A Life Eternal

by Richard Ayre

  I was thinking of supper. I’d bagged a hare out on the back fields and it would go nicely with some of the vegetables I grew in the small garden by the cottage. Hector, as usual, was bounding along ahead of me, and he’d disappeared around a bend in the leafy lane. I heard him bark and then I heard a woman’s shrill shriek.

  I pelted around the corner to find Hector jumping up and wagging his tail at a pretty young woman dressed in a pale blue dress that was now caked in mud at the front where Hector had pawed at her. He was a friendly dog, but over exuberant at times. He shouldn’t have jumped up to be petted, I’d told him off enough times about it. But he didn’t deserve the clout he received from the young woman’s parasol. He yelped and scuttled backwards away from her as she advanced, the parasol brandished threateningly in her hand.

  ‘Hector!’ I bellowed. ‘Come!’

  He immediately ran to me and slunk around my legs, sitting to heel. He looked up at me and regarded me balefully for a second. I could see he was upset.

  But as I looked back at the woman, I also saw he wasn’t half as upset as she was.

  ‘That beast needs destroying!’ she shouted at me. ‘He tried to bite me!’

  I stepped forward, shaking my head.

  ‘Hector would never do anything like that, Miss. He’s just over friendly. Please accept my apologies.’

  ‘Look at my dress!’ she shrieked at me. There were two red spots on her pale cheeks. She was furious. She wailed when she followed her own advice and looked at the dress. It had paw prints all over it.

  ‘It’s ruined!’ she screamed.

  ‘I’ll gladly pay for the dress to be cleaned, Miss…’ I started, but she broke me off.

  ‘Who are you? Why are you skulking around on my land? Are you a poacher? Is that what you are? I’ll have the police onto you, you rogue. Come along, explain yourself, you impertinent ruffian!’

  I didn’t know what the hell she was talking about.

  ‘Your land?’ I asked. ‘This is Jonathon Greene’s land, Miss. Perhaps you’re lost? I can show you back to the main road.’

  ‘I know whose land this is!’ she bellowed at me, making Hector cower. ‘Do you take me for a complete fool?’

  I have to admit, I was starting to think that very thought. I opened my mouth to ask her what she was talking about, when Greene appeared through the trees.

  ‘Hello! What’s all the ballyhoo?’ he asked. ‘Is everyone alright? I heard shouting.’

  The woman turned to him, her demeanour changing instantly from dragon to damsel-in-distress.

  ‘Oh, Jonathon. Thank goodness you’re here. This man’s dog attacked me. I think he may be a poacher or some other such villain. Look what the beast did to my dress.’ She clung to his arm and showed him her dress.

  Greene shook his head.

  ‘No, no, my dear. This is Deakin. He’s my gamekeeper. And that’s Hector. Hector wouldn’t hurt a fly, would you, old thing?’ He patted his knee and Hector ran forward to be petted.

  The woman squealed and Hector stopped mid-track, nervously eyeing the parasol.

  ‘He works for you?’ she asked.

  Greene nodded. ‘Jane, Rob Deakin. Rob, Miss Jane Godley.’

  I nodded and touched my cap at her, but she just gave me a venomous look and then turned back to Greene. ‘Can we go back to the house, Jonathon? I feel rather unwell.’

  Greene immediately looked concerned and took a firmer grip on her arm.

  ‘Of course, dear. We shall go and have lemonade. That will make you feel better.’ He turned to me. ‘Thank you, Deakin. That will be all.’

  That in itself was strange. Greene had every right to speak to me like a servant, but he had never done so in the past. It had always been ‘Rob’ or ‘Sergeant.’ I touched my cap again and simply said, ‘Sir.’

  As they turned away, I said, ‘I’m very sorry about Hector and your dress, Miss. My offer is still there to have it cleaned for you.’

  And Jane Godley looked at me. A look I’ve rarely seen in my life, and I’ve lived a very long time. The look she gave me was of utter hatred. There were actually tears of anger in her eyes.

  ‘The very thought,’ she whispered, harshly.

  They turned and walked away.

  I pursed my lips and looked down at Hector, who stared up at me like a victim. ‘Trouble’s coming, Hec,’ I told him.

  His eyes told me he knew I was right.

  *

  And trouble she was.

  Brewis, the old butler, told me he’d overheard her and Greene talking that evening over their lemonade. Brewis and I often chatted when we bumped into each other around the grounds and he said that Miss Godley had virtually demanded my sacking for my “impertinence”. On that occasion, Greene had talked her down, saying I was a good man and we had just got off to a bumpy start. Brewis also told me that she would not let it go. She was pouring poison into Greene’s ear at every opportunity and his protestations were getting weaker. He needed her and her money more than he needed me.

  On that August evening, as Hector and I celebrated my birthday with a nip of best scotch for me and a bone for him, a groom knocked on my door and told me Greene wanted to have a word with me. When I got to the house, Brewis’s face told me everything I needed to know. He squeezed my arm in sympathy as he showed me into the library.

  Greene was standing with a rather large glass of whiskey in his hand, staring out across the lawn that was now wonderfully manicured thanks to my work over the years. He turned when Brewis introduced me and sighed.

  Strangely, I felt sorry for him. The padding I had first noticed when I came to Longwood back in 1919 had grown. Greene was becoming podgy and flaccid. His dark hair was thinning. The whip-thin, iron-willed individual was no more; murdered by a slim, blonde weapon named Jane Godley. I waited for him to speak.

  ‘I’m afraid I have some rather bad news, Rob,’ he started as an opening gambit, but then stopped, unsure of where to go next. As I looked at him, I tried to remember the man he had once been before he had been eviscerated by that bloody woman.

  ‘Bad news, sir?’ I asked. I was not going to make it easy for him.

  Greene turned back to the window. He seemed unwilling to look me in the eye.

  ‘I’m afraid I’ve had to do some, erm, shuffling. Yes, shuffling.’ He turned again and tried to look at me, but his eyes flickered constantly around the room.

  ‘Of resources, I mean,’ he continued. He nodded at me, as if what he had said made sense.

  ‘Resources, sir?’

  ‘Personnel,’ he finished.

  I stared just past his right ear as I had always done when talking to an officer. I remained silent.

  ‘Oh, come along, Rob,’ he said, testily. ‘You know the situation. She don’t like you, man. She don’t like you for whatever reason and she won’t stop harping on about it. She complains endlessly. Deakin this and Deakin that.’ He gulped at his whiskey and looked at me like a boy who has been whipped. ‘She wants you gone.’

  I let the silence hang for a second longer before saying, ‘I see.’

  The silence grew again until Greene drew himself up. It seemed as if he was going to say something else, but then he slumped once more and just looked at me.

  We had shared so much, him and me. In two years of battle we had shared more than most people share in a lifetime. And he was turning away from that for a woman. For the first time in my life, but certainly not the last, I felt something turn and heave within me. Something raw and elemental. Something furious. It seemed to swell inside me before quickly fading away.

  ‘You want me to leave, sir?’ I asked, keeping my voice calm, ignoring whatever that strange feeling had been.

  Greene sighed, about to refute it, perhaps to say it was not him who wanted me gone, but he seemed to realise how that would make him look. He nodded.

  And that was that. My time at Longwood was over. Greene gave me a decent parting payment, which was nice of him, I suppose. We shook h
ands like men, but I couldn’t help thinking that his grip had become soft. War had not defeated him, not for one second. But Jane Godley had.

  I packed my bag and left the Gatehouse the next day, taking Hector with me. I wasn’t leaving him there to the tender mercies of that malicious bitch. She’d probably poison him.

  We walked out the gate and strode down the lane towards the train station, neither of us quite sure of what would happen next. When we got there, however, the last train had left and so, as it was a warm evening, we spent a comfortable enough night in a hedgerow.

  I stroked Hector’s flank as he slept beside me and wondered what that strange feeling had been when Greene had dismissed me. It was like nothing I had felt before, a savage and disturbing wrench within me. For a moment, standing there in Greene’s study, I had felt a surging hatred, previously alien to me. I searched myself for an answer but found nothing and I soon forgot about it. I had obviously just been disappointed by my sacking, that’s all. I sighed, wondering what I was going to do now. I was once more adrift.

  Something will come up, I told myself, uncertainly.

  Eventually I slipped into slumber.

  IV

  The docks at Southampton were rammed. The noise of the cranes and of the stevedores shouting and swearing at each other reminded me of the trenches. The huge bulk of the steamer St Agnes blocked the sun.

  The money I’d saved from Longwood and the final payment from Greene had kept me going long enough until I found myself a job at a local farm where Hector and I had slept in a barn and I worked the fields until the winter came.

  At first I didn’t know what to do with my life, but on a visit to the local town I’d seen an advertisement in a shop window showing a steamer under the watchful gaze of the Statue of Liberty in New York. As I sweated and toiled in the fields that image stayed with me and I eventually made my decision.

  I would try my luck in the Land of Opportunity. I would go to America.

  Hector couldn’t come, of course. The voyage would be too much for him, even if they had allowed him on the ship, which they didn’t. The farm owner was a good sort, however, and said he’d take him in as he was a well-trained dog, so, when I’d got the money together in early January 1923, I gave Hector a final pat on the head and told him to be a good boy.

  Twice I almost turned back on the country lane that led to the train station, but I knew he was better off on the farm where he could grow old in peace with the other working dogs. I missed him though, old Hector, and I often thought about him in the years that followed. He was always a good friend.

  The voyage took just over a week. I was way down in the bowels of the ship, in steerage where my sort belonged, bunked up with a couple of Irish lads who had been in the war too. We had plenty to talk about and, being Irish, they always knew where the parties and the beer was. The crossing was quite pleasant.

  The day dawned when we slid past that statue and we docked on Ellis Island where I went through customs and exchanged my few pounds for a few dollars at a kiosk outside. I wrapped my thin coat around me and walked out onto the cold streets of New York.

  I still remember the awe in which I beheld that city. After the years of rural England and the close and frugal comforts of the St Agnes, New York was like another world.

  The freezing streets were full of noisy cars and electric trams that rattled and clanged and juddered. The pavements, or sidewalks as they called them, were packed with people wrapped in topcoats and furs, all hurrying to and fro, seemingly all in a rush to get somewhere fast. My breath was clear in the cold air and I walked the streets of Manhattan in a daze, gawping up in astonishment at the skyscrapers and brownstone buildings. The city was like a glittering prize, wrapped up in noise and smoke and hope. It was as if I had stepped into a future world, a world of machines and metal and carefree decadence. I loved New York as soon as I saw it.

  Priorities soon took over, however. I needed a job and I needed it fast. I had won a little money on the ship playing poker with the Irish lads and I probably had enough to see me in lodgings for a week, maybe two if I could find something cheap enough, but I needed to ensure I had some money coming in or I would quickly starve. It suddenly struck me how stupid I had been. I had left Britain on a whim, seduced by the idea of a foreign city, and now reality was raising its ugly head. A job. I needed to get a job.

  I bought a newspaper and went into a diner and had a cup of coffee, which was very agreeable. I scoured the ads at the back of the paper. It began to dawn on me that all my past working experience was going to mean very little in this sprawling metropolis. I was used to hunting, fishing and farming; New York had no need for any of this. The shops were full of goods and the only animals I saw were pets. I thought of Hector, sleeping in the barn we’d shared, and began to fret again about having made a horrible mistake.

  A bang on the diner window jolted me from my worries. It was Sean, one of the lads I’d shared a berth with on the Agnes. I waved him in and he entered with a flourish, pulling his cap from his head and rubbing his hands briskly.

  ‘Have you seen the size of the streets here?’ he shouted at me, grinning. ‘They’re bloody huge. What a place!’

  I grinned back at him and he helped himself to a gulp of my coffee. A pretty young waitress came over and refilled the cup, smiling professionally at Sean as he tried to give her some of his supposed Irish charm. Sean was small and almost toothless, with a pockmarked face. I didn’t think he was going to get too far.

  We talked amiably for a while until, after a glance at the clock on the wall, Sean got up to leave.

  ‘Where are you going?’ I asked him.

  ‘My uncle’s. He has a small business here. That’s why I came over: to help him out.’

  My interest was aroused.

  ‘You’ve got a job lined up?’

  ‘Of course I have. I wouldn’t be so stupid as to come all the way to America without having something to do when I got here now, would I?’

  I grinned, uncomfortably. ‘No, of course not.’

  Sean looked down at me.

  ‘Hang on,’ he said, understanding spreading slowly on his monkey-like face. ‘You’re not telling me you’ve got nothing promised, are you? A man who plays cards like your good self would never be so stupid as to sail all the way across the Atlantic and have nowhere to go when he got here now, would he?’

  I said nothing, then shrugged.

  Sean laughed.

  ‘Jesus, but you’re one mad bastard Englishman!’ He laughed again, louder. ‘Christ Alive, I thought the Irish were supposed to be stupid. But you, my friend. You’re not right in the head!’

  I sipped my coffee in embarrassment. Sean was right: I was a bloody fool. What the hell had I thought I was doing? My predicament washed through me like an ice flow. I was suddenly very frightened of what my future held.

  Sean must have seen the look on my face and recognised it for what it was. He sat down again.

  ‘Tell you what,’ he said, eventually. ‘My uncle has a few irons in the fire, so he has. Maybe he’ll have a job for you? We could ask him.’

  I looked up at him in sudden hope. ‘You’d do that for me? Sean, that would be wonderful.’

  He held up a hand. ‘I’m promising nothing, but there’s no harm in asking, is there.’

  He suddenly looked unsure.

  ‘What’s up?’ I asked, thinking he’d changed his mind.

  ‘My uncle,’ he said. ‘He hates the bloody English. His brother, another uncle, was part of the Easter Rising. Been cold in his grave these past seven years. He wouldn’t give an Englishman the smell off his shite.’

  He suddenly brightened.

  ‘However, that accent of yours, it’s no English accent I’ve ever heard and I think he’ll be the same. We could say you’re Scottish. He doesn’t mind the Scottish.’

  With that he stood up.

  ‘Come on then. Let’s get going.’

  ‘Where does your uncle live?’ I
asked, standing and putting down some change on the table. I followed him out onto the icy streets.

  ‘When he came here, he said he’d seen the place where he lives now and thought it was perfect for a poor Irish renegade who’d had nothing but shite for most of his life. He said the name of it appealed to the devil inside him.’

  We stepped outside the café and started walking further into Manhattan.

  Sean turned, walking backwards. The massive panorama of that amazing city was behind him as he spread his arms wide and grinned at me. Snow began to fall from a leaden sky.

  ‘Rob, me friend. We’re off to Hell’s Kitchen!’

  V

  Mickey ‘Irish’ Donovan was a strangely mixed man.

  He stood at only five feet five inches or so, but he was almost as wide as he was tall. His shoulders extended a good ten inches either side of his braces and his head seemed to sink straight down into them, untroubled by anything so frivolous as a neck.

  His face was only roughly sketched, with a large blob for a nose and two fleshy slugs instead of lips. He had the remnants of many bar room brawls drawn on that face, and his hands were like a bunch of bananas. Yet his suit trousers were of the best quality and his shirt was silk.

  His hair was slicked back straight from his ploughed forehead and a thin, delicate, well-tended moustache decorated the space between the blob and the slugs. His ice-blue eyes regarded me like the fox regarded the gingerbread man.

  ‘Scottish, you say?’ he asked, suspiciously.

  We had found his storefront easily enough and we had no sooner been shown into Mickey’s back office before Sean was almost crushed in a bearhug of an embrace.

  ‘Well now!’ Mickey had cried, releasing the gasping Sean and holding him at arm’s length. ‘If it’s not my little brother’s boy. God save us, Sean, but you haven’t grown much since I saw you last.’