He pulled up a chair, sat down, and took her hand. “Doctors don’t know everything. We’ll find a way, Colette. Somehow we will. Tim’s a grown man, and Connor”—he swallowed—”Connor will be grand. You’ll see.”
“Poor wee lad,” she said brokenly. “No one’s watched him but me. You didn’t want me t’ work, Danny.” There was feeling in her hands, and she clutched him desperately. “Remember how you told me that a wee lad needs his mother and that we would manage?”
“I do.” He kissed her fingers. “Hush, lass. We’ll sort it out. You’ll be up and about in no time.”
Belfast, 1997
“It’s a waste of time,” Colette argued angrily from the wheelchair where she spent all of her waking hours. “I don’t want t’ go back t’ the hospital. Nothing’s helped so far, and nothing ever will.”
Danny closed the door gently behind him. Connor was due home soon, and he didn’t want the boy to hear the argument that his parents kept alive between them. “It’s a chance, Colette,” Danny said reasonably. “Do you want t’ stay in that chair forever?”
She turned on him. “If it bothers you so much, Danny Browne, y’ know where the door is. I’m not askin’ any favors from you.”
Balling his hands inside his pockets, Danny walked to the window and stared outside. The view was a wall painted with orange, white, and green political slogans: “Sciorse,” “Free the POWs,” “No Conditions.” Construction rubble littered the sidewalk, and boys playing at hurling climbed over it to fetch the ball. Unbidden, his mind called up an image, clean and pure, of green grass, dark woods, and golden dogs. Ruthlessly, he pushed it back. “I’m not goin’ anywhere,” he said gently. “You’ve never been selfish, Colette. Do it for the boys if not for yourself. Don’t listen to me. Ask Connor and Tim if they want you t’ take the chance.” Forcing himself, he crossed the room to kiss her cheek and squeeze her shoulder.
Mrs. Flynn knocked at the door. “I’ll fix supper for Colette and the boy a bit early tonight, Danny. Rumor has it we won’t have power too much longer.”
“Thank you, Mrs. Flynn,” he said, zipping up his jacket. “Be sure to have a healthy portion yourself.”
Kildare Hall, County Down
The final words of the Archbishop of Armagh filtered through Jillian’s pain. “Let us lay Avery Graham, beloved husband and father, brother and friend, to his rest.”
Lifting a shaking hand, Jillian stroked Casey’s curly, mink-brown hair. Behind dark glasses, her eyes burned with the effort of holding back tears. How had they come to this? It happened so quickly, Avery’s aggravated cough, his raspy voice, the whispered conversations, the fatigue, the bloodstained handkerchiefs he’d been unable to hide, and finally the diagnosis, cancer of the lung. He was dead in three months.
Casey felt Jillian squeeze her hand, but she was too miserable to acknowledge the comfort. She was twenty years old, and Grandmother Fitzgerald had drilled her in the importance of appearance at public functions. But this time something deep within her rose and refused to accommodate Lady Fitzgerald’s sense of decorum. There wasn’t a better man in the world than Avery Graham. Mourning had never seemed more appropriate. What would they do without him? Unchecked tears streamed down her cheeks.
In unison, the select group of invited friends and relatives chanted, “Ashes to ashes, dust to dust.” Casey leaned her head on Jillian’s shoulder and wept.
Across the flower-adorned casket, Jillian caught the eye of Thomas Putnam. He smiled bracingly. The young prime minister had flown in from London that morning to attend the service, a testimony to her husband’s sensible and honest politics. Avery had been a Conservative. The Putnams were Labour.
Jillian sighed. She would miss Avery’s wisdom. He alone had kept the lid on the simmering cauldron of Northern Irish discord. Both the loyalists and the nationalists trusted him. Even the skeptical Irish Republican Army occasionally listened when Avery spoke. Whom would Putnam appoint now? Who would keep the peace that Avery had maintained at Stormont despite the backbiting, the refusals to negotiate at the same table, the name-calling, and the occasional acts of violence by radical groups from both sides? So much unfinished business to sort through. Jillian didn’t know of a single man in the entire United Kingdom who could step into Avery’s shoes.
She never once suspected, not when the prime minister stayed at the reception longer than his obligatory thirty minutes, or when he singled her out and spoke of innocent inconsequential matters, not when he asked to speak to her alone and questioned her about the Drumcree problem, and certainly not when he remained after the guests had gone, explaining that he needed a personal favor. It wasn’t until she was seated in the library, on the expensive Victorian settee where generations of Fitzgeralds had taken their after-dinner port, after he’d repeated the words for the second time, that she understood what it was that he asked of her.
Her face paled, and the famous Fitzgerald composure that her mother had worked so tirelessly to instill slipped momentarily, rendering Jillian speechless. When at last she found her voice, she politely declined.
He brushed aside her refusal. “The position is temporary, Jillian. I need someone of influence, someone who knew Avery’s mind.”
“It’s impossible.”
“Why?”
“I already have a position teaching at the university. Besides, I know nothing about negotiating with those people.”
Putnam thrust his hands into his pockets and walked to the window. He was a commoner, born to a professional family with means. Good schools, a penchant for public speaking, and a nationwide frustration for the politics of Margaret Thatcher and her mouthpiece, John Major, had brought him the most influential position in England. He did not understand the minds of the aristocracy.
Jillian Fitzgerald was lovely, elegant, and, despite her husband’s position, as remotely unapproachable as if it were the eighteenth century instead of the twentieth. But she was a Fitzgerald, and Irish memories were long. His advisers had assured him that she would be the most acceptable choice, a woman whose Protestant ancestors had fought for a united Ireland.
“I thought you’d taken a leave to be with Avery, and those people are your countrymen, Jillian. Who else will understand them better?”
“Any random person on the street,” she replied quickly. “You don’t know your history, Mr. Putnam. The Fitzgeralds are hardly Irish. We came from Wales, and before that Italy. Somewhere around the eleventh century, the Fitzgeralds crossed the sea into Ireland, and then we became English, not Irish.”
He smiled. Putnam was the quintessential politician. He knew when to retreat and when to push forward. It was time to give it his best. “You’re leaving out a bit, aren’t you, Jillian? Your ancestors lost everything, including their lives, for an independent Ireland. An entire house, a family, was wiped out at Tyburn, land and estates confiscated and burned, never fully recovered. The Fitzgeralds were kings of Ireland.”
Strange images filtered through her mind, a blackened landscape, smoking ruins, a girl, thin and pale and desperately afraid. She pushed them away. “Perhaps the Fitzgeralds have contributed enough, or are you after more sacrifice, Mr. Putnam?”
“Without Avery, this entire peace process is in danger of falling apart. Never, since the partition in 1921, have Catholics and Protestants sat down together. The eyes of the world are upon us, Jillian. Everything is at stake.” He crossed the room, took her hands, and pulled her to her feet. “There is no one else,” he said bluntly. “You are the single person in all of Britain whom both sides will accept.”
She wavered. “Have you asked them?”
He breathed a sigh of relief. “No. I’ll make the announcement in the morning.”
She laughed shakily and pulled her hands away. “Very well, Mr. Putnam. But if this turns into a fiasco and I fail miserably, it will be on your shoulders, n
ot mine.”
He stared, struck by the change in her appearance when she smiled. Jillian’s noblesse oblige beauty softened. Her eyes spilled warmth and light, and her mouth— Putnam swallowed. History had been changed by women who looked like Jillian Fitzgerald. A thought occurred to him, and he grinned. Something told him that failure was as unfamiliar to her as it was to him.
***
Two days later, Jillian walked into the lobby of the Royal Victoria Hospital for her weekly visit to the wards. What had begun as an obligatory duty routinely performed in her role as a politician’s wife had become as necessary to her life as afternoon tea, a tradition she refused to share with anyone other than her family.
The convalescent wing had long-term patients, regulars, whom Jillian saw every week. The children’s ward, preoperative, and recovery were most rewarding and among her usual stops. Oncology and the terminally ill were more difficult for her and required mental preparation. The turnover on these floors was frequent and tragic. She forced herself to visit twice a month and left immediately after. Today was not one of those days.
Jillian was pleased to note the cheerful wallpaper and large windows in the children’s wing, the result of her fund-raising efforts for the past two years. After passing through two sets of double doors to recovery and then up one floor on the lift to post-op, she smiled, shook hands, and chatted with everyone who was awake, saving the small single room on the end for last. She looked at her watch. Two hours had passed since she’d walked into the lobby. She’d deliberately left the rest of her day free. The woman smiled when she walked into the room.
Jillian pulled up a chair and sat down. “Good morning, Mrs. Browne.”
“Can you stay for a bit this time, Mrs. Graham?” the woman asked.
“I’ll stay for as long as you like,” replied Jillian, settling herself for a long visit. Colette Browne was a regular. Five different times she’d been operated on with minimal results. Her recovery had taken months, with most of her time spent in the hospital. She had two sons, one of whom could not remember his mother outside her wheelchair.
At first, Jillian stopped in out of pity. But with each visit she had grown to appreciate Colette’s dry humor and her pragmatic wisdom, sometimes fatalistic, often hopeless, but always sensible, the line between right and wrong sharply divided. They had little in common, a crippled working-class woman with no education other than her own experience, and Jillian, born into a privileged family, who knew the names of every generation of her ancestors for a thousand years.
Without crossing the line into the forbidden territory of Christian names, both women exchanged confidences they normally would have kept to themselves. Because of Avery Graham’s position, Colette intuitively understood that her relationship with Jillian could not progress beyond the walls of the Royal Victoria.
Jillian knew little of the life to which Colette belonged, but her innate sensitivity warned her away from broaching the subject of taking their friendship outside after Colette’s periodic releases. Their conversations consisted of relationships with family and friends, dreams for the future, personal fears. Colette spoke of her husband, her children, and the hopelessness of life in West Belfast. Jillian shared her frustrations with her family, her difficulties with Casey, and finally, in a moment of reckless abandon and mutual rapport, the emotional toll of her ten-year-old agreement with a man who could never truly be a husband.
Colette, who had seen more than most women of Jillian’s class, was not particularly surprised by the younger woman’s confession. Before Avery Graham’s marriage, there had been a good deal of speculation about his sexual orientation. His marriage had done away with most of the talk. Colette believed the rumors to be false until she met Jillian. The woman was thirty-five years old, uncommonly attractive, and a mother, yet there was an untouched quality about her, as if she were waiting for something. Colette knew about Avery’s illness even though it had not been publicly announced. She knew how it would affect Jillian, the public person. She wondered how it would affect Jillian, the woman.
After their usual exchange of pleasantries, Colette asked the question that Jillian had come to address. “How are you holding up, dear?”
Smiling bravely, Jillian began to recite the practiced commentary she had prepared for the media. Then she made the mistake of meeting the sympathetic gaze of the woman who had become her friend. Her lips trembled, and her voice broke. Widening her eyes to prevent the tears from welling over onto her cheeks, she tried to go on but couldn’t. Finally, she gave up, leaned her forehead on the rail, and sobbed.
Colette muttered a brief “thank you” for the full use of her arms. She rested her hand on Jillian’s expensively coiffed head and murmured words of comfort.
Minutes passed. The combination of soothing words and gentle hands worked their magic. Jillian’s tears stopped. She lifted her head, smiled tremulously, and reached for the box of tissue on the side table. “Thank you, Colette,” she said, and blew her nose.
Colette squeezed her hand. “You’re very welcome, Jillian,” she replied. Both women smiled at each other, grateful for the milestone they had passed.
Jillian’s eyes were no longer puffy, but her nose was still red when she heard the door to Colette’s hospital room open behind her. At the sound of a masculine voice, she turned and smiled pleasantly. Her path had never before crossed with Colette’s husband.
Danny Browne had learned to gauge the success of his visits by the way his wife responded to his initial greeting. Therefore, he waited for her reply before allowing his gaze to rest on the woman sitting beside her. When he did, he was sure the wild, uncontrollable lurching of his heart would send him crashing to the floor, a new patient of the Royal Victoria’s cardiac care unit. Speechless, he stared at the girl who had promised to love him, the girl who had made him swear a sacred oath to come back for her.
Nineteen
Light from the hall silhouetted him, keeping his face and the details of his clothing steeped in shadow. Jillian’s first impression of Colette’s husband was that he was tall, with broad shoulders and defined muscles beneath his shirt and wool pullover. She wondered if he made his living out of doors.
It seemed as if he waited in the darkness for a long time before stepping forward. When he did, her eyes widened, and a jolt of awareness, like a current, passed through her. She felt anxious and uneasy as if every nerve were exposed. As she absorbed the details of his face, a thought, incredible in its enormity, formed in her mind. It couldn’t possibly be, and yet— Logic discounted this man as a stranger. Intuition told her otherwise.
Colette was nearly ten years Jillian’s senior, but her husband was not. He looked to be late thirties at most, with black hair, clean, sharp features, and eyes that went beyond description. They were dark gray in color, deeply set, and very clear, fringed with thick, feathery lashes.
Jillian was sure she had seen those eyes before, had dreamed of them, been haunted by them, but where? Why couldn’t she remember?
Now, the message radiating from those eyes was unmistakable. He didn’t like her. No, it was more subtle than that. He didn’t approve of her.
There was something else there, too, a memory that was almost a connection, hazy and unformed in her mind. Jillian was too rattled by the man’s regard to concentrate. His presence both frightened and energized her.
“Mrs. Graham.” Colette’s voice broke through her turmoil. “This is my husband, Danny Browne.”
Jillian lost all ability to speak. Danny Browne. Colette’s husband was Danny Browne, chief negotiator for Sinn Fein. Impossible! The name was all wrong. It didn’t suit him.
Avery had spoken of Danny Browne often. He was Ian Paisley’s nemesis. Paisley and Temple, leaders of separate factions of the Protestant Ulster Defense League, were no match for the articulate nationalist spokesman who relentlessly hammered at the loyalist
position and looked good from every camera angle. Could this serious, silent man really be Danny Browne?
She needed to go home and think. Stammering like a schoolgirl, Jillian ignored Danny’s outstretched hand and excused herself, saying that she’d stayed too long already.
Colette stared thoughtfully at the door through which Jillian had taken her hurried leave. Something had happened but she wasn’t sure what it meant.
Danny’s hand closed around a pair of beige leather gloves. “Your friend left these behind.”
“She’ll be back,” Colette said, although the words sounded hollow to her own ears.
“How long have you known her?” Danny asked casually.
Colette shrugged. “Since the first surgery. She visits often.”
“You’ve been visiting with Avery Graham’s wife for over two years?” he asked incredulously. “Why didn’t y’ tell me?”
She frowned. “Why do I have t’ tell you everything? She’s my friend.” She tapped her chest with her forefinger. “My friend. Do y’ understand, Danny? This has nothing t’ do with you. I didn’t even tell her who y’ are.”
Danny sighed with relief. She hadn’t recognized him after all. Jillian’s shaken composure was the result of learning that Danny Browne, Sinn Fein negotiator, was Colette’s husband, nothing more.
“That explains why she walked out of here lookin’ shell-shocked. It was hardly fair, Colette.”
“What do y’ mean?”
Danny sat down on the chair Jillian had vacated. His shoulders sagged with weariness. “Right this minute, Mrs. Graham is tryin’ to recall every word she ever said to you, on the small chance that she’s divulged something that I shouldn’t know. The price of such a friendship comes high, love.”
“Meaning that she thinks I didn’t tell her about you to gather information?”
“Aye.”
Unexpected tears filled Colette’s eyes. “I wouldn’t do that. I know nothin’ about y’r work. I thought she wouldn’t come if she knew I was y’r wife.”
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