A sudden pause instead of him pulling back the sheets, he was fumbling through the heap of clothes on the floor. A match struck and flared in the dark. It was brought close. He could feel the heat on his face. His lids lit up like blood- soaked curtains. With a cry he turned sideways and brought his hands to his face. When he could look the flame had burned down the black char of matchwood to Mahoney’s fingers, and his face was ugly with suspicion.
“You were quick to wake?”
He’d have to pull himself together to answer.
“I was sleeping. I felt something.”
The match flame had burned out.
“You didn’t seem to be sleeping much to me?”
“I was sleeping. I got frightened.”
Hatred took the place of fear, and it brought the mastery of not caring much more. No one had right to bring a match burning close to his face in the night to see if he was sleeping or not.
“I was sleeping and you frightened me with the match. Did you want me for anything that you cracked the match?”
“No. I just wanted to see if you were asleep and alright. I didn’t mean to frighten you.”
At the window he wound the green clock, the key twisted in the silence, he pulled back the clothes, and awkwardly got into bed. The feet were cold as clay as they touched on the way down.
“Will you be able to sleep now?”
“Soon. I’ll be able to go to sleep.”
“I’m sorry I woke you up. I just cracked the match to see if you were alright. You don’t mind now, do you?”
“No. I don’t mind. It’s alright.”
“We’re too cooped up in ourselves here. That’s the trouble. We haven’t had a word for ages together. People need an outing now and again. You’d like a day out, wouldn’t you? We could go to town together. We could have tea in the Royal Hotel. It’d be a change. It’d take us out of ourselves. People get cooped up in themselves. You’d like to go to town, wouldn’t you?” the voice was growing restless with excitement.
“It’d be nice,” the wary answer came, there had been too many of those midnight heart-easings that could go on far into the mornings. All this talk and struggle to get to terms or understanding that’d last for no longer than the sleep of this night. It was always changed by the morning: shame and embarrassment and loathing, the dirty rags of intimacy. The struggle was not his struggle nor the words, and there were worse things in these nights than words.
“In every house there are differences. Things don’t all the time run smooth. Though that’s not what counts, sure it’s not.”
“No.”
“As long as we know that. That’s all that matters. Even though things don’t run right. As long as people know that, what happens doesn’t matter as long as the feeling between them is right. Then things can’t run wrong for long, isn’t that right?”
“That’s right.”
“Even Up Above there was trouble. There’s differences everywhere. But that’s not what matters. Everyone loses their temper and says things and does things but as long as you know there’s love there it doesn’t matter. Don’t you know I love you no matter what happens?”
“I do.”
“And you love your father?”
“I do.”
“You’ll give your father a kiss so?”
The old horror as hands were put about him and the other face closed on his, the sharp stubble grown since the morning and the nose and the kiss, the thread of the half-dried mucus coming away from the other lips in the kiss.
“You don’t have to worry about anything. There’s no need to be afraid or cry. Your father loves you,” and hands drew him closer. They began to move in caress on the back, shoving up the nightshirt, downwards lightly to the thighs and heavily up again, the voice echoing rhythmically the movement of the hands.
“You don’t have to worry about anything. Your father loves you. You like that — it’s good for you — it relaxes you — it lets you sleep. Would you like me to rub you here? It’ll ease wind. You like that? It’ll let you sleep.”
The words drummed softly as the stroking hands moved on his belly, down and up, touched with the fingers the thighs again, and came again on the back.
“We’ll go to town one of these days. We can walk together round the shops and look for a new suit for you in Curleys. We can go to the Royal Hotel for tea.”
The hands moved more tensely. The breathing quickened.
“You like that. It’s good for you,” the voice breathed jerkily now to the stroking hands.
“I like that.”
There was nothing else to say, it was better not to think or care, and the hands — the rhythmic words — were a kind of pleasure if thought and loathing could be shut out. The growing hotness and the sweat were the worst but it was better to lie in the arms and not listen except to the thick lulling rhythm of the voice as the hands stroked and not listen and not care. It was easy that way except for the waves of loathing that would not stay back.
“You’ll kiss your father good night?”
The lips closed and breath went as his arms crushed, now the repulsion of the mad flesh crushing in the struggle for breath.
“Good night, sleep well,” he said and it was unimaginable relief to be free and to suck breath in and to wipe his track off the lips.
“Good night, Daddy.”
“Good night, my son. Go to sleep now.”
There was no hope of sleep, though soon the heavy breathing told that Mahoney had moved almost immediately into sleep. It was impossible to lie close. The loathing was too great. He lay far out on the bed’s edge, but as Mahoney moved in his sleep all the clothes began to be dragged away, gathering in a huge ball around Mahoney, till only a sheet was left to cover him out on the bed’s edge. It was bitterly cold and the loathing had soon to perish in the cold. He had to draw close to the sleeping heap of warmth. He tried to ease the clothes out from underneath the great body, but it needed too much force, it was too risky — he might wake. Not even whimpering could pass the time for long. The loud ticking of the clock filled the room when that stopped. As light grew its face would grow clear, it’d be possible to read the figures, but that was too far away in this cold under the single linen sheet. He tried again to free some clothes and the eiderdown came. He could bear it now. Though he’d give anything he had for one more blanket or the morning yet. Lunatic hatred rose choking against the restless sleeping bulk in the ball of blankets, the stupid bulk that had no care for anything except itself.
The bats screeched continually round the eaves outside. Morning got closer, and the fleas were biting. One was feeding on his shoulder. He tried to crush blindly down with his hand but it was no use. At least they were at his father too, that was why the bulk sleeping in the pile of blankets was so restless, other nights he slept like a log. They’d wake him yet. He was trying to scratch in his sleep. The fleas were having a real feast. He’d have to wake soon, and soon he did, an arm tearing itself free of the blankets.
“Are you sleeping?”
“No.”
“Do you find anything?”
“I think the fleas are at it,” he was able to keep the laugh back.
“I seem to be just one itch. They’re going mad. The dose of DDT last month must have done no good.”
He got out on the floor, found the box of matches, and lit the lamp on the table.
He dealt with his shirt first, taking it off, examining it inch by inch on the table. Each flea he found he kept it pressed under his hand till it was dead or exhausted. He’d catch it between both thumb-nails then, where it cracked utterly out of life, a red speck of skin and blood crushed on the nail.
The hunt started, five fleas in the sheets lively and hard to nail, but the blankets were easier, the fleas there warm and lazy with blood in the wool. The thumb-nails were easily brought to bear, there was no danger of the lightning hop free, they were too drugged, and one movement crushed them into another red speck in their sleep.