The Misremembered Man (21 page)

E
ighty-Six lay in the cart, drifting in and out of consciousness, as it rumbled through the darkness. He could see the stars and smell the unpleasant reek of the straw, feel the raw, shooting pains in his body as the wheels bounced and shuddered over the gullied ground.

He wished he could pass out again, because then the torment would leave him, and his mind would not keep pulling itself back to the awful source of the “crime” he had committed, and the penalty he had paid.

He remembered the past hours as a patchwork of terrible fragments; the plate he’d been holding smashing on the floor of the Fairley kitchen, the woman lifting the poker from the brass frame, his feet splashing through the mud as he ran from the first blow. He could still hear her demented yells as he fled through the fields. Farmer Fairley was away; Arnold was in school. It was just him and the woman and the screaming gap between them as he made his escape.

With the house well out of sight, he’d found a drain in a far field and clambered down into it, sinking heavily to the knee. There he’d stayed, exiled in the waterlogged land, where the trees and hedges argued fiercely in the lashing of the wind, and he shivered and wept and prayed that nightfall would not come; that
they
would not come. But when the vast unwelcome grayness of the winter sky turned black, they
did
come, as he sensed they would; the flashlights shining in his face, the savage hands reaching down to drag him from the drain.

He shut his eyes tight against the memory as the cart horse plunged on through the darkness and the moon dashed on behind the clouds.

They had dumped him face down in the yard while father, mother and son took turns with the punishment. The farmer used his belt, the mistress used the poker and Arnold used a stick. The son kept his foot on the boy’s head throughout, to stifle his screams. He had gagged on the gravel and mud and could still feel it in his nose and mouth. It was all he could remember, but it was enough; that was until he felt the burning pain below his right eye and reached up to feel the crusted, gaping wound on his cheek.

He saw again the leering face of Arnold. When his parents had left the victim to lick his wounds, the son had turned him over, taken a shard of the shattered plate and cut a deep, steady path down his cheek, laughing maniacally all the while.

Abruptly, the horse slowed. Eighty-Six opened his eyes. He could see the shapes of buildings open up on either side, sharpened into focus by the moonlight. He tried to sit up, but the pain of his injuries drove him back down again. Then he saw the rusted gates and knew with relief that he was back “home” again. The horse slowed more and the cart juddered to a halt. He shut his eyes as he was lifted from it and placed on the ground. He lay there, his heart beating fast, his injuries throbbing anew. He gritted his teeth and feigned sleep. He was finished with the awful Fairleys. He was free.

But hands were lifting him and a familiar voice sliced through the darkness.

“Take him to my room.”

At that moment, his newfound hopes began to shake and tumble in on him as his whole world darkly swayed.

The voice belonged to Master Keaney.

Outside, snowflakes swerved at the high windows of the laundry room, dying at once on the hot glass. Inside, boiling water spluttered and gushed from the spigots. The water vapor was so dense that each of the thirty or so boys could see no farther than his work partner. Eighty-Six and Eighty-Four stood side by side, pounding and sloshing at the entwined sheets and clothes they had immersed in the vast tub. Down there swirled the habits, soutanes and vestments of the religious; all in congressional twists, in intimacies so frowned upon by the people whose garments they were—the coiling blacks, the snaking greens, the golds. Every stain and mark retreating under the fiercely scrubbing hands of the orphans of sin.

To the left of the tub stood a creel, piled high with soiled linen, and to the right a wooden crate to receive the laundered garments. Each pair of boys worked as a unit. They were so used to the task and so afraid of Sister Mary’s stick across their backs that they did not dare slip out of rhythm, not even for one second.

The nun proceeded up and down each row, holding the ashplant weapon behind her back, by turns emerging and disappearing into the mist like a black phantom. She was a lean woman with a grim, angular face, who wore her habit pulled tight around her and secured with the knotted cord of her order.

She rarely spoke; the stick was her voice. If she observed something she disapproved of, she would point to it first and the boys would have to guess what was wrong.

Bitter experience had taught them to decipher the code of the cane. If she indicated the soiled linen in the creel, it meant they were not working fast enough. If she pointed to the contents of the tub, it meant they were not scrubbing hard enough. A frightful whack on the finished washing in the crate meant that they hadn’t rinsed the laundry properly and the process would have to be repeated.

Eighty-Six could not risk another beating. He was three days back in the orphanage and his wounds were beginning to heal. Bending over the wash tub was punishment enough. At night in his bed he would lie on his stomach and cry into the night, hoping and praying that his mother would come soon and rescue him. He would picture her in a floral dress, her long hair streaming in the breeze as she ran toward him over a daisy-strewn field.

The longer he waited for her, the more he colored in and added to the picture, filling in the crayon-red mouth, the sweeping brows above her smiling, blue eyes. He could smell her soap-rich scent as she lifted him up, and feel the crisp crackle of the dress as she embraced him. He had never been hugged by anyone, but sometimes from the rattling bus window he had seen women carry children in their arms, and thought that it must be a fine thing to experience: hands that caressed and did not punish.

Eighty-Six and his partner hefted a heavy gray blanket from the tub and fed it through the mighty jaws of the mangle. They had to use both hands and all their strength to turn the stubborn wheels. Halfway through the labor, the boy felt a sharp tap on his shoulder. He stopped and looked up in alarm, wondering what he had done wrong.

“Mother Vincent wishes to see you in her room now.” The nun held him with her cold eyes. “Run along, Eighty-Six.” She motioned another boy to continue his work.

He knocked on the door of the Reverend Mother’s quarters and waited, removing his cap in readiness. He wondered why he was being summoned, and prayed he would not be sent back to the Fairley farm. He was prepared to cry—and beg on his knees if he had to.

A postulant whom he’d never seen before ushered him in. Mother Vincent turned from the window; wordlessly, she directed him to a chair in front of her desk. This was a rare occurrence: being asked to sit in the presence of a nun. She resumed her seat.

The room was bare and chilly, but for the table and two chairs, a gray filing cabinet and a coat stand. On the dun-colored wall above the nun was a portrait of Pope Pius xii. To the left of her, a scarf of snow lay against the windowsill outside.

“Some good news for you, Eighty-Six. I am putting you forward for adoption.” She smiled at him—another rare occurrence.

“Is my mammy coming, Sister?” His hopes rose sharply.

“No, she is
not
coming,” she snapped, causing his hopes to be dashed as quickly as they had risen. “She dumped you and your sister here in a shopping bag like pieces of rubbish, remember. She’s probably dead by now, like your sister.” This was also delivered with a smile. It was not the benign smile of the plaster virgin in the chapel, but one set in stone, hard, cold, dangerous. “So you’d best forget all about her.”

The boy started to weep.

“Now stop that at once!” She slammed a hand down on the desktop and he stopped immediately.

“They are a farming couple. Good, Catholic people.” She consulted a tall register on the desk. “They want a boy who would be good at farm work. And you have proven yourself to be a good, steady worker—but a nuisance at the same time, Eighty-Six.” She looked up from the page, fixing him with an eye of unblinking indictment. “I am right about that, am I not?”

“Yes, Sister.”

“So I think you’ve earned the right to be put forward.”

“Yes, Sister.”

“Less bother for us and more benefit to the people who get you.”

“Yes, Sister.”

He stared at the muffled, white world beyond the window, and something weighty and substantial settled upon his heart. So many questions hung in the air unanswered. A great wave of sadness broke against him, as he wept and howled inside himself.

The room was silent. From somewhere came the chiming of a clock felling the seconds. He swallowed hard on his grief.

“You will come here again at three o’clock tomorrow. The farmer and his wife will speak to five of you individually.”

The boy looked at Mother Vincent, not knowing how to put the question. She read his thoughts and answered for him.

“Oh no, you are not the only one. You will all be interviewed, but only one of you will be chosen.”

“This time tomorrow,” she said. “If you are chosen, this place will be a memory.” She shut the register with an angry slap. “Now, back to work.”

J
amie had trouble sleeping the night before the meeting with Miss Devine. He lay awake for many restless hours, trying to guess the outcome of this future event, imagining what he would say, what he would do. He still saw Lydia as an icon of female beauty, and hoped he’d be acceptable to a woman of such grace and refinement.

He was confident that in the past weeks he had done everything in his power to improve himself. He’d lost the weight, kitted himself out in a brand-new outfit, and had succeeded in purchasing his mail-order toupee without too much trouble. So appearance-wise he would be fine; personality-wise, well now, that was another matter entirely.

When Rose advised him to just be himself, he had trouble deciding what exactly that meant. Who was he anyway? Jamie did not know. He had never been able to probe his essential nature, or see himself as worthy. His cheerless childhood had robbed him of confidence, faith, trust and all those things that allow a man to build a clear, unblemished image of who he is. As a child he’d incurred so much displeasure. As an adult he was determined never to give offense. So he moved through life on bended knees, skirting the puddles, dodging the blows, falling over himself to please. The forty-one-year-old man felt only able to catch and avenge his early suffering through a series of small victories: eating sweet food when he wanted, letting the hearth-fire burn when the sun burned high, leaving the front door open both day and night.

Winning Lydia, however, would be the ultimate victory. A woman friend would lift the lonely, hopeless refrain of his life into a soaring, thigh-slapping song.

By one o’clock he had completed the farmyard chores and retired indoors for the “robing ceremony.” At two o’clock Paddy and Rose would collect him, and the trio would set out on the half-hour journey to the Royal Neptune Hotel. First, however, he needed to wash.

He was reluctant to fill the tin bath by the fire. Too much trouble, and anyway it was only a first meeting and it wasn’t as if he was going to be…to be…He couldn’t actually visualize the sexual connotations that followed on the heels of this thought. His earlier experiences had sanded his ideas down to the bare rudiments of what he believed the male and the female of the species represented. In Jamie’s book men were, for the most part, perverts and predators. Women, on the other hand—those not swathed in black robes and serving their own version of Christ—could be very useful adjuncts to a man’s life, in terms of housework and caring. That was enough for him; whatever happened after that was an amorphous and altogether unreachable thing that he felt unable to picture, let alone dwell on.

So, without further hesitation, he headed into the bedroom, stripped, and allowed a damp cloth to have a brief flirtation with his more intimate areas. He then sought out Rose’s bag of clean underwear atop the glass case, and pulled on a set of inner garments.

He eyed the pièce de resistance—his hairpiece—in its box on the tallboy and decided, wisely, that it might be best to tackle the positioning and securing of it before dressing.

He read the instruction leaflet. With a gathering sense of unease, he realized that in order to accommodate the application process, he’d have to trim his comb-over and shave the crown of his head. Very drastic, Jamie thought. He was very attached to his precious strands and wondered whether he should sacrifice most of the only real hair he had for the sake of the toupee.

He checked himself in the broken mirror once more, twisted his head this way and that, picked up his Adolfo Microfilament Polyurethane “Tite-grip” Extended Wear toupee, and slapped it on.

Hmm.

No doubt about it: from certain angles it looked like a cowpat. But he doused all doubt by reassuring himself that he’d spent a fair bit on it, so it would be a terrible waste to reject it at this stage. And once the adhesive was applied, sure maybe it would look like what he’d been born with.

He struggled for a good twenty minutes with razor, scissors, lengths of toupee tape, and a tube of industrial-strength bonding wear acrylic-based glue. The last seemed to stick, Holy God, to everything within a two-foot radius, but finally Jamie had his sandy-brown toupee in place. He raised his head to the mirror to admire his artistry.

“Ah Jezsis!” he exclaimed, eyes wide with shock. He’d inadvertently attached the instruction leaflet to his head as well.

Part of it stuck out, eave-like, over his forehead, and read, in reversed, bright red letters:
“Get Scalp Protector and Sealer Today. It Works Great.”

Jamie tugged at the leaflet, but soon discovered with an eye-watering acuteness, that he risked scalping himself, so resistant was the glue. Not even a Ukrainian weightlifter would have been a match for it. He located the scissors again and hacked at it as best he could, a confetti of paper falling onto the dresser as he attempted to trim away the offending leaflet, and not the toupee.

But finally it was done and he conceded to the mirror that, even if not exactly handsome, he did look presentable—which was just as good, right enough. He thought that perhaps the toupee sat slightly too high on his head, so he used his hand to try and clap it down a bit. It made little difference. He lathered a generous scoop of Brylcreem on, which seemed to tame it for about a minute, before it sprang back up again with a fresh defiance. His head could indeed have been that of a yellowhammer perking up his crest to impress a mate. In effect, and on consideration, the toupee was just that.

Jamie sighed. Well maybe, he thought, that was because there was still some paper lodged under it, or maybe it was just the shape of his head—and if that was how God had made his head, well there wasn’t a lot a body could do about it because that was the way of it, and the end of it, so it was.

With his new hair (quite literally) in place, he turned his attention to dressing himself. First came the sunshine-yellow shirt, followed by the suit itself; then he knotted the red paisley tie into place. Finally he slipped on the shiny loafers. Thus attired, Jamie felt a whole lot better. The suit caressed his body in new ways and made him feel important. He could not view his entire self in the broken mirror, but imagined he looked like an insurance salesman or even, at a push, a lawyer.

With time to spare, he sat down in the armchair to have a smoke. He was beginning to feel nervous. The reality of meeting Miss Devine in a couple of hours’ time suddenly hit him. He was no longer in the tattered armchair, but in the playground, being taunted by the schoolyard bully. What if she doesn’t like you? What if you don’t know what to say to her? What if you make a fool of yourself? Because you’re gonna make a fool of yourself—you know that, don’t you?

Jamie needed a drink to steel himself, but there wasn’t any in the house. He saw the Valium bottle on the shelf. He hadn’t taken any for a fortnight. He knew he couldn’t take one now because he’d be having a couple of drinks with Miss Devine and it wouldn’t do to fall asleep in front of her. The last time he’d taken a drink on the heels of a Valium was before a particularly nerve-racking stint in the confessional. Just as he was about to confess his few Venials and that all-important big Mortal, he collapsed against the grille, disappearing from Father Brannigan’s view. He came to just as the priest was about to anoint him, believing he’d had a heart attack.

Jamie was in a right dither now. He lit another smoke—then a thought struck him. I only take the Valium to kill the loneliness and the memories because Mick’s not here. But now that I’m meetin’ Miss Devine I won’t need them anymore. He immediately felt better. Just then he heard the rips and roars of the Minor and peered out to see Rose and Paddy cresting the hill beyond the house.

Lydia and Daphne entered the plush lobby of the Royal Neptune Hotel and made their way to the lounge. Beside the entrance doors there was a sign in gold lettering. Lydia paused.

“Oh, I do hope there isn’t a wedding here today.”

“Doesn’t look like it.” Daphne put on her glasses and read. “‘The Killycock Amateur Artists’ and Glamour Photography Club monthly meeting, lounge at four
P.M.
’ No, you’re in luck; doesn’t sound like a wedding.”

“Gosh, that sounds familiar,” Lydia said, thoughtful. “It’s that name: Killycock. I know it from somewhere.”

Daphne checked her watch. “Well, it’s nearly a quarter past three. D’you want me to sit with you until he comes or—”

“Not at all, dear. You go off and have your stroll.”

Daphne embraced her. “Good luck!” she said warmly. “You’ll be fine. Don’t look so worried.”

Lydia chose a table by the window and settled down to read her copy of
The Times
. She had little enthusiasm for this encounter and, since her mother’s untimely illness, looked upon it as more of a chore, rather than the social engagement it was supposed to be.

The lounge was not so busy. The remains of the carvery lunch were being cleared away and she was grateful that the last of the diners were preparing to leave.

At precisely three-thirty Lydia glanced up from the newspaper and saw a trio—two men and a woman—enter through the double doors. She knew immediately that one of the men was Mr. McCloone because he had a copy of what she assumed was the
Mid-Ulster Vindicator
lodged tightly under his arm.

The three stood for a while conversing, and Lydia had a good squint at them without being too noticeable—or so she hoped. But suddenly they all stared down in her direction and she dropped her head back to the newspaper. Her assumption was correct; Mr. McCloone had made his entrance.

When she glanced back up again, the man with the newspaper was approaching her table. She inhaled deeply. He was wearing a brown suit, a yellow shirt—and his face looked terribly familiar.

“You, eh, you…wouldn’t be a Miss…a Miss…a Miss Lydeea Devine, would you?”

She got up. “Yes, indeed. And it’s ‘Lydia.’ You must be Mr. McCloone.”

“Aye…I mean, yes, that is right. James Kevin Barry Michael McCloone. I am glad to make your acquaintance, Miss Devine.”

Lydia saw that he was extremely nervous. He held her hand in a sweaty grip, pumping it vigorously as he spoke. When finally he released her, he raised the same hand to his head as if to remove a cap, but instead pulled at his hair. She could not fail to see his look of dismay, as he quickly put the hand behind his back. His face reddened.

“Glad to meet you too, James,” she said with a broad smile, attempting to put him at his ease. “Shall we sit?”

The farmer pulled out the chair opposite and installed himself awkwardly, depositing his rolled-up copy of the
Mid-Ulster Vindicator
. It uncurled itself to reveal the news that Killoran was about to be twinned with the town of Adra on the southern coast of Spain, and that a sizable deputation of local councilors was heading there on a fact-finding mission. The journal was joined on the table by a brown paper bag. Lydia found herself staring at the two items and wondering what to say.

Jamie averted his face, tugged at his ear and stared out the window. The air around him was throbbing with tension. Lydia at once felt sorry for him, and decided that alcohol might be the solution.

“Now, James, what would you like to drink?”

“Oh no, Miss Devine—”

“‘Lydia,’ please.”

“Yes, Lydeea please—sorry I mean—no, let me get it…please.”

But Lydia had already summoned a waiter and, after some little hesitation, the gentleman settled on a double whiskey and the lady decided she’d have a sweet sherry.

It was while the young waiter was noting down their order that Lydia noticed that the temperature in the lounge seemed to have soared.

“You haven’t got the heating on, I hope?” she said. “Not in
this
weather.”

“No, Miss. The air-condition’s broke, so it is. I think a crow flew into one of the fans. But there’s a man fixing it now.” He tore a sheet from his pad and placed it under the ashtray.

Lydia returned her attention to Mr. McCloone. She noticed, for the first time, the deep scar that ran from his right eye down his cheek.

And all at once she recalled the loud guest from the Ocean Spray. She recognized his habit of touching his right ear; the hand that checked his hair. But she thought there was something different about him; his hair was not as she recollected it and his clothes were much better. This man was also a good deal thinner. Perhaps it was a brother.

“Haven’t I seen you somewhere before?” she asked.

“No, I don’t think so,” Jamie lied, as he fiddled with a corner of the newspaper.

Of course
he
remembered
her
; how could he forget their meeting on the promenade?

He remembered her, all right: right down to the lacy blouse, the green skirt, the basket she carried on her right arm; but most of all he remembered the generosity of her smile when she spoke to him that day. He had been sauntering toward the beach, eating his candy and weeping for his lost childhood, when this stranger had acknowledged him and brought him back to the present with her smile.

Oh yes, he remembered Lydia all right. From that day on he’d often thought of the mysterious woman on the footpath. He could not quite believe that he was sitting opposite her now.

“So, how’s the farming?”

Jamie was caught off guard by the question, and tried to remember what he’d said in his letter.

“Not so…not so bad atall. Cutting a bit of hay these days but that’s about the height of it and then there’s…there’s…” He was as jittery as Judas at the Last Supper, hoped the drink would arrive soon. “Then there’s…”

“The animals?”

“Aye…I mean yes, the animals, but they’re to be worked with every day.”

Faced with Miss Lydia Devine at last, he was overcome by shyness, and sat trapped inside his forty-one-year-old self. He did not know how to free himself, what to ask her. Then he recalled that she was a teacher.