Chapter Eighteen

Gaelic Poetry

“Where are we going?” I asked Sean when the bus had entered the lighted streets of London.

“Hendon,” he said. “Northwest London.”

After a longish ride, the bus stopped, and I scrambled off after the three boys. We crossed the busy street into a quiet residential lane of brick houses with identical front stoops. “Now, troops,” said Sean, “I want you to split up and look at nameplates on each door. You boys take the other side, Sophie and I will do this side.” As Trevor and Angus left us, Sean told me the names to look for. “O’Connell, McGee, maybe Donnelly. I don’t know if Carroll still lives there. Oh, fuck it, just look for Irish names, will you?”

I went purposefully up the first set of steps, shining my little flashlight on the nameplate. Sean took the next house. I found I couldn’t remember a single name. I was so tired it was all I could do to get up each set of steps and back down. Some of the doors had no plates. At the end of the row, I sat dejectedly down at the bottom of the doorstep as Sean approached. The pressure in my bladder was becoming insistent.

“No luck,” I said, “What about you?”

“No, it’s bloody impossible! Maybe our lot didn’t put their names out. Are you all right? You look really knackered. What are you doing traveling alone, anyway? How old are you?”

“I’m twenty,” I said defensively.

“Oh, well, you look younger. That’s all right then.” He kept his bright eyes on me, waiting to see if I would say more.

“I really have to pee,” I said.

“Christ, come here.” He led me behind the open garden gate. When I was done I sat down beside him again, my chin on my fists.

“I’m pregnant,” I said in a weak voice.

“Oh, Christ! And here I’ve been working you to death. You should’ve told me.” He gave my shoulders a squeeze. “Tell me about it later. Just stay put. I’ll go round up the boys.”

We trudged to the local pub. I was beginning to think I wouldn’t have a bed that night after all when Trevor gave a shriek. “Over here,” he called. There was a lot of hugging and backslapping.

Sean introduced his friends. And, looking at me, he said, “This is a little stray we picked up on the boat. Her name’s Sophie.”

“Pleased to meet you,” I said. We all made our way back, and soon, I was inside being greeted by a pretty redheaded girl, the partner of one of the boys in the pub.

“I thought you’d never get here!” she cried. “I’ve got supper for you in the oven. It’ll be hard as a rock by now.”

“Sorry, it was slow going in France today,” said Sean. “General strike.”

“Oh, damn those Frogs and their strikes,” she said without rancor. As I ate her stew with homemade bread I thought, Wow, they just accept me. Being different is what usually causes separation between people, so maybe I’d found people similar to myself. I thought I must have dropped into Irish heaven; these people seemed like angels to me.

I’d been having that kind of luck for the past two days. Denise and Hans Joachim had been kind. Come to think of it, Jade and I had met a lot of nice people through our whole trip. Jean-Luc was the only rotten one, well, except Jill from Strasbourg who had looked at me funny when I was hugging Geneviève in Paris and never turned up again.

It turned out the boys were from Dublin, returning to school from a backpacking holiday in France. Sean was in law school. “I’m a student, too,” I told them and suddenly yawned. The subject of where to sleep came up and I was shown a narrow mattress on the floor in the living room. The one next to it was for Sean. It seemed to be understood that I belonged with Sean. I was his waif. The other two boys were given the floor in one of the bedrooms.

“So tell me your story,” Sean urged me as Gladys threw us each a pillow and some blankets. I burrowed into my sleeping bag and in a low voice began to tell him everything.

“You were raped?” he said. “This is getting worse and worse.”

“Well, yeah,” I said awkwardly, “except if I’d fought harder, he probably would have stopped.”

“It wasn’t your fault, Sophie.”

A flash of rage went through me. “I could kill him!”

Sean said tersely, “I’d help you kill him, darling, but I suppose he’s nowhere to be found right now.”

“That’s right.”

“So what are you going to do? No, don’t tell me.” He spoke in a high, mincing voice, “You’re going to be the pregnant freak at your college and then nobly raise the child alone while you finish university and get a job.”

“Not exactly. I’m going to get an abortion.”

“Don’t know how I knew that. Well, good for you. I always did think women had the worst end of it with getting pregnant and all. Don’t know how any man has the balls to voice an opinion about it. Of course, in Ireland, you’re supposed to believe that life is sacred. But a woman’s life is sacred too. Look at my mam with her five brats. She’s never had much of a life the way I see it, though she says she likes it. You deserve your life—don’t let anyone tell you different,” he said emphatically. “You have someone to stay with in Coventry, then?”

“Kenilworth, yes. My old school friend is there. She’ll let me stay with her. She’ll have to, I guess.”

“She’d better be good to you. I know what old friends can be. My ex-girlfriend is a scold, especially when I’m down. She knows me too well. It’s nice to be free. Kind of lonely, though. Do you have a boyfriend? You don’t mind my asking?”

“No, we broke up just before I left. But I met someone in Paris…a woman.”

“A woman? Aren’t you one! Is she beautiful?”

“Yes! I might be falling in love,” I said.

“That’s great.”

We relaxed into the darkness and talked freely about whatever came into our heads: mostly about what it was like to be young and putting all the puzzle pieces of ourselves together. We talked about religion and about chaos. About other things too, crazy Irish things you have to be half-drunk or half-asleep to talk about. Sean quoted snatches of Gaelic poetry—lines from an ancient poem about a woman who had “breasts like the bellies of two foals.” It gave me shivers. Were the Irish all poets? I couldn’t repeat much of what we talked about now, but I remember the feeling I had with him as though we understood each other perfectly. I was sort of half in love with him, I guess. In a platonic way. We both revered William Butler Yeats, and he told me how Yeats had traveled around Ireland, collecting ballads and legends.

Finally, his words were becoming unintelligible. I kept saying, “What?” and he said, “Never mind. Is it all right if I just hold you for a bit? I won’t try anything.”

“Sure,” I said, and he put his arms around me through my sleeping bag. It felt good. For a second I remembered, by contrast, the way Jean-Luc had touched me through my sleeping bag. But with Sean, there was nothing like that. He was gentle with me. I knew I would never forget his kindness. After a while, we dropped away to our separate mattresses and for the first time in days, I slept deeply.

In the morning, I heard sounds of the toilet flushing, footsteps, and water running. I desperately had to get up and find the bathroom. Last night I was so tired I hadn’t even gone near it. When it was my turn I found damp towels hanging on racks all the way up the wall, and clothes draped everywhere. I took a shower and rubbed myself with the last dry towel in the cupboard.

At the breakfast table, dressed in clean clothes, I sipped strong coffee while the redheaded Gladys worked on pancakes. Trevor opened the front door and picked up the London Times, tossing it on the table. Looking around the table at their sleepy faces, I knew I was never going to see any of them again. And yet they were my friends. Sean shot me a smile. I sighed with a sense of well-being that I hadn’t experienced for a while. I told myself everything was going to work out.

“There’s something about the strike in France,” one of them said with the paper in his lap. “Sounds like they’re negotiating with the government. I bet it will be over in a couple of days.”

“Yeah, until the next time,” said another one.

“If it weren’t for the strike,” I said, “I wouldn’t have met any of you.”

“Hey, it was worth it then,” said Sean.

“You have to hand it to the Frogs, though,” said Angus. “Bloody intrepid bunch. They get what they want.”

“So do we, though, don’t we?” said Gladys. “Only we use different methods. We vote. We’ve got the National Health, don’t we? And nobody starves in the UK, do they?”

“Listen to her. ‘We’ is it?” said Sean.

“Well, I do live here,” she said, “and it’s not so bad in Ireland, either.”

“Yeah, these days. But Ireland’s still the poor relation since the English started coming over and stealing everything we had, including the land under our feet,” said Trevor.

“Damn Brits, they’re still making our lives hell in Northern Ireland, aren’t they?” said Sean.

No answer to that. “Have some pancakes,” was all she said.

After breakfast, I said, “I have to get going.”

“Stay a bit longer,” said Sean. “You have all day to get to Kenilworth.”

“No, really, I have to go. I’m nervous about seeing Natalie. She doesn’t even know I’m coming.”

“Well, the M1 is nearby,” said one of the Irish boys. “We’ll drive you there. You’ll have no trouble getting a ride.”

“There’ll be lorry drivers on their way to Birmingham, even though it’s Sunday. Second largest city in England you know, very industrial.”

“Coventry is right on the way. If they don’t drop you at Kenilworth, you can get a bus from there or another ride.”

“Maybe I should have taken the train,” I said.

“Nah, this is much quicker than taking you down to Euston. You’ll be fine. It’s quite safe to hitchhike here. Besides, we know you can take care of yourself,” said Sean. “You’re a big girl, right?”

“Yes,” I agreed, “and soon to get bigger if I don’t watch out.” The others exchanged glances. I hadn’t told anyone but Sean about my problem, but I knew he’d tell them, and it didn’t matter to me if he did.

Sean smiled and looked at me with liquid green eyes. “You’ve got my address in Dublin. Let’s keep in touch. Here’s their phone number. You’re going to ring up tonight, right? Let us know how you are. Promise?”

“Promise,” I said.

Sean’s friend stopped the car near the entrance to the busy motorway. I hugged Sean. “Thank you,” I said tearfully.

“I won’t forget you, ever,” he said. “Be sure and call. And write.”

“Best of luck to you,” said his friend, giving me a quick hug.

I took a step then turned around. Sean saluted from the window of the car.

Then I was on my own again, breathing gasoline-laden air, waving my thumb as lorries lumbered onto the entrance ramp. They were right about the hitching. I probably waited only about fifteen minutes before one of the drivers stopped for me.

“Where ya going, luv? I’m off to Birmingham.” A large, affable-looking man beamed across the seat at me.

“Perfect. I’m going to Kenilworth. Could you drop me there?”

“No problem. Almost right on my way.” So I sat beside him, my luggage at my feet, and listened to him chat about his wife and kids in Watford. He kept talking the whole hour and a half, which was good because I didn’t have a chance to get nervous or worry what I was going to say to Natalie. When he dropped me off, the driver startled me by giving me a quick kiss on the lips. He winked and waved.