This Human Season Page 5

  He was back again in 1974, and they stuck him into screening. After a six week course in Ashford, he and a few others were at Glassmullin off the Falls playing ‘Mutt and Jeff’ with IRA men, and then he was back again in late ’76. On that last tour he met Angie, which was handy, because he was staying.

  He checked his mirror and his side mirrors, went the long way round and then drove down the road on which they lived and up on to the small driveway; room for one car, arse out over the pavement. They’d get another car at Christmas, so Angie could come and go without waiting on the buses, see her parents. They’d have to park it on the road. His pay was more than it was even a month ago when he was at Millisle and all the men talked about at lunchtimes was the money. The overtime, what they got extra for being on the ‘dirt’ blocks, how much it was for doing the cleaning, and how the union was going for a big pay rise, thirty per cent. With the murders, they were desperate for men. The ‘conveyor belt’ court system was shovelling men into the prisons like coal into a furnace. And now he was at the back end, closing the doors.

  Angie wanted a house, she wanted children, she wanted to get married, she wanted to have a holiday abroad, she wanted to get out of Belfast. Her parents had had the farm in the family hundreds of years. Her dad wanted John to make a decent woman of his daughter before he got himself killed. But he didn’t want to invest too much in the effort in case John was killed before the wedding. It was a fine line, meanly drawn. ‘Will you offer John a drink for God’s sake, Daddy!’ Angie wanted them to move to Lisburn. It was closer to the prison and her parents. It made sense. But it was a dead end for John Dunn. Her old man, every Sunday, all tolerance and temperance, the chastened suffering of another man in his house; gums chasing false teeth, suggestive of all the work that was going on inside of him, keeping the new man out.

  She wasn’t stupid, Angie, she was doing the accounts where she worked now. She read about a lot of things he’d never even think to read about. She talked about what she read but he just switched off for that, and let her talk, giving the minimum, a nod of agreement, a small expression of surprise or sympathetic disgust. It was the same with all her chat about her family.

  They got along well. They had a lot of sex; they liked to have sex together, it was worth staying in for. They saved money. He didn’t know whether he loved her. She was a nice girl, they laughed at the same things and she fancied him and he fancied her. Why make it more than that?

  He didn’t want her to leave him. He did not want her to leave him on his own. If he had to marry her to stop that happening he would.

  The light was still on in the front room; it was after ten. He remembered seeing the TV advertisement for the prison service, the new officer saying ‘I enjoy the comradeship of fellow officers and I can earn eighty pounds a week without overtime.’ A comic strip, it had a man telling his wife and child that there was job security and a pension, training on full pay and a free uniform.

  Angie came to the door. ‘All right love?’

  ‘All right,’ he said, giving her a kiss.

  ‘Bloody hell, John, you stink.’

  He was surprised. He had had a shower before he left and changed into civilian clothes. He pulled the armpits of his shirt to his nose one at a time, tenderly sniffing.

  ‘You’re exaggerating.’

  ‘No, you smell terrible, John.’ She was recoiling, her nose taut like an exclamation mark.

  ‘Oh,’ he said.

  ‘Jesus. Get those clothes off you, you need to get in the bath and shower yourself down all over. Use plenty of soap.’

  ‘Let me get in the door first, Angela.’

  She looked outside the front door left and right, closed it behind him then followed him through to the kitchen.

  ‘Have a cup of tea then.’

  He shook his head. ‘I’ll have a Scotch.’

  ‘You’ve had a bad day. Ach, John it’s bound to give you a wee shock to the system so it is, all that carry on in there.’

  ‘I don’t think that was a bad day, Angie. I think it was more than likely a normal day in the Maze. It’s like a bloody zoo in there. The smell. Jesus Christ you wouldn’t believe it.’

  ‘I would. Have your drink and get in the shower.’ She went to the drinks cabinet in the front room and brought the bottle of whiskey into the kitchen with her, putting a good splash into a mug. He drank, sighed, then topped it up with a little more.

  ‘Are you all set then?’

  ‘Give us a minute, Angie. Come on.’

  ‘Och, before I forget it, this came for you today, John, from England.’ She picked up a letter from in front of the toaster and put it on the table.

  ‘Oh yeah?’ He got up to go to the fridge, stooping then ripping the door open with the bout of effort that was required. ‘Can’t see anything I fancy. I’m on bloody early tomorrow. Five a.m.’

  ‘You’re kidding me, John.’

  ‘Nope.’

  ‘Are they trying to break you in hard like?’

  ‘Seems like you get a day off now and again from what the other lads were saying, they said figure on one Sunday or what-have-you every month. The good news is, you get one-and-a-half time on a Saturday and double-time on a Sunday, so on a weekend you can near double your week’s pay.’

  ‘We’re never going to see each other.’

  ‘Look, think about it, we can save the money, then we can buy a house. Get a new fridge and all. You play your cards right and you might be driving your own car after this Christmas. All right? It’s not for ever. You’ll be able to pop down and see your family whenever you want. If I’m working late you can always go down there for an evening, can’t you?’

  ‘Well I can always wait for your days off to go down and see them. But it will be handy for work, a car. You know, I still quite like you, John Dunn. I’m not ready never to see you again. Give me a kiss, you smelly git.’ He kissed her perfunctorily on the mouth. ‘Jesus, the smell. Listen they’re getting rid of one of the reps’ Datsuns so they might give us a good price. I’ll ask if we can have a test drive maybe. You never know your luck, John Dunn, if we get a new car I might do something naughty to you in the front seat.’

  John put his tea down and felt inside his pockets. He took out two pound notes and slapped them down. ‘Can I get anything in advance?’

  ‘Do you want a cheese bap?’

  ‘Yeah, all right. Stick some Branston in with it.’

  She took a knife from the cutlery drawer. John opened the fridge for her once more and passed over the small square of cheese. ‘So now, what’s that there letter about then?’

  ‘It looks like it’s from the insurance company. It’ll all be yours one day.’ He was ten years older than her.

  ‘You’re a thrifty old man, so you are.’ She lopped off some cheese, sliced like tombstones fallen over, spooned sauce and pressed the bap down hard with her palm. ‘Och I might as well go up and have my bath while you eat that. I’ve got to wash my hair. I can’t wait on you if it’s to dry at all.’

  ‘Thanks love. Yeah, you go on up,’ he told her, ‘I’ll have another drink first and finish the sandwich.’ She bent her head for a kiss and he swallowed his mouthful grudgingly, saying irritably with cheese round his teeth, ‘Go on, then.’ He took a sip of Scotch, then caught her by the hand. ‘Angie, did you ever hear of a fella named Baxter from round here?’

  ‘There’s a few Baxters.’

  ‘He’s an orderly in the prison.’

  ‘Not Bobby Baxter as was a male nurse?’

  ‘No. A male nurse?’

  ‘Aye. Took them stitches out my knee. Nice lad.’

  Angie went off to have her bath and he sat a while in the dark, thinking. He could hear the repetitive hollow clink of the jug against the side of the bath.

  When he’d finished the sandwich, he put the plate in the sink and took his glass into the front room. ‘Nothing good comes in letters,’ he thought, index finger jerking bluntly through the envelope’s seal.
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br />   ‘Mark,’ he said, looking at the bottom of the unfolded page, and he pressed the inside of his palm to his left eye.

  The letter was short. When he’d read it through twice, he put it on the arm of the chair and went to the drinks cabinet for his packet of Panatela cigarillos. Then, turning off the light and checking the front door was locked, John went back into the kitchen with the letter and glass. He took matches from the small bowl on the table, a saucer from the draining board and lit his cigarillo, looking outside across their small bit of paving and grass, with the clapped out circular washing line, its arms lowered, a lonely tea-towel stuck to the mast. Beyond that the kitchen light couldn’t reach, and there was darkness apart from a downstairs light here and an upstairs light there. The back of their house faced the backs of the terraced houses on the next street, all built to the same scheme.

  He picked up the letter and read it again. Ash fell on to the linoleum floor. His hands were shaking. He looked through the back window again and merging with his reflection was an upstairs light in a house opposite.

  It was extinguished.

  Against the dark, he saw himself wholly.

  ‘Nineteen.’

  Chapter 7

  Over her first cigarette of the day, Kathleen said to her husband. ‘You’re not working the night. If I can get my arse over to Clonard to pray for your two sons, then you can stop at home and explain to Liam why he shouldn’t be following his brother into Long Kesh. He needs to think about his schooling more than going rioting.’

  ‘Give my head peace,’ he moaned, his toes curling. Sean had a bad taste in his mouth; he was standing in the kitchen like a dog chewing bile and grass.

  ‘Would you take a look at yourself?’ she said. ‘Jesus.’

  ‘The boys were in last night buying me drinks on account of the old days.’

  ‘Aye, and there was a fella came in here, looked like Roger Moore, begging me for to go away with him.’ She washed her cup out and went to call for Aine and Liam. ‘I can’t leave yous here because I can’t trust yous, so hurry up and get down here, we’re going up the Clonard. After that your daddy’s going to spend the afternoon with you.’

  She heard Sean in the kitchen delivering a lengthy fart. ‘Oh Christ, I’m not well.’

  Clonard monastery was a long way along the Falls, past the Royal Victoria Hospital. Although Kathleen’s family had always gone to St Peters which was closer, after Bombay Street was burnt out people had gathered in Clonard and she felt a loyalty to it. She hated Corpus Christi, the great brutish modern church in Ballymurphy. There it stood, unscathed, while all around it Ballymurphy was reduced to rubble on a regular basis and she just couldn’t stand to see it, nor its priests who apart from Father Pearse were trying to pretend none of it was going on. And now Father Pearse was going more and more to Clonard to help out Father Fitzgerald. They were more Republican-minded up there, more a part of the community.

  She loved the look of the place. It was like something out of medieval Europe, with its triple portal doorway, a huge Rose window above and then two octagonal towers that reached up to the sky in fine, twisting finials that were like a lady’s fingers outstretched.

  The usual crowd of older men and women were hurrying inside, hands in pockets.

  Inside, the church was a red granite that looked like pink-speckled marble and your eyes went naturally to a round golden mosaic of the ascension of Christ. His arms were open and beside him were angels and birds. Mary was at his side praying for all she was worth.

  The priests came in. Father Fitzgerald and Father Pearse side by side. The altar boy came up swinging the incense too flippantly; he nearly hit the stairs with it. Underneath his robe were a pair of dirty running shoes with the laces undone. Father Fitzgerald took the incense from him and with little careful movements gave it to the Bible and then to the altar. The elderly man recited his words with all the enjoyment of a newly ordained priest.

  Her children went off to the separate glass-fronted side room.

  Slack-bodied, heads bowed, the congregation stood together, the narrative of their own lives outside still rolling in their heads and then the choir struck up, trying to intervene.

  Responding automatically to the chords of the organ’s tune, they picked up the song, ‘Morning has broken, like the first morning.’ After the hymn, they bowed their heads to say the Thanksgiving Prayer together.

  ‘O Mother of Perpetual Help, with grateful hearts we join you . . .’

  The image of Our Lady of Perpetual Help was protected by a three-arched golden gateway, and the egg shape was illuminated like a golden fruit, an eternal womb. Mary’s head was lowered to one side towards the baby and her arms encircled him. The priest read out the letters of thanks to Our Lady. ‘Thank you for our three year old son who is so lovely and innocent and I pray he stays that way as long as possible, and thanks for our families that get on so well. I pray, Mary, that we can always keep it that way.’

  Kathleen lifted her head out of the field of folk. She looked up at the wooden depiction of Jesus, his long hair back behind his neck, a single cloth around his waist, draped over his forearm. There were centurions standing about him. His face was solemn, already beyond the world, and she could see in his expression those words to come. ‘Forgive them, Father .. .’

  Afterwards, set free, most of the congregation and the kids from the side room went out into the forecourt to share a yarn. A hard-core group of old timers chanted the rosary together, and a few others went to wait their turn for the confession boxes and Kathleen took her purse to the altar of Our Lady of Perpetual Help and doled out her small change. The clattering of coins sounded like a fruit machine on a win.

  ‘Now, you must have something you need from Our Lady desperate bad.’

  Sinking to their knees, side by side, Kathleen and her neighbour exchanged smiles.

  ‘Margaret Coogan! Whatever are you doing down at the Clonard? How’s your son Brendan getting along. I was just thinking about you the other day.’ Kathleen had worked with Mrs Coogan at Gallaghers, rolling cigarettes, some ten years ago. Back then, Mrs Coogan was always on about her son going to university. He didn’t. It was 1969 and he was eighteen. Kathleen had gone round to their house in the days after Bombay Street was burnt to borrow a travel bag. When she got there Margaret’s son was packing the bag in a state of fury and excitement. Nowadays Brendan Coogan had a regular column in An Phlobacht that she made a point of reading when she could. She saw him from time to time on the Falls Road. He was striking, fierce looking, dark, like he’d come out the woods.

  ‘Aye, dead on, thanks, Kathleen. He’s coming round for his dinner today for the first time in months. Our boy James is getting married in the new year and Michelle is courting. What about your Mary? She must be married already. She was always such a lovely looking girl.’

  ‘She’s off over in England. Calls me every Sunday like. Shouldn’t wonder if I don’t hear from her this afternoon. As for my Sean, well, did you not know he’s in the H blocks, on the blanket.’

  The surface of Mrs Coogan’s tongue was a matt pale yellow. ‘He can’t be more than fifteen!’

  ‘He’s nineteen! And my Liam’s thirteen and going the same way.’

  ‘Och God save us, Kathleen. What can you do? If it’s in them, it’s in them. You don’t know what they’re doing and you don’t ask.’ Mrs Coogan crossed herself and looked at the altar, shifting her knees to allow her raincoat to secede.

  ‘That’s great for you about James. I’ve no hope of my Sean getting married now. Sixteen years he’s got inside. He’ll be thirty-five when he comes out. No remission, even though they say he’s a criminal. They have it every which way they like. It makes you sick.’

  With Mrs Coogan’s hand on Kathleen’s forearm they walked up the side aisle towards the doors, past the confession boxes and the rosary-sayers. ‘I just pray my Liam doesn’t follow him in there. Like you say, it’s as if the boys are drawn to it.’

  ‘I’
m a good Republican and I don’t care who knows it but with some of them they’re choosing a way of life. It’s not what their fathers had is it; getting married, having weans, the church, this job or that, getting by. They don’t want any of that, this lot now. No, if there wasn’t this war they would have had to have invented one. That’s what I think.’

  ‘You’re dead right, Margaret. Listen I’m that glad I’ve seen you because I’ve not yet been in to see Sean in the Kesh and I’m worried for him. Could you ask your Brendan to call in for a wee chat like? I know he sees the boys all the time. I won’t keep him long.’

  ‘Are you still up at Ballymurphy?’

  ‘Aye. The Republic of Ballymurphy they’re after calling it now.’

  ‘When I see him later on I’ll ask him to pop over, Kathleen.’ They were standing outside in the glittering half-light that precedes a downpour. Mrs Coogan was pulling her coat to, fumbling with buttons in haste. ‘God love you, Kathleen, it’s a lot for a mother to bear having a son in that place. And on the blanket as well.’

  Kathleen found Aine and Liam with a group of other children kicking horse chestnuts at a car. They walked home together, the children going on at each other over something Liam had said to Aine’s friend’s sister and Kathleen in her own thoughts, pleased with her bit of luck running into Margaret Coogan. Everyone knew which way the wind was blowing, Brendan Coogan was standing for election as a Sinn Fein MP and he was also, most certainly, on the army council.

  ‘Can we have an ice-cream, Mummy?’

  An ice-cream van was speeding down the Falls, out of control, veering all over both sides of the road. It crashed into a low wall, its bumper up like a snarl, then two men in balaclavas hopped out and ran off down an alleyway. The chimes were playing ‘Dixie Land’.