BRIAN MOORE
The Lonely Passion of Judith Hearne

Copyright

Harper Perennial

An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers 77–85 Fulham Palace Road Hammersmith London W6 8JB

www.harpercollins.co.uk

Previously published in paperback by Grafton Books 1965

(reprinted eleven times) and by Flamingo 1994 (reprinted eleven times)

First published in Great Britain by André Deutsch Ltd 1955

Copyright © Brian Moore 1955

PS Section copyright © Sarah O’Reilly 2007

PS™ is a trademark of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd

The publisher asserts Brian Moore’s moral right to be identified as the author of this work

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

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Source ISBN: 9780007255610

Ebook Edition © JULY 2012 ISBN 9780007405909

Version: 2014–07–11

Dedication

To Jacqueline

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

P.S. Ideas, Interviews & Features …

About the Author

Prodigal Son: A biographical sketch of Brian Moore

About the Book

Writing Judith Hearne

The Invisible Man

Read On

Have You Read?

If You Loved This, You Might Like …

About the Author

By the Same Author

About the Publisher

1

The first thing Miss Judith Hearne unpacked in her new lodgings was the silver-framed photograph of her aunt. The place for her aunt, ever since the sad day of the funeral, was on the mantelpiece of whatever bed-sitting-room Miss Hearne happened to be living in. And as she put her up now, the photograph eyes were stern and questioning, sharing Miss Hearne’s own misgivings about the condition of the bedsprings, the shabbiness of the furniture and the run-down part of Belfast in which the room was situated.

After she had arranged the photograph so that her dear aunt could look at her from the exact centre of the mantelpiece, Miss Hearne unwrapped the white tissue paper which covered the coloured oleograph of the Sacred Heart. His place was at the head of the bed. His fingers raised in benediction. His eyes kindly yet accusing. He was old and the painted halo around His head was beginning to show little cracks. He had looked down on Miss Hearne for a long time, almost half her lifetime.

The trouble about hanging the Sacred Heart, Miss Hearne discovered, was that there was no picture hook in the right place. She had bought some picture hooks but she had no hammer. So she laid the Sacred Heart down on the bed and went to the bay window to see how the room looked from there.

The street outside was a university bywater, once a good residential area, which had lately been reduced to the level of taking in paying guests. Miss Hearne stared at the houses opposite and thought of her aunt’s day when there were only private families in this street, at least one maid to every house, and dinner was at night, not at noon. All gone now, all those people dead and all the houses partitioned off into flats, the bedrooms cut in two, kitchenettes jammed into linen closets, linoleum on the floors and ‘To Let’ cards in the bay windows. Like this house, she thought. This bed-sitting-room must have been the master bedroom. Or even a drawing-room. And look at it now. She turned from the window to the photograph on the mantelpiece. All changed, she told it, all changed since your day. And I’m the one who has to put up with it.

But then she shook her head to chase the silly cobwebs from her mind. She walked across the room, inspecting the surface. The carpet wasn’t bad at all, just a bit worn in the middle part, and a chair could be put there. The bed could be moved out an inch from the wall to hide that stain. And there on the bed was the Sacred Heart, lying face down, waiting to be put up in His proper place. Nothing for it, Miss Hearne said to herself, but to go down and ask the new landlady for the loan of a hammer.

Down she went, down the two flights of stairs to the kitchen, which was used as a sitting-room by Mrs Henry Rice. She knocked on the curtained door and Mrs Henry Rice drew the edge of the curtain aside to peek through the glass before she opened the door. Miss Hearne thought that a little rude, to say the least.

‘Yes, Miss Hearne?’

Beyond the open door Miss Hearne saw a good fire in the grate and a set of china tea things on the table.

‘I wondered if you had a hammer you might lend me. It’s to put up a picture, you know. I’m terribly sorry to be troubling you like this.’

‘No trouble at all,’ Mrs Henry Rice said. ‘But I have a head like a sieve. I never can remember where I put things. I’ll just have to think now. Listen, why don’t you come in and sit down? Maybe you’d like a cup of tea. I just wet some tea this minute.’

Well, that really was a nice gesture to start things off. Very nice indeed. ‘That’s very kind of you,’ Miss Hearne said. ‘But I hate to put you out like this, really I do. I only wanted to put my picture up, you see.’

But as she said this she advanced across the threshold. It was always interesting to see how other people lived and, goodness knows, a person had to have someone to talk to. Of course, some landladies could be friendly for their own ends. Like Mrs Harper when I was on Cromwell Road and she thought I was going to help her in that tobacconist business. Still, Mrs Henry Rice doesn’t look that type. Such a big jolly person, and very nicely spoken.

The room was not in the best of taste, Miss Hearne saw at once. But cosy. Lots of little lace doilies on the tables and lamps with pretty pastel shades. There was a big enamel china dog on the mantelpiece and a set of crossed flags on the wall. Papal flags with silver paper letters underneath that said: EUCHARISTIC CONGRESS DUBLIN. That was in 1932, in the Phoenix Park, Miss Hearne remembered, and my second cousin, once removed, sang in the choir at High Mass. Nan D’Arcy, God rest her soul, a sudden end, pleurisy, the poor thing. John McCormack was the tenor. A thrilling voice. A Papal count.

‘Sit up close to the fire now. It’s perishing cold out,’ Mrs Henry Rice said. A Dublin voice, Miss Hearne thought. But not quite. She has a touch of the North in her accent.

Miss Hearne saw that there were two wing chairs pushed close to the fire. She went towards one of them and it turned around and a man was in it.

He was a horrid-looking fellow. Fat as a pig he was, and his face was the colour of cottage cheese. His collar was unbuttoned and his silk tie was spotted with egg stain. His stomach stuck out like a sagging pillow and his little thin legs fell away under it to end in torn felt slippers. He was all bristly blond jowls, tiny puffy hands and long blond curly hair, like some monstrous baby swelled to man size.

‘This is Bernard, my only boy,’ said Mrs Henry Rice. ‘This is Miss Hearne, Bernie. Remember, I told you about her coming to stay with us?’

He stared at Miss Hearne with bloodshot eyes, rejecting her as all males had before him. Then he smiled, showing dirty yellow teeth.

‘Come and sit by the fire, Miss Hearne,’ he said. ‘Take the other chair. Mama won’t mind.’

Rejected, Miss Hearne sat down, fiddled with her garnet rings, moved her thin legs together and peered for comfort at her long, pointed shoes with the little buttons on them, winking up at her like wise little friendly eyes. Little shoe eyes, always there.

‘Sugar and cream?’ Mrs Henry Rice asked, bending over the tea things.

‘Two lumps, please. And just a soupçon of cream,’ Miss Hearne said, smiling her thanks.

‘Cup of tea, Bernie?’

‘No, thanks, Mama,’ the fat man said. His voice was soft and compelling and it shocked Miss Hearne that this ugly pudding should possess it. It reminded her of the time she had seen Beniamino Gigli, the Italian tenor. A fat, perspiring man with a horrid face, wiping the perspiration away with a white handkerchief. And then, when he opened his mouth, you forgot everything and he became a wonderful angel, thrilling everyone in the theatre, from the front stalls to the gods. When Bernard spoke, you wanted to listen.

‘Just a little cup, dear?’

‘No, Mama.’

‘Miss Hearne.’ Mrs Henry Rice handed a teacup with the little silver teaspoon clattering in the saucer. Miss Hearne steadied the spoon and smiled her thanks.

‘And have you lived long in Belfast, did you say?’ Mrs Henry Rice said, poking the fire into a good blaze.

‘O, since I was a child, yes,’ Miss Hearne said. ‘You see, my aunt lived here, although my parents lived in Ballymena.’

‘I see,’ said Mrs Henry Rice, who did not see. ‘And whereabouts did your aunt live? Was it on this side of the city?’

‘O, yes,’ Miss Hearne said. ‘It was on the Lisburn Road. You see, my parents died when I was very young and my dear aunt, rest her soul, took me to live with her in Belfast.’

‘Well, we all have to move around,’ Mrs Henry Rice said. ‘I was born and raised myself in Donegal, in a little place called Creeslough. And then, when I was only a bit of a girl, I was packed off to Dublin to attend a secretarial college. And lived there with an uncle of mine. And met my late husband there. And then, Mr Rice, that’s my late husband, he was posted from Dublin to Belfast. And here I am. It just goes to show you, we all have to run from pillar to post, and you never know where you’ll end up.’

‘Indeed,’ Miss Hearne said. ‘But it must have been interesting for you, living in Dublin for so many years.’

‘O, Dublin’s a grand city, no doubt about it. I’ve never been what you might call fond of Belfast. Of course, it’s not the same for you. You’d have lots of friends here. Is your poor aunt dead long?’

‘A few years ago,’ Miss Hearne said guardedly.

‘And do you have relatives here?’ Mrs Henry Rice asked, offering a plate of Jacob’s cream puff biscuits.

‘Not close relatives,’ Miss Hearne said, fencing her way over familiar ground. They were all a bit nosey, landladies, it was to be expected, of course. They had to know what class of people they were getting, and a good thing too. You couldn’t blame them.

‘My aunt came from a very old Belfast family,’ she said. ‘They’ve nearly all died out now, but they have a very interesting history, my aunt’s people. For instance, they’re all buried out in Nun’s Bush. That’s one of the oldest cemeteries in the country. Full up now. It’s closed, you know.’

‘Well, that’s interesting,’ Mrs Henry Rice said, uninterested. ‘Have a bikky, Bernie?’

‘No thanks, Mama.’

He yawned, patting the opened circle of his mouth with a puffy hand. Above the yawn his eyes, unblinking, watched Miss Hearne, bringing the hot blood to her face.

‘I do believe I’ll just throw off this cardigan, if you don’t mind.’

‘I’ll hold your cup,’ Mrs Henry Rice offered amiably. ‘This room does get a little hot with a good fire going. But Bernie feels the cold a lot, always has.’

Who does he think he is, no manners, staring like that. Give him a stiff look myself. But no, no, he’s still looking. Upsetting. Turn to something else. That book, beside him, upside down, it’s esrev, verse, yes, English Century Seventeenth. Reading it, yes, he has a bookmark in it.

‘I see you’re interested in poetry, Mr Rice.’

‘O, Bernie’s a poet. And always studying. He’s at the university.’

‘I am not at the university, Mama,’ the fat man said. ‘I haven’t been at Queen’s for five years.’

‘Bernie’s a little delicate, Miss Hearne. He had to stop his studies a while back. Anyway, I think the boys work too hard up there at Queen’s. I always say it’s better to take your time. A young fellow like Bernie has lots of time, no need to rush through life. Take your time and you’ll live longer.’

That fatty must be thirty, if he’s a day, Miss Hearne told herself. Something about him. Not a toper, but something. O, the cross some mothers have to bear.

And the cross brought back the Sacred Heart, lying on the bed in the room upstairs, waiting for a hammer to nail Him up. Still, it was nice to sit here in front of a good warm fire with a cup of tea in your hand. And besides, Mrs Henry Rice and this horrid fatty would make an interesting tale to tell when she saw the O’Neills.

For it was important to have things to tell which interested your friends. And Miss Hearne had always been able to find interesting happenings where other people would find only dullness. It was, she often felt, a gift which was one of the great rewards of a solitary life. And a necessary gift. Because, when you were a single girl, you had to find interesting things to talk about. Other women always had their children and shopping and running a house to chat about. Besides which, their husbands often told them interesting stories. But a single girl was in a different position. People simply didn’t want to hear how she managed things like accommodation and budgets. She had to find other subjects and other subjects were mostly other people. So people she knew, people she had heard of, people she saw in the street, people she had read about, they all had to be collected and gone through like a basket of sewing so that the most interesting bits about them could be picked out and fitted together to make conversation. And that was why even a queer fellow like this Bernard Rice was a blessing in his own way. He was so funny and horrible with his ‘Yes, Mama,’ and ‘No, Mama,’ and his long blond baby hair. He’d make a tale for the O’Neills at Sunday tea.

So Miss Hearne decided to let the Sacred Heart wait. She smiled, instead, at Bernard and asked him what he had been studying at the university.

‘Arts,’ he said.

‘And were you planning to teach? I mean, when your health …’

‘I’m not planning anything,’ Bernard said quietly. ‘I’m writing poetry. And I’m living with my mother.’ He smiled at Mrs Henry Rice as he said it. Mrs Henry Rice nodded her head fondly.

‘Bernard’s not like some boys,’ she said. ‘Always wanting to leave their poor mothers and take up with some woman and get married far too young. No, Bernard likes his home, don’t you, Bernie?’

‘Nobody else knows my ways as well as you, Mama,’ Bernard said softly. He turned to Miss Hearne. ‘She’s really an angel, Mama is, especially when I don’t feel well.’

Miss Hearne couldn’t think of anything to say. Something about him, so insincere. And staring at me like that, what’s the matter with me, is my skirt up? No, of course not. She tugged her skirt snug about her calves and resolutely turned the conversation towards a common denominator.

‘We’re in Saint Finbar’s here, I believe. That’s Father Quigley’s parish, isn’t it?’

‘Yes, he’s the PP. Isn’t he a caution?’

‘O, is that so? I heard he was a wonderful man,’ Miss Hearne said. ‘Goodness knows, religion is a comfort, even in conversation. If we hadn’t the priests to talk about, where would we be half the time?’

‘He’s very outspoken, I mean,’ Mrs Henry Rice corrected herself. ‘I’ll tell you a story I heard only last week. And it’s the gospel truth.’

Mrs Henry Rice paused and looked sideways at Bernard. ‘Last week,’ she said, ‘Father Quigley was offered a new Communion rail for the church from a Mrs Brady that used to keep a bad house. And do you know what he told her?’

‘What Mrs Brady would that be?’ Miss Hearne said faintly, unsure that she had heard it right. A ‘bad house’ did she say? It certainly sounded like it. Well, that sort of place shouldn’t be mentioned, let alone mentioned in connection with the Church. You read about them in books, wicked houses, and who would think there were such places, right here in Belfast. She leaned forward, her black eyes nervous, her face open and eager.

‘Well, as I said, she’s the one that ran a bad house for men over on the Old Lodge Road,’ Mrs Rice said. ‘A terrible sort of woman. So, like all those bad women, she began to get afraid when she knew her time was coming near, and she decided to go to confession and mend her ways. The house was closed up last year and she’s been a daily communicant ever since. So, a couple of weeks ago – I heard it from one of the ladies in the altar society – she went to see Father Quigley and said she wanted to present a new Communion rail to Saint Finbar’s. Wrought iron from Spain, all the finest work.’

Mrs Henry Rice paused to watch Miss Hearne’s reaction.

‘Well, I never!’ Miss Hearne said.

‘And do you know what Father Quigley said to her? He just drew himself up, such a big powerful stern man, you know what he looks like, and he said, ‘Look here, my good woman, let me ask you straight out, where did you get the money?’

‘Good heavens,’ Miss Hearne said, thrilling to every word. ‘And what did she say to that, the creature?’

‘Well, that took her back, no denying. She just fretted and fussed and finally she said she made the money in her former business. Her business, if you please. So Father Quigley just looked down at her, with that stiff look of his, and said to her, he said: “Woman,” he said, “do you think I’ll have the good people of this parish kneeling down on their bended knees to receive the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ with their elbows on the wages of sin and corruption?” That’s the very thing he said.’

‘And right too,’ Miss Hearne commented. ‘That was putting her in her place. I should think so, indeed.’

Bernard pulled the poker out of the coals and lit a cigarette against its reddened end. ‘Poor Mama,’ he said. ‘You always mix a story up. No, no, that wasn’t the way of it at all. You’ve forgotten what Mrs Brady said, right back to him.’

Mrs Henry Rice gave him a reproachful glance. ‘Never mind, Bernie. I did not forget. But I wouldn’t lower myself to repeat the insolence of a one like that Mrs Brady.’

‘But that’s the whole point,’ Bernard said, pushing the poker back among the coals. ‘Wait till I tell you her answer.’ And he leaned forward towards Miss Hearne, his white, fat face split in a smile of anti-clerical malice. His voice changed, mimicking the tones of the bad Mrs Brady.

‘She said to him: “Father, where do you think the money came from that Mary Magdalene used to anoint the feet of Our Blessed Lord? It didn’t come from selling apples,” she said. And that’s the real story about Father F. X. Quigley, if you want to know.’

When he said this, Bernard laughed. His cheeks wobbled like white pudding.

‘What a shocking disrespect for the priest,’ Miss Hearne said. Where did the ointment come from anyway? Sometimes it made you see that you should read your Douay and know it better in order to be able to give the lie to rascals like this fat lump. But for the life of her she couldn’t remember where Mary Magdalene had got the money. What matter, it was an out-and-out sin to quote Scripture to affront the priest. She put her teacup down.

‘The devil can quote Scripture to suit his purpose,’ she said.

‘Just so,’ Mrs Henry Rice agreed. ‘But what else could you expect from the likes of Mrs Brady? No decent woman would talk to her.’

‘Well – when I think of it – that hussy!’ Miss Hearne said. ‘It’s downright blasphemy, that’s what it is, saying a thing like that in connection with Our Blessed Lord. O, my goodness, that reminds me. My picture. It’s of the Sacred Heart and I always hang it up as soon as I get in a new place. I mustn’t be keeping you. The hammer.’

‘The hammer. I forgot all about it,’ Mrs Henry Rice said. ‘Now, let me think. O, I know.’

She stood up, opened the door and yelled into the hall.

‘Mary! May-ree!’

A voice called back. ‘Ye-ess!’

‘Get the hammer out of the top drawer in the dresser in the attic,’ Mrs Henry Rice bawled. She closed the door and turned back to Miss Hearne.

‘Another cup of tea before you go?’

‘O, no, really, it’s been lovely. Just perfect, thank you very much.’

‘She’s a new girl, you know,’ Mrs Henry Rice said, nodding towards the door. ‘I got her from the nuns at the convent. A good strong country girl. But they need a lot of breaking in, if you know what I mean.’

Miss Hearne, completely at home with this particular conversation, having heard it in all its combinations from her dear aunt and from her friends, said that if you got a good one it was all right, but sometimes you had a lot of trouble with them.

‘You have to be after them all the time,’ Mrs Henry Rice said, moving into the familiar groove of such talk. ‘You know, it’s a wonder the nuns don’t do more with them before they send them out to take a place. Badly trained, or not trained at all, is about the height of it.’

‘Even when these girls are trained, they’re not used to the city,’ Miss Hearne said. ‘I know the trouble friends of mine have had with convent-trained girls, taking up with soldiers and other riff-raff. Indeed, I often think the nuns are too strict. The girls behave like children as soon as …’

But she did not finish because at that moment there was a knock on the door and Mary came in. She was a tall, healthy girl with black Irish hair, blue eyes and firm breasts pushing against the white apron of her maid’s uniform. Miss Hearne looked at her and thought she would do very nicely indeed. If you were civil to these girls, they often did little odd jobs that needed doing.

So she smiled at Mary and was introduced by Mrs Henry Rice. The hammer was given into her hands and she fumbled with it, saying thank you, and that she would return it as soon as she had finished hanging her picture. Mrs Henry Rice said there was no hurry and to let them know if she needed anything else, and then Miss Hearne went back up the two flights of stairs to her room.

She found a picture hook and began to nail the Sacred Heart over the head of the bed. And then, thinking back on the people downstairs, it occurred to her that while Bernard Rice was interesting in a horrible sort of way, he was also creepy-crawly and the sort of person a woman would have to look out for. He looked nosey and she felt sure he was the sort of slyboots who would love prying into other people’s affairs. And saying the worst thing he could about what he found. Instinctively, she looked at her trunks and saw that they were locked. Just keep them that way, she told herself. I wouldn’t put it past him to creep in here some day when I’m out. Still, his mother is certainly friendly, if a little soft where her darling boy is concerned. And the fire and the tea were nice and warming.

She stood back and surveyed the Sacred Heart. Prayers, she must say later. Meanwhile, she drew the curtains and lit the gas stove. With the electric light on and the gas stove spluttering, warming the white bones of its mantles into a rosy red, the new bed-sitting-room became much more cheerful. Miss Hearne felt quite satisfied after her cup of tea and biscuit, so, after unpacking some more of her things, she laid her flannel nightgown on the bed and turned the covers down. It had all gone very well really, and the cab driver had looked quite happy with the shilling she gave him for carrying the trunks upstairs. It should have been more, but he hadn’t said anything nasty. And that was the main thing. She was moved in, she had chatted with the landlady and as a bonus, she had a couple of interesting stories to tell. The one about Father Quigley was not for mixed company, but it was certainly interesting. She decided to discard Bernard’s ending. It just wasn’t suitable and spoiled the whole point. And then there was Mrs Henry Rice and Bernard himself. They’d be something to talk about. Maybe some of the young O’Neills knew Bernard if he had been at Queen’s.

Miss Hearne unpacked the little travelling clock which had come all the way from Paris as a gift to her dear aunt. It was only seven, too early to go to bed. But she was tired and tomorrow was Friday, with nothing to do but unpack. Besides, if she went to sleep soon, she wouldn’t need any supper.

She put the clock on the bed-table and switched on the little bed lamp. Then she undressed and knelt to say her prayers. Afterwards, she lay between the covers in the strange bed, watching the shadows of the new room. When the reddened mantles of the stove had cooled to whiteness and the chill of the night made goose-pimples on her forearms outside the covers, she looked over at her dear aunt and then turned her head to look up at the Sacred Heart. She said good night to them both, then switched off the bed light and lay, snuggled in, with only her nose and eyes out of the covers, remembering that both of them were there in the darkness. They make all the difference, Miss Hearne thought, no matter what aunt was like at the end. When they’re with me, watching over me, a new place becomes home.

2

Her eyes, opening, saw the ceiling, the frozen light of what day? Sight, preceding comprehension, mercifully recorded familiar objects in the strangeness of the whole. Led the blind mind to memory; to this awakening.

She sat up, her hair falling around her shoulders, feeling a gelid draught through the flannel stuff of her nightgown. Her thighs and calves, warmed in the moist snuggle of sheets, were still lax, weary, asleep. The gilded face of her little travelling clock said ten past seven. She lay back, pulling the yellow blankets up to her chin and looked at the room.

A chair, broadbeamed, straight-backed, sat in the alcove by the bay window, an old pensioner staring out at the street. Near the bed, a dressing-table, made familiar by her bottle of cologne, her combs and brushes and her little round box of rouge. Across the worn carpet was a wardrobe of brown varnished wood with a long panel mirror set in its door. She looked in the mirror and saw the end of her bed, the small commotion of her feet ruffling the smooth tucked blankets. The wardrobe was ornamented with whorls and loops and on either side of the door mirror was a circle of light-coloured wood. The circles seemed to her like eyes, mournful wooden eyes on either side of the reflecting mirror nose. She looked away from those eyes to the white marble mantelpiece, cracked down one support, with its brass fender of Arabic design. Her Aunt D’Arcy said good day in silver and sepia-toned arrogance from the exact centre of this arrangement, while beside the gas fire a sagging, green-covered armchair waited its human burden. The carpet below the mantelpiece was worn to brown fibre threads. She hurried on, passing over the small wash-basin, the bed-table with its green lamp, to reach the reassurance of her two big trunks, blacktopped, brass-bound, ready to travel.

She twisted around and unhooked the heavy wool dressing-gown from the bedpost. Put it on her shoulders and slid her feet out of bed into blue, fleecy slippers. Cold, a cold room. She went quickly to the gas fire and turned it on, hearing its startled plop as the match poked it into life. She spread her underthings to warm; then fled back across the worn carpet to bed. Fifteen minutes, she said, it will take fifteen minutes to heat the place at all.

There was no hurry. Friday, a dull day, a day with nothing at all to do. Although it would be interesting at breakfast to see what sort of food Mrs Henry Rice gave and who the others were. She lay abed twenty minutes, then washed in cold water and went shivering to the mean heat of the stove. She slipped on her underthings under the concealing envelope of her nightgown, a habit picked up at the Sacred Heart convent in Armagh and retained, although keeping warm had long supplanted the original motive of modesty, which occasioned the fumblings, the exertions and the slowness of the manoeuvre. When she finally pulled the nightgown over her head, she was fully dressed, except for the dress itself. It was time for her morning hair-brushing exercise. She set great store by it: it kept one’s hair dark, she said, and if you did not wash the hair, ever, it kept its sheen and colour. Her hair, visible proof, was dark brown with a fine thickness and smooth lustre.

So each morning it was her custom to sit conscientiously at the mirror, her head bent to one side, tugging the brush along the thick rope of her hair, counting the strokes, thinking of nothing except the act of doing the exercise, her head jerking slightly with each long, strong stroke of the brush.

But this morning, hair brushing actually had to be hurried because it would never do to be late one’s first morning in a new place. Especially when there were other boarders to meet. She had said three, Mrs Henry Rice, were they men or women? Maybe, most likely, men, and what if one were charming?

Her angular face smiled softly at its glassy image. Her gaze, deceiving, transforming her to her imaginings, changed the contour of her sallow-skinned face, skilfully refashioning her long pointed nose on which a small chilly tear had gathered. Her dark eyes, eyes which skittered constantly in imagined fright, became wide, soft, luminous. Her frame, plain as a cheap clothes-rack, filled now with soft curves, developing a delicate line to the bosom.

She watched the glass, a plain woman, changing all to the delightful illusion of beauty. There was still time: for her ugliness was destined to bloom late, hidden first by the unformed gawkiness of youth, budding to plainness in young womanhood and now flowering to slow maturity in her early forties, it still awaited the subtle garishness which only decay could bring to fruition: a garishness which, when arrived at, would preclude all efforts at the mirror game.

So she played. Woman, she saw her womanish glass image. Pulled her thick hair sideways, framing her imagined face with tresses. Gipsy, she thought fondly, like a gipsy girl on a chocolate box.

But the little clock chittering through the seconds said eight-fifteen and O, what silly thoughts she was having. Gipsy indeed! She rose, sweeping her hair up, the hairpins in her mouth coming out one by one and up, up to disappear in her crowning glory. There (pat) much better. A little more (pat) so. Good. Now, what to wear? A touch of crimson, my special cachet. But which? Reds are so fickle. Still, red is my colour. Vermilion. Yes. The black dress with the vermilion touch at collar and cuffs. Besides, it hasn’t been crushed by the moving.

She opened the wardrobe, breaking the unity of its imagined face. Her dressing-gown fell like a dismantled tent at her feet as she shrugged her angular body into the tight waist seams of the dress. Then, her garnets and the small ruby on her right hand. She rummaged in the jewel box, deciding that the pink and white cameo would be a little too much. But she wore her watch, the little gold wristlet watch that Aunt D’Arcy had given her on her twenty-first birthday. It didn’t really work well any more. The movement was wearing out. But it was a good watch, and very becoming. And goodness knows, she thought, first impressions are often last impressions, as old Herr Rauh used to say.

Then back to the dressing-table to tidy the strands of hair which her dress had ruffled. A teeny touch of rouge, well rubbed in, a dab of powder and a good sharp biting of her lips to make the colour come out. There, much better. She smiled fondly at her fondly smiling image, her nervous dark eyes searching the searching glass. Satisfied, she nodded to the nodding, satisfied face. Yes. On to breakfast.

The dining-room of Mrs Henry Rice’s Camden Street residence was furnished with pieces bought by her late husband’s father. A solid mahogany sideboard bulged from one wall, blossoming fruit bowls and empty whiskey decanters on its marble top. The table, a large oval of the same wood, islanded itself in the centre of the room, making passage difficult on either side. Around the table eight tall chairs rode like ships at anchor. Daylight fought its way down to the room past grey buildings and black backyards, filtering through faded gauze curtains which half hid two narrow windows. Over the sideboard this light discerned a gilt-framed oil painting in which a hunter raised his gun to fire at the misty outline of a stag. Beside the door, like an old blind dog, a grandfather clock wagged away the hours.

Around the table the guests sat in semi-gloom, silent except for the tiny crash of teacups and the tearing of hard toast. Cups and saucers moved up and down the table like items on an assembly belt, entering the little fortress where, ringed around by teapot, hot water jugs, tea cosies, milk jug, sugar bowl, plates, cutlery and a little bell, Mrs Henry Rice dispensed stimulants. Matutinal in a flowered housecoat, her hair sticking out from her head like a forkful of wet hay, she smiled a welcome to Miss Hearne and gestured her to a seat at the opposite end of the room.

‘This is Miss Hearne, our new boarder, everybody. I’ll do the rounds so that you can all get to know her. Now, first, this is Miss Friel. Miss Friel. Miss Hearne.’

Miss Friel bit on her toast and laid the crust reluctantly on her plate. She looked to Miss Hearne and nodded. Light blue dress, grey lisle stockings, short clipped whitish hair, like a fox terrier. A Pioneer Total Abstinence Pin rode her shelving bosom. Hard chapped hands and a red roughness about the wrists. There was a book in front of her, propped up against the jampot.

‘Mr Lenehan.’

Mr Lenehan rose, his head turned sideways, his thin mouth curving into a sickled smile. His clothes were clerical black and a battery of cheap fountain pens raised their silver and gold nozzles like a row of decorations across his chest. His collar was white, waxy, uncomfortable, imprisoning a dark green tie, loosely knotted around a brass collar stud.

‘Vary pleased to meet you, I’m sure,’ Mr Lenehan intoned.

Miss Hearne nodded, smiled, her eyes going on to the next, the most interesting.

‘And this is my brother James. Mr Madden. Miss Hearne.’

He was a big man. He alone had risen when she entered. He held his linen napkin like a waiter, waiting to seat her. She looked at his well-fed, rough-red face. His smile showed white false teeth. He was neat, but loudly dressed. A yellow tie with white golf balls on it, a suit of some brown silky stuff like shantung. Her brother, Mrs Henry Rice had said, but surely he was an American. Who else but an American would wear that big bluestone ring on his finger?

‘Glad to know you, Miss Hearne.’

I guessed right. An American for sure, by the sound of him. She smiled, waited for his male movement, the turning away, the rejection. But he winked at her with a merry blue eye and bending down, he drew her chair out from the table. He did not turn away.

They sat down, formally. Mrs Henry Rice asked her preference in matters of sugar and milk. The assembly line was set in motion and from the American’s blue-ringed hand a cup of tea was given into Miss Hearne’s possession. She said her thanks. Mrs Henry Rice smacked the little bell. Jing-jing-jing it cried.

Mary, young and flustered, put her face around the edge of the door.

‘Yes ’m.’

‘Did you bring Mr Bernard up his tray?’

‘Yes, ’m.’

‘Well, bring some hot toast then, for Miss Hearne. And see if the Irish News is here.’

Miss Hearne stirred genteelly. Miss Friel turned a page in her book and noisily bit off another mouthful of toast. Mr Lenehan took out a silver watch, consulted it, snapped the case shut. He slurped his tea and wiped his mouth with a napkin.

‘I’m late,’ he told the company. Nobody said anything. Miss Hearne, trying to be polite, looked at him in inquiry. He saw his audience. ‘Time and tide wait for no man, alas. Isn’t that a fact, Miss Hearne?’

‘Indeed it is, Mr Lenehan.’

‘Well, very nice to have met you,’ Mr Lenehan said, pushing his chair back from the table. He looked at the others. ‘So long, all.’

The American waved his hand. Miss Friel did not look up. Mrs Henry Rice nodded absentmindedly.

‘So long,’ Lenehan said again. And hurried out on his match thin legs. Good riddance, Miss Hearne thought, to bad rubbish. Why did I dislike him so much? O, well, maybe he’s not so bad after all. Old before his time. And something about him. Unpleasant.

She looked at the other. Mr Madden. And saw that he was looking at her. Embarrassed, she turned to Mrs Henry Rice.

‘I see a family resemblance. You and your brother. Yes, there’s a family resemblance, all right.’

‘James spent most of his life in the United States,’ Mrs Henry Rice told Miss Hearne. ‘Some see the likeness between us, but it escapes me. Still, I suppose it’s always that way with brothers and sisters.’

Mr Madden seemed pleased to be included in the conversation. ‘May’s younger than me,’ he offered.

‘But the likeness is there,’ Miss Hearne said. ‘O, it’s there, all right. Are you just over for a holiday, Mr Madden?’

Mr Madden carefully buttered a slice of toast and spread it thick with jam. ‘Lived thirty years in the States,’ he said. ‘New York City. I came back here four months ago.’

‘O! To stay?’

He did not answer. He ate toast. Quickly, she hurried over her gaffe, feeling her face grow hot at his silent snub. ‘I’ve always wanted to visit America,’ she said.

He did not look up. She hurried on: ‘I’m sure you must find Belfast dull, after New York. My goodness, after all that excitement. It’s so up-to-date and everything, New York, I mean.’

Mr Madden arrested his teacup in mid-air, put it back on his saucer. ‘You can say that again. Greatest city in the world.’ His eyes focused, found her and she smiled as though they had mutually agreed on something which had escaped the others. Her awkwardness was forgotten. For once, she had found the key.

‘What part of Ireland you come from?’ he said.

‘O, I’m from Ballymena originally. But I’ve spent most of my time here in Belfast.’

‘That so?’ He produced a package of cigarettes. ‘Mind if I smoke?’

‘O, no. I don’t smoke myself but smoking never bothers me.’

‘That’s good.’ He laughed without laughter, watching Miss Hearne.

He wants to talk, she thought, he’s lonely. And she returned his look. Then she helped him, made it easy for him to tell what he wanted to tell: America.

‘O, Belfast’s not like New York, I suppose. You must get lots of snow and sunshine there.’

‘All kinds of weather. I’ve seen it go up to a hundred and ten in the shade, in summer. And in winter, down to ten below zero. I’ve seen it so hot you’d have to change your shirt twice in one morning.’ He stopped, vaguely conscious of indelicacy. But she put him at ease.

‘Well, there must be an awful lot of laundry to do then. It must be exhausting. In summer, I mean.’

‘We got air conditioning, and central heating in winter. They never heard of that over here.’

Miss Friel closed her book with a snap and stared at the grandfather clock. She got up and went out without a goodbye. Mrs Henry Rice, informative, drooped her huge bosom over the table like a bag of washing. ‘She’s a schoolteacher,’ she said. ‘Public elementary.’

‘O?’

Mary came in with toast and the Irish News. Miss Hearne took toast, noticed that there were four slices, no sign of an egg, or anything.

‘Butter?’ Mr Madden offered butter and she saw that he was admiring the little gold wristlet watch on her wrist. She was glad she’d worn it. She looked at Mrs Henry Rice but Mrs Henry Rice had opened the Irish News and was reading births, marriages and deaths.

‘And how do you find Ireland, Mr Madden, now that you’ve come home?’

‘Been a lot of changes.’ He stared at the teacup. ‘It’s different.’

‘So you prefer New York then?’

Mr Madden inhaled. Cigarette smoke spewed from his large nostrils. ‘New York’s a rat race,’ he said.

She didn’t know what to answer. Really, what could he mean, a rat race? They certainly had queer expressions, these Yankees.

Mrs Henry Rice put the paper down. ‘You’ll excuse me now, Miss Hearne, but I must go up and say good morning to Bernard. Just ring for Mary if you want more tea.’

As Mrs Henry Rice moved towards the door, Miss Hearne’s nervousness increased. She had been forward, no two ways about it, asking all those questions, leading him on. And now she was to be left alone with him. Alone. The dining-room with its cold morning light, its heavy furniture, its dirty teacups and plates, became quiet as a church. Alone with this lonely stranger, she waited for his fumbled excuses, his departure. For now that the others had gone, it would be as it had always been. He would see her shyness, her stiffness. And it would frighten him, he would remember that he was alone with her. He would listen politely to whatever inanity she would manage to get out and then he would see the hysteria in her eyes, the hateful hot flush in her cheeks. And he would go as all men had gone before him.

And as she waited, with her hands pressed hard against the edge of the table, she felt the blushes start, the hateful redness and fire creep up her neck. She set her features in a stiff, silly smile and scuffed her feet under the table. She turned to him, still smiling, and a mechanical silly voice leaped out of her mouth, shocking her with the forward thing it said:

‘O, you must tell me more about America, Mr Madden. I’d love to go there.’

‘Well,’ he said. ‘I could talk all day and never finish. What did you have in mind?’

In mind. Something, something had to be said.

‘Well, is it true that the men over there put their wives on a pedestal, so to speak?’

He laughed, a big heavy laugh. He didn’t seem at all put out by her blushes, by her silly voice.

‘Yes, that’s correct, more’s the pity. That’s what’s wrong with the system, if you want to know. Guys beating their brains out to keep their wives in mink. It’s the women’s fault. No good. You should see some of the girls that walk on Broadway or Fifth. All dressed up with a dollar sign for a heart. Walking cash registers. Me, I wouldn’t have nothing to do with them.’

Wouldn’t have nothing, well, he certainly wasn’t very well educated, whatever else he was. So he didn’t get married. ‘O, that’s not like Ireland, Mr Madden. Why, the men are gods here, I honestly do believe.’

‘And right too. Head of the house. That’s the teaching of the Church. What the man says goes. Now, in the States, the women want it both ways. They do no work and they want to be boss as well. And dumb, well, you wouldn’t believe how dumb some of those dames are.’

He was so big, so male as he said it that she felt the blushes start up again. His big hand thumped the table.

‘Well,’ she said. ‘Irishmen certainly wouldn’t stand for that, would they?’

‘Every man’s a sucker for a good shape. I know. In my business, you see some funny things.’

Dangerous waters. Discussing women’s figures, well, who but an American would have the vulgarity? Change the subject. ‘And what is your business, Mr Madden?’

‘Hotel business. I was in the hotel business right on Times Square. You’ve heard of Times Square?’

‘O, yes, of course. I’ve seen it on the newsreels. When the war was over and it showed all the people cheering. And all those huge advertisements. O, it must be an exciting place to live.’

He smiled: ‘Times Square. Watch the world go by. The things I’ve seen in fifteen years on Broadway. It’s an education. Why, I couldn’t even begin to …’

‘Well, don’t begin then,’ Mrs Henry Rice said. She stood at the opened door, monumental, stern. ‘I’m sorry, Miss Hearne, but I must let Mary tidy up. Jim would sit here all day boring the life out of you with his talk about New York.’

‘O, but it isn’t boring, Mrs Rice. On the contrary, I think it’s most exciting.’

Mr Madden stood up, indignant. He pointed at Miss Hearne. ‘This lady is interested in what goes on in the world. Not like you and Bernie.’

Mrs Rice did not seem to hear. ‘There’s such a lot of work to be done. You know what maids are like, Miss Hearne. You have to be after them all the time. That’s why I like to have the dining-room done by ten.’

‘Of course.’

Mr Madden went to the door. ‘Glad to have met you, Miss Hearne. We must have another talk real soon.’

‘Yes, indeed we must.’ Said with her gayest smile to show him she liked him.

Then Mrs Henry Rice offered her the Irish News to read and she took it and went upstairs to her room to finish unpacking. No need to hurry. Going over her linens, her packages of letters, and her collection of picture postcards, laying each thing away carefully in tissue paper, all of it could take a long time if you did it methodically. A long time.

But when the big trunks were opened and their trays were laid on the bed, Miss Hearne knelt in silence on the floor, abstracted, her hands idle, her mind filled with what had happened that morning. He had been so glad to talk to her. And he had looked so big and stern and manly, hammering his fist on the table while he laid down the law to her. A big handsome man with that strange American voice.

He came into the room, late at night, tired after a day at work in his hotel. He took off his jacket and hung it up. He put his dressing-gown on and sat down in his armchair and she went to him prettily, sat on his knee while he told her how things had gone that day. And he kissed her. Or, enraged about some silly thing she had done, he struck out with his great fist and sent her reeling, the brute. But, contrite afterwards, he sank to his knees and begged forgiveness.

Judy Hearne, she said, you’ve got to stop right this minute. Imagine romancing about every man that comes along.

Her busy hands flew, unpacking the linen sheets, putting them away in the dresser drawer. But she paused in the centre of the room. He noticed me. He was attracted. The first in ages. Well, that’s only because I’ve been keeping myself to myself too much. Go out and meet new people and you’ll see, she told her mirror face. And the face in the mirror told it back to her, agreeing.

Why did he come home to Ireland? A visit maybe, to see his family. But he doesn’t seem on very good terms with his sister. He’ll go back to New York, of course, back to his hotel. Mr and Mrs James Madden, of New York, sailed from Southampton yesterday in the Queen Mary. Mr Madden is a prominent New York hotelier and his bride is the former Judith Hearne, only daughter of the late Mr and Mrs Charles B. Hearne, of Ballymena. The honeymoon? Niagara Falls, isn’t that the place Americans go? Or perhaps Paris, before we sail.

But the mirror face grew stern and cross. You hardly know him, it said. And he’s common, really he is, with that ring and that bright flashy tie. O, no he’s not, she said. Don’t be provincial. Americans dress differently, that’s all.

A church bell tolled far away and she prayed. The library book would be due Wednesday, wasn’t it? Do you know, I’m awfully uninformed about America, when I come to think of it. Outside, the grey morning light held, the rain still threatened. I could go down to the Carnegie library and read up on it. Especially New York. And then tomorrow at breakfast, I’d have questions to ask.

Maybe, she said, hurrying towards the wardrobe to pick out her red raincoat, maybe he’ll be in the hall and I’ll meet him and we might walk downtown together. I must hurry because if he’s going out, it should be soon.

But the hall was a dark, damp place with no sign of anyone in it. Mary had cleared the dining-room, restoring the chairs to their original anchorage around the table. The curtained door to Mrs Henry Rice’s kitchen was shut and the house was silent, a house in mid-morning when all the world is out at work.

She went out, dejected, and walked along Camden Street with her head full of black thoughts. Why had she bothered to come out at all? The library and looking up America was only nonsense, when all was said and done. Besides going out only made you peckish and it was such a temptation to have a regular restaurant lunch. Well, you won’t. You’ll fast, that’s what you’ll do.

At the library on Royal Avenue the man wasn’t helpful. But she made him climb the ladder twice to get her three books, one a picture book of New York and two books on America in general. She carried them to one of the slanting reading tables and sat down, slipping her neutral coloured glasses from her bag. Then amid the old men and students in the muted noises induced by ‘Silence’ signs, she read about America, Land of the Free, the New Colossus. All very heavy going, economic tables and business articles. She turned to the picture book and there was a picture of Times Square, and (gracious!) the hotels were immense, five times as big as the Grand Central, the Royal Avenue, or even the Gresham, in Dublin. O, he couldn’t own one of those. And what was his job? There were so many jobs in a hotel. Maybe an assistant manager. Surely in the administration somewhere. Otherwise, he would have said a cook, or a waiter, or whatever. O, certainly nothing like that.

She read and read because she could feel the little crab of hunger nipping away at her insides. She tried to forget him, the expensive little rascal, but he just nipped harder. Finally, when the clock on the wall said three, she decided that just this once she’d have to give in to him, despite her resolution. She gave the books back and went to a milk bar at Castle Junction and treated herself to a glass of milk and a raspberry tart. Afterwards, she looked at the shop windows for a while. But they hadn’t changed since last week, so this was dull sport.

As she was looking in the window at Robb’s, a little boy came running out, dragging his school satchel, his grey wool stockings down about his heels.

Tommy Mullen! She hurried over to him, forcing him to stop. His mother was a friend of the Breens, before the Breens moved to Dublin. Tommy had taken piano lessons last year. She saw the keyboard, his rather dirty hands, his wandering inattention, his fits of sulks and rages. No talent. His mother had stopped the lessons.

‘Well, if it isn’t little Tommy Mullen. And how are we getting along?’

‘Lo, Miss Hearne,’ he said, turning his cold-cheeked little face away from her kiss.

‘Well, and how’s my boy? My, we’re getting big. Too big to kiss, I suppose. I’m sure we’ve forgotten all our piano lessons now.’

He looked indignant. ‘No. I’ve got a new teacher. A man. Mr Harrington is his name.’

‘O, is that so?’ she said bleakly. ‘Well, isn’t that nice. I hope you are practising hard, eh, Tommy?’

‘Yes, Miss Hearne.’ He looked around, inattentive. ‘There’s the bus,’ he yelled. ‘Bye, bye.’ And ran off in the direction of the Albert Memorial.

A man. Another teacher. She walked down Cornmarket slowly, feeling the shaking start inside of her. No wonder his mother was so cool, nodding from the other side of the street when I saw her. Well, it wasn’t because I charged too much, goodness knows. Could I have said anything that time I stayed for tea? No, of course not. I never said he had no talent. O, anyway.

Still, one less pupil, that’s what it amounts to. Or two less. Because she didn’t want Tommy to keep on but she said she’d get in touch with me about the little girl. She won’t now. Harrington, who’s he? Well, the nerve of some people. After all the time I slaved away with that boy. After all the extra half-hours without any additional charge. I don’t know what’s happened to my lucky star these past months. What’s happened to me, anyway? You’d think I had the plague, or something. That’s four pupils gone in the last six months. Only little Meg Brannon now and goodness knows how long that will last. As much ear for music as a heathen chinee.

The clock in Cornmarket said four. She walked down Ann Street with its jumble of cheap shops, its old shawled women and its loud crying fruit vendors. I wonder will the Technical School take me on for the embroidery class next term? Mr Heron said he hoped he would be able. But nobody does embroidery any more, that’s the truth of it. They have to have enough to make a class. And you can’t sell it. Ruin your eyes at piece rates.

She came out near the docks and turned hastily back towards the centre of the city. The docks were no place for a woman to be wandering about, in among all those rough pubs and the Salvation Army. At Castle Junction the clock said half-past four. Go home. She walked back towards Camden Street. It began to drizzle but she was thinking about money, so she paid it no heed.

Her Aunt D’Arcy had never discussed money. A lady does not discuss her private affairs, she used to say. And the D’Arcys never had to look where their next penny was coming from. There had been the house on the Lisburn Road. She had thought that it would fetch quite a bit. And then her aunt had said that Judy wouldn’t have to worry, there would be plenty until the right man came along and even if he didn’t. That was a long time ago, she said that. Ten years. More, thirteen, if I’m to be honest about it, Miss Hearne thought. First, there was the mortgage on the house. And then the money we owed Dan Breen. And the annuity she left me, it was small then and nobody in the whole length and breadth of Ireland could live on a hundred pounds a year nowadays.

O, I should have kept up my shorthand and typing, no matter what. The piano lessons, yes, I tried to make a go of it. And fair’s fair, I was doing quite well until Mrs Strain spread that story about Edie and me all over town. You might know, being a Protestant, she wouldn’t have one ounce of Christian charity in her. Bad enough for me, but poor Edie, lying up there in that home, couldn’t raise a hand to help herself. I should go and see her. But the last time, all those bars on the windows and the old women in dressing-gowns. Depressing. Mrs Strain, what did she know anyway, going off half cocked like that? Amanda, her little girl’s name. What a silly name.

No charity, isn’t it the truth? People have none. And the Technical School, you’d think they could keep the embroidery class going just for old times sake. After all, there might be a revival of interest. Still, two girls dropped out last term, that leaves only four, not enough unless they can find new students.

She stopped at Bradbury Place. The rain was quite heavy now. She went into a shop and bought a quarter-pound of Kraft cheese and a bag of thick white biscuits. I have enough cocoa, she said, two cups. An apple, I must buy, to get the goodness of some fruit.

It was half-past five when she walked up Camden Street, wet with the rain in her shoes and her hair tossed by the blustery rainy wind. She let herself in as quietly as possible, hoping Mrs Henry Rice would think she had come home later, after having dinner out somewhere. She took her shoes off as she went up the creaky stairs.

The bed-sitting-room was cold and musty. She lit the gas fire and the lamps and drew the grey curtains across the bay window. Her wet raincoat she put over a chair with a part of the Irish News underneath to catch the drops. Then she took off her wet stockings and hung her dress up. In her old wool dressing-gown she felt warmer, more comfortable. She put her rings away in the jewel box and set a little kettle of water on the gas ring. It boiled quickly and she found only enough cocoa for one cup.

The rain began to patter again on the windows, growing heavier, soft persistent Irish rain coming up Belfast Lough, caught in the shadow of Cave Hill. It settled on the city, a night blanket of wetness. Miss Hearne ate her biscuits, cheese and apple, found her spectacles and opened a library book by Mazo de la Roche. She toasted her bare toes at the gas fire and leaned back in the armchair, waiting like a prisoner for the long night hours.

3

Shoes shined, clean white shirt, tie knotted in a neat windsor, suit pressed, top o’ the morning, James Patrick Madden went in to breakfast. His good humour fled when he saw them. Didn’t even look up, except the new one. Miss Hearne. She said good morning. He gave her his old doorman smile, a sort of half-wink in it.

‘And how are you today?’

‘O, I’m very well, thanks.’

Not a sound out of the rest. May, with her face in the paper. And that Miss Friel, she thinks I’m a lush, or something. Lenehan, a know-nothing that thinks he knows everything.

His sister poured tea. Tea, Mr Madden considered a beverage for women in Schraffts. A good cup of coffee now, that would hit the spot.

‘O, Mr Madden!’ (She was all worked up about something.) ‘I happened to be in the library yesterday and I was looking at a picture book about New York. It reminded me of our conversation. About it being such a wonderful city, I mean.’

He smiled at her. Friendly, she is. And educated. Those rings and that gold wrist-watch. They’re real. A pity she looks like that.

‘That’s nice,’ he said. ‘Quite a town, eh? You see the Brooklyn Bridge?’

‘O, yes indeed.’

Pleased, Mr Madden smiled again. In the four months he had been back in Ireland, he had found very few Irish people who showed any interest in the States. Most of them seemed to resent comparisons. An intelligent woman like Miss Hearne was a pleasure to talk to.

‘And the George Washington,’ he said. ‘That’s quite a bridge. We got a lot of good bridges in New York. There’s the Triborough …’

‘There’s a whole lot of bridges in Ireland too, but we’re not for ever talking about them,’ Lenehan interjected sourly.

Who asked him? ‘Bridges! You call them bridges? Listen, Lenehan, I’m talking about real bridges. Big bridges.’

‘Ahh, give over,’ Lenehan said. ‘Sure, that’s all you Yanks ever think of. Blowing about how big and grand everything is in the States. What would be the point of building a big bridge over the Lagan, or the Liffey? Answer me that now. And if it’s bridges you want, we were building bridges in Ireland before America was ever thought of.’

Why isn’t he at work, instead of sticking his nose in where he’s not wanted? But he remembered that it was Saturday and Lenehan had all the time in the world on Saturdays. No good talking, he concluded sadly. He’ll just ball it up. Better I speak to her later, when we’re alone. Maybe ask her out, or something.

‘Good morning all,’ a soft voice said and they all looked at the door. Bernard, his dressing-gown trailing, his plump body in red silk pyjamas. Mrs Henry Rice smiled fondly at her boy.

‘Come and sit down, Bernie. Have a cup of tea.’

‘I rang my bell twice and not a sound out of that girl,’ Bernard said. ‘I suppose she was out all night gallivanting with some soldier or other. I’m starved, lying up there, waiting for her.’

‘Maybe some bacon and egg?’ Mrs Henry Rice said coaxingly.

Miss Friel, Mr Lenehan, Miss Hearne and Mr Madden looked up, anger plain as hunger in their faces.

‘Bernie’s very delicate,’ Mrs Rice said to no one in particular. ‘The doctor says he has to eat a lot to keep his strength up.’

Bernard sat down and seemed to think about food. Then, gleefully watching the boarders, he gave his order. ‘Two eggs, Mama, four rashers of bacon. And Mary might fry some bread to go with it.’

Mrs Henry Rice, submissive, jingled the little bell. Mary came to the door and was given her orders. The boarders exchanged glances, united in their hatred. Miss Friel, with the air of a woman storming the barricades, picked up a piece of toast, buttered it, then re-buttered it so that the wedge of butter was almost as thick as the toast itself. There, she seemed to say. If it’s a fight you want, I just dare you to say a word.

Mrs Henry Rice ignored the butter waste. Her eyes were on her darling as he sipped his tea.

‘Well now,’ Bernard said pleasantly. ‘What were we talking about when I interrupted? The wonders of America, was it?’

Mr Madden bit angrily into a hard piece of toast. Ham and eggs for him. Nothing for me, her brother.

Miss Hearne, watching him, saw that he was angry. And no wonder. Really, it was a bit thick, feeding up that fat good-for-nothing while the boarders, not to mention her own brother, went without. Still, it was better to pass these things over. Bad temper, bad blood, as Aunt D’Arcy used to say.

‘Yes, we were talking about America,’ Miss Hearne told Bernard. ‘About how wonderful it must be.’

‘And what’s wrong with Ireland?’ Mr Lenehan wanted to know.

‘O, I suppose when all’s said and done, there’s no place like Ireland,’ Miss Hearne agreed. ‘I know. Most of my friends have travelled on the Continent and you should hear some of the things they say. Backward, why you wouldn’t believe how backward the Italians are, for instance.’

Mr Madden coughed. ‘Pardon me, Miss Hearne, but there’s nothing backward about the States. Why, the States is a hundred years ahead of Europe in most things. And ahead of Ireland too. Why, Ireland is backward, backward as hell.’ He stopped in confusion. ‘If you know what I mean,’ he finished lamely.

‘America sells refrigerators for culture,’ Bernard said. ‘They come to Europe when they need ideas.’

‘Culture! What do you mean, culture? Why, we’ve got the finest museums in the world, right in New York City. Grand opera at the Met, a dozen plays on Broadway, the finest movies in the world. Anything you want, New York’s got it.’

‘Now, James –’ Mrs Henry Rice said. ‘No need to shout.’

Mr Madden smiled an angry smile. ‘What have you got here in the way of entertainment?’ he asked Bernard. ‘A few movies – British movies. And a few old “B” pictures. No clubs, and a couple of plays that wouldn’t last a night anywhere else. What have you got, eh?’

‘That’s not the point,’ Bernard said. ‘I’m not talking about Belfast.’

‘And what are you talking about then? What do you know, a kid of your age that never was further than Dublin?’

Bernard grinned at Lenehan. ‘The atom bomb, Mr Lenehan. That’s the American contribution to Western civilization. Am I right?’

‘Damn right,’ Lenehan said. ‘And they didn’t even discover that. Sure, it was the Europeans who worked out their sums for them. They got the theory right and then they let the Yanks build it.’

‘And who else could of built it?’ Mr Madden shouted.

‘Who else had to build it?’ Bernard said. ‘Sure, they’d never have beaten the Japs without it. And now they want to ruin Europe while they try it out on the Russians. Culture, he says.’

‘And doesn’t somebody have to stand up to the Russians?’ Miss Hearne said indignantly. ‘Godless atheists, that’s what they are. They’re worse than Hitler, far worse.’

‘No worse than the Protestants and Freemasons that are running this city,’ Mrs Henry Rice cried. ‘Hitler was no worse than the British.’

Mr Madden brought his fist down hard on the table, upsetting his teacup. ‘Okay! Okay! Tell me the Russkies are nice guys. But don’t ask us to help you when the commies come running up this street, yelling, “Throw out your women!”’

The very thought of it gave Miss Hearne the shudders. ‘Quite right, Mr Madden. The Pope himself has denounced them. It’s a holy crusade is needed, and America will be in the van.’

‘In what van?’ Mr Madden wanted to know. ‘America will be out front, that’s what.’ He glared at Bernard, who had started to giggle. ‘We didn’t ask to get in any of Europe’s wars, did we? We didn’t ask to come over and win them for you. But brother, you hollered loud enough for us to come running when the chips were down.’

‘You’re in Ireland, remember that, Uncle James,’ Bernard said in his soft, compelling voice. ‘Ireland stays neutral in anybody else’s troubles. So don’t belabour me about intervention. What are you anyway, an American or an Irishman? When you came home from the States, you hadn’t a good word to say for the place. But let anyone else say a word against it and you’re up like a tiger.’

‘That’s what I’d like to know,’ Lenehan said, cocking his birdy head sideways. ‘That’s just what I’d like to know. If it was so blooming terrific in America, why did you ever come home? And why is all the Yanks flocking over here every summer and telling us how wonderful Ireland is?’

Mr Madden gasped like a big fish landed on a dock. But he said nothing. Miss Friel, who had read steadily throughout the discussion, closed her book and stood up. ‘I suppose that clock is right?’

‘Right by the wireless. I set it just when the pips struck eight,’ Mrs Henry Rice said.

‘Well, I must run, then,’ Miss Friel announced to the company.

The others appeared not to notice her departure. Bernard received his ample breakfast from the maid and settled in to eat it. Mr Lenehan slurped his tea, watching Mr Madden over the rim of his cup. Mr Madden surveyed the scene then stood up. He nodded pointedly at Miss Hearne. ‘So long now,’ he said.

‘O, are you off, then?’ She smiled up at him to show she was on his side.

‘Well, I guess I’ve got more to do than sit here listening to a couple of Irish minute men.’

Lenehan put down his teacup with a clatter. ‘Is it me you’re referring to? And what’s a minute man, if I might ask?’

‘Bunch of guys around New York hand out leaflets. Irish-American patriots, they call themselves. Screwballs.’

Lenehan pecked his head forward like a rooster in attack. ‘What d’you mean, Irish?’ he said thickly. ‘Are you implying that …?’

Mr Madden chuckled. ‘We get all kinds of screwballs in New York. Now, take these guys, they’re just like the people in Belfast. No matter what the argument is, they always drag Ireland in. Always handing out leaflets against the British. Why, nobody in New York, or anywhere else, gives a good ghaddam – pardon me, ladies – what happens to the Six Counties.’

‘Is that a fact?’ Lenehan shouted. ‘Well, the British give a damn, for one. And …’

‘There’s the whole wide world to worry about. So why bother about Ireland?’ Mr Madden said. ‘The Irish, I’ll tell you the trouble with the Irish. They’re hicks.’

‘Look who’s talking. You were a hick once yourself.’

‘Hicks,’ Mr Madden repeated, smiling happily. ‘They think everybody is interested in their troubles. Why, nobody cares, nobody. A little island you could drop inside of Texas and never see, who cares? Why, the rest of the world never heard of it.’

‘Is that a fact?’ Lenehan shouted. ‘And you call yourself an Irishman. An Orangeman, more likely. Well, I’ll have you know, my fine Yank, that there’s more famous men ever came out of Ireland than ever came out of America. And I’ll have you know that there’s plenty of better Irishmen in the States than you, thanks be to God. And furthermore …’

Mr Madden’s drink-red face was beaming now. ‘Yeah?’ he said. ‘That’s what you think.’ And he turned his back on the shouting clerk. He walked slowly out of the room dragging his left leg a little.

Outside in the hall he burst out laughing. I got him. That slow burn he was getting up when I told him about the minute men. Both of them, never saw anything but their own backyard. Miss Hearne saw my point. An educated woman.

He climbed the stairs to his room. Bernard, the fat slob – couldn’t insult him. That – ah, forget it. Forget it. Don’t let him get you down.

His fedora went down over his right eye. From the wardrobe he picked his fall coat, imported mohair, light tan, the coat he bought to come home in. So’s I’d look good. And who cares? In this town nobody’d know the difference. He slammed the front door as he went out.

But walking into the city, his anger disappeared like bubbles from water turned off the boil. Instead, the heavy depression of idleness set in. Walking alone, he remembered New York, remembered that at ten-thirty in the morning New York would be humming with the business of making millions, making reputations, making all the buildings, all the merchandise, all the shows, all the wisecracks possible. While he walked in a dull city where men made money the way charwomen wash floors, dully, alone, at a slow methodical pace. In Belfast Lough the shipyards were filled with the clang and hammer of construction but no sound was heard in the streets. At the docks ships unloaded and loaded cargoes, but they were small ships, hidden from sight behind small sheds. In Smithfield market, vendors lounged at their stalls and buyers picked aimlessly at faded merchandise. In the city’s shops housewives counted pennies against purchase. In the city’s banks, no great IBM machines clattered. Instead, clerkly men wrote small sums in long black ledgers.

Mid-morning. James Patrick Madden walked into town, favouring his bad leg, home, back home in a land where all dreams were calculable and only the football pools offered outrageous fortune. A returned Yank who hadn’t made his pile, a forgotten face in the great field of Times Square, an Irishman, self-exiled from the damp hills and barren rocky places of his native Donegal. No lucky break, now or ever. Nothing to do.

Before the accident he had worked twenty-nine years in New York and at no time had more than three hundred dollars to his name. On the credit side, he had educated his motherless daughter, sent her to a convent, seen that she never wanted. On the credit side, America had always found him jobs: subway cleaner, ticket taker in a stadium, counter help in a cafeteria, janitor, hall porter, club bouncer, and, last and best, hotel doorman. A good job, with good tips.

There had been other comforts. Drink to warm and cheer, the odd fast buck, joyfully spent, the blowhard talk, passed hopefully among the boys. Companionship in a land of lonely joiners. And being Irish you could wear it like a badge in New York City. Religion, a comfort for the next world, not this. And good to know you were on the winning team.

And then there was the dream. The dream of all Donegal men when they first came across the water. The dream that some day the pile will be made, the little piece of land back home will be bought and the last years spent there in peace and comfort. A dream soon forgotten by most. Making good means buying goods. Goods attach, they master dreams and change them. The piece of land in County Donegal becomes a two-tone convertible. The little farm that Uncle Sean might let go changes to a little place in Queen’s. Making your pile means making your peace with the great new land. But the dream still has its uses. And its addicts. It serves for the others, for the men under the el on a December night, for the hundreds of thousands of Irish who never had a gimmick, a good connection, a hundred dollar bill, or a piece of a business. For them, for Madden, the dream was there for warming over with beer or bourbon. The little place went Hollywood in the mind. The fields grew green, the cottage was always milk-white, the technicoloured corn was for ever stooked, ready for harvest.

The harvest never came. But it had come for him, for James Patrick Madden, a lucky sonofabitch. It had come out of nowhere on a City bus, making a quick getaway in traffic against a changing light. It had come with sudden pain, then vomit and oblivion in a careening, screaming ambulance headed through all lights for Bellevue. It had come fast in an out-of-court settlement. Ten thousand dollars in his fist and a chance to make the homecoming dream come true.

And so, James Patrick Madden, home, reached the centre of the city and stood there undecided. Behind him, Donegall Place and the formal pomposity of City Hall; before him, Royal Avenue, Fifth Avenue of the city, a jumble of large buildings, small to his eyes. The centre, where he stood, Castle Junction, to him a streetcar rerouting stop, an insignificance, an insult to senses attuned to immensity.

He boarded an Antrim Road bus, escaping his disappointment, and sat up top on the double-deck, thinking of Fifth, of the parades, of the clear brilliant fall weather, the hot reek of summer, the crisp delightful nip of winter. But saw the grimy half-tones of this ugly town, saw the inevitable rain obscure the window-pane, felt the steamy sodden warmth rise from the clothes of his fellow passengers.

His destination was Bellevue, a municipal park under the shadow of Cave Hill. The park, formal, unlovely, its amusements a mere glimmer of Palisades or Coney Island, had already disappointed him. But he liked the long ride and the view of the lough. From the observation point you could see ships sail out to the Irish sea, watch the soft hills melt under approaching rainclouds. For Madden, it was as though, standing there, he stood at the gateway to all the things he had left behind, all the things he had ever done. It was a link with his other world.

But that morning the link was broken. The rain wept itself into a lashing rage and the lawns, the cafés, the approaches to the park were deserted. He got off the bus, huddled under a shelter, and, after fifteen minutes, caught the next bus back. It was twelve-thirty when he reached Royal Avenue again. Time for a bite of lunch.

He had set himself an allowance of a pound a day, plenty, if he watched the drink. But when the bus deposited him at Castle Junction, he turned towards a public house and went in the door of the saloon bar, stiff-legged and eager. The drink had always been a trouble. And now, with so many long days to fill and with the unsurety of his plans, it was the only thing that brightened his homecoming.

Behind the bar John Grogan bid him good day. Mr Madden ordered a Bass Number One and a ham sandwich. John Grogan served it, wiped his hands on a white towel and went down to the end of the bar to check his stock. Mr Madden bit into the sandwich, eased his fedora to the back of his head, and thought of a trip to Dublin. He ate the rest of the sandwich and dismissed the trip as too expensive. Besides, who did he know in Dublin, and what would he do there? With this prospect disappearing, he reviewed, rejected, turned painful corners, came back to old faded dreams, touched them lightly, abandoned them.

He was alone in the bar excepting two men who sat in a booth at the back, talking business over pints of Guinness. Alone, and he couldn’t help thinking.

On the credit side there was the fact that a pound a day was less than three dollars and three dollars would not be enough in New York City. Cheaper to live in Ireland. And May hadn’t asked him for any rent yet. And Ireland was where you wanted to be, he told himself bitterly. Away from that Hunky bastard with his snide cracks and his bigshot ways.

That Hunky. Steve Broda, real estate salesman, Newark, New Jersey; owner of a cream Buick convertible with white-wall tyres; owner of a twenty-five-thousand-dollar ranch style bungalow home; husband of Sheila Madden, only child of James Patrick Madden, of the Bronx. Sheila, long of leg, blonde of hair and one hundred per cent America. Not a sign of the Irish in her. Sheila, a tiny squalling red-face when the nurse gave her into her father’s arms, November 1922, two weeks after Annie died.

Steve and Sheila, second generation, hating their forebears. Old Man Broda, with his funny talk. He was on to them though. He saw it before I did. That sonofabitch, laying her before they were married, a nice thing for a convent girl. And me, Mr Madden remembered, me he called a dumb Irish mick. Ashamed of me, him that couldn’t keep his trousers zipped until he took her to the priest. And he made her as bad. Ashamed of me, me that brought her up, that educated her, that never left himself a nickel as long as she needed it. A doorman, he said I should have done better – ahh – have a drink.

‘Another Bass.’

The time of the accident. Me laid off, it was only natural she’d ask me to come and live with them. But he didn’t want that, the Hunky, too good for me he was. And then when the compensation came through, you’d think he got it for me, you’d think I was spending his money, instead of my own. Whyn’t you go back to Ireland, Dad? He put her up to saying that. You’ve always wanted to, Dad. Steve will help, I’m sure he will. He’ll help, all right. Anything to get rid of me.

Hell, I got dough. I can get on a boat and go anywhere. Sailing up the Battery. Statue of Liberty. Hello. I’d park my bags and hightail it over to Mooney’s, under the el. See their faces when I walk in. Back from the ould sod. And how was it, Jimmy boy? How was it? Back from the ould sod. And you can keep it, brother. Argument. That’d make an argument. Culkin crying in his beer about Croke Park in 1911. I’d give it to him. Horseshit, I’d say. You never had it so good, Dan. We never knew when we were well off.

The door of the saloon banged open and a man came in, green pork-pie hat, trench coat, white chamois gloves. His shoes were old brogues, beautifully shined. His moustache was straw-coloured, his nose was long and his eyes were large and watering. He looked uncommonly like an ageing parrot.

‘Goddammit, it’s cold!’ he called out. ‘John, set me up a glass of port, like a good man. First today. And how’s our American friend today? What’s the word from New York?’

‘I’m fine and dandy, Major, fine and dandy,’ Mr Madden said, giving his old doorman smile, his big tip wink. ‘But that rain’s a helluva note. Wouldn’t you say that’s a helluva note?’

The major peeled his gloves off and sat down on a high stool beside Madden. His hands were delicate, yellowed by tobacco, and permanently shaking. He drew the glass of port towards him carefully and lifted it fast to toss back in his throat.

‘Godblessus and saveus, but that warms all the way,’ he said. ‘Now, John, I’ll trouble you for a piece of that meat pie and another glass of this excellent port.’

John Grogan put a slice of pie on a plate, put a knife and fork beside it, poured another glass of port. Then he wiped his hands on a towel and stood with his buttocks resting against the back of the bar. He folded his arms, a quiet man, a watchful man.

Major Gerald Mahaffy-Hyde ate the pie, every last crumb of it. He drank half of his second glass of port. Then he saw John Grogan waiting, a quiet, watchful man. He took a ten-shilling note from his handsome wallet and paid. The wallet contained only ten shillings. He put the wallet away, slid the change into his trousers pocket and turned to Mr Madden.

‘You know,’ he said reflectively, ‘there’s no country in the world where the cost of living is going up the way it is here. And it’s these damn socialist influences over in Britain. That’s what did the damage. Never mind whether our fellows are in, or those labour cranks, the result is the same. The harm’s been done. Soak the rich and all that. And dammit a man like myself, retired on a pension he’s the victim, do you see? These damn socialists have no use for us. They’re out to ruin us, that’s their game.’

Mr Madden cradled his Bass. ‘Socialistic, eh? Back home in the States we had that trouble.’

‘Most interesting,’ the major said, nodding his parrot head. ‘Of course, you fellows over there didn’t stand any nonsense. Quite right too. Harm’s been done here. Sometimes it makes me wonder whether a fellow wouldn’t be better to find himself some island to retire to. Like the West Indies. Cheap, lots of servants, sunshine and damn good rum.’

A bare-breasted native girl shyly dropped her sarong. Tuan Madden patted her smooth rump, raised a rum punch to his lips. ‘M’mm, something in that, Major. I never thought of it that way. Not like Ireland, cold and rain all the time. You know, a guy could go out there, set up a little business, something the natives don’t have, maybe a curio shop for the tourists. A little capital, you could have yourself a time.’

‘Get away from it all,’ the major said with relish. ‘Let them have their century of the common man in Ireland if they want it. People like myself, people who helped to keep the country running when these socialist fellows were hanging around the street corners of Britain, we’re the ones they’re out to get.’

Apolitical, Mr Madden dismissed all this. ‘Get yourself set up, maybe a little store, get some local help to work for you, sort of supervise, eh?’

‘O, I’ve been out in those waters,’ Major Mahaffy-Hyde said, looking speculatively at his empty port glass. ‘Jamaica, Bermuda, Haiti, Cuba. Some wonderful spots. I remember in Haiti, it’s a nigger republic, you know, some of the white men there lived like kings. Great whacking big houses, villas, mansions, a dozen servants. Pretty little mulattoes. Hot-blooded little things, the tropics, the sun does it. Fondle a few round bottoms!’

‘Great big white mansions,’ Mr Madden chortled. ‘Brother!’ His eyes saw past the oak panelled bar to a distant shore.

‘Niggers run the place,’ the major said. ‘But there’s no race hatred. Everybody speaks French.’

Mr Madden saw Harlem, remembered an ugly incident on Lennox Avenue. Razors. ‘Ugh! I don’t like jigs. New York’s full of them.’

The major looked longingly at the empty glass in his hand. ‘This is different, old man. Some beautiful little brown wenches in these places. Get yourself a maid and all the damn comforts of home for about three pounds a month.’ He tried a gambit. ‘Care for another?’

‘Dark meat, eh?’ Mr Madden chuckled. ‘No, no, this one’s on me – John – two more.’

‘Why, there are red-headed natives all over those islands,’ the major said. ‘In Jamaica, blacks name of Murphy. The Irish planted their seed there all right. Olden days, pirates, deserters. Some wonderful stories. And their descendants. Imagine having a brown nubile little Murphy on your knee.’ His parrot lips curved wickedly. ‘We Irish conquered by peaceful penetration,’ he chuckled.

Mr Madden slapped him on the back. ‘I bet you did your bit yourself, Major, when you were with the British Army, eh, Major?’

‘By God, I did, James. By God, I did!’

John Grogan quietly placed a glass of port and a bottle of Bass on the bar. He wiped his hands on a towel and went back to his books. Major Mahaffy-Hyde sighted the port glass, grasped it in his shaking, delicate hand and leaned back, a good mercenary, giving value in talk. Encouraging Madden to dream, helping him towards drunkenness, towards the open confessional of drinking talk.

‘By God, I think you’re right, James. A fellow like you, an American, he’d know a lot of tricks. Why, you fellows are natural salesmen. Dammit, if Americans could sell refrigerators to the bloody Eskimos, they could sell anything to those niggers. Yes, James, I can see you taking your ease in your own villa with a couple of comely bedwarmers by your side.’

‘You got a point, Major. You got a point. Now, take the business end. Take soft drinks. Now, if I could get a concession …’

Shortly after four, John Grogan ceded his place at the bar to Kevin O’Kane. Before leaving, he respectfully approached Mr Madden and asked him if he would mind settling up now. Mr Madden stopped talking. Major Mahaffy-Hyde excused himself and went to the toilet. Mr Madden paid the reckoning. Major Mahaffy-Hyde returned to find Mr Madden sitting with the dejected air of a man who knows he is half drunk and has been caught for all the rounds. The major felt in his pocket and threw some silver on the bar.

‘One for the road, now,’ he said. ‘My treat. Let’s drink to the new king of the islands.’

‘Mine’s a double,’ Mr Madden said roughly. Sonofabitch never paid for a drink. Yankees walking free drink concession, that’s how he figures me.

He remembered Creeslough. How often he’d thought of it in the years when he rode the subway trains, when he stared across Times Square on rainy afternoons. How he had seen it in memory, transformed, a vision of peace and a slow peaceful way of living. And the reality, when he went back. The long bleak street and the warm cosiness of Lafferty’s pub. Free pints of porter, boys. Madden, did you say your name was? Well, is that a fact? A son of old Dinty Madden, of the Glen. Well, do you tell me now? Well, thank you very much, I will have another, Mr Madden. And what is it like in the States these days? Do you tell me so? All of them, country boys and men with their tongues hanging out, waiting for him to buy another. Spilling his guts out to them, talking about the old days and them, Donegal men, listening to the Yank, waiting for him to stand another round. And when he stopped buying, they began to talk about corn and crops, and pigs and the fair day. All a million miles away from what he knew. He had no place there.

And now, in Belfast, the same game. Your own fault, Mr Madden told Mr Madden drunk. After this one, get the hell out.

The double whiskey was served. He drank it in anger. Then got unsteadily off his stool and said good afternoon to the barman.

‘I’ll walk along with you, James,’ the major said, putting on his white chamois gloves.

‘I got a date.’

‘Oh-hoh! A lady fair?’

‘Yeah.’ Trapped by the falsehood, he elaborated. ‘A Miss Hearne. A business proposition. We might go in a deal together. I got something lined up.’

‘Well, that’s interesting. I didn’t know you were going to set up shop here.’

‘Ahh, I got a couple of deals cooking,’ Mr Madden said hurriedly, shutting off the talk. ‘Be seeing you.’

He went unsteadily to the door, pushed it open, met the wet face of the afternoon. Rain. What a country!

He walked out into Royal Avenue, crowded now with people going home from work. His fedora rode the back of his head, his drinker’s face was wet with rain drizzle. Can’t go home like this. Loaded.

A honking post office van honked at him and the driver roared a local insult: ‘The tap of yer head’s chocolate!’

‘Get the hell outa my way,’ Mr Madden roared, stumbling in the gutter beside the van.

A black uniformed policeman took his elbow. ‘Get back on the pavement. The light’s against you.’

Mr Madden was sobered by the sight of the arm that held his arm. ‘Okay.’

Watch it, he counselled his drunken self. Watch it. You’re loaded, he could take you in.

He nodded to the policeman and the policeman let go his arm. He walked off crookedly, watched by the policeman. A movie. Sleep it off. He saw a movie house. Paid, went inside, sprawled out in a back row and slept. Snored. Somebody complained. An usher’s flashlight found his face, woke him up.

He watched the movie for a while, slept again and opened his eyes when the lights went on at the change of programme. His watch said nine. He went out, ate in a cheap café and walked back to Camden Street. Another wasted day. The hell with it.

Sober now, he opened the front door quietly and looked down the hall to see if the light was on in his sister’s ground floor nest. All was dark. Painstakingly (only by an argument if she smelled it off me again) he went up the stairs, past Miss Friel’s door, past Miss Hearne’s, and turned towards the flight that led to the third floor and his room.

There was a noise up there, a whispering. He waited again. May? With Bernie maybe. No. He tested each step when he moved again. The light in Bernard’s room was out. Lenehan’s door was ajar and the noise of Lenehan’s snores could be heard in the landing. Mr Madden went past this door to his own and turned the handle.

Behind him, he heard a loud sudden giggle. He swung around, open-mouthed, in the rage of a man caught in a foolish action.

‘O, no,’ he heard. ‘No, no.’

A woman’s voice, soft, worried, sensual. It came from the half-flight of stairs that led to the attic. Jesus, it’s the maid. I wonder what …?

He went up. The light was on under her door. Giggles, a creak of bedsprings, a whispering. He waited, an old hotel doorman, waited.

‘O, Bernie, Bernie don’t.’

Mr Madden wrenched the door open.

‘What’s goin’ on here?’

Mary, transformed by nudity, sat on the edge of the narrow broken-down bed. She wore only coarse black lisle stockings and a pair of faded blue knickers.

And Bernard. Mother naked. Mr Madden came inside and closed the door. So that’s it. And her only a kid. But what a kid. What a build.

Bernard found his red silk dressing-gown, dragged it around him like a wrestler preparing to leave the ring.

‘Want something?’

Mr Madden’s face bled red with anger. ‘What do you mean, want something? What the hell do you think this is, a whore-house? A kid of her age, I should …’

‘Go back to your room,’ Bernard said venomously. ‘At once. It’s none of your business.’

‘None of my business?’ Madden watched as the girl pulled a blanket off the bed, wrapping it around the white nakedness of her body. Only a kid, but …

Christ, what’m I thinking? (Briefly, the picture of Sheila and that Hunky swam before his eyes. It’s guys like him that – and young girls like her) ‘What the hell you mean, my business? Whose business is it? What would your mother say, eh? What’s your mother goin’ to say?’

Mary began to weep, black curls tumbling over her face.

‘Never mind my mother. What are you, a Peeping Tom, or something?’

With an effort Madden took his eyes off the girl. ‘So it’s me is in the wrong, eh? Well, we’ll see about that. What about you? What about her? What would her father say, dirty little hoor, a nice thing for a Catholic home.’

Righteous indignation filled him, flooding his brain with the near-ecstasy of power. The day’s futile drinking, the loneliness, the frustrations, all swam away and left this glorious rage in their stead. No respect. Sheila, listen to your father! Laughing at me – taking her pants down behind my back, that Hunky. And her. As bad. Listen to your father. I’ll show … I’m your father! Old brawler, old underdog authoritarian, he moved towards the terrified girl. ‘And you – get your clothes on. Tramp, hoor in a decent house.’

His fingers tore the blanket away from her body. Master of the room, he smacked, open-handed, leaving red marks on her thighs.

‘Dirty little hoor!’ He grabbed her, fondled her in rage, sprawled her across the bed.

‘O, mister, please, mister. Don’t, mister.’

‘Leave her alone!’

‘Dirty little hoor!’ Standing over her, he flailed her buttocks. Sheila, the woodshed, should of paddled you sooner. I’ll teach you, teach you.

‘Leave her alone! LEAVE HER ALONE!’

Bewildered, he allowed Bernard to pull him away. He keeled over on his crippled foot, his breathing harsh and painful. Weak, giddy, he watched ever widening circles explode before his eyes.

It cleared. He saw Bernard’s face. ‘Come on,’ he said. ‘Get back in your room.’

‘You too.’

‘Okay.’

They went out together, leaving the girl whimpering on the bed. Stood in the darkness of the corridor in the exhaustion that follows passion.

‘I should tell May. I should tell your mother. A kid like that, you could be arrested. I could fix you, all right.’

‘Fix who? You went mad in there. Stark mad. You’d have raped her if …’

‘I’d of what?’

Bernard put a pudgy finger to his lips. ‘Shh! Keep your voice down. You’ll waken the whole house. I could make it sound bad against you too. And Mary would back me up. It would be two against one, remember that.’

‘You’re crazy …’ But what happened? Wearily, Madden tried to remember. Saw her. Only a kid. Like Sheila. I paddled her. Lost my head. That’s all. That’s ALL.

‘You screwed her, not me,’ he said angrily. ‘Don’t forget that.’

‘All right. But you pulled the blanket off her.’

Did I? What’s the matter with me? What a shit I am. Lost my head. The drink, my trouble. But him, he’s as bad. Worse. Did it sober. ‘All right, forget it,’ he said. ‘Let’s go to bed.’

In uneasy alliance they descended the stairs.

4

Sunday was the great day of the week. To begin with, there was Mass, early Mass with Holy Communion, or a late Mass where you were likely to see a lot of people. The special thing about Sunday Mass was that for once everyone was doing the same thing. Age, income, station in life, it made no difference: you all went to Mass, said the same prayers and listened to the same sermons. Miss Hearne put loneliness aside on a Sunday morning.

And on Sunday afternoons there was the visit to the O’Neills, the big event of the week. It began with a long tram ride to their house which gave you plenty of time to rehearse the things you could tell them, interesting things that would make them smile and be glad you had come. And then there was the house itself, big and full of children, all shapes and sizes, and to think you had known even the big ones since they were so high. It was as though you were a sort of unofficial aunt. Almost.

On her first Sunday morning in Camden Street, Miss Hearne decided to go to eleven o’clock Mass. After all, Saint Finbar’s was now her new parish and it would be nice to see the other parishioners. She would wear her very best. Besides, some of the boarders might be going to eleven. Mr Madden, perhaps.

But when Mr Madden came down to breakfast, she saw that he looked ill, or (because she knew the dreadful signs of it) as if he had been drinking. Still, he said good morning to her very pleasantly. Although it was embarrassing the way he said it. Because all the others were there and Mr Madden did not speak to any of them.

Bernard said good morning to his uncle, unusually polite, Miss Hearne thought. But Mr Madden gave Bernard a very odd glance. As for Mr Lenehan, you could see he was still angry about what Mr Madden had said yesterday.

But thank heavens Mrs Henry Rice carried the conversation with a complaint about how, when she came home from eight o’clock Mass, she found that Mary had run off to nine o’clock and left her with the breakfast to make.

‘And with kippers to fry,’ Mrs Henry Rice said, passing a kippered herring and a slice of fried bread along to Miss Hearne. ‘It wouldn’t be any other morning she’d take it into her head to go to early Mass. No, she has to do it on Sunday and me left here with the biggest breakfast of the week.’

Miss Hearne agreed that you couldn’t be after the maids nowadays, they had it far too much their own way.

Miss Friel closed her book. ‘It’s a good thing the girl is attentive to her religious duties. It’s when they start missing Mass and Holy Communion that you should be worried. That’s when they’re up half the night with boys.’

‘No fear of Mary getting mixed up with boys,’ Mrs Henry Rice said. ‘Sure, she’s only a child, just out of school.’

‘This is a nice piece of kipper,’ Mr Madden said. ‘Nice to have a change. I mean, instead of toast and tea.’

Nobody could say anything to that, agree or disagree, without insulting Mrs Henry Rice to her face. So nobody said anything. The meal continued in silence, Mr Madden being the first to stop eating. He wiped his lips like an actor finishing a stage meal and put his napkin down in great satisfaction.

‘Do you have the time, by any chance, Miss Hearne?’

She blushed. Of course the little wristlet watch was not working, only there for show, and she hadn’t the faintest.

‘O, I’m sorry, but my watch must have stopped. I forgot to wind it.’

‘I think the clock’s right,’ Bernard said. ‘It’s twenty to eleven.’

Miss Hearne put down her napkin. ‘Goodness, I must hurry. I’ll miss the eleven o’clock if I don’t get a move on.’

‘I’m going to eleven o’clock Mass myself,’ Mr Madden said. ‘Mind if I walk along with you?’

‘O, not at all. I’ll be very glad of the company.’

Mrs Henry Rice looked at Bernard. ‘Are you going to eleven, Bernie?’

‘I’ll go to twelve,’ Bernard said, and the way he said it, Miss Hearne knew he had no intention of going at all. No wonder he talked like an atheist.

She and Mr Madden went upstairs to get their coats and hats. They met in the hall a few minutes later and he opened the front door for her, offering his arm as they went down the steps. She did not take it. It seemed just a little bit forward, the way he did it.

She was thinking of things to say as they went down Camden Street. Then she saw his dragging walk and all words left her. He has a bad leg, why did I never notice it? His walk, dragging his left leg, and that shoe is specially built. OmyGod, he’s a cripple!

At the corner of the street they came face to face with the reddish Gothic façade of Queen’s University. He looked up at it.

‘That Bernie. A college education, well they certainly didn’t teach him much.’

‘He is a little queer,’ she said tentatively.

‘Queer? He’s no queer, believe me. He’s just a no good mama’s boy, never did a day’s work in his life. Don’t let that poetry stuff fool you. That’s just a gimmick, so’s he can say he’s working. No, he’s got a cinch. Why should he work when May keeps him?’

He looked sideways at Miss Hearne. ‘You been to college? You seem like an educated woman.’

‘No, I’m afraid the Sacred Heart convent in Armagh is as far as I went,’ Miss Hearne said pridefully, because, after all, the Sacred Heart convent was the best in Ireland. The best families sent their girls there. Would he know that, being an American? ‘It’s considered the best convent, though,’ she added.

‘I never went to college. Had to get out and hustle for myself. I made out too, did fine.’

I wonder if he’s rich? Out walking on a Sunday morning with a strange man, what would Aunt D’Arcy have said? Still, he looks quite prosperous and respectable. That limp, you would hardly notice it. After all, I never noticed it before. All Americans have money, they say. I wonder what he did in the hotel, would it be rude to ask him?

‘And did you go into the hotel business right away, when you arrived in America?’

‘No.’

They walked in silence for a while. ‘Always had my own car,’ Mr Madden told the wind. ‘Always had my own car, even in the depression.’

She didn’t know quite what to reply to this, but something had to be said. ‘People earn a lot of money in America, don’t they?’

‘Some people. But it’s a young man’s country. They got no use for you when they figure you’re over the hill. Y’see, I always had it in mind to come back to Ireland when I was older. Maybe marry again and settle down.’

Miss Hearne felt something turn over in her breast. ‘And did your poor wife pass on long ago?’

‘The year we went over. She’s dead goin’ on thirty years. It was the crossing that killed her, the boats were different in those days. Had the baby about a week after we landed. Sheila, my girl.’

‘O, so you have a family then.’

‘Well, just the one. She’s married now. I was living with her and the husband before I come home. I figured I was in the way, lying up around the house after my accident. This leg, y’see. So I told them I’m goin’ back to Ireland, kids, I said. Back home.’

He’s lonely, thinking of his old age like that. But how odd that he would discuss his private affairs without really knowing her at all. It was like something in a story, people meeting, struck by a common rapport, a spark of kinship or love. Although that was silly and she was being daydreamy again.

‘I’m sure your daughter must miss you, all the same.’

‘Some chance. Kids nowadays don’t care.’

They crossed the street as the light flashed green. He took her arm as they stepped off the pavement. She did not reject his aid.

‘O, children of the present generation are awfully thoughtless. Even here in Ireland. Friends of mine, the O’Neills …’

‘Same thing here,’ he interrupted. ‘Come back to settle down and you can’t even get respect from the likes of Bernie.’

‘So you’re planning to stay here?’

‘Maybe. I got a couple of deals cooking. I might go to the West Indies, I hear there’s a lot of possibilities there. Depends. Or I might go into business in Dublin. If I had a partner.’

I wonder if he’s old? Over fifty certainly. Maybe younger. But big, well-preserved, a man full of life and vigour. Did he retire, I wonder, or was it the accident to his leg? They don’t retire early in the hotel trade, remember Mr Bunting that was the manager of the Arcady hotel in Dublin, seventy, if he was a day.

‘Did you have a lot of running about to do in your job? In hotel work, I mean? It must have been a terrible strain.’

‘No, it was okay.’ He did not elaborate. He did not speak again until they reached the church and then only to ask if she preferred to sit up at the front. They made the Sign of the Cross together and his fingers brushed against hers in the Holy Water font. Then they walked up the aisle and he stood aside to let her pass into the pew before him. The seat he had chosen was directly under the pulpit. Before he knelt down, Mr Madden took a clean white handkerchief out of his trousers pocket and spread it on the dusty board to protect the knees of his trousers. He found his large brown rosary, wrapped it around his knuckles, and placed himself in an attitude of prayer.

But he did not pray. He thought: I wonder would she tell it in confession? When May said she ran off to early Mass this morning, maybe it was to tell the priest on both of us, he could phone back to the house and raise hell, a child, May said, Christ, some child, I should have left her alone, none of my business. Pulled the blanket off her, he said. Ah, the priest couldn’t do a thing like that, secrets of the confessional. And she’s a scared kid, little roundheels, couldn’t have much religion, just ran out because she was scared to face me at breakfast. Ah, don’t worry, you’re okay, here in church with Miss Hearne, a fine woman, a lady, a pleasure to talk to her it is. But if she knew about me, Miss Hearne, if she knew about last night – ahh, I’m no good, drinking like that, pulling at that kid, but she was old enough though, what a build. Christ – I mean, Blessed Jesus Christ – why did I think that right in the church, an impure and filthy thought right in God’s house. O my God I am heartily sorry that I have offended Thee and because Thou are so good, I will not sin again. Not a mortal sin, no, I never, only tried to break it up, teach her a lesson, didn’t do a thing. Act of contrition, that’s absolution, couldn’t go to confession today anyway. Sunday, no confessions heard, if I die tonight, be in the state of grace. Say a rosary now, show my good intentions. Forget all that dirty thoughts stuff.

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