Under a cloudless, moonless November sky, a little white Vauxhall bounced down the road, its nervous, inexpert driver grinding gears. Eamon, a round-shouldered giant who looked better suited to the University than the Provisional IRA, squashed into the backseat, stared out the window. After they’d left Belfast, he saw little traffic. Now, well past midnight, none. No one to notice when they entered a remote, desolate part of County Monaghan, Eire.
Eamon kept silent. After all, what was there to say?
A grizzled Provo veteran, a hero of many battles with both Prots and Brits, and their operational chief’s number one, swiveled in the passenger seat to search Eamon with tired eyes. He growled, “What the Devil possessed you, lad?”
“Boxty.” A knowing half-smile curved Eamon’s lips.
“Feckin’ potato pancakes?” The greying head swung from side to side. “You right feckin’ eedjit.”
Eamon nodded, enraptured by an aroma only he could smell—fresh potatoes, fresh buttermilk, frying in fresh butter, all miracles to have at the height of the Troubles.
Ah, Lily, it was your boxty that did for me.
He closed his eyes. In his mind, Lily sprang to life in her daffodil-colored cotton housedress in the tiny kitchen putting flour, baking soda, and salt in a small bowl, chipped at the rim, but still cheery with its pattern of marigolds running around that rim. Lily liked bright, cheerful things and people. He always brought her flowers, whatever he could get, but always colorful, preferably bright yellow.
Into a much larger, plain glass bowl, she combined the mashed potatoes—oh, the heavenly rich golden butter in those—with raw potatoes, the true key to boxty. After mixing the potatoes, Lily added the flour mixture from the small bowl and folded everything together, the potatoes thoroughly coated.
Eamon loved the way Lily threw her whole arm into the work and how her full, wide mouth pursed, eminently kissable. The pink tip of her tongue slid between her lips in concentration as she mixed the rich, sour buttermilk into the floured potatoes. Never too much, always a proper batter, almost but not quite a dough, just like her granny’d taught her.
Once done, she carried the bowl to the old stove, slapped down the cast-iron frying pan, and ignited the gas. Lily flattened the batter into round pancakes before dropping them, neat as you please, into the pan. The welcoming butter sizzled and popped. The pancakes turned tawny, she flipped them, and they turned golden-brown again with yet more butter.
Eamon’s mouth watered, felt again the crunch of the boxty, of its hot, buttery goodness filling him, much the way Lily filled him. She liked hers with HP sauce; he preferred his with plenty of black pepper, a legacy, no doubt, of his time hiding out in America.
A ham of a hand slapped Eamon. “Have a titter of wit, will ya?”
Face stinging, ears ringing, Eamon shook his head. He’d not tell tales. Lily was the wife of his operational chief, a small, dark man who loved his bombs and guns and taking it to the Brits and the Prots more than he loved Lily. And Eamon was no monk when confronted with a lonely woman who wanted a man in her house to pamper. He desired it—and her. Their affair had been as inevitable and as luxurious as the batter meeting the butter in the pan.
The Provos weren’t going to leave his body in plain sight as a message. They did that for grassing, not for this kind of betrayal. They would put out some story about his being caught by the British or being on the run to America to cover the actuality of his death. Didn’t bloody matter.
He’d earned his bullet in the head.
K. G. Whitehurst holds a PhD in British history from the University of Virginia. Her work has appeared at DIYMFA.com, (blogs on historical fiction), in RENAISSANCE PAPERS 1999, and FACES, a history magazine for children. Currently, she reviews books in mystery and science fiction for BookSirens and KINGS RIVER LIFE. as she writes both historical and science fiction mysteries. She lives with her husband, three cats, and over one hundred houseplants in Frederick, Maryland, USA.
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