by Lia Mills
Everyone else had gone up to bed. The sky was clean, peppered with stars. The moon, just off full, poured its light over the garden. We were in the back parlour with the curtains open, beside a low fire of turf and wood. We sat without speaking, listened to the fire crackle and spark, watched shadows leap along the walls. It reminded me of when we were children and used to hide, from Lockie or Mother, inside a wardrobe smelling of moth powder or under a bed, holding on to each other, trying to stifle our giggles, not daring to speak. But we weren’t children now, and this, whatever it was that bothered him, was no laughing matter. I wondered, had he had a row with Isabel, or did he dread leaving and all that lay ahead? He glared at the fire, had a go at the embers with the poker, sending up showers of sparks. A cinder fell out on to the rug. He picked it up and tossed it back in one sure movement. Didn’t flinch.
Time was when there were no barriers between our two minds, but now I couldn’t reach him unless he chose to allow it. At last he began to talk. He’d walked past Trinity on his way home from Isabel’s that evening, he said, when two girls came up to him, giggling and nudging each other, their hands hidden in fur muffs. He stood off the pavement to let them pass, raised his hat to them.
‘I was grinning like any old eejit,’ he said, mocking himself. ‘They were pretty girls. I thought they liked the look of me.’
‘And?’
‘They gave me this.’ He reached into his pocket and drew out a fat white feather, broken in two. ‘They called me coward. They wanted to know, am I not man enough to fight?’ He slid the broken quill between his fingers and plucked at the fibres, to smooth them. ‘The coward’s feather. Don’t tell Isabel. Would you say it’s from a goose or a gull?’
‘Stop it!’ I snatched the feather from his hands and flung it into the fire, where it twisted and snapped on the coals. A sour blue coil of smoke rose as the quill crackled and split. ‘Witches! If I’d been there, I’d have pushed them under a tram.’
He laughed a little. ‘Dear Katie, I think you would. You’re the one should be the soldier.’
I tried to make light of it. ‘Sure, you wouldn’t know who to listen to. If you paid attention to them all, you’d be wearing ten different uniforms at once.’
‘Or none.’
‘Or none.’ I risked another look at him. ‘I know you’re only doing this because you think it’s right. I admire you for it. But I’m afraid for you too.’
‘Don’t be,’ he said. ‘I’m not. I’m more afraid of what the world would be if we don’t put up a fight, what it will be if we don’t win. And there are so many Irishmen in the thick of it, we’ll have a place at the peace conference, for sure, when it ends. They’ll all see it differently then.’
He must have had so much on his mind that night. He was the person I was closest to in all the world, and yet I’d barely known him at all. He’d enlisted without telling me, got engaged without warning – and now this. I couldn’t take it in. Even lovely, sad Isabel was not the person I’d thought she was.
When we turned on to D’Olier Street, we saw a crowd on O’Connell Bridge. Boys sat on the parapets and clung to lamp-posts. People jostled for a view up Sackville Street.
As we crossed the bridge, the crowd swelled around us. It was like entering a fairground. My heart beat faster. Isabel gripped my hand. People thronged in all directions, pushing carts, wheelbarrows, prams piled high with goods. Children staggered past, their mouths stained with confectioners’ sugar. A boy had become a jewellery tree, hats stacked on his head like upside-down nests, watches on the branches of his arms. Girls whose shins were mottled and bruised crammed their grubby feet into high heels and jewelled sandals. Feather boas were wound around their bony shoulders. They swaggered and laughed Lookit me! Giveit here! My steps quickened. A wrecked tram was skewed across the tracks, where the remnants of a fire smouldered. People slipped through the crowd carrying bundles and bags, looking neither left nor right.
Feathered women sat astride a dead horse, drinking whiskey by the neck and jeering. They swung their bare legs, skirts hoicked around their thighs. The wrecked tram was being used as a changing room for girls trying on camisoles and lacy knickers. A gathering of men at the windows roared approval.
We found anchor in a broad doorway, breathing hard, as though we’d been running. A man’s voice spoke from the shadows. ‘They’ve smashed their way into every shop around. See the shoes? They got into Saxone’s a while back.’
I looked at my feet. I had bought my boots in Saxone’s a fortnight ago, the day Florrie bought her wedding shoes. The manager was a thin, kindly man we’d known since childhood.
‘Noblett’s is destroyed. There’s no stopping them.’
‘Has anyone tried?’ Isabel sounded as if she were considering it.
‘That shower in the GPO. They fired over their heads. It worked for all of five minutes. There were priests here earlier – but the crowd ran them.’
‘Where are the police?’ Isabel asked.
He spat. ‘Vanished, at the first sign of trouble. Useless bowsies.’ He stepped out, turned up his coat collar and was swallowed by a heaving sea of people.
‘Look.’ Isabel tugged my arm. I looked where she was pointing. Upstairs in Wynn’s Hotel, people sat in rows at the large plate-glass window, like an audience at a play.
‘We can’t stay here,’ I said. We edged out into the crowd and jostled our way along the street, towards home.
Behind us, someone screamed. ‘Fire! The stables!’
The yelling intensified as people realized the horses were trapped, neighing their panic. In front of the Rotunda we fought free, breathed easier.
Suddenly I remembered Frieda, saying her parents were off to the races, leaving her younger sister Maria in charge, her scorn at their lapse of judgement. With the trams out of action, they wouldn’t be back yet. Their shop was a couple of hundred yards away, the distance thick with people. The children must be terrified with all the commotion. With fire so close, there was no knowing what might happen. Frieda might still be at the hospital.
Isabel didn’t resist when I turned down a side street that led away from the crowds, the noise and the fires, into a labyrinth of shadowed back-alleys and markets, the reek of the slaughterhouse.
There was no one about. The air, fogged and close, smelled of autumn’s loamy fires and of beasts.
I found the door I wanted and knocked. No answer. I tried the latch. It lifted, smooth as cream.
‘They’d have been wiser to lock it,’ Isabel whispered.
‘Well for us they didn’t.’ I nudged her in ahead of me. ‘Hello? Is anyone here?’
Inside was dark, all the windows shuttered. A muffled squeal was followed by a clang, then another squeal.
‘It’s Katie!’ I called, into the ringing darkness. ‘Katie Crilly. Maria? Are you here?’
Isabel let me go ahead of her. I walked into something dense and dusty, the heavy curtain that separated the shop from the back entry. I felt for an opening with my hands. Isabel sneezed. Upstairs, something fell.
I parted the curtains and stepped into the thinner dark of the shop itself. My heart skipped in fright when I saw the outlines of a crowd. Then I realized the shapes were bolts of cloth. As my eyes adjusted and my pulse slowed, the gloom resolved into shelves, counter, till, the vault of the stairs. I stood on the bottom step and called up, ‘Where are you all?’
A small form came barrelling down and bumped into me with a sob of relief.
‘Tishy, is that you? Are you on your own? Where is everyone?’
‘Mammie and Da went to the Fairyhouse. Frieda left Maria in charge but she went out with John Joe, ages ago. She said not to budge and not let anyone in.’
Isabel sneezed again. The child pulled back. ‘Who’s that?’
‘It’s only Isabel.’ A silence lengthened, where once I’d have said Liam’s fiancée. ‘Do you have any lamps, Tishy?’
‘Maria said not to light ’em.’
‘
You can’t sit in the dark all on your own.’ I followed her back through the curtain to the storeroom. She moved with confidence, but we went more cautiously, testing the ground with our feet.
She handed me a box of matches. I struck one. Light bloomed around us and shadows ran up the walls. Tishy was misshapen. Something bulged under her pinafore. I dropped the match and we were in the dark again.
‘What on earth –’ I struck another match to a candle on the shelf. A small shape separated from Tishy and scampered across the room.
Isabel shrieked. ‘What was that?’
Just then the shop door rattled, splintered, crashed open. The candlelight wavered, showing Isabel’s distorted face. I caught the handle of the storeroom door and jerked it shut. The sudden draught extinguished the light. I felt for the key I’d seen on its hook, fumbled to get it into the lock and turned it. Out in the shop, it sounded as if hundreds of hobnailed boots were stamping on the counter. My skin crawled, as though insects were making their way along my arms and in under my hair, down my spine. My heart knocked at my ribs, wanting out. I pushed a fist against it, holding it in place. I didn’t understand what had happened. How had the seams of the world come undone so fast? What was this hellish place we’d stumbled into?
Tishy wailed. I put a hand over her face, found her mouth and held it, to quiet her. ‘Ssh!’
She pushed my hand away. ‘It wasn’t me.’
The eerie wail was repeated, followed by chatter, from a high shelf.
‘What is it?’ Isabel whispered.
‘He’s a monkey.’ Tishy coaxed the thing off its shelf and folded herself to the floor against the wall, crooning and rocking.
The door was shaken and kicked. I pressed my back to the cold, powdery plaster of the wall. I’d a strange sensation, as though my damp skin were thickening, squeezing me out of myself.
Another vicious kick. Then nothing.
When it had been quiet for a while, we unlocked the door, pushed it open a crack, waited, then opened it all the way. Tishy turned on the main electric light. The shop was a mess of tumbled rolls of fabric, spills of colour.
My heart was still racing as we tried to restore some kind of order to what was left of the rolls of cloth. The monkey watched, his large black eyes peering out from a greyish-pink face framed by long black hair. Tishy picked him up and hid her face in his fur.
‘Where did he come from?’ I asked.
‘Da gave him to Mammie for Easter.’
‘What’s his name?’
‘Paschal.’
It wasn’t really funny, but we laughed.
‘Where did he come from?’ Isabel asked.
‘He was a barrel monkey, but the man was mean. Dada saved him and brought him home.’ Tishy set the monkey free and he scurried along the shelves to sit on a high ledge, scratching his head.
I couldn’t leave the girl there on her own. Whoever those people were, they could come back, any minute. We found a receipt book in a drawer and I wrote a note, saying Tishy was with me.
She wouldn’t leave the monkey, even though I told her it was a bad idea to bring him. He could take fright and run away, I said, though what I was really afraid of was that Mother wouldn’t allow him in the house. He wrapped his hairy arms around Tishy’s neck and lifted large, sad eyes to mine.
Tishy carried the monkey, like a baby, on her hip. Up the west side of the Square we went. I wasn’t superstitious, but I avoided looking in the direction of the Black Church, glad we didn’t have to go any closer. There was enough devilry abroad.
We hurried down the steps to our area door and I knocked on the window. The curtain flicked aside. Lockie’s ruddy face appeared, creased in a huge smile, vanished. Seconds later, the door creaked open a fraction, just enough to let us slip through. ‘Thank heaven you’re safe!’ Lockie said. ‘They’re beside themselves in there!’
I went in ahead of the others. Mother and Florrie were at the kitchen table. Mother blessed herself when she saw us. ‘It’s all right,’ I said. ‘We’re all right. Where’s Dad?’
‘He’s not back yet.’
‘No trams,’ Florrie said. ‘Matt’s not here either.’
‘I have Isabel with me and – Mother, you’ll never guess, we found Frieda Leamy’s little sister Tishy all on her own and a mob in the shop. She’s only six and –’
Mother looked past me. ‘What is that – creature?’
Tishy wrapped both arms around the monkey, who bared his big yellow teeth and scolded us all.
‘It’s the Leamys’ monkey.’ I stood between them, pleaded with my eyes for Mother to listen. ‘She wouldn’t leave without him.’
Isabel came in, touching her hair lightly into place. She swept her palms together and held out one hand to Mother. ‘Hello, Mrs Crilly. Hello, Florrie.’
My eyes were drawn to the ring, a hint of demure green against the navy-blue of her skirt.
‘There you are, Isabel, welcome.’ Mother smiled in a fixed sort of way. ‘The child is one thing, but as for that yoke, the monkey – it can’t stay. It’s likely riddled with fleas.’
‘He’d a big long bath this morning,’ Tishy said. ‘He’s clean as squeak.’
As if he understood, Paschal combed his hair with his long fingers and preened, as for a mirror. The corners of Mother’s mouth twitched.
‘Well. We’ll see. Where have you been, Katie? We were worried sick! Isabel. I was beginning to think we’d not see you again. Come upstairs. Tell us your news. Your supper’s ruined, I’m afraid. We waited, but –’
Lockie waved away our apologies. ‘Can’t be helped,’ she said. ‘I’ll make a Welsh rarebit, will that do?’
‘That would be gorgeous, Lockie, we’re starved.’
‘Upstairs with you, and wait. I’ll be up directly. Missie here can wait with me. Sit down, child. What about your man, the monkey? I suppose he eats bread?’
‘He likes it soaked in milk,’ said Tishy.
Lockie put her fists on her big hips. ‘Does he, now? He’ll take what he’s given, I presume?’ She busied herself with cups, put a beaker of milk in front of Tishy. ‘I suppose water is good enough for his Lordship?’
Florrie sniffed. ‘He shouldn’t be at the table.’
‘Ah, leave him,’ I said. ‘He’s not doing any harm – look, he’s dozing off.’ It was true. Paschal’s head rested on Tishy’s shoulder. The thick lids of his eyes slid shut.
Mother and Isabel had gone on upstairs, but Florrie held me back in the passage. ‘I met Louisa Nolan on the Square,’ she said. ‘They saw Matt, a week ago, in the March Theatre. In the matinée!’
‘And?’
‘In the matinée. He was up on the stage. During Lent.’
‘If they were at the theatre themselves, they can hardly pass remarks about him. What was the play?’
Florrie waved this irrelevance away. ‘Louisa said one of the players was ill and Matt –’
‘Was it that Scottish company he admires so much?’
‘Oh, Katie! How would I know a thing like that?’ She gave me a puck in the arm, disgusted. ‘You’re no use.’ She stamped up the stairs ahead of me.
In the breakfast room, Isabel was reciting our adventures. Already it felt like an invention, from too much telling. I wished I could leave them all and go up to Liam’s room to sit at the window and think about all I’d seen and heard.
I let Isabel do the talking. The Shelbourne, the barricades, the file of men going into Trinity. ‘Then, we went to Miss Colclough’s house.’
‘Ah. The famous Captain Wilson.’
‘What’s he like?’ Florrie asked.
‘Quite rude,’ Isabel said.
Mother looked pleased. I got up to help Lockie serve the food from a tray on the sideboard. There was a plate of golden cheese melting into toasted bread for each of us. ‘I thought you’d like some yourself, ma’am. The girl is downstairs with a bowl of bread and milk.’
I could just see it, child and monkey side by side with th
eir identical plates of food.
‘Did he tell you anything we didn’t already know?’ Mother asked.
‘No – but he was called away to deal with some trouble. We really didn’t see him for very long.’ Time had passed, all right, but I couldn’t account for it. ‘He mentioned putting away valuables, just in case.’
‘We’ve locked up the presents, and the silver.’ Florrie spread a thick layer of butter on the last piece of bread. ‘Eugene went to the Imperial.’
‘What on earth for?’
‘To watch.’ She took a bite. Her small, even teeth left their mark on the butter.
‘We saw people watching, from Wynn’s.’ Isabel rubbed a knot in the wood of the table with a finger. ‘Aren’t you worried about Eugene?’
‘Not at all, why would I be?’
No one said anything. Isabel’s silence was the loudest. At last she said, with obvious effort, ‘You must be looking forward to your wedding no end, Florrie.’
At Mother’s bidding, Florrie brought the leather-bound memory-book from the credenza. Mother held it open to show Isabel the epigraph inscribed inside the cover. ‘Liam liked these lines, from Professor Kettle.’ She’d picked the quote about justice and the flaming coals.
I dreaded Isabel’s response. She stared at it for a long time, but didn’t comment. She took the book from Mother and turned the pages slowly, murmuring at every one. She looked at each of the letters pasted into the book, but I didn’t think she was reading them. ‘Oh!’ She’d stopped at the thick cream-coloured page, with the poem written out in her own graceful handwriting. She blinked and flicked over the page, fast.
I’d loved that poem since I first read it, when I was fifteen or so and easy to thrill. I didn’t know how she could bear to look at it here, in front of us, with Mother breathing down her neck. The words rolled, stately and mysterious, through my mind: