The Lonely Passion of Judith Hearne. Brian Moore
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.
And so, James Patrick Madden, home, reached the centre of the city and stood there undecided. Behind him, Donegall Place and the formal pomposity of City Hall; before him, Royal Avenue, Fifth Avenue of the city, a jumble of large buildings, small to his eyes. The centre, where he stood, Castle Junction, to him a streetcar rerouting stop, an insignificance, an insult to senses attuned to immensity.
He boarded an Antrim Road bus, escaping his disappointment, and sat up top on the double-deck, thinking of Fifth, of the parades, of the clear brilliant fall weather, the hot reek of summer, the crisp delightful nip of winter. But saw the grimy half-tones of this ugly town, saw the inevitable rain obscure the window-pane, felt the steamy sodden warmth rise from the clothes of his fellow passengers.
His destination was Bellevue, a municipal park under the shadow of Cave Hill. The park, formal, unlovely, its amusements a mere glimmer of Palisades or Coney Island, had already disappointed him. But he liked the long ride and the view of the lough. From the observation point you could see ships sail out to the Irish sea, watch the soft hills melt under approaching rainclouds. For Madden, it was as though, standing there, he stood at the gateway to all the things he had left behind, all the things he had ever done. It was a link with his other world.
But that morning the link was broken. The rain wept itself into a lashing rage and the lawns, the cafés, the approaches to the park were deserted. He got off the bus, huddled under a shelter, and, after fifteen minutes, caught the next bus back. It was twelve-thirty when he reached Royal Avenue again. Time for a bite of lunch.
He had set himself an allowance of a pound a day, plenty, if he watched the drink. But when the bus deposited him at Castle Junction, he turned towards a public house and went in the door of the saloon bar, stiff-legged and eager. The drink had always been a trouble. And now, with so many long days to fill and with the unsurety of his plans, it was the only thing that brightened his homecoming.
Behind the bar John Grogan bid him good day. Mr Madden ordered a Bass Number One and a ham sandwich. John Grogan served it, wiped his hands on a white towel and went down to the end of the bar to check his stock. Mr Madden bit into the sandwich, eased his fedora to the back of his head, and thought of a trip to Dublin. He ate the rest of the sandwich and dismissed the trip as too expensive. Besides, who did he know in Dublin, and what would he do there? With this prospect disappearing, he reviewed, rejected, turned painful corners, came back to old faded dreams, touched them lightly, abandoned them.
He was alone in the bar excepting two men who sat in a booth at the back, talking business over pints of Guinness. Alone, and he couldn’t help thinking.
On the credit side there was the fact that a pound a day was less than three dollars and three dollars would not be enough in New York City. Cheaper to live in Ireland. And May hadn’t asked him for any rent yet. And Ireland was where you wanted to be, he told himself bitterly. Away from that Hunky bastard with his snide cracks and his bigshot ways.
That Hunky. Steve Broda, real estate salesman, Newark, New Jersey; owner of a cream Buick convertible with white-wall tyres; owner of a twenty-five-thousand-dollar ranch style bungalow home; husband of Sheila Madden, only child of James Patrick Madden, of the Bronx. Sheila, long of leg, blonde of hair and one hundred per cent America. Not a sign of the Irish in her. Sheila, a tiny squalling red-face when the nurse gave her into her father’s arms, November 1922, two weeks after Annie died.
Steve and Sheila, second generation, hating their forebears. Old Man Broda, with his funny talk. He was on to them though. He saw it before I did. That sonofabitch, laying her before they were married, a nice thing for a convent girl. And me, Mr Madden remembered, me he called a dumb Irish mick. Ashamed of me, him that couldn’t keep his trousers zipped until he took her to the priest. And he made her as bad. Ashamed of me, me that brought her up, that educated her, that never left himself a nickel as long as she needed it. A doorman, he said I should have done better – ahh – have a drink.
‘Another Bass.’
The time of the accident. Me laid off, it was only natural she’d ask me to come and live with them. But he didn’t want that, the Hunky, too good for me he was. And then when the compensation came through, you’d think he got it for me, you’d think I was spending his money, instead of my own. Whyn’t you go back to Ireland, Dad? He put her up to saying that. You’ve always wanted to, Dad. Steve will help, I’m sure he will. He’ll help, all right. Anything to get rid of me.
Hell, I got dough. I can get on a boat and go anywhere. Sailing up the Battery. Statue of Liberty. Hello. I’d park my bags and hightail it over to Mooney’s,