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  “How old are you?” he asked.

  “I’m legal,” she said calmly, “if that’s what you’re worried about.”

  “I suppose that’s a relief,” he said a trifle grimly.

  “Is it your father?” She laid a gentle hand on his forearm, “My father used to say that sex and death are natural companions.”

  “Your father,” Jamie paused, “sounds eccentric.”

  She gave him a stern look, “He meant it was a way to deal with grief, the act itself is a reaffirmation of the living still to be done.”

  Jamie thought he’d never met such a terrifyingly pragmatic person.

  “Shall we get on with the business at hand then?” In one lithe movement, she had swung a knee over his lap and settled herself quite comfortably.

  “Um,” said Jamie inanely, “you have very nice skin.”

  “Youth,” she smiled and took one of his hands, “despite its various disadvantages has some rather nice compensations. Now do you think you could do something for me?”

  “Cross deserts barefoot? Slay dragons? Cut out my soul and hand you the knife?” Due to the placement of his hand, he was feeling increasingly giddy.

  She sighed. “Could you just, for a minute or two, be quiet?”

  Jamie, not surprisingly, found that he could.

  In the morning, upon awakening, Jamie felt like a fleeced lamb—naked, against the laws of nature and left to die on a green hillside. Alone as well. It took him a moment or two to work out that last bit but then he spied the crimson scarf hanging off the bedpost and thought clarity was a quality he could manage without. Ignorance, for this morning, would do quite nicely.

  He showered, shaved and putting on fresh clothes made his way downstairs.

  John, Jessica and Yevgena were in the morning room eating croissants and drinking coffee, their morning chatter halting abruptly as he entered the bright, foliage-laden room. It was with relief well mixed with regret that he noted the absence of his nocturnal guest.

  Yevgena, peacock brilliant in bright blue stretched up to kiss him on his nose. “Good morning, darling.”

  “Good morning,” he replied, relief fleeing at the sight of the girl, cosily tucked in his best white terry robe, bowl in hand, appearing around a palm frond.

  “Good morning,” she said in a tone, he imagined that she reserved for cordial strangers.

  “Pamela here,” Yevgena steered him towards the privacy of the coffee urn, “has been telling me that you failed to deflower her last night.”

  Jamie looked at Yevgena in utter horror.

  “Pardon me?” He sputtered, turning in quick succession white, red and an unbecoming bronzy-green.

  “Oh,” a breezy voice emerged at his left elbow, “it’s alright you were quite willing but you said something about being too old to sleep with angels and then fell asleep.”

  “It seems our little pilgrim,” Yevgena’s face was grim, “has dispensed all things excepting love.”

  “I’ve lived this long with my virginity, I suppose,” Pamela said gloomily, “I can manage a bit longer.”

  “A virgin,” Jamie hissed somewhat louder than he’d intended, drawing the interested stares of Jessica and John.

  “Yes,” he received a cold glare from the girl, “it’s not a disease you know.”

  “I did not know,” Yevgena turned her hands up helplessly, “I have been, how do you say—hatblinked.”

  “Hoodwinked,” John supplied cheerily as he bit into a melon.

  “Don’t play the Russian ingenue, you’re a bit old for it,” Jamie said fury icing his words black.

  “Look,” Pamela’s head came up from the attack she’d launched on a bowl of cornflakes, “I’m sorry if I’ve caused problems here, I take sole responsibility for any upset.”

  “Very mature of you,” Jessica said in a friendly manner exchanging a smile with her.

  “Hungry?” Jamie asked sarcastically.

  “Very,” Pamela replied drinking milk straight from the bowl.

  “Dear God,” said Jamie in exasperation. Then seeing the faint blush as pale as the innards of a seashell that raced along her skin, he felt suddenly quite ashamed of himself. “No, it’s I who should apologize, you are a guest in my home and I’ve treated you abominably. I’m sorry, please know that you’re welcome to stay as long as the Tinkers are here.”

  A look passed between Yevgena and Pamela that made a rather unpleasant sensation take root in his stomach.

  “What’s going on?” he asked with as much calm as he could muster up.

  “Well, you see, the Tinkers have already left, which is beside the point,” Yevgena said rapidly, “because she’s not a Tinker.”

  “Then who the hell is she?”

  “Me, myself and I, as the man in the desert said.” The voice was unperturbed, “or if you’d rather my name is Pamela O’Flaherty.” A hand still lightly padded by youth extended itself and Jamie, head reeling, shook it. “Now if you don’t mind I’d like some more breakfast and then I’ll get my things and be gone.”

  “Like the wind,” Jamie said, finding that his fury was quickly abating.

  “Or through the back door,” she said with a smile, “less romantic but more practical.”

  “There is still the issue of payment,” Jamie smiled in return, “you did after all provide dancing.”

  “And would have provided love, had you been a more willing recipient.”

  Eyes, clear unwavering green, met his and he felt as if someone had stopped the hands of time with a light touch on the clock. “I was rather wondering,” she said, “if instead of payment, well see the thing is...” she faltered, youthful bravado seeming to fail her for the first time.

  “Yes,” Jamie prodded.

  “Well actually, I could really use a job.”

  “And what is it, exactly, you think you can do for me?” he asked in a tone of dry amusement.

  “General dogsbody, Girl Friday, Saturday and Sunday, as well as a dab hand at poker.”

  “Admirable qualities certainly,” he said, “and not without their place in the universe, but I’m afraid I don’t see—”

  “I could use a hand in the kitchen an’ about the place,” Maggie said, grunting as she set down a tray with sausages, soda bread, eggs and fried tomatoes on the sideboard. “I’m not,” she said, treating Jamie to a gimlet glance, “so young as I once was.”

  “We’re none of us getting any younger, Maggie,” Liz Forbes, Jamie’s secretary, light and lovely in pale yellow, entered the room, poured herself a coffee and smiling in a thoroughly professional manner said, “And I could use someone to run the occasional errand to the banks, post letters, type reports. There’s certainly no lack of work to be done,” she sighed in a melodic fashion and sat down with her coffee.

  Jamie though young, was wise enough to know when he’d been outmaneuvered.

  “I’d no idea I’d so overworked you ladies,” he said pleasantly and then turned to the girl, eyeing him now with frank curiosity over the rim of her teacup. “I suppose that means, Miss O’Flaherty, that you’re hired.”

  He then sat, helped himself to a healthy portion of everything on the tray and tried to ignore the look of smug satisfaction now shared by the three women who’d appointed themselves guardian fairies in his life long ago.

  Moments later, absorbed in his sausage and vaguely disturbed by the bare foot that seemed to keep touching his in passing, he missed the wink, smile and nod that passed between his erstwhile fairies.

  Flora, Fauna and Merriweather indeed.

  Chapter Three

  A Hundred Thousand Welcomes Home

  At about the same time Jamie Kirkpatrick was having his grief compromised, Seamus McDowell was entering the doors of a public establishment. His ears were treated to the heartrending final notes of a Republica
n hymn of sorts called ‘When Dawn Finds Her Way to Belfast’ offered up in the sweetest most melancholy tenor tones he’d ever had the distinct pleasure of hearing. His boy was home.

  “Will ye be doin’ us the honor of singin’ another selection, Father?” a man called out, raising his half-empty glass in tribute to the priest’s talent.

  The ‘priest’, who stood atop Mr. O’Leary’s well-worn bar, winked in Seamus’ direction to ensure his compliance and said, with a note of genuine regret, “I’d love to oblige ye gentlemen as ye’ve been most kind but my pipes are a wee bit on the dry side an’ I’ve just seen one of God’s strayin’ lambs an’ must have a talk with him. So if ye’ll excuse me perhaps I’ll sing a song or two later when me equilibrium’s been restored, if ye know what I’m sayin’.”

  “Another round for the Father,” went up the cry and ‘the Father’ seating himself in the dark, shadowy corner table Seamus had indicated, found a frothing pitcher of warm, dark ale at his elbow. The priest thanked the serving girl with a wink and a barely discernible, but highly inappropriate, pat to her shapely backside.

  “Found God an’ the Pope in prison did ye, Father Riordan?” asked Seamus with a quirk of his sandy brows.

  “Ah, it’s all just a harmless bit of fun, they think I’m off for the seminary in the mornin’, feelin’ terrible sorry for me I imagine, this bein’ my last night of freedom an’ all.”

  “Yer first ye mean.”

  “Well first, last—a man certainly deserves a few free drops for either occasion, would ye not agree?” Casey Riordan asked with a boyish grin as he filled Seamus’ glass to the rim.

  “An’ who am I, bein’ a severely lapsed Catholic for more years than I care to count, to deny a soon-to-be-ordained priest of a few pints of the spirit?”

  “Couldn’t have said it better myself,” replied Casey clinking his glass against Seamus’ own upraised one.

  “Ye look none the worse for yer wee holiday boyo.”

  “Aye, well could have been worse, no?” The words were uttered lightly enough but Seamus knew the full weight that lay behind them, none understood better than he the inevitability of the path this boy had chosen to follow.

  “Cead mile failte romhat abhaile,” Seamus said. A hundred thousand welcomes home.

  “Thank ye man, I know ye mean it.” One broad hand wiped the foam off Casey’s upper lip. “Christ it’s good to be home, I knelt down an’ kissed the ground straight off the boat train.”

  “That must have earned the queer looks.”

  “Now we’ve established that I’m home, what happens?”

  Seamus had been dreading that very question for an entire month.

  “Just how happy are ye to be home?” he asked, keeping his tone light.

  “I’m not likin’ the sound of this,” Casey’s eyes were dark over the top of his glass.

  “We think it’s best te send ye off before anyone knows yer back.”

  “Send me where?”

  “The Middle East,” Seamus’ voice was barely above a whisper. In an establishment as notoriously republican as this one anyone who looked too comfortably Irish was likely to be a British agent, “there are some gentlemen there ye need to meet.”

  “Arms,” Casey said, covering with a yawn.

  “Amongst other things,” Seamus raised his glass to an overly interested party.

  “Can I at least sneak into Belfast an’ see my brother?” The look on Casey’s face was as close to pleading as the boy ever got.

  “No,” Seamus said regretfully, “we’re puttin’ ye on the plane in the morning. Dublin to Paris, Paris to Vienna an’ onward connections.”

  “Christ,” Casey’s sigh was heartfelt. “Well then how is my little brother?”

  “Didn’t he write ye?”

  “Three times a week an’ twice on Sundays, the boy’s more faithful than a nun. But knowin’ Pat as I do I figured the bits that weren’t borin’ were fairytales. He’s very careful about not worryin’ me.”

  “Patrick’s fine, doin’ great in school an’ only up to the usual things a man of his tender years is likely to be up to. He’s fine.” Seamus couldn’t decide later whether he’d said the whole thing one beat too fast or one beat too slowly.

  “What’s he done?” Casey’s voice, like the calm preceding the storm, was far too sweet.

  “Nothin’ really,” Seamus glanced at Casey’s face and decided the plain unvarnished truth was the only option. “He’s joined the Young Socialists.”

  “Jaysus, Mary, Joseph an’ the little green men, has he done his fockin’ nut? I told the little bugger to keep his nose clean an’ to the grindstone an’ to keep well an’ away from any extremist organizations.”

  Seamus wisely refrained from making comments about profoundly black kettles calling the pot names.

  “The little bugger,” Seamus said mildly, “is nineteen years old now an’ not likely to appreciate big brother attemptin’ to run his life.” He lit a cigarette and offered Casey one. “We’ve kept an eye on him an’ he’s led a life a monk could be proud of an’ ye’ve seen his grades, he made the honors list at Queen’s last term. He’s doin’ all the things ye wanted him to, Casey, the boy needs to have some fun.”

  “Ye call marchin’ around with that bunch of Marxist hooligans fun?”

  “They’re good kids from good homes an’ there are many worse things he could be doin’ other than marchin’ for peace.”

  “I suppose,” Casey sounded less than convinced. “Now Seamus,” the boyo was all charm, they’d have to be careful of that, “I’ve only the one question left, where the hell was McDarmaid that day? He was supposed to be watchin’ my back.” There was no accusation in Casey’s dark eyes, only a very plain question, ‘what went wrong?’

  And well he should ask, thought Seamus, for that day had been plotted down to the last second, nothing should have gone wrong and indeed nothing would have if McDarmaid had done as he was told, or if he’d kept his allegiances in the proper order.

  “McDarmaid was talkin’ to the London bobbies if ye must know.”

  “The sneakin’, connivin’, double-dealin’–” Casey’s hand slammed down on the table’s scarred surface.

  “Lower yer voice man,” Seamus hissed, “wouldn’t want yer drink supply cut off now would ye? Just listen,” he continued as Casey took a deep breath, in a valiant effort to rein in his anger. “McDarmaid had cause to regret his actions.”

  “Regret—the coward doesn’t even know the meanin’ of the word, wait ‘til I get my hands on the sorry bastard!”

  “That may prove difficult considerin’ he’s been lyin’ in an unmarked grave for close on four years now.”

  “What?” Casey furrowed his black brows as if he were simply too thick to follow the conversation.

  “Are ye deaf, man? I’ve just told ye he’s dead.”

  “I heard—how an’ when?”

  “Ye want it spelled out, do ye? Well he’s dead an’ that’s all that matters, yer revenge has been taken for ye. He knew the game he was playin’ was a very dangerous one an’ just what the penalties were for gettin’ caught. Casey, ye can’t be hangin’ on to the personal angers, it’ll chew up yer soul.” The look he gave Casey went fathoms deep and both knew that Seamus was not speaking of the traitorous Willy McDarmaid.

  “Ye’ve got to let it go man,” Seamus said softly, “yer daddy knew what he was about that last day, a man such as himself doesn’t make mistakes like that one.”

  It was a long, tense moment before Casey lifted his head, his eyes sparkling with anger or tears, Seamus could not be certain which.

  “D’ye think I am so daft as to not know that? Don’t ye see though that no matter which way ye turn the coin, it tells the same story? Those bastards up in Castlereagh killed him, oh he may have walked and talked and even once in a rare while lau
ghed in that last year but they killed him as certain as if they’d put a gun to his head an’ pulled the trigger. They took his soul an’ all that was left was for him was to dispose of the body. Are ye askin’ me to forget that, Seamus? Have ye forgotten yerself what they did to my daddy? Ye said ye loved him as a brother, does a brother turn a blind eye then?”

  Seamus fought to control his own anger; this one was his father’s son in looks and name only. Brian had been a quiet man, almost methodical in his speech and actions, taking the long view of things. Whereas his oldest son was a man of action, quick to anger and slow to forgiveness. Brian had never emanated the hair-trigger danger that Casey exuded from every pore.

  “There are things ye don’t understand, Casey an’ won’t unless ye manage to add a few years to yer life. Yer daddy wanted to go an’ nothin’ you or I could have done would have changed that. I loved yer da’ bettern’ my own brothers, God help me, an’ when he took his own life, he took a part of me with him. But nothin’, not anger, nor vengeance is goin’ to bring him back. Don’t ye remember what he taught ye of patience and faith?”

  “Aye, well his faith did not help him much in the end, did it? I’m not a great believer in them that endures the most will get their reward in the end. The meek may inherit the earth but they’re not fockin’ likely to keep it long, now are they? I came to you six years ago, willin’ if it should come to it, to give my life for what I believe in. I’ll do whatever is asked of me Seamus, just please don’t ask me to sit on my arse an’ pray that God an’ his wee angels will make it alright.” Casey paused to draw a ragged breath, “’Cause he’s not listened to any of the weepin’ an’ prayin’ of the last eight hundred years has he?” He took a long draught of his ale and placing his empty glass on the table, resumed some of his customary sarcasm, “Or has God become a Republican whilst I was in the kip?”

  “Might I disrupt yer sermon, ‘Father’ Riordan,” Seamus said tersely, “to remind ye that I took ye in under oath an’ that ye swore to work within the boundaries specified whether ye agreed with them or not. I took ye against yer Daddy’s wishes, God help me, because I knew ye’d go an’ get yer idiot self killed without someone to watch out for ye. Ye were a ragin’ bitter boy then, Casey an’ though I still see a child when I look at ye, yer not. Yer a man an’ ye’ve had five years to cool yer temper an’ I’m too old an’ tired to play guardian angel to ye. So I’m askin’ for a decision. Ye stand with us or against, there is no middle road, an’ the one we travel is a damn lonely one. We march to a different drummer an’ the price the drummer asks is sometimes higher than ye can ever imagine.”