by Orna Ross
We lie in silence again for a while. I am feeling it strong tonight, the awareness of each other that’s always there, lying just underneath the talk. Our memory of how we used to be: young, lusty, careless.
“Gimme a kiss,” he says, lightly, like it’s a joke.
“Feck off.” I match his tone.
“Don’t be such a miser. It wouldn’t kill you, one little kiss.”
“There’s no such thing as a little kiss.”
He starts to sing, Bogie style: “You must remember this, a kiss is just a kiss…”
I don’t laugh. “Stop it, Rory. You shouldn’t. We shouldn’t even be here, like this, each night. It’s—”
“OK, OK, forget it. I was only kidding around.”
I close my eyes, trying to steady myself. Behind the whoosh of the sea are other sounds: car doors banging, voices calling, somebody heading out into the night. With our pub closed, they have to drive up to Ryans of Rathmeelin for a drink.
After a while he speaks into the dark: “So…never?”
“No.”
“You’ve gone right off me?”
“That’s it.”
“Jo, you don’t have to be so rigid. I’m not going to jump you if you show a moment’s feeling.”
He is right, but I’m afraid of what will happen if I let go. I feel like I’m the one holding the line for us both, but I don’t know how much longer I can last. Sometimes I fear he is the real reason I came back to Mucknamore, the reason I didn’t rent a cottage down the coast. Is all this acting the hermit here just to keep him in my sights?
My grass pile is growing, into a mound. I keep plucking away, adding to it. He says: “After you cut us short, did you never wonder—“
“I cut us short? Me?”
“Come on, Jo, I wasn’t the one who disappeared off to England without a word.”
“You could have followed me if you’d wanted to. Maeve knew where I was.”
“You left the country, for God’s sake. You made it clear you didn’t want to…’ Then he stops himself. “Oh, maybe you’re right. Everything was different then. I was so young. It was all too much for me.”
That was the truth. That was what I found so hard to take. It was all too much for me too but I hadn’t the choice to opt out. If I could have, would I? Would my love have let me? Old questions that once revolved round and round until my whole self was spinning.
“It doesn’t matter now, does it?” I say. “I hate thinking about the young me. She was such an idiot.”
“She was wonderful.”
“Don’t.”
“She was. She still is. You are.”
“Rory. Don’t.”
He starts to pick at the label of his beer bottle. “What are you trying to say, Jo, that we’re just friends now? Is that why you think I come up here each night, putting my marriage under strain…”
“Then don’t come, Rory. Don’t come. I don’t want—”
“You do want, you know you do. Don’t say what you don’t mean.”
That takes me aback. That’s my line.
“We know each other, Jo. Nobody knows me like you.”
Nobody? Not even her? “Oh, Rory. We’re different people now.”
“Not inside.”
“Yes, inside. Inside and out, every way. I am not that eighteen-year-old girl.”
“I still see her in you.”
“What do you want, Rory? What do you want from me when you say things like that?”
“You know what I want.” His voice is low.
“Then why? Why do you want that?”
“Why?” The question surprises him.
“What, seven-year itch? Wife doesn’t understand you? Midlife crisis?”
“You don’t have to play the cynic all the time, Jo. Is it so hard for you to believe that I…want to be with you? You don’t know how coming up here each evening is keeping me sane.”
He reaches across, stops my hands from plucking grass, holds them in each of his. His palms are cold from the beer bottle, so cold they feel wet. “Ever since you’ve come back, I feel like we are playing out a part. All these things you are finding out about our families, all this history before we came into the story. It’s like we have unfinished business, like we have to play it out…”
He hesitates, shakes his head. “Does that sound crazy?”
“No,” I whisper.
“See,” he says. “You understand. I couldn’t explain something like that to anybody else.’ After a small silence, he goes on: “‘Wife doesn’t understand you…’ You fire it off like it’s a joke, but let me tell you, it’s no joke when a marriage is going awry. I’m not saying I’m blameless in it, I know I’m not, and I know she feels every bit as bad as I do. We haven’t been good for a long time. There: that’s the first time I’ve said it out loud to anyone.”
He lets me go, leans back. “We haven’t. So when your mother approached me last year about looking after her will, and it meant I was going to see you again, I felt like a small light had been switched on for me. I didn’t think you’d come back here, so I used to imagine going across to California to you, what I’d say, how you’d be…I fixed on it, held onto it, and that got me through. Seeing you, I thought, would sort me, take me out of the terrible paralysis that was squeezing me dead. I’d know what to do next. And now you’re here. And I—”
He has looked into my face and what he sees there makes him falter. My wrecking-ball anger. I pull my knees into my chest, wrap my arms around my legs to try and hold it down.
“You talk about unfinished business, Rory,” I say, speaking slow and low, winnowing out words that won’t say too much. “You talk as if we mislaid something and now we can reclaim it. I could never, ever see it that way. For me, that time…what happened…it was a cleft. I can no more take up where I left off than I could go back to being a toddler.”
“That’s not what I meant.” He untangles my fingers from their grasp around my legs, takes my hands in his again. “Look at me, Jo. Please. I know I let you down before. But now…Now we’re here and we’re together. I’m not saying our feelings are the same as then, or that there aren’t complications. But the feelings are there, you know they are. Can’t we just concentrate on what might come next?”
1922
Diary 4th July 1922
Independence Day in America -- and now in Wexford too.
It’s Wednesday, very late. I’m sitting in the ladies’ room of the Portsmouth Arms, locked into one of the water closets with a candle, the only place around here that it’s possible to be alone. I can’t think right after meeting Dan. He’s thrown me into a heap, as he always does. I need to set my thoughts down to steady them.
But before I get to Dan O’Donovan, let me first write these glorious words: The Republic lives! Enniscorthy’s fight is over and the so-called National Army lies defeated!
It didn’t take us long in the end. We had a shambles of a morning during which we received a number of injuries and lost one man – that boy Denis Heffernan that Norah and I met with Tipsy the other day. After that, Mr O’Malley got decisive and gave orders to collect all the petrol and explosives we could get our hands on.
The plan was to blow in the yard-gate of the Castle, the army’s stronghold, then fire the building. A deputation of priests, hearing of it, went to ask him to reconsider, to withdraw from the town so further bloodshed might be prevented. Mr O’Malley told them he was here as a soldier and under orders. If they really wanted to prevent bloodshed, it would be better to interview the Free State garrison and tell them to surrender. What he could do was arrange a ceasefire for an hour, to facilitate that.
The news went around the town in no time and the people piled onto the streets to see what would happen. After the hour was up, a Free State soldier carrying a white flag was led blindfold to our HQ, and that was that.
We’d won.
The Republic was — is won. I am pleased, of course I am, delighted. Though it feels diffe
rent to what I expected and I can’t stop thinking about Denis Heffernan. What a foul thing to happen, especially when it was all going to end like this the next day. A sneaky lie to pull our men into a sneaky ambush.
Watching the soldiers in their fancy Free Stater uniforms making their surrender was very gratifying, especially hearing them swear they would never again be disloyal to the Republic. It was decided to permit those who had fought in the War of Independence to keep their arms, on condition they took an oath swearing they would not use them again against us. Our side doesn’t have anywhere yet to house prisoners, so all we could do was march them out of town. Within a few hours they were back, green uniforms turning up everywhere on the streets and in the pubs. They were greeted magnanimously: our lads are not men to be haughty about victory, especially against old comrades.
And that’s how we came to meet Dan. Norah and I were walking up through the town, talking about going back home to Mucknamore to face into our ordinary lives. I can’t imagine how I’ll settle back down. And if it’s bad for me, what about poor Norah? The past few days have been like a place apart for us all, but for none more than her. How she’ll face her family, she doesn’t know. She is nothing short of petrified. The thoughts of a Republican victory will sicken her father and the thoughts that she was part of it…fighting against her own brother…
And now that everybody knows about herself and Barney, she’s terrified he’ll get wind of that too.
I tried to console her as we took a walk out The Prom. Right to the very end of the river-path we walked, then all the way back, and afterwards we sat on the grass, reluctant to return. These fighting days have really brought her out of herself. She’s much freer than she used to be.
But there are still things she finds it hard to talk about, especially her family. You have to respect her privacy. And admire her loyalty.
We sat for ages. Lack of sleep had caught up with us and we were too tired to move. The sun took a long time to set and, even after it went down, the sky held onto the light, as reluctant as we were to let go of this great day. For a time we stayed, murmuring into the dusk, and saying a prayer for Denis Heffernan. Then darkness settled in for real and we knew we had to make a move.
As we were turning into Slaney Street, at the top of the hill, we saw two men arm-in-arm, one tall and dark, wearing the green uniform of the Free State Army, the other shorter and fair, in the trench coat of the IRA Volunteer. We recognised our two brothers, arm-in-arm, their free hands holding a bottle of porter. Leaning into each other and singing: Soldiers are we, whose lives are pledged to Ireland…
Dan looked down and saw us. “There’s the girls,” he called and – foolish! foolish! – I felt my heart take an excited tumble as he began to drag Barney down the hill towards us, laughing, nearly knocking him over, he took it so fast.
“Look at the state of you,” I said to Barney when they righted themselves. I ignored the other fellow.
“Ah, Peg,” Barney said, wheedling me. “Don’t be like that…”
“Barney, you’re drunk.”
“G’way out of that. A few drinks, is all…a few drinks with my friend here…”
“Friend now, is it?”
You’d think he’d never heard what Dan O’Donovan has been going around saying about us.
“’Tis a good thing, surely?” he slobbered. “Men who were shooting at each other earlier today are now able to enjoy a drink together. That’s a grand thing. Don’t you think so, Norah?”
Norah didn’t answer.
Dan’s eyes were too heavy-lidded, though you’d need to know him well to see it. Barney was visibly stocious, barely able to stay standing. He was looking at Norah with his feelings all over his soft, silly face.
“What separates us is nothing…nothing compared to what unites us. It’s Ireland we all love. Isn’t that right, Dan?”
“Sure, Barney. That’s it. Good old Ireland.”
I could have slapped him, and my fool of a brother too, who hadn’t even the wit to see he was being laughed at.
Then what did Dan do only lean across and whisper in my ear, so the others couldn’t hear: “It’s grand to see you. You’re looking fine tonight.”
My traitor heart twisted inside me.
Out loud, he said: “I think the four of us should go for a bit of a walk, to sober up this fellow.” He elbowed Barney in the chest. “What do you say, girls?”
My insides took another roll. “No,” I cried, so the three of them looked at me in surprise.
“No,” I said again, more controlled this time.
“The Prom by the river is lit all the way to the end,” Dan said. “It makes a nice walk.”
Barely lit, as Norah and I knew, having only just come back from down there. Full of shadows and trees along the way. And part of me was tempted, but – thank God! – I had it in me to resist.
“No,” I said a third time. “We wouldn’t be caught dead with you two, the condition you’re in.”
I looked over at Norah and was pleased to see her nodding her head in agreement. I thought she might have been keen to step out with Barney, but I should have had more faith in her decency. Only an eejit like myself would even consider it.
“Ah, now, Peg.” Barney fumbled around his sodden head for words. “Ireland is…Ireland will be…”
“I’ll tell you about Ireland, Barney,” I said, without looking at Dan. “Enniscorthy’s battle might be won today but we’ve Wexford town and the other towns still to be freed. And even here isn’t guaranteed safe yet. The Provisional Government isn’t going to take defeat lying down. But here you are, on the side of a hill, consorting with the enemy. Go home to your bed and sober up and be ready for the work we need to do tomorrow. I shouldn’t need to remind you, Barney.”
And before he — either of them — could answer, I turned back up the street. Norah followed and we never looked back, not even when we heard Dan make one of his remarks. I know it was something facetious by the tone of voice. And by the way my brother let out a guilty laugh and then tried to swallow it.
1973
Mrs D. is late. By the time her car pulls into the convent car park, I am the last girl waiting by the recreation-room window.
The nuns have started to let us go home at weekends. Every second Saturday, we can leave after study at one o’clock and stay out until Sunday evening. It is optional, this home visit, and I’d rather stay in school. I’m pretty certain Mrs D. would prefer that too, but she’d never leave me here like some parents do: whatever would the nuns think of that? So I play my part, lining up with the other girls at the window, calling out, “There’s me,” when I see the blue Ford come in through the gates, swinging down to her with my weekend bag slung over my shoulder, as if Mucknamore is my idea of a good time.
Today, she is not hunched over the steering wheel, but out of the car and walking up and down beside it. Smiling. It’s like seeing a clown’s smile. Too painted on.
“Sorry I’m late,” she says, as I approach. “Maeve is getting in on the half-two train, so there was no point in coming earlier. We’d only have been sitting in the car, waiting.” If it was the other way round, she would have welcomed the time with Maeve, but sit in the car with me for half an hour? Intolerable.
Maeve has left the convent now, gone to Dublin to teacher-training college. I had forgotten she was coming home this weekend, but surely it is not this that has Mrs D. beaming?
“By the way,” she says, getting back into the car. “We have a surprise at home.”
“Oh, yeah?”
I open the passenger door, throw in my bag, nonchalant. Every cell in me resists her mood.
“Don’t fall over yourself asking me what it is, anyway.”
“What is it?”
“Well now, it wouldn’t be a surprise if I told you, would it? But you could show a bit of interest.”
We sit into the small car, Mrs D’s perfume heavy, and she jerks into reverse, making the medal of St Christop
her swing wildly on the end of his chain. It takes only moments to drive down to the station. She parks and, before getting out, replaces her driving shoes with a pair of slightly higher heels. Does she not realise that in either she looks just what she is: old? And old-fashioned. Mrs Moran, when she collected Martha today, was wearing gypsy pants and a cheesecloth shirt, but Mrs D., twenty years older than some of the other girls’ mothers, has worn the same clothes all my life. Knee-length skirt, sensible blouse or sweater, skin-coloured stockings. An outfit that surely was never in fashion.
I move into the back seat, leaving the front free for my sister, take out my transistor radio, turn it to BBC Radio 1. It’s the Golden Oldie Hour and they’re playing Dusty Springfield’s ‘Son of a Preacher Man’. I adore this song. The lyrics and Dusty’s ardent tones perfectly capture my fervid feelings for Rory O’Donovan. I lie down on the car seat, turn up the volume, holler along with the words. The song ends just as the puffing train pulls in. As my mother and sister approach, I sit up and turn off the radio before I’m told.
They are full of talk about Mrs D.’s surprise. “At least tell me, is it good or bad?” Maeve is pleading as they sit in.
“Oh, good,” Mrs D. says. “Definitely good.”
As if her smirking didn’t already answer that. Maeve is such a suck-up.
At home, Mrs D leads us into the house like a tour guide, then stops us outside the kitchen door. “Are you ready?” she whispers and, when Maeve nods, she reaches in front of us to flourish the door open. Our surprise sits at the kitchen table: Daddy.
Daddy, drinking tea.
Daddy, with long straggles of hair tickling his shirt collar and two big, new sideburns. Looking up at us through a squint that is also new.
“Hello, girls,” he says.
He doesn’t get up, carries on nursing his mug of tea. Clinging to it like a raft.
