by Stuart Woods
“Jesus H. Christ, Connie!” I sat up, spiling my tea.
“In the back.”
“Shit! Where the hell have you picked up all this garbage?”
“Ah, you can’t keep a thing like that quiet, you know.”
“That’s not the way it happened.” I told her Mark’s story. “And if you don’t believe that, have a look at his leg sometime.”
She was quiet; I wasn’t sure whether she was serious or just baiting me. “Did you know that he knew the boy he shot? That he had arrested him for throwing stones at a patrol? Twice? Did you know the boy was tortured at the army barracks and that your friend was there?”
I defended Mark as best I could, but I left Summercove filled with dread and guilt—dread that my friend had not told me the truth, and guilt that I had taken Connie Lydon’s virginity while pretending she was someone else.
13
I SPENT the next two nights with Connie Lydon, and it occurred to me that they were almost the only moments I had spent away from Mark and Annie since I had met them. Mark and Annie were delighted that I had found a regular girl friend (in truth, I would have felt better if Annie had been less delighted) and wanted to meet her at the earliest possible moment. Annie proposed a weekend cruise down the coast of West Cork that would get Mark away, as well.
Connie’s reservations about Mark were palpable, even as she accepted, and she was clearly, at least to me, uncomfortable with him as we sailed out of Cork Harbour. I think she had been expecting a stiff, terribly British military type, but not even Mark’s informality and easy charm, nor his rugged good looks, had put her at ease. Annie did not exactly fit the stereotype of the military wife, either, moving expertly about the decks and taking no guff from Mark in the sailing of the boat, and Connie was obviously immediately attracted to her. They were soon knocking about the galley together, making sandwiches. By lunchtime we were past Roberts Head and sailing comfortably in a light breeze.
There were fishing boats about, but none very near us, and I was surprised when Mark suddenly tacked the boat. We had a comical minute or two trying to handle the sheets without spilling beer and food. “What was that all about?” I asked, wiping mayonnaise from a cockpit seat.
Mark nodded at the water between two fishing boats. “Drift nets,” he said, scowling. I could see a line of small floats. “Illegal salmon fishing. Those fellows all carry shotguns and brook no interference. Bastards.”
“Does no one police them?”
“The Irish Navy does, but that consists of two wooden minesweepers, and they’re more concerned with catching Russian fishermen violating Irish fishing grounds. They levy big fines and confiscate boats in those cases.”
“Fishermen have to make a living like everyone else,” Connie said to him sullenly.
A red-bearded man glared at us from the deck of one of the boats as we sailed past. “Watch how you go!” He shouted angrily at us, then seeing our ensign, “Bloody Brits!” I half expected him to produce a shotgun on the spot and start raking our decks.
Mark gave him a cheerful wave. “Morning,” he called to the angry fisherman. “Lovely day!” The man turned and went into his wheelhouse without a word.
“Nice countrymen you’ve got,” I said to Connie, who was looking embarrassed.
“I know him,” she said. “His name is Red O’Mahoney. He’s not such a bad bloke. You can hardly blame him for getting a bit hot about his nets.” She went below and started cleaning the galley. She hadn’t finished her lunch.
We sailed on past Oysterhaven and Kinsale and near the end of the long afternoon, anchored at Castletownshend. At Mary Ann’s Bar we ate lobster, drank wine, and sang and played darts with the locals. Connie joined in but was barely polite to Mark. Back on the boat, Mark and Annie gave us the forward V-berth and retired to the quarterberth aft. The radio did not drown out the noises that came from either end of the small yacht, and someone rowing past noticed the ripples made by the rocking of the boat and called out cheerful encouragement. The four of us laughed uncontrollably for a few minutes, then resumed our previous activity.
We put Connie ashore at Kinsale the next evening. It annoyed me that she seemed relieved to be home. She hadn’t given Mark half a chance, I thought. We made Drake’s Pool and the cottage in time for a good night’s sleep. We needed that, for the boat would begin building the next morning.
We were at Cork Harbour Boatyard at 7:30 A.M., half an hour before the workers were due. Mark carefully went over what was to be done the first day with Finbar O’Leary, a conversation that, at that stage of my experience with boatbuilding, had little meaning for me.
Mark picked up a thin, narrow strip of solid mahogany and handed it to me. “This is what we work with,” he said. “We glue three layers of these over a framework mold, fixing them with staples while the glue dries. When we finish, we have a light, strong hull—a sort of plywood of our own manufacture.”
“I thought boats were built of lumber nailed to permanent frames,” I said.
“That’s an older technique. It produces a strong, but very heavy boat. What we’re after is something light and fast, but still stiff enough to take a bashing. We’ll build the hull upside-down, then turn it when it’s finished.”
My contribution to the morning’s work was mostly to hand tools to other men while the yacht’s construction began. We worked in teams of “a man and a boy,” an experienced craftsman and an apprentice. I served as “boy” to Mark; the O’Donnell twins were supported by two young fellows barely out of school, and Finbar was helped by his nineteen-year-old son, Harry. By the time we stopped for lunch, everyone seemed to be working smoothly together with some occasional good-natured banter, into which only the sullen Denny O’Donnell did not enter. His twin, Donal, was much more pleasant and seemed to accept me as one of the crew before any of the others did so.
At noon, I walked outside into the pale sunshine and sat down on a huge mahogany log that rested near the big, old-fashioned ripsaw, and dug into a paper bag for the lunch Annie had made for me. A moment later Donal O’Donnell strolled out and sat down near me on the log.
“Got any salt?” he asked. He grinned at me in a friendly manner.
I looked into my bag. “Sorry, I guess Annie salted my sandwiches.”
“Annie? I thought your girl’s name was Connie.”
I laughed. “Annie is Mark’s wife. I share the cottage at Drake’s Pool with them.”
He nodded. “Ah, yes, Mrs. Pemberton-Robinson. I forgot. How’d you get hooked up with them?”
I told him the story. “Mmmm. You’ve not known them long, then.”
“No, but I’ve spent so much time with them I feel as though I’d known them always.”
“I hear you’ve been disrupting the salmon-fishing fleet, too.”
“Jesus, nobody misses much around here, do they? Well, anyway, I hear they were fishing illegally.”
“Ah, well, the law gets winked at now and again.”
“Say, your brother’s a bit quiet, isn’t he?” I asked. “I mean, he never seems to talk much to anybody but you.”
“He’s like that,” Donal agreed. “He’s a good lad. Not much for the chat, though. Denny says I chat enough for the two of us.”
“It’s the only way I can tell the two of you apart.”
Donal laughed and unbuttoned the top button of his shirt, exposing a hairless chest. “Here’s a surer way.” There was a crudely tattooed heart on his chest, containing the initials, M.M.
“Who’s M. M.?”
He sighed. “Ah, just an old girl friend. Long gone, now. I should have left the space open until the time I’ve nailed down one properly.”
“Win some, lose some.”
He laughed. “Too right. What do you think of the boatbuilding trade?”
“Not like building anything else.”
“You’ll get the hang of it. You seem to know your way with the tools.”
I was a little uncomfortable with my next ques
tion. “Ah, Donal, what’s going on with Denny? I’ve never so much as spoken with him, and he seems to hate my guts.”
Donal seemed embarrassed, and I was sorry my American bluntness had got the best of me. “Ah, you mustn’t pay too much attention to Denny. I think it’s mostly that he never got anywhere with Concepta Lydon, and it seems that you have.” I wondered if he knew exactly how far I had got. “And he’s not much on Brits, either,” he said, nodding toward Mark, who was standing at the door to the shed, talking with Harry O’Leary.
“Is it Brits in general, or Mark in particular?”
“Ah, nothing to worry about,” Donal replied, stretching out and resting his head on the log. He closed his eyes. “Catch a few winks before we go back.” And he was almost immediately asleep. I looked across the yard at Denny O’Donnell, who was sullenly eating his lunch. This time he was staring at Mark instead of at me. I should have been relieved to have his attention focused elsewhere, but I wasn’t.
We arrived at the cottage at dusk, tired and dirty from our first day’s boatbuilding. Mark had lingered over the plans with Finbar while I swept up and put away tools, and it was nearly eight by the time we got home. Annie was sitting by an unlit fire, flipping impatiently through a magazine.
“Home at last,” she said. Mark seemed too tired to notice the edge in her voice. He headed straight for the sideboard where the liquor was kept.
“Where’s the gin?” he asked, rummaging through half a dozen bottles.
“We’re out of gin,” Annie replied, tossing aside her magazine. “Do you think you might clean yourself up before you sprawl about?”
Foiled in his search for gin, Mark was pouring two drinks from a bottle of whisky. He handed one to me. “In a minute, luv.” He tossed off half his drink. “Ah, that hits the right places. We’ve had a helluva long day.” He looked up at Annie, who had stood up. “You want one?”
Annie stood, glaring at him, saying nothing. I held the scotch in my grimy hand and looked dumbly back and forth between them. Mark did not seem to understand that she was very annoyed. I had thought our sail down the coast might have put her in a better mood of late, but that didn’t seem to be the case. Without another word she walked into the bedroom and slammed the door. I looked at Mark. He shrugged. “What I need is a hot bath,” he said, striding toward the bathroom. I heard the water running. He came back, stripping off his shirt. Annie came out of the bedroom carrying a canvas duffle and a garment bag; she must have had it already packed.
“So where are you off to?” Mark inquired mildly.
“I haven’t decided,” she said, scooping up the keys to the van from the dining table. “And don’t be bothering Mother with phone calls. I’ll leave the van at the airport and the keys under the seat.” She walked out the front door, leaving it open. A moment later we heard the van start up and drive away. I stared at Mark, speechless. The whole scene had taken place with no acknowledgment of my presence.
Mark walked to the door and closed it, then saw my face. He shook his head. “Christ, I don’t know. She’ll go along for weeks or months as happy as a clam, then something just snaps.”
“Well, she has been feeling sort of left out, I think. She’d said something to me; I should have told you. Then, we were pretty late, I guess, and neither of us is exactly dressed for dinner,” I said, indicating my filthy jeans.
“Oh, it’s usually something niggling,” Mark said, pouring us both another drink. “She’ll go to her mother’s for a few days, then she’ll turn up as if nothing had happened.” He handed me a drink, not noticing that I was already holding one. “Don’t ever let anyone tell you that women are just people, Willie,” he said, tossing off the scotch. “They’re a breed apart, believe me.”
We ate a cold and unsatisfying supper from what we could find in the fridge, had a bottle of wine with it and finished the evening quite drunk. I washed the dishes and joined Mark in front of the fire. He was staring blankly into the flames. It seemed a good moment to bring up what had been troubling me.
“Mark?”
“Mmmm?” He continued to stare into the fire.
“When you were in Belfast … when … when you were wounded … did you recognize the boy you shot? I mean, did you know him before?
“Yes,” he said absently. “He’d been picked up before. He …” Mark turned and looked at me for the first time. “That’s an odd question,” he said. “Why do you ask that?”
I ignored his question. “Did you recognize him before you shot him?” I realized this was important to me.
“Willie … ”
“Just tell me that, Mark. This may be none of my business, but I want to know. Did you recognize him when he came into the pub?”
Mark stared at me intently before speaking. “I didn’t see him come into the pub, not really. I was aware of the door opening, because it was cold outside, and I felt the draft. The shooting started immediately, and I went over the bar without stopping to look around. I wouldn’t be here now if I had looked around.”
I held his gaze. “When you came up and started shooting did you recognize him then?”
“I fired toward the door. They were running; their backs were to me; he was already outside when I hit him. The others piled into a car and were gone. They left him dead on the pavement. I didn’t see his face until they were bundling me into the ambulance.” He turned and looked back into the fire. “They put him in with me. I wanted to see what one of the bastards looked like up close, so I pulled down the blanket. It was this kid … I had got hold of him once when a bunch of these young lads were throwing paving stones at my patrol. He cried like a baby, and I sent him home to his mother.”
“You never arrested him?”
“No, but I saw him throwing bottles from a rooftop at my troops a couple of weeks after I had sent him home. I’d have arrested him if we’d caught him. He hadn’t learned much from his first experience with us, except how not to get caught.” Mark turned and looked at me again. “What’s this all about, Willie?”
“You’re sure that’s exactly the way it all happened.”
“I asked you what this was all about.”
“There’s apparently a rumor going around some of the locals that you knew the boy, that you had arrested him a couple of times and, well … they’re saying that he was tortured in your barracks … ”
“Oh, Jesus, we never tortured anybody, not my unit, anyway. Mind you, we weren’t always gentle with them.”
“I get the impression it’s thought that you were involved and just waiting for a chance to kill him.”
He looked at me incredulously. “Where did you hear about this?”
“Connie picked it up somewhere … you know how things travel around here … she won’t tell me where she heard it. Was it in the papers at the time?”
“Oh, hell yes, in Belfast and in London, too. I suppose it might have made the Dublin and Cork papers, but it couldn’t have been much of a story. There was a lot going on in Belfast at the time, something almost every day. It’s been nearly two years, anyway. Who’d remember now?”
I shook my head. “Beats me.”
He turned back to the fire. It was the first time I had ever seen Mark look worried about anything at all. “Well,” he said, “somebody remembers. Somebody surely does.”
14
SHE DROVE to the little country church and looked carefully about. No other car was in sight; she wondered if he were here yet. Perhaps. She walked quickly into the building, her heels echoing from the stone floor. She stepped into the confessional and sat down. Immediately, the panel slid back.
“Yes, my child?”
“Father, I have sinned.”
“What is the nature of your sin, my child?”
“I am too much a patriot.”
“All right, we don’t have long.”
“Bishop?” She could not see him through the screen.
“Yes. Why did you want this meeting?”
“Robins
on is the man; there is no doubt.”
“What do you propose to do about it?”
“Excommunicate him.” He said nothing.
“He is one and the same.”
“You may not kill him.”
“And why not?” She was angry.
“I am going to answer your question, because you are new enough at this, perhaps, not to understand that you must follow instructions as they are given. First, killing Robinson now would not accomplish any political purpose. Second, we do not wish to bring attention to ourselves in County Cork. Robinson is simply too close to home, at least for the moment. Third, we cannot risk harming the Lee boy in going after Robinson. To kill or even hurt the son of a prominent American politician could cause many difficulties for us in raising funds over there. Does that answer your question?”
She was quiet for a moment. “Yes,” she said, at last.
“Good. Never again question an order of your bishop. Do you understand?”
“Yes, but I cannot exercise your authority over the others. They don’t know you, and I cannot invoke your name to control them.”
“You most certainly may not do that. You will just have to deal with them as best you can. Is there anything else?”
“Yes, it is definitely established that Derek Thrasher is the source of Robinson’s funds.”
There was a thoughtful pause. “That is very interesting.”
“Doesn’t that give us a political basis for doing Robinson?”
“Perhaps, but not while he is in County Cork. Plans are in progress to deal with Thrasher, so don’t concern yourself about that. If we find ourselves in a position to deal profitably with Robinson outside the diocese, then I may reconsider.”
She looked at her watch. “I must get back to the school. I have a class in ten minutes.”
“From now on, communicate with me by telephone.” He gave her a number and made her repeat it. “It’s ex-directory and concealed in my office. Never let it ring more than twice; if I’m in, I’ll answer it immediately. Always call from an automatic coin box, never the same one twice. Hang up if anyone answers but me. Understood?”
