‘He shouldn’t have been ringing the bell,’ he explained, ‘his place is in the boiler room. I must speak to the clerk about it.’
A green wreath, the ribbons bedraggled, lay at the plinth which would soon support the Parnell monument, a tribute, now several days old, from the Parnell anniversary parade. What inscription did the pedestal carry? Something about the onward march of a nation. Something to the effect that no one had the right to say—this far shalt thou go and no further?
‘A tragic poor man,’ Mrs. Bradshaw remarked, surprisingly.
An adulterer. Nevertheless, a great leader. Unfortunate entanglement. Could he not foresee—probably not. A Protestant and a patrician. Outlook quite different. Behind the euphemisms and the sentimentalities Catholic Ireland had not failed to discern the real horror. They were laying wreaths just the same. Yearling had remarked on that. De mortuis nil nisi bonum.
‘Ah yes, indeed,’ Father O’Connor said, as the laurelled sinner slipped behind.
The passers-by continued to raise their hats to Miss Gilchrist. She had joined the ranks of the dead, and commanded now their unanimous and ungrudging respect. Miss Gilchrist R.I.P. She was ennobled.
A hearse and mourning coaches stood empty outside the Brian Boru House waiting, while the mourners, their kinsman already buried, consoled themselves with alcohol. It was a custom deplored by Father O’Connor. They were talking about the dead one, praising him, exchanging remembrances of him. Sometimes they sang—an odd vehicle for the expression of grief. ‘The drunken funerals of Ireland.’ He shook his head, deploring it.
‘We are a strange people,’ Mrs. Bradshaw answered. Again her tolerance surprised him.
Inside the cemetery another funeral was in possession of the mortuary chapel. He bore the delay patiently, leaning on his umbrella as he waited. Mrs. Bradshaw beckoned Mary to come to her and enquired if everything had been as arranged. It had. She was pleased. She drew her apart and said: ‘I’ve been waiting to give you this note.’ She passed an envelope to Mary. Mary, knowing it would not be seemly at that moment to open it, put it in her pocket. Father O’Connor, turning his head for a moment, met her eyes and nodded in vague acknowledgment of her smile, which he thought had been meant for him.
Some distance away, Pat pointed out to Fitz the huge round tower which marked the resting place of Dan O’Connell.
‘Do you know what that is?’ he asked Fitz.
‘The tomb of the Liberator.’
‘They say in Kerry that you couldn’t throw a stone over a workhouse wall without hitting one of Dan’s bastards.’
‘They buried his heart in Rome, just the same,’ Fitz said. ‘It was his own request.’
Pat, who did not care for O’Connell, grunted and said: ‘I wonder where they buried his cockalorum.’
They found that the body of Miss Gilchrist was being moved into the chapel and followed. There were prayers. Then they followed the coffin down an avenue of trees, until they reached the new dug grave. The diggers passed their ropes under it and lowered it skilfully into the earth. Father O’Connor prayed, so quietly that all the time he did so they could hear the birds in the nearby trees. Soon there would be hardly any birds at all, Mary thought, soon the dead of winter would strip every remaining remnant. There would be no leaf and no wing. She wept when the first clod of earth bumped on the coffin. Then it was time to go back to the waiting coach.
They seated themselves.
‘The Brain Boru House,’ Pat suggested.
‘Please,’ Mary asked, ‘I wouldn’t like Father O’Connor and Mrs. Bradshaw to see you.’
‘We’ll let them go first then,’ Pat said.
He got out and spoke to the driver, who began to examine the harness inch by inch, as though tracing a fault. Mrs. Bradshaw’s coach passed them and went rattling down the road. The driver looked up and Pat shouted to him, ‘Coast clear.’
The driver climbed up, settled himself in the driving seat and cracked his whip. He looked very dignified.
Mary waited outside. She lay back against the padded leather and thought that she had not been in a coach since her childhood. It had been the funeral of an aunt, she remembered, on a day in summer when there were poppies spread through the grass in the country churchyard. She had been given biscuits and lemonade by her father. That was all she could remember, red poppies in long grass, worn headstones warm to touch, dust on the nettles and poppies red in the long grasses. Where was that day now? Where was the little girl in laced boots, a cousin of some sort, who had waited with her and played in the hot sun and got sick on the way home? She could not even remember her name. It was a strange thing, growing up and changing a little day by day, so slowly that you never noticed, so surely moving to maturity and old age and the front place at the funeral, having children to take in their turn the biscuits and the lemonade, to play in the sun and be sick in the evening. If you could be sure of heaven . . . She leaned towards the window and looked up at the sky. It was so high and blue it made her dizzy. One day she would close her eyes and fall into it. If she was spared to see the children reared and settled—that’s all she would ask of God. When that was done He could take her.
She pressed back against the leather, alone in the cab, alone, for a moment, in the world. If she got out and strolled up and down it would make no difference. If she went in and sat with the men and drank port wine it would still make no difference. She was trapped by life and by mortality. She began to wish Fitz would come out. When he did she leaned forward to welcome him, as though he had been away for some days. The driver climbed into his seat. Fitz shouted ‘Go ahead’ and closed the door.
‘Where’s Pat?’ she asked.
‘He’s not coming.’
She frowned.
‘He met someone he knew inside.’
‘Does that mean he’ll spend the day drinking?’
‘No,’ Fitz said, ‘he has other plans. Do you remember Lily Maxwell?’
Mary did. The girl who, from all accounts, was no better than she should be.
‘He hasn’t seen her for ages. While we were inside he met someone who knows where she’s living.’
‘Any man would be better away from women like that.’
It was a woman’s view. Fitz did not share it. He knew Lily meant much to Pat.
‘Not always,’ Fitz said.
Mary touched his hand and he turned to her. She asked: ‘Do you love me?’
The question surprised him. Something had upset her. He wondered what it could be.
‘Of course I love you.’
It was both an answer and a question. She left it unanswered. His reply had satisfied a need in her that she no longer tried to understand. She was content to leave her hand in his, to feel her reassurance return slowly as the cab travelled through the bright streets of the city, towards their couple of rooms and the insecure world in which her children waited. Thinking of her home, she remembered for the first time the note Mrs. Bradshaw had left with her. She took it from her pocket and opened it. It contained three one-pound notes. She drew them out.
‘Where did this come from?’ Fitz asked.
‘Mrs. Bradshaw gave me the envelope in the cemetery.’ There was a letter, which she passed to Fitz. He read aloud:
‘My dear Mary,
This will help you and your husband to provide something in the way of a special treat for your children. Accept it on their account.
Since I called to you I have been clearing out some old furniture and some floor coverings which I propose to send to you within a few days. You will be able to make use of them, I feel sure.
I have had the full story of your visits to Miss Gilchrist and consider your kindness to that old and friendless poor soul does you very great credit. God will reward you for that, as He promised long ago “one hundredfold”.