This Human Season Read online

  ‘I know.’ He lay down his knife and fork on the plate and wiped his mouth with the Christmas napkin.

  ‘For God’s sake no one asks much of you, John, we only ask you to talk to us . . .’

  ‘Don’t start. The way you go on at me sometimes, Angie, I swear, you make me feel like running, like getting in the car and sodding off out of here.’

  ‘Oh aye. Run away why don’t you? God forbid John Dunn should have to feel anything, should ever have to say he’s wrong or he’s sorry.’

  ‘I am wrong and I am sorry!’ He stood, throwing his chair back. ‘Is that what you want you stupid cow!’ He took his plate to the sink and threw it in with the rest. Something broke.

  ‘Merry Christmas to you too! Do your own washing up!’ she cried out. He heard her footsteps up the stairs.

  After a minute, leaning on the sink, he went and fetched all the plates, ran some water, gingerly took out two, sharp-edged plate halves and put them in the bin, then went to the fridge for a beer. He poured it into his glass. It ran into his stomach like cold acid and he pursued it as if it was medicine.

  Mark came back in, looking around for Angie. ‘She sends you both all the best. My mum.’

  ‘Can’t seem to keep three people round this table tonight. Sit and have a drink with me.’

  ‘No, I’m all right, thanks.’

  ‘I don’t blame you. You off to bed as well?’

  ‘Angie’s gone up?’

  ‘Yup.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘Have a drink with me, will you? Please.’

  Mark gave him his glass and his father poured what was left of the can into it.

  ‘I’ve got these things like little cigars. Have one with me.’

  ‘All right.’

  He went into the living room, to the booze cupboard. He could hear Angie up above him, the bed creaked. Inside was a packet of Hamlets that she’d obviously bought him for Christmas Day. He thought of Campbell and started to laugh.

  Back in the kitchen, he used Angie’s lighter and lit one for himself and one for his son. The boy spluttered and choked and wrinkled his brow.

  ‘They’re disgusting.’

  ‘You get used to them if you try.’

  The boy shifted position a few times, coughed and spluttered. Finally he put the cigarillo out, and felt in his pockets for his own cigarettes.

  ‘John—’

  He threw the lighter across. ‘Yup?’

  ‘John, I was thinking. I’m glad you told me what you did.’

  His father looked at him, pink smoke billowing out of the side of his face. ‘Are you?’

  ‘I’d have done the same. You were under orders.’

  Rain had started to fall and it made a soft drumming noise on the leanto shed. ‘I don’t think you would have done,’ he said.

  After a while, John rose to do the washing up. Mark took up the dirty tea-towel and stood alongside him.

  ‘The least I can do is give her a clean kitchen,’ said John, hands plunging into the lukewarm water.

  * * *

  Angie was lying in bed, awake, when he went up, pretending to sleep but he knew her well. When she was asleep her body was soft and exuded this sweet smell, she breathed irregularly, normally one limb was at a peculiar angle, against the sense of her body. He knew, without seeing, how she was lying, on her side, her knees drawn in slightly, making a curve of her bum, and her hands together under her chin. Many times he’d fallen asleep alongside her like that, leaving her to her troubled thoughts. But she’d never left him to his.

  He felt a deep sorrow rising in him like a man trying to sit up in a coffin, and he couldn’t rest. Instead he put a hand on her shoulder and felt her almost recoil.

  ‘Angie.’

  He heard the hopeless splitter-splatter of the rain on the car roof outside.

  ‘Angie.’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘I said I was sorry.’

  ‘And you followed it up by calling me a stupid cow.’

  A great slab of rain fell with a crash as some guttering gave way.

  ‘What do you see in me, Angie?’

  ‘It’s funny you should ask that.’

  He reached for the side lamp and switched it on. Then, in his underpants, he climbed over her, so that he was looking directly down at her. Still on her side, she screwed up her eyes and made a face. ‘I’m not interested in you at all, not interested in talking to you, nothing.’

  He was still. Baffled. He kissed her face. ‘I love you, Angie.’ She opened her eyes. ‘Are you all right?’

  ‘I’ve made a mess of everything, Angie.’

  She pulled him to her. ‘John, it’s all right, darling, it’s going to be all right.’

  John fell upon her like a dead weight, his face in the pillow, and she thought he was weeping so she didn’t move at all and all the while the rain was tipping and tapping and she was murmuring, ‘It’s all right, I’m here, I’ll never go away from you, you know I won’t.’

  When she woke, she rolled him gently off of her and got up to switch off the side lamp. It was hard to find her way back in the dark, she nearly tripped, and she was relieved when she found the shape of her own place, still warm.

  Chapter 60

  The next morning, the Jewish lady rang and Kathleen went over to

  Eileen’s to get Jim to give her a lift up the Antrim Road.

  ‘It’s Boxing Day,’ she said. ‘We’re half dead round here.’

  Jim came out to stand out behind Eileen, in his slippers, the mark of the sheets on his face, a piece of toast in his mouth.

  Kathleen explained it to him in the cab. ‘My neighbour, Roisin, she said you’ve got to snap what’s left of the Jews up.’

  ‘I’ll try and get our Eileen one for next Christmas.’

  He waited for her. She was only in there ten minutes and it was all settled, when she’d start, how many mornings and how much. She thought on her way back how Christmas Day was only the day before and since then they’d changed their jobs, the pair of them. Sean would be at the pub, sober, having handed in his notice. He would have to be the housewife until he found new work.

  ‘The housewife? That’ll surely get him off his arse and into something new in no time at all,’ said Mrs O’Sullivan when she came over to mind the children. She had her hair in curlers and a headscarf over them; she looked like a small thatched house.

  ‘Well now, I’m going to be giving him some moral support to get him through the night, and tomorrow as well. He’ll be on the lemonade both nights.’

  ‘It won’t be easy.’ Mrs O’Sullivan took a plate Kathleen had dried and gave it another going over with a dishcloth. ‘You know what useless gobshites men are. I had to get my Hugh to stop buying those magazines from your man up on the Springfield. What do they call them, top shelf is it? Tit magazines. Aye. Fifty pence here, seventy-five there. Going out of my purse! Upstairs ‘reading’ and the bed shaking the ceiling. He tried talking me into taking my bra off for a photo with his brother’s Polaroid camera. I spoke to Father Lanigan about it. He had a word with Hugh on the quiet and he’s never troubled with it since. Mind you, we’ve prayed over it and I think you have to.’

  Mrs O’Sullivan carried on drying dishes, shaking her scarf and curlers.

  ‘Masturbation,’ she handed the plate to Kathleen, ‘that’s what they call it. There you go, love. Dry as a bone.’

  Going out through Divismore Crescent on to the Springfield Road that afternoon, Kathleen saw the newsagent’s and started to laugh, and once she’d started she couldn’t stop. She walked into the bar with a real face-splitting grin. The bar was crowded, men mostly, still in a Christmas mood. An old woman had engaged Sean in an altercation and he was looking frustrated and virtuous in turns.

  ‘He’s a thief!’ She had a crop of hair on her lips and chin and she was red with rage and drink.

  ‘She’s been biting the face off him,’ said Fergal, a full glass in his hand. Sean came along to them passi
ng behind the pumps, and the woman followed him. ‘I want my money, I want my money, you.’

  ‘What is it love?’ Kathleen put a hand on the old woman’s shoulder.

  ‘He’s got two pound of mine so he has and he won’t give it till me.’ Her husband leant across the bar. ‘She came in at dinnertime. She says, hold this two pound for me mister, and whatever happens don’t let me have it back until Friday or I’ll never have enough for the weekend. I says till her, I know you, missus, you’ll be up here come seven shouting for it and accusing me of being the worst son of a bitch has ever walked the earth.’

  ‘And that you are!’ piped up the woman, pointing at him, a longdead cigarette in her hand.

  Sean leant back, hands on the bar. ‘You see what I have to put up with? I’m that glad that tomorrow is my last night, missus, and I’ll never have to go through this hell with you again.’

  ‘Last night?’ Her face trembled.

  Flinty came over and nodded. ‘Aye, he’s abandoning us sinners to our thirst for ruination.’

  Fergal raised his glass. ‘You’ll have to harass the landlord himself now, missus.’

  The old girl started up again. ‘I want my two pound. He’s going to be off with it himself, I want it now.’

  Sean shook his head and walked off. Flinty looked after him and said to the others conspiratorially, ‘I’ll never find a barman with as hard a heart as he has, God love him. You can’t do the job soft. Mind you, he’s got no head for business.’ He went to the small cream jug on the shelf.

  ‘Here’s your two pound love. Now what can I get you?’

  ‘Gin and bitter lemon.’

  Kathleen saw Coogan come in and she gave him a small nod of the head. She looked over at her husband; he was working out change. Behind her, a few people back, she could hear two men, drunken, voices raised, and one was saying, ‘Anything I want,’ and they were laughing. She turned to take a quick look, saw a man with a bulbous nose and curly hair doing the talking.

  ‘She’s got the poor wee lad upstairs so we do it on the floor downstairs; quiet, quiet she says and she puts her chin on the settee and covers her face with a cushion, so she does, to keep the noise down like. So as him upstairs doesn’t hear. She’s what you call a moaner.’

  Another man was wiping his eyes, laughing. ‘You’d better not have another one.’

  ‘Aye. I’d best away.’

  He put his glass down, gave a wave up and down the bar. When he went to leave, Kathleen put her foot out. He fell heavily, his hands out ahead of him, catching a blow to the side of his head off the bar but stopping himself by clinging to a bar stool. He looked around, puzzled, angry, fearful; his happiness gone.

  ‘. . . make me sick,’ said Kathleen under her breath.

  Brendan Coogan asked Sean for a Guinness. Sean Moran went to fill the glass, looking wretched. He put it down and asked for the money, his hands flat on the counter, his face away.

  ‘Did you tell him about me?’ Coogan asked, moving alongside her.

  ‘No, I’ve not told him about you.’

  ‘It would be stupid, you know. To tell him or anyone. I think in the circumstances it’s best that we’re bringing all of this to a close.’

  ‘Och don’t be so pompous.’

  When he was gone, she looked at his half-empty glass, the traces of foam suspended at the sides, slipping slower than time back towards the dark.

  Her husband took her glass away.

  ‘I’ll fill it for you.’

  He came back with it full and said in a whisper, ‘I feel sick inside when I see you talking to him, I feel grey with jealousy.’

  ‘It’s green with envy.’

  ‘No it’s not,’ he said, going to serve someone else.

  Chapter 61

  John stood in the doorway in Angie’s short towelling robe, a smile stirring on his face, toes flexing on the lino. ‘I’m not going in.’ He looked very pleased with himself.

  ‘Do you want an egg?’ said Mark.

  ‘Why not?’ He raised his arms, hands on the doorframe.

  ‘Well there’s a turn up for the books. I’ve never known you eat breakfast.’ Angie had a cup of tea at her lips.

  ‘Best meal of the day some say.’

  ‘Do they eat it at the prison then?’ She gave an emphatic nod towards his bare hairy thighs. He let his hands fall, pulled on the belt.

  ‘Nope,’ he said, moving over to the kettle. ‘We’re not talking about that place today. That’s all done with. So it is,’ he added in her accent.

  ‘How’s that then? You’re not going to hand in your notice, John?’

  He emptied the kettle out through the lid hole, banging its steel arse, watching blue and white eggshell-like matter falling into the sink.

  ‘Today is a new day. Today, I’m going to be a father to my son. I’m taking Mark out for a walk and a pint. We’re going to talk about next year, maybe going on a holiday together, maybe me coming over there to visit.’ He filled the kettle from the tap, watching the boy cut the toast into pieces. ‘Soldiers?’

  ‘Och, well then if yous’ve got plans, I’ll go off in the new car and see Mummy and Daddy for the day.’ She padded forwards a couple of steps, stood a moment so she could see him and he, her. ‘Do I need to be worried about you John? They won’t keep you on you know if you mess them about.’

  John came towards her with his hands out and put them on her waist.

  ‘With no loving in our souls and no money in our coats

  You can’t say we’re satisfied

  But Angie, An-gie, you can’t say we never tri-ied’

  ‘It’s you that’s very trying.’ She put a fingertip on his chest. ‘Are you serious about not going in or are you just having me on?’

  There was the sound of water dousing the flame at the gas ring.

  ‘Oy, chef! Easy does it.’

  As Mark moved the pan towards the sink, two hands on the handle, John followed with his nose over his son’s shoulder.

  ‘Looks like he can boil an egg.’

  They sat down to eat breakfast, Angie dipping her soldiers in her egg, watching the two of them immersed in their new-found complicity. When the one was looking elsewhere, the other looked at him. Things weren’t the same now he’d got Mark. She wondered if John still needed her in the same way he had done before. He was all she wanted.

  * * *

  After breakfast, the father and son walked out into a dim, grey morning. It was just like any other northern town in the United Kingdom – apart from the hills. It was the hills, so green, so dark, so immediately upon you, that told you this was Ireland. Where they walked in East Belfast, the sides of the pavements were painted a block of red, a block of blue, a block of white. Union Jacks hung faded at windows, or struggled, tatty and flapping, from lampposts. The murals bore paintings of men masked, in combats, pointing a gun at the passer-by. There was graffiti everywhere; threats and promises. You knew where you were in Belfast by the signs; you were never in doubt as to what the loyalties were, and the markings were the vital signs of a body whose politics were personal, person by person.

  They hurried along, up Castlereagh Road, past Ballymacarrett where he’d once been billeted and on to the Albert Bridge. They stood in the middle, Dunn pointing out the dockyards, explaining that these were once the draw for working men from all over the country. Angie’s mother had told him that every man in their family in East Belfast used to have the dockers’ button. Angie’s grandparents were dockers. ‘You’d get a week’s wage and a month to eat it,’ was what her grandmother said.

  ‘There’s history there . . .’ said Dunn.

  ‘You wouldn’t come back to England then?’

  ‘No. No, mate. I wouldn’t. I need to find another job but it will be here in Northern Ireland. Don’t ask me why. Everything’s stacked against me. Maybe I owe it something. I should never have gone into that job at the prison. Doing the law studies was a mistake as well. It got me thinking too much.’
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br />   He’d started thinking about the way it worked, the deal-making, the way the soldier pays the price for it with his life. People died. People got shot. All the time. It was just numbers if you were able to stick to the paperwork. Just numbers unless it was your family, or unless you were the one who pulled the trigger. Either way, you were fucked. And they lied about it, not just what you were doing it for, but what would happen if you did it.

  ‘A couple of years back, at a disco at Glassmullin Camp off the Falls, a trooper over there, with the Blues and Royals, went berserk and shot three men dead. One of the men got him trapped down an alleyway, put his revolver round the wall and fired off ten rounds. Fortunately one got the guy smack in the head. It was covered up. The trooper was a fuck-up. He’d seen some nasty action. We all knew it.’

  No one talked about the killing you did. Even someone like Campbell; when he talked about the Second World War, you’d think it was only the Germans that killed anyone. All of them were like that. Because if you faced it, if you looked at what you’d done, you were dead in the water.

  His own grandfather told him he’d bayoneted more than ten Germans in the First World War. He said he only wished he’d stuck it to some more.

  ‘Perhaps you’d better give up all this reading,’ was what Angie had said to him. ‘It’s not doing you any good.’

  They walked along Donegal Square. ‘I didn’t find religion, I found the Maze. I wouldn’t want to find religion, anyway. It’s just another cover. I’m a fully paid-up atheist. But I’ve got my doubts. Your mum was right about me, Mark, I’m not very deep.’ The pigeons scattered.

  The rain was falling in modest drops, one on the back of his neck, then one along the side of his nose. He put his hands on Mark’s shoulders, steering him down a side street towards the Europa Hotel.

  ‘You see it’s the greatest thing in the world, to give your life for something you believe in. And then on the other hand it’s bloody pointless. Your body goes in the ground, feeding animals. And killing for what you believe in is pointless as well. You can’t change anyone’s mind by killing them. And between those two things there are a whole load of accidents that happen. And now we’ve got it all happening on a bigger scale. You get people going on about peace not war; that’s easy talk. We can all say it’s wrong, but none of us can help the fact that it’s in us. There’s something bloody horrible inside us; a monster. We don’t like it so we make out it’s not in us personally, we make out it’s upstairs or outside or living in someone else’s house, and once we’ve got rid of it, we’ll be straight.’