My Oedipus Complex (34 page)

‘Sure, of course you are, Uncle Tom,' said Charlie, and at the first words the feeling of hysteria within him dissolved and left only a feeling of immense understanding and pity. ‘You know what brought me?'

His uncle dropped his hand.

‘I do, Charliss,' he said and drew himself erect. They were neither of them men to beat about the bush.

‘You'll come and see the last of him,' Charlie said, not even marking the question.

‘Charliss,' Tom said with that queer tightening at the corners of his mouth, ‘I was never one to hedge or procrastinate. I will not come.'

He almost hissed the final words. Min broke into a loud wail.

‘Talk to him, Charlie, do! I'm sick and tired of it. We can never show our faces in the town again.'

‘And I need hardly say, Charliss,' his uncle continued with an air of triumph that was almost evil, ‘that that doesn't trouble me.'

‘I know,' Charlie said earnestly, still keeping his eyes on the withered old face with the narrow-winged, almost transparent nose. ‘And you know that I never interfered between ye. Whatever disagreements ye had, I never took my father's side against you. And 'twasn't for what I might get out of you.'

In his excitement his uncle grinned, a grin that wasn't natural, and that combined in a strange way affection and arrogance, the arrogance of the idealist who doesn't realize how easily he can be fooled.

‘I never thought it, boy,' he said, raising his voice. ‘Not for an instant. Nor 'twasn't in you.'

‘And you know too you did this once before and you regretted it.'

‘Bitterly! Bitterly!'

‘And you're going to make the same mistake with your brother that you made with your son?'

‘I'm not forgetting that either, Charliss,' said Tom. ‘It wasn't today nor yesterday I thought of it.'

‘And it isn't as if you didn't care for him,' Charlie went on remorselessly. ‘It isn't as if you had no heart for him. You know he's lying up there waiting for you. He sent for you last night and you never came. He had the bottle of whiskey and the two glasses by the bed. All he wants is for you to say you forgive him.… Jesus Christ, man,' he shouted with all the violence in him roused, ‘never mind what you're doing to him. Do you know what you're doing to yourself?'

‘I know, Charliss,' his uncle said in a cold, excited voice. ‘I know that too. And 'tisn't as you say that I have no heart for him. God knows it isn't that I don't forgive him. I forgave him long years ago for what he said about – one that was very dear to me. But I swore that day, Charliss, that never the longest day I lived would I take your father's hand in friendship, and if God was to strike me dead at this very moment for my presumption I'd say the same. You know me, Charliss,' he added, gripping the lapels of his coat. ‘I never broke my word yet to God or man. I won't do it now.'

‘Oh, how can you say it?' cried Min. ‘Even the wild beasts have more nature.'

‘Some other time I'll ask you to forgive me,' added Tom, ignoring her.

‘You need never do that, Uncle Tom,' Charlie said with great simplicity and humbleness. ‘ 'Tis yourself you'll have to forgive.'

At the door he stopped. He had a feeling that if he turned he would see Peter standing behind him. He knew his uncle's barren pride was all he could now offer to the shadow of his son, and that it was his dead cousin who stood between them. For a moment he felt like turning and appealing to Peter. But he was never much given to the supernatural. The real world was trouble enough for him, and he went slowly homeward, praying that he might see the blinds drawn before him.

Nicholas Coleman arrived in B— on a fair day. The narrow streets were crowded with cattle that lurched and lounged dangerously as the drovers goaded them out of the way of passing cars. The air was charged with smells and dust and noise. Jobbers swung their sticks and shouted at one another across the street; shopkeepers displayed their wares and haggled with customers on the high pavements; shrill-voiced women sold apples, cigarettes and lemonade about the statue of the Maid of Erin in the market-place, and jovial burly farmers with shrewd ascetic faces under their Spanish hats jostled him as they passed.

He was glad when he succeeded in getting his business done and could leave the town for a while. It unnerved him. Above the roofs one could see always the clear grey-green of a hill that rose sharply above them and seemed as if at any moment it might fall and crush them. The sea road was better. There were carts on that too, and creels passed full of squealing animals; but at least one had the great bay with its many islands and its zone of violet hills through which sunlight and shadow circulated ceaselessly, without effort, like the flowing of water. The surface of the bay was very calm, and it seemed as if a rain of sunlight were pelting upon a bright flagstone and being tossed back again in a faint glittering spray, so that when one looked at it for long it dazzled the eye. Three or four fishing smacks and a little railway steamer with a bright red funnel were all that the bay held.

He had his dinner over an old shop in the market-place, but he was so nervous that he ate little. The farmers and jobbers tried to press him into conversation, but he had nothing to say; they talked of prices and crops, the Government and the County Council, about all of which he knew next to nothing. Eventually they let him be, much to his relief.

After dinner he climbed the hill that led out of town. The traffic had grown less: he climbed, and as the town sank back against the growing circle of the bay it seemed a quiet place enough, too quiet perhaps. He felt something like awe as he went up the trim gravel path to the convent. ‘At seven,' he thought, ‘the train will take me back to the city. At ten I shall be walking through Patrick Street on my way home. Tomorrow I shall be back at my old stool in the office. I shall never see this place again, never!'

But in spite of this, and partly because of it, his heart beat faster when the lay sister showed him into the bare parlour, with its crucifix, its polished floor, its wide-open windows that let in a current of cool air.

And at last
she
came; a slim figure in black with starched white facings. He scarcely looked at her, but took her hand, smiling, embarrassed and silent. She too was ill at ease.

They sat together on a garden seat from which he saw again the town and the bay, even more quite now. He heard nothing of its noise but the desolate screech of a train as it entered the station. Her eyes took it all in dispassionately, and now and again he glanced shyly up at her fine profile. That had not changed, and he wondered whether he had altered as little as she. Perhaps he hadn't, perhaps for her at least he was still the same as he had always been. Yet – there was a change in her! Her face had lost something; perhaps it was intensity; it no longer suggested the wildness and tenderness that he knew was in her. She looked happier and stronger.

‘And Kate?' she asked after they had talked for a little while. ‘How is she?'

‘Oh, Kate is very well. They have a nice house in Passage – you know Tom has a school there. It's just over the river – the house, I mean; sometimes I go down to them on a Sunday evening for tea.… They have five children now; the eldest is sixteen.'

‘Yes, of course – Marie. Why, she was called after me! She's my godchild.'

‘Yes, yes, fancy I'd forgotten! You were always with Kate in those days.'

‘I'd love to see Marie. She has written to me for my feastday ever since she was nine.'

‘Has she? I didn't know. They don't talk to me about it.'

A faint flush mounted her cheek; for a moment she was silent, and if he had looked at her he would have seen a sudden look of doubt and pain in her eyes. But he did not look up, and she continued.

‘Kate writes to me off and on too – but you know Kate! It was from her
I heard of your mother's death. That must have been a terrible blow to you.'

‘Yes, it was very sudden. I was the only one with her when it came.'

‘We had Mass for her here. How did she die? Was she –?'

‘She died hard. She didn't want to leave me.'

‘Oh!'

Her lips moved silently for a little.

‘I've never forgotten her. She was so gentle, so – so unobtrusive, and Fair Hill used to be such a happy place then, before Kate married, when there were only the three of ourselves.… Do you remember, I used to go without my dinner to come up after school?…And so the house is gone?'

‘Yes, the house is gone.'

‘And Jennifer? The parrot?'

‘Jennifer died long ago. She choked herself with an apple.'

‘And Jasper?'

‘Jasper too. An Alsatian killed him. I have another now, a sheepdog, a great lazy fellow. He's made friends with the Kerry Blue next door and the Kerry Blue comes with us and catches rabbits for him. He's fond of rabbits, but he's so big, so big and lazy!'

‘You're in lodgings. Why didn't you go to live with Kate and Tom? You know they'd have been glad to have you.'

‘Why should I? They were married; they had children at the time; they needed the house for themselves.… Besides, you know what I am. I'm a simple fellow, I'm not a bit clever, I don't read books or papers. At dinner the cattle-jobbers were trying to get me talking politics, and honest, I didn't know what they were at! What would Tom and his friends from the University have thought of a stupid creature like me?'

‘No, you spent all your time in the country. I remember you getting up at five and going out with the dogs, around White's Cross and back through Ballyvolane. Do you still do that?'

‘Yes, every fine morning and most Sundays. But I had to give up the birds when mother died.'

‘Ah, the birds! What a pity! I remember them too, and how beautifully they sang.' She laughed happily, without constraint. ‘The other girls envied me so much because you were always giving me birds' eggs, and I swapped them for other things, and I came back to you crying, pretending I'd lost
them.… I don't think you ever guessed what a cheat I was.… Ah, well! And you're still in the factory.'

‘Still in the factory!…You were right, you see. Do you remember you said I'd stick there until I grew grey hairs. You used to be angry with me then, and that worried me, and I'd give a spurt or two – No, no, I never had any ambition – not much anyhow – and as well be there as any place else.… And now I'm so used to it that I couldn't leave even if I wanted to. I live so quietly that even coming here has been too much of an adventure for me. All the time I've been saying “Tomorrow I shall be back at work, tomorrow I shall be back at work.” I'll be glad to get home.'

‘Yes, I can understand that.'

‘Can you? You used to be different.'

‘Yes, but things
are
different here. One works. One doesn't think. One doesn't want to think. I used to lie abed until ten at one time, now I'm up at half-past five every morning and I'm not a bit more tired. I'm kept busy all day. I sleep sound. I don't dream. And I hate anything that comes to disturb the routine.'

‘Like me?'

‘No, not like you. I hate being ill, lying in bed listening to the others and not working myself.'

‘And you don't get into panics any longer?'

‘No, no more panics.'

‘You don't weep? You're not ambitious any longer? – that's so strange!…Yes, it
is
good to have one's life settled, to fear nothing and hope for nothing.'

She cast a quick, puzzled look at him.

‘Do you still go to early Mass?' she asked.

‘Yes, just as before.'

They fell into silence again. A little mist was rising from the town; one side of the bay was flanked with a wall of gold; a cool wind from the sea blew up to them, stirring the thick foliage and tossing her light, black veil. A bell rang out suddenly and she rose.

‘What are your lodgings like?' she asked, her cheeks reddening. ‘I hope you look after yourself and that they feed you properly. You used to be so careless.'

‘Oh, yes, yes. They're very decent. And you – how do you find the place agreeing with you? Better than the city?'

‘Oh, of course,' she said wearily, ‘it is milder here.'

They went silently up the path towards the convent and parted as they had met, awkwardly, almost without looking at one another.

‘No,' he thought, as he passed through the convent gate, ‘that's over!' But he knew that for days, perhaps for months, birds and dogs, flowers, his early-morning walks through the country, the trees in summer, all those things that had given him pleasure would give him nothing but pain. The farmers coming from the fair, shouting to one another forward and back from their lumbering carts brought to mind his dreams of yesterday, and he grieved that God had created men without the innocence of natural things, had created them subtle and capricious, with memories in which the past existed like a statue, perfect and unapproachable.

And as the train carried him back to the city the clangour of its wheels that said ‘ruthutta ruthutta ruthutta' dissolved into a bright mist of conversation through which he distinctly heard a woman's voice, but the voice said nothing; it was like memory, perfect and unapproachable; and his mind was weighed down by an infinite melancholy that merged with the melancholy of the dark countryside through which he passed – a countryside of lonely, steelbright pools that were islanded among the silhouettes of hills and trees. Ironically he heard himself say again, ‘Yes, it
is
good to have one's life settled, to fear nothing and hope for nothing.'

And the train took him ever farther and farther away and replied with its petulant metallic voice –

‘Ruthutta ruthutta ruthutta!'