Thelma picked up the pad, and fled.
God of irony.
He thought, Here am I now in the final minutes of my secretive life, an old man who has suddenly found the tongue for a boyhood verse. Top o’ the mornin’. Indeed, how prescient. How very like Peep o’ day! The god of irony had been early to work in the life of Peadar Cavanaugh.
He thought, too, of yesterday’s encounter with Aidan’s boy. How striking the resemblance between the two! Cavanaugh had felt time collapsing on itself just sitting with the boy.
For a moment, as the boy recited the words written on the back of Aidan’s soldier picture, he considered telling him the truth of his father—and of the crucible of his time. He seemed to want it so. But he had told him, instead, to please go home to New York.
Did this spring from mercy, or cowardice? Or was it in respect for the ghost of dear Mairead? Was not ignorance for the boy her life’s wish? And had he not done enough already to the boy’s family?
His body shook, as if a sudden cold wind had swept in the window. Was it the Devil’s breath?
Soon, he would be a ghost. But—one more thing!
Cavanaugh rose from his desk and crossed his office to a collection of photographs on a wall. All featured the humble lad from Kilkenny grown to become Trinity’s chancellor, in dozens of handshaking poses with the dignitaries of the world. He took down the photograph of himself and Yeats, and returned to his desk.
He opened the frame, took out the old picture and examined the back of it. There, in blue ink applied by Yeats himself, were the words, Hammer your thoughts into unity. Cavanaugh folded the photograph into quarters and stuffed it into the envelope.
He rolled up his left coat sleeve, and turned back the cuff.
Then he picked up the razor knife and stabbed at his wrist until the skin broke and hot blood bubbled to the surface.
Cavanaugh put down the knife, and picked up his quill.
He dipped the quill into the now steady, thick spurts of blood, and addressed the envelope: Oliver Gunston, c/o The Irish Guardian, Grafton Street, Dublin.
He then began writing on the bond, dipping the quill into his slowly whitening arm:
My dear Oliver—
I am a madman of some stature—and, as you say, a murderer—now taken by my own hand and properly enroute to Hades, where I shall surely join my comrades in arms. Before going, I present you this manifesto, if you will. As I am thus at death’s safe remove from readers of the Guardian, perhaps here is your way of breaking print with our discussion this afternoon of the Nevermore Plan.
A few remarks of preface:
—You will notice, of course, the copperish hue of my ink. I write in my own blood, for reasons of irony, further herein apparent;
—I pray you exercise perspective in the matter of William Butler Yeats, patriot, poet, playwright, politician, bitter foe of the Partition of Ireland, Nobel laureate, mystic—and, for a brief time, ardent admirer of the Irish fascist movement. Mr. Yeats owned great intellectual passion; he worried mightily that others, possessed merely of physical passions, might apply his ideas in fields of action, possibly endangering their own lives. He once mused in none other than the pages of the Guardian, “Did that play of mine send out certain men the English shot?” The answer, of course, is a rousing yes. I confess that the erudite Mr. Yeats was a convenience to us, in the long tradition of aristocrats blind to manipulations by their lessers. His respect and eminence gave music to a cause even his fertile imagination never perceived.
Now then, to the Nevermore Plan.
Simply put, it assumes England will attempt violent overthrow of the Republic of Ireland at first available opportunity. Therefore, we must maintain a perpetual vigilence. And because the common people of the Irish nation have always born the brunt of English oppression, it has fallen to our class to invent a vigilent system. Again, simply put, “we” have created among ourselves a secret vanguard to ensure that England will nevermore put its boot to Irish necks.
We Irish are and always have been militarily impotent as a nation; and, as eight hundred years’ oppressive history demonstrates, we may rely on no other nation of the world to rally to our defense against the rapacious evil of England’s ever so genteel barbarians. Therefore, we logically conclude, there must be ceaseless guerrilla warfare waged upon our ancient enemy, with our warriors drawn all at once from every existing schism of political philosophy and from all classes of the Irish people.
This was our founding thesis. It remains so to this day. The cause will live into the next generation of Irishman, and the next, and the next, and the next—unto forever. No one may kill the hatred in our Irish heads. Nevermore!
Our beginnings came during the years of the Great Depression, and the gathering storm of the Second World War. There were a certain number of us in Dublin involved in regular political study. (Here I shall betray no one’s identity beyond my own.) We became convinced that England’s chance at recapturing Ireland lay near at hand, amidst the upheavals of the coming great war. Therefore, we cast our underground lot with those allied against Britain, using the stirring poetry of William Butler Yeats as our voice and unifying spirit. Today, we cast our lot with another force making war against Britain, the Irish Republican Army.
We are everywhere in Ireland, in the enslaved northern counties of Ulster and in the ever-threatened Republic of the south. And we are everywhere else throughout the Irish diaspora. We have used and will use for all time any means, any eminent personality, any public institution, any political organisation of any persuasion in aid of our continuing holy cause. We are the despised and the privileged, we are the poor and the rich, we are the weak and the powerful. England, beware—and forever be caught in careful wonder by our strange unity!
I have now provided you the bare bones outline of the Nevermore Plan. I shall go no further, providing no details of individual or collective actions, save that contained in the next few paragraphs.
Why have I told you all this? Because I am an old dog of war, dear Oliver, and because my commander has issued a final call, which shall mean my death, one way or another. I choose my own way out of this vale. And in parting, I wish by the foregoing to justify the gravest of my own crimes of war, to wit:
In the dark of morning, 14th October of 1937, I, Peadar Cavanaugh, did kill Lord Gavan Fitzgerald, the accurate particulars of which were published contemporaneously in the Guardian. I carried out this assassination against an Irishman who abandoned his own kind to become a political enemy of the free people of Eire. This was a warning to all the Fitzgerald ilk, the one-time local authorities under British rule who itched to serve their overlords again, to retake power under new British occupation.
It was, I, Peadar Cavanaugh, who dipped his hands into Lord Fitzgerald’s open chest and lettered his coup de grâce, this being the sign hanged ’round his traitor’s neck—the sentiments of Yeats, “We wish to grow peaceful crops, but we must dig our furrows with the sword.”
I would do it again, may God have mercy on my black soul. Nevermore!
Yrs in Xt,
Peadar Cavanaugh
There was little time now, maybe only seconds before Thelma would return to his office. She was as punctual as she was pious.
Cavanaugh was near to fainting from the loss of blood, and so weak he could no longer sit up straight. His head fell forward, and he was helpless to prevent it. He was now slumped across the desktop, arms to one side with his hands pressed together, as if he were pretending to be a sea lion clapping for the amusement of Sunday visitors to the zoo.
So very little time …
He managed to fold the blooded letter, and stuff it into the envelope with the photograph. Then he wrapped up his wounded wrist in the silk. And opened the walnut box.
Inside was a Mauser WTP .25 caliber automatic vest-pocket pistol.
He placed the barrel in his mouth, said “Nevermore!” and fired.
Chapter 38
Thus had I arrived
in Dublin, and thus would I now take my leave: again with a couple of gunmen tearing down the steps of a public building, holding me in their sightings. I had precious little time for such things of the spleen, but I made a dying wish that moment in Roxboro Lane.
I wished for the pleasure of throttling the treacherous Brady so completely that he would know his eventual journey to hell as a blessing. That decided, and the clock racing, I ran at an angle from the pursuing constables straight toward the Japanese tourists and the small mob of “schoolgirls.”
They had completely surrounded the stunned Japanese now, like banners fluttering down a maypole, their quick thieving hands rippling under the cover of their cardigans. They mumbled, “Mister … Hey, mister … Hey, missy … Penny for the tinker’s child, ma’am…?” The mister of the two got the picture first.
“You … you wait minute!” the poor sap shouted at the girls, one of whom barreled up Roxboro toward me. “Thief! … You wait right here…!”
I grabbed the runner by her shoulders. She kicked my shins, spat something thick and green in my face, and hissed, “Piss off, you filthy bugger, else I’ll scream bloody rape.”
“Listen—I’m not going to queer your play,” I said to her, holding on as she continued kicking my legs. “I’m Mairead Fitzgerald’s boy, and I’m in trouble. Understand?”
“Aye!”
“See back there?” I jerked my head toward the constables, now maybe a hundred yards off.
“The coppers, they’re gunnin’ for ye?” the tinker said, eyes wide. She stopped kicking. “Can y’run hard, man?”
“I don’t know—”
“C’mon now, it’s easier than bein’ shot!”
She latched on to my coat sleeve, and we pounded up Roxboro through gathering crowds, the hard-faced girl in her flying tartan skirt and me stumbling along on my wounded shins. Behind me, I still heard the offended Japanese tourist shouting, “You wait right here!” And now the shrill police whistles blowing.
“Where are you headed—?”
“Hush—save the breath for your runnin’, man!” The tinker girl turned, for a look back to the constables. “I’ll be takin’ you to Sister, it’s all you need t’know.”
I heard a shot.
“Gawd—oh!” the tinker girl shouted as we ran. “Fookin’ saints preserve us!”
We dashed through a cobbled alley. I lost my footing when pain stabbed through my lower legs. The tinker held me up, and we kept running.
Another shot, this one ricocheting off a slate rooftop. At least they were firing in the air, I thought. The tinker’s sentiments were not so grateful.
“Fook them coppers!” she shouted.
We ran past an old black van, stopped with the motor idling at the opposite end of the alley. And as we passed it, the tinker battered the passenger door with a well-placed foot. Then she reached below her cardigan with a free hand, emerging with a fat wallet. She held this over her head, and threw it high in the air, screaming, “Money, money, money, money…!”
There were now dozens of Irish pound notes, Japanese yen and traveler’s checks spilling to the cobblestones. And women in head scarves battling one another to pick them up. I stole a look back. The van head leaped off the curb and now careered down the alley between the angry constables and us.
The girl made a turn at the end of the alley, into a short mall full of fruit and vegetable carts, fish mongers and scattered cafés. Cut off by this, the van that had shielded us from the constables kept straight on, bumping through the alley.
“I can’t keep this up,” I said, gasping, the pain drilling my legs.
“Y’got to, man—least’til we double back t’the high street! C’mon ye, keep hold t’me!”
Another shot in the air, now a mall with screaming people. We charged wide around a café. I saw O’Connell Street again, between the tables.
A startled waiter lost the balance of a large round tray. Thick glass pints of ale crashed to the ground.
I slipped in a foamy stream of the ale and broken glass, and fell, my knee taking the worst punishment. I could see the growing bloodstain inside the pants leg, and sharp-edged stones of embedded glass. And as I looked at the gashing mess, I grew sick at myself for all my own drinking that day, and how it had weakened and slowed me.
“I can’t—!”
“We’re nearly there. Keep hold!”
The tinker pulled my arm up over her shoulder and kept running, like a hellbat. Now toward O’Connell Street, on our combined three legs.
“It’s there now!” she shouted.
We ran toward the flock of her cohorts, all of them obediently standing near the raving Japanese tourist. At the curb was the black van, motor running. The constables were gaining on us.
Then something pierced my good leg, in the back thigh. The muffled sound of the shot came a half-second later.
I collapsed, striking my chin on the pavement. I heard people screaming, and I felt the tinker’s two hands at my collar, yanking me along the ground. But this was all happening to someone else, not me.
The tinker’s face glistened with sweat. I heard her voice, rough and loud over all the other sounds, “I’ve got Mairead’s boy here … he’s shot … get him to Sister’s…!”
Pain in my legs, from the tinker’s assault and my fall and a constable’s bullet, turned to warmth. My vision faded, colors turned to shadings of gray. O’Connell Street’s fast sights and sounds belonged to other people, not to me.
The Japanese lady fainted, her husband screamed for help. The other tinker girls formed an insulating circle around me, covering me with their cardigans; hiding me, patting my back, and cooing over and over, “Mairead Fitzgerald’s boy …”
The side panel door of the van slid open.
Many quick, strong hands lifted me, shoving me into a makeshift ambulance.
“Careful of him, will ye? It’s Mairead’s boy…!”
I imagined Ruby’s face, and her voice. I imagined her telling me she was safe.
At midmorning of the next day, I came around. Two women were in the room with me. One wiped my head with a cold, wet cloth. The other sat at a table drinking coffee and smoking cigarettes. She wore a nun’s habit.
Sister Sullivan’s camp was set back in a scrub forest beyond the bogs and fen that line the North Road for miles beyond the slumscapes of upper Dublin. It would be home for the next several days.
I lay recovering in a cot in the camp’s only permanent structure, if it could be called such. This was a low mud hut abandoned by some nameless, starving farmer. Probably during the famine.
There was only the one square room to the hut, with the table and some chairs, the crumbled remains of a stone cooking hearth, a sleeping loft and a crucifix nailed to the wall over my cot. The doorway was small and airless, covered only by a sheet of canvas. Even the smaller children had to stoop to get through it. The ceiling beams were cracked, and the roof mostly gone. The tinker men had patched it with paper scraps and fallen timber, but rain leaked through anyway.
Outside the small window where I lay, I could see the tinker’s painted wagons, with their rounded tin covers and chimney vents. There was also the collective property of the camp—pinto horses, dogs, a flock of chickens, three very old cars and the black van. The women wore shawls and kerchiefs and billowing skirts, some of the girls wore their working clothes—school uniforms. The men and older boys dressed with more variety, depending on how they wished to appear on trips into the city to scam the locals and tourists.
My own clothes lay neatly folded on a chair at the end of my cot. I lay beneath three blankets. My thigh was ripped by a bullet, my face and legs were a mass of scrapes and bone bruises. Also I was nursing the aftershocks of a concussion.
But I was alive, and free. And so was Ruby.
Ruby! I could only imagine my calling her name. My throat would not permit the cry.
“Easy, Hock,” she said as I tried raising myself. Ruby put down the wet cloth, and calle
d to Sister Sullivan, “He’s back with us, Sister!”
Sister came to my side. “It’s about time,” she said, her lacy wrinkles turning up in a relieved smile. “Hush you, Hockaday. Save your strength. Feast your eyes on Ruby here whilst I check your signs.”
She pulled up my eyelids, felt the pulse points of my neck and poked at my chest and stomach. “I’d say you’ll heal all right, boy. Now, I expect you’d like to know how we’ve managed to reunite you two?”
I nodded, and took Ruby’s hand.
“Like anybody with an interest in staying one step ahead of what passes for the law, we tinkers have our sources in the Dublin Garda, which costs us dear,” Sister said. “Anyhow, it come to us that you and your lady was to be snatched by coppers what meant you no good. And so we come to pinch you first—our impersonators, that is.”
“Only you’d already left the house when they came to take us,” Ruby added.
“Aye, we had a hellish time catching up with you. You slipped by us at the depot.” Sister shook her head. “This was a major miscalculation. We were looking for a fellow in a baseball cap, you see.”
I managed finally to sit up. With a shot of water, I managed to speak.
“I had quite a day,” I said. “I spoke to Francie Boylan’s father, and got an earful there. And then another earful from a professor of political history at Trinity College who seems to think my father was a Nazi. And then after that, I telephoned Liam’s house and found out that Moira had hanged herself and that the cops had you, Ruby.”
Ruby took her hand away, stood up and moved to the table. She picked up a newspaper, the Irish Guardian, and came back to the cot with it.
I said to Sister Sullivan, “It’s a damn good thing I saw some of your dippers working their number on O’Connell Street.”
“Aye, they rescued you.”
“I was just heading into Garda headquarters after Ruby with this lawyer I’d hired, who—”
Sister’s face swelled with anger, and she cut in with, “The devil makes his Christmas pie with lawyers’ tongues!”
Drown All the Dogs Page 29