Irish Crystal

by Andrew M. Greeley

  “That can be arranged.”

  She pulled away from me.

  “Tell me what happened!”

  So I relayed the story of my visit to SS Faith, Home, and Lincoln Aviator and my conversation with Mike Casey.

  “Well,” she said with full authority, “I’d say that little bitch is getting what she deserves and probably loves it too.”

  “I thought such a relationship with a wife might be very interesting …”

  She hit my arm, not too hard!

  “Well, you’ll never have it with this wife!”

  “I have resigned myself to that truth.”

  “Have you now and yourself with your dirty male thoughts.”

  “Their neuroses complement one another. So it’s a functional if immature relationship.”

  “Until her spiritual director at Opus begins to ask questions about her sex life.”

  “He won’t, not as long as she keeps producing children.”

  Nuala Anne’s fist rested against my arm, now affectionate. She was losing interest in our banter—which meant she was thinking.

  “A terrible lot of tragedy in a single family, isn’t it, Dermot love?”

  “Terrible altogether.”

  “No affection at all between father and son and probably not between husbands and wives either.”

  “The human condition,” I said, no other cliché being immediately available. “Do you have any insights yet about which way we’re going?”

  “It’s still awfully vague, Dermot love.”

  She had now used that title for me twice. That meant we would surely make love that night.

  “Do you think that John and Estelle are passionate about one another?”

  “Sure, are they never! And themselves having a hard time keeping their hands off one another. ’Tis a terrible thing altogether when women are so openly seducing their husbands. No shame at all at all.”

  Her fist became a gentle hand caressing my arm.

  “You know what I’ll be after doing tomorrow, Dermot love?”

  “Something wicked, I bet?’

  “I’ll be riding down to South Michigan Avenue to see Madame and herself reprimanding me for not practicing enough and then …”

  “Then?”

  “Then won’t I walk up to the Four Seasons and have a bit of chat with Estelle Curran and then …”

  “Then ?”

  “Then I’ll go over to the Hancock Center and swim a mile!”

  “Brilliant! So we better do that shower now, so you’ll get a good night’s sleep.”

  “And meself wondering why you’ve been taking so long!”

  As Nuala herself said, it was great craic.

  18

  At my family’s home there was another mysterious letter, from the equally mysterious John Peel. It instructed me to attend him at a certain abandoned warehouse at Marshalsea inside Dublin. I borrowed one of the family steeds and rode over to the warehouse. To my astonishment it had been converted into an armory, though perhaps I could better describe it as an arms factory Bob stood at a table in the center of the floor, giving orders, making decisions, supervising the work. Some men were making pikes with collapsible handles that could be hidden under cloaks, others were mixing the materials for the making of gunpowder, still others were working on rockets, a few were oiling blunderbusses and muskets. One man was carrying containers up a decrepit staircase to a second-floor storeroom.

  “Do you like my little depot?” Bob asked me with the faint blush that was typical of his character.

  “The men of ’98 had nothing like this.”

  “No indeed. If they had, perhaps we would not be here now. We must, however, content ourselves with avoiding their mistakes while trying not to make too many of our own.”

  “You sound pessimistic.”

  “Not in the least. I am excited about the possibilities of victory, but many things have gone wrong … You have called upon Miss Curran.”

  “Yes indeed, and was spied on for the length of my stay by her smelly fool of a father.”

  “You must not be harsh on him. He has done much good work for the cause of Ireland He does not believe that the people of Ireland are ready for another bloody rising so soon after the last failure.”

  “It is not clear to me that they were ready for that one either.”

  “Perhaps you are right. Those who win write the history, do they not? One cannot expect that all the people will be on the side of freedom. However, one needs only a small percentage of brave and hardy men. When the green flag flies over Dublin Castle and the city is in the hands of the Irish army, the rest of the country will celebrate our victory and support our cause. We are the saving remnant of the scripture …”

  “And your friends in France?”

  “My brother still thinks they will arrive and in great strength in early August. We will have to rise earlier to assure Bonaparte of our seriousness.”

  “That’s a change of strategy is it not?”

  He lifted his shoulders in a negligent shrug.

  “Sometimes commanders must improvise.”

  “I understand.”

  “Did Sarah seem well?”

  “The very picture of health … a bit anxious perhaps …”

  “That is understandable … I have been able to visit with her a few times.”

  “Is that altogether prudent?”

  “She will be my wife … Surely I am entitled to an occasional risk in the name of that future relationship … I am concerned about her health. Only Richard of all her siblings is still alive …”

  Some readers of this little memoir will wonder if Robert Emmet and Sarah Curran had not already acted as husband and wife with one another. Let me put your minds at rest. Bob was that rarity in the Ireland of thirty years ago, a devout Protestant with the highest of moral ideals. Sarah was an inexperienced young woman. It is absolutely unthinkable that they would have anticipated their formal marriage. Nor would he have taken the risk of marrying her secretly and leaving her as the unprotected widow of a revolutionary.

  “August?” I asked.

  “For the Rising?”

  “Yes.”

  Again the meek little shrug.

  “Perhaps … There is pressure to move it up several weeks. I resist this, but our men are restless and impatient.”

  They were all mad, I thought. The French were not coming. Only Wexford and Kildare would send many troops. It would be a fiasco.

  At the end of the day it was a fiasco. But for a few moments on that night in July it appeared that the Rising might have a chance of victory.

  “The Castle does not know about this depot?”

  “They have not the slightest idea of its existence. Their spies are lazy and their leaders complacent. They make our work easy for us. Nor are we without resources of our own.”

  “You have spies in the Castle?”

  “I didn’t quite say that,” he said with a wink.

  “Irish spies, spying on the English. That would be an interesting innovation, Bobby.”

  He shrugged his shoulders again.

  “You will be back in Dublin in June?” he asked me.

  “For several days … Then I must go to Wexford Town to work with my bishop.”

  “He is more sympathetic to our cause than others, I understand.”

  “Not unsympathetic surely, but he does not want to see more bloodshed.”

  “Neither do I … In any case, should you want to see me then, it might be unwise to seek me either here or in the house at Harold Cross. There is a little villa at the end of Butterfield Lane in Rathfarnham that is my sanctuary. If I am there, I’ll be delighted to offer you a small drink in which we can drink a toast to the Republic of Ireland.”

  We shook hands.

  “Remember to take care of Sarah to the extent you are able.”

  “I promise.”

  I don’t know what I meant by that promise when I made it. I still don’t know.
r />   Back at home, I reflected on Bob’s mood. I thought his prediction of victory was only a ritual. He knew that they would lose on the first day. They would not capture the Castle, much less drive the English out of Dublin. Bob was prepared to die, a death he would offer for the future of Ireland. Sarah? He would die with her name on his lips. He was nonetheless a clever man. He would know how to exploit his death for his cause in ways that neither Tone nor Lord Edward would have imagined. He would not be a silent martyr. And poor, lovely, innocent Sarah would be part of his legend.

  Several days later, his “depot” blew up. Later I would learn that one of his toy rockets had detonated. The Dublin papers reported it as a fire which was easily extinguished. It seemed unthinkable that the Castle did not realize that a revolution was near at hand. In the event they did not, so confident were they of their hold on Ireland.

  “You read about the fire over in Marshalsea?” my father asked me at breakfast the next morning.

  He was in complete sympathy with any movement which would drive the English out of Dublin. However, he lacked confidence in the United Irishmen, a stand with which I could not argue.

  “I did,” I said. “Sounded a little odd.”

  “I think your friends the United Irishmen might be at it again.”

  “Does the Castle think so?”

  “Lord Hardwicke and Mr. Wickham are good men, sensible like Cornwallis and Castlereagh, but not nearly as intelligent. If Lord Charles were here, he’d smell the gunpowder in that explosion and anticipate. Stop the nonsense and save a lot of lives.”

  “It certainly would.”

  “Some of my friends say that young Emmet is one of the leaders … He’s a friend of yours, isn’t he?”

  “I thought he was still in France with his brother.”

  “That’s what everyone seems to think … Could he lead a rebellion?”

  “You’ve met him, sir. Did Bobby strike you as a leader of a revolution?”

  He laughed.

  “Hardly, meek-looking little creature. Strong voice and persuasive, still … Dan O’Connell says that we will earn home rule eventually, but only by peaceful means … What do you think?”

  He asked me my opinion often, much to my surprise.

  “I don’t take to the man, but he’s probably right.”

  “If young Emmet should lead a rising, would you go out with him like you did last time?”

  “I didn’t go out the last time, sir. I just watched.”

  “If they caught you, they could have had you up for just watching.”

  “They didn’t, sir. If there should be a rising, even one led by Bobby, I wouldn’t even watch.”

  He considered my face carefully.

  “I’m very glad to hear that.”

  I would watch, of course, but from a safe distance.

  What if Sarah should summon me for help?

  That was another matter entirely. However, my father hadn’t asked about Sarah. I assume my mother, one of the best sources of information in all of Ireland, God bless her, would have told him about Sarah. I did not know.

  Should he have asked I would have said I was committed to the priesthood.

  Which I thought was the truth.

  In Carlow there were only the vaguest of rumors about some of the men “going out.” Most of my classmates thought it would be absurd to try so soon. Others said that if the United Irishmen did not strike again, there would not be another chance for a half century. Very few of us, however, had any question about the morality of more bloodshed. The English and the Protestants ought to be driven out. They did not belong in Ireland. I mentioned Dan O’Connell’s thesis. My friends dismissed him as a Kerry sheep thief and a bog Irish gombeen man.

  19

  I wore a dark brown suit for me visit with Stelle Curran. It was too dark for April. But Chicago weather in April, I had discovered since I had come to Yankland, was always too dark for April. As soon as spring took a definitive bow I would turn to light blue, lime, or white suits. I love to stroll down Michigan Avenue in a white suit as early in the year as possible because it reveals the optimism of me nature. In me white suit people would never think I was one of the dark ones.

  Didn’t she outdo me altogether with a light blue jersey dress with a wide white belt and a white collar? It was not the kind of dress that she picked up at Filene’s Basement either. Her ash blond hair was perfectly coifed too in a neat little helmet. I felt like I shouldn’t be in the same room with her.

  Me husband was right, as he always is about such matters: her body was the sort which would give men of any and every age lustful thoughts. I resolved that I would look like her when I was in my middle fifties.

  We were perfectly friendly to each other, though she was guarded, never having encountered one of the dark ones in a tête-à-tête. I was a lot more at ease. She told me to call her Stelle, which was her favorite name. She asked to see the pictures of my children she had not met.

  “My he looks like a splendid little boy.”

  “Wonderful altogether, just like his da—a quiet, thoughtful kid who is interested only in drawing and soccer.”

  “And what a gorgeous little redhead. I imagine she’s very sweet and considerate.”

  “Sure that’s what she wants people to think. Isn’t she a troublemaker just like her mother!”

  “And you fight a lot, just like my daughters and I used to fight?”

  “The daughters always win!”

  “They do indeed … Now, Nuala, you have some more questions you wanted to ask …”

  Room Service appeared at the door of their elegant three-room suite with midmorning tea and scones.

  She poured the tea and offered me a scone, which I did not refuse.

  “Well,” I said nervously, “I have the feeling there is something more you want to tell us about the explosion.”

  She sat up straight and rigid, like she was going to argue. Then her shoulders slumped her eyes filled with tears and she began to talk, almost in a whisper.

  “I’ve never told anyone this before, except my priest and my psychiatrist, but the little boy we lost, Brendan, was the child of an incestuous union with my father-in-law. I don’t know how this would account for the explosion, but I feel I must tell you.”

  “Oh, Stelle!” I cried out.

  So we both had a good cry, repaired our faces, and she went on.

  “It was 1981. I had married at nineteen and given birth to five children in nine years. I had been raised in an old-fashioned Catholic family. You knew almost nothing about marriage or sex and had as many children as you could. Moreover, you were to be a stay-at-home mom as we call them now and take care of all your children even if you had help. I had to give them my full attention, all day, every day. I put on twenty-five pounds and became fat and frumpy, or so I thought and I think John thought too. I was smoking too much, drinking too much, crying too much, and feeling very sorry for myself.

  “I didn’t get much out of sex. There was nothing in my background to lead me to expect much out of it. I permitted Jack to make love to me whenever he wanted and sort of pretended to enjoy it. He didn’t know much either and after a while he didn’t ask very often. He must have wondered what happened to the beautiful, bright-eyed woman he married, just as I wondered what had happened to the gentle, loving man I had married. I’m sure he fooled around, what man wouldn’t? I didn’t ask, I didn’t want to know. And he never told me. I was only thirty-one and I was a washed-up hag. Yes, I was making a little progress on my degree from Barat and had learned how to cook. I had even become good at it. But I knew I was finished. I might as well be dead.”

  I felt the cold gray mists over the Lake slip into the suite and creep all around us. The hell she had endured was threatening both of us. She couldn’t see the mists of hell, though I could. We both felt them.

  “But you turned your life around, didn’t you?”

  “Did I, Nuala Anne? I guess I did, but it got worse before it
got better. And sometimes I think I’ll never get over it. In the winter of 1981 John rented a condo for us down in Ocean Reef, just down the street from Long Tom’s. The idea was that I would get away from the children for a couple of weeks and we would renew our marriage. I was a nervous wreck away from the children and utterly uninterested in renewing the marriage, which I thought was finished forever. We made love a couple of times, but they were lackluster, pro forma exchanges. John got the message. After the second week, he had to hurry back to Chicago. I was sure that there was another woman waiting for him.”

  “Do you know that for sure?” I asked as gently as I could.

  “No, I don’t. I was convinced of it then, but my mind was a wreck and I couldn’t think straight. At this distance, after all that has happened, it doesn’t matter … It was, nonetheless, heartless and cruel of John to leave me there alone, even if he did phone several times every day. Long Tom was sixty-one then, thirty years older than me, a strikingly handsome male—still is as a matter of fact. When John and I were dating he always looked at me with an appreciation that seemed to me then was inappropriate—like he was undressing me and liked what he had discovered. Men look at women that way. It had happened to me before. I paid little attention, sometimes I hated it, sometimes I liked it, depending on the man. But from my father-in-law, it seemed, well, offensive. I was surprised the first time I saw a picture of Elizabeth, John’s mother as a young woman. She looked a lot like me. I wondered if John fell in love with me because he was marrying his mother. I never asked and now never will because it doesn’t matter.”

  “I think I look a lot like Dermot’s mother,” I said softly.

  “Long Tom never stopped it. He always undressed me with his eyes when we were together. He had a secret little smile that I alone seemed to see. I was offended as you can imagine, but also just a little flattered. He was a war hero, tall, strong, competent, and with a lot of charisma. I could never understand why he didn’t remarry. I never thought that … Let me correct that in the name of honesty. I never permitted the thought that if I were alone in our condo, he might come calling. It was one of those daydreams that you always deny because they are so totally improbable … Am I shocking you, Nuala Anne?”