This Human Season Page 24

  ‘What about you? Your father left you, you said.’

  He thought about his own father; sandy-haired, soft spoken, warm hands, a whistler. Or was that someone he’d seen in a film, at the pictures?

  ‘Like I told you, I was only just six when my old man came back from the war. We were staying with my mum’s parents then. My dad heard the army was moving out and we went right away, the three of us, down to Mote Park – that’s in Maidstone where I came from – and we took a hut, painted and cleaned and moved right in that night. He clapped his hands, my dad, and said this’ll do and when the military police came crashing in in the middle of the night my dad told them to fuck off. All of that week when other families came to try to take it, he told them the same thing. It was exciting to have a dad all of a sudden. And one who’d been a soldier and had medals and broke the rules. We cooked outside and he took me wherever he went. I was just a nipper. On his shoulders, across the park and into the town. ‘This is my boy John. He’s going to be a general.’ He got a job at the Post Office, got a great big bike and on Friday nights he put me on the handlebars and took me to fetch the fish and chips for all of us. Christ, I can remember it like yesterday.’ He brandished the carrier bag. ‘I bloody licked the print off the newspaper afterwards. The smell of vinegar still makes me think of him.’

  ‘He sounds great.’

  ‘Anyone would have been great. I used to wait for him up at the top of the park, by a stile, with this dog I got, a mutt called Rhett. I was there every evening at five to get that ride on the handlebars. Then one day he didn’t come along.’

  John motioned Mark to go ahead of him into their driveway.

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘Don’t know. My grandfather, my mother’s father, he was a hard old bastard, he said Dad had gone off with another woman. Later on he told me Dad had joined up again. Then one time he told me my dad had another family in Norfolk, with kids and a wife. I don’t know what happened to him, Mark.’

  They were outside the house, going up over the broken cement to the orange door with its crescent window and brass door knocker that no one ever had lain a hand on.

  John turned and looked up at the sky. ‘He showed me the Great Bear and how to find the North Star.’

  When they got in, Angie had laid the table and made them proper shandies to drink. She gave them Jamaica sponge and custard for afters and they sat, sated, in the front room, legs out in front of them, Angie with the button on her trousers undone, exclaiming about the size of herself. They watched The Two Ronnies, the two men waltzing across the screen in a succession of costumes; as Tyrolean yodellers, bellringers and finally as female opera singers.

  ‘Why does everyone want to dress up like women all the time?’ John belched softly, enjoying the fizz and fat.

  When the programme finished Mark asked if they wanted a cup of tea.

  ‘Oh aye, I will have a wee cup, thanks, love,’ Angie replied.

  ‘You, Dad?’

  ‘Yes thanks.’

  John pulled Angie to him. When the door closed he put his nose into her ear. ‘He called me Dad.’

  ‘I heard,’ she said, patting his full stomach.

  ‘I like him, Angie; he’s a nice kid. He’s a good-looking lad, too.’

  ‘You said he looked a wee bit like a girl the other day.’

  ‘No! He was just telling me how he went off the rails, but he sorted himself out. You know, when you think about what she did, his mother, what she took away from both of us. I mean what a bloody thing to do. I’m going to make up for it with him. I’m going to take him on holiday next year. To Germany, where I was stationed. And the other thing is I’ve been thinking I ought to be giving him a hand, money-wise.’

  ‘All right John but what about us, I want us to think about having a family—’

  John tapped Angie’s knee. Mark was coming back in with the teas.

  ‘Och Jesus, it’s got sugar in it,’ said Angie, spilling some as she tasted it, then getting up and taking her tea out to the kitchen.

  Chapter 37

  In the run up to Christmas no one was buying pork chops so Kathleen was bringing them home for their dinner again. He was going to make sure there was a turkey set aside for her for Christmas Day so she had one less thing to worry about. When she got in, she took a bath, put on a dress, tights and boots. She was going up to the Republican Press Centre for news about Sean.

  The sky was low that day and you could scarcely see beyond West Belfast. Red-brick row-house street after red brick row-house street; she knew the names of them so well she could recite them with her eyes closed. After Whiterock came all the ‘Rock’ streets – Rockmount, Rockmore, Rockville and Rockdale – then came the playing fields and up the hill, round the hospital and the area around Grosvenor Road were all the English names – Violet Street, Crocus Street, Hawthorn Street – and then Odessa, Abyssinia, Kashmir, Bombay, Sevastopol. She’d never been beyond Liverpool for a weekend, but she thought of England as a mixture of prudish and pretty: peaky cheeks, iced gems, bunting, waistcoats, brass plates on the wall. Thousands of men and women struggling against the rebound of steam presses. Coronation Street. Not having much to say to each other. Skimmed milk.

  Hundreds of years of bloodshed and still the same tune. Republicans, ready to rise, ready to die, to give their lives, hunger strikes, hangings, the names of their forefathers: Robert Emmett, Donovan Rossa, Tom Clarke, MacSwiney, Pearse.

  We’ve all of us got that searching and seeking for something like God

  within us, she thought, like the father said, and she caught a glimpse of herself in a shop window, all done up to the nines. It’s hard to know what’s your own need and what’s God. What was God had to be what was not your need. So you had to struggle against all the stuff that was in you.

  She saw a group standing smoking around a car jacked-up, three tyres on it and the naked steel centre of the back right wheel turning in the air.

  Brendan and Sean thought they’d found what they needed. Brendan had no God and Sean had got one in a green outfit. It was all a mess and only her husband free of it in a way. His tall tales had saved him! The survivor; he’d be jawing on when the others were dead and buried, honours or not.

  A Saracen pulled over outside Dunlevey Street and she looked at the British soldiers inside, through the half windows, saw that they were talking animatedly, like women going fruit picking. One of them could be Frank; for all she knew he might be back in Belfast. Some of them came back two or three times.

  And what did he believe in, that Frank? Nothing more than his mother and father most like. She crossed over Clonard Street. Thank God she was a Catholic and had miracles to believe in.

  ‘Were you having yourself some naughty thoughts there, Katie?’

  Her brother William was smoking a cigarette outside the shop on the corner.

  ‘All the time, William, y’know how it is.’ They had a quick chat about a twin tub that he’d got at home for her and was working on.

  ‘It’ll be with you after Christmas.’

  ‘God bless you.’

  Eileen’s Jim came out the shop with a couple of baps and the two men waved as they got in Jim’s black taxi and went off. When they were gone she went into the press centre.

  She was upstairs, at the back of the room, waiting to speak to Coogan and she looked behind her and saw the dented cardboard box.

  When it was her turn, she asked quickly if he had news of Sean. He told her he was going out to the Kesh on the Thursday and could take her down with him if she wanted.

  ‘But I’ve not got a visit.’

  ‘I’ve got a meeting there. I’ll leave you off in a pub I know, and be back within an hour or so and we can have a drink together.’

  ‘All right then.’

  ‘I want to see you.’

  When she left the press centre she bumped into Eilish Purcell in front of St Dominic’s.

  ‘You look smart, Kathleen. It’s all that makeup. Mi
nd you don’t get people talking.’

  ‘Fuck you.’

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘Thank you. Thank you for your words.’

  Eilish crossed her hands over her bag and went off into the newsagent’s. And then Kathleen did something she’d never done, she went into the pub, ordered herself a half’un, lit a cigarette and enjoyed them with all the old men in the place watching her.

  That night she slept on her front with three fingertips of one hand between her legs. She dreamt that Sean was having an affair with Sheila McCann and that Sheila was going over to England for an abortion and that he and the kids were going with her. She was running after Sean who was always just slightly ahead of her so she couldn’t catch him. Suddenly a revolving door came between them and wouldn’t budge. She watched him go, crying.

  She woke up from her dream full of sorrow as if she loved her husband.

  Chapter 38

  When Dunn went to inspect the duty roster in the Tally Lodge on the Sunday evening the duty officer was pinning up more sheets – shifts that went into the new year and beyond.

  ‘Is there any flexibility in these? Could I maybe swap the next Sunday

  I’ve got for Christmas Day?’

  ‘No you could not,’ said the officer, licking a pinprick on his thumb.

  ‘Dunn is it?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Count yourself lucky you’ve got another day off this month, Mr Dunn. I had some fool of a deputy governor come down and try to put the word on me for you to have this Wednesday night off. As it was I had you down for it, but I nearly changed my mind. Don’t try using friends in high places again, all right?’

  Dunn headed over to the block, feeling the back of his front lower teeth with his tongue. He’d left home with small bits of mince between them. He was on night guard, on a split shift, he’d torn home after lunchtime to have an early dinner with Mark and Angie.

  She’d made a lasagne. She’d never made one before, and he’d never eaten one. It had been in the oven over an hour and he’d stood in the kitchen for the last half hour smelling it while he read the paper, with the saliva loose about his gums. What the fuck could it be? When it came out it was layer upon layer of meat and cheese and he couldn’t believe how good it tasted. ‘I think I got it right,’ she’d said, modestly, ladling more on to his plate until he blew out his cheeks and put his hands on his belly. He gave his son a big grin. ‘See with you here the grub’s got better. You’ll have to stay longer.’

  The lasagne hit the spot. Dunn had a hangover from the night before. He’d stayed up drinking with Mark, they’d had a bottle of German wine that Angie’s boss had given her at the office party on Saturday night. He and Mark had made themselves an ‘Ulster Fry’ for tea in her absence, then Dunn had gone to pick her up. He’d arrived to find her alone with three or four men.

  ‘I see they didn’t invite their wives,’ he commented, hand against spring-loaded office door on their way out.

  ‘Och, John, it was just a casual wee thing.’

  ‘Your boss was dressed up like a pox doctor’s clerk.’

  ‘His suit was shiny.’

  ‘So will his balls be if he touches you.’

  ‘Och, I couldn’t bring myself to sleep with him,’ she said, sinking into a little burp in the passenger seat.

  ‘That’s a weight off my mind then. Christ you women. You go on about equal jobs and all that, and then you talk about your boss giving you one. I bet you would as well. Him with his big house, flash car, and the rest.’

  ‘Don’t be stupid, John.’ She tried to sit up; the seat belt was working against her.

  He said nothing, squinting at the traffic lights, waiting for green.

  ‘Since Mark got here, you’ve been murder to live with.’ He kept quiet.

  ‘You can surely be nice to more than one person at a time.’

  ‘It’s got nothing to do with Mark.’

  They drove in silence. John took their driveway with the car dipping and rising, banging the undercarriage on the concrete. He yanked the handbrake. ‘You’re home.’

  ‘I’ve got nothing against Mark, John.’

  John knew she had tears on her face so he wouldn’t look at her.

  ‘I’m glad you’ve found each other. I wish your dad had done for you what you’re doing for him.’ Then she undid her seat belt and got out the car, slamming the door.

  He watched her little legs as she went up the steps, each threatening to be the undoing of the other, then she leant against the door, knees sinking, key in hand. She left the door softly ajar.

  Sunday night, with Angie in bed, he’d poured out two mugfuls of the sweet bad wine. Mark said, ‘How do people drink that stuff?’ and drunk it nevertheless.

  ‘Need. The need to obliterate.’ John made the words sound like new cement falling. Mark was in jeans and a t-shirt on the armchair opposite. He looked across at the bare mantelpiece. They didn’t like ornaments.

  ‘Could you see this as home?’ said John.

  ‘What, Nor’n I’ron?’

  ‘Well yeah, here I suppose, with us.’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Do you like beer?’

  ‘I prefer it to this.’

  ‘Well let’s polish this off and have a beer.’

  ‘All right.’

  John went to get them a beer each and they sparked up their ring pulls, one after the other. ‘It’s not much here is it? I mean it’s not nothing to write home about.’

  ‘It’s nice enough. I could give you a hand to paint the walls.’

  ‘Don’t have the time.’

  ‘Well, when I come back?’

  ‘Someone like you wants more than this. A university graduate and all that.’

  ‘Oh yeah,’ he laughed.

  ‘Did you ever think about what your dad would be like?’

  ‘I sort of knew about you, growing up. Mum wouldn’t talk about it apart from the fact that you did exist. She said you’d come around looking for me, but then she was pissed off when I said I wanted to meet you. When I was a kid, I suppose I thought you were off doing something really special, James Bond or something.’

  ‘Didn’t your mother have other blokes round then?’

  ‘Yeah. A bit.’

  ‘She didn’t get married?’

  ‘Nope.’

  ‘Why was that then?’

  ‘There was a bloke when I was little. But I didn’t like him. I was just four or five, and I said I’d run off if he came to live with us. I don’t know why but I remember she cried. She must have broken off with him because of me.’

  John took a sip from his can. ‘It can’t have been easy.’

  ‘Because she always chose me, every time, without question, I didn’t think I could ask her about you. I knew you were alive, and I thought that if we met it would work out, that we’d get on all right. It was just a case of when.’

  Nothing was said for a few minutes. John had his head low, hiding himself, head bobbing. Mark took a long draft of his own beer. It tasted of blood and gas. John sniffed. His eyes were red. He pinched the bridge of his nose.

  ‘To tell you the truth, Mark, I’m not in very good bloody shape right now. I don’t know what’s going on but after twenty-two years of being the man’s man, I must be cracking up.’

  His expression was at once offhand and hunted. Later, Mark would recall how John Dunn’s face held contradictory emotions which were somehow museum-boxed, too long preserved. Until then, he’d really thought that life was an open adventure, offering fair chances, in which a person could be a real agent.

  Chapter 39

  ‘It’s called Whitehouse this one,’ said Rory O’Connor, one elbow denting the stack of newspapers on the counter, touching his fingertip to his tongue and turning the pages of a magazine.

  Kathleen was up at the paper shop on the Upper Springfield, taking a look through the dirty magazines, having a laugh with the fellow who ran the place.

 
She snatched it from him. ‘Rory that’s a midwives’ instruction book!’ The door went. Kathleen gave the magazine to Rory and he rolled it up, put it under the counter.

  It was Aine. ‘There y’are. I knew you’d be here.’

  ‘What about ye love.’

  ‘Aine,’ said Rory.

  She stood in her pale purple anorak, hood up, so that you could just see her nose and the shape of her sulk, lips almost inside out.

  Kathleen was disappointed to see her daughter there, where she was having a joke around, being the laugh. And when she recognized her dismay, it cut deeper. Often, her daughter had this brooding, head-down way with her; she was guilt on the move.

  ‘Mummy, I’ve only got five pence and it’s not enough for anything I want.’

  ‘Not a hello, not a kiss, just I want . . .’

  ‘Glad mine have left home,’ Rory said. ‘Couldn’t make a living with them in and out of here. Them and all the other kids, in and out, the doorbell going, hands everywhere.’

  ‘You should have a big sign up on the door saying “No kids”,’ said Aine.

  The man looked taken aback. ‘There’s no need to get yourself worked up, Aine.’

  ‘All of yous are always moaning on about the kids, well we didn’t ask to live.’

  Kathleen put a hand on her daughter’s shoulder. ‘You ought to go down to the press centre, they could use you there to write some pamphlets up.’

  ‘We didn’t ask for any of this mess, yous’re the ones who made it. There you are standing about joking all the while kids are getting shot dead.’

  Kathleen took her daughter by the arm, gripped it too tight. A sort of white heat seared through her brain. She could have killed, and yet she managed to say goodbye to Rory, holding, shaking, pushing Aine through the doorway on to the street. She took her round the corner of the newsagent’s and shouted at her.

  ‘What the hell have I done for you to be so bloody rude? God help me but I’ve a good mind to give you a smacked arse.’

  Kathleen had been laughing, she’d been happy, it had been a good day, she’d got a lot done. Now it was ruined.