“Would you take it?”
“Who wouldn’t? Or is it absurd of me to be so ambitious? Maybe I should stick to leprechauns?”
“Leprechauns or Juliet—it’s all acting.”
“I know. And you haven’t yet told me how—if—you LIKED my acting.”
“You really want me to?”
“Sure. I can bear it.”
He said judicially after a pause: “I don’t think you know HOW to act, but I think you have SOMETHING—I don’t quite know what—but it’s something you’d be lucky to have as well, even if you did know how to act.”
“All I have to do, then, is to learn?”
“Yes. And UN-learn.”
“Ah, I see.”
The inflection he caught in her voice made him continue quickly: “Remember, that’s only my opinion.” The words didn’t sound like his, and he wondered how far the impulse to speak them could be identified as humility, truculence, or a simple desire to spare her feelings.
“It’s what I asked for. Thank you.”
“Yes, but—but—”
“But what?”
“Well, what I mean is, don’t let ANYBODY’S opinion worry you. Because worrying wouldn’t help. And unless the person who criticizes has something constructive to say—” He checked himself, aware of immense pitfalls.
She said musingly after a pause: “I expect you’re right—that I’ve everything to learn and unlearn.”
“I didn’t say EVERYTHING. You weren’t at a dramatic school?”
“No. Is that what I need?”
“On the contrary, I rather thought you HAD been to some school.” He laughed. “They teach a lot of the wrong things.”
“Ah, now, Mr. Saffron, am I as bad as that?”
“My name’s Paul, by the way. I wish you’d call me Paul.”
“All right. PAUL. And I don’t know how to act, according to you. Maybe you think you could teach me?”
“Heavens, no. I’m not a teacher. I can’t act myself—I haven’t the vaguest idea how it’s done.” Again he knew that this was an attitude-cliché, with just enough truth in it for guile. “All I do —all I hope to do—is to… if I had to put it into a sentence… to… to communicate a sort of excitement.” Well, that was true —fairly true, anyhow. “If you challenge me to say I could do that with you, then I’ll say it—I’d try to, anyhow… I mean, if I were directing a play you were in.”
“Excitement?”
“Of course there’s much more to it than just that—there’s style and technique and a hundred other things. But the essential thing is the kindling of emotion in the actor—in his mind, in his voice, in his movements.”
“Emotional excitement?”
“Call it anything you like. Perhaps it’s what Oscar Wilde meant when he said he felt in a mood to pick his teeth with the spire of a cathedral.”
“HE said that?”
He nodded, amused at what he guessed—that to her Catholic mind the name was necessarily a symbol of wickedness. “Are you surprised?”
“Oh, no. But I’d never heard it before. It’s a wonderful phrase.”
“Wilde was one of the wittiest men who ever lived.”
“I know. I’ve read his plays. Under the bedclothes with a flashlight.” She caught his look and added: “That was at school. They were strict about the books we got, but we used to smuggle them in. I also read De Profundis and The Ballad of Reading Gaol.”
“You were interested in Wilde at that age?”
“Oh yes—and my great-uncle often talked about him—still does. He knew him. They were at T.C.D. together.” Again she intercepted the look. “That’s Trinity College, Dublin.”
He gaped, a little enchanted by this strange Irish world in which there could be so much intimacy and innocence combined; for of all the reasons for being concerned about Wilde, surely the fact that one’s great-uncle had been at college with him was unmatchable.
She broke into his reverie by saying: “Did YOU ever have that feeling —that you could pick your teeth with the spire of a cathedral?”
The answer that came to his mind (that he was enjoying such a sensation there and then) was too simple and astonishing to confess, so he said: “Well, on a first night when you know the play’s a hit you feel pretty good.” (He had never had this experience.)
She nodded, more with encouragement than assent, and he went on feverishly: “And sometimes also it happens at quieter moments—when you’re alone or with just one other person… the heart suddenly beating a little faster, putting its private exclamation mark at the end of every thought.”
“That’s not a bad phrase either.” (It was his own, but he had used it before in some article.) “You could be Irish, the way the words come.”
He laughed. “A real playboy of the western world, with an American accent.”
“Yes, and you ought to visit the West, by the way—OUR West— Kerry, Clare, Connemara…”
“Perhaps I will when I’ve straightened out a few ideas about Ireland in general.”
“Not too straight or they’ll surely not be right. Remember we’re a twisted people.”
“And I’m a twisted man.”
She said quietly: “What do you mean by that?”
“Nothing, nothing. A joke. Can’t I joke too? But I AM getting a feeling of this country and I think I DO know what you mean when you call it twisted.”
It was true that he was already aware of Ireland as an atmosphere— something at once garrulous and secretive, warm-hearted yet slightly mocking, as if after a thousand years of insolubility a problem could become itself a kind of dark inscrutable answer. So far he had been in Dublin a week and had written not a line; all he had done was to sightsee, read newspapers, talk to everyone he met, hear a few shots in the distance, and go to the theatre. Yet deeper than such surface contacts was something that came to him by the same channel that it could pass from him to others—a communication of excitement, as he had called it, so that, had Dublin been a play, he would have been aching to put it on the stage. There was a symmetry in the emotion that the city gave him, and his meeting with Carey seemed part of it.
She on her side was equally aware that she had never met anyone who interested her so much as Paul. As he went on talking she was sure he must realize how comparatively ignorant she was, yet at the same time she knew how little it mattered; she had wits to match his in the profound escapade which, at first, is every human relationship of consequence. Nor had she been really hurt by his telling her that she didn’t know how to act, because she felt he would have been more polite if he had been less interested in her (though in that she was wrong); and, as the hours progressed till it was time to return to the streets, she passionately wanted to retain his interest, not only for its own sake, but for the strength she already felt she could draw from such a new thing in her life. For she alone knew how events during recent months had strained her nerve, had set up tensions that had kept her sleepless often till dawn, weakening even ambition, so that from the original ‘I want to be a great actress’ that had kept her emotionally alive as a schoolgirl, she had caught herself lately in half-wistful clingings, as if the dream were becoming a prop instead of an urge. But suddenly, talking to Paul, she had felt the urge again.
When he took her hand outside the theatre he said he hoped it wasn’t the last time they would see each other.
“Oh yes, I hope so too. When are you leaving?”
“Don’t know exactly. Depends on how soon I finish the job I’m here for.” He smiled. “Maybe I won’t hurry.”
“Fine. So we really ought to meet again.”
They waited, each for the other; then he said, taking the plunge: “What about tomorrow?”
“Oh dear, there’s a matinée on Saturdays. But you could come for tea at Mona’s afterwards. She has a little flat just round the corner— I always go there between shows on matinée days.”
“Who’s Mona?”
“My best friend. She wa
s Pegeen in the play, if you remember… Can you come?”
There wouldn’t be much time, between the end of a theatre matinée and dinner at Venton League, but he made a note of the address and said he would be there.
* * * * *
All evening and the next morning and afternoon he had the recurrent feeling that to have made such an appointment was a mistake; he wanted to see Carey again, but only alone; to meet her with her friend was pointless, for he so often did not get along with strangers, especially girls, and he had a gloomy foreboding that Mona would prove to be one or another kind of bore. Up to five o’clock he was in mind not to go, but then it began to rain, the soft Irish rain that seemed to caress the air even more than sunshine. The rooms of Venton League darkened as the clouds rolled over, yet only the house was melancholy; the rain tempted one out of doors into a luminous grey cheerfulness. He put on a mackintosh and walked down the drive, relishing the fragrance of lawns and shrubs. A tram was at the terminus outside the lodge gates; boarding it he climbed to the upper deck where the rain lashed the windows soundlessly. He rubbed a clear space on the pane and stared down at the glistening pavements and bobbing umbrella-tops as the journey began. He tried to think what it was in Carey that so attracted him, something in her like a magnet to a compass needle, luring him into behaviour that was out of character—or perhaps only out of the character he had hitherto decided was his own. In this sense his discovery of her was a discovery of himself, and he was puzzled as well as fascinated. Was it merely her voice that did such things to him, or her slight, slanting smile, Mona Lisa among the leprechauns, or her face in quiet profile that was like the figurehead of a ship on a calm day? An actress? Yes, she had the makings of one in her. But the act that enticed him was that of her simple existence.
He left the tram at the Pillar and explored through the rain till he found the flat. A tall Regency house had been subdivided; the flat was on the third floor. He climbed with his heart pounding only partly from the physical exertion, but when Carey opened the door all his tension vanished as if a switch had been pulled. The first exchange of looks confirmed the ease she could give him, instantly, so that he even forgot about Mona. Then when she was taking his dripping hat and mackintosh she mentioned that Mona was out.
“I don’t mind,” he said wryly.
“Oh, but you’ll find her interesting—you could get at least an article out of her.”
“About what?”
“Irish legends—antiquities—old Dublin—she knows it all. This house, for instance, had quite a history before it came down in the world.”
“I’d say that with you here it hasn’t come down in the world at all.”
He wasn’t good at compliments, and this one sounded stilted and artificial. But she warmed it to life with her laughter. “Oh, what a sweet thing to say! But it really was a grand house in the old days—it belonged to Lord Fitzhugh—the Catholic Fitzhughs. They were a wild, eccentric family—one of them fought with Wolfe Tone, and another was always called the holy man because he—”
“Are YOU a Catholic?” he interrupted, brushing aside the Fitzhughs.
“Yes, but I’m not very holy.”
“You mean religion doesn’t matter much to you?”
“Oh no, it matters a lot, but I’m just not conscious of it all the time. Like when you have a good digestion and you don’t worry about what you eat.”
“So you’d call a saint a fellow with a touch of spiritual indigestion?”
“Ah, now, you’re laughing at me.”
“I’m never quite sure when you’re joking.”
“Neither am I. That’s the trouble sometimes.”
“Oh? What trouble? When?”
“Well… during the worst of the street fighting recently nobody would believe how scared I really was.”
“I think I’d be scared too.”
“But you probably wouldn’t laugh about it as I did.”
“No, I’d just run—very seriously.”
“But you can’t, when you’re in a panic. It transfixes you. Perhaps you’ve never known panic.”
So the subject was panic, he thought, with the kind of acceptance that comes in a dream. He had a wild idea to tell her about the panic he had indeed known, the secret panic that sprang from his ambition whenever he realized how time was passing and he was no nearer accomplishment, the rage that sometimes followed the panic, so that he said stupid, brutal things that were often held against him for ever. Panic—yes, he had felt it every birthday when he looked back on the year and reckoned his lack of advancement. Would she understand that if he tried to explain it? Would her own ambitions give her any inkling? He said gruffly: “I’ve never been shot at except by life, and that goes on all the time.”
“Because you find battles everywhere, Paul… don’t you?”
“They ARE everywhere, except… a few moments… a few people… you, for instance.” And saying that, in words so simple, even banal, gave him a comfort that was partly an immense laziness, so that he could relax the sinews of his spirit in her company and let come what might in either words or actions.
She exclaimed: “Oh, I’m so glad about that. I wondered if you’d ever want to see me again after yesterday.”
“Why on earth shouldn’t I?”
“I’m not as clever as you. I don’t know very much. I thought you were just trying to get material out of me for an article.”
“Good heavens, do you think I’m always using people?”
“I wouldn’t blame you if you were. You’re a writer—an artist. It’s justified by the results.”
“You really think it is, in my case?”
And again the impulse overwhelmed him to tell her, of all things, the truth; to confess it as she would doubtless confess to a priest. He could begin, at least, by admitting that all his boasts and brashness were to cover an almost complete lack of success in anything he had really wanted to do so far; he could say that the articles he had the trick of writing were always trivial and sometimes contemptible, that he had had long spells of fruitless striving and agonized self-disgust, that he was still practically unknown on Broadway despite his poses and pretensions abroad, that he had directed only two plays in his entire life, both of them at an experimental theatre in a New York suburb; that neither had attracted attention or been popular; and that even these meagre achievements had taken place several years before, since when he had been unable to persuade anyone else to give him a third chance. All this he could tell her, and then, perhaps, could follow even other truths…
He said: “Listen… you’ve been so kind, so… so friendly and… and sympathetic… I don’t want you to get any wrong ideas about me… Oh God, don’t answer it—they’ll call again if it’s anything important… let it ring, let it ring…”
But it wasn’t the telephone, for the flat possessed none. Carey hesitated, but there was clearly nothing else she could do but admit Mona. Nervously effusive, devoured by curiosity, Mona was also maddeningly discreet in the way she had forborne to use her key.
Paul froze instantly, became glum, and soon got up to go. The fact that it was Mona’s flat did not prevent him from regarding her as a complete intruder. Carey took him downstairs. They said nothing till they were in the hallway and could see out into the street. The rain had stopped and a watery sunlight glinted on the wet pavements. They were both aware of things unsaid that might never be said on any other occasion. She touched his arm and whispered: “Oh, Paul, I’m sorry.”
“I’m sorry too, if I was rude, but I was just getting in a mood to talk —I mean, REALLY talk.”
“I know.”
“I wonder if you do know.”
She made no answer to that, but presently said: “We can meet again. Do you like the country—I mean, getting out of the city—mountains —scenery?”
He didn’t, but he rallied himself to give a grudging assent.
“We might go to Glendalough, if you have a day to spare, or even half a day. I
could borrow Mona’s car—it’s terribly old and shabby, but it runs. There’s the lake and the famous Round Tower—might be something else for one of your articles.”
“Oh, damn the articles. I’d like to go, though, but when?”
“Yes, I know how busy you are—”
“Sunday’s your best day, isn’t it? What about this Sunday?”
“Tomorrow? Again tomorrow? Oh yes, if I can get the car. Do you mind if it rains? It probably will… this kind of weather… oh, it doesn’t matter, does it? Would ten o’clock be too early to start? I could pick you up where you’re staying…”
“Venton League? You know where that is?”
“Of course—everyone knows Mr. Rowden’s house. It’s less than a mile from where I live, and directly on our way… Tomorrow, then.”
* * * * *
But they never did go to Glendalough. Late that evening, when he mentioned the planned excursion, Rowden said suavely: “But, my dear Paul, aren’t you forgetting the party we had planned? A. E.‘s coming, and even Yeats promised —besides the Abbey crowd…”
Paul had forgotten, but recovered himself enough, he hoped, to conceal the fact. “I know—I’m looking forward to it immensely, but if I start early I’ll be back in plenty of time for dinner.”
“It happens to be a lunch party.”
“LUNCH? I thought you said—”
“Several of them couldn’t come in the evening—Yeats in particular —and as I was anxious to have you meet our leading lights—good material for a journalist apart from the fun you might have.”
Paul felt a sharp concern, realizing it wasn’t Rowden’s fault, yet unwilling to accept at any price the cancellation of his appointment with Carey.
“And you can go to Glendalough some other time,” Rowden was continuing. “I won’t accompany you, I’ve been there so often, the place bores me a little. But YOU should go—it’s worth seeing, touristically. You can have Roberts for the day.” And after a pause: “Or had you other plans? Perhaps you’d arranged to go with someone else?”
“Well yes, I had, to be frank…”