The Death of an Irish Tradition

by Bartholomew Gill

  Menahan waited for a reply, assessing her.

  Her green eyes flashed once. “Just look at yourself, for Jesus’ sake, all tarted up like a castrato.” Her voice was low and icy. “You’re not codding anybody, Mister Menahan. You’re an ambitious and quite a corporeal man. And tell me this—are you still a priest, or have you made the leap and ‘elevated’ yourself?”

  Menahan stood up.

  McGarr was out of the car.

  Menahan’s smile was forced. He glanced at him. “Can you see what I said about a fine line? Tightrope-walking, it is. It’s hard to keep yourself from falling off.

  “For her information, I no longer consider myself a priest. Haven’t, really, for a long while now. And, yes—I have elevated my gross, physical being. It’s the least I could do for this—” he stretched his hands to the side and looked down at himself, “—body, while I’m in it.

  “And one more thing—I don’t know how to put this any more delicately—but I’m not a castrato, decidedly not.” He turned and, stuffing one hand in the blazer pocket, began to amble off, his stride jaunty and forced.

  “One moment…” McGarr didn’t know what to call him, “one moment, John, please.”

  Menahan slowed his pace, but he did not stop.

  When McGarr caught up to him, he asked, “Tell me what you thought of Mairead’s wanting to study in London?”

  Menahan stopped. “I’ve told you once already. As a citizen I have certain rights and one is not to be harassed by the likes of you.” He started forward again, flashing a member’s pass at the gatekeeper, who stopped McGarr until he could show his identification.

  The crowd was thick now, especially there where the two main sections of the Show Ground met, and people were passing back and forth. But McGarr caught sight of Menahan and pushed and shoved his way toward the priest, who was walking down the length of Simmonscourt Road toward the exercise area in Ring 6.

  He grabbed the man’s sleeve, but Menahan, turning, pulled it away. “I’m warning you—” the dark eyes were hooded, “—I’ll lay a charge against you, and it’ll not go unnoticed, along with your other blunders.”

  McGarr motioned his head toward two uniformed Gardai who were standing at the entrance to the exercise ring, watching them. “Shall we give it a go? Say the word and we’ll put it to a test. I’m sure I can come up with enough against you to avoid a harassment charge, and I think I’d enjoy seeing you sweat a bit, my friend. Now—you were saying?”

  Menahan apprised the guards and tried to read McGarr’s pale gray eyes. He did not want to miss the jumping, and he could see Murray standing by the rail of the exercise ring.

  “I was for it, of course.”

  “Why?”

  “Because Mairead is in need of an extraordinary teacher.”

  “And you are merely ordinary, I take it.”

  Menahan’s eyes flashed, his lips blanched. “Yes—for her.”

  “And what now are Mairead’s needs besides money?”

  “I don’t know what you mean.”

  “Bullshit, Father,” said McGarr, fixing his gaze. “Like her real mother—but in a different way—she required a manager, amn’t I right? And this…transformation of yours is all to that end.

  “Or could I be wrong and your aspirations in her regard are somewhat more intimate?”

  Menahan forced his eyes away from McGarr’s, but he said nothing.

  “I’ll be speaking to you again, Father, and soon, down at the Castle. It’ll be your first stop on the way to the shovel.”

  Menahan stepped toward the exercise ring. “You’ll have the devil’s own time of that, man.”

  McGarr smiled and, imitating the humbly insouciant tone Menahan had adopted earlier, said, “Say it you, so,” but knew it was a hollow jibe, for there was not one law that Menahan had broken.

  Ward had been standing by the exercise ring for nearly an hour. He had watched the girl enter the ring on the first of the four horses she planned to ride in the afternoon competition.

  Like many of the other riders, dozens of whom were working their horses in preparation for the early afternoon event, she was dressed simply in a dark green sweater, fawn-colored riding pants, and boots, her black hair loose on her shoulders. And yet, he thought, the aura she projected was undeniable and had little to do with his own feelings. Others seemed to make way for her, to stare, to watch the way she guided the dark bay over the jumps, moving with the flow of the horse, how she concentrated on her charge in spite of the photographers and reporters who lined one side of the rail.

  And Ward was so taken with her and the moiling scene, lit as it was from the east by the low morning sun—a rich, yellow light that caught in the dewy grass around the ring and made everything seem brighter, more lively, and somewhat unnatural—that he only noticed the Bechel-Gore woman when she reached the gate to the ring.

  There she paused, the trepidation plain on her somewhat gaunt but still handsome face. She too was dressed plainly, in black that contrasted sharply with the white markings of the piebald gelding she had mounted. Her graying hair was clasped in a bun at the back of her neck, and she sat easy on the horse, hands gathered almost as though praying, following every movement of the girl and only entering the ring when Fogarty himself and his cameraman approached her.

  And it seemed that she was preoccupied and that the horse went through its paces—walking, then trotting and cantering around the ring to warm up before taking the low gates—out of habit, changing its leads in the turns, taking her along. She kept staring at Mairead when she passed, and the horse, sensing her disinterest, slowed to a walk and stopped.

  Bechel-Gore was there too, his groom by his side. He seemed nearly distraught, shifting his weight on his thin legs, but he said nothing.

  When the girl approached her, she turned in the saddle and followed her and held out a hand, asking her to stop.

  Her heart was beating wildly, and she felt sick to her stomach almost, not having slept the night long. Everything seemed so out of place—Roger’s walking, the appearance of Johnny Menahan, the priest, the things he’d said that had made no sense to her, and what she’d thought about since then, and her, the child who—she moved past, but turned the horse and trotted back—looked so much like she had when a girl that it had to be true.

  When the girl stopped, facing her, she couldn’t bring herself to speak. She only searched the dark eyes, the long thin nose—Roger’s nose, she was sure of it—and his shoulders, wide and thin. The girl smiled—her own smile, the very way she turned her own head. “Mairead?” she asked, scarcely able to say the name, the light seeming to go dim all around her.

  “Yes. I believe I’m your daughter.”

  She had been right, but she didn’t understand—how it could be, how the child would know and be so certain, how suddenly after all the years—.

  A passing rider made the horses shy, and they moved together, and she reached out and stroked the girl’s hair. “How—?” She shook her head.

  At the closest section of rail the men were gathered and one shouted, the others aiming their cameras at them.

  But neither turned.

  “I’m not sure that’s important now, really. Are you going to jump this afternoon?”

  “I—” she faltered and looked toward Roger where he stood, watching them, his face anxious and intent, “—I don’t think I can. I’m—”

  “I’d like you to. Where’s Kestral?”

  Her hands jumped toward the girl, and she seized her wrist and then her hand, long and thin—she looked down at it—again like Roger’s, and all the thoughts she’d had carrying the child, the hopes and fears that she’d damped down, that had taken her years to forget came welling up, and her eyes grew blurry and she felt the wetness on her cheeks. “In the stable. She’s still…weak.” Her voice cracked. “Forgive me.”

  The girl had reached over to her, and she felt a strong hand on her shoulder. “From what I know of it, Mammy—and it’s all to
o little—there’s nothing for you to be forgiven for.”

  She buried her face in the girl’s shoulder and sobbed once—a sound that was deep and agonized.

  “But we’ll sort that out.” The girl glanced back at Ward. “And soon.”

  Farther down the rail Murray watched them embrace, not knowing what to think. She was beautiful, the girl, no question about that, but, like the mother, she was a bit off and who knew how much, capable of anything, unpredictable and—.

  Menahan moved alongside of him.

  Murray regarded the clothes he was wearing and wondered what it meant. “You’ve made a balls of this, Father. Just look at them.”

  Menahan had regained his aplomb after the run-in with McGarr.

  “On the contrary, my friend—what you see there is just what you were hoping for. Mairead is—” from his jacket pocket he removed a cigar and lit it, “—a performer, a superior performer, and having her—” he paused to pierce the nib of the cigar with the point of a gold penknife, “—folks looking on, well…

  “And the other one, she’s gone to pieces. You can see so yourself.” He looked up at the woman whose face was still on the girl’s shoulder, her back hunched. “She won’t be out of it for months, if that.”

  “I hope you’re right.”

  “Of course I’m right. They’re my—” he turned to Murray, his smile thin, his teeth clamped on the cigar, “—people, aren’t they?”

  Another man was approaching them, but Menahan continued, “You know, Mick, I hope you haven’t planned anything for today. I don’t want to know, of course, but it would be stupid, now.

  “And you don’t look well. How’s the shoulder, still bothering you?”

  Murray turned on him. “Listen, Menahan, and for Jesus’ sake the last time, shut up about that.”

  And then to the other man Murray said, “Ah, Holohan—I’d like you to meet an acquaintance of mine.”

  Keegan had watched Murray and Menahan conversing, and he had wondered what it meant—the help he’d gotten from the priest, right down to the automatic weapon he had strapped under the greatcoat. That in itself had been strange, coming from a man of the cloth, but Keegan understood intrigue, and their low tones and glances had been collusive, he was sure of it.

  And now the cop—what was his name? Something British, though he was Irish and had gone to Australia more than twenty years before…Sinclaire. It probably didn’t matter, really, since the johnnies were as thick as he’d ever seen them in one place, bluecoats and plainclothesmen, like the man at his side. McKeon, he was, though he’d said different.

  But they’d given him this much rope already, and it was just enough for Bechel-Gore. Keegan didn’t care what happened to him after that.

  Mairead and Grainne had parted now and were walking their horses over to the rail where Bechel-Gore and Paddy were standing. Keegan saw Bechel-Gore’s hand reach for Mairead’s, and his heart could have gone out to them, but there was so much history in the way, and him a dying man himself.

  EIGHT

  Mother and Daughter, A Clear Round and Savvy, Chaos, Weakness, a Pug And a Navvy

  FROM THE R. T. E. announcing booth that was situated in a perch near the number board above the jumping enclosure, McGarr looked out on the sweep of green field bordered by clipped hedges, walkways, and grandstands filled with people. It was a vast crowd and rather quiet. All were watching the figure of a lone rider passing slowly through the field of gates, checking the course, and getting the progression of the fences fixed firmly in his mind, even though he and the over two dozen other riders had walked it only moments before.

  Then the jumping ground had been a field of color: the British and Germans in traditional red jackets, the Italians and two of the Irish entrants in military uniforms, the sole American in a quiet, blue-gray coat, and the other Irish riders in dark green. Mother and daughter had been among them, walking together with their black velvet caps and their dark hair clasped behind their heads, twins even down to the way they moved in stride, that same big-shouldered gait McGarr had noticed before.

  And it was as though they were conscious of their perfection and the eyes of the multitude, which were upon them, but he suspected, from what he had learned of them, that they were not.

  The mother had stopped at the fourth gate with the water hazard beyond it and pointed out something to her child, then again at the double oxer of two high fences right together.

  Bechel-Gore, who was standing next to McGarr, had stirred, and McGarr had wondered why. Was he that hard a man that only the winning was important to him? No, he wasn’t, but it was what he had in mind and the importance of the Show to him was obvious. McGarr wondered what Bechel-Gore’s financial situation really was, and if his large holdings in Galway, all his recent wins with Kestral and other horses, and his supposed brisk trade at the bloodstock auctions were only what met the eye. McGarr made a mental note to find out.

  A bell now rang and the crowd quieted yet more, as the rider, an Englishman, and his horse broke into a lively but collected canter and proceeded back to the first fence, both eyeing it carefully, judging it—the height, the speed necessary to clear it, where they should come down and how, in regard to the next fence.

  The horse was a big animal and gray, muscular and firm in the way it trod the earth, almost in a dance with its rider as they approached the fence and picked up speed briefly and vaulted, the rider’s hands still loose on the reins, his body thrust forward in the saddle, head up, back arched, feet splayed in the stirrups, grasping the horse only with his thighs, looking toward the next obstacle even before they came down. The horse changed its lead naturally, they charged forward and cleared it easily.

  “Yes,” said Bechel-Gore. “He’s going well. That’s a good mount.”

  McGarr glanced at him. There was pride in the assessment, and McGarr knew that the horse had been raised on Bechel-Gore’s farm in Galway.

  “Can’t say as much for the rider, though.”

  McGarr waited.

  “The hands. That fist is a bad sign. He’s tense. And he’s too far forward in the saddle. He should give the horse its head.”

  The hooves knocked on the third fence, but the bar didn’t fall. Still, he had one down before the round was over.

  “Four jumping faults,” a calm voice announced from farther down in the announcing booth, and it was carried around the jumping enclosure on the public address system. The announcer then read off the elapsed time.

  The crowd had given the first rider a round of applause, and another rider took the field as he withdrew.

  Patches of high, white clouds were moving across the azure summer sky. There was a breeze, but only enough to dispel the heat.

  McGarr touched the field glasses to the bridge of his nose and focused first on Menahan, who was sitting in the members’ stand, and then on Murray, who was with his wife in a private box. The priest was smiling, looking around, another cigar in his hand, but Murray seemed glum, worried, staring more at the back of the seat in front of him than at the horse and rider in the ring.

  And McGarr pondered Murray’s involvement with horses, his need to be a part of the horse world on a scale so grand it had nearly ruined him. Murray—from the slums of Dublin, where the only horses he and McGarr had seen as children had been the drays that pulled the milk and bread and beer wagons and the thoroughbreds out at the race course in Phoenix Park, when the guard hadn’t caught them wriggling under the fence, and those from afar.

  The nation, he supposed, had succeeded in throwing off the yoke of direct British rule but would probably never rid itself of that alien culture. It had become too entrenched and horses were the totem. For those, like Murray, who were class-conscious, it was here at the Show that their aspirations could be realized in a way that was understandable to all. The new commercial and political ascendency—McGarr lowered the binoculars and looked down at the chestnut-colored boot Bechel-Gore had crossed over his knee—was merely replacing the
old, or trying to. He supposed it was only natural, but it was not the Ireland of the Celtic Revival, the one that the poets, martyrs, and heroes of the revolution had envisioned.

  But vision—who had it? Few, maybe none.

  “Are you sure there’s no way I can convince you to remove your wife and your horses from the Show?” he asked Bechel-Gore once again.

  The man turned only his eyes to him. It would be tantamount to cowardice, and courage—in battle during the centuries of Britain’s colonial and other wars—had been another hallmark of the old Ascendency. They had come to Ireland as conquerors and had maintained a martial bearing throughout.

  During the night white paint had been dashed across the black enamel of Bechel-Gore’s Bentley that had been parked in the Shelbourne garage. “BRITS OUT.” It was easy for unthinking and nationalistic Irishmen to understand the agony between Bechel-Gore and the Murrays of the new ruling class, but they didn’t understand that such a gesture only made the man more certain of having to remain firm.

  And McGarr himself, who believed in pluralism and tolerance, was in favor of that firmness, but it was Frayne who bothered him. Nearly thirty years of police experience told him that Frayne was a man who killed for the love of it. The British army, the I. R. A., murder for hire—it didn’t matter, and the greater the risk, the greater the challenge. And if, say, Murray had hired him, he too would be wanting him to try something here at the Show, where the first concern would have to be stopping the killer, quickly and finally.

  “You’re aware that in spite of the precautions I’ve taken—”

  Slowly the long face turned to him. “Quite aware, Mister McGarr. Now—if you please, I’d like to concentrate on the competition.”