The Private Wound (2 page)

I explained that I'd been touring round the West for a week.

“Is that so? And it's your first visit to these parts?”

“Yes. But I was born in Tuam.”

His eyes popped at me. “Were you now? I've a cousin is a priest there. Father Ryan. We must have a drink on it. Padraig, set them up all round.”

He proposed my health again. The other occupants raised their glasses. They nodded at me pleasantly. Why on earth should I have felt them hostile, or suspicious? They're shy, like animals: strangers have to be sniffed. Warmed by the whiskey, I was already gratified to be accepted into this company. An English rectory, public school, Cambridge, an intellectual's pursuits—they set up, in me at least, a desire to cross the frontiers, to come to terms with the life of the majority, even to share it. In every highbrow there's a Common Man screaming to get out, I thought.

“You live in England now?” Haggerty was asking.

“Yes. London.”

“I was there once. A terrible noisy place.”

“It'll be noisier when they start bombing us.”

“You think you'll have a war, then?”

“I'm quite certain we shall.”

“Ah well, God willing, it'll never happen,” said Haggerty in a rather perfunctory tone. “And what do you do over there, Mr. Eyre? Are you in business, maybe? Or the English Government?”

“A sort of business. A one-man business, you could call it.” I had no wish to divulge my profession. Be anonymous.

“A shop is it?”

“A very closed shop,” I replied lightly.

Haggerty gave me a look, as if something had dawned upon him; and almost instantly withdrew his eyes, as if to conceal the enlightenment. Had I been able to interpret that look, I'd have saved myself a lot of trouble in the future.

But at that moment a woman entered the bar, and my attention was diverted.

I have been trying to recall my first impression of her. The woman wore on her head a cross between a jockey cap and one of those perpetual-student caps, which are in vogue to-day with the young of both sexes, cherry-red in colour. My eye was switched at once to the mop of hair beneath it, cut in a long “page-boy” bob which had been fashionable in England a few years before—dark hair with a gleam of red in it. She moved with a curious, rolling gait (pigeon-toed?), swinging her arms across her body. She wore a bright green, high-necked jersey and a very short skirt, rather like a kilt, of saffron. She was the first woman I had seen in a bar in Ireland, which perhaps accounted for the withdrawal I sensed in its other occupants.

“How
are
you, Desmond?” The usual Irish salutation, but not a trace of Irish in her voice, which was creamy in tone, countrified, but in a vaguely West-of-England manner.

“I'm fine. Is himself with you?”

“He was. Gone to the loo, I expect.”

Again I felt that slight
frisson
among the other drinkers. Then a man came in, a little unsteady of gait—a large, loose, pallid man, with grizzled hair, dressed in corduroy trousers and an indescribably shabby hacking jacket. Everyone greeted him by name. At first I thought they were calling him “Florrie”: then I remembered that Florence with its diminutive “Flurry”, is not an uncommon Christian name for men in Ireland. He went into a huddle with Haggerty, who was now behind the bar. The woman sat down on a high stool near him. She gave me one quick but not shy glance, then took up the whiskey which the barman had poured for her unasked.

I noticed the large man pass a cheque, somewhat furtively, to Haggerty and receive a few notes. He glanced at me over his shoulder and asked Haggerty a question: I seemed to hear “West Britisher” emerge in the answer—not a term of praise, I knew well enough, in Ireland.

Though I have never suffered severely from paranoia, I had had one year of bad bullying at school and was still perhaps overquick to feel, or imagine, hostility. But at this moment, I remember, it was not so much hostility I seemed to sense as a personal isolation, like that of a man who has walked all unwittingly into a group of conspirators—yes, the atmosphere had become, in a way I could not lay a finger on more precisely, conspiratorial: the two men muttering together at the bar, the woman ostentatiously concerned with nothing but her whiskey glass, the fellows on the red-leather benches round the wall appearing, no less ostentatiously, to avoid one another's eyes.

The moment passed very quickly. Haggerty and the big man came over to me.

“Mr. Eyre, I'm sorry to have deserted you. I had a little business with Mr. Leeson. He'd like to meet you.”

The big man took my hand, in an unexpectedly limp
grasp. “Desmond tells me you're staying in his lousy caravanserai, God help you.”

“Ah now, Flurry,” protested the manager.

“You must meet my wife. Harry! Forward!”

The woman slipped off her stool—a curiously liquid and graceful movement. The hand she gave me was a small one, and I noticed the delicacy of the wrist: she gripped mine firmly. Haggerty had faded away.

“I'm very pleased to meet you,” she said, with an absurdly artificial punctilio. Her lips were on the thin side; she had used a lot of lipstick on them, not too skilfully. Her eyes were greenish hazel. I realised, with a shock, that she was something of a beauty. I remember getting from this raffish young woman—the discontented droop of her long mouth, the eyes that were set rather too closely together—an impression of some natural force either pent up or run to waste.

The incongruous couple sat down at my table. Flurry and Harry. Harriet, presumably.

“Well now, tell us all about yourself.” That was Flurry, boisterous rather than inquisitive.

“I hardly know where to start. I was born in Tuam, of God-fearing parents. At the age of three—”

Harry laughed. Her teeth were very small and regular, very white too. She was wearing far too much of some all too pungent perfume. “Don't pester him, Flurry. He doesn't have to tell us the story of his life.”

“Ah, get on! We don't have so many visitors in this God-forsaken hole that we can afford to leave them be. Do we now, Harry? Are you staying here long?”

I explained about the car.

“What do you think of the place?”

“It's a wonderful country. I don't know that Charlottestown is exactly a beauty spot, though. That must be your shop I passed—”

“No such luck. It's my brother's—Kevin. My younger brother. We call him the Mayor. He owns half the town. An ambitious fellow, Kevin. And what do you do, if I may ask?”

“I write books.” It was out before I had time to check it. I could have kicked myself harder still for knowing it was said in an attempt to impress Harry. I looked round furtively. No one seemed to be listening.

Flurry's eyes widened. “A book-writer?” he said, putting a very long “oo” on the words. “D'ye hear that, Harry? Maire'd be mad to meet him.”

“I shall call him Boo,” announced his wife.

“Don't you dare! No, seriously, I don't want people to know—”

“Are you ashamed of writing books?” she asked forthrightly.

“Of course not. But—”

“So you're here to study the natives? Incognito?” said Flurry.

“No, no. I just wanted to find a quiet place where I could write my next novel. It's not going to be set in Ireland at all.”

Flurry gave me a violent clap on the shoulder. “You'll stay with us then,” he exclaimed. “As long as you like. We've dozens of rooms. Harry, wake up! Isn't that a powerful idea?”

It was an extremely disconcerting one. I'd heard all about Irish hospitality, but this was too much. I explained that I wanted to rent a cottage where I could be alone with my work.

“If it's money that's on your mind, you could rent a room in our house. What sort of a price could you pay?”

So
that's
what this hearty oaf is after, I thought. He must have seen my involuntary expression. “You could be
company for Harry—two English in a nest of wild Irishmen. Never mind, though. If you won't you won't.”

There was a pause, filled up with another round of drinks ordered.

“What about Joyce's?” said Harry unexpectedly: she had been silent a while, gazing into her glass.

Flurry slapped his knee with a huge hand. “By God, you have something there.” He launched into an enthusiastic sales talk about a cottage, half a mile from his own house. Its last occupant, the widow Joyce, had died recently, and Kevin Leeson had bought it and done it up for letting to visitors. He'd not yet got a tenant for the summer, so far as Flurry knew. With a sly look at me, he added, “And I can sting brother Kevin for a commission, so we'll all be happy.”

The Irish intuition, penetrating into one's secret thought and turning it against one—perfectly diabolical.

“We must have one on it,” said Flurry, as if the bargain had already been made. He scooped up our glasses and went to the bar.

I found Harry's eyes on me, a long meditative look. Taking off the absurd cap, she shook out her hair. How well I remember that moment—the scent of the smouldering turf fire, the hideously ornate “modernised” room, the voices flickering and falling, and my sense that a charmed circle had imperceptibly formed itself round us two. She nodded slightly, as if she'd found some answer in her own mind. We spoke, together.

“D'you ride?”

“Why ‘Harry'?”

“It's what Flurry's always called me,” she replied indifferently.

“You're the last person who should have a man's name.”

She gave no sign of being gratified by the compliment. “‘Harriet' is so stuffy and old-fashioned. What's yours?”

“Dominic.”

“My God! That's worse. It makes me think of a pi little schoolboy.”

She was certainly a pert young woman.

“I used to ride a bit, when I was a boy.”

“But you're above all that sort of thing now you're a famous writer?”

“Certainly not.” I spoke with some irritation. “And I'm not a famous writer.”

The faintest look of complacence touched her mouth. I was too young then to know how a woman may first try out her power on a man by rousing his anger, or that she will not do so unless she is interested in him.

“Go and get our drinks, Boo. Flurry's forgotten us.”

“Not if you call me that.”

“You
are
a touchy man. Dominic, then.”

At the bar, Flurry was deep in conversation with a red-haired man. I bought the drinks myself and returned with them.

“Cheers,” she said. “Who's Flurry talking to? Oh, it's Seamus.”

“Who's Seamus?”

“Oh, he's our sort of bailiff. Seamus O'Donovan. I don't know what Flurry'd do without him.”

“A fine-looking fellow.”

“I suppose so. He bores me. Always telling us we're ruined, we've got to sell a pasture, we need to re-roof the cow-shed. You know.”

“But that's a bailiff's job, isn't it?”

She yawned and stretched, showing her pretty teeth, the body beneath her green jersey. “Damn, now I've finished my cigarettes. Flurry,” she yelled, “get some fags.”

I gave her one of mine. She was always smoking.

Her husband returned with a packet. “I've sent Seamus to tell Kevin come along to-morrow afternoon. You can
meet him then, Mr. Eyre, and fix it up about the cottage. I'll ring you here in the morning.”

“He's Dominic.”

“Who's Dominic? Oh, him. A quick worker, isn't she, Dominic? Watch out now or she'll have you tied in knots. C'mon, Harry, I want my dinner.” Flurry staggered slightly and brought down his hand on the table for support. I noticed two fingers were missing. “Why don't you have dinner with us?”

I muttered excuses.

“Ah well, I don't blame you. Harry's cooking is notorious the length and breadth of the West.”

“Shut up, you silly old man.”

He lugged his wife to her feet, and turned to me. “Sleep well. I'll see you to-morrow. Are you sure you won't come back with us?”

“Really no, thanks.”

“Good night so.”

“Good night, Boo,” said Harry.

Shortly after, there was an explosion outside. I could see through the window Flurry, with his wife riding pillion, weaving off on a motorbike.

“That one'll have somebody destroyed one day,” said a drinker.

“It wouldn't be the first,” said another.

“It would not.”

Flurry Leeson rang me next morning. I was to come to Lissawn House for tea. “You can't miss it. Take the road south past the hotel. Then first turn right. Drive a mile till you come to the bushes. Our gate is just beyond on the right. Mind you close it behind you or the beasts'll be galloping out,” he said, in between paroxysms of coughing. “Are you a fisherman?”

“Well—”

“I'll lend you a rod.”

Flurry rang off abruptly, before I had time to tell him I'd not fished since I was a boy.

Sean had demonstrated his mastery over the machinery when I strolled along to the garage at midday. The engine was running sweetly again.

“I'm sorry I wasn't here to attend to you when you drove in, Mr. Eyre. Peadar's no use at all.”

“The old fellow—?”

“That's him. My second cousin. They put him out to grass ten years ago. He likes guarding the pump for me when I'm away: it gives him an interest in life.”

Sean was a bright-eyed, dark young man, with a trick of wiping his oily fingers on the waist of his jersey.

“I hear you're thinking of settling down here, Mr. Eyre.”

“For a little, perhaps.”

“You'd do worse than old mother Joyce's cottage, God rest her soul.”

One had about as much privacy here, I thought, as a goldfish in a bowl. Yet there was something rather winning about this fascinated interest in the stranger.