Benjamin Black - Even the Dead

She went out and closed the door softly behind herself. She was halfway down the stairs when she heard the girl’s sobs. She debated with herself whether to go back up again, but decided against it.

The three of them, Hackett, Quirke, and his daughter, were much as she had left them, standing ill at ease in the living room, Dr. Quirke with his hat in his hands and Hackett gazing vacantly at the floor. It was, she thought, like one of those occasions when people come to call at Christmas, and everyone feels awkward and doesn’t know what to say.

“Well,” she said brightly, “will I make tea?”

* * *

The Quirke girl had followed her into the kitchen, offering to help. May suggested she might set up a tray with the tea things, and showed her where they were stored. She wished she could remember her name. Philomena? No, something fancier than that.

She put the kettle on to boil. The sun was shining in the window above the sink, and there was an identical star of light on the curve of each of the two brass taps.

“Your friend will be grand, here,” she said.

“Oh, yes, yes, I’m sure she will. My name is Phoebe, by the way.” She smiled. “I don’t think anyone introduced us.”

May wiped her hands on her apron. “I’m very pleased to meet you. My husband often mentions you. He’s very fond of your father.”

“Yes,” Phoebe said, “I know he is.”

They stood smiling at each other.

“He’s very hard on himself, your father, I think,” May ventured.

Phoebe raised her eyebrows. “Do you think so?”

“Oh, it’s just that he has the look of it.” What was she saying? The day was topsy-turvy. “I’m sorry. It’s no business of mine.”

Phoebe didn’t seem to be paying attention; instead she stood thinking.

“He’s not used to kindness,” she said at last. “I think that’s the problem. If he seems rude, you mustn’t pay any attention. It’s just the way he is — it means nothing.” She turned back to the tea tray. “Where’s the sugar?” she asked.

“Here it is, on the shelf.”

Phoebe took down the sugar bowl, then paused. She was smiling again, to herself. “As a matter of fact,” she said, “he’s just fallen in love.”

May felt the blood rushing up from her throat. What sort of a thing was that for a daughter to say to someone she had only just met? And about her father, too. Hackett had told her they were a queer lot, Dr. Quirke and his daughter and the Griffins, and it seemed he was right.

“That’s very — that’s very nice,” she said, stammering. “Is it somebody he just met?”

“Yes. Actually, she’s my boss. Dr. Evelyn Blake. I work for her, in Fitzwilliam Square. She’s a psychiatrist. Isn’t it mad? I mean, isn’t it mad my father should fall for her? I couldn’t be happier for him.” May Hackett stood gazing at her, her mouth open a little way and her eyes slightly glazed. “I think the kettle is boiling,” Phoebe said. “Will I bring in the tray?”

May spooned the tea into the pot and poured on the water. And to think she had expected Johanna de Kuyper to be exotic.

* * *

On the way back in the squad car, Quirke asked to be dropped off at Ailesbury Road. Phoebe went on to Fitzwilliam Square and Dr. Blake’s office, and Hackett returned to Pearse Street to sit at his desk with his feet up, picking his teeth with a matchstick, and brooding. It had been a long and eventful day.

When Quirke turned in at the gate he saw Rose Griffin standing in the big bay window to the left of the front door. She was smoking a cigarette, with one arm folded across her midriff. She looked down at him without expression. The day was clouding over, and there was a warm wind blowing, drawing up eddies of dust in shadowed corners.

Rose opened the door to him herself.

“Mal is in his room,” she said, turning away. “I’m not going to disturb him.”

“I don’t want you to.” He followed her into the drawing room. “I just came to let you know about the girl.”

Rose went and stood again in the bay of the window, looking out, her back turned resolutely against him.

“I don’t know what it is I’ve done to make you angry,” he said.

She didn’t turn. “What makes you think I’m angry?”

Quirke sighed. “Don’t pretend, Rose, it doesn’t suit you.”

She said nothing for a while, then turned from the window, seeming not angry now, only tired and dispirited.

“Have a drink with me, Quirke,” she said.

She made gin and tonics for them both. Quirke had asked for a tonic only but she ignored him. She handed him the glass, and knocked her own against the rim of it. “Here’s to chivalry,” she said.

They carried their drinks across to the sofa and sat down. The day outside was darker now, and they could hear the wind blowing along the street.

“I’m not angry at you, Quirke,” Rose said. “Or I am, but not especially. I’m mad as hell at everything, and you just happen to be standing in the way.” She picked a thread from the sleeve of her blouse. “It’s the damnedest thing,” she said. “I was fond of Josh, but when he died what I felt was mostly relief.” She glanced at him and smiled. “Are you shocked? You should be. I was sort of shocked myself. But Mal, poor Mal, he’s another thing altogether. I’m going to grieve for him — I’m grieving for him already. I guess”—she took a drink from her glass—“I guess I must love him. It’s funny, I don’t think I ever loved anyone, before. Thought I did, but I’m thinking now I was wrong.” She leaned forward and tapped him on the knee. “I even imagined for a while I was in love with you, Quirke. Fancy that. I was jealous, the way you kept following Sarah around like some poor lovesick hound when the moon is full. I could hear you howling, even though you didn’t make a sound.”

“I never knew what I wanted, Rose. That was always my trouble.”

She nodded dismissively. “But you know what you want now, don’t you.”

“Do I?”

“I can see it in your eyes. You’re not doing that silent howl anymore. I’m glad for you, but I can’t say I didn’t prefer you the old way.” She sipped her drink, studying him. “You going to tell me about her?”

He knew she meant Evelyn. He shook his head.

“Oh, well. I guess you will, in time.” She ran a hand through her hair. “Tell me about the girl, then.”

“She’s staying at Inspector Hackett’s house.”

“What happened to her?”

“Her father had somebody watching her, a fellow by the unlikely name of Abercrombie. He followed Phoebe and her down to Ballytubber, with a couple of his heavies, and took Lisa from the house and brought her to the Mother of Mercy Laundry.”

“What a name that place has,” Rose said. “How did you get her out? Beat some poor nun into submission, did you?”

“Something like that. I don’t think you realize what those places are like, Rose, that Mal’s father and your first husband set up.”

“Yes, they were a pair of rascals, weren’t they, Garret and old Josh. They thought they ruled the world on direct instructions from the good Lord above.” She had finished her own drink, and now she took the glass from his hand and drank from it, and gave it back. “Sorry,” she said, “lipstick yet again.”

He took out his cigarette case and lit two cigarettes and gave one to Rose. She watched him, amused. “You see too many movies,” she said. “You think you’re Cary Grant.”

They smoked in silence for a while, companionably. Something in the dimmed light outside communicated itself to them, a sense of loss and sweet melancholy.

“What will you do?” he asked.

“You mean, after Mal is gone?” A thrush was whistling somewhere outside, a limpid, liquid warbling. “Maybe I’ll go back to the States,” she said. She waved a hand at the room. “I’m sure as hell going to get rid of this white elephant. Can’t think why I bought it in the first place. Delusions of grandeur, I guess. I liked the idea of a girl from the backwoods living amongst so much gilt.” She laughed, then said, “The girl’s father, Costigan — he was Garret’s bagman, if I remember rightly?”