When Shadows Fall (10 page)

“Nonsense, it’s easy,” Duncan assured him. “Come on up here, old boy, and have a go.”

“What’s wrong, Adam? Worried you’ll butcher it?” Allister simpered.

“Not at all.” Adam took a sup of wine and stood up. He clasped the knife in his right hand, and with his left he slid the skewer deep into the soft meat.

“There you have it,” Duncan nodded.

With the carving knife he opened the joint and cut a slice. Too thick, it landed like a slab in the juice.

“A little bit tighter,” Duncan encouraged him. “That’s it, nice and trim. Like surgery.”

Surgery.

Adam cleared his throat. The inner slices were a reddish brown, staining the white platter. He cut a few more slices and the meat piled up, like cleaved ruddy flesh. A silence had fallen round the table. The juice was a dreadful colour, he thought, looking for all the world like . . .

“Adam?” Duncan peered at him. “Are you all right, old boy? You’ve gone as pale as a ghost.”

The imagery was as unexpected as it was unbidden.

Shreds of flesh hanging upon barbed wire like dried meat; pools of mulberry blood; limbs swallowed into the sucking mud.

His hands shook.

“Adam?”

“Here, Duncan.” He thrust the utensils back at him. “I’m too clumsy at this. You take over.”

“Everything all right, Adam?” Quentin asked.

“Yes, of course.” Adam stumbled back to his seat and took another gulp of wine. “Come on then, Duncan. Finish it off. I’ve got a mighty appetite rumbling in my belly.”

“Any more of that wine and you won’t be able to taste it,” Marjorie warned.

“I’m fine.”

“I think we’re about ready.” Duncan made a deft job of cutting the joint. “Lizzie! Oh, there you are, Lizzie. Be a good girl and serve, will you?”

The beef was well flavoured and tender, and several moments of quietness passed while they gave it their appreciation. Adam realised he’d drank three full glasses of wine now, and he didn’t even like wine. There was a fuzzy heat behind his eyes. His head danced.

Duncan was the noisiest eater at the table. He kept going when everybody else had finished, devouring slice after slice, mopping up the gravy with chunks of bread and cramming them into his mouth. Somehow he managed to stand after it all, and he beamed around at the ensemble.

“I’ll not linger on ceremony, folks, for this is a family gathering. But briefly, on behalf of us all, let me extend a welcome home to Adam here, and may the Lord be thanked that my brave brother has escaped the depredations of the Hun, safe and sound.”

There was a warm murmur of agreement, except for Allister, who was studying the contents of his handkerchief with some alarm.

“Adam chose to follow in noble footsteps,” Duncan continued. “Whilst more recent generations of our family have chosen the scholarly avenues, there is a long and proud history of Bowens serving king and country upon foreign battlefields. There was a Bowen at Waterloo, Kandahar, Rorke’s Drift, El Teb, to name but a few.” He belched suddenly and monstrously. “Whoops. Excuse me, ladies. But where was I? Ah yes, in the great moments of history.”

It went on for some minutes as Duncan extolled the virtues and achievements of their lineage, and he finished by asking them to raise their glasses and be upstanding. They toasted Adam, victory, King George V, and old England.

“There, now.” Duncan sank gratefully into his chair. “Now we can relax.”

“Touching stuff indeed.” Allister’s voice betrayed neither sarcasm nor sincerity.

Duncan mopped his brow. “Now, how about tea for the ladies, some brandies for the gentlemen. Where’s Lizzie?”

“You’re not going to smoke those infernal cigars in here, are you, Duncan?” Sarah complained.

“But of course I am, my dear.”

Later the conversation moved closer to home.

“They’re damned Bolsheviks, I tell you.” Duncan thumped the table in anger. “Bolsheviks! Russia has spread a poison.”

A police barracks on Bray Road had been attacked the previous week by members of the outlawed IRA, the latest affront in the gathering storm of insurrection.

“You’ll remember that awful rebellion when you were back on furlough, Adam,” Quentin reminded him. “1916, and all the rest of the bother.”

Adam nodded. All the Irish soldiers in France had been stumped at the news. In 1916, Irish rebels had proclaimed an independent republic on the steps of the General Post Office, whereupon Dublin was plunged into a series of bloody street battles between British soldiers and the Irish Volunteers. It ended with British gunboats sailing up the River Liffey and shelling the city into ruins. The surviving rebel leaders were executed by firing squad, an action that had divided many in the Irish regiments.

“They thought they’d put the fire out then,” Quentin sighed, “but the English fanned the flames themselves, didn’t they? Then Sinn Féin of course had that whopping electoral victory in ’18.” Sinn Féin was the leading Irish republican party, dedicated to achieving full Irish independence from Britain.

“And haven’t the rascals formed their own government now?” Duncan chortled. “Dáil Éireann, they call the little outfit. And this fellow Michael Collins running his own private army. Damn their impudence, I say. Fellows spouting the nonsense of liberty, fellows with the liberty of nonsense.”

The Sinn Féin members, upon winning a record seventy-three seats in the Irish elections to Westminster, refused to recognise the legitimacy of British parliamentary power over Ireland and instead formed a government of their own, of the as yet unattained Irish Republic, headed by a de facto president, Eamon de Valera. Michael Collins, who had also won a seat in the British parliament and refused to take it, was now believed to be a director of intelligence for the IRA, and he was running the paramilitary organisation with ever-increasing effectiveness.

“They’re terrorists, it’s as simple as that,” Allister said. “And they will be given their dues.”

“I’d guess they’re just tired of the English telling them what to do,” Adam suggested.

“Hah!” Duncan snorted. “As if they could better govern themselves. Billy O’Blarney carrying his pitchfork into parliament. The Irish are not mature enough for it. They never have been.”

“I don’t understand, Duncan.” Adam looked at him. “Aren’t
we
Irishmen?”

Duncan smiled easily. “Ah yes. But we’re the best kind of Irishmen, Adam. The
English
kind.”

By eleven o’clock, Duncan had overindulged on the brandy somewhat. When he announced that he must demonstrate his hornpipe upon the table, they quickly intervened and coaxed him to bed. Marjorie and Sarah had already retired, and Quentin went soon after. Allister was staying the night too, and just as Adam went to seek his bedroom, Allister sidled up and grasped his arm.

“I wonder if I might have a word,” he said. “Now that we’re in private.”

Adam stared pointedly at Allister’s hand on his arm, until the latter released it. “What’s on your mind, Allister?”

“I wanted to, you know, clarify any possible misunderstanding. Duncan was probably a bit hasty earlier in what he said.”

“Oh?”

“Yes, I don’t think he would have thought it through. I wouldn’t like you to be disappointed.”

“Are you referring to Duncan’s offer that I work at the firm?”

Allister plucked a napkin from the table to wipe his hands. “Not quite an offer as such, though, was it? More a suggestion—and an ill-considered one at that.”

“I don’t know. I’m rather tempted.” That was a lie, for he wanted to find an occupation that didn’t involve working under his brothers, but Allister’s anxious hand-wringing was amusing to watch.

“Now, look.” Allister’s face coloured. “There is no place for you there. Duncan and I manage everything. You’ll have to find something else.”

The proposal was genuinely attractive all of a sudden, and Adam said, “Why don’t we see what Duncan has in mind first, eh? He’s the man in charge, after all.”

“Yes. And I’m second. Don’t forget that.”

Adam gave him a dark smile. “And I’m sick of taking orders that I don’t like. Good night, Allister.” He headed for his bedroom.

Allister used the napkin to blow his nose. “We’ll see,” he murmured in Adam’s wake.

The house in Dalkey, for all its glorious setting and charm, soon made Adam long for the company of his men, his relative freedom in France. Instead he had his mother’s sharp scrutiny and Quentin’s good-natured fussing to contend with on most days, the combination of which quickly proved maddening. His only outlet of escape was a walk on the beach or a visit to one of the taverns in the village, and as the empty days piled up one after another, he realised he needed a change fast or he would lose his wits.

One day, whilst passing an estate agent’s window in Dalkey, he spotted a number of notices advertising houses and flats for letting. The young lady working inside was happy to show him a list of all the available units on their books, and before long Adam was discussing deposits and terms of lease.

“What an utter waste of money,” Marjorie sniffed upon hearing his plans. “This is your home. You’ve only been back a few weeks, and you want to move already?”

“Mother, I’m twenty-five years old, not a child. You don’t want me under your feet forever, do you?”

“Of course not. But you could have stayed until you were better settled. How on earth are you to pay for this . . . this bedsit, or whatever it is?”

“It’s a furnished one-bedroom flat on Leeson Street and quite nice, in fact. I have enough saved from my officer’s salary to cover the first few months’ rent. I’ll be fine.”

“You’re in need of an occupation. Have you given any more thought to Duncan’s proposals?”

“I have, Mother.” He consoled himself that it wouldn’t be forever—he had no intention of enduring the tedium of the legal world for any longer than necessary—but for now the regular income would be welcome. “I’m going to take up the offer and go work for Duncan. I’ll let him know as soon as I see him again.”

“Hmm, that’s something at least,” Marjorie acknowledged. “But it’s all very sudden. When are you planning on leaving us?”

“Quite soon, actually.”

Within the fortnight he had paid up a deposit and the first month’s rent to the agency, and he used Quentin’s car to move what few belongings he possessed to the flat. Closer to the city centre, it was small but clean, newly wallpapered, and with a rear view over the grassy island of St. Stephen’s Green. Duncan and Sarah gave him a French-made wall clock to help lift the austere Edwardian furnishings. Marjorie sent new bed linen and dinnerware from Brown Thomas. Allister hadn’t been heard from, not since Adam announced his decision to join Bowen & Associates.

“Don’t worry about him,” Duncan insisted. “Allister’s a professional. He’s anxious only that nobody lets down the good standards of the firm.”

“Allister’s a jealous little schemer,” Adam replied, “and he’s had a grudge against me ever since I stole Molly Lucey from him that time at the garden fete in Howth. Or ever since I could hit the cricket ball farther than he could. Or drive the motorcar before his feet could even reach the pedals.”

“Molly who? Good-looking piece, was she?”

“I can’t remember,” Adam sighed. “But Allister remembers everything.”