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James K. Baxter Complete Prose Volume 1

The Blue Divan

The Blue Divan

Rain was drumming steadily in the street outside the phone box. The winter sky opened like a grey Aeolian bag and loosed a fury of negation above the tin roofs of the town. The boy inside the box was trying to remember a name – ‘Robertson . . . Robinson . . . Rowlandson . . .’. But the weight of gin fumes in his head would not let it past. Hell, he thought, there’s no one to see, nowhere to go. Somewhere people sat around gasfires and played poker; somewhere there was company and light and colour – and girls, girls with sweaters on or off, girls with page-boy cuts and flowered dresses, stewing coffee and bringing it to the lucky ones. Hanging gardens. Doorways into the cave of Aladdin. Clueless bitches.

He remembered at least half of the party. Its effects were still present in his wrinkled coat and trousers, dried out too close to the fire, and now half- wet again with the rain. He had staggered out from Tony’s flat, over the road and on to the river lawn, to bathe his head in the Shannon – then head over heels in a somersault, to land sitting in the river among the fishy weeds. That had been the best part of the evening. The weeds and the water and the ginpage 422 singing in his head. Doug and Tony had hauled him out. He had put on Tony’s dressing gown, and emptied his wet pockets by the fire, acting a little drunker than he was. The girls had giggled and shrieked. Then the packet, carried uselessly for six months in his breast pocket, fell flop on the floor by his clothes. And he had seen her eyes fix on it. The girl with the long hair and big lips and glasses. Ugly and bored and wanting a man.

‘Who is she?’ he asked Tony.

‘Her? On the end of the sofa? Celia. Celia Robinson’ – the name burst triumphantly now through the eddying wall of hangover – ‘if you want a sure thing, she’s the one. Half the Art School have been through her.’

‘Only half? She’ll do me all right.’

He found the number and dialled it. The phone bell rang again and again, in some dry suburban house, with a hallstand and Japanese vases on the mantelpiece. A vague sense of enormity struggled to the surface of his mind. Bees crawling in a smoked hive. What should he say to her? Then the half- remembered elocutionist’s voice answered him.

‘Yes. Who is it?’

‘Jack. Maybe you remember me. At Tony’s party. I’m not doing anything today. I’d like to come round and have a yarn. Jack Swann.’

‘Yes. You fell in the river.’

Bloody bitch. Her voice held for him the echo of the women’s gang, the Hostel brigade, the teatable titterers, chewing the cud of male deformity. You couldn’t get past them. His resolution strengthened. Lay it on thick, he told himself. With a trowel.

‘I remember you, Celia. I wanted to have a yarn with you then, but I didn’t get a chance. It’s only now and then you meet someone you really want to know. Yesterday I was drunk but today I’m sober. And you’re the one person I remember from last night. I heard you talking about Brahms. You must think it cheek, me ringing you up when we’ve hardly met. But it’s the only way I had of getting in touch with you.’

‘Do you really want to see me?’ The voice had lost its remoteness. ‘Well, Jack, it’s not the best time of day. My father and mother are in.’

A touch of vinegar there. She didn’t like them much. They’d probably told her to lay off the bedroom game.

‘But they’re going out this afternoon. If you’d like to come round at half- past two . . . Just for an hour.’

‘I’d love to, Celia. Have you got a radiogram?’ ‘Yes. I’ll sort out some records for you.’

‘Right-oh. Expect me at half-past two, then.’

He felt the briskness of lust moving in his belly. She was a bag all right, but a man couldn’t be choosy. It was Brahms that did the trick. He couldn’t tell one piece from another, but that would make no difference. He came out of the phone box, into the rain, whistling and buttoning his overcoat. Thepage 423 raindrops exploded on the asphalt like grey crocuses. Things had begun to move, thank God.

At twenty-five past two his taxi pulled up outside a brick bungalow, built on the swampy reclaimed land at the edge of town. The after-effects of the gin had left him old and empty, and the dead afternoon hung round his neck like an albatross. Nine bob. Too much to pay for this outing. She may not want to turn it up anyway. I’ ll be back at the pub by four.

He rang the doorbell gently. There was silence in the house, then the sound of sandals clopping in the passage. The door opened, and the girl stood there, her yellow hair combed back behind her ears, wearing a new print frock and a strained smile. How big her mouth is, he thought.

‘Hullo, Jack. It’s nice to see you. I thought you mightn’t come.’ ‘Of course. I told you I’d be here on time.’

‘Come in. My father and mother have only been gone an hour. I told them I had a headache. Come in and sit down.’ Awkwardly she led him down the passage, her thick rope sandals clumping again on the varnished floor. They entered a room with orange curtains and low bookcases. The radiogram, a square Aztec idol, stood at the foot of a blue divan.

‘Would you like a drink, Jack?’

‘You bet I would.’ For the first time a real gratitude flickered in his mind. ‘I’m as dry as the hobs of hell.’

‘Gin or beer? That’s all we’ve got.’ ‘Gin for me.’

She disappeared into the kitchen. He could hear the rattle of glasses and the opening and shutting of a fridge door. She re-entered the room. Carrying two beer-glasses.

‘You’ve been generous with the gin, Celia.’

‘This is my special. Gin up to here. Then a dash of lime. Then a long cool splash of water to drown it. I call it my Ophelia drink. It makes me sad in a happy way.’

She’s no fool, he thought. With a sack over her head, we’ d get on well together.

He leaned forward from his seat on the divan and grinned at her.

‘Celia, let’s hear the Brahms. I’m better off now than King Farouk. A drink and music and a girl like you. What more could a man want?’

She flushed and turned her back on him, holding her glass rigidly. ‘You don’t have to flatter me,’ she said in a small colourless voice.

‘God help us, I wasn’t trying to flatter you! It’s just that you make me feel good.’

Without a word she switched on the radiogram and set a record turning. The booming chords filled the room like the branches of a forest. She sat down beside him, carefully avoiding any contact. He sipped his drink and pretended to listen to the Brahms. Then he rested his hand on her bare upper arm and stroked it gently in time to the music. She turned her head andpage 424 looked at him, her grey eyes enormous behind glasses. ‘Do you really like me, Jack?’

‘I wouldn’t be here otherwise.’ He shifted his hand to her forehead and stroked her hair. She gripped it by the finger-ends and kissed the palm.

‘You’re awfully nice. I was afraid you were just making it up. About liking me, I mean. What did Tony tell you about me?’

‘He said you were the intellectual type. A bit Bohemian and very intelligent.’ He shifted his hand again and pressed her breast. She breathed hard and dug her nails into his wrist.

‘Oh, Jack, we’ll see each other again, won’t we? I couldn’t bear it if we didn’t.’ She took off her glasses and turned her blind face towards him. The record ran down and switched itself off automatically. Rolling up her sweater, he saw with surprise a green cord looped round her neck, and suspended from it an oblong piece of cloth marked with a heart pierced by a sword.

‘You’re a Doolan, are you, Celia?’

She raised herself on her elbows, her face reddened and shining. ‘Not a real one, Jack.’ Her mouth twisted harshly. ‘Not the proper kind. Not like the girls who go to the dance at St Joseph’s. You know what they say – “Never let a man go too far. A Catholic girl must know when to draw the line.” I’ve never been able to. And then I used to tell the priest lies, when I was at school. I used to make up all kinds of dreadful stories to try and shock him. They call it sacrilege. I can’t ever go back again. Not now.’

‘Then why do you wear that bit of cloth?’

‘It’s called a scapular. My brother gave it to me. I don’t know why I wear it still. Perhaps I’m a hypocrite. I can’t go back and yet I can’t let it all go.’

He was amazed to see her eyes fill with tears. Maybe I’ d better lay off, he thought. But her shuddering response to his deliberate love-making reassured him. Riding the dolphin of Arion, a woman’s body, through the dead seas of the afternoon, he looked down at her face with a mixture of anger and complacency. It was for the moment all but beautiful, a primitive mask of desire. No trouble at all. Tommy will be in the pub by now. I bet he’s knocking back portergaffs.

One surprise remained for Jack. When he had buttoned his trousers, and she had rearranged her clothes and face in the bathroom, and both stood awkwardly in the centre of the room to say goodbye, a vague feeling that something was lacking disturbed his contentment. Carefully he put his hands on her shoulders, drew her towards him, and kissed her as a man might kiss a prettier girl who was his sweetheart. The explosion of tenderness which this gesture evoked from her remained sunk in his memory, the buried fragment of a meteorite, unexplained and inexplicable, long after he had forgotten her name.

1960 (220)