Lilac Bus

by Maeve Binchy

  It would be so easy to have a family like Jimmy’s. They asked so little of him, they were so complete in themselves. If Jimmy were to disappear from their lives for ever, he would be spoken of affectionately, but if Rupert were to forgo just one weekend going home on the Lilac Bus it would be a national crisis for the Green family. Sometimes he thought that this was very unfair, but Jimmy would have none of it.

  ‘You’re a difficult sensitive plant, Roopo,’ he’d say. ‘Even if you had my family, you’d feel threatened and anguished – it’s the way things are.’

  Rupert would laugh, ‘Don’t call me Roopo, it sounds like some exotic bird in the zoo.’

  ‘That’s what you ARE: like a dark brooding exotic bird that finds almost every climate too difficult for it!’

  He had met Jimmy one great lucky day in the office. There was a picture of what they called a ‘charming unconverted cottage’ in the window. It was a bit far out too, not in the more fashionable direction and it could not be described as trendy, even by the most optimistic of those who wrote the descriptions.

  Jimmy came in, a slight figure in an anorak, wearing tinted glasses. He had blond hair that fell over his forehead and he looked a bit vulnerable. Rupert didn’t know why he moved over at once to him even though Miss Kennedy was nearer. He didn’t feel any attraction to him at that stage – he just wanted to see that he got a fair deal. He had been studying the picture of the cottage, and had an eager smile on his face.

  Rupert had told him the good and the bad: the bad being the roof and the distance and awful boulders of rocks in what had been loosely called the garden. He told him the good, which was that it was fairly cheap, that it was nice and private, and that if you had any money now or later there was another building attached to it which was a sort of an outhouse but which could easily be made into another small dwelling. Jimmy listened with growing interest and asked to see it as soon as possible. Rupert drove him out there, and without anything being said they knew they were planning their future as they stood in the wild overgrown rocky ground around the little house and climbed the walls of the outhouse to find that the roof there was perfect.

  ‘It’s not handy for where you work,’ Rupert pointed out, as Jimmy had said where he taught.

  ‘I don’t want to live handy to where I work, I want to live miles away. I want to have my own life away from the eyes of the school.’

  Rupert felt an unreasonable sense of exclusion. ‘And will you share it, do you think? That is, if you take it,’ he had asked.

  ‘I might,’ Jimmy had said levelly. ‘I have no plans yet.’

  He bought the house. He had been saving with a building society for four years and he was considered reliable. The estate agency was pleased with Rupert: they had had the cottage on their books for rather too long. When all the negotiations were over, Rupert felt very lonely. This small smiling Jimmy was going to be off now living his own life in the windswept place. He would build that wall that they had discussed as a shelter, he would do up the second part of the house, paint it white, paint a door bright red maybe, grow some geraniums and get a suitable tenant. It would pay his mortgage. And Rupert would hear no more of it. Or of him.

  He phoned on the Friday.

  ‘Rupert, will you help me? I’ve lost all the fire for the place. I can’t SEE it any more, what it’s like, what’s going to be so great about it. Will you come out and remind me?’

  ‘Yes,’ Rupert said slowly. ‘Yes, that’s what I’d love to do.’

  He sat in a kind of trance all that Friday; if people spoke to him he only heard them vaguely. It was all so clear now: the confusions, the guilt, the hope that it would all settle down and sort itself out and that one day a woman would come along who would make him forget all this short-term stuff – which frightened him rather than making him satisfied. But all the time knowing there would be no woman, and not really wanting a woman. But had he read the signs right? Suppose Jimmy was just a charming fellow with nothing on his mind but a good cheery chat with that nice fellow from the estate agent’s? Suppose Jimmy said he had a fiancée or some married lady that he wanted to meet in secret. He drove out, noting that it would take him half an hour from door to door should he ever need to go that way again. Jimmy was standing at the gate. Waiting.

  He knew it was going to be all right.

  And it had been more than all right for three years now. They had done the two little houses up with such love that now they really did merit a glowing description on an auctioneer’s books. But they would never be for sale. They were separate enough to pretend that they were two dwellings if it were ever needed. But it never was. When Jimmy invited his family out to see the place they all thanked him and said they must get round to it but they never arrived. Rupert didn’t press his elderly parents to come to Dublin, and just showed them pictures of his part of the house. And of the garden. They made it all into a giant rockery and knew as much about alpines and rock plants as anyone for miles around. They had a big kitchen with a sink and work area on each side so that they could both cook if they wanted to. Every penny they had went into their little place. They had friends soon, people who came to dinner and admired or offered advice but mainly admired. It was so ideal and they were so happy.

  That’s why he hated leaving it at weekends. It was on Saturdays that they used to be most peaceful there, often shopping and cooking a meal – not only for Martin and Geoff or other gay friends but for the nice young married couple who lived nearby and who kept an eye on their garden that time they went to Morocco. These were people to relax with. These and one or two people in the estate agency didn’t have to have any pretences arranged for them. It was only in Jimmy’s school and Rupert’s home town that the acting was essential.

  Jimmy said it was so ludicrous in the 1980s not to be able to say that he was gay. And he would have at once if it were remotely possible. But no, apparently the boys’ parents would think he had designs on them: they would think he was looking at them speculatively.

  ‘I don’t want any of those horrible ink-covered filthy ignorant kids,’ Jimmy would wail. ‘I want you, Rupert, my beautiful dark Rupert that I love.’

  And Rupert would fill up with pleasure and pride that Jimmy could be so natural and open and say all that to him. He tried to say spontaneous things too but they came out with greater difficulty. He was a bit buttoned up as Judy Hickey had once said to him. He wondered often if Judy knew that he was gay. Probably. But it had never been the right time to tell her or to invite her out to see the rock plants and alpines that she would love.

  Of course he could tell Judy Hickey: after all, she was a scandal herself in some way, wasn’t she? There had been some really murky business years ago. She would be pleased to know there was another Great Secret in Rathdoon. But he could never tell Judy that one of the real reasons he hated so much leaving every Friday for these empty weekends was that he was so afraid Jimmy would find someone else. Or maybe even had found someone else.

  At lunch this very Friday he had asked Jimmy what he would do all day Saturday, and there had been no satisfactory answer. Martin and Geoff were having people in for drinks – he would go to that in the evening. He’d mark exercise books, he’d try and fix up the hi-fi which had never been satisfactory. It was all very vague. Suppose, suppose, Jimmy had begun to like somebody else? His heart was cold inside like the unexpected bit you find when you take a loaf out of the freezer and it hasn’t properly thawed. He could never tell anyone that fear. Not anyone in the whole world.

  It was easy to talk to Judy. She told him about her little herb pillows; he told her all the fuss over the TD with the love nest. They both laughed at that and for some reason that he couldn’t quite see it brought her into talking about her own past. He was astounded at her story, a young wife and mother dealing in drugs all those years ago. And the husband doing deals with the law as if he was part of the Wild West. Imagine her not seeing the children, but imagine even more her getting supplies of LSD
for the huntin’ shootin’ fishin’ set! And hash! Jimmy would go wild when he heard. He could have listened for ever but suddenly she decided she was boring him and launched into chat with that half-mad Nancy Morris. She had also said that his mother thought about him every day. That couldn’t be so. Mother thought about Father, and the house, and the vegetable garden and the hens, but mainly Father and how she was afraid that young Mr MacMahon didn’t have the respect due to the senior partner and founder of the firm. Mother hardly showed any interest in Rupert’s life in Dublin which was of course a relief, but it did mean that it was most unlikely that Mother would think about him every day. Surely Judy was being fanciful? She probably hoped no matter what she said her lost children thought of her every day. That was it.

  Their house was small and white with clematis growing up over the porch. Jimmy thought that a Protestant solicitor’s family would live in a manor house, heavy with creeper and inspiring awe among the peasantry. Rupert had said that only two houses had proper creeper. One was Dr Burke’s, which was beautifully kept and one was the old vicarage, which was so neglected it now looked like a huge stone covered with ivy. They had a service each Sunday in Rathdoon in the beautiful church, but had no vicar, no rector; he came out from the big town seventeen miles away and had Matins in Rathdoon, and another, later Matins another fifteen miles down the road. Jimmy was fascinated, but Rupert had never asked Jimmy home to meet the family. Jimmy had asked him to his house many a time. Rupert had gone once and felt awkward even though nobody else had and they had all button-holed him about the price of property.

  His mother was waiting just inside the door. That always annoyed him too and he got annoyed with himself over the very annoyance. Why shouldn’t she wait to stop him ringing or knocking and disturbing his father’s sleep. But it always made him think she had been standing waiting for his shadow to fall through the glass panels. He said goodnight with a much lighter tone than he felt, and braced himself. The soft leather of the magnificent jacket touched the back of his neck. It was Jimmy’s birthday present to him. A few days early but Jimmy said it would cheer him up for the weekend. Dee Burke had been right, they did cost a fortune. Again the niggling worry: how had Jimmy been able to spend that much money even if it was a second? Put these doubts away, Rupert, he told himself firmly. Jimmy is good and true. Why pour vinegar onto it all with your stupid suspicions. Jimmy is at home tonight marking books and looking at television, Jimmy is not in a bar in town cruising someone. Why destroy EVERYTHING?

  ‘He’s very well, very clear,’ his mother whispered delightedly.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Your father. He’s very clear. He’s awake; he asked several times what time would the Lilac Bus be in. Every time he heard anything change gear on the corner, he said, “Is that the bus?” ’

  Rupert put his carrier bag down on the hall floor. ‘That’s great Mother, that’s really great,’ he said with heavy heart and went up the little stairs slowly to see the man with the head like a skull and the skin like cling-film. The man he had never been able to talk to in his life.

  It was a sunny Saturday but his father’s room was darkened and the dim light hurt his eyes. His mother was bottling fruit downstairs. Jimmy said Catholics never bottled fruit or preserved eggs – it was something their religion didn’t go along with. Jimmy had told him more lies about Roman Catholicism than he ever believed anyone could invent. He had always been brought up carefully to respect it at a distance by his parents, and even though they thought it definitely held the people back they were impressed by the piety and the crowds going to Mass. His parents had gone to Galway to see the Pope. Jimmy said that his parents had made a small fortune the weekend the Pope arrived since the whole of Dublin wanted to buy every newspaper twice in case they missed anything.

  Back at home in the cottage, Jimmy would be drinking freshly brewed coffee and reading the Irish Times. Then he might go out to the garden and do some transplanting: September was the month to move the evergreens if you wanted to change the plan a bit. But no, Jimmy would wait for him to come back for that. Maybe he would be puzzling over the hi-fi. Please may he not be driving into town just because he’s bored; please may he meet nobody at lunch over a drink and smoked salmon sandwich.

  ‘You’re very good to come down every weekend,’ his mother said suddenly as if she could read the homesickness for his real place written all over his eyes. ‘Your father really does like talking to you. Do you notice that? Can you see it?’

  Jimmy had begged him not to cross the whole of Ireland and then have a row. How could Jimmy understand that there were NEVER rows, and there never would be. Well, a coldness then, Jimmy would say. If you are going to go to all that trouble, it’s silly to balls up your weekend: if you’re making the gesture, make it properly.

  ‘I think he does seem to like talking,’ Rupert said. ‘It doesn’t tire him too much does it?’

  ‘No, he plans all week what he’s going to say to you. Sometimes he asks me to write it down, or just headings. I want to talk to Rupert about this, he’ll say, and I write it down. Often he forgets what it was he was going to say about it, but it’s there at the time.’

  Rupert nodded glumly.

  ‘Like he was going to ask you about those flats you sell in blocks; he was very interested in how they work out the leasehold. He said that there was never any of that in the conveyancing he had to do. But all he asked me to write down was “Block of Flats,” you see, and then he couldn’t remember last week what it was he wanted to say about them.’

  ‘I see,’ Rupert said, trying to sound more sympathetic than he was afraid he might appear.

  ‘But this week, he seems very much brighter and more aware, doesn’t he?’ she was pleading.

  ‘Yes, much more. Oh indeed. He was talking about this house here and what we would say if we had it on an auctioneer’s books. I was giving him funny descriptions and he smiled a bit at it.’

  Rupert’s mother was pleased. ‘Good, he hasn’t smiled a lot. That’s nice.’

  ‘Why don’t you have a bit of time off, Mother, when I’m here. Why can’t you go into town, maybe, you’d like that. I can keep an eye on Father and be here if he wants anything.’

  ‘No no, I want you to enjoy yourself,’ she said.

  ‘But really Mother, I mean I’m not doing anything anyway.’ He shrugged. ‘I might as well look after Father and let you have a few hours to yourself.’ He meant it generously, but he knew it had come out all wrong.

  ‘But you’re home for the weekend,’ she cried. ‘I wouldn’t want to miss that by going off to the town. I can do that any day. Mrs Morris or young Mary Burns, Billy’s wife, would sit with him. No, I want to get value out of your being here.’

  ‘Sure. Of course,’ he said, appalled at his own insensitivity. Jimmy would never in a million years have said anything like that. Jimmy would have brought life and laughter into the house the moment he got back. Jimmy. Oh Jimmy.

  They had lunch, the kind of lunch that only his mother could serve: endless preparation and toasting of bread and cutting of crusts and spreading of cheese and slicing of tomatoes. And yet it was nothing – it managed to be both stodgy and insubstantial. If only she would let him cook. But then he had never asked her. Perhaps it might be giving something away to say that he could have made them a light and delicious lunch in a quarter the time. It was his own fault like everything.

  His father struggled all afternoon. And Rupert struggled back.

  Sometimes his mother was there, sewing. She was always making little things for her sister who was married to a vicar and who always needed things for parish sales. His father would struggle and concentrate. His efforts to please meant that he could even be re-routed back to his own old days as a solicitor coming first to the town, when things were different and better. There was a time when his father had been happy to ramble through the times gone by. But not now: it was as if he was determined to show a guest in his eyes that he was interested in w
hatever kind of strange thing the guest did for a living. All afternoon Rupert’s soul was crying out, ‘It’s all RIGHT Father. Look, can’t you rest: I have an okay life and I wish you and Mother well but why do we go through all this meaningless chat. There is nothing to say any more.’

  The sun was almost going down when he could bear it no more; he said he had promised Judy Hickey he would do something for her and he had better dash over to her.

  ‘A brave woman, Judy Hickey – she held her head high in this place for two decades,’ his father said in a surprisingly strong voice.

  ‘Yes, well, why not?’ Rupert was defensive. ‘She got a harsh punishment.’

  ‘She took it, and she didn’t run away and hide. She stepped down from being lady of the manor and lived in the gate lodge.’

  ‘And lost her children,’ Rupert’s mother added. ‘That was the worst bit.’

  ‘Yes, well, I won’t be long.’ He felt he could breathe again when he was out in the air; he left the square and went off towards the gate lodge of the big Doon house.

  Judy was lying curled up like a cat. She wasn’t pleased to see him – in fact she nearly sent him back straight away. She was like Jimmy really but without the persuasive charm: Jimmy made it seem reasonable; Judy made it seem like a duty.

  But she meant it: she got up and stretched and said she was going to go out and walk in her husband’s wood. Jack Hickey’s wood she called it. She said he should talk about anything, anything to show his father that he was trying too.

  But what could he say? He couldn’t tell him that his heart was tearing with the barbed wire of jealousy in case his male lover might have been unfaithful. Then NOBODY could tell a father that about a lover of any sex. But Rupert was worse off: he couldn’t talk about his life, about the beautiful gentians that he and Jimmy had planted and how the willow gentian had burst into a whole pool of dark blue flowers last July and they had taken photographs of each other admiring it. He found it hard to talk about the garden without mentioning Jimmy because the two were twined together, like the house, like cooking, like holidays and reading and laughing and the things people did for heaven’s sake.