Blanche Dubois in Ballina

By request, a further extract from my yellowing diary of West of Ireland life in Ballina in the late 1960s.

July 23rd, 1969

A long, hot day in the library, with hardly more than three or four visitors, including of course the elderly Miss Allingham, who comes in every day supposedly to escape the cold, but who is clearly impervious to heat.

Miss Allingham must be at least 80. A tiny creature with a fierce glittering bun of red hair, she wears the same green moquette coat all year round and sits in a corner knitting shapeless woolly items, apparently for the children and grandchildren she has never had. I am told that in close to 20 years she has never attempted to borrow a book.

To me she is a tragic figure, like Miss Havisham in Dickens's Great Expectations. Miss All ingham too was, according to town gossip, disappointed in love. Not long after I gained employment in the library I sought to make her acquaintance and perhaps learn the sad details of her ill-fated love affair. But her wound was still raw: "Feck off and mind your own shagging business," she advised me. "Haven't I put up with enough gobshites in my time."

I withdrew, of course, but more saddened than offended. Her words, however coarse, to me indicated a torn heart, the gaping gash now scabbed over with cynicism as a rebuff against a world that let her down.

I think this is a good use of words. I may yet be a writer if only a suitable theme suggests itself. Miss Allingham's story may yet provide this theme: I must persevere, and hear her devastating experiences from her own mouth, even if it means more insults.

July 27th

I went to see A Streetcar Named Desire in the Astoria over the weekend. It is a shocking drama full of repressed desire, unfulfilled longings and violent emotions, all set in a seething sun-baked southern town that goads its people on to who knows what terrible fate.

Obviously the town is not Ballina, but I can see points of comparison. The weather is one such point: it continues to be stifling.

July 30th

With the heatwave continuing, Miss Cartright arrives in the library wearing one item less of clothing each morning. At least that is how it seems to me. This morning, though in fact it was chilly enough at 10 a.m., she instantly dispensed with her cardigan, revealing a sleeveless pink blouse apparently made of gauze. Certainly there was little left to the imagination. If I was not mistaken, her skirt had also risen another inch.

A woman approaching 40 should exercise more discretion in public. It is almost at the stage where I cannot hide my embarrassment. I may be forced to say something. But what?

Lunchtime

Miss Allingham, still in her green coat, trudged in once again. "Frustrated old bag" muttered Miss Cartright in a tone of complete disgust: "Why can't she stay home?"

I was horrified, and recalled for my superior's benefit Miss Allingham's sad history, or what I knew of it. Her reaction was to shriek with laughter: "That's all mullarkey - she probably frightened off any man who came within 20 feet of her, never mind getting to the altar steps. If she dressed like that she has no one to blame but herself."

The vindictiveness of some women against their own sex never fails to astound me. "Well", I replied, without thinking carefully, "maybe she never had the chance to dress like you."

There was meant to be a faint note of irony in this remark, but it passed Miss Cartright by. She turned towards me with her eyes shining. "I'm so happy you like what I'm wearing. What do you think of my blouse?"

I gazed at the gauze, trying not to gaze through it. "It's - invisible," I said. Miss Cartright trilled with laughter. It seemed to me that the library was getting more and more hot.

Perhaps the weather will turn over the weekend. If not I may have to take sick leave. I cannot imagine how Miss Cartright can further deplete her wardrobe without completely revealing herself. Really, we are not living in the deep south of the United States.

August 2nd

Last night I dreamed of the sad neurotic Blanche Dubois. She was wearing a pink see-through blouse and a short wispy skirt. Approaching her lasciviously was the brutish Stanley Kowalski - but with my face! I awoke in a sweat. What can dreams mean? What is their relation to real life? I must read Freud, but fear what I may find there.