Tom came back with whiskies and we swallowed them.

‘I think we should get out to Dún Laoghaire,’ Tom said. ‘The car is up on the Green.’

‘You two go first,’ Frank said. ‘I’ll meet you at the car in five minutes.’

I stood up and then, before I reached the door, looked back. The whiskey had brought some colour to his cheeks. He winked at me. I winked back. I went out the hall for the street, striding ahead, my chest filled with hope. And I saw Nick.

I turned, colliding with Tom.

‘Tell Frank to get out!’ I hissed.

I faced the street again.

‘Iz, what are you doing here?’ Nick asked.

‘What do you mean? What are you doing? You’re meant to be on a picnic.’

‘Iz, please…’

I saw the two men: in long coats and slouch hats, they stood on the far side of the street by the windows of Switzers.

‘Are you following me, Nick?’

‘Iz, I’m your brother-in-law, I care for you. So does Bella. We all care for you very much.’

‘So much so that you see fit to follow me.’

‘We know what’s going on,’ Nick said. ‘Listen, please. This is not easy for either of us.’

I could see the men glancing up and down the street.

Nick said, ‘None of this is your fault. But what is important is that you don’t do something extremely stupid.’

I looked defiantly at him. ‘I’ll do exactly as I please,’ I said and reached back, for I knew Tom was now behind me, and linked my arm through his. ‘Come on, darling.’

Nick’s face was full of puzzlement.

‘What are you looking at?’ Tom asked him and we walked arm in arm down Wicklow Street.


Every pair of eyes on the footpath of Grafton Street and from the trams seemed to be for us alone.

‘Where is Frank?’ I whispered, walking fast, holding on to Tom as if to life.

‘He’s got out through the toilets,’ Tom said, teeth gritted. ‘He’s going to meet us in Dún Laoghaire.’

I almost had to run to keep apace as we reached the top of Grafton Street.

‘Get in,’ Tom said.

He went to the front, swung the handle and the old car shuddered to life in a cloud of soot. We reversed out and then lurched around the corner, up the Green, crossing the intersection into Harcourt Street at speed.

‘Damn!’ Tom swore.

I looked behind. We were already half-way up Harcourt Street but at the bottom end I could see a big, boxy four-door saloon with prominent headlamps sway around the corner from the Green.

‘What are we going to do?’

‘We’re going to lead these fellas a right old spin,’ Tom said.

I could not bear to imagine that Mr Rafter had gone straight up to Longstead and alerted them to my behaviour, or that Nick and Bella would have me pursued like a thief rather than allow me my happiness; but for the past few months, I had lived in the realm of the unimaginable and this was little different. We crossed the canal bridge and came to fields of cattle. Tom forced the car to its maximum speed down a long, straight road. Little activity disturbed the village of Rathmines. We lurched through two bends, then climbed the tree-lined incline for Rathgar. The saloon was a confidant fifty yards behind and, compared to us, moving easily.

‘They may not know Frank was in the hotel,’ Tom said. ‘They may think we still have to meet him.’

We plunged downhill and along by the Dodder River. It was past four o’clock. Boys kicked a football at one end of a field in which cows were ambling home for milking. The dying sun still warmed one side of the street in the village of Rathfarnham. Church bells rang. I wondered what church we would marry in, and who would be there, or if the troubles — that persistent word that meant so much — would always mean our having to live somewhere other than in Ireland. In open country, the car began to slow against the foothills of the Dublin Mountains. Behind us, the saloon reduced its speed to match. Tom pulled out his watch. He said,

‘The way I see it, the farther we drive, the longer the car behind will follow us and the safer it will be for Frank to catch the sailing.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘He’s safe as long as they stay behind us.’

‘And what do I do?’

Tom’s big head was down. ‘You could join him later.’

‘How will I find him?’

‘He’ll contact me like he did before.’

We were now back on tiny winding roads barely wider than the car.

‘Can’t you go faster?’

‘I can try, but every five minutes we go is another five minutes to the boat.’

The car groaned with every new mile. I didn’t need to look back any more. I had something unique I could give him — his freedom. For by keeping on, by leading them after us, Frank would board the boat unharmed. I began to shake. I could not bear to think of losing him again.

‘Damn it!’ Tom swore as thick steam began to rise from the car’s stubby radiator. He threw the Morris around the next bend, and the one after, and the old chassis creaked. The road was potholed and the uncut hedges scraped its sides. Tom wrestled the wheel and the engine whined. On a straight stretch it appeared, for a moment, that we might have lost our pursuers, but then the saloon loomed into view, steadied, and with ease made up the difference it had lost. A steep downhill appeared. Tom aimed the car at the bottom without caution. The air was sucked from us as we dived. We’d reached the hill’s base before the saloon had appeared at the top.

‘Do you think we can shake them off?’

‘Are you religious?’ Tom asked, sweat on his face. ‘Because if you are, this would be a good time to say a prayer.’

The radiator steam now made it difficult to see. A bend came up and we swung into it. Then another. The car seemed to career without purpose. I saw ditches head on, then, road, then a bend so sharp there seemed no way out of it. We scraped through. An ass-cart appeared in the centre of the road as if dropped there from the sky. We veered madly, striking one of its shafts as we passed.

‘Christ!’ Tom shouted.

The Morris slewed out of control, hitting both ditches. I saw the cart including its driver and the donkey, tilt over into the crown of the road. The Morris swerved on, sickeningly, then ploughed along the ditch and with a great bang, stopped.

‘Tom?’

Eels of blood wriggled down Tom’s face. The braying of the upturned animal behind seemed to be the only sound. Then there was the roar of a powerful engine and brakes that screamed even louder than the ass. I looked back in time to see the saloon hit donkey and cart full square, spin once, then crash nose first into the stone pier of a gate.

I got out. Tom climbed out my side.

‘Push,’ he said.

I got into the ditch behind the Morris, but I doubt that my efforts had any effect. I was aware that the saloon car now lacked most of its front section and that the donkey, feet to heaven, was dead. A man, the one who had been on the cart, lay inert in the ditch. Groans came from inside the saloon.

‘Come on!’ Tom urged, red drops glistening on the tip of his chin and his nose.

I was ankle deep in muck. Tom got an inch on the back of the Morris, then another. Veins stood out massively at his temples. The car moved up, but then fell back and I sat down heavily.

‘Come on!’

I scrambled up and we pushed again. I felt possessed of strength beyond reason. All at once, the car sprang from the wet hole into which it had fallen. Tom dug deeper with his shoulder and kept pushing until the four wheels were on the hard road.

‘God Almighty, I’m unfit,’ he panted. Then he went around to the front. ‘Say that prayer now,’ he said and swung the handle.

The car seemed to sigh, then shudder. He swung again and nothing happened. I prayed: Dear God, for my love. Please. Tom swung. There was a joyful explosion of life. Tom looked back at the mayhem in the road.

‘God save Ireland,’ he said.

It was dark as we made our way to Dún Laoghaire by way of roads that had never known a signpost, over moors where sheep roamed, their eyes yellow in the car’s headlights. I held Tom’s watch in my hands. It was just past seven. I willed the car on, but there was a speed beyond which steam reappeared.

‘These sailings are never on time,’ Tom kept saying.

‘What will he do if I don’t turn up?’

‘He has to go, Iz. It’s too dangerous for him here.’

I put my head down so that I would not have to witness every new, agonising mile. We had somehow crossed the mountains and were now chugging up the coast by the seaside town of Bray. The car’s engine coughed and struggled and fine puffs of steam wafted in zephyr-like beneath my feet. I caught sight of the dark bay which our mail boat would soon cross, the grey-streaked night water and the distant hump of Howth on the other side. It was now half past seven.

‘Oh, God!’

A long vessel was putting out to sea.

‘That’s not her,’ Tom said.

‘How do you know?’

‘That’s a cargo ship.’

I could not speak. I would die, I knew, if I were to see his ship on its way. Fresh sweat had broken out the breadth of Tom’s blood-streaked forehead and was causing the blood that had congealed there to drip anew.

‘Don’t worry, we’ll make it,’ he said.

The road curved inland and the sea was lost. We passed through another village of dim streetlights. Abruptly, Tom swung right, down a narrow lane with house fronts on one side and a high wall on the other. Then the sea jumped out at us, the black vastness of it, and I could see the great, brooding outline of a ship at moorings and smoke rising from her single funnel.