Nora Webster (37 page)

Some days later there was a national day of mourning, with everything closed. Nora and Fiona stayed at home and watched television with Conor. The coverage of the funerals was slow. Conor sat with them at first in case there was going to be more shooting. But the coffins and the church and the commentary did not interest him. Eventually, he drifted into the other room while Nora and Fiona watched quietly.

“We should really get a phone,” Fiona said. “I tried to call Aine from the phone-box on the Back Road but I just got someone in the flat below.”

“It would be nice to have a phone,” Nora said.

“I’d say Aine went on the march in Dublin,” Fiona said.

“I hope she went with people she knows,” Nora said.

“What do you mean?”

“I don’t know what I mean. I just thank God we’re living down here, miles from it all.”

“We are all Irish,” Fiona said.

“I know. I feel very sorry for those poor people.”

Later, Conor came back to watch with Nora and Fiona and Conor as the television showed a crowd gathered around the British Embassy in Dublin.

“I think they’re going to burn it,” Fiona said.

“Are there people in it?” Conor asked.

“I’m sure it’s well guarded,” Nora said.

Almost as soon as she spoke, she could see a figure breaking down the door of the Embassy and then others following. Conor became excited.

“Is this happening now?” he asked.

“I think so,” Fiona said.

“Are more people going to get shot?”

“No one has guns,” Fiona said. “Or at least I don’t think they have.”

The commentary on the television was sketchy and confused. At times the camera wobbled and the view was broken by hands or heads in the foreground.

“Where is it?” Conor asked.

“It’s Merrion Square,” Nora said. “We had our honeymoon in the Mont Clare Hotel, just on the corner of it.”

“Did you?” Fiona asked.

“That was where you went at the time,” Nora said.

“Well, you’re lucky you’re not on your honeymoon now,” Conor said.

The following evening Jim and Margaret came to visit and Nora could see that Jim was excited by the fact that the crowd on the march in Dublin had gone on to burn down the British Embassy. When the news came on, they watched the charred remains of the building in silence.

“Every malcontent had a great night out,” Jim said. “They wouldn’t build anything even if you gave them lessons, but they’d be good at burning down.”

“It was very shocking all right,” Nora said.

“What were they meant to do?” Fiona asked. “Walk by the Embassy and thank them?”

“Dublin was a very dangerous place to be last night,” Margaret said.

“It was a fine night for the Special Branch,” Jim said. “They got a good look at a lot of people, I’d say. They’ll bide their time, but I imagine there will be some arrests.”

“Well, I think the protestors were right to burn the Embassy down,” Fiona said.

“I suppose it’s one way of letting the British know how Irish people feel,” Nora said. “One boy was only seventeen.”

“Isn’t that awful?” Margaret said.

“I think the government will know how to deal with this, and we should leave it to them now,” Jim said.

“How will they deal with it?” Fiona asked.

“We’ll use all our ambassadors, and they may take it to the UN. But burning the British Embassy won’t help our cause. It will make us look like a crowd of baloobas.”

“Well, I think the protestors made our position very clear,” Fiona said.

“If I was the mother of one of those boys shot, I would get a gun,” Nora said. “I would have a gun in the house.”

They were silent when Jack Lynch came on the television and was interviewed. The Irish prime minister said he had spoken by telephone to his British counterpart, Edward Heath. When he was finished, Jim was the first to speak.

“He is careful,” he said. “I’d say he put a lot of thought into what he said, and got plenty of advice.”

“I’d say he gave that Edward Heath a good talking-to,” Margaret said. “He’s a very sour-looking man, that Heath.”

“Well, I hope he didn’t let us down,” Nora said. “If the British Army shot my son, I’d like someone a bit tougher in charge down here.”

“I think there’s going to be a lot of trouble,” Fiona said. “And I don’t think Lynch is any help.”

“Well, please God now, none of the trouble will come down here,” Margaret said.

On Friday, Fiona finally spoke to the girl in the bedsit below Aine’s, who said that she did not think Aine had been home for the previous few days. Fiona asked her to put a note on Aine’s door telling her to phone her aunt Una. She did not want to worry Margaret and Jim, so she did not add their names to the message. Fiona told Nora, and went down to Una’s house to let her know that Aine might ring. While she was there, she made a few calls to people in Dublin whom Aine knew. When she could not reach them, she left messages asking them to phone Una’s. Nora waited for her to return with news of Aine, and when she did not arrive, asked Conor to come with her to Una’s.

“Why are we going there?”

“Una invited us.”

“Why have we been invited?” he asked.

Because of the way he asked questions, it was often difficult to tell Conor a half-truth. Immediately on arrival, he sensed that there was something wrong and that this was not a casual visit. She could see his mind working, going through the possibilities. She could not tell him that they were worried about Aine, and that she had not been in her bedsit since Tuesday, the day before the burning of the Embassy. When Nora went to the bathroom, Fiona followed her to say that she had called Aine’s number again but the phone was answered by someone from another bedsit who had gone to check and found the note still pinned to Aine’s door. She had to meet Paul Whitney, she said, and she would ask his advice about what to do.

“He’d know if there were people arrested at the Embassy march,” Fiona said.

“Was Aine on the march?”

“I don’t know. Maybe she’ll phone tonight.”

When, by ten o’clock, only one person had phoned, who said that she had not seen Aine, Nora and Conor walked back from Una’s house. Later, as she heard Fiona coming in, Nora tiptoed downstairs so that Conor would not hear her.

“Paul says that he was thinking of going to Dublin anyway tomorrow, so we can go around to Aine’s and find her.”

“Are you sure she was on the march?”

“I know she has been going on marches and this was such a big one, she wouldn’t have missed it.”

Nora did not want to spend the day in Una’s, waiting for a phone call.

“I’ll go too in my own car.”

“There’s no need.”

She saw that Fiona was on the point of suggesting that if she really did want to travel, she could do so with them, and then deciding that she would not ask her.

“We’ll meet in the Shelbourne Hotel at two o’clock,” Nora said firmly. “I’ll ask Una to go and see Donal in St. Peter’s. And I’ll call around to Aine’s as soon as I arrive in Dublin. It’s probably nothing. She’s probably just staying with someone, and she’ll be home then.”

“I’m sure you’re right,” Fiona said. “Which is why I wonder if we all need to go.”

“I can do some shopping,” Nora said.

“What will Conor do?”

“I’ll deal with him when I’ve had a night’s sleep.”

In the morning, she found Conor in the kitchen.

“What were you and Fiona whispering about last night?” he asked.

“Oh, I woke when she came in and I went and had a cup of tea with her.”

When Una appeared, Conor became even more suspicious. Nora signalled to Una not to say anything in front of him. No matter what room they went into, however, he followed them, at one stage pretending he was looking for something and then finding a chair near the window in the front room when they were there. Eventually, Nora went upstairs to her bedroom and waited for Una to follow.

“A friend of hers rang, she seemed very nice,” she whispered, “and she said that they all usually meet in a pub in Leeson Street on a Saturday night, either Hourican’s or Hartigan’s.”

She agreed to take Conor and visit Donal, bringing him what supplies he had asked for.

As Nora came out of her bedroom she found Conor hovering on the landing. They had not heard him coming up the stairs.

“Has Aine gone missing?” he asked.

“Who said that?”

“Maybe Aine was one of the ones who burned the Embassy,” he said. “Uncle Jim said that the Special Branch would be after them all. Maybe she’s trying to escape.”

“Don’t be silly!” Nora said.

“Why are you all whispering then?”

“Because Aine has a new boyfriend, and myself and Fiona are going to Dublin to meet him, but she didn’t want you or Donal to know because she didn’t want the two of you jeering her and asking her nosey questions when she came home. And she was going to tell you in her own good time.”

“What’s his name?

“Declan.”

Conor seemed to think about the name for a moment and then he nodded.

“So you can go to Una’s,” Nora said, “and then go and visit Donal. And then we’ll be home later.”