Whatever Happenened to Molly Bloom? (25 page)

Looking back, he realised that he should have stopped writing to naughty Miss Clifford far sooner than he did. It had never really been his intention to board the merry-go-round with Martha or to tease her with false promises. He was not, by nature, cruel the way Boylan could be cruel or, now and then, Molly. He should have broken off with Martha Clifford when his affection for Gerty became too insistent to ignore but the epistolary romance had seemed harmless and unreal in contrast to his feelings for Gerty MacDowell, which were all too real and not at all harmless. It was close to Christmas before, giving himself a shake, he had said farewell to his over-eager correspondent once and for all, having no more need by then of the tawdry thrills that Martha offered.

Back in June he could not, of course, have known that he would ever encounter face to face the little charmer, Gerty, who’d so roused his ardour on a warm, summer evening on Sandymount beach, flirting with him and showing him her stockings from a safe distance. It had shaken him to bump into her again a few weeks later in, of all places, Mrs Dignam’s front parlour.

On seeing him in the doorway, Gerty had blushed peony-pink.

‘Oh!’ she’d said. ‘Oh! Oh!’

In that ghastly moment of recognition guilt had united them. Before she’d known who he was she’d flashed her frillies on Sandymount sands and he’d responded by spilling his seed via a hand in his trouser pocket, all without a word exchanged between them. Transparent stockings covered a multitude of sins and he hadn’t twigged she was lame until she got up to leave.

‘I don’t believe you know Miss MacDowell,’ Mrs Dignam had said. ‘A pleasure to make your acquaintance, Miss MacDowell,’ he had courteously replied, while cursing himself for failing to realise that his friend, Mrs Dignam, and the tempting little puss from the beach might be neighbours.

From the moment of first meeting, Gerty had offered him not just respect but love. He, in return, had smothered his base instincts. There would be time enough for ‘that’, as Gerty called it, when, nominally at least, they were man and wife and had put Dublin far behind them.

Squatting on the cot in his cell in Kilmainham he couldn’t shake off the memory of the last months of his marriage or of the passion Molly had aroused in him when he and she had been young. Now it was over, all over. Molly was at rest in the family plot hard by the railings of the Finglas Road. And where’s your horse-cocked lover now, Molly, he thought, when you need someone to mourn for you? Tipping his boater to some other slut, like as not, or helping our daughter to a bowl of broth in the haunted hall of the Rechabites while his sisters look on askance.

Molly, Molly, I can do no more for you now than light my prison candle and pretend it never happened.

So, alone in the darkness, Mr Leopold Bloom lit the candle stump, blew out the match and, quite without conscience, wept for the wife he’d killed.

TWENTY ONE

N
eville would surely have been able to locate Smile Street, short though it was, but he was too gallant to object when Sarah volunteered to be his guide, mainly, she said, to ensure that he didn’t stray off the straight and narrow and find himself in Montgomery Street and at the mercy of all sorts of wild women.

One wild woman, Neville assured her, was quite enough to be going on with, thank you, but he would, nonetheless, be only too pleased to have her company on what was, after all, an enquiry that involved neither ethics nor etiquette.

The Mercury’s Dublin headquarters were situated in a shabby building squeezed between a shop that sold gas ovens and the premises of a sanitary engineer. The step at the entrance was unwashed and the two narrow street-level windows too, though each was draped inside with heavy brocade curtains that reminded Neville of his one and only visit to a brothel, to which he’d been dispatched by Mr Roper to draft a will for one of the madams who was slowly succumbing to tumours in an unmentionable spot.

The door had brass hinges that uttered not a squeak when Neville leaned upon them and, ushering Sarah before him, quietly entered the Mercury’s bijou hall.

‘Carpet.’ Neville worked his foot into the Axminster. ‘Good quality at that.’

‘Parlour palms and a lovely coleus too,’ said Sarah. ‘My goodness, someone’s keen on their potted plants. I do hope they’re properly watered.’

‘Assiduously, ma’am, I assure you,’ said a voice from the stairs. ‘Every morning, me and me little watering can. Are you a botanist, by any chance?’

‘Alas, no.’ Sarah peered up into the half light. ‘I’m Miss Sarah Tolland and this is Neville Sullivan, soon to be my husband.’

‘Oooo, customers,’ said a female voice from upstairs. ‘Put the bottle away, Jono, and spread the welcome mat.’

‘Definitely not the Equitable,’ Neville whispered in Sarah’s ear as a small, apple-cheeked gent in a chequered tweed lounge suit danced down the staircase and, with a sweep of the arm, said, ‘Step this way, folks, and ignore me good lady who hasn’t learned no proper manners yet.’

Neville had dealt with insurance agents before but Mr J.F. Leonard bore no resemblance to the stiff-necked actuaries who staffed the imposing buildings on Dame Street or west of the Four Courts. He looked more like a market trader than a person skilled in the intricacies of finance, an image endorsed by his uncultured accent and unruly grammar. Sarah seemed quite taken with him, though, and, smiling, followed him into a ground-floor room decorated with yet more potted plants.

‘Cheese here,’ said Mr Leonard with an airy wave at foliage creeping up the wall. ‘Aspidistra there, and that’ – he paused lovingly by a large blue pot – ‘is a Florida Strangler, a variety of fig dashed hard to cultivate indoors. You won’t find many of ’em in Dublin, I can tell you.’

Tearing himself away from the display, he popped behind a tall desk and, placing both hands upon it like a counter jumper from Walpole Brothers, said, ‘Now, what can I do for you good folks? Fire, Theft, Life, Endowment? We have policies to suit all requirements and can trim the premiums to the purse. Please, be seated.’

He waited politely until Sarah eased herself into an armchair upholstered in what may have been buffalo hide and Neville, less comfortably, on to a spindly object with gilded arms. Mr Leonard took his place in a swivel chair behind the desk and, sitting upright, cocked his head and invited Neville to state the nature of his business.

Sarah said, ‘Frankly, Mr Leonard … if you are Mr Leonard …’

‘In person.’

‘Frankly, we hadn’t expected … I mean, you are the Mercury’s Irish Secretary, are you not?’

Mr Leonard chuckled. ‘Not impressed? No, I knows what it looks like. It looks like all this stuff is flash and we takes your money and vanish at first sign of a claim. Ireland, says my employer, is a country in which no man’s honesty goes unchallenged.’

‘Who says … said?’ Neville asked.

‘Mr Rothschild.’

Sarah and Neville piped up in unison. ‘Rothschild!’

‘Well, he ain’t exactly a genuine Rothschild. He’s a Goldstein. But he’s hooked to the bankers by marriage. This here is just one of his little ventures. Me and the missus was shipped over from the Liverpool office to test the waters.’

‘Jews,’ said Neville. ‘You’re Jews.’

‘Do you have something against Jews, Mr Sullivan?’

‘By no means,’ Neville said. ‘It does, however, explain … um, certain facts. Does Mr Goldstein hale from Hungary?’

‘He does, indeed,’ said Mr Leonard, then, with a little admonishing wag of the forefinger, ‘Bloom sent you, didn’t he? You aren’t here to buy a policy. You’re – what? – Bloom’s attorney?’

‘How did you know that Mr Bloom sent us?’ Sarah asked.

‘I done ten years with the Mercury in Liverpool as a false claims inspector and there’s nothing – I mean nothing – you can teach me about fishy business. You, Mr Sullivan, can’t expect me to help you clear Bloom’s name. It’s not in the Mercury’s interests to see Bloom walk free.’

‘Ah-hah! So Mr Bloom does have a policy with your company?’ Neville said. ‘May I have sight of it?’

‘Can’t be doing that unless you’ve a signed letter giving you the right. Have you got such a letter?’

‘No, I have not,’ said Neville.

‘Really, Mr Leonard,’ said Sarah, with a little
tut
, ‘I see no reason to bother Mr Bloom with incidentals at this difficult time.’

‘Difficult as in locked up,’ said Mr Leonard, affability fraying at the edges. ‘Mercury clients are guaranteed confidentiality when they signs on the dotted.’

‘What they are guaranteed and what they are legally entitled to,’ said Neville, ‘are not quite the same. It wouldn’t bother me in the slightest to have the coroner summon you as a witness, Mr Leonard. Then, under oath, you’d be obliged to reveal the terms of Bloom’s policy and, I might add, a great deal about the fly-by-night nature of Mercury Life Assurance.’

‘We ain’t no fly-by-night.’

‘Of course you’re not,’ said Neville smoothly, ‘but by the time I get through with you in court you’ll be commercially tarred and feathered – if you take my meaning – and lucky if you can sell life insurance to Methuselah.’

Mr Leonard twitched his mouth to one side and then the other.

‘Nope,’ he said, at length. ‘I don’t intimidate that easy. I been in many a witness box before now and I can talk double-Dutch with the best of ‘em. Do
you
take
my
meaning, Mr Sullivan?’

Neville opened his mouth to stiffen the threat but only got as far as ‘Um’ before Sarah intervened. ‘Now, Mr Leonard,’ she said, ‘what say we remove Mr Bloom’s name from discussion and you simply sell my fiancé and me a life insurance policy.’ A tilt of the eyebrow and a dazzling smile. ‘I’m sure you’ve a standard form you can offer us.’

‘Crafty,’ said Mr Leonard. ‘Very crafty, Miss Tolland. You’ll want the same sort of policy as your friend Mr Bloom, I suppose?’

‘Mr Bloom? Never heard of him,’ said Sarah, still smiling. ‘A basic life policy in which a husband benefits on the death of a wife would suit us admirably.’

Mr Leonard drummed his fingers on the desk. ‘Or,’ he said, at length, ‘you might be interested in our special family policy.’

‘Family policy?’ said Neville. ‘What sort of terms are offered on a family policy or, to put it plainly, who benefits?’

‘Issue,’ said Mr Leonard.

‘Issue?’ said Neville.

‘Children,’ Mr Leonard said. ‘Kiddies. Husband insures his life and that of his wife on a joint policy to make sure when he or his wife pop off the pay-out goes straight to the children.’

‘Hold on,’ said Neville. ‘Do you mean to say that if either the father or mother dies the children receive the pay-out and the surviving spouse gets nothing?’

‘Plenty of women don’t want their hubby to drink the money away and there are hubbies who distrust their wives so much – wives with a fancy-man, say – they leap at the chance to provide for their kiddies and leave nothing but a poke in the eye for the spouse.’

‘What if the children are too young to receive benefit?’ Sarah Tolland asked.

‘Mercury invests the money until every child alive at the time of the parent’s death reaches sixteen, then we pays out equally to each of the little blighters, male and female, to give the child or children a nest-egg to make a start in life.’

‘And rake in a tidy profit for Mr Goldstein in the process,’ said Neville. ‘How many of these special family policies have you sold since you opened the office in Dublin?’

‘Twenty or thereabouts.’

‘Good Lord!’ said Neville. ‘What’s the average pay-out?’

‘Any sum you care to name, depending on the premium. It’s no penny a week scheme, I admit.’

‘What’s the average sum insured?’ said Sarah.

‘Three to five hundred pounds.’

‘I can readily understand why the Mercury would prefer my client to be found guilty,’ said Neville. ‘If Mrs Bloom died at the hand of an unrelated assailant the daughter stands to collect as soon as she turns sixteen.’

‘That’s right.’

‘How much?’ said Sarah. ‘Three hundred?’

‘Five, in fact.’

‘When did Mr Bloom take out the policy?’ Sarah said.

‘December,’ said Leonard. ‘That’s all I’m saying. If you want a copy of the policy, I’ll need authorisation from Bloom.’

‘One last question,’ Neville said. ‘Am I to understand that Mr Bloom took out a policy that would benefit his daughter and not himself. Only one policy, no other?’

‘No other with this company,’ Mr Leonard replied.

‘Mr Leonard,’ said Sarah, ‘you’ve been exceedingly generous with your time. Thank you.’

‘I’m surprised Bloom didn’t let on his daughter was the one to benefit,’ said Mr Leonard. ‘Even if he’s locked up, I can still do Mr Bloom a special little endowment policy. Sixpence a week mounts up over twenty or twenty-five years, believe me. He could wind up a rich old man.’

‘I’m sure Mr Bloom will be gratified to learn that Mercury Life Assurance has his financial interests at heart,’ said Neville.

‘Just so long as he doesn’t swing,’ said J.F. Leonard.

‘Really?’ Neville said.

‘Oh, yer,’ said Mr Leonard. ‘If he swings all bets are orf.’

Neville Sullivan and his beautiful bride-to-be were partaking of an early lunch in the Metropole Grill in Prince’s Street. One of Sarah Tolland’s most endearing traits, as far as Neville was concerned, was her fondness for eating heartily. He loved to watch her wading into oxtail soup or scoffing a plate of ribs, for he cherished the unscientific notion that a female who approached dining with such enthusiasm would be equally enthusiastic when it came to satisfying her clandestine appetites too.

‘Good?’ he asked, as she bit the head off a shrimp.

‘Delicious,’ Sarah answered and, ladylike, dabbed her lips with a napkin. ‘How’s the rarebit?’

‘I’ve tasted worse.’

Another shrimp fulfilled its destiny. ‘Are you pleased, Neville?’

‘What? With the rarebit?’

‘With the result of our visit to the Mercury?’

‘I suppose I am.’

‘I assume you’ll have no scruple about summoning Leonard to the witness box if the case goes to the Assizes?’

‘None whatsoever,’ Neville said. ‘Heaven knows, we’ll need every scrap we can muster if the Crown rolls out the heavy brigade.’