Sean tried to hide his disappointment. He had expected so much, whereas this man looked so ordinary. Untidily dressed in a baggy grey suit, his tie knotted clumsily, friendly blue eyes peering out from behind thick glasses.
"Yes, sir," Sean replied nervously. "May I welcome you to Ireland and to our home?"
"Why thank you. And I believe you're working already - as a reporter - is that right?"
"Yes, sir, with the Dublin Gazette."
The Ambassador smiled broadly. "Well I want your word on something right now, young man. Anything said tonight is off the record. Is that understood?"
Sean was accustomed to hearing confidences in his father's house and shocked at the suggestion that he would ever reveal them. But the Ambassador's friendliness removed the sting from his words, and he chuckled as he introduced his son. "Sean, I'd like you to meet Joe Junior. He's delighted you're here because he'll have someone his age to talk to while I chunter on with the rest of the greybeards." The Ambassador threw his head back and laughed so heartily that the others joined in. Afterwards Sean realised that the Ambassador's readiness to laugh was part of his charm - in fact Sean's most lasting memories of Joe Kennedy were of him slapping his thigh like a threshing machine while roaring with laughter. Just like Jim Tully in so many ways - except Jim dressed a lot smarter.
The gathering was quite small, at the Ambassador's request, so that just seven people sat down in the parlour that evening. Joe Junior was older than Sean, but his smile reflected his father's good humour. They greeted each other affably but said little - both too anxious to follow the conversation going on between their fathers. The talk ranged far and wide - Ireland, the border, the north, England and America. And Germany, of course, the Ambassador said quite a lot about Germany. "There's going to be war," he said at one stage,"the signs get clearer every day. War in Europe, all over again, but this time ..." he wagged a finger, "this time nobody will drag America in - not Chamberlain, nor Hitler, nor Churchill ... nobody"
Later he gave his reasons: "The United States seeks no territory, makes no demands, utters no threats. We just want to be left in peace to develop our land of opportunity. And I tell you this ... opportunities are there ... waiting to be grasped by men willing to work." The fingers of one hand closed slowly into a fist. "We don't want our young men slaughtered in another senseless European war. We want them at home, developing the country - and leaders throughout the world should want the same thing." He brightened, then smiled broadly, "That's why I was so pleased to hear Mr de Valera yesterday - speaking out in favour of neutrality. I know you gentlemen are in opposition, but I take it you go along on that?"
Pat Connors assured him that Fine Gael was as anti-war as anyone, but pointed out that the United States was better placed to stay out of a conflict in Europe. "Winston Churchill wants our ports. If he seizes them we'll be attacked by Germany anyway. Sure now, there's precious little we can do about that," he paused slyly, "unless America guarantees our neutrality. Now that might be different..."
But the Ambassador was not to be drawn. He turned the implied question aside and moved onto other things. Sean hung upon every word, straining over the Ambassador's unfamiliar accent. (For years afterwards Sean believed that America's principle seat of learning was located at "Hah-vad".) The talk of war was not surprising ... many people were speculating on such dangers in 1938 ... yet a thrill of excitement ran up Sean's back at the Ambassador's insistence that war was inevitable.
The visit was soon over, and the Ambassador and his son were shaking hands goodbye. "I take it you will follow your father into politics," the Ambassador beamed at Sean. He turned to the rest of the party: "Gentlemen - we need a photograph - Joe Kennedy Junior, future President of the United States, seen here shaking hands with Sean Connors, future Taoiseach of Ireland." There was a good deal of laughter as the two young men shook hands, their faces flushed under embarrassed grins. Then it was over and the Kennedy’s had gone.
Sean told the Widow O'Flynn about it the following afternoon. He went up to the farm on the excuse of mending a broken sash-cord and afterwards they had tea together as usual.
"He's wrong," she said when Sean recounted the details. "The Ambassador is wrong - you'll never be Taoiseach, Sean, never in a million years." His disappointment was so obvious that she laughed and moved round the table to sit on his lap. "Don't feel so bad about it, you'll do lots of other important things."
Sean was nettled and it sounded in his voice: "Oh, and you can tell the future, can you?"
"Enough to know Ireland won't hold you." She nuzzled his ear. "Not for much longer anyway."
"So where will I go?" asked Sean.
"Oh ... all over I guess. Sure won't I be picking up newspapers to see Gloria Swanson on your arm instead of Ambassador Kennedy's."
"But I want you on my arm."
He might have slapped her for the effect it had.
She sat bolt upright, her hands on his shoulders as she stared into his face. "God bless you, Sean Connors, but I think you really mean that."
"Of course ..." he began, startled by her quick tears. She clung to him for a long moment, then pushed him away, to stand up and reach for her handkerchief. "Oh dear," she said after blowing her nose, "you are never to say that again, Sean Connors, do you hear now?"
He was bewildered. Tears were so unlike her. Her lively teasing smile was so much part of her as her soft brown hair. He reached up and drew her back on his lap. "What in God's name was that about?"
"About you being a boy instead of a man."
His protest drowned in her embrace, but she caught his hand as it plunged under her skirt: "Listen to me first! Will you stop that, Sean Connors, and listen a minute?" Something in her voice made him obey. "I'm twenty-eight and you've yet to see your seventeenth birthday," she said sternly. "Let me see now ... that means when you are twenty-eight I'll be forty. Sweet Mary, can you imagine? Forty years old! When you're in your prime I'll be an old crone."
"Whatever's wrong ... ?" he began.
"You are, saying a thing like that. Wrong even to think it. God help us, wouldn't another woman be taking advantage of you?"
Then came the lecture. Sean failed to understand at first, couldn't get the drift of her meaning ...
"I forget your age at times," she said, stroking his face. "You've learned too fast for my own good. But we've suited each other, wouldn't you say -"
"We are suited -"
"We are now, but not forever ... there was never a future, my darling. Hush ..." she put a finger to his lips, "let me finish before I bawl my eyes out. Sean, you've far to go ... it's written in your eyes ... but you've to be careful who you take with you. And it cannot be me ... it never could ..." She swept past his protest by raising her voice. "It's not just we're differently aged, though isn't that enough to bring you to your senses ... but... but I could never keep pace. I'd pull you down instead of helping you up. We'd end up hating each other and I couldn't stand that... this way you'll remember me with love in your heart. I was your very first woman, nobody else can ever be that, no matter how much you love them ..." she blinked back her tears, "and I'll remember you for the life you brought back to me ... and the tenderness -"
"But I love you."
"You think you do -"
"I do-"
She put a finger to his lips. He caught her hand: "Are you sending me away?" he demanded. "Are you saying we're finished?"
"Not yet... but soon, you'll be wanting to move on and I'll not stand in your way."
Sean's bewilderment grew. He had not intended to propose marriage but the prospect of losing her frightened him. Suddenly he remembered something. Earlier in the week they had visited some shop premises with Jim Tully. Tully had been captivated - entranced by her looks and trim figure. And her tongue had been as quick as his, so the afternoon had passed amidst gales of laughter. Tully had flattered outrageously ... and now?
"It's Tully, isn't it?" Sean challenged, on fire with jealousy.
"It's you we are talking about -"
"It is Tully -"
"I'm your woman, not his -"
"Not much longer by the sound of it."
"I'll be your woman as long as you want me. But never your wife."
The certainty of her words brooked no contradiction. He felt more confused than ever. He liked escorting her out in public. Dressed for town the Widow O'Flynn turned men's heads wherever they went. Admiring glances sped her way. Sean had been proud when he caught the envious gleam in men's eyes. He wanted to say, yes she's mine, isn't she beautiful! And now this? He couldn't understand it. He repeated her words angrily: "So you'll be my woman as long as I want you. And then what? What happens if I finish with you?"
"Sean, this was always to be the outcome. You mustn't -"
"So what happens to you?"
"Does it matter?" She slid to the floor at his knees and looked up at him. "It's the boy who's hurt now, but the man will thank me later. Oh, Sean, don't you see - you come here talking of ambassadors -I wouldn't know how to behave in half the places you'll go in your life, and I'll not have you ashamed of me. Nor will I cripple your future -"
"What happens to you?" Sean repeated through clenched teeth.
"I suppose I'll marry again. Maybe you're right - I'll marry Jim Tully."
Shock took his breath away. They were both trembling, staring at each other, her begging him to understand, him hurt and confused.
"So you won't marry me because of my future, but Tully's different. Doesn't he have a future?"
She managed a faint smile: "Jim Tully is a likeable rogue who's done well for himself. But he's twenty years older than me. I'll always be a young girl to him, don't you see? And he's made his world here. I can cope here ... but I'll never make out where you're going -"
"Will I tell you again! I'm not going anywhere."
And so it went on for another half hour, until Sean stormed from the farmhouse in temper. He walked as far as the Quays, furiously angry, desperately jealous, bitterly hurt. His world was collapsing. First trouble at the Gazette - now trouble with the Widow O'Flynn! He swore aloud. Doesn't it all boil down to assets every time. This Lord Averdale gets the Gazette - now Jim Tully walks off with the Widow O'Flynn! He chose not to think about how she had begged him to stay. He forgot her words of endearment. He put her tearstained face behind him. He just hurt. He hurt all over, not even a kicking could have hurt more.
He was fifty yards past Mulligan's Bar before he realised it. He whirled round and retraced his steps.
"I'll have a whiskey," he told Mulligan.
Mulligan stared. Sean Connors had never so much as touched a glass of Guinness in all the years he had known him.
"Whiskey," Sean repeated.
He emptied the glass in three gasping gulps. His throat caught fire, his stomach kicked, his eyes smarted, his legs twitched and he nearly died coughing - but he stood his ground. "Another," he gasped.
By the time Mulligan's son had found Pat and brought him, Sean Connors was swaying like a tree in the wind. He examined his fourth whiskey with a dreamy expression on his face. Then he was sick. Pat and Mulligan got him out to the street, where Sean heaved into the gutter. He sat down at the roadside and wearily contemplated the wreckage of his world.
Pat had been worried stiff about the Widow O'Flynn but he had held his tongue - not to do so would have been a breach of the rules. Besides it was just Pat's intuition. He prayed to be wrong. The church would crucify the pair of them if there was any truth in Pat's suspicions. The Dublin of 1938 was no different from Parnell's about matters of sexual scandal.
Mulligan helped to stand the boy upright, then Pat took him home.
After putting his son to bed, Pat chuckled on his way downstairs: "Finola," he whispered, "would I have been right about that woman all along? God help the pair of them. Maybe it's over now and he can count himself lucky."
Sean felt anything but lucky the following morning. His head throbbed and his mouth tasted muckier than the bottom of the Liffey. Even three cups of strong tea failed to revive him properly. He shuffled off to the Gazette like an old man. Once there he slumped behind his desk and was sitting with his head on his hands when Dinny Macaffety came into the office. "You've heard then?" Macaffety barked, and realised his mistake when Sean responded with a blank look. "Well why else would you sit there like a dead duck in a thunderstorm. You'd better look a lot livelier when his lordship arrives. Do you hear me - Lord Averdale himself will be here in ten days' time!"
Sean groaned. That was all he needed. Another rich man to thwart his ambitions. Go to hell he thought, Lord Averdale can go to hell for all I care ... and by Christ if he interferes with me I'll do everything possible to hasten his journey!
Chapter Ten
Nine generations of Averdales had built an empire in Ulster. So many died defending it that the Ulsterman's cry of "No surrender" might have been set in the family's coat of arms - but it was hardly necessary. Just as birds were known to fly, so the people of Ulster had learned what to expect from the Averdales. Three hundred years leave an indelible mark.
Samuel was the first, starving to death in besieged Londonderry in 1668. But he left a son who left another, and each generation prospered. So much so that George, Samuel's great-grandson, inherited fifty thousand acres when he came of age. Not that George was content, George took the family into business by helping to found the Belfast linen industry.
Then came more of the Troubles. Catholics banded together under the United Irishmen banner, causing Protestants to retaliate by forming the Orange Order. Events were predictable after that. Protestant landlords formed part-time yeomanry and routed mobs of United Irishmen from one end of Ulster to the other. But there were casualties. George Averdale was one, and his son Thomas another, both killed defending their lands in Armagh from a rioting band of United Irishmen. Luckily for the Averdales, and some say for Ulster, young Andrew survived.
Andrew was a titan. It was Andrew who lobbied Westminster to make Ireland part of the United Kingdom, a mission which succeeded in 1798 with the Act of Union. Ulster, along with the rest of the land, was incorporated into the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland with representatives elected to the House of Commons. Trade restrictions were lifted. Belfast boomed. The population jumped from 20,000 in 1801 to 100,000 in 1851, and 350,000 by the end of the century. Steam power helped birth the biggest ship-yards ever seen. Belfast claimed the largest linen mill in the world, Barbours of Lisburn were the most prosperous linen thread company in existence - and the investments of the Averdale family flourished as never before.
Of course there were problems; Parnell and his Home Rule Party for one - damn fellow should have known better as a Protestant. As the then Lord Averdale said, "Home Rule means ruin. It will resurrect trade barriers ... tariffs will be slapped on Belfast products. What will happen to Averdale investments then?" And what would become of the 350,000 citizens of Belfast who were dependent on businesses owned by men like the Averdales? Ulster businessmen formed an alliance with the Conservative Party at Westminster designed to stop Parnell at all costs ... and in Ulster recruits flocked to the Orange Order like bees round a honey pot. Ulster's leading families had made Belfast - they refused to hand it over to a bunch of Croppies who would ruin it in a generation. Consequently they would employ nobody not loyal to the Union. Orange foremen were told to recruit only Orange workers. By 1866 Harland and Wolff the ship-builders employed only 225 Catholic Nationalists out of 3,000 men - and Harlands were typical.
The Averdales fought hard. They had much to fight for - by 1907 the whole of Ireland exported twenty million pounds' worth of manufactured goods - ninety-five percent of which originated in Belfast, with a good proportion finding its way back into the Averdale businesses.
Parnell was stopped, but others climbed onto the Home Rule bandwagon. Ulster still resisted - Edward Carson threatened to establish a Provisional government in Ulster if the Home Rule Bill was pass
ed. Four hundred thousand people marched through Belfast in his support. Yet in the south, agitation for Home Rule continued, and at Westminster weak politicians prevaricated. Ulstermen were spurred to defend themselves as never before. The Ulster Volunteer Force was formed, and armed in 1914 when 25,000 rifles and half a million rounds of ammunition were landed secretly at Lame. Ulstermen were ready - and in the nick of time for during Easter 1916 a band of rebels seized the Dublin Post Office and declared a Republic. But Ulster stood firm.
After that, well, viewed from Belfast, the south went mad. First a rebel parliament in Dublin under that maniac de Valera, then the Anglo-Irish war and the Black and Tans. Ulster stayed out of it. Union meant what it said ... union with the United Kingdom. Devious schemes cooked up by Lloyd George designed to bring peace to the south seemed a poor offering compared to total union. But the hard-headed men of Belfast began to suspect it was Lloyd George or nothing. As Lord Averdale said at the time - "We want union continued for the whole of Ireland. We never asked for one parliament in Dublin and another one here - but if Lloyd George forces us to have one we must use it to protect ourselves." Which is what happened - and when the new Belfast Parliament met for the first time, on 7 June 1921, the leading families of Ulster divided the jobs up among themselves.
Sir James Craig, the whiskey millionaire, was made Prime Minister. Hugh Pollock, the flour importer, became Minister of Finance. John Andrews became Minister of Labour - the same Andrews who was on the board of the Belfast Rope-works, and the Belfast & County Down Railway, and chairman of his family's linen business. Some of the toughest businessmen in Europe had got themselves a country.
One name was conspicuously absent - Lord Averdale. The reason was simple. Old Joshua Averdale was dying and, on that very same day, 7 June 1921, gasped his last breath. He had seen much in his lifetime - the blossoming of the British Empire, the growth of industrial Belfast, a world war fought to end all such wars, in which his eldest son Robert was killed. The shock of that finished his mother ... Lady Averdale died three months after receiving the news. She had adored Robert, everyone had - golden, dashing Robert, destined for so much. The Empire needed such men. A whole generation lost. Now the Averdale fortune would be left in trust for young Mark, who in 1921 was only eleven years old.
Ian St James Compendium - Volume 1 Page 99