The Family on Paradise Pier

by Dermot Bolger

  I never thought to see fascism take hold in Ireland, but when a man sees his children go hungry it does terrible things to him. De Valera has declared economic war on Britain who are now refusing our cattle. I have seen strong farmers drive cows to market and stand there all day without an offer for a single beast. And I have seen them drive the cattle back at dusk with curses, and heard about the poor beasts being stampeded over cliffs and left to die because they were worthless. And I have seen those same proud farmers, led by your old friend, Mr Henderson, march in blue shirts to fascist parades demanding the overthrow of de Valera. But these farmers don’t want a dictator like Mussolini: they want things the way they always were, with cheap wages and good prices for cattle. The poor support de Valera because if they are still starving, at least they see their rich neighbours starving too. So the IRA disrupt the Blueshirt Fine Gael meetings and the Blueshirts disrupt Fianna Fáil meetings, with fights and riots breaking out and at such times I thank God that you are abroad and cannot end up in an Irish jail.

  The light is fading here in my study. Your mother is alone in her bed-sitting room with a paraffin lamp and arthritis for company. She will wonder what is keeping me, but I can’t stop writing because once I put down this pen the spell will be broken. I will have to print the rough address that Ffrench gave me, knowing that I may never know if this ever reached you or if you could not rise above your contempt for us to deem it worthy of reply. Three times I have written to you and I might as well have thrown the letters over a cliff like the farmers do to their unfortunate cattle. I must accept that you have a new life. But I am still the guardian of your old one, caretaker of your inheritance. You are cursed with possessing this house after my death, whether you desire it or not. Neither of us can break that irrevocable indenture. Come home and I will give it to you before it is due. You can live here and I will take your mother away from this dampness to England. You love every stone and bush in Dunkineely, I know you do. You cannot run from who you are. I paint the windowframes every year, repair each cracked tile and broken pane. But even if I walk away so that the roof caves in and only rats and stray mongrels roam the cellars, this property will still be yours and one day you or your son will have to confront it. That is your curse, Art, you are a man of property. You can shed every other possession but this house is waiting for you and my curse is to be its keeper.

  Often I dream about you. We walk along the beach at St John’s Point together, not speaking or touching, but strolling in companionable silent understanding. I am no mystic like your mother, but I know in my heart that some nights you have this dream too. I know because you are part of me and I am part of you and I miss you and love you and forgive you and I want to feel that you forgive me too. Twenty minutes have passed since I wrote the last line. I have spent that time with my eyes closed, holding out my hand. If overwhelming desire could make a presence real then I would have felt your fingers brush against mine. I have lit a candle to finish this letter by. I am placing it in the window to light your way. Write to me. Just one page, one line, one word even.

  I await your reply, even if I have to wait for all my remaining days.

  Your loving father.

  SEVENTEEN

  A Jaunt Abroad

  London, 1934

  He knew it was them before the motor even stopped. It was the old Daimler that Gordon’s father gave him, which Gordon and Lillian had kept locked in the stables behind their Chelsea townhouse during their Communist Party days. Lillian had once suggested making love in the back seat because she loved the cool leather against her skin, but by then Brendan had already tired of her novelty. She had been a brief diversion for him in the same way as communism had been one for her. It took the stock market collapse, two months after they first slept together, to unleash the reactionary in her. Most of her class who were toying with communism had left at that moment, suddenly aware of how tenuous their hold was on wealth. ‘We’re not broke,’ she had joked when Brendan last accidentally met her. ‘Gordon has accumulated a small fortune by taking the simple precaution of starting out with a big one.’

  Gordon emerged from the Daimler and crossed the grass in Hyde Park with such purposeful strides that Brendan was convinced Lillian had confessed to her adultery. It would be like her to save this revelation until Gordon was caught with another mistress, then taunt him with it. Brendan rose uneasily from the bench to face the cuckolded husband, not knowing if he should prepare to defend himself. He didn’t mind insults or even being punched once he managed to get the business over with quickly. In six minutes’ time he was due to meet somebody and it would be disastrous if he were not alone. The chauffeur opened the door to let Lillian step out onto the Serpentine Road and savour the confrontation. She flashed an eager smile and waved, momentarily distracting Brendan so that Gordon was suddenly upon him and had gripped his hand.

  ‘Goold Verschoyle, the very chap! We were only discussing you…oh, a week or so ago. Lillian was saying what damn good company you used to be and how we never see you now. You’re not still…you know…involved in that stuff…’

  ‘No,’ Brendan reassured him.

  ‘You saw sense, like ourselves. Excellent.’ The man looked relieved. ‘If it’s any consolation we were not the only fools duped by that frightful Georgian peasant. It’s amazing at dinner parties how when the brandy starts to loosen tongues you discover the number of good people who lost their reason and flirted with fire. You must come and dine with us. How about tonight? We’re having some interesting people over.’

  ‘Thanks anyway, but I couldn’t.’

  ‘Now listen…’ The older man leaned closer and Brendan had to resist an urge to punch him, remembering how he had callously washed his hands of Ruth Davis after getting her pregnant. ‘Our guests would not be concerned that you work in…whatever it is you do again.’

  ‘I’m a qualified electrical engineer,’ Brendan said.

  ‘Excellent. Well done. People wouldn’t mind that. It would be quite a novelty in fact. Once you’re a guest at my table nobody present would dare to look down on you.’

  ‘It’s not that,’ Brendan explained. ‘Maybe another time. The thing is I’m actually meeting a woman.’

  Brendan glanced past him at three office girls approaching arm in arm down the North Ride, laughing with their heads bent together.

  ‘Well, bring her along.’

  ‘Her husband wouldn’t like that.’

  The remark was a risk but Brendan suddenly didn’t care. Gordon looked at him curiously, then laughed. ‘You sly dog. I always knew you were a ladies’ man.’ He lowered his voice conspiratorially to avoid being overheard by an elderly gentleman who had just sat down to have his lunch on the bench behind them. ‘Still, it takes one to know one, know what I mean, old chap? Catholics maintain that it’s not a sin if you don’t enjoy it. I take the Low Church view – it’s not a sin if you don’t get caught.’ He glanced back at Lillian, standing beside the Daimler, with a smile fixed on her face. ‘Not a word, of course, to you know who. So when are you meeting this damsel?’

  The three office girls passed among the lunchtime throng in the park. ‘It’s rather embarrassing, Gordon, but I’m actually meeting her right here and now.’

  ‘In Hyde Park in daylight?’ Gordon laughed, no longer caring if the old gentleman could hear. ‘You’re a rogue, Goold Verschoyle, you ought to be shot.’

  ‘Where could be a more natural place to meet someone by pure chance?’ Brendan said. ‘Encounters only look illicit when they take place down dark lanes.’

  ‘Do you know the husband?’

  ‘Intimately.’ He knew that every word would be relayed to Lillian once Gordon returned to the motor.

  ‘You’re taking a risk, aren’t you? I…I don’t know what I’d do if I ever discovered…’ Gordon scanned the passers-by. ‘And she takes her lunch here? What is she, some sort of typist?’

  ‘Hardly,’ Brendan said. ‘I always had class.’

  ‘T
rue. I often said that to Lillian. She’ll be so relieved you’re no longer mixed up in the other business. It was a dangerous ragtag of whingers and traitors.’

  ‘I had a rude awakening,’ Brendan explained. ‘I saw Moscow. My brother lives there: he’s an incurable fanatic.’

  ‘My goodness, you actually went? What was it like?’

  ‘The day I came back I cut all my ties with the Communist Party. Need I say more? Listen, if my lady friend sees me in company she’s likely to run scared.’

  ‘I understand, of course. You won’t see me for dust in a moment.’ Gordon placed a fatherly hand on Brendan’s shoulder. ‘Just one thing, would you be willing to talk in public about what you saw? The despotism in Russia and the conspiracy in England between the Bolsheviks and the Jews who have orchestrated this world depression. Both Lillian and I are now highly placed within the British Union of Fascists. Mosley himself has dined with us many times. Mosley would be sympathetic to you because he too started out as a misguided socialist. He has undergone the same journey as us. I respect you in trying to build bridges between the classes, and the British Union of Fascists does exactly that. Its great virtue as an organisation is that there is room for all classes – in their natural place, of course, but everyone has a role. You would be a brilliant speaker.’

  ‘Follow your path, Gordon, but I’m through with politics.’ Brendan politely but firmly removed the man’s hand from his shoulder. ‘I just want to enjoy my life, you understand, and unless you bugger off I shall miss out on considerable enjoyment today and will have made an unnecessary purchase at a barber’s shop on my way here.’

  ‘I hardly regard your tone as necessary,’ Gordon replied curtly. ‘I was about to depart. Still I’m not a man to bear grudges. Contact me when you see sense and I’ll personally introduce you to Mosley.’

  He turned and stalked off towards Lillian who ceased to smile and looked concerned. Brendan sat down on the bench with his heart beating. He took a deep breath and looked around at the throng. The old gentleman having lunch glanced up.

  ‘Knows Mr Mosley in person, does he, your friend?’ he enquired casually.

  ‘He’s no friend of mine.’

  The old man took a bite of his sandwich. ‘Just as well, seeing as you were sleeping with his wife.’

  Brendan looked at him in surprise. ‘How do you know that?’

  ‘It’s our job to know everything. Have nothing to do with that couple, it could be misconstrued.’

  ‘I never wish to see them or traitors like them again. But I still find it unfair that I must stay away from good comrades within the Party.’

  ‘The British Communist Party is riddled with police spies. We know who they are and they will be dealt with in time. But thanks to them, the police file on you is dormant. You are viewed as merely another renegade who fell away like your fascist friends. Scotland Yard sees nothing to fear from you any more. You are a respectable and presentable young man. Still you look pale. A foreign jaunt, some sea air would do you good. Don’t leave from Hull this time. Go to Holland, then make your way to Finland. I wish I could get away myself. These few minutes sitting here listening to that anti-Semitic shitbag have left me quite nauseated.’

  Brendan said nothing. One of the few things he knew about his controller was that he was Jewish. Georgi Polevoy had almost apologised for this during the ten days of intensive instruction in how to become a courier. Georgi’s vehement anti-Jewish jokes had shocked Brendan so much that when the OGPU officer noticed his reaction he stopped. This was not the only contradiction Brendan had encountered after agreeing in Art’s kitchen to become a courier. But these contradictions had not disillusioned him because, unlike Art, he did not see the world in black and white. He had seen real starvation behind the propaganda of happy workers in the socialist paradise. But he had also witnessed hunger as a boy in Ireland and lived among it in England during these terrible years of soup kitchens and hunger marches. Capitalism was spent and the spectre of fascism sickened him. Communism offered real long-term hope – even in the hands of bigots like Georgi Polevoy who were the ignorant carthorses dragging the harvest forward. They had not coerced him in Moscow because, when approached, Brendan had given his services freely. But unlike Art he had not given them his mind.

  The old gentleman raised his hat to a woman in a fur coat who rewarded him with a smile. He watched her pass. ‘Our friend in the Home Office has been busy. You have a number of items to carry. Spend a day or two with your brother if you wish. Art is a good comrade: he won’t ask questions about why you are back in Moscow. You know that far better accommodation can be made available to you?’

  ‘If it’s good enough for Art, it’s good enough for me.’

  The man nodded. ‘Family is important. Take my wife. She makes the most wonderful sandwiches. Try one.’

  He placed the brown paper bag containing his lunch on Brendan’s knee. One sandwich remained. Brendan picked it up and took a bite. The sandwich was excellent. Brendan wanted to compliment him but the old man had got up and was walking away into the crowd. It was hard to tell how many envelopes were at the bottom of the bag. Enough to fill his usual hiding places and for him to need to create several more. He would buy presents for Art and Irena. The Soviet border guards would not dare to steal them once they saw his travel papers. Last time he had brought books after Art mentioned having little to read. This had changed since the authorities asked Art to work as a translator in a publishing house. As a mark of his increased status they now shared their room with only one couple. Georgi Polevoy had assured Brendan that Art would never know whose hand had guided his progress. Brendan would bring tobacco and a hand-carved chess set and contrive to let his big brother imagine that he could outwit him, as they companionably sat over the chess pieces late into the Moscow night.

  EIGHTEEN

  The Night Call

  Moscow, 1935

  The problem with the publishing house was that one could never work all the hours needed. When the huge clock struck six, the small army of translators ceased work like operatives in a factory rather than disseminators of great literature. It amazed Art how some colleagues could stop in mid-stanza and casually toss aside a poem until tomorrow, having mechanically ploughed though verse all day, producing faithful but leaden versions for which they got paid by the line. These were mainly the quango of Georgian, Armenian, Urkainian and Kazakh poets whose sole task was to simultaneously translate each other’s work, or to ‘take in one another’s washing’ as someone cynically called it. But not everyone worked like this. Some good comrades had not lost their reverence for literature, although careful never to promote the merit of poets over the endeavours of the workers they celebrated. Every evening Art watched these comrades reluctantly surface from the spell cast by the words they were translating and look around the vast room at the hack translators already reaching for coats and fur hats. Many came from abroad like him, although being unmarried they lived with other foreigners in the Hotel Lux. Some mornings they made black jokes about the red seals marking the doors of guests taken away by the police at night. On such mornings they worked in grim silence, deliberately ignoring another empty desk in their midst. Some comrades followed his habit of taking work home to get it right without the pressure of supervisors with deadlines. Art treasured this period between midnight and two a.m., when Irena was asleep with their newborn son beside her. He loved to work by candlelight until the child woke, crying to be fed. Irena always gently scolded Art to bed then, and as the baby suckled on her breast Art would wash in cold water and reluctantly yield to rest.

  Tonight he was correcting the proofs of his English translation of Round Heads and Pointed Heads by Bertolt Brecht. No British or American publisher had dared to translate this inflammatory text, so the responsibility fell on him though he worried if his German was good enough. Close colleagues helped with non-contentious linguistic problems and he had been pleased with his work. But now, glancing through the folios ag
ain, he wished for more time. It was invariably the case when he reread translations in this quietude where he could properly think. The publishing house was never silent, with translators constantly consulting rows of dictionaries or seeking advice to ensure that passages did not contravene the Soviet ethos.

  Art rarely needed guidance in this area. He trusted his instincts and had never been called upon by Glavlit, the directorate for literature, to justify any translated passage. Indeed he noticed that the ones who made public displays of seeking guidance were generally those whom Glavlit, sometimes accompanied by the secret police, later questioned. Translators had come to resent advice being sought on anything other than strictly linguistic matters because you could never tell if the enquirer was an agent provocateur deliberately trying to concoct a reactionary context from your reply. At times Art missed factory work, though his present labours were stimulating and left him no longer dependent on the limited supplies and long queues in the Workers’ Co-operative Store. Now he had access to the Government Stores where precious goods like tea were sold, although at six roubles for two ounces it was a luxury he could rarely afford. The downside of being a translator was that people avoided eye contact once they saw you leave the publishing house because they knew that foreigners worked there. Since the secret police had started the latest roundup of socially dangerous elements, neighbours had begun to avoid him. Some evenings when they hissed at their children to run into their rooms before he reached the landing, it felt like being back among the superstitious Dublin proletariat in Mountjoy Square.