The Abstainer

by Ian McGuire

  CHAPTER 27

  Five days later, O’Connor is released from the New Bailey Prison with two shillings and sixpence in a buff envelope in the pocket of his waistcoat. His jacket and trousers are still stiff and odorous from the fumigator. He buys a meat pie from a barrow on Worsley Street and eats it slowly, savoring every bite. When he finishes, he buys another one and the pieman remarks on his appetite. Free, with no walls around him and the gray clouds like a mantle above his head, he feels dizzy and disarranged, as if he has just woken up from a strange dream or stepped back onto the land after a long time alone at sea. When he has finished the second pie, instead of crossing the Albert Bridge and walking back into Manchester, he descends the worn stone steps to the boat landing, then turns right onto the narrow muddy path that runs along the north bank of the Irwell. He remembers the night of the Fenian hangings: the watch fires and the barricades, the eager crowds of people gathered by the prison wall. Tommy Flanagan was still alive that night and so were Henry Maxwell and Frank Malone. Doyle has had his revenge, he thinks, even if it didn’t happen the way he planned it. Three dead men to balance the three who were hanged, blood for blood, and that could have been the end of it, except it never is the end. There’s always another wrong to be made right, another lesson to be taught or learned.

  The path begins to broaden and change direction and soon, to his right, instead of the high backs of mills and factories, he can see only a dank floodplain of dead grass and shriveled weeds, cut across here and there by brick-lined drainage ditches. He continues on until he reaches the river lock where the Bolton Canal meets the Irwell, then turns away from the river and follows the towpath toward the coal wharves. The railway arches are a hundred yards ahead of him now, a looped curve of red brick, water-stained and smoke-blackened. Most appear empty and unused, but some are boarded up, and a few have tall slatted gates or narrow doors with signs nailed above them.

  In front of one of the arches there is a fire burning and two men are loading empty barrels onto a dray. One of the men is whistling. O’Connor tells them his name and what he is looking for and why. The man who was whistling stops, then rubs his head and points off. “Over yonder,” he says, “keep walking straight and you’ll see the spot.” O’Connor walks, then turns around, and the man, who is still watching, waves him farther onward. The wet ground is covered over by a sapless tangle of shrub and vine, bent and disorderly. Dead thistles catch at his trouser legs. He stumbles twice but doesn’t fall. He can’t see what he is looking for yet and he wonders if the man was confused or lying. Then he notices it, away to the right: a patch of broken ground, the fresh-turned soil glowing dark as a wound against the brown-gray clamor of brambles and thorn. Coming closer, he sees the open grave, crudely dug, thin and shallow with footprints pressed in all around and the grass on both sides trodden flat. He circles it once, then crouches down and picks up a burned match and a button. Careless, he thinks, clumsy, to bury him here, so close, but Doyle didn’t care by then. They already had evidence enough to hang him, so one more body made no difference.

  He stands up and looks about. The men with the dray are gone, but their fire is still burning brightly. A train whistle sounds, and brown smoke drifts sideways from the factory chimneys. He is hungry again, but the hunger feels trifling and shameful. The dead are in command, he thinks, now and always. Every step away is a step toward, every turning is part of the same circle, and what we call love or hope is just an interlude, a way of forgetting what we are. He bends down and picks up a handful of wet soil from the soft edge of the grave, stares at it for a moment, then rubs it away. There are certain cruelties that he will not let himself imagine. Better to be stupid or ignorant, he thinks, better to just pretend.

  * * *

  —

  A letter from Rose Flanagan is waiting for him at Newly’s law office. The letter explains that she has moved to Glasgow and is living in a women’s lodging house in Oatlands and working as a kitchen maid in one of the big hotels by the railway station. She is happy, the letter says: The lodging house is clean and well looked after, and she has made new friends already. Near the bottom of the letter, like an afterthought, she explains that, despite his kindness, she cannot accept his offer of marriage. It would not be right. She knows his face will always remind her of Tommy’s dreadful murder, and it would be a mistake for both of them, she thinks, to start on a new life with the shadow of the old one still stretching across it so dark and strange.

  He reads the letter through again, then places it back on top of the desk. Beneath the sorrow and disappointment, he feels a measure of relief, as if a burden has been lifted. Easier, he tells himself, simpler this way: no one else to care for or comfort, no other sufferings to tend to but my own.

  The lawyer asks him if the news is discouraging, and he shrugs once, then nods.

  “I didn’t expect her to wait for me,” he says. “Why ever would she?”

  “I passed that message on just like you asked me to. I think she understood your good intentions.”

  “I expect she did.”

  “I heard her mother died and that’s why she had to leave so suddenly. She couldn’t stay in that house afterward, couldn’t stand it there. Does she mention that in the letter?”

  Newly’s manner is looser than before, more conversational. He looks at O’Connor with a calm satisfaction, as if he is a difficult problem that has been solved with surprising ease.

  O’Connor nods again.

  “It says she died in her sleep.”

  “There are plenty of other women in the world like Rose Flanagan,” Newly assures him with a half-smile. “She’s not so very special. You have your freedom now, you can walk about and breathe God’s air. That’s what matters most.”

  Inside the jail, Newly’s complacency was reassuring, a glimpse of normality, but here on the outside it feels boorish and misguided.

  “I’m only free because Michael Sullivan is dead,” O’Connor says.

  Newly looks dismayed by this suggestion.

  “Oh no. You should never have been in that jail in the first place; that was just Thompson showing off his powers. If it had ever come to a trial, no reasonable judge or jury would have convicted you. You benefited from the death perhaps, but only in a small way and purely by chance. You have no cause to feel guilty about what happened.”

  O’Connor looks past Newly to the clock on the mantelpiece behind. He notices there is a small crack in the beveled crystal between the one and the two. The ticking is slow and steady as a heartbeat.

  “It’s Stephen Doyle I’m thinking of now,” he says.

  “Stephen Doyle has disappeared for good. Two men from Scotland Yard went over to New York to look for him, but they came back with nothing.”

  “He’s alive somewhere. If they can’t find him, then they’re looking in the wrong places.”

  “Maybe so, but it’s not a matter you should concern yourself with. Rice and Riley are both in Belle Vue Prison, like I told you before, and they’ll hang for their crimes. You should grieve your losses now and let others worry about Stephen Doyle.”

  O’Connor shakes his head.

  “I’ve had enough of the grieving,” he says. “I can’t abide it anymore.”

  * * *

  —

  Later that day, when he gets to the detective office, they tell him that Thompson is occupied and can’t be disturbed, so he settles on a bench in the corridor and waits. One hour passes, then another. He drops asleep for a while, then feels a rough hand on his shoulder shaking him awake. Sanders is standing there, looking down. His expression is bored and disdainful.

  “What are you after?” he says. “Why have you come here?”

  He looks just the same as before—the long narrow face and damp mustache with threads of gray, the dark, eager eyes full of dull hatred and vague belligerence. O’Connor remembers the holding cell, the
truncheon pressed hard against his throat until he couldn’t breathe. He feels a tightening in his chest and a burn in his stomach, rage impotent and wordless, like thwarted desire.

  “I’m waiting for Thompson,” he says. “I need to talk to him again.”

  “Thompson won’t see you. Why would he?”

  “I need to speak to him about Stephen Doyle.”

  “Doyle’s long gone; he’ll never be caught now. And besides, it’s not your business any longer. You should leave here now before you get into any more trouble.”

  “On the boat coming over here he pretended he was a draper from Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. That’s what Michael Sullivan told me. If he’s not hiding in New York, then it’s most likely he’s there, or somewhere close by. He must have lived in Harrisburg or he knows someone who does. Why else would he choose it?”

  “Is that your grand idea? Is that really why you came?”

  “Tell Thompson to send a man to Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.”

  “I’ll tell him no such thing. The investigation into Michael Sullivan’s murder is finished with. The body is buried and we have other, more pressing matters to fill our time.”

  O’Connor stands up too quickly. His legs are unsteady, and his hips and back still ache from the prison bed. His body feels like something borrowed from an older, weaker man.

  “You have a duty,” he almost shouts. “A duty to the dead.”

  Sanders squints and looks at him askew. When he answers, he answers slowly and calmly as if addressing himself to a small child or a dimwit.

  “Inspector Thompson won’t see you, O’Connor,” he says. “Not today and not tomorrow neither. He sent me down here to tell you that. You weren’t much before, but you’re nothing now. Nothing at all. You should remember that.”

  “If Thompson won’t send a man, then I’ll go to Harrisburg myself,” O’Connor says. “I’ll find Stephen Doyle, and when I find him I’ll kill him.”

  Sanders looks away contemptuously, then turns back again.

  “You can go wherever you want to,” he says. “You can fly off to the fucking moon if the fancy takes you, O’Connor. Just don’t come back here to Manchester again or you’ll wish you hadn’t, I swear it.”

  CHAPTER 28

  When the ship makes harbor in New York, Doyle is taken by cab to a hotel room on Bleecker Street. The room is clean and well-furnished; there are red velvet drapes at the window, and a bottle of whiskey stands unopened on the mantelpiece. Three men are waiting for him. William Roberts is one, but he doesn’t recognize the others. They greet him warmly and tell him he has done a fine job over in England; he has spread the fear of God among the Saxons and that’s all anyone could have asked for. The two men he doesn’t know introduce themselves as Michael Kerwin and John O’Neill. They shake his hand, point him to a chair, then sit down together on a couch while Roberts stays standing by the fireplace. They smile at him again and nod their approval. The mayor of Manchester would have been a great prize, they all agree, a very great prize indeed, but the policeman and the spies added together are very nearly as good. Roberts reaches into his pocket, hands him a bankroll, and tells him he should find a quiet place to hide himself now, somewhere far away from New York where no one will be likely to come looking. A year at least, he says, maybe longer, all depending. Then they uncork the whiskey bottle and drink a toast in his honor.

  When the toast is finished, Doyle announces that he wants to go back to England immediately. He has new plans, he says. He has learned from his mistakes and wants to try it over again. This time he will do it alone, or he will bring someone with him from America who he already knows and can trust. That way there will be no danger of betrayal.

  They hear him out in silence, shrugging and rubbing their beards as he explains himself. They share a glance when he is finished talking, and then Roberts tells him that although they admire his bravery and commitment to the cause, they can’t possibly fund or permit any second venture.

  “You must understand our situation, Stephen,” Roberts says, his voice just as calm and steady as you like. “The Brotherhood exists to foment rebellion. That is its sole aim and purpose. Individual acts of daring may assist that purpose on occasion, but they can’t replace it.”

  “A rebellion will never succeed,” Doyle says. “You must know that after the last time. There aren’t enough men willing to fight and die for it. If we want to win, we have to hurt the English in their homes. Scare them enough so they can’t sleep at night and are forever looking over their shoulders in case an Irishman appears with a bomb or a gun in his hand. It won’t be easy or quick, I’ll grant you that, but if the trouble we cause them is bad enough and lasts for long enough, in the end they’ll give it up.”

  “You’d have us win our liberty through murder and arson,” O’Neill says. “Is that your proposal?”

  “I’m a soldier. It makes no difference to me if I kill my enemy on a street corner or on a battlefield. The result is just the same.”

  “The result is the same, but on the field the enemy is armed and has a chance to defend himself at least. There is some measure of honor and decency involved. Your path is the path of barbarism and savagery. If we earned the victory in that way, our freedom would be forever tainted.”

  “There’s nothing honorable or decent about warfare,” Doyle answers, “and it does no good to pretend there can be. You sent me to Manchester to get revenge, and I killed four men. Now you tell me I must stop. You want to try another path, but there is no other path. Did the English win their empire with gentleness and gallantry? If we are barbarians and savages, then they are just the same. In the battle every man is equal, and his only duty is to do his worst.”

  O’Neill sniffs and shakes his head.

  “You’re confused,” he says. “We’re on the side of justice and truth, and the enemy are on the side of tyranny and lies. To neglect that difference is to betray our cause.”

  Doyle is about to reply, when William Roberts interrupts him.

  “Let’s remember the simple facts,” he says. “Every policeman in England will be looking out for you by now. Your name and description will be everywhere. If you go back, however careful you are, and however much you disguise your appearance, you will certainly be arrested and hanged, and what purpose will that serve? Whatever the rights and wrongs of the matter, the proposal you are making is not practical.”

  O’Neill and Kerwin nod their agreement.

  “London is like a labyrinth,” Doyle says. “It would be easy enough to conceal myself. I would only venture out at night, under cover of darkness.”

  “And how would you find lodgings? How would you eat? You would need some assistance; you could not survive entirely alone. And each new acquaintance you make would mean a new possibility of betrayal. Even if we wished to send a man to London, we would not send you. After what has happened, it would make no sense at all.”

  “I have the experience now,” Doyle says. “No one else can match me for that.”

  “You’re not even safe here in New York,” Roberts continues. “If the British government presses hard enough, you will quickly find yourself in trouble. That’s why we’re telling you to leave. The fuss will die away eventually, but for now you are safer elsewhere. You have enough money in your pocket to buy a parcel of land in the west if you wish to.”

  “I’m a soldier,” he says, “not a farmer.”

  “Something else, then, whatever you prefer. You have done your duty well, you have served the cause with courage and conviction, but it’s time to step aside now.”

  Doyle looks back at him without answering. He knows the argument is lost. Roberts and the others think him a fool, reckless not brave, someone to be rid of quickly so they can move on with their far-fetched plans for revolution. They were soldiers once, he thinks, but now they’ve grown vain and sentimental. They dream
of victory but are afraid to pay the price. He licks his lips and tastes the lingerings of their fine whiskey on his tongue.

  “What if I give you back this money?” he says, holding out the bankroll. “What if I say you can keep it and I’ll make my own way?”

  “There are spies all around us,” Roberts reminds him coolly. “We both know that. If you won’t accept our help, Stephen, then how can we protect you?”

  He stays in the hotel that night, and in the morning he walks to Cortlandt Street and takes the steam ferry over to Hoboken then a train on to Philadelphia. He finds a single room in a boardinghouse in the Northern Liberties and pays the landlord the first month’s rent in advance. He has the idea of rejoining the U.S. Army using a different name and an imagined history and going down to Texas to fight the Indian there, but when he gets to the recruiting office they look at him askance and ask him questions that he will not answer. After that, he decides to remain where he is, live off Roberts’ money, and wait to see what fate will offer up. He passes the time walking about or sitting in restaurants and hotel lobbies reading the newspapers and drinking beer. The days are dull and easy and as they slide past, as though on rails, he feels himself slowly softening, his soldierly resolve leaking away. He remembers what his life was like before the war came to his rescue, those faithless years of lassitude and drift, and wonders if he will go back to that again when the Fenian dollars eventually run dry. Is that what awaits him, he wonders—the old life become new and himself the same again but older?