The 13th Apostle: A Novel of a Dublin Family, Michael Collins, and the Irish Uprising (64 page)

161

R
óisín didn’t go to Collins’s funeral because she was so distraught. When Eoin returned, he looked like he was going to collapse. “How did it go?” she asked.

Eoin laughed, his bitterness evident. “Like all Fenian funerals, it was a grand success. All had a grand time, excluding the corpse.”

“How did Kitty Kiernan hold up?” asked Róisín.

“I thought well, considering.”

“Considering what?”

“Well,” began Eoin, “Lady Lavery showed up from London dressed all in black—like she was the widow woman or something.”

“Jesus,” said Róisín, shaking her head.

“But there’s more!”

“Guess who else showed up draped in black?” Róisín had no idea. “Lady Deametrice!”

“Go ‘way!” said Róisín. She knew all about Collins’s “London Ladies,” because Eoin had told her the stories. “Did she bring her bosoms?”

Even Eoin, on this terrible day, had to smile. “Handsomely displayed under black mourning lace!”

“Some people have no shame,” said Róisín, and Eoin knew she was right on the money. “Were you a pallbearer?”

“Not even that,” replied Eoin. “They had me bodyguarding General Mulcahy and President Cosgrave. They’re all afraid they’re next.”

“I don’t blame them.”

“I did have a nice chat with Dick Mulcahy,” said Eoin, as he opened the tunic on his uniform. “He wants me to continue on in the same position, working for him now that he’s the Commander-in-Chief of the National Army.”

“Oh, God,” muttered Róisín.

“But I heard there’s a few jobs open in America, in New York. Diplomatic jobs.”

“I don’t care if it’s a charwoman’s job,” shot Róisín. “Anything to get out of this godforsaken country.”

“I put in for the job,” continued Eoin. “I think I can get it. And we can get the hell out of here.” Róisín rushed to him, giving him a big kiss and holding him closely, hoping for some relief from the terrible torment she was feeling. First Eoin took off his holster and his Sam Browne belt. Then he began peeling off his uniform. “This is the last time I’ll ever wear this fucking thing,” he swore.

“Let me help you,” she said, as she began unbuttoning his tunic. Then she undid his buckle, and his pants dropped to the floor. After the boots came the socks. Then she jerked his underwear down. She rubbed his flat belly and he began to stir. “I think I was just saluted!” said Róisín, and they both laughed.

After undressing Eoin, Róisín slowly began to peel her own clothes off, garment by garment. Soon she was nude as well. She took Eoin by the hand and led him to the bedroom.

Men and women grieve differently, and Róisín was wise enough to know the difference. For men, sexual release can calm and relieve. For women, touch and feel and the warmth of a body can help abate grief. What occurred for the next six hours satisfied them both—a savage, animalistic, relentless lovemaking session. Except for guttural sounds, they hardly spoke. The long lovemaking session went by as fast as a snap of the fingers. Near midnight, near exhaustion, they stopped.

“Chumley’s,” Róisín said, with a light laugh.

“Prohibition.”

“Baseball.”

“At the Polo Grounds.”

“Mister John J. McGraw.”

“Casey Stengel.”

“America.”

“New York City.”

“Are you ready?” asked Róisín.

“I am,” said Eoin, and he knew the two of them—and the child they had just conceived—had found their new home.

EPILOGUE
NOVEMBER 2006

 162

E
OIN’S
D
IARY
O
CTOBER
10, 2006

I
’ve lived too long. And, thank God, I’m coming to me end. The one thing I’ve learned is true in life is that, when you’re young, everything is pure. When you’re old, everything is rancid
.

My dear grandson and Diane, today is my 105th birthday, and I think God is still getting even. If He had any compassion, I would have died years ago, as my dear Róisín did. But He keeps me going. I think for penance. For my terrible work for Mick.

You know, when I was forty, they were already calling me “that old Irish rebel.” That was over sixty years ago. That’s not funny. When I was in my seventies, I used to wake in the morning and check to see if everything was working—my eyes, my knees, my old wrinkled willie. Now it even hurts to take a piss. I won’t mention the havoc that taking a shite entails.

So this is it, my final entry. I’ve tried to keep all the notebooks in their proper boxes. Now they’re your problem, Johnny, not mine.

I’ve outlived my lovely, feisty, impossible Róisín. She died in 1981 at 82, a good, solid age to die at. Of course, I have no sense, so a quarter of a century later, I’m still here, very alone. I’ve outlived my only son, Eoin, by over a half a century. He was conceived in grief, and we never took to each other. He was a walking reminder of my failure at
Béal na mBláth
. I know he felt it. Son, I’m sorry. I hope you and your mother are reunited somewhere in the great galaxy beyond, and maybe, someday, I’ll join you.

I outlived my entire family, except for you, Johnny. I buried Mary, Dickie, and Frank. I must say that I’m not a great one for wakes, but it felt good to look into the box and see Frank just lying there, his gob sealed shut—for once—and out of my fucking life forever. He made all his siblings suffer and, I think, took a twisted delight in doing it. Well, I’ve outlived the bastard by fifty years, and I’m proud of that fact, at least.

I’ve outlived my friend and mentor Vinny Byrne—but not by that much. In old age, Vinny became a television fixture and a Fenian celebrity. His stories about the shootings, even that one in Mount Street on Bloody Sunday, were stunning. The general reaction was: I can’t believe this lovely little gnome of a man was a cold-blooded killer! Shite, he was—and so was I.

Mick is loved by 99.9 percent of the Irish, not only here in Ireland, but worldwide. Of course, now there are the revisionists, as they call the guys who make up their own versions of history. I was amused by a recent article in the
Irish Independent
by this young shite of a columnist named Kevin Mayes or something—the latest member of the Conor Cruise O’Brien wing of the Royal Society of Irish Eunuchs—who wrote that the men of the Squad were “a bunch of serial killers.” Apparently, he was shocked that we had to shoot the British to make them leave Ireland. All I can say is, he’s lucky this old serial killer is short his Webley. And then there’s that Joyce fraud, the creampuff of a Senator, whatever his name is, who is now claiming Mick was gay—the Micheál Mac Liammóir of revolutionaries! It’s bad enough they won’t leave poor Roger Casement alone—now they’re after Mick. As we used to say in days gone by, yeah, Mick was a bugger, but he wasn’t that kind of bugger! And after seeing him in action with Kitty Kiernan and Lady Lavery, I think I can safely vouch for his heterosexuality. It’s all silly nonsense.

I’ve outlived Jack Lemass by thirty-five years. Of all the treacheries that de Valera did, I think keeping Jack from becoming
Taoiseach
for at least a decade was the most costly to Ireland. He was a talented executive with a vision and, I’m proud to say, my good friend. And a fellow conspirator on Bloody Sunday.

Now people want to have their picture taken with me when I travel into town to make an appearance at the
Dáil
, or when I venture into the Stag’s Head for that now-rare pint. People actually want to touch me. I’ve turned into a (barely) walking national monument. I’m reminded of de Valera working that crowd at the Gresham Hotel months before he died. But I don’t extend my hands like Dev did, doing his impression of the Blessed Virgin Mary standing on the globe, the serpent underfoot. Let them take their pictures. I was only a soldier doing my duty.

I’ve outlived Mick Collins by eighty-four years. Wherever Mick ended up—heaven, hell, purgatory—I want to join him there. If we burn, at least we burn together.

As I look back on my long life, I have to admit that everything I was told as a child was a lie. My religion was a lie—full of abuse directed at children and adults alike. History will look at the Catholic Church in the latter part of the twentieth century as nothing but a cadre of pedophiles in Roman collars, led and protected by sixteenth-century reactionaries in miters. I’ve decided that God—if there is a God—does not have a master plan but a recycling plan that consists of doing the same ould shite over and over again, century after century. Life on earth is basically God’s serial insanity. As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be: world without end. Amen. I will not be checking the reincarnation box when I get to the pearly gates and they hand me my application form.

My country—the country I helped to create—is also a lie. Born in hope and idealism, it has become the captive of greed—crooked politicians, bankers, and real estate developers—all deserving of Squad attention. Oh, the politicians—praising Patrick Pearse with one hand, and pocketing the cash with the other. The greed is given a fig-leaf by superb propaganda—the heralded “Celtic Tiger.” And the Irish, cynical bastards that they are, somehow bought it hook, line, and sinker. God help them, because they are about to pay.

I wonder if all the things I did for Michael Collins were worth it? Would we have fared any worse under the English? Did I sell my soul to a false prophet? For a false idea? Maybe, but I make no apologies.

So this is it, Johnny Three. I’ll be gone very soon, and this is your big surprise. See what you can do with it. You’re a lucky man, surrounded by the beautiful Diane and those wonderful girls of yours, Róisín, Aoife, and Aisling, all beauties with great Irish mugs and matching names. May they live in interesting times—but they’ll be hard-pressed to outdo their great-grandfather.

And, as Mick might have said, “That’s that!”

I love you all.

Slán agat!

Granddad

163

S
ix weeks after Eoin’s funeral, it was time to go home to New York for Thanksgiving.

Johnny walked across the room and laid a kiss on his wife’s forehead. “I’m going out to Glasnevin tomorrow. I want to see the old man one more time before we go home. Would you like to come along?”

“I wouldn’t miss it.”

The next day they took the DART into Tara Street and then walked over to Westmoreland Street to catch the bus to Glasnevin. When they got to the front gate of the cemetery, Johnny stopped and bought three red roses from a vendor. “How’s business?” he asked, as he received his change.

“Steady,” said the woman, and the three of them shared a laugh.

Johnny took Diane by the hand and walked through the front gate and then straight ahead to the new graves of some long-dead Fenians. “There’s Sir Roger,” he said, pointing out the tiny headstone of Roger Casement. “It only took the British forty-nine years to return his bones. There’s even a rumor that they aren’t Sir Roger’s bones. Could be that wife-murderer, Dr. Crippen. Both were buried in the same prison yard in England. Hard to tell after fifty years. No DNA then.”

“A wife-murderer?”

“Yeah,” said Johnny, “I thought they were a bit heavy with the death sentence for poor Crippen.” Diane gave him a playful punch in the arm. “Look, here’s Kevin Barry. Finally dug him up out of the yard at Mountjoy and planted him here where he belongs.” Barry was buried next to other young rebels who had been executed in Mountjoy Prison as pawns in the time leading up to the time of the Truce in July 1921. Johnny read the names aloud: “Thomas Whelan. Patrick Moran. Patrick Doyle. Bernard Ryan. Thomas Bryan. Frank Flood.”

“My God,” said Diane, “those were the young fellows Eoin challenged Collins about.”

“Yes, Grandpa’s ‘This is fucking insanity’ moment. I feel particularly bad about Whelan, because he was accused of doing the job that Grandpa and Vinny Byrne did.”

“It’s so sad,” said Diane, beginning to tear up. Johnny took Diane by the hand and walked her around Dan O’Connell’s tall monument. They settled into the well-named Republican Plot, where many great Fenians were buried. Johnny pointed out Jeremiah O’Donovan Rossa, only four graves away from John Devoy, Collins’s great friend in New York City. “There’s Cathal Brugha!” said Diane. “Apparently
anyone
can get in here!”

“Here are the Countess Markievicz and Nurse Elizabeth O’Farrell, who Eoin met in Moore Street at the time of the surrender.” Johnny pointed to the ground and a tiny headstone. “Harry Boland,” he said.

“Poor, poor Harry,” said Diane, thinking of a lost love and a lost life.

“Do you want to see de Valera’s grave?”

“No!” said Diane. “Definitely not.”

“Well,” said Johnny, “you’re going to see it. There’s something special about it. But before we visit Dev,” said Johnny, “let’s say hello to Róisín and my daddy. They’re right over here.” The marker contained only two names:

“They seem comfortable together,” said Diane.

“I know Róisín is,” replied Johnny. “I just hope my poor father found peace once he got off this planet.” Johnny felt tears coming on, and he put his hand to his eyes, covering them. “Oh, Róisín, you were such a great grandmother. No, you were really my mother.” Then he started reciting:

“Thee have I loved, for thee have roved
O’er land and sea;
My heart was sore, and ever more
It beat for thee;
I could not weep, I could not sleep,
I could not move!
For night or day, I dreamed always
Of Róisín Dubh!”

“That’s lovely,” said Diane.

“‘The Dark Róisín.’ James Clarence Mangan, from the Gaelic,” Johnny explained. He quietly placed a rose on the grave. “A rose for Róisín and her only son, Eoin, my daddy,” he said. He turned to his wife. “‘When you name a child,’ the old man once told me, ‘you should always think how that name will look on a tombstone.’ The old man was appalled that someone would name their child ‘Treat’ or some such name. ‘What’s his twin named?’ he would say, ‘Trick?’ It’s a very Irish sentiment.”

“It’s a very Catholic sentiment,” corrected Diane.

They walked the short distance and stood before the simple marker of Eamon and Sinéad de Valera, and other members of the de Valera family.

“So?” said Diane.

“What do you see?”

“Nothing.”

“Yeah, it’s the most naked grave in the cemetery,” said Johnny. “They all voted for him, but no one really loved him. And now it shows.”

With that, he led her down the short path connecting de Valera’s grave to Collins’s. Unlike de Valera’s, Collins’s grave overflowed with colorful flowers and notes of thanks that had been left by admirers, brightening the bleak November morning. There was no mourning at the grave of Michael Collins, just a celebration of his extraordinary life.

“Well,” said Johnny, a bit choked up.

“It’s beautiful,” replied Diane. “The people absolutely love this man. Even all these years later.”

Johnny added his own rose to the flowers. Eoin Kavanagh was just to the south of General Collins, buried among Irish soldiers who had been killed in the Congo on a UN mission in the 1960s. The inscription was simple, just as the old man had wished:

E
OIN
C
HAOMBÁNACH
, IRB, 1901–2006

“It’s in Irish,” said Diane.

“That’s the way he wanted it. Didn’t even mention he was a Commandant-Colonel or a TD.” Quietly, Johnny placed the last rose in front of the marker and blessed himself.

It was so quiet now, unlike the day of the burial. Then the grave was surrounded by the politicians of Ireland. The
Taoiseach
had to be there, but there was a lack of other
Taoisigh
because so many of them had disagreements with Eoin, especially on the North. The only other former
Taoiseach
to show up was Albert Reynolds, who had had a close relationship with Eoin, and who was responsible for setting the foundation for the Good Friday Agreement.

The graveside that October day had been surrounded by the Irish president, Mrs. McAleese, Gerry Adams, Eoin’s friend from the North, and the American Ambassador, a grumpy, rich old Republican who worried that there might be some kind of gunplay, and he might get shot by mistake. Former U.S. Ambassador Jean Kennedy Smith was there, but Teddy Kennedy was a late scratch. The twenty-one-gun salute was followed first by the Star-Spangled Banner, and then by
Amhrán na bhFiann
, “The Soldier’s Song,” the national anthem of Ireland. It was over in fifteen minutes.

Johnny took out his grandfather’s pocketwatch—which he now carried with him at all times—and flipped the lid open. “Lunchtime,” he said. “Let’s get out of the cold and find a drink.” They walked past the Angels Plot, where all the unnamed babies were buried, and exited through the south gate, which was right next to John Kavanagh’s, “the Gravediggers Pub.”

“My God,” said Diane, “this place is great.”

“And appropriately named!” added Johnny. Kavanagh’s was an old spirit-grocer and public house. Behind the bar they had spice boxes, jugs, and glass cabinets. The pub was painted a permanent nicotine brown. “I haven’t been here in more than thirty years,” said Johnny, “when grandmother died. In those days, you had to piss on the back wall.” Diane looked concerned. “I bet they’ve installed plumbing since.” The barman approached, and Johnny said, “Two pints of Guinness, please.” The jars were pulled in proper time, and the two of them clinked their glasses together.

“To the memory of the great old Fenian, Eoin Kavanagh,” said Johnny.

“To Grandpa, God bless him,” replied Diane. She took a gulp and licked her stout mustache with her tongue.

“Watch that,” said Johnny. “I can think of a better use for that thing.”

“What thing?”

“Your tongue.”

“You Kavanagh men are incorrigible! You really are. Sex, sex, sex. That’s all you think of.”

“Hey,” protested Eoin, “I have the work of two to do now—myself
and
Grandpa!” He then gave her a gentle pat on her bountiful booty, eliciting first a smile and then a peck on the cheek.

“What’s the thing that impressed you most about Collins?” asked Johnny.

“His compassion at the end,” said Diane. “Not only to his friends, like President Griffith, but also to his opponents. Like Brugha and Harry Boland.”

“He wasn’t your typical Irishman,” agreed Johnny. “He wasn’t vindictive. He may be the only Irishman who didn’t hold a grudge.”

“Yes,” said Diane, “the Irish and their never-ending grudges.”

“Darling,” said Johnny, “love may make the world go around, but hate gives you a reason for living!”

“Do you think you can make something out of Grandpa’s diaries?”

“I think I can make it into a book,” said Johnny. “Set it in historical perspective and add some clarifying text, and I think it will make a fine book.” He again took out the pocketwatch, which he was beginning to think might actually contain parts of the souls of Eoin and Collins.

“What will you call it?”

Johnny thought for a moment, as he slowly massaged the watch between the palms of his two hands, like a pitcher rubbing a baseball. “
The 13th Apostle
,” he finally said.