by Nina Dreyer
Marion stood in silence for a long moment.
‘They left a note. Well, a manifesto, more like. Typed up neatly and left for us on the coffee table. They’d even gone and made a copy in Irish. Of course it was all nonsense and gibberish. How the Great War was going to remake the world all over again. We burned it in the back garden, in a rubbish bin. Well, there you have it.’ He rubbed his eyes. ‘I know how badly wrong these things can go, because I saw that. And they weren’t even buried right. I wanted to officiate, but the parish priest said no, of course, because,’ he swallowed and cleared his throat, ‘it was…’
‘Suicide,’ said Marion quietly.
McSorley winced at the word. ‘And here’s what I’m saying to you now. Spiritualism may be harmless enough, but only to a point. Take a wrong turn, and you go wrong in the head, you lose your mind.’
Marion swallowed dryly and thought of John, pressing the headphone of his trench radio to his ear, his face lit from within, whispering into the void and listening for the voices of the dead legions. A cold draft shivered down her back, making her hair stand on end. ‘We’re trained experts, Fr. McSorley. We’ve been doing this for years.’
‘He’s really gotten to you, hasn’t he, your Mr. Kilcoyne? Really made a believer out of you. See, that’s what worries me. You’re too sure yourself. Not one chink of doubt in your armour, is there?’
No doubts, indeed, she thought. She bit a fingernail.
McSorley drew in a sharp breath and cleared his throat. ‘Well, I’ve tried to speak to you as a priest. Offer you guidance. I’ve not got his powers of persuasion, clearly. But I can tell you this.’ He looked at her for a long moment. ‘Look at me. Your name is known, now. You’ve made enemies, Marion. Listen to me. I’m doing this for your own sake. I’m asking you to stop this, now. Whatever… arrangement you have with John Kilcoyne, break it off now.’
‘No. I’m the only one that he’ll listen to.’
‘You’re not understanding what I’m telling you,’ McSorley raised his voice, ‘you’ve picked sides now, Marion, both of you, publicly, shamelessly, and the enemies you’ve made, you can’t even begin to imagine…’ He clenched his fists over his mouth. ‘Give this up now. Come with me.’
‘No.’ She wasn’t going to leave John alone among these people, alone in the dark, alone to listen for dead voices from a trench radio, alone with his whiskey and his strange, luminous dreams.
McSorley closed his eyes and looked pained, as if aching under an unbearable weight. ‘So be it, then. I’m going to have to ask you to call on Mrs. Hurlihy.’
‘Eilis?’ Marion frowned. ‘Eilis wants to see me? Does she really?’ She felt a flutter of golden hope in her chest. Maybe they could talk. Sit down and talk, like in the old days, have it all out, and maybe Eilis would smile at her again, would-
‘Tomorrow. Four o’clock.’ McSorley turned to leave. He wouldn’t look her in the eye. ‘Don’t be late.’
Chapter Twenty One
The following afternoon, Marion stood in line at an army roadblock, hiding her face under her black velvet hat and trying not to get jostled by angry pedestrians. Soldiers stalked around in front of their growling trucks and coils of barbed wire. The day felt like the death of winter. Icy mist swirled amid bare branches and boarded-up shop fronts under a white sky.
She’d hurried to the Salon that morning, hoping to find John, hoping to see him smiling, stretched on a couch and leafing languidly through a periodical or a newspaper. But there’d been nobody there except old Brigid Doran, laying out a game of solitaire under a ticking grandfather clock and glaring at Marion with her suspicious little eyes. Only then had the curious thought struck Marion that she didn’t actually have a clue where John lived. So she’d had waited for him the dim parlours, wondering how to warn him, how to explain this to him, there’s a young Sinn Féin woman with a camera, and I know her because… She groaned to herself. She would find him later, and he’d hug her tightly, and he’d be confident, untouchable, out of reach of that priest’s words about enemies you can’t even imagine, and she’d tell-
A soldier snapped her papers from her, then shoved her past the roadblock. By his side, a thick-necked dog snarled.
Marion hurried down the freezing, rain-slick streets until she reached the gentle curve of the once-leafy avenue, a stone’s throw from Eilis’ house.
She halted, tightening her grip on her fur collar.
A crowd of people had gathered on the pavement outside Eilis’ garden gate, staring and shaking their heads. ‘Bloody disgrace,’ said a man with a cart as he flung a damp cigarette butt to the ground, and a small cluster of women nodded.
Marion gently pushed her way through the crowd.
She gasped.
Eilis’ front door hung splintered on its hinges.
The small lawn was strewn with debris, strips of fabric, a broken plate.
‘What’s happened?’ Marion turned to an old man who stood leaning against the wrought-iron railing, sucking on a pipe.
‘Been raided, love, that’s what. Tans, looks like. No decent Irish policeman would make such a mess.’
‘Never would’ve thought it would happen in our street,’ said a stern-faced woman in a drooping felt hat.
‘You make your bed, you lie in it,’ sniffed another woman. The other woman spun around, shaking her finger in the air and raising her voice. Marion slipped past them and made her way up the little mosaic path that led to the broken front door.
She paused for a moment under the shivering birches, her hand raised to knock. Her knees were shaking, her heart thumping. She thought of the last words Eilis had spoken to her. I’m ashamed I ever called you my friend.
Before she could lose her nerve, she rapped on the door. She immediately felt foolish. Why knock when the door was broken, half-open anyway?
There was no answer. With her heart in her throat, Marion ducked inside. The hall was unlit. Strips of wallpaper had been torn and scratched, and the floor was filthy with bootprints.
‘Eilis,’ Marion croaked, ‘are you here?’ She peeked into the front parlour. The door frame had been fractured. Broken furniture lay strewn on the floor. A white lace curtain had been ripped off and trampled on. The carpets and rugs had been torn away and tossed into a corner, and someone had tried to tear up the old oak floorboards. Torn leaves and shattered flowerpots lay heaped in one corner.
In the far corner of the room stood Eilis, crossing her chest with one arm and holding up an unlit cigarette with the other.
Marion let out a gasp through her fingers.
Eilis was wearing a silver-embroidered dressing gown, the sort you throw on in the morning before dressing properly. It was ripped at one shoulder. Her feet were bare, smeared with street dirt.
‘Eilis,’ she whispered, ‘what…’
‘Oh. It’s you.’ Eilis turned the unlit cigarette over in her fingers. She didn’t meet Marion’s eyes. ‘I thought I told you to piss off. Surprised to see you come crawling back.’ There was no malice in her voice, just exhaustion.
‘What’s happened?’
Eilis waved the cigarette to take in the broken room. ‘I’ve had a social call from His Majesty’s gallant henchmen.’
‘Come away from the window, there are people out there looking.’ Marion stepped gingerly over the broken furniture, looking for something to wrap around Eilis. Her red silk shawl had been ground into the floor. It was covered in muddy bootprints.
‘Oh, now you care?’ Eilis cast an arched glance at Marion. ‘Now you’re upset on my behalf?’
‘You have every right to hate me, but please, Eilis, come away from the window.’
Eilis didn’t struggle or recoil when Marion tugged her deeper into the house, away from the window-square of harsh white winter light.
‘You really haven’t seen anything yet,’ said Eilis in a flat, tired voice, like she was half-asleep. ‘Wait till you see what they did upstairs.’ She made a low, harsh sound, like laughter.
‘Was verdammt…’ Marion looked around desperately for somewhere for Eilis to sit.
A deep tremor ran through Eilis. She threw her hands to her face.
Marion shrugged off her damp coat and wrapped it around Eilis’ shoulders, glancing at her nervously. ‘Did they,’ she asked quietly, ‘did they interfere with you?’ She bit her lip.
Eilis’ eyes hardened. ‘Well they weren’t here for me, were they? No. Here for guns, or ammunition. They must imagine I’m thick.’
‘Were is your maid?’ Marion looked around for signs of the girl.
‘She’s gone and left me. No loyalty in that girl. Cleared off at the first sign of trouble. I’ll advertise for another one, but sure who’s going to want to work here, the state of the place,’ she threw up her hands and laughed bitterly. ‘The best I can get now is some savage creature from the slums. Better off on my own, so I am. Anyway, you can leave now.’ Eilis bent down and picked up a lighter from the floor. ‘I’m not talking to you anymore, remember?’ She lit her cigarette and pulled Marion’s coat tightly around her. ‘You bloody-minded little collaborator.’ She was staring intently at Marion.
‘You can talk to me or not, but I’m not leaving you here on your own. I’ll get the priest. He’s sure to have some,’ Marion glanced around anxiously, ‘some idea of what to do.’
‘What priest?’
‘Fr. McSorley. The one with the curly hair. He… he told me to call on you?’
‘Oh, right. So he did.’ Eilis drew slowly on her cigarette. ‘Surprised you came, actually.’
Marion lowered her head.
‘He’s a decent sort of fellow,’ said Eilis. ‘Always off rescuing people. I thought he could make John see sense. Kill him with kindness, sort of thing. But oh no.’ She shook her head. ‘I probably shouldn’t have sent Fr. McSorley. I’m sure John tore him to shreds altogether.’
‘I’ll go fetch him right now.’
‘Don’t bother,’ Eilis snapped. ‘I’m not a kitten in a bag in need of rescuing by some fresh-faced curate. You think this is bad? This is nothing compared to what our men go through for the cause. Some of them have been sleeping rough on the mountainsides for months, going without food or water or a kind word from anyone. And my own Liam…’ Her voice broke.
‘At least let me call a doctor.’
‘Sure what do I need a doctor for? I’m made of stronger stuff.’
‘Eilis, you cannot possibly stay here.’ Marion gently touched her shoulder. ‘Why don’t you come and stay with me, in my house?’
‘Your house?’ Eilis snorted. ‘That’s not your house, that’s John’s house, and he’s keeping you there like a canary in a mineshaft. Or like kept woman.’
Marion sighed. ‘Fine. Then why not go to your mother’s house?’
‘Ha!’ Eilis picked some tobacco from her lip. ‘Go to that old windbag and be lectured on my poor choice of husband and all the gossip and grief I’m causing her? You can just forget it. I’m staying here. This is my bloody house in my bloody country, and I’m not giving them,’ she hissed in the general direction of the door, and Marion didn’t know if she meant the soldiers or the onlookers in the street, ‘the satisfaction of running away and hiding myself somewhere.’
‘But what if the soldiers return?’ Marion knotted her fingers.
‘Tsk,’ said Eilis, tossing her hair, ‘what sort of message would it send if I let myself be intimidated out of my own house?’
Marion gasped in frustration. ‘Let me at least… well, we can at least sweep up the broken glass and…’
‘Oh no. Leave it all just as it is. I’ve a mind to have a newspaper man and a photographer come and inspect the wreckage. Let the world see how the gallant officers of His Imperial Majesty treat decent ordinary people’s houses.’ She held her arm stiffly aloft in a theatrical pose of defiance, but her eyes were red and her voice flat and lifeless.
‘Don’t stay here. Don’t stand your ground over a house and some furniture. Live to fight another day, Eilis.’
‘Oh yes, very dramatic,’ Eilis sniffed.
Marion lowered her head. ‘I should go.’
‘Stay.’ Eilis pointed at her with her smouldering cigarette. ‘You haven’t told me any of your gossip yet. You’re not leaving till you do. And I insist.’ She smiled thinly. ‘So. How are things at the Salon? Exciting times, we hear?’
Marion wrung her hands. ‘Eilis, can we talk?’
‘We’re talking now,’ she drew on her cigarette, ‘aren’t we?’
‘Have you,’ Marion swallowed hard, ‘have you ever done a seance for a widow of the Great War?’
‘What?’ Eilis scowled around at her broken dining room. ‘Sure why on earth would I do that? If people choose to let their husbands get killed in a British uniform, then they can take what’s coming to them. British war widows with their war pensions, blood-money if you ask me.’ She shot Marion a cold glance. ‘Why do you ask?’
Marion chewed her lip. She thought of Hettie’s first love who had followed her home, gurgling blood and mustard gas, straining to draw her from sleep into death. She thought of Joanna McKittrick’s husband, drowned into the rust-mud of No Man’s Land. She thought of John’s face, death-pale, neck broken…
‘My last few seances…’ She nudged the handle of a broken cup with the tip of her boot. She thought of the Ouija board, glowing sickly-green, of the table tilting with unnatural slowness, of the lamp exploding against the wall, flames licking the black curtain. The hangings to come. ‘Strange things have been happening. Dark things.’
‘Oh, well boohoo. You can go whine to your new friends,’ said Eilis, pronouncing the words as if they were a prognosis of cancer.
‘What new friends?’
‘Those ever-so-fine British ladies you were swanning around with in Clery’s the other day, la-de-dah. The foremost madame of Walthamstow, the very honourable Henrietta, we hear.’
‘It’s not what it seems,’ said Marion.
‘You know, only people with a sour conscience ever say it’s not what it seems.’
‘Eilis, I need your help. I have to ask you something.’ Marion took a deep breath. ‘Have you ever… have you ever sat in a seance alone with John?’
‘Why do you ask me that? Oh, you’re beginning to doubt him, is that it? Maybe you’ve a mind to disappoint him?’ Eilis flung her cigarette into the cold fireplace. ‘Wouldn’t it be a fine thing to see our John’s heart broken.’ She sighed wistfully. ‘If he has one. I rather suspect he doesn’t. Not in any normal sense of the word.’ She bent to her knees and picked up a small framed photograph from her wedding day, perching it on the broken mantelpiece.
‘No, I mean, if you’ve ever sat in a seance with him, have you ever,’ Marion swallowed, ‘noticed anything unusual? Something coming through that maybe… should not be coming through?’
Eilis frowned incredulously, then let out a short, sharp laugh. ‘That’s your greatest concern right now? Strange things happening in a fucking seance? Are you serious?’
‘It’s not just strange, it seems, it feels-’
Eilis waved her hand. ‘You’ve got your head on all wrong. Tell me,’ she narrowed her eyes, ‘what sorts of seances have you two been up to?’
Marion pressed her lips together. ‘He just wants me to do readings for the… for the war widows.’ She averted her eyes and fidgeted with the buttons on her sleeve.
‘And you expect me to believe there’s an end to it? After what you did at the gaol? Did you not hear that both the Cork and the Limerick circles have disbanded because of that? Afraid to have their
noses broken, now. Sure look,’ Eilis dug out another cigarette from her pocket and lit it with the sulphurous scrape of a match, ‘play thick then. You expect me to forgive you because you’re only doing it for the money, don’t you? The money and the pretty dresses and the big new house, all very grand and splendid.’
‘Please, hear me out, these seances, something bad is happening, and maybe it’s my fault, but John seems-’
‘Jesus Christ.’ Eilis curled her lip in disgust. ‘You’re still on about John this, John that, and I bet you haven’t given one single thought to what else is going on? Have you? No, I thought not. Disgraceful. You’ve no pity in you.’
‘I do have pity in me. I’m very sorry, Eilis. I’m sorry about what I did at the gaol. I thought,’ she swallowed dryly, ‘I was helping.’
Eilis fixed her with a long, hard stare. Then she rolled her eyes and sighed. ‘Jesus, but it’s uphill with you. That was a foul move, Marion. Foul. You’ve earned yourself a lot of enemies over that. But you know that. I’ve told you that already. ’ Her tone wasn’t exactly unkind. ‘Well, grand so. We have a bit of talking to do, don’t we? Come along with me to the kitchen. I’m hungry. We’ll have to fix our own tea.’
Marion followed her through the broken house, carefully stepping over ripped sockets and broken dining room chairs, down the corridor with the shredded wallpaper and down a narrow staircase.
At the bottom of the stairs, Eilis flicked on a lamp. The kitchen was small, with a flagstone floor and a deep porcelain sink. The kitchen door hung grating on one broken hinge.
‘Dirty creature, that Janet,’ said Eilis, ‘do you smell that? The little savage never washed. Do you know, I’ve never been in here before.’ She ducked through the door to the maid’s small, white-washed room towards the back of the kitchen. ‘Jesus wept, is that her dirty knickers on the floor? I can still smell her armpit sweat.’ Eilis emerged from the maid’s room and went to the pantry, tearing open the small wooden door. ‘Well at least they did not see fit to raid my larder. Oh. Spoke too soon. My lamb joint is gone.’ She emerged, dust in her hair, carrying a gnarled lump of cheese wrapped in grease paper and a jar of something greenish. ‘Get the bread, it’ll be in one of those boxes over there by the sink.’