Janice Gentle Gets Sexy (43 page)

'Ireland,' said Mr Jones.

'Shit,' said Morgan P. Pfeiffer, and climbed back into the cab.

*

Janice
Gentle
sat in the plane and dreamt. She was ready now, more than ready, for love. She spread out comfortably in her seat and prepared to doze. Skibbereen.

Gretchen said Dermot Poll was alive and well and living in Skibbereen. Janice asked no further questions. 'I am coming,' was all she said.

It was curious that, after all, she had not needed to write this last book. The money was quite unnecessary. In the end his

pursuit had cost very little. Yet she had enjoyed the work, given of her best, enjoyed writing of a heroine other than herself, to control the experience rather than be controlled by it. Once she could write only her truth, now she had written the truth of another. She was sure Erica von Hyatt would be pleased . . .
'Who would
be
interested
in
me?'
Janice smiled. Quite a lot of people would be now . . . She felt a
little
regretful that this was her last book, but she shook her head free of the thought. She had but one goal to achieve, which was now attained. She had found Dermot Poll. That was the peak, that was the pinnacle.
Vous
ou Mort,
and she needed nothing more. Assuredly, assuredly, she was ready to yield unto love.

As her eyes grew heavy, she remembered she had still not released her tube travellers. That was unfair. She had no more use for them, yet still she kept them captive. I shall do it just as soon as I get back. I will. I promise
..
. And, so saying, she pulled her coat of many colours about her ample form and fell comfortably asleep.

Chapter Twenty-six

T
he
Celtic Festival was causing an interesting confusion for travellers in Ireland. Rohanne reached Cork railway station after a train journey which would have made a sardine blush, and was swept out into the street by the noisy, anxious crowd, all of whom were determined to travel onwards that night and few of whom had forward-planned the means. Coaches, buses, taxi-cabs, private cars, motor bicycles and horse-drawn carts all turned up for hire by the throng. Irish, Manx, Welsh, Cornish, Breton, Scottish showed their blood bond and helped one another. Rohanne, who was determined to reach Janice before Morgan Pfeiffer, to warn, to protect, to defend her, lied about her origins, invented a grandmother from Wales, and was put in line to await whatever transport became available. It would not take long, she was assured, by a man with a lilt in his voice who was organizing the snake of waiting travellers. Rohanne believed this. She still clung to the belief several hours later.

*

Morgan Pfeiffer saw a deliciously fleshy pair of legs beneath an extremely bright coat disappearing into a taxi-cab. Since it happened to be the last taxi-cab available, on a freezing February night, this merely seemed more of Fate's ill will. He made a halfhearted attempted to run through the crowds towards the cab and its tantalizing occupant, but failed. Instead he leaned against the station doorway and allowed his anger with Janice Gentle to warm him. If she thought that running away to this obscure place would save her, she had reckoned without
him.
Morgan Pfeiffer was stirred from his suffering widowerhood, the sleeper awakes, and he responded with joy to the fire of the fight in his belly.

'Is it always like this in Ireland?' he asked the sky. 'And how the hell do I get to Skibbereen?'

He was brought back to earth by a man in uniform standing at the station entrance. 'It's the Festival,' he said. 'And the only thing that'll get you there is money. There's not a piece of public transport left to be had.'

Morgan Pfeiffer indicated that this was not a problem and sat waiting on a dusty window-ledge, pulling his coat more firmly around him. The cold whipped his wrath. When he got to Skibbereen, he would bring Janice
Gentle
to her knees.

The man returned, looking a
little
less confident. 'We'd a truck going out with Celtic crosses, bound for a mile or two the other side of where you want, but it's gone. But we may be lucky. If Cake and Confectionery is still in the Tabard finishing his stout, we can get you in there. Wait now.'

Morgan Pfeiffer lit a cigar, but the aromatic smoke gave little comfort in the bleakness. Cold, he thought, and no room to go to.

*

Janice asked her driver why everyone was journeying towards the south-west.

'A spiritual journey,' he said. 'And yourself?'

'The same,' sh
e said, and settl
ed back to dream.

'That's a very fine bright coat you are wearing,' said the driver conversationally. 'I like a bit of colour. Sometimes it seems to me that the world is in mourning for something. Black, brown, grey - the colours of dirt, the colours of decay — and you in yours so bright, cheerfully dazzling in the night. . .'

'You sound like a poet,' said Janice. 'Are you?'

'Of course,' said the driver, amused, 'I'm Irish.'

'Ah, yes,' said Janice dreamily. 'So you would be . . .'

*

Dermot Poll eyed Erica. Erica eyed Gretchen. Gretchen eyed Deirdre. And Deirdre eyed Leary.

'Time to go,' she said to him eventually. 'Residents only now.'

Leary swallowed and winked and let himself out.

'Snag the lock,' she called after him, 'when you have relieved yourself.'

But he forgot.

The only light came from the reddish glow of the oil-lamp and the flickering flames of the fire. The room was warm, closed in, as if separate from the world now that Leary had gone and the door was shut against the wailing night outside.

'Just hark at that wind,' said Deirdre. 'I wouldn't be a traveller on the road tonight.'

'Oh, I don't know,' said Erica von Hyatt. She was drawing rings in the wetness of the bar top, and Dermot Poll, hunched on his elbows opposite her, watched fascinated. He leaned forward and whispered something in her ear.

She stopped drawing and looked at him incredulously. 'You have to be joking,' she said loudly.

'Dermot,' said Deirdre, without looking up from the difficulty of turning the heel on a burgundy-coloured sock, 'leave the girl alone.'

He shrugged, yawned, rubbed his chest and reached for the whiskey bottle. He winked at Erica as he poured two substantial refills. Erica sipped it unenthusiastically and Gretchen O'Dowd, winding wool for Deirdre around the back of a chair, looked at her lover and sighed. She couldn't remember the last time Erica had taken a cup of tea.

Dermot began to sing. Softly at first with a crack in his voice, and then gradually, with each change of song, the sound became more beautiful, more musical. Deirdre closed her eyes: if she closed them and no longer saw him, then she could enjoy the beauty of it, she could let the music enfold her as once and long ago. She thought about Declan and a tear or two escaped from beneath her closed lashes. He would be fine. It had been the right thing for him to leave. All the same, another tear fell on to the half-turned heel. All the same, she missed him. She felt an arm slide around her and herself pulled towards a solid breast. She smiled up at Gretchen through her tears, keeping her eyes closed, and laid her head against the body that was offered.

'Ah,' said Dermot Poll, pausing between songs, looking down the bar, at the pair of them. 'Isn't
that
sweet now?'

'Yes,' said Erica. 'It is.'

And he began to sing more softly, like a piece of silk twining itself around the room. 'I'll walk beside you through the passing years . . .'

*

Morgan P. Pfeiffer rested his head against a stack of Double Flavour jelly babies. The packages were comfortable, and, if required, he could make a couch from nougat, toffee-chip block and cellophaned sugar almonds. There were heart-shaped boxes of chocolates and other fancies neatly piled about him. It was like heaven lying in the sweet vanilla air. As transport went, it was not uncomfortable and they were going at a steady pace. The driver said he knew a short cut. Some of his anger had melted into the confectionery cloud, and he was content to sit there, basking in it, waiting for the driver to stop at Skibbereen. The rolled-up manuscript knocked against his fleshy ribs, a reminder of why he had come. And the sugary air reminded him of joys once known. He was not going to have either his past or his future betrayed by Janice
Gentle
and her degenerate tale. He had paid her good money up front and he wanted a return. He would get it, too.

He breathed in the sweetness and took heart from it. To her knees, all right. For Mrs Pfeiffer, the Pfeiffer Organization and the Readers Out There. She'd capitulate. In the end nobody could resist the force of money. People had mortgages, people had families, people liked to pay their bills and keep the heating on. He could do it. He
would
do it. He brushed the sweet, white powder from his sleeve and then tentatively licked his fingertips. The taste of love denied.

*

The Celtic crosses were polystyrene sprayed with grey paint and were very cosy, especially after Rohanne's long wait. The driver had pulled a tarpaulin cover over her and she lay back, bumping against the squeaking totems, looking up at the stars. The wind howled, the trees swayed and it seemed that the very elements were angry and urging her onwards, but the truck just crawled along. Without her Janice would be bullied, hammered, squeezed into shape. She would be unable to defend herself against the might and the wrath of the publisher denied. Rohanne must step in, put up that shield of faith, uphold Janice Gentle and her book, protect that synthesis she had helped to create. 'Faster!' she cried, to the swirling universe above,
'faster...'

*

Janice Gentle stood in the moonlight before the door of the inn and stared at its peeling paintwork, enraptured. Behind her the trees were whipped to a metallic fury, and she could hear, far off, the sea breaking and crashing in its hunger to be fed. Janice recognized that wild water's need in herself, but, despite its thrall, she was sure that she really
could
hear Dermot Poll singing. The door creaked and swung to and fro a
little
, its old hinges resisting the urge of the elements to thrust itself wide, and, as it moved, it released and recaptured an angle of reddish light that spoke of warmth and the hopeful pulse of love. Her heart beat steadily. She had always known this moment would come and she knew she was not dreaming, but awake and ready. She took the rubber band from her hair and shook it about her face, then she removed

her glasses and smoothed away the rain speckles on her skin. Thus prepared, and feeling suddenly beautiful, Janice Gentle pushed at the door and went in.

Chapter Twenty-seven

E

rica
von Hyatt emptied her glass. Dermot Poll was still singing as he refilled it for her. It was strong stuff. It
needed
to be strong stuff. Here he came again, thrusting his face at her, all stubbly jowls and bloodshot eyes. If ever there was a lesson in the evils of drink, here it was. It was no good. She could not respond. Not even to convince Gretchen O'Dowd that she was not a princess after all and no better than she ought to be. She sighed and drank deeply. Gretchen O'Dowd was honourable and probably
would
follow her to the ends of the bloody earth, exactly as she threatened . . .

Here he was again. Hand on chest, wet lips wobbling as he sang only to her. He placed something on the bar and gestured with his hands that she should take it. She looked. It was a heart-shaped cake.

‘I’l
l look into your eyes and hold your hand . . .'He picked up her hand. 'Be mine, Valentine,' he sang.

Deirdre looked up and, seeing the cake, shrieked with rage. 'That's
my
present from Declan. Came in the post today. Oh you
pig
of a man. I'll give you
Valentine
.
.
.'

Dermot Poll smiled at Erica. He reached out his arms and enfolded her. He placed his lips to her hair and swayed as he sang, his voice rising still. And then he bent to kiss her, whispering, 'There now,
little
queen, come along, ah, come along, for I used to be irresistible to women . . .'

Several things then happened, all at the same time, as occasionally several things will. Gretchen, moving like a rugby ace, ran the length of the bar and delivered a stout blow to Dermot Poll's already strawberry-like nose, which brought about the release of Erica's hand quite nicely but, alas, did nothing for the pretty little cake into which Dermot immediately slumped.