Peter Cunningham - The Sea and the Silence

I sat up in bed in The Wicklow and looked at seagulls on nearby ridges. Dublin was teeming with country people up for the Dublin Horse Show. I had met Frank the night before and we had not yet left the room. I relished the crisp sheets and the sheer dryness of the hotel compared to Longstead.

‘What are you thinking about?’ I asked.

‘You, ‘he said. ‘Me and you.’

The night before, I had thought that tiredness was the cause of a new seriousness in him, but now it was evident again. I stroked his chest.

‘You’re worried about something.’

He smiled. ‘Me? I’m not a worrier.’

‘Tell me what’s the matter.’

He grinned and tried to shrug it off. But then his chin went down. ‘It’s not really my problem.’

‘Go on.’

‘Do you remember that business near Cork a few months ago? A garda sergeant was shot.’

‘I read about it, yes.’

‘Stephen asked me to cover for him,’ Frank said.

I sat up. ‘And did you?’

Frank nodded. ‘The guards came to our house and I swore to them that Stephen had been with me all that night.’

‘My God, Frank. And he hadn’t?’

‘I made it all up. I never saw him that night.’

A droning inevitability made it hard to hear. ‘Did he murder the guard?’ I asked quietly.

‘I’ve never asked and even if I had, he wouldn’t tell me.’

‘And yet you lied.’

‘He is my friend.’

We lay there, suddenly cold.

‘If the guards find out I lied, I’ll be lifted on suspicion and interned. But the people Stephen is tied up with are even more dangerous. If I hadn’t lied, I could have been shot.’

I could scarcely breath. ‘And is it over now, or will they do something else?’

‘It’s never over’, he said.

‘But you — it’s nothing to do with you!’

He closed his eyes. ‘They get you into something, like misleading the guards, then they use it, they twist and twist.’

No time existed between my understanding the nature of his position and my decision. I got out of bed and began to dress.

‘We’re getting out,’ I said. ‘We’re leaving. The war doesn’t have to be over for us to go to England.’

He sighed. ‘You can’t do that. You can’t walk away from Longstead and leave everything behind.’

‘That’s exactly what I’m going to do,’ I said.

‘What about your mother? She’s a lovely woman, you can’t leave her.’

‘Mother is going to live in Yorkshire.’

It began to rain and the beak of a big seagull outside gleamed with wetness.

‘I have nothing,’ Frank said. ‘Just what you see now. No land, no house, no money. Nothing.’

I came around and sat on the bed beside him. ‘You have you and that’s all I want.’

‘No one will approve.’

‘To hell with them! We’ll make our own life. We’ll go to England and then, after Christmas, when the war is won we’ll go to… I don’t know, Australia. Someplace no one knows us.’

He laughed and gathered me to him. ‘You’re crazy,’ he said.

‘You’ll be safe there. It will be as if these problems never existed.’

He looked out, over the rooftops. ‘That would be a dream.’

‘You’ve got to live your dreams,’ I said. ‘No one else will do that for you.’

He nodded slowly. ‘Then that’s what we’ll do. We’ll live our dream.’

‘When?’

‘As soon as we can. A couple of weeks.’

I kissed him as though I could never kiss him enough, or again. I wished we could go to sleep in that little room, warm and safe, and that, when we woke, we would be in a place where our dreams would begin.

Three days later, a letter arrived from Bella.

Darling Iz,

This has to be brief, because Nick says I must be careful about what I put down on paper.

Please, please believe me when I say that the person you are seeing is HIGHLY UNSUITABLE . I implore you to believe me. Nick has contacts who have told him that EVERY MOVEMENT IS BEING WATCHED . The person in question is EXTREMELY DANGEROUS . So if our friendship stands for anything, just trust me in what I say.

Sick with fear for what might be about to happen to Frank, I walked into the village. We had arranged to meet in a week’s time in Dublin, at Kingsbridge railway station, and to go from there on the night mail boat to London. In the post office in Tirmon I filled out a telegram form: COME UP URGENT IZ.

Then I remembered Bella’s letter. Every movement is being watched . I felt the eyes of the post-mistress, into whose hands I was about to entrust the telegram. She lived in the house at the end of the village nearest to where our barn had been set alight. I suddenly understood the power of the alliances drawn up against us: those who wanted to grab Longstead; the Land Commission; their acquiescent allies in the public service, such as the woman in this post office; and now the guards, not to mention the IRA. I crumpled the form, threw it in a wastepaper basket, then realising what I had done, retrieved it and left the tiny shop and its open-mouthed custodian.

That afternoon, although our fuel was scarce and kept for dire emergencies, I took the car out and drove towards Dublin. I was terrified. I was sure that Bella had made the situation far worse for Frank with her enquiries. But if his every movement was being watched, then a telegram to him would be intercepted. In a post office in a tiny village on the outskirts of Dublin, I sent a telegram to Tom King, c/o Monumentals rugby club, with the message, COME TO LONGSTEAD SOONEST IZ.

I had no idea if it would be delivered. At home, exhausted beyond utterance, I went to bed and lay there, shaking, wondering what we had done to deserve the wrath of the world.

It was lunchtime the next day when I heard the car on the avenue. I hurried out and Tom was standing there, his big, freckled face anxious. I was so afraid that the guards, or Bella, or the IRA might arrive and find him that I made him put the car in a shed, then brought him down to the lake field where no one could see us.

‘What’s going on, Iz?’

‘I think something dreadful has happened,’ I said and told him about Bella and Nick.

‘Jesus,’ Tom said and rubbed his face. ‘That’s just what he needs.’

Across the lake, the stands of beech had begun the first phase of their turning. On the near shore, a heron only needed to spread its wings to become airborne.

‘Is he all right?’ I asked.

‘He’s agitated’, Tom said.

‘We’re going to England.’

‘I know. He’s working double time trying to get as much money together as he can.’

‘Could he not just go to the guards and tell them the truth?’

‘He could,’ Tom said, ‘but he could end up swinging for it. A guard has been shot. Frank covered up for Stephen and that makes him an accessory to murder.’

‘Why did he do it?’ I asked. ‘Why did he put his life in danger?’

‘He grew up beside Stephen,’ Tom said. ‘They’re like brothers. And in more ways than one. You see, Stephen is almost family there.’

It took me a moment to work it out, but then I suddenly remembered the fierceness of Alice as she had tried to go to Stephen’s rescue at the dance.

‘Alice,’ I said.

Tom nodded. ‘Alice and Stephen,’ he said. ‘How could Frank have not covered for him?’

So much I didn’t know, and yet I clung to the image of us sailing away, leaving all this behind. A covey of doves flew over our heads, banking sharply.

‘Please go back to Monument and tell him what I’ve told you,’ I said. ‘And tell him that I’ll be in Kingsbridge at the agreed time, but not next week. Tomorrow.’