Such is duty and Catholic guilt, a powerful cocktail.
August____, 1955
We went sailing yesterday on the Gulf of Spezia, just as Shelley and his friends had done so long ago. As it turned out, our trip mirrored a little too closely the one Byron and Shelley embarked upon in Switzerland.
The day was perfection, the sun on the water, a slight breeze in the air and the sails unfurled against a sky so deep blue that it seemed a sea entire that we might dive into and lose ourselves swimming amongst celestial bodies.
Such are the ruminations of mad poets not sensible sailors. The sailor would have noted that the sky was perhaps a shade too deep, that the breeze was ruffling the water in more than fanciful play. Still, it seemed that the storm broke very suddenly, for when next we looked up the sky was a dreadful mottled green and the wind turned from sprite to banshee in the space of a few heartbeats.
I knew we could not outrun the wind. We’d have to run bare poles into the waves and hope to ride it out until the weather cleared.
Andrei is not a natural sailor and had turned roughly the color of seaweed. It occurred to me, between trying to reef the sails and bail the boat simultaneously, that it wasn’t the least bit Romantic to be doing exactly as Byron and Shelley had done—albeit neither of us has a pregnant cousin back at the house. But in all other aspects this was a moment of poetical déjà vu. Byron and Shelley had survived it, mind you, though the terror Shelley felt at the time, being that he could not swim, must have been horrific. Andrei and I are both strong swimmers and I felt sure we could manage if we had to. I just prayed, fervently and aloud, that we would not have to. Andrei meanwhile, clung to the edges of the boat for dear life, soaked by the waves that were lapping over the sides.
I suggested, in what I felt was a mild manner considering the circumstances, that he help bail some of the rapidly accumulating water out of the boat, only to have him glare at me out of a face that was a rictus of terror. I realized any rescue we affected was going to have to be purely by my own efforts.
It was a full hour before we made shore and there were times that I thought we were going to end up down with the weeds and crumbled roads at the bottom of the Gulf. But as often happens with such things, the fear of what the outcome might have been didn’t hit me until later when I was entirely safe.
My main emotion upon stumbling, drunken with relief, onto solid ground was that sense of ridiculous joy in one’s own existence. Andrei, bilious and furious, did not share this feeling in the least.
He faced me on the shore, obviously in the grip of his operatic Russian temper. This image might have been more fearsome if he hadn’t had seaweed hanging off one ear like a pirate’s earring. I made the mistake of laughing and thought for a second that he might hit me. Instead, he drew himself up in his very haughtiest White Russian stance and said,
“If I die young and tragic, I do not—James—intend to do it in water!!”
And with that, he strode up the shore toward the house. I stood there bemused, for the man surely could not be blaming me for the weather. But he only calls me by the Anglicized version of my name when he is truly upset.
Russians are impossible.
August____, 1955
My lovely, cool divorcée has proven to be less than cool about separation, as the autumn puts its head upon the horizon. She hasn’t been happy recently, because since my visit with the Crooked Man I haven’t been as frequent a visitor to her expensive linens. She wants me to go to Rome with her, says the universities there are as fine as anything England can offer, tells me that her house is big and lonely and that she needs her Apollo there to warm its halls. She did not receive the word ‘no’ well, despite how gently I tried to phrase it.
After last winter, after the mess and the potential scandal, I have been careful to disentangle myself once I thought a woman’s emotions were becoming too deeply involved. I think I lingered too long with Francesca, for which I am sorrier than she will ever know, but I do not love her and will not pay her the disrespect of pretending that I do. Besides, I am no one’s Apollo or Dionysus. I am merely a human being with all the failings of our species.
Women want me to say things that I can’t find it within myself to say. They want promises that are empty, and they would know they were empty as soon as the words fell from my tongue.
August____, 1955
I have spent the last three days with Clothilde and feel ruthlessly sorted. I forget how perfect in its alignments and elements her world is. I feel ironed out and far more sensible than when I left Italy. I have used good china, slept on flawless linens, had my mind scoured out with pithy and remorseless Gallic good sense and been restored to myself fully.
August____, 1955
You cannot avoid what must be done, not forever. Only perhaps for a short time and maybe that’s why older people sigh over youth and think it was some halcyon time. But it isn’t, is it? We are aware of how brief this span is, and are already feeling the weight of expectation that hangs over all our heads—of what others want for us and from us. From the beginnings of youth, one can already see the end on the horizon.
August____, 1955
Andrei accuses me of having grown a Catholic conscience and leaving him to fend on his own with the entire female population of these redolent hillsides. It’s not my Catholicism that has reared its head, rather the girl that came to me in my dream—or was it a dream? Since my episode, I haven’t been able to shake the feeling that I am, in some way, being unfaithful to her when I am with another woman. It’s ludicrous, not something that can be explained, and so I don’t. Andrei is welcome to believe that I am struck with religiosity rather than insanity.
Myself, I do not feel insane, but I am intensely aware of the absurdity of remaining faithful to a woman who does not exist. Why then can I not shake the feeling that she does indeed exist, some where, some time?
August____, 1955
I have been shot at by an irate father, not through any peccadillo of my own but through Andrei’s dallying. The bullet missed me by about an inch while I was sitting reading Shelley, half asleep and dreaming about the poet’s last demon-haunted days. The bullet was a sharp alarm that lodged in the bookcase just behind my head. At first I thought I was having some dreadful hallucination, being that I saw a white, furious face at the window with my own reflected back right beside it. However, I soon recognized Signor Martelli and managed to duck before the next shot. I suppose Andrei and I look enough alike that I could see how easily the mistake was made.
I managed to duck the next two bullets while yelling in Italian that he should cease and desist, and pointing out that I wasn’t the promiscuous Russian rogue he was after. Said promiscuous Russian rogue was thankfully absent, giving me time to bring Signor Martelli in and calm him down with a boatload of grappa and pecuniary promises. He was in an altogether more receptive state of mind by the time Andrei returned, though I had hidden the pistol in the meantime in case the mere sight of his daughter’s seducer inflamed him back to the heights of Latin revenge.
The upshot of all this is that we are leaving Italy slightly ahead of schedule, in a flurry of recriminations and tears. A settlement for the child’s future well-being has gone some way to ameliorating everyone’s temper other than Andrei’s, who has shown a sudden streak of sentimentality about this future offspring of his. Considering that he has no intention of marrying Gina, nor of taking up olive farming on a Pisan hillside, I have pointed out that the sentimentality is somewhat misplaced, not to mention late. But a Russian sodden with vodka grief is not open to pragmatic opinions.
I put him to bed and now I sit, having packed and made arrangements to leave, knowing our absence and the settlement, will go farther to lessen Papa Martelli’s fury than will our presence and false promises.
The night is deep and fire-lit and even here in this sun-laden land I
can feel autumn’s approach, a chill thread amongst the bright-flowered tapestry of summer. It is so quiet tonight that the sound of pen against paper is a loud scratch. Even the sea is quiet, as if it broods, as I do, upon something which has no answer.
I have a sense that something has ended here in Italy, and that all things will be changed in the autumn. I can’t put my finger on why, only that I feel restless and at the same time there is a strange void in the normal framework of my world.
Though my soul has sojourned here this summer with Shelley and Byron, it is with Rilke’s words that my thoughts now lie. For indeed, the summer was immense, the fruits were full heavy, and the sweetness of the grape beyond compare. But it is time now to go home. But oh, how I long for just two more ripe southern days…
‘For he who is alone, will remain alone… as the leaves begin to blow.’
Part Four
Bandit Country
Ireland – December-February 1974
Chapter Twenty-four
December 1973
The Contact
“Ye do pick the oddest places for yer assignations,” Casey grumbled, seating himself on an upturned cask of whiskey and promptly lighting a cigarette.
David gave him a pointed look, and Casey sighed, taking a long drag before stubbing it out.
“This is the only bloody time I can have a smoke in peace. Pamela keeps confiscatin’ the damn things on me. Besides, I don’t think my wee cigarette is goin’ to blow us up, man, unless there’s some strange bog gas leakin’ out of the walls down here.”
“There isn’t, but I don’t think it wise to take risks either,” David said, sounding rather prissy.
They were seated in the cask room below Kirkpatrick’s Folly, where Jamie’s own private reserve of Connemara Mist was held. The space was dry and cool, and, most importantly, extremely private as well as accessible from a location to which only Jamie and David were privy.
“So, why are we here?” Casey asked, his eyes roving around the casks that lined the walls. “Does the boy have more names for me?” He was referring to the list of names that David, via Billy’s sharp ears and nimble fingers, had been passing along to him over the last months.
“Yes,” David said, “only two this time, but it’s two more that will be saved. But that’s not the only reason I asked you here.”
That got Casey’s attention. The dark eyes swivelled back in David’s direction. “No? Then what exactly are we doin’ here?”
“I have a proposal for you and I’d like you to hear me out before you say no.”
Casey raised a dark brow at him. “That’s not the most promisin’ beginnin’ I’ve ever heard.”
David ignored the cynicism and began to speak before he lost what was left of his nerve.
“Look, here it is—Jamie’s extended absence has left a bit of a hole in our communications. No one has his connections within the Nationalist community and the British establishment. I don’t think I’m telling you anything you don’t know when I say he was the man bridging the very precarious divide between the two communities. So as not to slide completely backwards, we need to fill at least one side of that equation. In short, we need a contact man who has strong ties within the Republican world. Your name is the one that came up over and over again.”
“That wouldn’t be because ye brought it up yerself, now would it, David?” Casey said caustically.
“I wasn’t the first to mention your name as it turns out. Believe it or not, Casey, I do not take every opportunity to place you in harm’s way.”
The man actually looked shamefaced for a moment. “I know ye don’t. Only ye’ll forgive me, but trusting any deal the British put on the table is a bit like kissin’ a viper an’ hopin’ it doesn’t bite ye. Why me? Last I checked they were wantin’ to either put a bullet in me or stick me in prison for the rest of my natural life.”
“Because the Provos trust you—for the most part anyway. You understand that world, you know which expectations are realistic and which aren’t. The truth is, the government is at sea about this. They don’t understand the issues that matter to the Republican community but they want to put feelers out a little further because they would like to start the process of disengagement.”
David felt a frisson of smugness when Casey’s jaw dropped.
“What?” Casey mimed digging at his ear, as an indication of his disbelief. “Did ye actually say ‘disengagement’ in regards to the British Army?”
“I did,” David said, his voice quiet. “It’s not generally known, and they haven’t even advanced the idea to the Provisionals, because that’s what they would like you to do, and then set up a series of face-to-face meetings so that both sides can hammer out a timeframe and plan for making this a reality.”
Casey took a moment to absorb the impact of the words. “Yer certain it’s not some kind of trick? Something to make the Provos declare a ceasefire an’ then draw them out on what their plans are? It wouldn’t be the first instance of double-dealin’ or sleight of hand for yer men in London.”
“I believe they’re in earnest, and I am not especially gullible, particularly when it comes to my own government. It’s very hush-hush at this point. Even the Northern Ireland Secretary doesn’t know this offer is on the table.”
“An’ yet yer tellin’ me?” Casey gave him a shrewd eye. “I’m not entirely comfortable with that sort of knowledge.”
“They simply want you to get the lie of the land, see what the Provos are willing to compromise on, and what they absolutely won’t.”
“That’ll depend a great deal on which ones I talk to,” Casey said. “There are some that have a long view an’ some that most assuredly do not.”
“Talk to the ones that you believe understand what implementing a peace process will mean. The others will get swept aside in the torrent should this take hold.”
“If this gets out—an’ it will have to eventually—those others could become the torrent. Ye know that, right?”
“They are aware of the risks and that this may all blow up in our faces without any forward movement or resolution, but I think we have to try. Don’t you?”
Casey nodded, shifting on the cask. “What about the Loyalists? The army is never goin’ to be able to withdraw slowly enough for them an’ it’s not goin’ to be able to move quickly enough to please the Provos. It’s a bit of a rock an’ a hard place, is it not?”
David laughed. “This whole island is a bit of a rock and a hard place, not to mention its people. All I can really tell you is that the government wants to deal with the Republicans. They aren’t putting this offer out to the Loyalists—probably because they know what the answer would be. They know the real change has to come from the Nationalist/Republican side of the divide.”
Casey sighed and stood, large frame restless within the confines of the room. David knew it was likely the man wasn’t entirely comfortable being in Jamie’s house. He knew enough of their history now to realize that while they held each other in a certain esteem, neither man had gone out of his way to seek the other’s company. For, he knew, quite obvious reasons.
“Look,” Casey said. “I’ll do it, but it will have to be on my own terms an’ in my own time. Because I’ll be honest with ye, Pamela would have my bollocks for breakfast if she ever got wind of this. I made a promise to her to stay out of trouble, an’ to be entirely honest with her. An’ I’m pretty damn certain this isn’t information I can whisper to her across the pillows at night.”
“Fair enough,” David said crisply, “but they would like the first approach to be made within the next two weeks.”
Casey raised an eyebrow at him. “I’m thinkin’ ye don’t quite understand what ‘my own terms’ an’ ‘my own time’ means here. David, I don’t have as tight of links with the IRA as ye seem to think, an’ there’s more than one wi
thin the organization that would be happy to see my head on a pike in front of City Hall, so tell yer superiors to have a bit of patience. We’ve put up with yer presence for eight hundred years. I think ye can give me a month, no?”
“A month then,” David agreed. “We’ll meet here again. It’s the safest place.”
“Why is that?”
“Because Jamie had it swept every week and I have kept up the tradition in his absence.”
“Well, no one could accuse ye of an absence of paranoia, leastwise,” Casey said dryly. “Here it is then. But heaven help us both if Pamela catches us colludin’ in the cellar. She is, to all intents an’ purposes, the mistress of this house right now.”
“Maybe for good,” David said.
“D’ye know somethin’ the rest of us don’t?” Casey asked.
“No, and that’s what troubles me—we can’t track him down, and there are people trying. People who can find anything or anyone, given the time.”
“Perhaps they only need a bit more of that particular commodity. Would ye not say the man is the sort to escape all notice, no matter how professional, if he should wish to stay off the radar?”
“Not even Lord Kirkpatrick is quite that good, modern-day Percy Blakeney that he might be.”
“I wouldn’t be so certain of that,” Casey said. “He usually manages to surprise people when they least expect it.”
David left then, trusting that Casey could find his own way out of this malted underworld.
Instead of heading straight back outside, Casey wandered a little further down the dark corridor, the top of his head brushing the ancient beams. If his bearings were correct, the first tunnel that branched off when he came down the ladder led straight under Jamie’s study and looked to be a newer addition than the rest of the corridors. He had a good idea of just what its uses were.
Flights of Angels (Exit Unicorns Series Book 3) Page 28