‘A pleasure, my dear.’ He took her hand. He turned back to Stefan, lowering his voice. ‘Did you ever find out anything about the boy, Vincent?’
‘We didn’t.’ It was an official lie. He didn’t like it any more for that.
Mac Liammoir looked at him harder. It was difficult not to feel he knew more, or at least that he already suspected there was more to know.
‘Well, we saw him off, just after Christmas. Eric Purcell was going down to Carlow to the funeral. I don’t know how he cudgelled the details out the mammy but he did, and in the end a few of us decided to take the train as well, chums from the theatre and other assorted reprobates. I’d always wanted the chance to sing the song, so I did, on the train. “Up with halberd, out with sword, on we’ll go for by the Lord, Feach MacHugh has given word! Follow me down to Carlow!” I’m not entirely sure Carlow has recovered yet.’ He spoke more softly. ‘If his mother and father didn’t know him, I hope they knew there were people who cared about him, and loved him, it was a lonely end.’
When they left the Gate and walked down O’Connell Street towards the river it wasn’t a journey they enjoyed, but they still didn’t want it to stop. What Hannah knew about Susan’s murder now was nearly as much as she could know. She seemed almost less angry than Stefan about the wall the state had already built around Monsignor Robert Fitzpatrick and Hugo Keller and Father Francis Byrne and Vincent Walsh and Brigid Fitzpatrick, and Susan Field too. She knew there was no further to go. There wasn’t the resolution public justice should have brought, but she could do no more to repay the debt she owed to her childhood friend, except for one thing. She could live. For the moment she was thinking about the other dead body on Kilmashogue, the man she knew nothing about, who had died in the same way her friend had, for the same reasons, for nothing at all it seemed to her.
‘I’d forgotten about him, Vincent Walsh,’ she said.
‘I’m glad not everybody has.’
‘His parents don’t know what really happened?’
‘There’s no one to tell them.’
‘There’s you.’
‘Not everyone’s like you. Not everyone wants to know.’
‘Do you believe that?’
‘There’s a time to stop. I believe it’s not my business any more. ’
Somewhere that business that wasn’t his was Hannah too. He didn’t want it to mean that, but it soon would. They walked on again in silence.
‘What will you do?’ asked Hannah.
‘My suspension’s over, as of next week. I’m thinking I’ll get out of Dublin and go back into uniform. When Ned Broy’s thanked me for keeping my mouth shut about everything a few more times, I’d say he’ll be glad to see the back of me. I think a lot of people will. He owes me a favour, so he can send me down to Baltinglass. Maybe I’ve got used to being at home after all these months.’
‘Is that what you want?’ She didn’t altogether believe him.
‘I don’t know what I want. I think it’s what I owe Tom.’
‘That’s not the same thing.’
‘It’s close enough,’ he smiled. ‘There are things you can’t have.’
‘If there was any point talking about it, Stefan — ’
‘I know that.’
‘It doesn’t mean I haven’t thought about it. I have.’
‘I’d have hoped so.’
‘I’ve thought about it a lot.’
‘That’s the difference. I don’t need to think about it.’
‘Please don’t, Stefan — ’
‘I think if we were going to find a way to be together we’d have done it, Hannah. I think with you, if I need to ask at all, then there’s no point asking.’
They had reached the Liffey. Dublin was quiet now. They stood on O’Connell Bridge, watching the grey stream of water move towards the docks and the sea. There was no moon, only cloud and the city’s lights below it.
‘I wanted to change my mind. I can’t. It’s not easy to say that.’
‘I know my psalms. I sang them as a boy at St Patrick’s. They stick in your head, whether you want them to or not sometimes. “If I forget thee, O Jerusalem.” That’s the one that’s been sticking. I might be able to compete with Benny and the oranges, but I can’t compete with three thousand years of memory. I don’t know the man, but I know it’s not him you’re marrying.’
She could have been angry with him, but too much of it was true.
‘I wasn’t sure what I felt when I came back, Stefan. I wasn’t sure what I wanted. I mean when I first got home last year, before I met you.’
‘And now you’ve met me, you’re sure. Thanks,’ he laughed.
‘No, being in Europe made me sure. Danzig made me sure.’
‘This isn’t Germany. It never will be.’
‘I don’t know what it is.’
‘You’re Irish. You don’t mean that.’
‘And you’re a policeman. If they sent you to Clanbrassil Street to fill a truck with Jews and take them to a concentration camp — would you do it?’
‘That couldn’t happen, you know that.’
‘People like Monsignor Fitzpatrick would stop it, you mean.’
‘He’s not the Catholic Church.’
‘No. But perhaps he’s more of it than I want to live next door to.’
Stefan said nothing, but he knew she was still waiting.
‘You didn’t answer my question. What would you do?’
‘I hope I’d refuse to do it.’
‘You hope?’
‘I wouldn’t do it. Don’t you know that?’
‘You’d walk away?’
He nodded, but he knew it sounded like evasion, not principle.
‘You think walking away would be enough?’
‘No.’ He couldn’t say otherwise. He remembered Danzig too.
‘I don’t think so either. That’s what I’ve learned, I suppose. I need to be where someone picks up a gun, not where people turn their backs.’
‘Well, you’ve got the money for them.’ It was a stupid thing to say, but her words had hurt him. They hurt all the more because she was right.
‘You think we shouldn’t defend ourselves, Stefan?’
‘I didn’t mean that. I’m sorry. But I can’t fight any of this, Hannah. I want to talk to you about how I feel, about you and me. You want to talk about the world turning itself upside down and inside out. How do I deal with that?’
‘I need a place to stand, Stefan.’ She took his hand and smiled, looking up at him tenderly. ‘I’ve always wanted to make up my own mind about everything. My parents never did, or my grandparents. As far back as you want to go. Everything that happened to them was someone else’s decision. Sometimes whether you lived or died depended on nothing more than other people’s moods, that’s all. And it doesn’t feel any different now. I don’t want to live like that. I can’t. I never really intended to go to Palestine. It was Susan who was the Zionist. She used to irritate me because she was always so sure about it. I didn’t want the label. But my label’s in my blood.’
‘So is it for her as well?’
‘Is what for her?’
‘Palestine.’
She didn’t respond, then she shrugged. ‘I suppose a part of it is.’
‘You’re going to live Susan’s life too?’
‘If I can.’
