Elegy For April Part 17

"April*is she with you?"

"Just come, Quirke, will you? Come now."

She hung up, and he stood for a moment looking at the receiver; there was a smear of shaving soap on the earpiece.

He was not sure that Perry Otway would be at the garage yet, so he killed ten minutes by going round to the Q & L for cigarettes. The morning was frosty and the air seemed draped with transparent sheets of muslin, and his footsteps rang as if the pavement were made of iron. In Baggot Street the old tinker woman in her tartan shawl was out already, waylaying pa.s.sersby. Quirke gave her a sixpenny piece, and she moaned her thanks, calling down on him the blessings of G.o.d and His Holy Mother and all the Saints. The Q & L had just opened; the shopman was still putting away the shutters. He seemed in almost a fever of good cheer this morning. His eyes shone with a peculiar light, and his cheeks and chin were sc.r.a.ped to a polished gleam, as if he had shaved himself at least twice. The check pattern of his jacket looked even louder than usual, and he sported a Liberty tie with parrots on it. His mother, he confided, had died the previous night. He beamed as if from pride at the old woman's achievement. "She was ninety-three," he said, in a tone of malicious satisfaction.

Perry Otway too had just opened for business. He was at the back of the workshop, where he had hung up his sheepskin coat and was pulling on his oil-caked overalls. "Bra.s.s-monkey weather, eh?" he said, blowing into his cupped hands. They walked together up the lane to the lock-up garage where the Alvis waited in the darkness like a great black cat in its cage. Quirke had little trouble getting the car into the garage, but he needed Perry to maneuver it out again, for he had not yet mastered the art of reversing in confined s.p.a.ces and feared sc.r.a.ping the paintwork or putting a dent in one of the wings, for which, he vaguely feared, some severe penalty would be exacted. Perry treated the machine with a kind of solicitous delicacy and tenderness. He pulled out neatly into the street and stopped there, and left the engine running. "Nothing like it, is there," he said, swinging himself out from behind the wheel, "the smell of petrol fumes on a cold winter morning."

Quirke was lighting a cigarette. He was in no hurry to get to the house on the ca.n.a.l, where he knew there could only be trouble waiting for him, though he did not know what it would be. The thought of April Latimer being there, at Isabel's, filled him with a peculiar sense of panic. What would he say to her, what would they talk about? In these past weeks she had become for him almost a mythical figure, and now he was prey to what he could only think was an attack of crippling, monumental shyness.

He drove around the Pepper Canister and turned right on the ca.n.a.l. As he was pa.s.sing by the house on Herbert Place he slowed down and peered up at the windows of April's flat. In one of them a curtain rod had come away on one side, and the lace curtain hung down at a crooked angle. He drove on, staying in third gear.

Outside Isabel's little house there were floatings of ice on the ca.n.a.l again, and water hens were fussing and splashing among the reeds. The morning had a raw edge. He was lifting his hand to the knocker when the door opened. Isabel was already dressed. She wore a dark skirt and a dark-blue cardigan. Her bronze-colored hair was tied back with a dark ribbon. She did not smile, only stood aside and gestured for him to come in.

He thought of that curtain in the window, hanging at a crazy angle on its broken rod.

The house had a stuffy, morning smell of bedclothes and bath soap and milky tea and bread that had been toasted under a gas flame. He paused, and Isabel went ahead, leading him along the short hall, through the living room, and into the kitchen. How slim she was, how slim and intense.

The first person he saw was Phoebe, standing by the stove in her overcoat. He realized he was holding his breath and seemed unable to release it. When he came in she, too, did not smile, and gave no greeting. A young man was sitting at the table. He was black, with a large, smooth-browed head and a flattened nose and eyes that swiveled like the eyes of a nervous horse, their whites flashing. He was wearing a loose jumper and no shirt, and a pair of baggy corduroy trousers; he looked cold and exhausted, sitting there with his shoulders drooping and his clasped hands pressed between his knees.

"This is Patrick Ojukwu," Isabel said.

The young man regarded him warily. He did not stand up, and they did not shake hands. Quirke put his hat down on the table, where there were cups and smeared plates and a teapot under a woolen cozy. He looked from Isabel to Phoebe and back again. "Well?" he said. He was remembering the light that had been on in the window upstairs when he had brought Isabel back here last night, and of Isabel hurrying from the car and waving to him in that tense way before going inside.

"Would you like something?" she asked now. "The tea is probably cold, but I could*"

"No, nothing." His eyes shied from hers. He could not make out what he was feeling, things were so jumbled up in him. Anger? Yes, anger, certainly, but something else, too, a hot thrill that seemed to be jealousy. He turned to Ojukwu* had he spent the night here? In a recess of his mind an image moved, of black skin on white. "Where's April?" he asked.

The young man looked quickly at Phoebe and then at Isabel.

"He doesn't know," Isabel said.

Quirke gave a curt sigh and pulled back one of the chairs at the table and sat down. So far Phoebe had said nothing. "Why are you here?" he asked her.

"We're all friends," Phoebe said. "I told you."

"So where's the other one, then, the reporter?"

She said nothing and looked away.

"We're all tired, Quirke," Isabel said. "We've been up half the night, talking."

Quirke was growing hot inside his overcoat, but for some reason he did not want to take it off. Isabel had gone to stand beside Phoebe, as if in solidarity. He turned back to Ojukwu. "So," he said. "Tell me."

The black man, still with his hands pressed between his knees, began to rock back and forth on the chair, staring at the floor in front of him with those huge eyes. He cleared his throat. "April telephoned me that day," he said. "I was in college; they called me down to the reception place. She said she was in trouble, that she needed my help. I went to the flat. She did not come to the door, but I let myself in with the key. She was in the bedroom."

He stopped. Quirke, on the other side of the table, watched him. There were marks of some kind in the skin over his cheekbones, small incisions the shape of slender arrowheads, made a long time ago* tribal markings, he supposed, made at birth with a knife. His close-cropped hair was a ma.s.s of tightly wound curls, like so many tiny, metal springs or metal shavings. "Were you and April* were you her lover?"

Ojukwu shook his head, still with his eyes fixed on the floor. "No," he said, and Quirke saw the faint, brief start that Phoebe gave. "No," Ojukwu said again, "not really."

"What was she doing, in the bedroom?"

The silence in the room seemed to contract. The two women were fixed on Ojukwu, waiting for what would come next; they had heard it before and now would have to hear it again.

"She was in a bad state," he said. "I thought at first she was unconscious. There was blood."

"What kind of blood?" Quirke asked. As if he did not know already.

Ojukwu turned slowly and looked up at him. "She had * she had done something to herself. I did not know, I had not known, that she was"* he gave himself a shake, as he would shake someone in anger, accusingly*"that she was expecting a child."

Isabel stirred suddenly. She s.n.a.t.c.hed a cup from the table and brought it to the sink and rinsed it quickly and filled it with water and drank, her head back and her throat pulsing.

"She had aborted the child, yes?" Quirke said. He was furious, furious, he did not know at what, exactly, this fellow, yes, but other things too indistinct for him to identify. "Tell me," he said, "had she aborted it?"

Ojukwu nodded, his shoulders sagging. "Yes," he said.

"Not you* she did it herself."

"I told you, yes."

Don't snarl like that at me, Quirke wanted to say. "And now she was bleeding."

"Yes. It was bad; she had lost a lot of blood. I did not know what to do; I* I could not help her." He frowned suddenly, remembering. "She laughed. It was so strange. I had helped her up and she was sitting on the side of the bed, the blood still coming out of her and her face so white* so white!* and still she laughed. Oh, Patrick Oh, Patrick, she said, you were my second-best chance! you were my second-best chance!" He looked up at Quirke again, with a frown of bewilderment. "Why was that funny? My second-best chance My second-best chance. I did not know what she meant." He shook his head. "She was such a strange person, I never understood her. And now I was afraid she would die, and I could not think what to do."

There was a pause then, and the room seemed to relax with an almost audible creak, as if a wheel tensed on a spring had been released a notch. Quirke leaned back on the chair and lit a cigarette, and Isabel, having drunk another cup of water, filled the coffee percolator and set it on the stove. Phoebe came forward to the table and pointed to the packet of Senior Service that Quirke had put there, and asked if she could have one. When she had taken the cigarette and he had held up the lighter for her, she walked to the window and stood looking out, with her back to the room, smoking. Only Ojukwu remained as he had been, crouched and tense as if he were nursing an internal ache.

"If you weren't lovers, you and April," Quirke asked, "then what were you?"

"We were friends."

Quirke sighed. "Then you must have been very intimate friends."

Isabel came and set down a coffee cup and saucer in front of Quirke and brusquely said: "He's lying* they were lovers. She took him away from me." She did not look at Ojukwu but went back to the stove and stood, like Phoebe, with her back turned. Quirke could see her fury in the set of her shoulders.

"Tell me the rest," he said to Ojukwu. "What happened?"

"When she saw I could not help her, that I did not have the training, she asked me to call someone* someone else."

"Who?" The young man shook his head, leaning more deeply forward on the chair and swaying slowly again, this time from side to side. "Who was it?" Quirke asked again, in a louder, harsher voice. "Who did she want you to call?"

"I cannot say. She made me swear."

Quirke had a sudden, strong urge to hit him; he even saw himself stand up and stride around the table and lift high a fist and bring it down smash on the fellow's invitingly bowed neck. "She aborted your child," he said. "She was hemorrhaging. She was probably dying. And she made you swear made you swear?"

Ojukwu was shaking his head again, still huddled around himself as if that ache in his guts were steadily worsening. Phoebe turned from the window and, tossing the unsmoked half of her cigarette behind her into the sink, came forward and put a hand on the young man's shoulder. She looked coldly at Quirke. "Can't you leave him alone?" she said.

And then, all at once, Quirke saw it. How simple and obvious. Why had it taken him so long? "Not Ronnie," he said, in a sort of wonderment, talking to himself. "Not a name* a mustache mustache." It was almost funny; he almost laughed.

Obsessed: he remembered Sinclair saying it, standing beside the cadaver that day.

Ojukwu stood up. He was not as tall as Quirke had expected, but his chest was broad and his arms were thick. The two men stood face-to-face, their eyes locked. Then Ojukwu took a small, almost balletic step backwards and pa.s.sed his tongue over his large lips.

"The baby was not mine," he said.

There was a silence, and then Quirke said, "How do you know?"

Ojukwu looked away. "It could not be. I told you, we were not* we were not lovers." With a quick, twisting movement he sat down on the chair again and laid out his fists in front of him on the table as if to measure something between them. "I loved her, yes, I think she loved me, too. But April* she could not love, not in that way. I am sorry, Patrick I am sorry, Patrick, she said to me, but I cannot. but I cannot."

"What did she mean?" Phoebe asked.

Isabel too had turned now and was watching Ojukwu. Her eyes were dry, but the lids were inflamed.

"I don't know what she meant," Ojukwu said. "She would lie down on the bed with me, and let me hold her, but that was all. I asked her if there was someone else, and she only laughed. She always laughed." He looked up at Phoebe standing beside him. "But it was not really laughter, you know? It was more like* I don't know. Something else, but not laughter."

Isabel strode forward, pushing Phoebe aside, and stood over Ojukwu, glaring down at him. "Is it true?" she demanded. "Tell me* is it true, that you and she*t hat you never*?"

He did not raise his eyes but went on staring at his fists on the table and nodded. "It's true."

There was silence again, and no one stirred. Then Isabel drew back her hand as if to strike the young man, but did not, and let her hand fall and turned away again.

Quirke stood and took up his hat. "I have to go," he said.

Phoebe stared at him. "Where are you going?" He had already turned towards the door. "Wait!" She made her way hastily around the table, b.u.mping against the chair that Quirke had been sitting in and almost knocking it over, and put her hand on his arm. "Wait," she said again, "I'm coming with you."

He walked ahead of her along the hall to the front door. Two small boys had stopped to inspect the Alvis. "That's some motorcar, Mister," one of them said. "Was it dear?"

Phoebe got in at the pa.s.senger side and slammed the door and sat staring through the windscreen. Quirke had started the engine when Isabel came quickly from the house. He opened the window on his side, and she leaned down to look at him, bracing both hands on the door. "Will I see you again?" she asked. "I need to know."

She stood back and Quirke got out of the car, and they walked together back to the doorway. He put a hand on her arm. "Go in," he said, "it's cold."

She drew her arm away from him. "Answer me," she said, not looking at him. "Will I see you again?"

"I don't know," he said. "Maybe. Yes, I think so. Now go in."

She did not speak, only nodded. In his mind he saw her standing in the bath, naked, the water flowing down over her stomach and her thighs. She went inside and shut the door behind her.

22.

QUIRKE SAID HE WOULD BRING PHOEBE TO HADDINGTON ROAD, OR to Grafton Street, if she liked* did she not have to work today? She said she did not want to go home, and not to the shop, either. She asked him where he was going, and he said he had to see someone. "Let me stay with you," she said. "I don't want to be on my own." They drove down to Leeson Street and turned left at the bridge, then right into Fitzwilliam Street. There was traffic now, the cars and buses going cautiously on the roads that were dusted still with frost. They did not speak. Quirke wanted her to tell him if she had known about Ojukwu and April, about Ojukwu and Isabel, and the unasked questions hung in the air between them. "I feel such a fool," Phoebe said. "Such a fool."

He steered the car left into Fitzwilliam Square and drew it to the curb and stopped. Phoebe turned to him. "Here?" she said. "Why?" He did not answer, only sat with his hands still braced on the steering wheel, looking out at the black, dripping trees behind the railings of the square. "What's going on, Quirke, what do you know? Is April dead?"

"Yes," he said, "I think so."

"How? Did Patrick let her die?"

"No. But someone else did, I think. Let her die, or*" He stopped. There were coatings of white frost on the branches of the black trees. "Wait here," he said, and opened the door and got out.

She watched him cross the street and climb the steps to the house and ring the bell. Then the door was opened, and he stepped inside. The nurse put her head out and looked across the road to where Phoebe was sitting in the car, then she followed Quirke inside and shut the door. It was some minutes before it opened again, and Quirke came out, putting on his hat. The nurse glared after him and this time slammed the door.

He got in behind the wheel again.

"What's happening?" Phoebe asked.

"We'll wait."

"For what?"

"To find out what happened to April."

The door of the house across the street opened again, and Oscar Latimer came out, with the nurse behind him helping him into his overcoat. He looked about, and saw the Alvis, and came down the steps. "Sit in the back," Quirke told Phoebe, and got out and opened the rear door for her.

Latimer waited for a bread van to go past, then crossed the street. He got in at the pa.s.senger side, taking off his tweed cap, and Quirke once more got in behind the wheel. Latimer turned to Phoebe. "So," he said, "it's to be a family outing."

Quirke started up the engine. "Where are we going?"

"Just drive," Latimer said. "North, along the coast." He seemed in high good humor and looked about him happily as they went down Fitzwilliam Street to Merrion Square and then on down to Pea.r.s.e Street. "How are you today, Miss Quirke?" he asked. "Or Miss Griffin, I should say. I keep getting that wrong." Phoebe did not reply. She realized that she was frightened. Latimer was looking back at her over his shoulder and smiling. "Quirke and daughter," he said. "That's a thing you never see over a shop, Such-and-such and Daughter.' And Son, yes, but never Daughter. Odd." For a moment he looked to her so like April, with that pale, sharp, freckled face, that smile.

"Tell me where we're going, Latimer," Quirke said.

Latimer ignored him. He turned to face the windscreen again and folded his arms. "Fathers and daughters, Quirke, eh? Fathers and daughters, fathers and sons. So many difficulties, so many pains." He glanced behind him again. "What do you think, Phoebe? You must have some thoughts on that subject?"

She looked back into his eyes, which were regarding her so merrily. He was, she saw now, quite mad. Why had she not realized it before? "Do you know where April is?" she asked him.

He put a hand on the back of his seat and leaned his chin on it, pulling his mouth far down at the corners, making a show of weighing up the question. "It's hard to answer that," he said. "There are too many variables, as the mathematicians say."

"Latimer, I can't just keep driving," Quirke said. "Tell me where it is we're going."

"To*Howth," Latimer said. He nodded. "Yes, good old Howth Head* Oops! Didn't you see that man on the bicycle, Quirke?" He twisted about to look out of the back window. "He's shaking his fist at you." He laughed. "Yes, Howth," he said again, resettling himself comfortably, "that's where we're bound. My father used to take us out there, April and me, on the tram. In fact, we could have taken the tram today, I suppose, made a jaunt of it* it's the last line still operating, after all* but it might have made for awkwardness in the end. Imagine how the other pa.s.sengers would have stared when I produced"* he reached inside his overcoat and brought out a large, black pistol with a long barrel*"this." He held it upright by the b.u.t.t, turning it this way and that as if for them to admire it. "It's a Webley," he said. "Ser vice revolver. Bit of a blunderbuss, I'll grant you, but effective, I'm sure. I have it from my father, who took it off a dying British officer on Easter Monday 1916, or so he always said. He used to let me play with it when I was a lad, and would tell me about all the Black and Tans he had plugged with it. Then he had to go and turn it on himself." He paused, and looked at Quirke, and turned his head and glanced at Phoebe, too, smiling again, almost mischievously. "Oh, yes," he said lightly, "that's another strand of the Latimer Legend that my mother and my uncle between them have managed to keep secret all these years. A heart attack, they said, and somehow got the coroner to back them up. Not such a large lie, when you think of it, seeing that he shot himself in the chest. Yes, anyone else would have put the gun to his temple, or even in his mouth, but not my Pa* too vain, didn't want to spoil his broth-of-a-boy good looks." He chuckled. "You're lucky to be a foundling, Quirke. I'm sure you feel terribly sorry for yourself, having no Daddy that you know of, but you're lucky, take it from me."

They were in North Strand now, and before they came to the bridge they had to stop at traffic lights. Latimer laid the gun across his lap, with his finger crooked around the trigger and the barrel pointed in the general direction of Quirke's liver. "For G.o.d's sake, Latimer," Quirke said under his breath.

Phoebe's palms were damp. She tried not to look at the little man with the gun, tried not to see him, feeling like an infant hiding its eyes and thinking itself invisible.

"I've no doubt," Latimer said, "that you're both feverishly scheming in your minds to think of some way of getting out of here, maybe at traffic lights like this, or maybe if you see a Guard on the road and pull over and shout, officer, officer, he's got a gun! I hope, I really do hope, that you won't attempt anything like that.* Ah, there's the green light. On, James, and don't spare the horses!" I hope, I really do hope, that you won't attempt anything like that.* Ah, there's the green light. On, James, and don't spare the horses!"

Quirke caught Phoebe's eye in the driving mirror. They both looked away quickly, as if in embarra.s.sment.

They pa.s.sed through Clontarf, and then they were on the coast road. The tide was out, and wading birds were picking their way about the mudflats under a low, mauve sky that threatened snow; a cormorant was perched on a rock, its wings spread wide to dry. On Bull Island the sand gra.s.s was a vivid green. Everything is perfectly normal, Phoebe thought, the world out there just going about its ordinary business, while I am here.

"You couldn't leave it alone, Quirke, could you?" Latimer said. "You had to interfere; you had to bring in that detective and all the rest of it. And now here you are, you and your inconvenient daughter, trapped in this very expensive car by a madman with a gun. The things that happen, eh?"

"What did happen, Latimer?" Quirke said. "Tell us. It was you that she got Ojukwu to call, wasn't it, that night, when she was bleeding and knew she was dying. What did you do? Did you go round there? Did you try to help her?"

Latimer, the gun still resting negligently in his lap, had turned sideways in the seat now in order to look out past Quirke at the seascape going by. He seemed not to have been listening. "How did you know?" he asked. "How did you know it was me?"

"You were seen at the flat," Quirke said. "The old lady there, the one who lives upstairs."