Cooper had not given this a thought. He indicated a direction at a venture.
‘Then I’ll be saying good night, Cooper,’ said Wylie. But after a few paces he pulled up with the air of one who suddenly remembers, stood stock still for a second and then turned back to where Cooper, neither impatient nor amused, was waiting.
‘I nearly forgot to say,’ he said, ‘that when you see Miss Counihan – you will be seeing her now, won’t you, Cooper?’
The skill is really extraordinary with which analphabetes, especially those of Irish education, circumvent their dread of verbal commitments. Now Cooper’s face, though it did not seem to move a muscle, brought together and threw off in a single grimace the finest shades of irresolution, revulsion, doglike devotion, catlike discretion, fatigue, hunger, thirst and reserves of strength, in a very small fraction of the time that the finest oratory would require for a greatly inferior evasion, and without exposing its proprietor to misquotation.
‘Don’t I know,’ said Wylie. ‘But just in case you should, remember there is nothing new, not a thing to report. You know what women are when it comes to women.’
If Cooper did not possess this knowledge it was not for lack of an occasion, a melancholy occasion, of which perhaps the most regrettable result was this, that of the only two good angels he had ever been able to care for, simultaneously as ill luck would have it, the one, a Miss A, then a brunette, was now in her seventeenth year of His Majesty’s pleasure, while the other, a Miss B, also formerly a brunette, had not yet succumbed to her injuries. Yet properly speaking the knowledge was not his, it was not present to him as an everyday precaution as it was to Wylie, and to Neary, and indeed to most men, though they gain it at far less cost, and even in some cases a priori. For the bitter blow was one of those referred to above, forgotten almost entirely at great pains by Cooper and at scarcely less pains almost in its entirety reconstructed by Neary. What the former could still recall, because it did not pain him, and the latter had never known, because it did not interest him, was the merest scene of tenderness or two, with Miss A before he met Miss B, and again with Miss B before she met Miss A.
‘I say you know what women are,’ said Wylie impatiently, ‘or has your entire life been spent in Cork?’
Cooper’s head toppled forward and his hands, small, white, numb, sodden, hairless, but actually quite dexterous, toiled up a little through the dark. He said:
‘That’ll be all right.’
‘Or is there perhaps some fair charmer,’ said Wylie, ‘that blinds you to her sex? Some young person? Come now, Cooper.’
Cooper dropped his hands, forced his head round to look at Wylie and said, in much the same dead tone:
‘That will be all right.’
*
Night had scarcely fallen and yet already Neary, his pyjamas torn from his body and flung on the floor, was tossing under a sheet, wondering would morning never come, when Miss Counihan was announced. Seeing that he was not disposed to get up and make much of her, she seated herself with a desinvolture she was far from feeling on the end of the bed, as though it were a bank of bluebells somewhere in the country. Under the sheet his icy feet were crossed and crispated like talons on a hot-water bag. For it tickled his smattering of Greek urns, where Sleep was figured with crossed feet, and frequently also Sleep’s young brother, to cross his whenever he felt wakeful. Also he had some vague theory about his terminals being thereby connected, and his life force prevented from escaping. But now with sleep out of the question, and Miss Counihan’s hot buttered buttocks so close, he uncrossed his feet and kicked the bag out of the bed, on the wall side. It burst on the floor without a sound, so that water is oozing towards the centre of the floor throughout the scene that follows.
In a somewhat similar way Celia had sat on Mr. Kelly’s bed, and on Murphy’s, though Mr. Kelly had had his shirt on.
They had not been closeted together very long and Miss Counihan, choking with mortification, had not yet succeeded in persuading Neary that who found Celia found Murphy also, when Wylie was announced. Miss Counihan shot off the bed and cast round wildly for a way of escape or a place of concealment.
‘Curtains collect the dirt so,’ said Neary, ‘that I never have them. I fear you would not pass through the door of my cupboard, not even sideways, not even frontways rather. There is no balcony. I hesitate to suggest under the bed.’
Miss Counihan flew to the door, locked it and took out the key, even as Wylie knocked.
‘I am sorry there is no staple to put your arm through,’ said Neary.
Wylie tore at the handle, calling, ‘It is I, it is Needle.’ Miss Counihan threw herself on Neary’s mercy, not by word of mouth obviously, but with bended knee, panting bosom, clasped hands, passion-dimmed belladonna, etc.
‘Come in,’ cried Neary. ‘Miss Counihan has locked you out.’
Miss Counihan rose from the floor.
‘If your tart will not let you in,’ cried Neary, ‘stay where you are, I have rung for the chamber pot.’
But Miss Counihan did not know when she was beaten, or, if she did, her way of showing it was unusual. For it did not require a woman of her resource and experience to go off into peals of mischievous laughter, fling open the door and pass the whole thing off as a joke. Instead she sat down quietly in a chair and waited for the chambermaid to come and let Wylie in. She must have preferred, all things rapidly considered, the few moments thus snatched from the show-down, in which to revise her strategy, to a cut-and-dried tactic affording only temporary relief. No, Miss Counihan did not know when she was beaten.
There was now the usual calm after storm, Neary sitting up in the bed and feasting his eyes on Miss Counihan, Miss Counihan absorbed in her problem tapping her teeth thoughtfully with the key, Wylie on the other side of the door exactly half inclined to tiptoe away, the chambermaid far away in her dark cavern waiting for the bell to ring a second time. When it did, proving with a single peal that the summons was seriously intended and that her hearing had not deceived her, she set off without rancour and in a short time was knocking at the door.
‘The gentleman is locked out,’ called Neary. ‘Let him in.’
Wylie strode in much too boldly and Miss Counihan rose.
‘Good girl,’ said Neary. ‘Now lock the door behind the gentleman.’
Wylie and Miss Counihan met face to face, a trying experience for them both.
‘You cur,’ said Miss Counihan, getting her blow in first.
‘You bitch,’ said Wylie.
They belonged to the same great group.
‘You take the tone out of my mouth,’ said Neary, ‘if not the terms.’
‘You cur,’ said Miss Counihan, making a bid for the last word.
‘Before you go any further—’ said Neary.
The first round was Miss Counihan’s and her forces were still intact. She sat down and Wylie moved over to the bed. He was equipped by nature to feel a situation, and adjust himself to it, more rapidly than Miss Counihan, but she had the advantage of a short start.
‘This lock-out,’ said Neary, ‘don’t misunderstand it whatever you do.’
‘I think more highly of you than that,’ said Wylie.
‘I thank you,’ said Neary, like a London bus or tram conductor tendered the exact fare.
It struck Miss Counihan with sudden force that here were two men, against whom she could never prevail, even were her cause a just one.
‘And no doubt your great piece of news is the same as your doxy’s,’ said Neary, ‘that Cooper has picked up a woman with whom a glimpse of Murphy was once caught.’
‘She was not exactly seen with him,’ said Wylie, ‘only entering the house where he was known to be at that time.’
‘And you call this finding Murphy,’ said Neary.
‘Cooper feels it in his bones,’ said Wylie, ‘and so do I, that this beautiful woman will lead us to him.’
‘Uric acid,’ said Neary.
‘But if Miss Cou
nihan believes,’ said Wylie, ‘who are we to doubt?’
Miss Counihan bit her lip that she had not thought of this argument, which opened and closed Neary’s mouth a number of times. He found it forcible – and he craved to get up.
‘If you, Wylie,’ he said, ‘will pass me up my pyjamas, and you, Miss Counihan, take notice that I shall emerge from under this sheet incomparably more naked than the day I was born, I shall break my bed.’ Wylie passed up the pyjamas and Miss Counihan covered her eyes. ‘Do not be alarmed, Wylie,’ said Neary, ‘the vast majority are bedsores.’ He sat on the edge of the bed in his pyjamas. ‘It is no use my trying to stand,’ he said, ‘nothing is more exhausting than a long rest in bed, so now, Miss Counihan, when you like.’
Miss Counihan stole a look and was so far moved from her grievances as to say:
‘Surely we could make you a little more comfortable?’
Here the keyword was we, a little finger of reconciliation extended to Wylie. Without it the phrase was merely polite, or, at the best, kind. It did not escape Wylie, who looked most willing to be helpful all over.
From the moment that Neary, breaking his bed, admitted that Murphy was found, from the moment namely that on this one point at least they were agreed not to differ, a notable change for the better had come over the atmosphere, now one almost of reciprocal tolerance.
‘Nothing can surprise me any more,’ said Neary.
Miss Counihan and Wylie sprang forward, worked Neary on to his feet, supported him to a chair in the window, lowered him into it.
‘The whiskey is under the bed,’ said Neary.
It was at this moment that they all saw simultaneously for the first time, and with common good breeding refrained from remarking, the slender meanders of water on the floor. Miss Counihan however would not have any whiskey. Wylie raised his glass and said: ‘To the absentee’, a tactful description of Murphy under the circumstances. Miss Counihan honoured this toast with a strong intake of breath.
‘Sit down, the two of you, there before me,’ said Neary, ‘and do not despair. Remember there is no triangle, however obtuse, but the circumference of some circle passes through its wretched vertices. Remember also one thief was saved.’
‘Our medians,’ said Wylie, ‘or whatever the hell they are, meet in Murphy.’
‘Outside us,’ said Neary. ‘Outside us.’
‘In the outer light,’ said Miss Counihan.
Now it was Wylie’s turn, but he could find nothing. No sooner did he realise this, that he would not find anything in time to do himself credit, than he began to look as though he were not looking for anything, nay, as though he were waiting for it to be his turn. Finally Neary said without pity:
‘You to play, Needle.’
‘And do the lady out of the last word!’ cried Wylie. ‘And put the lady to the trouble of finding another! Reary, Neally!’
‘No trouble,’ said Miss Counihan.
Now it was anybody’s turn.
‘Very well,’ said Neary. ‘What I was really coming to, what I wanted to suggest, is this. Let our conversation now be without precedent in fact or literature, each one speaking to the best of his ability the truth to the best of his knowledge. That is what I meant when I said you took the tone, if not the terms, out of my mouth. It is high time we three parted.’
‘But the tone was bitter, I believe,’ said Wylie. ‘That certainly was my impression.’
‘I was not thinking of the tone of voice,’ said Neary, ‘so much as of the tone of mind, the spirit’s approach. But continue, Wylie, by all means. Might not the truth be snarled?’
‘Coleridge-Taylor played with feeling?’ said Wylie.
‘A perfume thrown on the horehound?’ said Miss Counihan.
‘The guillotine sterilised?’ said Wylie.
‘Floodlit the midnight sun?’ said Miss Counihan.
‘We look on the dark side,’ said Neary. ‘It is undeniably less trying to the eyes.’
‘What you suggest is abominable,’ said Wylie, ‘an insult to human nature.’
‘Not at all,’ said Neary. ‘Listen to this.’
‘I must be off,’ said Miss Counihan.
Neary began to speak, or, as it rather sounded, be spoken through. For the voice was flat, the eyes closed and the body bowed and rigid, as though he were kneeling before a priest instead of sitting before two sinners. Altogether he had a great look of Luke’s portrait of Matthew, with the angel perched like a parrot on his shoulder.
‘Almost madly in love with Miss Counihan some short weeks ago, now I do not even dislike her. Betrayed by Wylie in my trust and friendship, I do not even bother to forgive him. The missing Murphy from being a means to a trivial satisfaction, the contingent, as he himself would say, of a contingent, is become in himself an end, the end, my end, unique and indispensable.’
The flow ceased. What truth has not its ballcock?
‘The best of his knowledge,’ said Wylie.
‘To the best of his ability,’ said Miss Counihan. ‘Fair is fair.’
‘Shall I shoot now or will you?’ said Wylie.
‘Do not wait for an answer,’ said Miss Counihan.
Wylie rose to his feet, hooked the thumb of his left hand in the armhole of his waistcoat, covered his præcordia with his right and said:
‘This Neary that does not love Miss Counihan, nor need his Needle, any more, may he soon get over Murphy and find himself free, following his drift, to itch for an ape, or a woman writer.’
‘But this is Old Moore,’ said Miss Counihan, ‘not the Weekly Irish Times.’
‘My attitude,’ said Wylie, ‘being the auscultation, execution and adequation of the voices, or rather voice, of Reason and Philautia, does not change. I continue to regard this Neary as a bull Io, born to be stung, Nature’s gift to necessitous pimps; Miss Counihan as the only nubile amateur to my certain knowledge in the Twenty-six Counties who does not confuse her self with her body, and one of the few bodies, in the same bog, equal to the distinction; Murphy as a vermin at all costs to be avoided—’
Miss Counihan and Neary laughed profusely.
‘He is so importunate,’ said Neary.
‘So pushing,’ said Miss Counihan, ‘so thrusting.’
‘As an abomination,’ said Wylie, ‘the creepy thing that creepeth of the Law. Yet I pursue him.’
‘I pay you to,’ said Neary.
‘Or so you hope,’ said Miss Counihan.
‘Even so the beggar mutilates himself,’ said Wylie, ‘that he may live, and the beaver bites his off.’
He sat down, stood up again immediately, resumed his pose and said:
‘In a word I stand where I have always stood—’
‘Since Heaven lay about you as a bedwetter,’ said Neary.
‘And hope always to stand—’
‘Until you drop,’ said Miss Counihan.
‘Half on the make and half on pleasure bent.’
He sat down again and Miss Counihan seized her opportunity, at just such intensity, pitch, quality and speed as could conveniently be worked up in the few words at her disposal.
‘There is a mind and there is a body—’
‘Shame!’ cried Neary. ‘Kick her arse! Throw her out!’
‘On the one parched palm,’ said Wylie, ‘the swelling heart, the dwindling liver, the foaming spleen, two lungs with luck, with care two kidneys, and so on.’
‘And so forth,’ said Neary, with a sigh.
‘And on the other,’ said Wylie, ‘the little ego and the big id.’
‘Infinite riches in a w.c.,’ said Neary.
‘This ineffable counterpoint,’ continued Miss Counihan, ‘this mutual comment, this sole redeeming feature.’ She stopped in preference to being interrupted.
‘She quite forgets how it goes on,’ said Wylie, ‘she will have to go right back to the beginning, like Darwin’s caterpillar.’
‘Perhaps Murphy did not take her any further,’ said Neary.
‘Everywhe
re I find defiled,’ continued Miss Counihan, ‘in the crass and unharmonious unison, the mind at the cart-tail of the body, the body at the chariot-wheels of the mind. I name no names.’
‘Excellent reception,’ said Wylie.
‘No trace of fading,’ said Neary.
‘Everywhere that is,’ concluded Miss Counihan, ‘except where Murphy is. He did not suffer from this – er – psychosomatic fistula, Murphy my fiancé. Both mind and body, neither mind that is nor body, what can there be beside him, after him what could there be, but a puerile grossness or a senile agility?’
‘Take your choice,’ said Wylie, ‘pick your fancy.’
‘Another semitone,’ said Neary, ‘and we had ceased to hear.’
‘Who knows but that we have?’ said Wylie. ‘Who knows what dirty story, what even better dirty story, it may be even one we have not heard before, told at some colossal pitch of pure smut, beats at this moment in vain against our eardrums?’
‘For me,’ said Neary, with the same sigh as before, ‘the air is always full of such, soughing with the bawdy innuendo of eternity.’
Miss Counihan rose, gathered her things together, walked to the door and unlocked it with the key that she exiled for that purpose from her bosom. Standing in profile against the blazing corridor, with her high buttocks and her low breasts, she looked not merely queenly, but on for anything. And these impressions she enhanced by simply advancing one foot a pace, settling all her weight on the other, inclining her bust no more than was necessary to preserve her from falling down backwards and placing her hands upon her moons, plump and plain. In this position lightly but firmly poised she said, into her lap, in a voice like a distant rake on gravel in a winter gloaming:
‘Now that we have let the cat out of the bag—’
‘The pig out of the poke,’ said Wylie.
‘How are we advantaged?’
‘Wylie,’ said Neary, ‘have a little consideration, you are right in her line of fire.’
‘The Goddess of Gout,’ said Wylie, ‘brooding over a Doan’s Pill.’
‘Do not imagine for a moment I want you to go,’ said Neary, ‘but this little creature is manoeuvring to see you home.’
‘Tut! tut!’ said Wylie, ‘I may not be a trueborn jackeen, but I am better than nothing. My superiority to nothing has often been commented on.’