The conversation had yet been following a tolerably pleasant course until Lord Carlisle, seated to my immediate left, began his discourse on what the future of this country must be and what a lucky stroke the famine is for England. Another of Edgar’s friends, a strikingly toadlike little man with whiskers growing like moss upon his jowls and whose name escapes me in my anger, then spoke up: ‘I see old Bentinck is making noises in the House again. He will not keep quiet, continually accusing the government of the most shocking neglect. Now he demands to know what is to be done with the 400,000 quarters of corn in stock in the ports of London, Liverpool and Glasgow that could be sent to Ireland to feed the starving people there.’
At this, Lord Carlisle gave a derisory grunt. ‘Bentinck is an imbecile,’ said he, wagging his fork for emphasis. ‘There can be no interference with the natural course of trade. Labouchere, the Irish Secretary,’ he added for the benefit of the necessarily ignorant parties at the table, that is to say, myself, ‘rightly states that the government has pursued a wise policy in not interfering with the supply of food to Ireland in any way which could compete with the efforts of private traders.’
I could feel the colour rising up in my cheeks. As hard as I tried to control my impulse, I could not but speak out: ‘Am I to understand from your words, sir, that the calamity that has befallen this country cannot be allowed to affect the shipping of its abundant crops of grain and herds of cattle to England; that the traders’ and speculators’ profits, the landlords’ rents, the agents’ commissions, override all considerations of such terrible human suffering as we in Ireland witness every day, and that political economy is best accomplished simply by carrying on business as usual, as though nobody had died, or were dying at this very minute, a slow and cruel death from starvation?’
There was a weighty silence up and down the length of the table and I was aware of faces turning my way, most of all that of Edgar, who regarded me with a glower of disapproval for daring to address Lord Carlisle in such a manner. Whether or not L.C. had it in mind to reply to me (one does not, after all, enter into political discussion with a mere simple woman) it was Sir Harry Billington, the Honourable Member for Guildford, seated further up the table to my right, who then weighed in with his view.
‘It appears to me,’ said he, ‘that Ireland’s soil and climate offer the conditions best suited for pasture; hence it appears that cattle, above all things, seem to be the most appropriate stock for Ireland. Corn can be brought from one country to another from a great distance, at rather small freights. It is not so with cattle. The great hives of industry in England and Scotland can draw their shiploads of corn from more southern climates, but they must have a constant dependence on Ireland for an abundant supply of meat.’
This drew several nods from around the table, and grumbles of ‘Hear him, hear him’, and ‘A glass of wine with you, sir’.
‘Is this your political economy, sir?’ I cried, quite unable to restrain myself. ‘To fill up every available corner of every field of Ireland with livestock reared solely for the mouths of England? And what of the common Irish people who would be swept aside to make way for such a plan?’
‘What of them, madam?’ said Sir Harry, fixing me with a whimsical air. ‘There may not be many left, afore long; and may I say good riddance to ’em.’
Lord Carlisle, who had been eyeing me all this while from under his thick, white brows, smiled with benevolent condescension and cut short the protest that was forming on my lips. ‘My dear Lady Elizabeth, I applaud your spirited defence of the Celt. However, we cannot doubt that by the inscrutable but invariable laws of nature, they are as a race less energetic, less independent, less industrious than the Saxon. This is nothing more or less than the archaic condition of their birthright.’
I thought of the many small Irish farmers and cottiers I have known, of the worthy servants who keep this estate of ours running year upon year, how enduringly they all toil to feed their families. I looked at the round, protuberant bellies of the dinner guests, the buttons of their waistcoats straining to contain them, at the double or even triple chins greasy with sauce; and I wondered how many of our illustrious company had ever truly done a day’s hard labour in their lives.
‘But they starve, sir,’ I protested. ‘They are dying. Can you not see what is happening all around?’
‘’Tis a pity, to be sure,’ replied Sir Harry, raising another great forkful of roast pork to his mouth. ‘But madam, you must consider. Why, only last week in the House I heard Sir Robert Peel say, and I quote the great man: “I wish it were possible to take advantage of this calamity for introducing among the people of Ireland the taste for a better and more certain provision for their support than that which they have hithertofore cultivated.” There’s the truth of it. If they starve, they starve only by their own folly, this primitive and inexplicable lust for their beloved praties, at the exclusion of all else, and of all common intelligence.’
Speechless for an instant, I looked to my husband, but he was at that moment heartily digging into his plate. I could no longer touch mine. ‘Allow me to say with the deepest respect, Sir Harry, that you are as sadly misinformed as the gentleman of whom you speak with such admiration. The Irish have not subsisted solely on the potato for any reason other than it is we who have forced this choice upon them. Therefore it is we who should be helping them to—’
Sir Harry broke into a laugh before I could finish. ‘Upon my word, Edgar, your wife is as irrepressible as she is beautiful. We must be careful, eh?’ Turning back towards me, he gave a bow. ‘My dear madam, I stand most humbly corrected.’
‘Gentlemen, I ask that you forgive my wife’s enthusiasm in these matters,’ Edgar said with a twisted smile upon his face for his guests’ benefit, the flashing look of warning in his eyes intended for mine. ‘She may play and sing like an angel, ride like the wind and have been able to strip old Harte of nearly ten pounds at cards …’
‘Did she, by God?’ exclaimed Lord Carlisle.
‘… But she is yet to be instructed in the wisdom of commerce and politics,’ my dearest husband finished (and Heaven help me, should he ever read these words).
‘I am sorry if I spoke out of turn,’ I replied. ‘And beg the gentleman’s forgiveness of my woman’s ignorance. I realise now how foolishly naïve I must appear in these subjects, and shall resolve henceforth to listen, and learn, and remain silent.’
This elicited smiles of amusement from all present, except from Edgar (whose wrath I expect to face later tonight). I looked into their eyes and could see no shred of humanity, no sparkle other than that which comes from too much wine.
How I wished, and still wish, that Stephen were here. Is it very wicked of me to reflect that I sometimes feel as starved of warmth and kindness as the poor Irish are of physical sustenance?
Ben’s reading was interrupted by the clinking of the drinks trolley coming down the aisle and a smiling hostess asking whether he’d like a drink. His eye wandered over the row of malt Scotch miniatures on the trolley. ‘Just some mineral water,’ he said, with a pang in his heart. The trolley went clinking and jinking onwards down the aisle, and he returned to the journal.
He liked Elizabeth Stamford’s spirit. His old friend Jeff Dekker would have described her as ‘a lady with balls’. He was finding himself getting drawn deeper into her world, almost forgetting sometimes that he was meant to be searching for Brennan’s explosive secret. He hadn’t found it yet, after skimming nearly halfway through the four volumes of her elegant writing. He turned a few more pages.
May 3rd, 1847
How it appals me to witness the condition of those still living. Once hardy peasants now appear shrivelled and diminished in size and stature. Flesh and muscle has wasted away until the bones of their frames are barely covered, brittle and easily broken, their joints so weak that one might imagine their poor bodies falling to pieces before one’s eyes. Their shoulders and necks are wasted so as to barely support the weight of
their head. The skin of their limbs appears as dry and rough as old parchment and hangs in loose folds where once was strong muscle and healthy flesh. As their bodies feast upon their own fabric for sustenance, with each passing day their eye sockets grow larger and more cavernous, the eyes themselves sinking deeper into their skulls so that it becomes painful to look at them.
Many of the children, their growth brought to a halt, are in a condition still more deplorable. Arms stripped of flesh, like little skeletons, their inner structure as clearly visible as if bare bones had been covered in the thinnest muslin. Young faces as wizened and furrowed as those of the old. The hair falls in patches from their scalps, leaving their bald little skulls so pitiful and frail in appearance.
If but one child were so afflicted, even a stranger would come rushing to give aid. But there are thousands of them. They are everywhere, and all wearing the same look of utter desperation and hopelessness that rends my heart at the knowledge that I can do nothing whatever to save them. I am perfectly sure I will never eat a bite again without choking.’
The vividness of Elizabeth Stamford’s account brought back painful memories to Ben as he remembered the victims of civil war, genocide and famine he’d seen in the Third World during his military days. Cadaverous children with distended bellies and hollow eyes, many near to the end and virtually unable to move as thick black swarms of blowflies clustered all over their dying little bodies. The worst thing had been their passive acceptance of their plight, young and old alike apparently quite peacefully resigned to death.
And death had been a certainty for most of them, with no chance of rescue. As a soldier, Ben’s duty had been to walk on by, put it out of his mind and stay focused on the bigger picture of his mission. But he’d never really forgotten, and those awful reawoken visions now came flooding back so strongly into his mind that he could almost smell the stench of death and decay, hear the buzzing of the flies. Take out the heat and dust of Africa and the ever-looming presence of war, substitute the ruin of the devastated potato fields, the mud, the rats, the destitution and homelessness, the passing rumble of the death carts on the roads, and the distant laughter of rulers hundreds of miles away in London who couldn’t care less, and the picture was just the same. The suffering of these people had been no less appalling. Perhaps even more so.
For what it was worth, Third World peoples of the modern age had the solace of whatever the UN and other organisations could manage to do for them. They had famine relief, aid workers, food shipments. Usually too little, too late, and all too often hampered or hijacked by corrupt bureaucracy – but it was something, and it saved lives.
The Irish had had nothing. Only the faint, faraway hope of salvation in the promised land of America, for those few who could raise the price of the ocean crossing and survived the voyage. For those left behind, only the grim reality of death and disease, squalor and misery, with no end in sight.
Sickened, Ben had to close the journal and lay it aside for a while. The guy in the next seat was still sleeping, head thrown back and mouth open. Ben was glad he wouldn’t have to get drawn into another conversation about the state of the energy market. He sipped his water and spent a few minutes gazing out of the plane window, thinking about the countless Irish refugees who had traced by sea the same eastward route he was travelling now towards America. It must have been bewildering for them to step ashore at the end of their long voyage, so far away from everything they’d ever known, strangers in a strange land with only each other for support.
Ben couldn’t compete with someone like Gray Brennan for historical knowledge. But the Irish blood in his own veins had led him to read up on the subject in the past: he knew about how the Irish had been flocking to America for centuries, often to escape servitude and persecution such as they’d received at the hands of Oliver Cromwell, the so-called Lord Protector of England whose army had massacred thousands of Irish Catholic men, women and children in an unfettered campaign of bloody slaughter during the mid-seventeenth century. More than a century later, it had been said that half the Continental army fighting the British in the American War of Independence were Irishmen.
But at no time in history, before or since, had there been such an exodus of Irish to America as around the time of the Great Hunger. Some two million of them: a quarter of the entire population of Ireland. It was hard to imagine how the eastern ports and cities must have teemed with the masses coming off the ships. The poorest of all immigrant groups arriving in the New World, often living and working in the most squalid conditions imaginable, the Irish had clung fiercely together, creating tightly knit communities that grew and grew into strong enclaves in cities all across the country as the Irish-American population gradually spread west, deeply influencing the culture of their new homeland. They’d built its railroads and its canals, fought their own countrymen on both sides of its Civil War, toiled in its factories, educated its young, manned its police forces and its baseball teams, spawned many of its presidents. By 1910, there had been more Irish in New York than there were in Dublin. In modern times, some twelve per cent of Americans – over thirty-six million people, six times the population of Ireland itself – could claim Irish ancestry.
And they were proud of it. They even had their own flag, and nowhere else was St Patrick’s Day celebrated with more passionate enthusiasm than in the streets of American cities: from Boston to New York to Philadelphia to Los Angeles; from Detroit to Chicago to St Louis, Missouri … to Tulsa, Oklahoma.
Ben took out the notebook on which he’d jotted down all that he’d been able to find online concerning Tulsa’s incumbent mayor, Finn McCrory. As he’d quickly discovered, here was a man not just intensely proud of his third-generation Irish ancestry but seemingly hell-bent on milking every last drop of possible benefit from it. By all accounts he was a capable and effective politician, much loved by the many supporters who’d elected him for two consecutive terms of office.
From what Ben had managed to piece together, McCrory was something of a late starter in politics, having spent thirty years as a successful litigator in Tulsa before aspiring to the mayorship of the city. He’d been born in 1958, into considerable wealth, the source of which had been the oil boom of the first quarter of the twentieth century that had virtually overnight transformed Tulsa from just another dusty cow-town to the oil capital of the world. Arrowhead Oil had been one of the larger companies raking in vast fortunes, founded way back in 1935 by Finn’s father, a notoriously outspoken and hard-drinking character whose physical size and tough ways inside and outside the boardroom had earned him the nickname ‘Big Joe McCrory’.
By all accounts, Big Joe was as famous for settling deals with his fists as he was for being listed among the ten richest men in Oklahoma. Arrowhead Oil had been sold off to a conglomerate in 1990 for some mind-boggling sum, whereupon the elder McCrory had retired to his ranch near Sand Springs, Tulsa. The picture of him Ben found online showed a hulking broad-shouldered man with strong features, a mane of pure white hair and the penetrating eyes of someone who absolutely never took no for an answer, and never would. Still apparently going strong at the age of ninety-eight, Big Joe was credited with having been a major influence on his only child. Finn McCrory had described in an interview how his father had steered him with iron discipline from his earliest youth. Even as a fledgling lawyer, he’d been expected to shoulder big responsibilities within the family business. ‘My daddy made me the man I am today,’ he had declared to his interviewer.
Ben didn’t yet know exactly what kind of man Finn McCrory was. But with every passing minute that the airliner neared its destination, he was becoming more and more determined to find out.
Chapter Thirty-One
Tulsa, Oklahoma
‘How’s my hair look?’ Finn McCrory asked his assistant, Janet, in the small office the factory manager had let them use as a makeshift dressing room. Four other staff members from the mayor’s office were crammed in with them. Bert Lessels was look
ing at his watch and Wendy Brandt was doing a last-minute check through the notes for the address the mayor was about to make.
Janet Reiss was a small, birdlike woman of sixty-two who’d been Mayor McCrory’s personal secretary and general organiser during both of his terms of office. She reached up and flicked a couple of locks of his greying hair into place. ‘Needs trimming at the back.’ Janet was attentive to details that way.
‘Yeah, but I don’t look terrible, do I?’ Finn asked. He was nervous about the speech. Public speaking was something he could do in his sleep, but today was special. He’d even bought a new pair of his trademark fancy tooled leather cowboy boots for the occasion. The tie was, of course, emerald green, neatly held with a gold shamrock tiepin.
‘You look fine,’ Janet reassured him in a motherly manner. For eight years she’d been fussing over his appearance, picking out his wardrobe, doing everything but wipe his nose for him.
‘You look like shit. Now leave your goddamn hair alone and get out there.’ The low growl came from the doorway, which was almost completely filled by the hulking, white-haired shape of Big Joe McCrory. At six foot three and with shoulders as broad as a power-lifter’s, he dwarfed his son by a good four inches.