Shamrock Green (32 page)

‘I'd nowhere else to go,' Maeve answered.

‘Well, you'll have somewhere to go in a minute, m' girl, once you've finished that pancake.'

‘You're not turnin' us away, are you?'

‘I'm sending you to Malahide to buy a jar of Mamnhu.'

‘Mamnhu?'

‘Infant food,' the woman said, ‘unless you want your brother weaned on pancakes. Can you drive a trap?'

‘No.'

‘Ride a horse?'

Maeve shook her head. ‘Sorry.'

Her grandmother tutted. ‘Blessed if I know what girls are coming to these days. Where have they taken your mother?'

‘I don't know,' Maeve said.

‘Who took her, the soldiers or the police?'

‘The police,' said Maeve. ‘Mr Vaizey came for Fran…'

‘Aye, I thought Hagarty would be involved somehow.'

They were in the kitchen at the back of the brewery cottage. The kitchen was not like the kitchen in the Shamrock. It was big and airy with windows on two walls and you could look out at the trees and fields and, with the door open, smell both the brewery and the sea.

Gran laid Sean on the kitchen table as if she were going to dust him with flour and pop him into the oven. She worked a yellow sponge over his bottom, squeezed the sponge into a bowl of warm water and dried his parts with a towel.

Sean whimpered quietly. If he appreciated being released from the wet nappy and damp petticoats he wasn't going to admit it. He focused on his grandmother's stern features – she wasn't his grandmother, of course, but Sean didn't know that – and gave her a crooked little grimace.

‘He's got wind,' Gran said. ‘He needs something in his stomach.'

‘They're fighting all over Dublin,' Maeve said through a mouthful of sweet pancake. ‘Has Granddad gone to help Turk?'

‘Don't be so daft.' Gran snorted. ‘He's upstairs, sleeping off a skinful.'

Maeve sipped from a glass of milk and glanced at the ceiling.

‘Doesn't he know the uprising has started?'

‘The only uprising he cares about these days is stomach heaves.'

‘But the brotherhood—'

‘Finish that milk and get on down to the shops.'

‘Will we be needin' a bottle?'

‘I've bottles somewhere,' her grandmother said, ‘but we'll need a card of rubber teats. The only teats I've got are for goats.'

‘I don't have any money, Gran. I spent it all on the cab fare.'

‘I'll give you the money.'

‘We'll pay you back,' said Maeve. ‘Mam'll pay you back.'

Gran wrapped the towel loosely around the baby and lifted him. She held him lightly, one hand under his bottom. It seemed to Maeve that Sean was supporting himself and all that her grandmother was doing was keeping him in balance.

‘Did she tell you to come here?'

‘No,' Maeve said. ‘I came off my own bat.'

‘Is there much shooting in town?'

‘Aye, a lot. Mr Whiteside, my teacher, got killed.'

‘Did you leave your mother a note telling her where you'd be?'

Maeve shook her head. ‘There wasn't time to leave notes.'

‘No, I don't suppose there was,' her grandmother conceded. ‘All right, I'll keep you here, you an' the child, but when she's released and comes for you then it's straight back off to Dublin. Is that understood?'

‘Why don't you like my mam?'

‘It's a long story,' the woman said, ‘and it doesn't concern you.'

‘It does concern me,' Maeve said.

‘Hasn't your mother told you anything?'

‘Not much.'

‘Well, Gowry wouldn't – your father wouldn't.'

‘Why wouldn't he?' said Maeve.

‘This poor baby is starving and all you can do is ask questions. Get away down to the town and buy two large jars of infant food and a card of teats.' Gran carried the baby to the Welsh dresser, pulled open a drawer, took out a big brown purse and shook out two half-crowns. ‘Seiffert's, the chemists, will have what we need. It's the first big shop off the Towers road and has a sign sticking out over the pavement.'

‘I'll find it.'

‘And don't dawdle.'

‘No, Gran,' Maeve promised. ‘I won't.'

*   *   *

Numb with the horror of what she had just witnessed Sylvie had no idea where she was or what she was doing. Fran was gone. Fran was dead. Vaizey had forced her to witness his murder. She felt drained and empty and could barely put one foot in front of the other. Her boots slapped at her ankles and she twisted over on the heels and had to right herself and take her bearings just to keep going on at all.

The castle welled up before her through a haze of smoke. She heard shooting, the whip-snap of snipers' bullets. She stopped in the mouth of a lane and looked up at the rooftops, saw a man, not a soldier, scuttle and slide behind a chimney head. She had a vague notion that she was inside the British cordons and a long way from the Sperryhead Road.

Sudden blazing anger possessed her, not just that Vaizey had murdered Fran and made her a party to the killing but that she had been tossed out unprotected now that she had served her purpose.

A vehicle thundered past, an iron-clad thing with a silly-looking gun jutting from its turret. She was so angry now that she did not feel threatened. She had to get back to Sperryhead Road, had to get back home to Maeve and Sean; with Fran dead and Gowry at the front, Sean and Maeve were all she had left. She closed her eyes: Oh, Christ, oh, God, please God have mercy on me and lead me home. A bomb exploded high above. Debris rained down into the lane. She covered her head with her arms as an avalanche of slates crashed on to the cobbles behind her.

‘Mrs McCulloch, is that you?'

Little Mr Pettu politely lifted his bowler, grabbed her hand and swung her into the shelter of a doorway just as another bomb went off and another shower of splintered black tiles clattered about them. Mr Pettu put her behind him, his legs spread and elbows cocked in a posture most unbecoming to a broker of communion wine. When the dust began to clear he leaned from the doorway and peered up and down the lane.

‘I thought it was you, Mrs McCulloch, though you're a fair way from the Shamrock and should not, I fear, be lingering in this neighbourhood.' He glanced round. ‘Are you in good health?'

‘No, Mr Pettu, I'm not,' Sylvie said and, to the little man's astonishment, threw herself into his arms and burst into a flood of tears.

*   *   *

Maeve ran all the way to Malahide and most of the way back and, almost before she got her breath back, had Sean on her knee and a feeding bottle in her hand and was watching her half-brother suck on the teat without any persuasion at all. The stuff in the bottle was rich and thick and Gran had widened the hole in the teat with a sewing needle so that Sean, a strenuous feeder, could get all the nourishment he needed without too much effort.

It was raining quite hard outside now. Maeve could hear the hiss of the rain in the trees, for Gran had opened the kitchen door to let out the cooking smells. It was peaceful in the brewery cottage and sea air and the jog down to Malahide had made her sleepy. It was all she could do to keep awake while Sean guzzled on his bottle. Then her grandfather got up and she could hear him lumbering about overhead like a pachyderm – poor Mr Whiteside's word – which, Maeve knew, meant a thick-skinned quadruped. It occurred to her that her daddy had been born in this house and had lived here as a boy. She tried to imagine her daddy as a boy, tried to imagine the house filled with children – Charlie, Peter, her Scottish Uncle Forbes and the girls she had never met – tried to imagine what sort of quarrels had driven them away.

Sean paused in his sucking. His eyes were closed, his brow damp with perspiration. Maeve let him rest for a moment before she squeezed out a globule of the milky substance and dropped it on to his lip.

Sean fastened on the teat again, sucking even more greedily than before.

Her grandfather came clumping downstairs.

‘Where's my breakfast, Kay?' he enquired, then, spotting Maeve and the baby and showing no surprise, said, ‘Sure an' what's the news from Dublin?'

‘The police have arrested Mr Hagarty,' Maeve told him.

Her grandfather's trousers were unbuttoned and his suspenders dangled over his buttocks. In daylight he looked older than his years.

He peered blearily at Sean. ‘What's that? Is that yours?'

‘His name's Sean. He's my brother.'

‘Got him now. Fran's boy, right?'

‘Granddad, didn't you hear me? The police have taken Fran away.'

‘How old is he now?'

‘Ten weeks.'

‘He's a big wee chap for ten weeks.'

‘Granddad, Fran an' Mam have been arrested,' Maeve persisted. ‘An' Turk an' Charlie are occupying Watton's to stop the British bringing in reinforcements to blockade the quays.'

‘The quays? Have they taken the quays, do you tell me?'

Her grandmother leaned against the door of the pantry, arms folded.

‘That was the word last night,' Maeve said.

‘Last night? What night was that? Sunday, was it Sunday?'

Maeve opened her mouth to correct him but Gran said, ‘It's no use talking to him, Maeve. His brain's gone soft. He's good for nothing now.'

‘I am,' her grandfather said petulantly. ‘I am too.'

He seated himself on a chair and stared sulkily out at the rain.

‘That's why the brotherhood got rid of him,' Gran went on, ‘why Charlie took over. Is Peter with them at the warehouse?'

‘Yes.'

‘I could be doin' with a drop right now,' her grandfather said. ‘The strain o' the struggle is very sore on an old man like me.'

‘Is Trotter with them too?' Gran asked.

Maeve nodded.

‘So it'll be a fight to the death, will it?'

‘Aye, Gran,' Maeve said, ‘a fight to the death it'll be.'

*   *   *

Mr Pettu's method of breaching the British lines was odd, but effective. First of all he led Sylvie to Dominic Sloan's, one of the small Catholic retailers in that part of town. Leaving Sylvie outside he entered the shop and conversed with the proprietor then both men came out and Mr Sloan shook Sylvie's hand, locked the door of the shop and guided Sylvie and Mr Pettu to St Theresa's convent school in Lebrun Street. They slipped into the school by a door in the wall of the garden at the rear. The garden was tiny. There was a statue in the middle, the saint herself perhaps, half life size. Dominic and Mr Pettu gave the statue a respectful little bow and went on into the school building, leaving Sylvie outside once more. It was raining gently and steadily and the rain deadened the sound of gunfire. She felt strange now, as if she were caught in a dream.

After a few minutes Mr Pettu returned, accompanied by two nuns. There was no sign of Mr Sloan. The nuns were middle-aged, muscular women, one of whom wore eyeglasses. They gave Sylvie the once-over. They clearly did not approve of her, perhaps because she was a Protestant, more likely because she was a nationalist: the Catholic hierarchy did not approve of nationalists. One of the nuns brandished a white sheet tied to a window-pole. The other carried a large wooden crucifix. They seemed to know Mr Pettu well and addressed him as Vincent. To Sylvie they said nothing at all.

She followed the nuns out into the laneway and along it to Lebrun Street. The women walked briskly and chatted to Mr Pettu while Sylvie, her boots flopping, trailed along behind. When they reached Lebrun Street she saw why Mr Pettu had enlisted the aid of the nuns: the centre of the city was under siege. When she looked down from the crown of the road to the bridges she was shocked at the damage that had been done to the fine buildings and how many troops and artillery pieces were visible, focused, Mr Pettu told her, on the General Post Office, which was the rebels' stronghold and headquarters.

There was no shooting going on in Lebrun Street but at the street's end, where it dipped down towards the Liffey, government troops had erected a barricade of beer barrels bristling with rifles and machine-guns. Between the crown of Lebrun Street and the troops the cobbles were strewn with debris including two dead carthorses, the body of a dog and an upturned float that had flooded the gutters with milk. The nuns were not deterred. The flag and the crucifix were raised before them and Mr Pettu, ever the gentleman, took Sylvie by the arm.

‘Are you fit, Mrs McCulloch?'

‘I am,' said Sylvie.

She was less afraid of the government troops than of Vaizey's plainclothed ruffians. There was order and discipline among the soldiers, the threat of reprimand if they should forget themselves. Holding tightly to little Mr Pettu's arm, Sylvie followed the nuns as they advanced on the barricade.

A head came up, and another, then another. One of the soldiers crossed himself but whether in mockery or respect Sylvie could not be sure. The nuns were confident, almost arrogant with the cross and the flag held out before them. The moist wind off the river blew their garments against them so that they looked even more robust than they were. Sylvie felt again the quirky, unsought-for sense of pride that she had first experienced when she'd marched by Maeve's side at Bodenstown all those months ago, before she had met Fran Hagarty, when Gowry had been driving the charabanc.

The nuns stopped short of the barricade and looked up at the officers on the rickety little platform. They said nothing, just stared up at the British officers, their cheeks glowing and their eyes as hard as hob-nails, but there was something so admirable in their stance that one officer saluted them and, without being asked, signalled the little procession to pass through.

‘Sister Veronica?' The soldier was young, his moustache still feathery. ‘Sister Agnes? Don't you know me?'

‘Oh, I know you, William Kelly,' the nun with the flag said out of the side of her mouth. ‘How's your dear mother these days?'