This Human Season Read online

  Chapter 44

  With Christmas and the killings there were impromptu ‘parties’ springing up all around the site of Long Kesh. The most debauched were those in the area of temporary housing known as Silver City. The army brought in women from Lisburn, by bus, even by chopper. It wasn’t unusual for a prison officer to claim a bed over there, with a woman, and stay overnight. That was how Skids had met this new woman of his. She’d been getting off with a solider, and when the squaddie left to throw up, Skids moved in.

  ‘I wouldn’t normally do that of course,’ he’d said.

  Skids was on split shift and was going down to Lisburn to see his ‘lady’ again. He hadn’t seemed so excited at the prospect this time, confiding in Dunn before he went off that as she liked him to wear his hat he took it along with him in a carrier bag. Dunn saw the bag between his hands and cracked up.

  He was in the mess alone, eating his sandwiches. He focused his vision on the single drop of water suspended at the kitchen tap. His nasal breathing sounded like the noise of a winter wind through a disused house; his nose was full from smoking too much.

  Rabbit and Shandy came back from lunch very drunk and decided to head down the wings to talk to the streakers. Frig had been into the PO’s office to borrow his record player, amplifier and speakers, and he came out carrying them in a large cardboard box. He left the lot by the mess door and sat down fiddling with the speaker wire.

  ‘That’ll be a one way conversation,’ Frig said to Dunn. ‘Last year, Rabbit went down there asking them if they was all right and wishing them a Merry Christmas and when no one said a word back to him he got himself worked up. But they’re trained to say nothing them lot, aren’t they? Do you think it’s wrong, the drinking?’

  ‘How do you mean?’ asked Dunn.

  ‘Well, it’s not good for you is it, it’s a depresser.’ Rabbit and Shandy came back into the mess.

  ‘That’s fucking right that is. They’re out there fucking laughing at us the bastards,’ said Shandy, pointing to the wings. He had a dark halfmoon of sweat under his arm.

  Rabbit threw his cap on the table. ‘Where’s Campbell?’

  Campbell came in, highly emotional and full of the Officer Willard killing. Willard had been walking from the Crumlin Road jail to his regular lunch place, the Buff’s Club, the day before when he was killed with a single shot in the back, from a .38. He had been warned to stop frequenting it; another officer had been killed on his way there three months prior, in a similar attack.

  Campbell had been in the bar with a friend who knew Willard well. Now he recounted their conversation painstakingly, with the others shaking their heads, variously sympathetic, slightly bored, careful not to be caught doing something for themselves. Rabbit was wiping off his boots, Skids was buttering a piece of cold toast to his side. Campbell told the story of Willard’s life and his own in parallel, mixing up the one with the other. Both of them had been members of the Royal British Legion, having served in the Second World War, and both were members of the Orange Order and the UDA.

  Campbell was close to retirement. He had lost most of his friends. He had lost his wife. His phone calls were all bad. He had a son he never saw except for when he was after something. But he had a lot at stake even so; the past, his memories.

  Rabbit looked up, eager to speak, but Campbell kept going.

  ‘See back then was, you cover me, and I’ll cover you, and that’s all gone, you can’t buy that.’

  ‘Cannon-fodder’s what we are,’ said Rabbit. He was cleaning his nails with the end of a teaspoon.

  Campbell tried to bring him into focus; he looked old – and heartbroken. ‘He wasn’t cannon-fodder, Benny Willard wasn’t.’

  ‘Lingus had that IRA fucker Coogan in his office yesterday. Ben Bartlett saw him come in, like he owned the place. His men are out there murdering Willard in cold blood and he’s in here getting tea and cake.’

  ‘You what?’

  ‘That lot out there, they’re full of it. Never so much as say a word then they’re chattering on like monkeys about cannon-fodder.’

  Campbell stood up.

  ‘They must be loving it,’ Rabbit ground on.

  ‘Willard’s life was not cheap,’ said Campbell. ‘No more were the lives of all of our men, men from our streets who’ve died for all that is good and right.’

  There were looks exchanged. Rabbit couldn’t help it, excitement cracked through his face. He had to lower his head to hide it.

  They marched off at a hysterical pace, Campbell followed by Shandy and Frig, to ‘talk to some of the fellas’.

  Rabbit said he’d stay back, ostensibly to help Dunn with the tea, but he went off into the Orient Express with one of Frig’s magazines.

  It wasn’t normal procedure, but Dunn, Baxter and a grille guard took the cart round at teatime. When he got to O’Malley’s cell, Dunn handed in the yellow square known as ‘cake’ and something in O’Malley’s look made him say,

  ‘I’m a Brit, you know. I was in the army. I served here.’ He poured the tin mugs of tea. ‘Plenty of us have died here as well. Just like you lot. Just the same as you.’ He handed him the tea. ‘We’re all cannon-fodder, one way or another.’

  ‘You had your choice,’ O’Malley replied.

  Dunn looked at the man, standing in shit and piss. ‘Yeah. Like you did. You should have chosen something else, mate.’

  ‘Likewise.’

  Dunn closed the door. They took the cart back up the wing, through the grilles and into the circle.

  ‘You shouldn’t have spoken to him,’ the grille guard grumbled.

  ‘You’re not supposed to talk to them.’

  Dunn gave the trolley a shove. ‘Get rid of that lot, Baxter.’

  Seeing the PO’s office door open, Dunn popped across to use the phone. Rules or no rules, he was calling Angie.

  ‘Hello Angie. Yeah never mind going through our bloody phone number, I just rung it, I know what it is. Look I can’t speak long. Get the boy what they call a ‘Walkman’ when you go into town this afternoon will you, Angie? Frig says they’re about a hundred quid. Take the money out the bank. Take what you need.’

  She told him she’d already got the boy a coat, a parka. And he’d already told her to get the boy a book-voucher for thirty quid for his studies.

  ‘There’s a lot of Christmases I’m making up for. Buy some music to go with it. Frig says the one to get is the Pink Floyd album. Just come out. Get that and The Police and Madness, all the top ones. On cassette, right? Cheers.’

  When Dunn went to open the mess door he heard Baxter and Rabbit having a heated conversation. Rabbit’s voice, always uneven, was now ranging wildly from high to low tones, as if he contained two people, one angry, one afraid.

  ‘Don’t tell me I’m going to be all right, Baxter.’

  ‘Every officer gets them threats.’

  ‘He said the name of the street I live on, says my mother goes shopping on the Shankill on a Friday, says my parents drive a blue Cortina.’

  ‘You’ll have to speak to PO.’

  ‘Bollocks. I’m asking you to have a word.’

  ‘Look, I’ll tell you what they’d say to you themselves, you keep your head down, you play things straight, you box clever and you’ll be all right, but if you’re doing things you know aren’t right the IRA aren’t going to forget about it, no chance. They’ll get you on the outside because they can’t get you on the inside.’

  ‘We’ve all done things, every man here . . .’ said Rabbit. ‘Who hasn’t? You don’t just sit and take it.’

  The medic came out of his office and locked the door. Dunn went in the mess. Rabbit was standing, putting his jacket on.

  ‘It’s a waste of breath talking to you. You with your tattoos, your Red Hand! And your Provie pals! What the fuck are you anyway, Baxter?’ Baxter looked him straight in the eyes, merely tilting his head. ‘I’m the good Protestant, every man for himself.’

  Rabbit gave the chair a shov
e; it scraped the floor and hit the table and he left the room.

  ‘Troubled times,’ said Baxter, taking Rabbit’s plate and cup over to the sink. They were alone.

  ‘Where do you stand Baxter? What is your game?’

  ‘Me? I’m nobody. Ordinary decent criminal.’

  ‘You’re full of shit.’

  Baxter wiped his hands roughly on a tea-towel and ran a hand through his hair, such that it was slightly wet at the front. He sat down at the table and looked up at Dunn from under his brow as if he was about to unfold a special hand of cards.

  ‘Sit down Mr Dunn, I’ll give you the benefit of an education. I’m in for attempted murder, twenty years. But I’ll be out in half with this here orderly thing. I’ll tell you about me. When I was sixteen and Paisley came round stirring us all up with his speeches, I went with my friends to a meeting. Everyone was in something if you remember, back then in the early seventies.’

  ‘I was in the army.’

  ‘Aye, well like I said, everyone was in something. There were more than fifty-thousand men in the UDA. You went down to the meeting, you held a gong, you swore on the Bible and you were in. Peer pressure, the fuck of it. Often you had to do a job to prove yourself. I did a robbery here and there, nothing to lose, bravado, adrenalin, you know the score.’

  ‘That’s not how it was in the army.’

  ‘Aye well. They form the UFF, an elite. I like the sound of that. We go down to the meetings and we pick a job out of a hat. Me and my pal we pick “shoot a Catholic”, so off we go, over towards the Short Strand and we shoot a man in the back. It was easy; he fell to the ground and we ran off. Next time we go down we pick from the hat “shoot two Catholics”. Now the jobs are supposed to be secret. You pick your own and you don’t tell anyone what you picked, but I’m thinking how comes it’s two now, is this a set up, will I get “shoot three” next time? But it wasn’t like that. The meetings were in the local pub so we have a few. And my friend and I, we tell the fellas, hush hush, we’re going for a couple of Catholics coming out of mass in Andersonstown the next Sunday. We get there and we’re picking off a couple coming out but some soldiers are there waiting for us. It’s a set up. So when I got in here I said to myself, fuck it, I’m not going to let them claim me, I’m going to go it alone. You get to thinking, you see. I probably think about that man I shot more than his wife does. Maybe not. Who’s to know? So I came here as an ordinary criminal and I jumped at the chance to be an orderly. And it’s worked out that there’s a job for me to do.’ He raised his nose when he said this and he kept it there in the aftermath of his words, like a dog sniffing events on the wind.

  Dunn’s tongue was dank and dry with the coffee. Outside he heard the loud, concrete-muffled voices of two prison officers exchanging opinions.

  ‘Yous have got orders from higher up to break these men on the protest, but they’re not written orders,’ Baxter went on. ‘Back in the spring, orders came down to get things moving a bit, finish the dirt protest; the screws were to give the prisoners “baths”. Bolton wouldn’t do it but the other blocks did. Scalding hot water. The screws took them big yard brooms and brushed the men down, chucked detergent, bleach, and disinfectant all over them. Sure there’s them as rewrite the way it happened, like Mr Rabbit. I’ve never met a man who says he hit someone without provocation, have you? No wonder they’re scared now, with the killings going on. They know what they’ve done.’

  Baxter gave his cigarette a gentle tap on the ashtray. ‘After those baths in the other blocks O’Malley told me to tell PO what he could tell his colleagues. “We can’t beat you in the Maze, you’re striking at us where we’re vulnerable, but outside we’ll punish you for what you’ve done, so when you walk behind the coffins of your colleagues with crocodile tears, you ask yourselves – What did I do to contribute to his death?”’

  ‘So you reckon you’re some sort of a double agent do you, Baxter? I tell you, in the last few days I’ve fucking heard it all.’

  ‘Nothing so grand as that. I’m a go-between. I keep an ear open. See, someone like your man Campbell, he’s putting your lives at risk the way he works. He’s putting your life at risk, Mr Dunn.’

  Baxter got up and stretched, saying, ‘Back to work then,’ and Dunn saw again the tattoo of the Red Hand emerge from the sleeves of the denim overalls.

  Chapter 45

  It was the last Sunday before Christmas and the Clonard was decorated with white, green and gold, and there was a choir of boys and girls who were the Ecumenical Choir of Belfast. They had nice robes; probably they lived on the Antrim Road, thought Kathleen. Funny how people with money were as a rule more for peace. She’d put all the small change she had – and that she’d taken from her husband’s trouser pockets – into the Holy Virgin’s money box. During the mass she prayed to God to have more love or less love or whatever it was He thought she needed. Coogan came to her mind and she felt guilt like heartburn. She wondered where he was, what he was doing.

  Father Pearse stopped her on her way out. He looked haggard.

  ‘You’re not up the Kesh this morning then Father?’ she asked him tartly. He was going the next Sunday. She told him to tell Sean it didn’t matter about the Christmas visit.

  ‘Tell him, och, just tell him I love him. There’s nothing else to say.’

  ‘Kathleen. Please forgive me for not being the priest that you deserve.’ His eyes were strained. He whispered, ‘I love your family. I don’t want your son to die.’

  ‘I know.’ She put her hand on his arm. ‘Look, Father, I’m sure you’ll have had much finer offers but we’d be pleased if you’d take your Christmas dinner with us.’

  ‘I’m supposed to have it up at Corpus Christi with the others. Is it a turkey you’re having?’

  ‘Aye. And a Christmas pudding.’

  ‘Well, I can’t say no. Thank you. I’ll bring a few tins of beer. Leave the carving for me if you like.’

  Mrs Coogan was talking to Mrs Purcell up at the door.

  Kathleen turned back. ‘Wait, Father. You are my priest after all and

  I’m in a bit of a mess, I didn’t go to confession yesterday.’

  ‘I can spare you a few minutes, Kathleen. No need for the box, if you’d like.’

  ‘Let me just tell Mrs O’Sullivan I’m staying back.’ She made out of the church with her feet saying, Sean, Brendan, Sean, Brendan. What did it mean, the two of them together as if they were part and parcel?

  Mrs Coogan touched Kathleen lightly on the arm as she went to pass by. ‘Ach Kathleen,’ she said, swaying on beleaguered heels, a stout woman with many seasonal accoutrements. ‘Could my Brendan help you out?’

  ‘Oh aye, thank you,’ said Kathleen, blushing. ‘Merry Christmas to you.’ She hurried out. Mrs O’Sullivan was at the car horn.

  Clusters of older people in dark coats were turning their yellow and grey faces to look at her car.

  ‘I want to get one like The Dukes of Hazzard. Liven this crowd up.’

  ‘I’m staying for a wee chat with the father,’ said Kathleen, her hands on the lowered window. Mrs O’Sullivan put a hand across, fingers clean and dry as pastry.

  ‘Sure, you go on love.’

  The car screeched on its tyres as it lurched out into the road and there were soft, chiding exclamations from the groups about the front of the church.

  ‘Now what’s the matter Kathleen?’ Father Pearse said, sitting down in an armchair opposite hers in a small room with one window at the back of the Clonard.

  ‘There’s something I didn’t speak of in my last confession that I should have done.’ She started to weep. He handed her his hanky from his pocket. ‘I took communion, Father, and I shouldn’t have.’

  ‘There’s only one thing that the church says bars you from the sacraments.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘The second relationship.’

  ‘That’s one way of saying it.’

  ‘You’re not the first one, Kathleen.’


  ‘I’ve done a terrible thing. Twice.’

  ‘Oh Jesus, now calm down. Every day there are people doing it. Look, now, what do I always say in these cases? If you can’t break it up overnight, endeavour to break it up as soon as you can. Think of your children who’re still at home. You’re not going to get out of the relationship overnight, you didn’t get into it overnight I suppose. Just do your best, think about the children and the stability they need to get them off on their own way, and where you go after that . . .’

  ‘But I know it’s wrong, I know it’s wrong and yet I’ve done it all the same.’

  ‘That’s not really relevant, Kathleen. You’re flesh and blood. You make mistakes. But as I say to all you mothers, think about the good things you do. Think about getting the children up every day, feeding them, clothing them, loving them, all those things.’

  The handkerchief was warm, wet. ‘I’m outside of God’s love.’

  ‘No no, no. The church harks back to Roman times on the matter but the Bible bears me out. You’re not bad because nothing can ever come between you and the love of God made visible in Jesus Christ. Nothing. In other words, nothing that I can do or you can do as a human being. So anyone can share in Holy Communion. Who am I, who is anyone to say you cannot? It’s not the teaching of Christ. Nothing, nothing – no matter how big your sins are – nothing can come between you and the love of Jesus Christ.’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Nothing,’ he said adamantly, reaching for her hands and taking them in his own.

  ‘What should I do?’

  ‘Try and stop it.’ He shook her hands. ‘I say to everyone, restitution is the next thing after a sin. When it’s someone who’s stolen, that’s easy, put something in the St Vincent’s next time you have a few bob. Most people

  know, in their heart, what they have to do. You’re an intelligent woman; I don’t have to tell you. God’s love, His grace, it came before, do you see, it was there for you before, nothing you can do can take it away.’