Jonas too had seen her, and veered towards her now, and letting go of Phoebe’s left hand he caught the woman by the wrist and pulled her into the dance with them. On they dashed, three of them now, whirling and whirling. The woman seemed quite calm, and merely amused, as if she were used to this kind of thing. Smiling, she kept her eye fixed on Phoebe. Abruptly Jonas let go of both of them and flung himself down with a great laughing gasp to sprawl beside his brother. Phoebe stumbled, and would have fallen if the woman had not put an arm round her waist and held her firmly. They waltzed on together, the woman keeping no better time to the music than Jonas had. She was wearing a green silk blouse and a black skirt with petticoats underneath it.
“I’m Mona,” she said. “Mona Delahaye. And you’re Phoebe, yes? I know your father, a little.”
The song ended and they stopped, and Phoebe stood panting, and smiled back at the smiling woman, and thought how little like a widow she seemed. Both twins now regarded them with keen interest. Mona ignored them, and walked to the rosewood sideboard and poured herself a gin, and added a splash of tonic. “You two,” she said accusingly, addressing the twins over her shoulder, “you’ve used all the ice again!”
Jonas looked sideways at his brother, and James put his hands on his knees and heaved himself to his feet with a histrionic sigh. “Oh, all right,” he said, “I’ll go.”
When he had left Mona went and sat where he had been sitting, pressing down her skirt and ballooning petticoats with a careless gesture, and smiled at Phoebe again and patted the place beside her. “Come,” she said, “come and sit.” She turned her head and spoke to Jonas. “Move over, you.”
Phoebe did as she was invited and came and sat down beside Mona. She felt exhilarated, but dizzy, too, more than dizzy-how much gin had she drunk? — and her tongue felt thick and she had difficulty focusing her eyes. Mona had grabbed Jonas’s glass and with her fingers fished out what remained of the ice cubes in it and dropped them into her own drink.
“Hey!” Jonas said, laughing as he attempted to take back his glass. “You are a cow.”
“And you’re a pig,” Mona answered complacently.
They were like a pair of spoiled siblings fighting over a toy, Phoebe thought. This observation seemed to her at once profound and funny. She blinked-could she be tipsy already?
Mona turned to her. Mona had the most extraordinary violet eyes that tapered at their outer edges and turned up into points. Her scarlet lipstick made her face seem all the more pale. She was very lovely, though her lips were a little thin. Phoebe wondered what it would feel like to be a man kissing that mouth. At that moment, as if Mona had read Phoebe’s thoughts, she parted her lips and Phoebe glimpsed between them the fire-pink sharp little tip of her tongue. That was what she would do if she were being kissed, she would open her mouth like that, just barely parting the lips, and the tip of her tongue would dart out.
“You look quite wild,” Mona said. “What have these two brutes been doing to you?”
“Oh, just-dancing,” Phoebe said. Her head felt terribly heavy all of a sudden, and she leaned back against the sofa, letting her shoulders droop.
“She’s a very good dancer.” Jonas spoke in a soberly judicious tone.
“Yes, she is,” Mona said.
She was still smiling and gazing searchingly at Phoebe.
“She has wings on her heels.” Jonas, too, was looking at Phoebe, leaning forward to see past Mona.
“Have you?” Mona said, still gazing at Phoebe. “Have you wings at your heels?”
With both those pairs of eyes fixed on her, Phoebe felt as if she were an exotic creature perched in a cage and being stared at. What a narrow face Jonas had, a narrow face and a wide mouth, which gave him a faintly cruel look.
James came back with the ice and Jonas insisted that they all have another gin and tonic. Phoebe protested feebly that she did not want anything more to drink, but was ignored. She was still sitting with her head leaning against the back on the sofa and her hands resting limply in her lap. Mona, beside her, touched her hair, peering more deeply still into her eyes. “Jonas,” she said, “you haven’t given her anything, have you?”
Jonas, at the sideboard again pouring drinks, threw her a look of exaggerated outrage. “As if I would!” He brought them their glasses. Phoebe had difficulty holding hers, though it felt wonderfully cool. She lifted it before her face in both hands and watched with fascination a drop of condensed moisture making its way in a gleaming zigzag down the misted side. It seemed to her magical, a thing never witnessed before now. She wanted to tell the others about it but did not think she would be able to find the words.
“Come along,” Jonas said briskly, extending a hand to each of them and taking Phoebe’s glass. “Let’s us face the music, my dears, and dance!”
The two women stood up. Phoebe’s knees wobbled, and she reached out before her for support, and Mona took her hand and put an arm round her waist again, and slowly they began to dance. James and Jonas too were dancing together now. Round and round the floor they went, the two couples, in opposite directions. Each time they passed each other Jonas would make an elaborate, eighteenth-century bow, and James would laugh his laugh.
Phoebe, her head spinning, felt herself gliding off into a sort of trance. Her feet seemed very far away, and glancing down she saw with surprise that they were moving as if by themselves, to their own rhythm, pacing out the measure of the dance. Once her arm brushed against the side of Mona’s breast, but Mona seemed not to notice. The scarab-green silk of Mona’s blouse felt as if there were electricity running through it.
On the record, Sinatra’s voice had a sad little sob in it.
Someone kicked the door from outside and it flew open and an old man in a wheelchair, with a mane of gray hair, propelled himself over the threshold. He glared at the dancing couples and his face darkened with fury, and there was a sort of rumbling sound in his chest as the words gathered there, and he made a fist of his right hand and smashed it down on the arm of the wheelchair. “This is a house of mourning!” he bellowed, in the thundering tones of a hellfire preacher.
The dancers halted. Phoebe swayed on her feet. Mona’s arm was still encircling her waist. She seemed to be laughing, very softly.
“Hello, Grandad,” Jonas said brightly. “Care for a snorter?”
The man in the wheelchair looked at him, his head trembling and his eyes blazing. “You young whelp!” he said, half choking on the words.
Everything in front of Phoebe had begun to swim. Her head felt so heavy, so heavy. She took a step forward and leaned her forehead on Mona’s shoulder. “I think,” she said, and her voice was so thick now she could hardly make it out herself, “I think I’m going to…”
Isabel was late, as so often. Quirke did not mind. He was in McGonagle’s, in the back snug, known for some reason as the Casbah, where only the most regular of regulars were allowed to enter. He had the Evening Mail before him on the table, quarter-folded, which was the way he liked to read a newspaper, and a large whiskey at his elbow. The Casbah, cramped and cozy, struck a faintly nautical note. It might have been the cabin of a trawler. There was a lot of dark brown wood that somehow was always faintly and stickily damp to the touch, and the head-high wooden partition that separated it from the rest of the pub had a row of small low-set frosted-glass windows that were reminiscent of portholes. The air was shadowed and smoky, but a chink of evening sunlight from somewhere had set a glowing jewel in the bottom of the whiskey glass.
He was reading a story about a case of criminal conversation, in which a man had sued his business partner for having an affair with his wife. “Criminal conversation.” Who thought up these terms? Maybe it was a direct translation from the Latin. The case was a nasty one, with evidence not only from the three people involved but also from hotel clerks and chambermaids and even from one of the conductors on the Howth tram. What must the woman feel? Perhaps he might ask Isabel.