LOUSTAU/The Complicity of Edward Dooleych. 2 - Page1

LOUSTAU/The Complicity of Edward DooleyCh. 2 - page1

Chapter 2

“What in God’s name were you thinking, Edward?” Honora said, taking her seat in the front parlorof the Dooley’s flat at half past eleven.

Walter set down a tea service on the sideboard and looked uneasily to his brother. He’d arrived home just as Edward and his parents were returning from the Victory Ball, and noting the tension in the air, he’d offered to make up a late-night refresher while Edward telephoned Morgan to ask after Constance. Now as Walter poured the tea, he found no one was particularly interested in hearing about the picture he’d seen that Saturday evening. Drawn drapes, the dim light from table lamps, and the cloying smell of carnations on the mantel,only added to the oppressive atmosphere, and he handed cups of hot tea to Edward in silence.

“As I’ve explained, Mother,” Edward said wearily as he delivered a cup and saucer to her, “Morgan and I never intended to put her in an uncomfortable situation. We’d just gone over to say hello to Jimmy Fitzsimmons, that’s all.” He dropped onto the sofa, upsetting the lace doilies, and said with a sigh, “She went looking for usand – Oh, God –what a mess...”

Honora hastily took a sip of tea. “Well I think it’s simply outrageous – having invalids at a ball! What aghastly idea! It’s little wonder others weren’t traumatized as well…” After another sip, “At a celebration, no less – what foolishness!”

Edward closed his eyes, exhausted. “They deserved to be there as much as anybody, Mother –probably most of all, as a matter of fact.” He opened his eyes and saw her scowl but went on, “They weren’t bothering anybody – they were as far out of the way as possible.”

“They weren’t even ambulatory, so what’s the point of their being at a ball?”

“The point is that they served honorably and we should be in their debt...I daresay not many of us would trade places with them.”

“Well said, boyo,” James Dooley offered, raising his teacup to Edwardand ignoring his wife’s grumbling. “But don’t knock yourself – you’ll always be able to say you did your part in the Great War…”

Walter frowned,relieved to be done with his military service. Though two years older than Edward, he’d been sickly as a child, and after barely passing the army physical,he’d been stationed at the Presidio for the duration of the war. Colm, the eldest of the three boys, had been drafted as well, but owing to disciplinary problems he’d never shipped overseas. As with so many things, it had been left to Edward to do the family proud.

“They were rubbing our noses in it,” Honora observed haughtily. “Someone in charge insisted that those boys be put there on displaytonight,and it was tasteless and mean-spirited.”

“What’s mean-spirited iskeeping them out of sight, Mother,” Edward said with adefiance that startled him. “Otherwise,somecircus impresario would come along and start charging two-bits to see them.” Walter and his father looked at each other uneasily.

“Don’t be flippant, Edward,” Honora said, her lips tightening. “No one’s calling them freaks. There are modern prosthetic devices those men can use so they’llfit in and not draw so much attention to themselves.”

“Out of sight, out of mind,” Edward muttered.

“I didn’t say that!”

“Well, in any event, son,” James interjected, “your Constance suffered a shock tonight. What did Morgan say when you called?”

Edward shook his head. Dejectedly, he turned to his fatherand repeated Morgan’s one-word summary, “’Overwrought.’”

James nodded. “War’s a brutal thing – it’s a good thing women are well away from it…”

“That’s true, Father,” Walter said, as if consideringthis for the first time.

“Not all of them,” Edward noted. “I can’t imagine how nurses cope with the things they see.”

“That’s enough now,” Honora saidpreemptively. Never one for idle hands, she took out her crocheting from the basket beside her chair. “So, you’ll be looking in on her tomorrow, then?”

Edward nodded.

“And you picked up your newtrousers today? You’ll want to look your best Monday...”

“Yes, Mother.”

“I’m lending Edward my Homburg,” Walter put in, “and the tie that I bought for—”He stopped short,choked by his words, at the thought of his cousin gone forever.

“Say it, boy,” Honora insisted, “’for Patrick’s memorial service.’” She looked first to her husband, then to Edward, before addressing him again. “He was killed in the war, Walter. He’s dead. That’s a plain fact and there’s no use dancing‘round it. Death is death – it’s too bad, but there it is.”

James shook his head. “You can be a hard woman, Honora.”

“And you’re a soft man, James Dooley,” she retorted,adjusting her spectacles. “Bad things happen in life, that’s the way it is…Why my poor friend Brigid and her little Maeve had to be taken by the Spanish Flu is a mystery only God can fathom. A tragedy, yes, but no use dwelling on it because it won’t bring ‘em back.”

“But there’s the grievin’, woman.”

Honora pursed her lips. “You’re a professional griever, you are, a first-rate wallowerjust like yoursister, Mildred – the two of you always livin’ in a dream world, never facing facts…”

“And you, Mother?” Edward cut in. “How’d you manage, not knowing what had become of me?

“I’ve had my share of loss, boy, God knows.” Concentrating on her needlework, she continued, “I know what an ordeal it is – I was with Mrs. Haggerty when shelearned about her Darragh, and then the Newman family, and the Rileys, of course. I dreaded the Western Union man,I can tell you…Thankfully Colm and Walter were out of harm’s way,butas for you, Edward, I prayed, I prayed mightily. That’s what gave me strength.”

She worked in silence a few minutes and her husband looked over the newspaper. Walter began describing the picture he’d seen, butEdward only feigned interest while regarding his parents, wondering what the future held. So little hadchanged in the two years he’d been gone.

Colm and Walter had joined their father’s sheet metal business in the years following thegreat earthquake and fire, butdespite all thenew skyscrapers going up they never capitalized on the boom. Colm was an affable fellowwho’dgainedan unfortunate reputation for fecklessness that cost the company some long-standing customers; it remained to be seen whether he could keep the business afloat in the precarious post-war economy. Walter had always been good with numbers and continued to keep the books,though recently he’d enrolled in night school at Armstrong Business College by way of hedging his bets.

Edward’s sisters were opposites as well. Early on, Honora had drafted her eldest daughter, Katherine,into the role of auxiliary caregiver – first helping with Walter as an infant, and later with Baby Deirdre, after she’d sustained a head injury in the earthquake. More recently,Katherine and Deirdre had been assigned to care for Aunt Mildred, James’s eldest sister, who’d come to live with the family as of Christmas 1917, when the bedroomColm and Edward shared became available. Now in her late twenties,Katherine had the imperious air of her mother, which had put off a handful of would-be suitors. By contrast, Deirdre, now nineteen, seemed to Edward to be developing into a winsome young woman.

“We’re going to nine o’clock mass,” Honora announced as shebundled up her knitting, “and thenKatherine’s getting liniment for Mildred while we look in on Old Man McCormick.”

She glanced at her husband whoclosed the paper and rose stiffly from his chair. Walter gatheredup the tea service and headed down thehall to the kitchenwhileEdward pulled apart the pocket doors that divided the front parlor from thesitting room, his quarters since returning home.

“’Got everything you need, boyo?” James asked.

“I do, Father, thanks.” Retrieving his toiletry kit from a hook on the door connecting the sitting room to the hall,he followedin his parents’ wake.

“You’ll want to slide the doors tight tonight, Edward,” his mother said ahead of him, “’There’s no tellin’ whenColm will be gettin’ in…”

Outside the water closet, Edward said, “Night,” as he watched them disappeared in the gloom of the hallway.

After the ’06 earthquake, the Dooleys had relocated to this warhorse of a Victorian, known as a railroad flat because the rooms were laid out along a narrow hallway like a railcar. Edward’s parents occupied what had originally been the dining room,theswinging door to the kitchen blocked off by a wardrobe left behind by the previous tenants. There were three bedrooms upstairs, one for his sisters, one for his brothers, and the one for Aunt Mildred which overlooked the rearyard. Edward’s least favorite part of the house was the cellar beneath the kitchenwhereas a boy he would hide when his parents started bickering.

In an Irish-Catholic household where respectability was prized above all else, Honora’s dissatisfaction with the circumstances was a constant refrain. By 1913, with the familybusinessstillsagging, she decided their last hope lay with Edward. Late one afternoon, with the girls gone to the butcher’s,and thinking that the boys were out with their pals, she confronted her husband with an ultimatum. From the cellar,Edward overheard his father floating the idea of the family moving into quarters above his sheet metal shop downtown until things picked up, when the sound of a skillet slamming against the stove nearly caused Edward to cry out.

“Oi! James Dooley, you’re impossible!” his mother roared above him. “You and your stupid ideas! I’ll not have this family living in squalor with those bogtrotters fresh from Cork…I won’t have it!”

“Aw, now look, Honora, it’ll just be temp—”

“Now you listen to me,” she cut in fiercely, ““I’m through with yer excuses! There’s plenty of construction work around but all you ever manage to get is dribs and drabs. We’re so deep in debt on account a you that you leave us no choice – it’s up to Edward now. He’ll have to quit the Christian Brothers and go find a proper job…”

“But Colm and Walter are still learnin’ the trade…”

“Oh, yeah, I’ve seen. Colm’s a wash-out just like you, shiftless, always involved in some scam or other. And as for Walter, he’s too scrawny to be crawlin’ on roofs – the boy might have a head for figures but what good’s that when yer business is a bust!”

Edward heard his father mumble something about his health.

“Aw, now don’t let’s start with that again,” Honora snapped. “It’s useless dependin’ on you, what with yer affinity for the bottle…Always a rung above destitution…It’s a disgraceis what it is. A disgrace!”

After washing up, Edward returned to the sitting room, closed the door to the hallway, and drew the pocket doors to the front parlor shut. From the closet he pulled out his pajamas, a sheet, and a pillow and proceeded to make up his bed on the narrow bench seat across from the old maple secretary. He’d slept on far worse the previous year andnow stretched out beneath a single sheet – he’d been sleeping hot after so many bitter cold nights in France and Belgium. Cradling the back of his head in his hands, he contemplated the curious shadows on the ceiling, the play of moonlight reflected off the shiplap siding of the light well.

The nightmares had been less frequent since his return,buthad not gone away entirely. He could summon the horrificaccident on the troop train at will, picturethe gruesome battlefields strewn with human flesh, gag at the thought of thefetid trenches, choke on the memory of acrid smoke and bile in his throat. To defend against these anxieties,he’d walk miles by day to exhaust himself in hopes of sleeping soundly at night. Only nowhis pulse quickened as the events of evening ran through his mind, and throwing off the sheet, he returned to the bathroom for a drink of water. Seeing himself in the mirror wearingthe pajamas he’d worn as a teenager, he returned to bed resolved to get a place of his own as soon as possible.

Again he tried to fall asleep, mulling over a recent conversation with his Aunt Hildie concerning his parents. Her brother, James, had been sponsored from Cincinnati by a San Franciscan named McCormick with the promise of construction work; after apprenticing with a Welsh tinsmith for several years, the man sold him the business on favorable terms before returning to Cardiff. By the time James was thirty, his fortunes rising, he sent for his two sisters, Mildred and Hildie.

Aunt Hildie was no fan of her sister-in-law. The story went that Honora had escaped the tenements of Boston and come out to San Francisco in ’87to serve as governess for an up-and-coming Irish family. James first noticed her at church one Sunday, her faint brogue eliciting a pang of nostalgia in him even though his own father had thoroughly renounced Ireland. Hildieonce confided to Edward that her brother had been quite a catch –a gifted tenorwith a fondness for romantic poetry – but it wasn’t so much his charm that swept Honora off her feetas the fact that he was moving up in the world.

Edward had always assumed that Honora’sincessant criticism had driven his fatherto drink. Not until hecame to know grief of his own in the warwas Edward able toconceive how the bottom might have dropped out for his fatherwell before she started nagging him. It seemed obvious in retrospect. Over the years, Edward had heard talk in hushed tones about a baby sister, Mary, who’d come between Walter and him. It was only a week ago, however, paying a visit to Aunt Hildie who was down from the country, thathe came to understand the full truth.

Though he’d always consideredhis auntan intelligent and sensible person, when he joined her in the sunny drawing room of Old Man McCormick’s sprawling Victorian mansionhe was circumspect. She looked tired and he wasn’t sure of her state,given the loss of her son.

“Now Edward,” she said, after one of McCormick’sdomestic apprentices had delivered tea, “I’ll not have you walking on eggshells. What happened to poor Patrick has devastated us, true enough, but this visit is about you, dear boy. I can only imagine what you’ve been through and I thank the Good Lord that you’ve been safely returned to us.”

Taken aback by her generous spirit,Edward’seyes welled up immediately. This was the only time during his homecoming that he would be so vulnerable,and he gasped to catch his breath while she looked at him solicitously. At length, straining to maintain his composure, he could barely manageawhisper. “It was horrible, Aunt Hildie…justhorrible…”

Hildie moved to the edge of her chair and placed her hand on his shoulder. With that he broke down and sobbed pitiably, his head in his hands. “I know, son…I know,” she said.

When he had composed himself, he told her how sorry he was for her loss, and seeing this in his eyes, she lovingly caressed the side of his face before sitting back in her chair.

“It’s your Uncle Aiden I’m worried about, Edward,” she said, taking up her tea and balancing a shortbread cookie on the edge of the saucer. “He’s been locked a terrible melancholy these past six months – he and Pat were so much alike, you know…He’s proud of your cousin Michael, in seminary now and all – and of ourCora and Maggie, too, of course– but he and Patrick were cut from thesame cloth. Patrickloved the land asmuch as his father.”

She was lost in thought a moment, then said, “They’re that kind, the kind who see life’s meaning in what he canaccomplish with his hands – it’s all about leaving one’s mark, you see. Your Uncle Aiden has poured his heart and soul into that farm, so now itgrieves him to thinkthat there won’t be another O’Shea to tend it when he’s gone.”

The knot in Edward’s throat had relented and he sipped his tea. “But what about you, Aunt Hildie? It must be hard on you, too…”

“’Tis,” she allowed, “but I’ll manage.” Sheraised her index finger to head off any more consoling. “Now listen, Edward, because there’s something I need to say to you. You’re not likely to hear it elsewhere and we don’t get to see each other that often.” He suddenly looked afraid and she laughed. “Don’t worry! I’m not gonna have you blubbering all afternoon,” she said with a smile, reaching for another cookie. “You were always such a serious one, Edward!”

He smiled with relief but looked puzzled.

“It’s just this, dear boy –God be praised that you’ve come back to us because you’re the reason your father managed to hold on all those years ago.” Placing a pillow under her arm, she gazed out a moment to the magnolia in the garden. “He was never the same man after Little Mary passed, bless her soul. There was a rumor at the time – more fiction than fact, I’d say – that he’d brought a cold into the house andwas the one responsible.” She glanced at Edward. “Mind you,I knowthe ordeal was terrible for your mother, especially with three little ones to look after, but then,” returning her attention to the tree, “she was never one to dwell on emotions, and she never did much to lay that nasty rumor to rest.”