Bend for Home, The (21 page)

Have made some good friends.

One of the young lads I train for middle-distance running today told me he had the cure for pimples. He got it from his father in Drumshambo. He took me into one of the showers and told me to close my eyes.

You may hear me saying a prayer, he said, but pass no remarks. Just trust me.

I trust you, I said.

So I closed my eyes and his fingers touched my face like the scuff of the wing of a bird. Then it was over. You can open your eyes, now, he said. We stepped out of the shower and Hughie McGovern said, Are yous bum boys or what? I timed the young fellow twice round the Half. He clocked in 30 seconds better than the last time.

When I woke this morning the dry scabs of the pimples had fallen off my face and were all around me on the pillow.

Tried to get out to town for tonight. Told by Bob that he could make no exceptions. From the window we watched stray fireworks shooting over Cavan town then in the dark we passed round bags of nuts.

Got home after High Mass, broke a false tooth with chocolate and went to the Central. The women and Sheila are there. Had dinner. Had a beer and vodka in Stick Donoghue’s with Dermot. In Central with Sheila alone at last.

I miss you, I said.

How long are we supposed to stay away from each other?

I don’t know.

It’s hard.

I know.

Is this what other people do?

I think so.

You’re strange, she said.

Yes, I said, I’m a funny wee cunt.

We played records. I wanted to ask her up to the Castle but didn’t. Back to college at 7. The connors are running round the Half in masks. Someone let off a banger behind the alley. All night tossed and turned thinking of Sheila.

Went up to Bob straight after breakfast. We had an argument but eventually got into town to have the tooth replaced. Went to Mr Hickey the dentist, had fitting and asked him to time the visit for the late afternoon then lifted the phone and asked Sheila to the matinee.

Are you sure that’s what you want?

It is, I said.

First we sat by each other in the dark without touching then her hand found my hand, and we sat like that for a time through the Pathé News, but when the main picture began we were kissing. It was one of the greatest courts ever. Drank a bottle of wine in Finnegan’s afterwards. Then onto the Central for chips. Always remember Little Peggy March’s song and Billy Fury’s Halfway to Paradise. So near yet so far away. Sheila told her parents she was going back to Loreto with the Saundersons and I told the mother I was going out to college with Burke then we hired Jack Flood and drove first to Loreto, and at Loreto I didn’t want to let her go, so we went on towards Butlersbridge then back again, then once more out to Farnham past the golf links, and finally back up Loreto Avenue and we said goodbye in a hail of leaves, and then Jack dropped me at St Pat’s.

Jack turned around in the car seat.

I wish you the best of luck, he said.

It cost me what was to keep me till the end of November but it was worth it. Nuts were served with tea, had 2 pictures that night –
Olympic Games
and then
The Globetrotters,
and Square left the light on till late in No. 10 so we could talk and talk.

My birthday. The boys gave me
gallery
at teatime. Great cheer. Took my birthday cake to the table and gave a piece to every fellow. Great
feed. Lit up another cake in the dorm. 16 candles lit. Heard Square coming. Blew out the candles and shoved the cake under the bed.

He came in and walked up the dorm and back again.

He sniffed the air and shone his torch round the room. I began to imagine that smoke was pouring out from under the quilt. Then down the dorm he came again and stopped at the foot of my bed. He shone the torch directly onto my pillow, then suddenly clicked it off and went away.

I was inside playing table tennis when O’Connor said there were friends of mine outside. Andy and Timmy were there. They came out to give me 20 Kingsway for my birthday. The 5th years gather round and begin shouting. The boys pass no remarks. We stay there talking. Then a window opened overhead and they began throwing water down on us. We didn’t budge. The whole college talks about it afterwards.

Got into town to get my tooth. Take feed in Central, and off to the matinee. Try Adams. No go. Square gives off stink and phones Hickey the dentist ’cause I’m an hour late. Listened with O’Connor to radio till half-12. Then began wondering about the chance of slipping out of the college and back to town.

I decided to give it a trial run.

I got dressed and put my pyjamas on over everything, then stepped out onto the corridor in my sandals. I walked to the toilet and stood there listening. No one. So I headed for the stairs intending to take the same route by the priests’ rooms that I’d come the night of Aunty Gerty’s funeral. I was down the first flight when I heard these steps coming up so I ran back, along the corridor and into number 10. Just as I jumped into bed the door opened behind me. It was Square and he was breathless. He shone his torch onto every face. I found it light up my eyes. He stood over me. The sweat ran down my back. Then at last came the darkness.

I didn’t move because I had not heard the door close, so I lay perfectly still, breathing as regular as I could, over and back, trying to
concentrate on making sleep come, but the heat of my clothes under the pyjamas grew stifling, and still he was out there, I could find him standing there in the dark waiting for me to make one false move, and sure enough about 10 minutes later he turned on the torch and the beam struck my eyelids, he was still directly over me.

I knew he was on the point of asking me to step out of bed when suddenly O’Connor began to rave in his sleep. Square turned. The boys began wakening. I opened my eyes and looked at him.

What’s wrong, Father? I asked.

Go back to sleep, he said.

He woke O’Connor and left the dorm. I bundled my clothes off under the sheets, and left them beneath the bed. In a dream much later that night I woke and could have sworn I saw the silhouette of Square still standing out there somewhere in the dark, but I could not be sure.

Wear my blue and white jumper. All admiration.

I was walking round the Half with Pete Duffy, and Gallagher, and Mullaly when someone with a radio to their ear shouted out that President Kennedy was dead.

The sucks from first year ran errands for the seniors to the shop, the Belturbet dayboys talked soccer outside the locker room, Arva lads talked cars, the Drumshambos played touch-penny, while next to them cards were slapped down onto window sills in the top corridor in six-penny games of poker by seniors from Balieborough; the Cavan towns sang Living Doll, and on the Whole the Killeshandras were making plans, a brace of East Cavan men sat in the woods without speaking, in an empty classroom a pair of brothers from Manorhamilton cut a ham sandwich in two; a lone lad from Ballinagh
sat in the toilet reading a 64-page comic, the Mullahorans stood behind the alley against the back wall like men standing out of the wind by the gable of a house; a Glan man jumped in the air and hung off the crossbar of the goalpost on the lower pitch; fellows from Killinkere taunted fellows from Drung; the Cootehills rattled off a litany of footballers and argued who was in the goal that day of the final in ’61; in the ambulatory the Shercocks played pitch-and-toss; this dapper lad from Ballyconnell stopped by a window to study his reflection then took out a comb and gave a sharp, quick stroke to his quiff; in the study hall a couple of seniors from Mullagh sat five or six desks away from each other humming Down by the Riverside; in the piano room a Carrickgallen fellow slept; an old argument erupted on the upper pitch between two tall neighbours from Glenfarne so they folded their coats and dug into each other;
Lavey! Lavey Strand! Behy! Behy Bog! and Currahoe,
shouted a connor from Bunoe; in the showers three men from Varginee shouted profanities; a man from Swad spat blood into a basin in the surgery; the loner from Moynalty dribbled a ball along the basketball court; a holy man from Latt walked the Half quickly and stopped and took out a matchbox that had a butterfly in it and went on again; a gambler from Ballyjamesduff heard yesterday’s racing results from a dayboy and stamped the floor; You’re looking ojus well, said a connor from Drum to a senior from Latt who replied I’ll clatter you round the oxter; a Dowra man stole into the kitchen while a Bawnboy man kept watch; a scholarship boy tore the wing off a chicken his mother from Kilnaleck had sent him; the lad from Gowna sat in the locker room sewing a vest; then when the dayboys went to the bicycle shed they found that someone had let all the tyres down.

Had great fun. Myself, Mullally and Duffy walk round the Whole backwards, roaring our heads off.

Got holidays today. Up at 6, and reach town at a ¼ to 9. The girls let me in. Made the fire in the private dining room and had tea ready for the mother when she came down. We talked till the shop opened
and I took a stroll up the town, had a bath and went with Dermot back out to the college to collect my cases. Went to pics.

Kiss Sally after breakfast, then her father fell in drunk. Went with Mary after dinner in the car to the golf links. Meet Paddy Kelly in the Ulster Arms. Then walked Phyllis out the road.

The fire in the bakehouse went out three times, then the bell rang and Sheila was at the door. The Labour Band went down Farnham Street.

Dermot woke me at ¼ past 8. We headed down to the Central Café for free coffee and buns then Sean McManus sat us into the sports car and we headed for Dublin singing opera all the way. Beyond Virginia we skidded and ended up facing home. Landed anyway and I went down to the Parnell house to see Ollie, and Johnny and all the barmen. Then off round Dublin. Muck everywhere. Awful place. Muck even in O’Connell Street. Where did it come from? Went and bought a new jumper, then waited an hour outside the Metropole for Sean and when he came at last we went in for a drink. We set out only to stop at the first pub out the road. Then we stopped beyond Navan, in Kells, and in the Park in Virginia. A great sing-song all the way home. At 20 mile an hour we cruise into Cavan. Some day.

Walked back round by Town Hall Street where all the kids were gathered in the dusky yard for Bud McNamara dressed as Santa Claus to give out presents. With Frank Brady in the Ulster Arms wearing the new scarf my mother had bought me. Poor Jack, he said. Buy all present – Sheila, Dermot, Paddy Kelly – a drink. Vodkas and beers. Then Sheila gives me a present.

Don’t open it till tomorrow.

I won’t, I said.

You promise.

I do.

Then she went home and I went down to Donohue’s with the boys. Bridge Street was all go. Drinks and fags. Great fun. We came up Main Street, and I said Goodnight, I was going to go home, I’d promised. In the Breifne window our Santa was still nodding. I looked at him a while going over and back. With his wisp of beard and confetti on his red shoulders, he looked a little tatty and alone, and the window seemed very bare without the cakes and the boxes of chocolates. He’d grown older somehow, still that didn’t stop him nodding away in the empty window. Nod,
yes, you can have what you like,
Nod,
indeed whatever you like,
Nod,
just ask,
Nod,
anything, anything at all,
bowing his head like the altar boy below the altar, Nod,
why yes, my good man,
like a Chinaman before his master, Nod,
the whole world if you want,
his small polished boots on a doily, the small shoulders; then, as I let myself in the door, Andy called across the street, Healy, you dosser, so we move off down to the bus station but there’s no buses so a crowd of us headed out the railway lines, and sat on the platform drinking. The sky was pure and full of stars. A black frost was spreading.

I went home at 1. The window was empty.

Where were you? said Mother.

I was at Midnight Mass.

A regular saint, said Maisie.

Happy Christmas, said my mother and she was smiling. She was filled with rare joy. We sat round talking and opening presents till all hours. Christmas cards were tucked into the gold surround of the mirror, along the mantel and into the picture frames. We said goodnight and the clocks were set for the morning. The fluorescent lights in the dining room flickered. Then in my room I discovered I’d lost the scarf and Sheila’s present.

Up at 8 for early Mass for Daddy then went out the lines to get my scarf but though I found the scarf no matter where I looked I could not find Sheila’s present. I sat on the platform, smoked a fag and looked down the lines. An east wind snapped at the bare trees. It was like I was waiting on a train. I tucked the white scarf into my blue gabardine and headed home by the Barrack Hill. The ball alley was
empty. Dust flew round in a circle by the right-hand corner of the back wall. A mound of holly was nailed to Paddy Woods’ door. The town was deserted. Then suddenly the wind smacked the lines of overhead bulbs and bunting in Bridge Street, Smack! Smack! Smack! and in Main Street it was worse, they cracked as if we were in a ghost town, Smack! Crack! Click! Clickety Click!, the lines so taut it looked as if the string would snap, it felt dangerous, coloured bulbs burst, the whole street strained, the overhead lines of bulbs shook as the wind gusted, then eased, not a soul to be seen, even Santa was gone from the window, up into the attic until next year; Nod,
just ask,
Nod,
anything, anything at all;
there wasn’t a car, not a dog even, till young Brady appeared, dressed as a cowboy, he walked up Main Street with two six shooters at the ready, You’re dead, he said, you’re dead, he aimed at me and I ducked, the cap banged, I clutched my heart and he blew away an imaginary wisp of smoke, holstered his gun and said, See you partner, and he went back up Main Street clapping his arse at a trot, and he went into his house, and I went into mine, stood a moment in the deserted public dining room where the end tables with their false white marble tops were piled high with cold coats and hats and presents and I listened to the TV and the family inside chatting and laughing, opened the door and there they all were, Una, Maisie, mother – the ladies – once on the chairs round the table in its white linen, and then again repeated the other way round in the mirror. The mother clapped her knees.