Not After Midnight & Other Stories

Oh no, she thought. Not again. I can't take any more just yet. The battle's over, won. I'll sue for peace. All I want to do now is to lie like this, with my legs thrown across his knees and my head on his shoulder. This is safety.

'Don't,' she said.

'Oh really? No stamina?'

'Stamina nothing, I'm suffering from shock. I shall smoulder for days, like your barracks in Armagh. By the way, I belong by rights to the Protestant north. My grandfather was born there.'

'Was he, indeed? That explains everything. You and I have a love-hate relationship. It's always the same with people who share a common border. Attraction and antagonism mixed. Very peculiar.'

'I dare say you're right.'

'Of course I'm right. When I lost my eye in the car crash I had letters of sympathy from dozens of people across the border who would gladly have seen me dead.'

'How long were you in hospital?'

'Six weeks. Plenty of time to think. And plan.'

Now, she thought. This is the moment. Go carefully, watch your step.

'That photograph,' she said, 'that photograph on your desk. It's a phoney, isn't it?'

He laughed. 'Oh well, it takes an actress to spot deception. A throwback to the days of practical jokes. It makes me smile whenever I look at it, that's why I keep it on my desk. I've never been married, I invented that tale on the spur of the moment for your benefit.'

'Tell me about it.'

He shifted position to ensure greater comfort for both of them.

'The real bridegroom was Jack Money, a very close friend. I saw he died the other day, I was sorry for it. We'd been out of touch for years. Anyway, I was his best man. When they sent me a print of the wedding-group I switched the heads round and sent a copy to Jack. He laughed his head off, but Pam, his wife, was not amused. Outraged, in fact. He told me she tore the thing up and threw the pieces in the waste-paper basket.'

She would, thought Shelagh, she would. I bet she didn't even smile.

'I got my own back, though,' he said, moving one of the loaves from under his head. 'I dropped in on them one evening unexpectedly. Jack was out at some official dinner. Pam received me rather ungraciously, so I mixed the martinis extra strong, and had a rough-and-tumble with her on the sofa. She giggled a bit, then passed out cold. I upset all the furniture to look as if a cyclone had hit the house, and carried her up to her bed and dumped her there. On her own, I may add. She'd forgotten all about it by the morning.'

Shelagh lay back against his shoulder and stared at the roof of the van.

'I knew it,' she said.

'Knew what?'

'That your generation did perfectly revolting things. Far worse than us. Under your best friend's roof. It makes me sick to think of it.'

'What an extraordinary statement,' he said, astonished. 'No one was ever the wiser, so what the hell? I was devoted to Jack Money, although he did bog my chances of promotion shortly afterwards, but for a different reason. He only acted according to his lights. Thought I might put a spoke in the slowly-grinding wheels of naval intelligence, I presume, and he was bloody right.'

Now I can't tell him. It's just not on. Either I go back to England battered and defeated, or I don't go at all. He's deceived my father, deceived my mother (serve her right), deceived the England he fought for for so many years, tarnished the uniform he wore, degraded his rank, spends his time now, and has done for the past twenty years, trying to split this country wider apart than ever, and I just don't care. Let them wrangle. Let them blow themselves to pieces. Let the whole world go up in smoke. I'll write him a bread-and-butter letter from London saying, 'Thanks for the ride,' and sign it Shelagh Money. Or else… or else I'll go down on all fours like the little dog who follows him and leaps on his lap, and beg to stay with him forever.

'I start rehearsing Viola in a few days' time,' she said. "My father had a daughter loved a man…" '

'You'll do it very well. Especially Cesario. Concealment like a worm in the bud will feed on your damask cheek. You may pine in thought, but I doubt with a green and yellow melancholy.'

Murphy did another U-turn and the loaves rattled. How many miles to Lough Torrah? Don't let it end.

'The trouble is,' she said, 'I don't want to go home. It's not home to me any more. Nor do I care two straws for the Theatre Group, Twelfth Night, or anything else. You can have Cesario.'

'I can indeed.'

'No… What I mean is, I'm willing to chuck the stage, give up my English status, burn all my bloody boats, and come and throw bombs with you.'

'What, become a recluse?'

'Yes, please.'

'Absurd. You'd be yawning your head off after five days.' 'I would not… I would not…'

'Think of all that applause you'll be getting soon. Viola-Cesario is a cinch. I tell you what. I won't send you flowers for your opening night, I'll send you my eye-shade. You can hang it up in your dressing-room to bring you luck.'

I want too much, she thought. I want everything. I want day and night, arrows and Agincourt, sleeping and waking, world without end, amen. Someone warned her once that it was fatal to tell a man you loved him. They kicked you out of bed forthwith. Perhaps Nick would kick her out of Murphy's van.

'What I really want,' she said, 'deep down, is stillness, safety. The feeling you'd always be there. I love you. I think I must have loved you without knowing it all my life.'

'Ah! ' he said. 'Who's groaning now?'

The van drew up, stopped. Nick crawled forward, threw open the doors. Murphy appeared at the entrance, his furrowed face wreathed in smiles.

'I hope I didn't shake you about too much,' he said. 'The side roads are not all they should be, as the Commander knows. The main thing is that the young lady should have enjoyed her outing.'

Nick jumped down on to the road. Murphy put out his hand and helped Shelagh to alight.

'You're welcome to come again, my dear, any time you like.

It's what I tell the English tourists when they visit us. Things are more lively here than what they are across the water.'

Shelagh looked around her, expecting to see the lake, and the bumpy track near the reeds where they had left Michael with the boat. Instead, they were standing in the main street of Ballyfane. The van was parked outside the Kilmore Arms. She turned to Nick, her face 'a question-mark. Murphy was knocking on the hotel door.

'Twenty minutes' more driving time, but worth it,' said Nick. 'At least for me, and I hope for you as well. Farewells should be sharp and sweet, don't you agree? There's Doherty at the door, so cut along in. I have to get back to base.'

Desolation struck. He could not mean it. He surely did not expect her to say goodbye on the side of the street, with Murphy and his son hovering, and the landlord at the entrance of the hotel?

'My things,' she said, 'my case. They're on the island, in the bedroom there.'

'Not so,' he told her. 'Operation C brought them back to the Kilmore Arms while we were junketing about on the border.' Desperately she fought for time, pride non-existent.

'Why?' she asked. 'Why?'

'Because that's the way it is, Cesario. I sacrifice the lamb that I do love to spite my own raven heart, which alters the text a bit.'