by Ed McBain
There were several moments’ silence, then a shout from outside. Paddy looked up sharply, but it was Connor’s name that was called. He lowered the gun and Connor walked to the outside door and opened it.
Bridget followed a step behind him.
On the tussock grass just beyond the gate Ian and Billy stood facing Dermot; their hands were tied behind their backs. Dermot jerked the gun up, gesturing with his other arm.
Billy knelt down.
Dermot put the gun to Billy’s head and a shot rang out, sharp and thin in the morning air, sounding surprisingly far away. Billy fell forward. Ian swayed.
Dermot pointed again. Ian knelt. A second shot cracked. Ian fell forward.
Connor gave a strangled cry in his throat and staggered over to the sink as if he could be sick. He dry-retched and gulped air.
Bridget felt the room reel around her, her legs turn to jelly. She clasped onto the door jamb until the nausea passed, then turned to look at Liam, ashen-faced by the table, and Paddy by the stove, the gun still in his hand.
A terrible sadness overwhelmed her. It was a moment that divided forever the past from the present. Billy and Ian were dead. They had helped her, casually, smiling, not knowing what was ahead of them. They had never deserted their posts, and they were lying out there with bullets through their heads, butchered almost without thought.
Liam was ashen. Connor looked as if he might be sick.
Bridget ached to be able to help someone, help herself, undo the moment and see Billy and Ian alive again. And it was all impossible, and far too late.
She made a move towards Liam, and he jerked away from her, too hurt to be touched, blaming her in some way, as if she could have prevented it. School friends had been caught in bomb blasts. He had seen plenty of injury and bereavement, but this was the first murder he had seen. Connor went to him, holding out his hand, wordlessly. Liam took it.
Time stretched on. Bridget washed the dishes and put them away. Sean and Dermot returned. She noticed that their boots had earth on them, and there were marks of sweat on their shirts, as if they had been involved in some heavy physical exertion.
Connor stood up.
“Sit down,” Dermot said pleasantly, but he stood still, waiting to be obeyed.
“I’m going to the bathroom!” Connor snapped.
“Not yet,” Dermot answered. “My hands are dirty. Sean’s too. We’ll go and wash, then you can. And don’t lock yourself in. We’ll only have to break the door down, then Mrs. O’Malley’ll have no privacy, and you don’t want that, do you?”
“For God’s sake, you can’t …” Connor began, then he knew that they could—they would.
The morning passed slowly, all of them in the kitchen except when someone needed to use the bathroom. Bridget made them tea, and then started to peel potatoes for lunch.
“We haven’t enough food for five,” she pointed out. “Not beyond this evening, anyway.”
“They’ll be gone before then!” Connor snapped at her.
“If you’ve made the right decision,” Paddy agreed. He turned to Bridget. “Don’t worry, we’ve got plenty, and it’s no trouble to get more. Just make what you’ve got, Mrs. O’Malley.”
“You don’t tell her what to do!” Connor turned on him.
Dermot smiled. “Sure he does, Mr. O’Malley. She knows that, don’t you, Bridget?”
Connor was helpless, it was naked in his face, as if something were stripped from him.
Bridget longed to protect him, but he had made it impossible. Everything that came to her mind to say would only have made it worse, shown up the fact that she was used to being ordered around, and he was not. She realized it with a shock. Usually it was Connor, for different reasons, and now it was two strangers, but the feeling of being unable to retaliate was just the same.
“We’ve got to eat,” she said reasonably. “I’d rather cook it myself than have one of them do it, even if I had the choice.”
Connor said nothing.
Liam groaned and turned away, then slowly looked up at his father, anxiety in his face, and fear, not for himself.
Bridget dug her nails into the palms of her hands. Was Liam more afraid that Connor would be hurt, or that he would make a fool of himself, fail at what he needed to do, to be?
“You’ll pay for this,” Connor said at last. “No matter what you do to me, or my family, you won’t change the core of the people. Is this your best argument—the gun? To hold women and children hostage?” His voice descended into sarcasm, and he did not notice Liam’s sudden flush of anger and shame. “Very poor persuasion! That’s really the high moral ground!”
Dermot took a step toward him, his hand clenched.
“Not yet!” Paddy said warningly. “Let him be.”
Dermot glared at him, but he dropped his hand.
Bridget found herself shaking so badly she was afraid to pick up anything in case it slipped through her fingers. “I’m going to the bathroom,” she said abruptly, and pushed past Sean and out of the door. No one followed her.
She closed the bathroom door and locked it, then stood by the basin, her stomach churning, nausea coming over her in waves. They were prisoners. Billy and Ian were dead. Connor was frightened and angry, but he was not going to yield, he couldn’t. He had spent all his life preaching the cause, absolutism, loyalty to principles whatever the cost. Too many other men had died, and women and children, he had left himself no room to give anything away now. He might have, even yesterday, when it was only Roisin who asked him, but today it would be seen as yielding to force, and he could never do that.
They were prisoners until someone rescued them, or Dermot and Sean killed them all. Would Connor let that happen? If he gave in to save them, he would hate them for it. She knew without hesitation that he would resent them forever for being the cause of his weakness, the abandoning of his honour, even his betrayal of all his life stood for.
How blindingly, ineffably stupid! For a sickening moment rage overtook her for the whole idiotic religious divide, which was outwardly in the name of Christianityl
But of course it wasn’t. It was human arrogance, misunderstanding, rivalry, one wrong building on another, and the inability to forgive the terrible, aching losses on both sides. Religion was the excuse they clothed it in, to justify it. They created God in their own image: vengeful, partisan, too small of mind to love everyone, incapable of accepting differences. You might fear a god like that, you could not love him.
She dashed cold water over her face and dried it on the rough towel. She hung it up and saw that they were going to run out of toilet paper with six of them in the house. And laundry powder. She would have to tell Paddy that, as well as getting food.
“I’ll remember,” he said with a smile when she told him early in the afternoon. The others were still in the sitting room and she was in the kitchen going through the store cupboard to see what there was.
“And washing-up liquid,” she added.
“Of course. Anything else?”
She straightened up and looked at him. He was still smiling, his slightly lopsided face softened by humour.
“How long are you going to stay here?” she asked.
There was a shadow around his eyes. It was the first uncertainty she had seen in him. She did not find it comforting. Suddenly she was aware, with a sharp pain of fear, how volatile the situation was. He did not know the answer. Perhaps he really had expected Connor to step down, and now that he knew he would not, he did not know how to proceed. She felt cold inside.
“That’s all,” she said without waiting for him to answer. “Except some bread, I suppose. And tea, if you want it.” She moved past him, brushing his arm as she went back to the sitting room.
Connor was standing looking out of the window, his shoulders stiff. She could imagine the expression on his face by seeing his back. Liam was huddled in the armchair, watching his father. His unhappiness was written in every line of his body. Sean was lounging agains
t the door. Dermot was nowhere to be seen.
The afternoon wore on in miserable silence, sporadic anger, and then silence again. Dermot returned at last. He looked at his watch. “Half past five,” he observed. “I think we’ll eat at seven, Mrs. O’Malley.” His eyes flickered to Connor and saw the dull flash of anger in his face. A tiny smile touched his mouth. “And you can go to bed at nine, after you’ve done the dishes.”
The muscle in Connor’s jaw twitched. He was breathing slowly, trying to control himself. Liam stared at him, fear and embarrassment struggling in his eyes. He was mortified to see his father humiliated, and yet he was also deeply afraid that if he showed any courage at all he would be hurt, and then humiliated even more. Bridget found his confusion painful to watch, but she had no idea how to help. Exactly the same fear twisted inside her stomach, making her swallow to keep from being sick.
“How about a cup of tea?” Dermot went on.
She moved to obey, and saw his satisfaction.
“Get your own tea!” Connor said curtly. “Bridget! Don’t wait on them!”
“I don’t mind,” she told him. “I’ve nothing else to do.”
“Then do nothing!” He swung around to face her. “I told you not to wait on them. For God’s sake, they’re not so stupid they can’t boil water!”
She saw Paddy’s expression, and realized with surprise that Connor had spoken to her in exactly the same tone of voice that Dermot had used. Was that deliberate—Dermot mimicking Connor? And she was so accustomed to obeying that she was going to do it automatically.
Now she was totally undecided. If she obeyed Dermot she would further reduce Connor, and if she did not she might provoke the violence she feared, or at best make him exert his control in some other way.
They were all watching her, waiting, particularly Liam.
“Actually I’m going to do the laundry,” she said. “Just because we’re prisoners here doesn’t mean we shouldn’t have clean underwear. If any of you can be bothered to follow me you can, but it’s pretty stupid. You know I’m not going to leave. You’ve got my family here.” And without looking at Paddy or Dermot, she walked out and went to the bedrooms to collect whatever she could find to wash. No one came after her.
The evening passed slowly, with tension in the air so brittle every time anyone moved suddenly, or made a sound with knife on china, or Liam dropped his fork, they all stiffened, and Sean in the doorway lifted the barrel of his gun.
Bridget washed the dishes and Liam dried them. They went to bed at nine o’clock, as ordered.
As soon as the bedroom door was closed Connor turned on Bridget.
“Why are you obeying them?” he said furiously, his face mottled dark with rage. “How can I make a stand against them if you defy me all the time?”
“You can’t make a stand against them,” she replied wearily. “They’ve got guns.” She started to undress, hanging her skirt and blouse up in the wardrobe.
“Don’t turn your back on me when I’m talking to you!” His voice shook.
She turned around. It was only one full day, not even a night, and already he was losing his mastery of himself, because nothing was in his control. She looked at him steadily, unblinking.
“We have no choice, Connor. I’m not defying you, I’m just not making them angry when there’s no point. Besides, I’m used to doing what someone else tells me to.”
“What do you mean by that?”
She turned back to the wardrobe. “Go to bed.”
“You don’t care, do you!” he accused. “You think I should give in to them, let them have whatever they want, buy our freedom now by surrendering everything we’ve fought for all our lives!”
“I know you can’t do that.” She went on undressing, looking out for a clean nightgown because she had washed the other one, for something to do. “You haven’t left yourself room. I don’t suppose they have either. That’s the trouble with all of us, we’re hostage to the past we’ve created. Go to bed. Staying up all night isn’t going to help.”
“You’re a coward, Bridget. I didn’t think I’d ever be ashamed of my own wife.”
“I don’t suppose you thought about it at all,” she replied. “Not really, not about me, I mean.” She walked past him, putting the nightgown on and climbed into her side of the bed.
He was silent for several minutes. She heard him taking off his clothes, hanging them up as well, then she felt the bed move a little as he got in.
“I’ll excuse that, because you’re afraid,” he said at last.
She did not answer. She was not helping him, and she felt guilty, but it was his intransigence that had made dealing with him impossible. It was a matter of principle, and she knew he could not help it, not now, anyway. He had ordered her around for years, just the way Dermot was ordering him. And it was her fault too, for obeying. She had wanted peace, wanted him happy, not always for his sake but for hers, because he was kinder then, closer to the man she wanted him to be, the man who made her laugh sometimes, who enjoyed the small things, as well as the great, and who loved her. She should have been honest years ago.
Now she could not even protect Liam from the disillusion that was already beginning to frighten him more deeply than the threat of violence from Dermot or Sean. There was nothing she could do. She slid down a little further, and pretended to be asleep.
The next day was worse. Tempers were tighter, edges more raw. There was nothing to do, and they were all cramped inside the cottage. Sean, Paddy, and Dermot took turns watching and sleeping. They had nailed the windows closed, so the air was stuffy, and there was no escape except through one of the two doors.
“What the hell are they waiting for?” Connor demanded when he and Bridget were alone in the bedroom, Sean just beyond the door.
“I don’t know,” she replied. “I don’t know what can happen. You aren’t going to change, and neither are they.” What was really in her mind was Billy and Ian murdered in front of them and buried somewhere up the hillside, only she did not want to acknowledge it in words. Then she would have to face the consequences of what it meant, and the possibilities it closed off.
“Then what are they waiting for?” he repeated. “Have they asked somebody for money? Or are they going to keep me here until someone else has taken power?”
She had not thought of that. It was a relief, because it made sense. “Yes,” she said aloud. “That could be it.” Then doubt came to her again. She had become aware that Dermot was waiting, just small signs, a turning when there was a sound, a half listening attitude, a certain tension in him that was not in Paddy. Sean she saw far less of—in fact she had not watched him at all.
“You sound pleased,” Connor said.
She looked at him. His face was deeply lined, his eyes pink-rimmed as if he had not slept at all. The muscle in his jaw jumped erratically. “I’m not pleased,” she said gently. “I’m just glad you thought of something that makes sense. It’s easier to deal with.”
“Deal with?”
“Live with,” she corrected. “I’m going back out, before they come for us.” She left him alone because she did not know what more to say.
It was the third day when she was standing in the back garden, picking a handful of mint for the potatoes, and staring across the stretch of tussock grass towards the sea, when she was aware of someone behind her.
“I’m coming,” she said a little tartly. Dermot was irritating her. She had watched him deliberately baiting Connor, ordering him in small, unnecessary things. She swung around, to find Paddy a yard away.
“No hurry,” he answered, looking beyond her to the water, barely restless in the slight wind, the waves no more than rustling as they turned over on the sand.
She followed his glance. It had beauty, but she ached for the wilder Atlantic shore with its vast width, the skies that stretched for ever, the wind so hard and clean it blew mares’ tails of spume off the incoming rollers so that when they crashed on the sand the streamers
of foam trailed behind them.
“I miss the west,” she said impulsively.
“And of course you can’t go there any more.” His voice was quiet, almost gentle. “It’s a high price we pay, isn’t it?”
She drew in her breath to challenge him for including himself, then she realized that perhaps he too was bound by choices he had made long ago, things other people expected of him, as Connor had always expected of her.
“Yes,” she agreed. “Penny by penny, over the years.”
He said nothing for a little while, just watching the water, as she did.
“Do you come from the west?” she asked.
“Yes.” There was regret in his voice.
She wanted to ask him how he had come to be here, holding Connor at gunpoint, what had happened in his life to change a crusade for his beliefs into this kind of violence, but she did not want to anger him with what was undoubtedly intrusive. Perhaps like her, he had started by wanting to please someone he loved, to live up to their ideas of courage and loyalty, and ended clinging onto the shreds of love, because that was all there was left, hoping for something that honesty would have told him did not exist. She had not wanted to face that. It invalidated too much she had paid for with years of trying, swinging from hope to defeat, and then creating hope again.
He started to speak, and stopped.
“What were you going to say?” she asked.
“I was going to ask you something it’s none of my business to know,” he replied. “And maybe I’d rather not, anyway. I know what you’d say, because you’d be loyal, and perhaps I’d believe you, perhaps not. So maybe it’s better we just stand and look at the water. The tides will come and go, the seabirds will call exactly the same, whatever we do.”
“He won’t change,” she said.
“I know. He’s a hard man. His time is past, Bridget. We’ve got to have change. Everyone’s got to yield something.”