Christine Falls: A Novele Read Online Free PDF

get it,” Sarah said. Maggie did not look at her and only nodded again, squinting at the spoons.
    When Sarah opened the door to him, Garret Griffin thrust a bunch of flowers into her arms.
    “Garret,” she said warmly. “Come in.”
    The old man stepped into the hall and there was the usual moment of helplessness as she wondered how to greet him, for the Griffins, even Garret, were not people who accepted kisses easily. He indicated the flowers where she held them against her; they were strikingly ugly. “I hope they’re all right,” he said. “I’m no good at that kind of thing.”
    “They’re lovely,” she said, taking a cautious sniff of the blossoms; the Michaelmas daisies smelled of dirty socks. She smiled; the daisies did not matter, she was happy to see him. “Lovely,” she said again.
    He took off his overcoat and hung it on the rack behind the door. “Am I the first?” he asked, turning back to her and chafing his hands.
    “Everyone else is late.”
    “Oh, Lord,” he moaned, “I’m always the same—always too early!”
    “We’ll have a chance to chat, before the others come and monopolize you.”
    He smiled, looking down in that cumbersomely shy way he had. She thought again, with faint surprise—but why surprise?—how fond of him she was. Mal appeared on the stairs, solemn and stately in his dark suit and sober tie. Garret glanced up at him without enthusiasm. “There you are,” he said.
    Father and son stood before each other in silence. Sarah stepped towards them impulsively, and as she did so had the sense as of an invisible, brittle casing shattering soundlessly around her. “Look what Garret brought!” she said, holding out the hideous flowers. “Aren’t they beautiful?”

     

    QUIRKE WAS ON HIS THIRD DRINK. HE SAT SIDEWAYS AT THE BAR, LEANING on an elbow, one eye shut against the smoke of his cigarette, half listening to Phoebe rehearsing her plans for the future. He had let her have a second gin, and her eyes glittered and her brow was flushed. As she talked, the feather in her little hat trembled in time to the beat of her excited chattering. The man next to them with the crusty hair kept shooting furtive glances at her, to the annoyance of his fat companion, though Phoebe appeared not to notice the fellow’s fishy eye. Quirke smiled to himself, feeling only a little foolish to be so pleased at being here with her, in her summer dress, bright and young. The noise in the place was a steady roar by now, and even when he tried he could hardly hear what she was saying. Then there was a shout behind him: “Jesus Christ in gaiters, if it isn’t Dr. Death!”
    Barney Boyle stood there, flagrant, drunk, and menacingly jovial. Quirke turned, assuming a smile. Barney was a dangerous acquaintance: Quirke and he had got drunk together often, in the old days. “Hello, Barney,” he said warily.
    Barney was in his drinking clothes: black suit crumpled and stained, striped tie for a belt, and a shirt, which had once been white agape at the collar and looking as if it had been yanked open in a scuffle. Phoebe was thrilled, for this was the famous Barney Boyle. He was, she saw—she almost laughed—a scaled-down version of Quirke, a full head shorter but with the same barrel chest and broken nose and the same ridiculously dainty feet. He grabbed her hand and planted on it a lubricious kiss. His own hands, she noticed, were small and soft and endearingly chubby.
    “Your niece, is it?” he said to Quirke. “By God, Doc, they’re making nieces nicer every day—and that, my darling”—he turned his shiny grin on Phoebe again—“is not an easy thing to get your tongue around, with a feed of porter on you.”
    He called for drinks, insisting against Quirke’s protests that Phoebe too must have another. Barney preened under the girl’s eager gaze, rolling from heel to toe and back again, a pint glass in one hand and a sodden cigarette in the other. Phoebe asked if he was writing a