by Brian Moore
She never came out of that stage. Dr Bowe, who came the next day, took Judy into the hall afterwards and said: ‘Miss Hearne, your aunt’s mind has been affected by her illness and she will need a lot of nursing. She isn’t a responsible person any more.’ In all fairness, Judy felt obliged to tell Mrs Creely and Mrs Creely said she was sorry, but Miss Hearne had better look for another woman, because she was giving her notice.
Miss Hearne never found another woman. Some weeks later the construction company sent her a letter with the money owing to her and told her her place had been filled. There were no maids to be had at that time, all the country girls had factory jobs, and Miss Hearne settled down to look after her aunt on her own.
It got worse. Her aunt gave her no peace. She rambled in her talk, she shouted at the top of her voice, she pulled and pushed at her niece and, when she was angry, she sometimes threw the chamber-pot at her. But she was big and strong and she ate everything that was put in front of her, and when Dr Bowe looked at her he said she might live to be a hundred. Then, one day, he came with another doctor and they talked things over with Miss Hearne. They advised her to commit her aunt to a private home, a private asylum really, because she was so hard to handle and too much for Miss Hearne to look after alone. Miss Hearne had to admit she didn’t know if they could afford it, her aunt had always been very secretive about money matters, all she knew was that Dan Breen, the solicitor, handled her aunt’s affairs and sent a housekeeping cheque once a month. Dr Bowe said he would try to arrange something, there was always Purtysburn, the asylum, and the care was very good there. Then he and the other doctor went in to see Aunt D’Arcy. They came out after half an hour and said they were satisfied and would sign the papers. Miss Hearne would have to sign too, and it would be as well if she could find another relative to sign consent.
After the doctors had gone, Miss Hearne wept. She thought of the poor soul lying in the front-room, not knowing what was being done to her. Will she know, she wondered, will she ever know, even when they come and take her and put her in that place? But it was all for the best, her aunt would need special care, Dr Bowe had said that.
She dried her eyes and smoothed back her hair, for the sick woman had suddenly set all the bells jingling.
She went in. Her aunt’s bed was near the window in what had once been the drawing-room. The furniture, tallboys, sideboard, stuffed armchairs, antimacassars, knick-knacks, none of it had been moved out. A gas fire burned in the grate. Her aunt was sitting on the edge of the bed, big and sagging in her soiled nightgown, and Miss Hearne saw with horror that the poor thing was trying to put her stocking on.
‘What are you doing, aunt dear? You must get back into bed at once, you’ll catch your death of cold.’
But her aunt continued to dress herself, putting on her slippers, looking around the room for her clothes, which were in a cupboard upstairs.
‘You’ve hidden them, you’ve hidden them,’ she mumbled. ‘Ah, I can’t get away at all, plotting behind my back, telling the doctors I’m mad, O, yes, yes, I know it all, Judy. I’m not daft, even though you’re trying to have me shut up.’
Miss Hearne knelt down beside the bed and caught the sick searching hands. ‘Please, aunt dear, please get back into bed. Whatever gave you that idea?’
‘Taken out of my house by guards, yes, and locked away in a madhouse like a criminal. How would you like that, Judy?’
She wrenched her hands away from her niece and flung herself, huge, despondent, across the bed. Her white hair hid her face, her fat old shoulders shook with weeping.
‘Now, aunt, whatever gave you . . .’
‘Ah, never mind lying to me, Judy, I hate a liar. It’s a judgment on me, Judy, me that took you in, an orphan child that nobody wanted.’
She turned, raising her bloated, tear-ruined face from the pillow. ‘Yes, a judgment, for God help me, I didn’t want to see you put away in an institution and now to think that you, of all people, would lock me away like that, me that sheltered you and gave you a home and your parents dead in their graves.’
Miss Hearne bent over the sick woman and put her arms around her shoulders. She pressed her face close to her aunt’s cheek and began to sob, harsh noisy weeping that shook her body and tore at her breath. ‘You’re not going anywhere, aunt dear, I’m sorry, I won’t let them take you. I won’t, I won’t, I won’t.’
The sick woman’s hands, maniacal in their strength, twisted her niece around. Her yellow hawk face came close. ‘Promise me now?’ she said in a desperate monotone.
‘O, I promise, honestly, I do. I promise, I promise.’
The strong arms crushed her, sweeping her into the folds of soiled nightgown. She wept, wept with her head on her aunt’s breast, wept until there were no more tears. When she lifted herself up, the sick woman’s eyes were closed and there was a faint smile on the tired, yellow face. She tiptoed out and when Dr Bowe called next day, she said she had changed her mind and that she wouldn’t hear of it.
She had given her word: she did not go back on it. Her aunt lived five years after that promise, fighting and raving her way through every ghastly day, until one Sunday morning in 1947, Judy found her sitting straight up in bed, eyes open, her bloated hawk face fixed in its habitual frown of reproof as life suddenly deserted her.
After the funeral, there was very little money. Dan Breen, who settled everything, told Miss Hearne that her aunt had lived the last seven years of her life off a dwindling capital. Miss Hearne was left with an annuity of one hundred pounds a year. She was thirty-six and looked older. She had very few friends. The O’Neills, Moira in particular, had been very kind, asking her to come and see them, and there was Edie Marrinan, her old chum, and the Breens. She enrolled in a secretarial college and took a furnished room. She found it impossible to get back her former speed in shorthand, it was more tiring nowadays, but after a few months she began to apply for jobs as a typist. She was told they wanted young girls. And living in Belfast on a hundred pounds a year was impossible. She would have to think of something else.
Father Farrelly, her old parish priest, spoke to one of his parishioners, a Mr Heron, and she was engaged to teach embroidery at the O’Connell Technical School. But she still could not make ends meet. Then one day she met little Evaline de Courcy, who used to sing at her aunt’s musicales long ago. Evaline said she was not well, and would Miss Hearne like to take some pupils for beginner’s exercises. And so Miss Hearne went to Evaline’s house every day to practice on her piano and soon she had three pupils of her own. Beginners, not much joy to it, but it helped. Evaline died the following year and there was a legacy of five more pupils as a result.
It was about this time that the bronchitis which had plagued Miss Hearne for some years began to get bad. She had an awful bout of it one evening when she was visiting her friend Edie Marrinan, and Edie insisted that she take a few glasses of tonic wine to soothe the cough. Miss Hearne had often noticed that Edie drank quite a lot of tonic wine. In fact, she always seemed to have some ailment or other that needed a glass to soothe it. Although she seemed a big, healthy girl, full of high spirits, not the sort that needed building up.
‘Come on, Judy, down with that,’ Edie said, pouring half a tumbler full of the wine. And Miss Hearne drank it down. The coughing stopped.
‘Put another away for good measure,’ Edie said. ‘There’s nothing like it in the whole wide world when you’re feeling rotten.’
The second glass really soothed the attack, and Miss Hearne was persuaded to a third. And then the two of them sat there, finishing the bottle, chatting about old convent days and the funny goings on in Edie’s branch of the civil service. Edie could tell a story, she really had the gift and when put to it, she would act it out, how this one walked, how that one talked, and the look on the face of the other one. She really was a caution. Miss Hearne had quite a fit of the giggles listening to her.
And the next time she had trouble with her bronchitis, she bought a big bott
le of the tonic, drank it alone, and felt wonderfully well on it. It warmed her, it made sad things seem funny, and if you were feeling down at the mouth, or a little lonely, there was nothing like it for cheering you up. She said as much to Edie Marrinan afterwards, and Edie laughed and said, it’s good, but whiskey’s the best . . ..
She and Edie drank several glasses of whiskey one night in Edie’s digs. The next day Miss Hearne felt awful. She ’phoned Edie and told her and Edie laughed and said the only thing that will cure you, Judy, is a hair of the dog that bit you. Edie came over that same night with a Baby Power in her bag and Judy had to admit that it did wonders.
After that, she used to buy cheap whiskey in a shop in North Street where they were very discreet. Gin was cheaper and it didn’t smell, but it hadn’t the bite of the whiskey that was good for her bronchitis. And sometimes, when she needed it badly over a week-end, she would take the long tram ride out to Ballymacarret and buy it in a place that Edie showed her. There was nothing like it, medicinally, of course, to make you feel better. And goodness knows, Miss Hearne often thought, I need something to cheer me up.
For as the years wore on, there was not much to be cheerful about, old friends dying off, young men a thing of the past, and even Edie Marrinan, poor Edie, ill in a nursing home run by the nuns at Earnscliffe. And all the things Miss Hearne used to dream about in those lonely years with her poor dear aunt: Mr Right, a Paris honeymoon, things better not thought of now, all these things were slipping farther away each year a girl was single. So she cheered herself up as best she could and if she overdid it, it was a private matter between herself and her confessor, old Father Farrelly, and he was understanding, he liked a drink himself, right up to the end, in 1952, when he had a stroke one Friday night before devotions. But after him there were harsh young confessors, young men who didn’t really understand the circumstances. So Miss Hearne made a novena, after she lost three of her pupils because that Mrs Strain said she smelled of it one day when she met her in the street. She stopped drinking then, didn’t touch a drop. She bought two bottles and kept them in her trunk, a temptation which nightly it gave her comfort to resist. Truth to tell, she used to say to herself, I cannot afford even one bottle a month now, with things going as badly as they are and so little money about. The economies will help me struggle through.
So, no matter how down in the dumps she felt, no matter how the attacks of bronchitis racked her, no matter how much the mysterious shaking started whenever she was upset, she did not let a drop of liquor cross her lips. She prayed, and despite the fact that her prayers were not answered, she persevered. When she changed her digs and met Mr Madden, she felt a sense of victory, a partial fulfilment, a blessing of God upon her for her sacrifices. Not a drop for six months. Six long months. And now, staring at the stern frown of her aunt, she realised this: that she had sinned again, that she had not only touched it, but had really gone at it like a madwoman, like somebody possessed.
‘Tut, tut, tut,’ she said drunkenly reproving, wagging her finger at the little shoe-eyes which stared at her from across the room. The little shoe-eyes winked back, friendly, sharing the silliness of it all.
For this was what it did to be cheered up: nothing seemed bad, nothing at all, not even sitting here all night in her dressing-gown in front of the fire, not even Mrs Henry Rice and her insinuations, not even the fact that James Madden, ah — James Madden might not have been all he was supposed to be in America. It didn’t matter, everything could be solved. She sipped her whiskey, feeling the oily yellow liquid burn her throat, warming her all the way. Yes, it didn’t matter, one single little bit. It was all unimportant. Unimportant. Everything would be all right. James Madden would ask her and she would say yes. And then she would show him how to behave. New York, the picture-postcard city, they would go off to it together, sailing away.
‘Sailing, sailing over the ocean waves,’ she sang, smiling as she remembered Mr McSorley, the big fat basso who used to sing that song although he knew her dear aunt didn’t like it.
‘You didn’t like it,’ she said to her aunt’s photograph. ‘I wonder why? It was a jolly song, light of course, but a sort of sea chanty. I liked it.’
Then she saw her aunt’s frown. ‘Smile,’ she commanded. ‘Just this once: smile.’
And the photograph, converted by the delightful logic of intoxication, smiled. Miss Hearne smiled back, and poured herself another drink.
Smiled the photograph, smiled her dear aunt, the picture smiled, yes, it smiled when she told it to smile, it was cheerful, cheerful, not a worry, smiled the photograph, smiled the . . . sleepy-smiled the . . .
Slept.
CHAPTER X
‘Miss Hearne. MISS HEARNE. HELLO THERE? MISS HEARNE?’
She was on the floor. OmyGod, where? Where? My room.
She raised herself on an elbow, staring in panic at the shaking door. Och, och, och, it cried.
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Yes. Who is it?’
‘Mrs Rice. Are you sick? Are you all right?’
‘Yes.’ O, that cracked-sounding voice. She cleared her throat. ‘Yes, I’m perfectly all right, thank you. I was sleeping.’
‘Are you sure?’ the door said. ‘Would you like me to get you something? May I come in?’
‘No, no, I’m all right. I just want to sleep.’
‘Well, let me know if you want anything,’ the door said. It waited.
She waited.
Silence.
Then the footsteps going down the stairs. She dropped her face back on the worn carpet. The trembling started in her arms and spread upwards to her shoulders and face. What did I . . .? When did it start? How long have I been lying here?
Through the window she saw the night sky silhouette the houses across the street. Her little travelling clock screamed confirmation: eight-fifteen.
And this morning, last night, all afternoon, where and what did I do?
Events unrolled themselves then, like a reel of film spinning backwards in flickering confusion. Mrs Rice, yes, and then this morning, the maid came, last night I drank, I was upset, yes, Mrs Rice and what she said. James Madden a doorman.
But what had happened in the lost time, the dead time of drinking? What awful thing? The anxiety of not knowing began, set her trembling, brought sharp needle pains to her forehead: sweat trickled like tears along her cheeks. She stood up, looked at the spilled glass, the empty bottle, the other bottle kicked in a corner (I must have made a noise when I did that) the drink stain on the floor, the rumpled bed, the stale room.
There was none left. She looked at her trunk, but she knew it was hopeless. Both bottles were empty. She must manage the trembling, the nausea, the awful hours of conscience, without any help at all. For the moment, don’t think, just get the place tidy.
In her dressing-gown, her hair rumpled and falling about her shoulders, she began shakily to set things to rights. The bottles she wrapped in old newspaper and hid in a dresser drawer. The stain in the floor would not come out. She abandoned it and then, cramming her parched mouth with sweet nauseating cachous, she began the frightening task of dressing.
It took ages. Badly rouged, over-powdered, her hair done up in a bun, she sat down in her chair at last, and let the shaking take its course. The fears came. How much noise, did I talk to myself the way I did in Cromwell Road, did I go out of the room or let anyone in? Or was it all quiet, sitting in my chair, oversleeping, medicinal drink to help me sleep?
She was so weary, so worn with the ravages of her sin. But God was weary too. He had suffered through her carelessness, her sinfulness. She knelt beside the bed and made an act of contrition.
‘O, my God, I am heartily sorry for having offended Thee and I detest my sins above every other evil because they displease Thee my God Who are so deserving of all my love — and I firmly purpose — by the help of Thy Holy grace — never more to offend Thee — and to amend my life.’
But this seemed too impersonal. She looked up at the Sacred
Heart for guidance and saw with shame that He was turned towards the wall. She stood on the bed and turned Him around to face her. His eyes, as always when the sin was committed, were hurt and reproving.
‘I am sorry, I am terribly sorry and I promise Thee that it will never happen again.’
But He did not believe her. His eyes said as much: she half expected Him to shake His head and turn His sad face away. And who could blame Him? Why should He believe me when I’m such a backslider, such a weak, useless, hopeless sinner?
Useless and hopeless, she straightened the bed, lit the bedside lamp and went to the mantelpiece to stare at the photograph of her dear aunt. A good thing God took you away, she thought, a mercy. For if you could only see me now, how could you have borne the shame of it?
Penitence gave strength. The open admission of error helped to drive it out. Still trembling, but with new confidence, she lit her gas fire. She warmed her hands for some minutes, then went to the wardrobe and put on her old green tweed coat and a dark red hat. She turned the stove and lights out and locked the door. She felt light-headed and terribly weak, it was the want of food, she was sure. If she hurried, the tea-shop at Bradbury Place would still be open. A cup of tea and a sandwich would do wonders.
But there was to be no slipping out. When she reached the hallway, the curtained door opened to reveal Mrs Henry Rice, fat and curious, her bland eyes showing nothing of what went on behind them. She stepped close to Miss Hearne, took her arm and put her face very near. At that moment, Miss Hearne blessed her foresight in eating so many of the nauseating scented cachous.
‘Feeling better now?’
‘O, yes, thanks.’
‘Catch a chill or something? You certainly slept a long time.’
‘Well, I wasn’t feeling up to the mark.’ (Woman to woman, I must find a bond.) ‘O dear,’ she said, holding her handbag tight against her stomach to stop the trembling. ‘We women have to put up with a lot. Men are so lucky.’
