Nothing to Declare

RICHARD FORD

All the senior partners were having a laugh about a movie they’d seen. Forty-Five Years. Something, something about the movie taking forty-five years to sit through. The woman McGuinness thought he recognized was in it with them at the far end of the long table. Leaning in, as if hearing everything for the second time. “Miss Nail!” they were calling her. “What do you say, Miss Nail? Tell us.” Laughing. He didn’t know what it was about.

She wasn’t tall, but was slender in a brown linen dress, a tailored dress, that set off her tan and showed her lean body. She’d glanced past him twice—more, possibly. A flickering look asking at first to be thought accidental, but could be understood as acknowledgment. She’d smiled, then looked away, a smile that said possibly she knew him, or had. So odd, he thought, not to remember.

They were at the Monteleone. The shadowy old afternoon redoubt with the bar that was a carousel. It wasn’t crowded yet. Outside the tall windows on Royal, a parade was just shoving past. Boom-pa-pa, boom-pa-pa. Then the shrill trumpets not altogether on key. Saint Paddy’s was Thursday coming. Now was just Friday.

At his end, the youngers were talking about “contracts for deed.” People were getting rich again. “Help the banks out,” someone said. “The first fish to go ashore. Gut und schlecht. Man would rather will nothingness than not will …” The president was the unspoken theme. Theirs was the old Poydras Street firm. Coyne, Coyle, Kelly & McGuinness, as in the famous murderer. Friday was their usual fall-in with the associates—seniors and juniors socializing. Give them a chance to find a place. Or not. McGuinness was just there to be congenial.

The woman had arrived with someone. A Mr. Drown. Someone’s client. Who’d left. Now she was drinking too much. Everybody ordered the Sazerac when they arrived in New Orleans. The guilty taste of anise. She’d had three or more.

Now her eyes passed him again. A smile. She raised her chin as if in a challenge. The old priest was to her left. Father Fagan in his dog collar. He’d fathered a child, possibly two. Had diverse tastes. His brother was a judge. “Why is sex with me better than with your husband?” McGuinness heard the woman say. The men all laughed. Too loud. The priest rolled his eyes, shook his head. “What about Thomas Merton?” Old Coyne said. The priest put his hand to his brow. “What’re they saying now?” someone at his end said, one of the young women. “Same old,” was the answer. “Coyne thinks he’s a priest when what he is is a son of a bitch.”

“Miss Nail! Miss Nail! What do you say about that?” Someone was shouting again.

LONG AGO. THIRTY YEARS. They had traveled to Iceland together. Both students in Ithaca. They’d known each other only slightly, which hadn’t mattered. A Catholic-school boy from New Orleans. Her mother, a rich landscape painter who lived in the Apthorp; her father, on a yacht in Hog Bay. They were both colorful drunks. Minor exotics.

They’d decided on Greece for spring recess—again, knowing little of each other. Mykonos. The perfect, crystalline water. The bleached little houses you rented for pennies. Each day they’d catch a fish and cook it for you. However, there was money enough only for Iceland. The trip was not being bruited about or financed at home. She was then called Barbara. A name she disliked. He was simply Alex McGuinness. Sandy. A lawyer’s son from Uptown. Nothing about him was exotic.

With their pooled money they bought a package to Reykjavík and a bus to the far western fjords. Ten hours. They believed there’d be hostels, friendly islanders, wholesome, cheap food, cold Scandinavian sun. Aquavit. But there’d been none of that. Not even a room