‘Can I run round to see if Mabel’s safely home?’ Helen begged when they had brought everything in, and Mama had made some tea.
‘Of course not! Don’t be silly,’ Mama said.
‘But Mama!’
‘I could walk round with her, Eileen,’ Papa said quietly. ‘It’s only natural that she’s worried.’
‘Mabel won’t be home – you saw the signs in the station as well as I did,’ Mama said. ‘She’s probably enjoying an extra few days’ holiday with her aunt.’
‘Oh, Mama, please!’ Helen begged. ‘I won’t be able to sleep. At least Mabel’s mother might have some news of her.’ She didn’t see how: the pictures she had seen of Dublin were terrible – bicycles and bedsteads barricading the streets; buildings smouldering for all the world as if they were in France. But surely if anything terrible had happened to Mabel – she would know. Somehow. But then she had always believed she would know if something bad happened to Sandy. And while he’d been having his arm sewn back together in a field hospital she’d been playing hockey for the fourth eleven against Victoria College and hadn’t had the remotest inkling.
‘You don’t deserve a treat, young lady,’ Mama said. ‘I haven’t forgotten the disgraceful way you and Nora behaved.’
But Papa said, ‘Well, I want to call on Mother and Violet – make sure things are all right with them after the holiday. It’s not out of the way to go via Mabel’s house. Go on, Helen – run and fetch your hat.’
Mama’s mouth got very tight, exactly the way Aunt Violet’s did.
But in the end there was no answer from Mabel’s house at all. So Helen still didn’t know what had happened. And Aunt Violet wanted to talk in tones of great outrage about the riots, and Granny was lying down with a headache, and Helen had to sit being seen and not heard in Aunt Violet’s parlour for what felt like hours while Aunt Violet talked about how unpatriotic the rebels were. There was a new letter from Sandy and she insisted on reading it aloud. There was no mention of roofless houses or dead comrades. Certainly no mention of rum.
He’s protecting her, Helen thought, watching Aunt Violet’s chin bob with indignation as she compared Sandy and his men to the Dublin rebels. I’m glad – mostly – that he doesn’t need to protect me.
‘Taking troops away from where they’re needed!’ Aunt Violet kept saying. ‘If Sandy and his brave loyal boys are the least bit compromised because of men being diverted to deal with that – that rabble …’
Helen wished she had stayed at home.
MAY 1916
20.
The rebellion seemed – as far as Helen could see – to be over by the weekend.
Papa’s News Letter said that the uprising was contained, crushed by the might of the British army. The leaders had surrendered and would be ‘dealt with’. Helen couldn’t help shivering at that. It sounded sinister. She thought of Sandy’s young Private C and how he had been dealt with. But that had been for cowardice. Surely the leaders in Dublin had been the opposite of cowards? Misguided, maybe even treacherous, as Papa believed – but surely, in their own way – brave?
She didn’t say this to anyone at home or school.
Papa was satisfied that the army had dealt so effectively with the situation.
‘After all,’ he said, ‘they’ve held the German line since 1914 – they were hardly going to be bested by a few Sinn Féin rebels, were they?’
‘I suppose not,’ Helen said.
By the time the trains were running properly, Mabel had to start term a day or so late, but with no very exciting story after all.
‘We just couldn’t go out,’ she said, riffling through the books in her locker. ‘Oh, where’s that pigging algebra book hiding itself? Aunt Jean was terrified. We had to stay in the house for the whole week, waiting for it to be over. And we got awfully hungry. So much for tea at the Shelbourne! We had stale bread and stuff from tins. There was nothing in the shops, and Aunt Jean wouldn’t even let me walk to the end of the road to see what was going on. Sometimes you could hear the fighting in the distance,’ she said, her eyes going big and round, ‘but mostly it was just boring.’
‘So it wasn’t like seeing history being made?’ Helen thought of how Nora’s eyes had gleamed during that awful row.
Mabel shrugged. ‘Not really. But it was horrible – on the way to the station, seeing the streets all wrecked and smouldering. I was very glad to get home. I don’t fancy going to Dublin ever again. Ah!’ She pounced on a small blue book. ‘There you are, you rotten thing.’
Even Sandy’s next letter mentioned the rebellion:
The Germans have got wind of it and they’ve been taunting us – saying the British army is killing our wives and children on the streets of Dublin. Which is nonsense of course – this is an Ulster regiment, but I don’t suppose they know the difference. All the same, I wouldn’t have liked to be sent to Dublin. I never thought I’d be glad to be over here in a trench but at least we know what we’re up against.
At school Dr Allen preached about patriotism and the coming exams. Some of their old boys, now in the Officers’ Training Corps at Trinity College in Dublin, had been involved in defending Trinity against the rebels, and had promised a story for the next edition of the school magazine.
‘Bags me edit that when it comes in,’ George Rae said.
‘If Helen doesn’t mind,’ Edith said.
Helen shook her head. She was shy with Edith now, not sure how to treat her after her brother’s death. She didn’t want to make the kind of sickly fuss Florence made, but it seemed mean not to say something. But she hadn’t found the right words the first time Edith had come back to the magazine committee and now the time had passed.
‘He’s welcome to it,’ Helen said.
Now that it was all over she didn’t want to hear another word about burning streets and barricades and people getting killed. It had all been just a bit too close for comfort.
And it was about to get very much closer still.
21.
‘Has Michael gone to France yet?’ Mabel asked as they walked home from the tram stop together on Friday.
Helen shook her head. ‘Haven’t heard from him since that letter I showed you before Easter.’
‘That’s strange.’
Helen frowned. ‘You always used to ask about Sandy,’ she said, to take the conversation away from Michael and letters. What if Michael were already in France and his family didn’t even know? But after that awful row she didn’t see how she would ever have another chance to deliver his letter. She had thought of simply posting it, but what if Uncle Sean really did throw it in the fire? If anything happened to Michael that letter would be all they had of him. The best thing she could do for now was keep it safe.
‘I haven’t forgotten Sandy!’ Mabel said. ‘How is he?’
‘He’s all right. Says it’s quieter where they are just now. I sent him the school magazine last week. I knew he’d be sorry about Hugh Hamilton – Sandy was friendly with his brother.’
Mabel looked serious for a moment, then sighed. ‘Oh, I wish I had handsome cousins in the army. My cousins are all still at the toddling stage – all drool and sticky hands.’
‘Well, at least the war’ll be over before they’re grown up,’ Helen said. ‘Come on – let’s cut through the park.’
* * *
The early May evenings were warm. Helen sat at her window and looked over at the park, where drifts of bluebells lay under the huge oaks. She could imagine how cool and scented it must be, away from the dusty street. She was trying to make herself read the paper. All week the authorities in Dublin had been executing the leaders of the rising, the eighth one that morning. It was grim reading: name upon name of men – some Helen had heard of; most she hadn’t – shot dead. After a while she tossed the paper aside, looked longingly at the Angela Brazil Mabel had lent her, The Fortunes of Philippa, but then made herself tackle her French prep. Papa had gone to a meeting at the church; Mama was lying down. She h
ad been coughing again since Easter, but Helen knew better than to suggest her going to Derryward.
Helen leaned her forehead against the cold glass. If she sneaked out to the park, would Mama know? Prep on top of the newspaper stories was making her brain ache. If she ever went to college she would have to work like this all the time. Would it be worth it? Would she understand things better, or would it be all French verbs and Latin declensions? She thought of Uncle Sean and Papa shouting at each other about Ireland and Ulster and freedom and loyalty. It would take more than a college degree to help her make sense of all that. She sighed and went back to work. The ink in her pen had dried while she’d been looking out the window. She shook it, and ink spattered all over her French verbs.
‘Bother!’ She pushed the book away in disgust.
The whirr of a bicycle made her look out again. The telegraph boy. She held her breath as he cycled past their house and on down Cyclamen Terrace. Where was he going? She didn’t know all the neighbours but the Thompsons at number 37 had a father at the Front; and the McVeas at number 43 two sons.
She strained to see where the boy would stop, following his progress down the street. He didn’t stop at 37. He rode on past 43, stopped and talked to a soldier coming in the opposite direction, then turned the corner into Park Street and was gone. Helen transferred her attention to the soldier. He was too young to be Mr Thompson, and not tall enough for one of the lanky McVeas. He must be coming home on leave, because he carried a bag over his shoulder. He was stooped and tired-looking, like Sandy when he had first come home on sick leave, so that as he came closer she saw mostly the top of his cap. But there was something familiar in his gait, and when he drew close to the gate of number 22, he slowed down and looked up at her window.
It was Michael.
22.
‘You stopped writing.’
It was hard not to sound accusatory. For ages she had worried, thought he might have been sent to France without her knowing, could even be in danger, and here he was, not a bother on him, turned up – again – on the doorstep. Only this time, at least he was sober. More than sober: his voice had a flatness she had never heard.
‘Let’s go out,’ he had said, as soon as she had opened the door to him. ‘I’ve been cooped up in a train for hours.’
Maybe, she thought, he’s only tired from travelling, but a worm of unease started to twist in her stomach.
‘I couldn’t write,’ he said, when they had turned off the street and into the park. ‘I was busy.’
‘You were never too busy before.’ Helen ran her hand along the railings.
‘I – last week …’ Michael shook his head. ‘I was …’ He looked up at the trees, at the quiet terraced street on the other side of the railings. ‘It’s all so normal,’ he said. ‘I can’t believe it.’
‘It’s the same as always,’ Helen said. ‘Why wouldn’t it be?’
‘Last week,’ Michael said, still in that flat tone. ‘I couldn’t write because I was on – on active service.’
Helen jerked up her chin in surprise. ‘You haven’t been to the Front already?’ But no, of course not; he wouldn’t have been given leave so soon. Besides, he didn’t have the look of someone who had been in France. And yet – she looked more closely. His face was thin, his eyes strained. In the three months since she had seen him he seemed to have aged three years or more.
‘Not exactly.’ He pulled a handful of leaves from a tree and started to shred them, systematically.
‘Where then?’
‘Dublin.’
Uncle Sean’s voice boomed into her head. The day they had first heard of what Papa called the riots and he called the rising. ‘I wish I could think of my son down there fighting for Ireland.’ And all the time Michael had been –
‘Michael?’ she said stupidly. ‘What were you – you weren’t one of the rebels, were you?’
Michael gave a harsh laugh and indicated his uniform. ‘Dressed like this?’ he said. ‘Hardly. But I – maybe I should have been.’
‘You mean you were –’
‘We were sent to restore order,’ Michael said. ‘There we were, trained and ready to go, and only thirty miles away. God! To think I couldn’t wait for action. I didn’t expect to get it on the streets of Dublin. I didn’t think I’d be asked to kill my fellow Irishmen.’
He looked up, and his face was fierce.
‘I’m never going back, Helen,’ he said. ‘I’m never going to follow orders like that again.’
‘What do you mean?’ The worm of unease buried itself deeper.
‘I’ve deserted.’
23.
The most important thing was to make Michael change his mind.
‘They’ll shoot you. Your own comrades will shoot you. That’s what happens. You must know that.’ She yanked at a dandelion.
‘They’ll have to find me first,’ Michael said. He glanced behind him as if the entire British army might be hiding in the park.
‘Well, they won’t have to look very hard, will they? You’ve come to one of the most obvious places.’
Her voice sounded calm – she sounded, she realised, just like Aunt Violet in one of her most bossy moods, but inside she was panicking. Her knowledge of what happened to deserters came entirely from that terrible letter from Sandy. The fate of Private C had haunted her, and lately had been mixed up with the news of the executions in Dublin. Wasn’t desertion a kind of treason?
‘So did you just run away?’ she asked.
They were walking along the formal path lined with primroses, watching the setting sun warm up the red brick of Cyclamen Terrace.
Maybe he could run back again? Surely it would be different since they weren’t at the Front? But she knew the army didn’t let you away with it. Would she get into trouble, for aiding and abetting a deserter? He must go back! But then – could you just return to the army as if nothing had happened?
‘I’m on leave. They’ve given us four days and then – off to France.’
Relief flooded her. ‘So nobody knows you’ve – I mean that you’re thinking of –’
‘I won’t turn up for the draft,’ he said, as if this were something simple. As if it weren’t something to be deeply ashamed of.
She thought of the day they had seen Sandy off. Sandy knew how bad war could be. He had already been out there and proved himself, and nearly lost his arm. Sandy admitted, even if only to her, that it was hard, and yet he had never – not for a moment – contemplated not turning up. Not turning up was for cowards. And Michael had had such a tiny taste of war – squashing a few rebels on the streets of Dublin! It hardly compared with what her brave Sandy had done! How awful, to be feeling so – ashamed of him!
And then she was ashamed of herself. For she had been a coward – maybe worse than a coward – in not delivering that letter. But she couldn’t think about that now. She had to be practical.
‘How long have you got?’ she asked. ‘I mean – when are you supposed to report back?’
‘Tuesday night,’ he said. ‘I don’t know where I’ll –’
‘It’s all right,’ she said. ‘You can stay with us – didn’t Mama and Papa say you must think of our house as home?’
Somehow, while he stayed at Cyclamen Terrace, he must be persuaded not to desert.
She patted his rough khaki sleeve. ‘And don’t worry about anything else until you have to.’
She couldn’t believe how grown-up she sounded, and Michael must have thought so too because he smiled for the first time and said, ‘Thanks, Helen. I knew I could rely on you.’
Helen couldn’t meet his eyes. ‘It’s getting chilly,’ she said after a moment. ‘Let’s go inside.’
‘I’m not telling your parents what I’ve been doing,’ Michael said, as they turned into the gateway of number 22. ‘So don’t ask me.’
‘But Papa will be so proud of you!’ Helen said without thinking.
Michael gave a brief, bitter laugh. ‘Well, that makes on
e of us,’ he said. ‘If you tell them, I’ll leave. I won’t wait till Tuesday.’
Her parents were surprised to see Michael but made him welcome. Mama even bustled about, getting him some supper. But when he sat down at the dainty tray, with an egg and some of Granny’s fruit loaf, he set down his knife and said, ‘I’m sorry. I don’t seem to be hungry after all. Would you mind if I just went to bed?’
And he heaved himself up the stairs like an old man.
Papa looked after him and frowned. ‘He doesn’t look well, does he? Exhausted.’
‘Well, I suppose the training must be quite hard,’ Mama said, ‘if they’re to make them ready to fight.’
‘For a strong farm lad like that?’ Papa sounded sceptical. ‘He looks like he’s sickening for something.’
‘I hope not,’ Mama said. ‘That’s all we need.’
‘Did he say anything to you, Helen?’ Papa asked.
Helen shook her head. ‘Nothing much.’
24.
Saturday was another bright spring day, and Mama suggested that Helen take Michael for a walk by the Lagan. ‘Put some colour in your cheeks,’ she said.
Michael said he didn’t mind, so they took the tram up the Malone Road, and walked down a winding lane, past big grand houses and a few old cottages. They passed a couple of factory girls, walking arm in arm, who goggled at them. Michael looked down at his uniform as if it disgusted him. But at least, Helen thought, he is still wearing it. Perhaps now he had had a night’s sleep he would give up the ridiculous idea of desertion.
‘It’s hard to believe we’re still in the city, isn’t it?’ Helen said, stopping to talk to a grey donkey in a field. It stuck its nose through the fence and nuzzled at her dress, leaving behind a trail of green slobber.
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