A Star Called Henry (46 page)

—Meet his son and heir.

—Good evening, Mister Smart, she said.

—Your father would be proud of you, said Gandon.

—Why did you have Climanis killed?

—Your father would never have asked that question. He was a loyal and obedient servant. Although, admittedly, we never met.

I put the tip of the leg down on his open hand.

—Why did you have him killed?

—He stole something that belonged to me.

—And what about Maria?

—Exactly.

—What?

—She belonged to me.

I hit him again. I whacked his neck but the carpet took the zip out of the swing.

He groaned and quickly laughed.

—I need a bodyguard, Henry. The job’s yours.

—No, thanks.

—Why not? You’ve been working for me for years. Just like your father.

I hit him harder, cleaner.

—All those spies. And you were all so eager to rid me of them.

I hit him.

—Detective Sergeant Smith. You must remember him. Smith of the G Division. You risked your life despatching that greedy tyke. And I never had the opportunity to thank you. Or pay you, for that matter. Let me. Please.

I hit him again.

—You could look after my business interests, Henry. While I steer the ship of state. It would work. It would work very well.

I hit him again.

He wouldn’t give up.

—Kill her, Henry. I’ll reward you handsomely. Dear Dolly.

—What about Annie’s husband?

—Never heard of him.

I hit him again.

—David Climanis says Hello!

I wasn’t angry any more. I was just murdering him. I could have stopped.

—Henry Smart says Hello.

He laughed.

—Maria Climanis says Hello.

He laughed.

I hit him again. I’d broken his head, the carpet was drenched and so was I before he stopped laughing. But still, he wasn’t dead. I could see it in his back, life, intelligence waiting for the chance. There was bone and brains on my trousers and hands before I was certain that it was over and I dropped the leg and stood up straight. My back was killing me.

She was sitting exactly where I’d left her.

—There are two things that I will tell you, she said.

I went to the window and wiped my hands on the curtains. It was busy outside on the street.

—He killed your father.

—Why?

—He knew too much and he was trapped.

—And the other?

—He killed Maria.

—Why?

—An example to the other girls. She came back for a day, her face black and blue, and then she was gone.

—What was her real name?

—Maria. He named her himself.

—I don’t get you.

—Maria Gandon says Hello.

—His daughter?

—In a way. He named them all Maria. It was good for business.

I stood at the bed.

—What’ll you do now? I asked her.

—What I always do, she said.—I am a businesswoman. I must be ready. They will soon close us down and throw us onto the street.

—Who?

—Your friends. The new people.

She pointed to the end of the bed, where Gandon’s body was leaking.

—He would have done it, she said.—You will dispose of him?

—I’ll drag him outside and leave him there, so they’ll find him on the steps of a hoor-house.

—He will be moved.

—Who by?

—By your friends. Or by me. A dead minister on the step would be bad for business. And the morale of the new nation.

—I’ll do it anyway. Did you see the body?

—Which body?

—My father’s.

—No.

—Maybe he got away.

She picked up her glass.

—It’s not impossible, I said.

—No, she said.—It is not impossible.

I nodded at the body.

—It was a waste of time, wasn’t it?

—No, Mister Smart. It was not. I will not charge you for the time.

—Thanks.

—You are welcome.

 

 

I came out of the water behind Kilmainham. Washed, cleaned. A beautiful morning, I felt myself drying even as I hauled myself onto the bank. I’d left the leg in the water, before I’d climbed into the Camac stream from the Liffey. It was well away by now, out in the bay. And I’d be following it soon.

It was still very early but the batch of women holding vigil at the main gate were already buzzing, reciting the rosary. Madame MacBride, Missis Despard, Mary and Annie MacSwiney and some others. Kilmainham was jail now for the diehardwomen and girls; there were three hundred of them in there, locked up by the Free State government. And my wife was one of them.

The women stopped praying when they saw the good-looking wet man standing in front of them.

—I’m looking for Missis Smart, I said.

—Who are you?

—Her husband.

One of the women jumped up.

—This way, she said.

I followed her.

—They love the visits, she said.—It gives them a lift for days. All of them.

She brought me around a corner, under the high wall of the jail, and across the road. She turned and pointed up, across the street and the occasional traffic, over the wall, to one of a row of top-floor windows.

—See that one?

—Yeah.

—Wait now.

She shouted.

—May! May!

I could see now, a head had appeared at the window. I couldn’t see a face; it was too high up the wall.

A shout came back.

—Good morning!

—Get Missis Smart! Her husband’s here to see her. The head disappeared.

—I’ll leave you alone.

—Thanks.

—For what?

I didn’t have to wait long. I saw hair at the window and I recognised it.

—Hello!

—Hello! I yelled.—Can you see me?

—No!

—I’m grand!

—So am I!

—I’m going away!

—Yes!

—I have to!

—I know!

—Look for me!

—Yes!

—She’s beautiful!

—Yes! They let me have a photograph!

—Just beautiful!

—Yes!

—Like you!

—Ah now!

—What’s her name!?

—Saoirse!

—Oh!

—D’you like it!?

—Yes!

—I have to go! They’re coming to drag me away!

—Look for me!

—I will!

—Look for me!

She was gone.

And so was I. I’d killed my last man.

When I went past them, the gate women were huddled around a paper.

—The boys are after getting O’Gandúin, said Mary MacSwiney.

She wasn’t upset.

—Last night, the woman who’d shown me the window told me.—Coming home from his sodality. He must have been in a state of grace, all the same. Or near enough to it.

Another martyr for old Ireland.

I was going. I couldn’t stay here. Every breath of its stale air, every square inch of the place mocked me, grabbed at my ankles. It needed blood to survive and it wasn’t getting mine. I’d supplied it with plenty.

I’d start again. A new man. I had money to get me to Liverpool and a suit that didn’t fit. I had a wife I loved in jail and a daughter called Freedom I’d held only once. I didn’t know where I was going. I didn’t know if I’d get there.

But I was still alive. I was twenty. I was Henry Smart.

I could not have written
A Star Called Henry
without the information, ideas, images, phrases, maps, photographs and song lyrics I found in the following books. To their authors, thank you.

 

Kevin C. Kearns,
Dublin Tenement Life: An Oral History
; Ernie O’Malley,
On Another Man’s Wound
; Robert Kee,
Ourselves Alone
; Robert Brennan,
Allegiance
; Peter Hart,
The I. R. A. and its Enemies: Violence and Community in Cork, 1916-1923
; W. J. Brennan Whitmore,
Dublin Burning
; Peter de Rosa,
Rebels
; eds. Adrian and Sally Warwick-Haller,
Letters from Dublin, Easter 1916: Alfred Fanin’s Diary of the Rising
; Max Caulfield,
The Easter Rebellion
; Piaras F. MacLochlainn,
Last Words: Letters and Statements of the Leaders Executed after the Rising at Easter 1916
; Padraic O’Farrell,
Who’s Who in the Irish War of Independence and Civil War 1916-1923
; Sinead McCoole,
Guns and Chiffon
; Margaret Ward,
Unmanageable Revolutionaries: Women and Irish Nationalism
; Erica Bauermeister, Jesse Larsen & Holly Smith,
500 Great Books by Women: A Reader’s Guide
; Richard English,
Ernie O’Malley: I. R. A. Intellectual
; Dermot Keogh,
Jews in Twentieth-Century Ireland
; Tim Pat Coogan,
Michael Collins
; Clair L. Sweeney,
The Rivers of Dublin
; J. W. de Courcy,
The Liffey in Dublin
; James Plunkett,
Strumpet City
; James Joyce,
Dubliners
and
Ulysses
; Francis Stuart,
Black List, Section H
; Dan Breen,
My Fight For Irish Freedom
; Richard Bennett,
The Black and Tans
; John Finegan,
Honor Bright and Nighttown
; J. J. Lee,
Ireland 1912-1985: Politics and Society
; Luc Sante,
Low Life
; Peter Somerville-Large,
Dublin: The Fair City
; eds. F. H. A. Aalen & Kevin Whelan,
Dublin: From Prehistory to Present
; Jacinta Prunty,
Dublin Slums 1800-1925: A Study in Urban Geography.