Shamrock Green (8 page)

‘Maeve, dearest, you shouldn't jump to conclusions.'

‘Is it for the huggin' you see him?'

‘Maeve! Enough!'

‘If I was your age an' Mr Hagarty gave me the eye—'

‘The eye? What is all this nonsense?'

‘Jansis says—'

‘Jansis, is it?' Sylvie said. ‘Jansis had better watch out for her job.'

Maeve sat back, head cocked. Curls bobbed across her cheek but the blush had gone. She looked, Sylvie thought, remarkably like the sort of girl she'd been at that age. There was a photograph in one of the tin boxes in the attic, in fact, a studio picture; she, dainty little Sylvie, seated on a rickety little chair, her foster-father behind her, a hand on her shoulder, his thumb tucked into his waistcoat pocket; she with such a knowing expression on her face that her foster-father had never dared show the picture to her aunt.

‘It isn't Jansis's fault,' said Maeve. ‘I saw you.'

‘Saw me?' Sylvie's mouth went dry and the hair on the nape of her neck rose as if an icy wind had blown through the room. ‘Saw me where?'

‘I followed you for a piece.'

‘F-followed me?'

‘You went up across the Parade. You should've tooken a tram.'

‘How dare you? How
dare
you!' Sylvie hissed. ‘Spying on your own mother.'

‘It is where he lives, isn't it? Endicott Street?'

‘If you ever – if you
ever
follow me again—'

‘Charlie told me: Endicott Street: Mr Hagarty,' Maeve said. ‘I think it's awful brave of you, Mam.'

‘Brave?' Sylvie felt as if her tongue were frozen to the roof of her mouth. ‘Brave, for d-doing w-what?'

‘You're doing it to save Daddy, aren't you?'

‘Doing what?'

‘Meeting Mr Hagarty,' Maeve said. ‘Charlie told me it was Mr Hagarty told him not to put Dad on the spot 'cause he took those guns away.'

‘When did you talk to Charlie?'

‘He came round the other day, Tuesday, the day the war started.'

‘Why didn't you tell me?'

‘He said for me not to tell you.'

‘Where was Jansis?'

‘Makin' beds upstairs. Where's the spot, tell me?'

‘It doesn't mean – it isn't – it's not a place.'

‘Daddy shouldn't know, should he? About the spot, I mean?'

‘No, dearest, no.'

In the kitchen the big kettle with the whistling spout sang.

Sylvie felt as if she were melting away. She wanted to clasp Maeve to her and rock her in her arms, assure her that it was all just silly grown-up nonsense but she guessed that Maeve wouldn't swallow the lie and that the insidious process of corruption had already begun.

‘Daddy shouldn't know you've been talkin' to Mr Hagarty, should he?'

‘No.'

Maeve nodded sagely. ‘He has his pride, I suppose – Daddy.'

Sylvie paused then said, ‘I won't be visiting Mr Hagarty again.'

‘Why ever not?'

‘Because it – he…'

‘Does he not like you?'

‘Yes, but…'

‘And you like him,' said Maeve. ‘I like him too. He saved Daddy's bacon.'

‘Is that what Charlie told you?'

‘Aye.'

‘Maeve, is Mr Hagarty one of the brotherhood?'

‘I don't know what he is,' Maeve said. ‘I just think he's awful nice.'

‘He's awfully clever,' Sylvie said. ‘I'll give him that.'

‘Does he hug you?'

‘No.'

‘Doesn't he want to?'

‘I don't know. We just – talk.'

‘About what?' said Maeve.

‘Things.'

‘About the guns? About Daddy an' the guns?'

‘Yes,' Sylvie said, establishing a plausible lie. ‘Yes, it's all to do with Daddy and the guns.'

‘I thought as much.' Maeve gave a little sigh, signalling relief that her mother's secret was not more adult. ‘I think you're into it now, Mam, I really do.'

‘Yes, dear, I think you may be right,' said Sylvie sadly, just as Jansis brought in the tea.

*   *   *

There was hardly an Irish newspaper he hadn't written for at one time or another. Even when he had been tutoring at the university he had always found time to dash off articles as well as his regular reports to the Clan. Nothing had ever stopped him writing, not even tumbling down the back stairs in McKinstry's one wet Friday night and breaking his wrist. He had written under so many pen names that he couldn't recall them all and when he added in all the false names he had given to all the girls he had bedded, there were times when he thought there could be nothing left of the original Fran Hagarty.

Sometimes when he wakened on the floorboards, sick with the drink and chilled to the bone, he would have to work hard to select one name for himself from the host of inky ghosts, for he wanted to be not one but all of them at once.

Until Sylvie entered the picture, though, he had no intention of allowing himself to fall properly in love, especially not with a Dublin landlady. But when he wakened he found himself dreaming of Sylvie McCulloch and before he rose to pee or to boil water for his breakfast tea, he would lie quite still and repeat her name over and over again. McCulloch: he pronounced it in the soft-boiled, slip-off-the-tongue accent you could still hear spoken in the vales of Glendalough:
M'Cullow
it was, all lip and tongue, with the stress on the
mick
and the
cull.

He brooded about Sylvie when he should have been planning his escape. God knows there was enough going on in the world, let alone Dublin, to claim his full attention. What rash moves might the brotherhoods make next? If conscription were forced upon the Irish would there be rioting in the streets and would he have to unmuzzle Turk Trotter to beat the daylights out of the bus-driver and force him to hand back the stolen guns, or at least enough of them to get the job done? How would he explain
that
to Sylvie? Then, unaccountably, he would find himself at the window peering down into Endicott Street, waiting for her to arrive, and would see her pass below dressed in her prim little cape and funny straw hat and would feel pity for her, pity for himself too, at tragedies in the making, tragedies which, if he hadn't loved her, he would simply have laughed away.

‘Sylvie,' he would whisper, leaving his breath upon the glass. ‘Sylvie,' before he scrambled on to the bed to greet her, pretending to be heartlessly masculine, with no thought for anything but the tricks and the tickling.

When word came through that a secret meeting was being convened in Cork he knew he would have to leave her. He didn't dare send her a letter – letters were always dangerous – and had no one he trusted enough to carry a message. He simply had to pack and go. It was his duty to report upon all meetings between the brotherhoods, and the Clan would expect a full account. He could not let them down, not when he might need their protection in the not too distant future, but duty was an intrusion right now and he felt so bad about abandoning her without warning that he even performed a little war dance of frustration before he packed his razor and one clean shirt and set off to catch the train to Cork.

Chapter Five

Dry mash and clean litter had built a healthy flock of fowls. They provided eggs even in the depths of winter and white meat all year round. Sylvie couldn't bring herself to do the killing, though, and left that side of it to Jansis who had no compunction about despatching chickens. ‘Born to die,' Jansis would say. ‘Born to die, that's all they are, poor things,' as she stretched out a feathery neck and tugged.

The coop was well ventilated but did not get quite enough light and every morning Sylvie opened the wire gate to let the birds out into the courtyard. That particular morning the weather was breezy and bright. Chimney cocks whirred on the roof of Watton's warehouse, small white clouds scudded across the sky and gulls soared restlessly overhead. The holidays were over and Maeve was back at school. The commercials had breakfasted and gone their separate ways and Mr Dolan was off, albeit nervously, on a tour of the harbour. There was a war going on in Europe but Sylvie was too locked in on herself to dwell on it.

She was angry with Fran, resentful of the fact that he'd left her in the lurch and that she hadn't heard from him for the best part of a week. Beneath her resentment, though, lay fear that he had come to harm or that now he'd had what he wanted from her he had thrown her over and she would never hear from him again. She had just filled the water basins and scattered fresh grit when, looking up, she saw him in the archway. He had on the long overcoat, collar turned up, but he wore no hat and the breeze toyed with his hair.

‘Fran?' she said, under her breath. ‘Fran, is it you?'

He was too far off to hear but when she turned towards him he started down the lane and raised a hand in greeting and she felt her heart open like a flower. Putting down the basin, she wiped her hands on her apron, ran a few steps and threw herself into his arms.

‘God,' she said. ‘Oh, God, I missed you.'

He hugged her against him. He felt strong, so strong, stronger than Gowry had ever done. She did not know what words or gestures would explain what he had come to mean to her during the days they had been apart but uttered instead a little
uh-uh-uh
of pleasure when he pressed his lips against hers.

He drew back. ‘Is it safe?'

‘Yes,' she said. ‘Yes.'

‘Where's Maeve?'

‘At school.'

‘And the girl, the maid?'

‘Shopping.'

He did not ask about Gowry.

Sylvie laughed, kissed him again, took his hand and led him into the kitchen.

Breakfast dishes, newly washed, gleamed in the sunlight. Three small saucepans glinted on the stove. She could hear the crackle of new coals and smell the smoke that leaked from the iron stove in windy weather. She had the taste of him on her lips, the relief of knowing that she was not alone in loving after all.

‘Can we go some place?' Fran said. ‘Is there somewhere safe?'

‘Have you eaten? Have you had your breakfast?'

‘Yes, yes, I've had my breakfast. Don't you want to?'

‘It isn't that. I just—'

‘Upstairs, can we not go upstairs?' He frowned. ‘Is it not convenient?'

‘Convenient?' Sylvie said. ‘What sort of a word is that? Yes, it is convenient, dearest. It will never be more convenient. Come.'

She pulled him along the corridor. He moved jerkily, as if he had forgotten how to give in to impulse. They paused on the first landing. He put his arms about her and pressed himself against her. She tilted back her head and let him kiss her cheeks, her brow and, lifting up her hair, her ear. He cupped her breasts and sighed as if holding her again removed the pain of being Fran Hagarty.

They stumbled noisily into a vacant bedroom.

And closed the door.

*   *   *

‘See,' Sylvie said, ‘you were hungry after all.'

‘It's true,' Fran admitted, ‘but one appetite overcame another.'

She gave him a nudge with her elbow.

They were seated at the long table in the kitchen while he ate the bacon, eggs and sausage that she'd fried for him after they'd come downstairs. She sat close to him, teapot and milk jug pushed aside, her chair drawn up so that she could lay a hand on his thigh now and then and lean against him with her shoulder.

‘An appetite?' Sylvie said. ‘Is that all I am to you?'

‘Hung-gurrr,' he said, growling. ‘Hung-gurrr.'

‘I've never seen you eat before.'

‘It's not a pretty sight,' Fran said.

‘Oh, I don't know. I've seen worse.'

‘I can't even claim I'm not used to breakfasting at noon – for I am.'

‘You're dissolute, that's what you are,' said Sylvie. ‘Plain dissolute. If you were married to me I'd soon sort you out.'

‘What if I don't want to be sorted out?'

‘Fatten you up then.'

‘Like a lamb for the slaughter?'

He chewed thoughtfully while Sylvie buttered him a slice of bread. He mopped up egg yolk with it and put it in his mouth.

She said, ‘You don't have to go, Fran. You can stay all night if you like.'

He shook his head. ‘It wouldn't be right.'

‘Gowry won't be home until tomorrow afternoon. He's driving recruits to the barracks at Tipperary.'

‘Tipperary?' Fran said. ‘What recruits are they?'

‘How would I know?' said Sylvie.

She poured tea, a half-cup for herself. She wanted to take nothing into herself yet, to keep what was in her undiluted for a time longer, but her thirst was insistent and the tea refreshing. She held the cup in both hands, leaning snugly against him while he finished his breakfast.

‘Why didn't you tell me you were going away?'

‘It was a sudden thing.'

‘And secret?' Sylvie said.

‘And secret,' he said, and then gave a little shake of the head. ‘No, there's little enough secret these days. An Irish division has been granted government sanction and recruiting has begun in earnest. All those farmers' sons and corner boys who are ignorant about the true state of affairs are bound to be dazzled by the flash of the bayonets and the guns. Soon they'll be so confused in their loyalties they'll forget what patriotism means and be whisked off in Flanagan's charabanc to die for a country that isn't their own.'

‘Gowry says joining the fight against the Germans is the only way of making sure the English keep their promises.'

‘Keep their promises to whom?' Fran said. ‘It's an impasse now and it'll be an impasse even when the war's over. Dying for England won't win us our freedom.'

‘How can you be sure?'