Benjamin Black - Even the Dead

“Say nothing, then. Keep your cargo, throw none of it overboard.”

“You know what I’m thinking anyway.”

She gave a low laugh. “Of course I do. I am the witch doctor, of course. I have a patient who tells me that after every session with me he feels empty, as if I have put a spell on him and drained his blood.”

“Is that good or bad? It sounds bad.”

“It is neither. It is just a part of the process.”

“Part of the cure?”

“There is no cure. I told you this. Only the process.”

“I think I’m in love with you, Evelyn.”

“Yes, yes, I know you do.” She spoke softly, as if to soothe a child.

“You know I love you, or you know I only think I love you, which?”

“Both, maybe. But I am tired now, and I must go to sleep. I will not wash my hands or brush my teeth. I want to wake up in the night and smell and taste you.” She sighed. “I am being ridiculous.”

“We both are. It doesn’t matter.”

“No,” she said, “it doesn’t.”

Hackett’s office was stifling — he told himself he must get that bloody window unstuck so he could open it and let in a bit of air. Instead he thought he might venture out for a stroll. It was another unendurably hot day, the sky cloudless and the city lying torpid, like a huge, stranded turtle, under the sun’s relentless glare. He had thought of buying himself a straw hat, like the rakish one Quirke was sporting these days, but he didn’t think he would have the nerve to wear it. And anyway, May would be bound to laugh at him. His wife had a good heart, and loved him, in her way, as he loved her, but she had a merciless eye for his foibles and his foolishnesses and would let none of them pass unremarked. So he took up his old felt trilby and shut the office door behind himself and went down to the street.

He walked up to College Green and along Westmoreland Street. Bewley’s was belching clouds of smoke from the big vat of roasting coffee just inside the open front door. The clock over the offices of the Irish Times told him it was eleven twenty-five exactly, but even as he looked at it, the minute hand moved on with a jerk and a tiny quiver. He kept his eyes averted from the shop windows because he didn’t care to catch sight of his own reflection. May had been on him recently to take up a diet and reduce his potbelly, but he knew he wouldn’t; it was too late for him to try shifting so much fat. He sighed. Life was tricky, that was for sure.

By the time he was halfway along O’Connell Street his shirt was wet under the armpits, the band of his hat seemed to have become welded to his forehead, and he had to keep mopping the back of his neck with a handkerchief that was already sodden and limp. So he crossed the road and jumped onto a bus for Dorset Street just as it was moving off. He didn’t bother to look for a seat, but stayed standing on the platform, holding on to the rail, trading complaints with the conductor about the heat wave that was showing no sign of ending.

When he got to Dorset Street he stood outside the tobacconist’s shop and peered up at Sam Corless’s window. There was nothing to be seen, of course, except grimed glass and a frayed cretonne curtain. Maybe he shouldn’t have come up here, he thought, maybe he should leave the poor man to his grieving. Nevertheless he rang the bell, and after a minute or two Corless came down and opened the door. He was gray and haggard, and seemed to have lost weight even in the short time since his son’s death — his face was so gaunt his spectacles, still with the lump of sticking plaster around the earpiece, looked far too big for him, like an ill-fitting prosthesis.

“Good day to you, Mr. Corless,” Hackett said. “The name is—”

“I remember you,” Corless said. “I’d hardly forget, would I.” His voice, feathery and hollow, seemed to be coming out of an echoing underground cistern. “What do you want?”

“Well, I was just out for a stroll and I thought I’d pay a call and see how you were getting on. If I’m an annoyance to you, say so.”

Corless managed a sort of grin. “Why would I be annoyed,” he said, “by a visit from the police?” He stood back, holding open the door. “Come in, you may as well.”

Hackett followed the stooped and plodding figure up the narrow stairs. In the flat the air was thicker than ever, and there was a dull, brownish smell, the smell of things left long unwashed.

“Sit down,” Corless said. “Throw them books on the floor. Will you have a drink? I’ve no beer. There’s only whiskey.”

“A drop of whiskey would be grand,” Hackett said, looking for somewhere to put his hat down. “They say spirits have a cooling effect, despite what you might think.”

Corless rummaged about under the sink and came up with a bottle of Powers, three-quarters empty. “I should be fairly cool myself, then,” he said. “I’ve drunk enough of the bloody stuff these past couple of days. This is the second bottle, unless it’s the third. I’ve lost count.”

He set two small glasses on the draining board and filled them to the brim.

“Your good health,” Hackett said, lifting the glass to eye level.

Corless, leaning against the sink, did not return the toast. He drank, taking half of the measure in one swallow.

Dance music was playing somewhere, not loud. Corless pointed to the floor. “That bastard below has the wireless going nonstop all day long,” he said. “It always seems to be the same stuff. I think he must be practicing to be a ballroom dancer. And then comedians, and the audience in fits. Furlong is his name. Doesn’t smoke, himself. Imagine that, a tobacconist who doesn’t smoke.”

They listened to the music for a while. Glenn Miller, Joe Loss, one of those — Hackett knew nothing about dance bands, never having been much of a dancer.

“The funeral was yesterday, I saw,” he said. “I’d like to have gone, but I couldn’t. How was it?”

Corless gave a sardonic laugh. “Oh, smashing,” he said. “A great crowd attended, and a fine time was had by all. Talk about dancing — it was round-the-house-and-mind-the-dresser till the small hours of the morning.” He made a sour face and drank off the rest of the whiskey in his glass. “There was me, and my dead wife’s sister, and some old fellow I didn’t know from Adam, who’d strayed into the wrong funeral, if I’m not mistaken. The wife’s sister had to go home and make her husband’s dinner.”

“Sorry,” Hackett said gruffly. “I should have gone.”

“It’s no matter. Burying the dead is best done quickly. I don’t hold with keening and wailing.”

He refilled his glass and offered the bottle wordlessly to Hackett, who shook his head.

“All the same, a sad occasion, a funeral,” Hackett said. “It’s the finality of it. I buried my mother not long ago. It was only when I saw the coffin down in the hole that it dawned on me at last that she was gone.”

Corless, still leaning against the sink, shrugged his shoulders impatiently. “I have the suspicion,” he said, “that you didn’t come here to console me. Have you found out anything?”

Hackett rose from the chair and held out his glass. “Maybe I will take a sup more,” he said.

Corless poured the whiskey. His hand was unsteady. Hackett returned to his chair. The dance band on the wireless below was playing “Chattanooga Choo Choo”; even Hackett recognized that one.

“Tell me, Mr. Corless,” he said, “did your son ever talk to you about his work?”

“Didn’t you ask me that already, the other day?”

“I don’t think so, but of course, the old memory is not what it was.” He took a careful drink from his glass. “Anyway, I’ll ask it again now: did he?”