Rosie was thrilled and overwhelmed that Danny had been released from jail. She didn’t know why nor did she care, all she knew was that he was free, a thing she thought she never would see, and she hoped and prayed that with good food and plenty of rest a glimpse of the old Danny would return.
Danny seemed to worry over his physical strength. ‘I’m as weak as a kitten,’ he complained to Rosie one day. ‘I used to break rocks six days a week, twelve hours a day, on a starvation diet but now the slightest thing tires me.’
But Rosie wasn’t worried about that aspect at all, certain in time Danny would regain his physical strength. ‘That’s reaction only,’ she told him reassuringly. ‘You must give it time. And at least there is no danger of your starving here. Your mother is determined to fatten you up.’
Rosie spoke the truth, for Connie, desperately worried for her son, was constantly pushing food before him and urging him to eat up. At first, he could do so only sparingly and even then he was often sick, the food being too rich to the person who’d lived on a plain and meagre diet for so long.
It was the kind, loving Danny Rosie missed and missed so much she often cried in bed after he had fallen asleep. She missed the closeness between them, the way they could talk for hours, their hugs and cuddles, the times Danny told Rosie how much he loved her, what she meant to him, the sex they had enjoyed so much and she often wondered bleakly if it was all lost for good.
When he’d first come home, she had tried to hug him but he had shrugged her off and when she’d tried to tell him how much she loved him and how glad she was that he was home again, he answered her with a grunt. She wished he would talk about his ordeal, convinced that it would help him, but when she asked about it he snapped at her. But then he shouted at her for very little nowadays and would often reduce her to tears she tried desperately to hide from the family.
Matt tried to make allowances for his son. ‘Such a thing is bound to change a man,’ he told Rosie when he came upon her weeping in the barn one day. ‘Prison, I would say, has brutalised Danny, and that’s a fact.’
Phelan was with his father and said. ‘All well and good, Daddy, but none of that is Rosie’s fault. I never get a civil word out of him, but by God, I don’t deserve one. But Rosie has done no harm to anyone.’
‘I know that, son, but…’
‘And Sam went through it too and he’s falling over himself to be nice to Sarah.’
Sam was determined to win Sarah over. Though he looked as bad as Danny, he’d delivered a wrapped present to the Walshes’ house on Christmas Eve. Sarah, who’d refused to see or have anything to do with Sam since his return, was intrigued enough to open this box in her room.
The gasp she gave brought the other three women in to see what had caused it, and Sarah held up the shawl. It was the loveliest thing Rosie thought she’d ever seen, rose-pink and shot through with threads of silver and knitted in the finest and softest wool. God alone knew where Sam had got such a thing.
‘Of course, I can’t accept it.’
Elizabeth couldn’t believe she was hearing right. ‘Course you can.’
‘No, I can’t,’ Sarah said, with a regretful sigh. ‘To accept such a thing would be in the nature of a promise.’
‘You wrote to him in prison,’ Elizabeth pointed out. ‘Wasn’t that a promise?’
‘No,’ Sarah declared. ‘That was just to cheer him up. Don’t forget, we never thought they’d be released, then, did we? What do you think, Mammy?’
Connie smiled and said grimly, ‘I think, cutie dear, you must do what your heart tells you, even if your head tells you different. But don’t accept the shawl if the man means nothing to you.’
‘He doesn’t mean anything to me,’ Sarah declared, packing the shawl away decidedly. ‘I shall return it to him tomorrow after Mass.’
She tried, Rosie knew, for she’d seen Sarah remonstrating with Sam outside the chapel. She had no time to watch the outcome, the day was too cold to linger and she had to hurry home to look after Bernadette and see to the dinner so that Connie could go up to the later Mass with the men, but she did, however, see Sarah sneaking in the door later, still holding the box.
That evening, friends and neighbours called around for the usual Christmas jollification and Sam was amongst them. When, later, Sarah and Sam went for a walk, Rosie noticed the shawl around Sarah’s shoulders. ‘She’s kept it then,’ Elizabeth remarked beside Rosie. ‘If she didn’t want it, she could have given it to me. It wouldn’t have offended my sensitivities one jot.’
Rosie gave her a push and they laughed together but then Rosie caught Danny’s eyes on her, morose and brooding. She tried to repress the sigh of impatience as she made her way towards him.
He’d snapped at her already quite a few times that evening, Rosie recalled, and many times had brought the eyes of the company upon them both. He contrasted badly with Sam, doing his level best to woo Sarah. Rosie felt saddened and frustrated by Danny’s behaviour.
She didn’t know what could be done about it. She’d married him and that was that, she had to make the best of it. Crying and complaining would hardly rectify matters. And that is what she had told Phelan that day in the barn. ‘It’s of no matter,’ she said, brushing the tears from her eyes with her hands. ‘I’m silly to let Danny upset me. Sure, don’t I know he means nothing half the time?’
Phelan said nothing more, but he felt sorry for Rosie and he knew his parents did too. He was glad they were more or less back on their earlier footing for when Rosie had returned from Dublin after seeing Danny that one time, she’d seemed to hate him, and with reason, he thought, but for some time he’d felt the difference in her.
Rosie could have told him, eight months was a long time to keep hold of a hatred of someone she shared a house with.
No-one could have been unaware either how sorry and filled with shame the boy was. He did everything he could to make amends and Matt often praised the amount of work he did for one so young. Nothing seemed too much trouble for him and he did everything he could to lift the heavy work of the farm from his father’s shoulders.
But his saving grace, as far as Rosie was concerned, was the way he was with Bernadette and just as importantly how the child loved him. She knew Connie would be happy if they at least drew some sort of truce and as time went on, Rosie was able to view the whole thing differently and see that Phelan had made a mistake and had only seen the glory of war. He’d been unprepared for the blood and the carnage and the swift and overwhelming British response. He’d also been unprepared for Danny’s intervention and he’d told Rosie this. By then, even he’d thought the mini rebellion was doomed but there had been nothing he could have done to stop Danny taking the place of him and Niall for he’d been determined to get them released. Rosie knew what manner of man Danny was and that Phelan spoke the truth and gradually the animosity between them lessened.
Sam became a regular visitor at the farmhouse as the year progressed. Sarah was now officially walking out with him and he was full of charm and good manners when he appeared at the house. In contrast, Danny was often silent and miserable looking and seldom had a good word for anyone except Bernadette, though sometimes his attitude unnerved her too. When he shouted, she was often frightened and her eyes would grow large with alarm, and sometimes she’d shake for she’d seldom heard a raised voice in the whole of her young life. But when he wasn’t cross, she’d often seek his company and he always made time for her. One February evening, Rosie was returning home from her mother’s house. Bad weather had kept her from visiting since the week after Christmas and she’d left Bernadette with Connie for she had a streaming cold. She came around the corner of the barn she was surprised to hear muted voices inside there and the sheen of a light beneath the door.
She recognised Shay’s and Danny’s voices as she approached and felt filled with apprehension. Why would Shay be skulking about the barn, talking secretly to Danny, instead of sitting up in the room like any other body? She crept nearer the door to listen.
‘I don’t care about the bloody meeting,’ she heard Danny say. ‘I want no more part in it.’
‘You signed the allegiance, Danny.’
‘Aye, fool that I was,’ Danny said. ‘You know why I was forced to do that, Shay.’
‘Danny, for Christ’s sake will you listen to me?’ Shay cried. ‘It doesn’t matter a tinker’s cuss why you signed, the fact was you did. It’s for your own good I’m saying this, Danny. It’s just a meeting, that’s all, and if you’re not there a very dim view will be taken of it altogether.’
The blood in Rosie’s veins seemed to run like ice. Dear God! Was it starting up again? She’d not stand it. She had the urge to burst into the barn and demand an explanation, order Shay from the farm and forbid Danny to listen to him. But this Danny, returned to her from Kilmainham Jail, was like an unexploded bomb, and she wasn’t at all sure how he would react if she did any of those things.
She turned away regretfully and made her way to the house, and once there was glad of Connie’s chatter for it covered her worried silence. When Danny eventually came in, he refused to even look at Rosie.
Why didn’t she ask what manner of meeting it was that Shay was so insistent he attend? But this Danny could not be asked questions like that.
She thought maybe he’d tell her when they were alone in bed, but Danny said not a word. But then, she told herself, he hadn’t been aware that she had overheard anything, and Rosie almost wished she hadn’t.
The following night, after the evening meal, Danny, instead of following his father to the other side of the fire for a smoke, made instead for the door. He took his jacket from the hook behind it and said. ‘I’m away out.’
‘Out!’ Connie repeated in surprise, while Matt asked, ‘Out where?’
Rosie said not a word. She wasn’t able to speak, the roof of her mouth had gone uncommonly dry and her limbs had begun to tremble. Danny glanced from his parents to her, but it was to his father he spoke. ‘Just out,’ he said. ‘I’m a grown man, not a wean to be questioned.’
‘It was a civil question.’
‘Aye, and you got a civil answer,’ Danny replied, as he opened the door and let the winter air in. He looked across at Rosie and said, ‘Don’t wait up, I don’t know what time I’ll be in, but I’ll likely be late.’
Rosie couldn’t even nod her head. She stood as if frozen to the spot and not until the door closed behind Danny did she feel she could move. ‘Do you know where he’s bound for, lass?’ Connie asked, and Rosie shook her head.
‘No, but I think he’s going to a meeting. I heard him talking to Shay out in the barn,’ she said, and turning to Phelan asked, ‘Do you know anything about it?’
‘How would I?’ Phelan asked. ‘Danny barely bids me the time of day.’
But Phelan did know. At least, he knew that the meeting was in O’Connor’s in Blessington, for Niall had overheard his brother say so and had told Phelan that it was called by a man nicknamed Red McCullough, because of his shock of ginger hair. He remembered Red from his own time in the Brotherhood and knew him to be a dynamic and persuasive man with a pure hatred for the English. Phelan was deeply worried for his brother. But to tell his family any of it would not help and might cause them further worry and he didn’t know how any of it was to be resolved.
Danny strode along the road with a determined step. He wondered why Rosie had not said a word to him about where he intended to go that night. She couldn’t know anything, surely? And yet she acted so strangely. Anyway, he thought determinedly, she needn’t fret, none of them needed to, for this was the finish of it – he was going to tell them this night that he’d done his share and was going to do no more.
‘I was forced into it, in order to release two young boys who should never have been allowed to join in the first place,’ Danny tried to explain to Red McCullough later that evening.
Red looked at him dispassionately and replied, ‘That’s neither here nor there.’
‘I think it is.’
‘What you think doesn’t count,’ Red said ominously. ‘Once you join up, it’s for life. You can’t pick and choose.’ He glanced at Danny contemptuously and went on, ‘What manner of man are you at all, to fall at the first post?’
Danny grabbed Red McCullough by the neck, but two other men pulled him away and held him by the arms as he yelled, ‘First post? That foolhardy plan for a few illtrained and badly equipped men to take on the might of the British Army was doomed from the start. I knew that. And yet I gave it my best shot and brought down as many soldiers as the next man, so don’t you try and say now I lacked courage.
‘And then, for this ill-fated exercise, I lost eight months in jail, as you did I know,’ he added as Red held up his hand as if to interrupt. ‘Now my wife is nervous of the man I’ve become, my child terrified of the stranger in her house, and my brother does the lion’s share of the work on the farm that will one day be mine because I’ve not regained the health and strength I once took for granted.
‘So,’ he finished. ‘Don’t talk to me about first posts. That was the last post as far as I am concerned and I want nothing more to do with all this again.’
‘Sit down, man.’
‘I’ll not,’ Danny said. ‘I’m not staying.’
Immediately the grip the two men had on his arms tightened. A chair was brought and Danny manhandled into it. He would have sprung up from it again, but he took a look around the room and knew if he tried he would be forced back down, for every man in the room was ringed against him, even Shay and Sam. Added to that, the outburst had taken it out of him and so he sat in the chair and wished he was anywhere but in that room listening to Red McCullough’s plans for the regrouping of the Brotherhood to plan their next strategy.
Rosie was woken in the early hours of the morning and lay for a short while wondering what had roused her while Bernadette slumbered on. Then she heard the noise again. Looking across, she saw that the space beside her was empty and with a sick feeling consuming her, she slipped from her bed, grabbing a shawl for her shoulders.
Danny, always a moderate drinker, was as drunk as she had ever seen anybody and stumbling about the kitchen. She didn’t know what that meant at all, but now wasn’t the time to discuss it. She had to get him into the bedroom and his bed before he roused the house. ‘Come away in, Danny,’ she pleaded, catching his arm. ‘Come on, the morning will be on top of us before we know it.’
Danny gazed at Rosie, bleary-eyed. This was his wife, the woman he had promised to love above all others, whom he did love above all others. He had no wish to be separated from her again, not for any reason.
He allowed himself to be led into the room, and sat on the bed. ‘I told them, Rosie, I wanted no part of it.’
‘Hush,’ Rosie cautioned as she bent to unfasten Danny’s boots, ‘the wean’s sleeping.’
‘Aye,’ Danny said, ‘the wean. I told them she was terrified of me. They wouldn’t listen. They don’t care.’
Rosie barely heard Danny’s words. He continued to mutter as she fought to remove as many of his clothes as she could. Suddenly he said, ‘They’re mad, the lot of them.’
He began to cry then, the great gulping sobs of the maudlin drunk, and Rosie pushed him down onto the bed and put her arms around him. Anxious only to keep him quiet, she soothed him, ‘Hush, Danny pet, hush.’
Danny felt a stirring inside himself with the nearness of his wife that he had worried he’d lost forever. The old Danny would have taken time to arouse her too, but this Danny hadn’t time for such niceties and so when he entered her she was far from ready and bit her lip to prevent a cry of pain escaping. Danny, however, was well-satisfied and quickly, and as he lay spent on top of her he said softly, ‘Rosie, my lovely Rosie.’
It was the first gentle thing he’d said, Rosie thought, but he had needed to get drunk to say it. Suddenly compassion for this confused and unhappy man rose in her and as she eased herself away from him with difficulty as he was now a dead weight, she said softly, ‘Hush now, and go to sleep.’ But she was talking to herself for Danny was already dead to the world.
The next morning Danny was slow to rise, and Rosie left him in bed, thinking a cup of tea might help him wake up. She was sluggish with lack of sleep herself, for she’d lain awake long after Danny had fallen into his stupor. She had been wondering if this was to be the pattern of her life now, and hoped to God it wasn’t.
She’d just wet the tea when Danny entered the kitchen and at the look in his red-rimmed eyes, she felt sympathy for him. Not so Matt, who crashed in through the cottage door minutes later and surveyed his son across the kitchen, an angry scowl on his face. ‘So, you’re up at last.’
Danny took the cup of tea Rosie handed him and had a scalding gulp of it before he answered his father. ‘Aye, I’m up.’
‘Well, let me tell you,’ Matt said scathingly. ‘Your free time is your own, while it stays your free time. When it eats into your work time, it begins to be my business. I suggest you sluice your thick head under the pump and get away to the byre where your brother has been working alone this last hour.’
Matt waited for no reply, but went out through the door again. Rosie didn’t know how to break the uneasy silence. The only sounds in the room were the ticking clock, the peat settling in the hearth and the gulps of tea that must have been scalding the mouth off Danny.
When he eventually left, Rosie sighed in relief. ‘We know the state he was in last night,’ Connie said, having entered the kitchen. ‘We heard him and we heard you trying to quieten him. I’ve never seen Danny that way. Did he give you any reason for it?’
Rosie thought there was no point in worrying Connie by repeating the ramblings of Danny the previous night. ‘What drunk man says anything sensible at all?’ she said. ‘He said a lot of blathering nonsense that I paid no heed to.’
‘I’m heart sore for you, girl.’ Connie said. ‘And I hope this isn’t going to be the way of it from now on. His father will never stand for it.’
Nor I, Rosie thought, but she knew she’d have to stand it, for she was married to Danny and had promised to obey him for better or worse, in sickness and in health.
Rosie hoped Danny would talk to her about where he’d gone the previous night and what had caused him to drink so much, but he’d said nothing, so later that night in bed she asked tentatively, ‘Where did you go last night?’
Danny, having no memory of his ramblings the night before, thought briefly about not telling her. Why worry her? But maybe it would be best if she knew. ‘O’Connor’s,’ he said briefly. ‘We had a back room there.’
‘We?’
‘It’s what’s left of the Brotherhood that Phelan got mixed up in. Most of them I shared the jail with. Red McCullough runs the whole show. He was a good friend of Michael Collins.’
Rosie had heard of Michael Collins from the Dublin Express. ‘Was he there too?’
‘No, he’s still in jail,’ Danny said. ‘He wasn’t in Kilmainham Jail. He was sent Richmond Barracks and then to some place in Wales and is still there apparently.’
‘Danny, I don’t want you mixed up in anything like this again,’ Rosie said.
‘Nor I. I told them that.’
‘And what did they say?’
Danny sighed. ‘They reminded me I signed the allegiance and that it’s for life. I can’t get out of it.’
‘But you must be able to,’ Rosie cried, alarmed. ‘If you want to have nothing more to do with them, surely to God you can say so?’
‘I tried saying so,’ Danny said. ‘I tried till I was blue in the face.’
‘So what does it mean? What stupid thing are they planning now?’
‘I couldn’t tell you even if I knew,’ Danny said. ‘It wouldn’t be safe for you to know. But last night was just a pep talk – nothing was decided.’
But something had been decided, Danny knew, and it was that he realised he had no idea how he was going to get out of this organization before he was dragged into it again. That was the reason he’d drunk himself stupid.
All through the remaining weeks of February and into March, Danny went to meetings every week, sometimes twice, and always returned the worse for wear. He could tell Rosie little of what went on, and so she ceased to ask, but worry ate at her every time.
Connie and Matt had a good idea what Danny was up to and Connie urged Rosie to give him a talking to, but Rosie knew Danny was haunted himself by the whole thing and said nothing.
Danny didn’t need to tell her how interest had been rekindled in the Brotherhood since the executions in Kilmainham Jail. She knew the rebels had become martyrs and the Catholic Church itself had had an upswing because of the monks’ descriptions of the pious way each man had met his death. This had swung the Church’s sympathy a little to the fight for Home Rule, so now the numbers attending the meetings had risen dramatically in that little room behind O’Connor’s pub, and Red McCullough began talking of guerrilla warfare, just as Danny remembered Michael Collins had. ‘First we need weapons,’ he said at a meeting in early April, and none could argue with that. The few weapons they’d once had had been seized.
Danny’s was the one voice which spoke of the political solution and putting their trust, initially at least, in the convention planned for later that year when delegates from Dublin, Belfast and London were to meet to discuss the ‘Irish Problem’.
‘Oh God, will you listen to the man,’ one shouted as Danny voiced his proposal. ‘Whenever have the English played fair with us? Aren’t Irish bodies littering France and Belgium now? And have we achieved anything through their sacrifice?’
‘Maybe this will be different.’
‘And maybe pigs might fly if they had a mind,’ another said.
‘We need weapons. We can’t do anything without weapons,’ Red said again. ‘Are you with us, Walsh, or against us?’
‘You know my views.’
At the same meeting, two raids were planned, one on the arsenals at Kilbride Camp on Thursday evening, just two days away, and another at Richmond Barracks the following Saturday. Volunteers were asked for. It was noted that Danny put himself forward for neither of these. ‘What about you, Walsh?’
‘What about me?’
‘What will you do?’
‘Nothing,’ Danny said. Shay was beside him as he spoke and Danny heard his sharp intake of breath.
‘You’re in this the same as all of us and don’t forget it.’
‘No, I’m in this because you forced me to be,’ Danny said.
‘I think you’re a rotten coward,’ a man shouted from the back. ‘An English arse-licker.’
‘I’m neither,’ Danny said firmly, though his fists were balled by his side and he longed to send the man’s teeth down his throat. ‘I’m just an Irishman trying to get on as best I can and one who feels we should wait for the results of the Convention before we make any sort of move.’
He was shouted down and booed at, and later, outside, with the meeting over, Shay said quietly, ‘Christ, man, will you ever learn to keep your mouth shut?’
‘How can I?’
‘You best learn, for there are some amongst these men who would shut it for you and permanently,’ Shay warned.
Rosie knew there was something serious afoot. She couldn’t say how, she just knew, and the tension in Danny on Thursday evening was almost tangible. ‘Can you tell me?’ she said that night as they lay in bed.
‘You know I can’t.’
‘Right. I will ask just one thing. Are you involved?’
‘No.’ Danny could at least say that definitely. ‘It’s nothing whatsoever to do with me.’
That should have made Rosie feel better, but it didn’t and she slept badly. Later, she was roused by a rapping at the window and she awoke with a jerk. Danny too was awake instantly, and he jumped out of bed and ran to the window. ‘Shay?’
‘Let me in, Danny, for Christ’s sake,’ Shay said, and Danny opened the window wide. Rosie sat up in the bed, pulling a shawl around her as Danny lit a lamp. ‘What is it?’ he said; even in his agitation he spoke in a low voice lest he woke his sleeping child and indeed rouse the whole house.
‘They were waiting for them at the Kilbride Camp,’ Shay said. ‘Three were shot dead, two captured and the rest of us got away.’
‘That’s not all,’ Shay said. ‘They’re blaming you, Danny.’
‘Me?’
‘They think you tipped the soldiers the wink.’
‘Jesus Christ, I’d never do such a thing. Speak against my own countrymen?’
‘I know you wouldn’t, Danny,’ Shay said. ‘That’s why I’m here and I’m risking my life to do it. You must leave here this night and go into hiding, they’ll be coming for you.’
‘What are you talking about?’
‘The Brotherhood. They think you’ve betrayed them.’
‘Well, I’ll put them right.’
‘D’you think you’ll be believed?’
‘God, Shay, this is Ireland, not New York or Chicago.’
‘Aye, it may be Ireland, but I’ll tell you it’s just as dangerous. They hold you responsible for the reception committee awaiting them at the camp.’
‘What will they do?’ Rosie asked, frightened.
Shay didn’t answer but his eyes said it all and Rosie knew they would kill Danny if he stayed. Danny knew it too, but he refused to accept it. ‘Come on, Shay, I’m not afraid of them.’
‘Then you’re a fool,’ Shay said. ‘You must leave, Danny, and quickly.’
‘Don’t be silly,’ Danny said. ‘Where would I run to?’
‘The safest place would be England,’ Shay said. ‘There are cells of resistance like this all over Ireland.’
‘I have no intention of fleeing my native land for anyone.’
Shay shrugged and said angrily, ‘I’ve risked my life to try and save yours and fine thanks I’ve got for it. I thought you might have given a thought to your parents, or Rosie and your little daughter, but there, I’ve done my best. Just don’t say I didn’t warn you.’
Shay had turned away towards the window and Rosie, after a beseeching look at Danny, called him back. ‘Wait, Shay, for God’s sake.’
‘I can’t wait,’ Shay said, ‘Jesus, how can I make you see sense? Do you think I would be here in the middle of the night if it was some sort of joke? I’m a dead man if they ever hear of this.’
Rosie shook her head, confused. ‘I understand what you say, Shay. But why are they blaming Danny?’
‘Because he wouldn’t take part and spoke against them on more than one occasion. He knew all about the raids, the times, the arrangements, everything. You can see why they think that way. But every minute you delay is more dangerous and not only for yourselves alone.’
‘It’s madness, Rosie, you must see it,’ Danny said. ‘I know no-one in England.’
But what Rosie saw was her husband before her, and the thought of him dying, blasted through the head or heart, caused her physical pain. ‘You must go away, Danny,’ she urged him. ‘It may only be for a short time.’
‘Where, for Christ’s sake?’
Rosie desperately thought for a moment and remembered where she went once before for help and advice when she’d been in dire straits. ‘The Sisters of Mercy, they’ll help you, I’m sure. You know, where your mother’s aunt was?’
‘She’s in Dublin now, not England.’
‘Aye, but there’s another convent in Handsworth in Birmingham. Maybe you could go there for a little while?’
‘I hate this whole idea.’
‘It might only be for a time,’ Rosie said. ‘Think of it that way.’
‘I’ll think of it this way,’ Danny said. ‘I go nowhere without you.’
‘Danny, talk sense.’
‘If Shay’s right and I’m in danger, then so are you,’ Danny said. ‘If I’m not to be found, maybe they’ll start on you.’
‘Surely to God they’ll not hurt women or weans.’
‘Who knows what they’ll do,’ Danny continued. But I’d never have a minute’s peace away from you, I know that. If you won’t come for yourself alone, come for Bernadette’s sake. Could you live with yourself if anything happened to her?’
Rosie went cold at the very thought. She’d once thought she’d follow Danny to Siberia if he asked her and she knew that was now being put to the test. She shivered in apprehension although her voice stayed firm enough. ‘If you think it is that serious, then of course we must go.’
Danny went up to wake his parents and tell them of events. ‘My father knows of this,’ Shay said, as Rosie began. ‘He’ll drive you to Dublin tonight.’
‘Surely we can wait till morning?’
‘Jesus, Rosie, did you not listen to a word I said. The men are raging and could descend on us at any time,’ Shay said, visibly nervous. ‘Dear God, Rosie, I’m terrified myself, so I am.’
It was Shay’s reaction that finally convinced Rosie that they had to leave and right away. She hoped it wouldn’t be forever – God knows she’d miss the place. Connie came into the room, then, as Rosie was packing, and said in a horrified whisper, ‘God, child, this is terrible. You can’t go just like this.’
‘I can’t not go,’ Rosie said. ‘It’s too dangerous for us to stay here.’
‘But like this…skulking away in the dead of night as if you have done something to be ashamed of.’
‘Mammy, I dislike it as much as you.’
‘Would you think of leaving the child?’
‘No, Mammy,’ Rosie said horrified. ‘I’d never rest away from her and I don’t know how long we’ll have to hide.’
Connie heard the catch in Rosie’s voice and took her in her arms as she cried out her fear and helplessness. ‘The happiest time of my life has been here,’ Rosie told Connie faithfully. ‘I love you all dearly and I’ll miss you sorely. But Shay believes they will come for Danny, and soon, and if Danny was to be killed, life for me would lose all meaning,’ and she remembered the time she thought she would never see him again. Now she knew how Danny had stood against the IRA’s demands, the dilemma of which had caused him to behave so oddly, she loved him more than ever and knew for his sake and his safety she would follow him to the ends of the earth.
‘I know what he means to you, Rosie,’ Connie said, ‘and if you must go away then you must. I’ll put some food together for you.’
‘Thank you, Mammy’, Rosie said, glad that Connie understood, but it was with a heavy heart that she began to pack up their clothes and other items she’d hate to leave behind, although she knew they had to travel as lightly as possible.
She’d almost finished when Connie came in with parcels of food and another large, linen-wrapped bundle. ‘The clock,’ she said. ‘Have you space for it?’
‘Mammy, I can’t take that,’ Rosie protested. ‘It’s the family clock.’
‘And aren’t you still family even though you will be so far away?’
‘Aye, but…’
‘Child, I have nothing else I can give you.’
‘I want nothing.’
‘Take it to please me. It will be your link with home.’
Rosie was touched and she knew it was important to Connie that she take the clock and so she didn’t protest further.
‘God, girl, for this to happen? Connie said. ‘My heart is broken, so it is.’
‘Ah, Mammy,’ Rosie said, and she put her arms around Connie and they cried together.
‘Come on,’ said Matt suddenly at the door. ‘You must away quickly. There’s no time for tears now.’
Rosie knew he was right and yet she understood Connie’s distress, She picked the still-sleeping Bernadette up, wrapped her in a warm shawl for the night air was treacherous and hurried out into the kitchen where Danny stood ready.
‘Have you enough money, Danny?’ Matt asked as they stood at the door with a very impatient and obviously nervous Shay beside them. ‘Aye, Daddy,’ Danny replied, ‘and I mean to get a job as soon as I’m able.’
‘Just in case it’s not as easy as you think,’ Matt said, pushing two ten pound notes into his hand.
‘Ah, Daddy no…’
‘Yes,’ Matt insisted, and went on, ‘It’s all right to be stiff-necked when you only have yourself to think about, but if you won’t take money for yourself then take it for Rosie and wee Bernadettte.’
Danny gave a brief nod and pocketed the money.
‘Will you not at least bid the girls farewell and Phelan too?’ Connie asked.
‘No,’ Danny said. ‘There’s no time, and anyway, the fewer that know the better.’
Matt at least understood that. ‘How are you going?’ he asked.
‘Across the fields, it’s quicker.’
‘Then take a lantern or you’ll break your neck,’ Matt said, giving them the one lit in the kitchen. With another tearful hug the four were on their way.
It was much shorter to Shay’s father’s farm across the fields, but it was a cold and miserable journey and Rosie was afraid she’d stumble and fall, and drop the child. She knew she would be glad when she reached the farmhouse.
‘Why is your father putting himself out like this?’ Danny asked. ‘I mean, it’s a fair hike for anyone, and in the dead of night too.’
‘He owes you a favour,’ Shay said. ‘He’s always felt it since you stood in for Niall last Easter. This is his way of paying back the debt. Anyway, it wouldn’t do for your own father to be seen to be away from the farm the night you disappeared. I’ll not be suspected because I was with them tonight, and my family too will be semi-protected by that. This is the most sensible way.’
Maybe, thought Rosie. But she could list a whole lot of things she would put under the label of sensible before this trek they were to undertake through this coal-black night. But she didn’t share her thoughts.
Danny grasped Shay’s hand suddenly. ‘I’ll never forget this, Shay,’ he said. ‘I know we’ve been mates for always, though we’ve different opinions about how to obtain Home Rule, but I know what you have risked coming here this night.’
There was a lump in Shay’s throat as he put his arms around Danny. How he wished things could be different but he’d done what he could to protect him, because he knew he was no traitor. ‘Go, on now,’ he urged, ‘and Godspeed.’
And they turned the corner at the bottom of the lane to see Willie, having heard them approach, leading the horse before the cottage.