Ghost Light (28 page)
Authors: Joseph O'Connor
I can see Inishmaan across the Sound if I filch a loan of Mary’s da’s telescope. Seeing it makes me think of my Tramper. It’s myself would like to be walking and courting with you there, and kissing your knuckles and your eyelids. (Why am I telling you this? Sure, it fills up a rainy night.) I
would
like that, though. I miss you. I love you. Won’t it be palatial altogether when we’re married, Mister Millington? And they can all go and hump. And chew lumps off my rump. Come here to me till I tell you a little secret, Mister Honey – and you will think me a right schoolgirl when I tell you a silly fancy I had. There’s this little cabin over on Inishmaan used to belong to a lacemaker, and it neatly on the sea looking over to America. Do you know the place I mean? By the north shore cliff. It’s living there I’d fancy with my dear dotey Mister.
would
like that, though. I miss you. I love you. Won’t it be palatial altogether when we’re married, Mister Millington? And they can all go and hump. And chew lumps off my rump. Come here to me till I tell you a little secret, Mister Honey – and you will think me a right schoolgirl when I tell you a silly fancy I had. There’s this little cabin over on Inishmaan used to belong to a lacemaker, and it neatly on the sea looking over to America. Do you know the place I mean? By the north shore cliff. It’s living there I’d fancy with my dear dotey Mister.
Well Sally and I went out there in a little steamer the other day with Mary and her brothers and some boys and some sheep and some goats and a cock and a postman. It looks pretty through the telescope at sunset but when you actually betake yourself over there it’s a different state of affairs entirely. The gable’s collapsed and the roof-beam’s broken in two and a Sugarloaf of sheepshite in the lane. A couple of broken glasses was fairly much
the only evidence of human occupation although when I foostered around in the rubble of what would have been the kitchen I found a couple of breakings of broken delft. Beautiful grey in the willow pattern – exactly the grey of your eyes. Pauric Danny – Mary’s da – says you’d need a diviner to find water inside a walk of it and there isn’t one on the island and it’s a sultan’s ransom to coax one over. So I’ll probably just leave our little cabin of pleasures for the terns and the wildflowers. It’s a nice picture to have in your head in Dublin.
the only evidence of human occupation although when I foostered around in the rubble of what would have been the kitchen I found a couple of breakings of broken delft. Beautiful grey in the willow pattern – exactly the grey of your eyes. Pauric Danny – Mary’s da – says you’d need a diviner to find water inside a walk of it and there isn’t one on the island and it’s a sultan’s ransom to coax one over. So I’ll probably just leave our little cabin of pleasures for the terns and the wildflowers. It’s a nice picture to have in your head in Dublin.
We met an old woman called Mrs Flaherty. I think she was sweet on you. ‘A
grave
poor man,’ she kept saying about Your Scrawniness, with this faraway look on her face. ‘He’d go
into
himself, do you know, and not come out the whole day. There’s some men do be fierce for the going into themselves, God between us. He’d be a type-writing machine. You never seen the like of it. But a grave poor sorrow of a natural man. And you’d see him going along the rocks there in the rain or the sun and the grief kindling away in the eyes of him.’ She repeats herself, the old dote, the way old women do. Mary and the lads were good with her. I suppose it’s as though stories are stepping stones when you’re old, and you keep at the ones you know or you’d fall in. It was a prince of a blue day and this huge Italian sky, same as in a picture of the Mediterranean. There was this tall ship a few miles out. We watched till it disappeared. Below near the rocks there were these seals and a cormorant. The seals would send you a bit queer, their eyes are so human. Oh I went up to that little cottage where you used to stay every year. Funny old owl. Can’t have been easy for you all alone. I wished I could have been there with you. Am I allowed to say that?
grave
poor man,’ she kept saying about Your Scrawniness, with this faraway look on her face. ‘He’d go
into
himself, do you know, and not come out the whole day. There’s some men do be fierce for the going into themselves, God between us. He’d be a type-writing machine. You never seen the like of it. But a grave poor sorrow of a natural man. And you’d see him going along the rocks there in the rain or the sun and the grief kindling away in the eyes of him.’ She repeats herself, the old dote, the way old women do. Mary and the lads were good with her. I suppose it’s as though stories are stepping stones when you’re old, and you keep at the ones you know or you’d fall in. It was a prince of a blue day and this huge Italian sky, same as in a picture of the Mediterranean. There was this tall ship a few miles out. We watched till it disappeared. Below near the rocks there were these seals and a cormorant. The seals would send you a bit queer, their eyes are so human. Oh I went up to that little cottage where you used to stay every year. Funny old owl. Can’t have been easy for you all alone. I wished I could have been there with you. Am I allowed to say that?
Well now, Mister Horn-Rims – I better off to my bed. Turn your back while I am undressing myself, you pirate! Can I tell you another secret? Do you mind that evening you took me to tea in the Shelbourne? I mean the evening you first invited me out. I can even remember the date. (Do YOU? Dirty liar – you
don’t.) When you took off your coat and put it over your arm and looked at me with the rain in your hair and your spectacles smudged? I wanted to kiss you. Amn’t I awfully bold? Before we’d even said good evening or sat down at the table. You were burbling away about Yeats, or Paris, or something, and looking as grave as ten popes. I’d a feeling I would always know you – or that I’d met you in the long ago. It wasn’t only that you were the kindliest man I’d ever seen in my life; it was stranger than that. Like weather. All the people coming and going and I couldn’t even see them. And I was frightened too. I didn’t want to fall for anyone. I was bringing a mended coat up to my Auntie Eleanor in Francis Street that night. And I wanted to tell her. Wasn’t I mad? That’s one night I didn’t sleep, Mister. Should I hush up? You’re right.
don’t.) When you took off your coat and put it over your arm and looked at me with the rain in your hair and your spectacles smudged? I wanted to kiss you. Amn’t I awfully bold? Before we’d even said good evening or sat down at the table. You were burbling away about Yeats, or Paris, or something, and looking as grave as ten popes. I’d a feeling I would always know you – or that I’d met you in the long ago. It wasn’t only that you were the kindliest man I’d ever seen in my life; it was stranger than that. Like weather. All the people coming and going and I couldn’t even see them. And I was frightened too. I didn’t want to fall for anyone. I was bringing a mended coat up to my Auntie Eleanor in Francis Street that night. And I wanted to tell her. Wasn’t I mad? That’s one night I didn’t sleep, Mister. Should I hush up? You’re right.
So anyhow. It’s raining hard. There we are. What else? It would be grand to go walking with you tomorrow and catch a lobster or two. I have been eating like a carthorse. Sally says I am gone too stout like one of the seals, and I better not go bathing else I’d cause a tidal wave, the bad rip. There’s a mirror in the hall downstairs, an old one, you know the sort, it says
Arthur Guinness
with a picture of a parakeet or some remarkably Irish craythur like that. I saw myself in it the other night – GLORY BE TO GOD. Funny thought struck me that my dear Tramp had looked in that mirror. I wanted to give it a kiss. There’s flattery for you now! But that way I’d have been kissing myself. You will not have such a fancy for your girl if she becomes a great big article, I’m thinking.
Arthur Guinness
with a picture of a parakeet or some remarkably Irish craythur like that. I saw myself in it the other night – GLORY BE TO GOD. Funny thought struck me that my dear Tramp had looked in that mirror. I wanted to give it a kiss. There’s flattery for you now! But that way I’d have been kissing myself. You will not have such a fancy for your girl if she becomes a great big article, I’m thinking.
So now, my old Millington Thrillington Moppet – I am solitary in my bed and that sister of mine is off up some hayrick with her student, and I’d lay odds I know what it is they’re studying. Ho ho. And I have a famous piece of news entirely for Your Munificent Honour, which is that I wrote the scene of a play the other night. (Christ, it’s thundering now; a clap like a BOMB just sounded to the south.) What started it was this old suitcase I saw in a junkshop in Galway a couple of
mornings before the Queen of Sheba and my self headed out here: just this battered old yoke full of some dead person’s belongings: old rosary beads and tickets and busted auld gewgaws and bits of almanacs and religious medals, and the docket from Ellis Island still pasted on the handle and a couple of dirty cents inside too. O Tramper, it was the saddest old suitcase a body ever saw. Well, all day the owner was in my head and who he must have been, or she. Anyways, I put an evening or two into making a play of it but then didn’t I get frustrated and threw the hat at it. So I tear it and say BAD WORDS to it and fling it into the wind, but wait till you hear what happened: next morning I was out in the currach with Mary and her brother Alec hauling lobster pots and didn’t I happen on a page of it in the water. As true as God! Soaked through, do you know, and the ink all smudged to buggery. But floating as though it wanted a last chance. So I fished it out anyways and into the apron pocket. And now it doesn’t seem actually sickening bad when I look at it again. I mean it doesn’t seem good. But it doesn’t seem bad. I might work on it a few nights and see if I can give it a kick. I’m thinking I’d call it SCENES FROM A HURRICANE.
mornings before the Queen of Sheba and my self headed out here: just this battered old yoke full of some dead person’s belongings: old rosary beads and tickets and busted auld gewgaws and bits of almanacs and religious medals, and the docket from Ellis Island still pasted on the handle and a couple of dirty cents inside too. O Tramper, it was the saddest old suitcase a body ever saw. Well, all day the owner was in my head and who he must have been, or she. Anyways, I put an evening or two into making a play of it but then didn’t I get frustrated and threw the hat at it. So I tear it and say BAD WORDS to it and fling it into the wind, but wait till you hear what happened: next morning I was out in the currach with Mary and her brother Alec hauling lobster pots and didn’t I happen on a page of it in the water. As true as God! Soaked through, do you know, and the ink all smudged to buggery. But floating as though it wanted a last chance. So I fished it out anyways and into the apron pocket. And now it doesn’t seem actually sickening bad when I look at it again. I mean it doesn’t seem good. But it doesn’t seem bad. I might work on it a few nights and see if I can give it a kick. I’m thinking I’d call it SCENES FROM A HURRICANE.
Do you reckon you might give it a read for me, my sagacious old nighthawk? The hero is a handsome man of the world and is inspired by yourself but I don’t know if that would tempt you? (Cunning, amn’t I?) Or maybe it would likelier put you off. (Ha ha.) It would be phantasmagorical of you to read it for I know you would tell me the truth of whether it is of any use, at all, or whether it is, conversely, a bucket of donkeypiss. Anyhow, the only reason I started it was you gave me the courage. And to tell you of my feelings. About you, I mean. For it touched something, that suitcase, took me a while to see what it was. Or maybe I just want to impress Your Bearded Eminence. How funny. Sure I won’t actually set it alight on the chance I might hear from you again some time, ever, in my whole life, how is that? Would you not run away
with me to California and I’ll write it all up proper and play the whole thing to you some morning under a palm tree, in my nip? (Don’t be giving me your priestly looks! Don’t forget I know your secrets! O, it’s the quiet ones want watching, as my mother does say. Don’t you miss me at all, my naughty man? THEN WHY IN THE NAME OF GOD DON’T YOU WRITE TO ME?)
with me to California and I’ll write it all up proper and play the whole thing to you some morning under a palm tree, in my nip? (Don’t be giving me your priestly looks! Don’t forget I know your secrets! O, it’s the quiet ones want watching, as my mother does say. Don’t you miss me at all, my naughty man? THEN WHY IN THE NAME OF GOD DON’T YOU WRITE TO ME?)
Saints’ Mothers, it’s barrelling down now, the gale of all gales. I should rightly go to my sleep and quit plaguing you. You’d want to hear the creaks and groans out of the roof this minute – like the masts of a ship in a hurricane. Did you know the stagehands in Shakespeare’s time were sailors come home? Sally told me that. She has to know everything, of course. Sacred Heart, but it’s gone quarter to four in the morning. How did that happen? Why am I asking you questions? Do you know?
I was thinking about when we quarrelled. You silly jealous lunk. I hate it when we quarrel. It makes me afraid you want to leave me. I’d no more go with another fellow – you are too silly a goose for words. I might play a little game of winks and bat my eyes but that is all. And I’ll quit if you really do wish me to. The thought I’d make you unhappy, you blethering baboon, when it’s myself is at your mercy and always will be.
And I HATE it when you say I’d be better off with ‘some easygoing chap’. God it makes me want to scream the face off you, so it does. Some harmless nice fellow and his collars in a drawer and his mammy sewing him up for the winter. What would I do with him, when it’s my crabby auld scrivener I only want? You say it for the devilment of maddening me, don’t you?
Didn’t I know it the moment I saw you, before you’d ever given me the time of day. Long before you ever touched me, or even I heard your name spoken.
Girls’ nonsense
, I hear you saying. Never happens in life. Only in storybooks and songs. And the queerest thing of all is: I agree with my Tramper. I haven’t hide nor hair of reasons for what’s between us now. And if ever you
wanted to quit your impatient girl truly, and our little story had to be stored away in a room that’s only sometimes remembered, that’s still a room I’d want, and I’d go there now and again, like some room in an old hotel on a seafront someplace where two sinners did something they shouldn’t. Do you mind what I am telling you? It is the God’s honest truth. Even if I never saw you or heard from you again, you’d already have been the miracle of my life.
Girls’ nonsense
, I hear you saying. Never happens in life. Only in storybooks and songs. And the queerest thing of all is: I agree with my Tramper. I haven’t hide nor hair of reasons for what’s between us now. And if ever you
wanted to quit your impatient girl truly, and our little story had to be stored away in a room that’s only sometimes remembered, that’s still a room I’d want, and I’d go there now and again, like some room in an old hotel on a seafront someplace where two sinners did something they shouldn’t. Do you mind what I am telling you? It is the God’s honest truth. Even if I never saw you or heard from you again, you’d already have been the miracle of my life.
I can see you rolling your seven-hundred-year-old eyes and saying I make it sound a novel for dressmakers, you bittermouthed aspish auld granny. But to find you in my mind at some moment of the morning, to see some sentence in a script and wonder what my Tramper would say to it, or to feel you glowing on like a lamp in my head and know I’d sleep in your arms that night. There’s nothing in the world would ever give me the joy of that. Nothing in the great round world.
You’re forever at me to talk. Only I am sometimes afraid. The things I should have told you when we were walking Killiney Strand. Like that knowing you is the greatest blessing of anything in my life and I can’t think up the phrases and the fiery words you have yourself, for there’s not languages enough in all the living world to tell you of your preciousness to me. And everything about you gives me courage I never, ever had and without you I’m like a ghost drifting through some old house of a life and there’s nothing about you I don’t love. You are so kindly and good and wise and I love you and so patient and so loyal and so manly. So now you know all. Can I send you this letter? Are you reading it still? Am I mad?
When we marry, can we go to America and stay there a time? That’s if you still want me, my ploughboy. Wouldn’t we be the nice pair of ornaments in New York or Brooklyn or someplace? To flit away from this rainy sadland and the gossips and the dullards and the pokers-of-noses and auld maids. There’s times I think it will choke us. If only we could go. We would live to a hundred and fifty! Do you think I could ever play a lead in New
York or Chicago? O my Tramper, wouldn’t that be a pancake entirely. We’d be two fools with the laughter and we traipsing down the Broadway and back to some little flat in the midnight. It makes me weep with heart’s joy when I think I have found you, and all the lovers’ adventures we’ll share. Do you know the way I have sometimes wept when we have been together alone, for all the pleasures you have given me have left me nothing else to do? That is how I feel this night. How I wish I had you here. I would measure your neck with my kisses.
York or Chicago? O my Tramper, wouldn’t that be a pancake entirely. We’d be two fools with the laughter and we traipsing down the Broadway and back to some little flat in the midnight. It makes me weep with heart’s joy when I think I have found you, and all the lovers’ adventures we’ll share. Do you know the way I have sometimes wept when we have been together alone, for all the pleasures you have given me have left me nothing else to do? That is how I feel this night. How I wish I had you here. I would measure your neck with my kisses.
God I can’t sleep tonight. What is ailing your girl? Do you mind you asked me one time to sing you a song and I was nervous for I hadn’t had lessons? It was the first day we ever spoke to one another – in Sackville Street – by the Post Office. But if you were here, I’d sing it now. Would you like that, old Millipede? Because the words on a page are only words on a page, but a song needs someone to love it by hearing. You told me that once; it was that night we were in Cork. An auld drunkard was singing it and not a soul of the world listening. But you and me were. And it’s in my head now. And as long as I live, and no matter what happens us, I’ll hear it every time I hear rain.
The sun would dry the oceans wide;
Heaven should cease to be.
The world will cease its motion, my love.
E’er I’d prove false to thee.
Heaven should cease to be.
The world will cease its motion, my love.
E’er I’d prove false to thee.
Well, it’s coming on for dawn. I better go to sleep. Do you think I should send this, when you don’t want interrupting? You’re right: I shouldn’t. But tomorrow I’m going to. As soon as the storm is over.
Whisht, I think it’s lulling. Wait now, till I listen. Everything is quiet. Only the waves on the stones. It’s little enough Irish I’ll be learning today I’m thinking.
I can hear the terns calling. Beautiful sound. Come with me up to the cliff, and we’ll watch them an hour? We won’t say
anything. Let the sea be all our talk. Just the gulls and the fishermen’s boats heading out, and the trawl-nets unrolling behind them.
anything. Let the sea be all our talk. Just the gulls and the fishermen’s boats heading out, and the trawl-nets unrolling behind them.
I kiss this paper, dear man. Touch it to your lips.
I am half afraid to send it. I don’t know why. The sun is coming up.
Your Changeling
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