The Last Storyteller

  I had the presence of mind to use the washroom and eat breakfast. Watching everything that moved. From a table in the corner. Behind a newspaper.

  I can cut this short by telling you what you already know: I didn’t find her, not at Dublin Airport nor in Dublin, not at all.

  And I never found her. I gave up looking for her. What was the point? Where could she have been? Once I had established later that day that you, Ben and Louise, hadn’t heard from her, what else could I have done?

  All kinds of possibilities crossed my mind, from doom to deliberate. Death or abduction? Not death, no; she still had that life force. Abduction? In which case I knew whom to blame.

  From this moment you can track my thoughts. You knew Jack Stirling better than I did; you lived with him for all of your formative years. Did he have enough cunning to find us and take Venetia? Yes, he did. And didn’t he have friends who looked less than sanitary? Yes, he did. And didn’t he have a motive? Yes, he did. I had humiliated him, and so had Venetia—at least I bet he thought so. So I called you—remember?

  “How’s Mom?” you asked, and I knew that you didn’t know.

  You told me long afterward how he raged after that snatch from the Olympia stage. I’d have raged, too, in his shoes. Trouble was: if, while so motivated and furious, he had found Venetia and taken her—what would he now do to her?

  Hello, obsession, my old friend. Here we go again. Don’t look for her; look for him. And we hadn’t even “completed” John Jacob’s legend.

  112

  If I had known the truth, would I have behaved differently? No. Hatred had set in. My spirit fed off it. That’s an admission of baseness—that I should harbor such a feeling. I tried to justify it to myself by saying, Big tree, big shadow; big love, big hate. It gave me temporary ease.

  Jealousy drove it. And a sense of inferiority. Venetia had gone back to him because he had come and found her. Enticed her away. And I hadn’t done that—at least, not soon enough. Worse, she preferred the urgency of his violent attention to the quiet of my peaceful care.

  So I sat alone in Miss Fay’s house and brooded and plotted. I didn’t let myself do much else all day. When, two days later, the pair of you didn’t return my calls or reply to my notes, and when I couldn’t find you because you had moved from your digs—that confirmed my fear. And my fury. The “family” had come back together again. My search began—for him, not for her.

  If he wasn’t working Dublin, where was he? He had canceled, you said. But somehow I knew that he hadn’t gone back to the States. You might have done; that was possible—but I felt that he hadn’t. And I gambled on that.

  The National Library took in all the Irish provincial newspapers, most of them weekly. I began to trawl them, working in that benign room with the green lampshades on each small table.

  Week after week, nothing. The Westmeath Examiner, the Kerryman, the Connacht Tribune, the Anglo-Celt—every Monday I flipped through more than a dozen newspapers. North, south, east, and west. Some appeared on Thursdays, some on Fridays, typically in time for the advertisers to hit Saturday shoppers. All carried notices of entertainments in towns, cities, villages.

  It looked as though Jack had stopped working. Then I changed my mind and assumed that he had returned to the United States. With Venetia. With all of you. Then I changed back again, and kept searching. Partly because of my obsessive nature (well honed, you might say, in the years of holding your mother in my heart!) and partly because of a hunch. He had to eat. He liked to perform. He had an independent air, and enough aggression to carry on his life.

  I found him. A pub conversation, overheard late at night, near Dublin, alerted me. Two men had come back from a soccer game in Liverpool, but the night before they’d also gone to a variety show there, and Jack had topped the bill. I muscled in by saying with enthusiasm that I had seen that show.

  They’d loved it, and people like to share unusual delights. Did he have that gorgeous assistant? No, they replied, but he’d apologized and said she’d soon be back with him. When I asked whether he was returning to Ireland, they said that he had a week to play in Liverpool and was then playing in Cork sometime soon. Two days later, I headed south, giving myself plenty of time. My tool kit in the car contained a hammer as well as a tire iron and a large screwdriver.

  The soccer men had the dates wrong; he didn’t appear for a further month—but, in the uncertain and casual way of things in Ireland, he was “expected any day.” He had booked gigs in some halls, one theater, and one pub. I prowled the shores of the south coast, beachcombing, watching the seabirds, making tracks in the sand, and waiting for the tide to erase them.

  And then I began to consider his arrival in Ireland. Would he be with Venetia? Would he cross to Dublin? Or would he take a ship directly from Liverpool to Cork? Freighters still offered passenger berths on such routes. Convinced that one day I’d see both of them step onto the docks somewhere, I haunted the Cork quayside.

  Days and nights of watching arrivals according to shipping schedules, the damp, the cold, the gloomy half-light, the little whores soliciting me, their attempted finery making them look like birds with ragged plumage—I lived a twilit life, fueled by hate and revenge. Whether this would bring Venetia back, I didn’t care. Whether I wanted her back, I didn’t know.

  The changeable weather of the south coast made life at least interesting. I visited old haunts, found ancient battlefields I’d always wanted to inspect, met one or two of my old storytelling friends. I always asked if any of them had ever met or heard John Jacob O’Neill. None had, though all said the name sounded familiar; some reported hearing of him from a friend of a friend of a friend. I had no thought of visiting him, no thought of shedding this obsession. In my pocket I kept a newspaper cutting that said, “GENTLEMAN JACK COMING TO CORK.” That piece of newsprint fell apart from being opened and folded again.

  One evening around six o’clock, with a strong wind whipping up the waters of the River Lee, and Patrick Street crowded with home-going workers, I saw him. In a crowd ahead of me I recognized the thin shoulders in the white raincoat he had worn in Templemore. Him. No doubt of it. Gentleman Jack Stirling.

  Was he alone? I couldn’t see. I crossed the street and hurried, got parallel, then ahead, then far ahead. When I got to Grand Parade, I turned back to make sure. No doubt of it. Him.

  Now the stalking began in earnest, and it went on for days. I discovered where he was lodging: a small, musty hotel on South Main Street near French’s Quay. He went there that evening, his head bent against the wind, and closed the glass door behind him. I watched from across the street, like a spy, but saw no upstairs light; he must have had a room at the back—probably wouldn’t or couldn’t pay for anything better.

  He didn’t appear again that evening. At midnight I searched the area for a suitable, unnoticeable place from which to observe the hotel. The next morning I returned, to the inside of a deserted warehouse, where I could move boards from a window on the upper floor.

  At noon he emerged, alone. He walked no more than a few yards, to a pub along the street. I sat back and waited. At half past four he reappeared and set out in the opposite direction. I followed, and for the next hour he walked across Cork, always choosing crowded places. An observer who knew nothing of the story would have said that he seemed to be looking for somebody. He examined every person who walked near him; from the far side of the street I couldn’t tell whether he scrutinized men more than women.

  When the workers petered out, he turned back. I followed him all the way to his seedy hotel. He didn’t reemerge that night.

  The pattern I’ve just described continued for one week. Eight days, to be exact. He walked. I followed. He returned. I watched. How fortunate that I needed so little sleep. And as my surveillance continued, I became ever more persuaded that he, too, might be looking for somebody.

  No trace of Venetia. I tried not to include that fact in my plans. Nor did I worry that something might be amiss. Wh
atever her emotional volatility with me, and however meekly she had submitted to his abuses, her life force had remained intact. I’d seen that, and I felt that I knew her life force better than anybody.

  Except, of course, the two of you, her children. Yet children don’t always know the essence of their parents. It took me decades to establish anything like a true knowledge of my mother and father.

  I must point out to you that in all this stalking I never wavered. In my mellow older age now, I feel appalled at myself for this, but I’ve enjoyed my guilty pleasure in the moments when this plan worked—the surprise on his face, the anger, the embarrassment. (As to whether I’ve forgiven myself for other things—we shall come to that.)

  Here’s how it played out, and I’ll conceal nothing, not even the parts that do me no credit. I scoured the Cork newspapers, especially the Echo, which carried even the most local of entertainments. At last the announcement appeared: “Direct from His Resounding Success in London and Liverpool: The Sensational Gentleman Jack. Come and Be Mesmerized.” In the Father Mathew Hall on a Sunday night. I bought a ticket that day. It sold out two days later.

  Now I could open the special valise I had packed so carefully in Dublin. Heavy spectacles, gabardine raincoat, a tweed hat: nothing in my appearance would connect me to the man he’d seen in Templemore or on the stage of the Olympia Theatre. He wouldn’t be expecting somebody so old. The cotton wool I’d stuffed into my cheeks changed my appearance so much that my landlady in Cork passed me in the street without acknowledgment.

  113

  How carefully I had planned.

  Don’t be the first to sit in the hall. Move in with the main body of the crowd. Just in case he’s around the place. Or looking from behind the curtain. Seats are first come, first served. Which is good. Keep calm. Remember why you’re here. Remember the tactic. Don’t touch the hammer until you’re about to use it.

  I sound deranged, don’t I? Psychopathic. If you think so, I can’t blame you. But remember what I was doing and you may feel better about it. I wasn’t simply scoring revenge for myself—consider the mistreatment of your mother. Excessive of me? Perhaps. But what is it you used to say, Louise, that made me laugh? You ain’t see nuthin’ yet.

  Around me, the chairs filled. The singsong of the Cork accent rang like the bells of Shandon. Does everybody in this city know everybody else?

  In a sequined jacket, and pants with a wide red stripe down the side of the leg, he bounded out. Bowing and smiling. The bastard.

  Some patter: “I hear you have a newspaper here called the Cork Examiner. Is it for the drink trade?” Yeah, yeah, the old jokes are best. I tried to stop myself from grinding my teeth, a habit of tension and fear. “What do you call a Corkman who hangs from the ceiling? Sean Doleer.” They loved it. “I knew a Corkman once who used to bounce off the walls. His name was Rick O’Shea.” Some jeers. But overwhelmingly cheers. We’ll soon change that.

  He began with the pickpocket routine, and I have to admit that it dazzled me. Neckties, shoelaces, purses from within handbags, wallets from inside pockets—how did he do it? Coins, even, from deep in pants pockets, and a bunch of keys from a jacket; I watched like a hawk, but I never saw. No wonder he kept repeating his main tagline, “The quickness of the hand deceives the eye.”

  Talk, though, helped him most. He pattered and chattered, usually with a personal remark at the moment of striking. As he distracted a woman with a comment about her “lovely hands,” he lifted her necklace. As he asked a man about the fear of going bald, he took his belt.

  Who can resist brilliance? And your stepfather, the late Gentleman Jack Stirling, was brilliant. The audience knew it, too, and ate him up. Lines formed in the aisles; after the first ten minutes he didn’t have to call for volunteers anymore.

  No intermission—which surprised me; he went straight into the hypnotism routine with an overt change of gear.

  “Now, ladies and gentlemen, did you ever hear of a man named Dr. Mesmer? No? But you have heard of people being mesmerized? Well, tonight I’m going to be your Dr. Mesmer, He’s the man who invented it; I’m going to mesmerize you—in fact, I’m going to mesmerize all of you. The entire audience.”

  They hooted. And then they laughed, because next he said, “And while you are in a hypnotic trance and under my influence, each and every one of you will get up, go out, cross the street to that pub over there, and buy a drink for yourself. And bring one back for me.”

  As they finished laughing he said, “Only joking, ladies and gentlemen. But you will see some remarkable things. And I have to warn you: if you suffer from a heart complaint—other than love, of course—or are of a nervous disposition; don’t come up here. But if you’re a bank manager, come up right away—I need the money. Now, who’s going to be first? No takers, no? Very well.”

  I knew what would happen next. Selecting seven people from the front rows, he stood them all up and soon had them sawing instruments while he sang, “On the Street Where You Live” from My Fair Lady. He conducted the imaginary instruments in perfect time.

  When the applause ended he called for a volunteer. I waited. A young woman, pushed by her giggling friends, ran up.

  Gentleman Jack said, “You look like a lamb to me. Are you a lamb?”

  She shook her head, still in the giggles. “No, sir.”

  “I think you are.” She had bobbly blond hair. “Ladies and gentlemen, doesn’t she look like a lamb? Yes, she does.”

  Taking her chin, he tipped up her face and looked long and deep, forcing the hall into silence, and said, “You are a little lamb. You will gambol and play and make lamb sounds.” When he stepped back, the girl began to prance around the stage. She dropped to her hands and knees, kicked up her heels, and cried, “Baaaaa! Baaaaa!”

  The audience went wild.

  When she had “gamboled” for several minutes, he followed her, stood her up, snapped his fingers—and she smiled like a waking child.

  His next volunteer, again a girl, became a monkey. She made “Unh-huh” sounds over and over, and scratched herself, and grunted.

  “Now peel your fruit, there’s a good monkey,” he ordered, and she peeled an imaginary banana. “Now walk over and look at the nice people.” Knuckles to the floor of the stage, she came to the edge and frowned out at us. She will never live it down.

  Next Jack dealt me my hand of cards.

  “So far it’s only the ladies who’ve shown any courage. What’s wrong with you, chaps? Don’t the men of Cork have any gumption? If we were in England, the stage would be crowded with men.”

  I rose. With ostentation. Put up my hand. The crowd cheered.

  “That’s right, sir. Bit of gumption’s what we need. Come on.” I stepped into the aisle and headed for the stage. “Give him a big hand, ladies and gentlemen.”

  Did he look at me extra closely? I’m not sure. If I had to swear, I’d say he was too distracted—exactly what I was hoping for.

  “What’s your name, sir?”

  “Eddie.”

  “Is that Edwin, Edmund, or Edward?”

  “Eddie. ’Tis Eddie, like.” I can do a Cork accent.

  “Very well, Eddie. Now I want you to relax. Would you like to take off your hat?”

  “No, thanks, I’m fond of it.”

  The audience suspected something; they had long experience of outsiders being guyed and made foolish. They got it right, but for the wrong reasons. How could they have known?

  Jack clapped his hands and turned to the audience.

  “Now, ladies and gentlemen, Eddie doesn’t look like a lady, does he? But in a moment he will take off his coat and put it back on like a lady puts on a dress.”

  He stood in front of me and stared into my eyes, the eyes I’d been unable to look at in Templemore, the eyes I’d avoided on the stage of the Olympia, the eyes whose vile light I was about to extinguish. He passed his hands in front of my face, and I, with full resistance closed my eyelids. When he snapped his fingers I gave m
yself a little jolt and stayed locked, seemingly, inside his trance.

  “Now, then, Eddie, I want to you take off your coat and put it back on just as you’ve seen your wife put on her frock. You know—tug all your underwear into place, pat it and pull it, and then put on your dress, because you’re going out shopping and you don’t want all the other ladies in Cork to see you looking dowdy.”

  I could tell that he was leering at the audience; I heard their chuckles.

  Behaving at first as though a little sleepy, I took off my gabardine coat. For extra effect I tipped forward the tweed hat. I trailed the coat a little, then picked it up again and inspected it, peering as though myopic. Some belly laughs rose, and a heckler shouted, “Edwina!”

  For a moment or two I patted my shoulders and my chest, and then I opened out the coat, took it by the collar, and whirled it high above my head in a mad circle. I danced a little jig.

  The audience roared and Jack went along with it, but through my half-closed eyelids I could see the irked query on his face: What’s this fellow up to?

  I let the coat fall to my side, holding it still by the collar.

  “Well, I must say, Edwina”—he turned and winked to the crowd—“I don’t know where you take off and put on your dresses, do I? Now be a good girl and put your clothes on; there are people watching.”

  Whirling the coat, I set off on a gallop around the stage, whinnying like a horse. Now the audience felt the prank, and like all local communities they liked nothing better than seeing a smooth-tongued outsider being bested—especially in Cork, and especially an Englishman.

  I finished my gallop, came to a halt in front of Jack, pawed the ground, shook my head with a flurry, and went still again.

  He didn’t know what to do—which surprised me; I’d have thought he must have been guyed before. Evidently not. He took my face in his hands, not kindly, and I had to suppress my revolted shudder. Hard hands; and I imagined them hitting Venetia.