The Silver Swan (25 page)

business
proposal, she meant, to open a beauty parlor with him. It was all arranged. The premises was there already, over the optician's—he had talked to her about ninety-nine-year leases and ground rents and tenants' options until her head was spinning—and the shop fitters would be coming in any day now.

 

Yes, it was all arranged, all agreed. One rainy January morning Leslie had taken her to a storage shed in Stoney Batter in order to get her opinion, so he said, on a doctor's trolley thing, a sort of high, narrow, flat couch on wheels, which some friend of his was selling and
which would be ideal for doing massages on. The friend, a shifty-looking fellow in broad pinstripes who had the worst smoker's cough she had ever heard, went off and left them alone—had Leslie arranged that, too?—and something in the moment affected her, perhaps it was the sense of sudden intimacy that she felt, despite the damp and the gloom of the place, and before she knew it she was on the trolley in Leslie's arms, biting the back of her thumb to stop herself from crying out, and the trolley was moving on its wheels with every rapturous move they made. Afterwards she had pulled his coat over herself—that famous camel-hair coat!—because she was cold and because the champion cougher might come back at any minute. Leslie had got up, since there was not enough room on the narrow rubber mattress for them to lie side by side, and when he had fixed his clothes he lifted the coat by a corner so he could get a look at her. "My my," he said, grinning, "wouldn't the doc be delighted with you." It took her a moment to realize what he meant, and she turned her face aside so as not to let him see her blushing, and smiling, and twitched the coat away from him and wrapped herself up in it. "Snap snap," he said gaily, holding an invisible camera to his eye.

 

She had to let some weeks go by before she could face Dr. Kreutz again. Yes, everything was changed. It was not just that she had seen the photographs—that, in a way, was the least of it by now—but there was the fact of her and Leslie, too. He saw it in her eyes, she could see him seeing it. What woman could hide the simple truth that she was in love? Thinking this, she paused. Was that what it was—love? The word had not entered her head before this moment. She softened. Why be surprised that she should think of love in Dr. Kreutz's presence? Had he not taught her about such things, the things of the spirit? What did it matter if he liked to take pictures of naked women? Perhaps it was part of the treatment, perhaps it was a way of helping those women by letting them see themselves as they were, in all their womanliness. Perhaps it did heal their spirits—who was she to say otherwise, she who had lain asprawl on that rubber mattress on the
trolley in that dirty shed, and on other beds, on other days, with every fiber of her on fire under Leslie White's admiring gaze?

 

Besides, it was Dr. Kreutz who was financing the setting up of the beauty parlor. Leslie had gone to him and asked for the money and he had agreed, as simple as that. Or so Leslie said.

 

Now Dr. Kreutz made a pot of herbal tea and invited her to kneel with him on the cushions on the floor before the low table with the copper bow. By now it was almost spring, and through the window she could see black branches that were already budding and, behind them, a sky of nude white with scraps of cloud flying diagonally across it. She had a feeling of pent-up happiness that might burst out at any moment. She knew, of course, that there were things that could go wrong. It would take work and a lot of luck to keep the Silver Swan going at the rate that it had been going at so far—she could hardly keep up with the numbers of new customers coming in every week and was already thinking of when would be the time to hire an assistant—but she could not believe that between them, she and Leslie and Dr. Kreutz, they would not continue the success they had achieved so far. It was true that the Clip Joint had failed, but Leslie had explained how that had happened, and if she did not understand all the technicalities that did not mean his explanation was not the true one. What they had between them, Leslie and she—their
love
—would overcome any number of difficulties that might arise.

 

Love. She sipped her tea and in her mind tried out the new word for size, for weight. She would have to use it sparingly. Leslie, she had already learned, did not take kindly to being
mauled
—that was his word for the kisses and caresses by which, since the day in the shed, she had tried to show how she felt for him. That was because of his being English, she reasoned, since the English were all supposed to be reserved and not willing to let on how they were really feeling. He had a way at times of drawing back from her, his head lifted on its long, pale neck, and looking down at her with an expression that was less a smile than a wince, and giving a little puff of
laughter through his nostrils, as if she had done something too foolish for words. He was rough with her, too, sometimes. By now they had a place where they could be together, a bed-sitter in Percy Place, rented, or borrowed, more likely, from another of Leslie's friends. They would go there in the afternoons, and pull the curtains, and he would undress her slowly and almost as if absentmindedly, and then take her in his arms and press himself against her, trembling in the peculiar way that he did—girlishly, almost—which excited her and at the same time made her want not so much to make love to him as to cradle him in her arms and rock him to sleep. But he was no baby. He would bite her lips until they bled, or twist her arm behind her back and make her gasp, and once, when he could not manage to do anything and she laughed it off and said it did not matter, instead of being grateful for her understanding he smacked her across the face, hard, so that her head flew back and banged off the headboard and she saw stars. And then there was the night when she and Billy were getting ready for bed—what a trial it was for her now, being in bed with poor Billy—and he saw the red weals on the backs of her legs where Leslie had whipped her with his leather belt—God, how she had moaned—and she had to make up an excuse, which she could not believe he believed, about having been sitting on a chair that had slats in the seat. And yet she—

 

"More tea?" Dr. Kreutz asked.

 

She blinked, waking out of her reverie. She noticed again now, as she had already noticed, that he had hardly looked at her directly since she had arrived. She wondered if he might be jealous, for surely he must have guessed that what she and Leslie had going was more than a business partnership. The thought made her flare up in annoyance. She had enough to do keeping Billy's suspicions at bay. Billy had talked to Leslie only once, when the three of them met by arrangement for a drink in the bar of Wynn's Hotel. It was a Sunday evening and behind them three red-faced priests were drinking whiskey and talking loudly about a hurling match they had
been to in the afternoon. Billy had been shy of the Englishman with his hoity-toity accent, as he described it afterwards, and his silver cravat, and had looked at his boots and talked in a mumble—not that he had much to say, anyway—his nearly colorless eyebrows meeting in a frown and the tips of his ears bright pink. When she had looked at him she had felt not so much guilty as . . .
sorrowful;
yes, that was the only word for it, she felt sorrow for him, the softhearted poor lummox. And, more strangely, it seemed to her that she had never loved him as much, with such tenderness and compassion and simple concern, as she did in that half hour in that smoky bar with the voices of those priests breaking in on them and Leslie and she trying not to look at each other in case they might burst out laughing.

 

Leslie had been very good with Billy, had really acted the part of the businessman, going on about overhead and annual turnover and broad profit margins and all the rest of it. She had to admire him—what a bamboozler he was. He pretended to listen to Billy's mumbles, nodding solemnly with his lips pursed, and made sure to remember to call her Mrs. Hunt and not by her first name. To hear him you would think it was a hospital or something the two of them were setting up. When he said that "Mrs. Hunt would make a great contribution to the salon"—he had learned to follow her example and call it a beauty
salon
instead of a beauty
parlor
, which she thought sounded common—"because of her long experience as a pharmacist," Billy blinked. She wondered how much of Leslie's palaver he was swallowing. He knew a bit about business himself, and he was no fool when it came to dealing with people. She told herself not to say too much but to keep quiet and let Leslie do the talking. She limited herself to a glass of Babycham and nursed it for the whole time they were there, for drink went straight to her head on occasions like this—although when in her life, she asked herself, had there been another such occasion?—and above all she must not show how excited she was. For the fact was, it was only now, as she stood there in her sensible shoes and the charcoal-gray two-piece costume she had
bought to be her business suit, listening to Leslie fast-talking her husband, that the full realization came to her of just what an adventure it was that she had embarked on. The future suddenly was—

 

"You must, you know," Dr. Kreutz said, "you must be careful—very very careful."

 

She looked at him blankly. What was he talking about?

 

"Careful of what?" she asked.

 

He shrugged uncomfortably. Today he was wearing a blue silk caftan—it was another of the exotic words and names for things that he had taught her—and under it his shoulders looked more than ever like a coat hanger.

 

"Why, all this," he said, "this business you have started." There was a new, plaintive note in his voice, she noticed, and between phrases he kept making a sort of humming sound under his breath. "Mr. White's previous enterprise failed, you know—hmm hmm—and Mr. White himself maybe is not—hmm—everything that he seems."

 

Well! she thought. Talk about the kettle calling the pot black. She felt like inquiring where his
camera
was today, and how many
clients
he had taken pictures of recently. But she could not be indignant with him for long. In her newfound state of bliss she could not be indignant with anyone, even Billy, or not for long, anyway. Of course Leslie was not all that he seemed, but she knew that if he was anything, he was more of it rather than less. Only that
more
, of course, was something Dr. Kreutz would not understand. Now she pushed her cup away—it had a peculiar aftertaste, cloying and sickly sweet—and said that she must be going. When she stood up, however, she felt suddenly light in the head, and it seemed for a moment that she might fall over. The doctor was on his feet in a flash and holding her hand, and with his other hand under her elbow he led her to the sofa—
that
sofa—and lowered her gently onto the cushions and stood back, watching her, his head on one side and his lips set in that down-turned way that he had, which was the nearest he ever came to a smile.

 

"Rest," he said softly. "Rest now, my dear lady, my dear dear lady."

 

She thought of all the women who had lain down there, naked and showing themselves off. She wondered what it would feel like to be exposed like that, not in front of a man, exactly, but a camera. And wondering that, she fell into a deep and dreamless sleep.

6

 

 

MAISIE HADDON—OR NURSE HADDON, WHICH WAS HOW SHE LIKED TO be known, in private as well as in public—had a soft spot for Quirke, and frequently assured him so, especially after a second or a third rum and black-currant cordial, which was her tipple. They had arranged to meet, as they usually did, in a murky little pub on a side street behind the Gaiety Theatre. They arrived simultaneously, he on foot and she in her open-topped miniature red sports car that always reminded him of a scuffed and slightly battered ladybird. She wore dark glasses with white frames, and was smoking a cigarette in an ebony holder. Despite the warmth of the day she sported a mink jacket and a long yellow chiffon scarf, one end of which was flung back dramatically over her right shoulder. She pulled in to the curb with a shriek of tires and the little car mounted the pavement and stopped and the engine gave a final, rivet-loosening roar before she switched it off.

 

"Howya, handsome," she said, leaning over the low door and offering him a lace-gloved hand.

 

He bowed and brushed his lips against a bony knuckle, catching a sharp waft of her perfume. "I tell you, Maisie," he said, "one day you'll end up like Isadora Duncan."

 

She took up her handbag from the passenger seat and clambered out of the car. "Who's she when she's at home?"

 

"Dancer. Her scarf got caught in the back axle of a sports car and broke her neck."

 

"Jesus," she said, "what a way to go."

 

They entered the pub. It was a Saturday afternoon and the usual rackety crowd was in. When Maisie paused on the threshold to scan the room through her white-framed specs a dozen heads lifted; there were few here who did not know who Nurse Haddon was. She walked to the bar with Quirke in her wake and perched herself on a high stool, smoothing her tight skirt over her knees with a demure little gesture that made Quirke smile. In his way he, too, had a soft spot for her, this preposterous creature. He wondered what age she was, exactly—it was impossible to tell from her looks or figure. Her big, square, countrywoman's face showed hardly a wrinkle, and her hair, if it was dyed, was blond to the roots, so far as he could see—he did not dare look too closely for Maisie was quick to anger and was said to have once knocked out cold a Garda detective who was trying to arrest her. It amused Quirke to think, not for the first time, that he was probably putting his professional reputation at grave risk by being seen with her, and in a public house, at that. For Maisie Haddon was the city's most notorious, most successful, and busiest back-street abortionist.

 

He ordered drinks, her rum and black, and a tomato juice for himself.

 

"Are you off the gargle?" she said, incredulous.