Old Dream- published in the anthology "During Which Nothing Happens"

Donegal seemed a world away. Flying over from Maine for a meeting in England, I decided to make the extra journey to see an old friend in the west of Ireland. After landing in Galway, I rented a car and was conscious of driving on what for me was the wrong side of the road for the five hour drive. Evan had told me where to stay. It was only seven kilometres from Charles’ house. The hotel was comfortable. I could even understand the waiters: although their accents were strong, they were softer than the ones in Scotland and the north of England.

The following morning after breakfast, I went for a walk on miles of white sand. The beaches wouldn’t be out of place in the Caribbean except for the icy whip of the wind, the sting of hailstones, the short flurry of snow. A horse galloped in the waves carrying a small jockey on its back.

Evan had supplied good directions on how to get to Charles’ house. Returning to the hotel, I dialled his number. No answer. ‘He never answers the phone. That doesn’t mean he’s not there,’ Evan told me before I left the US. I asked if anyone was staying with him, was caring for him. Evan inhaled deeply, perhaps trying to calm himself. “No-one could stay. He won’t have anybody live there any more.’

The drive was spectacular: rough coastline, stone archways where water gushed through in waves fingering up to the sky, sugary strands etching borders between land and sea. Although vigilant, I almost missed the entrance. There was no sign; trees obscured the driveway.

I half expected there to be a chain across the entrance to keep people out but I was able to drive deeper and deeper into the wooded front area until I reached the house. It was enormous. Added onto over the centuries, it seemed to stretch everywhere, surrounded by well-tended gardens.

Although still necessary to brace the cold wind, it was no longer snowing or hailing. I banged the brass knocker that was in the form of Charles’ family crest, depicting sails: they’d made their money in ship-building in Belfast a long time ago. Evan told me not to be discouraged by a closed door. Indeed, the knob twisted easily. After a click and a push against the heavy oak, it opened.

Calling out, I walked into the house. There were several over-furnished sitting rooms of chintz and large fireplaces. The dining room and kitchen were full of polished silver, the bathrooms tiled and spacious, amply supplied with fresh linen and toiletries. There was no sign of life visible on my wanderings. However, there was no dust, no sign of neglect.

I climbed the stairs, calling and looking into the bedrooms with their antique canopy beds and mixture of period furniture. Behind one of the doors I found Charles with his greying hair standing up on end, lying in bed in paisley pyjamas, with books all around. He did not seem surprised to see me.

“Charles. How wonderful!”

He looked up at me and frowned.

“I told you not to come.”

“Well. I was so near. I couldn’t have come all this way and not come to see you. Look at you! Older, but I would know you anywhere.”

“You got fat.”

“Well, yes. I gave up smoking.”

Then ignoring me, he started to write in a notebook. But noticing I wasn’t going anywhere, he frowned again.

“We have absolutely nothing in common. It’s been twenty years. Why did you come??” he asked gruffly.

“Well,” I said. “We’re friends.”

“Friends? I don’t even like you.”

“But you used to like me, Charles. You used to like me a lot.”

“Hormones. Adolescence.”

“No. We were friends.”

“Well, can’t you see I’m busy. I don’t like people about. I need to be alone to do any work.”

“I’ve read all your books.”

“Well, ba-di-ba-da-bi! Got them out at the library, did you? Got one there? Give it to me and I’ll sign it.”

He raised an arm in dismissal and my calm disappeared. Silent until he looked at me again, I forced him to maintain eye contact.

“I came all the way here to see you. You can at least have the decency to get up and talk to me.”

“I suppose you want to save me all over again.” His mouth twisted as he tried to mimic other voices. “Margerie is the only one he talks to.”

He put down his book reluctantly and swept his hand through his wiry grey hair. When he sat up straight, I remembered how tall he was, probably much heavier now, judging by his face.

“Oh, all right,” he grumbled, “but then I want you to leave me alone. Let me put something on. Wait in the Indian sitting room. There’s a woman somewhere. She can make us lunch.” He pressed a buzzer.

It was all reds, turquoise, pinks and yellows: a room so bright that even the dullest day outside was made more cheerful. I sat in a comfortable sofa overlooking the lush gardens full of old tress, flowering bushes, plants and an expanse of green. Beyond you could see a sliver of beach, the grey-blue of Lough Swilly and then the hills. A sudden feeling of loneliness came over me. I shouldn’t have come. I wasn’t wanted and didn’t need any more hurt at this time in my life.

Suddenly there was a loud note from a piano that made me jump. It was followed by several discordant chords. Jazz. The unmistakable touch of Charles.

My ears led me to a large room where Charles was seated at a polished grand piano. He had not dressed but had put on a heavy woollen robe. I knew enough not to interrupt so I sat down on a chair behind him and tried not to make a noise. His sound was unusual, now full of contrasts: fluid yet jerky, intellectual yet sensual, meaningful yet mysterious. I was surprised he has continued with his music because he was now better known as a writer. His books were in every shop even though he himself refused to make the usual promotional appearances. Ending his piece with a flourish, he sat there working his fingers in the air, still with his back to me.

“My own. You always told me I was brilliant.”

A woman came in, rang a small bell she was holding in her hand and went away again. It was strange to see another person here and even stranger to think that in this house perhaps the only communication was by bells.

I followed Charles into the kitchen where two place-settings hugged the corner of a long pine table, worn perhaps from being scrubbed over the years. The woman served what looked like smoked salmon and the brown soda bread that was typical in those parts.

“Gravalax,” Charles grumbled.

“What?”

“Gravalax. Marinated. Not smoked.”

“Oh.”

The woman disappeared again. Anxious, I was lost for a moment for something to say.

“Evan says hello,” I managed.

“Evan and I have nothing to say to each other.”

I knew something had happened the last time Evan had visited Charles. He’d come back quiet, not exactly saying anything. His silence indicated that things had not gone well.

“He came over to see you in January. Remember? Evan! Your best friend.”

He whipped a piercing look at me and dropped his cutlery onto the plate.

“I have no friends. I don’t want friends.”

“But you and he go way back.”

“Unfortunately,”

I knew what was bothering him about Evan. Once lost in the anonymity of New York, Evan had come out, found a steady partner and was flourishing as a theatre director. We’d all had a similar upbringing in the liberal sixties, or so I thought. Perhaps it was true that Charles had always been a bit more conservative than the rest of us. He was always going on about the importance of his family and how rich he was going to be someday. ‘I’m different,’ he’d say.

I couldn’t help myself ask:

“Have you ever considered having a family, Charles?”

Blowing air through his lips in a rude way, he scowled.

“You mean little kids? An adoring wife? Someone like you? Quel horreur! My dear, all I do is sleep and it’s not a peaceful sleep. I dream and pluck things out which I throw down and present to the world. Voilá, a book, another tormented jazz piece.”

I couldn’t help thinking that I had created a monster. It was me that encouraged him, me who praised his piano playing, his prowess in bed. But what was all that, when someone was an anti-social selfish brute? In school we had put his personality traits down to shyness. How wrong we were to feed his ego! I changed the subject.

“I only came to see you because I was in Europe anyway. You know how I work at the paper mill. I think it’s going to close. Over five hundred without a job.”

“That’s why my family pulled out of paper and came back here. Could see it coming.”

“You should’ve stayed.”

“I always told you I’d be rich someday. The famous was a surprise. Could not have happened if I had stayed.”

****

If he had stayed! I remember when Charles first came to our school after he was kicked out of boarding school. Evan and I took to him immediately. Soon inseparable, the three of us sat around in Evan’s basement discussing music, films and life for hours. We basked in each other’s company and didn’t listen to anyone outside our little circle.

Evan was going to be a lawyer but his father died just as he was leaving for University and he never got up the motivation to go back. I moved off to College and did Business Studies, planning to go into some sort of management position. ‘You’d suit that.’ Evan used to tease. ‘You always were so bossy.’

Charles would appear at my door in the city from time to time and stay for months. Another time he lived in my basement. I never knew what he did down there all day. He’d only emerge at dinner-time.

By that time Evan had moved to New York to do theatre studies. Charles went back to the town in Maine and lived in his family home. His parents had moved to England and this is the time we started to get close. It wasn’t a teenage thing as Charles had suggested. We were too old for that. I’d visit him in the big empty house. Oh I suppose it was much smaller than the Donegal one but it seemed immense at the time.

When I went home at week-ends or holidays, Charles would cook for me. He knew all the sauces. Then he would play something on the piano and I’d dance for him.

****

Light poured through the crack of the open door of the kitchen. The woman had gone out for a moment to do something. We could feel the damp Donegal air and were pleased there was a fire in the old grate. I half expected a large dog to come bounding in. But that wasn’t Charles’ style.

“Evan doesn’t come home to Maine much anymore but I usually go to New York twice a year to keep up with him.”

Charles guffawed.

“He’s doing well, Charles. A big apartment overlooking Central Park! He’s made quite a name for himself in the theatre circles.”

“Not surprising, is it?”

“Well no. He was always talented.”

Charles pushed his plate away and called for coffee. The woman, Mrs. Morris I’d heard her called, came running.

“Not talented. Gay!”

“Well, yes, he’s gay. I met his partner. You’ve heard of him. Tony Rockly. He’s a well known actor. And he’s lovely!”

Charles started jiggling his leg but said nothing.

“Evan seems happy now. He had been looking for something for a long time. Now he’s doing something creative and has met someone he cares for.”

“What Evan does has absolutely nothing to do with me! I don’t want to hear about him.”

“But he was your friend!”

“I’d be frightened he’d try to jump me.”

“You don’t have to worry. You’re his friend. That’s all.”

“We are no longer friends. I told you I have no friends. And you….you’ve made a pointless journey.”

I got up and started to dance around the kitchen to a tune in my head from years before. I had always ignored Charles when he was being a prick.

“You look like a fool,” he hissed.

****

I got a government job in town that last summer. All of my friends had moved away and my only contact, besides my family, was Charles. Since he never went out, I would visit him. One night I walked up the hill to his house after a wedding of a colleague wearing a long flouncy red dress with spike heels and my hair loose and curling down my back. Instead of playing the piano, Charles put on a record, sat back and watched me dance. Then he grabbed my hand and pulled me into the bedroom. Afterwards we waltzed into the kitchen as if nothing had happened and finished the wine, had a cup of coffee.

One night I knocked on the door and an old lady answered.

“Oh! I was looking for Charles.”

“Come in,” she said and it wasn’t until I was sitting down in the living room that she told me that Charles wasn’t there. He’d gone to his fishing camp on the lake.

“I’m his great aunt Floss. I used to play bridge with your grandmother. Nice woman. You take after her in looks.”

Although I had never heard of her, I just nodded, my hands folded neatly in my lap.

“I didn’t mean to frighten Charles away. But I needed a place to stay. You just can’t trust the hotels here.”

“I’m sure you didn’t frighten him away. He just likes to be alone sometimes,” I said.

“Of course we all know what you are doing for Charles and appreciate it very much.”

I couldn’t help blushing. I imagined his whole family, his whole clan watching as he pushed me onto the bed and tore at my clothes.

“Yes, we would not object to a match.”

I was speechless, but somehow recovered to make conversation until I could find an excuse to leave.

Charles stayed at the cabin the rest of the summer. I only saw him once after that. Having met in town, he took me back to the camp. However, things had changed between us since his family got involved. We were shy of each other.

****

Feeling awkward, I persisted in arguing with Charles. He’d always listened to me before.

“It’s no wonder you have no friends. You don’t like Evan any longer just because he’s gay….and me! I suppose there’s something wrong with me too?”

Charles looked at me. “There is.”

“Well. What is it?” I sighed.

“You are a Catholic.”

“Oh come on, Charles. Get a grip. You are not living in the dark ages. Perhaps your grandfather or great grandparents thought like that. But not you! You were brought up in America. You never used to go to church. Anyway, I’m not Catholic anymore. I’m a sort of Buddhist”

“You don’t understand. My family has a pew here.”

“Good for them.”

“There are other reasons. Your family.”

“What about my family?”

“Compared to mine, they are glorified shopkeepers.”

I was furious. Although not interested in retailing, I was proud of the family department stores spread across the state, our name boldly emblazoned on the sign.

“What rot! What has that got to do with who I am?”

“You left. You left me behind in that Godforsaken place. Then I realized that I was so much better than everyone else.”

I’d had enough. His pomposity was unbearable. I threw down the napkin I had in my hand, got up and walked out without saying goodbye.

Halfway down the driveway, I saw the housekeeper and offered her a lift. It was still a long way to the main road. After getting in the car, she gave me directions to her house.

“You didn’t stay long,” she said.

“Who could stay with such an old-fashioned, grumpy old fool?”

“Some say he is brilliant.”

“That’s no excuse.”

“We’ve all tried our best, I suppose,” she said.

We arrived at a tasteful cottage with roses climbing up the front. I pulled over to let her out.

“Goodbye, Mrs. Morris,” I said. “All the best to you!”

“Call me Theresa.” She put out her hand for me to take.

“Margerie,” I said.

Her mouth dropped and she stared at me. I began to get nervous.

“Is anything wrong?” I asked.

She took a long time to answer. Shaking her head, she said:

“No, it just that Mr. Charles often talks in his sleep. Before he decided he didn’t want anyone staying with him, sometimes I used to act as night caretaker up there. He liked someone to be in the house. Through the bedroom door I’d sometimes hear him burst into tears. He’d cry out in his sleep, ‘Margerie, Margerie’. I never knew if it was a real person or not.”

After Theresa got out of the car, I drove up the lane to the main road, turned off the ignition and sat there for a while before deciding whether to turn back towards Charles’ house or the other way to the hotel.

Copyright Sandra Bunting, 2006