Quiet City

by Philip Davison

  Gloria told Jesus what she was doing. Her feet were ahead of her. They took her under drooping branches, past illuminated shops and pubs to the Grand Canal, where they struck west. Idle locks, bulrushes, swans, floating plastic sacks, a burst bag of chips, an angry man exercising his miserable dog – ‘Evening’ – gurriers out on the skite: they were all a spur.

  Wet, but it was not raining. Rain that wasn’t rain. Something soft and premature that made the air thin and cool. Clouds had come down to rub the earth and condense there. Gloria was in a cloud. The wetting was good, she imagined. It was something she could easily endure. A person could sing a song and their spirits would be lifted.

  But Gloria did not sing. She could only think of hymns, and that would not be right on this march. Sinatra, then, or John Lennon. She couldn’t line up the lyrics. Instead, she took in her environment: the structures and fixtures, the lie of the land, the relationship of things.

  There was a car dealership, carpet and tile warehouses on the near side of a narrow rise over railway tracks and canal. Beyond, on the flat industrial parkland, there were many more nondescript warehouses with loading bays, and a few bungs of neglected countryside. This was the place. She was looking for a triangular tract of scrubland with pylon wires straddling a grass bank that fell away towards the canal. There were no footpaths here. The far-off footpaths she could see in the industrial park were entirely deserted.

  It had taken much more time than she had anticipated to get to this location. Now that she had arrived, she was both glad and afraid. Her fear was not for her physical safety, but that she could not make this a pilgrimage. Afraid, too, for what was to follow. She was not prepared for a solitary life, and not equipped, she felt, to make it otherwise. She couldn’t bear talking to herself for any length of time when Richard was alive, much less now that he was gone.

  She would sit a while; talk, if it came to her. Under her waterproof, she was wearing a dress she knew Richard liked. She opened her coat, that it might be seen.

  And where exactly would she sit? On that rise, between a pylon and the ditch. Richard’s ditch. She found a spot to cross by a culvert. She sat on her chosen patch. From there she could see the route she had come. The long, low rectangle of the illuminated window of the car showrooms, the regular intervals of smudge-light from lamp-posts. She was not addled, nor was she disorientated. Quite the opposite, in fact. But this was a forlorn place, and she was sorry for that.

  What now, with the sodden ground under her behind and her knees gathered under her chin? She had not come to speculate. She had come to honour her husband. She spoke his name into the mist. ‘I’m here,’ she said, and suddenly felt utterly exhausted.

  She saw that the next pylon was also close to Richard’s ditch, and now that she studied the terrain, she decided that she was in the wrong spot. That other pylon was the true marker. She would go and sit there a while. She wanted to shoo Richard on, then go home and sleep until it was time to work. She would go to that other pylon, announce herself again, sit a while, then go home to bed. It was what he would have done.

  So, she got up and picked her way along the uneven ground. She didn’t see that the ditch turned back on itself before crossing under that second pylon. The fall was not great, but her landing was hard. She was sure she had broken her wrist.

  There wasn’t much pain at first. It was more the shock. She was able to climb out of the ditch and get onto the road near the railway line. ‘Sorry,’ she mumbled to herself. ‘Sorry,’ she called out, and began to pound in the direction of the city.

  The pain came soon enough. Translucent bubbleworms wriggled across her corneas. She sat on a grass verge for fear of fainting on the road. The driver of an AA van stopped when he saw the huddle in the grass.

  ‘Did you have a breakdown?’ he called through his open window.

  Gloria shook her head. He put on his hazardlights and got out.

  ‘What happened?’ he asked, as he helped her into the passenger seat.

  ‘I’ve been walking,’ she said in a light whisper.

  ‘Walking?’ he echoed darkly.

  ‘I slipped. I’m so tired, you see.’

  ‘You get in there now.’

  ‘Do you mind if we don’t speak?’

  She seemed to be holding out her wrist for him. He looked at it. Didn’t dare touch. ‘You hold tight, love. I’ll have you there in no time.’ He didn’t say where there might be. He was going to drive her to Accident and Emergency. She didn’t mind him buckling her safety belt.

  He radioed his dispatch and took off over the humpback bridge with a lurch and a bounce.

  ‘Sorry,’ she said, on the edge of consciousness.

  ‘No bother,’ he said. ‘No bother,’ he repeated.

  The nearer they got to their destination, the faster he drove.

  24

  ‘You dozy mare,’ Fidelma said. ‘Don’t you know I would have gone with you? Driven you there. Been with you.’

  ‘Yes,’ Gloria replied shakily. ‘Thank you. It was important: I wanted to be in that place by myself.’

  ‘I could have stayed in the car.’ Both women had a grip on her, one at either elbow. Gloria’s mother had no qualms about clutching the slung arm firmly.

  ‘I did what I wanted to do,’ Gloria replied. She was embarrassed, open now to a charge of dizziness, if not lunacy. That had to be dispelled.

  Two intertwined peels of infectious laughter, one male, one female, echoed across the underground car park. ‘There’s a lot of happy couples in this building,’ Gloria said. ‘In this city,’ she added. It was the painkillers talking.

  ‘Not us, dear,’ her mother pointed out. ‘Not at the moment. We must make do.’

  ‘We’re a right pair, the three of us,’ Gloria declared, as they entered the lift. It was their turn to laugh. They were silent for the ascent, and for the walk on the corridor to Fidelma’s apartment. Gloria knew that her mother was in shock, and that this was delaying the extended rebuke that would surely come.

  ‘You have it lovely,’ Iris said, taking in her surroundings. It was smaller and more cluttered than the Meadows’ flat, but immediately comfortable.

  ‘Thank you. Now, sit down. I’ll do the rest.’

  ‘Here we are,’ Gloria said, while Fidelma was in the kitchen getting the drinks and food. She thought she might draw her mother out, get the lecture over and done with.

  ‘Here we are,’ her mother repeated, putting the tone right.

  ‘Safe and sound.’

  ‘Yes, well, we’ll see if you’ve stopped your foolishness. Have you heard more from the Guards?’ Might her daughter be keeping something from her that would explain her taking off into the night?

  ‘Nothing new.’

  ‘I should talk to that so-called detective.’

  ‘Mother, just let them do their job.’

  ‘They won’t get any discouragement from me.’

  ‘Just leave them be. They’ve enough to deal with.’

  ‘Huh.’

  The three women gathered respectfully at a small coffee table with their food and drinks. They sat forwards, mother and daughter on a baggy floral couch, the host on a matching armchair.

  Iris leaned slightly sideways. ‘You were left there for an hour or more on the side of the road, suffering.’

  ‘I wasn’t.’

  ‘No one would stop. There are no good Samaritans out that way. None anywhere these days.’

  ‘I wasn’t there long. A man in a van stopped. He was very kind. He took me all the way to St Vincent’s.’

  ‘You could have been raped. An ambulance should have been called.’

  ‘Mother, please ….’

  ‘You could be dying on a crowded street, and nobody would lift a finger.’

  ‘It was my fault. I wasn’t careful enough, and I fell.’

  ‘For God’s sake, what did you think you were doing out there in the cold and wet?’

  Gloria didn’t answer. Her lower lip bega
n to tremble. Fidelma came in sweetly: ‘She was paying her respects.’

  This formal phrase halted Iris for a moment, who leaned across to clasp her daughter’s free hand, but then sprang back in her chair and announced: ‘I’m disappointed in my particular branch of humanity.’ It was a crude attempt to make less of her gall, but Gloria was on to her.

  ‘Which branch would that be?’

  ‘This locale.’

  ‘What, this city?’

  ‘And environs. It’s catching.’

  ‘That’s a bit previous, wouldn’t you say, mother?’

  ‘Nothing previous about it. I’m very – ’

  ‘Very disappointed. In the general population. You’ve told us.’

  ‘You gave me a fright, Gloria. You want to do me out of existence?’

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘She is sorry, Iris,’ Fidelma put in.

  ‘The things that happen….’

  ‘Stop your worrying,’ Fidelma urged. ‘Will you not have one of these?’ she asked, offering a plate of sharp-cut triangle cheese-and-ham sandwiches.

  Iris pursed her lips and shook her head. ‘Gloria will have one,’ she volunteered.

  Gloria took a sandwich, and bit into it. ‘Very nice, Fidelma,’ she said sorrily.

  Her mother hadn’t finished with her caustic show of relief. ‘They ate a lot,’ she observed presently. Despite Gloria’s mad hike, her broken arm, her hellish stint in a&e, they were all thinking about the killing of Richard.

  ‘Who ate a lot?’ Gloria wanted to know. She was in for some heavy criticism, she was sure. Something inappropriate. Something twisted.

  ‘Your guests. At the afters.’

  ‘I can’t believe you’d say that, mother.’

  ‘There was nothing left. I’m glad. It must be a good thing. You were there, Fidemla. You saw.’

  ‘You did a splendid job looking after everybody, Iris.’

  ‘At one point I thought I wouldn’t have enough food for everyone.’

  ‘Thank you again for your effort, Iris,’ Gloria said tightly, ‘but it wasn’t about you, remember?’

  ‘Funerals do that to some people,’ Iris continued. ‘I can never eat a thing. She pointed with a thumb. ‘Her Tom couldn’t put away enough. Sandwiches, sausage rolls, canapés. Especially the canapés.’ She could see that her daughter was tearful – which was entirely fitting. ‘I was glad to be busy,’ she said to Fidelma, but really she was addressing Gloria. She would explore the subject of the Tom fellow another time. Fidelma would have his cards marked, she was sure. She’d talk to her.

  But she couldn’t leave it alone. After a brief lull, she said: ‘You’re quick off the mark, I must say.’

  Gloria rapidly made herself available. ‘What are you saying?’

  ‘You’re right, of course. I knew there was something going on when you wouldn’t come over to me for your birthday dinner. She’s a dark horse, this one,’ Iris said, deferring to Fidelma. ‘You’ll know that. She has her friend over on her birthday. You weren’t invited either, I take it? I was very embarrassed when I called over. Lunch for two.’

  ‘I’m sure the food was lovely,’ Fidelma said.

  ‘I didn’t think much of the muck you cooked up for your gentleman caller,’ Iris said, turning again to her daughter.

  ‘I’ve cooked worse,’ Gloria said, determined not to rise to the provocation.

  ‘I’m sure the smell went up the lift-shaft to your floor, Fidelma. In any case, he didn’t eat much.’

  ‘You drove him away.’

  ‘He drove me away in his car, if you recall.’ Again, she deferred to Fidelma. ‘After he disposed of the tree you hacked. The tree Richard had in a pot. I only came to wish Gloria a happy birthday, and to bring her present.’

  ‘Thank you, mother.’

  ‘Did you see it, Fidelma? A lovely cashmere cardigan. She hasn’t worn it, have you, dear? You didn’t think to wear it for your mad trek?’

  ‘Who has champagne at a funeral reception?’ Gloria demanded.

  ‘I do.’ Her mother replied. ‘You forget we had it for your father.’

  ‘So we did.’

  ‘We were celebrating the life of the departed. Your father. Your husband, Richard. Remember that.’

  ‘You’re right.’

  ‘I am? That’s good to hear. And, can I say, people drank it.’

  ‘It was a lovely gesture,’ Fidelma said. Did she mean serving up the champagne or graciously drinking it? That wasn’t clear.

  ‘Actually,’ admitted Iris, ‘that champagne we had for Richard was rotten. I’ll be lodging a complaint with the off-licence. Bloody cheek, offloading that on us.’

  ‘I’ll show you my new cardigan in a minute, Fidelma.’ The gin was starting to have an effect. Gloria was ready to go with the flow.

  ‘Please. I’d like to see it.’

  Iris let out a conciliatory sigh, and gazed into the corner. ‘Oh Gloria, you don’t want me meddling, I know. You don’t want advice from me. You have your own feet and inches, but what is it you do want? Company? Well, here we are. And there’s many others, if you’d let them call.’

  ‘I’m glad you’re here.’

  Iris wanted to indulge her daughter. Embarrassment was a reliable short-circuiter. ‘If it’s sex … well, that’s not a problem these days. So I hear.’

  ‘She doesn’t hear it from me, Fidelma.’

  ‘By the way,’ Fidelma came in with a sudden brightness, ‘did that woman call?’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Virginia Coates.’

  ‘Detective Garda Barrett ….’

  ‘What?’

  ‘He mentioned Virginia Coates. A childhood friend of Richard’s, he said. What does she want?’

  Fidelma told her story about meeting Virgina Coates. The woman had called to Gloria’s apartment the previous night, had found no one in, had met Fidelma in the lobby, had seen her go across the road to the café, had followed her there. She had introduced herself, and had asked Fidelma if she knew the Meadows, had said she was an old friend of Richard’s. She was very sad to hear the news, wanted to speak to Gloria. She wanted information. ‘When I told her the Guards were suspicious about the circumstances, she got upset. What did I mean, she wanted to know. That it didn’t happen where they found him.’

  ‘You shouldn’t be telling strangers such things, Fidelma,’ Gloria said, rounding on her friend.

  ‘I’m sorry. She was so concerned. She left in a hurry. She said she would call back.’

  ‘We don’t know what happened,’ Gloria asserted forcefully.

  ‘Richard was knocked down and killed, Gloria,’ Iris cried. ‘He’s dead, and you haven’t told us what he was doing wandering out there. I know what you were doing,’ she admitted. ‘You were atoning. What was he doing? Please tell me.’

  ‘I. Don’t. Know,’ Gloria shouted.

  And she didn’t.

  There was a stark silence. It ran so deep Richard had no presence in it.

  Gloria’s mother apologised for her outburst. Her desire was to protect her child from all harm. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘We’ll let him go.’

  25

  Detective Garda Jarleth Barrett pretended to be angry with her. ‘Don’t you know I would have driven you there if you’d asked me? You should have asked.’

  She tried one of his shrugs. That annoyed him. ‘Now look,’ he said, pointing to the plaster-cast on her wrist. ‘It’ll be months before you’re right.’

  The poor fellow couldn’t make his assertion sound credible.

  ‘Have you news?’

  ‘I’m here to see that you’re all right.’

  ‘I am. Thank you.’

  ‘You look tired, did the doctor say?’

  ‘Yes. I haven’t been sleeping.’

  ‘So you go out and do that to yourself.’ He pointed to the plaster-cast.

  ‘You want to come walking with me?’ Gloria teased.

  ‘I do not.’

  Wel
l, of course he did. ‘I’ll drive you anywhere you want to go.’

  His concern was genuine, no doubt about it. He made her give a detailed account of her pilgrimage. He drilled down until he got her to admit to her expanding programme of night-walks, got her to describe the various routes and timings, was careful not to ask for an explanation. Instead, he did a lot of nodding. ‘You want me to go there again with you?’ he asked, when she was finished.

  ‘No.’

  ‘It’s served its purpose, this walking?’

  ‘I like to roam now.’

  ‘At unsociable hours. Where it isn’t safe.’

  ‘I’m getting better at judging.’

  ‘You can’t find anyone who’ll go with you? Your friend …’ – she saw him make a quick search in his mental notebook for the name – ‘Fidelma, for instance. No?’

  ‘I want my own company.’

  ‘For now, you say?’

  ‘I’ll be careful.’

  ‘Glad to hear it, but I’m not satisfied.’

  ‘You are that concerned? You shouldn’t be.’

  More nodding. More pointing at the plastercast, with the nod turning into a rueful shake.

  ‘You’ll stay for a cup of tea?’

  ‘I will not.’ He was on to her blocking moves, perhaps.

  ‘I’m making it for myself. You might as well.’

  ‘I’ve gone off tea.’

  ‘Really? That’s unusual.’

  He came away from his position by the window and stood in front of her at the arm of the couch. He transferred his weight uneasily from one foot to the other. ‘Gloria, you will forgive me – ’

  She jumped in. ‘Will I?’ She didn’t speak in an aggressive tone. Suppressed alarm, more like, at his heavy use of her name.

  ‘I couldn’t help noticing – ’

  ‘What?’ She was doing what he did, jumping in before the other had finished. She was very annoyed with herself, but she coped.

  ‘Noticing how attractive you are ….’

  ‘Oh.’ She didn’t blush. She just let the alarm ring.

  ‘Yes. Very.’

  ‘Oh.’ There was a downward inflection here, to discourage any sudden action.

  ‘Oh yes,’ he affirmed earnestly. ‘This is not something I’ve done before.’