by Rhys Bowen
“Mrs. Kathleen O’Connor of county Derry? Of Stabane?” He was looking at me through hooded eyes, as if he was half asleep.
“That’s right.” I tried to push past him. He went on blocking the doorway.
“I’ve been speaking with your boy, Mrs. Kathleen O’Connor. He told me about you.”
Surely Seamus hadn’t given me away? I wasn’t going to let this bloated toad frighten me. I’d just have to bluff it out.
“That’s nice,” I said. “I’m glad the boy has found someone to chat with. Tis a long, weary journey, cooped up down here.”
“I’m finding one thing very interesting.” O’Malley’s reptilian eyes were fastened on me. “I used to know a Kathleen McCluskey in my hometown. I was friends with her brother and I heard that she’d married a Seamus O’Connor and gone to live in Stabane. Isn’t that a coincidence?”
“I imagine the word is full of Kathleen O’Connors,” I said. “Most parents are not too imaginative when it comes to naming their children and O’Connor isn’t the most unusual name in the world.”
“But in one small town?” O’Malley went on. “Stabane is a small town, wouldn’t you say?”
“Small enough.”
“So did you ever meet her—this other Kathleen O’Connor, married to Seamus?”
“I can’t say that I did.” I made an extra effort to push past him. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve no time to stand here gossiping, not with my little one in bed sick.”
He let me go then. “I look forward to future chats with you, Kathleen O’Connor,” he breathed into my ear as I walked past.
As soon as I was around the corner, I found that I was shaking. Just what did he know? And what did he want?
That evening I grabbed Seamus as soon as he climbed up to the bunk.
“That man O’Malley,” I whispered. “He said he was talking to you. What did he want?”
“He just asked me some questions about home,” Seamus said, staring at me innocently. “He asked me if I knew a village called Plumbridge and I said that my ma’s kinfolk live there. He said he used to live there, too, long ago when he was a boy—wasn’t that a coincidence.”
“You didn’t tell him, did you?” I whispered. “You didn’t say I wasn’t your mother?”
“I didn’t tell him anything,” Seamus said defensively. “I just said I’d been to the village where he grew up. That was all.”
“If he tries to talk to you again, don’t answer him,” I said.
“Why not?”
“There’s something about him that I don’t like. And you shouldn’t be talking to strangers.”
Seamus shrugged and lay down to sleep. I lay awake beside him, wondering if O’Malley really knew the truth and what he could do about it.
The next day, our fifth at sea, I tried to avoid him, but he had an uncanny knack of popping up out of nowhere, just as if he were the devil himself. As I came into the common room, there he was, blocking my path again.
“My but that’s a trim figure you have there, Mrs. Kathleen O’Connor,” he said. His eyes were all over me. “A very trim figure for the mother of two children. Your husband must be very proud that you’ve kept such a figure. He’ll no doubt be glad to get his hands around that neat little waist again.”
“I find your conversation most offensive,” I said, and tried to pass around him.
He laughed, showing those big white horse teeth. “Do you now? Or don’t you secretly like it? How many years has your man been away? Isn’t it nice to have a man looking at you with interest again—or maybe you’ve found a temporary replacement to keep the bed warm . . .”
I slapped his face. Hard. The sound of it echoed around the saloon and made everyone look up.
“One more insulting comment from you and next time it will be my fist,” I said. I saw men grin and women nod approvingly.
“Come and sit you over here with us,” one of the older women said, patting the bench beside her. “He’s no gentleman, that O’Malley. That’s for sure.”
I was still so shocked, I went to sit beside her. “Who does he think he is, saying things like that?”
“One who likes to stir up trouble,” she muttered. “I’ve been watching him. He’s a man who likes a good fight. He’ll bring trouble wherever he goes.”
“He better not come anywhere near me again,” I said loudly, “or he’ll have Mr. Seamus O’Connor waiting for him when he gets to New York.”
It was pure bluff. I hadn’t even dared to think how I was going to approach an unknown Mr. Seamus O’Connor when I arrived in New York. What if he took one look at me and cried, “That’s not my wife, it’s an imposter!” Well, there was nothing I could do about it now. I’d just have to take my chances and play it by ear.
I looked up as young Seamus materialized beside me. He was crying and holding a handkerchief up to his face. Behind him was the youth whom O’Malley had teased. “The young lad got into a bit of a fight,” the youth said, an apologetic smile on his sweet, boyish face. “He wound up with a bloody nose.”
“They took my marbles,” Seamus said, sniffing and wiping away the blood. “I won them fair and square and then they hit me when I tried to take them.” He glanced up at the young man. “He helped get them back for me.”
“Thank you.” I smiled at the young man.
He smiled shyly. “I know what it’s like to be bullied,” he said. “I was youngest of seven. I had more than my share.” He squatted on the floor beside me. “I saw what you did to that man O’Malley. Wouldn’t I like to have done the very same thing. But if I’d tried it, I’d have probably wound up flat on my back with my teeth knocked out.”
“That man is a troublemaker,” I muttered. “My advice is to stay well away from him.”
“I’ve been trying to. It’s not easy.”
“No, it’s not. Sometimes I think he’s just lying in wait, ready to pounce every time I come into the room.”
He grinned. “He’ll not be so ready next time to pounce on you. That slap must have been heard way up there in first class.” He held out his hand. “The name is Michael. Michael Larkin. From Plumbridge.”
“Another one?” I asked. “Is the whole of county Derry emptying out?”
“You have connections with the place, too?”
“Family connections,” I said, not wanting to go into detail. “And I understand that O’Malley comes from there, too. Did you know him, then, before we sailed?”
He shook his head. “There’s something about him seems familiar to me, but he must have moved away long ago. There were no O’Malleys in the town when I was growing up.”
“Lucky for you,” I said. “So what brings you to America?”
“There’s nothing in Ireland for me.”
“No family?”
He looked down at his feet. “My dad was killed when I was eight and my mother died right after of grief. An auntie raised me but she had sons of her own and couldn’t wait to be rid of me. And there’s no jobs. I hear they’re building so many sky-scrapers in New York that they can’t get enough men to work on them.”
“Skyscrapers?” I was unfamiliar with the word.
“Buildings so tall they reach to the clouds.”
I laughed. “Get away with you!”
He smiled too. “Well, maybe not all the way to the clouds,” he admitted. “But tall. Taller than church spires. Twenty floors high, that’s what I hear.”
“Twenty floors? Holy Mother, have you no fear of heights?”
“Me? No. Not after living where we do.”
I realized that I had no idea where Plumbridge was—mountains or sea or bogs. What if they asked me questions when I landed in New York? It would be so easy to catch me out.
“So tell me about what it was like, growing up in Plumbridge,” I said.
We spent the rest of the afternoon together. He played with Seamus and even got Bridie to smile. He was such a sweet innocent of a boy with the face of an angel—I could see
he wasn’t going to have an easy time in New York, especially not among the tough men who built skyscrapers.
We were getting close now. People murmured that sometimes the Majestic did the crossing in six days, if the seas were favorable. That might mean by tomorrow we’d be in New York Harbor. I felt the anxiety rising. Tomorrow I would have to bluff my way past the inspectors and meet a strange man I had claimed was my husband. There were so many things that could go wrong, so many ways for me to be discovered and sent back.
I tried not to think about it, but Michael Larkin, sensitive as he was, sensed that something was wrong. “Are you worried about facing the inspectors at Ellis Island?” he asked. “You’ve no need to be. As long as you’re healthy and you’ve got the twentyfive dollars, they let you in.”
“Twenty-five dollars?” I blurted out.
“You have to have twenty-five dollars in your pocket before they’ll let you in,” he said, his face full of concern. “Surely you knew about that?”
“No, I didn’t.” Had Kathleen known? I thought not. Maybe she had counted on Seamus meeting her with the money in his hand. I couldn’t count on it. “Is it a fee you have to pay to get in?”
“Oh no, they don’t take your money. It’s just to show you’ve got enough to take care of bed and board until you get settled. They don’t want a lot of beggars, do they?”
“What are we going to do?” I asked. “Will they send us back if we don’t have the money?”
He looked concerned. “Maybe it’s all right if your husband shows up to collect you, but I’m not sure about that.” A big smile spread across his face. “I tell you what,” he said. “I’ve got five pounds in my pocket, which is twenty-five of their dollars. Here. You take it.”
“But then you wouldn’t be able to get in.”
“Of course I will. We’ll both use it. You go ahead with the children. Then you find an excuse to come back and talk to me, and you can pass me the money. They’ve so many people to deal with that they won’t even notice.”
“But what if they won’t let me find you? I can’t risk that. No, you keep your own money, and if you can find a way of getting back to me, then I’ll borrow it.”
“Don’t be silly.” He thrust the money at me. “It will work. Other people are doing it—they say it’s done all the time. Go on. I want you to take it. It will be much easier for a lady like you, with little children, to find a way back to me. Say the little one has left her doll behind. Her favorite doll. Her only doll.”
I smiled. “For someone who looks like a choirboy, you have a devious mind.”
“I’m not nearly as innocent as I look,” he said. “In fact a man in a Liverpool pub suggested I’d make a fine confidence trickster. He said he was prepared to teach me the tricks of the trade.”
“Did you take him up on it?”
“No, but I was tempted.”
We laughed. It felt good to laugh again.
Five
Overnight the seas picked up again. We were thrown from side to side in our bunks until even I began to feel sick as a dog. It was all I could do to stagger my way down the corridor to get myself a cup of tea and a slice of bread in the morning. The common room was almost deserted, no sign of O’Malley—so even he had succumbed to seasickness. In which case, I thought, let it keep on rolling until we get to New York.
By the end of the day I’d regretted that remark. We rolled and heaved all day. The engines groaned and shuddered. All around were moans and sounds of vomiting. If only I had been allowed up on deck! I was determined not to vomit. After what seemed like an eternity, I noticed the rolling and pitching was becoming less violent. Maybe that meant that the coast of America was truly close.
When we woke in the morning the rumor was already spreading through steerage. The coast of America had been sighted. People were hurriedly repacking their bundles and piling them in the hallways. We started lining up by the door that led to freedom. The men stopped playing cards and stood dutifully beside their families. But nothing happened. We sat or stood, listening to the rhythmic thudding of the engines, waiting.
At last a door was opened and a steward appeared.
“Captain says you can go up on deck if you want,” he says. “So that you can see the Lady.”
The lady? Was this the start of the immigration process? I picked up Bridie, and Michael took Seamus by the hand, and up we went. The cold, stiff breeze in our faces felt wonderful. We blinked in the bright sunlight. Then we looked and gasped.
She was standing ahead of us, across the harbor, her crown glinting with gold and holding a light in her hand. Women around me were crying and I felt my own eyes misting up.
“See the pretty lady?” I whispered to Bridie. “That’s Lady Liberty, waiting to welcome us to the New World.”
When I turned to look away from the Statue of Liberty, I gaped at another spectacular sight—the isle of Manhattan. The sun was low in the winter sky and reflected back from thousands of windows in tall thin buildings, making New York glow and wink and sparkle like a magic city. I had never imagined buildings could be so tall.
Michael was standing beside me. “Would you look at that.” He breathed. “Those buildings must be all of twenty stories high.”
I laughed from the sheer delight of being in the fresh air and seeing my destination so close. “So you’re having second thoughts now about working on one of those monsters?”
“Indeed I am not. Just think if I can tell my children one day that I helped build the tallest buildings in the world!” His face was glowing, too. “Will you be staying in New York, too?” he asked.
“I—I expect so.” I wanted to tell him the truth, but I couldn’t.
“Your husband has a job here, then? And a place for you?”
“I imagine he does. He’ll be there to meet us and then we’ll know.”
“I hope we get a chance to meet again,” he said shyly. “I mean, if you’re in New York, I hope I’ll be permitted to call on you and your husband. I’ve no family over here or anything. . . .”
“Of course we’ll meet,” I said. “We must arrange a time and place before we leave the ship.”
He shrugged. “I don’t know any places in New York.”
“How about at that little park?” I pointed to the very tip of Manhattan that we were now passing. “Two days from now. Midday?”
A big grin spread across his choirboy’s face. “All right. I’ll be there. And you’ll bring the little ones with you, I’m thinking. I’d like to see them again.” He ruffled Seamus’s hair and the boy grinned back at him.
I felt a warm glow of contentment. At least I’d have one friend in this new land. In two days from now I’d be safely ashore and I could tell him the truth—and maybe we could face the new land together.
We watched the tugs come alongside to tow us into port. The wind was bitter and the children began to complain of the cold, but I didn’t want to go back below to that dark, smelly hold. There was ice floating in the harbor as we came into shore and the smoke hung in the frosty air.
“I’m thinking spring is a long way off in this place,” Michael muttered.
We watched as the big liner inched into her berth. Crews stood ready with gangways. People rushed to go below and find their luggage.
“Hold on a tick.” One of the stewards stopped the stampede. “Where do you think you’re rushing to?”
“Getting our luggage,” the woman said.
“You lot ain’t going nowhere tonight,” the sailor said. “Ellis Island don’t process nobody after five o’clock, so you’ll have to sleep on board and take the ferry in the morning.”
“You mean we can’t get off here?” a voice demanded belligerently. “What are the gangways for then?”
“Only the first and second-class passengers are allowed to disembark,” the seaman said grandly. “You lot have to clear Ellis Island before they’ll let you land. Have to make sure you ain’t bringing no filthy diseases into America, don’t th
ey?”
Dejected, we shuffled down below again. With the setting of the sun it had become too cold to stay on deck and too disheartening to watch the privileged classes go ashore, laughing and joking as porters staggered behind with their cabin trunks.
At least it was our last night on the ship, and there was no thud, thud of engine noise going through our skulls and nobody was being sick. They even served a passably good boiled beef and pease pudding for us and everyone was in high spirits as we went to our berths. I was coming back from the women’s bathroom when a hand grabbed my wrist. I cried out in alarm as O’Malley pushed me into a dark recess.
“You’ve been avoiding me, Mrs. Kathleen O’Connor,” he whispered, his big face close to mine. “What a shame. We could have become really good friends.”
“Never in a million years, O’Malley. I’m rather choosy about my friends.”
He laughed, flashing all those horse teeth at me. “I’m thinking you can’t afford to be so choosy from now on, Mrs. Kathleen O’Connor. You might find that you owe a friend a favor—a really big favor.”
“What kind of favor? What friend are you talking about?”
“Me,” he said. “By the time we step ashore, you’ll be owing me a favor, for not telling what I know to be true.”
I felt physically sick but determined to call his bluff. “Which is?” I demanded.
“That you’re no more Kathleen O’Connor than the man in the moon. I look at those children and I see Kathleen O’Connor’s features in their faces. The real Kathleen—the one I knew when she was a young girl. I don’t know what you’ve done with her, what trick you’re playing. Maybe you and her husband plotted the whole thing between you. Maybe you’re his fancy woman and you’ve done away with her. But whatever it is, you’re trying to pull the wool over the eyes of the American authorities.”
“You’re talking rubbish,” I said. “I never heard such rubbish in my life. You tell that to the American authorities and they’ll send you home for being crazy.”
“I imagine it would be easy enough to get the truth out of the children,” he said.