Mermaid in a Bowl of Tears (Exit Unicorns Series) (52 page)

“Once I love someone, I don’t take it back,” he replied gruffly, “it’s simply there an’ ye’ll need to remember it in case I don’t think to say it all the time. An’ there’ll be times that ye think I don’t because I’m angry or disappointed in something ye’ve done, but it’ll still be there. Ye’ll have to learn to trust that. I imagine,” he added softly, “that we’ll both stumble a good bit before we learn how this is done, but I believe we’ll manage it in the end.”

A single tear slid down the boy’s pale cheek. “Do ye think it would be alright if I hugged ye?”

The uncertainty in Lawrence’s tone caused Casey’s throat to tighten, “I think it’d be right, a fresh start for the both of us.”

It was awkward at first, as though neither of them understood where to put their arms, but then Casey gathered him tightly, hoping to convey some security to the child through his strength. Held close, he seemed more fragile then ever, long slender bones and translucent skin holding together this creature built of pain, suspicion and a newly born hope. He’d been given a sacred trust, now he only hoped he could meet the challenge of it.

He carried the sight of the one tear the boy had shed up the stairs with him. He stopped for a moment on the landing, looking out through the eight-sided window. The night was still and hushed, the air on his bare skin the consistency of warm milk. Vega rode the horizon, blazing blue-white across the vastness of years.

“Am I doin’ alright da’?” he asked quietly, feeling, as he occasionally did, his father’s presence within him.

Back in his own bed, Pamela held stiffly to her side of the mattress, pretending sleep though he could feel her wakefulness clear across the room. It appeared he’d another fence to mend before he’d get any rest.

“I’m sorry I was rough on the boy, I’m just—I don’t—” he let go a heavy breath of exasperation. “I’ve an idea what he’s been through an’ I want to help him but I don’t know what’s right or wrong, I don’t know what the child needs.”

She turned in the bed and put her hand on his chest. “He needs you, not just anyone, but you. I suspect he’s never trusted a single soul in his whole life, but he trusts you. Maybe you need to see that for the gift it is.”

“I feel bad enough woman, ye don’t need to spoon salt on the wounds as well.” His voice was gruff, but she knew he was feeling guilty all around.

“You’ve just finally met someone as stubborn as yourself, Casey Riordan, and you don’t know what to do with him.”

“What
am
I to do with him?” he asked, tone half-amused and fully desperate.

“It’s simple.”

“Oh is it then? There’s nothin’ simple about this. Two months ago I was mindin’ my own business, doin’ my job, buildin’ myself a nice uncomplicated life. Now I’ve got a handful of orphans in my home, who’ve no intention of leavin’ an’ all lookin’ at me as if I’ve every answer God ever saw fit to give. Not to mention the damage they do to the pantry on a daily basis. Now what’s yer simple answer to that?”

“Just love them,” she said, “that’s all they want.”

He pulled her tight to his chest, dropping a kiss on her head. “Lord, woman, how do ye always manage to do that?”

“What?” she asked, mystified.

“Cut straight to the heart of the matter an’ put me firmly in my place.”

She rubbed her cheek against his chest and sighed contentedly. “You smell like milk replacement and wool,” she said.

He snorted. “An’ to think they say marriage kills the romance.”

From downstairs he could hear the rustle of animals and children. Lawrence coaxing Finbar onto the bed most likely, the small bleat of Paudeen dreaming whatever it was lambs dreamed of. Fields of alfalfa and clover unending? On the porch Rusty began his nightly serenading of the moon. Casey laughed, then closed his eyes and breathed deeply of the scent of his wife’s hair. He felt much like a man who’d been given a lopsided and not altogether unwelcome benediction.

“Jewel?”

“Mmhm,” she mumbled sleepily, lulled by the stroke of his hand across her head.

“It’s all I ever wanted too. Thank you for lovin’ me, despite my bein’ the most mule-headed ass ye’ve ever met.”

She took his hand and kissed the callused palm. “Anytime.”

Part Three
Nothing Sacred

THE SMALL SEISMIC TREMORS of impending trouble weren’t as noticeable out in the countryside, but they were felt all the same. Even Pamela, happily sorting out her new home, could not ignore what was coming.

“Will you be safe, do you think?” she asked Casey late one night, as they lay in bed thoroughly exhausted from a day filled with working on the house.

“Mmphmm,” Casey mumbled, nearly asleep though they’d only got into the bed two minutes before. “I should think so, I can’t be much of a worry. Bein’ away the last two years may have kept me off the lists.”

“I don’t know,” she said worriedly, “the rumor is that the lists include anyone who’s been seen as trouble in the last several years. Pat says he’s certain to be on it, because of the Young Socialists.”

“Did I not warn the two of ye then that organization was goin’ to lead ye to trouble?”

She snorted. “I think that’s more than a bit of the pot calling the kettle black.”

“Aye, I suppose ye might say so,” he responded, “but I’ve not given them much cause for concern of late, unless ye count all the wee rabble-rousers I deal with on a daily basis. Now if ye don’t mind Jewel, I’ve not the brainpower left to string more’n a word or two together—so goodnight.”

Within minutes he was asleep. Pamela, however, was not so easy in mind. Pat seemed to think Casey was likely to be fairly high on the list of those to be lifted.

“There’s granddads on the bloody thing that haven’t done anything more rebellious than take a pint on Sundays for years. I’d say he’d best be on the move when the sweep comes.”

This begged the question of where, exactly, they were to move. One man on the run was one thing, but one man, a pregnant wife, a juvenile delinquent, a dog, a sheep and a recalcitrant cat was another matter altogether. Casey tended to be a wee bit stubborn on the issue of being there to look after his family, and wasn’t likely to think the risk of being lifted great enough to leave them alone.

“Even if the Army doesn’t have him in their sights, he’d best watch for what Joe Doherty may have up his sleeve. Things get confused enough, an’ it’s an opportunity for tryin’ things on ye’d not otherwise dare to do.”

Casey’s mind wasn’t quite so easeful a few days later.

“I want ye to pack a bag an’ have it ready should we need to go at a moment’s notice. I’ve arranged for Lewis to look after the animals should something happen. Ye’ll have to call him; it’s not likely I’ll have the chance.”

“You’re scaring me, Casey,” she said.

“I’m sorry Jewel, I don’t mean to; it’s just that I’ll not leave ye here on yer own to face a bunch of gun happy soldiers. The laddie needs to have a bag at the ready too.”

She nodded, knowing the queasy feeling that had suddenly overwhelmed her had little to do with the incipient nausea of pregnancy.

The bags were packed and placed in the downstairs closet. There they sat for two weeks, a grim reminder that their new domesticity was a fragile and uncertain thing.

Then on the night of Sunday, August the 8
^th
, the uncertainty became a certainty. Republicans all over Belfast were on the move, keeping well away from familiar haunts in an effort to elude the raid that was said to be imminent.

“It’s only a precaution,” Casey said, but there was no mistaking the grim set of his mouth as he loaded their bags into the Citroen. In the yard, Mr. Guderson was putting a violently protesting Paudeen in his truck. Rusty was nowhere to be found and Finbar was glued mutinously to Lawrence’s left leg.

Lawrence, who seemed to feel the proceedings were of enormous excitement, kept bobbing up and down like an addlepated stork, until Casey gave him a sharp word and he subsided glumly on a stump in the yard.

They left after dark, the entire drive one of fraught silence, even Lawrence’s normally agile tongue completely stilled by the tension that emanated off the adults in the car.

“Where are we going?” she asked finally, her voice startling all of them.

“A safe house I arranged a couple of weeks back.”

She could tell from the grim set of his face that was all the information she was going to get out of him.

“What changed your mind about leaving the house?” she asked, hoping that the suspicion at the back of her mind, that he was still keeping loose contact with his old friends in the IRA, was unfounded.

“Pamela,” he said with some impatience, “I’ll answer all yer questions later. For now, though, I can’t see a foot beyond the headlights, an’ I’m not entirely certain how to find this place in the dark.”

That it seemed highly unlikely that a man who knew the streets of this city like the back of his own hand would have trouble navigating, even in the dark, was a comment she knew it was best to stifle for the present time.

The countryside slid by in the complete anonymity of darkness. From the backseat a soft buzz emanated from Lawrence, who had fallen asleep a mile beyond the village.

“Did ye bring yer camera?” Casey asked.

“You put it in the boot yourself,” she said. “Casey, are you expecting to get lifted?”

“No, but it doesn’t do to be too certain of anything in this town. Should I be taken,” he threw a quick glance over his shoulder to be certain Lawrence was still asleep. “I want ye to take pictures. It’s important to record what happens.”

“I—how can I do that?”

“I wouldn’t ask it of ye, if I didn’t think it important. They’ll try to whitewash this situation when it’s all done, we have to take what measures we can to ensure that some truth survives. Just promise me ye’ll do it.”

“Yes, I’ll do it.”

The rest of the drive was accomplished in a strained quiet. There was no way to make sense of what was happening around them, not on a personal level, nor on a communal one.

Casey at last turned into the snaky curve of an exceedingly narrow laneway, and then abruptly turned again. It wasn’t an area of Belfast that she was familiar with. Nor one, at first glance, with which she was eager to make a closer acquaintance.

The house was a faint smudge against the fingernail slice of moon that hovered above the roofline. Not a great deal of light was needed to observe that it was past its prime. On the sidewalk was an ancient rusted Russian Lada up on blocks, stripped of its tires and what little dignity it had once possessed.

A narrow wedge of light managed to escape through heavy curtains, small puffs of smoke lofting from a mossy crooked chimney. All in all, the house looked anything but safe. In fact, it seemed miraculous that it hadn’t toppled down about its occupant’s ears long before now.

The front door opened as they got out of the car, Lawrence’s snores still whistling round the back seat. A slight man stood framed in the faint light.

“Liam,” Casey said, nodding tersely as he grabbed their bags. “I appreciate this, man.”

The man nodded. “Ye know yer welcome under any number of roofs, we’re flattered that ye chose our home to shelter in.”

Pamela stood blinking in the entry, as Casey went back out to retrieve Lawrence.

A tired looking woman shuffled out from the kitchen, her belly a huge mound under a threadbare nightgown, a tatty cardigan clutched tightly about her narrow shoulders. Her face was pinched with exhaustion, but she managed a weary smile.

“Ye must be Pamela,” she said, and extended a hand. “I’m Mary.”

“Pleased to meet you. I wish it was under less strained circumstances,” Pamela said, feeling awkward to be standing in a stranger’s house, knowing she had to bed down here because of conditions that were completely out of her own control.

“Not certain less strained circumstances exist here,” Mary said.

Casey entered then, Lawrence half stumbling on his arm, eyes still closed.

“Christ he doesn’t look like much, but he feels like the fattened calf,” he said with a grunt, depositing the boy’s gangly frame on the couch.

“We’ve put the two of ye upstairs,” Mary said, rubbing her hands in the small of her back.

“When are you due?”

She grimaced. “Two weeks—seems like two years at this point though.”

Pamela’s hand went unconsciously to her own belly. It was an act of reassurance as well as one of protection. Mary smiled, a look of female complicity that was aeons old.

“An’ yerself?”

“Not until February.”

“First one?”

“No,” she replied quietly. Casey’s hand took hers and gave it a squeeze. For both of them, Deirdre would always be their first child.

Mary nodded. “We lost our second, though I was only the three months along. Still ye wonder who they might have been, no?”

“Yes, you do.”

“Well, good night then.” Mary waddled off in Liam’s wake, the curved mound of her belly like the prow of a ship.

“Come on woman,” Casey said softly, “let’s go to bed.”

They started up the narrow staircase, but she hesitated halfway, glancing back at Lawrence. He was still snoring, an afghan tucked securely around his thin-bladed shoulders.