Night

by Edna O'Brien

Coose, that old Alma Mater. Low lying. A glorified bog. A village, village men, village women, bursts, outbursts, corn, fermentation, rot, dogs, mange, shingles, nerves, hollyhocks, sucking calves, (severed from their ma’s) sucking at worn pails with jagged edges, later frisking and gambolling in paddocks; very few strangers except for an Arab who removed cataracts, and paupers who rampaged potato pits. A stark land, loamy and miry, full of rain and bleat, two bleats, man and beast, ink light inclining towards black, inclining towards mourn; by no means an oriental people. A race more mindful of waters and crinkled bladders, slack-jawed, weak in the mandibles from eating sops of hay and farinaceous matter. “Around the house and mind the dresser!” Such were the anthems of the wild men of Coose in their marathon jigs and reels. Very pugnacious. Not a baccalaureate among them, not even a martyr for the annals. Ignoramuses who couldn’t tell cheese from soap, both being hard, off-white substances and tasting of curds when placed in the mouth. Bostoons. Still, everything has its little role on the earth’s surface, even the pismire and the much-admired lily, even us. The Arab had a habit of beating his head upon the ground prior to removing these cataracts and cysts, calling upon his god who was not our god. He did strange rituals with his own waters and called all women sultanas. Insisted on getting paid in goods and chattels, creels of turf or grass for his camel. Another hobo, nicknamed The Birdie, a crooner, sang The Bells of St Mary’s while slipping his hand in under women’s clothing when they happened to be at devotions, or admiring the scenery, or exchanging their farm produce, their dairy goods for marvels such as cochineal or Oxford lunch cake. A heartrending voice he had. People were stirred, moved to tears when he sang the ballads – even those ladies were moved to tears who had formerly been obliged to fend him off with their lashing tongues or the metal spirals of their corseting. Purity prevailed, yet lapsed. Plenty of hatch, batch and dispatch. Hatch a woefully wicked thing, done down in pits and holes and the sunkenness of wet hedges. The hawthorn was grand. A most gay and diaphanous sight in the month of May, as if Coose were going to be the location for pageantry. No such luck. Coose was Coose. No fire brigade. A midwife called Polly who was late for all her offices, late because she moved cumbrously, like an old-fashioned perambulator. Lived in the woods. She was reputed to have buff on her ceilings, and buff on her hall door, some said buff on her arse. Yet we are mentioned in the Norse books, in the Kongs Skugo and the Speculum Regali. We are not nonentities by no means.

  I fled from it in the tender years, after an incident, deflowering, a botched job, a case of coitus interruptus if ever there was one. Took place not in a canoe or on a chaise-longue, but out in the open, with a fellow who hailed from the city, a one-night stand. It was St Peter and St Paul’s day, hence a holy day of obligation. Lovely season, the latter end of June, geese hissing across the land, the new potatoes, the swarths of new-mown hay, the frogspawn in skeins on the dipping willows, an amber jelly peppered with its young, the odd baby frog getting dashed to pieces but such things are commonplace. It began harmlessly enough – the holy sacrament of the Mass, a snappy sermon and in the inclement afternoon, a fancy dress parade. Decked in a long frock with a chaplet of dwarfs stitched on, I presented myself as Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. There was a glut of Snow Whites and some with a retinue of dwarfs far more convincing, such as gnomes or toddlers. Alas several little drummer boys, jockeys, Tessie O’Sheas, and bauld Fenian men. The prizewinner turned out to be none other than a brown paper parcel. A parcel, within it another, and another and another, until at the very centre, a very underfed creature came peering through, screeching. Her mother before her screeched, which is why they eventually took her to the Castle, the choice name for the loony bin. After presenting her with a prize of two china bow-wows, the carnival proper was opened – bumpers, chairoplanes, swingboats, rifle ranges and playing machines from Dodge City. Later an all-night hop. Packed. The Master of the Hounds, and Mrs Hoare-O’ Shaughnessy did the Hokey Cokey for the veneration of all. Then they vanished. They were caught in some hanky panky business, hanky between him and her, in their cod places, with him entreating and inveighing upon her, and the galvanised door, their mating venue, clattering and causing such ructions as to alert a junior guard and speedy him to the illfamed spot. A Connemara man, red-headed, intervened with baton and with beaming torch. The news spread like wildfire and apart from the graphic speculations there was a consensus that the guard would get sent to Bohatch for coming upon the gentry, married gentry at that, in their midsummer bacchante. Little did I know that my hour was nigh. I was dancing with a falconer, to the strains of Sweet Rosie O’Grady, when he volunteered the information that I had stripped a fine woman. He was referring to the transparency of the Snow White attire. He said that the prizewinner, Miss Kitty O’ Screechy, had got it out of pull. He said to be warned, that everything in Coose was got out of pull – pensions, gun licences, agricultural grants, everything. He asked would I click. I said “Click click” as I had seen Americans do with box cameras. Then the crooner jumped down from the bandstand, it being his supper break, walked straight across and said “Excuse me, Angel.” Very suave, fawn suit, crêpe-soled shoes, a dicky bow and so forth. Kept saying Swell. I was in clover. Said would I care for a blow. A nice night out, bats, summer moths, everything sultry as in the land of Spain; Boss and Lil safely at home reciting the Rosary. He said where would we go, I said anywhere. Had a knack of tickling the palm, featherish, much more adroit than the Coose men. We headed for the limestone rock, the town’s beauty spot. He lost no time, got his belt undone, said “I could go through you like butter.” Succussive sounds. He started to slaver. His proboscis, his front feeder looking for its trough. Gush gush. Niagara Falls. I dodged it. Niagara, partly on me, but chiefly on limestone rock and as I imagined, getting into the fissures, either nourishing or nauseating the lichen, the sphagnum, the roots of the tree, and the various insects and night creatures that were reposing there. Destitute of all words he was, except “swell”. Abrupt termination. “You go first, I’ll follow” and he skedaddled off to the commercial hotel to get a bite of supper. Didn’t ask if I had a mouth on me. Tooraloo. They were playing Jealousy when I got back and a twitess called Dolly, his stand-in, was singing at the top of her voice. She was wearing a cerise dress and the spotlights were leaping all over her. That’s who I wanted to be, Dolly. Crossing the floor at a moment when it happened to be a ladies’ choice, I bumped into a hunchback, one of those water diviners – who due either to perversity or gormlessness, said “Yes with knobs on” and launched into a murderous caterbrall. He said it didn’t take long, me and the jackeen, that it was a brusque affair. Not very au fait with the facts of life and bred on the melodrama, I began to get a touch of morning sickness even though it was bordering on midnight. I foresaw things, amplification of the event, cudgels, the ecclesiastical intervention and opprobrium from within the bosom of the family. So I decided to make myself scarce. I took a night boat to the land across water, to get cacodemonised as Lil would say if she were on earth, and asked for an opinion.

  I don’t know anyone who hasn’t grown up in a madhouse, whose catechising hasn’t been Do this, Do that, Don’t do this, Do do it, I’ll cut the tongue out of you, How bloody dare you, D’you hear? I said don’t do it, Do do it, Sing, Vocalise, Belt up, Blow your nose, Stop picking that nose, Piss, Eat your pandy, Stop making that noise, Who farted? No farting, Don’t shit, you shit you.

  Among the foe. The Brits, the painted people. A land where the king has piles. Not much resonance to it. Sportsmen, huntsmen, sportswomen abound. Fanatic at following the hunt, these ladies chasing the bushy-tailed foxes, by no means genteel, by no means porcelain, not renowned for their cornucopias. Royalty make a big to-do about meeting at galas and regattas – a king, a queen, aunts, grandaunts, sons, and daughters, nieces, nephews, blood cousins, half cousins, ladies-in-waiting, occasional people, all nicely accoutred. I see photos of them. I like to study their hair styles and try out their deportment, I am very impressed with
their deportment and their low starch diets which I read of in the magazines. These I read for free. There is a resting hall where I go and where I can lounge for hours with no one to evict me. Sometimes other people – natterers – try to start up a conversation with me about their boilers or the generation gap or the foul weather, but I pretend to be a Norwegian. I like that ruse, pretending to be a captain’s daughter, a captain void of feelings, always looking through his binoculars, looking out to sea and swaying on solid land. I can even avail of a little morsel for free because in the shop proper they are always plugging a soup or a pâté or a brand of biscuit and I take my place in the queue along with all the esteemed. Then back for another read or a daydream as the case may be. The only thing that mars the full bliss of it is that I am perpetually afraid that people are going to trip over me. I have the impression that there is some valuable inside of me that’s going to get dislodged and fall out if I am crashed into. It must be my jumping jack or my gut. In the photos the royalty are always exchanging handshakes and smiling, even though it is obvious that they have only just parted at their own portals. I am always home before the rush hour. Then I sit for a while, giving thanks. From the back window I have a view of four gas chimneys and in some lights they look yellow and threaten to taper into the air. The smoke that puffs out is as ambling as clouds. The clouds here are dull and hefty. They don’t roam the way they did in Coose. There are roses, winter roses, pinpoints, high on a bed of foliage, rusted, rotting, unkempt roses, still they bloom and are hanging on. I have even considered making a pot pourri. It will be a talking point if I invite people here, but I will need a utensil, a skull or a glass bowl, or a perforated pan into which to put these petals, and sepals and achenes, and ovaries and stamens and husks and calyxes and ovules and follicles and stipules, not forgetting the merry hips, the merry haws. The guests will smell, then dip their fingers or their snouts in, make little reshuffles, say exclamatory things, that is if I do it, and if I have guests.

  I used to know hosts of people. One in particular stands out – one Maurice P. Moriarty. Moriarty and I saw many a night through, loquacious in our cups, bent over the embers, bemoaning our limestone kilns, our lineage and so forth. Moriarty’s family had a walnut tree, a genus Juglans from Persia. He used to say, “If it weren’t for a thing called love, I’d love you.” Thank you. Abdul Abulbul Abee. Moriarty had freckles on his balls which goes to show what a mandarin he was. I used to cart him to his bed. We never consummated it. It was about the best there was, I mean the most rending, apart from the bloodknots. It was more of a boneknot. Down with bloodknots, boneknots, Minoan knots, Tristram knots, Druidic knots and Lil’s spittled-on speciality, the truelove’s knot.

  He came to dwell for a bit. Worked on a building site, immunised himself to the noise. He used to bring four bottles of stout and station them on the kitchen table, two each. We used to imagine scaffolds for each other, places where we would scale and occasionally meet. It probably got too much for him, it probably got to be a bit of a rope around his neck.

  He left without saying farewell. He went out to get cigarettes from a machine when the shades of night were down, and lo and behold, he did not come back. He might have met someone or else he hijacked himself to the desert. He was always on about the desert, the scorching, the nomads and so forth. I would say he met someone, a girl, bleached, straw-like, his type. Maybe Sharon, the one that came here. Couldn’t tell the difference between swallowing and chewing, or rather, she was unable to fix the delineating moment and to decide when to desist from one and commence upon the other. It deluded her so that from her earliest years she chewed and swallowed indiscriminately, and knew the correctness of her actions only as it was registered by others who in their turn praised, scolded or pounded her for what she had just unwittingly done. I was addled with her, what with her reminiscence and her cooing and her eating habits. When eating a chocolate biscuit she grazed the chocolate off the biscuit, grazed it, then licked it, then dived into the biscuit proper. She had beautiful features but no beauty, it is often the case. One day she brought me a present of nougat, nice of her. Moriarty used to employ his time drawing stars, blue-black, very jagged stars, done in ink and though he never looked at her, they were meant for her. She thought they were scrumptious.

  Ah well, the Moriartys of this world are on some bier.

  Of course other people do come here and for the most motley and comical reasons; to deliver a pamphlet or a psalter, to collect the church dues, to put the wickerwork back in the chairs, to sharpen the knives, to maintenance the carpets, or to inform me that I have won a mystery prize of twopence, frequently to beg. I have no bloodhounds to set upon them, so I vary the means by which I can get rid of them. I feign deaf and dumb. I slam the door. I palliate. I shout down from an upstairs window that I have a curling tongs to my hair. A very nice man came to mend a gas leak and because of having to strike matches to relight the pilot lights, he put the four used matches back into his own box so as not to defile my kitchen, their kitchen. Now I call that thoughtful, don’t you? I wouldn’t have minded a walk with him, in the twilight, a bit of handholding, fingers plaiting, all that. He looked like a star gazer, absorbed and remote.

  “Have a sherry,” I said. We drank it standing up. He was shy, not like most of those gadflies who try to get a foot in if you’re in a negligée or a shift, keep peering at you around the pap region. One such felon snapped at my dressing-gown braid and said “Hi. Freckles.” Freckles! I am as white as calico and have only been exposed to extreme sunshine twice in my life. I’m wary of beggars, being mindful of the Coose saw about vagrants who die leaving fortunes in their scapulars. Some I bring in, for consolation, or a preamble, some for a fuck. The waiter for instance. There are times when our limbs make our decisions for us. Quite a sniper he was. Tight trousered. His dangle brought me to considering him, that and his ferocious impertinence. Not even a head waiter, a flunkey, throwing platters down and then waiting to be told thank you in a foreign Erse. Insisted I eat snails, I who lack co-ordination with any kind of implement. Made my escort, who is a duke, and allergic to shellfish, have a lobster thermidor. Poor man was obliged to spend the bulk of the ensuing time over a washbasin. The waiter, finding himself unimpeded, removed his striped apron so that I could have a better view of him, à la hips, pelvis, and groin. There he was, aiding and abetting himself in a too-tight trousers. The plans for our liaison got completed in ten seconds. He bowed when we were leaving and called me madam. The Duke had to appropriate one of their pink linen napkins lest the jogging of the taxi induce another bout. He couldn’t understand why I didn’t drop in and stroke his forehead, do a bit of palming as we called it. That was one of my favours, that and donning suspenders, in return for which I got treats, dinners, bunches of flowers and numerous little bottles of bath essence. I had to feign a migraine and hurried home.

  I thought of him and his preen. It didn’t matter the colour or how pimpled or how tufted, or how pink or how ochre or how egalitarian or how distended or how not. I went around the house tidying, crooning, said “A lover is coming,” sang it, then did exercises to get into a more strapping condition. He arrived, wearing smoke-blue sunglasses in this a winter solstice. He sat on the pouffe. If there had been a cheetah he would have sat on that. He sought to impress. He mentioned blue blood and Botticelli, and frescoes on bathroom ceilings. He said he would drink anything I drank, he would drink my words. First major setback. Then a most hideous development. He started on about the vicissitudes of fortune. His life story, his poverty, his growing pains, long years of apprenticeship, his culinary courses, getting double-crossed; and in his immediate circumstances having to miss the bus home each night due to the thoughtlessness of customers who dallied. It seems they dallied more after they were served some liquor that he had set fire to, some colourless liquor strewn with coffee beans. He said some of them were so drunk that they aspired to eat the flames, especially the ladies, scalding themselves, their tongues and their tonsi
ls; crying out for ointment and jellies, asking him to be a first-aid man. Lo, and behold, a sadder tale. His room was cold, his walls were damp and devoid of pictures or engravings, he had no wardrobe and only two metal hangers. He was in possession of an oil heater but forbore from lighting it before he went out in the morning because he had read of numerous catastrophes concerning oil heaters and families of small children. I was waiting for news of chilblains. I made a serious attempt to thwart him. I flung questions at him, questions pertaining to the libido. I said “What is your type, do you like it straight or sausage, and do you like rubber goods?” He droned on. Yes, he had had girl friends and the sequence of relationships was that he acted chivalrous on the first occasion, gave them their kicks; on the second occasion satisfied himself and on the third and fourth, picked for a fight. Picked. I looked down at his fingernails and received a most inglorious shock. One nail was black and had grown inordinately, and as far as I could gauge had grown soft, was nearer to flesh than to horn. Alas for the little preparations upstairs, the whip placed strategically on the bedspread, the black whip, the white bedspread, the pebble of soap, yellow as egg yolk. The whip was a gift from a beady-eyed lady, a Lebanese, who had said “You might like to hang it in your bathroom.” I thought to hell with repugnance, we will wend our way upstairs, and do something, yoga if necessary. I poured toddies of a spirit made from Swedish grain, oats as far as I can remember. I smiled, pursed lips, dilated the pupils, all that. But the nails intervened, the yellowing nails and the one black soft one. His savoir-faire decreased as his life story unfurled. It is ever thus. He spoke of his father, deceased. He said not to have a father was a lonesome thing. I could have contested that but didn’t. He had come with one set of thoughts and intentions and suddenly, hark, his father’s death loomed. I could strangle myself for inducing sentiment. It was all so predictable, the rigmarole, how his father had grown thin throughout his long illness but that immediately after his death his cheeks puffed out so that as a corpse he was a credit to them. Peasants. The more he talked the more I felt myself turning into a sponge, no, not a sponge, but a stone, dry, hard, obdurate; a pumice stone through which nothing seeped, not even a scrap of pity. His life, his tatty little life was taking shape on me as it was told. I got fidgety. I saw his dangle drop into the dust. I gave voice to sympathy but the thing I couldn’t endure was the third finger of his right hand. The nail was not only soft, not only black, but it seemed to be sprouting, elongating, before my very eyes. First the nail repelled me, then the finger, then the hand, then the wrist and gradually the repulsion spread and his farts filled the room, putrefied the atmosphere, brought on my customary choking. His farts were the deadliest of all, made up one had to ask, of what things; what roots, plants, gristles, and victuals had gone into him? Other people’s dishes, sampled on the way in, other people’s leavings gobbled on the way out. Suddenly I leapt up, offered him money, a forfeit, restitution, told him that he had to go, vamoose, skip it, that he was endangered, that a lover, a gangster, hovered with cuttle bones, that his young wife was in danger, to go, to please go, to go, and have the sacrament of the mass offered for his dead father, to find a young girl, a Tuscany girl, one of his own. It was not as easy as that, the very rebuffs he relished. I tried to drive him from the place, this place. He knelt, he crawled, he imprecated, he dribbled, he slobbered. Kneeling he nuzzled. How identical our debasements are. He begged for me to just hold it, said he would come and that would be that. Alas for that prognostication. A small emission followed, not very gravant, and with a most spattery sound. It could not have been ghastlier. I cleaned and scoured and with a hairdryer attended to the Moroccan pouffe.