Transgressions

by Ed McBain

  “I’ll remember,” he said with a smile when she told him early in the afternoon. The others were still in the sitting room and she was in the kitchen going through the store cupboard to see what there was.

  “And washing-up liquid,” she added.

  “Of course. Anything else?”

  She straightened up and looked at him. He was still smiling, his slightly lopsided face softened by humour.

  “How long are you going to stay here?” she asked.

  There was a shadow around his eyes. It was the first uncertainty she had seen in him. She did not find it comforting. Suddenly she was aware, with a sharp pain of fear, how volatile the situation was. He did not know the answer. Perhaps he really had expected Connor to step down, and now that he knew he would not, he did not know how to proceed. She felt cold inside.

  “That’s all,” she said without waiting for him to answer. “Except some bread, I suppose. And tea, if you want it.” She moved past him, brushing his arm as she went back to the sitting room.

  Connor was standing looking out of the window, his shoulders stiff. She could imagine the expression on his face by seeing his back. Liam was huddled in the armchair, watching his father. His unhappiness was written in every line of his body. Sean was lounging against the door. Dermot was nowhere to be seen.

  The afternoon wore on in miserable silence, sporadic anger, and then silence again. Dermot returned at last. He looked at his watch. “Half past five,” he observed. “I think we’ll eat at seven, Mrs. O’Malley.” His eyes flickered to Connor and saw the dull flash of anger in his face. A tiny smile touched his mouth. “And you can go to bed at nine, after you’ve done the dishes.”

  The muscle in Connor’s jaw twitched. He was breathing slowly, trying to control himself. Liam stared at him, fear and embarrassment struggling in his eyes. He was mortified to see his father humiliated, and yet he was also deeply afraid that if he showed any courage at all he would be hurt, and then humiliated even more. Bridget found his confusion painful to watch, but she had no idea how to help. Exactly the same fear twisted inside her stomach, making her swallow to keep from being sick.

  “How about a cup of tea?” Dermot went on.

  She moved to obey, and saw his satisfaction.

  “Get your own tea!” Connor said curtly. “Bridget! Don’t wait on them!”

  “I don’t mind,” she told him. “I’ve nothing else to do.”

  “Then do nothing!” He swung around to face her. “I told you not to wait on them. For God’s sake, they’re not so stupid they can’t boil water!”

  She saw Paddy’s expression, and realized with surprise that Connor had spoken to her in exactly the same tone of voice that Dermot had used. Was that deliberate—Dermot mimicking Connor? And she was so accustomed to obeying that she was going to do it automatically.

  Now she was totally undecided. If she obeyed Dermot she would further reduce Connor, and if she did not she might provoke the violence she feared, or at best make him exert his control in some other way.

  They were all watching her, waiting, particularly Liam.

  “Actually I’m going to do the laundry,” she said. “Just because we’re prisoners here doesn’t mean we shouldn’t have clean underwear. If any of you can be bothered to follow me you can, but it’s pretty stupid. You know I’m not going to leave. You’ve got my family here.” And without looking at Paddy or Dermot, she walked out and went to the bedrooms to collect whatever she could find to wash. No one came after her.

  The evening passed slowly, with tension in the air so brittle every time anyone moved suddenly, or made a sound with knife on china, or Liam dropped his fork, they all stiffened, and Sean in the doorway lifted the barrel of his gun.

  Bridget washed the dishes and Liam dried them. They went to bed at nine o’clock, as ordered.

  As soon as the bedroom door was closed Connor turned on Bridget.

  “Why are you obeying them?” he said furiously, his face mottled dark with rage. “How can I make a stand against them if you defy me all the time?”

  “You can’t make a stand against them,” she replied wearily. “They’ve got guns.” She started to undress, hanging her skirt and blouse up in the wardrobe.

  “Don’t turn your back on me when I’m talking to you!” His voice shook.

  She turned around. It was only one full day, not even a night, and already he was losing his mastery of himself, because nothing was in his control. She looked at him steadily, unblinking.

  “We have no choice, Connor. I’m not defying you, I’m just not making them angry when there’s no point. Besides, I’m used to doing what someone else tells me to.”

  “What do you mean by that?”

  She turned back to the wardrobe. “Go to bed.”

  “You don’t care, do you!” he accused. “You think I should give in to them, let them have whatever they want, buy our freedom now by surrendering everything we’ve fought for all our lives!”

  “I know you can’t do that.” She went on undressing, looking out a clean nightgown because she had washed the other one, for something to do. “You haven’t left yourself room. I don’t suppose they have either. That’s the trouble with all of us, we’re hostage to the past we’ve created. Go to bed. Staying up all night isn’t going to help.”

  “You’re a coward, Bridget. I didn’t think I’d ever be ashamed of my own wife.”

  “I don’t suppose you thought about it at all,” she replied. “Not really, not about me, I mean.” She walked past him, putting the nightgown on and climbed into her side of the bed.

  He was silent for several minutes. She heard him taking off his clothes, hanging them up as well, then she felt the bed move a little as he got in.

  “I’ll excuse that, because you’re afraid,” he said at last.

  She did not answer. She was not helping him, and she felt guilty, but it was his intransigence that had made dealing with him impossible. It was a matter of principle, and she knew he could not help it, not now, anyway. He had ordered her around for years, just the way Dermot was ordering him. And it was her fault too, for obeying. She had wanted peace, wanted him happy, not always for his sake but for hers, because he was kinder then, closer to the man she wanted him to be, the man who made her laugh sometimes, who enjoyed the small things, as well as the great, and who loved her. She should have been honest years ago.

  Now she could not even protect Liam from the disillusion that was already beginning to frighten him more deeply than the threat of violence from Dermot or Sean. There was nothing she could do. She slid down a little further, and pretended to be asleep.

  The next day was worse. Tempers were tighter, edges more raw. There was nothing to do, and they were all cramped inside the cottage. Sean, Paddy, and Dermot took turns watching and sleeping. They had nailed the windows closed, so the air was stuffy, and there was no escape except through one of the two doors.

  “What the hell are they waiting for?” Connor demanded when he and Bridget were alone in the bedroom, Sean just beyond the door.

  “I don’t know,” she replied. “I don’t know what can happen. You aren’t going to change, and neither are they.” What was really in her mind was Billy and Ian murdered in front of them and buried somewhere up the hillside, only she did not want to acknowledge it in words. Then she would have to face the consequences of what it meant, and the possibilities it closed off.

  “Then what are they waiting for?” he repeated. “Have they asked somebody for money? Or are they going to keep me here until someone else has taken power?”

  She had not thought of that. It was a relief, because it made sense. “Yes,” she said aloud. “That could be it.” Then doubt came to her again. She had become aware that Dermot was waiting, just small signs, a turning when there was a sound, a half listening attitude, a certain tension in him that was not in Paddy. Sean she saw far less of—in fact she had not watched him at all.

  “You sound pleased,” Connor said.
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  She looked at him. His face was deeply lined, his eyes pink-rimmed as if he had not slept at all. The muscle in his jaw jumped erratically. “I’m not pleased,” she said gently. “I’m just glad you thought of something that makes sense. It’s easier to deal with.”

  “Deal with?”

  “Live with,” she corrected. “I’m going back out, before they come for us.” She left him alone because she did not know what more to say.

  It was the third day when she was standing in the back garden, picking a handful of mint for the potatoes, and staring across the stretch of tussock grass towards the sea, when she was aware of someone behind her.

  “I’m coming,” she said a little tartly. Dermot was irritating her. She had watched him deliberately baiting Connor, ordering him in small, unnecessary things. She swung around, to find Paddy a yard away.

  “No hurry,” he answered, looking beyond her to the water, barely restless in the slight wind, the waves no more than rustling as they turned over on the sand.

  She followed his glance. It had beauty, but she ached for the wilder Atlantic shore with its vast width, the skies that stretched for ever, the wind so hard and clean it blew mares tails of spume off the incoming rollers so that when they crashed on the sand the streamers of foam trailed behind them.

  “I miss the west,” she said impulsively.

  “And of course you can’t go there any more.” His voice was quiet, almost gentle. “It’s a high price we pay, isn’t it?”

  She drew in her breath to challenge him for including himself, then she realized that perhaps he too was bound by choices he had made long ago, things other people expected of him, as Connor had always expected of her.

  “Yes,” she agreed. “Penny by penny, over the years.”

  He said nothing for a little while, just watching the water, as she did.

  “Do you come from the west?” she asked.

  “Yes.” There was regret in his voice.

  She wanted to ask him how he had come to be here, holding Connor at gunpoint, what had happened in his life to change a crusade for his beliefs into this kind of violence, but she did not want to anger him with what was undoubtedly intrusive. Perhaps like her, he had started by wanting to please someone he loved, to live up to their ideas of courage and loyalty, and ended clinging onto the shreds of love, because that was all there was left, hoping for something that honesty would have told him did not exist. She had not wanted to face that. It invalidated too much she had paid for with years of trying, swinging from hope to defeat, and then creating hope again.

  He started to speak, and stopped.

  “What were you going to say?” she asked.

  “I was going to ask you something it’s none of my business to know,” he replied. “And maybe I’d rather not, anyway. I know what you’d say, because you’d be loyal, and perhaps I’d believe you, perhaps not. So maybe it’s better we just stand and look at the water. The tides will come and go, the seabirds will call exactly the same, whatever we do.”

  “He won’t change,” she said.

  “I know. He’s a hard man. His time is past, Bridget. We’ve got to have change. Everyone’s got to yield something.”

  “I know. But we can’t take the hard liners with us. They’ll call him a traitor, and he couldn’t bear that.”

  “Captain going down with the ship?” He had a slight, wry humour in his voice, but a knowledge of tragedy as well.

  “I suppose so,” she agreed.

  A gull wheeled above them, and soared up in the wind. They both watched it.

  She thought of asking him what they were waiting for, but she was not certain that Paddy was waiting, not as Dermot was. Should she warn him, say that Dermot was different, darker? Perhaps he already knew, and it would be disloyal to Connor if she were to say anything to Paddy that could be of help to him. Perhaps she shouldn’t be speaking to him at all, more than was necessary.

  “I must go in,” she said aloud, turning towards the kitchen door.

  He smiled at her, not moving from her path, so she passed almost close enough to brush him. She smelled a faint odour of aftershave, clean cotton from the shirt she had laundered. She forced the thoughts out of her mind and went inside.

  The evening was tedious and miserable. Connor paced back and forth until Dermot lost his temper and told him to stop. Connor glared at him, and kept pacing. Dermot walked over to Liam and lifted the gun, held by the barrel.

  “You don’t need to do that!” Paddy said angrily. “Mr. O’Malley’s going to do as he’s told. He doesn’t have the control of his nerves that Bridget has. He doesn’t take easily to not being master of his fate.”

  The dull red colour rose up Connor’s face, but he did not take his eyes off Dermot, the gun still within striking distance of Liam’s head.

  Liam sat motionless, white with misery, not fear for himself, but embarrassment for his father, and helpless anger that Bridget had been singled out for strange and double-edged praise. His loyalties were torn apart. The world which had been difficult enough had become impossible.

  “I’m going to bed!” Connor said in a voice so hard it rasped on the ear.

  “Good,” Paddy agreed.

  Dermot relaxed.

  Liam stumbled to his feet. “So am I! Dad! Wait for me!”

  Bridget was left alone with Paddy and Dermot. She did not want to stay, but she knew better than to follow Connor yet. He needed time on his own, to compose himself, and to pretend to be asleep when she came. There was nothing she could say to comfort him. He did not want her understanding, he would only take it for pity. He wanted respect, not companionship, honour, loyalty and obedience, not the vulnerability of love.

  She would stay here for at least another hour, saying nothing, making tea for them if they wanted it, fetching and carrying, doing as she was told.

  The morning began the same, but at quarter to ten suddenly Dermot stiffened, and the moment after, Bridget also heard the whine of an engine. Then it cut out. Sean went to the door. Everyone else waited.

  The silence was so heavy the wind in the eaves was audible, and the far cry of seabirds. Then the footsteps came, light and quick on the path. The door opened and Roisin came in. She looked at Bridget, at her father, then at Paddy.

  Paddy beckoned her to follow him, and they went into Liam’s bedroom.

  Dermot started to fidget, playing with the gun in his hand, his eyes moving from Connor to the door, and back again.

  Connor stared at Bridget.

  “I don’t know,” she whispered. “Some kind of a message?”

  “Maybe it’s money . . .” he mouthed the words.

  “Where would she get money?”

  “The party,” Liam was close beside them. “They’d pay for you, Dad. Everybody’d give.”

  Bridget looked at him, he was thin, very young. In the sunlight from the window she could see the down on his cheek. He shaved, but he didn’t really need to. He was desperate to believe that his father was loved, that the party respected him and valued him enough to find whatever money was demanded. She was afraid they would be politically astute enough to see the value of a martyr—three martyrs—four if Roisin were included. Please God she wasn’t! Why had Eamonn sent her, instead of coming himself?

  The door opened and Roisin came out, Paddy on her heels.

  Dermot stared at him, the question in his eyes.

  Connor was so stiff he seemed in danger of losing his balance.

  Paddy faced him. “There’s been a slight change, Mr. O’Malley,” he said softly, his voice a trifle husky. “One of your lieutenants, Michael Adair, has gone over to the moderate camp.”

  “Liar,” Connor said immediately. “Adair would never desert. I know him.”

  Bridget felt her stomach clench inside her. Connor spoke as if to change one’s mind were a personal affront to him. She had felt Adair’s doubt for several months, but Connor never listened to him, he always assumed he knew what he was going to sa
y, and behaved as if he had said it. Almost as he did with her!

  “It’s not desertion, Dad,” Roisin said awkwardly. “It’s what he believes.”

  Connor’s eyebrows rose. “Are you saying it’s true? He’s betrayed us?” His contempt was like a live thing in the air.

  “He has either to betray you or himself,” Roisin told him.

  “Rubbish! You don’t know what you’re talking about, Rosie. I’ve known Adair for twenty years. He believes as I do. If he’s turned his coat it’s for money, or power, or because he’s afraid.”

  Roisin seemed about to say something, then she turned away.

  “Traitor!” Liam said, his pent-up fury breaking out at last. “You’re best without him, Dad. Someone like that’s worth nothing to them, or to us.”

  Connor touched his hand to Liam’s shoulder in the briefest gesture, then he turned to Paddy. “It makes no difference. If you thought it would, then you’re a fool!”

  “Adair carries weight,” Paddy answered. “He represents many. He could still carry most of your party, if you gave him your backing.”

  “My backing?” Connor was incredulous. “A traitor to the cause? A man who would use my imprisonment by you to seize the leadership? He’s a greedy, disloyal coward, and you’d deal with him? You’re an idiot! Give him a chance and he’ll turn on you too.”

  “He’s doing what he believes,” Roisin repeated, but without looking at her father.

  “Of course he is!” Connor spat. “He believes in opportunism, power at any price, even betrayal. That’s so plain only a fool couldn’t see it.”

  Paddy glanced at Bridget, but she knew the denial was in his eyes, and she looked away. Roisin was right. Connor had expected, bullied, ignored argument and difference, until Adair had been silenced. Now in Connor’s absence, and perhaps hearing that he was hostage, he had found the courage to follow his own convictions. But she did not want Paddy even to guess that she knew that. It seemed like one more betrayal.

  Paddy smiled, a funny, lopsided gesture with self-mocking in it as well as humour, and a touch of defiance. “Well, Mr. O’Malley, aren’t there enough fools? But for the sake of argument, what if you were to give Adair your support, written in your own hand, for Roisin here to take back, would that not be the best choice open to you now? All things considered, as it were?”