Quirke 06 - Holy Orders

with the harsh cries of Fritzl or Lou-Lou here, the magical talking bird? The past, the past—everyone tried to hold on to it, this thing that had gone, festooning its immateriality with beads and baubles, with bits of themselves.
    Rose must have heard him approach, for now she appeared out of one of the absurdly grand reception rooms that lined the hallway. “Did you have a nice heart-to-heart?” she asked sarcastically, leaning in the doorway.
    “Hardly,” Quirke said. “I don’t think Mal is any better at locating that particular organ than I am. The heart, I mean.”
    “Oh, I don’t know,” she said, looking him up and down. “Mal has a heart—you, on the other hand, have a soul.”
    “What’s the difference?”
    “All the difference in the world.”
    She smiled, glancing down, then stepped forward and kissed him on the mouth, pressing her body lightly against his. Her breath tasted of whiskey and cigarette smoke. He put his arms around her. She was so slender, and almost weightless; soon she would begin to get old. He bent his head and laid his forehead on her shoulder. She moved back, and he lifted his head, looking at her inquiringly. She gave a shrug. “Old times,” she said.
    “Rose, I—”
    “Ssh.” She reached out and put a fingertip to his lips and smiled. “Don’t give up, Quirke,” she said. “Live. It’s all we have.”
    He nodded. She took his coat and hat from the stand and gave them to him. When she opened the door the night surged forward into the hall, smelling of rain and the wet garden and, beyond that, of the road, of trees, and city, and world. He stepped out into the darkness.
    On Merrion Road he stopped and waited for a passing taxi. He saw himself standing there, hunched under the night, like an old bull standing in the rain. When at last a taxi arrived the driver leaned over and peered up at him suspiciously, this solitary figure in his big black coat and his drenched hat. Quirke climbed into the back seat.
    “Tallaght,” he said.
    * * *

    When they had finished their tea at the Country Shop, Phoebe and David took Sally Minor to the pictures. It was Phoebe’s idea. She wanted to be able to sit in the dark for an hour or two, not speaking, not thinking, even, just watching these enormous, soot-and-silver creatures flit across the screen, making make-believe trouble for themselves and anyone else who was unwise enough to wander into their circle of light. Sally had been to the Carlton the previous night, so tonight they went to the Savoy, across the road. At the start of the film Bette Davis was seen shooting her lover and then being sent for trial for murder. After that, Phoebe’s mind wandered, and when she tried to concentrate again she could not catch up with what was going on. She did not care. Her own life at the moment seemed far more tangled and difficult than the plot being acted out before her with such large gestures, such overblown emotions.
    Again her mind strayed. Watching the actress on the screen, she found herself wondering what it would be like to shoot someone. A person would have to be very desperate indeed to do such a thing. She thought of the pistol in Sally’s handbag. She knew it was there—Sally was too careful ever to leave it out of her keeping—yet it seemed unreal, as unreal as Bette Davis pretending to be a murderess when everyone knew she was a lavishly successful Hollywood film star.
    Phoebe was sitting in the middle, with David at her right hand and Sally at her left. They seemed to be absorbed in the picture. She had known Sally for only a fraction of the time that she had known David, yet she suspected she knew more about her, or at least understood more about her, than she did about him. David was kind, attentive, intelligent, all the things a boyfriend was supposed to be, yet it seemed to her that deep down, at the very core, something was lacking in him, some essential spark. It was not just to do with her. There was a remoteness to his dealings with the world, the world of which she was only a part. She did not resent him for this, or feel neglected. In a way, his detachment was one of the things that made him attractive, since he demanded so little of her. What was lacking between them was, simply, passion; she saw that now, now that she had met Sally.
    What if David asked her to marry him? The thought made her tremble, which in turn was a shock. Why was everything suddenly so fraught? Nothing more had happened between