Amongst Women (3 page)

‘Mary was a topper,’ McQuaid said with emotion. ‘Only for Mary that day our goose was cooked. She was a bloody genius to think of giving the food to the men on the bank. She’s married to a carpenter in Dublin now. She has several children.’

Moran poured more whiskey into the empty glass.

‘Are you sure you won’t chance a drop?’ McQuaid raised his glass. ‘It’s no fun drinking on your own.’

‘I couldn’t handle it,’ Moran said. ‘You know that. I had to give it up. Now I couldn’t look at it.’

‘I shouldn’t have asked you then.’

‘I don’t mind. I don’t mind at all.’

The reminiscing continued – the deaths of friends, one man marching alone through the night, the terrible hard labour it was for some men to die, night marches from one safe house to another, the rain, the wet, the damp, the cold of waiting for an ambush in one place for hours.

‘We had them on the run by then. They were afraid to venture out except in convoys.’

‘People who would have spat in our faces three years before were now clapping our backs. They were falling over one another to get on the winning side.’

‘Many of them who had pensions and medals and jobs later couldn’t tell one end of a gun from the other. Many of the men who had actually fought got nothing. An early grave or the emigrant ship. Sometimes I get sick when I see what I fought for,’ Moran said.

‘It makes no sense your not taking the IRA pension. You earned it. You could still have it in the morning,’ McQuaid said.

‘I’d throw it in their teeth,’ Moran clenched and unclenched his hands as he spoke.

‘I never question the colour of any man’s money. If I’m offered it I take it,’ but Moran was too consumed to respond and McQuaid went on. ‘Then it began to get easier. We hadn’t to hide any longer. One hot day I remember leaving guns and clothes along the river bank and swimming without a stitch on. Another Sunday we went trolling, dragging an otter behind the boat. Then they tried to bring in the general.’

‘He wasn’t a general. He was a trumped-up colonel.’

‘Whatever he was we settled his hash,’ McQuaid gloated. ‘You had a great head on you the way you thought the plan through from beginning to end. You’ve been wasted ever since.’

‘Without you it would never have worked. You were as cool as if you were out for a stroll,’ Moran said.

‘You could plan. You worked it out from beginning to end. None of the rest of us had that kind of head.’

‘We had spies. We had men in the town for weeks. They were bringing the big fellow in on the three o’clock train. They were going to put on the big show. They had a band and a guard of honour outside the station, their backs to a row of railwaymen’s cottages. They never checked the cottages.’

‘They wouldn’t have found us anyhow.’

‘Nibs McGovern met that train every day with his trolley to pick up the papers and the Boland loaves that the shops got for special customers. He was such a fixture that no one noticed him any more. It fell into our hands.’

‘Looking back on it the plan couldn’t have been simpler but we must have rehearsed it forty times. We all slipped into town after dark. Only Tommy Flood, the solicitor’s clerk, gave any trouble.’

‘Then we nabbed Nibs,’ McQuaid laughed. ‘Just as he was getting ready to go out on the town. We were lucky there as well. Nibs didn’t go to any one pub in particular. Nibs was no trouble. He could think quick enough when he had to. We gave him whiskey and hadn’t to tie him up till the morning and that was only for his own good.’

‘Then there was the waiting,’ Moran said violently.

‘I’ll never forget it. Dressed up in Nibs’s gear,’ McQuaid said. ‘The clothes were fit to stand up on their own, they were that stiff with dust and grease. The waiting was terrible. It’s like getting old. Nothing happens and then the whole bloody thing is on top of you before you know it. The Tommies marching to the station. The band. Sound of the train getting closer and before I knew it I was out on that street pushing the trolley. The wheels were so loose I was afraid they’d fall off. The one thing we never thought of was to check the wheels. The overcoat was buttoned over the gun and the grenade. Even in the middle of summer Nibs wore that overcoat.’

‘I had the stopwatch on you from behind one of the windows. I followed every step. I was afraid you’d get to the slope too soon. I was afraid you could run into our fire if you got too far up on the slope.’

‘The gates were closed. The train came puffing in. The fucking band struck up “God Save the King”. There were three fir trees beside the platform. They said they never grew right because of the smoke and steam. The sergeant major was shouting. They were all standing to attention. The colonel or general or whatever he was came down the platform. There was another officer with him holding a sword upright. I kept pushing the trolley, praying to Jesus the bloody wheels wouldn’t come loose. No one even looked at me or the trolley. The pair came along inspecting the troops. The one holding the sword was young. The colonel was a big stoutish man with red eyebrows. All I remember thinking of as I pushed the trolley and looked at the red face and eyebrows was, My friend, you are about to take the longest journey a man ever takes in this life. He took the full blast. The other man was still holding the sword upright as he went down. I pulled the pin out of the grenade. The line of soldiers was still half standing to attention when I went through them. I hadn’t to use the revolver. As soon as I got to the other side of the bank I threw myself down and started to roll.’

‘That’s all I was watching for. As soon as I saw you go down I gave the order to fire,’ Moran said. ‘Some of them were still standing to attention as they fell. They hadn’t a clue where the fire was coming from. Then a few soldiers up at the goods store fired into their own men.’

‘By the time I rolled to the bottom of the slope I could see the steady fire coming from the windows. I waited to get my breath before cutting across the road. I don’t think I was fired on once. The first thing I did when I got behind the houses was to get out of Nibs’s clothes.’

‘They were beginning to fire back from behind the station. Michael Sweeney was hit in the shoulder. I gave the order to file out. Myles Reilly and McDermott stayed at the windows. They were our two best riflemen. When we got to Donoghue’s Cross the road was cut and trees knocked. We waited for Reilly and McDermott at the cross. Then we split up, half of us for the safe houses round the lakes and the rest of us headed into the mountains. We mightn’t have bothered.’

‘They were afraid to put their heads out and when they did they came in a whole convoy, shooting at women and children.’

‘They were never the same again,’ Moran said. ‘News of it spread throughout the whole country.’

‘You had a great head on you, Michael,’

‘Only for you it couldn’t have come to anything.’

‘I remember clearer than yesterday his eyebrows. Not often you see an Englishman with red eyebrows. I had so much time to look at him I can hardly believe it still, pushing the trolley, standing up in Nibs’s clothes. I had already loosened the overcoat and was thinking as I looked at him, This very minute you are going on the longest journey a man ever takes and you haven’t a frigging clue. Then I fired.’

‘I was watching you with the stopwatch.’

‘We didn’t have to split up that day. They were afraid of their shite to come out of the towns. The country was ours again. Next we had the Treaty. Then we fought one another.’

‘Look where it brought us. Look at the country now. Run by a crowd of small-minded gangsters out for their own good. It was better if it never had happened.’

‘I couldn’t agree with that,’ McQuaid said. ‘The country is ours now anyhow. Maybe the next crowd will be better than this mixture of druids and crooks that we’re stuck with.’

‘Leave the priests out of it,’ Moran said sharply.

‘I’ll leave nobody out of it. They all got on our backs.’

Moran did not answer. An angry brooding silence filled the room. McQuaid felt for the authority he had slowly made his own over the years, an authority that had outgrown Moran’s. He would not move. Moran rose and went outside. McQuaid did not respond to him in any way when he came in again.

When Maggie returned she found them locked in the strained silence. Beforehand she had combed her hair by the light of the flashlamp, smoothed and rearranged her clothes but even if she hadn’t Moran would not have noticed this evening. At once, in the silence, she began to make tea and sandwiches. Mona came down from upstairs and after whispering with Maggie disappeared again upstairs with a small jug of milk and some sandwiches. At last, out of the silence, Moran noticed McQuaid’s glass was empty and attempted to pour him more whiskey.

‘Cap it,’ McQuaid said and covered his glass with his hand.

‘There were years when you were able for most of the bottle.’

‘Those years are gone. We’ll have the tea Maggie is making.’

Reluctantly Moran screwed the cap back on the bottle and returned it behind the curtains of the medicine press. The tone in which
Cap
it
had been said smarted like a cut.

‘Do you remember Eddie McIniff in Maguire’s garden on night watch?’ McQuaid asked. ‘He could see all the roads from Maguire’s garden. We were watching in case the Tans would try to infiltrate the lakes at night. Eddie used to shoot a lot of duck and could stand like a stone. One of the Maguire girls – Ellie or Molly, I think it was Molly, they were all fine looking, tall women – came out to do her morning business and hunkered down under an apple tree a few feet away from Eddie. All Eddie did was to wait a bit and then lean over without a sound and lay the gun barrel across her back cheeks. I’d love to have seen her face when she jumped,’ McQuaid laughed out loud. ‘There must be nothing colder on a bare arse than a gun barrel that was out all night.’

Moran did not laugh. He looked helpless with the weight of his own disapproval. His two thumbs rotated about one another as they always did when he was agitated and looking for a way to strike.

‘McIniff was blackguard enough to do that but you’d think that at least he’d be ashamed to tell it.’

‘What was it but fun?’ McQuaid brushed the criticism aside. ‘Didn’t you have something to do with one of those Maguire girls? The rest of us had to scrape and scrounge for the girls, Michael, but whatever you had they always fell into your hands like ripe plums.’

‘That was all talk,’ Moran said, angry as ever at any baring of the inviolate secrecy he instinctively kept around himself.

‘Your father was a hard man for the women in his day,’ McQuaid said addressing the two girls.

‘I think Mr McQuaid does himself less than credit with that talk,’ Moran said with quiet dignity.

‘There’s even rumours that you’re courting again. Are you thinking of taking the plunge, Michael?’

Moran held a pointed silence. The girls brought tea and sandwiches.

‘Ah, these girls will make some man happy,’ McQuaid said. ‘But you’re a brave man, Michael. If anything were to happen to my old dosey I’m afraid I’d live out my days in peace.’

The girls were able to laugh openly at last without any risk. The idea of the fat old cattle dealer emerging as a romantic possibility was so preposterous that even Moran smiled.

‘I’d take that pension, Michael. You earned it. Take what they’ll give you. Never question the colour of money.’ The talk turned to easier waters as they drank tea.

‘I’ve got on without it long enough. Why should I take it from them now?’ It was plain from the blustering way he spoke that he wasn’t so sure.

‘It never did me no harm. There were times when I was starting in at the cattle that it stood between me and the road. It doesn’t make much difference now but a hell of a sight of worse things come through the letterbox at the end of every month.’

‘I was thinking of taking it,’ Moran admitted.

‘Wouldn’t it buy something for the girls here or put someone through school even if you didn’t want to take it for yourself? You should have taken it years ago. In this world you don’t exist without money. And there might never be another world.’ McQuaid could not resist this hit at Moran’s religiosity.

‘Man proposes …’ Moran said darkly.

‘And God stays out of it,’ McQuaid twisted round the old saw.

The girls had washed and put away the cups and plates, covered the few squares of sandwiches that remained with a damp cloth. ‘Mr McQuaid’s room is ready,’ Maggie said as they prepared to take their leave for the night. ‘The bed is aired.’

‘Oh, I forgot,’ McQuaid said hastily. ‘I have to be hitting the road any minute now. I should have told you earlier but it must have slipped the old mind.’

Moran did not protest. Covertly, leaning far back in his chair, he watched McQuaid from under hooded eyelids: in all the years they had been coming together on Monaghan Day McQuaid had always spent the night in the house.

‘I told my old lady I’d be home,’ McQuaid lied as he rose. ‘Otherwise she’d have gone over to one of the boys. She gets afraid on her own in the house at night.’

Having waited long enough to see if they were needed, the two girls went up to Moran and kissed him on the lips as they did every night.

‘Good night, Mr McQuaid,’ they offered their hand.

‘That was a great meal. Ye are a great pair of girls. If you ever get up our way call in to see my old lassie,’ he took and held their hands.

‘Good night, Mr McQuaid,’ they repeated awkwardly before leaving the two men alone.

McQuaid sat down but almost immediately rose again. As on all the other Monaghan Days stretching far back he had come intending to stay the night. Tonight a growing irritation at Moran’s compulsion to dominate, to have everything on his own terms or not at all, had hardened into a sudden decision to overturn the years and quit the house at once. As soon as Moran saw McQuaid on his feet again he knew the evening, all the evenings, were about to be broken up and he withdrew back into himself. He would neither plead with him to stay nor help him with his leaving.

As soon as McQuaid met Moran’s domination of the evening with this sudden violence he was anxious to be conciliatory. ‘Well, thanks for the meal and evening, Michael. It was a great evening.’