Transgressions, Volume 4

by Ed McBain

  “We all do,” Bridget said quietly. “The difference is in how much we are prepared to pay for it.”

  Roisin turned away, blinking, and bent her attention to the sheets.

  When they were finished Bridget took them out and hung them on the line, propping up the middle of it with the long pole, notched at the end to hold the rope taut so the sheets did not touch the ground.

  How could she protect Connor from the disillusion he would feel when he knew that it was Roisin who had betrayed him? All the reasoning in the world would not make any difference to the pain. Even if his mind understood, his emotions would not. First Adair, now his own daughter.

  And what would Liam make of it? He was confused, all his previous certainties were slipping away. His fathers, whom he had believed to be so strong he wavered in nothing, was losing control of his temper, being ordered around by men he despised, and he did nothing about it. Now his sister was the cause of it all, and for an emotion and a loyalty he could only guess at.

  She yanked up the heavy pole, awkward, tipping in her hands from the weight of the wet sheets with the wind behind them. Suddenly it eased and she lurched forward, straight into Paddy.

  “Sorry,” he apologized, propping the pole up for her.

  “Thank you,” she said abruptly, realizing he had done it to help. The wind filled the sheets, bellying them high and wide, temporarily shielding them from view of the house.

  “Your husband’ll work it out that it was her,” he said quietly. “You can’t stop it.”

  “I know.” She was not sure if she resented his understanding, or in an obscure way it was a comfort not to face it alone. No, that was absurd. Of course she was alone. Paddy was the enemy. Except that he too had been betrayed by someone he had trusted, and it had been very neatly done, using his own plan against him, enmeshing him in a double murder so he had no retreat. He must feel like a complete fool.

  “It doesn’t seem as if either of us can stop much, does it?” she said drily.

  He looked at her with a black laughter in his eyes, self-mocking. He was trying to hide the hurt, and she knew in that instant that it was deep, and there were probably years of long and tangled debt behind it, and perhaps love of one sort or another. She was not sure if she wanted to know the story or not. She might understand it more than she could afford to.

  She glanced at him again. He was staring out towards the horizon, his eyes narrowed against the light off the water, even though the sun was behind them.

  “It didn’t go where you expected, did it?” she said aloud.

  “No,” he admitted. “I never thought Connor would yield easily, but I thought he would, when he realized Adair had crossed over. I misjudged him. I guess the ransom for freeing him from old promises was too high. Too high for him, I mean.”

  “I know what you mean,” she answered. “I’m not sure he knows how to escape now. He’s more hostage to the past than he is to you. You’re just more physically apparent, that’s all. It’s …” She thought how she was going to phrase what she wanted to say. She was thinking aloud, but if she spoke to anyone at all, it would be to Paddy.

  “It’s a matter of admitting it,” he said for her, watching to see if she understood. “We’ve invested so much of ourselves, our reason for living, whatever it is that makes us think we matter, into a set of ideals. It takes a hell of a lot of courage to say that we didn’t get it right—even in the silence of the small hours, staring up at the bedroom ceiling, let alone to all the angry men who’ve invested the same, and can’t face it either. Some of us will die of pride, I think. If you don’t believe in yourself, what have you got left?”

  “Not much,” she replied. “At least—not here. Ireland doesn’t forgive—not politically. We’re too good at remembering all the wrong things. We don’t learn to forget and start again.”

  He smiled, turning to look at the water again. “Could we, do you think, then? There’d be a lot of things I’d do differently and dear God, but wouldn’t I!” He swivelled suddenly to stare very directly at her. “What would you do differently, Bridget?”

  She felt the colour rise up her face. His eyes were too frank, far too gentle, intruding into her thoughts, the hopes and sorrows she needed to keep locked inside herself. And yet she allowed him to go on looking at her, the wind streaming past them, the sun bright, the gulls wheeling and crying above.

  “You won’t tell me, will you?” he said at last, his voice urgent.

  She lowered her gaze. “No, of course I won’t. None of it matters anyway, because we can’t.”

  “But I would like to have known,” he said, as she started to walk back in again, forgetting the laundry basket half hidden by the blowing sheets.

  She did not answer. He did know. He had seen it in her face.

  Inside the house the tension was almost unbearable. Everyone was in the kitchen, so Dermot and Sean could watch them. Liam was sitting at the table swinging his legs and alternately kicking and missing the opposite chair. Dermot was glaring at him, obviously irritated. Now and then Liam looked up at him, sullen and miserable, almost daring to defy him, then backing off again.

  Sean was standing in his usual place against the door frame to the hall and the bedrooms and bathroom. Connor stood by the sink and the window to the side, and the long view of the path winding up over the hill, where he and Liam had gone fishing on the first day.

  Roisin was looking through the store cupboards putting things in and out, as if it made any difference.

  “Stop doing that,” Connor told her. “Your mother knows what we’ve got. We’ll have to live on potatoes, until Dermot here gets tired of them.”

  Roisin kept her back to him, and replaced the tins and packets, such as they were, exactly where she had found them. She was stiff, her fingers fumbling. Twice she lost her grip on a tin and knocked one over. Bridget realized she was waiting for Connor to piece the facts together and realize it was she who had betrayed them.

  It was still early, but she wanted to break the prickling, near silence, the tiny, meaningless remarks.

  “I’ll make lunch,” she said to no one in particular.

  “Too soon,” Dermot told her. “It’s only half past eleven. Wait an hour.”

  “I’ll make a fish pie,” she answered. “It takes a while. And I could bake something at the same time. There’s flour.”

  “Don’t bake for them!” Connor ordered.

  “Good idea,” Dermot responded instantly. “You do that, Mrs. O’Malley Bake us something. Can you do a cake?”

  “Don’t be ridiculous!” Connor moved forward as if he would stop her physically. “For God’s sake, Bridget! Adair’s betrayed us, told these terrorists where we are, so he can take my place and sell out the party! We’re prisoners until God knows when, and you’re going to bake a cake! Haven’t you the faintest understanding of what’s happening?”

  She walked past him to the cupboard and bent down in front of it. She was aware of Paddy by the back door, and knew he was watching her. She needed to defend herself.

  “Not eating isn’t going to help,” she replied. “And you may be perfectly happy to have potatoes for every meal, but I’d rather have something else as well. A cake is one of the few things we have the ingredients for. I’d rather bake than just stand here.”

  “You’re playing into their hands! Don’t you give a damn that Adair betrayed us? Billy and Ian are lying dead up there. Doesn’t that mean something to you? You knew them for months! Ian helped you mend the gas. He stood in this kitchen only a couple of days ago.” His voice was shaking. “How can you bake a cake, when this man tells you to?” He jerked his arm towards Dermot. “Are you so afraid you’ll do anything at all?”

  She stood up slowly and turned around to face him. “No, Connor, I’m not. I’m baking a cake because I want to. I haven’t forgotten what happened to Billy and Ian, but nothing’s going to change that now. Maybe we could have when we had the chance, but now it’s too late. And figh
ting over what we eat isn’t brave, it’s just stupid. Please move away from the bench, so I can use it.”

  Connor remained where he was.

  Liam was watching them, his eyes wide, the muscles in his face drawn tight with fear.

  “Please, Dad?” Roisin said urgently.

  He raised his head and looked at her.

  Bridget watched them. It was as if time stood still. She could hear the ticking of the clock on the wall as the secondhand jumped. She knew what was going to happen before it did, in the endless moment from one word to the next.

  “You want me to do what he says?” Connor asked. “Why is that, Rosie? I told Adair we were going away for a week. I didn’t tell him where to. Who did?”

  Whether she could have lied or not, Bridget did not know, but Roisin must have felt her face give her away. The tide of colour must have burned.

  “Eamonn!” Connor said bitterly. “You told him, and he told Adair!”

  “No,” Roisin looked straight back at him. “Adair never knew. He still doesn’t, so far as I know. I told Paddy, because you won’t listen and you won’t change. I’m going to have a child, and I’m tired of endless fighting and killing from one generation to the next, with no hope of ever being different. I want peace for my children to grow up in. I don’t want them afraid all the time, as I am, and everyone I know. No sooner do we build something than it’s broken again. Everybody I know has lost someone, either dead, or maimed. Everybody’s got to move. If you won’t, then we need somebody else to lead us who will!”

  “You did?” He said the words as if he could hardly believe them. He swayed a little, and gripped hard on the edge of the bench, his knuckles white. “You betrayed me, the cause? My own daughter? You got Billy and Ian murdered, and the rest of us, your mother and your brother held here at gunpoint—because you’re going to have a baby? Great heaven, girl, do you think you’re the only woman in Ireland to have a child?”

  Bridget stepped forward. “Leave her alone, Connor. She did what she thought was right. She thought you’d change. She was wrong. But I think I’d have done the same thing in her place. We protect our children. We always have.”

  He stared at her. “You sound as if you agree with her?” It was an accusation.

  Bridget heard Paddy move a little to her left, towards Connor, but closer to her also. She was afraid he was going to say something to protect her, then she realized how stupid that was, but the feeling was still there. She rushed into speech to prevent it. “I understand. It’s not the same thing. Please, Connor, this isn’t the time for us to quarrel, and not here.”

  His face twisted in scorn. “You mean in front of this lot?” he jabbed his elbow to indicate Dermot and Sean. “Do you think I give a damn what they think about me, or anything else?”

  “Perhaps you don’t,” she replied. “Have you considered that I might? Or Roisin, or Liam?”

  “Liam’s with me,” he stared at her icily. “As far as Roisin is concerned, she is no longer part of my family. She is Eamonn’s wife, not my daughter. That’s what she has chosen.” He moved fractionally so he turned his shoulder away from Roisin, as if physically cutting her out of his sight, and his knowledge.

  Bridget saw her face pale, and the tears fill her eyes, but she did not defend herself. Bridget understood why Connor had said it, she could feel his hurt as if it were a tangible thing in the room, but she still was angry with him for his reaction. He should have been larger, braver of heart than to cut Roisin off. She was not betraying for money or power, but because she believed differently, even though she had deceived him.

  “What she did was wrong, at least the way she did it,” she said aloud. “But you contributed to that also.”

  “I what?” he shouted.

  “You contributed to that also! You don’t listen. You never really listen to anybody else, unless they agree with you.” She stopped abruptly as she saw Connor’s face.

  Behind her Dermot was applauding. She turned and saw his smile, a wide, curling leer. His hands were held up, clapping where the others could see them.

  “It’s a crusade of hate, with you, isn’t it!” she said to him with disgust. “It’s nothing to do with religion, or freedom, or any of the other things you talk about with such affected passion. It’s about power and hate. The only way you can make anybody notice you is with a gun in your hand.” Her contempt was so fierce, carrying her shame for Connor, her pain for all of them, that her voice was laden with it.

  Dermot swung his arm back to strike her, and Paddy lunged forward and took the blow on his forearm, sending him off balance a little, landing against the table.

  Dermot swivelled to face him, his lips drawn back in a snarl. Then suddenly he stopped, and a hard, artificial smile replaced his anger. “Oh, very good!” he said sarcastically. “But I’m not that stupid, Paddy. A grandstand rescue isn’t going to make any difference now. You’re with us, like it or not. Remember Billy and whatever his name is, up on the hillside? You put them there just as much as we did, so you can forget trying to win Mrs. O’Malley over. She can’t help you, and she won’t.”

  “She’s right,” Paddy said bitterly. “You only know how to destroy.”

  “I know how to clear the ground, before I build,” Dermot said between his teeth. “More than you do, Paddy. You’re soft. You haven’t the guts to go through with it, or the judgement to know who’s strong and who’s weak.”

  “Or who’s honest and who isn’t,” Paddy added, but he did not move.

  By the far door Sean relaxed a little. “I’m going to cook,” Bridget said abruptly. “If you want to eat, you’ll let me get on with it. If you don’t, there’s not much but raw potatoes. Take your choice.” And without waiting for permission she went to the sink, filled the bowl with water, and took a dozen large potatoes out of the sack and began to scrub them.

  Silence descended again until every movement she made sounded like a deliberate noise. The wind was rising. She heard Connor say he was going to the bathroom. There was a brief altercation with Dermot, and then he went.

  She looked at Liam, still sitting at the kitchen table, and saw the misery in him. He glared back at her, as if she were the enemy. He was furious with her because she was not defending Connor. She had seen his defeat, and Liam could not forgive her for that. It confirmed it in his own mind, and made his confusion deeper. He so desperately wanted certainty, a cause to believe in and someone to admire, and in the space of a few days it had all been torn away and the flaws exposed, the fear and the weaknesses, the self-absorption.

  She turned back at the potatoes. They were half done. She had to persuade Connor and Paddy both to run, in opposite directions. Paddy must know Dermot wasn’t going to let them live? Was that regret deep enough in him for him to risk his life? Or would he sacrifice them all for his own chance?

  And what about Connor? Would he risk himself, to save his family? Or did he really believe it was his duty to live, that only he was fit to lead the cause? She remembered him in her mind’s eye as he had been when they first met, his face smooth and eager, his eyes full of dreams. There had been something beautiful in him then.

  She was nearly finished with the potatoes. How long had she got left before Dermot made his decision? Once he moved it would be too late. Little time, very little. She must think of a way to persuade each person to do what she needed them to. With Paddy and Connor it would have to be without their knowing.

  She cut the potatoes into manageable pieces, awkward with the one blunt slice they had left her, and put them into the largest saucepan, then covered them with cold water. They were going to be very bland. There was a little bacon left, and some eggs, but she did not want to use them now. It would betray the fact that she knew that there was no tomorrow. She must behave as if she believed rescue, or at least release, was only a matter of time. There was no ideological difference between Connor and Eamonn, or Adair, only the means to attain the goal of Protestant safety. Just as there was none b
etween Dermot and Paddy, only the means to unite Ireland under Catholic rule. No one expected anyone to cross the gulf between them. Their quarrels with each other were nothing compared with the enmity that stretched down the generations dividing Catholic from Protestant, Southern Ireland from the North. Paddy might not be on Dermot’s side, but he would never be against him. There was all the difference in the world between those two things. She must not trust him.

  But she did not have to tell the truth—to anyone!

  She looked at the potatoes. They needed salt, and flavour. An idea began in her mind. It was small, not very good, but there was not time to spend waiting for something better. Dermot was nervous, shifting uneasily already. How much longer would it be before he decided to act? He could shoot them, her whole family, everyone she loved most in the world. Paddy would be upset, for a while, caught in an act of barbarity he had not intended, but violence was part of Irish life. Almost every week someone was killed. It would not make any difference to him, in the long run.

  “Liaml” she said suddenly. “I want to move something in my room. Will you come and help me please?”

  Sean looked up suspiciously.

  “In my bedroom I’d rather have my son, thank you,” she said sharply. “Liam!”

  He stood up slowly, unwilling. He looked for a moment at his father, and received no response. He followed Bridget along the short corridor to the bedroom.

  “What is it?” he said as soon as they were inside.

  “Close the door,” she told him.

  He frowned.

  “Be quick!”

  “What is it?” He looked puzzled now, and a little alarmed, but he obeyed.

  “Listen to me, Liam.” She swallowed down the tension inside her, and deliberately banged the chair on the floor as if moving it. There was no time to think of the risk she was taking, or whether this might be the most costly mistake in her life. “Dermot can’t afford to let us go. He killed Billy and Ian, and there isn’t going to be any resolution to this. He’ll realize it soon, and then he’ll kill us.”