Quirke 06 - Holy Orders

“Everything is so confused,” she said, in a faraway voice. “I feel—I don’t know what I feel. Strange. Lost. When James—Jimmy, I mean, I may as well call him that, since everyone else does—when Jimmy died part of me died, too. That sounds like something someone would say in the movies, I know, but it’s true. Y ou can’t imagine what it’s like, being a twin. Y ou’re never just yourself—there’s always an extra part, or a part missing. I can’t explain. Y ou know, when people have an arm or a leg amputated they say they can still feel it, this phantom limb, that sometimes they can even feel pain in it. That’s how I am now. Whoever killed Jimmy killed a bit of me, too, but the bit that’s dead is still there, somehow.”
    Phoebe wanted to take Sally’s hand in hers, to hold it tightly, yet she knew she must not, must absolutely not. She stood up from the table; it was a relief to be on her feet. “Let’s go out and get some things for lunch,” she said.
    Sally shook her head. “I’m not hungry.”
    “ Y ou will be,” Phoebe said. “Come on, we can go to the Q and L.”
    “The Q and L? What’s that?”
    “It’s my local grocer’s. Wait till you see Mr. Q and L, in his checked suit and his canary waistcoat. He looks the image of Mr. Toad.”
    “Is that his name?” Sally said incredulously. “Queue-and-ell?”
    “Of course not. That’s the name of the shop. I don’t know what he’s called. He’s sort of mad. Don’t be surprised if he serenades you with a bit of opera, or does a pirouette.”
    Sally stood up. “Well,” she said, “he certainly sounds different from my Mr. Patel.”
    “Mr. Patel doesn’t sing or do ballet steps?”
    “No. I’m afraid Mr. Patel is a grouch.”
    They smiled at each other. Was it getting easier? Were they beginning to relax? It was as if, Phoebe thought, they had been walking for a long time at the very edge of a steep precipice, with the wind pulling at them, trying to drag them over, and now they had at last stepped away from the brink, and she felt shaky with relief but also with a faint regret for the danger that had passed.
    They put on their coats and walked up to Baggot Street. The sun made puddles of molten gold on the rain-wet pavements, and above them small white puffs of cloud were gliding across the sky like upside-down toy sailboats. Phoebe would have liked to link her arm in Sally’s but knew she could not. Was this how it would be from now on, with even the most innocent token of friendship become suddenly suspect?
    At the shop they bought a wedge of Cheddar cheese and slices of cooked ham and a bag of small hard Dutch tomatoes, two apples and some green grapes, and a packet of Kimberley biscuits. The shopkeeper, sleek-haired and fat, today wore a tweed hunting jacket and a waistcoat of hunting pink instead of his accustomed canary-yellow one. While he served them he hummed under his breath the slaves’ chorus from Aida, and when he handed them their change he did brief, sinuous passes with his hands, like an Oriental dancer, and said thanky-voo , as he always did, pursing his lips and opening wide his big round feminine eyes. The two young women dared not look at each other, and when they came out into the street they burst into laughter and had to stop, their shoulders shaking. “ Y ou’re right,” Sally said, in a muffled, delighted scream. “He’s exactly like Mr. Toad!” And, laughing, they leaned towards each other until their foreheads touched, and for a moment it was as if that kiss in front of the gas fire had never happened, or as if, having happened, it might happen again, but this time with the greatest simplicity and ease.
    When they got back to the flat Phoebe opened the door to let Sally go inside, then excused herself and went back down the stairs to the bathroom on the return, and locked the door behind herself. Sally’s neat little valise was there, under the shelf by the bath. Phoebe knelt quickly and undid the clasps, and took from a pocket of her dress the little bone-colored button she had somehow ripped from Sally’s blouse, and dropped it inside the valise, and did up the clasps again and put the valise back in its place under the shelf. She stood up. Her knees were unsteady. She turned to go, then stopped, and stood in front of the mirror on the windowsill for a long time, gazing into her own eyes.

16

    On Monday morning Detective Sergeant Jenkins drove Quirke and Inspector Hackett in the