This Irish House

by Jeanette Baker

  When he’d finished, Neil stared down at her anguished face. He couldn’t leave her. Unlacing his shoes, he stretched out on the bed, on top of the covers and closed his eyes. The day had been one of the longest of his life.

  Kate awakened slowly. She kept her eyes closed. An unfamiliar heaviness pinned her down. Something was wrong. Her head pounded relentlessly and her mind refused to focus. She’d felt like this before for months, no, it was years, after Patrick died, coming awake in the early hours of dawn, knowing instinctively that nothing would ever be the same again, but still too fuzzy to remember why. Then the flash of memory, the edge of pain and the long, endless hours until she could sleep again.

  Experimentally she opened one eye and then the other. She was in an unfamiliar room. The curtains were pulled against the light. She couldn’t tell what time it was. She felt cocooned, her arms trapped against her sides. A sharp pain shot through her left temple, and her mouth and throat were cotton-dry. Shifting slightly, she turned her head and opened her eyes. Recognition hit her full force. For fifteen years she’d awakened with a man’s arms wrapped around her. It wasn’t something a woman forgot. But this wasn’t Patrick, it was Neil. Neil was the man she was pressed against. Neil had stayed the night in her room, in her bed. She waited for the disapproval she was sure would resurrect itself if she gave it some time. Neither happened. She was tired, so very tired. Burrowing her head against his chest, she gave herself up to the fatigue and slept.

  It was late morning when she woke again. This time she was alone. The pain in her head was gone. Grateful to be spared Neil’s questions, she swung her legs over the bed and headed for the bathroom. Turning on the tap, she bent down and drank until the raw burn in her throat subsided. She wiped her mouth with the back of her hand and straightened. Her reflection in the mirror shocked her. Hastily she shed her slip and panties, turned on the shower tap and stepped into the tub. The mist was hot and fine and satisfying. She tilted her head back. The spray ran down her cheeks and chin. Kate soaped her breasts, her belly and back, her legs, the hard to reach spaces between each toe and then she shampooed her hair. Fifteen minutes later, warm, scrubbed clean and towel-wrapped, she sat down on the floor in front of the long mirror and contemplated the last twenty-four hours in the logical, straightforward manner that had cemented her professional reputation.

  She had lost two things. No, she amended; she’d never really had them. Patrick had never been a loyal, loving husband and Maeve had never been her friend, not by true definition. The man she loved and believed in had never existed. Maeve, the woman she confided in, had come from Patrick’s bed to Kate’s kitchen table. It was ludicrous, really, all that had escaped her. She thought back to all the nights she’d spent alone, to her ignorance of her husband’s schedule and whereabouts, to the odd phone calls and hushed meetings where the silence was thick with tension and resentment and the conversation stilted if she interrupted, to the business trips where she wasn’t invited. Not that he could have taken her with him, she rationalized. It was too dangerous and she had the children. Yet, he’d taken Maeve.

  She fed on her hurt, creating ludicrous, imaginary scenarios. It was a tactic she used often to dull the pain. Imagine the worst and, for the most part, it never happened. Her husband, the man she loved more than life, had preferred another woman. It was Maeve who had accompanied him. It wasn’t too dangerous for Maeve and she wasn’t burdened with Patrick’s children.

  Kate twisted the edge of her towel. The pain was new and raw as if the events had happened yesterday instead of six years ago. She felt furious, betrayed, shaken, a woman on the edge of her nerves, unsure of how to go on, wondering if she could swim from the bottom into the light. She had no experience with deceit. It had never occurred to her that her own husband, Patrick Nolan, as close to a legend as a contemporary man could be, had walked in it, fed on it every waking moment of his adult life.

  What was real? Kate asked herself. Were there moments when he was hers alone, when the life they’d created was enough? Did Patrick ever long to be an ordinary man with nothing more on his mind than rising interest rates? She untied the towel and looked at her naked body. She was nothing like Maeve. What had he seen in her, a too-thin woman, all eyes and legs and sensible hair?

  The questions tumbled over each other, each one leading to another more twisted than the one before. She would have liked to ask him. She would have liked him to be alive, to do what? Kill him. The words slipped into her consciousness before she could screen them and push them away, thoughts unworthy of saintly Kate Nolan, Patrick’s widow. The Kate Nolan she knew would never have formulated such an uncharitable thought.

  “I hate you, Patrick Nolan,” she said out loud. “I’m glad you’re dead.” Immediately she felt better.

  A knock on the door startled her. She didn’t get up. “Yes.”

  “It’s Neil. I wondered if you’d like breakfast.”

  “No, thank you.”

  She felt his presence and his hesitation. Why didn’t he go away?

  “Please open the door, Kate.”

  “I’m not dressed.”

  “I won’t come in. I just want to see you.”

  Reluctantly Kate retied the towel and padded to the door on bare feet. She opened it a crack and peeked through. Neil held out a tray with a pot of tea, milk and sugar, two sugary pastries and a single cup and saucer. She opened the door wider.

  “I thought you might like some privacy this morning,” he said.

  She took the tray. “Thank you, Neil. You’re very thoughtful.”

  “Are you all right, Kate?”

  “I need to sort out a few things. Would you mind if I met you this afternoon at the airport?”

  He looked as if he were about to speak, but then changed his mind. “Of course not.”

  She drank the tea but could only manage a bite of pastry. Then she crawled back into bed, pulled the covers over her shoulders and closed her eyes. Kate recognized her need for sleep. She was no stranger to emotional shock. Her body reacted by shutting down until her mind was ready to deal with the mess that was her life.

  John O’Donnell had a bad feeling. It wasn’t something he could put his finger on. He just knew. He’d felt this way ever since his visit with Kevin the day before. The boy was confused and for the first time in the lad’s sixteen years, his grandfather couldn’t reach him. Their conversation had been stilted and formal, a disappointment for John, a chore for Kevin. When had he lost the lad? John racked his brain to remember an event, a moment. There were none. Somewhere the boy had shifted his thinking and John despaired of getting him back on the right track. Tranquility House didn’t seem to be accomplishing much. Kevin was still sullen, still defiant and, it seemed to John, still without the slightest hint of remorse or feeling of responsibility for what he’d done.

  John thought back to his own children. They were different than children today, or were they? Had he ever really known his the way he knew Kevin and Deirdre? His life had been a round of work and chores and the quest for enough sleep to begin the cycle over again. He’d had no time for his children. They were Eileen’s responsibilities. Eileen with her sharp tongue and her quick hands and her penchant for criticism had screamed and slapped her children into submission. Not once had he stepped in, hesitant to intrude, assuming that child rearing was a woman’s business. In retrospect, he would do it differently if only he could go back. He thought of Kate and the others. There was no going back, but there was Kevin. He wouldn’t give up on Kevin. Perhaps hearing the truth about his father and his uncles would bring him around. He would go back tomorrow. Tomorrow their conversation would be nothing like today. Tomorrow he would tell Kevin what he knew about the Nolans. He would show him that living the hate-infested life his uncles lived cut a man off before his time, made him bitter and twisted with little left for personal happiness. Liam and Dominick were bachelors, men married to a dead cause. Patrick had paid the ultimate price. John would show Kevin there was more
to life than paranoia and secrecy, interrupted nights and directionless lives. He would make the lad listen. Kevin was a good boy. He would come around.

  Twenty-Four

  Gerry Donovan rubbed his grizzled chin. He stood with one foot on the edge of a straight-backed chair and the other on the ground. His eyes were blank, focused on some point outside the window of the small room where six men sporting the blue denims and black jackets of the organization stood around him waiting deferentially. Donovan’s world was West Belfast. He’d joined the guerillas thirty-three years earlier, after the barricade of the city. In the seventies he’d orchestrated and led the daring escape from Long Kesh, the largest, most successful escape of the century where one hundred seventeen prisoners climbed out of an underground tunnel to freedom.

  Times had changed. There were only forty or so left in the Belfast Division of the Irish Republican Army. The group was close-knit. Leadership was passed down within families or came from within the ranks of Sinn Fein, the political wing representing the Nationalist party. The officer commanding headed the structure. Then came the Belfast Brigade Command, ten men, give or take a few, headed by three Sinn Fein officials. Next in line was the command staff, responsible for supplying all weapons, the engineering staff for constructing bombs, the finance staff for securing funds and the internal security unit for exposing and eliminating informers. The groupings were no more than two or three men each, operating like a family rather than a military structure. Everyone knew everyone else. In Belfast it was impossible to breach the security of the IRA.

  Donovan was a third generation revolutionary. Like his father and grandfather, he lived to see his country free from British Rule at whatever the cost. There wasn’t a male member of his family who hadn’t done time in Long Kesh. The Peace Accord did not interest him nor did democracy or compromise if it included Protestants. It was immaterial to him that the IRA was no longer popular. He wanted Ireland ruled by the Irish. His reputation as the craftiest, most audacious terrorist on the RUC’s wanted list was secure. As leader of the Internal Security Unit, he’d grown accustomed to killing. It was the price of freedom. It no longer disturbed him. He couldn’t remember a time when it had. Still, something about Dominick Nolan’s logic bothered him. Taking a man’s life had to have some purpose. Nothing would be gained by assassinating Peter Clarke. Nolan’s reasoning was filled with holes.

  Using a quick hand signal, Gerry emptied the room. He waited until the last of his men had filed out before turning to Dominick. The two men measured each other for long minutes. Finally Gerry spoke. “What’s this all about?”

  It never occurred to Dominick to lie. “He’s Clarke’s son. We’ll never have another opportunity like this.”

  “Why should we do it at all? The RUC will be on us like maggots on rot.”

  Dominick’s blue eyes glittered. “We should do it for Patrick.”

  “Patrick’s been gone a long time, lad. I’m not sure he would want us to risk this. He was never one to enforce ‘an-eye-for-an-eye’ unless it made good sense.”

  “Patrick was the best friend you ever had.”

  Gerry’s right hand closed into a fist. “I don’t need you to tell me that.”

  Dominick pressed him. “How can you let this pass? Geoffrey Clarke was in on the murder. You know that. It’s in the file.”

  “We’re not discussing Clarke. It’s his son you want us to take out. Jesus, Dom, the boy’s nineteen years old.”

  “How old was Timmy when he died, or Danny McCarthy or Max or Sean?”

  Gerry shook his head. “They were involved. This boy isn’t. Besides, things have changed. No one will put this one through.”

  Dominick knew the way he worded his answer would mean everything. He began slowly, calmly, as if such a request were an everyday occurrence. “I don’t think we should wait for a consensus,” he said softly. “If we do this on our own it will go more easily. Fewer will be involved. The risk will be less.”

  “Are you suggesting we take out the son of a constable without permission?”

  “No. What I’m saying is, we should go straight to the top.”

  “The lads won’t like your going over their heads, Dom.”

  “We’ll get the Okay from Tom. That’s good enough for me.” Dominick willed his voice to remain neutral. “What about you?”

  Gerry waited a full ten seconds before answering. He recognized his own fallibility. Too many killings had jaded him. He couldn’t trust his own judgment. He would rely on those above him. “If the officer commanding agrees, I’m in,” he said at last.

  Dominick released his breath and shook off his anger. How in bloody hell was anyone to get anything done if an assassin like Gerry Donovan had reservations? “I’ll be in touch,” he said shortly and left the room.

  Gerry stayed behind for a good ten more minutes. Dominick’s loyalty was irrefutable but he was a hothead, nothing at all like his older brothers, Liam and Patrick. Gerry’s instincts told him there was more involved than a vengeance killing. He wasn’t about to let Dominick relay Tom McGinnis’s message second hand. He would contact the officer commanding himself, even if it meant breaking the chain of command. Taking out a nineteen-year-old university student who happened to be a constable’s son was a serious matter.

  “Are you bloody daft?” Tom McGinnis leaned over the scarred table of his favorite pub and pointed an angry finger at Dominick. “We’re not butchers. You’re in the wrong organization, lad, if you think I’d allow something like this.”

  “We’ve done it before, and for less.”

  “We agreed to a ceasefire after the Good Friday Agreement and we’ve kept our bargain.”

  “People have died.”

  McGinnis shook his head. His full, pocked face was very red. “Not on my watch and not by my order. We’re not terrorists, Dominick. Sinn Fein is trying to do something here. There’s no sympathy for a guerilla force, not today. Catholics are working, attending university, landing skilled jobs. They don’t need us to fight their battles anymore.”

  “Are you saying we should tuck our tails between our legs and slink away?”

  The older man shrugged and emptied his Stout. “Maybe so. It’s comforting to lay your head on a pillow and know you’ve nothing to be afraid of.”

  “What about Patrick?”

  McGinnis’s eyes narrowed. “Patrick wouldn’t have wanted the boy dead.”

  “Patrick was my brother. I knew him better than anyone.”

  “What about his wife?”

  Dominick snorted derisively. “Kate? She knew nothing about him.”

  “She arranged for a reopening of the investigation,” McGinnis said. “She’s got the prime minister’s ear.”

  “How do you know?”

  “We have our sources.”

  “Has she found anything?”

  McGinnis looked up.

  “I mean anything we don’t know,” Dominick amended.

  McGinnis turned his empty glass around on the table, leaving wet ring marks. “She knows about Maeve.”

  Dominick swore. “Damn the woman. Can’t she leave it alone?”

  “She was his wife,” McGinnis reminded him. “Without her we wouldn’t know who was responsible for Patrick’s murder. Don’t underestimate Kate Nolan.”

  This time it was Dominick who leaned forward, earnest rage darkening the blue of his eyes. “What will we do with those names, Tom? Is it all to be for nothing?”

  “Whatever we do will not include the murder of an innocent boy.” McGinnis pushed his chair away from the table and stood. “That’s my final decision. You won’t be changing my mind, Dominick. Leave it.” He hesitated. “Don’t be thinking to do this one on your own. We won’t be backing you. The charge will be murder. You’ll be a criminal doing hard time, not a prisoner of war. The screws will be treating you differently. You’ll have no terms, no way of commuting your sentence. You’re a young man, Dominick. Why not think of a life for yourself, a trade, a fami
ly? Get on with it.”

  He waited for Dominick to say something. When it didn’t happen, he laid a heavy hand on his shoulder. “I’ll be seeing you, lad,” he said and left the pub.

  Dominick stared broodingly at the wall in front of him. Tom McGinnis’s word was law with both Sinn Fein and what was left of the IRA. Yet he had as much as acknowledged there was no longer any place or reason for violence in the New Northern Ireland. The IRA and other paramilitary organizations were obsolete. Perhaps Tom McGinnis was obsolete as well.

  Gerry threw a half crown to the newsboy on the corner and picked up his morning paper. Tucking it under his arm, he walked into the tea shop, ordered a pot and sat down at a table in the corner facing the door. He unwrapped his paper, glanced at the headlines and his face blanched. Tom McGinnis, scion of the Belfast IRA for more than a decade, was found dead in his Clonard home last night, presumably of natural causes. An autopsy was scheduled for later today. More details would be forthcoming.

  Tom, wily, audacious and thorough, hadn’t been more than fifty. No one had been groomed to take his place. What would they all do now? Gerry wondered. He thought back to his conversation with Dominick. The lad would be getting nothing from Tom, and the rest of them would be too confused to agree on anything. It looked as if Peter Clarke would be reprieved. Gerry wasn’t sorry. Killing innocents didn’t appeal to him. He always insisted on knowing the culpability of his target. It helped him concentrate on the deed, not the person.

  Dominick was obsessed. That could be the only explanation for this single-minded nonsense. Liam looked up from his computer and stared at this brother in disgust. “You can’t be serious. You actually crashed Geoffrey Clarke’s birthday dinner?”

  “I did.”

  “Why would you do such a thing?”

  “Because I wanted to see the swaggering bastard, that’s why. I wanted to see if I could get in.”