This Human Season Read online

  Chapter 8

  John Dunn only needed to tell himself the time he had to wake. He switched the light on in the spare room and glanced at his watch. Three-thirty. It was a depressing ability.

  In his vest and underpants he sat up, picked up his socks from the floor and smelt them. He took a new pair from the cupboard on the landing and tried to get them on his feet, hopping in the low light. In the bathroom mirror, his face was disgruntled as he prepared his toothbrush with paste, then left it on its side before taking a leak. The urine was thick and golden, concentrate. He felt rough, robbed of sleep; meat hooks on the inside of his head.

  By three forty-five he was on the road. The car was cold. He flexed his hands at the wheel, chose his breathing. Although there were few cars about he checked the mirrors every few minutes. At the Maze by four-thirty, Dunn changed into his uniform and recalled with a pang that he had forgotten his sandwiches. He’d wanted to avoid the canteen and the heavy drinking.

  The fellow on the first grille into the block was a joke. ‘You new boys, you’re keen, worried they’re going to get out are you?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘Did you forget to lock the doors?’

  ‘Yup.’

  In the mess he put the kettle on and wiped clean a coffee cup. Before the kettle boiled, Campbell walked in.

  ‘Good man,’ he said, clapping his hands.

  Shortly after him followed two other men, who Campbell introduced. One was a small thin man with bleary eyes and a severely eczematic face – Rabbit they called him. The other was Skids, a larger fellow with a hooked nose who was a class officer – he had put in some six years in the service at Crumlin Road, prior to the Maze.

  Shandy came in with his large round pink Tupperware box under his arm. Frig had a tartan scarf around his neck. He looked preoccupied, and sat with his head in his hands.

  ‘Morning lads,’ said Campbell, putting out five more mugs and doling instant coffee into each. There was a strong smell of Old Spice as he twirled around. He took the milk from the fridge, stuck his nose into the rim of the bottle and smelt it. He handed the mugs around. ‘Well done yous for getting in at this ungodly hour. Brass-monkey weather. Right, get these down you, come on, look sharp. Now, prisoner 2350 O’Malley made it known to PO yesterday that them lads on A and B wings not getting any exercise was a breach of his ‘rights’. The day we get to hear about Thomas Gilligan’s murder, he asks about his rights to have a run round. So Mr Bolton asks me what I think, which is his way of leaving it to me to sort it out. I says, aye, not to worry, Sir, we’ll give them their exercise. So, now you’re all here lads, let’s go and get them out.’

  ‘Who’s got to stand out there with them then?’ ventured Frig.

  ‘You lot and the night guards.’

  ‘For how long?’

  ‘Let’s go,’ said Campbell, taking the keys from his pocket. ‘I want you to be a bastard of an alarm clock today, Shandy, come on lads, let’s give them one unholy racket.’

  The men followed Campbell down both A and B wings banging on the doors with their batons. ‘Rise and shine!’

  Two night officers came back up each wing unlocking the doors to the cells, throwing in a towel for each man.

  Dunn was standing between cells, half-way down the corridor. He saw men blinking at the light, saw that they were afraid, saw in their faces that they thought anything was possible. He tried to adjust his mindset, considered his time in screening out at Glassmullin. Tin roofs, breeze blocks, cold. Four hours to break them. Taking turns at them, hooding them, head in a bucket, head out the window. Now he looked straight into a cell at two disorientated, half-naked filthy boys and held his breath against the smell.

  Suddenly he recalled gagging in his uncle’s cattle shed, yellow fizz coming through his nose, spewing on to the brickwork. Marching to the bus stop, his grandfather’s words about him all the way, all the hostile truth of who he was, and then what he wouldn’t say. Not just hatred in his eyes, something else in there, turning about, eating itself.

  He was functioning mechanically, telling the prisoners to move themselves. He saw one man, naked, dropping his blanket and reaching for his towel, then standing up again, on his foam mattress, he saw the urine squeezing out from it as the man wavered.

  The prisoners gathered outside their cells, pulling the towels they were given about them, looking at each other.

  Campbell opened the grille that led to B wing exercise yard and told the officers to start getting the men through to the outside. It was cold enough in the wings, but when Campbell opened the exterior door a fierce chill came in. Dunn tucked his fingers in his palms and put his hands across his chest. Jostled, prodded and harangued, the prisoners went slowly outside and stood bare foot on the dirt and gravel of the yard.

  ‘Right, now get on and exercise yourselves! ‘ yelled Campbell. He blew out his lips and shivered with a certain delight. ‘Brrr.’ He went back inside, closing the door firmly behind him.

  The artificial light from one of the lighting towers seemed to hold them all still as if in a painting. Through the rays of the spotlights, Dunn saw the fine drizzle. The prisoners gathered together speaking in the prison Irish patois dubbed Jailic. They grouped around O’Malley who spoke, putting his hand on a back, here and there.

  One or two prisoners stood apart. Dunn noticed a tall young lad whose hair was shorter than the others, a new arrival. He was arguing with his cellmate in English and Dunn could hear snatches of the conversation, he could hear the word ‘fuck’.

  Frig lit a cigarette and cursed as it went out, drooping in the rain.

  ‘Always nice to watch the sun come up at the Maze.’

  The other two officers stood at the far side, arms across their chests, moving on the spot.

  Suddenly the young man broke away and walked over to Dunn, singling him out. ‘What the fuck have I done to you?’ His voice broke like an axel coming off wheels.

  Dunn looked into the boy’s eyes, black and white, in the sepia light of the near-dawn.

  ‘Stand away from the officer,’ snapped Shandy coming up behind.

  ‘Take your exercise 2892 Moran.’

  ‘I’m talking to your man, not to you,’ Moran replied, his bare chest rising and falling. His shoulders were soft and white, reluctant to follow suit.

  ‘It’s not personal,’ Dunn said levelly.

  ‘How is this not personal? Here I am standing here and there’s you standing there.’

  ‘Your OC wants exercise, you’ve got it,’ interrupted Shandy. ‘Now stop your whining and get to it. I’m warning you.’ He pointed a finger but the boy wouldn’t look at him.

  ‘You’ve nothing to say, have you?’ said the boy, his eyes on Dunn’s. O’Malley came over.

  ‘Come over with the group. There’s no use in that, Sean.’

  Dunn had been in many situations in the army and outside, armed and unarmed and physical threats he could deal with but when it came to moral arguments, he was incapacitate. The boy Moran followed O’Malley.

  The prisoners gathered in a circle, hands on each other’s shoulders, and O’Malley’s voice, low and quiet at first spoke, then sang and as the words took on melody, he raised his head. He and the forty men seemed to take a single breath at once then launched the song:

  ‘It seemed to watch above my head, in forum field and fane,

  Its angel voice sang round my bed – a Nation once again!’

  O’Malley went on to the next verse. When Dunn looked at his fellow officers he saw they were smoking, looking away.

  ‘It’d better fucking count as fucking overtime,’ Rabbit was saying, rubbing his brow such that white dust fell before his glasses like a snow dome. ‘I clocked in at four-thirty, I’ll be here until ten tonight. How many hours is that?’

  ‘A Nation once again, a Nation once again

  And Ireland, long a province, be a Nation once again.’

  A night guard came across to join them. ‘I’ve been up
all night, now this. I’m fucked if I’m staying past eight. I’m fit to drop.’

  ‘Seventeen and a half hours, it is. That’s more than likely against the law.’

  Shandy’s cigarette was like a wand making a long curve in the air. The song finished. ‘Here’s the part I like.’

  ‘Tiocfaidh ar là!’

  ‘Yeah and ours will too.’

  ‘When I get paid.’

  ‘I’m frozen to the bone,’ said Frig and he sloped off to lean against the block door.

  Dunn had a sense of déjà-vu looking at the prisoners underneath a single spotlight. It was as if he was caught in the corner of a dream. The sick feeling of it came first, then half-sense, like a child meeting a wall in the dark, hands first. Nothing concrete emerged, no pictures, no story at all, and then it was gone.

  Frig was banging with a fist on the door. ‘All right in there are you

  Campbell? You tosser.’

  Chapter 9

  Kathleen had got some minced beef from the butcher so they had a shepherd’s pie with a jelly to follow. After dinner she got Sean to take the kids out with a football up on to the playing fields and she went along to watch them for a while. He was miserable about it, complaining about the cold and saying how their older brother used to be able to amuse himself, he wasn’t always after his father for entertainment. Liam and Aine stood by looking aimless, resentful, insulted while he finished his cigarette.

  When she got back in, Roisin Doherty, her neighbour, stopped by for a cup of tea and a smoke. She was working for some Jewish people, cleaning, up on the Antrim Road. There was plenty of work with them as they were always planning something: a party, one of their religious dos, big holidays, and they went to see their family in America every year, sometimes twice. ‘They’ve got matching suitcases, and she’s got one of them vanity boxes with bottles in.’ They shook their heads, unsmiling, reproachful, lighting up.

  The phone did not ring. Kathleen finished up cleaning the kitchen, tossed the dishcloth on to the oven and strode out to the telephone, picked up the receiver and called the number she had for Mary in London. One of Mary’s Australian flatmates answered and asked Kathleen to repeat what she was saying. Finally she understood. ‘Oh, May-ery!’ she said. Kathleen wanted to say, well I’m the one who bloody named her so I should know what she’s called, but then she lit a cigarette instead and waited for Mary to come to the phone. She could hear music in the background and whorls of laughter. It was a million miles from Belfast. Kathleen said she was calling to tell her she’d found the bottle she’d given to her brother Sean and she was going to drink it with Auntie Eileen but she wanted to know if it was all right with her before she did. It was fine. She told Mary she was going to see Sean on Wednesday the twelfth. Mary told her to give him her love. She told her she could give it herself when she came home for Christmas, that she’d try and arrange a visit for her or they could go together.

  ‘I’m not coming back, Mum, I’m going off to Tim’s parents in the

  Lake District.’ Her accent had changed.

  ‘Are you courting?’

  ‘They call it “going out” here.’

  ‘So you just “go out” do you?’

  ‘Sort of.’

  ‘Well, mind you don’t stay in.’

  ‘He’s not a Catholic, Mum.’

  ‘And what’s that got to do with anything? Sure, you don’t think we’re a shower of bigots here, I hope. I don’t give a tuppence what he is. You know what you are.’

  ‘I’m happy here.’

  ‘Are you now?’

  ‘Yes I am.’

  ‘Well now of course, that’s wonderful, so it is, Mary. I’ll let your brother know when I see him.’

  ‘Look, I’ve got to go, we’re off out just now. Please would you say hello to Aine and Liam and give them and Daddy a kiss for me. I’ve something to put in the post for you all for Christmas.’

  Kathleen put the phone down and burst into tears. She went back to the kitchen. ‘I’m happy here’. She gathered up the dishcloth and cried into it, blowing her nose then throwing it on the floor.

  * * *

  There was a small knock at the door. No one she knew knocked. Kathleen went first to the looking glass in the hallway, wiped underneath her eyes and let the pins out of her hair. Hastily she put them in the pockets of her trousers. ‘Just a minute,’ she said. She opened the door. A man with a mass of blunt-cropped, dark hair was standing there, looking aggrieved.

  ‘Oh Jesus. Brendan Coogan, what about ye? And me a right mess. Come on in.’

  ‘My mother asked me to drop in and see you, about your son.’

  She went to make a cup of tea for him and he came out with her to the kitchen.

  ‘The word from the blocks is that your Sean is a great fella, Mrs Moran.’ She didn’t know what to say. She looked at him, then fell to murmuring agreement and feigning undue annoyance with her kettle. He was a handsome man. She shook the kettle and checked the lead. He turned sideways to look out across the yard. He had on a jacket and jeans, his shirt was open at the neck.

  She was thinking of what Bernie had said at the last co-operative meeting.

  ‘Anyone’d want their fella banged up for the chance to have that Brendan Coogan round comforting you,’ and she’d pursed her lips and stuck her chest out and made them all laugh. ‘I’d call the peelers myself, tell ’em what time they could find the old man at home.’

  ‘Och well we’re not all margarin’ legs now,’ Eilish Purcell said.

  ‘Your Sean must have been in and out of there a few times.’ Brendan was looking at the gap in the fence.

  ‘He was on the run for over a year,’ she said, forcing the backside of a tea-bag up against the side of mug with a spoon and tossing it in the bin, leaving a near-broth, dark and astringent, shrinking. The milk smelt fishy. ‘The woman in the shop up top knew more about where he was than I did, I used to go up there to find out whether he was still alive.’ Two flecks of white circling the rim; others were bound to bob up and join them – she handed him the mug. He took a good mouthful of it, all the while looking at her. She smiled.

  ‘That’s a good cup,’ he said rather formally, like an inspector.

  Her laughter rang false. They went into the front room, Kathleen rubbing her hands on the tops of her jeans and looking unduly aghast in the aftermath of her laughter. He placed the tea on the side table, sat down, then leant forward, rubbing his hands together. His fingers were short, as if the ends had been cut off them.

  ‘My mother tells me you’re worried about Sean.’

  ‘Aye. I am. Well he went straight on to the blanket. He said he would. I might have known it. But you see, what worries me is the protest has been going on for three years and it’s getting worse and worse.’ She looked at her cigarette as she lit it.

  ‘Well, we hope, we think, it’s building momentum. As you know, we’ve got one of us elected from the National H Block Committee and we’re getting some world interest.’ He put his hands together as if in prayer, placing the fingertips at his chin. ‘The European Court at Strasbourg described the conditions as inhumane, you probably heard that. We were hoping to get more out of the Pope’s visit but there you go. The Church has its own agenda. We’re getting a lot of outside opinion on our side but we’ve got to keep the pressure on the Brits, and the Northern Ireland Office, one way or another.’

  ‘That lot in Strasbourg, I don’t know why they stop at words. They should have torn a strip off them for being torturers,’ she blew smoke aside. ‘Sorry it’s a mess in here. I had this place pulled apart again just the other day and we’ve not had the chance to fix it yet. Do you not smoke?’

  ‘I gave it up.’

  ‘Did you now? That’s a funny thing to do,’ she said, stubbing out her cigarette and exhaling, sending afloat the strands of hair over her face, ‘round here.’

  ‘Well, to me you see it’s a part of the whole system, the fags. Imperialism, capitalism, exploitation. S
mall comforts in exchange for the big things; like justice. Fags, Coca-cola, a bag of nuts, a nice car. That’s what they throw you, instead of giving you your rights. It’s what they call a pay off.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Kathleen, looking at her cigarette. ‘Shite.’

  ‘Not many people think about it.’

  ‘Aye. Well, I suppose I should think more about these things. What with Sean and all. I ought to get more political. I’ll tell you something, I’m sick of sitting waiting for them to come round here and wreck the place whenever they feel like it.’

  ‘A lot of people feel the same way.’

  ‘I try not to get angry. You’re in it, you’re in the thick of it when you live round here. That’s always been the truth. But it’s no use just sitting here, letting them come and get my kids one at a time.’

  She looked at the floor and she had a quick vision of herself lying on it with Brendan above her. The weight of him, his mouth, her fingertips against his chest, holding him off. She glanced at him to see if he’d seen her thoughts.

  Brendan was sat right back in the chair, at home now, expansive. ‘We’re thinking we’ll be bringing it to a head soon. It’s not fair for the lads to go on like this. We feel the same way you do. You know what’s going on with the screws, well that won’t let up until we get somewhere with the five demands. Then O’Fiaich is going to meet with one or two of us and see the Brits in the new year. So you just keep your fingers crossed, Mrs Moran.’

  ‘Call me Kathleen, I’m not a granny yet. And I’m not going to sit back and keep my fingers crossed.’ She stubbed out her cigarette, squashing its tail down in the small enamelled blue square. Genoa. ‘What can I do to help?’

  When he smiled now he seemed to see her. ‘Kathleen. Just do what you do anyway, what everyone does. Play your part. Support Sean.’