William Trevor - Cheating at Canasta

‘People thought you were dead, Anthony.’

Wilby says he sold the wineshop. He described it once, when they were children: the shelves of bottles, the different shapes, their contents red or white, pink if people wanted that. He tasted wine a few times, he remembers saying.

‘Your father has died himself, Anthony. Your mother has. Miss Davally was left the house because there was no one else. She lives there now.’

No response comes; Wilby has not expected one. He has become a philatelist, he says.

Anthony nods, waiting to cross the street. He knows his father died, his mother too. He has guessed Miss Davally inherited the house. The deaths were in the Irish Times , which he always read, cover to cover, all the years he was the night porter at the Cliff Castle Hotel in Dalkey.

He doesn’t mention the Cliff Castle Hotel. He doesn’t say he misses the Irish Times , the familiar names, the political news, the photographs of places, the change there is in Ireland now. Le Monde is more staid, more circumspect, more serious. Anthony doesn’t say that either because he doubts that it’s of interest to a visitor to Paris.

A gap comes in the stream of cars that has begun to go by; but not trusting this opportunity, Anthony still waits. He is careful on the streets, even though he knows them well.

‘I haven’t died,’ he says.

Perfectly together, they shared an act that was too shameful to commit alone, taking a chance on a sunny morning in order to discover if an old dog’s cleverness would see to his survival.

For a moment, while Anthony loses another opportunity to cross the street, Wilby gathers into sentences how he might attempt a denial that this was how it was, how best to put it differently. An accident, a misfortune beyond anticipation, the unexpected: with gentleness, for gentleness is due, he is about to plead. But Anthony crosses the street then, and opens with a key the side door of the brasserie. He makes no gesture of farewell, he does not look back.

Walking by the river on his way to the salerooms at Passy, Wilby wishes he’d said he was glad his friend was not dead. It is his only thought. The pleasure-boats slip by on the water beside him, hardly anyone on them. A child waves. Raised too late in response, Wilby’s own hand drops to his side. The wind that blew the litter about in rue Piques has freshened. It snatches at the remaining leaves on the black-trunked trees that are an orderly line, following the river’s course.

The salerooms are on the other bank, near the radio building and the apartment block that change the river’s character. Several times he has visited this vast display in which the world’s stamps are exhibited behind glass if they are notably valuable, on the tables, country by country, when they are not. That busy image has always excited Wilby’s imagination and as he climbs the steps to the bridge he is near he attempts to anticipate it now, but does not entirely succeed.

It is not in punishment that the ovens are cleaned on another Thursday morning. It is not in expiation that soon the first leavings of the day will be scraped from the lunchtime plates. There is no bothering with redemption. Looking down from the bridge at the sluggish flow of water, Wilby confidently asserts that. A morning murkiness, like dusk, has brought some lights on in the apartment block. Traffic crawls on distant streets.

For Anthony, the betrayal matters, the folly, the carelessness that would have been forgiven, the cruelty. It mattered in the silence—while they watched, while they clambered over the shingle and the rocks, while they passed through the gorse field. It matters now. The haunted sea is all the truth there is for Anthony, what he honours because it matters still.

The buyers move among the tables and Wilby knows that for him, in this safe, second-hand world of postage stamps, tranquillity will return. He knows where he is with all this; he knows what he’s about, as he does in other aspects of his tidy life. And yet this morning he likes himself less than he likes his friend.

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Table of Contents

The Dressmaker’s Child

The Room

Men of Ireland

Cheating at Canasta

Bravado

An Afternoon

At Olivehill

A Perfect Relationship

The Children

Old Flame

Faith

Folie à Deux

Table of Contents

The Dressmaker’s Child

The Room

Men of Ireland

Cheating at Canasta

Bravado

An Afternoon

At Olivehill

A Perfect Relationship

The Children

Old Flame

Faith

Folie à Deux