The 13th Apostle: A Novel of a Dublin Family, Michael Collins, and the Irish Uprising (14 page)

36

E
OIN
’
S
D
IARY

I
can’t believe what I did to Frank last night
.

After Collins met Boynton, he and Vinny came back to the office in Exchequer Street for a recap. Collins was pleased and thought all had gone well. He loved telling me about my father holding the straight razor to Boynton’s throat so he and Vinny could make their escape. If this is what Mick does to his friends, I don’t want to be his enemy!

I went home, and Frank returned, stupid with the drink. Apparently Mick gave him a shilling to get his arse out of the shop, and Frank spent it on pints. If I ever find the barman who serves children, I’ll have his head. I was fagged out from the day when Frank, all thirteen years of him, barged into the shop and started berating Collins. “That cunt,” he said, “is trying to get us killed, and you think of the world of him!”

“Shut up,” says I, in a whisper, but Frank would have none of it.

“He’s a cunt, Eoin,” he said. “A goddamned cunt.”

“You’ve had enough to drink,” says I. “Get to bed.”

“Fuck bed—I’m going to Dublin Castle to turn your mate in.”

“You go to bed, or I’ll lay you low.”

“With what, little man?”

Frank was bigger than me—and I’m not braggin’—but I’m a lot smarter. “Just shut the fook up, and go to bed,” says I.

“Meet me at Dublin Castle, you Fenian cunt.”

I had had enough. Mick won’t let me carry a gun, so I’ve taken to “wearing” a pipe in me inside jacket pocket. One foot long, and it does the trick.

“I’ve got you!” Frank laughed like he actually had me.

I went up to him, pulled the pipe out of my pocket, and laid him out with one blow to the side of his head. Blood was gushing on the floor when my father rushed out of the back room. “My God,” said Da. “What happened?”

“Frank had an accident,” I told him, as I got a towel to wrap around Frank’s thick head.

“But why?”

“He was talking treason. Do you understand?” My father nodded. “Take him to the Meath—get him stitched and sobered up.”

“Will you help me?”

“No,” I said with sorrow. “He’s your problem now.” I paused for a moment. “Don’t make him Collins’s problem.”

Frank, holding the towel to his head, looked at me in stunned disbelief. My father looked at me with dread, and I knew that Mick’s revolution had already poisoned my family, perhaps forever.

37

“
I
never knew a girl who was ruined by a book.”

That was Mayor Jimmy Walker’s response to a call for censorship. When Eoin Kavanagh’s wife first read it in the
New York Daily News
, her face broke out in a big smile. “Eoin,” she called to her husband, “I like your Mayor Walker. Finally a politician who’s against censorship.” She paused for a second. “Censorship is the rancid juice of government and the Church.”

Eoin smiled. “You’re becoming a rabble-rouser.”

“I want to write what I want to write, and no one is going to tell me what I can write and what I can read. Censorship is the tool of the ultimate insecure coward!”

As a congressman’s wife, she remained in New York while Eoin spent the week in Washington, returning to the Village on weekends. She continued to work as a nurse at St. Vincent’s Hospital, and Eoin Jr. went to high school at LaSalle Academy on the Lower East Side. It was a happy domestic scenario, but the wannabe writer in the family was restless.

She first got into the writing business working for First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt. Eoin was with other congressional leaders at the White House right after the Nazis invaded Belgium in May 1940. The meeting was grim, but the president remained ebullient, even though his outlook for the invasion was not rosy. For the first time since the Great Depression, Eoin felt fear and uncertainty in the Congress.

As the meeting broke up and the congressmen were leaving the Oval Office, Eoin heard the president call him aside. “Eoin,” FDR said, “do you have a minute?” As soon as the others were out of the office, he asked, “How’s Congressman Johnson from Texas coming along?”

Eoin laughed. “You mean LBJ?”

“LBJ?”

“Lyndon Baines Johnson.”

“But LBJ?”

“You’re responsible, Mister President.”

“
Moi
?” asked the president innocently, sticking a Lucky Strike into a cigarette holder and lighting it.

“Yes,” said Eoin. “He figured if Franklin Delano Roosevelt is FDR, then Lyndon Baines Johnson has to be LBJ.”

The president threw his head back and let out his wonderful laugh. Then he looked at his watch. “I think that story deserves a martini. Cocktail hour has commenced!”

“I never disagree with my president,” said Eoin, taking a seat next to FDR’s desk. The president often called members of Congress—including LBJ—to the White House to have drinks. Eoin thought that he was probably lonely. It seemed that Eleanor was everywhere—except Washington, D.C.

In due course, the drinks were brought in. It was a hot and humid Washington day, but the Oval Office was air-conditioned to help minimize the president’s allergies. The condensation on the martini glasses made them more inviting than ever, and the two friends clicked glasses.

“How bad is it, Mister President?”

FDR shook his head. “You don’t give me a break, do you Eoin?”

“You forget I’ve been through a war myself.”

“I never forget that,” said the president, “and the situation is not promising.”

“Can’t the French and British stop the Germans?”

“I don’t know,” replied FDR. “My General Marshall is not optimistic.”

“George Marshall is the smartest man in Washington,” said Eoin. The president cocked his head to the side. “Present company excluded, of course.” Eoin was always amused by the egos of politicians, and FDR was no exception. “So, Mister President, are you running?”

“What do you think?”

“I think you now have no choice, with another war on the horizon. And I think you’re about to win your third term in November.”

“Just between us,” the president said in a conspiratorial tone, “I agree!”

“You’ll kill Wilkie.”

“It won’t be easy, but the ‘Barefoot Boy from Wall Street’ is about to see his first big league pitching.” That got a laugh out of Eoin. “And how’s the beautiful Mrs. Kavanagh?”

“Typically restless,” said Eoin. “I think she’s tired of the nursing. She’s been at it now for well over twenty-five years. She wants to be a writer.”

“Funny enough,” said FDR, “Eleanor is looking for someone to help her out with her newspaper column. It might be a good pairing. Eleanor spends much of her time in Greenwich Village these days—heaven forbid America should hear about that!—and, of course, you two live there, too.”

“And my son is going to college in the fall,” said Eoin, “so the house will be empty. I think it might be the right opportunity at the right time.”

The congressman’s wife walked over to 20 East 11th Street, just off Fifth Avenue. She rang the bell labeled “Esther Lape” and was buzzed in. The apartment belonged to a friend. When she got to the door, there was a Secret Service man seated outside. “Mrs. Kavanagh? Go right on in.”

She was greeted by Mrs. Roosevelt, who offered her tea. “As you know,” Eleanor said in that high-pitched voice famous to all America, “I write the ‘My Day’ column six days a week, and, frankly, my dear, I need help. As you can see from the events in Europe over the last week or so, things may be getting a little more hectic.”

“I’d love to help you, Mrs. Roosevelt. It’s time for a change in my life. I’ve been nursing since I was a girl in Dublin.”

“Nursing is such a fine profession.”

“I know it is, Mrs. Roosevelt, but there are times of change in every woman’s life, and I think I’m at that threshold.”

“How did you meet Congressman Kavanagh?”

Róisín laughed. “In the General Post Office during the Easter Uprising. He was one of my patients.”

“How romantic!”

“He had a hole in his arse!”

“Don’t we all.” The two women first blushed in unison and then laughed heartily together.

“Oh,” said Róisín, “I didn’t mean it like that. He was wounded in his bottom. We fell in love over a number of years. He’s a wonderful husband and father.”

“That’s wonderful, Róisín—may I call you Róisín?”

“Of course, you may, Mrs. Roosevelt.”

“And you might as well call me Eleanor.” The First Lady turned serious. “This is my ‘hiding house,’” she confessed. “I can’t stand Washington. I much prefer the Village. So it would be convenient to have someone in the neighborhood here to work on my columns and the occasional book. What are your qualifications?”

“Well,” said Róisín, “I’m Irish.”

“That does seem to be a literary advantage, I must admit.”

“I’m well read. I read almost all the New York papers every day and I love books—and, in a way, the people who write them.”

“Have you written anything?”

“No,” said Róisín honestly, “but I want to. I’ve lived in such exciting times, and I think I have something to say.”

“Good for you! How are your politics?”

“A lot more radical than my revolutionary husband!”

Mrs. Roosevelt howled. “We share the same dilemma.” She turned pensive. “I don’t know what I shall do with Franklin. He could be a much better, more progressive president.” Róisín was amused that they both thought their so-called “liberal” husbands weren’t that liberal at all. Eleanor liked this Dublin woman with the wide smile, freckled nose, and dancing, intelligent eyes, still marvelously youthful at forty-one. “You come with a very high recommendation from my husband. He thinks you’re ‘swell,’ as he likes to say. Tell you what, Róisín. Can you get a leave of absence at St. Vincent’s?”

“I think I can.”

“That way, if it doesn’t work out, you can return to nursing. But I think we’ll be fine, you and I. You are obviously a highly intelligent woman. Well, then, Róisín, should we give it a try?” And, like they say in the movies, it was the beginning of a beautiful friendship.

38

E
OIN
’
S
D
IARY
T
UESDAY
, N
OVEMBER
12, 1918

T
hank God it’s over
.

The papers are full of the news that the Great War ended last night on the eleventh hour of the eleventh day. What that will mean for Ireland I’m not sure, but I am thrilled the carnage in the trenches is over.

The carnage in the trenches may be over, but the carnage in Dublin may just be beginning. Not surprisingly, there were great celebrations at Trinity College yesterday, with the students hoisting the Union Jack to the top of the entrance and carrying on in their usual obnoxious behavior. There were lots of jeers from regular Dubliners and quite a few scuffles around town. Róisín phoned this morning to tell me that the Mater was filled with dozens of injured Unionists and policemen. She said there were a few fatalities. And that’s only one hospital. I haven’t heard anything from Jervis Street, the Meath, or the South Dublin Union.

Mick came bursting into the Bachelors Walk office in high spirits. He was also glad the war was over—but for a different reason. “Now our work really begins!” he shouted.

“What are you talking about?”

“Elections, Eoin, elections!”

I told him Róisín had called about all the injuries that had come into the Mater. “Great work by GHQ,” said Mick. He said that most of the injuries were inflicted by Volunteers on direct orders by Dick McKee and Dick Mulcahy. “Great work by my two Dicks!” crowed Mick.

I was about to say, “Yeah, two Dicks, and you’re one big prick,” but I thought better of it.

“According to reports,” Mick went on, “there have been more than a hundred injuries and a few fatalities. The Volunteers came out without a scratch.”

But the main thing on Mick’s mind this morning were the elections. “This is the time to split from the British Empire. We’re going to have our own parliament. We’ll no longer sit with those hoors in Westminster.”

“Yes,” says I, “now we can sit with our own hoors right here in Dublin.” That got a big laugh out of Mick, but I’ve never seen him looking so happy, looking forward to the new challenge. In my bones, I have an uneasy feeling. It looks like we’ll be playing politics for a while, but I know the reality of the situation—and that reality will, eventually, be brutal.