My Oedipus Complex by Frank O'Connor

Author:Frank O'Connor
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd
Published: 2005-09-22T04:00:00+00:00

The evening was fair and the sunlight was yellow,

I halted, beholding a maiden bright

Coming to me by the edge of the mountain,

Her cheeks had a berry-bright rosy light.

5

Ned was the first to wake. He struck a match and lit the candle. It was time for them to be stirring. It was just after dawn, and at half past nine he must be in his old place in the schoolroom before the rows of pinched little city-faces. He lit a cigarette and closed his eyes. The lurch of the boat was still in his blood, the face of Cait Deignan in his mind, and as if from far away he heard a line of the wild love-song his father had been singing: ‘And we’ll drive the geese at the fall of night.’

He heard his brother mumble something and nudged him. Tom looked big and fat and vulnerable with his fair head rolled sideways and his heavy mouth dribbling on to the sleeve of his pyjamas. Ned slipped quietly out of bed, put on his trousers, and went to the window. He drew the curtains and let in the thin cold daylight. The bay was just visible and perfectly still. Tom began to mumble again in a frightened voice and Ned shook him. He started out of his sleep with a cry of fear, grabbing at the bedclothes. He looked first at Ned, then at the candle and drowsily rubbed his eyes.

‘Did you hear it too?’ he asked.

‘Did I hear what?’ asked Ned with a smile.

‘In the room,’ said Tom.

‘There was nothing in the room,’ replied Ned. ‘You were ramaishing so I woke you up.’

‘Was I? What was I saying?’

‘You were telling no secrets,’ said Ned with a quiet laugh.

‘Hell!’ Tom said in disgust and stretched out his arm for a cigarette. He lit it at the candle flame, his drowsy red face puckered and distraught. ‘I slept rotten.’

‘Oye!’ Ned said quietly, raising his eyebrows. It wasn’t often Tom spoke in that tone. He sat on the edge of the bed, joined his hands, and leaned forward, looking at Tom with wide gentle eyes.

‘Is there anything wrong?’ he asked.

‘Plenty.’

‘You’re not in trouble?’ Ned asked without raising his voice.

‘Not that sort of trouble. The trouble is in myself.’

Ned gave him a look of intense sympathy and understanding. The soft emotional brown eyes were searching him for a judgement. Ned had never felt less like judging him.

‘Ay,’ he said gently and vaguely, his eyes wandering to the other side of the room while his voice took on its accustomed stammer, ‘the trouble is always in ourselves. If we were contented in ourselves the other things wouldn’t matter. I suppose we must only leave it to time. Time settles everything.’

‘Time will settle nothing for me,’ Tom said despairingly. ‘You have something to look forward to. I have nothing. It’s the loneliness of my job that kills you. Even to talk about it would be a relief but there’s no one you can talk to. People come to you with their troubles but there’s no one you can go to with your own.

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