by Morris West
Dinner we ate at the sign of ‘The Golden Cockerel’, which is a deceptive place because it looks like a simple tavern; but there is a man who does miracles in the kitchen, and his dishes are delivered to you with a happy reverence and you are blessed when you eat them.
It was in the quiet of this shrine that Maeve first asked me about Kathleen. ‘How is it with the pair of you. seannachie?’
‘Good, very good.’
‘You’re lovers?’
‘Yes.’
‘Good. Then you’re in the home stretch.’
‘But not past the post. Is that what you mean?’
‘That’s what I mean. How much do you know about women, seannachie?’
‘Less and less as I get older.’
‘Then you’re growing wise. But listen, my love, there’s a moment in every race when you have to make the running if you want to win. I think you’re coming up to that moment now.’
‘Why?’
‘Ruarri’s letter. All you’ve told me. You have to understand him, seannachie. You have to be clear how his mind works. You’re very alike – and that’s a danger for you because you’re very unlike as well. Comes a moment with that boyo when he drives off at a tangent, cuts clean across the track in front of you, and tumbles you on the turf. Your weakness is that you expect him to be running the same race as you are. He isn’t. He’s trying to run twenty others at the same time. The only way he can get at you – and he will, just because he’s fond of you – is through Kathleen. He’ll try it. Mark my words.’
‘She’s a big girl. She knows her own mind.’
‘But she doesn’t. Not with him, not with you either. She’s been honest enough to tell you. So you’ll have to make up her mind for her in the end.’
‘How?’
‘That’s for you to say. But Ruarri comes into it.’
‘Tell me something, Maeve.’
‘What?’
‘Does he really believe I’m as big a fool as he says?’
‘Of course. He believes it of everybody. He has to.’
‘He’s a sick man then.’
‘How sick?’
‘If you’re asking me about Lachie, I don’t know the answer.’
‘I think he did it, and I know him a lot better than you.’
‘Were you lovers?’
‘Too long.’
‘But you still use him.’
‘For the mercenary he is. I pay him, and I like that.’
‘If he killed Lachie, you killed him, too, Maeve mine.’
‘So I did. But there’s a difference.’
‘What?’
‘There’s two of me, my brave bard, and I know exactly who each one is. There’s Sister Maeve that you’re out with tonight. She breeds horses and she likes to wear expensive clothes and have fun and go out with good-looking men – which you are, seannachie, especially when you smile – and she’ll move mountains for her friends and drink a deep damnation to her enemies. Then there’s Maeve O’Donnell, daughter of Patrick O’Donnell, granddaughter of Michael, who was shot by the British after the Easter Rising. That one’s a patriot, seannachie – which is an old-fashioned word but a good one – and she hates the British and will spend the last drop of her blood to get their filthy feet off her own land. That’s the Maeve you shouldn’t take out to dinner, and if ever she tried to seduce you to the cause, you should spit in her eye and send her packing…Now pour me a drink and tell me I’m beautiful.’
‘You’re beautiful, Maeve O’Donnell.’
‘I’m also frightened as hell at this moment. The British – and the Irish government, too – are breaking their backs to stop the flow of arms into the country. This business of Ruarri’s could wreck our whole organization.’
‘I hope it does.’
‘You could do it yourself now. With my name and Ruarri’s and what you know of us both, you could put us out of business.’
‘You’re a bitch, Maeve O’Donnell.’
‘And you, seannachie love, are just not enough of a bastard. Which is a pity for you and a blessing for us. Now let’s drop it, eh?’
I should have been insulted, but I wasn’t. She was being a sight more honest than others I could name; and she was giving a lot of herself and asking nothing more than bright company in a bright town and to forget the rest of the dog’s world we lived in.
When we left ‘The Golden Cockerel’ we were mellow as the old brandy we’d had with the coffee. We sauntered down to Tivoli Gardens and wandered, hand in hand, under the festooned lights, watching the people, listening to the band, buying silly trifles at the booths, smelling the flowers, laughing like children at the flea circus. We danced to old-fashioned waltzes, and fox-trots from the twenties, and beat music and soul music and God knows what else. We ate spun sugar. We pitched hoops round kewpie dolls. We shot at jumping rabbits in a gallery. We rode swings and roundabouts and had coffee and sweet pastry at midnight. And with all the people and all the noise and all the narrow places we were in, I was as happy as a colt in a meadow full of buttercups and dandelions. Even Maeve noticed the change; and, when we were sitting, languid but content, over our coffee, she said, ‘You’re another man, seannachie. Where did you spring from?’
‘I think I just got lost for a while.’
‘How?’
‘It’s a long story. I don’t want to tell it.’
‘Not even a short version?’
‘All right. Short and not very sweet. There are women who want to castrate the man they love and coddle him ever after like a gelding in a paddock. I married one like that, I loved her, too, so it took me a long time to understand what she was at. I don’t blame her now. I feel sorry for her. I escaped and then fell apart – confidence gone, talent dried up, or almost, spent and aimless after a wasted battle. Boh …Finita la commedia!’
‘Thanks for telling me.’
‘You’re welcome.’
‘Now take me up to Nyhavn.’
‘Why Nyhavn?’
‘That’s another story. And I’m a sentimental Irish slob.’
‘The hell you are, Maeve O’Donnell! On your feet now.’
So, with midnight long gone, we came to Nyhavn, that long, black canal with the fishing boats moored along it, and the old houses lined along its bank, chandlers and tattoo shops, and Chinese chow houses, and sleazy bars where you can meet sailormen from all the world and lumpish country girls and the oldest whores in Denmark. There are always police there, walking two and two, ready to pick up the drunks as they roll out the doors or to wade in if the brawling gets too loud and too violent, which it does from time to time. And yet it’s a cheerful place, rowdy, boisterous, and healthier than the sad clubs on the other side of town, where pretty girls and handsome boys copulate on a mattress for the paying guests, and lesbians make public love and handle the men afterwards, and you can even mate with a poodle if you have a mind to and be paid for it. Which is the other side of the ever-loving city, and not the better one either.
I let Maeve choose the bar she wanted: a blank house-front with the windows painted over and the panes bulging from the raucous music inside. It had no name, only a number hung over the door, with a yellow light to guide the customers in. Once they got out, they had to be sober enough to find their ship, or they would end up in the canal or the police wagon.
Inside there was a fog of tobacco smoke and a smell of stale bodies and spilled beer. We fought our way to a table in a corner, and I struggled back to the bar to buy our drinks over the rows of nodding heads. I tried to find an easier way back, across the dance floor, but was almost mown down by a prancing giant with a fat girl hoisted up to his bosom. When I got to Maeve I found her fending off the advances of a young Portuguese. He bowed himself out with an apology to me; and I was glad he wasn’t a Norwegian, who might have eaten me for an early breakfast.
Maeve was flushed and exuberant. ‘I love it here, seannachie! I love the noise and the stink and the hefty maleness of it all.’
> ‘It’s fun. But if someone throws a bottle, you upend the table and duck.’
‘Have you been here before?’
‘Not here, but in other places like it.’
‘This is where I met Ruarri for the first time.’
‘Good God!’
‘I was out on the town, just like I’ve been with you tonight. Except I was a little drunker and a little wilder. The man I was with doesn’t matter – he didn’t then either. I’d sold him some horses, which I found he liked better than women. I was kicking up my heels and making eyes at any man who was interested, and most were. Ruarri was sitting just over there with his boys and a few girls. He came and asked me to dance. I thought he was just a fine-looking fellow with a leery grin and an over-good conceit of himself. So I teased him. I waved everything I had at him like the banners of Brian Boru. Then, somewhere along the way, it wasn’t a tease any more. We both went wild. He had me dancing on a table with my skirts spinning and my blouse down to my navel, and everyone shouting and clapping at the exhibition. I’d lost my escort by then. So, when it was all over, I went down to Ruarri’s boat and slept there the night, and he’s had my heart in his hands ever since.’
‘And then?’
‘Then, seannachie, just like you, I discovered Ruarri the Mactire. It wasn’t quick and it wasn’t easy, because he is a wolf, soft and prowling one minute, then snarling and ravening, a loner this night, the next, loping up with the whole pack at his heels. And treacherous always, seannachie, playing good doggie with his feet up in the air until you reach out to scratch him – then he’s bitten your hand off. I took it for a long time, because he’s wonderful in bed, soft and knowing, then hard and driving like a piston – am I shocking you, seannachie?’
‘No. Go on.’
‘He beat me sometimes. Not badly, but enough to scare me and make me want him gentle again. I didn’t mind too much. I’ve got claws myself and I know how to use them. But came a moment when I couldn’t take any more. I saw what he was doing – unbuilding me, brick by brick, to shore himself up. He’s a coward, seannachie. He’s scared like a little boy in the dark, but he won’t let on. Try to pick him up and carry him to bed and he’ll tear your eyes out…So one day last year – it was just before the Curragh, I remember – I threw him out.’
‘You did?’
‘Me, seannachie! Little Maeve O’Donnell! I told him what I thought of him, cold and quiet, in very simple words. Do you know what he did? He cried! He cried like a baby, torn from the tit. He loved me, he said – and he thought he did. I told him I loved him, but no loving was worth all the pain I’d paid for it. He asked could we be friends. I told him yes. And so we’ve been ever since, in just the way you’ve seen. When I hear the consignment’s been delivered, I’ll go back to him for a day or two and hold his hand. Then I’ll go home again and cry for him in the night, praying he’ll never hear me…’
‘Does he love you, Maeve?’
‘He doesn’t know how to love, seannachie. That’s the pity of it. He wants to, but he doesn’t know how. That’s the way he is with you. He wants you for a brother, sure! But he doesn’t know what a brother is. He’s like a blind man hearing about colours, but never seeing them.’
‘Dear God! How sad!’
‘Sure! But sad for you, too – and for me.’
‘What’s the remedy?’
‘I don’t believe there is one. If there is, you’re nearer to it than I am. I’ve slept with him, you see, I’m known, used up. He doesn’t have to respect me, though, by Christ, he should! You he does respect, but he’ll never admit it fully and honestly until you’ve rubbed his nose in the dirt and lifted him up again. It’s the father he wants, seannachie. It’s the father he never had. A woman can’t be that. She can be mother, mistress, wife, whore, all in one – but never a father… Please, seannachie, it’s the truth!’
‘I know it is.’
‘I’m a bitch, but not here, not now.’
‘I know that too.’
‘So will you take me out now? Walk me home, slow and easy, and say sweet things to me on the way?’
‘Come on, Sister Maeve.’
‘But, seannachie…?’
‘What?’
‘Don’t back down. Promise me you won’t back down to Ruarri any more. If you do, you’ll be a killer like the rest of us.’
‘I promise. Let’s go now.’
She wasn’t drunk and she wasn’t sober. She was full of tears, but she shed never a one. So I walked her all the way down the King’s own street to the water and back again to the hotel. I said the sweet things that she wanted and I meant them all, although she was not my woman, nor ever would be, because of the past she carried and would carry all her life like a hoary giant on her back.
When I took her to her door, she said very softly, ‘Seannachie, don’t leave me alone tonight.’
‘I won’t. Wait for me.’
There’s no secret and no guilt about it. There was never need for any. I stayed with her that night and the two nights after, until Ruarri’s message came. We were in a strange land and lonely, and no one cared who or what we were. It wasn’t the love country, but we were happy in it for a little while. If, when I left her, I was whole, or nearly whole, it was because of the laying on of her hands. If she was calmer, and I think she was, it was because of the gentling she’d had from me.
Chapter 13
I SENT telegrams to Kathleen and to Hannah and to Morrison in the hospital, announcing my arrival. I flew from Copenhagen to Glasgow, spent one night in that dreary city and then took off the next morning for Stornoway. When we landed in a drizzle of rain, I found a reception committee: Duggie Donald, a local police constable, and a tall, grey-haired fellow who was introduced as Chief Inspector Rawlings of the Special Branch. Rawlings hated to bother me, but he was making certain inquiries and he hoped I might be willing to assist him. He was so polite about it that I had no thought of refusing. In fact, though I didn’t tell him, I’d been preparing for him, or someone like him, all the way back. He thought perhaps the police station would be the most convenient place to talk, if I didn’t mind – and of course I didn’t. He would be happy to drive me down with Mr Donald. The police constable would take care of my luggage. So, ten minutes later, I was seated in a rather bare room with Duggie and Rawlings and a young policewoman who sat in the background and wrote shorthand.
Rawlings, I found, was a very leisurely man with a taste for colourful detail. He was also very solicitous for my well-being. Would I like some coffee? I would. The coffee was brought. Had I had a pleasant trip? Well, the latter part of it. Copenhagen was a very pleasant city, was it not? Very. He travelled there himself occasionally. Where had I stayed? The Hotel d’Angleterre. Splendid place, though a little beyond the means of a working policeman. I had come back by way of Glasgow? Yes. How long had I stayed there? Only one night. He agreed it was more than enough. He was a Londoner himself, although his work often took him abroad, to the Continent, to Eire, the Six Counties, though rarely to the Hebrides. He supposed I was wondering what all this was about. I imagined it had something to do with the death of Lachie McMutrie? That and certain related matters, yes. I presumed he had received the deposition which I had made in Tórshavn? Oh yes. And it was very concise. He appreciated that. He hated to bore me, but perhaps a little amplification here and there? He was welcome to all the information I had, which I feared wasn’t very much. Might he see my passport? Of course. He leafed through it carefully, then laid it open on the desk on top of his files. Then he began to question me in earnest.
‘I see you’re a novelist, sir?’
‘Yes.’
‘This is your normal profession?’
‘Yes.’
‘Your passport was issued in Rome. You are normally resident there?’
‘Yes.’
‘May I have your address and telephone number, please?’
I gave them to him. He asked me to spell them out, for the benefit of the steno
grapher.
‘Now, sir, may I ask what brought you to the Isles?’
‘I came for a vacation, at the invitation of Alastair Morrison of Laxay. He’s in hospital at present.’
‘We know that, sir. Thank you. This was your first visit?’
‘Yes.’
‘You had no other friends in the Isles?’
‘Not before I came. I have now.’
‘Among them Ruarri Matheson?’
‘Yes.’
‘How did you come to meet him?’
I told him that in great detail.
He listened attentively, leaning back in his chair with his hands locked over his midriff. Then he said, ‘So this meeting on Skye and this first day’s sailing were the only basis of your friendship.’
‘I’d say it was the beginning of the friendship rather than the basis of it. I liked Matheson from the first moment. He’s a colourful character, well-read, well-travelled, hospitable. He was my first contact in the Isles. I was only too happy to cultivate him. Our later contacts have proved friendly and interesting.’
‘For instance, you’ve been poaching together?’
‘Correction, Inspector. We went fishing and deer-stalking, both legal recreations unless otherwise charged and proven.’
‘Forgive me. You have also visited Matheson’s house?’
‘Several times.’
‘Once or twice in the company of Dr Kathleen McNeil, the locum from Harris?’
‘Yes.’
‘And Matheson was your guest at dinner in Morrison’s house?’
‘Yes.’
‘So you have, in fact, established a fairly intimate relationship with him?’
‘The word intimate is too coloured, Inspector. It sometimes bears unpleasant connotations, especially in court examinations. I would say a friendly relationship.’
