Skip to main content
Read page text
page 16
14 5. Captain Galway, Auxiliary, was an ex-officer with some veryqueer ideas about whose side he was on. I didn’t knowif he was a gentleman at all & Mr Bloom hinted the same. Someone told Eileen, she sent a fieryletter from Dublin. I couldn’t believe how the news had shot through Royal Mail so fast & Eileen was down toute suite on top of me byletter, boiled up completely about the two of them walking openly in the streets of Mallow. Flora, in her three-quarter-length smashed strawberrycoat & the Captain in mould-green, the empty sleeve pinned to his epaulette. The whole town killed from looking at them. Galway, blonde, too handsome. People were scared of the Auxies more than the Tans – their old eyes in their young faces under their black Glengarrycaps, ribbons fluttering on their necks. Theyhung off the side of the tenders, as mean as you like, in rifle green. Constable Doon gave out about Flora cutting her hair. A Woman’s Crowning Glory, he looked down over his long moustache at the toes of his boots, standing outside Broadviewbarracks. Well, that’s the youth, I said, walking awaywith mymessages. John Lucy’s lamb chops were dripping blood out of mybasket – he’d given me a free sheep’s head as well with instructions howto cook the head for a healthymutton broth because he thought Flora had fallen away. The whole Town was telling me that after she cut her hair.
page 17
6. He appeared again on the Saturday wearing brown boots laced up to his knees, standing across the road from the house by the Royal Red post box. Halfwaythrough painting the parlour cocoa with cream on the wainscot, I threwopen the windowfor the fumes & sawhim staring in with his hand on His Majesty’s mail. Small & neat like Himself, onlyyellow, maybe he’d gone abroad after his escape, couldn’t he have fought on the sands of Gallipoli? & the pain was kneeing into mybrain from the night before, as if he had opened myhead like an egg & was spooning it out. If he wasn’t Himself then who was he? Was he after Flora for espionage? & for which side? Didn’t Sinn Fein make the girls spyfor them? Eileen Murphysaid theyall volunteered but young girls are easilyforced. I pulled myeyes awayfrom him, cast them right down to tongues of mybrown button boots. Mrs Pym’s crimson dressing gown was thrown across the sewing table half cut out as I took to mybed with Wrixon’s linctus. The bottle stood on the table byme, staining the broderie anglaise brown in the dark. I couldn’t move, hardlyable to breathe, mylungs shrunk to the size of two teaspoons tied around mythroat. 15

Page Text

View plaintext

14

5.

Captain Galway, Auxiliary, was an ex-officer with some veryqueer ideas about whose side he was on. I didn’t knowif he was a gentleman at all & Mr Bloom hinted the same. Someone told Eileen, she sent a fieryletter from Dublin. I couldn’t believe how the news had shot through Royal Mail so fast & Eileen was down toute suite on top of me byletter, boiled up completely about the two of them walking openly in the streets of Mallow. Flora, in her three-quarter-length smashed strawberrycoat & the Captain in mould-green, the empty sleeve pinned to his epaulette. The whole town killed from looking at them. Galway, blonde, too handsome. People were scared of the Auxies more than the Tans – their old eyes in their young faces under their black Glengarrycaps, ribbons fluttering on their necks. Theyhung off the side of the tenders, as mean as you like, in rifle green. Constable Doon gave out about Flora cutting her hair. A Woman’s Crowning Glory, he looked down over his long moustache at the toes of his boots, standing outside Broadviewbarracks. Well, that’s the youth, I said, walking awaywith mymessages. John Lucy’s lamb chops were dripping blood out of mybasket – he’d given me a free sheep’s head as well with instructions howto cook the head for a healthymutton broth because he thought Flora had fallen away. The whole Town was telling me that after she cut her hair.

read next page

My Bookmarks

Buy this Book
Skip to main content