My Oedipus Complex (25 page)

There was a discreet knock and Mrs Lomasney smiled benevolently at them round the door.

‘I suppose 'tis tea Ned is having?' she asked in her deep voice.

‘No, I'm having the tea,' Rita said lightly, throwing him a cigarette. ‘Ned says he'd sooner a drop of the hard tack.'

‘Oh, isn't that a great change, Ned?' cried Mrs Lomasney.

‘ 'Tis the shock,' said Rita. ‘He didn't think I was that sort of girl.'

‘He mustn't know much about girls,' said Mrs Lomasney.

‘He's learning now,' said Rita.

When Paschal brought up the tray, Rita poured out tea for Ned and whiskey for herself. He made no comment; things like that were a commonplace in the Lomasney household.

‘Anyway,' she went on, pulling at her cigarette, ‘he told his old one he wanted to chuck the Church and marry me. There was ructions. The people in the shop at the other side of the street had a son a priest, and she wanted to be as good as them. Away with her up to Reverend Mother, and Reverend Mother sends for me. Did I want to destroy the young man
and he on the threshold of a great calling? I told her 'twas his mother wanted to destroy him, and I asked her what sort of a priest did she think Tony would make. Oh, he'd be twice the man, after a sacrifice like that. Honest to God, Ned, the way that woman went on, you'd think she was talking of doctoring an old tom-cat. I think this damn country must be full of female vets. After that, she dropped the Holy Willie stuff and told me his mother was after getting into debt to put him in for the priesthood, and if he chucked it now, she'd never be able to pay it back. Wouldn't they kill you with style?'

‘And what did you do then?'

‘I went to see his mother, of course.'

‘You didn't!'

‘I told you I was off my head. I thought I might work it with the personal touch.'

‘You don't seem to have been successful.'

‘I'd as soon try the personal touch on a traction engine, Ned,' Rita said ruefully. ‘That woman was twice my weight. I told her I wanted to marry Tony. “I'm sorry, you can't,” she said. “What's to stop me?” says I. “He's gone too far,” says she. “If he was gone farther it wouldn't stop me,” says I. I told her then what Reverend Mother said about the three hundred pounds and offered to pay it back for her if she let me marry him.'

‘And had you the three hundred?' Ned asked in surprise.

‘Ah, where would I get three hundred? And she knew it, the old jade! She didn't believe a word I said. I saw Tony afterwards, and he was crying. He said he didn't want to break her heart. I declare to God, Ned, that woman has as much heart as a traction engine.'

‘Well, you seem to have done it in style,' said Ned as he put away his teacup.

‘That wasn't the half of it. When I heard the difficulties his mother was making, I offered to live with him instead.'

‘Live with him!' said Ned. That startled even him.

‘Well, go away on holidays with him. Lots of girls do it. I know they do. And, God Almighty, isn't it only natural?'

‘And what did he say to that?' Ned asked curiously.

‘He was scared stiff.'

‘He would be,' said Ned, giving his superior little sniff as he took out a packet of cigarettes.

‘Oh, it's all very well for you,' cried Rita, bridling up. ‘You may think you're a great fellow, all because you read Tolstoy and don't go to Mass, but you'd be just as scared if a doll offered to go to bed with you.'

‘Try me,' he said sedately as he lit her cigarette, but somehow the idea of suggesting such a thing to Ned only made her laugh.

He stayed till quite late, and when he went downstairs Mrs Lomasney and the girls fell on him and dragged him into the sitting-room.

‘Well, doctor, how's the patient?' asked Mrs Lomasney.

‘Oh, I think the patient is coming round nicely,' said Ned with a smile.

‘But would you ever believe it, Ned?' she cried. ‘A girl that wouldn't look at the side of the road a fellow was on, unless 'twas to go robbing orchards with him. You'll have another drop of whiskey?'

‘I won't.'

‘And is that all you're going to tell us?'

‘You'll hear it all from herself.'

‘We won't.'

‘I dare say not,' he said with a hearty chuckle, and went for his coat.

‘Wisha, Ned, what will your mother say when she hears it?' asked Mrs Lomasney, and Ned put his nose in the air and gave an exaggerated version of what Mrs Lomasney called ‘his Hayfield sniff'.

‘ “All
quite
mad,” ' he said.

‘The dear knows, she might be right,' she said with resignation, helping him on with his coat. ‘I hope your mother doesn't notice the smell of whiskey from your breath,' she added dryly just to show him that she missed nothing, and then stood at the door, looking up and down, while she waited for him to wave from the gate.

‘Ah, with the help of God it might be all for the best,' she said as she closed the door behind him.

‘If you think he's going to marry her, you're mistaken,' said Kitty. ‘Merciful God, I'd like to see myself telling Bill O'Donnell a thing like that. He'd have my sacred life. That fellow positively enjoys it.'

‘Ah, God is good,' her mother said cheerfully, kicking a mat into place. ‘Some men might like that.'

Ned apparently did, but he was the only one. Within a week, Kitty and Nellie were sick to death of Rita round the house. She was bad enough at the best of times – or so they said – but now she brooded and mooned and quarrelled. Most afternoons she strolled down the Dyke to Ned's little shop, where she sat on the counter, swinging her legs and smoking, while Ned leaned against the window, tinkering with some delicate instrument at the insides of a watch. Nothing seemed to rattle Ned, not even Rita doing what no customer would dare to do. When he finished work he changed his coat and they went out to tea. He sat in a corner at the back of the teashop, pulled up the bottoms of his trousers, and took out a packet of cigarettes and a box of matches, which he placed on the table before him with a look that commanded them to stay there and not get lost. His face was pale and clear and bright, like an evening sky when the last light has drained from it.

‘Anything wrong?' he asked one evening when she was moodier than usual.

‘Oh, just fed up,' she said, thrusting out her jaw.

‘Still fretting?' he asked in surprise.

‘Ah, no. I can get over that. It's Kitty and Nellie. They're bitches, Ned; proper bitches. And all because I don't wear my heart on my sleeve. If one of them got dumped by a fellow she'd take two aspirins and go to bed with the other one. They'd have a lovely talk – can't you imagine? “And was it then he said he loved you?” That sort of balls! I can't do it. And it's all because they're not sincere, Ned. They couldn't be sincere.'

‘Remember, they have a long start on you,' Ned said.

Is that it?' she asked without interest. ‘They think I'm batty. Do you, Ned?'

‘Not altogether,' he said with a tight-lipped smile. ‘I've no doubt that Mrs Donoghue, if that's her name, thought something of the sort.'

‘And wasn't she right?' Rita asked tensely. ‘Suppose she'd agreed to take the three hundred quid, wouldn't I be properly shown up? I wake in a sweat whenever I think of it. I'm just a bloody chancer, Ned. Where would I get three hundred quid?'

‘Oh, I dare say someone would have lent it to you,' he said with a shrug.

‘They would like hell. Would you?'

‘Probably,' he said gravely after a moment's thought. ‘I think I could raise it.'

‘Are you serious?' she whispered earnestly.

‘Quite,' he said in the same tone.

‘Cripes, you must be very fond of me,' she gasped.

‘Looks like it,' said Ned, and this time he laughed with real heartiness; a boy's laugh of sheer delight at her astonishment. Of course, it was just like Rita to regard a lifetime's friendship as sport, and the offer of three hundred pounds as the real thing.

‘Would you marry me?' she asked with a frown. ‘I'm not proposing to you, mind, only asking,' she added hastily.

‘Certainly, whenever you like,' he said, spreading his hands.

‘Honest to God?'

‘Cut my throat,' he replied, making the schoolboy gesture.

‘My God, why didn't you ask me before I went down to that kip? I'd have married you like a shot. Was it the way you weren't keen on me?' she added, wondering if there wasn't really something queer about him, as her sisters said.

‘No,' he replied matter-of-factly, drawing himself together like an old clock preparing to strike. ‘I think I've been keen on you since the first day I met you.'

‘It's easily seen you're a Neddy Ned,' she said. ‘I go after mine with a scalping knife.'

‘I stalk mine,' he said smugly.

‘Cripes, Ned,' she said with real regret, ‘I wish you'd told me sooner. I couldn't marry you now.'

‘Couldn't you? Why not?'

‘Because it wouldn't be fair to you.'

‘You think I can't look after myself?'

‘I have to look after you now.' She glanced round the restaurant to make sure that no one was listening, and then went on in a dry, dispassionate voice, leaning one elbow wearily on the table. ‘I suppose you'll think this is all cod, but it's not. Honest to God, I think you're the finest bloody man I ever met – even though you do think you're an atheist or something,' she interjected maliciously with a characteristic Lomasney flourish in the cause of Faith and Fatherland. ‘There's no one in the world I have more
respect for. I think I'd nearly cut my throat if I did something you really disapproved of – I don't mean telling lies or going on a skite,' she added hastily. ‘That's only gas. I mean something that really shocked you. I think if I was tempted I'd ask myself: “How the hell would I face Lowry afterwards?” '

For a moment she thought from his smile that he was going to cry. Then he squelched the butt of his cigarette on a plate and spoke in an extraordinarily quiet voice.

‘That'll do me grand for a beginning,' he said.

‘It wouldn't, Ned,' she said sadly. ‘That's why I say I have to look after you now. You couldn't understand it unless it happened to yourself and you fell in love with a doll the way I fell in love with Tony. Tony is a scut, and a cowardly scut at that, but I was cracked about him. If he came in here now and asked me to go off to Killarney on a week-end with him, I'd buy a nightdress and a toothbrush and go. And I wouldn't give a damn what you or anybody thought. I might chuck myself in the lake afterwards, but I'd go. Christ, Ned,' she exclaimed, flushing and looking as though she might burst into tears, ‘he couldn't come into a room but I went all mushy inside. That's what the real thing is like.'

‘Well,' said Ned, apparently not in the least put out – in fact, looking rather pleased with himself, Rita thought – ‘I'm in no hurry. In case you get tired of scalping them, the offer will still be open.'

‘Thanks, Ned,' she said absent-mindedly, as though she weren't listening.

While he paid the bill, she stood in the porch, doing her face in the big mirror that flanked it, and paying no attention to the crowds who were hurrying homeward through lighted streets. As he emerged from the shop she turned on him suddenly.

‘About that matter, Ned,' she said. ‘Will you ask me again, or do I have to ask you?'

He just managed to refrain from laughing outright.

‘As you like,' he said with quiet amusement. ‘Suppose I repeat the proposal every six months.'

‘That would be a hell of a time to wait if I changed my mind,' she said with a scowl. ‘All right,' she added, taking his arm. ‘I know you well enough to ask you. If you don't want me by that time, you can always say so. I won't mind. I'm used to it now.'

Ned's proposal came as a considerable support to Rita. It buttressed her self-esteem, which was always in danger of collapsing. She might be ugly and uneducated and a bit of a chancer, but the best man in Cork – the best in Ireland, she sometimes thought – wanted to marry her, even when she had been let down by another man. That was a queer one for her enemies! So while Kitty and Nellie made fun of her, she bided her time, waiting till she could really rock them. Since her childhood she had never given anything away without squeezing the last ounce of theatrical effect from it. She would tell her sisters, but not till she could make them feel properly sick.

It was a pity she didn't because Ned was not the only one. There was also Justin Sullivan, the lawyer, who had once been by way of being engaged to Nellie. He had not become engaged to her because Nellie was as slippery as an eel, and had her cap set all the time at a solicitor called Fahy whom Justin despised with his whole heart and soul as a light-headed, butterfly sort of man. But Justin continued to come to the house. There happened to be no other that suited him half as well, and besides, he knew that sooner or later Nellie would make a mess of her life with Fahy, and his services would be required.

Justin, in fact, was a sticker. He was a good deal older than Rita; a tall, burly man with a broad face, a brow that was rising from baldness as well as brains, and a slow, watchful, ironic air. Like many lawyers he tended to conduct a conversation as though the person he was speaking to were a hostile witness who had to be coaxed into an admission of perjury or bullied into one of mental deficiency.

When Justin began to talk Fahy simply clutched his head and retired to sit on the stairs. ‘Can no one shut that fellow up?' he would moan with a martyred air. No one could. The girls shot their little darts at him, but he only brushed them aside. Ned was the only one who could even stand up to him, and when the two of them argued about religion, the room became a desert. Justin, of course, was all for the Church. ‘Imagine for a moment that I am Pope,' he would declaim in a throaty, rounded voice that turned easily to pompousness. ‘Easiest thing in the world, Justin,' Kitty assured him once. He drank whiskey like water, and the more he drank, the more massive and logical and piously Catholic he became.