THE YOLK SPREAD OUT ACROSS THE PLATE. ANNIE STARED at the smear of yellow and put down her bread. She felt suddenly nauseous. They sat at the Castle, where Eleanor Wallace was staying. Fishermen sat around them drinking tea and smoking.
‘His name is Feebes,’ Eleanor said.
‘Feebes?’ Annie said, stirring. She fingered her pocket watch. It was an unusual name.
‘Major General Edmund Feebes,’ Eleanor said. ‘Son of Sir Edward Feebes, who fought in the guano wars years ago. Or maybe he started them. In any case, a powerful family. Edmund is destined for Parliament. We would like to have something on him.’
‘Is this what this is?’ Annie said. ‘A blackmail job?’
‘I don’t like to use that term,’ Eleanor said. ‘It’s common.’
‘You said nothing about blackmail,’ Annie said. ‘I don’t need trouble, Miss Wallace.’
‘It strikes me you’re already in trouble,’ Eleanor said. ‘All you have to do is take a few pictures. What’s the harm? No one will be the wiser. And you could use the money. Couldn’t you?’
‘I could,’ Annie admitted. She pushed the egg around on her plate as she thought. ‘What do you have on him?’ she said.
‘A mistress.’
‘Here in Kinsale?’ Annie said.
Eleanor smiled. ‘As it happens.’
‘I see. And the major general?’
‘Due to visit her tonight.’
‘I see.’ Annie stared at the yolk. She picked a chunk of bacon and chewed. She made herself swallow. She sipped her tea. The tea was hot and sweet.
‘This woman is… aware of your intentions?’ she said. Her mind was suddenly made up. It was like Eleanor said. There was no real harm. And she needed the money. You had to do what you could to make it out in this world. Another one of her grandmother’s sayings. ‘Only, it would make it easier,’ Annie said.
‘As it happens, Mrs Doyle is a patriot,’ Eleanor said.
Annie stared. ‘Deirdre?’ she said.
Eleanor Wallace smiled.
‘One and the same,’ she said.
A lot of thoughts ran through Annie’s mind all at once. She said, ‘This job here. This Mr Brady who drowned. Did his friends really raise the money for—’
‘It was an opportunity,’ Eleanor said. ‘It got you here, didn’t it?’
‘I suppose it did.’
‘It’s just a few pictures,’ Eleanor said, as if that decided it.
*
If you were going to do a job, Grandma Mary always told her, you may as well do it well. Annie examined the room, with its awful wallpaper, the high window and the Victorian bed.
‘Move the table,’ she told Joe. ‘Not there. Put it there. Push the bed a little way, like so. We need a light source. It is going to be dark. Maybe some candles.’
‘Very romantic, candles,’ Deirdre Doyle said. She seemed unbothered by all the fuss. To look at her, you wouldn’t know she was mistress or rebel. She was just matter-of-fact. ‘Where will you put the camera, Annie? I feel like a right Marie Lloyd.’
‘All the world’s a stage,’ Joe said. Both women looked at him.
‘What?’ he said. ‘I’ve got education.’
‘That you have, boy,’ Deirdre said. ‘That you have.’
‘The wardrobe,’ Annie said. ‘But we’ll have to make a hole in the door.’
‘And who’s going to pay for that, eh?’ Deirdre said.
‘This is your contribution to the cause, I guess,’ Annie said.
‘As if I’m not contributing enough already,’ Deirdre said. ‘He’s sweet, the major general, you know. I hate to do this to him. Poor Edmund.’ She brooded. ‘Still. It can’t be helped. Will you make the pictures tasteful?’
‘Tasteful?’ Annie said.
‘Yes, you know. Get my good side and all that.’
‘What is your good side?’ Annie said.
‘The left.’
‘It would be better not to get your face in the picture,’ Annie said. ‘Just, you know. The act itself. And the major general’s face, of course.’
Joe mumbled something under his breath, then fled the room when they looked at him.
‘He’s not wrong,’ Annie said. ‘You could do that.’ She tried not to blush.
‘Don’t worry about me,’ Deirdre said. ‘This isn’t my first dance. Joe! Get back here!’
‘Aunty?’
‘We need to make a hole in the wardrobe,’ Deirdre said. ‘For the camera.’
‘Right you are, Aunty.’
They emptied the wardrobe first. This took some time. When it was all taken out there was just enough space for Annie to squeeze in. She asked for a stool. She put the camera on a stand. She used the tintype machine, not the Kodak.
‘Could work,’ she said.
‘Let’s try it out first,’ Deirdre said.
Annie went in the wardrobe. She sat on the stool, her legs to the side. The doors closed. The lens touched the wood, engulfing the small hole Joe Doyle made. It was dark inside. It was hot. Annie felt her heart beat faster, her hands get clammy. She didn’t like being in there.
She tried to calm herself down. She could feel the baby inside, growing, being. One day soon it will be a whole person. She wondered what it would be like. Would it be like her, like Jamie? Like her unknown grandfather, like her tragic mother? The present was not like the past, she thought. Things were different. This baby will be a twentieth-century baby, not a fussy old Victorian like her. The thought made her smile. She looked through the refracted lens, saw the bedroom, the bed, adjusted the camera’s position just a tiny fraction, already composing the scene in her mind.
‘Move the bed a little to the left,’ she said. ‘Put a candle on the side table.’
‘What?’
She pushed the door open. Light and air greeted her as though she was a long-term prisoner suddenly released from her cell.
‘I said, move the bed a little to the left,’ she said. ‘And we need to put the candle—’
‘All right, all right,’ Deirdre said. ‘Hold your horses.’
At last it was done. They repaired downstairs for tea. Annie kept looking at Deirdre. Did she not mind? She seemed so unselfconscious. Perhaps some people were like that, she thought. Eager to be seen. Perhaps in another life Deirdre Doyle would have been on stage. Annie didn’t know. She sipped her tea. She tried not to think about tonight.
*
Nine thirty. So quiet outside. She sat squatting in the wardrobe wishing she was somewhere, anywhere else. She’d had to telegraph Lady Julia from the post office to inform her of their delay in Kinsale. Lady Julia wouldn’t be happy, Annie knew. But Lady Julia’s happiness was not, currently, at the top of her list of priorities. She kept getting cramps. It was so hot inside. Come on, she thought. Come on! Get it over with.
Joe was down the pub – well, that was the story; he was skulking at the back of the house to be on hand instead, just in case. And Eleanor Wallace’s people were watching the house, too. Annie didn’t much care for Eleanor Wallace, she realised. But then, she didn’t care for any of this. She sweated and waited. What was Deirdre doing!
Entertaining her guest downstairs. From time to time Annie could hear voices, Deirdre’s laughter, the clinking of glasses. They were having a good old time down there, Deirdre and her beau. She wished they’d hurry the hell up. But Deirdre seemed to have all bloody night to get going.
Cramps again. She bit her lips, trying not to move. The heat made her nauseous. She focused on the camera, the view through the peephole, of the room, the bed, the sources of light. It would just about do. She tried to pass the time. Counted barking dogs. One, two, three barks. Four. Another one. Six. She lost count. She tried to calculate how much money she had now. She kept it under a loose floorboard in the basement. Enough for a second class ticket on the Olympic, enough to get her to Boston or New York, enough to live a while. Not enough to make a future, though. She needed more. She needed enough to reinvent herself, become something other than Annie Connolly of Cork. There was no point going somewhere if you were still going to be yourself when you got there.
Ten, eleven, twelve barking dogs. So hot. The cramp shot up her leg. She tried to shake it without moving. It was a nightmare. The clinking of glasses, Deirdre’s lewd laugh. She could murder the damn woman. Twenty-one barking dogs, twenty-two, twenty-three.
Steps coming up the stairs.
She froze. The door banged open. She heard them, Deirdre and this Feebes. The sounds disgusted her.
‘Oh, darling,’ Edmund Feebes said. ‘Oh, darling!’
Annie heard clothes being removed, loud kissing, a groan, a giggle, Deirdre saying, ‘Major General, stand to attention!’
For a moment they came too close to the wardrobe. Annie steadied the stand as the wardrobe shook.
‘Come to bed, Edmund,’ Deirdre said. The bodies moved away. Annie let out a soft breath of relief. She looked through the lens, adjusted position. She could see them clearly enough, Major General Feebes with a pot belly and hairy buttocks. When he turned in profile she saw he did have a magnificent moustache. He was also painfully erect. Deirdre Doyle, meanwhile, had shed her clothes and was writhing provocatively on the bed. Annie hesitated, then pressed the shutter button.
She had to hope the pictures would come out. Eleanor Wallace was all softly-softly smiles and insinuations for the moment, but Annie knew a killer when she met one. If she didn’t do the job, Miss Wallace would make sure some shit about Annie would get out. Not like she was in anyone’s good books anyhow. She had only herself. Deirdre dropped to her knees, her back to the camera. Major General Feebes stood to attention like the captain on the deck of a ship going down fast. Annie pressed the shutter button. Edmund Feebes shuddered and cried out. It was all over fast. He sat on the bed. Deirdre stood and dabbed her mouth demurely.
‘Rest awhile, my hero,’ she said. ‘But don’t rest too long!’
The major general laughed, scratched his stomach and farted. He stretched out on the bed. Annie cursed.
Get him out of the room! she thought, furious. She took one last photo, the man and his naked companion. The sweat got in her eyes. She was desperate for a pee. Her leg cramped again. She nearly screamed.
‘What was that?’ Major General Feebes said.
‘What?’ Deirdre said.
‘That noise.’
‘I didn’t hear a noise.’ Deirdre stared daggers at the wardrobe. ‘Probably a mouse,’ she said.
Screw you, Annie thought.
She sat there, stewing. She couldn’t wait much longer. She had to get out. Her leg spasmed.
‘What was that!’ the major general said again.
‘Let’s go downstairs,’ Deirdre said. ‘I need a drink.’
‘But we just got here,’ the major general said, pouting.
Deirdre reached across and held his limp member in her hand. She gave it a couple of experimental tugs.
Jesus Christ and all the angels, please don’t, Annie thought.
‘Well, maybe a small drink,’ the major general conceded.
Annie didn’t dare breathe for relief. She watched as Edmund Feebes got up ponderously from the bed. Deirdre looked directly at the camera. She mouthed ‘Be quick’, then escorted the major general out of the room. As soon as the bedroom door closed Annie pushed the wardrobe door open. She took in big gulps of air.
A knock on the window. Then another one. She went over. Joe Doyle, chucking pebbles at the glass.
She opened the window.
‘You’ve got to get me out of here,’ she said.
‘Keep your voice down!’ Joe said. ‘Throw me down the camera, Annie.’
‘There is no way the camera leaves without me,’ Annie said.
‘Then jump, I’ll catch you.’
‘You must be crazy, Joe. Tell your aunt to get him out of here!’
Joe shook his head.
‘Hold on,’ he said.
‘Where are you—’
He vanished into the dark. What was he doing? She could hear Deirdre and the old boy downstairs. Getting rowdy again. She didn’t have long. She had a feeling Edmund Feebes was soon going to get his second wind. Not something Annie wanted to be a witness to. She shuddered.
‘Here!’ Joe said. He appeared out of the dark, holding a ladder.
‘You’ve got to be kidding,’ Annie said.
Joe put the ladder against the wall.
‘Hand me the camera and climb down,’ he said.
‘You’ve got to be kidding,’ Annie said.
‘I think they’re coming back up!’ Joe said.
Annie had never moved so fast. She grabbed the camera and tossed it out of the window. She shut the wardrobe doors. She shimmied out of the window and onto the rickety ladder, which barely held. She grabbed the sides for dear life.
‘Shut the window!’ Joe said.
‘What?’
‘Shut the bloody window!’
She reached to close it. Teetered at the top of the ladder. Somehow she did it. She reached for a hold on the ladder again and descended just as the bedroom door opened and Deirdre and Edmund tumbled back in. Annie slid down the ladder the rest of the way. Her palms burned. She could hear them going at it upstairs.
‘I don’t even care about Home Rule!’ Annie said.
‘Don’t say that,’ Joe said. ‘Come on. Let’s get out of here.’
He led her out through the back gate. Across the road a black automobile was waiting. Eleanor Wallace was in the driving seat.
‘Did you get it?’ she said.
‘The pictures need developing,’ Annie said.
‘Get in,’ Eleanor said.
‘What? Why?’
‘I’ll drive you back to Cork.’
‘Better than staying in this dump any longer,’ Annie said. She slid into the passenger seat. Joe handed her the camera.
‘I’ll take back the cart tomorrow, then,’ he said.
‘You do that, Joe.’
Annie sat back. She closed her eyes. She was suddenly very tired.
The car engine started. As if from a great distance, Annie heard Eleanor speak, but whatever she said was lost to her.
‘Just drive,’ Annie said. ‘Just drive.’