by Neil Jordan
And the next day it came. Falling through the letterbox on to the linoleum, its plain white envelope and Swiss stamp too prosaic for the contents inside.
Tuesday, the twentieth, murmured Soames, tapping the scrawled symbols with a manicured nail.
Why Tuesday? I asked him.
A full moon and a high tide. The beach drops thirty fathoms two hundred yards out. They'll get as close as they can, of course.
And you?
We'll be there, don't worry.
I looked across the square. Two G-men leaned on a battered Ford, eyeing me back.
You'll all be there. So I can take it that I'm finished.
Hold your horses. You've still to inform your Republican friends.
Ah. And when I've done that, I can stop this charade?
You sound as if you're not enjoying it.
I'm not. And my father is ill besides.
There must have been a hint of self-pity in my voice, for he looked at me directly and I could only think he'd never done that before.
Call me when you've spoken with them and we can forget these meetings ever happened, if you like.
I would like that very much.
Really? he said, with a note of disappointment.
I'm sorry, I said and wondered why I was apologising.
I thought we could have moved on to Heisenberg. Read the paper, rather than appropriate the symbols.
In other circumstances, maybe. I stood there awkwardly, wondering should I shake his hand.
A drink some evening, he said, when all this is over. And he held out his hand and I shook it.
When I stepped off the train at Bray I could see them on the promenade, three figures, each in a version of the same coat, trouser-ends bound by clips, wheeling bicycles. I gained on them rapidly, silently and allowed myself to enjoy for a moment the pleasure of observing them, unobserved. An early moon hung low over the low tide and it seemed a perfect evening to put this all to rest.
Gentlemen, I said and the short fellow, Oliver was it, dropped his bike while the taller one performed a balletic whirl and in no time at all had me pinned against the railings.
Got a joker here have we, he said, a comedian, while those strong bogman's fingers kept a relentless pressure on my neck.
I was happy, that's all, I said, prising his fingers away.
Why so fucking happy? he asked.
Because this little drama might be over.
When will it be over?
On the twentieth. Spanish Point. He's coming.
You know this character?
I have a passing acquaintance.
You'd recognise him?
I nodded slowly, realising it was far from over.
We'll want you there, he muttered.
I looked from him to Red, wondering why.
What good would my presence do? I asked, knowing the answer already.
We need him identified, Red said.
Been sold a pig in a poke before, muttered Oliver, who had recovered from his fright.
Check into the Spa Hotel, Lisdoonvarna, the tall one said. Three days before. Wait there for word.
Why Lisdoonvarna? I asked. Why not Spanish Point?
Only draw attention to yourself. You've got a wife, haven't you?
And an invalid father.
Perfect. You're taking the waters, if anyone asks.
What waters?
The spa waters, you numbskull. The sulphur waters. The cure. For gout, arthritis, ringworm. Any ailment you can think of.
I watched them leave, three brown figures on wheels, their cigarette smoke curling behind them in the evening air. I paced back and forwards on the promenade and realised I was knee deep in it now. Lisdoonvarna, the Spa Hotel, the sulphur springs, I wondered how I could explain this all to Rose. I looked at the moon, higher now over the rising waters, the scalloped sand being lost under a wash of silver. I imagined those sulphur springs like that tide, creeping slowly over his inert body, and thought why not try it, who knows, it might do him some good. Then I felt ashamed at the thought, justifying this honeycomb of betrayals I'd made through some half-baked hope for him. The tide crept in further as I walked back, the kind of movement you imagine you see, and the water seemed to whisper the tale of its curative powers. But this is sea water, I thought, brine that cures nothing.
I went inside to Rose and saw her wheeling him through the hallway to the kitchen.
Do you think a change might do him good? I asked her, again surprised at how easily the deception came.
How do you mean?
He stared at the moon through the kitchen window.
We could take him on a trip. To Lisdoonvarna.
Have you ever been there? She was smiling now.
No. I heard of the Spa Hotel, the sulphur waters. Something about a cure.
You don't believe in that. You of all people.
Rose, I'm desperate. Or we are. Aren't we?
My father met my mother there. She smiled, abstractedly. They have a matchmaking festival. In September, though.
We need a miracle, don't we? I said. I was beginning to believe it myself.
I left her to think about it, with that smile on her face, the imagined memories of her parents' romance, and walked him towards the station. Would a miracle help? I asked him, as we walked past the bowling green. It was sodden as usual. I stood him under the awning so he could watch whatever trains arrived and went to the telephone kiosk to make my call. I pushed button B when I heard the G-man's voice and asked him to get me Soames. Wait a sec now, he said with that harassed voice of his and I heard a door open and another figure enter and imagined the drab green room, the filing cabinets with the weapons belts hung up inside them. Then the telephone was lifted and I heard Soames's rather feminine tones. I told him what they'd asked me and heard his intake of breath and wondered would he have been lonely without me.
Donal, he said, it is essential you keep this appointment.
I never miss appointments, I said. But for this one I'll need transport.
Take the train to Gort, he said and the bus to Lisdoonvarna. Each name he mispronounced, in that half-English way of his.
No, I said, I have an invalid in my care.
An invalid?
My father. But don't worry. He'll provide excellent cover. We'll dip him in the sulphur springs and pretend to pray for miracles. But I'll need a car.
I heard the intake of breath again and imagined the silent swear, could almost see the pencil jotting down the profit and loss on the notepad.
Meet me tomorrow.
And a full tank of petrol—
Yes, yes—
And expenses for the three of us.
Three?
Rose, my, ah, stepmother.
Meet me tomorrow—
I went to put the phone down.
But Donal—
He was getting altogether too familiar, I thought.
Not here.
Where?
By the gasometer in Ringsend. This is serious expenditure.
These are hardly frivolous times.
Rose, when I came back, had more than thought about it. She was positively ecstatic. She told me of trips to Milltown Malbay when she was a child, her memories of the Cliffs of Moher, of the explosion of white on the whitethorn bushes round the Burren. We've been living in a glasshouse, she said, it will do us good to be away. And who knows, she added, maybe. Maybe what? I asked her. She described a holy well she remembered near Moher, with a row of crutches outside. Someone must have brought them. So someone must have left them. Who knows, maybe something might happen. And what, I asked her, would we do if it did?
We were damned, I knew that, taking the train into Dublin. If he got better we were damned, if he got worse we were doubly damned. Deceit, I realised, had become my element. Betrayal, a kind of destiny. The choices led to nothing but betrayal, and any way out was by way of betrayal. By Sandymount Strand, a row of cormorants raised their wings to the a
ir, like phoenixes. But her excitement, now that I had awakened it, was infectious. The thought that something might happen, anything other than the paralysis that surrounded us. The steam cleared from the platform at Westland Row, exposing a line of newspaper-sellers. I registered dimly some news about the Eastern front. I made my way out to the street, walked down past the church and turned right on Pearse Street, towards Irishtown. I turned left again by the Grand Canal and walked towards the dull silver citadel of the gasometer. As the river came into view behind it, I saw a figure standing there and recognised Soames's brown crombie.
There was a black Ford Prefect behind him.
Do you realise, he said, the lengths I had to go to get this?
I apologised and told him that with my domestic situation public transport was out of the question.
Not only the car, he muttered, but the petrol, what with the shortages and the like.
I told him not to worry, asked him what better cover could there be than an invalid father in a wheelchair. He sighed, nodded and handed me the keys.
And not forgetting the cash, I said, for board, meals and the occasional libation. He looked over the brown waters of the Liffey and took a roll of notes from his pocket.
The Chief, he told me, is most concerned that no untoward incidents occur.
Which Chief would that be? I asked.
De Valera. Neutrality is as you know his Bible and in a sense, the only begetter of all these events.
So it has reached his ears, I mused.
He handed the roll of notes to me. I thanked him, and watched him head towards the river, making a forlorn figure against the giant spiders of the dockland cranes.
When I got home Rose was packing cases and she told me my father had been smiling all day. How do you mean, smiling? I asked her. I mean, she said, that slight upturn of the lips which indicates pleasure. Pleasure at what? I asked her. At the anticipation of a trip, she said, a holiday, a breath of fresh air. The thought of a journey, she said, brings its own anticipation, often more pleasurable than the journey itself. So we should thank our lucky stars. And at dinner that night, over the last of our candles, the rippling shadows did seem to bring a hint of a smile to his face. He sat absolutely still, the fringes of the beard at his lips curling upwards. There seemed to be wisdom in his stillness, a sense of peace, rather than the customary rigid, furious torpor. Could it be that you are happy, father? I asked him rhetorically, as I cleaned up the dishes. I could hear the sound of Rose's piano coming from the inside room. She hit a chord that sounded like a resounding yes. You must remember Lisdoonvarna, I told him, you would have passed through it during the Clare Election in 1917. There is a spa there, sulphur waters which make the blind see and the lame walk. Or at the very least provide some relief from arthritis. And maybe, just maybe, you might be blessed with movement or speech.
His eyes looked to my left-hand shoulder, their vivid blue undiminished by the candlelight. If anything they seemed more piercing, with a calm and untroubled insight into all my subterfuges, so I left him, and walked into the living room.
Rose was playing some Lully. I put my hands on her shoulders and began to massage her back. The notes faltered slightly.
Do you feel, she asked me, the sense of things about to happen?
Yes, I said to her, but the question is what things.
The time when all the notes fall into their place, easily, without apparent effort. Remember how I taught you to will the music out so your hands obey the patterns underneath it?
I remembered and my hands on the back of her neck told her that.
Just let's hope, she said, he keeps smiling.
It could be only in your imagination, Rose.
If it's in mine, she said, it's in yours too.
When I opened out his chair that night his lips had the same mellowness. Pleasant dreams, I said to him as he had said to me when I was a child. She was still playing downstairs when I laid my head on the pillow in my room. I could hear the slight pause when she turned each page of manuscript, and then silence. I heard her footsteps up the stairs and then crossing the landing to my door. I turned and saw her unwinding the long skein of hair which seemed red in the dim light. That was the last of the candles, she said, so we must be going.
We are going, Rose, I said.
You don't know the relief in the thought, she said. And when I saw him smile it made me feel better about it. It's my fault, isn't it, she said, coming towards me.
What, Rose, is your fault?
I needed this house, she said. When I came here first I knew I needed it and it needed me in a way. He asked me to marry him and it had given me so much I had no option but to say yes. Then when you left I realised I had said yes to the wrong thing.
As long as you didn't say no, I said.
I took the hand that was hanging over me and drew her down to the bed. I traced my fingers down the freckles below her neckbone and she arched her head back, straining with the pleasure.
The thought that he might get better makes it easier, but if he did get better it might be worse again. So I'll be happy with the thought, she said. What do you think?
I told her that every move I made was a betrayal of something, and that even the attempt to end the betrayal was a betrayal again.
That sounds like hell, she said.
Maybe it is, I said.
So are we in hell then? she asked me and crawled in beside me, her body so warm it almost hurt.
We are taking a trip, I told her, going on a journey. That's all. And that seemed to calm her. I felt her arms around my waist, heard her breathing soften and she told me once more of the road with the snowdrops on either side, stretching through the low stone landscapes and the well with the row of crutches outside it.
The next morning I got up early and pulled the back seat out of the Ford Prefect and measured what space there was inside. I went back into the house and while he still slept, measured the distance between the wheels of his chair. I carried him out then, gingerly, so as not to wake him, and levered his chair into the space where the back seat had been. And he fitted, to my pleasure and surprise. To his surprise too, I realised when I walked round the other side and saw his eyes slowly wakening, his breath steaming the glass of the car window. I rolled down the window and waved to him. The eyes stared out at the promenade behind me. I wondered did he remember the black limousine that collected him each day when he worked for the Free State government.
We're going for a drive, father, I said. A trial run, to test this new arrangement. I got into the front seat, turned the key and as the engine coughed to life, watched the slight vibrations that shook his body. I drove slowly, out the promenade road, watching through the rearview mirror his reaction as I hit each pothole. He seemed untroubled, staring at the row of seafront houses that went past. I stopped at the railway cottages beneath the Head and told the boy to mind the boats for the next week or so, peeled some notes from the roll Soames had given me, to tide him over. I drove back then, with father's gaze now firmly set to the sea. The landscape I had walked him down so often went flashing by with twice the speed. When I reached the house, he was staring out through the open window at the Head, with that secret hint of a smile on his face once more.
Rose had her flower-patterned dress on and was packing a hamper. He enjoys it, I told her. What? she asked. Motorised transport, I said. It makes him smile. She smiled too, and followed me to the door when I carried out the cases. She stood there, flowers all over, hamper in one hand, looking at him, rigid in his seat within a seat in the back of the Ford and a gust of wind lifted her dress, making a taut umbrella round her legs. She laughed, didn't seem to care and pulled the door closed behind her. She walked forwards and the wind gusted again, weaving her dress round the hamper. Don't look, she said. Can't help it, I told her. Neither can he.
So we drove. Through the city with its brown fringes of early morning smoke, sleeping in its unnatural peace, along the Liffey, out by the Strawbe
rry Beds, Chapelizod, Leixlip, Lucan. We halted by the canal gate at Kilcock to give him breakfast. Rose laid out a linen by the green canal bank, while I turned the car so he could face us. I opened the door, sat on the running-board by the front seat and wondered could he appreciate the picture she made: the white linen cloth on the green, the roses around her waist and behind her head the falling waters of the break. I fed him a sandwich, brushed the crumbs from his lapels and saw his blue eyes staring at a point behind her. A swan rose then, from the depths of the lock, an explosive snake of white. I saw his eyes follow it upwards till it got lost in the trees beyond.
The midlands shimmered in the midday sun, cattle stood motionless in the shade of trees; there seemed to be nobody about. The country slept in its cocoon, unchanged and unchangeable. Outside Athlone a wedding party passed us on a hayrick; near Ballinasloe a lorryful of soldiers trundled by. Rose hummed as I drove, snatches of melodies I knew from years of lessons, like an overture to her whole absent repertoire. I kept an eye on him in the back through the rearview mirror, his head jerking with each bump, his eyes turning with each new sight. We stopped at Kilreekill and finished the remains of Rose's sandwiches in the grounds of a gaunt limestone church. Then the light was falling, the evening sun slanted low over the Galway fields, silhouetting the jagged stone walls. We reached the Atlantic, set in swathes of limestone, and turned left along its coast through towns I'd heard him speak of: Kinvara, Ballyvaughan, Doonyvarden and when the light was fading, I stopped in the middle of what was like a stone desert. Why are you stopping? Rose asked. I want him to see it before the light goes, I told her. He campaigned here with De Valera in 1917.
