Ian St James Compendium - Volume 1

by Ian St. James

  Hundreds of Ryans lived in Ballymurphy - and they all hated B Specials.

  Clancy and Bridie had stayed in touch after their childhood years, even when he was imprisoned on the Curragh and she was in Liverpool working in a hospital. Her brother Hugh had been with her for a while. He had worked like a dog - day-school, night-school, part-time jobs, shift-work, studying hour after hour to become a doctor.

  Once upon a time it had been Fergy and Hugh, Clancy and Bridie but now it was Clancy and Hugh, with Bridie torn between them. Hugh shunned violence. He still believed in One Ireland. He wanted the Brits out - but not by the IRA killing people.

  But early that morning Bridie sat in the kitchen and said - "Matt's life may be at stake, Clancy. Hugh is never the traitor you make out. He will help, I know he will."

  There was no choice. By eight o'clock Bridie was at the call box on the corner, telephoning Hugh in London.

  He arrived at noon, driving a borrowed car, using black-market petrol. How he cursed her - "Didn't you give me your word to stay out of this mess? Didn't you promise!"

  He had exchanged dagger looks with Clancy, then gone upstairs to the patient.

  "He's a very sick man," he said when he came down. "He should be in hospital under observation. God knows, you've wasted enough time already."

  But how could Matt Riordan go to hospital?

  "Will you help, Hugh?" asked Bridie. "Please."

  Hugh groaned and put his head in his hands. Then he swung round on Clancy, "If I help it's because my duty is to a sick man - and I'll help for Bridie's sake. But I'll do nothing unless I have your word to leave Bridie out of your mad schemes in future."

  What could Clancy do? He had gained Bridie's help by quoting the vow they had made as kids on Fergy's deathbed - "We swear to devote our lives to freeing Ireland" - and in sense they had, although in different ways. Clancy's way had been with the IRA, for like Matt Riordan Clancy had been on the bombing campaign in England before the war, Clancy had been on the run, and Clancy had suffered at the hands of de Valera.

  They were still arguing when Matt shuffled giddily down the stairs.

  "Dear God," Bridie leapt to her feet and sat him in a chair. "Didn't you promise you'd stay in bed."

  "I wanted to hear the doctor's opinion," Matt said, white-faced and trembling.

  Hugh made a gesture of disgust. "You need a specialist. My guess is you've suffered some damage to the optic nerve. I can't say if it's temporary or permanent."

  Matt squinted, cocking his head and holding his hands to his eyes like binoculars in an effort to focus. "I... I passed out a couple of times -"

  "You should be in hospital," Hugh snapped. "I don't know - you could recover in a few weeks, a few months, or maybe never. You may need an operation."

  It went very quiet after that. A stricken look crossed Clancy's face. Flynn turned pale, Casey looked sick.

  "Then I'm no good to anyone," Matt said softly, "not like this."

  Hugh softened. "I didn't say it was permanent, I just can't tell, not here -"

  "But will you help, Hugh?' said Bridie, and everyone heard the plea in her voice.

  Hugh swore and turned to Clancy. "Do I have your word? You'll no longer badger Bridie to play any part in your murdering schemes?"

  Clancy simply said, "I want Matt to get better."

  Bridie was torn. Hugh was her big brother whom she respected more than any man alive. She was going back to Belfast with him to work in the same hospital and live in the same house ... but first she had promised to help Clancy.

  Clancy made the decision. "There's no choice, Matt. Hugh's your only chance. Go with him and get better. We'll be waiting when you come back."

  An hour later it was decided. "It's risky," Hugh had admitted. "But his best hope is to be my patient in my hospital. And my hospital is in Belfast." Belfast! Where Matt Riordan would be hanged for murder!

  Hugh had driven them back to London, with Bridie nursing Matt on the back seat. After which they had worked the ration book trick. Bridie had used it before. Patients took their ration books into hospital with them. If a patient died ration books were returned to the Ministry of Food - but sometimes the procedure was overlooked. Sometimes such ration books were sold on the black market - or sometimes used by men on the run.

  For Doctor Hugh Ryan obtaining such a ration book from his Irish friends at the London hospital was less than a morning's work - as was acquiring a whole set of blank medical documents. By early evening Matt Riordan had become William Lambert, according to the paperwork in his pockets.

  They spent that night in London, actually in the hospital, where Matt was examined by a specialist. Matt's black-outs were thought to be temporary. "You'll get headaches of course," said the specialist, "severe ones I'm afraid, but hopefully they will fade in a few weeks." But the damage done to Matt's optic nerve was more serious. "You may need an operation."

  The following morning Hugh Ryan and his sister Bridie, dressed in her nurse's uniform, boarded the Liverpool train with their patient. That evening all three of them crossed on the ferry to Belfast.

  Matt Riordan had never been taken into custody by the RUC. No photograph of him existed on their files, no fingerprints, not even a current description. All the RUC had were two charcoal sketches drawn by his mother before the war - and the man who returned to Belfast looked nothing like that.

  Seven years on the Curragh had aged Matt badly. His hairline had receded, and the loss of several teeth had made his face thinner. But even those changes were rendered insignificant by the bandages over his eyes, and the white stick in his hand. Not that the RUC constables who watched passengers disembark from the ferry even asked Mr William Lambert for proof of identity. They knew Dr Ryan well and were happy to wave a taxi over for the young nurse as she shepherded her patient down the gangway ...

  He had suffered much pain. The blinding headaches had gone on for weeks. The first operation had failed to correct his double vision - but the second had been successful. "I'm afraid your eyes will always be weak," he was told, "and of course you must wear spectacles, but..."

  Matt could see. He could see properly. He could see the smile on Bridie Ryan's face. He could see the tiredness in Dr Hugh Ryan's eyes after a long day on the wards. And read newspapers well enough to catch his breath when he came across mention of Lord Averdale leaving for Africa.

  "There's a better way," Doctor Hugh Ryan told him, during their long arguments about the north. "There's a better way than with the gun."

  But Matt Riordan could never accept that - not when it came to enemies like Mark Averdale in Africa and Sean Connors in London.

  Sean Connors spent much of 1946 hoping for a reconciliation with Freddie Mallon who was still in Germany with Margaret and the children. The Nuremberg Trials dragged on through the summer, revealing successive horrors, until in October came the judgements. Sentences were passed, Goering committed suicide, and the long trials were over at last.

  Sean wondered if Freddie and Margaret would return to Craven Street but his hopes were dashed by a chance meeting with George Hamilton. "They're sailing direct, Le Havre to New York. Cynthia and I are going over for a weekend before they leave. Can I give them a message?"

  "Only my love," Sean said sadly.

  It was the closing of a door, behind which lay not only Freddie and Margaret but part of Sean's life. Nine months had passed since that dreadful scene on New Year's Eve, but Sean was still hurt. He might have brooded longer but, as usual with him, events elsewhere demanded his concentration. The first concerned Tubby Reynolds.

  Tubby had been falling deeper into debt for months. The flats at Rutland Gate remained unfinished. Time had run out for Tubby. His credit in Fleet Street was exhausted. He owed Sean six hundred pounds, and what was worse - he owed the loan sharks in Soho.

  Sean came home one night and found him buried beneath the wreckage of broken furniture. Everything was in pieces - almost including Tubby himself. He was barely consciou
s. Sean sat him up and swabbed his face, and would have called the police, but Tubby stopped him.

  No bones were broken, but Tubby was a mass of bruises. Sean got him to bed, and, in the morning the full story of Tubby's debts in Soho came out - "They beat me up as a warning," he said painfully, "but if they don't get their money at the end of the month ..." He shuddered.

  Sean was appalled, not about Soho's money rackets which were common knowledge in Fleet Street, but that Tubby had been stupid enough to become involved. "I could have lent you another few quid. Why didn't you ask me?"

  But Tubby needed more than a few quid. He owed a total of three thousand pounds, half of it in Soho, six hundred to Sean, and the rest to various friends in Fleet Street.

  Sean had a lunch appointment that day, and CBS interviews kept him busy until early evening, but by the time he returned to Rutland Gare he had made up his mind. He was going into the property business, though not in the way imagined by Tubby Reynolds, whose most fervent hope was that Sean might help pay off the Soho crowd. But then Tubby had no idea of Sean's financial resources, nor of his latent talent for business. He found out about both two days later.

  The property had been valued by then. According to a local surveyor it was worth fourteen thousand in its unfinished state. Sean's proposals were very simple. He and Tubby would form a property company into which Tubby would put the freehold of Rutland Gate and Sean would put seven thousand pounds. The company would pay Tubby's creditors in full, leaving itself with four thousand as working capital - which might just be enough to finish the property. The company's shares would be divided sixty percent to Sean, and forty percent to Tubby.

  "Wait a minute," Tubby said in dismay, "I'll be the junior partner. The house is worth fourteen thousand -"

  "Eleven, by the time we've paid the creditors -"

  "Okay call it eleven. I'm still putting in more than your seven - and you're asking for sixty percent."

  But Sean was adamant. He gave Tubby a variety of reasons - he had not planned to become involved, he was being hurried into a decision, he would be turning his back on going to America - every reason valid, but there was another he kept to himself. Thanks mostly to the five thousand transferred from Dinny, Sean's bank account stood at seven thousand, one hundred and twenty-eight pounds. He was ready to plunge the lot, but only if he controlled his own destiny - some of Tubby's judgements had proved suspect already.

  Tubby was in no position to argue. His very life was at stake if he failed to pay the Soho crowd. He made a half-hearted attempt to reduce Sean's involvement to a straight loan of fifteen hundred, but Sean turned him down flat - "What about your other creditors? They won't wait for ever. And you'll still need money to finish the place. Come on Tubby, my offer really isn't that hard."

  Which was true and Tubby knew it.

  The following morning they went to a solicitor and bought a readymade company. "Can we change the name?" Sean asked. The solicitor said they could, subject to the approval of the Company Registrar. "In that case," Sean said, "I'd like to call it the Mallon Property Company, if my partner agrees."

  "Mallon?" Tubby was astonished. "I thought it was your money. If Freddie is involved I could end up with two partners -"

  "He's nothing to do with it. It is my money, but Mallon was a lucky name for me when I came to London, and if I'm staying -"

  An hour later the new directors and shareholders of the Mallon Property Company Limited walked down Chancery Lane and into Fleet Street, where they went to El Vino's to toast their future success.

  And so began Sean's second venture into business, the third counting the donkey stables of his boyhood. Of course it was a sideline to begin with - Tubby continued to work in Fleet Street, Sean wrote his column and broadcast for CBS - and in their spare time they slaved away at Rutland Gate. By Christmas the top flat was almost finished, and New Year's Eve saw an event of equal importance. Sean got through it without getting drunk. He and Tubby celebrated with a cup of tea - after painting the top landing.

  After that it was hard work. The winter of 1947 was the coldest ever recorded. London shivered in the Big Freeze. Pipes froze, coal stocks fell, the capital almost ground to a halt. But by the end of March two flats were finished and ready for occupation at Rutland Gate. Tubby wanted to sell them outright, except Sean had other ideas - "Let's lease them, Tubby, we'll make more money in the long run."

  "In the long run we're all dead," Tubby complained.

  But lease them they did. The Mallon Property Company wrote two seven-year leases (with suitable rent reviews) and in May two happy couples - Mr and Mrs Wynn-Jones, and Mr and Mrs Kent, moved in almost before the ink was dry on their cheques.

  Then, that same month, two unrelated events occurred which were to change Sean's future entirely. The first, and most immediately serious, was that CBS reduced Seven Days from thirty minutes to fifteen - not through any fault of Sean's, but simply because Americans were less interested in London. More and more Americans had seen the end of the Nuremberg Trials as the conclusion of their business in Europe. They were going home and finding their own US of A to be the most fascinating place on God's earth.

  Sean was still digesting the implications of the CBS decision when Michael O'Hara arrived out of the blue with some momentous news from Dublin. Dinny was selling the Gazette.

  Michael was almost apologetic when he related the story to Sean. "Sure he's an old feller now, Sean. He's tired out. He's not doing it for the money. He wanted to retire anyway - then this offer came up from another paper and, well, they wanted to buy ..." Michael shrugged. "None of us is blaming him."

  It was a shock. Another break with the past, even though Sean had not been as dutiful as he should at staying in touch. Michael told him the rest of the news. Old Senator O'Keefe had retired to Cork six months before, and even Jim Tully was less active ...

  "And Maeve?" Sean asked eagerly. "How's Maeve?"

  "Och, wouldn't you think she's got the secret of eternal youth. She always asks after you whenever I see her."

  Tomas and the rest of the family were happy in Australia. Michael had a wallet full of photographs. Seeing them made Sean feel even worse. Once upon a time the family had meant so much to him - he had loved each and every one of them - but now he was looking at strangers. Even Michael, his dearest boyhood friend, his partner in the donkey business ... even Michael was from a different world. "A different world", Val had said that to him once ...

  So it was a bitter-sweet reunion for Sean. He was delighted to see Michael again, but even as they talked he was plagued by his conscience. Bitter-sweet was the right description, he thought - but then everything about Ireland was bitter-sweet. De Valera's dreams of a rural paradise, self-sufficient from the rest of the world, had turned sour. Irishmen were emigrating in greater numbers than ever.

  "More are leaving now than since the Famine," Michael said sourly. "Me included. Sure I never want to go back. There's no future in the place, Sean, no future at all."

  Sean remembered his father's dreams and was plunged into gloom. It seemed he had let everyone down, though at least he could help Michael. After a word with Tubby it was agreed that Michael would share the still incomplete second floor at Rutland Gate.

  Michael was thirty, a competent journalist having been trained by Dinny, so at long last Sean was able to take the advice Freddie had offered when he had left for America in the war - "Get yourself an assistant. Find some Mick straight off the boat and work him into the ground."

  During the following weeks Sean took Michael everywhere. Michael was wide-eyed and full of wonder. To a casual observer it seemed that, despite the bomb-damage, London was recapturing much of its pre-war gaiety - glittering balls were held at the great stately homes, the young aristocrats around Princess Margaret were constantly headlined as "the Margaret set" - but Sean Connors was much more than a casual observer. He had learned to dig deep. While splendid dances were taking place at Windsor Castle, the Attlee Government w
as pushing through such a programme of Anti-Upper-Class legislation that many of the old wealthy were emigrating. Thousands of ancestral acres were sold to pay death duties. Aristocratic owners of stately homes were forced to open their doors to the public simply to pay the rates. It was Val's brave new world, and Sean often wondered what she would have made of it.

  Sean worked harder than ever. Determined to hang on to his American audience he took his microphone all over the country. When the Queen Elizabeth went aground eight miles from port, Sean persuaded a pilot to smuggle him aboard. That week Seven Days carried recordings of Beatrice Lillie and a dozen other celebrities as they waited for the great liner to be refloated. Sean told them, "You're my first captive audience since the Blitz."

  He struggled to find stories everywhere, but meanwhile he and Michael worked every spare hour with Tubby at Rutland Gate. In September the Mallon Property Company wrote another lease when Major Miles Harding moved into the third floor.

  Then Sean was back at Southampton, interviewing Mae West as she arrived on the Queen Mary. The Hollywood star wore two-inch false eyelashes and her luggage included 150 dresses. Her show Diamond Lil had run three years in America, but the fifty-seven-year-old star was as lively as ever. She told Sean, "Now I'm going to brighten up dreary old London."

  Dreary old London was changing. Rebuilding was hampered by shortage of materials, but many houses were under repair. And Sean noticed other things as he hunted for stories. Tubby had predicted "All the large London houses are done for" - and Sean watched it come true. Only two houses in Berkeley Square remained in private hands. Lord Wimborne's 200-year-old house next to the Ritz was sold to the Eagle Star Insurance Company for offices. The Duke of Wellington gave Apsley House to the nation in exchange for a rent-free flat on the top floor. The Duke of Marlborough sold his grand mansion in Kensington Palace Gardens to the French Government. London was changing indeed - and Sean Connors, man of property, began to bless the day he had made his agreement with Tubby.