The Last Storyteller

  I said, “No. But I know the man who did.”

  In clear but brief detail, I told him about Jimmy Bermingham. My summary: “He’s a crack shot, a marksman, and a great strategist. He’s injured at the moment and on the run.”

  “Bring him here,” said Dan Barry. “I was a wanted man myself.”

  And I did. To this day I cannot say whether I did right or wrong in respect to that dear old man and Elma Sloane. But in the paying back of the favor that I asked of Jimmy Bermingham, I have no doubt of the wrong I did. I’ve lived with it ever since. Or tried to.

  116

  I mean to tell it all. Nothing held back. Think of it as the higher purpose for this family memoir. If that’s what we’re calling it. Some memoir. In which your father seems, with icy calculation, either to have lost his mind or abandoned his principles. Or both. Let me begin with the planning.

  I scrutinized the newspapers every day. Every bomb, every bullet, every court hearing, every flake of political fallout—I almost memorized them. The closer I could get to this issue, this “action,” the more I could interpret and use it. Did I feel shame? Not yet. Obsession doesn’t let shame get near the obsessed.

  In March 1957, a general election in the Irish republic produced a change of government. Not much else altered, in terms of rebel violence. The IRA leaders blamed the Irish and British governments for having divided the island in the first place and called a plague on all their houses. I needed a change of mood for my best result.

  The coming to power of the former rebel leader Eamon de Valera helped. He cracked down on his old sympathizers harder than anyone else. In relation to the Border Campaign, the country’s mood swung all that spring and summer.

  Where there had been violence I raced to the scene. As discreetly as I could I attempted to establish what had happened. The nearer an incident happened to the border, the more useful to me. In high summer, for instance, a gunfight broke out a handful of miles inside the north. From behind a ditch, a dozen and more IRA fellows opened fire on a truck carrying a dozen police. One officer died; another took terrible wounds. In Dublin the government decided to round up far more than the usual suspects and then launched internment—a policy of imprisonment with no trial, and no prospect thereof.

  Later that month, de Valera sent almost two thousand troops from the south to positions along the border to see whether he could snuff out any forays. I traveled from post to post, chatting with soldiers, pretending I was visiting relatives nearby. In cold blood I was gauging, measuring, checking every option.

  During August I managed to inspect a body shot by the northern police, and view a house near Coalisland where a booby-trap explosion killed a northern police officer.

  The next month I sat drinking with two northerners who had lured two young southern men into a trap. And shot them both. You could call that the coldest of cold blood.

  What was I thinking? I was learning. And I wanted to view this upheaval from all possible angles to see how I could use it. No visibility. Nothing to connect me with anything. Everything as smooth as silk. To maximum effect. I toiled for months, talking to people I’d never met before. And would never want to meet again.

  117

  From a last reconnaissance along the border, in which I checked again every detail—dates, times, addresses—I drove back down the country. In beautiful early sunshine I strolled to Mr. Barry’s door, a cheerful and warm midmorning visitor, bringing a bottle of whiskey. I found a serene household. Mr. Barry, ailing faster now, sat up a little.

  “There you are. My great benefactor,” he said.

  “How are you?”

  “As happy as a man can ever be. I’ll never be able to thank you enough.”

  “She’s a nice girl,” I said.

  He smiled that innocent smile of eternal love that men smile only once in their lives. If they’re fortunate …

  Beside me, the same nice girl grinned. “Marriage improves a man—isn’t that what they say, Dan?”

  Burgeoning in his spirit, a gentleman respected and admired …

  He sipped at his whiskey. I licked mine; clear head needed.

  “Walk me through your fields,” I told Jimmy Bermingham.

  “Hold on, Ben; they’re not my fields.”

  “Not yet,” I said. “But I’m sure you’ll see to all the legal work.” He laughed.

  We spent the next hour together. I discovered why he had been so valued. He took a brief with accuracy and speed. Superb questions. On the point. Across the references. He knew everything I was talking about. And he knew everything I wanted.

  He asked me one last question: “How near will you be?”

  “I’ll follow the action beforehand. I’ll look at the results. But I’ll witness nothing.”

  And I had one last question: “How much?”

  He pondered. “I won’t be doing it myself. The word is that everybody’s looking for me.”

  I said, “We’ll talk again.”

  “No. I need a postal address for you. Where I can send a telegram.” He checked. “And you’re sure you want to paint the placard yourself?”

  “Without question.”

  “And you’re sure of your numbers?”

  I nodded. “Certain. But take no chances.”

  118

  A Sunday night proved ideal. All week, in various ways, in various guises, I had prowled and surveyed. Local newspapers gave me the first reach of information. Friendly chat confirmed it. And some gossip.

  On the Saturday morning, out by a remote lake, I met Jimmy’s two men. All three of us concealed our faces. We stood in a grove, the water lapping at the high sedges behind us. No handshakes. No greeting.

  I said, “We know who we are.”

  One of them answered, “And we know why we’re here.”

  “Do you want a briefing from me or are you sure of your ground?”

  The second man said, “No harm to tell us again.”

  I briefed them. When I had finished, the second man said, “Best reason I know. And you have something to give us?”

  Money in a small, tight packet. The placard in a large envelope. Job done. Not yet, though.

  “Confirm the timing.”

  They looked at each other. “Half past ten, right? Tomorrow night?”

  “Good,” I said, and I left them.

  Could I have stopped them? Not then. Should I have stopped them? Of course. And if I hadn’t been there and hadn’t insisted on seeing what they did—would my life have been different? Would I now have this compulsion to tell you? Would I have taken the track of life that I followed? Who knows? Not me, that’s for sure.

  I’m so old now, older than Dan Barry was when he died, and—I’ve just decided—these various accounts of my life will be sealed until long after my death. You may publish them if you wish, but all the sealing and all the publishing, all the open confession, and all my breast-beating—none of that will undo anything.

  The day had some drizzle. A wet Sunday in Cavan in 1957 didn’t attract many people out-of-doors. Once the last Mass had ended, the women and children trickled home, while the men found the pubs. I had a vantage point—a bed-and-breakfast just down the street. By twisting my body tight, I could gaze along a narrow compass. But I could see enough. Not that I expected to see anything until that evening.

  No disappointments. Everything went as planned. The same hour that I expected. The same pace that I predicted. I saw every move. Heard the satisfaction in my own inner voice.

  Half past eight. Soft rain. Lemon light from the streetlamp, weak and thin. I heard their voices first, their laughter. Then I saw them scurrying toward where I stood, then into the pub. One held a newspaper above his head. They jostled, they jeered. Lively as monkeys.

  Ten o’clock. Pub begins to empty. Drinkers reluctant to leave. One or two parting remarks on the street. No sign yet.

  Ten minutes after ten o’clock. Two more drinkers. Quick goodbye.

  Twenty minutes past.
Holding brown paper bags of clinking bottles, they appear. Still laughing. I can hear them—the jokes, the happy jeers. They reach their own front door, he can’t find the key, he fumbles, they’re in, the door closes, they’re gone.

  I wait. On the second of eleven o’clock, the car arrives, slows to a long, coasting, silent halt down the slope of the street. Out of the car step my two men from the lake. I can’t see what they’re carrying; they knock on the door, they bundle through. I hear the shots. Then the silence.

  Nobody else seems to have heard them. The men from the lake emerge, close the door behind them, and drive away. Nothing else moves on that street. I wait. And wait. Nothing, not a sound not a sight.

  The night closed down, and I slept like a child.

  Early the next morning, I woke and went to the window. The street remained as empty as a hole. I stood for perhaps fifteen minutes. One man rode by on a bicycle, his cap down low on his forehead, his collar hunched up against the rain. For the next half hour I watched and saw not another being, not even a cat slinking home.

  I shaved, washed, got my bag ready, ate breakfast, paid my bill. The rain began to lift. I walked to my car, which was parked around the corner, and drove away. By another road, I drove back to the edge of town and parked where nobody could see, under trees, off a lane. On pathways that I had mapped and measured days before, I reached the back of the house. Couldn’t get in. The men from the lake had forgotten to open it for me. I got away from there, but not so fast that I’d draw attention to myself.

  If I had calculated accurately, nothing would be found until evening. By now I knew every street, every house, every laneway, every rear wall, every back door. I could lurk near the cathedral and ramble back down toward the post office and the friary; if I timed it well, I’d be on hand when the commotion broke.

  It worked. I saw the youngster arrive and hammer on the door. He got no reply. The woman next door put out her head.

  “They were there last night,” she said.

  The youngster hammered again.

  “I have a key,” said the woman next door. “Mrs. Mitchell always gives me a key when she’s leasing out the house.”

  At which moment I crossed the street, minding my own business. And ran back when I heard the screams.

  The woman from next door came hurtling out, shrieking “Mother of God, Mother of God!” and the youngster, white as a sheet, crouched toward the street, looking to retch.

  “What’s wrong, what’s wrong?” I asked, the concerned citizen.

  The woman from next door, her hand to her mouth like a victim, pointed.

  Nothing neat in there; the men from the lake hadn’t bothered with tidiness. One lay sprawled facedown on the stairs, blood congealing on the steps and in the hallway at his askew shoes. Another lay faceup in the doorway to the shoddy kitchen; they’d blown away most of his face and head.

  Neither being what I wished to see, I searched. In the tiny sitting room I saw what I’d come for: the black mustache was accented now by a line of thickened blood. They’d shot him in the right eye and in the chest. His white shirt had turned mainly dark, and his mouth hung open in a rictus; dentures half-protruded.

  Even in death he seemed loathsome. I looked at the hands by which he’d made his living. One had a bullet wound—he must have raised it to try to stop a shot. The other had the fingers curled round a gun. Did the men from the lake put it there? On his chest sat my placard: “Shot as British spies.” I knew my history.

  I stood and surveyed. Three lumps of dead human flesh. Odd how they’re bent out of shape. How will they straighten them for burial? Who will do that? This is like Life magazine in Chicago. I’m seeing it in black and white. Like the gangster movies. What’s that odor? Toilets and sweetness? But beginning to be overpowering. No, I’m not gagging. One last look. Blood is blacker than I thought.

  The man who had beaten Venetia savagely and, as I suspected from her veiled remarks, raped her often wouldn’t do it again. Nor would he mock and leave open to humiliation innocent people who merely wanted an evening’s entertainment. Never again would his henchmen taunt me and hold me helpless as he punched me and kicked me, and then throw me out onto the street.

  I took my time, savoring—if that’s not too appalling a word—the sight of the three bodies. Especially that of Jack Stirling, Gentleman Jack, the man who raised you, my children, who violated your mother in so many ways, who forced his way time and again into her body. I told you I would pull no punches.

  Then, as the wailing continued outside, I left, drawing the door closed.

  “Go into your own house,” I told the woman from next door. “Take him with you.” The youngster had now turned green and was clinging to her. “I’ll tell the authorities.”

  PART SIX

  The Passing of the Torch

  119

  What is our most interesting emotion? The most compelling? Love? Jealousy? I’ll put a bid in for remorse. Better still, let me describe to you what happened that night and how remorse can strike.

  That youngster who found the bodies, as I expect you’ve guessed, had come from the local hall. Jack had a second week’s booking starting that night; the management had found him the rented house.

  Late on the Saturday night, as the hall was closing, and Jack and his pals had left—I’d watched them go to the pub—I’d easily learned where Jack was staying. I knew that they wouldn’t be able to tell him until Monday that somebody had asked about him. He was too suspicious not to be alert.

  By now the disappearance of Venetia, though a puzzle, didn’t deter or deflect me. I didn’t care whether Jack had hidden her away somewhere or sent her back to Florida. She had moved from the front of my mind. Too much pain from that quarter. Too much hurt. Had to postpone even thinking of her. I dreaded what would happen when my feelings for her bloomed again. If they ever did.

  While Jack and his pals were in the pub, I checked the house. Front and back. Opened the unlocked back door. They were living like pigs. Clothes everywhere, clean or soiled. Old newspapers that had held food packets. Empty beer bottles. Pigs. To be slaughtered.

  Later, from my window, I watched them come home. Playing like puppies. Half drunk. Singing. Mocking. Taunting each other. Their accents so different in the echoes of this small town. Soon never to gibe again.

  On Monday, when I left the woman from next door and the green-faced youngster, I quit town. Found my car and drove away. In a neighboring village I found a telephone kiosk, spoke to the operator (no automatic telephones yet in the Irish countryside), and convinced her of my northern accent and rebel status.

  “Shot as spies,” she repeated. “Oh Jesus in heaven.”

  That night, I made it down to Mullingar. Ate and slept well. The next day I took the road to Lough Ennell and tried to keep my appointment with Rex Beaumont, the flamboyant ex-actor who lived in Belvedere Lodge. He had the full, accurate story of the Jealous Wall, a ruin in his gardens.

  Local chatter said it had been built to stop a neighbor from eyeing another man’s wife. Not so. It had been built to prevent one man from seeing what a fine house his brother owned.

  No Rex. I’d catch him again. The lake stretched like glass. Over there, on the left-hand shore, Jonathan Swift stayed. Same family as the Jealous Wall. And when Swift saw the tiny figures on the far, far bank of the lake, in a place named Lilliput, he had his Lilliputians. Lovely thought, delicious piece of lore. I drove out of Belvedere and turned right. I’d spend the night in Tullamore, where I knew of a music session with a fiddler home from New York. And wherever there’s a fiddler, there’s a story.

  Not more than three miles farther, a girl of about twelve years old, lanky and shy, drove a small herd of cows along the road. Ah. Mother used to do this. I waited as she angled the animals into a field; they would spend the day there, until she fetched them again for the evening milking.

  I opened the window when I reached her.

  “Did you milk them all yourself?”
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  She blushed and trotted away.

  I drove on. A mile later, a sledgehammer slammed into my heart, stomach, and chest. Actual pain. I stuck the brake to the floor and pulled to one side. As though hit by a sudden squall, my face became a panel of cold sweat. My bowels exploded. No control. Instant and foul mire beneath me, and I began to wet myself as freely as a faucet.

  An anguish, in the form of a stabbing pain, entered my heart through my face, and left indelible wrinkles. People have laugh lines: do we also have pain lines? I do; I got them that day. My hands hadn’t left the steering wheel. I didn’t think I could detach them. The car sat on a fortunately wide verge. Condensation whitened the windows.

  I couldn’t lean back; my body refused it. It would be years before I ceased sitting tensely. And my mind replayed that gaping “Chicago” scene, that black-and-white film. Gentleman Jack. And his friends. Is blood so black only when it’s old? The foulness congealing beneath me began to leak and forced action.

  I heaved myself from the car, clambered over the ditch, lurched into the fields like a drunk, like a man shot, like a man with serious motor disability, and threw myself to the ground. The only action I could take.

  Facedown I lay. I clawed at the ground, I scrabbled, I grabbed tufts and they came away in my frantic hands. My face merged with the earth. I think I was trying to burrow down into hell.

  Then I heard the noise. Distinct and distinctive. From somewhere nearby. A moaning. Some poor soul in dreadful pain. I raised my head—I was listening to my own howling. For so many years that disconsolate sound echoed inside me, like the voice of a lacerated and outcast wolf. And nobody heard it but me.

  I stayed in the fields all day. Anybody could have broken into or stolen the car. When I first rose to my feet I lurched off, away from the road, over a hill, into unknown territory. I saw nobody. Even the birds went quiet when I approached their trees.

  What an awful thing it is to have taken human life. And in revenge. What could be worse? Remorse is a man staggering across fields he has never seen before, pitching himself face-first to the ground now and then, rolling every part of him into the earth, getting up, staggering some more, doing the same thing all over again.