by Lee Dunne
Most of the girls were working hard at their machines. There was a busy hum in the place and it seemed good to be a part of it. Jack Sloane came up to my desk and told me a joke. Poor Jack, he couldn’t tell a joke to keep himself warm. He got it mixed up in the middle so that you knew what was coming before he finished it, but I laughed my head off and he went back to his desk like he was topping the bill in the Theatre Royal.
When I looked over to the switchboard, ‘O’Boyle was purring down the phone at some university type who was after his corner and I wished Cahill would come in just to see his face when he heard her. She had a laugh that was enough to bring you on, and she knew it, and never stopped using it. It was as if she started to laugh and then broke it in her throat, as if she really intended to growl at you. It really did something to me. Anyway, she kept on saying, ‘Oh Tony! You’re awful!’ until the guy must have started to believe it himself.
Mister Hayes came into the office and Tony got that fastest goodbye I’ve ever heard, and she was all business, with her yes sirs, and her no sirs, into the dead phone.
Two of the other girls exchanged a look, and a tch with the tongue and a flick of the eyes to the roof. They didn’t like O’Boyle. She talked too often about all the men that were after her, which was bad enough, but even worse was the fact that they knew it was true. And she was always pulling up her stockings in public, and the fact that she had beautiful legs didn’t increase her popularity one little bit.
I’d fancied that O’Boyle a bit in recent weeks. It was strictly for the other mind you. I wasn’t too keen on her except apart from the idea of having her in the scratcher.
Mary Whelan was the best of the women in the office. She was good natured and she could listen to a joke once it wasn’t too strong. And in her own quiet way she was nice-looking, and though she was always well covered up you could see she had a nice body. We used to cycle home together sometimes and when she pedalled I could see the top of her stocking and it looked nice and warm up there. She only talked to me like a big sister, though, and I liked her more than I did Josie. Still, if she’d been my sister she might have been different. Just like Josie.
The firm was doing well. Every day business seemed to be on the increase. I was glad about that - the bosses were so decent to their employees that they deserved to make money. And they encouraged us to bring in business, promising half of the firm’s commission to anyone that did, and I thought that was very fair. I tried hard and I managed to get a couple of guys that I knew to insure their cars through the firm. The premiums weren’t all that large - neither was my share of the commission, but it was a start, and Mr. Hayes told me he was pleased with my efforts.
That gave me a lift. I wanted Mr. Hayes to see something in return for the effort he’d put into me. He was a nice man and if he could see that I was really trying he wouldn’t feel that he had wasted his time on me.
At home on The Hill the fact that I worked in an insurance office was a sort of status symbol. Some of the neighbours, mostly Oul’ ones, said good evening to me with respect in their voices, and, more than once, someone came to our door to ask me to write a letter to the Corporation or the St. Vincent de Paul Society, or the like.
At times like that Ma was very proud. You could see it in her walk and hear it in her voice and I got a thrill to see her that way. It was a good thing that she could be proud of me, even if I wasn’t all that proud of myself.
Chapter 12
During that summer I grew a few inches and thanks to all the Guinness I was drinking I filled out a bit in the body. And I began to get a real growth on my chin so that I had to shave a couple of times a week. As Redmond said, I was getting very dark around the gills.
I worked hard in the office, and I did so well in spotting a fake Engineers Report on an old car that I got a few words of praise from Cahill. When he was congratulating me he was embarrassed, and I realised that most of his arrogant, ignorant attitude was a cover-up for his shyness, and though I didn’t like him any better, I did try to make allowances when he took verbal liberties.
I stayed with the Technical School, attending classes regularly, and thanks to this, and all the reading I did, and the scribbling into the exercise books, and the endless talks with Redmond - from which I never failed to learn something - I was a lot wiser than I’d been starting out in the office. And when I talked to Mister Hayes, I tried to let him see that I was working to improve myself.
My word power was increasing, thanks to the word-a-day idea, and when I had a book in the office I would leave it lying on the desk so that it could be seen. I didn’t read Christie or Leslie Charteris. I had nothing against them but I didn’t have time to read strictly for pleasure. I had to learn something from each book, so that the literature that Mr. Hayes and the others saw was what could be considered good gear. It wasn’t a snob thing. I just wanted Mr. Hayes to see that he had backed a winner.
I also kept myself neat and tidy at all times, and I don’t think anybody in the office, apart from Larry and Jack knew that I took a drink.
Towards the end of term at the Tech, Maureen got a bit annoyed at the way I was concentrating on the lectures rather than on her. I was too interested in the subject for her liking, she sensing it was more than that. The truth was that I didn’t feel the need to keep touching, however properly, as she sat beside me at every lecture. I also knew that afterwards we would go somewhere quiet and make some kind of love, so why mess about in the classroom. As I say, she must have sensed this in me because she was more possessive in the classroom than she was elsewhere.
I kept quiet about it, leaving well enough alone, and even when we’d be walking on the street, and she’d stop to look in a window at a wedding gown or something like that, I didn’t say anything either. If a subject isn’t mentioned it’s very hard to have a row about it.
We did a lot of walking, Maureen and I, and I’d almost completely stopped going to films. Those days of Roy Rogers and all the others seemed far off and pointless, but I never regretted one moment of the time I’d spent watching them. Now it was Maureen, and drinking, or the odd bit of whoring. And, of course, talking and arguing with Redmond, and good times in Larry’s company, with or without Breeda, while at the same time I was usually reading two and three books.
Yes, I was a busy bee with the morning paper round and the job, but I was rarely tired now, except on my late night journey up the one hundred yard laneway that led from Mount Pleasant Avenue up to The Hill. So, with one thing and another, it was well into August when I got down to County Wicklow, for my first visit to Claire Kearney.
She had been phoning me once a week since leaving Dublin and I was always promising that it would be the next weekend. At the time, I really meant what I said but, by Friday, something would come up, and I kept putting it off.
It was diabolical when you consider how the woman felt about me, and when you think of all the hours she must have spent wishing for a sight of me in the road, it was bloody nearly criminal.
I knew how wrong it was and I kept on meaning to do something about it. It was a bit like that book I was going to write, but, in fairness, Maureen and Breeda were on the spot so, Claire, not so conveniently placed, had to sit and wait.
*************
Breeda had phoned me, as Larry said she would, and I was like a god on form from the moment I heard her voice. It was soft on the phone, like the touch of her flesh, and from the off, I was, as Larry would say, involved. I couldn’t help it. I was crazy for her. So much so that I broke one or two dates with Maureen. And I wanted so much to make Breeda happy that I got used to the idea of her wanting to be hurt. I was willing to do anything to keep her interested in me and I gave her what she wanted. I had to drink whiskey before I could do it and I never mentioned it to Redmond. He’d swallowed the yarn about the cane. That was a bare faced lie, but he believed it. Now I couldn’t tell him somet
hing that was really true because I knew he’d laugh me out of the pub.
Larry warned me not to get too strongly attached to Breeda. He said she was a bit of a nut and likely to tell me to get out at any time. He tried to get it across on me that if that did happen, it wouldn’t be so hard on me, provided I wasn’t in love with her. I listened but I didn’t pay much attention. I couldn’t help the strange kind of way that I felt about her. Right or wrong, it was a very strong thing as far as I was concerned.
In the meantime, there were a few occasions in the offices when Claire Kearney phoned me from Wicklow, when I felt that O’Boyle was listening in, but as I was in the back office, so that I could have a little privacy, I couldn’t be sure.
Then she started putting it around the office that I was a bit of a ram, and from the way she said little things, I knew that she’d heard Claire going on about needing me, and all the rest of it. And when Claire talked like that you didn’t need much imagination to guess exactly what it was she was talking about.
It was at this time that trouble between Maureen and me began. Breeda phoned, and though I had a date with Maureen for that same evening, I couldn’t stop myself going to the flat in Merrion Square. I had told Maureen I was working late, and she said alright, though you could tell she didn’t like it.
Next morning the woman who cleaned the offices told me that a girl had phoned for me the night before. Right away I knew it was Maureen, but I didn’t know what the hell to do about it. I’d already told the lie, and it wasn’t the first time she’d known I was spoofing, even as I’d been telling her.
I cursed my own stupidity for not thinking that she might check up on me. Then we rearranged the date, and I spent part of the day wondering what would happen when I met her in the evening on the corner of Leinster Road. What happened was nothing! Nothing happened because she didn’t show up.
Believe it or not, I waited a whole hour, giving her five minutes, and then another five, until in the end I went into Campion’s feeling more than sorry for my self. How could she do this to me?
I drank more than my share and bought a few for Harry. I didn’t talk much. I was so choked it took me all my time to order the gargle. When I wouldn’t buy any more for him Redmond got the needle and I ended up telling him to get lost before I kicked his teeth in.
Up to that night I’d never had a cross word with him and though he could have handled me with one hand, he just drained his glass and walked out. He must have known I was upset, although I didn’t say a word about Maureen and me. I could never have admitted to Redmond that I’d been stood up by a mot! I’d never have heard the end of it.
When I left the pub I was footless, but I thought I’d walk up and see if Maureen was at home - she might be ill or any thing. She probably hadn’t stood me up at all. So I started to figure but, drunk and all as I was, I knew I was kidding myself.
I got across Rathmines Road somehow but I knew I wouldn’t get very far. I turned around to go home, but I was so drunk that I had to grab onto some railings and I must have hung there for half an hour before I felt that I could walk.
I turned back into Rathmines Road and I was getting along nicely when I saw Maureen get off the bus with Willie Egan.
For a second I didn’t move. Not Maureen. She wouldn’t do this to me.
They were laughing as they came towards me. I waited long enough to be sure she saw me, then I staggered across the road, my heart like a lump of sore blood, and me enjoying every second of the way I was suffering.
She shouted my name but I didn’t look back. I could tell how upset she was just by the way she shouted my name. But I kept going until her hand was on my arm, ‘Paddy, please wait.’
I shook her hand off so hard that she nearly fell over, and as I tried to walk off, Egan spun me around and smashed his fist hard into the side of my head. I didn’t see it coming and I went down very hard.
The ground was spinning like a top, and as I tried to get up on my feet, most of the stout that I’d poured into myself came up, spewing all over the footpath.
The blow hadn’t hurt me that much but, I knew I’d been hit. Maureen was crying and, at the same time ballocking the life out of Egan, for hitting me like that, even as people were passing us by without a word. It wasn’t all th
Egan stood back and took all that Maureen said. He was like a frightened rabbit and you could see that he was crazy about her.
I was standing steady now and I was wiping my mouth with a hankie Claire had given me with some other stuff. I was taking deep breaths to clear my head, while Maureen watched me, still weeping, and though I felt like fuming at her, I was unhappy at being the cause of her tears.
‘I’m sorry, Maur. I didn’t mean to make you cry.’
I turned to move off again, and when she reached out to touch me, I moved aside.
Egan put his hand out to hold me and I let him do it, knowing full well that he wouldn’t hit me again, not after the the ballocking Maureen had fired at him.
Then, as fast as I could, I turned around and hit him between the eyes with my forehead, throwing so much force behind the blow that I though I’d fractured my skull.
Egan stood there, partly out, and without any hesitation I smashed my fist under his left ear and he went down like a sack of potatoes.
Maureen screamed, almost as though she knew I had a taste for blood, and it was only her pleading, and the way she was hanging onto me, that stopped me from kicking his head in.
I was sick with meanness, so much so that for the first time in my life I wanted to put the boot into someone. And that included all the times I’d been beaten to a standstill in the everyday fights to and from school.
Those fights taught you one thing - if you hit someone hit him as though you mean to kill him. That way there’s less chance of him getting up and you having to hit him again. It’s not nice and it’s not sporting, but then fighting shouldn’t be. And anybody who fights voluntarily, without knowing that he can win, is a bloody fool. Which was why Egan came unstuck with me. He was big and hefty, probably thirteen stone in weight, and because of that and the fact that I was skinny as a pencil, he just took it for granted that he could put me down with a casual blow. And he learned that a fella of ten stone, who hits you right, can do more damage than a fella of thirteen stone who doesn’t know what it’s all about.
I came to my senses, and it was like rising out of a bad dream. For me it was always that way when I’d had a fight. You can learn the physical side of the thing, how to deliver a punch and how to ride a blow, and all the rest of it, but how do you learn not to vomit afterwards.
Maureen helped me lift Egan to his feet and, though I didn’t expect it, I was ready just in case he tried to land a crafty one. There wasn’t any fight left in him. Even when he came around he was only half with it, and as soon as he felt he could walk, he staggered off without a word.
I felt sorry for Maureen, and for attacking Willie Egan, knowing that she would blame herself for being the cause of the whole thing, when it was my fault and nobody else’s.
There hadn’t been any need at all for me to hit Egan. He’d only punched me because he was crazy about her and he’d thought I was trying to hurt her when she grabbed my arm. And if he cared that much for her, he couldn’t have been all that bad a fella. But still, I thought, fuck him, he hit me when I was too drunk to see it coming and what he got, he asked for. And that was it. I accepted my side of the story, one that showed me as the fella that had been put upon.
‘I wasn’t waiting for you, Maureen. I’m sorry it happened.’
‘Oh Paddy, you’re such a bloody fool sometimes. I only did it because you let me down all those evenings. It’s you I love. You know that.’
She stood there looking up at me and her face all tearstained and lined with worry. ‘And I love you, Maur, but you’d be better off with hi
m. He’s your own age, at least.’
There I was, off again on my self-pity touch. It wasn’t enough that after all I’d done, Maureen could stand there and tell me she loved me. No, for me it had to be written down the centre of Rathmines Road, in two-foot-long red letters, I Love Paddy Maguire. He can do what he likes. He can walk all over me, but I love him, and I want everyone to know it.
‘Walk me home, please. I want to be with you. I can’t help it.’
I tried to say no, to walk away from her. It would have been the decent thing to do, to leave her alone and give her the chance of finding someone who would treat her right. But I took her arm and walked in silence beside her. Soil everything, leave nothing untouched.
She stopped under the first tree and she turned sharply to me and pushed her mouth against mine. It was so sudden that I didn’t think she’d planned it.
I tried to resist the pull of her lips - shag her, she went out with Egan behind my back. And for about two seconds, I tried hard to keep my resentment between us but, it was no good. I was like Maureen, draining every shred of pleasure out of the kiss, and then I was pulling her after me into a garden, right there on the Leinster Road.
I put my old overcoat down and we lay down on it and we made love. It was an angry, wild thing to do, and we tore at each other, hurting and wanting so badly to be hurt. She tore my shirt open and bared her breasts against my chest, and, without any thought of whether it was safe of not, she drained me free of my need, shuddering violently beneath me on the old coat, not letting me escape. And we vowed love for ever and ever, God help the pair of us.
For a few weeks after that we were great together. The fight with Egan had brought to the surface a depth of feeling that had been untapped before. Making love in that garden was the best I’d ever known with Maureen, and now there was greater tenderness than ever before between us, and I felt that I loved her very much.
