Bend for Home, The Page 13

  I went on to my room, lay fully dressed beneath the sheets and listened to Luxembourg. Maisie’s polite step would come across the landing, she too would look into my parents’ room for a moment, next she’d flush the toilet, pause with her po by my door and look in to see was I there. Una’s door would close, the cats in the entry would bawl, a tin clatter, Miss Reilly would pull her curtains to, Mr Dale would leave Noel’s bar and pull the door of the yard gate after him. Then, when I thought Maisie had done her final trek through the house to check no lights were left on and everyone was in bed, I put on my shoes and dropped out the window onto the low galvanized roof of the kitchen, stood a moment there till the sound went and my eyes adjusted to the darkness, then stepped softly across the tin roof and shinned down a drain pipe to the ground, stood again a moment to see if any lights came on and when I saw there were none I headed across the frozen earth in the ghostly garden and climbed over Provider’s wall, hopped through the timber, building blocks and tiles that were piled in the yard, crossed the fence into the White Star, slipped down the entry and went off into the night on Main Street.

  BOOK IV

  Sodality of Our Lady

  A Version of a Diary 1963

  Chapter 22

  JANUARY

  8 Tues.

  Hold on to me! Sheila shouted.

  I’m holding you, I said.

  You’ll let me go.

  No, I won’t,

  Yes you will, she shouted, I just know you will.

  I pushed off through the snow.

  Dermot! she screamed.

  We slid the length of a field the far side of the Gallows Hill on our bellies on the upturned bonnet of a car, her left hand gripping my right, cheering. Great cant! We piped a furrow, her dress rose, I saw the town coming and we stopped just in time with a swerve.

  I thought my heart would burst, she said.

  We climbed back up and came down one more time and then she had to go home. I stayed up there looking. All of Cavan is white and everywhere the lakes are frozen.

  9 Wed.

  Mother goes to England with Aunt Nancy. The two were wearing large red hats and fur coats.

  Be good, you, she said.

  I waved her off and spent most of the day in the Central Café with the gang.

  10 Thur.

  I went off t’night to a hop in the Central Café, great! and jived Mary but then Sheila came in and she stood at the jukebox glaring and soft-eyed, and I went over to her. Your looking ojus well, I said, but she was extremely jealous.

  I saw you, said Sheila.

  You saw what? I said.

  You know, she said. You know only too well.

  I don’t know what you’re talking about, I said.

  Oh but you’re some boy, she said.

  Come on and dance.

  No, she said.

  Why?

  I’m going home.

  I’ll leave you home.

  No, she said, stay just where you are. I don’t think I want to be with you any more.

  So she left just like that. Then Dermot and myself stole a cop’s bike from outside the Garda barracks and planted it behind the Farnham Gardens. Birds were walking across the frozen Kinnypottle. When we skidded stones they went for miles up river echoing, Thump! Thump! Thump!

  11 Fri.

  Did nothing exciting.

  12 Sat.

  Sat with Mary at the pictures.

  Cut out the continental stuff, someone shouted. The two twins, George and Phildy O’Rourke, patrolled the cinema with their long torches. Quiet, they shouted, the lot of you!

  Everywhere throughout the town frozen pipes.

  14 Mon.

  Got a great feed and a great laugh with the lads, then t’night off to the hop in the shed at the back of the Railway Hotel. The record player was jumping as we jived, then when they were playing Del Shannon part of the stairs collapsed and Tony Coyle who was on the door went flying.

  On way home I break it off with Sheila over the phone. There’s laughter and tears.

  You just want to go with Mary, she said.

  I do not, I said.

  Well, if you don’t, why are you breaking it off with me?

  Because you asked me to.

  Well that’s not what I want any longer, she said, and started giggling.

  So what do you want?

  I don’t know.

  I was about to say something else and then my penny got stuck.

  15 Tues.

  Stole Mary into the house. Great court! We lay out on the bed. Then Aunty Maisie went past. Mary hid on the floor under the bed.

  Maisie looked in. What are you doing? she asked.

  My homework, I said.

  Ask me another, she said.

  Afterwards I left Mary home in the rain twice. It was teeming. Then we walked into Sheila and she crossed to the far side of the street with her head in the air. Then she ran. After I’d left Mary home I went looking for Sheila and found her standing in the rain under Woolworth’s.

  Desperate weather, I said.

  Piss off, she said.

  You’re very narkey.

  I have every right to be.

  What’s wrong? I asked.

  Nothing that concerns you.

  Do you want to make up?

  No, never, she said.

  That’s fine by me.

  Right, she said.

  We stood a while longer there.

  Can’t we just be friends? I said after a while.

  No.

  We stood there watching for maybe an hour, just looking, and then said goodbye. Tomorrow she goes back to Loreto as a boarder.

  16 Wed.

  I went up the town and met Johnny who had knocked off a mission box. Come on with me, he said. We ran into Ollie McNally from Virginia who was on his way back to college and we all went down to the side room in the Railway Hotel. The Smiths keep a piano in there and children’s toys and old broken chairs and one brown driving seat from a Volkswagen car.

  Ollie sat into a pram and started choo-choo-chooing. Dermot Burke arrived and began playing Benediction tunes on the piano. Andy ate two hardboiled eggs with his bottle of stout and Ollie walked back to the college.

  See you tomorrow, I said.

  We all sang Salutaris and drank 7 bottles of Smithwicks each. Then a black doctor, who works in Lisdarn hospital, looked into the room to see who was singing.

  17 Thur.

  I went back to college today on the bar of Finbar Reilly’s bike. We fell at Saunderson’s on the ice. None of the dayboys spoke in the bicycle shed. We smoked a fag, watched the Belturbets arriving and put everything off till the last. As we came up the drive the boarders leant out the windows to shout down at us.

  Go home to the Half Acre!

  Go back to Mullahoran, you cunts, we roared back.

  We had free classes to begin with, the walls were fusty and running. The seats were damp, there were yells, we told lies. Then one by one the doors to the classrooms closed and the corridors quietened. The snow fell on the trees, soundlessly. We said a prayer in Irish. The priests were alien like men who had been away for years. Now that they’d come back there was no one here they knew. Old fears surfaced. And Socrates called us gentlemen. Imagine, gentlemen, he said and his ginger eyebrows rose merrily. Packie the Case slapped his briefcase on the desk and opened A Tale of Two Cities at where we’d left off in a previous life. Benny wrote a line of algebra on the blackboard as if it were a death sentence. He smelt of wine from early morning Mass. Smigs smelt of sherry. Fairy sang sadly. Then at last the radiators came on and our trousers steamed, drips ran across the wooden floor. The town lads rode home for dinner; the country lads drank cold milk and ate ham sandwiches along the high windows and talked of Celtic Rovers; the boarders streamed into the refectory. A connor had his head flushed down the lavatory. The barber, Henderson, cut hair with a soft tick onto a cement floor. A Latt man sat in the chapel. A few boarders smoked behind the alley, which was
filled with snowdrifts. Others kicked a football on the frozen pitch. Lads with gloves shot basketball and dribbled across the white court.

  Fellows walked the Half, kicking up frost and talking about Christmas. The radiators went off in the afternoon and everyone wanted to go to the bog. The shit smell from the clatty toilets seeped through the disinfectant and wafted high and animal down the corridor. Some classes we just sat there leafing through books and trying to keep our hands warm. In Greek we went down to Hades.

  Then t’night I slipped up Keadue Lane with Mary. Over and in behind the power station. Terrible smell of old piss.

  Don’t, she said.

  Why not?

  Because.

  She fell and started laughing.

  What’s going on in there, someone called from the road.

  Oh Christ, said Mary.

  We took off over the Cathedral grounds. They were white with snow. Then later I knocked off money from out of Maisie’s handbag. She was in the downstairs toilet and her bag was on the shop counter. I stole in and took her purse out. I took 8 shillings and went down to the Railway Hotel. The black doctor joined us.

  The best drink is gin, he told us.

  We all got pissed and Dermot played tunes from Gilbert and Sullivan. This is the life. Got 3rd in Latin, 5th in Greek and 2nd in Science. Only 6% of us passed everything in Maths.

  18 Fri. Octave of Prayer for Unity.

  Mary went back to college. Had hand shandy twice today. Once in the trees behind the bicycle shed, then under the dinner table.

  I miss Mary and I miss Sheila as well.

  Were you at my bag? Maisie shouted t’night.

  No, I said.

  Well someone was. She smashed her hand into her fist. And whoever it was will pay dearly.

  Are you reading about the good old times? asked my mother.

  I am, I said, wincing.

  Aren’t you glad I kept it? she said.

  Oh yes, I agreed.

  24 Thur. Octave of Prayer for Unity.

  After college Josie handed me a letter from Sheila. She’s sorry we broke up and thinks we should start all over again and be together for as long as we can, but I told Josie to tell her that I did not want to go with her any more then I went home and done nothing exciting. Then I was sorry to have told Josie that so I went out and rang her.

  Say nothing to Sheila, I said. Forget what I said.

  All right, she said.

  I only said those things to hurt her, I said.

  All right, she said, I know that.

  How do you know?

  That’s easy, she said.

  25 Fri. Conversion of St Paul.

  Up at Swellan Lake on a sleigh with Andy and Hickey. The lake is all frozen over to a depth they say of two foot. We came right down the hill flying and hit the ice with a bang then went about thirty feet across. The lake thundered. I cut my hand and later broke into the bus station. Eilish had a heart attack. We smoked and talked in the Dublin Bus of going to the Jersey Islands. Maybe the Isle of Man. The bus was coated in snow. In the hotel the black doctor stamped snow off his feet, put a pound into my hand and winked. I bought a round. Then Dermot fell off the piano stool onto Kate.

  When I opened the door of the Breifne Aunty Maisie was in the hall.

  If this continues, she said, I’ll take your key.

  26 Sat.

  Another letter from Sheila. I have to see you, she wrote. Will you be able to come out to Loreto some night? The best time is between 8 and 9 when we’re at piano lessons on the ground floor. I don’t want to get you into trouble.

  What do you reckon? I asked Andy.

  Dead on, he said.

  27 Sun. 3rd after Epiphany.

  Got sick after last night. Felt very bad this morning. When I fell asleep the room was going round and when I woke it hadn’t stopped. Dreamt that there was a lump of stuff was made of nothing that kept swirling round and would turn into a face and back again. There was an arm ended before it begun. And behind that, all the wrong trees. I tried to wake but couldn’t and my teeth hurt. I tried to pull out my teeth, but couldn’t. Woke soaked and the bells were ringing for Mass.

  Then I saw Mary D. going to the toilet through the keyhole. Boy!

  28 Mon.

  I wrote to Sheila in double talk and said I’d be seeing her soon. X! X! X!

  31 Thur. St John Bosco.

  Myself and Andy went out the railway lines to Loreto. The only lights were on the second storey. It was hard to see because of the size of the flakes that were falling. I climbed a fir tree on the lawn and stood at the top looking for any sign of the girls. Snow fell every side of me. Then a nun switched on a light in a small white room and looked out directly at me. She was bald I thought. I fell off the tree through the branches and more branches, yelling, and ran. Andy came after me. As we went under the railway bridge we heard the squad car going overhead.

  That’s the bloody cops, said Andy.

  The lights came on all over the convent and people began looking out windows.

  Come on, said Andy.

  We ran back to the town over sleepers packed tight with frost and I had just scaled the roof and climbed in the window when Una looked into my room to see if I was there.

  FEBRUARY

  1 Feb. First Friday. St Brigid.

  First Useless, Smigs called.

  Yes, said Sean White from Arva.

  Are you awake?

  Yes, Father.

  Good, good, he said.

  Then Smigs leant in close to my face so I could see the grains of chalk on the hairs of his nostrils.

  Good morning, Second Useless, he said.

  Good morning, Father, I said.

  Should I see what young Healy has in his pocket? he asked the class.

  Yes, said Jimmy McInerney from Redhills.

  Fuck you, Jimmy, I whispered.

  Smigs tapped my side pockets.

  Take out what you have in your trousers, he said.

  I took out a box of matches and sixpence.

  Now your inside pocket, he continued.

  There’s nothing in there, Father.

  Let me be the judge of that, he said.

  He went to reach in. I caught his hand but he moved so fast he had the pages out.

  What are these? he said, backing away. He scrutinized them by the window.

  Are these poems by any chance? and he started to laugh.

  I reached for them but he lifted them over my head.

  Sit down, Second Useless, he said.

  He read out the poems to the class, and then he put them in his pocket to show them to the President.

  Oh Second Useless, he said, I see you in the town of Cavan talking to the Loreto girls. Isn’t that right?

  No, Father.

  Oh yes, Second Useless, I’m afraid it is.

  He took my ear between his thumb and forefinger.

  Isn’t that so?

  No, Father.

  He pulled hard. I went with his hand.

  What height are you? he asked me.

  Six foot, I said as he drew me standing.

  Six foot what? he asked.

  Six foot nothing, I said.

  Jimmy McInerney broke into a fit of laughter.

  Six foot, Father! Smigs said, gritting his teeth, then he reached down with his other hand and took McInerney’s ear.

  Isn’t that right, McInerney?

  Yes, Father, said Jimmy, and his mouth went up into a v.

  2 Sat. Purification of B. V. M.

  I got a bottle of stout and exchanged it for a beer and then went and got four. We drank them and went out the lines to Loreto. We climbed the portals of the front door of the convent, then went along the first-storey ledge to look in at the girls in the main hall – the whole gang of beauties from Cavan dancing! A tall nun was playing a record player and the girls in white blouses and wine dresses were waltzing in pairs while a nun called out the steps and it’s one two! and it’s one two girls! and it’s
one two! as she moved her head to and fro. I was so mesmerized that when a girl came walking towards the window I stepped back and nearly fell to the ground below, but Andy reached out a hand to stop me and my leather jacket snagged on the pebbledash.

  Christ, Andy, I said.

  That was close, he said.

  My knees started to shake uncontrollably.

  Steady, he said.

  He took my hand and led me along the ledge. We climbed down and waited in the fir trees till the girls at last came to the lower rooms for piano practice. A window opened and Sheila looked out. I crawled across and said Hallo. She put a finger to her lips and leant out and gave me a kiss and nuzzled her nose against my nose then whispered shhh! shhh! and then slowly and quietly she pulled the window down.

  Is there any word in there about the Breifne? asked my mother.

  There is, I said.

  It was terrible life we had back then, she said, and you, you bugger, you broke my heart.

  I did, I said.

  God forgive you, she said.

  3 Sun. 4th after Epiphany.

  I stayed in the house after dinner by the fire reading Huckleberry Finn. The Town Hall fire alarm rang. Bud McNamara, the fireman, came racing on a woman’s bike down Main Street. Dick Mulcahy and Joe Duffy, with the brakes on their bikes screeching, came down the Barracks Hill. Tommy Reilly of the Regal left his dinner behind him. The big engine roared up Farnham Street from the fire station at the back of the library, bell going like the clappers, and waited by the Town Hall. Next the small engine came. The firemen took off their helmets and stood around in their great high waders that opened up round their thighs like champagne glasses. And they searched the sky for smoke.