Benjamin Black - Holy Orders

“Did you miss him, when you went to England?” Phoebe asked.

Sally pondered the question. “At the start I was so miserable I couldn’t sort out who or what I missed the most. But yes, I could have done with him being around, to talk to. He always listened to me, to things I was enthusiastic about or that were worrying me, and he never preached, even though he was the older one.” She frowned, and Phoebe wondered if there were tears in her eyes or if it was just the effect of the gaslight. “Have you got any brothers or sisters?” Sally asked. Her voice did not seem teary.

“No,” Phoebe said. “I’m an only child.” It sounded strange, put like that. Why did she speak of herself as a child? But how else was she to put it? She could not have said she was an “only person” or an “only woman.” There could only be only children, it seemed. For a long time after she had found out who her real parents were — Quirke and his dead wife — she had thought of herself as an orphan; she had felt like an orphan. That had been the loneliest time of her life, but that time had passed. And now? Was she less lonely now, or more so, in a different way?

Sally gave a little laugh. “It’s funny,” she said. “I always wanted to be an only child. I used to think it would be romantic, that I’d be like — oh, I don’t know — Jane Eyre or someone.” She paused. “You always think everyone else is having a wonderful life, don’t you. That’s one of the reasons, maybe the reason, I found out where you worked and followed you for days around the city. From the way James talked about you, you seemed the most amazing person, leading the most amazing life.”

Phoebe laughed. “And now you’ve discovered the sad and disappointing truth, is that it?”

But Sally’s attention had strayed, and she did not reply. Instead she asked, “Have you got a boyfriend?”

“Yes,” Phoebe said. “His name is David, David Sinclair. He works with my father.” She heard how her voice had become solemn, as if the subject of David Sinclair warranted a certain gravity. Why was that? So many things about David puzzled her, the first one being her feelings for him.

“Is he a doctor too?” Sally asked.

“A pathologist, yes. You must”—now she sounded to herself like a debutante or something, all breathy and bright—“you must meet him.”

Once again Sally’s thoughts had wandered. “I keep seeing it in my mind,” she said. “Somebody hitting him and kicking him.” She turned to Phoebe with eyes that were suddenly fevered. “Why would they do such a thing? Who would want to harm poor James?” She looked at the fire again, the hissing flames. “He never hurt anyone in his life.”

They were silent for a time. The rain had stopped, and outside too all was silent, as if the entire city were deserted. Phoebe thought of Jimmy, his little pinched, pale face, his nicotine-stained fingers, his way of pushing his hat to the back of his head like the newsmen did in the films that they had often gone to together. “You didn’t come back in time for the funeral,” she said.

Sally gave a sad shrug. “I couldn’t face — I couldn’t face them . Mam and Dad are all right, but my brother … He’s so full of anger and outrage. I think he thinks the world was set up specially to annoy him.”

Phoebe hesitated. “What is it that — I mean, how did you come to be so distant from them, from your family?”

Sally put her mug on the floor beside herself and drew up her legs and put her arms around them and rested her chin on her knees. The gaslight gave her face a bluish cast. “Oh, they never forgave me for going to England. I think they thought I must be pregnant. They couldn’t understand anyone wanting to leave, to get away. I don’t really blame them — they can’t see beyond the little world they grew up in.”

“Wouldn’t you — wouldn’t you think of contacting them, now, of telling them you’re here, that you’ve come home?”

“But I haven’t ‘come home’!” Sally said. “If they knew I was here they’d assume I was staying. But I’ll be going back. My life is there now.”

“But if you could make peace with them? Your parents must be brokenhearted, having lost Jimmy. Surely they’d be glad to hear from you?”

“I considered trying to get in touch with Daddy — he was always the one I got on best with — but I knew he’d tell my brother.”

“You sound almost as if you’re afraid of him, of your brother.”

“Do I? I don’t know — maybe I am. I never understood him. James was so different from him. James liked to talk tough, but underneath he was soft — I’m sure you saw that.” She turned to look at Phoebe. “Was there ever — was there ever anything between you and him? Do you mind me asking?”

“No, no, I don’t mind. And no — Jimmy and I were friends, never more than that.” It made her uneasy, speaking about Jimmy like this. Although she had nothing to hide, still she seemed to detect in her own voice a strident note, as if there were something for her to feel guilty about and deny. But there was nothing, except, she supposed, that she had not given enough attention to Jimmy, that she had taken him for granted. But surely that was how everyone felt when someone died unexpectedly and in tragic circumstances, that there were things they should have done, words that should have been spoken, gestures that should have been made. It struck her that by dying Jimmy had turned himself into a larger presence in her life than he had been when he was alive.

Sally thrust her fingers into her hair and yawned.

“You’re tired, I can see,” Phoebe said. “We can talk again tomorrow — I’ll phone the shop and go in late.”

“Will you contact your father? I’d like to see him, to talk to him.”

“Yes, I will. He lives nearby, you know. We can try to catch him before he leaves for the hospital.”

They took turns in the bathroom, then said good night, and Phoebe went into her bedroom. As she was shutting the door she glanced back into the living room and saw Sally standing in the light from the fire, pulling her sweater over her head. Her hair shone like coils of dark copper.

* * *

Phoebe knew she would not be able to sleep. She changed into her dressing gown and sat on the bed with a pillow behind her back and tried to read — a novel, Black Narcissus —but she could not concentrate. Her mind was in a spin. The thought nagged at her that she had somehow let Jimmy down, although she could not think what things there might have been that she had not done for him. Anyway, that was not the point. The fault was not in actions taken or not taken, but in — what? If he had loved her, should she not have recognized it? Perhaps that was what her failure had been, a failure of attention, of — what was the word? — of empathy. The notion troubled her, but she had to acknowledge that she resented it, too. She had never done anything to make Jimmy love her — she had not encouraged him, had not “led him on,” as Sister Aloysius used to say, screwing up her mouth in fierce disapproval so that the little brown hairs on her upper lip bristled like tiny antennae.

She put her book aside and switched off the lamp and lay on her back gazing up into the inky shadows. It seemed to her that through Jimmy and his terrible end she had incurred a debt without knowing it, a debt for which she could not feel she was responsible, and did not know how to discharge. Would it be with her all her life, would her dead friend accompany her always, an insistent ghost, dogging her steps in a soulful, accusing silence?

A sound came to her, sharp and piercing as a needle. What was it? She lifted herself on an elbow, straining to hear. A cat, down in the garden? Or was there a wireless on, somewhere in the house? No. Someone was crying. She got up quickly and without turning on the light tiptoed to the bedroom door and opened it a little way, not making a sound, and put her ear to the crack and listened.