A Hard Gemlike Flame: A Kavanagh Story IV

By Jim Wills

A Hard Gemlike Flame is an unblinking, on again, off again, adult love story that's alternately ecstatic and agonizing, angry and passionate. The two protagonists, Mick Kavanagh and Cathleen Murray, are equally troubled but for very different reasons. Both are held captive by their Irish heritage, Mick by genetic anger, Cathleen by what she always considered her frigid nature—until him. Their backgrounds, families, could not be more opposed. Mick was born into a poor bluecollar family, and he retains much of that overlay, despite the fact that for a time he is a university professor. Cathleen belongs to a wealthy family who owns a very high-powered advertising agency, in which she is the feared second in command to her father, ST Murray. Lacking a son, ST raised her as the boy he never had, with all the contradictions that implies. The stakes are large, with money, power and social standing on the line.

Unable to find work in academe and quickly running out of resources, Mick becomes her assistant at the beginning of one summer. Their first meeting is more a collision of two highly intelligent alien forces than a job interview. The explosions continue, collision after collision. What Mick does not know is that Cathleen has a hidden agenda in which he will prove useful and then be discarded. What Cathleen does not know is just how promiscuous Mick has been.

They both think they are incapable of love, and both are blind-sided by how quickly their troubled relationship turns into just that. Their backgrounds and mindsets are so divergent, that they can't seem to come to any sort of terms with each other—until they become lovers—but even then the incendiary scenes continue and intensify. Their interaction is alternately passionate, angry, pacific, understanding, ignorant. What binds them, saves them, is passion in the face of a devious and nearly successful campaign to separate them.

This is a tale of love, betrayal, truth, honesty, falsehood, deception and tragedy. Only the strength of their love for each other keeps them together—and sane. It's the fourth novel in the Kavanagh saga.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Jim Wills
• Release date: Jul 24, 2012
• ISBN: 9781476305066

Jim Wills

I’ve had many and varied careers. In more or less historical order, I’ve been a motorcycle mechanic, a race engine builder, a teacher, an academic, a hard rock miner (silver), a book editor and ghost writer, a commercial writer in print and video, a novelist, a mason, a wood-fired artisan bread baker and a teacher of that craft. Some, if not all, have overlapped in time and continue.A Few Men Faithful, the first novel in the Kavanagh series, was awarded the IndiePENdents Certificate and Seal of Good Writing in October 2013 (www.indiependents.org). In the Review, UK, Karen Andreas said of it: "Jim Wills’ A Few Men Faithful is the very best of reads. It starts off with epic action and, before you know it, you are not only sucked into the story but also deeply involved with its protagonist, Danny Kavanagh....This is compelling reading indeed. A Few Men Faithful is strong, fascinating historical fiction very well done." (http://thereviewgroup.blogspot.co.uk/2013/12/karen-andreas-few-men-faithful-by-jim.html ). Christoph Fischer, here on Smashwords and on Amazon: "I personally enjoyed the political part the most for the objective and factual way the conflict was described, particularly the third part of the book when the Irish fighters split over the treaty, which of course bears relevance up to the present. This is a great achievement." Geoffrey Preston on Smashwords: "I think you have exceptional writing skills that jam packed this book." Marc Schuster in Small Press Reviews: " The prose throughout is clear and reminiscent of Hemingway, particularly in instances where Wills describes battle. Clear writing and strong characters make this a novel (and, presumably, series) worth reading, especially for those interested in the last century of Irish diaspora history." There are others in similar vein.The second Kavanagh story, Philly MC, has been well reviewed both on Smashwords and Amazon. Christoph Fischer: "In Philly MC, he focuses much more on just one man and his inner torment, making this a brilliant character study and a rewarding experience. Jack's moody personality was as interesting as the setting, a very authentic portrayal of the 1960s....A great book."Volume III, Shooter in a Plague Year, has gotten five-star treatment as well. Patrice O'Neill-Maynard on Amazon: "Shooter in a Plague Year is an astonishing book. It gallops forward at a remarkable pace and gathers us all up into intrigue, politics, betrayal, and heart rending and scintillating scenes of open-hearted love, half truths, and promises. Author Jim WIlls has a literary style that winds a story with thoughtful fire and makes us think, speculate, and figure out the subplots as the lives he follows digest the clues they get as to what is actually happening and who it is they can trust.... It is a great book. Read it!" Christoph Fischer: "In Shooter in a Plague Year Jim Wills returns to the Kavanagh family once again, the third installment of this inspired series....The book is well written, tension and plot move smoothly and the dialogue is also well done, particularly where the different accents need to be emphasized phonetically. A thriller as much as political novel this is a gripping read....After Philly MC it is also a great move in the context of the series."The fourth and most recent title is A Hard Gemlike Flame. Christoph Fischer: "The book is a surprising addition to the saga but it certainly freshens and livens up the selection in the series so far....Thematically it complements the other books in the series very well."

Book preview

A Hard Gemlike Flame

A Kavanagh Story IV

Jim Wills

Published by Carswell House Books

At Smashwords

Copyright James T. Wills, 2012

All Rights Reserved

Cover Design: ArtPlus Ltd.

Smashwords Editions, License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be resold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Discover Other Titles by Jim Wills at:

http://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/Kavanagh47 & http://www.marygbread.com.

A Few Men Faithful: A Kavanagh Story I

Philly MC: A Kavanagh Story II

Shooter in a Plague Year: A Kavanagh Story III

Tools Are Made, Born Are Hands: Baking True Artisan Breads

in a Wood Fired Oven

In Memoriam,

CJW, Sr.

&

BBB

This Hard Gemlike Flame is entirely fictional. Even so, like all imagined stories, the past intrudes, motes of memory suspended in a dusty, abandoned spider’s web.

Thank you, Wendy, Threebees, GEB.

JTW, July 2012

Being so caught up,

so mastered by the brute blood of air,

Did she put on his knowledge with his power

Before the indifferent beak could let her drop?*

*W. B. Yeats, Leda and the Swan, 1923.

Chapter 1: Bad to the Bone

Michael Kavanagh sat alone in his claustrophobic carrel on the fourteenth floor of the research library. It was inhumanly tiny: space for a chair, a built-in desk, a bookshelf, just enough clearance to turn around. A narrow slit of window in the rough concrete wall let in some outside light, another in the steel door gave a dismal view of the reproachful stacks under eye-destroying fluorescent light. There was no doubt in his mind; those vengeful, humming tubes were responsible for the uncontrollable tic in the corner of his right eye. It surfaced at just the wrong moments. He had spent many weary hours in this closet of pain. It smelled dusty and hot, like over-heated computer chips, a whiff of musky sweat, echoes of late night cursing. Leaving it would be bittersweet parole.

A discreet knock at the door. He opened it to find Susanne Spencer, the woman in the next carrel. About thirty-five, she had a secure, tenure-stream, full-time job at a small college in the city. Her academic future looked bright. She never tired of rubbing it in, although the end of her thesis on Maria Edgeworth was likely years down the road.

Attractive, in a mildly Rubenesque kind of way, but she had a nasty habit of cutting her black hair, bit by bit with a razor blade, as she puzzled over the intricacies of her research. The result was not good; her head looked like a cat-clawed pillow overdue for a trip to the cleaners. For more public appearances, she slicked it down with super-hold hair gel.

Well, Mick old son, how did it go?

Well enough. I got through it in any event. Really, Susanne, you must start addressing me properly from now on, you know.

Splendid, splendid, Doctor Kavanagh. Your defence must have been brutal, though. How was O'Connell?

Oh, the usual idiot. Tried to draw me with insults and political questions fed to the examiners, but I ducked them all, rather deftly, I might add. He was never the same after I turned him down.

Spare me, now, really. You're an awfully pretty boy, and old sods just love bright, pretty boys. Especially with all the darling clothes your fruity friends give you. You knew what you were doing, didn't you?

Oh for Christ's sake, I work for those clothes. I wasn't doing a goddamned thing with O'Connell. He created the situation and got the wrong impression from his own scenario. It was tough, though, having my own advisor turn on me like that.

Perhaps, perhaps. Change of subject, then. How is the job search going? Her voice dripped with vitriol.

Fucking brilliant, I just got my Doctorate, and all you can do is harp on the same old subject. You're perfectly well aware I don't have a chance at a decent job in any English Department in the country. Wrong equipment, wrong—um—interests. You might have started with congratulations.

What wrong equipment might that be, Mick? You've got a very sound mind, and your thesis is brilliant, even if you did choose to work on Yeats. So well dressed.

Between my legs, dear heart.

Hmm, she said, grinning sardonically, perhaps, perhaps. You're quite correct, though, I should have said congratulations. Actually, it really is time for a celebration, don't you know. Bye the by, be you betimes bonking the blond biz bimbo from beyond the boundary of belief?

Not bad, all in all, but you get an F for the 'from.' The answer is no. Besides, the university frowns on teacher-student relationships, a stricture that seems to have escaped your notice.

A busty woman of five six, Susanne was completely aware of the effect of her full hips, slim waist, and deep, sloe-brown eyes. While they spoke, her back had been leaning against the inside of the carrel door. She turned abruptly to face it, slipped off her tatty carrel sweater, hung it on the hook over the window and slowly turned back to him. The grin was more pronounced.

Yes, a congratulatory tussle, that's the ticket.

Mick grinned in return, sweeping his eyes from her breasts to her waist. Tell me, Susanne, are you wearing any panties today?

Naughty doctor, you know I never do.

Hah, unsupported hypothesis. Proof, please.

She lifted her skirt demurely, then dropped it with a coy look at him through her thick, dark lashes.

Just sit back and relax, Mick. You be the doctor. I'll be the nurse to help you with that equipment. Just leave everything to me.

********************

Cathleen Murray was as well trained in the subtle art of squeezing the client for every dime as she was at maintaining the frosty presence of Ice Queen at Murray & Todd, the firm her father founded with his partner and boyhood friend. Tall, statuesque, stunning, blindingly intelligent, self assured, she felt no remorse, only satisfaction, when the client caved in. The acts, two of many she learned at her father's knee, at first were agony. Now, they had grown into habits, complex habits with both rewards and penalties.

The six suits from what she called the Cola Brigade pondered around the oval boardroom table. It was the big boardroom, the one reserved exclusively for important meetings. She knew they knew the budget was inflated, but being represented by M&T had a certain cachet, and their advertising campaigns had fuelled year after year of growing market share. They were in a tough spot.

Cynthia Grimaldi, head cola suit, spoke up, finally. Well, Cath, dealing with you on budgets and contracts is like sticking your finger in a toaster. I suppose we buy it, but there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth from the CFO back at the office. You're certain, are you, that M&T can't do any better than five mil? I agree the creative is dazzling, but the price seems very high.

Sorry, Cynthia, it's the best we can do. We already shaved 15 per cent off the top for your benefit. Of course, our estimates don't allow for overtime, so I suggest we get cracking.

Alright. It's a deal, but we want progress reports on a daily basis so we can end-run additional charges.

Cathleen always felt a hot rush of pleasure at such moments. Something like how she imagined an orgasm might feel, if she ever had one. With overtime and extras tacked on, the actual cost would be closer to $5.5 million. It was getting on to 7:00, though, so she wrapped up her part of the meeting and stood to go. The details could be handled by the suits and the bean counters. She had a scant hour to stop by her parents' house and then meet Frank Harris for dinner at Soho. It was her favorite restaurant of the moment, dramatically expensive and very exclusive. The exclusivity attracted her more than the quality of the food, which was passable but not extraordinary. Being seen there, among the elite business establishment, was much more important. Showing the flag, her father called it. It had been easy to convince Frank to take her there. He would do just about anything for a peck on the cheek and a squeeze or two. Only very occasionally did more happen. She described him as a very nice man. In actuality, he was very, very safe.

********************

Cathleen drank her Scotch straight, always Johnny Walker Black Label, two fingers deep, two cubes of ice. Her father, Stephen, poured for her in the large kitchen tiled with Portuguese sunshine. The house was new, huge, three storeys, imposing, almost verging on robber baronial. It sat on one of the most expensive ravine properties in the pricey northern zone of the city, but not in the aging compounds where the real powers lived.

Stephen T. Murray was a short fireplug of a second generation Irishman. Perhaps as a result, everything in the house was large: massive, immaculately polished copper pots hanging in the kitchen, oversized down-filled furniture in the living room, 125 inch HD television in the entertainment room, custom beds big enough for a baseball team. His clothes, though, were completely understated, impeccably tailored from fine Italian cloth, dazzling shirts, gloriously discrete Ferre ties. His only jewellery was a wedding ring and an immensely expensive Piaget watch. Cathleen was schooled in her father's voracious appetite for money and power, but in his opinion her wardrobe was ever so slightly on the garish side—almost spoiled tarty.

So, Cath, how'd it go today? Did ya get em?

You bet, ST. They bought the whole package. I figure our end is about two mil. I deserve a hell of a bonus for this one.

Yeah, well, maybe. We'll have a look at that later.

While ST made himself another gin and tonic, always Bombay Sapphire, he looked directly at his eldest daughter. Inwardly, he felt envious, nervous, apprehensive. She was so young and too powerful. She had sat at his knee when he drove Jim Todd out of the firm with much less than he deserved. It had broken his spirit. ST had raised her as the son he never had, with all the guilt-ridden complexes of the devout altar boy he actually was once. She had absorbed his methods and complexes to the depths of her soul. As a result, her character had split into a dramatic contradiction: alluringly feminine in appearance and manner, tending toward the repressed masculine in thought, speech—and sexual hang-ups.

Am I next? he thought. Aloud, he said, Well, the bastards turned me down again. I could buy and sell those pricks five times over. The Boulder Club; it was his life's desire. Year after year, he applied for membership, lining up all the high-powered names he could in support. Every time, he was rejected. The Boulder Club, stodgy, thin-lipped, a bit frayed around the edges of the prime rib, was the hub of the city's Wasp hierarchy, and no Irish with blue-collar backgrounds need apply, no matter how rich. It was an anachronism, drooling for acceptance from a dying order, but the Murray family had been isolated by power, divorced from reality by money, and the idea was one of the cornerstones of their ambitions.

Oh, give it up, ST. Let's just buy that villa in Florence and leave those yahoos in the dust. You don't need it.

Now, now, Cath, you've been working too hard. You don't really mean that.

About the villa? Hardly.

No, that's not what I meant.

When her sister bounced into the room, she turned from her father without answering a central question in her life. Well, hi there, Jean, where have you been? Playing the student?

Short like her father, Jean Murray was the youngest of the three daughters. Blond, buxom, pleasing rather than pretty, earnest, bright eyed and idealistic, she lived permanently outside the charmed circle of Cath and ST, much as she loved them both. It suited her. Jean had no head for business, even though she held a token position at the firm that paid quite well. During the spring semester she had been taking a writing course at the university. Her instructor was the recently elevated Dr. Michael Kavanagh.

Oh, no, well yes. It'll finish up in a month. It's fun, interesting. I'm enjoying it. My professor is probably one of the funniest, most beautiful men God ever created. When you have time, Cath, I want to speak to you about him.

Um, sure, fine. Let's pencil in a lunch some time next week. Gotta run. Thanks for the drink, ST. We need to go over the figures on the Cola Brigade deal in detail. I really want that bonus. I deserve it.

Yeah, well, maybe, maybe not. We'll see. Have a nice dinner. Who is it this time?

Oh, just Frank. The old standby.

You mean the old lapdog, don't you?

That's none of your business, Jean, Cathleen snapped, her dark eyebrows furrowed in a scowl. Just try to get your head out of your jeans and do something with your life, instead of mooning around with a bunch of foreigners on campus.

That's good advice from your sister, Jeannie. I'd take it if I was you.

Cathleen Murray bounced out of the house in a not too serious huff, removing the clasp from her unstylishly long, gloriously luxuriant, brunette hair. She shook it out over her shoulders before sliding into her two-seater SLR Mercedes for the quick trip to the restaurant. Frank was always delighted when her hair was down. In better moods, she liked him and tried to please him, but that's as far as it went.

********************

Cathleen's downtown condominium was on the top floor of a new building. The tall, tinted windows overlooked the turgid progress of the wide, brown river forty floors below. It was a choice location. The furniture looked unused, perfect, a showroom shot: chrome, glass, black leather, more like an office than a home. Far below, moonlight rippled, water skates of ferries skimmed, toy yachts bobbed in the marina. Life seemed good sometimes, when the emptiness was pushed aside. With another Johnny Walker in her hand, she gazed over the scene in satisfied contemplation: great meeting, great dinner, great plans. Even Richard DeHavilland was among the diners at Soho. Perfect. She didn't think much of the trophy girlfriend he picked up after the split with his second wife, too much make up, too much jewellery, too much silicone. As the CEO of TransMedia, he could have done much, much better. He had stopped to say hello on his way out and sat for a few minutes over an after-dinner liqueur.

Frank Harris jolted her out of her reverie when he came up behind her and kissed her long neck, slipping his arm around her narrow waist. She endured it for the moment, lost in her own thoughts. His right hand slipped up to cup her small breast in the padded bra she always wore. At first she felt the usual panic, the usual feeling of inadequacy, sin. This particular act, this particular mask, was painful to maintain, difficult to wear. All her life she had been taught that women do not like sex. Period. Whores did. Proper women didn't. Another massive contradiction, another 1950s anachronism in her complex and turbulent inner self.

She put her glass down, turned, took his face in her hands and pecked him quickly on the lips. Before he could respond, she put her palms flat on his chest. Now, really, Frank, what is it with you tonight? You know perfectly well I don't like to be touched like that.

She reached down and quickly patted his belt buckle. Tonight was very nice, but why don't you go home now? Please, for me. I have work to do.

A minor light in the business world, Frank Harris cringed like an incontinent puppy when the newspaper is rolled up. Pleasant looking, thirty-seven, moderately successful, he was hopelessly infatuated with Cathleen Murray. Deep down, he realized he had no chance, but he just couldn't stop coming back for more. He was smart enough to know that insistence would not work with her. She had that effect on the men in her life: forever desirable, forever unobtainable. Cathleen knew it well enough. She slept with him at very long intervals, when her desire outweighed her complexes, knowing it was deeply wrong, another sin to atone for. She turned back to the window, glass in hand once more. The whisper of the heavy steel condo door closing was barely audible. With set lips, she looked at her reflection in the dark glass and dreamed of the house in Shakespeare Close she planned to buy once she choked that bonus out of ST.

********************

Hey, Mickie, how's it hangin, bud? What're ya up to tanight? Wanna go down and boogie at the Riverside? I hear Rick Really Good and the Battleships are playin. Fuckin good band. Whaddya think? Few beers, few tunes, few laughs.

Rita's voice was always a surprise on the phone: booming with the vocabulary of a stevedore. It belied her angular, high breasted, luscious body; her cute, inquisitive, boyish face under the short, curly auburn hair.

Sounds good, Reet. You on a tear? Where's the old man, on the road again?

Oh, yeah, same shit, different day. Johnny's drivin a load a chicken ta Denver. Probably shacked up right now with some five-buck truck stop bitch. Fuck him. Whaddya say, ya on?

Yep, I'll come by in about half an hour. Gotta get something to eat, and there's no way I'd risk my insides to the cockroaches in the Riverside's kitchen.

You got that right. Burnin ring a fire in the am, guaranteed. See ya.

Mick Kavanagh hung up his land line and went to the kitchen. The bread was slightly moldy, but he made a peanut butter and jelly sandwich anyway. He was out of milk, again. Wandering into the living room of his spacious one-bedroom apartment, he looked around as he ate. It wasn't that bad. The neighborhood on the east side was supposed to be one of the roughest in the city, but he was born there, at home there, and rents were cheap. Besides, the apartment was on the second floor of a converted 1890s piano factory, so the ceilings were high and the windows reached almost floor to ceiling. They were not that useful; all he could see was the line of run-down late Victorian workers' houses and the flat roof of the Pep-Boys warehouse across the narrow street. He saw no need for drapes.

Mick Kavanagh was particular, if eccentric, about furnishings. The rugs were demi-antique, badly worn, the furniture wooden and eclectic in period. It was the kind of stuff you could pick up in used furniture stores if you were careful. The place exuded a certain studious, serene peace that contradicted the tension of his balled fists. It was his defense against rage. Then there were the books. Most he had bought in Ireland and England; in Dublin and Cork and Sligo, in London and Keswick and Manchester. Irish books were cheaper in England, because they looked down their horsey noses at the literature of sedition.

Idly, he took a small, thin volume from his favorite shelf. The cheap covers were scuffed, but the green paper was still fairly bright: Poems of the Irish Revolutionary Brotherhood, published in 1916. The verses by men like MacDonagh, Pearse, Plunkett and Casement were less important for their literary merits than the historical importance of the poets. It was a rare though not particularly valuable book. Licking the peanut butter off his fingers, he paged through it until he came to MacDonagh's Song from the Irish. He read, automatically, until he came to the last stanza, which he knew by heart:

She's more shapely than swan by the

strand,

She's more radiant than grass after

dew,

She's more fair than the stars where they

stand—

'Tis my grief that her ever I knew!

Shopworn but still effective, he said aloud to himself. He closed the book slowly and placed it carefully on the long wooden table he used for writing. The laptop computer was closed, silent. Beside it, the cheaply bound print-out of his massive thesis was already gathering dust.

He leaned against the table and regarded the line of framed photographs on the far wall, central among the bric-a-brac of years in academe. The first showed a long ago relative, Danny Kavanagh, who was rifle-butted in the face during the Easter Rising of 1916 and became one of the Twelve Apostles, Michael Collins' squad of assassins, then a member of the Clann na Gael in Philadelphia. The deeply scarred face looked out with defiance, certainly, but something else Mick recognized the first time he saw it: deep, abiding rage straining to be let loose, the same rage that simmered inside him. He knew quite well that Danny was shot dead in Belfast in 1956. It was Danny who fathered the prolific line of Kavanaghs in North America.

Beside Danny's picture was one of his brother, Mick. It must have been taken in the 1950s, because this Commander of the South Armagh Brigade of the IRA was clearly in early old age. Still, the same barely contained rage stared out from his eyes as he stood alone in front of a whitewashed stone farmhouse outside a place called Cullyhanna in County Armagh.

The third was similar but more puzzling. Jack Kavanagh, the Philadelphia tough guy, sat astride a black Triumph, grinning broadly into the camera, mocking. He was probably twenty-five at the time. On the bike's tank, Mick could see the word Trusty written