The Family on Paradise Pier Read online

  The Family on Paradise Pier

  Dermot Bolger

  For Donnacha and Diarmuid

  Table of Contents

  Cover Page

  Title Page

  Prologue 1941

  PART ONE 1915–1935

  ONE The Picnic

  TWO The News

  THREE Four Thousand Lamps

  FOUR The Motor

  FIVE The Boat

  SIX The Docks

  SEVEN The Exiles

  EIGHT The Studio

  NINE Not a Penny off the Pay

  TEN The Turf Cutters

  ELEVEN The Two Fredericks

  TWELVE Eccles Street

  THIRTEEN Deep in the Woods

  FOURTEEN Chelsea

  FIFTEEN The Visit

  SIXTEEN The Letter

  SEVENTEEN A Jaunt Abroad

  EIGHTEEN The Night Call

  PART TWO 1936

  NINETEEN Hunting and Shooting

  PART THREE 1937–1946

  TWENTY The Volunteer

  TWENTY-ONE Night

  TWENTY-TWO The Bailiffs

  TWENTY-THREE The Crumlin Kremlin

  TWENTY-FOUR The Journey

  TWENTY-FIVE The Camp

  TWENTY-SIX The Man from Spain

  TWENTY-SEVEN In the Hold

  TWENTY-EIGHT An Encounter

  TWENTY-NINE The Great Betrayal

  THIRTY The Plane

  THIRTY-ONE The Knock

  THIRTY-TWO The Grave

  THIRTY-THREE A Tutor Comes

  THIRTY-FOUR Make Room

  THIRTY-FIVE Home

  THIRTY-SIX The Former People

  THIRTY-SEVEN The Flag

  THIRTY-EIGHT A Darkened Room in Oxfordshire

  Acknowledgements

  About the Author

  Praise

  By the Same Author

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  Prologue

  1941

  A parched twilight began to close in around the unlit prisoner train. For over a week the zeks in Brendan Goold Verschoyle’s wagon had jolted across a landscape they rarely glimpsed, crushed together in putrid darkness. Only those crammed against the wooden slats ever saw the small worms of daylight flicker in through the slight cracks. Little sound penetrated into the wagon either, just the ceaseless rumble of the tracks and very occasionally a more confined echo as they passed at speed through an empty station. Sometimes the long train stopped and prisoners shifted eagerly, yearning for the noise of hammers as guards untangled barbed wire coiled around each carriage and eventually opened the doors. In the stampede to relieve themselves on the dry earth outside, dignity would be forgotten as men and women squatted together under the gaze of the guards and their dogs. But more often these stops occurred for no obvious reason. There would be no sound outside after the wheels came to a rusty halt, no footsteps, no safety catches unleashed, no orders screamed for zeks to get down on their knees and be counted. Instead the train would remain motionless for an indeterminable period during which the zeks inwardly clung to dreams of water and dry bread and fresh air to replace the rancid stink within the sealed wagons.

  Eventually when the wheels slowly jolted forward again nobody would speak, even the children no longer able to make the effort to cry. Yet each zek felt a stir of relief amidst their disappointment. Because despite the demand for railway carriages no decision had been made to liquidate them. Fresh instructions must have been issued to change direction and transport them to a different gulag or some patch of barren earth where their first task would be to erect barbed-wire fences around themselves.

  Hours later when the train finally stopped for them to receive a small mug of water and several ounces of bread, there would often be another corpse to be lifted off, stiffened in an upright position from having sat cradled between the legs of the chained man behind him.

  Half the zeks in this carriage had no idea why they had been arrested. The Polish surname of the man behind Brendan was sufficient to implicate him in a counter-revolutionary Trotskyite conspiracy. The man who died yesterday was among workers sent by Stalin to help build a railway in China, all arrested on their return as members of a Japanese spy ring. Some had endured appalling torture while others knew only cursory interrogation by overworked troikas who took just a few seconds to concoct random treason charges before sentencing them to fifteen years.

  Brendan’s position as a foreign political had become perilous in the weeks since a voice on the Tannoy in his last camp had abruptly announced Germany’s treacherous attack on the Soviet Union, with guards and zeks equally stunned that anyone – even Hitler – could dare to defy Stalin. Since then all prisoners with German names had been killed. This train contained zeks who were foreigners or had been contaminated by contact with foreigners and were therefore now classified as enemy soldiers. Still, Brendan had known worse transports. The carriage might lack the luxury of those cattle wagons where zeks could squat over a small toilet hole in the floor, but this heat was better than the cold. Today was bearable. He had managed to fully evacuate his bowels at the last stop, had savoured his mug of water and eaten most of his bread while keeping a small chunk concealed on his person. He was hungry now but would wait until the apex of this starvation before starting to slowly chew the last hunk of black bread. To be able to control when he briefly relieved his hunger gave him a sense of power.

  Only two men sat between him and the wall so that when he leaned backwards there was some support. Nobody had yet soiled themselves so that no stream of urine seeped into him and there was no stink of shit. Nobody had died as yet in this wagon today or if they did they had done so without attracting attention. Nobody had tried to steal another zek’s bread, with prisoners lashing out until the thief was dead. Any other theft was acceptable but even here there were taboos one could not break. No woman had been gang-raped, mainly because the carriage consisted of politicals, and true violence only occurred when the common criminals seized control of a wagon, dominating it with their brutality. This wagon was so quiet that for a few seconds Brendan blacked out into sleep and dreamed of Donegal.

  The four Goold Verschoyle children were home from boarding school for Easter, reunited with their sister Eva who was considered too delicate to send away. They were bathing at Bruckless Pier in Donegal Bay. At sixteen, Brendan’s eldest brother Art raced hand in hand with seventeen-year-old Eva along the stones to step off the private stone jetty and tumble laughingly into the waves. Nineteen-year-old Maud swam near the shore, while Thomas, aged fourteen, stood balanced in a long-oared punt like a sentry. And Brendan saw himself, nine years of age and sleek as a silvery fish, flitting through the green water, while Mother sat sketching on the rocks and Father looked up from his Walt Whitman book to wave. Eva surfaced and shook out her wet hair before joining Mother to take up her sketchbook as well. Art plunged deeper into the water and surfaced beside Brendan. Reaching out to ruffle his hair, he asked if Brendan liked the kite he had made for him that morning. Brendan nodded his gratitude and plunged his head into the water to glide behind his beloved big brother. Opening his eyes he watched Art power through the waves and longed for the day when he would be that strong. His lungs hurt and he needed to surface for breath while Art’s feet pushed inexhaustibly on.

  The unexpected jolt of the train woke him as he crested the waves. Some zeks came out of their torpor and began to talk, wondering if they would be allowed into the air. Others shouted for quiet so they could listen for the click of rifles and the panting of dogs. Brendan discreetly checked that his bread was still there. He longed to still be asleep, yearned for the salty tang of seawater at Bruckless Pier and wanted his family to know that he wa
s still alive. No zek spoke now but he sensed their terror. Because there was no sound of guards’ voices, just the leisurely drone of an aeroplane approaching.

  Nettles were in flower on the fringe of the small Mayo wood, with a peculiar beauty that people rarely looked beyond their poisonous leaves to see. Eva watched a Red Admiral alight on the tip of a leaf and the butterfly’s colouring reminded her of the dying glow of the turf last night when she had paused, after blowing out the wick, to gaze back at the fire which moments before had seemed dead in the candlelight. Yet in the dark it had been possible to glimpse the turf embers still faintly beating like two red wings.

  Eva was noticing such details now that she had the freedom to see things. Freedom seemed a peculiar word in times of war, but this was how Mayo felt to her soul after escaping from England. The freezing winter was now just a memory. In January her husband had written from barracks to describe the Thames frozen over for the first time in fifty years. Every tiny Mayo lake had been the same, with local children tramping across the ice to pull home whatever firewood they could scavenge. When the Irish Times carried a picture of Finns attempting to hack away the corpses of invading Russian soldiers frozen to the ground, the icy backdrop could have been any white-capped Mayo hillside.

  For much of January Eva had been snowed into Glanmire Wood with her two children. Playing and squabbling, drawing pictures on the walls of abandoned rooms and singing hymns at dusk, Francis and Hazel had longed to hear another voice. One night all three heard an unearthly cry from the woods and gathered at the front door to gaze out at the snow, the unnerving wail reminding them of the banshee. Convinced that Freddie’s Territorial regiment had been dispatched to join the desperate battle abroad, at that moment Eva felt sure that her husband was dead. As ever, eleven-year-old Hazel proved the level-headed one.

  ‘It’s a dog,’ the girl had cried. ‘Trapped out there.’

  Hazel had not waited to get properly dressed, but ran into the snow with Francis following and Eva trying to keep up – more concerned for their safety in the snowdrifts than for the dog. It had taken ten minutes to locate the collie’s cries and dig her out. The children carried her back to the house, refusing to change their drenched clothes until they found a blanket to wrap the starved creature in. The dog’s ribs were so exposed that it seemed she would never recover. She survived though and so did they, despite the February storms that shook all of Europe as if God was moved to fury by mankind’s rush to slaughter.

  They had safely come through two winters to be happily becalmed in the warmth of this summer’s afternoon with no wind to disturb the trees encircling their crumbling home. The Red Admiral fluttered out onto the uncut lawn where Francis lay bare-chested, intoxicated by the high-pitched warble of two goldcrests in the wood. Returning to Ireland had restored his confidence. He was king of his castle here, venturing in his canoe down the Castlebar river or tramping the bogs where his father loved to shoot, but armed only with binoculars to watch for snipe among the reeds. Eva tried to keep his education going, but he only became excited about Latin when a neighbour loaned him a study of Irish trees. Now on walks through Glanmire Wood he eagerly displayed his knowledge. The hazel, with its coppery-brown bark and dangling yellow catkins, was called Corylus avellana. The birch with its sticky long winter buds and winged nutlets was Betula alba. He even told her Latin names for absent species that he intended to plant one day. Arbutus unedo, called the strawberry tree because its clustered fruit was covered with tiny warts and resembled strawberries. If Francis had his way Eva doubted if he would ever leave this wood again, because here he was Adam in all his innocence, reminding her of her youngest brother, Brendan, on those long childhood afternoons when they used to bathe at Bruckless Pier.

  Eva watched the collie rouse herself from the front steps and pad across the lawn to collapse beside Francis. The boy lazily stretched out his hand and the dog rolled over to expose the freckled stomach she wanted rubbed.

  Eva had a list of urgent tasks to jot down, but despite having taken pencil and paper outside she was too caught up in this miraculous heat to focus on responsibilities. Hazel emerged from the stables where she had been brushing down her pony and went to fill a bucket with water as the pump handle creaked in rusty protest.

  ‘I’m going to the kitchen,’ she announced. ‘I’m going to make bubbles.’ But the girl paused to stare past the branches of the sweet chestnut framing the avenue. Hazel had sharp hearing but soon Eva also heard the jingle of a bicycle circumventing the deep ruts on the overgrown path. She could not prevent herself being seized by a familiar fear, a residue from her childhood in the Great War when silence would envelop Dunkineely village whenever the postmaster left his office with a telegram. Was it news of Brendan or her parents? Surely Freddie, with his club foot, would not be sent into battle, no matter how desperate the war effort. But perhaps age and disability meant nothing, with Mussolini conscripting boys at fourteen, barely older than Francis. Eva lowered her pencil and tried to pray for all those she loved whom she knew to be in danger.

  Full-length drapes across the window gave the Oxford bedroom an appearance of twilight, though it was only mid-afternoon when Mrs Goold Verschoyle woke. For most of the night she had fretted about her husband’s safety as he patrolled the blacked-out streets as an air raid warden. So far, Oxford had escaped the fate of Coventry and Southampton, but some nights the fires in London were so great that their glow was said to be glimpsed even at this remove. Only after hearing Tim return safely at dawn had she allowed herself to fall asleep. But there was no sign of him having come up to bed. She lay on for a moment, recalling her dream about Donegal. She could still see Mr and Mrs Ffrench crossing their lawn from Bruckless House down to the stone pier with trays of homemade lemonade for the visiting swimmers. Brendan had loved their lemonade, often prolonging his thirst so as to savour the taste. Brendan, her youngest, had been like a fish in her dream.

  A constant struggle with arthritis had left Mrs Goold Verschoyle’s face severely lined. Her disability was so acute that holding a pen was torture: still she refused to stop writing to British and Soviet officials. Each line represented physical agony, but she was motivated by a need to quench the greater anguish in her heart. Today she determined not to upset herself by sifting through the replies piled in the bedside drawer – curt responses expressing regret at being unable to supply any information about her missing son. Today she would make herself look well for Tim. Painfully she brushed her hair, still soft and fine like a child’s. Through the open wardrobe door she glimpsed the mothballed dresses she had once worn at parties in Donegal. She put down the hairbrush on the dressing table beside a copy of The Great Outlaw – her favourite book about Christ – and opened a drawer to examine the small bottles of perfume she was carefully nursing there.

  Selecting her husband’s favourite, she rose. Tim would be pleased to see that she was not too frail to leave her bed today. He was probably sleeping downstairs so as not to wake her. But when she reached the drawing room he was not lying on the sofa. His body was slumped forward in an armchair, with a book of poems still balanced on his knee. Mrs Goold Verschoyle watched, too scared to move. It would be typical of Tim for his death – like his entire life – to be so understated that the book had not even fallen from his lap.

  Show some mercy, Lord, she prayed. Don’t take him away from me also.

  The book toppled over, striking the carpet with a dull thud. Mr Goold Verschoyle stirred slightly, looking down at the book and stooped to pick it up. He became aware of her.

  ‘How is my darling?’ he asked quietly.

  Mrs Goold Verschoyle made no reply, but walked over to place her hand on his shoulder.

  ‘I know,’ he said. ‘I can feel how precious this time is too.’

  Tragedy declined to penetrate the Mayo wood today because it wasn’t a telegram boy who emerged beneath the chestnut branches onto the lawn where Eva and her children watched. Instead it was Maureen, their former m
aid but now their friend and lodger. She freewheeled up to the steps, delighted with her weekly half day off from the shop in Castlebar where she worked. Her wicker basket was full of provisions ordered by Eva, with every item paid for. It was bliss to owe no money and have no fear of creditors.

  Glanmire House had undoubtedly gone to seed. Cracked windowpanes had not been replaced, loose tiles let rainwater into disused rooms with walls covered in a seaweed-like vegetation. But the kitchen was dry and warm and the few habitable rooms were adequate for their needs. Just now those needs were simple.

  The horror of war was ever present by its absence. This woodland silence seemed artificial, as if punctured by distant cries so high-pitched that only the dog could cock her head to stare off puzzled into the distance.

  Ireland was not yet directly consumed by the conflagration, but few doubted an imminent invasion from one side or the other. While the countryside held its breath people learnt to live in limbo. For Protestant neighbours the fact that Freddie had joined the British army was sufficient to reinstate respectability after the debacle of their bankruptcy. With Freddie too engrossed in army life to press her about maintaining appearances, Eva could discreetly go native with the children, talking and thinking as they liked in the privacy of this wood. Without Freddie, Glanmire House reminded her of the freedom of her childhood in Donegal.

  Hazel waved to Maureen, then picked up the bucket of water and went to the kitchen. Francis waved and rolled onto his stomach to let the sun warm his back. Maureen laid her bicycle against the steps and strolled over to Eva.

  ‘That heat’s a terror.’ She flopped down. ‘The chain came off my bike near Turlough and I thought my hands would be destroyed with oil.’

  ‘Any news from the village?’ Eva asked.

  ‘Divil the bit, Mrs Fitzgerald. The Stagg boys are off to England for work, though you’d swear half of Mayo had the same idea if you saw the crowds in Castlebar Station and the train already packed from Westport. They’ll be sitting on the roof in Claremorris if it gets that far with the wet turf they’re burning. They say English factory owners are crying out for workers.’