What the Wind Knows

by Amy Harmon

  “You said he’d be fair. But I have no idea what that might be, Thomas,” I blurted, stalling.

  “Don’t take less than a hundred pounds, Anne. I don’t know where you got diamonds, but those earbobs are worth a lot more than that. Don’t sell your ring. As for the department store, I have an account at Lyons. Use it. They know Eoin is mine.” Thomas immediately amended his statement. “They know Eoin lives with me, and they won’t ask any questions. Put your purchases on my account, Anne,” he repeated firmly. “Buy the boy an ice cream cone, and save the rest of your money.”

  30 November 1919

  Several months ago, on a quick trip to Dublin, I spent a harrowing night on Great Brunswick Street, locked in detective headquarters and going through the files that laid out the Castle’s secret intelligence operation and named their informants—known as G-Men—in Ireland. One of Mick’s inside men, a detective who worked at the Castle but fed information to Sinn Féin, got Mick inside the records division, and Mick brought me along, “just for the craic.” He didn’t need me for courage, but he seemed to want company. Between the two of us, in a matter of hours, we were able to get a fairly clear picture of how the information flowed in the G Division and who it flowed through.

  Mick found the file compiled about him and had a good laugh at the grainy photo and the halfhearted compliments made to his acumen.

  “But there’s no file here for you, Tommy,” he’d said. “Clean as a whistle, boyo. But not if they catch us here.”

  We got a good scare when a window of the room we were locked in was broken, causing us to hide behind the shelves, praying no one would come to investigate. We could hear the drunken song of the vandal outside and a policeman shooing him away. After a moment, when it seemed we were in the clear, Mick began to whisper, not about what we’d learned or the contents of the files, but about life and love and women. I knew then he was trying to distract me, and I let him, trying to return the favour.

  “Why haven’t you settled down, Doc? Married a pretty girl from County Leitrim and made a few blue-eyed babies?” he said.

  “Why haven’t you, Mick? We’re roughly the same age. The ladies love you. You love them,” I responded.

  “And you don’t?” he scoffed.

  “Yes. I love you too.”

  He laughed, a great happy sound, and I flinched at his boisterous disregard for our situation.

  “Quiet, ya big oaf!” I shushed him.

  “Yer a good friend, Tommy.” His broad Cork accent was more pronounced in a whisper. “We make time for what’s important. There’s got to be someone you can’t stop thinkin’ about.”

  I thought of Anne then. I thought of her more than I should. In truth, I thought of her constantly and was quick to deny it. “I haven’t found her yet. I doubt I ever will.”

  “Ha! Says the man who shunned advances from one of the most beautiful women in London,” Mick teased.

  “She was married, Mick. And she was more interested in you,” I said, knowing he spoke of Moya Llewelyn-Davies, who was indeed beautiful and very married. I’d met her when I’d accompanied Mick to London when he’d been trying to write up a proposal to the American president. He was hoping President Wilson would pledge his support and shine a light on the Irish question. Irish born, Moya had become interested in the Anglo-Irish conflict and the excitement and intrigue surrounding it. She’d offered her estate near Dublin—Furry Park—to Mick to use as a safe house, and he’d taken her up on it.

  “Not in the beginning, boyo. She said I was pasty and loud, and I smoked too much. She liked your looks. It was obvious. She only turned her attentions on me when she realised I was Michael Collins and you were just a country doctor,” Mick teased, and grabbed me, wrestling and roughhousing the way he was wont to do when the tension got to be too much.

  “And what exactly is a country doctor doing, hiding in this dust hole with a wanted man?” I asked, my throat itching from said dust and my arms aching from trying to keep Mick from biting my ear, which was what he always did if he managed to wrestle you to the ground.

  “He’s doing his duty for Ireland. For love of country. And for a bit of fun,” Mick wheezed, narrowly avoiding upending a stack of files.

  It was fun, and I escaped unscathed, even my ears. Mick’s man, Ned Broy, had come for us before dawn, and we’d been spirited out, with no one the wiser. Except Mick. That night, Michael Collins grew much wiser. I finished my business in Dublin and returned to Dromahair, to Eoin and Brigid and to the people who needed me to be a country doctor more than a soldier in Mick’s army. I’d had no idea then what that night meant in his war. In our war.

  It was in those files that Mick devised his own plan to destroy British intelligence in Ireland from the inside out. Not long after our night in the records division, Mick formed his own elite militarized squad. A group of very young men—younger than Mick or me—all incredibly loyal, all completely committed to the cause. Some call them the twelve apostles. Some call them murderers. And I suppose they are both. They follow Mick. They do as he tells them. And their orders are ruthless.

  There are things I don’t think Mick wants to discuss with me and things I don’t want to know, but I was there that night on Great Brunswick Street, and I saw the names in those files. When the targeted killing of G-Men began happening in Dublin, I knew why. The rumours are that the targets are warned before they’re taken out. They’re told to back off. To step down. To quit working against the IRA—the Irish Republican Army—which is what the Irish resistance is now being called. It’s no longer the Volunteers or the IRB or Sinn Féin. We’re the Irish Republican Army. Mick shrugs and says it’s about damned time we’re seen as one. Some of the G-Men listen to the warnings. Some don’t. And some die. I don’t like it. But I understand it. It isn’t vengeance. It’s strategy. It’s war.

  T. S.

  9

  HIS BARGAIN

  Who talks of Plato’s spindle;

  What set it whirling round?

  Eternity may dwindle,

  Time is unwound.

  —W. B. Yeats

  With Eoin’s hand clutched in mine, I pushed through the pawnbroker’s door, the bell tinkling over my head, and found myself inside a treasure box with the quaint and the curious, the valuable and the varied: tea sets and toy trains, guns and golden gadgets, and everything in between. Eoin and I stopped, stunned, and gaped at the trove. The room was long and narrow, and at the far end, a man stood patiently at the wooden counter, his white shirt crisp. His dark tie was tucked into his neatly buttoned dark-colored vest, a pair of tiny gold-rimmed glasses on his nose. He had a thick head of wavy gray hair, and a tidy beard and mustache covered his lower face.

  “Good afternoon, madam,” he called. “Are you looking for something in particular?”

  “Uh, no, sir,” I stammered, pulling my eyes away from the walls of intricate oddities, promising myself and Eoin that we would come back one day, just to look. Eoin was reluctant to budge, his eyes glued to a model car that looked just like Thomas’s.

  “Good day, Eoin. Where’s the doctor today?” the pawnbroker asked, demanding Eoin’s attention. Eoin sighed gustily and let me propel him toward the counter.

  “Good day, Mr. Kelly. He had patients to visit,” Eoin replied, sounding so grown up, I was reassured. At least one of us wasn’t terrified.

  “He works too hard,” the pawnbroker commented, but his eyes were on me, curious and considering. He extended his hand, clearly expecting me to take it. I did, though he didn’t shake it like I expected. He grasped my fingers and pulled me forward, ever so slightly, and brought my knuckles to his bristly lips, setting a small kiss there before releasing me.

  “We have not had the pleasure, madam.”

  “This is my mother,” Eoin crowed, his small hands gripping the edge of the counter, bouncing on his toes, gleeful.

  “Your mother?” Mr. Kelly repeated, confusion furrowing his brow.

  “I’m Anne Gallagher. Pleasure
to meet you, sir,” I said, but offered no other explanation. I could see the wheels turn behind the small glasses, the questions that begged to be asked. He stroked his beard once, twice, and then again before setting both hands on the counter and clearing his throat.

  “How can I be of service, Mrs. Gallagher?”

  I didn’t correct him but slipped the ring from my finger. The cameo against the dark agate was pale and lovely, the gold band delicate, the filigree finely detailed. I couldn’t help but think my grandfather would understand my predicament.

  “I would like to sell my jewelry and was told you would treat me fairly.”

  The man produced a jeweler’s loupe and made a great show of examining the ring before he stroked his beard once more.

  “You said jewelry,” he hedged, not quoting a price. “Do you have something else you’d like to show me?”

  “Yes. I thought I might sell my . . . earbobs.” I used the word Thomas had used and pulled the diamond studs from my ears, setting them on the counter between us.

  His furry brows jumped, and he raised the jeweler’s loupe again. He took a moment longer on the earrings, saying nothing. They were each two carats and set in platinum. They had cost me almost ten thousand dollars in 1995.

  “I cannot give you what they’re worth,” the man sighed, and it was my turn for surprise.

  “What can you give me?” I pressed gently.

  “I can give you one hundred fifty pounds. But I’ll be able to sell those in London for a great deal more. You will have six months to repay the loan before I do so,” he explained. “It would be wise to keep them, madam.”

  “One hundred fifty pounds is more than satisfactory, Mr. Kelly,” I said, ignoring his suggestion. The earrings meant nothing to me, and I needed money. The thought had hysteria burbling in my throat. I needed money. I had millions of dollars in a time and place that did not yet exist. I took a deep breath, steadying myself, and focused on the task before me. “And the ring?” I asked firmly.

  The pawnbroker fingered the cameo again. When he hesitated too long, Eoin reached into his pocket and placed his own treasure on the counter. His eyes barely cleared the edge, and he pinned the pawnbroker with a hopeful gaze.

  “What’ll ya give me for my button, Mr. Kelly?”

  Mr. Kelly smiled and picked up the button, eyeing it through the loupe as though it were of great value. I was slow to make the connection and had just begun to protest when the jeweler frowned.

  “S McD,” he read. “What’s this, Eoin?”

  “It’s very valuable,” Eoin said.

  “Eoin!” I rebuked softly. “I’m sorry, Mr. Kelly. We won’t be selling that button. I didn’t realize Eoin had it with him.”

  “I heard Seán Mac Diarmada scratched his name in a few buttons and coins. Is this one of them?” Mr. Kelly asked, still studying the little brass bauble.

  “I don’t know about that, Mr. Kelly. But the button is a keepsake. Will you excuse us for a moment?”

  Mr. Kelly inclined his head and turned his back, busying himself with the cases behind him. We stepped away from the counter, and I knelt in front of Eoin.

  “Eoin, do you know what that button is?”

  “Yes. It was Doc’s. His friend gave it to him, and Doc gave it to me. I like to carry it in my pocket for good luck.”

  “Why would you want to sell something so precious?”

  “Because . . . you need the money,” Eoin explained, his eyes wide and pleading.

  “Yes. But that button is more important than money.”

  “Nana said you are penniless. She said you are a beggar with no home and no shame,” he quoted. “I don’t want you to be a beggar.” His eyes grew shiny, and his lips quivered. I swallowed the angry lump in my throat and reminded myself again that Brigid was my great-great-grandmother.

  “You must never, ever, part with that button, Eoin. It is the kind of treasure that no amount of money can replace because it represents the lives of people who are gone, people who mattered and are missed. Do you understand?”

  “Yes,” Eoin said, nodding. “But I missed you. And I would give up my button to keep you.”

  My eyes swam, and my lips trembled in concert with his. “Someone very wise told me that we keep the people we love in our hearts. We never lose them as long as we can remember how it felt to be loved by them.” I pulled him to me, embracing his small body so tightly that he squirmed and giggled. I released him and wiped at the tear that had escaped and was clinging to my nose.

  “Promise me you will stop carrying that button in your pocket. Put it somewhere very safe and treasure it,” I said, infusing as much sternness into my voice as I could muster.

  “I promise,” Eoin said simply. I rose, and we walked back to the counter to the man who was pretending not to watch us. “My mother won’t let me sell the button, Mr. Kelly.”

  “I think that’s wise, young man.”

  “Dr. Smith told my mother not to sell her ring either.”

  “Eoin,” I whispered, embarrassed.

  “Did he, now?” Mr. Kelly asked.

  “Yes, sir,” Eoin said, nodding.

  Mr. Kelly raised his eyes to mine. “Well, then. I suppose he’s right. Mrs. Gallagher, I will give you a hundred sixty pounds for the diamonds. And you must keep your ring. I remember a young man coming in here quite a few years ago and buying this piece.” He rubbed his thumb over the cameo, reflective. “It was more than he could afford, but he was determined to have it. He told me it was for the girl he wanted to marry. We made a deal—his pocket watch for this ring.” He placed the ring in my hand and folded my fingers over it. “The watch wasn’t worth much, but he was a great negotiator.”

  I stared at Mr. Kelly in stunned remorse. No wonder Thomas had been so adamant. I had tried to sell Anne’s wedding ring.

  “Thank you, Mr. Kelly. I have never heard that story,” I whispered.

  “Well, now you have,” he answered kindly. A memory skittered across his features, and his lips pursed in reflection. “You know . . . I might still have that pocket watch. It stopped ticking shortly after the trade. I set it aside, thinking it might just need tinkering.” He pulled open drawers and unlocked curios. A moment later, he cried out in triumph, pulling a long chain attached to a simple gold timepiece from a velvet-lined drawer.

  My heart caught, and I pressed a trembling palm to my mouth to muffle my surprise. It was the timepiece Eoin had worn most of his life. It had always made him look old-fashioned—the drooping chain and the golden locket—but he’d never abandoned it for a newer model.

  “See this, lad?” Mr. Kelly showed Eoin how to release the latch on the cover, revealing the clock face beneath. Eoin nodded happily, and the pawnbroker stared down at the watch with a frown.

  “Well, look at that!” Mr. Kelly marveled. “It’s ticking after all.” He checked his own watch, which was hanging from the little pocket in his vest. With a little tool, he adjusted the time on Declan Gallagher’s watch and studied the tiny hands as they ticked. He grunted in satisfaction.

  “I think you should have it, lad,” Mr. Kelly said, pushing the timepiece across the counter until it was within Eoin’s reach. “After all, it belonged to your father.”

  Little Eoin and I left the pawnshop with much more than we’d arrived with. In addition to one hundred sixty pounds and Declan’s pocket watch—which Eoin clutched tightly in his hand, even though I’d pinned the chain to his vest—a pair of agate earrings with tiny dangling cameos were clamped to my lobes. I realized belatedly that most women probably didn’t have holes in their ears in 1921. Mr. Kelly insisted the earrings matched my ring so well that I should have them. He was being so kind and generous, I suspected I’d given him a very good deal indeed. But I still wore Anne’s ring, and I could never repay him for that. The pawnbroker had saved me from making a terrible blunder, and he’d told me a story even more precious than the ring itself.

  I found myself puzzling over the dizzying ramificati
ons of Declan’s timepiece. If I had not gone into the pawnbroker with Eoin, would Mr. Kelly have ever given Eoin the watch? Eoin had had the watch all the years I’d known him. Was I changing history, or had I always been part of it? And how had Eoin gotten Anne’s ring? If she’d died and was never found, wouldn’t she have been wearing it?

  I realized suddenly that I had no idea where I was going. I was clutching the money pouch in my right hand and Eoin’s hand in my left, letting him lead me along, my mind eighty miles—or years—away.

  “Eoin, do you know where the department store is?” I asked sheepishly.

  He laughed and let go of my hand. “Right there, goose!”

  We were standing across the street from a row of huge glass windows—at least six of them—shaded by a deep-red awning that boasted the store’s name, “Henry Lyons & Co. Ltd., The Sligo Warehouse” in pale lettering. Behind the glass, hats and shoes were displayed on pedestals, and dresses and suits were modeled by pale-faced mannequins. Relief swelled for seconds before fear regained dominance.

  “I will simply ask for help,” I encouraged myself out loud, and Eoin nodded.

  “Nana’s friend Mrs. Geraldine Cummins works here. She’s very helpful.”

  My heart sank so low it rubbed the bottom of my belly, and I thought for a moment I would be sick. Brigid’s friend would surely know about Anne Gallagher. The real Anne Gallagher. The original Anne Gallagher. I braced myself as Eoin pulled me forward, clearly eager for the wonders of the huge store.

  A group of men were gathered around the large set of windows just right of the entrance. Their backs were to the road, their arms folded as they stared at something on the other side of the pane. I craned my neck, trying to see what had drawn the crowd. As I neared, one man abandoned his spot, giving me a clear view of the window before the hole closed with someone else. They were reading a newspaper. Someone had taped the Irish Times to the inside of the department store window, the pages open and spread to allow passersby to read through the glass.