Free The Holy City by Patrick McCabe Page A

to me completely after that. For more than anything I had to stay strong, no matter how attractive at times it might appear just to collapse, capitulate entirely. To submit to the desire to call him back and tell him — to explain that more than anybody I
did
understand. Understand more than he’d ever know.
    For I’d nearly gone under myself for the very same reasons: when the tide of emotion becomes literally a tsunami — takes over and becomes completely unmanageable. An all-engulfing wave that consumes, defeating sense, it seems, for ever.
    Which was the reason I had found myself going up to Ethel Baird’s. Nothing had been rational about that decision.I just couldn’t stop thinking: Ethel will know. Ethel will understand. She’ll explain all the mysteries to me. I had those lovely memories of her too, but I couldn’t ascertain, not for certain, whether they were imagined or real.
    Back in the Nook, when she knew Lady Thornton and Ethel were coming to visit, Dimpie would get so excited that she’d be dressing herself up for three or four days. To do her best to make herself ‘respectable’ for the Protestants, she said. Although, to be honest, what they must have made of the near-scarecrow that admitted them into the Nook can only be imagined. Wee Dimpie with her hairnets and her aprons and fishermen’s sweaters and floppy old wellington boots, well, she was never going to be confused with Viscountess Rothermere or Dowager Fforbes-Maitland. But, being who they were, our visitors would never pass comment on such things. They would never draw attention to anything so vulgar. And the reason for that was — because they had access to the mystery of ‘class’. There would always be tears in Dimpie’s eyes as she waved ‘the ladies’ goodbye. She told me she loved them more than any Catholic.
    â€” Catholics are liars, so they are, she would insist. Our ones is all twisters from birth. Let you down a bagful every time. Protestants bes odd — ignore you by times. But they’ll always keep their word. Full of mysteries, they bes. You never know what goes on in their heads, they’re up there so far and you can’t get at them. Mysteries is what they be full of, Christy. But your mother, Lady Thornton. She’s the best, the bestest quality of all.
    All of those thoughts had been uppermost in my mind that day I’d had the disagreement with Marcus. As I wandered confusedly about the town, trying to make sense of what had just happened — doing my best to comprehend his hostile reaction. I was deeply cast down — to be honest, hopelessly perplexed. Which was why I went out to the greenhouse, of course — in the hope of seeing Evelyn Dooris. Who knew Otoyo better than anyone.
    After that incident — I could still see his cold, disdainful expression — I would have given anything to be able to behave like Henry Thornton. To be capable of completely sublimating my feelings — my only hope of survival now. I couldn’t, however — discovering, crushingly, that it was to prove quite beyond me. Once a Catholic, always a Catholic. Carberry’s spiritually infirm genes were still in me.
    I lacked the discipline, the reason and rigour.
    You can’t be hard if your nature is soft.
    You can’t be strong if your nature is weak.
    Goodbye, Henry Thornton. I failed you, I’m afraid, I told myself. I’m one of them. I’m lower than the dog. Incapable of muscular detachment, alien to the concept of indifference, I am subordinated entirely by the forces of iniquitous, dissolute emotion. I haven’t been chosen. I’m beyond the gates. Fated to remain outside the high windows for ever.
    â€” It’s a mystery, then, I heard Henry Thornton say triumphantly, and one to which you’ll never find the key. And why you will always be vitiated, degenerate.
    That was why I found myself, in a misty haze,