Matters of Life & Death Read online

  About the Markets the talk was of me being the only burglar to leave his victim richer by a bowlful of piss and a couple of crusts. The Major did turn out to be the famous English architect, Dunstan Luttrell, like on the diploma. Not long after that his photo was all over the papers for designing an oratory for some nuns. The Press made a big thing about it. English architect, Irish nuns. Protestant–Catholic cooperation. Still my Da said the architecture was a cover story – everybody in Intelligence work had one. They like to keep us in the dark, he said.

  MATTERS OF LIFE & DEATH I

  Learning to Dance

  The boy sat on one of the divan beds for almost an hour without moving. At his feet the shopping bag with their pyjamas and things in it. His younger brother lay on a rug between the beds turned away from him. Nothing was said. Sounds drifted up from downstairs – the wireless was on, a mixture of distant music and talk. Doors opened and closed. Traffic hummed from the main road. At one point there was ringing.

  ‘Telephone,’ said the boy. His brother nodded. High heels clicked across the hallway and the ringing stopped and the doctor’s wife spoke. Sometimes his younger brother made a noise like a pig – snuffing back and swallowing. It was revolting and he wanted to kill him. Then the boy heard someone coming up the stairs. The doctor’s wife came to the half-open door and tapped it lightly with her fingernail.

  ‘Can I come in?’ The boy sat upright on the bed – his brother rolled around and looked over his shoulder. The doctor’s wife stepped into the room. She leaned forward and put her hands on her knees so that her head was on a level with the boy’s sitting on the bed. ‘So – Ben and Tony – have you settled in?’ The boys nodded.

  ‘Do you want to go outside?’ The boy on the bed thought it seemed somehow wrong.

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘Thank you.’

  ‘Into the garden for a bit. Get a bit of fresh air before lunch.’ The boy had already made his decision and he felt it would be rude to change it.

  ‘I’m OK.’

  ‘Whatever suits. Also I was wondering if you had any likes or dislikes for lunch? Either of you. It’s coming up to that time.’ No. Both boys shook their heads. ‘Some boys can be very picky. I have nephews who would run a mile rather than eat a soft-boiled egg.’

  ‘Some eggs have elastic bands in them,’ said the boy on the floor.

  ‘Pardon me?’

  ‘In the white bit – some brown rubbery things. Eucch.’

  ‘Well the eggs we get here don’t have anything like that in them.’ She laughed. ‘So what would you like?’ The boy on the bed raised his shoulders in a slow shrug – he’d no idea. ‘A boiled egg? With plenty of hot buttered toast?’ said the doctor’s wife. The boys nodded. When they had a boiled egg at home their mother spooned it from the shell into a cup and mashed the bits up with some butter so that the yellow and the white mixed evenly.

  ‘Very well, then – it’s too early, but let’s go.’ She ushered them out of the room and down the stairs into the kitchen. They walked quietly in their new surroundings. She sat them up on stools at a table and bustled around putting on a saucepan of eggs, dropping slices of bread into the shining toaster, setting salt and pepper on the table. There was a refrigerator as tall as herself in the corner. Every so often its engine shuddered to a halt and there was silence. She promised they would make flavoured lollipops later on.

  ‘What’s your favourite flavour?’

  ‘Orange,’ said the boy.

  His brother said, ‘Milk.’ The doctor’s wife laughed, said it was impossible to make a milk lollipop.

  She was dressed as if she was going out for the evening – a silky green frock, pearls around her bare neck, high-heeled sandal shoes. She lit a cigarette from the lighter she used to light the gas and bit down hard on the first intake of smoke.

  ‘Dr D’Arcy and his wife – they’re always immaculate,’ their mother had said. ‘For all the world like Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers.’ Dr D’Arcy wasn’t their doctor – just a friend of the family. Ben and Tony’s father and Dr D’Arcy were both in the Young Philanthropists. Their own doctor was Dr Gorman. Dr Gorman was the one who came to the house when anyone was sick. And to the hospital after you had had your tonsils out.

  ‘Ice cream – and plenty of it,’ was the medicine he prescribed.

  The boy had seen photos of Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers dancing in the movies. His mother and father were very keen on supper dances and would go to one or two every year – mostly ones run by the Young Philanthropists. For days beforehand the house would be full of excitement. On the night, the boys would be sitting in the kitchen with Grandma and Granda. Upstairs the bathroom would be going full tilt, the steam and the shaving and the powdering and perfuming all going on at the same time along with shouts of ‘Are there no laces for these shoes?’ ‘Where are the cuff-links?’ ‘They’ll be where you left them last year.’ Dr D’Arcy would be picking them up by car, or a taxi would have been ordered and the ones getting ready would always be running late. And then they’d arrive into the room for the ‘showing off’ with his mother saying ‘I’m as ready as ever I’m going to be.’ And she’d swish and twirl around the kitchen, the dress and her petticoats taking up most of the small space. She’d touch the necklace at her throat and worry that it didn’t match her diamanté bag. His father would straighten his black bow-tie at the mirror by crouching his knees. It was set at the correct height for their mother. And because it was a special occasion they’d kiss the boys goodbye and tell them to behave and so on and not give Grandma any trouble. Their father smelt of shaving soap. And their mother would decide at the last minute not to wear a coat because it just made the dress underneath look silly – her wrap would be warm enough. And the doctor’s car would be honking its horn outside and suddenly the door would rattle and slam and they’d be gone. Silence. And Grandma and Granda would be sitting opposite each other smiling, waiting to play cards. The next morning when the boys woke there would be balloons and paper hats and brightly coloured cocktail sticks shaped like tiny sabres on their bedside chairs.

  ‘You poor things,’ said the doctor’s wife. Her long red hair gave the impression of being unruly – standing out as it did from her head. She fought a constant battle with it combing and sweeping it aside with open fingers.

  ‘Four minutes?’ she said. ‘To be on the safe side?’ She looked very tall and glamorous as she stood waiting for the toast with one hand on her hip and a cigarette in the other. Her fingernails were painted. Even her toenails were scarlet – peeping out the front of her high-heeled sandals. When the eggs were ready she set one in front of each boy. They stared at them but didn’t move.

  ‘Let me.’ She sliced the top off each egg and set it on a plate beside the eggcup. ‘No bits of shell,’ she said. ‘Clean as a whistle. And apostle spoons. What’s keeping you?’ The boy scooped a little egg white from the lid and put it in his mouth. His younger brother did the same. The doctor’s wife took a seat on a stool and leaned her elbows on the table staring at her guests. She looked long and hard at them then smiled.

  ‘I would just love two boys like you,’ she said. There was a sound of crunching toast and chewing. She made a platform for her chin with her fists and looked from one boy to the other. The younger boy chewed his food with his mouth open. His brother watched in disgust as he rolled the mashed-up food around his mouth. Occasionally the younger boy stopped for breath – breathed in past the mush and then would continue chewing.

  ‘So what would you like to do this afternoon?’ The boys continued to eat and stare defiance at each other. ‘We could do something in the garden.’

  ‘Like what?’ said the boy. He must have thought his reply sounded rude because he added, ‘That’d be OK.’

  ‘What games do you play at home?’ The boys stared down at their eggs then looked at each other. The boy said with a smile, ‘Cricket in the yard.’

  ‘I’m afraid we have no yard here.’

  ‘Slow-motion f
ootball,’ said his brother.

  ‘And what, may I ask, is that?’

  The elder boy tried to explain – a round balloon – the pitch was the hall – the goalposts were the front door and the width of the stairs. His younger brother got off his stool and began to move in the kitchen with heavy limbs demonstrating to the doctor’s wife. He was smiling, remembering. ‘Like you’re in syrup when you head the balloon – it’s slow motion – like in the pictures.’

  ‘I’m sorry but we have no real toys – not even a balloon.’ The kitchen darkened and spots of rain appeared on the window pane.

  ‘We’ll have to think of something else. Would you look at that?’ She nodded outside. ‘How I would love to live somewhere like Spain or Barbados. Somewhere you can depend on the weather.’ The boy’s brother took a spoonful of egg and looked down into the shell. He made a noise in his throat – he didn’t spit – but he allowed the egg along with some half-chewed toast to tumble out of his mouth onto his plate. He drooled strings of liquid stuff after it. His brother turned away.

  ‘Is anything wrong?’ said the doctor’s wife.

  The younger boy was leaning forward, swallowing and swallowing. ‘An elastic band,’ he said looking down into his eggshell.

  ‘No. There’s no such thing.’ The doctor’s wife swivelled off her stool and came to see. The child pointed at a small brownish spot deep in the white of the egg and curled his lip.

  ‘Would you like a banana?’ She took the plate with the mouthful of mush and tipped it into the bin as if nothing had happened.

  ‘Thank you,’ he said when she set a banana on his plate. He peeled the skin back and scrutinised the white of the banana for flaws or ripe spots.

  ‘I hope the rain’s not on for the day,’ said the doctor’s wife. ‘More tea?’ Both boys refused. ‘When you’re finished in here – you can just wander about the place. Explore the house.’ The telephone rang in the hall and she hurried out. They heard her talking for a long time. When she came back they had finished eating.

  ‘You can go anywhere you like, boys, except the surgery. Dr D’Arcy sees his private patients in there. Need I say more? Needles and things.’ She gave a little shudder. ‘It’s the only room we keep locked. Let me show you around.’ She ushered them out of the kitchen and led them along a parquet hallway. She left wafts of lavender in her wake.

  ‘Oh, this is what we call the dancehall.’ She pushed the open door and the boys looked in. It was a yellow wooden floor. There was a large bay window which made the room seem very bright. They all walked into the room and suddenly there was an echo to every sound.

  ‘This is a maple sprung floor – our one extravagance. It was put in by the same people who did the Plaza Ballroom. Feel it move with you.’ She let her hand rest on what looked like a sideboard. ‘The radiogram. The piano is for visitors who can play. Can either of you?’

  They both shook their heads. No, they couldn’t. They went to the next room.

  ‘This is the library but not many children’s books, I’m afraid.’ She pointed to one side: ‘Mostly medical stuff. Not very nice. Promise me you’ll avoid that side.’ The boys agreed. ‘But the good Doctor likes the occasional detective story.’ She waved her hand at a bookcase full of green-banded paperbacks. ‘Most of all, Agatha Crispy.’

  ‘Christie,’ said the elder boy.

  ‘Just my little joke.’ She smiled and pointed out some of her own childhood books, but they looked schoolgirlie. The telephone rang and she rushed to answer it shouting over her shoulder, ‘I’ll leave you to it.’

  The boy and his brother stood staring at the detective stories. The older boy turned to the forbidden medical books at the other side of the room. They had titles he could barely read. Words that meant nothing to him – ologies and isms. There were Lancets and British Medical Journals, many books about ‘the Catholic Doctor’, shelves full of Maynooth and Down and Conor quarterlies, the yellow spines of countless copies of National Geographic. He took down a large book and opened it. It had some black-and-white pictures illustrating diseases. Misshapen men stripped to the waist. A person with a blackened hairy tongue thrust out. A bare woman with droopy chests covered in spots. Then babies stuck together – then things so horrible he slammed the book shut and put it back on the shelf.

  He went into the dancehall, hoping to get away from such images. But they were in his head. He knelt down on the smooth floor to look at what records there were. They were neatly stored in heavy books which contained paper sleeves with a circular window so that the label could be read. Decca, Columbia, Parlophone and His Master’s Voice – the rich red behind the white dog. The radiogram had a cupboard at one end and the door was not properly closed. The boy looked around then eased it open. Bottles and glasses. A bar stocked with gin and whisky and other stuff.

  He turned round and his brother was standing there with his hands in his pockets. He pushed the cupboard door shut.

  ‘What are you standing there for?’ His brother pulled a face. ‘Why don’t you go somewhere else?’

  ‘I’m all right here.’

  ‘Why d’you always have to follow me?’

  His brother didn’t move for a while. Eventually he sidled off back into the hallway. It was good to be rid of him. His very presence was an annoyance – the way he spat out his food in front of the doctor’s wife was terrible. But it wasn’t just that – it was a continual thing. His sniffing. His mouth noises. He did sneaky farts. Sometimes you heard them, sometimes you didn’t.

  He went back to the library to look through the National Geographics. The rain had stopped ticking at the window and the sun came out. He sat down on the floor with a magazine. The light fell in warm squares on the flowered carpet. The wallpaper was strange and rich. He had never seen anything like it. It had a pattern of flowers – maroon against a creamy background. But the flowers were made of velvet. He reached out and touched the pattern with his fingers. It was soothing the way it gave when he pressed it. The words on the page seemed to move. He found them difficult to read. His eyes wanted to close. He was tired. He hadn’t had much sleep. What with people running up and down the stairs all night. Sometimes loud voices, sometimes whispering outside his door. At one point he’d recognised the priest’s voice. When he’d put his head out to see what was going on, his mother had pleaded with him to stay in bed. ‘For me,’ she said and her face had had a look he had never seen before. On anyone’s face. So he stayed put with the eiderdown pulled over his head. His brother had slept throughout.

  He put his head down on his forearm and closed his eyes. And he drifted in the warmth of the sun. When he awoke he smiled – then remembered and his face went solid again. He didn’t know how long he’d slept for, but he had drooled on his arm. He rubbed it dry and looked around him. What must have wakened him was the slam of a car door because the back door of the house opened and a voice shouted, ‘Hello!’

  Dr D’Arcy, still wearing his hat, stopped at the threshold of the library and saw the boy lying on the floor.

  ‘Hi,’ he said. ‘What a sad, sad day.’ He came and hunkered down in front of the boy. The doctor reached out and touched him on the shoulder. Then patted him on the head as he straightened up. The boy did not know what to say. He was on the verge of tears but did not want to show it. ‘You’re making yourself comfortable, I see.’

  ‘Yes.’

  The doctor stepped back out into the hallway. His wife came to him and offered herself for a kiss. He took off his hat and kissed her. The boy looked away.

  ‘Not lonely today, eh?’ said the doctor.

  ‘I have my hands full.’

  ‘Where’s the other boy?’

  ‘In the garden.’

  The doctor hung his hat on the hall stand. He was tall and thin and wore a dark pinstripe suit with a pink shirt and a maroon bow-tie. His thinning hair was Brylcreemed flat to his head. In high heels she was almost as tall as her husband.

  ‘The weather’s wonderful now.’ The do
ctor’s wife beckoned the boy. ‘Let me show you the garden.’

  All three of them went out the back door. The garden was surrounded by a grey stone wall, but the boy could see other gardens with hedges and apple trees.

  ‘It keeps the heat in and the wind out,’ said the doctor’s wife. ‘Do you like flowers?’ The boy said he did. ‘Dahlias and chrysanths are my favourites. I put so much work into my flowers.’

  The doctor produced a packet of Craven A and he and his wife lit cigarettes.

  ‘I suppose you’re a bit young to start,’ he said and they all laughed.

  As they walked around the garden she pointed out various plants and told him things about them. ‘Eternal vigilance when it comes to snails,’ she said. ‘Japonica here. And night-scented stock. Ummm . . .’ She cupped a russet chrysanthemum and inhaled its scent while making swooning noises. The boy looked at her. The parting in her hair was straight. The skin of her scalp was blue-white shining beneath her auburn hair. The doctor walked with his hands joined behind his back.

  Down behind a garden shed they came across the boy’s brother.

  ‘Is that where you are?’ said the doctor’s wife. The younger boy stood up and looked sheepish.

  ‘It was nice and warm here,’ he said.

  ‘What age difference is there between you?’ asked the doctor’s wife.

  ‘I’m ten and a half and he’s twelve and a half.’

  ‘I know what we can do,’ said the doctor.

  ‘What?’