The Convictions of John Delahunt (2 page)

He came in yesterday with a few sheets of cotton paper, an inkpot and some worn nibs. He said the condemned were permitted to write a final statement. ‘It’ll probably find its way into the press so make it good.’

I leafed through the thin blank sheaf. ‘I’ll need more paper.’

Where to begin? I wrote that, then crossed it out. For me, there’s no need to dwell on the nature of providence, or trace back through decisions that led me here like a genealogist compiling a pedigree. It’s clear when all this started. It was two years ago; during my second last term at Trinity. Walking through Front Square on an evening in early spring, I crossed paths with two others known to me. One was Helen’s older brother, Arthur Stokes, a tall and amiable fellow with trimmed fair hair and a weak chin. We had been friends since childhood, though we’d drifted apart during the three years at college. He was a medical student and active member of college societies. I read natural philosophy and found those fraternal gatherings juvenile.

His companion was James O’Neill, a law student with a green ribbon attached to his lapel. It was O’Neill who said they were going for a drink in the Eagle and suggested I tag along. In College Green cab drivers clattered through the empty thoroughfares. We turned right into Eustace Street and soon heard the sounds of the tavern spill on to the road. Once inside it was much like any other night. Raucous laughter and howled conversations; smells of stale drink and sweet tobacco; blazing fires and body heat – I was forced to remove my coat immediately. We climbed the crooked stairs to a snug in a back garret favoured by students, where more than a dozen young men occupied tables surrounding the hearth. Illumination was provided by the embers as well as gnarled candles dotted on tabletops.

At around midnight we were joined by two others unknown to me, students of law from O’Neill’s class. I tried to keep up with the conversation. I’ve always found it a struggle to discern individual voices in a loud pub, and besides, I was unmoved by the topic. O’Neill was defending a newly formed association committed to repealing the Act of Union. The others decried it. They argued its leader, O’Connell, could no longer survive without the roar of popular assemblies and he would drag the country into civil strife rather than retire gracefully. Arthur tried to arbitrate by saying there was no cause for alarm, as only a handful had attended the first repeal meeting.

O’Neill spoke into his glass. ‘When the people see he is in earnest they will flock to his banner once more.’ He looked at me with heavy eyelids and asked me what I thought.

I said I didn’t care. Arthur began to speak again, but O’Neill cut him off. ‘What did he say?’ His brow had furrowed as if he’d been presented with a conundrum. ‘You mean you don’t care about Ireland?’

Nor about England, France or Japan, but before I could say so O’Neill dismissed me with a waved hand. ‘A man so unconcerned with his own prospects could hardly care much for his country.’

We were pitched out at closing time. Rain had blackened the uneven cobbles on Essex Street. O’Neill’s debate with his two classmates descended into argument and he grappled with one. A policeman happened by. There was a scuffle during which the officer fell injured with a blow to the side of his head. He lay unconscious, but his fingers unfurled and a truncheon rolled on to the road. The bristles of his moustache dipped into an inky puddle. We scattered to the five wards.

A few days later I was skirting the rail of St Stephen’s Green when another man matched my step, and struck up a conversation as if we were old acquaintances. I slowed in order to distinguish his features, but he touched my elbow in a way that impelled me forward.

‘Have you ever seen a more odious day, John?’ It was blustery and a little overcast. Not unusual for the time of year. I agreed it was very bad. The man leaned closer so our shoulders almost touched, and he asked after the health of my father, his voice tinged with concern.

I said his condition was much the same. They must have been old friends. His name would come to me in a minute.

‘And Cecilia. Is she finding married life agreeable?’ He referred to my younger sister, who lived miserably with her new husband in Coppinger Row.

‘She’s quite happy.’

‘And how is your friend Arthur Stokes?’ On the path before us a barefoot boy scampered on to the muddy roadway, causing a passing horse to shy. ‘And James O’Neill. The three of you still frequent the Eagle, I believe.’

I stopped walking, as if I hoped the man would continue on and leave me be. He wheeled about to face me, unhurried, his hands deep in his coat pockets. He didn’t look like a policeman, more like a banker or civil servant, but I was sure at any moment he would order me to Little Ship Street. In the same conversational tone he said the officer involved in the brawl the other night had suffered deafness in the stricken ear, so the Castle was taking a special interest. He looked about. We were standing across from the Winter Palace pub. ‘Why don’t we step in for a drink?’

‘I can’t. I have to attend a lecture in ten minutes.’

‘But I insist.’ His eye didn’t waver.

‘Very well.’

We went to a snug attached to the bar, where he sat with his back to the door. I faced him across a table upon which two glasses of port appeared. He took off his hat and smoothed back thick brown hair. His face was framed by neat muttonchop whiskers and a prominent brow. He gently caressed the inside of his hat, feeling along the silk lining to pop out a small dent in the crown. ‘My name is Thomas Sibthorpe.’ He nodded at the table. ‘Drink up.’

I was greatly relieved when he said I wasn’t suspected of the offence, that he was merely speaking to me as a witness. They had a very good picture of what transpired that night, though they had to ensure all information was collected before warrants were issued. They knew that James O’Neill struck the blow.

A bead ran down the side of my glass. I used my thumb to smear it before it touched the table. ‘Others saw O’Neill strike the blow?’

There was no need to concern myself with what others saw. All that mattered was what I saw, and was willing to swear to. This was such a serious incident: one of Her Majesty’s officers maimed for life in the course of his duties. Stokes and I would be in cells at the moment, but for the fact that they knew it was O’Neill. All I had to do was swear to what I saw.

‘Have you interviewed Arthur Stokes?’

He took a sip for the first time. This wasn’t an interview. Witnesses to a crime make statements as they are obliged by civic duty. Stokes had already offered an account which was deplorably vague. For Arthur, yes there would have to be further questioning. He leaned in. ‘It’s always unpleasant when young men of learning are brought for interrogation into the bowels of the Castle, and such an embarrassment when police boots invade the family home.’ And all so unnecessary, for they knew it was O’Neill.

And what of O’Neill himself?

‘Delahunt, I will visit you at your home in two hours’ time. You will be required to make a statement to me regarding the events of Tuesday night, and the extent to which you assist our efforts is entirely up to you. I would consider that point carefully.’ There was no need to give him my address. He threw back his drink, fixed his hat and left me to pay.

I pondered my position in the Winter Palace for an hour. I knew O’Neill hadn’t struck the telling blow, and I suspected Sibthorpe knew that as well. Still, it appeared that was the narrative the authorities had decided upon. They seemed loath to allow contradiction.

Stokes, I guessed, had adopted the tack of claiming not to have seen the pertinent punch, which had not gone down too well. What would be my reward if I did the same? A night in a dank cell; interrogated and physically cajoled into saying what I was at liberty to say already.

I drained the last drop from my glass. O’Neill and I had attended the same college and caroused in the same circle for nearly a year, during which time he never missed an opportunity to humble me in some fashion. My family’s straitened finances, my poor grades, my weak physique; he deftly cut to my every insecurity like a surgeon. Nonetheless, if put in my situation I knew he would not swear against one of his fellows. I brought the empty glasses back to the bar. Maybe that’s why the authorities had picked up on him.

I made my way home to Fitzwilliam Street and awaited Sibthorpe. At that point the house was almost empty. My father lay bedridden upstairs, subsisting in darkened, gouty squalor in a room from which he had not emerged for over a year. My mother was dead, my brother served abroad, my sister married off. A middle-aged servant lived adjacent to my father’s chamber; his care was her sole responsibility and she and I had no other interaction.

I took a seat by the parlour window and saw Sibthorpe approach at the appointed hour. I opened the front door so he wouldn’t have to ring and showed him into the front room. He carried a dark leather satchel which he laid upon a writing desk.

‘Are you ready to make your statement?’

I told him I was as he walked towards the closed double doors that separated the parlour from the back dining room. He nodded towards them. ‘Is there anyone in there?’

‘No. But you can check yourself if you wish.’

‘Oh I will,’ and he folded back the doors to reveal the gloomy, disused room. Those doors were only opened on evenings my parents hosted dinner parties. I can remember the long dining table laden with sparkling crystalware and mother-of-pearl cutlery, the hinged leaves at both ends hitched up like trapdoors in a platform. Alex, Cecilia and I would be shooed upstairs where we listened to the arrival of carriages, the greeting of guests, and then the happy murmur as the evening progressed. My sister and I would steal down below. We peeked in at the gatherings: the gentlemen in tailored black jackets, the women in their finery, the soldiers in dress uniform. Our parents would sit at each end, basking in the conviviality and gentle light. Whenever we were discovered – by a maid carrying decanters of claret or the butler with a broad silver platter – we fled, giggling, to the top of the house and our nursery. Cecilia would find some paper and begin to draw the ladies in their jewelled dresses. I liked to draw the soldiers. For some reason I always imagined them captured and enchained.

The room Sibthorpe stepped into was shabby and decayed. The table had been pushed to one side and chairs were stacked beneath dust sheets. He locked the far dining-room door leading to the hallway, closed the double doors again and also locked the parlour door. He took a sheaf of paper from his satchel and found a nib and inkpot on the writing desk.

‘If you dictate your statement I will transcribe.’ He said I had to speak slowly anyway so I should consider my words. When I saw the top of his pen fall still I could continue. ‘Begin at the point you left the Eagle tavern.’

For several pages my testimony came easily, for it was the truth. Stokes, O’Neill and I left the pub with two others that O’Neill had known. Stokes and I were not particularly inebriated, the other three very much so, and we meandered towards the river. There was a quarrel. O’Neill and one of the others began to exchange blows in Essex Street. I had seen nights end like this several times so simply continued on. After a minute the shout of an unfamiliar voice made me look back. A policeman had come upon the scene. Only Stokes seemed aware of his arrival. O’Neill landed a punch on his original opponent, who went down. The other friend took up the fight, and the policeman laid him low with a baton to the shoulder blade. He then grabbed O’Neill in a headlock to make the arrest. Stokes chose this moment to remonstrate with the officer to go easy. Fearing another attack, he caught Stokes with a backhand blow. All the while O’Neill flailed at the man who had him restrained.

It was at this point my story diverged from fact, but I continued seamlessly. I said O’Neill managed to free himself of the grip for an instant, enough to swing a wild punch at the constable’s head. I warmed to the task and used words like ‘gasped’ and ‘recoiled’ and ‘shuddered’ to describe my reaction to the blow.

Sibthorpe met my eye. ‘Let’s not over-egg it.’

He was quite right. When the statement was complete I read it over. He had been editing what I said while transcribing, and it was an impressive piece of writing: so efficient, so plausible. Nonetheless, I was afraid to affix my signature.

But I knew my dilemma was nothing compared to that faced by Stokes. Of course he had been the guilty one. The backhanded blow dealt by the officer had not felled him. I can still see the change that came over Arthur’s face, usually so genial. He approached the constable from behind, closed his fist by clumsily gripping his own thumb, and struck it against the man’s ear. The two lads unfamiliar to me couldn’t have seen; they were barely getting to their feet. O’Neill was so drunk and oblivious he continued to flail for a second after he was released from the policeman’s grip. When he saw the officer slump to the ground he let out a triumphant yelp. Stokes bent over the injured man, then raised his head and saw me watching from the corner. The rolling truncheon clicked against the kerb. A whistle sounded some streets away, and each protagonist stumbled into the dark.

It was Arthur who had to worry. He could get O’Neill off the hook if he had a crumb of honour; my involvement was by the by. If Arthur confessed, he would contradict my statement, but then I could claim I took it upon myself to save the Stokes family’s reputation for his and Helen’s sake. I was surely in the clear, so took the proffered pen and wrote out my name with a flourish. Sibthorpe folded the statement carefully into his satchel and sized me up. ‘I wasn’t sure you’d do it.’

‘It wasn’t as difficult as I thought.’

Without saying anything more, he unlocked the parlour door and let himself out.

A few hours later, I grew uneasy as I considered the consequences of the affidavit. I took a handful of candles and an armful of books and ensconced myself in my chamber for three days. It was still cold during the night so I slept in my overcoat. I would hear my father’s helper, old Miss Joyce, pass through the house, going from the bedrooms above to the kitchen in the basement, occasionally leaving the house on errands. Late one evening her footfall was accompanied by the light from a candle, which glowed against my doorjamb from without. She paused, and we both listened to each other stay perfectly still, until she continued on, and the door’s outline dimmed once more.