—Long ago.
—Long ago. We’re the only ones left.
—So, I said.—What’s the story?
—It’s this. You’re still alive. And you needn’t be. But you are. Because I say so.
—Because you’re scared of me, Ivan.
—You’re dead right there, boy. I am scared of you. But I’ve been scared of other men and they’re all fuckin’ dead, every fuckin’ one of them, so listen to me now.
—I’m listening.
—I know you are. Call your wife off and you’ll both stay alive. I’ll give you the money to get to America or wherever it is you want to go that’s far away.
—I hadn’t intended going to America, Ivan.
—Listen, Captain, he said.—Enough playing around. Here’s how it is. I’m a businessman. You said it yourself there, a young man on the make. That’s me, boy. I discovered this a few months ago only. All these years I thought I was a soldier, a warrior even. A fuckin’ nation builder. Fighting for Ireland. And I was. But here’s the truth now. All the best soldiers are businessmen. There had to be a reason for the killing and late nights, and it wasn’t Ireland. Ireland’s an island, Captain, a dollop of muck. It’s about control of the island, that’s what the soldiering’s about, not the harps and martyrs and the freedom to swing a hurley. Am I right, d’you think?
—You might be.
—You might be open to persuasion?
—I might be.
All light had gone by now. I couldn’t see his face.
—I was doing my accounts one night there and I suddenly realised that I already controlled the island, my part of it anyway. The war was over. Nothing moves in this county without my go-ahead. I have cattle, land, a cut of the creameries, the pubs. Every bloody thing. I’m even in on the Sunday collections. I’m a strong farmer these days, Captain. Can you credit that? What was I three years ago?
—A little lad.
—That’s right. A harmless poor eejit. Not these days, boy. I’ve freed fuckin’ Ireland. Nobody works without the nod from Ivan. A sweet doesn’t get sucked without a good coating of the profit ending up on Ivan’s tongue. I’m a roaring success, boy. You should be proud of me.
—I am.
—You’re not and I don’t mind. An Irishman is in charge around here, Captain. We’re free.
I heard him breathe deep.
—Congratulations, I said.
—Ah now. I just got to the finish line before the rest of the boys, that’s all. But I admit it, Captain. I’m pleased with myself. I’m a shining example to us all. I believe every word of that and - I shouldn’t be saying this to you of all people - but it makes me feel bulletproof.
—What’s it got to do with my wife, Ivan?
—Right. The purpose of my visit. Listen to this now. Peace is on the way. There are men meeting men in London and Dublin, on the way to London and Dublin, on the boat to Holyhead and back. They’re talking about talking and soon they’ll be talking and that’ll be that. Ireland free in some shape or form. It’ll happen before the end of the year. There’ll be one almighty row about it, holy war, boy, brother against brother and the rest, but I’m in no hurry. I’m ready for it and I have no brothers, only dead ones. I’ll be on the right side. I’ll be ready to lead my people into the new Ireland.
—And it’ll be very like the old one.
—It might well be, Captain, but it’ll be ours.
—Yours.
—Ah now. I’ve stopped the war here. There hasn’t been a Tan or a Volunteer killed around here since Christmas. I’ve made deals with them. The Tans, the Auxiliaries, the Military, the poor old peelers. All of them. They still charge around in their tenders and armoured cars but they’re looking after business. For me. There’s no martial law around here, boy. Only the name of it.
—I think I understand now, I said.—My wife keeps killing them.
—Spot on, boy.
—She’s making life complicated.
—She’s costing me a fortune, Captain. She’s interfering with free trade and I can’t have that.
—I’m going to sit up now, Ivan, so don’t panic.
—Don’t worry.
I sat up.
—D’you see my trousers anywhere near, Ivan?
—They’re right here, Captain. I went through them before I woke you.
—And you found fuck-all.
—More or less.
—Give them to me here.
I stood up and put on my Templemore trousers.
—So tell us, I said.—What about all the killings, if the war’s over? The spies and that. The shops being burnt.
—You have to show the flag, Captain, he said.—Let them know you’re there. And when it’s over and the guns are rusty, they’ll love me and remember who freed them. But they’ll also remember that they were once terrified of me, although they’ll never say anything about it. It’s only my version that’ll get talked about. They’ll love me and elect me because I’m the man that freed his country.
—And the Tans setting fire to houses and the creameries. They’re with your go-ahead too, are they?
—No no, said Ivan.—Not all of them. They have to report back to their people. The forms they have to fill in would do your head in. They have their quotas to meet. Like the rest of us.
—But you could stop them.
—How, like?
—You could stop them from setting fire to a place if you told them not to.
—I could, he said.—Nine times out of the ten. Money would have to change hands. But not necessarily from mine to theirs.
—What about this place?
—What about it?
—The Tans burnt it.
—There now, he said.—I thought it would stop her.
—My wife?
—Who else?
—But it didn’t.
—Stop, he said.—She’s a holy terror. And there’s poor Auntie now, out living in the barn. It’s shocking.
I tied my laces. I walked through the hole where the door had once been, out to the yard. The rain had gone.
—Not a bad night now, I said.
—I’ve stayed out in worse, said Ivan.
—I’ll talk to her, I said.
—That doesn’t sound very promising, Captain.
—I’ll talk to her, I said.—That’s all I can do. She’s her own woman.
—She’s your wife.
—I’m her husband.
—You’re a tricky man, Captain.
—And you’re a cunt.
—I can see why you’d say that. And I don’t mind a bit. But what I can’t see is this I’ll-talk-to-her business. But, sure.
He took a bottle from his coat pocket.
—We’ll drink to it.
—We won’t.
—I will.
—Fire away.
I’d smelt it off him earlier. It was going to kill him; I could see his face out here - it was killing him already. But much too slowly. He still had years left in him.
—Is it poteen?
—Fuck off, boy. It’s Remy-Martin.
I was grateful to Ivan.
There was no pretending now: I was a complete and utter fool, the biggest in the world. It had been niggling away at me for years but now I knew. Everything I’d done, every bullet and assassination, all the blood and brains, prison, the torture, the last four years and everything in them, everything had been done for Ivan and the other Ivans, the boys whose time had come. That was Irish freedom, since Connolly had been shot - and if the British hadn’t shot him one of the Ivans would have; Connolly would have been safely dead long before now, one of the martyrs, dangerous alive, more useful washed and dead.
It was too late. I’d taken men up to the mountains over Dublin and shot them. I’d gone into their homes - because I’d been told to. I’d killed more men than I could account for and I’d trained other men to do the same. I’d been given the names of men on pieces of paper and I’d sought them out and killed them. Just like my father, except he’d been paid for it. I knew: if I’d been given Connolly’s name on a piece of paper I’d have done it to him. Because better men than me had ordered me to. It was too late to deny it. I’d have thrown him into the back of a car and brought him up to the Sally Gap. I’d have blindfolded him. I’d have gun-whipped him to shut him up. I’d have dragged him from the car and kicked him away from the road. I’d have pushed him to his knees. I’d have told him to say his prayers and I’d have shot him in the back of the head before he’d finished. I’d have stepped back to avoid brain matter and blood, skull chips. I’d have done it and it was too late to ask why. And I’d have put another bullet into his head, for luck. Because cleverer men than me had told me to.
—I’ll talk to her, I said.
I was a slave, the greatest fuckin’ eejit ever born. Now I knew and I wasn’t going to do anything about it. Because there was nothing I could do. The dead men weren’t coming back.
But I’d kill no more, not even Ivan.
—Tell us, I said.—Did you ever meet Gandon?
—O’Gandúin?
—Yeah.
—No, said Ivan.—But I’d love to, and I will. Running the country from a prison cell, he is. There’s not much anyone can teach me but he’s one man who could teach me a thing or two, or even three.
And why were the heads in Dublin unhappy with me? I didn’t know yet but I did know what their unhappiness meant: I was dead.
—Stars tonight, said Ivan.—The sky’s full of them.
—Yeah.
—You don’t see those boys too often around here.
—No.
But I wasn’t looking. I knew that there was one of them up there, spinning and whooping, spitting sparks.
—I’m getting married, Captain, he said.
—Anyone we know?
—No one you know. A good family. There’ll be four priests at the top table.
—D’you want me to be best man?
He laughed.
—You’re gas.
—I’m going back to bed, I said.
—That’s the place I’d like to be, said Ivan.
—But you’re a busy man.
—Now you’re talking, boy.
—Good-night, Ivan.
—Good-night, Captain.
He walked away, towards the gate to the road. And from around the place, off the roof of the barn, behind the new well, his boys emerged and followed him. I knew none of them and none of them looked at me as they passed. All young lads, some of them younger than me. Leather-gaitered, trenchcoated, dripping bandoliers. They were there, and gone. I waited. I heard a car, Ivan’s. I saw the lights cut the night down at the road. I waited until the engine wasn’t part of the night any more. I listened. They’d gone. There was no one moving out there, and no one not moving, making the night go around him. Ivan wasn’t going to kill me tonight.
I went back through the hole to the kitchen.
—Come to Dublin with me.
—No.
—Please.
—No, Henry, she said.
It was June, 1921.
—I have to go, I said.
—I know.
—I’ve people to see.
—I know.
—Come with me.
—No.
It had been two days since Ivan’s visit. We were in a dugout somewhere under Roscommon, a good long wooden room made of railway sleepers and the roof off the pavilion of the Ballintubber Cricket Club. The Tans had raided old Missis’s the morning after Ivan came and set fire to the long barn. Old Missis was with her sister. I’d taken my father’s leg with me when I’d run from the Tans, but I’d left the gun.
I’d just arrived, tumbled down into the dugout, a few minutes before, the latest bike tumbling after me. Bedding and rugs were piled along one side of the room. There were holsters and some rifles hanging from wooden pegs. The air was stale. There were sods carefully laid over the hatch, until night would make it safe to open. There was a lad in a trenchcoat in a far corner, at a desk with sawed-down legs, working away at a typewriter. His fingers on the keys made the only sound in the room, until I spoke again.
—There’s no more fighting to do, I said.
Ivan had been right. The truce was on the way.
—Don’t cod yourself, Henry.
—Okay, I said.—Try this then. The baby.
—I’ll slow down when the time’s right. Don’t worry.
—You’re beginning to show.
—I can still cycle a bike and fire a gun and cycle away again.
—I’m going tomorrow.
—I know.
—I’ll be back.
—I know.
—Here, son.
The kid at the typewriter turned.
—What?
—Go for a walk, will yeh?
He looked at me, and stood up as high as the roof would let him.
—Right, so, he said.—I’ll, eh—
—Come back tomorrow.
—Right.
He went up the steps, waited, lifted the hatch and the sods over them, and climbed out to the rest of the day.
We wrapped ourselves together.
—Do me a big favour, I said.
—I probably will, she said.
—If you’re not going to give up the stunts, keep them outside Ivan’s area.
She looked at me.
—Alright, she said.—I’ll do that.
—Sound woman. I love you, Miss.
—I love you too, Henry.
—I’m doing no more fighting.
—I know.
—You don’t mind?
—You’ve done plenty.
—I wish I’d done none.
—You’re saying that now.
We lay on the beaten muck floor. Face to face, an arm each wrapping us tight. I put my hand on her belly. Then I put my arm over her again and rubbed her back between the shoulders. I stopped and just held her.
It would be lifetimes before I held her again.
—Will you do
me
a big favour? said Miss O’Shea.
—No.
—I’m still your teacher, Henry Smart.
—Yes, Miss.
I lifted my head to her ear and whispered.
—The Manchesters.
—Oh.
—The 17th Lancers.
—Oh.
—The Machine Gun Corps.
—Oh God.
—It still works.