The City of Strangers (9 page)

David Gillespie went to the press and brought out two bottles of beer. He stood pouring them, saying nothing for a while. He pushed a glass across to his son and then pulled out a chair on the other side of the table.

‘She’s thinking of Tom,’ he said finally, as he sat down.

‘I know what she’s thinking of, Pa.’

‘Well, that’s another thing altogether,’ David frowned. ‘There is that too. She’s another man’s wife. We’ve never talked about it before, whatever we think, but do you expect your mother to be easy with it? Or me, Stefan?’

‘Does it matter so much?’

‘It matters,’ said his father. ‘You know it does. I’m sure Mrs Lessingham knows it. It’s the children that matter most. You know that too.’

‘What do you think we are? I could count the number –’

‘You can give each other the explanations. Don’t waste them on me.’

Stefan felt the sting in his father’s quiet words.

‘That’s not what really worries your mother anyway. I’m not saying she hasn’t got an opinion about it that doesn’t reflect very well on you or Mrs Lessingham, but all that can’t go on. Sure, you know that yourself.’

For a moment Stefan drank; he did know, of course he knew.

‘It’ll stop,’ he said, gazing down at the glass. ‘These things do.’

‘These things?’ laughed David. ‘Is that all it amounts to? Maybe it’s when it stops that your mother’s worried about. Can’t you understand that?’

‘For God’s sake, I think I’m old enough to deal with it, Pa!’

‘I’m glad for you so. I’m glad for Valerie Lessingham too, if that’s how it is with her. It’s a good job your mother’s in bed. If she was here she’d tell you she couldn’t give a feck whether you two can deal with it or not.’

Stefan laughed, but he could see this wasn’t one of those familiar moments when David Gillespie had been despatched by his wife to say what she wouldn’t say herself.

‘And what sort of sense is that supposed to make? If she doesn’t care, then what the hell is she so angry about?’ He drained his glass and stood up.

‘Jesus, you’re thick sometimes, Stefan Gillespie. He thinks the world of her, that’s what you said. Not that it needs saying. You might be able to deal with it when it’s all over, do you think Tom’s going to find it so easy? She’s pulled him into her family, and I’ve no complaint about that, nor has your mother.’

Stefan gave a wry smile; he wasn’t so sure about that.

‘Maybe she’s a way with strays,’ continued David, with a kinder expression. ‘But you and Mrs Lessingham have taken a road you can’t stay on together. There’ll be a parting, and when there is things won’t be the same again. Perhaps there’ll be more for Tom to lose than you then.’

Stefan stood where he was, looking at his father, as two compartments in his mind opened up to one another, and he realised that not only were they sitting side by side, they looked into each other. He had become very good at keeping things in separate boxes in the years since Maeve had died; he was aware of that. But it was a trick his son had had no reason to learn.

*

In Bewley’s Café in Grafton Street the next evening, Stefan Gillespie and Valerie Lessingham talked about the things they usually talked about: first, their children. It was not only what was closest to their hearts, and what held them together, it was where they found the happiest parts of who they were. Tom was at the National School at Kilranelagh, a mile along the road from the farm. Jane and Alexander were at Stratford Lodge, the Church of Ireland school in Baltinglass. But their closest friendships were with each other, and with Harry Lawlor who was at school with Tom and also inhabited the woods between Kilranelagh and Whitehall Grove. Other topics could be almost as amusing for Stefan and Valerie, some of the time, but there was too often something less than funny below the surface that could rise up to still the easy laughter.

The chaos that was the Whitehall Grove estate was never really as entertaining as Valerie Lessingham made it out to be, though she was good at finding the humour in it. The estate was in serious decline, propped up by Major Lessingham’s army salary and the selling of assets that had once been considered the family jewels. Valerie still talked to Stefan about her husband with the fond exasperation that she had before they became lovers. She needed someone to talk to; Stefan was a friend first and what else they were to each other now didn’t change that. He wasn’t sure why she wanted to speak about her husband tonight. It wasn’t an unfamiliar conversation, but there was concern behind it, preoccupation, even worry. It was as if she was refocusing her mind, all of it, with a quiet intensity that was unlike her.

‘Simon always prattles on about how passionately he’s attached to the land and the house. The family’s been there for over three hundred years and all that, but he’s got no idea how the estate survives. Farming’s still a complete mystery to him. As far as he’s concerned grass grows, corn ripens, sheep lamb, cows calve, and we all live on it merrily! The fact is it’s a business and it’s eating up far more money than it’s making. And every conversation we have, every letter I get from him, is just another version of: Sure, it’ll all be all right. It’ll all be grand. It will all sort itself out!’

‘He’s not an Irishman for nothing,’ smiled Stefan.

‘Isn’t he? I’m not sure what he’s an Irishman for at all!’

Stefan didn’t reply. He could see the tension behind her words.

‘Sometimes I don’t know where he fits. In England he’s Irish and he champions Irish independence so aggressively he offends all his English friends. When he’s at home he defends England and doesn’t understand why all his Irish friends just want him to shut up. I don’t know where he belongs. I’m English. I never wanted to live here at all really, but I know more about Ireland now than he does. The only place he feels at home is with his regiment, whether it’s in England or East Africa or India. He’s spent more time away from us since I came to Whitehall Grove than he has with us.’

‘You know there’s not a farmer who isn’t struggling.’ Stefan said it reassuringly, but he knew the problems at Whitehall Grove were bigger than most farmers faced. He had tried to help with advice, but the place had its own creaking system of management that advice couldn’t change.

‘I wish the IRA hadn’t stopped burning down big houses. That would be the ideal answer. I was thinking of approaching Cumann na mBan directly to see if there was a waiting list I could get Whitehall Grove put on.’

She laughed the kind of careless laugh that she was so good at. Stefan still felt it was less careless than usual. But he didn’t ask her if anything else was wrong. If she wanted to tell him, she would tell him. They ate for several minutes in silence. Stefan was less easy with his life than he had been two days ago. And somehow it seemed the same for her. He felt it as they spoke. Something was changing.

They walked across O’Connell Bridge and turned along the Quays towards the hotel. They were staying at the Four Courts Hotel on Inns Quay, just along from Kingsbridge Station, where Stefan would be getting the train to Foynes the next morning. It was a cold night. Valerie’s arm was through his as it could never have been in Baltinglass. It was such a simple thing; but he missed it; a woman with her arm through his. It wasn’t very often that he allowed himself to look at the empty corners of his life. When he did he dismissed them with a wry grin or a few swear words, and usually it worked; but it was always something small that put the thought in his head, something like Valerie Lessingham’s arm now. They hadn’t spoken for a while. He was easier with silence than she was. But this silence was hers.

‘There will be a war. I really think so, don’t you?’

She spoke quite suddenly. It wasn’t such an odd topic to introduce, but Stefan wasn’t really sure where it had come from. Talk of war was everywhere. Most people had an opinion, even if in Ireland they were quick to shrug the idea off and change the subject; it wasn’t Ireland’s business anyway. What opinions there were, voiced or unvoiced, changed from day to day, with the news from Germany and Britain and Europe.

The belief that once Adolf Hitler’s demands were met, surely not entirely unreasonable demands after all, the dark clouds of conflict would blow away was strong in Ireland. The desire not to take sides, in what was increasingly seen as a confrontation between Britain and Germany, never mind the other countries in Europe threatened by Nazi expansion, had become a statement of nationhood. Independence and neutrality seemed to mean the same thing; too much criticism of Germany was seen as forelock-tugging subservience to Britain.

Stefan Gillespie’s views on Nazi Germany had little to do with forelock tugging. His mother’s family was German; he had been there himself. For him what was wrong in Germany wasn’t about Britain. But his opinions were not very popular; he had got used to not expressing them very loudly.

‘You know I’ve always thought that,’ he said quietly.

‘Simon doesn’t think it’s going to be very long. His last letter –’

‘He’s probably right.’

‘The regiment’s coming back from Kenya. They sail next week.’

‘Is that unexpected?’

‘They were meant to stay in East Africa till November.’

He nodded, but it didn’t feel like this conversation was about the war.

‘He won’t be coming home. I mean I’m sure he’ll come over at some point when he’s back in England, but it feels, well, he says it feels like something’s going to happen soon. We all know, we all damned well know!’

There was a stress in her voice that was unlike her.

They walked on in silence again. She held him tighter.

‘I can’t stay, Stefan. I wanted to tell you –’

He wasn’t sure what she was talking about; it felt like it could have been that night, but even before she spoke again, he knew it wasn’t at all.

‘I think I have to be where he is. I mean, I don’t know where he’ll be, but in England, I think I have to be in England. I’m not sure it’s what I want, for the children, even for me. Whatever’s happened between Simon and me, however far apart we’ve become – we have, I know we have. But I think I have to do what’s right now. He doesn’t agree. He doesn’t want us to leave Ireland at all. Obviously we’d all be safer here, but it matters more that we’re where – I mean I – I’m not putting it very well, am I?’

‘I think you’re putting it very well.’

It was strange, but he felt very close to her now.

‘I’m going to shut up the house and let the land. That way the estate will just about pay for itself. It means letting people go, and I’m not very happy about that. I know the children are going to hate it. My mother has a house in Sussex. It’s not huge, but we’ll all fit, just about. I wanted to tell you. I wanted you to understand. I think he needs us. He’d never say it. Perhaps it’s the first time he really needs us. He says he doesn’t want me to do any of this. But I am going to do it, Stefan. I hope it makes some sense?’

‘You don’t need to explain it all to me, Valerie.’

He knew she did of course; they were friends first.

They stopped. She turned towards him. She wasn’t a woman who cried; he wasn’t sure he had ever seen her cry. She was always bright, always laughing. Yet there were tears in her eyes now. He held her close. It was what she needed him to do. She turned her face up. They kissed, unaware of people around them, of traffic; unaware, it seemed, of the words just spoken. They said nothing as they walked into the Four Courts Hotel.

*

It was one o’clock in the morning when Stefan Gillespie woke up. Someone was hammering on the door of the hotel room. Valerie, in a deeper sleep, stirred next to him, then turned over. The hammering continued, a fist thumping rhythmically. He got out of bed, fumbling for clothes. He didn’t turn the lamp on. The banging stopped and a voice called through the door.

‘Wake the fuck up, Sergeant!’

He didn’t recognise the voice.

The fist started thumping again, slowly and impatiently. He walked to the door, doing up his trousers. The light by the bed suddenly went on.

‘What is it?’

Valerie was sitting up now.

‘God knows.’

He walked to the door and opened it slightly. The round, red face of Superintendent Gregory smiled in at him through the crack, so close that Stefan could taste the breath of whiskey and cigarettes coming off him.

‘I hope I’m not disturbing you, Sergeant.’

Gregory pushed hard against the door, and although Stefan stopped it opening fully, it opened wide enough for the Special Branch superintendent to see past him to the bed. Valerie was surprised, but unflustered. She simply pulled the bedclothes up and smiled pleasantly at the unknown man.

‘I didn’t know you had friends dropping in, darling?’

‘What the hell do you want?’ demanded Stefan.

‘There’s a bit of news, Stevie.’

Stefan stared at him, only now really fully awake.

‘Still, I did knock, that’s something. I’ll be in the bar.’

The smile had gone; the last words were an order.

Superintendent Gregory was sitting in the empty bar of the Four Courts Hotel when Stefan came down. He had a glass of whiskey in front of him. The sour, just woken night porter stood behind the bar next to a bottle.

‘Will you have a drink?’ said Gregory.

‘I won’t,’ was all Stefan replied as he sat down.

The superintendent turned to the night porter.

‘You can piss off now. Leave the bottle.’

The night porter put the bottle of Bushmills down on the table in front of the Special Branch man and walked back to the hotel lobby. The superintendent topped up his glass and then lit a cigarette. He took a few moments to do this. Stefan knew the game well enough; he thought Gregory wasn’t especially good at it.

‘I didn’t think there was a Mrs Gillespie?’

‘I’m flattered I’m worth finding out about, sir.’

‘I wouldn’t be too flattered. I like to know who I’m dealing with, that’s all. Still, it’s a relief to see a Mrs Gillespie of some sort on the hotel register. We’ve all been a bit concerned how friendly you are with your pals at the Gate, Messrs Mac Liammóir and Edwards. And she’s quite a looker.’