“She left her husband, you know,” said Miss Joyce, pulling a face. “What class of a person does something like that?”
“Good enough for him,” said Miss Ambrosia. “I’m going to leave a husband one day too. I’ve always felt that my second marriage will be much more successful than my first.”
“Well, I think it’s shocking,” said Miss Joyce. “And her with two children to look after.”
“Whenever I look at Edna O’Brien,” continued Mr. Denby-Denby, “I get the impression that she wants to put every man she meets across her knee and give them a good spanking until they show her the proper respect. Oh, to be the bare bottom beneath that alabaster palm!”
Miss Ambrosia spat a little of her tea out and even Miss Joyce allowed herself something approaching a smile.
“But anyway,” he said after a moment, shaking his head to dismiss these ideas. “You were telling us about your weekend, Mr. Avery. Please tell me that it wasn’t all rugby and James Joyce.”
“I could make something up if you like,” I told him, putting down my newspaper and looking across at him.
“Go on so. I’d love to know what sordid little fantasies come to life in that mind of yours. I bet they’d make a Gypsy blush.”
He had me there. If I had actually told him any of the fantasies that kept me awake at nights, the two women might have fainted and he might have leaped across the room in lust. I’d killed a priest, after all, the last time I recounted the things that I wanted to do, and had no desire to have anymore blood on my hands.
“When I was twenty-one,” continued the ridiculous popinjay, looking toward the fireplace and attempting what can only be called a faraway look, “I was out on the town every night of the week. There wasn’t a girl in Dublin who was safe when I was nearby.”
“Really?” asked Miss Ambrosia, turning to him with an expression that mirrored my own.
“Oh I know what you’re thinking, Missy,” said Mr. Denby-Denby. “You look at me now and you think how could that slightly plump man in the autumn of his years, albeit with a magnificent head of blond hair, ever have been attractive to girls of my age but I promise you, if you could have seen me in my youth I was quite the gallant. There was many a girl who threw her cap in the ring for me. Lock up your daughters, that’s what the people of Dublin used to say when they saw Desmond Denby-Denby coming. But those days are gone now, of course. For every aging butterfly, there’s a young caterpillar. You, Mr. Avery, are that young caterpillar. And you must enjoy your larval period, for it will come to an end all too soon.”
“What time does the Minister have to be in the Dáil today?” I asked Miss Joyce, hoping to bring this conversation to an end, and she opened her diary, running a finger down the left-hand side of the page as she tapped the ash from her cigarette into her Princess Grace of Monaco ashtray.
“Eleven o’clock,” she said. “But I have Miss Ambrosia down to accompany him this morning.”
“I can’t,” said Miss Ambrosia, shaking her head.
“Why ever not?” asked Miss Joyce.
“Auntie Jemima.”
“Ah,” said Miss Joyce, and Mr. Denby-Denby rolled his eyes.
“I’ll do it,” I said. “It’s a sunny day. I’d be happy to get out of the office.”
She shrugged. “Well, if you’re certain,” she said. “I’d go myself only I don’t actually want to.”
“Perfect,” I said, smiling. The advantage of accompanying the Minister to the Dáil was a trip in the ministerial car to Leinster House, where I could leave him alone with his cronies and wait until the minute he entered the chamber for his afternoon nap, when I could be out the door and straight to the pictures, followed by a pint or two with Julian in the Palace Bar or Kehoe’s. The perfect day.
“I think I should mention,” said Miss Ambrosia after a rare few minutes of silence when some actual work might have been getting done, “I’m giving serious consideration to having relations with a Jew.”
I was taking a sip from my mug of tea when she said this and nearly spat it across my desk. Miss Joyce raised her eyes to heaven, shook her head and said, “Saints preserve us,” while Mr. Denby-Denby simply clapped his hands and said, “Wonderful news, Miss Ambrosia, there’s nothing more delicious than a little Jew boy. What’s his name anyway? Anshel? Daniel? Eli?”
“Peadar,” said Miss Ambrosia. “Peadar O’Múrchú.”
“Jesus wept,” replied Mr. Denby-Denby. “That’s about as Jewish as Adolf Hitler.”
“Oh for shame!” cried Miss Joyce, slapping a hand down on her desk. “For shame, Mr. Denby-Denby!”
“Well, it’s true, isn’t it?” he said, not looking the least bit guilty before turning back to Miss Ambrosia. “Tell us all about him, ducky. What does he do, where does he live, what does he look like, who are his people?”
“He’s an accountant,” said Miss Ambrosia.
“Well of course he is,” said Mr. Denby-Denby, waving this away. “I could have guessed that. They’re all accountants. Or jewelers. Or pawnbrokers.”
“He lives with his mother off Dorset Street. He’s neither tall nor short but he has a lovely head of curly black hair and he’s a great kisser.”
“Sounds divine. I think you should do it, Miss Ambrosia. And I think you should take photographs and bring them in for us all to see. Is he big in the downstairs department, do you think? Cut, of course, but that’s not his fault. That’s parents mutilating a boy before he even has a say in the matter.”
“Ah now, this is getting beyond the beyonds,” said Miss Joyce, raising her voice. “We need to tame the conversation in this office, we really do. If the Minister came in and heard us—”
“He’d see that we were just concerned for Miss Ambrosia and hoping to steer her in the right direction,” said Mr. Denby-Denby. “What do you think, Mr. Avery, should Miss Ambrosia have carnal relations with her curly-haired Jew? A big cock makes all the difference, don’t you think?”
“I really don’t care,” I said, standing up and making my way to the door so no one could see how red my face had gone. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ll be back in a moment.”