1949
Page 20
Ursula ostentatiously wiped the telephone clean with her pocket handkerchief. She wound the crank, and when she was connected with the exchange, told the operator, “I wish to speak to London, England. The offices of the Daily Mail.” She did not have to give her number, which was illuminated on the switchboard at the exchange.
The call was put through within minutes. In her most businesslike voice Ursula told the newspaper’s managing editor, “This is the Dublin Broadcasting Station.” She did not give her name. “We are planning a program of interviews with foreign correspondents, and your Mr. Baines was suggested. Might he be available to come to Ireland in the near future?”
Silence for a moment. “Haynes? I don’t…eh, what?” A brief conversation was held with someone else in the room. Then, “Is Lewis Baines the man you mean?”
“I believe so.”
“Usually he’s…ah, thank you. Here’s Baines’s home address and telephone number, you might want to contact him yourself.”
Séamus Clandillon had once ordered a supply of heavy bond embossed with the station letterhead. The extravagance had been criticized by the Department of Finance, and Clandillon had put most of the stationery away unused. From the bottom drawer of the station director’s desk Ursula surreptitiously took one sheet and a matching envelope. She typed a formal letter addressed to Mr. Lewis Baines suggesting the proposed interview, signed the letter in an indecipherable backhanded scrawl, and posted it to England.
She began taking the incoming mail from the porter and distributing it herself. When a letter arrived from London with L. Baines on the flap of the envelope, Ursula quietly slipped it into her pocket.
“Dear Sir,” Lewis Baines had written. “I shall be glad to oblige by giving an interview to your station, but I cannot come to Ireland for a few weeks as I have other commitments. Please let me know if that will be satisfactory. Transportation will be no problem. I assume you will reimburse me for aeroplane fuel and tie-down costs.”
Chapter Twenty-eight
2RN was preparing for the evening broadcast. As Ursula searched through a sheaf of news items, she heard a feminine gasp. “Who ever is that?” a female member of staff asked in an awed but audible whisper. Ursula followed the direction of her gaze.
In the doorway stood a strikingly handsome man who announced to the room at large, “I’m looking for the program director.”
His voice resonated in Ursula’s bones.
She stood up. “Lewis Baines?” She contrived to sound surprised.
“Miss Halloran? I didn’t know you worked here.”
“I do work here.” Spoken offhandedly; the sort of response she would make to anyone. “Is there something I can do for you?”
“Someone—I couldn’t quite make out his name—wrote me about giving an interview for a program on foreign correspondents.”
“Really? No one mentioned it to me. Of course I’m in the news department, but…” Ursula raised her voice. “John, are we doing a program on foreign correspondents?”
“Not that I know of.” John MacDonagh riffled through the scheduling. “There’s nothing here about it.”
Ursula said, “I’m sorry, Lewis. It must have been a project our Mr. Clandillon planned, but he is no longer with us. I hardly know what to tell you.”
She was embarrassed and apologetic. Lewis was amused and gallant. “No problem at all, it simply gave me an excuse to return to Ireland. I’ve been meaning to anyway. And fancy finding you here! There are no coincidences, don’t you agree?”
Ursula agreed. She smiled. He smiled.
No mention was made of reimbursing him for his travel expenses. Lewis Baines did not look like a man who needed money.
He waited while Ursula rang the Shelbourne Hotel to book a room for the night. “Four nights,” Lewis corrected. “I’m taking you to dinner this evening. And you do have the weekend free, don’t you?”
Thursday Friday Saturday Sunday. Lewis Baines filling every available moment. A golden circle surrounding us, shutting everyone else out.
After charming every female in the broadcasting station, Lewis sauntered off to enjoy the city. When her workday was over Ursula ran all the way home. She spread what remained of her Surval wardrobe on the bed and surveyed it with a critical eye. Styles had changed in the interim. But not drastically, thank God. Not in Ireland.
She dug out a paper of needles and pawed through her bedside locker until she found a spool of thread. Screwing up her mouth in concentration, Ursula mended the sagging hem of her most fashionable frock. Twice she pricked her finger with the needle, but the bloodstains were on the inside of the skirt and would not show.
Clean underthings. Fresh stockings. The shoes that had hurt her feet during the Eucharistic Congress. Face scrubbed to a glow, hair brushed to a shine. She felt a momentary regret that she had no perfume, but she never wore scent.
Fully dressed, Ursula stood in front of the looking glass. Maud Gonne in the role of Caitlín ní Houlihan gazed back at her. Proud. Regal.
That night Precious, child of the slums, swept into the Shelbourne Hotel as if she owned the place.
The elegant hotel was curiously immune to the worst effects of the depression. Since the twenties, when the “new” Ireland was perceived to be an exciting young country lacking the postwar lassitude that drugged Europe, well-to-do visitors had flocked to enjoy the Shelbourne’s hospitality. By the thirties, British guests luxuriated in the belief that Britain had granted Ireland her freedom in a spirit of generosity.1
The Irish understandably held a different opinion.
The Shelbourne’s décor was luxurious but bland. Over the years contemporary furniture had been added to antique, blending into a comfortable melange. Pale walls set off furnishings upholstered in floral cretonne to make British visitors feel at home.
Lewis and Ursula were seated at a choice table in the main dining room. A draped and carpeted hush, hardly disturbed by the clink of china and glassware, encouraged conversation.
Since they last met, Lewis told Ursula, he had done quite a bit of traveling. India, Hong Kong, Crete. Ursula wanted to ask what “other commitments” had kept him from coming to Ireland sooner, but that would mean admitting she had read his letter. “Have you been on journalistic assignments?” she asked.
“Only in India. Covering a spot of trouble with this Gandhi fellow. Aside from that I’ve just been wandering. It’s in the blood, I suppose. My grandmother went to Africa at a time when most women went no farther than the nearest spa. We even have a photograph of her riding on an elephant.”
Ursula had nothing comparable in her conversational arsenal. Her family stories were private and definitely not to be shared with an Englishman. But Lewis was intrigued by her interest in foreign affairs. Women did not usually talk to him about European politics.
When Ursula expressed concern about the rapid growth of fascism, he agreed it was a worrying trend. “People are reluctant to confront the fascists head-on, though,” he said. “The Great War cured most Europeans of their tribal bellicosity.”
Bellicosity. Oh Sacred Heart of Jesus. “Henry Mooney tells me the Americans are nervous of fascism too,” Ursula replied. “Their response is to retreat into isolationism.”
“That’s not going to be good enough. One of these days the whole thing’s going to erupt. There’s even a strong fascist element in Spain; I saw it firsthand not so long ago.”
“You’ve been to Spain?”
“Of course,” he said as if everyone had been to Spain. Lewis Baines gave off an aroma of exotic landscapes.
“Have you ever thought of investigating the northern Irish situation?” Ursula asked. “The politicians on both sides of the border are pretending there’s no sectarian violence up there because they can’t deal with it. You could advance the theory that Northern Ireland is a microcosm of what’s going on in Europe.” Good word, microcosm. Every bit as good as bellicosity!
“I never thought of Ulster that way,” said Lewis.
“The Unionists were trying to circumvent democracy by creating an artificial statelet on the island of Ireland where Protestants would be in the majority. But in Cavan, Monaghan, and Donegal, the Catholics were in the majority. So the Unionists had to limit their ‘Northern Ireland’ to six counties. Therefore it isn’t Ulster at all. To use that term is to stake a British territorial claim on three counties which, under the Treaty, are ours.”
“Ours?” Lewis queried with amusement. “You’re very nationalistic, aren’t you?”
“More than that, I’m an Irish Republican. All the Hallorans are. It’s in the blood.”
“Ah,” Lewis nodded. “In the blood. I like spirited women with minds of their own. Great Britain abounds in them.”
Her blood was up now. “Great Britain?” Ursula retorted. “There’s a fine irony in that name. Britain—in fact, the whole concept of Britishness—was a mythical identity invented by England to encourage the Scots and the Welsh to join the English army and fight for the English king. Ireland was never considered ‘British.’ That’s why the official title was the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland.”
“Migod,” said Lewis Baines. “You really are a spitfire, aren’t you?”
She smiled sweetly. “I’m an educated woman,” she replied.
He ordered dessert and tea for both of them, but the tea grew cold in their cups. Conversation dwindled away while he smoked a Turkish cigarette and held her with his eyes, smiling a slow, lazy smile.
The silences were better than the conversation. Between them was developing a powerful erotic chemistry that contradicted everything Ursula thought she knew about herself.
When Lewis took her back to Moore Street he kissed her again. More deeply than before. She longed to invite him in but dare not.
On Friday night he had tickets to the Abbey Theatre. Ursula sat through the play achingly aware of the man in the seat beside her. Afterwards she could not have told the plot of the play.
At her door Lewis kissed her with such passion she thought he might try to force himself upon her, but he did not. Breathing hard, he gave her a last hug and bade her good night.
That night in his hotel bedroom Lewis recalled the ever-shifting shadows in her blue-gray eyes. Like the play of clouds and light on water.
On Saturday he took her to Baldonnel Aerodrome for a ride in his aeroplane. Ursula dressed for the occasion in her only pair of jodhpurs, a cream-colored blouse and a woolly jumper. When Lewis called for her he was wearing plus fours and a leather aviator’s jacket. She bit her lip to keep from laughing. No one she knew wore plus fours! But she had to admit they suited him.
Baldonnel was thriving. A brisk traffic in air taxis had begun. One could fly Baldonnel to Liverpool and return for five guineas, via the Midland & Scottish airline.2 The days of being restricted to sea travel were well and truly over, Ursula thought with relief.
She had never seen an aeroplane up close. Lewis’s biplane had a fabric fuselage and two pairs of wings stiffened by sizing. Intellectually she knew the machine could fly; rationally it seemed impossible.
“She’s a beauty, isn’t she?” Lewis said. “She’s my second Moth; I ground-looped the first one. Nasty crosswind. Half a mo.” He stepped away to give instructions to one of several men in greasy coveralls who had gathered around the plane.
Ursula eyed the Moth with trepidation. There’ll be nothing between me and thin air but a shell of stiffened cloth.
And what is “ground-looping?”
“That sweater of yours won’t be warm enough once we’re up there,” Lewis told her. “Here, take my jacket.”
“What about you?”
“Oh, I always keep a spare in the cockpit. You aren’t the first young lady I’ve taken closer to heaven.”
When she put on his jacket, it still held his body heat.
“Put your foot there, Ursula, where I’m showing you, and step up. Mind the struts. And be careful you don’t step anywhere else or you’ll break through the wing.”
Break through the wing? With my foot?
Wedged into the tiny front cockpit of the plane, Ursula was slanted backward at an angle. She could see only the tip of the propeller beyond the cowling.
Lewis nimbly slid into the rear cockpit. “You’ll find a helmet and goggles wedged down there beside you,” he instructed. “Put them on while we warm up. I promise not to keep you waiting long.”
With fingers gone strangely numb, Ursula donned the snug leather helmet and adjusted the goggles. All I need now is the silk scarf.
Lewis shouted something. A man on the ground spun the propeller. The engine coughed several times, then roared into life. Ursula gripped the rim of the cockpit with both hands as the slipstream roiled past. The aeroplane vibrated like an eager animal.
The engine settled into a rhythm that eventually became one long musical note, purring as if the elements involved were perfectly suited. Time stood still. When she could stand it no longer, Ursula twisted around in her seat to look back at Lewis. She could not see his eyes behind his goggles, but she saw him give the thumbs-up signal.
The crewmen who had been leaning against the wings and tail stepped back. Other men pulled the wedges from under the wheels. The speed of the whirring propeller increased. The plane’s tail lifted, bringing the seats in the cockpits level. The vibrations became an intermittent thunder as they sped forward. The ground on either side of the plane blurred. Then suddenly…a relative silence. A silence like none other.
They were flying.
Flying!!!
Literally riding on the air. Up, up, up toward the blue portal of an endless sky.
And I’m not the least bit airsick! How could I be when I’m flying like the angels?
Showing off for Ursula, Lewis Baines put the plane through its paces. With great banking sideslips he drew patterns on the air. He set the Moth spinning spinning spinning, squeezing the stomach out of her and the laughter too. At the bottom of a long dive, when they pulled up just as the earth was rushing at them with terrifying speed, she screamed. But she loved it. The feeling was like nothing she had ever experienced.
As they soared over Kildare she looked down at the green lap of the Curragh, sheep-cropped to the smoothness of a croquet lawn. From such a height one could not see the mud and the sheep droppings. Or the problems people created with artificial borders and hypocritical morality.
There was nothing narrow-minded about the sky.
Looking at Ursula, Lewis Baines decided he had been wrong in his original appraisal. When they first met he had thought the Irish girl not pretty, but interesting-looking. Now he saw that she was beautiful. The flight had set her cheeks aflame and filled her eyes with stars.
When they returned to the city Lewis bought Ursula an armload of roses at Jameson’s Flower Shop in Nassau Street. “Roses for an Irish rose,” he said. “Are you hungry?”
Madame had insisted ladies must never admit to having an appetite. “Starved,” Ursula replied.
“There’s a hotel just around the corner, shall we see what they have on offer?”
The doorkeeper of the hotel dining room raised his eyebrows at Ursula’s masculine attire. Young women these days were behaving scandalously, his expression said. But business was business and the dining room was almost empty anyway. He ushered them inside.
“I don’t think he approved of your jodhpurs,” Lewis remarked sotto voce. “At home no one would turn a hair. Women can go anywhere in riding clothes.”
“Even to balls?” Ursula asked with wide-eyed innocence.
“Especially to balls,” he assured her. “They wear jod
hpurs underneath their gowns, so if they get bored they can sneak off to the stables and have a canter in the moonlight.”
“Fliss never told me she could dance in riding boots.”
He waved a hand in the air. “They can all do it. It’s a required study for Saxons.”
In response to his gesture, a waiter appeared at their table with a menu. “Would you like a glass of wine before we order?” Lewis asked Ursula.
“I think not, thank you. But I could do damage to a pint of stout.”
“Do you mean that?”
“I do mean it.”
The dining room did not serve pints, the waiter informed them. Particularly not to ladies, his tight-lipped manner added. He directed them to the hotel bar next door.
The darkly paneled retreat was textured with pipe smoke. When Ursula described the late-afternoon clientele as “a bulge of bankers and a slither of solicitors,” Lewis bit the inside of his lip to keep from laughing out loud.
Stepping up to the highly polished mahogany bar, he ordered two pints of Guinness. The exclusively male drinkers ranged along the bar turned to stare at the young woman in jodhpurs who stood beside him, carrying a bunch of roses. But no one challenged her right to be there. Her companion was too well dressed; his accent too clearly identified him as a member of the British upper class.
The Irish might be struggling out from under the yoke of colonialism but the feelings of inferiority were still there. The drinkers went back to their drink.
Lewis took one taste of Guinness, grimaced, and pushed the glass aside. “Gin and bitters,” he told the bartender.
“You don’t want your Guinness, sir?”
“Don’t worry,” Ursula said brightly, “it won’t go to waste. I’ll drink his when I finish mine.”
The stout sang in her blood like wind through the struts of the Moth.
Chapter Twenty-nine
Lewis Baines’s room at the Shelbourne was actually a small suite. The sitting room was a snug, low-ceilinged chamber on the mezzanine floor, with windows looking out on Kildare Street. Traffic sounds were magnified by the canyon-like acoustics of the street until Lewis drew the heavy curtains, shutting out the twilight. “There, is that better?”