Irish Above All

by Mary Pat Kelly

  “It is a beautiful place,” I said.

  “The Fitzgeralds had taste. A classy bunch.” And I thought to myself that I must write a note to young John Fitzgerald Kennedy, remind him that the grandfather he was named for connected him to a heritage more profound than Honey Fitz singing “Sweet Adeline.” Jack would like Silken Thomas.

  “And now what do I do with you,” Cyril said. “I suppose I always expected you to appear some time full of questions and queries since you never were able to let sleeping dogs lie.”

  “If you mean exposing the lies you told me and everyone else about Peter Keeley—” I began.

  “Would you ever keep your voice down. These marble floors are whores for echoes.” I noticed that two men in uniform had entered the lobby and were looking over at us.

  “Come along,” he said. “Nobody in the Members’ Dining Room this early. I take my break at eleven o’clock anyway. How about a cup of tea and a scone to go with the story.”

  “Story? I’m not here for a story. I want answers. First of all is Peter Keeley alive?”

  “As to that I couldn’t say. And I ask you to please modulate your tone. Come on.”

  “I’d prefer coffee,” I said after Cyril had settled us down in a corner of the wood-paneled room that had once been the scene of fancy dinner parties. Had the Royal Dublin Society met here to plan their horse show? A teapot and a plate of scones had been set in front of us by an older woman in a black skirt and white blouse who’d smiled but said nothing.

  “Coffee? We haven’t been infected that way yet. But I believe they serve the stuff at Bewley’s on Grafton Street. For some reason Quakers like coffee. But here.” He poured the tea into my cup. “Put plenty of sugar and milk in there. Helps with the shock.”

  “Tell me right now.”

  “Hold on, Nora. Hold on. Take a good drink and bite off a chunk of that scone. You look like you could use something.”

  All I’d eaten since yesterday were the sandwiches Maura made for me to take on the train. The scone did taste good. I tried to take dismissive bites but ended up chomping the whole thing down. Cyril picked up another scone and set it on my plate. I ate the second one more slowly. Drank half the tea, took a breath, and said, “First of all, you stood in my apartment in Paris and lied to me when you told me Peter Keeley was dead. You broke my heart, destroyed my soul, all for nothing.”

  “I saved you, Nora, and the professor too.”

  “Bullshit.”

  “Whisht, whisht,” he said. “The ladies will be setting up for lunch soon and they’re very proper altogether.”

  I leaned toward him. “You tell me what happened or I’ll grab you by the lapels of that uniform of yours and shake it out of you.”

  “Dear God, Nora Kelly, you must be over sixty years of age and still giving in to the fiery temperament. Just listen to me. Obviously you know some of the—”

  “Mother Columba told me you brought Peter to the abbey and he was alive.”

  “Barely. The bullet had gone right through him but it hit an artery and he was losing so much blood there seemed little hope. Still he was luckier than the young lad who shot him. He died on the spot.”

  “And Peter … Peter killed him?”

  “Not deliberately, as I said to the professor more times than I can count. After the boy fired, the professor went to grab the gun. I don’t think he even realized that he was wounded. Now I think there is a good chance the lad turned the gun on himself but the professor was convinced that he had forced the trigger down. The bullet went right to the boy’s heart.”

  “But surely Peter acted in self-defense.”

  “As I told him, but remember he knew the gunman. Young McCarthy was one of his own students. A boy he liked.”

  “Yes, I knew him too. A good kid but passionate about politics.”

  “And devoted to Mick Collins. Though why he decided to take it out on the professor … Well I suppose he was an easy target.”

  “Because he could,” I said. “He knew Peter would welcome him.”

  Getting closer to lunchtime because the woman who’d served us had been joined by three other waitresses who were setting the tables with silver and china. Maybe the mark of a successful revolution is a certain level of comfort. More of the members of the Dáil and Seanad were walking in, chatting, laughing. These fellows had taken up arms against the most powerful empire in the world and beaten it. I’d heard Michael Collins himself say that when the British offered a ceasefire in 1922, the IRA had run out of ammunition. Never more than a few thousand fighters on the Irish side, pitted against thirty thousand British soldiers in Ireland, plus the brutal Black and Tans.

  I watched as the politicians, former fighters many of them, pulled out chairs, and settled down at the tables. A confident, well-fed bunch.

  “Let the dead bury the dead, Nora,” Cyril said.

  “Except Peter Keeley may not be dead.”

  There, I’d said it.

  “You’re jumping to conclusions, Nora. I haven’t said that. One thing is sure, young McCarthy is gone. I was one of the men drove his body down to Cork. Left it at the door of his family’s house. But did the deed with respect. Put him on a board, covered him with a woven blanket, washed the blood from his face, left him looking just as he should for his poor mother. Pinned a note to his jacket saying he’d been a civilian casualty caught in a gun battle between the Free State Army and the IRA.”

  “And his family believed that?”

  He shook his head no.

  “The problem was that his father was an important man. Not a politician himself but one of those boys in the know, calling the shots, choosing candidates.”

  “Pat Nash,” I said.

  “That wasn’t his name. I told you he was called McCarthy. Lots of McCarthys in Cork and I’m not about to tell you which one he was, but he was determined to avenge his son and it didn’t take him long to track down the boy’s movements. Came to Connemara and put out the word that there was money available to anyone with information. Well, Nora, I don’t need to lay out chapter and verse. Ireland’s curse is the informer. The father discovered that Professor Keeley had killed his son, and the informer didn’t bother to mention self-defense. But he did have the good sense to tell him the professor was dead. Soon after that the Civil War was over. We all kissed and made up. But Mr. McCarthy went to Dev himself, who had his own gaggle of spies. We had to get the professor out of the country. Couldn’t send him to England because the British would have arrested him. I’m not saying where he went.”

  “Was it Rome?” I asked him.

  What had Father Leonard said about the Irish scholar at the Vatican Library? Suddenly I was sure Peter had landed in the library.

  “What are you quizzing me for if you know? I’m not saying I agree with you.”

  “Goddamn it, Cyril.”

  “Language, Nora. You’re in the seat of the Irish government. And as Dev has made it clear we are a very moral and Catholic country. But the good thing about the Church is there are always some priests who don’t care to take orders from a man who couldn’t take orders himself if you get my meaning.” He laughed. “Your professor should have gone ahead and become a priest when he was young. Saved himself a lot of trouble.”

  “So that’s what I was? A lot of trouble?”

  “Women complicate things,” Cyril said. “I had me ma and she was enough for me.”

  Now the dining room had filled up and our waitress came over. “Better skedaddle, Cyril, before somebody objects to the lower orders invading the place,” she said and pointed. And there were a few heads turned in our direction. Still some upstairs downstairs divisions, I guessed.

  “Back to work,” Cyril said to me, standing up.

  “What? But you haven’t told me if Peter is alive.”

  “You weren’t listening, Nora. I told you I didn’t know.”

  “But surely you were in touch with him.”

  “Why? He got out of the countr
y with a clean pair of heels. My part was done.”

  “But that was more than twenty years ago. At least tell me if he died in Rome.”

  But Cyril took my coat from the back of my chair and started walking out of the dining room with me following behind him.

  “Dear God, is that Nora Kelly?” a voice said. I turned. Seán MacBride. “Lunching with Cyril Peterson are you?” MacBride said. “No better man.”

  “Just having a cup of tea, Seán,” Cyril said.

  “Don’t apologize to me. I’m not a member either. At least not yet. You wouldn’t know this, Nora, but I’ve started my own political party. In fact I could use some advice from your mayor. Ed Kelly seems quite a vote getter. Dev still talks fondly of Chicago. Collected more money there than any place else in America.”

  He looked over my shoulder. “So where’s the rest of your delegation?”

  “No delegation. Just me. Ed went back to London. They’re all flying home tomorrow.”

  “So, are you catching the night boat?”

  “I’m not leaving ’til I get some answers. You lied to me, Seán. Cyril told me that Peter wasn’t killed.”

  Seán looked at Cyril.

  “I tried to explain to her that those were bad times.”

  “I’m not talking about twenty years ago. I saw Seán three years ago in Derry.”

  “Derry?” Cyril said. “You were stirring up things in the North, Seán?”

  “I was working for the Taoiseach. When I met Nora there she was escorting the First Lady of the United States. Was hardly the time to talk about old mysteries.”

  “Seán, I’ve known you since you were ten years old. Your mother told me that Peter Keeley was lying at the bottom of the sea. Now he may be alive. I have a right to know if my husband—”

  “Husband? Isn’t that a bit fanciful, Nora?” Seán said.

  “We were married in the chapel of the Irish College in Paris. I admit we never had a chance to register our marriage civilly but … Why am I explaining all this to you? You’re the ones owe me.”

  My voice was getting louder.

  “Easy there,” Cyril said and took my arm.

  “Don’t you dare tell me to calm down,” I said. “You’d better come with us, Seán,” I said, “or I’ll start screaming. Don’t think I won’t.”

  Seán took my other arm and waved over his shoulder, as if assuring the other diners that this crazy woman would not disturb their lunch. The two men more or less marched me down the stairs to the lobby and then out to the courtyard.

  “Here, you’d better put your coat on. Donegal tweed. Fur collar. Lovely,” Cyril said, draping it over my shoulders. “There, now you look the part of a rich American lady. Why don’t you just go back into your life and leave well enough alone?”

  “Nora, none of us can afford to look back. When I saw you in Derry I assumed you’d had a husband in Chicago. Children even,” Sean said.

  “You assumed wrong, Seán,” I said.

  He went on not paying a bit of attention to me.

  “I have a suggestion. I can arrange a flight for you to London now. Meet the rest of your delegation and fly back with them to Chicago this evening.”

  “Where is de Valera’s office? I’ll go and pound on his door and don’t think I won’t. Surely he knows something.”

  “Alright,” Seán said. “I’ll take you to my mother. I’d like you to meet my wife and children anyway. I’ve become respectable, Nora. A family man. A solicitor.”

  “Pull the other one, Seán,” Cyril said.

  “What the hell do you mean? If you’re passing gossip on about me, you’ll regret it,” Seán said to Cyril.

  “Jesus, Seán, I just meant you’re still defending the rebels. Your private life is your own business and I can well see how it would be handy to have your secretary living in your house, if your wife doesn’t mind. And why not add that French girl? After all you need a translator I suppose.”

  “That’s enough from you, Cyril,” Seán said.

  Seán turned to me.

  “I’ll drive you out to Roebuck House. You can have lunch with Madam and I’ll pick you up at two. Fly to London then onto Amerikay. For the best.”

  “Not until I get some answers,” I said.

  “My mother knows quite a bit. She always has,” Seán said.

  Maud’s relationship with her son and daughter, Iseult, had never been easy and so I wasn’t surprised when Seán dropped me off in front of the big red house outside of Dublin and drove away.

  14

  “When you are old and grey and full of sleep and nodding by the fire,” Yeats had written about Maud Gonne, imagining her sitting alone, her face furrowed but still beautiful, finally able to appreciate the devotion of the man who’d loved her not, as so many others had, for her golden hair but for her pilgrim soul. She would be at rest longing for him. But now Yeats was dead and rather than being full of sleep, Maud seemed to be overseeing, well …

  “A mad house,” she said, as we walked through the entry hall of Roebuck House. Maud’s household had always been full of people coming and going. But whether in Paris, the villa in Normandy, or the house in Stephen’s Green she’d always managed to live in the best neighborhoods. And now here she was in Dublin’s most expensive suburb with this mansion on an acre of land.

  “Quite a house,” I said.

  “It belonged to John MacBride. Though I never did find out where he got the money to buy it. He left it to Seán and there’s room for all of us. Dagda!” she shouted.

  An Irish wolfhound came rushing at us. He was huge, barking his head off, with a gray shaggy coat and hair coming down over his eyes. He’s going to knock me down, I thought. I’ll hit my head on the slate floor and that will be that. Maud was still a tall woman but thin and frail. She reached for the dog’s collar, but I knew there was no chance she could hold him. I turned.

  “Don’t show fear,” she said. “Tiernan,” she shouted. “Come and get the dog.”

  The boy who ran into the hall could only have been Seán MacBride’s son. He had the same dark hair and eyes and Maud’s high cheekbones. He tackled the dog, holding him around the neck.

  “Sit,” he said. “Sit.” And the big wolfhound obeyed.

  “Now take Dagda out to the garden, please, and come in and join us for lunch, so you can get to know Nora,” Maud said and turned to me.

  “Tiernan is fifteen and very interested in America. His school is on holidays now and he’s using his time to do research on your country, he told me.”

  “I’m happy to meet you,” Tiernan said, “but I can’t stay for lunch, Madam. I’m going to the cinema this afternoon. Mother said I could.”

  “I hope it’s something uplifting,” she said.

  “Well it does have the word ‘tall’ in the title.”

  “Isn’t that one of John Wayne’s? I saw it last year. It’s very inspiring,” I said to Maud. “All about tenants standing up to evil landlords.”

  Maud smiled. “That’s fine. No reason why cinema can’t be artistic and used as a tool to rally the people against injustice. When Alice Milligan, Eithne Carbery, and I toured Donegal during the centenary of 1798, we’d put on performances, entertain the people with patriotic songs. Much better than making political speeches.”

  “Well, this movie is rousing,” I said.

  “A gunfight?” Tiernan asked me.

  “Many of them,” I said.

  “Good,” he said and snapped his fingers.

  The dog followed him out.

  “A very commanding young man,” I said. “He could make his own movies one day.”

  “I am blessed with my grandchildren. See that statue up there?”

  She pointed to a carved wooden figure about three feet tall on the shelf above us.

  “That’s the Blessed Mother,” Maud said. “Iseult’s son, Ian Stuart, has been studying wood carving with the monks at Glenstal Abbey. He’s only nineteen but he’s going to be a great sculptor
. He’ll fill the churches of Ireland with the best of modern art. The girls are clever too. Seán’s daughter, Anna, is like her mother, Catalina. Strange name that. She was born in Argentina of Irish parents. We call her Kid.”

  We had moved from the hallway into a room where a turf fire was burning and two chairs were drawn up on each side of the hearth. But Maud didn’t sit down. She walked to the window and gestured for me to join her. She pointed to a cluster of outbuildings.

  “I set up workshops,” she said. “We made jam, knit sweaters. It gave work to the widows in Dublin. We had to stop during the war. I suppose I should start it up again but…” She turned to me and smiled. “Not sure I have the energy,” she said. Crossed over to the chair and sat down. I took the other chair.

  I knew she was more than ten years older than me. So what age was she? Seventy-five? Eighty? She still wore black as she had since John MacBride had been executed in 1916. Though I’d been in Paris during their bitter divorce.

  “I’m sorry Seán didn’t join us,” Maud said. “But he and Kid, well, the curse continues. Difficult marriages all around.”

  I knew the story of the priest who’d cursed one of her ancestors who’d stolen church land. No Gonne would have a happy marriage.

  “You remember Iseult’s husband?”

  “Oh yes,” I said. I’d been in Dublin when Iseult had run away from Francis Stuart to Maud. “A self-important bully,” I said.

  “Did you know that he worked for the Nazis during the war?” Maud said.

  “I didn’t,” I said.

  “He wrote scripts that were broadcast to Ireland and then had the nerve to send a German spy to my house. A man named Hermann Goertz. Parachuted into the country. Knocked on my door claiming that Hitler was willing to send troops so that we could unite the North and the South. Didn’t mention that the Nazis would then be running the whole country. Well, Iseult fell for him. Hid him in the country but then didn’t she take him shopping at Brown Thomas. He had wads of counterfeit American dollars that had been issued to him. Well, the clerks took one look at the money and they were both arrested. Iseult spent a month in jail. After the war the Americans took custody of Goertz. Killed himself right on the spot standing in front of an American colonel. Iseult was shattered. That girl has never made a wise decision about men in her life.”