Acts of Allegiance

by Peter Cunningham

  Nothing had really happened. I occasionally asked myself if the Vance I had met in Hertfordshire was the same Vance I had known in school, and whether he and I were really now on the one side of an enterprise whose objectives were, to put it mildly, hazy. Alison certainly never referred to him. Nor did she ever probe me for information, or offer any from her side, or set me a task or make a suggestion as to a course of action she felt would benefit Ireland, even when I described for her the difficulties I was running up against with the Brits, albeit at a level where only minnows toiled. On the other hand, I was gaining a reputation for achieving results, however minor. On more than one occasion, Bill had given me a job with the words, ‘Marty, you’ll understand how best Whitehall will react to this one.’

  We swung over the Seine, the taxi’s windows down, and drove out through the Bois. I can see it now! At the racecourse in Saint-Cloud tables were set out on the lawn with buckets for champagne. So bloody civilised! We made our way by merry flowerbeds as horses and jockeys flashed by on their way to the beginning of a race. It was wonderful. Just the place to start a little civil war.

  ‘Where on earth are we going?’

  I steered Sugar down steep steps beneath skull and crossbones on a sign saying ‘Passage Interdit!’ We went blind coming in from the daylight. It was a basement service area, beneath the grandstand, with boilers, cellars, stacked crates of beer and further storage vaults for vegetables. Pipes ran along the ceiling inches from my head. At a counter, a barman in a white jacket was serving champagne. Although I had observed Mr Haughey at Leopardstown, and had taken his coat at receptions in Iveagh House, we had never had a conversation. Of lesser build to me, but compact and fit, with slicked dark hair and hooded eyes, he stepped forward from the group he was drinking with.

  ‘At last, the sunshine.’ He kissed Sugar’s hand. ‘And of course, Mr Ransom.’

  He made a fuss of getting Sugar a drink, hand to her bare elbow. She said later that, although she had been predisposed to dislike him because of his reputation, she found herself instantly revising her opinion. Haughey picked up glasses and a bottle and beckoned me to a corner where, for some reason, there stood an upright piano.

  ‘Mr Ransom.’

  ‘Minister.’

  We touched glasses.

  ‘The boss man used to come down here. Sent runners upstairs with his bets. Five hundred francs, on the nose, every race. No one could see him down here. Private.’

  ‘It certainly is that, Minister.’

  He looked at me sideways as he heard my accent. ‘Bunny was right. You’re the real McCoy, aren’t you? Very clever, very clever indeed. And now with the grade of higher executive officer.’

  Our airline tickets and our hotel had all been prepaid, and then conveyed to me by Bunny Gardener, the accountant who seemed to be involved with Haughey at every level, even though Gardener was a businessman with no elected function.

  Haughey smiled. ‘Your wife is very attractive.’

  ‘Her first time here.’

  ‘Ah, I love it. I love horses: the smell of them, the power of them. I ride out every day, you know.’ He poured champagne. ‘This problem at home.’ He smacked his lips. ‘You know what I’m referring to?’

  I nodded cautiously.

  His eyes swivelled. ‘It will probably get worse. It’s getting ugly.’

  Eruptions of laughter sang along the pipes. An old porter appeared, wheezing through with a trolley of stacked crates.

  ‘They need help,’ Haughey continued when the man had gone by. ‘For their self-defence. They have a right to defend themselves; everyone has. When the civil rights marchers were ambushed at Burntollet Bridge the RUC didn’t lift a fucking finger to help them.’

  ‘I know, Minister.’

  ‘So they need the means of self-defence.’

  ‘Naturally.’

  ‘This new crowd don’t give a fuck for tradition, or what the old fools who’ve led them to this point think. They’re going to split, you know.’

  ‘I had heard as much suggested, yes, Minister.’

  ‘I want you to make contact on my behalf. Unofficially.’

  ‘Minister?’

  ‘Through your cousin, Ignatius Kane.’

  It was as if he had struck me in the chest. I may even have taken a step back.

  ‘I wasn’t aware that … Iggy Kane? You mean that he is …?’

  ‘You look as if you’ve seen a fucking ghost, Ransom. For Christ’s sake, this is very simple. Kane is active; he’s one of the new crowd. You’re his first cousin. I want you to give him a message. What part of all that do you not understand?’

  I was reeling, but at the same time trying to work out how he had come by this information. ‘Iggy Kane and I haven’t met in many years, sir. I’m not sure that—’

  ‘It will be a personal favour to me, of course, without reference to anyone in your department. You’re Political Division. Who do you report to in there?’

  ‘Bill O’Neill, Minister.’

  ‘O’Neill. I know him. Inquisitive type. Likes to talk the republican talk, but you never know with fucking civil servants.’ Haughey looked at me steadily. ‘There’s cash available, plenty of it. I want Kane to be told and to pass the message up.’

  ‘Of course I can try to contact him, sir, but ….’

  Haughey’s expression brimmed with disdain.

  ‘Well, Minister, he and I have lost touch, and for all I know his alleged associates may not wish to be helped in the fashion you describe.’

  ‘Alleged associates? Who do you think you’re speaking to? Some fart of a district court judge?’

  ‘I’m sorry, sir.’

  ‘Of course his associates will wish to be helped in the fashion I describe, Ransom. Who else is going to fucking help them?’

  ‘I don’t know, Minister.’

  ‘You can say that again.’ He scribbled on his race sheet and tore off the corner of it. ‘Don’t waste time. Have them call me on this number.’

  ‘Yes, Minister.’

  He looked at me, shook his head as if disappointment with subordinates was no surprise to him, took up the bottle and walked back towards the counter. Halting, he pivoted. ‘By the way, Ransom—’

  ‘Minister?’

  ‘At least you got the hat right.’

  Out on the lawn, the trays being carried at shoulder height by perspiring waiters seemed, from a distance, like enormous epaulettes. I very badly needed a drink.

  ‘I spotted a ladies’ room,’ Sugar said.

  ‘I’ll order a Pimm’s for you,’ I said.

  Her figure in blue silk as she moved away, her straight back giving her the appearance of a much taller woman, her lovely fair hair and the swoop of her neck gave me the strength I needed. I was shown to our table and ordered the Pimm’s, and a large cognac.

  ‘You’re a very lucky man.’ I didn’t have to turn around. ‘But, of course, you don’t need me to tell you that, chum.’

  He was seated to one side, eating the plat du jour, drinking a half carafe of Burgundy by the look of it. Sunlight glinted on the ridges of his hair. ‘Back any winners?’ he asked.

  ‘I don’t know. Perhaps.’

  I could hear his plate being removed as he ordered the chocolate mousse. ‘Isn’t this just splendid? Has there ever been such an enlightened country? We should bring our children here.’

  ‘When they’re slightly older perhaps.’

  He chuckled. ‘How old is Emmet now? Six?’

  ‘Nearly eight. And our baby Georgie is three months.’

  ‘Goodness, how time flies. I shall bring my boys here, before they get too old, you know? Before they get cynical. Like me. Like you, too. Isn’t that what we want for them?’

  Beyond a hedge, men in bowlers, like figures in a Degas canvas, conferred gravely around a steaming horse.

  ‘It’s outrageous,’ I said. ‘He wants to give money to the new activists through my cousin Iggy Kane, someone I haven’t met for twenty y
ears. I didn’t even know that Kane was connected to the movement. Haughey wants Kane’s people to know that he can provide means for their self-defence. Hard cash.’

  ‘Much?’

  ‘No figure was mentioned, but I was given to understand that there would be enough.’

  ‘Well, he is the minister for finance.’ He was laughing softly as his chocolate mousse arrived.

  ‘He’s expecting the situation up there to get much worse before too long—something that you alerted me to several years ago, Vance. Congratulations.’

  ‘I’m just an ordinary Joe Soap, Marty, doing his bit for Her Majesty’s government. God forbid I should ever be singled out for praise.’

  He had not changed one iota from our schooldays, I thought, as my drinks were served.

  ‘It’s treasonable,’ I said. ‘I mean, if he’s ever caught … ’

  ‘We mustn’t sit in judgement, chum. Ours not to reason why, and so on.’

  As the cognac began to kick in, I wondered if this was really happening. ‘He’s the third most senior figure in the government.’

  ‘Could be a trap, of course, a way of compromising your cousin, or even you. But I doubt it. My experience in life suggests that the most obvious explanations are invariably the true ones.’

  He asked for his bill.

  ‘It’s the long game, chum. I just wonder if we’ll be around to see the end of it.’

  ‘Before you go, Vance.’

  ‘Old boy?’

  ‘That search I asked you to conduct.’

  ‘As I mentioned before, I am making some progress. It happened a long time ago, but I would be cautiously optimistic.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Absolutely.’

  ‘That would be wonderful.’

  ‘Far too soon for celebrations,’ he said, lighting a Gitanes.

  Sugar was being escorted to the table by the head waiter, a man swathed in tails and wearing a celluloid collar.

  ‘It’s divine here,’ she said. ‘So pretty.’

  ‘We must have a bet, for fun. You choose.’

  She peered at me as she drank her Pimm’s through a straw. ‘Brandy, Marty? A bit early for you, I’d have thought.’

  ‘We should bring the children here—when they’re old enough,’ I said.

  ‘You’re very paternal all of a sudden,’ she said and looked to the next table, which stood empty under a pall of smoke.

  9

  DUBLIN

  May 1969

  I think of those as the good days, when we were still innocent, or largely so, when the basic structure of our lives was intact and had not yet been infected by all that would follow. I often think of Paris in the spring of 1969 as a line that we all crossed, in my case knowingly. I could, of course, blame Mr Haughey, for he was toxic, and no one who was associated with him, however marginally, escaped contamination—but back then I did not know that.

  Bull Bridge was swallowed by sea mist and within moments Dublin was lost behind us.

  ‘You look well. Paris obviously suited you,’ she said and turned up the collar of her tan gabardine. ‘Has there been any chatter since you returned? I mean, in your section?’

  ‘About?’

  ‘For example, has your Mr O’Neill made any reference to Mr Haughey that might make you suspect that Mr O’Neill knows you met Mr Haughey in Paris? Or that O’Neill knows what Haughey is proposing to do?’

  ‘Nothing.’

  She nodded, as if I’d confirmed what she already believed to be the case. ‘You see, we think he’s genuine. Mr Haughey.’

  ‘Genuine.’

  ‘Confused, perhaps, but yes, genuine.’

  ‘Not part of a trap then?’

  Alison sighed. ‘This is really very simple, Marty. Let’s try to keep it that way, shall we?’

  People kept looming from the mist, linked together, or pushing prams.

  ‘Is Haughey working alone?’ I asked.

  ‘In a way. The man who’s been running the show is Mr Blaney, your minister for agriculture from Donegal—we’ve had an asset embedded in his political apparatus for years. Mr Blaney is being briefed by radical republicans and passes this intelligence, or parts of it, on to Mr Haughey. Mr Haughey’s approach to you is an attempt, one of several he is making, to establish his own contacts. He doesn’t like or trust Mr Blaney and the feeling is entirely mutual. So if there is cash to arm the radicals, Mr Haughey wants to be the benefactor. He wants control. And also the glory. Mr Haughey considers himself to be a man of destiny. He sees you as one way in.’

  ‘He’s out of his mind. I have no contact with Iggy Kane or anyone else up there.’

  ‘But Kane is your first cousin and so, when he receives Haughey’s message via you, he’ll know it’s for real. Haughey knows this, which is why he picked you for the job.’ Pearls of mist clung to the tips of Alison’s dark brown hair. ‘So please stop being pedantic.’

  ‘Look, Iggy and I haven’t met for years. I don’t know him any more.’

  ‘But you once knew him very well, I take it.’

  ‘I know almost nothing of his life for the last seventeen years, except what I hear occasionally from people in Waterford. You probably know far more about him than I do.’

  Alison nodded. ‘His name does arise occasionally in the context of certain reports that have their origins in our intelligence services. They confirm that Kane is a minor player in a republican group in south Armagh.’

  ‘Oh God, are you serious?’

  ‘What was he like as a child?’

  I thought for a moment. ‘Very different.’

  ‘There are many ways of being different.’

  ‘Beyond the reach of any authority. He’s severely dyslexic, which made some people think that he wasn’t quite right in the head—but I never thought that. He was always a loner.’

  Alison considered what I had said and then she sighed. ‘Look, here’s the position. He is indeed a minor player, in so far as he is not part of the new command structure that is evolving, but he is well regarded.’

  ‘In what way?’

  ‘We think Ignatius Kane is one of their electronics men.’

  I wondered was this some kind of joke. ‘Iggy? You means he’s—’

  ‘He’s one of the names that keeps coming up in that connection, yes.’

  ‘Christ, I don’t believe it,’ I said, even as I did.

  ‘So Mr Haughey is astute to think that an approach to Kane coming through you will reach the right people in south Armagh, and that they, in turn, will convey that approach to the republican’s new leadership.’

  We could well have been out at sea together in a boat, lost in the elements.

  ‘How does Haughey know the connection?’

  ‘He has obviously done his homework.’

  If I could have turned back then, I would have, but I felt borne along by something outside my control.

  Alison said, ‘However, it’s better if you get in touch with Kane to relay Haughey’s message through a third party. You’ll know who to pick—one of those people who have kept in touch with him. After all, Marty, as a respected Irish diplomat you’ll hardly want to be directly involved in something as sordid as giving cash to people whom we may soon be calling terrorists.’

  She didn’t even smile when she said this, just hiked up the collar of her coat. As we reached the end of the bridge and turned back, I thought of the other times she and I had met in recent years, and how much I had come to admire her. She knew my needs and had satisfied them without ever having to bring me to bed. At the same time, she had never withdrawn the ephemeral promise made in Waterloo, that she might be available to me in ways other than those concerned with intergovernmental business or military history. Now she was showing me a new side, as if everything that had previously passed between us was a mere preparation for the work at hand. My reaction surprised me, for I felt jilted in a strange and hopeless kind of way as I grasped that her interest in me was wider than affection.


  ‘You look worried, Marty,’ she said as we reached our cars. ‘There’s nothing to worry about. This is simply you conveying information. What?’

  ‘This may all play into some grand design of yours,’ I said, ‘but if I am to do Haughey’s bidding, I’ll be helping republicans in Ulster and that’s not something I’m very comfortable with.’

  She almost smiled. ‘Don’t you think maybe you’re exaggerating your own importance ever so slightly?’

  ‘What do you mean?’ I said, nettled despite myself.

  ‘If you fail to pass on Mr Haughey’s message to Kane, do you imagine Haughey will give up? Of course not. He’s already put out feelers through other contacts. But if the contact is made through you, then at least we stay in.’

  ‘If he gives them the cash, you know what they’ll do with it, don’t you?’

  ‘Unfortunately, yes, but what choices do we have? Ireland is a sovereign country. We can’t control what Mr Haughey does or what happens here. Occasionally we can make our presence felt, but otherwise we are detached observers.’

  ‘Detached? I don’t think so. You’re major players and, as such, you should try and stop this from happening.’

  This time she did smile. ‘Come on, Marty. You know that only despots speak of trying to quash political movements that don’t suit them. And even they don’t always believe it can be done.’

  ‘I’m trying to do what I think is best.’

  ‘Indeed. And I for one have a very clear idea of what is best here. It is to get in early and stay in for the long haul. We’re in the process of getting in.’

  ‘But—for the long haul? This hasn’t even begun yet.’

  ‘With respect, your government hasn’t the remotest idea what’s going on in your own country. We, on the other hand, do. This way we stand the best chance of protecting our interests and, if I may say so, yours as well.’