Lark's Eggs Read online

  To the students who befriended me at the

  University of California, San Diego.

  Larks’ Eggs

  New and Selected Stories

  Desmond Hogan

  THE LILIPUT PRESS

  DUBLIN

  Contents

  Dedication

  Title Page

  Epigraph

  Blow-Ball

  Foils

  Teddyboys

  The Last Time

  Afternoon

  The Man from Korea

  The Hedgehog

  Embassy

  Jimmy

  The Sojourner

  The Mourning Thief

  Portrait of a Dancer

  Memories of Swinging London

  A Marriage in the Country

  Ties

  Players

  Elysium

  The Vicar’s Wife

  Miles

  Martyrs

  The Airedale

  Lebanon Lodge

  Barnacle Geese

  Chintz

  The Bon Bon

  Winter Swimmers

  Caravans

  The Match

  Wedding at Gallog

  Rose of Lebanon

  Patterns

  Victoria

  Pictures

  Larks’ Eggs

  Acknowledgments

  Copyright

  Captive everywhere

  the street that I walk

  the vehicles I avoid

  put away the things I have bought

  all visionary excursions into your realms—

  my foot trips—hurts

  a detour into your dwellings—

  Deborah was stabbed by stars

  and yet sang triumphant hymns

  when the mountains dissolved

  and on white—gleaming donkeys like prophets

  the troop of horsemen moved on

  But silence is where the victims dwell—

  NELLY SACHS

  (trans. MICHAEL HAMBURGER)

  Larks’ Eggs

  New and Selected Stories

  Blow-Ball

  What was it for, why was it they came? Perhaps because it was just there, the house. Perhaps because she might have been there, the lady, and she was in a way their object of pursuit.

  The house was Georgian and summer languished around it. The fields beyond had a greenish feel, laid with hay cut just as it was turning colour. Men, separate, unobtrusive, were working in the fields and here and there were sprays of poppies. On the pond in front of the house was an accumulative growth of water lilies; still, strange to the children.

  They were drawn to it in a group. Bubbles, whose hair was as bog cotton with the sun in it. A ragged ribbon fell on her forehead. Hanging over them, keeping her apart from the others at times was her class background. But she was vital because summers were blanks; something had to be made out of them. This required imagination, a special talent almost. Bubbles above all had it. Pee-Wee was gentle then; he drooped at the shoulders, an unawareness about him. There was a department in his mind where the word was fantasmagoria. He was undertaking a study of ghosts. Dony reached him through his oddities, because of them he was Pee-Wee’s best friend. Dony was thirteen, the oldest.

  There were others, their younger brothers and sisters whom they brought with them. Other children who trailed along but never really committed themselves. Also Bubble’s English cousin who had buck teeth and told Bubble’s mother sometimes that she had been with the boys. But none of them mattered. Bubbles, Pee-Wee and Dony were the instigators.

  They had it to themselves, the house. It looked so contained. In a way it was just like going to the pictures. Pictures which showed sleek skies and coral swimming pools which made phosphorus trails of smoke when someone dived into them, the sort of pictures they went to see. At the pictures love was something important. The house made love important too. It had a mythology of sex, of violence, of the supernatural evolved from the generations of landowners who once lived in it. There was a book written about it, written by a young lady of the house, Lady Loughbown. That was the name of the house, Loughbown. The children knew how the lady looked. There was a photograph of her in the book, a photograph of a ghost-like figure in a tapering Edwardian dress. They liked to think that she was buried in the grave in the garden. But most people said it was her dachshunds that were buried there. Pee-Wee wished to see her ghost. Bubbles and Dony wanted to get through to her too.

  The book itself had black covers and they usually brought it with them. They took a delight in the suggestiveness of some of the phrases, phrases like ‘We were very attached to one another.’

  To one side of the house the framework of a greenhouse had broken down into a bed of nettles, among the trees nearby were sleeping crab apples. The visits to the house were always somehow ineffectual, there wasn’t much to do. They’d stand by the pond, they’d stroll about, looking at things. Sometimes they brought food and had picnics. Bubbles could never bring anything more than milk and brown bread and butter. She always frowned when she produced them, did nothing more. On one of these occasions it began raining. They sheltered under a rug in the garden, eating bananas, the rain beating down ceaselessly. It meant laughter and pulling. The smell of girls’ knickers. Total madness.

  Often as the others searched about Bubbles and Dony would sit by the pond and talk. They’d talk about the future. Dony intended to be a priest, and go to Africa. Bubbles had an extravagant wish. She was going to be an actress.

  Bubbles was a peculiar girl. Unconsciously she imitated adults in her way of talking, in her way of walking, in her smile. After seeing a film she managed a hint of the star in her demeanour.

  Sitting by the pond like that she’d brush Dony’s hair in the way she liked to have it. She always carried a brush and a comb in a funny, worn bag. There was no explanation for it.

  When Dony changed to long pants that summer it was Bubbles he wanted to see him in them. She seemed to understand. It was just she who mattered. Her family wasn’t important. It didn’t matter that her uncle had been in court for interfering with young children. It wasn’t even important when everybody knew that her older sister had shamefully had twins. Her sister went to England afterwards. Dony was at the station when she was leaving. There were two trains, one going to the sea and the other to Dublin. Dony was going to the sea with his mother, to a day of candyfloss, of grey ebbtide, of cold. The girl was going to Dublin. She was a bulky girl, in a pink cotton dress, lying against the wall. She looked mute, a little hurt. Bubbles was there to say goodbye to her and she eyed Dony. Dony sensed disdain and rejection on his mother’s brow when she glanced their way.

  But she couldn’t have suspected his friendship with Bubbles. She couldn’t have suspected that he’d be with the girl the following morning, that he was with her almost every day of the summer. They were fugitive hearts, all of them.

  But nothing happened to them and they were impatient. Their refrain became: ‘I wish something would happen.’

  They were baffled when suddenly, unexpectedly, summer was almost over. Their sensibilities changed, the pang of schooldays so near again. More children joined their group, others followed them to the house, spying on what they were doing.

  One morning at Loughbown Bubbles decided to do something climactic. She fell on the terrace with a little yelp. She let the others help her up. Her eyes were round and deceiving.

  ‘I’ve seen a lady,’ she said. ‘She was all white.’

  ‘It was her,’ Pee-Wee started.

  They wanted to know more about the lady but Bubbles was vague. All she could remember for them was that the lady had seemed to have beckoned to her.

  They believed because they wanted to believe. It would have been a
breach of trust if they hadn’t. But Dony said bluntly to her: ‘You’re lying.’ Bubbles looked at him, her eyes begging. It was as if he’d said something irrevocable. ‘I’m not,’ she cried.

  She turned, letting out a little sob, and ran down the steps to the stone seat beside the pond. She was apparently transfixed there, her hands hiding her face. Pee-Wee went and put an arm around her, the others standing back ineffectually. One of the younger ones was crying now too; she said she’d seen the devil at a window.

  The group was split. They drifted home separately, no need to hurry. It was already long past their lunchtimes. They’d be scolded at home, interrogated for the truth. But their parents wouldn’t understand the truth anyway.

  It was warm as Dony ambled home, bits of fluff blowing across the lane as it they’d been released from somewhere. He turned as he heard a cry from behind. It was Bubbles who couldn’t get over the gate. He went back and helped her across. Her hand felt so tiny as he tugged it; it was white and complete. They walked home together, a little quiet with one another. Bubbles was wearing a pinafore, her head inclined from him, something on her mind.

  ‘I didn’t see a lady,’ she admitted. ‘I’m a liar.’ Her voice was just a suggestion, soft. ‘I wanted to make you notice me,’ she added. Dony wasn’t sure what she meant, what she was hinting at.

  She spoke about the colour of his eyes, the colour of her eyes, other things, her words slurred. She lowered her eyes and smiled shyly when she said: ‘You’re the nicest boy in town.’

  Coming near her house she pressed his hand suddenly and left him.

  The next week they were back at school and they had few opportunities of seeing one another. They depended on a chance to meet. Often they encountered each other in the library, the two boys and Bubbles. They were usually bundled in mackintoshes and they’d speak behind a bookshelf. The librarian’s eyes would glance at them sporadically. These moments were memorable, mellifluous; the light strained from the rain outside, winter evenings mostly wet.

  Once Dony found himself sitting in front of Bubbles at the pictures. It was a picture in which Ingrid Bergman was having a love affair with Humphrey Bogart in Paris. Ingrid Bergman’s pale, clear, Nordic face was touched by a Paris lightness. Bogart brought her for a drive to Normandy, a chiffon scarf about her neck, tied out in two wings, fluttering in ecstasy.

  Sometimes Dony caught Bubbles’ eyes and it might have been that they were sitting together. They really enjoyed the film for that. But already things separated Dony from the previous summer. Awful nightmares, a new recourse in sex; carnal dreams. Pee-Wee was smoking. He’d merged with a group of boys and hadn’t much time for Dony.

  Somehow he failed to meet with Bubbles for a long time after that and in the spring her family emigrated to England. She called him into a yard one evening beforehand to tell him. She’d changed, she wore earrings, very tiny, very minute ones; her hair was in a bun. It was during Holy Week. There was an array of old tractors in the yard, a broken-down threshing machine. The fields about were rimmed by flood water; something inexorable about it. It made Holy Week more real. One strange remark Dony remembered from that conversation: ‘Wasn’t Jesus very good to die for us?’ Bubbles had said.

  She suggested they go to the house, to Loughbown, before she went. But this would have been ambiguous now and it was never achieved.

  If it had been at any other time that Bubbles went they might have made it dramatic. But summer was almost forgotten and her departure was of little significance. She just slipped away.

  Foils

  The lane slanted from the Protestant church that stood amid trees above the town. The elderly Protestant lady who lived at the top of the lane could often be seen in the prayerful September evenings as she swept the dust outside her home, a view of a sedate interior distinguishable from the reflections on the window behind her. There was a frailty about her movements, plait encircling her head of frayed white, a precariousness about her figure in a long frock and woollen stockings, She looked unreal. Like a rag doll. She was a reminder of the Protestant stratum who once dominated the town, a remnant of it.

  Geraniums peeped at her from the opposite window, the base window of Miss Duffy’s house. Miss Duffy had lived alone since her sister had died, the front of her house shabby, a sobriety about it, the paint black, the curtains drawn.

  She’d sit on one of the benches under the Protestant church in the progression of September evenings. Dressed entirely in black she was as familiar to the scene as the old dogs that strayed about. A tiny figure stretched at the edge of a bench, hand on her chin, she always looked dishevelled. Strands of hair struggled from under a beret, her coat parted on an unwieldy bosom, her bosom almost voluptuous in the shining black material of her frock. She looked abandoned as she sat there, something plaintive about the way she’d greet every passer-by, calling out to them.

  The only other person who regularly sat on one of the benches was a boy who lived at the end of the lane. He came to read every evening, sitting near Miss Duffy, totally engrossed in what he was reading, his dark head bowed over the book. They spoke only briefly until one bright October Sunday. There was a funfair in operation on the fair green below them that day, dizzy shrieks rising above the blare of music and the noise of the machinery. An orange sweater made the boy conspicuous in the sun. They both seemed equally lonely, excluded from the enjoyment of people thronging among the amusements on the fair green. Miss Duffy called the boy over and asked him an unnecessary question, something about a relative of his who happened to be ill at the time. But it was only an excuse for conversation.

  She made a series of useless remarks about his family, telling him how holy his mother seemed, how quiet his father was. She showed curiosity as she queried him about school, about his career. Her reaction was unexpected when he told her that he hoped to be a writer. She waved her hand sceptically, a hen-like noise escaping her, her face squeezing up in scorn. ‘Don’t be silly. Don’t be silly,’ she scoffed at him.

  But as he tried to explain that it wasn’t so impossible the idea became more acceptable to her. She agreed that he might succeed if he persevered. Perseverance was the most important thing, she said sagely.

  They continued speaking about writing. But the world of the young writer, a world of aspirations, was far removed from that of Miss Duffy. It turned out, however, that she had some knowledge of books and outdated authors. She had been fond of reading once, she told him, but she no longer had time for it with all the housework she had to tackle. There was a note of complaint and at the same time something self-assertive in the way she said this. It was as if she wanted to believe that she was a busy, overstrained housekeeper.

  There was an inkling of truth as she added in a low voice, ‘It’s been hard to manage since poor Cissy passed away.’ Cissy had been her sister. At the mention of her name, Miss Duffy’s eyes automatically sought the distance where a row of old houses stood in sunshine and seasonal tranquillity, at the base of a wooded hill. There was a sense of pain on her brow as she lapsed into silence for a few moments.

  Everybody had known how she’d missed her sister. Once they’d seemed inseparable, her sister a tall, melancholy figure in a long fawn coat, a beret sidewise on her head, a pronouncement of despondency on her face. She’d been a foil for her small fat sister.

  They’d been so contented together that they hadn’t taken a precaution against death. Death had come treacherously. The little sister had been found in bed one morning clinging to the other’s corpse.

  Recovery from the shock of death and loss had been difficult. In trying to come to terms with living in a vacuity Miss Duffy had become something of a curiosity among the townspeople. She did her best to muster a sort of independence, refusing all offers of help from her neighbours though her house had fallen into a state of utter disorder. Dirt was everywhere, her cats freely soiling the carpets and furniture.

  Something about the October Sunday, something about the tingling c
larity of the faraway countryside made her drift into recollection of her sister. She spoke of the life they’d shared, lingering on the irrevocable things. Things that had been part of their yearly routine. The holiday they used to take in a resort on the south coast each September. The apple jelly they used to make at this time every year.

  The harrowing loneliness in her voice, in her eyes, was unmistakable. It was as if she realized the hopelessness of her position. Only religious belief sustained her, belief that she was living in an interim, to be reconciled with her sister after death.

  The boy listened to everything she said, nodding his head responsively, probably the first person to have listened to her for a long time. When at last he got up to go she complimented him gratuitously: ‘Lucky is the girl that wins ye.’ As he made off she called after him. Her hand was at her neck as she tried to explain something. ‘I hope you wear the collar—you know—the Roman collar,’ she faltered.

  On the following evenings they often sat on a bench together, a sort of relationship being established between the two segregated people. Miss Duffy would tease the boy about girls, not realizing that there were none in his life.

  She’d had a boyfriend when she was young and it gave her immense pleasure to talk about it over and over again. Her parents had known nothing of it and she made it seem as though there’d been something fugitive about the liaison, something illicit, something perilous about every kiss.

  But her mind seemed to wander as she described walks with him to the mansion where the local landlord had lived, a profusion of animal life on either side of the woodland lane leading to it, a profusion of flowers spreading in conflagration around it. The mansion and its surroundings had been another realm to her then. But the landowning classes were on a brink at the time, threatened by national events, their end imminent. Now, after the span of a lifetime, the mansion represented an idea of beauty and change to Miss Duffy, an idea embedded in her youth.