Patricia Falvey (45 page)

“Mammy! Mammy!”

I swung around. Jesus, I had forgotten all about the child. She stood at the kitchen door, staring up at me with huge eyes.

“Stay here!” I shouted, and her wee face crumpled up. But thank God she did not cry.

I bent over Frank. I rinsed towels in cold water, and when I laid them on his arms and legs, he screamed aloud with the pain. Then I mopped up the blood as best I could. There were gashes around his head and neck, but it didn’t look as if he had been shot. Silently, I thanked God.

“We have to get him to hospital,” I said to Terrence, who knelt beside me.

Terrence had a strange look on his face that I could not read. It was neither fear nor anger, but something else. He stood up.

“There’s something I need to do first. Stay here.”

He was gone. I mopped Frank’s forehead and whispered soothing words. “Ssh, love, it’ll be all right. You’ll be all right.”

Terrence returned carrying a small wooden box he must have taken out of his car. He knelt down, the same strange look on his face. He opened the box and took out a purple stole, which he placed around his neck, a bottle of oil, and a missal. I stopped tending to Frank and stared.

“What…?” I began, but Terrence put up his hand to silence me.

He opened the bottle of oil and poured a drop on Frank’s forehead as if anointing him. Then he opened the missal and began to read aloud in Latin, making the sign of the cross over Frank. Jesus, he was giving him the last sacrament!

Suddenly Frank came to and began to flail about. He raised his arms and pushed at Terrence. “No!” he cried. “No feckin’ priests. Get away from me!” It was obvious he did not recognize Terrence. Terrence paid him no attention but continued chanting the Latin words and making a sign of the cross with his thumb on Frank’s forehead.

“No,” Frank cried again. It was weaker this time, more like a sigh.

Terrence took off his stole, kissed it, and folded it away in the box along with the oil and the missal. He stood up.

“We’ll take him out to my car now, and bring him to hospital,” he said softly. “Do you think you could find someone to help us? I’ll get some blankets.”

Something in his quiet command jolted me into action. I ran out the front door. The crowd of onlookers had grown larger. I stared at them, blind with fury.

“Will one of youse come and help us carry him to the car?” I shouted. “Or are youse all bloody cowards? Are you hoping my brother will die on my doorstep? Would that be the kind of sport you’re after?”

At last a man I didn’t know came forward, and then a few more followed him. “We’ll take care of him, missus,” they mumbled. A woman I knew only by sight from down the street came up to me.

“I’ll mind the child,” she said, “so you can go with your brother.”

Tears stung at my eyes.

“Thank you,” I said.

LATER THAT NIGHT
, Frankie lay in the main ward of the Newry Hospital along with many of the young fellows I knew. Little did I ever think I would see my own flesh and blood lying there. Sister Rafferty put a red Catholic medallion above Frankie’s bed without asking me. I looked at it and said nothing.

“We’ll look after him,” she whispered, putting her hand on my arm. “Go and get some rest, love. You look exhausted.”

I went down to the waiting room with Terrence and sat down. I was not ready to leave Frankie alone just yet. As I sat, I became aware of the pains that tore at my stomach. How long had they been there? I wondered. I looked over at Terrence.

“I suppose you want an explanation?” he said.

I nodded.

“I was on my way home from your house when I passed the car speeding the other way. Something told me it was bad. I don’t know how I knew, I just did. I turned around and followed them.”

“That’s not what I was asking,” I said. It had not even occurred to me to ask why or how Terrence had arrived back at my house. “I want to know about the other thing.”

Terrence straightened his back and looked at me intensely. “I’m a priest,” he said, “or at least I used to be one long ago.”

I smiled faintly. “We always wondered,” I said.

“Aye, I think we must give off some kind of a smell that’s hard to disguise,” he said lightly. “Must be all that incense.”

“But were you not defrocked?” I asked, my curiosity building.

“No. True, I was expelled from my parish long ago, but I was never officially drummed out.”

“And why were you expelled?”

Terrence looked away from me. “Because I fell in love with a woman and fathered her child.”

I gasped aloud. “Well,
you’re
a dark horse, aren’t you?”

I smiled, but the look on Terrence’s face wiped the smile away. Jesus, I had offended him with my sharp tongue.

“The woman was your mother, Eileen, and the child was Frank.”

The words hung like smoke in the air. I had an image of myself standing somewhere apart from the two of us, watching us have this conversation. It was unreal. It must be a dream.

“I was very much in love with your mother, and”—he smiled—“I believe she with me. But it was an impossible situation. She said she would go away with me, but I could not let her do that. So I left instead.”

I sensed anger rising in me. I swung around to face Terrence. As I did so, my stomach clenched in pain. “So you left her alone after you’d enjoyed yourself with her? What kind of a man does that?”

“A very troubled man, Eileen. But at the time, I thought it best. And your father had already proposed to Mary a number of times. I encouraged her to accept his offer.”

“Did my da know you then?”

“No. And I don’t believe in all the years since that he ever suspected me.”

We were both silent. The empty waiting room was full of dull brown shadows from the flickering gas lamps. In the distance, footsteps crept up and down the stairways, like ghosts. It all made sense to me now—the way Terrence had always looked at Frankie when he thought nobody else was watching. I even saw the similarities. Frankie’s dark eyes belonged to Terrence, not to my ma, as I had always thought.

“Do you realize what this did to Frankie?” I blurted out. “Do you realize how this ruined his life?” I fought back tears of anger and pity.

Terrence nodded. He reached over and took my hands in his. “I know, Eileen, God forgive me, I know. And I know what it did to Mary. It breaks my heart every day.” He looked at me intently. “And that is why you must tell Owen Sheridan about this baby. Please, Eileen, do not make the same mistakes I did.”

I LAY AWAKE
all night thinking over the events of the evening—Frankie’s brutal beating and burning, Terrence’s confession. Thoughts swirled around in my head, and the pains in my belly bored into me as if the child wanted its say. Aye, child, you need the truth, I know. In the morning Terrence came back, and together we went to see Frankie. Sister Rafferty slipped us in, even though no visitors were supposed to be allowed. Frankie lay unconscious. I smoothed his hair and held his hand. Then I looked at Terrence.

“I’ve decided to tell Owen and James the truth,” I said.

He nodded. Then a wan smile appeared on his face. “It’s as well for you not to be going against a priest’s advice.”

“Aye,” I said.

P.J. came up to the house later in the day, along with Terrence.

“I heard they burned down the whole Fitzwilliam house, and your grandfather with it,” he said, blessing himself.

I winced with shock. Even though there was no love lost between me and the old man, still, the thought of somebody being burned alive sickened me.

“Frank got out just in time, I hear,” P.J. went on. “But then the bastards beat him to a pulp.”

“Why did they not shoot him? And why did they throw him on my doorstep?”

They were the questions that had been rolling around in my head all day.

P.J. made the great show he always did when somebody asked his advice. He tamped the tobacco into his pipe and took a long draw, slowly exhaling the smoke and staring up at the ceiling.

“Well, I’ve thought about that, love,” he said at last, “and I think it may have to do with the fact that you’re his sister, and you’re James’s wife. I’m not saying James did it, although it could have been on his orders. Your brother was smuggling—for both sides, as it turns out—and money that should by rights have gone to the Cause was going to the Ulster Volunteers.”

“But James wouldn’t…” I did not want to believe it, but I knew James was capable of worse.

“Whether it was James’s orders or not,” P.J. continued, “I believe it was a warning to yourself, girl, not to cross them. I don’t know why they didn’t go so far as to shoot him, which is why I think it’s James may have spared him. But there’s no doubt that when they left him on your doorstep they were sending you a message.”

“What would that be?” I whispered, but I already knew the answer.

“That the same could happen to you if you’re not careful.” P.J. leaned over and put his hand on my knee. “Take my advice, darlin’, stay away from the Sheridan fellow.” He paused and cleared his throat. “Of course, the warning could have been meant for him as well.”

Terrence nodded. “P.J.’s right, Eileen. After last night I made some inquiries of my own. Seems Frank was double-dealing both sides. But it was our side that burned and beat him. I was told but for James they would have killed him. James spared his life on account of you. You owe him that.”

“I owe James nothing!” I shouted. “If my brother doesn’t die now, he’ll be an invalid for the rest of his life. It would have been better if James had killed him.”

“Och, now, love,” said P.J., “you don’t know what you’re saying.”

I was in tears now. I rocked back and forth on my chair like a child. What was I to do? If I let the word out that Owen was the father of my child, would James torture him, too, and myself along with him? Terrence stared at me as if reading my mind.

“You can’t go back on what we talked about, Eileen. You have to be brave for the child’s sake.”

“And who are you to lecture me?” I shouted. “Weren’t you the coward of the first order?”

Terrence bowed his head. “I was. And look how much suffering I have caused.”

“There’ll be suffering either way,” I said.

I MIGHT HAVE
weakened in my resolve to tell the truth, but I was given no time. No sooner had P.J. and Terrence left my house than a knock sounded on the front door.

“Come in,” I shouted without thinking. I assumed it was Terrence or P.J. back again, or maybe Theresa looking for gossip.

I went into the parlor, and there standing inside the door in his army uniform, with his hat held stiffly under his arm, was Owen.

“Jesus, Owen, you can’t be here,” I blurted out. “Don’t you know the place is being watched? They’ll kill you.”

Owen looked hurt at the harsh reception. “I don’t care,” he said, “I came to make sure you’re all right. My God, Eileen, what a terrible thing for you to witness.”

The look of concern on his face was genuine. He put out his hand to touch me, but instinctively I backed away. “You’d better come in,” I said.

I turned and went back into the kitchen. He followed me. Aoife came over and stared up at him with wide eyes. Owen smiled down at her.