Pulling his hand away, he removed three single-pound notes from the pocket of the brown corduroy coat; he was a little surprised to see that the money barely covered the price of the drinks.
They didn’t speak, of course; no one does at such moments. She rose; her pale face, lit by the low yellow lamps in the place, was warm and soft, and he thought: Thank God she’s older; at least the years took their toll on her as well. Thank God for the spidery lines at the corners of her blue eyes.
The sex was not particularly satisfying but neither of them had really expected it to be. The ghosts of old relationships — with others — intruded on their lovemaking and each was generous at the wrong moments and too little selfish.
They fell away at last and lay side by side on the unsoft hotel bed, staring at the ceiling. Devereaux really could not remember Elizabeth as she had been — there had been so many of them — those students — full of Kennedy fervor and a kind of idealism not yet tainted by smugness. And there was himself, the way he had been — so singularly interested in himself.
They lay together and thought separate thoughts.
“It really is absurd,” Elizabeth said.
Outside, the darkness buffeted the windows of their room. They could not hear traffic or church bells or the sounds of cabs or anything that might have placed them in London instead of a million other places. Yet the slight, familiar wail of the wind forced around the skyscraper was comforting, too, because all hotel rooms are alike and familiarity can be home.
“Yes,” he said. After a very long time. “It would have been easier not to have known each other.” He turned and looked at her. “Although then, you would not have agreed to sleep with me.” He felt somewhat eased by saying that.
“I would have preferred not to be so grateful,” Elizabeth said.
She really was quite beautiful, Devereaux thought. He kissed the first lines of age on her neck; her skin was cool, pale, fine and smooth, like marble in the shade on a hot day.
He kissed her then; but Elizabeth gently pushed him down and turned and kissed his chest; she kissed his nipples, surprisingly pink and vulnerable beneath the matted gray hair. She kissed his navel and licked it.
Yes, he thought. He put his hands in her hair and tried to touch her face. He felt her lips; he felt the inside of her mouth.
She continued until she heard him moan, softly, almost with a trancelike reverence for the act.
He lifted her face; her eyes were shining, greedy and dark.
He pulled her atop him and fitted himself into her, gently feeling the softness of her breasts; she closed her eyes and moved on him, her mouth on his.
What did she remember now?
He pushed up — once, twice, again and again — into her, hard, almost without tenderness.
It was not expert at all; it was all moaning and thrashing.
But all traces of the past had been swept out and they made love like strangers. Which suited them and gave them comfort.
5
The slight, mean figure hurried quickly up the Crumlin Road while a light rain coated the broken street. He swung himself along harshly, angrily, pushing his bad leg forward and lunging with his good one. He was a little man with harsh, sunken cheeks like God’s wrath and high cheekbones full of righteousness. His restless black eyes went from doorway to post to the occasional passing car. He was not looking for a friend. His eyes carried a message of contempt and watchfulness. For who in bloody London would not like to have Faolin himself in Her Majesty’s stinkhole prison?
He walked past the house and then turned, swinging around on his lame leg, and walked past it again. Slowly, unobtrusively, he stopped and looked around.
A wretched boy with a green woolen scarf stood in the middle of the street and looked at him. The scarf was wet with the rain. Behind the boy, on a crumbling brick factory wall, was the whitewashed message: Up the IRA.
It had been painted a long time ago, perhaps before the boy was born.
“So what’ve ya seen, lad?”
“I seen nothin’,” the boy said in a heart-rending squeak.
“Ya know a soldier, boyo?”
“I know a fuggin’ soldier,” he said and spat on the wet road.
“Ah, good lad,” said Faolin. He pulled a gleaming coin from his pocket. “Ten bob. Here’s ten bob to watch for ’em.” He held the coin out. “And whaddaya do when ya see a soldier?” He almost sang it. He understood the boy and the boy him.
“Bang the dustbin lid,” the boy said promptly.
“Ah,” Faolin laughed. For a moment, the perpetual contempt in his eyes was softened by something he saw in the child. He sailed the fifty-pence piece high into the air and admired the boy as he caught it on the fly.
“You’ll be here when I come out?” Faolin asked.
“Oh, aye,” said the boy.
And, with a final glance around him, Faolin disappeared into the doorway.
Three others were already in the bare room when Faolin walked in. The odor of foul cigarettes clouded the room — it was a front sitting room with doilies and pictures of the Blessed Virgin on the mantel. Faolin frowned at the three men in greeting and going to the table, threw his cloth cap down on it. He pulled the front of the heavy tweed coat from his frail body and they clearly saw the .45 automatic stuck in the thick, black trousers belt.
“Captain Donovan?”
There were no formalities in meetings chaired by Faolin. Or grace. He leaned his tone on the word “Captain,” making it full of a heavy irony. He was addressing a thick-shouldered, sea-brown man with a sailing cap perched on the back of his head. Donovan stood up like a child in recitation class.
“They’ve moved it back again, Faolin,” he said.
“Again?”
“Trouble with the trials on the bloody thing. One of the engines fouled. They’ve moved it back to December first—”
“A wonder they don’t wait for spring—”
“Indeed,” said Donovan. “A force-ten wind and it’s no go fer her.”
“Ah, well, we can expect the great Lord Slough will have a personal word with the Almighty about holdin’ the wind down fer the crossin’,” said a third man. He had smiling eyes and a calm manner, as though the bluffness of Donovan and the sarcasm of Faolin called for a steady middle hand. His name was Tatty.
“Indeed, Tatty,” said Faolin, who was almost deferential in manner to the mild, quizzical man in his battered old cap. Tatty’s perpetual Gallagher cigarette hung from his lip.
“Will yer be on her?” asked the fourth man. His name was Parnell and he wore a regular shirt over the blue trousers of a Liverpool policeman.
“Oh, aye,” said Donovan. “I’ve had the trainin’, y’see. I’m quite indispensable t’her.” He said it proudly.
“Oh, aye,” said Faolin. “But y’re more need to us.”
Donovan grinned. But Faolin moved on. “Tatty, y’ll apprise our friends in Liverpool of it, then?”
“Oh, aye. They probably know by now anyway,” said Tatty. “It’ll be in the papers, I wouldn’t be surprised.”
“P’raps not. It is somewhat an issue and they’ll want to throw us off by keepin’ the date secret for as long as possible—”
“Not secret enough not to get mention of the first hovercraft service in the Irish Sea—”
Parnell nodded. “He’s right, is Tatty. They’ll want England’s eyes all on her as she crosses—”
“The eyes of the world if we do it right,” said Faolin.
“The world,” repeated Donovan dreamily. He could not conceive it.
Faolin let them talk on about the details of the plan. Details were not important to him a month before the event. Faolin would cut through the details at the proper time. He thought of them as children, like the boys of the old days who had worn trench coats and dark hats in imitation of American gangsters.