Quirke 06 - Holy Orders

on best with—but I knew he’d tell my brother.”
    “ Y ou sound almost as if you’re afraid of him, of your brother.”
    “Do I? I don’t know—maybe I am. I never understood him. James was so different from him. James liked to talk tough, but underneath he was soft—I’m sure you saw that.” She turned to look at Phoebe. “Was there ever—was there ever anything between you and him? Do you mind me asking?”
    “No, no, I don’t mind. And no—Jimmy and I were friends, never more than that.” It made her uneasy, speaking about Jimmy like this. Although she had nothing to hide, still she seemed to detect in her own voice a strident note, as if there were something for her to feel guilty about and deny. But there was nothing, except, she supposed, that she had not given enough attention to Jimmy, that she had taken him for granted. But surely that was how everyone felt when someone died unexpectedly and in tragic circumstances, that there were things they should have done, words that should have been spoken, gestures that should have been made. It struck her that by dying Jimmy had turned himself into a larger presence in her life than he had been when he was alive.
    Sally thrust her fingers into her hair and yawned.
    “ Y ou’re tired, I can see,” Phoebe said. “We can talk again tomorrow—I’ll phone the shop and go in late.”
    “Will you contact your father? I’d like to see him, to talk to him.”
    “Yes, I will. He lives nearby, you know. We can try to catch him before he leaves for the hospital.”
    They took turns in the bathroom, then said good night, and Phoebe went into her bedroom. As she was shutting the door she glanced back into the living room and saw Sally standing in the light from the fire, pulling her sweater over her head. Her hair shone like coils of dark copper.
    * * *

    Phoebe knew she would not be able to sleep. She changed into her dressing gown and sat on the bed with a pillow behind her back and tried to read—a novel, Black Narcissus —but she could not concentrate. Her mind was in a spin. The thought nagged at her that she had somehow let Jimmy down, although she could not think what things there might have been that she had not done for him. Anyway, that was not the point. The fault was not in actions taken or not taken, but in—what? If he had loved her, should she not have recognized it? Perhaps that was what her failure had been, a failure of attention, of—what was the word?—of empathy. The notion troubled her, but she had to acknowledge that she resented it, too. She had never done anything to make Jimmy love her—she had not encouraged him, had not “led him on,” as Sister Aloysius used to say, screwing up her mouth in fierce disapproval so that the little brown hairs on her upper lip bristled like tiny antennae.
    She put her book aside and switched off the lamp and lay on her back gazing up into the inky shadows. It seemed to her that through Jimmy and his terrible end she had incurred a debt without knowing it, a debt for which she could not feel she was responsible, and did not know how to discharge. Would it be with her all her life, would her dead friend accompany her always, an insistent ghost, dogging her steps in a soulful, accusing silence?
    A sound came to her, sharp and piercing as a needle. What was it? She lifted herself on an elbow, straining to hear. A cat, down in the garden? Or was there a wireless on, somewhere in the house? No. Someone was crying. She got up quickly and without turning on the light tiptoed to the bedroom door and opened it a little way, not making a sound, and put her ear to the crack and listened.
    It was Sally who was crying.
    Phoebe closed the door and stood in the dimness, listening to her heart beating. What was she to do? The girl out there was a stranger, met for the first time today. She was crying for the death of her brother. That was her right, and it was not for anyone to interfere with her sorrow. She started back towards the bed, but stopped, and again stood listening. Sally must have her face pressed into the pillow, Phoebe thought, but the sounds she made were high-pitched and thin, and would not be stifled. What was it about the sound of someone weeping, Phoebe wondered, that caused that urgent, pulsing sensation in the chest? Did men feel it, too, or was it a reflex confined to women, something left over from the fire-lit caves of prehistoric times? It was not to be resisted. She turned back,