by Joe Lane
I said, “Did your mother ever mention what your father did for a living?”
She knelt beside the trunk and opened the lid as she talked. “Yes, I remember asking as a child. I suppose it was a natural thing to ask questions about your own father when you can only imagine him as a shimmering mirage. He was a stonemason and builder, my mother told me. He’d a degree in engineering too. I saw evidence of that when I came across his certificate when I was sorting out my mother’s personal papers a while ago.”
“That accounts for it then,” I said, thinking aloud.
“You know what happened to my father, Shacks?”
I didn’t want to tell her the full story just yet in case I was wrong and I’d gotten the wrong McCracken family. I said, “No, not exactly. I found this ring amongst ruins on Clear Island near Baltimore.”
“It doesn’t prove it belonged to my father.”
“I feel confident I’ve found the right place with you, Millie.”
“Oh look!” She squealed like an excited child. “There’s a pile of journals here.”
She removed the black books one by one with mild inspection, ten in all. Each dated. They spanned from 1934 to 1944. She began reading the 1934 journal.
“It’s written in gaeltacht,” she said.
I couldn’t contradict her on that as the writings I could see had the same unappealing look for deciphering as Japanese writing. Both had me baffled. I said: “Do you know what’s written there?”
She started speaking a strange dialect.”
“I guess you do, Millie. Sorry I doubted you.”
“My mother insisted I learned and spoke our ancestral voice.”
“I don’t wish to pry but what exactly did you say?”
She smiled. “I’ve met a very nice man today!”
I smiled and thanked her.
She began translating the first page. “It’s a motto: I serve no King, nor Kaiser: I serve nothing but a free Ireland forever.”
Frigging pathetic cultural prattle! I thought.
She quickly flicked through the pages, only stopping at certain chapters to read a few lines. Sometimes she cringed at certain paragraphs. I guessed she’d found that she was reading a horror story.
Journal by journal she flicked through the pages trying to understand the significance of what she was reading and again only stopping at certain paragraphs of morbid interest. It was at one point when her body stiffened and she couldn’t hide her shock that she’d found something disastrously sinister.
“Are you alright?” I asked.
She said slowly, almost apologetically, “Merciful God in heaven! My father was the IRA Commander of Southern Ireland. I always believed he was a good Catholic. What did he become?”
I tried to be gentle with the truth. “A freedom fighter, from what I can gather.”
Tears dribbled slowly down her cheeks “A terrorist and a murderer. These journals are confessional submissions on paper.”
“It does seem to point in that direction,” I said, though I couldn’t be sure unless she read word for word to me.
You had to give Jimmy McCracken a certain amount of credit for a man obsessed with murder. He’d obviously been a prolific writer, though I found it confusingly strange why he should want to write the incriminating material down on paper, not unless he thought victory would always be his. And then again there many murderous minds throughout history that had the same idea in the name of fame. I suppose Jimmy McCracken was no different than the rest of the idealists for world domination.
Pushing things along, I made a suggestion. “The 1944 journal was obviously his last commitment, perhaps if we read through the last chapters properly it might tell us the last moments before your father disappeared.”
“Why not, Shacks. I can’t see it doing any harm” She flicked the pages to the final chapters and continued the translation with fluency. “Met German spies Harrington and Lodge for the final time.” She stopped reading and looked up at me. “This gets worst.”
“Don’t concern yourself too much Millie. It’s all in the past. What we learn today goes no further than you and me and this room. I promise. Please, read on.”
She nodded and carried on with her narration. “He’s written: I’ve convinced them to switch the rendezvous with the Jap sub to Roaring Water Bay, half a mile, South West from Cape Clear. They accepted my story that the Garda Siochana had discovered the possibility of a smuggling gang operating in Galway Bay and that the Irish Home Guard were preparing an ambush to trap the perpetrators. Both, Harrington and Lodge agreed that changes had to be made urgently. After they contacted the submarine and their task was completed, I did them in. My protector, Saint Brendan holds them safe from discovery.”
Millie paused and looked up at me. “What does he mean by Did them in!, Shacks?”
“I suspect he killed them, Millie.” I thought it best to be honest.
She recoiled with disgust. “Do you think my mother would have known about his terrible background?”
I shrugged. “Maybe she did, maybe she didn’t. They were difficult times during the early forties. Your father obviously went about his beliefs in the way he thought right.”
Millie sniffled back the tears. “No wonder my mother never saw him again, he’s either languishing in prison or he’s dead.”
“I think you’ll have to expect the worst, Millie.” She gazed at me like a frightened child. “I took the ring from a corpse I found buried under fallen rocks beneath Clear Island. If it was your father, then I’ve brought you bad news, which I never intended. I’m sorry about that. But I’m confident his body will be recovered eventually even though the task will be a mammoth operation and will take a major construction job to complete.”
Another lonely tear dribbled down her cheek.
From the bottom of the trunk she carefully brought out a framed black and white photograph of a group of men gathered around out-dated deep water diving apparatus. She pointed to a big powerful man in the middle.
“That’s my father. My mother once showed me this very picture. It was her fond memory of the man she loved. He was a handsome devil, she used to say. Just look at my father’s face. Is that the face of a terrorist and a murderer?”
“Looks can be incredibly deceiving. It’s what goes on in the mind that counts.”
Without contradiction, McCracken, in my eyes, was a brutal killer. As all religious fanatics and freedom fighters, they master the art of death and destruction. We live in a world full of madness, so what’s one more dangerous freak? There are many more McCracken’s out there in some dark corner of the world itching to start a war because of their beliefs and remedies. Nothing was ever going to change; not today, not tomorrow, not ever.
“At least I can put Old Willie’s mind at rest,” She said, which made my ears prick up.
“Who’s Willie?” I asked curiously.
She pointed to the smallest member of the group of eight divers. “That’s Willie. Willie Donahue. Still see him about. He’s probably the only one I’ve ever met from this photograph, which seems strange since my mother always maintained that the eight of them were inseparable companions. How he keeps going I’ll never reason why.”
“What became of the others?”
“I don’t rightly know. I never met any of them. My mother never mentioned them to me. It was always about Willie. My mother was always having a go at him. The harassment troubled Willie. Something had happened to him in the past but nobody knew what trouble him. Drink finally got hold of him and wrecked his life. Bit of an introvert now. Never married and doesn’t seem to have any relatives. Someone gave him the name ‘Wandering Willie’; stuck with him ever since.”
“Where can I find this Willie?”
“What for, Shacks?”
“Have a chat with him.”
She gave me a suspicious look. “I don’t think he can help you with anything.”
“He might be able to piece together your father’s mov
ements on the day he disappeared, especially if they were friends. He must know something.”
“I doubt it, Shacks. Why do you think my mother constantly pestered the poor bloke? She spent many an hour trying to get him talk about my father. As I said, he lives in a world of his own now. You’d get more sense from a stuffed animal than get him to talk of the past.”
“I’d still like to try,” I persisted. “Fortune honours the brave, I say.”
She was unsure what to say.
“Surely you want to know what happened to your father.”
I sensed she did, but she was scared of knowing the truth.
“I’d like to try,” I said.
Given time, I could have probably found him myself. I mean, how many ‘Wandering Willie’s’ are there frequenting the pubs around Cork. But Millie pointing me in the right direction would speed things up. Mainly because I had a strange tingling in the depths of my stomach telling me that my time was running out fast and something drastic was developing that was way beyond my control. I’d been getting a few of those lately, so much, they were giving me cause for concern over my health. I always thought I was too young for a heart attack. I was pleased when she changed her mind.
“I wish you the best of luck then, “she finally agreed. “That’s providing he’ll want to talk to you.”
“I’m confident he’ll talk to me, Millie.”
“His favourite haunt is ‘The Ovens’, in Oliver Plunkett Street. It’s a nice quiet pub. He goes there more days, I’m sure.”
My eyes lowered onto the journal. I noticed the last chapter at the bottom of the page which she hadn’t read yet. I said, “What was his final inclusion in the journal?”
She studied the page. “A piece of redemption, I think. He’s written: ‘beyond the line of light is the navigator; when the sun rises and illuminates the Virgin Mary, through her eyes she will foretell my domain of madness; my future life; my dreams of stardom. The spirit of Saint Brendan will save me from destruction.” She looked at me, her eyes red. “That’s his final passage. No indication where he was going. His words disappearing as he had.”
Part of her narrative had me wondering. “This ‘Saint Brendan’ seems to be a significant part of his life. Is it something special within your family?”
“In most Irish families I should imagine. He’s one of the Saints of Ireland. My mother was a regular churchgoer; as for my father…I’m not sure if he’d even dared to frequent any church with his history. God would never have forgiven him.”
I pressed the signet ring into the palm of her hand. “You’d better hang on to this.”
She didn’t fuss, just closed her hand around the piece of unexpected jewellery and clasped it tightly as if it was the most precious thing in her life.
“What do you think I should do with the journals, Shacks; burn them?”
“I’d be inclined to read them through properly before you decide, Millie. Perhaps you may find something in there that shows your father in a different light. Your Mother loved him for something. Maybe he wasn’t all bad after all.”
I left her clutching the final journal to her breast and saw myself out. I couldn’t be certain if the tears in her eyes were of happiness or sadness. I went to find Willie Donahue.
*
I found the pub called ‘The Oven’s’ and ordered a Guinness at the bar, asking the barman if Wandering Willie Donahue had come in. The barman jabbed a finger towards the shrivelled old man sat alone at a table by the window, seemingly staring into his half empty beer glass he held firmly on the table. My first observations of Willie clearly indicated that he did have all the attributes of an introvert, as Millie had suggested. He deliberately kept his eyes low, avoiding staring at people in case he attracted attention to himself. His appearance was how Millie had described it, and he did indeed look like a tramp. I almost felt sorry for the sod. I paid the barmen and zig-zagged between the tables to where he sat.
He startled when I sat down opposite him, the smell of bad body odour drifting from him as he twitched nervously in his seat. What I first thought to be black lines criss-crossing his face turned out to be dirt ingrained into his deep lined complexion. His confused dark sunken eyes lifted and searched mine.
“That seat be taken,” he said in a low, almost threatening growl.
“That’s right!” I said.
“Then why don’t yer move to another table and leave me in peace.”
“I want to talk to you.”
“I likes me own company.”
“Later. We have things to discuss first.”
“Are you deaf or something?”
“It might just be in your best interest if you talk to me, Willie. Because if you don’t I’m going to pester you day and night until you do.”
He frowned suspiciously. “Yer know me name?”
“Millie Malloy told me. She said I’d find you here drowning your sorrows.”
“Millie Malloy, yer say?”
“That’s right. She’s Jimmy McCracken’s daughter.”
The mentioning of McCracken stunned Willie. I’ve never seen anybody as scared as he was then. His body tensed as hard as a wooden board. His Adams Apple rippled through the sagging flesh below his chin. His eyes flicked side to side in sheer panic, and then he stared hard at me searching for answers. Now I had his immediate attention. He obviously thought McCracken was a name that would never resurface again, especially coming from a stranger. But he still made a desperate attempt to squash the connection.
“I dunno that name.”
“Which name don’t you know, Willie; Millie Malloy or Jimmy McCracken?
He scowled in frustration.
“Surely you can at least remember your old pal, Jimmy McCracken?”
He eyed me suspiciously. “Who might yer be?”
“My name isn’t important. After today you’ll want to forget me.”
“Yer’re perhaps a relation of the Molloy’s?”
“So you do know, Millie?”
“What’s she after?”
“The truth and what happened to her father might be a good start.”
His eyes squinted as he surveyed me harshly. “Who are yer?”
“I’m a friend of Millie. She’s ever so grateful for the return of her father’s signet ring; the very ring that he was wearing the day he went missing. It was a distinctive ring. Anyone whoever saw the piece would never forget it. It’s the one with his initials engraved on top, with a swirl of diamonds surrounding those initials.”
“Yer can’t have!” Willie snapped.
“Why’s that?”
“Because he was wearing it the day he-” He stopped suddenly. He’d realized his mistake that he’d said too much.
“Disappeared, you were about to say?”
“How the hell should I know? I haven’t seen him for a long time.”
“What do you call a long time: a week, month, year, or maybe not since nineteen forty-four?”
“Yer’re not going to keep pestering me like Molly McCracken did. (I gathered that would be Millie’s mother) Constantly nagging me, she was. Where’s Jimmy, she’d ask. Where’s Jimmy gone. Nagged me stupid, she did, asking if Jimmy had run off with another woman.”
“She was concerned about him. She loved him.”
“He loved her. He told me that once.”
“Why didn’t you just tell her the truth of what happened to him?”
“I told yer I don’t know what happened to him.”
“What you actually mean is you never saw what happened to him because you were too busy scampering for your life out from the secret cavern under the ruins of Dun an Oir. Isn’t that how it went?”
Willie solidified into a piece of cold iron in disbelief of what I knew. Here I was, a total stranger who knew more about his life than he probably knew about himself. His complexion went a sickly white, and the blackheads spotting his face were now more prominent. I’d certainly got Willie petrified and understandable
too when his past reappears suddenly into his already miserable life and confronts him about a secret he’s kept to himself for all this time.
“How…come you-”
“That I know so much, you’re wondering?”
Willie’s lips trembled. He said edgily, “Is Jimmy alive?”
“Only in spirit,” I assured him. “But he did leave behind ten confessional journals dating between 1934 and 1944, he so conveniently wrote.”
Willie leaned closer to me, a concerned expression crumpling his face, his breath smelling of onions that made me withdraw slightly.
“What d’yer mean, confessional journals?” he whispered, his eyes darting around the room in search for big eared listeners.
I eased back from the smell of his bad breath and took in a mouthful of Guinness, swallowed and said, “Nothing incriminating that concerns you or the other members of McCracken’s private racketeers.”
He didn’t protest against me calling him a racketeer.
“Doesn’t rightly matter about the others…they died with Jimmy.”
“When the tunnel roof fell in?”
He eyed me with a look suggesting I was thick. “They were crushed under tons of rock.”
“They were your friends?”
“That they were.”
“How many died?”
“Seven, including Jimmy…Hey…hold on a minute! Yer’d have known that if yer’d excavated the tunnel to reach the cavern.”
“Who mentioned anything about digging?”
“Yer found Jimmy’s body, didn’t yer?”
“I found a skeletal hand wedged between fallen rocks with a ring attached.”
“Yer’d have had to be inside the cavern if yer found Jimmy. He was last out. He always was. Always so meticulous that everything was in order for the next time. It was always going to be his secret fortress to fight his battles from.”
“I went into the cavern by the sea route; the same route where you hauled a Japanese submarine inside. That was an exceptional piece of ingenuity.”
Willie waved his hand gesturing his reluctance to go on. “I’m saying nothing more. Yer know where Jimmy lays. Leave me alone!”
I’d no intention of leaving him alone; not now, not until I had the true story. Keeping my temper intact, I said. “You’d better talk to me. I’m probably the only person in the whole wide world who can get you hanged. Do you understand that, Willie? Hung by the neck until you’re pronounced dead.”