Passport to Peril

Four

At first, entering the crowded, brightly lit pub, she thought she had made a mistake. There was no singing, and indeed no singing could have been heard over the hubbub of dozens of young men all talking at once. Men were lined up four deep at the bar, drinking whiskey from stemmed glasses or beer or stout from heavy glass mugs. She stood uncertain for a moment until a waiter came to her and told her there were no tables presently available.

“I thought there was singing,” she said. “Will it start later, or don’t you have it any more?”

“Oh, you’ve come for the singing.” He smiled. “You’ll find it upstairs in the lounge, Miss. Do you see, you’ve come in the bar entrance, and the lounge has a separate entrance over to the side. Come, I’ll show you.”

He led her out to the street again and a few yards to the right, where a door opened onto a flight of steep stairs leading up to the lounge. When he opened the door she heard the sounds of singing. “Now you just follow your ears, and if it’s singing you’re after, you’ll find your fill up there.”

At the head of the stairs she opened another door and stepped into a small, softly lighted room. A circular bar stood in the center of it, and within the bar a very thin young man with carrot-colored hair and a great beak of a nose sat at a piano. There were just a few empty stools at the bar, and four of the six tables at the sides were occupied. She started toward a table, then changed her mind abruptly and took a seat at the bar. The pianist was playing “The Boys from Wexford” and singing out the lyrics in a rich baritone, and the audience was joining in on the chorus.

“Your pleasure, Miss?”

She looked up into the broad, ruddy face of the bartender. She had come for the singing, and it had somehow failed to occur to her that she would have to have something to drink. She didn’t know what to order. She liked wine, but no one else seemed to be drinking it. The men at the bar — she was the only woman there, although there were women at the tables — all seemed to be drinking beer or stout.

“Stout, please,” she said.

“A pint of Guinness?”

“Please.”

He held a pint mug under the tap and filled it to over flowing with the thick black stout. She put a ten-shilling note on the bar, and he gave her three half crowns in change. She took a tentative sip of the stout and wrinkled her lip at the taste. It was quite a bit warmer than American beer and very lightly carbonated. It was very strong and very bitter, and she didn’t think she much cared for it. But perhaps one had to acquire a taste for it, like oysters or olives — though in fact she had never managed to develop much enthusiasm for either.

She took another sip of the Guinness. Perhaps, she thought, it would get better as one got closer to the bottom of the glass. She wondered whether she ought to light a cigarette. Actually, she thought, she probably didn’t belong at the bar at all, but ought to be at a table. Or perhaps she had already violated propriety merely by coming unescorted. She recalled the taximan’s words — “All Americans are a bit daft.” She took out a cigarette and lit it.

For almost half an hour she sat in silence, listening intently to the singing without joining in herself. She had a bit more of her stout and noticed that it did seem to taste better, though her lips still puckered at its bitterness. At least it was an effective antidote for her hunger, if not a proper substitute for a real dinner.

Mostly she watched the singer or gazed down at her hands and the pint of stout between them. Twice, though, she looked up, to catch the eye of a young man seated halfway around the bar from her. He was tall, with a broad forehead and long black hair, and when he joined in the singing his voice was one of the loudest in the room. He seemed to know the words to almost everything that was sung, although he wasn’t so good when it came to melody; he frequently sang off-key and often lost the tune entirely. But this didn’t bother her nearly so much as the way he seemed to keep looking at her.

She thought of girls at college who had come back from European vacations with tales of being pinched in Rome or propositioned in Florence. She had rather envied them at the time, and now she smiled at the thought of being so intently eyed herself by a handsome Irishman in a Dublin pub.

But once she began to join in the singing, her own voice soft but sure and clear in tone, she stopped noticing the tall young man on the other side of the bar. She joined with the others in calling requests to the piano player, and she was taking swallows of the rich black stout now instead of merely sipping at it, and before she knew it her glass was quite empty. It wasn’t bad at all, she decided. She felt pleasantly lightheaded. She lit another cigarette and asked the barman for another pint. She took a deep drag on her cigarette and a big swallow from the fresh pint of stout and wondered if perhaps she was getting just a little bit tipsy. After all, she hadn’t had anything to eat since just past noon, so she was drinking on an empty stomach. And how strong was stout, anyway? It ought to be like beer, but then it tasted much stronger than beer...

“Sing ‘The Patriot’s Mother,’ ” she called to the pianist. “Do you know that one?”

“Just the chorus.”

“Ah, that’s a fine old air,” another man said. “Let’s hear it, Tim.”

“I would, but I don’t know the words. Just the chorus.”

“I know the verses.” She spoke without thinking. “I mean...”

“Then sing for us, girl.”

“Oh, I couldn’t. I—”

“Come, give us the song.” It was the young man whose eyes she had caught. “We’re none of us professionals here except Tim, and he hears so much bad singing every night that it wouldn’t bother him a bit. Give us the song.”

She let herself be talked into it. The song was a favorite of hers, and she had managed to put it on one of her records. It was the song of an Irish mother imploring her captured son to be true to Ireland and die on the gallows rather than turn informer. It was corny and sentimental, and once at the Gaslight on MacDougal Street she had sung it humorously, holding a shawl over her head and singing in a comic brogue, playing the old ballad for laughs. It had gone over well, but she had sung it straight on the record and she did it straight now.

Softly she began.

And the chorus:

She was performing now, and she loved it. The song coursed through her veins, sang in her blood, and the music flowed from her like a river. No introduction, no round of applause, but it was a performance, and the others recognized it. At first some started to join in the chorus. Then, as if in response to a signal, their voices died out and left her to carry on alone.

Often, at an informal hootenanny or a Village party, she and other singers made it a practice to leave out some of the less vital verses in the longer ballads. Many of the old songs were well nigh endless, and it seemed a kindness to cut them short. One friend of hers knew over forty verses to “Stackolee,” and she herself knew almost as many to “Greensleeves,” and rarely sang more than five or six at a sitting.

Now, though, she did not omit a single quatrain. She sang all seven verses and sang the chorus each time, sang with her head tilted back and her eyes closed and her body perched comfortably on the bar stool, sang with the room still and silent around her, sang with the piano providing sure but restrained background accompaniment, sang with her own fingers itching for want of her guitar. She sang, and at last finished singing, and for a long moment the room was deathly still. And then there was applause, a sudden, astonishing, thunderous burst of applause. It was the first applause of the evening, and she thought that she was going to cry.

“But you’re a singer, girl! Here we were playing at singing and you with a voice like that and keeping still...”

“Fifteen years if it’s a day since a woman sang a song to make me cry, and be god if you haven’t half-done it tonight....”

“John, give the girl a drink. Drink up, Miss, and have another. John, tell her to put her money away, it’s all counterfeit and she can’t spend a penny of it here. Drink up, you nightingale!”

“Not a Dublin girl, are you? And are you singing professional? Have you made any records?”

“Ah, my girl, give us another!”

She could not remember ever having felt so proud and happy. She drained her mug of stout in a swallow, and the barman filled it again for her, and there was suddenly a lump in her throat so massive that she thought she could never possibly sing through it.

She said, “Oh, if I only had my guitar...”

“Sean, go get the girl a guitar. Get a guitar for the lady. Don’t you have one?”

“I’ve a banjo...”

“Can you play the banjo, Miss?”

“Not very well. I—”

“Then it has to be a guitar, Sean. Hasn’t Jimmy Daly one?” Not that he could play more than a bird call on it.”

“Then wake him and tell him we need a guitar for Miss — now I don’t know your name, do I?” The pianist introduced himself with a gesture. “I’m Tim Flaherty, and pleased to be of service to you, and these” — a wave at the rest of the men at the bar — “are all good lads, but you’ll live as good a life without knowing them by name—”

“Ah, go on with you, Tim!”

“—But we don’t know your name, Miss, and I’m sure it’s one we’ll want to know.”

“Ellen Cameron.”

“You’ve the voice of an angel, Miss Cameron. Will you let us have another while Sean goes for the guitar?”

“Do you know ‘The Royal Blackbird,’ Miss Cameron?”

“Now let her be singing what she wants,” the piano player said sternly. And, sweetly now, “Come, give us a song, Miss Cameron. But first have a taste of that pint to wet your throat. A woman that can sit at a bar and drink her stout and sing with the voice of an angel and still be as sweet and pretty as spring flowers. Oh, I’d marry you in a minute, Miss Cameron, but what would my good wife say to that, do you suppose?”

She had never felt so grand and fine in all her life. Now and then in her daydreams she had imagined herself successful and had tried to guess how she might feel at such moments. Onstage at Carnegie Hall, with the audience on their feet applauding. Or during a guest appearance on a television show, singing at a camera and knowing she was being seen and heard by millions upon millions of people. She had tried to imagine these feelings, and yet nothing her imagination had summoned up could equal the way she felt now, snug in the upstairs lounge of a Dublin pub, just pleasantly tipsy on fine, rich stout (and the bitter taste had miraculously ceased to bother her by now; she rather fancied it) and singing to a group of excited and responsive persons who hung on to every word and every note.

She wanted to speak but did not trust herself to talk, certain that she would stammer or cry or both. Her emotions were too strong. She could not get hold of them. So instead of talking she tilted her head like a bird and sang like a bird greeting the dawn.

She sang on into the night, song after song after song. She urged the others to trade songs with her, but they refused. Now and then she persuaded them to join in on a chorus, but most of the time she was the performer and they were the delighted audience, and the evening took on a special magic for her. She sang songs from her albums and songs she had not yet recorded, Irish songs and Scottish songs and English and American songs, and when Sean came back with the guitar she seized it gratefully with eager hands and did a quick job of tuning it and began to play. It was a cheap guitar, with none of the resonance of her own instrument, and ordinarily she would have been put off by its poor tonal quality. Now it did not matter. Her fingers plucked at the strings and her throat opened in song and she thought that she could sing forever, that the night could go on for a thousand years and she would never tire of it.

She did not even notice when the last round was called. But the overhead lights went on just as she came to the end of a song, and she saw that the others had got to their feet.

“Oh,” she said.

The barman said, “Closing time, Miss Cameron. A few minutes past, to be truthful, but the last song was worth bending the rules for. Though I wish we could stay open all night.”

“Oh,” she said. She got up from her stool. The music was gone now and the room started to go around in lazy waves.

“You can finish your pint, though, Miss Cameron.”

“Oh,” she said again, stupidly. She reached for her glass, and the room went around again, and she set the glass down untasted. Her hands gripped the bar for support and it seemed to sway before her as if it were made of elastic. “Oh, I don’t think I better,” she said. “Oh...”

“Are you all right now, Miss Cameron? Someone see to her. Miss Cameron—”

“I think it’s just that the last pint was more than she wanted, John,” a voice said. “She’ll be fit in a minute. Come this way, Miss Cameron, and have a seat for a moment.” Strong, gentle hands took her by the shoulders and led her to a chair at the side of the room. She sat down but the room kept making its lazy circles. Sit and talk and watch a hawk making lazy circles in the sky. But it wasn’t a hawk, it was a room, and oh, she felt so funny, and—

“Are you all right now?”

She looked up into the face of the man who had been gazing across the bar at her earlier in the evening. He held her wrists gently, and his eyes met hers. “How do you feel? Not sick, are you?”

“Noooo, I’m not sick.” She peered owlishly at him. “I think,” she said very seriously, “that I think I drank I think too much. Stout. Too much stout.”

She heard an odd sound, like the tinkling of many bells, and then realized with a start that it was her own laughter she heard. Oh, this is so silly! she thought, and she said, “Oh, this is so silllllly!” and exploded into laughter again.

“I’d better get you out into the fresh air,” he said.

“Okay.”

“Some air will be good for you.”

“Okay.”

He straightened up and helped her to her feet. She maintained her balance for a moment, then sagged helplessly against him. “This is so silly,” she said. “Oh, wait a minute, we forgot the guitar.”

“Sean took it.”

“Who’s Sean?”

“The boy who brought the guitar.”

“Oh, that’s right. I think I remember now. I learned a song today about Sean Treacy, except I didn’t learn it yet. It’s on the tape recorder. On tape. Scotch tape. Irish tape. It’s on my Irish tape recorder. When Irish tape recorders are smiling. I don’t know you, sir.”

“I’m David Clare.”

“That’s where the priest came from. Clare, I mean. County Clare. Imagine if he came from County David. You were looking at me before. I saw you.”

“Oh, was I?”

“Uh-huh. Oh, goodness, I’m sure there weren’t so many steps on the way up. You won’t let me fall, will you?”

“No.”

“Mr. County David Clare will protect me from falling. Good evening, Mr. Clare, I’m Ellen Cameron. I’m Miss Cameron and I have the voice of an angel nightingale. I didn’t even like that stout when I first tried it, but with you looking at me I couldn’t just sit there, I had to do something. Imagine if I liked it. Oh, it’s raining again. It always rains. It’s the most wonderful city in the world but it always rains.”

He was laughing. “I think we’d best walk a bit, and then get you something to eat.”

“I didn’t have dinner.”

“You didn’t?”

“No. There wasn’t time.” She walked at his side, breathed deeply, filling her lungs with the fresh, moist air. Her head was clearer now. “I went to the Abbey, and I was going to have dinner afterward but I came here instead.”

“You must be starving.”

She hadn’t been until he mentioned it, but now she was. “No wonder the stout made such an impression on you. You were drinking on an empty stomach. Have you had stout before?”

“No.”

“Did you like it?”

“Not at first.”

“It grows on you, doesn’t it? There’s a café on the next block that should still be open. We’ll get you a couple of lamb chops and some potatoes.”

“And no stout,” she said.

They were alone in the café except for the sleepy-eyed waitress and an old man who sat reading the Irish Press and nursing a cup of tepid tea. She had two lamb chops and two rashers of bacon and a plateful of chips and a cup of fairly good coffee. The food helped. When they left she was still lightheaded, but her stomach had settled down and the world no longer dipped and swayed before her eyes. She felt grand but very tired, and he read her mind to say, “I’d better get you home. Where are you staying?”

“The White House. It’s on Amiens Street — in Amiens Street, I mean. That’s how you say it here, isn’t it? Are you from County Clare, sir? Or are you a Dublin lad? Am I a Dublin girl?” She held his arm and peered up at him. “I think,” she said, “that the stout hasn’t entirely worn off.”

“I suspect you’re right.”

“But you didn’t tell me. Are you from Dublin?”

He hailed a taxi, helped her into it, and took a seat beside her. He gave the driver her address and lit two cigarettes, passing one of them to her. “Sure, and can’t you tell me birthplace by me brogue? And isn’t it in the pure tones of the west that you hear me speaking to ye?”

“What part of the west?”

“County Galway it is,” he said, “and the little town of Ballyglunnin that’s me birthplace, and doesn’t me sainted mother live there to this day. And doesn’t she every day wrap her shawleen about her and go to the ould bog to cut turf for the fire, for to take the damp from her poor ould bones.”

He went on, and she thought that his brogue had not been nearly so strong before, or perhaps she hadn’t noticed it, but now it was hard to understand him, and some of the words he spoke were not ones that she knew. And then, as the taxi turned on Amiens Street just a block from her hotel, she looked at him and caught the light in his eyes and the way his lip was struggling to keep from curling in a grin.

“You,” she said carefully, “are putting me on.”

“Sure, and ye’ve found me out.”

“You’re not from County Galway at all.”

“Sure, and where’s the harm to a body if a lad has a bit of innocent sport with a pretty—”

“You’re not even Irish.”

He grinned at her. “Well, that’s not entirely true,” he said, speaking all at once in an accent straight from the Eastern Seaboard. “My father’s Philadelphia Irish. Blood will tell, you know.”

“You fooled me.”

“I can put on a fair brogue. I’ve been here long enough.”

“If I were entirely sober,” she said, “you wouldn’t have fooled me.”

The taxi drew up in front of The White House. “This,” David Clare said, “is where you get off. And this is where I pick you up tomorrow morning. How’s ten o’clock?”

“But ...I don’t—”

“And hurry inside and get to bed. It’s raining, in case you hadn’t noticed.”

“But who are you? I don’t understand. I—”

“Ten o’clock,” he said. “Wear comfortable shoes. I will come prepared to Tell All. Good night, Ellen Cameron.”

He spoke to the driver, and the taxi moved away from the curb. She stood for a moment watching it until it turned a corner and disappeared from view.