Читать книгу The City of Strangers - Michael Russell - Страница 12

That evening, after tea, Tom Gillespie brought down the newspaper cuttings he had collected earlier in the year about the flying boats that had just taken to the air, flying out of Ireland, across the Atlantic, to America. It was a wonder that no one could have dreamt of, even a few years ago. There were photographs of the planes, gigantic yet graceful; a great, wide, heavy wing of engines and propellers, with the sleek lines of a ship hanging underneath, cutting down into the waters of the River Shannon as they landed at Foynes. There were men in the navy-like uniforms of Pan American Airways and Imperial Airways, names that on their own conjured up for Tom all the vastness of the earth. There was a map that showed the route the flying boats would take, from Southampton Water on the English Channel across England and Wales, across the Irish sea and all of Ireland to Foynes on the Shannon Estuary; from Foynes over the whole of the North Atlantic, the longest, barely imaginable leg of the journey, to Botwood in Newfoundland; then across the Gulf of St Lawrence and down through Canada and New England to New York, the city of skyscrapers that Tom had only seen in newsreels; a city that felt like it was on another planet.

The atlas was pulled out to join the cuttings, and for more than an hour the farmhouse on the western edge of the Wicklow Mountains was open to the skies and the oceans and a light that seemed to shine on all the distance in the tiny maps and make it almost tangible. David and Helena too were swept up in the adventure that filled their grandson’s head, and when Tom finally went up to bed he had exhausted them all with his excitement. He felt as if he was going too.

For a moment even Tom’s father had forgotten that the man he was going to bring back from New York, on the return leg of that great adventure, might be coming home to meet the English hangman.

And the hangman was still English. Despite the fact that two years earlier, in Éamon de Valera’s new constitution, the Irish Free State had officially been renamed Éire, Ireland, and that it considered itself now, for all practical purposes, a republic, there was still one job no Irishman would ever be asked to do in Ireland. So when that job did need doing it was the English hangman, Thomas Pierrepoint, who took the boat train from Euston, the mail boat from Holyhead, and a taxi from Dún Laoghaire to Mountjoy Prison.

Stefan was thinking about what his journey meant now, as his mother and father washed up. He folded up his son’s newspaper cuttings and put them away in the Cadbury’s chocolate box that had a picture of a flying boat pasted on it; he closed the box and put it aside to go back to Tom’s room.

As he returned to the kitchen the telephone rang. It was Valerie Lessingham, her voice bright as always, pushing away what was in his mind.

‘Stefan, I only got a bit of what you said. How long are you away?’

‘It’s not even a week.’

‘I have to be in Dublin tomorrow. So I’m going up there anyway. I thought I might drive you. You said you’d be staying the night. I could too.’

In a relationship that largely revolved around their children, the time Stefan and Valerie had actually spent alone together didn’t amount to much. When the chance did arise, Valerie dealt with it simply enough. Where Stefan approached it all with caution, she just got on with it.

He laughed. ‘Well, I suppose if you’re going anyway.’

It was unlikely she had been going anyway but, like the practical woman she was, there would, naturally, be things she had to do in Dublin.

As he walked back into the kitchen the last dishes were being dried and put away. His father and mother looked round. In a household where the telephone was still a novelty, an explanation was always expected. Stefan would rather it hadn’t been expected right now. It was an area of his life where the less said, especially as far as his mother was concerned, the better.

‘Valerie Lessingham’s got to be in Dublin tomorrow. She’s going to give me a lift up.’

David Gillespie nodded and turned to put a cup in the press. Helena’s pursed lips told another story. Open skies were forgotten.

‘Well, as usual, there’s nothing much happens here that Mrs Lessingham doesn’t want a part in. I suppose we should be used to it.’

David shot a warning glance at his wife, but she took no notice.

‘Normally it’s Tom of course.’

‘What the hell is that supposed to mean?’ said Stefan. His irritation was defensive; he wanted to tell her to mind her own business. His father shot him the same warning glance he had shot Helena, and it had the same effect. ‘Leave it alone, Ma. You know no one could be kinder to Tom.’

‘And what does he think about that?’

‘What?’

Helena turned to the range, taking off her apron and folding it very purposefully, several times, before she hung it over the rail to dry.

‘Think about what? You know what he thinks. He loves being at Whitehall Grove, and he loves it when Jane and Alex come here. They have a grand time, don’t they? Leave it at that!’ He knew perfectly well why she wouldn’t leave it at that, at least he thought he did. ‘Valerie gives him more time than anyone outside this house. He thinks the world of her! Why not?’

His mother still had her back to him.

‘Why not indeed? I’m sure she’s an angel come among us!’

Even David Gillespie thought this was unnecessary.

‘Helena, will you come on? That’s enough.’

She turned, smiling now, but it wasn’t a smile of agreement. It was a smile that said she had more to say, and obviously no one wanted to hear it.

‘Probably it is. Trust me to blow out the candle when it’s burning so bright.’ She walked across to Stefan and kissed his cheek. ‘You’ll need an early night, son. You’ve a lot to do. I’m sure there’s more to all that travelling than they say. It’s still a long way, however quickly you get there.’

She walked out and went upstairs.

Stefan sat down at the table. He looked down at the picture of the flying boat. There had been times, more times recently, even before the call to Dublin, when he had felt he needed to get away. It had nothing to do with Valerie Lessingham, or with his mother’s tight-lipped disapproval, or even the slow repetitiveness of his life; it had nothing to do with his family really. It was the feeling that sometimes the mountains around him closed in, watching him grow older, watching his son grow up as he did no more than mark time.

David Gillespie went to the press and brought out two bottles of beer. He stood pouring them, saying nothing for a while. He pushed a glass across to his son and then pulled out a chair on the other side of the table.

‘She’s thinking of Tom,’ he said finally, as he sat down.

‘I know what she’s thinking of, Pa.’

‘Well, that’s another thing altogether,’ David frowned. ‘There is that too. She’s another man’s wife. We’ve never talked about it before, whatever we think, but do you expect your mother to be easy with it? Or me, Stefan?’

‘Does it matter so much?’

‘It matters,’ said his father. ‘You know it does. I’m sure Mrs Lessingham knows it. It’s the children that matter most. You know that too.’

‘What do you think we are? I could count the number –’

‘You can give each other the explanations. Don’t waste them on me.’

Stefan felt the sting in his father’s quiet words.

‘That’s not what really worries your mother anyway. I’m not saying she hasn’t got an opinion about it that doesn’t reflect very well on you or Mrs Lessingham, but all that can’t go on. Sure, you know that yourself.’

For a moment Stefan drank; he did know, of course he knew.

‘It’ll stop,’ he said, gazing down at the glass. ‘These things do.’

‘These things?’ laughed David. ‘Is that all it amounts to? Maybe it’s when it stops that your mother’s worried about. Can’t you understand that?’

‘For God’s sake, I think I’m old enough to deal with it, Pa!’

‘I’m glad for you so. I’m glad for Valerie Lessingham too, if that’s how it is with her. It’s a good job your mother’s in bed. If she was here she’d tell you she couldn’t give a feck whether you two can deal with it or not.’

Stefan laughed, but he could see this wasn’t one of those familiar moments when David Gillespie had been despatched by his wife to say what she wouldn’t say herself.

‘And what sort of sense is that supposed to make? If she doesn’t care, then what the hell is she so angry about?’ He drained his glass and stood up.

‘Jesus, you’re thick sometimes, Stefan Gillespie. He thinks the world of her, that’s what you said. Not that it needs saying. You might be able to deal with it when it’s all over, do you think Tom’s going to find it so easy? She’s pulled him into her family, and I’ve no complaint about that, nor has your mother.’

Stefan gave a wry smile; he wasn’t so sure about that.

‘Maybe she’s a way with strays,’ continued David, with a kinder expression. ‘But you and Mrs Lessingham have taken a road you can’t stay on together. There’ll be a parting, and when there is things won’t be the same again. Perhaps there’ll be more for Tom to lose than you then.’

Stefan stood where he was, looking at his father, as two compartments in his mind opened up to one another, and he realised that not only were they sitting side by side, they looked into each other. He had become very good at keeping things in separate boxes in the years since Maeve had died; he was aware of that. But it was a trick his son had had no reason to learn.

*

In Bewley’s Café in Grafton Street the next evening, Stefan Gillespie and Valerie Lessingham talked about the things they usually talked about: first, their children. It was not only what was closest to their hearts, and what held them together, it was where they found the happiest parts of who they were. Tom was at the National School at Kilranelagh, a mile along the road from the farm. Jane and Alexander were at Stratford Lodge, the Church of Ireland school in Baltinglass. But their closest friendships were with each other, and with Harry Lawlor who was at school with Tom and also inhabited the woods between Kilranelagh and Whitehall Grove. Other topics could be almost as amusing for Stefan and Valerie, some of the time, but there was too often something less than funny below the surface that could rise up to still the easy laughter.

The chaos that was the Whitehall Grove estate was never really as entertaining as Valerie Lessingham made it out to be, though she was good at finding the humour in it. The estate was in serious decline, propped up by Major Lessingham’s army salary and the selling of assets that had once been considered the family jewels. Valerie still talked to Stefan about her husband with the fond exasperation that she had before they became lovers. She needed someone to talk to; Stefan was a friend first and what else they were to each other now didn’t change that. He wasn’t sure why she wanted to speak about her husband tonight. It wasn’t an unfamiliar conversation, but there was concern behind it, preoccupation, even worry. It was as if she was refocusing her mind, all of it, with a quiet intensity that was unlike her.

‘Simon always prattles on about how passionately he’s attached to the land and the house. The family’s been there for over three hundred years and all that, but he’s got no idea how the estate survives. Farming’s still a complete mystery to him. As far as he’s concerned grass grows, corn ripens, sheep lamb, cows calve, and we all live on it merrily! The fact is it’s a business and it’s eating up far more money than it’s making. And every conversation we have, every letter I get from him, is just another version of: Sure, it’ll all be all right. It’ll all be grand. It will all sort itself out!’

‘He’s not an Irishman for nothing,’ smiled Stefan.

‘Isn’t he? I’m not sure what he’s an Irishman for at all!’

Stefan didn’t reply. He could see the tension behind her words.

‘Sometimes I don’t know where he fits. In England he’s Irish and he champions Irish independence so aggressively he offends all his English friends. When he’s at home he defends England and doesn’t understand why all his Irish friends just want him to shut up. I don’t know where he belongs. I’m English. I never wanted to live here at all really, but I know more about Ireland now than he does. The only place he feels at home is with his regiment, whether it’s in England or East Africa or India. He’s spent more time away from us since I came to Whitehall Grove than he has with us.’

‘You know there’s not a farmer who isn’t struggling.’ Stefan said it reassuringly, but he knew the problems at Whitehall Grove were bigger than most farmers faced. He had tried to help with advice, but the place had its own creaking system of management that advice couldn’t change.

‘I wish the IRA hadn’t stopped burning down big houses. That would be the ideal answer. I was thinking of approaching Cumann na mBan directly to see if there was a waiting list I could get Whitehall Grove put on.’

She laughed the kind of careless laugh that she was so good at. Stefan still felt it was less careless than usual. But he didn’t ask her if anything else was wrong. If she wanted to tell him, she would tell him. They ate for several minutes in silence. Stefan was less easy with his life than he had been two days ago. And somehow it seemed the same for her. He felt it as they spoke. Something was changing.

They walked across O’Connell Bridge and turned along the Quays towards the hotel. They were staying at the Four Courts Hotel on Inns Quay, just along from Kingsbridge Station, where Stefan would be getting the train to Foynes the next morning. It was a cold night. Valerie’s arm was through his as it could never have been in Baltinglass. It was such a simple thing; but he missed it; a woman with her arm through his. It wasn’t very often that he allowed himself to look at the empty corners of his life. When he did he dismissed them with a wry grin or a few swear words, and usually it worked; but it was always something small that put the thought in his head, something like Valerie Lessingham’s arm now. They hadn’t spoken for a while. He was easier with silence than she was. But this silence was hers.

‘There will be a war. I really think so, don’t you?’

She spoke quite suddenly. It wasn’t such an odd topic to introduce, but Stefan wasn’t really sure where it had come from. Talk of war was everywhere. Most people had an opinion, even if in Ireland they were quick to shrug the idea off and change the subject; it wasn’t Ireland’s business anyway. What opinions there were, voiced or unvoiced, changed from day to day, with the news from Germany and Britain and Europe.

The belief that once Adolf Hitler’s demands were met, surely not entirely unreasonable demands after all, the dark clouds of conflict would blow away was strong in Ireland. The desire not to take sides, in what was increasingly seen as a confrontation between Britain and Germany, never mind the other countries in Europe threatened by Nazi expansion, had become a statement of nationhood. Independence and neutrality seemed to mean the same thing; too much criticism of Germany was seen as forelock-tugging subservience to Britain.

Stefan Gillespie’s views on Nazi Germany had little to do with forelock tugging. His mother’s family was German; he had been there himself. For him what was wrong in Germany wasn’t about Britain. But his opinions were not very popular; he had got used to not expressing them very loudly.

‘You know I’ve always thought that,’ he said quietly.

‘Simon doesn’t think it’s going to be very long. His last letter –’

‘He’s probably right.’

‘The regiment’s coming back from Kenya. They sail next week.’

‘Is that unexpected?’

‘They were meant to stay in East Africa till November.’

He nodded, but it didn’t feel like this conversation was about the war.

‘He won’t be coming home. I mean I’m sure he’ll come over at some point when he’s back in England, but it feels, well, he says it feels like something’s going to happen soon. We all know, we all damned well know!’

There was a stress in her voice that was unlike her.

They walked on in silence again. She held him tighter.

‘I can’t stay, Stefan. I wanted to tell you –’

He wasn’t sure what she was talking about; it felt like it could have been that night, but even before she spoke again, he knew it wasn’t at all.

‘I think I have to be where he is. I mean, I don’t know where he’ll be, but in England, I think I have to be in England. I’m not sure it’s what I want, for the children, even for me. Whatever’s happened between Simon and me, however far apart we’ve become – we have, I know we have. But I think I have to do what’s right now. He doesn’t agree. He doesn’t want us to leave Ireland at all. Obviously we’d all be safer here, but it matters more that we’re where – I mean I – I’m not putting it very well, am I?’

‘I think you’re putting it very well.’

It was strange, but he felt very close to her now.

‘I’m going to shut up the house and let the land. That way the estate will just about pay for itself. It means letting people go, and I’m not very happy about that. I know the children are going to hate it. My mother has a house in Sussex. It’s not huge, but we’ll all fit, just about. I wanted to tell you. I wanted you to understand. I think he needs us. He’d never say it. Perhaps it’s the first time he really needs us. He says he doesn’t want me to do any of this. But I am going to do it, Stefan. I hope it makes some sense?’

‘You don’t need to explain it all to me, Valerie.’

He knew she did of course; they were friends first.

They stopped. She turned towards him. She wasn’t a woman who cried; he wasn’t sure he had ever seen her cry. She was always bright, always laughing. Yet there were tears in her eyes now. He held her close. It was what she needed him to do. She turned her face up. They kissed, unaware of people around them, of traffic; unaware, it seemed, of the words just spoken. They said nothing as they walked into the Four Courts Hotel.

*

It was one o’clock in the morning when Stefan Gillespie woke up. Someone was hammering on the door of the hotel room. Valerie, in a deeper sleep, stirred next to him, then turned over. The hammering continued, a fist thumping rhythmically. He got out of bed, fumbling for clothes. He didn’t turn the lamp on. The banging stopped and a voice called through the door.

‘Wake the fuck up, Sergeant!’

He didn’t recognise the voice.

The fist started thumping again, slowly and impatiently. He walked to the door, doing up his trousers. The light by the bed suddenly went on.

‘What is it?’

Valerie was sitting up now.

‘God knows.’

He walked to the door and opened it slightly. The round, red face of Superintendent Gregory smiled in at him through the crack, so close that Stefan could taste the breath of whiskey and cigarettes coming off him.

‘I hope I’m not disturbing you, Sergeant.’

Gregory pushed hard against the door, and although Stefan stopped it opening fully, it opened wide enough for the Special Branch superintendent to see past him to the bed. Valerie was surprised, but unflustered. She simply pulled the bedclothes up and smiled pleasantly at the unknown man.

‘I didn’t know you had friends dropping in, darling?’

‘What the hell do you want?’ demanded Stefan.

‘There’s a bit of news, Stevie.’

Stefan stared at him, only now really fully awake.

‘Still, I did knock, that’s something. I’ll be in the bar.’

The smile had gone; the last words were an order.

Superintendent Gregory was sitting in the empty bar of the Four Courts Hotel when Stefan came down. He had a glass of whiskey in front of him. The sour, just woken night porter stood behind the bar next to a bottle.

‘Will you have a drink?’ said Gregory.

‘I won’t,’ was all Stefan replied as he sat down.

The superintendent turned to the night porter.

‘You can piss off now. Leave the bottle.’

The night porter put the bottle of Bushmills down on the table in front of the Special Branch man and walked back to the hotel lobby. The superintendent topped up his glass and then lit a cigarette. He took a few moments to do this. Stefan knew the game well enough; he thought Gregory wasn’t especially good at it.

‘I didn’t think there was a Mrs Gillespie?’

‘I’m flattered I’m worth finding out about, sir.’

‘I wouldn’t be too flattered. I like to know who I’m dealing with, that’s all. Still, it’s a relief to see a Mrs Gillespie of some sort on the hotel register. We’ve all been a bit concerned how friendly you are with your pals at the Gate, Messrs Mac Liammóir and Edwards. And she’s quite a looker.’

The game had to go on, and Stefan Gillespie decided it was better to let it run its course than to tell the Special Branch superintendent to fuck himself. Gregory was enjoying the fact that he had something on him; it was how the detective branch worked; with Special Branch it was almost the only way they did anything. The more you had on people, your colleagues included, the stronger you were. Stefan knew he used the same methods himself, though perhaps he didn’t use them in the same way. Favours and threats, knowing what other people didn’t know, the little nuggets of information you carried in your head until you had reasons to use them – it was part of the armoury, and the higher up you went, the more it mattered. If Terry Gregory didn’t quite know what to make of this country sergeant who didn’t seem to behave like a country sergeant should, it didn’t matter. He had something on him.

‘My father was always suspicious of Wicklow people. He said they’re all in bed with the English too much down there. That was a long time ago, but maybe he was right so. Course, you’re a Protestant yourself, aren’t you? Well, I suppose that makes it all right, you being in bed with the English.’

Gregory laughed, stubbing his cigarette and taking out another. He knew exactly who Valerie Lessingham was. He wanted Stefan to know he knew.

‘Isn’t her husband in the British army?’

‘I’m glad you’ve got time to investigate me, sir, when there’s so much on, but if there’s anything else you want to know, you can ask. It might save you some time. I know you’re busy. What’s happening with the investigation? Is there any news about Mrs Harris’s body yet?’

Superintendent Gregory shook his head.

‘Don’t try to fuck a fucker, son.’

But the game was over.

‘Ned Broy had a telegram from Mr McCauley, New York. It seems our Mr Harris wasn’t as enthusiastic about an invitation to come home for a chat as everyone thought. Not as I’d want to tell Ned I told him so, but I did.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘He’s gone. Not the biggest surprise, and I’m glad to say one that I don’t have any fecking responsibility for at all. I can kick that one upstairs.’

‘What happened?’

‘He walked out of the hotel, that’s all. And why wouldn’t he if he’s worked out what might be waiting for him in Dublin? So now he’s gone, the consul’s had to tell the New York police that we parked an axe-murderer in a hotel room with a bunch of queers to keep an eye on him, and never even mentioned it. And they were all worried about what we’d look like if something got into the American papers! I suppose we should be running the rosary through our fingers and praying Owen doesn’t get hold of an axe.’

He grinned. He was clearly taking some satisfaction in all this.

‘So does that mean I don’t go?’

‘Oh no, Stevie, the plane’s all booked.’

‘But I thought you –’

‘It’s not my mess. The Commissioner seems to think the NYPD will pick him up quick enough, so the job’s still the same. You might want to take a pair of handcuffs with you for the journey back though. Of course the NYPD will be pissed off. We’ve been playing the bollocks on their patch, however much we tell them it was all about Owen Harris doing us all a favour and helping us with our enquiries. They will know better by now.’

‘So what am I supposed to do?’ said Stefan.

‘Turn up and wait till they find him.’

‘And if they don’t?’

‘I’d say they will. No one seems to think he’s much in his head. But the lad might want to go easy over there. They’re as likely to shoot him as look at him, knowing what he’s done.’ Gregory laughed. ‘The place is full of Irish cops who love their mammies after all. They won’t take to him, I’d say. Not that anyone here would be too bothered if he came back in a coffin –’

‘I thought nobody really wanted me to go to New York –’

‘Now everybody wants you to go, me included.’

‘In case it’s a fuck up?’

‘Got it in one. You’re a bright lad, Stevie. But it’s already a fuck up. McCauley’s fuck up in New York, Ned Broy’s here. I don’t intend to make it mine. So the grand thing about you is you’re nobody. You don’t matter.’

‘What about the NYPD?’

‘What do they care? They’ll deliver you a prisoner, or if we’re lucky a box. And you’ve got the trip to look forward to, a hotel in New York. Jesus, you’ll be the toast of the sheep shaggers for miles around when you get back to Baltinglass. And it’s not all bad news, Sergeant. If you could maybe make it a box, you might even be up for promotion. It’d save on the trial and for my money, well, if I had to choose between being shot and being hanged –’

Terry Gregory drained the whiskey in his glass and stood up.

‘It’s an ill wind, eh Sergeant?’

He walked out to the lobby and into the street.

In the room Valerie was sitting up, reading. She laughed as Stefan came in.

‘What was all that about?’

‘The man I’ve got to bring back from New York has disappeared.’

‘So aren’t you going?’

‘They’ll find him. Well, that’s what the superintendent said.’

He shrugged. She said no more. As he sat down on the bed she stretched out her hand to touch his back. He sat there for a moment, not moving, feeling her fingers. He was aware how much he liked her. That was the thought in his head that made him smile. It wasn’t love between them, it never had been, but it wasn’t nothing, for either of them. He turned round and reached across the bed, stroking her hair. As he kissed her she pulled him slowly down on to her. Neither of them needed to speak now to know that this would be the last time they would make love.