This Human Season Read online

  They were stood outside of a pub door on Great Victoria Street. The

  Crown. ‘Let’s have a beer then. This is safe enough.’

  John Dunn pushed the door and they stepped into the last century. The pub was ornate, with gated booths, dark wood and every inch of ceiling detailed. They ordered up a pint of Guinness each and the barman went back to his conversation while it sat.

  He began to look about to see if they sold the Panatelas he liked and as he did a face came into focus and he and another man locked eyes. The man had the weather-beaten face of the construction worker and lively eyes. John began the process of racing through names, places, memories; leaping over years and buildings, scouring envelopes and newspapers, bringing to mind teams and clubs so that he might arrive before the other.

  The man stepped forward, smiling as the barman put down their pints and Dunn paid.

  ‘John Dunn, so it is! What about you? I knew it was you! You were the nice squaddie who used to get our electrics going down at Harland and Wolff. You’ll have got yourself some medals by now.’

  ‘Wrong man.’

  ‘Ach come on. I know who y’are. You’re a good man, we saw you every week back there for a while. When my brother told me he’d seen you round the prison, I wondered to myself if we’d run into each other. You always had time for a wee chat. Come on with you now.’

  ‘Cheers.’ John looked over at the right side of the bar; behind a wooden pole there hung a curled flypaper with tens of little black combatants adhered to it, left over from summer.

  ‘Well, I’ve just the now come home from a job in London, so I have. I’m starting a business doing a spot of painting and decorating. I’m living off the Sandy Row, on Blythe Street, if you ever need some work done.’ John looked around the man at his son, and nodded at his glass to indicate that he should drink up.

  ‘Did you hear the Provies killed a retired UDA man the other week? Ken something or other. He was selling burgers and chips out of a caravan with his son. But sure, you screws must be shitting yourselves with all the murderings. God help yous. Now would you tell Baxter, Derek Baxter, that his brother Keith said hello? Any kindnesses at all you can give him would be much appreciated. Shall we have a drink together? Will I buy them or will you?’

  ‘No thanks, we’re off now. You done there Mark?’

  ‘See, if you could take our Derek in a packet of fags or something, it would be just great. If I could bring round a couple of wee things some time . . .’

  ‘I can’t do it.’

  ‘It’d be worth your while.’

  ‘I can’t.’ John put a hand on Mark’s sleeve and nodded towards the door.

  ‘Well we know where you stand, John Dunn. And we know where you live as well.’

  ‘And I know where you live, you bastard.’ John turned at the door, pointing at the man.

  The pair of them cut up on to Grosvenor Street, with John looking behind him from time to time. As they got to the roundabout, John stopped. ‘Stupid bastard.’

  ‘I thought you said that place was all right.’

  ‘There’re people like him everywhere.’

  ‘He threatened you.’

  ‘Forget about it.’

  They were back on the bridge. It was dusk; two thin men, hands in pockets, heads down.

  ‘Why don’t you take my surname, Mark? Mark Dunn. Sounds all right, doesn’t it? It’s who you are after all. It’s up to you of course.’

  Chapter 62

  Christmastime doesn’t bring a family closer together, no more than sitting in an inch of your own bath water gets you clean. Kathleen couldn’t take days and days in front of the TV, people all around eating your food and nothing to do. So she’d lied to her family, told the one lot the other was coming on Boxing Day and told the other the other was coming, and so they were alone in the afternoon when they came back from The Fiddlers.

  Liam went out with his dad to play hurley in the street, pretending he needed him to teach him – anything to keep his daddy busy. Her husband had never been the sportsman and it was years ago that Sean taught Liam. Going up the stairs Kathleen heard the pathetic sound of her son saying, ‘Is this right, Daddy?’

  She waited outside the kids’ bedroom; she learnt about her daughter by eavesdropping on her at play. When she opened the door, Aine was lying on her back on the bed.

  ‘I thought you were tidying, miss.’ Aine made a face.

  ‘Shall I tell you a story?’

  ‘No thanks. I’m just thinking.’

  ‘Shall I tell you about Cuchullain?’

  ‘Yous all tell it differently.’

  ‘Daddy tells it to you, does he?’

  ‘And we’ve had it at school.’

  ‘Och, well I suppose you’re too old for it now.’

  ‘The part when he dies, who the bird is and all, yous tell it different.’

  ‘Never mind. I’ll get the tea on.’

  ‘I like it, though. If you want.’

  ‘Which way do you like it?’

  ‘Your way.’

  Kathleen sat on the bed, her feet crossing automatically so as not to dirty the covers.

  ‘Cuchullain was a beautiful young man and a fierce warrior; the Hound of Ulster they called him, but his real name was Setanta. He said, “I care not whether I die tomorrow or next year, if only my deeds live after me.” He had a good heart and when he had to kill his friend Ferdiad in battle, it broke him. It was a terrible fight, for days and days it wore on, and neither would give in. Cuchullain tried to put Ferdiad off the idea of fighting him, telling him to remember how they’d learnt to fight together from Scathach—’

  ‘We were heart companions, we were companions in the woods, we were fellows of the same bed, where we used to sleep the balmy sleep,’ Aine interrupted.

  ‘Well done Aine, that’s great so it is. Well now but Cuchullain won and when Ferdiad was dying, he wept something desperate and carried him to the shore of the loch that they’d been fighting for so at least he could get close to it.’

  ‘And what about when Cuchullain was dying?’

  ‘The goddess of battle, the Morrigan, och, she had many battles with Cuchullain, disguising herself as a cow, or an eel, or a wolf, or an old woman milking a cow, but he fought her off every time. Then she came to him as a beautiful young woman. Cuchullain wavered then, you see, that was his undoing. His heart was his weakness. In the end, though, he refused her love and in a fury she went for him. His enemies, seeing him weak, they moved in for the kill and when he was in a bad way, dying for sure, he strapped himself to a pillar of stone and carried on fighting. Right up until he died. He’d pledged himself to fight to the death! That’s why he tied himself to that stone.’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘Well then the last thing of all, and some say it was the Morrigan, some not, but a black raven perched on his shoulder and pecked him as he died.’

  ‘Was that the woman then?’

  ‘To my mind it was the Morrigan. She pecked him,’ Kathleen pinched up and down Aine’s arms and side, ‘and pecked him and made sure he had a slow, terrible death.’ She poked with her fingers at the girl’s ribs until the girl was kicking at her and telling her to stop. She broke free, rolled off the bed, then got back on. ‘But why would a person kill someone they loved?’

  ‘A person could kill someone they loved for something they loved better.’

  ‘But Cuchullain killed his friend. What for? For the land? For a hero, he was a bit of an eejit, wasn’t he? It can’t have been all about the land?’

  ‘It’s what they call a tragedy. People tell it just to feel the sadness. Don’t ask me why. People need to be sad as much as they need to be happy. We’re made that way. The Lord knows why. Maybe our sadness isn’t sad to God, maybe to Him it’s different – something like colours, or music even.’

  ‘And maybe it’s nothing to him what we’re feeling. Like when the Purcell lads get a wasp or a fly and they pull its legs off. They catch it in a glas
s, then they dissect it with the side of the glass, against the window.’

  ‘I think He loves us. Like I love you. You see your child doing things that are going to hurt them but you can’t stop them. You can only love them.’

  ‘Like with Sean.’

  ‘Or like with you and your black moods.’

  They could have been anywhere, they could have been in a house in a forest, or near the sea or they could have been wealthy or they could have been prisoners, they were just lying in a place, a mother and a child. She thought of Aine in the forest, the day just the two of them went off for a spring picnic. Aine with a stick in the soil, watching the undergrowth break apart, mounted in portions on the backs of the ant soldiers, her knees thick with dirt, uneven front teeth, the sunlight in her hair. They’d sat and eaten their sandwiches and she’d thought to herself, ‘This is grand. Why haven’t I done this before?’ She’d never done it again.

  ‘Do you think you can be anyone you like when you grow up, Aine, do whatever you want?’

  ‘What, and go away from here like Mary?’

  ‘I mean you could do anything you like for a job, you could travel.’ Aine’s head rolled away, as if weighted; the heaviest part sank back.

  ‘No, I don’t. I want to be here when Sean comes home.’

  The others she’d had to hunt for, shriek after and drag back to the house, but Aine had always been close by. Her brothers and sister sought the world on a grand scale, adventures and escapades, but Aine liked to bring order to what she knew.

  Kathleen rolled on to her side and looked at her youngest child, the one to whom she’d given the least. She was like a flower growing where it had no right to grow, like a solitary daffodil on a motorway siding; a reminder of the absence of others.

  ‘Are you all right, my darling?’

  ‘Aye.’

  Kathleen put her lips to Aine’s cheek. She whispered through her skin. ‘I know how rare you are, Aine, don’t think I don’t know that.’

  They stayed there a while longer, hand in hand, with Kathleen’s thoughts wandering over the left half of the ceiling, and her daughter’s over the right.

  Chapter 63

  When Angie came in, keys in hand, the boy and his father were in the sitting room talking, and she told them she was going to make the tea. She stood in the kitchen with a box of tea-bags in a hand, coat on, and she cried a little and wiped her cheeks with her free hand, traces of mascara, runny and dirty, on the bone of her thumb. Then she went back to the front room and stood in the doorway again.

  The two of them still had their coats on as well. Boxing Day in East Belfast was one of those easily forgotten, in-between days when nothing happened. John’s shoes had made a mark on the carpet, and with her there he noted it and put his feet back to rest on it, like his own starter’s mark.

  She moved to draw the curtains, her coat brushing against John’s face.

  ‘I had a nice time with Mummy and Daddy. Helen was there with Mick. They’re expecting. They were all the talk with it, the both of them. Mummy got out some old knitting patterns.’

  They heard her go into the kitchen and then upstairs.

  After a while, Mark went up after her. She was sitting on the bed, taking off her shoes, her back to him.

  ‘Angie. We were just chatting. Dad was talking about what he does next. I don’t think he’s going to go back to the prison.’

  ‘Is he not? Well, now, it’s all right. Don’t worry about it Mark, we’ve been through ups and downs like this before.’

  ‘It’s not about you, Angie.’

  ‘We know each other pretty damn well, Mark. I know who he is and

  I know that he struggles. When you have a girlfriend or a wife of your own, you’ll know how it is, that it’s the day in day out stuff. You stick by someone and it passes.’

  ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to interfere.’

  She turned round, felt her feet through her stockings with her hand. He was the boy when he should be the man, just like his father.

  ‘What do you want for your tea?’

  ‘Shall I make it?’

  ‘I can manage.’

  ‘He wants me to stay until the new year, but I can’t. Thanks for letting me stay, Angie. You’re good for Dad. He’d be lost without you.’

  Angie was making small circles with her toes. ‘I love him, Mark, I want a life together. I want children.’

  ‘I’m going to make you both something to eat.’

  The cup of tea on the dressing table gave up one last twist of steam. The bone-china cup that her grandmother had given her was so thin that the tea was too hot to the touch. She went to her handbag and took out a pattern for a knitted pram-set; hat, coat, leggings and bootees all in white with a peach ribbon trim. She would ask her mother to keep aside the trim until the baby was born, so she could put it in either blue or pink. She lay forwards on the bed, with the picture between her hands. Dipping her nose, she noted that it smelt of her mother’s knitting bag. It reminded her of her childhood. She might be pregnant. She was due on in a few days but she might well be pregnant. She threw herself on to her back, her hands moving over her belly, looking at the Styrofoam square-panelled ceiling.

  Downstairs, Mark found a can of Homepride sauce and set about making a turkey curry. He chopped onions, wiping his nose on his forearm as he went. He put the onions into sizzling oil, chopped the rest of the turkey meat into pieces and chucked that in, then he poured the sauce on top. The frying pan was so hot the sauce shrunk from it, so he poured in a mugful of cold water, which seemed to put it to rest. Then he slung the whole lot into a saucepan instead. He got the carrots and Brussels sprouts out of the fridge and tossed them in. There wasn’t any rice so he put sliced white bread aside, ready for toasting. He got out currants and desiccated coconut and put them in small bowls. He laid the table. He turned down the heat. He had no appetite.

  ‘It’ll be ready in about fifteen minutes, Dad.’

  ‘Sound. So, no hope of changing your mind then?’

  ‘I’m booked on the crossing. We’ll see each other again soon.’

  ‘Sure enough. I’ll come across. What is it, year two for you at the university now? What will you do after? I’ve never asked.’

  ‘I’ve no idea. I might go abroad.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘To see other things.’

  ‘Have you not got a girlfriend?’

  ‘I did have. She was a bit older than me, actually. Twenty-five, with a kid.’

  ‘Christ almighty, you’re only nineteen. What was she thinking of?’

  ‘She wasn’t a fallen woman, Dad.’

  ‘You’ve a bit of experience with women then? At your age I was lucky to get a kiss goodnight.’

  ‘You got more than that, Dad.’

  They had a lager each, and when Angie came in John was teasing

  Mark about his older woman. Angie had recovered her good humour.

  ‘That’s where he gets his washing skills from then, she must have had him doing the nappies.’

  They ate the curry and she told them more about her sister’s news, imitating her brother-in-law who, she said, was ‘the big I am’, all puffed up and swagger. ‘You’d think no one had got a woman pregnant before, and my daddy’s going along with him, slapping him on the back, giving him a wee drink of this and that, you know Daddy.’

  ‘He’s never offered me a drink. Last Christmas we were there an hour and I said to him, “A bit thirsty mate” and he says, well what do you want, what do you want, all annoyed like, what is it, water, lemonade? I said, what are you drinking then and he says brown ale, but you won’t like that. I said, try me old fella, and he gives me this little drop of it, no more than an inch, brown and flat.’

  ‘Ach, it was a couple of inches at least. He didn’t want you getting drunk.’

  ‘No chance of that at his place.’

  ‘They’re not made of money.’

  ‘That big prick of a man, Mick, he always g
ets a glass,’

  ‘Aye, well he’s come through for my daddy, hasn’t he. He married our

  Helen, did the job.’

  John started to speak, pointing his knife at her and then stopped himself and ate instead. He was wondering whether this was the moment. Whether he should ask her while Mark was there. Make an occasion of it. But then he thought about the prison. Thought about Angie’s parents, and her having to tell them he was out of work at the present.

  They forbade the cook from doing the washing up, going about it the pair of them. Mark stood tuning in the radio, his ear to the fizzy rush of empty space between stations. John put in too much washing up-liquid and Angie handed him back four plates in succession. ‘Och, there’s even more bubbles on this one, you’ll have to rinse them under the tap again, John.’

  ‘This is Madness.’

  ‘You’re telling me, pal,’ said John, taking back all the plates that were lying under soap bubbles on the draining board and rinsing them off as well.

  My girl’s mad at me

  I didn’t want to see the film tonight

  I found it hard to say

  She thought I’d had enough of her

  Why can’t she see

  She’s lovely to me

  But I like to stay in and watch TV on my own

  Every now and then

  John left the tap running in the bowl and began to steer Angie around the kitchen, with her exclaiming about the sink going to flow over. Mark turned off the tap, slipping on the wet floor, then turned up the volume. Angie was bemoaning John’s clumsiness and he was ignoring her, plying someone else’s trade, feigning Old Time expertise, bending her backwards, one hand at her waist, one hand in hers, his chin raised, his big feet all over the place.