Edith, page 27
‘Oh, I lolloped about enjoying myself. But after a while, you realize there’s no place like home.’
‘No truer word.Where would you like your tea?’
‘With you and Mrs O’Shea, of course. In the kitchen. I’ll just wash my hands first. I’m dusty from travelling.’
‘Mrs O’Shea has one of her cherry cakes baked fresh for you.’
Philomena trots ahead, taking a passing swat at a dusty rubber plant with the hem of her apron. It occurs to Edith that Philomena knows Drishane in intimate ways she can never match. At floor level from scrubbing, at cupboard level from tidying and itemizing contents, at ceiling level from balancing on a ladder attacking spiderwebs. Philomena is familiar with its plates and glasses, its knives and napkin rings. She beats its rugs and airs its curtains, polishes its windows and sweeps its passageways. It may have been commissioned by Edith’s forebear Tom the Merchant, it may be her family history embedded in the brickwork. But it’s still habitable because of Philomena Minihane, and other Philomenas before her.
Each to their own, thinks Edith, and nuzzles Loulou before setting her on the floor. ‘You’re heavier than when I went away, Lou. Someone’s been feeding you treats.’
‘Sure how could a body refuse that crathur a morsel of sweet cake?’ says Mrs O’Shea, puffing up from the kitchen to join them. She has gained an extra ruffle of skin under her chin in Edith’s absence.‘Welcome home, Miss Edith. You were missed. Now, as soon as you take the weight off your feet, I’ve a message for you from my sister who’s cook to the Salters. They’ve a new litter of fox terriers, born to a sister of Dooley’s.The pick of the litter is yours for the asking.’
Edith unpins her hat. ‘I couldn’t possibly.’
‘Yerrah, time’s a great healer, Miss Edith.’
twenty-two
Frisky as a lamb, Edith jump-steps across a brook frothing like wedding lace over pebbles. Even her damp shoes and the twinge in her leg as she lands don’t cause her regret. Sometimes in life, a leap must be taken. It’s summertime.A sun-gilt morning in late June. Just ahead is Pinker, her new fox terrier pup, who yipped as she splashed through the water and doubled back to repeat the manoeuvre. Edith tried to entice out Loulou for some exercise, too, but she point-blank refused to leave Mrs O’Shea’s kitchen.
The day has been set aside for sketching. In a satchel, strapped across her front, are a collapsible easel and painting materials. Grass swishes against her legs, seagulls whirr overhead and the sea breeze is at her back.The climb is steep going – once she raced up these Carbery hills on horseback, following the hounds – but she won’t indulge in nostalgia for what has been. Besides, she has a flask of coffee and sandwiches packed to revive her when she reaches the top.
She picnics on springy ground clotted with clover and buttercups, bees bumbling among them. Somewhere nearby a thrush chants its matins. Pinker curls into her lap, paws on Edith’s breastbone, and begs prettily for scraps. On an impulse, she unpins her tam-o’-shanter to feel the sun on her scalp, and the woollen hat is snatched up as a plaything.
‘Drop it, Pinker. Drop it. Do as you’re told. Let go.’
She wipes it off with a handful of heather.The puppy is learning. It’ll take time.
Edith leans back on an elbow and shades her eyes to take in the view. That line where sky meets sea never fails to enchant her.The land makes jagged forays into the sea, and corners of it have broken off and floated out to form islands or crops of semi-submerged rocks. Foam-coated waves hint at the restless motion of the pilgrim ocean. Fishing boats with white sails bob along near Reen Pier. Her painter’s eye notices how light searches out water and bounces off its surface. In the distance, if she squints, she can distinguish the ruins of the O’Driscoll castle, clan chieftains here before the potato came to Ireland. St Barrahane’s is easier to pick out, where Martin lies in the churchyard. One day, she’ll be buried beside her. But not any time soon.
There is no longer a destroyer in Castlehaven Bay. The British evacuation from Ireland is almost complete now, and Michael Collins is chairman – such a funny title, she thinks – of the new Irish Free State. Not a republic, after all, but a dominion with a role for the King, and a hived-off slice at the top called Northern Ireland. The longed-for peace has splintered into civil war, bitterest of all conflicts. Brother versus brother, friends versus friend, Free Stater versus Republican. A point of no return has been passed.
Cameron is home again, meticulously following political events – as closely as Edith watches him, in case he sells any more of Drishane’s lands. Her brother is a Collins man, he tells her, and predicts he’ll have crushed all resistance before the summer is over. And then what? Her spirits are wearied by the lot of them.Yet war seems distant on this hilltop. Life is what she feels in this place. Perhaps even eternity.
Near a windblown tree, Edith sets up her easel. She pins paper to it, unfolds her sketching stool and sets to work. Even in summertime, a palette of mossy colours is needed to capture the scene. Pinker romps around, chasing imaginary enemies, her doggy burbling folding into the peaceful background noise. But when she begins scuffling at the trunk of the tree, it interferes with Edith’s concentration, and she puts aside her work to investigate. Pinker has unearthed some bones belonging to a small animal. She pours water over them and admires their bleached purity. A fox may have feasted on a rabbit on this hilltop. She’s not the first picnicker. Pinker is reluctant to yield her find but is bought off with a triangle of chicken sandwich. The bones belong in Edith’s picture.
This is one of those days when she wishes she’d devoted more of her life to art than literature. It was Martin who pressed them to become writers. Left to her own devices, she’d have been an artist, instead of juggling both. Edith knows art is the finest part of her.
That’s enough preparatory business with pencils. Pig-hair brush in hand, she begins to paint with watercolours. While one corner of her mind concentrates on transferring what she observes to paper, another considers an idea for a new novel that’s nibbling at her. It’s a decaying Big House story; perhaps that’s why she felt compelled to include the bones. Long ago, she and Martin discussed the outline. It concerns a minor dynasty in Ireland, which rises and rules and riots before crashing in ruins – yet clinging by its fingernails to the ancestral home. An ambitious project – is she capable of tackling it? Even with Martin’s help?
Hours pass during which Pinker explores the hillside, vomits up some earthworms and takes a nap, Edith working steadily all the while. Finally, she stops and examines her sketch. It seems to her she’s caught something of the essence of the landscape – mountains, sea and sky funnelled onto the page. Despite the sunshine, her scene is melancholy, an effect caused by the arrangement of the shadows. Or it could be because of those tiny, picked-clean bones. ‘If it’ll do, it’ll do,’ she says, and packs up her equipment. Time for home. She intended staying out for longer – Cameron had business in Skibbereen and planned to lunch at the West Cork Hotel – but her limbs have stiffened. Her sixty-fourth birthday crept up on her in May. Boney sent a card with a saucy message.
She whistles for Pinker, who abandons her games and dances around Edith’s ankles, before scooting ahead. Going downhill is as challenging as the uphill trek with this lame leg of hers. Still, she’ll be able to work those sketches into a decent landscape. On the flat, she realizes she’s lost Pinker again. Standing still to catch her breath, she finds herself holding it. A russet fox with a black mask is a few feet away. A dog fox in the whole of his health, with a fine brush. He appears through a gap in the hedge, sniffs the air, and listens, ears cocked. Catching her scent, he turns his yellow eyes on Edith and holds her gaze momentarily, before sliding away. It’s almost as if he dissolves into thin air. If she can hold his image in her mind, she’ll paint him.
Pinker rushes up, twitching with excitement, and noses the ground where the fox stood. ‘Too late,’ she says. ‘Anyhow you’re not big enough to take on a fox. Give it time.’
She continues homewards, listening to a chorus of country sounds – clucking, mooing, honking, bleating. Hens are perched on half-doors, hopeful of food. A flock of geese commandeer the road, and she waits in a ditch until they’ve passed, holding Pinker, who’s inclined to give chase. A barefoot goose girl, skirt kilted at her knees, calls out a greeting. One of the Treacy girls, by the look of her. Nora Treacy has gone to Chicago. Would her sister be able to help with the cleaning at Drishane? She must mention it to Philomena.
Back at Drishane, a motorcycle with sidecar is parked outside the front door. Mike Hurley emerges from around the side of the house.
‘Visitors, Miss Edith. A couple of lads from that new Civic Guard.’
Edith turns waxen. ‘Is it about Colonel Somerville?’
‘Didn’t say what it was about.’
She presses her hands together, readying herself. ‘Take Pinker with you, would you Mike? I don’t want her biting strangers’ ankles. That’s how we lost Dooley.’
Waiting in the inner hall, leaning against a desk where her grandfather once sat to accept his tenants’ rents or their excuses, two men in dark-blue uniforms and peaked caps are waiting. The Civic Guard, a police force set up to replace the recently disbanded Royal Irish Constabulary, hasn’t bedded down yet. Tensions keep flaring between its members – some of whom are ex-IRA, while others belonged to the RIC. Cameron claims the IRA men enlisted for the sole purpose of destabilizing it.
Edith enters, composed of sharp edges, determined to deal with them quickly. The warning from that Camel creature isn’t easily set aside. The men straighten at her approach.
‘Miss Somerville?’ The burlier of the two addresses her.
‘I am she.’
‘My name is Sergeant Maguire and this is Guard Tomelty.We’d like a word with you please.’
An Ulsterman – Monaghan, maybe. Once, she’d have known the local policemen. There are strangers everywhere now. She notices neither man appears to be armed. Of course, the Civic Guard was established deliberately on that basis. If she must have strange men in uniform about the place, it’s a relief they aren’t pointing weapons at her.
‘How can I help you, sergeant?’
‘It’s about these.’ He jerks his head at the constable.
The younger man has what appears to be an old pillowcase wedged under his arm. He loosens the drawstring and pulls out a pair of riding boots. Shyly, he holds them out, like a salesman inviting her to admire his stock.
Edith strokes the leather, apple-skin smooth beneath her fingertips. She knows whose they are. Still in want of a lick of polish, too.
‘I see you recognize them,’ says Sergeant Maguire.
‘I believe so. They look like my brother’s. Aylmer Somerville.’
‘Show the lady.’
Guard Tomelty rolls down the top of one of the boots.
Aylmer Somerville
Drishane House
Castletownshend
Her synapses begin clicking through the permutations of what this means. Denis must have been caught. Odd that she should care, but she does. It was only a matter of time before his gallop was halted. Maybe it’s better for him to go to jail for a while, out of harm’s way. ‘What happened to the man who was wearing them, sergeant?’
‘Hit by an omnibus.’
‘Is he … did he … is he in hospital?’
‘In the ground is where he is. Dead and buried.’ ‘Dead?’
‘As a doornail.’
The sergeant’s outline appears to waver and recede. She blinks hard, several times, clearing her vision.
‘That’s right, ma’am. Killed on the spot. In the middle of an act of stupidity. I suppose he’d call it patriotism.’ He shakes his head.
‘I don’t understand.’
‘He was running away. Being chased by a crowd. In London, it was. The police there contacted us for help identifying him. On account of them boots he was wearing.’
‘The boots.Yes, I see.They were stolen during a raid here last October. Another brother, Colonel Somerville, Master of Drishane, reported it.’
‘Write that down, Tomelty. Aye, I’ve read the report. There’s no mention of any boots stolen. A horse, some jewellery and silver, is all.’
‘I suppose Colonel Somerville didn’t think it worth mentioning.The boots aren’t of much value. But one of the intruders helped himself to them. The colonel can corroborate what I say, and two members of the household were also present. Our cook and housemaid. They’re here at the moment if you need to speak to them, but I’m afraid my brother is attending to business in Skibbereen.’
‘Guard Tomelty will need to take statements from whoever was on the premises during the raid.’
‘Of course. Do you mean now?’
‘No time like the present.’
‘If you’d care to follow me, guard.’
‘You can’t be there when he interviews them, Miss Somerville,’ warns the sergeant.
‘Naturally not.’
Edith leads the young civic guard to the kitchen, where Philomena and Mrs O’Shea start talking about making him something to eat to build him up. ‘But I don’t need building up,’ he protests. ‘I’m here on official business.’ She leaves him alone to fend them off, if he can.
Back in the inner hall, head on one side, Sergeant Maguire is studying her grandfather’s regimental sword mounted on the wall.
‘That’d do right damage, if it was kep’ sharp.’
When Edith was a small girl, Grandpapa told her he sliced off noses and ears with it. She used to think he was teasing, but in later life wondered if there might be some truth in it. ‘It’s ornamental, Sergeant Maguire. I expect it saw action in its day. But that was a long time ago. In the middle of the last century, in India.’
‘Relatives of mine served in India. Now, about the boots. A decent, sturdy pair, I grant you. But what happened to his own if he swapped them? Did he leave them behind? Would you happen to have them?’
She can see the boots in her mind’s eye. Brown, ankle high, Made by J.J. Carroll of Listowel on the inner back.‘I’m afraid he took them with him.’
‘I dare say they were a battered aul’ pair, in flitters.’
‘No, they were new, but too tight. His father’s boots.’ She feels a catch in her chest at the thought of the news making its way to that family in Listowel. A family where the father gave his son the boots off his feet before the boy left home. ‘May I ask the name of the man captured wearing Aylmer’s?’
‘An amadán.That’s who he was. Don’t know that I ought to go handing out his name yet. He was a young fellow from Ireland, got mixed up in a bad business.’
‘What kind of bad business?’ She hopes he’ll tell her Camel has been put behind bars.
‘Did you hear about what happened to Field Marshal Wilson, across the water?’
Edith stiffens. She had a sleepless night after reading about his death in the newspaper, convinced Camel must have been tangled up in it. If she’d gone to the police, the field marshal might be alive. On the other hand, she would have turned herself and her family into targets. It’s a circle she’s unable to square. She made a decision knowing someone might suffer by it. But what choice did I have?
She brings her hands together, knuckles showing through the skin. ‘I read about Sir Henry in the newspaper. Dreadfully sad. I hope he didn’t suffer. I hate to think his wife saw it happen – it said in the paper she did. But perhaps that’s one of their exaggerations?’
‘Hard to miss gunfire on your own doorstep. He was shot right outside his house. Eaton Place. He’d just stepped out of a hackney cab. Coming home from unveiling a war memorial in Liverpool Street station. Three men were waiting for him. Irregulars. One of them was wearing these boots.’
Edith’s throat tightens. She swallows past the constriction. ‘I’m sorry, did I hear you correctly? Are you saying the man wearing these boots killed Field Marshal Wilson?’
‘Not sure who pulled the trigger, but he was part of it.They fired on Wilson, left him bleeding to death and made a run for it. Some members of the public chased after them. One of the gang panicked and dashed out in front of a motorized omnibus. Driver couldn’t stop. It rolled right over him.’
He’s still talking but Edith doesn’t take in what he’s saying. Her mind is clutching at alternatives. Perhaps it wasn’t Denis wearing the boots – he could have lost them, with that vagabond lifestyle of his. Or it might be a case of mistaken identity.What if he lent the boots to the whistler, or one of the others? There’s a stabbing pain in her palm. She glances down and realizes she is digging her nails into it. But if it’s really Denis who died, then he was part of an IRA gang that assassinated the field marshal. It sounds like the sort of affair he’d be involved in. After all, he lured her to that bloodthirsty pilot with the ravaged face. Who’d have slashed her from ear to ear, if the humour took him.
‘I’d take it as a favour—’ She halts, regroups and tries again. ‘I’d be most awfully grateful if you’d tell me. Confidentially, of course. What’s the name of the young man who died?’
‘Ach, I suppose it’ll all come out in the wash. I dare say the newspapers will print it. Denis Brophy, that’s who he was. Nineteen years of age. Came from Listowel in County Kerry. Used an alias, forbye. Dan Keane.’
Denis Brophy. So it was her Denis. She never knew his surname. There’s an inevitability to his death. She can’t say it’s a tragedy, or that she’s truly shocked. But she does feel regret clot inside her. Denis took the wrong fork in the road.
‘Such a waste.’ Edith walks to the nearest window. Pinker is digging up a flowerbed, decimating her mother’s dahlias, but she hasn’t the energy to rap on the pane. ‘And the other men he was with? Do you know anything about them?’
‘Caught alive. More’s the pity for them, maybes.Young fellows, aged twenty-three or twenty-four. Grew up in England, the pair of them. But, you know yourself, Irish parents.’
She turns back to him and finds a brooding expression on his face. ‘What will happen to them?’
