Life Embitters (40 page)

“I go to watch a game of rugby. I really enjoy the sport …”

That fellow’s voice, gestures, and strange foibles that had been fawning and smarmy until I made this confession now became incredibly grotesque when accompanied by the expression of terror on his face when he heard that I liked rugby. He took three steps backwards, blanched, and gabbled as his eyes bulged out of their sockets: he was totally at cross purposes. Now he touched the wings of his collar or his bowtie with his fingertips, now he straightened his glasses or scratched his ear, bit his nails or drew strange s’s in the air. His simpering, half-closed mouth was as exaggerated as a cartoon witch’s.

“You like rugby?” he said blankly, as if he’d just landed from another planet.

“You know I like rugby so much that I was intending this very minute to go and see a game. I love rugby’s brutishness.”

He probably thought I was a lost cause, and his only response was to emit a little nasal chuckle and gently and warily clutch my arm. For my part I decided to do my utmost to avoid any repetition of the spectacle I’d just witnessed. I spoke of more low-key matters.

But he didn’t subside. After we’d spoken at length, I must have shown my impatience. That fellow was getting on my nerves. I had to send him packing for good. But he was of the opinion that we should meet further.

“Which mass do you go to on Sundays?” he asked flaunting his Adam’s apple three times.

“Which suits you best?”

“Leeds has only two churches of ours: the cathedral and St. Patrick’s. I go to St. Patrick’s. In fact this Sunday there’s a sermon at ten o’clock mass on the Catholic missions to China. If you like, we could go to ten o’clock mass. We can meet outside the church on the corner of New York Road at a quarter to.”

“Is that OK?”

“That’s fine,” I replied shaking his hand and mentally pitying the poor Chinese.

He rebuffed my hand with the sweetest of smiles and I still had to listen to him for what was a long time. However, when we reached the rugby field, he looked appalled and we said goodbye till the following morning.

It was a splendid game played by young miners, and almost every player had to request a third set of replacement shorts. Then I ran home intending to write to Mr Tom. I asked him to be so good as not to wait for me in the morning using the excuse that I had some unexpected work to attend to. At the same time I pledged never to meet up with him again. His looks and conversation made me want to laugh and cry.

The next day, around mid-morning, a child knocked at the door carrying a parcel. It turned out that the parcel was for me. In side were two artificial flowers and a visiting card that said:
Thomas O’Grady, for his unforgettable friend
. When I saw that, if I didn’t burst into loud laughter, it was because I was literally shell-shocked. It wasn’t surprising, I think. The flowers were made of cloth, but it was obvious they’d just been bought. However much the
poor Irishman might thirst after some social life, it was a grotesque present. And, if he’d sent me the flowers because I belonged to the same confession as he did, then things took on such a ridiculous air I could hardly find the words to describe them. Nonetheless, don’t imagine that it didn’t cross my mind that Tom might just be a wonderful prankster. The excessively obsequious attitude he’d adopted from the first made me wary. Perhaps his nasal tones, his gestures, and his liking for social life hid the sardonic ways of an extraordinary man. The circumstances of his present life, companion to a dance teacher’s insatiable eighty-year-old widow, earning a pittance, and singing Italian arias while he cooked and cleaned, were perhaps but the adventures sought out by a paradoxical temperament. If he’d sent me two flowers because I’d broken a rendezvous we’d agreed, what would he have said if I’d actually gone? I spent two hours ruminating about that strange fellow and in the end didn’t know what to decide: whether to think Tom was simply a grotesque clown or an angelical play-actor. The upshot was that I decided even more categorically not to have any more to do with Mr Tom O’Grady.

For starters I decided to not to respond to his present. The following day there was a chance occurrence that I felt was providential. A letter arrived from a friend with the news that he was coming to London and was inviting me to dine that same evening at Scott’s Restaurant. Here’s a good excuse – I thought – to ditch an unpleasant relationship. The fact is, however, I received a letter from Tom O’Grady three days later in London. No doubt about it, my landlady had given him my address. The letter was surprisingly affable, but I thought I discerned such a degree of ambiguity I almost felt sick.
Ever since you departed
, went the letter,
I can only think of you and I thank God for giving me the opportunity to meet and speak with you. You can imagine how delightful it is to find a kindred spirit in a foreign land. Meanwood is a wilderness and all that is keeping me here is my charitable feeling for old Mrs
Hudson, who has reached such an enviable old age. Time here drags intolerably. I envy you being in London and I am with you, in spirit. If you go to Westminster Cathedral don’t forget to pray a Salve in my regard and if you buy a magazine, don’t throw it way, because I so like to keep up with the latest fashions. I will be immeasurably pleased to receive your news. Sincerely, Tom O’Grady
.

I read the letter three times. “If Tom is a hapless soul,” I told myself, “this letter is a model of haplessness. If, on the other hand, Tom is a practical joker, the letter is a perfect piece of practical joking and subterfuge. I remember how long I laughed with my friend trying to work out what precisely was driving that eccentric Irishman. We turned the matter over and over, and then all of a sudden my friend smiled maliciously and said: “Your Mr Tom must be a repressed …”

“Oh!”

“… and is thirsting for –”

“Thirsting for what? Liquor is expensive in taverns, but hardly in short supply …”

“No, I meant thirsting for company, for relationships, for contact …”

I stared at him for a moment and then split my sides guffawing so dramatically that if our table didn’t collapse then it never will. Once I’d recovered from that outburst – three or four minutes later – for I’d experienced three in a row and would probably have continued if the place hadn’t been a hotel filled from top to bottom with people who weren’t to blame in any way. As I said, once I’d recovered, I didn’t think I needed to tell my friend that his suggestion was a ridiculous fantasy. But the truth is that he’d said it in all seriousness – to the point of making me relapse into my previous parlous state:

“Sometimes, you know …? One never does know …”

“Oh, if you only knew him, the poor fellow!” I replied.

As soon as I arrived in Leeds, I stumbled into Mr. Tom in the station entrance.

“My dear friend!” he said with his usual flounces that I thought seemed more exaggerated than ever. “What a pleasant coincidence! I assure you that I wasn’t here waiting for you …”

I must have glanced at him impatiently, because he looked at me out of sorts for a moment and then averted his gaze. He grabbed my suitcase and went off to look for a taxi. Then he resumed his sugary, flattering outpourings. I must confess that he completely flummoxed me. I was inclined to slap him but his appearance made me feel pity for him.

With that, the conversation took an unexpected turn.

“You’ve arrived just in time,” the Irishman pompously declared. “This afternoon they’ve advertised a rugby match that I reckon must be very important. Two amateur miners’ teams … Look what it says in the paper … It’s such a pity you are too tired …”

“Oh! So you’ve changed your mind about rugby?”

“To tell you the truth, I really have …” he said, smiling broadly and quite shamelessly.

“That’s a really rapid turnaround!”

The taxi had left the Leeds city center and was now heading through the crowded suburbs towards Meanwood Road. I didn’t feel like talking. I’d simply been angered by what he’d just said about rugby. However, I could sense that Mr O’Grady was raring to talk. He finally did so, gesticulating as usual.

“Have you heard?” he asked. “There’s been a dreadful scandal … You must have heard about it by now. St. Patrick’s has discovered that the money being collected for the missions in China has been ending up in the wrong pockets … What a wicked world this is! Why would anyone want to do such
a thing? But, all in all, perhaps this is the best that could have happened, because …”

I jumped up, indignantly.

“Why do you say such a thing, Mr O’Grady?”

He responded by way of a deep sigh.

“Listen to me,” I said, at the end of my tether. “Are you making fun of me? Who are you, Mr O’Grady? A child, or a practical joker?”

“Me make fun of you, sir? Why should I want to do that?”

‘ “Frankly, Mr O’Grady, sir, you act very oddly. I confess that you’d only have to say that you’ve lost interest in social life for me to form a clear idea of what you’re about …”

When I said that, I saw him look up and his flattering expression change to one of mild contempt.

“And what if I were to say,” he asked, “that social life doesn’t interest me and never has?”

“Why start on that again, Mr O’Grady? Why do you need to flatter me and go along with me in a way I never wanted and never will? Could you please tell me what you want from me?”

Though he tried to hold up, he melted away once again. I made no attempt to resume our conversation.
If this fellow has any sense
, I thought,
he must have seen that he made a mistake
. By his very nature, Mr Tom did himself no favors. When you saw him resort to byzantine explanations, he simply became unpleasant.

On the last part of our journey, I glanced at him several times out of the corner of my eye: he was sitting, downcast, next to me. I noticed how he, for his part, also couldn’t stop looking at me, with his Adam’s apple going up and down. His eyes oddly reminded me of the eyes of a dog that has just been beaten. However, they were probably that and more besides. If you
could strive to make the effort to think he was a complete hapless wretch, you immediately grasped that there was something indefinable, irreducible, and ambiguous about him that he couldn’t let go, even at moments when he seemed driven by a feeling that was clear enough. However, the car had reached home: I went through the garden gate without saying a word. I behaved cruelly.

The landlady came into the passage to welcome me and looked at me, smiling half affectionately, half mockingly.

“Your friends really missed you …” she said as she shook my hand.

“My friends? What friends, madam? I didn’t know that I had any, apart from your good selves …”

“Mr Tom O’Grady came at least a dozen times to ask after you. He was so persistent and so persuasive that I gave him your address in London. This morning I told him when you were arriving. Perhaps that was wrong of me … I think Mr Tom was extraordinarily grateful …”

I told her how it had all turned out. She didn’t let me finish, and being a very pious and well-educated lady, she offered this diagnosis: “Shared feelings are extremely powerful … There’s probably nothing that’s stronger …

The next morning I received a letter from Mr O’Grady. It was a letter that made an impact that was the opposite of what the Irishman had been hoping for. His letter begged, in a word, for forgiveness, but he expressed himself with such gushing sincerity that you could hardly take him seriously. His confession seemed a deliberate attempt to muddy the waters even further.
What happened yesterday
, said the letter,
was truly regrettable. It’s true: I lied three times and did so to please you. You must have thought that was insulting. If you’d been slightly more sensitive when you spoke, you might have understood how naïve I was being. In any case, I flattered you and that is a sin. I can only ask for your forgiveness. I would consider myself to be
completely miserable if fate condemned me not to be able to see eye to eye with the only man in Meanwood who thinks as I do about the essentials in life. I beg you, sir, grant me this favor and forget my intolerable, disagreeable frivolity
.

His letter upset me on several fronts. I observed how that fellow, despite my best efforts, was gradually infiltrating my life and that a day didn’t pass when he didn’t waste my time for one reason or another. I decided to find out what really was behind this excessive interest he showed in me. The fact that he could never find the words to say whatever he wanted to say clearly, or that I couldn’t work out if he was an annoying lunatic or a wily practical joker, had me confused. Without more ado, I set up a meeting with him intending to ask the obvious necessary questions.

“Mr O’Grady,” I said, “I’d like to ask you a question.”

“Anything you’d like to ask,” he replied, his arm making the usual goosey movement, “will be an expression of your trust in me.”

“Listen,” I said grabbing his arm and staring into his face. “Could you tell me what manner of man you really are? Are you not thirsting after something?”

“Thirsting after something? I’ve always been a temperance man myself.”

“I mean are you someone who longs for something that we might say is hidden …”

“Something hidden …?” he asked, puckering his lips into an
o
while he fiddled with the knot of his tie.

“Yes, you know what I mean … something that is socially unmentionable …”

Mr O’Grady stretched his arms out as if he was about to strangle himself. His Adam’s apple bobbed up and down convulsively. His eyes shrank as if he were about to burst into tears. He wanted to speak but couldn’t. Finally, he made a desperate effort and rasped, “How can you possibly have thought
that of me? Something socially unmentionable … What on earth does
that
mean? In any case, I think that my feelings were quite …”

“You’ll forgive me if I am mistaken … You must recognize, nevertheless, that I’m not entirely to blame. Love for one’s fellow man and the desire to please can, as you’ve seen, lead to things seeming what they’re not. And all because there are some things that one can never take beyond a certain point.”