splintered wreckage of a life? “Ah, Dad,” Jack said, feeling suddenly worn out. Something was happening in his throat, his sinuses, behind his eyes. He put a hand to his face, and all at once the tears came, and he opened his mouth and released a sound that was half a sob and half a wail. Still covering his eyes, he reached out his other hand blindly before him and, finding his father’s cold and bony arm, held on to it, and wept.
6
The night was too hot for sleeping but they would probably not have slept anyway. Quirke sat on the side of the bed, smoking a cigarette. He was naked, yet still he was sweating. It was strange, being here again in the little house in Portobello, in this low-ceilinged bedroom with the narrow bed and the Fragonard reproduction on the wall and that little square window looking out onto the canal.
The hour was past midnight but there was still a faint glow in the sky above the rooftops. He did not like this time of year, with its slow lethargic days and eerily short nights. In summer he always felt slightly unwell, with headaches and pains in his joints and a constant faint sensation of nausea. He thought he must have an allergy, that there must be some kind of pollen or dust in the air that his system could not cope with. He should have a test. He closed his eyes briefly. There were many things he should do.
“I suppose you’ll be off now,” Isabel Galloway said, “having got what you came for.”
She was sitting up in the bed, propped against pillows, wrapped in the silk teagown he remembered, with red and yellow flowers printed on it. She was smoking too, with an ashtray in her lap. Although his back was turned to her, he could feel her angry eye fixed on him.
“Do you want me to go?” he asked.
“Oho no,” she said, with a bitter laugh, “don’t try that old trick-I’m not going to make it easy for you.”
He was squinting through the window out into the undark night. The streetlamp at the corner was casting a sulfurous sheen on the still surface of the canal. He thought of being out there, even saw himself, walking along the towpath in the calm mild air, moving between pools of lamplight, his long shadow shortening at his back and rising up swiftly and then the next moment falling out in front of him. To be alone, to be alone.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
“Yes, of course you are.” Isabel spoke behind him, in a tone of angry sarcasm. “You’re always sorry, aren’t you.”
“I shouldn’t have come here.”
“No, you shouldn’t. And will you please turn around? I want to make sure you’re not smirking.” He half turned towards her, showing his face to her, his expression of weary melancholy. Their lovemaking had felt to him more like a surgical procedure. Isabel had thrust herself angrily against him, all elbows, ribs, and bared teeth. Now she sat there furious in her painted gown like an Oriental empress about to order his beheading. “You hurt me, Quirke,” she said, with a tremor in her voice that she could not suppress. “You broke my heart. I tried to kill myself over you.” She shook her head in rueful wonder. “What a fool.”
He tapped his cigarette on the edge of the ashtray. “I should have telephoned,” he said. “I should have kept in contact. That was unforgivable.”
Her eyes blazed, glittering with unshed angry tears. “But of course you’re asking to be forgiven, aren’t you.”
He looked down. Somewhere nearby a church bell tolled once, marking the half hour. The chime hung for a second or two in the upper air, a trembling pearl of sound. “I thought,” he said, speaking very slowly, “I thought we might try again, you and I.”
Isabel stared at him steadily for a long moment, then flung herself from the bed and swept out of the room, her bare feet slapping on the polished wood floor. The bathroom door down the corridor slammed shut. He listened to the faint distant tinkle of her peeing. He put out a hand and felt the warm spot in the bed where she had sat. He saw clearly, like a forking path, the two possibilities that lay before him: either stay or get up now and hurry into his clothes and leave before she returned. He did not move.
They went downstairs, Quirke barefoot and in shirt and trousers. He sat on the sofa in the living room while she fetched glasses and a bottle from the kitchen. “I only have gin,” she said, holding up the bottle. She smiled wryly. “I am an actress, after all. And there’s no ice, as usual. The fridge is still not working.” This was how it had been the first night he had come here, the warm gin and the flat tonic in this airless, cramped little room.
Isabel sat down sideways to face him at the opposite end of the sofa. “Well,” she said, putting on a brisk and brittle tone, “shall we make small talk? You go first.”
He smiled, shrugged. “I don’t know what to tell you. Nothing notable ever happens to me.”
“Aren’t you at your sleuthing? You always enjoy that-murder and mayhem, all of it happening to other people.”
He had left his cigarettes upstairs. Isabel pointed to a silver box on the mantelpiece, one that he remembered, and he stood up and fetched it and offered her a cigarette and took one himself. Passing Cloud- Phoebe used to smoke them; did she still? He did not know. He thought perhaps she had given up. He settled himself on the sofa again. The warm gin tasted like perfume, cloying and slightly viscous. “Ever come across Victor Delahaye?” he asked.
She frowned, and shook her head. “No. Should I?”
“He died. It was in the papers. He-” He stopped.
“He what?” Isabel asked.
“Killed himself.”
“Did he, now.” She watched him narrowly, with amusement. “I do believe you’re blushing, Quirke.”
“Sorry.”
“You don’t need to be.” Her smile was as bright as steel. “I’ve got used to thinking of myself as a failed suicide, so there’s no reason to be embarrassed and avoid the subject. Tell me about this man-what did you say his name was?”
Quirke took a long swallow of his drink, and winced again at the glutinous texture. “Delahaye,” he said. “Victor Delahaye. Business family-Delahaye and Clancy, shipping, coal, timber, garages, I don’t know what else.”
“And why did he kill himself?” She gave her mouth a twist. “Not for love, I imagine.”
“No one seems to know. Or no one is saying, anyway.”
“Aha-and your little gray cells are working overtime, are they?” She sipped her drink, watching him over the edge of her glass. “You really are a strange person, Quirke. Tell me, why did you decide to be a pathologist?”
Why? He could not recall, now. “I don’t know that I decided,” he said. “I think I just drifted, as everyone does.”
“Your morbid streak led you on, did it?”
“That’s it. My morbid streak.”
For a reason that neither of them could understand this little exchange lightened the atmosphere between them, and Isabel extended a foot and caressed his bare ankle with her toes. “Poor Quirke,” she said fondly, “you’re such a mess.” He was about to reply when she sat up straight suddenly. “I know what’s the matter with me,” she said. “I’m hungry. And do you know what I want? Chips! I want a bag of chips and one of those disgusting rissoles they make out of mashed-up seagull.” She stood up, extending her hand. “Come on, get your shoes on, we’re going out.” She hurried ahead of him up the narrow stairs, singing.
Despite himself, he was glad he had stayed.
They had to go all the way to Ringsend to find a chip shop that was still open. Isabel had a little car now, a Fiat, bright red and glossy, like a ladybird. Quirke was touched to see how proud of it she was. He had briefly owned an Alvis, and was secretly relieved to be rid of it. They drove down by the canal, under the dark and motionless trees. The roads were empty at this hour. There was a childish excitement in the car, as if, Quirke thought, the two of them had slipped out together in the dark, hand in hand, bent on adventure.
Isabel, crouched over the steering wheel, kept shooting him sidelong glances with her eyebrows lifted and her lips mischievously pursed. “Oh, God, Quirke,” she said with a laughing groan, “I have to admit it, I’m glad you’re
