by Amy Harmon
The letter made me weep—crying for my friend, my country, and for a future that seems incredibly dim. I’ve gone to Sligo each day to read the Irish Times taped to the window of Lyons department store, but Anne has not pressed me or asked me about the proceedings. It’s as if she’s simply waiting, calm and resigned. She already knows what happens next, and her knowledge is a burden she has tried to bear silently.
When I told Anne that Mick asked for her, she readily agreed to help where she could, though I had to show her his letter before she believed it. She’s still half convinced he wants her dead. She shed tears when she read his melancholy summary, just as I did, and I had no words to console her. She stepped into my arms and comforted me instead.
I love her with an intensity I didn’t think myself capable of. Yeats writes about being changed utterly. I am changed utterly. Irrevocably. And though love is indeed a terrible beauty, especially given the circumstances, I can only revel in all its gory gloriousness.
When I’m not worrying over the fate of Ireland, I’m plotting a future that revolves around her. I’m thinking of her white breasts and the high arches in her small feet, of the way her hips flare and how her skin is like silk behind her ears and on the insides of her thighs. I’m thinking of the way she abandons the Irish inflections when we’re alone, and how her flattened vowels and softened Ts create an honesty between us that wasn’t there before.
Her American accent suits her. Then I begin thinking about how motherhood suits her as well and how her belly would look swollen with our child—someone for Eoin to love and look after. He needs a sibling. I imagine the stories she’ll tell the children, the stories she’s written and the stories she’ll write, and the people all over the world who will read them.
Then I start to think about changing her name. Soon.
T. S.
18
HIS CONFIDENCE
I broke my heart in two
So hard I struck.
What matter? For I know
That out of rock,
Out of desolate source,
Love leaps upon its course.
—W. B. Yeats
The boat Michael Collins was on was hours late docking at Dún Laoghaire; they’d hit a trawler in the Irish Sea and arrived a mere forty-five minutes before the eleven o’clock cabinet meeting with the Dáil. Michael had called Garvagh Glebe from London on December second and asked Thomas and me to meet him in Dublin. We’d driven through the night only to wait on the quay in the Model T for four hours, dozing and shivering while we watched for the boat’s arrival. Dublin was crawling with Black-and-Tan patrols and Auxiliaries again. It was as if Lloyd George had given them the signal to come out in force, a final visual reminder of what Ireland would be like indefinitely if an agreement wasn’t reached. We’d been stopped and searched twice, once as we arrived in Dublin and once when we’d parked on the wharf at Dún Laoghaire, waiting patiently as they shined their flashlights in our faces and down our bodies, inside the car, and through Thomas’s medical bag. I didn’t have papers, but I was a pretty female in the company of a doctor with a government stamp on his documents. They let us go without any trouble.
Michael made the journey back to Dublin with Erskine Childers, secretary to the delegation. He was a slim man with fine features and an erudite manner. I knew from my research that he had an American wife and wouldn’t, in the end, support the Treaty. But he was only a messenger, not a delegate, and his signature would not be required to forge an agreement with England. He greeted Thomas and me with a tired handshake, but he had his own car waiting, giving us a moment with Michael before he had to be delivered to the Mansion House, where the meeting would take place.
“We’ll talk as you drive, Thomas. There might not be another opportunity,” Michael instructed, and the three of us slid into the front seat of the car, with Thomas behind the wheel and me in the middle. Michael looked like he hadn’t slept in weeks. He shook out his coat and combed his hair while Thomas drove.
“Tell me, Annie,” Michael demanded. “What happens next? What possible good can come of this hellish trip?”
I’d spent the night trying to remember the intricate details of the timeline and could only remember the overall back-and-forth that occurred between the commencement of the talks on October 11 and the subsequent signing of the Treaty, or the Articles of Association as they were sometimes called, in the early days of December. This meeting today at the Mansion House didn’t ring in my memory as productive or pivotal. There’d been little information on it at all, except when it was referred to in subsequent debates. It was the beginning of the end, but the squabbling would only intensify in the weeks to come.
“Specifics are difficult,” I began, “but there will be anger over the oath of allegiance to the Crown that Lloyd George is demanding. De Valera will insist on external association instead of dominion status, as the articles now read—”
“External association was shot down,” Michael interrupted. “We tried that, and it was roundly rejected. Dominion status with an oath that declares the Crown as the head of a collection of individual states—Ireland being one of them—is the closest we can get to a republic. We are a small nation, and England is an empire. Dominion status is the best we are going to get. I see it as one step closer to greater independence down the road. We can get a foothold or we can go to war. Those are the choices,” Michael snapped.
I nodded, and Thomas reached over and squeezed my hand, encouraging me to continue. Michael Collins wasn’t mad at me. He was weary, and he’d had all these same arguments a hundred times over the previous weeks.
“All I can tell you, Michael, is that those who hated you before, hate you still. There is little you’ll be able to say to change their minds.”
“Cathal Brugha and Austin Stack,” Michael sighed, naming his fiercest adversaries in the Irish cabinet. “Dev doesn’t hate me . . . or maybe he does.” Michael rubbed at his face. “De Valera’s name carries weight throughout Ireland, and he’s the president of the Dáil. He has a great deal of political capital to spend. But I can’t figure him out. It’s as though he wants to dictate the direction the country takes, but he doesn’t want to be the one in the driver’s seat, steering the vehicle, in case we go off a cliff.”
“He will compare himself to a captain whose crew rushed in before the tide and almost sank the ship.”
“Will he, now?” Michael said, his countenance darkening. “A captain of a ship who didn’t bother to set sail with his crew.”
“I believe you say something in one of the debates about him trying to sail the ship from dry land,” I murmured.
“Ah. That’s even more apt,” Michael retorted.
“The people will be with you, Mick. If the Treaty is good enough for you, it’s good enough for us,” Thomas spoke up.
“It’s not good enough for me, Tommy. Not nearly good enough. But it’s a start. It’s more than Ireland’s ever had.” He brooded for a moment before asking me his final questions. “So I’ll be going back to London, then?”
“You will,” I said firmly.
“Will de Valera go to London with us?”
“No.”
Collins nodded as if he’d expected as much.
“Will the others sign the Treaty? I know Arthur will sign, but what about the rest of the Irish delegation?”
“They will all sign. Barton will be the hardest to convince. But the prime minister will tell him it will be war in three days if he doesn’t.” Lloyd George had likely been bluffing about the timeframe, according to historians, but Barton had believed him. They all had. And the Treaty was signed.
Michael sighed heavily. “Then there is little I need to say today. I’m too tired to argue anyway.” He yawned widely, his jaw cracking with the action. “When are you going to marry this girl, Tommy?”
Thomas smiled at me but said nothing.
“If you don’t marry her, I will.” Michael yawned again.
“You alrea
dy have too many women to juggle, Mr. Collins. Princess Mary, Kitty Kiernan, Hazel Lavery, Moya Llewelyn-Davies . . . am I missing any?” I asked.
His eyebrows shot up. “Good God, woman. You’re frightening,” he whispered. “Maybe it’s time Kitty and I set a date.” He was quiet for ten seconds. “Princess Mary?” he asked, brow furrowed in confusion.
“I believe Countess Markievicz accuses you of having an affair with Princess Mary during the Treaty negotiations,” I said, chuckling.
“Jaysus,” he groaned. “As if I had the time. Thanks for the warning.”
We pulled up in front of the Dublin Mansion House, the headquarters for the Irish parliament. It was a handsome, rectangular edifice with stately windows marching across the pale exterior and lining either side of a canopied entrance. A crowd had formed. Men lined the wall to the left of the building and shimmied up the lampposts to get a better view. The place was teeming with the curious and the well connected.
Michael Collins put his hat firmly on his head and stepped out of the car. We watched the press swarm and the crowds cry out when he was spotted, but he didn’t slow and he didn’t smile as he crossed the cobbled courtyard toward the steps, several of his men falling in behind him, acting as bodyguards. I recognized Tom Cullen and Gearóid O’Sullivan from the wedding at the Gresham. They’d also been waiting at Dún Laoghaire and had followed closely behind us as we’d driven to the Mansion House. Joe O’Reilly waved at us before they were all swallowed up in the throng.
Michael Collins went back to London, and Thomas and I stayed in Dublin, knowing the delegation would be back soon. Mick returned on December 7; the poor man had been on a boat and a train more hours than he’d been off in the last week. He and the others were greeted by a press release in all the papers stating that President de Valera had called an emergency meeting of the full cabinet in “view of the nature of the proposed Treaty with Great Britain,” signaling to the people that peace was uncertain and the agreement they’d all just signed didn’t have his support. Like he had only days before, Mick arrived at Dún Laoghaire and stepped into another series of meetings—this time with a divided Irish government—no rest, no respite, no break.
After long arguments in closed session, and after the cabinet had voted four to three in support of uniting behind the Treaty, de Valera issued another statement to the press stating the terms of the Treaty conflicted with the wishes of the nation—a nation that hadn’t yet been consulted—and he could not recommend its acceptance. And that was only the beginning.
On December 8, Mick showed up on Thomas’s doorstep in Mountjoy Square looking lost and shell-shocked. Thomas urged him to come in, but he just stood there. He could hardly lift his head, as though he thought the recriminations made by de Valera and other members of the cabinet had spilled over and contaminated his reputation, even among his friends.
“I had a woman spit on me, Tommy, outside of Devlin’s Pub. She told me I’d betrayed my country. She said because of me, they died for nothing. Seán Mac Diarmada, Tom Clarke, James Connolly, and all the rest died for nothing. She said I betrayed them and everyone else when I signed the Treaty.”
I joined Thomas at the door and tried to get Michael to come inside, reassuring him that he’d done all he could, but he turned and collapsed on the top step instead. Darkness had already fallen, and the streetlamps were lit, but the night was cold. I brought a blanket and laid it across his shoulders, and Thomas and I sat on the steps beside him, holding a silent vigil over his broken heart. When he suddenly crumpled in exhaustion and distress, laying his head in his arms like a defeated child, we stayed with him. He didn’t ask me for answers or predictions. He didn’t want to know what came next or what he should do. He simply cried, his shoulders shaking and his back bowed. After a while, he wiped his eyes, rose wearily, and climbed on his bicycle.
Thomas followed him, begging him to come to Garvagh Glebe for Christmas if he couldn’t go home to Cork or to Garland to see Kitty. Michael thanked him quietly and nodded at me, making no promises. Then he rode off into the night, saying only that there was work to be done.
I awoke to screaming, and for a moment I was back in Manhattan, hearing the wail of police vehicles and ambulances, sounds commonplace to city life. The shadowy shapes in the room and the sounds of Garvagh Glebe brought me out of sleep’s haze and into awareness, and I jerked upright, heart pounding, limbs shaking. We’d arrived home from Dublin after supper, and Thomas had been immediately summoned to a sick patient. Eoin had been irritable, Brigid had been weary, and I’d put the boy to bed with a story and some bribery. Then I’d fallen into bed myself, worrying as I drifted off about Thomas and his never-ending schedule.
I stumbled out of my room and up the stairs to Eoin, identifying him as the source of the shrieking. Brigid met me in the hallway, and she hesitated, letting me take the lead.
Eoin was thrashing in his bed, his arms flailing, his face wet with tears.
“Eoin!” I said, sitting beside him. “Wake up! You’re having a bad dream.” He was stiff and hard to hold, his small body pressed and stretched between sleep and reality, and I shook him, saying his name, patting his icy cheeks. His whole body was cold. I began rubbing my hands briskly up his shivering limbs, trying to warm and wake him.
“He used to do this when he was very small,” Brigid fretted. “Most of the time, we couldn’t wake him. He would toss about, and Dr. Smith would just hold him until he settled.”
Eoin let out another blood-curdling cry, and Brigid stepped back, her hands over her ears.
“Eoin,” I urged. “Eoin, where are you? Can you hear me?”
His eyes fluttered open. “It’s dark,” he wailed.
“Turn on the lamp, Brigid. Please.”
She rushed to do as I asked.
“Doc!” Eoin cried, his blue eyes searching the room for Thomas. “Doc, where are you?”
“Shh, Eoin,” I soothed. “Thomas isn’t back yet.”
“Where’s Doc?” he wept. He wasn’t whimpering. He was crying, the raw wails making my own eyes fill and spill over.
“He’ll be home soon, Eoin. Nana is here. I’m here. Everything is all right.”
“He’s in the water,” he moaned. “He’s in the water!”
“No, Eoin. No,” I said, even as my heart grew cold and heavy in my chest. I was to blame for Eoin’s nightmare this time. He hadn’t just seen me disappear; he’d seen Thomas disappear too.
After several minutes, Eoin’s body grew more pliant, but his tears continued as he sobbed with brokenhearted conviction.
I held him close, rubbing his back and stroking his hair.
“Would you like a story, Eoin?” I whispered, trying to coax him back from the edges of the nightmare and into the comfort of waking.
“I want Doc,” he cried. Brigid sat down on Eoin’s bed. She wore a ruffled nightcap that made her look like Mrs. Claus, and her face was creased and careworn in the meager light. She didn’t reach for Eoin but clasped her hands together as if she wished someone would hold her too.
“What if you tell me what Doc does to make you feel better when you have a bad dream?” I suggested.
Eoin continued to cry as if Thomas were never coming back.
“He sings to you, Eoin,” Brigid murmured. “Should I sing to you?”
Eoin shook his head, turning his face into my chest.
“He tamed the waters, tamed the wind, He saved a dying world from sin, they can’t forget, they never will, the wind and waves remember Him still,” Brigid warbled tentatively.
“He healed the sick, the blind, the lame, the poor in heart cry out His name. We can’t forget, we never will, the wind and waves remember Him still,” she continued.
“I don’t like that song, Nana,” Eoin said, his voice hitching with the sobs that still shuddered through him.
“Why not?” she asked.
“Because it’s about Jesus, and Jesus died.”
Brigid looked a little shocked, and I f
elt inappropriate laughter bubbling in my chest.
“It’s not a sad song, though. It’s a song about remembering,” she protested.
“I don’t like remembering that Jesus died,” Eoin insisted, his voice rising. Brigid’s shoulders fell, and I patted her hand. She was trying, and Eoin wasn’t being especially receptive.
“Remember Him, remember when, remember that He’ll come again, when all the hope and love is lost, remember that He paid the cost,” Thomas sang softly from the doorway. “They can’t forget, they never will, the wind and waves remember Him still.”
Thomas’s pale eyes had dark circles, and his clothes were rumpled, but he walked forward and lifted Eoin from my arms. Eoin clung to him, burrowing his face in Thomas’s neck. His sobs rose again, gut-wrenching and unrelenting.
“What’s wrong, little man?” Thomas sighed. I stood, vacating my spot so Thomas could tuck Eoin back in his bed. Brigid stood as well, and with a soft good night, she walked quickly from the room. I followed, leaving Eoin in Thomas’s capable hands.
“Brigid?”
She turned toward me, her face tragic, her mouth tight.
“Are you all right?” I asked. She nodded briskly, but I could see that she was struggling for her composure.
“When my children were small, sometimes they would cry in their sleep like that,” she said. She paused, tangled in a memory. “My husband—Declan’s father—he wasn’t gentle the way Thomas is. He was bitter and tired. Anger was the only thing that kept him going. He worked himself into the ground; he worked us into the ground. And he had no patience for our tears.”