Free Even the Dead by Benjamin Black Page B

Peculiar feeling. Like one of those dreams you have of being sent back to school even though you’re an adult.”
    Rose snorted. “And that’s what made you decide to return to work? How you do love to suffer, Quirke.”
    Quirke leaned back in his chair. “I’m going back to the flat, too,” he said. “I’ve already stretched your hospitality beyond all bounds. You’ll be glad to have the place to yourselves again.”
    A patch of skin between Rose’s eyebrows had tightened and turned pale, and her smile was steely. “This is all very sudden,” she said in a bright, brittle tone. “You might have given some notice, some warning.”
    Mal was looking at his plate—Rose when she was angry made all eyes drop. But why was she angry? Quirke wondered, regarding her with a quizzical eye. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t mean to spring it on you. As a matter of fact, I just decided myself, just this moment.”
    He wasn’t sure what he was apologizing for. His presence here these past months could hardly have been a source of unalloyed joy for the household. He had never quite decided what Rose felt for him, or what he felt for her. That one time they had gone to bed together, years before, surely that couldn’t have meant so much to her? Yet now he recalled how that morning she had spoken of him kissing her, or of her kissing him—he couldn’t remember which. He had paid little attention, assuming it was one of Rose’s teasing jokes—but what if he was wrong? He couldn’t imagine himself desiring Rose now, as he had once desired her, briefly. She was merely Mal’s wife now, however anachronistic a match it might appear to be.
    Rose had gone back to her food and was eating, or going through the motions of eating, with fast, angry little movements.
    “I’m sorry,” Quirke said again. “I’ve been clumsy, as usual. I’m very grateful to you both for putting me up for so long, but now it’s time for me to move on.”
    Rose didn’t even look up, as if she hadn’t heard, while Mal peered at him out of what these days seemed a permanent haze of puzzlement, the lenses of his wire-framed spectacles gleaming.
    “You don’t have to go,” he said. “You know, of course, you’re welcome to stay as long as you like.”
    Quirke folded his napkin and set it down beside his plate and put both of his hands flat on the table and pushed himself to his feet. Mal was still gazing at him, anxious and bewildered. Rose still would not lift her head. He turned stiffly and left the room. He felt as if he had been given some precious thing to hold and admire, instead of which he had let it slip from his grasp and it had smashed to smithereens at his feet.
    Why did everything, always, have to be so difficult?
    *   *   *
    He went up to the big chilly bedroom: suddenly he saw it as nothing less than a jail cell, cunningly disguised, where for a long time, too long, he had been in voluntary confinement. He packed quickly—he had few things—and carried his suitcase downstairs. Half an hour ago he had seen himself as a part of the place, as fixed as an item of furniture; now he couldn’t wait to get away. The house was silent. He knew he should go and find Rose and make his peace with her. Instead he crept along the hall and opened the front door as quietly as he could and slipped out into the sunlit evening.
    The shadows on the road were sharply slanted. As he walked, an occasional car went past, none of them a taxi. He didn’t mind; he was no longer in a hurry. He had a new sense of freedom, even of lightness. He was an escapee.
    He came to Merrion Road and turned left, in the direction of the city. A Garda squad car came up behind him and slowed. The Garda in the passenger seat peered out at him suspiciously. He supposed he did look odd, a man in a dark suit and a dark hat, with a suitcase, strolling aimlessly. The car went on. Then a taxi approached, going in the opposite direction. He hailed it, and it did a