Bend for Home, The Read online

  SEPTEMBER

  1 Sun. 13th after Pentecost.

  Two days to go. One last time to the matinee in the Town Hall. The balcony was packed. Great court. And great cant afterwards.

  2 Mon.

  I tiptoed past the mother’s room around 2, waited on the three steps below the altar and listened, then quietly went down the stairs, and onto Main Street. It was quiet as the grave. Stood in Fox’s shoe shop. The door of the bank clicked open, and Sheila stepped out, and pulled it quietly behind her. Each sound echoed down the street. She stood a moment uncertain of what to do, then ran to the Ulster Arms. I barked. Then barked again and hopped across the road.

  You put the heart crossways in me, she said.

  We linked arms and headed towards Provider’s, then a car came on, it slowed up, and began to cruise along behind us, Don’t look back, I said, Don’t look back, and we had to go by the entrance to Provider’s, and then I thought if I don’t look back it will mean we have done something wrong so we stopped at the door of the Breifne, and the squad car pulled in, and I thought this is it.

  What are you doing there? asked the guard.

  I’m going home, I said.

  You live here?

  Yes, I said.

  I think, he said, I’ll just have to ring that bell and check with the owners.

  There’s no need, I said, I have the key.

  You have?

  Yes, I said.

  Well go on, he said, watching me.

  So now I had to turn the key, open the door and go in with Sheila. For a minute I thought he was going to follow us so I said Good Night and closed the door, turned on the light a moment, then turned it off. We stood in the dark, our backs against the wall, barely breathing. Through the glass we could see him standing outside. I listened for any sound from upstairs, my mother’s footsteps on the landing, Maisie coming out of the sitting room. It seemed he was on the point of ringing the bell, he peered through the blurred glass, then turned and eventually the squad car pulled away. We slipped onto Main Street, up Provider’s and round the gardens to Noel’s loft.

  That was gas, said Sheila.

  It was close, I said.

  Everything was ready in the Castle. A small gas ring, chops, beans, Madeira cakes. We cooked up a feed by the light of a candle.

  Talk to me, said Sheila, can’t you.

  I said, I don’t know what to say.

  It’s strange, she whispered, being here like this. It’s like playing housey-housey.

  I had the bed decked out with clean sheets and an eiderdown that had been got ready for college. We lay down in our clothes without touching. I set the clock with the hands that shone in the dark and tried the radio but everything was finished.

  That chat is no good, I said.

  You’re very nervous, she said. As a matter of fact you’re shaking.

  I know that.

  What has you so nervous?

  To tell you the truth I’m afraid.

  Afraid of what?

  Of telling you the truth.

  About what?

  About myself.

  She sat up.

  Fire away, she said.

  You see, I don’t think we can go on if I don’t tell you the truth about me.

  Well do, then.

  And so like a fool I told her about all the women I’d been with, knowing in my heart I shouldn’t have been doing it – starting with Mary.

  Oh Mary, she said, well I know about her.

  Then there was Josie.

  Yes, she said sternly, but I was led to believe it wasn’t serious.

  Well, maybe it wasn’t.

  Go on, please, she said flatly.

  Then there was Ellen from Slowey’s.

  And was that serious?

  Not really.

  And what about Rannafast.

  Well, there was two girls there.

  Two?

  Yes.

  You lied to me, she snapped.

  But it was only kissing.

  Spare me the details if you don’t mind.

  I just wanted to get everything off my chest.

  Well, don’t let me stop you.

  And last of all, I said rushing towards the end, there was Rose.

  Rose?

  Yes.

  You went with Rose?

  Yes.

  Rose Reilly?

  Yes.

  You bollacks, she said. You ojus fucker.

  I reached out a hand to her neck and she beat it away.

  But you said that you were just as bad as me.

  She looked at me.

  No one could be as bad as you. No one!

  You are, I said.

  No, she said. And to think you asked me to run away with you.

  She sat on the edge of the mattress.

  Sheila, I said softly.

  What had you to go and tell me all that for?

  I thought I had to. Because we’re going away tomorrow.

  Well there are some things a body is better off not knowing.

  A long silence.

  It’s our last night together, I said.

  You might swear, she said.

  More silence. She sat on the edge of the mattress with her back to me, and I stretched behind. The candle went out. The clock went round. The darkness was long.

  I want to go now, she said.

  I lit a match and we climbed down the rickety ladder, went back round by the misty gardens, onto Main Street and she ran to her door. I stood looking after her. She turned and came back. We walked down Bridge Street, then on up College Street and back round by Mill Street. In the dark the Kinnypottle flew by. Then we climbed the ghostly Half Acre, only a dog barking behind a closed door, a pram of coal, a bicycle tyre round an electricity pole; onto Tullymongan, timber for burning piled against a gable, a Sacred Heart lamp, washing hung up on a spreading bush; and from there to the Gallows Hill. We sat against the rails of the reservoir on the Fair Green and looked down on the town. The damp smell of the old camp fire reached us. The piebald pony came out of the night and stared at us a long time.

  Well, said she, since you’ve started I suppose I should tell the truth as well.

  Only if you want to, said I nervously.

  Well there was Jim, but you know that.

  I know that, I agreed.

  Then Kevin.

  Yes.

  Then that lad from Ardee.

  Oh, yon fellow.

  Then there was a fellow in Dublin.

  She went quiet.

  Is that it? I asked.

  I’m trying to think.

  Can you not remember?

  No.

  Jesus, Sheila!

  No, I think that’s it, she said at last.

  Thank’s be to God for that. I couldn’t take any more.

  Hold on, she said.

  What! I asked, startled.

  Wait till I see now.

  Ah, fuck me.

  Go on, she says, I was only joking.

  That’s a good one, I said.

  She laughed and burrowed her head into my shoulder. The dawn started. An ass trotted by. Hand-in-hand we went down by Cooke’s, stopping to kiss every few yards. Jackdaws sailed onto the middle of the road. We kissed outside P. A. Smith’s the drapers, outside McCusker’s the barbers, in the Regal Archway, then she let herself into the bank with a finger to her lips. There wasn’t a soul stirring. I stood by the door of the Breifne and then I heard these steps coming from a long way away, coming up Bridge Street, then this figure came round by where the Swan Hotel used be, he crossed over to our side of the street never losing a beat, it was Mr Allen the baker on his way to McDonald’s bakery to put the first batch of bread into the ovens. The top of the morning, he said.

  3 Tues. St Pius X.

  You’re under starter’s orders, said the mother.

  It was 10 o’clock. I was dog tired. We were packing all morning. Then I had to nip across and get my sheets from Noel’s shed, and slip them
into the bag. I met Sheila at the corner of Bridge Street. One last kiss and she was gone. She stepped into her father’s car and went off to Loreto. I went in and got my bags and put them into Dermot’s car.

  Please, said mother, try not to let us down.

  I won’t, I said.

  Myself and Dermot had 6 bottles of beer and then he dropped me out to St Pat’s. I swallowed my mints and a prefect led me to No. 10 dormitory. All the bad boys are in No. 10, he said. There was an open case on every bed. There was this circle with no centre. We sat on the beds talking. Put our razors on the sinks, hung our towels on the rails and stashed away our clothes in the lockers. Some of the lads wore scapulars. Square looked in. The light went off. A voice here, a voice there. Had a hard night of it. Sweating and turning. Sad to leave Sheila.

  5 Thur.

  Woke up with shoes all round me that had been thrown during the night because I snore. Up every morning at ¼ to 7. In bed at 10.

  8 Sun. 14th after Pentecost. (The Birthday of B.V.M.)

  Have the radio in the room for Top Twenty. Wait till everyone is asleep before I go asleep myself.

  10 Tues.

  Got 4 off Square.

  13 Fri.

  Have not been beaten in table tennis since came into college.

  15 Sun.

  Got into town for match and met Sheila for 5 minutes by the gate of Breifne Park.

  16 Mon.

  Playing football for Class 5. The smell of feet. Snot drying on the radiators. Desperate pong in the clattey jacks. The ’mell of it. The ’mell of it. No jacks paper. Cruiscin Mor. Long runs. Roars from the showers. My face breaks out into giant pimples that burst and run down my cheek like a nose bleed. Dream of being circumcised all over again. The morning bell. The lights suddenly coming on.

  Square glancing into the room.

  Stepping along the tiles. The seniors smoking fags in the dark ambulatory at 7 before morning Mass. The football pitches in the early light. The skivvies looking out from the kitchen. A walk around the Half before class begins.

  17 Tues. Stigmata of St Francis.

  Studying very well.

  This big fucker McDonald, who is in first year though he’s over 17 and plays on the senior football team, stopped me in the study and said, You’re next Healy. He’s the chief bully in the school.

  18 Wed. Ember Day. (Fast and Abstinence)

  Last night stood by the window looking out at a storm. Everyone else was asleep in the dorm. There was the odd light over the trees from the town, a rosy light, and a light, that I could see through the glass portal over the door, still on in the corridor. It shone onto the black face of the Indian lad sleeping just beside me. The rest were turned this way and that, dreaming and breathing, a hand thrown across the eyes, knees tucked up, one foot out. A small shrill whisper. Then came this distant thunder that was really wind. Rain lashed against the windows and the trees were waving and waving. Then the wind, slapping like sheets, thumped against the black college. Three stories below the shining cars of the priests rocked over and back. The outside world howled. Branches swept across the lawn. The storm felt holy. The sounds pounded by, the next stronger than the last, gaining on something, something that was nearly out of control, and then would come a pause, the trees steadied, the black clouds raced to a stop. A grey space opened in the sky so that you could see the white lip of the moon. A bed creaked in the dorm. Someone called out. The stern breathing from the asthmatic lad from Gowna increased, he held his breath and turned another way. His scapular hung over the edge of the bed. A few moments later the storm came up the avenue and I looked down from another place. I lost my bearings. The window grew huge. I stood there in my pyjamas for maybe half an hour, then got into bed, but every few minutes I was out again to look, and there was the storm still going on, making faces in the trees, and the wind barking. The rain curved against the window panes. The boys asleep.

  19 Thur.

  Today wrote a letter to Sheila breaking it off for clean soul reasons in terms of marriage, and then made a promise to myself to stop wanking.

  23 Mon.

  Free day. Spent it in the alley with Brady from Mullahoran. We tossed balls for hours till it got so dark we couldn’t see a hate.

  24 Tues. Our Lady of Ransom.

  The boys made me play football for Class 5. Got the first goal of my life. A cheer went up round the Half.

  You jammy fucker, said Big Eye.

  28 Sat.

  In town today. Supposed to get a tooth filled but don’t. Instead tried to move Christine Keeler. No go. Got lift back to college on Ballsy’s bike.

  Did you get your hole recently, Healy? he asked.

  Stop that auld dirty talk, Ballsy, I said.

  There was the college again. I sat in the study hall among the other hundred odd. The dean of study was late down so everyone was talking. Then the back door opened. You could not hear a mouse. After a while I tucked my hand round my ear, and with my arm hiding it, began to read The Vicar of Wakefield that I placed over my science book.

  Hot cockles succeeded next, questions and commands followed that, and last of all, they sate down to hunt the slipper.… It was in this manner that my eldest daughter was hemmed in, and thumped about, all blowzed in spirits, and bawling for fair play, fair play, with a voice that might deafen a ballad singer, when confusion on confusion, who should enter the room but our two great acquaintances from town, Lady Blarney and Miss Carolina Wilelmina Amelia Skeggs!

  Suddenly Hurley’s hand came down onto the open book. I shot into the air with fright.

  Aw, I shouted. Aw God, Father!

  He started laughing, the lads laughed because I got such a shock. He read the title of the book, shook his head, closed the book and strode on. I started maths but couldn’t concentrate. The numbers just went off into infinity, so I tried history. I had to go back and back again over what I’d read and still it was not the same as it had been before. The blur sort of bloomed. I tried to think of something happy, then, I searched for the place, and with the point of a biro I pierced a certain spot in my cheek bone and then my cheek, and as I did so this coldness spread over the side of my face.

  29 Sun. 17th after Pentecost. St Michael, Archangel.

  Andy and Timmy came out to the college with cakes and lemonade for me. I went to meet them outside the locker rooms. Then this crowd of fourth years gathered.

  Fuck off back to the Half Acre, one of them shouted.

  They began to mill round.

  Stand back, said Andy.

  Steady, said Timmy.

  Go back to where you came from, another shouted.

  We’ll see you Dermot, said the lads, mad at me because I could do nothing and they backed off down the avenue while the others hurled abuse. I stood with the gifts they’d brought me and didn’t know what to do. Then one fellow poked his finger in my face and said: Don’t be bringing the tramps of the town round this college, Healy.

  A prefect came and marched me through the crowd and back to the locker room. When I went up to the study there was these remarks passed. Then McDonald decided to strike. He came on up the study to my seat smiling. I could see he was coming for me, all of 6 foot 2, and he was working his hands.

  It’s time, Healy, he said.

  I stood my ground. He put out his arms to grab me and I let him. Then as his full weight came on top of me I fell back and brought my two feet clean up into his stomach and threw him over my head. He sailed through the air and knocked himself out on a desk. He went white and just lay there with a splutter on his lips. I was frightened.

  Then his eyes opened.

  Are you all right? I asked him.

  Yes, he said.

  Do you want to go to the surgery?

  No, he said. He sat there in a daze. Then got up and walked away without bothering with me.

  OCTOBER

  2 Wed. The Holy Guardian Angels.

  Mutt says that the retreat might do Class 5 some good.

  Here w
e have, he said quietly, a group of assorted dunces. Why do I do it? I ask myself. Oh dear, oh dear. What am I to do? he whinged to himself.

  3 Thur. St Theresa of the Child Jesus.

  Got six off Hurley for racket in dorm last night. Then as I left his room I passed by Soc’s. I’d often heard that he listened to radio stations from abroad. So I put my ear to his door and heard these voices speaking in a foreign language.

  Then his door opened and the radio exploded into the corridor.