“I promise you, I will not take Eoin from Garvagh Glebe,” I pledged, meeting his gaze.
“But can you promise that you won’t leave?” Thomas said, finding the chink in my armor.
“No,” I whispered, shaking my head. “I can’t.”
“Then maybe you should go, Anne. If you’re going to go, go now, before more damage is done.”
He wasn’t angry or accusatory. His eyes were grim and his voice was soft, and when tears rose in my throat and welled in my eyes, he drew me to him gently and embraced me, stroking my hair and patting my back as though I were a child. But I did not relax against him or let my tears fall. My stomach roiled, and my skin felt too tight. I pulled away, afraid that the panic scratching at my heels and oozing out the palms of my hands would break free in his presence. I turned and walked from the kitchen as swiftly as I was able, holding the stitch in my side, focused only on the safety of a closed door.
“Anne. Wait,” Thomas called behind me, but a door slammed, and excited voices filled the kitchen as a worn couple, their clothes tidy but a little tattered, crowded around Thomas, keeping him from pursuing me as I slipped down the hallway toward my bedroom.
“Our Eleanor says Mrs. Gallagher dismissed her, Doctor! She cried all the way home, and I’m beside myself. If there’s a problem, you’ll tell me, won’t you, Dr. Smith?” the woman cried.
“You’ve always been fair with us, Doctor. More than fair, but if the girl doesn’t know what she’s done wrong, how can she fix it?” the man joined in. The O’Tooles had interpreted Eleanor’s early night exactly as Thomas said they would.
Poor Thomas. It must be hard always being right. He was right about so many things. If I was going to go, I should go now. He was right about that too.
I just didn’t know how.
28 November 1920
I sat with Mick in Dublin last Saturday, eating eggs and rashers at a place on Grafton Street called the Café Cairo. Mick always eats like it’s a race, shoveling food into his mouth, his eyes on his plate, focused on the task of refilling so he can keep moving. It never fails to amaze me how freely he moves about the city. He usually wears a neat grey suit and a bowler hat, rides his bike as often as not, and smiles and waves and makes small talk with the very people who are hunting him. He hides in plain sight, and runs circles, literally and figuratively, around everyone else.
But he was fidgety last Saturday, impatient. And at one point he shoved his plate aside and leaned across the table towards me until our faces were mere inches apart.
“Ya see the Cocks at the back tables, Tommy? Don’t look right now. Wait a bit and drop your napkin.”
I took a deep pull of the black coffee in front of me and knocked my napkin to the floor as I set my cup back down. As I retrieved the napkin, I let my eyes trip across the half-filled tables along the far wall. I knew instantly which men he was referring to. They wore three-piece suits and ties, not uniforms. Their hats were pulled lower on the right than the left, demanding your gaze, while their eyes warned you to quickly look away. I didn’t know if they were Cockneys, but they were Brits. There were five at one table and a few more at the next. Maybe it was the way they surveyed the room or talked around their cigarettes, but they were together, and they were trouble.
“That’s not all of ’em. But they’ll be gone tomorrow,” Mick said.
I didn’t ask what he meant. His eyes were flat, his mouth turned down.
“Who are they?” I asked.
“They call them the Cairo Gang, ’cause they always meet here. Lloyd George sent them to Dublin to take me out.”
“If you know who they are, isn’t it possible they know who you are, and you and I are about to get pumped full of lead?” I murmured around the rim of my cup. I had to set it down again. My hands were shaking. Not from fear. At least not for myself. For him. And I was angry at the risk he’d taken.
“I had to see them off,” Mick said mildly, shrugging. His jitters were gone. He’d passed them on