The Luck Of Ginger Coffey (14 page)

"Don't you preach religion at me, Ginger Coffey, you that haven't darkened a church door since you came out here. Don't you talk about Catholics. What's wrong with you is that you never were a Catholic; you were too selfish to give God or anyone else the time of day. Oh, you may think I'm like you now, and I am. I never pray. But once I did. Once I was very holy, do you remember? I cried, Ginger. I cried when Father Delaney said that unless we stopped practicing birth control he'd refuse us the sacraments. Do you remember that? No, you never think of that any more, do you? But I do. You changed me, Ginger. What I am now has a lot to do with what you made me. So don't you talk sin to me, don't you dare! Sins — Oh, let me tell you. Once your soul is dirty, then what difference in the shade of black?"

Trembling, she took one of Grosvenor's cigarettes out of a jar and, in a gesture familiar as one of his own, tapped it on the back of her hand before picking up a lighter off the table. The lighter was initialed G.G.

"Daddy?" a voice said at the door. Paulie, her pajama trousers crumpled like accordion pleats around her calves, her sleepy eyes blinking in the bright light, came into the room.

"Paulie," Veronica said, "you go back to bed this instant, do you hear?"

"No."

"Did you hear me, miss?" Veronica said.

"I'm not an infant, Mummy," Paulie said. "I've got a right to be here."

"Go to bed!"

"No, I want to talk to Daddy."

"Yes, Pet," Coffey said. "What is it?"

Paulie began to cry. "I don't want to stay here. I don't want to stay with them."

"With who?" Coffey said. "With who, Pet?"

But Paulie, still weeping, turned to her mother, woman to woman, bitter, betrayed. "You said it would be just the two of us. Just you and me. You said I was grown-up now. I'm not going to be sent to bed every night like an infant, just because you want to let Gerry in the back door."

"You little sneak," Veronica said. "That's enough. You'll do what you're told."

"You're not in charge of me!" Paulie screamed. "Daddy is. Daddy's in charge of me, not you. I want to go with Daddy."

"Do you now?" Veronica said. "Well, Daddy's living at the Y.M.C.A., aren't you, Daddy? No girls allowed, isn't that right, Daddy?"

Coffey did not look at her. He went to his daughter, taking her by the wrists. "Oh, Pet," he said. "Do you really want to come with me?"

She was trembling. She did not seem to see him, to feel his hands. "I can choose whoever I like," she said, wildly. "You're my father, not Gerry Grosvenor. I'm not going to be sent to bed just because she wants to see Gerry. It's not fair!"

"Of course it's not," Coffey said. "Now listen, Pet. If you want to come, I'll find us a place tomorrow. I promise you. I'll find us a place, don't you worry."

"Will you, Ginger?" Veronica said.

"Yes, I will. Don't laugh. I will!"

But she was not laughing. She turned to Paulie. "You

say I broke my promise to you/' she said. "But what about your father's promises? This promise he's making now, he'll break it. Ask him. Go on, ask him. How is he going to get a place for you tomorrow?"

"I don't have to listen to you," Paulie said. "Daddy's going to take me, aren't you, Daddy?"

He looked at the carpet, his thumb absently grooving the part in his mustache, hating that stupid foolish man who once again had shown him his own true image. Vera was right: his promises were worthless currency. How could he make Paulie know that this time he meant it?

"Listen, Pet," he said. "What your mother says is true, in a way. But I have two jobs and as soon as they pay me, I'll have plenty of money, plentyl Now, listen — if you can wait until next Friday, I swear to you on my word of honor that I'll find a place for us. A nice place. If you'll wait, Apple?"

"Of course I'll wait," Paulie said. But she did not look at him; proud of her rebellion, she stared at Veronica.

"Thank you, Pet," he said. "Now, would you go into your room for a while? I want to talk to your mother."

Paulie went away: they heard her bedroom door shut. He looked at Veronica, thinking that, after all, this was a crush Vera had, it was — well, it was a sort of illness. It was up to him to try to make her see sense before it was too late. "Listen to me," he said. "If I were you I'd put on my thinking cap tonight and wonder what's going to happen if you go through with this lunatic performance. Remember, if you change your mind, you can come back tomorrow. I promise you there'll be no questions asked and no recriminations. We'd just forget this ever happened."

"Oh, go away," she said. "Go away."

He picked up his little hat from between his feet, went unsteadily into the hall and knocked on Paulie's door. When Paulie answered, he took her arm and led her to the

front door. As he passed a table with a telephone on it, he saw that the receiver jarred slightly on its cradle. That was why the phone had not answered. He replaced the receiver, then said in a whisper: "All right, Apple. I'll come for you next week."

"Wait," Paulie said. "Here's the address and phone number of the place we're going to. When you're ready to come and get me, phone and leave a message. And Daddy?"

"What, Pet?"

"Daddy, promise you won't let me down."

He took her in his arms and crushed her against him. There, in the living room, his wife sat alone, sick with some madness he could not understand. He held Paulie and she put her pale cheek up to be kissed. "Word of honor, Pet," he whispered. "Word of honor."

Seven First, park the truck, making sure that you are not beside a fire hydrant or in a no-parking area. Then check your book, Mrs. What'shername, how many dozen last week, how many this week. Then find her parcel, hop down in the morning cold, ring the doorbell, smile as she opens, and make change from your leather sporran. Thank you, Madam. Receiving in turn her apologetic smile as she hands over the long string sack containing her offspring's soilings. Then down the path, sky the sack into the back of the van and on to the next customer.

That first morning was a Saturday. So, although he was slow on the deliveries and late back at the TINY ONES depot, there was no panic. No proofreading that night. And the following day, Sunday, there was proofreading, but no TINY ONES. Monday now, that was another matter.

To begin with, by Monday morning he was stony-broke. So when he arrived at the depot to pick up his truck, he put out a feeler to Corp. But Corp, the soul of friendliness until then, said: "Why should I lend you five bucks, Paddy? After all, I don't know you from a hole in the wall. No dice/'

No dice. Coffey had twenty cents left in his pocket. He had not had any breakfast. And to cap it all, the first call

on that morning's run, he ran into trouble. An apartment building it was: modern, with a plate glass door and a sign outside which said AMBASSADOR HOUSE. Four dozen, the order. He hopped down, hefting his brown paper parcel, and went in through the glass doors to check the apartment number on the board.

"Looking for something?"

A doorman in a green coat and peaked green cap tapped a white-gloved finger against Coffey's chest.

"Number twenty-four?" Coffey said. "A Mrs. Clapper?"

Anger came like a sickness on the commissionaire's wintry features. "You blind or something Tiny? Service entrance at the side. What's the matter with you?"

"I'm sorry, I didn't notice."

"C'mon, c'mon, you're blockin' up the hall. Take your fuggin' dipers up the back stairs."

Outside once more, Coffey tried Veronica's trick of counting ten. All that pushing and shoving: no need for that, was there? After all, people only saw things when they were on the lookout for them. He remembered when Veronica was pregnant, he used to see dozens of pregnant women on the streets. But not since. Well, service entrances were like that. Unless you were on the lookout . . .

Calming himself with these reflections, he found the service entrance, climbed four flights of stairs and rang the bell at the back door of Apartment 25. A uniformed maid opened to him. "TINY ONES," he said. "Good morn-ing."

The maid took the package.

"That'll be two twenty, please," he said.

"Just a moment," she said. "The mistress wants to see you."

He stepped into the kitchen.

"Take your overshoes off," the maid said. "My floors!"

"That's all right, Anna," a woman's voice said. A well-dressed woman, she was, too old to need TINY ONES by the look of her. "Does your firm rent cribs?" she asked. And flute! She was from Dublin.

"No, Madam/'

"Do they rent any other baby things, could you tell me?"

He felt his face grow hot. Not only was she Dublin, but Stillorgan Road, Dublin, as stuck-up as all get out. "Well no, Madam. They don't."

"Are you Irish?" she said.

"Yes."

"I thought I caught a Dublin accent," said she. "Have you been over here long?"

"Ah — about six months."

At that moment a younger woman (the nappy user's Mum, he guessed) came into the room. A blonde she was, in a tweed suit, all the latest style. Who took one look at Coffey, her eyes getting bigger. "Oh!" she said. "Oh, I could have sworn — Excuse me staring like that. But you're the spitting image of someone I know."

"But this man is from Dublin, Eileen," the mother said. "Isn't that a coincidence?"

"Oh? And what's your name?" the daughter asked Coffey, who wouldn't have had to ask hers. If floors could rise up and swallow a person — by the Holy, that wasn't just a figure of speech, for she was Colonel Kerrigan's daughter, the same girl he had danced with last winter at the Plun-kett Old Boys' Dance in the Shelbourne Hotel. And had served under her old man in the Army.

"My name is — Cu-Crosby," he said.

"If I had a camera I'd take your picture and send a copy to this friend of mine," she said. "You're his double, right down to the mustache."

"Whose double?" her mother asked.

"Veronica Shannon's husband, Mother. Ginger Coffey. Do you remember him?"

"Oh, of course/' the mother said. "Didn't he soldier with your Daddy once upon a time? And afterwards was in a distillery or something?"

"Yes, Mother."

"But they went to Canada," the mother said. "I remember Mrs. Vesey said something to me about looking Veronica up —"

As the mother talked, Eileen Kerrigan's eyes met Cof-fey's. Now, she knew. "Anyway, we mustn't keep this gentleman here all day," she said, cutting her mother short. "Anna, would you get the bag?"

"Here you are," the maid said and — Suffering J, let me out! — Coffey took it and backed out of the kitchen.

"Wait. Your money."

He had to make change for a five-dollar bill, aware that Eileen Clapper, nee Kerrigan, had informed her mother with a look. The maid shut the door on him. Now, the telling would begin — Oh yes, Mother, it could be and it is. I'm positive — Now the Air Mail letters would fly. Now it could be told in Gath and embroidered in the Wicklow Lounge, chuckled over in the offices at Kylemore, dissected in Veronica's mother's flat. And how glorious a comeuppance it would seem to all the voices he had fled; how joyously they would savor each detail, the changing of his name, the absurd uniform with TINY ONES on the cap, the menial nature of his employment, the net result of all his hopes. They didn't even need to embellish it: though they would; like all Dublin stories it would lose nothing in the telling. Yes, the whole country could laugh at him now. He stood on the stairs and saw the whole country laugh.

Ha, ha! cried all the countrified young thicks he had gone to school with, who now, ordained and Roman-col-

lared, regularly lectured the laity on politics and love. Ha, ha! cried the politicians, North and South, united as always in fostering that ignorance which alone made possible their separate powers. Hah! cried the archbishops, raising their purple skull-capped heads from the endless composition of pastoral letters on the dangers of foreign dances and summer frocks. Hah! cried the smug old businessmen, proud of being far behind the times. Ha, ha, ha! Emigrate, would you? We told you so.

Their laughter died. What did it matter? What did they matter, so long as he was not going home? And in that moment he knew that, sink or swim, Canada was home now, for better or for worse, for richer or for poorer, until death.

He went down the stairs, climbed into his truck and drove off, his tire chains rattling in the freezing slush. What did anything matter now except his word to Paulie?

For lunch he had a ten-cent bag of peanuts and a glass of milk. After eating it, he felt like a starving man. Money he must have to last out until Friday. His proofreading pals? Ah, weren't they all boozers, counting their ha'pence from one payday binge to the next? To last until Friday he would need more than the dollar loan they might afford. He would need at least ten dollars. Ten dollars required nerve. So, at the end of the day, he went to see Mr. Mountain and nervously requested an advance on wages.

"Advance?" Mr. Mountain's stomach heaved upwards in alarm. "That's got to be done through channels, Coffey. I don't handle payroll, that's G.H.Q. stuff. Top man deals with that. And I might as well warn you that Mr. Brott doesn't favor that procedure."

"I'm afraid 111 have to chance that, Mr. Mountain. I have to have the money."

"Well, it's your funeral," Mr. Mountain said. "It's

strictly against standing orders. However —" lie reached for one of the many forms he designed personally in the depot. "Here's one of my unit identification check slips/' he said. "It shows your rank, length of service and record in my outfit. If you want to try this, you'd better hurry. Head Office closes at five."

Hurry was right. The office was ten streets away and he had to shanks' mare it. So, chit in hand, with twenty minutes to get there, he set off through the darkening streets, wondering if he didn't win Mr. Brott's clemency would he be able to pawn the lamp in his locker or sell some of his clothing secondhand? How did you go about pawning something here? Or selling clothes? But do not worry about that yet, he told himself. Cross that bridge when you come to it.