Free Ghosts by John Banville Page B

using her cupped hand as an ashtray and now she held the swiftly smoking stub of her cigarette aloft and looked about her with a frown. Felix stepped smartly to the mantelpiece and found a saucer there and brought it to her. He watched with what seemed almost fondness as she leaned forward and crushed out the butt. The last, acrid waft of smoke was like something swift and bitter being said. She raised her eyes briefly and then looked away.
    ‘You know who he is,’ he said, ‘the Professor? You recognised him?’ She shrugged, and he shook his head at her reprovingly. ‘O Fama …!’ He heaved a histrionic sigh.
    ‘Tell me, then,’ she said, stung. ‘Tell me who he is.’
    ‘Someone famous. A famous man.’
    She looked sceptical.
    ‘Oh yes?’
    He nodded with mock solemnity and laid a finger to the side of his nose. She felt herself flush. She said brusquely:
    ‘Should you not go and see if the Princess is sleeping soundly?’
    Still he leaned above her in his buttoned brown suit andstringy tie, a pent-up, parcelled man, his smile twitching and one eyebrow arched, studying her. She drew the collar of her jacket tight about her throat.
    ‘Am I,’ he said, ‘the charming Prince, I wonder, or the Beast?’ She did not answer and he advanced his smiling face close to hers and softly asked: ‘Are you jealous?’
    She laughed out loud.
    ‘What, of her?’
    He shook his head once.
    ‘I meant of me,’ he said.
    She opened wide her eyes and looked at him steadily with a formless smile and said nothing. Croke stood motionless with his head lifted as if he were listening to something in the distance, an echo of that voice out of the ether. (That gold thing, like a sort of sunburst, with the big gold knobs on the handle and the big square base, and the price tag still on the instep of the priest’s shoe when he genuflected; smell of incense and of candle-grease, the fleshy stink of lilies – what was it called?) There was a gust of wind, and the rain whispered softly like blown sand against the glass. Felix turned from Sophie with a flourish and strolled up the room and down again at an equine prance, seeming pleased with himself, humming lightly under his breath and smirking. He stopped to examine the stuffed owl, his narrow head lifted at an angle and his lips pursed. A spot of silver light gleamed in the hollow of his temple. He took a dented, flat gold case from his breast pocket and extracted from it a black cheroot and lit it carefully, holding it clipped between the second and third fingers of his left hand.
    ‘I see you kept your baccy dry, anyhow,’ Croke at the window said, and still was ignored.
    ‘We have not had a real talk, you and I,’ Felix said to Sophie over his shoulder, making a frowning face at the owl. A ribbon of harsh smoke trickled out at the corners ofhis mouth. The bird stared back at him with apoplectic fixity. ‘We should, I think, don’t you?’
    Abruptly the rain stopped and the sun came out shakily and everything outside shimmered and dripped.
    ‘Talk?’ Sophie said. ‘Talk about what?’
    ‘Oh, anything. Everything. I am trying to be friendly, you see.’
    Sophie considered his narrow back for a moment thoughtfully.
    ‘Who is he?’ she said. ‘That old man.’
    ‘What? I told you: a famous person. From the past. A professor of fine arts.’ He seemed to find that very funny. ‘Oh yes,’ he said, laughing without sound, one bony shoulder shaking, ‘a great appreciator of the fine arts!’
    She studied him with her head held on one side.
    ‘Is that why you came here,’ she said, ‘because of him?’
    He laughed almost shyly this time and touched a hand to his dyed hair.
    ‘No, no,’ he murmured happily. ‘Chance – pure chance!’
    She nodded, not believing him.
    ‘He does not seem to have heard of you ,’ she said.
    ‘He has – oh, he has. But perhaps he prefers to forget.’ He cast a smiling glance at her. ‘Maybe you will make him famous again?’ He took