My Oedipus Complex (26 page)

But for all his truculent airs he was exceedingly gentle, patient and understanding, and disliked the way her sisters ragged Rita.

‘Tell me, Nellie,' he asked one night in his lazy, amiable way, ‘do you talk like that to Rita because you like it, or out of a sense of duty?'

‘How soft you have it!' cried Nellie. ‘We have to live with her. You haven't.'

‘That may be my misfortune, Nellie,' said Justin.

‘Is that a proposal, Justin?' Kitty asked shrewdly.

‘Scarcely, Kitty,' said Justin. ‘You're not what I might call a good jury.'

‘Better be careful or you'll have her calling on your mother, Justin,' Kitty said maliciously.

‘I hope my mother has sufficient sense to realize it would be an honour, Kitty,' Justin said severely.

When he rose to go, Rita accompanied him to the hall.

‘Thanks for the moral support, Justin,' she said in a low voice and threw an overcoat over her shoulders to accompany him to the gate. When he opened the door they both stood and gazed round them. It was a moonlit night: the garden, patterned in black and silver sloped to the quiet suburban roadway where the gas-lamps burned with a dim green light. Beyond this gateways shaded by black trees led to flights of steps or steep-sloping avenues behind the moonlit houses on the river's edge.

‘God, isn't it lovely?' said Rita.

‘Oh, by the way, Rita, that was a proposal,' he said, slipping his arm through hers.

‘Janey Mack, they're falling,' she said, and gave his arm a squeeze.

‘What are?'

‘Proposals. I never knew I was so popular.'

‘Why? Have you had others?'

‘I had one anyway.'

‘And did you accept it?'

‘No,' Rita said doubtfully. ‘Not quite. At least, I don't think I did.'

‘You might consider this one,' Justin said with unusual humility. ‘You know, of course, that I was very fond of Nellie. At one time I was very fond of her, indeed. You don't mind that, I hope. It's all over and done with now, and no regrets on either side.'

‘No, Justin, of course I don't mind. If I felt like marrying you I wouldn't
give it a second thought. But I was very much in love with Tony too, and that's not all over and done with yet.'

‘I know that, Rita,' he said gently. ‘I know exactly what you feel. We've all been through it.' He might as well have left it there, but, being a lawyer, Justin liked to see his case properly set out. ‘That won't last for ever. In a month or two you'll be over it, and then you'll wonder what you saw in that fellow.'

‘I don't think so, Justin,' she said with a crooked smile, not altogether displeased to be able to enlighten him about the utter hopelessness of her position. ‘I think it will take a great deal longer than that.'

‘Well, say six months even,' Justin went on, prepared to yield a point to the defence. ‘All I ask is that in one month or six, when you've got over your regrets for this – this amiable young man' (momentarily his voice took on its familiar ironic tone) ‘you'll give me a thought. I'm old enough not to make any more mistakes. I know I'm fond of you, and I feel sure I could make a success of my end of it.'

‘What you really mean is that I wasn't in love with Tony at all,' Rita said, keeping her temper with the greatest difficulty. ‘Isn't that it?'

‘Not quite,' Justin replied judiciously. Even if he had had a serenade as well as moonlight and a girl, Justin could not have resisted correcting what he considered a false deduction. ‘I've no doubt you were very much attracted by this – this clerical Adonis; this Mr Whatever-his-name-is, or that at any rate you thought you were, which in practice comes to the same thing, but I also know that that sort of thing, though it's painful enough while it lasts, doesn't last very long.'

‘You mean yours didn't, Justin,' Rita said tartly. By this time she was flaming.

‘I mean mine or anyone else's,' said Justin. ‘Because love – the only sort of thing you can really call love – is something that comes with experience. You're probably too young yet to know what the real thing is.'

As Rita had only recently told Ned that he didn't yet know what the real thing was, she found this very hard to stomach.

‘How old would you say you'd have to be,' she asked viciously. ‘Thirty-five?'

‘You'll know soon enough – when it hits you,' said Justin.

‘Honest to God, Justin,' she said withdrawing her arm and looking at him furiously, ‘I think you're the thickest man I ever met.'

‘Good-night, my dear,' said Justin with perfect good humour, and he took the few steps to the gate at a run.

Rita stood gazing after him with folded arms. At the age of twenty to be told that there is anything you don't know about love is like a knife in your heart.

Kitty and Nellie persuaded Mrs Lomasney that the best way of distracting Rita's mind was to find her a new job. As a new environment was also supposed to be good for her complaint, Mrs Lomasney wrote to her sister, who was a nun in England, and the sister found her work in a convent there. Rita let on to be indifferent though she complained bitterly enough to Ned.

‘But why England?' he asked in surprise.

‘Why not?'

‘Wouldn't any place nearer do you?'

‘I suppose I wouldn't be far enough away.'

‘But why not make up your own mind?'

‘I'll probably do that too,' she said with a short laugh. ‘I'd like to see what's in theirs first though. I might have a surprise for them.'

She certainly had that. She was to leave for England on Friday, and on Wednesday the girls gave a farewell party. Wednesday was the weekly half-holiday, and it rained steadily all day. The girls' friends all turned up. Most of these were men: Bill O'Donnell of the bank, who was engaged to Kitty; Fahy, the solicitor, who was Justin's successful rival for Nellie; Justin himself, who simply could not be kept out of the house by anything short of an injunction, Ned Lowry and a few others. Hasty soon retired with his wife to the dining-room to read the evening paper. He said all his daughters' young men looked exactly alike and he never knew which of them he was talking to.

Bill O'Donnell was acting as barman. He was a big man, bigger even than Justin, with a battered boxer's face and a negro smile that seemed to well up from depths of good humour with life rather than from anything that happened in it. He carried out loud conversations with everyone he poured out a drink for, and his voice overrode every intervening tête-à-tête,
and even challenged the piano, on which Nellie was vamping music-hall songs.

‘Who's this one for, Rita?' he asked. ‘A bottle of Bass for Paddy. Ah, the stout man! Remember the New Year's Night in Bandon, Paddy? Remember how you had to carry me up to the bank in evening dress and jack me up between the two wings of the desk? Kitty, did I ever tell you about that night in Bandon?'

‘Once a week for the past five years, Bill,' Kitty sang out cheerfully.

‘Nellie,' said Rita. ‘I think it's time for Bill to sing his song. “Let Me Like a Soldier Fall”, Bill!'

‘My one little song!' Bill said with a roar of laughter. ‘The only song I know, but I sing it grand. Don't I, Nellie? Don't I sing it fine?'

‘Fine!' agreed Nellie, looking up at his big moon-face beaming at her over the piano. ‘As the man said to my mother, “Finest bloody soprano I ever heard.” '

‘He did not, Nellie,' Bill said sadly. ‘You're making that up.… Silence, please!' he shouted, clapping his hands. ‘Ladies and gentlemen, I must apologize. I ought to sing something like Tosti's “Good-bye” but the fact is, ladies and gentlemen, that I don't know Tosti's “Good-bye”.'

‘Recite it, Bill,' suggested Justin amiably.

‘I don't know the words of it either, Justin,' said Bill. ‘In fact, I'm not sure if there is any such song, but if there is, I ought to sing it.'

‘Why, Bill?' asked Rita innocently. She was wearing a long black dress that threw up the unusual brightness of her dark, bony face. She looked more cheerful than she had looked for months. All the evening it was as though she were laughing to herself at something.

‘Because 'twould be only right, Rita,' Bill said with great melancholy, putting his arm round her and drawing her closer. ‘You know I'm very fond of you, don't you, Rita?'

‘And I'm mad about you, Bill,' Rita said candidly.

‘I know that, Rita,' he said mournfully, pulling at his collar as though to give himself air. ‘I only wish you weren't going, Rita. This place isn't the same without you. Kitty won't mind my saying that,' he added with a nervous glance at Kitty, who was flirting with Justin on the sofa.

‘Are you going to sing your blooming old song or not?' Nellie asked impatiently, running her fingers over the keys.

‘I'm going to sing now in one minute, Nellie,' Bill replied ecstatically,
stroking Rita fondly under the chin. ‘I only want Rita to know we'll miss her.'

‘Damn it, Bill,' Rita said, snuggling up to him, ‘if you go on like that I won't go at all. Would you sooner I didn't go?'

‘I would sooner it, Rita,' he said, stroking her cheeks and eyes. ‘You're too good for the fellows there.'

‘Oh, go on doing that, Bill,' she said. ‘It's gorgeous, and you're making Kitty mad jealous.'

‘Kitty isn't jealous,' Bill said mawkishly. ‘Kitty is a lovely girl and you're a lovely girl. I hate to see you go, Rita.'

‘That settles it, Bill,' she said, pulling herself free of him with a mock-determined air. ‘As you feel that way about it, I won't go at all.'

‘Won't you though!' said Kitty sweetly.

‘Don't worry your head about it, Bill,' said Rita briskly. ‘It's all off.'

Justin, who had been quietly getting through large whiskies, looked up lazily.

‘Perhaps I should have mentioned that the young lady has just done me the honour of proposing to me, and I've accepted her,' he boomed.

Ned, who had been enjoying the little scene between Bill and Rita, looked at Justin in surprise.

‘Bravo! Bravo!' cried Bill, clapping his hands with delight. ‘A marriage has been arranged and all the rest of it – what? I must give you a kiss, Rita. Justin, you don't mind if I give Rita a kiss?'

‘Not at all, not at all,' said Justin with a lordly wave of the hand. ‘Any-thing that's mine is yours.'

‘You're not serious, Justin, are you?' Kitty asked incredulously.

‘Oh, I'm serious all right,' said Justin, and then he gave Rita a puzzled look. ‘I'm not quite certain whether your sister is. Are you, Rita?'

‘What?' Rita asked, as though she were listening to something else.

‘Why? Are you trying to give me the push already?' asked Rita with amusement.

‘We're much obliged for the information,' Nellie said angrily as she rose from the piano. ‘I wonder did you tell Father?'

‘Hardly,' said Rita coolly. ‘It was only settled an hour ago.'

‘Maybe 'twill do with some more settling by the time Father is done with you,' Nellie said furiously. ‘The impudence of you! Go in at once and tell him.'

‘Keep your hair on, girl,' Rita said with cool malice and then went jauntily out of the room. Kitty and Nellie began to squabble viciously with Justin. They were convinced that the whole scene had been arranged by Rita to make them look ridiculous, and in this they weren't very far out. Justin sat back and began to enjoy the sport. Then Ned struck a match and lit another cigarette, and something about the slow, careful way he did it drew everyone's attention. Just because he was not the sort to make a fuss, anything unusual about him stuck out, and a feeling of awkwardness ensued. Ned was too old a friend for the girls not to feel that way about him.

Rita returned, laughing.

‘Consent refused,' she growled, bowing her head and tugging the wrong side of an imaginary moustache.

‘What did I tell you?' Nellie said without rancour.

‘You don't think it makes any difference?' asked Rita dryly.

‘What did he say?' asked Kitty.

‘Oh, he hadn't a notion who I was talking about,' Rita said lightly. ‘ “Justin who?” ' she mimicked. ‘ “How the hell do you think I can remember all the young scuts ye bring to the house?” '

‘Was he mad?' asked Kitty.

‘Hopping. The poor man can't even settle down to read his
Echo
without one of his daughters interrupting him to announce her engagement.'

‘He didn't call us scuts?' Bill asked in a tone of genuine grief.

‘Oh, begor, that was the very word he used, Bill.'

‘Did you tell him he was very fond of me the day I gave him the tip for Golden Boy at the Park Races?' asked Justin.

‘I did,' said Rita. ‘I told him you were the stout block of a fellow with the brown hair that he said had the fine intelligence, and he said he never gave a damn about intelligence. Character was all that mattered. He wanted me to marry the thin fellow with the specs. “Only bloody gentleman that comes to this house.” '

‘Is it Ned?' asked Nellie.

‘Of course. I asked him why he didn't tell me that before and he nearly ate the head off me. “Jesus Christ, girl, don't I feed and clothe ye? Isn't that enough without having to coort for ye as well. Next thing is ye'll be asking me to have a couple of babies for ye.” Anyway, Ned,' she added
with a crooked, almost malicious smile, ‘there's no doubt about who was Pa's favourite.'

Once more the attention was directed on Ned. He put his cigarette down with care and rose, holding out his hand.

‘I wish you all the luck in the world, Justin,' he said.

‘I know that well, Ned,' boomed Justin, catching Ned's hand. ‘And I'd feel the same if it was you.'