Free Cold Eye of Heaven, The by Christine Dwyer Hickey Page A

again a series of come-and-go offices before Slowey & Co., Legal & Town Agents, finally came to roost here. Chrissy once told him that these two rooms were a ballet school in the twenties and that she could remember, when she was a child, the girls doing their bar exercises along the walls and the walls themselves lined with mirrors so that just a few could make it look like a full company of ballerinas. He had just loved the idea of that. Slowey, of course, had knocked it on the head: ‘Do you not think now, there’d be traces, the mark of a nail, a Rawl-plug – something?’ he’d asked, stroking a large dismissive hand over the walls. And he’d been sorry after that he’d mentioned it at all.
    He comes into the office and stops in the centre. He could happily live here in these two rooms. Not now maybe, but a couple of years down the road. After he came back from his big trip, gotten used to his new life, his new money. Money made anything possible. What he’d do now is this – turn the back office into his bedroom, maybe knock a door in the side wall to give direct access to the kitchen, the jacks too of course, stick in a shower while he’s at it; something decent like you’d see in a hotel. The front room here meanwhile could be his living area – sofa by that wall near the window, desk (he’d have to keep the desk) at an angle over there. And the two fireplaces of course; Italian marble. He’d have them opened up. In winter he could light a fire in the bedroom – the luxury of that! Lying in bed watching firelight pat up the walls. And to be living right in the centre of town – it could open up your whole life. Better than walking the streets of a housing estate day after day like some bewildered oulone, up and down to the shops, stopping at gossipy corners. Or else fluting around in the front garden, hoping someone would drop an hello over therailing. The suburbs is no place for a man. Not unless he’s a dedicated drinker. Nothing to inspire, nowhere to go. Where do they go? A few of the retired men on his road joined the gym in the new hotel up near the Naas Road. He’d considered it, for about half a minute. The thoughts of the changing rooms had put him off; oulfellas standing around in the nip, hands on hips, waggling their nudgers at each other, while they pontificated on the issues of the day; issues that were really no longer any of their business. A city would be different but. A city could make you feel part of itself. He could join something; a film society, a chess club. Learn how to play chess first of course. He could go to the theatre, broaden his range, start reading the
Guardian
maybe, like Jackie – give himself something to talk about. You’d never see Jackie short of a topic. He could make new friends, invite them round for a drink. ‘You know,’ he’d say, resting a careless arm across the back of his new leather sofa, ‘in the twenties this used to be a ballet school.’
    He passes through the front office, into the back. The rack is filled with job sheets hanging like bunting, corner to corner; jobs for today, jobs for tomorrow, jobs for next week. He is leaving the business in good fettle; it both pleases and saddens him to know this. In the middle of the room, a big square table is topped with telephones. On one wall pigeonholes climb towards the ceiling. A counter runs the length of the other two walls. The fax machine, the photocopier over to the side. In between, the nap of the carpet worn down like footpaths in grass. The turn and return of clerical footsteps. How many have worked in this room? Must be near to a hundred clerks clocked up by now. Unusual names may drift into his head now and then: Titley, Wheatley, Carabini, Quirke. Or faces maybe of some who, for one reason or another, left a mark. That Easton bloke that he’d had to sack one time. Or the ginger messenger boy from Longford