“There’s a statue of him at the crossroads in Oughterard in your district, Mr. Minister.”
He frowned, as if trying to remember. “Oh, yes, a battle with the Black and Tans, wasn’t it? So long, long ago. I’m sure that most of the young people in Oughterard don’t know the story, do they, Miss McGrail?”
“I never heard it, Mr. Minister. Young people have other matters on their mind. The patriot game doesn’t mean much to us. Maybe it should.”
“I don’t think so,” he said softly. “They fought long ago so we wouldn’t have to play the game.”
I found myself liking the man. He was sleek and a little too “cute” (in the Irish sense of the word, which means “clever”), but he was perceptive and perhaps even wise.
“My grandmother told me that they would be shot if they ever came back.”
Brendan Keane turned over a fork thoughtfully, the consummate politician searching for the consummate political reply. “There were amnesties for everyone as the years went on, Dermot. Meaning no disrespect to your grandparents, I’ve always felt that there was a bit of romance for an Irish-American immigrant of that era if he could hint that there was a price on his head.”
“He never spoke about it, Mr. Minister. And Ma, my grandmother, mentioned it to me only once.”
The minister continued to play with his fork. “It’s odd that much of the political shape of Ireland today was formed in those years, and yet the conflicts are so distant as to be forgotten. I am, as you know, a member of the antitreaty party. By that definition, the opposition are traitors to the Irish Republic. Yet I can assure you that no one has thought in those terms since 1930 at the latest. I don’t want to say that we forgave and forgot. It’s merely that we have acted like we had ever since. . . . I’m sure your grandfather would have been quite safe if he had returned.”
“An alien paradoxical people,” Nuala observed. “Long memories and yet short memories.”
“Precisely, my dear. We don’t quite forget, but we see no point in remembering too much either.”
“As a member of a party descended from the anti-Free State forces, the Irregulars on whose side my grandfather fought, what would you say today about the traitor Michael Collins?”
Again dead silence.
“I don’t think there would be any hesitation about the judgment”—he continued to speak casually—“that he was a genius of the first magnitude. His death was a terrible loss for Ireland. If he had lived he would have been Taoiseach and probably Uachtairan—that’s president—and a major world figure. He was the only man on the other side who had the determination and the political astuteness De Valera possessed and a lot more flare. We would have had a different history and a much more interesting one.”
“Yet he almost certainly had a death instinct,” Lord Longwood-Jones suggested.
“Definitely.”
“Kit Kiernan was quite worried about him,” Nuala remarked. “His sweetheart, you know. Poor dear woman.”
Someone had been doing her homework, without telling me, of course.
“You have a special interest in him, Dermot?” Lady Liz (as I had learned she was called) asked.
“Not particularly, Liz. But to an outsider trying to understand Ireland, he seems a striking figure, a giant, even if the present government did not celebrate the centennial of his birth back in 1991.”
The minister laughed. “We did not let the event go completely unnoticed. We did hail his great work in the Black and Tan war, and the other party celebrated his wisdom in bringing peace to Ireland.”
A waiter refilled my wineglass with claret, the best I had ever tasted. I should watch myself. The last time I had too much of the drink taken I had behaved badly; and tonight I was in the company of a much more alluring woman—a shy child with a tart tongue.
“Are you planning to write about those times, Dermot?” Martin asked.
“I don’t think so. I have enough images from the present to keep me going for years.”
“At the rate of a story every eighteen months,” Nuala observed.
More general laughter.
The candlelight gleamed on her bare shoulders and the tops of her breasts. The dancing lights in her eyes were spinning a Kerry reel.
Irresistible.
You have captured me, young woman. At least for the night in this fantasy dining room. In the cold light of tomorrow morning, dark and rainy I expect, I might want to reconsider the matter. Now, however, I’m yours if you want me.
You’re acting, all right, but it is still the real Nuala we’re seeing, at least one element of her complex self. There are other versions of the real Nuala. I like them too.
You would make a challenging wife, difficult, contentious, passionate, and sensitive.
You would also nurture the shy child in me and permit me to protect the shy child in you.
I’d be a fool to let you get away.
Still, you scare the hell out of me. And you’re too young to marry. And I’m not ready for marriage yet.
She saw me staring at her and bit her lip to suppress a smile. She knew she had spun a web of enchantment about me and was amused by my adoration. Her eyes flicked to Lady Elizabeth at my right and rolled ever so slightly, just to let me know that she had noticed my fascination with that woman’s shoulders and chest, didn’t really mind, but wouldn’t let me forget it either.
Did this crowd think we were close to being engaged? Or living together?
Probably.
God help a man of hers who was a writer if he didn’t write. If a man marries her he’ll never have a moment’s peace.
Or a moment of boredom.
Just like Grandpa Bill.
As much as I had loved Ma, I had often thought that I wanted no woman like her running my life.
The minister continued to look thoughtful. “The trick of it, I suppose, is to learn from the past, even drink in its romance and drama, and at the same time not to be tied to its causes and slogans.”
“As the lads are,” I said, using the term often applied to the IRA gunmen.
“Precisely. In some sense they can claim lineage with the antitreaty forces. Unlike Michael Collins and unlike Dev after 1923, they don’t know when to stop.”
“And like my father’s commandant, Daniel O’Kelly?”
“You know the history better than I do.”
Everyone was looking at me—the Yank being expected to explain his attitude on the violence in the six counties. How many times had I been forced to do that?
“Whatever my grandfather’s position was, and he never spoke about it—which is sort of strange, isn’t it?—I am not in sympathy with the present IRA. I don’t believe in violence and the murder of the innocent. However, I agree with Mr. Cruise O’Brien that they use the symbols of 1916; they, not any of us around this table, are the legitimate descendants of Michael Collins during the Black and Tan War and of Dev during the Civil War. Moreover, I don’t think that England would have been forced into the current Anglo-Irish peace initiative if it had not been for the lads and their killing the last twenty years.”
“Tragically, I think you’re right. Don’t you agree, milord?”
“Indeed yes. Until the Ulster Unionists accept political equality for Catholics in the North, the killing will continue.”
“It’s not our war here,” Fionna Keane said stubbornly.
No one disagreed with her.
“But it’s a paradox, isn’t it, Dermot,” my date observed, “that the North is grist for the mill of a storyteller?”
“Only, my dear, when he’s at ease enough with it to write about it. I’m not sure I’ll ever quite understand Ireland well enough to write about anything more than Dublin’s fair city where the girls are so pretty!”
More general laughter, this time on my side.
The trifle they served for dessert was at least a mortal sin. Many more lengths in the pool for the Yank tomorrow.
“You’ll have to drench it in double cream for hims
elf,” Nuala warned.
Her remark, which produced more general laughter, as by this time everything she said did, at least spared me the embarrassment of asking for a second helping of the double cream.
To my surprise, the Longwood-Joneses did not honor the old aristocratic custom of the men and women separating after the meal. We were to adjourn back to the parlor, still overstuffed as now I was, for port (no cigars, indeed no smoking of any kind) and Ms. McGrail’s song.
“Still, Dermot,” His Lordship said to me as we were leaving the table, “it would be interesting to explore your grandparents’ tale, wouldn’t it, an opening to the paradox of how a peaceful people can be so violent and how a people with long memories can so easily forget?”
“I suppose so, Martin. I suppose so.”
No commitments either way. Let them guess what I would do.
The Celtic harp was brought out. Sitting on the edge of an antique chaise that was probably insured for seventy or eighty thousand pounds, Nuala tuned the strings, glanced at me triumphantly, and began.
“In Dublin’s fair city,
Where the girls are so pretty
I first set my eyes
On sweet Molly Malone.
She wheeled her wheelbarrow
Through streets broad and narrow,
Crying cockles and mussels
Alive, alive oh!
“Alive, alive oh!
Alive, alive oh!
Crying cockles and mussels
Alive, alive oh!
“She was a fishmonger,
But sure ‘twas no wonder,
For so was her father and mother before.
And they both wheeled their barrow
Through streets broad and narrow
Crying cockles and mussels
Alive, alive oh!
“Alive, alive oh!
Alive, alive oh!
Crying cockles and mussels
Alive, alive oh!
“She died of a fever
And no one could relieve her,
And that was the end of sweet Molly Malone,
But her ghost wheels her barrow
Through streets broad and narrow,
Crying cockles and mussels
Alive, alive oh!
“Alive, alive oh!
Alive, alive oh!
Crying cockles and mussels
Alive, alive oh!”
I’d heard the song often and sung it lustily. It never meant as much as it did to me at that moment. I didn’t want sweet Molly Malone.
But I did want sweet, perhaps bittersweet, Nuala McGrail.
–– 16 ––
“I DON’T want to talk about it. Leave me alone.”
Nuala was curled up in a knot against the side of the Rolls, her head turned away from me.
“You were wonderful. They adored you.” I reached out tentatively to touch her shoulder. She twisted away like there was electric current in my fingers.
“They did not. They saw right through me. They knew I was a focking fraud!”
“You weren’t a fraud, Nuala. You were simply being yourself, one of the many varieties of Nuala.”
“I wanted to shout shite, shite, at all of them, the focking snobs!”
“Would you use such language in the presence of your mother!”
“Brigid, Patrick, and Columcille, I would not!”
“And she’s a snob!”
“I never said that, did I?”
“You’re not being logical, Nuala.”
“Fock logic!”
That said it all. She did not want to be consoled.
So I’d better shut up. It was a reaction from the strain to trying to be the Grand Duchess Nuala, one of her personas doubtless, but not one that had been let out of the box all that often.
“And yourself a pissant drunk!”
“I am not drunk!” I protested. “I have some of the drink taken maybe, but I’m not drunk.”
“If I hadn’t held your arm on the door stoop,” she mumbled, “wouldn’t you have fallen down it?”
“I would not!”
“You would so!”
She was trying to pick a fight with me. Well, she’d have to learn early in our relationship that such a tactic didn’t work. Not even when I had a bit too much of the drink taken.
She hunched into a tighter knot. No tears yet, so she probably wasn’t going to cry.
“Where do you live, Nuala? Arthur has to take you home.”
“I won’t tell you! I’ll walk from Jury’s!”
“You will not!” I grabbed her and turned around, so I could see her face in the dim light of the car. “Now listen to me, young woman. You can indulge in your self-hatred and enjoy it as much as you want, and I won’t argue with you about it. But I’m not about to let you walk home by yourself after a date with me.” I shook her once or twice for good measure. “Do you understand that?”
She wouldn’t look at me, but she did nod her head.
“Arthur can take me home after he drops you off.”
I shook her again. “Arthur is not your date and I am.”
“Isn’t it so poor that I’m ashamed of it?”
“I’m not ashamed of you, Nuala Anne McGrail, even when you act like a focking asshole!”
At that she sniggered. “All right, if you must know. It’s on Chapel Lane off Irishtown Road.”
“Where all the yuppies live?”
“The focking yuppies live on the west side of Irishtown, along the Dodder River. We poor folk live on the east side.” Then she twisted away and returned to her sulking.
I gave the address to Arthur through the voice tube.
“Nine drinks,” she muttered. “Nine and a half counting that half glass of cognac at the end. If you had taken the full glass, wouldn’t you have fallen down the steps and my arm not strong enough to hold you up? Wouldn’t you have disgraced me?”
“You were counting, were you?”
“I wanted to see if you were an alcoholic!”
“I am not an alcoholic!” I was beginning to be angry. “I hardly drink at all. The wines were so good tonight and the company so exciting that I drank more than usual. And, as you yourself admit, I stopped in time.”
“And all the time staring at that woman’s boobs, embarrassing me altogether!”
“Weren’t they meant to be stared at? Isn’t that the point in strapless gowns?”
“You were too obvious.” She sniffed. “I’m thinking you were half ready to chew on her tits.”
“More than half ready. Yours too as far as that goes. But I remained in the bounds of good taste, Nuala.”
“Georgian good taste.” She wouldn’t give an inch.
“They were much more lewd than we are. If I were a Georgian male with as much of the drink in me as you say I have, you wouldn’t be safe in this car. I’d have your dress off and that obscene lingerie thing too, which incidentally seemed to do its work pretty well.”
“Pissant drunk,” she muttered. “Besides, you’d be afraid to try.”
Now, there was a challenge for you. Also a truth not to be denied.
“Probably you’re right, Nuala. Also too respectful of you to try.”
“Facking gobshite!”
I gave up, not that I minded the argument, which I thought I had won.
Then she changed completely. “I’m sorry, Dermot Michael.” She turned and leaned her head against my chest. “I’m a terrible bitch altogether and I had a wonderful time. Thank you for inviting me.”
“Here we are, sir,” Arthur said dubiously before I could respond to her transformation. “A bit rundown, I’m afraid.”
“Ms. McGrail is a student, Arthur.”
“Yes, sir.”
“I’ll walk up to the door with you, young woman.” I put my arm firmly around her. “Don’t embarrass me or Arthur by making a scene.”
“If you think you can come into the apartment and screw me”—she shoved me away with a laugh—“you’re wr
ong. Aren’t there two other girls sharing it with me?”
“All of them waiting for the whole story of your triumph, which you will narrate for them in elaborate detail.”
“Humph. . . .” She giggled, now a little silly, perhaps from exhaustion.
Oh, yes, Dermot Coyne won the argument, much good it would do him.
“Thank you very much, Arthur,” she said to the driver. “It’s a beautiful car and you drive it well.”
“May there always be a beautiful car for you to ride in, miss.”
She was willing enough to permit me to escort her to the door of the shabby little two-story house—workers’ quarters from the Victorian era.
“And if it was rape I had on me mind, woman, four other girls wouldn’t stop me, do you understand?”
She actually laughed at me. “We’d kill you, one way or another.”
Then at the door, she hugged me and kissed me. “I am a focking asshole, Dermot Michael Coyne,” she said. “I’m sorry. Didn’t I have a wonderful time? Thank you.”
I stood there for a minute, the soft Dublin mists bathing my face, the smell of the sea again on the air. I was still in a daze. The evening had been too much for me, too much altogether, as a matter of fact.
How many subtle Irish signals—and not so subtle ones—had been hurled at my head that I had missed because I was besotted by good wine and beautiful women?
Well, as Nuala might have said, fock ’em all!
The best part of the night, I told myself fervently as I walked back to the Rolls, was the last moment.
It had been a wonderful kiss, mostly innocent of lust, but filled with tender affection.
–– 17 ––
“MISS ANGELA Smythe, please. Dermot Coyne calling.”
“I’m afraid, Mr. Coyne,” the woman said in a very proper British voice, “there’s no one on the embassy staff by that name.”
“Are you sure?”
“Quite sure, Mr. Coyne.”
“She was attached to the Anglo-Irish Secretariat.”
“Then she wouldn’t be stationed here, Mr. Coyne.”
“Uh, thank you very much.”
“You’re quite welcome, I’m sure.”
What the hell?
I replaced the phone slowly. What the hell?
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