Bridie clenched her fist. “How dare he even ask it of you. Had I known what he was about, I wouldn’t have made him so welcome.”
Emmet reached over and stroked her face. “Bridie, Liam knows very well that I agree with him. A divided Ireland was never what we wanted when we signed up.”
“But you aren’t signed up anymore.”
“Am I not? When the country is divided?”
“We wanted to get out from under British rule. And that’s been achieved. We live in a free country now. You did get what you fought for.”
“We got part of what we wanted, but when part of the country is still under British rule, how can we just rest and leave them to it?”
“They voted. It’s what they want.”
“Bridie, you can’t believe that. It’s what some wanted because they don’t want to lose the power they have, but it certainly isn’t what should have happened. Ireland for Irish men and women. That’s what we want.”
Bridie felt the blood pounding in her temples. “Emmet, don’t get involved. Don’t put everything we have at risk.”
He lay back down and took her hand in his. “I won’t. Don’t worry yourself. It isn’t good for baby Ryan or for you. I’m quite sure we won’t hear from Liam for years again. Nothing will come of it.”
He continued to speak softly of other things and slowly Bridie calmed down. She heard him tell again of the visit to the tearoom with the children. He would do anything to protect them. She fell asleep feeling comforted. He won’t endanger us.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Dublin, October 1930
Emmet and Liam sat upstairs in the snug in the Brian Boru pub. It was Liam’s birthday and Emmet toasted his boyhood friend, clinking his pint of Guinness against Liam’s glass.
“Happy birthday, my friend.”
“Thirty years old. It’s crazy, isn’t it?”
Emmet nodded. “Don’t I know it?”
“You’ve got a lovely family to show for the years, though. What do I have?”
Emmet shrugged. “It’s not too late.”
“Ah, sure, maybe not in years, but in experience it is.”
Emmet nodded. He saw the worn look on Liam’s face. “You need a holiday.”
Liam shook his head and barked a laugh. “Can you see me lying stretched out like a flounder on a beach somewhere?”
Emmet grinned. “No, I can’t.”
“No. I’m working with de Valera and the Fianna Fáil at the moment, but I’m not sure it’s for me.”
“Why not?.”
Liam sighed. “It’s all gone, Emmet. All collapsed. We’ve less than two thousand members now, so I thought I’d give this political route a try.”
“I know how you feel, Liam. People aren’t interested in the old ways any more. It’s politics now and I think Dev’s got the right idea. Without the people on side, what other option is there?”
“We’ve all come around to your way of doing things, Emmet.” Liam laughed. “You were ahead of the times in your approach.”
Emmet heard the bitter sound in Liam’s voice. “Don’t sell yourself short, Liam. We needed your kind of work and mine to get where we are today. We have a proper political party now to represent our position.”
Liam tipped his glass up and drank the rest of his pint down. “I’m not giving up. My Ireland includes all four provinces.”
Emmet nodded. “I agree with you.” He stood. “Ready for another?”
“Go on.”
They stayed until closing and hugged before parting. Emmet gripped Liam’s arms. “Will you not come with me and sleep on the sofa?”
“Not at all. I’m in the mood for a walk and my own bed awaits. I paid good money to rent that kip.”
“Don’t be such a stranger. The children adore you.”
“What about Bridie?”
“Any worries she once had about you are long behind us.”
“I take it she doesn’t know about the time last year when you held a package for me in your garden shed.”
“No, she does not. And as I told you then, I can’t do it again. I can’t risk the young ones finding anything.”
Liam held up his hands. “I know, I know. There’s hardly a need for it these days anyway. I told you; I’m a reformed man. I’m all talk now.”
Emmet smiled. “Tell it to someone else, Liam.”
Liam grinned, tipped his fedora low over one eye and turned to stride off down Phibsborough Road.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Dublin, October 1935
Twelve-year-old Maeve opened the sitting room door and peeked inside. She crept in and picked up the empty cup and saucer from the round table beside her father’s chair. She stood for a moment looking at him to see if he would wake up. She wished he would. He could tell her a story. Sometimes when she listened to him, her heart raced, and she got goosebumps. He told the best stories of kings and queens and myths from Irish history.
She listened to him snore softly and considered what she could do to accidentally waken him.
Emmet was slumped in his overstuffed, worn blue corduroy chair with his legs stretched out towards the fire, the leather of his boots emitting a faint smell that reminded Maeve of a farmyard; the odour not unpleasant as it mingled with the acrid smell of the turf fire, and lingering yeasty aroma of the bread Mam had baked earlier. He was long and thin, stretched out like this. His black curls held threads of grey and were kept under control with brilliantine. A greasy brilliantine mark sat on the cotton antimacassar Mam used to protect the chairs. Even with Da’s hands folded on his stomach, Maeve saw the black blotchy tattoos on his first two fingers and thumb which told of days spent with pens and nibs and bottles of ink.
The room was quiet save for the typical sounds of a 1935 Dublin autumn evening. The clatter of carts on cobblestones and the electric trams on nearby Cabra Road were muffled, which is why, Maeve knew, her father loved to come here for a nap after tea.
Maeve set the cup back down and picked up the fireplace shovel. Metal scraped against stone as she pushed some embers that had fallen to the stone hearth, further back under the iron grate. She straightened up and glanced in the mirror above the fireplace. Her father hadn’t moved. Ah sure, he’s just pretending now. You couldn’t sleep through that noise. She hesitated another moment, moving her focus to the two framed photographs resting on the thin stone slab mantel. One was of her parents on their wedding day and the other was of herself along with her two younger brothers. The photo had been taken a few weeks earlier by a famous photographer as her family crossed O’Connell Bridge. Her long curly hair was blowing in the wind that came off the Liffey and partially obscured her face. Only her wide, watchful eyes were visible while her nose and mouth were masked by her hair, giving her, Maeve fancied, the look of a young female highwayman, ready to cry out ‘stand and deliver’. Beside her the boys grinned, acting the clown.
Maeve turned and sighed as she picked up the cup and saucer again. She was just about to open the door when she heard her mother’s distinctive tread in the hall. Mammy’s hard shoes tic-tacked on the wooden floors and in the next instant the door opened.
Somehow Mammy looked taller than her five foot and seven inches, as she stood framed in the doorway. Maeve had a second to admire the way her treasured tortoise shell clasp held back her fading copper hair, scraping it sleek against her scalp. She had removed her apron which meant she was done with her chores.
Her mother looked startled to see Maeve. “There you are. I wondered where you’d gotten to. You haven’t finished the washing up and the boys are standing by idle waiting for you.”
Maeve heard her father shift in his chair and knew he was well and truly awake now. “I was just getting Da’s teacup.”
“Off you go, then.”
She stepped into the hall and her mother closed the door behind her. Maeve knew it was wrong but she couldn’t help herself. She stood with her ear pressed against the door and smiled when she heard her
mother cough. Making sure he’s awake.
Maeve imagined her father glancing up at the painting of Jesus on the wall. He didn’t seem to realize that he always did that when he felt he needed to muster his patience. She heard him speak.
“Bridie, please let’s not do this again.”
Maeve heard the whoosh of air from the cushion as her mother plunked herself in the matching chair on the other side of the fire. “Don’t put me off again.”
“I’m not putting you off. I just don’t know what there is to discuss.”
“The pension, the bloody pension.”
There was a silence and then her father’s voice dropped, as if he suspected Maeve was just outside the door, listening. “You know how I feel about that. I’m not taking it.” He paused. “It’s thirty pieces of silver. You know that.”
“I don’t know that. What I know is that we need the money.”
Her father didn’t respond and then Maeve heard her mother sigh and make a tsk of impatience with her tongue. “Emmet, I’m not asking you to give up on your dream of a free and united Ireland. I’m only asking you to put your family first.”
Maeve didn’t want to hear any more. This was something private between her parents and she slipped down the hall to the kitchen where her brothers Robert and Malachy were sitting at the table making games with the salt and pepper shakers.
Robert stood up. “Where have you been? We want to go outside but we had to wait to finish the washing-up.”
She frowned at him. “I had to get Daddy’s cup.”
“All this time?”
Maeve ignored his complaints as she thrust her hands into the dishwater. “Ouch.” Maeve snatched her hand out of the water and saw blood seeping from her thumb.
She glared at Robert. “Who put the bread knife in there?”
“Mammy.”
She put the bleeding thumb in her mouth.
Malachy made a gagging sound. “Ugh. Don’t let Daddy see you do that. He’d be sick.”
Maeve pulled the thumb out of her mouth and waved it at her brother. “You’re just like him. You can’t stand the sight of blood any more than he can.”
Malachy turned away, not denying it.
The cut had stopped seeping and Maeve dumped the water down the drain. She wiped down the big Aga cooker and wooden worktop with the damp kitchen rag.
Maeve heard the sitting room door open and her father growl. “I’m going to the pub. There’s nothing more to be said.”
Maeve stepped over to the open kitchen door and looked down the hall where her mother partially obscured her father. Mam moved as if to put her hand on his arm. To stop him.
Maeve felt a lump in her throat as she saw her father step away from her mother, wheeling right to retrieve his jacket and cap from the hook by the front door. He shrugged them on as he walked out.
Maeve scooped her cardigan from the back of a kitchen chair and went out by the back door before her mother came back. She felt the eyes of her brothers on her, so she turned in the open doorway, saw the two boys in their short pants, Robert tall for his ten years of age, and eight-year old Malachy, whose dimpled knees spoke of his indulgence for jam, and smiled at them before closing the door, hoping they wouldn’t say anything right away to her mother.
She made her way through the garden and out through the gate to the laneway where she ran down to the end and left to catch up with her father. She was at the junction before him. He must have stopped to adjust his cap in the outside alcove of their red brick terrace house. Maeve stood still and watched him walk towards her. His hands were stuffed in his pockets and he walked slowly, his eyes lowered. He appeared to be deep in thought, so he didn’t see Maeve until he was almost beside her.
“Da.”
Emmet started, looking up. “Jaysus. Where did you appear from?”
She tucked her hand in the crook of his arm. “What are you and Mam rowing about?”
He slanted his eyes at her. “Nothing you need to concern yourself with, madam.”
She persisted. “It’s to do with your time in the Irish Republican Brotherhood isn’t it? She should be proud of you and not harass you.”
He pulled his hands from his pockets and gave her a quick hug. “Now, Maeve. You know that we very rarely disagree, your Mam and I. This time we just have a different opinion.”
Maeve frowned. “You fought in the Irish Rebellion and were a hero. People shouldn’t argue with you.”
He took her hand and they walked on in the cool evening air. “Ahh, Maeve, I wasn’t a hero. I just tried to do my bit. It’s too complicated to explain it all to you now, but one day I will. You’re too young right now.”
Maeve persisted. “Tell me just a little about what it was like.”
Emmet gave a ghost of a smile. “It was like nothing else. The comrades I made; knowing we were all in it together. It was a grand and glorious time.”
Maeve glanced at her father’s face and could see that faraway look he got when he was remembering the past, so she walked by his side quietly, satisfied for the moment to walk together in silence. When he was ready, she knew he would tell her. He was like a history book, only better.
“Tell me a story about an Irish warrior woman, then.”
“Ahh. Well, let me tell you about Muirisc. She was a great beauty and among other things was a sea captain.”
They walked in the Dublin evening and talked of bold and daring achievements of Irish women. Maeve saw her father’s shoulders drop and felt the tension in his arm against her linked arm relax, and she smiled to know of her own power.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Dublin, June 1936
Thirteen-year-old Maeve was mesmerized by Uncle Liam. She knew that technically he wasn’t an uncle but he was Daddy’s boyhood pal and so they were to call him Uncle as a sign of respect. She had real uncles including Michael who was Daddy’s brother. Then there was Great-Uncle John who was very old, maybe fifty or sixty at least. Great Uncle John had somehow saved Daddy once, according to Nana, but Maeve wasn’t sure what that meant. She had made up various versions to tell her brothers, but they were all just from her own imagination. When she had asked her Nana to explain, Grandpa had frowned. and Nana had said it wasn’t important.
Uncle Liam was staying overnight and Maeve was being very quiet sitting on the top step, listening to the talk that floated up to her. She heard Mammy try to hush them a couple of times, but the whiskey made them talk louder. Even Mammy seemed to give up after a while and Maeve heard her voice go up in pitch when she joined in the conversation, which Maeve understood meant she was a bit giddy.
Maeve couldn’t really make out the details of what they were saying. She just loved the sound of Uncle Liam’s voice. Although he and Daddy came from the same place, Uncle Liam had developed a slightly northern accent.
She heard his raised voice now. “Even Dev’s Fianna Fáil are letting us down now. He’s banned the IRA, Emmet.”
Maeve heard his voice grow even louder as he repeated his last words. “Banned us.”
The voices grew quiet again and Maeve knew her mother must have shushed him. Maeve strained to hear what was happening now when the sitting room door was suddenly thrown open. Her eyes widened as Uncle Liam stepped into the hallway on his way to the toilet. His face lifted, and he pinned her with his gaze.
He grinned and lifted a finger to his lips. Maeve smiled. He wouldn’t give her away.
When Liam came back, he winked at her and went back into the sitting room, leaving the door open.
Maeve heard him clearly when he mentioned her. “Emmet, did you tell me that Maeve is a lovely singer?”
Her Daddy’s voice was proud. “She sings like an angel. You should hear her. We should have asked her for a song before she went to bed.”
Uncle Liam’s voice held laughter when he responded. “Perhaps she’s still awake.”
Maeve heard her mother. “Emmet Ryan, don’t you wake the children. The stories you two told at sup
per were enough to get them up to high doh. I don’t want them kept awake half the night.”
Uncle Liam stepped back into the hall. “Ah, look who’s awake. Come down and give us a song, girl.”
Maeve saw her mother poke her head out the door. “Maeve Katherine. What are you doing up?”
Maeve stood, watching her mother’s face. “I only just woke, Mammy. I wanted a glass of water.”
Her mother’s eyes were disbelieving, but not angry. “Well, seeing as you’re awake anyway, come in and give your Uncle Liam a song.”
Maeve bounced down the steps, buttoning up her favourite green cardigan she had pulled over her long white nightdress when she came out to sit on the steps.
Maeve took a place in the centre of the room. She sang in church and in school and loved the attention. She straightened her shoulders. “What shall I sing, Daddy?”
“How about Foggy Dew?”
Maeve filled her lungs, steadied herself and then let the song flow. In her mind’s eye she followed the images created by the lyrics, blind to her small audience. She surfaced to her surroundings when Uncle Liam swiped his hand across his eyes.
Oh, had they died by Pearse‘s side or fought with Cathal Brugha
Their graves we’d keep where the Fenians sleep, ‘neath the shroud of the foggy dew.
She finished the song, her heart racing.
The three grown-ups applauded, and Maeve felt the flush come to her face.
Uncle Liam shook his head. “Beautiful. Just beautiful. Sing us another.” He turned to Maeve’s mother. “Is that all right?”
Maeve saw the proud smile on her mother’s face, and the nod she gave.
Without asking for suggestions, Maeve took a half step back, so she was turned to face her mother. She had been practising this song for just such an occasion. She had heard it on the wireless at her friend’s house and loved the song.
She began with the opening lines.
There’s a spot in my heart which no colleen may own
there’s a depth in my soul never sounded or known
“Ah, Mother Machree.” Emmet leaned over and took Bridie’s hand in hers.
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