‘Sure and it’s a terrible thing, Mrs. Fraser. Now you mark my words, m’am, there’ll be no good come of it. None at all.’
‘Now, Mrs. Haney, please don’t get yourself upset.’
‘Upset is it, and me wrung dry already? I had to send Bridget home again today, I did. But you’ll be taking some tea. Dublin to your satisfaction, was it?’
‘Yes. Yes, Dublin was fine.’
‘But there was a delay at the frontier?’
‘Yes. Yes, there was. This …’
‘This anarchist! Sadist! Hitler himself could be no worse.’
‘Mrs. Haney …’
‘I’ll bring it, m’am. A good cup of tea will set you to rights, that and a change of clothing, I’m thinking. There was no news of this terrible trouble in Dublin, was there then?’
‘I … I didn’t see the papers. I …’
Ria O’Shane O’Hoolihan Haney gave her the look she reserved for wanton harlots who sold their bodies in the streets of that fair city. She tossed her head knowingly and clucked, ‘Dentist, was it?’ beneath her breath before departing to her kitchen.
By himself, Dr. Fraser was a saint, a prince of a man. With that young wife of his, the poor soul didn’t know what to do, and that was the God’s truth, it was.
Leaving her suitcases in the foyer, Mary found the will to climb the stairs. Exhausted by the border crossing, she dragged herself up to her room knowing Mrs. Haney would be listening for her, knowing too, that in all this Georgian loveliness—and it was lovely—the echoes sounded and the sounds of them ran straight to the kitchen.
‘How could I have forgotten those cigarette butts and the maps?’ she asked herself. Had there been anything else? Dear God, she hoped there hadn’t. Jimmy … Jimmy was on to her.
Dressed in a robe, she hurried along the corridor to the bathroom but in passing the head of the stairs, thought to call down to say she’d be taking a bath, but then thought better of it. For one thing, there was the boiler and its firing up—an hour at least—for another, there was Mrs. Haney.
Instead, she found a towel and went back along the corridor drying her hair and wishing the house was warm, not damp and cold. It wasn’t that she didn’t like Mrs. Haney or want at least to tolerate the woman, it was simply that given a measure of fairness and tact, they might well have got on, but that could never be. Not now.
Mrs. Haney didn’t knock. The woman had the tray with the silver service and all, and very nearly dropped it.
‘Mrs. Fraser … Well, I never! I …’
No chance to cross herself, and speechless for once, but Mary could hear her saying to all and sundry, ‘As naked as a jackdaw plucked of its feathers, she was, and that’s the God’s truth, the brazen hussy!’
‘You can put it on the table over there by the window, Mrs. Haney. I was just trying to dry my hair at the electric fire.’
‘And the rest of you,’ muttered the woman, clucking her tongue loudly enough for the sound to be heard in the kitchen.
‘Perhaps, then, the next time you’ll knock?’
And her not covering herself at all, at all, swore Ria silently. Just standing there with the towel in hand, her backside to the electricity and that zebra-striped robe of hers down around her ankles, everything she owned just hanging out for all the world to see. Like fruit they was. Like young melons or overripe Bartlett pears! ‘I’ll let the doctor know you’re home when he comes in.’
‘You do that, and the next time I’m away and coming home, you make sure Bridget or yourself builds a fire in my room.’
‘Had you but telephoned, m’am, it would have been exactly as you wished.’
Lord save us but Mrs. Haney certainly knew how to put a person in her place! It was all about to start again. The house and Hamish, the lies, the village, its telephone line and electrical wires crisscrossing above a rain-swept single street, a track, a lane that ran between a straggle of tiny houses, too few of them Protestant so as to equal things out for all, the poverty of the place, the ignorance, the ingrown insularity, the castle and its prisoners of war.
The castle …
Erich Kramer … Erich who had been the captain of a German U-boat. Erich who had asked her to take a letter to his ‘cousin’ in Dublin. Some cousin! She’d been tricked into helping him. Deceived!
For love? she asked and said, her back still to the electric fire, ‘You silly fool. Hamish is the one who loves you. Hamish would rather die than see you come to harm.’
Hamish didn’t come home for supper nor did he ring to say what was keeping him. She ate alone in the smaller of the two dining rooms, the echo of lonely Crown Derby, Waterford crystal and Georgian silver being all around her, as was the flickering of a solitary candle.
At 9.00 p.m. he still hadn’t returned or rung, nor at 10.00. At 11.00 she heard the pony trap, heard him softly chastising William, the stableboy, for having not gone home. At 11.45 she found him in the library but did not tell him she had come downstairs. Instead, Mary stood out in the corridor, the sight of him framed by the white trim of the doorway.
He was sitting by the fire, on the couch at the far end of the room, it being one of those sloppy, comfortable things with large, cushioned arms, a faded olive-green to beige cover and slips that hung loosely and were nearly always rumpled. Having been quickly gone through, a newspaper was strewn about as if impatiently thrown away, some of it on the floor, some on the inlaid fruitwood of the coffee table, the rest on the cushions.
The dog was asleep at his feet, and the white marble of the chimneypiece with its neoclassical columns and its crown of laurel leaves was beyond him. Was it Burke’s Landed Gentry that he was now reading yet again, or the Farmer’s Almanac of 1937, or Chum, one of his boyhood books? Hamish read widely and with such vigour and absorption, not even a vengeful, parsimonious librarian could stir him from it, and yes, he read voraciously when angry and upset.
The salmon and the trout rods, the basket creels and long-handled landing nets, boots, hats and tackle boxes were in there, too, in their usual jumble, along with the pith helmet from India and the spiked iron one of the German soldier he had had to shoot and kill in France, in that other war.
As always, too, he wore the same grey-flecked Harris tweed suit and waistcoat his rounds demanded, the same trousers with their stovepipe legs, the same blue tie with its multitude of tiny fleurs-de-lis in gold.
The necktie was a thing a French girl had given him years ago and Mary knew she must remind him of that girl and that this had probably been one of the reasons they had married.
The drapes were drawn, the blackout being observed in this place but not in the South, never in the South.5 Belfast had been bombed in April and again in May. Terrible damage and loss of life,6 but since then the Luftwaffe had left Northern Ireland alone and the country had gone back to being just what it was, the centuries of silence and the fight, of course, their precious ‘Rebellion.’
The gold-rimmed eyeglasses were perched well down on the bridge of his nose. A hank of thinning hair, once reddish blond, now of sand and getting grey, hung over the right side of his brow. He seldom gave a care for such things. Perhaps he once had, but in all honesty she felt Hamish was trapped by time, circumstance and profession, he wanting only to revert to his essential self.
Just what that was she hadn’t quite decided.
‘Mary, I’ve awakened you.’
He started to get up—uncrossed his legs and closed the book, threw off the dust of his subconscious as she brushed a cheek against his own and momentarily hugged him.
‘I couldn’t sleep,’ she said.
‘Dublin go all right?’ he asked as she turned to sit in the armchair by the fire. Her chair, his sofa, and the dog not even stirring or taking any notice of her.
‘Yes, fine. Easier than I’d thought. And you? You’re late.’
‘Another
incident at the castle. A second lieutenant this time. The Leutnant zur See Bachmann, a nice boy, Mary. Only twenty-four and a great pity it had to happen.’ More he wouldn’t say but they both knew the truth would soon be out. Nothing stayed buried for long in these parts. Not unless the Irish wanted it that way.
‘Please don’t distress yourself, Mary. War makes prisoners of us all. It makes men do things they oughtn’t.’
And here she’d thought he would be upset with her. ‘Would you like a nightcap?’
‘Bushmills?’
‘In the cabinet. I could only get two, though.’
The newspaper was the copy of the Irish Times she’d bought yesterday, and she knew then, as he went to get the whiskey, that Hamish had taken a look in the car himself and had retrieved it. He’d been talking to Jimmy. He would know all about what had happened at the border.
‘A little water?’ he asked, not turning to look at her.
‘Yes. Yes, I’d like that.’
Hamish was almost old enough to have been her father. Fifty-four and not worrying about it, though. Not looking it either. Not really. A grand, tall, humble man with loose arms and a jacket that hung on him giving lots of room because he liked it that way and often had to pull the sleeves up or take the blessed thing off.
There were wrinkles, especially at the far corners of his eyes. The complexion was ruddy, the face broad and very Scottish with a full, if sometimes frightening nose and a chin that jutted out to accept both wind and rain with equal disregard.
There were bags under his eyes, a sag to the cheeks—he’d been biting himself with his back molars and had said over breakfast once, ‘I’m beginning to fold in on myself.’
As he handed her the cut-glass tumbler, their fingers touched and he stood before her, stood there looking down at her wondering, was he? Wondering what he was going to do about her? He had that look about him, had it in the smoky warmth of greeny-brown eyes that searched for answers now and could not be defied for long.
But then, on some sudden thought, or perhaps because of something he’d been reading, he smiled, and at once this was reflected in his eyes and she felt herself slipping back to him and wanted to say, to shout, ‘Don’t make it any harder!’ but could only smile wanly up at him, knowing that she would remind him of the girl he’d found in France and the one he’d rescued from the shores of Loch Lomond in the spring of 1939.
She took a sip. Fraser sat down opposite her on the sofa, wouldn’t touch his whiskey yet, he thought, would just stare at it and wish away the gulf between them, though Mary couldn’t really know this nor how much he wanted simply to forgive and forget. ‘The IRA are trouble, lass. A great deal of it. Captain Allanby had his reasons for being insufferable—orders from the top, no doubt, and word that someone close to this bomber, if not the man himself, would try to slip back into the North at that crossing, though why any of that lot would bother is beyond me. A border crossing when they’ve the whole of the border to slip through? It defies reason, but an order is an order, the High Command omnipotent, and no matter the consequences.’
Still untouched, he set his whiskey aside to take out his pipe and tobacco pouch.
‘The Belfast organization is by far the strongest at the moment,’ he went on, choosing not to look at her but to busy himself. ‘They’ve the whole of the nine northern counties to slip into and away, not just the six of Ulster, and as anyone knows, they’re not to be tampered with.’
‘Jimmy was just being insufferable, Hamish. He knows I can’t stand him—I wish I could, a little, that is, but I can’t. I’ve had nothing to do with those people—how could I have?’
Still he would not look at her. ‘My thoughts exactly,’ was all he said and, striking the match, brought it to the bowl of that pipe of his to look down its length at her.
‘Scotland Yard are certain Liam Nolan was the man who set off that bomb and took the life of that little girl, Mary, the poor wee thing worried only about having to leave her mother. Nolan’s been keeping himself out of sight since those Belfast bank jobs they pulled off last spring. Gone to ground, as they say, but …’ He waved the match out and flicked it into the grate. ‘But perhaps the Yard have got it all wrong.’
Mary knew she would have to say something, but that she’d have to still the panic in her. She didn’t know of this Nolan; Brenda Darcy had said nothing of him. Nothing! ‘Wouldn’t it make more sense to think the Irish Sea would stop him in wartime?’
‘There are fishing boats. They still do get across—the IRA, that is, and others.’
It was her turn to stare emptily at her whiskey. Her voice lost, she sadly whispered, ‘It seems such a horrid thing to have done. Utterly senseless.’
To let his gaze settle on her would take some doing when her eyes were downcast like this, Fraser warned himself, but he’d have to look for signs and not give in. He knew she was an enigma to him, that beneath the lie of innocence a herculean struggle was going on, that she had a conscience, a strength and depth of character he’d yet to fathom.
The slender hands that had been folded in front of her flattened themselves against her thighs. ‘I didn’t go to the dentist, Hamish. I … I just had to get away again. This place … You know how it is. I know you do. I stayed at the White Horse Inn on Wilton Terrace, overlooking the Grand Canal. I went for walks. I …’
Those lovely eyes of hers lifted to meet his gaze, she giving him that shrug he knew so well. ‘Mary … Lass, there’s no harm in that. Did you enjoy yourself?’
Must they play this game? ‘Not really. I missed you. I … I felt awful.’
Fraser told himself to say nothing of the cigarette butts they’d found in the motorcar—Jimmy Allanby was just being himself, a bitter, lonely, overly suspicious man with a chip on his shoulder and one she knew well enough. Och, he would reach for his glass—aye, that’s what he’d do.
But he didn’t. Mary heard him get up. He set his pipe aside and stepped around the coffee table. ‘You must be tired,’ he said, and she felt him take her by the hand, wished he’d say something sharp—anything!—before it was too late.
In the morning, the rain had gone. A grey mist hung over the fields and woods, and in the gardens behind the house droplets of water lay on every petal and on all the blades of grass.
Each day had its hushes. The most intense was, of course, not just before dawn but as now when the light of a struggling sun tried to break through the tops of the most distant beeches which stood dark in clusters on the endlessly rolling crowns of the drumlins, and the land, with its meadows, fields, hills and hedgerows of mossy stone and bushes or bracken gave to the world but a whisper and the brown-eyed cattle returned from their milking.
Mary stopped by the bridge where the Loughie ran dark amber with its taste of peat and the reeds were turning brown. Breathing in deeply, she listened to the hush, picking out the faint sound of Parker O’Shane’s lead cow and best milker, named Mary just like herself. Though she wouldn’t go there today, the sly laughter and swift asides of each exchange came readily enough, Parker with his gumboots mired in cowpats and sucking on that fire of his just as Hamish sucked on his. These visits, she knew, were bright spots in this life of hers, but was it a day for confessions?
Getting on the forest-green Raleigh with its wicker carrier basket up front, she started out again, a lone woman on her bicycle amid the green, grass-green of a landscape that had gone to grey with a mist whose trailing tendrils felt their way into every hollow.
The house, situated a good three miles from the village of Ballylurgen, was some twelve miles as the raven flew to Armagh in the County Armagh. She’d had such an idea of the place, such a picture of it when Hamish had first told her about it. Romance and him wanting to get away from the war, wanting to keep her safe from it. Escape.
There were a good four acres of gardens to look after or let go—mainly the latter—a stable of
sorts and a stableboy because Hamish preferred to use the pony trap, what with the petrol rationing and all, and the wagging tongues of the critical.
Besides the gardener and William, there were Mrs. Haney and Bridget, so a staff of four she’d just as soon have liked to dismiss long ago for various reasons. Love at first, and privacy, but then … why then, the slow and patient withdrawal. Whose fault had it been? Her own? Hamish’s? Had they both expected too much of the other? Had this place simply got to them, made her vulnerable but not let her realize how it must have shown?
In any case that was all over and done with, but at the crest of Caitlyn Murphy’s Hill, the girl who had died up here during the Troubles just like Nora Fergus, Mary stopped to look back and away to the north, to the house and beyond.
It was lovely. Georgian as she’d said so many times. Not the usual Georgian of Northern Ireland. Solid—still exuding wealth, position, power and paternalism. Well-built by one Royal George Morton in 1770 and not all of that pale grey Armagh granite, but mainly of English brick from Kent, and with only the granite at its corners, sills and lintels or above the front door and in its three low steps.
The trim had been painted white but was green in and under the eaves and over the shutters which were never closed, not since her arrival anyway.
The drive was circular, the broad oval of the fishpond being enclosed by gravel. The fountains were of beautifully sculpted, bronze-green naked boys riding dolphins and misbehaving. There were three of them, the water pissing outwards in long streams so that against all other sounds at night, one had a constant urge to urinate.
‘I’m being wicked,’ she said. ‘The water has now been turned off and the pond drained. The pipes were corroded.’
The house had eighteen rooms plus kitchen, pantry, mudroom and laundry, not to count the attic. It had its wings of equal size and of two storeys, dormers on the fourth floor of the main and a grey slate roof with six good, sturdy chimneys and fireplaces in all the important rooms.
Betrayal Page 3