Of Irish Blood (63 page)

We’re Americans, I say to myself.

The last man through the door’s better dressed than the others. Pressed pants at least. But he’s got a pasty face and greasy hair.

“Officer,” Mr. Jenson begins.

“Don’t insult me. I’m a sergeant.” The Black and Tans laugh at this. “But I am in charge.”

Mr. Jenson tries again. “Now, you probably don’t know who we are.”

“Oh, I know who you are. Yank busybodies.”

“But you may not be aware that we are all members of the Society of Friends,” he says. “We do not believe in violence.”

“Well bully for you,” the sergeant says.

One of the Tans who is standing under the ornate mirror in the hallway takes his rifle barrel and whips it across the glass. Pieces fly all over, covering the floor.

“That belongs to the Berridges. He’s a naval officer,” Maura says.

“Ever so sorry, love,” the fellow says.

Another Tan takes Maura by the shoulder, throws her down on the floor. “Better start cleaning that up.”

“Stop that. What’s wrong with you?” I say to the sergeant. “Letting these men act like barbarians?”

“Barbarians?” he says. “And this from an American.”

He laughs, doubles over.

“A good one, that.” He slaps me on the back, hard.

“Now, just one moment, sir,” Mr. Jenson starts.

“Not ‘sir’ I told you. A sergeant, doing my job.”

Two soldiers pick up a carved wooden table in the hall and start carrying it outside.

“Hurry up, boys. We don’t have all day,” the sergeant says. The men grab chairs and lamps and throw them onto the lawn. Through the open door we see the Tans throw gasoline on the pile.

Maura stands up.

“Dear God, those are valuable antiques,” she says to Mr. Jenson.

The sergeant laughs at her. “Should a have thought of that before you entertained traitors, you Fenian bitch.”

One of the Tans sets the furniture on fire. “Stop!” Maura says. The sergeant raises his hand to strike her.

I pull Maura to me. “Leave her alone.”

“All right,” he says, then makes a fist. A quick jab to my mouth. Blood.

“You can’t do that,” Mr. Jenson says.

“I can,” the sergeant says, and he pushes the elderly man away. The rest of the committee has watched in silence, but now Mr. Smith, the youngest of them, steps forward.

“You must make your men behave,” he says.

One of the Tans hits him in the stomach. He doubles over.

“This is crazy,” I say.

The sergeant punches me in the face again. Blood runs from my nose and lips. My head rings.

Mr. Jenson takes a breath. “We are Quakers, peaceful people, pacifists. However, I warn you, what you do here today will be reported. You will be punished.”

“We won’t,” the sergeant says. “Private Avery, what are our orders?”

The private starts to recite. “‘No man will be reprimanded for shooting a traitor.’”

Those words. Charlotte had quoted them to me. Her own brother’s. The general himself. No wonder these blackguards think they can get away with anything.

“None of you are innocent,” the sergeant says. “Why are you interfering in the internal affairs of a sovereign country?”

He’s quoting, I think.

“How’d you like it if another country tried to stop you handling your red Indians. Savages must be put down. A Paddy’s a savage. Full stop. What did that Paddy general of yours say? No good Indian but a dead Indian? Sheridan, wasn’t it? Didn’t you erect statues to him? So don’t tell me how to fight my war,” the sergeant says.

“No killing is justified,” Mr. Jenson says. “Our country has sinned but we have learned and are still learning.”

I take my hand away from my bloody mouth and touch my nose. “You were glad enough for us Yanks to come and keep the Germans from beating you. No complaints about interference then.”

The sergeant ignores me.

“We want a list of everyone you’ve met with,” he says. “Tell me and you can be all on your way.”

“That information is confidential,” Mr. Jenson says.

“Fine, we’ll just interrogate the bitch,” he says. “Since you’re such a gentleman, you won’t let a lady suffer.”

“Tell them nothing,” I say. They wouldn’t dare really hurt me.

“Let’s see,” the sergeant says. “You, Bristol,” he says to a beefy fellow, “you deserve a bit of fun but I hate to show favoritism. Let me think.” The sergeant looks at me. I stare right back at him. I’m too angry to be afraid. All a bluff, I think. So far all I have is a bloody nose and a split lip. Bullies. Have to stand up to them.

“I don’t think these gentlemen will save you,” the sergeant says to me. “Pacifist.” He looks at Mr. Jenson. “Another name for coward.”

“What about me, Sergeant. I got no part of that last hussy,” a young fellow says.

“You didn’t, did you?”

“Don’t waste her on him, Sergeant. He’s still a virgin,” a third man says. “I carried all that heavy furniture and lit the fire. I deserve a little fun.”

“I must object,” Mr. Jenson says again.

“Shut your hole,” the sergeant says, and hits him with the back of his hand. Mr. Jenson staggers.

The sergeant turns to the other Quakers.

“You’ve heard this Yankee bitch refuse to answer our questions. My men will administer the proper punishment. Don’t waste time. Double quick march.”

The beefy one grabs my arm. I scream and pull away.

“You can’t,” I say.

“Oh, but we can,” the sergeant says.

“Don’t. Please don’t. I was a nurse in the war. I tended your wounded.”

The youngest Tan reaches over and grabs my breast. “I’ve a wound you can heal,” he says. He takes my wrist, twists it, and shoves it behind my back.

Maura tries to get my other hand, pull me away. The Tan closest kicks her from behind. She staggers. Now Mr. Jenson, Mr. Smith and the three other committee members all move toward the sergeant, shouting at him, “Stop! This is insane. You mustn’t.”

“Oh, they won’t kill the bitch,” he says. “She might well enjoy herself.”

Now I’m fighting back, punching the young soldier who twisted my wrist.

“Good,” says the beefy one. “I like them to fight back. That last cow only laid there and cried.”

He grabs my hair and drags me toward the hallway that leads to the kitchen.

Please, God. Please, Blessed Mother, help me. Please. Peter, where are you?

The explosion’s loud and so close the hall floor shakes. “What the hell?” says the sergeant. The beefy one lets go of my arm. I manage to scratch his face. A Tan comes running in.

“The lorry. They’ve blown up the lorry.”

All the Black and Tans rush to the front door.

“Our fellows. An ambush,” Maura says. “We’ll get out through the kitchen.”

“What about the others?” I say.

“Let them look after themselves,” she says.

We go.

We’re in the backyard when I see Cyril just ahead of us, waving his hand.

“Come on, come on.”

We run up the steep hillside behind the lodge and down into a little valley where a stream runs over rocks. Maura steps into the water and I follow. Icy cold. The pebbles in the bottom are slippery, hard to walk on, but I’m moving faster than I ever have before, my tweed skirt dragging around me.

“Go, go,” Cyril says.

We run along the stream until we come to a small stone bridge above us.

“Can you climb up there?” Cyril asks. I claw my way up the bank then reach back for Maura, who takes my hand and climbs up beside me. Cyril comes behind her. We cross the bridge and start up the mountain away from the lake.

“Peter Keeley,” I say. “Peter’s back there.”

“No questions,” Cyril says. “Keep going.”

The next thing we’re running through the gardens of a castle—I mean the real fairy-tale version.

“Maura, won’t the people who live here turn us in?” I say to her.

“They won’t,” she says.

And isn’t it a nun who answers the door?

“Welcome to Kylemore Abbey,” she says.

Geeze Louise. We’re taken to the dining room for hot soup and brown bread.

“We’re Benedictines,” the nun says. “Hospitality is our rule.”

I find out that the community was bombed out of their convent in Ypres, Belgium, where they’d gone when religious orders were driven out of Ireland by Cromwell. Back now. They bought the castle last year when the English Duke who’d owned it gambled away all his American wife’s money. A girls’ school now.

So it’s as two nuns accompanied by a small priest that we leave the abbey, carrying our clothes in a bundle. We change in the church at Carna. A boatman meets us at a nearby pier at dawn the next morning.

25

Cyril, Maura, and I sail back in a púcán manned by Martin O’Malley, a Recess fisherman, brother to the Michael O’Malley who landed in Normandy with us.

“A lucky wind,” Martin O’Malley says as the red sail fills and the little boat skims along the surface of the bay. Granny Honora’s own dear Galway Bay and me on top of it. I won’t let the likes of the Black and Tans stain this beautiful land, I think, as we pass fields green with the start of spring. Somewhere on this shore, my granny Honora lived, met and married my grandfather Michael Kelly. Here my own father, Patrick, was born. Endured the Great Starvation as a boy and escaped. Somewhere here is that very piece of earth. Somewhere.

I put my hand down into the spray, rainbows in the water.

I spend an hour that afternoon soaking in a hot bath. Benefits of a fancy hotel. Finally my muscles relax. Bruises on my skin from the Black and Tans but they will fade. Dear God, what if they had raped me? Their intention surely. How could I cleanse myself of that? And yet, how many women have suffered such treatment? As I lie in the warm water, I remember my aunt Máire’s ordeal. Forced to have sex with the landlord’s son. Kept like a slave in the Big House bearing his children. No recourse. “Anyone who raised a hand against the master would be evicted or worse. One more weapon they used to keep us in our place,” she’d said to me. No wonder the Black and Tans assault Irish women so freely.

Well, we’re avenging you, Aunt Máire.

I lather my hair, duck under the water to rinse the suds. Towel-dry my bob. A bath helped wash Tim McShane away, too, I think.

Mr. Smith drove the committee members back to Galway in the touring and brought my luggage. So I decide to forget the tweeds and wear the Madame Simone cinema-inspired dress that Maud thought was too advanced for Ireland. My version of Aunt Máire’s red silk shawl.

I look into the mirror. My hair shines. A bit of rouge on my cheeks. The green crepe hits me just below the knees, a wide satin ribbon circles the drop waist. That’s me. Nora Kelly, a modern woman, American citizen, resident of Paris, professional photographer. Back in the land of my ancestors. Proud of my Irish blood. Unafraid.

An army officer is sitting in the library waiting with the committee when I come down. “This is Captain Pyke,” Mr. Jenson says. “He has come to talk to us about the incident.”

Pyke. That name. Is this man some relation to the landlord who raped Aunt Máire? Dressed in a regular army uniform, so not a Black and Tan. Elegant, legs crossed, polished boots, a riding crop in one hand. The cliché British officer. He does have the look of my cousin Thomas, the same receding chin, concave chest. Aunt Máire’s other children, my cousins Daniel and Grace, look like their mother. “Thomas was always the odd one,” I’d heard Granny Honora tell my mother. Was this man his half brother? No. Too young. Thomas’s father was probably this man’s grandfather, which makes him Thomas’s nephew, I guess.

“Pyke? It seems I’ve heard that name,” I say. He stands, throws his narrow chest out, and says, “You well may have. We’re quite a prominent family. Ours is the big gray house on the coast, about ten miles west of here.”

“The Scoundrel Pykes,” Maura says as she comes in the library room in that quiet way she has. Captain Pyke laughs.

“Ah, well, I did have some high-spirited ancestors. But my generation takes our responsibilities very seriously. We’re at the edge of the empire here—Britain’s western shore. A firm hand’s always been required to keep the natives under control and maintain some semblance of civilization out here in the wilds. Quite like the American frontier. If only we could herd the Irish onto reservations. Some talk of setting up camps. Worked in South Africa.

“I understand America’s turned to segregation. Important to keep the lower orders in their place. Best for everyone. Race mixing destroys society. Though I heard that the Irish in America actually intermarry with blacks.”

I stare at him. Where do I start?

“I’m speechless in the face of such ignorance,” I say. “Negro troops won medals fighting in France. And as for marriage, why not?”

“Oh,” he says. “You’re one of those—a frustrated middle-aged woman with, well, proclivities. Mutton dressed as lamb,” pointing his riding crop at me. And I feel very foolish. A would-be flapper.

He turns to Mr. Jenson. “And this is the woman you say my men abused?”

“Yes,” Mr. Jenson says. “Quite shocking, really. Brutal. If it wasn’t for the, well, interruption, I don’t know what would have happened.”

Captain Pyke walks over to him, sticks his finger in Mr. Jenson’s face.

“What you say was an interruption took the life of a man serving His Majesty the king. A criminal act by murderers. Barbaric. How dare you question the measures we have to take against such scum? And as for this,” he pauses, “female. Are you sure she’s not exaggerating, probably hoped for…”

“You pig,” I start, and step forward, but I feel Maura’s hand on my shoulder.

“Don’t restrain her,” Captain Pyke says. “Let her insult me.”

“You could be arrested,” Maura says to me. “Acting or speaking in a menacing manner toward a soldier or policeman is against the law.”

Pyke hears her. “Oh, don’t spoil our fun, Mrs. O’Connor. I understand Miss Kelly here was eager to be interrogated. Weren’t you? Or so Sergeant Simmons said.”

“I really must protest, Captain Pyke,” Mr. Jenson says. “Miss Kelly is a valuable member of our delegation and on her behalf I insist that you reprimand your sergeant and those thugs.”

Now
he’s speaking up, I think.