Whitechapel Via Monto

I had tasted exhaustingly distinguished and mad company before in Dublin and elsewhere during Patrick’s travels with the Gaelic League.  Didn’t he haul me along to many a conference, concert, and compotation in our first year, so Mr. Yeats wouldn’t be the first personage of sorts I’d met.  Patrick, being a well-thought of fiddle player, knew scores of artists and writers about the country, keeping in mind those he’d come to know during his work with the Volunteers.  Through my late husband, I’d even had the privilege of shaking hands with Collins himself, that’s the Sinn Féin man, not the spaniel.

Will you have Yeats in the big room?  Or in my room?  My old room?  Oh, the big room, of course, dear, sure they wouldn’t fit in that smaller space up there.  Your room goes to the bachelors when they’re in need of a roof, and on occasion there’s an American businessman that be’s passing through who takes it, but it’s a rare thing to have anyone occupying that wee room at all, that’s why it’s so well preserved from your own time.

How long do you intend to stay, love? she then asks.  For as long as I’m welcome, I say.  Our place is above a shop back in town, like I said.  I still keep it and pay rent.  For now.  But his family are involved in its keeping.  And though they’ve looked after me so far there’s not a lot of kindness in them.  And you know yourself.  Nobody cares much for a widow once your being a widow has left their minds.  You’re just an old woman in someone’s way.  Good lord, I’ll have none of that cynicism here now, she says.  You’re no old woman, Eithne.  Sure neither am I.  Plenty of living in the pair of us still.  She laughs to herself, forks up the last mouthful of tart, happily champs away on it with no mind to the crumbfall.  You’re welcome to stay here as long as you want and find your bearings. This will always be your home, remember.  Widows of the world unite.  May the husbandless flourish.  What a sentiment that is.  Badly understood, my underchecked cynicism informs me.  We have both had our husbandful, and now we move on.

A Sunday.  We were only out of the house when it happened.  I didn’t like going to mass, I still don’t, but went to keep Patrick happy.  It was broad daylight.  Children out playing.  Heard and not seen.  And we weren’t the only ones on our way to mass.  Heavy fog kept the morning activities of one and all obscured, making it easier for someone to move around unrecognised.  He’d been waiting up the side of our building when we came out.  He was only the one.  But you’d think by the height of him he was three, one standing on top of the other.  I’ve never seen such a tall man.  Some later said he wore a mask, as these sly auxiliaries were prone to do for disguise, however I didn’t see the faintest evidence of that.  If it had been the case, you’d expect to see the eyes at least and perhaps some forehead - none of these usual features were visible.  Where his face should have been there was the entrance to a dark cave.  As though his face was a plain screen but grimly, unimaginably black.  No hair was discernible either.  The top of his skull was concealed, but not by the typical headwear of a serviceman; he had a hood up on him, like that a monk would wear, and this deepened the mystery of his visage.  I’m no believer in the supernatural but I swear I imagined him to be a creature sent from some infernal province.  Whitechapel via Monto.  I’ve had a few nightmares since, let me tell you, about that day and that great plank of darkness is always present.  And so too those children shouting and laughing in the background.  They feature in the dreams too, little bastards.  Thanks be we had none.  Normally these animals would come into your home and do you there, where it was quieter, where less people could see the full horror of your actions.  They weren’t ones for coming up on you when there was light.  And light or no, come did a shadow that morning.   He stepped out in front about a yard from us and the arm came up in a way that denoted he’d no tenderness in mind.  There was a flash and Patrick began turning to protect me.  In this quickness of motion, the bullet found his left temple and I for a moment thought it had just skimmed him.  But as his weight descended bringing both of us to the ground I felt the sticky texture of blood upon me, and then saw it trickling from the rip at the side of his head.

Collins, the spaniel not the director of intelligence for the Irish Republican Army, has fallen asleep at my feet.  He ate more of the sugary treats than both of us.  It is a nice feeling to have a dog sleeping next to your feet, keeps your toes warm.  Ah, God love him, she says.  God spoils him, I add.  You calling me God, are you? she says. No, when I say God really I mean Life, you know.  Oh.  Life spoils him.  Yes.  I agree.