Patricia Falvey

by The Yellow House (v5)

  James hired a car to take us to the seaside town of Warrenpoint, where we booked into a small Victorian guesthouse overlooking Carlingford Lough. I had changed into a daytime dress.

  “Will we go for a walk?” I said. “The strand is lovely.”

  James gave me a sharp look but nodded in agreement. I supposed he thought I couldn’t wait to jump into the bed and make love to him. But I needed time.

  As we strolled along the promenade, I looked down at the gold wedding band on my left hand. It felt heavy and strange, as if this new identity were crushing me. I tried to smile. I looked up at James. He had taken off his tie and jacket and rolled up the sleeves of his white shirt. He was a handsome man, there was no doubt about that. Women young and old eyed him as they passed by, and he nodded back to them. Why was I not on top of the world? Any other woman in my place would have been. But I was not any woman. I was Eileen O’Neill. But, no, she was gone. And in her place was Eileen Conlon, wife, eventually even mother. My skin tingled as if someone had stepped on my grave.

  That night, James and I made love for the second time. It was a far cry from that February night when our passions burned along with the Customs House. This time James took charge of things, moving according to his own needs, forcing me to match my rhythms with his. When it was over he rolled off me and fell into a heavy sleep. I lay as if alone, stiffening and relaxing my body with the rhythm of the sea, which swelled and ebbed outside our window, until I found the release I sought.

  WE MOVED INTO a mill house in the village on the next square over from James’s mother’s house. The house was small—a parlor, a kitchen, a scullery, and a wee room off the scullery known as “the granny’s room,” all on the ground floor, and two bedrooms upstairs. We were lucky that James’s job as a tenter got us a house with a parlor—such grandeur was usually reserved for the higher-paid workers. Even so, with two people the size of James and me in it, it seemed like a dollhouse. How some of our neighbors managed to squeeze two parents and several children into one of them, I could not imagine.

  The houses were solid and well built and laid out in such a way that every house got the sun at some time during the day. I was not much of a housekeeper, but I tried to make it cozy by hanging pictures on the walls and lining the shelves with bright crockery. If I’d had Ma’s way with flowers, I would have filled the window boxes with bright geraniums the way others did, but as it was I left them empty. Theresa had sewn up some bright curtains, and I told myself that was enough color. We bought a few sticks of furniture: a couple of armchairs for the kitchen, along with a table and chairs, and a cheap rug and a sofa for the parlor. I’d thought of bringing in some of the pieces that had been salvaged from the fire but couldn’t bring myself to do so. Those pieces did not belong there, they belonged in my real home, the Yellow House. I kept the place tidy and cooked the meals on time. James turned out to be a fussy bugger. Besides his clothes having to be washed and pressed every day, everything in the house had to be in its right place. Well, it might have suited his ma to wait on him hand and foot, but I had no intention of it.

  THE REPRISALS FOR the Customs House burning were swift and fierce—and random. Innocent people were pulled out of their beds, just as Da had been, and made to watch their houses or shops burn to the ground. All the Volunteers succeeded in doing was turning more and more Catholics against them and against the police. Peace-abiding people were turned into rebels overnight. Even those who did not take up the fight supported James and the rest of us silently.

  Assignments came to our battalion thick and fast, and James and I were out almost every night. I acted as lookout for a while but then demanded more responsibility. I know now that I was trying to relive the passion I had felt that night at the Customs House—not just at watching the flames, but the passions aroused in myself with James. And so I sought out more and more danger: setting fire to police stations, blowing up railway tracks, ambushing UVF lorries on dark country roads. And on those nights when it was over, James and I would go home to bed, rip off each other’s clothes, and make love again just like that first night.

  We held our meetings in a room above the Ceili House. James and I gathered there along with his lieutenants and the Ulster Minstrels. P.J. always sat at the head of the table. He loved the limelight, and we let him blather on about the state of things. But Fergus and Terrence were another matter. Fergus had become dark and sullen. He turned out to be not only brutal but reckless. He would just as soon kill a Protestant as look at him. I thought that he was only releasing all the resentment he had built up over the years, but I worried that he would get us all in trouble before long. On the other hand, Terrence, the mysterious uilleann piper who had played with the Music Men, turned out to be a skillful negotiator. He had contacts all over the country and was trusted with the most sensitive information by the highest IRA command. I thought sometimes James was a bit jealous of Terrence, but Terrence never gave him any cause for anger.

  It was a warm July night in 1919 when we gathered as usual in the attic above the Ceili House. The building was more than two hundred years old, the attic a dome of gray stone walls, damp and uneven. The stone floor of the attic was cold and covered in dust. The only light came from a small window at the top of narrow stone stairs, but even so we draped it with a cloth so that no light would shine out on the street. A splintered wooden table and mismatched chairs were the only furniture. We did not turn on the single naked electric bulb that hung from the ceiling but instead lit a couple of candles. The landlord’s son brought up a bottle of Paddy whiskey, some tumblers, a jug of water, and a pile of sandwiches, then went down the stairs and locked the door behind him. One of James’s men stood guard, rifle in hand, at the foot of the stairs.

  Terrence came over and smiled at me. “Hello, Eileen,” he said in his deep, calm voice. “I saw your ma last week. She’s put on a bit of weight. That’s a good sign.”

  “Aye,” I said. I had realized after my first visit to Ma that the Mr. Finnegan the nurse said visited her was no other man than Terrence. I wondered why he went, but I never asked. He was free to do what he pleased, I supposed.

  “Any word from Frank?” It was a question he asked often.

  “No,” I snapped. “And why would I care? He wouldn’t even come to his own sister’s wedding.”

  Terrence sighed. “Ah, don’t be so hard on him, Eileen. Sure life dealt him a cruel hand, so it did.”

  “No worse than the rest of us,” I snapped back.

  P.J. brought word once in a while that Frank was doing well. He had been seen around Newry wearing brand-new clothes and looking every inch the gentleman farmer. I grew nervous. Maybe he had sold the Yellow House and was spending the money like a drunken sailor. P.J. assured me the house was not sold, so where Frank was getting the money remained a mystery. I suspected that whatever the source, it was far from legal.

  P.J. took his seat at the head of the table as usual. He never took part in any of the raids, but we allowed him his place out of respect. Terrence and James joined him at the table, but the rest of us—me, Fergus, and James’s two lieutenants, Jimmy Traynor and Paddy O’Keefe—sat as usual behind them in a row of chairs along one wall. P.J. poured whiskey for those who wanted it and raised his glass.

  “God bless all here!” he boomed, reminding me of the greeting he always used to call out when he came to the Yellow House.

  “And may God bless Ireland,” we chorused.

  James and Paddy O’Keefe drank water. I took a drop of whiskey, as usual, and then filled my tumbler with water. P.J. stoked his pipe, lit it with his usual ceremony, and inhaled the smoke.

  “I hear they burned Tommy Tumulty out of house and home last night,” he began.

  “He’s not the first, and won’t be the last,” said Fergus. “Sure there’s running battles in the streets every night of the week.”

  “It’s a desperate situation altogether,” continued P.J. “The War of Independence is surely under way now. Did you
hear they brought the British Army into it up here in the North? I heard that Owen Sheridan fellow is leading them here in Newry.”

  I could not help the cry that came out of me. Where it came from, I don’t know. It was as if I had placed my hand on a hot stove. James swung around to look at me.

  “Aye, Eileen’s old friend,” he snapped.

  I swallowed some whiskey. “He’s no friend of mine,” I said, but I could feel the flames scorching my cheeks.

  Terrence cleared his throat. “I have information the police are going to be instituting a curfew within days. They’re talking about wanting everybody off the streets by nine o’clock at night.”

  James gave Terrence the queer look he always did when Terrence had information that was new to him. “You mean they want the Catholics off the streets,” he snapped. “Their own kind will be able to go about as they please.”

  “Aye, you can be sure of that,” P.J. said.

  “But what will that do to us?” I cried. “How will we get the jobs done?”

  James swung around again and glared at me. I didn’t know what had put him in such bad form tonight.

  “We’ll do what we’ve always done, and more,” he said, his voice cold. “And if it’s too dangerous for you, then you can stay at home.”

  I glared back at him. Anger and hurt fought within me. “I… ,” I began, not knowing what to say.

  Terrence came to my rescue. “Will we get to the orders?” he said quietly.

  As I watched the men study the documents and maps on the table, I felt a sickness rising inside me. The whiskey had turned my stomach. Suddenly, sweat poured off me. I clutched the rifle that leaned against my knee as if for support. Sounds of laughter from the downstairs pub grew muffled in my ears. Then the room spun around me and everything turned black.

  13

  Our daughter was born in January 1920, the beginning of the most violent year in the struggle so far. I called her Aoife, after a famous Celtic warrior princess. While I knew that James had badly wanted a boy, I thought at least the name would please him.

  “What kind of a name is that?” he snapped. “Sure I wouldn’t even know how to pronounce it.”

  “It’s pronounced Eeffa,” I said, “EE-FF-A. And it’s Irish. What kind of a rebel are you when you can’t even pronounce your own language?”

  It was an unfair remark, I knew, but I didn’t care. Neither James nor I, both brought up in Ulster, had been taught the Irish language. I had picked up a few words from Da. I had come across the name Aoife in one of P.J.’s books. Terrence was the one who told me how to pronounce it.

  “She fought the famous Ulster warrior Cuchulainn, you know.” He smiled. “And would have won had it not been for a trick her sister played on her. She was a fine, brave woman, just like yourself, Eileen.”

  So I had thought that if I ever had a daughter, I would name her Aoife.

  “Ma expected you’d name her after your mother and herself. Mary Margaret. It’s the custom,” said James. “Besides, they’re both saints’ names.”

  “Feck your holy ma,” I said through gritted teeth. “She’s my child and I’ll call her what I like.”

  James said nothing. I knew he was disappointed the child was not a boy—another soldier for Ireland. “No matter,” he had said, “there’ll be a boy next time.”

  I thought he might be waiting a long time if I had my way. I had no interest in a big family. Having a brood of children following me down the street would not give me the same pride it gave other women. One would be enough.

  “She’s the image of you, anyway,” I said, looking down at the shock of brown hair on the child’s head and the shape of her nose and chin.

  She looked back at me, and I could already see defiance in her eyes. She would not be an easy child to rear. I had a vague uneasiness that she knew what I was thinking. Her arrival marked for me a sense of loss. Up until now I had still held on to my old, tattered dream of putting my family back together in the Yellow House—the way it used to be—although for years now I had known it was hardly possible. Da and Lizzie were dead, and Ma and Frank may as well have been dead. And now Paddy was living his own life with the Mullens. It was foolish, I knew, but the dream had still given me comfort on the long, lonely evenings when I lay in bed, heavy with the child, waiting for James to come home. Now that Aoife was here, my fear of loss had turned into resentment toward her, this child who was forcing me to put the past behind me and look to the future.

  The Ulster Minstrels had come to the hospital one by one, bringing flowers and chocolates and pronouncing the child the most beautiful wee lassie they had ever seen. Fergus was delighted when I asked him to be her godfather. His poor, drawn face lit up like a Christmas tree. Had no one ever done anything nice for him before? I wondered. Then, late one evening just before visiting hours ended, I saw Billy Craig creeping down the ward toward my bed. I was trying to nurse Aoife, but she kept fussing and crying. Billy came over and stood like a big, awkward child beside the bed.

  “Hello,” he said. “I brought this for the child.”

  He thrust out his big, beefy hand, and in it was a tiny tin whistle. “I made it for her. And I’ll teach her to play it.”

  Aoife stopped fussing and looked directly at Billy. I didn’t know what to say. Memories of Billy kneeling over my da that awful night came flashing back, and then in a blur I saw Billy thrusting Da’s fiddle at me and pushing myself and Paddy out the back door.

  “I’m sorry, Eileen,” he said. Tears streamed down his big face, and he began to sob. The other women in the ward stared at us. A nurse came over to see if I was all right.

  “Aye,” I said. “He always cries when he sees babies.” Then I turned to Billy. “Sit down, you big eejit, before you get us both thrown out.”

  “I loved your ma,” Billy said through his tears, “and I loved your da, and I loved everybody. I meant no harm.”

  I looked at him sitting there, his big face crumpled up, and my heart melted. Poor Billy had suffered enough. Even though his da had managed to get all the charges against him dismissed, people in the town still shunned Billy. And he was no longer welcome to play with his beloved Ulster Minstrels.

  “I know you didn’t mean to harm us, Billy. It’s all right.”

  As suddenly as they had come, Billy’s tears stopped and his face stretched in a wide grin. He looked at Aoife. “Can I hold her?” he asked, eager as a boy.

  Reluctantly, I slipped Aoife into his big arms. He gazed down at her in delight.

  “She’s the image of your ma,” he said.

  “I thought she looked like James,” I whispered.

  Billy shook his head back and forth. “No,” he shouted, “your ma!”

  “Ssh,” I said. “You’re right, Billy.”

  He smiled down at the baby again and waved the tin whistle in front of her. “I’ll teach you to play it when you’re older… ”

  He looked up at me in sudden dismay. “I don’t know her name,” he gasped.

  “It’s Aoife,” I said, “after a Celtic warrior.”

  “Aoife,” he said, pronouncing the name perfectly, “Aoife.”

  THE CHILD WAS christened a week later. They liked to hurry it up in Ireland in case the devil got to her before God. I was not allowed to be there. Women who had given birth had to wait four weeks before they were allowed to set foot back into the church, and even then only after attending a few sessions with the priest. It was as if we were dirty creatures that had to be cleansed all over again. The whole business set my teeth on edge, and if it weren’t for the scandal it would cause, I would have refused to have Aoife christened at all and would not have set foot in a church again. As it was, Theresa was the godmother and Fergus the godfather. It hurt me that Frankie had ignored yet another invitation. I missed Ma as well and, of course, my da. I felt very alone.

  The reception was held at James’s mother’s house. Everyone arrived from the church, Mrs. Conlon in front carrying Aoife like a t
rophy. “Such a grand wee girl,” she crowed, “not a peep out of her the whole time.” She glared at me. “She’s much better behaved when she’s with strangers.”

  It was a dig at me and the fact that Aoife was very fussy when I held her. And as if to prove her right, the child bawled as soon as I took her in my arms. Theresa stepped in to the rescue. “Come on now, Mary Margaret,” she cooed, taking the child in her arms. “You can’t be crying on your christening day.”

  “It’s Aoife,” I snapped.

  “Not anymore,” said Mrs. Conlon, her thin voice high with triumph. “She was christened Mary Margaret after the saints, like any good Catholic child.”

  “But her name is Aoife,” I cried, turning to look at James. “You know that.”

  James shrugged. “I couldn’t go asking the priest to christen her with a pagan name, now, could I?” he said. “And anyway, Ma would have been scandalized.”

  “Feck your ma!” I cried. I turned around to P.J. and Fergus. “And you went along with this?”

  Fergus gaped at me and then glared at James. P.J.’s face turned red. He threw up his hands. “Sure what was I to do, Eileen? Mary Margaret was the name on her birth certificate, and her da here made no objection.”

  Anger seared through me, and tears burned my eyes. I swung back to James.

  “You betrayed me,” I shouted. “You fecking bastard. Why?” I started to pummel him on the chest. He grabbed my wrists and pushed me away.