Ian St James Compendium - Volume 1

by Ian St. James

  Seven Days burst all circulation records. The whole planet read about itself in the magazine's pages. In the States Joe Kennedy (to Sean's delight and Freddie's chagrin) was wheeling and dealing his son into the White House. Sean saw the Ambassador whenever he went to New York, and was often in the room when Jack telephoned from somewhere on the campaign trail. The old man would snort and grunt as Jack related some setback, then he would say - "Jack, this could be the best thing ever to happen to you. Let's play it this way ..." And after he would say, "Sean, give me a minute, I need to make a few calls for Jack ..." and Sean would listen as the old campaigner soft-talked a favour or strong-armed an obligation to get what he wanted.

  So like the Da, Sean always thought.

  But Seven Days covered more than the race for the White House. As a new decade began few people would have disagreed with Freddie's prediction - "Sean, we need men in Africa - that's where the stories will come from."

  And come they had, in a never ending stream which built to a flood.

  By 1960 not even the promise of "a multi-racial society" could stem the rising tide of nationalism. Black Africans wanted their continent and wanted it now. Already Nkrumah had won independence for the Gold Coast and renamed it Ghana. Elsewhere De Gaulle was embarking on a programme of independence for French West Africa - and Belgium did the swiftest about-turn of all by agreeing that the Congo should not wait thirty years as had been said all along, but could go free in seven months! As the year opened the British Prime Minister left London for a six week tour of the continent. Wherever he went Macmillan met ambitious young locals jostling for control of their native lands. The movement towards independence was irresistible and Macmillan knew it. Towards the end of his tour he reached the bastion of white supremacy in Africa and told an audience in Cape Town - "The wind of change is blowing through the continent..."

  Writing in Seven Days James Cross called Macmillan's speech the greatest ever made by a British leader on the subject of the British Empire. It was a speech which finally and irrevocably surrendered the British Imperial dream.

  Matt Riordan sneered when he read it. "Finally surrendered the British Imperial dream. The British might be surrendering in Africa but the buggers are hanging on here."

  Matt was active in the IRA again - when he could find the IRA. Rekindling enthusiasm for a physical force movement was not easy in the north - Catholics turned deaf ears to Matt's arguments for a united Ireland. There was real poverty in the south, but thanks to the Welfare State much hardship had been alleviated north of the border.

  "It's no bloody paradise," people told Matt, "but it's maybe the best deal going in Ireland."

  Of course he said they were wrong. Prods in Stormont were manipulating the Welfare State to suit themselves - Prods still got the best houses and the best jobs. Matt told his listeners over and over again - but most people just shrugged.

  Matt had recovered some of his old strength. Bridie had nursed him through the worst of his ills. She had made him a comfortable home and borne him two fine sons and three daughters - and helped establish his identity as William Lambert, known as Matt to his friends in Ballymurphy.

  "Doctor Hugh," Bridie's brother, had moved out in '53 when the first of the girls were born. Hugh Ryan's departure had been a relief for Matt. He liked him, he was grateful to the man, without Hugh's help Matt might have lost his sight and well he knew it. But having Hugh around all the time was a constant restraint. Hugh was so strongly opposed to force that there was no telling what he would do if he knew Matt was getting involved again ...

  It began with a visit to Dublin. The IRA was still outlawed on both sides of the border, but attitudes were different in the south. After all, every politician in the Dail was a Republican who believed in a united Ireland. So blind eyes were turned. Special Branch detectives kept tabs on known members of the IRA, but there was no harassment as during the war. In fact Special Branch men and the IRA boys greeted each other with a friendly "Hello" when they met on the streets.

  Gradually Matt made contacts. The movement was still alive - starved of cash, fragmented, lacking organisation - but thanks be to God there were still men ready to die for Ireland.

  Back and forth Matt went, all during the Border Campaign of the late fifties when IRA columns struck across the border to raid army camps for arms. Small arsenals were gathered and transported back to hideouts in the south. A big camp was established at Ballinascorney above Bohernebreena in the Dublin Mountains. Matt began training groups of seventy men at a time - men who would return to their homes and train volunteers in their areas. The IRA was growing again.

  But never fast enough. The attacks across the border were repulsed. Men were killed and others locked up. The north was as impregnable as ever.

  Matt remembered his father's advice. "The answer lies in America," he told his men in the Dublin Mountains. American support had been neglected. Public opinion in the States was confused ...

  By the start of the sixties Matt was running a propaganda campaign to win dollars and guns from America. Every month he travelled south to shoot film of the IRA training in the Dublin Mountains. They made a great deal of noise - blasting away with Bren guns and Thompsons and Lee Enfields - but the Special Branch men who came to investigate were never a problem, some even offered to help. Matt grinned. With the Dail turning a blind eye and Special Branch lending a hand, all he needed now was money and guns.

  Matt stepped up the campaign. Posters were sent to America showing a starving, sad-eyed child peering through barbed wire - "This child's father is in a concentration camp in occupied Ireland" ran the caption.

  There were no concentration camps, north or south, but that never bothered Matt - "There will be," he said grimly, "once we get going again."

  Matt never gave up.

  And the Americans began to respond - especially when Jack Kennedy became President. An Irish-American in the White House! Matt was jubilant. He redoubled his efforts. There were splits and arguments within the IRA but Matt never bothered his American audience with that - "Sure we'll only confuse them and they'll stop sending money."

  Matt was busy again, planning the downfall of his enemies.

  Sean's biggest enemy was time, time to cram fifteen hours work into a business day in order to spend time with Kate ... not because it was asked of him but simply because it was what he wanted from life. In a changing world the most constant thing was their love.

  By 1963 they could look back and laugh ... to the time in '59 when Kate, cornered at a cocktail party, was called a "worthless home wrecker" by an indignant wife who had learned of Kate's affaire with Sean. Or 1961 when Sean was invited to a reception at Number Ten but discreetly asked to "come unaccompanied". Kate could laugh at the spiteful powder-room stories which circulated about her - Sean could smile at the fact that although he and Michael O'Hara were as friendly as ever, Michael's wife Deirdre never disguised her hostility towards Kate.

  They could laugh, though sadly at times, at snubs and slights which had come their way. Attitudes were changing but change was gradual and - as Kate reflected ruefully - "damn painful at times".

  But their love was indestructible.

  "So it should be," Sean joked, "it's been baptised in fire and brimstone."

  Which is how it seemed at times. Sean and Kate were frequently hurt - by Margaret Mallon for instance. She snubbed Kate from the outset. In London Margaret arrived at a restaurant once to find Sean and Kate already at a corner table. Margaret walked out - but not before Sean caught her arm - "I'd like you to meet Kate." But Margaret refused. True, Freddie tried to make up for it the next day by inviting Sean and Kate for drinks at the Savoy, then taking them to dinner and on to a club - making sure as many people as possible saw them together. From that day on Freddie always dined with them when he was in London - but Margaret never did.

  Kate was saddened to the point of tears. She even contemplated ending the affaire - or at least trying to - "Perhaps I should mov
e away. Go and live in Paris perhaps. Darling, I can't stand by and watch your whole world turned upside down because of me."

  "Rubbish," Sean snapped angrily. "Besides, it's a bloody sight worse for you - don't you think I know how you get hurt at times."

  But later he calmed down - "Besides, how the hell could I run my businesses from Paris?"

  She clung to him - "And how could I ever live without you?"

  But it was not only friends who caused Sean concern - what fretted him most was his son. Every time Sean went to New York he spent time with Patrick. Birthdays were always remembered, no Christmas passed without a lavish gift, no holiday ended without some special treat. Sean worked hard to preserve a bond between them. Gloria raised no objections. She had become so immersed in her own social world that she rarely spent time with the child - but she was adamant about one thing - Patrick stayed firmly with her.

  Sean's eyes were often dark with sadness when he returned to London. Kate knew why without being told. She suffered with him. It was part of the price they paid for their happiness.

  Then, in 1964, came a big change in their lives, though the catalyst was sparked the previous November. Sean was in the Seven Days London office when the news came through from Dallas. Jack Kennedy had been shot! Nobody could believe it. The most popular President of modern times ... shot, perhaps fatally? It defied credibility. Michael O'Hara kept five telephone lines open to Seven Days in New York. The air was full of garbled conversation - then Freddie came on, confirming the story. The President had been assassinated. Jack Kennedy was dead!

  Sean flew over for the funeral, still shocked. He had met Jack on exactly eight occasions during his Presidency and liked him more every time. Even Freddie, no admirer of the Kennedy’s and a staunch Republican, had been heard to admit - "He's developing into a great leader ..." But tragically Jack would develop no more, to the loss of America and perhaps the whole world.

  Sean's heart went out to the old Ambassador. Now so crippled by a stroke that even speech was impossible, old Joe was too sick to attend the state funeral. He watched it on television, propped up in his bed at Hyannis Port. Sean did not see him at all during his visit, in fact he never saw him again - but he thought of him often.

  Sadly such events sell newspapers. Freddie's team produced an issue of Seven Days which sold more copies than any edition before or since - a chilling reminder that people derive a vicarious thrill from tragedy, perhaps simply because, for them, life still goes on. Few people leave a funeral without experiencing the wish to live to the full the time left to them.

  Not that Sean lived life any other way. That Christmas he and Kate went to Switzerland where she taught him to ski. Kate had taught him much by that Christmas - about art and books, food and drink, and taking time out to simply enjoy himself. Despite the problems, after six years they were more in love than ever. Strangers swore they were a honeymoon couple and looked for a ring on Kate's hand. But that could never be with Gloria alive and Kate knew it. Not that she wept any more, or wished Gloria harm, or cursed her own rotten luck. But Kennedy's death affected Kate deeply. It was a reminder that life is fleeting. So when Sean went to Germany for a week on business, Kate went too. In May when he went to Italy she went with him. And in June, when he announced a trip to Australia she finally gave up her work with the PR agency.

  She travelled to Paris to tell a surprised and disappointed Marcel Crispin. He tried hard to persuade her against it, but Kate's mind was made up - as she told Yvette afterwards. "I'm sorry, I know you disapprove, but you taught me to do what I feel is right."

  "So I did," Yvette agreed, "but, my dear, without your own income you are so vulnerable. Especially after your arrangements with Tim."

  "Ah, Tim."

  Tim had continued to cast a shadow. Kate had succeeded in keeping him and Sean from meeting - mostly because Tim was so rarely in London. Kate was glad. She would never forget Tim's vicious language when Mark was killed and feared a similar scene if Tim ever discovered she had a new lover. Yet Tim was still her brother ... and when he wrote saying he needed money for the expansion of his businesses she had loaned him her entire Averdale inheritance.

  "It was just sitting in the bank, Yvette. I don't need it. And if it makes Tim happy and keeps him from interfering in my life ... well, I can't think of a better use for it."

  "That's all very well when you are earning your own living ... but now -"

  "Where's my security?" Kate laughed and threw up her hands. "Oh you French are so cautious about money. Sean's a millionaire. He's got all the money in the world -"

  "And a wife in America."

  "I don't care if he's got six wives. He loves me, and I want to spend the rest of my life with him. Oh Yvette, can't you see, it's such a waste otherwise."

  Yvette sighed, "But you enjoy your work -"

  "I do, I did - but I enjoy Sean's company more. He can set me to work if he wants to. He's involved in so many things. I can be a sort of personal assistant -"

  "For a salary?"

  "Oh darling Yvette - please understand. I tried being like you and Ziggy, I enjoyed it, really I did. Independence is wonderful, it was what I needed for a while. The experience was good for me ... but well I've been thinking. Sean is forty-one now and I'm over thirty! No, don't laugh, I know you think we're still babies - Let's hope we've a million years left together - but however long it is I want to share every minute with Sean."

  Kate laughed when she hugged the frail old lady goodbye - "Don't worry Yvette, please. I know what I'm doing, really I do. Sean will never let me down."

  Yet, as she flew back to London her confidence faded. She was throwing herself at him. Perhaps he preferred things as they were spending weekends and holidays with her, seeing her for dinner, spending two illicit nights a week in her tiny mews cottage. Perhaps that was how Sean wanted her - always a mistress, never a wife.

  By the time she met him that evening she was panicky with nerves. What a fool she had been not to discuss it before. Why had she so stupidly assumed he would be delighted?

  But he was!

  Oh the relief, when she saw that look on his face.

  "You mean it?" he asked, wide-eyed and incredulous, "Throw everything up and just move in with me? Live with me, all the time?"

  "If you want me -"

  "If I want you! Kate, I can't marry you -"

  "I know -"

  "But aren't you worried?"

  "That people will talk?" She laughed, "Sean, it's 1964! The permissive society has arrived. Don't you read your own newspapers? Besides, people talk now. What more can they say? Anyway I don't care. It's what I feel here that matters," she put her hand on her heart, "and what you think of me. That's all I care about."

  He crushed her to him until she was breathless. In his mind the decision had to be hers, and now she had made it he was overjoyed.

  By the time they set out for Australia Sean had put Hill Street on the market - "When we get back you can find us a new house!" he said proudly.

  The voyage to Australia was long and relaxing and wonderful.

  "About time we had a honeymoon," Sean said.

  Kate had never felt more secure. She would have dismissed any thoughts that Sean's love was less deep than hers. But in Sydney she had a terrible fright.

  It was during the third week of their stay. Sean had negotiated the purchase of a newspaper, and expanded his television interests. Everything was fine. They were planning to spend their last few days sightseeing - when Michael O'Hara telephoned from London with some terrible news. Dinny Macaffety had died in his sleep the night before.

  Sean was grief-stricken. He made frantic calls to the airlines, but it was impossible to reach Dublin in time for the funeral. He felt so ... so guilty. "I owed him so much," he told Kate sadly, "Dinny and the Da between them ... oh I dunno Kate, I've ignored so many obligations. All these years I've said to myself there's time for that tomorrow, do this now, it's more important, leave that... and now t
omorrow's too late."

  She was thankful to be there. It would have destroyed her to be the other side of the world, unable to comfort him. They talked through the night ... mostly Sean talking, and drinking and smoking ... telling her about Dinny and the Dublin Gazette. Then, at dawn, he dozed for a while ... and when he awoke he talked of his son.

  "You know," he said, "it doesn't seem possible but Pat is nine already. I hardly know him. Nine years old! When I think of the Da ... when I was that age, we were so close Kate, you can't imagine." He put his head in his hands and groaned, "Oh Christ, I've been so bloody selfish."

  His words terrified her. His sense of regret. Blaming himself about wrong decisions. Only one interpretation was possible. He was going back to his wife!

  Kate held his hand and prayed she was wrong. She told herself to stay quiet. I must not plead, mustn't say I love him too much to live without him ... oh God give me strength!

  He drew her to him - "Kate darling, I don't know how to say this ..."

  Her heart stopped. She closed her eyes. God give me strength.

  "It's such a hard thing to explain ..."

  It was over, she knew it. All over. She choked, unable to breathe.

  "We've been so happy ... I mean, I don't even know if I can do this..."

  She resolved to catch the first flight to Paris. No, she would kill herself - go down to the beach and swim out as far as she could ... swim and swim ... he wouldn't know ... not until after ...

  "I don't even know if Gloria will agree. But if I can persuade her ... what I mean is, could you love my son too? I know it would be ... well another woman's child and all that... but you'll love him in time ..."

  Her ears buzzed. She could hardly hear what he was saying.

  "Of course he'd be away at school most of the time, but if he came to England - well we could take him on holidays and things."