Echoland (3 page)

Timmy paused and shook his head as though he couldn’t believe what he was saying. ‘Bastards,’ he muttered under his breath. He put his elbows on the blotting pad and leaned forward. ‘This is only between us. To be kept in the family. Just marking your cards for you.’

He paused until Duggan nodded.

‘The powers that be know the score. They can see the writing on the wall. The Chief made a speech in Galway a week or two back, criticising the Germans for breaching the neutrality of Denmark and Holland. You remember that?’

Duggan nodded although he didn’t really remember anything more than a headline about the Taoiseach criticising Germany for ignoring the neutral status of some countries.

‘Big mistake. God knows, the Chief is very good at seeing five steps ahead of everybody else but I think he fucked up this time. We have no argument with Germany and they have none with us.’

‘Wasn’t he just defending neutrals?’ Duggan ventured. ‘Like us.’

‘Yeah, well. Look at what the British thought of Norway’s
neutrality
,’ Timmy waved away his opinion. ‘Anyway, it’s no time to be
making
new enemies. The German legation was very angry about Dev’s speech. Herr Hempel demanded an explanation. And word was sent back that it wouldn’t happen again.’

Timmy sat back in his chair and joined his hands over his
stomach
with satisfaction. Duggan didn’t know what to say. He was saved by a knock on the door and Cait entered with a tray. Duggan cleared a pile of letters from Timmy’s constituents to one side and she put down the tray and began taking the plates from the tray and putting them on the table.

‘Don’t bother with that,’ Timmy interrupted. ‘We don’t stand on ceremony here. He can eat off the tray.’

Duggan thanked her in Irish and re-arranged the plates and cup and saucer on the tray. The main plate had two cuts of cold chicken, two of ham, a few leaves of lettuce and half a tomato. A side plate had three cuts of buttered brown bread. He poured himself a cup of tea.

‘Whatever happens,’ Timmy said, ‘we won’t go hungry. We can always feed ourselves, thank God. Unlike the English. They’ll find out now what a bit of starvation’s like as well.’

He watched Duggan eat for a few moments. ‘Anyway, that was all bye the bye. For your own information. To be kept to yourself,’ he repeated. ‘The reason I wanted to talk to you was about a family matter.’

Duggan looked up in surprise. He assumed he had already got the messages. I got you transferred to G2. Be nice to the Germans. Beware of perfidious Albion. He went on eating, realizing that he was starving. He hadn’t had anything to eat after getting back to the Red House and writing a report on the Harbusches’ visit to Grafton Street. Timmy watched him in silence for a minute and reached for a cigarette and lit it with a heavy desk lighter.

‘Nuala,’ he said eventually. Nuala was his eldest daughter, a year or two older than Duggan. A change in his tone caught Duggan’s attention and he stopped eating. ‘Nuala,’ Timmy said again and sighed. ‘She’s gone … We don’t know where she is.’

‘She’s missing?’

‘No, no, not missing.’ Timmy didn’t seem to want to use the word. ‘We don’t know where she is.’

‘How long? When did she … go?’

Timmy took a deep breath. ‘Two weeks ago. Maybe a bit more. About two weeks ago we realized she wasn’t where we thought she was.’

‘She didn’t come home?’

Timmy looked at him in surprise and then realized Duggan knew nothing about Nuala’s movements. ‘She’s been living in a flat in town for the last few months. Since the new year, actually. But she usually comes home for the Sunday dinner. And she didn’t turn up last Sunday fortnight. Her mother went to the flat. No sign of her, then or since. Mona’s going up the walls. You can imagine.’

Duggan could imagine. His aunt Mona was known in the family for suffering from nerves, which Duggan had never found surprising. Timmy would turn anyone into a nervous wreck, as Duggan’s father pointed out from time to time when Timmy had over-tried his patience. It was one of the few bones of contention between Duggan’s parents. His father had no time for Timmy; his mother felt a need to defend her sister’s choice of husband.

Duggan put a dab of strawberry jam on the last slice of bread and poured himself another cup of tea.

‘Have you told the guards?’

‘Ah, no, no,’ Timmy tipped the ash from his cigarette. ‘It’s not like that.’

‘If she’s been missing for two weeks …’ Duggan let the thought hang in the air.

‘Not … missing.’ Timmy, never short of words, seemed to be
finding
them elusive now.

‘I don’t understand.’

‘It’s her mother, you know. She’s very upset. Wants me to do
something
about it. But I keep telling her Nuala’s just gone away for a bit. She’s all right. She’ll be back.’

Timmy suddenly held out the cigarette case to him. ‘You smoke Players, don’t you?’

‘Afton, usually.’

‘Well, try one of these.’

Duggan took the cigarette and Timmy pushed the lighter over to him.

‘Aye, she’ll be back,’ Timmy said, staring at his cigarette. ‘She’s just trying to … trying to … teach me a lesson.’ He paused and then looked up at Duggan. ‘You know we don’t see eye to eye a lot of the time. Too alike, Mona says. Knock sparks off each other. But it
doesn’t
mean anything. Still the best of friends behind it all.’

Duggan didn’t know that. He and Nuala were more or less the same age and had been thrown together as children at family events; they had ignored each other as far as possible. As they grew up, they hadn’t much more to say to each other, beyond an occasional effort at politeness. Duggan found her bossy and had no idea what she thought of him, probably found him boring. He couldn’t remember ever having had a real conversation with her.

Timmy straightened himself up in the chair like a man facing up to his fate. ‘We had an argument. Over the Christmas. Terrible time to be having an argument in a family but God knows it happens. She wanted to move into a flat in the town. I couldn’t see any sense to it. She’s not working, you know. No money. She gave up that job I got her in Clery’s. Wanted to do a secretarial course. Fine, I said. But what’d you be wasting money for on a flat when we have the house here? Plenty of room. But nothing would do her. Mona sided with her, of course. Said she’d pay for the flat out of the housekeeping. So she, Nuala, moved into this little place. And I ended up paying for it anyway. Couldn’t have it said that I wasn’t giving the wife enough to keep the house.’

He stubbed out his cigarette and got up suddenly and walked to the window. ‘Jesus. Women.’ He stared at the hole in the garden. ‘It’s so hard to get anything done in this country sometimes,’ he said to himself. ‘Anyway,’ he turned back to Duggan, ‘it all blew up again the last Sunday she was here. I was under orders not to mention the
fucking flat but you know how it is. One thing led to another and it got a bit hot and heavy and she stamped out.’

He sat down and lit another cigarette. ‘That’s it,’ he said.

‘I see,’ Duggan said. ‘Sorry to hear …’

Timmy waved his sympathy away with his cigarette, leaving a faint trail of smoke in the air.

‘Two weeks,’ Duggan began and paused, ‘is a long time. And she hasn’t been in touch with auntie Mona or her sisters?’

‘No. That’s the thing. I could understand her cutting me off. I could handle that. I’ve had my share of knocks. I could take it. But she knows that too. So she’s staying away from everyone, knowing that’ll put the pressure on me. Dropped out of her course as well. Hasn’t been seen there for two weeks either.’ He paused. ‘Anyway. You see why I don’t want the guards? Apart from anything else, it’s not a headline you want in the papers. “TD’s Daughter Missing”.’

‘You could keep it out of the papers.’

‘Oh, aye, Aiken. He loves being the censor in chief. Telling all those fuckers what to put in their papers now,’ he laughed. ‘Getting our own back for all the shite they wrote about us. No, the papers wouldn’t be the problem. But everyone’d know about it if the guards got involved. Still a lot of Free Staters and Blueshirts among them, keeping their heads down and talking out of the sides of their mouths. Only too happy to spread any dirt about the party.

‘No,’ Timmy went on. ‘What we need is some discreet inquiries to be made. Find out where Nuala is. Reassure your auntie Mona and the other girls. Put their minds at rest that she’s all right.’

Oh fuck, Duggan thought. This was worse than he had feared, worse than some political manoeuvre involving G2 information. ‘I don’t know how I could help,’ he said. ‘I’ve no idea how to find
somebody
.’

‘You’re moving in those general areas. Investigations, and the like.’

‘I’m not, you know. I’m in an office, just moving files around. Today was the first day I was actually out of the office. In the field, so to speak.’

‘There you go,’ Timmy said, as if that proved his point. ‘Just make some discreet inquiries.’

‘I …’

‘I always say that there are times when you can only rely on
family
. When you can’t trust anybody. And Christ knows, you can never trust anybody in my business. Family’s all you’ve got.’

Timmy eased a sheet of paper from under the blotter on the table and handed it to Duggan.

‘That’s the address of the flat. You know Mount Street? The one with the Pepper Canister church in the middle of it?’

‘I think so.’

‘The secretarial place she’s supposed to be in is just around the corner. Gillespie’s Metropolitan College. That’s the name of one of her friends,’ he pointed at the sheet. ‘Stella Maloney. A nurse in Sir Patrick Dun’s. They have a nurses’ home around there too. That’s why she moved there. To be near Stella.’

‘And she hasn’t seen Nuala either?’

‘Not hide nor hair of her,’ Timmy said. ‘She says.’

Now that he had done what he wanted, Timmy snapped back to his jovial self. Duggan had a passing thought that his earlier look of anguish was a façade, part of an act. As if to kill the thought Timmy added: ‘Your auntie Mona will be so grateful if you can reassure her that Nuala’s all right. You don’t have to persuade her to come home. Just find her and talk to her and tell Mona she’s all right. It’ll ease her mind. Be the answer to her prayers.’ He looked at his watch and pressed a bell on the wall beside the fireplace. ‘These things still work you know,’ he said as if it was a surprise.

There was a tap at the door a few moments later and Cait
returned. ‘Has the missus come back yet?’ Timmy asked her.

‘No, sir,’ she said.

‘Okay. You can take that tray away now.’

‘
Go raibh maith agat. Bhí sé sin go an-bhlasta
,’ Duggan said to her as she left with the tray. That was lovely.

‘She should be back any minute. She went off to the sodality, doing a novena for Nuala’s safe return. Pity she’s not here and she could tell you herself, what a weight it’ll be off her mind if you can find Nuala.’

Mother of God, Duggan sighed to himself.

‘Right,’ Timmy rubbed his hands together, making clear that he was finished. Duggan got up and went ahead of him into the hall.

‘Great things are happening in our times,’ Timmy said as he opened the hall door. ‘I’ve a fiver bet on with that Free State fecker Connolly that we’ll have a united Ireland by the end of all this.’ Connolly was a rival Fine Gael TD in his constituency.

‘You think so?’

‘A certainty. As long as we can hold off the British if they invade. Don’t want them creating a united Ireland.’ He laughed. ‘Though I’d still be able to collect off Connolly, wouldn’t I?’

‘Why are you so sure?’

‘Because the Germans have no interest in partition. Why would they? That fellow Hempel is sound on the national question. A dry old stick, bit stuck up, distant. Could be English actually. But he makes no secret of it, Germany will reunite Ireland.’

‘Do you think they’ll invade?’

‘Germany? No. Why would they? We’re not their enemy. Look to the Border, I tell you. That’s where the fight will be. Are you ready for it?’

‘I don’t know,’ I seem to be saying that a lot today, Duggan thought. But he really didn’t know the answer to this one. The big
question. How would he shape up if the shooting started?

Timmy clapped him on the back. ‘You’ll be grand. Your father and I beat them in our day. And we hadn’t half the men and guns you have now.’

‘Different kind of war now, though.’

‘Have you met that fellow Petersen? The press fellow in the
legation
?’

Duggan shook his head.

‘He has a saying,
krieg ist krieg, schnapps ist schnapps
. What does that mean?’

‘War is war and schnapps is schnapps. It must be a proverb or something.’

‘That’s it,’ Timmy said and clapped him on the back again. ‘War is war. We beat them once and you’ll beat them again. You’ll be fine when the fighting starts. You’ll do your duty. Like we did in our day. And you’ll run them out of the country. Like we did.’

‘I hope you’re right.’

Timmy went down the steps and ran a hand along the sloping side of the Ford in the driveway. ‘What d’you think of the car? The new V8. Eight cylinders. Twenty-seven miles to the gallon. Sixty miles an hour no problem. Two hundred and fifty pounds all in.’

‘It’s lovely.’

‘Your father’ll be green with envy. I might drive over to see them when I’m down at the weekend for the constituency clinics.’

More likely puce with anger, Duggan thought. As Timmy seemed to go from strength to strength, getting richer and richer, he became more and more insufferable in his father’s view. He got his bicycle, turned it towards the gate and mounted it.

‘They’re all well? At home?’

‘I haven’t been down since I came to Dublin.’

‘Come down with me any weekend you want,’ Timmy said,
running his hand along the slope of the car’s bonnet. ‘I’ll let you drive a bit of the way. Feel the power of her.’

‘Thanks.’

Timmy clapped him on the back and Duggan pushed hard on the pedals to get him through the gravel and onto the road.