by Roddy Doyle
—They didn’t have that in our day, I said.
—What? she said.
I pointed at the telly.
—That, I said.
It was 1980. We were watching the news.
—Kneecapping, I said.
—No, she agreed.—We didn’t have that.
While the Provisionals were emptying the country’s banks, they were kneecapping kids for robbing shops.
—Did we do that kneecapping? I asked her.
It was a real question. I wanted to know. I’d shot men so their outraged pals would shoot other men. I’d fired off rounds so that people would be terrified and grateful. I’d left a dead body on a street, so that fury would drop solid and blinding onto the surrounding streets. I’d murdered men because I’d been told to.
—We didn’t, she said.
—Are you sure?
—Maiming our own? she said.—We never did that. Why would we have?
—Okay.
—We didn’t.
—Good.
—Only them that were looking for it.
I looked at her. I sat up - it took a while.
—You still believe in it, I said.—Don’t you?
—When I remember, she said.—Yes. Sometimes.
She tried to sit up, to match me.
—It’s there in me still, she said.—And what about you, Henry?
—Not really.
I’d never let her in on the secret. It had nearly killed me, but I hadn’t whispered the fact that I was one of the men that mattered. I’d been told to tell no one. I’d been reminded of that, the day before.
—A chara, he said, when I finally got the door open.
It needed to be taken off its hinges and given a planing - the weather had fattened the wood - but I wouldn’t be doing the job.
He was by himself. It had been more than five years, and the beard was gone. But the teeth and the accent; I knew who he was. He followed me back into the house.
—How’s the health? he asked.
—Grand, I said.
—You’re looking well, he said.
—I’m not, I said.—But I don’t look.
—That’s the spirit.
It took a while - everything took a while; nothing came quick any more - but then I knew how I felt when I saw him: delighted. I was being rewarded for my patience. I was the sleeper, being called into action at last. Miss O’Shea was going to be proud of me.
I remembered: republicans loved their tea.
—Will I stick on the kettle?
—Don’t bother yourself.
—Grand, I said.—I’ve biscuits.
—No, he said.—No.
I had Goldgrains, but so did the mice. Their droppings were all over the plate on the table. I could hear the bastards but I hadn’t seen them in years.
—I’m on my way up to Parnell Square, he said.
He looked less sturdy without the beard. He was still the man, though - even the mice were listening.
—And I thought I’d drop in, say hello.
—What’s in Parnell Square? I asked.
I remembered singing on Parnell Square, with Jack Dalton.
—Headquarters, he said.—The political wing. Has to be done.
—I bet it works, I said.
—What works?
—The shaving, I said.—I bet you can go anywhere without being stopped.
He smiled.
—I can, aye.
—The same here, I told him.—I put on a suit and they didn’t know how to find me.
—A suit would be too much for me, he said.—I’d nearly prefer to be sent back to the Kesh.
—Long Kesh?
—That’s right.
—Looks like a kip.
—It’s a kip, right enough.
It was man to man stuff and I loved every word. He pushed the door shut. It closed with a whinge.
—So, Henry, he said.—I don’t want to attract attention. So I’ll just say my piece.
—Go ahead.
I didn’t sit down. I was ready to follow him straight back out the door, to Parnell Square, to the walls of Long Kesh. I wouldn’t need a bag.
—There’s something big on the way, he said.—Something very big. It could change everything.
—I don’t like this kneecapping, I told him.
—I don’t like it myself, he said.—But listen now. I can’t give you details. And it’s no insult to you. No one knows the details. No one.
Your secret’s safe, I wanted to tell him. I’ll have forgotten it before you’re back in your car. Just tell me.
—The timing’s vital, he said.—And it might be a while yet. Are you fit?
I nodded.
—I am.
I could climb over walls, although I went over Miss O’Shea’s front wall these days; the high back wall was beyond me - I couldn’t look up at it.
—Good man, he said.—Ignore what you hear. On the news or from any other source. It’s a smokescreen. The armed struggle. You understand?
I nodded.
—Behind the armed struggle, Henry, there’s another struggle going on.
He was making sure his eyes were locked to mine.
—That’s where you’ll come in, Henry, he said.—At the right time. The exact right time. The word from you, Henry. You have no idea.
—What word?
—You’ll know when the time comes.
He was at the door.
—We’ll meet again soon, he said.—Keep fit. Be patient.
—I’m not going with you?
—No, he said.—Not this time.
The teeth lit the room.
—But you will.
The door was open.
—Slán.
I stayed where I was. I heard feet joining his feet, car doors, an engine, two engines.
—Is there anything good on after this? I asked her now.
But she was asleep. Fair play to her, she still slept with her mouth closed. Not bad for ninety-three. I wanted to kiss her but her head was right at my shoulder, tucked in like the butt of a rifle.
—I was lying, I said.—I’m involved.
She stayed asleep.
—I love you.
I retired. No one told me to. No one announced it. A young lad of about fifty passed me by in the corridor. He was the new caretaker. And I didn’t mind. I cared - but I didn’t mind. Good luck to him; he had a job.
That was another thing. The country stopped growing. The dizzy spell was over.There were fathers and grandfathers collecting the little lads at the school gate. They’d no work and no chance of work, and their wives were off cleaning houses or working up in Cadbury’s. And the kids in the school began to change as well - they were looking ahead to nothing. Even that young, they knew they were fucked.
But I was gone and I didn’t have to look at them. I handed over the school keys to the priest. He was starting to show his age as well. He was prosperous around the jowls. His head was slick, and he’d stopped wearing the dog collar, except on Sundays. He looked filthy.
—We’ll have to give you a good send-off, Henry, he said.
There were more keys on the ring than there had been when he’d first handed them to me. More locks, more security, extra prefabs out the back - more kids but no money coming to pay for proper classrooms.
—No, thanks, I said.
—Ah now, we’ll have to have a do, he said.
—No.
He shrugged. It was a strange gesture, coming from this man. He’d never shrugged before; he’d never had to. He’d known everything; he’d always got exactly what he wanted. It was as if the action, the little shrug, hurt him, a muscle pain that scrabbled across his eyes.
I turned, and left him to it. The housekeeper was in the kitchen, sitting there, growing a beard. I’d come in that way but I went out by the front door.
Shrugging was what dying slowly was all about. I could have told the priest that. And I could have told the men at t
he school gate and the kids on the other side of the gate. Not understanding, or pretending not to give a fuck, the whole country was shrugging, killing the time that was left.
But I’d retired, a few months shy of my seventy-ninth birthday. (Strickland had gone two years ahead of me.) I could do my shrugging on my own. I’d actually gone past shrugging - the shoulders were fucked, seized up around the ears. I’d become a shorter man.
Except when I was meeting my wife. Then I had the zip to stand up properly.
I rang the bell. There was no more wall-climbing left in me. My last go had been a disaster. I’d tried to get over the front wall, but I’d ended up stuck under the bike, lodged between the top of the wall and the fuck of a hedge behind it, while I listened to an ambulance siren getting nearer, and I had to listen to the cop and the woman from next door who’d done all the phoning as they tried to figure out how a man of my age could have cycled into that position, or how a car could have swiped me without breaking a single bone or the light on the bike. I’d spent that Saturday night in the Mater A&E, and kept having to explain that the missing leg was an old, old story and I just wanted to go home. But I wasn’t able to get off the trolley. I think I delivered my final shrug that night. And I saw what happened to a dying city when the shrugging stopped: I saw my first Dublin junkies.
I gave the bell another go.
I lay on the trolley and I watched a junkie die. Her friends, the ones who’d come into the A&E with her, didn’t notice. The drunk and the mad I was used to. But this was new.
I’d no more climbing in me. I’d even had to get a taxi from the village to her house, five hundred yards - for one pound ninety.
—D’you want the change? the driver asked.
He’d let the car roll a bit as I opened the passenger door. He was a young guy, twenty-five or so, with a tattoo, Eire Nua and the tricolour, on the arm that was holding my change.
—Yeah, I said.—I do.
I’d put one foot out on the road. The wooden leg was still in the car.
—It’s only ten fuckin’ p, he said.
—It’s my ten fuckin’ p.
This was right outside her front gate. She’d be waiting, looking out the window. It was Saturday night again. I’d shaved - I thought I had. I was ready to drag him from the taxi. But he surrendered the money.
—Good man, I said.
He’d stopped the rolling. I was able to get out smoothly enough. I slammed the door. It didn’t work. I gave it another go, just as he leaned over to do the job himself. The boom of the door and his trapped fuck you were music to my oul’ lad’s ears. There was nothing wrong with my hearing. I was tempted to give the wall one last go. But I resisted. I knew the woman who’d phoned for the cops a few months before would be looking out her window. Two women were gawking as I went up the driveway, Miss O’Shea and Neighbourhood Watch. I didn’t know what she looked like, but I remembered a voice, and tits in black wool - Are you alright there? Hello? It wasn’t too far to the front door, although the driveway was on a slope I hadn’t noticed when I’d been the gardener. But the lungs were grand, and I felt my shoulders start to shift and grow. I had a neck, I had a chest.
I rang the bell.
A beautiful evening. I turned and looked out at it while I waited for Miss O’Shea. Blue sky, unbroken, over the Old Shillelagh, the hotel across the way, a bit further along the road. It was an I.R.A. spot, someone had told me once, back when I didn’t care. Escaped internees and other lads on the run hid openly in that place, free of charge, and they were left alone by the Guards. But that was years ago now. The place looked innocent enough from where I stood. There was always a wedding on, in a big room around the back. I’d often seen men in suits vomiting against parked cars, and young ones with young lads up against the same cars. There were three young ones now, three fat girls, uneasy on their heels, going through the car park towards the steps to the bar. A young lad came out as they were going in. Even from across the wide road, I could see he was terrified. There was nothing wrong with my eyes either; they weren’t blue any more but they worked. And I could see the red in the young lad’s eyes. Three girls together made one big scary bird.
But I was waiting for my own bird. I turned, and expected her shadow on the glass, her heels on the floor inside.
There was nothing. I rang the bell again - tried to count back the number of times I’d rung it already.
I stopped looking at the door.
The girls were gone inside. The lad was standing at the bus stop.
I was supposed to be patient. I couldn’t die. I’d get the call, and I was going to give the word. And I’d know the word; I wouldn’t have to ask for it.
It was quiet now, across at the hotel. The lad at the bus stop was gone. I hadn’t noticed the bus. I looked the other way, but he wasn’t walking - I couldn’t see him.
She wasn’t answering. I put my face to the glass. But I gave that up and smashed it with my elbow. It went first time but I smothered any satisfaction. The smell of old food rushed through the cracks in the glass - old porridge, I thought, and not cooked that morning. I hadn’t seen her since the Wednesday before. Three days. I battered at the loose glass with the elbow. There was a shirt and a good tweed jacket sleeve between me and a bloody death. The jacket was one of her husband’s old ones. I was able to reach in and get the door unlocked.
I didn’t bother with the kitchen. I knew she’d be in the bed. I was racing against something - I could feel it turning - time, breath. I was off the stairs and into the bedroom.
She wasn’t there.
No one had been there, for days. The air moved sluggishly, woken by me when I shoved the door.
She was in the kitchen. On the floor. There was blood around her head. It was dried, baked, sticking her face to the lino. But she wasn’t dead. There was an eye looking at me - at my foot. Looking, staring. Watching as I got down to touch her face and kiss her. She wasn’t cold - she wasn’t dead. The house was warm, she was fully dressed. Cardigan, tights. But the blood wasn’t flowing or trickling; it was dry and cracked on the floor.
She looked at me - the one brown-black eye. The frightened, living eye.
—Can you hear me?
The eye stared. No blink. No movement at all.
She was breathing. My cheek was at her mouth. I could feel her breath - the room was warm, the breath was faintly wet.
—You’ll be grand, I told her.—You’ll be fine. Hang on a minute.
She must have watched as I got myself upright again. It took most of the minute I’d asked for. She’d have heard me on the phone in the hall, calling for an ambulance. She’d have heard me on the stairs again, and again when I struggled back down with the blankets from off her bed, and a pillow. And she could see me again as I lifted her head - I looked to see pain in the eye as her skin and hair fought with the glue that the blood had become - and I forced the pillow under her head. But I saw no pain. I covered her with the blankets, and myself as well, beside her, to warm her. I closed my eyes. Then opened them - I was stupid, I had to stay awake.
I got out from under the blankets. They were heavy; they made me wheeze. I put my hand on her forehead. I hoped to feel her shake. She was still, absolutely still - but her eye still looked at me. Open - alive. Frightened. Angry.
She’d fallen - I’d worked it out. Earlier in the day, or the night before. Or the afternoon, the morning, or the night before that. She was dressed for the day - but the end or the start of the day, or what day, I couldn’t tell. She wasn’t cold.
It annoyed me now - it upset me - that we hadn’t lived properly, that I hadn’t pressed her to let me move in. But we’d never lived like that. Even in Chicago, in the short time we’d shared a roof, it hadn’t been our roof and I’d rarely been under it. Our happiest years had been just after we’d got married, when we were both on the run and the rampage, and the years after we’d escaped from Chicago, still on the run, with a growing family brought up in ditches and boxcars. But w
e should have settled down. I was already wearing her other husband’s threads. I should have gone the whole fuckin’ hog. I should have smashed the door glass years before.
I stood up properly - I tried to.
Age came at me in sudden, angry waves. I’d be grand, and then I’d suddenly be crippled, folded, bitten by pain in every part of me that had to move. My wrists, my back - everything hurt. But it didn’t matter.
She’d fallen. There was no kettle on the floor, or a pan or a plate, no burning porridge. She’d just fallen, and knocked her head against the edge of the table. The blood had gushed from the side now buried in the pillow. I wasn’t going to move her again, to get a good look at the damage. I wasn’t going to bend again. The eye was still there, wide open; I didn’t want her looking up at me gawking back down at her. She had pain of her own; she wasn’t going to stare up, trapped, at mine.
I looked around. There was no rug that could have tripped her, or slid from under her. She’d fallen and hit her head on the way down. She hadn’t been mugged. The back door was shut. I went across - and it was locked.
My voice stopped other noise.
—I’ll go and see if I can hear them coming.
I went back to the hall. I should have stayed with her - she needed to see me. But I kept going. I spoke as I went. I walked over the broken glass.
—Hear that?
I loved the crunch and bite. I’d broken the door. I’d saved my wife.
I stood in the porch. I heard nothing - just the usual. Passing traffic, the odd shout from the hotel car park. I couldn’t hear a siren.
Then I could. I definitely could. I left the door open. I went back to the kitchen.
The eye was open. I got down on the floor. I sat beside her.
—Good girl.
I was lifted - easily. Put sitting on a chair beside the table. Eyes stared into mine. A man’s mouth, remembering to smile.
She was already on a stretcher, being carried out to the hall. I tried to see past him, to see if her face was covered.
—Is she alright?
—Was it yourself called us?