The Leaving

by Gabriella West

  I felt sorry for my father, which confused me. We hardly talked. I could sense his bitterness and resentment at being deprived of his wife for days at a time. There was something else, though; to my surprise I thought he seemed fearful, as if afraid that she would not come back. Perhaps he was sorry now, I mused, that he hadn’t given her a happier life here. Maybe nothing much did hold her with us. But I could not imagine her staying on in the countryside, which she had left with such finality more than twenty years before. Why would she? What would keep her there? These were questions that I couldn’t ask, that perhaps he himself didn’t know. Still, it did sadden me to see him sitting slumped in his armchair night after night, a defeated look on his face, staring at the television screen. It was a warm spring; we had stopped lighting fires. For weeks the ashes of our last fire lay in the grate untouched. Finally my father roused himself to say to me, almost gently, “Clear the grate, would you?” and I did, immediately.

  When my mother was home it was not much better. Quite naturally, she was tired and depressed. She also seemed preoccupied. She made an effort sometimes to talk to us, to tell us how our grandmother was doing, but there was not much to say. She was dying of bone cancer and it was only a question of time. “She’s in great pain,” my mother admitted, almost reluctantly, as if she wanted to shield us from everything that was going on at the farm. “But John’s wife, Patricia, is a wonderful help. She carries most of the burden.”

  I wondered if that were really true. What would it be like to see your mother dying slowly and terribly in front of your eyes? Especially if you hadn’t had a strong bond with her, as I was sure my mother hadn’t? You would feel so many conflicting things. Perhaps, most of all, guilt that you couldn’t do more for her, or care more about her, at the end. That was surely the worst burden to carry.

  I was angry at my mother for not being open about her grief. It was as if she too were seriously ill. She seemed so fragile, so vulnerable. Any angry word would send her into tears, you felt. There were long conversations with Father Doherty in the kitchen, which I could sometimes overhear from my bedroom upstairs (but I willed myself not to). Usually just the sound of the priest’s measured, patronizing voice would send me into an agony of irritation. I’d turn on my music loud to try and block it out.

  What infuriated me most was that this plump, balding middle-aged man with puffy, purpled lips probably knew everything about my mother’s life! He was like a second husband, one she could actually communicate with. Holy communion indeed, I fumed, as I lay on my bed reading cheap second-hand paperbacks from the Banba bookshop in Rathmines. I had read all the classics—or so I felt—and was now only interested in novels about sex: Henry Miller, for example, or John Rechy’s book about male prostitutes, or Edna O’ Brien, or Gore Vidal—I loved Myra Breckinridge. Meanwhile Jeanette was reading—or had been, before school broke up—Mills and Boon romances, which I considered completely beneath her: stupid, predictable pap. “I know they’re bullshit,” she’d said to me wistfully, when I’d asked her how she could bear to read book after book, all with essentially the same intelligence-insulting plot, “but I’m addicted to them.”

  She had an addictive personality. She had started to smoke, for example, first a packet of Honeyrose 21 herbal cigarettes that someone had apparently given to her mother in an attempt to get her to stop smoking. Her mother had passed them on to Jeanette. We smoked them together; it was fun. We sat at a coffee shop and finished them off, dropping ash all over the place. Jeanette wickedly began to blow her ash across the table towards me, while I sat smirking holding a lit cigarette between my fingers. We attracted the attention of a pale, censorious-looking young waitress. Standing by our table, she asked sharply: “Are those foreign cigarettes?”

  I gaped. “No, they’re not,” Jeanette said, giggling. We got up and left, which was obviously what she wanted us to do. Outside I asked, wide-eyed, “What did she mean?”

  “Pot, I suppose,” Jeanette said, airily. The ciggies had a nice aromatic smell, but we soon graduated to real nicotine, or rather she did. I smoked with her whenever she had any. I learned to inhale. But it was always her packet; I never bought them. And I never had as many as she did.

  Another change was in her appearance. She was wearing eye shadow now, brilliant swathes of pink, blue or green above her eyes. Face powder made her skin look smoother, more feminine. She experimented with mascara. Her hair was shinier, longer too. She no longer resembled a young Bill Wyman from the Rolling Stones.

  I never got the feeling that I had to change. She had gravitated naturally to makeup, and I hadn’t, and that was that. If she forced her poor feet into tight, cheap high-heeled shoes, that was not a problem with me either. Her style was evolving, but since she remained my friend and nothing had changed about that, she was free to do what she wanted. I didn’t, in other word, feel threatened by any of this.

  What I didn’t like, though, was being away from her for too long.

  * * *

  I was six days into the two-week Easter holidays. Ron of course was also on holiday, and Stevie was out most of the time. When he was in, he often had friends over. His friends were earnest young men, usually doing English or Philosophy, and none of them seemed interesting to me. They were like his studious friends at Fintan’s, just a year or two older.

  After I’d met three or four of them I complained to Stevie, “They’re all straight, aren’t they?”

  “Yes, I suppose so,” he said, as if he hadn’t given it much thought.

  “Doesn’t that bore you?”

  “No,” he said with a smile. “They’re nice guys. I happen to like them.”

  “Do any of them have girlfriends?” I enquired.

  He shrugged. “Well, if they do they never talk about them.”

  “What do you talk about?”

  “Oh, ideas. Life. Lectures. And we drink together.”

  We were sitting at the kitchen table, having lunch. Stevie got up. “I’ve got to go finish an essay.”

  I watched him go, moodily. Suddenly I said: “Oh, Stevie?”

  “Yeah?” He turned around.

  “What bus would I take to Crumlin?”

  He considered. “Depends which part you want to get to. I think the 21A goes just about everywhere. You can catch it on the corner of Dame Street and College Green.”

  “Stannaway Avenue,” I muttered to myself.

  “I don’t know it,” he said, smiling. “What’s on Stannaway Avenue?”

  “Jeanette’s house.”

  He raised his eyebrows. “You’ve never been there?”

  “Well, she ... she just moved there recently. They don’t have a phone, so I can’t ring her.”

  “Oh, I see. Well, seize the day and all that.” He wandered out.

  Stevie had recently begun to quote titles of books in his sentences. Having neither read the book in question nor come across the Horace line, I was a little unsure as to what he meant. But I got the gist of it.

  All right, I would go. Not in a spirit of anger at Jeanette for not ringing me, but in a sudden surge of initiative. Why not just leave? I just hadn’t wanted to do it enough before.

  * * *

  It was a Saturday afternoon at the beginning of April. As I walked to the bus stop, I noticed that the gardens of our neighbors were filled with daffodils. I considered taking a bunch of flowers along and smiled at the thought. You didn’t give your best friend flowers. Even though she probably didn’t have any in her garden.

  I vaguely remembered the way she’d talked about the garden in Finglas. Full of nettles and weeds, everything overgrown. I decided that I would not be shocked by whatever I found. I would just walk bravely up to the front door and ring the bell. Once I saw Jeanette’s face, everything would be OK.

  I took the bus to town, then waited in a queue for the bus to Crumlin, which was packed with women and children who’d been in town doing their shopping. I listened to their accents, the harshness of their voices, husky,
tea-stained, as they discussed illnesses and deaths, the weather, their kids. An elderly woman sitting beside me wearing shabby brown ankle boots told me when to get off and where to turn for Stannaway Avenue. “You can’t miss it, luv.” I nodded, my heart beating faster than usual. Although everything seemed ordinary: the bus, the people, the drab landscape through which we moved, I sensed that I was doing something which was extraordinary. For me, at least.

  The bus halted. I got off. It had been sunny when I left Dundrum, but things seemed grayer here. Clouds were milling overhead. A spring shower, I hoped, not a downpour. I followed directions, turning off the main road to find myself on an avenue of dingy terraced houses all running together in a long line, but curving on each side of the road to accommodate a wide island of green in the center. It was here that the local dogs roved. Nobody was on the street. Far off down the road, I saw a few kids riding around on bicycles.

  So this was it. I walked along, checking out the numbers. Number 13 looked particularly shabby and unkempt. The gate was open. Like the rest of the houses, it was small and had a cramped look. Pieces of litter lay about the grass in the tiny front garden.

  I walked up to the door, feeling serious and a little important. “Well, here I am,” I thought. “Whatever happens, she’ll know I cared enough to come.”

  The paint-blistered door was slightly ajar, which gave me a funny feeling. I didn’t ring for a minute. Then I heard something, a noise. It was the sound of a woman’s voice. She was haranguing someone, hoarsely, insistently, repetitively. I caught Jeanette’s name.

  “No, Jeanette, I don’t want you to go to town. You can’t go to town. No, I don’t want you to go to town.”

  Very faintly, I heard Jeanette say something. The woman started up again. It had to be the mother. The idea that Mrs. Granger was mentally ill or unbalanced suddenly struck me. I paused, trembling. This was scary. I wanted to see Jeanette, to get her out of this house, but I did not want to have to confront that woman to do it. The crazy thought came to me that they were holding Jeanette against her will, that she had been literally unable to get out to phone me. Now here I was. I had to go through with it.

  I pressed the bell. Nobody came. I waited a few minutes and pressed again. “Don’t answer the door,” I heard the voice say, chidingly. I was tempted to walk in. I put my hand to the door to push it open. Then a figure appeared.

  I stared. It was Jeanette’s face, but the girl was shorter, squatter and plainly very nervous. She looked about twelve. Of course—it was Una, the sister. My first impression of her was that she looked like Jeanette gone wrong. She did not yet have her sister’s poise or charm.

  “Hi,” I said breathlessly. “Is Jeanette in?”

  “No ... no, she isn’t in,” Una said. There was a desperate look in her eyes. I could tell she wanted me to go away. “Sorry. She went to town.”

  I stared at her. She was lying, I knew, and badly. I really didn’t know what to do. I could push my way past her, yes, but once I was inside who knew what would happen?

  “Are you sure? I thought I heard her inside.”

  “No. You didn’t. I’ll tell her you called around.”

  “When will she be back?” I asked.

  “Oh, soon! Probably in about half an hour. I don’t know... I’ll tell her you called around.”

  “My name’s Cathy,” I said. Una nodded, staring at me with those brown, scared eyes. Jeanette’s eyes. She forced a smile. I did too. And I turned to go.

  The best thing, I thought, would be to leave and return in half an hour. That way it would give Jeanette time. Of course, I might return to the same thing. I just had to chance it.

  As I walked around the streets near Jeanette’s house I wondered if I had failed some test, some ordeal. Had Jeanette needed me at that moment? And had I let her down by accepting her sister’s lies? Should I have walked in?

  I had felt, standing at her door, that there was that option open to me; I had even longed to do it. I had wanted to see with my own eyes what kind of trouble Jeanette was in. To actually confront Mrs. Granger and rescue Jeanette, if need be, from her sinister clutches.

  But I couldn’t do it. I had been afraid that I might see something too shameful, too private, and that Jeanette would never forgive me for blundering in. Had she sent Una to the door to lie to me, or had the mother? My head buzzed with these questions.

  * * *

  Later, I strolled back along towards number 13. I saw someone sitting on the grassy verge outside the house. It was Jeanette, in a straw hat, a yellow T-shirt and skirt. A large, wiry mongrel gambolled about beside her, tongue lolling.

  “Are you all right?” I asked. I sat down beside her. The sun had come out and was warm on my back. “You look lovely.”

  She did. Her face was made up, her hair freshly cut. She was trying to smile.

  “Listen, Jeanette, you didn’t ring me, so I decided to come here. I’m sorry. I just needed to see you, that’s all.”

  “Don’t apologize,” Jeanette said. “You came on a bad day, though, that’s why Una had to tell you I was out. Let’s go to town. I’ll treat you to an ice cream at the Soda Fountain. I’ll explain what happened.”

  We got up. I felt relieved, eager to hear what she would say. For a while, as we walked along, she said nothing. Then she began:

  “My mother went out, and her cleaning woman came in to clean. She was drunk. Una and I had to take care of her. She was really rowdy, and I didn’t know what to do. It was terrible. Finally we calmed her down. But I just didn’t want you to see her...” She paused. “It might have excited her. She was throwing things about.”

  “I heard her, anyway. The front door was open. I thought ... it was your mother.”

  Jeanette blushed. “Well, it wasn’t.”

  “I’m glad.”

  “I’m sorry Una had to tell you those lies,” she said, moodily.

  “It’s just that I felt you were inside, so I felt sort of frustrated. I wanted to just walk in, but I didn’t know if that would have been the right thing to do or not.”

  Jeanette sighed. “No, it wouldn’t have been, Cathy.”

  * * *

  So there we were, eating ice cream at the Soda Fountain out of tall glasses with long spoons. To match her spring-like garb, Jeanette’s ice cream was pink and yellow. Mine was chocolate. We ate in silence. It was a treat for me, this, and to see Jeanette again was wonderful, and I loved the way she looked today, but something told me that I was being bought off, lovingly perhaps, but still, bought off.

  “So what about your father?” I asked suddenly. “Where is he today?”

  Jeanette glanced at me. She was twirling the little rose-colored parasol that they always stuck on top of your ice cream at the Soda Fountain. We were in the ILAC center, a newish shopping arcade where a lot of young Dubliners liked to hang out.

  “I’ll tell you something, Cathy, “ she said. I nodded, watching her carefully. Looking at me with a level gaze she said: “My mother and father are basically separated.”

  I nodded again, moistening my lips.

  “He left when I was about six or seven. He skipped out, and I haven’t seen him since.”

  “God,” I said. The silence grew and I muttered: “How awful. I’m sorry.”

  “He’s somewhere in Dublin still, I think,” Jeanette continued. “The last we heard news of him, he was staying at a men’s hostel, the Iveagh hostel. I don’t know if you know it.”

  I nodded. On family excursions to the zoo years before, my father had driven past the tall, dirty red-brick buildings.

  “I’m afraid that he’s an alcoholic, that I’ll see him lying on the street some day. But to tell you the truth, Cathy, I hardly remember what he looks like.”

  I put my head in my hands. I felt stupid, mainly, for not guessing this before. Her stories about her father had always been flimsy and inauthentic. I had simply not bothered to think about it much.

  I looked up. Her eyes were not full of t
ears. She seemed calm. Focused. She was speaking in a low voice.

  “You’re the only person who knows this much about me, “ she said. “I know I can trust you, Cathy. I only lied to you because ... because I was ashamed, I suppose.”

  “It’s not your fault that it happened, Jeanette,” I said, almost angrily. “But you’ve had to bear most of the burden, I see.”

  She shrugged. “Yes.”

  “That was your mother, wasn’t it?” I asked suddenly. I couldn’t help it; I had to know.

  “No,” she said, her eyes veiled and evasive. “Of course not.”

  There was more to tell. I sensed that. But I also knew that forcing Jeanette to reveal everything was unfair. As a friend, it seemed to me that it was my duty to listen to what she wanted to tell me, not to probe into things she still found too painful to admit. I was the only person, she’d said, who knew this much about her. The only person whom she’d ever said this much to about her family. That in itself I took as a vast compliment.

  Her face had gone red. She was looking down at the table. I could feel her misery. I didn’t know what to say, but it occurred to me that living in that claustrophobic little house must really be difficult, especially in the summer holidays. Three months with nothing to do. I hadn’t mentioned my uncle’s farm yet; my grandmother was dying and things seemed to be in flux. Still, now seemed the time.

  “Did I ever tell you that my uncle has a farm in County Meath?” I enquired, spooning the last of my ice cream into my mouth.

  She shook her head, gazing at me.

  “Well, he does. And Stevie and I have an open invitation to go down there whenever we want. We haven’t been there before, because for some reason there was this terrible feud between my mother and her family... But anyway, that seems to be over. I think it might be nice to go in the summer, after the exams. We could milk the cows, feed the pigs...”