Weaveworld

3

Wonderland didn’t turn up, but Geraldine did, and she was in no mood for lunatics. Cal heard her voice in the hall below; heard Brendan telling her that Cal was ill, and didn’t want to be disturbed, heard her tell Brendan that she intended to see Cal whether he was sick or not; then she was at the door.

‘Cal?’

She tried the handle, found the door locked and rapped on it. ‘Cal? It’s me. Wake up.’

He feigned bleariness, aided by a tongue now well whisky-sodden.

‘Who is it?’ he said.

‘Why’s the door locked? It’s me. Geraldine.’

‘I’m not feeling too good.’

‘Let me in, Cal.’

He knew better than to argue with her in such a mood. He shambled to the door, and turned the key.

‘You look terrible,’ she said, her voice mellowing as soon as she set eyes on him. ‘What’s wrong with you?’

‘I’m all right,’ he protested. ‘Really. I just had a fall.’

‘Why didn’t you ring me? I was expecting you at the wedding rehearsal last night. Had you forgotten?’

The following Saturday Geraldine’s elder sister Teresa was to marry the love of her life, a good Catholic boy whose fertility could scarcely be in question: his beloved was four months pregnant. Her swelling belly was not being allowed to overshadow proceedings however: the wedding was to be a grand affair. Cal, who’d been courting Geraldine for two years, was a valued guest, given the general expectation that he’d be the next to exchange vows with one of Norman Kellaway’s four daughters. Doubtless his missing the rehearsal had been viewed as minor heresy.

‘I did remind you, Cal,’ Geraldine said. ‘You know how important it is to me.’

‘I had a bit of trouble,’ he told her. ‘I fell off a wall.’

She looked incredulous.

‘What were you doing climbing on a wall?’ she said, as though at his age he should be well beyond such indignities.

He told her briefly about the escape of 33, and the chase to Rue Street. It was a bowdlerized account, of course. In it there was no mention of the carpet or what he’d seen there.

‘Did you find the bird?’ she asked, when he’d finished recounting the chase.

‘In a manner of speaking,’ he told her. In fact, he’d come home to Chariot Street, only to be told by Brendan that 33 had flown back to the loft in the late afternoon, and was now back beside his speckled wife. This he told Geraldine.

‘So you missed the rehearsal looking for a pigeon that came home anyway?’ she said.

He nodded. ‘But you know how Dad loves his birds,’ he said.

Mention of Brendan softened Geraldine further still; she and Cal’s father had been fast friends since Cal had first introduced them. ‘She sparkles,’ his father had told Cal, ‘hold on to her, ‘cause if you don’t, somebody else will.’ Eileen had never been so certain. She’d always been cool with Geraldine, a fact which had only made Brendan’s praise more lavish.

The smile she offered now was gently indulgent. Though Cal had been loath to let her in and have her spoil his reverie, he was suddenly grateful for her company. He even felt the shaking fade a little.

‘It’s stale in here,’ she said. ‘You need some fresh air. Why don’t you open the window?’

He did as she suggested. When he turned round she was sitting cross-legged on the bed, her back to the collage of pictures he’d put up there in his youth, and which his parents had never removed. The Wailing Wall, Geraldine called it; it had always upset her, with its parade of movie stars and mushroom clouds, politicians and pigs.

‘The dress is beautiful,’ she said.

He puzzled over the remark a moment, his mind sluggish.

‘Teresa’s dress,’ she prompted.

‘Oh.’

‘Come and sit down, Cal.’

He lingered by the window. The air was balmy, and clean. It reminded him –

‘What’s wrong?’ she said.

The words were on the tip of his tongue. ‘I saw Wonderland.’ he wanted to say. That was it, in sum. The rest – the circumstances, the description – those details were niceties. The three essential words were easy enough, weren’t they? I saw Wonderland. And if there was anybody in his life to whom he should say them, it was this woman.

‘Tell me, Cal,’ she said. ‘Are you ill?’

He shook his head.

‘I saw …’ he began.

She looked at him with plain puzzlement.

‘What?’ she said. ‘What did you see?’

‘I saw …’ he began again, and again faltered. His tongue refused the instruction he gave it; the words simply wouldn’t come. He looked away from her face at the Wailing Wall. The pictures …’ he said finally, ‘… they’re an eyesore.’

A strange euphoria swept over him as he sailed so close to telling, then away. The part of him that wanted what he’d seen kept secret had in that moment won the battle, and perhaps even the war. He could not tell her. Not now, not ever. It was a great relief to have made up his mind.

I’m Mad Mooney, he thought to himself. It wasn’t such a bad idea at that.

‘You’re looking better already,’ she said. ‘It must be the fresh air.’