This Irish House (6 page)

She felt a burst of irrational anger. This would never have happened if Patrick had lived. And Patrick would still be alive if only he'd been more careful, if he'd cared for his family as much as he cared for his country. Instantly she was ashamed of herself. Patrick Nolan hadn't a selfish bone in his body. He was a barrister, not a henchman privy to the secret plans of the opposition. How could he have known terrorists would seek him out in his own home and murder him in front of his wife and children?

Kate turned the key and maneuvered the car out on to the road toward Donegal, Ireland's most beautiful county. Kevin slept on. She slowed the car at the Strabane checkpoint. The guard looked in the window, saw her sleeping child and waved her on. Grateful for the reprieve, she negotiated the roundabout and turned northwest toward Ardara.

Her spirits lifted. To the right pink-tinged clouds settled on the peaks of the Twelve Bens. To her left the River Eske, silver under the gray sky, wound its way to the sea. On both sides of the road green hills dotted with longhaired sheep dipped and rose against the horizon. She was nearly home. She would put her son to bed, turn off the ringer on the phone and catch a few hours of much needed rest for herself. Patrick's Ireland could wait. It would still be here tomorrow. Today she would take care of her son.

D
eirdre pushed the rack of dishes inside the dishwasher, added detergent and closed the door. She looked at the clock. It was past noon and her mother still wasn't home, nor had she called.

Biting her lip, Deirdre reached for the telephone, hesitated, changed her mind and pulled her coat out of the hall closet. She would walk down the street to her grandfather's house. He would know what to do.

The wind stung her eyelids and the sensitive skin inside her nose. Bending her head, she crossed High Street and waved to a stout woman sweeping the street in front of the tearoom.

“Good afternoon, Mrs. O'Hara.”

“Good afternoon, Deirdre, love,” the woman replied cheerfully. “I thought you'd be gone by now. When is it that you'll be returnin' to school?”

Deirdre stopped. “Not for a bit. I'm still on holiday.”

“Lucky girl.” Una O'Hara smiled. “An education's a grand thing, lass. Don't be forgettin' that.”

“I won't.”

“You always were a clever lass. Your mam was, too, if I recall.” She leaned on her broom. “Learnin' comes more easily to some.”

Deirdre nodded politely, shifting from one foot to the other. Mrs. O'Hara would talk all day if she wasn't diverted.

“Have you seen my grandfather?” Deirdre asked. “I really want to talk to him.”

“You'll find him at the bookmakers.” The woman pointed to a small shop down the street.

“Thank you,” said Deirdre. “Goodbye, Mrs. O'Hara.”

“I've never seen such a man for the horses,” Mrs. O'Hara called after her.

Deirdre waved and hurried down the street.

She found her grandfather in a friendly argument with the bookmaker. “Seamus, lad, you've got rocks in your head,” complained John O'Donnell. “That horse will never make a winner. Better to place your money elsewhere.”

The bookmaker shook his head. “Since when have you had a winnin' purse, John O'Donnell?”

“I've had a streak of bad luck lately,” John agreed, “but that doesn't mean I don't know horses. I'm tellin' you that the colt is too short in the withers and too thin in the rump. He'll never make it past the first pole.”

“Grandda.” Deirdre tugged at her grandfather's sleeve. “I need to talk to you.”

John's eyebrows rose. “What are you doing here in town at this time of day, Deirdre, love?”

“I need to talk to you,” she repeated.

“And so we shall,” he promised, “as soon as I settle with Seamus, here.”

“I need to talk now.”

Surprised, John stared at his granddaughter. “What's gotten into you, Deirdre? It isn't like you to be so cheeky.”

Her sleepless night and worry for her brother had taken its toll. She was close to tears. “Please, Grandda.”

“I'm not goin' anywhere, John,” the bookmaker said. “See to the lass and we'll take this up later.”

Concerned at last, John nodded, tucked Deirdre's hand inside his arm and led her out the door. “Shall we go home, love, or back to my house?”

“Home,” Deirdre said immediately. “Maybe Mum and Kevin will be back by now and they'll worry about me.”

“Isn't your mother workin' today?”

Deirdre shook her head. “Kevin's in trouble. The police called last night and Mum drove to Belfast.”

John groaned. His grip on Deirdre's hand tightened. “What's he done?”

“I'm not sure,” Deirdre hedged.

“Come now, lass, out with it. There isn't much I haven't seen.”

Deirdre wasn't sure, but she had no choice. “He's lost, Grandda,” she confessed. “Kevin doesn't care about anything. He skips school and takes drugs. I think—” she bit her lip “—he might even be earning money by selling them. He's never with any of his old friends. The phone rings all the time and he gets mad if I answer. The voices scare me. They're old voices, too old for Kevin. Sometimes he doesn't come home at night.” Her voice dropped to a whisper. “He's so skinny and mean. I don't even know him anymore.”

“Does your mam know any of this?”

Deirdre shrugged. “Mum isn't stupid. If I can see it when I'm home on holiday, she must know. She lives with Kevin every day.”

John's face was grim. “Sometimes people only see what they want to see. Kate refuses to see wrong in those she loves. It's her most endearing and, at the same time, most infuriating quality.”

“She's not home yet and she left at five this morning.” Deirdre's voice cracked. “I'm worried. They won't arrest her, will they?”

“No, love,” John O'Donnell assured her. “Your mother's done nothing.”

Tears welled up in her eyes. “Neither did Da and they killed him.”

John swore under his breath. He took a minute to control himself. “Times have changed, Dee,” he said. “Think of it. It's only one o'clock now. The drive to Belfast takes four hours on a good day. Your mother isn't in any danger. If every woman with a delinquent son was arrested, the streets of Belfast would be empty. Lads sow their wild oats. Kevin will come around. A few years from now you'll laugh about this together. You'll see.”

Deirdre was doubtful. They'd rounded the curve of the rise that led to her house. She couldn't see the driveway. Her heart pounded. Please let her mother's car be there.

It was. She broke free of her grandfather's hand and ran up the steps to open the door. “Mum,” she called out, “where are you?”

John followed more slowly. He stepped into the living room in time to see Kate walk out of the kitchen, holding her finger against her lips. She took one look at her daughter's face and folded the girl into her arms.

“Everything's all right, love,” she said, stroking the smooth dark head buried in her shoulder. “Kevin's sleeping and I've decided to take the day off.” Over the girl's head, her eyes met her father's. “I'm making lunch. I hope you're hungry.”

John shook his head. He knew that look. Kate's relationship with food was a puzzle he'd never pieced together. He would get nothing out of her, not until she'd fed them all to satiation.

Over outrageous helpings of shepherd's pie and green salad, John quizzed his daughter. Her answers were hesitant and too brief for satisfaction, as if She were reluctant to reveal a confidence.

“For Christ sake, Kathleen,” her father exploded in frustration. “Kevin's dearer to me than my own sons. Deirdre and I want nothing but the best for him. How can we help if we don't know the truth?”

“I don't know the truth, Da,” she replied in her patient, low-pitched voice. “All I know is what Mr. Anderson told me. Kevin has a different story. I'm not blind nor am I naive. It's possible that Kevin is involved in something very serious.”

“Why did they let him go?” Deirdre asked.

Kate shrugged. “Most likely the witness wasn't reliable and they had no other evidence. Kevin hasn't been in trouble before.” She fell silent, her brow furrowed.

“What is it?” her father asked.

“Mr. Anderson is a professional from London.”

“So?”

“He said—” She stopped.

“Aye?”

“It's ridiculous, of course.”

“What is?”

“He thinks Kevin is heavily involved with drugs.”

Deirdre slumped in her chair. Suddenly her food tasted like sawdust. Someone had finally put the horrifying fear she'd carried around for months into words. But would her mother believe her?

“What do you think?” John demanded.

“I'm not sure.” Kate stirred the meat and potatoes with her fork. “I hardly see Kevin anymore. I have no influence over him. He comes and goes as he pleases. His friends are different. His marks in school are lower, but not seriously so.” She blinked back tears. “Somewhere, I lost him.”

“He's angry all the time,” Deirdre volunteered.

Her mother nodded. “I know, love.” She lifted her head and looked directly at her father. “But that doesn't mean he's criminally involved enough to profit from selling narcotics. If he needs help, he'll have it.”

John searched his daughter's face. She was very like her mother in coloring and feature, but not at all in demeanor or temperament. He saw something behind the clear, lovely eyes that he hadn't seen in quite a while, since the first years after Patrick's death, a haunted empty look that twisted his heart. “Is there something else, Katie, something you haven't told us?”

Kate chewed her lip, a nervous habit she'd passed on to her daughter. “Mr. Anderson tried to use Kevin as an informant.”

“What is he looking for?”

“It seems there's been unusual drug trafficking in Belfast. He thinks the IRA is involved.”

John's lips tightened. “Even if it is, how is Belfast different from any other city? Dublin has its drugs. So does London. And if the IRA is involved, Kevin wouldn't fool them. They'd see right through him. It would be a death sentence.”

“I don't think Mr. Anderson is overly concerned with the survival of one Catholic boy from the North.”

“What is he concerned about?”

“Maintaining order, preventing unnecessary deaths, doing his job.”

If she were anyone but Kate, he would have read sarcasm in her words. “There's nothing wrong with that, lass.”

“Of course there isn't. He'll just have to do it without Kevin.”

Deirdre cleared her throat. “What will you do with Kevin?”

Kate opened her mouth and closed it again without speaking. “I don't know.”

“He'll be awake soon,” Deirdre persisted. “Are we going to go on as if nothing happened?”

“I haven't really thought it through,” said Kate. “He's not the easiest person for me to talk to.”

“Let me talk to him,” offered John.

“Thanks, Da. But he's my son. I'll handle this.”

Deirdre interrupted them. “Kevin's gone beyond talking, Mum. If Mr. Anderson is right and Kevin is involved with drugs, it's going to take more than talk. You may have to insist on some kind of rehabilitation or counseling program. Kevin won't like that. How will you make him go if he doesn't want to?”

“I'm not going anywhere.”

Collectively John, Kate and Deirdre, froze.

Kevin, thin as a deer rifle, stood at the entrance to the kitchen. His eyes were bright with anger and two spots of red colored his gaunt cheeks.

His mother was the first to recover. She wet her lips. “Sit down, Kevin. I'll fill a plate for you while we talk.”

“There's nothing I want to say.”

Kate's temper, slow to rise, flared. “Then you'll listen because I have a great deal to say.”

Kevin crossed his arms against his chest and didn't move. “I suppose you've told Grandda and Deirdre everything.”

“I don't know everything. This is a perfect opportunity for you to tell us your story.”

The boy's lips remained mutinously sealed.

Deirdre spoke. “For pity's sake, Kevin, be reasonable. We're your family. We only want to help you. Do you think this is over? What happens the next time you're arrested? Mum can't help you forever.”

“There won't be a next time.”

“How can you be sure of that?” his mother asked.

“I won't go there again. Those chaps are nothing to me.”

“Why were you there last night?”

Kevin's sigh was a mixture of anger and impatience.

“There was a party, that's all. Leave it alone, will you, Mum?”

Kate stood and walked to the counter. Her hands shook. She willed herself to relax and began dishing man-size portions of meat pie and salad onto a plate. “Sit down, Kevin,” she said again. “You must be starving.”

“I'm not hungry at all.”

John spoke for the first time. “It's time for me to be leavin'. Walk with me a bit, Kevin. I can use the company.”

“He hasn't eaten, Da,” Kate protested.

“One missed meal won't kill him. Besides, he said he wasn't hungry.”

Kate gave up. “I'll keep the food warm. Don't be too long.”

Wisely John O'Donnell refrained from saying a word until they'd passed the long road leading to the ancient Norman castle, now a ruin by the sea's edge.

“Do you know I've never been up to the castle?” he began conversationally.

Kevin stopped in the road and stared at him. “You've lived here all of your life.”

His grandfather nodded. “Still, for all that, I've never seen it.”

“Why not?”

“I can't say. I suppose it never interested me, a rubble of broken stone.” The two walked on again. “Sometimes, what's right there in front of a man escapes him. It takes someone new, an outsider, perhaps, to give him a different perspective.”

Kevin rested one hand on his grandfather's shoulder, a gesture he'd assumed two years before when he'd overtaken the older man in height. “Is there a lesson in that, Grandda? Is that why you wanted me to come with you?”

“Don't consider it even for a minute, Kevin, lad. I wanted my grandson's company, nothing more.”

They continued for a few more minutes in silence. Then Kevin spoke. “Aren't you going to ask me if I did it?”

“No.”

The words ratcheted out, one at a time. “I have problems, Grandda.”

“You and the rest of the world, Kevin, lad.”

“I can't manage them the way everyone else can.”

“Why not?”

Kevin shrugged. “I don't know. I'll think about something and it gets bigger and bigger. Then my head hurts and my stomach heaves and I can't stand it. That's when I need the drugs.”

“What kind of drugs?”

“Mostly weed.”

“The man said it was cocaine.”

Kevin colored. “Sometimes it is.”

“That won't take away the pain, lad. It only postpones it for a while and then it comes back just as strong as it ever was. That's when you'll need more and more because you never give yourself a chance to heal.”