Elegy for April by Benjamin Black Read Free Book Online

that it seems will never lift.”
     
Quirke introduced Malachy, then said without preamble, “I’m here to buy an Alvis.”
     
Lockwood blinked, then a slow, warm light came into his eyes. “An Alvis,” he breathed, in a hushed tone, reverently. “Why, of course.” A very special model had come in just that week, he said, oh, very special. He led the way across the showroom floor, tensely chafing his long-boned hands; Quirke guessed he was calculating the commission he would earn on the sale and unable to believe his luck. “It’s a TC 108 Super Graber Coupe, one of only three manufactured so far, by Willowbrook of Loughborough— that’s right, three only. Hermann Graber, Swiss master designer. Six-cylinder, three-liter, hundred bhp. Independent front suspension, Burman F worm and nut steering box, top speed one-ohthree, nought to sixty in thirteen point five. Look at her, gentlemen— just look at her.”
     
It was indeed a magnificent machine, black, gleaming, lowslung, displaying a restrained elegance in every line. Quirke, despite himself, was awed— was he really to become the possessor of this sleek, polished beast? As well take a panther home with him.
     
Malachy, to Quirke’s surprise, had begun to ask questions that revealed an impressive knowledge of these machines and their attributes. Who would have thought old Mal would know about such things? But here he was, gravely pacing around the car, stroking his chin and frowning, and talking about crankshafts and Girling shocks— Girling shocks?— and valve gears and pushrod overheads, with Lockwood following happily at his heels.
     
“Maybe you should buy it, not me,” Quirke said, trying not to sound peeved, and failing.
     
“I used to be interested,” Malachy said diffidently, “when I was young— don’t you remember? All those motoring magazines you used to try to steal from me.”
     
Quirke did not remember, or did not care to. He looked at the car again and felt alarmed and giddy— what was he letting himself in for?— as if he had been enticed out on a tightrope and had frozen in fright midway across. Yet there was no going back. He wrote out the check, holding his breath as he filled in all those naughts, but managed all the same to hand it over with something of a flourish. Lockwood tried to maintain his salesman’s professional smoothness, but little smiles kept breaking out on his long face, and when Quirke made a weak joke about driving a hard bargain the young man lost all control and giggled like a schoolgirl. It was not every day of the week, or every year of the decade, for that matter, that a customer walked in off the street and bought an Alvis TC 108 Super Graber Coupe.
     
Quirke, who had not admitted to Lockwood that he did not know how to drive, was relieved to hear that the car would notbe ready for the road until it had been given a “thorough looksee under her skirts,” as Lockwood put it, by the company’s engineers. Quirke had a vision of these men, advancing like a troop of surgeons, white-coated and wearing rubber gloves, each one carrying a clipboard and gripping a brand-new, shiny spanner. He could collect the car the following day, Lockwood said. The fog was pressed like lint against the showroom’s broad, plateglass windows.
     
“Tomorrow, right,” Quirke said. “Right.” But tomorrow he would not be any more capable of driving than he was today.
     
PEREGRINE OTWAY WAS A SON OF THE MANSE. HE SAID IT OF himself, frequently, with a comical and self-mocking shrug. He seemed to consider it the most pertinent fact there was to know about him. If he made a blunder, forgot to change the sump oil or left a broken windscreen wiper unfixed, he would say, “What else can you expect, from a son of the manse?” and then would do his fat, gurgling laugh. His parents had sent him to one of the minor English public schools, and he had retained the accent: “Very useful, when you’re running a backstreet garage— everyone thinks you’re a duke in