This Human Season Read online

  The tall man raised his glass, his lips shiny. ‘That’s a good colour. It’s a Shirley Bassey isn’t it, Ricky?’

  The short man showed them the label. Blackbush. They laughed.

  ‘Are we going to this knees up?’ asked Dunn.

  ‘Yeah, we should go lads,’ said Frig. ‘Knees up at Clean Jim’s, fancy coming fellas?’

  They shrugged. Their glasses were full.

  The three from the dirt block thanked the others for the drink and put their glasses one by one, side by side, on top of the locker; bang, bang, bang.

  ‘Never seen such an ugly bunch of bastards in my life,’ said Shandy as they went out through the back of the hut into the grey light and across the dead ground. ‘Nice drop though.’

  Jim was a stickler for cleanliness and served what some said was the best Guinness in Northern Ireland. Dirty Sam’s had none of those attributes but like the Naafi, the Army Dog section and some of the soldiers’ bars it was open at lunchtime and it served beer so it had a clientele. The sergeants’ mess served spirits but Clean Jim’s was still the preference for a knees up. Jim was a hard nut who ran a tight ship.

  It was packed. There was some good craic going on. Atop the main table, three officers were hamming it up to the Nolan Sisters’ ‘I’m in the mood for dancing’. They made staccato, pseudo-female movements, edging and jabbing in triple tandem. They had bar-cloths on their heads and balled-up in their top pockets to produce breasts.

  Jim’s concession to the spirit of Christmas was a few paper chains over the bar, taped up, sagging. Two officers had rolled up their sleeves and piled in behind the bar to help pour beers. One of them had tinsel round his head. There was a long row of Guinness pints waiting for a second filling, going from milk to coal in their own time, the ashtrays were scarred and scuffed but Jim kept at them, banging them down on the rubbish bin behind the bar.

  As ever it was Shandy that pushed through to the bar, Dunn and Frig handing him a pound note each.

  Frig pointed out a friend of his who was smoking a cigar in a booze haze at the bar, jacket off, being supported by another officer.

  ‘That fella, Morris Minor we call him, we worked on a regular block together last year. He used to be in the army like you did.’ Frig’s hair was flattened from his cap. He and Dunn went over. ‘All right, Morris?’

  ‘Frig, moite!’

  Frig introduced ‘Johnno’ as a new boy.

  Morris indicated the round grey telephone with its dark receiver. ‘I’m waiting for the call from the hospital. Jim’s set it up for switchboard to call through here. My hands are sweaty, my mouth’s dry.’ His gingerhaired friend handed him a drink. ‘It’s my first kid.’

  Shandy came over with a tray of six pints. The three of them touched glasses and offered their congratulations to the two men waiting for the call.

  When the phone rang, Jim cut the music and screamed, ‘QUI-ET!’ He passed the receiver to the man, who applied himself to listening as if following a broadcast.

  ‘Aye, aye. You what? You what? You fucking what?’

  ‘What is it, boy or a girl?’

  ‘It’s a little . . . black . . . boy. Black . . .’

  Shandy spat a mouthful of beer on to the bar and attempted to convert his reaction to coughing.

  ‘Oy, where’s that Sambo?’ shouted Jim.

  A black officer waved his hand from a booth. ‘Hey, don’t look at me, pal,’ he called out, in a London accent. ‘I wasn’t even in the place nine months ago! For fuck’s sake.’

  ‘Have you got any nig-nog in the family, Morris?’ Jim was leaning across the bar.

  Morris put the receiver back to his ear. A look of understanding spread to his eyes. ‘You bastards. That was Shagger Martin on the switchboard! I knew I’d heard that voice before! Putting on an English voice! Very funny lads, very funny.’

  They weren’t such a bad crowd, Dunn thought, there was some craic at least, like in the army. It was always low quality when you had a lot of working-class blokes together from all over the shop and all you had in common was your colour and your dick.

  He caught the eye of the black officer across the bar and gave him a small smile.

  What would his son think if he could see them now? He was going to start putting money into an account for his son from the new year and give the boy something that would help him get himself off the ground. He knew the boy, because he knew himself. What he didn’t know about the boy, he cribbed from memories of his own childhood, cobbling together a pastiche of days filled with small things: fixing the broken wireless, polishing shoes, wiping up the dishes, putting conkers in a tobacco tin, daydreams and games, tall tales and outright lies. And then he went beyond what he knew of himself too and imagined how the boy must have gone to his books, with all the virtues in them standing in for an absent father. He decided he would tell the others about his son.

  ‘Look who it is,’ said Shandy, elbowing Dunn’s arm so that his

  Guinness lurched over the rim.

  ‘Ho, ho, ho,’ said Frig.

  Carl Lingard came into the bar, giving short, static salutes of recognition, which were not returned. By now, what he was supposed to have said to Coogan had been greatly exaggerated, and whatever he really said, unimportant.

  ‘What’s he come in here for?’ Jim said.

  Officers moved apart as Lingard walked through, put their backs to him. A couple of men made it deliberately difficult for him to pass, each presenting his back as a rock. Lingard, sallow, salt-and-treacle hair, squeezed through. Dunn wished he wouldn’t press on, wished the man would go back. Seeing Dunn’s look, Lingard smiled the sweet smile of hope.

  ‘Hello John, quick lunchtime drink is it?’ Dunn nodded, the bar was almost silent.

  ‘Well, that’s a bloody good idea. Can’t stop but just popped in to wish you and the lads the best. The Willard thing. It’s awful isn’t it. Man with a family.’

  There was a murmur and talk resumed. Jim put on another record.

  ‘Everyone considered him the coward of the county

  He’d never stood one single time to prove the county wrong

  His mama named him Tommy, but folks just called him “yellow”’

  There was derisive laughter. Under the cover of the music, Lingard was up close to Dunn speaking to him in urgent tones, looking scantily about himself.

  ‘My car’s been scratched all down the side. I had a tyre let down last night. I’m wondering if it’s got out that I saw Coogan. Did you let it slip?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Well then I can’t think—’ Lingard put a hand into the solid mat of his hair.

  ‘A fella saw you with him.’

  ‘Oh my giddy aunt.’

  ‘It’s pretty much common knowledge what you said. About the prison officers being cannon-fodder. The men think you’ve sold them out, that you’re dealing with the IRA, swapping their lives for points.’

  ‘What rubbish.’

  ‘Well, that’s what they’ve heard.’

  ‘Well there’s only me and Coogan who knows what was said. You don’t think that Coogan’s told his—’

  ‘It was the Provie prisoners on our block who let on what was said, Carl. Look, what with the killings going on right now and you giving the Provies the go-ahead, from the men’s point of view, you’ve cooked your goose.’

  ‘Bugger.’ Lingard passed a hand through his hair again and looked around. The prison officers were watching, some discreetly, many blatantly, and some belligerently. ‘Bugger. Well, look John, you must just put the word round that it wasn’t meant that way. Not at all. I’m trying to stop more men getting killed. It’s precisely the reverse. You tell them that!’

  Dunn looked at his colleagues. Frig and Shandy were standing by listening, Frig embarrassed to be so close, Shandy with a look of overt hatred.

  ‘They won’t buy it. I can’t do it.’

  ‘Oh I see, Dunn.’ Lingard looked stricken. ‘You’ve gone over! I thought you we
re a man apart. No, quite. I see, fine.’ He raised his voice again. ‘I am on your side.’ He chanced upon a new recruit. ‘I’m on your side.’

  The men either side of the new officer started prodding him and laughing.

  There was nothing Dunn could say. When he looked at Lingard he saw the gnome inside of both of them, changing hats and fishing rods. He turned his back to him, went for his glass.

  As the others closed in around him, Dunn glanced over his shoulder to see Lingard make his way falteringly out of the bar, jostled all the way.

  The song drew to its conclusion, the officers shouting the words, drunk with sincerity:

  ‘I promised you Dad not to do the things you done

  I’ll walk away from trouble when I can

  Now, please don’t think I’m weak

  I didn’t turn the other cheek

  And Papa I sure hope you understand,

  Sometimes you gotta fight when you’re a man!’

  Chapter 52

  ‘The main thing is not to think about Sean today. Or maybe it’s to think of him but not talk of him because we’ll all be getting ourselves upset.’

  ‘Aye,’ said Aine, banging her peeler on the side of the plastic basin, then using it to take her hair away from her mouth.

  ‘Will I go and get Daddy from the pub?’ Liam came into the kitchen with his coat on.

  Kathleen looked at the clock; it was just after twelve. ‘Wait until one, love. We’re not eating until two when Father Pearse gets here and I don’t want your daddy in the house bothering me when I’m cooking.’

  Liam went out and sat on the slope of scrub grass.

  ‘What’s with him? Did he not like his presents?’

  Aine went to the window and squashed her nose against it. ‘He misses Sean and Mary. Like me.’

  ‘Finish these and pop them in that pan there.’ Kathleen took her cardigan from the back of the chair, put it round her shoulders and went outside, banging the door two or three times before she saw her cardigan was caught in it. Liam was looking at her.

  ‘He’ll not be coming in that way. Not this year, love.’

  ‘I’m not thinking about Sean.’

  ‘Then why have you got a beak like that on you?’

  ‘I’m wondering why we’re all bothering with all of this stuff about Christmas. Nobody wants it but nobody’ll say as much. We just have to do it. It’s stupid so it is.’

  ‘Aye, well I know how you feel.’

  ‘It was always the four of us kids, Christmas was, and Sean and Daddy playing the fool. Remember how I had a loose tooth and they said, let us take your tooth out for you Liam and we’ll give you five bob. Then they tied it and slammed the door and it hurt like hell and they said good lad and never gave me the five bob. The bastards.’

  Kathleen looked up at the back window. Wee house, little piece of nothing, and everything inside it worth no more than a few quid. She smiled. ‘They were a pair of eejits together.’

  ‘Everyone’s gone now.’ He got up and went off out the side of the garden, heading up towards The Fiddlers.

  Chapter 53

  They were going to wait to have their Christmas dinner in the evening when John Dunn got home. He was going to call the boy’s mother in the evening, put him on to her. He hoped to hear the boy tell her how happy he was to have his father at last. He wondered what it was about him that made her decide he was no good for Mark. She’d only known him five minutes. He thought of her face again, as he drove off.

  He kept his head down in the afternoon, did his time, did what was required. The other officers loafed around the mess with their feet up. Shandy brought out a successful Christmas cake. He offered each of them a small whiskey to go with a slice.

  ‘Six weeks I’ve been dripping booze into the cake with a needle. You know, first you make the hole, then you pour it in after, wasting a load of it and then this great Charlie here tells me he could have given me a syringe and made the job easier.’ He aimed a thumb at the medical officer who was smiling, eating.

  Skids came in and waved a no at the cake, unbuttoned his jacket, his face flushed. He put his hands through his hair. He’d just come back from one of the bars.

  ‘You won’t fucking believe this. Lingard’s had the shit beaten out of him on the Loyalist block. He’s been taken off to the hospital.’

  Shandy put down his cake and stopped chewing. The medical officer said something or other, no one cared. Campbell came up behind and put his hands on the back of Shandy’s chair.

  ‘You’re joking me,’ he said, his eyes glittering.

  ‘He goes round both the Loyalist and the Provie blocks to say his piece, you know how he is, well the Loyalists were having a wee Christmas do in the recreation room and Lingard goes in and the doors close behind him and all hell breaks loose. When they opened the doors again he was lying on the floor, at the back of the room.’

  ‘Is he bad?’ asked Dunn.

  ‘Aye. He was in there a good ten minutes the lads are saying. Broken ribs, and he got a good kicking in the head as well they said. Nearly took his eye out. He was unconscious when they took him off.’

  ‘Well, well, well,’ said Campbell. ‘It was bound to happen. He was asking for it.’

  ‘I wouldn’t have fancied his odds,’ said Skids. ‘In there with forty cons – and a vicar.’

  Shandy was carefully wiping the crumbs off the table with his hand and helping them to drop on to his small white plate. He got up to arrange the cake back in the tin. ‘They could get themselves in trouble for shutting him in there like that.’

  ‘You think he was shut in? On purpose?’ asked Dunn.

  ‘Catch yourself on, John-boy,’ said Campbell. ‘We’re not going to bend over and take it up the arse.’

  ‘The man didn’t stand a chance. Bloody cowards.’

  ‘And what the fuck are they out there?’ said Campbell, pointing at the wing.

  * * *

  He was leaving the prison for the first time at five o’ clock. He’d left in the dark of the morning, driving as usual with his shoulders hunched, his head forward, foot to the floor. Christmas Day. Now he left in the dark of the night, wipers on. Gravel span as he exited the compound and pulled on to the by-road. He wondered what his son was like at Christmastime as a boy and who it was that took his first bike out into the street and set him on the saddle.

  Chapter 54

  When Liam got to The Fiddlers, his father told him to sit at the side of the bar and wait for him. Brian was there helping out so that Sean could get home for his dinner, but he wanted to have a drink with Flinty and the boys first.

  Liam was handed a Coke and some crisps and given a wink. His father had his arm around one of the men.

  He looked around for his son, then he looked around again as if he had forgotten what he’d seen the first time. He nodded.

  ‘Won’t be long, Liam,’ and then he went on confidentially to the three men alongside him. ‘She’s been awful cold with me, och for years now, years, then she was out the other night, God knows where.’

  Flinty looked across at the boy and then at the father and put his finger to his lips.

  Brian was sipping on a half’un, looking thoughtful. ‘Ach that’s terrible for you, Sean, to have them dark thoughts and not to know the truth. I’m not married, thank the Lord, but if I was I think I’d have it out with her. You can’t go on as y’are in this terrible pain of not knowing.’

  Flinty nodded. ‘There might not be any truth to it, Sean. Or if there is, it might not be as bad as you think.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Well, it might just be harmless fun.’

  ‘With your man Coogan?’ said Brian.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  The other man, on whom Sean had been leaning, finished his drink and said, ‘She wouldn’t be the first. Still, when you think of those as have got their fellas inside and wouldn’t so much as look at another man . . . Take my advice Sean, have it out with he
r, but not today.’ He looked over at Liam.

  ‘Would you like a wee chocolate bar there?’ said Flinty, his pointy teeth showing.

  Liam stood up. ‘Come on, Dad. We’ve to be home for our Christmas dinner.’

  Sean’s lip curled. ‘Aye, you’re your mother’s boy, so you are, come to bring me back like I’m a dog.’

  Liam’s cheeks burnt. ‘Come on, Dad.’

  ‘Go on,’ said Brian. ‘Go on home Sean.’ And the other men joined in with him.

  ‘Go on, Sean, go on.’

  Chapter 55

  John Dunn made a deal with himself that he would drop it, bit by bit, on the way home, and he had an image in his head of the motorway behind him strewn with the furniture of the place, a chair or desk upturned, the water boiler, dented and dripping, the metal lockers on their sides, and all the chits and forms in carbon duplicate, blown by the wind on to the windscreens of oncoming cars and then finally, the great bunch of keys, jettisoned. Keys to nothing. By the time he arrived in East Belfast he was a free man.

  He turned off the engine. Christmas Day, 1979. Lingard, possibly dead or dying, his wife at home with the turkey over-cooked, calling her friends for a lift to the hospital, doing everything in the wrong order.

  He looked out at his two-up, two-down house, hanging on to the neighbours on one side. A semi in East Belfast. They were waiting for him in there. ‘Promise me son not to do the things I done.’ What had Lingard said? ‘You’ve gone over.’

  John Dunn had his forefingers at the bridge of his nose, pressing the corners of his eyes, his wrists wet. He was looking at his house, at the light coming from the front room. He wiped his hands on his trousers, dried his face with the backs of his sleeves. ‘I hope everything’s all right,’ he said to himself, a squirrel of fear turning in his stomach as he put his key in the lock.

  ‘Hello Santa, have you brought me something special?’ said Angie, giving him a long kiss at the door. She smelt of booze and fags and a heavy perfume. He held her away from him to look at her. Her hair was up in pins. She was red-faced and her eyes were drooping a little at the sides. ‘You’re on time for once.’