“Are you an alcoholic?” Mona asked, in a tone of mild inquiry.
“I don’t know,” he said. He took the glass and drank off the whiskey in one gulp and gave her back the glass to refill. “Probably.”
She seemed to find his reply amusing. She smiled at him, arching an eyebrow, and turned and picked up the whiskey bottle.
“You slept with me once,” he said.
“Yes, I did. Like you, I’m curious.”
“You were curious, about me?”
“I was. Now I’m not anymore.” She moved to the sofa and sat down and crossed her legs. The wings of the kimono fell back on both sides to reveal one bare, glossy knee. “Remember how I said to you before that people think I’m a dimwit? They do. I mean them to.” She lifted a hand and pushed her bronzen hair back from her face at the side. “When I was a little girl,” she said, “I used to lie on the floor and pretend to be asleep, but I’d have my eyes open just the tiniest crack, so I could watch people, my parents, my brothers, my sister that I hated, without them knowing. Now I’m a big girl and I do the same thing, only instead of pretending to be asleep I pretend to be stupid.”
Quirke sipped his whiskey. “Why have you let me in on your secret?”
“I don’t know. I suppose because you’re pretending, too.”
“And what am I pretending to be?”
She studied him for a moment, cocking her head to one side, like a blackbird. “You’re pretending to be human, I think. Wouldn’t you say?”
He lit a cigarette. The flame of the lighter flickered, he noticed, for his hand was not entirely steady. “Did you know,” he said, “that Jack Clancy was planning to take over the business from your husband?”
She nodded. “Yes. Victor told me.”
“When did he find out?”
“The day before he killed himself.”
He looked at her without speaking. She held his gaze calmly.
“Was that why he killed himself?” he asked.
“Partly.”
He set his glass down slowly on the sideboard, next to the whiskey bottle. He would pour himself another drink, but not just yet.
“What else had he found out?” he asked.
“Oh!” She waved a hand. “He was impossible. So jealous.”
He waited. She regarded him with a slightly swollen look, as if struggling to keep herself from laughing.
“Who was it?” he said.
“Who was who?”
“Who was he jealous of?”
“Don’t you know?” Now she did laugh, giving an odd sharp little whoop. “Not Jack Clancy,” she said. “But you were warm.”
He was silent for a long moment, gazing at her. Then he took up the whiskey bottle and half filled the tumbler. He turned back to her. “The boy, then,” he said. “What’s his name?”
“Davy. And he’s not a boy, though he’s as pretty as one-don’t you think? And so-so energetic, with that kind of youthful vigor that gladdens a girl’s heart, I can tell you.”
Quirke sipped his whiskey. The glass knocked against one of his front teeth. “Are you still-seeing him?” he asked, surprised at how steady his voice was.
“For goodness’ sake!” she said, and gave another laugh. “I’m the grieving widow-I can hardly go about sleeping with people.”
“You slept with me.”
“I told you,” she said, with a sulky pout, “I was curious.”
He felt exhausted suddenly. He shut his eyes and kneaded the flesh at the bridge of his nose between a thumb and two fingers. He had a tearing sensation in his chest, as if there were an animal in there, raking at him with its claws.
He opened his eyes. “Jack Clancy’s death,” he said.
“What about it?” she asked. “I assume, since his scheme to take over from Victor had been found out, he decided to follow Victor’s example. Rivals to the end.”
Quirke shook his head. “No,” he said, hearing the weariness in his voice. “Jack Clancy didn’t kill himself.” She waited. “Don’t you know?” he said. “Haven’t you figured it out?”
She put a finger to her chin and looked upwards, mimicking a schoolgirl who has been asked a hard question. “Someone did it for him?” she said.
“Yes. Someone did it for him.”
“Not”-she sat bolt upright and slapped a hand on her bared knee and laughed-“not Maverley? Not that white rabbit? He adored Victor, I know, but I can’t imagine him killing someone in revenge for his death.”
“No,” Quirke said, “not Maverley.”
“Then who?”
He walked to the sofa and stood over her, the whiskey glass clenched in his hand. She leaned back a little, pulling the kimono closed over her knees, and the faintest shadow of alarm crossed her face.
“Are you pretending now?” he said. “Or are you stupid, after all?” He drank the last of the whiskey in the glass and held it out to her, and she took it, and set it down on the arm of the sofa. “Where are the twins?” he asked.
“I already said, they’ve gone.” She was watching him carefully, as if readying herself to forestall whatever move he might make. She was right to be wary. He was very angry. He put a hand into the pocket of his jacket and made a fist of it, digging the nails into his palm. “Good-bye,” he said, and turned abruptly and walked from the room, and along the silent hall, and opened the front door and stepped out into the fragrance of the night. He felt nothing, only the sensation of something icy melting in his heart.
Black, Benjamin
Vengeance: A Novel (Quirke)
13
A light fine rain was falling when they left the city, but it soon lost heart and stopped, and a watery sun came out and put a blinding shine on the road in front of them. They went up by the canal, past lock after lock, the suburbs on their left becoming more tired and shabby with each mile they covered. Then they turned onto the Naas Road, and the trees on either side seemed to hold themselves averted, gazing off elsewhere.
“I wish you wouldn’t smoke in the car,” Rose Griffin said. “I’d much prefer to breathe.”
Quirke opened the window a little way and pushed his half-smoked cigarette out through the crack. They went on for a long way in silence after that, until Rose spoke again, asking if he thought there might be somewhere they could stop to eat lunch. Quirke stirred himself and said he had not thought about lunch. There was, he said, a hotel in Cashel that might be tolerable. “Tolerable!” Rose said faintly, and sighed.
They spoke of Malachy Griffin. Rose said she was worried about her husband, about how sedentary he was becoming. “Couldn’t you and he take up golf?” she asked. Quirke glanced at her sidelong. “No, I suppose not,” she said. “Pity,” she added, with wistful regret.
She was puzzled as to the purpose of this journey, and Quirke, it seemed, was not inclined to enlighten her. Although she would not have thought it possible, he was even more taciturn than usual today, shut far off inside himself. She had the impression that he was suffering, gnawing away at some inner hurt.
“The trouble with Malachy,” she said, “is that he’s just not assertive enough.”
Quirke made a noise that might have been laughter. “Who do you want him to assert himself against?”
“Oh, Quirke, you know what I mean! My Mal has so much to offer, but he holds back. It’s an almighty shame.”
Quirke wondered doubtfully what it might be that Mal had so much of, but he said nothing.
The damp green of summer fields rolled past. It was midday and they were almost alone on the long road south. They passed through melancholy villages, ramshackle towns. More than once they were forced to slow to a crawl behind a farmer driving his cows. Outside Kildare town they met in the middle of the road a ram with elaborately curled horns and strings of matted wool hanging down on all sides. Rose sounded the horn impatiently, but the ram just stood there, head lowered, glaring at them, and in the end Quirke had to get out and wave his arms and shout before the beast would move. When he got back into the car Rose was laughing. “Oh, Quirke, you should have seen yourself!”
The road seemed endless. Fields, trees, then ragged outskirts, then long streets with pubs and drapers’ shops and general stores, then outskirts again, then trees again, then fields again. They crossed a bridge over a river, a broad slow stretch of stippled silver, with bulrushes at both sides and a single swan afloat in the shallows. The huge sky over the Midlands was piled high with luminous wreckage. On a hairpin bend some small creature, rat or squirrel, ran out from the verge and under their wheels, and there was a quick bump, and Rose gave a little scream. “Oh, Quirke,” she wailed, beating the steering wheel with her palms, “tell me why we’re going down to Cork.”