The van door opened and a rush of cold air blew in upon her. The boy with the mop of hair was grinning at her.
'The Commander says if you're fond of fireworks come and take a look. It's a lovely sight.'
She stumbled out of the van after him, rubbing her eyes. They had parked beside a ditch, and beyond the ditch was a field, a river surely running through it, but the foreground was dark. She could distinguish little except what seemed to be farm buildings around a bend in the road. The sky in the distance had an orange glow as if the sun, instead of setting hours ago, had risen in the north, putting all time to odds, while tongues of flame shot upwards, merging with pillars of black smoke. Nick was standing by the driver's seat, the driver himself alongside, both of them staring at the sky. A muffled voice was speaking from a radio fixed near to the dashboard.
'What is it?' she asked. 'What's happening'?'
The driver, a middle-aged man with a furrowed face, turned to her, smiling.
'It's Armagh burning, or the best part of it. But there'll be no damage done to the cathedral. St Patrick's will stand when the rest of the town is black.'
The young man with the mop of hair had bent his ear to the radio. He straightened himself, touched Nick on the arm.
'First explosion has gone off at Omagh, sir,' he said. 'We should have the report on Strabane in three minutes' time. Enniskillen in five.'
'Fair enough,' replied Nick. 'Let's go.'
He bundled Shelagh back into the van and climbed in beside her. The van sprang into action, did a U-turn, and sped along the road once more.
'I might have known it,' she said. 'I should have guessed. But you had me fooled with your cairns in the wood and all that cover-up.'
'It isn't a cover-up. I've a passion for digging. But I love explosions too.'
He offered her a nip from the flask but she shook her head. 'You're a murderer. Helpless people away there burning in their beds, women and children dying perhaps in hundreds.' 'Dying nothing,' he replied. 'They'll be out in the streets applauding. You mustn't believe Murphy. He lives in a dream world. The town of Armagh will hardly feel it. A warehouse or two may smoulder, with luck the barracks.'
'And the other places the boy mentioned?'
'A firework display. Very effective.'
It was all so obvious now, thinking back to that last conversation with her father. He had been on to it all right. Duty before friendship. Loyalty to his country first. No wonder the pair of them had stopped exchanging Christmas cards.
Nick took an apple from the shelf above and began to munch it. 'So…' he said, 'you're a budding actress.'
'Budding is the operative word.'
'Oh come, don't be modest. You'll go far. You tricked me almost as neatly as I tricked you. All the same, I'm not sure I quite swallow the one about the friend with naval connections. Tell me his name.'
'I won't. You can kill me first.'
Thank heaven for Jennifer Blair. She would not have stood a chance as Shelagh Money.
'Oh well,' he said, 'it doesn't matter. It's all past history now.'
'Then the dates did make sense to you?'
'Very good sense, but we were amateurs in those days. June 5, 1951, a raid on Ebrington Barracks, Derry. Quite a success. June 25, 1953, Felstead School Officers' Training Corps, Essex. Bit of a mix-up. June 12, 1954, Gough Barracks, Armagh. Nothing much gained, but good for morale. October 17, 1954, Omagh Barracks. Brought us some recruits. April 24, 1955, Eglington Naval Air Base at Derry. H'm… No comment. August 13, 1955, Arborfield Depot, Berkshire. Initial success, but a proper cock-up later. After that, everyone had to do a lot of homework.'
There was an Italian opera by Puccini with a song in it, '0! my beloved father'. It always made her cry. Anyway, she thought, wherever you are, darling, in your astral body, don't blame me for what I've done, and may very well do again before the night is over. It was one way to settle your last request, though you wouldn't have approved of the method. But then, you had high ideals and I have none. And what happened in those days was not my problem. My problem is much more basic, much more direct. I've fallen hook, line and sinker for your onetime friend.
'Politics leave me cold,' she said. 'What's the point of banging off bombs and upsetting everyone's lives? You hope for a united Ireland?'
'Yes,' he replied, 'so do we all. It will come eventually, though it may be dull for some of us when it does. Take Murphy, now. No excitement in driving a grocer's van around the countryside and being in bed by nine. This sort of thing keeps him young. If that's to be his future in a united Ireland he'll die before his seventieth birthday. I said to him last week when he came to the island for briefing, "Johnnie's too young"-Johnnie's his son, the boy sitting beside him in front now "Johnnie's too young," I told him. "Maybe we shouldn't let him risk his life yet awhile." "Risk be damned," says Murphy. "It's the only way to keep a lad out of trouble, with the world in the state it is today."'
'You're all of you raving mad,' said Shelagh. 'I'll feel safer when we're back across your side of the border.'
'My side of the border?' he repeated. 'We never crossed it. What do you take me for? I've done some damnfool things in my time, but I wouldn't bounce about in a grocer's van in hostile territory. I wanted you to see the fun, that's all. Actually, I'm only a consultant these days. "Ask Commander Barry," somebody says, "he may have a suggestion or two to make," and I come in from clearing cairns or writing history, and get cracking on the short wave. It keeps me young in heart, like Murphy.' He began pulling down some of the loaves from the rack and settling them under his head. 'That's better. Gives me support for my neck. I once made love to a girl with my backside against a heap of hand-grenades, but I was younger then. Girl never fluffed. Thought they were turnips.'
Oh no, she thought. Not again. I can't take any more just yet. The battle's over, won. I'll sue for peace. All I want to do now is to lie like this, with my legs thrown across his knees and my head on his shoulder. This is safety.
'Don't,' she said.
'Oh really? No stamina?'
'Stamina nothing, I'm suffering from shock. I shall smoulder for days, like your barracks in Armagh. By the way, I belong by rights to the Protestant north. My grandfather was born there.'
'Was he, indeed? That explains everything. You and I have a love-hate relationship. It's always the same with people who share a common border. Attraction and antagonism mixed. Very peculiar.'
'I dare say you're right.'
'Of course I'm right. When I lost my eye in the car crash I had letters of sympathy from dozens of people across the border who would gladly have seen me dead.'
'How long were you in hospital?'
'Six weeks. Plenty of time to think. And plan.'
Now, she thought. This is the moment. Go carefully, watch your step.
'That photograph,' she said, 'that photograph on your desk. It's a phoney, isn't it?'
He laughed. 'Oh well, it takes an actress to spot deception. A throwback to the days of practical jokes. It makes me smile whenever I look at it, that's why I keep it on my desk. I've never been married, I invented that tale on the spur of the moment for your benefit.'
'Tell me about it.'
He shifted position to ensure greater comfort for both of them.
'The real bridegroom was Jack Money, a very close friend. I saw he died the other day, I was sorry for it. We'd been out of touch for years. Anyway, I was his best man. When they sent me a print of the wedding-group I switched the heads round and sent a copy to Jack. He laughed his head off, but Pam, his wife, was not amused. Outraged, in fact. He told me she tore the thing up and threw the pieces in the waste-paper basket.'
She would, thought Shelagh, she would. I bet she didn't even smile.
'I got my own back, though,' he said, moving one of the loaves from under his head. 'I dropped in on them one evening unexpectedly. Jack was out at some official dinner. Pam received me rather ungraciously, so I mixed the martinis extra strong, and had a
rough-and-tumble with her on the sofa. She giggled a bit, then passed out cold. I upset all the furniture to look as if a cyclone had hit the house, and carried her up to her bed and dumped her there. On her own, I may add. She'd forgotten all about it by the morning.'
Shelagh lay back against his shoulder and stared at the roof of the van.
'I knew it,' she said.
'Knew what?'
'That your generation did perfectly revolting things. Far worse than us. Under your best friend's roof. It makes me sick to think of it.'
'What an extraordinary statement,' he said, astonished. 'No one was ever the wiser, so what the hell? I was devoted to Jack Money, although he did bog my chances of promotion shortly afterwards, but for a different reason. He only acted according to his lights. Thought I might put a spoke in the slowly-grinding wheels of naval intelligence, I presume, and he was bloody right.'
Now I can't tell him. It's just not on. Either I go back to England battered and defeated, or I don't go at all. He's deceived my father, deceived my mother (serve her right), deceived the England he fought for for so many years, tarnished the uniform he wore, degraded his rank, spends his time now, and has done for the past twenty years, trying to split this country wider apart than ever, and I just don't care. Let them wrangle. Let them blow themselves to pieces. Let the whole world go up in smoke. I'll write him a bread-and-butter letter from London saying, 'Thanks for the ride,' and sign it Shelagh Money. Or else… or else I'll go down on all fours like the little dog who follows him and leaps on his lap, and beg to stay with him forever.
'I start rehearsing Viola in a few days' time,' she said. "My father had a daughter loved a man…" '
'You'll do it very well. Especially Cesario. Concealment like a worm in the bud will feed on your damask cheek. You may pine in thought, but I doubt with a green and yellow melancholy.'
Murphy did another U-turn and the loaves rattled. How many miles to Lough Torrah? Don't let it end.
'The trouble is,' she said, 'I don't want to go home. It's not home to me any more. Nor do I care two straws for the Theatre Group, Twelfth Night, or anything else. You can have Cesario.'
'I can indeed.'
'No… What I mean is, I'm willing to chuck the stage, give up my English status, burn all my bloody boats, and come and throw bombs with you.'
'What, become a recluse?'
'Yes, please.'
'Absurd. You'd be yawning your head off after five days.' 'I would not… I would not…'
'Think of all that applause you'll be getting soon. Viola-Cesario is a cinch. I tell you what. I won't send you flowers for your opening night, I'll send you my eye-shade. You can hang it up in your dressing-room to bring you luck.'
I want too much, she thought. I want everything. I want day and night, arrows and Agincourt, sleeping and waking, world without end, amen. Someone warned her once that it was fatal to tell a man you loved him. They kicked you out of bed forthwith. Perhaps Nick would kick her out of Murphy's van.
'What I really want,' she said, 'deep down, is stillness, safety. The feeling you'd always be there. I love you. I think I must have loved you without knowing it all my life.'
'Ah! ' he said. 'Who's groaning now?'
The van drew up, stopped. Nick crawled forward, threw open the doors. Murphy appeared at the entrance, his furrowed face wreathed in smiles.
'I hope I didn't shake you about too much,' he said. 'The side roads are not all they should be, as the Commander knows. The main thing is that the young lady should have enjoyed her outing.'
Nick jumped down on to the road. Murphy put out his hand and helped Shelagh to alight.
'You're welcome to come again, my dear, any time you like.
It's what I tell the English tourists when they visit us. Things are more lively here than what they are across the water.'
Shelagh looked around her, expecting to see the lake, and the bumpy track near the reeds where they had left Michael with the boat. Instead, they were standing in the main street of Ballyfane. The van was parked outside the Kilmore Arms. She turned to Nick, her face 'a question-mark. Murphy was knocking on the hotel door.
'Twenty minutes' more driving time, but worth it,' said Nick. 'At least for me, and I hope for you as well. Farewells should be sharp and sweet, don't you agree? There's Doherty at the door, so cut along in. I have to get back to base.'
Desolation struck. He could not mean it. He surely did not expect her to say goodbye on the side of the street, with Murphy and his son hovering, and the landlord at the entrance of the hotel?
'My things,' she said, 'my case. They're on the island, in the bedroom there.'
'Not so,' he told her. 'Operation C brought them back to the Kilmore Arms while we were junketing about on the border.' Desperately she fought for time, pride non-existent.
'Why?' she asked. 'Why?'
'Because that's the way it is, Cesario. I sacrifice the lamb that I do love to spite my own raven heart, which alters the text a bit.'
He pushed her in front of him towards the door of the hotel. 'Look after Miss Blair, Tim. The exercise went well, by all accounts. Miss Blair is the only casualty.'
He had gone, and the door had closed behind him. Mr Doherty looked at her with sympathy.
'The Commander is a great one for hustle. It's always the same. I know what it is to be in his company, he seldom lets up. I've put a thermos of hot milk beside your bed.'
He limped up the stairs before her, and threw open the door of the bedroom she had quitted two nights earlier. Her suitcase was on the chair. Bag and maps on the dressing-table. She might never ha'e left it. 'Your car has been washed and filled up with petrol,' he continued. 'A friend of mine has it in his garage. He'll bring it round for you in the morning. And there's no charge for your stay. The Commander will settle for everything. Just you get to bed now and have a good night's rest.'
A good night's rest…. A long night's melancholy. Come away, come away, death, and in sad cypress let me be laid. She threw open the window and looked out upon the street. Drawn curtains and blinds, shuttered windows. The black-and-white cat mewing from the gutter opposite. No lake, no moonlight.
'The trouble with you is, Jinnie, you won't grow up. You live in a dream world that doesn't exist. That's why you opted for the stage.' Her father's voice, indulgent but firm. 'One of these days,' he added, 'you'll come to with a shock.'
It was raining in the morning, misty, grey. Better, perhaps, like this, she thought, than golden bright like yesterday. Better to go off in the hired Austin with windscreen wipers slashing from side to side, and then with luck I might skid and crash in a ditch, be carried to hospital, become delirious, clamour for him to come. Nick kneeling at the bedside, holding her hand and saying, 'All my fault, I should never have sent you away.'
The little maid was waiting for her in the dining-room. Fried egg-and-bacon. A pot of tea. The cat, come in from the gutter, purred at her feet. Perhaps the telephone would ring, and a message would flash from the island before she left. 'Operation D put into effect. The boat is waiting for you.' Possibly, if she hovered about in the hall, something would happen. Murphy would appear in his van, or even the postmaster O'Reilly with a few words scribbled on a piece of paper. Her luggage was down, though, and the Austin was in the street outside. Mr Doherty was waiting to say goodbye.
'I hope I shall have the pleasure,' he said, 'of welcoming you to Ballyfane again. You'd enjoy the fishing.'
When she came to the signpost pointing to Lake Torrah she stopped the car and walked down the muddied track in the pouring rain. One never knew, the boat might be there. She came to the end of the track and stood there a moment, looking out across the lake. It was shrouded deep in mist. She could barely see the outline of the island. A heron rose from the reeds and flapped its way over the water. I could take off all my things and swim, she thought. I could just about make it, exhausted, almost drowned, and stagger through the woods to the house and fall at his feet on the verandah. 'Bob
, come quick! It's Miss Blair. I think she's dying…'
She turned, walked back up the track and got into the car. Started the engine, and the windscreen wipers began thrashing to and fro.
When that I was and a little tiny boy,
With hey, ho, the wind and the rain,
A foolish thing was but a toy,
For the rain it raineth every day.
It was still raining when she arrived at Dublin airport. First she had to get rid of the car, then book a seat on the first available 'plane to London. She did not have long to wait there was a flight taking off within the next half-hour. She sat in the departure lounge with her eyes fixed on the door leading back to the reception hall, for even now a miracle might take place, the door swing open, a lanky figure stand there, hatless, black patch over his left eye. He would brush past officials, come straight towards her. 'No more practical jokes. That was the last. Come back with me to Lamb Island right away.'
Her flight was called, and Shelagh shuffled through with the rest, her eyes searching her fellow-travellers. Walking across the tarmac she turned to stare at the spectators waving goodbye. Someone tall in a mackintosh held a handkerchief in his hand. Not him-he stooped to pick up a child…. Men in overcoats taking off hats, putting dispatch-cases on the rack overhead, any one of them could have been, was not, Nick. Supposing, as she fastened her safety-belt, a hand came out from the seat in front of her, on the aisle, and she recognised the signet-ring on the little finger? What if the man humped there in the very front seat she could just see the top of his slightly balding head should suddenly turn, black patch foremost, and stare in her direction, then break into a smile?
Not After Midnight & Other Stories Page 17