The Old Jest (6 page)

More houses, backyards, glimpses of the sea and then the huge beach at Merrion, stretching almost over to Howth, it seemed, and almost empty now except for a distant flock of birds out near the sea's edge and a few children running with a dog. The train swerved inland again and the houses were pressed closer and closer together, no green. Grimy windows stared as the train went past, grey and red brick, no more trees; here and there lights were already shining from dark rooms. The lady folded up her knitting and put it into her large black bag. The gents rattled their papers together; one of them pleated his neatly and put it into his pocket, the other left his lying on the seat. One of them yawned, the other looked at his watch again.

Clickety clunk. Clunkety click. Click … click …

Harry was standing on the steps of his office waiting for her.

‘Hello, Nancy.' He took off his hat.

‘Gosh, I hope you haven't been standing there for ages!'

‘No. No. Not at all. Well … let's go and catch a bite.'

He put his hat on again and they began to walk along the pavement.

The evening sun flashed in the top windows of the houses. Signals, she thought. Secrets flickering from one street to the next. Sparks crackled from the overhead points as a tram went past. More signals. This evening the city is full of secrets.

He took hold of her elbow and pushed her along the street firmly.

‘You look nice. A new get up?'

She blushed with pleasure.

‘I'm just tidy. That's all. Aunt Mary stood threateningly by. She said I looked like a human being for once. Would you agree?'

‘Absolutely.'

‘An absolutely human bean. What a distinguished thing to be! I'm not a runner bean, or a French bean or even a has been …'

‘Do shut up, Nancy. Why do you always carry on so!'

‘Where's Maeve?'

Fingers crossed tightly in her pocket. Not coming. What bliss! Never coming again. Found beautifully drowned, like Ophelia or the lady who went to call the cattle home across the Sands of Dee. Hair floating, lilies, ever so romantic. What bliss! A beautiful corpse. Aunt Mary would make a beautiful floral tribute, she was very good at that. Twisting and twining the flowers. Much better than ordering some stiff old bunch from a shop. They would all cry at the graveside. Harry would mourn handsomely for a year and then …

‘… So she's meeting us at the theatre,' he was explaining.

‘Oh … ah … yes!' Nancy sighed.

He guided her off the pavement. A slight wind came round the corner and accompanied them across the road. There was a smell of dung and dust. The tramlines were like silver ribbons on the cobbles.

‘So I thought we'd have a bite in Bewley's. Quickish, you know. Is that all right?'

She smiled up at him.

‘Anything. Golly, anything!'

A lorry full of soldiers came down Dame Street and swung past the Bank of Ireland, heading for the river.

‘I suppose they're off to shoot someone,' she suggested in a conversational voice.

Harry frowned but didn't say anything.

She took his arm.

‘If you hadn't left the army after the war, you might have been there with them. Going off to shoot someone.'

A tram swayed past, stately ship on rails.

‘How would that have appealed to you?'

She tugged at his arm for an answer.

‘I'd like to get a few of the bastards.'

He closed his mouth tightly to stop any more words coming out and looked down at his shining black shoes as they moved on the pavement.

‘Harry …?'

‘That's enough.'

They walked up Grafton Street in silence. As they crossed the road to Bewley's Oriental Cafeé, a motor car driven by a middle-aged man passed in front of them. Nancy leant forward and peered at him as he drove slowly past.

The warm smell of freshly ground coffee seemed to suck them through the swing doors and into the cafe.

‘Do you think that could have been my father?'

Harry looked startled.

‘Who? Where?'

‘That man back there in the car.'

‘Oh, for heaven's sake!'

He pushed her in front of him across the shop and through the door at the back leading into the cafe itself.

‘I always look in passing motors for my father.' She instantly regretted having said it. She laughed nervously. ‘Joke, joke.'

‘Sit down.'

He pulled out a chair at a small table for her as he spoke. She sat down. She watched him as he hung his hat on a tall curling hatstand, then unbuttoned his coat with neat careful movements of his hands. At last he, too, sat down, and pushed the menu across the table towards her.

‘Your father's dead.'

‘How do you know?'

‘Everyone knows that, you silly child!'

‘I don't.'

‘Of course you do. What do you want to eat? We haven't much time.'

‘Where is his grave then?'

‘Nancy, I …'

‘Where is there a bit of paper saying that he's dead? Something legal. Mr Robert Gulliver is dead. That sort of thing. Where?'

‘How on earth should I know! Ask Mary these silly questions. She's the one who knows the answers.'

Nancy shook her head. Impatiently he tapped his finger on the table and pointed to the menu. She glanced at it.

‘I'll have scrambled eggs and potato cakes,' she said, ‘and coffee.'

‘Sure?'

‘Yes, sure.'

He waved at a waitress.

‘She only surmises. She has no conclusions to come to.' She leaned towards him. ‘My mother's dead. I know that. I have her hairbrush … things like that … golly, I even sleep in her bed, but Robert … he … my …'

‘I should surmise, too, if I were you.'

‘Sometimes,' she whispered to herself, as she watched him give their order to the waitress, ‘you are such a pain in the neck.'

He scratched for a moment at the corner of his eye with a clean pale finger. His nails were well trimmed and perfect; his hands looked as if they had never even hovered over any of the mess of life.

‘I'll tell you one thing, he's not driving round Dublin in a motor, wherever else he may be.'

‘You don't know.'

‘I, too, can surmise.'

Around them people clattered their knives and forks and stirred the coffee in the heavy white cups and smiled at each other or read the paper. Outside, there was some sort of a war going on, she thought, but here, just sitting in this warm dim room, you would never know it. She looked at the calm faces around her and wondered perhaps if two of those leaning, smiling people, normal people, were plotting to kill someone, passing secret messages as they stirred their coffee, betraying someone, smiling and smiling. The waitress put a plate down in front of her and another in front of Harry, who was looking rather cross; then she shuffled the things on the table round a bit to make room for the coffee pot and a dish of fat, steaming potato cakes.

‘I hope that's all right,' said Harry politely.

‘Scrumptious.'

‘You pour out. You're the lady. I take two lumps of sugar.'

He picked up his knife and fork and began to eat bacon and sausages, cutting them with care, his head bent towards his plate. Her hand shook a little as she poured the coffee, but she didn't spill any into his saucer.

‘Am I a bore?'

He looked up from his food and smiled at her. For a moment she felt a little dizzy, confronted with his smile.

‘You're a silly child,' he said, ‘but not a bore. Yet. You could become one if you go on being silly, but I don't suppose you will for long.'

‘A blooming bore?'

‘Eat your scrambled eggs. We mustn't keep Maeve waiting.'

10 August

Having made the momentous decision to write daily in my book, I find to my disgust that I have been lazy … perhaps haphazard would be a better word. I think I am probably a somewhat haphazard person. Maybe this has to do with my age, and one day I will, as Harry hopes so much, become a real person. Organised. Anyway he has no cause for complaint about my behaviour last night. I behaved like a perfect lady. We kept Maeve waiting for a few minutes, but she bore it nobly. She was dressed in pale mauve, a colour I normally find quite disagreeable, but it suited her well.

The two plays we saw were
Androcles and the Lion
by George Bernard Shaw and
Riders to the Sea
. I laughed quite a lot during
Androcles
and cried during
Riders to the Sea
. I suppose these were the right reactions to have. In spite of my laughter I didn't really like Mr Shaw's play very much, but I didn't mention this to Harry and Maeve, who thought it was marvellous.

The Abbey Theatre has a strange smell; perhaps all theatres do, but I have no experience.

We had to hurry to get out of town before the curfew. Maeve sat in the front seat and smiled and chattered and touched Harry's arm with her hand from time to time. We passed several military lorries on our way home, but saw no trouble of any sort. There is really no need to be frightened if you're with Harry; nothing terrible could ever happen to you when you are with him.

They had all gone to bed here when I got home. Aunt Mary had left the light burning in the hall so that I didn't have to come into a dark house. At one end of the long hall table was a tray with a jug of milk, neatly covered with a muslin cloth edged with coloured beads, to keep the flies out, a glass and a plate with a slice of Bridie's loveliest fruit cake, usually kept for visitors. I turned out the light and sat down at the bottom of the stairs.

The house was still and loving. The hall clock ticked and the furniture around me breathed quietly, in the way that furniture does at night when everything is silent. A mouse rattled things in the kitchen and the moon shone in through the fanlight over the hall door and made patterns like orange segments on the floor and up the stairs and indeed probably on me too. I felt very safe, well protected. I wondered was that right or wrong, but didn't come to any conclusions.

It was raining the next afternoon when Nancy went down to the hut. The beach was deserted. The sky and sea were the same turbulent grey; white flashes of foam rose and fell, sighing patterns of unrest. The telegraph poles sang. She carried with her an old school satchel in which she had gathered together an assortment of food.

He was sitting hunched in the corner, his thin shoulders covered by a rug. He held a book in his hand. He laid the book on the floor and got to his feet when she came in.

‘I'm sorry,' he said. ‘It never occurred to me that you might come today. It's hardly a day for the beach.'

‘I brought you some food … well not much really … just a few bits and pieces. I wasn't sure how you managed.'

Nervously she squeezed drops of water from the ends of her hair with her fingers as she spoke.

‘How thoughtful of you, and kind!'

She held the satchel out towards him. He took it from her and put it on the shelf without opening it.

‘You don't have to worry about me, you know. I'm grateful … I don't mean that … I'm … well, very good at managing.'

They stood looking at each other for a long moment.

‘Did you enjoy the Abbey?' he asked politely.

‘It was very good. Thank you.'

‘Would you like me to disappear for a while?'

‘Oh no! Please, no. I didn't say a word to anyone.'

He smiled slightly.

‘About you.'

She stopped torturing her hair and wiped her wet fingers on the front of her skirt.

‘I didn't think you would.'

‘You never know with people.'

‘I think you know all right. Yes. Maybe it's my great age and experience. Why don't we sit down? I have never believed in standing when you can sit.' He spread the rug and cushions out so that there would be room for both of them and then politely waited until she had settled herself before he sat down beside her.

‘Well, here we are,' he said.

‘Yes.'

He pulled a half-smoked cigarette out of his pocket and pinched some of the burnt end off before putting it in his mouth. Then he fished for matches.

‘Are you dying?' she asked suddenly.

He looked startled. He found the matches and struck one. His hand was shaking as he raised the flame towards his face. He shook the match dead before putting the charred stick safely back in the box.

‘Not any more than anyone else. Why do you ask?'

‘I just thought … well … wondered … it seemed like a possible explanation.'

‘Why in the name of God should I choose to come and die here! No, no, Nancy Gulliver, I'd prefer to die in comfort.'

‘I don't really think that would enter your head.'

He laughed.

‘Rubbish, dear child. I'm no romantic hero. I'm as sybaritic as the next man. Most certainly when it comes to dying. I'd rather die in a warm bed, having just had a good meal and a bottle of claret, than after a couple of green apples on a windy beach.'

‘To cease upon the midnight with no pain …'

‘It's an appealing thought.'

‘Grandfather can't die. He just sits there waiting and nothing happens.' She picked at the inside of her nose with the first finger of her right hand. ‘I find it very disconcerting … well worse than that really. He just waits hopelessly. Yes. We watch him. Each day he shrivels a little, but he won't die.'

‘Must you pick your nose?'

She removed her finger rapidly and blushed.

‘Sorry. I didn't realise …'

‘Tell me about yourself. What do you do apart from watching the old man shrivel?'

‘I don't really do anything. I'm an orphan.'

‘So am I.'

She laughed.

‘Silly! I've never had parents.'

‘You appeared, in other words, in a puff of smoke, rather like the demon in the pantomime.'