Elegy For April

“Swans in the-?”

“I mean I don’t know how to behave, that’s all. I never learned; there was no one to teach me. People, women”- he made a chopping motion with the side of his hand-”it’s impossible.”

She stood there, close in front of him, gazing up, and he had to force himself not to look away.

“Listen to me,” she said, in a new voice, rapid and sharp-edged. “I haven’t asked anything of you, no promises, no vows, no commitments. I thought you understood that; I thought you accepted that. Don’t start taking fright already, when there’s nothing to be frightened of. Do me that courtesy, will you?”

“I’m sor-”

“And please, no apologies. I told you, few things are as dispiriting as a man mumbling about how sorry he is.” Suddenly she lifted herself up on her toes and seized his face between her hands and kissed him hard on the mouth. “You idiot,” she said, drawing back. “You hopeless idiot- don’t you realize you could be happy?”

IT WAS DARK BY THE TIME THEY GOT TO DUN LAOGHAIRE, AND A three-quarters moon white as lightning had hoisted itself over the harbor. It was not so cold out here by the sea, and the road was blackly agleam with thawed frost. When they stopped at Albion Terrace they did not get out of the car at once but sat side by side listening to the engine ticking as it cooled. Quirke lit a cigarette and rolled down the window beside him an inch and flicked the spent match through the opening. “I shouldn’t have asked you to come,” he said. “I could bring you to the hotel back there, and you could wait for me, if you like.”

Isabel was looking at the moon. “I’m glad you did ask me,” she said, without turning. “You should ask for things more often. People like it. It makes them feel needed.” She reached out blindly and took his hand. “Oh Lor’,” she said, with a quivery little laugh, “I think I feel another tear coming on.”

“What? Why?”

“I don’t know… isn’t it awful, the way we cry for no reason?” Now she did turn, and he saw her eyes, how large they were and shining. “I can’t imagine you weep much, do you, Quirke?” He said nothing, and she gripped his hand more tightly, giving it a rueful shake. “Big strong man, no cry, eh?” A shaft of moonlight shone on her hand holding his. Out in the darkness unseen sea-birds were calling and crying. “I’m as lost as you are, you know,” she said. “Couldn’t we just- help each other a little along this hard way we’ve been set on?”

He took her awkwardly in his arms- the steering wheel was in the way- and kissed her. He kept his eyes open and saw, beyond the pale concavity of her temple, one of those birds come swooping suddenly out of the darkness, swift and startlingly white.

They walked up the pathway between glimmering lawns, the damp gravel squeaking under their tread. She had taken his hand again. “You’ve met before, haven’t you, April’s mother?” she said. “You know we’re all afraid of her, of course?”

“Who is ‘all’?”

“April’s friends.”

“Right,” he said. “April’s friends. I met one of them this afternoon. A reporter.”

“Jimmy Minor?” She was surprised. “Where did you meet him?”

“He came to see me at the hospital, asking about April.”

“Did he? What did he say?”

“He was poking about, looking for information, the way they do.”

“I hope he’s not thinking of writing something about her in the paper.” They came to the front door. A light was burning in the porch. “What did you tell him?”

“Nothing. What is there to tell?”

He rang the doorbell; they heard its distant chime. Isabel was looking out over the blackness of the garden, thinking. “I wonder what he’s up to,” she murmured. “He can be mischievous, can our Jimmy.”

Marie the red-haired maid opened the door to them. Quirke she remembered, and said yes, that he was expected. She gave Isabel a look; he did not introduce her.

They were led along the hall to a small, square room at the rear of the house. There was an antique desk with many drawers, and two armchairs and a small sofa upholstered in worn red velvet. Dim, sepia photographs of bearded gentlemen and ladies in lace crowded the walls, and in pride of place above the desk there was hung a framed copy of the 1916 Proclamation. “As you can probably guess, this was my husband’s room,” Celia Latimer said, indicating another photograph in a silver frame standing on the desk, a studio portrait of the late Conor Latimer, looking impossibly smooth, with his head inclined and holding a cigarette beside his face; he had the smile of a film star, arch and knowing. “His den, he called it,” his widow said. Her hair was drawn back from her forehead, and she was wearing a tartan skirt and a gray wool jumper and a gray cardigan and pearls; she looked at once frumpish and vaguely regal, more the Queen Mother than the Queen. She had risen from her chair to greet them. Quirke introduced Isabel Galloway, and she smiled frostily and said: “Yes, I saw you in that French play at the Gate. You were the- the young woman. I must say I was surprised by some of the lines they gave you to say.”

“Oh, well,” Isabel said, “you know what the French are like.” The smile grew frostier still. “No, I’m afraid I don’t.” Isabel glanced at Quirke. He said, “Isabel is a friend of April’s.” “Yes? I don’t think I heard her mention you. But then, there are many things that April doesn’t mention.”

She gestured for them to sit down, Quirke in an armchair and Isabel on the sofa. There was a fire burning, and the air in the room was close and hot. As they were settling themselves the maid came in bearing a tray with tea things on it and set it on a corner of the desk. Mrs. Latimer poured the tea and sat down again, balancing a cup and saucer on her knee.

“I’ll come straight to the point, Dr. Quirke,” she said. “My son tells me you’re still asking questions about April’s whereabouts. I want you to stop. I want you to leave us alone, to leave us in peace. When she’s ready, April will come back from wherever she is, I have no doubt of that. In the meantime it does no one any good to keep on harassing my son and me in the way that you’ve been doing.” She glanced at Isabel, sitting very straight on the sofa with the teacup and saucer in her lap, then turned her attention on Quirke again. “I’m sorry to be so blunt, but I always think it’s best to come straight out and say a thing rather than hemming and hawing.” Before Quirke could answer her she turned again to Isabel. “I take it, Miss Galloway, you haven’t heard from April?”

“No,” Isabel said, “I haven’t. But I’m not as worried as- as other people seem to be. It’s not the first time April has gone off.”

“Gone off?” Mrs. Latimer said with a look of large distaste. “I’m not sure what you mean by that.”

Isabel’s smile tightened, and two pink spots appeared on her cheekbones, a deeper color than the dabs of rouge there.

Quirke put his cup and saucer on the floor beside his chair; he could not drink china tea. “Mrs. Latimer,” he said, “I know that what your daughter does or doesn’t do is no business of mine. As I told you already, my only interest in all this- this business, is that my daughter came to me because she was worried, and I-”

“But you brought the Guards in,” Mrs. Latimer said. “You spoke to that detective, what’s his name- you even took him into April’s flat. You certainly had no business doing that.”

He looked at the photograph of Conor Latimer on the desk. The man’s smile seemed more a smirk now.

“I’m sorry you feel this way, Mrs. Latimer. It’s just-” He paused and glanced at Isabel. She was fixed on him, the teacup forgotten in her lap. “It’s just that it’s possible that something has happened to your daughter.”

“Something,” Celia Latimer repeated, tonelessly. She too was looking off to one side of him, as if there were someone standing there. Quirke turned his head; it was the photograph of her husband that had drawn her, of course.

“I know,” he said, “how important your family is to you.”

With a visible effort she transferred her gaze to him. “Do you?” she said, in an odd, almost playful tone, and for a second he had the notion that she was going to laugh. She stood up and crossed to the desk and set her cup and saucer down on the tray. She turned to Isabel. “Would you like some more tea, Miss Galloway?” she asked. She seemed weary suddenly, her shoulders indrawn and her mouth set tight in a crooked line.

“No, thank you,” Isabel said.

She too rose, and brought her cup, also with the tea untouched in it, and put it on the tray. Quirke watched the two women standing there, not saying anything to each other and yet, it seemed to him, communicating in some