Mercifully, she was asleep when I got back. I crawled into my makeshift bed on the chaise longue, and soon was asleep myself.
I awoke the next morning as she moved past my bed. A polar wind came with her. It was no less than I deserved, I thought, and I bore it stoically. I got up and threw on my clothes, leaving her to her toilette.
“Why don’t you try the little cafe on the corner this morning?” she suggested. “I shall be down in a while.”
Had she suggested a cafe in the middle of the Gobi, I would have found a way to get there. Anything to please her. I couldn’t bear her glacial coldness, and I felt I had behaved like a cad the night before, though I would have been a worse cad had I allowed myself … It was simply a matter of choosing the lesser evil.
So it was that I was seated at a picturesque cafe in the middle of Paris, sipping a strong cup of coffee and spreading preserves over a warm croissant when Maire O’Casey came over to my table. She was wearing another new dress, an aniline-dyed cobalt blue that fit her like a glove. From somewhere in the city, she had purchased a rouge pot, and her lips were the color of cherries. With her hair pulled back loosely, she looked fresh out of one of the paintings by the fellow Renoir, who obviously had a passion for redheads. No man watching her-and, believe me, every man in the street was watching her-would have taken her for an Irishwoman. She looked like a Parisian society woman.
I dropped my knife on the table. This was the vision from my dream, down to the last detaiclass="underline" the coffee, the preserves, the woman in the blue dress. She moved slowly through the crowd, leaned over me, and whispered in my ear. “I forgive you.”
A jolt of electricity ran down my spine as if I were a tree trunk split in half. I don’t know if it was her breath on my ear or the memory of my dream.
“Good,” I said, when I could finally breathe again.
“But you are cold as a mackerel to have turned down the offer I made you last night.”
I seized her hand. “Do you think it was easy? I would sooner cut my throat than do it again.”
“Do not worry. The offer shall not be given again.” She ordered coffee and fussed over the menu, flustering the slavish waiter who groveled beside her. It was as if a knife were twisting in the area of my heart. She had worn the dress and painted herself so on purpose.
“You are still angry with me,” I stated. “I deserve it. I beg your forgiveness, Maire, for hurting you in any way.”
“I said I forgive you. You are a man, after all. What else were you made for but to break my heart?”
“Oh, please, Maire!”
This went on for some time. She was good at it, torturing me. Perhaps all women are. I was reminded how Barker could take hold of my collar and elbow and flip me in a way I hadn’t anticipated, and then get me in some hold where I would be writhing in pain if I didn’t give up. Maire did the same thing, only with words. At the end of fifteen minutes, I felt as if I’d been grappling for several hours and had come out the loser every time.
“What shall we do today?” I begged.
“Oh, I don’t know. I’m not much in a mood for seeing sights. Have you collected all you need?”
“Everything but the satchels. I believe they have a good selection at the Paris Market in the Eighteenth arrondissement. It is a street market. You are a little overdressed, but you might enjoy yourself. If you’re feeling better, we could then see the Bois de Boulogne.”
“I didn’t say I was feeling poorly,” she bristled.
“Of course not! As you say.”
There is something engrossing about a street market. It is like treasure hunting. Somewhere amid these piles of civilization’s refuse are treasures, one keeps telling oneself. It is as addictive as gambling. One keeps moving from one booth to another, convinced Marie-Antoinette’s hand mirror or Napoleon’s walking stick are in the next bin.
As I purchased three dozen used satchels of all sizes and descriptions, I kept an eye on Maire. She was inclined to be aloof, but slowly the booths drew her in. She played with a small parasol that matched her dress, looking every inch a princess, and picked among the items in the booths with a listless air.
“Madame is out of sorts this morning,” a voice said in French behind me. It was a woman of some fifty years, who ran a booth. She had a sharp nose in the middle of a round face.
“Oui,” I responded. “Madame is very much out of sorts this morning.”
“Naturellement,” the woman responded. “Now you must buy your way out of it. Get her something extravagant. Reassure her that you still care.”
“What would you suggest?”
“A necklace, perhaps, or a pair of earrings. I have a nice cross set with sapphires that might go with that dress.”
“Show me.”
I looked at the cross. It was small but elegant, very French. It consisted of four sapphires in a row, with one more on each side. Maire’s throat was bare, I noticed. The necklace would sparkle like the dress.
“How much?”
She named a price. It always sounded like a fortune when one said it in francs, but when I converted it in my head, it was merely expensive. I gave in with a shrug.
“Avez-vous une boite?”
I couldn’t resist giving her the box in the carriage on the way to the Tuileries. The gamble worked. She was delighted. She kissed me, forgave everything, and was the perfect companion the rest of the day. The icicle she had thrust between my ribs up into my heart melted away in the warm Parisian afternoon sun.
23
We came back to Liverpool two days later, our mission completed. Some sort of understanding had been reached between Maire and me, save that generally, when both parties in a disagreement reach an understanding, they both understand the terms. All I know for certain was that she didn’t seem angry with me anymore and we had been inseparable since she had forgiven me. Her gentle hand seemed permanently set into the crook of my arm as we strolled the deck of the steamer home. I knew better than to think that would bode well with everyone in the faction in Liverpool. Personally, I wondered how Barker would react. I had fended off a more permanent relationship, but somehow one seemed to have developed anyway.
O’Casey and McKeller met us at the dock. I wondered if it was a show of genuine affection when Maire squeezed my left arm as we came down the gangway, or whether she was merely tweaking her brother’s nose. The way he screwed up his mouth, he certainly looked as if there were something that bothered him. As for McKeller, he was all grins and wiggling eyebrows in my direction.
“It’s good to see you two,” her brother said, gripping my hand as hard as McKeller had. My other arm was still otherwise engaged, so my only defense was to squeeze back. “Did you have a safe journey back?”
“It was uneventful,” I said, as our palms grew red and hot and my fingers began to ache. “The sea was calm.”
“That’s good,” O’Casey continued, as if wholly unconcerned with the struggle going on. “And was the hon-Oww!”
Maire had given his hand a sharp rap with her parasol. She was wearing her blue dress, and though she’d put away her paint pot for prim Liverpool’s sake, she wore her hair in the French mode. She had left the city an innocent girl and returned a Continental beauty. It was a wonder her brother was not wringing my neck instead of my hand.
“Maire, you’re looking well,” O’Casey said with more than a trace of irony. He kissed her on the cheek. “Penrith, did you manage to get all of your work done while you were in Paris?”
“You know it is always work first with me,” I told him. “By the end of the day there shall be several large parcels arriving at Victoria Station, to be left until called for. I was able to buy everything. Now I know why you Irish are so fond of going to Paris. If you know where to look, Paris is like a sweet-shop for anarchists.”