This Human Season Page 22

  ‘Nonsense, Brian! They’ve yet to find him. The point is the looking. And no living unsainted woman is strong enough to let her son die. They haven’t got it in them. Abraham was a man. It’s not a criticism, God help me, it’s a fact. God appoints us for different things, men and

  women. He knows what He’s about. And will you stop confusing God with a United Ireland,’ said Father Fitzgerald crossly, laying down his roll-up. ‘Brian, I’m trying to be patient with you, but you’re going down the wrong road, blind.’

  ‘I serve the people on His behalf. The church ought to stop condemning the IRA and start understanding why it’s come about, why people feel the way they do.’

  ‘That’s cart before horse. The people are sinners not saints, no matter what they’re suffering. They’ve yet to walk in the way of the Lord. And the church is there to try to impart His words to help them.’

  ‘Well it’s not working.’

  ‘You know Brian, there are two things I’ll say to you – first, that you’re in the wrong job and second that I’m too old for this.’ Father Fitzgerald took some time to raise himself from the chair. He put his weight on his arthritic hands as he did so, levering against the table. His hands were like marooned sun-baked crabs, shells about to crack. ‘You bring to mind that fellow, Camillo Torres. He was a priest. Not a very good one. Didn’t he say he had to take off his cassock to serve God better. With a shotgun. Some young hoodlum reminded me about him the other day, the cheeky wee git, using the confession to give me a sermon. Watch your step, Brian. You’ve had too much knowledge of the tree of good and evil. You’ll have to ask God for guidance.’ He stood looking towards the Celtic cross on top of a far shelf. His eyes and mouth were open and dark, the rims around them pale and dry. ‘Don’t leave Him out of this, Brian. And when you advise those you say you serve, try and remember it’s them that stand to lose their children. He didn’t ask that mortals should do the same as Him. He sent the Son so they needn’t.’

  Father Fitzgerald closed his mouth, opened it for a breath of air and, closing it again, felt a terrible ache in lower skull. He tried to let his jaw hang slack. Lately he’d been sleeping with his teeth too tightly clenched.

  Chapter 34

  She liked to stand behind him when he shaved and to put her arms around his softening middle. He shaved without a shirt on, the towel around his waist and he moved his face from side to side, pointing his chin, his cheek stretched out like a canvas.

  ‘Are you all right, John?’

  ‘Umm-hmm.’

  She saw the pink points where his razor had been on the skin of his neck and the tendons that hoisted them. ‘You wouldn’t tell me if you weren’t. Would you? That’s your typical man.’

  He dipped his razor in the water and shook it. ‘I’m all right.’

  ‘You’re not.’ She felt the soft fuzz of his belly hair. She shook his belly. He began on the other cheek.

  ‘He’s a nice boy.’ She put her face alongside his in the frame of the mirror, withdrew her touch.

  He reached for her hands with his wet ones and put them back around him.

  ‘He cleaned the kitchen yesterday. We had quite the chat, you know, when I got in. I told him a bit about things here. I had to have a talk with him. He went off into West Belfast on his own. I suppose he’s got an enquiring mind like his father.’

  He snorted derisively and she went to go and get dressed. He followed her into the room, watching her as she fastened her bra. He put his hands on her waist, kissed her shoulders. They had made love that morning and now they were at peace with each other.

  They had the Datsun again. They drove out north on the A2 travelling along the coastline. So quickly Belfast was behind them.

  ‘I’ve always had a fancy to live on the seashore, so I have.’ Angie pointed out the new housing estate at Rathcoole. ‘That’s a Protestant one, nice homes, you see. But the Catholics have some nice ones too. Like Twinbrooke. Everyone needs houses.’

  ‘Seems like people think a lot about their houses out here,’ Mark remarked, between their seats. They passed by several of the new fauxmansions of the well to do, new bricks, ornate details, even pillars and columns.

  ‘You will too when you have a family, I didn’t at your age,’ said his father, his hands relaxing on the wheel. ‘It drives nicely,’ he added, nodding at Angie with respect. ‘People here aren’t any different from anywhere. Yeah there’s the Troubles here and that makes life a bit different, a bit difficult, but people are the same the world over.’

  ‘Oh aye.’

  ‘Angie’s told you a bit about things here then?’

  ‘I’ve read about it in the papers, but you don’t get to hear much in England.’

  ‘No. I don’t suppose young people are very interested in it all.’

  ‘No one ever talks about it.’

  When they came to Carrickfergus, Angie pointed out the castle on the water’s edge and Mark craned his neck.

  ‘We’ll push on and have a bite in Cushendall,’ said John. ‘You’ll see, this is a beautiful country.’

  ‘In a way it makes it worse,’ said Angie, a hand on his knee.

  ‘No it doesn’t Angela! There’s hope out here in the land. Look at me now, out here I feel like a different man,’ he said, lifting himself with a small jump, jolting her hand off him. ‘And don’t say you do too, Angie . . .’ he nodded at her. ‘I’ve a tank full of petrol, a posh car, a lovely lady at my side and some fellow in the back. Who is he anyway Angie? There’s miles ahead of us, miles behind, green everywhere. What more can a man ask for?’ He looked in the driving mirror and smiled, felt his ears lift.

  ‘It’s a great day,’ said Mark.

  ‘We don’t often get sunshine in December,’ said Angie. ‘It usually pees down, so it does, freezing cold and it goes right through you. It gets in your shoes, down your neck, urgh, terrible.’

  ‘Angie, I would never have had you down as a whiner.’ Mark gave her a little poke.

  ‘She bloody is as well! You’re right there, mate.’

  ‘Aye well, I suppose it does look better in the sunshine, it’s just you have to wait six months for a spell.’

  Driving along the narrow road with the steep green hills to their left and the rough grey sea to their right, Mark spied the tiny old dwellings that stood alone, white walls and meek roofs, set in long grass and tumultuous earth. ‘It’s beautiful,’ he said, his eyes caught. ‘Now that’s somewhere I could live.’

  ‘I didn’t have you down as a loner, Mark,’ said John.

  ‘Well, I’d need a decent pub close by.’

  At the little town of Cushendall they went from one place to the next, and it was the third one that John said would do. It had a log fire and a small square bar and they took the window seat and John bought them each a pint of Guinness. Angie handed John a packet of Panatela’s and he lit one and the three of them sat underneath the arbour of its smoke and woody smell.

  ‘Don’t leave your rubbish in Cushendall, take it with you and leave it in

  Cushendun.’ John pointed out the framed sign on the brick wall.

  ‘See that? That’s one thing about this country, despite all of it, they’ve got a sense of humour.’

  He asked Mark to tell him about his grandfather and what they’d liked to do together. Ronnie Wilson was headmaster of the local school. He’d been a self-taught architect on a modest scale.

  ‘I still can’t believe he’s dead. I keep expecting to hear him going on at me – have I been touching his drafting pencils? He died of a brain tumour. He changed his diet, exercised, tried to beat it but he lost a lot of weight and died within six months. One thing he taught me, well actually he taught me lots of things, but they say you get the measure of a man by how he dies and the thing with Grandad was he never felt sorry for himself. He was in good spirits right up to the end.’

  ‘Liked a drink did he?’

  ‘He wasn’t much of a drinker, no.’

  ‘Never trust
a man who doesn’t take a drop,’ John said, getting up and going to the bar.

  ‘I think he’s a wee bit jealous,’ said Angie.

  They had a toasted ham and cheese sandwich each, two slices of cucumber and a quarter tomato on the side. ‘But it’s the Guinness that makes a meal of it,’ John said.

  When Mark went to the toilet, Angie said to him, ‘Relax, love, enjoy the day.’

  He took a quick glance at his watch.

  ‘Stop staring at him all the time, as well.’

  ‘I’m not. Am I?’

  ‘Aye you are. People will be thinking you’re poofs.’

  ‘Don’t talk silly.’ He shifted in his seat, glanced towards the toilet door and said in a low voice, ‘I keep trying to see myself in him and I can’t. He’s got more of her, more of her side. Bloody funny looking lot. A bit girlish isn’t he? What do you think? He’s got a lazy eye. Have you noticed?’

  ‘So have you. Makes you look like a pervert.’

  ‘Christ.’

  ‘It does something to me.’

  ‘I worry about you sometimes Angela.’ The toilet door was opening.

  ‘Listen. He is my son, isn’t he?’

  ‘He’s your son all right, John.’

  ‘You’re sure?’

  ‘Aye I’m sure of it, love.’

  The road came to an end just beyond Cushendun and John was perplexed. He jumped out of the car and went into a pub to ask for directions. A man came outside with a cigarette hanging from his lip, pointing and shouting against the rising wind. Rain came down suddenly as though the sheet holding it had given way. John lowered his head and ran back to the car, he leapt in, the car shaking at the axis.

  ‘Blowed if I could make out what he meant,’ he said, putting the car into reverse, his hand behind Angie’s headrest, looking grimly out through the back window.

  At Ballycastle they took a turn to Armoy. John put his foot to the floor. At Armoy, having run into a petrol station to ask directions, he said it had been the wrong thing to do and they headed towards Ballymoney.

  ‘The Causeway is a major tourist spot, you’d think they’d give it a signpost.’

  ‘It’s great to get to see the countryside,’ said his son.

  The car bounded up and along the roads that passed now through farming countryside, great deep valleys and then flattened mountain tops, a religious slogan on a barn-side, a raggle-taggle Union Jack on a telephone cable, a woman out walking, arms stiff like pegs.

  ‘I love the way it rises and falls, totally unpredictable. In England it’s more even.’

  ‘More reasonable,’ said Angie.

  ‘Will you stop all that rubbish.’ John gave Angie a look.

  ‘I’m just saying that . . .’

  ‘I know what you’re saying. You’ve said enough. It’s all a drama with you all the time. It’s always a bloody tragedy.’

  ‘And that’s not true about this place? No place for a young person.’

  ‘Oh, just give it a rest, will you. Jesus.’

  John put his foot down after a junction and then applied the break abruptly as a herd of sheep appeared in front of them. A long-coated man with a stick nodded at them without raising his head, the rain weighed down on his cap. Two Border collies were doing their work with joy despite the rain.

  ‘Now that’s your real Northern Ireland,’ said John.

  The road came to a crossroads and they were there, at the car-park for the Giant’s Causeway. The rain had almost ceased and John was pleased. With his arm firmly around Angie, he strode out down the pathway, the wind snapping at them. Mark fell a little behind, looking over at the sun sinking forlornly between the breasts of two hills. As they went down into the small cove, it became quite dark. John pointed out the Causeway itself and gave Angie a kiss. The kiss went on and Mark saw Angie’s fingers at his father’s shoulders, saw his father’s back round over her.

  Then John put an arm around his son’s shoulders and said to him,

  ‘Here you go then, fella, here’s the Giant’s Causeway and there’s stories and legends which another man could tell you but not me.’

  They stepped forward, John had his right hand buried deep in the pocket of Angela’s raincoat. They climbed up some of the short stacks of stone that looked like children’s blocks. They mounted them so that they had a view of the whole and John held both of their hands as the wind lashed them. There they were on the slippery rocks, swaying but standing and if one of them faltered John countered. The sea was grey and navy and white and ragged.

  ‘Well?’

  Angie’s cheeks were red and her hair wet and she was happy and nervous. She leaned into John to hear the boy’s answer.

  ‘Well – it’s a long walk for a short drink.’

  ‘Did I hear right? You ungrateful little bastard, you wait till I get a hold of you.’

  ‘You’d never catch me, pal.’ Mark set off, lankily running up the hill, looking back.

  When Angie got there, John’s hand was on Mark’s shoulder and he was bent at the waist, panting. ‘The air’s cold. In your lungs. Angie. It’s your shout.’

  * * *

  They had a bowl of soup in the hotel at the top of the hill. It was a prim place: a bar like a four-poster bed, dark wood and stately, waitresses with white aprons and an elderly clientele. The three of them were reckless. John ordered up a Guinness each and they sat at the bar, laughing. The barmaid told them they needed to register at reception in order to eat and they would have to wait until someone came to take their order.

  ‘So I can’t just say to you, three bowls of soup please, then?’

  ‘No, I’m sorry Sir,’ the skinny girl said, looking awkward. ‘There’s a procedure.’

  ‘Bloody hell, a procedure! You lucky sods. Why haven’t we got procedures Angie? I want procedures when I eat from now on.’

  The girl looked sympathetic. ‘It is a wee bit ridiculous.’

  A lady came over and looked at them from over her half-moon glasses.

  ‘Trouble, Ruth?’

  ‘No, Ma’am.’

  ‘No Ma’am,’ said John. ‘May I kiss your hand?’

  ‘No you may not,’ she said, pulling her cardigan closed.

  ‘I’m so sorry but it’s his first time with procedures,’ said Mark.

  ‘He’s from an English university. So he’s used to it.’

  ‘He’s got a lovely speaking voice,’ said the woman, mollified, going off.

  ‘You’re in there, son.’

  Chapter 35

  Sammy opened the door, took off his glasses, looked sorrowful. Kathleen explained that she needed to try and give the kids a bit of normal life, then Sheila came to the door with a towel round her head, her mostly bald brows slightly red from where she’d been plucking them. Sammy retreated, regretful, saying a low goodbye.

  ‘I’m not coming on the march, Sheila. I’m taking the kids to the football.’

  ‘And what about your Sean?’

  ‘He’s not here so I’m taking the kids I’ve still got.’

  After a few minutes’ walk, their mother silent, fuming, Aine said,

  ‘That Sheila McCann can be a right bitch.’

  They were taking a holiday from the Troubles; they were going to get themselves ready for Christmas instead. The rest of Ballymurphy was long decked-out. Over at Eilish’s you couldn’t move. The Purcell boys were artistic; they’d got garlands coming out of their arses as Roisin said. Roisin herself had gone and bought a lovely white artificial tree. Kathleen told Sean he’d have to go out and get them a real one.

  ‘The needles everywhere, stuck in the carpet. More to clean up.’

  ‘I know. I know,’ he murmured, looking sour.

  ‘So where’s the dustpan and brush then if you know so much about it?’

  ‘Under the stairs? Is it? Is it? Well if you’ve gone and changed where it is . . .’

  The three of them stopped to buy a couple of bags of crisps and a bottle of Coke to share on the way
back from the football, and Liam had her laughing going on how sharing a drink with Aine was like having Irish stew.

  Owen McCann came round just after six the evening after the march. His mother had been at the front, next to naked, wrapped in a blanket, along with other men and women all barefoot. Sammy McCann was a steward and walked along the side in his raincoat with a loud-hailer.

  The two boys made tea and snacks and brought them out tentatively, mugs stowed in elbows and plates on their forearms and in their hands. Both of them were new devotees of the self-prepared snack. They took great slugs from orange squash and bites of cream crackers spread with peanut butter.

  Aine lay in front of the TV, moving occasionally to turn up the volume. She’d had her tea. She was watching a quiz show, Ask the Family. If there was noise outside she’d get closer and closer to the television, adjusting the volume each time she moved.

  ‘You’ll not get inside of it that way Aine,’ said her father, pulling her back by the shoulders.

  ‘So the peelers started up with their batons,’ said Owen. I always see one I know. I saw them two who were round our house last week, telling the soldiers where to look and what to do; the one’s sniffing in the kitchen cupboards saying, I can smell marzipan, and the other’s saying, There’s flour on the floor here, and so Mummy goes and gets out the Christmas cake to show them. I saw them today. I said hello to them but they acted as if they didn’t know me.’

  ‘They thought you’d got some gelignite in there that’s what it was,’ said Sean, looking sage.

  ‘The Brits opened up with rubber bullets and me and my mum, we jumped over a garden wall and we’re laying in dog shite, but at least we’re safe, then up behind us comes that soldier as checked our bags the other day, Liam, you know the one, “no need to be that way lads”, except now he says, “Get the fuck out of here” and aims his gun at us.’