Judas


“Sure you won’t be late, Jerry?” said the mother and I going out.

“Am I ever late?” said I, and I laughed.

That was all we said, Michael John, but it stuck in my mind. As I was
going down the road I was thinking it was months since I’d taken her
to the pictures. Of course, you might think that funny, but after the
father’s death we were thrown together a lot. And I knew she hated
being alone in the house after dark.

At the same time I had my own troubles. You see, Michael John, being
an only child I never knocked round the way other fellows did. All the
fellows in the office went out with girls, or at any rate they let on
they did. They said “Who was the old doll I saw you with last night,
Jerry? You’d better mind yourself, or you'll be getting into trouble.”
To hear them you’d imagine there was no sport in the world, only
girls, and that they’d always be getting you into trouble. Paddy
Kinnane, for instance, talked like that, and he never saw the way it
upset me. I think he thought it was a great compliment. It wasn’t
until years after that I began to suspect that Paddy’s acquaintance
with girls was about of one kind with my own.

Then I met Kitty Doherty. Kitty was a hospital nurse, and all the
chaps in the office said a fellow should never go with hospital
nurses. Ordinary girls were bad enough, but nurses were a fright—they
knew too much. I knew when I met Kitty that that was a lie. She was a
well educated superior girl; she lived up the river in a posh
locality, and her mother was on all sorts of councils and
committees. Kitty was small and wiry; a good-looking girl, always in
good humor, and when she talked, she hopped from one thing to another
like a robin on a frosty morning.

I used to meet her in the evening up the river road, as if I was
walking there by accident and very surprised to see her. “Fancy
meeting you!” I’d say, or “Well, well, isn’t this a great surprise!”
Mind you, it usually was, for, no matter how much I was expecting her,
I was never prepared for the shock of her presence. Then we'd stand
talking for half an hour and I’d see her home. Several times she asked
me in, but I was too nervous. I knew I’d lose my head, break the
china, use some dirty word, and then go home and cut my throat. Of
course, I never asked her to come to the pictures or anything of the
sort. She was above that. My only hope was that if I waited long
enough I might be able to save her from drowning or the white slavers
or something else dramatic, which would show in a modest and dignified
way how I felt about her. At the same time I had a bad conscience
because I knew I should stay at home more with the mother, but the
very thought that I might be missing an opportunity of fishing Kitty
out of the river would spoil a whole evening on me.

That night in particular I was nearly distracted. It was three weeks
since I’d seen Kitty. I was sure that, at the very least, she was
dying and asking for me, and that no one knew my address. A week
before, I had felt I simply couldn’t bear it any longer, so I had made
an excuse and gone down to the post office. I rang up the hospital and
asked for Kitty. I fully expected them to say in gloomy tones that
Kitty had died half an hour before, and got the shock of my life when
the girl at the other end asked my name. I lost my head. “I’m afraid
I’m a stranger to Miss Doherty,” I said with an embarrassed laugh,
“but I have a message for her from a friend.”

Then I grew completely panic-stricken. What could a girl like Kitty
make of a damned, deliberate lie like that? What else was it but a
trap laid by an old and cunning hand? I held the receiver out and
looked at it as if it was someone whose neck I was going to
wring. “Moynihan,” I said to it, “you’re mad. An asylum, Moynihan, is
the only place for you.”

I heard Kitty’s voice not in my ear at all, but in the telephone booth
as though she were standing before me, and nearly dropped the receiver
in terror. Then I raised it and asked in what I thought of as a French
accent: “Who is dat speaking, please?” “This is Kitty Doherty,” she
replied impatiently. “Who are you?”

That was exactly what I was wondering myself. “I am Monsieur
Bertrand,” I went on cautiously. “I am afraid I have the wrong
number. I am so sorry.” Then I put down the receiver carefully and
thought how nice it would be if only I had a penknife handy to cut my
throat with. It’s funny, but from the moment I met Kitty I was always
coveting sharp things like razors and penknives.

After that an awful idea dawned on me. Of course, I should have
thought of it before, but, as you can see, I wasn’t exactly
knowledgeable where girls were concerned. I began to see that I wasn’t
meeting Kitty for the very good reason that Kitty didn’t want to meet
me. What her reason was, I could only imagine, but imagination was my
strong point. I examined my conscience to see what I might have said
to her. I remembered every remark I had made. The reason was only too
clear. Every single remark I had made was either brutal, indecent or
disgusting. I had talked of Paddy Kinnane as a fellow who “went with
dolls.” What could a pure-minded girl think of a chap who naturally
used such a phrase except—what unfortunately was quite true—that he
had a mind like a cesspit.

But this evening I felt more confident. It was a lovely summer evening
with views of hillsides and fields between the gaps in the houses, and
it raised my spirits. Perhaps I was wrong; perhaps she hadn’t noticed
or understood my filthy conversation, perhaps we might meet and walk
home together. I walked the full length of the river road and back,
and then started to walk it again. The crowds were thinning out as
fellows and girls slipped off up the lanes or down to the riverbank,
courting. As the streets went out like lamps about me, my hopes sank
lower and lower. I saw clearly that she was avoiding me; that she knew
I was not the quiet, good-natured fellow I let on to be but a volcano
of brutality and lust. “Lust, lust, lust!” I hissed to myself,
clenching my fists. I could have forgiven myself anything but the
lust.

Then I glanced up and saw her on a tram. I instantly forgot about the
lust and smiled and waved my cap to her, but she was looking ahead and
didn’t see me. I raced after the car, intending to jump onto it, to
sit in one of the back seats on top where she would not see me, and
then say in astonishment as she got off “Fancy meeting you here!”  But
as if the driver knew what was in my mind, he put on speed, and the
old tram went tossing and screeching down the one straight bit of road
in the town, and I stood panting in the roadway, smiling as though
missing a tram were the best joke in the world, and wishing all the
time that I had a penknife and the courage to use it. My position was
hopeless!

Then I must have gone a bit mad—really mad, I mean—for I started to
race the tram. There were still lots of people out walking, and they
stared after me in an incredulous way, so I lifted my fists to my
chest in the attitude of a professional runner and dropped into what I
fondly hoped would look like a comfortable stride and delude them into
the belief that I was in training for a big race. By the time I was
finished, I was a runner, and full of indignation against the people
who still continued to stare at me.

Between my running and the tram’s halts I just managed to keep it in
view as far as the other side of town. When I saw Kitty get off and go
up a hilly street, I collapsed and was only just able to drag myself
after her. When she went into a house on a terrace, I sat on the high
curb with my head between my knees until the panting stopped. At any
rate I felt safe. I could afford to rest, could walk up and down
before the house until she came out, and accost her with an innocent
smile and say “Fancy meeting you!”

But my luck was dead out that night. As I was walking up and down,
close enough to the house to keep it in view but not close enough to
be observed from the windows, I saw a tall man strolling up at the
opposite side of the road and my heart sank. It was Paddy Kinnane.

“Hallo, Jerry,” he chuckled with that knowing grin he put on whenever
he wanted to compliment you on being discovered in a compromising
situation. “What are you doing here?”

“Just waiting for a chap I had a date with, Paddy,” I said, trying to
sound casual.

“Looks more as if you were waiting for an old doll, to me,” Paddy said
flatteringly. “Still waters run deep. When are you supposed to be
meeting him?”

Cripes, I didn’t even know what the time was!

“Half eight,” I said at random.

“Half eight?” said Paddy. “’Tis nearly nine now.”

“Ah, he’s a most unpunctual fellow,” I said. “He’s always the same.
He'll turn up all right.”

“I may as well wait with you,” said Paddy, leaning against the wall
and taking out a packet of cigarettes. “You might find yourself stuck
by the end of the evening. There’s people in this town that have no
consideration for anyone.”

That was Paddy all out: a heart of gold; no trouble too much for him
if he could do you a good turn—I’d have loved to strangle him.

“Ah, to hell with him!” I said impatiently. “I won’t bother
waiting. It only struck me this minute that I have another appointment
up the Western Road. You'll excuse me now, Paddy. I'll tell you all
about it another time.”

And away I went hell-for-leather to the tram. I mounted it and went on
to the other terminus, near Kitty’s house. There, at least, Paddy
Kinnane could not get at me. I sat on the river wall in the dusk. The
moon was rising, and every quarter of an hour a tram came grunting and
squeaking over the old bridge and went black-out while the conductor
switched his trolley. Each time I got off the wall and stood on the
curb in the moonlight, searching for Kitty among the passengers. Then
a policeman came along, and, as he seemed to be watching me, I slunk
slowly off up the hill and stood against a wall in shadow. There was a
high wall at the other side of the road as well, and behind it the
roof of a house was cut out of the sky in moonlight. Every now and
then a tram came in and people passed, and the snatches of
conversation I caught were like the warmth from an open door to the
heart of a homeless man. It was quite clear now that my position was
hopeless. If Kitty had walked or been driven she could have reached
home from the opposite direction. She could be at home in bed by
now. The last tram came and went, and still there was no Kitty, and
still I hung on despairingly. While one glimmer of a chance remained I
could not go home.

Then I heard a woman’s step. I couldn’t even pretend to myself that it
might be Kitty until she suddenly shuffled past me with that hasty
little walk of hers. I started and called her name. She glanced
quickly over her shoulder and, seeing a man emerge from the shadow,
took fright and ran. I ran too, but she put on speed and began to
outdistance me. At that I despaired. I stood on the pavement and
shouted after her at the top of my voice.

“Kitty! Kitty, for God’s sake wait!”

She ran a few steps further and then halted incredulously. She looked
back, and then turned and slowly retraced her steps.

“Jerry Moynihan!” she whispered in astonishment. “What are you doing
here?”

I was summoning strength to tell her that I had happened to be taking
a stoll in that direction and was astonished to see her when I
realized the improbability of it and bega to cry instead. Then I
laughed. It was hysteria, I suppose. But Kitty had had a bad fright
and, now she was getting over it, she was as cross as two sticks.

“What’s wrong with you, I say?” she snapped. “Are you out of your
mind or what?”

“But I didn’t see you for weeks,” I burst out.

“I know,” she replied. “I wasn’t out. What about it?”

“I thought it might be something I said to you,” I said desperately.

“What did you say?” she asked in bewilderment, but I couldn’t repeat
the hideous things I had already said. Perhaps, after all, she hadn’t
noticed them!

“How do I know?”

“Oh, it’s not that,” she said impatiently. “It’s just Mother.”

“Why?” I asked almost joyously. “Is there something wrong with her?”

“Ah, no, but she made such a fuss about it. I felt it wasn’t worth
it.”

“A fuss? What did she make a fuss about?”

“About you, of course,” Kitty said in exasperation.

“But what did I do?” I asked, clutching my head. This was worse than
anything I had ever imagined. This was terrible!

“You didn’t do anything, but people were talking-about us. And you
wouldn’t come in and be introduced like anyone else. I know she’s a
bit of a fool, and her head is stuffed with old nonsense about her
family. I could never see that they were different to anyone else, and
anyway she married a commercial traveller herself, so she has nothing
to talk about. Still, you needn’t be so superior.”

I felt cold shivers run through me. I had thought of Kitty as a secret
between God, herself, and me and assumed that she only knew the half
of it. Now it seemed I didn’t even know the half. People were talking
about us! I was superior! What next?

“But what has she against me?” I asked despairingly.

“She thinks we’re doing a tangle, of course,” snapped Kitty as if she
was astonished at my stupidity, “and I suppose she imagines you’re not
grand enough for a great-great-grandniece of Daniel O’Connell. I told
her you were above that sort of thing, but she wouldn’t believe
me. She said I was a deep, callous, crafty little intriguer and I
hadn’t a drop of Daniel O’Connell’s blood in my veins.” Kitty giggled
at the thought of herself as an intriguer, and no wonder.

“That’s all she knows,” I said despairingly.

“I know,” Kitty agreed. “She has no sense. And anyway she has no
reason to think I’m telling lies. Cissy and I always had fellows, and
we spooned with them all over the shop under her very nose, so I don’t
see why she thinks I’m trying to conceal anything.”

At this I began to laugh like an idiot. This was worse than appaling.
This was a nightmare. Kitty, whom I had thought so angelic, talking in
cold blood about “spooning” with fellows all over the house. Even the
bad women in the books I had read didn’t talk about love-making in that
cold-blooded way. Madame Bovary herself had at least the decency to
pretend that she didn’t like it. It was another door opening on he
outside world, but Kitty thought I was laughing at her and started o
apologize.

“Of course, I had no sense at the time,” she said. “You were the first
fellow I met that treated me properly. The others only wanted to fool
round, and now, because I don’t like it, Mother thinks I’m into
something ghastly. I told her I liked you better than any fellow I
knew, but that I’d grown out of all that sort of thing.”

“And what did she say to that?” I asked fiercely. I was beginning to
see that imagination wasn’t enough; that all round me there was an
objective reality that was a thousand times more nightmarish than any
fantasy of my own. I couldn’t hear enough about it, though at the same
time it turned my stomach.

“Ah, I told you she was silly,” Kitty said in embarrassment.

“Go on!” I shouted. “I want to know.”

“Well,” said Kitty with a demure grin, “she said you were a deep,
designing guttersnipe who knew exactly how to get round feather-pated
little idiots like me. ... You see, it’s quite hopeless. The woman is
common. She doesn’t understand.”

“Oh, God!” I said almost in tears. “I only wish she was right.”

“Why do you wish she was right?” Kitty asked with real curiosity.

“Because then I’d have some chance of you,” I said.

“Oh!” said Kitty, as if this was news to her. “To tell you the truth,”
she added after a moment, “I thought you were a bit keen at first, but
then I wasn’t sure. When you didn’t kiss me or anything, I mean.”

“God,” I said bitterly, “when I think what I’ve been through in the
past few weeks!”

“I know,” said Kitty, biting her lip. “I was a bit fed up too.”

Then we said nothing for a few moments.

“You’re sure you mean it?” she said suspiciously.

“But I tell you I was on the point of committing suicide,” I said
angrily.

“What good would that be?” she asked with another shrug, and this time
she looked at me and laughed outright—the little jade!

I insisted on telling her about my prospects. She didn’t want to hear
about my prospects; she wanted me to kiss her, but that seemed to me a
very sissy sort of occupation, so I told her just the same, in the
intervals. It was as if a stone had been lifted off my heart, and I
went home in the moonlight, singing. Then I heard the clock strike,
and the singing stopped. I remembered the mother’s “Sure you won’t be
late?”  and my own “Am I ever late?” This was desperation too, but of
a different sort.

The door was ajar and the kitchen in darkness. I saw her sitting
before the fire by herself, and just as I was about to throw my arms
around her, I smelt Kitty’s perfume and was afraid to go near her. God
help us, as though that would have told her anything!

“Hullo Mum,” I said with a nervous laugh, rubbing my hands. “You're
all in darkness.”

“You'll have a cup of tea?” she said.

“I might as well.”

“What time is it?” she said, lighting the gas. “You're very late.”

“I met a fellow from the office,” I said, but at the same time I was
stung by the complaint in her tone.

‘You frightened me,” she said with a little whimper. “I didn’t know
what happened you. What kept you at all?”

“Oh, what do you think?” I said, goaded by my own sense of
guilt. “Drinking and blackguarding as usual.”

I could have bitten my tongue off as I said it; it sounded so cruel,
as if some stranger had said it instead of me. She turned to me with a
frightened stare as if she were seeing the stranger too, and somehow I
couldn’t bear it.

“God Almighty!” I said. “A fellow can have no life in his own house.”

I went hastily upstairs, lit the candle, undressed, and got into
bed. A chap could be a drunkard and blackguard and not be made to
suffer what I was being made to suffer for being out late one single
night. This, I felt, was what you got for being a good son.

“Jerry,” she called from the foot of the stairs, “will I bring you up
your cup?”

“I don’t want it now, thanks,” I said.

I heard her sigh and turn away. Then she locked the doors, front and
back. She didn’t wash up, and I knew that my cup of tea was standing
on the table with a saucer on top in case I changed my mind. She came
slowly upstairs and her walk was that of an old woman. I blew out the
candle before she reached the landing, in case she came in to ask if I
wanted anything else, and the moonlight came in the attic window and
brought me memories of Kitty. But every time I tried to imagine her
face as she grinned up at me, waiting for me to kiss her, it was the
mother’s face that came up instead, with that look like a child’s when
you strike him for the first time—as if he suddenly saw the stranger
in you. I remembered all our life together from the night my father
died; our early Mass on Sunday; our visits to the pictures, and our
plans for the future, and Christ! Michael John, it was as if I was
inside her mind while she sat by the fire waiting for the blow to
fall. And now it had fallen, and I was a stranger to her, and nothing
I could ever do would make us the same to one another again. There was
something like a cannon-ball stuck in my chest, and I lay awake till
the cocks started crowing. Then I could bear it no longer. I went out
on the landing and listened.

“Are you awake, Mother?” I asked in a whisper.

“What is it, Jerry?” she replied in alarm, and I knew that she hadn’t
slept any more than I had.

“I only came to say I was sorry,” I said, opening the door of her
room, and then as I saw her sitting up in bed under the Sacred Heart
lamp, the cannon-ball burst inside me and I began to cry like a kid.

“Oh, child, child, child!’ she exclaimed, “what are you crying for at
all, my little boy?” She spread out her arms to me. I went to her and
she hugged me and rocked me as she did when I was only a nipper. “Oh,
oh, oh,” she was saying to herself in a whisper, “my storeen bawn, my
little man!”—all the names she hadn’t called me in years. That was all
we said. I couldn’t bring myself to tell her what I had done, nor
could she confess to me that she was jealous: all she could do was to
try and comfort me for the way I'd hurt her, to make up to me for the
nature she had given me. “My storeen bawn!” she said. “My little man!”

(1952)
Source: Collected Stories, 1981