Patricia Falvey (24 page)

James pulled away at last. “We’re in this together now, darlin’,” he whispered. “We might be spending a quare amount of time in places like this.” He paused. “So—I suppose you’d better marry me.”

“I suppose I should,” I said.

ON THE EVE
of my marriage to James, I rode out to the Yellow House. I leaned my bicycle against the wall and looked west into the setting sun. I imagined Da riding again over the brow of the hill in the little pony cart with the sun behind him. I heard his lovely tenor voice singing “The Rose of Tralee” as clear as if he were there again beside me. This was the first time since that awful night that I had ventured so close to the house. Skeletal black rafters clawed the sky. The pungent smell of burning wood still lingered in my nostrils, and the sharp pops of exploding fire echoed in my ears. I went closer and pressed my palms against the rough, scarred walls, trying to feel for some pulse of life. But there was none. The jagged shards of broken windowpanes, sharp as fangs, snarled at me, and I shuddered and drew back. Whatever ghosts stalked this place now, they were not the merry ghosts of old. These ghosts were angry and evil. Without thinking, I made the sign of the cross on myself.

I lifted a bunch of lilacs from the basket of the bicycle and walked away from the house. I crossed the gravel and weeds, where once Ma’s flowers had bloomed, toward Da’s grave. Slieve Gullion watched me with stately grace. A small arc of black marble marked where Da lay. P.J. had arranged for it to be placed there. Da’s name and dates of birth and death were etched on it in gold lettering, and a fiddle and bow were carved beneath. A small plaque in the ground nearby bore the name of his old dog, Cuchulainn, who had died the day after Da. Lizzie’s wee white marker with the two angels on it sat nearby, facing out to Slieve Gullion. I knelt beside Da’s grave, holding the sprays of lilac in my hands.

“Och, Da, why did you have to die on me?” I whispered.

I sat back on my heels, playing absently with the lilac.

“I’m getting married, Da,” I said aloud. “P.J. is giving me away. It won’t be the same as having yourself there. You’d like James. He’s a warrior worthy of the O’Neills. I think he’s a braver one than I could ever be. I’m trying to live up to the O’Neill legacy, Da. I’m fighting for the Cause. You should have seen the Customs House go up in flames—such a grand sight.” I paused, remembering the rush of passion I had felt. I wondered then if the Unionist boyos had felt the same passion when they burned our house.

“I have to fight for something, Da. You always said that’s what we were born to do. I’ve been fighting to keep our family together. To bring us back to this place. I’m still saving what money I can. But Ma’s gone into her own world, and Frankie wants his own life, and Paddy wants to stay with the Mullens. I don’t know if I can do it—or if it’s even possible. Och, Da, I don’t want to lose the dream.” I rubbed away tears with my sleeve. I took a deep breath. “Anyway, Da, now I’m fighting for the Cause as well. I’m fighting the bastards who killed you and destroyed our house. You’d be happy about that. I know you would.”

I leaned over and placed the lilacs on his grave, then knelt in silence for a while. I stood up and looked over at the house. It was aglow in the flame of the afternoon sun. I smiled and looked back at the grave.

“I won’t lose the dream, Da. I promise.”

I brushed the grass and leaves off my skirt.

“Pray for me, Da,” I whispered, “and play a tune for me at my wedding.”

THE WEDDING WAS
a small affair. James and I were married in St. Jude’s chapel in Glenlea on Easter Sunday 1919. I was twenty-one years old. P.J. gave me away. Theresa was my matron of honor, and Fergus was James’s best man. Fergus told me he was happy I had married James because now he could have a room in the house again. James would, of course, be moving out since we had been approved for a house in Queensbrook village a few streets over from where Mrs. Conlon lived.

“But didn’t James tell his mother to bring you back a long time ago?” I said.

Fergus shook his head. “He must have forgotten,” he said.

Mrs. Mullen and Mrs. Conlon both wept throughout the ceremony, although I suspected for different reasons. Theresa’s new husband, Tommy McParland, was there as well. Ma was not allowed to leave hospital to come—not that she would have known what was happening anyway—but her absence left a hole in my heart. The invitation to Frankie had been returned unopened. But Paddy was there, carrying the wedding rings on a white satin cushion, solemn as a priest.

I wore an ankle-length cream satin dress that Theresa had designed and made, and I carried a bunch of blue forget-me-nots. James wore a navy blue suit with a white shirt and blue tie. Everybody said we made a handsome couple. As we walked down the aisle, James put his hand on the small of my back, but it felt rough and heavy. I remembered the warmth and steadiness of Owen Sheridan’s hand and stepped quickly away from James. The reception was at the Ceili House, of course. The Ulster Minstrels played. Some of the girls from the mill came along with their husbands or boyfriends. None of the boys from James’s battalion came; it would have been too dangerous to have us all in one place.

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.