The Winter Guest Read online

  This war against British rule is on a different scale from the war he fought in France. The battles now are between handfuls of men, but the killing is still the same. He knows there are sentries and patrols and checkpoints between him and his home, and every policeman and soldier will have their finger on the trigger of a gun. He has a pass that allows him to be out during the curfew hours, thanks to a highly placed official in the government administration based at Dublin Castle. If he is able to show his pass, he’ll be fine. But will they even ask, what with the fog and not knowing if the footsteps in the dark might not belong to a man with another gun? He isn’t sure, if he were in their shoes, if he would be able to stand there, waiting, and not fire – just to make whoever it is go back the way they came. He thinks about that fellow they shot off his bicycle the other night, on his way back home from a late shift at the Guinness brewery.

  That fellow’s pass was good too.

  The mist clings to his face and clothes in a cold, damp sheen, and the cobblestones are slippery underfoot. The temptation is to walk quickly, to warm himself up, but if he takes his time, he can listen and make less noise. The city is quiet, but not silent. The sound of a foghorn, muffled and lonely, comes along the river from the port and he can hear conversations in the houses he passes, and once a gramophone.

  He considers his options – Sackville Street is to be avoided. There are sentries outside the GPO and O’Connell Bridge is always guarded. Capel Street is a possibility, but then he hears the distinctive rattle and wheeze of a Crossley Tender from that direction and adjusts his course to avoid it, making his way down a narrower street that runs parallel. The Crossley comes to a halt somewhere and he can hear shouting – English voices – but it isn’t for him. He steps into a doorway all the same, finding the breath in his chest hard to come by, and waits until the Crossley moves off. He follows the noise of it as it goes towards the river. He thinks they must have been Auxies; their accents were those of the officer class rather than the other ranks that make up the Black and Tans, the other temporary RIC recruited from Britain. Then he can’t hear the tender anymore and he is unsure if it has travelled out of earshot or perhaps come to another halt. He knows how fog can alter sound, and he wants to be certain it is safe before he goes forwards.

  He curses Malone. Three hours late for the meeting, and there had been nothing he could do except wait for him. The list that he brought with him, now in the breast pocket of Harkin’s jacket, is as good as a death sentence if an Auxie patrol searches him. The thought of it makes the adrenaline course through his body. Somewhere above him a baby begins to cry and he listens as the mother soothes the child back to sleep. He hears the bells from Christ Church ring for midnight. When they finish, and he has heard nothing more of the Auxies, he forces himself out of the doorway, keeping to the same slow, steady pace, preparing himself to answer the challenge if it comes, listening for anything that might signal danger.

  He needs to get across the river. O’Connell Bridge, to his left, will be too dangerous, and the possible presence of the Crossley rules out trying Grattan Bridge, which spans the river to his right. He feels boxed in, with only the Ha’penny Bridge, the narrow pedestrian arch between the alternative crossings, as a possibility. It’s not the worst option, however. There is a better chance it will be unguarded than the others. He reaches the end of the street, and he knows from the dank, fetid smell that the river is just ahead of him. He listens for a moment, uncertain where the bridge is from where he is standing. He knows the city well, but he has lost his bearings somewhere along the way and he stands there, panic building, unable to decide whether to go forward until he finds the embankment wall or stay where he is until he is sure it is safe.

  He is still frozen in indecision when he hears a low voice, to his left. An English voice. He can’t make out the words, but he can hear someone responding and then the scrape of a match. He holds his breath and listens to the metallic sound of a car door opening and then closing. The Auxies. He wants to go back the way he came, but his feet seem to be stuck to the pavement. He knows this kind of fear from France and he knows he will get past it in a few moments. Not entirely, of course – fear doesn’t just switch itself off – but enough to be able to move and think. He forces his lungs to take in some air and then slowly exhales, listening to the Auxies murmuring to each other.

  Then he hears the sound of a rifle bolt being pulled back.

  He is still standing there, locked into the box of his own terror, when he feels, to his surprise, a soft hand take his elbow. It pushes him gently forwards and he does not resist. He knows, somehow, that he is being helped. When he hears the Crossley’s engine start up, seemingly only a few yards away, he allows himself to be directed, more quickly now, until he can make out the shape of the narrow entrance to the cast-iron bridge only a few steps ahead of him. There is no guard on it that he can see. To his left, the headlamps of the Crossley are turned on. He walks forwards, hearing the hollow noise of his feet on the bridge, hoping the sound will be inaudible to the Auxies over the engine. He looks back to see the twin beams of light on Ormond Quay, blurred by the fog but not more than fifty yards from the bridge’s entrance. His helper pushes him forwards once again and he takes the hint, encouraged by a shout from the direction of the Crossley, and walks across the bridge as quickly and quietly as he can.

  When he turns to thank his saviour, there is no one there, only the faintest scent of a woman’s perfume.

  He remembers the perfume. Even though he has not smelled it for several years.

  CHAPTER 3

  M

  ud and water. As far as the eye can see. A dark, fetid brown, with the only variation the grey-yellow faces of the dead, the mud-smeared pallor of the living and, overhead, the iron sky. The water has the thickness and colour of mud and the mud has the consistency of water. It makes no difference. You can drown in either. The rain is a constant rattle on his helmet, from which it drips down onto his sodden trench coat. He is shivering with the cold, the wet and, of course, the fear. His orders are to hold this pockmarked string of shell holes, regularly added to by the German artillery. It is, apparently, the remnants of their second trench, although there isn’t much left of it. A torn sandbag here, a duckboard there and, across from him, the muddy grey cloth of a dead German corporal, his head half-buried, his left arm elsewhere. The trench has been filled and flattened so that it’s more of a dip in the ground than a fortification. Sometimes they are not even sure they are in the trench. It disappears completely in places. His company are like archaeologists discovering its remnants, digging it out as deep as they can before it fills with more of the mud. The Germans know where it is, though. Their guns are zeroed in on it and they send over a shell every five minutes, right on top of them. The stretcher bearers take the wounded back. The dead they leave where they fall. The mud buries them soon enough.

  He looks at his wristwatch but his hand is shaking so much he can’t make out the time at first, and then he has it. Half past twelve. Lunchtime in Dublin. His mother will be sitting opposite his father at the dining room table, and the thought is so out of place here that he tries to put it from his mind.

  It’s an hour since he went along the trench. Time to go again. He feels fear draining the energy from his limbs and breathes in deeply, filling his nose and mouth with the stench of earth and rot. A job to do is all it is. One knee in front of the other, one hundred yards that way, then one hundred back. It is an achievable task. He swallows, his mouth dry. Then, without a conscious decision, he is moving,

  All the other officers are dead or wounded, and he’s at the point where he thinks they are the lucky ones. He knows this short journey is futile, that it will not make a blind bit of difference, but it is his duty to his men. The mud sucks at him, and he knows he must keep moving. If he stops, the mud will try to take him and, if no one is close and he has not enough strength, it may succeed. He nods to each man he passes, asks him how he does and they lie to each
other that all is well, and then he moves on. He counts twenty still alive, three less than the last time, which is better than he had expected. He does not know how any of them have survived this long. It seems an impossibility. He stops when he reaches the end of the trench. The Glosters are meant to be on the left but they have become detached. They could have fallen back, for all he knows.

  He does not know what they can do if the Germans come at them. The mud has made their rifles useless except as clubs or, with bayonets fixed, spears. At least, he supposes, it will be the same for the Germans. He hears another shell coming in, and buries his face in the mud. It explodes not far behind the trench, showering him with more mud and the scraps of the things it holds – metal, wood, cloth and flesh. The mud-caked private he has been talking to begins to sob. He tries to smile reassuringly, but he can’t. He feels the same terror. If he could only stop thinking and feeling and seeing, just for a little while, then maybe he could hold his mind together. But there is no pause to the horror.

  He makes his way back, passing the survivors, barely enough for a platoon, let alone a company. They gaze back at him. They see him looking at his watch and how his hand shakes. He passes Sergeant Driscoll’s corpse, plastered in mud from head to toe, slumped against what passes for a parapet, when the man’s pale blue eyes open and stare at him, very much alive. Twenty-one. He nods to Driscoll, suppressing his surprise, thinking that the difference between being dead and alive in this place is nothing more than a flash of blue in a mud-encrusted face. He avoids looking at the others now, not wanting to see the paper-thin skin drawn tight over their bones. He hears another shell coming – high explosive, he can tell from the roaring and the whistle – and he doesn’t move or even try to cover himself. There is, he suddenly realises, no point. And then he feels the blast and he is up, weightless for a moment, turning over in the air, glimpsing the wide expanse of mud in all directions, and then he is coming down.

  The mud is like a wet pillow when he lands.

  When he opens his eyes – and it could be hours or moments later; he has no idea – his mind is blank. He looks around for a point of reference, feeling his whole body ache with the effort, even though only his head moves. All he can see is mud.

  And he is alone.

  CHAPTER 4

  ‘C

  aptain Harkin?’

  The boy is young, no more than fifteen, and has a telegram in his hand. Harkin has no idea how he finds himself here, standing in the hallway of the small house in Ballsbridge he inherited from his brother, still with the taste of French mud in his mouth. The transition from nightmare to reality is jarring. But here he is, and here is the boy with his telegram and the same washed-out blue eyes as Sergeant Driscoll from the trench.

  ‘That’s me,’ he says, his voice hoarser and higher than he would like. ‘Mr Harkin though. I’m no longer a captain, these days.’

  Each word is an effort. He feels not quite present, as yet. He holds out his hand for the telegram, notices it is shaking, and thinks better of it, placing it instead behind his back and out of view. The boy frowns, those pale eyes taking in the state of him. Harkin looks down in his turn and sees his bare blue-veined feet white on the mosaic-tiled floor, toenails longer and yellower than they should be. At least he is wearing a dressing gown. The boy, it has to be said, is well turned out in his Post Office blue uniform with its red trim. He wears his pillbox hat at an angle Harkin suspects was much considered. Harkin traces a thumb down his unshaven cheek.

  ‘What time is it?’ he asks, deciding he might as well know.

  ‘Eleven in the morning, sir.’

  The ‘sir’ is uncertain.

  ‘I am unwell,’ Harkin says, by way of explanation. ‘I’ve no idea where the maid is. Gallivanting, most probably.’

  ‘You are Captain Thomas Harkin, though, sir?’ The boy asks, and Harkin feels his anger bubbling up.

  ‘Mister Thomas Francis Mary Harkin, formerly captain in the Royal Dublin Fusiliers, currently of this abode. Are you going to give me the telegram or not?’

  The ‘Mary’ has always annoyed him. He doesn’t much like the ‘Francis’ either. The perils of being the child of a religious mother. The boy looks startled and Harkin feels a nagging guilt.

  ‘Is there something owed?’ Harkin says, in a gentler tone.

  ‘No, sir.’ The boy is politer now. The message is handed over. ‘But I’m to wait for a response.’

  Of course he is. The envelope is thin in his hand but as soon as Harkin touches the paper, he knows nothing good is inside. The telegram boy knows it as well. The telegraph office reads all the telegrams, and tells the messengers when they contain bad news so they are prepared. This, as it happens, is something Harkin is all in favour of. The surreptitious reading of telegrams by patriotic Irishmen is of enormous use to him in his work. Harkin slides a finger inside the flap and tears it open, aware of the boy’s expectation. He opens up the folded sheet and there’s the message. Twelve words, two of them a tease, the rest a shock.

  DEAR MARY. MAUD KILLED IRA AMBUSH. FUNERAL IMMINENT KILCOLGAN. PLEASE COME. BILLY.

  He feels nothing at first. Harkin has, after all, four years in the trenches behind him and something of an immunity to death. His memories of Maud Prendeville are from long ago but they surface now. The warmth of her in his arms, her mouth against his. The smell of her perfume . . . and then he finds the world tilts slowly on its axis as the memory of the perfume from last night fills his nostrils. He reaches out a hand to steady himself against the wall. Maud Prendeville wore the same one. A cologne of some description. He used to know the name, but he can’t recall it now. He gasps and sees sympathy in the boy’s eyes.

  ‘Have you a pencil?’ he asks the boy, when he feels himself a little recovered from the shock. The boy opens the square leather holster on his belt and produces a pencil and a small notepad which he opens in anticipation.

  ‘Are you ready?’ Harkin can hear the strain in his voice.

  The boy nods.

  ‘Will attend. Tom.’

  If he could underline the ‘Tom’ he would. ‘Mary’ is a joke that wore thin some time back. He finds thruppence for the boy in his overcoat, still damp from the fog last night, and sends him on his way.

  When he has closed the door, he stands in the hallway for a minute and thinks back to the events of the night before. It must be his imagination. He knows his dreams have become more real in recent months. It is not possible that the woman in the mist could have been Maud. The thought reassures him, but a doubt remains.

  He walks into the darkness of the sitting room, lit only by the slivers of dusty light that edge in through the drawn curtains. Unsettled, he puts the telegram back into its envelope and places it on the mantelpiece. It is only when there is a slight cough from behind him that he realises he is not alone. Harkin swallows, his mouth suddenly dry. He looks about him for a weapon and his eye falls on the glimmer of the long brass poker among the fire irons to his left. He marks its position and turns to see who has broken into his house. A large man in a grey three-piece suit with a carnation in the buttonhole is sitting calmly, a cup and saucer in one of his large hands. For a moment he thinks it is Martin, his dead brother, sitting in his favourite armchair, and he feels fear’s grip on the back of his neck. But then the big man looks up at him, his expression a passable imitation of innocence, which is an achievement on a face that looks as though it’s been carved out of rock with a heavy hammer.

  ‘I let myself in. I was worn out from knocking.’ The man gestures towards Harkin with his cup. ‘I made myself some tea, I didn’t think you’d mind. There’s more in the pot – will I get you a cup?’

  Harkin feels the tension drain out of him with the shuddering breath he releases.

  ‘Vincent?’ he says, by way of greeting, and puts a question into the name, as though Vincent Bourke has been up to no good. Which, he thinks, is almost certainly true. ‘I thought you were . . . someone else. Was the door not lock
ed?’

  The big man’s mouth widens into a grin.

  ‘It was. I like to keep in practice.’

  Harkin says nothing, wondering if he should get a new lock put on the door and knowing it wouldn’t make much difference.

  ‘I wish you wouldn’t do that. If a door is locked, it’s polite to wait until the owner opens it.’

  ‘But if I can open it myself, why wait?’ Bourke examines him for a moment and his smile slips. ‘I’ll get you your tea,’ he says. ‘You’ll feel better for it.’

  While Bourke departs in the direction of the kitchen, Harkin opens the curtains and lets in the winter sunlight. The air is chill and he remembers that Kathleen, the maid, is visiting her mother. He looks around the room, unchanged since before the war, when he and Martin would sit here and talk about politics and motor cars and whatever else came to mind. He remembers, suddenly, Maud and Martin at the piano, their faces glowing in the candlelight. Only him left alive from that evening. He rubs a hand across his face, feeling the sting of tears forming in his eyes.

  Bourke returns, handing him the promised cup of tea, with a shortbread biscuit leaning into the saucer. He watches Harkin take a sip.

  ‘I heard Malone was late last night,’ he says, eventually.

  Harkin nods.

  ‘Was it the fog?’

  Harkin shrugs, thinking back to the evening before, remembering once again the pressure of that inexplicable hand on his shoulder down by the river and the smell of Maud’s perfume. He suppresses the shiver that comes with it.

  It can only have been his mind playing tricks on him.

  ‘He said there was a raid on Bachelors Walk that nearly picked him up and he had to go to ground. After that he took a roundabout route to make sure he wasn’t followed. He said there were peelers all over town and he was lucky to get there at all. I didn’t hang around to question him. The curfew had already started.’