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To Jacqueline

The Luck of Ginger Cofey

One Fifteen dollars and three cents. He counted it and put it in his trouser-pocket. Then picked his Tyrolean hat off the dresser, wondering if the two Alpine buttons and the little brush dingus in the hatband weren't a shade jaunty for the place he was going. Still, they might be lucky to him. And it was a lovely morning, clear and crisp and clean. Maybe that was a good augury. Maybe today his ship would come in.

James Francis (Ginger) Coffey then risked it into the kitchen. His wife was at the stove. His daughter Paulie sat listless over Corn Flakes. He said "Good morning," but his only answer came from Michel, the landlady's little boy, who was looking out the window.

"What's up, lad?" Coffey asked, joining Michel. Together, man and boy, they watched a Montreal Roads Department tractor clambering on and off the pavement as it shunted last night's snowfall into the street.

"Sit down, Ginger, you're as bad as the child," his wife said, laying his breakfast on the kitchen table.

He tried her again. "Good morning, Veronica."

"His mother was just in," said she, pointing to Michel. "Wanting to know how long we were going to keep the place on. I told her you'd speak to her. So don't forget to pop upstairs and give our notice the minute you have the tickets."

"Yes, dear/' Flute! Couldn't a man get a bite of breakfast into him before she started that nattering? He knew about telling Madame Beaulieu. All right.

A boiled egg, one slice of toast and his tea. It was not enough. Breakfast was his best meal; she knew that. But in the crying poverty mood that was on her these last weeks, he supposed she'd take his head off altogether if he asked her for a second egg. Still, he tried.

"Would you make us another egg?" he said.

"Make it yourself," she said.

He turned to Paulie. "Pet, would you shove an egg on forme?"

"Daddy, I'm late."

Ah, well. If it was to be a choice between food and begging them to do the least thing, then give him hunger any day. He ate his egg and toast, drank a second cup of tea and went out into the hall to put his coat on. Sheepskin-lined it was, his pride and joy; thirty guineas it had cost him at Aquascutum.

But she came after him before he could flee the coop. "Now, remember to phone me the minute you pick up the tickets," she said. "And ask them about the connection from Southampton with the boat train for Dublin. Because I want to put that into my letter to Mother this afternoon."

"Right, dear."

"And, by the way, Gerry Grosvenor's coming in at five. So don't you be stravaging in at six, do you hear?"

What did she have to ask Gerry Grosvenor up here for? They could have said good-by to Geriy downtown. Didn't she know damn well he didn't want people seeing the inside of this place? Flute! His eyes assessed their present surroundings as Gerry Grosvenor's would. The lower half of a duplex apartment on a shabby Montreal street, dark as limbo, jerry-built fifty years ago and going off keel

ever since. The doors did not close, the floors buckled and warped, the walls had been repapered antl repainted until they bulged. And would bulge more, for it was a place that people on their way up tried to improve, people on their way down to disguise: all in vain. The hegira of tenants would continue.

Still, what was the use in talking? She had asked Gerry: the harm was done. "All right," he said. "Give us a kiss now. I'm off"

She kissed him the way she would a child. "Not that I know what I'm going to give Gerry to drink/' she said. "With only beer in the house/'

"Sure, never mind," he said and kissed her quick again to shut her up. "So long, now. I'll be home before five."

And got away clean.

Outside in the refrigerated air, snow fine as salt drifted off the tops of sidewalk snowbanks, spiraling up and over to the intersection where a policeman raised his white mitt paw, halting traffic to let Coffey cross. Coffey wagged the policeman the old salute in passing. By J, they were like Russkis in their black fur hats. It amused him now to think that, before he came out here, he had expected Montreal would be a sort of Frenchy place. French my foot! It was a cross between America and Russia. The cars, the supermarkets, the hoardings; they were just as you saw them in the Hollywood films. But the people and the snows and the cold — that woman passing, her head tied up in a babushka, feet in big bloothers of boots, and her dragging the child along behind her on a little sled — wasn't that the real Siberian stuff ?

"M'sieur?"

The other people at the bus stop noticed that the little boy was not wearing his snow suit. But Coffey did not. "Well, Michel," he said. "Come to see me off?"

"Come for candy."

"Now, there's a straight answer, at least," Coffey said, putting his arm around the boy's shoulders and marching him off to the candy store on the corner. "Which sort takes your fancy, Michel?"

The child picked out a big plastic package of sour-balls. "This one, M'sieurP"

"Gob stoppers," Coffey said. "The exact same thing I used to pick when I was your age. Fair enough." He handed the package over and asked the storeman how much.

"Fifty cents."

By J, it was not cheap. Still, he couldn't disappoint the kid, so he paid, led his friend outside, waited for the policeman to halt traffic, then sent Michel on his way. "Remember," he said, "that's a secret. Don't tell anybody I bought them."

"Okay. Merci, M'sieur"

Coffey watched him run, then rejoined the bus queue. He hoped Veronica wouldn't find out about those sweets, for it would mean another lecture about wasting his money on outsiders. But ah! Coffey remembered his boyhood, the joys of a penny paper twist of bullseyes. He smiled at the memory and discovered that the girl next to him in the queue thought he was smiling at her. She smiled back and he gave her the eye. For there was life in the old carcass yet. Yes, when the good Lord was handing out looks, Coffey considered he had not been last in line. Now, in his prime, he considered himself a fine big fellow with a soldierly straightness to him, his red hair thick as ever and a fine mustache to boot. And another thing. He believed that clothes made the man and the man he had made of himself was a Dublin squire. Sports clothes took years off him, he thought, and he always bought the very best of stuff. As he rode downtown on the bus that

morning there wasn't a soul in Montreal who would say There goes a man who's out of work. . . . Not on your earthly. Not even when he went through the doorway of the Unemployment Insurance Commission and marched right up to Executive 6- Professional, which seemed the right place for him.

"Fill it out at the table over there, Mr. Coffey," said the counter clerk. Nice young fellow, no hint of condescension in his tone, very helpful and natural as though this sort of thing happened to everyone. Still, pen in hand, write in block letters or type, Coffey was faced once again with the misleading facts of a life. In block letters, he began:

Born: May 14, 1916, DUBLIN, IRELAND.

Education: PLUNKETT SCHOOL, DUBLIN. NATIONAL UNIVERSITY OF IRELAND, UNIVERSITY COLLEGE, DUBLIN.

Specify degrees, honors, other accomplishments: [He had not finished his B.A., but never mind.] BACHELOR OF ARTS . . . [Pass.] 1938.

List former positions, giving dates, names of employers, etc.: [Flute! Here we go.]

IRISH ARMY. 1939-1945. ASST. TO PRESS OFFICER, G.H.Q. COMMISSIONED £ND LIEUT. 1940; IST LIEUT. 1942.

KYLEMORE DISTILLERIES, DUBLIN. 1946-1948, SPECIAL ASSISTANT TO MANAGING DIRECTOR; 1949-1953, ASSISTANT IN ADVERTISING DEPARTMENT.

COOMB-NA-BAUN KNITWEAR, CORK. 1953-1955, SPECIAL ASSISTANT.

COOTEHILL DISTILLERIES, DUBLIN/

COOMB-NA-BAUN KNITWEAR,

DUBLIN. DROMORE TWEEDS, CARRICK-

ON-SHANNON,

AUGUST 1955-DECEM-- BER 1955. SPECIAL REPRESENTATIVE FOR CANADA.

[His position as of this morning, January 2, 1956, was null and bloody void, wasn't it? So he put a line through that one. Then read it all over, absent-mindedly brushing the ends of his mustache with the pen. He signed with a large, much-practiced signature.]

The wooden plaque in front of the young man who looked over his application bore the name J. DONNELLY. And naturally J. Donnelly, like all Irish Canadians, noticed Coffey's brogue and came out with a couple of introductory jokes about the Ould Sod. But the jokes weren't half as painful as what came after them.

"I see you have your B.A., Mr. Coffey. Have you ever considered teaching as a profession? We're very short of teachers here in Canada."

"Holy smoke," said Coffey, giving J. Donnelly an honest grin. "That was years ago. Sure, I've forgotten every stitch."

"I see," J. Donnelly said. "But I'm not quite clear why you've put down for a public relations job? Apart from your — ah — Army experience, that is?"

"Well now," Coffey explained. "My work over here as Canadian representative for those three firms you see there, why that was all promotion. Public relations, you might call it."

"I see. . . . But, frankly, Mr. Coffey, I'm afraid that experience would hardly qualify you for a public relations position. I mean, a senior one."

There was a silence. Coffey fiddled with the little brush dingus in his hat. "Well now, look here," he began. "I'll put my cards on the table, Mr. Donnelly. These firms that sent me out here wanted me to come back to Ireland when they gave up the North American market. But I said no. And the reason I said no is because I thought

Canada was the land of opportunity. Now, because of that, because I want to stay, no matter wh^t, well, perhaps I'll have to accept a more junior position here than what I was used to at home. Now, supposing you make me an offer, as the girl said to the sailor?"

But J. Donnelly offered only a polite smile.

"Or — or perhaps if there's nothing in public relations, you might have some clerical job going?"

"Clerical, Mr. Coffey?"

"Right."

"Clerical isn't handled in this department, sir. This is for executives. Clerical is one floor down."

"Oh"

"And at the moment, sir, ordinary clerical help is hard to place. However, if you want me to transfer you?"

"No, don't bother/' Coffey said. "There's nothing in public relations, is there?"

J. Donnelly stood up. "Well, if you'll just wait, I'll check our files. Excuse me."

He went out. After a few minutes a typewriter began to clacket in the outer office. Coffey shuffled his little green hat and deerskin gauntlets until J. Donnelly returned. "You might be in luck, Mr. Coffey," he said. "There's a job just come in this morning for assistant editor on the house organ of a large nickel company. Not your line exactly, but you might try it?"

What could Coffey say? He was no hand at writing. Still, needs must and he had written a few Army releases in his day. He accepted the slip of paper and thanked the man.

"I'll phone them and tell them you'll be on deck at eleven," J. Donnelly said. "Strike while the iron's hot, eh? And here's another possibility, if the editor job doesn't work out." He handed over a second slip of paper. "Now, if nothing comes of either of those," he said,

"come back here and 111 transfer you to clerical, okay?"

Coffey pu£ the second slip in his doeskin waistcoat and thanked the man again.

"Good luck," J. Donnelly said. "The luck of the Irish, eh, Mr. Coffey?"

"Ha, ha," Coffey said, putting on his little hat. Luck of the Canadians would suit him better, he thought. Still, it was a start. Chin up! Off he sloped into the cold morning and pulled out the first slip to check on the address. On Beaver Hall Hill, it was. Up went his hand to signal a taxi, but down it came when he remembered the fourteen dollars left in his pocket. If he hurried, he could walk it.

Or shanks' mare it, as his mother used to say. Ah, what's the sense giving Ginger any money for his tram, she'd say; he'll never use it. Doesn't he spend every penny on some foolishness the minute you put it in his pocket? And it was true, then as now. He was no great hand with money. He thought of himself in those far-off days, hurrying to school, the twopence already spent in some shop, whirling the satchel of schoolbooks around his head, stopping at Stephen's Green to take out his ruler and let it go tickety, tak, tdk among the railings of the park. Dreaming then of being grown up; free of school and catechism; free from exams and orders; free to go out into a great world and find adventures. Shanks' mare now along Notre Dame Street, remembering: the snow beginning to fall, a melting frost changing gray fieldstone office fronts to the color of a dead man's skin, hurrying as once he had hurried to school. But this was not school. School was thirty years ago and three thousand miles away, across half a frozen continent and the whole Atlantic Ocean. Why, even the time of day was different from at home. Here it was not yet midmorning and there, in Dublin, the pubs would be closing after lunch. It made him homesick to think of those pubs, so he must

not think. No, for wasn't this the chance he>ad always wanted? Wasn't he at long last an adventurer, a man who had gambled all on one horse, a horse colored Canada, which now by hook or crook would carry him to fame and fortune? Right, then!

So shanks* mare he went across Place d'Armes under the statue of Maisonneuve, an adventurer and a gambler too, who had sailed out in sixteen forty-one to discover this promised land, and shanks' mare past the Grecian columns of a bank and do not think what's left in there, but shanks' mare alone up Craig Street, remembering that he was far away now from that wireless network of friends and relations who, never mind, they would not let you starve so long as you were one of them but who, if you left home, struck out on your own, crossed the seas, well, that was the end of you as far as they were concerned.

And shanks' mare up Beaver Hall Hill, last lap, all on his onlie-oh, remembering that any man who ever amounted to anything was the man who took a chance, struck out, et cetera.

But oh! he was close to the line today. Only he knew how close.

And at last, shanks'-maring it into a big office building, riding up in an express elevator to the fifteenth floor, he was let out into a very grand reception hall. Up he went to a modern desk that was all glass and wooden legs which let you see the legs of the smashing blond receptionist behind it. Who smiled at him but lost her smile when he said his name and in aid of what Ginger Coffey had blown in. She was sorry but Mr. Beauchemin was presently in conference and would you just sit over there for a moment, sir? And would he just fill in this form

while he was waiting? In block letters, please. In block letters he pondered once again the misleading facts of a life.

When he had set them down, he handed back the form, and the girl read it over in front of him. Which mortified him. There were so few things you could write down when faced with the facts of a life. "Fine, sir," she said in a schoolmistressy voice. "Now, perhaps while you're waiting you'd like to familiarize yourself with our house organ. Here's our latest issue."

That was very kind of her, he said. He took the glossy little magazine and went back to the banquette to study it. The Nickelodeon was the name of the house organ. He wondered if that was funny on purpose but decided not. Canadians saw nothing comical in the words "house organ/' He flipped through the glossy pages. Pictures of old codgers getting gold watches for twenty-five years of well-done-thou-good-and-faithful. Wasn't it to avoid the like of that that he had emigrated? He skipped through the column of employee gossip called Nickel Nuggets but looked long at the photos on the Distaff Doings page. Some of the distaffers were very passable pieces indeed. Well now, enough of that. He turned to the main article which was entitled J. C. FURNTSS., Vice-Pres. (Traffic): A PROFILE. It seemed that even J. C. himself had started in humble circs as a chainman (whatever that was). Which was the rags to riches rise the New World was famous for. Which cheered a fellow up, because at home it was not like that. At home it was Chinese boxes, one inside the other, and whatever you started off as, you would probably end up as. Which was why he had come here. Which was why, this morning, he had been stumped when faced with the facts of a life.

For the true facts you could not put on an application form, now could you? For instance, when Ginger got out of the Army, Veronica's relatives had influence at Kylemore Distilleries and the job they offered him was a real plum, they said: Special Assistant to the Managing Director. Plum! Two years as a glorified office boy. Get me two tickets for the jumping at the Horse Show, Ginger. Book me a seat on the six o'clock plane to London. Go down to customs and see if you can square that stuff away, Ginger. Orders, orders . . . And, after two years, when Ginger asked for a raise and more responsibility, the Managing Director gave him a sour look and kicked him downstairs into the Advertising Department. Where, when he tried some new ideas, the Advertising Manager, a Neanderthal bloody man, name of Cleery, called him in and said: "Where do you think you are, Coffey? New York? Remember, the thing that sells whiskey in this country is being on good terms with the publicans. Now, get back to your desk at once."

Orders. Taking guff from powers that be. So, the minute Ginger heard of an opening in a place called Coomb-Na-Baun Knitwear in Cork, he resigned and over Veron-cia's protests moved his family down there. But Cork was not New York either. Ah, no. Orders, orders . , . Fifty years behind the times. Taking guff. Never free.

In fact, he might never have got free if his father (R.I.P.) hadn't died, leaving two thousand quid to Ginger, enough to pay their debts and start them off again. Again, he did it over Veronica's protests; but this time, by J, he decided to get right out of the country. Far too late now to do the things he once had dreamed of: paddling down the Amazon with four Indian companions, climbing a peak in Tibet or sailing a raft from Galway to the West Indies. But not too late to head off for the New

World in search of fame and fortune. So he went up to Dublin and took his old boss out to lunch. Filled the Managing Director of Kylemore Distilleries with Jam-met's best duck d Torange and asked him point-blank if Kylemore would be interested in opening up a North American market. They would not, said the Managing Director. "All right then/' Coffey said. "You'll be the sorry ones, not me/' And went straight across the street to Cootehill Distilleries, Kylemore's chief competitor. But flute! At Cootehill they told him they already had a man in New York. "Well" said Coffey. "Well . . . what about Canada, then?" No, they did not have anyone there. And yes, they were willing to let him have a crack at selling their whiskey in Canada. Seeing he was paying his own way out there, why not? A small retainer? Yes, they might manage that.

Right, then! Before he sailed, he lined up two side lines. A North American agency for Coomb-Na-Baun Knitwear, which the Dublin office gave him over the Cork office's objections. And a little side line as American representative for Dromore Tweeds of Carrick-on-Shannon, which was part-owned by an old school pal of his. And so, six months ago, after a round of good-bys forever, he, Veronica and Paulie sailed out to Montreal, taking the great gamble. His own boss at last.

Except that now, six months later, he was his own boss no longer. And so, at a quarter to twelve, the Nickelodeon read from cover to cover, he smiled at the receptionist, still hoping. She came over. "I'm afraid Mr. Beauchemin will be tied up until after lunch. Do you think you could come back at two-thirty?"

Coffey thought of Mr. Beauchemin trussed-up on his office carpet. He said yes, he thought he could.

Down he went in the express elevator, across the lobby and out into the street. The noon crowd scurried

along icy pavements from central heat to central heat. Six office girls, arms linked, high voices half* lost in the wind, edged past him in a tottering chorus line. Bundled against the wind, no telling what they looked like. He followed them for a while, playing an old game of his. That very instant a genie had told him they were all houris awaiting his pleasure, but only one must he choose and he must not look on any of their faces. He must choose from the rear view. All right, then, he decided on the tall one in the middle. His choice made, he followed them to the intersection of Peel and Ste. Catherine Streets, and as they paused for the traffic light he came level and inspected their faces. She had a long neb. He should have picked the little one on the outside right. Anyway, none of them was half as pretty as his own wife. He turned away.

Businessmen clutching hat brims butted impatiently past his aimless, strolling figure. A taxi, its tire chains rattling in the brown-sugar slush, pulled up beside him to disgorge six Rotarians who ran up the steps of a hotel, their snow-filthy rubbers tracking the wine-colored carpet. A bundle of newspapers, hurled from the tailgate of a truck by a leather-jacketed leprechaun, fell by his feet. He paused, read the headline on top, as a news vendor rushed from a kiosk to retrieve.

WIFE, LOVER SLAY CRIPPLE MATE

Which reminded him. He had not phoned Veronica.

Slow stroll across Dominion Square, everyone hurrying save he, every face fixed in a grimace by the painful wind, eyes narrowed, mouths pursed, driven by this cruel climate to an abnormal, head-bent helter-skelter. He passed a statue of Robert Burns, reflecting that this snow-drifted square was an odd place for that kiltie to wind up. And that reminded him of failures: Burns's

brew was called for a lot more often on this continent than usquebaugh. "Usquebaugh is the name of it, Mr. Montrose; yes, we Irish invented it, quite different from rye or Scotch. I have a booklet here, Irish coffee recipe . . ." Promotion, they called it. You had to promote before you could sell. But, to those thicks back in Ireland, promotion was not work.

Dear Coffey:

Yours of the 6th to hand. Before we approve these expenses, which seem very high to us, our directors would like to know how many suppliers you can guarantee. So far, in our opinion, you have not . . .

That was in the beginning of October. He should have seen the writing on the wall. But instead, he started to use his own savings to keep the ship afloat. He had to. Those thicks refused to pay the half of his expenses. And then, a month later, three letters with Irish postmarks arrived in the same week, as though, behind his back, the whole of Ireland had ganged up on him:

Dear Coffey:

I regret to inform you that at the last meeting of our board of directors it was decided tJiat in view of current dollar restrictions and the heavy "promotion' expenses you have incurred, we feel unable at this time to continue our arrangement with ijou. Therefore, we are no longer prepared to pay your office rent or to continue your retainer after this month. . . .

Dear Coffey:

Four orders from department stores and single orders from six other shops which have not been repeated do not justify the money you are charging us. And advertising at the rates you quote is quite out of the question. Coomb-Na-Baun Knitwear has always enjoyed a modest sale on your side of the water without any special promotion, and

so we feel at this time that it is wiser all around for us to cancel our arrangement with you. . . .

Dear Ginger:

Hartigan says we would be better off sending an out-and-out traveler to cities like Boston, New York and Toronto to show samples and take orders as the British tailoring firms do. High-power American methods do not go over in Carrick-on-Shannon, so if you will kindly let us have back the swatches. . . .

He burned those letters. He economized by giving up their flat and moving to this cheap dump of a duplex. But he did not tell Veronica. For two weeks he sat in his rented office, searching the want ads in the newspapers, dodging out from time to time for half-hearted inquiries about jobs. But the trouble was what his trouble always was. He had not finished his B.A., the Army years were wasted years, the jobs at Kylemore and Coomb-Na-Baun had not qualified him for any others. In six months he would be forty. He thought of Father Cogley's warning.

The pulpit was on the right of the school chapel. Ginger Coffey, aged fifteen, sat under it while Father Cogley, a Redemptorist Missioner, preached the retreat. There's always one boy — Father Cogley said — always one boy who doesn't want to settle down like the rest of us. He's different, he thinks. He wants to go out into the great wide world and find adventures. He's different, you see. Aye, well, Lucifer thought he was different. He did. Now, this boy who thinks he's different, he's the lad who never wants to finish his studies. Ireland isn't good enough for him, it's got to be England or America or Rio-dee-Janeero or some place like that. So, what does he do? He burns his books and off he runs. And what happens?

Well, I'll tell you. Nine times out of ten that fellow winds up as a pidt-and-shovel laborer or at best a twopenny pen-pusher in some hell on earth, some place of sun and rot or snow and ice that no sensible man would be seen dead in. And why? Because that class of boy is unable to accept his God-given limitations, because that class of boy has no love of God in him, because that class of boy is an ordinary, lazy lump and his talk of finding adventures is only wanting an excuse to get away and commit mortal sins — Father Cogley looked down: he looked into the eyes of Ginger Coffey, who had been to confess to him only half an hour ago. And let me tell that boy one thing — Father Cogley said — If you burn your books, you burn your boats. And if you burn your boats, you'll sink. You'll sink in this world and you'll sink in the next . . .

And woe betide you then . . .

It was all missionary malarkey, of course. But although he had forgotten all else that was ever preached to him, Coffey had not forgotten that sermon. He had thought of it often; had thought of it that third week of December when Veronica found out. She wept. She said she had seen this coming for a long time. (It was the sort of thing she would say.) She said if he did not land a job by Christmas, they must go home the first ship in the New Year. She said they had six hundred dollars put aside for their passages home, and he had promised her they would go back if it did not work. It had not worked. And so, look at us — she said — we know no one here. No one would lift a finger if we froze to solid ice in the streets. You promised me. Let's get out before we have to sing for our passage. At home, there's people know you. You can always find something. Now, there's a ship leaving Halifax on the tenth of January. I'm reserving our tickets —

But it's not even Christmas yet, he said. What's the hurry? Ill find something. Chin up!

Christmas came and went, but the snow was their only present. They saw the New Year in, with Veronica starting to pack as soon as the radio played "Auld Lang Syne," while he, alone in the dun-colored duplex living room, decided that on January second, as soon as the offices were open again, he would humble himself and go down to the Unemployment Commission. Because he would have to find some job. Because, you see, there was one thing he still hadn't told her. He no longer had the money for the tickets. In fact, all that was left was — never mind — it was a frightener to think how little.

And today was D-day. The wind was stronger now. The snow had stopped and his ears began to hurt as if someone had boxed them. He looked into a restaurant, saw people lined three-deep beside the hostess rope, the waitresses stacking dishes, placing paper place mats and fresh glasses of water before anyone who dared to dawdle: no, there was no shelter in Childs. But he must phone Veronica — start preparing her. So in he went.

"That you, Kitten?"

"Did you get the tickets, Ginger?"

"Well, no, not yet, dear. That's what I'm phoning you about. You see, dear, right out of a clear blue sky I met a man on my way downtown who told me about a job. So I'm going for an interview."

"What man?"

"You wouldn't know him, dear. The point is, I have an interview arranged for half past two this afternoon."

"Today's the last day to pick up those tickets," she said. "If you don't get them they'll sell them to someone else."

"I know, dear. The point is, I'm going to wait until

after IVe had this interview. I should be finished by three. That'leaves lashings of time to pick up the tickets, if nothing comes of it."

"But what job is this?"

Flute! He reached in his waistcoat and pulled out a slip of paper. It was the second slip which Donnelly had given him but he had started reading it out before he realized his mistake. "Wanted" he read. "Aggressive publicity man for professional fund-raising group, province-wide cancer research campaign. Apply H. E. Kahn, Room 200, Doxley Building, Sherbrooke Street."

"But that doesn't sound permanent at all?" she said.

"Well, never mind, dear. It would tide us over."

"If we're going to stay," she said. "YouVe got to get something permanent, Ginger. At your age, you can't afford to be chopping and changing any more. You know that."

"Yes, dear. We — we'll talk about it later. Good-b—"

"Wait! Ginger, listen to me. If this job is only a few weeks' stopgap, don't you take it. Get those tickets."

"Yes, dear. Bye-bye, now."

He replaced the receiver and stepped out of the booth. There must be a law of averages in life as well as in cards. And surely if anyone's luck was due for a change, his was?

A Childs hostess beckoned with her sheaf of menus but he thought of the fourteen lonely dollars left in his pocket. He went outside but it was too cold to hang about the square. Then where? He looked across the snowy park; three old dears were going up the steps of the Basilica. Warm it was in God's house. How long was it since he'd been in a church? Not since he'd left home, not that he'd missed it, either. Maybe . . . ? Well, it wouldn't hurt him, now would it?

The interior darkness was familiar. He listened to the

murmur of water pipes, located a bench near a radiator and moved in. Catholic churches were all the same. The pulpit on the right (shades of Father Cogley!) and on the left the Altar to Our Lady (Distaff Doings) with a bank of votive candles underneath. He remembered how, as a boy during the boredom of mass, he used to count the candles, sixpence a big one, threepence a little one and try to estimate the profit to the priests.

Coffey's father, a solicitor, had been buried in the brown habit of a Dominican Tertiary. Enough said. His elder brother Tom was a missionary priest in Africa. And yet neither Coffey nor Veronica were what Dublin people called pi-odious. Far from it. In fact one of his secret reasons for wanting to get away to the New World was that, in Ireland, church attendance was not a matter of choice. Bloody well go, or else, tinker, tailor, soldier, sailor, rich man, poor man, you were made to suffer in a worldly sense. Here, he was free. . . .

And yet . . . Staring now at the altar, he remembered the missioner's warning. Supposing it were not all nonsense? Suppose his brother Tom, worrying about the Moslems stealing his African converts, was right after all? Just suppose. Suppose all the prayers, the penances, the promises were true? Suppose the poor in spirit would inherit the kingdom of heaven? And not he.

For he was not poor in spirit. He was just poor. Well, what about him? If he did not believe all this stuff about an afterlife then what did he believe? What was his aim in life? Well . . . well, he supposed it was to be his own master, to provide for Vera and Paulie, to ... to what? Damned if he could put it into words. To make something of himself, he supposed. Well, was that enough? And would he? Maybe he was one of those people who get the best of neither world, one of those people the Lord had no time for, neither fish nor fowl, great sinner

nor saint? And maybe because he had never been poor in spirit, had never been one for pleading and penances, maybe God had lain in wait for him all these years, doling him out a little bad luck here, a little hope there, dampening his dreams, letting him drift further from the time and tide that led on to fortune until now, at the halfway mark in his life, he was stranded in this land of ice and snow? If there was a God above, was that what God wanted? To make him poor in spirit? To make him call pax, to make him give up, to herd him back with the other sheep in the fold?

He looked at the tabernacle. His large ruddy face set in a scowl as though someone had struck it. His lips shut tight under his ginger mustache. I never could abide a bully, he said to the tabernacle. Listen to me, now. I came in here to maybe say a prayer and 111 be the first to admit I had a hell of a nerve on me, seeing the way iVe ignored you these long years. But now I cannot pray, because to pray to you, if you're punishing me, would be downright cowardly. If it's cowards you want in heaven, then good luck to you. You're welcome.

He picked up his little green hat and left the church.

At two-thirty Mona Prentiss, receptionist, went into the office of Georges Paul-Emile Beauchemin, Public Relations Director of Canada Nickel, and handed him Coffey's application form. Yes, the man was outside and had been waiting since this morning. Would Mr. Beauchemin care to see him?

Mr. Beauchemin had time to kill. He had just finished buying someone a very good lunch in exchange for two hockey tickets. In half an hour, at the midweek meeting, he planned to hand the tickets over to Mr. Mansard. Mr. Mansard was a vice-president and a hockey fan. So Mr,

Beauchemin was in a good mood. He said to show the guy in.

Miss Prentiss came back up the corridor. "Will you follow me please, sir?" And Coffey followed, suddenly wishing he'd worn his blue suit, although it was shiny in the seat, watching her seat — melon buttocks rubbing under gray flannel skirt, high heels' tic-tac, cashmere sweater, blond curls. A pleasant rear view, yes, but he did not enjoy it. Sick apprehension filled him because, well, what were his qualifications for this job? What indeed?

"This is Mr. Coffey, sir," she said, shutting the door on them. And hooray! The face that fits. Because, by some miracle, Coffey had met Mr. Beauchemin, had met him last November at a party in the Press Club where the Coffeys had been Gerry Grosvenor's guests.

"Hello there," Coffey said, jovially advancing with his large hand outstretched, the ends of his mustache lifting in a smile. And Beauchemin took the proffered hand, his mind running back, trying to place this guy. He could not recall him at all. A limey type and, like most limey types, sort of queer. Look at this one with his tiny green hat, short bulky car coat and suede boots. A man that age should know better than to dress like a college boy, Beauchemin thought. He looked at Coffey's red face and large military mustache. Georges Paul-Emile Beauchemin had not served. That mustache did not win him. Oh no.

"I don't suppose you remember me?" Coffey said. "Ginger Coffey. Was with Cootehill Distilleries here. Met you at a Press Club do once with Gerry Grosvenor, the cartoonist."

"Oh yes, eh?" Beauchemin said vaguely. "Old Gerry, eh? You're — ah — you're Irish, eh?"

"Yes "Coffey said.

"Good old Paddy's Day, eh?"

"Yes."

"Lots of Irish out here, you know. Last year I took my little girl out to see the Paddy's Day parade on Sher-brooke Street. Lot of fun, eh?"

"Yes, isn't it?" Coffey said.

"So you're not with — ah—" Beauchemin glanced at the application form — "not with Distillery any more?"

"Well, no. We had a change of top brass at home, and they wanted me to come back. But I like it here, we were more or less settled, kiddy in school and so on. Hard changing schools in mid-term, so I decided to chance my luck and stay on."

"Sure," Beauchemin said. "Cigarette?" Perhaps this guy had been sent by someone from upstairs. It was wise to check. "How did you know we were looking for an editorial assistant, eh?"

Coffey looked at his little green hat. "Well, it was the — ah — the Unemployment Commission people. They mentioned it."

Reassured (for if it had been a brass recommendation he would have had to send a memo), Beauchemin leaned back, openly picked up the application form. A nobody. Seventeen from fifty-six is thirty-nine. Let him out on age.

"Well, that's too bad," he said. "Because — what did you say your first name was again?"

"Ginger. Had it since I was a boy. Red hair, you see."

"Well, Gin-ger, I'm afraid this job's not for you. We want a junior."

"Oh?"

"Yes, some kid who's maybe worked a couple of years on a suburban weekly, someone we can train, bring along, promote him if he works out."

"I see," Coffey said. He sat for a moment, eying his hat. Fool! Stupid blundering fool! Why didn't you wait to see if he remembered you? He doesn't know you from a

hole in the wall, coming in with your hand outl Oh God! Get up, say thank you and go away.

But he could not. In his mind, a ship's siren blew, all visitors ashore. He and Veronica and Paulie, tears in their eyes, stood on the steerage deck waving good-by to this promised land. This was no time for pride. Try? Ask?

"Well," Coffey said, "as a matter of fact, my experience has all been on the other side of the water. I imagine it's quite different here. Maybe — maybe I'd need to start lower on the scale? Learn the ropes as I go along?"

Beauchemin looked at the man's ruddy face, the embarrassed eyes. Worked for a distillery, did he? Maybe they let him go because he was too sold on the product? "Frankly, Gin-ger," he said, "you wouldn't fit into the pension plan. You know it's a union-management deal. The older a man comes in, the more expensive for the others in the plan. You know how these things work."

"But I wouldn't mind if you left me out of the pension plan?"

«o »

Sorry.

"But — but we New Canadians," Coffey began. "I mean, we can't all be boys of twenty, can we? We have to start somewhere? I mean" — he said, dropping his eyes to his hat once more — "I'll put it to you straight. I'd appreciate it if you'd make an exception."

"Sorry," Beauchemin said. He stood up. "I tell you what, Gin-ger. You leave your name and address with Mona, outside. If we think of anything we'll get in touch with yon, okay? But don't pass up any other offers, meantime. All right? Glad to have met you again. Give my regards to Gerry, will you? And good luck."

Beauchemin shook hands and watched Coffey put on his silly little hat. Saw him walk to the door, then turn, and raise his right hand in a quick jerky movement of farewell, a kind of joke salute. A vet, Beauchemin

thought. I was right. They do okay, free hospitals, pensions, mortgages, educations; the hell with those guys. "Be seeing you/' he said. "And shut the door, will you?"

In Room 200 of the Doxley Building, Sherbrooke Street, an aggressive publicity man for professional fund-raising group, province-wide cancer research campaign, put his little green hat between his feet and stared at H. E. Kahn, to whom application must be made.

H. E. Kahn wore a blue suit with narrow lapels which curved up to the points of his tight, white, tab-collared shirt. His black tie knot was the size of a grape and the tie itself was narrow as a ruler. The mouth above it was also narrow; narrow the needle nose, the eyes which now inspected the form on which, for the third time that day, the applicant had set down the misleading facts of a life. H. E. Kahn was a swift reader. He turned the form over, read the other side, his young, convict-shaven head bent, showing a small monkish tonsure at the crown. Yet for all that hint of baldness, Coffey estimated that H. E. Kahn could not be more than thirty years old. Which was older than the three other young men he had noticed at work in the outer office, older than the two pretty stenographers who sat facing each other, transcribing from dictating belts behind Coffey's back, and older certainly than the other applicant who had filled up a form as Coffey did and now waited his turn outside.

H. E. Kahn finished his reading and leaned back in his swivel chair until the tonsure on his head touched the wall. "You speak French?"

"No, I'm afraid not."

"French might have helped."

"I suppose so."

"Not essential, mind you, but I see you're not a local man. Not a Canadian, are you?"

"No, I'm Irish/'

"Irish, eh? That so? I ve been in Ireland. Shannon Airport. Got a wonderful camera deal there coming back from Paris last summer/*

H. E. Kahn's chair jacknifed to desk level, his hand crumpling the application form. Balled, the form accurately described a parabola over Coffey's left shoulder, holed into a secretary's wastepaper basket. "Sorry, Mr. Gee. You wouldn't suit us/'

Coffey stood up. "Well, thanks for seeing me, anyway."

"My pleasure. Hey, Marge, hey, send that other guy in, will you? And Jack? JACK? Shoot me over that special names list. Nice meeting you, Mr. Coffey. See you."

"See you," Coffey repeated mechanically. In hell, he hoped.

But afterwards, out in the street, he wondered if that had been fair. After all, Kahn had been polite enough. Was it because Kahn seemed to be a Jew? No, he hoped that wasn't it. Coffey did not agree with many of his countrymen in their attitude to Jews. None of his best friends were Jews, but that was no reason to dislike Jews, was it? Besides, he had not particularly liked Beauche-min either and that wasn't because Beauchemin was French-Canadian. Of course not. So, what was it, apart from the fact that neither man had wanted to employ him? They were younger than he. That was the first thing he had thought about both of them. And Donnelly too, the man in the Unemployment Commission. Younger. All day he had been going hat in hand to younger men. And yet — Suffering J, I'm not old, Coffey thought. Thirty-nine isn't old!

Walking, he turned the corner of Ste. Catherine Street and saw again this morning's tabloid headline: WIFE, LOVER SLAY CRIPPLE MATE. He remembered the

unbought steamship tickets. Flutel Better stay downtown awhile.

At a quarter to five he arrived in the street where he lived. Dawdling still, walking a little off the track of other pedestrians, watching his abominable snowfeet mark the white, new-fallen snow, waiting until five when Gerry Grosvenor would come because, with Gerry on hand, the dreaded scene about the tickets would be staved off for another hour or so. But, as he reached the lane running alongside his place, he saw, with relief, that Gerry's sporty little car was here and had been here for some time because there were no tracks on the snow where it had driven in. Which was peculiar.

Gerry Grosvenor, a political cartoonist on a big magazine called Canada's Own, was, Coffey supposed, their only real pal in Canada. Someone in Dublin who had known Gerry during the war had given Ginger a letter of introduction to Gerry and from the first go-off Gerry had taken to them like first cousins and favorites. Which was all well and good, but awkward because, when Coffey moved from his other flat and the cash started running out, he had to duck Gerry Grosvenor. For dammit, Gerry was a social sort and popular, and the last thing in the world Coffey wanted was for Gerry to start looking down on him. So, as he unlocked the door of the duplex, he was shocked to hear Gerry's voice say: "There now, there now. Cheer up. It won't be so bad as you think."

What was that? Veronica was sniffling, that was what. What was she sniffling about? Had she found out about the tickets? How? Lord blessus and saveus. Bloody females! Sobbing out her private affairs to some outsider, had she no dignity, the woman? He hesitated, dreading his entrance, wanting to hide.

There was one safe place. Paulie was not at home, and Veronica would never expect to find him there. He slipped into Paulie's tiny nest, cluttered as all her other rooms had been, and sat on the bed for a breather.

Three-quarter-profiled in their tin-finish frames, Paulie's favorite singers, film heroes and guitar players smiled on Daddy in autographed contempt. He avoided their glossy stares and picked up Bunkie, his daughter's oldest plaything, a wooden-headed pajama-case doll. Other talismen, less favored, lined her dressing table: a copy of Little Women, a worn beaded purse which had once been used by Coffey's mother at a Viceregal Ball, a glass snowflake paperweight, a pencil case Coffey had made for her in a woodworking shop. The pencil case, now chipped and broken, was filled with bobby pins and head combs. Paulie was growing up.

He looked again at the doll's wooden head, its painted features half-obliterated by childish kisses, childish tears. Ah, Paulie . . . what happened to us? Once, I wasn't able to stir without you running after me, oops-a-daisy, come to Daddy, whirling you up in the air, my Goldilocks and me the Big Bear. The games we played, the childish shrieks of fun . . . But now you never look at me. What happened? If only you were a boy?

But they had never had a boy. And whose fault was that? Not his, although she sometimes tried to make it seem so. You see, she got pregnant the month he married her. At the time, he had just been commissioned and everyone expected Ireland to go into the war. So they waited and waited. About the time Paulie was born, the thicks in the government announced that Ireland would stay neutral. And Veronica blew up when Coffey wanted to desert and move to the British side. He wanted to see some action but she said his duty was with his family. Family! He wanted adventure, not diapers. So he sulked

for a month or so and she got the priest after him for practicing birtK control. He said he was damned if any priest would dictate whether or not he'd have another child. The priest then threatened to refuse Veronica the sacraments and if there was one thing Coffey would not stand for, it was being threatened. They would not have another child, he said. Not yet. Not until he was good and ready. When would that be, she asked. Soon? Yes, soon. He promised her. Soon.

But they never had one. The years had passed: he no longer knew if she even wanted one. Ah, children . . . children . . . His large hand caressed Bunkie's head. He put the doll on the coverlet and awkwardly tidied the bed. He was acting like a child himself, come to think of it. Hiding like this. He went out, listened in the corridor, but heard no further weeps. So he risked it into the living room.

"Hello there, Ginger," Gerry Grosvenor said, getting up. He was tall, and so neat he reminded Coffey of a dummy in a men's furnishings window. Yet for all his height and neatness, for all his thirty years, his Gillette-blue chin and black-haired hands, adolescence, like an incurable disease, had never quite left him.

"Hello, Gerry lad," Coffey said jovially. "Hello there, Kitten."

Yes, she had been sniffling.

"So you never picked up the tickets?" she said.

"What was that, Kitten?"

"I phoned at quarter to five," she said. "You hadn't picked them up then, and they were closing in a few minutes. Does that mean you got a job?"

Coffey did not answer her at once. Instead, he winked at Gerry. Sure, women are always starting a barney over nothing, eh, Gerry lad? But Grosvenor did not return the

wink; left Coffey in the field, alone. "No," Coffey said, turning back to her. "I did not get a job."

"Then why didn't you buy those tickets ?"

"Look, we'll talk about that later, Kitten? Now, what about a beer? Are there any beers in this place, by any chance?"

"In the kitchen," she said.

"Gerry, will you have another?" Coffey asked.

But Grosvenor shook his head. His round brown stare, which reminded Coffey of a heifer watching you cross a field, was now fixed and glassy. He was ploothered, Coffey decided.

"No, I have to run," Grosvenor said. "I have another appointment. Now, don't worry, Vera and Ginger. I'm going to see what I can do, okay?"

"Listen. Have a short one for the road, won't you?" Coffey said, knowing that, the minute Gerry left, the roof would fall in.

"No, I'm late now," Gerry said. "'By, Ginger. 'By, Veronica."

Veronica did not move out of her seat, did not even say good-by. Which mortified Coffey, for, no matter, she might at least be polite to visitors. Angry, Coffey followed Gerry out into the hall. "I'm sorry I was late home, old man," he said. "I hope Veronica hasn't been bothering you with our troubles."

Grosvenor bent his head to drape a long woolen scarf about his neck, then looked at Coffey with round, brown cow-eyes. "But I'm your friend," he said. "I mean to say, I didn't know you were having trouble. I mean, your troubles are my troubles, right? That's the essence of any relationship, isn't it?"

"I suppose it is," Coffey agreed. Canadians were terribly slabbery, he'd noticed. Even the men were always telling you how much they liked you. Shocking way to

carry on, especially when you'd be daft to heed one word of it. Still, there was an excuse for old Gerry. He was drunk. "There we are," Coffey said, helping Gerry on with his overcoat. "Steady as she goes."

"I mean, I thought you wanted to go home," Gros-venor said. "But now that you don't — well, I'll see what I can dig up. Right?"

"Right," Coffey said, guiding him to the front door. "And thanks very much, Gerry."

"Listen," Grosvenor said, stopping, fixing Coffey once more in his drunken stare. "Going to look into a possibility right now. Call you tonight, okay?"

"Fair enough. I'll be at home."

" 'Kay," Grosvenor said. He stumbled on the step, went down the path to the street in a shambling, head-heavy walk. It occurred to Coffey that Gerry was not fit to drive.

"Gerry?" he called — because if he drove Gerry home it would put off Judgment Day a while longer . . .

" 'By," Grosvenor shouted back. "See you, Ginger."

Ah well. Slowly, Coffey shut the front door. Slowly he made his way back into the living room. She had not moved from her chair. She sat, her dark hair framing her pallor, her long fingers laced over one knee, the leg drawn up, her large, dark eyes looking up at him, implacable and waiting.

"Well," he said, sitting on the arm of the sofa. "Pal Gerry certainly has a skinful in him this afternoon, wouldn't you say?"

She did not answer. He smiled at her, still trying to jolly her. "Do you know, I could have sworn for a moment he was going to kiss me, out there in the hall," he said.

"Kiss who?"

"Me," he said, trying to smile at her.

"Why didn't you get those tickets, Ginger?"

"Now . . ." he said. "Look, dear," he said. ''Listen, do you know where I went today?"

No answer.

"First thing this morning," he said. "I went down to the Unemployment Commission. You know, the labor exchange? And do you know, right off they gave me two jobs to look into. They were very decent. So, I spent the whole day at interviews and — and listen, Vera, I admit I didn't get anything. But it was just a start and tomorrow they're going to have another try at placing me—"

"Tomorrow you're going to get those tickets," she said.

"Ah now, look here, Kitten. Sure you don't want to go home to Ireland any more than I do. Now, why not wait awhile —"

"No. We've waited too long already."

"But just another week wouldn't kill us?"

"Ginger," she said. "I'm doing this for your sake, if you only knew it. We're getting those tickets tomorrow, and that's all's about it."

"For my sake?" he said. "Am I the one who wants to go home?"

"We're buying those tickets," she said. "That's final!"

"It is not final," he said, suddenly losing his temper. "We can't buy the tickets, so shut up about it, will you?"

"Wliat?"

"How the hell do you think I've carried on this last while?" he said. "It costs a fortune, this country."

"You spent the money? You-spent-the-moneyP"

"I couldn't help it, Kitten. There were expenses — at the office — things you never knew —"

"One," she said, "two —"

"All kinds of bills—"

"Three-four—"

"Ah, now, cut it out, Kitten. I'm sorry. I'm not a good manager, I never was. I'm sorry."

"Five-six-seven —"

"I said I was sorry, Kitten. God knows it's not just my fault. Those thicks at home, not paying my expenses. I skimped on lunches, even."

"Eight-nine-ten!" She took a long breath. "I am not going to lose my temper," she recited. "I-am-not-going-to-lose-my-temper."

"Good, that's the girl. Now, cheer up, sure, listen, I'll get a job soon and it'll be all for the best. You'll see."

"Go away," she said. "What on earth good does saying you're sorry do?"

"Vera?"

"If you just knew what you've done," she said, beginning to cry. "If you had just the faintest idea. You've torn it, this time. You really have."

"Ah, now, Kitten — "

"Go away. Eat your supper."

"Aren't you eating, dear?'*

"Get out!"

Ah, well. Women were peculiar cusses. They had nervous troubles men knew nothing about. Ah, she had been acting very peculiar this last while, cold and fed up and so on. That was nervous trouble, he was sure. If you read medical books, it was all explained in there. So, leave her be. She'd come around.

He went into the kitchen and found sausages and potatoes warm in the oven. A little mental arithmetic indicated three for him, three for her, and two for Paulie. He took his portion and settled down at the kitchen table. The sink tap dripped onto stacked pots and pans. Upstairs, someone knocked on a radiator and a moment later the basement furnace whirred and coughed into life.

Lordsaveus, what a dump this was, was it any wonder Vera hated it? Coffey was hungry. He ate his sausages and helped himself to more gravy and potatoes. Fork halfway to his mouth, he noticed her standing in the door, her face pale, her eyes bright. Still in a rage. He put the forkful in his mouth and winked at her.

"How much do we have left?" she said.

He smiled, gesturing that his mouth was full.

"Answer me. The truth, mind!"

Eighty and fourteen — well, make it an even — "About a hundred dollars," he said.

"Oh my God!" She went away.

He finished the spuds and wiped his plate with a bit of bread. What did Vera know about money anyway? An only child, brought up by a doting mother, pretty, with plenty of beaux, until she met and married him. And, even so, in all those years of marriage, the Army years, the years at Kylemore and in Cork, had she ever bloody starved? Had she? Give him credit for something. And remember, Vera, you married me for better or for worse. This is the worse. Ah, but supposing she won't put up with the worse?

Now that was nonsense. She loved him in her way and despite her temper. And she had Paulie. He could hear the two of them talking now in the living room. Paulie, home from her dance practice, had gone straight in to see Vera. And, as usual, not even hello for Daddy. They were like sisters, those two, always gossiping away about womany wee things he knew nothing about.

There was the phone. He got up to answer, because Vera hated the phone.

"Ginger?" It was Gerry Grosvenor. "Listen, how would you react to a hundred and ten a week?"

"Get away with you!"

"No, seriously, there's a job going as deskman on the

Tribune. And the Managing Editor happens to be a friend of mine/'

"Deskman?" Coffey said. "But Gerry lad, what's that? What does a deskman do? Make desks?"

"Copy editor/' Grosvenor said. "Easy. This is on the international desk, all wire copy, very clean. It's just writing heads and putting in punctuation. Nothing to it."

"But I have no experience on a newspaper. I never wrote a headline in my life."

"Never mind that. Would you take the job?"

"Would a duck swim!"

"Okay. Wait. I'll call you back."

Coffey replaced the receiver and looked down the long railroad corridor hallway. Total silence from the living room, which meant she and Paulie had been listening. So he went in. "Hello, Apple," he said to Paulie. "Had a good day in school?"

"Was that Gerry?" Veronica asked in an angry voice.

"Yes, dear. He says he can get me a job. Hundred and ten dollars a week to start."

"What job?"

"On the Tribune. It's an editing job. I pointed out that I'd no experience, but he said not to worry."

"I'd worry," Veronica said, "if I were you. This isn't acting the glorified office boy, or playing poker and drinking pints in barracks."

He gave her a look intended to turn her into Lot's wife there on the sofa. Imagine saying that in front of Paulie!

"Go and have your supper, Apple," he told Paulie. He waited as, unwillingly, Paulie trailed out of the room. "Now, why did you say that in front of the child, Vera?"

"She might as well know."

"Know what?"

"What sort of a selfish brute she has for a father."

Suffering J! No sense talking, was there? He went out

and, while he was in the bathroom, the phone rang again. He hurried up the corridor.

"Yes," she said to the phone. "Yes — wait, I want to explain something. I mean apropos of this afternoon. Ginger doesn't have our passage money home. He spent it. ... Yes. ... So that leaves me no choice, does it? . . . Yes . . . yes, here's Ginger. I'll let you tell him yourself."

"Ginger?" Gerry's voice said. "It's all set. IVe given you a good build-up and old MacGregor wants to see you in his office at three tomorrow afternoon."

"Thanks a million, Gerry. But what did you tell him?"

"I told him you'd worked on a Dublin newspaper for two years and said, after that, you'd been a press officer in the Army, and then that you were a public relations man for Irish whiskey out here. It sounded good, believe

me.

"But, Holy God!" Coffey said. "It's not true. I never worked on a newspaper."

At the other end of the line there was a Remembrance Day hush. Then Grosvenor said: "Ginger, the point is, do you want this job or don't you?"

"Of course I do, but —"

"But nothing. Everybody bullshits out here. Every employer expects it. The point is to get in. After that, doing the job is up to you."

"But maybe I can't do it," Coffey said.

"Beggars can't be choosers," said Vera's voice. She reached out, took the receiver from him and said: "Thanks, Gerry, you're an angel. Thanks very much. . . . Yes. . . . Yes, I know. . . . Good night." She replaced the receiver, turned away, walked down the hall and went into their bedroom. He followed her but she shut the door. When he tried the door, it was locked,

"Vera? I want to talk to you?"

"Go away," she said. She sounded as if she were crying again.

"Listen/' he said. "Don't you want any supper?"

"No. And go away, will you? Please! Sleep on the living-room sofa. I want to be alone."

Ah, well. What was the use? He went back to the kitchen where Paulie was at table, reading some trashy magazine. He got out Vera's sausages and offered Paulie one but she shook her head and, still reading, carried her dishes to the sink.

"Stay and have a chat with me, Apple?"

"I have to study, Daddy."

"Just a minute, miss," he said, surprised at the anger in his voice. He saw she was surprised too. It wasn't like him to be cross. "Sit down," he said. "I want to ask you something."

"Yes, Daddy?"

"Apple, do you want to go back to Ireland?"

"Jeepers, no. I like it here."

"Why?"

"Well, the kids are more grown-up here. And school's more — oh, it's just nicer, that's all. Besides, I said good-by to everybody at home. I'm going to look silly going back now. I wish we weren't going back, Daddy."

"Well, we're not," he said. "It's much better here. You're right. I wish your mother could see that, though."

"But Mummy's never wanted to go home."

"Is that so?" he said. "That's not the way I hear it."

"She likes it here, Daddy. Honestly she does. She's just afraid you won't find a job, that's all."

"I'll get a job," he said. "No need to panic."

"Sure. Of course," Paulie said. "Can I go now, Daddy?"

"All right, Pet." You'd think he was a leper or something, she was that anxious to run away from him. Children . . . children . . .

He ate the remaining three sausages and lit a smoke. If Veronica really wanted to stay over here, why the blazes couldn't she say so? No bloody faith in him, that was it. Suffering J!

He went into the living room with the Montreal Star but he was too upset to read it. He went back into the kitchen and brought out two quarts of beer. Last of the last. He poured himself a glass, lay down on the sofa and switched the radio on, trying to salvage something out of this miserable bloody evening. He searched for music, for music hath charms and had better have, because, looking back on the day, he had a savage bloody breast on him, all right. Hat in hand to younger men, wife sniveling to strangers, asked to lie his way into some job he'd be caught out in, and what else? Oh, a savage bloody breast!

And all there was to drink was this gassy Canuck beer that gave him heartburn. And to sleep on, this bloody sofa that was too short. No faith. If your nearest and dearest had no faith in you, then how could a man give his all? Where would he be unless he still could hope? Without hope, he'd be done for. Aye, a savage bloody breast.

"Daddy? Dad-eee?"

"Yes, Apple," he said, sitting up in hope.

"Daddy, I can't hear to study with all that noise. Could you turn the radio off?"

"Right, Pet."

Not even able to enjoy a bit of music. Bloody females! He lay back, entering a world where no earthly women were. In that world soft houris moved, small women of a Japanese submissiveness, administering large doubles and sweet embraces in rooms filled with comfortable club sofas and beds. In that world, men of thirty-nine were Elder Brothers, prized over any Greek stripling. In that world, a man no longer spent his life running uphill,

his hope in his mouth, his shins kicked by people with no faith in him. In that world, all men had reached the top of the hill; there were no dull jobs, no humiliating interviews, no turndowns; no man was saddled with girning wives and ungrateful daughters, there were unlimited funds to spend, the food was plentiful and nonfattening, there were no Father Cogleys handing out warnings, no newspapers worrying you with atom bombs, no sneerers and mockers waiting to see you fail, no rents to pay, no clothes to buy, no bank managers. In that world you could travel into beautiful jungles with four Indian companions, climb a dozen distant mountain peaks, sail rafts in endless tropic seas. You were free. By flicking your fingers in a secret sign, you could move backwards or forwards in time and space, spending a day in any age that took your fancy, but as a leader of that age, the happiest man of that day. In that free world . . .

In that world, both quarts finished, Ginger Coffey fell asleep.

Two He came to consciousness, aware of a telephone ringing. Sunlight struck down on him from the window in a white column filled with tiny, floating feathers of dust. He turned his eyes from that light and, as in a frame from a film, saw his wife pass by in the corridor. The ringing stopped.

He had lain all night in his clothes. Mother of God, she would think he'd been drunk. Up with him now! He undressed, dropping clothes in a heap, found blankets and sheet in the cupboard, made up the sofa as a bed and hopped back in his underpants, closing his eyes as she passed back to the bedroom. Yes, that was a little victory.

Relaxed, he lay for a while, listening to the voice of a French-Canadian radio announcer upstairs, listening to the thump and shuffle of Madame Beaulicu's feet on the ceiling, remembering that last night he had been supposed to tell Madame whether or not they would keep this apartment for another month. Oh, well. Tell her tonight, when he knew about the new job. The job. That started him thinking of the day ahead, remembering that Veronica now knew the worst about the tickets, remembering that she would want to know how he had spent the money and what they were going to do. Ah, dear God!

He exhaled noisily, feathering up the ends of his mus-

tache. As u§ual, you must balance the good with the bad. And if there was no good at the moment, then think of the important things. Health and strength and a wife and daughter. And here you are in a foreign land listening to French on the radio and you a man who has cut loose from all the old codology and cant at home, a man who struck out alone in search of fame and fortune. So, you're not dead yet. Now, raise your big carcass out of this excuse for a bed. Lift it. One, two, three, and up! And up he got, feeling a touch of heartburn after last night's beer, a twinge in his knee as he went heavily down the dark corridor to knock on her door. "Veronica?"

He went in. Nobody there. She had already made up the bed. He put on his dressing gown and slippers and wandered back up the corridor to the bathroom. When he came out, he saw the pair of them in the kitchen. Paulie, her head in pincurls, eternal book propped up against the milk jug as she finished her Corn Flakes. That child didn't eat enough and Veronica didn't seem to care. But when he looked at Veronica, he forgot to be angry. She was in her dressing gown, her dark hair down about her shoulders. She smiled at him. "Did you sleep all right?" she asked.

"Like a top," he said, kissing the end of her nose.

"I'm sorry about last night," she said. "I had a terrible headache. It made me grumpy."

He looked to see that Paulie was not watching, then ran his hand down his wife's back, giving her buttocks a little slap. "Sure, that's all right," he said. "Was that the phone I heard earlier?"

"Yes, Gerry rang. He wants us to have lunch with him today before you go for your interview. His treat, he said."

"Isn't he the decent skin, though?" Coffey said. "You told him yes, I hope."

"Of course. Now, eat your breakfast/'

There must be at least two eggs in the helping of scrambled eggs she ladled out to him. He peppered and salted it, warmed by the sunlight, by this matutinal kindness; sure that it was a good omen somehow. He thought of J. F. Coffey, Journalist. He liked the sound of that. Or better, Coffey, the Editor; Coffey of the Tribune . . . Yes, it was a grand morning, right enough. Maybe today his ship would come in.

"Was Madame Beaulieu around yet?" he asked.

"Not yet."

"Well, we'll tell her about the place tomorrow," he said. "Although, if I get this job, I don't fancy staying on in this hole."

"I've been thinking," Veronica said. "If we're really going to stay I'm going to get a job as well. Paulie's out until after three, five days a week. There's no need for me to sit at home, is there?"

No need for her to get a job either, was there? He could take care of his own. Ah, this was old stuff, her wanting a job, wanting to slave away in some shop. Ah, for God's sake! But he held his whist: let her dream, the woman. He finished his eggs, ate four pieces of toast and sat idle over his third cup of tea while Paulie rushed off to school and Veronica washed the breakfast dishes. And after, following Veronica down the corridor in the morning sunlight, everything quiet, everyone else off to work, he stood in the bedroom door watching her as she took off her dressing gown and stood in her pink slip. His Dark Rosaleen.

"Lay out my old blue suit, will you?" he said. "I'd better wear it today. They're shocking conservative in their clothes over here."

Obediently she leaned into the closet to get the suit and at that moment the sight of a fold of her slip caught

between the cleft of her buttocks aroused him to a sluggish, familiar desire. Married as long as they were, desire was not something a man could waste. He dropped his own dressing gown and pulled her down on the bed. He kissed her, fumbled her slip off her, then remembered. He looked at her, and, obedient, she went to the bathroom. He shut his eyes, carefully nursing his desire until she came back. Then, forgetting her years of complaints about his roughness, his selfishness, he took her, tumbling her naked beneath him. Animal, his breathing harsh in the morning silence, he labored towards that moment of release and fulfillment. And afterwards, fell down beside her, pulling her on top of him, crushing her face against the reddish, graying hair on his chest. He exhaled in contentment; dozed off to sleep.

Ten minutes later, he awoke to find her sitting up in bed beside him, smoking a cigarette, her cheek reddened by contact with his unshaven chin. He was in good form, this morning: her body, familiar as his own, still could rouse him to another round. He reached up, taking hold of her breasts, smiling at her, his mustache ends curling upwards in anticipation —

"No, Ginger." She drew back, put her cigarette in his mouth, slipped off the bed and went into the bathroom. That was women for you, they never enjoyed anything. He heard her begin to run a bath.

"Ginger?"

"Yes?"

"Ginger, promise you'll tell me the truth?"

"Promise."

"Who do you love more? Paulie or me?"

"Love both of you, Kitten."

"But if anything happened to Paulie that would be worse for you than if anything happened to me, wouldn't it?"

"Nothing's going to happen to anyone," he said. "Oh, Kitten, I feel it in my bones. Today is going to be the day that counts. There's a law of averages in life. You just have to wait for your chance to come up/'

"But, supposing you had to decide in a matter of life or death? I mean between Paulie and me. You know, one of those things about save the mother or save the child. Which would you save?"

"Will you, for the love of Mike, shut up and get on with your bath?" he said contentedly.

"No, answer me. Which one would you save?"

"Well, I suppose if a ship was sinking, I'd save Paulie. I mean, she'd have all her life before her. Kids of her own and so forth."

"And what makes you think I can't have any more kids?" she said. "Good grief, it's not my fault we hadn't any more kids. And I still can have them, otherwise why did you send me off to the bathroom this morning? What do you think I am — a grandmother? Most men — let me tell you — most men still find me very attractive, do you hear?"

"Listen, Kitten," he said. "I didn't mean that. I was only saying that Paulie has her whole life before her. We haven't."

"Maybe you haven't," she said. The bath water began to run again. "But I have," she said. "God, you're selfish!"

After her bath, she cheered up. She put on her best black suit for lunch because they both knew Gerry would take them to some posh place. Yes, he was the soul of generosity, Gerry, always lending them his car for a run up north, inviting them out to parties and for lunch. Not that Ginger hadn't held their end up, when he could. Matter of fact — although Vera didn't know it — that was where some of the return passage money went. Al-

though, even in these last days when Coffey had to cut his entertaining to a duck egg for lack of spondulicks, Gerry never let that make one bit of difference. None of your eyes right and cross the street for him when a pal was down on his luck. Ah, no. Dead on, Gerry was. A heart of oak.

Still, for all his decency, Gerry could be a strain at times. Talk? A phonograph. And, being a political cartoonist, he fancied himself as in the know. He was always up in Ottawa, and to hear him talk about the place it was the hub of the bloody universe. He referred to the two head men in the Canadian Government as Lester and Louie. He had once had tea with Madame Pandit, and when he talked politics he let slip names like Joe Enlee or J. F. Dee or Rab or Mac or Matsy Dong or Mick OTan as if he was related to all of them.

But today, for a change, Gerry talked about Ireland. He said he was glad they were not going back there. He said until he had met the Coffeys he had considered Irish people bigoted, untrustworthy and conventional. Although he had some very good Irish friends, he said. But he had been relieved to find that the Coffeys were not nationalists or religious. Although he admired people who believed in something; didn't they? Of course, none of his Catholic friends ever went to church, he said. Which was a relief to him. Yes, the Irish were wonderful people, imaginative, romantic and creative. Wonderful people.

Coffey winked at Veronica.

Then Gerry talked about the interview that was coming up: "Confidence," Gerry said. "That's the important thing in an interview. Now, in Canada, we don't go in for the hard sell. On the contrary" — and his face loosened in that self-satisfied smile peculiar to him when discussing his country — "I like to think that Canadians combine the best facets of British reticence with a touch

of good old American down-to-earthness. And,, that's the tone I took when I sold you to MacGregor. I made him feel I was doing him a favor."

This time, it was Veronica who winked. Ah, God knows, Coffey thought, when you come right down to it, she's a darling. Not that Gerry would notice that, he was so wrapped up in himself. But she was a darling.

After the lunch with Gerry, the Coffeys walked over to the Tribune building and just the fact of having her with him made Coffey less nervous about the interview to come. Into the lobby they went and she stopped to straighten his tie. 'Til wait for you here," she said.

"But there's no need, Kitten. I mean, even when you have an appointment in this country, they often keep you hanging around for hours on end."

"Doesn't matter," she said. "I'll be nervous no matter where I wait. Oh, Ginger. What if they find out you've no experience?"

"Steady the Buffs," he said, smiling at her. But the sickness came suddenly upon him. No faith, she had. No faith. "Don't worry," he said. "Why, I'll bet you a —"

"I know," she said. "A brand-new frock. I could run a dress shop if I collected on half your bets. Now go on, and good luck."

So, into the elevator he went, sick with nerves, praying that . . .

"Fourth floor. Editorial," the elevator man said. Funny, whenever you were in no hurry to get somewhere, elevators, buses, taxis all went like the wind. Coffey stepped out, hearing the elevator door shut behind him, feeling shabby and ill at ease in his old blue suit, pausing to stare at his image in the brass plaque in the corridor. The plaque said CITY ROOM and in it he seemed all squeegeed up, head tiny, eyes aslant like a Chinaman. Exactly how he felt. But you'll do, he told himself. Keep your chin up

and somecjay you can buy yourself a brass plaque like this to remind yourself of the day your luck changed and you started in a whole new career. Right, then! He went in.

On the fourth floor of the Tribune, the night's business was just beginning. Under fluorescent lights, lit all year round, a few reporters studied the afternoon papers. A police radio blared routine calls in a corner and in the nearby teletype room a jammed machine tintinnabulated incessantly, calling for attention. In the center slot of a large horseshoe desk a fat man in a woolen cardigan sliced open the afternoon's crop of wire service photographs. He looked up as Coffey approached. "Yes?"

"May I speak to Mr. MacGregor, please?"

"Boy! Take this man to Mr. Mac."

An indolent adolescent shoved a rubber cylinder down a communications tube, then hooked a beckoning finger. Across the City Room he led and down a corridor to a partitioned-off office on the opened door of which a small brass plaque announced MANAGING EDITOR. The boy pointed to the plaque, then went away, wordless. Inside, Coffey saw three young men in shirt sleeves looking over the shoulders of an old man who was seated at a large, scarred desk. He was a thin old man with a pale, bony face, a pumping blue vein in his forehead and eyebrows thick and crumbling as cigar ash. His voice, a Low Church Scottish rumble, could be heard clearly in the corridor. For once, Coffey was not comforted by the fact that he faced an older man.

"Dorrothy Dix? Where's Dorrothy Dix?"

"Here, Mr. Mac."

"O.K. Now, where's the funnies?"

"Here, Mr. Mac"

"Make sure that Blondie is up top and then Mutt and Jeff and then Moon Mullins. Not Rex Morrgan, M.D. Some bleddy rascal in the composing room changed the order in the Early last night/*

"Right, Mr. Mac."

"O.K. Now, away with ye."

The three young men clutched up page proofs and galleys and rushed out, jostling Coffey in the doorway. For the love of J, how was he going to tell this sulphur-breathing Scottish Beelzebub that he was an experienced subeditor? Grosvenor must be daft.

The old man spiked a scrap of paper, like Calvin downing sin. His eye picked out Coffey in the doorway.

"Come in. State your business."

"My — my name is Coffey. I believe Gerry Grosvenor spoke to you about me?"

"Grrosvenor? Och, aye, the cartoonist. Come in, come in, sit you down. Where's my notes? Aye, here we are. Deskman, aren't you?"

"Yes, sir."

"What paper did you wurrk for in the Old Country?"

Confidence, Grosvenor had said. The time and tide that leads on to fortune. One good lie and — But as Coffey opened his mouth he was taken with a sort of aphasia. The old man waited, becoming suspicious. "I — ah — I worked on the Irish Times, sir."

"Times, eh? Good paper."

"Yes. Yes, isn't it?"

"Grrosvenor said you were in the Army?"

"Yes, sir."

"Officer weren't you? Serve overseas?"

"I — I was in the Irish Army, sir. We were neutral during the war."

"Indeed?"

"I — I was a press officer in the Irish Army," Coffey

added, trjdng to correct the hostility in that "Indeed?"

"Press officer," the old man said. "Trying to keep the facts from the public, that is the services* job. However, I need a man who has some knowledge of wurrld events. Most Canadians have none. What about you?"

"I — ah — I try to keep up, sir."

"Grrosvenor tells me you were a publicity man for a whussky company?"

"Yes, sir."

"Scotch whussky?"

"No, sir. Irish."

"No wonder you're out of a job, then. Did you wurrk on the foreign desk at the Times?"

"Yes, sir. Ah — part-time."

"What do you mean, part-time?"

"Well, ah — summer holidays and so on. Filling in."

The old man nodded and consulted his notes again. Coffey fingered his mustache. A good touch that summer holidays. He was pleased with himself for thinking of it.

"When was it you wurrked for the Times?"

"Oh — after I got out of the Army. About — ah — six years ago."

"How long did you wurrk there?"

"About" — what had Grosvenor said? — "about eighteen months."

"I see." The old man picked up one of the phones on his desk. "Give me Fanshaw," he said. "Ted? When you were in Dublin, did you ever hear tell of a subbie on the Times by the name of Coffey? . . . Aye, about five years ago. . . . Hold on." He covered the mouthpiece and turned to Coffey. "What was the name of the foreign editor?"

Coffey sat, his eyes on his little green hat.

"Well?"

He raised his eyes and read a title on the bogkshelf behind MacGregor. Holy Bible.

"Right, Ted," the old man told the telephone. "Disna' matter/' He put the phone down and glowered at Coffey under the crumbling ash of his eyebrows. "If you'd been a Scot," he said. "You'd have come in here wi' references in your hand. But you carry nothing besides your hat and a lot of cheek. Och, aye. You may fool the likes of Gerry Grrosvenor, but there isn't an Irishman born that I'd trust to pull the wuul o'er my eyes!"

Coffey, his face hot, stood up and put his hat on.

"Where are you going?" MacGregor said.

"I'm sorry I took up your ti—"

"Sit down! Are you hard up for a job? Tell me the truth."

"Yes, sir."

"O.K. Can you spell? Spell me parallel."

Coffey spelled.

"Correct. Are you married?"

"Yes, sir."

"Children?"

"One daughter, sir."

"Hmm. . . . Have you a vice?"

"Advice, sir?"

"Are you deef? I mean, have you a weakness? Booze or horses or wimmin? Own up now, for I'll find out, anyway."

"No, sir."

"O.K. You say ye've been a P.R. That may be. But what a P.R. knows about the wurrkings of a newspaper could be written twice over on the back of a tomtit's arse and still leave room for the Lorrd's Prayer. So you'd best start at the bottom. Do you agree?"

Coffey took a deep breath. He was too old to start at the bottom.

"Well? I^)on't stand there gawking/'

"Well, sir, it depends. I'm not a boy of twenty."

"I'm proposing to start you off in the proofroom/' the old man said. "So that you can acquaint yourself with the rudiments of our style. That's the best training there is/'

"A — a p-p-proofreader, did you say, sir?"

"I did. My readers are not unionized, thank the Lord. And I happen to be shorthanded there at the moment. If you wurrk well, I might try you out on the floor as a reporter. You might even wind up as a deskman if you play your cards right. What do you say?"

"Well I — I'd have to think about that, sir. How much — how much would that pay?"

"Fifty dollars a week, which is more than you're wurrth. Start at six tonight. Go and think it over now, but let me know no later than half-past four, if you want the job."

"Thank you —"

"Clarence?" Mr. MacGregor shouted. "Where's Clarence?"

A fat man rushed in, notebook at the ready.

"What's the last two paras of Norrman Vincent Peale doing in the overset, Clarence?"

"Don't know, Mr. Mac."

"Bleddy well find out, then."

The fat man rushed out. Mr. MacGregor spiked another galley. "All right, Coffey. Good day to you,"

Coffey went away. Fifty dollars a week, reading galleys. A galley slave ... He passed along a corridor lined with rolls of newsprint, wandered across the wide desert of the city room and out past the brass plaque to the elevator. The red light flashed above the elevator door. Going down. Down, down, all his high hopes failed; with Veronica waiting below, Veronica who wanted to know that the bad days were over, that they could move to a better place . . .

"Ground floor/' the elevator man said. "Ground floor. Out/There she was under the big clock, the nervous beginnings of a smile on her face. Poor Kitten, it was not fair to her, not fair at all, she'd be in such a state —

Maybe, through Gerry Grosvenor, maybe he might just manage? Maybe. And so, he went towards her, his mind made up. Don't tell her now. Smile instead, be the jolly Ginger she used to love. He kissed her, squeezed her and said: "Steady as she goes."

"Did you get it, Ginger?"

"I did, indeed."

"Oh, thank God."

"Now, now," he said. "What's that? Sniffles? Come on, come on, it's laughing you should be. Listen — let's — let's go and have a cup of tea. How would you like to sail into the Ritz, just like the old days?"

"Oh, Ginger, I'm so glad for you."

"Glad for me? And aren't you glad for yourself, Kitten? Ah, it's going to be super. Just super. Come on now. We'll take a taxi."

"But we can't afford it, Ginger."

"Come on, come on," lie said, out in the street now, signaling a cab. "Let me be the judge of that. In with you. Driver? The Ritz-Carlton Hotel, on the double!"

He leaned back in the taxi, put his arm around her shoulders and hugged her, watching the city rush past: pretending. Making her feel as she did in the first weeks they landed, two people in a new and exciting country, him with three good agencies to make his fortune and all the old fogeys at home confounded. Sweeping her off to the Ritz for tea, happy as sandboys, the pair of them.

"But, how did the interview go?" she said. "What did he ask you?"

"Why, .first rate, first rate," said he. "The old fellow took to me like a long-lost relative. He's going to show me over the different stages of the job, let me work awhile in each department until I get my hand in."

"Isn't that marvelous?" she said. "We must phone Gerry and thank him."

"Plenty of time. Tea first."

"Ginger, how much are they going to pay you?"

"Hundred and ten, but that's only a start. There's no telling how far I can go in a job like this. You may be looking at an important citizen, Kitten. J. F. Coffey, the editor."

"But Ginger, do you think you can do it?"

"Didn't Gerry say I could?"

"Yes, but—"

"Gerry has perfect faith in me," Coffey said, "and you have none. Isn't that a nice thing?"

"No, I didn't mean that," she said, contrite. "It's just that I hope nothing goes wrong this time."

"What would go wrong, would you tell me? Now, come on. Here we are."

He helped her out of the taxi under the brass carriage lanterns of the hotel, already lit in the gray winter afternoon. Up the steps they went, past the black wood panels of the entrance hall, and into the heat of the lobby. He took her coat and removed his own, dodging off to the cloakroom. He had to get a hold of Gerry. For one thing Gerry might be able to tell him how long he'd have to wait before they made him a reporter. And, for another, Gerry would have to help him because this was Gerry's fault after all. They would just have to keep mum, Gerry and he, and try to get through the weeks until he was made a reporter. Wasn't that the best plan? Well, if it wasn't, it was the only plan he could think of at the moment.

So when he checked the coats, he hurried.down the back stairs to the row of public telephones in the basement. He called Canada's Own.

"How did it go, Ginger?"

"Disaster. Listen, Gerry, he caught me red-handed. Now listen — I haven't had the heart to tell Veronica the truth. And listen — he's offered me a job and I have until half-past four to make up my mind. It's in the proofroom, but that's only temporary. He's promised to promote me to reporter. Now, if I take it, maybe I can last out a few weeks without Vera being any the wiser. Until they make me a reporter, you see?"

"But did MacGregor give you a definite date for this promotion?" Gerry asked.

"No, he didn't. I think it won't be long though."

"How do you know? I wouldn't put it past that old bastard to con you into this, just so's he can get himself a nonunion proofreader on the cheap."

"But dammit, what's the use in talking, I'll have to take it," Coffey said. "I've told Vera I have a job."

"It's up to you," Gerry said. "But if you start small, you'll wind up small."

"Yes, but beggars can't be choosers—" Coffey began. Then he stopped. In the little mirror in front of the telephone, he saw Veronica's face. He turned around.

"Let me speak to Gerry," she said.

At once, Coffey hung up.

"Why did you do that? You're too late, anyway. I heard you."

He took her arm. "Now, listen — listen, Kitten, it's not as bad as you think. Let's — let's go up and have a cup of tea. I want to talk to you."

Carefully he led her up the stairs. They went into the Palm Court, a room that reminded Coffey more of a drawing room in some big house than a place where you could

buy a cup u of tea. He guided her to a sofa in a corner and at once called a waiter, ordering tea and crumpets from the waiter, taking as long as he could, postponing the inevitable. But at last the waiter went away. "Now listen, Kitten/' Coffey said. "It's a sort of apprenticeship, that's all —'

She was sniffling. He passed her his handkerchief, then looked anxiously around at the other people in the room. "Vera, please?" he said. "People are watching."

"Go and sit by yourself, then."

"Vera, I didn't mean that. Now, cheer up."

"Why?"

"Well, this thing is only temporary, just for a week or so."

"Does Gerry think it's temporary?"

"Of course he does."

"Word of honor, Ginger?"

"Word of honor. It's just a training period —"

"Proofreading, isn't that what it is?" she said. "How much are they going to pay you during this 'training' period?"

"Ah — seventy dollars a week. We can manage on that."

"How much? Do you want me to phone Mr. Mac-Gregor and check?"

Nervously, Coffey touched the parting in his mustache. "All right," he said. "Fifty is what it is. But that's only for a week or so."

"Oh? How many weeks? Ginger, for once in your life, why can't you tell me the truth?"

"Well . . ." he said. "Well, anyway, this is Grosvenor's fault, not mine. Bloody daft caper, asking me to tell this old codger I had experience. Sure he trapped me in no time, made me look like a bloody idjit. God, wait till I see Mr. Gerry Grosvenor. Him and his bloody schemes."

"It's Gerry's fault," she said. "Not your fault, jof course. Oh, it's never your fault, is it, Ginger?"

"Well, it wasn't my idea to pretend I was something I'm not."

"A proofreader,'' she said. "That's what you are. That's all you are. How are the three of us going to live on fifty dollars a week?"

"But he promised to make me a reporter. And then an editor, he said. Now, that's true, Kitten. Here — have a crumpet."

"You can't afford a crumpet," she said, weeping.

"Ah now, for the love of Mike, will you give over that boohooing, Vera? What sort of way is that to carry on?"

"Listen to me," she said. "Li-listen to me. I'm not going to put up with this any more, do you hear? God knows," she said, her tears now coming uncontrollably, "I've tried. You'll never know how hard I've tried. I was even ready to go home, even though I hated to go home. But I thought it was the only way to save us. That wasn't easy. No, it wasn't easy, believe you me."

"I know, Kitten. I know."

"And then — then last night you walked in and admitted that you'd been lying to me for weeks. Letting me pack and write Mother and make plans and everything. After you'd promised on your word of honor you'd never touch a penny of that passage money."

"I know," he said. "I should have told you. I'm sorry, Kitten."

"You're sorry. That makes it all right, I suppose? What good does saying you're 'sorry' do? Is that supposed to make me stay with you?"

"What do you mean, stay with me?"

"You heard me," she said. "I'm going to get away before it's too late."

"Is that so?" he said, with all the sarcasm he could

manage ijj his sudden fright. "And what about Paulie? Did you ever think of Paulie?"

"Oh, who's talking! Don't you know the only thing that's kept us together, this past while, is Paulie?"

She doesn't mean that, he thought. Ah no, she doesn't mean that. He looked at her.

"Not that you care about Paulie," she said. "Not that you care about any of us except yourself. If you did care, we'd never be in this mess."

"Now, is that fair, Vera? Just because I happen to be between jobs —"

"Ginger, Ginger," she said, shaking her head, "aren't you always between jobs?"

"What do you mean?"

"Isn't the job you're in always a burden to you, isn't it always no good, according to you? And isn't there always a crock of gold waiting for you in the next job you're going to get? Ginger, will you never learn anything? Will you never face the facts?"

"What facts?"

"That they let you go in nearly every job you've had. Why do you think Mr. Pierce sent you down to the advertising department? Why do you think Mr. Cleery in the advertising let you go? I'll tell you why. Because you're a glorified secretary, that's all you are, that's all you can ever hope to be. But you can't see that, you had to tell them how to run their business, you that knew nothing about it."

"Glorified secretary, my foot," he said. "Those old codgers were living in the dark ages," he said. "Fifty years behind the times."

"Yes," she said. "Everybody's out of step except our Ginger. Same thing when we were in Cork, wasn't it? And then you were coming over here to Canada, setting yourself up to do a job you never did in your life, a job you

had no experience in. How could you sell whiskey or tweeds or anything, you that had no experience?"

"If it wasn't for those thicks at home —"

"Oh yes. Blame them. Blame anybody except yourself. And today — walking in, bold as you please, asking to be made an editor. You that knows nothing about it/*

"That was Gerry's idea."

"But you went along with it, didn't you?" she said. "Oh yes, it's Gerry's fault. ... Do you know the thing I can't stick about you? It's never your fault. Never. You've never had the guts to admit you were wrong."

"That's nonsense," he said.

"Is it? Then is it my fault you spent the ticket money home? Is it, Ginger?"

"Ah, what's the sense in raking all that up again, Vera? Former history."

"Former history! It happened yesterday!"

"Shh" he said, looking around the room.

"Yes, shush," she said. "People are watching. And you care more about people than you do about me. Playing the big fellow, spending our passage money."

He looked at his hands. He joined his fingers in the childhood game. A game between him and all harm. Here's the church . . .

"Well, from now on, don't bother to tell me anything," she said. "Not even lies. Because I don't want to hear. I'm sick of lies and dreams and schemes that founder as soon as you put your hand to them. I'm sick of your selfishness and your alibis. You can go to hell for all I care."

And here's the steeple. Open the gates . . .

"Tomorrow morning," she said, "I'm going to look for a job of my own. And when I get it, I'm moving out." "What about Paulie?"

"I'll take Paulie," she said. "Then you won't have to worry about anybody except yourself. Which will suit you down to the ground/'

. . . and let in the people. And here is the minister coming upstairs . . .

"In the meantime," she said, "I'd advise you to take this proofreading job. Come down off your high horse, Ginger. It's just about what you're fit for. A proofreader/'

And here is the minister saying his prayers.

He separated his hands, looked at her at last. "For better or for worse," he said. "For richer or for poorer. Ah," he said bitterly. "You could sing that, if you had an air to it."

"You'd better go," she said. "You have to let Mac-Gregor know at half past four, don't you?"

"There's plenty of time. It's not even four. Besides —"

"Oh, God's teeth, Jim, why are you so dense? Don't you understand anything?"

She never called him Jim except when things were desperate. She wanted rid of him, this minute, that was what she wanted. All right. All right. He stood up and took the bill. "I'll have to wait for change," he told her.

She took a ten-dollar bill out of her bag. Where did she get that, he wondered. "Go on," she said. "I'll pay the bill."

But he could not move. Suffering J, they weren't going to leave things like this, were they? Ah, Vera —

"Are you leaving, or must I?" she said.

He tried to grin. "Just looking for the cloakroom tickets, dear. I have yours in my pocket somewhere."

He fumbled for a while.

"Breast pocket," she said. f

"Oh, yes. Silly. I always put it there and then forget. Vera — listen to me —"

"No," she said. "And stop standing there like a dog waiting for a pat on the head. You're not getting any pat. Not any more. Now, go away."

He saw her hands tremble on the catch of her purse. Listen, listen, listen, he cried silently, for God's sake don't let this happen. But he had said listen so many times, in so many rows, for so many years. And she had said listen, as often. Listen to me, they cried to each other. Listen! Because neither listened any longer. She stared at him. Her face was pale, her eyes were fixed and bright, and, now that it haid been said, he saw that all her irritations, all the fits of temper he had discounted, all that was hate. She hated him.

Still, as he went away across the room, he turned back to her once more. Tried to smile, hoping that somehow she . . . sure that she . . . Wouldn't she signal, call him back?

But she did not. She sat watching him, willing him to go. Go away, Doggy.

So he went.

Three It was twenty past four. For several minutes he had been standing in the lobby of the Tribune building wondering whether he should go upstairs. After all, Mac-Gregor had said it would only be a short while until he was made a reporter. And you wouldn't heed Gerry, would you? Why should Gerry know whether MacGregor was tricking him or not?

But he had heeded her. That was why he was here. Ah, sure that was a lot of malarkey, that stuff about them letting him go in those other jobs he had. A lot of malarkey too about him being selfish and putting the blame on other people — all nonsense — sure, what did she know, the woman? But it was not nonsense that she said she wanted to leave him. Not nonsense that he had seen a hatred in her look. She would get over it. Sure, she would. She had just been letting off, as women do, with the first hurtful thing that came into her head, hadn't she? She didn't hate him; not Vera. Not his Dark Rosaleen?

He was troubled as he had rarely been. It was hard to find something to be cheerful about in what she had said and the way she had looked at him. And so, he had to think of something else. He thought of J. F. Coffey, Journalist. There was some good in that thought. Say what you like, he had a foot in the door there. Maybe Mac-

Gregor would promote him in a week or so? Probably would. All right, then. Take the job. Show her she's wrong.

At twenty-five past four he went in, took the elevator up and once again presented himself at the open doorway of the Managing Editor's office. "Excuse me, sir?"

"Aye?"

"I — ah — I would like to take the job, sir."

Mr. MacGregor pulled out a sheet of paper. "Right," he said. "Full name?"

"James Francis CoflFey."

MacGregor wrote it down. "Hours, six to one, five nights a week. Except when you take the late trick, until two. Saturdays off, and one rotating day a week. If sick, report to me pairsonally by phone before three in the afternoon. Okay?"

"Yes, sir."

"One more thing, Coffey. I have fifty gurrls wurrking in the mailroom, one floor down, Dinna interfere with them, d'you hear?"

"Yes, sir."

"Now go to the composing room and ask for a man called Hickey. He'll give you a stylebook. Study it before you start wurrk tonight."

Galley slave. Suffering J, that was apt. CoflFey went back down the corridor and asked directions of a man in shirt sleeves. He followed the directions and after several turnings entered a large room, loud with noise. In even rows, like children in some strange classroom, the linotyp-ers threaded their little tines of words. Men with wooden mallets hammered leads into place; others, wearing long blue aprons and green eyeshades, plucked strips of lead from a table, fitting them in, tossing the rejects backwards to crash into large tin hellboxes. A foreman in stiff white

collar and black knitted tie moved with ecclesiastic tread up the aisle. As he drew level with Coffey, he leaned over, hand to his ear, in smiling dumbshow inquiry as to the visitor's business.

"Mr. Hickey?" Coffey shouted, over the machine roar.

The foreman showed comprehension by a nod and led Coffey across the room to a small, cleared area, surrounded by rows of linotype machines. There, in Dicken-sian concentration, sat three old men, each facing a pigeonhole desk, each scanning a galley of proof. At once their strange apartheid, combined with the extreme shab-biness of their clothing, reminded Coffey of MacGregor's remark. These were outcasts in a union sea. As he drew near he saw that each desk was double, with seats for two men.

"Hickey?" he shouted.

Without looking up from his work one old man elbowed the next, who rapped on his neighbor's desk with a pencil, who, hearing the rapping, turned slowly in his stool. His eyes, huge and shifting under lenses thick as an aquarium window, floated up to find the interrupter. Then he stood, buttoning about him a darned, many-stained cardigan of navy blue wool.

"Mr. Hickey?"

The red face nodded, the shifting eyes indicated that Ginger must follow. The old man's large, gently sliding posteriors moved between rows of linotypes, leading Coffey into the comparative quiet of the locker room. There Mr. Hickey paused, his distorted eyes searching for enemies, his raw, red hands knitting together a homemade cigarette.

"Yes?" he said. "New man?"

"How did you know?" Coffey said, surprised.

"Gets so you can tell," Mr. Hickey said. "Hitler send you?"

"Who?"

"Hitler. The boss."

"Oh! You mean Mr. MacGregor. Yes, he told me to ask you for a stylebook."

Mr. Hickey wheezed like an ancient organ. "MacGregor," he said. "Never call him by that name, son. Hitler's his name. Because he's —"

And then came a slow, enjoyed recital — noun, adjective, verb — of fourteen well-rehearsed obscenities. When he had finished, Mr. Hickey reached into his darned cardigan to produce a small red booklet. "Stylebook/' he said. "Now, go on down the street, one block to the left of here. In the tavern on the corner you'll find the night men. Look for a fellow with a crutch. That's Fox, head of the shift. It's pay night, so they all like to come in together. Better come in with them, okay?"

"Okay," Coffey said. "And thanks very much."

"Thanks?" Mr. Hickey seemed surprised. "For what, fella? This job, you don't have much to be thankful for. God bless, fella. Be seeing you."

"Going down," the elevator man shouted. "Going down."

He went down.

The tavern described by Mr. Hickey was unnamed. Above its door was an electric sign: Verres Sterilises — Sterilized Glasses, a sign which no one read but which conveyed to the passing eye that here was a place to drink, a place which shut late or never, a place unlikely to be well-frequented. This last was its deception, Coffey found. Forgotten, faded, off the main streets, in a downtown limbo where property owners allowed buildings to live out a feeble charade of occupation until the glorious day when all would be expropriated in a city slum clearance drive, the tavern, instead of dying, had burgeoned

in a new and steady prosperity. As Coffey pushed open its doors he was met by a beer stench and a blast of shouted talk. Two waiters in long white aprons, each balancing a tray containing a dozen full glasses of draught beer, whirled in and out among the scarred wooden tables, answering thirsty signals. Slowly Coffey moved up the room, searching for the man with a crutch. The customers put him in mind of old Wild West films: they wore fur caps, peaked caps, tuques. They wore checked shirts, lumber jackets, windbreakers. They wore logging boots, cattle boots, flying boots. They talked in roars, but they numbered also their solitaries. These sat alone at smaller tables, staring at the full and empty bottles in front of them as though studying the moves in some intricate game.

No one heeded Coffey as he moved on. At the far end of the room a huge jukebox, filled with moving colors and shifting lights, brooded in silence amid the roar of voices. Near it, disfigured with initials, an empty phone booth — symbol of the wives and worries the tavern's customers bought beer to forget. Coffey paused by the phone. What if she were sitting in the duplex this minute, already sorry for what she'd said? She could be. Yes, she might be.

He went into the booth and shut the door on the noise. He dialed, and Paulie answered.

"Is that you, Bruno?" she said.

"Who's Bruno, Pet?"

"Oh, it's you, Daddy."

"Is your mother home yet?"

"She was in but she went out again."

"Where?"

"She didn't say, Daddy."

"And she left you all alone, Pet?"

"Oh, that's all right, Daddy. I'm going to supper at a

girl friend's house and her mother's giving me a lift home in their car."

"Oh."

"I must go now, Daddy. I'm late already."

"Wait a minute, Pet. Did Mummy tell you IVe got a job?"

"No."

"Well, I have. A — an editing job on a newspaper. Isn't that good?"

"Yes, Daddy."

"Well — well, tell your mother I phoned her, will you, Apple?"

"Okay, Daddy."

"And listen, Apple — don't be too late getting home, will you?"

But Paulie had already hung up. Who the blazes was selfish — he or a woman who would go out of the house and leave her little girl all alone? Suffering J! Ah well — let's have a beer. Where's this man I'm supposed to meet? Fox with a crutch.

He came out of the phone booth and stood solitary among the shouting drinkers searching for the cripple's sign. On the top of a radiator by the far wall, he saw an aluminum cane with a rubber-covered elbow grip. Nearby, sticking out into the aisle, a built-up boot. Its owner was a tall, vaguely professorial man with fairish hair and a gray stubbled chin. Coffey went over.

"Mr. Fox?"

The cripple ignored him. "First million," he said to his companions. "That's the caste mark. As long as they made it long enough ago for people to forget what it was made in, they become one of Canada's first families."

One of the men at the table, a bald, sweating person in a navy blue shirt and a vermilion tie, looked up, saw Coffey. "Fu-Fox," he said. "Wu-wanted."

"Oh?" The cripple sprawled backwards in his chair, letting his gaze travel slowly from Coffey's brown suede boots to the tiny Tyrolean hat. "New man, eh?"

"Yes. How did you know?"

"How did I know? Hear that, Harry?"

Both Fox and the stammerer were seized with a laughing fit. Fox cleared glasses and bottles from in front of him in a rash sweep of his arm, laying his laughing face on the beer-wet table top. He was, Coffey realized, half-seas over.

"Sit down," said a third reader, pulling out a chair for Coffey. He was very old, strangely dressed in a duckbilled fawn cap, fawn windbreaker and high, elastic-sided boots. A feathery white goatee grew precariously on his caved-in jaws, and as he reached forward to shake hands, Coffey was put in mind of the recruiting poster's Uncle Sam. "My name's Billy Davis," he said. "And this here is Kenny."

Kenny was little more than a boy. His face, tortured by eczema, looked up at Coffey in a lost, posed smile. His right hand clutched the neck of a beer bottle. He sat primly on the edge of his chair.

"Drink up, Paddy," Fox said, signaling a waiter. "You're behind."

A waiter came and Fox paid for four glasses of draught beer which he at once lined up in front of Coffey. His companion, Harry, seemed to consider this a further occasion for laughter. "Now, Paddy," Fox said. "Let's see you sink these. Go ahead."

"Thanks very much," Coffey said. "That's very decent of you. My treat next, I hope?"

"Drink!" Fox shouted. "One, two, three, four. Go ahead."

Lord knows, Coffey liked a wet as well as the next man.

But there was something lunatic about this. He began on the first beer. Bald Harry's upper lip dripped sweat. The boy widened his fixed smile a fraction, in encouragement. The old man nodded his goatlike chin. Glass empty, Cof-fey put it down and reached for a second.

"Good man/* Fox said. "Away you go. One swallow."

It took two swallows.

"Number three, now," Fox said.

But as he raised the third glass to his lips, Coffey paused. Wasn't this daft? What was he doing, drinking himself stocious for a clatter of strangers?

"What's up?" Fox said.

"Nothing. Only that it's against nature, guzzling like this. What's the rush?"

Fox and Harry exchanged glances. "A good question, Paddy," Fox said. "And it answers mine. Booze is not your problem, right?"

They must be joking. It must be some sort of joke, this chat?

"Never mind him," the girlish boy said. "Say, that's a dandy overcoat you have. Sharp." He touched Coffey's sleeve.

"Wu-women?" Harry said. "Du-do you think that's his pu-problem, Foxy?"

"Why must I have a problem?" Coffey said. "What are you talking about?"

"Every proofreader has," Fox said. "All ye who enter here. Look at Kenny." He leaned over as he spoke and put his arm around the boy's shoulders. "You know what Kenny's problem is, I suppose?"

"Shut up," the boy said. "Lousy gimp."

"Hostility to the father figure," Fox shouted. "Classic!"

Feathery fingers plucked at Coffey's wrist. The old man thrust his Uncle Sam visage close. His mouth opened,

showing gaps of gums policed by ancient dental survivors. "Could be money," he said. "That's everybody's problem, am I right, fellow?"

"That's right," Coffey said, uneasily jovial. "It's the root of all evil, they tell me."

"Wrong!" Fox shouted. "Why, money is not evil, Paddy my boy. Money is the Canadian way to immortality."

"Cu-christ, here he gu-goes again," Harry said.

"Quiet now," Fox shouted. "I have to explain the facts of life to our immigrant brother. Do you want to be remembered, Paddy? Of course you do. Then you must bear in mind that in this great country of ours the surest way to immortality is to have a hospital wing called after you. Or better still, a bridge. We're just a clutch of little Ozymandiases in this great land. Nobody here but us builders. This is Canada's century, they tell us. Not America's, mind you. Not even Russia's. The twentieth century belongs to Canada. And if it does, then you had better know our values. Remember that in this fair city of Montreal the owner of a department store is a more important citizen than any judge of the Superior Court. Never forget that, Paddy boy. Money is the root of all good here. One nation, indivisible, under Mammon that's our heritage. Now drink up."

Coffey reached for his fourth glass of beer. Might as well. She didn't bloody well love him any more so what did it matter if he got drunk. Today was enough to drive any man to drink.

"Tonight, Coffey, you will become a proofreader. You will read all the news. War in China, peace in our time. Mere finger exercises. Later, Coffey, if you show promise, we may let you read something more important. The Quebec Society News, for instance. Or the Governor-General's speech to the Crippled Deaf Mute Division of the

United Sons of Scotland. And if you continue to show promise — if you make no mistake, allow no errors typographic or orthographic to slip into print, then we may even let you read an advertisement. And some day, you may become a senior man, a man who reads only advertisements. Because, Coffey, news is cheap. Here today and gone tomorrow. But advertisements cost money. They count. So you must get them right, do you hear? Compree?"

"Compree," Coffey said, raising his hand to signal the waiter.

The old man nodded and smiled. "It's money that counts, all right," he said. "Ten men run this country, did you know that? Ten big finenceers. And did you know there's a book tells you who they are and how they made it? You'll want to read that book, being a New Canadian. Yes, you will. You can borrow my copy, if you like."

Yes, CofFey said, he must dip into that sometime. He paid for another round of beers.

"Are you just pu-passing through?" Harry asked him. "Or du-do you pu-plan to stay for a while?"

Coffey took a long pull of his beer. "Passing through," he said. "Matter of fact, I'm just in the proofroom so's I can pick up the Tribune style. MacGregor's going to make me a reporter."

As he said this, he saw Fox screw up his left eye in a large drunken wink. Harry collapsed in a fresh rush of laughter. The old man shook his head. "Big finenceers," he mumbled. "Scab labor, that's what we are."

"But — but what's the matter?" Coffey asked. "I mean, what's funny about it?"

Again Fox winked at the others. "Nothing funny," he said. "I just hope you succeed, that's all."

Coffey stared at their knowing faces. What did they

mean? Had he been tricked? "Look, fellows," he said. "Tell me. I want to know. Do you think he will make me a reporter?"

"Stranger things have happened," Fox said. "Drink

«p;

"Big finenceers," the old man mumbled. "I remember one time —"

But Coffey no longer listened. He sat dumb, drowsy with beer, the glasses multiplying in front of him, the stylebook forgotten in his pocket. Were they making a joke of him? Was MacGregor tricking him? What was going on? Was it for this he had traveled across half a frozen continent and the whole Atlantic Ocean? To finish up as a galley slave among the lame, the odd, the halt, the old?

"Money," Fox was saying. "Oh, let me tell you, you can be a four-letter bastard all your life but never mind. If you die with enough money in the bank, the Tribune will write you a fine editorial eulogy —"

Had he been wrong to bet his all on Canada? Would he have been better to stick in those dead-end jobs at home, plodding along, day in and day out, until he dropped? Canada — listen to these fellows — they seem to think Canada is the back of beyond. . . .

"Nu-nother depression," Harry said. "You just wu-watch it. They sneeze in the States and we get pneumonia here."

Was that true? Was it a backwater, like the land he had fled? Had he made the mistake of his life, landing himself up here among these people, either smug like old Gerry, or full of gloomy prophecies like these fellows? Bloody Canada! Bloody Canadians!

"Just a poor clutch of Arctic-bound sods—" Fox was saying.

For if Veronica was going to leave him, then hadn't this been the greatest mistake ever?

"Greatest mistake this country ever made was not joining the United States," Fox said.

There was always Paulie. IVe got a job, Pet, he'd told her. Yes, Daddy. Daddies are supposed to get jobs. Not very great to have a job, is it? Not this job. Yes, if he lost Veronica, he would lose Paulie too. And would have no one.

"Drink up," Fox said. "Last call, boys."

"Must phone," he said, standing up. "Just a moment."

Because, ah, Vcra didn't mean it, did she? She was just upset, she would say she was sorry now. Never mind, dear, he'd say. My fault. I love you, Kitten. I love you too, Ginger. Yes . . . she'd be over it now. . . .

He dialed. "Vera?"

"It's me. Paulie."

"Oh, Paulie," Coffey said, closing his eyes, leaning his forehead against the cool glass of the booth. "Is your mother there, Pet?"

"I told you she went out."

"Out?"

"Daddy, are you drinking?"

"No, no, that's a way to speak to your Daddy! Listen, Apple. Give her a message. Tell her to phone me. All right?"

"Where?"

"The Tribune. It's a newspaper. All right?"

"Okay. I'll leave a note for her," Paulie said.

"Listen —Paulie?"

"What is it?" Paulie asked crossly.

"Paulie . . . You don't think I'm selfish, do you? I me an — listen, Apple. You're still my own little Apple, hmm?"

"Oh, stdp it, Daddy!"

"Not cross at me ... I mean . . . listen, Pet. I mean, Paulie . . . Daddy's not bad, is he? MmmP . . . Paulie?"

Dizzy, all that beer in a hurry, but the pane of glass was so cool against his forehead . . .

"Listen, Pet . . . won't be home. Want to speak to Mummy . . . tell her . . . Apple . . . Tell her, Daddy's sorry —"

Fox banged on the door of the booth. "Saddle up," he shouted. "Come on, galley slave. Hitler's Legion rides again."

"Paulie —Paulie?"

Brr-brr-brr-brr the phone went. He shoveled the receiver back on to its cradle, and looked at it dully. No, Paulie didn't care. . . .

He stepped out of the booth and stumbled. "I'm drunk/' he said. "I'm ploothered."

"Never mind," Fox said. "So are we all, all honorable men. Take his arm there. Hurry! Hurry!"

Into the men's washroom behind the composing room, Old Billy Davis led Coffey, fumbling drunk. Stood him beside the basins, took hold of Coffey's jaws, forcing them open as though he would administer a pill, but instead darted his finger into Coffey's mouth, pulled it out again and forced Coffey's head down towards the washbasin. Then waited, placid and fragile in his fawn windbreaker, as his victim, hands gripping the basin, retched wildly, flooding the bowl.

"Once more?"

"No . . . no," Coffey moaned, coughing until the tears came.

"Better now? All right. Follow me."

Out of the men's locker room in a trembling run, past the compositors' lockers, through the lanes of linotype

machines to the row of steel desks . . . Hands reached past, claiming galleys, shuffling copy, spiking galleys; busy, everyone busy, no voices heard above the chattering mumble of machines. Drained, but still ill, Coffey made a cradle of his arms and rested his head on the dirty steel desk top. J. F. Coffey, Editor; J. F. Coffey, Journalist. In a weak moment he felt the tears come: she did not love him; she hated him and why shouldn't she, rotten with drink, he was, great drunken lump, J. F. Coffey, Journalist, plooth-ered his first night on the job. Ah God! He hated this great lump, blowing into his thick red mustache, self-pitying fool. . . .

"Hey, hey," Fox said, shaking him. "Wake up, Paddy. Hitler's coming. Here you are."

A half-finished galley appeared in front of Coffey's face. And just in time.

Mr. MacGregor was coming through. Bony old arms hanging naked from shirt sleeves, blue vein pumping in his pale forehead, fanatic eye starved for trouble. As he swept out on his nightly visitation, office boys, delinquent deskmen, guilty reporters, all avoided his eye, practiced the immobility of small animals as a hawk moves over a forest. But on the instant MacGregor entered the composing room, some of the ferocity drained from his walk. Here, old battles had been fought, old forts abandoned. Here, the enemy was in full command, camped permanently within MacGregor's walls. Strikes, scabs, shutouts; all had failed. Hedged around by clause and contract, the Managing Editor was forbidden to lay a finger on one stick of type, denied the right to speak one word of direct command. The composing room foreman waited his nightly sortie with the amused contempt of a Roman general dealing with the chieftain of a small hill tribe. Here, each night, MacGregor relived his defeat.

And so, as was his custom, his impotence sought its

revenge. Alone in that union camp, the proofreaders were still his servants.

"Who let this pass?" he shouted, shaking a galley high above the dirty steel desks. "Who let this pass?"

Fox raised his gray stubbled chin, took the galley, consulted the penciled initials. "Day man/' he said.

"Jesuschrist! Got this name wrong, see? Friend of the publisher. Jesuschrist!"

Fox looked at the ceiling as though engaged in mental arithmetic. His fellow workers read proof with awful intensity.

"Not our shift, sir," Fox said. "And we're late, sir. Still short of men."

"I gave you a new man tonight. Where is he? New man — aye — let's see . . ."

As he spoke, MacGregor ran around the desks and snatched up the half-finished galley. "Well, Coffey, let's see your wurrk?" He spread the galley on the desk top, scanning it, block-reading not for sense but for typographical errors. Years of practice gave him an unerring eye for flaw, but tonight he saw no flaw. Four errors on the galley, four caught, so far. A new man? He did not believe it. He turned on Fox. "These aren't his marks. They're yours."

It was a guess, but once he had made it, MacGregor snatched some of Fox's galleys off the spike and compared. "Aye, these are your marks," he said in triumph. "Coffey?"

"Yes, sir."

"Show me your other galleys."

Behind his high desk, the composing room foreman had been watching. He saw the new man's face, red, confused, turn upwards towards his tormentor. Poor sod. The foreman stepped down from his desk, approached, stopping MacGregor in mid-shriek. "Your men are be-

hind here, Mr. Mac," he said. "All this talk is holding up the work. You're short-staffed here, as usual. And we're late."

"We're doing our best, damn ye!"

But MacGregor turned away, spiked the galleys and made off without another word, fearful of a new defeat, a new infestation of mediators, arbitrators, international representatives and similar union incubi and succubi. The foreman winked at Coffey's bewildered face and returned to his desk. The linotypers, prim and efficient on their little stools, smiled as at an old and favorite joke and — monks performing a rite of exorcism — the proofreaders downed galleys and intoned a short chant of MacGregorian abuse. Then, the obscenities observed, Fox leaned across the desk and fed Coffey his first galley of the night. "All right," he said. "Coast's clear. Do your best."

At ten the bell rang for supper break. At ten-fifteen it rang again and they went on to work until one. Sober now, Coffey found that he could do the job. Soon he was reading galleys only seconds slower than old Billy and half as quick as Fox. He was surprised, and pleased, because, all his life, do you see, he had been in jobs whose only purpose seemed to be to convince some higher-up that you were worth the money he was paying you. But in this job, you read your galley and made your corrections and, if you looked across the room, you could see the make-up men going on with the next step in the process. Within an hour or two, a newspaper would come off the press and tomorrow morning people would buy it, would read it over breakfast. You made something. There was no coming the old soldier, either. You signed your initials at the foot of each galley and if you let something slip, it could be traced back to you.

It was a new and satisfying feeling.

And so, at one in the morning, when Coffey rode home on the bus, a newly printed newspaper on his lap, he had, by his habitual processes of ratiocination, convinced himself that the day was not a defeat but a victory. A little victory. He had a job: he was working alongside a bunch of Canadians in a far-off country, pulling his weight with the best of them. As for Vera, she would be over her bad temper by now. He would make a cup of cocoa for her, bring her into the kitchen and tell her all about his evening. He would kiss her and they would say they were sorry, both of them. Hard-working Ginger. Not selfish, no. Doing the best he could.

There were no lights on in the duplex when he let himself in. In the outer hall, he listened for signs of life as he emptied snow out of the turnups of his trousers. Quietly, he passed by Paulie's room and, in the darkened master bedroom, fumbled for the curtain drawstrings. The curtains screeched on their runners, opening with a quick flounce. Moonlight fell on his wife's slender body, wrapped like a furled sail in all the bed-sheets.

"Veronica?" he whispered.

But she slept. Ah well, let her sleep: he would make up with her tomorrow. He undressed in the moonlight, looking out of the window. Snow, dead and thick and white, shaded the arms of the tree opposite; wedged itself in clefts of branches; cake-iced the roofs of houses across the street. The city was quiet, its traffic noises muted by the snowfall. He yawned and reached for the curtain drawstrings, sending the rings screeching on their runners, closing the room to blackness again. He slipped into bed and lay, listening to her breathe. How strange life wasl Only this morning he had lain here beside her, happy after joy, not knowing what the day would bring. Only this afternoon he had walked away across the Palm

Court, in dread of her leaving him. Only a few hours ago he had sat in a room full of machines, doing something he had never done before. How could people say life was dull? Ah, look at her now, asleep and at peace. If only there had been no bitterness, if only those things had not been said. If only he could take that part of the day away, erase it with a kiss.

And why not? He snuggled against her. She was tall, but his chin touched the top of her head, his feet slipped under her soles, a pedestal for her feet. Oh, how warm and soft she was, her nightgown rucked about her waist. Warm she was. And warm he loved her.

"Don't," she mumbled. "No."

He smiled in the darkness and moved his hand up to cup her breast.

"Stop it. Please, Gerry, stop."

He lay very quiet. He could hear his own heart. She must hear it too; it was thumping like an engine. Slowly, he reached out and fondled her breasts, his loins cold, his heart hammering.

"No, Gerry. Please. Not now."

He took his hand away. Slowly, careful not to wake her, he turned his back to her and lay, eyes open in the dark, his large body still as a statue on the lid of a tomb. He listened to her breathe. The intake was regular, yet irregular in the way of sleep. She was asleep. Yes, she was dreaming a dream.

Do you remember that summer you were stationed at the Curragh and you got a great crush on an eighteen-year-old girl who never even knew you fancied her? Didn't you dream about her many's a night that summer, and did that mean that you slept with her? Or even kissed her? Haven't you been unfaithful to Veronica a thousand times in dreams?

Still, she only knows one Gerry. That long drink of

water? Besides, she's thirty-five, five years older than he is. But he's a bachelor, he has a sports car and he's free with his money. And she wept her troubles to him the other day. He's why she wants to leave you. It's plain as the nose on your face.

But was it? It could be a dream. One sentence in her sleep after fifteen years of marriage didn't make a whore of her, did it?

He lay, his eyes open in the darkness. He blinked his eyes and felt something wet touch the corner of his mouth, seeping through the edges of his mustache. He was not going to boohoo like a baby, was he? Was he? No.

But, suffering J! It was hard to hold on to his hopes.

FouT Next morning, after she had fed him breakfast, she said she was going downtown to see about a job.

"What job?"

"It's a millinery place that's run by a friend of Gerry Grosvenor's. They need a saleslady."

"Oh."

"I won't be back for lunch," she said. "And if you go out, you'd better buy something to put in your sandwiches tonight."

"All right." He looked down at his plate. He had noticed she was wearing her good black suit.

"Paulie?" she called. "Get a move on, you'll be late for school. Good-by, Ginger. Are you going to be at home all day?"

"I suppose so."

"I'll phone you later on, then."

He heard the front door close. No kiss good-by. He sat, his tea growing cold, hardly noticing Paulie, who rushed in, ate, and fled late to school. Let her go. Let them all go.

A ruler went tickety-tak-tak down the staircase which connected his apartment with the landlady's upstairs.

"M'sieur? Want to play with me?"

He looked up, met eyes lonelier than his. "Come on in, Michel," he said. "Let's have a game, the pair of us."

The little boy had brought his building blocks. Coffey cleared a space at the kitchen table and gravely, thirty-nine and five years old, they built a house with a long sugar-lump chimney. They played at building for more than an hour until Michel's grandmother called from upstairs.

Alone again, Coffey sucked a sugar lump. . . . Maybe if he went down to Grosvenor's office, ostensibly to discuss the proofreading job, and somehow brought the conversation around to Veronica? If he had any gumption at all, wouldn't he see in Grosvenor's eyes the guilt or innocence of last night's phrase?

All right. He shaved, dressed himself in his suit of Dromore tweed, and took a bus to the financial district. It was a quarter to twelve when he got off the bus. He went into a drugstore, already crowded with typists on their lunch hour, and in a phone booth at the rear, surrounded by display cards showing smiling girls half-naked under sun lamps, he phoned Gerry Grosvernor.

No, Mr. Grosvenor had just stepped out for a moment. Would he mind calling back, please? And what was his name, again? Coffey. Yes, he would call back. He hung up; stared at the display cards of pretty, half-naked girls. There were so many pretty girls in the world. Why couldn't that long drink of water find one, instead of coming after a friend's wife, a woman of thirty-five who was not that pretty? Suffering J!

At five minutes to twelve he phoned again, this time from the lobby of Grosvernor's building. Oh, she was very sorry but the other girl had just told her that Mr. Grosvenor had stepped out to lunch. Would he care to phone after lunch? He would? Fine, then.

Flute! He stepped out of the phone booth and was immediately jostled and pushed into a corner by the

flow of people hurrying from the elevators. Everybody was in such a hurry here! Everybody shoving and pushing you aside! Canadians had no manners! Raw, cold country with its greedy, pushy people, grabbing what didn't belong to them, shoving you aside! Land of opportunity, my eye!

Now stop that, he told himself. Don't blame the whole country for one twister of a cartoonist. Stop it. So he stopped it. He went over to the newsstand in the lobby and bought a package of cigarettes. No sense behaving like a lunatic because of one little word in a woman's dream. Ah, why didn't he go back to the house and forget all this nonsense of waiting for Grosvenor. For it was all nonsense. In the noon rush of people, it seemed incredible. He had imagined the whole thing.

Someone caught at his sleeve. "Ginger. Hello there."

"Oh, hello, Gerry," he said guiltily.

"What are you doing in this part of the forest?"

"Well — ah — I just dropped by to have a word with you. I mean about that proofreading job. I took it, you know."

People were passing, bumping against them as they stood, stuck driftwood, in the current towards the revolving doors.

"Look, we can't talk here," Grosvenor said. "Let me give you a lift uptown."

Coffey followed Grosvenor's tall thin back into the merry-go-round of the doors. A cold wind met them as they stepped out into the cavern of the street, and as Coffey paused to put up his overcoat collar, Grosvernor jumped boyishly out into the traffic, snapping his fingers for a cab. A cab careened out of the traffic lane and drew up, inches away from Grosvenor's body. But, flute! He was unharmed.

"Comd 1 on, Ginger, hop in. Okay, driver, go on up Beaver Hall Hill. Ill let you know where, later."

They settled in the back seat, side by side. "Well, Ginger," Grovenor said. "Lucky day, eh?"

"What?"

"Veronica's new job, of course. Didn't she tell you?"

Coffey's ruddy face stared straight ahead. "No," he said.

"Well, she was hired this morning at Modelli. It's a chi-chi sort of hatshop. The pay is forty a week and a sales bonus, which should bring it up to fifty-five most weeks. Not bad for a start, eh?"

"Not bad," Coffey said. Five dollars a week more than me, that's not bad.

"Well now, and what about you?" Grosvenor said. "So you took the proofreading job, did you?"

In the side panel of the cab, enshrined under a tiny light, was a police permit photograph of the driver. Marcel Parent: 58452. Coffey looked at this photograph, then at the back of the driver's head. God, it was mortifying trying to talk in private while Marcel Parent: 58452 listened in on every syllable.

"I gather Vera knows the truth about the job," Grosvenor said. "Too bad. I wonder is there anything I could do, I mean about getting you promoted?"

Coffey shook his head. What did he care about jobs now? What did it matter?

"I might phone old Mac and try to find out how long he intends to keep you in that sweatshop?"

"No," Coffey said. "Don t bother."

"Look, there's no sense in your staying on there if it's a dead end," Grosvenor said. "After all, don't forget, that's the lowest job in the newspaper business. You can do better than that."

Thank you, Marcel Parent, for looking into your driving

mirror to see what sort of specimen would accept the lowest job in the newspaper business.

"So what else is new?" Grosvenor asked.

You tell me, Coffey thought. But he said: "Nothing. Are you having lunch with anyone?"

For the first time, he saw a flicker of uneasiness in Grosvenor's eyes. "Well, yes, as a matter of fact I am," Grosvenor said. "It's a business lunch. I'd like to have you join us, but it would bore you stiff."

"No, I didn't mean that," Coffey said. "I was just wondering where — where you could drop me off."

"Anywhere you say, Ginger."

"Well, just drop me anywhere that suits you. Where are you going?"

"The Pavilion," Grosvenor said. "So Til drop you on the corner of Ste. Catherine and Drummond, okay?"

"Fair enough."

When the taxi stopped at the corner of Drummond Street, Grosvenor refused Coffey's share of the fare. "I'm loaded," he said. "Lots of expense account money these days. Be seeing you."

"Be seeing you," Coffey echoed. He watched the cab move away. Seeing you, yes; and, seeing you, aren't you one of the drippiest drinks of water I've ever laid eyes on? Expense account or not, artist or not, what could she see in you, you self-satisfied sausage?

Still, Veronica had phoned Grosvenor this morning. Not him. And wasn't Grosvenor just the boy who would invite a person to lunch to celebrate anything under the sun? He was indeed.

Ah, nonsense.

But he turned around, hurried down Drummond Street and went into the Pavilion. At the entrance to the dining room, he hesitated, wanting to turn back. A headwaiter came from behind a stand-up desk, tapping a sheaf of

menus against his stiff shirt-front. "Have you a reservation, sir?"

"No. I'm just looking for a friend of mine."

"What name, sir?"

"A Mr. Grosvenor."

"Oh yes, sir. This way please."

The headwaiter sailed out among the tables like a ship's figurehead, turning to make sure that Coffey followed. Halfway across the room, he stopped and pointed. "Over here, sir. This way."

"Never mind. I — I see he's busy."

Busy he was. In a corner, at a tiny table behind a pillar, the pair of them deep in chat over Martinis. Out of the dining room Coffey fled, running down the steps into the street, a boy escaping a pair of bullies. But wasn't it them who should have run from him? He stopped on the street corner, out of breath. Why had he ever gone in there? And why had he bolted? He should have faced them, but how could he start a row in front of a roomful of people? To fight or not to fight. To run or stand. What did it matter? He crossed the street and stood in line for a bus. Every hour of last night had moved as slowly as a sun crossing the midsummer sky. And yet he had managed to get up this morning with a reasonable amount of doubt. But now . . .

Now, it made sense. Even her anger when he told her he had spent the ticket money. She had been prepared to go home to Ireland with him, that was the worst of all. She had been willing to stick with him.

He stopped off on the way back and bought some boloney for sandwiches. He bought two pears for Paulie. Poor Paulie. No wonder Veronica didn't care if the child ate properly. No wonder she let Paulie run around with ink spots on her school tunic. Why shouldn't she, when her

mind wasn't on her family at all? All, a lot of things made sense now.

When he entered the outer hall of their apartment, little Michel was sitting on the staircase, waiting for him. "Hey, M'sieur. See what I got?"

"Yes, just a minute, Michel." He unlocked the door of his apartment and put the grocery bag inside. A toy made a noise behind him. It was a small robot, battery-operated: its cubed legs moved with a slow grinding of cogs, its eyes lit red and there were little antennae coming out of its head. As Coflfey watched, the toy fell. The legs had not gained purchase on the slippery linoleum.

"It's too slidey here," the child complained.

"Oh. Well — bring him in, why don't you? There's a carpet in the hall."

They went into Coffey's place. The boy placed the toy on the worn carpet runner. "Watch now, M'sieur. I press this button/'

Coffey squatted to watch. Robot cogs ground, robot eyes glowed. The manikin, stiff-legged, rocked slowly forward. "By the holy," Coffey said. "That's a grand toy. Where'd you get it?"

"My Mama give it to me."

"See this little door in his back?" Coffey said. "That's where the battery is."

"Don't touch him. He's my toy!"

"Sorry," Coffey said. "Here you are/'

But the child handed the toy back at once. "Montrez — montrez?"

"Now hold on, old son," Coffey said. "You know I don't parley-voo. Wish I did, though. . . . There you are. See that little thing in there? That's what makes him work."

"What?"

"Well, it keeps him alive. It's his juice."

"Why does juice make him walk?"

"Well, if you have no juice — Look here, Michel, why don't you go on upstairs now? I feel tired."

"But there's nobody upstairs," Michel said.

"Where's your Mama?"

"Mama's out. Grand'mere is sleeping. Please, M'sieur. Play with me?"

Coffey sighed. "All right," he said. "Let's take it in the kitchen."

They went into the kitchen. Coffey unloosened his tie and sat down. For fifteen minutes Michel played with the robot while he, with a pretended show of interest, answered the childish questions. He looked at Michel's ragged little head bent over the toy. Was it because he had never given her a son that she had done this to him? Was that far-fetched? But oh! What reason could be stranger than the strangeness of the fact.

"He's broke, M'sieur. He's broke, he don't work."

"Wait a sec. Let's see." Coffey took the robot, opened the back and fiddled with the wires. Probably a bad connection. He straightened the contacts.

"Will he work now?"

"Let's see. Put him on the floor, Michel."

"For the love of Mike, why didn't you close the front door?" Veronica's voice shouted down the corridor. "You'll freeze the place."

Man and child exchanged glances, strangely united in apprehension. Coffey stood up as she came into the kitchen. "Did you have lunch?" he said.

"You know damn well I had lunch. Why did you run off like that?"

"M'sieur, he still won't work."

"Go home, Michel," Veronica said.

"Now, just a moment, dear/' Coffey said. '"Michel's been keeping me company, haven't you, Michel?"

"I want to talk to you, Ginger. Gerry's outside."

"Look, Michel, push the button like this. See? Now, I'll bet you he'll even walk upstairs with you. Try? All right? Off you go, lad."

Michel rubbed the tears from his fat little cheeks. He took the robot, which was now moving and grinding perfectly. "Oh, thanks, M'sieur" he said. "Thanks, thanks."

And ran off down the hall, the robot in his hand. Slowly, Coffey stood up. Oh, to be a boy . . . tears one moment, all wiped away the next. A world of toys. Nothing so terrible a kindness would not change it. Oh, to be a boy. . . .

Too old for toys, he turned to face her; waited for what new bead she would string on her rosary of lies.

"Gerry's here," she repeated. "I didn't want him to come, but he insisted. He wants to talk to you alone. And, Ginger?"

"What?"

"Ginger, I don't want you to fight with Gerry. It won't do any good, do you hear?"

He turned away without answering and went down the hall.

He opened the front door, and there was Grosvenor.

"May I come in a moment?" Grosvenor asked and came in, walking as though he entered a house where someone was ill. Together, with Coffey leading the way, they went back along the railroad corridor passageway to the living room. Coffey opened the door and, out of habit, stood back to let his visitor pass. As he did, he saw Veronica sitting in the kitchen, shoulders bent as though anticipating a blow. Irrationally, he wanted to go to her and tell her everything would be all right. But how could he tell her, he who did not know how wrong things were? And

why shoilld he, he thought, in sudden anger. This was not his fault.

He went in after Grosvenor and carefully shut the door. He looked at Grosvenor as though seeing him for the first time. Grosvenor was nine years younger than he; taller too. Yet Coffey knew he could win. One good clout and Grosvenor would burst like a paper bag. He waited as Grosvenor took off his overcoat and laid it on a chair. Then Grosvenor produced cigarettes, and a lighter initialed G.G. He offered both. Coffey shook his head. They stood back, fighters after the traditional handshake.

"I saw you go out of the restaurant/' Grosvenor said. "I called after you, but you didn't hear me. So I thought, under the circumstances, I'd better come up here and explain. I'm not the sort of man who hides behind a woman's skirts, Ginger."

Only go up them, Coffey thought.

"I'm not going to lie to you, Ginger. I've been in love with Veronica ever since I met her. At first, I thought there was no hope for me. Now I realize there is. I'm going to fight for her, Ginger."

Grosvenor waited but Coffey did not speak. "I'm sorry this has happened, Ginger. Believe me, no matter what, I think of you as a friend."

"Do you, now?" Coffey said. "Trying to stuff another man's wife, is that your idea of being a friend?"

"Now, wait, Ginger. I know you're angry and you have every right to make ugly remarks about me. But not about Veronica. Veronica's a wonderful girl and she's been terribly loyal to you."

"She's my wife," Coffey said. "I don't need you to tell me what she's like."

"You don't?" Grosvenor said. "I'm not sure about that. If you knew her, you wouldn't have spent your ticket money home. And I'd have lost her."

"You haven't got her yet. Nor will you."

"Maybe not, Ginger. But she wants to leave you. You know that/*

"Will you shut your gob!" Coffey shouted. "This is a private matter between me and Veronica —"

"Now wait. I'm nearly finished, Ginger. I've told Veronica that any time she's ready, I'll take care of her. I've promised to give her all the things she needs: love and consideration. And security."

"You louser," Coffey said. "What the hell do you know about love? All you want is to get up some woman's skirts, you skinny bastard you."

"I knew you'd say that," Grosvenor said. "But let me set you straight on one thing. This is love, not lust. What Veronica and I feel for each other is precious. I know that sounds corny, Ginger, but it happens to be the truth. We're in love, and we intend to stay in love until we die."

"Get out," Coffey said. "Get out before I flatten you."

"Wait a minute, Ginger, I'm not finished yet. I came here to settle this —"

"Right, then. Put up your dukes!"

"I don't mean fighting, Ginger. Fighting isn't going to settle anything. Now — wait a minute —"

But Coffey hit him, his fist thudding against Gros-venor's cheek. Grosvenor's head cracked back; his knees joined ludicrously like an opened scissors. He stood, holding his face with both hands as Coffey hit him again, first on the side of the head, then, with all his strength, in the body. Grosvenor stumbled. His hands went to protect his stomach. Immediately, Coffey finished him with a blow in the mouth, then stood back, his knuckles skinned on Grosvenor's teeth. Grosvenor fell against a sofa and sat down on the floor, his mouth widening in a trickle of blood like a sad clown's grin.

"Get up," Coffey said, waiting.

"Go on," Grosvenor said, thickly. "Hit me. Hit me if it does you any good."

"Get up."

"No," Grosvenor said.

Coffey stood sucking his knuckles, staring at Grosvenor. He had never met one like this before.

"Hit me if you want," Grosvenor said, still sitting on the floor. "But the fact is, I didn't come to fight, I came to talk. Veronica tells me she doesn't think you'd have any religious objections to getting a divorce. Is that true?"

Coffey ignored him. He opened the living room door and called: "Veronica?"

She came, from the kitchen.

"Is it true you want a divorce, Vera?"

But she had seen Grosvenor sitting on the floor. She went to him, bent over him. "Oh, Gerry," she said. "What happened? What did he do to you?" She turned to Coffey. "How could you?" she said. "He was only trying to help."

How could he? He looked at her, looking at her face which he knew so well and did not know at all; saw the thing he had seen yesterday. Hate. He could not bear that hate. He lowered his gaze to the worn pattern of the carpet, the fleur-de-lis, blue and gold. "Paulie's coming with me," he said.

"You have no money, Ginger. You can't look after her."

"I have some," he said.

"No, Ginger. I went to the bank yesterday. I took all that was left."

He remembered the ten-dollar bill she had paid the tea with. So that was it. "Paulie's coming with me," he repeated.

"Look, Ginger," Grosvenor said. "In case you're worrying about the effect this might have on Paulie, I give you

my word to keep out of things until this is settled between you—"

"Your word of honor?" Coffey said. "You specimen!"

"You're a nice one to talk," Veronica began. "You that—"

But he could not bear to hear her. He left the room, went into the bedroom and shut the door. Confused, he began to open closets and drawers, throwing shirts, socks and underwear in a heap on the bed. No, she wasn't going to get Paulie. She wasn't going to leave him all alone now, with nobody, with nothing. He and Paulie, just the two of them —

But where? And on what?

He sat down on the bed, in large, trembling dignity. His image in the dresser mirror looked at him: large, trembling. Look at him, would you, sitting there with his great big ginger mustache, in the hacking jacket he spent hours picking out in Grafton Street, with the tie to match. When, what matter, ties will not make the man, no, nor throwing her across this bed yesterday morning, pleased with yourself for being the great stud, when all the time she was dreaming of Grosvenor. Look at yourself, would you. Take a good look.

He looked at him. A stupid man, dressed up like a Dublin squire. Looked at the frightened, childish face frozen now in a military man's disguise. He hated that man in the mirror, hated him, Oh, God, there was a useless bloody man, coming up to forty and still full of a boy's dreams of ships coming in; of adventures and escapes and glories still to be. When, what were the true facts of that big idjit's life? FACTS: James Francis Coffey, failed B.A.; former glorified secretary to the Managing Director of a distillery; former joeboy in the advertising department, after he was kicked downstairs; former glorified secretary to the Manager of a knitwear factory;

failed sales representative of three concerns in this new and promised land. FACTS: Husband of a woman who wanted out before it was too late; father of a fourteen-year-old girl who ignored him. . . . FatheadI Great Lump! With nine solitary dollars between him and all harm.

The mirror man looked sad. Yes, he hated that man, that man he had made in the mirror, that mirror man who had unmade him. No one honored that foolish sad impostor, no one loved him. Except him: for only he knew that the big idjit had meant no harm, had suffered many's a hurt. Ah, poor fraud, he thought. You're all I have. Yet, even I don't like you.

Quiet footsteps passed in the corridor. Whispers. The front door shut. That was Grosvenor leaving, he supposed. He looked at his face and his face looked at him. Well now, you, what are you going to do?

Speak to Paulie when she comes in? Ask her —

What good will that do? She's her mother's girl.

No, no, I'll explain. I'll show her how we can manage, just the two of us.

Yes, the mirror man said. You've managed rightly, until now, haven't you? Judging by today.

Now, wait — I'll get a job, I'll get two jobs, I'll work day and night if need be. . . .

But the front door had opened. Paulie's voice called: "Mummy? Are you there, Mummy?"

He stood up, pulled down the peaks of his doeskin waistcoat and went into the hall. "Paulie?" he said. "Would you come into the kitchen for a second?" He waited as she removed her duffel coat and overshoes and followed him down the corridor. As they passed the living room, he saw that the door was shut. They went into the kitchen.

"Sit down, Pet/' he said. "I want to have a word with you."

"What about?"

She was tall for her age, Paulie. Her hair was reddish, like his own. She had his large hands and something of him in her pale, placid face. As he drew out a chair for her, he noticed again the patch of ink on the shoulder strap of her jumper.

"I was wondering," he said. "How would you like to move to a new flat, Pet?"

"Anything would be better than this dump. Are we going to move, Daddy?"

"Well, I mean just you and me," he said.

"What about Mummy?" Paulie asked, her pale blue eyes worrying at him. "What happened? Did you have a row?"

"No — it's just that — Well, Mummy's got a job. It would suit her better if she stayed on here for a while. I mean, alone."

"I can't see any sense in that, Daddy. You did have a row, isn't that it?"

"Look, Pet," he said. "It's just that — well, I need you more than Mummy does."

"I'd have to do the cooking, you mean. And make the beds and stuff?"

"Oh, I'd help you, Apple. It's not for that. It's for company I'm asking you."

Paulie picked at her fingernail. The sink tap dripped on a plate. "I want to stay here," she said. "Let's both stay here, Daddy. All right?"

He nodded, uncomfortably. To get her to come he would have to tell the truth, and how could he? No matter what, as his mother used to say, a child has only one mother. And Paulie, tall and fourteen, was still her mother's child.

"All right," he said. "We'll talk about it later. Listen, Pet. I have some boloney in the fridge. Would you make me three sandwiches for my supper tonight? And I left two pears there for you, as a present."

"Oh thanks," she said, offhand. "Do you want mustard in your sandwiches?"

"Yes, please." Mustard, no I don't want mustard, I want you. He watched her at the refrigerator and, after a moment's hesitation, turned and left the kitchen. He went to the living room and knocked on the door. Veronica was sitting on the sofa.

"Did you tell her?" Veronica asked.

"What do you mean, tell her? It's pretty hard to tell a child that her mother is some class of whore."

"What are you talking about?" she said. "How dare you?"

Hope, sudden and joyful, made him raise his eyes from the carpet, blue fleur-de-lis on gold. "You mean there's been nothing between you and Pal Gerry?"

"Of course not. Who do you think I am?"

"What did you expect me to think, Vera?"

"I wouldn't know. Did you try to get Paulie to go with you?"

He nodded, eyes on the carpet once more.

"Well?"

He shook his head.

"Good for her," Veronica said. "She has some sense."

"Has she? I wonder."

"She knows if she stays with me, I'll look after her," Veronica said.