‘The Director,’ was all Helen Dexter said.
Connor Fitzgerald handed over his passport to the Australian customs official. It would have been ironic if the document had been challenged, because for the first time in three weeks he was using his real name. The uniformed officer tapped out the details on his keyboard, checked the computer screen, then pressed a few more keys.
Nothing untoward appeared, so he stamped the tourist visa and said, ‘Hope you enjoy your visit to Australia, Mr Fitzgerald.’
Connor thanked him and walked through to the baggage hall, where he took a seat opposite the motionless console and waited for his luggage to appear. He never allowed himself to be the first to pass through customs, even when he had nothing to declare.
When he had landed in Cape Town the previous day, Connor had been met off the plane by his old friend and colleague Carl Koeter. Carl had spent the next couple of hours debriefing him before they enjoyed a long lunch discussing Carl’s divorce and what Maggie and Tara were up to. It was the second bottle of 1982 Rustenberg Cabernet Sauvignon that nearly caused Connor to miss his flight to Sydney. In the duty-free shop he hurriedly chose presents for his wife and daughter that were clearly stamped ‘Made in South Africa’. Even his passport gave no clue that he had arrived in Cape Town via Bogota, Lima and Buenos Aires.
As he sat in the baggage collection zone waiting for the console to start up, he began to think about the life he had been leading for the past twenty-eight years.
Connor Fitzgerald had been brought up in a family dedicated to the cause of law and order.
His paternal grandfather, Oscar, named after another Irish poet, had emigrated to America from Kilkenny at the turn of the century. Within hours of landing at Ellis Island he had headed straight for Chicago, to join his cousin in the police department.
During Prohibition Oscar Fitzgerald was among the small band of cops who refused to take bribes from the mob. As a result he failed to rise above the rank of sergeant. But Oscar did sire five Godfearing sons, and only gave up when the local priest told him it was the Almighty’s will that he and Mary wouldn’t be blessed with a daughter. His wife was grateful for Father O’Reilly’s words of wisdom - it was difficult enough raising five strapping lads on a sergeant’s salary. Mind you, if Oscar had ever given her one cent more than she was entitled to from his weekly pay packet, Mary would have wanted to know in great detail where it came from.
On leaving high school, three of Oscar’s boys joined the Chicago PD, where they quickly gained the promotion their father had deserved. Another took holy orders, which pleased Mary, and the youngest, Connor’s father, studied criminal justice at De Paul on the GI Bill. After graduating, he joined the FBI. In 1949 he married Katherine O’Keefe, a girl who lived two doors away on South Lowe Street. They only had one child, a son, whom they christened Connor.
Connor was born in Chicago General Hospital on 8 February 1951, and even before he was old enough to attend the local Catholic school it had become clear that he was going to be a gifted football player. Connor’s father was delighted when his son became captain of the Mount Carmel High School team, but his mother still kept him working late into the night, to make sure he always completed his homework. ‘You can’t play football for the rest of your life,’ she continually reminded him.
The combination of a father who stood whenever a woman entered the room and a mother who verged on being a saint had left Connor, despite his physical prowess, shy in the presence of the opposite sex. Several girls at Mount Carmel High had made it only too obvious how they felt about him, but he didn’t lose his virginity until he met Nancy in his senior year. Shortly after he had led Mount Carmel to another victory one autumn afternoon, Nancy had taken him behind the bleachers and seduced him. It would have been the first time he’d ever seen a naked woman, if she’d taken off all her clothes.
About a month later, Nancy asked him if he’d like to try two girls at once.
‘I haven’t even had two girls, let alone at once,’ he told her. Nancy didn’t seem impressed, and moved on.
When Connor won a scholarship to Notre Dame, he didn’t take up any of the numerous offers that came the way of all the members of the football team. His team-mates seemed to take great pride in scratching the names of the girls who had succumbed to their charms on the inside of their locker doors. Brett Coleman, the team’s place-kicker, had seventeen names inside his locker by the end of the first semester. The rule, he informed Connor, was that only penetration counted: ‘The locker doors just aren’t big enough to include oral sex.’ At the end of his first year, ‘Nancy’ was still the only name Connor had scratched up. After practice one evening he checked through the other lockers, and discovered that Nancy’s name appeared on almost every one of them, occasionally bracketed with that of another girl. The rest of the team would have given him hell for his low scoring if he hadn’t been the best freshman quarterback Notre Dame had seen for a decade.
It was during Connor’s first few days as a sophomore that everything changed.
When he turned up for his weekly session at the Irish Dance Club, she was putting on her shoes. He couldn’t see her face, but that didn’t matter much, because he was unable to take his eyes off those long, slim legs. As a football hero, he had become used to girls staring at him, but now the one girl he wanted to impress didn’t seem aware that he even existed. To make matters worse, when she stepped onto the dance floor, she was partnered by Declan O’Casey, who had no rival as a dancer. They both held their backs rigidly straight, and their feet moved with a lightness Connor could never hope to match.
When the number came to an end, Connor still hadn’t discovered her name. And, worse, she and Declan had left before he could find some way of being introduced to her. In desperation, he decided to follow them back to the women’s dorms, walking fifty yards behind and always remaining in the shadows, just as his father had taught him. He grimaced as they held hands and chatted happily. When they reached Le Mans Hall she kissed Declan on the cheek and disappeared inside. Why, he wondered, hadn’t he concentrated more on dancing and less on football?
After Declan had headed off in the direction of the men’s dorms, Connor began to stroll casually up and down the sidewalk below the dormitory windows, wondering if there was anything he could do. He finally caught a glimpse of her in a dressing gown as she drew the curtain, and hung around for a few more minutes before reluctantly returning to his room. He sat on the end of his bed and began composing a letter to his mother, telling her that he had seen the girl he was going to marry, although he hadn’t actually spoken to her yet - and come to think of it, he didn’t even know her name. As Connor licked the envelope, he tried to convince himself that Declan O’Casey was nothing more to her than a dancing partner.
During the week, he tried to find out as much as he could about her, but he picked up very little other than that she was called Maggie Burke, had won a scholarship to St Mary’s, and was in her freshman year studying Art History. He cursed the fact that he had never entered an art gallery in his life; in fact the nearest he’d come to painting was whenever his father asked him to touch up the fence surrounding their little back yard on South Lowe Street. Declan, it turned out, had been dating Maggie since her last year at school, and was not only the best dancer in the club, but was also considered the university’s brightest mathematician. Other institutions were already offering him fellowships to pursue a postgraduate degree, even before the results of his final exams were known. Connor could only hope that Declan would be offered an irresistible post far away from South Bend as soon as possible.
Connor was the first to turn up at the dance club the following Thursday, and whe
n Maggie appeared from the changing room in her cream cotton blouse and short black skirt, the only question he had to consider was whether to stare up into those green eyes or down at her long legs. Once again she was partnered by Declan all evening, while Connor sat mutely on a bench, trying to pretend he wasn’t aware of her presence. After the final number the two of them slipped off. Once again Connor followed them back to Le Mans Hall, but this time he noticed that she wasn’t holding Declan’s hand.
After a long chat and another kiss on the cheek, Declan disappeared off in the direction of the men’s dorms. Connor slumped down on a bench opposite her window and stared up at the balcony of the girls’ dormitory. He decided to wait until he had seen her draw the curtains, but by the time she appeared at the window, he’d dozed off.
The next thing he remembered was waking from a deep sleep in which he had been dreaming that Maggie was standing in front of him, dressed in pyjamas and a dressing gown.
He woke with a start, stared at her in disbelief, jumped up and thrust out his hand. ‘Hi, I’m Connor Fitzgerald.’
‘I know,’ she replied as she shook his hand. ‘I’m Maggie Burke.’
‘I know,’ he said.
‘Any room on that bench?’ she asked.
From that moment, Connor never looked at another woman.
On the following Saturday Maggie went to a football game for the first time in her life, and watched him pull off a series of remarkable plays in front of what was for him a packed stadium of one.