You can see it from here; but just try to get to it.
What you want, don’t you see, what you want is, under the conscious pressures, a surprise within the rules.
We all find we cannot take on any more patients. We are all waiting for calls from superiors, pick up the phones each time hoping it is one of them, then find it is only another patient. The superiors of course think of us as patients and dread our calls.
Is it always the same story, then? Somebody loves and somebody doesn’t, or loves less, or loves someone else. Or someone is a good soul and someone a villain. And there are just these episodes, anecdotes, places, pauses, hailings of cabs, overcomings of obstacles, or instances of being overcome by them, illnesses, accidents, recoveries, wars, desires, welcomings, rebuffs, baskings (rare, not so long), pinings (more frequent, perhaps, and longer), actions, failures to act, hesitations, proliferations, endings of the line, until there is death. Well, no. I have a wonderful, fond memory, about love and trust and books. I mean, a dog wrote back to me. I mean, the book ended with an invitation to write letters to the dog, and contained, on its inside back cover, a packet of three sheets of paper and three envelopes. I wrote to the dog three times, and three times he wrote back. I also wrote again, and was a little disappointed when the days passed and no answer came. But it was explained to me, or I somehow understood it, or perhaps expected that someday, when he had time and got around to it, I would hear from him again. And of course by the time I realized I had not heard and would probably not hear again, I understood completely and also I had grown up. The contrast, after all, with Tom McDermott, the swimming instructor in Palm Beach who used to call himself Tom McDermowitz, which I, never having heard of Jews or knowing that we were Jews, did not understand; his writing me a note that enclosed an Intermediate card, which I already had in any event, and why, come to think of it, did he write to me at all, or why not send what he promised, the Junior Life Saving, or, looked at another way, why did he not realize that my parents, if they had been that sort of parents, might have made trouble for him at that Florida hotel. My father always said that it is a reasonable expectation of life that no one will go out of his way, against his own interest, to break his word or to hurt another person. And this turns out, not just in obvious cases, for example haters, pathological people and institutions, sadists, but in everyday life itself to be plain untrue. I wonder why. A reasonable expectation of life, I have found, is hardly ever quite borne out.
As I walk downstairs, and I see that the car is already at the far end of the driveway, I think, I am going to leave this country and this house. Maybe things will be better, though, at dinner. Maybe the Waltons will change the apparent course and character of these events. I intend, however, to ask them about ferries out of Dublin (as opposed, that is, to my return flight out of Shannon); I have begun to think steadily now, in other words, of escape. I consider, too, whether to use a wet towel, that towel for instance lying upstairs on the rug, to remove the rental sticker from the rear window of the car. Whether this has to do with what I might be charged at a repair shop, or simply with becoming inconspicuous, in case I should be followed, is not yet clear. I return to my room, pack the smaller of my bags, and take it downstairs, hoping to put it quietly into the car. In the front hallway, however, I encounter Kathleen. I was just coming to look for you, she says, I’m leaving now. So I put my suitcase on a hallway chair. As soon as I get in my car, and turn the key in the ignition, Kathleen takes off, racing down the castle driveway. When we turn into the public road, she hits speeds over sixty miles an hour. The road has many curves and intersections. I try slowing down, to lag behind. She speeds nearly out of sight. So I give up, and race along, to follow closely, on flat open stretches, at crossroads, on narrow curves. Perhaps, I think, it is only high spirits, perhaps she always drives this way. Suddenly, without any signal, she veers left and screeches to a halt at what appears to be an unattended gas pump. Needed fuel, she says. I wait, while she tugs at the hose and fills the tank. She roars off, accelerates further, then, abruptly, not even pulling over this time, stops. I stop. She gets out of her car. It’s up there, she says, gesturing vaguely toward a small crossroad, leading off the highway. It has no distinguishing features, so far as I can tell, except perhaps for a No Dumping sign, which faces the opposite way from the way I shall be coming from. How will I ever find this in the dark? I ask. I wondered that, she says. A silence. She says, We passed a little bridge back there. Where? I ask. Back there a bit, she says. It’s the first crossroad right after that little bridge. She gets in her car, and speeds along her way.
I return slowly along the road, and find the almost imperceptible overpass which she calls a bridge. I notice, too, that it is where the painted road divider stops. I watch the mileage, from that bridge, until I reach what becomes for me a landmark of a sort, a rundown service station, with signs for Exxon and Toyota. I wonder briefly whether this might be the place to have my car repaired. From bridge to service station: 1.9 miles. Then, eight more miles to the Cihrbradàn turnoff. Even by daylight I scarcely find it. At the castle, I wonder whether to call the Waltons and ask them to come and get me, think they must be old and frail and that is why they have not offered. In my room, I start to pack in my second, larger bag, all the things but those that would most badly wrinkle. I become aware that all the lights are off. I turn on a few lamps, wonder whether to have a drink, decide not to. There is no note, from Kathleen or Celia, about locking up. The house seems particularly silent. The pail, with the towel and the empty bottle, is still in the hallway, two doors from my room. Everyone has apparently left for the night, and I become aware that I’m alone. I go downstairs, take my suitcase from the hallway chair, and go outside to put it in my car. As I lean over the back seat, I look more closely at the rental sticker, which is affixed to the inside of the rear window. It had already, dimly, crossed my mind to use that hallway towel, soaked, but now I pull tentatively at the transparent edge of the sticker, and find the whole thing peels right off. I fold it, roll it up and put it in the pocket of my slacks. I become aware that this move at last is irreversible. The sticker now adheres to itself. I think how I might explain it: worry about overcharge in a repair shop, based on a mistake about insurance. I rehearse a little speech; it sounds all right. Maybe, at this point, it is still true. On the way back to my room, I pass through the study, pick up my unfinished note to the ambassador, close the typewriter, go upstairs to take a little nap. Through the window that looks out on the tower, I notice a man in a yellow raincoat, walking in the general direction of the gatehouse. Paddy, I know, lives in the gatehouse, and it crosses my mind that he may have reported the peeling and removal of the object now rolled up and stuck together in my pocket, and that the man in the yellow raincoat may be a local policeman, coming to check. I can hardly throw the thing away, with them both out there; and it can hardly be illegal to have a car rental sticker temporarily upon one’s person. I decide, after all, to have a drink. I go downstairs, and find the Bushmills still on the sideboard in the drawing room. There is no ice, of course, but there is also no water in the pewter pitcher, no fire in the grate, and no fire-starter in the basket. My cough returns. I become aware that I have not been feeling well. As I sit on the fender, near the slightly smoldering peat, which I have managed to ignite with matches, I wonder whether it would after all be best to pack my remaining things, put them in the car, and set out for the airport that night, directly from the Waltons. I think not. Maybe, if they are nice, for instance, or can give me advice about repairmen, I won’t leave at all. At least, I think again, I have at last done something. I have come this far; maybe everything will still be well. If not, it would be best to set out very early in the morning, after a few hours’ sleep. But I am still uneasy. So I go to the phone room, and begin to call the airlines. I have already confirmed my flight from Shannon, Friday, the return flight on my ticket. I now book another flight, out of Dublin, giving a different first initial with my name. I call British Airways, Dublin; and without giving any name at all (but, of course, all calls on this phone go via the local operator; and the ambassador had said to me, half joking, Don’t try to discuss any private matters on that phone, they’re listening in), I ask what flights there are on Thursday. Which, I suddenly realize, is tomorrow. There are four flights, two British Airways, two Aer Lingus. I imagine flying the Irish national airline may make one more clearly subject to the laws of Ireland, and its jurisdiction. I prefer to avoid the Irish flights. I ask whether the British Airways morning flight is open, am told it is. I make no reservation on it, thinking I now have two Friday reservations, one from Shannon, one from Dublin. If they look for me, they will be looking for me Friday. Meanwhile, I intend to make that open Thursday morning flight.