The Luck Of Ginger Coffey

by Moore, Brian;

  "I just wanted to say thanks," Grosvenor said, sounding hurt.

  For the first time since he had got into the car, Coffey looked Grosvenor full in the face. It was an ordinary face. A year ago he had not even known it existed, yet now it was joined to his in a resemblance stronger than brotherhood, in an intimacy he and his true brother would never share.

  What chemistry of desire made Grosvenor willing to face a surly husband to discuss the settlement of Veronica's divorce? What made him willing to pay for that divorce, to marry another man's woman, a woman older

  than he? Coffey did not know. He knew only that it was the same violent illness which, after fifteen years of marriage, had suddenly revived his own desire, leaving him prepared to commit any equal folly. He could not hate Grosvenor, for Grosvenor in turn would suffer the same feminine ritual of confidence and betrayal. He felt compassion for Grosvenor. He was cured of this sickness: Grosvenor had inherited it.

  "Good-by," he said, and held out his hand.

  Surprised, Grosvenor shook hands. "Till Saturday then?" Grosvenor said.

  "Saturday it is."

  His decision made, Coffey went to bed that night, confident that all his fevers had passed. He went to sleep and slept. He did not dream. In the morning Paulie heard him singing in the kitchen.

  "Somebody's in good form," she said, coming in, her hair in curlers, her toothbrush in her hand.

  Coffey turned an egg in the pan, still singing. "Why not?" he said. "Less than two weeks to go, Pet. I wonder what sort of a journalist I'll make? I wonder now, will they send me off to faraway places? That's a great thing about the journalistic profession, you never know where you'll end up. You see, you're very much your own boss in that field. Ah, it just shows you now, doesn't it?"

  "Shows you what?" Paulie said.

  "That the old saying is true. The darkest hour is just before the dawn. You have to remember that. Hope, now that's what you need. While there's hope, there's life."

  "Somebody's in a philosophical mood this morning."

  "And why not? Do you know another thing I was thinking this morning, Pet? The old saying, Man wasn't born to live alone ... Do you know, that's a lot of malarkey?

  For Man was, and the sooner he faces up to it, the better/'

  "Does that mean you want to get rid of me?" Paulie asked.

  "Never!" He kissed her on her brow, cold cream and all. "By the way," he said. "That reminds me. I have to go out on Saturday night. I won't be back till nearly midnight/'

  "But, that's perfect," Paulie said. "I was going to ask some of the kids over, anyway. Maybe you could go out early and leave us the place to ourselves?"

  Well, he could go to a film, he supposed. Ah, he wasn't like some people: he knew that children hated grownups around when they were having a party. "Good idea," he said cheerfully. "I'll do that. Go to a film, or something, and leave you a clear field."

  On Friday, when he returned from his TINY ONES round, Mr. Mountain handed him a message which had come in during the day. It was to call Mr. Grosvenor before seven. So when Coffey arrived at the Tribune, he rang Grosvenor at home.

  "Ginger? Good, I've been trying to get you. It's all set for tomorrow night. You're to go to the Clarence Hotel at nine forty-five. Go to the bar and there'll be a girl there wearing a green overcoat and a black fur hat. Her name is Melody Ward. Got that? Melody Ward. Have a drink with her, then take her upstairs. There'll be a visitor at ten forty. Okay? And Ginger — you won't even have to pay the hotel bill. I'll reimburse you later."

  "Fair enough," Coffey said. He hung up, feeling like a man in a thriller. It wasn't sordid at all, it was an adventure. Melody Ward. He even found himself wondering would she be pretty? He did not think of Veronica. Because he was finished with all that, you see. He was cured.

  Saturday evening, he returned from his delivery round in good spirits. He finished his supper at seven and, determined to be agreeable, put on his coat and hat and went out, leaving the flat free for the children when they came. He told Paulie he would be home about twelve.

  It was a clear cold night, electric and anticipant. When Coffey alighted from a bus in the center of the city, he was at once caught up in the hurry of a Saturday-night spree. Neon lights promised, spelled pleasures, performed tricks. A neon Highlander danced a jig over a clothier's, a comic chicken popped its head in and out of the Q in a BAR-B-Q sign, a neon hockey player jiggled his stick over a tavern doorway. In movie house entrances, bathed in the fairground brightness of million-watt ceilings, diminished and humbled by enormous posters proclaiming current attractions, anticipant girls fidgeted, waiting for their dates; solitary boys consulted wrist watches and dragged on cigarettes, nervously checking their brilliantined pompadours in reflections from the glass-walled cashier's shrine. And as Coffey strolled, slow, slower than the crowd, not sure what to do, he was swept up in a change of shows and eddied into one of these entrances. He stood undecided under the myriad lights, watching the anticipant girls smile and wave in sudden recognition, the boys drop their cigarettes and hurry forward; the pairing, the claiming, the world going two by two.

  Watching, he absently stroked the part in his mustache: felt a sadness. All these thousands, hurrying to meet; yet he was alone. Saturday night and they came down in their thousands to laugh, to dance, to sit in the dark watching colored screens, holding hands, sharing joys. While he waited to meet some unknown woman in a strange bar, to go upstairs with that stranger to an unknown room, perhaps to lie down on a bed with her, in

  make-believe of an intimacy he now shared with no one. And when it was over, he would have no one: not even Paulie. For Paulie had put him out tonight so that she, with other youngsters, could laugh and dance, listening to shared music.

  He had no one. He was three thousand miles from home, across half a frozen continent and the whole Atlantic Ocean. Only one person in this city, only one person in the world, really knew him now: knew the man he once was, the man he now was. One person in the whole world, who fifteen years ago in Saint Pat's in Dalkey had stood beside him in a white veil for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health until death. One person had known him — or known most of him. Would anyone ever know him again?

  Well now, enough of that. Do something.

  He went up to the cashier's little glass shrine; put a dollar in the opening. The cashier pressed a button and an aluminum machine spat a ticket at him. The cashier made change by manipulating another machine. A nickel dropped into its little metal change bowl. He picked it up. That was the way of this world. You saw someone in a glass cage, stepped up, exchanged things, but never touched. Oh, come on now! Enough of that, I said.

  At the back of the theater, penned two by two behind a velvet rope, a line of people waited. The usherette, a girl not much older than Paulie, came up to him. "Single, sir? We have seats in the first six rows."

  There was something about her: her accent was not Canadian. He smiled at her, drawn by that immigrant bond, and followed her from the lighted area into the darkness of the theater. Poor kid. Her scapula bone stuck out at right angles against the maroon stuff of her uniform. New Canadians: thousands like her came here each year; thousands started all over again in humble circs.

  You heard such stories: lawyers forced to take work as checkers, doctors as lab assistants, professors driving trucks. And still they came, from every country in Europe, riding in old railroad colonist cars to the remote provinces of this cold, faraway land. Why did they do it? For their children's sake, it was said. Well, and wasn't he driving a truck now for his daughter's sake? Wasn't he one of them? Wasn't he, too, a man who would always be a stranger here, never at home in this land where he had not grown up. Yes: he too.

  The girl's flashlight showed him an almost empty row, lowering its beam as she waited for him to enter his seat. He wanted to stop, take her by the arm, lead her back up the aisle into the light again. To say: "I too am an immigrant," to compare impressions, reminisce, to tell the things that im
migrants tell. But the flashlight beam snapped off. He could no longer see her. He sat down, purblinded by the colored images on the huge screen above. He looked around. Here were the solitaries. Some slept, some slumped in morose contemplation of the film giantess kicking yard-long legs, while some, like him, ignored her and peered about them in the shadows, hoping for a glance, a promise of company.

  How long was it since he'd sat down here? Years, years. But he remembered: mitching away long school afternoons in the picture houses off O'Connell Street, huddled down in his seat for fear someone might see him and tell his parents. And later, as a university student, the lonely Saturday nights in cheap front seats, hoping that some American daydream would banish the private misery of having no girl, no place to go. Well, and was he going back to all that? For if he lost Veronica now, who would have him, a man nearly forty with a grown-up daughter on his hands? Wouldn't he end his days here among the solitaries?

  Enough of that. He tried watching the film, but somehow the filmed America no longer seemed true. He could not believe in this America, this land that half the world dreams of in dark front seats in cities and villages half a world away. What had it in common with his true America? For Canada was America; the difference a geographer's line. What had these Hollywood revels to do with the facts of life in a cold New World?

  At half past eight, unable to watch the film any longer, he went upstairs and sat in the lobby, waiting to go to the Clarence Hotel, waiting to meet a girl in a green coat and a black fur hat. He thought about her, Miss Melody Ward. How many of her customers really went to bed with her? Did she charge you extra for that? That made him smile. By the holy, it would be great gas to charge Grosvenor for that.

  At nine fifteen he left the theater and began to walk towards Windsor Street. He thought of Veronica and wondered if she were thinking of him this minute as he started off to end it. And if she were thinking of him now, didn't she feel as he did, some sorrow that tonight, after all those years, it was ending? She must feel some sorrow, he decided. Anybody would.

  The Clarence was a small hotel opposite the Canadian Pacific Railway terminus. The neon sign over its side entrance read MONTMORENCY ROOM and a display case showing photographs of glossy nonentities advertised CONTINUOUS ENTERTAINMENT. He went in. The hotel lobby was on the right and consisted of a single desk-cum-cigar stand with three armchairs in a row facing the street window. At the desk was a night reception clerk and in the armchairs three old men stared out at the snow, watching traffic. On the left, in the Montmorency Room, a pallid French-Canadian sang a cowboy lament to an audience of eight drinkers. Coffey entered, sat down at a

  table and ordered a rye. There was no girl in a green coat and a black fur hat. He was glad. Wasn't this whole thing daft? Why should he go through with it? He would not go through with it. Stranger or not, Veronica was his lawful wedded wife: his, not Grosvenor's. Why should Grosvenor have her? Why should he be the one who was left alone?

  But the clock over the bar said nine thirty-seven and it was too late to ring Grosvenor and call this off. The girl would be here any minute, the detective was probably on his way already, the lawyer had arranged things —

  And — and all his life, he had hated scenes, hated making a fuss. It was too late now, far too late to change things, because — because at that moment a girl walked in. She wore a green overcoat and a black fur hat. She went up to the bar, spoke to the barman, then turned and looked around the room. She looked at him. And, by J, she was not the sort of girl who'd stand any nonsense. She was tall and pretty and tough. And, by J, she was coming right at him!

  "You're Mr. Coffey, right?" she said.

  "Yes." He stood up.

  "The mustache," she said. "I was told to look out for it."

  Yes, he said, and would she please sit down. And what would she have to drink? A brandy? He called the waiter. He joined his hands under the table. Here's the church . . . How could he get out of it now? And heres the steeple . . . Because she wasn't the sort who would let him off lightly. Open the gates . . . good-looking too, in other circumstances he wouldn't half-mind . . .

  The waiter brought a brandy and Coffey paid. The French-Canadian singer sang a song about Paree, Paree. The girl sipped her brandy, listening to the song. And here's the minister coming upstairs . . . Too late, wasn't

  it? Of course it was. Besides, it wasn't his idea, it was Grosvenor's, all Grosvenor's fault . . .

  And here's the minister . . . Grosvenor's fault. He remembered sitting in the Ritz, his hands joined as now in the steeple game. And remembered what Veronica said in the Ritz: Gerry's fault? Not your fault, of course. Never your fault, is it, Ginger?

  He unclasped his hands and looked nervously at the girl. What sort of man would worry more about offending a strange whore than about losing his wife? Ah, dear God. The sort of man who had been ready to walk away from Grosvenor's apartment door one night for fear of a scene, who had only rung the bell that night because some total stranger gave him a suspicious look. The sort of sad impostor who now, seeing Miss Melody Ward applaud the singer, raised his hands and applauded too.

  The singer bowed and went behind a curtain. The lights went on. "Well," said the girl, putting down her glass, "I guess we'd better go up, huh?"

  Who was he to talk about in sickness and in health until death? He, who half an hour ago had thought of taking this strange whore to bed, not of fifteen years of marriage. Who was he to condemn Veronica?

  Miss Melody Ward stood up. She preceded him across the room and waited for him in the lobby. Through the reflection from the street window, the three armchair ancients watched him join her.

  "Okay," she said. "Now sign us in as Mr. and Mrs. Your right name, mind. But give an out-of-town address, like Toronto, huh? And act sort of loaded so's the clerk remembers you."

  He began, his large trembling dignity compromised by a sudden mulish stammer. "Nu-no," he said. "No I can't."

  "Oh, come on," she said. "Don't worry."

  He avoided her eye, looked at the linoleum squares of the lobby floor.

  "Oh, listen," she said. "This happens all the time. A lot of guys are nervous, so what? I mean, you don't have to do anything, see? I mean, we just go up and have a drink in the room and then I take a shower. I'm in the shower when the lawyer's man comes."

  The three old men sat silent in their chairs, their faces fixedly vacant in the manner of surreptitious listeners.

  "So come on," she said. "I won't eat you."

  If only she knew: to go up would be so easy. They were all waiting: the girl, the lawyer's man, the desk clerk, Veronica. All trying to shame him into compliance.

  "No," he said. "I'm going home."

  "Well, for Christsake," Miss Melody Ward began, her voice rising to a terrifying decibel count. "What are you playing at, huh? I mean to say, I came all the way down here, I gave up another appointment —"

  "You'll be paid," he said. "Good night."

  And turned away, his military manner failed completely in the desk clerk's curious stare, in the peering and whispering of the old men as he fled towards the sanctuary of the hotel door. Outside, he stood for a moment in the slush of the gutter and raised his face to the sky. Snow fell, wetting his cheeks. He felt his body tremble. Yes, it was a victory.

  He went home. He had promised Paulie that he would stay out until her party was over, but in his victorious mood, he forgot all that. Somehow or other he must try to get Veronica back; that was all he thought of now. And so, at ten-fifteen, he paused outside the door of his flat, hearing from within that loud rockabilly nonsense that Paulie loved so well. He hesitated, but suffering J,

  wasn't this his home as well as hers? Why shouldn't he take the bull by the horns twice in one night? He let himself in.

  In the tiny living room, furniture had been cleared against the walls and two boys danced cheek to cheek with two of Paulie's schoolmates. The girls he knew; like Paulie they were children playing at being women, their childish bodies
tricked out in low-necked blouses and ballerina skirts; their faces unnaturally aged by lipstick and eye shadow.

  The boys were older; they wore leather windbreakers, Western-style shirts, bootlace ties. Peculiar, brilliantined haircuts gave them the appearance of wet sea birds. Where was Paulie?

  He turned. In the narrow trough of kitchen, a third sea bird faced him, eyes shut, spread hands distributed, one over Paulie's small rump, one on her back, pressing her breasts tight against him. Paulie's body moved in time to the music but her feet did not. Eyes shut, her pale face flowered upwards to the electric light bulb, she undulated in a fixed position, rubbing against the boy.

  Coffey took three steps into the living room and knocked the player arm off its thundering course. Eyes opened. The dancers stopped. The arm scratched in the silence, its needle frustrated: slipping, circling, slipping again.

  "Daddy?" Paulie said, coming out of the kitchen. "What time is it?"

  But Coffey did not look at her. He pointed to the boy behind her. "What's your name?" he said.

  "Bruno," the boy said. He had a slight inward cast to his eyes which gave him an aggrieved look. "Why? You Paulie's Dad?"

  "Do you go to school?" Coffey asked.

  "Me?" the boy seemed puzzled by the question. He turned to Paulie. "What'd I do?" he said.

  "No, Daddy, Bruno doesn't go to school. He works."

  "I thought you said these were all school friends, Apple?"

  One of the girls giggled. The boys exchanged glances and winks. "Apple?" one of them said to Paulie. "That what they call you at home?"

  All laughed, except Paulie.

  "Is there something funny about that?" Coffey said to the boy.

  The boy, caught in Coffey's stare, was silent. The girls, saving him, said it was late, they really must go. The boys said they would drive them in their car. They ignored Coffey, as did Paulie, who rushed around, helping them find their coats, talking pointedly about how sorry she was; it was early; it was a pity they couldn't stay.