An Irish Heart

by C M Blackwood

  “If you are trying to apologise,” I said, “you may as well call it done; for I expect that to actually utter the words might cause you some sort of injury.”

  Much to my surprise, this insult (with as little subtlety as I meant it) set her into a fit of laughter. “Ah, well,” she said, looking over at me. “I hope, though, that you will at least accept the gesture to which I seem to have done such injustice?”

  I nodded curtly.

  “That will do, I suppose.” She rose from the bench, and motioned for me to do the same. “I daresay it wouldn’t be much fun, at present, to head on up to your room. Come on with me, and we’ll while a bit of the time away.”

  We went down the archway of the night prior (then the left, now the right) and through the double-doors outside which I had eavesdropped for a while. Abbaline waved me into a chair, and sat down behind the great desk.

  “So much sorting to do,” she said with a sigh, looking down at the mess of papers spread over the desk. “So much to do – but when can I do it? It seems almost as if I’m the only one who ever does anything! Not that I’m at all belligerent about it, mind you.” A crooked smile, then. “God-knows-how-many men upstairs, minding about nothing but their own business – and whose desk is covered in paperwork? Mine, mine, mine always.” A sad little look, then. “And for what? I ask you – for what?”

  As she was not looking at me, I assumed that she was not asking me.

  “Ah, for everything!” she said, answering her own question. “Someday, someday.”

  Then she looked up, as if remembering that she had an audience to her thoughts. “But tell me, do tell me, Miss O’Brien. I hope you didn’t mind our little excursion too very much? Tyler was right enough, you know, when he said what he said about the fellows upstairs. I’ve been in the thick of them quite long enough to know.” She finally shed her overcoat, and pointed to something which was sticking out of her belt. She untucked her shirt a little, so that I could see the handle of the revolver there.

  “My, my!” I exclaimed. “Always carry that about, do you?”

  “Most certainly.”

  “Ever had to use it, I wonder?”

  “Most certainly,” she repeated, with a mischievous little smile. “But aside from that – you weren’t too bored, I hope? It was meant to be, I’m sure you understand, a little something more than a brandy-soaked tea party.”

  “Oh, I didn’t mind.” I found that the bitter feelings I had been determined to hold against her were quickly dissolving; and that, for the most part, Abbaline’s company was something less than objectionable. “Better than spending the day alone in that room, I expect. At least it helped to turn my mind from things.”

  “Is your mind particularly full at the moment?”

  I tried to smile. “You could say that.”

  “It must have been hard for you, seeing all those people dead.”

  But I did not want to talk about that. So I said:

  “If you don’t mind me asking – who are you exactly?”

  She tilted her head to one side; but then said, “Ah, I see! You’re quite unaware of what you’re even doing here, I expect.”

  I only nodded, and afterwards Abbaline’s face grew very thoughtful. “First I will tell you why Tyler brought you here,” she said. “He and I have worked together for some years, you know – not always to the greatest results, but together nonetheless. He goes about, and finds things out for me, you see; something of a little information-gatherer, he is. And me, oh me! Well, I suppose that I’m nothing, really, but a glorified assistant.”

  She said all this (especially the last bit) very bitterly. I was not sure if I should ask; but my curiosity had been whetted, and I had no real control over the matter.

  “Assistant to whom?”

  “The people who matter. The people who do things; the people who go places. The people whose names you actually read in the paper.”

  “You’re involved in – in, er – politics?”

  “Involved! They’ve taken control of my life, I’ll have you know. More than the little people I do, and quite as much as some of the bigger ones – but does anyone ever thank me? Does anyone ever say, ‘Oh, well, Abbaline – that’s quite a job you’ve done there! I do say, it might just be because of you that all of this works out just right!’ ”

  She frowned miserably.

  “And Tyler works with you?” I asked, still not quite understanding.

  “Didn’t I already say that?”

  “A Brit turned tail in Ireland?”

  She smiled a little at that. “I suppose it is a little strange, when you think about it. He wouldn’t do any of it, though – and I don’t know if he’d tell you this – if it wasn’t for me. I met him in England, and he came back to Ireland with me. Everything has been just the same as you see it now, with some elements of difference I’ll allow, for some years now.”

  Abbaline sat looking quite pensive, for quite a while, before she got up from her chair, and went to fiddle about in a mess of bottles on a small table near the bookcase. “Drink?” she inquired over her shoulder.

  “Why not?”

  A few minutes later, I was situated comfortably on the narrow sofa – shoes off, feet up, drink in hand. When I went to take another sip, I was surprised to find that it was already gone.

  “How about another?” Abbaline asked, taking my glass.

  When she returned, I saw that she had brought the bottle back with her.

  “I thought you said that you had sorting to do?”

  She waved a hand at me. “I’ll get to it. Right now I want to relax.”

  I nodded towards the bottle. “That should help.”

  “I guarantee it.”

  We sat quietly for a while, alternating between small sips and long swallows, pausing every so often to refill our glasses. After about half an hour, the room began to swirl about in a disturbing fashion – so I set my glass down and sat back, figuring that it would not do to allow the swirling to escalate to spinning.

  “So, Kate,” said Abbaline, forgetting in the haze of gin that she had never yet addressed me by my Christian name. She looked down into her own drink, as though the transparent liquid held some kind of secret that might eventually be presented through the bottom of the glass, if she would only wait long enough. She pressed a hand to the place where her gun was tucked, and asked me, “Have you ever killed a man?”

  I choked on my own spit, which had grown somewhat thick due to all the drinking, and said quite as indignantly as I could manage:

  “Excuse me?”

  “Have you ever killed anyone?”

  “What’s that to do with anything?”

  “Quite a lot, you know.”

  “Well – no, then.”

  She looked very carefully into my face, and a moment later announced:

  “You’re lying.”

  “I’m not!”

  She sat back in her chair. “All right, all right,” she said, pouring herself a little more from the bottle – which she emptied all but a drop, and looked upon rather sorrowfully. “You don’t have to answer; and I won’t say that you lied.”

  “I didn’t lie.”

  A toss of the hand. “All right, all right.”

  She finished off what was left in her glass, while I brooded in a darkish manner with my eyes turned towards the floor, and my arms crossed tightly over my chest.

  “Kate?” said Abbaline; this time somewhat more delicately.

  “Abbaline.”

  “Are you feeling any better?”

  “Was I not feeling well?”

  She waved one hand at me, and brandished the empty bottle in the other. “Now, now,” she said, “none of that. Honesty is the grandest policy, you know, or so they say.”

  “So it would seem.”

  “So how about it?”

  “How about what?”

  “Are you feeling any better?”

  “Oh, yes. Quite.”

  She arc
hed one eyebrow, quite skilfully if I might have said so. “I mean it, now,” she said. “Be honest.”

  Whatever effects the gin may have had, they seemed to have all but worn off as I said, “I’m fine now. I was fine before.”

  “What do you think I am – stupid?”

  “Of course I don’t.”

  “Then don’t insult my intelligence.”

  “I wouldn’t dream of it, Abbaline. But there’s nothing to talk about.”

  “There’s always something to talk about.”

  “Then let’s just say, that I don’t want to talk about it.”

  “Fair enough. But don’t say I never asked you.”

  I smiled, quite sincerely this time.

  “No, I won’t be able to say that.”

  ***

  Upstairs, I fell into bed with a re-visitation of spotting and speckling before my blurry eyes. The room was dark, save for the faint light from the streetlamps that shone through the window. Dolly had jumped up on the bed; and I was just about to pass from earth to the nether-realm, when Tyler’s voice struck out across the room.

  “What took you?”

  “Excuse me,” I mumbled, “if I did not want to sit alone with a badly-behaved little boy.”

  “I didn’t do anything to you.”

  “You would have – and then I would have had to sock you in the nose.”

  “Well, I would have dared you!”

  I turned to look at him. “How about telling me now,” I said, “why you have acted all this evening as a boy of four years?”

  He sighed. “Oh, I don’t know. I just don’t know what I expect, really.”

  “About what?”

  “About Abbaline,” he said unhappily.

  “Why expect anything?” I asked. “When it comes to something like that, you shouldn’t have to expect anything. It is what it is, and it will be what it will be – do you see what I mean?”

  “I suppose so,” he said seriously. “But she always seems so angry with me! What do I do about that?”

  I flung my hands up in the air. “Goodness knows I can’t help you with that one. Like I said, it will turn out the way it turns out.” I looked into his face, and saw something surprising there. “If you love her so much,” I went on, “why don’t you just tell her so?”

  “What do you mean? She knows.”

  “Did you tell her?”

  “Of course I – well, I’m sure I – of course she . . .”

  “Stop blathering on, will you? I think it’s all really rather obvious, you know.”

  He put on a sulking face. “Well, what do you know?”

  “You asked me!”

  “Oh – I suppose I did.”

  “You see why I didn’t want to sit with you, you great big brute?”

  He smiled hangdoggedly, and came to jump upon my bed, as if he were already sure that I would forgive him. He leant against the wall, lit a cigarette, and let Dolly lay across his feet.

  He patted my hand and said, “I’m sorry if I’m such a great big brute. But you know that I don’t mean it, don’t you?”

  “If you say so.”

  “I know it’s been hard for you,” he said, his voice very earnest again. “I understand, really I do.”

  “Do you.”

  “Yes, I do.” He looked down at his hands, busying himself with a spot of some black something on his left palm. “Did I ever tell you about my father?”

  “No,” I said, looking up at the side of his face. He stared straight down, obviously unwilling to meet my eyes as he spoke. He started off quite emotionlessly, as if recounting a tale which he had no stake in.

  “He was a good man, my father,” he said. “He worked in London, in a shoe shop. My great-grandfather had owned that blasted shop. Anyway, and this is the main point, Father was killed one day by some soldiers – our own soldiers, might I add – who decided that they wanted some new shoes. Some free shoes, don’t you know. But no, no no – not my father. He wasn’t about to let them take whatever they wanted. No, not him.”

  He took a breath; then went on:

  “He died for a room full of leather. I’ll never understand it – but I suppose that I respect him, you know, for standing up for himself. It was all rather useless, of course; for after they had killed him, the brigade wiped out the store. There wasn’t a shoe left in the place.” He looked up, making me a tearful smile now. “I suppose that some of them must have compromised on the sizes.”

  I took up his big, knotted hand in my own; and looked down at it for a moment, thinking it the very image of strength. But there he sat beside me, crying just a little, and pressing my hand gratefully.

  “I’m sorry about your father,” I said uselessly.

  He waved his free hand. “Oh, never mind all that. I just wanted you to understand, that I understand how you feel.”

  “Well, I understand.”

  “I’m glad.”

  “Did I ever tell you about my father?”

  “No. Has he passed away?”

  “Yes,” I said slowly; and it was all I could do to check my tongue, and keep that other nasty thing (that story which was best left to itself) from fluttering out of my mouth.

  “I’m sorry,” said Tyler.

  “I’m not.”

  He frowned.

  “My da was probably one of the worst fathers that anyone ever had,” I said. “He got everything that came to him, if it’s my place to judge. It probably isn’t, but I leave my statement intact.”

  “Was he so bad?”

  “He certainly was. I’ll have been two years gone in the fall – and still I despise him.”

  “Did you live with Thea all that time?”

  I nodded.

  “Well, tell me about your old man.”

  “I haven’t talked about him in a long time. It would be fair to say, that I forget about him quite often – sometimes for months at a time.” Tyler had let go of my hand, and I used it to pull at a piece of upbraided skin beside one of my fingernails. “But I always seem to remember.”

  “What is it that you remember about him?”

  “Oh, I don’t know. Little things. The way he used to smell when he’d walk through the door late at night – stale and smoky, same as the pub in town. The way he used to scream at me when I forgot my chores. The way he hit me when I did them all wrong.”

  Tyler’s jaw dropped. “I’ll tell you something,” he said. “If the fellow was still alive, I’d hunt him down and pummel him with my bare hands, and then slit his throat with a cooking knife.”

  “That’s sweet, Tyler, thank you.”

  He smiled.

  “It’s nice having you here with me,” I said.

  He lowered his head. “I know that you’d rather have Thea,” he said softly, “but at least you have someone.”

  “I couldn’t ask for anyone better.”

  “Ah, of course you couldn’t!”

  I laughed; and then caught hold of a bit of irony which was flitting through my brain.

  “Do you know what?” I said.

  “What’s that?” asked Tyler.

  “My father sold shoes, too.”

  Chapter 25

  Darkness is a very strange thing, you know. People will tell you, when you are still quite little, that there is nothing in the darkness which is not there in the light. Even while you are still quite little, you cannot help but doubt this; but it is when you are quite grown, and when there is no one around to tell you things but your own self, that you fully recognise it for what it is: a complete and terrible lie.

  Say, for instance, you walk into a sunlit room at high noon, and see a man sitting in a chair by the window. He speaks to you; but as you listen to his voice, you see also the movement of his lips, and are fully aware whence the sound has come. Even if this particular man has a somewhat dubious, somewhat disreputable look about him, you are not frightened – because the sun is shining, and you can see him.

  Now say, for instan
ce, that it is full night in the world beyond your surrounding walls, and that you have walked into the same room as was mentioned above. Consider that there is not a spark of light to be seen (for your nocturnal roommate has put a thick blanket up over the window), and that you have been made somewhat disoriented, upon entering, by the thick blackness. But you close the door behind you, because you are exhausted, and because there are lights and voices out in the corridor that would disturb the sleep for which you have come in the first place.

  The darkness weighs heavily on your eyes; but it matters not, because you are about to close them, anyway. You sit down on your bed to kick off your boots, and then stretch out so as to remove the hard knots of the day from your body. You have just fluffed your pillow up under your head, and have drifted away to that place of complete peace and serenity, where there is no noise or movement; and it is while you are here, and wobbling back and forth on that narrow ledge between this world and the nether, that the voice finally comes. Very soft it comes, like bare feet across a stretch of carpet.

  You are so very startled at first, that you do not even hear what the voice has said. You simply bolt upright, and huddle against the wall behind you, as you reach for the book of matches that lies always on the nightstand, between your bed and the next. Your fingers are trembling so violently, it takes you some seconds to light a match successfully; but when you finally manage it, you are certain that you can see a chair there by the window, which was not there before; and you are certain that you can see a man there, as well, very dark-looking and pale, both at the same time. He offers you, in this brief moment, quite the cruelest smile that you have ever received. It does not falter as he rises slowly from his chair; and then lunges at you with the speed of a great cat.

  You know you should move, you know you should run, but you have quite naturally been struck paralytic. The only thing you can do is scream, and as you do so, your breath snuffs the match. You continue to scream, thinking that the man is still coming for you, and that he will be upon you any moment; but nothing happens. And so, though it seems that you are quite safe after all, and that there is no one come to attack you, your throat is still very hoarse from the screaming; and your heart has beat so fiercely, that your chest is rather sore, and all that space inside it feels as though it has been set afire.