Bend for Home, The Read online

  You know what I could do?

  What.

  I could go ahead of us and get a job. Then you could come and join me. How about that?

  OK, she said. If that’s what you want.

  I love Sheila. Let them do what they like whoever they are.

  12 Mon.

  Up at break of dawn and on the road with Harry Ross to Athlone, where we dropped off over 50 bales. Ate a dinner of leg-a-lamb looking down on the river Shannon.

  16 Fri. St Joachim, Father of Our Lady.

  In the Central Café I tell Sheila how much she hurt me when she went off with someone else. Got a load off my chest and feel in Great Humour. Went to the pictures and did not expect her to come, but she does. Love her.

  What’s going on over there? said George O’Rourke, and he shone his torch on us.

  18 Sun. 11th after Pentecost.

  Was in the Central with Uncle Seamus’s kids. Talking to Sheila and lift letter out of her cardigan pocket without her seeing me. Find out from it when I read it at home that she went with a fellow from Ardee when I was in Rannafast. Ar – fucking – dee, no less. Oh he wants to meet her again somewhere down the line. I get mad. Very mad. Ar – fucking – dee. I read the letter over and over till it sickened me.

  Then the bell rang and Sheila’s at the door.

  Are you coming to the hop in the Sports Centre? she says.

  So I gave her the letter. She touched her cardigan pocket, glanced at the sheet of paper and looked at me.

  Dermot, she said.

  I said nothing. We start off up Main Street. She cries her head off.

  Dermot, she said again, say something. Give off to me but don’t stay quiet.

  We keep going.

  But you’re no better than me, she says, can’t you see that? You’re no better than me.

  At the door of the Centre we parted. She stands underneath the stage, her eyes running. The lads have poitín in the jacks. Mal Elliot is half shot and Dermot is half cut. The drink goes to my head and so I only dance Sheila a couple of times. She holds me closer than ever before.

  Are you still mad?

  No.

  We dance to Buddy Holly.

  I’m going on, I said, in the next few days.

  You’re running away?

  Yes.

  For ever?

  Yes.

  Oh.

  You can come after me if you want to.

  Do you mean it? she asks.

  I do, I say.

  On the way home I rang Ollie and he told me to come on ahead to his brother’s pub in Parnell Street and we’d take it from there.

  20 Tues. St Bernard.

  I have a job in Dublin starting tomorrow, I told Mammy.

  Have you?

  In Ollie’s pub, I said.

  If you want to go I can’t stop you.

  It’ll only be for a few days.

  Yes, she said. I suppose you want some money.

  No, I said, I’ve saved what Harry gave me.

  There’s a stain on those trousers of yours. Give them to me.

  So I gave her my trousers and she soaked the stain.

  They’ll be ready for you in the morning, she said. We went from the bath to the line and hung out the washing.

  That night she tapped on my bedroom door.

  So you’re for the big city?

  Yes.

  Well, I’ve set the clock.

  Thank you.

  Come back to us in one piece, she said. And don’t make a spectacle of yourself.

  I won’t, I said.

  She put the clock on the floor, one of those round clocks whose hands shine in the dark.

  22 Thur. The Immaculate Heart of Mary.

  Was on the road at 7. In the Parnell bar at 11.30. Ollie was working as a waiter in a white jacket, bow tie and white socks.

  Will I start now? I asked Ollie.

  Go off and enjoy yourself, said his brother.

  So I headed off up O’Connell Street and went to see 55 Days at Peking, then back to Ollie who got the afternoon off. We went for a few pints of Dublin Guinness after the happy hour in a pub down Capel Street, then he went back to work and I go to see Elvis in It Happened at the World Fair. I forgot I was in Dublin till I walked down the warm carpeted corridor and saw the usherettes with their spry caps and dark nylons, and heard the newspapers boys yelling Herald! Herald! on the crowded street. Twilight fell from some unreal place. Pigeons flew through the dark air.

  There was a dwarf photographer asking to take your picture outside the Metropole, the flash from his box camera lit up a girl with her hand to her cheek, he peeled her off a ticket and swinging round asked to take mine. I said I hadn’t a hate. Well what are you doing here? he said, and he went straight by me. Walked round by Moore Street to see the market women putting away their vegetables and fruit for the night. They were in great humour. An ambulance raced round Parnell Square. I thought I could go on for ever. The pub was full and Danny Doyle was singing ballads. I helped clean up. We sat by the bar till 1 with the four waitresses, who smoked and studied the ceiling.

  So you’re the fellow goes to college with Ollie, said Mick, his brother.

  I am, I said.

  And I hear you’re looking for work.

  If there’s anything going.

  Are you expensive to hire? he asked and started laughing. The waitresses went home and all the waiters and barmen slept in the one room in three beds talking of Cavan.

  23 Fri.

  When do I start? I asked Mick.

  We’ll see, he said. Don’t be in such a hurry. Does your mother know where you are?

  Yes, she does.

  Are you sure?

  Yes.

  Take a daunder, then we’ll see.

  So I went off round the city in the morning – Capel Street, Parnell Street, Moore Street, down Abbey Street, then along the Liffey and back.

  Do you want me now? I asked Mick.

  Not yet, he said.

  So I made a friend of Johnny, a barman with a white face who’d slept in the bed beside me the night before, and I asked him for his jumper. We made dinner in the small kitchen – pork chops and beans, then I went down to the bar in Johnny’s jumper.

  Well? I said to Mick.

  Don’t worry, he said.

  So I headed off again and at last after taking many wrong turnings I found Gerry Moore, another Cavanman, who was working in a bar down at the Four Courts. He put up a round. I told him I had a job starting but I didn’t know when, then I had a Wimpy hamburger. It tasted great.

  What’s the story? I asked Mick.

  Ah, he said, take the night off – here’s an advance.

  He gave me 10 shillings. This time I went further than I had before. I got dressed in my suit and found myself in Stephen’s Green. Rang Sheila from a phone box outside the Shelbourne Hotel.

  Is that you? she asked.

  It is, I said.

  And where are you now?

  Dublin, I said. Are you coming?

  There was a long silence. I don’t know, she eventually replied.

  Why don’t you know?

  Because.

  So what do I do?

  Come back, she said. Just come back.

  I went round the Green twice but couldn’t find the way home till a man pointed me down Grafton Street. At last I found myself outside the National Ballroom in Parnell Square. I told the man at the door I was nineteen.

  Go on, he said.

  Honestly, I said.

  Go on, he said, opening the door.

  No one would dance with me. The Dixie Showband, dressed as women, were playing a bunch of melodies. I met a young thing in the mineral bar. She was a nurse in Stevens and took me back to her flat in Phibsborough. There was a lot of other women there, with eyebrows pencilled painfully on, eating tuna fish and discussing menfolk in the kitchen.

  So you scored, said one to Mairlish. They looked at me. You’ve been baby-snatching.

  We sat
outside on the stairs talking. She asked me what did I do and I told her I was going on to be an architect.

  Where? she asked me.

  I couldn’t think.

  I haven’t started yet, I said.

  Do you always tell lies?

  Yes, I said, it was what my father taught me – always tell lies.

  I got lost on the way home and ended up in a fruit and vegetable market. It was the middle of the night and all the lights were on. Lorries of apples and spuds were being unloaded. A pub was open. I asked my way home. I rang the bell of Parnell House and after a long time Mick answered it.

  I thought you were the cops, he said.

  27 Sat. St Bartholomew, Apostle.

  Are you right?

  Right, Mick, I said.

  It was 8 in the morning. Down we went to clean up after the night before. I hoovered out the lounge, washed glasses and emptied ashtrays. Then, just before the doors opened at 10.30, Johnny tried me out in his waiter’s jacket and it fitted. It was his day off. He handed me a tray.

  Do you know how to use one of those?

  A’ course I do.

  Let’s have you then.

  He put three pint glasses and an empty Babycham bottle on the tray and I lifted it up.

  No, he said, don’t hold it by the edges, balance it on your fingertips. Like this, he said.

  The first man through the door was a policeman. After him, a man with a wild head of hair shuffled by in a long tweed coat. He untied his shoe and knocked it off a table. The two men sat at opposite ends of the long bar. I stood by the door, the tray in my hand, the hair flattened back with Brylcreem and a shake in the knee.

  The silence went on. I took the three glasses and bottle from the bar onto the tray, and moved quietly down the long lounge, one foot at a time, turned, and trying to keep the tray steady served an empty table at the rear, waited a second then lifted the glasses and bottle and returned with a firm step up the lounge, and left the order back to the counter and stood by the door.

  I have the dry gawks, said the policeman to no one in particular.

  I served the empty table again, returned, took up my former position, and the red-haired man glanced over at me, then looked away. I aligned the same order on the tray and, taking great care, set off down the lounge and served the four imaginary people at the empty table. I moved round each person that wasn’t there as if they were, reached in and served the pints with a smile, and for good measure, a bottle of Babycham for the lady.

  I took their new order, lifted the glasses, and gaining confidence, swung round with a neat flourish to find both drinkers looking at me aghast. I smiled weakly. The glasses slid. Oops, I said, I took off and their eyes followed me as I came back up the lounge. I deposited the glasses and stood by the door. The policeman stared steadfastly at me waiting to see what I’d do next. The red-haired man looked from me to the empty table and back again.

  I stood my ground, looking off into the middle distance.

  He’s just started, said Mick, without raising his head from the paper.

  25 Sun. 12th after Pentecost.

  I went to bed only to find that Smith was in it. What are you saying? he shouted out of his sleep. What are you saying! I said, You’re in my bed. And he said Leave it at the door, so I pushed him over and got in. Next thing I woke in the early morning to find him jigging against me.

  Oh Marian, he mumbled.

  Stop it, you fucker you, I shouted.

  He woke and looked at me softly, then shot up in dismay.

  What the fuck is going on? he asked.

  You were trying to ride me, I said.

  Oh Jasus, he said and he leapt out of the bed.

  All the barmen got up to go to Mass so I did too. We shaved in front of the one broken mirror, dashed our armpits with cauld water, shook talcum down our vests. Shoes were polished in the kitchen. Suits came down off the hangers and we ate white bread and jam. We filed through the dark lounge. Johnny opened the pub door and the five of us marched up O’Connell Street through the pigeons and into the future.

  Later I rang Cavan.

  Sheila?

  Yes?

  Dermot.

  What are you doing?

  I’m a waiter.

  I mean what are you going to do?

  I don’t know.

  I miss you.

  Then this other conversation between two people broke in and I put the phone down. Later that night after we’d finished we headed off to hear Dickie Rock Showband at Palm Beach.

  Stop pawing me, shouts the blonde American in the back of the car. Stop it!

  Ah come on, says Smith.

  Stop! she screamed.

  We swung through the dark wet streets.

  The car brakes to a stop outside Palm Beach with the sound of a ripped skirt. Something dark has happened. Across the carpark Dickie Rock is singing a slow melody. We walk past the men in tuxedos. The American got onto the floor to dance, then excused herself to go to the toilet and she wasn’t seen again.

  26 Mon.

  My good shirt nearly went off to the laundry and I only got it back just in time. I rang Sheila, packed my stuff and Mick gave me £1.1os. od. I swopped one of my jumpers for Johnny’s and said goodbye.

  Ollie walked me towards Phibsborough. We shook hands at the church, and I headed on, glad to be going home in bright sunshine. I started to hitch on the North Circular. A man seated on a park seat was watching me.

  Where are you headed? he asked.

  Cavan.

  Can you not take the bus?

  No, I can’t afford it.

  Well here’s a fiver, he said.

  Even if I had the fiver, I said, I wouldn’t take the bus.

  That doesn’t matter, he said, take the fiver anyway.

  Can I have your address, I asked, and I’ll send it on?

  No need for that, he said, just give it to someone else down the line.

  I got a direct lift to Cavan with Phil Cullivan the architect, and headed straight down to the Central in my new jumper and met Sheila. Then I went up the town and bought Una nail varnish, got my mother a brooch, Maisie lipstick and for Sheila a lovely neck-chain belonging to Miriam that she left behind when she went to America. Along with that I bought her a ring.

  So what happened you while you were away? asked my mother.

  I told her all as best I could.

  Remember, said Maisie, that fiver.

  I will, I said.

  Chapter 28

  28 Wed. St Augustine.

  Only six days to go. Went for a walk up Shantemon Mountain with Sheila to see Finn MacCumhaill’s Five Finger stones.

  Are you glad you didn’t go away? she asked.

  I am, I said. Are you glad I came back?

  Oh I don’t know, she smiled.

  That’s a good one, I said.

  Would you quit! she snorted.

  We could see for miles but couldn’t find where the O’Reilly’s minted their coins, or where their castle stood, only saw acres of rocky fields, a couple of old ruins with ash trees growing through where the roofs once were, then turf smoke shooting west from one galvanized cabin, nothing else but the spire of the cathedral in the distance, some wild mushrooms and the giddy feeling heights give you. Then we spotted an elderly man muffled up against the wind walking a dry sheugh for shelter with his dog. He had a pile of hay tied to his back to feed a lock of calves in a far whinny field. We wished him good day.

  How are you? I asked.

  I’m good enough, he said. I didn’t eat much but at least I did the washing up.

  Sheila started laughing.

  Good luck, I said.

  Take your time, he said. Are yous lost?

  No.

  He studied us with a merry eye. Are yous courting?

  Yes, I said.

  Fair deuce. I mind the time I do. He looked back the way he’d come. The evenings are quare and drawn in, he said.

  They are.

  Well, I�
�ll leave you to it.

  Snot flew from his nose as he waved. She takes my hand. Her hair is fresh.

  Will you write to me when we go back to college?

  I will. Every day.

  You promise.

  I do.

  We courted there in the grass among the stones and talked of spending our lives together.

  29 Thur.

  Five days to go. Cycled out to the Deredis river and threw a few casts in at the rapids. Nothing doing. Sheila cooked up sausages on a small fire. The night came down. These things happen. Time is running out. Rode home in moonshine.

  30 Fri.

  Four days to go. Tonight the mother ironing in the kitchen, shirts and sheets and pillowslips and everything I’ll need in college, and she looking into the dining room to see if I was still there and I was, sitting up by the fire by Maisie, cause Sheila was housebound.

  31 Sat.

  Three days to go. We found ourselves looking down on the herons who feed off the Kinnypottle river from offal and blood swept away from McCarren’s bacon factory. The birds stand nodding mid-water, or perch on long branches that reach out over the river, very white and long-legged and still in the gloom. Not a sound. As if it were a graveyard. A manky place. She took my hand. Then a hammer hitting glavanize in the townland of Swellan. A bus backing into the station. A bicycle. Nothing else for a while, till a doll’s pram sailed by, and a rat swam fast through a stretch of petrol-coloured water further on down towards the town.

  We walked back to Cavan. The street lights came on.

  It’s eerie, she said. It’s like as if someone had died.

  We didn’t want to say goodbye, so she went in for a while to the bank while I stood in the doorway of the Hub Bar, Teddy Maguire shouted good night and Rinty Monaghan went by on a messenger bike, she told her parents she was going to a farewell dance with the girls and then appeared in a pleated dress, white blouse, blue raincoat and another perfume, we went on walking, up Cooke’s Archway, past the gypsies on the Gallows Hill who were drinking again by the fire, a piebald pony looked over the railings into the blue reservoir, a bird rose in the meadow, rain spattered on the lake, We’re not going there again, she said, are we, we walked though the orchard of dripping apple trees and stepped in cowshit, then shed some of our wet clothes in Lavell’s haunted house by the light of a match and scared ourselves, the sleep under her eyes darkened, Take it easy now, she said, you know we have the rest of our lives, I lit another match and we lay down, stayed like that, everything quiet but for mice or birds in the rafters, scurrying, the rain on the window splat! splat! splat!, her head on Johnny’s jumper on the floor of the kitchen and her face to mine, I undid her blouse till her breast was bare, she looked down a moment and went on, her flattened palm swept over my stomach, the wind jumped through the rafters, Is that your leg? she said, Whose leg do you think it is? I said, It’s hard to know whether it’s yours or mine, she said, they feel the same, Da de da de dee, da dada da da dee, she hummed, Dee dada dada dum, as she undid my belt, sneaked a hand in and rummaged around and said, What’s the words of that song, What song, I said, Never mind, she said, it’ll come to me.