From a distance, Hettie’s house looked the same as when she had left it a few hours earlier: The front door was still closed, the window above the kitchen sink still darkened with the blackout curtains. As they walked along, Hettie kept expecting to hear the stern voices of Constable Ward or Sergeant Miller, demanding that she step away from Violet so they could execute her. She picked up her pace.
Up ahead, the remaining neighborhood children gathered in the middle of the road. Rodney and Jack Dawkins, Johnny Gibson, Albert O’Brien, and Lily Brown surrounded a beat-up tin can, then Rodney kicked it as hard as he could, propelling the can into the air before it dropped onto the street and careened into the gutter. Hettie wondered what had happened to the other children—if they had evacuated with their parents or if they were among the masses of unidentified bodies being collected in the impromptu morgues around the city. She decided to believe the former.
Right as the children were about to scatter to their hiding spots, they looked up and saw Hettie and Violet.
“Look,” Johnny Gibson yelled. “An elephant. An elephant!”
The others gasped and giggled, then ran toward Hettie, forming a broken circle around Violet. Their faces were flecked with smudges of dirt and scratches, their eyes bright and attentive. Johnny pushed his black-framed glasses up along the bridge of his nose, staring at Violet as if she were a priceless artifact on display behind glass in a museum.
“Is she friendly?” asked Lily Brown. “Will she hurt me?”
“No, she won’t hurt you,” Hettie said, looking over at Violet. Her ears were pinned alongside her head. “She’s just not used to being around so many people.”
“Can I touch her?” Johnny asked.
“Quickly,” Hettie said, her eyes flashing back down the road. “Rub her forehead. She likes that.”
Johnny Gibson stepped closer and carefully extended his hand and touched her forehead with a gentle pat. Violet stood still and spooled up her trunk and released it. Then she swung her tail, swatting Lily Brown on the shoulder.
“She got me,” Lily cried, taking a step back.
“She didn’t mean to,” Hettie said. “Right, Violet?”
This time, Albert O’Brien took a step closer and extended his hand, and Violet suctioned his open palm.
“That tickles,” he said with a smile.
“She’s hungry,” Hettie said, glancing up the road, still expecting the constable or a sergeant to appear at any moment. “I need to take her home. Please do me a favor and don’t mention to anyone about seeing Violet. We need to keep her a secret for now.”
Johnny locked his pursed mouth with an imaginary key and then tossed it away. The other children nodded.
“She is our secret,” Johnny said with a smile.
“Say goodbye to Violet,” Hettie said.
“Goodbye, Violet,” Lily said.
“Can we visit with her again soon?” Johnny asked.
“Yes,” Hettie said, lifting up the crop. “Very soon.”
“Goodbye, Violet,” Albert said.
“Welcome to the Whitewell Road, Violet,” Johnny said with a playful grin. “We’ll see you again soon.”
Hettie continued toward her house in between the Reynoldses’ and the Browns’. She felt the children’s eyes on her as she unlatched the gate to their courtyard and then carefully closed it behind the two of them, and she finally breathed a sigh of relief.
Though Thomas had always said he was going to fix up the courtyard, he had never gotten around to it: The area was still no more than a square parcel of concrete with narrow beds of soil bordering two edges. Scraps of nondescript paper and twigs littered the barren yard. Violet stood in the center. Hettie fetched one of the buckets of water that Rose had filled after she had heard the air-raid sirens, and placed it next to the elephant. Violet reached her trunk into the water and sprayed it into her mouth.
On the other side of the wall, the Reynoldses’ dog barked. A fine drizzle of rain started to fall again and Violet, fatigued from her recent exertions, lay down on the pavement. Hettie went into the kitchen and collected a bundle of carrots from the larder. Rose’s half-finished cup of tea still sat on the table. As she made her way out of the kitchen, she heard a rustling in her mother’s bedroom. Then the opening and closing of drawers. Footsteps moved across the floorboards.
Exhilarated by the possibility that her mother might be alive, Hettie dropped the carrots onto the kitchen counter and rushed into the darkened hallway, its walls still holding the shadowy checkerboard of family photographs. The thin bar of light on the floor vanished again, and the metal springs of her mother’s bed creaked.
Then Hettie felt a bolt of panic: What would her mother say about Violet being in their courtyard? Surely she would force Hettie to return the elephant to the zoo, where the police would be waiting for her. But perhaps, Hettie reasoned, her mother would understand, due to the unusual circumstances, that it was a temporary arrangement, just until the threat of the ministry’s directive had passed. Maybe it would only be a few days, and things would somehow return to normal.
“Mum,” Hettie said tentatively. “Mum, is that you?”
No one answered. Hettie walked down the dim hallway toward her mother’s bedroom. She slowly opened the door. There, in front of Rose’s chest of drawers, a man was bent over, rifling through her clothes, tossing random articles of her mother’s lingerie onto the floor and the unmade bed. A crush of disappointment tumbled onto Hettie. She couldn’t believe it wasn’t her mother.
“Excuse me,” she said, her voice trembling. “Who are you? And what are you doing in my house?”
The man wheeled around.
“Hettie!”
“Liam!”
His name caught like a burr in her throat. In the dull half-light of her mother’s bedroom, she couldn’t quite make out his features. She took a step closer so that she could see him more clearly. Liam’s face was unshaven; a dark shadow of stubble covered his lower cheeks and angular chin. A fresh cut extended across his forehead and a lavender bruise bloomed along his right temple; it looked as if he had recently been dragged out of a fight. Despite all this, Hettie felt relieved to see Liam. Perhaps he would be able to help her find Rose. Given his vast network of friends and colleagues in Belfast, he would know who to reach out to, who might know the best way to go about finding her mother amid the chaos of the city.
“Liam, what are you doing here?”
“We were worried about you. Ma was worried that you—”
“Where’s Maeve? Is she all right?”
“Yes, yes,” he said. “She’s still in Newcastle with Ma.”
Liam folded Hettie into his arms, and she felt her entire body tremble. She wanted to be held and wanted to pull away from him at the same time. The shoulder of his coat smelled of forest and fire. He gently kissed Hettie on the forehead, and Hettie felt safe and protected for the first time since the bombs began to drop. Finally someone who could help her. Finally someone who could hide Violet from the constable. Hettie relaxed into the sturdiness of Liam’s embrace. A parade of shivers marched down her center. Her cheeks began to burn. She felt caught in the riptide of his affection. She couldn’t stop herself from responding to his advances. Liam effortlessly moved his mouth over hers. His tongue felt like warm liquid spilling down her throat. Her mouth melted into his. Liam pulled away.
“I thought you might be dead,” he said. “My mates said the Whitewell Road was hit.”
“I was at the zoo with Violet during the bombing.”
Liam stared into her eyes. “Return to Newcastle with me,” he said. “It’s safer there. Word around the city is that the Germans are planning to bomb Belfast again soon. Ma is worried about you.”
Before Hettie could respond, Liam leaned in and kissed her again. She felt as if she were lost in some strange dream: Here, her sister’s widower was kissing Hettie in her mother’s bedroom. This sequence of events didn’t belong in her life. Despite this, Hettie al
lowed herself to fall further into Liam’s kiss and surrender into her own need and desire. Hettie held Liam with a fierceness that she hadn’t known she possessed. Here was a rhapsody of affection. A holy communion of sorts. One that she had little experience or understanding of, but only knew that it held many things at once: lust, love, guilt, shame, passion.
Suddenly all these emotions sharpened into one truth: Hettie wanted Liam. He was the only person who mattered to her. This temporary euphoria eclipsed her dead sister, her missing mother, the executed animals, Violet in the courtyard. Instead, Hettie was caught under the hypnotic spell of Liam—and all that he was. It was both bewildering and thrilling. He pushed Hettie against the bedpost as he slipped his hand under her pleated skirt, moving his hand inside the elastic of her underwear and pressing against the heat between her legs. She released a soft groan. Liam bent onto the bed and caressed her thighs before thrusting two fingers inside her. Her muscles tightened and opened up at the same time. Hettie bit into her lower lip, willing herself not to cry out.
When Liam finally guided himself inside her, it was as if he were the missing puzzle piece that fit into her. In and out. Soft and hard. Pleasure and pain. Hettie wanted to tell Liam to stop—and to keep going. Her body was waking up and resisting, charging and collapsing until it accumulated into a physical crescendo. His nails dug into her forearms as he pushed himself more deeply into her, taking her virginity as his own.
Then Liam released a shudder and crumpled across the length of her body like a deflated balloon. Hettie felt dazed and stunned. The act had begun and ended so quickly. Hettie’s gaze lingered on her mother’s bedside table: Her simple gold wedding band sat in a porcelain dish, and there was her worn Agatha Christie paperback with its dog-eared pages. Rose was more than halfway through. Hettie’s eyes moved to her mother’s chest of drawers on the other side of the room. Her small rosewood chest was open. It was a beautifully carved box with decorative inlays of vines and flowering morning glories along its polished sides and lid. It had been a gift from Thomas’s mother on the day of their wedding over twenty-five years ago. Several crumpled pound notes littered the tabletop and were scattered on the floor. Hettie looked at Liam: His eyes were closed. His breaths were wispy and long. Suddenly, he revolted her.
“Get off of me,” Hettie said, attempting to push Liam away. “Get up.”
He flicked his eyes open. “What’s wrong?” he asked, confusion tightening his brow.
He turned on to his side, and Hettie slid out from underneath him and collected her clothes and quickly dressed herself. As she buttoned her blouse, Hettie stared at him: He looked like a different person to her. He was no longer her sister’s widower. He had become someone else, like a stranger, this man lying in her mother’s bed, with clouds of wiry brown hair clustered around his flaccid penis. Her own blood streaked the sagging skin. She thought she might be sick.
He wiped his hand along his member. “Could you get me a washcloth?” he asked.
“Get out.”
He just sat there mutely as Hettie began to pick up the pound notes from the floor. There, she also discovered Rose’s favorite gold brooch that was handed down from her mother—a bow with three small diamonds nestled into the knot—near the wooden foot of the bureau. Next to the brooch was the snail that Ferris had given her. Hettie had no idea how these objects had ended up on Rose’s bedroom floor. She gathered them along with the pound notes.
“You need to leave,” she said to Liam.
Without another word, he stood up and zipped his trousers, and quickly slipped his arms into the sleeves of his work shirt.
“Hettie, I’m just as surprised as you are,” he said. “I’m not lying.”
“Why did you come back?” Hettie asked as she scooped up the rest of the notes and folded them into her mother’s chest. “I assume there was another reason, other than robbing us?”
“It’s not what you think,” Liam said, tucking the tails of his shirt into his trousers.
Hettie sat down on the edge of the bed, attempting to steady herself. The pungent odors of smoke, fish, and her mother’s lilac perfume surrounded her.
“I had to return to the city on IRA business,” he explained. “The officer commanding my brigade was blown to pieces in the raid. His house on Lincoln Avenue took a direct hit. I had to come back and figure out who will take over his command.”
“So, for the IRA,” Hettie said, staring at her mother’s chest again. Despite everything, she realized she’d been hoping he would say he had returned for her.
“Hettie—”
Her head began to throb.
“Where is Rose?” Liam asked.
Hettie stood up.
“Where is your mother?” he asked again.
“I don’t know where she is,” Hettie finally snapped. “I haven’t seen her since last night. She told me to go to the shelter on Atlantic Avenue, but I was worried about Violet and ran to the zoo instead—and I haven’t seen her since.”
“She went to Atlantic Avenue,” he said, taking another step toward Hettie.
Suddenly everything hit her again—all that had transpired during the past twelve hours: the never-ending detonations of the bombs shaking the ground, the deafening cries of the zoo animals, the song of Stella Holliday that had opened up her soul, the chaos of the Royal, the lifeless bodies at St. George’s, the twitch of Wallace’s paw as the rest of his body grew still. Outside, there was a loud clang. And then Violet’s trumpet call.
“Violet,” Hettie said. She couldn’t believe she’d been so caught up in Liam that she had forgotten about her elephant. She hurried down the hallway, grabbing the bundle of carrots from the kitchen counter as she headed outside. Liam followed her. What Hettie saw nearly made her faint: Violet stood in the center of the courtyard, and Samuel Greene stood on the far side, near the gate that led to the street, his rifle slung over his shoulder. He straightened his posture and kept his gaze fixed on Violet. The elephant began to pace, kicking her foot against the metal bucket and spilling a pool of water across the pavement.
“Samuel,” she said, her voice quivering.
Hettie felt certain he was going to lift his rifle and aim it at Violet in one swift motion. His expression remained still, his mouth a mere line of sadness. Patches of crimson decorated his neck.
“Hettie, the constable is on his way,” he said. “You need to take Violet somewhere else.”
Hettie thought she must have been hearing wrong. Was Samuel trying to help her? Violet continued to pace the courtyard.
“Who are you?” Liam asked, buttoning up his shirt. “I suspect you’re in the RUC.”
Samuel said nothing. Hettie noticed Liam reaching for a solid shape in the front pocket of his trousers.
“My name is Samuel Greene. I work for the government,” he said. “Hettie, they know where you live, they will be here shortly. Mr. Wright is trying to stall Constable Ward, but I don’t think he’ll succeed much longer.”
A soreness pulsed between Hettie’s legs.
“Why don’t you just bugger off,” Liam said, his hand still in his pocket.
“The Ministry of Public Security ordered the execution of the dangerous animals at the zoo,” Hettie said, looking up at Liam and then at Samuel. “And Violet was on the list.”
“They’re going to be here soon,” Samuel said, more urgently now. “They intend to shoot Violet as soon as they see her.”
Without another word, Hettie ran inside to her bedroom and quickly changed into a pair of dungarees, a blouse, socks and work boots, and her peacoat. In the larder, she found another bundle of carrots and a few turnips, and in the bread box, a few stale rolls. Before returning to the courtyard, Hettie stepped into her mother’s bedroom once more and retrieved her wedding ring, the snail, her lucky talisman, and a few loose bills, folding them and the other items into the front pocket of her trousers. She tucked her grandmother’s brooch and her mother’s valuables into one of the compartments and closed
the rosewood chest securely and slid it underneath the bed, and then arranged several pairs of her mother’s shoes in front of it. It wasn’t much, but it was all she could do to protect Rose’s valuables during that moment.
When she returned to the courtyard, Liam was standing near the garden beds. He had taken out a handgun from his pocket and was polishing its barrel with his own spit and a handkerchief. Samuel Greene stood on the other side of the courtyard, tapping his foot against the pavement. Hettie glanced at both men, and picked up the curled stick from the bench and walked toward Violet.
“Let’s go, Violet,” she said, then halted as she realized she had no idea where to take her.
“Anywhere but here,” Samuel said, almost reading her mind.
“We’ll take her to my friend’s house,” Liam said. “He lives just down the hill.”
“Fine,” Samuel said curtly. “Just leave. Now.”
Hettie didn’t have time to consider the wisdom of Liam’s plan. She guided the stick in front of Violet and right away the elephant followed her along the narrow pathway that led to the street. She broke another carrot and passed it back to Violet. The elephant curled her trunk around the carrot and slipped it into her mouth.
As they approached the street, Hettie looked up the rise for any evidence of the constable and sergeant. She was relieved not to see the pair. Instead, her neighbors, Mr. Reynolds and Mr. Brown, stood on the curb, talking to each other. They stared up at her and Violet with expressions of amazement. Their eyes were wide open, their mouths gaping as if they were about to break into laughter.
“Hettie Quin,” Mr. Brown said. “What on earth—”
“I’ll explain later,” she said. “If my mum returns, please tell her that I’m taking care of Violet, that I’ll be back soon, that I miss her, that I’m safe, that I’m alive.”
“Of course, of course,” Mr. Reynolds said. “We’ll tell her.”
“This way,” Liam said, walking down the hill toward the Arthur Road.
The Elephant of Belfast Page 23