The City of Strangers. Michael Russell

people flying for the experience rather than because they needed to get to America fast.

      The smell of money filled the cabin of the flying boat as distinctively as the smell of new leather and the steaks sizzling in the galley at the back of the fuselage. Several passengers had eyed him curiously as they smiled and said hello, not because they knew who he was, but because they didn’t. There was an atmosphere on board the plane, amidst all the tasteful elegance; if you were on the flight you ought to be important enough to be recognisable; you did have some obligation to be somebody.

      Across the aisle from Stefan, in the compartment just in front of the galley, a man in his late fifties or early sixties had been immersed in a pile of newspapers, English and Irish, between scribbling notes in a notebook. He had said hello to Stefan, and remarked on the weather, which was pretty good for the crossing to Newfoundland it seemed, and then he’d got on with what he was doing.

      He was a thin man, with a thick sweep of grey, almost silver hair; he had the kind of intense, thoughtful face that always has a frown between the eyebrows, even when it’s smiling. From time to time he whistled tunelessly to himself, not loudly, but loudly enough for it to slightly grate on Stefan. The Yankee Clipper was surprisingly quiet, despite the insistent buzz of the four great engines hanging from the wings above them, endlessly turning the propellers. Then all of a sudden the man folded his pile of newspapers together and reached over to put them on the empty seat opposite him. He closed his notebook, put away his pen, and picked up his champagne. He turned towards Stefan Gillespie with a smile.

      ‘Sláinte!’

      ‘Sláinte mhaith,’ replied Stefan.

      ‘First time?’ asked the man.

      ‘The very first.’

      ‘Quite something,’ the man continued, glancing out at the sky.

      Stefan nodded.

      The man got up and walked across the aisle, stretching out his hand.

      ‘Dominic Carroll.’

      They shook hands.

      ‘Stefan Gillespie.’

      The stranger sat down in the seat opposite him. There was nothing particularly unusual about the way he delivered his name, but Stefan got the impression that he expected it to mean something. As he continued to smile at Stefan it was as if he was waiting for recognition of some kind to dawn. It didn’t, and Dominic Carroll’s smile became a grin for a moment, as if he was aware of his own ego, and could find the room to laugh at it sometimes.

      ‘Where are you from, Mr Gillespie?’

      ‘West Wicklow, Baltinglass.’

      ‘I don’t know it. I could place it probably. I’m just about from County Tyrone, Carrickfergus. We emigrated when I was four, so you see it is just about. I’m a New Yorker, heading home. And where you headed yourself?’

      ‘New York too.’

      ‘Business?’

      ‘Of a sort.’

      ‘And what sort of business are you in?’

      Stefan hesitated. He had had no instructions to keep what he was doing a secret, at least as far as it simply concerned who he was. The details were a different matter. But the fact that he was a policeman didn’t tell anybody anything significant; in fact it provided good reasons, without his appearing rude, for him to keep his business to himself.

      ‘I’m a guard, a policeman.’

      The effect of this on Dominic Carroll was unexpected. He looked puzzled, and if not quite angry, irritated. He didn’t like it at all. Then his expression changed and he smiled, pushing away whatever had been there.

      ‘I know what a guard is, Mr Gillespie. I’m not a stranger to Ireland.’

      He spoke easily, wiping out any traces of the feelings that he hadn’t been able to hide seconds earlier. But he was no longer as relaxed as he had been, and as the conversation continued Stefan couldn’t help feeling he was being watched and weighed up. It was hard to work out what was going on. It wasn’t much now, and if he hadn’t registered those first, unfathomable reactions from the American, he probably wouldn’t have noticed at all. Carroll was suspicious; for some reason he was uneasy that Stefan was a guard.

      However, time passed and bit by bit the suspicion seemed to fade. Dominic Carroll was a good talker, and like a lot of good talkers he was used to being listened to. Once it was clear that Stefan Gillespie had nothing to say about his business, other than he was doing a job for the Gardaí and would be meeting some NYPD officers, he left the subject alone, except to announce that he knew almost every senior police officer in New York. As Stefan hadn’t got the faintest idea who he’d be talking to, or what would be happening once he arrived in Manhattan, the string of names, all of them Irish, had little effect. The NYPD was soon forgotten but New York was not.

      The man who had been born in Carrickfergus was proud of the city he now lived in. He had no doubt whatsoever that it was the greatest city on the face of the earth and that if there was anywhere that represented the future, the future of everything, it was New York, his city. It was no accident that the greatest World’s Fair the world had ever seen had just opened its gates in New York’s Flushing Meadows. Dominic Carroll had played some part in putting that together. The World’s Fair was the world of tomorrow in a box, tied up with red-white-and-blue, star-spangled ribbon and more magical than the stars in the heavens at night.

      ‘When you fly west, Mr Gillespie, you’re flying into the future. But it’s not just America’s future. One day we’ll bring that future back to Ireland!’

      It was hard not to share his enthusiasm. He seemed to have a lot of business interests, so many that it was a struggle to follow them as he fired out details of his early career, his failures and successes, his various bankruptcies and disasters, in building and finance and property speculation. At one point it seemed he had been responsible for building most of the skyscrapers of New York over the past thirty years personally. He caught the amusement in Stefan Gillespie’s eyes, and laughed himself, enjoying his own pomposity and yet happy enough to puncture it.

      ‘It’s my city. It belongs to me. Every New Yorker feels like that.’

      Over dinner the talk turned to families. Here Dominic Carroll seemed more reticent. He had sons, grown-up sons, but no grandchildren yet. He didn’t say much about his sons, for a man of such far-ranging enthusiasms, but it was enough to tell Stefan that the American wasn’t as close to them as he wished. Somewhere in there was a failure he didn’t want to talk about.

      He let Stefan talk more now, and clearly he could listen too when he wanted to, or when the topic of conversation wasn’t so easy. Details of Stefan’s life on the farm at Kilranelagh absorbed him and amused him, but it was when he told him about Maeve that something changed. Stefan retold the story of his wife’s death, six years ago, in the matter-of-fact way he always did. It was simply part of who he was. The American listened intently, then reached out his hands and clasped Stefan’s across the table. By now Stefan had had a bit to drink himself; his acquaintance was ahead of him. Carroll shook his head sadly, knowingly. He had found a bond between them. He was a sentimental man; sometimes sentiments shared were a kind of friendship for him.

      ‘My wife died when my eldest was thirteen. It wasn’t so unexpected. She’d been ill a long time, and however much money you’ve got, when they can’t do anything, it’s no use to you. You keep thinking you’ll find a doctor who knows the cure, if only you look enough and pay enough. But you can’t pay your way out of God’s decisions. You can’t pray your way out either.’

      As he said the last words he crossed himself.

      They walked back to their seats from the dining room with glasses of brandy, quieter than they’d come. Stefan had no desire to continue talking about the past; it was enough to say it. But the American wouldn’t let it go.

      ‘You’ve never remarried?’ he asked as they sat down.

      ‘No.’