An Irish Heart

by C M Blackwood

  “No,” said Niamh. “She didn’t tell me anything. I don’t think that she has anything to tell.”

  “Don’t waste your time worrying over that,” said a man’s voice. An Irish man, with smooth tones. “We’ll take it from here.”

  “It’s no longer yer concern,” said a second man. An English man; and somewhat more stupid-sounding.

  “You’re only going to question her, am I right?”

  “A’course,” said the second man. “We won’t ‘arm a hair on ‘er ‘ead.”

  “Why am I having trouble believing you?”

  “Well, I don’ know, Miss Carlin. We certainly don’ want to ‘urt Miss O’Brien. We only want to know what ‘appened.”

  “How much could she possibly know? She’s no soldier, I’ll tell you that much.”

  “She was seen wi’ the rebels! She was staying in their damned ‘otel!”

  “I’m still not sure about this.”

  “Listen,” said the first man, his tone sharpening. “We’ve been quite kind to you, wouldn’t you say? But we don’t have to be that way. Now – please step aside!”

  Niamh sighed. “Go on, then. Do what you came to.”

  The men said nothing more, and neither did Niamh – but I heard her footsteps, as she went off down the hall.

  I dashed to the door, and twisted the lock. Only a moment later, the knob began to rattle. When the door would not open, the men without began to shake it against its frame.

  I knew, of course, that the lock would not buy me much time. I hurried over to the window, pulled back my elbow, and rammed it against the glass. It did not give, though I was left with a terrible pain that shot – twice – all the way up and down my arm. I turned to try the other elbow. I moved back to the bed, and then half-ran towards the window, with my elbow held up high. I shielded my face with my free hand, as the glass went flying in a hundred different directions.

  “What’s ‘at noise?” asked one of the men outside.

  “Oh, Christ. I think she’s popped the window. Hurry up, Ed! We’ve got to get in there!”

  “I’m tryin’, Jem. Gimme a moment, will ye?”

  Jem, however, was feeling none too patient. I heard him crash into the other side of the door; heard it creak miserably against his weight.

  But I was already outside. At the sound of his shoulder against the door, I launched into a full sprint. I wore no shoes, but I felt not the pain of small stones embedding themselves into the soles of my feet. Time enough to cry about that later.

  I had not run towards the street. That, of course, would be the first place they looked; they would go left and right, Ed one way and Jem the other, searching for me in the quiet, empty lanes.

  So I ran into the backyard, and pointed myself towards the woods, which lay about a hundred yards or so behind the house. The grass was lit up like a stage; and I was its sole player.

  ***

  I ran for what seemed like hours, though I knew that it could not have possibly been that long. I had grown so unaccustomed to real exercise that, had I been forced to run for whole hours, I probably would have fallen down dead, and left all of my worries behind me.

  In any case, I was exhausted by the time I meandered away from the path, and stopped to crouch behind a tree. I had to sit for a much longer period of time than I had had to run (for the night was long in its passing), and I was not altogether sure which I really preferred. Even though I did my very best not to move a muscle, indeed to even breathe in a manner which elicited sound, my heart beat like the hooves of a Clydesdale on a hard-top road. I was not so silly as to think, that anyone but myself could hear it – but it certainly was uncomfortable. After a while, my heart seemed to begin to rise up into my throat, and I felt as if I were choking. I tried desperately not to cough.

  Sleep was absolutely out of the question. I sat straight up against the tree, my back completely rigid, my legs stuck out in front of me. I must have seemed a statue, left in the unlikeliest of places.

  I heard no voices, even in the distance. I heard no footsteps, no movement of any kind. The forest was eerily silent. I heard not even the scurry of those creatures who belonged there.

  I sat until sunrise, figuring that the soldiers would have shoved off by then. Yet I rose carefully, and retraced my steps with the utmost caution. When I had made it back onto the path, I looked once to the right, and then to the left, just to be sure that there was no one creeping about. I seriously doubted that there would be; but I felt that it was my personal and indisputable right to be just a little suspicious about it.

  I started off down the path, glancing every so often to either side of me, into the trees and the underbrush. I trusted nothing.

  I was walking even deeper into the forest, as I did not think that turning back towards Niamh’s was a very wise idea. But my path curved in all sorts of directions, leading me on a long and winding journey to the left and to the right. Yet I dared not stray from it. The trees seemed endless; and I walked on and on into the noontime sun, shining down through the leaves high above. I wanted so badly to sit down, but I wanted to be free of the forest in an even worse way – so I trudged on through the dirt and the leaves, trying to avoid looking down at my sore, surely-bleeding feet.

  As the afternoon began to file down to a point, my feet took on an ache so terrible that I could scarcely take another step. I stopped, hands on my hips, attempting to catch my breath.

  I had stood for not even a minute, before I heard something directly behind me. I whirled about – and saw nothing but a flash of dark colour. Then something struck me hard across the eyes.

  I fell without a thought.

  ***

  I was half-unconscious when they threw me into the cell. I did not notice much about it on arrival, other than the biting shock of cold, when I was cast down to the floor. Frigid, ice-like stone – but I had not the strength to get up.

  I could hardly open my eyes; they seemed swollen shut. I reached behind me, searching for some object – a bed, a bench – that I could pull myself onto, to escape the dreadful cold of the floor. But there was nothing, so I scooted back until I found the wall, leant against it and tried to force open my flaming eyes.

  My breath came heavily, and I tried to stifle it. As I was not entirely sure where I was, I was not keen on making a great deal of noise. I wanted to scream, but I hadn’t the energy – not to mention that it would have defeated my first purpose. So I sat, cold and still, waiting for wakefulness to pass away.

  So finally I fell asleep; and I’ve no idea how much time passed, between my losing and gaining consciousness. I woke in the same dark, damp place into which I had been roughly situated; I was pressed up against the same cold wall. I squinted my eyes – but, when there is absolutely no light, there is absolutely nothing to see.

  I listened for sounds from outside the door. I knew, at least, that that was there, because I could see the faint lines of yellow all around it, signifying that there must be

  light without. I strained my ears; but dared not move from my place against the wall.

  I had been sitting for about an hour or so, wide-eyed and terrified, when I heard a sound from somewhere off to the right. My head snapped immediately in that direction. My ears pricked themselves up, and my arms broke out in a fit of gooseflesh. I became aware, at that moment, that I was not alone.

  Not alone – but all by myself. And yet it was not as if it was an unfamiliar sort of feeling; by myself. Always I was by myself, whether I was with someone or not. It was something of a talent of mine, something of an unfortunate state of being.

  My father had never seen me. Never did he see me, never did he understand the implications of my existence. Never did he accept the responsibility which befell him, simply because he was the one whom I called “Da.”

  I wondered what he would be doing right now, were he not dead.

  Jeffrey Donovan had seen me as a sort of trophy – something that he saw and, for some reason, took a li
king to. He wanted to stamp his name across me, so everyone would know that I belonged to him. I would have been just another, in that long list of things which he owned.

  Tyler was a pleasant space between two foul moments. I had loved him, surely – but not enough to make the pain go away.

  I felt guilty for his death. He had not been saved, because he had wanted to save me. He had not lived, because he had wanted to make sure that I lived.

  And it had all come down to this.

  I understood none of it – but then, confusion was the only thing that had ever made any sense. After all, my eyes had only ever really seen one person. Only one person had ever really seen me.

  Only one.

  But that was all right. I should not have even been entitled to that, should I? It didn’t really matter. If it was true, then the truth had prevailed.

  Is it not the way of life, and the will of God, for the truth to always prevail?

  I laughed out loud to the silence, struggling to sit up against a hypothermic wall. But then I clapped a hand to my mouth; for I did not think it wise, in that moment, to mock the one being who could even possibly free me from my demise. Was He there – there above the arks? I could not see Him; but I prayed that He could see me. I could not hear Him; but I prayed that He could hear me.

  My brain ached. I remembered the woods, remembered the thick pain at the front of my skull, just before I hit the ground. I tasted leaves in my mouth. I did not have time to spit them out, before the world went black.

  I put a hand to my head; for the room felt as if it were moving. It tilted forward, then backward, to the left and to the right.

  I heard the sound of passing footsteps, right outside the door.

  I considered calling out; but the mere thought of it caused my head to split in two. There must have been a body, attached to those feet outside the door; but it did not speak of its own accord.

  I closed my eyes, and a dense sheet of nothingness came to overtake my tired mind.

  ***

  I came round what felt days later. It did not take long to make out the stirrings of that other individual – that other person, there in the room with me.

  Clunking boots outside the door. I listened to them as they approached.

  Seconds later, a small light appeared. It seemed that the bottom of the door had a kind of miniature door fit into it. The small door opened, and something was slid into the room. I rushed over to it, squinting in the dim light.

  The small door snapped shut in an instant, taking every bit of the light away with it; but still I knew what I was holding. Mushy, sticky food. There were two bowls of it. It smelled awful, and I was sure that it would taste even worse – but my stomach was not in the mood to care. I used a small wooden spoon to shovel heaps of the foul-smelling muck into my mouth. Five minutes later, I was quite proud of myself for having devoured the whole of it, without losing it to the bowl again.

  The cell’s second occupant had not come for the food. They sat quietly on the other side of the room, only twitching an extremity every now and then to let me know that they were there.

  “Don’t you want to eat?” I asked.

  “No, I don’t.” (A man’s voice; but high, and somewhat boyish.) “Eat my share if you want.”

  But I did not want to. The first bowl had been enough to eradicate my hunger pangs – and this was not the kind of food to be eaten, once desperation had passed.

  I said nothing more to the stranger. I crawled back to my own corner, and curled up into a cold, clumsy ball.

  ***

  Time continued to pass, either quickly or slowly, I really could not tell which. I had no idea when the sun was out, or when the moon was up. I just sat there, listening to the near silence, wondering if I would ever again be able to differentiate between day and night.

  I was reluctant to do so (it was far more than what seemed simple degradation) but I was forced to relieve myself in a bucket that I found in the corner. It would have been almost all right, had I been alone. But I wasn’t.

  I assumed that my partner in captivity had their own bucket. (The stench that emanated from the opposite side of the room seemed to confirm the theory.)

  It seemed that, when the man was asleep, he tossed and turned quite frequently. Yet when he was awake, I heard not a sound. So I took to listening for signs of movement, and the soft snoring which emanated from what sounded a stuffed-up nose. It became something of a game, called: Is the stranger awake?

  ***

  Time, time, and more time. The infuriating thing was not knowing how much of it there was.

  I felt on the verge of a mental snap – when, for the first time, the cell door swung open. I was temporarily blinded by the sudden light, however dim it may have been. I looked to the outrageously large silhouette that stood just beyond the threshold.

  “Relax, Myrne,” said the silhouette, stepping ever-so-slightly to the left, and transforming itself into a uniformed man. He tilted his head to the side, drenching his ugly face in full light. “S’not ye I want.”

  Seeing as my name wasn’t Myrne, I was assuming it was in fact me he wanted. I glanced over at “Myrne,” who had risen to his feet. He had a tall and bony frame, and was in fact quite sickly-looking. I imagined that he was. (Sick, that is.)

  “Ye there,” said the man at the door, nodding in my direction. “Come wi’ me.”

  I hesitated.

  “Get up,” he barked. “Either move yerself, or I’ll do it for ye.”

  I rose slowly.

  ***

  The room I was taken to was every bit as cold and unfriendly as the uniformed officer who sat before me. He was not the man who had come to fetch me. He was long, lean, and milky white – his face was clean shaven, except for the shapely moustache which sat above his lip. He was very handsome.

  But it was when I heard his voice, that I recognised him. Never had I seen his face; but certainly I had heard his voice. He was the man who had come for me at Shealittle Road: the smooth-tongued Irishman.

  “Tell me, young lady,” he said. “What in the world made you want to become such a rebel?”

  I cocked my head, and furrowed my eyebrows. “What made you want to become a traitor to your own people – Jem?”

  He laughed earnestly. “Ah – but I suppose it’s only understandable! You’re still very young, after all.” He leant across the table, and said (somewhat more softly), “I am by no means the only one of your own blood, whom you will find within the walls of this building. There is no right, or wrong. There is only control.”

  I blinked at him.

  “Well, out with it,” he said. “It can’t be anything too very political – you don’t seem hard enough for that. No – I’d wager that it’s something much more simple. Something to do with your family. Am I right?”

  “I’m sorry, sir,” said I, “but you’re terrible mistaken. I’m not a rebel. I know nothing about politics.”

  And it was true enough! I had never even cared! Really I hadn’t; you know I hadn’t.

  He smiled. “You know, that may be true. But it may also be true – that you are lying to me. If the latter were the case, I would be forced to assume that you know much more than you’re letting on. Why, I may never be able to let you go!”

  A low moan escaped my throat. “What can I tell you?” I asked. “I’ve nothing to tell you.”

  Another seemingly affable grin. “Like I said – that may be true. Honestly, I don’t give a damn about you, one way or the other. I’m just here to make your life miserable. That’s my job.” He said all this very nicely.

  “Then I’d like to be taken back to my cell, please.”

  His face fell for a moment; and perhaps he was wondering, if I were not quite a little harder than he had suspected. But he was quick to regain himself. “I say, that’s the first time I’ve ever heard that! Most of you live for this time –” (he spread his hands and held them up) “– in the light.”

  “Is that a
fact?” I rejoined.

  Yet my knees trembled under the table; and my hands shook in my lap.

  ***

  I was not brought back to my cell. I ended up in another brightly lit room, identical to the one I had just left – but devoid of table and chairs.

  I was sitting in a far corner of the room, when two unfamiliar men entered it. (It made me wonder – just how many people ran the place. Every time I saw someone, every time I heard a voice, he or it was never the same as the one just before.)

  “How’s it going today, little missy?” asked the larger of the two men. He was disgustingly fat. I could not help but stare at what appeared to be three chins – and I think he noticed.

  “Something wrong?” he asked.

  I shook my head, blinking quickly, and looked away.

  “Don’ be too hard on ‘er, Stan,” said the smaller man. Though he clearly wasn’t, the first man made him look like a dwarf. “She ‘asn’t been ‘ere too long. She’s got to get used to the place.”

  “You’re right,” said the fat man, cracking a smile. “I should be more polite. My name is Stan Asley, and this here is Mickey Dee. We’re here to get acquainted.”

  I didn’t like the sound of that. “All right,” I said slowly. “Stan and Mickey. My name’s Kate. May I go now?”

  They both laughed, and Stan shook his head. “It doesn’t work that way, little missy. The names were just the formal part.”

  “I don’t mean to be rude,” I said, backing as far as I could into the corner, “but can we make it the only part?”

  “She’s a funny one,” Mickey said. “A right joker.”

  “Yep. I like that. Got a nice backbone.” Stan looked at Mickey. “I hate the ones that just sit there, all cryin’ and whinin’, like they don’t know what to do with themselves. It gets old.”

  Mickey nodded seriously. “Sure does, Stan.”

  “I like a little variety in me life.”

  “Sure, Stan.”

  “Excuse me,” I said loudly. “I’m sorry, but do you think –”