A Winter of Spies

by Gerard Whelan

  She’d lied to them too, of course, about that time in the lanes – well, not lied exactly, but she hadn’t told them the truth. But there were more complicated lies. Moore, who’d been so friendly, was a British agent – except that he was deceiving his masters too. Harry Harte, that mild clerk, was one of Collins’s men. Simon Hughes, the smiling Londoner who flirted sometimes with Josie, was a killer. So was Martin Ford, who for all his occasional gruffness was a laugh and a friendly boy. Of them all, she realised, only Hugh Byrne in the end was truly consistent. She’d always found him cold and distant, always remembered Ma’s description of his eyes as killer’s eyes. Well, he was a killer: why wouldn’t he have killer’s eyes?

  These things, and others, went round and round in Sarah Conway’s head. It wasn’t her world that had changed, but her view of it. It was the same world, but now she could see more of it. It was like that time when the man came to fix Ma’s clock. He’d laid his tiny jeweller’s tools out on a big square of green baize on the kitchen table and put the clock down carefully beside them. Then he’d dismantled the beautiful clock-case and removed the inner workings.

  Sarah had only been seven or eight then, but she could still remember her astonishment at the sight. She hadn’t been able to take her eyes off the clock’s insides, especially after the man got it going again. On the outside the clock was a beautiful thing, but a still one; the hands hadn’t moved for years. But when you took the casing off you saw another clock, a collection of tiny cogs and wheels and springs, like some strange puzzle built by a madman. Each wheel and cog turned, some one way and some the other. And each one, moving, made another one move, and the whole mechanism ticked and turned and whirred like a swarm of strange metal insects clustered around their invisible queen.

  That sight had been fascinating, but also sort of scary. Sarah had been thrilled, but at the same time felt her skin itch as though covered by these little metal insects. She’d been both pleased and sorry when the jeweller’s man put the casing back on. Ever since, when she looked at the calm outer face of the clock, Sarah pictured to herself the crazy collection of cogs and wheels working busily within. It always gave her a funny feeling.

  That was a bit like the way she felt now. Before this she’d only seen the casing of this war. Now the casing had been taken off. She’d started to see some of its cogs and wheels turning. They turned this way and that, big wheels and little ones, all clustered around their own centre. The cogs were plans and lies and people. And what was in the middle of this particular swarm? Michael Collins? Irish freedom? Or just men in streets, spraying blood and dying?

  The night grew wilder. A tram passed, sparks hissing from the overhead wires. As they turned into Merrion Square a cab went by, the clopping hooves of the horse echoing in the empty street. It left behind a pile of dung that steamed in the rain. She and Da seemed to be the only people out walking. In Mount Street they met a convoy of three Crossley tenders, led by a Lancia armoured car, driving furiously along with no lights – Tans or Auxies, coming from Beggars’ Bush barracks.

  The lorries slowed to a crawl as they passed, and suspicious

  eyes scanned the man and the child as they walked along under their big black umbrella. Sarah, lost in thought, didn’t even notice them till she felt Da’s arm tighten on hers. She stared through the rain at the black bulk of the lorries, waiting for the flash of light that might be a spotlight or might be the flash of a rifle. She thought of Annie O’Neill, the girl shot in a gateway. At least Annie O’Neill didn’t have to think about complicated things any more.

  There was a shout from the armoured car which had drawn ahead. The lorries picked up speed and passed. Da and Sarah walked on. The rain beat down on Da’s umbrella. Its stretched black cloth, frail yet strong, covered both of them, protecting them from the angry night.

  PART 4: BIG LIES

  15

  AN ENCOUNTER

  It was almost noon on Tuesday. Sarah made her way up Haddington Road after half a morning in school. She hadn’t noticed much that was going on there. Miss Heffernan, her teacher, had asked her twice whether she was feeling sick. Sarah, listless, had said no. It was true enough – she wasn’t sick, just distracted. She sang her ten times tables with the others, but didn’t even notice that her mouth was moving. Since Sunday night she’d been in a daze. Now, nearly two days later, she was still thinking of cogs and wheels, and wondering what part her own little wheel was playing in the clockwork of this war. The night before she’d actually dreamed of clockwork – of a great mechanism where, instead of wheels and springs, men and women had intermeshed and turned in their little circles, all linked together.

  Everyone she knew had been part of the clockwork in the dream, as well as other people she didn’t know. Mrs Breen had been turning in a circle with Michael Collins, and Ma had been linked with Rory Moore. Fowles, the British agent, had been meshed with Hugh Byrne. Ella, linked on one side to Da, had been linked on another side to the film actor Charlie Chaplin. He, in his turn, had been linked with James Connolly and – through the hanged Kevin Barry – back to the little circle that held Michael Collins and Mrs Breen. Martin Ford and Simon Hughes had been moving around with a pair of Black and Tans. The four of them had been taking it in turns to shoot one another, although none of the shots seemed to hurt.

  Sarah had been thinking about this dream ever since she woke up. It hadn’t felt like a nightmare, but it had been very strange. Really, it had only been a picture of the thoughts she’d had on Sunday, but she puzzled over it anyway. She loved stories about dreams, and magazine articles that explained them, and she’d been trying to interpret this one all morning. In the end she’d decided something, and whether it was a good thing or a bad thing she didn’t know. It might even be a mad thing, but she didn’t care: it felt true, and that was enough for Sarah.

  She’d decided that all these people really were linked together like clockwork. What’s more, she knew what the clockwork was – it was history, that very history her Da spoke of not being able to escape. The clockwork was history, and its cogs and wheels were men and women. That was the message of the dream: that men and women ran their rounds, turning this way and that, going about their business; and when you put it all together it was called history.

  In school she learned of history as something made by kings and queens and armies. But that was only part of the story. It was the part that got into books, but history was more than that. History was herself carrying Simon Hughes’s gun, or her brother Jimmy’s adventures during the Rising. It was Annie O’Neill dead in a gateway, and her own Da going on strike in 1913. History was, for that matter, her Ma baking in the kitchen.

  Mind you, Sarah wasn’t entirely sure about that last bit. People might laugh if she said it to them. Da certainly would. The notion of Ma’s baking being historic would strike him as silly. ‘Historic baking, eh?’ he’d say. Then he’d shake his head and smile and say, ‘Sarah Conway, you’re a caution.’

  But no, Da wouldn’t say that now. He probably wouldn’t notice her remark in the first place. Since Sunday he’d been distracted. He’d been to see Collins again yesterday, though he hadn’t brought Sarah with him this time. He’d been away for hours and had come back looking very serious. He’d been silent all night afterwards. Sarah hoped the pressure wasn’t getting too much for him.

  This morning in school, despite Sarah’s denials, Miss Heffernan had finally decided that she was ill. ‘You’re looking very pale,’ she’d said. ‘You can’t concentrate at all, and you haven’t got up to a single piece of devilment all morning. You’re not yourself. Go home and rest.’

  It was typical, really. More than once Sarah had spent hours trying to make Miss Heffernan or some other teacher think she wasn’t well, so that they’d send her home. It had never once worked. Now here she was, not even thinking of skiving off, and she was sent out. Life was a lot of things, but it wasn’t sensible.

  As she passed Haddington Road church a beggar shook a t
in can at her from his pitch outside the gate. A couple of coins rattled in the bottom of the can. The beggar had no legs beneath the knees. Another ‘lucky’ survivor of the war, probably. There were a lot of them about.

  While the Great War was still on there had been talk of how good things would be after it ended. The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland would be made, it was said, into ‘a land fit for heroes’. Then the war ended, and there was no more talk of that kind. There hadn’t even been jobs for a lot of the returning soldiers. Sarah had heard that half of the Black and Tans had been recruited from the ranks of unemployed ex-Tommies. It had all been a bit of a swiz.

  ‘Spare a copper for an auld soldier, miss,’ the beggar said, ‘that lost two legs for little Belgium.’

  Ma usually gave Sarah a penny to buy sweets on her way home. She fished in her pocket now till she found today’s coin, and threw it into the box.

  ‘God bless you, miss,’ the beggar said. ‘God bless you, and the saint that bore you.’

  Sarah walked on, wondering whether she should inform Ma that a beggar had canonised her. She didn’t notice the approaching motor car until its horn sounded. It drew up to a stop beside her with its engine running. The man she knew as Rory Moore sat behind the steering wheel. Moore wore a motoring cap and coat, and looked very smart. He was alone.

  There’d been no sign of Moore since Sunday night. Sarah had imagined him busy next door, persuading Fowles to leave her Da alone. She didn’t like him, but she was grateful for his help.

  ‘Good day to you, Miss Conway,’ Moore said, tipping the peak of the cap. ‘Are you going far?’

  ‘My teacher sent me home,’ she said. ‘She thought I was sick.’

  ‘And are you?’

  ‘Only distracted. There’s a lot going on.’

  ‘Indeed,’ said Rory Moore. ‘Indeed there is.’

  Sarah looked admiringly at the car. It must be wonderful to have a machine like that. You could just drive and drive and leave all these troubles behind.

  Moore spotted the longing in her look. ‘Why don’t you get in?’ he said. ‘You can go home in style.’

  Sarah considered. She had her doubts about Rory Moore. There was something about him she just didn’t trust. Maybe it was only his smoothness. But you didn’t have to trust a man to like his car. And wasn’t travelling in a machine like this one of her great ambitions in life?

  ‘All right,’ she said. Moore opened the passenger door. Sarah jumped up on the runningboard and clambered in. The car smelled of leather. The whole machine vibrated with the engine’s hum. Sarah settled herself gingerly into the seat.

  ‘We can go for a drive if you like,’ Moore said. ‘My work is done for the morning. Where would you like to go? Kingstown? The mountains? Skerries?’

  Sarah was very tempted. These distant places were sites for daytrips that normally had to be carefully planned. In a motor car you could just take off and go to any of them. She looked at Moore’s hands on the steering wheel. His long fingers were clean, the nails carefully trimmed. They were soft hands, unused to hard work. How many men had they killed? Had some of them been Irish? She longed to go somewhere in this car, but she didn’t want to go far with Rory Moore.

  ‘Let’s just go to Herbert Park,’ she said, compromising.

  ‘All right,’ said Moore. ‘But we’ll go by Donnybrook – that will give you a bit of a drive at least. Ready?’

  Sarah took a deep breath and nodded. Moore took off at some speed. Sarah wondered what Da would make of her taking this lift. But as soon as the motor car started to move she lost all thoughts of everything else. They picked up even more speed. The road whizzed by. The buildings on either side of them almost blurred in her vision. The wind blew through her hair. Sarah, in spite of herself, yelled with delight.

  There was little other traffic on the road, and no other motor cars. Moore passed several horse-drawn vehicles without slackening speed. He tooted his horn loudly each time. Whenever they closed in on a slow-moving van or cart Sarah half-expected to crash into it, but Moore handled the big car expertly. Each time he’d slide it smoothly around the obstruction and leave it in their wake as though it were standing still. Once a cyclist waved his fist at them. Moore tooted the horn at the man, and Sarah laughed.

  She looked at those smooth hands holding the steering wheel. They were capable of good driving, that much was for sure. Moore grinned at her. His teeth were bright in his tanned face.

  ‘This is the way to travel,’ he said.

  Sarah could only agree. Within moments of starting off she’d forgotten all about her suspicions of Moore. She’d forgotten about history and clockwork and legless beggars. This was definitely the way to travel, and Sarah just wanted the trip to go on and on. She wanted to drive like this forever, leaving all the new complications of her life behind – even if her driver was one of the complications. For now, though, he was just a driver, just a pair of smooth, expert hands on the steering wheel. As she held her hat on her head with one hand, and clutched the dashboard tightly with the other, Sarah Conway’s grin was every bit as broad as Rory Moore’s. She’d completely lost her unease, caught up in the sheer mad thrill of the ride.

  16

  HERBERT PARK

  THERE WEREN’T MANY PEOPLE IN HERBERT PARK – mainly nurses or nannies wheeling prams and shepherding young children in warm winter clothes. By the duckpond a cross little girl had thrown her doll into the water and was demanding that her nurse get it back. The nurse, a distressed-looking young country girl, seemed baffled.

  ‘But Emily,’ she said, ‘I can’t reach it.’

  ‘Well, go in after it, then,’ the little girl demanded. ‘Dolly is cold and wet.’

  ‘But you shouldn’t have thrown her in then, should you?’ the nurse asked.

  ‘That’s my business,’ the child said.

  Sarah thought that Emily herself might benefit from a dip in the cold water. The child couldn’t have been more than five or six, but she stood in front of her frightened nurse with the bullying self-confidence of a Black and Tan.

  Then little Emily stamped her foot in fury. Sarah, reminded of her own foot-stamping moments, felt herself blushing.

  They’d parked the car outside the gates of the park and gone in. Sarah was sorry they’d stopped driving. She was still glowing from her excitement, but the glow was fading. Hearing this malicious little girl didn’t help.

  Rory Moore had heard the child as well. He looked around, then crossed over to some trees growing by the path. He snapped a small bare branch from one of them, then went over to Emily and her nurse.

  ‘Forgive me, ladies,’ he said. ‘I couldn’t help overhearing. May I offer my assistance?’

  Little Emily glared at the interruption, but her glare softened when she noticed his accent and saw the expensive-looking motoring clothes.

  Moore was wearing knee-high leather boots. When his branch proved too short to reach the sodden doll he stepped carefully down into the pond. The water reached almost to the tops of his boots, but not quite.

  ‘That water gets deeper in the middle,’ Sarah called to him. She’d seen a child fall in there once. Emily, hearing her accent, glared at her. Sarah glared back, then she stuck out her tongue. Little Emily’s mouth dropped open, and her face went white. Sarah shook her fist at her. Emily, speechless, cringed back against her nurse, who was watching Moore admiringly and had noticed nothing.

  Moore’s branch snagged the doll’s floating clothes and he pulled it to him. When he held up the dripping toy, the nurse gave an embarrassed laugh.

  ‘See, Emily,’ she said. ‘The nice man has pulled dolly out of the water.’

  Little Emily had recovered enough to scowl. ‘I don’t want her now,’ she said. ‘She’s all wet.’

  Moore handed the streaming toy to the nurse, who stood holding it uncertainly. ‘Aren’t you going to say “thank you”, Emily?’ she tried.

  Emily folded her little arms. ‘No,’ she said. />
  Moore laughed, dismissing the nurse’s blushing apologies. ‘Never mind,’ he said. ‘She’s just having a bad day.’ He and Sarah left the nurse and child and walked on. Moore still carried the bare stick.

  ‘What a spoiled little cow that girl is,’ Sarah said. ‘There’s no satisfying her.’

  ‘What would you do with her?’ Moore asked, laughing.

  ‘I’d give her a good kick up the rear end, is what I’d do.’

  Moore laughed again. They walked on for a while, chatting. Moore asked about Mrs Breen, and about Sarah’s family. He was interested to hear of Jimmy’s adventures during the Rising.

  ‘It sounds to me,’ he said, ‘as though your brother has inherited some of your father’s courage.’

  It was hard to think of your brother as brave. Sarah knew that Jimmy really had shown courage during the Rising. He’d risked his life to get them food. Others, older and wiser than Jimmy, had been killed doing the same thing. But when you found yourself thinking of his bravery, and then you looked at him, all you saw was your big brother Jimmy who could be so annoying sometimes. Jimmy himself didn’t like anyone saying that he’d been brave during the Rising.

  ‘I wasn’t brave,’ he’d say. ‘I was stupid. By the time I realised how dangerous it was, it was too late to turn back.’

  ‘Was Da really so brave?’ Sarah asked Moore.

  ‘At the front sometimes,’ Moore said, ‘it took bravery simply not to run away. Some of us thought of our duty to the empire – it was all that kept us there. But your father didn’t even have that. All he wanted was to be home with his family. All he wanted was peace.’ He looked sideways at Sarah.