This Human Season Page 2

  The duty officer was turning the pen in his mouth and breathing through his nose as he studied the lists. Dunn could smell that he had a cold, his breath was fruited, rank. He heard the anxiety of a prison officer behind him, saying loud enough, ‘Please God I’m not on a fucking grille outside, let it be inside a block.’

  After a moment, Dunn said to the man behind him. ‘Where were you last week?’

  ‘Ask yer girl,’ the man replied, and behind him three or four men fell about laughing.

  ‘That’s what they call the prison catch-phrase,’ the duty officer said. He was picking up granules of sugar from around three fruit pastilles on his open book, his fingertip wetted, making dirty marks on the page. He pushed back his cap, picked up his biro and rubbed his forehead with the blunt end then slapped his notes.

  ‘There’s your wee name now. You’re on the get-rich-quick scheme, Mr Dunn.’

  ‘I don’t follow, Sir.’

  ‘Working on the protest blocks.’

  ‘Yes, that’s right, Sir.’

  ‘Aye. Well, Dunn, have I got the H block for you. Bolton’s welfare programme! Nice people. Shame about the shit.’

  John Dunn went off, pass in hand, his shoulders stiff, with the duty officer calling out after him, ‘I see you’ve dressed for the occasion!’

  He went behind the administration building, and took a long walk around the H block to which he’d been assigned. He had seen pictures of the H blocks on the news the night before; there was an item on the pace of their construction.

  Ahead of him was the site for the last two; stacks of materials, dumpers, a single tree like a flag planted on the moon. Sealed off beyond the fence – like something from a different era, or the set of a film – were the nissen huts of Long Kesh’s former RAF camp, active but quiet, the prison for terrorists captured before 1976.

  John Dunn showed his pass and was admitted through two grilles into the front yard. Ahead of him was a single storey, office-type building, low and slit-eyed, with two arms reaching forwards.

  Walking up to the block door, he looked left and right, at the prisoners’ cell windows. The bars and spaces of the window were of equal width, a vertically striped space. He caught sight of a prisoner at his window. Dunn couldn’t see the whole face, just as from the man’s sideways movements he could tell that a person inside couldn’t see a whole view. He saw the man’s hand extend across the deep ledge, palm upwards, as if weighing the air. There was no glass to the window.

  A step further and the smell of the place hit him. It was human excrement, a thick and knowing stench. It got stronger as he got closer and when the front door was opened, it was overpowering.

  Dunn was let through two further grilles to enter ‘the circle’ – the rectangular administration area of the block, named after the rounded area of the Victorian model. The senior officer stood there with a row of five men in front of him. He was finishing up giving them their detail and there was a degree of teasing going on, for the senior officer was repeating himself with heavy emphasis, and the officers looked obliged to laugh again.

  Dunn wasn’t feeling humorous. The smell had taken him over completely and he could neither think, hear, nor talk. He was straight-faced, earnest to the point of grief-stricken when the senior officer greeted him.

  ‘Well cheer up now, Mr Dunn,’ said the big man, veined-cheeked, swollen-eyed, with a mouth that was merely a companion to his volatile moustache. ‘I’m Senior Officer Campbell. I see you’re an ex-army man like myself. I’ll expect you to know what you’re about. One rule here, watch yourself. The walls have ears so take care what you say when the Provies are about. Now get yourself a cup of something in the mess.’

  Campbell opened the door to the officers’ mess and nodded at the two officers sat at the table. ‘This here is John Dunn, fellas. These two young men before you are Officer Higgins and Officer Harding. Better known as Shandy and Frig. I’ll leave laughing boy with you then,’ he said, going out. ‘Mind you keep it down now, wouldn’t want to wake Principal Officer.’

  The one called Frig went back to reading aloud from the paper. ‘“. . .screws can rest assured that they will remain targets and will continue to die while they implement the barbaric penal policies of the Northern Ireland office and the British government.”A statement from Sinn Fein. There you go Mr Dunn,’ he said. ‘Welcome aboard HMS Maze! First they built the Titanic, then they built the Maze.’

  The man further away, Shandy, put down his knife and fork. There was egg down the handle of the knife and brown sauce in the corners of his mouth. He had soft shoulders and maudlin eyes and he sat back chewing at the new officer.

  ‘You see, the fact is we’re all in the same boat. Of course it’s more what you call a sinking ship.’ Frig offered Dunn his hand. He was slight with fair hair, thin at the front, long at the sides, with a Birmingham accent. His jacket was on the back of the chair. ‘Anyway, I don’t give a frig, me, that’s how I got the name.’

  Dunn still had the excrement very much in mind. He looked over at the frying pan on the ring, saw the burnt petticoat tail of the egg white around the sides of it. Shandy’s jaw was moving, regular as a cement mixer, and even when he took a drink of his tea, it turned, folding the liquid in with the rest.

  ‘Don’t you listen to the wee man. He loves this job. He’d do it even if they didn’t pay him.’ He took an open-mouthed breath, his jaw askew, indicated a chair. ‘You should grow your hair, Mr Dunn. What do they call you? John? Johnno? Welcome to the Maze,’ he looked down at his plate, assessed it with dissatisfaction and lay down his cutlery.

  ‘Did you have a long drive in then John?’ asked Frig, a little nervy in his nonchalance.

  ‘East Belfast.’ Dunn said, sitting. The pair of them relaxed visibly.

  ‘Ach well there now in that case,’ Shandy’s voice rolled forth like a welcome mat, ‘you’re one of us then, even if you are a Brit. Your man Frig here, he’s neither fish nor fowl. He’s a mercenary like, he’s here for the beer money, no family, next to no friends, and he doesn’t give a fuck about this place. He could be shovelling shit . . .’

  ‘I do shovel shit,’ said Frig, indicating the Wellington boots on his lower legs. ‘Every bloody day.’

  ‘Can you buy cigarettes round here?’ asked Dunn. The table was white, the walls were a sickening gloss white, even the floor was white. There were no pictures or notices, the strip lighting glimmered.

  ‘Have one,’ said Frig, tossing one across. ‘There’s a machine in Clean Jim’s, we’ll be heading down there later. You get used to the smell of shit but it takes a few days. I don’t even notice it now. It’s like working on a farm or something. It’s amazing what you get used to. Right Shandy mate?’

  Dunn leant forward to receive the light Frig offered him. He took a drag of dirt and relief. ‘Cheers.’

  The door opened. A prisoner in overalls, an orderly, came in and picked up a couple of breakfast plates and took them to the sink.

  ‘Aye and about fucking time,’ said Shandy.

  ‘About ye, gents, any news from the outside worth the having?’

  ‘You’d already know it if there was,’ said Shandy.

  The orderly at the sink shrugged, rolled his sleeves up and stood back from the spluttering tap. He set about the washing up.

  ‘Baxter’s what you call an ODC, an ordinary decent criminal,’ said Frig.

  Baxter cast a glance behind him at the two mugs on the table. At the same time, he threw a look at the new prison officer. Then he moved almost imperceptibly, quickly, and took up the cups while they were talking. Dunn saw the tattoos on the back of his neck and over his forearms.

  ‘He killed some bloke – a bar brawl, wasn’t it?’

  ‘He lived. Broken collarbone,’ put in Baxter.

  ‘He wasn’t a Catholic, was he Bax? It wasn’t because he was a Taig, was it now?’ said Shandy.

  ‘They tried to claim him, the loyalist block,’ Frig explained. ‘But Baxter’s too o
rdinary and decent for sectarian hate, he’ll have a go at anyone, never mind his religion or his skin colour. He’s what you call open-minded. Make the man a cuppa, Bax, will you?’

  ‘No need. I’ll make it myself,’ said Dunn, taking a drag and then laying the cigarette down in the ashtray.

  Baxter moved to stand between Dunn and the kettle. He had a regularity of features and a bonhomie that made him seem familiar. Dunn was tall, six-foot two. His own eyes, he knew, were unfriendly.

  ‘How do you take it? Milk and sugar?’

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘Well now that I come to think of it, soldier-boy,’ Shandy went on, looking at Dunn but never losing sight of Frig. ‘You with your squaddie haircut there, you might just take my spot on the hit list.’ He laughed. ‘I’ll have to buy you a beer for that John Dunn.’

  Baxter put the cup down in front of Dunn with care. Shandy removed something from his teeth that he wiped on to his trousers. ‘Frig was it you on the bacon today?’

  ‘Yup.’

  ‘I might have bloody known, it was a quare stringy piece of shite. I’m doing the lads a dinner this week Mr Dunn. I make a fantastic spaghetti bolognese. We have a wee drink with it and a game of cards; it makes for a very pleasant evening.’

  Shandy stood up and stretched himself, the keys at his trouser belt fell and swung. He looked out of the window across the yard. ‘Ah, fuck,’ he said. He checked his watch. ‘We might as well get on with the unlock. Come on then, Dunn, that way you’ll get a chance to meet our guests.’

  Dunn looked down at the abandoned plate on the table, with its marks on it like it had been used for painting, saw Baxter put his thumb in the side of the red and move behind and away.

  At the door, Shandy was hat on, jacket on, adjusting his waistband.

  ‘Ready then?’

  Chapter 3

  ‘I took three packets in the Kesh with me yesterday afternoon, gave them all out, and when I got out I hadn’t even the one for myself to smoke.’

  Kathleen gave Father Pearse a cup of tea and offered him a cigarette from her pack. He fumbled as he tried to take one. She took it out herself, lit it between her lips and handed it to him.

  ‘We had the Brits in this morning. My first thought was to get Sean out the back door.’

  Her living room was a mess. Where the plaster had come through and hit the floor, there was grey dust in the pile of the carpet, and the ceiling was still gaping, with bits falling every time one of them was walking upstairs. She closed the exercise book next to her; she’d been working backwards and forwards through their money problems when the priest called in.

  ‘I haven’t had a chance to get any fags today. Been up at the Royal.’ The priest was shaking, cigarette ash falling into a fortunately-placed dustpan, settling on top of bits of white plaster.

  ‘You’re a bag of nerves, Father,’ said Kathleen. She was thinking, ‘His pay covers the rent at eight pound and leaves us forty-two pound for bills and food, which is just over ten pound a week and I can carry on doing part time at the butcher’s but I might still have to take out a loan from the Ballymurphy Credit Union . . .’

  ‘No, I’m grand. I like my days up at the hospital. They all know me there now and I get a good dinner in the canteen at staff price.’

  She placed the packet on the arm of the chair and tapped them.

  ‘You keep them,’ she said bravely. It was about two-thirds full.

  The priest was sitting forward on the armchair, his round collar open, his tummy over the top of his trousers, his jacket creased. His fingertips bore dark brown stains. He removed a rolled-up newspaper from behind him and smoothed it out on the armrest; it fell down on to the carpet, settling noiselessly.

  The father shook his head, stuttering a little before coming to the point.

  ‘Well now. When I was up the Kesh, Kathleen, ah, yesterday was it, well, you see now, I was giving confession to the boys and I saw your Sean.’

  ‘Oh Jesus,’ she said and sat down.

  He put both hands out. ‘He’s all right, Kathleen, he’s all right.’

  ‘Lord have mercy. I’ve been praying for all I’m worth, Father.’ She glanced at the Christ figure on her mantelpiece. It was propping up a small square photo of Sean standing next to his grandfather’s Hillman. In fact, her prayers were short, angry, cheated, and they had been that way since two men came to their door one evening two years before, asking for Sean and not leaving their names.

  ‘How is he? Is he bad? What was it like, Father?’

  ‘He’s in a cell with a nice fellow from Andersonstown who used to be a teacher, Gerard McIlvenny. He came to one or two of the ecumenical dos, wouldn’t know a stick of gelignite from an altar candle! A nice lad. We all had a chat together like. Well you see there’s not the space for what you call privacy.’

  ‘Were you able to give Sean his confession?’

  The father shifted on his seat. He put his forefinger and thumb up to the bridge of his nose underneath the frame of his glasses. ‘To tell you the truth, I don’t do it unless they bother me for it. I never feel it is for me to act as if I was better than them. It’s an awful place, Kathleen. Every cell, filthy like, your feet stick to the floor and the smell knocks you for six. They’ve got a foam mattress each on the floor that gets smaller every time I see them, with them ripping a handful off every day to use for putting their shite on the walls. The smell! Words can’t describe it. And the food is served to them on the damn floor.’

  ‘Lord have mercy.’

  ‘Aye.’

  ‘And what about the boys in there, how are they, in themselves?’ Father Pearse took a sip of tea and looked at the mantelpiece, gesturing at the figurine. ‘Half naked, thin like, with the blanket on you know. Longhaired most of them, beards on those that can grow them. They’re all so young, Kathleen. And it’s “Sorry Father for the smell and the mess.” That’s what you get from them. I always say to myself, if they can stick this for three years I can stick an afternoon. “Yous have no need to apologize to me, boys,” I tell them. “It’s the perfume of Christ himself I’m smelling.” Well, they laugh at that, you see. You’ve got to make light of it.’ He stubbed out his cigarette and took another one from the pack she had left by him.

  Kathleen got up to give him the lighter.

  ‘They’re concerned for you on the outside, like. They ask after their families.’

  ‘Well you tell him he’s no need to worry for us. I’m down to a couple of mornings at the butcher’s, but I’ll get something else after Christmas and Sean is working at the Fiddlers near every day, drinking most of his wages, but we’re getting food on the table so you can’t complain. There’s some that can’t.’

  ‘Well now he said to tell you he knows why he’s there. He’s very firm on that. He said to tell you not to worry they’re looking out for each other. They’ve got their rosary beads and they know their Bible inside out. It’s the only book they have to read.’

  ‘Still I’d like him to be getting his confession.’

  Father Pearse shook his head, exhaling brown smoke. He seemed to be absorbed by the pattern on the carpet, looking at it the way people look out of a window. ‘God help me, Kathleen, sometimes I wish it was me with the gun.’

  ‘I know, Father. I know. My Sean, he’s all right, though?’

  ‘Aye, aye, he’s dead on, Kathleen. He’ll manage. They all stick it, God knows how they do.’

  There was the sound of the front door slurring against the doormat and Aine came in wearing a duffel coat.

  ‘We’re having a grown-ups chat the wee moment, Aine,’ said her mother, nodding at the kitchen. ‘There’s a couple of biscuits in there for you, then pop off down to Una’s will you and bring me back the iron her mummy’s borrowed.’

  The girl’s hair had the netting of fine rain on it.

  ‘What about ye, Father. Mummy, I couldn’t find my pencils to take to school this morning. I was the only one as didn’t do the nativity in colour.�
��

  ‘Use your eyes to find them; they’re better than mine so they are. Would you like to tell me what’s the difference between me looking and you looking?’

  ‘You know where they are, that’s the difference.’ The girl dropped her heavy coat on to the side of the banister and went upstairs.

  ‘Would you like a biscuit, Father?’

  ‘I ought to be away.’

  Kathleen went to the kitchen and returned with custard creams on a plate. She placed them next to the cigarettes on the armchair, then leant down to pick a piece of plaster out of her sock; it was like a child’s tooth.

  Her son, Liam, came in, short of breath and told them that the Brits were out in the side alley. ‘What about ye, Father. Is it chips for tea, Mummy?’

  ‘No it’s not, it’s corned beef. You’ll be keeping in then, Liam!’

  ‘And how is young Liam doing?’ asked the father, looking after him as the boy took to the stairs.

  ‘Near the top of his class at St Thomas’s. The Lord knows how. I can only think they’re an ignorant lot in there. I’m always having to chase him round the Murph, if there’s rioting going on you can be sure he’s there.’

  ‘Any news from your Mary?’

  ‘No news is good news.’

  Aine went past them into the kitchen and came out with a biscuit in each hand. ‘You go straight to Una’s, miss, and come right back. Get Mrs McCann to watch you back. What do you do if one of them soldiers speaks to you?’

  ‘Ask where my pencils is gone?’

  ‘You never, never speak to them. Mind you, Father, they took a Parker pen from this house one time, so they did. Off you go then, love.’

  Kathleen stood at the door watching as the girl crossed over the street and went into her friend’s home. She was wearing her older brother’s football shirt over her jeans, it looked like a dress on her, she was so thin, with long dark-red hair that curled, like her mother’s.

  Opposite the house, a Brit was crouching at the side of Mrs Mulhern’s, his gun across his lap. He looked over at Kathleen and she crossed her arms and closed the door, bumping into the stand with the phone on it. She picked up the receiver to listen for its heartbeat then put it back gently. ‘It’s a miracle the ambulances still come up here at all. They’ve got the army hiding out at Mrs Mulhern’s. Do they think she’s a volunteer now? Sure, there’s no sense to any of it.’