The Luck Of Ginger Coffey (5 page)

Suffering J! No sense talking, was there? He went out

and, while he was in the bathroom, the phone rang again. He hurried up the corridor.

"Yes," she said to the phone. "Yes — wait, I want to explain something. I mean apropos of this afternoon. Ginger doesn't have our passage money home. He spent it. ... Yes. ... So that leaves me no choice, does it? . . . Yes . . . yes, here's Ginger. I'll let you tell him yourself."

"Ginger?" Gerry's voice said. "It's all set. IVe given you a good build-up and old MacGregor wants to see you in his office at three tomorrow afternoon."

"Thanks a million, Gerry. But what did you tell him?"

"I told him you'd worked on a Dublin newspaper for two years and said, after that, you'd been a press officer in the Army, and then that you were a public relations man for Irish whiskey out here. It sounded good, believe

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me.

"But, Holy God!" Coffey said. "It's not true. I never worked on a newspaper."

At the other end of the line there was a Remembrance Day hush. Then Grosvenor said: "Ginger, the point is, do you want this job or don't you?"

"Of course I do, but —"

"But nothing. Everybody bullshits out here. Every employer expects it. The point is to get in. After that, doing the job is up to you."

"But maybe I can't do it," Coffey said.

"Beggars can't be choosers," said Vera's voice. She reached out, took the receiver from him and said: "Thanks, Gerry, you're an angel. Thanks very much. . . . Yes. . . . Yes, I know. . . . Good night." She replaced the receiver, turned away, walked down the hall and went into their bedroom. He followed her but she shut the door. When he tried the door, it was locked,

"Vera? I want to talk to you?"

"Go away," she said. She sounded as if she were crying again.

"Listen/' he said. "Don't you want any supper?"

"No. And go away, will you? Please! Sleep on the living-room sofa. I want to be alone."

Ah, well. What was the use? He went back to the kitchen where Paulie was at table, reading some trashy magazine. He got out Vera's sausages and offered Paulie one but she shook her head and, still reading, carried her dishes to the sink.

"Stay and have a chat with me, Apple?"

"I have to study, Daddy."

"Just a minute, miss," he said, surprised at the anger in his voice. He saw she was surprised too. It wasn't like him to be cross. "Sit down," he said. "I want to ask you something."

"Yes, Daddy?"

"Apple, do you want to go back to Ireland?"

"Jeepers, no. I like it here."

"Why?"

"Well, the kids are more grown-up here. And school's more — oh, it's just nicer, that's all. Besides, I said good-by to everybody at home. I'm going to look silly going back now. I wish we weren't going back, Daddy."

"Well, we're not," he said. "It's much better here. You're right. I wish your mother could see that, though."

"But Mummy's never wanted to go home."

"Is that so?" he said. "That's not the way I hear it."

"She likes it here, Daddy. Honestly she does. She's just afraid you won't find a job, that's all."

"I'll get a job," he said. "No need to panic."

"Sure. Of course," Paulie said. "Can I go now, Daddy?"

"All right, Pet." You'd think he was a leper or something, she was that anxious to run away from him. Children . . . children . . .

He ate the remaining three sausages and lit a smoke. If Veronica really wanted to stay over here, why the blazes couldn't she say so? No bloody faith in him, that was it. Suffering J!

He went into the living room with the Montreal Star but he was too upset to read it. He went back into the kitchen and brought out two quarts of beer. Last of the last. He poured himself a glass, lay down on the sofa and switched the radio on, trying to salvage something out of this miserable bloody evening. He searched for music, for music hath charms and had better have, because, looking back on the day, he had a savage bloody breast on him, all right. Hat in hand to younger men, wife sniveling to strangers, asked to lie his way into some job he'd be caught out in, and what else? Oh, a savage bloody breast!

And all there was to drink was this gassy Canuck beer that gave him heartburn. And to sleep on, this bloody sofa that was too short. No faith. If your nearest and dearest had no faith in you, then how could a man give his all? Where would he be unless he still could hope? Without hope, he'd be done for. Aye, a savage bloody breast.

"Daddy? Dad-eee?"

"Yes, Apple," he said, sitting up in hope.

"Daddy, I can't hear to study with all that noise. Could you turn the radio off?"

"Right, Pet."

Not even able to enjoy a bit of music. Bloody females! He lay back, entering a world where no earthly women were. In that world soft houris moved, small women of a Japanese submissiveness, administering large doubles and sweet embraces in rooms filled with comfortable club sofas and beds. In that world, men of thirty-nine were Elder Brothers, prized over any Greek stripling. In that world, a man no longer spent his life running uphill,

his hope in his mouth, his shins kicked by people with no faith in him. In that world, all men had reached the top of the hill; there were no dull jobs, no humiliating interviews, no turndowns; no man was saddled with girning wives and ungrateful daughters, there were unlimited funds to spend, the food was plentiful and nonfattening, there were no Father Cogleys handing out warnings, no newspapers worrying you with atom bombs, no sneerers and mockers waiting to see you fail, no rents to pay, no clothes to buy, no bank managers. In that world you could travel into beautiful jungles with four Indian companions, climb a dozen distant mountain peaks, sail rafts in endless tropic seas. You were free. By flicking your fingers in a secret sign, you could move backwards or forwards in time and space, spending a day in any age that took your fancy, but as a leader of that age, the happiest man of that day. In that free world . . .

In that world, both quarts finished, Ginger Coffey fell asleep.

Two He came to consciousness, aware of a telephone ringing. Sunlight struck down on him from the window in a white column filled with tiny, floating feathers of dust. He turned his eyes from that light and, as in a frame from a film, saw his wife pass by in the corridor. The ringing stopped.

He had lain all night in his clothes. Mother of God, she would think he'd been drunk. Up with him now! He undressed, dropping clothes in a heap, found blankets and sheet in the cupboard, made up the sofa as a bed and hopped back in his underpants, closing his eyes as she passed back to the bedroom. Yes, that was a little victory.

Relaxed, he lay for a while, listening to the voice of a French-Canadian radio announcer upstairs, listening to the thump and shuffle of Madame Beaulicu's feet on the ceiling, remembering that last night he had been supposed to tell Madame whether or not they would keep this apartment for another month. Oh, well. Tell her tonight, when he knew about the new job. The job. That started him thinking of the day ahead, remembering that Veronica now knew the worst about the tickets, remembering that she would want to know how he had spent the money and what they were going to do. Ah, dear God!

He exhaled noisily, feathering up the ends of his mus-

tache. As u§ual, you must balance the good with the bad. And if there was no good at the moment, then think of the important things. Health and strength and a wife and daughter. And here you are in a foreign land listening to French on the radio and you a man who has cut loose from all the old codology and cant at home, a man who struck out alone in search of fame and fortune. So, you're not dead yet. Now, raise your big carcass out of this excuse for a bed. Lift it. One, two, three, and up! And up he got, feeling a touch of heartburn after last night's beer, a twinge in his knee as he went heavily down the dark corridor to knock on her door. "Veronica?"

He went in. Nobody there. She had already made up the bed. He put on his dressing gown and slippers and wandered back up the corridor to the bathroom. When he came out, he saw the pair of them in the kitchen. Paulie, her head in pincurls, eternal book propped up against the milk jug as she finished her Corn Flakes. That child didn't eat enough and Veronica didn't seem to care. But when he looked at Veronica, he forgot to be angry. She was in her dressing gown, her dark hair down about her shoulders. She smiled at him. "Did you sleep all right?" she asked.

"Like a top," he said, kissing the end of her nose.

"I'm sorry about last night," she said. "I had a terrible headache. It made me grumpy."

He looked to see that Paulie was not watching, then ran his hand down his wife's back, giving her buttocks a little slap. "Sure, that's all right," he said. "Was that the phone I heard earlier?"

"Yes, Gerry rang. He wants us to have lunch with him today before you go for your interview. His treat, he said."

"Isn't he the decent skin, though?" Coffey said. "You told him yes, I hope."

"Of course. Now, eat your breakfast/'

There must be at least two eggs in the helping of scrambled eggs she ladled out to him. He peppered and salted it, warmed by the sunlight, by this matutinal kindness; sure that it was a good omen somehow. He thought of J. F. Coffey, Journalist. He liked the sound of that. Or better, Coffey, the Editor; Coffey of the Tribune . . . Yes, it was a grand morning, right enough. Maybe today his ship would come in.

"Was Madame Beaulieu around yet?" he asked.

"Not yet."

"Well, we'll tell her about the place tomorrow," he said. "Although, if I get this job, I don't fancy staying on in this hole."

"I've been thinking," Veronica said. "If we're really going to stay I'm going to get a job as well. Paulie's out until after three, five days a week. There's no need for me to sit at home, is there?"

No need for her to get a job either, was there? He could take care of his own. Ah, this was old stuff, her wanting a job, wanting to slave away in some shop. Ah, for God's sake! But he held his whist: let her dream, the woman. He finished his eggs, ate four pieces of toast and sat idle over his third cup of tea while Paulie rushed off to school and Veronica washed the breakfast dishes. And after, following Veronica down the corridor in the morning sunlight, everything quiet, everyone else off to work, he stood in the bedroom door watching her as she took off her dressing gown and stood in her pink slip. His Dark Rosaleen.

"Lay out my old blue suit, will you?" he said. "I'd better wear it today. They're shocking conservative in their clothes over here."

Obediently she leaned into the closet to get the suit and at that moment the sight of a fold of her slip caught

between the cleft of her buttocks aroused him to a sluggish, familiar desire. Married as long as they were, desire was not something a man could waste. He dropped his own dressing gown and pulled her down on the bed. He kissed her, fumbled her slip off her, then remembered. He looked at her, and, obedient, she went to the bathroom. He shut his eyes, carefully nursing his desire until she came back. Then, forgetting her years of complaints about his roughness, his selfishness, he took her, tumbling her naked beneath him. Animal, his breathing harsh in the morning silence, he labored towards that moment of release and fulfillment. And afterwards, fell down beside her, pulling her on top of him, crushing her face against the reddish, graying hair on his chest. He exhaled in contentment; dozed off to sleep.

Ten minutes later, he awoke to find her sitting up in bed beside him, smoking a cigarette, her cheek reddened by contact with his unshaven chin. He was in good form, this morning: her body, familiar as his own, still could rouse him to another round. He reached up, taking hold of her breasts, smiling at her, his mustache ends curling upwards in anticipation —

"No, Ginger." She drew back, put her cigarette in his mouth, slipped off the bed and went into the bathroom. That was women for you, they never enjoyed anything. He heard her begin to run a bath.

"Ginger?"

"Yes?"

"Ginger, promise you'll tell me the truth?"

"Promise."

"Who do you love more? Paulie or me?"

"Love both of you, Kitten."

"But if anything happened to Paulie that would be worse for you than if anything happened to me, wouldn't it?"

"Nothing's going to happen to anyone," he said. "Oh, Kitten, I feel it in my bones. Today is going to be the day that counts. There's a law of averages in life. You just have to wait for your chance to come up/'

"But, supposing you had to decide in a matter of life or death? I mean between Paulie and me. You know, one of those things about save the mother or save the child. Which would you save?"

"Will you, for the love of Mike, shut up and get on with your bath?" he said contentedly.

"No, answer me. Which one would you save?"

"Well, I suppose if a ship was sinking, I'd save Paulie. I mean, she'd have all her life before her. Kids of her own and so forth."

"And what makes you think I can't have any more kids?" she said. "Good grief, it's not my fault we hadn't any more kids. And I still can have them, otherwise why did you send me off to the bathroom this morning? What do you think I am — a grandmother? Most men — let me tell you — most men still find me very attractive, do you hear?"

"Listen, Kitten," he said. "I didn't mean that. I was only saying that Paulie has her whole life before her. We haven't."

"Maybe you haven't," she said. The bath water began to run again. "But I have," she said. "God, you're selfish!"

After her bath, she cheered up. She put on her best black suit for lunch because they both knew Gerry would take them to some posh place. Yes, he was the soul of generosity, Gerry, always lending them his car for a run up north, inviting them out to parties and for lunch. Not that Ginger hadn't held their end up, when he could. Matter of fact — although Vera didn't know it — that was where some of the return passage money went. Al-

though, even in these last days when Coffey had to cut his entertaining to a duck egg for lack of spondulicks, Gerry never let that make one bit of difference. None of your eyes right and cross the street for him when a pal was down on his luck. Ah, no. Dead on, Gerry was. A heart of oak.