No Country: A Novel (7 page)

There were more fat people here than I had seen from end to end in an entire lifetime in Sligo, toddling about, bellies like lambeg drums, bloated under fancy waistcoats. A fierce variety of moustaches were also to be seen, waxed, in many shades, coaxed up, combed or curled. No wonder, in this big whirling city, folks could so easily shake off such a matter as the Clontarf meeting, which had seemed so momentous to me. As I gawked at the fine shops, I felt broken into fragments. One part of me wanted to prise off pieces of flagstone and fling them into the grand shops full of dazzling goods and ladies and waistcoated men. Another wanted to own a fine shop—any shop—and count the money in the ringing till. Yet another piece of me wanted to sit down right there and weep after the great failure of Clontarf. But all the parts of me were footsore and wanted a drink. Even a tramp’s poteen would have been welcome, so bedraggled and low in spirit I felt, all alone in this billowing crowd.

Evening was descending and the crowds draining away, as if abandoning the city for the coming of night. I can hardly recall how long I continued to wander the now-empty streets until I came to a dainty bridge, fancifully decorated with iron railwork. I turned right to go across it, but a man intercepted me and asked me to pay a ha’penny.

“Why?” I asked testily, having just walked over any number of bridges without let or hindrance. He chuckled at me for a bumpkin and said, “Because ’tis the Ha’Penny Bridge, of course.”

Not in a humour to be amused by this, I turned on my heel and
walked away until I could barely see the high head of the Bank of Ireland. I cared not if I were lost. At the far end of the lane was a streetlamp with a sign that faintly read
Dame Street.
I saw stairs leading below, the blue waft of tobacco smoke, a few feet standing about on the trampled straw, and heard a hum of conversation. I knew it was a place to drink and I longed to rest my tired legs. Did not a man in a brave new city need a drink, heartsick and addled with sights as I was?

•  •  •

W
HY
I
WANTED
my fourth glass of whiskey I cannot tell, for I am not that kind of drinking man—as anyone who knows me from Strandhill to Sligo can vouch. I do like the first warmth of the gullet as it goes down, the feeling of ease. I enjoy the second one’s savour of peat and comfort, and am done. But on this day, there was summat in me which would not be comforted. I despise those who turn over their fourth glass and roll their eyes to cry or look for a fight. But I drank as if from a thirst, and a sense of having to let go of something precious. I also knew that soon I would have to find words to defend my lost dream, yet resenting its failure. What a strange state of mind this was.

Two men were talking at my table, wrestling with words. For the better part of an hour, I paid them little attention. I had come with my drinks and sat down with a tired sigh, ankle-deep in straw. The younger one looked a dandy with mocking eyes. He was dressed in a soft brown coat with round copper buttons, his hair thick and curly under a trim felt hat with a tan band around it. The other was of middle years, with a three-day growth of beard, whose talk, as I began to listen, was clearly from farther west, from Fermanagh
perchance, or from Tyrone. This older man wore worn corduroy and cloth buttons, and his hands were rough and crusty. I would not be surprised to see him at a hayrick or a threshing, or his leg pushing a spade down to square off and lift sod, or dusting the dirt off the potatoes. ’Twas odd to listen to them—the city-bred and the rough countryman—knowing that such a chance meeting of opposites could only happen over peaty whiskey in a public house. As their animosity grew, I realized I was beginning to pay their words more attention.

“And ye have an opinion of the weather and the parliament and the sun and moon, eh?” scoffed the older man.

The young man smiled and shook his head. He let his finger run round the rim of his half-empty glass, then looked up, including me in his glance. “I could have predicted today’s matter, but then I am a betting man. A betting man should know his nag. And I can say confidently, I saw through that Dan O’Connell.” He flipped his palm open, as if anyone with sense would agree with him.

A hard meal it was for me to digest the meaning of today, and I grimaced, despite myself. This young suave was speaking as if our failed hero was little more than a gombeen come to cheat us, playing fast and loose with our hopes.

“Mr. Blackburn,” the older man said, holding his calloused palms together, as if not trusting them separately, “you are too flippant about a man who has served Ireland well all his life, but fumbles on one cursed day.”

Blackburn motioned to the serving man behind the counter. “Will you join us, sir, in a toast?” he said to me directly. I was taken by surprise, not just to be included, but also that a toast was to be proposed. I could tell this Blackburn liked to hold court. The
drinks arrived and Blackburn paid. What the older man had said rang fair to me: Indeed, a lifetime of service, and one wrong step; which part sat heavier?

“To Mr. Daniel O’Connell,” said Blackburn, and raised his glass.

“Mr. O’Connell!” I repeated, and bolted it down. It ran like fire through me.

But Blackburn was not done with his toast. “To Mr. O’Connell, who makes politics a trade, the master of three great establishments—in Kerry, in Dublin, and in London.”

I was aghast and I knew my face showed it. I had drunk my portion. The older man turned to me and, ignoring the whiskey altogether, said to me in Gaelic, “
Ni cuimhnightear ar an aran ataithte.
Eaten bread is forgotten. All that O’Connell has done will not anymore be remembered.” Then he extended his hand. “Fergus Murphy from Donegal.” I told him my name, and we shook hands.

“You’re angry with me, I can see, my friend, so let me make amends. My name is Alexander Blackburn,” said the young man to me in a conciliatory tone. “I’ve been sitting with Murphy here, talking over this matter. I too was going to see the sport at Clontarf.”

“Ach,” I said bitterly, “you would have gone there not to hear, but to tear him down later at your linen table and fine china. You went there to laugh at us roaring Irishmen.”

“Why, Mr. Aherne,” he said, amused by my helpless vehemence, “why do you think that at all? I am myself Ireland born. Does that not give us both the right to hear and judge—not simply high rhetoric in a speech, but what is plain sense without the rise of yeasty eloquence? Why can’t we talk about it here, or on the lawns of Trinity College”—he gestured expansively—“and up and down our land?” I sensed with rising anger that he needed to
have me acknowledge the superiority of his mind, and would be persistent.

I wished bitterly I had not the hedge-schooling by our Mr. O’Flaherty, but such sharp weapons of mind as his teachers at Trinity College had given him. I had never spoken to or imagined anyone like him. He could better me in argument, and I cared not to be shown up. I flung down a shilling—an entire shilling—for his whiskey I had drunk. I felt the shame of O’Connell drench me like wretched sweat.

I stormed up the stairs, into the cool night of October, and headed towards the Ha’Penny Bridge to let my heart calm by the nocturnal flow of the Liffey. The street was deserted, its shops shut fast. The toll-man had left, so I stood on a step of the bridge and leant my head against the cool metalwork. I knew nowhere in this unfamiliar city to lay down my heavy head. How long I stayed thus, I do not rightly recall, but I was rudely brought back by Blackburn’s loud laugh as they came up the street towards me.
I’ll just stay here and let them pass,
I told myself, as if I were Brendan trying to calm me down. Oddly enough, I had a sure feeling that quiet Brendan, our reading Brendan, would have found words to defeat this smooth city-bred Alexander Blackburn.

I stood and stared at the dark water below. I recalled what Mr. O’Flaherty had once told us. Dublin’s name came from the Gaelic,
Dubh Linn
, dark pool.

“There’s our Irish Hotspur,” chirped Alexander Blackburn as he sauntered up to the bridge steps. “I was telling Fergus here, we need not be simply Irish anymore. We can dream—beyond our small Ireland. The East India Company will make us fortunes. I have this to prove it.” He took out a folded paper from his coat pocket. He waved it about, as if it gave him the right to rule the
world, then put it back. “With an empire to command, we can be the masters of destiny.” I stared at him without any idea what he was on about.

“You, my friend Padraig,” began Blackburn again, his smile appearing a grimace to my eyes.
Leave me alone. You belong to a different world. Let me be
, I wanted to scream, but he kept talking. As the roar in my head subsided, he said to me, “Don’t you see?”

I did not wish to hear a word of what he was saying.

“Don’t you see,” continued Alexander Blackburn, moving in closer, an arm’s width away from me, “that O’Connell is nothing but a rich landlord comfortable in County Kerry?” He spoke faster, as he picked up his theme. “Remember what your James Lalor said about O’Connell: Not a pane of glass in the parish, not a window of any kind in half the cottages, the peasants on his estate among the most wretched.” His words were burning lead.

Fergus Murphy was trying to pull Alexander Blackburn away from me on this deserted embankment. I wanted to put both hands over my ears, and shut my eyes to him, but he shook off Fergus and took one more step towards me. What came over me, I will never know. I pulled out the knife behind my waist and cut a sharp arc with it before his visage. I wanted him to see that and flee. I wanted the triumph of his fear and the sound of his running steps to resurrect whatever it was I needed reviving—aye, my pride—if I have to give it a name.

But he had not seen me clutch my knife. He did not see me draw my arm back. He did not see me fling out my strong right arm in an arc. No, it did not stab him, but he had taken that heedless step, and my knife had snipped away a piece of his neckcloth. He stumbled, saying something incoherent. Fergus caught him. I had put my knife away.

“Blackburn,” said Fergus, supporting him in his stumble, “steady yourself. Enough said. This is useless talk. Go you home now.”

Alexander Blackburn stood quietly, looking at me with wonder. He raised his hand and lifted his finger, the other hand uncertainly fumbling with his neckcloth, which only I could see was torn. His finger was pointing at me.

“Don’t you see . . .” he murmured, and crumpled on the pavement. Fergus looked at him puzzled, looked at me, and then saw the blood gathering around Alexander Blackburn’s head, snaking down to the gutter.
Dark pool
, I thought. Fergus knelt by him and tearing off his neckcloth, parted his collar. There it was. On the left side of his neck was the merest gash, and with every beat a gurgle of blood was pouring out. His hands and legs quivered. His eyes had gone still, though open. By the time Fergus stood up, the man lay dead.

•  •  •

“L
ET ME GO,
let me run.” I struggled.

“Nay, nay, there is no time to argue, boy.” Fergus Murphy had me in an iron grip. The way he said it made me stand still. “If ye run, and there is found this young rich one, a Protestant boy dead in his fine coat, the Peelers will all be looking for us. You too were seen at the tavern closest here. Listen you, for I’ll say this once. Do you heed your da when he tells you?”

“My da is long dead.”

“Hush and listen. I am old enough to be your da. Hold his feet, I’ll hold his shoulders. Pull him into the shadow of that doorway. Get into his trousers and coat.” We raced across the street with our burden. As we lurked, a carriage drove past without stopping.

“It will never work!” I said in sudden panic, “if they catch me in his clothes, it’ll be the worse for me.”

“This one wild chance—or the gallows for ye,” Fergus said harshly. “Otherwise your best hope is Botany Bay for life. Ye’ll never see anyone ye loved, ever again.”

I felt my fingers trembling and clenched them into fists, my throat too dry for speech at the moment. I could feel a trickle of sweat sear my eye. Fergus smacked me sudden and hard, his hard ploughman’s palm stinging me awake to my plight. My fists were up, instantly, before I knew it.

“Is your ma alive?”

I could not speak yet. I nodded.

“A brother ye love?” he rasped. I nodded again, thinking of Brendan. “There’s not a moment to lose,” hissed Fergus. My head was clearing now.

“His neckcloth is soaked in gore, but the shirt’s clean.” Fergus was peeling it off while he directed me. “Put on his shoes. Your country shoes will give you away, surely. Do they fit?”

“They’re long enough, but narrow,” I said, doing quickly as he spoke.

“ ’Twill have to do. When you get a chance, soak them in sea-water. You have a country boy’s wide feet. Nay, nay, put on his stockings first.” Fergus rubbed dirt liberally on Alexander Blackburn’s neat white feet. I exchanged my trousers and coat, while Fergus mussed Alexander’s hair and added a good part of Dublin dust to it, as if he had been traveling and sleeping in the fields. Then he propped up Alexander Blackburn by the doorway. As he was doing all this, he kept telling me all he knew about Blackburn from their evening together.

“You mustn’t lose your head and run, boy. You mustn’t, do you understand? The reason you have his clothes on is that you’re now
Alexander Blackburn. He told me he was joining the Company and catching its ship from the harbour at dawn tomorrow. Nobody knows him there. Nor did he expect anyone. He told me his family is country gentry, from County Louth. Are you listening?”

I knew my life hung on this story’s thread.

“No one will be looking for Alexander Blackburn as long as he is alive. When the ship is at Liverpool, make some excuse to get off. Change your clothes, don’t forget. Beware your County Sligo tongue. Best speak as little as possible—or none at all.” He was smiling grimly at me now. “That’ll be the hardest for you. Never lose your temper, boy, for you’ll give yourself away a thousand ways and not even know it.” I slouched within the doorway.