Songs of Love and War (52 page)

‘Before they sell it, let’s go and spend one last summer there!’ Celia suggested excitedly. ‘Oh, do let’s! It’ll be such a hoot. We can rummage around the
rubble. Goodness knows what we might find. We can stay with Kitty. Do you have to bring your wives? Can’t you say it’s a family-only affair and they must remain at home? Can’t you
hurry up and get them pregnant? I simply couldn’t stomach them all summer!’

Harry looked at Boysie through the veil of smoke. ‘What do you say, old boy?’

Boysie shrugged. ‘It’s certainly possible.’ The waiter came and filled their glasses with wine. ‘Could
you
leave Archie behind?’

‘Of course I can,’ Celia answered without hesitation. ‘He disappears to Scotland from the 12th of August to shoot, stalk and fish and goodness knows what else. You both know
how I feel about Scotland. I can leave him to his pleasure and I can take mine. Oh, do let’s. Harry, you can tell Charlotte that you have to go home to discuss family matters which
don’t concern her. Boysie, you can tell Deirdre anything you like so long as you come on your own. You’re ingenious – you’ll think of something.’

The three of them raised their glasses. ‘To our last summer,’ they said.

Celia was forced to send Kitty a letter for there was yet to be a telephone line installed in Dunderry Castle. After that moment at the fair Kitty had not left the house for
fear of seeing Michael Doyle again. She had lied to Robert about her sudden ‘turn’, explaining it away as an unexpected bout of claustrophobia. He had taken her home and returned later
with Peter, who knew more about horses than he did, and chosen a fine grey mare which had delighted Kitty, not least because it meant she didn’t have to return to Ballinakelly.

When she received the letter from Celia her spirits lifted with excitement. She hurried into the nursery where Elspeth was playing with the children and announced that Celia, Harry and Boysie
were coming to stay in August. ‘I can hardly wait!’ she exclaimed happily. ‘To think, we can all be together again. Just like old times.’

‘Except there’s no castle,’ said Elspeth sadly.

‘It doesn’t matter. We’ll all be together.’ She thought of Bridie suddenly and her heart gave a little wince. ‘Well,
almost
all. It doesn’t matter,
we’ll have Celia and Harry and Boysie’s such fun. We can picnic on the beach, paddle in the water, ride out over the hills and do all the things we used to do.’ She sat down on
the floor and drew little Jack into her arms. He was busy playing with a toy engine. ‘I must show Jack how to find nature spirits.’ She kissed his fat cheek. ‘I wonder whether he
has the gift.’

Elspeth rolled her eyes. ‘You and your fanciful imagination,’ she said. But Kitty raked her fingers through the little boy’s red hair and wondered.

By the middle of March the White House was ready. Kitty moved in with Robert and little Jack and set about making it into a home. She left her dresses in the cupboard and spent most of the time
in a pair of slacks with her sleeves rolled up, digging up the garden and planting seeds for vegetables and flowers. Her uncle Rupert had employed labourers, who had created and maintained
beautiful gardens overlooking the sea, but Robert didn’t have the money to waste on unnecessary pleasures, so Kitty was forced to do it all herself. But she enjoyed getting her hands dirty
and watching little Jack scouring the overturned earth for worms and snails. The two of them spent many hours watching the birds that came to nest in the hawthorn bushes and the rabbits that
nibbled at the little green shoots just as soon as they came up. Jack especially loved the flowers and Kitty wondered whether he could see the little dancing lights that hovered around them. She
couldn’t tell whether he sensed those happy spirits or whether it was the bees and butterflies that grabbed his attention.

Although Kitty was busy creating a home she could love, her thoughts were never far from Jack O’Leary. His face swam to the front of her mind in both memories and fantasies and instead of
fighting them she let them come. It was impossible for her to be in Ireland without Jack being part of her world. Jack was Ireland and Ireland was Jack and the one was incomplete without the other.
It was no use trying to restrain her feelings because she loved him in the same way she loved the soft rain, the craggy hills, the white sands and tempestuous sea: with her whole being.

Seeing Michael Doyle had opened a chamber in her memory that she had long ago sealed and now he too surfaced with his threatening face and ominous presence when she lost control of her thoughts.
She had been struck by the murky aura that had surrounded him at the fair, as if he were an evil spirit trapped in a limbo like Egerton Deverill. But she sensed he was still very much alive and the
thought of seeing him again struck her heart with fear. She wished she could overcome her terror. She’d overcome so much already. But Miss Grieve’s unpleasantness was nothing compared
with the violence of that morning at the farmhouse. He still lived in Ballinakelly and that marred the joy of her homecoming.

It wasn’t long, however, before her fears began to materialize. At first she thought she was seeing things, shadows and plays of light in the distant shrubbery that made her feel Michael
was there, watching her. She retreated inside the house then peered like a spy from behind the curtain at her bedroom window. At night she lay in bed believing the wind rattling the glass was
Michael climbing up the wall to steal in through the window and rape her all over again. She took to sleeping with Robert every night, curling up against him, which was the only place she really
felt safe. When she gardened she asked Hetty to stay outside with her and, when the girl went inside to give little Jack his lunch, she dug with sweat on her brow and her heart thumping in her
chest, keeping her eyes on the ground, telling herself she was just being silly: Michael wouldn’t dare to come here.

But Michael
did
dare. He strode up to the door one morning and rang the bell. Kitty hid and told Bridgeman to send him away. If he had the audacity to come to her door, what might he do
next? In a fever of panic she sent the stable boy into Ballinakelly with a note for Jack. He must come to the house at once on the pretence of attending a lame horse. She needed his help and she
needed it
now.

Kitty waited, pacing the garden impatiently, wringing her hands. At last Jack’s small car trundled up the drive. She ran across the lawn to meet him. He climbed out and took off his cap.
‘Good day to you, Mrs Trench,’ he said, sliding his eyes to the house to see if they were being watched.

‘Thank you for coming, Mr O’Leary. The mare is in the stables. Let me walk with you.’ Kitty shoved her hands into her pockets where they trembled out of sight.
‘Isn’t it fine today,’ she said lamely.

‘It’s just grand,’ he replied.

They walked round to the stables where the boy who had cycled into Ballinakelly with the letter was now sweeping. ‘Seamus, would you do me the favour of emptying my wheelbarrow? It’s
in the garden, full of weeds. It can all go on the bonfire in the field. I’ll show Mr O’Leary my mare.’ The boy nodded, leaned his brush against the wall and hurried off.

Kitty opened the stable door and they stepped inside to where Kitty’s grey mare stood on a bed of straw, in rude health. Jack patted its neck and looked down at Kitty. ‘So,
what’s the urgency?’

‘It’s Michael. He’s after me,’ she hissed, putting her hand on her chest to quieten her heart. ‘I’m afraid, Jack.’

‘What have you got to be afraid of Michael for?’ he asked, frowning.

‘He burned the castle, Jack.’

Jack nodded, not surprised. ‘I suspected as much.’

‘He burned the castle and he set a trap so the British would catch you red-handed.’

At this, Jack stopped patting the horse. ‘What are you saying, Kitty?’

‘I’m telling you the truth.’

‘How do you know?’

‘He told me himself.’

‘When?’

‘When I rode over to the farmhouse the morning after the fire. I knew it was him. I went to confront him.’

‘And he told you he’d betrayed me?’

‘Yes. He told me he burned the castle and betrayed you.’

‘Why would he do that now? We were fighting on the same side.’

‘Because of
me
.’ Her eyes glittered in the dark stable. ‘He didn’t want you to have me.’ The horse gave an impatient snort and nudged Jack for some
attention. He put a hand on its muzzle absent-mindedly. ‘I would have told you, but you were arrested and then when we finally saw each other I didn’t know where to start.’

‘Well, you can start now.’ His voice was hard. He looked at Kitty steadily. ‘From the beginning.’

Kitty took a deep breath. ‘Bridie is little Jack’s mother.’

Jack reeled. ‘Jaysus!’

‘My father took her.’ She swallowed. ‘Michael claims he raped her.’ She shook her head vigorously. ‘But I can’t believe that. I
won’t
believe it.
I don’t believe my father is capable of that sort of . . .
violence
.’ She hit the word hard and rubbed her neck. ‘So Michael burned the castle in revenge.’

‘Jaysus!’ he said again. ‘How did you come by the child?’

‘Bridie must have sent him to me somehow before she left for America. That’s why my father won’t let me come home, because Jack is his and he’s too ashamed to look at
him.’ She took a deep breath, recalling the morning at the Doyles’ farmhouse. ‘Michael told me that while the RIC were all distracted up at the castle, you were stealing guns and
taking them to a safe house. But he made it very clear he didn’t intend for you to get there.’

Jack pulled Kitty into his arms and held her fercely. ‘Michael didn’t betray me because I was in love with a Prod, but because he wanted you for himself. The bloody
bastard!’

‘He’s been watching me, Jack. I’m frightened he’s going to hurt me.’

‘I won’t let him hurt you, Kitty.’ She closed her eyes, squeezing out a tear. How she longed to tell him that he already had.

Jack waited in a ditch for Michael Doyle. The sky was bright with stars but thick clouds gathered above the ocean, moving swiftly inland on an ill wind. He had fortified
himself with whiskey and sufficiently blunted the edge of his anger so that he was no longer crazed and irrational. His heart was a stone in his chest. Because of Michael Doyle he had been locked
away by the British. Because of Michael Doyle his dream of starting a new life in America with Kitty had been shattered. Because of Michael Doyle the girl he loved had been forced to leave her home
and move to London where he couldn’t find her. The rage now simmered quietly in his gut as he waited for Michael Doyle.

The eerie hooting of an owl was carried on the breeze from the distant woods where the shriek of the Banshee came loud and often these days. The sea was a constant hiss as it crashed against the
rocks in great swells. Cows slept in spite of the wind and occasionally lowed. Jack heard the rustle of a small animal in the heather and then the sound of footsteps on the track as Michael slowly
made his way home from the pub.

It was a lonely road, that road from Ballinakelly to the Doyle farmhouse. It wound through the rocky hills, meandering softly like a stream, benign in the moonlight. The footsteps grew louder,
scrunching on the grit and stones. At last the black, burly figure of a man came into view, silhouetted against the charcoal sky. Jack got to his feet and walked into the middle of the road.
Michael flinched. He had too much of a history of ambushes not to be alarmed.

‘Jack O’Leary,’ he said and his voice betrayed his relief and the fact that he was drunk. ‘I thought you were a hoor of a garda! What are you doing here?’

‘I’ve come to see
you
.’

Michael swayed like a ship’s mast. ‘To what do I owe the pleasure?’ He slurred his words as if they were too big for his tongue. The two men faced each other – two men
who had once fought side by side as brothers.

‘Did you or did you not burn down Castle Deverill?’ Jack’s eyes glinted like steel as the wind tore a fleeting hole in the clouds, allowing the moon to shine down like a
light.

‘What if I did? That castle was a symbol of British supremacy. You know that. It had to go.’ He laughed wildly. ‘Is that why you’ve waited all night in the ditch to see
me, Jack O’Leary?’

‘You didn’t do it because it was British. You did it to avenge your sister. Don’t lie to me, Michael!’ Michael grimaced but said nothing. ‘You set a trap for me,
didn’t you? You wanted me out of the way!’

‘Who the devil have you been speaking to? Get your facts right, O’Leary! Why would I want to lose a good man?’ He blinked hard, trying to remain focused.

‘Because I had the woman you couldn’t have!’

‘You think I’d send you to your death over a woman! Jaysus, you had too much time to think inside!’

‘I didn’t think enough! I never thought you’d rat on one of your own!’

‘You’ve been listening to women’s gossip,’ he snarled.

As Michael’s lip curled Jack realized just how naive he’d been. ‘You told the Tans I’d be at the railway station, didn’t you?’ he said, the full truth
exploding in a blast of clarity. ‘That’s why you walked free when I was put away! A warrant was out for
both
our arrests, but
you
walked free. You bastard! I should have
worked it out, but I never thought you’d stoop so low.’

‘You’ve lost your mind, Jack. Go home and get some rest!’ Michael began to walk again, but Jack stood in his way.

‘What are you doing sniffing around Kitty Deverill’s place? What business do you have to be there?’ he demanded.

‘What business is it of yours to ask?’

‘I’m asking now.’

‘She has my nephew or didn’t you know?’

‘You leave that boy alone.’

Michael grinned, his teeth white against his inky face. ‘Has she sent you out like a hound to warn me off?’

‘You’ll not lay a finger on her or her boy. Do you hear?’ Jack raised his voice against the wind. ‘You’ll leave them both alone.’

‘When did you become so soft? The fight’s not over. But you sold out, didn’t you, Jack O’Leary! There was a time you burned for a free and independent Ireland, and yet
now you want to settle down by the hearth with that whore—’ Jack’s fist hit him before he could finish his sentence. Michael recoiled, putting his fingers to his face and tasting
the blood on his tongue. ‘Jaysus! What’s got into you?’