“My, my, how nice,” she said. “A family visit, no less.” She kissed Phoebe lightly on the cheek. “I can see, by your look, that you’ve heard our sorrowful tidings.” She turned to Quirke. “I thought Mal said you weren’t to tell her, that he’d do it himself.”
“Yes,” Quirke said, “he did.”
“You never could keep your mouth shut, could you, Quirke.”
“Oh, Rose,” Phoebe said, “I’m so sorry.”
“Yes, well, it’s a sorry thing.”
They climbed the steps to the front door, Rose and Phoebe ahead, with Quirke following. Phoebe had a sudden, clear image of the three of them—in what, six months, a year from now?—walking up these same steps, wearing black armbands.
“Mal is resting,” Rose said. “He tires easily, these days.”
Phoebe experienced a sudden flash of anger. Why had Rose interfered in their lives? Why did she marry Mal, the most unlikely husband she could have chosen, and bring him to live in this vast, painted corpse of a house? But her anger subsided as quickly as it had arisen. It wasn’t Rose who had sapped the life from Mal. He had suffered too many losses. His father had betrayed him, and then Sarah, his wife, had died, and now he was dying himself. It wasn’t fair.
They went into the big gold drawing room. The wallpaper was a deep shade of yellow, and there were gilt chairs, and even the plaster cornice around the four edges of the ceiling was gilded.
“Can I offer anyone a drink?” Rose said. “I’ll call Maisie.”
She pressed a porcelain button set into the wall beside the fireplace.
“In fact,” Quirke said, “it’s Maisie we’ve come to see.”
Rose turned to him in surprise. “Maisie?”
“Yes. There’s something we want to ask her to do.”
There was a tap at the door and Maisie appeared, in her black-and-white maid’s uniform.
“Ah, Maisie,” Rose said, with a chilly smile. “Dr. Quirke and his daughter have come specially to see you. What do you say to that?”
Maisie’s cheeks flushed and her eyes flitted anxiously from Rose to Quirke and back again.
“Come over here,” Quirke said, taking her by the arm, “come over to the table and sit down. I want to talk to you.”
Maisie looked at Rose again, and Rose shrugged and turned away and took a cigarette from the ormolu box on the mantelpiece and lit it. Quirke led Maisie to the table, and they sat down.
“Tell me,” Quirke said, “is there anyone you know at the Mother of Mercy Laundry? Anyone there that you’re still in contact with?”
“At that place?” Maisie said incredulously. “Sure, why would I want to keep contact with anyone there?”
“The thing is, Maisie, I—we—we need someone to go into the laundry and—and make inquiries. You see, Phoebe here has a friend who we think is in the laundry, and who wrote to her, asking for her help.”
Maisie darted a glance in Phoebe’s direction, then turned back to Quirke. “What sort of a friend?”
“It’s a girl, a young woman, called Lisa, Lisa Smith.”
“And what’s she doing in the Mother of Mercy?”
“We don’t know. She vanished a few days ago, without a trace. Then, today, Phoebe got a message from her, smuggled out in a batch of laundry.”
“Oh, aye,” Maisie said, nodding, “that’s the way we used to do it, when we wanted to write to someone. The van drivers were in on it. We used to bribe them with cigarettes, or sometimes we’d steal a nice tablecloth, or a blouse or something, for their wives. What did the note say?”
“That she was in the laundry against her will, and asking Phoebe to help her.”
Maisie snorted. “I don’t know of anyone who’d be in that place that it wasn’t against their will. Even the nuns themselves are like prisoners, in there.”
“The trouble is, Maisie, we’re not sure who Lisa Smith is.”
“You don’t know—?” She turned to Phoebe. “But she’s your friend, isn’t she?”
“Not really,” Phoebe said. “I was in a course with her, but I didn’t really know her. I’m not even sure that Lisa Smith is her real name.”
“So you see,” Quirke said to Maisie, “we’ve got to be sure she’s in the laundry—we’ve got to be sure we’re not being misled, that it’s not all some kind of hoax.” He smiled. “Think, Maisie,” he said. “Isn’t there someone at the laundry you could find an excuse to visit?”
Maisie lowered her eyes. In all the time she had been here, working for the Griffins, she had never got the hang of them and their ways. It was as if she was in a room with a glass ceiling; above her the others—Dr. Griffin and Mrs. Griffin, and Dr. Quirke, and the girl with him who either was his daughter or wasn’t—carried on their incomprehensible business, plain to be seen and yet shut off from her. There was a book she’d read once, in school or somewhere, that had pictures in it of Chinese people, or maybe they were Japanese, emperors and their wives and children, the men with wispy mustaches reaching nearly to the ground and the women with things that looked like knitting needles stuck in their hair. The women had funny little pursed-up mouths, and their faces were painted with some sort of white clayey stuff, and they all, even the children, had their hands tucked deep into the big drooping sleeves of the silk gowns they wore. They wouldn’t have been much stranger, those Chinese or Japanese or whatever they were, than this crowd, talking in code and eyeing each other suspiciously all the time. God knows, she thought, what they’re up to now. All the same, she had better help them, or say that she’d try, anyway. You’d never know what might be in it for her if she did, or what they might do to her if she didn’t.
“There’s one of the nuns,” she said slowly, “a young one, Sister Agnes, that was always nice to me. She wasn’t sly, like the others, who’d pinch your fags and and then run to the Mother Superior and tell her they’d seen you smoking. Sister Agnes had a soft heart. How she wound up in that place, I don’t know.”
“And is she still there?” Quirke asked. “Is she still at the laundry?”
“So far as I know, she is. Though I haven’t been back to the place since I got out of it.”
“Would you go back, now?” Quirke asked. “Just once? Just to see Sister Agnes, and talk to her?”
“I suppose I could,” Maisie said reluctantly. “I suppose they’d let me in.”
“I’m sure they would,” Quirke said. “I’ll go up with you, and wait outside.”
“But what if they won’t let me out again?”
“I’ll make sure they do. There’s no question of them keeping you there, no question of that at all. You have my word.”
She gazed at him doubtfully. Could she trust him? Could she trust any of them? She wished Dr. Griffin was here; he was the only one she had time for. Dr. Griffin was a gentleman, and now, God bless the mark, he was sick, and spent half his time in the bed.
She swallowed hard, and nodded. “All right,” she said. “Only how will I get in touch with her, with Sister Agnes?”
“I’ll phone the laundry,” Quirke said, “or Phoebe will, and say you’d like to pay Sister Agnes a visit, that you’d been wondering how she was getting on, since you left. Then, when you see Sister Agnes, ask her if she knows of Lisa Smith.”
“And if she says she does know her, what’ll I say?”
Now Phoebe spoke up: “Ask her to tell Lisa that Phoebe Griffin said hello. Then she’ll know I got her note, that we know she’s there, and that help will be on the way.”
Maisie sighed unhappily. The thought of setting foot in the Mother of Mercy gave her the shivers. “In what kind of a way are you going to help her?” she asked suspiciously.
“We’re going to get her out of that place,” Phoebe said. “I’m sure that’s why she wrote to me, to come and take her away.”
Maisie turned back to Quirke, shaking her head. “There’s no getting away from them, if they don’t want you to go.”
“They let you out,” Quirke said.
Maisie’s look turned evasive. “That was different. They were glad to see the back of me.”
“Why?” Quirke asked.
“Oh, just because.”
“Just because what?”
“They said I was a troublemaker. They took my babby from me and gave him away, to some swanky crowd in America, I suppose—” She stopped, glancing quickly at Rose, who still stood at the window with her back to the room. “Some family there, like. Not that they’d ever tell me. They never told anyone where their babbies had gone to. That’s no business of yours, they’d snap at you, and order you to get on with your work.” She paused again, and her look darkened. “Anyway, it was only because Dr. Griffin came up to talk to them that they let me go.”
“Well, this time I’ll go,” Quirke said.
Maisie looked doubtful again.
“I’d be very nervous, going in there,” she said. “I’d feel like some sort of a spy.”
“You’d be helping someone,” Quirke said, “the same way that Dr. Griffin helped you.”
There was a long pause. Maisie, looking miserable, heaved another sigh.
“All right then,” she said. “I’ll do it.”
She stood up. Quirke walked with her to the door. As she was going out, she caught him by the sleeve and drew him after her into the hall.
“What is it?” he said.
“Ssh!” Her voice sank to an urgent whisper. “You know them boxes of Player’s cigarettes, the navy blue ones with two hundred in them—do you know them?” He nodded. “Will you get me one of them?”
He laughed. “Oh, Maisie,” he said, “two hundred Player’s! You’ll smoke yourself to death. Let me give you money instead.”
She shook her head vehemently. “I don’t want money. I’ll do it for one of them boxes.” Her face softened. “I love the look of them—they’re real fancy, with the tissue paper inside and the lovely smell of tobacco.” She plucked at his sleeve again. “Not a word to Mrs. Griffin, mind! She’d be down on me like a ton of bricks.” She winked. “This is between the two of us.”
“All right, Maisie,” he said, laughing again. “It’s a deal.”
She grinned, and nodded, and hurried off.
He went back into the drawing room. Phoebe had taken up her handbag and was saying good-bye to Rose. She was on her way to meet David Sinclair. Rose went with her to see her out. Quirke took a cigarette from the box on the mantelpiece and lit it. When he turned, Rose was leaning in the doorway, watching him.
“Tell me what you’re up to, Quirke,” she said. “Somehow I don’t see you as a knight in shining armor, galloping to the aid of a damsel in distress.”
“Don’t you?”
“Seems to me it’s just another one of the games you play, these kids’ games you amuse yourself with.” She crossed the room to him and took the cigarette from his fingers. “I don’t care about this laundry and this girl who’s being held there against her will. I don’t care about any of that, Quirke. I don’t believe in chivalry. The world is full of girls in trouble, always was and always will be.”
“You’ve never been in a place like the Mother of Mercy Laundry,” he said.
“You think not? You know, darlin’,” she drawled, putting the cigarette to her lips, “there’s all kinds of institutions. There’s the famous institution of marriage, for instance. I’ve been in that, twice.”
He shrugged, smiling. “I’m sorry, Rose,” he said. “I don’t know what to say to you. I never do.”
“No, I guess you don’t.” She stepped closer to him and peered searchingly into his face. “There’s something different about you,” she said, “I can see it. You look—” She stopped. “I know what it is. You’re happy.” She laughed in wonderment. “I’m right, aren’t I? Yes. You know, I don’t believe I’ve ever seen you happy before, except maybe once, long ago, that time you were in bed with me. What’s happened? Have you met someone?” He said nothing, holding her gaze. She nodded slowly. “That’s it, isn’t it. Who is she?”
He turned away from her and walked to the window and stood with his hands in his pockets and his back turned to her.
“It’s the shrink, isn’t it,” she said. “What’s her name, Blake? The one Phoebe works for? Have I guessed right? I have, haven’t I. I can read you like a book, Quirke, I always could.”
Still he would not speak. She came and stood beside him, smoking his cigarette. They were silent, both of them, looking into the garden. Casey the gardener, a gnarled and wiry little man, was rootling among the shrubbery, hacking at something. The shadow of a cloud swished through the street; then there was sunlight again, as strong as before.
“Oh, how smart you are, Quirke,” she said.
“What do you mean?”
“I underestimated you. Hell, you’ve got the whole thing figured out. First you get a head doctor all of your own, then you go up to that laundry and rescue the girl and make up for all the things you never did for your own daughter. Congratulations. It’ll be like going to that confession you Catholics have and telling all your sins and having them forgiven. My, my.”
He turned to her, his face flushed. “You really think that’s what I’m doing? You really think I’m that selfish?”
“You know you are, honey,” she said, smiling. “We all are. But I’ve got to confess, I’m jealous.”
“Are you? I’m sorry.”
“Here.” She gave him back his cigarette. “Oh, too bad,” she said, “I always do get lipstick on them, don’t I.”
18
Dusk was gathering in the tops of the trees along O’Connell Street. Phoebe, who had been sitting on the upper deck of the bus, got off before it turned the corner onto Parnell Square, and walked over to the Shakespeare. The pub was crowded with theatergoers who had rushed down from the Gate to snatch a quick drink during the interval. She hoped she wouldn’t run into Isabel Galloway, who often acted at the Gate. Isabel had been her friend, once, but her affair with Quirke and its petering out had soured relations between them. Phoebe regretted this, but there was nothing to be done about it.
David had kept a place for her at the bar. She sat up on the stool beside him and asked for a gin and tonic. She noticed that he didn’t kiss her, yet otherwise everything seemed as usual. She never knew quite where she was, with David. Somehow his mind always seemed to be elsewhere.
She asked him about his day, but he said he didn’t want to talk about it, that it was too boring. This was how it always was, she asking and him refusing; it had become a sort of unfunny comic turn between the two of them. But she supposed he was right: there probably wasn’t much to be said, if you had spent the past eight hours dissecting dead bodies. She wondered, not for the first time, why he had become a pathologist in the first place. Quirke, now, could have been born into the job, but David always seemed to her to have been meant for other things, though she couldn’t imagine what those other things might be.
She told him about Lisa Smith, and the note in the parcel of laundry. They talked about it for a while, and about Leon Corless’s death and Lisa Smith’s connection with him.
“Quirke loves to get mixed up in this kind of thing, doesn’t he,” David said.
“He doesn’t go looking for trouble, if that’s what you mean. Don’t you ever feel the urge to follow up on something you uncovered in a postmortem?”
“I’m a doctor,” he said, “not a detective.” He fingered his glass, rotating it on its base and frowning. “He shouldn’t involve you, you know.”
“Shouldn’t he? Why not?”
He turned his head and gave her a long look. “Because it’s dangerous. You didn’t see Leon Corless’s body, or what was left of it. I did. If I were your father, I’d make very sure you didn’t go anywhere near people capable of doing that kind of thing.”
She began to say something but stopped herself. She didn’t want to fight with David. Once, she would have; not now.
They drank in silence for a while. Phoebe liked
the way the ice cubes, submerged among the rushing bubbles, creaked and cracked, though the place was so crowded with noisy drinkers that to hear the effect she had to put the glass close to her ear. She had the secret notion that all things, even inanimate objects, had a life of their own, and their own way of expressing themselves. She knew David would laugh at her if she told him this, and so she never had. There were, she reflected, many things she didn’t tell him, and she was sure there were many things too that he didn’t tell her. They were not, she reflected, your ordinary couple. If, indeed, they were a couple at all.
“Have another drink,” he said.
“No, I don’t think so.”
He was finishing a pint of Guinness. “Mind if I do?”
“Of course not.”
He signaled to the barman by lifting the empty glass and waggling it. The barman nodded, and took down a fresh glass and put it under the spout and pulled slowly on the wooden handle, and the gleaming black liquid gushed out in a thin, frothing stream.
“I had a letter from my friend Yotam today,” David said.
“Oh, yes? In Tel Aviv, is it?”
“He lives in Tel Aviv, but he’s on a kibbutz at the moment, helping out in the medical center.”
“That must be interesting.”
“Yes,” he said. He was watching the barman pulling the last of the pint and putting the finishing touches to the creamy head. “He certainly makes it sound interesting.”
“You haven’t been to Israel, have you?”
“No. My father was there. He went out in forty-eight, to fight the Arabs.”
“Was he all right? I mean, he didn’t get wounded or anything?”
“No. But there were other kinds of scars, of course. It was a dirty war.”
The barman brought the pint. David paid for it, and left it sitting on its cork mat, and folded his arms on the bar and watched a slow trail of cream sliding down the outside of the glass.
“He suggested I should come out there,” he said, not looking at her.
She was confused. “Your father?”
“No, no.” He laughed. “Yotam. He says I’d enjoy it, that the country is buzzing, really alive.”
Even the Dead Page 20