The Lonely Passion of Judith Hearne

A church bell tolled far away and she prayed. The library book would be due Wednesday, wasn’t it? Do you know, I’m awfully uninformed about America, when I come to think of it. Outside, the grey morning light held, the rain still threatened. I could go down to the Carnegie library and read up on it. Especially New York. And then tomorrow at breakfast, I’d have questions to ask.

Maybe, she said, hurrying towards the wardrobe to pick out her red raincoat, maybe he’ll be in the hall and I’ll meet him and we might walk downtown together. I must hurry because if he’s going out, it should be soon.

But the hall was a dark, damp place with no sign of anyone in it. Mary had cleared the dining-room, restoring the chairs to their original anchorage around the table. The curtained door to Mrs Henry Rice’s kitchen was shut and the house was silent, a house in mid-morning when all the world is out at work.

She went out, dejected, and walked along Camden Street with her head full of black thoughts. Why had she bothered to come out at all? The library and looking up America was only nonsense, when all was said and done. Besides going out only made you peckish and it was such a temptation to have a regular restaurant lunch. Well, you won’t. You’ll fast, that’s what you’ll do.

At the library on Royal Avenue the man wasn’t helpful. But she made him climb the ladder twice to get her three books, one a picture book of New York and two books on America in general. She carried them to one of the slanting reading tables and sat down, slipping her neutral coloured glasses from her bag. Then amid the old men and students in the muted noises induced by ‘Silence’ signs, she read about America, Land of the Free, the New Colossus. All very heavy going, economic tables and business articles. She turned to the picture book and there was a picture of Times Square, and (gracious!) the hotels were immense, five times as big as the Grand Central, the Royal Avenue, or even the Gresham, in Dublin. O, he couldn’t own one of those. And what was his job? There were so many jobs in a hotel. Maybe an assistant manager. Surely in the administration somewhere. Otherwise, he would have said a cook, or a waiter, or whatever. O, certainly nothing like that.

She read and read because she could feel the little crab of hunger nipping away at her insides. She tried to forget him, the expensive little rascal, but he just nipped harder. Finally, when the clock on the wall said three, she decided that just this once she’d have to give in to him, despite her resolution. She gave the books back and went to a milk bar at Castle Junction and treated herself to a glass of milk and a raspberry tart. Afterwards, she looked at the shop windows for a while. But they hadn’t changed since last week, so this was dull sport.

As she was looking in the window at Robb’s, a little boy came running out, dragging his school satchel, his grey wool stockings down about his heels.

Tommy Mullen! She hurried over to him, forcing him to stop. His mother was a friend of the Breens, before the Breens moved to Dublin. Tommy had taken piano lessons last year. She saw the keyboard, his rather dirty hands, his wandering inattention, his fits of sulks and rages. No talent. His mother had stopped the lessons.

‘Well, if it isn’t little Tommy Mullen. And how are we getting along?’

‘Lo, Miss Hearne,’ he said, turning his cold-cheeked little face away from her kiss.

‘Well, and how’s my boy? My, we’re getting big. Too big to kiss, I suppose. I’m sure we’ve forgotten all our piano lessons now.’

He looked indignant. ‘No. I’ve got a new teacher. A man. Mr Harrington is his name.’

‘O, is that so?’ she said bleakly. ‘Well, isn’t that nice. I hope you are practising hard, eh, Tommy?’

‘Yes, Miss Hearne.’ He looked around, inattentive. ‘There’s the bus,’ he yelled. ‘Bye, bye.’ And ran off in the direction of the Albert Memorial.

A man. Another teacher. She walked down Cornmarket slowly, feeling the shaking start inside of her. No wonder his mother was so cool, nodding from the other side of the street when I saw her. Well, it wasn’t because I charged too much, goodness knows. Could I have said anything that time I stayed for tea? No, of course not. I never said he had no talent. O, anyway.

Still, one less pupil, that’s what it amounts to. Or two less. Because she didn’t want Tommy to keep on but she said she’d get in touch with me about the little girl. She won’t now. Harrington, who’s he? Well, the nerve of some people. After all the time I slaved away with that boy. After all the extra half-hours without any additional charge. I don’t know what’s happened to my lucky star these past months. What’s happened to me, anyway? You’d think I had the plague, or something. That’s four pupils gone in the last six months. Only little Meg Brannon now and goodness knows how long that will last. As much ear for music as a heathen chinee.

The clock in Cornmarket said four. She walked down Ann Street with its jumble of cheap shops, its old shawled women and its loud crying fruit vendors. I wonder will the Technical School take me on for the embroidery class next term? Mr Heron said he hoped he would be able. But nobody does embroidery any more, that’s the truth of it. They have to have enough to make a class. And you can’t sell it. Ruin your eyes at piece rates.

She came out near the docks and turned hastily back towards the centre of the city. The docks were no place for a woman to be wandering about, in among all those rough pubs and the Salvation Army. At Castle Junction the clock said half-past four. Go home. She walked back towards Camden Street. It began to drizzle but she was thinking about money, so she paid it no heed.

Her Aunt D’Arcy had never discussed money. A lady does not discuss her private affairs, she used to say. And the D’Arcys never had to look where their next penny was coming from. There had been the house on the Lisburn Road. She had thought that it would fetch quite a bit. And then her aunt had said that Judy wouldn’t have to worry, there would be plenty until the right man came along and even if he didn’t. That was a long time ago, she said that. Ten years. More, thirteen, if I’m to be honest about it, Miss Hearne thought. First, there was the mortgage on the house. And then the money we owed Dan Breen. And the annuity she left me, it was small then and nobody in the whole length and breadth of Ireland could live on a hundred pounds a year nowadays.

O, I should have kept up my shorthand and typing, no matter what. The piano lessons, yes, I tried to make a go of it. And fair’s fair, I was doing quite well until Mrs Strain spread that story about Edie and me all over town. You might know, being a Protestant, she wouldn’t have one ounce of Christian charity in her. Bad enough for me, but poor Edie, lying up there in that home, couldn’t raise a hand to help herself. I should go and see her. But the last time, all those bars on the windows and the old women in dressing-gowns. Depressing. Mrs Strain, what did she know anyway, going off half cocked like that? Amanda, her little girl’s name. What a silly name.

No charity, isn’t it the truth? People have none. And the Technical School, you’d think they could keep the embroidery class going just for old times sake. After all, there might be a revival of interest. Still, two girls dropped out last term, that leaves only four, not enough unless they can find new students.

She stopped at Bradbury Place. The rain was quite heavy now. She went into a shop and bought a quarter-pound of Kraft cheese and a bag of thick white biscuits. I have enough cocoa, she said, two cups. An apple, I must buy, to get the goodness of some fruit.

It was half-past five when she walked up Camden Street, wet with the rain in her shoes and her hair tossed by the blustery rainy wind. She let herself in as quietly as possible, hoping Mrs Henry Rice would think she had come home later, after having dinner out somewhere. She took her shoes off as she went up the creaky stairs.

The bed-sitting-room was cold and musty. She lit the gas fire and the lamps and drew the grey curtains across the bay window. Her wet raincoat she put over a chair with a part of the Irish News underneath to catch the drops. Then she took off her wet stockings and hung her dress up. In her old wool dressing-gown she felt warmer, more comfortable. She put her rings away in the jewel box and set a little kettle of water on the gas ring. It boiled quickly and she found only enough cocoa for one cup.

The rain began to patter again on the windows, growing heavier, soft persistent Irish rain coming up Belfast Lough, caught in the shadow of Cave Hill. It settled on the city, a night blanket of wetness. Miss Hearne ate her biscuits, cheese and apple, found her spectacles and opened a library book by Mazo de la Roche. She toasted her bare toes at the gas fire and leaned back in the armchair, waiting like a prisoner for the long night hours.

3

Shoes shined, clean white shirt, tie knotted in a neat windsor, suit pressed, top o’ the morning, James Patrick Madden went in to breakfast. His good humour fled when he saw them. Didn’t even look up, except the new one. Miss Hearne. She said good morning. He gave her his old doorman smile, a sort of half-wink in it.

‘And how are you today?’

‘O, I’m very well, thanks.’

Not a sound out of the rest. May, with her face in the paper. And that Miss Friel, she thinks I’m a lush, or something. Lenehan, a know-nothing that thinks he knows everything.

His sister poured tea. Tea, Mr Madden considered a beverage for women in Schraffts. A good cup of coffee now, that would hit the spot.

‘O, Mr Madden!’ (She was all worked up about something.) ‘I happened to be in the library yesterday and I was looking at a picture book about New York. It reminded me of our conversation. About it being such a wonderful city, I mean.’

He smiled at her. Friendly, she is. And educated. Those rings and that gold wrist-watch. They’re real. A pity she looks like that.

‘That’s nice,’ he said. ‘Quite a town, eh? You see the Brooklyn Bridge?’

‘O, yes indeed.’

Pleased, Mr Madden smiled again. In the four months he had been back in Ireland, he had found very few Irish people who showed any interest in the States. Most of them seemed to resent comparisons. An intelligent woman like Miss Hearne was a pleasure to talk to.

‘And the George Washington,’ he said. ‘That’s quite a bridge. We got a lot of good bridges in New York. There’s the Triborough …’

‘There’s a whole lot of bridges in Ireland too, but we’re not for ever talking about them,’ Lenehan interjected sourly.

Who asked him? ‘Bridges! You call them bridges? Listen, Lenehan, I’m talking about real bridges. Big bridges.’

‘Ahh, give over,’ Lenehan said. ‘Sure, that’s all you Yanks ever think of. Blowing about how big and grand everything is in the States. What would be the point of building a big bridge over the Lagan, or the Liffey? Answer me that now. And if it’s bridges you want, we were building bridges in Ireland before America was ever thought of.’

Why isn’t he at work, instead of sticking his nose in where he’s not wanted? But he remembered that it was Saturday and Lenehan had all the time in the world on Saturdays. No good talking, he concluded sadly. He’ll just ball it up. Better I speak to her later, when we’re alone. Maybe ask her out, or something.

‘Good morning all,’ a soft voice said and they all looked at the door. Bernard, his dressing-gown trailing, his plump body in red silk pyjamas. Mrs Henry Rice smiled fondly at her boy.

‘Come and sit down, Bernie. Have a cup of tea.’

‘I rang my bell twice and not a sound out of that girl,’ Bernard said. ‘I suppose she was out all night gallivanting with some soldier or other. I’m starved, lying up there, waiting for her.’

‘Maybe some bacon and egg?’ Mrs Henry Rice said coaxingly.

Miss Friel, Mr Lenehan, Miss Hearne and Mr Madden looked up, anger plain as hunger in their faces.

‘Bernie’s very delicate,’ Mrs Rice said to no one in particular. ‘The doctor says he has to eat a lot to keep his strength up.’

Bernard sat down and seemed to think about food. Then, gleefully watching the boarders, he gave his order. ‘Two eggs, Mama, four rashers of bacon. And Mary might fry some bread to go with it.’

Mrs Henry Rice, submissive, jingled the little bell. Mary came to the door and was given her orders. The boarders exchanged glances, united in their hatred. Miss Friel, with the air of a woman storming the barricades, picked up a piece of toast, buttered it, then re-buttered it so that the wedge of butter was almost as thick as the toast itself. There, she seemed to say. If it’s a fight you want, I just dare you to say a word.

Mrs Henry Rice ignored the butter waste. Her eyes were on her darling as he sipped his tea.

‘Well now,’ Bernard said pleasantly. ‘What were we talking about when I interrupted? The wonders of America, was it?’

Mr Madden bit angrily into a hard piece of toast. Ham and eggs for him. Nothing for me, her brother.

Miss Hearne, watching him, saw that he was angry. And no wonder. Really, it was a bit thick, feeding up that fat good-for-nothing while the boarders, not to mention her own brother, went without. Still, it was better to pass these things over. Bad temper, bad blood, as Aunt D’Arcy used to say.

‘Yes, we were talking about America,’ Miss Hearne told Bernard. ‘About how wonderful it must be.’

‘And what’s wrong with Ireland?’ Mr Lenehan wanted to know.

‘O, I suppose when all’s said and done, there’s no place like Ireland,’ Miss Hearne agreed. ‘I know. Most of my friends have travelled on the Continent and you should hear some of the things they say. Backward, why you wouldn’t believe how backward the Italians are, for instance.’

Mr Madden coughed. ‘Pardon me, Miss Hearne, but there’s nothing backward about the States. Why, the States is a hundred years ahead of Europe in most things. And ahead of Ireland too. Why, Ireland is backward, backward as hell.’ He stopped in confusion. ‘If you know what I mean,’ he finished lamely.

‘America sells refrigerators for culture,’ Bernard said. ‘They come to Europe when they need ideas.’

‘Culture! What do you mean, culture? Why, we’ve got the finest museums in the world, right in New York City. Grand opera at the Met, a dozen plays on Broadway, the finest movies in the world. Anything you want, New York’s got it.’

‘Now, James –’ Mrs Henry Rice said. ‘No need to shout.’

Mr Madden smiled an angry smile. ‘What have you got here in the way of entertainment?’ he asked Bernard. ‘A few movies – British movies. And a few old “B” pictures. No clubs, and a couple of plays that wouldn’t last a night anywhere else. What have you got, eh?’

‘That’s not the point,’ Bernard said. ‘I’m not talking about Belfast.’

‘And what are you talking about then? What do you know, a kid of your age that never was further than Dublin?’

Bernard grinned at Lenehan. ‘The atom bomb, Mr Lenehan. That’s the American contribution to Western civilization. Am I right?’

‘Damn right,’ Lenehan said. ‘And they didn’t even discover that. Sure, it was the Europeans who worked out their sums for them. They got the theory right and then they let the Yanks build it.’

‘And who else could of built it?’ Mr Madden shouted.

‘Who else had to build it?’ Bernard said. ‘Sure, they’d never have beaten the Japs without it. And now they want to ruin Europe while they try it out on the Russians. Culture, he says.’

‘And doesn’t somebody have to stand up to the Russians?’ Miss Hearne said indignantly. ‘Godless atheists, that’s what they are. They’re worse than Hitler, far worse.’

‘No worse than the Protestants and Freemasons that are running this city,’ Mrs Henry Rice cried. ‘Hitler was no worse than the British.’

Mr Madden brought his fist down hard on the table, upsetting his teacup. ‘Okay! Okay! Tell me the Russkies are nice guys. But don’t ask us to help you when the commies come running up this street, yelling, “Throw out your women!”’

The very thought of it gave Miss Hearne the shudders. ‘Quite right, Mr Madden. The Pope himself has denounced them. It’s a holy crusade is needed, and America will be in the van.’

‘In what van?’ Mr Madden wanted to know. ‘America will be out front, that’s what.’ He glared at Bernard, who had started to giggle. ‘We didn’t ask to get in any of Europe’s wars, did we? We didn’t ask to come over and win them for you. But brother, you hollered loud enough for us to come running when the chips were down.’

‘You’re in Ireland, remember that, Uncle James,’ Bernard said in his soft, compelling voice. ‘Ireland stays neutral in anybody else’s troubles. So don’t belabour me about intervention. What are you anyway, an American or an Irishman? When you came home from the States, you hadn’t a good word to say for the place. But let anyone else say a word against it and you’re up like a tiger.’

‘That’s what I’d like to know,’ Lenehan said, cocking his birdy head sideways. ‘That’s just what I’d like to know. If it was so blooming terrific in America, why did you ever come home? And why is all the Yanks flocking over here every summer and telling us how wonderful Ireland is?’

Mr Madden gasped like a big fish landed on a dock. But he said nothing. Miss Friel, who had read steadily throughout the discussion, closed her book and stood up. ‘I suppose that clock is right?’

‘Right by the wireless. I set it just when the pips struck eight,’ Mrs Henry Rice said.

‘Well, I must run, then,’ Miss Friel announced to the company.

The others appeared not to notice her departure. Bernard received his ample breakfast from the maid and settled in to eat it. Mr Lenehan slurped his tea, watching Mr Madden over the rim of his cup. Mr Madden surveyed the scene then stood up. He nodded pointedly at Miss Hearne. ‘So long now,’ he said.

‘O, are you off, then?’ She smiled up at him to show she was on his side.

‘Well, I guess I’ve got more to do than sit here listening to a couple of Irish minute men.’

Lenehan put down his teacup with a clatter. ‘Is it me you’re referring to? And what’s a minute man, if I might ask?’

‘Bunch of guys around New York hand out leaflets. Irish-American patriots, they call themselves. Screwballs.’

Lenehan pecked his head forward like a rooster in attack. ‘What d’you mean, Irish?’ he said thickly. ‘Are you implying that …?’

Mr Madden chuckled. ‘We get all kinds of screwballs in New York. Now, take these guys, they’re just like the people in Belfast. No matter what the argument is, they always drag Ireland in. Always handing out leaflets against the British. Why, nobody in New York, or anywhere else, gives a good ghaddam – pardon me, ladies – what happens to the Six Counties.’

‘Is that a fact?’ Lenehan shouted. ‘Well, the British give a damn, for one. And …’

‘There’s the whole wide world to worry about. So why bother about Ireland?’ Mr Madden said. ‘The Irish, I’ll tell you the trouble with the Irish. They’re hicks.’

‘Look who’s talking. You were a hick once yourself.’

‘Hicks,’ Mr Madden repeated, smiling happily. ‘They think everybody is interested in their troubles. Why, nobody cares, nobody. A little island you could drop inside of Texas and never see, who cares? Why, the rest of the world never heard of it.’

‘Is that a fact?’ Lenehan shouted. ‘And you call yourself an Irishman. An Orangeman, more likely. Well, I’ll have you know, my fine Yank, that there’s more famous men ever came out of Ireland than ever came out of America. And I’ll have you know that there’s plenty of better Irishmen in the States than you, thanks be to God. And furthermore …’

Mr Madden’s drink-red face was beaming now. ‘Yeah?’ he said. ‘That’s what you think.’ And he turned his back on the shouting clerk. He walked slowly out of the room dragging his left leg a little.

Outside in the hall he burst out laughing. I got him. That slow burn he was getting up when I told him about the minute men. Both of them, never saw anything but their own backyard. Miss Hearne saw my point. An educated woman.

He climbed the stairs to his room. Bernard, the fat slob – couldn’t insult him. That – ah, forget it. Forget it. Don’t let him get you down.

His fedora went down over his right eye. From the wardrobe he picked his fall coat, imported mohair, light tan, the coat he bought to come home in. So’s I’d look good. And who cares? In this town nobody’d know the difference. He slammed the front door as he went out.

But walking into the city, his anger disappeared like bubbles from water turned off the boil. Instead, the heavy depression of idleness set in. Walking alone, he remembered New York, remembered that at ten-thirty in the morning New York would be humming with the business of making millions, making reputations, making all the buildings, all the merchandise, all the shows, all the wisecracks possible. While he walked in a dull city where men made money the way charwomen wash floors, dully, alone, at a slow methodical pace. In Belfast Lough the shipyards were filled with the clang and hammer of construction but no sound was heard in the streets. At the docks ships unloaded and loaded cargoes, but they were small ships, hidden from sight behind small sheds. In Smithfield market, vendors lounged at their stalls and buyers picked aimlessly at faded merchandise. In the city’s shops housewives counted pennies against purchase. In the city’s banks, no great IBM machines clattered. Instead, clerkly men wrote small sums in long black ledgers.

Mid-morning. James Patrick Madden walked into town, favouring his bad leg, home, back home in a land where all dreams were calculable and only the football pools offered outrageous fortune. A returned Yank who hadn’t made his pile, a forgotten face in the great field of Times Square, an Irishman, self-exiled from the damp hills and barren rocky places of his native Donegal. No lucky break, now or ever. Nothing to do.

Before the accident he had worked twenty-nine years in New York and at no time had more than three hundred dollars to his name. On the credit side, he had educated his motherless daughter, sent her to a convent, seen that she never wanted. On the credit side, America had always found him jobs: subway cleaner, ticket taker in a stadium, counter help in a cafeteria, janitor, hall porter, club bouncer, and, last and best, hotel doorman. A good job, with good tips.

There had been other comforts. Drink to warm and cheer, the odd fast buck, joyfully spent, the blowhard talk, passed hopefully among the boys. Companionship in a land of lonely joiners. And being Irish you could wear it like a badge in New York City. Religion, a comfort for the next world, not this. And good to know you were on the winning team.

And then there was the dream. The dream of all Donegal men when they first came across the water. The dream that some day the pile will be made, the little piece of land back home will be bought and the last years spent there in peace and comfort. A dream soon forgotten by most. Making good means buying goods. Goods attach, they master dreams and change them. The piece of land in County Donegal becomes a two-tone convertible. The little farm that Uncle Sean might let go changes to a little place in Queen’s. Making your pile means making your peace with the great new land. But the dream still has its uses. And its addicts. It serves for the others, for the men under the el on a December night, for the hundreds of thousands of Irish who never had a gimmick, a good connection, a hundred dollar bill, or a piece of a business. For them, for Madden, the dream was there for warming over with beer or bourbon. The little place went Hollywood in the mind. The fields grew green, the cottage was always milk-white, the technicoloured corn was for ever stooked, ready for harvest.

The harvest never came. But it had come for him, for James Patrick Madden, a lucky sonofabitch. It had come out of nowhere on a City bus, making a quick getaway in traffic against a changing light. It had come with sudden pain, then vomit and oblivion in a careening, screaming ambulance headed through all lights for Bellevue. It had come fast in an out-of-court settlement. Ten thousand dollars in his fist and a chance to make the homecoming dream come true.