Echoland (2 page)

‘Ah, Eliza,’ Gifford sighed. ‘The beacon in the darkness of my life. My only consolation. Walking behind Eliza.’

‘Eliza who?’

‘Eliza Godfrey, aka Eliza Harbusch. Born London 1913. A pearl beyond compare.’

‘What was Hans doing in London?’

‘Shacking up with Eliza.’

‘Apart from that.’

‘I don’t know. Your fellows know but they haven’t told me.’

‘How would they know?’

‘Because they’re like that’ – Gifford held up the two first fingers of his right hand together − ‘with MI5.’

Duggan gave a disbelieving laugh. ‘I doubt that.’

Gifford glanced sideways at him, realized he was serious, and shook his head.

Hans and Eliza rounded the corner opposite Holles Street
hospital
and they hurried after them. The couple were walking alongside the park railings, heading towards the city centre.

‘Aw, Eliza,’ Gifford said, slowing down to a dawdle to lengthen the gap between them. ‘Will you look at that.’

‘What’s she doing with him?’ Duggan asked.

‘That’s Hansi’s big secret. His biggest one as far as I’m concerned. When I find the answer I’ll bottle it and take a spoonful three times a day.’

Duggan laughed. ‘Can I have a spoonful or two?’

‘We’ll go into business together. Mass produce it. PG’s tips. Send the whole country sex mad. Nobody’ll ever leave home.’

A number 8 tram went wobbling by towards Dalkey as they crossed the junction into Clare Street. Duggan stopped to let two cyclists go past and then was held up by a car while Gifford skipped ahead.

‘Aren’t you the smart boyo?’ Gifford said when Duggan caught up with him.

‘What? Crossing the road without getting knocked down?’

‘Getting my theory about Hans out of me. He and Eliza are
breeding
storm troopers in that flat. They’ll all emerge some day while you fellows are looking out to sea and up in the air.’ Gifford stopped and leaned his head back and looked skywards, then turned round with his hand shading his eye, scanning the horizon. A man coming out of Greene’s bookshop gave him a sour look and walked around him.
‘They’ll just saunter across Merrion Square there and take over Government Buildings and Leinster House. Invasion over.’

‘I should put that in my report. They might send me back to
western
command.’

‘Back to crawling around the bogs on your belly. The fellow behind you prodding you in the arse with his bayonet. You’re a strange lad.’

Gifford was the smart boyo, Duggan thought. Keeping up his constant patter: anyone seeing them would think they were two friends out for the afternoon. One a soldier, but the country was becoming full of soldiers now, more every day as the government upped its appeals for recruits. Nobody would think they were
following
anybody.

The Harbusches walked on at a steady pace, not talking, looking neither left nor right, he waddling slightly with the gait of an
overweight
man, she swaying seductively on her high heel shoes. They continued down South Leinster Street and into Nassau Street. From behind the wall of Trinity College came the smack of a hard ball on a cricket bat followed by a sprinkling of applause. A light stream of
traffic
went by in both directions, the growl of car engines interspersed by the clip-clop of an occasional dray. They went past a succession of bookshops.

‘You read it?’ Gifford pointed to a copy of
Mein Kampf
by Adolf Hitler in the window of Fred Hanna’s. It was alongside
The Whiteoak Chronicles
by Mazo de la Roche, the biggest selling non-fiction and fiction books of the week.

‘I don’t have time. Maybe after the war.’

‘You might be reciting it by then. The new catechism.’

‘Seven hundred pages,’ Duggan said. ‘I’m supposed to be reading it. Father Murphy’s translation.’

‘Heap of shit.’

‘You’ve read it?’

‘No,’ Gifford said. ‘That’s what I heard in a pub. Mind you, the
fellow
that said it found himself in the centre of an argument. He has a point, the others said. Hitler.’

‘They’d all read it?’ Duggan said in surprise.

‘Probably not. Did you ever know actual knowledge to get in the way of a pub argument?’

‘You think they’re going to win?’

‘Looking good for Adolf,’ Gifford shrugged. ‘France is tottering.’

‘But they still have a big army, mostly intact,’ Duggan said,
relaying
mess chat he had overheard.

‘All the same to me. Whoever wins will need policemen. They’ll shoot everybody in military intelligence, of course. First thing the
victor
always does. Can’t trust you lads with your warped minds.’

‘Thanks,’ Duggan said. ‘I’m sure they’ll shoot the secret police too.’

‘Interesting. You think that’s what we are? Secret police?’ Gifford turned to him. ‘You a republican?’

‘I’m a member of Óglaigh na hÉireann. Like it says on my cap that I’m not wearing but you can still see.’

‘Not the Óglaigh na hÉireann that’s causing a lot of trouble at the moment? Bombed our headquarters in the castle last month and wants Hansi’s friends to win the war.’

‘No. The Óglaigh na hÉireann that’ll defend Ireland against all comers.’

‘Right,’ Gifford said, as if that explained everything.

The Harbusches turned into Grafton Street and stopped on the pavement, waiting to cross the road. He and Duggan also stopped, waiting to cross near them, and then followed them up the street on the other side.

‘Ah,’ Gifford said. ‘Going to the bank.’

But they stopped just short of the junction with Wicklow Street, outside Weir’s jewellery shop, and Eliza bent down to kiss Hans on the cheek and went into the jewellers. ‘Stick with her,’ Gifford said. ‘Meet back in my hideout.’

Duggan went into the shop and tried to adjust from the
brightness
outside to the dark, wood-lined interior. She had stopped at the first display case inside the door and he almost bumped into her, catching her scent, something musky, as he went around her. There were no other customers. A salesman was saying ‘Good day, madam’ to her as Duggan wandered down the counter, looking in glass cases at rings, gold watches, silver watches, brooches. He retraced his steps slowly, feigning interest, trying to hear what she was saying, looking her way while pretending to look sideways at the contents of a case. The salesman was laying out a selection of gold necklaces for her. She picked up one, draped it over her fingers and held her hand out in front of her, letting it swing from side to side.

‘If you’d like to try it on,’ the salesman said, producing a handheld mirror from under the counter.

‘How much is this one?’ she pointed at another one. Her accent was diamond-sharp English.

Duggan didn’t hear the reply as another salesman appeared in front on him and said, ‘May I help you, sir?’ There was a barely noticeable pause before the ‘sir’.

‘No, I’m, ah, just looking,’ Duggan stammered. ‘Thanks.’

‘An engagement ring, is it?’ the salesman opened his hands over the display case between them.

Duggan nodded.

‘Do you have any idea of the young lady’s preferences?’ The
salesman
was cadaverous, in his late thirties and balding prematurely.

‘Not really, I’m afraid.’

‘Single diamond? Cluster? Type? Shape? Cut? Number of carats?’

Duggan shrugged, helpless. He glanced towards Eliza Harbusch who was looking at herself in a mirror, moving her head from side to side and smiling at something her salesman was saying.

‘Colour? Grade? Clarity? Facets?’

Duggan pointed at a single diamond at random. ‘How much is that one?’

The salesman hesitated, then opened the case, and looked at the coded tag tied to the ring. ‘Four hundred pounds,’ he said. ‘Well, three hundred and ninety nine and nineteen and eleven pence actually.’

‘Oh,’ Duggan blanched, beginning to blush and wish he was out of there.

‘These start at about two hundred,’ the salesman waved his hand over the case like a blessing. ‘I would suggest that you try and
determine
the young lady’s preference. And finger size.’

Duggan nodded, grateful for the out.

‘Perhaps you might consider the Happy Ring House. They have a, er, wider price range there.’

‘Where’s that?’

‘Beside the Pillar.’

Duggan headed for the door. As he passed, the salesman was telling Eliza that that necklace matched her colouring perfectly and was ninety-nine pounds. ‘I’ll take it,’ she said.

Duggan breasted the bridge over the canal at Portobello and Rathmines Road stretched before him, the wires above its tram tracks undulating like the long troughs of waves leading to the dull green humps of the Dublin mountains in the distance. The evening was cooling, the sun still above the horizon to the west. Its light lay along the canal, turning the murky water golden. A family of ducks circled by the reeds.

He free-wheeled down the hill, hearing the smooth whirr of the wheels and the rub of the tyres on the tarmac as he went past the church of Mary Immaculate, its new dome top-heavy and seeming to push it into the ground. A truckload of soldiers pulled out of the army barracks in front of him, the soldiers at the back glaring at him impassively, their Lee Enfield rifles upright between their knees, as they accelerated away from him.

He turned left at the Stella Cinema and threaded his way through suburban streets up to Palmerston Road. The road was empty between its heavy trees, the large houses silent, the air still. The only sounds were of some children shrieking somewhere distant and a dog barking. He pulled into Timmy’s gate and the gravel slowed him to halt. He walked the bike around a shiny new Ford and left it beside the granite steps.

Light footsteps came along the hall in response to his knock and the door was opened by a young girl wearing a white apron.

‘Hello,’ Duggan said. ‘I’m Paul.’

She looked at him, unknowing.

‘Mr Monaghan’s nephew,’ he added.

A door banged inside and Timmy Monaghan came bustling down the hall.

‘The man himself,’ he boomed as Duggan came in and Timmy pumped his hand. ‘This is Cait,’ he added. ‘She’s just come to us from Aran.’

‘Ah,’ Duggan turned to her. ‘
Conas ata tú
?’

‘
Go maith
,’ she said, taking his hand and giving him an uncertain curtsey.

‘This is First Lieutenant Paul Duggan,’ Timmy told her. ‘A very important man these days. And one of the family.’

Duggan shook his head and she looked from one to the other. She was about fifteen and uncertain in English.

‘You’ll have something to eat,’ Timmy said, putting his arm around Duggan’s shoulder. ‘Cait’ll get you something, won’t you, Cait?’ he said over his shoulder to her as he guided Duggan into a high-ceilinged room overlooking the back garden. The walls were a washed green and there were large leather armchairs on either side of the marble fireplace. A fire was set in the grate but unlit. A large mahogany table took up the centre of the room with an uneven
scattering
of dining chairs around it. It was covered with newspapers, green Dáil order papers, parliamentary bills and volumes of debates. On one side there was a blotter pad surrounded by a neat stack of headed Dáil notepaper and prepaid envelopes, a pen and ink set, and a full ashtray. A silver cigarette case lay open beside it.

Duggan walked around the table to the window. A large hole had been dug in the lawn, mounds of earth on both sides of it. Grass and weeds were beginning to sprout in the hole and on the mounds.

‘A shelter,’ Monaghan said when he saw Duggan looking at it. ‘A couple of fellows started digging it for me last year when the Emergency started. Then they fecked off to England to join the British army, leaving it like that. There wasn’t much happening at the time so I didn’t bother having it finished. I don’t know. What d’you think? Should I get someone to finish it?’

‘I don’t know,’ Duggan said.

‘You’re in the nerve centre. The fellows who know what’s going on.’

‘They haven’t told me, I’m afraid.’

‘You enjoyed the intelligence course?’

‘It was interesting,’ Duggan said, noncommittal, keeping any
surprise
out of his voice. So it’s true, he thought, as I suspected. Timmy’s the reason I’m in G2. Pulled some strings to get me in there. As he had feared.

‘And weren’t you right to take my advice about the German?’

Duggan said nothing, not knowing what he was talking about.

‘Didn’t I tell you to learn German when you went to college? Not to bother with that French. German’s the coming language.’

Duggan nodded though he had no memory of that. He’d learned long ago not to bother arguing facts with Timmy.

‘And look at you now,’ Timmy gave him a knowing smile,
knowing
that a message had been delivered. It was what he loved about politics, the mind games, the subtle messages and manipulations,
outwitting
the other guys. He knew it was unlikely that he’d rise above the backbenches but he still hadn’t abandoned all ambitions. Age was coming against him now, forty-five last birthday, heading for fifty, but anything was possible in politics. He had done his bit in the War of Independence and the Civil War. Nobody could challenge his
national
record, the foundation of his electoral success and impenetrable protection against some of his internal opponents in Fianna Fáil.

‘A hard language, they say. A bit like Irish.’

‘I like it. It’s a nice language.’

‘Good, good,’ Timmy rubbed his hands. ‘The language of the future.’

Great, Duggan though. Gifford has me up against a wall facing a firing squad. Timmy has me marked out as some kind of
gauleiter
.

‘The English are fucked,’ Timmy said, gesticulating towards the table. He sat down in front of the blotter. Duggan took the chair across the table.

‘The lion has had its day,’ Timmy went on, pacing every word as if he was coming to the climax of a public speech. ‘Going to find out now what it’s like to be an occupied country. But’ – he raised a finger – ‘the lion can be dangerous when wounded. Lash out. You know what I mean? Last desperate twitch of the tail.’ He paused. ‘Don’t be surprised if they come over the border. Try to take back what they lost. Churchill has never forgiven us for beating them the last time,
you know. Nothing he’d like better than revenge. Play the game again. Hitler’s right about him, he’s a war monger. They made a bad choice there. And he’ll use any excuse to invade. The ports. Pretend to be protecting us from the Germans.’