Forbidden Fruit (28 page)

Once more, the certainty came to me that I had a second life to guard. I had noticed in my first pregnancy the change of smell
in my urine, this acceleration of all my bodily processes, this salmon-leap of my pulse.

I went indoors for one of Mary’s Valium. At the same time, I went through her small library for a book to help me pass the
time. I settled on
The Betsy
by Harold Robbins. I laughed at the impossible sexy passages.

Becoming bored, I walked the lawn in the grape-bloom light of dusk. A wind rose suddenly, fallen leaves turned into butterflies.

Back indoors, I watched TV while drinking endless cups of tea. I was all edges. Through the window I saw the rise of a sunburned
moon and from the west clouds were on the march. A wind rose with the force of a sea, first going puh-puh-puh like gas igniting
before banging brassy knuckles on every inch of the house. I ran to meet Eamonn when his car came up the drive. The front
door fairly hurtled against me as I opened it.

He was tired and distant. So was I, for I sensed the impending conflict between us over our child. The child, the proof of
our oneness, was threatening to prise us apart. The storm mirrored this. Its scattering effect only jerked us like stretched
elastic suddenly released into one another’s arms. At the moment we were losing each other we were closest of all.

“I wasn’t sure,” he said, holding me tight, “if I would make it. Trees down on the road.”

He felt, in my trembling, my bad day. Not knowing it was caused by bodily changes, he assumed it was due to my spending the
day alone. Bridget would help me in that, he said, and in another way.

“You see, Annie”—he was keeping apart, trying to, in the living room in front of a fire smoky from the wind—“I cannot
give you a life. Bridget, without her knowing about us, may help you see that between us there is no chance of lasting happiness.”

I held my peace while he wrestled with his problem.

“Our ages, our worlds are so far apart, Annie.”

For the first time in his company I felt alone.

At two in the morning, I had a panic attack. The child was taking me over in ways no man ever could.

This was the most intolerant, vengeful night of storm I ever experienced at Inch. Ebony clouds charioted past the moon’s scared
face. A howling express wind nearly wrenched the roof off. The electricity was interrupted for a few minutes and came on,
then flickered on and off for some time. When lightning woke me up, sulfur was in my throat and I was hyperventilating.

Eamonn was swallowing pills for his colitis and trying to get close enough to me to help me knock back a couple of Valium.
He spoke to me for five minutes, he told me later, but I was in a black hole and did not hear a word.

“Switch off the light,” I begged, and when he did not do it fast enough I slid out of the bed and scrambled across the floor
into his free-standing wardrobe.

“No, Annie,” he pleaded, “this huge thing will collapse on top of you.”

It was his turn to sit a long time outside the door with me inside watching the fireworks display in my head. He finally realized
there was nothing for it but to leave me in peace. If I told him the reason for my being in the wardrobe, he would have run
out the house in a panic and I needed him to look after me.

Twenty minutes later, I had recovered enough to leave the wardrobe. He tapped the bed, inviting me to get in beside him. When
I crawled back in, he slowly, kindly, unwound my clenched hands like ferns in the morning sun until my palms were fully upturned
as though signaling the total gift of myself to him. Fortune-teller, fortune-teller, do you read happiness for me—for us
—etched there?

“Annie,” he said, humbly, cuffing my hands and kissing them, “my colitis is bad enough. But this is worse.”

I stroked his cheek—it was filmed with sweat, a sign that his colitis had broken—and said, “Thanks.”

“On the john I can sit comfortably and smoke my pipe.”

I was starting to laugh and he joined in. “What if someone had colitis
and
a panic attack?”

He once more improvised on a theme like a jazz musician. “What if you and I had the two things at the same time? And we were
in your Dublin flat at night and we ran naked hell-for-leather to Stephen’s Green and the Guards…?”

We woke to the Burning Bush of morning, a Sabbath-drowsy day of extravagant sunshine.

Eamonn had an eleven o’clock High Mass to say in Killarney and he needed my help to remove the broken branches from the driveway.
I went with him and attended his Mass at the back of the Cathedral. He preached for fifteen minutes. He had not prepared anything;
he claimed he did not need to. After reading the Gospel, he simply said what was in his heart.

His theme that Sunday was: God supplies our needs through others. That is why we have to find Him not merely in nature but
first of all in ourselves and our fellows.

I left soon after the sermon because the incense made my head ache. I walked the quiet crooked sun-drenched streets of Killarney
thinking that God had come to me in the person of Eamonn. “Don’t ever leave me, Eamonn-God,” I prayed.

A
BOUT 2:00
P.M.
, Eamonn put me on the train for Dublin. The ride in that bumpy old train really made me afraid of a miscarriage. Abortion
of bishop’s baby, courtesy of Irish Rail.

Bridget and Wentworth had already moved into the flat. I arrived home to find guests drinking, smoking, and making a terrible
din.

1 was back about a week when Bridget said one morning, in her superior accent: “Thanks to you, Murphy, I have already missed
a period.”

She had morning sickness; curry smells and orange colors made her ill. “If your disgusting seed has done this,” she said to
Wentworth, “I shall rip it out of me with my own hands.”

Wentworth adored her and, wounded by her sharp tongue, took refuge in alcohol.

Among the guests at one of Bridget’s parties were two hoteliers from England and a rich Arab who took a fancy to me.

I called Eamonn from my bedroom.

“Annie,” he inquired, “what are you doing?”

I pointed the phone toward the living room.

“Hear it? One of Bridget’s many parties.
Wild
.”

“God
Almighty
, I knew it.”

I whispered, “You were so right, Dublin is wicked. Shush. Bridget’s invited an… Arab.”

“An Arab?”

“I
know
he wants to rape me.”

“What? How do you —?”

“I was dancing with him and believe me…”

“What did he do, Annie, you must tell me.”

“He bit me.”

There was a silence on the line before: “Where?”

“Say, Eamonn, is this a confession or something?”

“Tell me,” he said.

“On my—I hardly know how to tell you—on my… ear.”

“Your
ear
? They’re infidels. This probably has some special significance.”

“It has special significance for noninfidels, too. The things he whispered in my ear
after
he bit it.”

“Don’t tell me.”

“I wouldn’t dare.”

“You’ve got to get out of there this minute, Annie.”

“This party’s going on all night.”

“Oh, God, dear God, how did I get mixed up in all this?”

“Hey,” I said, “it’s
me
who’s mixed up in all this.”

I slammed the phone down.

Seconds later, it rang. “Yes, Eamonn?”

He solemnly said, “Don’t ever hang up on me again.”

“I was paying for the call.”

“All right. How many people has she invited?”

“Dozens.”

“Please, don’t drink any more. I don’t want you having a panic attack. And don’t go near that Arab.”

“But you said you’d never stand in my way.”

“Indeed, but he’s probably got six wives already.”

“I think we should all respect one another’s unbeliefs.”

“Listen —”

I hissed, fibbing, “He’s coming.”

“
Annie
, for God’s sake.”

To annoy Eamonn, I raised my voice, “Abdullah, so nice of you to drop in.”

“Annie,
Annie
, get that man out of your
bedroom
.”

“Abdullah, darling, make yourself comfortable. Not on the bed, no.” Into the phone: “Daddy, I do hope your wooden leg is not
bothering you. Take care now.”

I was pleased with myself until the Arab really did appear and sat on my bed. After several ear-nibbles, he asked me to marry
him.

“I don’t even know your name.”

He told me. It was guttural and as long as the alphabet.

“I still don’t know your name.”

“What are names?” He undid the buttons of his shirt, revealing a bronzed chest. “Feel me and you will know.”

“Pardon me if I pass on this one.”

“Marry me, beautiful damsel,” he sighed, “and I will make a paradise for you in the long hot nights of Arabia.” He had seen
far too many Hollywood movies.

“Not without Bridget,” I said loyally, and he promised to marry her, too.

Though exhausted, I could not sleep. After an hour, someone burst in, moaning, “The rabbit’s dead, Annie.”

I shot up from under my pillow to find Bridget unsteadily waving half a bottle of red wine. “Confirmed?”

She nodded miserably. “Mustn’t cry over spilled milk. I’ll have to coat-hanger myself,” she bawled.

Next morning, I called Eamonn from the hotel. “You’ve got to come to Dublin. Something’s happened.”

“You have not been raped by that Arab?”

“Worse.”

“You are not being sick in the mornings?”

“Is
that
worse?” And I slammed the phone down again.

A couple of days later, I met him near the Burlington and outlined the bad news. Bridget certainly pregnant and calling London
to get the money to go home. Annie probably pregnant. “Worst of all, the flat is practically a brothel. Yes, yes, it’s leased
in the name of the honorable Bishop of Kerry.”

He held his head in his hands for a few minutes.

“Go on,” he urged, ironically. “Tell me about you being ravaged by that
A-rab
.”

“He got no farther than my ear.”

“All the same, ‘tis the end of everything.”

As we drove to the apartment, I told him to prepare himself by taking a couple of tablets for his colitis.

We arrived around 8:30 to find a few couples still tearing into one another. Eamonn was in his clericals including his most
expensive ring and big gold chain.

Once again, he amazed me. This man who braved a herd of charging elephants naturally got a kick out of being in a house of
ill repute.

“Drink, Bishop?” Bridget asked, rocky on her feet but anxious to suck up to a source of possible funds.

“A little brandy would do me no harm.”

He was at ease, laughing and telling the odd funny story. After an hour, he signaled me to join him in my bedroom. He had
no sooner given me a hurried kiss than Bridget barged in and made a grab for his pectoral cross. With drink on board, she
was a formidable lady.

“I’ll get a pretty penny for that in London,” she said.

Instead of fighting her off, Eamonn removed his cross and chain and handed them to her. She went with them into the living
room to show Jim and the others.

“My God, Eamonn, why’d you do that?”

“She will give it back.”

“She’s been threatening to abort herself with a coat hanger; I just hope she doesn’t use a bishop’s cross.”

“Dear God, ‘tis in hell we are.” He held his hands to his chest recently bereft of his chain of office. “I want to talk seriously.”

That annoyed me. I thought we
were
.

“You have to get out of here, Annie.”

For the third time that night he amazed me. Instead of bunking, he rejoined the youngsters in the living room for a drink.
From my room, I could hear the sound of his laughing and singing. And a few times, “Bridget, don’t hit me with that chain,
it’ll scar my face.”

Finally and coaxingly:

“You are a very lovely young woman, Bridget, are you sure you need that cross of mine?”

“Not the cross, but I’ve really fallen for the chain.”

“Bridget,” he said, “you wouldn’t insult my religious beliefs. Oh, thank you. Yes, I do want it, please. I said please. You
are very, very kind.”

A minute later, he came to say good-bye to me.

“I’m just off to the Burlington,” I lied. “I’d be grateful, Bishop, for a lift.” Soon we were whizzing off to the gravel pit
that I thought I had seen the last of. He was always sexually most active when he was alarmed. We had a good time, but sex
was followed by a serious talk.

He told me I had to get out of the apartment in one week at most. He would tell the estate agents that the occupants were
ill and had flown back to the States.

Unfortunately, the hundred pounds he promised me was not enough for a decent place. Landlords required a deposit as well as
the first month’s rent in advance.

Eamonn next came to Dublin toward the end of November. I was expecting him about eleven, so I answered the door. As soon as
I saw him, I started to heave. He solicitously took me by the arm and led me to the edge of the pavement.

“Is this happening a lot?”

I nodded. He helped me to the car, then drove fast until I put a handkerchief over my mouth and threatened to throw up.

“Oh, God,” he groaned, “first Mary in my Mercedes, and now you in my Lancia.”

I had to dig into my savings to lease a new apartment we could afford a few miles south of the hotel. It was damp and really
dismal.

Bridget said, “I’m not staying in this dump.”

I told her I had paid the deposit and a month’s rent.

“But,” she roared, “it has not been cleaned in years.”

Every room had something badly wrong with it and raw sewage came back at us after we flushed the toilet. We had no choice
but to knuckle down and make the place habitable.

Bridget and I were both pregnant, yet each had to hold down an arduous job and return in the dark to a flat that drove us
insane.