A Winter of Spies (11 page)

THE BREENS WERE HORRIFIED
when they heard about Mick. They welcomed the idea of giving the Conways shelter.

‘How can you doubt us?' Mr Breen said. ‘We've all been through so much together. You must come down here, all of you, and welcome.'

Da felt obliged to warn them of the possible danger. ‘What if they raid here too?' he asked.

Mrs Breen drew herself up to her full height, such as it was.

‘My husband and I,' she said, ‘fear no guttersnipes. When people turn their backs on friends out of fear then the country really is lost.'

The Conways and Ella brought their packed bags downstairs to the basement, along with bedding for the night. Ma, Da and Jimmy helped Mick downstairs after he woke. He didn't want to go, until Da told him that it was the only way of getting Ma out of the house. It was a slow, painful progress, but Mick put a brave face on it. Mrs Breen was appalled when she saw the state he was in. Her husband was more outraged than anything else.

‘I'll keep you company upstairs, James,' he said quietly to Da. Da could hardly believe his ears.

‘Don't you think that you're risking enough as it is?' he asked.

‘What those people fear most in the world,' Mr Breen said, ‘is witnesses. They can do nothing to me. Even they'd have trouble picturing me as a rebel. If they do come, having me there might save you from ending up like poor Michael.'

Da shook his head. ‘They'll come,' he said. ‘And when they come no witness will matter to them.' Da was certain that nothing would happen till after dark. ‘They like the dark,' he said.

‘Bad things usually do,' said Mr Breen.

The Conways and Ella stayed upstairs until the
afternoon
. Now and then one or other of them would go down to sit with Mick. Mrs Breen was taking the opportunity to fuss over him. His sore mouth meant that she couldn't stuff him full of food, so instead she was stuffing him full of soup. They'd made up a bed for him in their spare room, and when Sarah came down to see him he begged her to finish a bowl of broth that was on a tray beside him.

‘I don't want to insult the woman by leaving it,' he said, ‘but it's the third bowl she's given me, and I'm about to burst.'

As darkness fell Da made everyone else go downstairs.
He'd persuaded Mr Breen to stay home. ‘If anything
happens
,' Da told him, ‘I'll be depending on you to mind my family. That would put my mind at rest far more than
having
you up here.'

Mr Breen agreed with obvious reluctance. He'd seethed with silent anger all afternoon. You could see that the sight of Mick in his dilapidated state had done something to him – the Tans had overstepped some
private
line or border in his mind.

All evening one or other of the Conways could be found at Breens' front window, watching the gate. It
reminded
Sarah of a similar scene upstairs in their own kitchen, when they'd stood watching the Tans outside in the street on that Sunday of the raid on Phelans'. It was less than a week and a half ago, but it seemed like
something
from another lifetime.

‘I knew this day would come,' Ma said. ‘Sometimes I feel like I've spent half my life waiting for something
terrible
to happen to that man.'

Even yesterday Sarah would have found some reply. It was all for Ireland, she might have said. Now she had nothing to say. She was hardly even afraid, she felt so numb and helpless. She racked her brains to think of some way she could help, but there was none that she could see. It was out of their hands.

‘Maybe they won't come,' she offered, not believing it.

‘Maybe not tonight,' Ma said wearily. ‘But what about tomorrow, and tomorrow night? How long can we live like this?'

Jimmy had been oddly silent since they came down, Sarah noticed. He was brooding about something, and she suspected that it was more than just the situation here. Once or twice she caught him whispering urgently in a corner with Ma. They stopped when they saw Sarah looking. She felt a growing suspicion that someone was still keeping secrets, and she wasn't happy with the idea. She was sick of secrets.

As the evening passed the tension tired them. Finally Jimmy insisted that he was going up to see how Da was. Ma didn't like the idea, but Jimmy was dogged in his
insistence
. Sarah was seeing a new side to her brother
today
, a far more determined one. Maybe reading too much was good for you after all.

‘If you're going up,' Mrs Breen said, ‘then take your
father
up some food. He'll have been too distracted to eat, you'll find.'

Ma, who liked to see herself as the family provider, hadn't thought of that in her worry. You could see she was stung by her own lapse.

‘Yes, yes,' she said. ‘I know your Da. He'll not have eaten a bite.'

She and Mrs Breen quickly packed a basket and gave it
to Jimmy, who waited impatiently while they stuffed it with far too much food.

‘Janey, Ma,' he said, ‘there's enough there for a week.'

‘What harm,' Ma said, at last satisfied that they'd packed enough. ‘Better too much nor too little.'

Jimmy took the basket and went out. The room lapsed into quiet if not calm. Mr Breen and Ella were in the back room talking to Mick. Ma, who'd been grateful to be busy for a while, sat again and looked into the fire. Mrs Breen looked at her pityingly.

‘You mustn't resent James,' she said. ‘He's a fine man. I don't know what he's involved in, and I don't want to know. But I'm certain that he sees it as his duty.'

‘Duty,' Ma said, and there was both tiredness and loathing in the way she said the word. She nodded over at Sarah. ‘Them childer,' she said, ‘are all the duty I care about.'

In the silence outside engines sounded clearly,
approaching
. Sarah's heart leaped in terror. She jumped up and went to the window, with Ma and Ella behind her. The window was at ground level, and the hedge hid most of the street. But Sarah's stomach churned when she saw that the streetlights were unlit. They should be on by now. Then she saw the tenders pass, their headlights aglow, the dark mass of soldiers or Tans in the back. Sarah's breath came easier as she watched.

‘It's all right,' she hissed, as though the men outside might hear. ‘They're passing by.'

‘No,' Ma said. ‘Wait. That's how they do it.'

The three women stared out into the night as the last tender passed. A dark mass rolled silently up in front of the house. It was another tender, with no lights showing. Men began to leap silently from the back.

‘Oh sweet God,' Ma said. ‘Oh dear sweet God.'

The first of the raiders came through the gate. They moved quickly and purposefully. As they reached a point where the lights from the house fell on them, Sarah felt herself go cold. The men's faces were blackened. They wore tam-o-shanters and Glengarry caps rather than the Tans' peaked ones. They were even more frightening than Tans: they were Auxiliaries.

‘Auxies,' hissed Ma. ‘My dear sweet God and his blessed mother look down on us now. And Jimmy
upstairs
!'

A figure in a broadbrimmed hat came through the gate and pushed its way to the front. It was a man dressed in civilian clothes. In the dim light his white face, not
blackened
with burnt cork like the others, was clear even through the lace curtains. But Sarah didn't need to see his features. His walk, his hat, the cane he held, had already told her that this was the man she most feared. It was the agent Fowles, come for his revenge.

THEY HEARD THE THUD OF FISTS
, boots and rifle butts on the front door upstairs. There were angry shouts and curses in British accents. Somebody came to the door and there were more shouts. The sound of many boots pounded in the hallway overhead.

Mr Breen and Ella rushed out of the back room.

‘They're here, Ella,' Ma said. ‘Auxies.' Her voice was nearly breaking.

You could clearly hear the pounding of boots running here and there above. There were sounds of things breaking.

Ma buried her face in her hands and began to sob. Sarah, by now quite numb, put her arms around her. Ella came over.

‘If it was even a proper raid …' Ma sobbed. ‘The army have rules at least.'

‘Keep a hold of yourself, Lily,' Ella said.

Someone came down the steps, and there was a knock on Breens' door. Mr Breen rushed to open it. He came back with Jimmy. Jimmy's hair was mussed, and his lip
was bleeding. Ma looked up, and Jimmy saw her horrified face.

‘It's all right,' he said. ‘I just got a few slaps. They threw me out.'

From upstairs the rough boot-treads and breaking sounds continued. They all stared at the ceiling.

‘Disgraceful,' Mrs Breen muttered over and over. ‘Disgraceful.'

Mick appeared, clutching the doorframe of the back room. ‘They're here, I see,' he said.

‘Aye,' said Ella.

‘It's Auxies,' said Ma. Sarah realised that Ma hadn't seen Fowles. Ma knew that Da was in danger, but she didn't know how big the danger was.

‘There's about a dozen of them,' Jimmy said. ‘They just started breaking things.'

‘Did they ask youse anything?' Mick asked.

‘They asked if I was Jimmy Conway. When I said that I was they gave me a few slaps and ran me out. He said … he said he wanted a few words with my father. Maybe he'd talk to me later, he said.'

‘He?' Ma asked sharply.

Jimmy couldn't meet her eyes. ‘That man Fowles,' he said. ‘He's in charge of the raid.'

For one moment Ma looked as though she were going mad. Her teeth chattered, and the eyes rolled in her head.
Then her eyes darted past Jimmy towards the door. Jimmy saw the quick look. He backed into the doorway and spread his arms, blocking her.

‘I'm sorry, Ma,' he said, humbly, miserably. ‘You can't go up there.'

‘Can't?' Ma said.

Jimmy shook his head. This time his voice was more sure of itself. ‘I won't let you,' he said.

‘Jimmy Conway,' Ma said. She shook Sarah and Ella off her. ‘Are you telling me what to do?'

She spoke in what Jimmy called her policeman's voice. Sarah could see Jimmy sort of shiver when he heard it, but he didn't back down.

‘I'm telling you,' he said, gently and firmly, ‘what you're not going to do.'

Mick, seeing what was happening, had made his slow way over to his sister. Now he threw his good arm around her shoulder. The other hung bandaged and limp.

‘Lil,' he said gently, ‘James won't want you there.'

Ma wept. ‘But, Mick,' she said, ‘that man will kill him. Three years in France, and he'll die like a dog on his own kitchen floor.'

Jimmy left the doorway and went over to his mother and his uncle. He put his arms around Ma.

The noise from upstairs had been growing less. Now there were only the muffled sounds of an angry voice.
You couldn't make out any words, only the sound of its anger. Finally another voice said something in reply. Sarah felt the hair prickle on her neck at the sound of that second voice. It was Da's, yet it sounded frightened, pleading. The first voice, Fowles's, sounded again in a harsh, ugly laugh. There was contempt in the laugh;
contempt
and triumph. Then he said something in a brisk tone. An order of some kind. The many booted feet started to move again, heading for the door.

‘My God,' Mr Breen said. ‘They're going!'

The heavy steps went out the front hall, and when Sarah peeped from the window she saw dark figures
going
down the path. A single set of footsteps went to the front door, and Fowles's voice shouted to the Auxiliaries now back waiting in their tender.

‘You can go ahead, chaps,' the voice called. ‘And thank you for your time. We'll have no more trouble from this gentleman.'

Sarah looked around. The other five people in the room were all looking at each other too. No more
trouble
?

Outside the engine of the tender started up. This time its lights came on. Someone in the back waved cheerily to the man in the door, and Sarah distinctly heard the sound of laughter.

No more trouble from this gentleman? From Da? Her
throat tightened. Her heart beat fast.

They heard Fowles's footsteps going back down the hall and into the kitchen. In the deathly silence of the Breens' livingroom, six pairs of eyes turned to the ceiling. Sarah heard her Ma begin to whimper.

For a little while there was complete silence, a silence more sinister than anything that had gone before. Then something bizarre happened. There was a little laugh, of relief it seemed, and it was, unmistakably, Da's voice.

Then the shot came, sounding in Sarah's waiting ears like the very crack of doom.

SARAH WAS OUT BREENS' FRONT DOOR
before she knew what she was doing. She scrambled up the front steps to her own door. It hung open. She could see the marks where the butts of the Auxies' rifles had beaten at it.

The front hall was in a mess, with everything
topsy-turvy
. A picture from the wall lay on the floor with its glass smashed. The hallstand was overturned. This hadn't been a search, Sarah thought; this had been pure
destruction
.

The kitchen door was ajar. Now that she was here Sarah didn't know what to do. She was nearly certain that her Da was lying dead on the floor, and that his murderer was still in there. Earlier, Ma had looked as though she were going mad; now Sarah wondered if she was going mad herself.

The kitchen door opened, and a man came out. It was Fowles. He was putting his hat on. He saw her and smiled.

‘This must be the younger Miss Conway,' he said. ‘How do you do?'

Sarah hardly even noticed him. She was looking
behind
Fowles, to where Da stood in the doorway. Da was fixing his collar. His face showed marks of bruising, but he was very much alive.

‘Da?' Sarah said. Even seeing him there she
half-believed
he was a ghost.

‘I hope you weren't too frightened, Miss Conway,' Fowles said. He turned to Da and extended his hand. ‘Sorry about the face, James,' he said. ‘And do apologise to your wife for the state of the place.'

Several times lately Sarah Conway had felt unreal, but nothing had felt quite this strange. Da took Fowles's hand and shook it.

‘Faces heal,' he said. ‘Even Mick's face will heal.'

‘That,' Fowles said, ‘was a bad business. But you know I couldn't stop it.'

‘I know,' Da said. ‘You'd have given the game away if you'd tried.'

The game? Behind her on the steps Sarah heard the rest of them coming up – Ma and Jimmy helping Mick up the stairs, followed by Ella and the Breens. They all stopped short when they saw Fowles. Ma stared at her husband shaking hands with the crazed British agent.
Except
that there was nothing crazed about Fowles now. His pale face just looked a bit strained.

‘I'd best be off,' he said to Da, and headed for the front
door. Everyone parted to let him through. Fowles
nodded
to Mick. ‘That looks nasty,' he said.

‘Sure, there's worse happens,' Mick said, ‘in fights after the pubs shut.'

‘True enough,' Fowles replied. He bade them all good night and went out. They all watched him walk down the path. Then they turned to Da in amazement.

‘James Conway,' Ma said, ‘what in the name of God is going on?'

Da looked mildly at her. ‘I'm sorry, Lil,' he said, ‘but it's not over yet. I'll have to ask you all to go downstairs again. I'll call you when I can.'

‘Oh no you don't,' Ma said. ‘Look at this house. To judge by the hall the whole place must be shattered. I come up expecting to find you shot, and I find you
shaking
hands with the man I thought done it. And just look at the state of your face!'

Sarah was suddenly dizzy with sheer relief. She nearly smiled at the way Ma was talking. She sounded as though she was giving out to one of her children.

Mick took Ma's arm. ‘James is right, Lil,' he said. ‘This isn't over. Come back down now.'

Things were clicking into place in Sarah's mind. She still didn't know what was going on, but she was starting to realise that all of them had been caught up in some really tremendous lie.

‘Mick knows something too, Ma,' she said accusingly. ‘And Jimmy.'

‘I know nothing,' Jimmy said. ‘Except that we'd better get downstairs.'

‘Please, Lil,' Da said. ‘Just another little while. Trust me.'

Ma gave an angry snort. ‘Trust you?' she said.

Da's voice got serious. ‘Lily,' he said, ‘you won't want to see what's going to happen here. Now, for God's sake, go.'

Ma looked in his eyes. Something seemed to pass
between
them that Sarah couldn't see or understand. Then Ma hung her head.

‘God help us all,' she said. She sounded terribly sad. Then she turned and went down the steps. The Breens went with her.

‘Do you need me, James?' Mick asked.

Da shook his head. ‘You've given enough for one day, Mick,' he said. Mick turned too, and started back down. Jimmy, turning to help him, cast a look at Sarah. ‘Come on, Sal,' he said. But Sarah stood looking at Da.

Da looked back at her. Suddenly he seemed terribly tired. ‘You always wanted to help in the struggle, Sarah,' he said. ‘You wanted to be in the thick of it. Well, you're in the thick of it now. What do you think?'

‘I think it's a dirty, low fight,' Sarah said. ‘But it's still a fight for freedom.'

‘All fights,' Da said, ‘are dirty, low fights. Jimmy found that out during the Rising. You're finding it out now. And aye, this is still a fight for freedom, and some of us think freedom is worth dirtying yourself for. But make no
mistake
, Sarah – it's still filthy.'

He sighed. ‘If you want to see just how low and how dirty this fight is,' he said, ‘then stay here. I owe you the truth. But I warn you, it's not pretty.'

Sarah looked at him, and he looked at her. Sarah was suddenly afraid, but not of danger to herself or Da. Da seemed sure of what was going on. ‘Trust me,' he'd said to Ma, and Ma had snorted in scorn. But Sarah trusted him. That was why she was afraid: Da had given her a warning. She feared what she might see.

Da was still looking hard at her. She couldn't read his look. She wanted to go.

‘I'll stay,' she said.

Jimmy looked from his sister's face to his father's. He looked unhappy. ‘I'll leave youse to it,' he said. Then he turned again and went down the steps with Mick.