TWENTY-THREE

The Quilligan residence in Ballsbridge was a handsome bay-fronted red-brick house adorned with decorative plasterwork and wide, railinged steps up to an arched porch. Stained-glass panels around the front door depicted songbirds and seasonal scenes of sowing and harvest. Swan, but lately recovered from a hangover best described as stout, assumed the door would be answered by a maid or someone of the sort, and was surprised when it was actually opened by a woman who was quite clearly Isolde Quilligan.

She was wearing a demurely long-sleeved, round-necked, pleated dress, although its purplish colour somehow suggested reined-in fervour. She was thirty or so, young but no longer girlish, with shortish red hair and an ivory-pale, placid face on which calm contemplativeness seemed more fitting than a smile, as the modesty of the smile she offered him went some way to confirm.

‘Mr Swan,’ she said. ‘Do come in.’

‘Thank you.’ He stepped into a wide hallway where a marble Nubian slave-girl supported a miniature fernery next to a hatstand. Swan shook Miss Quilligan’s cool, soft hand and hung his fedora among the assorted straws and felts. He was already aware that his hostess was the sort of woman to whom he was strongly attracted, confounding his expectations of the spin-bowling solicitor’s sister. More confounding still, he had the strange sense that Miss Quilligan was also aware of this.

‘Ardal’s told me all about your encounter on the cricket field yesterday, Mr Swan. I’d have come along if I’d known you’d be there, though, to be honest, I don’t share my brother’s passion for the game.’

‘Strictly between us, Miss Quilligan, neither do I.’

She laughed gently. ‘It’ll be our secret. Do come into the drawing-room.’

He followed her into a large room with a bay overlooking the garden. The fireplace was monumental, the cornicing and rosetting ornate, but midsummer sunlight and pastel-hued carpet and furniture kept Victorian glumness at bay. Ardal Quilligan, looking scarcely less formal in his weekend attire than his office kit, advanced to greet Swan with a smile. They shook hands.

‘Well played yesterday, Mr Quilligan,’ Swan said. ‘Exceptional bowling.’

‘You must call him Ardal, Mr Swan,’ said Miss Quilligan. ‘And you must call me Isolde. I do hate all the misters and misses and madams of what passes for respectable society.’

‘Very well … Isolde. Then you must call me Eldritch.’

‘An unusual name.’

‘I’ve tried to live up to it.’

‘I’m sure you have. Now, sit down while I see to the tea. You might have fared better on another day, Eldritch. Edna deserts us on Sundays and Wednesdays and we have to fend for ourselves. Ardal tells me my scones aren’t a patch on hers.’

‘I tell her nothing of the kind,’ her brother protested.

‘He doesn’t tell me in words, of course,’ she explained as she left.

Ardal waved Swan into a chair and sat down opposite him. A cooling breeze, scented with blossom, drifted in through the open bay window. ‘Well … Eldritch, our business … can be swiftly concluded. I visited Desmond on Friday and told him Cardale’s signature on the document his solicitor supplied gives him exactly what he wants. He instructed me to inform the authorities that he wishes to sign himself out of internment as soon as possible. I’ve already set the ball rolling. Now it’s just a question of time.’

‘You told me you intended to warn him against accepting Cardale’s offer.’

‘Which I did.’ Ardal smiled weakly. ‘As you correctly predicted, he ignored me.’ He spread his palms. ‘Well, there it is. I am not my brother’s keeper, merely his … adviser.’

‘Have you any idea how long it’ll be before he’s released?’

‘A week to ten days, at least. As I explained …’

‘I should try to enjoy my holiday from the war?’

‘Well, yes, you should. More cricket, perhaps?’

‘Not if you’re in the opposing team, Ardal. You spin the ball like a top.’

‘Large hands and long fingers.’ Ardal held them up for inspection. ‘A trick of nature. No real skill at all. Whereas you looked to me to be a skilful batsman who’s simply short of practice.’

‘I have an even better excuse for getting out so cheaply, actually. There was a Special Branch policeman called MacSweeney watching my every move. Knowing you’re under surveillance hinders concentration.’

‘I see.’ Ardal looked undismayed by the news, not to say unsurprised. ‘Is this because of your visit to Desmond?’

Swan nodded. ‘They hauled me in for questioning as soon as I got back to Dublin. They appeared to think I might be a German spy.’

‘Oh dear. I’m afraid they rather see Germans spies everywhere at present.’

‘I gather there’s a real one on the loose.’

‘Apparently so. Let’s hope they catch him soon. Then they’ll stop breathing down your neck.’ Ardal clasped his hands together and leant forward in his chair. ‘I know how you feel, Eldritch. I’ve been the object of Special Branch attention myself over the years. It’s the price of having a brother in the IRA.’

‘Has it made life difficult for you?’

‘Occasionally very difficult. But I’ve never resented Desmond on that account. It’s impossible to resent someone who’s following his patriotic conscience, however extreme the actions it drives him to. I’ve rather envied him, to be honest: his dedication; his sincerity. I suppose that’s why I’m saddened by the thought of him abandoning the cause.’

‘Whereas I rejoice in it,’ said Isolde as she wheeled a tea trolley into the room. ‘I barely remember the Easter Rising, but Father’s horror at Desmond joining the rebels was something I grew up with. They were never reconciled. And the Civil War taught me the perniciousness of following your conscience regardless of the consequences. Women understand better than men that the true foundation of liberty is compromise.’

‘I fear I’ve let you in for a lecture I’ve heard my sister deliver more than once, Eldritch,’ said Ardal with a smile.

‘You’re preaching to the converted, Isolde,’ said Swan. ‘Compromise is my dearest principle.’

‘I can’t tell you how glad I am to hear that,’ said Isolde. ‘You may enjoy my scones after all.’

Tea was a far more relaxed and congenial occasion than Swan had anticipated. After cooing over the snapshot of young Simon Cardale, Isolde fetched the family photograph album and showed him how closely the boy resembled his father at the same age. There they all were in faded portraits and informal poses: Desmond, Ardal and Isolde as children with their parents – a portly father and a plump mother – beaming at the camera in the very same drawing-room, or assembled at picnics and bathing parties in years gone by. Isolde was clearly pinning her hopes for some kind of future for the family on establishing links with her nephew. ‘Otherwise, what is there?’ she declaimed. ‘Ardal and I fossilizing in this house while Simon passes his childhood in England deprived of a father as well as a mother.’

‘You could always marry someone, Issie,’ said Ardal, smiling mischievously, ‘if the lack of a next generation weighs so heavily on your mind.’

‘But marry who, pray? I see no obvious candidates among the available manhood of Dublin.’

‘Your standards are too high.’

‘They’re as low as I can bear them to be. And I might point out that marriage is open to you too.’

‘But any woman I brought into this house would have to compete with you, Issie, causing me to fear for her sanity.’

A well-aimed serviette landed squarely on Ardal’s face as his reward for that. To Swan’s surprise, he laughed quite genuinely at his own discomfiture, even when he discovered a blob of plum jam on his shirt after removing the serviette. He excused himself to wash it off, leaving Swan to assure Isolde the apology she offered for the incident was unnecessary.

‘Perhaps so, Eldritch,’ she said. ‘But I do need to thank you for the service you’re doing this family. Whatever ill will there is between Desmond and Geoffrey Cardale needs to be set aside. Susan Cardale can’t be brought back from the dead. But her son can be brought into our lives.’

‘You know Cardale expects Desmond to do something for him in return for this?’

‘Of course.’

‘Are you worried what it might be?’

‘Is it worse than breaking into the house of a so-called traitor in the middle of the night and shooting him in front of his wife and children?’

There, again, was the hint of fervour. Swan was impressed by her. She knew her own mind and, he suspected, the minds of others. ‘No. It’s nothing like that.’

‘Then I’m not worried.’

‘Of course, to see your nephew, you might need to go to England.’

‘That would be no hardship.’ Indeed, her tone implied, it might be just the excuse she needed to leave Ireland.

‘Most people would say you’re better off here,’ her brother pointed out, dabbing at his shirt with his handkerchief as he strolled back into the room. ‘And you may be forced to agree, when Germany starts bombing London.’

‘You think they will?’ Swan looked up at him.

‘I’m sure of it.’

‘A little danger might serve as a useful reminder that we’re actually alive,’ said Isolde. ‘I’ve had cause to doubt it since this … emergency … began. Neutrality’s turned out to be a synonym for sterility.’

‘Perhaps Churchill will be able to talk de Valéra into joining the war,’ suggested Swan, curious to see whether they were aware that such efforts were actually being made.

‘There’s not the remotest chance of that,’ said Ardal, picking up his teacup and carrying it to the window, where he gazed out into the afternoon sunlight.

‘Why not?’

‘Firstly because no one’s ever talked Dev into anything. And secondly—’

‘Because the Taoiseach thinks Germany will win the war,’ Isolde cut in. ‘The high moral stance of our leader amounts to ensuring that he doesn’t put Hitler’s nose out of joint.’

‘Well, he’s right, isn’t he?’ mused Ardal. ‘Germany will win.’

‘I wish we hadn’t started discussing the war,’ said Isolde. ‘It only depresses me.’ She sighed. ‘Would you like to see the garden, Eldritch? It’s looking lovely just now.’

Ardal did not join the expedition into the garden, during which Swan did his level best to enthuse over the flower borders and the wisteria-draped pergola and the trio of elegantly candled horse chestnuts, until Isolde eventually took pity on him as they completed a second circuit of the lawn.

‘You have no interest in any of this, do you, Eldritch?’

‘Well …’ He smiled. ‘No.’

‘I quite understand. It’s actually quite pathetic. I shouldn’t be filling my days with pruning and planting. I’m old before my time.’

‘I wouldn’t say that.’

‘Only because you’re too much of a gentleman.’

‘Not an accusation often levelled at me, I must tell you.’

‘Really? You surprise me.’

‘But do I disappoint you? That’s the question.’ Swan took out his cigarette case. ‘Smoke?’

Isolde shook her head. ‘I’d better not. Ardal doesn’t like me to. But don’t let me stop you.’

Swan lit up. His first puff of smoke drifted between them in the sweet, laden air. Isolde’s eyes were shaded from him. Yet he knew they were on him, searching, testing, pondering. To Ardal, watching from the drawing-room, if he was watching, the tension of the moment, the sudden concentration of possibilities, would have been wholly unapparent.

‘What would you stop me doing, Isolde?’

‘Nothing … that I can imagine.’

Swan took a long draw on his cigarette. The tension stretched. But it did not break. ‘You mentioned Edna’s other day off was Wednesday.’

‘So I did.’

‘I wouldn’t like to think of you … alone here all day … with time hanging heavy on your hands.’

‘It’s how it’ll be for me, I’m afraid.’

‘Oh, I don’t think so.’ He blew a couple of smoke rings into the air and watched them gradually distort and dissolve. ‘I have the distinct feeling this Wednesday will be very different for you.’