And here they are, these two people, on Christmas Eve in Brogan’s Bar and Grill. Just the two of them, because Danny has closed the bar until five o’clock today, so the staff can go Christmas shopping, he said, but in truth, it’s so he can sit here with his girl like he used to do when the world was young, and fix her a drink, and spin her a line, and see how it goes. He’s in a suit, but then he always is, because you don’t know what might happen if you start to let things go, the charcoal-gray wool, no vest, and she’s wearing a dark red and racing green plaid, her Christmas dress, she says, and he says he’s never seen it before, and she says that’s because it hasn’t been Christmas before.
She sits, and he makes them a drink, a martini, and he’s playing the music, Tone Poems of Color, the music that was playing when they met, and it’s all very shaky. Look at them, they’re so nervous, it’s as if they barely know each other. But Danny has a plan. He usually does. And Claire sort of expects it, and sort of dreads it. Danny takes some pages from his pocket and hands them to Claire.
‘It’s the scene from The Way of the World,’ he says. ‘Where they exchange their informal wedding vows. I thought we could read it together.’
And Claire can see he thinks it’s an idea she would like, and even though she can’t imagine anything more laborious and clunky, she can’t say that.
‘Does that mean you want to marry me?’ she says.
‘It certainly does,’ he says.
‘Well. Ask me then.’
‘Really?’
‘Of course.’
Danny gets ready to go down on one knee, and Claire stops him.
‘Music’s too film noiry. What’s the one we like again?’
‘I know that one,’ Danny says, and goes behind the bar and switches the music. ‘“Black” by Victor Young.’
‘And you don’t need to go down on one knee.’
‘Well. You don’t need to be so bossy.’
‘And you don’t need to be my dad, always being noble and looking after me like I’m a wayward child.’
‘Then stop being such a princess, sighing as if things haven’t gone your way and it must be my fault.’
They’re both hot, cheeks smarting, as if they’d been slapped, but excited with it. It’s as if they’ve been tiptoeing around each other for weeks, always with a chaperone, and now at last they get to be alone.
‘You’re a cocky bastard now you know you didn’t burn my family to death.’
‘You’re a sexy bitch now you’re not saving it up for some guy in Chicago who wasn’t all that much in the first place.’
‘Not as much as you,’ Claire says.
‘No one’s as much as me. Except you.’
‘Lucky I’m here then.’
‘Will you marry me?’
‘You’ll have to kiss me first.’
‘Modern girls. No values.’
And they kiss for a long time, as if they’ve just fallen in love again. Which in a way, they have. The music plays: old-fashioned, string-drenched, absurdly dramatic music. It helps them feel they are the leading characters in their own story. They haven’t felt like that in a long, long time. The shadows in the room are breached by low winter sun through shutters partly open, red and green and gold shafts off stained glass, the glitter of white Christmas balls. The light, the way it catches Claire’s auburn hair, Danny’s silvering brown locks. The smell of gin, and olives, and Chanel Cristalle, and a cinnamon and clove scent that clings to Claire from three days of baking. Tone Poems of Color.
All the sounds and sights, the scents and spices that blend together to make a marriage the living, breathing thing it is. Even if they aren’t married yet.
All the things they are.
Or almost all.
What’s missing?
Watch closely now.
There’s a sound on the street, at the door.
‘Where are the kids?’ Danny says.
‘Avol’s. I gave them money to buy us books as Christmas presents.’
The voices of two girls outside, of Barbara and Irene.
‘That’s them. You going to let them in?’
‘The door’s on the latch. Are we raising stupids, Mrs Brogan?’
‘No, Mr Brogan, we’re not.’
The door creaks open, and December afternoon light spreads slowly across the darkness of the still old room.
Here they come. The sound of their voices, the canter of their feet.
Here they come. Without them, what?
Here come the children.
All the Things You Are Page 30