Mefisto by John Banville Page A

her handbag and her hat and her white gloves. It was a Sunday in May, I remember the sun in the window, the heavy reek of her face powder. My father, shaved and brushed, limped down the stairs, muttering. Uncle Ambrose wrung his hands unhappily. He cast a furtive glance at me, his adam’s apple working. We had both been seduced by Ashburn, after all. He seemed strapped into his tight suit. The three of them stood on the pavement in the sunshine for a moment, confused a little by the light, the gay breeze, the trees delicately coming into flower. Then Uncle Ambrose led the way to the car, and settled himself in the driving seat with his accustomed care. He held the steering wheel at arm’s length, as if he were afraid of it, and pumped the pedals and fiddled with the choke while the others got in. My father sat beside him, my mother took the back seat. She was saying something to me, but the window was shut, she could not work the winder, then the car shrieked as Uncle Ambrose trod on its underparts, and the last thing I saw, behind the reflected stage-set sliding on the glass, was her blurred face speaking without sound as she was borne away.
    It was Aunt Philomena who came for me. At first I thought she was drunk. Her mouth was askew, and a strand of hair hung across her cheek. When I opened the door she was already speaking. Her voice was thick with what I took for manic laughter.
    – I don’t know a thing! she warbled. They phoned me up, they wouldn’t tell me a thing!
    We hurried through the town. The Sunday streets were deserted. A blinding disc of sunlight bowled along beside us in the shop windows. Aunt Philomena tottered on her high heels, sweating and muttering.
    – Are you a relative ? she kept saying. Are you a relative ? that’s what they asked me. A relative, indeed! The cheek!
    The hospital was a big white building on a hill, impressive in the spring sunshine, like a grand hotel in some southern clime, its windows awash with the sky’s festive blue. Another species existed here, different altogether from Aunt Philomena and me, fragile, etiolated beings, ennobled by their secret wounds. Even the visitors coming down the steps had a special air – thoughtful, solemn, a little dazed – as if they had gone in tipsy, but were sober now. The entrance hall smelled of tea and floor polish. At the reception desk a nun in an elaborate, winged head-dress was writing in a ledger. Aunt Philomena and I waited, standing on the gleaming parquet in the midst of a huge silence. Presently a nurse arrived, a tiny person with red hair and pretty, pink-rimmed eyes, and a watch on a strap pinned to her breast. I noticed her neat white shoes. She told us her name, which I forgot immediately, and shook hands with us tenderly. Her hand was warm and dry, she pressed it into mine like a little present, looking at me in silence, with a kind of gentle fervour. She led us down a corridor and up a curving flight of stairs. A wide window looked out over the town to a distant strip of dark-blue sea. A life-sized statue of the Saviour stood in a niche on the landing, glumly displaying a ruby-red heart in flames. The face was that of a bearded lady, creamy, smooth and sad.
    We entered an enormous ward filled with light and noise, like a gymnasium. My father and Uncle Ambrose lay on their backs in adjoining beds, still and pale as a pair of marble knights. Each had his right hand resting on his heart, and his left arm extended at his side and connected by a tube to a bottle on a stand. Their skulls were wrapped in bandages. They breathed lightly in unison. Uncle Ambrose’s nose jutted up out of his face like a stone axe-head, I had never noticed it was so large. He opened his eyes and looked at Aunt Philomena and me with a mild air of surprise.
    – Mr Swan! the nurse shouted with startling force. You have visitors, Mr Swan, look!
    But he made no response, and after a moment closed his eyes again with a fluttering sigh.
    My father calmly