The Luck Of Ginger Coffey (3 page)

"What man?"

"You wouldn't know him, dear. The point is, I have an interview arranged for half past two this afternoon."

"Today's the last day to pick up those tickets," she said. "If you don't get them they'll sell them to someone else."

"I know, dear. The point is, I'm going to wait until

after IVe had this interview. I should be finished by three. That'leaves lashings of time to pick up the tickets, if nothing comes of it."

"But what job is this?"

Flute! He reached in his waistcoat and pulled out a slip of paper. It was the second slip which Donnelly had given him but he had started reading it out before he realized his mistake. "Wanted" he read. "Aggressive publicity man for professional fund-raising group, province-wide cancer research campaign. Apply H. E. Kahn, Room 200, Doxley Building, Sherbrooke Street."

"But that doesn't sound permanent at all?" she said.

"Well, never mind, dear. It would tide us over."

"If we're going to stay," she said. "YouVe got to get something permanent, Ginger. At your age, you can't afford to be chopping and changing any more. You know that."

"Yes, dear. We — we'll talk about it later. Good-b—"

"Wait! Ginger, listen to me. If this job is only a few weeks' stopgap, don't you take it. Get those tickets."

"Yes, dear. Bye-bye, now."

He replaced the receiver and stepped out of the booth. There must be a law of averages in life as well as in cards. And surely if anyone's luck was due for a change, his was?

A Childs hostess beckoned with her sheaf of menus but he thought of the fourteen lonely dollars left in his pocket. He went outside but it was too cold to hang about the square. Then where? He looked across the snowy park; three old dears were going up the steps of the Basilica. Warm it was in God's house. How long was it since he'd been in a church? Not since he'd left home, not that he'd missed it, either. Maybe . . . ? Well, it wouldn't hurt him, now would it?

The interior darkness was familiar. He listened to the

murmur of water pipes, located a bench near a radiator and moved in. Catholic churches were all the same. The pulpit on the right (shades of Father Cogley!) and on the left the Altar to Our Lady (Distaff Doings) with a bank of votive candles underneath. He remembered how, as a boy during the boredom of mass, he used to count the candles, sixpence a big one, threepence a little one and try to estimate the profit to the priests.

Coffey's father, a solicitor, had been buried in the brown habit of a Dominican Tertiary. Enough said. His elder brother Tom was a missionary priest in Africa. And yet neither Coffey nor Veronica were what Dublin people called pi-odious. Far from it. In fact one of his secret reasons for wanting to get away to the New World was that, in Ireland, church attendance was not a matter of choice. Bloody well go, or else, tinker, tailor, soldier, sailor, rich man, poor man, you were made to suffer in a worldly sense. Here, he was free. . . .

And yet . . . Staring now at the altar, he remembered the missioner's warning. Supposing it were not all nonsense? Suppose his brother Tom, worrying about the Moslems stealing his African converts, was right after all? Just suppose. Suppose all the prayers, the penances, the promises were true? Suppose the poor in spirit would inherit the kingdom of heaven? And not he.

For he was not poor in spirit. He was just poor. Well, what about him? If he did not believe all this stuff about an afterlife then what did he believe? What was his aim in life? Well . . . well, he supposed it was to be his own master, to provide for Vera and Paulie, to ... to what? Damned if he could put it into words. To make something of himself, he supposed. Well, was that enough? And would he? Maybe he was one of those people who get the best of neither world, one of those people the Lord had no time for, neither fish nor fowl, great sinner

nor saint? And maybe because he had never been poor in spirit, had never been one for pleading and penances, maybe God had lain in wait for him all these years, doling him out a little bad luck here, a little hope there, dampening his dreams, letting him drift further from the time and tide that led on to fortune until now, at the halfway mark in his life, he was stranded in this land of ice and snow? If there was a God above, was that what God wanted? To make him poor in spirit? To make him call pax, to make him give up, to herd him back with the other sheep in the fold?

He looked at the tabernacle. His large ruddy face set in a scowl as though someone had struck it. His lips shut tight under his ginger mustache. I never could abide a bully, he said to the tabernacle. Listen to me, now. I came in here to maybe say a prayer and 111 be the first to admit I had a hell of a nerve on me, seeing the way iVe ignored you these long years. But now I cannot pray, because to pray to you, if you're punishing me, would be downright cowardly. If it's cowards you want in heaven, then good luck to you. You're welcome.

He picked up his little green hat and left the church.

At two-thirty Mona Prentiss, receptionist, went into the office of Georges Paul-Emile Beauchemin, Public Relations Director of Canada Nickel, and handed him Coffey's application form. Yes, the man was outside and had been waiting since this morning. Would Mr. Beauchemin care to see him?

Mr. Beauchemin had time to kill. He had just finished buying someone a very good lunch in exchange for two hockey tickets. In half an hour, at the midweek meeting, he planned to hand the tickets over to Mr. Mansard. Mr. Mansard was a vice-president and a hockey fan. So Mr,

Beauchemin was in a good mood. He said to show the guy in.

Miss Prentiss came back up the corridor. "Will you follow me please, sir?" And Coffey followed, suddenly wishing he'd worn his blue suit, although it was shiny in the seat, watching her seat — melon buttocks rubbing under gray flannel skirt, high heels' tic-tac, cashmere sweater, blond curls. A pleasant rear view, yes, but he did not enjoy it. Sick apprehension filled him because, well, what were his qualifications for this job? What indeed?

"This is Mr. Coffey, sir," she said, shutting the door on them. And hooray! The face that fits. Because, by some miracle, Coffey had met Mr. Beauchemin, had met him last November at a party in the Press Club where the Coffeys had been Gerry Grosvenor's guests.

"Hello there," Coffey said, jovially advancing with his large hand outstretched, the ends of his mustache lifting in a smile. And Beauchemin took the proffered hand, his mind running back, trying to place this guy. He could not recall him at all. A limey type and, like most limey types, sort of queer. Look at this one with his tiny green hat, short bulky car coat and suede boots. A man that age should know better than to dress like a college boy, Beauchemin thought. He looked at Coffey's red face and large military mustache. Georges Paul-Emile Beauchemin had not served. That mustache did not win him. Oh no.

"I don't suppose you remember me?" Coffey said. "Ginger Coffey. Was with Cootehill Distilleries here. Met you at a Press Club do once with Gerry Grosvenor, the cartoonist."

"Oh yes, eh?" Beauchemin said vaguely. "Old Gerry, eh? You're — ah — you're Irish, eh?"

"Yes "Coffey said.

"Good old Paddy's Day, eh?"

"Yes."

"Lots of Irish out here, you know. Last year I took my little girl out to see the Paddy's Day parade on Sher-brooke Street. Lot of fun, eh?"

"Yes, isn't it?" Coffey said.

"So you're not with — ah—" Beauchemin glanced at the application form — "not with Distillery any more?"

"Well, no. We had a change of top brass at home, and they wanted me to come back. But I like it here, we were more or less settled, kiddy in school and so on. Hard changing schools in mid-term, so I decided to chance my luck and stay on."

"Sure," Beauchemin said. "Cigarette?" Perhaps this guy had been sent by someone from upstairs. It was wise to check. "How did you know we were looking for an editorial assistant, eh?"

Coffey looked at his little green hat. "Well, it was the — ah — the Unemployment Commission people. They mentioned it."

Reassured (for if it had been a brass recommendation he would have had to send a memo), Beauchemin leaned back, openly picked up the application form. A nobody. Seventeen from fifty-six is thirty-nine. Let him out on age.

"Well, that's too bad," he said. "Because — what did you say your first name was again?"

"Ginger. Had it since I was a boy. Red hair, you see."

"Well, Gin-ger, I'm afraid this job's not for you. We want a junior."

"Oh?"

"Yes, some kid who's maybe worked a couple of years on a suburban weekly, someone we can train, bring along, promote him if he works out."

"I see," Coffey said. He sat for a moment, eying his hat. Fool! Stupid blundering fool! Why didn't you wait to see if he remembered you? He doesn't know you from a

hole in the wall, coming in with your hand outl Oh God! Get up, say thank you and go away.

But he could not. In his mind, a ship's siren blew, all visitors ashore. He and Veronica and Paulie, tears in their eyes, stood on the steerage deck waving good-by to this promised land. This was no time for pride. Try? Ask?

"Well," Coffey said, "as a matter of fact, my experience has all been on the other side of the water. I imagine it's quite different here. Maybe — maybe I'd need to start lower on the scale? Learn the ropes as I go along?"

Beauchemin looked at the man's ruddy face, the embarrassed eyes. Worked for a distillery, did he? Maybe they let him go because he was too sold on the product? "Frankly, Gin-ger," he said, "you wouldn't fit into the pension plan. You know it's a union-management deal. The older a man comes in, the more expensive for the others in the plan. You know how these things work."

"But I wouldn't mind if you left me out of the pension plan?"

«o »

Sorry.

"But — but we New Canadians," Coffey began. "I mean, we can't all be boys of twenty, can we? We have to start somewhere? I mean" — he said, dropping his eyes to his hat once more — "I'll put it to you straight. I'd appreciate it if you'd make an exception."

"Sorry," Beauchemin said. He stood up. "I tell you what, Gin-ger. You leave your name and address with Mona, outside. If we think of anything we'll get in touch with yon, okay? But don't pass up any other offers, meantime. All right? Glad to have met you again. Give my regards to Gerry, will you? And good luck."

Beauchemin shook hands and watched Coffey put on his silly little hat. Saw him walk to the door, then turn, and raise his right hand in a quick jerky movement of farewell, a kind of joke salute. A vet, Beauchemin

thought. I was right. They do okay, free hospitals, pensions, mortgages, educations; the hell with those guys. "Be seeing you/' he said. "And shut the door, will you?"

In Room 200 of the Doxley Building, Sherbrooke Street, an aggressive publicity man for professional fund-raising group, province-wide cancer research campaign, put his little green hat between his feet and stared at H. E. Kahn, to whom application must be made.

H. E. Kahn wore a blue suit with narrow lapels which curved up to the points of his tight, white, tab-collared shirt. His black tie knot was the size of a grape and the tie itself was narrow as a ruler. The mouth above it was also narrow; narrow the needle nose, the eyes which now inspected the form on which, for the third time that day, the applicant had set down the misleading facts of a life. H. E. Kahn was a swift reader. He turned the form over, read the other side, his young, convict-shaven head bent, showing a small monkish tonsure at the crown. Yet for all that hint of baldness, Coffey estimated that H. E. Kahn could not be more than thirty years old. Which was older than the three other young men he had noticed at work in the outer office, older than the two pretty stenographers who sat facing each other, transcribing from dictating belts behind Coffey's back, and older certainly than the other applicant who had filled up a form as Coffey did and now waited his turn outside.

H. E. Kahn finished his reading and leaned back in his swivel chair until the tonsure on his head touched the wall. "You speak French?"

"No, I'm afraid not."

"French might have helped."

"I suppose so."

"Not essential, mind you, but I see you're not a local man. Not a Canadian, are you?"

"No, I'm Irish/'

"Irish, eh? That so? I ve been in Ireland. Shannon Airport. Got a wonderful camera deal there coming back from Paris last summer/*

H. E. Kahn's chair jacknifed to desk level, his hand crumpling the application form. Balled, the form accurately described a parabola over Coffey's left shoulder, holed into a secretary's wastepaper basket. "Sorry, Mr. Gee. You wouldn't suit us/'

Coffey stood up. "Well, thanks for seeing me, anyway."

"My pleasure. Hey, Marge, hey, send that other guy in, will you? And Jack? JACK? Shoot me over that special names list. Nice meeting you, Mr. Coffey. See you."

"See you," Coffey repeated mechanically. In hell, he hoped.

But afterwards, out in the street, he wondered if that had been fair. After all, Kahn had been polite enough. Was it because Kahn seemed to be a Jew? No, he hoped that wasn't it. Coffey did not agree with many of his countrymen in their attitude to Jews. None of his best friends were Jews, but that was no reason to dislike Jews, was it? Besides, he had not particularly liked Beauche-min either and that wasn't because Beauchemin was French-Canadian. Of course not. So, what was it, apart from the fact that neither man had wanted to employ him? They were younger than he. That was the first thing he had thought about both of them. And Donnelly too, the man in the Unemployment Commission. Younger. All day he had been going hat in hand to younger men. And yet — Suffering J, I'm not old, Coffey thought. Thirty-nine isn't old!

Walking, he turned the corner of Ste. Catherine Street and saw again this morning's tabloid headline: WIFE, LOVER SLAY CRIPPLE MATE. He remembered the

unbought steamship tickets. Flutel Better stay downtown awhile.

At a quarter to five he arrived in the street where he lived. Dawdling still, walking a little off the track of other pedestrians, watching his abominable snowfeet mark the white, new-fallen snow, waiting until five when Gerry Grosvenor would come because, with Gerry on hand, the dreaded scene about the tickets would be staved off for another hour or so. But, as he reached the lane running alongside his place, he saw, with relief, that Gerry's sporty little car was here and had been here for some time because there were no tracks on the snow where it had driven in. Which was peculiar.