The Lonely Passion of Judith Hearne (17 page)

No god. But the Protestants would fiever be saved and still they went on making laws stopping people from doing sinful things, canting about sin and corruption. And if we Catholics were wrong too? she thought. Then we’d be no better offthan godless Russia, free love, no morals, rape in the streets, men killing, strangling, defiling women like the sex maniacs in the News of the World. Who’d stop them? What use in courts if there was no moral code, no bible to swear on? A woman like me, defenceless against the beast in tnen, what would I

do? No, no, there has to be a god and if there was no god, men would make one. Idols, like that great idol, in the picture, the Temple of Dagon, Victor Mature pulled it down, a god of clay. And those people back in ancient times, superstitious they were, afraid of the sun, of snakes, of things of clay. Omens and portents. And us? The golden door, the circle of bread in the monstrance. What if…? O forgive me Sacred Heart, the devil’s thoughts, forgive me. But - tearing at my dress, ripping it away, his toga thrown aside, his huge hands feel me, press me close, his body, muscled, hard. And drunken, that wonderful cheerfulness, gay laughter, quaffing the wine, forgetfulness. Sweet oblivion. O Thou. A loaf of bread, a jug of wine and Thou beside me in the wilderness. Paradise enow.

A car, headlights like yellow angry eyes, brakes screeching

in rage. She stumbled, drew back, fell. Strong hands lifted her. ‘Are you all right, Miss? You nearly got kilt.’

And a man’s head from the car window. ‘The lights were against her. She just walked out, not looking. Get herself killed.’

Then the noise of engines backing up, moving again. The passers-by stared, resumed their progress. The man who had

lifted her, touched his hat. ‘Sure you’re all right? Are you ill?’ ‘No, no, thank you. Thank you very much.’

Nearly killed, not looking. I was nearly killed. Called to meet my Maker. And in mortal sin, sinful evil thoughts, sins of intent. Denying God.

She stood there shaking, saying an act of contrition. Struck down in the midst of my sinfulness, O Sacred Heart, forgive me. You gave a sign, a warning. Your patience will not last for ever. O dear Jesus, the drink, the sin that led to another sin. Hallucinations I had, and shaking like this. O my God, I am heartily sorry. I thank Thee.

Her eyes sought the night sky and she gave thanks. Then she crossed carefully when the lights showed green and continued home to Camden Street. She said a whole rosary on the way. A rosary in honour of the Sacred Heart. He had warned: repent. Once again He had been merciful, He had shown the way.

CHAPTER 11.

NEXT morning, when Miss Hearne appeared for breakfast, her earthly penance began. All eyes watched her as she came in and sat down.

Mr Lenehan opened the attack. ‘Feeling better now, Miss

Hearne?’

‘O, yes, thank you.’

‘Well, that’s good news now. I’m sure we’re all glad to hear

that.’ He smiled deceitfully at the others. ‘It’s a terrible thing,

sickness in a house.’

Miss Friel shut her book with a snap. ‘Some people have no

consideration at all,’ she said loudly. ‘No consideration at all.

Sickness indeed! Singing and carrying on at all hours.’

Mrs Henry rice poured tea. ‘Now, it won’t happen again,

I’m sure.’

‘Disgraceful, I call it,’ Miss Friel said. ‘A nice thing for a

Catholic house.’

Miss Hearne, her face burning, hardly listened to these

words. She was watching Mr Madden. But he only opened

his mouth to put toast in it.

‘I like a bit of a song myself,’ Mr Lenehan said, grinning at

Miss Hearne. ‘You have a fine voice there. A fine carrying voice.’

Mary came in with fresh toast and put it in front of Miss

Hearne. She fumbled with the toast-rack and one of the slices fell beside Mr Madden’s cup. Miss Hearne saw Mr Madden look at the girl and the girl blushed red. He kept on looking, all the time the girl was in the room. Anything, so’s he won’t have to look at me, Miss Hearne thought. O, I don’t blame him. He’s shocked, and no wonder.

But there was no time to think about it: Miss Friel still

wanted satisfaction. ‘I can hardly keep my eyes open,’ she told the table. I’m dead tired, so I am, after yesterday. Singing and carrying on, you could hear it all over the house. It’s all very well for the rest of you, but I have to keep my wits about me, teaching.’

‘O, we all make noises, now and then,’ Mrs Henry Rice said. ‘I know I often disturb Bernie at his work when I put the vacuum cleaner on.’

‘Vacuum cleaner? I wouldn’t mind that. But caterwauling, no, it would drive you mad,’ Miss Friel said, glaring down the table at Miss Hearne.

O, the mortification of it. But she couldn’t let that pass. ‘Is it me you’re referring to?’ she asked Miss Friel. ‘And who else?’

‘And is it any business of yours what I do, I’d like to know?’ ‘It’s a matter of common comfort to the people who are living in this house. Singing and shouting away half the blessed night, and yesterday afternoon, I was correcting exercises, I could hardly hear my ears. I hammered away on your, wall, but not a bit of heed you paid. You’d think you were…

(O, no, not that! Not said out in public!) ‘I’m very sorry,’ Miss Hearne, said, cutting her short. ‘I promise you it won’t occur again. She looked at Mr Madden. ‘I must apologise to all of you. I didn’t realise the singing voice carried so much.’

But Mr Madden kept his head down. He looks upset, poor man, she thought, how embarrassing it must be for him.

see, Miss Friel said, standing up. Well, I should hope not indeed.’ Her victory won, she tucked her book under her arm and marched out of the room.

‘Ah, never mind her,’ Mr Lenehan chuckled, nodding towards the door. ‘Sure, there’s nobody doesn’t have a bit of a jig now and then. Except for the likes of her, never had a night’s fun in her life.’

‘Mr Lenehan!’ Mrs Henry Rice was stern. ‘I’ll thank you not to discuss people when they’re hardly out of the room!’

‘No offence meant. I was only sympathising.’ He winked at Miss Hearne.

Keep your winks to yourself, you counter jumper. Shameful, O shameful, being discussed like that, by such people, no tact, no manners. At least he had the sense to say nothing. Gentle man. One of nature’s gentlemen.

Miss Hearne drank her tea and forced a piece of sickening buttered toast into her mouth. Her stomach rejected it. Sick

bile rose in her throat. She swallowed it. O, not here, I couldn’t be sick in front of him. Lie down, a good lie down and some broth tonight, and not another drop of liquor, not

another drop ever. Go, I must. At once.

‘I think I’ll go to my room.’

‘Not feeling well?’ Mr Lenehan inquired.

The sick bile rose again. She shut her lips tightly and

nodded. Mr Lenehan smiled. ‘A good rest is the best cure.’

I could kill him, the cheeky thing, as if it was any of his

business. O, that shaking. Stop it. Stop it!

She ran upstairs to her room and reached the washbasin

just in time. Afterwards, she felt purged and weak.

She took off her dress and lay down on the bed. Nothing

matters, she said. Nothing. I must sleep and get well. Can’t talk to him in this condition. I must look dreadful. O, I feel sick. The sickness.

But sleep came quickly and she lay in light nameless dreams

all through the forenoon. It grew very cold in the room and she woke to pull the blankets over her. She slept on dreamlessly into the afternoon, making no sound, hidden in the cocoon of unconsciousness. To sleep and never wake. Wake to face him.

Someone outside?

‘Miss Hearne.’

She started up. ‘Who is it?’

‘There’s a Mrs Brannon on the ‘phone.’

‘Mrs Brannon?’ O Sacred Heart, the lesson, little Meg,

today, Thursday it is I

‘Did you tell her I’m not well?’

‘She wants to speak to you,’ the door cried, with the soft

compelling voice of Bernard.

‘Just a minute.’

My dress, where? O Mother Mary, my heart, the pain of it.

O, what’ll I say, what can I say? Sick, yes, unwell, O Sacred Heart help me. O Mother Mary, my good intention, help me now. I will not sin again.

Bernard, wearing a black turtleneck sweater, dirty flannels

and slippers, was waiting on the landing outside. He followed

her downstairs to the hall where the ‘phone dangled like an evil fruit from its cord. Her hand shook as she put the black

earpiece against her tousled hair.

‘Hello?’

‘Is that you, Miss Hearne?’ Mrs Brannon’s voice, twisted and harsh, leaped out of the little black cylinder. Mrs Brannon behind it, big, mean, opinionated.

‘Yes, Miss Hearne speaking.’ She looked back along the hall. Bernard, horrid fatty, was listening, sucking at a cigarette.

‘Well, I’d like to know what’s the meaning of this? Today’s your lesson with my Meg, you know that. And the poor child sitting there at the piano this last hour, waiting for you.’

‘O, Mrs Brannon, I’m terribly sorry. But I was ill. I’ve been in bed all day.’

‘That’s no excuse,’ the crackly mean voice roared out of the earpiece. ‘You might have ‘phoned, it’s the least you could have done. Not leaving the child waiting hour after hour like that, no consideration at all. I like people to keep their appointments. If you can’t do that, I’ll just have to get someone else.’

‘O, Mrs Brannon, I’m sorry, really I am, I’ll come over right away, I’ll be there in half an hour.’

‘So you’re not sick. Not sick, that’s a fine thing. I never heard the like. No, Miss Hearne, that won’t do. That won’t do at all. I’m sorry, I’ll just have to get someone else. I never heard of such a thing.’

‘But Mrs Brannon, I am sick. I mean that I’d come anyway. It skipped my mind, really, or I’d have ‘phoned of course.’

‘Well, it didn’t skip Meg’s. I won’t have a teacher who forgets her pupils. Good day, Miss Hearne. You can send me a bill for the last two lessons.’

‘Mrs Brannon, really, I don’t think…’

‘Click!’ said the little black earpiece.

‘Bad news?’ It was Bernard, fat, sucking his cigarette,

coming towards her.

‘No. No.’

‘Are you a teacher or something? I heard you mention going over. And the lady told me her little girl was waiting for you.’

‘I teach piano,’ Miss Hearne said, trying to walk round him

and get back to her room.

‘I’m very fond of music myself. I have some good records

and a record player, if you’d ever like to listen to them.’

‘That’s very kind of you, I’m sure. Now, I really must get

out of this draughty hall. If you’ll excuse me…’

‘Horowitz, Schnabel, Gieseking, I’ve got a lot of’good piano.

Some lovely stuff..’ He leaned over the rail of the banister,

watching her go up. ‘Lost a pupil?’ he asked.

O, the brute! Listening in on every word, the sneaky thing.

‘I said did you lose a pupil?’ He had raised his voice to a

shout. She turned and looked down the stairs.

I’m not deaf, thank you, Mr Rice. The answer is yes.

Although I don’t see that it’s any business of yours.’

‘I didn’t mean to be nosey. I just know some people who

want a piano teacher for their little girl, that’s all. Maybe

you’d be interested.’

‘Perhaps we can discuss it some other time.’

‘As you wish.’ He went off down the hall, whistling.

Whee-whe-whee-who… piano, pianissimo. I wonder now, a tidbit for little old New York upstairs? Yes, uncle dear, a piano teacher, a failed piano teacher at that. Heard her myself on the ‘phone, not half an hour ago, terrified because somebody’d cancelled a lesson. How’d he take that, eh? What the hell do you know, roaring it out, but it’s true, I’d say, I will say, and he’ll know it. And talking of the lady’s special peculiarities, uncle dear, has it ever occurred to you that the evidence presented in the past twenty-four hours leads indisputably to a certain conclusion? Item: two empty whiskey bottles in her room. Item: loud solitary songs. Item: generally hung-over appearance at the breakfast table this morning. Yes, uncle, the verdict is that the lady, to put it crudely, is a boozer. Watch his meat-face rage, nonna my business, in Hollywood tough-talk out of the side of his mouth. Ah, I know him, the sod, he’ll bluster and bluff out with another mad scheme, he’ll be off to Connemara to drain the bogs of Ireland for uranium,

handing out the big talk, but I’ll stop that, watch the fear when I point out, all reasonableness, mind you, that hell hath no fury like a spinster scorned. And that she’s been-led up the garden shall we say-by one James Madden and that he’d better watch his step now for she’ll be after him, thirsting for holy union. That should shift him.

But wait. Think about it. Messire Niccolo. Is this the way to proceed? There’s the affair of the serving girl, m’lud. And if he talks? No, in it himself, up to his neck, don’t worry. Yes, proceed as planned. And why not? If I tell him now that she is what she is, a piano teacher, a woman of straw, not a penny, then the business designs will stop, his interest will abate. He’ll avoid her. And then? A word in the other direction, a hint to the lady that all is not lost. She pursues, he flees, he cannot flee and continue to live here. An intolerable situation. Demands decisive action. Petreat. Pack. Bag and baggage. Out. Bye bye blacksheep. Yes, worry him. Handle it diplomatically. Iron hand in velvet. Yes. Do it now. He’s in.

Whee-whe-whee-who… whistling once more, Bernard turned, climbed the stairs to his uncle’s room.

CHAPTER 12.

The male must pursue. Miss Hearne believed this. If Mr Madden did not seek her company, she would be abandoned. The woman’s place was to resist advances, to grant the favour of her company, to yield little by little.

But on the following day Mr Madden again preserved a

total silence at the breakfast table. She tried to make him talk. He would not. Their cosy chats might never have been. He confined himself to the business of eating and drinking, and as soon as he had finished, he put on his hat and coat and went out. He was out all day. She waited for him, but the night came and sleep came and still he had not returned.