Lies And Consequences Collection

Chapter 7-2

My head was swimming with the colourful imagery and the lyrical prose delivered from a derisive face that stared unerringly at me without blinking her cold fixed eyes. As the tray was placed on the table, she continued without an intake of breath.

“Born in 1947, before you"ll be asking me age. Originally from Carrick-On-Shannon, Co. Leitrim, but coming here by way of varied paths that started at an orphanage in Athlone. Before today you were only Irish through your mother, Shaun, but today"s your lucky day. Now you"re the Irish brother of an Athenian goddess.” At last she looked away, standing to her full height and bracing her back defiantly as she admired the reflection she made in the window.

“Perhaps it could be said that I"m not blessed with that goddess"s wisdom, but certainly her beauty, if beautiful indeed she was! Stand and kiss your sister at once, or I"ll be pouring the tea all over yer.” she finished.

Her heart-shaped face, with its small, dimpled pointed chin, shone in the watery sunlight. Her predatory amber, wide-spaced eyes were transparent pools of gold that adorned her freckled fair skin, lined with laughter lines which etched the story of a full life. Seemingly someone who gave away smiles like they were wishes. Yet there was a subtlety to that amber gaze trying to conceal the most sorrowful face I had ever seen. Here was a woman who had lost what she knew she could not afford to lose, and the knowing did not soften the desolation.

“Did she have a temper, this goddess from Athlone?” I asked as I stood and faced her.

“Now there"s a silly question for a handsome man to ask a woman and no mistake. Did you see Maureen O"Hara in The Quiet Man, Shaun? I"m her reincarnated. Of course I do, and a wicked one at that. There will be no sense in the finding out.”

The Quiet Man

I had seen a poster of that film and as she stood a pictured formed in my mind"s eye of her being carried in John Wayne"s arms with her flowing, long wavy red hair swaying on the way to the altar. I gently kissed those pale lips, trying to taste the sweetness of a life that had drained away somewhere far from this dead room. I found none, nor could I find simplicity in those eyes.

“Was your scepticism born in that orphanage, Fianna, or did you find mistrust and suspicion somewhere else on your journey?” I asked, holding her small waist as lightly as I could.

“There we have it, Shaun! Your brain and my beauty! Our parents must have been something to see.” She pulled away from my light grasp and I watched as she took her seat between Jack and me, neither of our eyes diverting from her. It was then that I noticed the small, yellow-metalled jade ring she wore on the first finger of her left hand. My thoughts were ended abruptly by Jack.

“You will have time after I"m gone to assimilate and memorise what Fianna will tell you about your shared background. Learn it well. Unfortunately I must be somewhere else by one o"clock this afternoon so cannot join in the pleasure. There are documents and details in the room above where you"ll sleep tonight, Shaun. Fianna can teach you all of that. I"ll be here in the morning, bright and eager to start again. For now I"ll paint the broad outline of what you"ll be doing for me and what I represent. He took a long draw on one of my cigarettes before continuing.

“All I told you of myself last night was the truth, but only part. I never left the intelligence services. I just moved along corridors and changed offices. Where I am now I don"t have a fixed abode with telephones and chairs as do the institutions that you know, we move as the circumstances dictate. As I said, we dirty our hands in places they"ve never heard of at dinner parties in Guildford; however, often we enjoy more wholesome meals than them. We have no official title only the letters that spell our name; No One Is More Important Than Each: NOIMITE. Without the whole we are nothing. There are only two permanent staff. The man who you met at The Albany, Job, is one, I am the other. Everyone else is transient. No one is told more than what is immediately in front of them to do and I expect complete adherence to those instructions. We do not use the serving military, nor present operatives attached to any government intelligence services. Private security, retired army and local resources are our main supply of manpower. Excuses there to Fianna! I"m not forgetting you, but there aren"t many women available to us.”

Her curves, tall figure and angelic face left my circuitous mind wondering what was meant by "available" as the returning rain danced in the grass beyond the windows, bending them down then up under the weight of its fall. They had no choice but to bend, I wondered if it was the same for Fianna.

“Are the two of us just temporary accomplices in the plan you have then, Jack? To be dispensed with when it"s all over, or are we to be permanently counted amongst your number?” I caught sight of Fianna"s turning head in his direction as I asked.

“You do not disappoint me in your directness, Shaun. Uncertainty is always better to be dealt with at the table than to be cited after the negotiations. But I cannot be unambiguous in this. Time is an entity that none of us have control over. Neither of you are transitory in what lies directly ahead, the absolute opposite is true, but this story has been playing without an end for longer than both your ages, thirty-five years to be precise. It"s impossible for me to guarantee the unknown.”

“Is it performance related, Jack?” I asked, to which he simply smiled.