Cursed! Blood of the Donnellys

by Keith Ross Leckie

  “Maybe not. But I’m willing to find out.”

  Smiling at him, Johannah went to dismount and Jim dropped his gear and stepped closer to help her down. As her foot touched the ground, she stumbled and steadied herself against his shoulder, then regained her footing and stepped back to have a look at him.

  “Well…Jim Donnelly? Are you sure? He was a homely, skinny runt with crossed eyes and a bad attitude!”

  He offered her his sad smile. “So were you.”

  They stood face to face for a moment, a passing awkwardness between them that was quickly dispelled, and Johannah could not stop smiling back at him.

  “You! It was you at the riot! The masked man who helped me.” It was the voice. His voice had changed to a deeper register and with his face covered, she had not recognized Jim Donnelly in the helpful stranger.

  “I plead guilty.”

  “This is wonderful, Jim. I didn’t expect to see you. Lucy wrote to me years ago that you had left. That you’d moved to…Manchester, wasn’t it?” She asked the question coyly, though she knew this well.

  “For a couple years. I was looking for you. Manchester was as far as I got.”

  “You were looking for me?” she asked, surprised. “I thought you’d had enough of me.”

  “Some nights after dark, I would head over to the estate, bring a little food to my mother and sister and go by Lucy’s house, and she would read your letters to me: the things you were doing and the new people you met, the stupid teachers, how they made a skit of the way you talked.”

  “They were the ones who talked funny, with their accents like donkeys.”

  “You wrote about the fashions and the fine horses you rode, and then later the handsome young fellas you were introduced to, until I could barely stand it. So I decided to go and find you.”

  “You did?”

  “Surely. I made my way to Dublin and then across the sea to Manchester. What a city, with so many huge ships coming and going and three, four, even five-storey houses and ten times more people than I’d ever seen in one place, even in Dublin. The people seemed friendly at first. Three men bought me a drink and I thought how lovely these Englishmen are and that’s all I remember until waking up next morning in the street to find they had drugged me and relieved me of the coins in my boot, and of the boots themselves, and my pack with my second shirt. I can tell you this now, Manchester is not a friendly town to a man with an Irish accent and no money.”

  “Oh no! What did you do?”

  “Well, I found mule work in a steel foundry on Wood Street, didn’t I, and lived under a bridge off Cupid’s Alley—a filthy little boulevard—for a few weeks to save enough for a clean shirt and a ticket to London to find you.”

  “I didn’t know any of this!”

  “There was a foreman at the foundry, Bradwell, took a dislike to me and I took it all until the man cuffed me once on the head so I knocked him down and put the boots to him. I knew by then this would go badly for my fortunes.”

  “Were you arrested?”

  “That I was. The judge was no kinder to me than the other English I’d met and I spent some months in a stinking jail cell with six other men, four of them Irishmen, close enough to the docks to be a right play­ground for vermin. I began to prefer the company of the rats to that of my cellmates.

  “I still planned to go to London and find you, but when they let me out after a year for good behaviour, the constables put me aboard a ship back home to Ireland warning that if I tried to come back to England I’d get more prison time.”

  “You poor thing. You did all that to find me?”

  “Didn’t get very far, did I?”

  “Well…maybe not, but…so…here we are.”

  “Yes. Imagine that.”

  Jim raised his hand, extended his index finger and touched the tip of her nose.

  “I have caught a nice fish here. Let me cook it for you, my lady, and you can tell me more about your adventures.”

  “What if the warden comes?”

  “You can save me again, sure.”

  Jim took her into the high grass beside the stream, sat on the bank to show her the fine salmon he had caught. She took his hand and he gently assisted her down into the soft cushion of the grass to continue their conversation. They lay close and studied each other’s faces, the years slipping away.

  “That old bull isn’t still around here anywhere, is he?” she asked him playfully.

  “No. Just me.”

  “I said bull, not bull shite.”

  He rolled his eyes at her broad humour.

  “You’re too easy to take the mickey out of,” she laughed at him.

  Jim gave her a tentative, gentle kiss on her lips. She did not withdraw. He took the silver locket and held it for a moment, rubbing it between his fingers. So she kissed him back but kept it short.

  “You know I’ve waited all these years to do that again. Wondering what it would be like.”

  “And what do you think?”

  She smiled, put her hand on his face and drew him to her, kissing him a second time, with force and passion full on his mouth, and their breathing quickened. Then they pulled back and stared at each other, amazed and excited. Jim broke eye contact and looked down. They brushed foreheads, then laughed. Jim placed one hand softly against her cheek and she pushed gently into it and looked up into his eyes as he whispered, “I have thought of you every day of every year. I thought you would have forgotten me.”

  “I have not forgotten.”

  He leaned forward and kissed her again, long and soft. It was the moment of choice and neither of them had anyplace else in the world to be. Holding their kiss, they began to loosen each other’s buttons and belts with equal and growing enthusiasm. She pulled off his shirt and admired what was revealed. He helped her off with her jacket, then her blouse and camisole, and she faced him proudly. He was breathless as he gently placed his hands on her breasts and held their soft weight.

  “My God, Jo. You’ve become magnificent.” He moved toward her but she pushed him hard with both hands back onto the grass and came to straddle him.

  “I prefer to ride than to be ridden,” she told him.

  She quickly undid his belt and the buttons to give him release, then pulled back her pleated skirts and mounted him with a sudden joy at the rightness of it all.

  Awakening

  It was the golden hour of the afternoon, the sun low but still vital, filtering through the trees below an azure sky. They had a small fire burning. The second half of the fish was cooking on a stick. They were in that happy, affectionate aftermath of lovemaking, their clothes on in case a warden or poacher might happen by, but loose and untucked and uncaring as they ate the first half of the salmon with their fingers. Johannah was purely enjoying herself, stealing glances at Jim, wiping the grease from her lips, as he did, with the back of her hand. How right that they should make love like this in the wild, suddenly, instinctively, with a carnal passion she had never experienced before. She had taken lovers, three exactly in the last three years, all young gentlemen and with a gentleman’s mundane protocol. To call it lovemaking was attaching too much sentiment to it. With all three, it was merely sexual relations. But with Jimmy she felt such forbidden excitement, giving of herself completely. Now this was lovemaking, and she wanted more very soon, as soon as she finished eating his illegal fish. As he studied her, she raised her greasy index finger and touched his nose.

  “Imagine that,” she said aloud.

  She then took another big bite of the pink flesh and spoke with her mouth half full, in happy contradiction of her etiquette classes.

  “So, Jimmy…what do you do when you’re not poaching salmon?”

  He brought his face close, as if he might kiss her again, and they continued that way.

  “This and that.”

 
“I mean what line of work are you in?”

  “I’m a gentleman, for now. I’m looking for opportunities. I’ll see what comes up.”

  “If all your stars were to align and opportunities present themselves, what would you like to do?”

  Jim thought about this for a moment. “I would have land. A farm to keep animals and grow things. A man is nothing without land. But the land is all taken here by the rich or the church. It would take more than stars aligning. Would take a revolution before I could afford land here.”

  “Do you keep in touch with Lucy O’Toole? Maybe her family has found a better situation. That bad girl stopped writing to me ages ago, so I’ve no idea where she ended up. Do you?” As she wiped her mouth with the back of her hand, she added, “We’re due for a long visit.”

  Jim was silent for a moment, his expression grave. “You should ask your father about Lucy.”

  “My father? Why does everyone tell me to talk to my father. What about Lucy?”

  Jim just shook his head and looked away, which infuriated her.

  “What happened? Is she all right? Tell me!”

  “It was when the estate was cleared.”

  “My father said the tenants decided to move on, find other work.”

  Jim gave a thin smile and shook his head again.

  “They moved on all right. At the barrel of a musket. You don’t know this?”

  She shook her head.

  “Your father brought in the soldiers. Threw everyone out of their homes. The Ryans, O’Tooles, O’Days…everyone. Beef cattle. That’s what your father replaced us with. We were worth less than cows!”

  “What about Lucy?”

  “Your father ordered the soldiers to burn the houses on the day. The Ryan twins tried to defend the house. Dragged out that old blunderbuss from the mantle. The soldiers shot them both dead.”

  “No! Oh my God,” she stared at him, trying to comprehend.

  “And then…that’s when Lucy was killed.”

  “Lucy is dead?” Johannah’s lips trembled.

  “We didn’t expect them to burn the houses. The thatch went up like the fires of hell. Her brother said she had hidden some letters in the attic. She ran back inside for them. She never got out.”

  Johannah felt dizzy. The letters. For a moment she couldn’t move. She threw down what was left of her fish and stood up, wiping her hands on her skirts.

  “Swear to me this is true. You’re not lying?”

  “I wish to Christ I was,” he said, getting to his feet. “I saw it all, Jo.”

  “Lucy’s dead,” she repeated numbly, letting it sink in.

  “Yes. I’m sorry…”

  She felt her eyes tearing up, struggling to accept the story, her thoughts in all directions, tucking in her clothes. Jim tried to embrace her, but she stepped back and would not let him touch her.

  “I have to go.”

  As she grabbed the trailing rein of Cuchulain, Jim gently took her arm.

  “Johannah…”

  She turned back to him.

  “I love you,” he told her. Her pained expression softened slightly. She mounted her horse and galloped off down the path without a word.

  As he began the long walk back to town, he hoped she would be all right with this new burden of truth he had given her. The angry memories of his family’s expulsion from the house, the shooting of the Ryans and the tragedy of Lucy’s death—all of the bitter memories that had been stirred up with the telling, and how Magee would pay—settled down again as he remembered the passionate, angry figure riding off in the distance, erect, stirrups stretched long, in perfect balance as she and the animal moved as one. He had never seen anyone ride a horse like Johannah and the image excited him, and his thoughts returned to the feel and sound and power of their lovemaking.

  Later that night on a dark street in Borrisokane, Jim noticed the three-year-old girl with long, unkempt hair and eyes big enough to melt any heart standing alone and unsupervised on the narrow sidewalk, and his anger returned. He watched as, perilously close, the heavy wheels of cargo wagons and the tree trunk hooves of Clydesdales thundered by. He was walking with two of his Whiteboys down the far side of the street when he saw the child.

  “I’ll meet you at Ryan’s, lads.”

  Leaving the others behind, he quickly crossed over and approached the little girl. He came up beside her and scooped her up in his arms and danced her around and she laughed at the sweeping ride.

  “Bridget, you little scamp. What you doing here, girl?”

  “Being good.”

  “Where’s your ma, darling?”

  “In there.”

  Bridget pointed to a hotel tavern beside them. He gave her a smile to hide his frustration with her mother, Jim’s sister, Theresa.

  Just then Theresa came out of the hotel, straightening her clothes. A well-to-do Protestant in a brown wool suit with a full moustache followed her out. Jim grabbed her by the arm.

  “So here you are, sister. Are you cracked, leaving little Bridget wandering in the street?”

  “I told her to stay inside. Give her to me.”

  Theresa held out her arms to Bridget and Jim gave her up reluctantly.

  “By God, you’re an unfit mother. Unfit for anything but”—he eyed the suit— “pleasuring filthy Protestants.”

  The man took a step toward them. “Now just a minute. You can’t…”

  It was Theresa who turned on her client. “Mind your own feckin’ business. You and I are done. Get out of here.”

  “I say…it really is uncalled for to…”

  Jim had to punch the client in the face and he went down hard, then he started to kick the man on the ground.

  “Stop it,” Theresa told him, on a more practical than compassionate note, and he backed off the unconscious Protestant. He found he had little heart for fighting these days. It gave him little pleasure. His sister shoved him farther away with the heel of her hand.

  “You’ll just cause me trouble.”

  “You bring it on yourself.”

  “You have no right to criticize! I’se the one keeps the family going while you’re off with your mates! You owe me plenty but I never see it. When was the last time you earned a decent wage?”

  “You call the money you make decent?”

  “I does what I have to do! For Ma and Brid, so we can eat. If we counted on Your Highness, we’d all starve to death. So you can just clear off. Where’s the shilling you owe me from last week? Where is it?”

  Jim hesitated. “I’ll get it.”

  Theresa offered a snorting laugh. “Aye, not in a month of Sundays.”

  Jim remembered the remnants of the fish he had wrapped in his pocket and offered it to her. She hesitated and then took it.

  “Was a nice salmon.”

  Theresa inspected what was left of the fish and laughed again, and the truth hit Jim at that moment of how little he had to offer Johannah. No job, no land, no prospects. How impossible it was that she would ever become his wife.

  “I’m sorry, Theresa. You’re right. I just want us to have a little dignity.”

  She smiled sadly at her brother as she bit into the pink flesh and spoke with her mouth half full.

  “Jimmy, this is our life, such as it is. Our family’s life. We’re cursed, don’t you know it? It’s in our blood. Right from the great Peter Donnelly, with Cromwell’s sword in his gut, on down. We can’t be putting on airs. And the sooner you realize that, you’ll see our life as it is makes all the sense in the world. All we can do is make our way through the shite, best we can.”

  Theresa was still holding Bridget, who began to cry. The client was moaning on the ground.

  “We’re cursed, Jimmy,” she repeated very quietly. “Every last one of us.”

  As he walked away,
Jim turned her words over in his mind. A family curse. Sadly, the notion rang true. But he would fight it as he fought the other forces aligned against him. When you stop the fighting is when you fade away.

  The Troubles

  Under the light of a full moon, Jim kept watch on Magee’s warehouse from a nearby alleyway. Four soldiers stood guard outside the massive building, with the corporal patrolling on horseback. Behind Jim, deeper into the alleyway, six Whiteboys readied themselves for the evening’s activities. The boys helped each other blacken their faces, and put on kerchiefs and wigs, a well-accepted fashion of rebellion on missions like this, as much honoured ritual as disguise. Some, like Mick, dressed as women. Four held unlit torches.

  “You look lovely, darlings,” Jim told them. Resuming his watch on Magee’s warehouse, Jim mused on the irony of all this, that he could feel such different emotion for two people bound in blood: such hatred for the father, such love for the daughter. But he knew he must put those distracting thoughts behind him. This was their biggest mission yet.

  Two blocks from Magee’s warehouse, Mick lit a rag in the neck of a bottle of coal oil and tossed it through the glass window of a small law office that worked with English banks. A fire ignited inside and the flames grew quickly. Jim saw Mick running back to join them, favouring the shadows, his white teeth showing in a triumphant smile.

  A soldier up the street spotted the distant smoke and alerted his superior. The first licks of flame could soon be seen and they could hear the corporal directing his men.

  “Williams! Shaw! Get those buckets and fill them. Let’s go! All of you! Quick step!”

  The soldiers put their rifles over their shoulders and grabbed the fire pails nearby, filling them in a watering trough. All four soldiers and the corporal hurried down the street away from the warehouse to fight the fire.

  Jim whispered to his men as they lit their torches, “Off we go, gentlemen! Bring in the wagons!”

  With the soldiers gone, and happy with their easy success, Mick, Jim and the Whiteboys headed across the street. Jim cracked open the lock with an iron bar, opened the double doors and they entered the massive warehouse, their faces illuminated in torchlight. Two heavy wagons were quickly backed into the doorway. The boys rucked up their dresses and began breaking up the crates and loading the wagons with barrels of meat and smaller crates of food. They worked quickly and soon the two wagons were packed high, enough to feed hundreds for a few days in the poor huts on the river.