The year of the virgins

This book made available by the Internet Archive.

THE YEAR OF THE VIRGINS

PART ONE

'I just can't believe my ears. I just can't.'

'It's a simple question for a man to ask of his son.' 'What!'

Daniel Coulson bent over and looked at his wife's reflection in the mirror, and he saw a round flat face, the skin of which was still as perfect as when he had married her thirty-one years ago. But that was all that remained of the girl who had got him to the altar when he was nineteen, for the fair hair piled high above the head was bleached and her once plump, attractive shape had spread to fat, which now looked as if it were trying to force its way out at various points of her taffeta gown, an evening gown with a neckline just below the nape of her neck; it would be indecent to expose the flesh leading to her breasts. But any ardour those breasts would or should have aroused had died in him long ago. His attention was now focused on her eyes: pale grey eyes which at most times appeared colourless, except as now when rage was boiling in her. And as he stared into them he ground his teeth before saying, 'You expect me to collar him and ask him that?'

'It's what any ordinary father could ask of his son. But then you've never been an ordinary father.'

'No, by God! I haven't. I've fought you all the way, because you would have kept him in nappies until he left school. You had him at the breast until you were shamed out of it.'

When her arm came out and her elbow caught him in the stomach, he stumbled away from her, the while thrusting out his hand, for she had gripped the lid of a heavy glass powder-bowl and was holding it poised for aiming. 'You let that out of your hand, missis,' he growled, 'and I'll slap your face so hard you'll have to make an excuse for not attending his wedding.'

As he watched her hand slowly open and the lid drop back on to the dressing-table he straightened his back as he said grimly, 'You can't bear to think you're losing him, can you? Even to the daughter of your best friend. You tried to link her up with Joe, didn't you? But she had grown out of her schoolgirl pash and wanted Don. And, let me tell you, I saw that she got what she wanted, and what Don wanted. Although if there was anyone she could have had apart from Don I would have picked Joe.'

'Oh, yes, you would have picked Joe. You saddled me with a retarded son, then you inveigled me into adopting a child . . .'

'My God!' He put his hand to his head and turned from her and walked down the long, softly carpeted room towards the canopied four-poster bed, a bed he had not slept in for more than fifteen years, and he bumped his head against the twisted column of one of the posts. Then in the silence that had fallen on the room he turned slowly; but he did not move towards her, he simply stared at her for a long moment before he said, 'Me inveigled you

into adopting a child? It's well seen it wasn't my father who ended up in an asylum.'

When he saw the muscles of her face begin to twitch he told himself to stop it, he had gone too far, it was cruel. But the cruelty wasn't all on one side. No. By God! No. If she had been a wife, just an ordinary wife, instead of a religious maniac and an almost indecently possessive mother, then he wouldn't now be carrying the shame of some of the things he'd had to do because of his needs; and all on the sly, because one mustn't lose face in the community, the community of the church and the visiting priests and the nuns in the convent and the Children of Mary and the Catenians and all the paraphernalia that must be kept up . . .

He must get out. He must have a drink. He drew in a long gasping breath. He'd better not; he'd better wait until the company came, because if he started early his tongue would run away with him.

He was walking down the room towards the far door when her voice hit him almost at screaming pitch: 'You're a low, ill-bred, common swab, like your father was, and all your lot.'

He didn't pause but went out, pulling the door after him; only to stop on the wide landing and close his eyes. It was amazing, wasn't it? Simply amazing, calling him common and a low, ill-bred swab, she who had come from the Bog's End quarter of Fellburn! He could recall the day she came to the office looking for a job. She was fifteen, and Jane Broderick set her on. But after three months Jane had said, 'She's no good, she'll never be able to type; the only thing she's good for is putting on side. She's got the makings of a good receptionist, but this is a scrap-iron yard.' And it was his father who

had said, 'Give the lass a chance. You said she had a good writing hand so let her file the orders like that.' And his father nearly killed himself laughing when it was discovered she was taking elocution lessons from a retired schoolteacher in town. It was from then that he himself began to think there was something in her, that she was different. And my God, he had to learn just how different she was. But there was one thing he could say for her; her elocution lessons had been put to good use, for she could pass herself off in any company. Even so, she chose her company: no common working-class acquaintances for her. Look how she had chummed up with Janet Allison because, although the Allisons didn't live in a blooming great mansion like this, they were middle-class down to their shoe laces. Catholic middle-class. Oh yes; Winnie could not have tolerated Protestants even if they had supported a title. She was faithful to one thing, at any rate, and that was her religion.

He went slowly down the stairs and as he walked across the hall the far door opened and there stood his adopted son, Joe.

Joe was as tall as himself, and they were very alike, only his hair was black, not just dark, and his eyes were a warm brown, not blue. Daniel had always felt proud that Joe resembled him, because he had thought of him as a son even more than he did of Stephen, or even of Don.

As he approached him he glanced at the two books Joe had in his hand, saying, 'What's this? Starting to do a night shift?'

'No; not quite; just something I wanted to look up.' They stared at each other for a moment, then Joe said simply, 'Trouble?'

'What do you mean, trouble?'

'Well, unless it slipped your mind, the bedroom is placed over the library. It's a high ceiling in there,' he jerked his head backwards, 'but it's not soundproof.'

Daniel now pushed past him to go towards the library, saying over his shoulder, 'You got a minute?'

'Yes; as many as you want.'

Joe closed the door after him, then followed Daniel up the room to where a deep-seated leather couch was placed at an angle facing a long window that looked on to the garden. But when the man whom he thought of as his father did not sit down but moved to the window and, raising one hand, supported himself against the frame, he walked to his side and said, 'What is it now?'

'You won't believe this.' Daniel turned to him. 'You'll never believe what she's asked me to put to Don.'

'Well, not 'til you tell me.'

Daniel now turned from the window, walked to the couch and dropped down on to it. Then, bending forward, he rested his elbows on his knees and, staring at the polished parquet floor, he said, 'She's demanding that I ask Don if he's still a virgin.''

There being no comment forthcoming from Joe, Daniel turned his head to look up at him, saying, 'Well, what do you say to that?'

Joe shook his head as he said, 'What can I say? Nothing, except to ask what you think she would do if you came back and gave her the answer that he wasn't.'

'What would she do? I just don't know; me mind boggles. She'd go to some extreme, that's sure, even perhaps try to stop the wedding, saying he wasn't fit to marry a pure girl like Annie, or Annette, as her mother insists on calling her. These people! Or she'd try to yank him along to Father Cody. Oh no, not Father Ramshaw; no, he'd likely laugh

in her face, but hellfire Cody would likely call up St John The Baptist to come and wash her son clean.'

'Oh, Dad.' Joe now covered his mouth with one hand, saying, 'That's funny, you know.'

'Lad, I can see nothing funny in anything I say or do these days. To tell the truth, and I can only talk about it to you and one other, I'm at the end of me tether. I've left her twice, as you know, but she's hauled me back through pity and duty, but when I go this time, all her tears and suicide threats and for the sake of the children . . . Children!' He pointed at Joe. 'Look at you. You were twenty years old when she last named you among the children. That was five years ago and she still had her child with her, because she still considered Don, at sixteen, to be a child. It's a wonder he's turned out the decent fellow he is, don't you think?'

'Yes; yes, I suppose so, Dad. And he is a decent fellow. But . . . have you thought, if you were to go, what would happen to Stephen, because there's someone who is a child for life. You faced up to this a long time ago. And you couldn't expect Maggie to take him on if there was no other support. And if you went, you know what Mam would do with him; what she's threatened many times.'

Abruptly, Daniel thrust himself up from the couch, his shoulders hunched, saying, 'Don't go on. Don't go on, Joe. Stephen will never go into a home; I'll see to that. But one thing I do know: I can't stand much more of this.' And moving his feet apart and stretching his arms wide, he said, 'Look at it! A bloody great room like this, full of books that nobody apart from you bothers to read. All show. Twenty-eight rooms, not counting your original prehistoric annexe. Stables for eight horses; not even a damned dog in them. She doesn't like dogs, just cats.

Six acres of land and a lodge. And for what? To keep five people employed, one for each of us. I've lived in this house for fifteen years but it's seventeen years since I bought it, and I bought it only because it was going dead cheap. A time-bomb had gone off close by, and the soldiers had occupied it, and so the owners were glad to get rid of it. Funny, that. They could trace their ancestors back two hundred years, but they were quite willing to sell it to a taggerine man who had made money out of old scrap that was helping to kill men.' He nodded. 'That's how I always looked at it, because when my Dad and old Jane Broderick were blown up together in the works towards the end of the war, I thought it was a sort of retribution. And yet it's strange, you know, for even though it was going cheap, when I saw it I knew I had to have it. I can't blame your mother for that, for like me she jumped at it and then took a delight in spending a fortune furnishing it; and wherever she got it from, I don't know, but that's one thing that can be said for her; she had taste in furnishings. But it's funny, you know, lad, this place doesn't like me.'

'Oh.' Joe now pushed Daniel on the shoulder with his fist, saying, 'Come on, come on, don't be fanciful.'

'It doesn't. I have feelings about things like this. It doesn't. I'm an intruder. We are all intruders. The war was supposed to level us all out. Huh . . .! But these old places, like some of the old die-hard county types, keep you in your place, and mine isn't here.'

For the first time a smile came on to his face and he turned and looked towards the window again, saying, 'Remember our first real house, the one at the bottom of Brampton Hill? It was a lovely place, that; cosy, a real home, with a lovely garden that you didn't get lost

in. Do you remember it?' He turned to Joe who, nodding, said, 'Oh yes, yes, very well.'

'Yet you like this house?'

'Yes, I like it. I've always liked it, although when I was young, the "cill" part of it, Wearcill House, always puzzled me. Yes, I've always liked it, but at the same time I know what you mean. There's one thing I must point out to you, Dad: you're lucky, you know, that it takes only five people to run the house, and that's inside and out. When the Blackburns were here, I'm told there were twelve servants inside alone. And they had only three sons and a daughter.'

'Aye, three sons; and they were all killed in the war.'

'Come on, Dad, cheer up. I'll tell you what.' He again punched his father in the shoulder. 'Go on; go and ask Don if he's a virgin.'

Watching Joe shaking with laughter, Daniel began to chuckle, and characteristically he said, 'Bugger me eyes to hell's flames! I'll never get over that. Anyway' - he now poked his head towards Joe - 'do you think he's a virgin?'

'Haven't the slightest idea. But on the other hand . . . well, I should say, yes.'

'I don't know so much. Anyway, where is he?'

'The last time I saw him he was in the billiard-room, playing his usual losing battle with Stephen. He's very good with him, you know.'

'Aye, he is. And that's another thing she can't get over; that her wee lamb has always found time for her retarded and crippled first-born. Aw, come on.'

They went out together, crossed the hall to where a corridor led off by the side of the broad shallow staircase, and at the end of it Joe opened the door and almost

shouted at the two people at the billiard table, 'I knew this was where you'd be. Wasting time again. Chalk up to the eyes and company coming' - he glanced at his watch - 'in twenty minutes' time.'

'Joe! Joe! I beat him. I did. I beat him again.'

Joe walked round the full-sized billiard table towards a man who was almost as tall as himself, a man thirty years old, with a well-built body and a mass of brown unruly hair, but with a face beneath it that could have belonged to a young boy, and a good-looking young boy. Only the eyes gave any indication that there was something not quite normal about him. The eyes were blue like those of his father, but they were a pale, flickering blue. It was as if they were bent on taking in all their surroundings at once. Yet there were times when the flickering became still, when his mind groped at something it could catch but only momentarily hold.

'I ... I made a seven . . . break. Didn't I, Don?'

'Yes. Yes, he did, and he made me pot my white.'

'Never!' said Daniel. 'He made you pot your white, Don? In that case you're getting worse.'

'Well, he's too good for me; and it isn't fair; he always wins.'

'I'll . . . I'll let you win next time, Don. I will. I will. That's a promise. I will. I will, honest.'

'I'll keep you to it, mind.'