The Private Wound Read Free

well enough, in Ireland.
    Though I have never suffered severely from paranoia, I had had one year of bad bullying at school and was still perhaps overquick to feel, or imagine, hostility. But at this moment, I remember, it was not so much hostility I seemed to sense as a personal isolation, like that of a man who has walked all unwittingly into a group of conspirators—yes, the atmosphere had become, in a way I could not lay a finger on more precisely, conspiratorial: the two men muttering together at the bar, the woman ostentatiously concerned with nothing but her whiskey glass, the fellows on the red-leather benches round the wall appearing, no less ostentatiously, to avoid one another’s eyes.
    The moment passed very quickly. Haggerty and the big man came over to me.
    â€œMr. Eyre, I’m sorry to have deserted you. I had a little business with Mr. Leeson. He’d like to meet you.”
    The big man took my hand, in an unexpectedly limpgrasp. “Desmond tells me you’re staying in his lousy caravanserai, God help you.”
    â€œAh now, Flurry,” protested the manager.
    â€œYou must meet my wife. Harry! Forward!”
    The woman slipped off her stool—a curiously liquid and graceful movement. The hand she gave me was a small one, and I noticed the delicacy of the wrist: she gripped mine firmly. Haggerty had faded away.
    â€œI’m very pleased to meet you,” she said, with an absurdly artificial punctilio. Her lips were on the thin side; she had used a lot of lipstick on them, not too skilfully. Her eyes were greenish hazel. I realised, with a shock, that she was something of a beauty. I remember getting from this raffish young woman—the discontented droop of her long mouth, the eyes that were set rather too closely together—an impression of some natural force either pent up or run to waste.
    The incongruous couple sat down at my table. Flurry and Harry. Harriet, presumably.
    â€œWell now, tell us all about yourself.” That was Flurry, boisterous rather than inquisitive.
    â€œI hardly know where to start. I was born in Tuam, of God-fearing parents. At the age of three—”
    Harry laughed. Her teeth were very small and regular, very white too. She was wearing far too much of some all too pungent perfume. “Don’t pester him, Flurry. He doesn’t have to tell us the story of his life.”
    â€œAh, get on! We don’t have so many visitors in this God-forsaken hole that we can afford to leave them be. Do we now, Harry? Are you staying here long?”
    I explained about the car.
    â€œWhat do you think of the place?”
    â€œIt’s a wonderful country. I don’t know that Charlottestown is exactly a beauty spot, though. That must be your shop I passed—”
    â€œNo such luck. It’s my brother’s—Kevin. My younger brother. We call him the Mayor. He owns half the town. An ambitious fellow, Kevin. And what do you do, if I may ask?”
    â€œI write books.” It was out before I had time to check it. I could have kicked myself harder still for knowing it was said in an attempt to impress Harry. I looked round furtively. No one seemed to be listening.
    Flurry’s eyes widened. “A book-writer?” he said, putting a very long “oo” on the words. “D’ye hear that, Harry? Maire’d be mad to meet him.”
    â€œI shall call him Boo,” announced his wife.
    â€œDon’t you dare! No, seriously, I don’t want people to know—”
    â€œAre you ashamed of writing books?” she asked forthrightly.
    â€œOf course not. But—”
    â€œSo you’re here to study the natives? Incognito?” said Flurry.
    â€œNo, no. I just wanted to find a quiet place where I could write my next novel. It’s not going to be set in Ireland at all.”
    Flurry gave me a violent clap on the shoulder. “You’ll stay with us then,” he exclaimed. “As