A Whispered Name (20 page)

Apart from the time he’d
sung by the fire, Flanagan never went into the parlour again, save once, when
Lisette made a confession. And on that night Flanagan learned why this woman he
would love watched the troops and waited upon them, and why she would always
accuse herself. Without realising it at the time, her words went very deep into
his memory — perhaps because by then he was lost to her. They came to the fore
of his mind in the strongest possible way when, in August 1917, Flanagan came
across that crumpled, condemned heap in no-man’s-land. His mind fled to
Lisette, whose only boy Louis, had joined the French army in 1915. Everyone who
went to Pap’s had heard of the boy He was at the front, fighting for France.

Chapter Twenty-One

At Madame Papinau’s

When Doyle woke he offered
Flanagan a cigarette. They smoked in the heavy silence that lies between
conspirators.

‘Give
me your tags,’ said Flanagan, removing his own.

‘Wot fo’?’

‘Because
if we’re stopped we’ll need to confuse the redcaps. We swap pocket books and we
hide our tags. If we’re unlucky you show my book because I’m not listed injured
or missing.’

Flanagan
hid the tags inside the bandage on his arm, smarting at his own stupidity. What
was he going to do if
he
were stopped and questioned? He could hardly
show them Doyle’s book. He soothed himself with the probability that Doyle’s
desertion hadn’t yet filtered through to Étaples, that the injured lists should
slow the drip. And anyway the trading of books and tags was just a ruse, part
of a wider ploy that served Flanagan’s purposes: for, unlike Feiritéar, when it
came to noble acts he preferred anonymity.

The
train pulled into Étaples at five in the afternoon. Ten minutes later their
luck struck a hitch after all. While ambling down the main street, two bulky
MPs motioned them against a wall. Sweat broke out on Flanagan’s chest and
Doyle. swore under his breath.

‘We’re
on leave,’ said Flanagan as Doyle handed over the pocket book.

The
policeman rumpled his pocked face, squinting at the one-line description.
Fortunately such entries were often so brief as to be useless, unless you had
an identifying feature … like tattoos.
Damnú,
thought Flanagan, I’d
forgotten about those blue dots.
Damnú air.

‘And
yours,’ said the second policeman to Flanagan. His eyes were hidden by the low
nib of a cap that was far too small for his head.

Flanagan
produced Doyle’s book. Seconds later the eyes appeared from a head lifted high
— hard blue eyes above a slit for a mouth. ‘Hold out your hand. I want to see
your knuckles:

Flanagan’s
resistance drained away He was about to throw in the towel when, on the far
side of the road, a shining black door opened. A group of women dressed in
black stepped into the street, comforting the eldest of their number, a bent
and huddled figure leaning on a stick. They were all dabbing their cheeks with
white handkerchiefs while the men looked on, coming from the darkness behind …
out of a Pompes Funèbres: a funeral parlour. Before Flanagan could clock what
was happening, Doyle whistled through two fingers and pointed further up the
street: ‘Oy, Fitzy.’ The two policemen’s heads turned as one, and at that
moment Doyle dashed across the street, towards the crying and the open black
door. Without thinking, Flanagan followed Doyle’s example. To a great
hollering, he crashed through the stained faces into the dim interior, knocking
over a table, two chairs, a little man with a waxed moustache; on he went, arms
flailing, past an open coffin with a god-awful yoke inside with whiskers
sticking out of his ears like a shaving brush, across a back yard, among three
lads smoking by a couple of horses, and into a narrow back lane lit by
breathtaking sunshine. Flanagan was laughing out loud —a reaction that would
have traumatised his mother, had she seen him, but not Mr Drennan … not that
great traveller. ‘Go, boy’ he heard him splutter, and with the spirit of that
old Fenian roaring joy in his ears, Flanagan grabbed Doyle’s collar and tumbled
down an alleyway into a warren of left and rights, until the only sound was the
quick fall of their own feet. Panting and dragging Doyle as if he were the
milch cow, Flanagan cautiously made his way to the back door of Madame Papinau’s
estaminet,
widely known as Pap’s.

Flanagan
lifted the latch, his other hand on Doyle’s arm. Beyond the scullery and the
lounge he could hear the rush of army voices and the clink of bottles and
glasses. They entered and Flanagan motioned Doyle to sit on a stool by the
sink. ‘Peel those spuds,’ he said, heading towards the clatter.

In a
dim corridor that led to the main room he spoke urgently to a dark, lowered
brow. He’d brought a deserter with him, he said, a rough and ready sort who’d
surely be shot if he were caught. Her eyes shone as she glanced towards the
kitchen’s light. That profile, seen of a sudden, stabbed Flanagan’s soul: he
longed to touch her hair, that was all; to feel if only for once the softness
of her hair. With the turn of her head, a shadow claimed back her face and she
said, ‘Take him to the cellar, Joseph.’

The
cellar where Flanagan had stored the apples picked in an October long gone. ‘Compote
for the boys, Joseph,’ she’d said. The formality had flayed him.

At
midnight, Flanagan, Lisette and Doyle assembled in the lounge, their three
faces lit by a single candle. Flanagan pressed the raised edge, releasing the
small pool of hot wax from around the wick. As it ran down the neck and dried,
he said, ‘This lady may be able to help us. If she does, it’s at considerable
risk to herself. She must have reason to do it. She knows my tale already Tell
her yours, so, the tale you told me in the rain.’

Doyle
told another story altogether — far worse than the earlier account — beginning
at his birth and ending in a borstal. Even Flanagan was rapt. For in this, his
second testament, Doyle accused himself as much as the conditions of his infancy.

‘You
can both hide here,’ said Madame Papinau in a faint voice. Her eyes brushed
over Flanagan with desperate happiness, not quite believing its arrival. ‘I’ll
write to my cousin in Boulogne. He works on the harbour. When the time is
right, he’ll help you find a boat.’ She faced Doyle. ‘Tonight you sleep
upstairs; from tomorrow it will be the cellar for you both.’

Lisette
stood up, as did Doyle, and the light from the candle made their features
grotesque.

‘Thank
you,’ muttered Doyle, tugging nervously at his belt. He looked reduced and
ashamed.

‘Don’t
thank me,’ she replied, the pitch of her voice dropping. ‘Thank my son, Louis.
You’ll have the use of his bed.’

Alone
by the candle, Flanagan calculated he’d been away from his unit for twenty-two
hours. But for a nap on the train he’d been awake for over two days. A terrible
desire to sleep came upon him, and it would have seized him if he hadn’t seen
Lisette’s haunting face. She was crouched by his chair. ‘Is it true … will
you stay?’ she whispered, knowing in the uttering that she’d been mistaken. ‘Won’t
you run to me, Seosamh?’

Chapter Twenty-Two

Disobedience

1

Chamberlayne was not the
sort of man to show much emotion. He needed irony and sarcasm to transmit what,
for another, would be a rush of passion. Consequently it was with an air of
apparent indifference that he said to Herbert on the afternoon of the 10th
September: ‘Duggie has received a telegram from a legal mind at GHQ regarding
the Flanagan matter. I don’t know what it says because he’s been summoned to a
pow-wow with Pemberton. Who knows, Captain, perhaps your judicial skills are to
be required once more.’

Chamberlayne
meant that there might be a retrial and a fresh sentencing process. If Duggie’s
argument had found a sympathetic ear, then that was a potential outcome.
Herbert could not linger for Duggie’s return to find out. But it was with a
lightness of foot that he led his Company in a mock attack upon the mock
battlefield. Coloured tape had been fixed to the ground to guide his men
forward. They flapped in the breeze, catching the sunlight. The entire setting
was like a gigantic board game. ‘Snakes and Ladders, Sir,’ whispered Joyce,
making his peace with Herbert.

During
a break in rehearsals, Herbert heard a rumour. Rioting had broken out in Étaples.
Major Tomlinson filled out the detail. ‘We’re not using the word “mutiny”,’ he
said, enunciating each word precisely ‘Rowdy troops are roaming the streets at
the base camp. An MP was obliged to discharge a firearm. Measures to restore
law and order are under way.

To
Herbert, that sounded like mutiny.

‘Obviously’
confided Tomlinson, as if the German High Command must never find out, ‘Senior
officers at GHQ are rattled.’

The
very officers who would decide the fate of Joseph Flanagan. They would open the
file and think, instantly ‘Another instance of drunkenness in place of duty.’
Herbert’s optimism disappeared. His preoccupation endured for the entirety of
the afternoon and was still present when, after supper, he walked past the
abbey and the carpenter’s shed to supervise another kind of practice. Detached,
he observed the team as they planned manoeuvres to outwit the Lancashire
Fusiliers. Only Elliot was more introverted. He kicked stones out of the
ground, his hands in his pockets. Herbert left him be, not knowing what to say
for he was the one who’d stripped him bare.

After
training, Joyce joked some more (about Tomlinson); Pickles Pickering headed the
ball non-stop for eighty-four strikes (until Stan Gibbons pulled his trousers
down); and Flanagan listened to Father Maguire explain the off-side rule in
Gaelic. Herbert edged towards the Irishman and the priest, his unease growing.
They huddled together, as if it were raining. It was a musical, memorable language;
and Herbert had heard it before. The chaplain had looked as agitated then as he
did now. The more Herbert listened — and Father Maguire was beginning to lose
his cool so the dramatic inflections were rising — the more Herbert wanted to
press Flanagan with a question that had taken root throughout the afternoon,
when the assault brigades had rehearsed their moves under the watchful eyes of Tomlinson
and his companions. When the team left the field, Herbert called Flanagan to
one side. As the others went down the lane, Herbert set off in the opposite
direction, towards the woods. When Flanagan came alongside, Herbert asked his
question. He’d forgotten all about that night in the reserve trench, Étaples
and Elverdinghe.

‘How in
the name of God did you ever come to join the British Army?’

2

An airplane had droned low
over the island, Flanagan explained. In a fright, the people ran from their
cottages, their faces turned to the sky towards a burst of leaflets. Flanagan
tore one into strips to use as markers in his copy of
The King’s English
by
the Fowler brothers. As he’d ripped the paper he’d read the call to join
Kitchener’s Army.

‘No one
took any heed,’ said Flanagan, ‘and neither did I. No, if there’s a reason for
my coming to France, it’s the doing of my old teacher Mr Drennan, though he’d
be flabbergasted if he ever knew’

Mr
Drennan was a devout nationalist. Or, rather, having travelled wide and far, he’d
discovered Ireland — as an abstract heaven — which, to his vexation, he’d been
unable to locate with any precision on his return to Cork. He’d woken up to an
appalling personal conviction: the Ireland beloved in the Diaspora, the
Ireland of merry wars and sad songs, had never quite existed in the first
place, at least not in living memory. It was a hope rooted in the
might-have-beens of history, if subjugation and hunger hadn’t dispersed a
nation’s children. He’d felt a fool, because he’d said that more than once
before leaving for Boston, only he hadn’t appreciated the scale of the tragedy
Bruised but unbowed, he’d finally come west to Inisdúr in search of Celtic
purity. There, on the salt-bitten grass, eyes glazed, he’d condemned Dublin
Castle and the British Rule of Law.

“‘Disobedience”
was his favourite word,’ said Flanagan. ‘The Irish had to disobey if they were
to find their true identity. Defiance was their destiny —’ he laughed softly — ‘and
their duty. He’d belt this stuff out while we loaded up the currachs with kelp.
The elders just leaned on the wall chewing their pipes. They’d never paid rent
or rates in their lives. They’d once stoned the boat of a collector when he’d
dared approach the island. That was the last we saw of him. Home Rule? Sure, we
had it.’

Perhaps
that was why Flanagan had never been able to get worked up about British domination.
Island folk didn’t even think in terms of being Irish, not in Mr Drennan’s
sense. There was the mainland. There was the sea. And there was Inisdúr. That
was it. The people’s relationship with their rock and beaches was at odds with
nationalist thinking, precisely because it was ‘thinking’. An islander was part
of his island. There was no link, as with a chain. Man and soil were one. When
he’d said that to Mr Drennan, the table banging started all over. ‘That’s why
you’re free, damn you. You’re Irish and you don’t know it.’