"So would I. Don't sneer. So would II"

"I'm not sneering, Ginger. I'm sorry for you."

"Sorry?" He looked at her. He'd sorry her. "I'm going to work now," he said. He left the room, calling to Paulie. "Apple? Are those sandwiches ready yet?"

"Hold your horses, Daddy. I'm making them."

He went to the hall, put on his coat and hat. Paulie came out with the sandwiches in a brown-paper bag. She gave them to him and he took her by the shoulders, kissing her pale cheek. "Daddy," she said. "Could I have a dollar? I want to go to a movie with some girls tonight."

He took out his wallet. He had nine dollars left. Nine between him and all harm. He gave one to his Paulie. Now there were eight.

He went out, closing the apartment door behind him, and in the common hallway put on his overshoes. Money, oh those proofreaders were right. Money made this world go round. If he had enough money Veronica wouldn't be leaving him. If he had enough money he could have wooed Paulie to come with him, promised a housekeeper, promised her treats. Money, that was Our Savior. Not love, mind you, not good intentions, not honesty nor truth. Because if you couldn't make money, they would leave you, wife, child, friends, everyone. It looked that way, didn't it? It did. It did indeed.

"M'sieur?"

Jesus, there he was again, sitting on the stairs, the robot on the step beside him.

"M'sieur, you want to play a game?"

"No, Michel. I have to go to work now. Play with your toy. Your little man there. Tell him a story, maybe?"

"What will I tell him, M'sieur?"

"Tell him your name and all about you. All about where he's going to live and who he's going to meet. Tell him some of the stories I told you."

"Bi0n," the child said. He picked up the robot and put it on his knee. Coffey bent over, rumpled the boy's ragged crop of hair. "Good man yourself," he said. "So long, now."

"Wait. Let's play the wish."

"All right" Coffey said. "But hurry up."

As he had done many times before, he leaned over and put his ear close to Michel's mouth. The little boy put his arm around Coffey's neck. "What do you wish for?" he whispered.

The wish game. Wish, if he could wish, what would he wish for? Not for adventures now, not for travels, not for fame. For love? Was it any use to wish for love?

"You wish first," he said to the boy. "You first."

"I wish," the childish voice breathed in his ear, "I wish we had a whole lot of toys and you and me could play with them all the time. Because I love you, M'sieur"

Awkwardly, CofFey disengaged himself and stood up. He looked down at Michel's head, big and vulnerable on the slender, childish neck. Oh, to be a boy. . . .

But children must grow up. "Good-by, Michel," he said.

He went to work. There was no time for the facts of his situation, the disasters of his day. All the world's news waited: it must be read, corrected, initialed, sent back to linotype, rechecked, cleared. The presses waited. The edition was running late. And yet, at eight o'clock, in the midst of it all, a copy boy came through the aisles of linotype machines towards the dirty steel desks where proofreaders helter-skeltered among galleys, late, all late. Linotype gremlins, double line, transpose, insert, delete, new lead, add front, all had to go, no time for talk now, hurry, hurry. Late.

"Phone for Coffey?" the copy boy shouted. "Got a Coffey here?" Coffey looked up, waiting Fox's permission to go; but Fox was too busy, they were all too busy, and so, a man leaving the sinking ship, Coffey stood, ran guiltily to the corridor where the phone was, passing the

service elevator which waited to rush plates down to the presses. Late, late.

"Ginger?" It was Veronica on the line.

Above the phone stand was a printed card:

No PERSONAL CALLS DURING WORKING HOURS

G. E. MACGREGOR

MAN. ED.

"Yes, what is it?" Coffey said.

"Madame Beaulieu's just been in here raising the roof. You were supposed to tell her whether we were keeping the place on or not/*

"Look," he said. "I've no time to talk now, I'm in a hurry—"

"Well, hold on. Because I told her we weren't going to stay and she says in that case we have to move out by tomorrow morning at the latest. She has another tenant —*

"But that's impossible, Vera. Why —"

"No, it's not. I've already made arrangements about Paulie and me. We're moving to a ladies' boardinghouse tonight."

"But that's not fair—"

"Paulie wants to go with me," she interrupted. "And I have to move tonight because I'm starting work tomorrow morning. Gerry's coming to take our stuff in an hour or so. That's why I called you. We won't be here when you get back."

"Ah now, wait a minute — where are you going?"

"I'm not telling you the address," she said. "I'll be in touch with you. And listen, I've left ten dollars for you on the dresser under the mirror —"

"You skunk!" he shouted. "Waiting until I was out of the house —"

"Ten dollars is all I can afford, Ginger. Ill need the rest to get Paulie settled/'

"I'm not talking about money — Vera? Listen, Vera, wait until tomorrow, at least — "

But as he spoke, he saw young Kenny running towards him along the corridor, gesticulating. "Hitler," Kenny whispered. "Hurry."

MacGregor. Involuntarily, and at once, Coffey hung up. In a winding rush, he followed young Kenny back to the proofroom. Late, late, No PERSONAL CALLS. He rushed back to reading and read in a daze, not even thinking of what had happened, mesmerized by Mac-Gregor's imminent arrival, afraid to do anything which would incur that ancient's wrath. It was only later, during supper break, that he realized the enormous consequences of her telephone call and the strangeness of his own behavior. Even then, he could not believe it had happened. She and Paulie would be there when he got home. They must be there.

But that night, when he arrived back at the duplex, they were gone. Even their clothes were gone. He went to the dresser mirror, found the ten dollars and looked for a note. But there was no note.

At eight o'clock the following morning, Madame Athanase Hector Beaulieu knocked on the door. When he opened, she bent down, picked up a pailful of soaps and rags and marched in.

"The rent was only paid until yesterday," she said. "Today, you should not be here. I have to clean this place, my husband's bringing a tenant to see it in his lunch hour."

"Fair enough," Coffey said. "Carry on."

Madame Beaulieu opened the hall closet. Coffey's raincoat and little hat hung forlorn on the long rack. "All this stuff," she said. "I want it out." She shut the closet and marched down the corridor into the kitchen, sniffing and

peering like a social worker in a tenement. "My husband warn me/' she said. "He told me: Bernadette, he said, these people come from the other side, they have no references, you don't know who they are. And I told my husband, don't worry, I said, they're nice people, you don't have to worry. But, look what happened. You never told me you weren't keeping the place on. You should have told me."

"I'm sorry, yes, I know I should," Coffey said. "Very sorry indeed. Look — perhaps I can give you a hand to clear up in here?"

"No."

He went back into the bedroom and dressed himself. He must pack. He was not used to packing for himself. It seemed impossible that at any moment Veronica and Paulie wouldn't come in and help him. It seemed impossible that he did not know where they were. Or what to do now. Or where to go.

An hour later, he carried two clumsily stuffed suitcases into the outer hallway which connected his apartment with the one upstairs. Beside the suitcases he placed the overflow: three paper bags full of socks and handkerchiefs and a lamp which, for some reason, Veronica had not bothered to take. Then, carrying his raincoat, a cloth cap and a package of books tied with string, he went down the railroad corridor of that dismal place for the last time. He put his key on the kitchen table. "I just came to give you this and say all the best, Madame. And to thank you for everything."

Madame Beaulieu was scouring the kitchen floor. She did not answer; did not look up. Ah well . . . there was a lady he never cared to see again.

He went outside and sat islanded by his possessions in the common hallway, waiting for the taxi he had or-

dered. He thought of Michel. Quietly, so that Madame would not hear him, he ascended the flight of stairs to his landlady's place. Quietly, he knocked on the door. "Michel?" he whispered.

The little boy opened, all joy. Coffey squatted on his heels, grinned at Michel and in a sudden sadness pulled the child towards him, planting a bristly mustache kiss on the soft childish cheek. Michel, tickled, snatched off Coffey's hat and placed it on his own head, laughing.

"Looks grand on you," Coffey said. "Now, wait a sec." He took the hat from Michel's head, removed the two Alpine buttons and the little brush dingus and handed them to the boy. "And here," he said, closing Michel's plump little paw around a dollar bill. "That's to buy the car I promised for your birthday. Now, be a good boy, won't you, son? I have to go."

"Please. Stay and play?"

"Must go. Bye-bye." Gently, he pushed Michel back into the apartment, closed the door, and ran downstairs, his chest tight and hurting. What's this world coming to, he wondered, when at my age I've just said good-by forever to the only person in the world who seems to love me? Michel: what will become of him? What will become of me?

"Where to?" the taxi driver asked.

He tried to grin. "By the holy, I have no notion. I'm looking for a cheap room downtown. Some place clean."

"What about the Y?" the driver said.

"Fair enough. The Y it is, then."

Five At the Y.M.C.A,, they rented him a basement locker for his possessions and asked for a week's room rent in advance. That was nine fifty in all, which left him exactly seven dollars and forty-five cents until his first payday. And while he put that worry out of his mind as not his greatest, still it occurred to him that his new life would not be easy.

The room was furnished with a bed, a Bible, a chair and dresser. When he sat in the chair, his knees touched the bed. When he lay on the bed he could reach out and open the door, pull down the window blind, open the dresser drawers and get at the Bible, without ever putting his feet on the ground. So, bed it was then. He removed his shoes and jacket and lay down. Opposite his window a forty-foot neon sign flashed on and off every eight seconds.

BUBBLE BATH CAR WASH DAY & NIGHT

Did it flash on and off all night? He pulled the window blind down and the sign light beat like a hot, red wave against the dun darkness which resulted. He shut his eyes.

He was alone: for the first time in fifteen years no one in the world knew where Ginger Coffey was. For the first

time in fifteen years, he had stopped running. He exhaled, stroking the ends of his large mustache. Yes, it was good to rest.

Of course, there were things he should do. He should find his wife's hidey-hole, for one. He could hang around outside Paulie's school and shadow her home to wherever they were staying. But why should he? Hadn't he been far too soft with the pair of them? Wouldn't it serve them right if he never tried to find them, if he just disappeared altogether and settled in here like a mole gone to ground? Not a bad life either: sleeping late every morning, eating his breakfast in some cafeteria, going for walks, seeing the odd film, having a daily swim in the pool downstairs and then each night, to work at six. No ties, no responsibilities, no ambitions. By the holy, that would be a grand gesture. To retire from the struggle, live like a hermit, unknown and unloved in this faraway land.

Hermit, eh? No sex?

No sex. Wasn't that the height of freedom, to be able to tell any woman to go to hell? Any woman, no matter how beautiful, no matter how much she begs. Sending them all away, spurning all ambitions, content to be a proofreader to the end of his days.

But wouldn't that be ruining his whole life, out of pure revenge?

Well, and supposing it was, wasn't it a grand revenge? Because, God! he knew her; she'd be expecting him to run after her, to plead and beg and argue and shout. Well, to hell with her. Let her try to be the breadwinner, she'd find it wasn't so easy. No, the good doggy wouldn't beg any more. As of this morning, Good Doggy was Lone Wolf.

Yes, but wasn't it a crime to abandon your wife and child?

Who abandoned who, anyway? Didn't they throw me over?

But you'd be lonely, you'd have no friends?

Well — well, he would talk to the fellows at work. And now and then pass the time of day with a waitress or a fellow lodger here. He would be a mystery man, the hermit of the Y.M.C.A. After thirty years or so, he would die in his sleep and people would say, Didn't notice Mr. Coffey around lately. Wonder what happened to him? Never knew much about him, dignified man, lived all alone, kept to himself, probably had some shocking tragedy in his life, A quiet, mysterious man. . . . Wouldn't that be a grand way to go? Nobody with a word against you, nobody judging whether you were good, or bad. Your secrets interred with your bones.

In the day-darkness, he began to daydream of that future life. A hermit in the city, his tongue cracked from unuse, he lay on his narrow pallet in that tiny cell listening to a radio down the hall. A woman's voice sang:

Don't you be mean to Baby — 'Cause Baby needs lovin' tool Embrace me —

From now on, all the world would be like that faraway woman, singing without him, not knowing if he lived or died. He thought of all the rich and beautiful women in the world; of how many thousands of rich and beautiful women must be in this city, this minute. To hell with them. He had turned his back on them. They could be as rich and lovely as they liked. What were they to him, or he to them? Why, if he dropped dead here this instant, that woman would go on singing. Which was shocking, the bloody inhumanity of it. Singing over a dead man.

Of course, to be fair, the only reason that woman would

go on singing was because she did not know him. After all, he could make himself known; could ring her up on the telephone if he wanted to. But if he did, would she even speak to him? Supposing he waited for her as she came out of the radio station and stepped up to her, his tongue cracked with unuse: "Madam, for years now, yours has been the only woman's voice heard in my hermit's cell/' Would she pause, the tears coming to her eyes, would she put out her gloved hand, leading him towards her limousine, saying Take me to your room and tell me all about yourself? What is your name? Why is a handsome, intelligent man like yourself living this hermit's life? Why? Ah, it was criminal of that wife and daughter to abandon you. You gave them up? Why? Because you had your pride, you refused to stay where you were no longer wanted. Ah, you are a saint, James Francis Coffey. A saint to have put up with them so long.

But he would never meet her, that unknown singer. And if he never met her, if he never met anyone from now on, nobody would know about his renunciation of all ties, all ambitions. What good was it, doing something, if nobody in the whole world knew you were doing it? What was more terrible than being alone all your life, nobody caring if you lived or died? Why, if he went on being a proofreader for the rest of his days, living in a place like this, he might never have another intimate conversation with a living soul. What sort of man was he that he could even consider such a thing? Look at yourself, would you? Lying in this dump, all alone. And that damned singing woman. Ah, shut your gob, womanl

"Turn that bloody thing off," he shouted.

But the singing continued. Nobody heard. Holy God, nobody heard him, shut up in this cell. He could die this instant, call for help — suffocate — and nobody would hear!

He got off the bed, put on his shoes and went out into the corridor. The doors to the other rooms were open. Nobody there. He was alone here, he could die here, that was what Vera and Paulie had done to him. He went down the corridor. One door was shut. One door, behind which that bloody woman caterwauled her song. In a sudden mindless rage, he ran towards that door, thumped on it, shouting: "Turn that off. Turn it down, do you hear?"

Nobody answered. The horrible endearments went on.

'Cause Baby needs lovin', yes Baby needs lovin' — to-oo!

He grabbed the door handle and the door opened inwards, spilling him into pitch-blackness.

A light snapped on. One of the thinnest men Coffey had ever seen stood on the bed in his undershorts, his long hair rumpled like a coxcomb. The horrible woman sang from a miniature radio dangling like a camera around the thin man's neck. The tiny room, twin to Cof-fey's, was jammed with developing trays, film packs, muscle-building equipment, a stripped-down radio transmitter, a judo mat, a tape recorder and a huge pile of men's magazines.

"You bastard/' the man said. "Look what you done. You just ruined five bucks' worth of color film."

"I'm sorry."

"Sorry isn't enough. Come on in. Let's get a little natural light on the subject."

The stranger ripped a blanket from his window, switched off the overhead light, shut off the radio, and sank down on the bed, crosslegged, like an Indian holy man, sweeping the pile of men's magazines to the floor. "Sit down," he said. "Know what you done? You ruined my entry for the Popular Photography Contest, that's

what. Two hours I spent in the cab of a crane to get this shot and now it's ruined. The least you can do is pay me for the film. Five bucks."

"But I — well, I'm very short of money," Coffey said. "I can't afford to pay you. I'm sorry."

"Now, wait a minute; let's discuss it," the thin man said. "This is a problem in human relations. My name is Warren K. Wilson, by the way. What's your name?"

"Ginger Coffey."

"Okay, Ginger. Now, youVe got a job, right?"

"Yes. But I'm just a proofreader. I don't earn much —"

"Well, get another job, why don't you?"

"It's not so easy," Coffey said. "I've been trying."

"What do you mean, it's not easy? There's plenty of work in this country if you know how to go after it. You live here in the Y?"

"Yes."

"Single?"

"No — ah — my wife's not with me just now."

"Oh-oh," Wilson said. "You got a wife, have you? Not so good. I happen to know about a couple of jobs that's going up North this week. I'm heading up to Blind River myself, Monday morning. Of course, you married guys are screwed. Now, let's see. What are your hours on this proofreading job?"

"Six at night until one in the morning."

"Perfect. Can you drive a truck?"

"As a matter of fact, I can. At least, I drove one in the Army."

"Right. How'd you like a job making deliveries, here in Montreal? Eight to four, six days a week, and it pays sixty bucks."

Coffey stared at the judo mat on the floor. Driving a truck? Was that what he had come to Canada for?

"See, I just quit this job yesterday," Wilson said. "TiNY

ONES — it's a diaper service outfit. Suppose I get you taken on there? That worth five bucks to you? You owe me the dough anyways."

"Diapers?" Coffey said. "Isn't that sort of a — sort of a dirty job?"

Wilson bent forward, his body half-disappearing under the bed, his knobbly backbone curved like Charlie Chaplin's walking stick. Up he came with a package of cigarettes. He lit one and blew a smoke ring. "I done the job for two months/' he said, staring at Coffey through the ring. "Do I stink?"

"Sorry. No, of course not, I just meant —"

"Disinfectant," Wilson said. "Every sack of returns smells like perfume. And anyways, if you want to get somewhere in this world, you've got to push. Now, look at me. I'll go anywhere and work at any job that pays. And you know why? Because I'm studying. Look at this." He pointed to the radio transmitter. "Now, this is on loan to me from the American Home Radio and Television Engineers College, That's a low-power broadcasting transmitter. I bet you didn't know that radio and TV repairs is one of the fastest-growing industries on this whole continent?"

"No, I didn't."

"Well, it's a fact. Now, once I get my diploma as a graduate of the A.H.R. and T., I can pick up fifty a week in my spare time. At least, that's what the ad says."

"It sounds very good."

Wilson put his finger into a second smoke ring. "Right. But when I make that extra jack, know what I'm going to do? Invest in German cameras. And then I start studying another course. How to be a magazine photographer. Now, there's the life! Movie stars posing for you, flying in planes all around the world, meeting all kinds of personalities. How do you like that?"

"Yes," Coffey said. "That sounds interesting, I suppose/* "You suppose? I'm telling you. Now, you take me,

that's why I can move anywheres I want. I'm mobile, see.

And I don't miss my fun. Any time I feel like it, I just

check into a hotel, buy a quart of liquor and ask the

bellboy to send a pig up."

"Right. Why jump in the ocean, eh? I mean, look at you, you're tied down, you can't go no place unless you bring the wife along. And because you're tied down you got no ambitions, right?"

"My wife just left me," Coffey said.

"Well then, what are you worrying about? Big guy like you, whyn't you come up North with me, you'll get hired right away. Look — " Wilson bounded up from his crouch on the bed and struck a strong-man pose. Large knobbly muscles lumped out all over his back. "I had to work to get like you are," he said. "I done it on a home gym set in Toronto. Built myself up from a runt to a Mr. Junior Honorable Mention. That's what I mean about getting ahead. You see, I was doing this home study course. There's a place in Chicago gives you a diploma that guarantees you a job as a private investigator any place in the States. Well, I done fine in the test, but I failed the physical. So I took this body-building course and, like I say, I built myself up to a Mr. Junior Honorable Mention. That's something, eh?"

"But why didn't you become a private detective?"

"Bad timing," Wilson said. "When I wrote back to the college in Chicago they said I was too late. All the private eye licenses was given out for that year and they want me to do the course over again. Well, eff that, I said. So I started this TV course, instead. I mean" — and he leaned over and gripped Coffey 's arm — "I mean . . . Say, your

deltoids are like dead mice, you want to build them up. . . . Anyways, as I was saying, you got to keep moving, do whatever comes along. Now, how about coming up North with me next week?"

"Well, I — I — what was this truck-driving job you mentioned earlier?"

"Oh, that job. You want to take that instead? You could make more money up North, you know."

"Yes. . . . But my wife ... I have a little girl here. Perhaps I'd better stay here."

"Okay, suit yourself. Now, let's see. . . ." Wilson scrambled around under the bed once more and came up with a writing pad and a ball-point pen. "He-ere we are/' Busily he began to write, his lips moving as he formed large childish letters on the paper.

Coffey looked at him. Here was a single man, a free man who next Monday would head up to Blind River; a man who could still dream youth's dreams, who could see himself as a magazine photographer traveling over the world, meeting beautiful girls, living life's adventures. It was an old dream of Coffey's; one he'd started to dream at the age of fifteen. And the men's magazines, the mailorder courses, the talk of women as an inanimate pleasure to be enjoyed as you would enjoy a drink, the room jammed with evidences of boyish schemes, boyish pursuits — yes, it was familiar. A world of toys.

Yet Wilson was no longer a boy. The thin neck was clawed with age; there were gray streaks in the long untidy locks of hair; the hands were veiny, stippled with telltale brown moles. Was manhood what Wilson had missed?

"There we are," Wilson said, folding the paper. "Now you take this over to the bossman this aft. And write me out an IOU for five bucks, right?"

Coffey took the pen and wrote that he owed you, Warren K. Wilson, the sum of five dollars, signed J. F. COFFEY. They exchanged slips of paper.

"See?" Wilson said. "I knew we could make a deal if we talked things over. That's human relations for you. Now, here's my address up North. I'm trusting you to send me the dough, okay?"

"Fair enough."

They shook hands on it; boys crossing their hearts. In the corridor, alone again, Coffey looked at the slip of paper.

Mr. Mountain, TINY ONES Depot, 1904 St. Donat Street. Dear Mr. Mountain:

Here is a friend of mine, very relible driver who has lots of experince in driving trucks and making deliveres and has part time night job which would suit you if you take him on 8 to 4 on my old shift.

Sincerly, W. K. Wilson

He put the piece of paper in his pocket. At least it was true that he could drive a truck. It was worth a try. With two jobs, he'd have enough money to support her and Paulie. And that was what mattered now. For after a morning's freedom, one thing was clear. It was too late to begin again, alone.

The small office at the rear of the TINY ONES depot was decorated with a large lumber products calendar showing a young woman, her skirts entangled in a fly-fisherman's cast. Her hands had gone up to shield the O of horror her pretty mouth made, instead of readjusting the

resultant deshabille. It seemed to Coffey as he stood beneath this calendar that the pretty girl's embarrassment perfectly mirrored his own.

Underneath the calendar sat Mr. Stanley Mountain, his enormous weight severely testing a stout swivel chair. His most noticeable moving part was a stomach, large as a regulation basketball, which bobbed regularly up and down, straining against his very clean white shirt and his yellow felt braces. His head of hair, white as detergent, bent in perusal of Wilson's note.

"Show me your driver's license," he said.

Coffey showed it.

"You a vet?"

"Yes," Coffey said. It was so bloody hard to explain about the Irish Army.

"R.C.A.F. transport officer myself," Mr. Mountain said. "And let me tell you I still run things by the book. . . . Corp?"

A small man in white overalls put his head around the office doorway.

"Corp, take this man out to the yard, give him a truck. Test him."

"Right now, sir?"

"Right now."

So Coffey followed Corp out into the snow and was introduced to a small closed van which bore a picture of Winston Churchill, neatly diapered, and the legend: TINY ONES. "Drive her across the yard and park her between the two vans on the far side," Corp said.

Coffey did this without difficulty, then waited as Corp joined him. "Have a smoke, Paddy," Corp said. "Never mind about the rest of it. I just passed you."

"Thanks very much."

"I mean," Corp said — "I mean, I don't go for this service bull. Who does he think he is? The war's over, you know.

I mean, you got to help other people," he went on, becoming, Coffey thought, quite upset. "I mean, you're out of work, Paddy, right? Probably got a wife and kids to support, right? Well then, good luck to you. Now here — give him this card. Finish your smoke. Then go on back/'

Coffey finished his cigarette as told, crossed the yard again and gave the card to Mr. Mountain. Unconsciously, he assumed atten-shun! as he waited to hear Mr. Mountain's verdict.

"Check," said Mr. Mountain. "You're assigned, then, on a three-week trial. Terms of duty — Monday to Saturday. Hours of duty — o-eight hundred hours to sixteen hundred hours. Truck to be checked and presented to your relief at sixteen-ten. Morning check-out inspection o-seven-fifty hours. Now, double on back to Corp and get your uniform."

"Right, sir," Coffey said. "Thank you, sir." Involuntarily, he wagged Mr. Mountain the old salute. Mr. Mountain seemed pleased.

"Carry on, Coffey," he said.

A battle-dress jacket; a military cap with a badge which read TINY ONES; a machine for making change; a pair of sky-blue trousers and a pair of knee-length rubber boots. He signed for all, followed Corp into the locker room and began to try them on. Off went his Tyrolean hat, his hacking jacket, his gray tweed trousers and brown suede boots. On the bench they lay, the last remains of Ginger Coffey. On went the uniform, anonymous and humiliating. He thought of the first time he had worn a uniform, as a private in the Regiment of Pearse; still a boy, still dreaming of wars, battles and decorations. And of the last time he took off his uniform on the day of his discharge. Of the

relief he had felt then, knowing that it had all been a waste, that never again would he willingly become a number, a rank, a less than a man.

The uniform fitted him perfectly.

"Okay," Corp said. "You'll do. Take them off and stow them in your locker. Now you're a regular member of the shit brigade."

Six The TINY ONES depot was in the east end of the city. To return to the Tribune lie must walk a long way. As he started off, the sun moved west, unadmitted by the pall clouds which all day had curtained the frozen river and the city islanded within it. Thermometers outside banks and filling stations began to fall. Four forty-five. Office workers, waiting release as the minute hand moved slowly towards the hour, looked at the darkness beyond their windows and saw edges of frosting begin to mist the panes. While below, approaching the financial district, saving the price of a bus, Coffey hurried on.

Five o'clock. In the financial district the street lights flared. Down came the office workers, spilling out into the streets, released, facing the freezing bus terminal waits, the long, slow-stopping journey home. Uptown they turned in their hundreds while down he went, down, still hurrying, no sandwiches in his pocket for the night's break, his night's work not yet begun.

Five-thirty. It grew colder. A policeman in fur hat and black greatcoat shuffled like a dancing bear under the harsh arena light of a traffic intersection. White mitt paw invited Coffey to cross. Crossing, Coffey scurried along

the outer rim of light, raising his right hand to the policeman, giving the old salute.

Five-forty. On a corner, three blocks from the Tribune building, the red traffic light called: halt. Winded, Cof-fey waited, knowing he would be in time. In a newspaper kiosk an old woman, squatting on her kerosene heater, rose to serve a commuter, red-raw fingers fumbling in woolen mitts as she made change. The newspaper passing to the commuter's hurried clutch headlined a vaguely familiar word, which made Coffey — crossing on amber — half-stop in the darkness, then walk close to the commuter, trying to read what it said. On the opposite pavement the commuter, unfurling the newspaper, shook it out. CoflFey read, and moved away; last lap, going through the Tribunes revolving doors . . .

Cripple Mate Case:

WIFE TELLS COURT "I DID IT FOR LOVE"

The elevator came and he rode up, thinking it should be Cripple Mate who told court he did it for love: Cripple Mate who tomorrow would climb into a fancy dress uniform and go out to collect dirty nappies in proof of his love. Cripple Mate who, in one day on his onlie-oh, had more than doubled his earning power and who, no matter what she might have done with long drinks of water called Grosvenor, still loved her enough to want her back. Oh, he'd make her eat her words, so he would. She would never call him selfish again.

"Fourth floor. Editorial."

Seven minutes to six. CoflFey hurried into the Tribune cafeteria, rejecting supper in favor of a phone call. He called Grosvenor's flat, for Grosvenor would know where to find her. The number was busy. He waited, then dialed again. Still busy. At one minute to six it was still busy;

still busy when the composing room bell rang, forcing him once again to abandon the facts of his life for the facts of the world.

When the ten o 'clock supper break came, he hurried to the cafeteria booth, still unfed, still trying. He spent the fifteen-minute break trying to reach Grosvenor in his flat, at the Press Club, and at three other places he remembered as Grosvenor's haunts. No luck. The bell rang. Back to work. And still, oh God! he had not reached her, had not told her his news, had not been able to show what Cripple Mate could do.

At one A.M., the work over, he took the elevator down to the lobby, waited until Fox and the others had gone, then entered a pay phone booth under the Tribune clock. The lobby was quiet. Outside the phone booth an old night cleaner swabbed the terrazzo floors with a wet mop as Coffey, for the umpteenth time that evening, inserted his dime and dialed the number of Grosvenor's apartment. The number was busy. Hooray! Grosvenor was on the phone to someone — maybe to her? Giving her a lover s good-night chat; sleep well, my lovely. Meantime, until the lovey-dovey chat was over, Cripple Mate must cool his heels.

Steady as she goes, Coffey warned himself. Wait a full five minutes so you won't be disappointed. And wait he did, smoking the last of his fags, watching the old cleaner slop the slimy, sudsy mop over the terrazzo flooring, wetting the inlaid letters: THE MONTREAL TRIBUNE.

At one-ten he watched the jerky minute hand complete its last revolution and again inserted his dime. Brrp-brrp-brr-brrp — Oh, rot your blabbering liver-lipped gob! By the holy, it was time someone put a stop to this. He replaced the receiver, dialed the operator and asked if FEnrose 2921 was out of order.

"Just one moment, sir, Til check."

Another wait. Tm afraid the receiver has been left off the stand, sir."

And why would the phone be off the hook? So that a certain Gerry Grosvenor would not be disturbed. Well, any man — any man — was justified in disturbing that, no matter how late it was. Out he ran into the icy streets, down one block, down another and there — little interior lights lit, drivers slumped over newspapers — a black snake of taxis lay in wait for nightbirds near the entrance to a hotel. No time for economy now. In went Cripple Mate and gave the address, sitting forward, silently willing the driver to hurry as the cab moved off, its tire chains rattling on the hard-packed snow, going up the mountain to Grosvenor's place.

Gerald Grosvenor lived in an apartment development opposite a large cemetery. Ten times as many people were located in the apartment development as in the graveyard, which was very much larger in area. Therefore, slithering and twisting in the snowy drives among a huddle of enormous neo-Georgian buildings, Coffey's driver twice lost his way. It was five minutes to two when, his cab finally dismissed, Coffey found himself in the foyer of Grosvenor's building. To enter he must ring a bell beside Grosvenor's name plate. Grosvenor, alerted, must press a buzzer which electrically opened the foyer door. But if Coffey rang the bell, he would give Grosvenor a chance to slip Veronica out by the back way. And if Veronica were not there he would waken Grosvenor and would seem to Grosvenor a blithering fool. So he stood, irresolute. Maybe he should go away. Flute! He didn't want to find Vera there. And besides, she wasn't that sort of woman; she'd never leave Paulie alone in some board-inghouse while she ... or would she? What did he know about her, after all?

Just then a late-returning tenant came up behind him

and unlocked the foyer door. Coffey grabbed the door, met the tenant's suspicious stare with an apologetic smile and slipped in behind him, beginning the long climb to the fourth floor, remembering that curiosity killed the cat. And that if he were wrong he would look like an id-

jit.

But on he went in a curious mixture of wrath and shame. Went on, forcing himself into doing something his whole nature cried out against. Making a fuss, acting the loony, exposing himself to a stranger's scorn. On the fourth floor he paused, looking at the numbers: 81, 83, 85. He turned to the other side: 84. There were no overshoes or rubbers outside the door, though it was the custom for visitors to leave them in the corridor. Ah, she wasn't there at all: he was imagining things. Turn around now and go home. Ring Grosvenor in the morning. You'll find her tomorrow.

But just then a small man in a dressing gown came out of Number 80 carrying an empty gin bottle and the wreckage* of a box of potato chips. The man went to the incinerator slot at the end of the hall, passing Coffey with a suspicious stare, a stare which implied that Coffey might be up to no good; that Coffey had no business in the corridor; that he was loitering with some thievish intent.

And that stare, from a total stranger, made Coffey turn around and ring the bell of Number 84. Reassured, the small man turned and went back into his own apartment. Someone stirred inside Number 84. Someone was coming. Someone fiddled with a chain. Veronica's voice whispered: "Who's that?"

Coffey had rung the bell out of funk, out of fear of a stranger. Now, he drew back as though he had been slapped, his lips tight under the curve of his mustache. Again her voice whispered: "Who's that?"

But Grosvenor — for it was Grosvenor who stood there with her, it must be! — Grosvenor waited behind that door, probably holding his finger to his lips, cautioning her to silence.

A loud buzzer noise sounded behind the door. Down four floors in the night silence of the hall the buzzer rang again, repeating the sound. They thought he was downstairs; that was it. Now they would open the door and Grosvenor would peep out, trying to see who was coming up.

The door did not open. Again, they pressed the buzzer, shaking in their shoes, the pair of them. Oh, he would bloody well kill them!

But in that moment, waiting there, he remembered why he had rung the bell. He remembered that he would have gone away. Oh, God, was it any wonder his wife was behind that door with another man? What was the matter with him that he wanted to avoid a scene? What was the matter?

But what's the matter with her, he thought. -Why is it always me that's in the wrong? Oh, for God's sake, woman, what are you doing in there? Come home, for God's sake, you fool; how could you do this to me and Paulie? You were mine, you swore it, for richer or for poorer, for better or for worse, until death. Until death, do you hear?

And as though she heard, she opened the door.

"Ginger!" she said. "Do you realize what time of night it is?"

Did he what? Well now, didn't that beat the band? In her dressing gown and nightie, her feet bare, the brazen bloody nerve of her!

He pushed past her. "Where's Grosvenor?" he asked. "Hiding in the kitchen?"

"Gerry's not here. And shhl You'll wake Paulie."

"Paulie?"

"Shh" she said again. She followed him into Grosve-nor's living room, a bare, bachelor place with white walls, prints of Chinese horses and a long low bench of high fidelity equipment. She motioned to a wicker and iron chair. "Sit down. Shh. Gerry lent us his place. He's staying with a friend. The room I booked for us wasn't ready. Now, for goodness* sake, take that look off your face/*

"Where's Paulie?" he said. "Where is she?"

"In there. Don't wake her."

But he walked out of the living room and opened the door she had indicated. He switched on the light. In a strange bed, clutching Bunkie, her nightdress-case doll, his daughter slept. He bent over her, saw her twitch, wake, and sit up.

"Daddy? What are you doing here?"

"I told you not to wake her," Veronica said.

He stared at his daughter's face, still drowsy with sleep, at her fair reddish hair in tiny steel clips, at her breasts pulling tight against the buttoned pajama top. Soon she too would be a woman. She too would leave for a stranger's bed.

"Are you satisfied?" Veronica said. "Go back to sleep, Paulie."

She switched out the light and shut Paulie's door. "Do you realize it's three in the morning, and that I have to go to work at nine?"

He followed her back into the living room. So she had to work, had she? Wait till she heard how he was working.

"Vera, there's something I want to tell you."

"It's the middle of the night, Ginger. I want to go back to bed."

"Vera, I have two jobs now. I'm earning a total of a

hundred and ten dollars a week. And Vera — are you listening to me?"

"What?" she said crossly.

"I said I have two jobs. I can well afford to support us now."

She sighed, in swift exasperation.

"And I've left the apartment and I'm bunked in at the Y"

"That's nice for you. Now, I really want to go to sleep, Ginger."

"But wait — wait till I tell you. I'll give you both pay checks next Friday. Every penny, mind you. You could make any conditions you like. I won't even ask you to sleep in the same room."

She began to cry. He got up, went over, put out his hand to touch her shoulder. She moved away, leaving his hand hovering.

"Listen to me," he said. "I may have been selfish in the past and I may not have made the best fist of things. But listen — even though I'm not the best husband in the world, I know this much. Nobody loves you more than I do, Kitten. Nobody. No matter what you may think, or no matter what Grosvenor tells you, he couldn't love you the way I do."

"You say you love me," she said. "Just because you miss me. Well, you'd miss a servant if she'd been looking after you for fifteen years. That's not love."

"Isn't it? Ah, for God's sake, woman, what do you know about it? Love isn't going to bed with the likes of Gerry Grosvenor, either."

"Then what is it, Ginger? Tell me. You're the expert, it seems."

"Well . . . Well — dammit, Veronica, we're a family, you and me and Paulie. That's why we have to stick together, no matter what."

He saw her bow her head. Her hand went up to her face; long fingers shielded her eyes, as though she prayed. Oh, Vera, he thought. How and under what mortal sky could you ever believe that you and Grosvenor will be as you and I have been? How could you have forgotten that life agreement we made fifteen years ago in Saint Pat's in Dalkey, me in a rented morning suit, a stiff collar choking me, praying to God Tom Clarke hadn't mislaid the ring, and you in white, your head bowed as now, kneeling before the altar — Love — oh, come on home now, and let's stop all this nonsense!

She removed the shield of her hand and he saw her eyes: bright; fixed in hate. "So love is staying together for Paulie's sake?" she said. "No thanks, Ginger."

"Ah now, wait. I've changed, honest to God I have. Listen — do you know what this new job is? It's putting on a uniform and going about delivering babies' nappies and bringing back the messy ones. Now, if I was as selfish as you say, would I do the like of that? Would I, Vera?"

"I'm not going to listen to you. Oh, I knew you'd come back with some story. I knew it. It's not fair."

"But it's no story. It's the truth."

"All right," she said. "So it's true. Well, I'm sorry. And that's the trouble."

"Vera, would you for the love of God give over talking in riddles?"

"I mean I'm sorry for you, Ginger. But that's all. You're not going to catch me again. You're too late with this, just as you've been too late with everything else."

"Too late am I?" Coffey said. "Maybe you're too late. Grosvenor's five years younger than you. We'll see how long this lasts."

"Yes, he is five years younger. You've used up the best years of my life, that's why."

"What about my best years, Vera? Suffering J! What about my best years?"

"All right. Then why don't we try to save the years we have left? Why don't we get a divorce?"

"Divorce?" He felt his heart pull and thump in his chest. "You're a Catholic," he said. "What's your mother going to say about the sin of divorce?"

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

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

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

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

"No."

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

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

"Go to bed!"

"No, I want to talk to Daddy."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Will you, Ginger?" Veronica said.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"What, Pet?"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Looking for something?"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The maid took the package.

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

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

He stepped into the kitchen.

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

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

"No, Madam/'

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

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

"Are you Irish?" she said.

"Yes."

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

"Ah — about six months."

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

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

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

"My name is — Cu-Crosby," he said.

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

"Whose double?" her mother asked.

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

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

"Yes, Mother."

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

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

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

"Wait. Your money."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Shanks'-maring it at five to five, pelting down an old street in the dock area past faded stores and warehouses stenciled with the names of unknown and unimportant enterprises: Pimlico Novelties; H. Lavalee Productions; Weiss & Schnee Imports; Wasserman Furs Ltd. And now, at one minute to five, he shanks'-mared it into a building, rode up in an ancient latticed elevator, came out on the third floor and hurried down a corridor which smelled overpoweringly of Jeyes Fluid, towards a frosted glass doorway stenciled:

TINY ONES INC. Ring & Enter.

He rang and entered. Behind the counter which protected the office staff from the public, the desks were empty, the typewriters hooded, the file cabinets locked. He was late.

Still, someone must be here, he reasoned. The place was

not shut. He rapped his knuckles on the counter, noticing a cubicle at the far end of the room in which a light still burned. He knocked again.

A small man appeared at the cubicle's doorway. "Closed," he said. "Sorry."

"But . . ." Coffey began. But what? What the hell could he say?

The small man gave him a warning look, then shut the cubicle door. There was a name stenciled on the shut door, and, reading it, Coffey felt his heart pull and jump. For wasn't this the very man he was supposed to see? A. K. BROTT, PRES. Again, he knocked his knuckles on the counter. The door reopened. The small man came out, angry now.

"Mr. Brott?"

"I said we're closed."

"I — ah — I work at the depot, sir," Coffey said. "Could I see you a moment?"

"What about?"

"About —ah—"

"Come in, come in. I can't hear you," the small man said, going back into his cubicle.

Coffey lifted the counterleaf and advanced among the empty desks. Inside the cubicle were several photographs in black frames, ex-voto scenes from the life of A. K. BROTT. Brott with wife; Brott with children; Brott with first TINY ONES van; Brott with first automatic washer; Brott with office staff; Brott with Chamber of Commerce outing. Coffey had plenty of time to study them as A. K. Brott, his shoulders hunched, whipped through the pages of a ledger. Brott with books.

At last, he raised his small gray head. Wary eyes studied Coffey. "Well now. What's your trouble?"

"I've just started work for you as a driver, sir. I was wondering if I might have an advance on wages?''

Driver? Unbelievingly, A. K. Brott's small eyes traveled from the big fellow's florid mustache to his woolly-lined coat, his tweedy legs and suede boots. What sort of people was Mountain hiring these days? Looks like a burleycue comedian. And that red face: a rummy? "No," said A. K. Brott.

"But it's only ten dollars, sir."

A. K. Brott's finger found a column, ran it down to a total. "Only ten dollars?" he said. "Look at this. Off 30 per cent from last year. And that's not because the birth rate is down. It's not down. It's up."

He turned the pages, found another total, contorted his small gray features as though he had been seized with a sudden attack of indigestion. "Look at this one," he said. "Worse. And you want ten dollars. You know what's going to happen here in TINY ONES?"

«XT • »

No, sir.

"You're all going to be out of a job, that's what. Fifteen years I took to build up this business, and look what's happened. Everywhere the same. Down 20, 30, even 50 per cent on some routes. All right; you're driving a route. Now, what is it? What's wrong?"

"What — ah — what do you mean?" Coffey asked.

"Disposable diapers, that's what I mean. Paper, that's what. I mean it's a goddamn crime. There should be a law. There is a law, forest conservation, why don't they enforce it? And it gives the kids a rash, let me tell you, no matter what they say, paper skins a baby's ass raw. Ask any doctor, if you don't believe me. But it's new, and that's what people want, something new. Something easy. Now, you meet the customers on your route. Admit it. They're asking you for paper diapers, aren't they?"

"No, sir."

"You're a liar."

Coffey felt as though his face had been slapped. "I'm not a liar/' he said.

"No? Well, come on then, wise guy. What do they want?"

What indeed? Coffey wondered. But if he was to get his advance, he must talk to this loony. Say something. What was it Eileen Kerrigan's mother had asked him for this morning?

"Well, as a matter of fact," Coffey said. "What most mothers want is to rent other things besides diapers."

"What things?"

"Cribs and — and bassinets and — and prams and so on."

"Sit down/' Mr. Brott said. "What's your name?"

"Coffey, sir."

"Well, go on. Let's hear it. If it's good, you won't be sorry, I promise you that."

Coffey stared at Mr. Brott, then exhaled in astonishment, his breath feathering up the ends of his large mustache. Someone had asked his opinion. Memories of former years, of the District Manager of Coomb-Na-Baun Knitwear's unpleasant smile, of Old Cleery in Kylemore Distilleries shaking his Neanderthal skull — ah, so many head men all unwilling to hear his ideas. Yet now, when he'd least expected it, here was a head man waiting. What could he say? He began to speak, making it up as he went. "Well, sir," he said. "A lot of families are small nowadays. I mean, they have one or two children, and buying prams and bassinets and cribs is an expensive proposition for them. I remember in my own case, we only have one girl, and so we had to give all that stuff away when she was finished with it. Even the pram, which was in tiptop condition. I just think if we could have rented those things, we'd have saved money/'

"Mnn . . . hmm . . ." Mr. Brott said. "Go on."

"So — ah — If you rented those things, sir? Rent a crib, for instance —"

"Rent-a-Cribl" Mr. Brott said. "You think of that name yourself?"

"Ah — yes, sir." What name was he talking about?

"Rent-a-Crib. . . ." Mr. Brott closed his eyes and sat for a long moment, as though trying to solve some problem in mental arithmetic. "I don't say it's without merit," he said. "What's your name again?"

"Coffey, sir."

"And you're a driver? You don't look like a driver."

"I'm a New Canadian, sir. This is just a temporary job. I have a night job as well. But the trouble is, sir, I've just started in both jobs, and haven't received any salary as yet. So that's why I came to see you about the advance, sir."

"Advance?"

"Ten dollars, sir. If possible."

Mr. Brott shook his head.

"I mean, I could sign a receipt. I've earned more than ten dollars already. Couldn't you manage . . . ?"

Still headshaking, Brott took out his wallet and handed CoflFey a ten-dollar bill. "Advance nothing," he said. "You take it as a bonus. So you work at two jobs, eh? You know that reminds me of me when I was a young fellow. Ambitious, I was. How do you like Canada, Coffey?"

"I like it, sir. Very go-ahead country."

"And you'll do well here, CoflFey, you know that? You're a go-ahead fellow yourself. New Canadian, are you? Bet you never went to college, eh?"

"Yes, sir, I did, sir."

"You did? Yet you're working as a delivery man. That's the spirit. Kids nowadays, they go to college, they think

the world owes them a living. But it doesn't. I tell my Sammy that. I say to him, Sammy, you can have all the degrees in the world, they're no substitute for one good idea. What do you think, Coffey? Am I right?"

Coffey thought that A. K. Brott was not such a bad old geezer, after all.

"Yes, you're the kind we need over here," Mr. Brott said. "Of course, this particular idea might not work. Might fail. Probably would fail. Lots of overhead on maintenance, that's one problem. Disinfecting the equipment; repainting; repairs; eh?"

"Yes, sir," Coffey said. "I suppose there would."

"And then the pads, baby blankets, sheets, all that stuff? You figure on renting that too?"

"Well, why not, sir? You have a laundry. It would be just like diapers, wouldn't it?"

"That's right," Mr. Brott said. "Cleaning tie-in. Yes, you're all right, Coffey, you know that? If you've got any more ideas, why you just come right up here and we'll talk it over. Okay? Nice meeting you."

Pleased, confused, hungry for some supper, late because it was five-thirty now and he must rush, Coffey stood up, smiled at Mr. Brott and wagged him the old salute. "Good-by, sir," he said. "And thank you, sir."

"Don't mention it," Mr. Brott said. "And you just keep that ten bucks, that's a bonus. Now, turn off the lights in the main office and shut the door when you go out."

He switched off the lights, he shut the door. He hurried downstairs, hungry but content. Nice old geezer. It renewed your faith in Canada, meeting a man like that, a man who thought you were a go-ahead fellow. And he was a go-ahead fellow, dammit; he was no glorified secretary, no joeboy. He had been right to emigrate, no matter what. Tomorrow, he would find some place for Paulie and

him to live, and at the end of the week he would ask Mac-Gregor for a raise. In a week or two he would be promoted. There was always a bright side: you just had to look for it, that was all. It was still uphill, but, with a little victory now and then, you could keep on running. As long as you had hopes. And he still had hopes.

Eight "Miss Pauline Coffey?" said the girl at the desk. "Yes, if you'll just take a seat over there, sir. Won't be a moment."

"Thank you,'* Coffey said. He sat in the strange lobby and watched the girl — a nice little piece in a pony-tail hairdo and a pink angora sweater — go upstairs in search of his daughter. He read a sign over the staircase: RESIDENTS ONLY: No GENTLEMEN ALLOWED. Which meant that Grosvenor was barred too. He was glad of that.

Still, it was strange to think that his wife and daughter were living upstairs in this place and that he, their legal husband and father, could not go up. Not that Veronica would be up there at the moment. Oh no. Because, you see, Veronica never came back from work until half past five. No, it was not unfair, or sneaky. Hadn't Veronica taken Paulie away from him in just that way? It was only tit for tat.

He had promised Paulie. He had kept his promise. Friday it was; here he was, a taxi at the door, a little flat rented, everything as planned. And now, as he watched the staircase, he saw the girl in the fuzzy pink sweater start down again, carrying two untidy bundles of possessions. Behind the pretty girl, his own Paulie, wearing

sloppy white socks and saddle shoes, her winter overcoat a bit shrunken at the wrists and hems. He made a note to buy her a new coat. He went to her and kissed her pale cheek. "Hello, Apple."

"Be careful, Daddy, you'll make me spill this stuff."

"Til take it," he said. "I have a taxi outside."

"Wait, Daddy." She put her things down in the hall. "We can't go yet."

"Oh?"

"Mummy came home. She found out, I don't know how. She's upstairs pressing my good dress. She'll be down with it in a minute."

"Oh?" he said.

"I'll put this stuff in the taxi, Daddy. You stay here. I think she wants to talk to you."

"All right, Apple." She was not going to take his Apple from him now: not after he had worked like a dog all week to get things ready. Just let her try.

He walked towards the stairs, ready to repel the enemy, and as he did the enemy appeared on the landing above, carrying Paulie's party dress over her arm. He watched her come down, seeing not his wife but a stranger: a stranger who was more exciting to him than the woman who had been his wife. She had changed her hair style, and her dark hair, now cut short, fitted her face like a helmet. She wore more make-up and a dress he had never seen. He tried to imagine the familiar body beneath that dress; the full breasts with their large bruised nipples, the full thighs which swelled out of her slender waist, the familiar small mole beneath her ribcage. But it did not work: how could he imagine the body of this total stranger who now came towards him, smelling of an unfamiliar perfume? Was this what falling in love with Grosvenor had done to her — changed her from wife to a beauty he would have envied any man's possessing? With

shame, he realized that were she not his wife, he would preen and think of flirting with her; might even fall in love himself.

But when she spoke, she was Vera; no change. "Hello, Ginger," she said. "Could we go into the lounge a moment? I want to speak to you."

Yes. She was Vera and yet she was not. Again a stranger, as he followed her into the small lounge and shut the door so that they might be alone. But Vera once more as she handed him Paulie's dress, saying: "I've just pressed this. Mind you don't crush it."

He took the dress. He noticed that she was carrying her overcoat. She swung the overcoat out as a bullfighter tests a cape, whirling it on over her shoulders in a most un-Vera-ish manner. She pulled a new black beret out of the pocket and began fitting it on in front of the mirror over the fake fireplace. Was that what a crush could do to a person, make her exciting, a bit of a whore? What would she say if he were to kiss her this minute?

"What sort of place have you got, anyway?" she said, still adjusting her beret.

"It's a nice little place/' he said. "Two bedrooms, a kitchenette and a living room. Reasonable too. Seventy a month."

"Does that include bedding?"

"Well, I — ah — I have the sheets and pillow cases from our old beds."

"Yes, so you have." Her beret now adjusted to her satisfaction, she began to powder her nose.

"Listen, I — ah — I was just wondering . . . You — you wouldn't think of coming with us?"

"No," she said, still powdering. "If Paulie had been going to stay here, I'd have stayed. As it is, I'm moving/'

"Where?" The moment he'd said it, he knew it was a mistake.

"I've taken a cheap room," she said. "Not that it matters, as I don't suppose I'll be in it much."

She looked in the mirror to see how he had taken this. "Matter of fact, my things are outside now. Gerry's giving me a lift."

Again, she looked at him through the mirror. "Of course, I'd be willing to stay on here, if you'd leave Paulie with me?"

"Isn't that the height of you," he said, bitterly. "You trickster."

"It's no trick, Ginger. I still feel responsible for Paulie. She's not a child any more and frankly, I don't think you'll be able to supervise her properly."

"Who's talking," he said. "You have a bloody nerve talking of supervising a child."

She turned from him, her face flushed, and went to the door. She opened the door. "There's Paulie. I must say good-by to her."

He watched her through the opened doorway of the lounge as, impersonating his wife and Paulie's mother, she went up to Paulie, took her by the arms, and stood back looking the child over, as she had done a thousand times before, sending Paulie off to a party.

"You'll have to let that hem down soon," he heard her say. How could she say things like that, this brazen stranger who was going off with another man? "Good-by, darling," he heard her say. "I'll be over to see you in a day or two. And if there's anything you need or if there's any trouble, you know where to find me."

Her hands reached out, took Paulie's shoulders and she put her lips forward to kiss the child's pale cheek. (Oh, if those stranger lips would only kiss him!) But he, standing in the doorway of the lounge, saw Paulie look at him as she drew back, suffering but not returning her mother's kiss. Poor bloody lamb, he thought. The pair of us wolves

fighting over your body. Ah, Apple, Apple, 111 make all this up to you; from now on you'll be the only one that matters. Let her go; let that stranger go.

"Are you ready, Daddy?" Paulie called.

"Yes, Pet." He went up to them. "Good-by, Vera."

"Wait," she said. "I don't have your new address."

He begged a sheet of paper from the girl at the desk and wrote the address down. Paulie went out to the waiting taxi. He handed the sheet to Veronica, who folded it and slipped it in her purse. "I'm leaving too, Miss Hen-son," she said to the girl at the desk. "You'll forward my mail, won't you?"

"Yes, Mrs. Coffey."

"Ready, Ginger?"

Silently he went ahead and held the door open for her. In silence they descended the steps to the street. There, its rear door open and Paulie inside, the taxi waited. Farther up the street, on the opposite side, Coffey saw Gros-venor's sporty little car. So she was not bluffing.

"Well?" she said. "Sure you won't reconsider?"

He saw that she was afraid. Until now, this had been a threat. But now, she must cross the street and get into Grosvenor's car, cross the boundary into deed. She was afraid: she wanted to unpack and go upstairs, to go back with Paulie to the no man's land of the last week. And Coffey knew this: he, who so rarely knew what her motives were, knew she was begging him to yield. But wasn't she putting him in the wrong again, making it seem as if he were forcing her into infidelity by his stubbornness? He didn't want her to go, he didn't want her in Grosvenor's bed. But dammit, he was sick of this womanly blackmail.

"No," he said. "Go on, if you want to."

"All right. Good-by, Ginger."

And yes, by the holy, she was doing it, walking away

straight as a sword towards that bastard's car. Mad bloody woman, crossing the street in full view of her husband and daughter, to go off with another man. And why? Even now, she's sure that if only she goes through with it, 111 call her back, give her Paulie, admit she's won. Mad bloody woman.

She reached the car. Grosvenor opened the little red door and she settled in with a show of legs. A hot lust ran through Coffey as the little red door shut on that view of rucked-up skirts. There was still time to call her back, time to bring that strange woman to his bed this very night, time to strip those stranger clothes off her and find beneath them a body which miraculously was his by law. Ah dear God! Wasn't it lust that made him want to stop her going off now? Wasn't it jealousy at Grosvenor's getting her? Wasn't it? For it was not pity, it was not love. No, it was not love.

He did not call. He stood watching, an oddly ridiculous figure in his bulky car coat and tiny hat. The engine of Grosvenor's car coughed to life.

"Daddy? Are you coming, Daddy?" Paulie called.

He looked at the taxi: there was one who loved him, one on whom he had no designs. He climbed into the taxi, shutting the door with a slam. He put his hand on Pau-lie's knee and tried to manage a Big Bear smile. It was starting to snow. Soft blobs of snow fell like molting down on the cab windows as the little reel sports car, its engine roaring, shot out and past them. Coffey and his daughter watched it go, their gaze following it as their taxi driver set his windshield wipers in motion. Chig-chik went the windshield wipers, wiping all out.

Nine And so, in his fortieth year, Ginger Coffey began playing house with a fourteen-year-old girl. It reminded him of his first days with Veronica. Getting used to each other took time. Keep her happy, that was it. Promise her little treats. And soon, when things improved, when he would have one good job instead of two poor ones, when he was not exhausted running from pillar to post, when he could sleep at night and not dream about that woman — soon, it would be plain sailing.

But, in the meantime, he was unsure. What did Paulie need in the way of clothes, for instance? If he gave her money to buy things, she was likely to go out and get something grown-up and unsuitable. He noticed she had taken to wearing nail polish. He mentioned it: she said all the other kids used it. What did he know? It was wrong, he felt, but he must not be cross. She was much alone in the flat, so it was only natural she'd want to ask her school friends in. But he was away day and night. What sort of children were these friends of hers? He worried that she was not studying enough. It was hard to scold her; he wanted to be friends.

And so, each day on his route, he tried to think of things that would interest her. He made plans. In a week

or two when he'd be a reporter, they'd have much more time together. And then: "Listen, Apple, how would you like it if we took up skiing? Wouldn't you like to ski, Pet? And maybe this summer we'll take a little cottage on a lake, just the two of us. We might rent a sailboat. I've always wanted to sail a boat, ever since I was a little boy. What about you, Apple? Wouldn't you like to sail a boat?"

Ah, if she only were a boy. Or even younger. Remember when she was a tiny girl the fun we used to have playing games like snakes and ladders —

"I was thinking I might buy a draughts board, Apple. Give you a game on my night off, perhaps?"

But she was going to a skating party. Never mind, he would go to a movie. Ages since he'd seen a film. Or perhaps he would just have an early night. Two jobs could be tiring, you know.

How tiring, he could not tell her. Each night when he shut the door of his bedroom and undressed, he stared at his solitary bed in an act of exorcism, telling himself he was sleepy, dead tired, couldn't wait to hit the hay. Exhausted, he would stretch out; exhausted he would attempt to sleep. But he did not sleep.

An elegant, familiar stranger followed a man into the foyer of an apartment house, followed him up four flights of stairs, waited as he unlocked the door of Number 84, smiling familiarly as she stepped across the threshold into a room with bare white walls, prints of Chinese horses and a long low bench of high-fidelity equipment. The man drew the blinds. Music was switched on and that elegant stranger began to remove her skirt, her blouse; walked in garter belt and black stockings to a bar, bending over the bottles, her new short hairdo no longer hiding the white nape of her neck. Sick, Coffey watched as the man went towards her. Sick, he saw the man begin to undress. . . .

Then, never mind, no, no; count sheep, dead tired, think of Paulie, think of your promotion next week: J. F. Coffey of the Tribune . . . Think of your brother Tom in Africa; where is he at this minute? Think of little Michel and his robot toy, wonder how the little tyke's getting along. No one to play with. Think . . .

But who would ever have thought this long drink of water would be such a Casanova? Look at him now, naked, laughing, bending his long knobbly backbone to press a button, releasing the couch bed which shoots out from the wall, standing up, turning to her with the face of that man in the Y.M.C.A. — Wilson, who talked of women as pigs. Oh God, don't watch now what Wilson is doing as he lays her down. Who is she, anyway? Some woman you don't know, someone you never knew, so go to sleep! Of course she's a stranger: Vera never did the like of that with you. You never saw the real Vera excited like that, a Bacchante kissing his hairy flanks. No, that's not Vera, that's some stranger with a beautiful body, a whore in black stockings, abasing herself with that man, letting him pour wine over her breasts, laughing like a lunatic ...

But she is not laughing. See? She is crying. Do you see that brown mole on her ribcage? Do you see that white nape, her long hair? Familiar, aren't they? Your Dark Rosaleen.

No chance to sleep, for now he must watch it all, must hear it all, must wait through the laughing, the music, the loud animal cries of fear and pleasure until, in the last hours of darkness, her voice starts to tell the man who she is, tell him how, for love, she crossed the street to get into his little red car, how, because of her husband's foolishness, the ticket money was spent, leaving her no choice. Telling on and on until the first winter light grayed the ceiling of his room, a false dawn which those two in that other room

greeted with cries of drunken delight, becoming faceless, rolling and rolling there as he lay still, hearing them cry love, love, love until, exhausted, they fell asleep in each other's arms. Then he too would sleep, a short sleep, murdered by the shrilling of his alarm clock. He would rise, put on the coffee, make the toast and waken his daughter. To sit haggard in the true dawn of his tiny kitchenette, the lights still lit in the winter darkness, a darkness presaging the night to come, the visions still in wait.

"Daddy, have you got a cold? You look pale/*

"No, Pet. Just tired."

"Well, no wonder, working day and ni—"

"Won't be long, Pet. Matter of fact I'm doing very well down at the Tribune. I know they're pleased with my work there. I'm almost certain that old MacGregor's going to promote me to reporter any day now. Then 111 be able to drop the other job and spend more time at home. Tell you what. As soon as I get my promotion I'll take you out and stand you a bang-up dinner. Dress up in your best — "

"Yes, but Daddy, you'd better hurry now. It's after seven."

No faith. Her voice, like Vera's, cutting him off. Well, she'd see. On Friday. On Friday, his ship might come in.

On Friday he hurried to the Tribune office as soon as he had completed his delivery rounds. His pay check contained no notice of changed status. So ... So, as he had learned the Tribune style and had spent two weeks as a galley slave, wasn't it time MacGregor was reminded about that promotion? It was, it was indeed. He went to MacGregor's office. As usual, the door was open. Clarence, the fat man, stood on the right of MacGregor's desk, notebook at the ready. MacGregor himself was holding a telephone conference with the Tribune's publisher.

"Right, Mr. Hound . . . Yes, sir ... Right away, Mr. Hound. Good-by, sir/'

He replaced the receiver. His eye picked out Coffey in the doorway. "Come in. State your business."

"Well, sir, I've been in the proofroom two weeks, as of today."

"Yes?"

"You see, sir, you said that I should learn the Tribune style. I think, sir, that I've got the hang of it now."

"Well," said Mr. MacGregor. "Nice to know somebody's wurrking in this loafers' paradise. Good day to you, Coffey."

"But — but I came to see you, sir, to see if perhaps there'd be an opening as a reporter."

"We're still short-staffed in the proofroom, aren't we, Clarence?"

"Yes, chief."

"Very short-staffed, eh, Clarence?"

"Yes, sir. Very short."

Mr. MacGregor looked at Coffey. "We're short-staffed."

"But, sir ... I've been counting on this promotion."

"Tell him how many men want to become Tribune reporters, Clarence."

"Dozens," Clarence said. "Literally dozens, Mr. Mac."

"So, we're not short of reporters at the moment, Coffey. You'll have to hang on."

"But, I —" Coffey felt his face hot. "But, I have a family, sir. I mean, I can't support my family indefinitely on a proofreader's wages."

"What are you getting now?"

"Fifty dollars a week, sir."

"I'll gi' you fifty-five. Now, go back to your wurrk."

"Thank you, sir. I'd rather have the promotion, sir. I mean, fifty-five dollars a week is still very little."

"Did you ever hear such cheek?" Mr. MacGregor asked

Clarence, turning. "Did you ever, in your mortal life?"

Clarence looked at Coffey with shock, reproach and disgust. But Coffey did not budge. There was a time and a tide. "Well, sir. I . . ."

"Well, what?"

"I'd still like to know definitely when I may hope to be made a reporter, sir/*

"How the hell do I know?" MacGregor shouted. "When I get a replacement for you, that's when. Maybe in a week or two."

"In two weeks, sir? I mean, is that a promise? Because otherwise I don't see much point in my staying on."

"All right, two weeks," MacGregor said. "You have my wurrd."

"Thank you, sir."

"Now, take your arse out of here. I have wurrk to do."

"Yes, sir. And thank you, sir."

Two more weeks. Still, it was better than a kick in the pants, wasn't it? A little victory. He hurried off to the Tribune cafeteria, had a quick sandwich, then phoned Paulie to tell her his good news.

"Listen, Pet. That promotion I was telling you about. WeVe only got a fortnight to go."

"That's good," she said, in an unbelieving voice. "Daddy — Mummy was here today."

"Was she?" He had been wondering when that would start.

"Yes, she took me out shopping," Paulie said. "She put down ten dollars on a new parka for me."

"But I could have bought you one, Pet. Why didn't you tell me you needed it?"

Paulie ignored this. "Anyway, Mummy wants to come and visit me tomorrow. She wants to see you too."

"I hope you told her we're getting along like a house on fire, Apple? Did you?"

"Yes, Daddy. Daddy — I have to hang up now. Kettle's boiling."

He fumbled, replacing the receiver. All the good had gone out of his news with that mention of Veronica. Ah, hadn't he been the fool to think she would let them alone? Now she would start sneaking around to the flat behind his back, buying Paulie presents with Grosvenor's money, turning the child against him.

Tiny lights appeared before his eyes. He fumbled, feeling for the phone booth door. For a moment he blacked out, felt like falling. Oh, dear Lord, if anything happened to him, what would become of Paulie? No insurance, nothing. His child would have to go and live with those two; would have to watch those things.

Steady as she goes, he warned himself. Steady now. If you go on like this they'll come for you in a little blue van and lock you up, so they will. Steady the Buffs. Put that woman out of your mind once and for all. You'll have to get rid of her.

But how? She was still his wife, the mother of his child. Divorce her. Get custody. Divorce her!

"Paddy?" a voice said. "What's the matter?"

Uncomprehendingly, Coffey looked up, saw Fox buying cigarettes at the cafeteria counter.

"Are you sick?" Fox said. "You look funny."

"No," he said. He joined Fox at the counter, knitting his hands in the steeple game. Here is the church ... He had been sick, that was it. Sick because he somehow believed he would get her back; sick because he had wanted her back. The cure was plain: divorce her.

"Come and have a beer," Fox said. "Pay night. It'll make you feel better."

"No," he said. "I'll be better soon. Very soon/'

That night he went to bed in peace: he would sleep, he was sure. But the elegant stranger smiled. She sat in a restaurant, cigarette smoke stippling upwards in a thin spiral past her smiling face. Coffey, watching, saw her hold out a glass. That was not his ring on her finger. The ring with which he had wed her was a gold ring: it had belonged to his mother. This was a thin platinum circle, third finger, left hand, with these presents, kiss a new bride. Friends surrounded the newlyweds. An older woman leaned forward across the wedding feast and said: "Didn't he soldier with my husband once? And was something in a distillery?*' And the stranger who was once Veronica replied: "No, he was just a Good Doggy." Someone said: "Uniform, would you believe it, with TINY ONES on the cap? Diapers, it was. He delivers them to us every week. Of course, after that first week, I always made sure it was the maid who received him. Not to embarrass him, the creature." The wedding guests shook their heads in sympathy and congratulated the bride on her fortunate escape. They thought her a nice woman: they had not seen her as he had, naked and frenzied with all those men in all those rooms. They had not seen her walk across the street in full view of her child and husband, showing her legs as she stepped into her lover's little red car. In their eyes she was a woman who had wasted her best years as wife to a glorified secretary; a woman who had saved herself before it was too late. She and her new husband would take tea with Madame Pandit. They would be invited to dinner by Louie, the Prime Minister of Canada. The Prime Minister would ask for the signed original of a G.G. cartoon. There would be a good little doggy in the border of that cartoon.

He lay in the darkness waiting for that first false light which would banish her and bring him sleep. He would

divorce her and then he would rest in peace. Do you hear me, Vera? Don't laugh! I'm going to divorce you.

Yet, on Saturday, when the doorbell rang and Paulie went to answer it, Coffey waited in the living room of their little flat, his lips dry, his mouth betraying him in a hopeful smile. And when she came in, wearing a new and unfamiliar hat, he was gripped once more with a painful sense of loss. Look how strange we are to each other, all of us. Even Paulie, Paulie who takes her mother's coat to hang in the closet and now, formal hostess, asks if we would like some tea.

"Yes, that would be lovely/' Veronica said. And Paulie withdrew, the mistress of the house, while Veronica, a guest, waited to be entertained.

"Small, isn't it?" she said, looking around.

He did not answer.

"And how are you getting along, Ginger? I mean at your work?"

He said stiffly that he had received a raise; that in two weeks he would be a reporter. Everything was grand, thank you.

"But in the meantime these jobs must leave you very little time to spend with Paulie?"

"We manage," he said. "And it won't be for long. How are you getting on, Veronica?"

"Oh, I like my job very much. The woman who owns the shop speaks French but her English is poor. So we complement each other. As a matter of fact I made over sixty dollars with commissions last week. That's why I'm buying Paulie a new coat."

"I could have bought it."

"Ah, but you didn't, did you? And besides, I like doing

things with my own money, Ginger. After all these years it's such a marvelous feeling to be solvent."

He did not reply because, at that moment, Paulie came in with the tea tray. He noticed a box of assorted biscuits beside the teapot. Vera's favorites. In the time he and Paulie had been together, had she ever bought one of Daddy's favorite treats? No, she had not; and, watching the pair of them, listening to their womany voices, he felt alone, shut out, the heavy-fingered male. Listen to them, would you, chatting away like two old pals at a charity bazaar; Veronica going on about this bloody hatshop she worked in and Paulie regaling her with tales about the teachers at school, not seeming to know or care that her mother was a stranger who now had no mortal interest in Paulie and her school. Whereas he — all week he had hoped that Paulie would tell him about her little doings. He would have loved to hear her chat.

"More tea, Mummy? Daddy, would you get us some more hot water?"

He went into the kitchen and put the kettle back on the boil. The watched pot boiled all too fast for him. When he took the hot water back into the living room, they were still at it, heads close, hens clucking. He sat across the room from them unnoticed, wishing she would go.

But no. After two more cups of tea, Veronica settled back comfortably on the sofa, showing her long, slim legs. He had always hated her carelessness in showing herself. Careless? It had been deliberate, probably. She blew a reed of smoke and said to Paulie: "Look, darling, I wonder if you'd let your father and me have a little chat? Just for a few minutes?"

"All right," Paulie said. "I have to run down to the store for a moment. I'll see you when I come back."

Paulie got her coat and went out, no secret look at him,

nothing. And as soon as she had gone, the stranger sat up straight on the sofa, took her knee in her laced hands, letting her skirt fall away distractingly, and said: "IVe been thinking about Paulie. You and I must come to some arrangement about her."

"What arrangement?" he said.

"Well, first of all, the expense; her school things and clothes and so on. And then there's this question of her being left alone so much. I could come in the evenings?"

"Could you?" he said sourly, watching that slim leg swing.

"Yes. I could be here at a quarter to six most evenings and I'd make supper and stay awhile and —"

She talked. He watched her lips move; those lips which at night kissed a stranger's hairy flanks. Talking, making noises of motherhood, that mouth which each night he heard cry out in desire. He felt his own mouth open. To kiss those lips, to bite into that white neck, to take her now, tumble her back, tear the clothes from that stranger body which all week he had not been able to touch.

"So, what do you say, Ginger? Are you listening?"

"Ginger? What's the matter?"

The tea tray clattered, a cup fell sideways on its saucer. He lumbered across the room, his hands gripping her shoulders, his heavy body tumbling her backwards on the sofa. He tried to kiss her, his hands pulling up her skirt, quieting her hands as they tried to push him away. He felt her breasts come free within her dress as a shoulder strap snapped and heard his own breathing as he tried to control her kicking, struggling body.

A sudden pain made his eyes water. He let her go. She had caught both ends of his mustache and was pulling upwards by the short hairs. She wrenched up cruelly,

then pulled down, bringing him stumbling off the sofa onto his knees beside her. His hands caught her wrists, stopping the pain.

"Let go, Vera. Let go!"

She let go. He stared at her, tears of hurt in his eyes, his lust lost at last in foolish pain.

"Are you out of your mind?" she said. "You've torn my dress and my bra. My God, Ginger, what's the matter with you? How dare you?"

How dare he? Slowly, he got up off his knees. She had unbuttoned the front of her dress and now, one white shoulder out of it, was searching inside for the strap of her bra. Her hair had fallen over her eyes and there was a red mark on her neck as though she had been scratched. With an effort he looked at the carpet as, her dress fully open, she lifted one breast up, fitting on the ripped brassiere. And all the time, scolding him. "Getting me up here and leaping on me like a lunatic. What if Paulie had seen you? For goodness' sake control yourself."

"I'm sorry," he said.

"You should be. Look at that. YouVe torn the dress too. And I haven't even paid for it yet."

"Grosvenor will pay for it," he shouted. "Let him pay for it."

"That's enough, Ginger. I came here to see what I could do for Paulie. That doesn't give you any right to attack me."

"No right? I'm your husband."

"You were. You dirty rotten pig, trying to — just trying to — just your own dirty desires!"

She was crying: wouldn't you know? "Ah, stop your whinging," he said. "I'll bet that's nothing to what your fancy man does to you every night in the week."

She stood up, buttoning her dress, distractedly trying to tidy her hair. "I'm not going to stay here and listen to you.

I want to help Paulie. I'm her mother, just remember that. IVe got a right to help her."

"YouVe got no right," he said. "Go on back to Mister Canadian Viewpoint. You deserted Paulie and you deserted me. I'm going to divorce you, do you hear? And when I do, I'm getting custody of Paulie."

She sat still. Only her eyes moved in her face as she looked him up and down. Eyes bright with what he had once thought to be her bad temper, but which now he knew as her hate. "Divorce?" she said. "That's fine. I want one as much as you do. More."

"Do you, Vera? Then you can help me pay for it."

"Gerry will pay for it/' she said. "I'll tell him to get in touch with you."

"Why should Gerry pay for it?"

"Because he wants to marry me."

He looked at his hands, joined them in the steeple game. Was that true? Would Grosvenor marry her? As they sat there in silence a key turned in the front door and Paulie came in with a bag of groceries and the afternoon paper.

He stood up, protecting Paulie, afraid of losing her. "You're just in time, Pet," he said. "Your mother's leaving/'

"So soon?" Paulie turned towards him and, suddenly, winked.

Veronica saw the wink. She stood up, walked to the hall closet and put on her overcoat. Then turned, trying to save her dignity, trying to smile and say the things a guest might say. "Paulie, dear, you're turning into a very good housekeeper. Everything's so neat and tidy. Well, good-by, Ginger. Good-by, Paulie. And thanks for the tea."

This time, she did not try to kiss Paulie. She opened the front door herself and looked at him, meaningfully. "I'll

have Gerry get in touch with you about that other thing on Monday. All right?"

"All right/' he said. The door shut. He looked around the living room, smelling once again that unfamiliar scent, seeing the crumbs of biscuit on her plate, her lipsticked butts in an ash tray. He picked them up and carried them into the kitchen to dump them in the garbage can. He went back into the living room and opened the door to dissipate the scented smell. He saw his face in the win-dowpane. That sad impostor considered him: he considered the lack of dignity in the actions of that graceless fool. Look at you. Had you no pride, no self-respect, jumping on her, letting her humiliate you?

He stood, staring at his image. Was that man really he?

"Daddy? What was that she said about Gerry Gros-venor getting in touch with you?"

The mirror man watched from the windowpane as he went to the sofa, sat down and absently bit into one of his wife's favorite sandwich creams. Tiny crumbs powdered his red mustache. "Come here a minute, Pet/' he said. He waited until Paulie sat on the sofa beside him. "Your mother and I are going to get a divorce."

"But Catholics aren't allowed to get a divorce, Daddy."

He sighed. "Your mother and I aren't real Catholics any more. You know that."

"Oh."

"You see," he said. "Grosvenor wants to marry your mother. And she wants to marry him."

In a gesture so rare that he had no courage to tell her he did not deserve it, Paulie slid off the sofa and sat at his feet, hugging his ankles. "Never mind, Daddy," she said. Til look after you."

Awkwardly, his hand stroked her head. "You won't mind?"

"Of course I won't mind, Daddy."

He touched her pale cheek. She loved him, yes, she loved him. She was his, not Vera's; his own and only child. Wasn't that enough for any man, wasn't that a victory? He must prove worthy of that love. But as he decided this, he became afraid. How could he keep her love without a promise or two? Afraid, that foolish sad impostor spoke up. "Oh, Pet," the impostor said. "We'll have a grand time, I promise you. You'll see, Pet, you'll see."

"Yes, Daddy." But why did she move her head away from his touch? Ah, dear God. She, too, was tired of promises.

Ten On Monday Veronica would have Grosvenor get in touch with him. He took that to mean that Grosvenor would telephone. But at four that afternoon as he returned his TINY ONES truck to the depot, Grosvenor's little red midget car was parked outside Mr. Mountain's office. His first thought was that Grosvenor must not see him in uniform. Skirting the little car, he drove his truck to the far end of the depot yard. He got out on the side away from the little car and began to double back towards the locker room, under cover of the line of parked vehicles.

About twenty yards from the locker room, he ran out of cover. He was crouched behind a truck, trying to plan his next move, when a footstep from behind made him turn.

"Hello, Ginger. Thought I saw you."

His face hot with rage and humiliation, Coffey went through the useless pretense of fixing his boot buckle. Then, unable to look Grosvenor in the face, he straightened up and turned towards the locker room. "I'm in a hurry," he said. "I have to change."

"I'll come with you, if I may?" Without waiting for permission, Grosvenor followed Coffey across the yard and into the locker room where several other drivers were changing into street clothes. "I came here because I wasn't

sure how I could catch you," Grosvenor said. "You're a hard man to sec, these days."

Coffey, unable to think of a reply, stripped off his uniform and stood in his shirt, his legs oddly conspicuous in the heavy red underdrawers issued to drivers. "I came to talk about the divorce," Grosvenor said. "Veronica says you're willing to go through with it. I think that's wise of you."

The other drivers were listening. "Would you mind shutting your face about my private affairs until we get out of here?" Coffey said in an angry whisper.

«/-vl 99

On — sorry.

In awkward fury Coffey unbuttoned the underwear and stood naked before his enemy; remembered that naked was how he imagined Grosvenor each night. Hurriedly, he began to dress in his own clothes.

"Maybe when you're through, Ginger, we can go and have a drink someplace?"

"You can drive me down to the Tribune" Coffey said. "But I'll not drink with you."

"I'm sorry you feel that way, Ginger."

Coffey did not answer. He finished dressing and set off across the yard to check out his day's receipts. When he had finished, Grosvenor was waiting in the little red car, its door open to receive him as passenger. He got in, his knees rising uncomfortably to meet his chest, thinking of her show of legs as she got into this car that awful day. It had not been deliberate. In this car, she could not help showing her legs. He had been wrong.

Wrong. Grosvenor started the car with a loud throttling roar. They shot through the TINY ONES gate and into the street.

"The thing to settle is who's going to act as guilty party," Grosvenor said. "Now, of course, you'll think it should be her. But, if Veronica's the guilty party, the di-

voice will be far from a rubber-stamp affair. You see, our Canadian divorce laws —"

"For crying out loud, will you stop lecturing?" Coffey said. "Just tell me the quickest way."

"The easiest way is to set up a false adultery scene/' Grosvenor said. "I know a lawyer who can arrange it. They provide everything. A girl, a detective, the works. You check in to a hotel with the girl, and half an hour later the detective shows up. Case is heard by the Senate divorce committee in Ottawa. It's a cinch."

"And Vera gets custody of Paulie," Coffey said. "No thanks."

"No, no/' Grosvenor said. "Vera and I intend to get married and have children of our own, if possible. I know I don't want a fourteen-year-old daughter."

Involuntarily, Coffey fingered the part in his mustache. Was that why she was marrying Grosvenor? To get the kids they'd never had?

"Another thing we talked about," Grosvenor said, "was the expense of a divorce. Veronica thinks that because you're going to have the burden of supporting Paulie, it's only fair that we pay for the divorce thing. I agree. After all, you're pretty hard up at the moment. It wouldn't be fair to saddle you with an additional financial burden at this time."

Coffey, his face hot, stared at the dashboard of the car. The ampere needle flicked, wig wag, one side to the other. She went wig wag from him to Grosvenor, Grosvenor to him, telling each what she knew. Poor Ginger's too hard up to pay, you see. Now, Gerry, if you pop down and talk to him. Then tell me.

Last night he had not slept until dawn. Last night he had watched her in bed with Grosvenor as she laughed and made a story of Poor Ginger's attempt to rape her. And Grosvenor had laughed too. Grosvenor, sitting here

beside him, probably knew every secret thought or action he'd confided to Veronica in fifteen years of marriage. Bitch!

"All right/' Coffey said, in a hoarse voice. "I want rid of her. You pay the divorce and 111 be the target. When can we get it over with?"

"What about next Saturday night?" Grosvenor said. "You don't work on Saturday nights, Vera says."

Coffey nodded. "Where?" he said. "And how?"

"There's a hotel called the Clarence which isn't too particular. I'll try to set it up with the lawyer for Saturday night. You go there at ten. I'll have a girl waiting for you in the lobby. The detective will be along later."

"Not much later," Coffey said. "I want to be home at midnight. I have my daughter to think of."

"Of course. Shouldn't take more than an hour. I'll phone you and let you know the details, okay?"

Again, Coffey nodded. They drove the rest of the way in silence. When they arrived at the Tribune, Grosvenor reached over and put his hand on Coffey's knee. Coffey stared at that hand. It was very white, backed with very black hairs. He saw the hairy flanks she kissed in those nightly scenarios. Quickly, he moved his knee away.

"I just wanted to say thanks," Grosvenor said, sounding hurt.

For the first time since he had got into the car, Coffey looked Grosvenor full in the face. It was an ordinary face. A year ago he had not even known it existed, yet now it was joined to his in a resemblance stronger than brotherhood, in an intimacy he and his true brother would never share.

What chemistry of desire made Grosvenor willing to face a surly husband to discuss the settlement of Veronica's divorce? What made him willing to pay for that divorce, to marry another man's woman, a woman older

than he? Coffey did not know. He knew only that it was the same violent illness which, after fifteen years of marriage, had suddenly revived his own desire, leaving him prepared to commit any equal folly. He could not hate Grosvenor, for Grosvenor in turn would suffer the same feminine ritual of confidence and betrayal. He felt compassion for Grosvenor. He was cured of this sickness: Grosvenor had inherited it.

"Good-by," he said, and held out his hand.

Surprised, Grosvenor shook hands. "Till Saturday then?" Grosvenor said.

"Saturday it is."

His decision made, Coffey went to bed that night, confident that all his fevers had passed. He went to sleep and slept. He did not dream. In the morning Paulie heard him singing in the kitchen.

"Somebody's in good form," she said, coming in, her hair in curlers, her toothbrush in her hand.

Coffey turned an egg in the pan, still singing. "Why not?" he said. "Less than two weeks to go, Pet. I wonder what sort of a journalist I'll make? I wonder now, will they send me off to faraway places? That's a great thing about the journalistic profession, you never know where you'll end up. You see, you're very much your own boss in that field. Ah, it just shows you now, doesn't it?"

"Shows you what?" Paulie said.

"That the old saying is true. The darkest hour is just before the dawn. You have to remember that. Hope, now that's what you need. While there's hope, there's life."

"Somebody's in a philosophical mood this morning."

"And why not? Do you know another thing I was thinking this morning, Pet? The old saying, Man wasn't born to live alone ... Do you know, that's a lot of malarkey?

For Man was, and the sooner he faces up to it, the better/'

"Does that mean you want to get rid of me?" Paulie asked.

"Never!" He kissed her on her brow, cold cream and all. "By the way," he said. "That reminds me. I have to go out on Saturday night. I won't be back till nearly midnight/'

"But, that's perfect," Paulie said. "I was going to ask some of the kids over, anyway. Maybe you could go out early and leave us the place to ourselves?"

Well, he could go to a film, he supposed. Ah, he wasn't like some people: he knew that children hated grownups around when they were having a party. "Good idea," he said cheerfully. "I'll do that. Go to a film, or something, and leave you a clear field."

On Friday, when he returned from his TINY ONES round, Mr. Mountain handed him a message which had come in during the day. It was to call Mr. Grosvenor before seven. So when Coffey arrived at the Tribune, he rang Grosvenor at home.

"Ginger? Good, I've been trying to get you. It's all set for tomorrow night. You're to go to the Clarence Hotel at nine forty-five. Go to the bar and there'll be a girl there wearing a green overcoat and a black fur hat. Her name is Melody Ward. Got that? Melody Ward. Have a drink with her, then take her upstairs. There'll be a visitor at ten forty. Okay? And Ginger — you won't even have to pay the hotel bill. I'll reimburse you later."

"Fair enough," Coffey said. He hung up, feeling like a man in a thriller. It wasn't sordid at all, it was an adventure. Melody Ward. He even found himself wondering would she be pretty? He did not think of Veronica. Because he was finished with all that, you see. He was cured.

Saturday evening, he returned from his delivery round in good spirits. He finished his supper at seven and, determined to be agreeable, put on his coat and hat and went out, leaving the flat free for the children when they came. He told Paulie he would be home about twelve.

It was a clear cold night, electric and anticipant. When Coffey alighted from a bus in the center of the city, he was at once caught up in the hurry of a Saturday-night spree. Neon lights promised, spelled pleasures, performed tricks. A neon Highlander danced a jig over a clothier's, a comic chicken popped its head in and out of the Q in a BAR-B-Q sign, a neon hockey player jiggled his stick over a tavern doorway. In movie house entrances, bathed in the fairground brightness of million-watt ceilings, diminished and humbled by enormous posters proclaiming current attractions, anticipant girls fidgeted, waiting for their dates; solitary boys consulted wrist watches and dragged on cigarettes, nervously checking their brilliantined pompadours in reflections from the glass-walled cashier's shrine. And as Coffey strolled, slow, slower than the crowd, not sure what to do, he was swept up in a change of shows and eddied into one of these entrances. He stood undecided under the myriad lights, watching the anticipant girls smile and wave in sudden recognition, the boys drop their cigarettes and hurry forward; the pairing, the claiming, the world going two by two.

Watching, he absently stroked the part in his mustache: felt a sadness. All these thousands, hurrying to meet; yet he was alone. Saturday night and they came down in their thousands to laugh, to dance, to sit in the dark watching colored screens, holding hands, sharing joys. While he waited to meet some unknown woman in a strange bar, to go upstairs with that stranger to an unknown room, perhaps to lie down on a bed with her, in

make-believe of an intimacy he now shared with no one. And when it was over, he would have no one: not even Paulie. For Paulie had put him out tonight so that she, with other youngsters, could laugh and dance, listening to shared music.

He had no one. He was three thousand miles from home, across half a frozen continent and the whole Atlantic Ocean. Only one person in this city, only one person in the world, really knew him now: knew the man he once was, the man he now was. One person in the whole world, who fifteen years ago in Saint Pat's in Dalkey had stood beside him in a white veil for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health until death. One person had known him — or known most of him. Would anyone ever know him again?

Well now, enough of that. Do something.

He went up to the cashier's little glass shrine; put a dollar in the opening. The cashier pressed a button and an aluminum machine spat a ticket at him. The cashier made change by manipulating another machine. A nickel dropped into its little metal change bowl. He picked it up. That was the way of this world. You saw someone in a glass cage, stepped up, exchanged things, but never touched. Oh, come on now! Enough of that, I said.

At the back of the theater, penned two by two behind a velvet rope, a line of people waited. The usherette, a girl not much older than Paulie, came up to him. "Single, sir? We have seats in the first six rows."

There was something about her: her accent was not Canadian. He smiled at her, drawn by that immigrant bond, and followed her from the lighted area into the darkness of the theater. Poor kid. Her scapula bone stuck out at right angles against the maroon stuff of her uniform. New Canadians: thousands like her came here each year; thousands started all over again in humble circs.

You heard such stories: lawyers forced to take work as checkers, doctors as lab assistants, professors driving trucks. And still they came, from every country in Europe, riding in old railroad colonist cars to the remote provinces of this cold, faraway land. Why did they do it? For their children's sake, it was said. Well, and wasn't he driving a truck now for his daughter's sake? Wasn't he one of them? Wasn't he, too, a man who would always be a stranger here, never at home in this land where he had not grown up. Yes: he too.

The girl's flashlight showed him an almost empty row, lowering its beam as she waited for him to enter his seat. He wanted to stop, take her by the arm, lead her back up the aisle into the light again. To say: "I too am an immigrant," to compare impressions, reminisce, to tell the things that immigrants tell. But the flashlight beam snapped off. He could no longer see her. He sat down, purblinded by the colored images on the huge screen above. He looked around. Here were the solitaries. Some slept, some slumped in morose contemplation of the film giantess kicking yard-long legs, while some, like him, ignored her and peered about them in the shadows, hoping for a glance, a promise of company.

How long was it since he'd sat down here? Years, years. But he remembered: mitching away long school afternoons in the picture houses off O'Connell Street, huddled down in his seat for fear someone might see him and tell his parents. And later, as a university student, the lonely Saturday nights in cheap front seats, hoping that some American daydream would banish the private misery of having no girl, no place to go. Well, and was he going back to all that? For if he lost Veronica now, who would have him, a man nearly forty with a grown-up daughter on his hands? Wouldn't he end his days here among the solitaries?

Enough of that. He tried watching the film, but somehow the filmed America no longer seemed true. He could not believe in this America, this land that half the world dreams of in dark front seats in cities and villages half a world away. What had it in common with his true America? For Canada was America; the difference a geographer's line. What had these Hollywood revels to do with the facts of life in a cold New World?

At half past eight, unable to watch the film any longer, he went upstairs and sat in the lobby, waiting to go to the Clarence Hotel, waiting to meet a girl in a green coat and a black fur hat. He thought about her, Miss Melody Ward. How many of her customers really went to bed with her? Did she charge you extra for that? That made him smile. By the holy, it would be great gas to charge Grosvenor for that.

At nine fifteen he left the theater and began to walk towards Windsor Street. He thought of Veronica and wondered if she were thinking of him this minute as he started off to end it. And if she were thinking of him now, didn't she feel as he did, some sorrow that tonight, after all those years, it was ending? She must feel some sorrow, he decided. Anybody would.

The Clarence was a small hotel opposite the Canadian Pacific Railway terminus. The neon sign over its side entrance read MONTMORENCY ROOM and a display case showing photographs of glossy nonentities advertised CONTINUOUS ENTERTAINMENT. He went in. The hotel lobby was on the right and consisted of a single desk-cum-cigar stand with three armchairs in a row facing the street window. At the desk was a night reception clerk and in the armchairs three old men stared out at the snow, watching traffic. On the left, in the Montmorency Room, a pallid French-Canadian sang a cowboy lament to an audience of eight drinkers. Coffey entered, sat down at a

table and ordered a rye. There was no girl in a green coat and a black fur hat. He was glad. Wasn't this whole thing daft? Why should he go through with it? He would not go through with it. Stranger or not, Veronica was his lawful wedded wife: his, not Grosvenor's. Why should Grosvenor have her? Why should he be the one who was left alone?

But the clock over the bar said nine thirty-seven and it was too late to ring Grosvenor and call this off. The girl would be here any minute, the detective was probably on his way already, the lawyer had arranged things —

And — and all his life, he had hated scenes, hated making a fuss. It was too late now, far too late to change things, because — because at that moment a girl walked in. She wore a green overcoat and a black fur hat. She went up to the bar, spoke to the barman, then turned and looked around the room. She looked at him. And, by J, she was not the sort of girl who'd stand any nonsense. She was tall and pretty and tough. And, by J, she was coming right at him!

"You're Mr. Coffey, right?" she said.

"Yes." He stood up.

"The mustache," she said. "I was told to look out for it."

Yes, he said, and would she please sit down. And what would she have to drink? A brandy? He called the waiter. He joined his hands under the table. Here's the church . . . How could he get out of it now? And heres the steeple . . . Because she wasn't the sort who would let him off lightly. Open the gates . . . good-looking too, in other circumstances he wouldn't half-mind . . .

The waiter brought a brandy and Coffey paid. The French-Canadian singer sang a song about Paree, Paree. The girl sipped her brandy, listening to the song. And here's the minister coming upstairs . . . Too late, wasn't

it? Of course it was. Besides, it wasn't his idea, it was Grosvenor's, all Grosvenor's fault . . .

And here's the minister . . . Grosvenor's fault. He remembered sitting in the Ritz, his hands joined as now in the steeple game. And remembered what Veronica said in the Ritz: Gerry's fault? Not your fault, of course. Never your fault, is it, Ginger?

He unclasped his hands and looked nervously at the girl. What sort of man would worry more about offending a strange whore than about losing his wife? Ah, dear God. The sort of man who had been ready to walk away from Grosvenor's apartment door one night for fear of a scene, who had only rung the bell that night because some total stranger gave him a suspicious look. The sort of sad impostor who now, seeing Miss Melody Ward applaud the singer, raised his hands and applauded too.

The singer bowed and went behind a curtain. The lights went on. "Well," said the girl, putting down her glass, "I guess we'd better go up, huh?"

Who was he to talk about in sickness and in health until death? He, who half an hour ago had thought of taking this strange whore to bed, not of fifteen years of marriage. Who was he to condemn Veronica?

Miss Melody Ward stood up. She preceded him across the room and waited for him in the lobby. Through the reflection from the street window, the three armchair ancients watched him join her.

"Okay," she said. "Now sign us in as Mr. and Mrs. Your right name, mind. But give an out-of-town address, like Toronto, huh? And act sort of loaded so's the clerk remembers you."

He began, his large trembling dignity compromised by a sudden mulish stammer. "Nu-no," he said. "No I can't."

"Oh, come on," she said. "Don't worry."

He avoided her eye, looked at the linoleum squares of the lobby floor.

"Oh, listen," she said. "This happens all the time. A lot of guys are nervous, so what? I mean, you don't have to do anything, see? I mean, we just go up and have a drink in the room and then I take a shower. I'm in the shower when the lawyer's man comes."

The three old men sat silent in their chairs, their faces fixedly vacant in the manner of surreptitious listeners.

"So come on," she said. "I won't eat you."

If only she knew: to go up would be so easy. They were all waiting: the girl, the lawyer's man, the desk clerk, Veronica. All trying to shame him into compliance.

"No," he said. "I'm going home."

"Well, for Christsake," Miss Melody Ward began, her voice rising to a terrifying decibel count. "What are you playing at, huh? I mean to say, I came all the way down here, I gave up another appointment —"

"You'll be paid," he said. "Good night."

And turned away, his military manner failed completely in the desk clerk's curious stare, in the peering and whispering of the old men as he fled towards the sanctuary of the hotel door. Outside, he stood for a moment in the slush of the gutter and raised his face to the sky. Snow fell, wetting his cheeks. He felt his body tremble. Yes, it was a victory.

He went home. He had promised Paulie that he would stay out until her party was over, but in his victorious mood, he forgot all that. Somehow or other he must try to get Veronica back; that was all he thought of now. And so, at ten-fifteen, he paused outside the door of his flat, hearing from within that loud rockabilly nonsense that Paulie loved so well. He hesitated, but suffering J,

wasn't this his home as well as hers? Why shouldn't he take the bull by the horns twice in one night? He let himself in.

In the tiny living room, furniture had been cleared against the walls and two boys danced cheek to cheek with two of Paulie's schoolmates. The girls he knew; like Paulie they were children playing at being women, their childish bodies tricked out in low-necked blouses and ballerina skirts; their faces unnaturally aged by lipstick and eye shadow.

The boys were older; they wore leather windbreakers, Western-style shirts, bootlace ties. Peculiar, brilliantined haircuts gave them the appearance of wet sea birds. Where was Paulie?

He turned. In the narrow trough of kitchen, a third sea bird faced him, eyes shut, spread hands distributed, one over Paulie's small rump, one on her back, pressing her breasts tight against him. Paulie's body moved in time to the music but her feet did not. Eyes shut, her pale face flowered upwards to the electric light bulb, she undulated in a fixed position, rubbing against the boy.

Coffey took three steps into the living room and knocked the player arm off its thundering course. Eyes opened. The dancers stopped. The arm scratched in the silence, its needle frustrated: slipping, circling, slipping again.

"Daddy?" Paulie said, coming out of the kitchen. "What time is it?"

But Coffey did not look at her. He pointed to the boy behind her. "What's your name?" he said.

"Bruno," the boy said. He had a slight inward cast to his eyes which gave him an aggrieved look. "Why? You Paulie's Dad?"

"Do you go to school?" Coffey asked.

"Me?" the boy seemed puzzled by the question. He turned to Paulie. "What'd I do?" he said.

"No, Daddy, Bruno doesn't go to school. He works."

"I thought you said these were all school friends, Apple?"

One of the girls giggled. The boys exchanged glances and winks. "Apple?" one of them said to Paulie. "That what they call you at home?"

All laughed, except Paulie.

"Is there something funny about that?" Coffey said to the boy.

The boy, caught in Coffey's stare, was silent. The girls, saving him, said it was late, they really must go. The boys said they would drive them in their car. They ignored Coffey, as did Paulie, who rushed around, helping them find their coats, talking pointedly about how sorry she was; it was early; it was a pity they couldn't stay.

"'Night, kid," said the boy who had been dancing with her.

"Be seeing you — Apple" another boy said.

"Good night Mister — ah — Coffey."

"Good night."

"Good night." Paulie shut the door and went into the kitchen to clear away the litter of Coke bottles and plates, while her father started to restore the furniture to its former scheme.

"Why did you call me Apple in front of them?" an angry voice said from the kitchen.

«T* 99

I m sorry.

"And why did you come home when you said you'd be late? You've ruined my party."

He pulled the sofa back into place and paused, his lips shut tight under his mustache. After all he'd been through tonight! "Come here a minute," he called.

She came from the kitchen and stood in the doorway. Her face was pale. Her eyes were bright. Anger? She was his girl; she looked like him. But he saw Veronica there. Not anger, no. Hate.

"These boys," he said. "They weren't school friends. They're older boys, aren't they?"

"Yes."

"Little thugs," he said. "If you ask me."

"Nobody asked you, Daddy."

Was it for this that he was working day and night? Was this all he had left now, this — this cheekiness?

He slapped his daughter's face. It was the first time in his life he had done such a thing.

Tears formed in Paulie's wide eyes. She stared at him as though she had lost her sight, then, with a wail of rage, began to weep. "Leave me alone! You don't touch me. You — You — Everybody'll be making fun of me. I'm not your Apple, do you hear? You and your Apple! I'm nearly fifteen."

"Exactly," he said. "So what are you doing painted and powdered like an old woman? Go and wash that muck off this instant."

"No, I won't!" she screamed.

He took her arm. "Do what you're told, miss, or I'll put you over my knee and teach you some manners."

"Don't you dare." She wrenched free, ran into the kitchen and reappeared, an aluminum saucepan in her hand. "Just you come near me."

"Put that down, Paulie. Paulie, put that down."

She threw it down. It clattered on the linoleum of the hall. She turned, ran into the bathroom and locked the door. Ah, Dear God. Contrite, he went to the door and knocked on it. "Paulie? Now, listen Pet, listen to me —"

"I'm not your Pet. You're not going to bully me the way you bullied Mummy. I'll run off with somebody too. I can run off with Bruno. Just remember that."

Run off with Bruno? He felt dizzy. He backed away from the door and sat down on the first chair his hand touched. In his mind, a child's voice spoke: Do you like

big elephants best of all, or do you like horses best of all? He remembered her asking that. Or: Why do my dolly's eyes stay open when she sleeps? Conversations which ended with him telling her something she did not know. Now, she had told him something he did not know.

Paulie came out of the bathroom. She crossed the living room. 'Tm going to bed/' she said. "Will you put the lights out?"

He heard her shut and bolt her bedroom door. She too could run off with some male. Once, if Daddy liked big elephants best of all, then Paulie liked big elephants too. But now . . .

He covered his eyes, his fingers pressing against his eyeballs until it hurt. Now, she was not his little Apple any more. Big elephants were no longer relevant.

Eleven Bells, calling to the noon mass in the Basilica, tolled out across the city in a clear and freezing tone, waking him from an exhausted sleep into a world without end, amen. Slowly they focused, the facts of his life. Someone lost, someone stolen, someone strayed. But the morning habit of a lifetime, kicking now with its head cut off, must begin to balance the good with the bad. The habits of an habitual ratiocinator must be fixed in hope. And so, let's see. At least he had gained a little victory by running away last night. At least, last night, he had had his eyes opened to Paulie's true intentions. There was still time to stop her running wild. And so . . .

And so, when the bells stopped tolling and the worshipers went up the steps to pray, Ginger Coffey, with no God in whom he could place his trust, placed it as he must, in men. By ratiocination, MacGregor became his hope. If he could last one more week, MacGregor had promised to promote him. And once MacGregor promoted him, as J. F. Coffey, Journalist, he would have time to oversee and correct his daughter's upbringing. As J. F. Coffey, Journalist, he would have a job he was proud of at last. No glorified secretary, no galley slave, no joeboy; but a Gentleman of the Press.

And so, he had been right to come to Canada, after all. He had picked a winner. In the winner's circle, by his habitual processes of ratiocination, he thought it natural that Veronica would salute his silks.

So, one-two-three, lift up your big carcass, you winner you. Up! And up he got, feeling a twinge in his left leg, going heavy and slow to the kitchen where Paulie was. He started right in.

"Hello, Pet. About last night. I mean, I'm sorry. Now, listen to me — "

The phone rang, postponing his armistice plans. He answered. It was Veronica. "Ginger? I want to know if I can come and see Paulie this afternoon."

"Of course you can," he said.

"But if I come I don't want any repetition of the last time. I want you to be out."

"Look," he said. "I have to have a chat with you."

"Why?"

"Well —Well, last night —I mean, last night I didn't go through with that business."

"You didn't? Why?"

"Well, I'll explain it to you when I see you. And I want to talk to you about Paulie."

"What about Paulie?"

"Little pitchers."

"Oh, don't be ridiculous," she said. "Have you had a row with her? Let me speak to her."

"No, wait, dear, I want to explain — "

"Let me speak to Paulie!"

He sighed, put the phone down and beckoned to Paulie who was listening at the kitchen door. He went into the kitchen and listened himself, trying to make sense of what was being said.

"No, Mother. ... No. ... We had a row last night.

... He hit me. . . . Yes, he did. Because, well, 111 tell you when I see you. . . . Yes, I'll come now."

Paulie came back into the kitchen. "Isn't your mother coming here?" Coffey said.

"No. I'm meeting her downtown for coffee. Now, if you'll excuse me, Daddy, I've got to get dressed/'

She went out. He looked at the stove. For the first time since they'd been together, she hadn't made his Sunday breakfast. He got up, spooned a dollop of instant coffee into a cup and sat down again, waiting for the water to boil. A few minutes later he heard Paulie go out. He sat alone, thinking of her meeting Vera in some restaurant, knowing that, in their womany way, he would be blamed for all that happened last night.

Somewhere in the bowels of the apartment the furnace coughed and whirred into life. He drank his instant coffee. Upstairs, someone knocked on a radiator and the noise echoed down through the pipes to the basement. The whirring ceased. The furnace went off. Yes, it was hard to hope.

At ten minutes to two, the telephone rang. He expected it would be Grosvenor, asking why last night's plans had gone agley. But it was Veronica.

"Ginger," she said. "Paulie's just left and she's on her way home. I want to see you at once, it's very important. After what she's told me, you and I have to come to some decision."

"All right," he said.

"Can you come up to my room?" she asked.

"When?"

"Now. Paulie has a key, hasn't she? You don't have to wait for her?"

"No."

"All right then, hurry. Here's the address."

In his dreams which were not dreams, he had sometimes seen her room. She did not spend much time in it but it was large and elegant, furnished with spindly Swedish things and a large, un-slept-in bed. It was close to Grosvenor's flat.

The reality was an Edwardian gingerbread house on the dividing line between the English and French sections of the city, a slum whose sagging porches and balconies were weighted with a winter's accumulation of crusted, filth-spattered snow. The hallway was bare and uncarpeted; the staircase supports were loose. Communal cooking devices were placed on the landings and large garbage pails stood sentinel at each turning of the stairs.

She lived on the third floor. She was waiting for him on the landing as he came up, his face slapped red by the cold, his car coat unbuttoned, his unhusbandly status plain by the polite way he took off his little green hat as he went to greet her. And she, still the stranger, wearing a navy-blue dress and a white bead necklace, her stocking seams straight. He thought how a certain kind of drunkard hides signs of his failing in a meticulous attention to dress. A certain type of lady hides her nights of orgy . . .

"Come on in," said the lady, without preamble. "I just got back myself a minute ago. Mind that step."

Large? Modern? The room alarmed him. It was smaller than the cell he had briefly occupied at the Y.M.C.A. There was no closet, so her clothes were hung on hooks all around the walls. The bed was an unwieldy double, occupying two thirds of the floor space. There was a small washbasin, its enamel browned with age. There was a small window, its panes covered with diamonded paper.

Of course she was never here; of course she just used it as a place to keep her things. Why, then, were there tins of food under the basin? Why was there milk on the window sill, why those dishes stacked in a corner? He sat on the only chair; watched as she went to the mirror over the sink and unfastened her necklace. "Filthy place, isn't it?" she said. "They never clean it. I'm going to take my good dress off, if you don't mind. Oh, I'm in such a state about Paulie. I knew she was running around with boys. I just felt it."

Desirable stranger pulled the dress over her head. Her white slip rose also, revealing her stocking tops and garter straps. It was the beginning of one of his nightly scenarios. He put his little green hat between his feet. The floor was not clean. How could she stay so clean here?

"I gather his name is Bruno," she said, "and that he's a mechanic."

"He's a little thug," Coffey said. "And she's only a child."

"Well, that's got to stop," she said. "No two ways about it: that's stopping right now."

She went past him in her slip and reached behind the door for her dressing gown. It, at least, was familiar. He had bought it for her as a Christmas present one hundred years ago in a shop in Grafton Street. She sat on the bed, reaching across the bed for her cigarettes while he stood, enormous and clumsy, in the tiny, ill-lit room, his hand trembling as he held out a match flame.

"Thank you." She sucked in her cheeks, expelled smoke and leaned back on the pillows. She drew one knee up, lacing it with her joined hands. He looked at, then looked away from her bare white thigh, her tan stocking top. Whorish beauty, cover yourself! But oh! Wasn't that gesture of drawing one knee up, holding it in her hands, wasn't that familiar from the years he had known her? Of

course it was. Then, why had he never really looked at her in all those years? Why was it so distracting now? He did not hear a word she was saying. He shifted in his chair, shamed and troubled by his desire.

". . . And supervision," she said. "No more leaving her alone every evening. So, what are we going to do about it?"

We. We is you and me. He looked again at the cans of food under the sink. Maybe his imaginings about her and Grosvenor had been only that? Maybe —

"Listen," he said. "If only you'd come back. I mean, even as a temporary arrangement until I get this new job. Listen, Vera —"

Listen? As he said the word, he saw her face. Of course she would not listen. As of old, she merely waited her turn to speak.

"For instance," he said. "Paulie's wearing lipstick and powder and her nails are orange. Now, I don't know about these things. She says the other girls in her class use them. How do I know?"

Veronica stubbed out her cigarette and turned her face against the pillows. "Oh God! It never changes, does it? Am I never to have any life of my own? The pair of you," she said, "you'd think you planned it. You can't look after Paulie, and of course she refuses to come and live with me. And of course, you won't go through with the divorce — oh, that would be too easy, that would be helping me, wouldn't it? And of course, Gerry can't wait forever."

She stubbed out her cigarette and sighed, a woman beyond all hope. "All right," she said. "I'll go back until you get this other job. All right. Oh, it would have been too much to expect that I'd have some life of my own after all these years wet-nursing the pair of you."

He avoided her angry eyes. He looked away and was

caught in another stare, that of his own image in the mirror above the sink. The mirror man was flushed and guilty. Well now, fellow, and do you hear that? She's coming back for a while. Not because she wants to come, mind you, but because she has to stop you messing up Paulie's life. Do you follow me there, my alter ego? Do you want her?

He looked at her. Yes, he wanted her, no matter what the terms.

"And if I do come back/' she said, "it's temporary. I'm keeping my job on. And I'm to be in charge of Paulie. Do you understand?"

He nodded, all right.

"And another thing," she said. "I'd like to have my own room."

The mirror man watched his embarrassment. "There's ah — there's only two bedrooms," he said. "There are twin beds in my room."

She sighed in swift exasperation. "Oh well, I suppose we may as well get started. Get my suitcases, will you? They're under the bed."

The mirror man watched as he went down on his knees.

So, she came home. That night when he returned from his proofreading duties, he found her asleep in the twin bed next to his. Quickly he began to undress, remembering all the waking dreams of her absence, and in a few minutes, large, naked and vulnerable, he shyly approached her bed. He hesitated, then bent over and placed a bristly mustache kiss on the nape of her neck. Immediately — she could not have been asleep — she sat up and switched on the light. She stared at him. Naked, it was plain what ailed him.

"Go back to your own bed," she said.

"Ah now, Vera —"

"Either you go back to your own bed or I'll dress and leave tonight."

"Suffering J!" he said. But he went back to his own bed. He slept. He dreamed about her. And next morning awoke to a new torture. Covertly he watched as she got out of bed. She was wearing flannel pajamas which were not exactly Gay Paree but which nevertheless brought him to sudden desire. He turned towards her, the ends of his mustache lifting in a hopeful smile . . .

She stared him down. Without a word, she picked her clothes off the chair and went into the bathroom, leaving him alone, his desire drooping to a sadness. Unshaven and unfed (for she stayed in the bathroom) he fled to another day of diapers.

Still, wasn't it better to have her in the house, no matter how cold she was, than to torture himself with imaginings? Soon she'd thaw; the KEEP OFF THE GRASS signs would come down; Grosvenor would be forgotten. Soon they'd be friends again. Paulie would be friends with him too. Soon MacGregor would promote him. Soon everything would be all right. Soon . . .

Yes, he put all his hopes in one basket, an ancient basket by the name of MacGregor. That night, when he went to work at the Tribune, he attacked his galleys like a driven man. That night when MacGregor passed through on his usual sortie, Coffey looked up from the dirty steel desk, not in fear but in hope, proud of the great mass of corrected proofs on his spike, hoping MacGregor would see in him a man worthy of advancement.

But MacGregor did not single him out. MacGregor passed him by.

Ah well. Maybe tomorrow night?

Tomorrow was Tuesday. When he came back for his supper on Tuesday night, Veronica was not there. Nei-

ther was Paulie. Not that that made much difference, as Paulie hadn't spoken two words to him since her mother's return. Still, it couldn't last much longer, could it?

He went to work. Again he drove himself to produce the greatest number of corrected galleys. Again he lived in hopes. And Hooray! At a quarter to ten, just before the supper break, a copy boy came into the composing room and said Coffey was wanted at the city desk.

"Did you hear that?" Coffey said to Old Billy Davis. "The city desk. Ah, now, MacGregor isn't such a bad old basket after all. He's given the order and the city editor's going to find a spot for me/'

Old Billy fingered his feathery goatee. "J ust so l° n g as it isn't trouble," he said. "Best you can hope for is keep out of trouble. Watch your step."

Poor old sausage, what would he know? In joyful disparagement, J. F. Coffey, Journalist, donned his jacket and hurried out into the great cavern of the city room, sure that now, his ship rounding the harbor bar . . .

False alarm. Leaning against a pillar a few steps from the city desk a visitor awaited Coffey. Waited, slightly disarranged as though the window dresser had gone to lunch and left him unfinished.

"Hi," he said. He turned towards the City Editor and said in a slurred, half-drunken voice: "Okay if I borrow this guy?"

"Go ahead, Gerry boy," the City Editor said.

Gerald Grosvenor waved his thanks, then, detaching himself from the pillar, came towards Coffey. "Come on in the cafeteria," he said. "I want to have a talk with you, Buster."

He was drunk, that was plain. Uneasily, Coffey accompanied him along the corridor to the cafeteria, praying that MacGregor would not spot them. Uneasily he waited as Grosvenor, after a noisy exchange of greetings with two

reporters and the counterman, brought steaming mugs of coffee to the table. MacGregor had not yet paid his nightly visit; Coffey was supposed to be at his desk, not here. "Look," he said to Grosvenor. "I'm busy and it's not my supper time yet. Now, what is it?"

"Want to talk to you," Grosvenor said. "Just left Veronica half an hour ago. You bastard. You're crucifying that girl."

Uneasily Coffey looked around the cafeteria. The counterman was listening.

"Left her in tears," Grosvenor said in a loud voice. "At the end of her rope, see? Goddammit, I love that girl. And she loves me too. Yes, she does."

To Coffey's intense embarrassment, Grosvenor began to weep. Worse, Grosvenor did not seem to care who saw him. "What are you?" Grosvenor said tearfully. "A dog in the manger, or something? You're ruining Vera's life."

"Will you shut up?" Coffey whispered urgently. "Lower your voice and stop sniffling."

"Forcing her to come back," Grosvenor said. "Using your daughter as bait. Don't you see what you're doing to both of them? It's criminal."

"Shut up! Shut up, or I'll shut you up."

"No, I won't shut up. You're a menace, Ging'r, that's what you are. You're one of those guys, you don't care about anybody except yourself. Veronica hates your guts, you know."

"She does nothing of the sort," Coffey said, unwisely.

"No? Only went back because you were messing up Paulie's life, didn't she? That's what she said tonight. I mean—" and Grosvenor reached across the table, his hairy black hand gripping Coffey's wrist. "I mean, I'm not going to let you get away with this. I'm going to kill you, you sonofabitch."

Quickly, Coffey disengaged his wrist. Until now Gros-venor had been merely a lay figure in his imaginings, a self-important dummy which Veronica had picked to affront him with. But now, look at him. Weeping, revengeful, not ashamed to make a fool of himself for love's sake. Is this why Veronica loves him? Because he cares more about her than about himself, because, unlike me, he's prepared to weep in public? Suddenly — and for the first time — Coffey feared Grosvenor; feared the recklessness of Grosvenor's love.

"Now listen to me," he said, staring at Grosvenor. "Listen, now. Veronica's my wife and I intend to hold on to her. Get that straight. I'm a newcomer in a new country and I've had my troubles finding a spot, as who wouldn't? But things have changed. I'm on the right track now. I'm getting a better job soon and we're going to be all right, all of us. So bugger off, Grosvenor. I'm warning you, if I catch you hanging around Vera any more it's you that will be killed!"

"You don't scare me," Grosvenor said drunkenly. "You big Irish ape. You and Veronica are finished, do you hear? She loves me. She's coming back to me. Know what I'm going to do? I'm going to beat the piss out of you, Buster."

With that, Grosvenor stood up, wiped his wet eyes with the back of his hand and moved out from the table, spilling coffee from the untouched mugs. He stood in the aisle, raising his arms in the exaggerated stance of an old-style barearm boxer. Drunkenly he began to circle Coffey, who hesitated, embarrassed by the rapidly forming audience of reporters and copy boys, uneasily aware that Mac-Gregor might walk in at any moment, yet itching to lay Grosvenor in his tracks.

"Come on," Grosvenor jeered. "Fight! I'm going to kill

you, you sonofabitch. Somebody should have done it long ago/'

His face ruddy with anger, Coffey ducked the long loping clout which Grosvenor aimed at him. Then he moved in. He knocked Grosvenor's right arm aside and stiffened Grosvenor with a vicious punch in the mouth. Grosvenor stumbled, hit a chair and sat down in it, his hands going to his mouth. After a moment a trickle of blood ran down his wrists. He took his cupped hands away and stared into the bloody spittle in his palms. There were bits of teeth there. The spectators looked at Coffey with new respect and one of the older reporters came forward, blocking his path. "Hold on," he said. "Guy's hurt/'

Coffey did not need the restraint. His anger bled to shame at sight of Grosvenor, pathetic and beaten, the underdog beloved by the crowd. Whereas he, the man with right on his side, stood convicted as a bully. He dropped his arms and, at that moment, as though announcing the end of the contest, the composing room bell rang in the corridor. Supper break. Now, it did not matter if MacGregor walked in. A victor, wanting the crowd to think him a good sport, he went over to Grosvenor and tried to help him up. "Come on/* he said. "You're in no condition to fight. Better cut off home."

Grosvenor pushed him away. He stood up, watched by all the cafeteria customers and, staggering slightly, put his hand to his mouth as though he were about to vomit. He rushed into the corridor, Coffey following.

"Do you want to go to the Men's Room?" Coffey called after him. "It's the other way."

"Go to hell," Grosvenor mumbled. He lurched along the corridor, one hand over his mouth, the other fending the corridor wall away. At the end of the corridor a service elevator waited, its gate open, its operator squat on his

little stool. Grosvenor lurched inside, then turned, looking curiously like a performer on a tiny, bright-lit stage. He pointed an accusing finger at Coffey. "You won't get her," he shouted. "She's coming to me. Irish Ape, you'll fail! She's mine, do you hear me? Mine!"

That crying voice, that bloodied mouth, that accusing finger, the sight of Grosvenor in the bright-lit elevator cage — all filled Coffey with an unreasoning dread. It was as though Grosvenor had formally pronounced a curse on him. And at that moment, MacGregor appeared, Jehovah at the far end of the corridor, attended by Clarence, his fat ministering angel. In sudden panic Coffey ran forward, tried to close the elevator gate.

"Take him down," he whispered to the operator. "Hurry, hurry—"

Startled, the elevator operator closed the gate. The elevator cage fell shuddering into the black shaft. Coffey turned and walked back up the corridor towards MacGregor, a man approaching the altar of his hope. Surely in this minute his luck must change? Surely in this very minute MacGregor would dispel the curse of Grosvenor's hate?

Clarence, riffling through his notebook, said: "Eleven hundred lines, sir."

"That's it," MacGregor said. "Shoe Week Convention. Tell the city desk to send a man to cover it. Good advertising tie-in."

"Yes, Chief," Clarence said.

Coffey was level with them now. He turned towards MacGregor, his face like a child's in its longing.

"A few wee features on the local page," MacGregor said. "To keep the advertisers happy."

"Right, Chief."

They passed him by. They had not seen him. He did not exist. Irish Ape, you II fail!

That night when he got home, Veronica was sitting up in bed reading a book. "What did you do to Gerry?" she said.

"He started it. He came in drunk and acting like a blithering idiot."

"So you broke two front teeth for him?"

"That was an accident, dear. Besides, he asked for it."

"An accident?" she said. "Well, let me tell you, you're wasting your time/'

"What do you mean?"

"I mean, hitting Gerry, what good's that going to do you? Gerry's more of a man than you'll ever be. Gerry loves me. That's why he was so upset tonight when I told him I'd have to stay here. That's why he got drunk."

Coffey began to undress.

"And another thing," she said. "I've no intention of staying here one minute longer than I have to. Today, I spoke to the mothers of those girls Paulie goes around with, and we're all going to make sure that gang of hoodlums are chased out. We're going to arrange more evenings at home for Paulie and the others. I can come over here two or three evenings a week and supervise. I don't have to live here all the time, just for that."

"Ah now, wait, Kitten — why, at the end of this week, I'll have that new job and maybe then we could —"

"New job," she said. "Oh, for God's sake!"

"No, I'm getting it, dear. Honestly."

"Want to bet?" She reached up and put the light off. "Good night," she said. "I have to work tomorrow."

Slowly, he finished undressing. He put on his pajamas. If she left now . . . He went over to her bed, sat on the edge, and put out his hand. It hovered over her, then settled on her shoulder. "Vera?" he said.