Belfast Girls

by Gerry McCullough

Such an eye. Sharp, alert, the eye of a clever, scheming woman half her age. Sheila found that she had given an involuntary gasp and looked hurriedly away. No, it was not impossible. Roisin Boyd Cassidy was no ordinary old woman. Bright, intelligent, much admired for her activist part in the early days of the setting up of the Irish Free State. Sheila had not gathered if she had been pro-treaty or anti-treaty.

  But if she had been a supporter of the IRA in those times, she might well have kept abreast of the later campaigns. And if her principles had turned into something very different – if she had let herself get involved in gangsterism – then her advice and quick planning brain might still be valued by the Mafia element who were trying to run the country.

  Sheila felt torn in two. She owed something to Delmara. He had introduced her to this woman and encouraged her to be friendly, to build up a good relationship. This was what she had done. How could she now sweep out of the house in moral outrage, as she felt like doing, on the word of a journalist whom she hardly knew, and who might or might not be trustworthy in his information?

  And yet –

  Sheila felt a shuddering reluctance to stay and enjoy the hospitality of someone who had encouraged, perhaps even planned, so much death and misery among the innocent.

  The voice of Pat Fitzwilliam in her ear had never been more welcome.

  “What do you mean by monopolising this lovely girl for so long, O’Hanlon, you villain? Come and dance with me, Sheila?”

  Pat was amazed and uplifted by the warmth of the smile which Sheila turned on him.

  Silently, she followed him to the edge of the dance floor and melted into his arms. She was badly in need of someone whose innocence she could be sure of, someone she could trust without further question.

  It was much later, and Sheila had recovered her poise, by the time Mrs Boyd Cassidy came to seek her out among the many guests.

  “There you are, my dear. Come with me. I want you to meet some friends of mine.”

  Sheila followed her reluctantly, her face a polite mask. The decision, she found, had been made. She could not insult Mrs Boyd Cassidy in her own house by leaving or by refusing to be introduced to her friends, simply on the word of Terry O’Hanlon.

  She allowed herself to be led over to a party of men and women who had been prominently in her hostess’s immediate circle for most of the evening and was relieved when the first introduction was to a well-known Senator and his wife.

  “And I needn’t introduce you to Stephen Connelly,” Mrs Boyd Cassidy went on.”You must have seen his face on television almost as often as you see your own face in the mirror, if you ever watch the box at all.”

  Sheila, who was unfamiliar with the programmes on RTE, the southern television station, was grateful for the clue.

  She recognised Stephen Connelly’s name more easily than his face which was much less familiar to her than her hostess assumed.

  Tall, dark and smiling, he took Sheila’s hand in both of his in a rather American manner, and said, with all the charm which had put him in his present position as host of RTE's most popular chat show,

  “And you need no introduction, either, Miss Doherty – or may I say Sheila? I hear about you on all sides. I hope to be able to persuade you to come and talk to me some Friday night.”

  Since Friday was the night of the Connelly Show, as even Sheila knew, this was, she supposed, an invitation to appear on television with him.

  Sheila smiled her cool smile and said, “That's very sweet of you, Stephen. Francis Delmara would be the man to talk to about that. He handles all my public life. I’m just a puppet in his hands!”

  Stephen Connelly laughed politely. “A very beautiful puppet, if I may say so. Yes, I’ve already mentioned the possibility to Francis. We must fix a date.”

  “Come, Sheila,” Roisin Boyd Cassidy broke in at this point. “I want you to meet Sean Joyce, over here.”

  She led Sheila across to a group of rather younger looking men, standing nearby.

  The man Mrs. Boyd Cassidy wanted to introduce to her had sandy hair and was of a thin build. He looked, Sheila thought, tough, ready for anything, and somehow faintly out of place in this gathering of the rich and pampered, although his evening clothes were correct enough to pass muster.

  To her horror, Sheila realised that Sean Joyce was talking to someone Sheila badly wanted to avoid. Charlie Flanagan. Charlie, who had tried to rape her that New Year’s Eve, when she and Mary had gone with the party crowd to the Magic Forest. Charlie, who had always been into drugs in a big way. Had he moved on, now, to a professional connection with these gangsters?

  She remembered that she had thought she caught a glimpse of him talking to Mrs. Boyd Cassidy the first time they had met but had hoped she was mistaken.

  Now, however, he politely moved off with the other young men as he saw Mrs Boyd Cassidy approaching Sean, obviously wanting to speak to him privately.

  By the time the two parties converged, he had disappeared across the room. Sheila didn’t think he had seen her or, at least, recognised her. He had probably never known her full name in those days. And tonight, she knew, she looked very different from the scruffy student she had been then.

  She remembered that she had seen Sean Joyce before, also talking to Mrs Boyd Cassidy just before Delmara had first introduced her to the famous designer. She remembered that Delmara had pointed him out to her as an ex-IRA activist who, rumour said, had now turned to drug dealing. Sheila had only half believed Delmara at the time.

  Phil would have recognised him, too. He was the man she had met in Botanic Gardens, talking to Davy, and later in the flat.

  Sean Joyce, when introduced, at first spoke to her formally and politely.

  “You come from the Six Counties, Miss Doherty?”

  “Please call me Sheila. Yes, I grew up in Belfast.”

  “I was born in Belfast myself, but it’s a while now since I’ve lived there. But I go up and down there a lot.”

  There seemed to be some particular meaning to this statement which was spoken with a peculiar emphasis, while his strange, light glittering eyes bored into Sheila looking for a reaction.

  “That must be pleasant,” she said after a pause.

  “Pleasant?” He gave a bark of laughter. “Not the best description. Not really very pleasant for the customs guys. And the PSNI mightn’t think it was too pleasant if they saw me.” He was speaking mainly to Mrs. Boyd Cassidy now, laughing as if at a private joke, as if Sheila couldn’t hear him or would be too dumb to understand. She realised, suddenly, that beneath the social façade, he was very drunk – too drunk to guard his tongue.

  Even so, he hadn’t let slip anything you could pin down, she thought.

  “I’ve told Sean about your great grandparents,” Roisin Boyd Cassidy interposed hastily, in a quiet voice, at this point. “He knows where your loyalties lie. Otherwise he wouldn’t speak so freely – would you, Sean?” The last words were spoken with an edge. Sean was being given a not too subtle hint to be more discreet, it seemed. “Things have changed now, haven’t they? Sean has had to find other things to do, now the cause has been betrayed again.”

  Sheila was stricken dumb for a moment.

  By the time she had recovered sufficiently to know what to say, her hostess was sweeping her on for more introductions.

  Had she just been talking to an ex-IRA activist who had assumed that she was on his side, or had she not? And had there been a hint that his present activities were something criminal, or had she got it all wrong?

  It was hard to believe, but what other interpretation was there of the words of both Sean Joyce and Mrs Boyd Cassidy?

  She shook hands, and smiled, and spoke politely as the introductions continued.

  Then her hostess said, “Sheila, dear, I want to get out of the crowd for a short while. Come and sit with me in my own little room, and we can talk privately for ten minutes.”

  She drew Sheila with her, tucking Sheila’s arm into her own crooked elb
ow, and made her way to the far doors.

  Chapter Forty-Four

  Through these doors were a hall, a flight of stairs, and then the room where Roisin Boyd Cassidy had shown Sheila the miniature of her friend Brenda O’Hara whose lover had died so young.

  Sheila followed, torn between worry and curiosity.

  “That’s better,” Roisin Boyd Cassidy said, closing the door behind them. “Come and sit here beside me, dear.”

  She slid down into the big arm chair where she had sat to talk to Sheila before, and motioned Sheila to the little stool by her feet.

  Sheila obediently sat, wondering what was coming.

  “I want to show you some of my memorabilia of the days when Brenda and I were so close,” the old lady began. “I have no-one else I can talk to about her. When you get older, dear, but you wouldn’t realise this yet, when you get older, you find that you remember more and more about the days when you were young, and you want to talk about them. But, unfortunately, no-one is really very interested. That's why it’s such a pleasure for old friends to get together. They can talk about the things they all remember, things they were all involved in, and everyone is interested, instead of sitting trying not to look bored.”

  She laughed, a very sweet, young sounding laugh, and Sheila felt again the sympathy she had felt before.

  “But I have very few old friends who remember, my dear, and no- one who really knew Brenda as I did. So that’s why I really need someone who will be interested in hearing about her – and I think you are that person.”

  Sheila, who had intended to deny firmly once and for all that there was any connection between herself and Brenda O’Hara, other than a coincidental likeness, found to her dismay that her heart was refusing to let her deal the old lady such a blow. If it comforted her to think that Sheila was the great grand-daughter of her dead friend, what harm could it do?

  “Perhaps you would like to pass me the box on the little table over against that wall, dear?” Roisin continued. “It has some things that you might like to see. A ring of Brenda’s, a brooch she gave me. Theatre programmes and dance programmes. Things like that.”

  Sheila got up obediently to fetch the box.

  “No, not that one!” called Mrs. Boyd Cassidy, her voice suddenly sharp. “That’s something quite different. The box with the red velvet cover.”

  Sheila, who had begun to lift up a locked wooden box from the back of the low oak table against the far wall, released it as if she had been stung.

  After a brief pause, she decided to ignore the sharpness in her hostess’s voice.

  Instead, she lifted the red velvet box from its place beside the other. Her momentary sympathy for the old lady had been eroded a little, but enough remained.

  “Look, I really think you’re making a mistake –” she began.

  Just at that moment, there was a knock on the door and a voice called, “Roisin! The ambassador has arrived after all. The car is just pulling up outside. You’d better come down quickly if you want to be there to welcome him. He’ll be mortally offended if you’re not. You know what he’s like.”

  Roisin Boyd Cassidy hesitated for a moment, then she stood up.

  “I’d better go down,” she said to Sheila, “but stay here, for me, my dear. I’ll be back in a few minutes. If you’d like to look at the things in the box while you’re waiting, the key is in my desk over there.”

  She waved vaguely in the direction of a large formidably solid and business-like desk at the other end of the room, then hurried out, shutting the door behind her.

  Sheila, who would quite have liked to go with her and meet the ambassador of wherever it was, was half annoyed and half amused by this autocratic disposal of herself and her time.

  She had no desire to waste the party by hanging around in this room by herself.

  However, she supposed that, in decency, she would have to allow the old lady five or ten minutes to return before going back downstairs. It might be interesting, something to pass the time at any rate, to look at the contents of the red velvet box.

  Sheila went over to the desk indicated by Mrs Boyd Cassidy and found a bunch of keys in the top drawer. Taking them over to the low oak table where the two boxes were placed, together with a number of miscellaneous objects, she began looking for the right key.

  Several minutes later, when key after key yielded no results, she began to feel frustrated. Finally, her patience ran out.

  She thought, “This is ridiculous. I’ll wait until she comes back or go if she takes much longer. This is probably the wrong bunch of keys.”

  Then, more from motives of boredom and idle curiosity than anything else, she thought, “I wonder if any of these keys fits this other box? And I wonder what can be in it which is so secret and important?”

  At the back of her mind a faint suspicion was stirring, the beginnings of an idea that perhaps the wooden box held secrets which should be revealed.

  Lifting the bunch of keys which she had dropped unto the table in disgust, she began to try them again but this time on the wooden box.

  To her surprise and slight apprehension, she found the right key almost immediately.

  There was a satisfying click and the lid was open. Sheila hesitated. This was none of her business. She was poking into her hostess’s private affairs without excuse. Probably she should stop it right now.

  But, on the other hand, suppose the things Terry O’Hanlon had been saying were true? Suppose Mrs Boyd Cassidy knew about at least some of the drug dealers’ plans?

  The presence of Sean Joyce tonight seemed to suggest that O’Hanlon was right, if Sheila had interpreted that conversation correctly.

  If there was even a remote possibility that the box contained valuable information, then didn't she have a duty to open it?

  If she was going to do it, then the sooner the better, before her hostess came back and found her.

  Sheila hesitated no longer. With a hand which shook slightly, she raised the lid.

  The box was full of papers. She lifted some out, trying to be careful not to disarrange anything too obviously. To her dismay, they were in some sort of code. She shuffled through them but could see nothing which made any sense to her.

  Then, almost at the bottom of the box, she noticed a half sheet of paper with a few scribbled lines on it which she could understand.

  “Roisin” the note said.

  Sean’s found us a new safe house. We’re using it to store stuff in transmission. The boys can go there any time, but tell them not to overuse it or someone will catch on. The address, in case you’ve forgotten, is 3a Thomas Street.

  The plans are underway for dealing with Knight’s supermarkets Jan. 21.

  I’ll be in touch when things are finalised. Burn this when you’ve memorised it.

  O’Brien.

  Sheila stared at it. It seemed to be something which supported her suspicions. Was the Sean mentioned the man she had just met downstairs? The notorious drug dealer?

  The address of a ‘safe house’. That must be connected with criminal activity surely. Sheila hadn’t really believed until now that that sweet old lady, with her sad memories of the past, could actually be involved in crime, in drug dealing and worse, but here was something which she thought must put it beyond all doubt.

  What should she do? But was this letter really evidence of much? She had no idea where Thomas Street might be, whether in Belfast or some other town in the north, or even on the southern side of the Border.

  As information, it seemed rather useless. Was it her duty to report it to the Gardai? Would it be any use to them? Suddenly panic gripped her.

  If this box really held secret criminal information, she mustn’t be found poking in it.

  Hurriedly she replaced the papers, shut down the lid, turned the key.

  Then, moving quickly but as quietly as possible, she went back to the desk and shut the keys safely into the top drawer.

  When Roisin Boyd Cassidy returned a few
minutes later, Sheila was drooping sleepily on the footstool by the big armchair, looking patient, bored and innocent.

  Chapter Forty-Five

  Delmara Fashions went to New York in November.

  Sheila had been looking forward to this since Francis had first mentioned the possibility. She had never been to America before.

  The excitement crowded out all other thoughts.

  The letter from Sean to Mrs Boyd Cassidy dropped silently from the surface of her mind to the unseen depths.

  If she remembered it at all, it was to argue that such vague information could only be useless.

  Books and films had prepared her for an arrival in New York by sea, with the famous skyline of Manhattan appearing in the distance, followed by a close-up view of the Statue of Liberty.

  Flying in to Kennedy International Airport was, she discovered, a very different matter.

  For one thing, they arrived in the middle of the night, and although for the first half hour adrenalin, pumped by excitement, kept Sheila alert, she found that in the end the late hours, the bustle, and the well-known jet-lag all caught up with her, and it was almost necessary to lean on desks and chairs for support.

  One airport is very much like any other. It was only when safely relaxing in a taxi which hooted and crawled its way through traffic which still seemed heavy even at this time of night – three o’clock by now, Sheila noted, glancing at her watch – only then that the feeling of being in New York really hit Sheila and suddenly lifted her spirits.

  The flashing neon lights, the tall buildings which made the sky seem so far away and hard to see, the noise – all combined to produce an atmosphere which spoke of life, excitement, important things happening. Sheila found herself sitting up and gazing out eagerly, hoping to identify famous landmarks.

  “There’s the Empire State building,” said Francis helpfully. He was watching her in some amusement, enjoying the naivety of her response. “The very tall one. You can see it over the other buildings. Look.”

  Sheila looked, and identified what had once been the tallest building in New York – or was it in the world? – before the building of the Twin Towers. And now they were gone again, did that make it the tallest once more? She gazed around and Francis continued to point out landmarks at intervals.