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  No one came for Barry Halloran. He did not want to go to prison yet resented being excluded from the band of brothers. He tensed when a car turned into the laneway and looked around for the nearest escape route, but at the same time he wanted to stand in the middle of the road and shout, “I was at Brookeborough too!”

  The more Barry thought about Brookeborough the more he reproached himself. He had dreamed of being a hero like Ned Halloran, yet he had disobeyed orders—again—and compounded his crime by deserting his post. To make matters worse, he had run away while his comrades were being taken prisoner.

  We were supposed to disable and demoralise the enemy. We’re the ones who ended up disabled and demoralised. How could such good intentions have such a bad outcome?

  He ached to talk about the contradictory feelings roiling through him. But how could anyone understand who had not been there? Feargal would understand, but he was dead. Seán Garland would understand, but to go looking for him would subject them both to almost certain capture. Barry thought of speaking to his parish priest until he recalled the words of Séamus McCoy: You never know who might be an informer.

  Chapter Nine

  FOR the first time in Barry’s memory the door to the bedroom that had been Ned Halloran’s was ajar. Ursula kept it closed out of deference to her father, and it was firmly understood that no one aside from herself and Eileen was allowed inside. During his lifetime Ned had discouraged visitors, particularly noisy and nosy children. His room was a private sanctuary where he sorted amongst his memories and grappled with whatever demons still haunted him.

  Barry clearly recalled the only time he had been inside. The day Granda died. Mam brought me up here to kiss him good-bye.

  It had not been an occasion for exploring the room.

  Barry stood listening to the sounds of the house; faraway kitchen sounds. Ursula was outside with her horses. No one would know if he entered the room, yet it took a surprising amount of courage.

  Once he was inside he quickly closed the door.

  The bedroom was Spartan in its simplicity. On the wall instead of the usual portraits of the pope and Mr. de Valera was a framed sepia photograph of a young couple. Because he had seen Mise Éire, Barry recognised his grandfather in the lanky man with a tousle of black curls tumbling onto his forehead. There was strength in the gaunt face. And courage. The camera captured his courage perfectly.

  Barry had never seen a picture of the grandmother who had been killed by the Black and Tans before he was born. Ursula had once explained, “My mother wasn’t the sort of woman who liked having her photograph taken.” Now Barry identified Síle Halloran by the wifely deference in her posture as she leaned against Ned. But there was nothing submissive in her face. Slanting eyes like a cat’s eyes, and a wide, sensuous mouth. She doesn’t look like anyone’s grandmother. The camera must have captured her soul.

  The only other ornament on the wall was a copy of the Proclamation of the Irish Republic. One corner of the document was torn. The paper was yellowed with age and seamed where it had been folded small enough to fit in a man’s notebook. Barry caught his breath. This must be one of the copies they put up all over Dublin during Easter Week, 1916! With reverent fingers he removed the frame from the hook and turned it over. Written on the brown paper backing was, “Ned, this rightly belongs with you and not me. Henry.”

  Ned’s personal belongings were still in the room, not because Ursula kept the place as a shrine, but because she never threw anything away. They were few enough. A bone-handled pocket knife, a shaving mug and straight razor, a pair of military brushes with a few grey hairs still tangled in the bristles. A tweed cap with a sweat-stained label that read MORGAN’S, 19 DUKE STREET, DUBLIN—BEST IN 1768, BETTER IN 1928. A scuffed leather wallet that contained a few old banknotes and a Dublin pawn ticket, but no identification of any kind.

  I wonder what he pawned. And why he never reclaimed it.

  Barry’s curiosity was growing.

  Hanging from pegs in the wardrobe were the clothes Ned had worn in his latter years, and a uniform of much earlier vintage: a single-breasted tunic with brass buttons embossed with a harp, and matching trousers cut like riding breeches. Pinned to the tunic was a bronze Volunteer’s badge.

  Time had faded the grey-green serge to the colour of moss in winter. When Barry pressed the fabric to his nose it smelled of the little bag of camphor someone had placed in a pocket to prevent moths. Eileen probably. Mam’s not that domestic.

  In the bottom of the wardrobe were Wellington boots and two pairs of leather shoes grown stiff with age. Shoved in behind them was a canvas backpack. Barry swung the pack onto the bed and sat down beside it. The buckles were rusted and difficult to open. Underneath several woollen jumpers was a large metal box. Try as he might, he could not force the lock. A diligent search uncovered the key in the drawer of the bedside locker, attached to a thin leather cord that Ned used to wear around his neck.

  Barry unlocked the box with mounting excitement and flung back the lid. The first thing he saw was a folded square of paper with “Síle” written on it. When he unfolded the paper a curl of russet-coloured hair tumbled out. Barry bent to pick it up; the curl twined around his fingers like a living thing. Feeling as if he had committed sacrilege, he returned the little memento to its wrapping. The other contents of the box were the marriage certificate of Edward Joseph Halloran and Síle Duffy and two thick bundles of school copybooks tightly bound together with twine.

  Before he left the room Barry took a last long look at the photograph of Ned and Síle. Dead for years, as the world reckoned dead, yet still vibrantly alive in the picture.

  In the privacy of his own room Barry examined the copybooks at length. Ned had used them as his personal notebooks, and they contained a mixture of diary entries, political commentary, and philosophical musings. Plus a number of pages that appeared to be written in code. The earliest book—recognisable as such because it was worn and faded with age—comprised the opening chapters of a novel. The handwriting was clear and forceful, a young man’s handwriting.

  Turning back to the first page, Barry began to read. He had not gone far before he encountered his grandmother, she of the cat’s eyes and sensuous mouth. Ned had called her “Sinéad” in his novel, but made no other attempt at disguise. Ned Halloran’s passion for her fairly leapt off the page. Barry closed the book in embarrassment. It was like feeling her hair curl around his finger again.

  When he heard Eileen’s cracked voice calling him down to the table he thrust the notebooks into a drawer, knowing he would come back to them later. Come back again and again, reading a bit at a time, like having conversations with his grandfather. If he could not be with his comrades, at least he could be, in some sense, with a man who understood.

  During dinner Barry felt his mother’s eyes on him. “Are you ill? You’ve hardly touched your food.”

  “I’m all right.” He took a roast potato he did not want and forced himself to eat it.

  “You’re worrying about going back,” she speculated.

  He felt her silently pulling at him, seeking information. “I’m not worried about going back.”

  “But … ?”

  “But nothing. I told you, I’m not worried.” Barry helped himself to another potato. Whatever you say, say nothing.

  “The government’s determined to destroy the IRA once and for all. It might be best if you kept out of sight for a while.”

  “Umm.” As long as Barry kept his mouth full she would not expect him to speak. The Garland column’s broken up, I’ll have to find another company. But even as he considered the possibility his thoughts went skittering off in another direction.

  Until the afternoon he spent amongst his grandfather’s memories, Barry, like most youngsters, had given little thought to the personal lives of the adults he knew. But the belongings Ned Halloran had treasured touched him deeply. He found himself thinking about them at the oddest moments. A photograph. A curl of living ha
ir. Someone else’s reality, as valid as his own.

  Ursula had seen her son lose himself in daydreams before. She set her teacup in its saucer with a commanding clatter. “A third-level education is a fine thing,” she said in a voice that commanded attention.

  Barry looked up. His mother never made idle remarks.

  “You could go to university, you know,” Ursula went on. ‘Trinity College would be perfect. There was a time when a Catholic had to get special permission to attend Trinity because he Church considered it dangerous to faith and morals.1 I don’t know if the ecclesiastical ban is still in effect, but if it is, I’m sure we can find a way around it.”

  Eileen had put down her knife and fork and was staring fixedly at Ursula.

  “I’m not interested anyway,” Barry said. He had been a man amongst men; he was not willing to be demoted to the rank of student. “And even if I were willing to go to a college it wouldn’t be that one. Granda told me Trinity flew the Union lack during the Rising in 1916.”

  “All the more reason to enrol you there; you’ll be a secret viper in their bosoms,” Ursula said with a laugh. “Seriously, though—you’ll receive an excellent education and be out of harm’s way for a while.”

  “I’m not supposed to be out of harm’s way, Ursula. I’m a soldier.”

  “I’m not suggesting you give up the Army, just take sensible precautions in the current situation. The gardai probably have your name by now, but they’d never think to look for you at Trinity. It’s still a symbol of the Protestant ruling class. We’ll enrol you as an undergraduate and …”

  Barry pushed back his chair and stood up. “No, Ursula,” he said. For the first time in his life. He shot his mother a look which she would think of, forever after, as Barry’s dangerous look. Then he left the room.

  When he had gone Eileen caught Ursula by the elbow. “You never told me there was that sort of money,” the older woman hissed.

  “What sort of money?”

  “Enough to send the lad to university.”

  “The farm’s not doing too badly, and I’m careful.”

  “This farm’s the most productive for miles around and you’re not careful, you’re mean!” Eileen burst out. “Philomena Pinch benny, you.”

  “How can you say that? Do you not have plenty of food and clothes and a roof over your head, all provided by me?”

  Eileen thrust out her lower lip in the pout that was the sole remnant of her girlish charm. “And never a shilling in my pocket.”

  “What about your butter-and-egg money?”

  “That goes to the Church, as you very well know. The Mass offerings and the Poor Box.”

  “Well, if you need something else you have only to ask.”

  “There’s need and there’s want, Ursula. I don’t need anything, but there’s things I want.”

  “We both remember a time when merely being able to provide for one’s needs was a triumph,” Ursula reminded the other woman. “Since I took over this place in 1940 I’ve worked night and day to build security for all of us. I’ve denied myself a lot of things I wanted, books and smart clothes and travel.”

  “You travel up to Dublin,” Eileen reminded her. Few of their neighbours in Clare had ever been to Dublin, yet Ursula took the train across the island to the capital twice a year. Gerry Ryan maintained that the trips were strictly farm business but local conjecture was rife as to what that might include. “Ned Halloran used to do a lot of business in Dublin,” men reminded one another in the pubs of Ennis. “IRA business.” Knowing winks.

  Women were not as quick to ascribe a political motive to Ursula’s actions. “The bishop says Dublin is a bog of temptation,” they whispered to one another in the corner shop in Clarecastle. “You know what her past must have been.” “Any woman who goes off to Europe and comes back with a baby …” Fingers tapping sides of noses.

  “Why don’t you ever take me to Dublin with you?” Eileen asked resentfully. “The only time I’ve been there was when we buried my brother.”

  Two graves side by side in the republican plot in Glasnevin Cemetery. Ned and Síle Halloran. Ursula always went to the cemetery first, straight from the train.

  “Is that what you want, Eileen? To visit Papa’s grave?” Ursula sounded exasperated. “We’ve been all through that before. I’d take you to Dublin but you’d be bored to tears. I go to meet potential buyers at the spring horse sales and the big horse show in the autumn. You’re not interested in horses, so what would you do with yourself all day?”

  Eileen pleated her apron between fingers knotted by arthritis. She had never stood up to Ursula before; few people did. But Barry’s rebellion had inspired her. “Perhaps I’d get a nice cup of tea and find someone to chat with in the hotel lobby.”

  “I stay in a poky little commercial hotel whose guests are usually out during the day. Salesmen, most of them, working on commission; hardly the sort to enjoy a leisurely chat with an old woman.”

  Eileen bristled. “I thought you stopped at the Shelbourne.”

  “I don’t know where you got that idea. I never stop at the Shelbourne.”

  Eileen was not the most sensitive of women, but something in Ursula’s voice warned her off. “Well, you needn’t worry,” she said. “I’m not asking you to take me to Dublin. All I want is a fridge.”

  Ursula’s mouth dropped open. “A what?”

  “A fridge. Re-frig-er-ator. With plastic ice trays.”

  As they were scrubbing the milk cans in the dairy Ursula told Gerry Ryan, “I’ll never understand people. Animals make sense but humans don’t. Take Barry. He’s intelligent enough to have a career in any profession he likes, but he refuses to go to university. Then there’s Eileen, who has more now than she’s ever had in her life but thinks I’m mean because I won’t buy an electric refrigerator.”

  Ryan cocked an eye in her direction. “You’re not exactly flaithiúlach,p missus, but I wouldn’t call you mean. You plan to get one of those contraptions for her?”

  “I certainly am not, there’s no need. Eileen wouldn’t use it anyway. That woman’s as set in her ways as an old hen; she’s still suspicious of the electric light. Barry’s a different class of animal altogether. The future belongs to him and I want to see that he has one.”

  BARRY spent a restless night. His thoughts ran in circles, exhausting him. He got up next morning more tired than when he went to bed, keenly aware that he was in danger of being pressured into the life his mother planned for him.

  He was certain of only one thing: whatever he did with his life, it must be his own choice.

  THE spatter of gravel against a windowpane brought Séamus McCoy instantly awake. He reached under his pillow for his pistol. Flattening against the wall, he crept toward the window and peered down at an angle. The grey light of early morning revealed a man standing in the road below with a bicycle.

  McCoy lowered the pistol and opened the window.

  “Seventeen? Is that you down there?”

  “I need to talk with you, sir.”

  “Forget the ‘sir,’ I’m Séamus. You’re not in my command anymore. How’d you find me?”

  “You once mentioned having a bolthole in Ballina, so I came looking for you. When I saw the strategic location of this place I was sure …”

  “Jesus God. Stay there and I’ll come down.”

  McCoy’s hideaway was a brick-fronted pub on the road that ran through the centre of the village. On the other side of the road was the bridge spanning the Shannon between Ballina in County Tipperary and Killaloe in County Clare. The pub’s upstairs windows thus commanded a view of the main street of Ballina in both directions and the full length of the bridge, as well as the village on the opposite bank.

  In one of those windows was a faded notice proclaiming FURNISHED ROOMS TO LET.

  McCoy emerged from a side door. “Whew! The wind off the river this morning would strip the feathers off a goose. Why aren’t you in a warm bed, Seventeen? For that matter, why
aren’t I in a warm bed? What’s this all about, anyway?”

  Barry hunched his shoulders against the cold. The cold inside, not outside. “Brookeborough.”

  “So you were there. I wondered, but there was no Halloran named amongst the prisoners taken.”

  “Because I wasn’t caught. I ran away to save my rifle.” Barry spat out the words with surprising vehemence.

  McCoy took him by the arm. “Don’t tell the world and his wife, lad. Come inside where we can talk. It’s safe; a friend of mine owns this place.”

  The room above the pub was larger than Barry had expected. A cast-iron fireplace, its black mantelpiece piled with books, stood opposite the door. Stools that looked suspiciously like bar stools were placed on either side of the hearth. Between two windows was a table holding a teapot, an empty milk jug, a bowl of sugar, and several cups. The surface of the table was marred with overlapping rings where tea and milk had been spilled. On the wall above the bedstead were yellowed newspaper photographs of James Connolly and Countess Markievicz, and a framed print of Estella Solomons’s brooding portrait of Frank Aiken, former IRA chief-of-staff.

  McCoy lifted more books—topped, Barry noticed, by a dogeared copy of On Another Man’s Wound, Ernie O’Malley’s classic memoir of the Irish War of Independence—off a chair by the table. He beckoned to Barry to sit down while he coaxed a fire from the coals banked in the grate. When McCoy produced a pack of cigarettes Barry took two, one to smoke now and one tucked behind his ear for later. McCoy lit a cigarette for himself and perched one buttock on a stool. “All right, Seventeen. Tell me about it.”

  He listened without comment until Barry stopped talking and sat staring at the floor. The older man flipped the stub of his cigarette into the fireplace. “Even if I can’t condone it, I can understand why you abandoned your post. You were desperate to be part of the action. I might have done the same thing at your age. But why come to me now?”