The Death of an Irish Tradition

by Bartholomew Gill

  Ward tried not to bend too close to her when he said, “I’ll see about some tea.”

  “Oh, please don’t put yourself to any bother.” Her head—the soft flow of her black hair—quivered slightly, but it was plain she could feel him there near her ear and she moved back, closer to him.

  A flirt, he wondered? He didn’t think so. “No trouble.” He straightened up and made for the door. “None at all.”

  Already O’Shaughnessy had carried a chair to the farthest corner of the room. His hat still on, he had a newspaper in front of his face. He’d stay like that, seemingly disinterested in the entire proceeding. It was their way, once one of them had established a rapport with an interviewee.

  A Ban Gharda was sitting at a table in back of the two chairs, a stenographic typewriter in front of her.

  When Ward returned, the girl was staring out the window, over the slate rooftops of the Bank of Ireland and Trinity College down at the end of Dame Street, and she didn’t turn to him when he sat.

  Ward only crossed his legs and clasped his hands over his knee. He followed her gaze to the clear patch of sky that was the lightest blue.

  The clouds had begun to break now, almost in two, parting one half from the other so that sunlight slanted through the gap in pinkish shafts that struck north of the city, making the promontory of Howth Head and the golf links on North Bull Island seem very green indeed.

  After a while he said, “It must be hard.”

  She tilted her head slightly, as if listening for something else. “Have you ever lost a…parent, Hugh?” Again the measured words, the slightly absent tone.

  “Both of them.”

  “I’m so sorry. It must have been difficult for you.”

  “At first.”

  “How old were you?”

  “Fifteen.”

  “How did they die?”

  “Smash up.”

  “Brothers and sisters?”

  “All older.”

  “Who raised you?”

  “One of my brothers, although I really didn’t need much raising.”

  She turned to him. “But—fifteen?”

  She had a little spot, like a mole but smaller, up from the right corner of her mouth, on her upper lip, which was a bit protrusive. It seemed to tremble.

  Ward’s eyes followed the line of her long, straight nose to her black and now tear-filled eyes. Under the wide brim of the hat her face was shadowed and again he was taken by the quality of her skin. It was very white but not translucent, like that of so many other fair-skinned people, and it contrasted sharply with the mellow tan on the skin of her neck.

  Ward remembered the questions, the ones he’d found in McGarr’s preliminary report, but they could wait until he had established the proper mood.

  O’Shaughnessy turned a page of the newspaper and shifted his body away from them.

  The stenographer’s hands were poised on the keys of the machine, and she stared straight ahead at the wall, as though in her own world.

  “I knew what I wanted to do,” Ward went on. “I had to carry on. I figured my parents would have wanted it that way…would have wanted me to be as good as I could at what I had chosen.”

  She looked away from him, and her nostrils—thin and of that same clear, white texture—flared and her head quivered. “Being a policeman.” The voice had little relation to the emotion that was expressed on her face.

  “That’s right. In the way that your mother would have wanted you to go on with being a pianist. I understand that you’re going to study in London in the fall.”

  “Perhaps.” She opened a small black purse and removed a handkerchief.

  Ward wondered how long she had had the dress. It seemed new in style, made of some lustrous material he couldn’t place, and it was not the usual sort of black evening dress that the women of his acquaintance had in their wardrobes. He couldn’t guess the occasion on which she might wear such a thing, except for a funeral or while in mourning, and certainly she couldn’t have bought it so early on Saturday morning. And the way she was built—tall and thin but full—he guessed her clothes had to be fitted to her. Even her feet, which were long, were remarkably thin in black patent-leather pumps.

  “It wasn’t your idea, I gather—to study in London.”

  She shook her head and blotted the far corner of each eye. “It was Mammy’s.”

  “Why? Aren’t the piano teachers in Dublin—”

  She shook her head. “London or Paris or New York.”

  “You’re that advanced.”

  She closed her eyes.

  “Who was your teacher here?”

  “Oh—I’ve had many. Father Menahan is my teacher presently.”

  “The priest…last night?”

  She nodded slightly.

  “Is he a good teacher?”

  “The best I’ve had. He’s very good in theory. He was a fine pianist and a composer and taught in university, before it was decided that he should do some parish work.

  “In a way he was my first teacher and my…only real teacher. The others were…interim, when we were away.”

  Ward didn’t understand. “You mean, you’ve been to university?”

  “No, no—I don’t think I’ll ever go to university. I’m not…bookish.” She looked up again, into the clouds. “I’m an artist, or at least I will be soon.”

  She turned to Ward. “Father John, you see, is from home. He was teaching at the university there when I was a child.”

  “Galway?”

  She blinked.

  “And you came here to Dublin and Ballsbridge when the father was transferred here?”

  “In a way.” Still she did not take her eyes from his. “We’d been abroad for a time.”

  Ward cocked his head.

  “In Rome and then London.”

  “Studying?”

  “Yes, I guess so.” She hesitated. “You’re—very kind, do you know that?”

  “Scholarship? Grants? Rome and London are expensive places.”

  “No, nothing like that. I’ve won some prizes, but Mother—” she looked away and sighed, “—said she didn’t care for other people’s money, that there were always strings attached, that we had enough of our own. Father John was good enough, and then he never charged.”

  “Until now.”

  Her brow knitted, the lines longitudinal and soft as though she was unused to frowning.

  “I mean, until now when it was decided that you should go to London.”

  She held out her hands and looked down at them—long tapered fingers ending in neatly shaped nails and clear lacquer. “Yes, Mammy—I mean, Mother—didn’t think I was growing any longer, that I needed new direction, needed to learn some of the more difficult modern music. She was right, of course, but—”

  “The Royal Conservatory?”

  “Yes.”

  “You sat for the prize?”

  She nodded.

  “And won?”

  She nodded again and averted her head.

  “That carries a stipend, doesn’t it?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did your mother plan to go with you?”

  “Certainly.”

  “How did you feel about that?”

  She turned back to Ward. “Mammy was all I had. And she I. Of course I wanted her with me.”

  “There’s nobody else? Back in Leenane?”

  “It’s not Leenane exactly. Oh—I suppose there’s Uncle Joseph somewhere. But we haven’t…hadn’t heard from him in years. He liked to…drink, you see. Especially after he lost the farm.”

  Ward only waited. “Debts,” she explained. “And the others—we lost touch. There weren’t many anyhow. Some in the States, Australia. I once stayed at a cousin’s house when I played in Montreal.” A short pause. “Would there be tea now?”

  “It’s coming. Any moment now.”

  Ward then put his hands together, fingertips to fingertips. He turned to her. “Please realize, Mairead—
may I call you that?” It was a gesture and a question that he had learned from McGarr.

  “Of course. Certainly.”

  “—that this is an official inquiry. The next few questions are necessary, as hard as they may be. I’m only doing my job. Did your mother work?”

  “No.”

  “How did she support you?”

  The girl looked down at her small, shiny purse. “I don’t exactly know, but I suppose I must find out. She never spoke of it, even when I was being…extravagant.”

  “But yours is a lovely flat—the piano, the automobile. A Daimler, isn’t it?”

  “I don’t know, I think so. But that’s Uncle Joseph’s, or so Mam—Mother said. And the piano was a present.”

  “May I ask from whom?”

  “Father John.”

  “He must think highly of your abilities.”

  “I believe he does.”

  “Does he play himself?”

  “As I said, not much anymore, because of his…duties.”

  Ward paused, collecting his thoughts, not wanting to blurt out the question that had been forming in his mind for the last few moments.

  O’Shaughnessy had lowered the newspaper.

  The stenographer still was staring off in front of her, at nothing and at the wall, her fingers on the keys.

  Down in Dame Street the jackhammer had begun again.

  “Did he ever play your piano? The Bechstein.”

  Her brow wrinkled again, and once more he was struck by the long furrows. But then—she was only eighteen, he reminded himself. Only eighteen.

  “Well, when he was giving me a lesson, of course. But I don’t understand the purpose….”

  “All pro forma. Strictly pro forma. I just want to know if, say, he ever came to practice for himself. Such a marvelous instrument, and his being a pianist himself, as you said. We found his fingerprints on the keys, and it’s just a question that must be asked.”

  She looked down at Ward’s hands, as though trying to determine who or what he was or could mean to her. “Yes, he did.”

  “Often?”

  “Not often for a…performer, but yes, often enough, I suppose. That’s how Mammy came to decide, you see.”

  Ward only waited.

  “Being there all day she had listened to both of us and—” Her voice trailed off.

  “She decided you were better than he?”

  She turned to Ward. “But it was unfair, really. Mammy wasn’t one who could judge.”

  “But she decided.”

  “Yes.”

  “How did the father feel about your going to London?”

  “Well, at first he was against it. He’s been my teacher for so long. But then Mammy convinced him it was best.”

  “Did Father John come and go as he pleased?”

  She nodded.

  “And he had a key to your flat?”

  She glanced up at his face. “Are you intimating—?”

  “No. Certainly not. Not a thing, Mairead. Please understand me—the question would have to be put sooner or later. Every job has its difficult moments and I’m trying to make this as easy as possible. Can you understand that?”

  She turned her head and looked down at her leg, which she had crossed toward Ward. “I understand,” she said in a small voice. “Yes—he has a key. He’s like one of the family.” She turned to Ward. “The only one. Now.”

  “And not Mister Murray?”

  She turned her head to him. “Sean? No—certainly not.”

  The door to the dayroom opened. It was Greaves with a tea tray on which there was a lemon.

  Ward started to stand up, but O’Shaughnessy stayed him, signaling Greaves to place it on the table.

  “Now, yesterday—tell me everything that happened.”

  “But I did last night.”

  “Just one more time, please—it’s all according to procedure.”

  The stenographer’s machine made a light clicking sound that was only audible when the street noise ceased for a moment.

  “I’d had a hard day Thursday. I’d practiced until ten, then Sean took me out for a bite.”

  “Where?”

  “Neary’s.”

  It was one of the most famous pubs in Dublin. The Gaiety Theatre was directly behind it and at that time of night the old premises was filled with actors and other theater people and—Ward remembered the forceful way she had used the word, as though unsure of herself—artists. And stylish young people too. The downstairs bar, which old wood made dark, was usually crowded with them, especially on a Friday night.

  “And so Mammy let me sleep.”

  “’Til?”

  “Morning. Eleven or so. I had some coffee. She made me brunch, but I couldn’t eat a thing. I felt, well—I hadn’t really been sleeping because of the heat, but somehow I had managed—and I felt—” one of her hands, the left one, crimped into a tight knot, the knuckles white, “—I felt like…Satie, and the piano—” She turned to Ward and her eyes were suddenly different, no longer soft and deep but hard and bright. “I don’t imagine that you or anybody can know what it means to me—rich, pure sound, a big sound without being big, and—” She drew in a breath and let it out, her chest rising so that Ward’s eyes fell on the long, sloping line of her breasts, the gentle curve of the tendons in her neck, shadowed between. “I played until Sean arrived to go shopping. Poulenc, Honegger, Auric, even Milhaud.

  “Seldom one has a day…” and then her eyes suddenly glassed and she looked away. “I mean, please understand me. My mother died. She was…murdered, I know, but earlier—” Her left hand reached out and clamped on Ward’s arm, the nails digging into his skin even through the material of his suit. It was as though she had become transfixed but for seconds only—one or two, several, a few.

  “And then you went shopping,” Ward said gently.

  Quietly O’Shaughnessy rose from his seat and approached the table. He poured two cups of tea. He sliced the lemon and placed a wedge on one of the saucers, then carried the tray and a chair over to them.

  There he glanced at Mairead Kehlen Caughey, but she didn’t see him. Her black eyes were glazed and she was staring out the window.

  He straightened up and returned to his newspaper, but the tall Garda superintendent was puzzled. Perhaps the young woman’s…vagueness was the result of her mother’s death and the manner in which she had died or merely an instance of her “artistic” personality, but O’Shaughnessy didn’t think so. He sensed something else there, something that they were missing.

  Again Ward was waiting for the proper moment to renew the interview. He stood and walked toward the window, teacup in his hands.

  She was an enigma to him too. Countless times over the past several years he had dealt with the survivors of tragedies, but never had he met anybody who had so easily dissociated herself from a loss that was only a day past.

  He paused, then turned to her, placing his teacup on the sill.

  The sun had broken through the clouds momentarily, and the light was hard and white and made her hair seem no longer black but rather some deep brown color, lustrous and slick with a rainbow sheen.

  “Your friend, Mister Murray, goes to Trinity, does he not?”

  She raised her cup to her lips and drank. “Yes.” Then she glanced up at him. “Are you always so official?”

  Ward smiled, knowing that his white, even teeth would flash, knowing that she was staring at him. “In official circumstances.” He watched her eyes move down his face.

  “Do you like piano music?” She still had the teacup in front of her, the saucer balanced on the palm of her left hand.

  “If you mean, would I like to hear you play, the answer is yes. Anytime, anywhere, but I’d especially like to hear you play your piano. The Bechstein.”

  She looked around for a place to set the cup and saucer, and Ward took it from her. Their hands touched, and did Ward see her blush? He did, he was sure of it.

  “You were saying�
�you practiced and then Mister Murray picked you up to go shopping. You went to—?”

  She stood and moved toward him, staring at his chin or his teeth or his lips. She tilted her head to the side and ran a hand under her hair, fluffing it. “Un Coin de Paris.”

  “Which is in—?”

  “Duke Lane. Number two, I think.”

  “Were you there long?”

  “I don’t know. Perhaps.”

  “Did Mister Murray accompany you into the shop?”

  “I—I think so. Yes. I shop to…relax. I try not to think about my work and things.” She turned her back to the window and leaned against the sill, the slick black material of the skirt smoothing around her hips. “No—now that I think of it, I was alone for part of the time.

  “Ah, yes—” she glanced up at Ward and again her eyes dropped down his face, “—Sean had to take the car around to a garage, a repair shop. He said it had something to do with the clutch. An adjustment or something.

  “When he didn’t return I left a message that I’d gone on to the Pia Bang Boutique.”

  “What time was that?”

  “I have no idea.”

  “How long were you at the boutique?”

  She only bit her lower lip and shook her head.

  “That’s where?”

  “Johnston’s Court, it’s off—”

  “Grafton Street.”

  “And Mister Murray found you there?”

  “Well—” she looked away, “—not actually.

  “Is all this being recorded?” Only then, it seemed, had she seen the stenographer. She looked from her to O’Shaughnessy, who was pacing in front of an open window, hands in his pockets, his expression grave.

  Ward took her by the arm, again surprised by her body. The muscle was long and thin but hard. He led her back to the chairs. “It’s strictly by the book. Procedure.

  “You were saying—?”

  “Oh, well—I know this man who studies in the National Library. He’s a friend. I stopped up to see him, but he wasn’t there, and walking down Molesworth Street, Sean pulled up.”