There was an almighty debate and Émile couldn’t hear any of the arguments any more as voices were raised so high, and finally Father Macallie had to take to the altar and call the meeting to an end, for it was clear that there was never going to be agreement between the sides and if it didn’t stop there’d be a fistfight in the church.
Émile sat at the back and tried to reason it through in his mind. He could see both sides of this. But brave young soldiers who were fighting on the Continent to make sure that everyone got to live as they wanted to live – it seemed to him that this was the side worth fighting for.
When he thought about it for too long, however, it made his head hurt, that was the truth of it.
But the posters went up, and Stephen’s part in it – that couldn’t be denied. And a few nights later, the brick came flying through the front window, waking up the house and causing Émile to reach out so quickly that his grandfather’s watch smashed on the floor.
Six weeks later, when Émile found out that Stephen had signed up to fight for the British Expeditionary Force, he felt frightened and proud at the same time. But he knew that the whole town was in a quandary over it because everyone liked Stephen. He’d grown up among them, after all. He’d married a woman they all respected, had a son who was a fine fellow altogether and had never done a moment’s harm to anyone in all his life. Yes, the English were the enemy, but at least they all knew who the English were. If the Germans won, then it was anyone’s guess what might happen to Ireland next.
Émile ended up in another fight with Donal Higgins, whose father said that Stephen was a turncoat and a blaggard for falling in with a bunch of Sassenach ne’er-do-wells and if he was any sort of Irishman then he’d never fight for a country that had done all they could to keep the Irish in servitude for eight hundred years.
‘Your dad’s a traitor,’ said Donal Higgins, keeping his left arm close to his waist and his fist clenched as his right jabbed out and made contact with Émile’s chin.
‘And your dad’s a coward,’ said Émile, punching low to Donal’s waist with his right hand while his left gave him an almighty clatter around the head.
‘You’ll take that back,’ said Donal, kicking out.
‘I’ll do no such thing,’ said Émile, launching himself forward and throwing himself on top of Donal, his whole body lashing out in the hope that he’d hit something important and the fight would come to an end as quickly as possible.
It took two teachers to separate them and they were both put in the bad books for fighting.
They all came out to see him off the morning that he left for the war and those who were old enough remembered the day, over twenty years before, when they’d done the same thing for his father. The arguments about the Irish taking part hadn’t changed during that time but no one wanted to see any harm come to one of the town’s favourite sons.
He woke early, just after five o’clock, ready to join a small group of young men who were taking a bus together to Rosslare and then a boat across to Plymouth and a train to the centre of England where they were to be taken to a camp to begin basic training. Lying in bed, his eyes on the ceiling, he wondered whether he would survive whatever was to follow and whether he would ever see West Cork again. Whether he would ever hold his wife in his arms or take a hurley out to the fields with his son as he’d done every Saturday morning for the last few years. And finally, the minutes passed and what choice did he have but to get out of bed, have a wash, dress in the uniform they’d given him and get himself ready to say his goodbyes.
They gathered on the street, his wife crying for fear of what might happen to him, his nine-year-old son standing in the corner of the doorway, trying his best to be a brave man even though every part of him knew that he might never see his father again.
‘I’ll write when I get there,’ said Émile.
‘Make sure you do,’ she said.
‘You’re the man of the house now,’ he said, turning to the boy. ‘You look after your mother while I’m gone, do you hear me, Stephen?’
‘I will, Dad,’ said Stephen, standing up tall, determined not to cry while the whole street was watching him.
‘Now take this,’ said Émile, reaching into his pocket and handing across his grandfather’s watch, whose glass had been broken and mended half a dozen times over the years but still told the time without fail. ‘It’s a family heirloom. And you look after it for me until I get home, all right? Because I’m coming back here for that watch and for you.’
They drove across to Rosslare in silence for the most part. Donal Higgins told a few jokes and the others tried to join in but the truth was they were too afraid of what was to come to join in the laughter. Émile sat, staring out the window, thinking of his father and all that he’d suffered during the last war, the one they called the Great War. He’d put up those posters, he’d tried to recruit people to fight for what was right and the people of the town had turned on him, but he had fought on regardless and finally taken four of the lads from the town with him to the trenches where all but one of them had fallen, all but one of them had given their lives for peace, all but one of them were buried in a cemetery where their families could only visit once or twice in their lives, for wasn’t the price of the boat across to the Continent only shocking?
Stephen hadn’t been the one to come home. He’d died just short of a year after arriving in France. He’d written home every week while he was there and he’d kept his spirits up and stayed good-hearted and he’d been sure that whatever the differences were between England and Ireland, this war was something bigger than all of that and every good man needed to play his part for peace.
And now it was his son’s turn.
Émile met his sergeant, he trained, he collapsed in exhaustion and then got up again. He felt his body grow thick with muscle, he thought he could give nothing more, he had no more to give, and then he gave some more. He collapsed under the pain of it, he fought out the other side of it. He realized that he was made of strong stuff, that he was his father’s son. He reached the end, he passed out, he was applauded, he took another train to Southampton where he boarded a boat for France and the uncertainty that lay ahead.
He lay in his bunk the night before the first battle began and thought of that night when he was just a boy and a brick had come through the parlour window and life as he knew it began to change.
‘What’s your name?’ asked the boy in the bed next to his.
‘Émile,’ said Émile.
‘You’re French?’
‘My mother is. My father was English. He died in the Great War.’
‘And you?’
Émile hesitated. It still came down to this end, didn’t it? Who you were, where you came from, how you defined yourself. The country you called home.
‘I’m Irish,’ he said, before rolling over and trying to find some sleep.
The Schleinermetzenmann
I never had a chance to observe Arthur in his public role until a few days before my mother’s funeral. We grew up next door to each other, the closest of friends throughout our younger years, but drifted apart in adulthood for all the usual reasons. Almost a decade earlier, with my nascent and much-longed-for career already smothered in its cradle like a mewling infant, I decided to spend a summer travelling and somehow lost track of time, building a new life far away from anyone who knew me. Arthur, in fact, came to the airport to see me off and just as I was about to make my way through the security gates he asked whether I would mind if he called Becky, a girl I had briefly been dating earlier that year, and invited her out for a drink. ‘She has amazing tits,’ he told me, which was true, although I had got no closer to seeing them in their exposed state than he had for she subscribed to some outdated and frankly nonsensical ideas regarding maintaining her virginity until her wedding night.