Free The Private Wound by Nicholas Blake

place to recall the story of the politician who perorated at an election meeting, “Irish culture owes nothing to Byzantium. Irish culture owes nothing to Greece or to Rome. Irish culture owes nothing to Great Britain (storms of applause). Irish culture is a pure lily blooming alone in a bog.” (Voice from audience “And that’s the bugger of it, misther.”)
    I contented myself with putting up a case for the Anglo-Irish literature from Swift to Yeats, as the greatest glory of the country. We argued a bit about Tom Moore, whom Maire regarded as a perverter of native folk-tunes. I got quite heated about this—I’d been brought up on the Irish Melodies. And presently she had fished out a volume of them and sat down at the piano to accompany me. I used to sing a lot in those days. As an accompanist, Maire was abit wooden; but the Moore settings are absurdly ornate anyway.
    â€œYou have a beautiful voice,” she said, after the first song.
    â€œGo on, now,” said Kevin. “You two get along famously.”
    But my strongest memory of that evening was glancing through the french window while I sang “She is far from the land,” and seeing a huddle of children outside, in their night-dresses, staring back at me silent and rapt, the last light of the sun turning their ruffled hair into aureoles …
    I suppose I remember that with particular vividness because of what happened later. How many days later, I do not remember: or whether it was the first time. That green spit by the Lissawn became a place of assignation for Harriet and myself.
    It is midnight, with a half moon dandled by the rocking branches. I am waiting for her there, trembling with excitement and fear. I see her figure ghosting towards me through the copse. She is wearing a long white night-dress. We fall into each other’s arms. I mutter something about Flurry: she says he always sleeps like a log, with the drink taken. In the moonlight her face has softened: she looks supernaturally beautiful. I take off her night-dress and my own clothes. We kneel up, facing together, our bodies touching, two white figures on a tomb, and gaze at each other. I want to hold the moment for ever. But she is impatient: she pulls me down on top of her into the lush grass, then lies passive.
    The rocks of the Lissawn are sucking at the stream. A light mist rises from it, and in my body the sweetness rises—or was the mist in my eyes? is it only in my memory? For me, the wave topples over too soon. There are the diamond drops back on her lashes, and she sobs a little.
    Presently, I enter her again. She seems passive, yet shefits her movements fluently to mine. It is like swimming in nectar, her breasts and belly the little waves. And now her arms clutch me tighter, tenacious as garlands of white flowers strung on wire. I hear that familiar straining noise in her throat—she never cried out loud any time I made love to her—and feel her body melting, collapsing.
    We lie inert, side by side, not talking. Two animals which have escaped from time and the fear of the hunters. After a while she leans over me, her breasts trembling, the nipples like buds put to sleep. She kisses me lazily, murmurs “good night,” puts on her night-dress, and flits away from me through the trees.

Chapter 5
    When I read it through again, I nearly struck out that last passage. Brute copulation hallowed by time. The coacervation of two mounds of flesh, seen through a moondust haze. But then I thought, no. While I wrote the passage, I became the young romantic I was writing about: dishonest to view him through disillusioned eyes: I am not compiling a textbook about sex in the West of Ireland. Rule 1 for the novelist—don’t fall in love with your characters. But I
was
in love with Harriet. And with myself? Yes: a lover does that to one.
    And what did she think about me? Goodness knows. She was a strange mixture of delicacy and