“That will be ten pounds, madam,” he huffed, and I took what appeared to be two five-pound notes from my stash. I would have to examine the bills when I had more privacy to do so.
“We’ve just finished boxing your other purchases,” Mr. Barry said, taking my notes and putting them in his till. He indicated the stack of parcels behind him and beckoned to a boy who scrambled to his side and began piling boxes in his arms. “After you, Mrs. Gallagher,” Mr. Barry said, pointing to the door.
I turned and walked toward Thomas. I felt flushed and uncomfortable, the “beggar with no shame” leading a royal procession. Beatrice tottered behind me, carrying my toiletries and two hatboxes, while the boy and Mr. Barry juggled the rest of the parcels between them.
Thomas held the door and nodded to his car parked next to the sidewalk.
“Put the parcels on the back seat,” Thomas instructed, but his eyes were on four men walking swiftly down the street toward the store. They wore khaki uniforms and tall boots with black belts and glengarry hats. The hats made me think of Scottish men and bagpipes, but these men weren’t carrying bagpipes. They had guns.
“You look like a beautiful queen, Mother!” Eoin cried, reaching for the skirt of my dress with sticky fingers. I sidestepped his attempt and grabbed his hand instead, ignoring the way his palm stuck to mine. Thomas began hustling us into the car, his eyes never leaving the approaching soldiers.
When Mr. Barry saw the men, he shoved the packages in the rear seat and urged Beatrice and the boy to go back in the store.
Thomas shut the door behind me and strode around to the front of the car. With one swift pull on the crank, the car, clearly already warm and primed, roared to life. Thomas slid behind the wheel and pulled his door shut just as the men stopped in front of the large window that featured the open pages of the Irish Times. With the backs of their rifles, they began to hit the huge window, shattering it and causing the newspaper to flutter and fall amid the broken glass. One soldier leaned down and lit the pages with a flick of a match. People on either side of the street had stopped walking, watching the vandalism.
“What are you doing?” Mr. Barry pushed through the door, his mouth gaping and his cheeks red.
“Tell Mr. Lyons he’s fomenting rebellion and violence against the Royal Irish Constabulary and the Crown. Next time he displays the paper, we’ll break all the windows,” one of the men said, his Cockney voice raised so the growing crowd across the street could hear. With a final kick at the smoldering pages, the men continued down the street, toward Hyde Bridge.
Thomas was frozen, both hands on the wheel, the car rumbling impatiently. His jaw was clenched so tight a muscle danced near his ear. People started to rush across the street to view the damage and talk among themselves, and Mr. Barry started organizing the cleanup.
“Thomas?” I whispered. Eoin’s eyes were huge, his lower lip trembling. His sucker had fallen from his mouth, and it lay forgotten beside his feet.
“Doc? Why did the Tans do that?” Eoin asked, tears threatening. Thomas patted Eoin’s leg, released the choke, and adjusted the levers by the wheel, and we eased away from the department store, leaving the destruction behind us.
“What was that about, Thomas?” I asked. He hadn’t answered Eoin, and his mouth was still tight, his eyes bleak. We’d crossed Hyde Bridge behind four constables and headed out of Sligo, back toward Dromahair. The farther away from town we moved, the more Thomas relaxed. He sighed and cast a quick glance my way before settling his gaze back on the road before us.
“Henry Lyons sends a driver to Dublin every day to get a paper. He puts it up in the store window so the people know what is happening in Dublin. The action is in Dublin. The battle for all of Ireland is being fought in Dublin. And people want to know about it. The Tans and the Auxies don’t like him posting the paper.”
“The Auxies?”
“The Auxiliaries, Anne. They’re a separate command from the regular constabulary. They’re all ex-officers of the British army and navy who have nothing to do now that the Great War is over. Their one job is to crush the IRA.”