The Bay

by L. A. G. Strong

  A tram swung ahead of me, slowing round the curve. I ran determinedly after it. A man on the kerb called derisive encouragement. Before it could properly gather its momentum, I caught it, and jumped aboard, breathing hard.

  “Ye done that nice,” observed a woman with a basket, as she moved aside to make room for me. “Another minyit, and it was gone on ye.”

  And she continued to talk to me all the way in. My replies must have been fragmentary, for I did not hear a word she said, but she appeared to be quite satisfied. Never did a tram go so slowly, loiter so maddeningly at corners and stopping places. I cursed at the groups that got on and off, the leisurely leavetakings, the hoisting up of packages and baskets, with the conductor running on and then walking off to deliver a parcel. Once, when a van got in front of us and would not budge in spite of frantic stamping on the bell, I felt the blood bursting out of my veins. But, with all its delays, it was faster than walking, and in less than twenty minutes it brought me to my nearest point.

  I jumped off, ran across the street, got cursed at by a jarvey, and cursed him back with such fury that he all but fell off his car. Then I was in the back lane. I did not have to waste time knocking at the door in the wall. Mary used to leave it unlocked for me. It was unlatched now, and I hurried through. I went to knock at the back door, and saw it was ajar. In three seconds I was on the stairs. The dear familiar smell and sight of the house finished my restraint, and I called out “Mary! Mary! I’m here!” as I charged up and reached the landing.

  The door of her room was open. I ran in, and saw it all empty. A letter for her lay on the table, with a Dalkey postmark.

  I turned, and made for her bedroom. “Mary. Mary. It’s Luke. Where are you?”

  Her bedroom door was open too, but, before I could reach it, there was a scuffling sound, another door opened, and I saw Lucy, all tousled and red, her face swollen with weeping. She cried out at the sight of me, and waved me away.

  “Go away. Get out. Why do you come here now!”

  I caught her wrist. “How is she? Where has she gone?”

  “Where is she!” Her voice rose hysterically. “You—you—— Oh, oh, oh. Why didn’t you come, why didn’t you come!”

  Her head bowed miserably over my hand, weeping past control. The chill of finality spread over my heart.

  “Lucy. Don’t torture me. Where is she?”

  “She’s dead, she’s dead!” She caught my hand between hers, and rocked herself to and fro. “She wrote, and you never came. She cried for you, and you left her to face it by herself.”

  “Why didn’t you bring me? You knew I would come.”

  My voice was breathless. It came from far away.

  “Why should I? You had your chance. You refused her.”

  I knitted my brow, looking at her, beginning to understand. I nodded slowly, three or four times.

  “I see. You were jealous of me. You have been all the time. I never thought of that.”

  “Oh, Luke.” She pulled at my arm. She was crying loudly, like a child. “I did try. I did go for you, yesterday, when she was so bad, just before they took her away. She told me where you lived. I knocked and knocked, but no one came. I had to come back—I couldn’t leave her any longer.”

  I went on nodding. So that was how it was.

  “She cried out for you all the time. She was so sure you would come. Even when she got light-headed, she still called for you. Oh—how could you! How could you treat her so!”

  “It was my wife,” I said. “She hid the letter. And, when you went, she wouldn’t open the door.”

  “Oh, Luke!”

  She stopped crying. She looked at me, horrified.

  “Yes.” I felt my stiff lips grin at her. “I shall have an account to settle with my wife over this.”

  “Luke. Luke!”

  She was calling out, running after me down the stairs. I stopped at the bottom, and looked up.

  “What was it?”

  “Luke—don’t look like that. It’s horrible. It frightens me. Where are you going?”

  “What was wrong with her? What did she die of?”

  “Peri—periton—something.’’

  “Peritonitis?”

  “That’s it.”

  My mind was vacant. After a few seconds, I nodded. “I see. Thank you for telling me. Good-bye.”

  Luke. Come back for a few minutes.” I shook my head. “Please. I don’t like to let you go like this. I’m—I’m sorry I was horrid. I didn’t know. I could only think of her, poor darling. I didn’t know your wife—I——”

  “Oh yes. Thank you for reminding me.”

  She cried out something, but I turned and walked out of the door. Once in the main street, I stood, and tried to collect my thoughts. A dog frisked up to me, and jumped up, putting its paws on my thighs. Its owner called to it in remonstrance. I smiled at him, and patted the dog’s head. The next thing I remember, I was on the quays. A grain ship from the Argentine was unloading. The sacks were honey-coloured in the evening light. I had no purpose in my mind, but my feet had a purpose, evidently, for they brought me into the snug of the pub where the girl once asked me to do up her shoe.

  Well, she wasn’t there this time. It wouldn’t have mattered if she was. Nothing mattered now. I kept my mind on my loss, not on the manner of it. The only time I thought of Mary lying in pain, calling for me, needing me, and I not there, I almost yelled with the sheer agony of it. I could not bear that. But the fact that I was alone, that she was gone—that I could contemplate without unbearable pain, for my mind was numb. The anaesthetic of shock dulled all but that one sharpest agony.

  I drank. Men came in, sailors, and presently went out again. I sat and drank. One or two spoke to me. I answered them. A girl came and sat beside me. She crossed her legs provocatively, and asked me to stand her a drink. I stood her the drink. She came closer and put her hand on mine. She had dirty fingernails.

  I pulled my hand away. “Go to hell,” I said quietly.

  She tried to coax me. “Ah, come on. Don’t be sulking here by yourself all alone.”

  I felt a moment of red anger, then all went calm, and there was only pity for her, for me, for everyone in the world. I raised my head, and looked into her eyes.

  “Don’t worry me, there’s a good girl. My sweetheart has just died.”

  Her eyes went small in unbelief. Then she drew away from me.

  “I’m sorry, mister,” she said: and, after a few seconds, she crossed to the other side of the snug. I saw her talking to two sailors, and all three looked over at me from time to time.

  I sat in a stupor. Then I heard and felt myself give a loud, deep sigh. My mind stirred in its fog, and tried to rouse itself. Why did I make that noise? Because I was sad. Why was I sad? Mary was dead. When? Today. But I was not with her. I did not remember her death, or her deathbed. Why did I not remember? Why was I not there? Why did I not—Christ!

  I hit the table a tremendous blow, sending my glass flying. Muriel! Muriel! She—she had robbed me! She had robbed me of my last days, my last hours with my darling. She had robbed and tortured my darling, she had condemned her to lie in pain alone, and to die reproaching me, believing me faithless and unkind. By Christ! she should pay.

  I was on my feet, glaring at the people in the bar, shouting at them. I don’t know what I said, but I heard my voice, loud and thick. It was hard to get out the words. I saw men look at each other, and one came out from behind the bar and took my arm and led me to the door. Suddenly I was in perfect control of my faculties. I shook off his hand.

  “All right,” I said. “I can manage by myself, thank you”: and I walked away. When I had gone a few paces, I turned and saw him staring after me.

  The sky, the stars, the firmament of heaven, a light at the masthead, held on high, the torch in Juliet’s tomb, Romeo comes down the steps, come bitter conduct, come unsavoury guide, this knot intrinsicate … A knot. Hands. Two hands, tight, pressing, strangling. The knotted veins, the
eyeballs, like knots in a plank. By God, by God, the bitch, the hairy, hot, malignant——

  A great blaze lit the sky and earth, cleaving down past the roof of the Customs House as with an axe blade, paving all the river with light. Like revelation, like a fire from heaven, it cleft my mind, and filled me with the fire of a deadly purpose. I knew what I must do. And, as the blaze illumined all my mind, making it clear as a magnesium flare, I saw little crawling black words like insects, like small wire netting, announcing to the world what I must do.

  Mary is dead, ran the little crawling words. Mary is dead, Mary is dead. That other one shall not live after her.

  I have since looked back with fascination, and with a real wish to understand, into that storm of emotion and pain that made me plan a murder. I cannot understand it, I cannot get inside it, but I can remember it as one remembers a dream. It seemed to me then neither mad nor abominable, but the logical fulfilment of what had happened; more than a duty, a necessity, a thing that had to happen. I did not reason about it. I moved towards it, everything in me pointed to that one purpose. I saw nothing of my surroundings. How I got home I do not know. Vision after vision possessed my mind, all leading me on. I walked on a desolate common, and scores of little dry leaves blew past and in front of me, rattling, all leading me on to what I was to do. I went along a road, and every few yards was a signpost, pointing me on. The people on the roads stopped and pointed, the workers in the fields laid down scythe and fork and pointed, birds flew overhead, pheasants with flaming tails, shrieking and rocketing. Soldiers rushed up with a gun, and pointed it, and fired. A man in fiery armour rode up on a horse and pointed me on with a shining sword. And all the time some devil shaped like a child beat on my head with two spoons, rub a dub dub, sending white crashes of anger down through my skull, and all, soldiers, man, birds, leaves, workers, passers-by, and devil, all yelled “Yes! Yes! Kill her!”

  I was at home, going up the stairs. My legs were so heavy I could hardly lift them, one after the other. My arms were heavy and thick. They felt like the baize sausage things you put under doors to keep out the draught. There was a light under the bedroom door. Good. I should be able to see better.

  I opened the door, and stood there, looking at her. She was sitting up in bed, reading. She had a pink bed jacket on. Her mother had given it to her at Christmas.

  “Luke… . Where have you been all this time? You gave me such a fright.”

  Nothing to the fright you’ll get now, I thought. The last fright you’ll ever get. I felt my chin sink on my chest, and my mouth come open. I felt spittle running over my chin.

  “Luke!”

  She made a hasty movement of putting away the book, she made a number of quick fluttery movements. I lurched across the space and fell on the bed. For a moment I floundered. Then I gripped her shoulders, and pushed myself half upright, forcing her back on the pillows.

  “Listen,” I said, “you soft sweaty sow, you devil. Listen, because it’s the last thing you’ll ever hear. She died, that girl whose letter you hid. She died, after four days of pain, calling out for me, and I never came. Even then, at the last, when you could have done something to make amends, you hid behind the curtain, and let her friend go away that had come to fetch me. Do you know what you did? You robbed me of the last hours of the girl I loved more than my own life. You robbed her of the comfort of having me by her side, you robbed her of my arms about her when she died, and for that, by God, I’ll kill you. Say your prayers quickly!”

  I shifted my hands to her throat, and leaned over her. At the touch of her, something leaped in me like fire, and I felt for the one and only time a real lust for her, a lust to pierce her in the act of killing her, to violate her death agony.

  “Say your prayers!” I growled at her, and the words hurt my throat.

  She began to cry. The tears rolled down her face. From fear, its expression changed to a boundless sorrow.

  “Oh, my poor Luke! What a bad wife I must have been, that you should want to do such a dreadful thing.”

  I glared down at her, thinking that she was shamming, and it was a trick to put me off. But it was true. In that extremity, her thought was purely selfless. Incredulous, I slowly loosed my hands. I sat back, and stared at her as if I had never seen her before.

  “My poor boy!” She reached up timidly, and touched my cheek. “How awful. I never thought things would get like this., What a terrible failure. What a fool I have been.”

  Still I looked at her. My mind was trying to take in this new thing. All rage, all desire to hurt her was not only gone, but forgotten. It might have been years ago.

  She stretched out her arms, and drew my head against her breast.

  “Oh, my darling. What a fool I’ve been. What a failure, what an awful failure. That you should think, even for a minute, of doing that. You know, you needn’t ever. I’ll go away, if you don’t want me any more.”

  She began to rock me to and fro.

  “Poor Luke. You’re tired out. Where have you been?”

  I stirred weakly. My head was beginning to ache.

  “I’ve been drinking. Let me go. I must be horrid to come near.”

  She held me closer. “Poor Luke. Poor Luke.”

  I lay there, till presently she got up, helped me undress, and took me into bed beside her. I was tired, numbed, I saw everything small from very far away. Then the clear, precise outlines softened, and I felt the tide of an immense sorrow rise and engulf me, and I wept, and Muriel wept; but I did not weep for myself, nor for her, nor even for Mary, but for the sorrows of all the world. Then I must have fallen asleep.

  When I woke, the first pale light was on the ceiling. Muriel was sleeping, curled up, breathing with that soft noise, with the hint of something shrill in it, which I had disliked ever since I heard it first. I lay on my back, and looked at the pale light, and heard the sparrows, and knew that everything was hopeless, and I was doomed for life. She had me now. I was tied to her irrevocably by the revelation of her sweet, silly goodness of heart, by that selfless love that could pity me when I was about to kill her. I shuddered to remember that, and turned to her with an impulse of agony, to be sure that she was warm and breathing there: but my hand fell back, and I did not wake her. Already the night before was like a nightmare in a far country. I could not get in touch with that madman, nor recognise him. I could not believe that he had been I. I thanked God that I was not crouching distraught in some cupboard or speeding away huddled in the corner of a railway carriage, shrinking in horror from the picture of a cold disfigured thing upon the bed, with staring eyes and lolling tongue. But for what had I been preserved? For a lifetime-of Muriel, a lifetime of Rathmines, clogged, drugged, fattened, petted, stultified, a lifetime of captivity, the more hopeless, the more intolerable because, for a few vivid months, I had seen the vision of wider country and slipped beyond the bars.

  Well. I had had my hour of glory, and the rest of my life must pay for it. I lay in the cold grip of that decision, while the ceiling brightened, the sparrows chattered louder, and carts and people began to move in the streets. I was still lying in the same position, with wide dry eyes, when Muriel woke.

  She was very tender with me that day, both tender and wise. She sent a message to the office to say I was ill, she made me stay in bed all day, she ministered to me with a new tact and a new quietness. She was the same Muriel underneath: nothing could change that: but the disaster brought out hidden depths in her nature, and she showed a quiet competence I knew nothing about. I never respected her so much as in the forty-eight hours that I lay in bed with her looking after me. Most of the time I was in a kind of dream. There was no violent sorrow, even for Mary. All seemed to have been purged away with the purging of that night’s rage and madness. There was pain there, depth upon depth of pain, but it was buried. I felt it only as the faint wince of a tooth that has been bad but has quieted: and my mind kept away from it as much as it could.

  On the third day I got up, and Murie
l took me for a walk. It was a heavenly morning, the first of real summer, and even I could not shut out the promise that breathed in every gambol of the breeze. I went slowly, like a man that has been sick a long time. My legs were weak. It would not have surprised me to look in a shop window and see that I had white hair. Yet, when I did look, my self looked back at me; a bit paler perhaps, but that was all.

  That night Muriel pushed me down in my armchair, and sat on the arm.

  “Now,” she said, “we’ve got to have a good talk, you and I.”

  I shrank away, but she was set on it. Don’t be a fool, I said to myself. Here’s your first trial: you must bear it. Let her talk.

  What she said amazed me. I had no idea she was capable of such sense, such moderation. She used a good many stock phrases and romantic fal-lals derived from her parents, but the thoughts were her own. Quite obviously, she had not discussed the business with them. She said that up to now our marriage had been a failure. She was just as much to blame as I, probably more so. If she had done better, I should never have needed to go after anyone else. (I have often noted that pathetic belief so many women have that, but for some small remediable thing, there is no difference between one woman and another. “What can she give you that I can’t?” they ask.) There was no use, she went on, in our trying to think things out or talk them over now. We were too close to it all. I must go for a holiday, right away from her. Then, when I came back, we could have a long talk and see what was to be done.

  It was so sensible, so generous, that I had nothing to say. I took her hand.

  “You’re too good to me,” I said. “I don’t deserve it.”

  She was on her knees then, clinging to me, crying, accusing herself, saying it was all her fault. Before I could stop her, she started about the letter.

  “I was hateful, wicked. I was like a poisoned person. I can’t think how I could have done such a wicked thing. Luke, that poor girl! To think of her ill there and wanting you. I’d have cut my hand off sooner, if I’d realised.”