Ashes In the Wind (25 page)

Back in County Clare the next day Tomas is called out to the market in Ennis. The Garda are organizing the auction of three horses for the non-payment of rates. There are a hundred and fifty farmers present, determined to stop the auction, keen to spot the government agent who is there to bid if a real bidder fails to emerge. The superintendent knocks the first two horses down for a pound apiece amid cries of ‘Who’s the bidder?’ and ‘Get the bailiff’.

When the third horse, a good half-bred by Royal Academy, is brought forward, its owner snatches the halter, saying, ‘This is still mine,’ smacks the horse on the rump and sends it trotting through the crowd. Someone identifies the rate collector, who is knocked to the ground and kicked. Tomas pushes forward, draws his revolver and fires three shots overhead. He pulls the frightened man to his feet and escorts him back to the safety of the main body of Garda, revolver still drawn.

Back at Divisional Headquarters, Tomas says to his deputy, ‘This isn’t what I joined for. I’m on the side of those farmers. Since Dev launched the Economic War there’s been no market for cattle at all.’

‘You can’t give good beef away in Munster,’ says his deputy. ‘The Brits can live without selling us their coal; we can’t survive without selling them our bullocks.’

‘And now the government wants farmers to slaughter their cattle. Three pounds for a dead cow, thirty shillings for a dead bullock or calf. I think it’s madness.’

A week later Tomas and Kitty make the trip over to Drimnamore. Annie Sullivan is lukewarm at first, but Kitty is undeterred, helps in the kitchen, praises the soda bread, and tells Annie what a good job Tomas is doing over in County Clare.

‘The men like him, you can tell that,’ she says. ‘It’s not because they can do as they wish. He’s good on the discipline, and he’s fair. O’Duffy said Tomas’s division was the best in Munster.’

Tomas takes Kitty to meet Father Michael and the O’Mahonys, thinks about calling on Josephine, but decides against it. He wears his uniform to Mass, Kitty’s arm through his, and afterwards they are surrounded by a group of Tomas’s friends and relations.

‘You’re the big man in Drimnamore right enough,’ says Kitty. Tomas laughs; he likes the welcome, enjoys being teased by Kitty.

They go to one of the bars in Drimnamore after church, where Tomas refuses a Guinness. ‘Not while I’m in uniform,’ he says.

‘Nor at any other time,’ Kitty whispers in his ear.

Afterwards they walk through the Derriquin demesne and pass the skeleton of the castle on their way back to Ardsheelan. ‘Kerry is a beautiful county,’ says Kitty. ‘Would you ever come back to the farm?’

‘That would depend on you. But not for a long time yet; I’ll stick with the Garda. A well-paid job is rare enough in these times.’

Their wedding takes place a month later in Macroom. Father Michael comes over to share the duties with the parish priest, and Emmet Dalton and Michael McGarry come down from Dublin for the ceremony at noon and the long lunch that follows in the County Hotel. Emmet Dalton is best man; he’s now making films in Bray, and in his speech says Kitty is pretty enough to star in his next film. Tomas agrees.

Tomas and Kitty have a four-day honeymoon at the Gresham Hotel in Dublin. Kitty has never been to Dublin, and Tomas’s experience of the city was as a member of The Squad and the Protective Corps. They visit both cathedrals, Trinity College and the Guinness brewery, where Tomas refuses the free sample. They look at the ruins of the Four Courts.

‘Here’s where the Civil War started,’ says Tomas. ‘Here’s where Emmet placed the big guns.’

Kitty rules out a visit to Kilmainham. ‘I can’t bear to think of what happened to my father there,’ she says. ‘And nearly to you. He’s still lying there with the others. They should all be given a decent Christian burial in Glasnevin.’

Kitty goes shopping in Grafton Street, picks out a red dress and red shoes.

‘Are you sure we can afford it?’ she asks Tomas, shocked at Dublin prices.

‘We can, of course,’ says Tomas. ‘I’ve spent little enough on you, barring a hundred cups of tea in the County Hotel. You’re an inspector’s wife, you need to dress the part, Kitty Sullivan.’ He enjoys saying Kitty’s new name.

On their last night they have dinner in the grand dining room of the Gresham, Tomas in his uniform, Kitty in her new red dress. They are confident enough to enjoy the luxury, aware they are a handsome couple. Upstairs in their room the red dress is carefully taken off by Tomas, carefully hung up in the wardrobe, and then Kitty and Tomas, almost as carefully, make love.

On the train back to Ennis the next day they read the newspapers for the first time since their wedding. The papers are full of stories about Eoin O’Duffy and the formation of the Blueshirts.

‘He’s a big man, O’Duffy. And maybe that’s what the country needs right now.’

Kitty is less certain. ‘Ireland needs fewer uniforms, fewer slogans. I don’t know what the Blueshirts stand for, except for O’Duffy.’

‘They’re due to meet in Ennis in ten days’ time, it says here. I might go along, hear what they have to say for themselves.’

‘Mind, Tomas, I don’t want to see you in a blue shirt,’ says Kitty. ‘Your Garda outfit’s uniform enough for me.’

Kitty moves into the superintendent’s house and transforms it. The floors are polished, the front step cleaned, the door knocker polished, there are flowers in the front room, a new radio is bought, comfortable sofas and chairs installed. And there is a proper tea when Tomas gets back from work at five-thirty.

After two years, Kitty asks if Mrs O’Hanrahan can move in with them.

‘She can, of course, as long as she knows it’s your house and you’re in charge.’

‘We’ll find her a job with the parish priest. That’s what keeps her out of mischief in Macroom. Besides, it’ll be handy her being here when the baby comes.’

‘When the baby comes?’ Tomas drops his teacup with a clatter as Kitty smiles at him and kneels down beside her, his arms around her waist.

‘I’m two months’ pregnant. I didn’t want to tell you until I was sure.’

Tomas immediately starts work on preparing a room for the baby’s arrival. He washes, then paints the walls of the little boxroom next to their bedroom, and buys an old wooden rocking cradle from the junk shop in Ennis, which he strips and varnishes.

When Mrs O’Hanrahan arrives, she tells Tomas to stop fussing over Kitty.

‘You’ll drive her mad trying to wrap her in cotton wool. This isn’t the first baby to be born in the world, and it won’t be the last.’

Tomas is unrepentant; his unspoken fear is that Kitty might miscarry again. Kitty is calm and content to let her mother do the heavy housework. Mrs O’Hanrahan has found work as the relief housekeeper in the Carmelite convent.

‘There’s no money, but Masses for the repose of my soul, and for your father.’

‘The two of you are well enough covered with prayers and candles by now. I’d say you’ll skip Purgatory entirely. It’s time you started to look after Tomas’s and my immortal souls.’

Mrs O’Hanrahan brings back regular, lurid news from the convent.

‘Mother Superior told us this morning that if the Communists take over they’ll turn the Pro-Cathedral into an anti-God museum and Westland Row church into a dance hall.’

‘We’re a long way from that,’ says Kitty. ‘And I don’t want you filling Tomas’s head with these stories, or he’ll join the Blueshirts.’

Tomas has heard O’Duffy speak at a big public rally in Ennis, a meeting interrupted by scuffles, shouts and stone-throwing. O’Duffy is a compelling speaker, but Tomas is too preoccupied with controlling the crowd to play close attention, and he comes back unconverted.

‘Your man made great play of the news that W. B. Yeats has written the words for a Blueshirt anthem. I’m not sure that’s enough to make me sign up.’

Tomas and Kitty lead a quiet domestic life; the red dress, which Tomas persuades Kitty to wear on Saturday nights, is soon outgrown and carefully put away. Mrs O’Hanrahan (Tomas never calls her by her first name, and she refers to him as ‘Inspector’) is no trouble, spending most of her time cleaning the house or with her nuns, joining Tomas and Kitty for meals only at the weekend.

Tomas is visiting a station in Corofin when Kitty’s waters break. He hurries home to find the midwife looking concerned.

‘It’s a difficult birth, a breech, and I haven’t managed to turn the baby around. I’ve sent for Dr Donovan, but he’s an hour away in Inagh, seeing a patient with pneumonia. Mrs Sullivan’s lost some blood. No, you shouldn’t go and see her – make yourself a cup of tea and we’ll come and get you when the baby appears.’

At noon Dr Donovan arrives, shakes Tomas’s hand and goes upstairs. Tomas is left pacing up and down, hearing faint, low groans from upstairs that pierce his heart. Two hours later Dr Donovan comes down.

‘Tomas, I think you should go for the priest.’

‘For the baby?’

‘No. Kitty’s lost a lot of blood, and we can’t get her into hospital now. It’s gone beyond that.’

Tomas, who doesn’t fully grasp what is happening, fetches the priest and they go upstairs together. Tomas sees Kitty, pale and unconscious, lying on blood-soaked sheets and blankets. Mrs O’Hanrahan is crying; the midwife is holding the baby.

‘You have a beautiful boy.’

Tomas brushes the offered bundle away. He has eyes only for Kitty. The priest murmurs the last rites, anoints Kitty’s forehead with oil and makes the Sign of the Cross. She gives a final gasping sigh, her eyes open for a moment, then close.

‘She’s gone. May she rest in peace,’ says the priest, closing his prayer book.

‘Gone? Gone? She can’t have gone. She was having a baby, that was all,’ and Tomas cradles Kitty in his arms, his cheek pressed against hers, his body shaking.

They take the baby next door; Tomas stays with Kitty until nightfall, and is finally persuaded by Mrs O’Hanrahan to come downstairs.

‘It’s God’s will, Tomas. And you have a strong son.’

‘It’s my wife I want, it’s Kitty I want.’

Tomas cannot bring himself to hold his new child. He doesn’t leave the house for three days, unable to believe that his life has been turned inside out. He is used enough to violent death, but the disaster that has overtaken Kitty seems to belong to a different order of things. He looks at the whiskey bottle on the table for comfort and amnesia, then empties it into the sink.

Kitty is buried three days later, and two days after that his son is christened. Tomas finds it impossible to love, even to hold, his son, who seems to sense his indifference and cries the moment Mrs O’Hanrahan passes him over. She has found a wet-nurse for the baby, christened Michael after the dead martyr of the Easter Rising. Tomas shows no interest in the name.

He begins a round of ferocious inspections of the stations in his division. His reputation changes quickly from that of a reasonable disciplinarian to that of a martinet. He dismisses three Garda for relatively minor breaches of discipline, and when his decisions are reversed in Dublin he responds with an angry, intemperate letter to the commissioner. The commissioner is a supporter of Fianna Fáil, as are two of the three Garda that had been dismissed.

A month after his letter Tomas is summoned to Dublin and sacked; he doesn’t fight the decision. He is given a week to move out of his house.

Tomas rents a cottage in Ennis for Mrs O’Hanrahan and Michael, and goes back to Kerry and Ardsheelan. Annie Sullivan tries to console him, to persuade him to think about his son. Tomas still thinks only of Kitty.

‘We were good together,’ he says to his mother. ‘I’ve never been so happy, and I made her happy too. Now it’s all gone. It’s a punishment for the things I’ve done.’ He remembers Captain Newbury, how his pregnant wife miscarried and then died.

Annie’s robust. ‘That’s nonsense. You did what you and the others had to do. It was a war. You’ve confessed, you’ve received absolution. God has forgiven you.’

‘Has he? I can’t stay here for long; I may leave Ireland for a while, go to England, find work there. I’ve put money by for Mrs O’Hanrahan and the baby, and she has her pension.’

After Mass on Sunday, Father Michael stops Tomas on his way out of church and suggests they walk together out to Staigue Fort. Tomas hesitates, then agrees; after two silent miles Tomas unburdens himself to Father Michael, says how he feels Kitty’s death was a punishment.

‘God doesn’t work like that,’ says Father Michael. ‘Or only in the Old Testament. It’s hard to understand, hard to accept, but retribution it is not. You’ve confessed, you’ve received absolution, you’ve done penance enough one way or another.’

On the road below Staigue Fort, they stop at the
boreen
that runs up to the walls.

‘I came out when I heard the firing, anointed five dead men, gave three of the wounded the last rites. And I felt responsible – I’d warned your man O’Gowan that Eileen Burke and I had agreed to tell both sides what was planned, but I wasn’t persuasive enough for him to call it off. They’ll be expecting two Kerrymen and a dog, he told me, not twenty Volunteers.’

‘I was one of the firing squad that shot Mrs Burke. Frank O’Gowan wasn’t a man you could change once his mind was set.’

‘For months I felt responsible, felt guilty, but I’ve come to terms with it now. As you must.’

Back at Lissagroom, Annie tries to persuade Tomas to stay. ‘I need you here, and your boy needs you.’

‘This farm can’t support the two of us.’

‘It can if you want it.’

Tomas doesn’t want it. He plans a trip to England; then his eye is caught by an article in the
Independent
, saying an Irish Brigade is about to leave to fight for the Church and for the Nationalists. Three days later Tomas, together with four hundred other volunteers, is on board a German boat, the
SS
Urundi
, on his way to Spain.

J
OHN
AND
R
OBERT
are lying in a narrow trench below the crest of a hill in Aragon, and if they raise their heads they can see across the red, fissured earth of the steep valley to the matching ridge on the other side. The heat draws shimmering lines across the valley; scrub oak, a few stunted olive trees, a dried-up river bed, an abandoned field in which whatever had once been planted had long ago withered and died.