‘Well, I’m staying out of Claudia’s way too. She was rude at the door.’ Hilary pouted a little.
‘It’s just her anxiety,’ Siena leaned in and clinked her glass against Hilary’s. ‘Poor old Claudia’s made this party bigger than Ben Hur. But, my darling, you look wonderful tonight.’ She tipped her glass in the direction of Hilary’s cleavage. Siena always thought Hilary looked very sexy, voluptuous, slightly transgressive against the current anorexic code, although she knew, or at least suspected, that Vianney disapproved of Hilary's increasing padding. But if he had wanted elegance and cool, like Claudia, it was not Hilary he should have chosen.
Siena had her own isshoos to share with Hilary. Her PhD supervisor, Quentin Moran, had announced that funding for the Davitt in Australasia Symposium was now tighter than expected. Ireland’s financial woes were having an impact. There would probably be no co-sponsorship from an Irish university after all. And, as Quentin said, the Australian universities were not and never had been radical organisations. They either saw the Irish Land War as irrelevant history (as all history was) or as disturbing evidence of the power of the dispossessed. What if there was a rent or mortgage strike in Sydney? Civilisation as we know it – red in tooth and claw – would be over.
Hilary commiserated as best she could as she downed her vodka. She found university politics confusing, couldn’t always keep up with the cast of characters inhabiting Siena’s world/head. Sometimes she was even grateful for Vianney’s taciturn nature around his work. She knew the names of only a few of his colleagues – Chongmin, Adrian, Sawekchai – that was all.
Either way, Siena was saying, or was it Quentin Moran had said, no one was lining up to fund this radical symposium. Either way, the pressure was on Siena to do more with less, and find more unpaid PhD ‘volunteers’. Siena was of course in stress city. She puffed on her ciggie, she’d busted again on them. Hilary went and found another bottle of vodka.
Still later on, through the foggy glass, Hilary saw snatches of Vianney inside. He had come after all. White shirted, black hair damp from the shower, he moved in his dancer’s way, embracing and retreating, turning to be hugged, shaking hands, looking for all the world as if he were alive and fully present. He might very well be. His new counsellor David Somebody had suggested reducing alcohol and drug intake for a while. Vianney being his excessive self had of course gone completely on the wagon.
He had on his new pair of glasses, trendy. He was one of the few men, Hilary believed, who looked sexy in glasses. Clever and sexy. Though she preferred always to see his eyes. Those astonishing eyes. ‘God, he’s so attractive,’ she groaned.
‘From a distance.’ his sister said, and laughed. Everyone knew Hilary had been completely unreasonable about Vianney from the very beginning, smitten by his singing ‘in the enchanted garden by the sea’, as Xavier and Siena had liked to teasingly chant. And god bless her, he was still her sun, moon and stars. Poor deluded thing.
Siena put her arm around Hilary as if in consolation.
Hilary shrugged Siena’s arm off in irritation. The kindnesses of the Ryan family were growing intolerable.
***
‘I’m dying.’ Hilary moaned into her crumpled pillow. Her head pounded.
‘A swim will see you right’. Vianney sat on their bed putting on his brand new running shoes. The new counsellor had suggested exercise as well. So he was running every morning. Even after a huge party.
She winced at the thought of the cold winter sea – and longed for it. ‘Carry me there.’
‘Make your own way,’ he quoted the Sportsgirl slogan at her.
That was impossible. ‘At least make me a cup of tea, you cold hearted bastard’.
‘Now, now,’ he slapped her legs through the tangled sheets and left the room. She dimly recalled some struggle in the night. She had wanted to make love but he had said she was too drunk, and that her breath was disgusting with the cigarettes. She’d only had two. And she’d said it was a bit hard living with St John Vianney. So of course that was that. Once in one of his insulted and offended moods, he would never have sex with her.
She faded out a little again, but then he was there, with a mug of hot tea.
‘Oh thank you’ she said, but couldn’t quite raise her head to lift and drink it. Never again. She was getting too old for parties.
‘Hils,’ Vianney began, his tone suddenly serious.
‘Yes, what?’ Hilary was helplessly gazing at the steam rising from the mug of tea. So near yet so far away.
‘I’m going to Ireland.’
She turned her head towards him – a shaft of light and pain broke out from the back of her neck. ‘When?’
Vianney was looking at his feet, contemplating his extremely expensive new runners. ‘Next month. There’s a couple of festivals on that I want to go to. West Cork has a literary festival. I might do a screenwriting class, and then there’s the Galway Arts Festival.’ His voice lifted with excitement. He got off the bed and walked bouncily around. ‘I really want to see Iarla O’Lionáird perform again. Maybe even get to meet him. And I’ll probably do some family research as well, visit Davitt’s grave and see the museum, and I might do a sean-nós master class.’
She looked at him, felt his excitement. Clearly this was no sudden idea. This was planning. He stopped bouncing on his shoes and looked back at her. Smiled even, as if her silence meant she just wanted more explanation. ‘It will be great to be singing in the Tradition.’
I know what fucking sean-nós singing is, she thought. ‘So when do we go?’ She was playing dumb.
‘We don’t. I am.’
‘You are?’ Really dumb.
‘This is for me.’
Hilary felt a surge of anger – rising like reflux in her throat.
‘David said I needed to do something I really wanted to do.’
‘Christ almighty – who is this fucking counsellor!’ Hilary propped herself up in the bed, ignoring the spinning head. ‘I’m going to go see this guy.’
‘No you’re not’. His voice, friendly enough up to now, came down hard and cold. Very cold. ‘You could just try and take some action yourself about your own life.’
She flopped back onto the bed. ‘Gee that was nasty.’
He didn’t respond. Just stood up and walked out, off to the coastal walkway on his brand new exercise schedule.
Chapter 12 - A most dangerous experiment
London, 27 January 1881
‘So here it is, finally. The constitutional rights of the Irish people to be held at nought. The end of habeas corpus in Ireland.’ Charles Parnell was speaking quietly but he had their complete attention. ‘No public meetings, no right to free speech.’ He looked up from the Hansard documents in front of him. Prime Minister Gladstone had finally introduced the 1881 Protection of Person and Property Act.
‘The government has abandoned the rule of law!’ Young John Dillon, the Land League’s newly elected MP for Tipperary, protested.
‘Yes,’ Parnell nodded gravely. ‘We can now look forward in Ireland to imprisonment without trial, and trial without jury.’
‘Gladstone has plunged his own country into the abyss.’ Tim Healey, MP for Wexford, was shaking his head. ‘England has returned to its old tyranny.’
‘Well, we have proved that they will never get a conviction from an honest Irish jury.’