Allegiance: A Dublin Novella (21 page)

“You told me once
that you were doing your part,” he said.
“
I never knew what my part was until I came here. I will always be grateful to you for that.”

Gerald did not respond, but William heard the trowel pause from its scraping when he opened the front door.

“Goodbye, Gerald,
” he said.

25.

May 27, 1922

William lay on his back, one arm behind his head, staring at the watermarks on the ceiling. The bed was too short, and his bare feet were cold; but the lamp was turned up too high and the rest of him was warm, grimy skin slick against the naked mattress. The pillow under his head smelled of mothballs and lye soap that did little to disguise the traces of other, less pleasant odors. William took notice of none of these things; he blinked at the ceiling with bleary, unfocused eyes, counting the water spots over and over, restarting each time he lost count. It was possible he had fallen asleep, but he had no way of being sure and no desire to do much about that either.

The knock repeated three times before he registered the sound. It filtered slowly through the fog in his head until he realized it was indeed coming from the door and not from inside his pounding skull. Then it came again, a little louder this time, and William lurched to his feet. His first step stumbled through a pile of empty bottles – they clattered across the floor, and the shadow beneath the door froze. William reached for the pistol on the nightstand, pulled the hammer back with his thumb, and approached the door from the side.

“Aye?” His voice, unused in days, cracked on the word.

From the hall outside came a whisper: “William. It’s me.”

He opened the door and stood there, blinking. The figure in the hallway wore a long black coat with the collar turned up, but the hair peeking from beneath the black wool fisherman’s cap was wispy and blonde.

“Mary?”

Her eyes bore the only bit of color about her; they grew large when she saw him, and larger still when she saw the pistol in his hand. William blinked stupidly at her, trying to focus his wits. “What
—
what are you doing here?”

She glanced behind her uneasily. “Please, may I come in?”

He stepped aside to let her pass and peered out into the hall. It was empty. William thumbed down the hammer of his pistol and shut the door as quietly as he could.

Mary stared in horror at the room around her: the dingy walls, the half-eaten food on the nightstand, the scattered newspapers and maps, the empty bottles and the full ashtrays. And then finally at William, as close to undressed as she had ever seen him, standing there in only his trousers with a loaded gun in his hand and three days of beard on his face. He could smell himself as he faced her.

“William
…you…”

“Does your father know you’re here?”

“No.” Something like a smile touched her mouth. “Sure I haven’t lived with men all my life without learning how to sneak around, have I?” She pulled off her hat; her hair was wrapped in a long braid around her head, frizzed with nighttime damp. William ran a hand through his own greasy hair.

“How did you find me?”

“You’re not the only one good at learning things. Tis not very hard to ask around lodging houses for a stranger from Scotland.”

William snorted; it was true enough. He dropped the pistol on the table and rubbed his face, stubble scraping his palms. “Look, Mary, you should not have
—
”

“I know where Adam is.”

He lowered his hands. Mary stood before him with her arms crossed, back rigid and chin raised. She was pale with sorrow and worry, but underneath that blazed the fiery foundation that had drawn William to her from the beginning. She was as hard as he had ever seen her, fire in her eyes and steel in her voice.

“Are you going to arrest him?”

“What?”

“You tell me the truth, William. If I tell you where Adam is, are you going to arrest him?”

“I was never after Adam.” It sounded so much worse spoken so bluntly, but he was too drunk for explanations. “I just need to— I’ve got to find him, Mary. I came back to find him.”

She looked him over in keen silence, studying him, until finally she brushed a lock of hair from her forehead and said, “I believe you.”

Bully for you,
William thought, but he was surprised by the depth of his relief. Mary’s defensive posture relaxed, and though her frown remained, her voice was more scolding than scathing.

“Well if you were trying to help him, sure you missed the mark a bit when you beat him senseless and then ran away instead of explaining yourself. And I can’t see as how you’re going to find him when you’re stewing in a filthy kip and smelling like a brewer’s mule.”

“I tried,” William said petulantly. “I did try. You were there, you saw your father. It’s no use. They won’t listen to me.”

“Adam could—”

“Adam hates me. When I left we— I—” Bile burned his throat and he looked away. “Adam hates me, and well he should.”

“He’s going to the Courts.”

William’s eyes closed.

“There’s fighting all the time now
– Collins says he’ll bring in the army to clear out the trouble. Adam’s going tomorrow and he won’t listen to anyone, not anymore. He’s going, William, and there’s none of us can stop him.” There was no need for her to add the last words –
except you
.

William felt dizzy; if there had been anything in his stomach, he would likely have lost it. He groped behind him until his hand closed on a chair and he dropped heavily onto it.

“You know what’s going to happen, don’t you?” Mary said.

She had never been sheltered in all her life – he respected her too much to start now. “The orders are to shoot on sight. No exceptions.”

“Then he’s going to die.”

“Yes.”

“Then you have to stop him.”

All his muscles seemed made of knots and water; the inebriated whine in his voice only added to his wretchedness. “I can’t, Mary. I tried. I had my chance and I lost it. It’s over. I failed.”

“So you’ll just give up on him now, then, is that it? After everything you’ve been through? After all you’ve lost, all you gave up, you’ll come all this way back just to drink yourself into a stupor and drown in your own pity?” Her eyes caught his and held him fast, piercing him as sharply as her voice.

“It has to be you, William. You know that, or you wouldn’t have come back. Whatever you did, I don’t care, it doesn’t matter now – all that matters is what made you come back. You said you wanted to make things right. You can’t turn back now.”

She touched his face; he looked up at her, and her eyes softened with her voice.

“If you love him, you will try.”

“I will try,” William said.

Through the night air came the faint chime of church bells tolling twelve. Mary looked toward the black square of the window. “I’d better get back. My da’ll be knowing I slipped away.”

“Aye lass. You should go.” William hauled himself to his feet as best he could. The room spun more now from weariness than drink; he needed sleep, and badly, but he knew even as he swayed that he would have no rest. Not yet.

Mary pulled her hat back on and tucked her hair beneath it until every fair strand was hidden. When she was finished she stood there, hugging herself in her coat but not moving toward the door. She must have known this was their farewell; her eyes grew bright with moisture as her chin trembled once. “William…”

He went to her – his Mary, his dear friend, as good and strong and true as she was desperately beautiful. It was a simple motion to take her face in his hands. Her eyes opened wide, but they closed when he drew her to him. Her lips were warm, trembling at first, then softening as they parted. She held his waist to steady herself and shivered at what passed between them. Her eyes were still closed when William drew back; when they opened, a tear spilled down her cheek. For the briefest instant she drew her lower lip into her mouth.

“God go with you, Mary,” William said.

She pressed her lips together until her chin stopped trembling. The tear slipped off her skin and disappeared. And then she smiled at him, a soft and beautiful thing.

“And with you, William.”

William stood at the open window and watched until he could no longer see her tiny shape in the street below. He ran a knuckle across the cracked line of his mouth. He drew down the glass and reached over to turn off the lamp; then he pulled his chair to the window and sat there until the sun rose, watching the last place she’d been.

26.

May 28, 1922

The Four Courts looked like a war zone. The streets had been closed off to all traffic; barricades blocked the empty lanes and formed an impenetrable wall around the municipal buildings. They had been beautiful once – tall, proud symbols of the city, capital of the new Irish state. Now their windows were jagged holes bristling with rifle barrels, their stone walls pitted by artillery shells and blackened by smoke. Fires burned in rubbish barrels around the perimeter, creating a haze that lingered in the waning sunlight. It was no-man’s-land in the middle of Dublin.

De Valera’s boys had held the square for thirty-six days, keeping both police and army at bay with regular skirmishes without and threats of stockpiled dynamite within. No one knew exactly how much or what type of supplies the militants had, as several runs had slipped in and out without being detected by the police force guarding the area. They were everywhere now – patrolling the streets on foot, rifles at the ready, or holding back onlookers as best they could on their skittish horses. The crowds had been thick at first, supporters of both sides throwing rocks and throwing curses – now only the diehards remained, hiding among the barricades, huddled behind the rubble and waiting for the next fight. The ordinary citizens of Dublin crept past the outskirts of the spectacle, but they were more weary now than angry. All through the city there hung an air of waiting, of tension simmering under the surface, just beneath the tang of gun smoke. Both sides had dug in, and only an act of God would remove them.

William crouched behind a pile of lumber and peered across the back end of Chancery Street. He had used all his skills to slip through the outer lines of onlookers, and as far as he could tell he had been recognized by no one. But for all his luck in staying undetected, he had not managed to find the one face he was looking for; wherever Adam had chosen to hide himself, it was a spot much closer to danger than he had yet reached. If William could just find him quickly and get him out of this hellhole, no one would ever know either of them had been here. He only hoped that Adam had not yet made it inside the scarred buildings – or worse, had not made it.

A police officer passed by on horseback; William withdrew behind the rubbish until the hoof-beats passed. Then he leaned forward and peered out into the street
– the coast was clear. He ran across the pavement and flattened himself against the wall. Most of the people in this area had gathered on the opposite side of the building; his side of the street was deserted. He turned to look down the east end, and was preparing to make his next move when a flash of movement caught his eye. Behind the next barricade, nearly invisible behind a stack of broken crates, three familiar figures squatted almost out of sight. William exhaled and thought:
thank you.
To whom he was speaking, he was not sure.

He could see before he moved that Adam was not among them. David was the closest, squatting behind a poultry crate with a rifle balanced between his legs. Kelly’s dark shape skulked just behind him; above them, Andy peered through a chink in the barricade. William advanced without a sound, keeping his eyes on David as he moved, creeping forward to close the distance between them. Kelly had disappeared; William frowned, and opened his mouth to call out David’s name.