.

  ‘Faint, faint,’ she said, going by, being watched and watching; girls with measuring tapes checking on how much the meal had swollen their bellies, wine in lovely old-fashioned pitchers, and rosé in the ends of glasses specked with sediment. Every few yards a man – usually a young man – coming towards her, tried to engage her, first by walking directly in her path so that they would have to bump into each other, then when she side-stepped, by speaking to her, and finally by turning and following, until such time as she turned round and stamped her foot the way she might stamp her foot at a dog. That usually sent them away.

  She passed a house with a brass plate nailed up outside, telling a doctor’s name and the hours he was in attendance. It was encouraging to find it because if help did not come in the night she would rush round in the morning at the appointed hour. But help would come. She went into a lavatory and applied one of the new disinfectants. It looked strong, it burnt, that was a good sign. Maybe by the time she got back to her hotel the whole thing would have cleared itself. Her disease occupied her thoughts so much that she forgot Mark, and then when she remembered him she broke into sobs, but tearless sobs, and asked his forgiveness and said, ‘This is only vinegar and gall.’ She had no idea who she was speaking to, but all that night she talked to herself, blamed herself, hoped, pitied her ignorance and said, ‘Doctor, Doctor, Doctor…’ to match her footsteps. The thought of a hospital was too terrifying.

  Quite by accident she came on the place that was canopied by the big tree where they went the night she had met the group, and she re-lived a little of it, Sidney as he dealt out the various packets of cigarettes like packs of cards and the mean people who pocketed the cigarettes straight away and the man with the fox tail between his legs and Gwyn with the big spotted handkerchief before her eyes.

  ‘Gwyn,’ she said out loud as if she just thought of a miracle, and she went into a quiet restaurant and drank a Pernod first and tipped enormously and then asked for the telephone. There was no telephone, so that she had to go to another restaurant and do exactly the same thing except that this time she made sure of the telephone before tipping. The waiter got the number for her and at the other end, Antonio – she was sure it must be he – asked her to hold on.

  ‘Who is it?’ Gwyn said, worried.

  ‘Have I taken you from dinner?’ Ellen asked, nervous.

  ‘Who’s that?’

  ‘Ellen…’

  ‘Oh, little Irish. Hello little old Irish, how are you?’

  ‘I’m all right,’ Ellen said, ‘I didn’t go home.’

  There was a pause for a minute and she knew that Gwyn was thinking, ‘What the hell.’

  ‘We must have a get-together one evening, do I have your number?’ Gwyn was saying now, rounding off the conversation.

  ‘Gwyn,’ Ellen said, ‘do you remember what you said about having a friend?’

  ‘Yes ma’am…’

  ‘I’m in trouble…’ Ellen said.

  ‘Now that’s not clever.’

  ‘I know it’s not.’

  ‘Well you got to do something. How long is it gone? If you have your dates right it ought to be simple…’

  ‘Gwyn,’ Ellen said urgently, ‘it’s something else, worse than that. I got it while I was here…’ There was a pause that seemed to be unending but must only have been minutes or the operator would have interrupted.

  ‘You’re not telling me you have the clap?’ the woman said in a sharp, shocked voice.

  ‘I have something,’ Ellen said, looking down. There were ants all over the white plate that was left for the telephone money. She felt they would come inside her clothes and crawl around and nest and breed in her infected hair. She beckoned to the barman to bring her another drink.

  ‘Hear that, Jason?’ Gwyn said across the room, and her husband must have come across to the phone because Ellen could hear them murmuring and him saying, ‘That’s crazy,’ and Gwyn saying, ‘We must do something,’ and him saying, ‘No you don’t,’ and then at intervals Gwyn speaking into the mouthpiece and saying tonelessly, ‘Just a minute,’ she and him saying, ‘A hot little broad like that, who the hell asked her to butt in?’ and Gwyn saying, ‘You’re damn right,’ but still telling Ellen to hold on. Finally she got the name of Sidney’s doctor from Antonio and called it out and kept saying, ‘Got that?’ She spelt each word carefully.

  ‘Can I say Sidney sent me?’ Ellen said.

  ‘Well it’s not too swell a complaint, is it?’ Gwyn said, and asked Jason what he thought.

  ‘Huh,’ Ellen could hear him say, ‘don’t ask me,’ and then Gwyn went on with the doctor’s address, but by that time Ellen had stopped writing it down.

  Back in the hotel the manager waited for her. She went quite pale as he stood in th lobby and said,

  ‘Madame Sage.’

  Gwyn had telephoned, to warn him.

  ‘Yes,’ she said. She looked towards the tiny cubicles where the keys were. Her key was there.

  ‘Please to come in,’ he said and led the way to a small office at the back of the reception desk. She put the parcel behind her back. Was he going to examine her?

  ‘Sit down, Madam,’ he said. ‘You are enjo
ying your stay?’

  ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘My son died and I came here to get over it.’ Nothing like pity. Was he a family man? No, he never married. He liked peace.

  ‘Too bad about your son,’ he said. He had a sallow, gentle face, given to smiling. No matter what he said or she said, he smiled.

  ‘What did you want?’ she said. She might as well face it.

  ‘ Can I ask you somethink?’ he said.

  ‘Ask me,’ she said, brazen now.

  ‘There is a big beel,’ he said. ‘You are here twenty days.’

  ‘Oh that,’ she said, relieved.

  ‘We like our guests to pay the fortnight. Madam, then we pay our bills and all is as perfect.’

  ‘I’ll pay it,’ she said, leaning over, trying to read the amount. He had a sheet open in front of him.

  ‘I will send it up,’ he said.

  ‘I’ll pay it now,’ she said, anxious to snatch it out of his hand and learn the amount. That smile was gluey.

  ‘No, Madam, I will ask one of my boys…’

  More tipping, she thought. She rose to go.

  ‘You mix with nice people here?’ he said.

  ‘I mix with nice people,’ she said, but he did not notice the bitterness.

  ‘You have a lot of success on your trip,’ he said.

  ‘A lot,’ she said. On the way to the door he held up a pair of glasses. ‘You don’t lose spectacles?’ he said.

  ‘No,’ she said, and went upstairs to wait for the boy who was to bring her bill.

  She put some more disinfectant on and then covered the various bottles with a napkin, just in case. She sat like someone sitting in wait for a death sentence. It came on a white dinner plate. There were thirteen pages in all. Typed on purple ribbon. She thought it a suitable colour in her state of mourning and uncleanliness. Quickly she skipped the typed pages and got to the last one to read the final amount.

  It was far beyond the four-figure sum she had roughly reckoned on. She divided by twelve. Staggering. More than she had ever reckoned in her wildest calculations. Apart from the nightly fee of four pounds for her room, there were millions of incidental items. What could they be? She rang down and the manager told her there was an index at the bottom of each page, explaining what each charge was for. There were capital letters to denote whisky and laundry and ironing and Perrier and baths and cups of tea. The laundry and ironing and Perrier and baths and cups of tea were written first in French and then in English. She’d had hundreds of cups of tea. There was nothing for it but to sign all the travellers’ cheques she possessed, and write out the balance on an ordinary cheque, then fly home and fling herself before her bank manager, begging for time to pay it back.

  ‘Money decides everything,’ she thought. Money would send her home when neither death nor disease could budge her. She wrote a cheque for more than the actual bill so that she would have a little French money for oddments until she left. But no more Perriers. She drank from the tap as if to invite typhoid and then went down carrying the bill on the plate. The manager said she should have rung. He would have sent a boy.

  ‘Can you get a flight for tomorrow?’ she asked.

  ‘I will try,’ and he picked up the telephone. He made a booking straight away. The season was fading, most of the people had gone home. He wrote down the time of the plane next day and she asked about a bus. He wrote down where she would get the bus and receipted her bill. Just as she walked away he called after her :

  ‘Madam, I understant, the bill not right.’

  ‘You overcharged,’ she said, jubilant. She would have money back. She would buy a half-bottle of Pernod and forget the ire between her legs.

  ‘Too small, we don’t count tonight,’ he said. She gave him back some of the notes he had given her in change and he handed her three franc pieces. She had fifty francs left and these three franc pieces. She was very broke.

  Next day she tried to escape without being seen. She packed very quietly and ordered nothing so that Maurice need not come. About half an hour beforehand she closed the case and sat on the bed. The sunlight was bright in the room. She’d put two of the francs on an ashtray and kept the other in case a porter grabbed her baggage as she went through the hall. The thing had got worse. It was good that the money question had forced her to leave. She would see a doctor straight away, or go to a clinic. The name of a clinic was written up in a public lavatory in the centre of London. She would head for there.

  ‘Bye,’ she said to the room that contained so much of her. She’d taken two wooden hangers and one large towel with the hotel name on it. She put a towel in her travel bag just in case. She closed the door softly and moved along the corridor. The first to accost her was the man in charge of the bath. He tried to take her case but she held on to it. Then he put his hand out sullenly, and she walked by, a little laboriously, because of the heavy case. Down in the lobby it was calamitous. Maurice, the waiter from her table, and another boy were sitting on a bench inside the door. They all leapt up to assist her. Maurice had his hand on the leather strap of the case. Did she want taxi?

  ‘No, no,’ she said, but did not look at him at all. To the boy who was last in the row she gave the one franc and hurried on, down the concrete slope towards the trees and the bus terminal, running now that she had made her escape. It was hot and fiery and bright. But she knew that when she remembered the place it would not be hot like that but as it was the first night she came: blue and unknown, about to deliver up to her the most poignant experience of her life. And maybe it had.

  Chapter Seventeen

  AT HOME THE HALL was strewn with letters and there were two telegrams. Some of the letters had been posted and some were delivered by hand. They were all messages of sympathy. She had more friends than she ever dreamed. She opened several at once, scanned them, looked down to their signatures and thought how considerate people were. Some had even gone to the trouble of getting paper and envelopes edged with black. Although in fact this type of paper nauseated her. There were two from her boss. The first was full of condolence, the second was still sympathetic but mainly said, ‘Where are you?’ The first telegram was from Hugh Whistler and it said:

  WHAT CAN I DO TO HELP

  The second was from him too and it said:

  PLEASE RING ME, PLEASE

  It had been sent by mistake on a greetings form. It was strange, holding them together, the letters with their thick black edging and the telegram decorated with pink rosebuds. She shivered; the letters did not distract her enough. She had to make the journey to his bedroom. She ran to get it over with. His fort and soldiers were laid out on the floor and the pile of clean clothes on the bed where she’d left them, after ironing. She thought, ‘If I cry now I’ll never stop.’ She just picked up the clothes and put them in a bureau drawer and then she walked out of the room and turned the key in the door. She busied herself looking at the rest of the house, seeing if everything was as she left it. The garden was in a bad way. The geraniums dead in their pots. She felt the clay. Like cement it was. She got out the hose and went up and down the garden training the water on the flower-beds, the rockeries, and even on the dead geraniums. The garden seemed to breathe again and the earth crumbled as the water soaked through.

  After a while she thought of her husband, although in fact he had been in her mind constantly. She washed herself most carefully and took a long time over it. She had got into the habit of washing over and over again as if there was some way of erasing it. She put on a dark dress and set out for her husband’s house around six. It was bright, of course, but not the fierce white brightness she had become accustomed to. It was a softer country; she would talk to him and say how awful it was, for him, for her, for anyone forced to live with an incurable sorrow. On the bus she missed her child more than anywhere. They had made that same journey so often, especially at week-ends when she delivered him to his father’s gate. They usually swopped riddles. She thought if they produced another child he might be the
same. Reproduce their son exactly. But then she thought of her other trouble and felt daunted. She dimly knew that diseases like that were hereditary and the sins of the parent were truly visited upon the child. Her husband would have her publicly stoned if he knew. In fact she would have to be careful and keep several yards away from him in case he detected anything. She should have gone to a doctor first, not that she felt confident about going to a doctor at all.

  The house looked very quiet, the hedge had grown wild in the month and the windows were boarded up. She rang and looked through the letter box and called. He’d put an old chamois inside the box so that she could not see through. Perhaps he’d died in there. She knocked at a neighbour’s door. They were semi-detached houses, divided by thin walls, and the neighbour would know if he was stirring around inside. The neighbour said he had not been there for days. He had gone away. He’d carried out some things – books, a clock and a record player – one day and put them in the car and driven off. There was a girl with him.

  ‘A nice girl?’ Ellen said foolishly.

  ‘In her twenties I would say,’ the woman said. ‘She had her hair down her back.’

  For an instant Ellen felt the old repetitive stab: she too had had her hair down on her back when they met; and then something happened to change that feeling because suddenly she felt tears come in her eyes but they were tears of relief. Out of his pillaged life he had the strength to start afresh, to lay his head on some pure green breast where the milk might be wholesome. She was thankful to him in some strange way. He had freed her of the responsibility of feeling eternally guilty for him. More than anything she wished that they should be happy, he and this strange girl. She couldn’t bear the thought of it being just a girl who came to rent the house or deliver a breakable parcel to him. Maybe they fell in love at first sight. Maybe. Maybe. Maybe. Curiosity had died in her. For the first time she felt a fierce indifference. The passing away of the child and the boarded-up house put finality to their marriage. No more torture. In time he would write, but the letter would be about formalities and her reply would be businesslike too.