Dead I Well May Be (10 page)

Mouse is the cute pet name I’ve been attempting to impose on her, with some success. Her name for me was Rat, but I was never very keen on this and it has petered out recently.

Fucking bugs everywhere, she says.

Not literally everywhere.

There’s a dead one beside the phone, on the wall, disgusting.

I’m sorry, Mouse.

I mean to say, Michael, can’t you get DDT or Raid or anything?

I’ve tried boric acid.

What about the exterminator?

Been and gone.

So far it’s hardly Abelard and Héloïse, but she is naked, which is something. I pull off my jeans and T-shirt and carry her into the bedroom.

Have you got a beer? she asks.

It’s hardly my place to lecture her about the hour, so I go get one from the fridge. I take one myself and it hits the spot.

On the bed her back is arched and tense like a long bow, her lips are red, and that’s all it takes. She’s so pale, you could lose her in the sheets. I kiss her white belly and she lies there and grins at me, that hair curling down onto her shoulder. Looking at her, I sometimes forget to breathe. It’s all worth it, the risk, the fear. I mean, Jesus. I slip beside her and we make love, very slow and intricate for a half hour,
and when we’re done we take a drink and lie there and then we do it all again. Fast this time, frantic. I climb on top of her and she wraps those long legs around my back; she moans and digs her nails into my shoulder. She’s intoxicating. Heady. I close my eyes and drink in her smell and feel her touch. I kiss her breasts and her neck and I lick under her arms, and she bites me on the shoulder.

More, she says.

More what?

Shut up, she says.

We screw like I’ve just been released from prison, and we come together and lie there panting in each other’s sweat.

When we’re both recovered we have another beer, stick on the radio, and I wander into the kitchen to make her breakfast.

I’m taking up riding again, she says from the living room.

Horses?

No, pigs, what do you think? Darkey’s getting it for me.

Nice of him.

He’s a nice guy, you know.

Yeah, that’s the rumor.

It’s when I’ve made scrambled eggs and tea and a toasted bagel that I remember to ask:

How’s the big guy?

Andy?

Aye, Andy.

A little better; he’s breathing well. Darkey phoned this morning with info, and he says he’s good, he’ll be ok. They’ve moved him to some new place.

What sort of a place?

Different part of the hospital, not the morgue or anything.

Good.

It was terrible. What do you think about it?

I don’t want to tell her what I think about it, so I just say:

That’s good about Andy. How did you get down here, anyway? The bar must have been crazy still with people.

No, no one’s there. Just Mom and Dad and me.

Yeah, well anyway, shouldn’t you be in bed? You were up with him half the night.

I was, and me and Mom actually went to visit him first thing this morning. We didn’t get in again, of course. Mom says she was always very fond of Andy, which isn’t true at all. Anyway, you’re right. I am tired. Mouse is tired. I want to sleep here, with you.

I’m suddenly very thoughtful. I wouldn’t put it past Darkey to have had her followed. Could be a goon outside right now. It’s by no means impossible. Andy getting beaten up and all Darkey’s talk about Bridget being his and the young don’t have his stamina or whatever. A chill goes through me.

No, seriously, though, how did you get down here? I ask.

I took the train. Where’s my eggs?

Eggs are coming.

You know, Bridget, I think in the future we have to be a lot more careful about—

Where are my eggs? she screams, pretending to be a diva.

We eat and go to bed, but I can’t sleep. I find myself obsessed by the idea of Darkey tailing her. In my first week in America, Scotchy sold me a pair of binoculars he’d stolen from some guy’s car. He said I’d need them all the time in this line of work and, of course, I’ve never used them. While she snoozes by the fan, I pull on some clothes, grab the binocs, and take the stairs up to the roof. It’s a hot day and the light up here is blinding off the water tower and the roof and it takes me a minute or two to adjust to it. I go over to the side of the building and look down. Most of the cars are familiar, but there are four I don’t recognize. It’s hard to tell if anyone is inside them. If you walk on this roof and over to the next building you can get a better look at the plates and the make of vehicle. I stare through the binocs and memorize all four numbers to write down later. I wait for a long time for something to happen but nothing does.

I go back downstairs to Bridget.

I meet Ratko outside the apartment, and he’s coming in to see me. He has a bottle and three glasses. Three. Christ, she must have been pretty damn loud and obvious.

I open the door and shout through:

Mouse, make yourself decent. We’ve got company.

I hear her wake groggily and go off to the bedroom to pull on some clothes.

Her panties are in the hall, and I crack open the bedroom door and pass them through to her.

Your whips, I say.

My what?

Underpants.

That’s so Irish of you, she says and kisses my hand.

Ratko sees me smile and laughs his Santa laugh.

He loves to see me and Bridget together. I sit next to him. She comes out in my jeans and my Undertones T-shirt. Of course, she looks devastating.

Ratko Yalovic pours us a drink from a clear bottle. When he’s in a good mood, he pours me from the bottle that has the gold leaf in it, but it’s hot and his wife has been on to him about the mice and the roaches, so today it’s the rotgut.

He tells us about his problems, which are all domestic, involving wife and child, and are not really problems at all. I solve them with platitudes and clichés and he seems satisfied and genuinely grateful.

We talk about the weather, and he asks Bridget about her life. She gives him answers that are neutral and noncommittal, designed for my ears too.

I ask Bridget if she wants to nap while we talk, but she doesn’t. She likes the different company. She kisses me on the cheek as a thank-you for my concern.

Handsome couple, you two should just go off together, Ratko says, maybe getting a little buzzed and weepy from the booze but eerily echoing what I’ve been thinking for the last couple of hours. For my heart is suddenly filled with warm feelings towards Bridget: a little difficult she may be, but she’s good and sweet-natured and you’d be lucky ever to come across such a one again.

Strong childbearing hips, I say.

Bridget laughs, and it pleases all of us.

No, you should go, leave the city, go to country, Ratko persists.

We’d go to California, she says. Or Hawaii or someplace where there’s sun and a big ocean.

Sounds good to me, I say and look at her, and she takes my hand.

What’s Yugoslavia like? she asks Ratko, knowing that he would love to tell her.

Beautiful country, coast, mountains, rivers, my parents from close to Nis, where Constantine the Great is born.

We could go there, she says.

No, you could go Ireland, Ratko says firmly.

He leans over, clinks my glass, to emphasize his point.

Yeah, we could go to Ireland, she says, liking the idea.

I thought you wanted sun, I say.

It must be sunny sometimes, she says.

I shake my head.

She laughs again.

Sometimes? she asks.

Not a time, especially not in summer, Mouse. Hell no, why do you think they’re always killing each other over there? It’s the bloody weather. Depressing.

She’s not listening.

I really would love to go to Ireland. It’s my roots, she says.

She wrinkles up her nose and looks wistful for a second or two. It makes her so unbearably beautiful that I get a little mad at her.

Get Darkey to take you, he can afford it, I say, with a hint of a sneer. She doesn’t pick up on it, though.

Oh, he is, next year. We’re going for three weeks. Darkey knows someone that owns a castle in Donegal. Maybe it doesn’t rain so much there.

Listen, in Yugoslavia, Ratko says, and he’s off on some story about the Old Country. This one involves Tito and the National Science Institute’s attempt to control the weather for a crucial World Cup match in the middle 1970s. The whole story reeks of bullshit, but Ratko’s fat face is choking with laughter, and whether it’s true or not all three of us are in stitches by the end of it:

The snow comes—Ratko concludes—and Yugoslavia beats West Germany, two to nil, and Marshal Tito promotes the colonel to general after game and everybody in the whole country but Tito knows truth but we like him, and no one wants to spoil it by telling, and poor Tito go to his grave thinking Yugoslavia leads world in controlling atmosphere….

Ratko laughs, and his face goes pink and he is barely able to contain himself.

Tears are in my eyes, too, and Bridget looks over at me and kisses me. And I’m thinking we
should
run away together. Ratko, of course, is right.

We have another shout, and Ratko must have knocked a few back already this morning because he starts to sing a depressing little Serbian number about the Field of Blackbirds.

Michael, you sing something, Bridget says, and it’s not the time and it’s not the place and I’m not in the mood, but how could you say no?

Oh Danny Boy, the pipes, the pipes are calling, from glen to glen, and down the mountainside, the summer’s gone…

I give her the first couple of verses, but I can’t finish the song. I’m all choked up and a little disappointed in her. Why doesn’t she ever listen to me? I was serious about us going away together. I mean, really, what is there for us here?

Bridget lies down on the couch with a grin on her face, but Ratko senses my mood and a cloud of gloom passes over him, and I know I’m going to have to cheer him up now with the one topic that will please him.

Listen, Ratko, you know the way you’re always saying that Danny the Drunk is some kind of genius, well, this morning, I’m in McDonald’s and he comes off with some remark about the emperor V—

Why is this place always so dirty? Bridget asks Ratko, sitting up, interrupting me. It annoys me and my mood flips. Maybe we’re not so bloody compatible.

Ratko stands, sighs.

I better go, my friend, he says, terribly slowly and tragically, like bloody Topol or some East European dissident being carted off to Siberia. I can see he really has to go, so I don’t press him.

Aye, well, see ya, mate, I say, closing the door after him.

I turn to Bridget.

Well, that was nice, wasn’t it? I say.

But she’s been quiet, and now she lifts her head and stares at me. It’s the look. I can tell. She’s about to say something that will frighten the bejesus out of me. Please, God, make her not be pregnant. Darkey
would insist they get married, and then if it came out looking like me? Please make it not be that.

Let’s go away this weekend, both of us together, she says.

Where would we go? I ask, relieved.

She shrugs, tugs at a knot in her hair. She looks like the mouse I always call her.

What happened last night, Michael? she asks.

I can’t tell if she’s avoiding the question, or bored with the subject, or suddenly remembering that she likes to live only in the world of the possible, or maybe she’s just now recalling the horror of less than a dozen hours ago.

With Andy?

No, afterwards. What did you do? she asks.

What did I do or what did we do? I ask.

What did you all do afterwards? To get back for Andy. You had that blood on your shirt, and, and I heard something, she says and does not finish.

I look at her. This baby talk has irritated me, irritated me more than it should irritate me, but it still has.

Ok, Bridget, if that’s the game, let me ask you a question. What exactly is it that you think this nice guy Darkey does?

He works, he has a business, she says nonchalantly.

And what is it we do, me and Andy and Scotchy and Big Bob and his boys? We have our union cards, but I’m no brickie or spark or anything like that. I wish I was, I’d get more.

I know what you do. I think I do. Darkey pays Mr. Duffy and Mr. Duffy gives Darkey building contracts and Darkey employs you to make sure that all the regulations are right.

She doesn’t fool me. She’s being coy. She knows it all. All the ugly little details, which makes me wonder even more what game it is exactly that she’s playing. Does she want the details so it strengthens me over Darkey, or do the details strengthen him over me?

Well, that’s mostly it, I suppose, I say, confused.

What happened last night? she asks again.

No one died, if that’s what you want to know, I say.

Breath escapes from her body and her face loses its rigidity. So that
is what she wanted to know. That’s the line. Murder is the line. As long as it stops at that. But that’s ok. There are worse places to draw it than that.

You should head up. You should head up home, and I’ll come on a different train, I say after a moment.

She looks at me. Her eyes are green. Emerald, in fact.

Michael, what do you want to do with your life?

What do you want to do with
your
life? I say straight back.

You first, she says, twisting her hair with a finger.

I don’t know. You know, I, I read a lot of books on the train and stuff, I begin, embarrassed.

You read books?

Yes, Jesus, of course. Anyway, I might try to get to college or something. I don’t have any O or A levels, but I don’t think that matters over here.

She yawns inadvertently.

What does Darkey want to do with his life? I ask, sarcastically.

She smiles in a dreamy way. Jesus, they’ve discussed it—their future—and it’s one she likes. Christ on a bike.

He has all these silly romantic notions, she says.

Darkey, romantic? The thought makes me sick, but I don’t say anything. I stare at her but she doesn’t see. She’s getting ready to go.