at that moment. He saw her standing by the edge of the kitchen table, with a cigarette protruding from the left- hand extremity of her mouth, and the thumb and forefinger of her right hand grasping a glass which contained sherry and which bore, painted around it on the outside, two thin lines, one in red, the other in gold. It was the forty-seventh time that Mr McCarthy had made this midday journey, in a taxi-cab with a bottle of wine.
‘Doesn’t he want you to dress up?’ the girls had asked when first she had told them. ‘Pith helmets, chukka boots?’ Mavie had found that funny. She had laughed and said: ‘Dress up? Rather the opposite!’ But that was at the very beginning of the affair, before she had fallen so deeply in love with him.
‘Hullo.’ Mavie, holding the sherry glass before her, struck a pose in the basement kitchen. She had taken off her plastic apron.
‘Hullo, Mavie.’ He held out the bottle, his hat still upon his head, his soft raincoat creased and seeming unclean. ‘I’ve brought some wine. A little wine. I thought it would cheer us up.’ He had let himself in, for the door was always on the latch. He had clicked the Yale catch behind him, as he had long since learned she liked him to do, so that no disturbances might later take place. ‘I don’t care for disturbances,’ Mavie had said on the fifth occasion: an embarrassing time, when a coal-heaver, mistaking the basement for the basement next door, had walked into her bedroom with a sack on his back to find Mr McCarthy and herself playing about on the covers of her bed.
‘My, my, you’re looking sweet.’ He removed his hat and overcoat and cast his eye about for a corkscrew. It was his policy on these visits to prime himself beforehand with two measures of brandy and, having made his entry, to take an immediate glass of
‘I love that costume.’ He had said this before, referring to Mavie’s navy-blue coat and skirt. In reply she had once or twice pointed out that it had been, originally, the property of her sister Linda.
Mr McCarthy could smell the fish. He could sense the atmosphere rich with mackerel and the perfumed mist with which Mavie had sprayed the room.
‘I’m doing a nice fresh mackerel in a custard sauce,’ Mavie announced, moving towards the stove. She had been closely embraced by Mr McCarthy, who was now a little shaken, caught between the promise of the embrace and the thought of mackerel in a sauce. He imagined he must have heard incorrectly: he could not believe that the sauce was a custard one. ‘Custard!’ he said. ‘Custard?’
Mavie stirred the contents of a bowl. She remembered the first time: she had made an omelette; the mushrooms with which she had filled it had not cooked properly and Mr McCarthy had remarked upon the fact. She could have wept, watching him move the mushrooms to the side of his plate. ‘Have them on toast,’ she had cried. ‘I’ll cook them a bit more, love, and you can have them on a nice piece of toast.’ But he had shaken his head, and then, to show that all was well, he had taken her into his arms and had at once begun to unzip her skirt.
‘Custard?’ said Mr McCarthy again, aware of some revulsion in his bowels.
‘A garlic custard sauce. I read it in that column.’
‘My dear, I’d as soon have a lightly boiled egg. This wretched old trouble again.’
‘Oh, you poor thing! But fish is as easy to digest. A small helping. I’d have steamed had I known. You poor soul. Sit down, for heaven’s sake.’
He was thinking that he would vomit if he had to lift a single forkful of mackerel and garlic custard sauce to his lips. He would feel a retching at the back of his throat and before another second passed there would be an accident.
‘Love, I should have told you: I am off fish in any shape or form. The latest thing, I am on a diet of soft-boiled eggs. I’m a terrible trouble to you, Mavie love.’
She came to where he was sitting, drinking his way through the wine, and kissed him. She said not to worry about anything.
Mr McCarthy had told Mavie more lies than he had ever told anyone else. He had invented trouble with his stomach so that he could insist upon simple food, even though Mavie, forgetfully or hopefully, always cooked more elaborately. He had invented a Saturday appointment at four o’clock every week so that no dawdling would be required of him after he had exacted what he had come to look upon as his due. He had invented a wife and two children so that Mavie might not get ideas above her station.
‘Brush your teeth, Mavie, like a good girl.’ Mr McCarthy was being practical, fearful of the garlic. He spoke with confidence, knowing that Mavie would see it as reasonable that she should brush her teeth before the moments of love.
While she was in the bathroom he hummed a tune and reflected on his continuing good fortune. He drank more wine and when Mavie returned bade her drink some, too. It could only happen on Saturdays because the girl whom Mavie shared the flat with, Eithne, went away for the weekends.
‘Well, this is pleasant,’ said Mr McCarthy, sitting her on his knee, stroking her navy-blue clothes. She sat there, a little heavy for him, swinging her legs until her shoes slipped off.
This Saturday was Mavie’s birthday. Today she was twenty-seven, while Mr McCarthy remained at fifty-two. She had, the night before and for several other nights and days, considered the fact, wondering whether or not to make anything of it, wondering whether or not to let Mr McCarthy know. She had thought, the Saturday before, that it might seem a little pushing to say that it was her birthday in a week; it might seem that her words contained the suggestion that Mr McCarthy should arm himself with a present or should contrive to transform the day into a special occasion. She thought ecstatically of his arriving at the house with a wrapped box and sitting down and saying: ‘What lovely mackerel!’ and putting it to her then that since this was her twenty-seventh birthday he would arrange to spend the whole afternoon and the night as well. ‘We shall take to the West End later on,’ Mr McCarthy had said in Mavie’s mind, ‘and shall go to a show, that thing at the Palladium. I have the tickets in my wallet.’
‘What terrible old weather it is,’ said Mr McCarthy. ‘You wouldn’t know whether you’re coming or going.’
Mavie made a noise of agreement. She remembered other birthdays: a year she had been given a kite, the time that her cake, its flavour chosen by her, had not succeeded in the oven and had come to the table lumpy and grey, disguised with hundreds and thousands. She had cried, and her mother had picked up a teaspoon and rapped her knuckles. ‘After the show,’ said Mr McCarthy, ‘what about a spot of dinner in a little place I’ve heard of? And then liqueurs before we return in style to your little nest.’ As he spoke Mr McCarthy nuzzled her neck, and Mavie realized that he was, in fact, nuzzling her neck, though he was not speaking.
