Through Streets Broad and Narrow

by Gabriel Fielding

  “If James doesn’t want the Kodak from England,” he said, “he’d probably be offended if I gave it him. So—”

  “Sure that’s an American Company,” Theresa said. “We’ve an uncle in Aurora, Illinois. James always wanted a camera.”

  “Ah, that’s different then.”

  “Well, it’s terribly sweet of you. Fancy remembering.”

  He put an arm round her waist but she said, “Not in the street.” A glut of obscene words strung themselves across his mind like night signs and he wondered if Bill Collins was necking at the Gresham. He thought, on the way home, I’ll take her into Stephen’s Green and start by kissing her so insistently and gently that her knees will start knocking, then I’ll hear her breath beginning to get fast and.…

  When the show was over there was just enough money left for a cup of coffee each in the Shamrock. The band was playing a rumba and gave him a good moment. Out of rage he hadn’t touched her in the cinema, had tried nothing, not even the permitted hand-hold, which on previous occasions had more or less kept him going. It was astonishing what you could do with a hand if you were really in love. You could touch each separate finger and search out the places where the nails began, stroking back the cuticles gently; you could outline the palm, or make a warm bed of yours and close the girl’s hand up in it very firmly, with care. You could imagine that she heard and understood all that you were saying with the tips of your fingers; it was satisfying to imagine it.

  The rumba lighed them both up. The coffee was straight from the plantations where the South Atlantic discharged its combers on the white sand. The moon was just coming up against the palm trees and the Buick was a long shape against the hibiscus. Theresa was swaying to the beat in the home-made coat and skirt in the confines of the Shamrock’s bucket chair and closing her eyes longer than usual. He edged his chair up to her and got hold of her hand under the table but kept it where it was, lying between her thighs in the little crevice about halfway above her knees; it held his own back this time, alive, very lively; when he turned it half-circle so that his forearm was underneath, he could feel the resistance of her lap soft as nothing through the cotton skirt.

  He thought of a thousand things to say, nearly to whisper, but they were all rotten: sentimental, lying or just absurd. He went through all the things the Chete might have said but was sure they weren’t right because the Chete would never have thought of any of them. He settled uneasily for a continued silence, praying that the band leader would keep on playing rumbas and wishing he could get some gin into her, if he’d had any money, if the Shamrock had been licensed and if Theresa drank anything but orangeade. But in the end, he said, “Theresa, darling.”

  She frowned as though he had disturbed her, which of course he had. Obviously she must have been imagining she was with someone else and hearing his voice had spoiled the whole thing. But there wasn’t anyone else, he knew that; only a couple of young doctor heroes who wouldn’t look at her; and anyway, “Would you like to come to the Boat Club Dance?”

  “Yes.”

  She always said yes like that, or no; and there were no degrees of acceptance or refusal, no difference to yes for an ice cream to yes for a damned expensive dance to which he’d already invited Oonagh.

  “I’m making up a small party.”

  “Who?”

  “Oh, some Trinity people—a friend of mine called Mike Groarke and a girl of his Oonagh Kenney.”

  “When is it?”

  “Next Saturday.” Heavens! I’ll have to pay for Groarke as well.

  “What time will you come for me?”

  “Oh, eight o’clock. Wear something nice. It’ll be a taxi, of course, or it may be a private car.” He was thinking of Fitzgerald’s, though he had no idea how he was going to get hold of it.

  “I think I can come,” she said, “If I can manage to swop duties with Mulligan.”

  “Oh.” He’d done it. He was in it up to the eyes. “Who’s Mulligan?”

  She told him but he didn’t hear a word. All through that rumba of hers, he thought; if only she hadn’t done that. Do they know they’re doing these things or do they just do them as cats do the things cats do to little things moving?

  He persuaded her to walked back and as they got nearer and nearer to Stephen’s Green his breathlessness became more and more obvious to him. He thought she might notice it and said, “It’s incredibly airless tonight, isn’t it?”

  “What is?”

  “The air—I mean it’s very close, no wind.”

  “I don’t notice it,” she said. “Don’t walk so fast.”

  Of course she hadn’t noticed it, it wasn’t real, except to him; no more than the language of the hands. “It must have been the cinema,” he said. “Fuggy, it’s given me a headache. D’you mind if we sit down a little on this seat?”

  There was a duck quacking in the dark. It was not quacking as much as crooning to itself, some spruce old drake surrounded by his harem on the edge of the ornamental lake in the little bushes. Perhaps it was doing it to reassure all its wives who’d be bellied down in there with their heads turned round and their beaks buried in their back feathers. My God! If only I were that drake. I’d change now, given a button to press.

  He leaned his head on Theresa’s shoulder.

  “What are you doing?”

  “D’you mind?” He put an arm round the back of the seat. “It was a wonderful evening, wasn’t it, Theresa?”

  She moved a fraction away and he let the arm drop onto her shoulder and the fingers close on it. He pulled her towards him and she resisted a moment then let herself be drawn.

  “Theresa,” he said, “Theresa, darling.” Then, quick as lightning, he touched her lips with his own. He was going to kiss her forever, one of those timeless ones but he felt only the hard resistance of her contracted lips against her very good teeth before she jumped to her feet.

  “I’ve told you. You’re not to do that!”

  “Kiss you? Why not?”

  “I don’t like it.”

  He heard the drake again in the silence. One more chance; the Boat Club.

  “All right,” he said as he got up. “I’m sorry.”

  She said nothing and they walked on, reaching the gate just as the keeper was closing it for the night. There were other couples coming out on their single shadows, single because they were so close together. If I were to admit that I could be unattractive, he thought, I think I’d have to give up. I’ll never admit that; it’s just that it’s a disadvantage to love them, they’ve got you once you really fall in love; thank God I’m not in love with Oonagh.

  He took Theresa the rest of the way wordlessly and then did the long walk back to Glasnevin.

  He wrote to Groarke about it during Fallon’s Biochemistry lecture; a note saying, “Wait for me afterwards.” It was passed along the tiers and eventually reached him at the moment Fallon was quoting, with reference to the chemistry of the blood:

  “Sure the reverent eye must see

  A purpose in liquidity.”

  Groarke took no notice of the message at all, not even dropping it on the floor. But instead of tearing off somewhere in chase of fees or books as he usually did on Monday mornings he consented to a cup of coffee in Roberts’ outside the Back Gate.

  John said, “So you’ll have to make it seem as though you’d brought Theresa when you’re dancing with Oonagh, and Oonagh when you’re dancing with Theresa.”

  Groarke said, “I don’t dance.”

  “Well, sitting then.”

  “I don’t sit.”

  “Well, drinking.”

  “Who’s going to pay for it?”

  “Look here, it’s going to cost me a fiver with four tickets to buy and a taxi and stuff afterwards in the Dive and those waiters.”

  “And clothes,” said Groarke. “You’ll all be wearing evening dress, won’t you?”

  “Can’t you borrow some?”

  “I spend my life borrowing things. I live
on the credit of my personality, as you’ll discover yourself. But if you want me to come and prop up your sex life in a boiled shirt you’ll have to borrow it for me.”

  “O.K.”

  “And,” Groarke added, “if you think I can be expected to talk on less than ten shillings’ worth of Jameson—”

  “It’s a dinner dance, there’ll be wine served with the dinner. I won’t drink any, so you can have mine as well.”

  “Not enough.”

  “Oh, all right! I’ll give you a ten-bob note, too. Though how on earth I’m going to manage for the rest of the month—”

  “You’ve only to write to your father, haven’t you? A new book, fees, a skull and half-skeleton, dissecting instruments, money to drop on some little fool who’s frightened of her own breasts in the dark; you write to your father, that’s all. Well, write to him for me, too. Tell him I charge three pounds for an evening’s flunkeying.”

  “That’s childish,” John said. “Puerile.”

  “Agreed,” said Groarke. “You’ve got to get material for your little bedtime fantasies and I’ve got to find my fees and salt my pride; every man’s his own fool.”

  “Haven’t you ever been in love?” John asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Who with?”

  “Money,” Groarke said, getting up. “Have you got up those amino acids yet?”

  “No, I can’t remember anything about them. The formulae completely defeat me, I simply can’t believe in them; they’re too mathematical. If I could find some way of giving them personality or something—I say, Mike, you will dance a bit with them, won’t you? It’s not a bit difficult; you only have to move round the outside of the floor a few times as though you were walking, but without actually lifting your feet. If necessary, I could coach you.”

  “Darling, you know I’m not like that,” Groarke said. “Why you can’t wait for your sex life as I do, or go and get it like the Chete, instead of wasting fifteen days a months on it—”

  “I’ve told you I’m in love with her.”

  “Her?”

  “Theresa.”

  “So long as I know,” said Groarke.

  “What d’you mean?”

  “When I’ve had a drink I get impatient,” he said. “I just wanted to know which of them you’re really itching about.”

  “Groarke, you won’t go too far, or anything, will you, with Oonagh? She’s terribly innocent.”

  “How d’you know?”

  “I don’t but I’m damn sure she is, and if you frightened her— Look, you won’t get drunk or anything, will you, fighting drunk?”

  “How do I know?”

  “Well perhaps you’d better not come, I’ll find someone else.”

  “Why worry?” said Groarke. “I could do with a night out and if I knock a few people out or rape a couple of Catholics it won’t be your fault, will it?” He gave John the look which was his smile and picked up his notebooks. “I’ll see you tomorrow; I’ll dance for you for three pounds including tickets, drinks, a taxi and the correct dress.”

  “Wonderful!”

  “And get stuck into these amino acids, they’re coming up in the terminal.”

  “See you tomorrow,” John said.

  Groarke said, “Work!” or “Perhaps!” or merely swore as he went out into the rain, while John went on to meet Oonagh for lunch at the Country Shop.

  She asked about Dymphna most of the time. “Were you keen on her? How long did you go on seeing each other? Does she know your people?”

  He stalled as a matter of policy and asked back, “Did she think I’d changed or anything?”

  “She didn’t say so.”

  “Well, why are you so interested in her?”

  “I’m not.”

  “You asked a lot of questions,” he insisted.

  “I thought it was funny that you’d never mentioned her before.”

  “Why should I?”

  “Well, it seems funny, that’s all. You said you knew no one in Dublin except this nurse.”

  “I’d forgotten.”

  “You forget people very easily, then?”

  “Depends,” he said.

  “What does it depend on?”

  “Them, mostly.”

  “I should have thought it depended on you.”

  “What do you mean?”

  They went on like this throughout the meal and afterwards he told her that Mike Groarke had taken a fancy to Theresa and would be bringing her to the dance. He said with an easy duplicity that astonished him, “He’s more her type, you know, very Dublin.”

  “What does she think?”

  “I should think she’s thrilled, wouldn’t you?”

  “Oh thrilled,” she said. “Very convenient.”

  “Yes, isn’t it?”

  “Just being able to switch people like that, it must be wonderful for you.”

  And they were off again until it was time to go to their afternoon lectures.

  As it happened, the Chete had a friend called John Doyle who had pawned his dinner jacket at O’Rourke’s in the back of Dame Street. John got the ticket from him and paid the thirty shillings to the pawnbroker as soon as he’d made sure that it was approximately the right size.

  By the time he had done this and paid the other dance expenses, he had exactly ten shillings left of the monthly twelve-pound cheque allowed him by Mother and signed by Father. Although the ten shillings would have to last him for the remaining three weeks of the month, on the evening of the dance itself this seemed merely an added delight.

  He gave Groarke his ten-shilling note and two tickets while they were changing in the Chete’s rooms and as soon as they were ready suggested a drink on the way to pick up Theresa in Cork Street. Groarke agreed to this and they went into the Hibernian Buttery in Dawson Street.

  This was a smart haunt of Fitzgerald’s where you might meet anyone from one of the big brewers’ daughters with or without her current husband to a whole polished sparkle of native or visiting aristocracy with an occasional American film star thrown in. For the rest, it was Dublin trade or members of the nearer and shabbier hunts like the Meath.

  On this night it was too early for anyone much to be there, which in view of Groarke’s presence was something of a relief to John, for though he had got him looking very presentable there was something a little wrong about him in some most subtle respect. One could pass over the fact that he looked too clean and red, stood awkwardly and made the decor of the bar seem ridiculous; but it was impossible not to sense scorn or a chilling disdain in the set of his conversation and glances. Anger or laughter attended him like an uninvited friend, ready suddenly to merge with him and change the words or the looks he gave the barman and the other people in there into unmistakable insults.

  From the outset, that is to say, from the moment they got into that small, scented basement with its pink mirrors and gleaming bar, John felt that he had to be very careful not to let Groarke and his anger meet. To make it more difficult, the Irishman kept switching to diffidence and the manners of overdone politeness as though he were quite aware himself of the proximity of his rage and were placating it in advance. He spoke softly and smiled far too much over his Bacardi or White Lady, was a little too intimate with Jack, the barman.

  They drank quickly and then picked up a taxi to Cork Street, where Theresa came out in a dress which John dared not look at till later. He more or less shut his eyes through all the welcome and the scowls of James taking in his black and white and the gold studs gleaming on his breast, but he did notice that Theresa was wearing a narrow black-velvet ribbon round her neck of the kind constantly advocated by the women’s weeklies. He thought, Although really I like it, Oonagh will think she’s with Groarke, so that’s all right.

  They had to go all the way out to Trinity Hall to pick up Oonagh. When they got there John said to Theresa and Groarke, “I’d better collect her as I know the drill better than Mike.”

  They all crammed to
gether in the back of the taxi without any introductions and spoke very little on the way into the Gresham. But in the lights of passing lamps and shop windows John saw them looking at one another. They did not look at Groarke at all, they kept on giving fairly covert glances at the other one’s dress, stopping short only at the face as though they were saving that until later, when the light was better.

  At the hotel they disappeared for a long time into Ladies’ Cloaks while Groarke and John stood about with other men in the foyer. When they came out they were talking at a tremendous rate, at least Oonagh was; Theresa was only smiling intermittently and saying, “Yes, I think so,” or “No, not recently.” But when they reached John and Groarke they quite ignored each other and started talking to them. Theresa hung back just for a moment, just long enough for John to join and take her into the ballroom if he had intended it; when he did not do this, Oonagh was automatically with him and Theresa was left with Groarke.

  It was a bad moment but he believed he could explain it by inference as soon as he danced with Theresa. He whispered to Groarke, “You’ve got to take her for the first dance.”

  “Which?”

  “Theresa, of course, not Oonagh.”

  “Why can’t you make up your mind?”

  “I have. Nothing’s changed, but for Heaven’s sake— Oh, I’ll explain later.”

  They found their table and sat down. Halfway through the grapefruit Groarke got up very suddenly and said to Oonagh, “If I could dance I’d ask you for the first dance.”

  Before John could intervene Oonagh had risen and given him an extraordinarily beautiful smile.

  As they moved away round the outside of the floor, John swallowed some more grapefruit and looked at Theresa. He said, “Groarke doesn’t dance very much.”

  “I heard him,” she replied.

  “What I meant was that he doesn’t often go to dances.”

  “How long has he known her?” she asked.

  “Who, Oonagh?”

  “Is that her name?”

  “I’m sorry, didn’t he introduce you? Good heavens, aren’t we all mad? It’s just struck me that I never introduced you to him either. That’s what comes of going into the Buttery.”