Bloodlines

20

O ’CONNOR PACED ACROSS HELEN CORRIGAN’S LIVING ROOM FLOOR AS he listed his many grievances against Irene Kelly. Every now and then he found himself starting to address his complaints to an empty, overstuffed chair-the one that had been Jack’s favorite. The loss of Jack somehow further fueled his ire. Everywhere he turned, there were sharp reminders of him here. Even the air itself-although Helen had quit smoking years ago, Jack hadn’t, and the room still carried the scent of his cigarettes.

He wouldn’t-and couldn’t-talk of Jack. But he had a good deal to say about Ms. Kelly.

Helen patiently listened to it all.

“In the men’s room!” he said, still not quite believing it himself. “And never a word to let us know she was in there. She should be ashamed of herself.”

Helen smiled. “While you feel just dandy about your own behavior.”

He sat down on the sofa beside her, suddenly tired. “No, of course not.”

“Have you apologized to her?”

“I’ve tried. Twice. You may remember that I rarely work on the week-ends-I made a special trip in today to try to talk to her.”

“And?”

“I’m a mute version of the invisible man, as far as she’s concerned.”

“Honestly, Conn. Where’s that famous persistence of yours?”

“The last of the O’Connors to beg on bended knee died in the fifteenth century.”

“I’d love to ask all those generations of Mrs. O’Connors if that’s true.”

He laughed, then shook his head. “I don’t know why Ms. Kelly irritates me so.”

“I have some idea.”

“She irritated you when she was your student?”

“Not at all. She and her friend Lydia were two of the best I’ve had in the last decade.”

“Really? I’ll grant you that her writing is all right, but we both know that’s wasted on someone who won’t do the work. In fact, it makes it worse-a waste of talent.”

“Now, perhaps we’re getting closer to at least one of the reasons she angers you. You already know she has talent.”

“So what? Nothing I’ve read of hers indicates she’s capable of really going after a story.”

“Oh?” Helen reached for a copy of the Express. O’Connor recognized it as today’s paper. He had a story on page one, but Helen flipped past that to a story on page five. She held it out to him.

“What?”

“Read the story about the dog license fee increase.”

He did, then looked up at her in disbelief. “This isn’t hers.”

“If I were a gambler, I could make some money right now. Is it a good story?”

“Yes. But-”

“It’s hers. No byline, naturally, on a story like this by a new general assignment reporter. She’s not handling the sort of A-one stories you are.”

“She hasn’t earned that.”

“No, I imagine she feels lucky that Wrigley the Second hasn’t assigned her to the society pages. But that story is hers. I’d know her style anywhere.”

He frowned as he reread the article. “May I use your phone?”

She handed it to him.

He dialed the newsroom and asked for the city desk.

Helen listened in amusement as he confirmed that the story had been written by Irene Kelly.

“I don’t understand it,” he said, hanging up.

“No, you don’t.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Conn, how old were you when Jack took you under his wing?”

He thought of the day Lillian Vanderveer had given him a silver dollar. “Eight.”

“Don’t you think it’s past time you paid that back?”

For a moment, he thought she might have read his thoughts.

Seeing his puzzled looked, she said, “You’re a generous man, Conn. I could name a dozen examples of that generosity without having to work at it. And raising Kenny-”

“Kenny was fourteen when he came to live with me, Helen. I can hardly be said to have raised him.”

“We’ll argue about that another time. I’m not talking about your home life now. I’m talking about your professional life. As a newsman, whom have you helped along the way?”

He considered this in silence for some time, uncomfortable with the realization that while he had worked hard to be worthy of the lessons Jack had given him, he had never taken the time to show the ropes to less experienced reporters-something Jack had done not only with him but with others. He could look around the newsroom and see any number of men who had been helped by Jack-H.G., Mark Baker, and John Walters among them.

Jack had shared his expertise throughout his career, had been a teacher long before he joined the faculty at the college-as Helen had been, too. Neither of them had been much older than Ms. Kelly was now when they first encouraged O’Connor to write. That thought brought a sour reflection in its wake.

“Ms. Kelly doesn’t want help from the likes of me. Especially not after she eavesdropped yesterday.”

“I never knew you to be fainthearted before now, Conn. Show some spine.”

“It’s not a matter of being afraid of her.”

“I’ll tell you what,” she said. “You’re a good Catholic boy in need of some penance. I’m going to be your priest.” She laughed her husky laugh. “You’ve sinned against Irene by opening your yap about her to another member of the staff. You agree?”

“Readily, but…”

“So, for that sin, your penance is to help her even if she doesn’t want you to do so. Even if she never says, ‘Thank you, oh wise and wonderful Mr. O’Connor’-help her.”

“Look, Helen…”

“And for your far worse sin of showing rather sexist prejudice against her-something I never thought I’d see from you, Conn-you must learn everything you can about her. You claim she isn’t working at being a reporter-do some digging. Find out why the hell not.”

He was taken aback. “Do you think she’s in some kind of trouble?”

“She may not be in trouble, but with only one story from her like this, I feel fairly sure that something’s going wrong somewhere in her life.”

“What do you suppose her problem is, then?” he asked irritably.

“Conn, I’d tell you if I knew. Hell, I haven’t seen her since she left for Bakersfield. She called after Jack died, but I was too damned distracted with my own troubles to ask her about any of hers.”

He looked again toward Jack’s chair. He felt a tightening in his chest.

“Conn?”

“All right, Swanie,” he said. “I’ll try to help her.”