Eighteen

Anna and Alex went to see Brokeback Mountain in an old fleapit in a town in County Wicklow. The cinema was half-full of women, crying their eyes out.

Afterwards Anna was too moved to talk.

Alex didn’t have much to say either, but for a different reason.

‘It’s sentimental crap,’ he said finally, when Anna had overcome her tears and they were in the car driving home. ‘It’s Love Story for gays.’

Even the actors had looked a bit like the boy and girl in Love Story. The blond Nordic man, the dark emotional woman.

But he was not a dark emotional woman, he was a dark emotional man. And the lovemaking looked much more physical, more elemental, than heterosexual love could ever be. By contrast with the highly explicit sexual scenes in homosexual movies, heterosexual coupling looked tame and unexciting. Maybe because women hadn’t got all those muscles. Because women were not men. The movie made you feel that the best love was love between men.

Is that why Alex didn’t like it? Probably not. The women in the cinema should not have liked it, because the implication of everything in the film was that they were second best. If you wanted the real thing, it had to be with a man, a tough, deeply emotional, muscular man, a cowboy with poetry in his soul, was the subliminal message of this film. Anna should have been the one not to like it. But she did, because it extolled the virtue of true love, true thwarted love, the kind she was experiencing now in her affair with Vincy – she fancied that he looked ever so slightly like the blond macho one in the film, the one all the women had a soft spot for.

Love like that is exactly what I feel for Vincy, Anna thought.

But was it what Vincy felt for her?

For some reason, the image of him, sitting up in his big tossed bed, smoking a cigarette and eyeing her with an emotion that she could not put a name on, but which now, with the benefit of a Hollywood version of modern true love for purposes of comparison, could not be described as being anywhere on passion’s spectrum. That was her reading of the scene, right now.

Insecure, uneasy, worried, she telephoned him, contrary to what she had been asked, on the fourth day of Christmas, the day after she had seen the movie. The picture of those two men unable to restrain their passion had moved her deeply and aroused her own love so that she too was unable to resist her desire – to telephone.

But the course of passion was thwarted, as it so often is, by technical failure. She got the voice, that smug, dismayingly firm, mobile phone voice, saying the mobile phone user was out of range or had their mobile switched off.

Over the next week she rang Vincy’s number ten times, and always got the same message.

Leo, in spite of his best judgement, found that living with Charlene was the most natural thing in the world. He had fully intended to throw her out on the 27th of December, the minute the buses started running with some semblance of normality. But when the time came he was … hung over, for one thing. She made him a prairie oyster, which she claimed was the best cure for a hangover ever invented. She had learned how to do it from Cabaret, where Liza Minnelli makes one for Michael York. Her flowery apron was in place, a loaf of bread was in the oven, the fire was roaring in the grate. She had no intention whatsoever of leaving.

‘Do you know what I was thinking?’ she asked, having administered the prairie oyster.

He guessed she was not going to say ‘I was thinking it was high time I got the hell out of here and back to my hospital’, or ‘husband’, or ‘children’. And he was right.

‘I was thinking you could give me a hand with the reading.’

‘Were you now?’ What next?

‘Yes I was. You read a lot yourself.’ He had given no evidence of this since she had joined his household. She must have been basing her idea on the books she saw all over the house. ‘What better person to teach me?’

He laughed despairingly.

Minutes later they were seated at the big table, a jotter and pens at the ready, and a copy of Noddy and Tessie Bear, the first book Leo had ever read himself (he read it when he was six – he had taught himself to read), open in front of them. He had kept his childhood copy. He anticipated that this was a book that would appeal to Charlene, and in that he was perfectly correct.

And so lessons began. Every afternoon, after his walk, they sat at the kitchen table and he taught her how to read.

A routine established itself. Charlene cooked and did all the housework. The kitchen always smelt of baking bread, or slowly cooking vegetable curries. The fire was always blazing in the stone fireplace and the tiles were always cleanly swept. The house came to life under Charlene’s care and Leo quickly came to appreciate the comforts she provided.

She could not stay for long, that was obvious, but it was all turning out better than he had expected it would.

Kate was on his mind, however.

He had made no promises about going back to Dublin and she understood that he had his work to do here – although, actually, he was not doing much work at the moment. When he phoned, which he did only on Christmas Day, he indicated that he was snowed under and would probably not go back to see her for at least a month.

‘Oh, that’s ok,’ she said, apparently unsurprised. Nothing seemed to surprise her: that was an effect of the medication. ‘I know how it is.’

After New Year’s Day she was going back to hospital. It struck him as odd that she had been out, at home, for about ten days and would now return to sit in a room in a hospital, but he had stopped expressing scepticism about the benefits of her psychiatric care. She found his questions upsetting and seemed to need to believe that she was in good hands. The whole thing depended on that, he presumed. It was some kind of faith healing, even if it also involved what seemed to him unhealthily high doses of drugs.

‘I’ll go to see you when I get back to town,’ he said. ‘Phone me any time.’

‘All right,’ she said, in that bland way of hers, which was disconcerting. ‘Are you having a nice time?’

‘It’s fine.’ He told her about the party on Christmas Day, but not about Charlene. That was a mistake. He knew it, as he gave a report on his days, omitting the most sensational news. But having to explain Charlene over the phone would be too difficult. He hadn’t mentioned her to anyone … soon he would have to. If he knew anything, everyone down in the pub would already have noticed that he had a stranger staying in his house. Charlene went for walks sometimes, and she must have visited the local grocer’s van, the one that did the rounds of the old folk twice a week, at one of its halting points. There was no other explanation for the constant supply of brown bread, and bacon and egg and sausage, which he never bought himself, being a vegetarian.

The days and nights after Christmas were glorious. A cloudless sky presented the valley with bright sunny days, the green of the fields and the blue of the sea was scintillating; at night the dark blue sky was crowded with silver stars. It was exhilarating weather.

Replete with Charlene’s good bread, delicious porridge (she always added cream and berries, wherever she got those from), and nut roasts, and a general sense of well-being, Leo took longer and longer afternoon walks. He felt healthier and stronger than he had ever in his life before. He walked for five or six miles, up into the hills where the sheep dotted the hummocky turf like big white flowers, and their bleats sang like a strange winter symphony, the essential music of Ireland, it seemed to him. He wished he could replicate it, that lonely, ethereal sound, like messages from another world.

He began to play around with poems – not a thing he had done since he was young, and in Dublin, and his parents were still alive.

On New Year’s Eve when he returned from his afternoon walk, Charlene said: ‘There was a phone call for you.’

He was taken aback. ‘I told you not to answer the phone,’ he said.

Charlene smiled her dotty smile and said, ‘Ah yeah, but I forgot.’

‘Who was it?’

‘Kate Murphy.’

‘Oh my God,’ said Leo, using an exclamatory expression he hated. ‘Well … didn’t she ask who you were?’

‘No she didn’t,’ said Charlene nonchalantly. Nothing moved this woman. She was incorrigible. She was lifting an apple pie out of the oven. It had a golden crust and at the crescent of the pie were three leaves shaped from pastry. The edges had been pricked with a fork so that it looked as if it was surrounded by a pastry frill. She pricked it with a fork and a divine smell of apples, sugar and cloves wafted across the kitchen.

Suddenly Leo saw another face and another body carrying the pie from the oven to the counter, and he smelt another room, a room in which he had spent years and years, long ago. But he did not get a chance to pursue this memory because Charlene began to talk and by the time she had finished he had forgotten what it was he had been about to recall. Like a wonderful dream, the details of which vanish as soon as you become conscious, it evaporated.

‘I asked her how she knew you,’ she said.

Leo was so flabbergasted that he couldn’t reply.

‘She sounds like a lovely girl,’ said Charlene. ‘And she is wondering why you’re not up there with her.’

‘Charlene!’ Leo began.

‘I know it’s none of my business but it’s high time you settled down,’ Charlene said, in a firm maternal tone.

‘I am settled down.’ Leo sounded like a teenager defending the indefensible.

Charlene ignored his comment completely. ‘You don’t want to end up a lonely old bachelor like that Máirtín at the party.’

He didn’t remember telling her about Máirtín, but he didn’t remember much of what had happened on Christmas night. He and Charlene, he vaguely recalled, had chatted quite a lot, and he had drunk a great deal of wine before that chattering occurred. In his cups, he knew from bitter experience, he often revealed much more than was wise.

‘Charlene, you’re quite right. This is none of your business,’ he said, taking off his coat and preparing to go into his study.

‘Kate told me she was in the mental hospital.’

He stopped at the door of the study. ‘She told you what?’

‘It’s nothing to be ashamed of. I was in one myself once.’

‘Yes,’ said Leo wearily. ‘I’m not surprised.’

Charlene always ignored all negative remarks. ‘You should go up to Dublin and ask that girl to marry you.’

Leo went into the study and slammed the door.

There were no trains on New Year’s Day, but there was a limited bus service. Leo managed to catch one of the few on offer at ten o’clock. It was able to travel swiftly across Ireland – there was very little traffic. There were only three people on the bus, although the towns they passed through were busy: some shops were open, and festivities were taking place here and there. In Toomevara, there was a rubber duck race in the stream, and in Mountrath a small carnival was being held on the main street, complete with swingboats and a small ferris wheel.

Night had fallen by the time he reached Kate’s parents’ house, a big mansion of a place in its own grounds. The taxi – there were a few taxis about – dropped him at the gate. He walked down the gravelled avenue between bare winter trees. On the lawn in front of the house two birches were lit with bluish fairy lights. Behind them, the mock Tudor windows of the house, which was one of those pretty late Victorian houses, all gables and mullioned windows, like Samuel Beckett’s childhood home, Cooldrinagh – the Beckett house must be just down the road, in fact.

He rang the bell and Kate answered. He had been just mildly apprehensive. The journey was so long and tiring. Maybe he had made a mistake. She was mental. Was she beautiful or was she plain? But when he saw her, dressed in a simple black polo neck jumper and a red skirt, her eyes enormous, her hair newly cut and washed, his heart filled. Beautiful, was the answer. Unambiguously beautiful. And she looked so healthy, and so happy, and so glad to see him.

They kissed for some time without exchanging a word.

She brought him from the hall, which had a marble floor and a chandelier, into a huge living room. Shaded floor-lamps cast pools of golden light on the rich wooden floor. A great bouquet of roses and lilies gleamed in a corner, and their scent drifted in the warm air. On an old-fashioned velvet sofa, in front of a blazing log fire, Kate’s parents sat and watched the flat screen television, which had been put into a gilt frame on the wall so that it looked like an old master – a slightly weird effect, Leo thought, as he took it all in and realised that Kate came from a much richer background than he would have anticipated from her stories. It seemed that a lot of people he met came from such backgrounds these days, while there were also a lot like Charlene, who had no home at all, or like the people in Kerry, who lived in little bungalows or cottages.

Her parents were not intimidating, and appeared to feel that their surroundings were perfectly ordinary and nothing to be proud of. Her mother was blond, slightly overweight, with a big mouth and a chirpy, rather comical face. Leo did not notice what she was wearing. Her father had a large head of snow white hair and a wrinkled, distinguished face, a face, in fact, that was curiously reminiscent of Samuel Beckett’s. He was dressed in a very old-looking Aran jumper and cord pants, obviously some sort of old favourite clothes to relax in. Like Kate, they seemed almost impervious to shock, although it could be assumed that the reasons for this imperturbability were natural, not chemical. When Kate told them that this complete stranger was going to be her husband, they expressed no surprise. In fact, they seemed delighted. That was not said but it was clear. Probably, Leo thought, not cynically, the illness had something to do with their attitude. They had been through so much that nothing fazed them. That could happen to people. In a way it had happened to him. The issue of her illness was not hidden. He would have almost preferred if it had been. But they talked about it openly, as if it were a touch of flu … which was what it amounted to now, it seemed. She would go back to hospital to see the consultant, who would probably discharge her straight away.

‘We can get married then, as soon as you come out,’ Leo said. Suddenly he did not want to wait. He wanted her down in Kerry in his house, their life to begin there, without any more delay.

There was a surprised silence.

Kate’s mother broke it. ‘You can’t do that!’ she said, laughing. ‘It all takes time.’

‘Does it?’ Leo realised he knew nothing about these things.

‘Well, apart from the legalities, which entail giving three months’ notice, or maybe even six, there is a lot of preparation.’

‘We don’t want any fuss,’ said Leo, looking at Kate. ‘Do we?’

She hesitated. Her mother looked carefully at her. Kate said, ‘No’, in an unconvinced tone.

‘A quiet wedding!’ said Kate’s father, laughing. ‘Do you believe that for one second?’

Kate, as she had anticipated, was discharged from hospital a few days after going back in. Leo collected her from the ward. She had her bag packed and was going around hugging patients and telling them she would phone, she would call in to see them. Everyone was kissing, waving, saying goodbye. It was as if she were leaving a place where she had been on holiday. There was a sort of gala atmosphere about it. She smiled triumphantly at the nun in the hall and waved, but did not shake hands with her, which the nun did not expect.

‘It’s a funny place,’ Leo said, as they walked along the gravelled path to the car park.

‘It is the funny farm,’ said Kate.

‘It sort of grows on you,’ he said, looking back at the big grey building. A few weeks ago it had seemed like an alien place, somewhere he would rather not think about, somewhere dangerous, which he never wanted to go near. And now it seemed ordinary and friendly. The mentally ill seemed not like a subhuman group to be avoided, but like everyone else. The funny thing was that they did not seem mentally ill, they seemed exactly like the mentally healthy, at least while they were in the hospital. He wondered if there really was a difference? But if not, why were they there, locked up?

‘It hasn’t grown on me,’ said Kate. ‘I’m glad to be getting out of it.’

‘So … back home to Mammy? And then home to Leo?’ he asked, giving her a friendly dig.

‘Let’s think about it all,’ she said. ‘I mean, of course we are getting married and everything …’ He had looked frightened. ‘But would it be more fun to postpone going to Kerry until we actually are married?’

‘You want to be strictly conventional all of a sudden?’

‘It’s nothing to do with that. I just think it would be more … exciting. In every way.’ She looked at him meaningfully. ‘You know?’

‘Mm,’ he said dubiously.