The Private Wound (3 page)

“If it's a holiday you're after, you've come to the right place. Mind you, all the young ones here are mad to get to the Big City, or America. It's no life for them here at all. But every man wishes to be where he isn't—amn't I right? Gerronoutathat!” Sean suddenly yelled at a freckled boy who was trying to climb on to the bonnet. “There's a bit of meat in the back, Brian asks will you take out to Lissawn for the mistress. His van's broken down again.”

If the cars were unreliable hereabouts, the bush telegraph was in fine working order.

The sky had been overcast all the morning. But, in the temperamental way of Irish weather, the sun burst out after lunch and in an hour the sky was a bright blue, the far mountains violet, and the nearer land patched with brown and an emerald so dazzling that it almost hurt the eye.

I took the first turn to the right, on to a pot-holed lane which led between fields sprinkled at the edge with spring flowers. The land stretched empty before me, but by each of the few cottages I passed a collie was lying in ambush and darted out snarling as if it wanted to bite the tyres off my wheels.

The track, getting worse every moment, snaked about through the bumpy little pastures. I had visions of its petering out altogether and myself driving through an uncharted sea of green: but presently Flurry's landmark appeared—the track took a dive through a tunnel of high bushes, and beyond them was the gate.

A winding avenue of trees—mostly ash, I think—led me for about a quarter of a mile, and there at last was the house. I don't know what I had expected: certainly not this elegant, white building, two-storied, with tall sash-windows on either side of the door, and a bow window jutting out towards a river which slid along through rocks only a few yards away from it, to the right of the house.

I gazed at Lissawn House for a while, almost wishing I had accepted its owner's lavish invitation to become his guest. Then I got out of the car, climbed a stone stile over the low wall which separated the demesne from a strip of garden. Now I could see that first impressions had been deceptive. The brick path up to the door was ruinous: the door must have needed a new coat of paint for ten years, and the charming fanlight above it was partly shattered. Where once the bell had been, there was a rusty hole. The brass knocker looked as if it had lain on a sea-bed for centuries.

I knocked. And again. Silence, but for the incessant mumbling of the river. I pushed the door open—no one locks his door in Ireland—and called out, “Is there anybody there?” feeling like the traveller in that over-anthologised poem. Footsteps came from the back of the house.

“It's you. How
are
you? Welcome to Lissawn. The missus is tarting herself up for company. We have the Mayor honouring us with a visit, and his domestic chaplain. He'll be later than he thought; so he asked me, will I show you the cottage.”

Flurry Leeson, in the light of day, looked even more ashen-faced. “I've a terrible hangover,” he said. “C'mon now. It's only a step.”

We walked out of the garden, along the river. Through a coppice, we came to a place where a spit of lush grass projected into the water. “See that pool? I got a five-pounder there last month. But the water's low now: we need rain. I thought we'd get some this morning. You didn't bring your rod over?”

“Well, actually I'm not so keen on—”

“Never mind, we'll fit you out. I've plenty rods.”

Like many bores, I thought, Flurry Leeson pays no attention to what anyone else says.

“The house is called after the river, is it? Is Lissawn the Irish for Leeson?”

“I wouldn't think so.” He winked ponderously. “Don't tell anyone, but the truth is I hardly know a word of Irish. A bloody awful language to get your tongue round. My great-grandfather came over here from Wexford and built the house. He was no scholar, but a great horseman. They say all Irishmen get concussed sooner or later but the Leesons are born concussed.”

He paused to slap his thigh, bellowing with laughter. We were on a bridle-path which curved away from the river, and shortly arrived at the back of a cottage.

“Wait now while I get your key.”

Flurry emerged, and we walked a hundred yards on. “Kevin has to keep it locked while it's empty,” he said apologetically. “My brother is the one unconcussed Leeson. He aims to be standing for the Dail at the next election—not that half the deputies aren't dumb as haddocks. Wait ten years and we'll all be shouting ‘Kevin Leeson for Taoiseach!' What d'ye think of it now? A jewel of a place, isn't it?”

We were on the track which led to Lissawn. A high fuchsia hedge screened the cottage from the track: above it, a fairly solid thatched roof showed. The cottage was newly whitewashed, outside and in. The door led straight into a room—two knocked into one, perhaps—the length of the house, with tiny windows on either side. It was sparsely furnished, in the usual atrocious taste; but there was a new calor-gas stove at one end, a sink, and a row of unused cooking utensils and crockery; at the other a table, two hard-backed chairs and an antique-looking armchair. Up an almost vertical ladder were two small rooms, a feather bed in one, a camp bed and a hip bath in the other.

“I wouldn't like to climb that with drink taken,” Flurry
shouted up at me. “Has Kevin fitted it out all right for you?”

There seemed to be a sufficiency of everything. I came down. Flurry pointed out a good stack of turf, a pump, and an Elsan closet in the garden, the rest of which was given over to weeds, and an unspeakable rubbish dump.

I felt absurdly attracted to the place. “It might do. What's your brother asking for it?”

“That I can't tell you. But you need to stand up to him. He's a desperate man for a bargain: he'd sell his grandmother's skin if he'd a chance. What you want to do is put the comether on Maire: she has Kevin tamed. You should bring your wife out—you and she'd be snug as bugs in a rug here.”

“I'm not married.”

“Are you not? I'd have thought the girls would be stampeding after a fella like you.”

“I've not seen any signs of it yet.”

“Ah well, we must alter all that.”

The enthusiastic Flurry was clearly going to shove me into marriage as well as his brother's cottage. He could not know that what attracted me to the latter was its isolation, the pure silence all round it, the thought that I could be happily alone there with the creatures of my imagination.

We walked back along the lane, through the bushes, up the winding avenue to Lissawn House.

We went round to the back. A weedy yard, outbuildings on two sides. Flurry called “Seamus! Are y' there?” A stocky, red-haired man came out of a horse-box. “This is Seamus O'Donovan. He runs the place. I don't know what I'd do without him.”

Seamus wiped his hand on his trouser-leg and shook mine, giving me a shy glance. There was something guarded
about him, I felt; he had a horseman's straddling gait and quiet hands.

“Kitty could be for foaling to-night, Flurry,” he said.

The two talked for a minute. No man-master relationship here. I sensed some closer bond between the two.

“Anything you want, just tell Seamus. He'll fix it for you. Mr. Eyre's going to take Joyce's cottage. Did my brother come yet?”

“He did not. Clancy'd take the foal.”

“He would indeed. But what'd he pay?”

The two men conversed again. Seamus shot me an occasional look from his very bright blue eyes. He stood at ease beside Flurry, who overtopped him by eight inches or so, in the attitude of a brisk adjutant with his C.O. A fumbling sort of C.O. at that: which made all the odder the way Seamus looked at him—a look of more than respect; I'd have called it hero-worship, if Flurry had not been so unlikely a subject for such a feeling. Or was it simply a solicitousness for his big, shambling, rather futile employer?

“Mrs. Leeson wants Fergus to-morrow,” he said.

“Wouldn't you trust her with him?”

“I'd rather exercise him myself, Flurry. He's bold this time of year.”

“She couldn't handle him?”

“She could ride the devil. There's nothing wrong with her hands. But Fergus isn't a woman's horse.”

“Harry'll skin me if I tell her no.”

“Ah now, she won't. We don't want Fergus destroyed leppin' stone walls, not just now, and you know if Mrs. Leeson saw the great wall of China, she'd have to be leppin' over it.”

“All right then, Seamus.”

I heard the distant noise of a car.

“That'll be them. C'mon, Eyre, and meet your doom.”

I followed Flurry into the back of the house. We entered
the room with the bow window overlooking the river—a shabby, cluttered room, damp stains on one wall, a turf fire smouldering, a few lovely pieces calling for attention among the featureless rabble of furniture. Harriet Leeson was there already: a check skirt, and a puce-coloured sleeveless jumper which showed her upper arms to be as thick as a cook's—a curious contrast to the delicate wrists and hands. She waggled a finger at me, not taking her eyes off a trashy woman's magazine she was reading.

“What'll the reverend say to all that stuff on your face?”

“He knows I'm past praying for, Flurry,” she said indifferently.

“Go and wash it off, Harry. You only do it to vex Maire.”

“To hell with Maire.”

Voices in the hall. Three people entered. Maire Leeson was a handsome woman; auburn-haired, high cheekbones, a scrubbed-looking face, large, slightly protuberant eyes. She was followed by Father Bresnihan, a middle-sized man with bushy eyebrows, hair on the back of his hands, and a pale, thin face in which very dark eyes glowed with intelligence or fanaticism, or both. Kevin Leeson turned out to be the man I had seen coming out of Leeson's store the previous afternoon. He was like a cleaned-up version of his elder brother, decisive, neatly dressed, consequential, long upper lip, long shark-like mouth.

Introductions all round. Then a moment's embarrassed silence.

“Mr. Eyre likes it, Kevin. Just the place for him.”

“I'm glad. I thought you might find it a bit lonely, out at the back of beyond here.”

“Back of beyond!” said Flurry. “Sure, it's only a mile or so from the thriving city of Charlottestown.”

Kevin frowned. Evidently he had suffered a lot from his brother's clumsy teasing.

“You're an Irishman yourself, Mr. Eyre, aren't you?” he asked.

“I was born in Tuam. But I've lived in England nearly all my life.”

“And you're thinking of spending the summer here?”

“Yes. If I can find—”

“Not a word more,” said Flurry. “You've found it.”

The others were looking at me. I felt like an article sent on approbation: I could almost feel Maire Leeson fingering it.

“I hear you write books,” she said. “I don't think I've read any of them.”

“I expect he's on the Index,” said Flurry.

“You'd be wrong.” The priest's voice was an extremely pleasant baritone. “I looked him up. I hope we shall be seeing a lot of you, Mr. Eyre.”

“Tell me now, Mr. Eyre, what sort of books you write? Is it novels? I'm a great reader myself,” asked Maire Leeson.

“I've written two novels.” From her chair by the fire, Harry suddenly grinned at me: then her red lips rounded into a silent “Boo.” I averted my eyes.

Maire Leeson deployed the usual questions—did I write with a pen or a typewriter? did I keep regular working hours? had I come to Ireland for local colour? I answered, very briefly. I had certainly not come to Ireland for literary chit-chat. She finally gave it up, a bit huffed, and—with a somewhat barbed glance at Harry's bare arms—asked her where she'd bought the new jumper.

The three men were talking together on some local government matter. No attempt was made to draw the women into the conversation, I noticed: Ireland was certainly, as my father had told me once, a man's country. I noticed too the deference paid to Father Bresnihan's views on secular matters—very different from the attitude to the
parish clergyman in England. The priest interested me a good deal. He spoke with authority, with a calm assumption that, if there was a last word, he would have it: like a benevolent but firm father with his children. But, beneath this calm, I seemed to feel a temper held on the leash, or perhaps it was a capacity for spiritual torment: the haggard, ascetic face twitched from time to time.

Presently Flurry brought in a tray—tarnished Georgian silver, Woolworth tumblers—and put glasses of whiskey in our hands. Father Bresnihan moved over to Harry: Maire Leeson beckoned to Flurry. Kevin Leeson turned to me.

“Slainthe. Tell me now, what does London think about the international situation?” he asked in his self-important way.

“Well, I suppose most people were ashamed by the Hitler-Chamberlain meeting, but don't like to admit they felt relieved.”

“You think war's inevitable, though?”

“Yes, I do.”

“And I suppose the English say we'll be stabbing them in the back by staying neutral?”

“Some will say that, no doubt. You don't help things by throwing bombs at us in the meanwhile, you know.”

Kevin Leeson blinked: his eyes took on a guarded look. The I.R.A. bomb outrages in England had started last January; and the worst were yet to come.

“What's the point of it?” I went on; then, seized by an irrational desire to shake Kevin's complacence, added, “Of course, they're only pin-pricks: but they've meant the death of innocent people.”

“Ah, that's the wild men. It's their protest against Partition. I suppose they're trying to create a situation where Dev. will have to implement the ideals of the men who rose in 1916. Mind you, I don't hold with it at all, but—”

“‘England's difficulty is Ireland's opportunity'?”