The Devil's Due: An Irish Historical Thriller (6 page)

Kathleen wasn’t the only reason I wanted to go back. There was unsettled business—the events of a year ago and those that had taken place well before wouldn’t rest. The thought of going back continued to nag me. And if the Treaty was signed, I wanted to be part of what was taking place. I wanted to do my part to help build a new nation.

I didn’t know what to do. I sipped the tea, careful this time to avoid another burn. It was a difficult decision and one that I would have trouble making. But as I would learn later that evening, it was one that had already been made for me.

___

It was six o’clock when I returned home that evening. I climbed the five flights of stairs to find Mrs. Hirsch waiting for me in the hall.

“Good evening, Mr. O’Sullivan,” she greeted.

“Good evening, Mrs. Hirsch.” I smiled but received only a nod in return. A few months ago, I had learned why Mrs. Hirsch never smiled, not anymore at least. I had asked about the photograph on the wall in her apartment. In it, Mrs. Hirsch was smiling as she stood next to her husband. Both were smartly dressed as were the children in front of them. The boy and the girl—I couldn’t tell who was older, but they couldn’t have been more than nine or ten years old at the time—were smiling as well. The only one who wasn’t was Mr. Hirsch. The photograph was from 1912 and I wondered later if perhaps Mr. Hirsch knew then what was to come. Both children would have been my age now, but it wasn’t meant to be—they both had died of the Spanish Flu two years ago. In some ways, I suppose, I reminded Mrs. Hirsch of the children she had lost.

Less than a year later, Mr. Hirsch would fall below a horse and carriage as he was crossing Broadway. A heart attack, the doctors had said. He was no longer able to get out of bed. Mrs. Hirsch worked in one of the garment factories sorting buttons for a few hours each day, just enough, I suspected, to pay the rent. The rest of her day was spent caring for Mr. Hirsch.

“Another letter,” She said as she pulled the envelope from her sweater.

I hid my excitement. Kathleen’s letters had come once a month, and all, like the first letter, had been cautiously written, with only passing mention of the troubles at home and no mention at all of our relationship. After the truce had been announced, I had asked several times what it meant, but her neat, plain handwriting only provided vague answers. I handed Mrs. Hirsch the package—beef tongue was all I could steal today—and she handed me the letter.

“A woman dropped this off this morning.”

I looked up at Mrs. Hirsch. She frowned, and I couldn’t help but think that something was wrong. I looked at the envelope and felt a sudden emptiness in my stomach. It was addressed to Frank Kelleher.

“Is that you?” Mrs. Hirsch asked. “Frank Kelleher?” She was still frowning, her gaze was steady on me.

“Yes,” I heard myself say. Someone knew my real name and where I lived. Sharing my secret with Mrs. Hirsch hardly seemed to matter.

I looked at the envelope again. There was no stamp from the post office. I stared at my name but didn’t recognize the handwriting. I flipped the envelope over. There was no return address.

Frowning myself, I looked up at Mrs. Hirsch.

“She wouldn’t give me her name,” Mrs. Hirsch continued. “She only said it was important that I deliver that to you.”

I turned the letter over in my hand as my mind raced. I couldn’t stay here—after Jack and now this letter, it was no longer safe. I wondered again about Philadelphia and Kansas City and whether I could find a job there.

“Supper will be ready in thirty minutes,” Mrs. Hirsch said. I looked up, and she held my eye then nodded once before turning away. My secret, it seemed, would be safe with her. But was that enough?

I unlocked my door, the letter feeling heavy in my hand. I lit the oil lamp but didn’t bother with the fire. With a sense of dread, I slid my fingernail, still dirty from the day’s work, below the flap.

Dear Mr. Kelleher,

We’ve been introduced once before but you wouldn’t remember me. It doesn’t matter. I’m from Ireland. I came to New York six months ago.

I knew Kathleen Coffey in Limerick. I visited Kathleen and her sister Mary in March, before my journey. Kathleen made me promise not to tell anyone and I wanted badly to honor that promise. I have had a long time to think and pray about this.

When I saw Kathleen, she was with child. She didn’t want to tell me but I wouldn’t let her be until she did. I know you and Kathleen were courting.

God willing, the baby has come safely. I’ve written to Kathleen but I couldn’t ask directly. I’m sure you know why. I pray for Kathleen and the baby every Sunday and I light a candle in the church when I can. I pray too that Kathleen and God will forgive me for this letter. But the world is not kind to women such as Kathleen, Mr. Kelleher. I’m sure you know that.

I’ve done what I set out to do and whatever you decide is your business.

Sincerely,

A Friend

I let out a heavy breath when I finished reading. I pictured Kathleen as I had last seen her: three in the morning and she had been sitting in bed, her knees pulled up to her chest. Her fingers had been playing nervously with the medal dangling from the chain she wore around her neck. I realized now that the fear I had seen on her face wasn’t only for me, it was for her too. As I slipped out the door, she had continued to twist the medal around and around.

I should have known then. I had seen the medal clearly but with the excitement of the night, with the IRA after me and with the British right outside Kathleen’s window, it hadn’t made sense. I glanced at the letter again. It made sense now. Kathleen had been wearing a St. Brigid medal—
St. Brigid, the patron saint of mothers and babies.

Limerick City

January 1922

It was cold and gray when I first saw Limerick in the distance. Like they had been when I fled, the fields were barren, waiting for the first planting in six weeks’ time. Hayricks dotted the landscape, and trails of smoke—white swirls against a dark sky—rose from the chimneys of the white-washed stone cottages that we passed. In the hills, I noticed an old man tending a flock of sheep. They were clustered together under the watchful eye of a collie who circled the flock, keeping the strays from wandering too far. I thought of my grandfather.

In addition to the pigs, my grandfather had tended a flock, some three dozen sheep. When I was eight, it became my job to help shear them, once in the spring and once in the fall. It was tough, dirty work, but so were most things on the farm. Like the man I now saw out my window, my grandfather had a collie to help him. I think that dog understood my grandfather better than my grandmother ever did. Using nothing more than hand signals, sometimes over great distances, my grandfather and the dog worked as a team and never lost a single animal. My grandfather died in my tenth year and my father—sick himself I later realized—sold the flock the day of my grandfather’s funeral. Like I would do years later, the dog disappeared one day, broken-hearted I’m sure that both the man and the sheep he loved were gone. Four years later, my father, God rest his soul, died of consumption, and the responsibility for running the farm had fallen on the shoulders of a scrawny fourteen-year-old boy named Frank Kelleher.

Big Frankie indeed.

___

“Look!”

The sound of the woman’s voice brought me back to the present. I glanced behind me and smiled. The young mother, holding the baby in her arms, was pointing out the window to the steel gray surface of the river as the train entered the valley.

“That’s the Shannon,” her husband said.

I had spoken to them briefly when we boarded. They were from Wexford and were visiting the man’s relations in Limerick, something denied him for the last few years due to the war. His wife had never traveled farther than Waterford and, to her it seemed, Limerick was a world away. Relying on the name I had used for the last year, I had introduced myself as Michael O’Sullivan from New York. We had chatted about Ireland. They were tired of the war and supported the Treaty, even if it meant an Ireland divided.

They chatted excitedly, and I half listened as the husband told her about the river and what lay ahead. I stopped listening. I already knew what lay ahead on the river, but I wondered now what lay ahead for me. On the journey over, I learned that although the fighting had stopped and the British would soon be leaving, the mood in Ireland was changing. For two years we had fought side by side, united in our desire to drive the English out of our country. But now, there were growing tensions between those who supported the proposed treaty with Britain and those who didn’t. The supporters,
Free Staters
they were called, celebrated our independence, a victory that had been centuries in the making. But the Anti-Treaty faction saw that the freedom Britain offered wasn’t free at all. Ireland was to remain a dominion of the British Empire, and the Irish government would
be required to take an oath of allegiance to the throne.
How was that different from today?
I wondered. Worse, Britain laid claim to three of Ireland’s most valuable ports and proposed transferring a portion of their debt to a fledgling nation that had no means to repay it. But it was the partition above all else that caused the most debate. The six counties of the North—most of Ulster—would remain part of Britain. It was no surprise that the British wanted to keep Belfast and the North for themselves. While Limerick and the south and west were primarily farms, Belfast had foundries that made iron, textile mills that made linens, and boat yards that made ships. These businesses were controlled by Protestants whose loyalty to the King had been an economic decision as much as an ideological one. They were invaders—English and Scots—who had been given the land that British occupiers had stolen from us. Under the Treaty, Ireland would be forever divided. In exchange, Britain would withdraw its forces from the twenty-six counties of the south.

“It’s the best we could hope for,” a man I met on the ship had argued, something I would later hear time and again. “It’s a path to freedom.”

I was careful to avoid the debates, not wanting to draw attention to myself. But I didn’t agree. So long as Britain required that we bow to the king, so long as they kept a strangle hold on our economy, and so long as they kept the north, we would never be free. It seemed that the country I had dreamed of during the dark, lonely nights in New York was a myth.

“Look, there’s Limerick!” the woman said as she pointed to the buildings in the distance.

Limerick
, I thought, both excited and worried. I had to be careful. Even with the war over, the year I had been gone hadn’t been enough to ease the grudges. We Irish were pretty good at hating—we’d been hating the British for over seven hundred years. I suspected there was enough hate left over for me, for a traitor.

To the gentle swaying of the train, the rhythmic shush of the steam engine, and the clackity-clack of the wheels, the baby in the woman’s arms behind me had fallen fast asleep and remained so for the last three hours. Like the mother and father, I’d kept my own window up lest the black smoke from the coal boiler soil the baby’s dress. I was a father now too, a thought I still hadn’t grown accustomed to. As I had since the moment I had received the letter, I wondered again about my own son. That the baby was a boy was certain. I don’t know how I knew, I just knew.
What did he look like?
I wondered. Was he fair like Kathleen? Or did he have my own dark features?

There had been no time to ask. The day after I received Eileen’s letter—she was one of the Cavanaghs’ other servants and I was certain the letter had come from her—I had written to both Kathleen and her sister Mary, telling them that I was coming. I gave them no time to protest: two weeks later I stood on the deck as the boat sailed out of the harbor and New York faded in the distance behind us. I hoped my letter arrived before I did. But to be safe, I had sent a telegram from Cobh after the boat reached port.

With a loud hiss of steam, the train pulled into the station. There were dozens of people waiting on the platform, many waiting to board and others waiting for friends and relatives to get off. Out the window, I spotted the tall, fair-haired woman dressed in black standing on the platform. I was relieved to see that Mary had received my letter. She was by herself and I wondered where Kathleen was. She must be waiting with Tim by the cart, I reasoned.

Mary was searching the windows of the cars as the train slowed. I smiled and waved until she saw me. She caught my eye. Her curt nod told me that she wasn’t pleased to see me, and I worried that something was wrong. Mary, twelve years older than Kathleen, was more of a mother than a sister to her. Many times I had found myself the target of her sharp tongue. Mary, I suspected, would be angry with me for the way I had left Kathleen, regardless of the circumstances. I glanced at Mary again and this time I saw something more in her eyes. Her brow was furrowed and she glanced once or twice toward the rear of the train. I frowned. It was a look I was familiar with for it was one I had seen on my own mother.

Once the train stopped, the passengers in my car began climbing out of their seats, their excited voices filling the air. I peered out the window again. Mary was looking down the platform toward the rear of the train. She bit her lip, then seemed to catch herself. I realized I had misread the tension I had spotted before. Something was happening outside. When she turned back, she held my eyes and shook her head twice.

What was happening outside I didn’t know. I turned to the family behind me, looking for something to delay getting off the train until Mary signaled that it was safe.

“Here, let me,” I said with the biggest smile I could manage. I helped them with the luggage and the pram, holding it steady as the mother laid the baby inside. All the while, I kept one eye on Mary. She glanced my way and shook her head again. I felt a prickle on the back of my neck as I sat back down. Outside, two men passed Mary and they too glanced over their shoulders toward the rear of the train. The worried looks on their faces were a match for that on Mary’s. They quickened their pace and hurried away. A moment later I knew why. I heard the scrape and staccato clack of footsteps—sounds that could only be made by hobnailed boots. Then I heard the voices—British voices—and a moment later six soldiers appeared. I spun away from the window, tilting my head down, trying to hide my face.
Wasn’t there supposed to be an amnesty?
In a moment of panic, I wondered whether the truce had failed. I watched the soldiers out of the corner of my eye. Except for the officer who carried a revolver in his holster, they weren’t armed like the ones I remembered.
What type of patrol is this?
I wondered. As they passed by the car, Mary bit her lip and glanced down the platform again. As the soldiers disappeared, I realized that something else troubled Mary.

“Is everything alright here?”

I spun at the voice. The conductor frowned. He held a small silver watch in his hand, the chain connected to his waistcoat. Letting out the breath I’d been holding, I told him I would be off in a minute. He glanced at his watch, slid it back into the pocket of his vest, nodded once, and then left to check on other passengers. Most of them were gathering their luggage and making their way to the door and the steps that led outside. From the platform, I could hear the high-pitched voices of people who hadn’t seen each other in years.

Unsure what to do, I waited for Mary’s signal. The soldiers had disappeared, but Mary still wore a worried look. Cautiously I pressed my face to the glass, trying to see down the platform. I felt the shiver creeping up my neck again and a moment later I knew why. I jerked back at the sight: the broad shoulders; the dark, hooded eyes, filled more often with menace than they were with laughter; the thin upper lip that sat over a square jaw; the crooked nose that came from Liam’s stone. It was Billy.

Better the devil you know than the devil you don’t, my mother would say. But as I ducked below the window again, fussing with my boots now—or so I hoped it seemed—I knew she was wrong. It was the devil I knew that caused me worry. Eyes darting around, I searched for some means of escape.

I slid out of my seat. Leaving my luggage, I kept my head low as I made way through the car to the rear, dodging the few remaining passengers, hearing a few rebukes in my wake.

“Here now!” I heard the conductor shout behind me. I ignored him too.

How could he have known? My mind raced as I debated what to do. The train would continue on to Abbeyfeale but there were several stops along the way. I could ride the train to Patrick’s Well, get off there, and find a farmer or someone heading back to Limerick and ask for a ride. I stole another glance out the window and felt my stomach sink. Billy was now talking to Mary. But if she was nervous now she hid it well.

“What’s this all about?” the conductor asked again.

I turned, narrowed my eyes and coughed, my hand on my chest. “I’m…” I said and coughed again. “I’ve been sick,” I said in a weak voice. Then I turned, doubled over and coughed once more.

Eyes wide, the conductor backed away. Like many, he feared the consumption or whatever disease I might be carrying.

I wiped the non-existent sweat off my forehead, let out a loud breath, contorting my face.

“I only need a moment…..” My voice hoarse, I never finished the sentence, unable due to the bout of coughing that had overcome me.

The conductor took another step back.

“Just a moment,” I continued, trying my best to wheeze, “and then I’ll be gone.”

He glanced back up the now empty train car. He was confused and that was all I needed. Ignoring him, I put my face up to the glass again and let out a soft moan, hoping the conductor would go away. The whole while, I could feel his eyes on my back.

Mary was by herself now, staring down toward the front of the train. After a moment she turned, searching, then her eyes found mine. She glanced down the track once more then back at me. Finally she nodded. Billy was gone.

___

It was several minutes later when I stepped onto the platform that I let out the breath I’d been holding.

“Mary!” I said. “It’s grand to see you.”

“You shouldn’t have come,” she said, her voice sharp.

Without another word, she turned on her heel and led me away. I realized that she had probably been angry with me since the day I had fled. I held my own tongue, knowing that she had earned the right. As much as I wanted to ask about my son, I couldn’t. Not yet and not until she had a chance to say her piece.

Outside the station, Mary’s son, Tim, was waiting by the cart. But Kathleen and my son were nowhere to be seen. Let down, I smiled anyway.

“Tim!” I said. “How are you, lad?”

“Getting on,” he said softly.

As quiet as I remembered him and with barely a glance my way, Tim took my steamer and, without another word, hefted it up on the cart.
Was he angry too?
I wondered. Or had he become more sullen the year I was away? His own mood seemed to follow his mother’s.