been one to take risks, to cut a corner. Perhaps he had been tipsy, and had stumbled somehow and fallen overboard and hit his head as he was falling. He was a strong swimmer, and would surely have survived if he had been conscious when he fell into the sea. It had been a summer night, the cold would not have hampered him and made his limbs cramp up. But what other possibility was there? She did not like to think about other possibilities, yet she was aware of them, thronging just beyond the borders of her mind, clamoring to be let in.
Despite everything she knew to be the case, she could not believe that Jack was gone. She knew he was dead, of course, yet she could not accept it. She kept thinking that he was being held up somewhere and prevented from coming back, and that if she did certain things, performed certain as yet unknown rites, and waited long enough, he would return. At moments in the day she would stop whatever she was doing and stand very still, listening, as if to hear his step in the hall, as if the door would open and he would come walking in, whistling, with the paper under his arm. At night especially she listened for him, for the small distant sound of his key in the front door lock, for the creak of the loose board on the first step of the stairs, for the bathroom tap to run, for the lavatory to flush, for the light switch to click off. It was all nonsense, she knew, this breathless waiting for the impossible to happen, yet she could not stop herself. It comforted her, imagining that he would come back.
She was glad of Davy’s presence in the house, infrequent though it was. He stayed out as much as he could, but when he was there he was some kind of company. They did not talk about his father, or the circumstances of his death. Death, she had discovered, causes an awkwardness, a kind of embarrassment, among the bereaved. The thing was too big to be dwelled on. It was as if some huge thing had been thrust into their midst, as if a great stone ball had come crashing through the roof and sat now immovable between them, so that they had to negotiate their way round it and at the same time pretend it was not there.
Davy shied from her, and would hardly meet her eye. He had been like that before his father died, throughout the week after Victor Delahaye’s death. She was reminded of when he was a boy and she had walked into his room one day without knocking-she could not believe she had been so careless-and found him lying on the bed with his trousers open and doing that thing to himself that men did. For weeks afterwards he would not look at her and blushed furiously if she came near him. Now it was like that again, only worse. Did he hold her responsible in some way for Jack’s death? She had read somewhere that when children lose a parent they sometimes blame the one who has survived, and Davy in so many respects was still a kind of child. But what about Victor’s death? How could he think she had any responsibility for that? It was Davy himself whom Victor had taken with him on that last terrible trip out to sea.
Did Davy know more than he was saying, about both deaths? Not that he said much. These days he was like an animal in hiding, folded into himself, showing nothing but sharp spines.
She tried her best to bring him out of himself, to make him talk to her, to tell her whatever things it was he knew and was keeping secret. She had him drive her to visit Jack’s grave every day. They ate lunch together, in the kitchen, in silence. She cooked dinner for him, too, but as often as not he stayed out until long after dinnertime, and she would make up a plate and leave it for him on top of the stove. It was an eerie sensation to come down in the morning and find the food eaten, the plate washed and put away. Her son was more of a ghost for her than Jack was. Unlike Davy, however, Jack was not a presence but a vast absence. She might wait in constant expectation for him to come back, but he would not come back, not ever again.
On Davy’s twenty-fifth birthday she took him for a treat to lunch at the Hibernian Hotel. She could see he did not want to go, but she insisted he should put on a suit and tie, while she wore a dark blue suit that she did not think looked too much like widow’s weeds-the occasion was supposed to be a celebration, after all-and together they took a taxi in from Dun Laoghaire. They were late, but they still managed to get a good table, by the window, looking out on Dawson Street. She had fish while Davy ate a steak. She persuaded him to drink a glass of wine, although usually he drank only beer, and not much of that.
She watched him across the table as he ate, and a lump came to her throat to see how much like his father he was becoming, with the same deftness, the same attentiveness to the smallest things. He was a good boy, she thought-and was glad he was not able to hear her refer to him as a boy-even if he could be difficult at times. She knew so little about him, what he did, where he went, who his friends were. Did he mean to be secretive, to keep things from her, or was that just the way all grown-up sons were with their mothers? Lonely though her own life would be from now on, she must not attempt to pry into his affairs, or make him think she expected him to share things with her. After all, he was not a boy, he was a man, and his own man, at that. Just like his father.
Glancing about, she caught sight of someone at a table on the other side of the dining room whose face she knew although for a moment she could not put a name to it. He was large, and wore a double-breasted black suit. There was a woman with him, who was also somewhat familiar, though Sylvia was sure she had never met her. When the couple had finished their lunch they passed close by on their way out, and the man stopped, and a second before he spoke she remembered who he was.
“Mrs. Clancy,” he said, “how are you? My name is Quirke. I’m a-I’m an associate of Detective Inspector Hackett’s. I was at your husband’s funeral. I’m very sorry for your loss.”
She thanked him, and introduced Davy, who gave him an openly hostile stare and turned away and glared out the window into the sunlit street. Quirke’s lady friend had gone on a few paces, and stopped now and looked back with a polite vague smile. She was that actress; Sylvia suddenly recognized her-what was her name? Galligan? Galloway? She was good-looking, in an actressy sort of way.
Quirke was still standing there, beside the table, as if he expected her to say something more, to do something more. She was keenly aware of his dark bulk, which seemed to lean over her a little, and suddenly something gave way inside her, and she thought she might be about to weep. What was the matter with her? She did not know this man, had only glimpsed him once before, in the churchyard, and now here she was, ready to clasp his hand and bury her face in his sleeve and shed hot tears. She tried to speak. “I–I wonder if-” She snatched up her handbag from the floor where she had left it leaning against the leg of her chair and opened it and rummaged in it for a handkerchief. She must not cry, not here, in front of these people, this man, this stranger!
He had started to move on. She twisted about on the chair, looking up at him urgently. What did she want of him? He paused, seeing the silent appeal in her look. He frowned and smiled, seeming to understand. But to understand what? She did not herself understand what was happening, why she wanted him not to go but to stay here beside her. “I’ll come back,” he said. “Just a minute.” He stepped away, and touched a finger to the actress’s elbow, and they went on, moving between the tables, and a moment later Sylvia saw them outside on the pavement, Quirke speaking and the actress looking at him with a quizzical smile and then shrugging and turning to walk away. Quirke, feeling himself watched, glanced back and caught Sylvia’s eye through the window, and they continued gazing at each other for a long moment.
They sat in armchairs in the lobby with a little table between them on which a waitress had set out a pot of coffee and cups and saucers and plates of biscuits and thin square sandwiches. When Quirke had come back into the dining room, Davy had put down his napkin and gone off, angrily, it seemed to his mother. What was there for him to be angry about? Surely she could speak to whomever she liked.
She no longer felt like crying, and anyway the tears that had threatened would have been tears not of sorrow but relief. Yes, relief. There was something about this man sitting before her that she felt she could trust. It was not that he seemed particularly warm or sympathetic. Quite the opposite, in fact. She felt he was the kind of man she could speak to precisely because of a certain coolness, a certain stoniness, she detected in him. She could tell him her secrets and he would keep them, not out of discretion or consideration for her, but out of-what? Disinterest? Indifference? Well, that would be fine. Indifference would be fine.
“Tell me, Mr.-what did you say your name was?”
“Quirke.”
“Tell me, Mr. Quirke, why did you come to the funeral? You didn’t know my husband, did you?”
“No, I didn’t.”
She waited, but obviously nothing more was coming. She poured herself a cup of coffee. “Do I remember seeing you at Victor Delahaye’s funeral, too?”
“Yes, I was there.” He had ordered a glass of whiskey with his coffee. She could smell the sharp hot fragrance of the liquor. “A tragic business,” he said. “First Mr. Delahaye, and then your husband. You must be very shocked.” His hands were quite delicate, she noticed, pale and soft-looking. His feet were small too, for such a large man.
“Yes, we’re all shocked, of course,” she said with a flicker of impatience; she had no time for small talk
