around these parts about the war, you’ll learn that smartly enough.’
Rickard protested, ‘I –’
‘You’re a recent immigrant, we’ve established that?’
‘I’ve been here just a few months.’
‘Ah, you’ll fit in well enough. We always do. There are American people today called Penhaligon and Thrispterton and the like who say that they’re Irish. And they probably are. Anyhow, she’s doing well, I believe, Ireland?’
‘She has been doing well, it’s true,’ Rickard confirmed, hoping that the matter would be left at that as he did not want to be drawn into a discussion on economics, of which he knew nothing.
‘I hear that now we’re a force on the world stage, that everyone seeks to imitate us. I have read that there are companies that will kit out your pub in Moscow or Peking in the Irish style, with advertisements for Whitehaven coal for the wall and Nottingham-made bicycles to hang from the beams.’
Rickard’s eyes wandered about the room, to the left and right of Denny, through the ornaments and vases, and settled on a small mottled wall mirror.
‘Perhaps,’ said the old man, evidently noting the pattern of Rickard’s scope, ‘if someone from one of these companies, someone less forgiving than myself, stood on the threshold there and said, “How much for the job lot?” I might agree a price. We have trouble moving these days for the bric-a-brac, isn’t that right, Aisling?’
Rickard glanced back at Denny and saw with some alarm that he was not addressing his dog but the ceiling or a point beyond. He guessed that this ‘Aisling’ was a dead wife, and he had no wish to hear about her, or about the old man’s being made a widower, or to be involved in his affairs by this knowledge and have it implied to him that he should care.
‘It’s not, though, as if I bought it all in one go. Although I have had to move a quarter of it twice, and half of it once, and arrange it in new ways, in different places. Though the last time it was a different place only to the one before it, and not the place it is now.’
Rickard was tiring already of these spiralling formulations. ‘Do you mean this present apartment?’
‘Yes. A fitting home for my belongings, I think it is. Did you notice the tracery in the hall?’
‘I did,’ said Rickard, lying.
‘It reminds me of Stapleton’s work, and the work of those great Italian stuccodores that came to Dublin in the eighteenth century.’
‘How long have you lived here?’
‘Oh. Twenty-one years. Twenty-one from last September.’
The old man tapped the dog’s head, nestled in his groin, evenly and gently now.
‘I have done more living in this building, in these rooms, than in any other building since I came to New York; many moons ago now. If living is taken to mean man-hours, and in this building, in these rooms, is taken to mean just that.’
Rickard detected self-pity creeping in. ‘It’s not such a bad space to spend time. A fitting venue, as you say, for a man of refined tastes.’
‘It is that. But, well … refined tastes. I must tell you, all this’ – the old man gestured magisterially with his hand – ‘this, ornamentation, all these pretty-looking things, you probably wonder if I’m a bit of a funny sort. Well I am not this way inclined, I would like you to know.’
‘I would never make judgements of that nature about a person.’
‘But these pretty things … What you see about you are monetary investments.’
He leaned forward in a manner that suggested he was about to say something very important, though the lower part of his face wrestled with a smile.
‘You’re not a – hoo hoo hoo – thief, are you? You’re not one of these drag-racing hooligan bucks who would twist an implement inside an elderly man and rob his things?’
‘No, Mister Kennedy-Logan. I have come here to be taught how to sing.’
‘Shall I tell you what is the most valuable of all the items in this room? It’s those curtains.’
He pointed to dark red drapes, drawn across, on the end wall.
‘You wouldn’t think to look at them, would you? They’re from Turkey, from the early nineteenth century. They look better tied back in the wings, I feel about it, where the gilt threading picks up the light, but they add an element of drama to the nightly act of blocking out the evening.’
He remained leaning forward, with a slump, as his dog trilled enquiringly and tried to catch his eye.
‘But I do not sleep in this room, so it’s an act best described as a ritual, then.’
At this moment Rickard felt that he could have risen from his chair and walked out of the room and apartment undetected, such was the completeness of the trance that the old man appeared to be in. Instead, in a life-changing intervention, he said, ‘Mister Kennedy-Logan, I am booked in for a singing lesson tonight, yes?’
‘Booked …’
The old man grasped, peevishly, thin air, as if he might have found an appointment book there.
‘Singing lesson … Yes. Do you have a song that you could sing so that I can gauge the quality of your voice as it is?’
‘I do,’ said Rickard. ‘I usually like to warm up with “Come Off It, Eileen”.’
‘Good choice. Not too challenging. Away you go.’
‘Now?’
‘Yes.’
‘Unaccompanied?’
‘Yes.’
‘All right. Here you have it, so. Ahem.’
Rickard stood up, cracked back his shoulders, and began:
‘With a nerve to match her rosy cheeks
And a cheek to pique my nerves,
My brazen Eileen, mo cushla …’
‘Stop there, stop there.’
The old man lifted a hand, his forefinger extended; and he was chewing, seeming to be assessing Rickard’s efforts with more than one sense.
‘You have very good vibrato.’
‘Thank you,’ said Rickard, still frozen mid-pose, his arms stretched around an invisible keg at his chest.
‘And more. And more.’
Rickard laughed, in astonished gratitude.
‘Yes. You have quite a range of gifts.’
‘I’ve been told that I have excellent control in the middle to upper register, if only you would give me the chance to show you.’
‘Oh yes … control … middle to upper register … I can tell that, I can tell. No, you’re ready.’
‘When you say “ready” …?’
‘I could do with a young man like yourself, and a voice like yours, pure and not so fraught with the years.’
‘I’m not as young as you think,’ said Rickard, with a suddenness and even a venom that surprised him, his arms dropping by his side. For some reason the use of the word ‘young’ felt like an attack on his very sense of himself. His reaction seemed to jolt the old man.
‘Do you not consider yourself young?’
‘I have not considered myself young for many years, even when I was young. Even the pop vocalists I admired when I was young were people who sounded old, like Kaarst Karst of Kaarst Karst and the Iron-filers.’
‘When