A Star Called Henry (34 page)

—Halt there! Halt!

I looked over the hedge and saw a couple, a lad and a young one, being hauled from a hedge just like mine, caught in the headlights and soldiers milling around them. There were more shouts as the pair were thrown onto the lorry, and it roared off. I had to drop below the hedge again as a prowler was suddenly there in the centre of the road, a car with no lights and an engine that purred under the silence. It crept past. I listened through the hedge, made sure that it didn’t slow or stall, and I heard it turn onto Orwell Road.

I could stay where I was, huddled in against the wall and hedge and hope that no foot patrols came my way. I could knock on the door behind me and hope for the best. I could get on the bike and dash and hope for even better luck, and go - where?

Mister Climanis.

—Mister Smart! How late, how nice!

—I’ll go away if you think it’s not safe.

—Mister Smart! Please! Come in. Come in. Please.

He stood out of my way and I stepped onto a stairs that started right against the door. He ran out and took my bike. He pointed at the suitcase I was now carrying.

—Bombs, yes?

—No, I said.—Books.

—Books? he said.—Nice but no good. Go, go. Up, up. Please.

He pointed to the doors at the top of the stairs.

—Maria! he roared, and slammed the door.—Maria! Come see who is here!

There was a tall woman waiting when I got to the top of the stairs. Mister Climanis was right behind, shoving my legs with the front wheel.

—Forward and up! Look, Maria. I have here my secret friend. Mister Smart.

—Hello, she said.

—A most important republican man, said Mister Climanis. —With a suitcase that is full of bombs!

She was tall and beautiful.

—Go ’way out of that, she said.

—They’re books, I told her.

—Books? said Mister Climanis.—I misheard.

And he laughed.

She got out of my way and he pushed me through the open door into the kitchen. He parked the bike against the wall outside before he followed me in.

—They are dangerous books, I hope.

She followed him. She patted his black hair, as if to calm him.

—They’re for my granny, I told him.

—See, Maria? he said.—The Irish. They engage in war but still think of family.

—I know, she said.

—Of course, he said.—Maria is Irish. We will drink to Ireland. My home.

He opened a press and took down a bottle of Jameson and I noticed that there were two more bottles left in there when he closed it.

—I am without two things, he said.—Glasses and manners. Mister Smart, I apologise. This is Maria, he said.—This is Maria Climanis, he said proudly.—My wife.

He leaned over the kitchen table and spoke quietly for the first time that night.

—It was my hair, Mister Smart. Maria fell in love with my hair. Is that the truth, Maria?

She’d come back, carrying three glasses.

—Yes, she said.—Without your hair you wouldn’t be half the man, David.

—Not good enough for you.

—No, she said.—Certainly not.

She clinked the glasses.

—They were in the bedroom, she said.—We’re fierce drinkers in this house, Mister Smart. There are glasses everywhere except where they should be.

She dunked them in a bucket of water and wiped them with a corner of her cardigan. She was very young.

—Now, she said as she plonked them on the table.—Off we go.

—The night is young, said Mister Climanis.

—The night is always young when you’re around, David, she said.

—Ah, said Mister Climanis.—I love you so much. Maria is the tallest woman in Ireland, Mister Smart. The only woman with a perfect view of my hair and so. She fell in love.

—That’s true, she said.—When we have babies they’ll nest in your hair.

—Did you hear that, Mister Smart?

—Yes, I said.

He was filling the glasses

—I am in love, Mister Smart, he said.—Every time I see this woman. Every time I hear this woman. Every time I think of this woman, I thank the Russians. We will drink to the Russians.

—I thought we were drinking to Ireland.

—Ireland, yes, said Mister Climanis.—Ireland, Russia, Latvia.

—Don’t forget the United States of America, she said.

—Each one, he said.—Every one.

He swallowed half his glass.

—Alabama, he said.—The night is young.

Mister Climanis was Latvian. I’d met him in Mooney’s on Abbey Street one evening when I’d no meetings or killings and I knew where I was going to sleep and how long it would take me to get there. I was enjoying my own company when a voice and black hair were suddenly sitting beside me.

—You are a strange thing, he said.—An Irishman with no long face.

—The unlucky ones have long faces, I said.—The rest of us are long in other departments.

He laughed, and I liked him. We spoke to each other without getting into a conversation; all strangers were spies and neither of us was lonely. I noticed the shavings on his jacket sleeves.

—You’re a carpenter, I said.

—Pipes, he said.—I make pipes. I make the most beautiful pipes.

And, sure enough, the shavings themselves were beautiful, delicate twirls, babies’ ringlets in different shades and lengths, and all surrounded by a fine dust like dark salt.

—I’d like that, I said.—I’d like to be able to do that.

—Please, he said.—Hold up your hands.

And I did.

—Very steady, he said.—You can do it.

—I’ve other things to do, I said.

—Yes, he said.—Every Irishman has other things to do. You will beat the English because your drinks are better. I will now buy two drinks and then you will buy two. I like this custom.

I met him when I could, when I was in town. He was always in Mooney’s between six and seven o’clock, on his way from work; he liked to cross the river for his pint, to get the air into his lungs and clothes. I began to miss him if I was near Abbey Street and we were unable to meet. He asked for nothing except my company and I loved to listen to him; he told me everything. And I told him everything. I couldn’t understand what was happening to me. It just seemed safe and right. It was in every crease and gesture: he was a good man.

—Mister Smart, he said one night.—I have an Irish wife. And now I have an Irish friend. I thank the Russians for this. For making of me a man with no country.

He lifted his pint.

—The Russians.

—The Reds or the Whites? I said.

—The colour is not significant. You like my new word?

He got me the pipes, one at a time once or twice a week, his idea.

—A man crossing borders must have a job, he said.—You are now a seller of pipes.

—I’m not crossing borders, I said.

—The soldiers and policemen make their own borders, he said.—All my life I have been crossing them.

He held the pipes before me and gave me their names and woods. He handed them over to me, like children he’d never see again. And one night before I got married, I watched him carve my face onto the head of the last, black pipe, the one that would fill the case.

—You are not difficult, he said.—Handsome men have not many features. That is the difference between handsome and beautiful.

—I’m not beautiful, so?

—No, you are not beautiful, Mister Smart.

—Just as well.

—Yes, he said.—We have beautiful women. We do not need beautiful men. There, he said.—Please. Give this pipe to your beautiful wife.

—I will, I said.—Thank you.

—It is not difficult, he said.

And now I was in his flat for the first time, looking at his own beautiful wife.

—Your wife, he said.—Did she like my pipe?

—She loved it, I said.—She leaves it in the window so I’ll know when it’s safe to visit.

—Ah, said Mister Climanis.—Maria, is what my friend, Mister Smart, said, is it romantic?

—God, yes, said Maria.—It’s gorgeous.

—Maria teaches me a new word every day, he said.

—And that too is romantic, she said.

—My wife’s a teacher, I told them.

—Ah, said Mister Climanis.

He opened the press and took down a new bottle.

—To romance. To teachers!

 

 

I was right up against his back when I shot him; his coat killed some of the noise. He was falling when I turned away. It was in his voice, the grunt and half-words that fell out of him, he couldn’t understand what was happening. Four gates away from his home, on his own street, long before dark.

Archer passed me, already aiming his Parabellum. I walked on and heard two more bullets going into Smith, felt them in my legs as Smith was nailed to the pavement. It was late afternoon. Not a traditional killing time, but we were out to terrify the police. There were no safe times or sanctuaries. There was no one on the street, although there were kids somewhere near. I heard doors being slammed and windows, as the gunfire echoed and faded very slowly. Archer was beside me.

—Seven kids, he said as we walked past Smith’s house. —It’s a hard business.

—He was warned to back off, I said.

—I know, said Archer.—I shot the man, didn’t I?

Then we heard him.

—You cowards!

Smith was standing up. He was huge there. Legs apart and holding on to nothing. There was blood pouring off his coat to his feet and trousers. And he stood up even straighter.

I ran back towards him and shot twice. Once into the mess on his chest. Once into his face. It came away from bone and seemed to linger in front of me for the time it took him to fall again. I turned and ran back past his house. No children calling now, nothing except the echoes of my shots. I couldn’t hear my feet on the ground.

Archer turned left. I turned right. The gun burnt my leg through three layers of cloth. The Black Man was at the corner of Drumcondra Road and Fitzroy Avenue. A punch-drunk ex-boxer, he wandered the city and slept where he dropped; made huge by coats and their stink, he waddled through cordons and roadblocks. I dropped the gun into his pocket without looking at him or breaking stride and walked on up Dorset Street.

I was free now, no more vulnerable than any other young man in the city. Another murder that would be made heroic by night-time, another verse added to my song. Another act that would bring undeserved punishment down on top of a city already restless and excited. I took off my trenchcoat - I had no gun to hide - and draped it over my shoulder. Crossleys charged past me. The city was being taken over by young, nervous soldiers with steel helmets and fixed bayonets, kids with English accents, and England was getting further away every day. I straightened my tie. Distant police whistles joined nearer ones. I was a young man on his way home from the office. People dashed to get home before the shake-up, and the raids. I put on a bit of a spurt myself; I didn’t want to look too innocent. I’d meet Mister Climanis and catch up with the Black Man later on, across the city.

I turned onto Gardiner Street and began to run.

 

 

I pedalled, she steered. We rode in from the west, nicely downhill. She sat on the crossbar in front of me.

—How’s your arse?

—Not so bad, she said.

She held the handlebars and my arms were around her, clutching the Thompson. She’d invented it herself, a rack that clipped onto the handlebars and held the gun nice and steady; the cyclist could steer with one hand and fire accurately without slowing down or falling off. I was wearing my riding britches - she’d made me wear them. She was wearing the skirt of her Cumann na mBan uniform - I’d made her wear it.

—No more sandwich making for me, she’d said.

We sailed past jaunting cars and a cart carrying milk churns to the creamery on the other side of town. We’d cased the town the day before; we knew the streets we needed. It was the tail-end of market day. We cycled through drying dung. Ballintubber was still packed but, nicely for us, the post office was at the near edge of the commerce.

—Is the door open?

—It’s wide open, she said.—Like yesterday.

—Hang on tight, so.

As we came up to the door I lifted my arse off the saddle and hoisted the front wheel of the Arseless, to get us over the low step. We collided with no one but frightened them all.

—Brake! I shouted.

And Miss O’Shea did just that, front and back. We stopped dead. I dropped a leg to hold us up, and let go of a short round into a Wanted poster on the wall in front of us. Bodies and shawls hit the deck and slivers of bullet-hot brick pinged and dug in all around us.

—Good morning! I yelled into the thick silence that was left after the screaming and shots.—No messing and there’ll be no one hurt.

—This post office is a relic of the British presence, said Miss O’Shea,—and is now closed.

She hopped from the crossbar as I got off the Arseless on the other side. She held and turned it, front wheel to the door, as I went over to the counter and vaulted it.

She was talking again.

—All you people should subscribe to the National Loan. It’s your patriotic duty and a sound investment. There will soon be republican post offices in place throughout the country. In the meantime, keep your money at home. Notify your local Volunteers of this and you’ll never be robbed.

I grabbed a sack and handed it to the woman on the working side of the counter. She needed no further instructions. She swept everything in front of her with a meaty arm, banknotes, coins, stamps and rubber stamps, money orders and telegram pads, the crust of the jam sandwich she’d been finishing when we’d cycled through her door.

She held out the sack.