The Silver Swan (33 page)

street. The feeling of being watched, of someone spying on her and following her, was stronger than ever. She would have believed it was all in her imagination—an imagination, after all, that had been for so long a house of horrors—had it not been for the telephone calls. The phone would ring, at any hour of the day or night, but when she picked it up there would be nothing but a crackling silence on the line. She tried to catch the sound of breathing—she had heard of other women's experiences of heavy breathers—but in vain. Sometimes there was a muffled sensation, when she thought that he—and she was certain it was a he—must have his hand over the mouthpiece. Once, and only once, she had caught something, a very distant faint tiny clinking sound, as of the lid of a small metal box being opened and shut again. It was maddeningly familiar, that clink, but she could not identify it, try as she would. She had become used to these calls, and although she knew it was perverse of her, she sometimes welcomed them, despite herself. They were by now a constant in her life, fixed pinpricks in the bland fabric of her days. Sitting there on the bench seat at the wide-open window with the phone in her lap and the receiver pressed to her ear, she would forget to feel menaced, and would sink down almost languorously into this brief interval of restful, shared silence. She had given up shouting at whoever it was; she no longer even asked who was calling or demanded that he identify himself, as she used to do in the early days. She wondered what he thought, what he felt, this phantom, listening in his turn now to
her
silences. Perhaps that was all he too wanted, a moment of quiet, of emptiness, of respite from the ceaseless din inside his head. For she was sure he must be mad.

 

In the street this evening there was the old man walking his dog whom she had seen many times before—man and dog were remarkably alike, short and squat in identical gray coats—and a couple going along arm in arm in the direction of the Green, the girl smiling at the man, showing her upper teeth all the way to the gums. A boy bent low on a racing bike went past, his tires sizzling on the tarred roadway that was still soft from the day's heat. A bus stopped, but no one
got off. She stepped out into the gloaming. A waft of fragrance came up from the flower beds in the park. Why did flowers put out so much scent at evening? she wondered. Was that the time when the insects came out? So many things she did not know, so many things.

 

She got on a bus at Cuffe Street, and just missed seeing the lowslung apple-green roadster cross the junction and speed on up in the direction from which she had just come.

2

 

 

FOR A LONG TIME MAGGIE THE MAID HAD BEEN HIDING THE FACT THAT she was going blind. She was convinced that Mr. Griffin would get rid of her if he knew—what good would a blind maid be to him? That was one reason why she pretended not to hear the doorbell, for she was afraid that if she opened the door she would not be able to make out who it was that was there, and if it was someone she was supposed to know by sight she would be shown up. So that evening she hid in the basement pantry and let Mr. Griffin answer the door himself, and did not come out until she had counted in his three guests. These were Mr. Quirke and Phoebe and that one from America, the old hake trying to be young, Rose whatever-she-was-called. It would be a dismal sort of occasion. Not like the parties there used to be when Missus was still here. Not that Missus was much of a live wire, but at least she got in decent food and drink and dressed herself up nicely when there were people coming.

 

She was looking forward to seeing Mr. Quirke. She was fond of him and always had been, even when he had taken drink. He was off the booze now, so he said. It was a pity, for when he was half cut he used to tease her and make her laugh. No laughing in this house, these days.

 

She nearly fell over the dog when she was carrying up the tray of
sandwiches. She got a kick in at the beast, and it scuttled off, whimpering. She had a plan to get hold of a tin of rat poison from the chemist's on Rathgar Road one of these days and put that animal out of its misery. Nobody wanted it here, not even Mr. Griffin, who was supposed to be its master. Young Phoebe it was that had got it for him, to keep him company when he came home from America after Missus had died. Company! The thing was more of an annoyance than anything else. This family had a fondness for taking in strays. First, years ago, there was that one Dolly Moran that later on got killed, and then the other one, Christine somebody, the brazen hussy, that had died too. And Mr. Quirke himself had been an orphan that old Judge Griffin had rescued from the poorhouse somewhere and brought to live here as if he was one of his own. Maggie, shuffling along the dim hallway with the tray in front of her, chuckled. Aye, she thought—as if he was one of his own.

 

 

IN THE DRAWING ROOM QUIRKE TOOK THE TRAY FROM MAGGIE AND thanked her and asked her how she was. The french windows were open onto the garden, where a brooding lilac light lay on the grass under the drooping trees. Rose Crawford, wine glass in hand, stood in the window with her back turned to the room, looking out. Mal, in a funereal dark-gray suit and dark-blue bow tie, stood with her; they were not speaking; they had never had much to say to each other. Phoebe was sitting in an armchair by the empty fireplace, idly turning over the pages of a leather-bound photograph album. Quirke set the tray down on the big mahogany table, where there were bottles and glasses, and bowls of nuts, and plates of sliced cucumber and celery sticks and quartered carrots. It was the second anniversary of Sarah's death.

 

He carried his glass of soda water across the room and sat down on the arm of Phoebe's chair and watched as she turned the pages of the album. "So sad," she murmured, not raising her eyes. "How quickly it all goes." He said nothing. She had stopped at a page of
photographs of Sarah on her wedding day, stiff, formal pictures taken by a professional. In one she stood in her long white dress and bridal veil beside a miniature Doric pillar, holding a clustered posy of roses in her hands and peering into the camera lens with a faintly pained smile. Despite the obvious fakery of the setting the photographer had achieved a real suggestion of antiquity. Phoebe was right, Quirke thought; it had all gone so quickly. He remembered the day that photograph was taken—which was a wonder, considering how deeply he had drowned his sorrow that day at having thrown away his chance with her.

 

Rose Crawford turned from the window and walked to the table and refilled her glass. She wore a tight-fitting frock of night-blue silk that shimmered in angled shapes like metal when she moved. Her shining black hair—she must be dyeing it by now, Quirke thought—was cut short and swept back from her face in two smooth wings, which emphasized the classic sharpness of her profile and gave her a fierce, hawklike look. He left his place on the chair arm and went to her. She had bitten the corner from a crustless triangular sandwich, and as he approached she stopped chewing and put down her wine glass and with her fingers extracted from her mouth a long, gray hair.

 

"Oh, my," she wailed faintly, "it's the maid's, I recognize it."

 

"Maggie?" Quirke said. "She's half blind."

 

Rose sighed, and put down the bitten sandwich and took up her glass. "I don't understand you," she said. "The things you accept, as if there was nothing to be done about anything."

 

"Do you mean just me, or all of us in general?"

 

"You people, in this country. I've been amazed since I've been here."

 

"What in particular amazes you?"

 

She shook her head slowly from side to side. "The quietness of everything," she said. "The way you go about in a cowed silence, not protesting, not complaining, not demanding that things should change or be fixed or made new." She looked at him. "Josh wasn't like that."

 

"Your husband," he said, "was a remarkable man."

 

She laughed; it was no more than a sniff. "You didn't admire him."

 

"I didn't say he was admirable."

 

At that, for no obvious reason, they both turned and looked across at Mal, as if it were he and not Josh Crawford they had been speaking of. He stood somewhat stooped, seeming in faint pain, with a vague, helpless look, the light from the garden giving him a grayish pallor. Rose turned her attention to Phoebe where she sat in the armchair by the fireplace, with the photograph album. "How is she?" she asked quietly.

 

Quirke frowned. "Phoebe? She's all right, I think. Why do you ask?"

 

"She's not all right."

 

"What do you mean?"

 

"She has a secret. And it's not a nice secret."

 

"What secret? How do you know? Has she spoken to you?"

 

"Not really."

 

"Then—"

 

"I just know."

 

Quirke wanted Rose to tell him how she could "just know" things, about Phoebe or anybody else. He never knew anything until he had dismantled it and examined the parts.

 

"You're her father," Rose said. "You should speak to her. She needs someone's help. I can't do it. Maybe no one can. But you should try."

 

He looked down. What could he say to Phoebe? Phoebe would not listen to him. "Sarah could have done it," he said.

 

"Oh, Sarah!" Rose snapped. "Why you all go on so about Sarah I don't know. She was a nice woman, harmless, did her best to be pleasant. What else was there to her? And don't look at me like that, Quirke, as if I'd kicked your cat. You know me, I say what I mean. I so hate your Irish mealymouthedness, the way you treat your women. You either makes saints of them and put them on a pedestal or they're witches out to torment and destroy you. And you of all people shouldn't do it. I'm sure your wife—what was her name, Delia?—wasn't the Jezebel you pretend she was, either."

 

"Why me," he asked, "'of all people' ?" She considered him in silence for a moment.

 

"I told you before, a long time ago," she said. "You and I are the same—cold hearts, hot souls. There aren't many like us."

 

"Maybe that's just as well," Quirke said. Rose only put back her head and smiled at him with narrowed eyes.

 

Mal joined them. He tapped a fingertip to the bridge of his spectacles. "Did you get something to eat?" he asked of them both. He looked doubtfully at the tray of wilting sandwiches. "I'm not sure what Maggie has prepared. She gets more eccentric every day." He gave a faint, hapless smile. "But then, what can I expect?"

 

Rose shot Quirke a look, as if to say,
You see what I mean?
"You should sell this house," she said briskly.

 

Mal looked at her in slow astonishment. "Where would I live?"

 

"Build something else. Buy an apartment. You don't owe anyone your life, you know."

 

It seemed he might protest, but instead he only turned aside, in an almost furtive way, the lenses of his glasses shining, which somehow made him seem to be weeping.

 

The evening crawled on. Maggie came back and cleared the table, muttering to herself. She appeared not to notice that no one had eaten the sandwiches. They drifted into the garden two by two, Mal with Rose, Quirke with Phoebe, like couples progressing towards a dance.

 

"Rose says you have a secret," Quirke said quietly to his daughter.

 

Phoebe was looking at her shoes. "Does she? What kind of secret?"

 

"She doesn't know, only she knows you have one. So she says. When I hear women talking about a secret, I always assume the secret is a man."

 

"Well," Phoebe said, with a cold little smile, "you would, of course."

 

The soft gray air of twilight was dense and grainy. It would rain later, Quirke thought. Rose had stepped away from Mal and now turned about to face the others, and looked askance at the ground, turning the stem of the wine glass slowly on the flattened palm of her hand. "I suppose," she said, raising her voice, "this is as good a moment as any to make my announcement." She glanced up, smiling oddly. They waited. She touched a hand to her forehead. "I feel shy,
suddenly," she said, "isn't that the darnedest thing? Quirke, don't look so alarmed. It's simply that I've decided to move here."

 

There was a startled pause; then Quirke said, "To Dublin?"

 

Rose nodded. "Yes. To Dublin." She laughed briefly. "Maybe it's the biggest mistake I've ever made, and the good Lord knows I've made many. But there it is, I've decided. I have"—she looked at Quirke—"no illusions as to what to expect of life in Ireland. But I suppose I feel some kind of—I don't know, some kind of responsibility to Josh. Perhaps it's my duty to bring his millions back to the land of his birth." This time she turned to Mal, almost pleadingly. "Does that seem crazy?"

 

"No," Mal said, "no, it doesn't."

 

Rose laughed again. "I can tell you, no one is more surprised than I am." She seemed to falter, and cast her eyes down again. "I guess the dead keep a hold on us even after they've passed on."

 

And at that, as if at her summoning, Sarah's voice spoke in Quirke's head, saying his name. He turned without a word and walked into the house. In the past long months of sobriety he had never wanted a drink so badly as he did at that moment.

 

 

HE WALKED WITH PHOEBE ALONG THE TOWPATH BY THE CANAL. NIGHT had fallen and the smell of coming rain was unmistakable now; he even fancied he could feel a breath of dampness against his face. Beside them the water shone blackly, like oil. They passed by courting couples huddled in pools of darkness under the trees. A bearded tramp was asleep on a bench, lying on his side in a nest of newspapers with a hand under his cheek. Neither Quirke nor Phoebe had spoken since they had left the house in Rathgar. The shock at Rose's announcement had lingered, and the party, such as it was, had come to an abrupt end. Rose had taken a taxi back to the Shelbourne, and had offered Quirke and Phoebe a lift, but they had preferred to walk. Quirke was still feeling the effect of Sarah's sudden presence, after Rose's words had somehow conjured her for him in that moment in