William Trevor - Selected Stories

In the Esplanade Ice-cream Parlour the girls requested a Peach Melba and a sundae. One was called Carmel, the other Marie. They said they were nurses, but in fact they worked in a paper mill.

‘Bray’s quiet,’ Mangan said.

The girls agreed it was. They’d been intending to go to see the Pope themselves, but they’d slept it out. A quarter past twelve it was before Carmel opened her eyes, and Marie was even worse. She wouldn’t like to tell you, she said.

‘We seen it on the television,’ Mangan said. ‘Your man’s in great form.’

‘What line are you in?’ Carmel asked.

‘Gangsters,’ said Mangan, and everyone laughed.

Gallagher wagged his head in admiration. Mangan always gave the same response when asked that question by girls. You might have thought he’d restrain himself today, but that was Mangan all over. Gallagher lit a cigarette, thinking he should have hit the old fellow before he had a chance to turn round. He should have rushed into the room and struck him a blow on the back of the skull with whatever there was to hand, hell take the consequences.

‘What’s it mean, gangsters?’ Marie asked, still giggling, glancing at Carmel and giggling even more.

‘Banks,’ Mangan said, ‘is our business.’

The girls thought of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and the adventures of Bonnie and Clyde, and laughed again. They knew that if they pressed their question it wouldn’t be any good. They knew it was a kind of flirtation, their asking and Mangan teasing with his replies. Mangan was a wag. Both girls were drawn to him.

‘Are the ices to our ladyships’ satisfaction?’ he enquired; causing a further outbreak of giggling.

Gallagher had ordered a banana split. Years ago he used to think that if you filled a room with banana splits he could eat them all. He’d been about five then. He used to think the same thing about fruitcake.

‘Are the flicks on today?’ Mangan asked, and the girls said on account of the Pope they mightn’t be. It might be like Christmas Day, they didn’t know.

‘We seen what’s showing in Bray,’ Marie said. ‘In any case.’

‘We’ll go dancing later on,’ Mangan promised. He winked at Gallagher, and Gallagher thought the day they made a killing you wouldn’t see him for dust. The mail boat and Spain, posh Cockney girls who called you Mr Big. Never lift a finger again.

‘Will we sport ourselves on the prom?’ Mangan suggested, and the girls laughed again. They said they didn’t mind. Each wanted to be Mangan’s. He sensed it, so he walked between them on the promenade, linking their arms. Gallagher walked on the outside, linking Carmel.

‘Spot of the ozone,’ Mangan said. He pressed his forearm against Marie’s breast. She was the one, he thought.

‘D’you like the nursing?’ Gallagher asked, and Carmel said it was all right. A sharp breeze was darting in from the sea, stinging their faces, blowing the girls’ hair about. Gallagher saw himself stretched out by a blue swimming-pool, smoking and sipping at a drink. There was a cherry in the drink, and a little stick with an umbrella on the end of it. A girl with one whole side of her bikini open was sharing it with him.

‘Bray’s a great place,’ Mangan said.

‘The pits,’ Carmel corrected.

You could always tell by the feel of a girl on your arm, Mangan said to himself. Full of sauce the fat one was, no more a nurse than he was. Gallagher wondered if they had a flat, if there’d be anywhere to go when the moment came.

‘We could go into the bar of the hotel,’ the other one was saying, the way girls did when they wanted to extract their due.

‘What hotel’s this?’ he asked.

‘The International.’

‘Oh, listen to Miss Ritzy!’

They turned and walked back along the promenade, guided by the girls to the bar in question. Gin and tonic the girls had. Gallagher and Mangan had Smithwick’s.

‘We could go into town later,’ Carmel casually suggested. ‘There’ll be celebrations on.’

‘We’ll give the matter thought,’ Mangan said.

Another couple of pulls of the tie, Mangan said to himself, and who’d have been the wiser? You get to that age, you’d had your life anyway. As it was, the old geezer had probably conked it on his own, tied up like that. Most likely he was stiffening already.

‘Isn’t there a disco on in Bray?’ he suggested. ‘What’s wrong with a slap-up meal and then the light fantastic?’

The girls were again amused at his way of putting it. Gallagher was glad to hear the proposal that they should stay where they were. If they went into town the whole opportunity could fall asunder. If you didn’t end up near a mott’s accommodation you were back where you started.

‘You’d die of the pace of it in Bray,’ Marie said, and Mangan thought a couple more gins and a dollop of barley wine with their grill and chips. He edged his knee against Marie’s. She didn’t take hers away.

‘Have you a flat or rooms or something?’ Gallagher asked, and the girls said they hadn’t. They lived at home, they said. They’d give anything for a flat.

A few minutes later, engaged at the urinals in the lavatory, the two youths discussed the implications of that. Mangan had stood up immediately on hearing the news. He’d given a jerk of his head when the girls weren’t looking.

‘No bloody go,’ Gallagher said.

‘The fat one’s on for it.’

‘Where though, man?’

Mangan reminded his companion of other occasions, in car parks and derelict buildings, of the time they propped up the bar of the emergency exit of the Adelphi cinema and went back in afterwards, of the time in the garden shed in Drumcondra.

Gallagher laughed, feeling more optimistic when he remembered all that. He winked to himself, the way he did when he was beginning to feel drunk. He spat into the urinal, another habit at this particular juncture. The seashore was the place; he’d forgotten about the seashore.

‘Game ball,’ Mangan said.

The memory of the day that had passed seemed rosy now – the empty streets they had hurried through, the quiet houses where their business had been, the red blotchiness in the old man’s face and neck, the processions on the television screen. Get a couple more gins into them, Mangan thought again, and then the barley wine. Stretch the fat one out on the soft bloody sand.

‘Oh, lovely,’ the fat one said when more drinks were offered.

Gallagher imagined the wife of a businessman pleading down a telephone, reporting that her captors intended to slice off the tips of her little fingers unless the money was forthcoming. The money was a package in a telephone booth, stashed under the seat. The pictures of Spain began again.

‘Hi,’ Carmel said.

She’d been to put her lipstick on, but she didn’t look any different.

‘What d’you do really?’ she asked on the promenade.

‘Unemployed.’

‘You’re loaded for an unemployed.’ Her tone was suspicious. He watched her trying to focus her eyes. Vaguely, he wondered if she liked him.

‘A man’s car needed an overhaul,’ he said.

Ahead of them, Mangan and Marie were laughing, the sound drifting lightly back above the swish of the sea.

‘He’s great sport, isn’t he?’ Carmel said.

‘Oh, great all right.’

Mangan turned round before they went down the steps to the shingle. Gallagher imagined his fancy talk and the fat one giggling at it. He wished he was good at talk like that.

‘We had plans made to go into town,’ Carmel said. ‘There’ll be great gas in town tonight.’

When they began to cross the shingle she said it hurt her feet, so Gallagher led her back to the concrete wall of the promenade and they sat down with their backs to it. It wasn’t quite dark. Cigarette packets and chocolate wrappings were scattered on the sand and pebbles. Gallagher put his arm round Carmel’s shoulders. She let him kiss her. She didn’t mind when he twisted her sideways so that she no longer had her back to the wall. She felt limp in his arms, and for a moment Gallagher thought she’d passed out, but then she kissed him back. She murmured something and her arms pulled him down on top of her. He realized it didn’t matter about the fancy talk.