Even the Dead

by Benjamin Black

“You remind me of your mother when you argue with me about money,” Quirke said to her. “You narrow your eyes and purse your mouth in just the way she used to do.”

  “I wish you’d talk about her more,” Phoebe said.

  “Do you? I don’t know what I could tell you. I remember her in a strange way.”

  “Strange?”

  “I’m not sure it’s really her I’m remembering. In my memory she has become a kind of—I don’t know—a kind of mythical figure.” He smiled, a touch sheepishly. “She’s my legend, you could say.”

  “She’s very beautiful, in her photographs.”

  “Yes, she was lovely.” He frowned, running his fingers over the tablecloth, feeling its texture. “She had the most wonderful skin, smooth as silk, and always cool, somehow, even in the hottest weather.”

  The waiter brought the bottle of Chablis that Quirke had ordered, displayed the label and drew out the cork and tipped a drop into Quirke’s glass. Quirke tasted, nodded, the wine was poured, the waiter went away. Quirke always savored this little ritual; it was like a children’s game that grown-ups were still allowed to play.

  Father and daughter clinked glasses. Phoebe had on her black dress with the lace collar. She never wore jewelry.

  “This is the first drink I’ve had all week,” Quirke said; it was only a white lie. “I hope you’re proud of me.”

  Their first course arrived. They were both having smoked salmon.

  “Did you know the Russell started up as a temperance hotel?” Quirke said. “Sir Somebody Russell opened it in—I can’t remember when. He was very hot on the fight against the demon drink.”

  Phoebe arched an eyebrow. “Well,” she said, “I imagine Sir Somebody has been doing a lot of turning in his grave in the meantime.”

  Quirke pushed his plate away and leaned back in his chair, the wine already spreading its warm tendrils along his veins. “This is about the last place in Dublin that makes real turtle soup,” he said, “did you know that?”

  He could see she wasn’t listening. Her mood had darkened suddenly. She too had pushed her plate away, and sat with her eyes lowered, fiddling with the remains of a bread roll.

  “What are we going to do?” she said in a low, urgent voice. “Whatever that man said to you, Lisa does live there. I was in her flat—her things were there.”

  He had told her how he and Inspector Hackett had gone to Rathmines, how they had talked to the young man in the dirty undershirt and afterwards to Abercrombie, and how both men had insisted they knew nothing of any Lisa Smith.

  “If she does live there,” Quirke said, “she must have given you a false name. You said yourself her name didn’t sound convincing.”

  They drank their wine. A waitress came and took away their plates, and the waiter returned and refilled their wine glasses. The dining room had no windows, and the air was close and uncomfortably warm. Quirke loosened his tie and unbuttoned his shirt collar. His thoughts went back to Delia and her pale, cool skin. His brief time with her had been a kind of ecstatic torment. She had been his obsession; he couldn’t get enough of her. She knew it, and would withhold herself, just for the pleasure of seeing him squirm, of having him plead. Had she ever loved him? For a brief time, he supposed; otherwise why would she have married him? He had never understood her. What he had said to Phoebe wasn’t really true. Delia wasn’t a legend; she was an enigma. His sphinx, beautiful, desperately loved, and malign.

  Their main courses arrived.

  “Will you see if you can get a list of the people who were in that course with you?” Quirke said. “Maybe one of the names will jog your memory.”

  Phoebe hadn’t touched her main course. “I’m convinced something bad has happened to her,” she said.

  “You don’t know that. Maybe she changed her mind about staying at the house. Maybe she was frightened there, more frightened than she already was, and left and went somewhere else—maybe she even came back to Dublin.”

  “How could she? She had no car—I drove her down, remember.”

  “She could have got a hackney cab.”

  Phoebe shook her head. “No, no,” she said. “There wasn’t a trace of her having been there. She wouldn’t have done that herself, would she?”

  “Maybe she’s obsessively tidy?”

  “No,” Phoebe said again, more vehemently this time. “Someone had made sure there wasn’t a mark left to show she’d been there. She just disappeared, as if—”

  A couple had appeared in the doorway, and stopped there a moment to survey the room. The man was in black tie. He was in his late twenties, perhaps, boyish-looking, with thin fair hair and a sharp, clever-seeming face. The woman was older, in her forties, a little on the heavy side, but attractively so, with a broad face and large, dark eyes. Her hair was prematurely streaked with gray, and cut in an untidy line just below her ears. She had, to Quirke’s eye, what he could only define as a dignified beauty. Her gaze fell on Phoebe, and she smiled.

  “Oh,” Phoebe murmured, “it’s—”

  The woman said something to the young man, and together they approached the table. Phoebe stood up. “Dr. Blake!” she said. “What a surprise!”

  “Good evening, Phoebe,” the woman said. “How nice to see you.”

  She had a slight foreign accent. She looked at Quirke. He stood up.

  “This is—this is my father,” Phoebe said.

  “Ah. How do you do, Mr. Griffin.”

  “It’s Quirke, actually,” Quirke said. “How do you do.”

  They shook hands. He hadn’t met her before. Her eyes, up close, were extraordinary, two great still pools of darkness. Quirke felt he had never been looked at in this way before; indeed, it was as if he were being looked at for the first time in his life, and he was unnerved.

  “This is Paul Viertel,” the woman said, indicating the young man. “Paul, this is Phoebe, the person I told you about, who works with me. And this is Mr.—Mr. Quirke.”

  Paul Viertel had a surprisingly firm handshake, though his fingers were long and slender, like a woman’s.

  “How do you do, Mr. Quirke,” he said. He too had an accent, more pronounced than the woman’s. German, Quirke thought, or else Austrian; he wouldn’t be able to tell the difference. The young man turned to Phoebe. “Miss—Griffin, yes?”

  “Yes,” Phoebe said, stammering a little, “Phoebe, Phoebe Griffin.”

  “I knew your late husband,” Quirke said to the woman.

  “Yes, you did, of course. I had forgotten.”

  It was strange, Quirke thought afterwards, how for that moment it seemed as if there were only the two of them in the room, himself and this large, dark-eyed, oddly lovely woman, gazing at him out of what seemed a vast, inner stillness.

  The headwaiter appeared, chafing his hands anxiously, and apologized to the newcomers for not having been there to greet them on their arrival. The woman, Dr. Blake, turned to him, faintly smiling. “It’s nothing,” she said, and he too, Quirke saw, felt himself singled out, and marked, somehow, fleetingly. Dr. Blake glanced back at the others. “I’m sorry, we have interrupted your meal.” She touched a fingertip to Phoebe’s elbow. “Please, do sit. Perhaps we shall see you later, before you leave.”

  As they moved away, Paul Viertel turned back for a second and smiled at Phoebe and gave a small, quick bow.

  Seated again, Quirke felt oddly discomposed. It was as if a sudden gust of wind had blown through the room, leaving everything slightly disturbed in its wake, including him.

  “I didn’t realize you’d never met her before,” Phoebe said.

  “Yes,” Quirke said distractedly. “I only knew her husband from the hospital, and not very well anyway. He was a surgeon, so our paths didn’t cross very often. He drank, I think.” He picked at what remained of the grouse; the meat was tough and had little taste. He drank his wine. He should have had red, to go with the game. His hand, he noticed, was not quite steady. “Is she—is she easy to work for?” he asked.

&n
bsp; Phoebe raised her eyebrows. “Easy? I suppose she is.” She smiled. “She’s certainly a change from Mrs. Cuffe-Wilkes and her awful hats.”

  “Are they awful, the hats? I thought you liked them.”

  “They’re just silly, like Mrs. Cuffe-Wilkes. Dr. Blake, on the other hand, is certainly not silly.”

  “Yes, she seems”—he groped for the word—“she seems formidable.” He pushed his plate aside, feeling slightly queasy now at the look of it, the mess of meat and smeared blood and tiny, dark bones. He lit a cigarette. “Who’s the young man?”

  “I don’t know. A relative, don’t you think?”

  “He sounded foreign.”

  “Yes. Austrian, probably, like Dr. Blake.”

  “What did she say his name was?”

  “Feertel, something like that.” She looked at him closely. “Are you all right?”

  “I’m fine. Why?”

  “You look—I don’t know. Peculiar.”

  “The food didn’t agree with me.” He glanced about for the waiter. “I think I’ll have a brandy—it always settles my innards.”

  She made a comically accusing face, letting her shoulders and the corners of her mouth droop. “Oh, Quirke,” she said, “you’re such a child.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “If you want a brandy, have a brandy. I think you shouldn’t, I really think you shouldn’t, but if you do, at least don’t lie to yourself about it.”

  Stung, he glared at her, then shrugged, and smiled ruefully.

  “All right,” he said, “I won’t have a brandy.”

  “You’ve done so well,” she said, smiling, “please don’t give in now.”

  He looked into her face, into her eyes, her mother’s eyes, and felt a slow, wavelike spasm in the region of his diaphragm, and something heavy and warm welled up in him, as if he might be about to burst into tears. The feeling lasted no more than a second or two, but he recognized it. It was something that happened to him now and then, at unexpected moments. Anything could provoke it, a soft word spoken kindly, a sudden poignant memory, a woman’s voice heard from another room, or just the look of things, a splashy sunset, a view on a winter morning of some known place transfigured in a mist, a gleam of April light on a rained-on road—anything. It was as if, deep inside him, deep beyond his knowing, there was a still, bottomless pool of longing, of sorrow, of tenderness, out of which on these occasions there rose up, unbidden, a bright and irresistible splash, rose, and fell back again, back into those secret and forever hidden depths.

  A stranger; he was a stranger to himself.

  But oh, how he yearned for a real drink: for many real drinks.

  When they had finished and were leaving, the way out led past the table where Dr. Blake and the young man were seated. Dr. Blake looked up at them out of those dark, calm eyes. She had the air, Quirke thought, of some large, locked place, a castle keep, or a sequestered monastery where vigils were held, and nightlong meditations, and silent ceremonials at dawn.

  He caught himself up. Where were such fanciful thoughts coming from?

  “I hope you enjoyed your dinner?” Dr. Blake said, looking up at him.

  “Yes, yes,” Quirke answered, “it was fine, it was very good.”

  At this she only smiled, as if gently dismissing something superfluous. Her large hands were folded on the tablecloth in front of her, one on top of the other, like a pair of slumbering animals. The fair young man smiled too, but at Phoebe. “Good evening,” he said to her, in his clipped accent. “I hope we meet again.”

  They were at the front door of the hotel before Phoebe’s blushes finally began to fade.

  11

  Quirke bought the Sunday papers from the newsstand outside the church on Haddington Road, and strolled down to the canal in the sunshine by way of Percy Place. He walked along the towpath until he came to his favorite bench under the trees, and sat down. A crowd of boys were out already, swimming from the lock at Mount Street Bridge. He lit a cigarette and watched them idly for a while, skinny, dough-pale creatures in sagging togs, loud and cheerful, and foul-mouthed as dockers. The more daring ones preferred to jump feet-first from the parapet of the bridge, holding their noses and flopping into the water like frogs. They were often here at weekends, and he marveled at their resistance to the countless species of microbes that must be swarming in this filthy water, afloat as it was with assorted garbage and the odd dead dog.

  He was reading a long report about improving relations between America and Hungary when he heard the sound of footsteps. Looking up, he was surprised to see Rose Griffin approaching along the towpath.

  “Well,” she said, “don’t you look the picture of ease, sitting here among beechen shade and shadows numberless.” She sat down beside him. “That’s Keats, by the way, in case you didn’t recognize it.” She wore a pale cream sleeveless dress and gold-painted sandals, and was carrying a small, white leather handbag. “Got a cigarette?”

  He held the lighter for her and she leaned down to the flame, touching the tip of one finger to the back of his hand and glancing up at him from under her lashes.

  “Is this a coincidence?” he asked.

  “Oh, no. I knew this was your haunt on Sunday mornings. Didn’t you use to meet Sarah here?”

  Sarah was Mal’s late wife, whom Quirke had loved, or had thought he did.

  “Yes, she used to come round sometimes, after she’d been to Mass.”

  “That’s right—she was very devout, was Sarah. Her God rewarded her well, didn’t he, giving her that brain tumor.” She smiled at him. “You were awfully fond of Sarah, weren’t you. I was always a little jealous. You had all of us running after you, you cruel man.”

  He laughed. “What was it you said to me once, about us being alike, you and I? Cold heart and a hot soul—that was how you described us.”

  “Did I? I don’t remember. But I guess it’s about right. My Lord, look at that boy, how thin he is—don’t they feed their kids around here?”

  “They come up from Ringsend. The unkillable children of the poor.” He glanced at her with a sly grin. “That’s Ezra Pound, by the way.”

  “Touché, then. You always were well-read.”

  “No, I’m not. I’m a magpie; I pick up bright scraps and store them away, to impress people later.”

  “And, of course, we’re so easily impressed.”

  They smoked their cigarettes and watched the boys at play. Rose crossed her knees and let one sandal dangle from her long-toed, shapely foot.

  “Have you settled back into all your other old haunts?” she asked without looking at him. He could hear that she was still annoyed at him for moving out of the house on Ailesbury Road so abruptly.

  “Settling in is not a thing I do very well,” he said.

  “But you must be glad to be back in that apartment of yours,” she said. “So much livelier than our old place.” She paused. “Mal misses you, you know. He was shocked, the way you left like that.”

  “I’m sorry,” Quirke said. “I suppose it seemed ungrateful.”

  “Oh, we don’t require gratitude. We were glad to have you there—we were glad to help.”

  He turned to her and studied her profile. Still she would not look at him, but kept her eyes on the raucous swimmers.

  “What’s the matter, Rose?” he said. “It’s not just me moving out, is it?”

  She said nothing for a while. There was something uncanny in the unwavering gaze she kept trained on the boys at the lock.

  “Come round to lunch today,” she said at last. “We won’t try to hold on to you, or shut you into a room. Mal would like to see you. He has things to talk to you about.”

  “What sort of things?”

  “Oh, I’ll let him tell you himself.”

  She dropped the butt of the cigarette on the gravel and trod on it with the heel of her sandal, then stood up. “By the way,” she said, “I almost forgot.” She unclasped her handbag and opened it. “I was going throug
h some old things and found this.”

  She handed him a photograph, faded and badly creased at one corner. It showed him and Mal, in tennis whites, each with an arm around the other’s shoulder, smiling into the camera. There were trees behind them and, in the distance, a tall white building. It had been taken in Boston, where Mal and he had studied medicine together.

  “My God,” he said, “that must be, what, nearly twenty-five years ago?”

  “Yes, and don’t you two boys look happy.”

  He glanced up at her from where he sat, the newspapers scattered on the dry ground at his feet.

  “What time shall I come?” he asked.

  “Oh, whenever. We tend not to keep fixed hours anymore, Mal and I. We just take things as they come.”

  He tried to return the photograph to her, but she shook her head. “You keep it. Put it in your wallet and just keep it.”

  They gazed at each other for a long moment, then Rose reached out a hand and touched his face. “The years run on,” she said, “don’t they.” Then she turned and walked quickly away, with her head down.

  * * *

  He went out on foot to Ailesbury Road. It was a walk of half an hour or so. By noon the heat of the day was intense, and he was glad of his straw hat and his light linen jacket. He had felt like a truant when he left Mal and Rose’s house, and a pleasurably guilty sensation of freedom still persisted. His time was his own, and he could do entirely as he wished. Not that Mal or Rose had required anything of him while he was staying with them, yet he realized now how oppressed he had felt in the weeks when he was there, at their house. Why had he given in and let them take him over in the first place? Fear, he supposed. He hadn’t quite trusted Philbin’s diagnosis of his mental confusions and blackouts, and if he was going to die, he didn’t want to die alone. But it seemed now that Philbin had been right, and that he wasn’t going to die, and despite himself he savored the quickened sense of life his reprieve had given him.

  It was Maisie who answered the doorbell.

  “Good day to you, Dr. Quirke,” she said. “And isn’t it a grand fine day?”

  “It is, Maisie, it’s a beautiful day.”