Shamrock Green (7 page)

For a man whose work was so secretive Fran was remarkably liberal with information about his achievements and Sylvie soon realised that he was no ordinary hedge-schoolmaster with a flair for fancy phrases. College educated, he had taught at university until his philandering or his politics had become too much for the governors. He had travelled to America several times and was undoubtedly a man of the world. He had dined in the Old Irish American Club in Philadelphia with Judge Cohalan and other founders of the Clan-na-Gael and even had meetings with O'Donovan Rossa, a legendary rebel, who lived in retirement on Staten Island.

‘Land hunger,' Fran told her, ‘is at the root of it, at the root of everything. Even so, national pride should not be put down as a crime. He was married three times, you know, the old scallywag.'

‘Who are we talking about now?'

‘Rossa, of course, old O'Donovan Dubh, the arch Fenian himself.'

‘What happened to his wives?'

‘Oh, they died young, two of them at any rate.'

‘And you, Fran, what about your wife?'

‘Who told you I had a wife?'

‘Charlie let it slip.'

‘True, it's true. There was a wife. There
is
a wife.'

‘And children?'

Just for a second he looked almost sheepish. ‘Three sons,' he said. ‘Fine boys: Jack, Ross and Hugh.'

‘Where are they now?'

‘Far away across the sea.'

‘Do you not see them at all?'

‘No.'

‘Do you support them?

‘Alas, I have no money to support them.'

‘Where is your wife?'

‘Huddersfield.'

Sylvie did not have the gall to enquire what Mrs Francis Hagarty was doing in Huddersfield.

The fact that Fran was so loquacious relieved her of the need to explain herself. He went on and on about everything and anything that interested him and asked her very little about herself.

She was well aware that he still regarded her as a smart little simpleton. For this reason she refrained from informing him that she had been thoroughly well educated at one of Glasgow's top schools for which her birth father, Tom Calder, had paid the fees. She might truthfully have claimed to be a girl with
two
fathers but wasn't sure how to explain the triangular nature of her upbringing. She had been fostered out to her father's sister Florence soon after her mother had died, raised by Florence and Albert Hartnell, turned religious and under Albert's guidance had collected in public houses and gambling dens for the Coral Strand Mission Society. Florence and Albert had creamed the takings and before she was seventeen Sylvie had acquired a taste for alcohol, tobacco and footloose gaiety, though there was precious little gaiety left in her now.

Naturally she did not mention Forbes, not even when Fran tentatively enquired where she had learned her bedroom tricks. She certainly hadn't learned them from Forbes who had been even less imaginative than Gowry.

She was intrigued and sometimes bored by Fran Hagarty's education, intelligence and loquacity.

‘Tell me,' he said, as they lay side by side in bed, ‘has your husband got more hair than I have?'

‘On his head, do you mean?'

‘I meant in general; everywhere.'

‘He isn't lacking in hair, no,' said Sylvie.

‘He's young, of course, younger than I am.' Fran lifted his hand and brushed the greying locks that sweat had pasted to his brow. ‘After a certain age a man can expect to give a few hairs to fortune, I suppose.'

‘You're not going ba— not so bad,' Sylvie said, trying to make light of his concern. ‘You're not old. I mean, you're still in your prime.'

‘He'll have more hair on his chest than I have, I expect.' Fran lifted the sheet and, chin tucked in, earnestly studied his breastbone. ‘I've never had much hair on my chest. My brothers used to jag me about it all the time.'

‘Brothers? I didn't know you had brothers.'

Refusing to be sidetracked, he lifted the sheet higher.

‘What d'you think, Sylvie? Tell me honestly.'

His skin was as pale as paper and mottled with little veins like watermarks. Three or four individual hairs sprouted feebly from the centre of his chest. The rest was bare, hairless down as far as the belly button, sparse beyond. Gowry was well endowed with hair, a lean-muscled, vulpine hairiness that put poor Fran to shame. Constitutionally Fran was so unlike Gowry, in fact, that she felt a little wave of astonishment pass through her that she had actually climbed into bed with him.

‘You're fine,' she said. ‘Absolutely fine.'

‘I don't suppose you've seen a lot of men without their clothes on.'

‘No,' Sylvie said. ‘Hardly – I mean Gowry, just Gowry.'

‘Hmm!' He flicked the sheet to one side and stared down at himself, sad-eyed, fishing not for compliments but reassurance. ‘What about the rest of me?'

More cautious than embarrassed, she leaned across him and, smothering her distaste, laid a hand on his thigh and peered at his parts. He was different from Gowry in that department too. Forbes had been similar in shape and size to Gowry, as far as she could recall, and the thought strayed across her mind that perhaps it wasn't just ears and noses and the colour of eyes that family members shared. There was something almost comically brutal about Fran's parts, something curiously unfinished too, as if the ends had not been knotted properly. She was filled with a vague, milksop distaste, not at what she was doing but at what she was doing it to.

She touched and made to kiss him but he pushed her away.

‘I can't,' he said, ‘not again, not so soon.'

‘There's no shame in that,' Sylvie said.

‘Shame, who said anything about shame? I'm not ashamed of it.'

‘Nor should you be,' she said. ‘Not after what—'

‘What?'

Piqued that he had revealed his weakness, he inched away from her, folding his arms behind his head. She had too much sense to try to rouse him. She turned on her side, crossed her arms across her breasts and looked up at him: ‘I'm glad.'

‘Glad,' he said. ‘For what?'

‘That you've had enough.'

He glanced at her, frowning.

Sylvie said, ‘I'm quite worn out, you see. You've quite worn me out.'

‘Have I?'

‘Yes, darling, you have.'

He turned towards her, a smile on his lips, slid beneath the sheet, put an arm about her and nestled her against his cold, white, hairless chest.

‘You're only saying that.'

‘I'm not. I mean it.'

‘Well!' he murmured. ‘Well!' and kissed her.

*   *   *

‘Do you think it will be making much difference?' Jansis asked.

‘What? The war?' said Sylvie.

While she had been making love to Francis Hagarty the parliament of Great Britain and Ireland had been leading the nation into war.

‘Aye,' Jansis said. ‘The war.'

‘Certainly it will. How can it not? Look what's happening already.'

‘They say it'll be over by Christmas.'

‘Kitchener doesn't think so,' said Maeve.

‘What do you know about Kitchener?' Sylvie said.

‘It's all over the
Progressive,
' said Maeve.

‘Why are you reading that rag?' said Sylvie. ‘You didn't buy it, did you?'

‘No, I didn't buy it. Mr Pettu gave it me.'

‘Mr Pettu? Well, I am surprised,' said Jansis. ‘I thought he'd more sense.'

‘He's not a revolutionary,' said Maeve. ‘He buys it for the racing results.'

‘I didn't know Mr Pettu was a betting man,' said Jansis. ‘And him so staunch in his faith too.'

‘He has an occasional flutter,' said Maeve. ‘Won four bob the other day.'

‘You've become very pally with Mr Pettu all of a sudden,' said Jansis.

At one time Jansis had cherished a notion that the little widower might take a shine to her, court and even wed her, no matter that he was thirty-odd years her senior, but Mr Pettu had remained indifferent, not cold but disinterested. After his wife had died and his last surviving daughter had entered a convent, he had sworn a vow of strictest chastity – or so he told Jansis. Having no evidence to the contrary, Jansis believed him and refused to consider that little Mr Pettu with his peaky white face and bootlace moustache might be veering towards hypocrisy.

‘We got talking, that's all,' said Maeve.

‘Not up in his room, I hope,' said Sylvie.

‘No, not in his room,' said Maeve, ‘though I can't see any harm in—'

‘Listen to your mother,' Jansis said. ‘You can't trust any man.'

Maeve blinked her blue eyes and shook her chestnut curls.

Sylvie studied her daughter warily. She had no idea what Maeve knew of life, of men and how they related to women, or if she understood that youth and innocence were no protection against predatory nature but rather an enticement to it. In four or five years, if they were spared, she would no more be able to hold Maeve back than Charlie McCulloch could hold back his brother Peter.

It had been a hectic spell in the Shamrock and she could have filled the rooms twice. Whatever else Dubliners might say about the war it had brought trade to the city. Bank holiday visitors had been replaced by country lads lured to town by rumours that the ship repair yards were taking on apprentices and the government opening factories to supply the British army with everything from woollen drawers to pork-meat. Every traveller in Ireland seemed to have descended on Dublin, for on a buoyant market the commercials were first to reap the benefit.

From one of the salesmen Sylvie had purchased six good, cheap lengths of curtain material to improve the top-floor rooms and in the quiet of the afternoon Maeve, Jansis and she were in the sitting-room sewing them up.

Sylvie had felt like a traitor slipping off to Endicott Street when the Shamrock was so busy, had felt like a fool standing outside Fran's door, knocking desperately upon it even after it became apparent Fran was not at home. She had been engulfed by disappointment and annoyed by his indifference but by the time she'd picked her way down the spiral staircase to the street, she had calmed down. After all, she reasoned, Fran had important things to do and she could hardly expect him to be lying in bed all day long, awaiting her arrival.

She had called in at the butcher's on the way home and had left a large order with the greengrocer next door. Back in the Shamrock she had helped Jansis iron sheets and Maeve change beds and, in a charitable mood, had served Mr Dolan a bowl of soup in his room where the old chap spent most of his time these days. Now, in the quiet part of the afternoon, the women and girl were alone.

‘Can't you trust Daddy?' Maeve, busy with the needle, said.

‘Daddy's different,' Sylvie told her.

‘What about Charlie?'

‘No, you have to be careful even with Uncle Charlie.'

‘Careful, what d' you mean “careful”?'

Jansis and Sylvie exchanged a glance over the swaddle of curtain material.

‘Just,' Sylvie said, ‘careful.'

‘Not to let him take liberties, you mean?' said Maeve.

‘Has Charlie done that, has he tried to—'

‘No, no,' said Maeve. ‘He hasn't done anything.'

‘What,' Jansis enquired, ‘about Mr Trotter?'

‘Turk? Nah. He knows Charlie would kill him if he did,' Maeve said.

Sylvie cleared her throat. ‘If he did – what?'

‘Kissed me, or tried to,' said Maeve.

‘Kissed you, is that all?' said Jansis.

Sylvie frowned and shook her head in warning.

‘I know what you're talkin' about,' Maeve said.

‘Do you now?' Sylvie said. ‘What are we talking about then?'

‘Huggin'.' In spite of her precocity a faint pink blush appeared on Maeve's cheeks. She took refuge in sewing. ‘You're not allowed to let a man hug you.'

‘Not unless you're married,' said Jansis.

‘Is it a mortal sin then?' Maeve asked.

‘It – aye, it is a sin, though maybe not mortal.'

‘Have you ever been hugged, Jansis?'

‘What like a question is that to be askin' a respectable woman?'

‘Have you?'

‘No, indeed I have not.'

‘Never?'

‘No. Never.'

‘Wouldn't you like to be hugged?'

‘Maeve, that's enough,' Sylvie said. ‘Go and brew us a pot of tea. We could all be doing with something before the knockers come to the door.'

‘I'll do it,' Jansis volunteered. ‘I'm weary of stitching anyway.'

The servant left the sitting-room and padded down to the kitchen.

Sylvie noticed that the house had a different smell today, richer and more exuberant, as if an influx of guests had added texture to the air.

She snipped a thread with her teeth and tied off the loose end.

‘Was he not there, Mam?' Maeve said. ‘Is that why you came home early?'

‘Who?'

‘The person you go to see every day, the man?'

‘Man? What man? What are you blatherin' about?'

‘Is it him? Is it Mr Hagarty?' Maeve said.

‘Mister – no, of course it isn't Mr Hagarty.'

‘Who is it then?'

‘I go to the market for provisions.'

‘Every day?' Maeve said. ‘I mean, every day for three hours?'

‘Has Jansis been complaining about the extra work?'

‘Jansis complains all the time.' Maeve scraped her chair across the floor and brought herself knee to knee with Sylvie. ‘You can tell me, Mam. Is it really Mr Hagarty? It is, isn't it?'

‘Mr Hagarty is far too busy a man to bother with the likes of me.'

‘So you have seen him again?'

‘I didn't say—'

‘Then how do you know he's so busy?'