The Private Wound Read Free Page A

long as you like. We’ve dozens of rooms. Harry, wake up! Isn’t that a powerful idea?”
    It was an extremely disconcerting one. I’d heard all about Irish hospitality, but this was too much. I explained that I wanted to rent a cottage where I could be alone with my work.
    â€œIf it’s money that’s on your mind, you could rent a room in our house. What sort of a price could you pay?”
    So
that’s
what this hearty oaf is after, I thought. He must have seen my involuntary expression. “You could becompany for Harry—two English in a nest of wild Irishmen. Never mind, though. If you won’t you won’t.”
    There was a pause, filled up with another round of drinks ordered.
    â€œWhat about Joyce’s?” said Harry unexpectedly: she had been silent a while, gazing into her glass.
    Flurry slapped his knee with a huge hand. “By God, you have something there.” He launched into an enthusiastic sales talk about a cottage, half a mile from his own house. Its last occupant, the widow Joyce, had died recently, and Kevin Leeson had bought it and done it up for letting to visitors. He’d not yet got a tenant for the summer, so far as Flurry knew. With a sly look at me, he added, “And I can sting brother Kevin for a commission, so we’ll all be happy.”
    The Irish intuition, penetrating into one’s secret thought and turning it against one—perfectly diabolical.
    â€œWe must have one on it,” said Flurry, as if the bargain had already been made. He scooped up our glasses and went to the bar.
    I found Harry’s eyes on me, a long meditative look. Taking off the absurd cap, she shook out her hair. How well I remember that moment—the scent of the smouldering turf fire, the hideously ornate “modernised” room, the voices flickering and falling, and my sense that a charmed circle had imperceptibly formed itself round us two. She nodded slightly, as if she’d found some answer in her own mind. We spoke, together.
    â€œD’you ride?”
    â€œWhy ‘Harry’?”
    â€œIt’s what Flurry’s always called me,” she replied indifferently.
    â€œYou’re the last person who should have a man’s name.”
    She gave no sign of being gratified by the compliment. “‘Harriet’ is so stuffy and old-fashioned. What’s yours?”
    â€œDominic.”
    â€œMy God! That’s worse. It makes me think of a pi little schoolboy.”
    She was certainly a pert young woman.
    â€œI used to ride a bit, when I was a boy.”
    â€œBut you’re above all that sort of thing now you’re a famous writer?”
    â€œCertainly not.” I spoke with some irritation. “And I’m not a famous writer.”
    The faintest look of complacence touched her mouth. I was too young then to know how a woman may first try out her power on a man by rousing his anger, or that she will not do so unless she is interested in him.
    â€œGo and get our drinks, Boo. Flurry’s forgotten us.”
    â€œNot if you call me that.”
    â€œYou
are
a touchy man. Dominic, then.”
    At the bar, Flurry was deep in conversation with a red-haired man. I bought the drinks myself and returned with them.
    â€œCheers,” she said. “Who’s Flurry talking to? Oh, it’s Seamus.”
    â€œWho’s Seamus?”
    â€œOh, he’s our sort of bailiff. Seamus O’Donovan. I don’t know what Flurry’d do without him.”
    â€œA fine-looking fellow.”
    â€œI suppose so. He bores me. Always telling us we’re ruined, we’ve got to sell a pasture, we need to re-roof the cow-shed. You know.”
    â€œBut that’s a bailiff’s job, isn’t it?”
    She yawned and stretched, showing her pretty teeth, the body beneath her green jersey. “Damn, now I’ve finished my cigarettes. Flurry,” she yelled, “get some fags.”
    I