by Roddy Doyle
I was gone the next day. I dumped the bike in a friendly shed outside Mullingar, a walk to the station and onto the train. Off at Kingsbridge. A ring of soldiers at every door.
I kept walking.
G-men sweating in their trenchcoats watched every face coming towards them as they leaned against pillars and pretended to read newspapers. I stared straight through them, a man in a hurry, and walked right up to the door.
—So who are you?
An English accent. There were no more Irish soldiers. A sergeant. Not unpleasant. Backed up by twitchy youngsters and two Crossley cars behind them on the street.
—Michael Collins, I said.
We laughed.
—Reggie Nash, I said.
—And what are you up to then, Mister Nash?
—I’m on my way home, Sergeant, I said.—The wife’s after having a baby.
—Congratulations. What’s in the briefcase, or am I being rude?
—I’m a traveller for Kapp and Petersen, I told him as I opened the case and showed him my display of pipes.
—Goodness, he said.
They were beautiful things, four lines of the most elegant pipes, gleaming and expensive, only one empty space, where my own face had been the day before. He was mesmerised. His arm moved slightly, and stopped. He wanted to touch them but was scared of their elegance. He shook slightly, and spoke again.
—Alright, he said.—Off you go, home to your missis. Boy or a girl? Hang on. Excuse me.
He lifted the tail of my trenchcoat and saw the leg sitting in its holster.
They all took small steps back and I heard the neat thump of a breech bolt being pulled. The crowd right behind me stopped shuffling.
—What’s this then, Mister Nash?
—A display item, I said.
—Come again?
—A display item, I said.—It’s a giant-sized match.
I hoped to Jesus that they were all fresh off the boat, that none of them knew that the pipes were made by Kapp and Petersen and the matches by Maguire and Patterson.
I showed him the strap.
—The idea being that it gets hung above the tobacconist’s door.
—It don’t look much like a match from here, sir.
He was relaxing now, curious.
—That’s probably why no one wanted it, I said.—I have to agree with you. But, like you, Sergeant, I have to obey orders. A boy.
—Come again?
—The baby, I said.—A boy.
—I’ve got girls myself, he said.—Sorry for delaying you, sir.
—Goodbye, Sergeant, I said.—I hope the rain stays away for you.
Out onto the street. More G-men leaning against the river wall. Away. Past them and gone. Across the bridge and away. Into the streets where the G-men weren’t welcome.
—I’m married now, Granny, I told her.
—Does she own both her legs? she asked.
She’d been reading the Independent. She put her finger under the last word and looked up at me. She looked at me properly for the first time since I was a child fighting on her daughter’s lap.
—She does, yeah, I said.
—Then you’ll be very happy, she said.
She was still looking at me.
—Are you not very young to be getting yourself wedded?
—I’m twenty-two, I told her.
She lifted her finger, brought it to the top of the page and dropped it under the date.
—So I’ve been reading news that’s four years old, she said.
—Tell me more about Gandon, I said.
—Gandon in 1919 or Gandon in 1923?
—1919.
—It’s hard to remember, she said.—It’s such a long, long time ago.
—I’m seventeen, I told her.
—Ah, she said.
She took her finger off the date.
—He’s a changed man, she said.
—How is he?
—Have you any books for me?
—No.
—My lips are sealed, so.
—What about a wedding present? I said.
—He’s a changed man, she said.—A Shinner and a Minister, no less. Talking about important things beyond in the Mansion House. Changing his name to O’Gandúin.
She turned the page of the paper and whacked it flat on the table.
—I know all that, I said.
—That wasn’t your present, she said.—It’s this: he isn’t changed at all.
—What d’you mean?
—When will you have books for me?
—Tomorrow, I said.—I’ll get them tonight.
—By females?
—Yeah.
—He’s still up to his old tricks, she said.—The things the wooden fella used to do for him. Except he has other eejits now to do his dirty work for him. He hasn’t changed a bit.
—You know Smith?
Collins was sitting on his desk.
—I do, I said.
—He’s yours, he said.
This was Collins’s latest office, a new one added to the five or six he used every day. The Ministry of Finance, hidden behind a name, Hegarty and Dunne, Insurance, a company that didn’t exist, in a room up two flights of stairs in Mary Street. Like all the others, it was clean and bare of virtually everything except paper. He brought his own filing system everywhere with him, nails in rows along all four walls and his papers pinned to them in an order that only he, the inventor, understood.
We were alone. We were almost always alone when we met now. Behind the desk he was Minister for Finance; where he was now, sitting on the desk, in front of me, he was President of the Supreme Council of the I.R.B. He’d give me a name and I’d deliver a dead man.
I was one of the Squad, one of the secret elite. An assassin. There were nine of us, then twelve, and we became the Twelve Apostles and the name stuck even when, with deaths, arrests and executions, there were less and more than twelve of us.
—Do you have any scruples about the taking of life?
Dick McKee had asked the question just before I’d been sworn into the Squad. They were looking for a strange mix of man - dissident and slave, a man who was quick with his brain and an eejit. They knew what they were doing when they chose me; I was quick and ruthless, outspoken and loyal - and such an eejit it took me years to realise what was going on. Collins and Dick Mulcahy, Chief of Staff of the I.R.A., stood behind McKee. I was sitting on a straight-backed chair in another bare room.
—Not usually, I said.
—At all? said McKee.
—Well, I’ll tell you, Dick, I said.—I wouldn’t want to kill animals or children. But if it’s rozzers we’re talking about, I’m your man.
I was their man alright.
I was with Collins now. He was sharing himself with me - I was one of the chosen - sharing his time, risking his security, in return for which I was going to kill Detective Sergeant Smith of the G Division.
—He’s been warned, said Collins.—He said Thanks and told the lads to feck off. Brave man.
—When?
—Tomorrow.
—Who’ll be with me?
We worked in pairs.
—You’ll find out when you meet him.
I rested my foot on the kerb, at a corner under a hanging tree on Terenure Road. The city was dead. Two minutes to the midnight curfew and I was far from home. My room on Cranby Row, the one I’d shared with Jack, was still there, but I couldn’t go near it; the homes of the wanted men were watched all the time. I was more than two minutes’ cycle away from anywhere with a suitcase full of stolen books, all by female authors, strapped to the back of a bike I’d borrowed from Collins. I had nowhere to go. There was the water beneath me but I didn’t want to abandon the bike or drench the books. I’d spent the night slithering into big houses around Kenilworth Square, spent hours reading the titles and authors on the spines, selecting the best and the fat-test, from off the shelves and the bedside tables of sleeping owners. I l
istened. Not a sinner out, except me, not a footstep or a bike chain complaining. I heard the Rathmines bells giving out the hour and then I heard the roar of a motor and saw a giant headlight coming from Highfield Road.
I was over a hedge with the bike and the books when the caged lorry raced past and braked about fifty yards past me and reversed, and braked again. I heard boots hit the ground and screams from a woman.
—Halt there! Halt!
I looked over the hedge and saw a couple, a lad and a young one, being hauled from a hedge just like mine, caught in the headlights and soldiers milling around them. There were more shouts as the pair were thrown onto the lorry, and it roared off. I had to drop below the hedge again as a prowler was suddenly there in the centre of the road, a car with no lights and an engine that purred under the silence. It crept past. I listened through the hedge, made sure that it didn’t slow or stall, and I heard it turn onto Orwell Road.
I could stay where I was, huddled in against the wall and hedge and hope that no foot patrols came my way. I could knock on the door behind me and hope for the best. I could get on the bike and dash and hope for even better luck, and go - where?
Mister Climanis.
—Mister Smart! How late, how nice!
—I’ll go away if you think it’s not safe.
—Mister Smart! Please! Come in. Come in. Please.
He stood out of my way and I stepped onto a stairs that started right against the door. He ran out and took my bike. He pointed at the suitcase I was now carrying.
—Bombs, yes?
—No, I said.—Books.
—Books? he said.—Nice but no good. Go, go. Up, up. Please.
He pointed to the doors at the top of the stairs.
—Maria! he roared, and slammed the door.—Maria! Come see who is here!
There was a tall woman waiting when I got to the top of the stairs. Mister Climanis was right behind, shoving my legs with the front wheel.
—Forward and up! Look, Maria. I have here my secret friend. Mister Smart.
—Hello, she said.
—A most important republican man, said Mister Climanis. —With a suitcase that is full of bombs!
She was tall and beautiful.
—Go ’way out of that, she said.
—They’re books, I told her.
—Books? said Mister Climanis.—I misheard.
And he laughed.
She got out of my way and he pushed me through the open door into the kitchen. He parked the bike against the wall outside before he followed me in.
—They are dangerous books, I hope.
She followed him. She patted his black hair, as if to calm him.
—They’re for my granny, I told him.
—See, Maria? he said.—The Irish. They engage in war but still think of family.
—I know, she said.
—Of course, he said.—Maria is Irish. We will drink to Ireland. My home.
He opened a press and took down a bottle of Jameson and I noticed that there were two more bottles left in there when he closed it.
—I am without two things, he said.—Glasses and manners. Mister Smart, I apologise. This is Maria, he said.—This is Maria Climanis, he said proudly.—My wife.
He leaned over the kitchen table and spoke quietly for the first time that night.
—It was my hair, Mister Smart. Maria fell in love with my hair. Is that the truth, Maria?
She’d come back, carrying three glasses.
—Yes, she said.—Without your hair you wouldn’t be half the man, David.
—Not good enough for you.
—No, she said.—Certainly not.
She clinked the glasses.
—They were in the bedroom, she said.—We’re fierce drinkers in this house, Mister Smart. There are glasses everywhere except where they should be.
She dunked them in a bucket of water and wiped them with a corner of her cardigan. She was very young.
—Now, she said as she plonked them on the table.—Off we go.
—The night is young, said Mister Climanis.
—The night is always young when you’re around, David, she said.
—Ah, said Mister Climanis.—I love you so much. Maria is the tallest woman in Ireland, Mister Smart. The only woman with a perfect view of my hair and so. She fell in love.
—That’s true, she said.—When we have babies they’ll nest in your hair.
—Did you hear that, Mister Smart?
—Yes, I said.
He was filling the glasses
—I am in love, Mister Smart, he said.—Every time I see this woman. Every time I hear this woman. Every time I think of this woman, I thank the Russians. We will drink to the Russians.
—I thought we were drinking to Ireland.
—Ireland, yes, said Mister Climanis.—Ireland, Russia, Latvia.
—Don’t forget the United States of America, she said.
—Each one, he said.—Every one.
He swallowed half his glass.
—Alabama, he said.—The night is young.
Mister Climanis was Latvian. I’d met him in Mooney’s on Abbey Street one evening when I’d no meetings or killings and I knew where I was going to sleep and how long it would take me to get there. I was enjoying my own company when a voice and black hair were suddenly sitting beside me.
—You are a strange thing, he said.—An Irishman with no long face.
—The unlucky ones have long faces, I said.—The rest of us are long in other departments.
He laughed, and I liked him. We spoke to each other without getting into a conversation; all strangers were spies and neither of us was lonely. I noticed the shavings on his jacket sleeves.
—You’re a carpenter, I said.
—Pipes, he said.—I make pipes. I make the most beautiful pipes.
And, sure enough, the shavings themselves were beautiful, delicate twirls, babies’ ringlets in different shades and lengths, and all surrounded by a fine dust like dark salt.
—I’d like that, I said.—I’d like to be able to do that.
—Please, he said.—Hold up your hands.
And I did.
—Very steady, he said.—You can do it.
—I’ve other things to do, I said.
—Yes, he said.—Every Irishman has other things to do. You will beat the English because your drinks are better. I will now buy two drinks and then you will buy two. I like this custom.
I met him when I could, when I was in town. He was always in Mooney’s between six and seven o’clock, on his way from work; he liked to cross the river for his pint, to get the air into his lungs and clothes. I began to miss him if I was near Abbey Street and we were unable to meet. He asked for nothing except my company and I loved to listen to him; he told me everything. And I told him everything. I couldn’t understand what was happening to me. It just seemed safe and right. It was in every crease and gesture: he was a good man.
—Mister Smart, he said one night.—I have an Irish wife. And now I have an Irish friend. I thank the Russians for this. For making of me a man with no country.
He lifted his pint.
—The Russians.
—The Reds or the Whites? I said.
—The colour is not significant. You like my new word?
He got me the pipes, one at a time once or twice a week, his idea.
—A man crossing borders must have a job, he said.—You are now a seller of pipes.
—I’m not crossing borders, I said.
—The soldiers and policemen make their own borders, he said.—All my life I have been crossing them.
He held the pipes before me and gave me their names and woods. He handed them over to me, like children he’d never see again. And one night before I got married, I watched him carve my face onto the head of the last, black pipe, the one that would fill the case.
—You are not difficult, he said.—Handsome men have not many features. That is the difference between handsome and bea
utiful.
—I’m not beautiful, so?
—No, you are not beautiful, Mister Smart.
—Just as well.
—Yes, he said.—We have beautiful women. We do not need beautiful men. There, he said.—Please. Give this pipe to your beautiful wife.
—I will, I said.—Thank you.
—It is not difficult, he said.
And now I was in his flat for the first time, looking at his own beautiful wife.
—Your wife, he said.—Did she like my pipe?
—She loved it, I said.—She leaves it in the window so I’ll know when it’s safe to visit.
—Ah, said Mister Climanis.—Maria, is what my friend, Mister Smart, said, is it romantic?
—God, yes, said Maria.—It’s gorgeous.
—Maria teaches me a new word every day, he said.
—And that too is romantic, she said.
—My wife’s a teacher, I told them.
—Ah, said Mister Climanis.
He opened the press and took down a new bottle.
—To romance. To teachers!
I was right up against his back when I shot him; his coat killed some of the noise. He was falling when I turned away. It was in his voice, the grunt and half-words that fell out of him, he couldn’t understand what was happening. Four gates away from his home, on his own street, long before dark.