Bend for Home, The Read online

  Who put off the alarm? Joe Duffy asked, but no one knew.

  I wouldn’t mind, said Frank O’Keefe, but up of a Sunday. Of a fucking Sunday.

  4 Mon.

  Well on t’ night.

  5 Tues.

  We stole Hickey’s car and drove over the Cock Hill. Then I went down to the Ulster Arms with Dermot and a stray dog. I had 12 beers and he had 11. I was never in such good form and he got sick. Later I smoked in front of Maisie.

  What are you doing? she asked.

  I’m having a smoke, I said.

  You’ll destroy yourself yet.

  Will you have one? I asked.

  No thank you, she replied, glaring at me. You have a nerve.

  So we sat there smoking in front of the mirror and then I went to bed and listened to the Luxembourg and woke in the dark with the radio on a foreign station and the voices going fast like they were at an auction.

  6 Wed.

  Woke feeling sorry and did not go to college. Josie arrived with a letter from Sheila.

  9 Sat.

  I brought Josie into my house to show her our photo album and then I worked in Noel’s for the night. Got my wages and 20 fags, had a bath and powdered Simon, then put on my suit and new shoes and hitched to a jiving competition in Butlersbridge marquee.

  Are you young Healy? the driver asked me.

  I am.

  We all have our problems, he said.

  The ground round the marquee was swimming in muck and the van sank. The wheels screeched.

  Fuck her, he said, I’ll leave her there.

  We drank in the field and then went into the tent. The local men were plastered.

  You fucking townee, someone shouted at me. Let me at him.

  Hold back there now, the driver said, he’s only a lad.

  He’s from the Half Acre.

  And tell me this, the driver said very slowly, what’s wrong with the Half Acre?

  Nothing, your man said.

  Would she bang? someone shouted.

  The competition started. Lorraine McCarren was my partner. We got through to the last round and came second. Andy Murray and Eitna Wall won. I went out the back to piss on sawdust. The driver was asleep in the back of his van so I had to walk home. I went to bed, turned off the light and put the radio to my ear. Aunt Maisie looked in and said I was abusing privilege.

  Things will be different when your mother comes home, she said.

  I showed her the cup I’d won.

  Don’t be trying to get around me, she said.

  10 Sun. Septuagesima.

  Went to 11 Mass and fell asleep. Stayed home after dinner then t’night walked out the lines to Loreto with Andy. The girls were down at the piano rooms. Sheila opened the window and Andy whistled and she put a finger to her lips. Then the three windows opened and the Cavan town girls began playing various sonatas while we listened from the trees. It was lovely. A nun came into the Sheila’s room. We could see them talking. She was giving off. Then one by one all the windows came down.

  On the way home Andy cut the arse off a bird with a stone.

  11 Mon. Apparition of Our Lady of Lourdes.

  Slept in. Did not go to college. Then was sorry I didn’t go. Went back to sleep. The girls in the bakery were singing. I dreamt I saw my father’s face at the window. He was looking in at me while I slept. So in the dream I cried but woke dry-eyed with a thumping heart. Got up at 1 o’clock and worked in Noel’s then went and played Pongo.

  When I got home the girls were playing the accordion in the bakehouse. I was afraid to go asleep again for fear of what I might see.

  12 Tues.

  Did not go to college. Lay there looking at the ceiling while Una called me from the yard. Then Maisie came into my room.

  Get up!

  I’m sick, I said.

  Go to school! she snarled.

  No.

  She shook the bottom of the bed, slapped her hands and her eyes blazed.

  You are not my responsibility, she said. You are not mine! Do you hear?

  She slammed the door. She cursed me as she crossed the landing. I lay in bed till 2, waking with a desperate hunger between dreams to smell food cooking below in the kitchen. At last I could take no more. I ate my dinner in the shed with the cats. Betty Quinn took me up a dessert.

  You’ll be killed by your aunt, she said.

  13 Wed.

  You stand aside, said the Dean at roll call this morning, and wait there till I’m finished. The dayboys called out their names and headed to class till I was all that remained in the refectory.

  Where were you the last few days? he asked.

  I was in bed with the runs, I said.

  Have you a letter from your mother?

  My mother is in England, I said.

  So who is in charge of you at home?

  My Aunt Maisie.

  Have a letter from her here tomorrow.

  Yes, Father.

  Go, he said.

  I could never read your writing, said my mother.

  It’s a good job, I told her.

  But I know, she said politely, what’s in there.

  14 Thur.

  I followed the Dean to his study. He put his cane on the table. He sat and read the letter I’d handed him. He placed it carefully on his desk, smoothed out the edges and looked at me.

  Is this your aunt’s writing? asked the Dean.

  Yes, I lied.

  You’re telling me the truth?

  Yes, Father.

  He stood, lifted his cane and walked over to the window.

  Are you sure?

  Yes, Father.

  Right.

  He stood there a while in silence looking down on the Half and the Whole, on the white football fields and the basketball court and the handball alleys. My heart raced. His white hair blazed.

  Spell diarrhoea, he said.

  Diarrhoea? I asked weakly.

  Yes. Diarrhoea.

  D … i …, I answered. D … i … a … r … r … i … a.

  Put out your hand, he said turning.

  Why, Father?

  Put out your hand, he repeated.

  But I’ve done nothing wrong, I said and held out my hand. His face went red and he brought the cane down, six times on the palm. With the top of the cane he tipped the wrist of my other arm that I had down by my side, flicked the cane under, the elbow, I rose the palm, he came down six more times.

  I will be reporting you to the President, he said. Go.

  I stood a while in the corridor with my hands in my armpits. Then went to the jacks and had a smoke. I felt sick. I thought of heading off back into Cavan town and lying up somewhere till all this had blown over, maybe in the haybarn, or Lavell’s haunted house, anywhere. I sat out that class on a toilet seat and listened with dread to classroom doors banging and the steps of priests going to and fro, the muffled sound of singing, the skivvies from the kitchen running across the tiles. Then these steps came on steadily down the corridor as far as the toilet, halted a moment, hesitated, entered. Each toilet door was pushed open. The steps came on towards me. He pushed. I saw the wide black shoes and black trousers underneath the door.

  Who is in there? asked Father Benny.

  Dermot Healy, I said.

  Come out!

  I flushed the toilet and pretended to pull my trousers up. I opened the door and he indicated that I walk in front of him. I could feel him behind me, tramping, tramping.

  Why are you late for class? asked Father Benny.

  I was with the Dean, I said.

  I hope he gave you what you deserve, he said.

  As I went ahead of him down the corridor I could hear the lads talking in the classroom. When they heard us coming they went quiet. Everyone watched me as I took my seat.

  Who told you to sit, said Benny.

  I stood.

  And don’t you look at me like that.

  I’m not, Father.

  Sit down, he shouted.

  I d
idn’t sit but backed away.

  Sit down, I said, he shouted.

  I sat down again by Jimmy McInerney.

  You! Father Benny shouted. Come here!

  I got up.

  Not you! he said, and slapped me.

  Then he began to write on the blackboard.

  What did the Dean do you for? whispered Jimmy.

  I couldn’t spell shite, I said.

  First he tried to smother the laugh, and his eyes watered, then he gagged in the throat. I cycled in from College and went to Noel’s to work and do my exercise. Then Josie waved from the street. When I came out to her she walked over to Woolworth’s so I followed her in.

  We can’t be seen together, she whispered. There’s trouble.

  What kind of trouble?

  Sheila is going to be expelled.

  Why?

  Because of you, she said. They know it’s you has Loreto haunted.

  I didn’t know what to say.

  You’ll be killed, said Josie, and so will Sheila.

  I walked her to the door. Other girls from Loreto going by on their bikes stared at me. I was in very bad form. I had a bad conscience. Dermot and me had a long talk. Then I called up to Andy. We make preparations to go to England. All the money we have will go into a fund and we’ll hit Dublin in Sean McManus’s car and get the night ferry. That night I packed a suitcase and put it under the bed.

  Upon my song, said my mother, but you were the right blackguard.

  What is she saying? asked Maisie, as she felt her way into the sitting room.

  She says I was a blackguard, I told her.

  Are you only learning that now? said Maisie, flopping down on the sofa. I say, Winnie!

  What’s she saying? asked my mother.

  She always pretended to be innocent, snorted Maisie. But she managed to have you despite everything. Her beloved offspring, she chuckles.

  The two women look at each other a moment.

  What’s on the box? asks Maisie, turning away. My mother goes back to her beads.

  15 Fri.

  Get up, said Una.

  I have a headache, I said.

  I lay in the bed dreaming of a new life in London while the huge mixer in the bakehouse spun dough. The story went round and round. The flour men came up the entry. Miss Reilly shook a pillow slip out of her bedroom window. A car backfired. The jackdaws screamed as they landed on the draper’s roof tiles. Dark feathers flew. I slept and woke and found that nothing had changed. I went back to the beginning and ended up where I was. I tried to convince myself that none of this was true.

  I turned in the bed, this way and that, and tried to empty my head of everything. But it was always there. The girls in the kitchen called me down to breakfast but I didn’t answer. They called me to dinner but I didn’t go. Soon the light in the room started to fade. I felt small. Miss Reilly stood looking towards the Gallows Hill. The lights came on in the dining room below, and the whitewash on Burke’s side wall slowly grew grey, with long bands of yellow thrown onto it from the lit-up kitchen where the trays went back and forth, and the girls called to each other cheerfully.

  Maisie spoke from the landing.

  What’s wrong with you?

  I’m sick, I said.

  I lay on. It turned black. Music came over the house. Delft clashed. I woke in the early evening from a terrible dream I couldn’t remember, and all that I couldn’t remember tormented me, driving great eerie distances between things that didn’t exist. The geyser stopped hissing. The chairs went up backwards on the tables and the dining room was swept. The baking house slammed shut.

  Noel shouted up from the entry in a faraway voice. Are you coming to work, Dermot?

  I sat up in the bed ashamed and didn’t answer. Then a while later Una looked into the dark bedroom and said did I want the light on but I said no, I was all right. Then I felt happy in a light-headed way because I would be left alone. I would be left alone. I knew Maisie had reached her room because suddenly the volume on Radion Eireann was raised. The hunger and the darkness and the fear gave rise to great swathes of self-pity. I dressed in the dark and dropped down into the garden. The streets were empty. I headed for the Ulster Arms and met the lads. Dermot who’d taken the half-day was there. Andy says there is trouble. Bad trouble.

  That’s right, agrees Dermot.

  We’re in the shit, said Andy. Let’s hit London.

  We’re emigrating, he said. Myself and Healy are off across the water.

  Is that so? said Mr McCusker, the barber. Give those lads a jar.

  By the time we reached the Central at 11 we were footless and Andy was sure we would never see home again. Josie was there sitting at a table on her own.

  You can say goodbye to us now, I said, we’re leaving Sunday.

  I’ve been waiting for you, she said. I’ve been up and down the town all day.

  What for, I asked her.

  To give you the news.

  What’s happened?

  Everything is all right, she said. It’s blown over.

  I couldn’t believe it. So we all went off to the amusements and jumped into the bumping cars.

  16 Sat.

  Turned up for role call, answered to my name and hid in the jacks till class started, then I slipped down the back avenue to the bicycle shed and hid there reading Kidnapped till 1 o’clock when the half-day at school was over.

  17 Sun. Sexagesima

  Met Josie in the Central. From a Jack to a King was playing.

  19 Tues.

  Did not go to school but went out after dinner because Maisie threatened me with writing to the mother. There was an enquiry. Fairy sent me to the Dean. The Dean sent me to the President. Father Bob said I was letting my family down.

  I know, he said, that you’ve lost you’re father, but you’ve got to come to terms with it.

  Square gave me five on each hand. Benny said I’d soon be sent through the gates. And then I read out an essay for Packie the Case entitled Going Abroad and into it I put all the things I imagined I’d have seen in London. Then I went home. I went up to my room and did my exercise and listened to Luxembourg. For a while I thought there was someone standing behind me but there was no one, and yet someone was there all the same. I began to get frightened. Then when it was dark I slipped out onto the roof, over Provider’s wall and went out the Dublin Road. No car was stopping. So I walked the 7 mile through the cold pitch darkness to Josie’s house. Her parents were away. We lay on the living-room floor and listened to records. Boy! Had to walk home in the sleet. I was skint. I got in through the window and went to the toilet. When I came out Aunty Maisie and Una appeared from my father’s room where they’d been waiting. They kicked the hell out of me. Una fell.

  20th Wed.

  Andy caught hens, Dermot fell under the table, they shouted upstairs, I went up and they were downstairs.

  Where are we? said my mother, suddenly darting awake.

  We’re in Cootehill, I said.

  And you’re still here?

  I am.

  Good, she said, and she closed her eyes again.

  Chapter 23

  24 Sun. Quinquagesima. (St Mathias, Apostle)

  I played records in the Central Café and finished the last of 10 Players. After 11 Mass Sheila came in for the day. She was looking lovely. Her face was flushed and fresh and happy. She was wearing a long blue jumper over her red pleated pinafore. A gold chain and cross hung down across the small collars of her blouse. The striped tie was knotted firmly. She smiled slyly and came straight across to my table, passing her brother and his friends, and sat down opposite me.

  Thank you for coming to see me all those nights, she said, and she moved the milk and the salt cellar aside and took my hand.

  Old emotions stir within me. She trailed her fingers over mine, and we sat looking at each other, saying nothing. There were dark tints like sleeplessness under her eyes, something warm and foreign that made me glad. I played Be Bop a Lula. She squeez
ed my hand.

  We’re awful fools, she said. We could have been in big trouble.

  I know, I said.

  We’re not to do it again, she said cheerfully and added, I don’t think.

  She took my hand across the table and pressed the palm to her cheek.

  It’ll not be long till Easter, she said.

  Then Josie arrived with her flash camera. We stood by the bus station and she took photos of us, arm in arm, Sheila’s hair quiffed back, one foot askew and myself humped over to come down to her size.

  Smile, can’t you? said Josie.

  27 Wed. Ash Wednesday.

  In the bicycle shed we all dismounted with crosses of ash on our foreheads. We had a competition swinging along the overhead beams hanging by your bare hands. It was tough going. The boarders had bigger crosses than us, made not with a thumb but a paintbrush. They had black toast they said for breakfast. Everyone’s gone holy, even McInerney.

  What are you off for Lent? I asked him.

  Talking to you, he said. You’re always getting me into trouble.

  Slipped out of bed that night and went for a walk down Main Street. Met the hard lads. Go long, you clatty fucker, said Johnny.

  We drank down River Street sitting on the door step of Johnny’s house. His father, a tall tipsy man with an old gash across his cheek, came along from the CYMS carrying a billiard cue.