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."