Civil & Strange

by Clair Ni Aonghusa

  “Not like your poor John, God rest his soul, or Dan Tuohy for that matter. They say Dan’s job was on the line. He’d have found it difficult to pick up work at his age. But a young lad of twenty-two — what was that all about? He had everything going for him and all to live for.”

  “You can never know the workings of a person’s mind.”

  “But he was in such good form. That’s what his mother said. She’s baffled. And it isn’t a case of her thinking he’s okay socially when, in actual fact, he’s a loner. He had lots of friends.”

  “But did he really, I wonder? Something had to be eating him.”

  “He’d been out drinking the night before, but nothing more than usual on a Friday night.”

  “Still, he must have been facing into something on his own, whether it was spur of the moment — a sort of erratic impulse — or something he’d been living with for a long time.”

  Lily shudders. “I’d prefer if it was a long-standing problem. Imagine throwing everything away because of the mood of a particular moment, killing yourself on the strength of a whim.”

  “I often wonder if my John would have gone through with it if the shotgun hadn’t been readily available.”

  “If he was serious, he’d have found the means.”

  “I suppose, if he was intent on it. Yes.”

  Lily is trampling ferns and grass as she keeps away from the edges of the path. “If I’d realized the ground was so wet I wouldn’t have suggested a walk.”

  “Not to worry, Lily. If anybody’s used to negotiating mud and puddles, it’s us.”

  “I wonder if he was involved with a girl? That’s what they always ask, isn’t it?” Lily says. “People want to know if there was some girl.”

  “It’s a fair enough question.”

  Lily plonks herself in Beatrice’s way and forces her to stop. “Yes, but what if there wasn’t any girl?” she asks animatedly. “What if he wasn’t interested in girls? You don’t hear that being talked about.”

  Beatrice changes course and gets going again. “Don’t be silly. That might have been the case years ago, but nowadays it’s all out in the open. It’s legal at sixteen. It’s okay to be gay. All that prejudice and discrimination is done away with.”

  Lily shakes her head. “You know yourself that there’s a world of difference between what’s legal and what actually goes on. There’ll always be reasons why some people find themselves on the margins. You can change policies and laws goodtime, but you won’t stamp out prejudice. Humans are primitive creatures. We’re always trying to ferret out the chink — the other person’s weakness.”

  “Come on, Lily. It’s not always seen as weakness. What about gay pride and gay literature?”

  Lily turns an animated face to Beatrice. “Lots of trouble as I recall, wasn’t there, when the gays tried to march in the Saint Patrick’s Day Parade in New York? It’s probably okay to come out in a big anonymous city, but what about small communities, places like us? And the Church is no help, with all those pronouncements on the evils of homosexuality and talk of disorders.”

  “So, are you suggesting —?”

  “I’m suggesting nothing, just speculating.” They pant up the final stretch of path and reach the formal gardens, stopping for a moment to pause for breath.

  Beatrice doesn’t speak for a long time. She can’t, and she doesn’t need to because Lily will wait until she’s ready. Strangely, this conversation hasn’t churned up the usual intensity of emotion concerning John’s death. It has prodded and poked the vulnerable spots, but the emotional scars are more resilient, less easily bled. Of course, it’s an infinitesimal increment in the lessening of pain, a deregulation of its all-encompassing nature. “Whatever motivates those unfortunates, whatever sparks the urge to finish it all, there’s a similar end result — well, the same result in that they’re dead,” she says.

  “Do you remember Mr. Deasy in school, ‘No two things are the same, they are similar’? I can never forget it,” Lily interjects.

  Beatrice smiles. “Me neither. And I still say ‘elder’ and ‘eldest’ for siblings.” She brushes away an imaginary piece of fluff on her coat. “It’s a sad old world sometimes, isn’t it? Anyway, for whatever reason, all these men end up in a lonely place — desolate and forlorn.”

  “Forlorn? Now, there’s a word brings school to mind. Old Deasy was always harping on about certain words. That was a regular favorite. Wasn’t it in one of those poems he made us learn by heart? It killed me to memorize it. How did it go? ‘Forlorn! the word is like a’… something… Let’s see if I can remember…”

  “‘Forlorn! the very word is like a bell / To toll me back from thee to my sole self!’” says Beatrice. “Remember the other bit? ‘Darkling I listen; and, for many a time / I have been half in love with easeful Death, / Called him soft names in many a musèd rhyme.’”

  “The very thing! Good woman.”

  “Keats, Lily.”

  “That’s very apt.”

  “That’s what they call associative thinking.”

  Lily nudges Beatrice’s elbow. “God, I always knew you were brainy! Why didn’t you take that scholarship and go off and finish your education, girl?”

  Beatrice shrugs. “I wasn’t allowed. They couldn’t see any point in wasting education on a girl when she’d have to give up the job if she got married.” She smiles. “No point in dwelling on that. You know, there could be another explanation for that poor boy’s despair. Didn’t you say he was lovely looking, and that all the girls were mad about him? Think of all these sexually active girls we keep hearing about, voracious young ones making demands on the poor lads, and the fellows not able to handle it! Isn’t that what’s supposed to happen now?”

  Lily snorts. She shakes her head as if she doesn’t really believe this. “In our day the fellows were supposed to be in a state of perpetual arousal, lurking behind hedges and walls, ready to drag some misfortunate female into the bushes for a ride, and we were given all the responsibility for putting the brakes on!” She pauses. “You’ll have me crying for the men next. And I can’t do that. They ran the whole show then and, by golly, they reveled in it. We were too meek, Beatrice, always putting a good face on things. That was our trouble. Well, the boot is on the other foot now.”

  Unexpectedly, Beatrice finds herself mired by her memory of the night Matt finished with her. Despite everything that has happened in the intervening years, a distillation of the essence of that moment survives.

  “What’s that expression on your face? What are you thinking about?” asks Lily. She has always been quick to sniff out changes in mood. Beatrice and she have honored each other with confidences — and Lily was a bastion of support after John’s death — yet they keep their deepest feelings in reserve.

  Beatrice shivers. “Somebody stepped on my grave.” Suddenly realizing how cold her feet are, she stamps them briskly up and down. “We’d better get a move on. It’s late, and I don’t like the look of the sky. Those clouds are hanging very low, and there’s still the journey home.”

  How alone we are, she thinks as they sit into Lily’s car. How little we know of each other. Countless intersections and overlapping of individual lives, yet, underpinning it all, the mystery of the subconscious.

  Eddie waylays Ellen immediately after school and rushes her into his office. He’s animated and his normally sedate speech is rushed. “Moira handed in her resignation this morning. I knew it would happen.”

  “So you’ll be advertising a position?”

  He’s sitting at his desk, chair tilted back, feet up. “The board of management is meeting on Friday night. Ad will be in the papers the week after next. I presume you’ll apply.”

  “I thought you didn’t rate my chances of landing that job.”

  “I was probably a bit hasty,” he says expansively. “Why not throw your hat in? Never let a deadline pass is my motto. You’re not committing yourself to anything. You can always withdraw.”

&nb
sp; “Ever the pragmatist?”

  He smiles wearily. “Let’s not quibble about trifles. I was nursing a professional disappointment that day because I wasn’t in the know about your circumstances.”

  “I’m so glad it wasn’t personal.”

  “Of course it’s personal, Ellen,” he complains. “You can put me down as a referee, if you want, and I’ll sing your praises. I’m in your corner, but you don’t seem to care.”

  “I care. Take that as read. But I’m thirty-eight years old — thirty-nine next birthday — I think it’s time I lived a little. Anyway,” she shrugs, “I know well that the job could go to somebody else. Thanks for the offer, Eddie, but it’ll look bad if the principal doesn’t want to give me a reference.”

  “Nora?” He shakes his head. “Of course she will. I’ll see to that.” He jabs a finger at her. “It’d be a crying shame if you were to take up something other than teaching, Ellen. You’re a natural.”

  “Don’t forget it was the mother of one of my students who tried to shaft me.”

  “Ah,” he says, righting the chair and landing his feet on the ground, “the great conspiracy. It’s a pity those bitches singled you out for attention, but who knows what, if any, damage they’ve inflicted. I know I tend to be old-fashioned but, even here, there are people in highly irregular unions working as teachers. The times they are a-changing. You can’t pre-guess any outcome. You might just get away with it.”

  She can’t discern what Eddie thinks of her. He’s slippery that way, keeping his opinions close. All his advice is practical. Despite his encouragement, pep talks, and strategic counsel, she suspects that he doesn’t actually approve of her, that a part of him wants to reform her. “I never know what to make of you,” she says.

  “That’s the way to have it. Keep ’em guessing.” Suddenly he’s serious. “You want to know what I really think? What you’re doing makes no sense to me.”

  “It’s all tactics as far as you’re concerned, is that it?”

  “Play the game, Ellen, play the game. But you thumb your nose at it all.”

  “What? The way you talk about it —”

  “The way I talk about it? Making a laughingstock of yourself. Everyone is full of jokes about your toy boy. Why did you leave yourself open to that?”

  “I’m not going to go there, Eddie,” she says coldly. She turns on her heel and leaves the room.

  Immediately he’s after her. “But there’s no future in it. There can’t be,” he says gruffly.

  “It’s none of your business.” She stops, exasperated with him. “You’re very patriarchal, Eddie. Has anyone ever told you?”

  He pats her shoulder awkwardly. “It has been said. My wife accuses me of it.”

  “Well, this is it, Simon,” Beatrice says. He’s fidgety, tugging at his tie, fiddling with his cuffs, adjusting his sleeves. A fine specimen of manhood, she thinks, not especially tall, about five-nine or -ten, with a compact muscled strength, no heaviness on his frame. A surprising grace of movement denotes an agility not immediately obvious. The rusted red of his hair and eyebrows emphasizes the almost transparent delicacy of his skin, softening the high ridge of his nose. Pale eyelashes frame the startling green of his irises and confer a deceptive vulnerability on his expression.

  She had expected him to travel from his parents’ house to church the morning of the wedding, but he said, “Here is closer than home, Bee. I don’t fancy going back for just one night and then having to drive the best part of eighty miles the next morning.” He’s been up and down to his bedroom a number of times already. His packed suitcase stands in the hall, waiting to be collected by his best man. His family have already been and gone.

  “This getting married is an awful chore,” he says.

  “I’m not sure how to take that.”

  “All this fussing and codology. It’s unnatural.”

  “Almost at the point of no return. You can still cut and run.”

  “Yeah, yeah.” He coughs as if something has stuck in his throat.

  His best man, one of his identikit brothers — she can never tell them apart — arrives to bring him to the church and she locks up the house.

  In the church, Simon’s sisters wave as he walks up the aisle, but he’s oblivious to everybody.

  This is the day my artificial little world gets blown apart, thinks Beatrice, as the bride arrives. But hers isn’t the only world being decimated. The previous day she met Angela at the checkout in one of Killdingle’s supermarkets.

  “I suppose there’s great excitement over the wedding?” Angela said.

  “Very low-key. It’s strange. I’ve yet to meet the bride.”

  “That figures. He won’t be in a rush to show her off.”

  Angela’s anger was almost tangible. It hissed and crackled like a rogue electric cable, twisting and jumping and shooting out maverick shocks.

  “What can I say? Men are strange creatures, Angie.” What age is Angela, she had wondered. Twenty-six or twenty-seven? Probably no more than twenty-eight. The unmarked mask of youth is hard to read.

  “I never thought he’d go through with this,” Angela continued. “Kept expecting he’d come back. But love is a foreign notion to these men.” She wiped away angry tears.

  Beatrice wanted to urge her not to waste her emotions on an undeserving recipient, to warn her against allowing corrosive anger to sour her life. “Don’t let it get to you, Angela. God knows I’d be very happy if you were the one he was going to marry. But we mustn’t judge. He may love her in his own way.”

  “The only person Simon loves is himself. Don’t you worry about me, Beatrice. I’m a survivor. I’m fighting off men who want to go out with me. This time I’m being right picky. None of that love stuff. I’ve got a calculator instead of a heart.”

  The next time Beatrice sees Simon is a fortnight after his wedding. He comes armed with a box of chocolates and a piece of cake from the reception. “Howdy,” he says with a big grin. She puts aside the pastry she’s just made, wipes her hands, and goes to greet him. They’re like old favorites, a former teacher with her star pupil or an aunt greeting a darling nephew, all shyness and delight. “Thanks for the towels,” he says. “They’re magnificent.”

  “You didn’t bring Celia with you?”

  “She’s off shopping with her mother. You know how seriously these women take their shopping.”

  She looks for signs of change in him but there’s nothing she can notice. He’s as personable as ever, full of that easy charm.

  “You’re looking well,” he says. “I took a notion to come over and see you.”

  The mistake is to take him on a tour of the place before tea. He becomes somber. It’s clearly an emotional experience for him. He hardly speaks but looks a lot, at the outbuildings, the yard, the machinery, and the cows grazing in the pond field. “There’s great space here,” he says. They linger at her special spot by the beech trees and hedge, enjoying the vista of ash and birch trees in the next field and the mountains beyond. “What I wouldn’t give to own the likes of this,” he says sentimentally.

  All through tea he makes competent small talk. It’s difficult to reconcile the open affection he lavishes on her with the calculating coldness people suspect him of.

  When she tells him she’s negotiating with a neighboring farmer to rent or lease the farm, he seems genuinely pained. “That’ll be a wrench,” he says.

  “It will and it won’t. Even with hired help, I’m run off my feet these days. I’m well able to do it all — drive a tractor, handle calves and cows, manage the milking, and load up a trailer. If pushed, I can mend a fence or sort out a drainage problem. But, at this stage of my life, there’s no way I’d want to be up all night waiting on a cow to calve. Except for emergencies, I never had to bother with those things. Farming is backbreaking work, even with all the equipment, the scraping machine and what have you. You’d need to be in the full of your health to sign up for it.”

  “I enjoyed my ti
me with you, Bee,” he says as he leaves. “It’s an unfortunate accident of birth that I wasn’t your son.” He hesitates. “I meant what I said about coming back to help out. I’m surprised you haven’t heard from the silage cutters. Are you sure you haven’t lost your place in the queue? I’ll give them a ring.”

  “It’s okay. They’ll be along soon.”

  “No, I’ll phone Tom and see what’s up. Sometimes they need a little reminding.”

  “That’s very good of you, Simon. Thanks.”

  She watches him drive off with very mixed feelings. Would she ever want such a son, this thirty-one-year-old man with little schooling and various employments as factory worker, lorry driver, delivery man, and farm worker? None of that would count against him except that she suspects him of a serious lack. She suspects that he has no inner life, and that he has only a limited capacity for reflection. His love of the land doesn’t ennoble him. She can’t love somebody whose attachment is to something that is beyond human emotion. Yes, she thinks later, as Shep and she round up the cows to drive them into the milking shed, I couldn’t feel for a person who values the earth above its inhabitants.

  Sixteen

  ELLEN IS PACING the floor of her kitchen. “There’s a sense of being held to account. What annoys me is being judged by standards that most people have given up on. There’s quite an amount of what you’d call ‘irregular unions’ among the parents — separations, divorces, and what used to be called ‘living in sin.’ As far as I know that Hussey woman and the husband are separating, but she’s the one shouting tally ho and leading the charge.”

  “It’s that in loco parentis bind, Ellen,” Matt says.

  “I know all that, Matt, and the role model business. It’s just that a lot of the parentes I am in loco for are rather slack in that regard.”

  “Catholic school.”

  “I know. In Dublin nobody would have been any the wiser. No prying eyes. No stories doing the rounds. There’s a lot to be said for anonymity.”