by Heather Webb
“This way men,” Billy said, half-running, half-marching now in that frightening military bully-boy stance he had when he was leading one of his unofficial “Paddy attacks.”
With unnatural instinct, Billy came to a small house. There was music flooding out through the open front door. Complex whistles and fiddle arrangement, an almost tribal drumbeat holding it all together. Whoops of laughter—there was a party going on. Just like everywhere else in the city.
Billy was hopping from foot to foot. He was itching for a fight. Clive got a really bad feeling.
“Now, men.” Billy was addressing them like he was an officer, trying to make himself sound reasonable and sane. “This is a rebel house. We know that because they are playing rebel music . . .”
The other two were actually listening. They were as thick as Billy. Clive knew he had to try to reason with him.
“Billy, I don’t think this is a good idea. It’s just a party . . .”
“It’s a rebel party, Clive. Look,” Billy said, closing his eyes. “I know you don’t like the action, Clive, and that’s fair enough. But you’ve got to admit, this is proper unacceptable . . .”
“No,” Clive said. “What is unacceptable, Billy, is just barging in on people in their homes like this. For all you know this family could be celebrating the end of the war, just like us. There are thousands of brave Irishmen fighting in the Great War, far more than there will ever be rebels, you know that . . .” Billy looked at him openmouthed; clearly he knew no such thing.
Clive was making sense. Crucially, he wasn’t scared of Billy.
“Maybe he’s right,” Paul said. “Maybe we should just go back . . .” Jack half-turned, encouraging a retreat. “You are all fucking cowards,” Billy said, but Clive could sense he might be thinking better of it. Then the music stopped and a lone man’s voice started to sing. Strong and loud, it came threading out the front door, its lyrics clearer in song than if they had been spoken in an Irish brogue.
At the Windmill hills, and at Enniscorthy,
The British fencibles they ran like deers,
But our ranks were scattered and sorely battered,
For the want of Kyan and his Shelmaliers.
Billy raised his eyebrows briefly at Clive, as if vindicating himself entirely of any ensuing carnage, then he charged into the house with the other two close behind him. Clive stood for a second, shocked. Aside from their drunk, violent stupidity, if this was a rebel house the occupants might all have guns, and only Billy was armed. If it wasn’t, the consequences could be equally catastrophic. Although they were half-witted idiots, Clive could not leave his fellow soldiers behind to their own reckless fate.
In the sixty seconds it took him to follow them in, Billy’s impetuous move had already created an ugly scene. There were at least thirty, maybe forty people crammed into the small room. Cowering up against the edges of the room were the women and children. At the center, sitting on low stools, were six or seven musicians, one of them little more than a child, another an old man, but three of them were big men. The one with the accordion was sitting directly in front of Billy. He looked hefty enough to fell any man with a flick of his finger, except that he had a gun pointed to his head. Gathered in all corners were at least five other men. Billy was way out of his depth and he knew it. He started screaming at the top of his voice, “GET DOWN! GET DOWN ON THE GROUND YOU REBEL BASTARDS!” Paul and Jack were standing next to him, their hands resting on their waists, reaching for the bayonet knives they had left in their lockers the night before when they were cleaning out their weapons after drill. Their faces were pasted with fear. A drunk, panicking Billy was just about as bad as it got. The idiot would shoot somebody, anybody, then the Paddys would overpower them and rip them to shreds.
“I WILL FUCKING SHOOT THE LOT OF YOU. I SAID PUT YOUR HANDS BEHIND YOUR HEAD AND GET DOWN ON THE GROUND!”
The women started gathering themselves into hunched balls on the stone floor over the children.
The room was so small there wouldn’t be enough space for them all on the floor. Clive decided he could use that to reason with Billy.
“That won’t work, mate,” Clive said, looking across at him. The quivering crazy fear in his eyes gave way slightly. He was relieved somebody else was talking. His mate Clive was on his side.
“Look,” Clive said, “there isn’t enough space for them all on the ground.” Billy let out a snort and hoisted his gun up a few inches, tightening his grip. “We won’t be able to move about,” Clive added. “Why don’t you let the women and children go? Then there’ll just be us and the men.”
Billy shifted his feet, nearly stepping on a child’s hand. He nodded and looked across at Clive. The other two soldiers were just standing there with their mouths open.
“Yeah, Clive. You’re right . . .” Then, as if it were his idea, he said, “We’re not savages, are we? We’re soldiers.”
“That’s right, Billy,” Clive said. “We’re soldiers.”
Billy took a deep breath, then nodded at the one woman still standing and said, “Go on then, get out. BUT NO FUNNY BUSINESS!” he roared, prodding the accordion player’s cheek with the end of his rifle. The big man flinched. His eyes were dead with a blocked rage. If the gun went off by accident, which given Billy’s shaking hands was more than possible, all hell would break loose. The women quickly gathered themselves up from the floor, some of the men reaching down to help them. “GET YOUR HANDS WHERE I CAN SEE THEM!” There was some slight shoving and chaos as the women tried to find their way out of the room, past the men who were crowded around the narrow doorway. Billy’s nerves were really getting the better of him. “OI! WAKE UP, CLIVE—HELP ME OUT HERE, MATE, WILL YOU?” Clive didn’t want to take his eyes off Billy for a second. As long as he was looking at him, Clive felt he could control him. There was sweat pouring down Billy’s face; his eyes were blinking with the heat of the crowded room. If he became distracted for a minute, even just to wipe his face, Clive might be able to reach across and take the gun off him. Billy might even give it to him to hold. He looked across at Billy’s open jacket and saw that Billy’s bayonet was still in its holder.
Billy nodded at Clive to help get some of the women out. It was important to let him think he was still in charge, so he turned his attention to the figure standing next to him, who seemed stubbornly not to be leaving with the others.
It was Eileen.
Clive felt the whole room gather in around him, as if suddenly he might melt into the floor. She didn’t say anything, just looked at him. It was Eileen, but not like he had seen her before. She was a version of herself: hard, angry, determined. She was the last woman there.
“Get rid of that bitch, Clive, will you?”
Clive didn’t know what to do. He was starting to panic himself now. Whatever awful thing was about to happen, he didn’t want Eileen hurt, so he looked at her and said, “Please leave the house, ma’am.”
“I will not,” she said. “I most certainly will not kowtow to any ignorant English bastard who comes walking into my house . . .”
She was angry, but it was the Eileen he knew, all right. Feisty. Unafraid.
“Are you going to let her talk to you like that?” Billy said. His arm was getting tired holding the gun. He wanted to get out of there now. He didn’t even want to shoot anyone anymore. He had a headache. He wanted to go to bed. He wanted his mother.
“Jesus, Clive—you are some poofter, mate. Lift her up, she’s only a woman! Just get her out . . .”
“Please,” Clive pleaded with her.
“Or WHAT?” she said. She spat the word out at him. Cruel but beautiful. Why was this happening? Eileen had been right in the alleyway. War spoiled everything. There was no bravery, no nobility. Only ugliness and confusion.
“Or I will shoot your fucking friend here, you stupid bitch!” In the entertainm
ent of watching Clive unable to get a small woman out of the room, Billy had dropped his guarded stance. The accordion player seized the opportunity, and in a flash turned and reached over to Billy’s waistband and pulled the bayonet clean out of its sheath. Clive immediately, instinctively ran across and grabbed the gun. So now Clive was holding the gun and the huge accordion player had Billy across his lap with his own huge knife trained on his throat.
“SHOOT HIM—FUCKING SHOOT THE BASTARD, CLIVE—I DON’T CARE IF I DIE . . .”
The big man gave Billy a swift slap to the side of the head, which rendered him immediately unconscious.
Clive cocked the rifle, then opened it, removed the bullets, and handed them to Eileen, who put them in her apron pocket. She then took the gun from him.
“Thank you,” she said. “We’ll hang on to that. It will come in handy in the times to come, no doubt.”
“What happens next?” Clive asked. He was trying hard not to address her directly. They could not be seen to know each other, although he felt certain one of the men was the one who had followed them to Bewley’s.
“What happens next,” said the accordion player, addressing him with cool determination, “is that we slit each of you from gullet to gut.” Paul collapsed to his knees. Jack started to cry and plead. “Then we throw your bodies in the Liffey, invite the ladies back, and continue with the party. What do you say to that, lads?”
The rest of the men did not reply to him but their intention was clear. They stared across at Clive and the two pleading young soldiers, none of them moving or saying a word. The Irishmen’s hatred was palpable. Clive felt sick with fear for his life, but he was not surprised by their reaction and he could not argue against it. The Irishmen’s disgust was justified. The soldiers’ fate was set.
“You will do no such thing, Kieran Maheady,” Eileen said, in a voice as casual as if she were reprimanding a child. “I know everyone in this room by name and reputation. You are, every one of you, honorable men, not marauding murderers. These”—she looked at the pitiful figures of the two crying soldiers and Billy, still unconscious in the big man’s lap—“fools, you could barely call them soldiers, aren’t worth the bloodshed. Especially not tonight, of all nights . . .”
“They attacked our home!” one man called out.
“They can’t just come in here and terrorize our women and children whenever they like!”
“We’ve had enough!” another called out. “The English bastards came looking for us. I say we send a message back to them!”
“No,” Eileen said, her tone even more determined and certain than before.
“Padraig,” she addressed the first man who had spoken, “haven’t you a cousin fighting over in France?” He coughed awkwardly in reply. “You can all be as shifty about it as you like, but the truth is half our number are away fighting in the army alongside the British while we’re fighting against them. I know at least five men here have family members fighting in the British Army whose mothers and sisters are celebrating tonight. We have our war for independence from the British, and we will surely fight it, but not tonight and not in this house.”
Then she turned to Clive.
“Will you give me your guarantee that this”—she nodded over at Billy—“ignorant savage will be adequately punished when you get back to the barracks?”
Clive immediately took the bait.
“He’ll be going back without his weapon, miss. The army looks very poorly on missing weaponry. He will probably be court-martialed and executed.”
A couple of the Irishmen raised their eyebrows in approval. It was a lie. Billy would tell his officer that he had been overwhelmed by rebels and that they had stolen his rifle from him. It was happening all over the city every day.
Kieran looked behind at the others.
“What do ye say, lads? Will we let them go and get back to the party?”
The men looked across at Eileen and thought of their wives and mothers outside in the cold waiting, then gave him the nod.
Kieran rolled Billy off his lap and picked up his accordion.
By the time Paul and Jack were dragging Billy by the shoulders out the door, the music had already started again. The women and children were standing on the street.
“Was he shot?” one of the women said about Billy. “I didn’t hear a gun.”
“No, Mammy,” Eileen said. “Don’t be worrying now. It’s all over.” She had a younger man standing with her. The other brother Eileen had spoken about? He had that same hazel hair and her eyes. “Uncle Kieran only gave him a cuff.”
“Thanks be to God you’re all safe,” she said, patting her hand on her heart. “I was afraid for my life.”
Clive held back, hoping to speak with Eileen. “English bastard!” the boy shouted at him.
“Now Seamus,” Eileen said, “no need for poor language. Go back inside.”
“I’m not leaving you here with him.”
“Go back in, I’m telling you, and see that Mammy and Daddy are all right.”
He glowered at Clive and went back into the house.
Eileen looked at the ground. He did not know if she was angry or sad. If she wanted him to stay or go. She had given so much of herself, so easily to him before. Her humor, her friendship—now that was all gone. All that was left was the pain of what might have been. Of lost hope.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
She just shook her head, keeping her face to the ground, hidden.
Clive put his hand in his pocket and pulled out the photograph. Her small hands were clenched tightly together in front of her chest. Her body was set rigid. Afraid at even the suggestion he might want to touch her, Clive carefully slid the picture into her apron pocket, on top of the bullets.
Still, she didn’t look up.
“I love you, Eileen O’Hara,” he said. Then he walked away before she started to cry.
LATER THAT NIGHT, Eileen’s younger brother Seamus picked up Clive’s gun and said he would not put it down until Ireland was free from British rule.
Dublin 2017
To Eileen O’Hara.
Your sweetheart, Clive Postlethwaite.
September 1917
Bridie sat with the picture in her hand, astonished. Auntie Eileen in love with a British soldier? That couldn’t be right! She was an activist in her day. She had fought alongside her brother Seamus. Although she rarely spoke about it herself, Eileen’s name had always been closely associated with the Cause.
The pregnancy was temporarily swept to one side in the magnitude of this revelation. As Bridie tried to puzzle it out, the germ of a memory came into her head. She picked up her phone and rang her father’s second cousin, Liam Maheady. He was in his eighties now, but his mind was as sharp as it had ever been. Liam’s father, Kieran, had been an active member of the IRA and an oracle about the war. He was long since dead, but everything he knew was passed onto his son. Including his brilliant accordion skills.
Liam was surprised to hear from her, as they would be seeing each other the following day at the 1916 event in the presidential palace.
“Everything all right, Bridie? Are you still all set for the big day?”
She got straight to the point.
“You know that night? When the British soldiers broke into our house?”
“Ah yes. Armistice night.”
“Did Eileen know any of the men?”
“How do you mean?”
“Was she friendly with any of them?”
“Jesus, Bridie, I doubt it. They came marauding into the house, brandishing guns and attacking the women and children . . .”
“No, I mean—when we talked about it before, I remembered you saying that Eileen managed to reason with one of the soldiers.”
“Ah yes, when she talked them down. There was one that wa
s more intelligent than the others . . .”
“Was he called Clive?”
“Bridie, what are you talking about?”
“The soldier she was talking to that night, the one who gave her the gun that Seamus carried with him, was he called Clive?”
“Jesus, Bridie, do you know something, I think he was? What on earth made you remember that?”
“Nothing,” she said. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”
Bridie took the picture of the young man and laid it down on the dressing table next to the picture of her grand-aunt. They were the same age in the picture. A dashing young soldier and a beautiful young girl.
Eileen had kept his picture all those years. She must have loved him. Perhaps that was why she never married? Eileen was outspoken so her family had always assumed she was not the marrying kind. Maybe, instead, she had loved and lost, like so many war widows. On both sides.
Bridie put both pictures in her pocket. On her way back down the stairs she thought. Why do the kids have to make everything about them? She smiled. Because everything was about them. This was the present, not so different from the past, after all. A young British soldier was going to be the father of her first grandchild.
Sharon was standing at the sink, washing the dishes. As she lifted her dry wrist up to her eyes, Bridie could see she had been crying. Frank was smoking a cigarette at the back door. Fuming.
“Ring David and tell him he is very welcome to come along with us tomorrow.”
“Do you mean it, Mam?”
“Well, if he’s going to be the father of my first grandchild, we’d better make him feel welcome.”
“B-but it’s an insult to our heritage,” Frank sputtered, turning rather red in the face.
“Love is love,” Bridie said. “It didn’t matter then and it doesn’t matter now. Tell him he can wear his uniform if he likes,” she added, putting on her coat and walking out the door.