Elegy for April by Benjamin Black Page B

TWENTY MINUTES AFTER EIGHT SHE ARRIVED on foot at the corner of Pembroke Street and Fitzwilliam Square and spotted the unmistakable figure of Quirke, enormous in his long black coat and black hat, waiting for her in the half-light of dawn. Got up like this, he always made her think of the blackened stump of a tree that had been blasted by lightning. He greeted her with a nod and touched a fingertip to her elbow through the sleeve of her coat, the only intimacy between them he ever seemed willing to permit himself. “You realize,” he said, “it’s not everyone I’d venture out for, at this hour of the morning, in this weather.” He turned, and together they set off diagonally across the road, the fog clutching wetly at their faces. “And to call on Oscar Latimer, into the bargain.”
     
“Thanks,” she said drily. “I appreciate it, I’m sure.” She was remembering the look that Jimmy and Isabel had exchanged at the Dolphin last night, but she did not care; she needed Quirke with her today, to give her support and keep her from losing her nerve.
     
They climbed the steps of the big four-story terraced house, and Quirke pressed the bell. While they waited Phoebe asked him if he had telephoned the hospital, and he looked blank. “To inquire about April,” she said, “the sick-note she sent in— did you forget?” He said nothing but looked stonily contrite.
     
There was a smell of coffee in the hallway; Oscar Latimer not only had his consulting rooms but also lived here, Phoebe recalled now, in a bachelor apartment on the two top floors, in what April used to describe scornfully as unmarried bliss. Why had she not remembered that? It accounted of course for his answering the phone so late last night.
     
The nurse who let them in had a long, colorless face and large teeth; her bloodless nose narrowed to an impossibly sharp,purplish tip that was painful to look at. When Quirke introduced himself she said, “Oh, Doctor ,” and seemed for a second on the point of genuflecting. She showed them into a cold waiting room, where there was a large rectangular oak dining table with twelve matching chairs— Phoebe counted them. They did not sit. On the table were laid out the usual magazines, Punch , Woman’s Own , the African Missionary . Quirke lit a cigarette and looked about for an ashtray, coughing into his fist.
     
“How are you?” Phoebe asked him.
     
He shook his head. “I don’t know yet, it’s too early in the day.”
     
“I mean, since you … since you came home.”
     
“I bought a car.”
     
“You did?”
     
“I told you I was going to.”
     
“Yes, but I didn’t believe you.”
     
“Well, I did.” He looked at her. “Don’t you want to know what it is?”
     
“What is it?”
     
The nurse with the nose put her head in at the door— it was as if a hummingbird had darted in its beak— and told them Mr. Latimer would see them now. They followed her up the stairs to the first floor, where her master had his rooms.
     
“An Alvis,” Quirke said to Phoebe, as they climbed. “I suppose you’ve never heard of an Alvis.”
     
“Have you learned to drive?”
     
He did not answer.
     
Oscar Latimer was a short, slight, brisk young man, smaller somehow than it seemed he should be, so that when she was standing in front of him, shaking his hand, Phoebe had the peculiar impression that she was seeing him at some distance from her, diminished by perspective. He had an air of extreme cleanliness, as if he had just finished subjecting himself to a thoroughgoing-over with a scrubbing brush, and exuded a sharp, piney scent. His hand in hers was neat and warm and soft. He had freckles, like April, which made him seem far younger than he must be, and his boyish fair hair was brushed sharply away on both sides from a straight, pale parting. He had the beginnings of a mustache, it was no more than a few bristling, ginger tufts. He glanced at Quirke with faint surprise. “Dr. Quirke,” he said. “I didn’t expect you this morning. You’re well, I