“I’m sure they don’t. I think you are very courageous.”
“Or reckless?” she smiled, a worn, sweet smile. Scores of tiny lines radiated from her lips like the cracks in a riverbed parched by drought.
“Courageous,” Henry repeated firmly.
“Oh, there are always money troubles, but people send contributions,” she told him. “Everything from pence to pounds. The pence mean the most, because they come from those who can’t afford even that much. Katty Clarke has arranged additional support through the Dependants’ Fund, and the Americans, bless them, have organized a Save Saint Enda’s Committee and are fund-raising for us out there. We are hopeful of being able to buy this property outright soon. But—” she laid one hand on his arm—“between you and me, Mr. Mooney, I’m afraid the school is no longer up to Pat’s standard. He was Saint Enda’s. We do our best, but…”
“I’m sure your best is good enough,” he told her gallantly.
When the cab arrived to take them back to Dublin, Henry was reluctant to leave. He lingered talking with Mrs. Pearse until Collins called sharply for the second time.
“I had best go,” Henry sighed. “Where did you put my hat?”
She brushed the dome of his bowler with her palm before handing it to him. “Would you not think of wearing a soft hat, Mr. Mooney? Orangemen wear bowlers.”
“As do half the Catholic men in Dublin,” he assured her.
That night he surveyed himself searchingly in the looking glass. Not a cap, he decided. I’m not a cap sort of man. Perhaps a trilby? Smart narrow brim, indented crown—rather dashing. That’s it, dashing. He did not buy a new hat immediately, however. Such a serious decision must be weighed and pondered.
Dozens of copies of Collins’ brief film clip were made. Republicans visited cinema houses and burst into projection booths with metal canisters under their arms. They demanded that the film be shown, then fled before the police could arrive, taking the film with them. Almost overnight Michael Collins’ name and face, largely unknown to the public until then, were famous. People loved his audacity. Dublin Castle proclaimed him the Most Wanted Man in Ireland, but were still unable to catch him. Strangely, even policemen who had seen the propaganda film seemed incapable of recognizing Collins in the street.
Copies of the film were sent to America to stamp the Collins image firmly on the bond drive there. Harry Boland wrote Collins, “Gee, boy, you are some movie actor! No one could resist buying a bond and we having such a handsome minister for finance.”9
When Henry mentioned the letter to Ned, his friend remarked, “They’re both in love with the same woman, you know. Harry and Mick, I mean.”
“Fancy that,” Henry said tonelessly.
“It’s difficult, them being such good friends.”
“Difficult,” Henry echoed.
“She’s a Longford girl called Kitty Kiernan,” Ned went on, “a real charmer by all accounts. Harry’s quite convinced she will marry him, but I don’t think so. Harry’s a decent fellow, everybody likes him, but Mick is bold and dashing, and that’s what women go for every time.”
“Every time,” Henry said.
“I was thinking of buying myself a trilby, Ella. What do you think?”
“I can’t imagine you in anything other than a bowler. Besides, a trilby wouldn’t balance your jaw.”
“What’s wrong with my jaw?”
She gave a fond laugh and patted his cheek with her fingertips. “Oh, Henry. Nothing’s wrong with your jaw. Nothing’s wrong with you at all.”
The gesture went straight to his heart. Catching her fine-boned wrist, Henry turned her hand palm-up and kissed the soft flesh. It seemed to him she tasted of apples. “Would you be willing to give up all this?” he blurted. “This house, the servants, everything?”
Her eyes widened. “Why should I?”
“Suppose I asked you to. Suppose I asked you to walk away with me tonight and never look back. Share my life just as it is and…” His words faltered as the enormity of what he was asking swept over him.
He released her and took half a step backward. “I don’t know what came over me, Ella. It was a wild impulse, a foolish, selfish…I have too much on my mind and…I must go now, I’m really very late for an appointment. Please forgive me!”
He bolted for the door.
Chapter Twenty-three
“WHAT do you mean, you’re giving up your room? You can’t do that, Henry Mooney. This is your home!” Louise Kearney stood with her hands on her hips and her feet firmly planted: a tree blocking his road.
“It’s because of my work,” he explained. “The campaign against the British is heating up, and the Bulletin is sending me down the country to cover it. Since I’ll be away from Dublin for weeks at a time, it’s foolish for my room to stand empty. I insist you let it to someone else.”
“But what about your bits and bobs? You’re like a nesting bird, Henry, always bringing things home. Your writing table, those bookcases—what shall I do with them?”
He gave a rueful chuckle. “At the rate I’m going, I’ll have possessions strewn over half of Ireland before long. Tell you what—store them away for me, and if anything should happen to me, sell them and put the money aside for Precious.”
“What’s likely to happen to you?”
“Nothing at all—don’t look so worried. I won’t be in any more danger than a salesman on the road.”
He did not tell her how hard he had fought for the assignment. “The Bulletin’s only a newsletter,” Desmond FitzGerald had protested, “and newsletters don’t have war correspondents, Henry.”
But for once events had conspired in Henry’s favor. As the police system crumbled under Collins’ relentless assault, Dublin Castle was forced to rely more and more on the military. At the end of January an RIC officer known to be a government spy had been tracked down and shot by members of Collins’ squad in Thurles, County Tipperary. In retaliation British soldiers attacked the town in the middle of the night, smashing windows, throwing hand grenades, and firing their weapons into civilian houses while women and children cowered under their beds. Within days the Sinn Féin members of the county council were arrested. They were deported without trial and thrown into Wormwood Scrubs prison. The young son of one councilor was dying. The man appealed to be allowed to return to Ireland for the boy’s funeral, but his request was denied.
Newspapers roundly condemned the shooting of the constable but made no mention of the military reprisals. The councilors who had been arrested were described as supporters of a rampaging Republican murder gang. When the young lad in Tipperary was buried without his father at graveside, no reporters covered the story.
“There’s going to be a lot more of this before it’s over,” Frank Gallagher predicted. “Henry, I like your war correspondent idea and I’ve said as much to Desmond. I persuaded him to ask the Dáil to pay your expenses.”
“Will they?”
“They will—as long as you don’t inflate your expense account. He pointed out that the Castle’s undertaking a hate campaign aimed at convincing people that the Irish are a race of congenital murderers. It’s the same old thing we’ve heard before. We’re unfit to govern ourselves, our leaders are madmen, the rules of civilized warfare can’t be applied to us, etcetera. We need to give the real picture.”
“I’ll do my best, Gally. But I hope the Dáil understands we can’t compete with the circulation of the pro-British newspapers.”
“We can’t compete with the might of the British Empire, either. Not militarily. But we’re going to beat ’em, Henry. We’re going to beat ’em.”
Ned was envious of the assignment. “I’d like to go down the country myself,” he told his friend. “I’d sign up with Michael Brennan and the West Clare Brigade.”1
“Brennan was just hauled over the coals by Dick Mulcahy for ‘unauthorized militarism,’ ” Henry told him. “You’re needed more here; you have a wife and child to take care of.” In truth, Hen
ry felt that it was Ned who needed Síle. He was notoriously careless of his health. Síle tended him constantly without allowing him to feel she was hovering over him. She kept him fed and rested and held the dizzy spells at bay through the sheer force of an indomitable will.
HENRY sent a note to Ella, apologizing for his recent impetuosity and bad manners.
“Neither is typical of me, I assure you,” he told her. “I hope you know that I would not, for the earth, do anything to hurt you. The only excuse for my behavior is overwork, the sort that brings on a brainstorm when a man least expects it. Unfortunately I am going away for a while on assignment and shall be even busier. When I have an opportunity I promise to write you a good long letter, though. In the meantime, please do not think too harshly of
“Your devoted friend,
“Henry Mooney.”
AT number 5 Mespil Road, one of the many offices he used, Michael Collins sat working at a desk. Lace curtains on the windows concealed the interior from passersby. A stack of documents was piled on the desk with a revolver used as a paperweight. Collins often cycled around Dublin with a price on his head and top-secret documents stuffed into his socks.
He greeted Henry with a wave of the hand. “You’re about to be off, then?”
“Tomorrow.”
“Good. I have something for you here someplace. Ah sure, there they are.” Lifting the revolver, he took two pieces of paper from beneath. “This is a note in my handwriting,” he said as he handed the first to Henry, “identifying you and requesting that you be given every possible cooperation. Be careful who you show it to.”
Henry observed that Collins had not signed his own name to the note.
The second piece of paper was a list of contacts. “Memorize these names and then burn the paper. If you’re arrested, we don’t want any names found on you.”
“Seems a mighty short list, Mick.”
“We keep each cell small, so if we do have an informer, he can’t identify more than a few people.”
“Have you had any informers yet?”
Collins bared his teeth in an expression that was not a smile. “Not yet.”
The first person on Henry’s list was Terence MacSwiney, which Collins spelled “MacSweeney,” the way it was pronounced. MacSwiney was an instructor and lecturer in business methods in Cork City, co-founder of the Cork Celtic and Literary Society, a respected playwright, and had been a frequent contributor to the suppressed weekly, Irish Freedom. Elected to the Dáil in 1919, MacSwiney served on the foreign affairs committee and was also active in matters relating to trade, commerce, and forestry development. His business acumen was invaluable to Collins, who had put him in charge of raising money for the Dáil Loan in Cork.
“Terry’s one of those romantic Republicans who writes his letters in Irish,” Collins told Henry. “He was in Lincoln the same as Dev, and Dick Mulcahy was the best man at his wedding. Terry’s under a lot of pressure right now. He expects the RIC to lift him at any excuse; he just barely avoided a British raiding party that burst in on a Dáil Loan meeting. Go talk to him and get a feeling for what’s happening down there. Give us a word picture of the spirit of the people in Cork these days. Say, do you have a gun to take with you?”
“I don’t want a gun. If I had a gun, somebody might get shot.”
“That’s the purpose of ’em,” Collins said cheerfully. “This is a war of independence even if the British won’t admit it. But in your case, a gun would be for self-protection.”
“That’s as maybe, but I still don’t want one. I’ll protect myself with my wits.”
Collins said with a laugh, “Mind you’re not half-armed.”
“The old jokes are the best, aren’t they?” Henry retorted.
WHEN Precious peered around the open door of Henry’s room, she found him standing beside his bed, smoking a cigarette. A half-packed suitcase lay open before him. “I don’t think I can get everything in, Little Business,” he said ruefully. “Didn’t realize I’d bought so many clothes.”
“You bought them to wear when you go to visit Mrs. Rutledge.”
Henry took an exceptionally deep drag on his cigarette and exhaled a cloud of smoke. Precious waved a hand in the air. “Do you have to do that, Uncle Henry?”
“Do what? Visit Mrs. Rutledge?”
“I meant, do you have to smoke cigarettes. They remind me of the way Dublin smelled after Easter Week, when so many buildings burned. They make me cough.”
Henry took the cigarette from his mouth and held it between thumb and forefinger, examining it as if he had never seen one before. “You know something, Little Business? They make me cough too.” Giving her a wink, he ground out the cigarette in a tin dish on the windowsill. “Is that better?”
She nodded. “Could I ask you something else?”
“You can ask me anything, you know that.”
“Do you really have to go?”
“I do, Little Business. For a while.”
She sat down on the bed beside the open suitcase and began refolding and repacking Henry’s clothes. “Why do things have to keep changing all the time?”
“Because that’s the way life is. You were someone else once, but now you’re Ursula Halloran and you have a home and a family that loves you. Would you not agree that was a good change? Well, going away for a little while is a good change for me right now. I shall come back though, just as your papa did.”
She cocked her head to one side and looked up at him. “Is that the truth?”
“I would never lie to you.”
“Mama says truth is very important.”
“Your mama’s right.”
Precious gave a deep sigh. “But she isn’t my mama, not really. Yet Papa said I must believe they’re my parents, or the authorities might take me away.”
“He’s right, I’m afraid. You don’t understand, but—”
“Of course I understand. I’m ten years old. That’s not a baby anymore. I understand perfectly well that you should always tell the truth—except when you need to tell a lie. I just don’t understand why that is. Can a person hold the truth and a lie in their head at the same time and believe them both?”
“Some people can,” Henry told her. “They’re called politicians.”
THE velvet shadows of early morning lay like dust in the corners of number 16. Henry had set his overpacked suitcase down beside the front door and was giving Louise last-minute instructions about forwarding his mail. Lodgers streamed past them on their way to work.
Unnoticed on the stair landing above, Síle Halloran was drawing a last comfort from the familiar rumble of Henry’s voice. As long as Henry was in the house they were all safe. Superstition, perhaps; but she had come to believe it. Strange, now, to recall how she had resented him at first.
“Where will you be staying down the country?” Louise was asking.
“Hotels, or with friends.”
“Country hotels indeed! Damp, dreary places. Fleas in the beds. Bad food. What about when you come up to Dublin?”
“I should like to think you’d find a spare bed for me, or let me sleep on a couch.”
“Let you sleep on the floor more like, you maggot,” Louise said fondly. “Do you have everything now?”
“I think so. I’ll take a last look through my room before I go, and I want to say goodbye to Precious.”
“You’ve been putting that off,” Louise told him.
“I have.”
He had not yet said goodbye to Síle, either.
When he started up the stairs, he saw her above him on the landing.
“It’s today, then?” she asked.
“It is today.”
“Is there nothing I could do to persuade you to stay in Dublin with us?”
For a moment Henry closed his eyes. His knuckles went white on the stair rail. “Nothing,” he said crisply, opening his eyes and smiling at her. “Nothing at all.”
WHEN Henry had gone, Síle thought the house seemed s
trangely empty. A dozen lodgers. Ned and Precious and Louise. But no Henry Mooney. No reliable rock to lean upon. No reassuring gaze meeting hers across the table when Ned was ill and she was too worried to eat. Together the three of them had formed a unit more solid than a couple. Without Henry, she and Ned seemed somehow diminished.
She could not settle to anything. Finally she went to the kitchen to peel potatoes, that unfailing distraction of troubled Irish women. Her eyes were drawn to the advertising calendar for Robert Roberts Teas & Coffees hanging on the scullery door: March 17, 1920.
THE train to Cork carried a company of British soldiers who, ten days before, had shot up the little town of Thurles yet again. A few were loudly reliving the incident to the discomfiture of the civilian passengers. The rest slumped in their seats and gazed out the window. Some of them looked depressed, Henry thought. Homesick, maybe.
He ostentatiously unfolded the latest edition of the Irish Times and disappeared behind its camouflage.
CORK City was beautifully sited along a wide river valley between lofty hills. Henry’s first impression, in the golden light of late afternoon, was of numerous bridges spanning the tranquil Lee, and numerous spires lifted toward heaven like praying hands. The city owed its commercial prosperity to nearby Cork Harbor, and boasted a university, an opera house, some fine late-Victorian bow-fronted residences, a Grand Parade—and electric trams. Henry made a mental note to tell Precious about them.
As soon as he checked into the Imperial Hotel, which Collins had recommended as “honest Republican digs,” he left his suitcase in his room and set off on a stroll. It was only a few steps from his hotel to the stone quays bordering the Lee, a river as pungent as the Liffey. Henry drew a deep breath. The marshes, or corcaigh, that gave the area its name had gradually been reclaimed and built over as the town expanded, but the air retained a semitropical dampness spiced with a tang of salt from the harbor.
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