1949 (29 page)

The following Monday, Ursula urged 2RN to do a program analyzing the European situation. John MacDonagh readily agreed.

“An interview from the British perspective would give it depth,” Ursula suggested. “Shall I invite Lewis Baines to take part? He really does have a fine voice for broadcasting.”

She needed to see Lewis, to interpose his image between herself and Finbar. She had lost control and allowed something to happen that she never intended. Being with Lewis again was the only way to blot out those troubling memories.

She telephoned him on Tuesday morning. “I can't leave today,” he told her, “But meet me at Baldonnel tomorrow afternoon. I should be there by three.”

Instead of having lunch on Wednesday, Ursula went home to change her clothes before meeting Lewis. Her only pair of good stockings had a hole in them. She had darned it as best she could. But as she walked to the Gresham Hotel to engage a taxicab to collect Lewis at the aerodrome, a coarse ridge of thread rubbed against the ball of her foot.

Baldonnel had lost its earlier informality. The gathering storm clouds in Europe had precipitated a long overdue move on the part of the government to strengthen the Irish Air Corps in the interest of national defense. There was now a soldier at the gate who asked Ursula to identify herself before passing her through.

Lewis's Moth had already set down on the runway. Plans were underway for a large three-bay hangar to accommodate Air Corps planes, but construction had not yet begun. In the meantime military planes, like civilian aircraft, must be tied down in the open.

Ursula called to Lewis and waved. He waved back, but was busy removing something from the plane. By the time she got to him his arms were full of shiny boxes. “I brought you a little present,” he said.

“A little present? Not all of that, surely.”

He laughed. “It is, in fact. I hope you don't mind. Here, watch these while I finish making arrangements for the plane.” He set his burden down on the concrete and walked toward the aerodrome office.

Ursula eyed the boxes with trepidation. When she nudged them with her foot one slid off another, revealing the label of a famous London clothiers.

With an effort of will she asked no questions as the taxi drove them toward the city. From time to time Lewis glanced at her out of the corner of his eye. As the taxi pulled up in front of the hotel he finally asked, “Don't you want to see what I brought you?”

“I expect you'll show me when you're ready.”

Lewis smiled the smile of a man who had done something wonderful and was anticipating praise.

Snapping his fingers, he summoned a porter to deliver the luggage and the stack of boxes to his rooms. It had become a tradition with Lewis to engage the same small suite at the Shelbourne. On several previous occasions he had invited Ursula into the sitting room, but had made no attempt to maneuver her into the bedroom.

“Now,” he said when the door closed behind the porter. “Open your presents.”

He watched as she lifted the lids and threw back layers of rustling white tissue paper. The first garment, a dress of pleated chiffon the color of sea foam, brought a gasp from Ursula. Nestled beside it in the box was a pair of matching fabric-covered slippers.

“You can wear those when we go dancing,” Lewis said. “We are going to go dancing, you know. Often.”

“How did you know my size?”

“Trust me,” said Lewis Baines.

More boxes. Beautifully tailored skirts, stylish shirtwaists. Cashmere sweaters. Even
…Oh my God, silk stockings!
As she let them slide through her fingers, Ursula was all too aware of the ridge of knotted thread cutting into the tender flesh of her foot.

“This is far too much,” she told Lewis. “And stockings are far too intimate a gift.”

“Don't be so Irish. I want you to have them and you can't tell me you don't need them.”

Her eyes flashed. “What makes you think I can't buy my own clothes?”

He shook his head. “My dear girl.”

She stiffened her Republican spine, willing herself to resist the seduction of the clothes. But they felt so wonderful to the touch!

 

Lewis took her out to dinner and then back to his suite in the Shelbourne. They both knew what was going to happen next.

She was prepared for his fastidiousness. She was prepared for everything, even the words he whispered at the height of passion. She steeled herself to ignore them as she had learned to ignore the crackle of static on the wireless.

This time the sex was better. Ursula did not experience the rapture she had felt with Finbar, but, as she told herself sternly, she was not drunk, either. She had taken only water with dinner in order to keep her head clear.

While Lewis made love to her she concentrated on her body's responses. Pleasure in the feel of his hands on her skin; pleasure in his skill. And afterwards, as she lay beside him in the dark, there was the wonderful sense of not being alone.

 

Lewis kept her with him all night. They had crossed an invisible border in his mind.

In the morning he selected and ordered a breakfast for two to be brought to his suite. They chatted over
oeufs en gelée—
which she pronounced correctly and he did not—like an old married couple. Ursula did not mention that she hated eggs. She ate every scrap of hers and said they were delicious.

In the morning light Lewis thought she looked like a young girl. Hers would be a delightful face to find on his pillow every morning.

As he shaved he contemplated the problems they would face in England. Gaining acceptance for Ursula would be difficult, but she must be accepted before things went any farther. Muriel would be upset at first. His friends would cloak their disdain in a thin patina of good manners that would not fool anyone. He could just imagine the barbs they would hurl, thinking Ursula too stupid to understand.

But her intelligence could not be long denied, and in time her knowledge of the social graces would make people overlook her Irish origins. With a decent wardrobe and a proper hairdresser, she could hold her own in any company.

 

Ursula luxuriated for half an hour in the suite's big white bathtub, then dressed in one of the outfits Lewis had given her. It fitted perfectly, as he had known it would.

Lewis was familiar with the bodies of women.

Ursula took the rest of her new clothes back to Moore Street and left Lewis waiting below while she put them away. He had never seen her room and she did not want him to.

They spent Saturday afternoon enjoying the delights of Dublin, returning to the Shelbourne for dinner. At Lewis's insistence, this time Ursula had wine.

She rarely took her eyes from his face. Her surrender was total and she was glad. She wanted to stay in this bubble of time forever.

“My little rebel,” said Lewis as they lay together in his bed. He drew Ursula closer, fitting her against his body. Skin on skin.

Bliss
. Wine and love flowed through her veins together. Knots that she had never known existed loosened in her soul. Her eyes drifted shut.

“My little rebel,” he said again, his voice deep in his chest. “Like your parents. Isn't there an Irish saying: ‘What's bred in the bone comes out in the blood?'”

“I have no idea what's bred in my bones,” she murmured drowsily. Her guard was very far down.

“Why not?”

“The Hallorans weren't my parents.”

In his body she felt no change, in his voice she heard nothing but concern. “Did your real parents die?”

“I don't know. I was a foundling.”

He continued to hold her as tenderly as before. “You're joking.”

“I'm perfectly serious. Ned Halloran found me abandoned in a Dublin street when I was only a toddler. He and Síle married soon after, and raised me as their own.” How liberating to tell the truth at last!

“You mean they adopted you?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

Ursula hesitated. His questions were probing defenses she had constructed with care over many years. “It's complicated, Lewis. When I was little I accepted without question the story of the way Ned found me. He was—is—a wonderful man, and Síle was the bravest woman on earth. Ned was a bit too young to be my real father but Síle was a couple of years older than he was. As I grew up I began to wonder if she might be…my real mother.”

“A natural enough fantasy under the circumstances,” Lewis said.

“That's just it; I didn't want her to be my real mother. Let me explain about Síle. I loved her dearly, but she…she was…always
touching
Ned. She couldn't keep her hands off him. Síle was ‘a man's woman' through and through. Do you understand what I'm saying?”

“I'm not sure I do.”

“Síle didn't belong to herself. She
never
belonged to herself! Something inside her made her a slave to a man, and she was awfully lucky that Ned adored her and treated her well. I didn't want to be another Síle Halloran. I willed myself to be a different person entirely, a woman who wouldn't let any man have power over her.

“Until I met you, Lewis. Suddenly my precious independence didn't seem so important anymore. I just wanted to touch you and have you touch me. I felt like that right up until the first time we went to bed together.

“But the way you spoke to me that night…how can I explain the effect your words had on me? Your language was vile, Lewis. I hated those words and hated you for saying them. It was as if you had recognized Síle…in me.”

“You poor girl, why didn't you say something? I never realized I was offending you. I'm not even aware what I say when I make love.”

“It's all right, really.” She nestled more closely against him. “We're together again and everything's sorted out.”

“Except you still haven't explained why the Hallorans didn't adopt you.”

Ursula was too far committed now. Willing Lewis to understand that she was giving him the incomparable gift of trust, she said, “Because before she married Ned, Síle Duffy was a prostitute.”

The arms holding Ursula turned wooden. There was a change in the very atmosphere of the room, as if all the warmth had drained away. They were not lovers lying joined in a bed. They were two separate people.

In sudden desperation, Ursula threw words like bridges across the void between them. “They never wanted me to know, but from what I heard over the years I put things together. Ned and Síle let people think I was their natural child because if they applied to adopt me and the authorities found out about her past, I would have been taken away from them.

“So now you know everything. And it's all right, isn't it?” She waited. Feeling knots re-form in her soul. “Isn't it?”

Lewis rolled away from her to light one of his Turkish cigarettes. He began blowing smoke rings into space, watching them with total absorption.

Never again
, Ursula promised herself.
Never again
.

She was tortured by humiliating memories of her final minutes with Lewis. Her awkward attempts to repair the damage. His chilling indifference. While she struggled into her clothes he had stood smoking, not even watching her. She had slammed out of the room and run through the lobby of the Shelbourne with her pride in tatters; too angry to cry, too hurt not to. Afraid he would follow and furious when he did not.

 

She was thankful for the distraction of her work.

On the thirteenth of September she prepared a momentous newscast: “Yesterday Eamon de Valera was elected president, for one term, of the Assembly of the League of Nations. Meanwhile the Czechoslovakian premier has appealed for calm as the situation in his country worsens. Chamberlain of Britain and Daladier of France are to meet with Hitler and Mussolini in Munich to discuss the crisis.”

The resulting Munich Pact at the end of the month allowed for the peaceful evacuation of the Sudetenland by the tenth of October. Military confrontation would be avoided.

Neville Chamberlain returned from Munich to announce triumphantly to the British press, and the world, that he had successfully negotiated “peace in our time!”

Finbar went to the broadcasting station, hoping to meet Ursula when her workday was over.

“Miss Halloran left already,” the door porter told him.

“Did she go home”

The man narrowed his eyes. “Why do you need to know?”

He was only being protective, but it irritated Finbar. Protecting Ursula would be his obligation from now on; his obligation and his privilege.

“I'm a friend of hers, you've seen me here before.”

The man gazed at him impassively.

Finbar threw discretion to the winds. “A close friend,” he stressed.

“She said something about going to a women's meeting in the Rotunda. Maybe she went home first, though. If you're a close friend of hers you'd know where she lives.”

Finbar almost ran around the corner to Moore Street. When he arrived at the blue door, it was firmly closed. He banged the rusty iron knocker for a while but no one came down to let him in.

The greengrocer popped his head out of his shop. “Who're ye lookin' fer?”

“Miss Halloran.”

“She'll be along. Here, would ye give her this when she comes? The postman dropped it in here for 'er.”

Finbar started to put the letter in his pocket, but the quality of the cream-colored envelope made him take a closer look.

On the flap a firm hand had written
L. Baines
.

Finbar wrestled with his conscience. He looked up and down the street. He did not see Ursula coming from either direction. Thrusting the offending letter into his pocket, he set off at a brisk walk and did not stop until he reached the foot of O'Connell Bridge. The ornate wrought-iron street lamps were on, providing enough light for him to read by.

My Irish rose
, the letter began.

My
Irish rose! Finbar knotted his brows in fury. How dare that man call Ursula his!

Finbar wished Lewis Baines was in front of him at that moment so he could punch him in the face. Obviously Baines had hurt Ursula, yet every other word was about himself. Coldhearted self-centred bastard.

Finbar's arms ached with the desire to lift Baines over his head and hurl him into the river.

He did the next best thing.

Slowly, methodically, he tore the letter into tiny pieces. Then he leaned over the bridge rail and dropped them into the Liffey.

Fragments of a life never-to-be swirled away on the dark water.

 

On the fifth of October the German army invaded Czechoslovakia.

In Eger, capital of the Sudetenland, Adolf Hitler announced, “I bear you the greetings of the whole German people. Over the great German Reich lie as protection the German shield and the German sword. You are part of this protection now. Never again shall this land be torn from the Reich. Thus we begin our march into the great German future.”
¹

 

Ursula tumbled into bed each night exhausted. In the press of events, her extraordinary energy was deserting her. She had heard nothing from Lewis Baines, nor did she expect to.

However Seán Lester did send a brief note in response to one from her. He commented, “France and Britain have retired behind their Chinese Wall in Europe—the Maginot Line—and abandoned the rest of the Continent to Germany.” Ursula saw that he was quoted on that night's news.

Thursday morning, November tenth, dawned clear and bright but bitterly cold. As Ursula walked to work she noticed ice glittering in the gutters. She had just reached her desk and taken off her hat when Finbar Cassidy entered the office. He was flushed and breathless, as if he had been running. “Overnight we had an urgent cable from Berlin. I think you'll want to issue a news bulletin.” He handed her an envelope containing a folded sheet of yellow paper. “It seemed best to bring this over rather than telephone.”

Ursula read rapidly, her eyes widening. “I appreciate this, Finbar. Wait while I compose the bulletin, then you can take the cable back to External Affairs.”

Her fingers flew over the typewriter keys. “Germany's Jewish community has been subjected to a reign of terror unprecedented in modern times. Last night a series of simultaneous attacks erupted throughout the country. An unknown number of Jews were killed and thousands more injured. Storm troopers were joined in acts of violence by ordinary, middle-class citizens. In Berlin, laughing women held up their children to watch Jews being beaten senseless by youths with lead pipes. Hundreds of synagogues were put to the torch. Over seven thousand Jewish shops were looted and vandalized. The broken glass alone will account for millions in damage. Already the event is being called
Kristallnacht
, meaning Crystal Night.”

When Ursula finished typing she murmured, “God help them.” A wave of nausea washed over her.

Finbar said, “Could you meet me later for lunch?”

“I'm not very hungry, not after reading this.”

“Tea, then. After work. I really need to talk to you, it's important.”

By the time she got off work she only wanted to go home and to bed. But she owed Finbar something for the effort he had made. He was waiting for her at the Henry Street entrance, with his hat in his hands and an eager expression on his face.

“We can go wherever you like, Ursula.”

“Wynn's, then.”

They settled into a quiet corner of the hotel dining room. Ursula wanted only tea and toast, but Finbar insisted on ordering a full meal for both of them.

“Wonderful news,” he told her while they waited to be served. “At least, I hope you'll think it's wonderful. I've bought a house.”

“I'm happy for you.”

“In the North Strand. A terraced redbrick house with a bit of back garden. Rather ordinary at the moment, but I have plans to make it something special.”

“That's grand.” Ursula smiled up at the waiter as he set the teapot in front of her.

“I'm not going to make any changes until you see the place, though,” said Finbar.

“Why do I need to see it first?” She took the lid off the pot and peered in.
Still too weak. In Clare they say tea should be strong enough for a mouse to trot across
.

“Because you'll be living there with me. I'm asking you to marry me, Ursula.”

Ursula dropped the spoon.

“We've already…been together,” Finbar said. His ears reddened with embarrassment. “So in the eyes of God we are man and wife now. I simply want to…”

“Well, I don't.”

“You have to!” Finbar had been raised to believe that a proposal of marriage was the ultimate compliment a man could offer a woman. A refusal was unthinkable.

“I don't have to do anything!” Ursula shot back.

He looked so stricken she tried to defuse the situation by making light of it. “Well, you're certainly not backward about coming forward,” she said with a light laugh. “But you're joking, of course.”

“For once I'm serious. I want you to be my wife.”

The proposal had come when she was least prepared. Rummaging through her memory, she recalled the correct Surval response. “I'm flattered by your proposal, Finbar, but marriage is out of the question. I'm very fond of you, but only as a friend. It would be cruel to let you think there could ever be more than that between us.”

She must make him understand. “I have no intention of getting married to anybody. Ever. Full stop. Now pass me your cup.”

Somehow they got through the meal. The food stuck in Ursula's throat; she left most of it on her plate. Finbar ate automatically, cutting his meat into neat portions and taking a morsel of potato with each bite. He made polite conversation but he did not know what he was saying.

Afterward he walked Ursula back to Moore Street. At the blue door they shook hands.

When she reached her room Ursula shrugged out of her coat and hung it behind the curtain. Slumping onto the bed, she stared at Saoirse's bridle.
Gone. Everyone and everything
. She felt strangely cleansed, even of regret. Regret would not change anything anyway.

After a long time she stood up and squared her shoulders.
Best get on with it
, she told herself as she began undressing for the night.

There was a certain strength to be drawn from being totally alone.