Mrs Eckdorf in O'Neill's Hotel

by William Trevor

  ‘It’s only that I don’t understand.’

  ‘Leave me alone.’

  ‘I can’t leave you here, Mrs Eckdorf.’

  No reply came from Mrs Eckdorf and a moment later Morrissey heard footsteps approaching. He moved quickly away and opened a door marked ‘Motor Department’. He heard the footsteps descending the stairs, and remained where he was. What had happened, as far as he could see, was that the female had been left weeping in an office because Eugene Sinnott’s son couldn’t understand her and the reason he couldn’t understand her, Morrissey estimated, was because she was not in her right mind. He recalled that she had openly referred to madness in a public street, mentioning a murderer. In a totally unbalanced manner, she had taken photographs with a camera in Mrs Sinnott’s bedroom.

  In his empirical way, Morrissey deduced that a woman had landed in the city he knew so well and had entered a state of confusion. She had become involved with an hotel and with a family, and through them at the moment she was acting out her condition. It might be a common thing of the times that a person should arrive in a strange city and there, in the twilight of sanity, seek to achieve some goal or other because her condition ordered it. It could be that in many cases all it took was a new set of surroundings and situations to tip a person head over heels.

  He continued to think about her and about the fact that in her fantasy she wished to buy an hotel that on her own admission was a haunt of street-walkers. Did she, he wondered, desire to meet the clients of such people? Did she wish to buy a run-down hotel so that when such clients arrived she could herself entertain them, or at least select from among them those she desired? Was that the way her madness took her? She was of good stock by the sound of her, but he had read of more amazing things than a female like that turning round and placing herself for her own pleasure at the disposal of males. Females often moved in this direction, it seemed, when their minds were affected: after all, if Beulah Flynn had been in full possession of her mental faculties she’d hardly have given up a position in a sewing-machine factory for the unreliable earnings of the thoroughfares. This female had frightened the breeches off young Sinnott, but, as Beulah Flynn nightly proved, there was no reason at all why a woman who wasn’t in full possession of herself should be an object of terror to a more mature type of man. There was no reason at all, if she had cash to play about with, why a disused hotel shouldn’t be transformed by someone like himself into a pleasure garden for her desires. Nor was there any reason to suppose that she mightn’t be induced to permit Agnes Quin, Beulah Flynn, Mrs Dargan and Mrs Kite to occupy rooms in the hotel on a permanent basis since they were, in the reverse way, in the same line of business.

  While Morrissey speculated thus, Mrs Eckdorf sat grimly in the large outer office of the Home and Personal Effects Department, possessed by a failure she could not accept. The son of Eugene and Philomena had betrayed as little sign as Mrs Gregan or Philomena had, or as O’Shea or Eugene himself had. He had mouthed a few clichés and then he had gone away, causing her to feel again that at the end of her grey rainbow there was only ordinariness. On paper, it seemed that Eugene Sinnott and Philomena simply hadn’t made a go of it, that Philomena had decided she didn’t like his boozy face: she had taken her child and gone away to a bungalow, for which his mother paid because she had an inordinate sense of family. And yet why had Philomena said that it was Mrs Sinnott who had made the mistake? How could Mrs Sinnott have been responsible for a mistake made by two other people? She did not herself claim that her mother had made a mistake when the memory of Hoerschelmann came into her mind, or the memory of Hans-Otto. She it was who made the mistakes, as had Hoerschelmann and Hans-Otto: how could it be otherwise?

  A charwoman came into the office with a pail of water and a mop. She spoke to Mrs Eckdorf about the weather.

  ‘Yes,’ replied Mrs Eckdorf, still recalling the voice of Philomena saying that it was Mrs Sinnott who had made a mistake. She looked around her at desks and typewriters and steel filing-cabinets, and calendars on green walls. She entered Mr Gregan’s private office and looked at it too: a cheerless place, she considered, in which to spend one’s days.

  ‘Missus,’ said a voice beside her.

  Mrs Eckdorf looked and saw the ferret-faced individual who had that morning been in the old woman’s room: Morrissey the procurer. He was speaking in the rapid voice of a person telling lies: he said that he had come to see Mr Gregan about an insurance matter but had unfortunately missed Mr Gregan. It was a coincidence, he remarked, finding her instead; he reminded her that they had met that morning.

  ‘I’d like to talk to you,’ said Mrs Eckdorf.

  ‘We could take a drink together,’ Morrissey suggested. ‘The only thing is, I’m short of cash.’ They might talk together for an hour or so, he thought, during which time he would place in her deranged mind the notion that if she bought up the hotel he could guarantee her a succession of well-dressed visitors. He would take it easy with her: he would employ guile and flattery.

  ‘Could you leave us alone?’ Mrs Eckdorf said to the charwoman.

  ‘I have work –’ began the charwoman.

  ‘I’m the wife of the owner of this place,’ Mrs Eckdorf announced. ‘I must ask you to go.’

  Morrissey eyed the charwoman, wondering what her circumstances were and if she’d care to exchange her life of drudgery for something more glamorous. Mrs Kite had washed out offices, he reflected, before he’d discovered her.

  ‘I think you can be of help to me,’ Mrs Eckdorf said to Morrissey. ‘I’m trying to establish one or two facts.’

  ‘Of course I can be of help to you, missus –’

  ‘When will I do the room out?’ asked the charwoman. ‘Will you be here long, ma’am?’

  ‘You’ll be discharged this instant minute,’ cried Mrs Eckdorf. ‘Go away at once.’

  The charwoman left. Morrissey wagged his head, greatly admiring this display of imperiousness. It was very good the way the female had said she was the owner’s wife. He began to laugh.

  ‘You’re a dishonest, fraudulent tramp,’ said Mrs Eckdorf. ‘I know a lot about you, Morrissey, that I could pass on to the police. I’m about to ask certain questions. If there’s any trouble about the answers I shall do my duty.’

  Morrissey’s mouth, which had slackened so that it might give vent to his amusement, remained so. Nervously the fingers of his right hand played with the teeth of the comb in his pocket. He closed his mouth and then opened it again. He said in a nonchalant voice, designed to humour her:

  ‘I’m not a tramp, as a matter of fact.’

  ‘I don’t care what you are. I am standing here with the whip hand. Do you understand that? I’m extremely angry. I’ll stand no nonsense of any kind whatsoever. You’re a procurer and a criminal.’

  ‘There’s no evidence about procuring, missus –’

  ‘There is sworn evidence from a ship’s barman that you procured for him a woman called Agnes Quin. There is sworn evidence that you approached this man, of hitherto impeccable morals, and enticed him from outside a public house to where Agnes Quin was standing in a doorway. There is sworn evidence that you led the couple to O’Neill’s Hotel in Thaddeus Street. There is sworn evidence that you received from that man, as you have received from countless others, a sum of money.’

  ‘Are you interested in that type of thing at all? I could have male visitors in O’Neill’s Hotel at every hour of the day and night. It could be a great place altogether.’

  ‘It’s no business of mine what it could be. Sit down in that chair.’

  Morrissey sat down at a desk that bore a covered typewriter. ‘Are you buying O’Neill’s Hotel?’ he asked quietly. ‘It’s a good purchase. It has a right position out there.’

  ‘I want to know what happened in O’Neill’s Hotel to cause Eugene Sinnott’s wife to leave him.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Did you or did you not hear what I said? Are you deaf?’

  ‘I heard y
ou, missus.’

  ‘Eugene Sinnott’s wife left him twenty-eight years ago. I’ve asked you a question, Morrissey.’

  ‘I was seven years of age twenty-eight years ago. I was inside an institution. I wouldn’t know what happened.’

  ‘For God’s sake, you must know. You go into that hotel every day of your life.’

  Morrissey took his comb from his pocket and ran it through his hair. He agreed with Mrs Eckdorf that he went to the hotel every day. He had business there, he explained. He spoke cheerfully, as though Mrs Eckdorf’s questions about occurrences twenty-eight years ago did not at all surprise him. He smiled at her.

  ‘You sit with Mrs Sinnott,’ cried Mrs Eckdorf. ‘You delude her with dishonest talk –’

  ‘Ah no, no. Ah, I don’t do that at all.’

  ‘Hasn’t she ever hinted to you what happened? Hasn’t she ever given you a reason why that woman left her husband?’

  ‘It’s all in the past, missus. Why would we be worrying about the past if you have it planned to buy up the hotel? It’s the future,’ explained Morrissey carefully, ‘that’s the interesting period now. D’you understand me? I could have males going up and down the stairs. I could arrange anything you asked me. D’you see, missus?’

  Mrs Eckdorf did not hear Morrissey saying that. She was standing, while he remained seated at the desk. Beside her, on another desk, there was a heavy ebony ruler. This she now seized.

  Hoerschelmann was making the point to her that she should have told him before their marriage more about herself. He quite understood that she was a woman of talent, he said: he appreciated her art and he understood her desire to pursue the truth so that everyone, everywhere, should know more about one another. It was she herself, Hoerschelmann was saying in his loud voice: it was she herself he wished to discuss, it was she herself they should have discussed a long time before.

  His voice was full of insult; his teeth were exposed in a snarling kind of way, the whole lower part of his face was sneering at her, his eyes were half-closed.

  ‘For Jesus’ sake!’ cried Morrissey. His right hand was pressed to the side of his head, where the ebony ruler had struck him. Pin-pricks of white light were dancing before his eyes, pain occupied his whole head, causing tears.

  ‘I could not buy a house,’ Mrs Eckdorf said, ‘and live in a house in which an unfortunate occurrence had taken place. That is why I’m questioning you.’

  He could feel a lump rising. She might have damaged his brain with a blow like that; she could have knocked an eye from his head. He watched her while she pursued her conversation as if nothing untoward had happened, just as when she’d shrieked on the street she’d walked on, unknowing, a moment later.

  ‘No one mentioned unfortunate happenings in O’Neill’s Hotel?’she said. ‘Not Agnes Quin?’

  Still watching her with care, Morrissey replied that Agnes Quin didn’t ever have much to say for herself. She was a very close female, he said slowly, a deceitful woman.

  ‘Is she?’

  He tried to nod. She had returned the ruler to the desk beside her. She was standing there now as though she’d never touched it.

  ‘Tell me about yourself, Morrissey.’

  His hand went to the side of his head again. She was no damn use to him if she was in so poor a condition that she’d strike a person without knowing it. And yet being in a bad way like that would mean she’d be unfit from now on for a normal life. Again he reflected that what had happened was that this female had come to the city on some business and had rapidly entered a state of confusion: it was up to anyone who could to make the most of that, since that was the law of the world. If he could press her on to buy the old hotel and to set herself up there, she might improve in herself. She’d asked him about himself a moment ago, she’d shown a civilized interest in another human being: it would be looking a gift horse in the mouth not to make an effort to oblige the female. The pain in his head had decreased and the pin-pricks of light had vanished. He touched the lump again and assured himself that it would go down in time.

  ‘Would we go on to a bar?’ he suggested. ‘I don’t feel happy here, with the char hanging around. I could wet my whistle in a bar without difficulty.’ He laughed. He combed his hair again.

  ‘We might see what’s to be had here,’ said Mrs Eckdorf. ‘It might be a mistake to go to a bar since you are short of money.

  I have very little myself. Mr Gregan may have a drop put by.’

  She opened the glass door of Mr Gregan’s private office and looked about it. Morrissey watched her while she investigated a cupboard full of stationery.

  ‘So this is where Gregan’s employed?’ he said. He could have taken a hatchet to the place, he thought. Acting swiftly and surreptitiously, he lifted a pile of papers from the desk and dropped them into the wastepaper basket. He put a paper-knife and a rubber into his pocket. Mrs Eckdorf hunted in the drawers of the desk, shaking her head over the absence of bottles.

  ‘The char would drink anything,’ Morrissey explained. ‘Nothing could be left unlocked. You can trust no one.’

  Mrs Eckdorf discovered Mr Gregan’s tube of fruit gums. She took one and handed the package to Morrissey.

  ‘There’s not much I can tell you about myself,’ said Morrissey. ‘I fought my way up in the world and now I have descended again. I was a lung specialist one time until I committed an error due to lack of sleep. A small thing like that can fix you for life. I was engaged at the time to a female in the North of England who was the housekeeper in a boarding-house. She let me down with a bump when she heard the news.’

  ‘How horrid for you,’ murmured Mrs Eckdorf. They were all the same, the people that Mrs Sinnott had mothered. They came from the empty life of institutions and then they made things up. Was that why Mrs Sinnott had surrounded herself with them, so that she might be amused by their fantastic stories? O’Shea, she had noticed, was entirely given up to superstition. This animal-like creature, who was far from clean, was passing himself off as a lung specialist without batting an eye. Did Agnes Quin suggest tragedy to the strangers she shared her bed with in order to live, in some strange vicarious way, a life that wasn’t her own?

  ‘Where would I find Agnes Quin?’

  He opened the stationery cupboard, pretending to continue the search for bottles of alcohol. ‘What’s this?’ he said, withdrawing a corked earthenware jar.

  ‘Ink,’ said Mrs Eckdorf. ‘Where would Agnes Quin be?’

  ‘You wouldn’t want to be bothering with a female like that, missus.’

  He removed the cork from the jar of ink and put the jar on its side on top of a pile of unused foolscap paper. The ink would spread, soaking into the paper and spreading to other areas of the cupboard: it might do ten pounds’ worth of damage. He closed the cupboard door. He said:

  ‘I could be of use to you in the hotel. You could sit in a nice room there and not worry about anything. I could bring you up visitors: wouldn’t you like that?’ He smiled at Mrs Eckdorf, endeavouring to imply his meaning. She said:

  ‘Where can I find Agnes Quin?’

  ‘There’s a half-witted man on the premises at the moment that we could get rid of. A terrible old scut called O’Shea –’

  ‘I’ve asked you something, Morrissey.’

  On Mr Gregan’s desk there was a paper-weight in the shape of a castle. He noticed that her hand had moved close to it. Sulkily, he said:

  ‘In Riordan’s Excelsior Bar, in Thaddeus Street. I could give her any message –’

  ‘I must be going now. I’ve enjoyed our chat, Morrissey.’

  ‘Will we meet again? I could show you round the town if you’d like me to. Will we maybe have a drink some time?’

  She said that maybe they would. He seemed to wish to hold her unnecessarily in conversation: she wondered why. He said:

  ‘If you have the money for it, you couldn’t do better than O’Neill’s. There’s lots of quiet rooms, ideal for entertaining. Companionship is a great thing.
’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘What d’you think of that little thing?’ He took the spider from his pocket and held it out to her. ‘Isn’t it a grand brooch? I got it for Mrs Sinnott’s birthday.’

  ‘Charming.’

  ‘That’s a jewel in the middle.’

  ‘And gold legs. No wonder you’re short of cash.’

  ‘I’m fond of the elderly, missus.’

  She walked quickly from Mr Gregan’s office, sensing that this small man was about to become a bore. In the outer office he went on talking about the spider and Mrs Sinnott. When she didn’t reply he said:

  ‘Will you be O.K. now?’

  ‘O.K.?’

  ‘Would you like me to stop with you for a while?’

  ‘That’s quite unnecessary, Morrissey.’

  ‘The heat can affect the best,’ said Morrissey agreeably. ‘I think you thought you were conversing with some other person when you mentioned one or two things. I never knew a ship’s barman in my life.’

  ‘I’m not insane,’ said Mrs Eckdorf, smiling tightly, ‘if you’re implying that.’

  He was walking beside her. He turned to her to say that he was implying nothing of the kind. Something happened in the air, close to his eyes. Pain shot through his head again and the light that was all around him turned to darkness.

  O’Shea stood pensive in the kitchen, his right hand resting on the table, the other touching the head of his greyhound. He had hung up the paper-chain. He had bought from Keogh’s the same food that every year they ate: cake and biscuits, nuts, fruit, several kinds of jam. Riordan’s would send over a bottle of Gilbey’s port in the morning, a traditional gift.

  As he stood, he was not thinking of the birthday party. He was watching Mrs Eckdorf poking among the old pictures in the attic, as briefly she had done. She was slightly bent, her arms reaching down, her feet in turn touching the picture-frames to move them this way or that. When she walked towards him, glass splintered on the boarded floor. Her mouth opened in speech. He could see her teeth and the little gap between the two in the front.