People here talk and I listen. I don’t speak much even to her. It is part of my role as an observer to project a bland image, but anyway I have little to say. They are noisy like clever children: sly, devious in an obvious way, often parodying themselves and each other. They think highly of their own tricks and imagine that foreigners are perplexed by them. Judging by myself, the foreigners are entertained, but not inclined to join in. The histrionic note is hard for a sober adult to sustain. Do I sound smug?
I see, rereading this, that, by implication, I have described her as a child. I hadn’t thought about it but suppose that I do think this.
Also: I can’t be sure that this sense of having stepped into a theatre hasn’t set off a glandular reaction in me. Here are social norms whose violation resounds on the sensibility. Here is guilt, shock, a tight-assed little world. I excite her greatly, trouble her in her flesh. I give you this as ammunition. You have a right to know. And, yes, I am out of control. As they taught us in parochial school, it was the first step that counted and that I could have avoided. Looking back, it was more of a stumble than a step.
Am I being exhibitionistic? Sorry.
James
*
Patsy Flynn put on his best clothes. They were not very good. His shoes particularly were not good and he saw, looking himself over in the mirror with the borrowed eye of the bouncer in the Shelbourne Hotel, that he might not pass muster and might be asked to leave. Not wanting this to happen, he slipped into the cloakroom of the Grateful Patriots’ Club and collected a gaberdine raincoat which someone had left there and a Belvedere School scarf. He put them on, brushed his hair and surveyed himself again. There was a goatish look to his face and a mad roll to his eye which did not escape his own scrutiny and would probably not please a bouncer, but he counted on its being outweighed by the scarf. Life had punished him, he thought. Life had toughened him and he looked the outsider that he was: a fellow who did not aspire to sit in plushy hotels but was more likely to stand outside them with a one-legged companion, playing some musical instrument, begging and tipping his cap, thanking the plutocratic bastards for their shame and their sixpence. ‘Help an old veteran, sir, fought in the wars.’ Not your bleeding wars but ours, and up yours, which is where I’d like to shove your mangy charity.
However, he walked into the lobby and asked for Mr James Duffy’s room number. Mr Duffy, said the clerk, had just gone into the bar. I’d say you’d catch him, sir, if you hurry. Sir, thought Patsy to himself, sir, begob. It didn’t take much to impress the lackeys, did it? He walked through to the bar and saw that it was populated by men no different from himself. This depressed Patsy Flynn, who had somehow imagined that the sycophantic capitalist class who were misusing the country would bear their guilt with a difference. He had supposed they would look grander and more obviously pampered. There was something unsettling about the discovery that he could pass for one of them. It made him feel that he could, despite himself perhaps, become one, slip cravenly into their ranks and, succumbing to the argument from Original Sin, decide that justice being impossible, inequality inevitable and jungle-law irrevocable, a fellow might as well spend his brief span here beneath chandeliers, swigging twelve-year-old Jameson’s, as struggle for a cause doomed to corruption. What did that make of Patsy’s past? The years in gaol? The proud, lonely refusal to bow the knee? Sent it up in smoke, begob. Yes? No.
The place was full of fancy mirrors and Patsy, giving himself a shifty glare in one, had the impression – distinct, unmanning – that the eye looking back out at him was a shade less honest than the last time he’d seen it and the jaw less set. Jasus, but these places got to you quick. Contamination was the order of the day. Bad apples rotted the good. Luxury subverted. No question but that people living in these sorts of surroundings lost touch. You’d have to forgive them or kill them for they knew not what they did. String ’em up, thought Patsy, and fiddled with the knot of his tie beneath the old Belvedere scarf which was not, of course, his. Up against the wall! He’d have been a different man if his parents had had the spondulicks to send him to Belvedere. Would he though? Might he not have seen the light for himself even in such cossetted surroundings? Another glare at the smokey mirror told him he would not. Probably. Hard to tell. No, he bloody would. You’d have to be deaf and blind to fail to see through the hypocrisy of the crowd running the country today. Wilfully ignorant you’d have to be, thought Patsy, with a renewal of rage and a desire to shout insults to the deaf whisperers around him. They were muttering and tittering into their drinks, keeping their voices low to show their gentility. They’d call the bouncer if he did anything like that and where would that get him? The thought reminded him that he was here for a purpose and he began looking round for Duffy, the American. Paid minions they used. Bouncers, police, the Special Branch, the Heavy Gang who tortured Republicans now as a regular thing. These fine fellows tittering into their ladies’ ears need never give a thought to the like. They delegated dirty work. Forgot about it. That was how they carried on. The right hand censored what the left never knew about. Some of these buggers might have started out with ideals. Their fathers before them might. Yes. Hadn’t the state been founded on a promise to give Ireland back to the working people of Ireland? And to whom had it been given instead? An elite. Look at them. Tossing back the short drinks. Taking to the good life with as much gusto as the Brits ever did. Faces like Patsy’s own. Accents like his own. Buggers who’d climbed over the corpses of their comrades or whose fathers had, then turned into mirror-images of the old oppressors.
‘What can I do for you, sir?’
‘What’s that?’
‘Can I get you a drink?’ asked the barman. ‘Or are you looking for someone perhaps? We could have them paged if you like.’
‘I’ll have a small Jameson,’ said Patsy. ‘I’m looking for a Mr Duffy, a Mr James Duffy, an American.’
The price of the drink was sinful, thought Patsy, counting it out to the minion who scooped up the coins with the deferent caution of a man who has a good job where jobs are scarce.
‘The American gentleman, is it?’ he asked. ‘That’s him over there.’ The lackey flashed Patsy a grin radiant with false consciousness.
Patsy squared his shoulders and bore down on the Yank.
*
‘Mr Duffy?’ The man seated next to James had a face like a russet potato and prawn-pink fingers which he kept unclasping and reclasping around his glass.
‘Yes?’ James could see the waiter eyeing the man from the other end of the bar. Queer customer, said the waiter’s eye. The man had not removed his tweed cap. He smelled.
‘I have a message for you.’
‘You have?’ James smiled to reassure the waiter. The smelly man could be from one of the Republican organizations with which Corny Kinlen had promised to put him in touch.
‘It’s from certain parties,’ said the man in a low, excited voice, ‘who want to issue a warning to you, a foreigner, who may not realize the standards of morality we aim for in this country. They’re being patient on that account. But they’ll only warn you the once.’
‘I see.’ James too was being patient. He was also puzzled.
‘The said parties,’ gabbled the man, ‘do not approve of adultery, consorting with married women or poking your nose into private concerns. They told me to get a message to you which is this: knock it off. I hope you take their meaning. They’re referring to your interest in the old nun and in the wedded wife. Leave the two alone and no harm will come to you. Is that clear?’ The little man spoke breathlessly. ‘I was told to make sure you understood.’
‘Well I don’t,’ said James. ‘Not a word. Are you sure I’m the man you were told to talk to?’
‘Are you James Duffy, a US citizen?’ asked the little man, with nervous formality.
‘Yes.’
‘You are acquainted with Sister Judith Clancy and her niece, Mrs Michael O’Malley?’
‘Yes.’
‘We
ll, you’re to stop seeing them,’ said the man. ‘Pronto. No publishing anything the old one told you and keep your gob shut about this conversation.’
‘Is this a joke?’
‘It’s no joke, Mr Duffy. The people I represent have no time for humour. There’s a war on, though the likes of you may not know it. Do you get it now?’ The voice was suddenly vicious with spite. ‘No publication and keep a tight lip.’
‘Did Corny Kinlen send you?’
‘I don’t know who you’re talking about.’
The small man slid off his bar stool, tossed back the dregs of his whiskey and made for the door.
James came after him. ‘Hey,’ he caught his arm, ‘who are you anyway?’
The man did not blench. ‘I’m only a messenger,’ he said. ‘It’s no good assaulting me.’
‘A messenger from whom?’
The man wrenched his arm free. ‘Use your loaf,’ he said. ‘The Republican Movement.’
*
‘It’s a joke,’ said Grainne. ‘What else could it be? What did you say he looked like? And you just let him go?’
‘Well, I’d have looked silly reporting him to a policeman, wouldn’t I?’ said James. ‘My word against his. It’s not a pleasant joke,’ he remarked, wondering if anyone from her family could be involved. He didn’t like to raise the question. ‘He wore a cloth cap,’ he said, ‘and a football-fan’s scarf. He wasn’t very tall.’
‘Nobody in the movement is tall. I went to a demo once and it was like being among dwarves. They’re undernourished. Except for Owen Roe.’
‘He had a queer smell,’ James remarked, ‘sweetish: a mixture of sweat and eucalyptus. And he had red spots on his cheeks. Like a clown.’
Ha, she thought: Patsy Flynn. He chewed cough-drops all winter and rarely washed for fear of catching cold. Was he working on Owen Roe’s account? Yes, he would be. She felt relief and anger: relief because if Owen Roe had done this it meant he was not about to do worse, and anger at his continuous interference in her life.
‘So you think they’re behind it?’ James asked. ‘The IRA?’
‘Of course not. No. It’s a stupid, disagreeable joke. That’s all. Ignore it.’
‘Shall we?’
‘Yes.’
FIRST TREATY BETWEEN SOUTHERN IRISH AND ENGLISH GOVERNMENTS SINCE 1172 SIGNED ON EQUAL FOOTING * TREATY CONFERS STATUS OF DOMINION ON SOUTHERN IRELAND * NEW FREE STATE TO HAVE FULL FISCAL CONTROL * BRITAIN TO RETAIN NAVAL BASES * BOUNDARY COMMISSION TO DETERMINE FRONTIER IF PROTESTANT NORTH EAST REFUSES TO JOIN FREE STATE * SOVEREIGNTY OF CROWN ACKNOWLEDGED * ALL PRISONERS TO BE RELEASED * RUMOURS DENIED THAT CERTAIN IRA COMMANDANTS PLAN TO ARREST RETURNING IRISH DELEGATES AS TRAITORS * DELEGATES ARGUE TREATY WAS BEST BARGAIN AVAILABLE * DÁIL DIVIDED * MR DE VALERA REJECTS TREATY * MR COLLINS ARGUES FOR REALISM * MR CHILDERS ALLEGES TREATY PLACES IRELAND IRREVOCABLY UNDER BRITISH AUTHORITY * BITTER ABUSE OF DELEGATES BY WOMEN DEPUTIES WHO STAND FIRM ON ROCK OF REPUBLIC AT WHATEVER COST * CHRISTMAS ADJOURNMENT OF DÁIL ÉIREANN *
December. Rain fell like pickets, fencing people in. Fires smouldered and cooled in shaggy embers as hollow as the corpses of winter animals. Peace looked to have firmed up now that the Treaty had been signed in London. Journalists were jubilant. People cheered and laughed with relief. Some wept and others went to their churches to give thanks. Crowds of Irish Catholics had been photographed kneeling on the pavements of London, praying.
Three days later half the Dáil Cabinet repudiated the Treaty.
They did what? Which ministers? Oh. And why so?
The country was in limbo, suddenly unsure what toasts to drink in this pre-Christmas season. Debate raged in every pub, drawing room and kitchen. Peace? War? Compromise? Principle? The swish of hot pokers, plunging into mulled stout, amplified the dazed hiss of toothless pensioners who had nothing to do but wonder what the lads could be up to at all, at all? The leaders were at each others’ throats. What could anyone make of that? And, the divil blast it, were we forever to be giving the world a spectacle of Irishman turning on Irishman? Heh?
Judith’s father had taken on new authority. He’d always said, hadn’t he, that politicians here were amateurs? This clinched it. This put the kibosh on it. By Jay, they should be sent to Boston for a spell of studying ward politics. Maybe they’d learn something. One evening in the front room, when a dreamy young man stood up to recite a poem, the Da told him to shut up outa that. Enough ulagoaning. It was what had us the way we were. The young man didn’t hear. His eyes were glazed. Once or twice he shut them and a cloud of dim hair floated low on his forehead.
‘Oh! there was lightning in my blood,’
he intoned, swaying in time to the rhythm.
‘Red lightning lightened through my blood,
My Dark Rosaleen!’
Rosaleen was Ireland: chronically sorrowing, chronically in need of help.
The Da laughed, mimicking and mocking the youth.
‘All day long in unrest,’
crooned the boy, who might have been shy of saying anything like this in his own words and probably outraged if he’d seen the fat, older man clowning behind him.
‘To and fro do I move
The very soul within my breast
Is wasted for your love.’
Judith wondered whether he had a girl and whether he mixed his patriotism with feeling for her. In the last verses, the softer sentiment disappeared and menace pounded on alone.
‘Oh the Erne shall run red
With redundance of blood.
The earth shall rock beneath our tread,
And flames wrap hill and wood
And gun-peal and slogan-cry
Wake many a glen serene,
Ere you shall fade, ere you shall die,
My Dark Rosaleen.’
By the time he finished, the boy had caught the mockers in his cadences. Rapt, they nodded to his beat and even the Da applauded.
Judith did not want the Treaty to hold. This was wrong of her for war was a means and not an end. To want it to go on was wicked – but she did want it to. She had grown up in the expectation that it would be her adulthood, her confirmation as a person. And now, when she was ready to join in it, it had stopped.
Arguments raged and dissipated. She could not concentrate her mind on the reasons given. Blood-lusting demons were in charge of her waking and sleeping dreams.
They were at work in the country at large as well. The Dáil itself was split into those who accepted the new Free State – ‘Staters’ – and diehard Republicans who could not renounce the dream for which they had been fighting: an All-Ireland Republic independent from the exploitative and haughty old oppressor. For them, the delegates had sold the pass. The Treaty should never have been signed and must not be ratified.
Judith’s brother, Seamus, who was training men against the day when fighting might take up again, said that, for all he knew, he might be teaching lads to shoot who would turn their guns on himself in a few months’ time. The army itself could split, he warned. There were blowhards in it and mad idealists who had fought their war with a gun in one hand and rosary beads in the other, and no authority over them but their local commandant and God. The Irish people, said Seamus, would take a while understanding the contradiction between those two weapons. Religion promised everything later on and somewhere else. Politics aimed at getting something now. But try explaining about politics to the tearaways! Throughout the fighting they’d had little back-up from headquarters, and discipline was a thing whereof they had no conception.
None. He was destroyed trying to instil sense into them. Moonstruck men, as cold as spring water, blood-crazed, they might never be normal again, he warned. This kind of a war could destroy men for life. They were the danger, and theorists sitting in newspaper offices and pubs should be wary of putting a match to such straw.
‘The politicians,’ he said, ‘debating beyond in the Mansion House about this clause and that in the Treaty, think they’re settling the fate
of the country. But the fighting men don’t give tuppence for politicians.’
In the evenings now there was always a small crowd drifting between the pub, the kitchen and the good front room at the Clancys’, where they sat in front of the embers and argued the toss. Idleness had descended on the men, for there was no fighting and no jobs. To hear them, every last mother’s son of them would have made a better fist of haggling with Lloyd George, the wily Welsh Wizard, who had fooled the delegates up to their eyes. Mick Collins was conceited, said the diehards.
‘The gouger’s got a swelled head. All the bloody politicians have.’
‘It’s the gunmen have the swelled heads. Every little commandant in the country is so used to having power of life, death and requisitioning over the unfortunate people that he thinks he’s God. Those fellows can’t get it through their skulls that their usefulness is at an end.’
‘Why should it be at an end? Why? So that the politicians can sign away what the fighting men won for them? The delegates weren’t long showing the white feather when they sat down to negotiate with the English. Not long kowtowing to them. Didn’t they sign away the Republic? And in favour of what? A Free State that owes allegiance to England’s King and doesn’t extend to the North! Listen here to me: why should we follow the politicians now? They were ministers of the Republic and they destroyed their own authority when they destroyed it. Answer that conundrum.’
Already, men who had been strained up towards a bright, unbounded future found themselves talking of the past. A new order had begun. The whirling wheel of fortune had jammed.
But many young men could not accept that no more could have been got from the British. Change was addictive and anyway there were no jobs.
*
Grainne and James were picnicking in his hotel suite: oysters, Sancerre, brown bread. Outside, branches were glazed. Pavements oozed. Gutters were torrents. Now and again a banana-coloured leaf zigzagged through damp-choked air before being caught in the sludge. Grainne, if asked, was planning to say that she had lunched alone in the Kilkenny Design Centre. The napery, wine bucket and flowers, familiar from screen fictions, made the occasion seem illusory.
No Country for Young Men Page 24