And when I went back seven years later. Big ship moving up the Hudson into the banners and bunting, greetings and sadness. My my. The straw haired, brown skinned girls of childhood, wracked on their marriage beds, weeping into a future of a husband’s fat belly. And to give them their due, they had courage, and jumped off the bridge in front of the train. Others merely said cohabitation was for animals. Then I think it’s sad sometimes that I didn’t stay and be tragic with them. Or at least to down a few beers in the local saloon with the retarded and failed. But they were terrified at my open talk about life, and in the end I just walked by on the street outside to catch a glimpse of these boyhood friends who had been full of dreams somewhat like my own and I knew, as they bent against the bar, that they were doing the proper thing taking to drink. The trouble was that they could not admit as I could that it was not funny, although, if they could, it could be hilarious.
But I do remember one night. A few days before one of my departures by ship from New York. I was with two almost dear friends early on this cold crisp December afternoon. There was a pantry full of Irish whisky. And the air was brimming with Christmas and bright wrappings of presents. One nearly dear friend was a man, the other a woman. Alas, all three of us had escaped from Europe to the new world. We had gone back to our bubbling long cars. Smooth New York State wines. Nights that were all night. And the cultivated utter richness that is New York. I walked tweedily into the pantry. The man friend was talking to the woman friend. They were saying over the tall icy glasses, my God, let’s both find a port in this storm. Cuba. Or the Bahamas.
My man friend wearing sandals and white socks, having broken his shoes kicking some door down in a rage. I had a bandaged arm, torn open having plunged my fist through a window. And this pretty woman looked a thin picture of death. Between the white cupboards of the pantry we stood smiling at each other. They looked at me and said at least you’re saved in a few days by the good ship Franconia. I said it was true. On that good ship I was going down the North River and out on the cool waters. Next stop Ireland. There was a great friendly clutching of arms and bodies. We were all nearly wailing. She screamed let’s all find a port quick. And my man friend of course, was taking on fuel. Called Power’s Gold Label. In the long drawing-room a madrigal played. Suddenly they were on the telephone, long messages, obscure, confused to friends back in Europe. And less confused messages to the steamship lines. They were going to escape. We went back into the long room with some sun through the window and lay back on the soft couches.
On the distant streets the sirens wailed on their way to the various slayings. I said to my man friend, it’s a run-away horse, no one in control. He agreed. And I knew of his own pathetic steps to adapt. The tent he had built over his bed. The gallon bottles of Chianti he had taken with him inside while wearing his long underwear. And how he had borrowed my photographs of our days in Ireland and took them into this wigwam perusing them with tears streaming down his face.
Down ten floors on the street the cars floated by, all day, all night, all noon and afternoon. One made contact by telephone across the city, Bronx, Brooklyn and Canarsie. I could hear him in his wigwam, out of which he refused to come for days at a time and could only be reached by talking machine. I said my God, come out of there. I told him that this behaviour which I could understand so well and in fact encouraged at first, would only put the wind gale force up his ivy league friends with whom he shared the apartment. And sure enough they got the medicos in the white coats to come and slip on the straight jacket. But I explained to these medical people that he was not off his rock but on his rock while in his wigwam. They tried to lock me up too, until I said I had diplomatic immunity, which while they checked on it, I neatly slipped into the subway.
And so now, on the December day, after these prolonged misunderstandings with various authorities, we had dinner. Guests arrived. Although rather painful, there was some laughter and gaiety. When suddenly a man who had written a play which flopped in Chicago left a table where I was, in anger, because he said I had no right to leave America and live in Europe. That in this city and country the evolution of the race had come, that I belonged to it and came out of it. He stood shaking his fist as the group feasted, and I with European aplomb was scooping up the caviar, as he shouted, if you are as good a writer as you probably are, you have no right to leave America. I was amazed as he stormed out, leaving behind his tasty victuals. Then I sat silent and impressed. He was quite right. I had no right to leave America. And I looked at my man friend and woman friend who knew I was saving my life. Which I didn’t get a chance to tell him.
So I think it is a strange thing to be American. To have a sprawling mind. To have no tiger teeth for ripping enemies. Mine are intact. To have sympathy and understanding instead. And survive by bland, sheepish manoeuvring. I usually love their company and voices. And the tales of fellowships upon which they embark, sailing merrily for Europe. They are more human, urbane than the crafty types on this Atlantic side. And given to sentiment one can only have when you know what it is to own the carpet and refrigerator. But for me, the crystal loneliness of America is its greatest beauty. The wide Middle West. An area from which I’ve received transatlantic telephone calls at 4 A.M. which I can’t answer because they’re reversing the charges. And I learn it’s someone in Dayton, Ohio, called Chad. And I know in my heart that Chad is a nice person whoever it is, but alas my flintiness which lurks in me from my Galway mother will not let me pay pounds for the call.
But it is gratifying that there are these men and women in America who will cry out to Europe in some telephone box, perhaps at midnight on a straight road, through the cornfields. My, what romancing. I would have advised him immediately to erect the wigwam. But I get carried away by the twang and cornfed introspection of these people. How they go East to New York, marry a girl from Radcliffe College who, during her first married year goes tight in the mind and finally screaming and clawing her way stark mad into an institution. Hanging on the railings as they drag her to Bellevue. And this tragedy is so true it has beauty. And the husband stands and tells you this and says it doesn’t matter, I didn’t love her. And his words are true and sad and beautiful.
But where in New York can I have the quiet ablution after breakfast, when I listen to the sometimes naughty rhythms of Housewives’ Choice and go contented to my desk to add more words to my fabulous little collection. Or perhaps eleven on a spring morning to bus to the Victoria and Albert Museum and walk the almost country peace of the corridors. Take a sniff of balmy air in the central garden court of cherry blossoms. All the meanness leaves me momentarily. I think that I will never go back to live in America, in a dry wooden house wearing clean socks. But I miss the change of seasons and how death can come from anywhere. And perhaps, too, the days when I sat at a desk writing there. And at one o’clock on cool clear afternoons to go out to the corner drug store and buy a New York Times. Always noticing the girl behind the counter, who has a curious freckled roasted skin. I take a bus past the cemetery, which after the fights and fury of some of my New York nights, was the only place I would meet this friend of mine who lived in the wigwam over his bed. I’d mention the grave of some illustrious person of which there were many, and in this empty peaceful paradise of the dead, I’d see him sitting scratching his head on this gravestone as I approached stealthily from behind others. Before we could get anywhere with the conversation he’d ask me to lend him a dollar.
“My dear Mike, could you slip me one dollar of American currency.”
“No.”
“Please don’t say that word.”
“I’m saying it.”
“I must have a dollar to have freedom of transport or else they will catch me.”
“We’re safe here with the dead.”
“You think so.”
“Yes.”
“I’ll tell you. As I strolled between these trees and lovely mausoleums I came to an open area. For some reason I said to myself, don’t
cross this open area someone will see you. I distinctly had the feeling I was going Asiatic. And so I stepped out into this glade. I got half way across and from the other side stepped a man. To this man I owed half a crown, which I’d borrowed three years ago in the shade of Epping Forest. Needless to say we passed each other without speaking. And fortunately he began running.”
There was commiserating about how much more of this life in our native land we could stand. I too now had a wigwam over my bed. And a few days ago, when this friend was foolish enough to venture from his wigwam, he walked clean off a subway platform at 4 A.M. while reading Berkeley’s Immaterialism. And the trouble wasn’t so much that he was lying unconscious between the tracks but that when they dragged him up and took a look at the book he clutched they said he was a case for Bellevue Psychiatric. Only his impetuous British accent saved him and he was dismissed as an Englishman who read books.
So I suppose I am too old to live in a wigwam but this is the secret to survival in the U.S.A. And those times when I stood on some promontory looking at New York, dumb-founded at its beauty. But then narrowing down lives till you get where they really are, over the cornflakes and facing the woman who has become a man because men are weak. But what does it matter when you are in the Bronx Zoo as I nearly always was in those days and you walk seeing the monkeys and a man comes up to you and says barefaced right into your own sad face, say buddy, what a roué you’d be back at the asylum. This I think was the friendliest thing I had said to me in that land. And when I had thought over the remark I rushed to find him for the address but he was now out in the middle of the road stopping all traffic, explaining he was an officer of the law and the road was closed to all except those on scooters.
The days ticked by. Sirens wailing. And it was a great feeling to know that the good ship Franconia was down there purring at its dock, loading on the victuals. My friend phoned me from his wigwam and said he would settle for travelling in one of my trunks. I said I couldn’t arrange such a desperate thing. Then it became three days to go. There was no more word from the wigwam. I had lost my voice. And now only wrote messages on scraps of paper. I literally sat at my desk holding on. I kept my shades down so no one could draw a bead on me from across the road. I counted the minutes and hours away. At three o’clock in the afternoon it was time to go. Thinking of the lonely Irish roads. Of tea, cabbage, bacon and egg. I was chauffeured down the West Side Drive. I could see the stacks of the good ship Franconia with wisps of smoke. The sky red and raw. Everything became so simple. Just climb some wooden steps. Along the pier, put a passport into a little kiosk. I admit that I expected a hand to grab me by the wrist and say, wait a minute bud you ain’t going nowhere. But the man smiled. I wrote thank you on one of my scraps of paper. I went up the gangway. They were serving tea in an enclosure called the garden lounge. There were tears in my eyes. I said silently, I’m in England. Then I watched the mooring lines. I had to see them cast off and then I would take a nice lungful of air, now that I had indeed escaped. Safe and sound on that fantail. I thought of that sad wigwam from which one of the most ferocious battles on the American continent had been waged, high over the speeding endless cars crossing the wasteland of Queens. I wondered then, whither goest that wigwam. Mine was neatly packed in the hold of the ship.
Now the blast of the ship’s whistle. Echoing back from across the New Jersey shore and off the high buildings. I crouched into my fur collar. I had cabin 38 on R deck on this nearly empty ship. That good skipper was up on his bridge. Being a naval man myself I could see all was secure for sea. Then there was that silence, that pause that proceeds all momentous things, all final things. Whither goest that wigwam. The sailors’ hands on the gangway waiting to let go. I heard footfalls. Rapid ones pounding closer on the wooden pier. I heard a voice I knew, shouting, don’t go, wait for me. There he was, wily wigwam strapped on his back. Arran islander’s hat on head. A paper bag full of a handful of possessions. An arm clutching the gallon of Chianti.
On the stern of that ship that day we stood watching. Moving out toward the Narrows. A mist over Manhattan. A deck porter handed out the beef tea and biscuit. Something had stopped in that city. It was as certain as anything I had ever felt in my life. And I knew what it was. They had stopped chasing us. Whither goest that wigwam.
Rackets and Riches at Wimbledon
In June in a thick green summer valley. The sun pours down and they pop the fluffy white ball back and forth. The little grass arenas where they say deuce and love and first service and fault and quiet please. And I go bathe myself in the intolerable sadness all sport brings to my soul.
These tasty days of The Lawn Tennis Championships upon the lawns of The All England Club. Wimbledon fortnight of golden female legs. On court and off. And I came on my own white ones which I used lightly walking down a country lane past houses with lanterns polished and gleaming outside their freshly painted doors. Where grey haired ladies take tea on their terraces and children’s voices come through the air of the quiet afternoon. And by the roadside a man sits benignly playing I Know That My Redeemer Liveth on his portable organ, an upturned hat on the grass for clinking silver.
The stadium looms dark green and ivy clad, holding rich hearts, eager hearts and my own grey one shortly arriving. Into the long concrete covered tunnel to pay five shillings. Through the turnstyle where the money is piling up in mountains and suddenly one stands terribly interested in a corridor thick with the tinted tender tempting smell of women. The perfume is musk and mad. Prices of the various smells pass me by at about thirty guineas an ounce. The flowered dresses, the bronze and freckled faces. Pearls and gracious beads. Hats straw and gay and striped and strange. A blond star of stage, a famous fair lady floating by, as heads turn and my mind mentions, please, may I touch you. But she’s gone with smiles only for close friends, mostly ticket holders in the shade with cushions for bottoms and backs. And her beauty goes to sit a flower among the tan masks. I squeeze bereft into the free standing room. A sardine in the sun.
Two o’clock. I’m crushed by school girls reading programmes over each other’s shoulders. All in uniforms. They shove and push me with absolutely no regard for my age. I’m confused by their early interest in tennis. Perhaps parents steering them away from men. The judges come out. Wearing red and some, yellow carnations, exuding rectitude in all directions. A grassy law court. Litigants wear white. The referee takes his measuring rod to the net. Photographers preparing cameras. Ball boys in their purple and green shirts, splay footed, hands folded behind backs. They’ve been trained to notice a player’s whim, his nod, wink and wish. And I fear, to absorb growls at the odd time when his ill nature rears.
And then suddenly there’s clapping. From under the Royal awninged box come the players. Traversing silently, snugly on their soft soles. Some lilt, some bounce. There is very little waddling due to the speed of this sport. But players come in all types and sizes, or all sorts of caprice and demeanours. There are the grass beaters, who fluff the return of a lob and hold the grass down with one hand and batter it with a racket with the other. Then the kneelers. They get down on knees, putting racket gently aside to slowly hold their heads in their hands. I rather prefer this sort. They don’t damage the court and it’s moving to watch supplication proffered to the open sky.
But let us play tennis. There is no eagerness to start the game. At this stage they cavort with some real snazzy shots, wearing indifference on the face. Until the umpire aloft on his high chair, score sheet on his lap, whispers into the mike, are you ready. The ball boys lift the lid of the refrigerator. The balls come out, cool to the touch, bouncing with perfection. Just ripe for players who come from all corners of the globe to play with these fuzzy spheres at a universal temperature. The idea is hypnotizing. And for two weeks I waited for someone to object to a warm ball.
The call for silence please. Lights lit in the Scoreboard. All eyes on this sacred carpet of green. Ball boys on one knee at the net, ready to rush and scoop up
on the run. Server casually to base line to carefully place a foot, and takes that instant of aim. I feel a message go to his opponent, I say chap, if you see this one at all, don’t be foolish enough to stick your cat gut out because it will go right through. The player receiving the message crouches, a little flex of calf muscles and a bounce. Stares back, an eye on each side of his bat and sends back, my dear fellow I hope when my return lob passes from a ray of sunshine through your own cat gut you will be good enough to help them dig it out of your court. Needless to say not many in the crowd catch these wordless exchanges, which frankly are shockingly unspeakable between women competitors.
But there is sportsmanship. The backslap is there. For the loser at the net. The steel handshake of a winner. The arm around the shoulder walking off court. And in the heat of the match the acknowledging hand at the beauty of a drop shot. At this latter the crowd roars and claps, the executor of such a shot drops head and with humility humming, wipes face of all expression. This tells the crowd you’ve seen nothing yet. Which makes me long for those full women who brazenly and breastfully hammer the ball in all directions and helplessly lose.
Day after day the eliminations go on. The angled cross court passing shot much favoured by the crowds. More and more the folks gravitate to centre and number one courts. Outside in the grounds now deserted by famous names, the people thin out. The first opening week seems far away when the crowds returned fresh, gay, packed on the underground train with their cocktail chatter of voices, the lean unmuscled arms of carefree women hanging everywhere. When I heard conversation about the wine champagne and trunks for travelling and the good old days when people knew their place. And when I listened for a word of tennis and heard that an aunt Mirabelle had to let her second gardener go. I was alas, also amazed by the absolute indifference shown to my presence on the train.