Irish Gold

by Andrew M. Greeley

  I had not asked to see her credentials. What a dumb mistake. Sean Connery would have thought of that immediately.

  No, that was dumb, too. She would have had credentials.

  Sean Connery would have phoned a schoolmate of his at the embassy to make sure there was such a person on the staff.

  He would have realized at lunch that a member of the Secretariat would not have worked out of the Dublin embassy but out of the Foreign Office in London.

  Dumb gobshite.

  Yet why would she say that I could reach her any time at the embassy?

  I pondered that question.

  If I had been smart enough to call the embassy right after she had phoned me, the same superior British voice probably would have said, “I’ll put you through to her, Mr. Coyne.”

  Maybe not. Maybe Angela Smythe was working for someone else and felt pretty confident that, dummy and gobshite that I was, I would not check on her.

  Then why did she undercut her position by telling me that I could talk to her at the embassy and by not calling me back to confirm our agreement?

  While I was trying to figure out an answer to that question, the phone rang again.

  “Hi, punk! You engaged to that beautiful girl with the foul mouth yet?”

  “When I told her that you said we should call the Mass the Eucharist, she said that the focking Mass was the focking Mass and that I should tell you so!”

  “Hey, she sounds wonderful! Ma would have loved her!”

  Note that Ma’s approval was more important than my mother’s. No, that’s not quite right. Mom’s approval of the “nice girl” was taken for granted, assuming that she was a nice girl, which was not a hard part to play, although Christina didn’t quite measure up to it.

  “They would have been thick as thieves, that’s for sure.”

  “I’m calling because I have a collection of books and articles about Michael Collins that I’ll Federal Express over to you.”

  “Great.”

  “And I talked to my friend.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Call me back on a public line, will you?”

  “You bet.”

  It was Tuesday afternoon, dark, dismal, and damp, and I was dreaming about golden autumns in the Midwest and noisy football weekends at Notre Dame. I had not heard a word from either Angela Smythe or Nuala Anne McGrail. Nor had I sought the latter out at O’Neill’s or Bewley’s or St. Teresa’s.

  My hangover, for which God forgive, on Saturday had been terrible. When I recovered sufficiently to reflect on the evening in Merrion Square, I was not sure that I wanted to meet that woman ever again, affectionate kiss or not. Beautiful and challenging she was, but intimacy with her would involve hard work that would never end.

  So on that Tuesday afternoon, Angela Smythe—with a “y” and an “e”—seemed a much safer bet. I was in a mood for safe bets just then.

  So I discovered she might not have been so safe a bet after all.

  I rushed out to the public phone across Pembroke Street and fiddled with a shilling to get the operator and then tried very patiently to give her my international credit card number. After much transatlantic confusion, which direct dialing avoided, I finally got through to the Prester.

  “George?”

  “Yeah, Punk. You know, it’s all kind of strange.”

  “Tell me about it.”

  “My friend who works for the government was suspicious about me. How did I know about this Collins case? I told him that he owed me lots of favors and that this was one of them and that I wasn’t working for a foreign government. I figured you didn’t want me to tell him about your interest.”

  “No way.”

  “Well, it comes to this. They have a note on their computer which says that the official story about how Michael Collins died is not to be believed. There’s also a ‘blue flag,’ which in their terms means an indication that the issue is still live, which means sensitive, and a ‘black flag,’ which means that they know something about another government’s intelligence that they are not strictly speaking supposed to know. My friend says that he doesn’t have the clearances to go through those files. We could really search for higher clout—”

  “Do it.”

  “Maybe we can and maybe we can’t. . . . Is the girl involved?”

  “No.”

  “Ma and Pa?”

  “Maybe. I’m not sure yet.”

  “I don’t want you take any chances, Punk.”

  “I won’t. Don’t worry about me.”

  “Punk, do me a favor. Check in every day, huh?”

  I hesitated. “Sure. . . . Oh, yeah, one more question. The agency for which your friend works wouldn’t be likely to be bugging the Irish intelligence, would they?”

  “Maybe for gunrunners. Not much else.”

  “So if they had some information, it would be most likely about an operation the Brits are running, huh?”

  “That sounds reasonable.”

  “I don’t care whether they know about my interest. Maybe your friend can pass up the information that the issue could warm up again.”

  “He won’t want to hear that.”

  “Use your own judgment.”

  “Take care, Punk.”

  “You bet.”

  I strode back to the hotel at top speed, a whiff of the chase in my nostrils. Then, before I went down to the pool, I calmed down. I knew now that I wasn’t losing my mind. There was something strange going on, something that someone, probably the Brits, wanted to keep secret that was important even today. I didn’t care about their precious secret. All I wanted—and by now it had become as close to an obsession to me as anything had ever been in my life—was to learn more about the story of Ma and Pa. I would continue to search out that story without giving any hints to those who might be watching of what I was about. I could do this because the secret was surely in Ma’s diaries—which she had surely left because she wanted me to find out the truth.

  The other side would think that I had abandoned the search. Gradually they would lose interest.

  When I discovered the truth in my own mind, I would decide what came next. Probably nothing.

  The only problem was how to continue my search for the truth without the other side knowing what I was up to.

  In the pool I saw an answer to that problem too. It was ingenious, I told myself, and it had its own element of danger, though of a different kind.

  Sean Connery wouldn’t do it. He would bash heads and seduce women.

  I wasn’t Sean Connery. While I could bash heads if needs be—and I had demonstrated that—there were other and more subtle ways of learning the truth.

  I knew something that they didn’t know. Well, probably didn’t know. They were not the only ones with a secret.

  What would happen if I should learn their secret and discover that it was something that I didn’t really want to know?

  Well, that’s a chance you take, isn’t it, when you set out in pursuit of the truth?

  I’d sleep on my scheme, which had been bumping around in the back of my head for more than a week. Tomorrow I would act on it.

  Maybe.

  Back in my room, showered, and consuming my afternoon tea—sandwiches and scones with clotted cream and jam—I ran through my scheme again. Where were the dangers?

  There weren’t any. No one would know what I’d found out until I knew all the other side’s secrets.

  That seemed a reasonable assumption then. Now in retrospect, it was foolish and naive.

  –– 18 ––

  I OVERSLEPT the next morning. When the sun, which had made one of its occasional appearances in Dublin, woke me up, I remembered that there was something I was supposed to be doing that morning.

  What was it?

  My idea, my scheme, my master plan, bounced back from my unconscious like an energetic child frolicking in the morning sunlight.

  I thought about it again. Should I?

  I struggled out of be
d. I still had some time to make a decision. I dashed hastily through my shower, donned jeans, a sweatshirt, and my Marquette jacket, stuck a small package that I had prepared the night before into my pocket, and dashed down Pembroke Road and Baggot Street to the green and then over to Grafton Street and Bewley’s Café.

  In search, need I say, of Nuala Anne McGrail.

  I found her way over in a corner in the basement with a single scone and a cup of tea. The rest of the room was deserted in the brief lull between the breakfast crowd and midmorning rush. She was poring over a textbook and furiously scribbling notes on a pad of paper.

  I dashed upstairs, purchased a huge order of scones, toast, bacon, orange juice and tea, crowded it all on a tray, and hurried back to her table.

  She was wearing a green sweatshirt with the words “Galway Races” emblazoned on it in gold. She looked tired and disconsolate, as if she had been up late several nights in a row.

  “May I be after sitting here?” I asked, putting on my best Irish brogue.

  “I don’t give a fock.” She didn’t look up.

  I sat down across from her and pushed a glass towards her. “Drink your orange juice, woman. I’ll not be telling you again that it’s good for you.”

  “Brigid, Patrick, and Columcille!” She looked up, pleased and astonished. “ ’Tis yourself!”

  “I think so and meself carrying a nutritious breakfast. Now close your book, woman, and eat your breakfast, and talk to me.”

  Dutifully she closed her book. “I’m thinking that it’s a terrible surprise you’d ever want to set eyes on meself again and me being such a terrible pissant bitch on Friday night.”

  “Ah, you were terrible, that’s true enough, isn’t it?”

  She smiled wanly. “Though I didn’t as much of the drink take as certain other parties did, did I?”

  “I don’t know. I wasn’t counting as certain other parties were.”

  She touched my arm. “I was a real shite. I’m sorry. If I’m ever with you again when the creature is available, I won’t be counting the jars.”

  “And the Pope will become a Mormon!”

  We both laughed.

  Then she sobered up. “I’m truly an awful person, Dermot Michael.”

  “Woman, how many times must I tell you I won’t tolerate such self-hatred? You were exhausted after an exhilarating and difficult evening. You also learned that you can walk into any room in the world and be at ease and talk to any group in the world and charm them. That could be a disconcerting insight about oneself.”

  She was silent as she pondered that conclusion. I noticed again how tired she seemed. Worried too. Was there someone sick in her family?

  Then she spoke haltingly. “Is that really true, Dermot Michael?”

  “ ’Tis.”

  “I know I can fit in wherever I am. I’ve been able to do that all my life. I’m not so sure though that there’s any real ‘me’ there. I’m one person with me ma, another with me roommates, still another at O’Neill’s. At that party I was a fantasy person I always dreamed of being, the Grand Duchess Nuala, and wasn’t she a terror now? I change me masks to fit the crowd and there’s no core in me at all, at all. I’m too cute by half.”

  Hadn’t I myself thought the same thing about her?

  “You’re a very shy child with lots of masks, some of which are funny faces.” I kissed her cheek lightly, very lightly.

  That did it. She threw back her head and laughed. “Go ’long with you now!”

  “Eat your breakfast, woman.”

  “Haven’t I started already?” She spread a thick glob of marmalade on a croissant and began to wolf it down.

  “Did you write to Lady Elizabeth?”

  “Do you think I’m a focking eejit?” She grinned, her mouth full of food. “Do you think me ma didn’t teach me any manners at all, at all? Did you write?”

  “I have a note on my desk to write.”

  “Eejit!”

  “I sent her roses the next morning, and yourself thinking my ma didn’t teach me any manners!”

  We laughed again.

  “I made terrible fun of you.”

  “Did I seem to mind?”

  “You did not.” She gulped at the orange juice. Had she eaten nothing at all since Friday night?

  “You were wrong on one point. The Dublin story is not about Dublin women in general, but about one woman in particular, and she’s not sweet Molly Malone either.”

  “Didn’t I know that?” She sniffed. “Sure, I wasn’t going to let those bloody West Brits think I was sleeping with you, was I now?”

  I didn’t quite see how that would follow, but I thought I’d better not ask. “God forbid, especially since I’m not, worse luck for me. . . . Feeling better?”

  “Nothing like two glasses of orange juice to make the young gobshite lass from County Galway feel better. . . . Now tell me about the girl that killed herself.”

  I felt the blood drain from my face. I did want to talk about Kel. Not today, however, later maybe. Like next week.

  “That’s what we Yanks would call a fast pitch, Nuala Anne.”

  “I want to hear about her, Dermot Michael. You loved her very much, didn’t you?”

  I pondered that question. “It’s strange, Nul, but I’m not sure that I did. Well, yes, surely I did love Kel—Kelly Anne to be exact—enormously. We’d been friends for as long as I could remember. We were bonded together. I don’t know whether I was in love with her. Probably not. Our friendship was much deeper than falling in love and yet . . . it’s hard to describe. I can’t say less erotic, because there was a lot of passion in it. I’m not making much sense, I’m afraid.”

  “If she had lived”—Nuala’s wondrous blue eyes brimmed with sympathy—“would you have married her?”

  “I don’t think so. In my realistic moments I imagine that we would have decided after a year or two of college that we were destined only to be good friends. The trouble is”—my eyes were stinging—“we never had a chance to decide that. The conversation never took place because she was dead.”

  “You blame yourself?” She sipped some tea, put the cup down, and took my hand.

  “Yes. No. I don’t know. Sometimes. A kid my age at the time couldn’t have been expected to perceive what was happening to her. It’s taken me seven years to comprehend that.”

  She was stroking my fingers gently. How could one so young understand so much?

  “She wasn’t like a sister. I have two of those and it’s not the same. She really wasn’t a lover. She was a special friend.” The tears were flowing now. I couldn’t control them. I didn’t want to control them. “A friend whose face I searched for whenever I came to a place where she might be. I still look for her . . . even in the streets of Dublin. . . . I always will.”

  She laid her hand against my cheek and smiled affectionately. I broke down and began to sob. I glanced around: No one nearby to see me. I could enjoy the sympathy.

  “You never wept for her before.” She stroked my blond curls. “Did you, Dermot Michael Coyne?”

  Overcome with grief, I could only nod.

  “ ’Tis terrible hard for men to grieve.”

  She let me cry myself out in silence.

  Then when I was finished she gave me a pack of clean tissues from her book bag. “You’ll never forget her, Dermot,” she said. “Never. And you never should.”

  That was all that needed to be said.

  The spirit of Kelly Anne Morrisey had not been exorcised. There would still be grief. There would always be some grief. But her spirit was now beginning to be a benign one. I could finally believe that George was right when he insisted that nothing that was good or true or loving was ever lost from the mind of God. Somehow, some way, someday, Kel and I would meet again.

  “Do you carry her picture?” Those intent blue eyes probed my soul as I wiped my eyes.

  “No, not really. I have her graduation picture back in the hotel. But I never did put it in my wall
et.”

  “You should, you know. Besides, I want to see her.”

  “All right. What do you think of the story, I mean the true story, not the fiction?”

  She hesitated. “The poor thing, that’s all I can say. Will that do?”

  “No other judgments about her?”

  “Who am I to judge? . . . Now drink your tea and eat your scones, Dermot Michael Coyne.”

  The therapy session was over.

  What about my plan to solve the mystery of the death of Michael Collins? It was a crazy idea from start to finish. In comparison with the grief I had expressed and the sensitivity and sympathy I had experienced, my puzzles and riddles and clever schemes were insignificant.

  We chatted as we polished off our breakfasts. Someday soon I would take her to Jury’s for a real breakfast. She looked so preoccupied. Was there something else on her mind besides me and my repressed grief?

  “I don’t want to seem to play the turnabout game, Nul. Is there something wrong in your life?”

  “I’m fine, Dermot. Just a little tired from studying too hard.”

  She was not, however, looking at me.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “It’s not important.”

  “Can I judge that?”

  “I should tell you that it’s none of your fockingrichyank business.” She smiled wanly.

  “But you haven’t?”

  “Not yet.”

  “So?”

  She poured tea for both of us. “I have to go back home. I think I can get meself into UCG—University College Galway—next term. Wasn’t it good enough for me brothers and sisters? Who do I think I am?”

  “Why did you come here?”

  “Weren’t me ma and da proud of me winning the scholarship prize? Weren’t they all puffed up and proud that their youngest could go to Trinity?”

  “Why can’t you?”

  “I don’t want to tell you.”

  “But you will.”

  She paused and sipped some tea. “You like Earl Grey, do you now?”

  “I do. And don’t change the subject.”

  “I don’t want to tell you, because you’ll want to help me and I can’t let you do that.”

  “No money.”

  She tipped her head slightly. “I’m redundant at my job, selling sweaters at Brown Thomas. The tourist season is over and they kept me on as long as they could.”