1949 (39 page)

Suddenly, violently, America was propelled into what could now truly be described as a global war. In one of his famous “fireside chats,” President Roosevelt described America as the arsenal of democracy.

On the twenty-sixth of January, 1942, the first U.S. troops arrived in Belfast. Two weeks later the Northern Ireland military base at Derry was designated as part of the U.S. Atlantic fleet command.
¹

By that time Éire, with her regular army, army air corps, marine service, and local defense forces, had almost a quarter of a million well-disciplined men and women prepared to defend her neutrality. Army battalions sometimes bivouacked in ruined barracks that had been destroyed during the Civil War.

 

The German U-boats stalking the Allied merchant fleet were condemned as heartless killers by their prey. But there was no denying the courage of their crews. Trapped below the surface in steel coffins, they endured foul air, intense claustrophobia, and depth charges exploding all around them for as much as twelve hours at a time. Eight out of every ten would be dead by the end of the war.

Neither sea nor air was a safe arena for warriors.

When Ursula mentioned America's entry into the war, Ned shook off some of the mists that enveloped his brain. “I was in the war,” he said unexpectedly.

“You were, Papa. Both the Easter Rising and the War of Independence.”

“I mean the war in Spain. Frank Ryan took some of us to fight for the Spanish Republic. With the…” He struggled for words. “The International Brigades.”

“You remember that now?”

“I…think so. I know it was very hard. And at the end…”

“At the end?”

“They sent us home, those who survived. I must have been raving at that stage, I didn't even know who I was. Somewhere along the way my identification papers went missing. The next thing I remember, I'd been admitted to a hospital in Belfast—a British hospital; ironic, isn't it?—under the name of…MacNamee. Eoin MacNamee. I've no idea where the name came from.”

Ursula was astounded. “How long were you there?”

“Weeks. Months, maybe. The hospital staff there were very good to me. One in particular. An English doctor with a bald head…” He closed his eyes.

Ursula waited. For a few moments Ned seemed to be asleep. Then he said clearly, “A decent Englishman pulled me back from the very brink of hell. He saved my life.” He closed his eyes again.

“Dear God,” breathed Ursula.

 

She was eager to ask him countless questions, but instinct warned her not to push too hard. He would tell her what he wanted her to know, in his own good time. He always had.

 

“Congratulate me, I am engaged to be married!” Fliss wrote to Ursula. “My timing is rather bad, as the most gorgeous American soldiers are flooding into England these days. You will be interested to learn that a surprising number have Irish surnames, though they speak with an American twang. They are all exotic and glamorous and of course they all swear they are single.

“My fiancé is a pilot in the Royal Air Force, which is glamorous too, especially since he's one of our own. I must be more conservative than I thought. We decided on the spur of the moment, but fortunately my parents approve of him. We plan to marry during his next leave. Is there any chance you could come over for the wedding?”

Ursula wrote back, “I am so happy for you, Fliss. I would come if I could, you know that. But the farm has me very tied down at the moment.”

She did not mention Barry. In her letters to Felicity she had never mentioned Barry. She was not ashamed of him, quite the contrary, but as time passed she felt less and less inclined to explain him. She was not sure she could.

Eileen had taken over the cooking, for which Ursula was profoundly grateful, and developed her own domestic schedule. Monday was wash day; clothes and bed linen were boiled in the big coppers in the yard. George Ryan helped hang them on the clotheslines strung between house and barn. On Tuesday Eileen ironed. The house was aired, the rugs were beaten and butter was churned on Wednesday. Bread was baked every Thursday and stored in a large earthenware crock with an airtight lid. The kitchen received detailed attention on Friday; Eileen scrubbed the flagstone floor and blacked and polished the range until it shone. Saturday was general housecleaning day. Evenings were reserved for sewing and mending, a neverending chore. Sunday was for attending Mass, often twice in one day. But always without Ursula.

Once her routine was established Eileen never deviated from it. Bit by bit, Ned's baby sister was regaining her self-respect. Her hair was frequently unkempt and she would not even use cold cream on her face, but sometimes she hummed to herself as she bustled about the house.

“Perhaps the home is the right career for a woman,” Ursula admitted to her one day. “For some women, I mean. It's wrong to try to force anyone into a box. Every person is unique.”

If she needed proof she had only to look at her own son.

One February afternoon, when the light was blue and there was snow in the air, Ursula found Barry atop the mound in Saoirse's field. Standing with his sturdy legs braced far apart, his arms outstretched and his head thrown back. Letting the first snowflakes fall on his upturned face.

She smiled at the picture he made, but that particular hillock was sacrosanct. She called to him to come down at once.

Barry turned toward her. The child was alight from within, blazing with an intensity that made Ursula catch her breath. Fierce and totally adult, his gray eyes seemed to gaze upon her across a sweep of aeons.

He blinked. Laughed. Ran down the slope into her arms and was her little boy again.

 

Henry Mooney had once said, “Children carry the history of their forebears like chapters in a book, if one knew how to read them.” Ursula tried.
Were Barry's square shoulders inherited from my real father? Is his high-bridged nose my mother's nose?

In the little boy's long, flexible fingers, she recognized her own.

The signature of Barry's father had been obvious from the beginning.

On the sixth of May three million ration books were issued in Éire. On the following day a wireless broadcast by Seán Lemass outlined the details of their use to the nation. These came as a shock. For example, out of a total allowance of fifty-two coupons a year, forty would be required for a man's suit.
¹

The new Liffey hydroelectric scheme had made electricity available to an ever expanding range of households on the east side of the country, but now the Electricity Supply Board announced to its customers, “No Electric Heating! No Extra Electricity for Cooking!”
²

Dublin traditionally had burned British coal, which was no longer available to the Irish. Gas supplies were severely diminished as well. Therefore turf, formerly despised by urban dwellers, was eagerly sought. The long road that ran through the Phoenix Park was banked on either side with sods of turf for use by the city.

Although Éire had enough food to survive, the nation was suffering from social and intellectual starvation. The stultifying effects of a repressive moral climate spread across the land like a mantle of pollution.

While millions of men and women around the world were dying horrific deaths, John Charles McQuaid was preoccupied with defending what he saw as the one true church. Efforts by organizations such as the Mercier Society to educate the people of Éire about other faiths were sternly dealt with by the archbishop.
³
High-minded sermons and savage condemnations were issued from the pulpit almost in the same breath.

“I was raised to be devout,” Ursula wrote to Henry, “but I have come around to your way of looking at things. Ireland broke away from an oppressive Protestant empire only to install a repressive Catholic dictatorship. While I still believe in God, I now have more faith in the authority of experience than in the experience of authority.”

In the straightened era of Archbishop McQuaid, clerics went striding across the fields, beating the tall grass to flush out courting couples. Priests marched onto dance floors to thrust a metal ruler between dancing couples to be certain that at least twelve inches separated their bodies, preventing any lustful stimulation.

Readers of the
Evening Press
were regaled with terrifying accounts of demons materializing amid clouds of sulphur. One priest claimed his hair turned white overnight after confronting the devil himself on some dance floor. A girl reputedly fainted after looking down and seeing that her partner had cloven hooves.

Disgusted, Ursula threw down the newspaper that had printed the story as fact. “It's not like this in other countries, Papa. We've become freaks; not people but terrified sheep.”

“What do you know about other countries, Precious?”

“I've told you before, I went to school in Switzerland and—”

“Henry paid for it,” Ned said.

She froze, waiting for an outburst that did not come.

“I'll thank him next time I see him,” said Ned.

Ursula breathed a sigh of relief. “You won't see Henry again, Papa. He lives in America now.”

 

Ned was getting stronger. In late summer he ventured out into the yard and sat for hours on a stool beside the door. Unless the sun shone on him, in which case he went back inside.

Information seeped out of him in tiny droplets. Ursula learned that he had checked himself out of the Belfast hospital without permission as soon as he felt strong enough, and slowly, painfully made his way back to Clare using the old IRA network, or what remained of it.

“I left without thanking the doctor who saved me,” he said with regret. “But I think about him. I think about him a lot.”

“You could write to him, I suppose.”

Ned gave a hollow laugh. “And sign the letter how? Eoin MacNamee? I think not, Precious. Best leave it alone. It could be dangerous to call attention to myself.”

“But you have nothing to do with the IRA anymore.”

He gave a snort. “Don't be daft. I'll be one of the Boys until I die.”

“You can't be serious. Papa, your eyesight…”

“Sure I know I can never fire a rifle again. I wouldn't want to anyway. How could I shoot the British after one of them saved my life? I'm not that much of a bastard. But our lads will keep on fighting in whatever way they can until we have the Irish Republic, all thirty-two counties of it. And there are ways I can still help.”

“What do you mean?”

The shutters came down. “Let's just say my experience is valuable. I know names, locations, who did what, who to trust…when I'm a bit stronger again I'll be useful. You'll see.” His cleft chin jutted forward in a way Ursula recognized of old.

“Ned's stubborn look,” the family called it.

Barry had taken a strong liking to Ned. Now when her son went missing Ursula usually found the pair together. There were times when Ned was still vague and unsure about Barry's identity, but on his better days he enthralled the little boy with war stories. Occasionally Ursula drifted close enough to overhear without being obvious. Some of Ned's tales were so wild he surely must be inventing them. But others sounded like they were from his own experience.

“Papa remembers more than he's willing to let on,” Ursula remarked to Eileen.

“He always did keep himself to himself. And no harm either,” Eileen added. “If I'd done that I'd be better off today.”

Ursula could not help laughing, especially since Eileen was laughing too. A hint of her youthful beauty crept back into her careworn face.

“I think there's a curling tongs around here somewhere,” Ursula volunteered. “I saw it when we were going through poor Norah's possessions. If I can find it, would you like to use it?”

In adulthood the two women had become friends. Eileen passed no remarks about the paternity of Barry; she could hardly afford to, with her own history.

 

By the autumn of 1942 Hitler's offensive against Stalingrad had developed into a brutal war of attrition. Twenty-two German divisions were being hurled at the Russians. Stalingrad no longer even resembled a city, but a monstrous cloud of burning, choking smoke.

In Clare the autumn was crisp and frosty, painted in shafts of slanting, golden light. As the days grew shorter, Ned Halloran's energy level rose. One afternoon without telling anyone he sauntered into Clarecastle.

Ursula frantically searched for him. Barry watched for a while with his head cocked to one side, then volunteered, “Granda said he wuz firsty.”

“Thirsty? Gerry, would you ever go down to the pub and bring him home? You can put my saddle on the roan mare, I think she'll carry double now.”

Gerry was dismayed. “Ride her, you mean? I've never ridden a horse in my life.”

Ursula rolled her eyes skyward. “Hitch her to the wagonette, then. But hurry. It's been a while since he had strong drink and who can say what it might do to him.”

Within a couple of hours the two men returned together—both laughing. In Ned's cheeks there was a healthy flush of color not entirely dependent on alcohol. But the next day he stayed in bed, complaining of a headache.

 

Across Eastern Europe drifted the smell of blood and broken dreams. The winter was bitter…but the thaw was on the way.

In January, the German forces besieging Stalingrad surrendered. Against impossible odds, the valiant Russians had held their city.

At the end of the month the Allies captured Tripoli, the last remaining Italian-held city of Mussolini's “New Roman Empire.” Elsewhere his increasingly demoralized Blackshirts were fighting Italian partisans whom they called rebels and summarily shot when they captured them. Fellow countrymen.

Italy had descended into civil war.

 

Eamon de Valera delivered his customary radio broadcast on St. Patrick's Day. In the parlor of the Halloran farm everyone listened as he said, “Acutely conscious though we all are of the misery and desolation in which the greater part of the world is plunged, let us turn aside for a moment to that ideal Ireland that we would have. That Ireland, which we dreamed of, would be the home of a people who valued material wealth only as the basis of right living, of a people who were satisfied with frugal comfort and devoted their leisure to things of the spirit; a land whose countryside would be bright with cozy homesteads, whose fields and villages would be joyous with the sounds of industry, with the romping of sturdy children, the contests of athletic youths, the laughter of happy maidens, whose firesides would be forums for the wisdom of serene old age.

“It was the idea of such an Ireland, happy, vigorous, spiritual, that fired the imagination of our poets; that made successive generations of patriotic men give their lives to win religious and political liberty, and that will urge men in our own and future generations to die if need be, so that these liberties may be preserved.”
⁴

Ursula cut out a copy of the speech as it appeared in the
Irish Times
and sent it to Henry. He replied, “Frugal comfort indeed. That's just like de Valera, mouthing pious platitudes about the traditions of an impoverished people to persuade them it's good to be poor.”

 

Barry was getting old enough to notice that Ned and Eileen went to Mass but his mother did not. “Won't God let us come to his house?” he asked Ursula one day.

Ursula wrote to Henry Mooney, “I have decided to raise Barry as an Irish Catholic. When he is old enough he can make his own decisions about religion, but until then I want him to have the spiritual security I once felt. Perhaps I am mellowing, Henry.”

From then on she attended Mass every Sunday, sitting in the pew with Ned on one side and Barry on the other. Eventually the most self-righteous members of the congregation stopped glaring at her. She was so indifferent to them that they were forced to fold up their hostility and put it away like an out-of-season garment, awaiting a more vulnerable victim.

 

On June 22 a general election was held. Eight gallons of petrol were allocated to each candidate nominated for a constituency. Once again Fianna Fáil emerged as the largest party. Yet with only sixty-seven seats it lacked a clear majority. Although the Fine Gael representation was also reduced, a number of new parties were emerging and fighting hard.

Eamon de Valera remained as taoiseach, but the political future looked increasingly unstable.

 

Summer was the jewel of the year. Ancient, turbulent Ireland glowed in her mantle of green, crowned by the passionless stars.

Sometimes at night, when the children were asleep and Eileen was tidying up the kitchen and Ned had gone to his room, Ursula slipped out of the house to walk across the land. Just walk. From field to field. Pausing in the night to say a reassuring word to the drowsing cows; to stroke the nose of one of the horses—they all came to her when she approached—or merely standing still, breathing in.

 

“I've had a letter from Louise,” Ursula told Ned. “Hector's died of a bleeding ulcer. I didn't even know he had an ulcer.”

“Hector who?”

“Hamilton. The man who married Louise. Barry and I will have to go up to Dublin for the funeral.”

“Will Henry be there?” Ned inquired. Ursula noticed tension in his shoulders.

She said gently, “Henry won't be there, Papa. He's in America, remember?”

It might be her imagination, but it seemed that Ned's shoulders slumped in disappointment.

Wartime Dublin was every bit as grim as Ursula expected. Blackout curtains covered windows. Consumer goods of every description were in short supply. Department stores were advertising “men's utility suits,” but they cleverly skimped on fabric by having fewer pockets. They still cost more coupons than most people could afford.

A few of the better butcher shops had signs in the windows that read
WE WILL POST MEAT TO YOUR FRIENDS IN ENGLAND AND NORTHERN IRELAND
.

Coffee was unobtainable at any price. Instead of butter, housewives were offered block margarine with a little packet of orange stain that turned it an unlikely shade of yellow. The result had the taste and texture of axle grease.

Sugar was currently the most elusive commodity.

One of Ursula's early improvements at the farm had been to install beehives in the orchard. She harvested their golden crop herself. At first she wore a long coat, heavy gloves and a veiled hat, but she soon discovered she could work with the bees barehanded. Gerry Ryan said he had never seen anyone with such a gift.

In her suitcase Ursula had six jars of honey for Louise Hamilton.

For the funeral she had brought her only black dress, the one from Geneva. It hung loose on her now. When she belted it around her waist the fabric bunched into pleats, but it would have to do.

Real silk stockings were only a memory. Small quantities of artificial silk were available if one had enough money and ration coupons, and time to search from shop to shop. Rumors were circulating about a miracle fabric called nylon, but it was not expected until after the war. Whenever that might be.