1949 (12 page)

The parlor filled with evening shadows. Getting to his feet, Ned paced the room, pausing from time to time to glance out the window.

“What's wrong with you at all?” Norah asked him.

“I don't like to sit still. Is Frank not back yet?”

“I didn't hear him come in.”

Ned continued pacing. Ursula followed him with her eyes.

The newlyweds were to spend their wedding night in the Halloran house. Norah had cleaned and aired the large front bedroom. Her best red-and-white quilt was on the bed. Although Eileen postponed the moment as long as she could, the couple retired early. When they had gone upstairs the parlor filled with an embarrassed silence. Words sank like stones into a bottomless pool.

As soon as Frank came in, Norah prepared the house for the night. She put the few remaining scraps of food into a bucket for the pigs, tidied up the kitchen, banked the fires. A small lantern was placed beside the kitchen door to light the way to the outdoor privy, the earth closet, in its shed. The family took turns making the short journey.

When Ursula's turn came she placed the lantern on the small shelf beside the wooden seat before she sat down. The familiar pungent odor of the privy enveloped her. Wavering lantern light danced on the rough plank walls. This too was familiar. She recalled the way she used to create shadow plays to amuse herself.

The splintery wood divided one large shadow into two separate figures. Lifting the lantern, Ursula manipulated the light until the two halves came together again. Suddenly they reminded her of animals mating.

A lance of heat ran up her spine.

 

Frank Halloran was waiting at the kitchen door to take the lantern from her hand. He did not meet her eyes.

When she heard Ned enter the bedroom next to hers, Ursula slipped out of bed. Her bare feet remembered the strip of Turkey carpet on the floor. Nose and toes and fingertips, the farm was imprinted upon her. Her place and not her place. She had no place as she had no father.

She knocked on the wall. “Papa? It's me. May I talk with you a while?”

There was no reply.

She filled her stoneware washbasin with water from the matching pitcher and scrubbed her face. The water was bitterly cold.
I should have thought to bring up heated water from the kitchen
. She recalled winter mornings when she had broken the ice in her washbasin with the handle of her hairbrush.

Climbing into bed, Ursula snuggled under the covers. After a while she realized she was listening for Ned's voice, for his agonizing one-sided dialogue with Síle.

Ursula went to the wall and knocked again. “Papa?”

A flurry of small, unidentifiable sounds was followed by silence. Then Ned called, “Come in if you wish.”

He met her at his door. He was still dressed, though Norah had left a fresh flannel nightshirt on his bed. “Are you not sleepy?” he asked.

“Not yet. There are so many things I wanted to ask you, but I didn't think you wanted to talk in front of the others.”

“I don't, Ursula.”

Ursula. Not Precious anymore
.

“Did you get any of my letters? I used to write to you every week, from Dublin, from Switzerland…I wrote to you when I went to work at the broadcasting station…”

He went to the locker beside his bed and opened a drawer. “I kept your letters here.”

The drawer, she noticed, was now empty. “You read them?”

“Of course.”

“But you didn't answer them.”

“I didn't answer them.”

Why not? Oh Papa, why not?
Part of her wanted to scrape the scab off the wound; clear her conscience by assigning all blame for their quarrel to him; vilify him for what he had done to Saoirse. But that would break the thread reconnecting them. Tenuous cobweb connection composed of loving memories rather than blood.

“I'm sorry, Papa,” she said. She hoped he would reply in kind, but Ned Halloran had always been stubborn.

Someone has to give and I can do it
. “I'm so sorry,” Ursula reiterated. “Please say you forgive me.”

The skin around his eyes tightened until he—almost—smiled. “If you carry a lamb long enough it becomes a sheep. I don't want to carry a sheep on my aching back for the rest of my life.”

Ursula gave a relieved laugh. “Then will you forgive Henry too?”

The shutters closed in Ned's face. “That's different.”

She shied away from the subject. “I noticed you were reluctant to talk with the Mulvaneys.”

“Never tell people more than they need to know, that's a rule of the IRA. Eileen's in-laws don't need any information about me.”

“Do I?”

“It would be safer if you had none. I don't want you involved with that anymore.”

“Will you at least tell me if you were in the north?”

“I was of course. I was needed there.”

“Is it very terrible? We hardly get any news from across the border.”

“The government doesn't want you to know,” Ned replied. “It's an Irish solution for an Irish problem: ignore it and it will go away. Cosgrave and company think that's the only way to maintain peace with Britain.” His lips curled in a contemptuous sneer. “Peace. With Britain. Translate that as ‘keep knuckling the forelock and bending the knee and perhaps they'll let us keep our poor fractured country, as much of it as we have by His Majesty's grace and favor!'

“I'll give you an example of what life is like in the north, Ursula. The first Christmas I spent there, myself and another Volunteer stayed in a Republican safe house in Belfast. A shabby tenement, as bad as anything you'd see in the slums of Dublin. That's all that's available for Catholics up there.

“Our host's old father and mother came up from the country for the holidays; all of us crammed together in the one small house. The family had not eaten turkey in years; the younger children had never tasted one. Their father had been out of work for five years. A fine, decent, able-bodied man, but no one would hire him because he was Catholic. His family had a feast that Christmas, though. I liberated a strutting big tom turkey from a poultry yard in a Protestant neighborhood and we polished that bird's bones.

“It was a treat to see the faces around the table. Smiling, laughing even. Grease on their chins and eyes full of stars. After the children had been put to bed the adults had a little celebration of their own. When country people come up to Belfast to visit their relatives, they like to play cards and drink whiskey and speak Irish. Irish is still spoken in the north, to some extent. But not for much longer.”

“Why?”

“Because at any moment, day or night, the door may crash open and a loyalist gang comes in shouting and roaring, breaking up the furniture.” Ned's voice sank deep in his chest and one eyelid twitched. “If they catch anyone speaking Irish they beat them to death.”

Intuition warned Ursula what was coming.

“That Christmas night,” said Ned, “fifteen men broke into the safe house. My guard was down, I admit it, so what happened was my fault. But I'll never let my guard down again. They battered us with clubs and rifles until no one had enough strength left to fight back, then they tore the place apart. They left one old woman and three men dead. The bastards thought I was dead too, but I'm hard to kill. They practically tore my ear off with a blow from a rifle butt, though. I'm deaf on that side now.”

Ursula felt sick to her stomach. “What did the police do about it?”

Ned gave a bark of harsh laughter. “The Royal Ulster Constabulary? There was no point in sending for them, not for a Catholic family. They might arrive a day or two later and have a look, but in the finish-up, nothing would be done and no charges filed.”

“Are there no Catholics in the police force up there?”

“A few, but they do as they're told. The RUC belongs body and soul to the loyalists. It's their private army. All our people have is the IRA: me and those like me. I memorized the faces of the men who murdered my friends that night. We've taken out two of them already and we'll get the others. Sooner or later.”

His voice was ice. His eyes were ice. “Is Mulvaney responsible for Eileen's trouble?” he asked abruptly. “Or was it someone else?”

He would kill the man without thinking twice!
Ursula realized. “I don't know, Papa. Surely you wouldn't…I mean, Lucas is her husband now, and…”

“He'd best be good to her then,” Ned grated.

There were so many things she wanted to say to him: stepping-stones to carry them back across the quagmire to earlier, happier times. But those times had been shared with her Papa, not this frozen, bitter man.

Perhaps tomorrow in the daylight it would be easier. She started toward the door.

“Where are you going?”

“To bed, Papa. I'm tired, and you must be too.”

“I'm never tired,” he said brusquely. “Did Frank come in yet?”

“He did of course. You were there, don't you remember?”

Ned's eyes were, briefly, blank. “Remember?” He raised one hand and stroked his forehead. “Of course I remember.”

“Does your head hurt? Is the old wound bothering you?”

“My head never hurts.”

She knew he was lying. “Is there anything you need?”

“I have everything I need.”

She could not leave it at that. “Even when you're…away? What do you do for money, Papa? I worry about you, you know. How do you live? The IRA can't afford to pay the Volunteers.”

“Kathleen sends me money.” He did not elaborate, but Ursula was not surprised. Kathleen in America was a dedicated supporter of the Republican movement.

With an effort, Ned roused himself enough to add, “Go to bed now, it's way past time. And lock your door. Be sure to lock your door.”

His words surprised Ursula. There had never been locks on any door in the house.

Just before she left the room she turned and looked back at Ned standing there in his rumpled clothes, his face pale with weariness. “I love you,” she said.

That blank look again. Then, “I love you too, Síle,” he replied.

 

Ursula thought she would never go to sleep. She kept waiting for the sound of his voice in the next room. Eventually she sank into a fuzzy grayness, then slid deeper into a darkness broken by kaleidoscopic dreams. She was awakened by a pounding on the door downstairs. The front door, not the kitchen door that people habitually used.

Ursula threw a shawl over her nightdress and went out onto the landing. From the top of the stairs, she strained to overhear Frank's conversation with the midnight callers.

“Is Edward Joseph Halloran here?” an unfamiliar voice was demanding to know.

Ursula stiffened. She had heard that tone, if not that voice, before. When she was a little girl living in Louise Kearney's lodging house, the British had come for Ned and sent him off to prison in England; a prison from which he returned a changed man.

“Why are you looking for him, Constable?” Frank Halloran asked.

“We have an order for his arrest.”

Ursula ran to Ned's door and scratched at it urgently. “Papa, the police!” she hissed.

No answer.

She returned to the top of the stairs. Within moments, the constables could be heard searching the rooms below.

Norah and Lucy, both still in nightdress, joined Ursula. “Are you earwigging again?” Lucy asked. “I thought you'd outgrown that habit.”

Ursula pressed a finger to her lips. “Keep your voice down. The constables are here, looking for Ned.”

“Bastards,” Norah muttered.

Ursula turned to the old woman. “Who told them he was here, Aunt Norah?”

“I don't know. There are informers everywhere.”

One of the constables started up the stairs. Seeing the three women huddled at the top he said, “I'm sorry, ladies, but I'll have to ask you to step aside. We have information that a wanted man is hiding here.”

Ursula said, “We aren't the sort of people who hide.”

He gave her a surprised look. “English, are you?”

“How dare you insult me!” She deliberately raised her voice to alert Ned. “Don't members of the constabulary recognize an educated Irish accent when they hear one?”

The constable—he was very young and obviously embarrassed—ducked his chin. “I'm sorry. I…step aside, please. We don't any want trouble.”

Her eyes blazed. “You'll have plenty of trouble if you try to take anyone out of this house tonight!”

Anger roared through Ursula like a forest fire. It felt wonderful. The war had come to her now; her opportunity to do battle. She had a vision of herself springing upon the constable, knocking him backward down the stairs and pummeling him with her fists.

He read it in her eyes and hesitated. “I'm just following orders, miss.”

“Let it be,” said Norah Daly, laying a firm hand on Ursula's arm. “You'll just make things worse, girl.”

Ursula was trembling from head to foot.

“Let it be!” Norah commanded.

The young constable edged past, watching Ursula warily from the corner of his eye.

When the constable knocked on the door of the large bedroom Lucas Mulvaney shouted, “Can't a man have no peace on his wedding night?” The constable opened the door and thrust his head inside, then backed out, looking more embarrassed than ever.

Ursula's bedroom was across the hall. The door was ajar. A glance showed no one inside but the constable examined the room anyway, including looking under the bed.

The next door was closed. Ursula held her breath.

The young constable rapped the door with his knuckles. No response. When he knocked harder the door swung open. The room was empty, the bed stripped. No trace of Ned Halloran remained.

The constables spent a long time searching the house but found nothing. A search of the barn and outbuildings yielded the same result. At last they apologized and left.

When they had gone Lucy flung open the door of the big bedroom. “Lucas Mulvaney, put your clothes on and get out of this house right now!”

Eileen cried, “What are you talking about?”

“One of your husband's wretched relatives informed on my brother.”

“Now Lucy,” Norah said, following her into the room, “we don't know that.”

“Of course we do. Who else even knew he was here? Get out you!” she shrieked at Lucas. “Leave here tonight and don't come back! You're lucky I don't take the shotgun to you. We shoot informers.”

“What about me?” wailed Eileen.

“Go with him! You married this maggot, that makes you a Mulvaney too. I don't want either of you in my parents' bedroom for another minute. You can sleep in the parlor until dawn, but after that I don't want you anywhere near this farm. Ever.”

When Frank appeared in the doorway, Eileen threw out her hands imploringly to her brother. “Are you going to let this happen?”

He did not respond. His face was closed and hard.

Ursula went into her room and closed the door.

By the time she came down to breakfast the couple had gone. No one mentioned either of them. Conversation centered on the weather and the farm chores. Norah and Lucy argued about making pickles.

Ned had once told Ursula that the ancient bards punished those who broke the law by ceasing to remember them. They were expunged from tribal memory. Denied heritage and birthright.

Ursula returned to Dublin on Monday afternoon to find a long letter from Felicity awaiting her. She took the letter upstairs and curled up on her bed to read it before she even unpacked. She wanted something to distract her from a black mood.

At the end of the letter the English girl mentioned a new British airmail service that would serve India, Egypt, Palestine, and Iraq. “My brother Cedric is one of the pilots they have recruited from the Royal Air Force. Do you remember when airmen seemed so glamorous? In the Great War they duelled in the sky like knights of old. Now flying aeroplanes has become a job like any other. Silly old Cedric is quite blasé about it, but he is blasé about everything. I am the only true enthusiast in my family. Perhaps I shall learn to fly and become an aviatrix.”

Although regular air services had not yet been established in Ireland, civilian adventurers had been taking to the air since 1910. At one time an Irish woman, Mrs. Elliot Lynn, had been the only woman in the world to hold a commercial pilot's license.
¹
Britain's Royal Air Force had stationed squadrons at Baldonnel Aerodrome, southwest of Dublin. During the War of Independence Michael Collins had hoped to capture one of their planes to “disturb the Black and Tans in their strongholds.”
²
Now the Irish Air Corps, a part of the national army, was based at Baldonnel.

Flying machines
, mused Ursula, gazing out the window at a Dublin sky heavy with coal smoke.
Electricity, radio waves…not so long ago, people would have called all those things magic
.

She imagined herself togged out in a helmet and white silk scarf, swooping through the clouds like an eagle.

I wonder if I would be airsick the way I was seasick
.

Somehow she did not think so.

 

When Ursula received her next pay packet, she asked how soon she might expect a rise in wages. Clandillon said, “I didn't realize how valuable you are until we had to do without you for a couple of days, but I'm afraid we can't afford to give you any more money. Perhaps you'd like to present a program of household hints on air instead?”

“Housework is nothing more than penal servitude for women,” Ursula replied scathingly.

Clandillon raised his hands in mock horror. “Don't shoot! I didn't mean to insult you.”

The weather changed abruptly; Ursula gave him a smile so radiant he blinked. “You can make it up to me,” she suggested. “Let me present a program of international news highlights. I correspond with people in both Europe and America, so I have plenty of sources.”

Clandillon shook his head. “We get adequate information through the BBC news service.”

“We do not! The BBC reports whatever serves British interests and that isn't always the true picture.”

“Then let's just say the public does not want to hear a female voice giving hard news, Ursula.”

“Mairead does the news and I never heard of anyone complaining.”

“Mairead is not only our relief announcer, but an old friend of the minister for finance. We need his goodwill, such as it is,” Clandillon pointed out.

That night Ursula took the envelope from beneath her mattress and carefully counted the contents. Ella's money.
If I save for twenty years I'll never be able to repay her, not on my salary. Henry's wealthy now. They don't need this
.

Yet it was a debt of honor. Drilled into her by Ned Halloran, honor, integrity, and courage formed the bedrock of her scrupled soul.

Ursula sat on the floor, holding the envelope. Remembering a rake-thin gray horse in a barren field. A heavy head pressed against her body. Trusting her.

She spilled the contents of the envelope onto the floor and divided them in half.

She narrowed her eyes, looking down at the words she had written. Then she added, “If he still refuses, tell him I know what he did. If anything happens to Saoirse I will tell Papa.”

She did not know if her guess was correct; she hoped it was not. But even if Frank was not the informer, surely he had done some thing, some time, which he would not want Ned to know.

Everyone had sins.

Blackmail was a sin.

On Friday Ursula went to Confession, fully intending to expiate her crime. As she sat in the pew with her eyes on the confession box, waiting her turn, she hesitated. Then she got up and left the church. She could not have explained why.

 

A few days later the broadcasting station received a pair of important visitors. One was Ernest Blythe, for whom Mairead Ní Ghráda had worked in the first Dáil. Blythe, an ally of the late Kevin O'Higgins, was the minister for finance. His rapidly receding hairline, round face, thick lips, and imperious stare, were familiar to the Irish public from newspaper photographs. He was notorious for having cut the already miniscule pension of the nation's elderly. A great public outcry had followed, but Blythe was not the sort of man to be moved by either hostile or constructive criticism.

 

Irish nationalists had believed prosperity would almost immediately blossom as soon as British rule was gone. But the economic fabric of the country had been destroyed. The British government had used southern Ireland almost exclusively to produce food for England. Industrial development was concentrated in the northeastern six counties. With this region lost through partition, the new nation had no industrial base upon which to build.

In the struggle to make the Free State financially viable, Cosgrave's cabinet was waging a virtual campaign against the unproductive elements of society. For the poor, the aged, and the unemployed, Saorstát Eireann was a far cry from Pearse's Irish Republic. Yet there was little choice. The government was trying to build a state from the rubble of dreams.

Accompanying Blythe was a man whom he identified as “my boyhood pal, Seán Lester.” Lester was a neatly dressed, dark-complexioned man of average height, with intelligent eyes. Like Ernest Blythe he was in his early forties and spoke with a northern accent. But while the autocratic Blythe held himself apart from the lower-echelon employees, Lester had a greeting for everyone.

He showed a genuine interest in the operation of the broadcasting station. Mairead conducted a tour of the facilities for his benefit. They paused by Ursula's desk. “Ernest and Seán and I are going out for a meal later,” Mairead said. “Would you join us to make an even number?”

“Please do,” Lester added, smiling down at Ursula.

“Where are you going?”

“Have you a suggestion?” he asked.

“Wynn's Hotel.”

Lester chuckled. “
Ceart go leor
.”
^*

 

Until that afternoon Ursula's only communication with Ernest Blythe had consisted of writing letters seeking funds for the station. As she sat across a table from him, the minister for finance muttered, “Halloran, Halloran. Ursula Halloran?” He turned to Mairead, seated on his right. “Is that young woman U. Halloran, by any chance?”

“Guilty,” Ursula said.

He swung around to give her a basilisk stare. “You certainly do write a forceful letter.”

She refused to be cowed. “Not forceful enough, apparently. You keep refusing our requests.”

Like the sun rising over a frosty meadow, Ernest Blythe smiled. “I like this one,” he remarked to Mairead.

Ursula decided she hated him. Not because he was pro-Treaty; not even because of his past association with Kevin O'Higgins. But because he spoke of her in the third person as if she were not in the room.

She dropped her eyes to conceal a flare of antipathy.