James followed the orders and crawled along the roadside ditch, and lay down pointing his rifle to cover the two volunteers who had stormed the barracks. The officers disappeared inside and the cyclists shot at the windows, before abandoning their bicycles and diving over the ditch. Within a minute the gunfire was returned and those who had weapons were ordered to fire at the barracks in unison.
James shot his gun and felt the pull back. It was the first time he had ever aimed it at anything that wasn’t a pheasant or a rabbit or a rusty tin can. There were people inside the barracks, officers. He was shooting at real live people. His father’s face flashed before him. He would be so disappointed in him. Pushing the image from his head, James reloaded and fired again. This was not about his father - it was no time to be thinking of him. This was about the future, about Ireland’s future.
More shots were fired and more returned. James lay there, waiting to be told what to do. They had limited ammunition. Did they want to use it on these bricked up barracks?
The second column had positioned themselves behind the building. James could see them moving in, crouching down like they were, the tips of their guns flashing in the April light. They waited, listening to the gunfire coming from within. They would raid the barracks when it was surrendered, take whatever was left and reinforce their own troops.
James watched as one of the men from the second column crawled across the field opposite and up the side of the barracks, as near as he could get to the door. The man drew his knees up into a hunker, quickly stood up and tossed a stick that looked like a mallet with a lit fuse attached. It landed right in front of the barracks under the iron bar windows. Blinking, James wondered what it was, until a loud explosion rocked his ears, the blast knocking out his eyesight for a second. A home-made grenade. It blew a small crater in the gravel road.
The explosion frightened James. He hadn’t been expecting it. It was much louder than the gunshots going off, and it had shaken everything around him. He looked down at his hands and saw that they were blackened. He wiped his face and felt the dirt smear against his fingers. He was shaking. This wasn’t what he had expected. What if the barracks tossed a grenade at them? They were only a few feet from the door. It could lodge in the ditch before they had time to run.
To their right he heard more commotion. He strained his neck to see a fleet of cars arriving, police cars, filled with RIC officers. He heard more gunfire and thought it was coming from one of their own columns who were stationed near to where the cars had pulled up. He felt trapped, with the barracks up front and a tranche of new manpower arriving to his right.
He listened to the sound of more tyres arriving. Reinforcements from Slane, far more than they had in their own columns. They were on bicycles and on foot - how could they compete with trained troops and automobiles?
Not knowing what to do, he lay and listened, hearing the shouts, boots running on the stone road, the loud crack of gunfire. Perhaps if he got a better look, if he could see beyond the men and pinpoint where the split column was, he could make a run for it, or crawl back and cross the road to where they were. He stood up, straining his neck, his arms outstretched, his rifle pointing towards the barracks.
A shot rang out, fired from a gun poked through the barrack’s bars, barely visible through the clearing smoke of the explosion.
The bullet passed through the air, whistling, its tail swirling like a firework pinwheel. It ricocheted off James’s head, taking half his forehead and most of the right side of his brain with it. His face registered the shock as he fell backwards into the green grass, his hand still wrapped around his rifle, his skull exposed, its fragments falling around him.
From the barracks, the shooter watched the young man fall, and felt a pang in his own heart. He had been in Ireland only three weeks, drafted in, as Britain battled on in the continent. He had expected to join the ranks in France, to go where all the men he’d known before him had gone. He hadn’t heard of anyone being posted to Ireland.
But his mother has said it was a sign from God when she heard, and she’d curled up her nose in distaste.
She wasn’t able to say why.
The shooter’s name was Robert Eccles.
Chapter Thirty-Nine
GLADYS
She didn’t expect that he would up like that. Leave. She didn’t think he had it in him. He’d surprised her, had Robert. Maybe she’d taught him a thing or two after all.
She was proud the day he left. His bag over his shoulder. His new uniform gleaming on him. He filled it well.
She was proud that he finally had the gumption to get up and do something with himself. To go and represent their country, like she’d be telling him it was his duty to. She thought of all the other soldiers heading off, their mothers sniffling after them. She wouldn’t be sniffling. She was glad to see him go. She’d get the house back to herself. And if anyone asked, she could tell them her son had been called up and he was gone, just like the other lads on the street.
Robert had been annoyed about the Ireland posting. He hadn’t expected it, thinking he’d be on a boat to France, where his class mates had gone. He felt he wasn’t really going to war, that he wasn’t good enough to go where all the others had gone, that his was a phony posting, something else he’d gotten wrong before he’d even started.
But Gladys found it all rather amusing. Back to his home country. Back to his mother’s land.
He’d never really been hers. Maybe he’d find himself over there, with his own people.
When he was gone, having kissed her on the cheek as she stood leaning against the doorway, watching him walk away, she had an urge to tell him, to pull him back by the arm and blurt it out. To lead him by the hand up to her wardrobe, where at the very back was a small wooden box and in a hidden shelf tucked at the bottom of its velvet floor, three yellowing newspaper cuttings. The year he was born.
‘YOUNG IRISH MOTHER APPEALS FOR MISSING BABY’
‘BABY TAKEN FROM PRAM – POLICE APPEAL FOR WITNESSES’
‘SECOND APPEAL FOR BABY TAKEN FROM PRAM’
She wouldn’t have to say anything. Just show him. She wanted to let him know that he wasn’t really hers and that she’d never cared for him the way Albert did.
Albert doted on that boy. She remembered him now - arms out for an embrace every time he came through the door. Taking bits of toys out of his pocket that he’d made on his lunch breaks, carving little stumps with his penknife. There were soldiers and hollowed out boats and dice. And the face on the child when he took out some liquorice, or apple drops or oranges.
What did he bring home to her after she’d brought the boy home for him?
He knew with her sulks that she hadn’t been happy after Robert had arrived into their lives. But he said he couldn’t help himself. ‘He’s my boy. Look at his little face.’
She’d looked at his face day in, day out. She was tired looking at his face, his sandy hair, and his rounded cheeks, looking nothing like her or Albert. It had gotten worse as he’d grown, seeing how he didn’t resemble them. Knowing that he wasn’t theirs. Knowing that he didn’t belong in the family, that he was an imposter.
The feelings, the longings she’d had for him were well gone, replaced with some other feeling that took over her stomach and her head. All the preparation she’d done to get him here as a baby. Getting him ready for the world, toughening him up so that he could stand on his own two feet. Albert was too soft on him, undoing all her hard work. And that was why she was always trying to teach him. To show him that life was disappointing, that you didn’t always get what you wanted in the end.
She did miss Albert. Nothing had been the same since he’d died, keeled over in the maintenance yard of the council, pulling a large cart laden with brushes.
But now, at least, she could get back to her routine, get the house the way she wanted and not have the disturbance of Robert coming in at all hours, getting in her way and treading footprints on her scoured steps and floo
rs.
When he came back from the war he could find his own place. He could get a woman and settle down. She’d had enough of him. It was time, at her age that she had a bit of peace and quiet.
It was time that she’d hoped she and Albert would spend together.
But he was gone now. And being on her own was the next best thing.
Chapter Forty
HENRY
Brabazon House, Co Meath, Ireland, 19 December 1916
Henry watches Sarah’s face and notices the whites of her eyes. They’re showing, startled. Frightened.
‘Mama’s missing,’ she says.
Henry is in his study, a glass of whiskey on the papers he’s been reading. He’s taken to sipping whiskey in the evenings now, from a bottle exactly where his father used to keep his supply in his desk. Funny, how son becomes father, eventually.
‘Since when?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Sarah. ‘This afternoon.’
‘Is her horse here?’
‘Yes.’
This wasn’t the first time Molly had disappeared this year. The blackness that returned after James’s death was similar to the days after James’s birth. Only this time there was no light, no hope for the future to heal.
Henry got up from behind his desk and walked with Sarah from the study.
‘And you’ve checked with all the staff?’
‘No one saw her leave,’ said Sarah.
She stopped him as he walked and put her hand on his arm.
‘Daddy, I’m frightened.’
‘Don’t worry,’ he reassured her. ‘We’ll find her.’
But the panic was setting in for him too. On most of Molly’s disappearances she had turned up a few hours later, muddy and tired having walked for miles. The last time she’d gone missing, one of the footmen had found her in a barn on the farm yard, loitering dangerously near the edge of the hay ledge, a rope in her hands.
It was the first place Henry checked now, pulling on his coat as he went out of the back door, telling Sarah to gather together the house staff for a search party.
‘It’s too dark for her to be out by herself,’ he said.
There was nobody in the barn, only the snuffle of mice among the hay. He found a lantern and lit it and checked all the other buildings that were open, holding his lantern up to check the rafters. What a thing to be checking, he thought.
The staff were gathered at the back door and Henry returned to give instructions. He sent three of the staff up to the back of the estate, through the woods and out near the church.
‘Circle,’ he said. ‘And make sure you call her name, good and loud.’
He would take Sarah with him down to the river and out across the fields to Dowth.
As they rode down the sheltered drive, Henry’s anguish rose through his stomach, knotting it into lumps. They had been through so much this year. He found it hard to believe when he woke each morning that his son was no longer in this world. That he would never take another breath. He thought how he would give anything to hear him slam the door of his study one more time or to find his broody presence in his bedroom, reading, moping. Reminders of his hobbies and projects were strewn about the house and yard, but their soft boy, with his dark hair and childish smile, was gone.
The loss had impacted Molly in such a way that Henry had been forced to quell his own grief, to hide it, to be strong, to act as though James’s loss was something that could be gotten over and all they needed was time.
He could not have imagined the impact of their son’s death on Molly.
Her grief was a mountain, visible for all to see. She was broken, not even a shell of her former self.
‘You wouldn’t understand,’ she mouthed through tears, when he sometimes found her, crying on the floor.
And he wanted to tell her that of course he understood - that James had been his son too.
* * *
There was no sign of her in the woods or in the fields. They had checked any spots where they thought she might have gone but it was so dark, their lanterns barely made an impact on the blackness. They called her name over and over again, but they were met only with the sound of their footsteps on the frozen grass, or the horses’ hooves, as they stomped where they stood.
Henry rode with Sarah down to Dowth, cantering the horse in the dark, the fright of falling off superseded by the need to get to Molly, to rescue her from the mania that she must be in.
Sarah was quiet in her worry. This was the longest their mother had ever been gone and it was freezing. She hadn’t taken her cloak with her - Sarah had lifted it and thrown it across her horse, so that when they did find her, they could put it on her. Where could she be?
They reined in their horses, tying them up quickly and running to the mound.
‘Molly!’ roared Henry. But there was no response.
They both climbed, tackling the mound like a stepladder. Henry helped Sarah to the top as they scanned the mound for her.
She wasn’t there.
‘I really thought she’d be here,’ said Sarah, tears threatening her eyes.
Henry pulled his daughter into an embrace.
‘We’ll find her,’ he said into her hair.
They stood for a moment, panting from the exertion of the climb, trying to calm the panic in their chests.
‘We’ll check the old farmhouse,’ said Henry. ‘She could have gone back there. Actually, maybe she went to the graveyard, to the graves? Let’s split up, I’ll check the house, you go to the church.’
The church and graveyard were located in the shadow of the mound. A new church had been built on the grounds of an ancient dwelling and gravestones were scattered around the ruins. Molly’s parents had been buried at a simple grave to the back to the church, a flat flagstone in the ground to mark the spot. James had been buried close by, a new gravestone recently added, fresh and light coloured amongst the weatherworn stones.
‘Are you all right going on your own?’ asked Henry, as they left Dowth and rode quickly away.
‘Yes,’ said Sarah.
Henry thought how brave she was, how resilient she was in the face of the frightening situation they found themselves in.
He raced down the lane, swiping at a briar that hit him across the jaw.
He dismounted to open the gate and lead the horse in, calling Molly’s name over and over.
There was no response.
He let the horse loose, running to the outhouses to check if she might have gone in there. His worst fear was that she would have returned and gotten in and done the unthinkable.
In two days’ time it was her birthday, and in less than a week it was the anniversary of the eviction and her father’s death. Christmas always sent her into a spin - it wouldn’t have surprised him to find her here in her sorrow.
Large padlocks secured the great wooden doors to the barns and were untouched. He walked quickly round to the small windows on the sides of the buildings, shining his lantern in, cupping his hand to try and see inside.
There was no light, no movement. He didn’t think she was here.
He ran to the house to check it too, calling her name over and over.
Still, there was no response.
He mounted his horse again, his heart pounding in his chest. He feared if they didn’t find her soon, it would be too late.
Cantering up the lane, leaving the gate to the farmhouse wide open, Henry rounded his horse on to the road and towards the small lane to the graveyard. He could see the swish of Sarah’s lantern up ahead, moving in the darkness.
He rode the horse towards it and as he got to the door of the church, she appeared, her face shadowed under the light she carried.
‘She’s not here,’ she said.
‘She’s not at the farmhouse, either,’ he replied.
‘Where else could she have gone, Daddy? She hardly went towards town?’
‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘Let’s go back to the house. Maybe she might have t
urned up.’
But they both knew it was wishful thinking. Wherever Molly was, she needed to be rescued from there. She was too far gone to make her own way back.
Chapter Forty-One
MOLLY
I think those feelings are the same. The ones I’m experiencing now. I’m not quite sure, I can’t be really sure, what I felt then, what I feel now. There have been so many medications over the years. Opiates. Laudanum. Wine. Port. I take them all. I hope that one and all will cure these feelings. But nothing does. I can numb it. Black out. And then wake up more wretched than before.
There’s this feeling of dread that won’t go away. It’s the feeling I had on that evening Oliver was taken. It’s the feeling I had as I rode my horse to meet Mr Tubular at Dowth. It’s the feeling I have now.
I rub the stone, the one I’ve picked, the one I went all the way up to Dowth to collect, to pull from the grass and wipe the soil from it. I carried it all the way down to the river in a cloth bag. I wonder if it is the same one I murdered Tubular with - if it’s caked in his blood, the dark liquid rusted deep in the pores of the stone.
And now I sit here and I cradle it, thinking of all the times these stones have crossed my life’s path.
Underneath me as we rolled down the mound, my brothers and I bumbling, falling, laughing.
Over my head, in the lintel of our doorway, of our farmhouse, laid there by my forefathers.
In the outhouses, stone on top of stone, pushed into the render by my daddy.
Crushed against Tubular’s head. Stone on bone. His blood on my hands.
And now here, in my hands, a rough scratchy rope tied around it, the end fastened around my neck and tangled down my arm.
I have been thinking about this for a long time.
I thought about it in the dark days after the children were born, when my moods had sunken low and the thoughts of Oliver had rushed back, more present than ever in the little writhing bodies of my newborn children.
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