Shamrock green, p.5
Shamrock Green, page 5
‘Home rule, without partition, is what I mean.’
‘I see,’ said Gowry. ‘Are you willin’ to pay for freedom with your life?’
‘If necessary, yes.’
Charlie jerked his hands from his pockets and waved them about. Any moment now he would pepper the night air with clichés that Gowry had heard a thousand times before.
‘I threw them into the sea.’
‘You did what?’ Charlie shouted.
‘Off the cliffs, into the sea.’
‘Ow, ow, Jaysus, Jaysus!’ Charlie hopped like a flea on a griddle. ‘What’ve you done, Gowry? Jaysus, what have you done?’
Gowry laughed. ‘No, I didn’t throw them into the sea.’
‘You pig, you bastard!’
‘They’re hidden where nobody will find them.’
Charlie had always been a bad-tempered tyke and lacked a sense of humour.
‘Tell me then, tell me now or I’ll send Turk to—’
‘When the time comes, Charlie, when the time comes.’
‘The time’s now.’
‘The time is not now,’ said Gowry. ‘My God, man! We could all be at war with Germany before we’re much older.’
‘You’re a damned Tory swine, Gowry. You always were. Tell me where you’ve hidden those guns or—’
‘Or what?’
‘I won’t be able to answer for your safety.’
Gowry said, ‘Is it a threat I’m hearing now?’
‘It’ll be more than threat if Turk has his way.’
‘This is not the time to go baiting the British government.’
‘You know nothing about what’s going on behind the scenes.’
‘Do I not? Well, this I do know: there will never be enough compromises to satisfy you. Dear God, Charlie, don’t you ever get tired of bargaining for more and more concessions?’ Gowry said. ‘To hell with politics. I’m going home.’
‘All right,’ Charlie said. ‘How much?’
‘How much for what?’
‘How much will it cost for you to tell me where those guns are hidden?’
Surprised, Gowry said, ‘I’m not in the business of selling weapons, Charlie. I removed the guns from the Shamrock because I don’t want you or the old man doing something you’ll regret afterwards.’
‘There’ll be no regrets,’ said Charlie. ‘We’re not all cowards.’
‘Aye, you’ve called me that often enough,’ said Gowry. ‘Look, I’ve told you a thousand times, I’m tempted to support you with my heart but I can never support you with my head.’
‘Just tell me where the guns are, Gowry?’
‘The guns are safe. They’ll stay hidden until you give me a valid reason for handing them back.’
‘Is that your final word?’
‘That’s my final word.’
Gowry started off towards the kiosk.
In the window of the box Roddeny’s big round face was buttery in the overhead light. Roddeny was a Sinn Feiner and his dislike of Protestants legendary. There was never a cheery goodnight from Frank Roddeny for Gowry. Charlie, however, would linger and blow off steam to Roddeny before he left and tomorrow it would be all over Flanagan’s that he, Gowry McCulloch, had come out in his true colours at last.
‘He said this is what you’d do,’ Charlie called out.
Gowry stopped, turned. ‘Who did? Dada?’
‘Never you mind who,’ Charlie said. ‘He’s got your measure, Gowry, and he says for to tell you there are plenty other ways to skin a cat.’
‘I don’t know what you’re blathering about, Charlie.’
‘You’ll find out soon enough,’ Charlie said. ‘You’ll live to rue the day you ever crossed the brotherhoods.’
‘I doubt it,’ Gowry said, grinning.
Then he turned in his keys and logbook and went home.
* * *
On that first afternoon they had done nothing but kiss. There had been no intrusive tongue, no roving hands. He had seated her on the end of the bed and had leaned forward and kissed her on the lips. His lips, though tasting of whiskey, were dry. He had kissed her three times, letting the last one carry the message of his intentions, so that when she came again she would know what to expect.
She was trembling when she climbed the spiral staircase for a second time. She knew that he had put the onus on to her and had already transferred any guilt that might accrue, even, she thought, the manner in which she would yield to him, the speed, the tempo at which she would plunge into an affair that would probably end in tears.
The door was ajar.
She could hear the clash of the keys of the typewriting machine, a furious noise, like a factory loom. When she pushed the door open and said, ‘It’s me,’ he stopped typing. He lifted his hands from the keys and held them high the way the concert pianist at the Tivoli did when he finished a difficult piece.
Fran didn’t look at her. He continued to stare down at the paper that curled over the bar-lock, smiling to himself, though whether the smile was for her or at what he had written Sylvie had no way of telling.
She took off her bonnet and cape.
They were pearled with the rain that had come sweeping in over the hills that early morning and that fell steadily now, sifting down upon the city. The room smelled differently in the rain, not dank but musty.
‘What are you doing?’ she said.
‘Waiting for you.’
He took a cigarette from an ashtray and inhaled smoke. He lifted a glass and finished the whiskey in it.
‘You look lovely,’ he said.
‘Thank you,’ Sylvie said.
The paper curled over the bar-lock was covered in dense paragraphs. There were other papers on the table, thin sheaves tabbed with steel paperclips. The whiskey bottle had hardly been touched. Fran wore a collarless shirt, sleeves folded back and crimped with broad rubber bands. The bandage on his left hand was grubby and a little frayed.
‘Is it raining still? Are you wet?’
‘I am,’ she said. ‘My hair.’
‘Ah, the rain has a lot to answer for,’ Fran said.
She seated herself on the end of the bed.
She watched him open a small cupboard under the cabinet. He moved briskly as if the act of typewriting had restored lost energy. He brought out a towel, thick-pelted and spotless. He opened it across his hands and offered it to her.
‘You do it,’ she said.
‘May I?’
‘Yes.’
Many men had tried to woo her into bed. The commercials were forever at it, especially when they had the drink on them. They would croon to her, make goo-goo eyes, beg her to go upstairs with them. Some were fine-looking men, handsome in a shabby way, others big, red-faced and vigorous. She had laughed them all away. She was not unsatisfied with Gowry.
In the hope of making another child he had kept her going, beating away on her with metronomic regularity. Gowry was a silent lover and not as ardent as Forbes had been. When Gowry was inside her she seldom got carried away. With Gowry there were no surprises, only the same monotonous little signals that would end with him upon her – and hardly a kiss now, hardly even a kiss.
She shivered when Fran touched her.
He brushed the towel across the fine hair at the nape of her neck. She could feel his fingers through the nap of the towel, touching her as lightly as a mayfly lands on water. He moved behind her and knelt on the bed. She could feel the springs yielding, hear their pliant little plaint. He slid the point of the towel downward under the collar of her blouse.
She shivered again and said, ‘Yes.’
He uncoupled the hook from the eyelet and, flattening his fingers, traced the line of her bare shoulders. He pressed against her, chest, thighs, his chin touching her curls. ‘I hear the detectives came to see you yesterday?’
‘Yes.’
‘One with a grey moustache?’
‘Yes.’
‘Vaizey: he’s the boss.’
‘They found nothing.’
‘I didn’t expect them to,’ Fran said.
‘Someone told them there were guns in my house.’
‘Ah, that’s how it is these days. Nobody’s safe from wagging tongues.’
‘Was it you?’
‘Me?’ He was amused, not offended. ‘Why would it be me?’
‘To bring me back. To frighten me.’
‘Are you frightened?’
‘No.’
‘Were you frightened when Vaizey turned up?’
‘No.’
‘Where did your husband take the rifles?’
‘He won’t tell me. He won’t tell anyone.’
‘I expect he won’t,’ said Fran Hagarty. ‘He has his reasons, no doubt.’
She felt his fingers work the row of four small buttons that dropped below the stitching of the collar. She wore only a summer camisole beneath the blouse. He opened the back of the blouse and touched her again, his thumbs pressing her spine.
‘Is your wound healing?’ Sylvie asked.
‘I haven’t looked.’
‘I will look later.’
‘Aye,’ he said.
‘I’ll change the dressing.’
‘Please.’
‘Later.’
‘Yes, later will do.’
He slid the blouse from her shoulders. He slipped one hand beneath the camisole and caressed her breasts. She had small, sensitive breasts and felt them stiffen as he continued his expert fondling. She lay back against him, head on his chest, and his fingers found her, nimble fingers that sparked sensations as dazzling as the charges of current that crossed the wires above the tramway lines.
She reached back with her arm and brought him down, his mouth upon her mouth, his tongue touching hers. He pressed his lips together, formed a small, moist bud from his tongue and rubbed it against her lips. He pulled her back along the length of the bed and pushed her arms out by her sides, then, pinning her in that position, kissed her openly again, and again.
‘I won’t hurt you,’ he murmured. ‘I promise I won’t hurt you.’
‘Please,’ she said. ‘Please don’t.’
But somehow she knew that he would.
Chapter Four
Complacency might have set in earlier if it hadn’t been for the war, the war and the character of her lover, Fran Hagarty, who was too complex and inconsistent to permit her to take her pleasures lightly. He was a writer by profession but trailed behind him – much as she did – a chequered history of foolishness in dealing with the more obvious aspects of reality.
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.’
