‘Is he what?’ Mulvey asked.
‘Is he here? Am I here?’
‘Unfortunately you’re here,’ Mulvey replied.
‘Hypocrites. Liars.’
‘Lies are the oil of the social machinery.’
‘Don’t mind him,’ Mulvey said.
‘Lies,’ he ignored. ‘She ate green plums. She was pregnant. That’s why she’s not here. Blackguard.’
‘This is terrible,’ Mulvey said.
The anxiety as to where she was at this moment struck without warning. ‘Did you ever wish for some device like radar that could track a person down at any given moment, light up where they were, like on a screen?’ I turned to Mulvey.
‘That would be a nightmare.’ Mulvey surprisingly rallied to the question, his interest caught. ‘I was never very worried about what other people were up to. My concern has always been that they might discover what I was up to.’
‘Then you’ve never loved,’ Eamonn Kelly said grandly. ‘I know what he’s talking about. There were times I too wished for radar.’
‘I wouldn’t mind putting radar on Halloran just now. To get him to give me that cheque, to give him back his damned suitcase. We’ve ferried the thing around for two whole days now.’ Mulvey turned aside to complain.
‘You must have wanted to know sometimes what I was doing,’ Claire Mulvey said.
‘Never.’
‘Even if that is true, I don’t think you should say it.’
‘That’s precisely why it should be said. Because it is true. Why else should anything be said?’
They started to quarrel. I bought a last round. It was getting close to closing time. Eamonn Kelly had begun an energetic conversation with himself, accompanied by equally vigorous gestures, a dumbshow of removing hat and gloves, handshakes, movements forward and back, a great muttering of some complicated sentence, replacing of hat and gloves. The Mulveys had retreated into stewing silences. I was bewildered as to what I was doing here but was even blinder still about possible alternatives. A whole world had been cut from under me.
‘Do you have enough for a sugar bag?’ Mulvey suddenly asked. ‘We could go back to my place.’
‘I have plenty.’
‘I’ll make it up to you as soon as I see Halloran.’
The sugar bags were strong grey paper bags used to carry out bottles of stout. They usually held a dozen. I bought three. Eamonn Kelly assumed he was going back to Mulvey’s with us, for he offered to carry one of the bags. Claire Mulvey carried Halloran’s suitcase. There were many drunks on the street. One made a playful pass at the sugar bag Mulvey carried, and got berated, the abuse too elevated and fluent to get us into trouble. We could not have looked too sober ourselves, for I noticed a pair of guards stand to watch our progress with the case and sugar bags. Mulvey’s house was in a terrace along the canal. A young moon lay in a little water between the weeds and cans and bottles.
‘The wan moon is setting on the still wave,’ Eamonn Kelly took up from the reflection as he swayed along with a sugar bag.
‘Burns,’ Mulvey said savagely. ‘And there’s not a wave in sight. What do you think of old Burns?’ he said as he put the key in the door.
A red-eyed child in a nightdress met us. She was hungry. Claire Mulvey soothed her, started to get her some food from the cold press, and we took the sugar bags upstairs. There was no furniture of any kind in the room other than empty orange crates. There were plenty of books on the floor along the walls. The room was chilly, and Mulvey stamped on some of the orange crates until they were broken enough to fit into the grate. He lit them with newspaper and they quickly caught.
Eamonn Kelly was busy opening the bottles with a silver penknife. When Claire Mulvey joined us he had opened all the bottles in one of the sugar bags. The orange boxes had all burned down, taking the chill from the room, leaving delicate traceries of blackened wire in the grate.
‘She’s gone to sleep again. There was some milk and cereal,’ Claire Mulvey said.
We drank steadily. Eamonn Kelly opened more bottles. Mulvey lectured Kelly. Then he lectured me. The toilet in the corridor didn’t work. I fought sleep.
The room was full of early light when I awoke. I’d been placed on a mattress and given a pillow and rug. There was nobody else in the room. The books were scattered all along the walls. Empty bottles were everywhere, the room filled with the sour-sweet odour of decaying stout. The shapes of blackened wire stood in the empty grate.
It was the first morning without her, and I could hardly believe I’d slept. I got up, picked my way between the bottles to the outside toilet that didn’t work, ran the water in the sink, picked my way back to the mattress. The palest of crescent moons still lay on the dirty water of the canal.
Church bells started to beat the air. It was Sunday — seven o’clock. I got up and let myself out of the house. Everywhere people were going to Mass. I drifted with them as far as the church door, turning back into the empty streets once Mass had started, walking fast until I came to a quiet side street where I sat on the steps of one of the houses. There were five steps up to each house. The stone was granite. Many of the iron railings were painted blue. Across the street was a dishevelled lilac bush. They’d taught us to notice such things when young. They said it was the world. A lilac bush, railings, three milk bottles with silver caps, granite steps … I had to rise and walk to beat back a rush of anger. I’d have to learn the world all over again.
The Mulveys were sitting round the table in the kitchen when I got back. The child was eating cereal, the parents drinking tea from mugs.
‘I’m sorry I passed out, last night.’
‘It’s all right. You were tired.’ Mulvey smiled — often he could be charming in the morning.
‘Did Kelly go home?’
‘He always goes home no matter how drunk he is.’
I handed round newspapers I’d bought on the way back and was given tea. The child inspected me gravely from behind her spoon.
‘Can you lend me a fiver?’ Mulvey asked me about midday. ‘I’ll give it back to you as soon as I find Halloran.’
‘You don’t have to worry about that.’ It was a sort of freedom to be rid of the money.
‘There’s no reason I should be spending all your money. I’ll give it back to you this evening. We’re bound to unearth Halloran this evening,’ and the rest of the day was more or less arranged. We had drinks at a tiny local along the canal. The child had lemonade and crisps.
Stew was heated when we got back to the house. Then Mulvey shut himself upstairs to write a review. Claire Mulvey watched an old movie with Cary Grant on the black-and-white television. I played draughts with the child. It was four when Mulvey came down.
‘How did it go?’ I asked without looking up from the pieces on the board.
‘It didn’t go at all. I couldn’t get started with thinking of that damned Halloran. He’s ruined the day as well.’ He was plainly in foul humour.
We left the child to play with neighbours and set out towards Grafton Street to look for Halloran, Mulvey carrying the suitcase. He had been at his most affable and bluff-charming while handing over the child to the neighbours, but as soon as we were alone he started to seethe with resentment.
‘It’s an affront to expect someone to lug this thing round for two whole days.’
‘What harm is it?’ his wife made the mistake of saying. ‘He’s not a very happy person.’
‘What do you know about his happiness or unhappiness?’
‘He sweats a kind of unhappiness. He’s bald and huge and not much more than thirty.’
‘I never heard such rubbish. He’s probably in some good hotel down in Wicklow at this very moment, relaxing with a gin and tonic, watching the sun set from a deck-chair, regaling this boy with poetry or love or some other obscenity. I’m not carrying the fat ponce’s suitcase a yard farther,’ and he flung it from him, the suitcase sliding to a violent stop against the ledge of the area railing without breaking open.