Besides his wife was saying, "Not Kathleen without clothes. I wouldn't allow that. It's different for a grown woman, but a child ..."
Ashendon knew he had won. She would do it.
He put his suggestions with consummate skill. Perhaps he could arrange a London studio ... if the artists would not travel from Rome they might settle for photographs, taken by an expert, from every conceivable angle ... and of course the sculptors would want exact measurements ...
A faint blush appeared on Sheila O'Brien's face.
Ashendon hurried on ... it might be possible to photograph the child in a party dress, Ashendon would do his best to persuade them ...
Eoin O'Brien was in a daze. He would never have believed it an hour before. Even now, actually to allow his wife ... he looked at her, wanting her to say it was out of the question. But her eyes were on Rouen's painting and apart from the colour in her cheeks she might have been oblivious of the conversation. Incredulously O'Brien heard himself speak. "How much?" he asked. He was actually asking how much He heard his own voice without believing it. "You were talking about hundreds of pounds?"
Ashendon waved a hand, "There is much to organise first, but if it happened, well the photographer would need several sessions ... perhaps three, each of two hours ... I can't say exactly ... possibly five hundred pounds each session."
Fifteen hundred pounds! O'Brien remembered his auditor's statement. Fifteen hundred would restore him to solvency. He could pay his creditors. Money alone would not beat this German competition, but it would buy time ...
Ashendon coughed and looked suddenly embarrassed, "There is a condition I must make. Well, if I help bring this about ... you must be discreet. For instance, Lord Averdale is a client of mine. If he thought I had taken advantage of a chance introduction ..."
O'Brien shuddered. Of course secrecy was essential - not that the matter would be taken any further - after all it was just an idea, wasn't it? But Ashendon knew better than that, and when he bade the O'Briens farewell he stressed he would be leaving Belfast in the morning. If they wished him to pursue the matter ...
O'Brien confessed his business problems to his wife that night. She was not completely surprised, he had been edgy for weeks. "I would have kept quiet," O'Brien said miserably, "but this fellow Ashendon's idea.
Strangely she did not really mind, in fact she was secretly excited. Ashendon's face had revealed too much. His lust had been recognised to stir feelings in her that were exciting and frightening at the same time. She wondered what it would be like, taking her clothes off, posing nude. Beads of sweat had broken out on Ashendon's brow when she had looked at him like that. She wondered if the photographer would sweat? She hoped so, she would try to make him sweat... but it would be so much easier if Eoin wasn't there.
Ashendon was finishing breakfast when O'Brien called at the Queen's the next morning. They adjourned upstairs to the suite, where his bags were already packed.
"Absolute secrecy," O'Brien insisted. "My wife's reputation ... and mine too ..."
"We are mutually dependent. Should Lord Averdale ever find out -"
But O'Brien had worried about that overnight. "Suppose he sees a statue of my wife. He travels too, you know. In Rome perhaps. He would recognise -"
"Only Rouen's famous model. Your wife's likeness is already well known in the art world. Don't you see, her unique similarity is a total disguise."
Ashendon promised to cable his Italian collector from London and let O'Brien know the outcome as soon as possible. Hopefully everything could be arranged in a month. O'Brien said goodbye and hurried to his office. A month? He was pleased, his mail that morning emphasised how hard his creditors were pressing. Fifteen hundred pounds would sort them out. Which left the problem of the German competition - but when Lord Averdale telephoned and suggested lunch, Eoin O'Brien began to hope for a solution even to that problem.
Mark Averdale, however, had something quite different on his mind, and after a passable meal at the Union Club he came to the point with unusual directness. "I need a general manager to run my business affairs," he said, "but finding the right man has been the very devil. The Belfast people I've interviewed haven't the experience, and those over from the mainland don't know enough about Ulster. But after we bumped into each other yesterday, well ... I began to think of you for the job."
O'Brien was taken aback. He had been wondering what had prompted the invitation ... but this?
"Why not?" Mark chuckled. "You're an Ulsterman. A practical businessman. Frankly the more I think about the idea the more I like it."
When O'Brien pointed out he was in business already, Mark skilfully avoided the obvious but made the point obliquely. "I know how successful you've been in the past, but today ..." he shrugged, "who can tell how long this slump will last. In my opinion, only the very large concerns will survive."
O'Brien saw a glimmer of hope. Fifteen hundred pounds from Ashendon would prop his business up for a while longer, but the future was still bleak with this German competition. But if Averdale wanted him, Averdale might buy his business to get him.
"I might at that," Mark agreed when the idea was put forward. "We could slot it into Averdale Engineering very nicely. Suppose I buy it for the value of the assets, plus three years profits for goodwill. That sounds fair, doesn't it?"
It did sound fair for a business that was solvent - but O'Brien's was not. The current loss had wiped out the profits for the past two years and asset value would not pay the creditors. But asset value plus Ashendon's fifteen hundred might just be enough ...
"I want you to understand what I'm offering," Mark smiled. "Sole charge of my investment portfolio. First the engineering company, then supervision of my holdings elsewhere. You would be answerable only to me. You must realise, O'Brien, this offer is worth a great deal of money."
Mark told him exactly how much money - first the salary, more than O'Brien had been able to take out of his own business even in a very good year - and then the bonus. The bonus was the real money, a hundred pounds for every extra thousand he could squeeze out of Averdale profits. Ten percent of Lord Averdale's additional wealth. O'Brien would quadruple his income.
O'Brien saw more than a glimmer of hope, he saw the answer to his prayers. A lifeline, a chance to escape from his difficulties not only with honour, but to a secure and lucrative future.
"Look," Averdale said briskly, "I won't beat about. I'm in a hurry to make this appointment. Sleep on it by all means, but I can't give you longer. There's a man over from Liverpool to see me tomorrow who fits the bill on paper. I'll have to chance him if you're still undecided ..."
O'Brien told his wife that night. She suggested he tell Lord Averdale about the current loss. "After all, it's the first time and ..."
But that would not do. Averdale was unlikely to trust his investments to a man whose own business was insolvent ... in fact he might cancel his offer entirely.
It all turned on making O'Brien solvent again. It all hung on that fifteen hundred pounds from Ashendon.
And O'Brien had just explained that when Ashendon himself had telephoned from London. He'd said, "I think it's on, I think my people in Rome will settle for photographs taken in a studio."
"When? When would they want to ... to do it?"
"Oh, as soon as I can arrange everything. Inside a month, I'd say."
O'Brien breathed a sigh of relief. But then Ashendon added a qualification, "Oh, just one other thing. I tried them on the idea of your daughter in a dress. No good, I'm afraid. Artists want the bone structure, you see, so I'm afraid both models must be nude."
O'Brien winced - but with salvation so close only one answer was possible, "I'll arrange it," he said thickly.
The next morning he signed contracts with Lord Averdale, including one which guaranteed his company to be solvent. The gamble was on. He had taken the plunge. And Lord Averdale set him to work immediately. "Look, I'm sorry to start you off with a nasty one, but some fool English fo
reman took some Croppies on over at the new works. Damn fellow doesn't understand how things work here. But you'd better sort it out before we have real trouble."
And so Mark Averdale at last engaged a general manager who would screw every last ha'penny from the Averdale investments. He was pleased, especially with the firm way O'Brien had sorted out that business of employing Croppies at the new factory. True, the men had rioted instead of going peacefully, but O'Brien could hardly be blamed for that. So Mark Averdale had every cause for satisfaction.
He allowed three weeks to elapse before he raised the matter of O'Brien's business. "My people say it's quite solvent, so long as all of your customers pay. These people Brown & Company seem a bit slow. They're still outstanding with fifteen hundred pounds, you know."
O'Brien knew full well. Brown & Company were a figment of his imagination. He had raised a fictitious invoice to balance his books - in order to guarantee solvency. Ashendon's fifteen hundred pounds would be substituted as soon as it came to hand. But it was still not to hand ... and three weeks had passed.
"Browns will pay," O'Brien said hurriedly, "I know they will."
O'Brien was hectically busy for the rest of the day but the matter stayed on his mind, a nagging worry which tied knots in his stomach. In fact he was feverish with worry by the time Ashendon telephoned that evening.
"I know, old boy," Ashendon said smoothly, "I've had the devil of a time setting everything up. But all's well now. Four weeks time, the studio is booked, the photographer has been approved by my people in Rome - everything's ready."
Four weeks! More delay. O'Brien steadied his hand as he wrote down the address of the studio in Chelsea.
"Just one more thing," Ashendon went on, "the sculptor wants very detailed measurements. Down to the last centimetre. You might warn your wife ... tell her to expect a certain amount of, well, manhandling so to speak."
Chapter Eleven
The great house of Brackenburn and the Falls Road were not far apart, less than twenty miles as the crow flies - but twenty might have been a thousand in 1938 - they were in different worlds.
Belfast had become a battle-ground for Matt Riordan. The beating inflicted by O'Brien's thugs had turned him into a soldier. There was no chance of compensation for his injuries - the men dismissed from Averdale's lacked independent witnesses, whereas O'Brien had lined up a dozen clerks who swore blind that the Croppies had started the trouble. The RUC even told Mick Nealson's young widow that he would have faced charges for incitement had he lived.
Matt blazed at the injustice and complained bitterly to Ferdy Malloy, but there was little Ferdy could do - in fact there was little anyone could do - not just about the Averdale riot but about the whole rotten mess. The system was stacked against them. Catholics were frustrated at every turn. Seventeen years after partition Protestant Unionists ruled from Stormont more firmly than ever. Ulster had become a one-party state. While many Catholics had no vote at all, many Protestants had several. That was monstrous enough but it was the clever re-arrangement of electoral boundaries which really kept the Unionists in power. Even in Derry, where Catholics outnumbered Protestants two to one, gerrymandering was enough to return the Unionists time after time. Nationalists lost heart. Local elections were foregone conclusions, so the bulk of the seats went uncontested. And without the ballot box little was left for the Catholics. Even the working class lacked solidarity. In England trade unions were uniting workers against employers, but in Belfast Protestants were ready to attack any Catholic who claimed a job ... as Matt had found out.
In the ghettoes, Catholics went hungry by day, and in fear of their lives by night - but some fought back. Pockets of resistance flared around the city. Matt sought them out - limping to meetings with the aid of a stick, often wincing in pain from his strapped-up ribs. Ferdy Malloy took him to Queen Street, near the docks. Catholic Queen Street was parallel to Protestant Frederick Street, and a series of intersections ran between the two, all of which turned into shooting galleries at times. Anyone crossing the inter-connecting streets was as likely to be hit by a Catholic bullet coming up as a Protestant bullet going down. But Ferdy went via "the tunnel" - a route developed by housewives concerned more with safety than privacy - which tracked in and out of people's houses and backyards. More than once an occupant was interrupted having a stand-up bath in a galvanised tub - but Ferdy simply introduced Matt as "one of the boys" and passed on to the next house.
"One of the boys" meant the IRA and in the weeks following the Averdale riot Matt met Jimmy Steele, Mick Traynor, Hugh McAteer and dozens of others ... all of whom welcomed him warmly. The name Riordan opened doors. Almost every man told a story of Liam Riordan and showed obvious pleasure in meeting his son. Their hero-worship embarrassed Matt. He felt confused, guilty about his past attitude towards his father, but although he said little the repeated eulogies hastened his reassessment of the world.
Ireland as one country was beyond Matt's memory. He had grown up with partition - but some of the men he talked to were of his father's generation. They remembered the dreams of their youth. Many wore the Fainne in their lapels, a small ring denoting them to be Irish speakers. They were so disappointed with Matt's lack of that language that he vowed to learn it as quickly as possible. It was from these older men that Matt got the flavour of days gone by - when the people of Ireland had united against the British Empire. Pride shone in their eyes as they described one exhilarating adventure after another. Their spirit had seemed indomitable in 1916. Men had followed their leaders with unquestioning loyalty. Whatever Dev said, or Cathal Brugha, or Erskine Childers - no matter who said what it was right. Unity! Unity to achieve freedom.
Listening to their emotion-choked voices it was easy for Matt to understand what had drawn his father into the movement. And for the first time he understood the bitterness. The Treaty had been a betrayal. To have fought so hard and at such a terrible cost ... then to be sold out ... to be sold out by friends and comrades, fellow Irishmen ... seemed like the end of the world. It was the end of the IRA - the IRA as it was - the Civil War saw to that, with men like Collins and Brugha going opposite ways. The IRA had been torn asunder, along with the whole country.
The men wearing the Fainne made their disgust obvious. The Civil War had decimated the IRA. The pre-1921 IRA had ceased to exist. The leaders of the new Free State had abandoned the goal of a united Ireland - Dev and Cosgrave disagreed on many things, but both Fianna Fail and Fine Gael supported the new constitution in the south. But Matt's new friends had kept faith - their vision was unchanged, they still dreamt of a united Ireland, free of the British at last. Anyone who thought otherwise was their enemy - be he Craig in Stormont or de Valera in Dublin. The very concept of two Prime Ministers in separate parliaments was repugnant. "And so it should be to all Irishmen," one said bitterly, "especially men like Pat Connors and that rat pack in Dublin."
A veil lifted from Matt's eyes. Most of the men knew Pat Connors. He had been one of their leaders in the old days ... but the old days were over ... now he was their enemy. Suddenly Matt saw things so clearly that he almost cried with joy. He hated Pat Connors, so did these men. He hated Averdale, and these men did too. It was like coming home. He no longer felt so alone, so threatened. He could strike back - with these friends of his father's.
Matt's respect for his father had been growing for weeks - grudgingly at first, he had hated too long for it to be otherwise. But he understood his father now, understood how traitors like Pat Connors had caused such bitterness, understood and sympathised because he felt the same way. Matt's feelings had gone full circle. Once upon a time his father's opinion didn't matter a damn, but it did now. He was proud of his father now, and wanted the feeling reciprocated. Like father like son, people would say, but Matt had a lot to do before that. First he had to acquire rank and standing within the IRA - and he was determined to achieve that before his father returned to Belfast.
The discipline surprised him. Men did what the
y were told, obeyed orders, even Liam Riordan who had wanted to rush back to Dublin to take revenge on Pat Connors - but the IRA had insisted otherwise. The trip to America was too important ... it had been planned for months ... it had to take place, and as the Riordan name was respected over there he stood the greatest chance of success. And he had succeeded, which was why he had been sent on to Canada, and from there to Spain. Which was why he was now in Germany.
"Germany?" Matt gasped.
"They helped us in 1916. They sent arms and there's hope they will send some now. There's another war coming. This one could finish the British Empire once and for all."
So much depended on his father. Matt could no longer stifle his pride, especially when Liam Riordan's work in the United States began to pay dividends. Fifty-five rifles were smuggled into Belfast via Liverpool. A crate of vehicle spares arrived from Detroit - but instead of tractor parts the IRA men unpacked sixteen Thompson machine-guns and sixty thousand rounds of ammunition. Twenty revolvers came in from Amsterdam. Fifteen more rifles reached them from Madrid ...
Matt dedicated his life to the IRA after that. He was taught to shoot and handle explosives, and spent a weekend in the Sperrin Mountains, learning much more - codes and signals used by the RUC, how to organise an ambush, how to read a map. Back in Belfast he helped develop a lamp signalling system for use against the night-time skirmishes of the Murder Gang. After a while routes throughout the Falls and Short Strand blinked with red and green lights after dusk - green for all clear and red for alert, as IRA men signalled from one corner to another. And it worked - time and again flashing red lights resulted in the Murder Gang being driven off. But one night it failed. One night a lamp remained green when it should have flashed red - and the Murder Gang penetrated a safe zone to claim another victim.
Matt was summoned to the subsequent IRA court martial - not as an offender or even a witness, but to perform his duty if punishment was awarded. Miley O'Faolin's lamp had remained green when another fifty yards away had flashed red for ten minutes. But Miley had been eating his supper. Gunfire had him scrambling back to his window vantage point - but too late for the man dying on the ground, and too late to save Miley from a court martial. He was found guilty and sentenced. Bullets were to be put through both of his knees. Miley's Counsel appealed while Matt paced up and down outside. He felt sick, his hands sweated ... he had wounded a B Special a week before but that was different, that was the enemy ... but to cripple a friend! He prayed that the sentence would be set aside. Other offenders had been beaten with batons, or overdosed with castor oil... knee-capping was rare. But a man had died because of Miley's bloody supper ... a man had died
Ian St James Compendium - Volume 1 Page 103