The White Tower by Dorothy Johnston Read Free Book Online Page B

were a couple of pictures that I’d worked on, worked over, until they attained a definite, yet shadowy life. They were like short rolls of film that ran a certain length and could never be enlarged or added to. One was of me walking up a laneway under overhanging trees, with my hand in someone else’s. I’d ridden this memory hard, desperate to give form to the other person, convince myself that it was my father. In my self-appointed task of recollection, it hardly mattered that my mother insisted my father had left us when I was only a year old.
    Moira asked, ‘Where is it, do you think?’
    â€˜The Castle? I’m not sure. It might not be a real place at all.’
    â€˜Probably the north. Hard to imagine a southerner making all this up. Going to the trouble. Though I guess anything is possible.’
    She waited for me to comment, and when it was clear I wasn’t going to, she continued with a grimace, ‘Probably a castle belonging to a rebel family. They all got screwed by the Brits, one way or the other. Some things never change. Even if one of these people did save a few passages of the game, what you’re saying is—it’d be like reading the credits to a movie rather than seeing the movie?’
    â€˜Something like that, yes. But they liked your son.’ I pointed to the emails, half embarrassed, to demonstrate that I’d been doing what she wanted, though I was no longer sure about this. ‘They miss him, and some of them are grieving for him.’
    â€˜I’d say he was the clever one, Ferdia. He would’ve got to the top level, or whatever you call it, and stayed there.’
    It was unsettling, the mixture of pride and remorse, yearning and defiance in Moira’s voice. It seemed that, whereas I’d been looking for Niall Howley behind the character of Ferdia, trying to guess or deduce Niall’s state of mind from comments Castle of Heroes players made about him, Moira wanted me to help her do the opposite. It was her son’s other life that she was interested in.
    The player tributes I’d brought her were some help, but they didn’t come anywhere near satisfying her.
    I opened my mouth to say I’d email the players back with different questions, when she said, ‘That picture. The one he left. Do you think Ferdia really looked like that? Was that how he dressed?’
    â€˜I guess they’d have worn uniforms of some sort,’ I said, nervous now about saying the wrong thing.
    â€˜Well, they wouldn’t stand up in lines and march.’
    I flinched. Moira noticed and reacted with a slow, derisive smile.
    I decided that asking questions might be a better way to go. ‘When do you think Castle of Heroes might have been set?’
    â€˜Maybe around the Armada. Elizabeth the first. If it’s one of the great rebel Ulster families.’
    My guess was that a time frame hadn’t mattered much to Sorley Fallon. I suspected that his approach to history had been a ragbag one—pick a name here, a style of dress there. The main thing was the contest. The settings could vary according to his whim.
    I didn’t mind chatting to Moira about all this, though at every step I was bound to reveal my ignorance of Irish history. But I couldn’t help being conscious of her husband’s presence in the house, if not actually within earshot, then somewhere just outside it.
    Moira understood, or else her own awareness of Bernard’s critical and judging presence tipped the scales, because she roused herself and handed back the emails. I hesitated before taking them—I’d expected that she’d want to keep them.
    I told her I’d send off some more. I hoped Sgartha and one or two others would answer my questions about Ferdia and his prowess in battle. Best, of course, would be to talk to Sorley Fallon.
    . . .
    I was surprised to find that Bernard Howley wasn’t in the house and that it seemed