The White Tower

by Dorothy Johnston

  As a child I’d learnt to pretend, to perform, no matter how I was feeling, and I took this for a commonplace that everybody learnt, and could put into practice when they chose. I would never be a good actor, but I understood the principles. How could I have been so wrong about Bridget Connell? And was I wrong about her? I wouldn’t put it past Fallon to have bribed the receptionist to lie to me.

  I knew now why Bridget’s face had seemed about to break into a grin. It was complicity, the knowing smile of a fellow deceiver. She’d known I wasn’t who I said I was, and she’d been waiting for me to catch up with her and share the joke.

  Ivan had warned me that the trip would be a waste of time. He knew the sorts of people Bridget and Sorley Fallon were likely to be, people who delighted in game playing—well, that much I could have worked out for myself—but also people for whom secrets, aliases, were crucial, not an aspect of behaviour they could take or leave.

  Fallon was a young man. I put his age at somewhere around twenty-eight, certainly no more than thirty-one or two. His way of life seemed unusual for a man of his age and looks. He’d known I was coming, and had prepared his story with its literary references and hard to swallow conclusions. I wondered if it would have been better to turn up unannounced. What would Fallon have done if I’d dropped out of the sky and surprised him?

  Even as I was thinking this, I knew I couldn’t have done it. I could never have got on the plane without a meeting already arranged. I thought of Moira, how she’d kissed me on the cheek, looking proud and hopeful as she’d said good luck.

  The other reason I didn’t think it would have worked for me to try to catch Sorley Fallon by surprise was that I suspected this was next to impossible. His self control ran so deep that it was scarcely touched by my appearance, even less by my ham-fisted questions. I wished I was a better interviewer. Maybe there was some course I could take when I got home.

  Say Niall had been helping to raise money for a militant republican group, and Fallon was involved. Say Niall had said or done something that made Fallon angry, and Fallon had retaliated. Perhaps Niall had been expelled from the group, for which the execution of Ferdia had been meant as a symbolic warning. But even if all this was correct, where did it take me? Where could I go from here?

  . . .

  I rang Bridget Connell’s number from the B&B.

  ‘Good one,’ I said when she came on the line.

  She laughed, a youthful, happy laugh, delighted to have fooled me. ‘What did you think of him?’

  ‘Charming,’ I said. ‘A perfect Irish gentleman. How do you get away with it?’

  ‘At the factory? To tell you the truth—’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘It bores me now.’

  ‘The bird car’s nice.’

  ‘Isn’t it though? You know, I didn’t make any of that up.’

  ‘It had a certain ring. Tell me about Niall and Dr Fenshaw.’

  ‘Niall really didn’t spell anything out, just that there was a problem at work and he was upset and worried.’

  ‘What else was worrying him?’

  A long silence, then Bridget said, ‘He thought someone was stalking him on the MUD.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘The stalker kept changing his character.’

  ‘You recognised the same person behind different characters?’

  ‘Niall said it was. Poor guy, he got so spooked. I watched his back for him. We worked a buddy system. It made him feel better for a while.’

  ‘Did you think he was imagining it?’

  ‘He had some idea who it was. Then everything blew up. Fallon went ballistic and announced that execution. I quit and told Niall he should too. I thought he was going to.’

  ‘What about the stalker?’

  ‘I saw him off a few times. He had different handles. Blacksnake was one.’

  ‘That sounds Australian.’

  ‘I did try and watch Ferd’s back for him,’ Bridget said. ‘Everything was such a mess.’

  . . .

  Fallon said, ‘You know, the name Dunluce is Irish for fort. There’s been a fort here since the tenth century.’

  Setting out, he assured me that the castle was by far the best viewed on foot from the coast path, rather than the road.

  ‘You’re in for a treat Sandra.’ He swallowed the a’s in my name. In the clear light of the morning, he seemed relaxed and open to any questions I might ask, chatting about the Antrim coast and the MacDonnell clan who’d owned Dunluce for centuries.

  I felt myself slipping underneath a border, not a strong stark one, a cliff face, but milder, a creek bank maybe. On one side was the pleasure of this unusual young man’s company. I did not like to think what was on the other. Apart from small birds, we were alone on the cliff path, but instead of letting this make me anxious, I decided to enjoy the sun on the grass, the cliffs and view of the sea.

  ‘How did you feel about women players?’ I asked, thinking once again of Bridget.

  ‘Maeve, Queen of Connaght, was a woman, Cuchulain’s greatest foe and a match for him in cunning if not bravery.’

  ‘How did you feel about Bridget playing an island warrior?’

  ‘Well now,’ Fallon smiled. ‘I thought she was just right for it.’

  The ocean looked completely different. Instead of forbidding, solid-seeming walls of grey, it was blue and far enough below us to seem like something out of a travel documentary. It reminded me a little of the southern coast of Victoria, around Port Campbell. The wind was cold and I was glad I’d worn a jacket. The sky was blue as well, with a line of clouds close to the horizon.

  Bridget might have rung Fallon after I’d spoken to her. They might have discussed how best to deal with me. I reminded myself how little I knew about these people, their allegiances and loyalties. They obviously thought lying to me would be easy. But maybe that wasn’t such a bad thing. Maybe one of them would get too smart.

  ‘You know Sandra, it’s no shame to kill or be killed by a Hero,’ Fallon said.

  I didn’t want to rehash the peculiar ethics of his MUD. We could spar back and forth for days about it without getting anywhere.

  He continued in a hard voice, ‘I built the Castle. I ran it. No one had to play.’

  We walked in silence for a while. The path became narrower, stony. I let Fallon take the lead.

  ‘I must say after meeting you I’m curious,’ he said. ‘You don’t seem like the crusading type.’

  ‘Crusading?’

  ‘I’d pictured you as a do-gooder.’

  ‘I feel sorry for Moira Howley, Niall’s mother.’

  ‘And that’s all?’

  ‘Actually, it’s quite a lot.’

  I stayed a few steps behind Fallon, not that, if he planned to push me over the edge, it would make a difference. The path, which had been wide enough for two people to walk side by side when we started out, narrowed gradually until it was barely wide enough for one. Mentally, I measured the distance between myself and the cliff edge. One step off the path, another, then nothing but sweet air.

  I glanced back the way we’d come, to the small, enclosed fields. I put out my hand to steady myself, feeling underneath it crumbling dirt, the ever-present basalt.

  I said, ‘Any number of players could have been dialling up from Canberra.’

  Fallon didn’t argue the point. He lifted his eyes to the horizon. ‘Around the next curve and we’ll see it. You’re lucky it’s a fine day. I’ve been up here in the rain and fog. All weathers.’

  ‘Niall claimed he was being followed, stalked.’

  Fallon was still looking out over the sea. It seemed that he answered reluctantly. ‘It was an action MUD. One of the things it was about was being followed, chased, and killed.’

  ‘Whoever was harassing Niall might have had a purpose outside the MUD.’

  Fallon repeated, ‘If he didn’t like it he could have left.’

  ‘Why did you like it?’

  ‘Because it gave a pu
rpose and a shape to life.’

  We drew near enough to make out Dunluce’s tower and gatehouse, the battered wall that was a continuation of the cliffs, protecting the buildings behind it from storms and savage winds. Under a clear sky, the castle looked benign, though it was easy to imagine its outline barely visible through fog, its grey stone struck by storm.

  ‘Can we go inside?’

  ‘Of course. It’s open all year round.’

  The entrance was right at the back and it took us a while to get there. We paid our admission to a bored-looking young woman who said hello to Fallon.

  I would have been glad for him to stay and talk to her—indeed, I would have liked nothing better than to be left to wander around on my own—but after explaining to the woman, who looked amused to hear it, that he was showing the local attractions to his Australian visitor, he guided me with him through the turnstile.

  The castle buildings covered so large an area that the outer wall might once have enclosed and protected a whole village. We crossed mounds of shockingly green grass, passed bits of walls with signs explaining what they’d once been attached to.

  Fallon said, ‘You can’t get onto the outer wall. It isn’t safe.’

  ‘Well then’—I glanced at him to see how serious he was—‘I’ll get as close to it as I can.’

  I was feeling strangely detached from everything, from the ruins, the history. I was glad of the cold breeze around my ears keeping me alert, pleased to find that there were few other sightseers.

  Fallon had told me as we were leaving the village that I should take my time, that he had all day if I did, as though what he wished me to see and understand could not be rushed.

  A fence about twenty metres from the outer wall warned visitors to go no further. I climbed over it. With a grunt of annoyance, Fallon did the same.

  Close up, the outer wall was obviously not in good nick at all. Parts of it were okay, enough to give a solid impression from a distance, but many stones had fallen, and it looked as though the next big storm might send great chunks of it crashing into the sea.

  I walked to the edge and looked down. There wasn’t a single bush, no vegetation other than grass and lichens. Closer to the ocean, there was only rock, a sheer drop.

  Fallon stood a couple of metres behind me. I put out my hand and ran it along one of the stones that had become dislodged, nudging it to see how much it would take to send it careering downwards.

  ‘Why did you want me to come here?’ I asked.

  Fallon walked right up to me and laid his hand on the same stone, not as I had done, out of curiosity, and to gauge its remaining strength. It seemed an act, a reminder, of possession.

  ‘Who told you another player was stalking Ferdia?’ he asked.

  ‘Bridget Connell.’

  ‘I thought we’d established Bridget is a liar.’

  ‘That doesn’t mean she can’t decide to tell the truth. And Niall, the more I learn about him, the more he strikes me as a truthful person.’

  ‘He was loyal.’

  ‘To you?’

  ‘I wanted to believe he was.’

  ‘If Niall told Bridget he was being stalked, surely he would have told you too.’

  ‘You forget, he and I weren’t on the best of terms.’

  ‘But you were in a good position to catch the stalker. Being God.’

  ‘I was that.’

  ‘What did you find?’

  ‘Nothing out of the ordinary. On a busy night, there could be twenty hits from new players. Some would only last five minutes.’

  ‘But they all had to sign up and be given a password and a character?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘And they wouldn’t all be logging on from the Monaro Hospital.’

  Fallon was silent.

  ‘Trust me,’ I said. ‘I’m trusting you.’

  His eyes took on a glittering hardness, and he looked up past me again, to the open sea. Perhaps he was remembering Niall, or Ferdia, or some fusion of the two that shone in his mind more brightly than any living person. His eyes darkened even further, and his face closed in on itself, becoming ugly. He looked suddenly much older, fixed. I saw how he would be when youth left him. I’d ceased to matter, my niggling questions and reasons for asking them. It was as though the wind and the elemental fastness of castle and cliff had stripped a layer from him, revealing what was underneath.

  Then he shook his shoulders as though preparing himself for some final effort. ‘I didn’t kill Niall, if that’s what you came here to find out.’

  ‘Who did?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Was it the same person who sent you that picture?’

  ‘I honestly don’t know.’

  ‘Help me work it out.’

  The towers and dark stone walls were as deserted as if there were never any sightseers, as if the gulls had the fortress to themselves.

  ‘Don’t you find,’ I said, ‘this whole business of castles and battles a bit old hat? After all, Tony Blair’s just shaken hands with Gerry Adams, and most of Northern Ireland, so I understand, is trying to look forwards, not backwards.’

  Fallon said coldly, ‘It remains to be seen whether Blair, like so many British prime ministers before him, will prove to be a Judas.’

  ‘So what about Niall?’

  ‘Is politics just a game to you in Australia then?’

  I bit back a retort.

  ‘You know I think it must be,’ Fallon said. ‘All very well to condescend to us, then fly back home to sleep snug in your bed.’

  ‘But there is a possibility of compromise?’

  Fallon winced. ‘Niall did what he felt he had to do, Sandra. I think you should take that back to his mother, or whoever sent you here. And then I think that, out of respect for our mutual friend, you should let the matter rest.’

  Thirteen

  I returned the car to the office of the rental company, and was booked on a flight to Sydney via London early the next morning. My one night in Belfast. I decided I would walk, not plan where I was going, just walk. There were a lot of people in the streets, young couples with babies and toddlers in the universal, tag-along position, women of my age and older, carrying their shopping home.

  Puddles of rainwater reflected streetlights, and the whole centre of the city seemed floodlit, black and silver. I had a weird impulse to stay, find out something about the place. I could ring Ivan and say I’d been unavoidably delayed, or else say nothing. Go AWOL. Abscond.

  The street I was in gave onto a large square. I stood staring across it at the city hall. I remembered seeing the square on television, after the 1995 ceasefire, when Bill Clinton had lit the lights on a huge Christmas tree. The cameras had focused on reflected light, just as my eyes were doing now, the shadowed square with foreign dignitaries muffled up in coats. Music, and a tree bursts forth.

  Tonight, the square was empty. It was too early for Christmas decorations. I didn’t feel like stepping out across it, but decided rather to skirt around the edges. In my pocket I had the address of the Bobby Sands wall mural, and a vague idea of finding it. I thought of Sorley Fallon, trained in the lightning time frame of computers, choosing to spend his energy crafting legendary battles which the Irish always won.

  I loved walking at night. It was funny the way something as simple and apparently innocent as streetlights reflected in a puddle could flip through memories and give them a connection.

  I recalled the night I’d sneaked through Canberra’s back streets to visit my old boss, suspended on charges of computer theft and fraud, my broken arm in a black sling, afraid that I was being followed. Nights when I was young, scouring Europe on my own. I’d never got as far west as Ireland. I’d stood and stared for hours at Italian and French buildings, top-heavy with the kind of history bewildering to a third ­generation Australian, content at the time to let impressions mean as much or as little as they would, rain and light and shadows.

  A fool’s journey. I�
�d been warned. Ivan and Brook had both warned me. I thought of Moira Howley and what little I had to take back to her, then of Yeats’s poem, The Second Coming. When I got home, I’d ferret out my Selected Poems and refresh my memory.

  It was the nature of ambushes not to be predicted or foreseen. Just as it seemed to be in the nature of some people—I thought again of Fallon—not to be bowled over by an ambush, but to set about turning it to their advantage. What did such people learn about themselves and others as a consequence?

  Being young and single, studying poetry at university. Looking back, I realised that those years had been the time of greatest peace between me and my mother, years of truce, when I was no longer at home, under her winged shadow, before I joined the workforce and began, once again, to disappoint her. My mother had expected me to hold fast to her values and to act on them, and at the same time to be everything she wasn’t.

  A shape with lion body and the head of a man,

  A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun

  Niall Howley in flight, an Icarus no one would make a poem of, however much his mother might yearn for a poem, or a song of praise. In flight on a winter’s night in Canberra, unwitnessed until a tiny Polish kitchen hand on her way to work was startled by a shape in the fog, a burst of yellow hair.

  Fallon in mind again. The beast in the poem seemed connected to him. The reckoning took an immediate and cruel form.

  . . .

  I’d scarcely taken two steps inside my hotel room when the phone rang.

  ‘I found something,’ Ivan said. ‘In Niall’s room. Tucked into the cover of one of his textbooks, would you believe?’

  ‘How—?’ I began, but Ivan cut me off. ‘Something the little bugger didn’t want anyone to know about.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Numbers.’

  The line went fuzzy for a second. It had been as clear as though Ivan was standing next to me.

  ‘What numbers?’ I shouted.

  ‘No need to raise the roof, Sandy. Your ears might be gummed up, but mine are perfectly okay. Don’t worry. Have it cracked by the time your feet hit the tarmac.’