Читать книгу Danny Boy - Anne Bennett - Страница 11

Rosie was very troubled after the discovery of the arms in the disused cottage and Phelan’s reaction to it. She didn’t know how to treat Phelan after it either, but she was anxious for him and for how his activities would affect the family.

The constant worry gnawing at her made her jumpy and it was noticed by both Connie and Danny. ‘What is it, pet?’ Danny would ask. ‘What are you fretting over?’

How Rosie longed to tell her young husband, who was looking at her in such a concerned way, two deep furrows in his brow. She wanted to tell him everything, but mindful of Phelan’s warnings of secrecy, she knew everyone would be safer if she said nothing. She wouldn’t be able to bear it if she brought danger to the family that had welcomed her so warmly, and especially to Danny and wee Bernadette. And so she’d try to smile at Danny and say reassuringly, ‘Nothing’s the matter with me, Danny. I’m grand, so I am.’

But Danny knew she wasn’t. ‘Has she spoken to you at all?’ he demanded of his mother one day as Rosie disappeared with a basket of damp washing to hang in the orchard.

‘Not at all,’ Connie told him. ‘She’s not been the same since the day wee Dermot came flying up to the place in a state of great excitement, to show them a badgers’ sett of all things. ‘Maybe,’ she went on, ‘she’s worried for the child, for he’s not been near the place since. Geraldine told her he’s nearly a prisoner on the farm and he’s been forbidden to come here as a punishment, because that day he set off without telling anyone where he was going, or asking if he might. Maybe that bothers Rosie, because for all Dermot is a spoiled wee scut, she’s powerfully fond of him.’

‘I don’t know,’ Danny said, running his hands through his hair. ‘She’s different somehow, though.’

Connie knew she was but she’d not been able to get to the bottom of it either. ‘Could be just the weather, son. Dear God it could put years on you, the constant rain and the leaden skies. I know it’s stopped for now, but not for long by the look of it. Those clothes Rosie is putting out will gain nothing, for the very air is damp and she’ll be fetching them in again shortly.’

Danny grimaced and shook his head. He knew it was more than that. Rosie never laughed any more, and the rare smiles she gave never touched her eyes. Then there was the way she behaved with Phelan. She never seemed to have anything to say to him now, yet once the pair of them had been as thick as thieves. It bothered him that she’d tell him nothing and claim everything was fine, when it so obviously wasn’t. He was her friend, surely, as well as her husband? There shouldn’t be secrets between them.

‘Bless me, Father, for I have sinned, it is a fortnight since my last confession,’ Rosie mumbled in the small box in the dimly lit, cold church. It was the evening of Good Friday and all the family, indeed most of the church, would, after attending the ‘Stations of the Cross’, make a good confession that day.

And Rosie had more to confess than most, for she’d decided to unburden herself to the priest about the weapons, safe in the knowledge he could repeat none of it.

So, after the litany of usual sins, Father McNally enquired, ‘Is there anything else, my child?’

He knew there was. Years of hearing confessions had sharpened his awareness in listening to people and he knew there was more Rosie Walsh, whose voice he so clearly recognised, wanted to tell him. Rosie, although aware of the rows of people waiting outside the confessional box, knew that if she didn’t tell another person about this whole business she’d burst, and so she replied, ‘Yes, Father. It’s not something I’ve done wrong, you understand.’

‘Go on.’

‘I found something, Father. In fact it was my young brother who found it and brought me to see it. It was a cottage, an old disused place. Only it had been done up, made watertight. I wondered at that, for no-one owns it. It’s been derelict for years.’ Rosie stopped and the priest urged her on.

Rosie swallowed. ‘The floor is covered with a rush mat. There is a hidey-hole under it, cut into the floor and covered with a sod of turf that can be lifted out.’

The priest’s blood ran suddenly as cold as ice. He knew what kind of thing might be hidden in such a way in an empty, disused house. Hadn’t he had mothers weeping in the confessional before today about the menfolk in their lives, who they feared had got mixed up in subversive activities? Indeed, he’d had young men too, who asked for his blessing in their quest to free Ireland from British tyranny. He’d not been able to do that, of course, but he wasn’t surprised when Rosie went on in a whisper to tell him what she had found that day and Phelan’s reaction to it.

‘I think my brother-in-law is mixed up in this Irish Republican Brotherhood, Father,’ Rosie told the priest, ‘and he said these are desperate times and the organization is run by desperate men and I wasn’t to tell a soul what I’d seen.’

Father McNally didn’t know how to advise the girl. ‘Are you worried about your brother-in-law? What he might do?’

‘Aye, Father.’

‘Can you not discuss it with your husband?’

‘God, no, Father,’ Rosie cried. ‘The minute I mention a word of this to him, we’d all be in danger.’

‘What would you have me do, child?’

‘There’s nothing you can do, I don’t think,’ Rosie said. ‘I just had to tell someone.’

‘All I can do then is pray for you all.’

‘Aye, Father,’ Rosie said. ‘That never comes amiss, at any rate.’

The priest sighed. Ireland seemed poised on the brink of something and in Europe soldiers were being massacred in their thousands, and all the prayers in the world seemed unable to stop any of it. But this was no way for a priest to think, he chided himself. Didn’t he preach that prayers could move mountains?

‘Try not to worry too much,’ the priest told Rosie. ‘I know you might think that’s easy for me to say but really there is nothing you can do, unless you can talk to your brother-in-law and make him see sense.’

Rosie knew that wasn’t an option. Phelan now avoided speaking to her so obviously that even Danny had noticed and had asked if they’d had a fall-out. God, if only it had been just that. She doubted that even if she did manage to talk to him she could make him change course.

‘Say a decade of the rosary for your penance,’ the priest said, jerking Rosie back to the present. ‘And now make a good act of contrition.’

Rosie said the familiar prayer and then, leaving the confessional box, she headed for the side altar where she prayed earnestly for Phelan. She said not one decade of the rosary but three, playing the beads through her fingers. She lit a candle for good measure and left the church feeling she’d done all she could, yet somehow knowing it wasn’t going to be enough.

Much later that same night, Dermot heard footsteps outside his bedroom window. Since his talk with Phelan he’d slept lighter than usual and now the sound of boots on the cobbles woke him with a jolt and he was out of bed and across the room in a flash.

Phelan was outside the window, which had been left slightly open just as Dermot had promised it would be. Dermot pushed it wide and Phelan put a warning finger to his lips. He had the letter ready. ‘The Brotherhood are off tomorrow evening,’ he said.

‘Ooh, Phelan,’ Dermot said in an awed whisper. ‘Where are you making for?’

‘Dublin,’ Phelan said and bit his lip in annoyance. He hadn’t intended to tell anyone. ‘I can’t tell you any more and it’s really best that you don’t know, then you can’t tell, whatever pressure is applied.’

‘I wouldn’t tell,’ Dermot said, indignation causing his voice to rise.

‘Ssh,’ Phelan hissed fiercely. ‘All we want now is your sisters and parents in here demanding an explanation about who you’re talking to through your bedroom window in the dead of night. I thought you had more sense. Are you sure you’re up for this?’

‘Aye, aye,’ the boy assured him, but in a whisper. ‘Please? You can trust me.’

‘Right then,’ Phelan said. ‘Now listen. I won’t be missed until the milking on Sunday morning and by then, if all goes to plan, I will be installed in Dublin. You take this letter to my family, no earlier than Sunday afternoon. Can you do that?’

‘Course I can.’

‘You must hide it till then.’

‘Aye,’ Dermot said. ‘I’ll make sure no-one sees it. And may good luck go with you, Phelan. I wish I was old enough to join.’

‘I should think there will still be work for you when you’re my age,’ Phelan told Dermot reassuringly. ‘By then, though, the Irish tri-coloured flag will be fluttering over the capital and the English driven from our land.’

It sounded stirring stuff and Dermot was captivated. It seemed such a tiny thing to deliver a letter, but then, if that’s what Phelan wanted, he would do it and be proud of the part he’d played in the fight for Ireland.

He didn’t know yet how he’d get to leave the house by himself on a Sunday afternoon. His mother had not let him go anywhere since that day in the Easter holidays when he’d found the cottage and the guns. But allowed or not, he’d go out to the Walshes’ farm that Sunday afternoon, even if he had to sneak away to do so.

‘Give Phelan a knock, will you, Rosie,’ Connie asked as Rosie came into the room early on Easter Sunday.

‘Isn’t he up?’ Rosie asked, for at this hour he was usually out in the milking sheds with his father and Danny.

‘No, he is not,’ Connie said. ‘He must have been in powerfully late last night. I never heard him and his father will go mad altogether if he isn’t in the milking sheds and quickly.’

Connie thought it strange that she hadn’t heard Phelan come in. Although she often dozed through sheer weariness, she always heard him. Maybe, though, he’d come in later than usual to avoid his father, for when he’d nearly jumped up from the tea table the previous evening, scraping his chair across the stone flags, Matt had said, ‘Where are you off to in such a tear?’

‘Out,’ Phelan replied tersely.

Matt, usually such a quiet man, slammed his hand onto the table. ‘Don’t talk to me like that! Out where, boy?’

Phelan looked straight at his father and the look and words were both insolent. ‘Let’s say I’m going there and back to see how far it is,’ he said.

‘You cheeky young bugger, you,’ Matt cried, leaping to his feet and catching hold of Phelan by the arm. ‘You’re not too big yet for a good hiding, let me tell you.’

Rosie held Bernadette, who had started to wail, on her knee, and at Matt’s outburst her alarmed eyes met those of Danny’s. He seemed unconcerned, though, as if he thought Phelan had asked for anything he got. It was Sarah and Elizabeth and especially Connie who were looking upset.

Phelan tugged his arm from his father’s grasp and his words had a jeering note to them. ‘Like to see you try,’ he said and he strode across the room, snatched his jacket and cap from the hook behind the door and was away.

Matt would have followed him, but Connie stopped him. He sat back at the table, shaking his head. It wouldn’t be the end of it, no by Christ it wouldn’t. Jeered and cheeked by a mere boy and in front of them all. It was not to be borne. He’d have something to say to that young bugger in the morning.

Connie, attempting to change the subject, had said, ‘Well, we’d best get cleared away quickly. Sarah will be seeing her young man if I know anything.’

Sarah sniffed. ‘If you mean Sam,’ she said, ‘I’m not seeing him tonight as it happens.’

‘Oh’ Connie said, surprised, for Sarah saw Sam every Saturday evening. ‘Why’s that then?’

‘He said he had something on,’ Sarah said disparagingly. ‘In fact, he said he probably wouldn’t be seeing me for a few days.’

‘What’s he up to?’

‘Oh, Mammy, what’s he ever up to? More schoolboy nonsense. Him and his secret organisation. The whole thing gets on my nerves.’

Later, when Rosie went through the girls’ bedroom to reach Phelan’s, Sarah’s words came back to mind. Sarah and Elizabeth were still asleep, the two curled together in the double bed. They had no reason to waken yet and she crossed the room softly and tapped lightly on Phelan’s door.

There was no answer, nor was there one to her second, louder tap. ‘Phelan,’ she hissed. But the room beyond stayed silent. There was no option but to open the door. She stood stock-still in the doorway. She’d made up his bed the previous day and it was obvious it had not been slept in since.

She wondered for a brief moment if something had happened to him. Maybe he’d been attacked and was lying in the road somewhere, or had been tipped into a ditch? But she dismissed these fears as quickly as they’d entered her head, for who would do such a thing to Phelan? No, no-one would hurt the lad, but he seemed hell-bent on hurting himself, for she was sure Phelan’s disappearance all night had something to do with the Irish Republican Brotherhood. God alone knew what, but for now, Rosie had to go and break the news to Connie that Phelan was missing.

Danny was angry when Rosie told him about his brother. He’d intended to take Phelan to task that morning for the disrespect he’d shown their father the previous night. He honestly didn’t know what had got into him the past few days. He’d been as tense as a coiled spring and inclined to snap for no reason.

Now the young hooligan was on a different tack altogether, not coming home at all. Dear God, their father would kill him when he did eventually return. Well if he did, Danny wouldn’t blame him one bit. Enough was enough.

The family all went to early Mass that Easter Sunday morning, so they didn’t see any of Rosie’s family. ‘I bet young Dermot will be glad Lent’s over?’ Connie commented as they made their way home, trying to lighten the atmosphere which had hung over them since Rosie’s discovery. ‘Didn’t he give up sweets and chocolates?’

‘Aye, he did,’ Rosie said, hitching Bernadette higher onto her hip. ‘And hard enough it was for him, I’d say. I hardly saw a sweet when I was growing up and Chrissie and Geraldine the same, but God if you’d see the mountain of sweets and goodies Mammy would bring Dermot from town every week, you’d know how hard it must have been for him.’

‘Your mammy’s a silly woman where young Dermot is concerned,’ Connie said.

‘Don’t I know it,’ Rosie said with feeling.

‘I wonder if he managed it?’

‘Aye, I think so,’ Rosie said. ‘The child can be determined enough when he sets his mind to it.’ She smiled and went on. ‘Chrissie told me he had to fight Mammy to give up anything at all for Lent.’

‘All weans give something up,’ Connie said, aghast.

‘That’s what Dermot told Mammy,’ Rosie said. ‘He told her he was the only one at school not doing without something.’

‘Aye, weans hate to be different,’ Connie said. ‘Mind you, both of us gave up sugar in our tea, didn’t we, and I can hardly wait to go home now and have a decent cup well sweetened.’

‘And me,’ Rosie said with a laugh, for no-one had been able to eat or drink yet that day because of them taking communion. Bernadette, tired of being ignored, starting butting at Rosie’s face. ‘Stop it!’ Rosie said firmly. ‘Bad girl.’

Bernadette didn’t care a fig about being bad and instead squealed with laughter.

‘Give her to me,’ Connie said, putting out her arms. ‘She must be a ton weight now.’

Rosie was about to hand the baby over gratefully, when Danny, catching up with them, snatched her from Rosie’s arms and set her up on his shoulders. ‘Did I hear your mammy say you were bad?’ he said to the baby, laughing at his young wife. ‘Not a bit of it. A wee angel so you are.’

Bernadette screamed with delight and beat at her father’s head with her podgy infant hands. ‘Mind you,’ Danny went on, ‘your granny’s right about you being a ton weight. Nine months old and still being carried about. About time you took up walking.’

Bernadette had no idea what her father was saying, but she knew she was being spoken about and she shouted out her scribble talk in reply as Danny sidled up to his mother and, mindful of the other people streaming past them from Mass, said in an urgent whisper, ‘Go on back to Daddy. He’s on the look-out for Phelan and if he should come across him…well, let’s say he won’t be fully responsible for his actions.’

Connie shot him a startled glance. ‘I can’t,’ she complained. ‘The dinner.’

‘I’ll see to the dinner,’ Rosie told her. ‘Go on now, smooth down his feathers. We don’t want to see murder done on an Easter morning.’

‘I can’t say I’d blame Daddy, though,’ Danny said, as Connie scurried away. ‘God, I’d be livid. Christ, who am I kidding? I am livid.’

But thoughts of Phelan had brought to Rosie’s mind her own family. ‘I’ll go home after dinner,’ she said. ‘I have a bar of chocolate for Dermot. It’s Easter Sunday, after all, and I should pay them a visit.’

‘Will you take the wee one with you?’ Danny said, indicating the waving, babbling Bernadette above him.

‘Oh, aye,’ Rosie said. ‘Dermot wouldn’t forgive me if I left her behind. In fact, he probably wouldn’t let me in the house at all.’

‘He is fond of her all right.’

‘More than fond,’ Rosie said. ‘Our baby is well-loved, Danny, and no harm in that, but I won’t have her as spoiled as Dermot is.’

‘Sure, there’ll be no time to spoil her,’ Danny said. ‘She’ll probably have a wee brother or sister before she’s much older and when you have a whole squad of them to rear you’ll not have a spare minute to ruin any of them.’

Rosie laughed and thought that Phelan could go hang himself. All the worrying she had done about him had achieved nothing at all but upset those around her, particularly Danny who loved her so much. Well, from now on, she decided, she wouldn’t lose a wink’s sleep over him. She looked up at Danny and smiled broadly. She had the urge to catch up his hand and run with him as if they were weans, the baby bouncing up and down on his shoulders.

Danny was delighted with the smile that lit up her face and hoped whatever had ailed her was now over. He held the baby’s feet with one hand and with the other he pulled Rosie close. She felt so loved and cherished it brought tears to her eyes. She took hold of Danny’s hand and, united, they walked home together.

Everyone expected Phelan back for dinner. Connie always said his stomach had often brought him home when he was younger. But when the food was served up there was still no sign of him. Matt was raging: it was almost seeping out of him. When he said menacingly that Phelan would have some explaining to do when he did come home, Rosie thought she would not be in Phelan’s shoes for all the tea in China.

The meal was an especially delicious one, and with a steamed pudding now Lent was over, which the family lingered over as if determined they wouldn’t let Phelan’s non-appearance destroy the meal Connie and Rosie had slaved for hours preparing.

It wasn’t entirely successful. Phelan’s empty chair was a stark reminder of his absence, and Rosie knew Connie’s ears were constantly attuned to hearing her son’s boots on the gravel path or across the cobbled yard.

They eventually finished the meal and the men settled before the fire for a smoke, Bernadette on Danny’s knee, while the women began collecting the pots, Connie taking every opportunity to peer through the window or the door, left open because of the warmth of the day. Rosie’s heart ached for her. How could Phelan just not come home like this? He’d know how his mother would worry so.

Matt too was equally worried and also hurt, but he didn’t deal with it the same way as Connie and sat before the fire and talked to Danny about everything under the sun as if he didn’t have a care in the world. ‘Where d’you think he is?’ Connie asked Rosie quietly as they folded the tablecloth together.

‘He could be anywhere,’ Rosie whispered back. ‘Maybe he stayed at a friend’s house last night and is afraid to come home.’

‘You think that’s it?’ Connie said desperately. Rosie felt her grasping at straws.

What should she say? If she mentioned the Brotherhood and then found Phelan’s disappearance had nothing to do with that, she’d endanger the family. ‘I’m sure it will be something simple,’ she said reassuringly.

By the time the pots and plates were washed and dried, and the room put to rights, Matt had dropped off before the fire and Bernadette had followed suit, cuddled against her father. ‘I could put her in the room and we could have a wee walk out if you’ve a mind to,’ Danny suggested to Rosie. ‘It’s a fine day and you could go on to your mother’s after, when Bernadette wakes up.’

‘Aye,’ Rosie agreed, though in reality her legs ached and she longed to sit and rest. ‘Aye, that would be grand. Will you see to Bernadette, Mammy, and I’ll get my coat?’

But as Rosie crossed the floor she saw Dermot streak past the window and come to the threshold of the door, bent over, gasping for breath, his brick-red face glistening with sweat.

‘What in God’s name…?’

‘I have a letter,’ Dermot gasped. ‘It’s from Phelan.’

‘Phelan,’ Matt said, wakened by the boy’s name and leaping to his feet. He took the letter from Dermot and tore it open hastily. All eyes were on him as he scanned the words and then he burst out, ‘The bloody little fool. He’s joined the Irish Republican Brotherhood and he’s off to Dublin to answer Ireland’s call.’

Danny passed Bernadette to Sarah and came across to his father and took the letter from him, aware that his mother had begun to cry. He too read the letter and then turned to Dermot. ‘How did you know this was from Phelan?’

Dermot had been through this many times. He knew not to say he’d had the letter from late on Friday night, and had chosen not to deliver it till now. It would not be a wise thing to do, and to say he’d spoken to Phelan and knew of his plans wouldn’t help his case one bit. ‘There was a note to me tied around the letter,’ he told Danny. And he went on, ‘The letter must have been pushed in the window. It was on the floor of my bedroom.’

‘When was this?’

Dermot shrugged. ‘Don’t know, I found it just now and I thought you should see the letter before anyone else.’

‘You did right,’ Danny said. ‘Good boy.’ His eyes raked the room. His mother was wiping her eyes with her apron, his father’s face set like stone.

‘What of Sam?’ Sarah asked suddenly.

Dermot shrugged. He knew Sam was involved, but to say so would bring more questions and he might trip himself up and so he said, ‘I don’t know about Sam.’

Sarah did, though. She knew her man would be fully embroiled in this nonsense, and she too felt tears seep from her eyes and trickle down her cheeks. She held Bernadette tight against her for comfort. The child, unused to being held so firmly, began to wriggle and Danny took her from Sarah and laid her in the cot in the bedroom, where she curled herself into a ball and put her thumb in her mouth and slumbered on, unaware of the turmoil in the next cottage.

Rosie was standing stock-still, the feelings of alarm and fear coursing through her body so that she tingled with it. She felt raw, as if every nerve-ending was exposed.

‘Find him, Danny!’ Connie cried suddenly as Danny came back from the bedroom. ‘You must go and find him and bring him home.’

Danny encircled his mother’s trembling frame. ‘I will, Mammy,’ he said. ‘Don’t worry, I’ll not come home without him.’ And he kissed his mother’s cheek in reassurance.

Then Danny went to Rosie who was standing twisting her hands together agitatedly and he looked into her eyes and saw the fear in them. Oh God, he thought, how I love this woman and our child, and yet he knew what he had to do, and he saw by Rosie’s face that she knew too. ‘I must go, Rosie.’

Rosie wanted to plead with him, remind him he had a wife, a child, responsibilities. He wasn’t to do this. She wouldn’t let him. By Christ, what was he thinking of, even suggesting it? But she said none of this. She heard the gulping sobs of Connie and the keening of Sarah, who’d sunk to her knees before the mat as if her legs could no longer hold her up.

Her mouth went very dry as Danny pulled her close. ‘The boy’s not fifteen until July,’ he said. ‘I’ll look for Sam and Shay too and try and make them see sense, but Phelan will come home if I have to drag him every step of the way. By Christ, when I get hold of him I’ll knock the bloody head from his shoulders.’

Rosie laid her head against Danny, too distressed to even cry. ‘When will you go?’ she asked him brokenly.

‘As soon as possible. If Dermot has only just found the letter, they might not have gone far and I might catch up with him before he even gets to Dublin.’

Dermot felt guilty at Danny’s words. Danny was hoping to find Phelan on the road somewhere. The reality was he’d probably marched with the Brotherhood all the night long, armed with all the rifles and pistols from the cottage, and they were now positioned in Dublin town and up to any manner of things.

He could say none of this. He’d made a promise to Phelan and yet he was sad to see how upset everyone was. They didn’t see the glory in the fight that Phelan had seen and Suddenly Dermot didn’t know who was right. ‘I’m sorry,’ he spluttered.

‘God, child, sure it’s not your fault,’ Connie said, wiping her eyes again. ‘Come up to the table and have a cup of buttermilk and a wee slab of barnbrack. You’re a good boy, so you are.’

Dermot felt anything but good, but he did as he was bid.

Struggling to control her voice, willing it not to break, Rosie said to Danny, ‘I’ll put some of your clothes in a bundle.’

‘I’ll not need…’

‘It might take longer than you think,’ Rosie insisted.

She almost stumbled away from him and when she reached the relative privacy of her own room, she leaned her head against the door and let the tears fall at last. She and Dermot knew what no-one else was aware of: the cache of arms. She would bet that hole in the cottage was empty now. This would never do. She wiped the tears from her eyes impatiently and began to sort out fresh clothes for Danny to take with him. She had no illusions about her young brother-in-law, though she knew Danny thought Phelan had just taken off on some half-brained idea of joining some revolutionary group while in actual fact she knew he’d been involved for some time and she had little doubt that whenever he’d left he’d had a rifle in his hands and bullets in his pocket. They intended to kill and maim. She wanted her Danny nowhere near that. But Phelan was just a boy and she knew Danny, as his elder brother, had to try and save him from himself.