The Blood Upon the Rose (11 page)

Catherine had watched until the house was just a heap of stones. All the time two men kept guard over the woman and her children as they sat on their mattress, weeping and hopeless in the muddy lane. The drizzle fell gloomily on everyone. And Catherine trembled at each thud of the battering ram as she had trembled at the power of the sea. But while the power of the sea had filled her with awe, the power of her father's men filled her with shame and hatred.

She had complained to her mother, who was, by that time, beginning the illness that would lead to her death. Together they had asked Ferguson the reason. The man had been arrogant, condescending. Sir Jonathan O'Connell-Gort had left the business of the estate in his, Ferguson's, hands, he said, and he must do what he thought was best. The rent on the cottage had not been paid for months, and the husband had deserted his family. Besides, they had always been shiftless, and the land was needed for pasture.

‘But he has gone to fight in the war!’ Catherine's mother had said. ‘For God's sake, he has gone to fight for the English, poor man - does he not get paid for that?’

Ferguson had shaken his head. ‘He may have said that, my lady, but it was a lie. I've enquired, and no Irish regiment has any record of him. He's done a bunk, that's what it is - fled to some new fancy woman in the city, no doubt.’

‘And does that mean you must throw his wife and children on the road?’ Catherine had asked. ‘Is it their fault that they have a shiftless father? Is that Christian mercy?’

‘It's the law of the land, young lady. Rent must be paid, and this estate must be run at a profit. That's what your father appointed me to do, and it's in your interests not to interfere.’

Catherine remembered how he had glanced from her to the fine oil paintings on the library wall. Paintings of her grandparents and great-grandparents; the people who had owned this house since Cromwell's days. She remembered the sneering look on his face.
And where would you be, miss, without the likes of me?
the look said
. No fancy clothes, no fine house, no pony.
Is that what you want?

But then the bubble of his arrogance had been burst. Lady O’Connell-Gort, Catherine’s mother, had spoken, in a tone no one had heard from her for years. ‘Where are the mother and children now?’

‘How should I know, my lady?  On the road to Galway, perhaps.’

‘I want them found and brought back here.’

‘But ...’

‘And you will rebuild their house, and restore them to their home. Do you understand?’ Catherine's heart had sung. This was how she remembered her mother before her illness, and what she wanted her to be like again. A proud strong lady, ruling the estate in her own right, like a queen.

‘I am sorry, my lady, but I answer to Sir Jonathan, not you.’

‘That is my land. It is part of my inheritance. If you do not do what I say I shall have you dismissed.’

The row had gone on for some time, and had led to a bitter exchange of letters with Catherine's father. It was true that Sir Jonathan had said his wife was incapacitated by nervous illness; but he had not obtained a medical certificate to remove her legal partnership in the estate, and so, to Catherine's surprise and delight, her mother had won. Only, by that time, the poor family had disappeared, and Ferguson claimed they could not be found.

Sean was uncertain how he felt about the story. Part of him felt great anger at the plight of the poor Irish family. It might so easily have happened to him; it had happened to many of his ancestors, he knew. People who had starved in the great famine, or been crammed into the holds of the emigrant ships, which had left Ireland's ports every year until the start of the war.

Another part of him was intrigued at the thought of Catherine as a young girl, growing up privileged and wilful on the west coast of Galway. He had not consciously thought about her childhood before; somehow it increased his tenderness for her. She had not been the ordinary spoiled rich girl, surely.

‘So what happened then?’ he asked.

‘I found them myself.’ Her face in the firelight of the pub was flushed with the memory.

‘And you a thirteen-year-old girl? How did you do that?’

‘I got on my pony and rode to Galway. A priest helped, too.’ There it was. She had been difficult, determined, contrary even then. And I nearly killed her, he remembered.

‘Where were they?’

‘In the most filthy place I had ever seen. A line of rotten shacks in the back streets, with mud on the floor and an open sewer running between them. I picked a baby out of it; he was eating fishbones and potato peelings that his mother had thrown there.’ She sipped her beer reflectively. ‘The woman wasn't very pleased to see me, either. She spat at me and told me to go away. I started crying. But then I got the priest to make her see sense.’

‘Did you take her back?’

Catherine nodded. 'Mother made Ferguson rebuild their house, and I tried to help take care of her. I felt I had a duty to, you see. Ferguson was right, in a way. Our family was only rich because of all that land we had taken from the people, long ago. So I began to want to put things right. I felt my eyes were opened, that day. That's when I began to be interested in Irish history, and medicine. I thought the one would help me understand, and the other, to do something. And I wanted to cure my mother, too, so that she could be a fine strong lady, as she used to be.’

She stopped. ‘I’m sorry. Too much talk about me. It’s because I'm lonely, and no one’s interested. Except Father, who hates it all.’

The story had taken her mind into her past, away from her obsession with Sean. Now she looked at him and those feelings returned. He has such a nice face, she thought; clean, eager, idealistic. And that hair which he brushes so carefully yet is always flopping out of place. She felt a sudden urge to run her hands through it, hold his head to her breast while he - would a man kiss a woman's nipples, like a baby? She didn't know, but the idea fascinated her.

‘I’m interested,’ he said. ‘That's what we're fighting for, after all. When we have the Republic, no one will be slung out of their homes by their landlords. But there'll still be poor people enough, even in Dublin. You should see where I'm lodging now.’

A thought struck him. Before, he had always felt ashamed of the idea of inviting her to his lodgings. She had been too obviously of a higher class, and he had been sure he would be embarrassed. Besides, at the grocer’s, he and Martin had often had the fellows round. He wouldn't want to bring her into a room crowded with the boys. But now he had moved to a small room in a tenement, and if she meant what she said, why should he be ashamed? It was not what he had chosen, but only where he was forced to hide, to fight for the things she believed in.

‘Would you like to see it?’ he asked.

The thought, in slightly different form, had struck her too. She looked at her watch. It was just after seven. So long as she were home by ten, say, there need be no great scandal.

‘Why not?’ she said.

Sean had always known that lust was a sin but he had not known, until he met Catherine, that women could feel it. It had especially not entered his head that an apparently nice, well-brought-up young girl could act as if it were no sin at all.

Catherine excited and confused him. He had nearly killed her, but she showed no resentment. She had shown not the least concern about coming alone with him to one of the least salubrious, most overcrowded and unpleasant tenements in the city; and now when they were in his little, dirty back bedroom, she was radiant.

It was clear to him that she was not surprised by the social conditions. They had walked down dark, unlit cobbled back streets, past men and women in various stages of drunkenness; crossed an entrance yard where children were playing dispiritedly in the dark; and climbed a dank, peeling staircase to a small room at the back of the building; and all the time she had seemed in a state of abstraction, scarcely seeing where she was.

The room had a moderately clean bed, a desk, a chair, an oil lamp, a square of carpet on the floor, and a jug and basin. The window looked out across an alley on to a blank wall with a number of drainpipes running down it. She sat on the bed and he made a pile of sticks and coal for the fire.

‘I doubt the British’ll find me here,’ he said. ‘If the peelers did come, there’d be the most almighty row if they started to search the rooms downstairs, and there’s a fire escape at the back, so I could get down there. Anyway, I hope I won't be here long. It’s policy to move us around, when we're on the run.’

He thought how boastful that phrase
‘on the run’
sounded, and wished he had not used it. But there was little else to be proud of, stuck alone in a hole like this. The only difference from prison, he thought, was that he could go in and out when he wanted. And have visitors.

He made the fire draw by holding a piece of newspaper in front of the grate. When it was roaring nicely he stood up and washed his hands in the basin. When he turned round she was kneeling on the carpet, holding out her hands to the blaze. She had pushed her short, bobbed hair behind her ears, and the fire sent ripples of warm light along the delicate lines of her neck.

He thought he had never seen anyone so beautiful.

He knelt down beside her and kissed the lobe of her ear.

I shouldn't do this, he thought. It is taking advantage and definitely a sin; but anyway she wants to and I want to and we are all alone here, no one need ever know.

The fire burned up brightly so he turned down the lamp; and the heat filled the whole of the tiny room. After a long, slow kiss, she turned her back towards him, bowed her head, and said: 'Sean, will you help me undo these buttons here, please.'

As he undid the first button he knew that this was it, it was going to happen to him tonight. So much worry and imagination, strict instructions from his father, solemn warnings from the priest, lewd talk at school, disturbing dreams alone in bed, and it came down to something as simple and solemn as this.

Her neck glowed warm and smooth in the firelight. He undid the second button and kissed her, just at the nape of the neck where there were a few soft hairs. She moaned gently, happily. He undid three more buttons.

She stood up, began to shrug her way out of the dress, then changed her mind. She kissed his lips.

‘Turn your back, please. I want to surprise you.’

He turned away and closed his eyes, listening to the rustling, silken movements behind him. He felt an erection growing inside his trousers and was ashamed of it, not knowing what to do. Please God forgive me, I will not hurt her I swear. It is only love and I may die any day and never know it.

‘All right. You can look now.’

He turned and she stood quite, quite naked in the firelight. He had never seen a girl this way before. Her breasts were quite small and round and overwhelmingly beautiful, with little brown nipples that stuck out like buds. Her stomach was flat and her legs so long and soft and smooth - and there was hair there between her legs too, just a little wavy patch of it. Her eyes were shining, a little shy, afraid.

He reached out and crushed her in his arms.

And that was so strange and wonderful that he would never forget it. He was still wearing his boots, thick woollen trousers and flannel shirt. Her skin, everywhere, was soft as silk, delicate, defenceless as a baby's. He kissed her, and he felt like a great woolly bear holding a nymph, a goddess in his arms. As though she were Eve just stepped out of the garden. But she was human, hot in the fireglow.

His hands slipped down her back and felt her buttocks. She pressed herself to him and he felt his erection hard against her stomach. Then she stepped back.

‘You're all itchy,’ she said. ‘You get undressed too.’

‘All right.’ He started to unbutton his shirt and then felt embarrassed. He did not think of himself as being beautiful like her. ‘You turn your back then,’ he said.

‘I’ll close my eyes.’ She sat down in front of the fire, holding her knees up to her chin. He had seen a statue like that, once, in a park somewhere. A young girl watching the world, absorbed, innocent, curious, only half aware of her own beauty.

He scrambled out of his clothes.

Afterwards, as they lay in the narrow bed by the wall and watched the firelight flicker on the ceiling, she did cradle his head on her breast. She felt warm and maternal and … disappointed too. It had all happened so quickly. When he had entered her they had both seemed to lose control, there had been a sudden moment of pain and then he had thrust and thrust and she had cried out and wrapped her legs around him so that she could feel his smooth, hard buttocks under her heels and she had felt something wonderful rising and rising within her and then … then he had arched his back and shuddered and stopped.

She held his head to her breast and smoothed her hands through his hair and thought: It's over for him but not for me.

They lay entangled with each other and kissed and stroked each other's face. She ran a finger down his spine and said: ‘You're beautiful, you are.’

‘Me?’ Sean was surprised. He didn't think men had beauty.

‘Yes, of course you.’ She raised herself on her elbow and drew back the blanket so that she could trace the line of his back and legs with her hand. ‘Really beautiful. Muscular and smooth like a Greek god.’

It made him feel like an object, not himself at all. But her face smiling down at him was so warm and happy he could take no offence. Her small breasts rubbed his face and he kissed them drowsily, taking the small budlike nipples in his lips.

A coal fell down in the fire, lighting the room with a sudden burst of flames. Catherine's hand went on gently, insistently stroking his back and thighs.

A sadness that had begun to rise in him faded. He began to realize that it was not all over.

This time I must make it last, he thought. This may never happen to me again, I may be dead tomorrow. And she - she is not ashamed.

He pulled her down and began to kiss her quickly, eagerly: on her breasts, her neck, under her chin, her ears, her eyelids. ‘I want to kiss you everywhere,’ he said. ‘It’s not me that’s beautiful, it’s you – you’re so lovely.’