A Pagan Place

by Edna O'Brien

  The three of you stared at it. There was conjecture, as to if it was supernatural. All of a sudden she began to laugh, said she knew, she knew how it came to be there. Your father was not bucking any more. He asked her to explain, to elucidate. She said the red-haired tinker had come and since she had two saucepans with leaks and he appeared sober, she had availed of his services and paid him threepence in coppers. Normally she paid him with bread and butter. She reckoned that he must have been given the banana, or he must have stolen it, elsewhere on his travels, and since he had the hungry grass, and got no bread and butter, he was driven to eat it, but didn’t know how. She said aborigines were on the increase. She said he’d have trouble with his number two, trying to digest a thing like a banana skin. It was not like her to be crude. Your father said you would all go to the Wattles and the three of you linked, with you in the middle. The sky and the earth had no division and it was like walking towards heaven, with your mother and father and you linked and laughing.

  When we lifted the latch Lizzie met him with a glare and said Your horse stood up to shit and he’s shitting still. And your mother had to sit down she laughed so strenuously. Then he told about the banana and they couldn’t decide which was funnier, the tinker swallowing the skin or Lizzie’s remark about the horse that stood up.

  Lizzie’s parents were at either end of the fire, dazed. Mr Wattle wore red flannel underneath his shirt and it showed under the cuffs and above the collar. They couldn’t know what all the laughing was about because they were deaf.

  Your father nodded to them and said to Lizzie How about a cup of tea? She put jam between biscuits to make a sort of sandwich of them. There were holes in the biscuits and the jam came through in little trickles. Every so often he asked her what happened to their horse and she repeated what she had said and the laughing started up again. The two old people munched and kept looking from one to the other of the grownups to try and find out what the amusement was about.

  Lizzie walked back with you all to see the banana and your mother said the thing about number two and Lizzie liked that, because she relished a joke and thought of your mother as being a bit ladylike. Your mother picked it up, held it very circumspectly, said there was nothing wrong with it, brought it home and mashed it up with cream and sugar. No one ate it and in the end she was obliged to eat it herself. Your father said once a peasant always a peasant and she cited starving children in war-torn cities and said it was just as well everyone was not so finicky.

  When you told about Miss Davitt and her tantrums and her going away he said it was the right place for her as she was always a screw loose. Your mother asked who would be teaching you now and you said a sub but you didn’t know her name. The good-looking new guard came with a couple of forms to sign. He brought his melodeon. When he was told about the banana he said that red-haired tinker caused more trouble than twenty men and that he ought to be hanged, drawn and quartered. She warmed scones in the oven. Now and then the guard unbuttoned the melodeon and played a little tune softly. He and your father discussed the case of a shop assistant who had embezzled money.

  The guard knew all the scandals for miles around. He said that the two incidents of foot and mouth disease had come about because a man squeezed the germ in a hayshed, a man from England. Your mother said she could guess who. They didn’t mention names but you knew it was the bald man that bought a mansion for three thousand pounds and had it knocked to the ground and then sold the stones to the County Council for a pittance. He got engaged to a girl from the parish but it transpired he had another wife in England and the girl had to sue him for breach of promise. Your father said he should be run out of the country, what with knocking mansions and bringing in the foot and mouth. The guard said he would be, once they had something on him but it was hard to catch a rich bastard like that. The guard said money was a buffer.

  Ambie rushed in and said did they hear the news and the more they said no the more he delayed telling it. Miss Davitt had jumped out of the car when they got to the place, pretending that she was about to vomit and had waded into the lake and drowned herself.

  Your mother said The Lord have Mercy and your father said Miss Davitt was a nice creature and how they always had a good chat whenever they met. The guard folded the concertina and put it in its case.

  Your mother asked Ambie for particulars. He said all he knew was that when they got there she jumped in, clothes and all. She was wearing a brown coat with an astrakhan collar. You had seen her go in it. It was nearly a waltz the way she careened to the car. Then she turned round and waved to the school building, viciously shook her fist at it.

  Ambie said it was all planned because a cousin had seen her stuffing stones in her pocket but hadn’t caught on. Your mother said mad people often showed an amazing cunning and that was the most frightening thing about them. The guard asked what about her house, he was looking for a place to rent so that he could bring his young wife and son from the city. Your mother said most likely it would go to cousins and your father said what cousins because he wanted to cheer the guard up about the prospects of renting the house.

  Miss Davitt got a Christian burial after all. For two days while she lay in the mortuary it was feared she might have to be buried in the pauper’s grave where there was only a yew tree and a few anonymous people who had strayed into the county and died. All the parents put their signatures to a letter and the doctor brought it to the parish priest who in turn went to the bishop and the upshot was she was brought home but she was not laid out in a bed because for one thing the water had disfigured her.

  The crux of the argument had been that she put the stones in her pocket and therefore engineered her death. The woman who cooked for her said she had sent coupons and money away for a little card table and reasoned that no woman contemplating suicide would embark on such a step. That pulled heavily in her defence. She had often uttered the name of that lake when pointing out the lakes, rivers and estuaries of each county.

  Once she nearly conceded to you when you gave her a very well-done pancake and while you were squeezing the lemon juice on it she fondled the back of your leg the way she fondled girls’ legs when she liked them, but it did not lead to an allegiance. Soon after that she borrowed your doll for the school play and never gave it back but kept it in the china cabinet where you could see it, your favourite doll with the high cheekbones and the satin dress.

  The school children marched in twos behind the coffin and the twins who were wearing red pixies were asked to remove them by the sub who thought the colour inappropriate. You could only walk half way because you had to go and keep Della company being as she got panic-stricken when her mother went to funerals.

  Della had consumption and all her brothers and sisters had consumption and had died from it. Hers was not galloping yet but it was obvious she was fading away even though she had egg flips and milk to offset it. After each death they had to whitewash the room and boil the bedclothes but the germs came back. She called down from upstairs to know if it was you and you knew by her voice she was happy.

  She was sitting up in bed very excited. Sometimes she was vivacious and at other times limp, like a weed that had been scythed. She asked if you’d brought any photos of the stars. You cadged photos of film stars from the men who smoked. She had a big array wedged into the front of the mirror over the fireplace. It was in a cane frame and the glass was blotchy. She couldn’t touch them with her hand without getting out of bed but she had a feather duster on the end of a bit of bamboo and she used to point to them and dust their faces and have conversations with them.

  Her two favourites were Clark Gable and Robert Donat. She was jealous of the female stars and used to be vying with them for the love of Clark Gable and Robert Donat. You had brought her another of Clark Gable, front face, exactly like the ones she had and she kissed it before giving it to you to wedge into place. The way it was now there were more photos than mirror but it didn’t matter because she had a little vanity b
ox with a built-in mirror which she consulted all the time.

  Beside her bed under a piece of wickerwork was a plastic egg and when she pressed the wickerwork the egg split in half and a very yellow chicken popped up, screeching. It made her laugh and also was her indication that she needed an egg. You went downstairs for one. She asked if you thought Clark Gable was nice to women or a bully. She asked which you preferred in a man, character or personality. She did not wait for a reply to any of these questions.

  When you brought the brown egg she cracked it on the rungs of the bed and swallowed it. She believed they were better that way than beaten with a fork. You sat on the bed and held each other’s hands and studied each other’s nails. She said there were more white specks on your nails than hers which meant you were less healthy. The pupils of her eyes were huge and the thin rim of colour around them a fiery yellow.

  She said she would tell you a secret if you promised not to tell. She said the bank clerk was in love with her and had written her love letters. She said the bank clerk admitted in one of those letters that she was the bane of his life. She didn’t say how the letters got to her and you didn’t inquire because you knew it was a fib.

  Then she got you to take down the dress length that someone had sent her and drape it around her. As always you discussed what make it should be. She said she was not going to the tailor, not only because he touched girls’ diddies but because he would want to make it into a twopiece and she wanted a dress. The tailor was very hot on making twopieces because he had secured a pattern for that. She draped the material over her head and shoulders and in that pose she looked like the Blessed Virgin. You told her so. Then all of a sudden she jogged up and down and said The game, the game.

  The game was to have conversations with each of the film stars, and to make lots of intrigues between them and her.

  Clark Gable was the first to speak. He asked her why she went motoring with Robert Donat. She said she liked Robert Donat’s car. His car was a Peugeot because Hilda, the richest woman in the neighbourhood, had such a car. Then Clark Gable said he’d box her ears if she ever did that again. She said to Clark Gable what about Dorothy Lamour then, what about her. He said Dorothy Lamour was just a bon-bon compared with her, Della, and then he asked her if she loved him and she shrugged and said she didn’t know and when he pressed for an answer she said a teeny bit. Then he took her wrists and squeezed them very tight and she pleaded for mercy and he would not let go until she kissed him and the kiss was on the lips and very passionate. You knew it was passionate because you were Clark Gable and Robert Donat and Dorothy Lamour and all of those characters. You had to take stances on the window sill and do sword fights and use different attire and different props. When her father came in from work and found you were wearing his good hat and coat he told you to be off, to vamooze, to be out of there. The way he chased you was the way he would chase a stray dog.

  When you got home there was a row in full swing. She was frying rashers and the fat had water in it because there was spitting and hissing from the pan. She sent you upstairs for her apron. You hated going up, didn’t know what you might meet, Miss Davitt for one thing. She told you where to find the apron and you put your hand in and felt for it on the back of the door but it wasn’t there. You had to go in. You prayed

  Oh sacred heart of Jesus,

  I place all my trust in you.

  Mother of God remember me,

  St Anthony pray for us.

  The wardrobe door was open, always opening of its own accord as if there was something in there struggling to get out. The tassel of the blind rattled against the inside of the window and the rain beat on the outside, the beat of the rain softer far than the clatter of the tassel. The dark window was mottled with the rain and trees were huge shapes making noise beyond the window in the dark. The leaves made one kind of noise and the boughs made another. You wished she and you could abscond to somewhere, anywhere. The apron was at the end of the bed. She did not even notice herself putting it on so caught up was she in the proceedings. It was about horses. She said not a meadow existed without useless thoroughbreds strutting round it.

  Your father had racehorses and hunters and hacks. They were nearly all roan in colour but they had different birth marks that distinguished them. Before a foal was born he watched with the mother. Sometimes the mother kicked and jerked the way a woman would. Afterwards he always gave her a nice feed of linseed meal and she then stood up and licked the foal of its moisture, that was like gum.

  Your mother pointed out, and not for the first time, that a horse ate three times the amount of a bullock or a cow. He told her to mind her own business, to keep her gob shut, to stick the bacon up her arse.

  She said she had rights too, in law. She mentioned the dowry that her parents had sacrificed to give him.

  Her dowry he said did not cover the cost of the hall doorsteps. In fact it was one step of dark blue slate and there had to be salt shook on it in the frost.

  Bad language shot out of his mouth, words like shit and shite, and scutter and arse and arsehole and scour. His language was one thing, his voice was another. His voice was fierce, like a stonecrusher bearing down on her.

  He took the ash plant from its place in the corner and took a few swipes at the dresser. It made a noise like wind and cleft the air. The plates shook. The lids of cans flew about. There were always more lids than cans because the cans were on loan to the people she sent milk to.

  She said couldn’t he wait at least until the child was out of the way, at school, or at Confession or in bed. He said he bloody couldn’t. He gave a few more pelts to the dresser, dropped the stick and put on his hat. A dangerous move. It meant he was going out.

  She lapsed into sobs, said he could have all the horses he wanted, as all she was trying to do was to make ends meet.

  He said he took her out of a bog and gave her status and would she for Christ’s sake recognize the damage she was doing to his craw and his ulcer with her tantrums and her parsimony.

  She hung her head and sobbed. She would have taken any insult then because she did not want him to go out. She begged of him to sit and have his supper. He said his supper was ruined.

  He sat with his hat on. She added a spout full of tea to the fat in the pan to make gravy, then poured it on his plate. The moment he began to eat he told you to eat. You said you weren’t hungry. He said Eat your supper. You said Yes.

  He said you wouldn’t get a fry like that in every house. He said did you realize what a good cook your mother was. You said yes.

  You began to recite I wandered lonely as a cloud, as an entertainment. He said For Christ’s sake shut up. Your mother signalled to you, then gave a second signal, for you to apologize. One of her eyebrows had got burnt from the fat and the speck of black made your hand incline to reach up and wipe it away.

  When you put the bit of egg on your tongue you waited for it to slide down of its own accord, without touching it with your teeth. You were adept at it because of so many Holy Communions. You imagined you heard the sanctus bell and closed your eyes and thumped your breast.

  Your father asked why the theatrics and why could you not be a solace to your parents the way some youngsters were. You promised to turn over a new leaf, then jumped up to get the second cup of tea that he was on the point of needing.

  When Ambie came in with the two buckets of milk he took stock of the situation quickly and began to hum. The grease had formed a small crust on his egg but it was simple to crack, like cracking very thin ice, one jab of the fork did it. He was wanton with the relish, poured some into the egg yolk and ground the two together.

  She burped and put her hand to her mouth, she couldn’t stand eggs although they were her livelihood. Six or seven times a day she went to collect them, in the nests proper, and in the bushes because some hens preferred to lay out, in secret. The span of her hand was such that she could take four hen eggs in each palm, four hen eggs or two goose eggs. The eggs that had no sh
ells were funny to hold but hardest of all to crack. It was like a bladder, the outside skin of the shell-less egg. Those that were smeared with dung she cleaned by applying bread soda. She said washing caused them to rot or at any rate hastened the rot. In the spring there was a speck of blood in the egg white, in the mating season. The hens were a breed from the island of Rhodes. They had reddish brown feathers and they had little combs in imitation of cockscombs. She lifted the clumps of soggy hay out, put the clean dry sops in and shaped them to the nest’s proportions. She did it regularly.

  With the egg money she bought the jams and the jellies. In her apron pocket there was a bill for eight pounds four shillings but she had told him that she owed sixteen pounds.

  That was a lie. No lie could be lawful or innocent, no motive however good could excuse a lie for a lie was always sinful and bad in itself.

  He drained his teacup and announced that he was going to bed. He stood on the far side of the kitchen door, eavesdropping. She almost laughed. In times of trial she laughed but it was a nervous trait and exhilarated nobody. In her matter of fact voice she said to Ambie would he kill two cockerels for her in the morning. Your father walked away. You could not hear his footsteps because he crept but you could see the absence of shadow in the crack under the door. Ambie said which cocks. She said he knew well which because she had pointed them out to him the evening before. Ambie said he wasn’t a poultry instructor but she refused to be riled. When he took his cap off his knee, put it on, and rose, she asked if he had to. He said a man owed him a bet and he had to get it then or he’d never get it.

  Another lie. When he left the house flickered with danger. All sorts of rumbles emitted and you looked at each other to confirm what you had heard. There was no fire lit. She and you rolled skeins of wool into balls. She rolled them and you held them. In between each one you had to rest your arms. You sat by the stove with the oven door open to let out a bit of heat. Sometimes you put your heels on the floor of the oven and stuck your feet in to warm them but it got too hot too quickly and you had to pull them out again. Raindrops slid down the window pane. At times one raindrop overtook another making a big double drop that slid to the bottom. The window always seemed to have the same quantity of raindrops sliding down. She asked what desserts you thought there ought to be when Emma came.