Let The Great World Spin: A Novel - By Colum McCann Page 0,150
was using the lemons we had cut instead of limes. She held the bottle high in the air and shrugged. Without asking she took out a second glass. “Excuse my fingers,” she said as she dropped ice into the glass.
It had been years since I’d had a drink. It felt cool at the back of my throat. Nothing mattered but that momentary taste.
“God, that’s good.”
“Sometimes it’s a cure,” she said.
Sunlight shone through Claire’s glass. It caught the color of lemon and the glass turned in her hands. She looked like she was weighing the world. She leaned back against the white of the couch and said: “Gloria?”
“Uh-huh?”
She looked away, over my head, to a painting in the corner of the room.
“The truth?”
“The truth.”
“I don’t normally drink, you know. It’s just today, with, you know, all that talking. I think I made a bit of a fool of myself.”
“You were fine.”
“I wasn’t silly?”
“You were fine, Claire.”
“I hate making a fool of myself.”
“You didn’t.”
“Are you sure?”
“Sure I’m sure.”
“The truth’s not foolish,” she said.
She was swiveling her glass and watching the gin swirl in circles, a cyclone she wanted to drown herself in.
“I mean, about Joshua. Not the other stuff. I mean, I felt very silly when I said I’d pay you to stay. I just wanted someone to hang around. With, you know, with me. Selfish, really, and I feel awful.”
“It happens.”
“I didn’t mean it.” She looked away. “And then when you left, I called your name. I wanted to run after you.”
“I needed to walk, Claire. That’s all.”
“The others were laughing at me.”
“I’m sure they weren’t.”
“I don’t think I’ll ever see them again.”
“Of course we will.”
She let out a long sigh and threw back the drink, poured herself another, but mostly tonic this time, not gin.
“Why did you come back, Gloria?”
“To get paid, of course.”
“Excuse me?”
“A joke, Claire, joke.”
I could feel the gin working under my tongue.
“Oh,” she said. “I’m a little slow this afternoon.”
“I’ve no idea, really,” I said.
“I’m glad you did.”
“Nothing better to do.”
“You’re funny.”
“That’s not funny.”
“It’s not?”
“It’s the truth.”
“Oh!” she said. “Your choir. I forgot.”
“My what?”
“Your choir. You said you had choir.”
“I don’t have choir, Claire. Never did. Never will. Sorry. No such thing.”
She seemed to chew on the thought for a moment and then broke out in a grin.
“You’ll stay awhile, though? Rest your feet. Stay for dinner. My husband should be home around six or so. You’ll stay?”
“Oh, I don’t think I should.”
“Twenty dollars an hour?” she said with a grin.
“You’ve got me,” I laughed.
We sat in happy quiet and she ran her fingers over the rim of her glass, but then she perked up and said suddenly: “Tell me about your boys again.”
Her question rankled. I didn’t want to think about my boys anymore. In a strange way, all I wanted was to be surrounded by another, to be a part of somebody else’s room. I took a piece of lemon and slid it between my teeth and gums. The acid jarred me. I guess I wanted another sort of question altogether.
“Can I ask you something, Claire?”
“Of course.”
“Could we put on some music?”
“What?”
“I mean, I suppose I’m just still in a little bit of shock.”
“What sort of music?”
“Whatever you have. It makes me feel, I don’t know, it calms me down. I like having an orchestra around. Do you have opera?”
“Afraid not. You like opera?”
“All my savings. I go to the Met every chance I get. Way up in the gods. Slip off my shoes and away I go.”
She rose and went to the record player. I couldn’t see the sleeve of the record she took out. She cleaned the vinyl with a soft yellow cloth and then she lifted the needle. She did everything small as if it was extraordinary and necessary. The music filled the room. A deep, hard piano: the hammers rippling across the strings.
“He’s Russian,” she said. “He can stretch his fingers to thirteen keys.”
—
I WAS HAPPY ENOUGH the day my second husband found himself a younger version of the train he was riding towards oblivion. His hat had always been a helping too large on his head anyway. He upped and left me with three boys and a view of the Deegan. I didn’t mind. My last thought of him was that nobody ought to be as lonely as him, walking away. But it didn’t break my heart to close the door on him, or even to suck up the pride of a monthly check.