I could hear no sound but our quiet breathing. As I stood next to him, trembling in the shadowy candlelight, I imagined his chest slowly rising and falling.
Joe recited his vows in a calm, unfaltering voice, but I could feel the tremor in his hands as he guided the ring onto my finger, getting it stuck at my knuckle, even though my hand was shrunk with the cold. Then my turn. I stared into his eyes. He squeezed my hands, willing me to go on. “Until death us do part” I whispered.
After we were pronounced husband and wife our hands slipped from each other’s grip as the soldiers replaced Joe’s handcuffs. He turned and slowly blew me a kiss as they marched him back to his cell. My footsteps resonated around the empty chapel, the echoes growing louder and louder, chasing after me, taunting me. Once I got outside the door I threw myself backwards against the wall and through sobs and gritted teeth cursed God, the British; even Joe himself, for becoming so involved in this whole thing. I momentarily lost my faith in the cause; the fight to free Ireland from the British. Die for Ireland, Joe? Die for Ireland? I want you to live, Joe, live - for me.
Back in my room, I lay on the bed in the darkness and thought about him: Joe, my husband. Joe, who I thought I had just seen for the last time. “My husband”. I said it over to myself a few times. I even smiled a bit as I remembered how I used to practice in front of the mirror, saying: “This is my husband, Joe.” And how I had imagined him, rather proud and formal, introducing me: “I’d like you to meet my wife, Grace.” My wife. My wife…
We’d planned the wedding for Easter. Nothing grand, just the best man and witnesses. No invitations or flower girls, nothing like that. But I had the dress! How I loved that dress. The cut, the fit of it: the gleam of the silk; the weight of it enfolding my hips and then falling away into a swaying heaviness around my legs. Joe never saw me in that dress. It didn’t seem 'appropriate' to wear it to the prison. And it was all so much of a rush. I just had time to run out and buy a ring. Crying I was. Crying when I bought my wedding ring.
“With my body I thee worship”. Oh, Joe! Joe! “With my body I thee worship.” His slender delicate body: to be able to enjoy it openly; without furtiveness.
(Imagining) On our wedding night he would have looked at me. Looked at me naked. Gazing at me tenderly: for a long time; then toucing me.
Like the time we lay on top of the cliffs together. Sprawled on the grass we were; like two seals or something, basking in the sun, abandoning our bodies to its warmth. When he kissed my breasts I nearly melted with the pleasure of it. A button came off my bodice, we were both so eager. And when I got up, Joe burst out laughing at all the grass stains on the back of my dress. They wouldn’t rub off and he had to walk a few paces behind me all the way back to town. It must have looked like we’d had a falling-out; but then probably not, because we couldn’t stop giggling.
That beautiful, tender body that they were about to riddle with their murderous bullets.
By the time the message came from the prison I was in a kind of trance. I’d been pacing the floor, not being able to be with Joe, but trying to spend his last hours with him, nevertheless. Trying to communicate with him, through my thoughts.
Then, at that darkest of hours, my heart was flooded with unimaginable joy: I was to see Joe one more time.
When I walked into his cell, the soldiers lined the walls, bayonets fixed. (In a London or other English regional accent) “Ten minutes” the sergeant said. I thought they might leave us alone. But no: there they remained, motionless; vicious rows of spiked railings. Joe smiled at me, took my hand in his and gently kissed it. We didn’t make a show. We didn’t give them that pleasure. He just folded me in his arms and held me there the whole time. Occasionally we looked at each other’s faces, but mostly he just pressed his lips against my hair and I buried my face in his chest, trying to remember forever the sound and feel of his beating heart.
Then: (London accent again)“Your time’s up!” the sergeant said, and that was it. Not even any time to say goodbye really; I was out quicker than I was in. That was the one time I almost begged for mercy – for me, for Joe. But I didn’t. Joe wouldn’t have wanted it and anyway, it was pointless: the British had made it clear they would be making an example of Joe.
After seeing him for the last time, I waited outside the prison walls. My nerves were shattering. Every little sound – a window opening, the whistle of the wind – startled me. My nerves shattered, along with the rest of me, when what I was waiting for, what I knew would certainly happen, but dreaded with my whole being, happened. I heard movement in the prison yard: doors opening; voices; footsteps on gravel. I heard the orders being given: the countdown; aim; fire. I heard the shots explode. I dropped to my knees like a stone.
1916, post Easter Rising, a young couple marries. But there will be no honeymoon.
At about 11.30 pm on 3 May 1916 Grace Gifford married Joseph Plunkett, one of the leaders of the Easter Rising, in the chapel at Kilmainham Prison, Dublin. Plunkett was shot at dawn the next day. This is Grace’s (mainly fictional) account of their wedding and last meeting.