Women of Courage

by Tim Vicary

  David Ferguson glanced at his passenger proudly.

  ‘Welcome to Killrath, Mr Butler,’ he said.

  23. Arrest

  HE WASN’T in the tenement. When Catherine turned up there, a slatternly woman met her on the stairs and told her about the police raid. The woman wore an old stained dress and torn slippers, and was feeding a baby at her breast as she spoke. Two other children with bare bottoms tugged at her skirts and crawled around her feet. She looked frightened, bitter, and suspicious.

  ‘They dragged us out of our beds in the middle of the night. With guns and steel helmets, they were. Laughing at us till I thought me last day had come. But it was your Sean they were interested in, that’s all they would ask about. And himself long gone, God rot ‘em!’

  The woman shivered, and looked at Catherine’s fine coat with something between contempt and envy. ‘Left you, has he? They’re all the same. You drop him, girl, he’s not worth it.’

  ‘Do you know where he’s gone?’

  The woman laughed, throwing back her scrawny head and showing a line of brown, rotten teeth. ‘You think he’d be after telling the likes of me? You’ve a lot to learn, girl. Why? Left you a bun in the oven, has he?’

  ‘No, of course not.’ Catherine flushed, fumbled in her purse and held out a pound note. ‘Here. I’m sorry you were troubled. Buy some food for the children.’

  The gift made her feel worse rather than better. As she came out into the street she felt eyes on her all around; children, mothers hanging washing across the street, unemployed men smoking on doorsteps. She had not come here in the daytime before; it was a bad mistake. She didn’t feel safe until she was back in the main thoroughfare of Amiens Street.

  The relief from openly staring eyes was immense.

  She did not notice the tall young detective, twenty paces behind on the opposite side of the road. He never stared. Whenever possible, he watched her reflection in shop windows. Sometimes he strolled ahead of her, guessing which way she was going.

  Foster knew her quite well now. He wasn’t surprised when she went to the university. Sean wasn’t there, either. Foster saw her talking to Professor O’Connor after a lecture. The professor shook his head. Catherine gave him a letter.

  She spent a couple of hours in the library and then she went home. Foster knew that sooner or later she would come out and go to Parnell Square.

  So he hung around outside her house, and waited.

  Sean wasn’t at the Irish class in Parnell Square, either. Catherine sat through it in a daze, unable to concentrate. She hated herself for sending the letter, but she hadn’t been able to sleep until she’d written it. All it said was:

  Sean,

  I need to see you again so we can talk. It’s too cruel to end like this. I had good reason to lose my temper but I wish I hadn’t, now.

  Catherine.

  The third sentence had cost her three hours of bitter self-reflection. She didn’t often apologize, and she didn’t intend to make a habit of it now. There had been a much longer letter explaining how she really felt, but she had torn it up and thrown it in the fire.

  Love is like a physical addiction to tobacco, she thought. People try to give it up but they say they can’t because it hurts too much. He’s a vain, stupid boy but I can’t stop thinking about him and the longer this silence goes on the more it hurts.

  She went to the university again next day. The Professor had no message. Dejected, she went home in the afternoon to study.

  She sat in her room and found she was drawing a series of curves on her lecture notes which reminded her of Sean’s buttocks. She scribbled them out irritably, and tried to concentrate.

  I thought taking a lover was something to do with freedom, she thought, but it’s not. It’s got more to do with slavery.

  Keneally, the butler, knocked on the door. He had a disapproving frown on his face.

  ‘There is a young man to see you, Miss Catherine. One of your fellow students, he says.’

  ‘Yes? Well, what’s his name?’

  ‘A Mr Brennan, Miss Catherine.’ Keneally sniffed. It was clear there was something quite unsuitable about the visitor.

  ‘Well, go on then. Show him up! I’ll meet him in here!’

  When Keneally had gone she found she had already stood up to welcome Sean and had knocked a pile of notes fluttering to the floor. I mustn’t look eager, she thought. Especially not in front of the servants.

  But I can’t help it, I love him! And he’s here!

  Outside, Foster could not believe his luck. Brennan had simply stepped out through the gate of the park in the square, crossed the broad street, knocked on the front door, and gone in.

  He knew the young man was Brennan because he had taken his cap off before he knocked, and Foster had had a clear sight of his face. It was just like the photograph. There was no doubt at all.

  He wondered what to do now. I’ve got to get this right, he thought. There’ll never be a chance as good as this.

  The simplest thing is to go up to the house and arrest him there. What will happen?

  I’ll knock, the butler will open the door, and I’ll explain who I am. He’ll be surprised, but he’ll let me in. I’ll tell him Brennan is an IRA murderer.

  He won’t believe me.

  He’ll make some kind of fuss and want to ask Miss Catherine’s advice, or we’ll have a long argument in the hall, or he’ll want me to ring Dublin Castle and speak to Sir Jonathan. One way or another Brennan will hear the noise, and be warned.

  Then there’ll be a shooting match inside the house. I don’t know my way around the house and probably Brennan doesn’t either, but Miss Catherine does and she may help him. The servants will be flustered and get in the way.

  It’s too risky. Easier to arrest him when he comes out. He’s not very big; if I get a grip on him I should be able to hold him, snap the handcuffs on.

  But I can’t stand right outside the house, or he’ll see me and go out the back. And if I stand too far back, I may have to chase him. Then he’ll disappear in the streets and get away, or there’ll be a shooting match and passers-by will get hurt.

  I need support.

  There was a telephone box just down the road, opposite Leinster House. Foster rang from it.

  Davis answered.

  ‘Who? Kee? The poor man’s just fallen asleep on the bed in his office. I’’ll wake him if you like but he’s not been asleep for two days. Can I take a message?’

  Keneally showed him in and shut the door. Sean stood just inside the room, looking at her. She stared at him, quite silent. She saw that same wide, quizzical smile, slightly nervous perhaps, in the boyish open face. A single unruly strand of the dark smooth combed-back hair fell forward over his forehead, and she longed to brush it back. But it was his eyes that upset her. They had always been so open, alive, sparkling - it was one of the things she had loved him for. Now they were dark, troubled, unwilling to meet her gaze.

  He looked away from her, around the room. He had his coat on and his cap in his hands, and he was twisting it like a farmhand. Then he realized what he was doing and threw it on a chair.

  She said: ‘Didn’t Keneally offer to take your coat?’

  ‘I wouldn’t let him. There’s a gun in the pocket.’ He smiled, and then felt crass. The room intimidated him: the beautiful patterned green and gold wallpaper, the two inlaid desks, the window seat, the pictures, the tasteful, stylish armchairs. She looks a natural part of it all, Sean thought. That delicate haughty face with those dark haunting eyes; that hard slender body in a turquoise silk dress that cost more than my father could earn in a month - she could have stepped straight out of one of those portraits I passed on the stairs. She belongs here; I’m a clod.

  Catherine said: ‘Well, you may as well take your coat off now. Unless you’re just staying for a moment, that is.’ Now why did I say that? Please don’t go now, Sean - not now, not after all these long hours! But she had her pride. It shielded her like invis
ible armour. She did not want it. It just came.

  He took his coat off. Thank God.

  ‘You got my note then?’

  ‘I did that.’ He didn’t come to her and embrace her. He walked over to the fire and held out his hands to that instead. He felt a need to take possession of the room. He put a foot on the seat of one of the armchairs, and sat on its arm. ‘You need to talk, you said?’

  ‘We need to talk.’ All that helpless addictive longing for him, and now he was here, she found it difficult to control her anger. ‘Where are you staying?’

  ‘A nice clean place. Landlady, home cooking.’

  ‘Where, Sean?’

  He gazed at her, stubborn, not answering. Then he said: ‘We can’t go on, Cathy, it’s no good. We made a mistake - it was all too fast, and the wrong time. We can’t go on like that!’

  ‘Because I won’t get pregnant - is that what you mean? You think the wrong way round, Sean!’

  ‘No! It’s not that. I’ve thought about that and I can see … some sense in it. Not that it’s decent, mind, but I - I was at fault too, there.’

  She thought: Where’s the fault? There wasn’t any fault, Sean; just two of us, together. It was beautiful. But in her pride she said sarcastically: ‘Really? You surprise me.’

  ‘I’ve thought a lot, Cathy. We went too far, too soon. It was my fault too, but it was wrong. What could it lead to? Look around you, at this room, this house. We can’t get involved, you and me.’

  ‘We are involved, Sean Brennan.’ She didn’t want to cry, so she said it with unusual force, as though rebuking a child. It was the wrong tone to adopt, she vaguely saw that. It went with the house, her wealth, her control of the servants - everything that worried him. She tried again.

  ‘And if I had been pregnant, Sean love. What then?’

  ‘God knows.’ He stood up and began to pace the room. ‘That just shows it, doesn’t it? If you were a girl of my class we could get married, but you’re not, not at all ...’

  ‘Sean.’ She took his arm, stopped him pacing, looked into his eyes. It was the first time they had touched. ‘I’ll marry you if you want, you great fool. And then I will be of your class.’

  ‘What?’

  She had never meant to say that, but now she had it was an immense relief. There, I can forget my pride if I choose, just step out of it like my clothes, she thought. She took his hands, led him to the ottoman, and told him of her father’s conditions for inheritance. ‘So if I married you, I’d be Cinderella in reverse.’

  Then she remembered the woman she had seen in the tenement yesterday morning, and shuddered. Perhaps because of the shudder, he misunderstood.

  ‘You prove my point. Anyway …’ The proximity of her face, the touch of her hands on his, was too unsettling. He stood up abruptly. ‘Any talk about that, all that is premature now. There’s a war on now, Cathy, I’m a soldier in it. I can’t be tied down. When the British have left the country, if you’re still here. Maybe then.’

  She felt her fingers shaking and couldn’t stop them. So now I’ve said I’ll marry him and he’s refused, she thought. I offer to break my father’s heart and throw away my inheritance, and he rejects me. That I could sink so low. Anger flooded through her, saving her from tears.

  What had he said? If you’re still here, when the British are gone? The insufferable male arrogance of it! ‘All that’s make-believe, Sean. Look what happens. You can’t even shoot Lord French.’

  ‘Read your newspaper.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  He saw a newspaper on the floor, and picked it up. It was yesterday’s. There was an odd look on his face; that wide smile that she so loved, proud, but slightly twisted, somehow. And the eyes; dark, troubled. He held the paper out. ‘Go on, look.’

  ‘I’ve read it.’ She was dazed; it was hard to follow what he was saying. A sick feeling came into her stomach. ‘The police commissioner? The one who was shot in Harcourt Street?’

  ‘Yes.’

  How could she have read it and not thought of Sean? She knew that he would support the killing, of course; she had even imagined them discussing it, and agreeing it was a regrettable necessity. But it had been a particularly unpleasant murder, this one - nothing open or daring about it like Ashdown.

  ‘You did this?’

  He went to his coat and took out the Parabellum. ‘The gun itself.’ He held it out, flat, in the palm of his hand. The strong smooth fingers that had stroked her breast. ‘Now do you say it’s all make-believe? Little boy revolutionaries?’

  He was proud, definitely. Of course the killings were necessary, for the freedom of the country. Once, on the beach at Sandymount, she had said she would like to see Lord French dead. That was all words now. The words of a silly young girl. I don’t want anyone dead. Not at Sean’s hands, she thought. Not shot in the street like that.

  She picked up the gun and held it.

  Dead in the street with no nose. She felt sick. She handed the gun back. ‘Put it away, Sean,’ she said.

  She felt immeasurably sorry for him, somehow. As though he were a child who had scribbled on a priceless painting and brought it proudly to show her. Yet he was still beautiful, still the Sean she had loved.

  The odd, slightly twisted smile remained on his face. ‘Do you see now? I’m not making it up. This is important work I’m doing. I have to give my whole mind to it.’

  ‘Yes.’ She stood up, brushing her hands on her skirt. This was the worst of it. He cared everything for this and nothing for the love they had made together, at all. ‘Will you go now, Sean, please?’

  He stood up too and reached out to embrace her. Now, for the first time since he had come in, as though showing her the gun had made it possible. She turned her head so that the kiss was only on her cheek. He stepped back and picked up his coat and cap.

  ‘Maybe when the country is free. I’ll see you then.’

  ‘Maybe.’ She pulled the bell rope by her desk. When Sean opened the door, Keneally was outside.

  ‘Mr Brennan is leaving now, Keneally. Show him out, please.’

  ‘Certainly, miss. Step this way, sir, if you would.’

  Catherine closed the door, sat down on the ottoman, put her head in her hands, and waited for the tears to come.

  Davis was terrified.

  He put down the phone with a shaking hand and looked around the room. There were four desks, littered with papers, files, ashtrays; but he was alone. He had just come in here, to the main office, when the phone rang, and he had picked it up.

  Thank God it was me, he thought. If anyone else had taken the message Brennan would be doomed for sure. I can do something. But what?

  His brain refused to function. All that went round and round in his head was the thought: Foster’s trapped Brennan. Brennan killed Radford and I helped him set it up!

  He lit a cigarette to calm his nerves. I’ve got to stop this, he thought. If they arrest Brennan and lean on him he’ll implicate me, and then … A vision came before him of ten years in a British gaol, slopping out his filthy bucket every morning, shuffling along the metal landings like a chimpanzee in a zoo, pushed and prodded by gaolers who would have no sympathy, none at all, for an Irish policeman who had betrayed his colleagues. Neither would the other prisoners. He would have to beg for solitary confinement for his own protection, and even then, there would be mistakes. Oh, sorry, Paddy, I thought he was your friend. Hurt your face now, has he? Dear, dear …

  The longer he sat here, the more chance there was of Brennan coming out before help arrived. Davis decided not to wake Kee. The man deserved a rest. He would go out in a moment and find one of his other colleagues, and they would walk to Merrion Square, that was it, so that there was every chance they would arrive too late. Finish the cigarette first.

  But what if Foster arrests him anyway? With a jolt, Davis remembered how keen young Foster was, and how unusually fit and strong. He was a wing three-quarter in the DMP rugby team. If he got hold of Bren
nan before the lad could draw a gun, there was every chance he would bring him in on his own.

  There was a phone in a little tobacconist’s round the corner in King Street which Davis used for emergencies. He stubbed out his cigarette and stood up, meaning to put on his coat and go there. He could ring Daly and perhaps some boys of the Dublin Squad could get to Merrion Square in time to deal with Foster. Yes, that was it. Then with luck, they would get rid of another dangerous policeman at the same time. Disaster would turn to triumph. I’ll do that, he thought.

  With his coat half on, he hesitated. Every minute counted now. The office was still half-empty. Why not ring from here? He would never normally do it, but this was an emergency. In case anyone overheard, he could speak to Daly as though he was confirming the details with Foster. They would understand, at the other end. He had a second, compelling vision of the athletic, bulky figure of young Foster striding back to Merrion Square, and Sean Brennan, even now, coming out of a door in front of him.

  Davis took out his pocket book, checked the number, and began to dial. As he reached the third digit he turned round to check that he was still alone.

  He wasn’t.

  Kee was standing in the doorway looking at him.

  Their eyes met. Davis felt the blood drain from his face. He put the phone down carefully. How long has he been there? he thought. How much did he hear? And then: Come on, Dick, for God’s sake get a grip - the man can’t read your mind.

  Kee said: ‘What was that about Brennan?’

  ‘Sorry, sir?’ He didn’t hear it all, Davis thought. Come on, Dick, stall - there must be some way out of this.

  ‘You were talking about Brennan on the phone a couple of minutes ago. It woke me up. Come on, Dick, spit it out!’ Kee had just woken from the first half-hour’s sleep he had had in two days; his head hurt, and his mouth felt like the inside of an ashtray. He was not in the mood to be messed about. ‘You were talking about him on the phone - who to?’