The Lonely Passion of Judith Hearne (26 page)

O, why did I come here? Miss Hearne asked herself. Poor Edie. She took the glass from the table and filled it up as if the gin was water. ‘I’m going to have a nip to keep you company,’ she whispered.

It burned, it burned like fire. But she drank it all down. ‘O Edie,’ she said. ‘I miss you, really I do. When I think of the good times we used to have together, you and I, in your old digs on Cedar Avenue. And what fun we had, laughing and joking about all the things that happened, the little funny things that used to happen in your office. Do you ever see any of the people you used to work with, Mr Henry, or Mr Flannery, or any of the girls?’

‘Would you have a sup more gin?’ the sick woman said. ‘It does wonders for the pain.’

‘Yes, dear, just a moment now.’ Miss Hearne pulled the

neck of the bottle out of her bag and tilted it into the

glass.

‘Nurse!’ an old woman called in the background. ‘Sista!

Sista!’

‘What is it?’ A nun, white robed, with flashing steel spectacles, appeared at the ward door.

‘Them two women is drinkin’,’ the old woman cried. ‘Them

two. That one over there wi’ the red coat.’

‘O, you dirty sneak. Wait till I get you,’ Edie Marrinan

cried. Perspiration ran like rain down her face. ‘You see, Judy, you see what I have to put up with? Dirty old hags, fdthy, back-biting old sneaks.’

‘Now, what’s this, Miss Marrinan?’ the nun said, coming up the ward with a swish ofstiffwhite skirts. ‘What’s this I hear?

‘Nothing, Sister, nothing,’ Edie Marrinan said, turning carefully towards the wall. ‘My pains are bad, Sister, leave me

alone.’

‘How did you get in here?’ the nun said, turning angrily to

Miss Hearne.

‘By the front door. With permission. I never heard of such

a thing,’ Miss Hearne said. ‘You’d think I was a thief or something.’

‘Well, you’ll have to leave now,’ the nun said suspiciously. ‘Goodness me, Sister, you’d think I was a criminal, the way

you talk to me. I was just visiting my friend.’

She stood up, clutching her big handbag with a tottering attempt at dignity. But the bottle had not been corked. Under the nun’s shocked stare, she looked down and saw the gin seep through the bag and fall in splashing wetness on the floor.

‘Well!’ the nun said, her pale face flushing. ‘Did you ever?

Do you know this woman is sick? Do you know the seriousness of coming in here and feeding her that vile stuff, whatever it is, without a doctor’s permission? O, you should be ashamed of yourself, really it’s scandalous. I don’t know who let you in but I’ll report this to Reverend Mother immediately.’

The grey dressing-gowns, joyful at this break in the dull

daily routine, had clustered around the nun.

‘Luk at her, luk at her wi’ her red coat,’ a woman said in broad Belfast accent. ‘That ‘un’s a bad woman, Sista.’

‘I beg your pardon,’ Miss Hearne said icily. O, my God, I must get away.

‘Edie,’ she said. ‘Good bye, Edie.’

But the sick woman stared at the wall.

‘Out you go this minute,’ the nun cried in anger, taking Miss Hearne by the arm. ‘Outside at once. I’ve a good mind to call a policeman.’

And she marched Miss Hearne down the ward, followed by the slippered clop-clop of the grey dressing-gowns.

‘A booza, a booza,’ a woman chanted. ‘She must be on the wine, Sista.’

‘Out with you,’ the nun cried, giving Miss Hearne a rude push at the head of the stairs. ‘Out with you, this minute.’

O, the mortal shame of it. And the cheek of that nun, pushing at me as if I was a fallen woman or something. With giddy drunken dignity, Miss Hearne descended the stairs. A kind act, a corporal work of mercy, visiting the sick, and look what happened. You got treated as if you were trying to kill poor Edie, instead of cheering her up. And Edie, she might at least have stuck up for me. Turning away like that as if it was my fault she’s sick.

By convent telepathy, the old lay sister who guarded the door seemed to know the whole sorry story. ‘Humph!’ she snorted as Miss Hearne approached. ‘There you are. Ah, I knew Sister was foolish to let you in. No visitors. No visitors! It’s the rule.’

But there was the taxi, consoling in its size, waiting, the meter ticking. The taxi driver courteously opened the door and helped her in. I’m leaving in style anyway, she thought, I hope they’re watching.

The driver got in the front seat and started the motor. ‘Where to, please?’ he said as the car crunched off down the

avenue.

Where?

O, I’m in trouble, in awful trouble. And nobody to help me. Where? I’ve got to talk to somebody, some friend, someone

who can advise me, the faith, I’ve lost my faith, I’ve burned my boats and it will happen soon, it will happen. Now, if You’re there, she screamed wordlessly. Now show me. Anything, a bolt of lightning, strike me down, anyding. But don’t leave me, don’t leave me alone. ‘I didn’t hear you, mum,’ the driver said. ‘Where did you say?’

‘O, anywhere. The Plaza. Take me back there.’

And what will I do there? That room, the mess I made last night, the maid will have been in by now. And tiffs. She looked down and felt her legs wet under her wet skirt. The bottle, I must throw away. Wasted. No, not the Plaza. Lonely there. Somebody I must tell. Who?

Moira. Moira always liked me. She always tries to be my friend.

‘Wait,’ she said to the driver as the car passed the little gate lodge and moved into the traffic on the road outside. ‘I’ve changed my mind. Take me to twenty Melrose Avenue.’

CHAPTER 17.

‘IT’s Miss Hearne, ma’am,’ Ellen said, coming back into the

kitchen.

Mrs O’Neill closed the oven door and gently adjusted the

gas. ‘Now what on earth brings her here?’ she said, untying her apron. ‘And the children will be home for lunch in half an hour.’ She handed the apron to Ellen and went out of the kitchen, along the dark back corridor to the hall, where Miss Hearne waited, her red hat askew, her big bag clutched to her stomach.

‘Judy dear. And how are you?’

‘Moira.’ Miss Hearne pecked at Mrs O’Neill’s cheek. ‘I

know you must be busy, but I had to have a talk with you.’

Well, I swear she reeks like a booze factory, Mrs O’Neill

said to herself. Could it be possible? Squiffy. Better not let the

children see her.

‘I’d ask you to come up to the drawing-room, Judy, but

the fire’s not lit. Let’s go in here.’ She opened the dining-room

door. ‘There’s a stove in here and it’s nice and warm.’

‘We’ll be alone?’ Miss Hearne asked, looking around her in a frightened way. She sat down on one of the dining-room chairs and put her bag at her feet. Mrs O’Neill saw the neck of the gin bottle sticking out of the bag. Somehow, it was like seeing Miss Hearne with her clothes undone. She did not dare look at her caller.

Miss Hearne did not notice her gaffe. She stared moodily at

Mrs O’Neill’s arms, bare to the elbow and with traces of flour

on the skin.

‘You were cooking,’ she said. ‘I interrupted you.’

‘O, not at all,’ Mrs O’Neill lied. ‘Ellen can finish it as well

as if I was there. It was all done, anyway.’

‘I went to see Edie Marrinan this morning. Poor thing, she

hardly knew me.’

‘Yes, poor Edie. I must go out and see her some day soon.

It’s such a long way out.’ Surely she didn’t ‘come here to talk

about Edie Marrinan? Of course, if she’s as tight as she looks, there’s no telling. The poor soul, it’s that disappointment about the Yankee, the one she mentioned last Sunday. You have to feel sorry for her.

‘I wanted to get some advice from Edie, do you see?’ Miss Hearne said. ‘But she was too sick.’

‘O, that’s too bad, Judy. Was it something special?’

Miss Hearne put her head down on the table and began to sob. Her red hat rolled off. Mrs O’Neill, embarrassed, picked it up. ‘What is it, Judy dear?’

But Miss Hearne did not raise her head. She covered her face with her elbows and her shoulders shook with sobbing. ‘I have come to you,’ she cried. ‘You, of all people. And I never liked you, Moira, that’s the truth, I never liked you.’

In vino veritas, Mrs O’Neill said to herself. But then, for some reason which she could not understand, she too felt as though she must cry. For after all, she thought, drunk or not, it must cost her something to say that to me. Because now she can never pretend again.

‘Well, Judy, I suppose you had your reasons. What can i do for you?’

Miss Hearne lifted her teary face from the shelter of her elbows. Her rouge was smudged into two blurred scars across the paleness of her cheeks.

‘Moira. I’ve lost my faith. And I’ve left Camden Street and I’m living in the Plaza Hotel and everything’s finished, Moira, everything.’

‘But why, Judy, why?’

‘What am I doing with my life? I ask you,’ Miss Hearne cried loudly, leaning across the table and catching hold of Moira’s bare arm. ‘A single girl with no kin, what am I doing? O Moira, you always were the lucky one, a husband and children around you, you’ll never know what it’s like to be me.’

‘Judy dear, I know it must be hard at times. But just a little bit quieter, please Judy! The children.’

‘But I have to say it, I have to tell somebody and you’ve always been kind to me, inviting me over here on Sundays, you’ll never know what it meant to me, Moira, to come here

and sit with a family and feel that I belonged here, that I was welcome. Do you know what I mean, Moira, do you know what I mean?’

Only you didn’t belong, you poor thing, Mrs O’Neill thought sadly. ‘Yes, Judy, I think I know.’

‘And then, just a few weeks ago, I might have got married. Do you know how long I’ve waited to be married, Moira? Do you know how many long years, every one of them twelve long months? Well, I’ll tell you, it’s twenty odd years, Moira, if you count from the time I was twenty. O, I know I didn’t think about it all that time - when my aunt was ill, I gave up thinking about it for a while. But a woman never gives up, Moira, does she? Even when she’s like me and knows it’s impossible, she never gives up. There’s always Mr Right, Moira, only he changes as the years go by. At first he’s tall, dark and handsome, a young man, Moira, and then you’re not so young and he’s middle-aged, but still tall and handsome. And then there’s moments when lie’s anybody, anybody who might be eligible. O, I’ve looked at all sorts of men, men I didn’t even like. But that’s not the end, that’s not the worst of it.’

Her fingernails dug into the flesh of Moira’s arm. She leaned forward, across the table, her dark nervous eyes fdled with confessional zeal.

‘No, no, I’m going to tell you the whole thing, Moira, the whole thing. Because I have to tell it to somebody, somebody must listen. That’s not the worst when he’s just anybody who might be eligible. You might as well forget about eligible men. Because you’re too late, you’ve missed your market. Then you’re up for any offers. Marked down goods. You’re up for auction, a country auction, where the auctioneer stands up and says what am I bid? A’nd he starts at a high price, saying what he’d like best. No offers. Then second best. No offers. Third? No offers. What am I bid, Moira? arid somebody comes along, laughable, and you take him. If you carl get him. Because it’s either that or back on the shelf for you. Back to your furnished room and your prayers. Arid your hopes.’

Mrs O’Neill began to weep. ‘O Judy,’ she said. ‘Don’t.’ ‘Your hopes,’ Miss Hearne repeated, her dark eyes clouded and strange. ‘Only you’ve got no hopes left, Moira. Then you’re like me. You’ve got daydreams instead and you want to bold on to them. And you can’t. So you take a drink to help them along, to cheer you up. And anybody, Moira, who so much as gives you a kind word is a prince. A prince. Even if he’s old and ugly and common as mud. Even if the best he can say for himself is that he was a hotel doorman in New York. Would you believe that now, would you believe it?’ The American. The one she was talking about. A doorman. O, the poor soul!

‘That would be bad enough, wouldn’t it?’ Miss Hearne cried. ‘Bad enough, yes, you’d be ashamed of yourself. And rightly so. But there’s worse yet. What if that doorman

turned you down? TURNED YOU DOWN!’

Miss Hearne stopped, open-mouthed, her face quivering. ‘Have you got a drink, Moira?’ she said. ‘I need a drink.’

Mrs O’Neill got up from the table and went over to the sideboard. She unlocked the liquor cabinet and took out a bottle of whiskey. (Afterwards, she said she just knew instinctively it was whiskey was wanted, although, if she had stopped to think of it, she said, she would have realised that the poor soul didn’t need another drink, seeing she had far too many in her already.) She took a glass from another shelf and poured a tot of whiskey into it. This she placed in front of Miss Hearne and sat down beside her. Not a word had been spoken.

Miss Hearne put the whiskey to her lips and drank it down neat. She put the glass back on the table and they sat there, side by side, in silence. At last Miss Hearne shook her head.

‘That’s what I’ve come to, Moira. Turned down by a doorman. And what’s more, I didn’t want to be turned down. I’d take him yet.’

Mrs O’Neill patted her arm. There seemed nothing to say. ‘Nobody wants me, Moira. I’m too old. And I’m too ugly. Yes, he was the last one and now I’m left on the shelf.’

‘Now Judy,’ Mrs O’Neill said. ‘There are other things in life besides that. You have lots of friends, you know.’

‘But I don’t. I don’t.’

‘Judy, that’s not so. And besides, just because life is hard at present, there’s no need to think it will always be hard. Now, why don’t you let me see you home and then you have a nice lie down for a while. You’ll feel better about all this tomorrow. Remember, God has given us all heavy crosses to bear.’

‘God!’ Miss Hearne said bitterly. ‘What does He care? Is there a God at all, I’ve been asking myself, because if there is, why does He never answer our prayers? Why does He allow all these things to happen? Why?’