The Silver Swan

calls. The phone would ring, at any hour of the day or night, but when she picked it up there would be nothing but a crackling silence on the line. She tried to catch the sound of breathing-she had heard of other women's experiences of heavy breathers-but in vain. Sometimes there was a muffled sensation, when she thought that he-and she was certain it was a he-must have his hand over the mouthpiece. Once, and only once, she had caught something, a very distant faint tiny clinking sound, as of the lid of a small metal box being opened and shut again. It was maddeningly familiar, that clink, but she could not identify it, try as she would. She had become used to these calls, and although she knew it was perverse of her, she sometimes welcomed them, despite herself. They were by now a constant in her life, fixed pinpricks in the bland fabric of her days. Sitting there on the bench seat at the wide-open window with the phone in her lap and the receiver pressed to her ear, she would forget to feel menaced, and would sink down almost languorously into this brief interval of restful, shared silence. She had given up shouting at whoever it was; she no longer even asked who was calling or demanded that he identify himself, as she used to do in the early days. She wondered what he thought, what he felt, this phantom, listening in his turn now to her silences. Perhaps that was all he too wanted, a moment of quiet, of emptiness, of respite from the ceaseless din inside his head. For she was sure he must be mad.

In the street this evening there was the old man walking his dog whom she had seen many times before-man and dog were remarkably alike, short and squat in identical gray coats-and a couple going along arm in arm in the direction of the Green, the girl smiling at the man, showing her upper teeth all the way to the gums. A boy bent low on a racing bike went past, his tires sizzling on the tarred roadway that was still soft from the day's heat. A bus stopped, but no one got off. She stepped out into the gloaming. A waft of fragrance came up from the flower beds in the park. Why did flowers put out so much scent at evening? she wondered. Was that the time when the insects came out? So many things she did not know, so many things.

She got on a bus at Cuffe Street, and just missed seeing the lowslung apple-green roadster cross the junction and speed on up in the direction from which she had just come.

2

FOR A LONG TIME MAGGIE THE MAID HAD BEEN HIDING THE FACT THAT she was going blind. She was convinced that Mr. Griffin would get rid of her if he knew-what good would a blind maid be to him? That was one reason why she pretended not to hear the doorbell, for she was afraid that if she opened the door she would not be able to make out who it was that was there, and if it was someone she was supposed to know by sight she would be shown up. So that evening she hid in the basement pantry and let Mr. Griffin answer the door himself, and did not come out until she had counted in his three guests. These were Mr. Quirke and Phoebe and that one from America, the old hake trying to be young, Rose whatever-she-was-called. It would be a dismal sort of occasion. Not like the parties there used to be when Missus was still here. Not that Missus was much of a live wire, but at least she got in decent food and drink and dressed herself up nicely when there were people coming.

She was looking forward to seeing Mr. Quirke. She was fond of him and always had been, even when he had taken drink. He was off the booze now, so he said. It was a pity, for when he was half cut he used to tease her and make her laugh. No laughing in this house, these days.

She nearly fell over the dog when she was carrying up the tray of sandwiches. She got a kick in at the beast, and it scuttled off, whimpering. She had a plan to get hold of a tin of rat poison from the chemist's on Rathgar Road one of these days and put that animal out of its misery. Nobody wanted it here, not even Mr. Griffin, who was supposed to be its master. Young Phoebe it was that had got it for him, to keep him company when he came home from America after Missus had died. Company! The thing was more of an annoyance than anything else. This family had a fondness for taking in strays. First, years ago, there was that one Dolly Moran that later on got killed, and then the other one, Christine somebody, the brazen hussy, that had died too. And Mr. Quirke himself had been an orphan that old Judge Griffin had rescued from the poorhouse somewhere and brought to live here as if he was one of his own. Maggie, shuffling along the dim hallway with the tray in front of her, chuckled. Aye, she thought-as if he was one of his own.

IN THE DRAWING ROOM QUIRKE TOOK THE TRAY FROM MAGGIE AND thanked her and asked her how she was. The french windows were open onto the garden, where a brooding lilac light lay on the grass under the drooping trees. Rose Crawford, wine glass in hand, stood in the window with her back turned to the room, looking out. Mal, in a funereal dark-gray suit and dark-blue bow tie, stood with her; they were not speaking; they had never had much to say to each other. Phoebe was sitting in an armchair by the empty fireplace, idly turning over the pages of a leather-bound photograph album. Quirke set the tray down on the big mahogany table, where there were bottles and glasses, and bowls of nuts, and plates of sliced cucumber and celery sticks and quartered carrots. It was the second anniversary of Sarah's death.

He carried his glass of soda water across the room and sat down on the arm of Phoebe's chair and watched as she turned the pages of the album. 'So sad,' she murmured, not raising her eyes. 'How quickly it all goes.' He said nothing. She had stopped at a page of photographs of Sarah on her wedding day, stiff, formal pictures taken by a professional. In one she stood in her long white dress and bridal veil beside a miniature Doric pillar, holding a clustered posy of roses in her hands and peering into the camera lens with a faintly pained smile. Despite the obvious fakery of the setting the photographer had achieved a real suggestion of antiquity. Phoebe was right, Quirke thought; it had all gone so quickly. He remembered the day that photograph was taken-which was a wonder, considering how deeply he had drowned his sorrow that day at having thrown away his chance with her.

Rose Crawford turned from the window and walked to the table and refilled her glass. She wore a tight-fitting frock of night-blue silk that shimmered in angled shapes like metal when she moved. Her shining black hair-she must be dyeing it by now, Quirke thought-was cut short and swept back from her face in two smooth wings, which emphasized the classic sharpness of her profile and gave her a fierce, hawklike look. He left his place on the chair arm and went to her. She had bitten the corner from a crustless triangular sandwich, and as he approached she stopped chewing and put down her wine glass and with her fingers extracted from her mouth a long, gray hair.

'Oh, my,' she wailed faintly, 'it's the maid's, I recognize it.'

'Maggie?' Quirke said. 'She's half blind.'

Rose sighed, and put down the bitten sandwich and took up her glass. 'I don't understand you,' she said. 'The things you accept, as if there was nothing to be done about anything.'

'Do you mean just me, or all of us in general?'

'You people, in this country. I've been amazed since I've been here.'

'What in particular amazes you?'

She shook her head slowly from side to side. 'The quietness of everything,' she said. 'The way you go about in a cowed silence, not protesting, not complaining, not demanding that things should change or be fixed or made new.' She looked at him. 'Josh wasn't like that.'

'Your husband,' he said, 'was a remarkable man.'

She laughed; it was no more than a sniff. 'You didn't admire him.'

'I didn't say he was admirable.'

At that, for no obvious reason, they both turned and looked across at Mal, as if it were he and not Josh Crawford they had been speaking of. He stood somewhat stooped, seeming in faint pain, with a vague, helpless look, the light from the garden giving him a grayish pallor. Rose turned her attention to Phoebe where she sat in the armchair by the fireplace, with the photograph album. 'How is she?' she asked quietly.

Quirke frowned. 'Phoebe? She's all right, I think. Why do you ask?'

'She's not all right.'

'What do you mean?'

'She has a secret. And it's not a nice secret.'

'What secret? How do you know? Has she spoken to you?'