Irish Gold

by Andrew M. Greeley

  “Do you think the dead will be walking in Carraroe when we arrive there?”

  She shook her head. “I’m thinking they’re already there and themselves waiting for us.”

  I felt myself shiver. “Should we go back to Dublin?”

  Her eyes widened. “We can’t disappoint them, can we, Dermot Michael? And themselves expecting us?”

  “Are you serious, Nuala?”

  “What was it your gram used to say? Half fun and full earnest?”

  “You’re really superstitious?”

  “If you’re raised in the Gaeltacht, you might not be religious but you will certainly be superstitious.”

  Then she asked me about the third strike.

  “You don’t want me because I’m an uncultivated lass from the Gaeltacht who never took a shower once in her life till she came to your suite.”

  “Have I ever said or done anything that would make you think I’m that kind of a snob?”

  She replied promptly to that question. “You have not, Dermot Michael, and me being ashamed of myself for even thinking that, but I don’t understand. You fancy me, maybe even love me a little, and yet you’re going home to America . . .”

  She didn’t add the implied phrase, “without me.”

  “There’s nothing wrong with you, Nuala.” I shifted again in my chair in the restaurant. “You’re a young woman of enormous talents and possibilities. You have the promise of a rich and productive and exciting life.”

  “As an accountant?” She frowned.

  “As a singer, an actress, as almost anything you want to be.”

  “Well.” She drank a deep draft of her red wine, finishing the glass. “I don’t think I’m good enough or at least have enough training to be a brilliant success in either singing or acting.”

  “You could get the training.”

  “I suppose I could. There are lots of unemployed singers and actresses in Dublin, Dermot Michael. With the new Financial Services Center opening on the Liffey, isn’t there likely to be a terrible shortage of accountants? Maybe I can act and sing in me spare time, but I’m not Hollywood material or the Hollywood type.”

  “I’ll be blunt, Nul. You’re too young to marry or even to be caught up in a serious relationship. You need time to develop, to find yourself, to permit your talents and abilities to grow and to flourish, to discover your full potential, to uncover the real Nuala.”

  She sighed nosily. “I’ll not be denying the truth of any of that, though some of it sounds like clichés to me. I don’t understand how it matters.”

  “Let’s be honest with each other, Nul. We’re talking marriage, aren’t we? People like you and me don’t play around with our own emotions or other people’s. Love means marriage.”

  She nodded. “The sooner the better.”

  No messing around with circumlocutions for Nuala Anne McGrail, not tonight.

  “We’d be happy at first, of that I’m sure, mostly because you’re such an adaptable woman. But it wouldn’t last, Nul. You’d discover all that you really are and you’d realize that you are a young woman of great and many talents and that you could not develop them because of marriage and children—we are talking children, aren’t we?”

  She nodded vigorously. “Maybe not seven, but three or four.”

  “Then,” I went on with my gloomy scenario, “you’d feel frustrated and unfulfilled and begin to resent the marriage in which you were trapped and then to hate me for trapping you.”

  “I’d never hate you, Dermot.”

  “Maybe not.” I touched her hand. “But you’d be unhappy and I couldn’t stand seeing you unhappy. . . . Believe me, I’ve seen so many women caught in that trap. And it’s not just marriage that does it to them. A serious and prolonged relationship has the same effect.”

  “Suppose there’s another scenario.” She continued too, relaxed and casual as if we were two doctors discussing the case of an absent patient. “Suppose that I’d be needing a husband to love me and a brood of kids to contend with as a condition for developing me talents, which I’ll concede for the sake of the discussion.”

  She did not give up easily, did she?

  “I. don’t think that’s very likely.”

  “All right. . . . Yes, we’ll both have a wee sip of port, thank you very much. . . . Where was I? Ah, yes. If I were twenty-five, would that be old enough?”

  “It would certainly cast matters in a different light.”

  “I’ll wait till I’m twenty-five.”

  “Come on, Nuala, that would be as bad as being married, maybe worse.”

  The port was served. Nuala tasted it as if she were an expert on port. “Ah, ’tis grand!”

  When the wine steward had departed, beaming happily at her compliment, she continued the argument. “I don’t understand it. Shouldn’t I have the right to say whether I want to be exploited or not? Don’t I get a vote at all?”

  “You could be exploited, Nuala Anne, without knowing you’re being exploited, not at first. Then you’d find out and you’d become very bitter.”

  “Are you thinking I have a teenage crush on you that I’ll get over as soon as you’re on the plane back to Yank-land?”

  “Have you ever been in love before, Nuala?”

  “I have not. Sure, I’ve never met a man like you before.”

  “First love ought not to be trusted.”

  She nodded. “Maybe you’re right. Still, I wish I had some say in it. You’re treating me like an inexperienced child who needs someone to protect her from herself.”

  “You are still technically a teenager, Nul.”

  “ ’Tis really good port, isn’t it? I wouldn’t be knowing”—she sipped it again—“but it does taste grand, doesn’t it?”

  “It does.”

  “You’re a good and sweet and wonderful man, Dermot Michael Coyne.” She sighed. “I’ll never meet anyone like you again. I love you with all my heart. I think you love me too. Yet after you hired me to work on your gram’s diary, you backed away from me.”

  “I didn’t want to exploit a vulnerable woman.”

  “How many times must I tell you”—now she was annoyed at me—“that I can take care of myself? Didn’t I prove that to you the night at Irishtown? I wouldn’t even let you touch my hand like you just did, unless I wanted you to touch it. Don’t you know me well enough to know that? Am I the kind of woman who would have gone off to your bedroom with you just to keep my job? Would I make love with you unless I wanted to? You know all about me talents, Dermot Michael Coyne, but you don’t know me at all, at all.”

  “Nul—”

  “You didn’t have to make your eejit promise that there’d be no passes. Let me tell you one thing: There wouldn’t have been a second one unless I wanted the first.”

  “What would have happened?” I couldn’t help grin at my Spanish galleon in full sail again and with the guns firing.

  “You saw what I did to your man Patrick in Irishtown!”

  “You would have slept with me in the suite if I asked?”

  “I’d do anything to keep you, Dermot, anything.” Tears began to form in her eyes. “I’d even try to capture you like your gram captured her man, though I don’t think that would work and anyway she says I oughtn’t.”

  Would it work? Would a naked Nuala Anne in my room tonight make this discussion seem foolish?

  It would indeed, but I wasn’t about to tell her that.

  “That’s good advice.”

  “I suppose it is. . . . Still, I’m thinking that you’re afraid of me. You have those two strikes on you and you don’t want to be hurt again, for which, God knows, I don’t blame you. But won’t you feel that about any woman you begin to fancy? Tell me the honest truth, Dermot Michael Coyne, are you likely to be meeting another woman like me for the rest of your life?”

  “I doubt it.”

  “I’m not Kelly Anne, I’m not Christina,” she shouted, causing the two couples still in the dining room to stare a
t us. “I’m Nuala. I’ll never hurt you. I’ll never betray you. If you think I would, you’re a terrible eejit and an awful amadon too.”

  “It’s you I’m worried about, not myself.”

  Was that true? Was she not being more honest than I was? Was I not afraid about being hurt again? Was Nuala Anne McGrail too good to be true, was that my fear?

  Was I being a terrible eejit altogether?

  And an amadon too?

  I would have to think about it.

  Now that I’ve had a long time to think about it, as I write these words, I conclude that maybe I was indeed an eejit and an amadon both.

  In the dining room in Cork, however, with the soft light and the music of the harp, I was filled with the sense of virtue that comes from romantic sacrifice.

  “I don’t want to sound patronizing or chauvinist, Nuala. In a year, in six months even, you’ll know I’m right.”

  “Maybe you are,” she conceded, shrugging her shoulders. “Sure, am I not half convinced myself that you are right? Tell you what.” She took on her shrewd fishmonger expression. “If I’m not totally convinced in a year that you’re right, can we open up this conversation again?”

  It was a nice compromise on which to end the argument.

  “I’ll always be happy to talk to you, Nuala.”

  So that was that. We finished our port and went to our rooms, Nuala announcing that she would translate the next entry in the diary before she went to sleep.

  “That’s not necessary.”

  “I want to earn my keep. . . . Besides, am I not dying of curiosity to find out what happened out at Lettermullen that day?”

  “We know that O’Kelly was shot and his body left at Maam Cross, not turned over to the Free Staters.”

  “Would not they have shot him too?”

  “True enough. A trial would have made matters worse for the Free State because many of the Republicans would have thought him a hero.”

  We had left the elevator on our floor.

  “Good night, Dermot.”

  “Good night, Nuala.”

  We did not kiss one another, mostly because I turned away before we could. I was so shaken by our argument—dialogue, whatever—that even a brief moment of tenderness would have turned me into a raging fury of passion.

  In my room I took off my clothes except for my shorts and put on my robe. I had a lot to think about before I tried to sleep.

  I didn’t do a good job of thinking because I was too confused—and too aroused. If she came to the room tonight I would have no choice.

  Was I truly afraid of sustained intimacy with a woman? Had I been hurt twice and hence made incapable of risking a third swing and a miss?

  On the other hand, as Nuala did not know, not being a baseball aficionado, you can with a three-and-two pitch be called out on strikes by just standing at the plate and watching the ball float over.

  Was I not missing an opportunity of a lifetime? The last great opportunity? A bit of wondrous good fortune that made my triumph in the Standard and Poors pit look like a parish raffle prize?

  Maybe I was. Yet, if for Nuala it was only a late-teen crush, an inadvisable first love, would she not be over it in a year? If she still wanted to discuss marriage then, could I not then enter into the discussion with confidence that I was not exploiting her?

  Where does gentlemanly respect end and fear of the third strike, a swing and a miss, begin?

  I didn’t know. I needed more time to think.

  Eejit?

  I guess.

  The face of the man in the touring car floated by me again. He moved more slowly this time and I saw the face more clearly.

  Damn, I missed it again.

  I’d have it before the weekend was over.

  I returned to the subject of Nuala, always pleasant, always tormenting.

  If she came to the room tonight I would let her in. We would make love and the matter would be settled. The early phases of our affair and marriage would be a grand success. Brilliant! Maybe the later years wouldn’t be as bad as I feared. Maybe she would experience payoffs that would outweigh her frustrations.

  Then I began to wish that she would come. To hell with all my fears. I’d never meet another woman like her, that was for sure.

  My imagination filled up with images of what I would do with her when she came into my room. I had progressed in my reverie to a situation in which she was half naked; then weariness triumphed over conscious desire and I drifted away into a half sleep.

  Could I have walked down the dim corridor to her room, only three doors away, and taken the initiative?

  Would I be welcome?

  Sure I would.

  Wouldn’t that be exploitation?

  Is it exploitation when a woman wants you as much as you want her?

  Not if she’s old enough to know what the risks and costs are.

  Nuala was an innocent and shy child from the Gaeltacht. I was her first crush. She had no idea of the risks and the costs of intimacy. I had to protect her from herself.

  If, however, she became aggressive and tried to seduce me, wasn’t I dispensed from my duties to guard and protect?

  Such eejit rationalizations show how confused I was at the time.

  Then someone knocked at the door. Startled and surprised, I jumped out of bed, wild with excitement and desire.

  “Yes?”

  “Nuala.”

  I tightened the belt on my robe and opened the door.

  She was fully clothed. In her hand she held several sheets of lined paper and a Federal Express envelope. “This is the next entry. I think you should read it now. My handwriting is not so good. I’ll stay with you while you read it. Then I’ll take it down to the desk for Federal Express pickup tomorrow.”

  “It’s that bad?”

  “It solves most of the mystery, I think.”

  — NUALA’S VOICE —

  Nell Pat, me heart is breaking. I suppose that’s the way it is at the end of all adolescent crushes and I have only myself to blame. He turned me down. I didn’t throw myself at him, the way you threw yourself at your man. I simply couldn’t do it. But, despite what you tell me, I would have done it if I had the courage.

  What if it’s not just a crush? What if he’s the great love of me life?

  Well, even if he is, I’ve lost him and I feel like crying myself to sleep. But I’ll never let him know that he’s broken me poor heart. I’ll show him that he’s not the only man in the world and that I can do just fine without him!

  I’m not even sure he’s wrong. Maybe I shouldn’t fall in love, I mean real love, till I’m twenty-five. He’ll still be an Irish bachelor then and probably useless. But he’s useless now and I still love him with all my heart and soul.

  I’m furious at him and I love him more than ever. He really does care about me and me career, even if that’s an excuse. We could work it out. Maybe we should and maybe we shouldn’t.

  He still doesn’t understand who the real murderer is. Sometimes he’s pretty close to it and then he loses the truth of the story—which is as plain on the nose on me face.

  The focking bastard is an eejit.

  And I’ll always love him!

  –– 51 ––

  September 15, 1922

  Well, it’s all over now. I’ll never forget it. I don’t want to write about it, but I’d must while the memories are still fresh and ourselves getting ready to leave for America.

  The Brigade, that’s me and Liam and three of the lads, whose names I’ll not put down even in this private book, and the teacher man with his camera, took over the pub early this morning. The publican and his brother and their wives were terrible scared, though we assured them that they would not be hurt if they cooperated.

  Poor folk, they weren’t sure which side was which and I’m thinking they didn’t know they’d done anything wrong by cooperating with Daniel O’Kelly.

  I found myself a poker, just in case I needed it.

  Th
e sky was cloudy, but it wasn’t raining and when the wind stopped, it didn’t seem all that cold for this time of the year.

  Our plan is to capture Daniel when he comes into the pub and tell him there would be a gun pointed at his head when the man came with the touring car. We wouldn’t let him see the cameraman hidden behind the bar. When the man in the car came in the pub and gave Daniel the money, the cameraman would, on a signal from myself, stand up and take his picture with his artificial light thing.

  In the meantime one of the lads would sneak out and disarm the driver of the car.

  I thought it was a pretty thin scheme, but we’d have at least captured O’Kelly and we’d have proof that he was meeting with the man in the car which we could turn over to the Free Staters and let them take care of O’Kelly while the Brigade disbanded altogether and Liam and I left for America.

  Finally the sun came out, kind of shy and bashfullike at first but then, in all her glory, and chased the clouds from the sky.

  About the middle of the day, who comes along the road, whistling “The Bold Fenian Men,” but the traitor himself?

  He fools us by sitting down outside and yelling for his jar. But I’m thinking that maybe that’s good for us. We send the woman of the house out to serve him and warn her that she’ll be in grave danger if she lets on the slightest hint to the man who murdered Michael Collins. We move the teacher man over to the window behind the curtain and give him a chance to set up the camera.

  The woman of the house, once she knows that we’re after the killer of the general, is on our side, God bless her, and she laughs and jokes with the gombeen man.

  He’s three jars taken and still there’s no car and we wonder if the meeting is off.

  Then we hear it thumping down the road and we all get ready, the teacher man fixes his camera, the lad who is to take on the driver sneaks out the back door, I stand by at the curtains, me poker in me hand, and Liam and the other two lads are prepared to burst out the door and arrest the criminals.

  It’s all going well, I’m thinking to myself. Too well. Something will go wrong.

  Which God knows it did. O’Kelly was a quicker gombeen man than we had expected.