Flights of Angels (Exit Unicorns Series) (76 page)

“I’m sorry,” she said and moved into his arms, giving him the anchor of the here and now in her physical presence.

He sighed, and she felt the rise of his chest beneath her cheek, the thrum of his blood and heart sounding deep within her own body.

“It’s what they say about the past, isn’t it? It’s another country, removed from this one an’ best not visited too often lest ye should find yerself stranded there. I fear that’s what Northern Ireland is though, stranded in the past.”

He held her tightly and kissed the top of her head. Then they simply stood entwined, watching the sun sink into the west in shades of vermilion and gold. And she knew as she watched the movement of color and shadow play over the hills and spill soft through the hedgerows, that he saw something far different. He saw what might be, in a far country which existed only in the heart, a country to which she had no passport. It was her greatest fear—that one day he would finally cross that border and return home no more.

He awoke in the wee hours, the dream still thick upon him
so that he came up from sleep with the boy’s name on his lips. He sat up, half expecting him to still be there in front of him, for the boy to speak and to be alive and whole. He had felt the sun’s warmth on the boy’s head, smelled the sweet half-grown scent of him. He sat up, swung his legs over the side of the bed and put his feet down. Behind him, his wife slept deeply, the steady breath of her grounding him a bit more. He sighed and got up, found his clothes and put them on. He needed the night air to brush the last of the dream from him.

The air outside was warm and thick with the scent of green things exhaling their watery breath. He took in a long steadying draught of it and headed toward the barn.

He had all but torn down the original structure and made it taller, with a loft for the hay. It was like many of the barns they had seen in the New England countryside during their time in Boston. He had even painted it red—with white trim—to Pamela’s delight. It wasn’t quite finished inside but it was close to it. Now Pamela could bring her horse home from Jamie’s stable, should she choose to do so. Right now, Paudeen was the only occupant, curled up cosily on fresh hay. He looked up, uttered a small
meeehhh
, gave Casey the hairy eyeball and went back to sleep. The barn still smelled of freshly sawn wood and paint only just dried. It gave him a feeling of solidity to be here with beams he had hewn and walls he had raised himself, taking away the ephemeral disturbance of the dream.

He fished behind the beam on which his spade hung and brought out a packet of cigarettes. It had been a week since he’d had one and he felt he could reward himself for his good behavior with just one. He was pretty certain Pamela knew exactly where he hid them but she pretended not to and he pretended not to know that she knew. He lit up with the matches he kept tucked inside the packet and took a long, sweet drag, sighing contentedly and letting out a stream of smoke.

The dream had been of Lawrence. The boy had been standing on a gate, a meadow of wild-flowers behind him, the sun high in the sky lighting his hair to a gleaming copper penny. He had an apple in his hand in the dream, and was trying to tell Casey something, though the words had been lost the way they so often were in dreams. But there had been a sense that he was happy and that whatever he was trying to tell Casey wasn’t urgent. Casey had been about to ruffle his hair the way he had done in life when he had awakened. He could still feel the silky softness on his palm, the depth of it over the boy’s finely rounded skull.

It wasn’t the first dream and he wondered sometimes if he dreamed as he did because he did not allow himself to think of Lawrence often. The lad was always there, of course, but Casey did not allow the memory of that tall, gangling frame and smart mouth to come to the surface any more than could be helped. It still had the slice of a scalpel to his heart, and he could not afford it. But sometimes, inevitably, there he was, as though he had appeared writ in the air, all limbs and elbows and sharp angles, food in his hand, for the child had always been hungry, and Finbar devotedly at his side.

Casey knew he had agreed to the deal with Billy because he had hoped somehow to find vengeance for Lawrence. But after the birth of Conor, something changed inside him and he had known it was not the right thing. It would not honor the boy and it would not bring him back.

Billy’s information had been hit and miss, and Casey had never really trusted the child entirely. He had known from the start that the boy was playing to his vulnerabilities by dragging Lawrence’s ghost into the situation. He had been careful about what he passed on to Dacy, who was his contact in the Republican world, knowing that the wrong information could backfire and cause a greater conflagration in the end. He had warned David too, but David was as wary as a caged hare in his own particular situation and careful with Billy too. He did not like to think about what David might be doing to keep his cover in that house of nightmares that he was attempting to bring down. The man was decent and Casey had come to have a grudging respect for him. Truth was, he trusted him. He laughed softly to himself and took another pull on the cigarette. He trusted a British agent. That and a dime could get you killed in this country.

Their arrangement was working thus far, with Casey using Dacy as his line of communication into the upper echelons of the Republican movement. He knew who the British were willing to talk to and negotiate with and had made that approach first. It had gone well and there had been, he was made aware, a meeting in England with the Secretary of State and a few names he knew from the IRA. Maybe there was hope for some sort of tenuous bridge to be built. At least not all of Jamie’s work from the last few years would be destroyed. It made him laugh at himself to know he was holding down the fort for James Kirkpatrick, especially when he considered the hostility of their last meeting. The man had threatened to take his wife from him and Casey knew it had not been an idle threat. Mind, it had the exact effect on Casey that Jamie had intended it should, and he was bloody grateful to the highhanded bastard for the results of that.

Occasionally, through his brother, tidbits of information made their way to Muck as well. It was for him to do with it as he wished but there had only been hints thus far in the articles Muck wrote. Being that Muck’s journalism tended more to the incendiary sort, Casey figured he was holding onto the small bait in order to chase a big fish. He had no wish to know what or whom that might be.

He had been chilled by the Reverend on the television. He understood all too clearly that the man was an implacable enemy of James Kirkpatrick, and therefore of Pamela as well.

This latest turn of events, nationally speaking, had made him feel suddenly old. He remembered how it had been, the time he had told Pamela of, what it was to believe so strongly that it was like breathing, not simply words, nor slogans, nor mindless violence. Now he knew that all of it, the posturing, the theater, the voting, the striking, the hate-filled speeches, marches, banners and guns would come down to the same thing—a nation that was lost, a nation that could not rule itself and so must be ruled by the enemy from across the sea, the enemy that occasionally meant well but had no understanding at all of their contrary cousins.

He headed back into the house. He was happy now, satisfied in his family and the world he had built with them. Still and all, sometimes in the quiet of a spring night there were times he missed that fiery boy and his beliefs.

And there was another boy he missed too, the one who spoke words he could not hear in his dreams.

Chapter Fifty-six
November 1974
A Man Uncommon in His Virtues

The house was an old Victorian mansion tucked away
in London’s wealthy Mayfair District. The bottom floor was occupied by an elderly woman with blue-rinsed hair, sensible stockings and two cats that often sat on the stone pillars flanking the wrought iron front gate. She had a sharp eye for scoundrels and scamps, and as the neighbors could attest, an even sharper tongue. She had lived in the house a very long time, so long that the shape and form of the neighborhood around her had changed, like a sleeping cat that awakens, stretches itself and resumes its slumber in a different position, but still with recognizable paws and tail. The lady’s name was Mrs. Tickle, which seemed rather unsuitable for one so sharp in her dimensions. No one, however, had been brave enough to point this out to her.

On the second floor was a bachelor, an untidy scholar of sorts who lived surrounded by piles of books, unwashed teacups, buttered toast ends, bits of marmalade, and paper with an uncanny ability to go forth and multiply during the night. He was a bit absentminded and tended to waste scads of time looking for his spectacles—inevitably perched upon his head. What his job was, no one knew, only that when he could navigate his way out of his cluttered set of rooms, he spent a great deal of time in the British Museum reading rooms. Neighbors speculated that he must be independently wealthy, though one could not determine that from the state of his clothes or shoes. His name was Mr. Smith.

The top floor of the house was empty and, as far as anyone knew, had never been inhabited. Thick draperies prevented even the smallest bit of light from escaping into the street below and no ghostly faces had ever been seen at the windows.

There was a garden at the back, nowhere near as grand these days as it had been in its Victorian heyday, but well enough kept, though the shrubbery had been allowed to grow high and thick, obscuring even further the neighbors’ ability to peer in.

This evening the neighbors would have been rather surprised to see the activity on the third floor. It was a large open space, the walls having been knocked out and the ceiling reinforced with beams to compensate for the lack of load-bearing structure beneath. A large round table dominated the room, which was lit by dozens of candles and a fire in the hearth that made it snug and pleasant. The scents of food wafted up the steep staircase from the kitchen below: the sweet, opulent notes of vanilla, the deeper ones of a perfectly braised roast beef, the breathing flavors of uncorked red wine, cinnamon and pepper, cardamom and roses.

The guests now taking their places around the table came from a wide variety of countries, races, echelons of society and government. They were all present for a common reason—a most uncommon man. Some had known him since his birth, others had witnessed his growing years or groomed him through his adolescence for all that would one day be demanded of him. Still others had met him as a young student and attempted to create for him the spiritual and intellectual environment necessary for his adult life. They had found it no easy task. A few had never met him at all and their knowledge was at a remove. Some loved him and some most assuredly did not. None, however, were disinterested.

They settled quickly and drinks were brought, wine heated with spices in deference to the snow. The fire in the hearth burned high and fragrant, popping with resin from the dry birch that fed it. The chatter was amiable, for many of them knew each other, some through politics and others only through the man they had come here to discuss.

Only one woman sat among them, away from the fire, dressed in clinging crimson wool, her face exquisitely made up but not quite disguising her age. She knew the man in ways the others could not. She had loved him once, she had hated him once, and thought perhaps she still did—hate him and, God help her, love him. It was some small solace to know that he had loved her too, for a time.

Heads turned her way as they always had. A famed beauty in her day, her eyes were the color of the deepest heartsease and her hair fell in waves of winter chestnut to her shoulders. She had been painted more than once, in oils that tried to hold her colors, her delicate tints and the rich fall of her hair. None of them had done her justice. But she was not that bold girl any longer. Life had tempered her bones and skin, her prejudices and desires. Only sometimes, when it could not be avoided, did she remember what it had been to be that young woman, and ached for her.

She seated herself beside the Irish priest, for she had met him once and liked him. He had not judged her at the time and she thought this was a rare quality in a human being, much less a priest. He pulled the chair out for her, his smile crinkling the corners of his eyes. It was easy to see that he was accustomed to smiling and to laughter and his proximity made her spirit feel lighter immediately.

She was here because she was owed a favor and had chosen to call it in by being here tonight. She had been warned only to sit and listen. It had seemed a small enough price to pay.

This proved to be most difficult. It was clear almost immediately that the meeting had been arranged to justify certain actions, or rather the lack of them. She kept her eyes on a man in a grey suit, wondering whether he was friend or foe. She had known him a very long time but had never been able to decide which side of the fence he was on concerning Jamie. He was the one who had owed her a favor from a very long time ago.