“Where do you think you’re going?” asked Miss Joyce. “You’ve only been here ten minutes.”
“Call of nature,” I said, disappearing down the corridor and into the Gents, which was mercifully empty, and I stepped into a cubicle to pull down my pants and examine myself carefully. The rash had just about cleared up, thankfully. The redness had dissipated and the itching had gone away at last. The cream the doctor had given me had worked a treat. (You must be wary of dirty girls, he had told me as he buried his face in my crotch, using a pencil to lift my flaccid penis from where it hung in disgrace. Dublin is full of dirty girls. Find yourself a nice clean Catholic wife if you can’t control your lust.) I flushed and stepped outside again to wash my hands and there was Mr. Denby-Denby standing by one of the sinks, arms folded, giving me one of those smiles that suggested he could see right through to the depths of my soul, a place even I did not like to visit very often. I glanced at him for a moment, said nothing, and turned on the taps so forcefully that they splashed up on us both.
“Did I see you out and about on Saturday night?” he asked me without any preamble.
“I beg your pardon?” I said.
“Saturday night,” he repeated. “I was taking a walk along the banks of the Grand Canal and happened to pass a little establishment that I’ve heard rumors about over the years. Rumors to the effect that it is a place frequented by gentlemen of a certain perverted disposition.”
“I don’t know what you mean by that,” I said, not looking up at the mirror.
“Mrs. Denby-Denby’s older sister lives on Baggot Street, you see,” he continued. “And I was on my way over to drop off her pension. The poor dear can’t get out anymore. Arthritis,” he added, mouthing the word for no discernible reason. “We’ll say nothing.”
“Well, I don’t know who you think you saw but it certainly wasn’t me. I was out with my friend Julian on Saturday night. I already told you that.”
“No, you said you went to a rugby match with him in the afternoon but that you spent the evening at home reading. I know next to nothing about sporting events but I know that they don’t take place under cover of dark. It’s other things that happen then.”
“Sorry, yes,” I said, growing flustered now. “That’s what I meant. I was at home reading Finnegans Wake.”
“It was Portrait of the Artist earlier. If you’re going to make up a book, Cyril, don’t make one up that no one with even an ounce of sense would bother reading. No, this was almost midnight and—”
“You were bringing your sister-in-law’s pension over at midnight?” I asked.
“She stays up very late. She’s a martyr to the insomnia.”
“Well, you must be mixing me up with someone else,” I said, trying to get past him, but he swept to the left and right like Fred Astaire as he blocked my path.
“What do you want from me, Mr. Denby-Denby?” I asked. “Julian and I went to the game in the afternoon, then we went for a few drinks. Afterward, I went home and spent an hour or two reading.” I hesitated and wondered whether I could get the next phrase out. I’d never said it aloud before. “And then, if you must know, I went out for dinner with my girlfriend.”
“Your wha’?” he asked, raising an eyebrow in amusement. “Your girlfriend, is it? This is the first we’re hearing about that.”
“I don’t like to bring my private life into work,” I replied.
“So what’s her name, this girlfriend of yours?” he asked.
“Mary-Margaret Muffet,” I said.
“Is she a nun?”
“Why would I be dating a nun?” I asked, bewildered.
“I’m joking,” he said, holding his palms out before me and the scent of lavender wafted in my face. “And what does Little Miss Muffet do, if you don’t mind me asking? When she’s not sitting on her tuffet. Or yours.”
“She’s an assistant on the foreign exchange desk at the Bank of Ireland, College Green.”
“Oh, the glamour. Mrs. Denby-Denby worked in the office at Arnott’s when I first met her. I thought that was the height of it but it looks as if you’ve set your sights on banking over trade. You’re like one of those spinsters straight out of Mrs. Gaskell. It won’t make it any easier though, you know.”
“It won’t make what any easier?” I asked.
“Life,” he said with a shrug. “Your life.”
“Can’t you just let me pass?” I asked, looking him in the eye now.
“I only say it because, believe it or not, I care about your welfare,” he said, moving to the side now and following me out the door. “I know it was you that I saw, Cyril. You have a very distinctive gait. And I’m just saying that you need to be very careful, that’s all. The Gardaí have a habit of raiding that establishment when they’re in the mood for a little mindless persecution and if you were to get yourself into trouble, well I don’t need to tell you that your position here at the department would be in the most serious jeopardy. And just think what your mother would say!”
“I don’t have a mother,” I told him, slipping out the side door to the car pool, where I saw the Minister approaching and raised a hand to greet him. As we drove off, I looked back toward the front door of the building and saw Mr. Denby-Denby watching me go with a pitiful expression on his face. From a distance, his hair looked brighter than ever, like a beacon leading a sinking ship to safety.
The Great Shriveling
The circumstances of my reacquaintance with Mary-Margaret Muffet were neither romantic nor propitious. A journalist from the Sunday Press by the name of Terwilliger was writing a weekly series on crimes that had shocked Ireland since the foundation of the State and he wanted to include an article on the kidnapping and mutilation of Julian Woodbead, perhaps the most infamous of all offenses in recent years since it had involved a minor. He found contact details for the four main participants in the drama, excluding the two remaining kidnappers themselves, of course, who had been incarcerated in the ’Joy since 1959, but only Mary-Margaret and I were available to talk to him.
At the time, Julian was traveling through Europe with his latest girlfriend, Suzi, a ghastly piece of high-class ornamentation whom he’d picked up while walking along Carnaby Street in search of a Homburg similar to the one that Al Capone had favored. I had met her only once, when they had come back to Dublin for a weekend to visit Max and Elizabeth. She bit her nails constantly and chewed on pieces of roast beef before spitting the gnarled remains into a see-through bag that she carried with her for just that purpose. She didn’t swallow, she told me, as she was far too committed to her modeling career to risk anything entering her stomach.
“That’s not strictly speaking true,” said Julian with a predictable smirk, and I pretended not to have heard him. Instead, I asked her whether she knew Twiggy and she rolled her eyes.
“Her name,” she said, as if I was the most ignorant creature on the face of the planet, “is Lesley.”
“But do you know her?”
“Of course I know her. We’ve worked together a few times.”