Tiger Men (49 page)

He managed to keep up the facade of affection, however, for it was essential Evelyn remain happy and healthy. Now more than ever he needed a second child, and now more than ever he needed that child to be a son.

Hugh Stanford was born at eleven o’clock on a spring morning in early September 1896. Although premature, the birth was uncomplicated and the baby was healthy. Reginald’s prayers had been answered.

‘Well done, my love.’ He kissed his wife with infinite tenderness. Evelyn’s place in his affections was fully restored. It was easy to be attentive and loving now. He would be able to ignore the simpleton now. In fact Rupert could cease to exist altogether now that he had his perfect son.

After the sale of the Hunter’s Rest Mick’s health deteriorated rapidly throughout the following year, and in the early spring of 1898 he took to his bed. At first he’d thought it was simply his ulcer playing up, but Eileen knew better: he’d lost so much weight so quickly, it had to be something more serious. It turned out it was. Apparently he didn’t have an ulcer at all. Apparently he’d never had an ulcer. The cancerous tumour that had been eating away at Mick for years was finally claiming him. The doctor said he would not see the year out.

Eileen wrote a note to Col. Or rather, she printed it. Mick had taught her to read and write many years before, but she had mastered only the basics, and never the art of copperplate. The note was simple. In her childlike hand it just read:
Come home. Da is dying. He needs you, love Ma.

She received a brief reply within the fortnight. Col wrote that he was making his arrangements. He would be coming home as soon as possible, he promised, and he would be bringing his family with him.

‘He’s coming, Mick,’ she said. ‘Col’s coming home.’

‘Col’s coming home, you say?’ The news reached Mick through the laudanum cloud that fogged his brain and he smiled. ‘In that case I’d better hang on, hadn’t I?’

Several days later, in early November, a stranger appeared on their front doorstep.

‘I’m after Mick Kelly,’ he said when Eileen answered the knock on the door. He was a burly young man in his thirties, an Irishman judging by his brogue, and his manner was belligerent.

‘There’s no-one here by that name,’ she said coldly, but as she went to close the door he thrust his foot forwards and wedged it open with his boot.

‘Mick O’Callaghan then, he’ll do. The fellow in this picture,’ he thrust a newspaper cutting at her, ‘I’ve been told he lives here.’ It was the picture of Mick and Henry Jones that had appeared on the front page of
The Mercury
a whole year ago. It seemed Mick’s brush with fame may have backfired on him.

‘He’s not in.’ Eileen refused to be intimidated. ‘Now get your filthy great boot away, you’re trespassing.’ She tried to jam the door closed but was sent reeling as the stranger thrust it open and barged inside.

‘Get out,’ she screamed, ‘get out of my house!’

She followed him as he opened the door to the girls’ bedroom and peered inside, and she followed him into the kitchen.

‘Get out of my house,’ she screamed again.

Then she followed him as he strode off in the direction of the main bedroom, but not before she’d grabbed the carving knife from the kitchen bench.

Eileen stood in the doorway of the bedroom, the knife hidden behind her back, and she watched as the stranger approached the bed.

‘Leave him be,’ she said, ‘he’s dying.’

‘Yes indeed, I can see he’s not well.’ The stranger’s manner was mocking as he thrust the newspaper cutting in Mick’s face. ‘You’re a bit different from your picture in the paper, aren’t you now, Mick Kelly? Not quite such a handsome chappie these days.’

Mick was propped up in bed. He’d been waiting for Eileen to deliver his mid-morning cup of tea and had dozed off only to be aroused by her screaming. Now he looked in confusion at the stranger waving a piece of newspaper at him. What was going on? Had someone called him Mick Kelly? He hadn’t been called Mick Kelly for over forty years.

‘Some of the old boys from ’48, they live in Kalgoorlie now, on the goldfields, wouldn’t you know. Well, it seems they seen this picture and recognised you straight off, and being upset like they were, they sent a message home lettin’ the Brotherhood know you was alive and well. And you know the Brotherhood, Mick: they never forget.’ The voice ceased to mock and became openly threatening. ‘You have a debt to pay, Kelly, and I’ve been sent, all the way from Ireland, to see that you pay it.’

Behind her back, Eileen clenched the fingers of her right hand firmly around the knife, prepared to charge at any moment.

Mick tried desperately to clear the fog from his brain. ‘Do I know you?’ he asked, peering at the man.

‘No, you don’t know me, but you know of my family,’ the stranger said. ‘The name’s Jamie and I’m a Meagher if that rings any bells.’

It did. The names and the events of a lifetime ago had been ringing many bells in Mick’s mind lately. He’d been living more in the past than he had in the present as he’d drifted between the laudanum and the pain, his childhood and his youth much clearer than recent times that had become little more than a blur.

Meagher, he thought. Thomas Francis Meagher, leader of the Young Irelander Rebellion of 1848. The Battle of Ballingarry, in County Tipperary near the Kilkenny border. How could he ever forget that? Why he remembered the very date: the twenty-ninth of July.

‘You know who I’m talking about, don’t you?’ Jamie Meagher could see the recognition in his eyes.

Mick nodded. ‘The Young Irelanders,’ he said, his voice husky, but his words quite clear, ‘the rebellion at Ballingarry.’

‘And you know what you did that day, don’t you, Mick Kelly?’

Jamie Meagher sat casually on the bed as if he was making conversation with a sick friend, but his manner remained threatening.

Eileen steeled herself for the attack, watching and waiting for the first show of violence.

‘Yes, I know what I did.’ Mick met the man’s gaze, refusing to show fear, although he remembered how in his youth he had dreaded the thought of a confrontation such as this. ‘I ran away. I was sixteen years old and I was scared.’

‘You dare to offer youth as a defence?’ The remark clearly angered Jamie Meagher. ‘A soldier of the Brotherhood is a man at sixteen. We all know that, just as you knew it back then. You were a Young Irelander. You’d accepted a man’s job.’

‘I had, I had, you’re quite right. I was a coward, and that’s the truth.’

‘You were more than a coward, Kelly. You were a traitor. You betrayed your brothers.’

‘No, no, I didn’t.’ Mick tried to sound forceful, but his strength along with his bravado was starting to fail him. ‘I didn’t, I swear.’

‘You told the police where the leaders could be found, you bastard.’

‘I didn’t. I swear I didn’t.’

‘You might as well have led the raid yourself. It was because of you Meagher and O’Brien and the others were taken hostage –’

‘It wasn’t me, I swear it wasn’t.’ Mick was becoming agitated as he relived the fear and turmoil of that day. He’d been so young and so scared. He was no soldier like the others. He hadn’t cared tuppence for the nationalist movement. He’d joined the Young Irelanders for adventure, so that he could get to carry a gun and boast about his exploits. He’d been terrified when the police had caught him, and only too willing to strike a bargain.

‘We all knew where that house was,’ he said desperately. ‘Every one of the fighters knew where Meagher and the others were holed up.’ This was what he’d told himself at the time, he remembered, and he’d persuaded himself it was true. If he didn’t tell the police, then someone else would. The rebellion had been doomed from the start. Fighters were being captured all over the place. ‘It could have been any one of the others,’ he said.

‘But it wasn’t any one of the others, was it?’ Jamie Meagher sneered. ‘It was you. ’

Mick had exhausted himself. What was the point in protesting any longer? He didn’t have the strength anyway.

‘Why,’ he asked, ‘why are you doing this? Why are you pursuing me? The Young Irelander Movement is long dead and gone. Dear Mother of God, it was fifty years ago, you weren’t even born then.’

‘The Brotherhood never dies, Kelly. The Brotherhood lives on with each new generation. And the Brotherhood never forgets a traitor.’ Reaching his hand inside his open shirtsleeve, Jamie Meagher withdrew the stiletto blade from the sheath attached to his wrist. ‘I’ve been sent to teach you a lesson.’

At the sight of the blade, Eileen sprang into action, lunging forwards with the carving knife, bent on attacking the man who threatened her husband.

Jamie had known the woman was hiding a weapon behind her back. He’d been waiting for her to make a move and was on his feet in an instant. Whirling to meet her he grabbed her wrist and wrenched it painfully behind her back; the carving knife clattered to the floor. The woman followed suit, sprawling to the ground as he threw her effortlessly aside. He picked up the knife, tossed it onto the bed, and ignored her as he returned his attention to the man.

‘I’ve not been ordered to kill you, Mick Kelly,’ he said. ‘The Brotherhood doesn’t send one of its valuable soldiers on an assassination assignment for scum like you. You’re not worth it. No, I’m here to make an example of you so others may learn that no matter how far, or how long, they run, they’ll be hunted down, because the Brotherhood never forgives, or forgets.’ He waved the stiletto teasingly. ‘And maybe I’ll leave a scar or two of shame, for good measure.’

Mick felt the tip of the blade trace a path across his forehead.

‘The letter T, what do you say? T for traitor . . .’

As the blade’s razor-sharp tip continued to play across his eyelids and over his face, Mick remained deathly still, too frightened to move.

‘Or maybe a T on each cheek might be better, what do you think? That way it would be clearly visible from either side,’ the stiletto was now drawing a pinprick of blood here and there, ‘and you’d be able to see it twofold every time you looked in the mirror. But then, with scars like that you probably wouldn’t look in a mirror very often, would you?’

From her position on the floor, Eileen watched breathlessly, waiting for the moment when the blade would cut deep into Mick’s face.

‘But what’s the point?’ Jamie said finally, withdrawing the stiletto. ‘You’re not going to live long enough for the scars to heal and become a badge, are you? And to tell you the truth, Mick Kelly, you’re not worth the recognition of being branded a traitor. Why should we let it be known you were once accepted as one of us?’ He returned the blade to its sheath and glanced down at Eileen. ‘You’ve got a brave wife, though, I’ll give you that much,’ he said. Then he turned on his heel and left.

Eileen picked herself up from the floor. She sat on the bed and, with the hem of her apron, dabbed at the spots of blood that bubbled from the nicks in his face. She was about to speak, but Mick got in first.

‘So there you have it,’ he said, trying for a touch of the old nonchalance, trying to sound as if he didn’t care in the least, ‘now you know the coward you married.’

‘I married a man just like any other,’ she replied in her practical fashion. ‘Don’t be too hard on yourself, Mick. You’re no demon – believe me there are far worse in this world. I’ll get a damp cloth and I’ll bring you your cup of tea.’

She went off to the kitchen and Mick felt at that moment that he could not possibly have loved her more.

Col made it home in the nick of time, or so it seemed to Eileen, for Mick was fading fast. He arrived in the second week of November, and he brought a surprise with him.

‘This is your grandson, Oscar,’ he said as with one hand he grabbed the arm of his beefy little three-year-old and hauled him up onto the bed like a sack of potatoes, ‘and this is your new granddaughter, Caitlin,’ he added, referring to the child of barely twelve months who was cradled against his chest.

‘Granddaughter?’ Mick cast a befuddled glance at Eileen as she rescued him from Oscar, who’d started leaping about on the bed. Had he missed something?

‘No, you’ve missed nothing,’ she said, reading his mind. She put the boy down and he scampered off to explore the rest of the house. ‘Col didn’t say anything about Caitie in his letter.’

‘I wanted to surprise you,’ Col said with the familiar grin that gladdened Mick’s heart. It had been sixteen years since he’d seen his son, but Col was the same cheeky charmer he’d always been. If anything he’s more devilishly handsome than ever, Mick thought with pride. The lad who’d left Hobart had returned a strong and impressively fit-looking man.

He waved a frail hand at the little girl. ‘Just look at that for hair, Eileen –’ Caitie had a thatch of fiery red hair ‘– she’s Shauna all over again.’

‘She is that,’ Eileen agreed, marvelling at the change Col’s arrival had wrought. For the past several days Mick had been barely lucid, but now his eyes were bright and focused.

‘Where’s your woman?’ Mick peered about as if expecting her to jump out from wherever she was hiding. ‘Where’s Fiona?’

‘Back in Kal,’ Col gave a careless shrug, ‘she didn’t fancy coming to Hobart so I left her behind.’

‘You broke up your family to come and see me?’ Mick asked incredulously.

‘Well, no not exactly,’ Col admitted, catching his mother’s glance. ‘The truth is she left me, Da. The fool of a woman ran off with another man,’ he said light-heartedly, ‘can you believe that?’

‘But the children . . .’ Mick was confused. ‘What about the children?’

‘She left them too, apparently,’ Eileen said drily. She’d been confused herself when Col had told her. She hadn’t believed him at first.

‘No mother leaves her children like that,’ she’d said.

‘Not all women take to motherhood like you did, Ma. Fiona certainly didn’t; she was just after a good time.’

‘But to run off with another man and desert your children, it’s not natural.’

‘It is when the other man’s struck gold. She’ll be living the high life now. If I’d had a strike like Bobbo, she’d still be with me.’ Col’s bitterness was obvious, but its direction was unclear. He didn’t know who he hated most, Fiona for leaving him or Bobbo for striking it lucky. ‘That’s life on the goldfields for you, Ma.’