Solace (32 page)

*

He went to the library later to borrow another book of letters. On his way there, he called into the DVD store. Mossy took Aoife in his arms and talked to her; he took her to
the back of the store, where they kept the children’s films. Aoife reached for the cases and flung them to the floor. Mossy picked them up and asked her which ones she wanted. She did not
answer him, and Mark chose three for her.

‘You don’t want anything yourself?’ Mossy asked. ‘There’s some good stuff just in, new releases.’

‘I’ve plenty to keep me going,’ said Mark.

Mossy scanned the barcodes. ‘I might call out to you this evening, if you’re not busy. I could bring some takeaway around.’

Mark swallowed. ‘I’ve to get pages to McCarthy in the morning,’ he said. It was not true, but he did not want to give up the evening. ‘Thanks anyway, though. Another
time.’

Mossy clicked his tongue. ‘Are you serious? Again? That guy’s taking the piss, man. Does he not realize he needs to cut you a bit of slack at the moment?’

‘I don’t need anyone to cut me any slack.’

‘It’s only common fucking decency for him to take the pressure off you for a while. It seems to me like he’s doing the opposite. What’s his problem?’

‘Leave it,’ Mark said, an edge in his voice that he had not intended; he saw surprise cross Mossy’s face. ‘Sorry. I just mean it’s fine,’ he said.
‘I’m fine. I’m the one who wants to get the work done.’

Mossy said nothing for a moment. ‘You mean McCarthy’s not setting you the deadlines?’ he said then, slowly.

‘I’m giving him the stuff, and he’s getting back to me,’ Mark said. ‘It’s the way I want to do it at the moment. It’s fine.’

Mossy regarded him. ‘And you’re getting good feedback on what you’re giving him?’

Mark nodded firmly. ‘He says it’s really going places.’

‘All right, man,’ Mossy said, sighing as he handed him the DVDs. ‘But even so, you want to take it easy.’

‘I’ll give you a call in a couple of days,’ Mark said, strapping Aoife into the pushchair. ‘I’ve got to get to the library before it closes.’

‘Take it easy, man,’ Mossy said again, coming around the counter to bend down to Aoife, who reached for his face and shouted an indecipherable word of delight.

*

He had only intended to leave Aoife with the librarian for a few minutes. He needed to quote a letter from Scott to Edgeworth, and it was in one of the books that was too old
and precious to be lent out. It would take no time, he told the librarian. But he found himself quickly sucked into other pages, into other books, into looking again at other letters he had read
before and forgotten. It was not until the security guard came to say that the library was closing that he realized how long he had been. It was almost five; an hour had passed since he had left
Aoife. He packed up quickly and went downstairs.

She was still where he had left her, sitting on the floor behind the reference desk, her pushchair parked nearby, but he could see that she had been crying. The woman he had left her with looked
harassed.

‘Thank God,’ she said, as she saw Mark coming. ‘We didn’t know where you had got to.’

‘I was just over in Early Printed, I’m sorry,’ Mark said. At the sound of his voice Aoife threw her crayon aside and began to cry.

The librarian shuddered. ‘I’m afraid she’s been very upset here by herself,’ she said. ‘I really thought you would be only a couple of minutes.’

‘I’m sorry,’ said Mark, as she let him through the low gate at the side of the reference desk. ‘I lost track of time.’

‘Well, maybe a library is not the best place for a little one after all,’ said the woman, and she avoided his eye. ‘We’ve been very busy here this last hour and, as I
said, she was very upset.’

Mark saw the irritation on the faces of people queuing at the circulation desk. ‘I’m really very sorry,’ he said again, as he lifted Aoife up. ‘It won’t happen
again.’

‘I’m afraid it can’t happen again,’ the librarian said. ‘I shouldn’t have taken her in here in the first place. I just wanted to help, and she is such a
lovely little one, but we can’t take this responsibility.’

‘I understand.’

As he went past the queue with the pushchair he kept his gaze straight ahead, not wanting to meet anyone’s eyes. When he felt a hand on his arm, he flinched. His first impulse was to keep
going, but it was McCarthy. He nodded down to the pushchair.

‘Babysitter cancelled on you?’

Mark shrugged. ‘Babysitter ran out of patience,’ he said, glancing back to the circulation desk.

‘Well, it livened up a day in the doldrums for them.’

‘She caused a bit of a scene, I think,’ Mark said, and he bent to offer Aoife her soother. To his relief, she took it. ‘She can really tear the place down when she’s in
the mood.’

‘You can swap her for my thirteen-year-old any time, if you really want to see what a kid looks like when they’re in a mood.’

Mark laughed. It struck him how much he had come to like McCarthy over the last while; how strange it felt. A tension seemed to have fallen away between them. Now that McCarthy could see he was
really serious about his thesis, Mark thought, he was treating him with new respect. Talking to him more on the level. Mark appreciated it.

‘I’m really looking forward to having a chat with you about the chapter I’m working on,’ he said. ‘I’ve decided to take it in a whole different
direction.’

McCarthy blinked slowly. ‘Oh, yes,’ he said. He took a few steps forward and, as Mark kept pace with him, pulling the pushchair backwards, something occurred to him. He raised an
eyebrow at McCarthy, who looked back almost apprehensively.

‘Grace told me you’d be in Galway at a conference today,’ Mark said.

McCarthy frowned. ‘Galway?’ he said, and shook his head. ‘Wild horses wouldn’t drag me to a conference in Galway. Where the hell did Grace get that idea?’

‘I don’t know. She just told me that was why you wouldn’t be around when I asked if she could give me an appointment with you today.’

It was something he had never seen before: a blush on McCarthy’s face. It started in his hairline and spread right down to the collar of his shirt. Mark could not work out what was
happening. He knew he had caught McCarthy out somehow, but on what? Was he having an affair with Grace or something?

McCarthy sighed almost frantically in the direction of the circulation desk. ‘Jesus, what is the hold-up?’ he said, looking at his watch. ‘Some of us have trains to
catch.’ He glanced at Mark. ‘If you can come in to me next week some time I can have a talk with you about that draft. Or those drafts, I should say. Didn’t you give me more than
one?’

‘Two, yeah, but you can pretty much disregard them,’ Mark said. ‘I’m planning to give you a completely new one by Monday.’

McCarthy nodded, but he did not look impressed. ‘Monday?’ he said, and peeled his sleeve away from over his watch once again. ‘You’re hardly going to get me a whole new
draft by Monday.’

‘No, no, I definitely will,’ Mark said, feeling his excitement over the chapter begin to swell again. ‘I just need the weekend to get some shape on it. I was over looking at a
couple of the letters she wrote around the time of
Ormond
. I really think they’re going to bring the whole thing together. I think—’

‘Look, Mark,’ McCarthy interrupted sharply. But he did not go on. He seemed uncertain. As the queue inched towards the desk, he stepped out of it suddenly and let the people behind
him move ahead. He put a hand to his chin.

Discomfort crept up on Mark. He moved the pushchair into the space between two bookshelves and turned away from it. ‘You have read the drafts I gave you?’ he asked, and immediately
regretted the words. They sounded childish, petulant. ‘It doesn’t matter if you haven’t,’ he said hastily. ‘Like I said, I’m going to rework it
anyway.’

‘I’ve read the drafts, Mark,’ McCarthy said. He sighed. ‘I mean, I’ve tried to read them. They’re not easy to follow. They don’t really seem to make a
whole lot of sense.’

Mark opened his mouth to speak, but McCarthy held up a hand to stop him. ‘I think you need to take a break from the thesis for a while, Mark,’ he said quietly. He sounded as though
he did not want to be saying this at all. ‘I think,’ he looked towards the pushchair behind Mark, ‘you have a lot on your plate at the moment, and nobody expects you to be able to
do it all.’

Mark stared. ‘You’re telling me to stop working on my thesis?’ he said. At his tone, two women in the queue looked to where he and McCarthy stood. ‘You’re my
supervisor, and you’re telling me to jack the fucking thing in?’ He laughed, and the women turned quickly away. McCarthy looked extremely unhappy. As Mark watched him fiddle with the
books he was carrying, shifting them under one arm and then back under the other, something else dawned on him. ‘You told Grace not to make any appointments for me, didn’t you?’
he said, bending low to force McCarthy to meet his eye. ‘That’s why she gave me that story about Galway. Am I right?’

‘Mark, as your supervisor I have responsibilities towards you,’ McCarthy said quietly. ‘I knew a meeting with me would be disappointing for you because of what I would have to
say to you about your work. I wanted that meeting to happen at the right time. I didn’t want you to be rushed into it. I was hoping you would be able to get a bit of distance from the
draft.’

Mark grabbed the handles of the pushchair and jerked it out of the aisle. ‘I won’t bother you again,’ he said to McCarthy. He turned his back and moved on. McCarthy called
after him as he went, but he did not follow. As the grey-haired security guard saw Mark approach the exit, he left his booth and, with a smile down at the baby, held open the door.

*

When he answered a call from his father that evening and told him that he would not be coming down that weekend, Mark did not mention his work. He did not want to hear his
father’s attempts at conversation about Edgeworth, as though she were someone he often bumped into buying groceries in Keogh’s. Aoife had a bad cold, Mark told him, probably something
she had picked up in the swimming-pool, and he did not want to put her through the journey until she was better. Had he taken her to the doctor, his father had wanted to know, and he had said he
had. Dr Gorman was as good as they came when it came to getting rid of a cold, his father said, and Mark said he was sure that was true, but Dr Gorman was in Longford, not in Stoneybatter. If he
wanted, said his father, he could probably get Aoife an appointment today or tomorrow. He did not want to make the trip with her, Mark said again, and his father said again that it was not even a
two-hour journey, and that Aoife could sleep in the car. She was not sleeping, Mark said, and his father said that sounded very serious, and that a second opinion could hardly hurt, and again he
said that Dr Gorman was the only doctor he would ever trust with a child who had a cold. That’s because Doctor Gorman was the only doctor he knew, Mark said, and then he said that Aoife was
crying, even though she was not, and that he had to go.

‘I’ll be down next weekend,’ he said. ‘I promise.’

‘I’ll call you again later on,’ his father said, and he did, but Mark did not answer the phone.

*

Clive Robinson’s house was third in a neat red-brick terrace. The path to the front door was narrow and short; four steps did it, and then Mark was looking at the
doorbell, and at the brass knocker in the shape of a lion’s head. He chose the doorbell: it seemed less intrusive – until it rang, sounding like church bells at close range. After a
moment, a shadow moved behind the stained glass of the door panel, and came quickly closer. There was the click and scrabble of the latch being turned.

His first thought was that he had known Robinson all this time, and had somehow forgotten it; he must have met him somewhere with Joanne. The familiarity of the face with its grey beard set his
mind rifling through the possibilities: had there been a walk through college, a lunchtime sitting on the lawn when this man had stopped to talk to Joanne, when she had introduced him to Mark?

‘Yes?’ said Robinson, in a tone of careful surprise.

‘Hello,’ said Mark, and nodded, though he did not know at what.

‘From the swimming-pool, yes?’ said Robinson, and then Mark remembered where he had seen him before. He almost laughed at the coincidence, until he saw that Robinson was not
similarly amused. In fact, he looked frightened.

‘How did you get my address?’ said Robinson. In an attempt to reassure him, Mark held up his hands, but this seemed to further alarm Robinson, who moved to shut the door.

‘I’m Mark Casey,’ Mark blurted loudly, and after a moment, that seemed frozen, he watched the plates of Robinson’s face shift and resettle. ‘Thanks for your
card,’ he added, talking too quickly, running the words into each other. ‘The one about Joanne.’

Robinson stared. ‘Come in,’ he said eventually, and gestured, in a dazed sort of way, into the hall. ‘Come in,’ he said again, and as he stepped back, there was a howl
and a sudden flash of black at his feet: a cat, bolting away up a staircase now, stopping to survey them both with a resentful glare.

‘Castor,’ Robinson said apologetically. ‘Named by my wife. She liked all that French lot.’

He showed Mark into a small sitting room. Leather armchairs faced a delicately tiled fireplace, and to one side of it, an old writing bureau. The mantelpiece was cluttered with cards for a
birthday, two of them homemade by children. Wild flowers stood in a painted clay vase. Where there must once have been double doors, the room gave through to a large kitchen, another cat sleeping
in the sunlight on a table piled with papers and books.

‘Please sit,’ said Robinson, and took a newspaper from one of the leather armchairs. ‘There’s coffee, just made,’ he said, ‘and also, of course, tea. Would
either interest you?’

‘Coffee would be good,’ Mark said, and he watched as Robinson moved around the kitchen, taking down mugs and pouring in the coffee and the milk.

‘I really should have thought to ask whether you take milk before I put it in,’ he said, as he came back into the smaller room. ‘But, as you’ll no doubt have noticed,
it’s something of a surprise to see you. To meet you. Even though, of course, I’m delighted you’ve come.’