‘We’re coming too,’ Sugar said.
They had decided at the last moment, or Sugar had, that Georgie should look for material for the skirt she needed in the drapery shop on Broad Street. It is only in retrospect that one analyses these tiny moments, like atoms, which contain within themselves the entire universe, or its destruction. We drove uphill and across the long ridge where I used to shoot rabbits. Mist clung to this part of mountain flank, which my mother had so admired for its gentians. I lit a cigarette as we climbed again, the mist cleared, and at the Door, where two rocks formed a portal, the town came into view and we began our descent.
The auctioneer, Mr Gargan, had an office in Michael Street, up from the Apple Market. He was, of course, a crony of Bobby’s, who had once been in that business himself. Allowing Bobby to be involved in the sale, something he had readily agreed to, was a straightforward wager: his visceral feelings about me, from wherever they sprang, would be put on hold for as long as there was cash to be made.
‘Oh, there’s Mr Gillece,’ Georgie said as we came in past the railway station.
‘Where?’ I said, looking everywhere.
‘He just passed us. He was going out the Dublin road.’
‘He couldn’t have been.’
‘I think he was. His wife was with him.’
The child had to be wrong. A hundred men in Waterford looked like Bobby Gillece, although not many women looked like my Aunt Kate.
‘I don’t even know if this drapery shop still exists,’ Sugar said.
‘I’m sure it does,’ I said.
‘Is it still called the Misses Flynn?’ she asked.
‘I wonder who the Misses Flynn were,’ Georgie said.
‘I wonder,’ I said as we crossed the bridge and I pulled up on the Quay. ‘Look, I’m going to walk from here. You take the car.’
‘Where will we meet you?’ Sugar asked as she climbed from the passenger seat to the driver’s in an agile movement that made me smile.
‘There’s parking in the Apple Market, near where I’m meeting this Gargan man,’ I said and blew them kisses. ‘Meet you there in an hour.’
I walked into O’Connell Street. Bobby’s Bar was twenty yards from the corner. It was quarter past eleven. I smelt stale beer and cigarette smoke. Two men sat in a little patch of sunlight with large bottles of stout before them.
‘Hello.’
A youth I did not recognise, no more than sixteen, stood up from behind the bar.
‘Is Bobby around?’
‘Bobby’s not here.’
‘Is Mrs Gillece here?’
‘No, they’ve both gone off for a few days.’
I stared at him. ‘Gone off?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Where?’
‘I don’t know. He just told me they were going off for a few days.’
‘By the sound of him, I’d say they’re heading for Liverpool,’ said one of the men from his place by the window. ‘Aintree races. Bobby backed Red Rum a few years ago, you know.’
All at once, I could not calculate fast enough. ‘Where’s the phone?’
‘There’s a coin box in the hall,’ the youth said.
‘I haven’t time for the coin box,’ I said, raising the counter flap. ‘I’m his cousin, Marty. Where’s the bloody phone?’
‘In Bobby’s office,’ he said and pointed to the nook in the hall behind the bar.
‘You must have a few tips,’ one of the men called out.
Bobby’s so-called office consisted of a desk with untidy mounds of what looked like suppliers’ invoices, bank statements, beer mats, pens, rubber bands, a diary and a telephone. I had written the number of the auctioneers on a tear of paper.
‘Gargan Auctioneers.’
‘Mr John Gargan, my name is Ransom, I have an appointment this morning.’
‘Ah, Mr Ransom, I’m glad you rang. Mr Gargan unfortunately has had to cancel. He’s unwell. He apologises.’
Everywhere I looked, everything I saw, sucked out my oxygen. ‘Is Mr Bobby Gillece there?’
‘Who?’
Doing deals like this had kept Bobby afloat all his life. He was in Gargan’s office. With Kate, my aunt. Before heading off to the Aintree races.
‘Bobby Gillece.’
‘I’m sorry, Mr Ransom, there’s no one here. Maybe if you call back … Hello?’
I could not hear her. My attention was locked on a faded photograph, pinned to the back of the door, of three teenage boys, guns in their belts, standing beside the running boards of a Morris Oxford Saloon. Scrawled along the bottom of the picture was ‘The Flying Squad’. Ted and Bobby. My hand was shaking as I removed the photograph and held it under the light. The third young man was smiling at the camera in a way that made it look as if he knew what the photographer was thinking. Even though the picture was blurred on that side, and he was no more than sixteen years old, it could only have been Bill O’Neill.
I burst from the fetid pub and ran the length of O’Connell Street. How could I ever have doubted the truth? On the gentle curve of George’s Street, I almost fell. They would have driven directly to the Apple Market, walked up to Broad Street and would now be inside the drapery with its subdued light where I had often idled while my mother had fingered bolts of cloth. I could imagine exactly Sugar’s surprised expression as I entered. How long did it take women to select fabric? Bells chimed as I pushed the door in.
‘Sugar!’
I was struggling for breath as I took in the layout of the shop, its broad wooden counters and long shelves, the somehow comforting ambience and redolence of cloth, the floor linoleum that was reflecting the yellow sunlight that seeped in through protective plastic stuck to the street door’s glass panels.
‘May I help you?’
‘I’m looking for my wife, my daughter.’
‘You’re Mr Ransom, aren’t you?’
I had no idea who she was, or how she knew me. She was small, and smiling, wearing a white blouse, in her late twenties.
‘Yes—have they just left?’
‘Who?’
‘My wife, my daughter. They were here to look for cloth. For a skirt. When did they leave?’
‘They haven’t been here, Mr Ransom, but if you’d like to wait for them, please take a seat.’
‘They haven’t been here?’
‘No. Not yet. Can I say something?’
‘What?’
She took a deep breath. ‘You probably don’t remember me, but I’m Peggy Flynn. My father, John Flynn, used to ride horses. Do you remember the day of the point-to-point in Waterloo? In the snow?’
It took all my resources to stand there. ‘Yes.’
She was weeping now. ‘You were so kind to me that day, Mr Ransom, I’ll never forget it and I’m so ashamed that I never thanked you. I was only ten, but that’s no excuse.’
I gaped at her. ‘Your father … ’
She nodded and fought back her tears.
Dada! No, please, Dada! No!
‘Miss Flynn, forgive me, but you’ll have to excuse me, I must find my wife,’ I said and lurched back out to the street.
I ran straight up Broad Street. Dead ahead, through gaps in the skyline, the rooftops of Ballybricken appeared, rearing over the town. I knew now, and I prayed: not to God, for he would surely never have me, but to the Captain, who would understand, and to Alison, all-knowing and now all-seeing Alison, whom I still loved, whom I now begged for the sake of that love to prove me wrong. I prayed, too, to Iggy, even at this late hour, even given how it had ended between us, for I could still remind him that I had done the right thing that day at the pub on the border, something he should weigh in my favour. I had given him a chance and now I wanted one from him.
With each stride as I ran into Michael Street, busy with shoppers, I was calling out. Sugar! Sugar! People stared at me, but not for long, for when the whooshing wind came and the shop windows on either side all disintegrated, everyone was thrown flat, faces down, hands on their
heads, melons and turnips spinning, broken eggs with vivid yolks that I sprang over. Or thought I did, but could not have, for I was pinned to the street, as if a foot were on my neck, cold stone to my lips, as the ground yawed like a thimble in mercury. Much as I tried to get up, the weight of the explosion refused to yield, until eventually my deafness eased and I could taste my blood. My knees were bared where the fabric of my trousers had been ripped, so that when I eventually knelt sharp pain scalded my legs. My shoes were gone. In stockinged feet, I swayed upright, and stumbled on through the dazed and tingling aftermath. Dust hung in a cloud over that part of Waterford, where the wail of house alarms had broken out like geese in fright, as stunned men and women, some with blackened faces, struggled where they lay. I was shouting and calling out as I began to run. I didn’t want to ever get there and find what I knew awaited me. I wanted to run for ever, never arriving, always suspended, praying for the mercy that would never be given, caught in the perpetual momentum that would spare me. I ran and ran.
EPILOGUE
GUELPH LINE, CAMPBELLVILLE, ONTARIO
The Recent Past
As she busies herself in the kitchen, awaiting the intercom that will announce the arrival of the doctor at the road gate, her ancient life—for that is what it seems like now—hurries through Nurse Dora Fleming’s mind.
In her head, doctors are still venerable gynaecologists, men with rooms in Fitzwilliam Square, who do their ward rounds in beautifully tailored English worsteds and crisp linen. She could have walked straight into a job in the bank—first in her class with the Presentation nuns, such immaculate handwriting—but she chose midwifery. Her mother was glacial in her disapproval. She had wanted her to remain in Tralee and marry a well-to-do farmer, probably a client of the bank whose job offer awaited her acceptance. Mrs Fleming had imagined Dora the mistress of her own fields, surrounded by sleek cattle, and keenly wished for the affirmation of her daughter’s place in society that such circumstances would bestow.
In the autumn of 1961 she was sent from Dublin to the delivery ward of the hospital in Waterford, as the relief for a nurse who had herself given birth, and after Christmas out to Waterloo, as a temporary help for Mrs Ransom and her baby boy. Such jobs were looked upon as something of a holiday; only the gentry could afford the services of a personal nurse, and although the Ransoms had no money, they were thought of as gentry. Thus, she arrived into the kind of setting that her mother’s ambitions had always imagined. She never left.
She adored Sugar. Her poise, her beauty. She took shy notice of how she dressed and copied her style in small, discreet ways. Never in her life had she come across such grace as when Sugar played tennis. Sitting in Fitzwilliam, with the children, watching their mother qualify for a tournament, she felt a sense of possession that had never left her.
He has recently begun to talk about death. Not in the sense that he fears it, but with the realisation that only with death can he escape from this continuum. He still retains the belief of his childhood faith that there is another world where those he loves await him. He has made a list of their names.
‘A bloody long list, isn’t it, Nurse Fleming?’
All outside is quiet. He has remained upstairs, since they have agreed that the doctor will want to examine him in detail. She hears a shout of frustration from the bathroom overhead as he knocks some part of himself, but never once in all the time since they moved here has he asked her for assistance. And never has he addressed her other than as ‘Nurse Fleming’.
All those years ago, when speed was of the essence and a lot of big decisions had to be made quickly, it was because of Emmet that she stayed on, at first. Her instinct told her it was the right thing to do. Events moved so fast. After the funerals, conducted in private, they had returned briefly to Waterloo, but the Gardaí had not been able to guarantee his safety. One night, without warning—at least she had not been warned—they left the south-east in a convoy, and drove to an RAF base outside Belfast. In the months that followed, as they were moved from place to place in England, a diversionary measure, it was to her that Emmet clung. He saw his father as a stranger. He was twenty years old and wanted to return to Paris, to his girlfriend, which he eventually did, a month before they left for Canada. It was Emmet who persuaded her to go with his father, in the end. He did not want her to come to Paris, and Dora Fleming realised that she had nowhere else to go.
His bathwater trundles out beneath the floor of the kitchen. She raises her head. Up on Guelph Line, a truck has backfired. She is wearing a white day-coat of nylon fabric, the way a nurse should appear in a professional situation. In the kitchen, on a tray, she has laid out teacups and plates and a dish with cookies. The teapot awaits charging from the electric kettle that is already whistling. She will add a jug of cream, from the fridge, just to show the doctor a little bit of Ireland, when his examination is completed. She is looking forward to her chat with him, and hearing about his other reassessments, and being proud of how the boss compares to other people. Later, when the doctor has left, they will have a drink on the deck, just the two of them, and discuss what the doctor has said. A gin for him; for her, a single glass of white wine. Anyone might imagine them to be a married couple.
The sudden sound of a car can be heard on the gravel. She has taken a step towards the door, when she pauses. Did the intercom sound? She is so used to the sequence, that now she cannot remember. Maybe it did sound, but the din from the kettle meant that she could not hear it. The procedure in such a case has been made very clear: if in doubt, you pick up the intercom phone and talk to the security detail up on the road.
And now the doorbell rings. The three sets of locks have to be dealt with. Nurse Fleming should lift the phone and check, but then—is it polite to keep a doctor waiting?
Thanks To
Carol Cunningham for her love and wisdom; Frances O’Rourke, Michael Kennedy, Naomi Powell, Maria White and Jonathan Williams; my editor Moira Forsyth, Bob Davidson and everyone at Sandstone Press; my agent, Caroline Montgomery of Rupert Crew Ltd., Shaun Boylan, Ciaran Byrne, Tom Cunningham, Eamon Delaney, Ruth Dudley Edwards, Ashley Hall, Anthony Haughey, Eddie McGrath, Kevin Myers, Olive Nagle, John Owen-Jones, Julian Walton, Dick Warner and the very many other people who so generously helped me.
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