In the People’s Park in Kingstown, he spread a rug on the grass and waved his arm ceremoniously.
‘Maggie Gilligan,’ he said with the formality of a butler. ‘If you would be as good as to take your seat, the fine dining can begin.’
Laughing, she knelt down on the rug. ‘You’re an awful eejit.’
‘Thank you, Ma’am.’
He opened a picnic basket.
Maggie stared. ‘You prepared all this yourself?’
He looked guilty. ‘Well, Cook....’
‘Ooooh, Cook,’ she teased, reaching for a cucumber sandwich.
He snatched it from her hand. ‘If you don’t want it...’
She laughed and snatched it back. ‘I want it.’
She gazed at him and sighed in satisfaction. Was this the most perfect day in her life? Or could any day match the one on the mountain when she discovered that she loved her best friend? She tipped her head back. The trees were heavy with leaves. Here and there, the sun broke through in shafts.
‘It doesn’t seem right to be so happy when countries are declaring war on each other,’ Daniel said.
Maggie sobered. ‘I know.’ In only days, Austria had declared war on Serbia. Germany had declared war on both Russia and France and had already begun to invade Belgium. ‘Tom tried to explain it to me but I don’t fully understand.’
‘I don’t either. It’s all about agreements between nations. It makes no sense.’
‘Do you think it will affect us?’
‘I don’t know, Maggie. We are part of the British Empire.’
She hated that thought. ‘Let’s talk of something else.’
‘I have an admission to make,’ he said brightly.
Maggie looked at him in surprise.
‘Remember the day we met?’
‘Of course I do.’
‘Well, on that day I promised myself that I would, one day, bring you to Kingstown and kiss you.’
‘Oh you did, did you?’ she asked, delighted. ‘How presumptuous.’
‘And yet here we are.’
‘But you haven’t had that kiss,’ she teased.
He turned his face to the side and ran a finger down it. ‘With this profile? A matter of time. A matter of time.’
She laughed. She picked up his hand and kissed it. ‘How’s that?’
‘Weak. Very weak.’
She laughed again. ‘Where do you expect this kiss? We’re in a public place, Daniel Healy. Are you trying to corrupt me?’
He puckered up his lips.
She felt that her entire body was a smile.
‘Do you know that my father believes me to be sailing out of Kingstown today?’ he asked.
‘So you haven’t told him about your new friend?’ She was one to talk.
‘I tell him nothing. Unlike your mother, he forbids things.’
‘Only because you allow him to.’
‘I’d like to see how you’d fare as his daughter for a week.’
‘Don’t worry. I’d break him.’
He laughed. ‘I don’t doubt it.’
It was great to be alone with him, no one to interrupt, no guns to clean or fire, no one listening in.
‘You were right about him, by the way,’ Daniel said. ‘Not just that he’s a lawyer but everything else. The telephone. The motorcar. The servants.’
‘I know, you poshy.’ She reached down and pulled a blade of grass. She made a slit in it with a fingernail and blew through it.
‘There is someone I’d like you to meet, though,’ he said.
‘Do tell.’
‘Michael.’
She groaned.
‘You two got off on the wrong foot. And you’re my favourite people in the world. So…’
‘Is he as obnoxious as ever?’
He smiled. ‘I think that what you hate about him is what I love. Like you, he pulses with life. No one makes me laugh like Michael.’
‘Not even me?’ She pretended to be wounded.
‘You do other things to me.’
His gaze falling over her was certainly doing things to her. She had to kiss him now. Right out in the open. Their mouths met. Her eyes closed. Her toes curled. She never wanted to stop. But there was the issue of being in public. And so she dragged herself away from the most kissable boy in the world.
He smiled. ‘You taste of grass.’
‘What you’re tasting, Mister, is a girl pulsing with life.’
He laughed.
‘What’s your favourite book?’ She could never know enough about him.
‘What’s yours?’ he asked, instead of answering.
‘Robinson Crusoe.’
‘Ah. Adventure on the high seas. I should have known.’
She shrugged. ‘It has cannibals. And I asked you first.’
‘The Count of Monte Cristo. It has revenge.’
She nodded sagely. ‘Revenge is always good.’
‘Favourite song?’ he asked.
‘A Nation Once Again, of course.’
He rolled his eyes. ‘Maggie, have some imagination.’
‘Tell me a better one.’
‘I Send My Heart Up To Thee.’
‘Oh, you old romantic.’ But she loved that he was romantic.
He kissed her then. ‘I don’t deny it.’
After the picnic, they strolled the pier. Passing women with parasols, they watched yachts tilt as they sailed out of the harbour. Mariner terms blew over to them on the salty air like butterflies. Lee ho. Ready about. The world was, very suddenly, a better place. There was so much beauty in things Maggie had never noticed before, the pattern of clouds, a bird in flight and a boy who had loved her for almost a year.
Maggie floated home. She shut the front door behind her and leaned against it, sighing. Her mother came out of the drawing room, her face grave. Maggie wished, now, that she had told her how things were with Daniel. One thing was certain; they had been seen.
‘England has declared war on Germany,’ her mother said.
Maggie froze, remembering Daniel’s words. ‘What does this mean for Ireland?’ She thought of Daniel. Was his father telling him the news right at this moment? She longed to speak to him, be with him.
‘It means that any Irishman who has signed up to the British Army will be off to fight. God knows how many with all the recruiting that’s been going on.’
The rebel in Maggie spoke. ‘It’s their own fault for siding with the British.’
Her mother frowned. ‘I thought that you, of all people, would understand that soldiering is a paying job, a rare enough thing for those that were involved in the Lockout. Men have families to feed, Maggie.’
She blushed, remembering how life was in the tenements. It must have killed those men to sign up. ‘You’re right. I’m sorry. I didn’t think.’ She worried that she was becoming like Tom. The thought of Tom jolted her. He was nineteen. ‘They won’t force Irishmen to join the army, will they?’
‘No. Thank the Lord. There’s no conscription in Ireland.’
Maggie breathed out in relief. ‘So the war will only affect those that volunteer?’
‘It will affect all of us in some way, Maggie, you can be sure of it.’
It was only then Maggie noticed Lily standing small and pale outside the drawing room door, listening to everything they had been saying. Maggie smiled widely and reached out her hand.
‘Come on, Lil. Let’s play outside on the swing.’
Lily took her hand but asked, ‘Can we play when the world is at war?’
‘Lily, it is especially important to play when the world is at war.’
fourteen
Daniel
Suddenly, it was everywhere, the call to war. Recruiting sergeants walked the streets, promising glory and a wage. Posters sprang up like mushrooms overnight, appealing to Irishmen’s sense of honour. From the pulpits, priests urged men to defend their country. It was that contradiction – a man of God calling on his congregation to break the fifth co
mmandment – that woke Daniel up to the power of words. Defend your country. Answer the call. Defend our women.
Despite all of this, life continued as normal. At Na Fianna meetings, Maggie and Daniel studied first aid. They learned to signal, track and read code. They even learned the Irish sport of hurling, which was fast, furious and thrilling.
Then Daniel returned to school. And war was everywhere again. It was all that his classmates spoke of. They wished themselves older so they could join up. Daniel wondered if they would have felt so strongly if it were truly possible?
One afternoon, as he and Michael removed muddy rugby boots in a room full of rain-drenched, steaming boys, Michael turned to him.
‘Let’s sign up! Let’s stop the tide of the Hun!’
The tide of the Hun? ‘You’ve been reading too many posters, Hegarty.’
Michael abandoned his boots. ‘Don’t you wish to make your father proud?’
Daniel’s father had already declared war to be a folly embraced by the working classes. It was as though he and Daniel were growing further and further apart and his father did not even know it.
‘Our fathers are different, Michael.’
‘He wouldn’t be proud?’ Michael looked appalled.
He shook his head, not willing to go into it. ‘Make your father proud in other ways. Do well at school.’
‘What good will school be if we’re overrun by the Hun?’
Daniel, too, abandoned his boots. It wasn’t often that Michael took life seriously. ‘There’s the issue of our age,’ he said, to put an end to it. At eighteen, they were almost men. Daniel suspected that, for Michael, this was about becoming one.
‘And you’ve never heard of a little white lie?’ Michael countered.
Daniel looked at him in all his eagerness. Even if Daniel did share his hunger for war, there was one all-consuming reason why he’d never sign up. ‘I’d never leave Maggie. That’s the truth of it.’
‘Always Maggie,’ Michael said glumly.
It was true. She was his life now. She was only sixteen but he longed to marry her, spend every moment of his life with her. He would wait. A lifetime if he had to.
That Saturday, Na Fianna was ordered to march through the streets of Dublin in full uniform.
‘Be a thorn in the side of the British Army, boys!’ Madame declared cheerfully.
Daniel stared at her. It was one thing for an illegal organisation to march the streets in full uniform, quite another to bother the troops.
‘This is madness,’ he whispered to Maggie.
‘Madame has her reasons. And we have our orders,’ she whispered back.
‘So you would blindly follow orders that might get you killed and, for what, annoyance? You saw those people gunned down.’
‘And that is why I’m here, Danny, with Na Fianna.’
‘To die the same way? This is just a game to her, entertainment. It’s our lives she’s playing with.’
‘Fall in!’ the order came.
Maggie did so.
Shaking his head, Daniel did too, not beside her – he was too angry for that – but near enough to come to her aid if needed. It was as if they were soldiers, obeying orders, no matter how ridiculous.
As they marched up Sackville Street, Daniel expected trouble at every moment. He noticed every man that moved, every leaf that fell. Every sound was a potential danger.
Then his mind began playing tricks on him. He imagined a bullet entering Maggie’s head. He saw it explode and her brains splatter over the boy beside her. It was a flashback to all he had seen on the quays but with Maggie as the victim. He saw her crumple to the ground. He saw the life leave her eyes. He saw it all. He even saw Lily’s face on hearing the news. It felt like a prophecy. And it made his legs weak. How could he have believed that they would never rise? How had he not seen that it would come to this? He had to do something. He couldn’t stand by and let this continue. He had to persuade her to stop – somehow.
When they finally returned, without incident, Daniel looked at Maggie, cheering along with the rest of them, and felt his stomach contract further. He waited until they were outside, at their bicycles, before confronting her.
‘That was madness. We must leave Na Fianna.’
‘You know I can’t do that.’
‘We risked our lives for nothing!’
‘Not nothing.’
He looked at her and knew that he could not fight a father’s last request. So he took a deep breath and prepared to face reality. ‘I need to know if you plan to fight when the time comes.’
She looked at him for the longest time, and then bowed her head. ‘I don’t know.’
Gently he guided her chin back up so their eyes met.
‘There are just so few of us and so many of them,’ she said desperately. ‘Look around you, Danny.’ She looked at all the boys leaving the hall. ‘These are our friends, our brothers. They expect me to fight alongside them. When they’re coming under fire, how can I stand by? How can I just deal with wounds when it would be their wounds? How can I not pick up a gun and help prevent those wounds?’
He shook his head in sorrow.
‘I’m sorry, Danny. I can’t stand by. These are my people. I’ve never belonged anywhere before Na Fianna.’
‘You belong with me.’
They stared at each other.
He could not give in. He would not. ‘So you’d take a life?’
She closed her eyes. ‘To save the life of a brother.’
‘You would put Ireland before yourself?’
She nodded.
‘Before us?’
She bit the back of her hand. Her eyes welled.
Then Patrick arrived beside them. ‘That damned fool Redmond!’
They looked at him in confusion, as though woken from a dream.
‘John Redmond, the politician,’ Patrick clarified as if that was the source of their confusion. ‘He’s only gone and called on the Volunteers to join the British Army in return for Home Rule when the war is over.’
Daniel was lost.
‘Well, no one will listen to him!’ Maggie announced.
‘That’s where you’re wrong, Ruairi. Already, they’re following his call in the thousands. If this keeps up, there’ll be nothing left of the Volunteers.’
Maggie looked at Daniel as if to say, ‘You see, now, why I must fight?’
He could only see that he must stop her. Somehow.
Patrick took off to spread the news.
Watching him go, Daniel saw it, suddenly, a way to keep her safe! If Ireland were granted Home Rule, most rebels would be satisfied. Some, like Maggie, would remain committed to a republic, but not in big enough numbers to rise. By joining the British Army, Daniel could stop her rising for her country! Everyone was saying that the war would be over by Christmas. He would keep his head low and give it three months of his life. Could he take a life, though? That was the problem.
Daniel arrived home, deep in thought. As he entered the drawing room, his father jumped to his feet, flinging his newspaper to the ground.
‘There you are!’ he bellowed.
Whatever trouble Daniel was in would be minor compared to the choice that he faced: to go to war or to let Maggie rise for Ireland.
‘How long have you been involved with that idiot brigade?’ his father raged.
So there it was.
‘How long have you been going behind our backs now, Daniel? The Gaelic League how are you! Did you not think that, sooner or later, you would be seen? Dublin is a small place. Have you given any thought, at all, to how this would look for me, a man of the law, to have it known that my son is part of a rebel force?’
Daniel bowed his head. ‘I’m sorry, Father.’
‘Sorry won’t do, Daniel. I cannot comprehend, after all that I’ve done for you, that you would treat me in such a manner, fraternising with a bunch of, of, working class republicans!’ Spittle flew from his mouth.
‘The working class
do not have a choice, Father,’ he said quietly.
‘Riffraff,’ he spat.
And suddenly Daniel’s hackles were up. ‘Have you ever spoken to an ordinary worker? Have you ever visited a tenement? Have you ever seen the way your so-called riffraff lives?’
‘I will have you know that the people you are so keen to defend occupy some of the finest properties in Dublin.’
Daniel scoffed. ‘That is so far from the truth.’
‘Excuse me! I own four of those properties myself, Daniel. They are prime Georgian buildings.’
There was no longer sufficient air in the room. ‘You are a landlord?’
‘Is that a crime?’ he scoffed.
‘Why did you never say?’
‘I do not bring my business into my home, Daniel.’
‘You are a landlord.’ He still could not fathom it.
‘Yes and you, my friend, have no notion what it is like trying to extract rents from those people. Blood from stone. Blood, from, stone.’
‘Why do you imagine that is, Father?’
‘Laziness, pure and simple, and let us not forget the demon drink.’
‘Have you been to your properties, lately?’
His father stood taller. ‘I do not need to. I grew up in one.’
‘Then why are we not living there, still?’
‘It is the fashion to live in the suburbs, Daniel, as you know. My properties remain sound. Many of my happiest years were spent there.’
‘And were you crammed into that sound property with one hundred others?’
His father’s face flared red like a beacon. ‘If they choose not to work and to pile in together like rats, that is their business.’
Daniel could feel his own cheeks flame. ‘They choose not to work? Have you never heard of the Lockout? Have you never heard of blacklisting?’ He could hear his own voice rise. ‘You spend too much time in your club, Father. How do you expect skills when children must leave school to support their families in order to pay your overinflated rents?’
His father strode towards him. Daniel sensed that he was about to be struck for the first time in his life. Instead, his father slammed both fists down on the drawing room table. He inhaled deeply, then lowered his voice. ‘Who are you to complain? What do you think funds your education?’
Through The Barricades: Winner of the SCBWI SPARK Award 2017 Page 10