Stanislaus’s last thought before he fell asleep that night was the look on Charlie Quinn’s face as he’d chastised him. The young man had seemed genuinely distraught.
People are cheering for me and shaking my hand. Benedict looked so strong and unyielding up there on stage, laying down the law, but I knew the people were with me. There’s a huge banner draped from the ceiling, and yes, it’s green when it should be red, but it is a tribute to me. He looked around the packed hall, five hundred people here at least, and saw sheep in need of a shepherd. I saw comrades in need of example. The young priest with the blond hair has to drag the old bastard off the stage and out the door after the musicians and the dancing start up again. Some ruddy-faced fellow thrusts a bottle into my hand just as Benedict is passing me at the door, and I take a drink, assuming the clear liquid inside is water. Come to think of it, a stupid assumption. It tastes of nothing but pain, and my face screws up as the poteen goes down. The young priest steers Benedict to the door and he’s gone before I get my breath back. I feel like I’ve been punched in the windpipe at the very moment I should be enjoying my victory, Benedict’s defeat. He was so very white-looking! So beaten-looking. Like a prize-fighter being helped from the ring after being knocked out. I remember a couple of years ago how the audience in the Volta Picture Palace tore the place apart with excitement after the newsreel showed Jack Johnson getting his comeuppance. As they all line up to talk to me, to shake my hand, to pay tribute, I feel how Jess Willard must have felt after he knocked the big nigger out. Champion of the bloody world.
I know a lot of faces but I’m struggling with names. ‘Stay close to me and drop people’s names into conversation in case I forget,’ I say quietly into Charlie’s ear. ‘Try and not make it too obvious.’
‘Hello, Colm, how are all the McDermotts this evening?’ says Charlie to a man of fifty who comes up to me, and a matronly woman beside him.
‘Welcome home, lad, welcome home,’ says Colm McDermott, shaking my hand like he’s trying to wring something out of it.
I tell him it’s great to see him again, and take a punt on the woman beside him. ‘And how are you, Mrs McDermott?’
‘Ah, Victor, I see you didn’t lose your manners away in Dublin. But sure you know to call me Kate.’ She pushes grey wisps of hair behind her ears, grabs me and kisses me on the lips. ‘God bless you, Victor Lennon, and God bless Ireland.’ She’s drunk, like most of the men who shake my hand and the women who slobber my cheeks and lips. Charlie keeps me right with the names. The Kellys, the McCabes, the Gambles, the Murphys, the Sweeneys, the O’Kanes, the other Murphys, the Vallelys, the Campbells. The music is loud, the dancing raucous. The place stinks of sweat and smoke and hooch with a thin sliver of Lifebuoy in the mix. Youngsters who should be in bed are still running around. Old-timers are falling asleep in corners. All in tribute to me.
‘Did they do anything like this for you when you came back from France?’ I ask Charlie. He makes an effort to smile. Barely perceptibly, he shakes his head. Sean Moriarty, Turlough’s brother, comes over and lifts me off my feet in a bear hug. He nearly squeezes the puff out of me. Strong as an ox, he is. They all have questions, crowding around me like I’m a famous tenor or something. What’s it like being a national hero? Did they really shoot Connolly, and him strapped to a chair? Who was the best fighter? How do you say that name, Dee Valeera? And what’s a Spaniard doing fighting for Ireland anyway? Sean, though, is only interested in the football.
‘I heard Dick Fitzgerald was at Fron Goch, and all the prisoners played football every day. Dick Fitzgerald! The man has three All Ireland medals,’ says Sean, as if anyone didn’t know who Dick Fitzgerald was.
‘Ah well now, there was a lot of hours to fill and we wanted to stay fit.’
‘So you did play?’
‘Every day.’
‘And was Fitzgerald there or was he not?’
‘You couldn’t throw a stone in Fron Goch without hitting a county man. Frank Burke. Paddy Cahill. Brian Joyce, boys like that. Frank Shouldice, he was in the Four Courts garrison. And you had Phil Shanahan, Seamus Dobbyn. Hurlers, like, but they wouldn’t let us have hurls in the camp. Good footballers all the same. And aye, if I recall, Dick was there too,’ I say coyly.
‘If you were playing with Fitzgerald and them boys every day for a year, you must have got good enough yourself. Maybe you’ll turn out for Madden in the county final?’
I am fit, I will say that. That was one good thing about Fron Goch – it was ten months off work. Circuit training beats shovelling coal or digging ditches. Of course, I’m nowhere near the class of Fitzgerald and the rest, but as time went on, my presence on the same field as those lads became less and less absurd. ‘Och, I’m all right I suppose,’ I shrug. They’re rapt, watching me. There’s children here weren’t born when I was last home. Young fellows who were wearing short trousers when I left. They’ve heard of me like they’ve heard of Redmond O’Hanlon, the bould Robert Emmett and the gallant Henry Joy. I feel like Robin Hood. They crowd me, press up against me, everyone wants to touch me. I feel like the Pope. ‘Tell us a story, Victor,’ they say.
‘I’ll tell you one about the lockout.’
‘Tell us one about the Rising.’
‘I said I’ll tell you one about the lockout.’
I’m about to start when I see her across the room. I don’t suppose she wants to approach me first. Fair enough, I’ll approach her. Let them wait for my story. She’s wearing a pretty white dress. Shows that seeing me is important to her. Her brown curls are all tied up save for a few that refuse to be bridled, that cascade across caramel skin into hazel eyes. Her mouth is fixed in a polite smile. She’s trying to look like she’s surprised or something, though like everyone else, she’s come here to see me. I know it and she knows it and she knows I know it and she knows I know she knows it. Her lips are pink and full and oh my sweet God she’s more gorgeous even than I remembered. To think I might’ve been master of this. ‘Are you dancing?’ I say, as if not a day has passed, and I can’t read her expression, I don’t know whether she wants to kiss me or box me, but she takes the offer of my arm and follows me into the body of the hall. People cheer and slap me on the back as we set ourselves to dance but in this moment they’re not important. The musicians start a slow ballad, thank God. I take Maggie’s hands and hold her up close to me, and look from her eyes down to her neck, graceful as a swan, and down to the triangle between her throat and the undone top button of her blouse. She takes quick, short breaths. I tingle. We shuffle together slowly and the smell of the sweet perfume on her skin comes drifting into my senses, gentle and lemony. I inhale her.
‘You never got that wound looked at,’ she says at last, her voice warm and melodious. I put my hand up to the weak skin above my eye and feel a piquant twinge. Maggie looks like Mildred Harris. I love Mildred Harris. Although Mildred’s only a skinny wee girl. Maggie is a proper woman. Like Florence La Badie. I love Florence La Badie. Maggie’s lips. Let me choose, in this very moment, and I’ll choose those lips over revolution.
‘It’s good to see you,’ I say. She smiles and glances down to where I’m sticking into her. I blush as the dance takes us away from each other and into a quick spin with other partners. Maggie pairs up with a gangly young lad with boils on his neck who looks totally smashed. I’m with a toothy girl with dark hair and dark eyes and I’m trying to be polite and distant but the toothy girl doesn’t seem to want to let me go. When eventually I get Maggie back in my arms, I say: ‘So Charlie tells me you never married.’
I shouldn’t have said that. Jesus Christ, Victor, you haven’t seen the girl in ten years. Stupid bastard. Always the young bull, never the old. Her shoulders shoot up. She pushes away my hands and gives me a look that says I have a bloody nerve, and she’s at the door by the time I catch up with her. I put my hand on her shoulder out on the steps of the Parochial Hall, and I try to look as plaintive as I can. The cool night air is a relief. She waits, her patience
dwindling.
‘I had to leave my mark on the world,’ I say.
She blinks and her lips curve softly. ‘I know, Victor.’
She turns and walks away and I watch, thrilled by the swing of her hips. She’s halfway down the street before I think to ask if I can walk her home. She pauses a second and without turning, says over her shoulder: ‘No.’
I keep staring up the street long after she has disappeared out of sight. When at last I turn back to the Parochial Hall Charlie is waiting in the doorway. He’s giving me a look. I ignore him and go back inside. I approach the ruddy-faced fellow with the poteen and ask him has he any more. Surreptitiously he takes the bottle out from his inside pocket – no mean feat to conceal such a large bottle there. Charlie’s in a huff about something and stays silent instead of helping me identify the fellow. I smile and nod like a simpleton as I drink the man’s poteen and tell him what good stuff it is. It definitely goes down easier second time around.
‘From your own da’s own still,’ he says.
He’s tall and rangy with teeth like an old graveyard and eyes that shift here and there. I have him now: TP McGahan. We were in school together. I take another sip. It is good stuff. Should’ve walked Maggie home regardless. She was glad to see me, no matter what she said, she was glad to see me. Who knows, might’ve even marked my first night back home. It’s been a while and a man has needs.
‘Take it handy with the drink, Victor,’ says Charlie.
‘I’m all right, Charlie, sure I used to be in the Pioneers,’ I say. He laughs, but I’m serious. ‘It was the Pioneers that drove me to drink in the first place.’ It was true, I had been secretary of the Monto branch. I fell out with the rest of them the time Findlater’s gave us a donation of ten pounds. It was ridiculous for a temperance movement to take money from a wine merchant, but the rest of them said I was right in theory but I had to be realistic. ‘There was a priest on the committee said I was being dogmatic. Can you believe the neck on him? A bloody priest!’
‘So what did you do?’ says Charlie.
‘I flung my Pioneer pin at the chairman, the fat, red-faced bollix, and went straight to the nearest pub away from the fucken hypocrite gombeen bastards.’
I take another drink. Charlie’s right, I’d better slow down. It takes a lot less poteen than whiskey to reduce a man to his hands and knees. There’s a bit of a spin to the room. TP McGahan has a notebook and pencil in his hands. ‘How about a few quotes for next week’s paper? I work for the Armagh Guardian.’
‘You don’t have a camera? I don’t want no photographs.’
‘Go away and leave him alone, he’s giving me a dance,’ says the toothy girl with the dark hair and dark eyes I danced with before. She grabs my hand and leads me through the crowd before I can protest. We line up alongside three other couples and start into a lively reel, and though I’m supposed to dance with everyone in turn, my partner, whoever she is, keeps seizing me back. Her arms are surprisingly strong. Eyes dark and wild. Thick, black, black hair. White skin. Red lips curled in a pout like a spoonful of jam in a glass of milk. She’s probably about twenty-one and looks like Theda Bara. She could be gorgeous or she could be hideous. She smacks against me violently and I notice the other dancers stand back and give us plenty of room. I’m not sure if I want to hop on her or run for my life. ‘What’s my name?’ she says.
I grope around for the faintest memory of this primal, kinetic creature, but there’s nothing. ‘Of course, I know you surely.’
She laughs and throws her head about, sending her hair flailing, but her eyes, spread wide, never seem to waver from me. ‘Have I changed a lot?’
‘Not a bit.’
She’s strange. The dance ends and I’m glad to retreat from her. Charlie, Turlough, Sean and TP are standing by the door sipping poteen and watching me. Charlie shakes his head. TP still has his notebook out. He asks again if I have any quotes for him.
‘I don’t think Victor wants his name going in the paper,’ says Charlie.
‘Fire away, TP,’ I say.
‘Why are you home?’
‘To see my family. And I’m delighted to be back among my own people.’
‘Is it true that you want Ireland to become communistic?’
His eyes shift in his beak-nosed face. I shouldn’t indulge him, I really shouldn’t. Journalists are all the same. Weasels. Sometimes they can be harnessed and directed towards some useful work, but they’re no less verminous for that. ‘Are you going to stitch me up, TP?’
‘Och, Victor, I’m just an old friend writing a puff piece for the local paper. I’m just wondering if you think people in County Armagh are ready for communism? Cardinal Logue in particular has taken a very strong line against it.’
The girl, the one looks like Theda Bara, reappears and thrusts a bottle into my hand. Her eyes sparkle like the Liffey under gaslight, all treacherous depth. I sense, vaguely, that the lads around me are uncomfortable. I screw the cork from the neck and take a glug. I see Theda’s luxurious lips make an open-mouthed smile and I want them. The room sways. There was something I wanted to say.
‘Victor? Cardinal Logue has taken a very strong line against communism,’ says TP, face expectant, pencil poised. There’s a bit of a crowd around us now.
‘Let me tell you something about Cardinal fucken Logue,’ I begin.
TWO
Stanislaus sorted through the great ring of keys to the parish properties as he walked, coming to the correct key just as he reached the Parochial Hall. Someone had cleaned up around the side where Aidan Cavanagh had been sick. There were no windows smashed. In fact they looked clean – but if there was one thing broken or one item not put back where it was supposed to be … He opened the door of the hall and walked into the middle of the floor. The place smelled of bleach and soap powder. The chairs were stacked neatly to the side. The floor was mopped and clean, except for the muddy footprints he himself had just left on the not-yet-dry floor. He removed his shoes and went to the store cupboard to look for a mop. After he had cleaned up his mess, he locked the front door of the hall after him and sat on the steps to pull on his shoes. Hearing someone coming, he looked up the street and froze when he saw it was Victor Lennon.
‘Morning, Your Grace,’ the Victor fellow said.
For the first time since he was a child, Stanislaus seemed unable to tie his laces. He abandoned the knot and started again. Lennon did not stop as he passed, and Stanislaus left off warring with his laces to watch him disappear up the road. Where was he going, so early in the morning? Or coming from? He wore the same ragged uniform and still had his suitcase. He hadn’t been home yet; where had he been? Stanislaus looked back to his laces, tangled stupidly, and methodically set about undoing the tangle.
When he got home Mrs Geraghty was cleaning up at the sink. Father Daly was at the table, using a slice of bread to mop up the fatty juices and gristle that remained of his breakfast, while looking at the newspaper laid flat beside his plate.
‘I started without you, Your Grace, I wasn’t sure how long you’d be.’
Mrs Geraghty set a plate of liver and kidneys down for Stanislaus and he tore hungrily into it, cutting through the liver and releasing a dark, pungent trickle of blood onto the plate. He still wondered about Victor Lennon, to be slinking home at this hour. Mrs Geraghty might be able to shed some light. She was usually able to. ‘What time did the festivities finish at last night, Mrs Geraghty?’ Stanislaus asked.
‘There’s no need to shout.’
Father Daly did not look up from his paper. Stanislaus forked his food and took a gulp of his tea. He wanted to know everything and by God they would tell him everything. He began again, louder this time. ‘Tell me all, Mrs Geraghty. What happened after we left? Did Mr Lennon enjoy himself?’
‘Oh, he enjoyed himself all right, talking out of turn,’ she said vexedly. She paused and closed her eyes a moment, as if struck by a sudden pain. On opening them Stanislaus met her with a look that demanded
she go on. ‘Well, he was talking to TP McGahan and they were doing an interview and everybody was listening to them.’ She took a scouring pad from the sink and started scrubbing roughly at the work surface, as if she could ever scrub roughly enough to make Stanislaus stop asking her questions. Stanislaus let his knife and fork drop loudly.
‘What did he say?’
‘I can’t remember exactly.’
‘Give me the gist.’
‘Father, I have too much work to be gossiping,’ she said, throwing the scouring pad into the sink.
If Mrs Geraghty was offended, surely others would be too. It hadn’t taken long for their Victor, their boy of Easter Week, to reveal his feet of clay.
‘I just saw Victor this morning. He looked a little the worse for wear,’ Stanislaus said coyly. Mrs Geraghty stopped and turned slowly. Now she was interested. ‘Yes, it was the strangest thing,’ Stanislaus went on. ‘He was coming up from the far end of the street, and he was wearing the same clothes – that silly uniform – and carrying his suitcase. It was as though he hadn’t been home.’ Stanislaus picked up his cutlery and ate a large forkful of kidney. Mrs Geraghty’s expression turned distracted and grave.
‘It was terrible, the things he was saying last night,’ she said. ‘He was full drunk as well, honestly, he was a disgrace. I suppose that’s what happens you when you go away to the big city with all its loose morals and …’
‘What did he say?’
‘Terrible things. About the Church. About Cardinal Logue.’ She paused. ‘God forgive me, Father, but he said terrible things about you yourself. I couldn’t even repeat it. And politics as well. He thinks these communists are great fellows altogether.’
After the Lockout Page 5