The Mask and Other Stories Read online

  Going back inside and lying down again, she closed her eyes. Let them get on with it, she thought wearily. Two women in any kitchen was one too many. Her eyelids grew heavy. She was drifting in a warm limbo, then like the pause between one heartbeat and the next she became aware of the bedroom door closing gently over.

  ‘You look fabulous,’ Michael whispered. ‘That kimono is perfect on you. You look oriental, exciting.’ He bent over her, his hands moulding her breasts.

  Confused, she tried to sit up but he pushed her down again. ‘Don’t get up,’ he murmured. ‘I’ve put the children to bed.’ He pressed his mouth lingeringly on hers and ran his hands over her body. ‘Don’t!’ she protested.

  ‘Why?’ He gripped her shoulders, his breath coming quickly. ‘You turn me on like this.’ He wrenched at the belt of her housecoat and the silk made a splitting sound.

  ‘Don’t,’ she said again weakly. ‘You’ll tear it.’ She fumbled open the knot and he slid the garment off her shoulders.

  ‘You’re driving me wild,’ he whispered. ‘You have never seemed so desirable. It’s like making love to another woman.’

  Stop! Claire wanted to cry. It was all wrong. She didn’t want to be loved on those terms. This was different to the early light-hearted days when he had made her dress up in a wig and black stockings. This was more serious, she knew, for now he was replacing her – actually replacing her with the fantasy. But worst of all, while his kisses weakened the war raging within her, was the treachery of that other creature, brazenly responding while making excuses, ‘Take it while you can,’ she seemed to be advising her starved-out sister. ‘Who are you trying to punish? Pleasure is all, nothing else matters.’

  Later, she lay unmoving beside him, listening to his even breathing. His hand weighed heavily on her hip but she left it there, unwilling to break the mood. Perhaps he did love her, she thought. She gazed at his sleeping face, wishing he would wake up and look at her again with eyes of love. But as time passed her resentment returned and pushing off the intimidating pressure of his hand, she turned her back on him.

  She hated her husband. She remembered the look of distaste on his face in the London taxi, and something he once said when courting her came back to her now like a judgement. ‘I could never marry a woman who wasn’t beautiful, then even if the marriage failed she would still be easy on the eye.’ How she despised him for saying such a thing, herself too for letting him away with it. A superficial remark from a superficial man, she told herself bitterly. Clearly all she or any woman had ever been to him was a body. Only now it was this face that was the lure, a luridly painted face that hadn’t even got the merit of being her own.

  Getting off the bed she walked barefoot to the mirror to gaze again at the ‘Mask’ and saw to her surprise that beyond a slight sooty smudging about the eyes, it bore no trace of all she had been through Nothing, it seemed, had made any impression. Neither tears nor what passed for love. It was as pale and synthetically intact as when created in London. Curiously she put up a hand to touch it.

  Her skin felt as cool and insensate as manmade sponge. Was it indestructible then? Her wonder turned to awe. What if she were destined to wear it always in place of her own, a western geisha far from home?

  Startled by the fantasy, she fearfully plunged her fingers into cold cream and smeared haphazardly. Did she imagine it or had the eyes taken on a sly triumphant gleam? All the secrets of the orient must surely be contained in that look.

  Her breath fluttering in shallow panic, Claire piled on bigger and bigger dollops of the cleanser massaging with greater urgency until the cosmetic emulsified and came away at last in bright streaks on the cotton pad. Two more downward sweeps and to her immense relief all that remained of that slanting oriental gaze was a swirl of frosted blue and black. Claire’s own eyes gleamed back at her in the lamplight.

  The geisha girl had gone.

  Ashes

  Higney stepped lightly into the hallway of Connolly Mansions and stood for a moment listening to the early morning sounds filtering through closed doors. His small bright eyes missed nothing as they darted from the pile of empties outside number three to the big shabby pram blocking half the passage, with its bag of refuse already punctured by the claws of some early cat.

  He mounted the stairs with cautious ease, one hand against the wall. At the sound of voices higher up he slipped into the lavatory and bolted the door. The familiar acid smell assaulted his nostrils as he stood at the bowl. Someone had cut a newspaper into squares and hung them from a nail in the wall. He jerked down a sheet and noted that a man was being charged with the murder of a sixteen-year-old girl with whom it was alleged he had first had relations. Later, he’d cut up the body and tried to burn it in a furnace. Hanging was too good for them, Higney thought, ripping off more sheets until only the loop of string remained. Damn foreigners! Coming in and trying to take over the country. In Merrion Square a big brazen coloured man had taken a woman Higney had put his eye on. He’d stood there and raised his finger and the woman had turned away from Higney just as he was getting her down to his price and the two of them had walked off without a backward glance. Someone rattled the handle impatiently, seeking entry. Unhurriedly Higney buttoned his fly. He reached up and pulled at the length of chain. Water flushed noisily into the brown-flecked bowl and subsided gradually, the cistern gurgling and sighing. The door handle shook once more and there was the sound of feet jiggling urgently on bare boards. Casually Higney pushed back the bolt and emerged on to the landing. A figure darted past mouthing obscenities and the door banged shut. Unconcerned, Higney mounted the stairs until he could go no further.

  The door sloped inwards on one hinge. She had lifted it the night before into place but someone had come by in the early hours and now it drooped top heavily inwards almost oppressing her as she lay there. On the landing below, the cistern gushed noisily, a door banged and the stairs creaked rhythmically under the pressure of ascending feet. Someone paused outside her door. Peg felt eyes watching her over the sloping edge and raised herself with difficulty to peer defiantly into the surrounding greyness.

  ‘Get away,’ she tried to shout but was betrayed by her phlegm-roughened throat. The boards creaked as weight shifted. A wheezing cough, instantly checked, reached her straining ears. It was Mick Higney, she knew it. ‘I know yeh’re there, Mick,’ she screeched. The words sang in her mind as the silence stretched. Through the floor she heard the Molloys stirring. Children’s voices thin and intermittent becoming shrill and strident as hunger gained the upper hand on sleep. Footsteps on the stairs to empty slops and far below the distant banging of the street door as, flushed out by the house’s stirring, Higney lost himself in the awakening streets. She lay and drifted. The walls telescoped, compressing her between ceiling and floor. Breathlessly suspended, forehead all but crushed, she hung there, a sickness behind the eyes, until the distant toning of the mass bell brought release. Ash Wednesday with its earthly reminders; no compromise.

  Upright at last, dressing merely the addition of one more tattered layer, feet thrust into balding suede and over all the plastic mac. A last examination of some treasure stowed deep in the orange box, evidence of its bright cargo still adhering in strips to the rough surfaces. Java – an eternity away. Fingers made insensate by Rinso and Vim suddenly tender stroking the smooth plaster. Two shillings long ago at the Jesuit Mission at the Mansion House; half a day’s pay. The screws in the remaining hinge wobbled when touched. A screwdriver was what she needed and would get at Mrs Breen’s. She had seen a fine big one in a box under the stairs beside the hoover they would never let her use. At the same time she would ask Mrs Breen to ask her husband about her position in the house. He would know whether they could put her out on the street after eighteen years. Mrs Breen had assured her as she washed the step one day if ever she wanted advice Mr Breen would be happy to give it. For after all it was free and did not cost him anything. He was a big man not saying much ever except to forbid her use
the hoover, but then he was a busy man with a responsible job in the Corporation. Every Wednesday, wet or fine, she went to their house in Iona Gardens, not far from the Bishop’s Palace. Last time Mrs Breen had remarked it was too much for her, meaning Peg, but might have meant herself. Every second week would be enough, she’d said, while giving her the few shillings at the door. But Peg looked forward to her visit to the Breen’s house, now the only house she could go to anymore. And when her work (was that the name for it?) was done Mrs Breen would give her a bowl of soup. Good soup in the art of which she excelled, made from a stockpot she kept bubbling noxiously on the stove day in, day out. The girls were big now Mrs Breen had suggested and should be encouraged to keep their own room tidy and the youngest, a lad of ten, was over the troublesome stage.

  She tied a plastic rainhat over her black beret once the property of Mr Breen and went onto the landing. The door trembled against the lintel as, supporting it, she edged her way around. Something moved far below in the well of the staircase. Was it him lurking down there waiting to catch her as she emerged with his Fine morning, Miss Dinnegan and his Blessings of God on yeh and Ah, but yehr looking great, accompanied by his wide smile and ready wink. Do yeh think will it rain, he asked her on the step one day. It won’t catch you unawares anyway, he’d said, eyeing her closely. Aren’t you well prepared for the rainy day, smiling as at some private joke. He had mounted his bicycle heavily and pushed off, the children running before and behind, mindless of his warnings. She had not put any great meaning on his words but now she wondered if after all he was speaking of something other than the weather.

  A door closed quietly at the back of the hall as Peg dealt with the clutter of prams in her way. Someone had left their garbage in an empty go-car and over it a cat crouched, ripping the plastic malevolently with its hindlegs.

  Outside the air was crisp, causing her to sink her chin deeper into her hand as, shoulders hunched, she crept along close to the railings. An airline bag, the markings faded and almost obliterated by long usage, hung from her other hand, a relic of her cleaning days with Mrs Daly whose daughter once worked in a ticket office in O’Connell Street. As she turned into Sherrard Street a man passed her on a bicycle, the smudge on his skin still visible beneath his cap. Children played hopscotch by the gates of the church. Were they the same as those forever trailing in her wake chanting Ould Miss Dinnegan has a pimple on her chinegan? Was that the ringleader now with her bold face at the head of the gang scattering at her approach?

  ‘Go home to your Mammy,’ she told them, sinking her hand in the font and dabbing at her face with holy water. They stared after her and silently resumed play when she had passed on out of sight.

  The queue to the altar rails grew smaller as she trudged up a side aisle. Submitting to the swift dab at the temples, reminder of the fallibility of earthly expectations, she returned the way she’d come. The church emptied and only the regulars remained. On the altar the sacristan genuflected deeply and transferred the heavy missal from one side to the other. Kneeling, she was conscious of a hunger unrelated to food as she waited avidly for the ritual of the mass to begin. Ahead of her old Carney beat the bench with her rosary and called out. In slow motion the elderly re-enacted, as in some eternal charade, the stations of the cross, grouping, retreating, endlessly.

  Staring into the winking candle flames on the many tiered stands her eyes were at first dazzled by the reflecting glimmers of gold. The fiery haze shimmered and shifted and she closed her eyes, retaining on her retina a myriad of leaping silhouetted tongues of flame. And when she looked again she seemed no longer distant from the blaze but to be a part of that white heat and then she was the light itself and from her extended long spears of dazzling blinding truth.

  I am the resurrection and the life. Anyone who believes in me will have eternal life.

  She knew and in her slack-jawed wonder wished to impart that knowledge to the world. The tinkle of the bell announced the priest’s approach, recalling her with a sense of exaltation to herself. Stiffly she levered herself to her knees, white flecks occupying the space before her face, one hand on the bench. Facing the people the priest intoned his opening lines. Her lips moved, her prayer still that of childhood.

  Introibo ad altare Dei – to the God of my joy and my youth.

  She took her beads and let them dribble between her fingers. Old Carney stood on, beating her chest – a sinner – shaggy white mop thrown back, eyes rolling heavenwards. A man with the look of a child glanced around smiling and grimacing. A dog trotted steadily between the kneeling congregation, tail swaying always just out of reach. Near the doors a man went down on one knee, cap in hand, as the priest raised high the host.

  ‘Now let us offer each other the sign of peace.’

  At once began the extension of hands reaching forward and behind. Brown spotted crepe engulfing and engulfed. Eyes averted, cold tips brushing aloofly, a duty done. Half-hearted dabs and tenacious graspings like drowning men, the only contact left in a life filled no longer with the holding and caring of happier days. Gradually a settling back into the closed circuit of daily existence, prisoners of self, until the next releasing words were spoken.

  Outside the church the dog followed hopefully at her heels, nosing at her bag. She stopped and turned her head. Uncertain of his welcome he stayed where he was.

  ‘Here, Major,’ she called, and threw him a piece of stale bread rummaged up from the depths of the travelight. To her all dogs were Major. He sniffed at the bread but no more than that, tail faintly wagging. She moved on. A car horn hooted as, head down, she crossed the street.

  It wouldn’t take much to get the door off its hinges, Higney decided. He picked at a loose screw until it wobbled out into his hand. The door sagged lower. He eased it upright and slipped into the room. His foot trod on something soft and he recoiled before realising it was the edge of the blanket trailing the floor. He stooped before the plywood crate and carelessly tipped it over. No earthly treasures met his eye; no wad of dirty banknotes or scattered sovereigns to gladden his heart, only a jumble of scapulars and rosaries, a few statues; all the flotsam and jetsam of Christianity.

  A spider ran up the wall and in disgust he let the mattress flop back. It was not as he believed. But could be, he told himself. He surveyed the room, then paced it out, his black boots eating up the inches. There was room enough for a cheap divan and a two-ring gas cooker. In Woolworth’s he could purchase a print of a woodland scene to hang over the bed. He saw himself knocking a few nails into the wall, maybe fixing a yale lock on the door. It was a room a bachelor living alone would be glad of or, perhaps, a couple of young ones fresh out of school. Either way there as profit to be made.

  The gate to the Breen’s house was open. She trod the path more swiftly now, if a snail can be said to be swift. She let the heavy knocker fall repeatedly but no one came. Passively she stood. If you have faith all things can be accomplished. Her head sunk on her chest, her arms hanging loosely from their sockets, the airline bag an extension of her wrist, Peg waited. Having come so far in the certain hope of a bowl of Mrs Breen’s life-giving soup she was prepared to wait for ever, if necessary, to achieve her desire.

  Against the orange and green frosted glass Mrs Breen saw her outline and retreated hurriedly on tip-toe. With infinite caution she edged around the scullery door and, safely off-target, relaxed. Lucky she had chanced to be in the front room and seen the familiar figure coming in the gate. A few moments more and she would have had her hat and coat on, descending the step. Now as Mrs. Breen waited for Peg to give up and go away, she reflected on the incongruity of her position, mistress of the house, cowering backstairs like any housebreaker avoiding detection. But the alternative did not bear contemplation. It was just that the work was beyond Peg. Had she ever been up to it? There only remained to pass on the message, Mrs Breen had decided, tiring at last of cleaning everything twice over and of Mr Breen’s constant complaints about the state of the broom cupboard; his
particular bugbear being dirt and fluff in the opened polish tins. He’d laid a ban on the use of the hoover and his daughters refused to allow Peg in their bedroom. Mrs. Breen had to admit they had cause. She still remembered the occasion she had been marched upstairs to view their unmade beds, on which was gathered like the start of some bird’s nest, heaps of fluff and dirty tissues, under-the-bed residue, fished for and then forgotten. Or rather abandoned in favour of a more rewarding mission; that of replacing with holy pictures torn from religious monthlies the sunkissed bodies of their chosen idols.

  If Mrs Breen could have given Peg the few shillings at the door and barred her entrance to the house it would have solved matters but Mrs Breen believed in the dignity of human persons. Or so she told herself. Was not Fr Lynch always preaching about helping others to help themselves? How much better, he said, to give a person work to do for which you recompensed him than to give him charity which, unearned, eventually wears away his self-respect. In theory it was all very fine. Mrs Breen agreed wholeheartedly with her pastor but when applied to real life she would have gladly risked undermining the char’s self-respect in the cause of improved domestic relations.

  For some time there had been no sound from the porch. Mrs Breen peered hopefully around the scullery door and was rewarded by unshadowed glass. Encouraged she stepped out, but with caution, to the front room where unobserved she could from behind the lace curtain review the outer scene. But she had reckoned without a betrayer in the camp. From the top of the stairs her name was called loudly and repetitiously. ‘Mammy ... Mammy, when are you coming up?’ She had forgotten young Brian recovering from measles in an upper room. As though on cue the shadow loomed behind the glass and the knocker rattled triumphantly. Mrs Breen had no course but to open the door.