‘Aye, aye,’ the boy assured him, but in a whisper. ‘Please? You can trust me.’
‘Right then,’ Phelan said. ‘Now listen. I won’t be missed until the milking on Sunday morning and by then, if all goes to plan, I will be installed in Dublin. You take this letter to my family, no earlier than Sunday afternoon. Can you do that?’
‘Course I can.’
‘You must hide it till then.’
‘Aye,’ Dermot said. ‘I’ll make sure no-one sees it. And may good luck go with you, Phelan. I wish I was old enough to join.’
‘I should think there will still be work for you when you’re my age,’ Phelan told Dermot reassuringly. ‘By then, though, the Irish tri-coloured flag will be fluttering over the capital and the English driven from our land.’
It sounded stirring stuff and Dermot was captivated. It seemed such a tiny thing to deliver a letter, but then, if that’s what Phelan wanted, he would do it and be proud of the part he’d played in the fight for Ireland.
He didn’t know yet how he’d get to leave the house by himself on a Sunday afternoon. His mother had not let him go anywhere since that day in the Easter holidays when he’d found the cottage and the guns. But allowed or not, he’d go out to the Walshes’ farm that Sunday afternoon, even if he had to sneak away to do so.
‘Give Phelan a knock, will you, Rosie,’ Connie asked as Rosie came into the room early on Easter Sunday.
‘Isn’t he up?’ Rosie asked, for at this hour he was usually out in the milking sheds with his father and Danny.
‘No, he is not,’ Connie said. ‘He must have been in powerfully late last night. I never heard him and his father will go mad altogether if he isn’t in the milking sheds and quickly.’
Connie thought it strange that she hadn’t heard Phelan come in. Although she often dozed through sheer weariness, she always heard him. Maybe, though, he’d come in later than usual to avoid his father, for when he’d nearly jumped up from the tea table the previous evening, scraping his chair across the stone flags, Matt had said, ‘Where are you off to in such a tear?’
‘Out,’ Phelan replied tersely.
Matt, usually such a quiet man, slammed his hand onto the table. ‘Don’t talk to me like that! Out where, boy?’
Phelan looked straight at his father and the look and words were both insolent. ‘Let’s say I’m going there and back to see how far it is,’ he said.
‘You cheeky young bugger, you,’ Matt cried, leaping to his feet and catching hold of Phelan by the arm. ‘You’re not too big yet for a good hiding, let me tell you.’
Rosie held Bernadette, who had started to wail, on her knee, and at Matt’s outburst her alarmed eyes met those of Danny’s. He seemed unconcerned, though, as if he thought Phelan had asked for anything he got. It was Sarah and Elizabeth and especially Connie who were looking upset.
Phelan tugged his arm from his father’s grasp and his words had a jeering note to them. ‘Like to see you try,’ he said and he strode across the room, snatched his jacket and cap from the hook behind the door and was away.
Matt would have followed him, but Connie stopped him. He sat back at the table, shaking his head. It wouldn’t be the end of it, no by Christ it wouldn’t. Jeered and cheeked by a mere boy and in front of them all. It was not to be borne. He’d have something to say to that young bugger in the morning.
Connie, attempting to change the subject, had said, ‘Well, we’d best get cleared away quickly. Sarah will be seeing her young man if I know anything.’
Sarah sniffed. ‘If you mean Sam,’ she said, ‘I’m not seeing him tonight as it happens.’
‘Oh’ Connie said, surprised, for Sarah saw Sam every Saturday evening. ‘Why’s that then?’
‘He said he had something on,’ Sarah said disparagingly. ‘In fact, he said he probably wouldn’t be seeing me for a few days.’
‘What’s he up to?’
‘Oh, Mammy, what’s he ever up to? More schoolboy nonsense. Him and his secret organisation. The whole thing gets on my nerves.’
Later, when Rosie went through the girls’ bedroom to reach Phelan’s, Sarah’s words came back to mind. Sarah and Elizabeth were still asleep, the two curled together in the double bed. They had no reason to waken yet and she crossed the room softly and tapped lightly on Phelan’s door.
There was no answer, nor was there one to her second, louder tap. ‘Phelan,’ she hissed. But the room beyond stayed silent. There was no option but to open the door. She stood stock-still in the doorway. She’d made up his bed the previous day and it was obvious it had not been slept in since.
She wondered for a brief moment if something had happened to him. Maybe he’d been attacked and was lying in the road somewhere, or had been tipped into a ditch? But she dismissed these fears as quickly as they’d entered her head, for who would do such a thing to Phelan? No, no-one would hurt the lad, but he seemed hell-bent on hurting himself, for she was sure Phelan’s disappearance all night had something to do with the Irish Republican Brotherhood. God alone knew what, but for now, Rosie had to go and break the news to Connie that Phelan was missing.
Danny was angry when Rosie told him about his brother. He’d intended to take Phelan to task that morning for the disrespect he’d shown their father the previous night. He honestly didn’t know what had got into him the past few days. He’d been as tense as a coiled spring and inclined to snap for no reason.
Now the young hooligan was on a different tack altogether, not coming home at all. Dear God, their father would kill him when he did eventually return. Well if he did, Danny wouldn’t blame him one bit. Enough was enough.
The family all went to early Mass that Easter Sunday morning, so they didn’t see any of Rosie’s family. ‘I bet young Dermot will be glad Lent’s over?’ Connie commented as they made their way home, trying to lighten the atmosphere which had hung over them since Rosie’s discovery. ‘Didn’t he give up sweets and chocolates?’
‘Aye, he did,’ Rosie said, hitching Bernadette higher onto her hip. ‘And hard enough it was for him, I’d say. I hardly saw a sweet when I was growing up and Chrissie and Geraldine the same, but God if you’d see the mountain of sweets and goodies Mammy would bring Dermot from town every week, you’d know how hard it must have been for him.’
‘Your mammy’s a silly woman where young Dermot is concerned,’ Connie said.
‘Don’t I know it,’ Rosie said with feeling.
‘I wonder if he managed it?’
‘Aye, I think so,’ Rosie said. ‘The child can be determined enough when he sets his mind to it.’ She smiled and went on. ‘Chrissie told me he had to fight Mammy to give up anything at all for Lent.’
‘All weans give something up,’ Connie said, aghast.
‘That’s what Dermot told Mammy,’ Rosie said. ‘He told her he was the only one at school not doing without something.’
‘Aye, weans hate to be different,’ Connie said. ‘Mind you, both of us gave up sugar in our tea, didn’t we, and I can hardly wait to go home now and have a decent cup well sweetened.’
‘And me,’ Rosie said with a laugh, for no-one had been able to eat or drink yet that day because of them taking communion. Bernadette, tired of being ignored, starting butting at Rosie’s face. ‘Stop it!’ Rosie said firmly. ‘Bad girl.’
Bernadette didn’t care a fig about being bad and instead squealed with laughter.
‘Give