Death at Christy Burke's (29 page)

He gave Brennan a thoughtful look and said, “Thank you, Brennan.” He was silent for a minute or so, then, “I’m not sure whether he told you about the troubles I’ve brought upon myself . . .”

“He told me you ran into some difficulty in Africa and he made a vague reference to drugs, but he did not go into any detail. And you have my word on that, Tim. Michael loves to chat.” Shanahan smiled at that. “But he knows how to keep a confidence.”

“I believe that of Michael. He’s a lovely man and a very compassionate priest. Since he did not tell you — bless him — I will: I’m a heroin addict, Brennan.”

Brennan turned to him, and Shanahan met his gaze, then averted his eyes.

“I’m truly sorry to hear that, Tim. If there is anything I can do to help you, now or in the future, I will. All you have to do is ask.”

“Thank you, Brennan. You have no idea how much it means to hear you say that.”

Brennan found himself hoping fervently that, whatever the pub graffiti was about, it wasn’t about Father Timothy Shanahan.

They walked in companionable silence until they reached the Church of St. Francis Xavier. There was a sign posted outside, giving notice of another event of interest to Brennan, an evening devoted to the spiritual exercises of St. Ignatius Loyola. Tomorrow, Friday. He would try to attend.

He and Shanahan went inside. It was one of Dublin’s neoclassical churches, with four Corinthian columns and a pediment at the altar. But the music was about to transport them far from neoclassical Europe. The Russian choir took its place in the sanctuary, thirty men in black suits and white collarless shirts. From their first bass note, it was as if everything had ceased to exist except the sound.

The magnificent harmonies, the dark colours of the music, the drone of the bass, the deep, sonorous timbre of Russian music had a mesmerizing effect on Brennan, and stayed with him as he knelt to pray in front of the Blessed Sacrament after Tim Shanahan had said goodnight and the choir and spectators had left the church. As sometimes happened to him when he was deep in prayer, Brennan had an experience that was not of his making. On these rare occasions, he was presented with realities that could not be grasped with the intellect alone. He realized that he was in the presence of the Blessed Trinity, or it was present in him, in his soul. He felt that he could perceive God as three persons in one, inseparable, equal and of one essence. It was something he struggled manfully to explain to his seminary students, but the truth of it was beyond the power of the unaided human mind, including his own even after these experiences. As St. Augustine said, “If you’ve grasped it, it isn’t God.” But he knew with absolute certainty that whatever he was experiencing, it was real. The best he could do was quote St. Teresa of Avila: it was like feeling the presence of someone in the dark. At other times, he was not in darkness, but was flooded with an interior light so brilliant that he knew it was not of this world.

It was music that made him receptive to this state. No surprise there. Augustine again: music was meant to lift the spirit from the corporeal to the incorporeal realities; it prepared the soul for contemplation of eternal truth.

But there was a price to be paid, as there was for everything. Some of his experiences were not of the ecstatic kind. Some were bleak intimations of evil in the world; some filled him with dread. Usually, his forebodings came to naught: the feeling passed, and nothing happened. Occasionally, though — rarely — it seemed his premonitions were of events that would come to pass.

The peace concert in Belfast, the high B-flat, the
maledizione
! What had he seen in his mind’s eye that night? He didn’t know. But it disturbed him, particularly now, after being in an altered state of mind. Was something going to happen? Was the Apprentice Boys Memorial Hall going to be attacked after all, unleashing unimaginable retribution? Would some other monumental institution be the target? Or would it be something on a smaller scale? Was it the Merle Odom crisis, come to its inevitably bloody conclusion? Could it be a premonition of something personal, something unrelated to the sectarian mayhem in this country? Or was it nothing? Was it just Burke himself, with his deep sensitivity to music, reacting to Verdi’s aria as the composer would have wished, with dread and foreboding? Who wouldn’t be disturbed, at night in Belfast, surrounded by armed soldiers and police, knowing why such a show of force was required?

But Belfast wasn’t the only location that had him spooked. He hadn’t liked the look of that pair who came into his uncle’s pub that afternoon and seemed to be casing the place. He would have written off the incident, would probably have forgotten it altogether, if Finn had not stared them out of the room from behind those obscuring lenses of his. Finn knew they were trouble. Well, it was time for Finn to speak up. Who were they, and what was going on?

It was just after ten o’clock. Brennan had been on his knees for more than an hour with no awareness of the passing of time. He got up, rubbed his knees, left the church, and headed for Christy Burke’s. There was a soft mist, and the air smelled fresh. When he got to the pub, primed to confront his uncle, he found not Finn but Sean Nugent behind the bar.
Shite! Wouldn’t you know?

But wait, what was Sean saying to him?

“If you’re looking for a pint, I’m your man. If you’re looking for your family, he’s down below.”

“What would he be doing down there at this time of night?”

“Em, he didn’t say, but I expect we’ll be seeing him shortly. What can I get you tonight, Brennan?”

Brennan started to speak, then saw the barman’s gaze move to the door of the cellar; Nugent gave somebody a nearly imperceptible nod. Brennan turned and saw a big man with thick dark hair and black-framed glasses; he was looking at Nugent as he closed the cellar door. The man was wearing a long, bulky raincoat, which struck Brennan as being a little too heavy for the mild misty evening. The fellow’s eyes surveyed the assembled drinkers before he left the pub.

Sean returned to his duties. “A pint for you, Brennan, or a Jameson?”

“I’ll have a pint, if you’d be so kind, Sean. Make that two, would you?”

“Certainly.”

He poured two pints and handed them to Brennan. Brennan paid for them, then said, “I think I’ll go down and pay a social call on my favourite uncle.”

“Oh, Finn won’t be long, I’m sure, so maybe you should just —”

“No worries. He’ll be pleased that I made the effort.”

Something in Sean’s expression suggested otherwise, but Brennan was not deterred. Grasping the two pints in his left hand, he went to the cellar door, opened it quietly, walked through, and closed it behind him. He started down the stairs. There was a faint light coming from the nether regions of the building, but the steps and most of the cellar were in shadow. He descended in silence. When he got to the bottom he heard a couple of clicks, then a metallic clanking sound. The sounds came from the tunnel.

He walked to the open hole in the floor, tightened his grip on the two pint glasses in his left hand, grabbed the top of the ladder with his right, and climbed down. He stood in the tunnel and peered down its length. There, with a kerosene lantern flickering overhead, was Finn, shoving a large brick into the face of the wall. He sensed Brennan’s presence and whipped around.

“Jaysus! Brennan! Are you fucking daft?”

“Evening, Finn. What’s daft about dropping in to say hello to my elders? Save you from climbing those steep stairs. I’m just being thoughtful.”

“You are in your bollocks.”

“What are you up to? Restocking the shelves? Need any help?”

“Feck off and don’t be pestering me here. Take yourself upstairs. I’ll be right behind you.”

“Too crowded up there, Finn; the place is filled with nosy parkers. You know what they’re like. Better to talk down here in private. I’ve brought you a drink.”

“I see that. Talk about what? You’ve discovered who was the target of the slurs painted on my wall? You’ve nicked the fellow who killed the vandal? Could that be it?”

“No. We shall persist with our inquiries.”

“Well, then?”

“I’ve learned about various personal difficulties in the lives of your regulars, but I’m assuming you have no interest in any of that unless it points to a solution to the problem.”

“Your assumption is correct. So that’s all I had to hear from you. Up you go.”

“Wait a second now. I intend to settle in for an intimate little chat. And you’ve got such a cozy atmosphere down here with the gaslight.”

He placed the two pints carefully on the floor and climbed the ladder up to the cellar again. He grabbed two bar stools and managed to lower them one by one into the tunnel. “Have a seat, man dear.”

“Brennan, you’re annoying me already, and I haven’t even heard yet what it is that you want to talk about and I don’t.”

But he sat on one of the stools, and Brennan sat across from him; their knees were touching. They picked up their pints.

Brennan raised his glass.
“Sláinte mhath!”

Finn kept his glass in his hand, resting on his right knee, and said nothing.

“Something’s going on, Finn. What is it?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Yes, you do. What’s happening?”

“Brennan, if you think there is something happening and I’m sitting here saying there isn’t, that means one of two things: there’s nothing happening, or there’s nothing happening that I can talk about. Either way, you don’t hear anything. That’s no reflection on you.”

“How could it not be? Are you thinking I’d walk out of here and start rabbiting on about it to everyone I encounter in the street?”

“Of course not. You don’t even rabbit on about yourself. No one’s saying you’re a talker. Change the subject.”

“Who are the two goons who came in here this afternoon?”

“Goons?”

“You know who I mean. The two enforcers with the military hairdos.”

“You already asked me that.”

“I didn’t get an answer.”

“You got an answer. I said I don’t know them, and I don’t.”

“But you know what they represent, I’m thinking.”

“And what would that be, do you suppose?”

“Paramilitary types from the North, is the smell I get off of them. Would your own mind be running along those lines, by any chance?”

“If that’s what they are, they won’t find anything to interest them here.”

“What do you think they are hoping to find?”

His uncle merely shook his head.

“Who, then? Who are they looking for?”

“If they’re looking in my pub, they’re looking in the wrong place.”

“But they came in here. That would suggest they expected to find someone here.”

“Well, it wasn’t me, was it? Or my patrons. Those two went out the door sixty seconds after they came in. Eyed the clientele and left.”

“After you stared them down.”

“Brennan, I cannot help you.”

“I’m trying to help
you
, Finn.”

“I’ll survive. Don’t think I don’t appreciate your concern; I do.”

“I think it’s high time we talked about the subject we avoid every time I visit Dublin.”

“What subject would that be? Whatever it is, we’ve been wise to avoid it.”

“How involved are you still in Republican affairs?”

“Are you asking me whether I’ve washed my hands of the struggle to unite this country?”

“Has that struggle any realistic hope of success?”

“Your grandfather Christy and those who fought with him in the Tan War had no realistic hope of success. But they succeeded. Partly. I don’t know whether I’ll live long enough to see the job finished — the six counties included in the Republic — but I know it will happen some day. It will.”

“I have no such confidence.”

“So, what’s the solution? Forget all our boys who are lying in their graves because they fought to the death for their country, the martyrs from ’16 who went before the firing squad, the fellows who were hanged during the Tan War? We tell them, ‘Sorry, lads, you died for nothing.’ We just give up and leave it undone? The way the Staters did in 1921?”

“The Free Staters got as much as they were going to get from the English at the time.”

“Like fuck they did! They should have kept fighting till they had it all.”

“Have you forgotten the alternative to acceptance of the treaty? England threatened us with ‘immediate and terrible war.’ The pro-treaty side spared us that. As a result, they had to endure accusations of treason and betrayal from the men they had fought beside, in the IRA, up until the summer of 1921. And what did the people of Ireland get out of all this? Civil war, friend against friend, brother against brother. As de Valera put it, the Volunteers would have to ‘wade through Irish blood’ to achieve their goal. Well, there’s still Irish blood on the ground, but the goal has not been achieved.”

Finn remained impassive but Brennan persevered: “Did the Free Staters do regrettable things during the Civil War? Yes, they did. But look what happened when the anti-treaty side got into power. They cracked down on their former comrades in the IRA, just as the Free State government had done, and started throwing them in prison. That’s when Leo Killeen was sent to Mountjoy, and my oul fellow too. Lucky for us all they weren’t executed! Others weren’t so fortunate.”

“Declan was sent there for armed robbery, not because he was IRA.”

In spite of himself, Brennan had to laugh. “Slandering your own brother to make a point!”

“I’m just putting the facts on the table here.”

“Well, you’re right about Dec, I’ll give you that. He was in for armed robbery, but he’d been raising money for the cause, not for himself.”

Brennan stopped to take a few long sips of his pint, then said, “And after all that, it wasn’t the Republican side but a Free State politician, John Costello, who declared the country a republic. Bit of irony there.”

“A republic minus the six counties.”

“We were never going to have them. That’s
realpolitik.
” Brennan rose, drained his pint and laid a hand on his uncle’s arm, and made ready to leave the old rebel’s tunnel. He spoke in a softer tone of voice. “Believe me, Finn, I do understand the loyalty to the Republican idea that the IRA has fought for. When I crossed the border and was held up by those Tan . . . those British soldiers, I wanted to get out of the car and give them a bollocking they wouldn’t forget. But I didn’t. And I wouldn’t. I sympathize with your ideals. But not at the cost of any more lives.”