A LIFE OF YOUR OWN Jane Harty, the chemist, lived alone in a little bungalow on the outskirts of the town. She had long ago decided that it was the only way to live a life of her own. In a city you could be one of a group without adopting its standards, but girls who took lodgings in the town accepted a discipline stricter than that of home. She could not live that way, and after her parents’ death and her brother’s departure for London, she gave up trying. She ran a battered old car and went off on free weekends by herself, without telling anyone except the Sullivans where she was going. They were her only friends in town. Celia had been to school with her and had married the headmaster of the Technical School. When she got a fit of the blues she merely packed her bag and went to stay with them, and they never asked any questions. The bungalow wasn’t very comfortable, and she could afford to have a cleaning woman in only once a week, but it had a garden and a bit of a view, and she could live better in the town than in Dublin, where she would only be a non-entity. The poor people feared and distrusted doctors, and they came to her with their troubles, domestic and medical. They knew she didn’t mind tramping down to a dirty cottage at night with a prescription, or looking at a sick child or arguing with a drunken husband. She was one of themselves. Of course, they knew things about her as well. They had known her parents, and knew she was looked on as a bit of a freak by the swanky people, all because she wouldn’t play the game and fell in love with unsuitable men. Unsuitable men seemed to be the price you had to pay for trying to live a life of your own. One night she came back from Dublin, and when she opened the door of the bungalow she felt a sudden stab of fear. She stepped back and asked angrily, ‘Is there somebody there?’ There was no reply, and she muttered to herself, ‘You're getting neurotic, Harty.’ She went in and turned on the light in the sitting room. One glance was enough to show that it wasn’t nerves. Through the open door of the bedroom she could see clothes scattered on the floor. How anybody got in she didn’t know, but the key was under the mat, and in fact anyone could have done it. She searched the two rooms and the kitchen but found nothing missing. Yet it gave her a sick and desolate feeling, like the touch of something dirty. Next morning she went to the police station and made her complaint to the sergeant, a beefy, boozy man by the name of Lenihan. ‘Ah, it’s them kids again, Miss Harty,’ he said gloomily. ‘What kids are they, Joe?’ ‘That rough gang down the River Road,’ he said. ‘They didn’t take anything?’ ‘Not that I could see.’ ‘Pity about that,’ he said moodily. ‘If there was anything taken we could keep an eye out for it. Young Humphreys lives up your way. I'll tell him to watch for anyone going in that direction. In the meantime, you'd better leave word with us when you're away.’ ‘For God’s sake!’ Ned Sullivan drawled when she told him and his wife about it that night. ‘When one of them leaves the barrack they hear his boots at the other side of town. I'll have a word with a couple of the kids. The best way of keeping kids from being juvenile delinquents is to turn them into policemen.’ Sullivan was like that; ugly, attractive, slow-moving and cynical, and Jane squirmed when Celia talked to him, because it was clear that she didn’t realize how remarkable he was. But neither the police nor the Technical School kids were round when the intruder came again. Jane arrived home on Sunday night from Galway. The first glance was enough to show that her visitor was no child. She felt sick again, but this time anger got the upper hand. She drove back to Humphreys’ house, which was on a terrace by the main road. Madge Humphreys answered the door. She was a school-teacher, who was supposed to read what she called ‘the clawsicks’ to her family each evening till their spirit was broken. She told Jane her husband was out, and that she had better report to the barrack, but at that very moment Humphreys appeared, a tall, big-boned young man, grinning and pulling on his jacket. ‘Ah, Madge, a policeman is never off duty,’ he said. ‘I might as well go and see what's up.’ When Jane showed him the living-room he said softly, ‘Oh, Chrisht! In the kitchen doorway he halted. ‘These yours?’ he asked, nodding to the tea things, and she shook her head, anger giving way to hopelessness. She had merely tried to have a life of her own, and even this was being denied her. ‘Better check and see is anything missing from the bedroom,’ he said, and she preceded him, looking helplessly round. ‘Try your clothes first,’ he said gently, and she began to fold them and put them back. Humphreys: sat down and lit a cigarette. ‘Well?’ he asked, and she burst into a loud angry laugh. ‘Nothing I can see only a pair of pants,’ she said roughly, and then, catching the startled look on his face, realized the significance of what she had said. ‘Better make sure of it,’ he said, and she checked again. ‘They’re gone all right,’ she said. ‘Frilly ones — they were a present. I wouldn’t wear the blooming things.’ ‘That’s bad,’ he said, and went back to the living room. ‘You'll have a drink as you're here,’ she said. ‘I’d better not,’ he said with a boyish grin. ‘It’s Madge. She starts getting nervous when I’m out.’ ‘I'm going to have one anyway,’ said Jane, knowing well what it was Madge got nervous of—another woman who might talk to him about some things beside ‘the clawsicks’, ‘Tell me, do you remember was any fellow annoying you?’ he asked. ‘Nobody,’ she said. ‘Unless that fellow on the phone.’ ‘Oh, was he after you too?’ Humphreys asked with interest. ‘That’s someone I'd like to lay my hands on some time. What did you do?’ ‘What could I do?’ she asked, taking her drink. ‘The first time I was so appalled, I listened. It’s funny; I suppose it’s like being hypnotized. After it, you start to get sick. I never knew people could be like that. The second time I did what Ned Sullivan told me, and he’s left me alone since then.’ ‘What was that?’ ‘Oh, I told him he was a very sick man and that he should get treatment at once.’ She gave an engaging grin. ‘You know—Dr Harty, the well-known nerve specialist, giving a free opinion and wondering all the time when she'll start screaming.’ ‘Was he cross?’ ‘Leppin’ mad.’ ‘That was clever of Ned Sullivan,’ said Humphreys. ‘But I don’t think it’s the same man. This is probably someone you know quite well. Any idea who it could be?’ ‘Not a notion.’ ‘Someone who comes into the shop for small things you’d expect his mother or sister to get for him?’ he asked shrewdly. ‘I can’t think of a soul,’ she said offhandedly. ‘Anybody that isn’t normal, I mean.’ ‘They all look normal enough to begin with,’ he said grimly. ‘They won’t look so normal in five years’ time. If you think of anyone let me know ... The bloody house is probably full of fingerprints,’ he added gloomily. ‘For all the good they’d do us.’ As he was leaving he studied the lock and said, ‘I think I'd get a new lock for the door. And you might as well get a spare key and leave it at the barrack. I could drop in some evening and see if he’d come. Anyway, you'd better call at the barrack tomorrow and have a word with the superintendent. Not that he’ll know more than I do, but it might make things easier for us.’ She did as he advised and understood what he meant. The superintendent was a bright and cheerful young man who was obviously much happier with papers than with people. Papers didn’t answer back in the same way. ‘We could all be killed in our beds, and ’twould only make an interesting statistic for that idiot,’ she said to the Sullivans. ‘You're in no danger like that,’ Ned said thoughtfully. ‘That fellow won't come near the place as long as you're there. He’s still too shy. You'll find there’s a loving Irish mother in the background who takes him to Confession herself every Saturday and writes out a list of his sins for him, the way he won’t forget. He may get dangerous, but it won’t be for a long time yet, and it won’t be over you. Damn it, I feel I ought to be able to go for a walk and put my hand on him! You'll have to think of someone like that, Jan.’ ‘Ah, for God’s sake, I’d have to think of half the town,’ she said jokingly, but he didn’t smile. ‘You would, you would, but this is something different. Lord God, it’s unknown the lives people have to lead in towns like this!’ he added, growing bitter himself. It was after that she began to crack. Two or three times she stopped the car outside the gate and blew the horn to warn the intruder. Now she had almost a horror of seeing him, for fear she might know who he was. And once more she returned from a weekend and saw that he had been there. He must have come before darkness fell for he had taken down a few of her books. In the bedroom there was the same childish disorder of clothes, but written in lipstick over her bed were the words ‘I love you’. She called the guards station and Humphreys answered. ‘All right, all right,’ he said quickly. ‘Don’t touch any- thing. Somebody will be along in a minute. And meantime, don’t worry. You're all right.’ ‘Would you ask whoever is coming to tell Ned Sullivan?’ she asked and was slightly shocked after she had said it. But Ned was the only one she wanted to talk to now. It was Lenihan who came and inspected the house. Ned came after him, walking slowly. Lenihan exasperated her, examining locks and window-catches. ‘This is how he got in all right,’ he said sagaciously, indicating the catch on the bedroom window. ‘That catch is too easy to open. Blast him anyway! He doesn’t miss much.’ ‘’Tis nice to know how he got in,’ Ned said sarcastically. ‘It would be more practical if we knew how to keep him out.’ ‘Oh, we'll get him yet, Mr Sullivan,’ said Lenihan, shaking his head over it. ‘He’ll come too often, the way they all do. But if I was you, Miss Harty, I wouldn’t bother my head about him. Sure, he’s only a poor harmless ould sexual maniac. The country is full of them. So long as he wouldn’t take anything valuable.’ ‘I haven’t anything valuable for him to take,’ she replied. ‘No. Only your peace of mind,’ Ned said shortly. When Lenihan had gone he gave a sigh. ‘It’s no use relying on those fellows,’ he said. ‘They have no notion who that fellow is. Either that, or they know and they’re not telling. It could be somebody that they don’t want to make a fuss about. But they’re right enough about the danger. They don’t see the real danger you're in.’ “What danger?’ she asked curiously. ‘That fellow would drive you as mad as himself,’ Ned said flatly. ‘’Twould be like living with a ghost. It gives me the horrors, not to mind you. I’m going to get myself a drink if you have one.’ ‘Do you really think they know?’ she asked as he got the tumblers. ‘They may. This is probably someone you saw being picked on or ignored some place and made a fuss of. Or you stopped and gave him a lift. It was probably the first time a woman treated him as a human being, and it went to the poor devil’s head.’ He glanced at her inquiringly, but her face was a blank, and he knew that this was what she did normally and that it would have made no impression on her mind, ‘Oh, how the hell do I know? But you’d better start making plans to get out.’ ‘Out?’ “You can’t stay here.’ ‘But where am I to go?’ ‘Somewhere they won’t notice your seven-league boots,’ he replied with mournful humour. ‘You have them all frightened: Humphreys’ wife is frightened, Lenihan is frightened; you probably scared the wits out of the superintendent as well. I’ll hear it all in due course, in Slattery’s pub. Sex is a game, girl,’ he said almost angrily. ‘You have to play a three to beat a two, but you play your ace every time. You simply can’t afford to live naturally in a place like this.’ ‘That’s a comforting thought,’ she replied bitterly. ‘In that case you’d better go home to Celia, quick. She'll be wondering what happened to you.’ ‘She won't. She told me I was to spend the night or bring you back with me.’ Anger was Jane’s first response. It was as though Celia were condescending to him. And then she realized how unfair she was. Celia was merely showing that she knew the gossip and didn’t care. ‘Tell Celia I’d go back with you if I could,’ she said with a sob. ‘If I gave in now I'd never sleep here alone again.’ ‘And do you intend to go on staying here alone?’ he asked. ‘But where else have I to go, Ned?’ ‘Go to Dublin, go to London, get to hell out of this!’ he cried. ‘And God knows I’m not saying that for my own sake.’ It was as though her tears had been waiting for the words. He took her in his arms and patted her awkwardly. ‘I know, love, I know,’ he said, as though he were speaking to a child, and she knew that he did know, and that it would always be this way with her, falling in love with the wrong man or the man she could not have, exactly as though each time she did it coldly and deliberately. ‘Go on, Ned! Go home!’ she said, and he understood that too. It was better for him to go now, for otherwise it would only mean the same old remorse and guilt for her. She tried to smile at him from the door, and then went back quickly and poured herself another drink. Then she opened the living-room window and stood, looking out at the country road, the bogs and the fields, now vague shapes in the darkness. At the end of the garden she seemed to see the poor simpleton, staring at her, crushing a pair of her pants in his hands and muttering, ‘I love you.’ She rested her hands on the window-sill and leaned out as though she could see him. ‘Are you there?’ she called. There was no reply, only the whisper that always ran over the dark uplands at night, and she raised her voice. ‘Come in, whoever you are!’ she said. ‘There’s nobody here at all. The guards are gone. You're perfectly safe.’ For some reason she was convinced that he was there, listening to her but paralysed, trapped in the snare of his own crazy character even more than she was in hers. And yet all she wanted was to come to terms with him, to lure him out of himself and make him realize that there was a world of warmth and friendship in which he could exist. Then she slammed the window and gave way to an agony of hopelessness. When people had mocked and criticized her she had been afraid, but she had not given in, but now she was really afraid because what she had to deal with was a loneliness deeper than her own. She knew now that Ned was right and that she no longer had a place of refuge from the outside world. She would never be able to live alone again; never again would she have a life of her own. (1965)