by Roddy Doyle
I knew the story. I was the story. I knew how the stupidity of 1916 had been turned to glorious success. The British had helped there too, when they’d executed the leading men instead of kicking them in their holes and sending them home. This new story had the same plot - but it was different. I didn’t know why yet. But I knew.
There was desperation with a smell off it, as if the outlaws sensed that their days in the wild were numbered. They went from robbing banks to kidnapping. They grabbed supermarket magnates and the wives and kids of businessmen, anyone they thought might be swapped for a few spare quid. They kidnapped racehorses. They snatched poor oul’ Shergar, the Derby winner.
I sat in a farmhouse in Leitrim one wet night after a republican funeral just across the border, in Fermanagh. I listened to the men in the kitchen talking bombs and diesel prices with the local priest, when I heard a sharp neigh from the other side of the kitchen wall.
The talking stopped.
—Was that a horse? I asked, before I’d mustered the cop-on not to.
—No, said a man with a Dublin accent who hid himself behind huge sunglasses.
—The mice are hoarse, said someone else.
—Shut the fuck up, said the hard man with the sunglasses.—All of yis.
I pretended I was falling asleep. I wondered later if my question had killed the horse.
—I’m going to tell you some things, the man with the beard now said.
This was a month after he’d called me out of retirement. We were off the main roads. He was staring ahead. His left hand was murdering the gear-stick. It was the first time I’d seen him drive.
—Alright? he said.
He didn’t look at me.
—Yeah, I said.
—You’re an informer.
I said nothing.
—Aren’t you?
—Kind of.
—Don’t kind-of me. You’re a tout.
—Yeah.
I wasn’t scared. I was weightless. I was dead.
—Listen to this, he said.
He was flying now, taking the corners like a mad thing.
—Are you listening?
—Yeah, I am.
—It doesn’t matter.
He took us through an open gate, into a field. He didn’t slow down. My head hit the roof. He was bringing us through the spring barley. I was in a getaway car but I didn’t think there was anything behind us. I didn’t think at all - the jolts and bangs wouldn’t let me.
He did something with his feet, and the car died. I wasn’t thrown forward. He’d stopped on some kind of ridge. He was on the raised side and his weight shoved me against the door.
It was quiet. And hot.
—You know the score, he said.—You shot touts yourself. Plenty of them.
He was calm; this was nothing unusual. He was tenderising me - I knew that.
—Yeah, I said.—I did. That was the excuse.
—Lay off the revisionism now, Henry. You shot informers.
—Yeah. I did.
—It was war, he said.—You did right.
—Okay.
—Good. Now you’ve joined the ranks of the turncoats and I’m telling you now, it doesn’t matter. Is that in your head?
—Yeah.
—There’s nothing much you’ve told them. I’m right?
—I’d nothing much to tell them, I said.—They threatened me with—
—Fuck off.
He wasn’t a curser.
—Don’t give me your excuses, he said.—From here on in, I’ll be feeding you the information. I’ll tell you what you can tell them. You’ll tell them nothing else, from any other source. D’you understand?
—Yeah.
—No one else.
I tried to look at him; I didn’t have room.
—You’re informing, yourself, I said.—Through me.
—Aye.
—For fuck sake.
—There’s a lot more to this, he said.—Just get what I told you clear in your head. You tell them exactly what I tell you and nothing more. Got that?
—I haven’t seen them in years.
—You will, he said.—And you’ll do what I tell you.
—Yeah.
—Why?
—You have me by the bollix.
—Aye, he said.—There’s two games being played, Henry. This one - me and you. And the other one. This conversation never happened.
—I’m ahead of you there.
—Good.
—Why don’t you talk to her?
—What?
—You never talk to Missis O’Kelly, said the new nurse.
—She wouldn’t hear me, I said.
But I felt the rightness of the idea, and the guilt: I’d never spoken to her in the years I’d been sitting beside her, waiting for her to die properly.
—You’d never know, she said.—And there’s no harm in trying. I waited till she went. She’d been changing the glucose bag, or whatever it was.
The room was empty.
—How’s it going? I said.
I didn’t sound right; I was talking to no one. I took her hand. It stayed dead in mine.
—How’s it going?
I couldn’t ask questions; it wasn’t fair.
I stood up. I leaned over and put my hands on each side of her head. I didn’t look at the open eye. I tried to turn her, so she’d face me when I sat again. But she wasn’t having it. She wouldn’t budge. It was the first time I’d touched her face in years. There was warmth under the wood. I could see and feel the woman there.
I brought the chair right up against the bed, and my mouth right up to her ear.
—I’m an informer, I told her.—Can you fuckin’ believe it?
The room was bugged - or, it had been. The G-men had quoted Saoirse back to me. That was two or three years before, and I hadn’t seen either of them since. Did they collect the bugs when they were finished with them? Or did they just turn them off? I hadn’t a clue.
I coughed and listened for a buzz or echo. There was nothing. —An informer, I said.—If that bit of news doesn’t wake you, missis, nothing will.
I was a bollix, pretending to talk to her.
I sat back, to see her a bit better.
—It hasn’t rained in a few days, I said.—The sun was even out there, when I was at the bus stop. They’re putting up a shopping centre, you wouldn’t recognise the place. It’ll have everything. So the woman at the bus stop said. Off-licence and all. She was about twenty years younger than you. Not in bad nick either. Her coat matched her trolley. Making the effort, you know.
I watched her face, the side of her mouth. For a twitch or a blush. Her skin was too livid for blushing, and nothing twitched.
But she was listening. I decided that. I wanted her to sit up and grab me. I wanted her to go for my eyes. I looked at her nails. They’d been cut. Her hair was clean and silver.
—I’m a fuckin’ tout, I said.—The worst kind of cunt there is. D’you remember the bike?
I leaned in and kissed her ear.
—Why are you doing this?
She could hear every word.
—Get up, I said.
But she stayed put.
—I’ve a wee message for you, said the man with the beard.
—They haven’t made contact with me.
—I told you, they will.
—Alright.
—Come outside, he said.
The day was beginning to seep into the room. He made his way to the back door and unlocked it. Fresh air rushed in, followed quickly by the stench from the bin I hadn’t put out the week before. It was too heavy. I couldn’t manage it, through the kitchen to the front door.
—Jesus Christ, he said.
The smell was my shame: I couldn’t look after myself.
—It’s grand, I said.
—We’ll have to sort this out for you.
—It’s none of your fuckin’ business.
—Come here to me.
&nbs
p; I followed him out.
—I’ll be brief, he said.
He was breathing through his mouth.
I shook the age off my back and tried to see him clearly.
—Why are we out here? I asked.
—The walls, Henry, he said.—I’d say they might have ears.
The house was bugged too. But it was only now that I knew.
—Right, I said.—Go on.
—Tell them there’s dissent.
—Grand.
—Dissent inside the leadership, he said.—Tell them you’ve heard that.
—Dissent inside the leadership.
—Exactly that.
—They’ll want a bit more.
—Tell them that’s all you’ve heard so far.
We went back in. There was a plastic bag, from the H. Williams up the hill, parked beside the fridge. He’d brought it with him. The supermarket didn’t open till nine. So he’d bought whatever was in the bag the day before. He had the look of a man who’d slept in his car.
—So how are you, Henry?
—Grand.
—You’re looking after yourself, are you?
—Yeah.
The bug was beside me, under the table. Or above, taped to the inside of the light shade. Or in the socket beside the toaster. I had three-prong sockets now, all around the house. Saoirse had arranged the work. For three days the electrician, a young lad from Finglas, had pulled back the skirting boards and rewired the house - and rigged the whole place for the Special Branch.
I didn’t believe that.
Did it matter if they heard? Why didn’t he just say it now? There’s dissent inside the leadership. Why was I the messenger boy? The questions were climbing over each other while I tried to look like more than the harmless poor eejit who couldn’t look after himself.
He stood up.
—I’ve left you a few wee items.
He pointed at the bag.
—Grand, thanks.
—Ach, I couldn’t come empty-handed.
He put his finger to his lips. It was a childlike gesture but he might as well have slid the finger across his neck. Every gesture was a message; he wasted nothing.
He closed the door behind him.
And I waited.
He couldn’t talk directly to them. Not even accidentally. He had to be able to deny. There’s dissent inside the leadership. He’d come across the border with a message he couldn’t give, and he’d be slipping back across. By himself. I was the one who had to hear the words and pass them on. I was the bug.
—Saoirse’s coming next week, I told Miss O’Shea while the nurse worried the glucose in the bag.—She phoned last night.
The phone was new too, beside my bed.
—In case you ever need it, Saoirse had told me.
I didn’t tell her that I didn’t sleep any more, that the new sheets on the bed were there just to fool her.
—She’ll be staying till Sunday, just, I said as the nurse slowly left us alone.—She’s coming on her own this time.
I looked over my shoulder, and back to Miss O’Shea.
—They’ve been calling again, I told her.—I’m too old for it. I’m hearing things that could get me killed.
I put my head on the bed. I smelt the dust and the medicine. I pretended to sleep. I could feel nothing in the mattress springs, no breathing life from the woman in the bed.
The G-men didn’t come, but Saoirse did. We sat with her mother.
I knew they were listening. I planted little bombs.
I yawned; I stretched till I cracked.
—You look tired, she said.
—Ah, I’m grand.
—I hate that word, she said.—Every time you people have to face something honestly and directly, you look away and say it will be grand.
I was using her, making her play a part.
—I’ve had a lot on my mind, I told her.
—What?
—Ah, nothing, I said.
—There we go, she said.—If it isn’t grand, it’s nothing.
—Just something I heard, I said.
I hated myself, the little whinge in my voice. I did in my hole - I thought I was doing alright.
—Something I was told at a meeting, I said.
—Well, what meeting are we talking about? You never alluded to any meetings when we spoke on the phone.
She was a pain in the arse when she had the hump. Alluded to - she was hiding behind her own grands.
—You’re not still attending those republican - I don’t know - happenings. Are you?
—The odd one.
—For God’s sake, she said.—You’re too old to be so vain.
—It’s not vanity.
—What is it then? If it isn’t vanity, or stupidity?
Sit up and defend me. I roared it silently at the woman in the bed.
—Your mother would understand, I said.
—You know what? she said back.—You are absolutely right. She stood up but she didn’t go anywhere.
—Why won’t they just leave you be?
I loved her.
—You gave them everything, she said.
Her voice was softer this time.
—Is it something the police should be told?
—No, I said.—No way. I’ll be grand.
I lifted my hands.
—I will.
She went home to Chicago. I waited. Another day and another week. I groaned, so they’d hear me.
—It’s killing me, I told my wife.—They keep at me. The opposing wings.
The wings were an invention of my own. But I’d lived my history and I knew: there were opposing wings.
The nurse came in.
—How’s Mister Smart?
—He’s grand.
I heard her drag the chair. She sat beside me.
—You’re chatting away to her?
—I am, yeah.
—Great, she said.—Tell me about the opposing wings.
I wasn’t surprised. And that shocked me, later.
—Did you get rid of the last nurse? I asked.
—I didn’t know her, she said.
—Was she one of youse?
—These wings, Henry? We’re talking about the Army Council here, are we?
—You’re the technology, I said.—The eyes and ears of the state?
—I suppose I am, she said.
—Are you even a nurse?
—Sure, the gang in here are easily looked after. Like herself. She’s lovely.
—She hasn’t budged in years.
—What have you for us?
—Is that really glucose?
—Of course it is. She’d be dead if it wasn’t.
—Is she even alive?
I stood up.
—She is, of course. Calm down.
—Fuck off.
—None of that.
She pulled me back down beside her. It was desperate, so easy. She could have cracked my neck or broken my back. She could have put me across her lap and slapped my bony arse.
—Talk to me, she said.
—What happened Campion and the other fella?
—Before my time, she said.
—What happened them?
—One of them emigrated to Australia. And the other one is - he’s important.
—So you’re who I talk to.
—That’s right.
—And what if I don’t?
She shrugged, but she didn’t smile.
—Life goes on, she said.
I could stand up and walk out.
—There’s dissent in the leadership, I said.
—Thank you, she said.—What else?
—That’s it.
—Dissent about what?
—Don’t know.
—Who told you?
—No name.
—Army Council? Insider?
—Yeah.
—Dissent, she said.—It’s old hat.
—It’s serious.
; —I hope so.
She stood up, patted my shoulder.
—The great fella, she said.—Look at you.
She stopped at the door.
—I’ll be wanting more. Are you with me?
—Yeah.
—Good, she said.—I’ll be seeing you here every day.
The whole place was a front, built to fool me. Even the sea-gulls outside were G-men. My wife was dead but it still killed me to know that she’d seen all that had just happened.
—Sorry, I said.—Sorry.
Wars were won or lost, or they just stopped, but a struggle could go on forever. Wars were dreadful but a struggle was always noble - especially when the enemy was one of the world’s big armies and you were just a couple of hundred men and women. When you could point back to when it had started, past Vietnam and the Second World War and the War of Independence, to 1916, and further still if necessary, to the Fenians and the Famine and the United Irishmen, to pikes and wigs and the French Revolution and Cromwell and Drogheda, to Elizabeth and the first of the plantations and the Norman landing in 1169, and up again through Cromwell back to Thatcher. By 1985, it was eight hundred and sixteen years of struggle.
Where was the dissent? Thatcher had united the country more than anyone else had ever managed. People who didn’t give a shite about the north felt the sweat climb out of their necks whenever they heard the voice. A unified Ireland was one solution - that is out. A second solution was a confederation of the two states - that is out. A third solution was joint authority - that is out.
It wasn’t just the message; it wasn’t really the message - very few actually cared. It was the voice, the reminder of who and what we were. Nothing. No blacks, no dogs, no Irish. We were nothing and Thatcher told us that every time she spoke. She was in her hotel bed in Brighton when the hotel blew up all around her. She lived and climbed out, a bigger, sharper version of herself. There would be no solution. The murder was there, like the rain, sad but Irish. It was part of what we were, a big, sore lump on the tragedy. With the Guinness and the crack - we sold it.