The Curfew Circle

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The Curfew Circle Page 28

by Nina Dreyer


  Marion laid her hands flat on the rough desk. ‘I can give you a demonstration of my mediumship.’ She held his gaze. The hairs on her arms and neck bristled at the thought of what would come through if she took his wrist and sank into the darkness behind him.

  The pale man withdrew slightly, crinkling his brow. ‘We will consider this information. Now. You’ll be taken from this place and left in the city centre. We expect you set to work immediately. And I needn’t tell you that you’re being watched. Very closely. If you chance the slightest thing, if you try to warn anybody, we will know. Immediately.’

  ‘I don’t want him to die.’

  ‘That’s your concern, not ours.’

  ‘No,’ said Marion, jerking forward, ‘you can’t kill him, you mustn’t kill him, I won’t let him die in this condition, there’s something wrong-’

  ‘You’re not understanding me.’ The pale man leaned closer. ‘I’ve allowed you to see our faces. Do you know why? Because you’ve been marked down as an enemy spy. The only thing you can pray for is that we allow you to live. You haven’t got a chance in hell of rescuing anybody but yourself, at this stage. Tell me,’ he folded his hands, ‘how was the venison?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I understand the colonel slaughtered it himself.’ The pale man sighed and glanced at his papers. ‘Must have been a marvellous dinner party. We note that you drank port wine. Rather a lot of it. Went home in a hackney coach with John Kilcoyne afterwards. He seems to have spent the night with you.’

  Marion fought back a wave of nausea, opening and closing her clammy fists. ‘You have to let me stop him. You can’t kill him, he didn’t mean to help British intelligence, he didn’t, he just thinks… he just wants…’ She tried to breathe deeply. ‘Let me deal with him. I’m the only one who can. Let me put an end to this. I can do that. I can.’

  ‘No, you can’t.’ The pale man took his stack of photographs and papers, rose and signalled to his comrades. One grasped Marion’s arm and pulled her from the chair. ‘You’re just some hapless foreigner blundering around in a war you don’t understand. You, stop him? He’d snap your neck like a pigeon, and that’s no use to me. You’ve no clue who you’ve been dealing with, do you? His own men were afraid of him.’

  Chapter Twenty Two

  Church bells struck eleven. The curfew hour. Marion darted up a dark road from shadow to shadow, careful to keep well away from the last of the night-time stragglers sludging home through the rain. The stinging wind carried a smell of burning rubber. Restless noises echoed down the back alleys.

  She stopped, shielding her eyes from the gusts of rain. Above, under an extinguished lantern, a sign creaked in the wind. A red hand in flaking paint. Armed guards at the bar door. She’d never get in that way, not without drawing attention to herself.

  Glancing over her shoulder, she slipped down an ink-dark alleyway, flattened herself against the wet stone wall and strained to see. She could hear the rumble of an engine. Halfway down the alley, a metal door swung open with a clang. A barman emerged, a cigarette dangling from one lip, as a truck backed up towards the door.

  Two men jumped off the truck, each wearing heavy leather aprons and caps pushed back on their heads. They swore amicably in greeting and began to roll out barrels and clinking crates full of bottles.

  A sweep of light glided over the crumbling brick wall. Marion edged further back until the alley descended into darkness.

  The men had their backs to her. The barman stepped away from the door and cupped his hand over his mouth to light another cigarette, and the deliverymen clustered around him, speaking in low grunts. One snorted contentedly and spat on the cobblestones.

  Now was her chance.

  Stiff as a petrified cat, with her throat in a hard knot, Marion hurtled down the alley and ducked in through the open metal door.

  A low hallway, lined with barrels. The floor was sticky, and a smell of tobacco smoke, stale beer and piss hung in the air. Crouching slightly, she slipped through a swinging door.

  The bar was a cramped, windowless basement. Sour smoke swirled under the low ceiling, and tinny jazz music whined and coughed from a large gramophone player. The music could barely be heard over the din of voices, raw shouting, sharp laughter. Marion inched her way inside, scanning the crowd. Men in varying states of drunkenness sat along each wall on benches and stools. Most of the them were dressed in British uniforms. Others wore ragged civilian clothes with medals glinting on crumpled lapels.

  A few women circled around the press of men. One of them, a tall woman with a shivering red feather in her hair, glided past Marion and sent her a withering stare. ‘Grand for tonight,’ she hissed, ‘but then you find your own turf.’

  Marion ducked behind a wooden pillar and crept further into the room.

  In a far corner, half-hidden by a green glass pane, a group of men sat hunched over a table, arms around each other’s shoulders, moaning a slow song with tears streaming down their faces. By the bar stood a group of younger men, laughing and strutting like a cock fight. Marion felt like she was trapped in the hull of a sinking ship. Every nerve in her body screamed for her to back away slowly, but the crowd had closed behind her.

  ‘Fancy a drink, love?’ A bleary-eyed soldier lurched behind her.

  ‘Arsenic,’ Marion mumbled, flinching to avoid brushing shoulders with a drunkenly reeling sergeant.

  ‘Here, I’m talking to you, don’t go away when I’m talking to you,’ said the soldier, reaching for her arm.

  Marion shook herself free and hurried away.

  ‘Frigid slag,’ he burped after her.

  She bumped into a small table. On it stood a flickering kerosene lantern. She could take it. Pick it up, easy as that. Fling it against the wall and watch the flames engulf the room.

  A thick-set man in a corporal’s uniform jumped up on a rickety chair, waving his cap in the air as he began barking out a harsh tune. The men around him sprang to their feet, reeling, arms locked, as one of them began to chant along. Soon they all joined in, red-faced, spittle flying, ‘begone, begone you Papish dogs, you’ve hardly time to pray before we throw your carcasses right over Dolly’s Brae,’ they bellowed, stomping their boots.

  Marion pressed a hand over her mouth and backed away behind a greasy glass pane.

  When she turned, she saw him.

  Her heart froze.

  John.

  Standing towards the back of the bar, one hand in his pocket, his head inclined slightly in conversation with another man. She felt like crying to see him standing there. Just as the pale man had said. As if the pale man knew more about John than she did.

  John stood with his side to her, smiling his crooked smile and holding a whiskey glass. The light of the kerosene lanterns glistened in his lustrous black hair.

  Marion silently inched forward and watched him. Around him was an empty space, as though he was a carrier of something virulent. She should go up to him, right now. She should go up to him and put her arms around his neck and drag him away from this place, she should warn-

  ‘Here,’ a reedy voice piped up behind her. ‘What are you staring at him for? Eh? Come looking for trouble, have ya?’

  Marion spun around. A small, bent man stood before her, eyeing her up and down. His eyes were watery, furtive. His ill-fitting grey suit frayed a little at the shoulder seam. He looked like an effigy of a man, stuffed with damp straw, ready to be tossed on a bonfire.

  ‘You deaf or something? I said, what are you staring at him for?’

  ‘I’m wondering what kind of man he is. Why he’s here.’

  ‘You know him, then?’

  Marion glanced over at John again. ‘I thought I did.’

  ‘Well I know him very well. Served under him, didn’t I,’ the man jabbed his bony chest with his thumb, ‘and I’m telling you right now, he don’t deserve all that talk behind his back and superstitious bollocks.’ His breath stank of sour whiskey. ‘Never did nothing to nobody that weren’t
the law,’ he said, wiping his oozing eye with a limp handkerchief. ‘All in the job. Dirty job, but had to be done.’

  ‘What job, what are you talking about?’

  ‘To the pole at dawn, me boys, to the pole at dawn,’ the man half-sang, trailing his sour breath as he bowed cavalierly. ‘Him and me,’ he pointed towards John, ‘we was the last thing those poor sods ever did see. Him and me and the rest of us boys in the firing squad.’

  Marion tensed. ‘What firing squad?’

  ‘Them as got shot for cowardice, desertion, dereliction of duty. Some of them poor buggers had the shakes. Couldn’t walk properly no more, couldn’t carry their rifles, collapsed at the slightest bit of noise. That’s cowardice, that is. What else is it? The rest of us didn’t bloody well collapse, did we? I been over the top twice, didn’t see me collapsing.’ He belched moistly.

  Marion mumbled an excuse and made to stagger away.

  ‘Oh, don’t want to talk to me no more, that it?’ He clasped her wrist in a weak grasp. ‘I didn’t want to do it, did I? He didn’t, neither. Got dragooned into it. But you got to do your duty. We all had to do our duty.’

  Marion tried to extricate her arm, but feared the man would keel over if he let go. ‘You have the man wrong. That,’ she pointed in the direction of John and lowered her voice, ‘is John Kilcoyne. Native to Dublin, he never-’

  ‘That’s right,’ the man brightened a little, ‘you do know him, then! Captain Kilcoyne, best bloody officer I ever served under, not the talkative type, mind, but a right gentleman, don’t deserve none of that filth they say of him behind his back.’

  ‘What? What do they say?’

  ‘Calling him the hangman, the butcher, all such bloody fucking bollocks.’ He frowned. ‘Never hanged a man in his life. They all got shot, innit?’

  Marion stared at the little man in disbelief.

  ‘Shot at the pole.’ He snorted. ‘For cowardice.’

  Marion had a feeling that John was staring at her now, boring his dark eyes into the back of her neck from across the room, over the swaying heads of the crowd. The hairs on her arms stood up. But when she turned to look, he stood with his back to her.

  ‘Why not let the Germans shoot them?’ She turned back to the little man.

  He looked at her for a long time, then shook his head. The hair at his temples had come loose from the pomade and stuck out like quills on an oily chicken carcass.

  ‘Got to clean the army up, innit? Can’t let the Bosch see our soldiers acting like cowards. Got to clean it up. Got to clear out the cowards. Got to keep the discipline. No matter how much they begged and pleaded at their courts martial, arguing this and that and medical exemptions, all twisting and shaking like clowns,’ he threw up is curled fingers, contorting his face, ‘all bollocks. Don’t see me shaking like that, do ya?’

  ‘And did they ever beg,’ Marion whispered, ‘when they saw the pole?’

  He looked up, startled. ‘Nah,’ he said, ‘life’s gone out of them already, innit? Couple of nights in them cells, life’s gone right out already. They just,’ he looked up into the distance and blinked, ‘they just go limp. Shuffle up to the pole. They all have this shuffling gait, not like walking upright. Like they’re half-asleep. Except them as got the shakes. Got to tie those down.’

  ‘How many men did you shoot?’ Marion pointed towards John. ‘Under his command. How many?’

  The little man snorted and raised his shoulders, as if suddenly cold. ‘No use in me counting them, is it? Stopped counting at seventy or so. No use in counting them. They’re already dead when they come to us. We just finish off the job. It’s a done deal. They die at the court martial. We get our double rum ration, and off we go, quickstep. Done deal then, innit?’ He blew his nose and looked at her.

  Marion said nothing. Seventy men. Seventy corpses.

  ‘I tell you one thing, love. I seen him put more men out of their misery than I can count, clean shot, mercy-killing, right there with his own revolver. We was nervous, innit, we didn’t want to fire at those poor sods, so sometimes we didn’t do a clean job of it. Made a bloody mess, that’s what we did. See that man right there? Never seen him hesitate, he finished the business clean as anything, clean as you like. Fought at Passchendaele before coming to us, fought very bravely, he did.’

  Marion clasped her throat. The floor seemed to tilt under her. ‘He’s a murderer,’ she whispered.

  ‘What’s that?’ The little man narrowed his eyes. ‘What’ve you heard then? What’ve you heard about him? Been listening to tales, have ya?’

  Marion shook her head. She pressed her hand over her mouth, her fingers prickling fever-hot.

  The man swayed, blinking his moist eyes at her. ‘That’s alright then. Now you know to respect him properly, like he deserves.’

  Marion dry-retched against a wet stone wall in the deep shadows in the alley behind the bar. The screaming and laughing echoed behind her over the faint whine of the jazz record.

  Wiping her face, she turned and walked slowly around the corner and onto the broad streets. Fog was rising, blurring out the darkened houses and obscuring the dim moonlight.

  Blinding headlights swept around the corner, gleaming over the wet cobblestones and rough brick walls. Marion raised her hand to shield her eyes. For a moment, she thought it was the pale man jumping out of a truck, running towards her with a rifle in his hands, his nails ragged and bitten down to the quick.

  But it was a soldier.

  Behind him, another.

  ‘You there,’ shouted the first, ‘halt!’ He raised his rifle.

  Marion just stared at him, at his dripping metal helmet, his round young face dotted with razor rash. It all seemed distant, unreal, a sickening dream. She wanted to throw up her hands and scream that she was done with this game, and didn’t want to play anymore, she wanted the whole thing to end, to stop. She veered around and staggered away.

  ‘I said halt,’ screamed the soldier. He grabbed her shoulder, digging his fingers into her collar and dragging her towards the grumbling truck. Fog swirled in its headlights.

  She was pulled into the truck and made to sit under the wet tarpaulin cover. The engine spluttered and backfired as the truck sped down the road. Rainwater dripped down the back of her neck.

  ‘The fuck do you think you’re doing,’ barked the soldier over the growl of the engine, ‘it’s past curfew, duckie, you think the curfew don’t apply to you?’ He nudged her with the tip of his boot. ‘Do you?’

  Marion said nothing. She felt like her insides had turned to ashes.

  The soldier gave up and tried to light a damp cigarette, swearing under his breath. The other stared silently at the retreating streets of Dublin.

  Marion began to cry, soundlessly, hoarsely.

  Seventy men. Seventy corpses.

  Chapter Twenty Three

  Marion awoke, freezing in grey dawn light. Her back and neck ached. She drew herself up, and for a bleary moment did not recall where she was.

  She looked around, rubbing her eyes.

  A small window, high above. Barred. A metal door, painted black. White brick walls.

  She dimly remembered the night before. Being dragged through a cold office noisy with clacking typewriters and grating voices and hissing gas lights, bare-scrubbed concrete floors and overspilling ashtrays, and she remembered the cell door clanging shut behind her in the dark.

  She’d collapsed on the wooden bunk and sunk into a fitful sleep.

  In her dream, the door had swung open, and a chicken-quilled little man had come and led her to the pole, to the pole, my boys, to the pole at dawn. John had waited for her there, aces and hearts falling from his hand, revolver at the ready to finish the job mercifully, cleanly, and the thought had occurred to her that she must be dead already.

  You died at the court martial.

  Marion swung her legs over the edge of the hard bunk and pulled her damp coat tighter around her.

  Pale light from an overcast dawn se
eped through the high window of the cell. Her breath hung in the air like mist. She rubbed her hands together and tried to shake away the last images of that feverish dream. Fumbling under her shirt, she dug out her the medallion and pressed it to her lips.

  From her coat pocket, she pulled out the creased photograph that the pale man in the meat hall had given her. The photograph of John in his uniform.

  She wished that she could have two or three burning throat-fulls of whiskey before looking at it in earnest.

  She glanced at it, sideways first. It was a small photograph, like the kind you’d carry for remembrance of the fallen, the kind most women kept about them these days, whether in a lush velvet pocket, gold-trimmed and tasselled, or displayed proudly on a chipped mantelpiece.

  But there was something wrong with this picture.

  Marion had seen many, many soldiers’ portraits. Cultured officers preferred to have their pictures taken in contrived poses, reclining on antique chairs, with books in their laps and fingers thoughtfully resting on their chins. The lesser ranks liked to strut in their dress uniforms, chests thrust out, medals and bayonets displayed to best advantage. All posed for the camera just as their fathers had done, in artful postures, gazing at some distant, unseen horizon.

  Not John.

  He stood with his back pressed up against a brick wall, staring straight at the camera lens as though willing it to splinter, his deep-set eyes glittering. His dark hair was swept back, with a razor-sharp parting down the side. The flashlight shone harshly in the whites of his eyes and the faint, puckered scar on his upper lip.

  Marion pressed her fingers over the bottom of the photograph, so she wouldn’t have to look at his uniform. She let her eyes glide over the sinews and muscles of John’s neck, over his jaw, the groove of his lip. A small thrill shivered through her at being able to stare at him so shamelessly, so closely, without his knowledge or consent.

  She met his lifeless eyes again. He was glaring so intently at the camera lens, with a look of bristling contempt in his eyes. She’d never seen that look on his face. No hint of his usual lopsided smile, that easy grin, the careless, bright flicker in his eyes. She wondered how he could have smiled so cheerfully, stretched so languidly on her sheets, when this was festering deep in his mind.

 

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