‘More than your fucking Tommies were,’ I said.
We drove back to Dublin, listening to the non-stop coverage. That evening I went into Iveagh House where there was pandemonium as the extent of the massacre became clear. The world’s media was flocking to Derry. It was the only time I saw Bill O’Neill ruffled. He was wearing a shaggy tweed jacket over a thick, green polo neck, and his hair was wild, as if he had come directly from a cliff top or a windy beach.
‘This is a disaster,’ he kept saying. ‘This could tip the scales.’
‘It’s an outrage,’ I said. ‘We may as well still be a colony as far as the Brits are concerned.’
‘The Brits!’ Bill’s face had drained and the knuckles of the hand that held his pipe stood out. ‘You know something? If I was a young man again I’d be up there in south Armagh with those lads, helping them blow fucking British soldiers to smithereens!’ His eyes blazed as his anger briefly got the upper hand; then he suddenly realised what he had said and to whom he had said it.
‘I didn’t mean that, Marty. I apologise.’
‘Forget it; it’s fine.’
‘It’s not fine. I’m a senior diplomat and you’re not just a trusted colleague, you’re ex-British Army, so I was way out of order there.’
‘Look, Bill, I understand. I feel exactly the same way. What happened is unforgivable.’
A telephone rang and he picked it up. ‘The minister again,’ he said as he replaced the receiver and grimaced, as if he was allergic to politicians. ‘Marty, just in case you think—’
‘Say no more, Bill. It’s been a dreadful day, and we’re all very upset.’
‘I appreciate your understanding.’
‘It never happened. We never had this discussion.’
‘That’s very decent of you, Marty.’
‘You’d better not keep the minister waiting,’ I said.
The bloodbath seemed to go to the core of every Irishman and woman, even Irishmen like me with dreams of empire. My father would have felt the same, I was sure, for this was more than an abuse of friendship. This was war.
And yet the work of government continued, and so did I, in my job, despite my promises to Sugar. Our minister, inclined to regard himself as a figure on the international stage, needed to be restrained from making telephone calls to the press. The Taoiseach went on television looking like a man who had just received a terminal diagnosis. Never in recent years had we been further from the Brits.
‘We are appalled,’ Alison said two days later as we sat in her car on Dollymount Strand. ‘The military have circled the wagons, but there’s little doubt they ran amok.’
‘There’s a sense of outrage I’ve never seen before.’
‘Tell me about it. Yesterday we were under siege for three hours. Rocks, ball-bearings, you name it, bouncing off the embassy’s windows. It’s a wonder we weren’t ransacked.’
The department had called in her ambassador, and reprimanded the British Army in stark language, even as we endeavoured to defuse the situation at unofficial level.
‘We can’t apologise, of course, without appearing to betray the army,’ Alison said. ‘But we are sorry, believe me.’
‘Sorry you’ve been caught on the hop, more likely. Excuse my language, but your people are shits of the highest order. You have undercover agents, probably SAS, roaming Belfast, collecting information and taking pot shots at Provo suspects. You’re up to your necks with the Loyalists, colluding in their dirty work, sponsoring them, like you sponsored the IRA a few years ago.’
For once, Alison was quiet. ‘I told you, Marty. We are sorry.’
‘Actions speak louder than words.’
‘Look,’ she said, ‘I’ve been told that we’ll be pushing as hard as we can to support your application for EEC membership.’
‘You’re such hypocrites. It’s obvious that if you’re let in, we must be let in, too. You would much prefer not to have a land border with a non-EEC country.’
‘We won’t go so far as to say that if you don’t get in we won’t go in, but we’ll go bloody close,’ Alison said. ‘Give us some credit.’
‘We need some heads on sticks, Alison.’
‘Lord Widgery is the most respected judge in England. You’ll get your heads on sticks, but it will take time.’ She looked at her watch. ‘I’ve got to get back. Ask your people to try and call the hounds off, would you?’
Palm trees bowed to the wind, adding to the sense of apocalypse.
‘Next Thursday, they’re burying their dead in Derry,’ I said. ‘Down here we’re declaring a day of public mourning. There will be another demonstration in Dublin.’
‘We’ve already officially requested your army to protect our embassy.’
‘The request will be denied,’ I said. ‘I suggest you call in sick that day.’
She took my advice. Four days later, the British Embassy was set alight by a mob, and in early March the Provisional IRA bombed the Abercorn Restaurant in central Belfast, killing two young women and wounding more than a hundred and thirty people, many of whom would never walk or see again. Despite the tension that screamed from every front page and editorial, the Brits stuck to their word and the door to Europe was suddenly open to Ireland. On 10th May, when our EEC referendum took place, and was carried by an overwhelming margin, a spontaneous party took place in Iveagh House, during which my section was singled out for praise.
14
DUBLIN
1974
They say that all war is spent in a kind of helpless suspension, waiting, waiting, for the final battle, the final death, the final capitulation. Waiting for the great collective sigh of human relief that rises to heaven when the whole wretched business eventually concludes and the dead are left in peace. That was how it felt during those early years of the nineteen seventies in Ireland, for, even though we in the Republic were not at war, less than two hours’ drive away young men and women were killing one another, and their neighbours, in a spiral of violence that no one knew how to mitigate or end. It was as if the bad government that Vance had described to me had led to an orgy of death that was ravening not just Northern Ireland but spilling down over the border and across the Irish Sea.
In the first week of February, nine British soldiers and three civilians were blown to pieces by a Provo bomb on a coach travelling on the M62 in Yorkshire. The daily news was terrifying and in March that terror came south, to Dublin and Monaghan. Thirty-three civilians were killed and more than three hundred injured by Loyalist bombs. The Provos retaliated. In June, they bombed the Houses of Parliament in London, injuring eleven people and causing enormous damage.
We walked in the shadows of trees as deer moved ahead of us through the Phoenix Park undergrowth. It was September and an Indian summer had taken hold.
‘It’s been some time.’
‘It’s the way this thing goes,’ she said.
Since we no longer socialised with the Chases, these meetings were now confined to cups of coffee in suburban cafés, drinks in pubs, or strolls, such as this, in open spaces.
‘I thought you had forgotten me,’ I said, knowing how peeved that sounded.
‘Oh, come on! It’s been a matter of waiting for the right moment.’
She’d been out in the sun and her face had an attractive eddy of freckles across the nose. Scents of wild honeysuckle and dog roses lay on the still air as bats darted for the insect hatches.
‘I sometimes wonder if this is all a ridiculous game,’ I said, ‘not just the work we do together occasionally, but, you know, the whole, tortuous political waterwheel we spend our lives on. Look at history, look at the decisions that led to both world wars, made by men who were arrogant or crazy or stupid, or all three. It’s no different now, whatever we may think. People will keep on dying violently for their warped political beliefs, no matter what you and I try to do about it.’
‘And yet the moment we cease to try, we rob our lives of meaning,’ she said. ‘We have to keep try
ing to do the right thing.’
‘Whatever that is.’
She smiled, a little sadly, and chose the bole of a tree to lean against. ‘I had hoped for a practical as opposed to a philosophical discussion, Marty.’
‘Meaning?’
‘That the time has arrived for you to make an even more important contribution than you have been doing. Now especially.’
‘Events,’ I said.
‘Atrocities, I would say. And you know of at least one person who is behind them.’
Her voice was flat and cold.
‘Just a minute,’ I said. ‘Who are you talking about?’
‘There are three experienced bomb manufacturers in south Armagh and he is one of them.’
Pain entered my chest. ‘You don’t mean Iggy Kane?’
‘Unfortunately, I do.’
I could see the determination in her face. ‘How can you be sure?’ I asked.
‘You mean, apart from having had intelligence on him for more than five years?’
‘He could have retired,’ I said, resisting her reprimand. ‘He could have reformed.’
Her expression was that of someone indulging a stubborn but much-loved child. ‘One of Ignatius Kane’s half-brothers, with whom he lives, sold a car last month. We found traces of nitro-glycerine in it,’ she said.
‘Inconclusive.’
‘And flecks of paint that correspond to the Yorkshire bomb.’
‘But not in Iggy’s car,’ I said as I simultaneously wondered if this was really happening.
She sighed as if she finally had more important matters to deal with than my irritating observations. ‘I’m sorry, but he’s a monster, Marty. I’ve seen the pictures—afterwards. Of the victims. His victims.’
Was the coal fire in Fowler Street an illusion too, I wondered? Which part of the world in which I lived was real, which fake?
‘Look,’ I said, ‘I don’t care about myself, but please don’t involve my family.’
She shook her head vigorously. ‘He knows exactly what he’s doing. He knows exactly where the bombs are going and who’s going to die. He knows exactly what happens when you pack ball-bearings into a steel canister with explosives and ignite them on a bus by means of a radio signal. He knows exactly what the devastation will be to the men, women and children on that bus. A monster.’
‘Then you created the monster.’
‘Oh, for goodness sake!’ She tossed her head impatiently. ‘Grow up, Marty!’
‘Why pick him? Why not pick on one of the other bomb-makers? You said that there are three.’
She smiled faintly, as if my naïvety was endearing. ‘Because we don’t have a direct line to the other bomb-makers, do we?’
My breath was short and I wondered if I was going mad.
‘Years ago, after Paris, I told you this would happen, but you didn’t want to hear,’ I said.
‘I don’t make strategy, I’m just employed. Governments come and go. We don’t try to solve problems, we try to contain them, and when we fail, as we currently are, we try something else. The best we can hope for in Northern Ireland is to hold the field. We accept that. But every so often we have to make our presence felt.’
In the near distance, cars with sidelights streamed through the park.
‘Which is why we’re going to remove him.’
I went deaf. ‘Remove him?’
‘Yes, absolutely.’
‘You can’t do that. He’s got a wife. People depend on him.’
‘Marty.’ Alison was at her most uncompromising. ‘Please listen. Ignatius Kane is a particularly abhorrent little shit, and yes, if we’d known after Paris just how dangerous he is we probably would not have approved of your using him as a route for Mr Haughey’s largesse. But we did and you did, and now Mr Haughey has been banished and here we all are. This is a war, although nobody admits it, and Ignatius Kane knows exactly what to expect in a war. He is now a high priority for us. You are our very dear friend, for whom we have the utmost regard. I know that you must recoil in horror, as we do, when you see the results of his actions. We need you in this now, Marty.’
As her brown eyes shone from her pretty face, I wanted to hold her close and breathe in her strength and conviction.
‘I can’t do it,’ I said. ‘We grew up together. Forget it.’
‘And allow him to continue murdering innocent people? You don’t want that and neither do I.’
‘Of course not. But what you’re asking is impossible.’
‘I haven’t asked anything of you yet. I was merely taking the opportunity to tell you that we intend to stop a psychopath in his tracks, in the hope that you would support us.’
I think I had long wondered when this moment would come and, when it did, how it would be put. In the dimness of the trees, I started up a cigarette. ‘How?’ I asked.
‘Leave that to us.’
‘I cannot and will not be involved in anything you are planning in the Republic, however indirectly.’
‘We don’t operate in the Republic, Marty,’ she said with more than a hint of condescension. ‘And neither does he, for that matter.’
‘And I don’t operate, as you put it, in the Six Counties.’
Alison heaved another sigh. ‘This will take place within our own jurisdiction, quite lawfully. Not that it will stop the bombs, of course, but it will send a message. Are you on side?’
‘Let me think about it. Do I have a choice?’
‘You’ve always had a choice, and, if I may say so, you’ve always chosen well.’ Her hand was on my arm. ‘Whatever we decide, no one will ever suspect your part, and that’s paramount. This will take time, but I’ll let you know.’
‘I’m not saying—’ I began.
‘Say nothing,’ she said. ‘Reflect on the situation.’
‘But—’
She laid a finger on my lips. Deer had crept out and were so near I could see the breath from their muzzles.
‘Try to keep this separate from your private life, will you? I know it’s not easy—look at me. I call it the tyranny of secrets. Christopher and I haven’t had a relationship for years—sometimes I wonder if we were ever in love. You and Sugar, on the other hand, have something very precious, and I would hate to see that damaged.’
I sighed. ‘All this has very nearly ruined my marriage.’
‘I am sorry.’
‘I think she knows what’s going on. She once asked me if I was a spy.’
‘I know, Marty. I know.’
I peered at her. ‘How do you know?’
‘She told Christopher,’ Alison said, ‘and Christopher told me.’
15
WATERFORD
September 1974
On a cloudless Saturday evening I watched a hurling match from the sideline with Bobby Gillece. Three stones overweight, his ginger moustache patchy with the years, Bobby struggled to catch his breath. Bobby and Kate had no children. Sometimes, in Bobby’s Bar, when she and I came face to face, and I remembered, albeit for an instant, how much she had once meant to me, she had just smiled politely, as she might to any customer.
Since my Phoenix Park meeting with Alison, I had lived in almost perpetual dread of her next phone call, for I knew what it would mean. I was often dizzy, trying to come to terms with my position, the situation I now found myself in. As I attempted to find my courage I had come back to my roots.
‘Ted and I used to play matches out here,’ Bobby said, ‘when we were twelve or thirteen years old. Or Ted used to play and I used to try and not get in the way. God, he was good. I can see him this minute, out there, climbing into the air for the sliothair, higher than anyone else. Even then, he was head and shoulders above the rest of us.’
Ash echoed as four players went for the same falling ball.
‘We used to get our hurleys from a man up on the Yellow Road,’ Bobby said. ‘He had a little factory set up in a shed behind the house. I can still remember the smell of the wood shavings and the sawdust.
He’d take one look at you to measure you, and then if he didn’t have the right hurley for you, he’d make one, there and then. Ted liked a stick with an extra wide bas and so that’s what he used to make for Ted. And then one day—it was a Thursday after school and Ted needed a new hurley for a game on the Saturday—we were outside this man’s shed, hanging around, waiting for your man to finish Ted’s hurley, when we saw this old radio transmitter, or that’s what it looked like, thrown up against the wall.’
The sports pitch was out on the Dunmore road, on an elevated site, with views down over the island to the estuary.
‘So Ted asked your man why he had thrown it out and your man said it was banjaxed. And that’s how it all started. Ted gave him two shillings for the hurley and we went home with the new hurley and the wireless. It was some sort of a yoke that had been used by the British Army in the thirties and Ted said that your man had probably been able to listen to British naval exercises. Anyway, the next time I went up to Fowler Street, he had it working. All these valves and wires, but he had them figured out. He was a natural. I’d drop in to Fowler Street and he’d be up in his room, trying not to electrocute himself. The burns he used to get! One day I went in and he was listening to someone in fucking Moscow.’
Bobby tilted back his head and sighed.
‘After that, when we left school and I started working in auctioneering for the Gargans, whenever we had a contents auction and there was any kind of a wireless in it, I used to always make sure it never went under the hammer. Gave it to Ted on the q.t. for spare parts. I can still see him, upstairs at the workbench. The size of his hands, and yet he was able to assemble these transmitters with all those tiny parts and wire and screws. God, I miss him.’
I thought of the three men in the old Flying Squad photograph.
‘I was away in school when he died,’ I said.
‘He didn’t die.’ Bobby balled his fists. ‘He was murdered. It was a fucking disgrace what happened. Unforgivable.’
I had heard passing references, as a teenager, to Uncle Ted’s death, but no details. It had been as if the matter was too painful to be discussed, which in Waterloo particularly was how painful matters were dealt with.
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