A Bed in the Sticks

by Lee Dunne

  She laughed, a little vein jumping in the side of her throat, but her eyes remained serious, and when I pulled her against me she didn’t hold back. I kissed her, using my tongue, and I held her tight, working on her, wanting to go to bed with her, needing to make love to her as bad as I ever needed anything.

  It was a long kiss but I felt the steam go out of me as I realised she was allowing me kiss her without coming at me in any way. Then I felt her tears on my face and I drew back, trying hard not to look surprised.

  ‘I’m sorry, Tony...’ She brushed tears away with the sleeve of her jumper. ‘Ridiculous, isn’t it, An old boot like me.’

  ‘I’m the one who should say sorry. That was a liberty.’

  ‘Let me give you one drink before you go.’

  ‘You’re hurting my arm,’ I said, grinning at the idea of having a few more minutes with her.

  She produced a bottle of whiskey and I noticed a half dozen empties of the same brand. She closed the cupboard door and poured the drinks. That was a lot of whiskey, six bottles or so, particularly when you considered how she dropped large ones in the pub.

  ‘Good luck, Tony,’ she said quietly.

  I touched the glasses together and drained my whiskey but she was refilling her tumbler before I was half-way finished. Then she raised her glass in salute and told me: ‘You’ll be great in the play,’ she said.

  ‘Let’s hope you’re right...’ I put the tumbler down. ‘And thanks for the help, and the drink.’

  She nodded. ‘I wanted you to kiss me.’

  I grinned, but I didn’t think it hid the raw look in my eyes. ‘Doesn’t everybody,’ I said, playing it up. ‘See you later.’

  When I left her wagon, I walked back to the digs feeling puzzled and frustrated. She had wanted me to kiss her and yet I hadn’t got within a mile of her. Our lips had touched and my tongue had met her own, but deep down, she had held back, for what reason. I didn’t know. But I did know that I was in love with her and that hurt like bloody hell.

  That night after the show, May Mitchell helped me get Pauline back to her wagon. She was very drunk; she’d been pretty smashed during the show. The play had gone very well for me, though I’d been upset to see Pauline swigging at the piano.

  I waited in the wagon while May covered her up, then we walked back to the digs together. There wasn’t much chat and her high and her high heels beats a regular tattoo on the foot path, and I found myself thinking of her thighs rubbing against each other and then I was wondering what colour knickers she was wearing, and if her lips were rubbing like her thighs, and as though she felt me get hard, her hand crept under my arm, her fingers tight on my on my bicep, and I was so randy that I had a pain, like a tight steel band, across my chest.

  ‘I let her go and her eyes seemed to be breathing hard.

  How you’ve kept me waiting.’

  I shut the parlour door with my foot and I took my coat off. ‘I have a drink up in the room,’ May said. ‘Will I go and get it?’

  I’m sick of drink but thanks. Let’s have a fag.’

  She took off her coat, her eyes on me all the time and then she was against me, savaging my mouth. It was a long kiss and we were breathless when I finally released her.

  She watched me as I raked the dying fire with the poker, and when I sat down she moved over and stood with her back to the grate. ‘She’ll be alright, Tony.’

  ‘She certainly put some gargle away,’ I said, my voice filled with sadness.

  ‘She does that every so often. She’ll go for weeks in great fettle, then bang it’s the bottle for days.’

  I nodded, looking into the fire, wondering what in the name of God was driving Pauline. She was beautiful in every way. She had all kinds of real talent, talent that could have her working in classy places, far from touring the sticks of Ireland for a fraction of what she could be earning in the night venue.

  ‘You sure you don’t want a drink?’

  I looked up at her. ‘I’ve no stomach for it.’

  She reached out and I took her hand. She pulled me gently to my feet before slipping her arms around my neck.

  ‘Have you any stomach for me, Tony?’

  Her mouth was close to mine and I could feel her breath on my face.

  ‘I don’t want to push you,’ she whispered, ‘frighten you off but I think I’m in love with you.’

  We kissed, and I stopped short of hurting her mouth but she came back at me, fighting to get her tongue to mine. She knew now that I wanted her, she’d known it from the moment her hand had touched me arm out on the street, but now it was more than wanting it, it was a need, a desperate need to be held and to ravage each other. Yes, I needed her, and I wanted her to hold me and hold me hard. ‘Hold me, love, hold me, hold me and don’t stop.’

  ‘I’ve waited, Tony. And I will hold you, oh God yes.’

  We kissed and I let go every thought, stepping back to watch her as she removed her sweater and skirt. And her slip, black and short to her stocking tops, her breasts straining in her bra until she opened it. In moments she was naked before me, panting for breath, waiting for me to undress.

  I didn’t move. I couldn’t because suddenly I felt dirty again, contaminated, and I couldn’t touch her. I wanted to take her, use her amazing body and her desire to have me, but I could not take her, and what was more, I could not tell her why not.

  She appealed to me, her face a puzzle as she said: ‘What’s wrong? Don’t you like my body?’

  ‘You are perfect, May, in every way. It’s not you, it’s me, just fucking me!’

  ‘Not Pauline?’

  ‘No not Pauline.’

  ‘You promise?’

  ‘I promise you, May, it’s not Pauline.’

  She walked over and turned the key in the parlour door. ‘I don’t want the landlady to have a heart attack.’

  I smiled, relaxing in the nearness of her generosity. She came to me and I knew I was giving her the hint of a smile.

  I know what it is, Tony.’

  I didn’t say anything as she started to undress me.

  ‘I know what it is,’ she repeated, ‘but I don’t care because I’m in love with you and I want you, I want you buried inside me, filling me.’

  Then she was concentrating on finding my nakedness, not bothered when I tried to stop what she was doing.

  ‘It’s alright. I know what’s bothering you.’ She pressed her hands to my face, looking at me with genuine kindness.

  ‘I was there when you hit that awful Doctor Villiers.’

  I nodded, not bothering to deny what she knew to be the truth. ‘That’s why I don’t wasn’t feeling right. It isn’t because of you. You have the most beautiful body I’ve ever seen, and I like you as a person, it was just that...’

  She kissed me softly on the lips and then she was removing my shirt. ‘You sure you want me, Tony?

  I nodded my head and she said, ‘Tell me, say it, Tony.’

  Her hands were on my chest, her fingernails scratching at my nipples. ‘God, I want you.’

  Her eyes filled up but she didn’t weep. ‘I thought you’d never say it.’

  She stepped back as I released my trousers, sitting down to untie my shoes before she blessed me with her lips until I could not wait any longer to begin the taking of this beautiful young woman who was so gifted in so many ways.

  I pulled her head up, kissing her mouth, tasting myself on her tongue as I pierced her carefully, slowly on the great rug in front of the fire place.

  She took from me and she gave everything she had to me, doing all that she knew to please me. And it was right from the first moments, each move and breath, all happening for us both at the same time. But whether May knew it or not, she had given me something else, and I hoped that I’d never forget, nev
er stop being grateful to her for the way she had helped me feel clean again.

  11

  We played Newtown Butler for two weeks, doing another couple of Sunday Nights for Father Mackey. It was a thirty nine mile trip to Kilbeg, but on both days, Jimmy drove over in the morning and we heard the priest make his plug from the pulpit before we hung up our curtains.

  If anything, the priest went in stronger than before, carrying on as though Gay Time was out on a quick tour from the London Palladium. He just ignored the fact that many of his parishioners had seen the show, but looking about me as I stood at the back of the church, I didn’t see one face wearing even a shadow of doubt that what the PP was saying was practically coming out of the Missal. But I did get a severe look of censure from a woman with a mouth like a torn pocket, which made me realise that I was smiling at the more than generous advert.

  Father Mackey came to the hall after Mass and after his usual effusive preliminaries, which seemed all the more phoney because of his supercilious tone he got to the real point of his visit.

  May’s dancing was a delight, so he assured us, but he felt it would be better for the young men of the town, if she didn’t remove her skirt for her brilliant tap dancing routine, which came directly on the heels of the opening chorus. Not that there was anything improper in the way she danced, it was just that, well, he felt sure that Jimmy would understand.

  Jimmy regarded Father Mackey, nodding with the dignity of a kindly bishop.

  ‘As God is my judge, Father, I was only saying the self-same thing to Tony as we drove over here.’ He smiled: ‘And I do appreciate you taking the trouble to mention it.’

  Poor May never lived it down and for weeks afterwards there was a common joke at her expense that went: ‘Well, she may not have done much for business at Kilbeg, but what she did for hand-galloping, forget it.!

  May had sort of become my girl since that night in the Hopkins parlour. I say ‘sort of,’ because it was a very casual arrangement, and to give her credit, she stuck to our bargain not to make any demands on me, apart from the sexual from the sexual demands that we were now making on each other.

  She never stopped saying she loved me but she knew that I wasn’t really in love with her. I liked her and I fancied her more every time I got out of her bed, but she knew that I was hoping for a sometime break with Pauline.

  In fairness, she never complained about this; she had come to terms with the fact that I couldn’t help the way I was about Pauline any more than she could help loving me. And she saw no reason why we shouldn’t enjoy each others bodies until time sorted out the situation, one way or the other.

  If Pauline knew about May, and really, she had to know since we were pretty generally living in each other’s ears, she never mentioned it. We were pals still, and we continued our small-talk over the piano, but, the odd time that I said something, anything that was in any way a step towards her, she froze up on me. So, mostly, I kept the chat very casual; it was a time for standing still where she and I were concerned.

  She remained all I wanted, if you leave out fame and fortune, and I would have married her any time she said, ignoring the fact she was probably ten years older than me, and, some kind of periodic alcoholic.

  At times I felt a bit guilty that I was using May but, she was so hot for me, and getting what she wanted several nights a week - knowing I was not in love with her - so I wasn’t into any kind of guilt trip, besides which, it felt good to be loved by a young woman who was so lovely in every way, and a natural born tigress in bed.

  ----------

  On the fourth of December at the end of my first year on the road, I saw by Gary’s bed, and he was holing my hand when he died.

  We were in a small town in Fermanagh, snowed up eighteen inches deep, and there was a Murmansk, chill-ridden wind that the snow had done little about.

  I was just over nineteen, but without feeling in any way mature, I felt a hell of a lot older than I was.

  Sadness owned my heart for days before Gary died, because I knew that he was going to die, because he had finally admitted he had no desire to go on living. I allowed him rant on, even though it was terrible to see him give up his life, to be there as he allowed the warmth to slide out of his soul.

  His hand gripped mine during every hour I could spend at his bedside - he wanted nobody else near him - but came the moment when my gentle grasp felt the life leave his fingers and the awful, ugly death-rattle shook him before he was just still.

  I found myself weeping, angry bitter-filled tears, hating to see him go like that, his hatchet face grey-gaunt and negative, purple russet pouches stifling the fierce dark eyes, his mouth minus dentures a ragged hole under his hook of a nose through which his breath had been rasping during the last minutes of his life.

  Gary Martin should never have died like that. He should have dropped dead on a stage somewhere, anywhere, hamming his way through whichever part he favoured most, his face made -up in that too deep shade that he always used.

  He would have like that, being a master of the strong exit line, and I wrote in my mind an epitaph that I felt sure he would have appreciated: ‘Gary Martin, he died on-stage, for the first time in his life.’ Of course, it wasn’t the truth, but I think Gary would have considered it Gospel.

  -----------

  Walking down to the pub was murder, as if the cursed snow had no already ruined two pairs of shoes on me. So, my trouser ends were soaked by the time I got to Keegan’s Bar.

  I found Jimmy inside, as I expected to. Lately, he had been drinking quite a bit, and he read my face in the instant.

  ‘Mr. Keegan, two large brandies, if you please.’

  I drank the brandy without saying anything. I was too cold to talk. There was a decent fire assaulting the chimney but it was a shell of a pub with a draft problem and most of the heat was going up the chimney.

  ‘I’m really sorry, Tony,’

  ‘Oh, for fuck sake, Jimmy, don’t start that.’

  ‘What’s the matter?’

  ‘Just leave it, will you. What’s the use?’

  ‘You’re on about me giving him the bullet...’

  ‘Mister Keegan, two small brandies.’

  ‘Me giving him the sack didn’t kill him.’

  I sucked in my breath, putting a ten-bob note on the counter.

  ‘You’re not being fair, Tony. ‘We didn’t need him.’

  Mr. Keegan put the drinks down and took my money to the till.

  ‘You could have waited,’ I said, throwing the brandy down like a fella trying to hurt him self.

  ‘I couldn’t afford it, Tony. You’ve seen the houses.’

  ‘We break up in three weeks. You could have told him then.’

  ‘It would have cost me thirty quid.’

  ‘He was worth more than thirty quid to me.’

  Jimmy shoved a clean handkerchief in my hand.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I said. ‘It was seeing him like that, the marvellous old bastard, snuffing it in a broken down wagon in this place.’

  Jimmy led me to a table near the fire and I sank onto a chair. He got a bottle of brandy and he sat facing me.

  ‘It was great, the way you two got along.’

  Something in his voice made me glance at him and I saw that he was only just holding back his tears.

  ‘Twenty years I knew him. He was a ham a lot of the time, but, a real pro for all that.’

  I knew Jimmy well enough to know when he was bull-shitting, and I was comforted a bit to hear that he was really sorry about Gary’s death.

  It was more than this - his genuine sorrow left me in a state of relief because now I wouldn’t have to say my piece. It wouldn’t have done Gary any good anyway, and there was no point in shooting my mouth off just to burst Jimmy’s balls.

  Wheth
er he felt guilty about Gary or not, he had enough problems on his hands right now. I hadn’t been considering that as I walked through the snow. I’d been gunning for Jimmy in my mind, determined to let him know I held him responsible for Gary’s death. If he hadn’t paid sacked Gary on the previous Saturday...

  -------

  The pair of us, Gary and me, we were backstage taking off the slap, Gary quieter than was usual when we had what we called a good night, the show going well from start to finish.

  Hey, what’s the matter?’

  Gary had looked up from where he saw on his old property basket. He looked twenty years older than when I’d seen him in the digs earlier.

  ‘Jimmy has just informed me that he cannot afford me.’

  I was stunned, partly by what he said, rocked by the change in him....he looked so old, so old and lonely and terrified.

  ‘If you go, I go, Gary.’

  He stood up in reaction and it was as though somebody had chopped four inches off his legs.

  ‘What a dear boy you are.’

  His smile was a grimace as he touched my head with his hand; the first time he had ever touched me.

  ‘You really will have to learn to curb this emotional strain, you know. Think before you jump and all that.’

  ‘I mean it, Gary.’

  He nodded: ‘I know, love, and bless you for it, but I couldn’t possibly allow it.’

  ‘But the show will come to a standstill without you.’

  ‘Oh, you’ve never been so wrong in your life, dear boy.’

  I couldn’t speak and he smiled at me with compassion in his rheumy eyes.

  ‘You have never been so wrong in your life, dear boy.’ He smiled: ‘Now that’s what I mean about being emotional...I want to believe you, but logic prevents me doing so. That’s something you must learn...’

  I went on, but Gary wouldn’t listen. He insisted that I mind my own business, and finally, I had to promise him, as a friend, that I wouldn’t do or say anything about him to Jimmy.

  During the show that night, I watched the reactions of the others, but nobody seemed to care that Gary was going. Even Pauline seemed to have shrugged it off and when I talked to May about it, she said. ‘That’s how it goes.’ So, I was alone with my concern, simply because I alone, loved the old guy.