This Man's Wee Boy

by Doherty, Tony;

  ‘The army’s in, kid. No more Free Derry,’ said me da, looking towards the soldiers.

  He had a lit Park Drive in his hand. He drew on it and blew the smoke out. It stayed in the air in front of us for a long time.

  ‘They’re raiding rings round them. They’ll be lifting everybody. Fuckers. I can’t even get to me fuckin’ work,’ he said in frustration. ‘What the fuck are you looking at, cuntyballs?’ His tone of voice didn’t change. I thought he was talking to me so I looked up at him in fright only to see him glaring at a soldier standing across the street, outside Chesty Crossan’s door.

  ‘You wha’?’ the soldier called back.

  ‘I said what the fuck are you looking at, cuntyballs?’ said me da again.

  Me da’s going to get killed here, I thought. G’won, shut your mouth, Da! I screamed inside my head as my empty stomach felt the fear. The soldier began walking across the road towards us, lifting his rifle from his side, pointing the muzzle in our direction as he approached. Me da’s breathing was getting heavy. He pulled a final drag from the Park Drive and flicked it at the approaching soldier. It whizzed past his green helmet and rolled away on the ground behind him. The trail of smoke hung in the thick, foggy air. Thank Jesus he missed, I said under my breath. Da, shut up!

  ‘Get back in the fackin’ house, Paddy!’ said the soldier sharply. How does he know me da’s name? I thought. Is this the soldier he battered outside the Silver Dog? The soldier was standing a yard away, at the kerb. You could see he hadn’t shaved for a few days.

  ‘You fuckin’ put me in!’ hissed me da, his arms folded in defiance.

  I found myself standing behind him on the doorstep.

  ‘I’ll fackin’ give you this!’ said the soldier, bringing his rifle round to his hip. The muzzle was only a foot from me da’s face. Ah God, Da, g’won get in and close the door. He has an effin’ rifle, ye know!

  ‘Is that right? You acting the big man with your big rifle?’ said me da, smiling through his anger. ‘You put that rifle down and we’ll see who the big man is. Go on, put the rifle down and we’ll see who the fuckin’ big man is!’

  Once me da’s temper gets riled there’s no stopping him.

  The soldier stood with the rifle pointing at me da’s face. Me da showed no fear of it or him. There was fear and confusion in the soldier’s eyes. He was stuck.

  ‘Put the rifle down and we’ll see who the big man is,’ repeated me da, putting his fisted hands on his hips and stepping down from the doorstep.

  Another soldier, seeing the stalemate, approached. ‘Oy, Neil, put the gun down and get back across the street!’ He put his hand on Neil’s shoulder to reassure him.

  Me da said no more. Neil hesitated briefly, lowered the gun, turned around and walked slowly back across the street.

  ‘Yella bastard,’ hissed me da under his breath. Neil didn’t hear him. We went in and closed the door.

  * * *

  We were all in bed on a warm evening. I woke to the sound of me ma and da arguing downstairs. Me ma was crying and she was banging doors. The front door opened and banged shut. I didn’t know which one of them had left; I think it was me ma. I fell asleep thinking she was gone for ever.

  * * *

  The McKinneys were sent to Neilly Doherty’s to get their hair cut – Terry, Michael and Dooter – so everyone else gathered to play and wait near the end of the street, not far from the barbers. You would think a bomb had hit the street! Our barricades had been taken away and all that was left were holes in the ground and deep ruts and lumps of rubber tyres left in the tar after the green army crane had dragged the long flat-bed lorry the length of the street. There was a smell of CS gas in the air, but it wasn’t too bad so no one was called indoors. After a short while the three McKinneys returned from the barbers, their hair cut and flattened at the front with Neilly’s lacquer.

  ‘Baldy balls, baldy balls!’ everybody shouted. ‘Neilly’s victims!’

  The McKinneys walked with their heads down in shameful silence towards their house.

  ‘Baldy balls, baldy balls!’ we shouted as they slunk in through their front door.

  The sound of a car horn filled the air from the direction of Lecky Road and got louder as it got nearer to us. Two cars were approaching at speed; one of them was a lilac-coloured Ford Cortina with a dull black roof. The driver had his hand on the horn and we all jumped out of the way as he flew past at speed. They had to slow down a bit because of the state of the street and drove to the bottom and turned right towards the Letterkenny Road.

  ‘There must be somebody shot over the Bog. That car is taking them up to Letterkenny Hospital,’ said a man standing at his door behind us.

  The other car turned around at the end of the street and drove back in the direction of the Bog. The smell of CS gas had become stronger and was starting to burn my eyes and throat.

  * * *

  The BA were raiding a house in our street. The Browns’ house. There were no wains in it, only grown men. A crowd had gathered outside and women were banging bin lids off the ground. The noise was fierce. Young soldiers guarded the door with their SLRs. Women were spitting in the soldiers’ faces and screaming at them. Then some of the women began to sing into their faces: ‘Where’s your mama gone?’ They’re singing a pop song! I thought. How mad is this?

  ‘He has no fuckin’ mammy!’

  The women laughed and squealed in delight.

  And then everyone started to sing, right into the soldiers’ faces: ‘Where’s your papa gone?’

  ‘He’s no fuckin’ da either!’

  ‘Your da doesn’t love ye, ya English bastard ye!’

  ‘He doesn’t know who his fuckin’ da is!’

  Everyone laughed hysterically again. The young soldiers’ faces were red with fear and anger. They gripped their SLRs tightly and looked as if they were about to cry, or strike out.

  The army came out of the house and they had one of the Browns with them by the arms – he was wearing a dark brown suit – and began marching him down the street. The women followed, pulling at the soldiers and squealing into their faces. Some of the soldiers pushed them away with their rifles, which only made the women worse. They continued towards the bottom of the street where their vehicles were. They put their prisoner in the back of a Pig, some got in beside him, and the double metal doors clanged shut. The women banged their bin lids off the side of the Pigs and Sixers. The clanging sound of metal on metal was fierce. The vehicles took off towards Craigavon Bridge, leaving the air thick with diesel fumes.

  * * *

  We were allowed to go to the baths in William Street in the Bog. It was a long way away from Moore Street but Terry McKinney knew how to get there and back. There was Terry, his brothers Michael and Dooter, Johnny Barbour, and me and our Paul. We all left from the street in a bunch with our trunks rolled up in a towel, clasped tightly under one arm. We also sometimes went to the baths with the school. Mr McLaughlin acted as a swimming instructor and tried to teach us how to swim.

  You could smell the baths before you went through the front door. It was daylight when we went in, paid our money at the desk, went to the changing rooms, got a metal-framed basket for our clothes and got changed for the pool. Only Michael and Terry could swim, so the rest of us did dive bombs into the shallow end until we got too cold and fed up. Terry, as the oldest, agreed that it was time to go. So we all got out together, got our baskets full of clothes back and shivered in the cold changing rooms until we’d dried ourselves, and left. When we came back out it was getting dark and the streetlights were coming on. We went to the shop across the road, bunched our money together and bought Dainties, Chocolate Logs and Whoppers, which we stuffed into our mouths as we walked back from the top of the Bog towards Lecky Road.

  Halfway down, Terry McKinney said, ‘Wait til yis see this,’ and took his wet trunks out from his damp, rolled up towel, placed the towel over his head and put the trunks over the towel. ‘I’m an Arab,’ he said, a
s he smiled and slurped on the brown Whoppers with his chocolate-stained tongue and teeth. We all did the same and in the darkening evening we all ran in a swarm like Arabs down the Bog Road making aeroplane sounds with our arms outstretched and our damp towels flapping behind us as we ran. Arab Aeroplanes was a brilliant way to travel, I thought, as we hummed and glided up the Lecky Road and onto Hamilton Street.

  After a while we came back out to play football in the street. There were only a few of us and it was dark. The sound of a Sixer could be heard approaching the junction of Hamilton Street and Foyle Road. Its engine was squealing more than I’ve ever heard one squeal before, it was going that fast. It shot past the gap at the end of our street towards the Mex.

  ‘Something’s happened,’ said Johnny Barbour. ‘He’s not driving at that speed for nothing.’

  We returned to our football. A few minutes later we heard that a wee boy had been knocked down further up Foyle Road, towards the bridge – in Bishie country. We decided it was worth taking the chance to find out, and me, our Paul, Dooter and Johnny began walking up Bishop Street. It was getting dark.

  Bishop Street had a number of terraced side streets running steeply off it down to Foyle Road. At the bottom of one of the steep streets a crowd had gathered and, as we approached, an ambulance took off in the direction of the bridge towards Altnagelvin Hospital. A woman was squealing and crying in the doorway of a house. The gathered crowd was mostly children, both younger and older than us. Most had their hands over their mouths in disbelief. Another woman had a yard brush in her hands and she was out in the middle of the road sweeping something up. It looked like a pile of jellied meat. She walked around the road from one side to the other talking to herself and crying as she pushed the heap of stuff before her with her brush.

  ‘What’s that there she’s brushing?’ someone asked quietly.

  ‘That’s the wee boy’s guts,’ replied someone else. ‘The Sixer ran right over him and squashed the life out of him. He was only four or five.’

  The woman continued to sweep with her yard brush, babbling and moaning and crying. A man went over to her and tried to put his arm around her, but she pushed him off and continued brushing the wee boy’s guts about the road. The man went back, helpless, to the side of the road.

  Someone shouted to get the wains away and we were ushered back up the street we came down. We did as we were told. When we looked back down the hill, the woman was still brushing the road, moving in and out of the shadows cast by the streetlight. The river behind her was calm, glassy and black.

  When we got back down Bishop Street a crowd had gathered outside the Mex and was bombarding it with stones and bottles. We got closer to see more, but our Karen and Patrick emerged from the darkness and we were ordered home.

  6

  The Folded Newspaper

  It was getting on in July 1971 and the bonfire season was approaching. Axes, hatchets and bow saws were sharpened in preparation for cutting the thick branches of the trees out the Line.

  I was wearing a new mint-green wool jumper. I tore into the work with the rest of them, about a dozen boys in all, and the jumper eventually came off to reveal my white vest underneath. After we’d finished cutting and chopping I picked my new jumper up, but it caught on barbed wire. I gave it a sharp yank and, once it was free, I tied it around my waist. I positioned myself in the fork of a thick trunk of new-cut timber and began to pull it up the road towards home. The dragging leaves on the cut branches rattled noisily behind us as we hauled our bonfire fuel along Foyle Road; drivers to and from Killea had to slow down and go around us.

  When we got back to Hamilton Street, I put my jumper on over my dirty vest and noticed a strand of wool sticking out from its side. I gave it a tug and made a wee hole; I pulled at it again and the gap became larger. By the time I’d reached our front door there was a sizeable gash in the jumper right across my belly. I stopped dead in my tracks and considered the consequences. Would I get thumped or would I be kept in for a week? I needed more time to think so I turned up the street towards Dooter’s house.

  When I reached Dooter’s, Maisie, his ma, was at the door talking to another neighbour. There was a grim look of shock on her face as she dragged on an Embassy Red.

  ‘… and killed him stone dead,’ she said.

  ‘Oh, Jesus, Mary and St Joseph, they didn’t, did they?’ said the other woman.

  ‘Aye, ran right over him and left him on the road over in Westland Street. There’s murder over there. All the men are out,’ said Maisie.

  ‘Oh, Jesus preserve us this day!’ said the woman.

  ‘Aye, I know,’ said Maisie. ‘God look to the wee boy’s mother and father. We’ll all be ready for Gransha if this keeps up.’

  ‘Aye, the poor critter. We’ll be ready for Gransha, surely. Our nerves will never hold out to it.’

  Gransha was the local mental hospital.

  Maisie looked towards me with my arm resting awkwardly across my jumper hiding the gaping hole. ‘What are you hiding there, look see, young Doherty? Let me see what’s up. C’mere over.’ I had no choice but to drop my arm. ‘Oh Jesus, Tony Doherty, your mammy’s goin’ to kill you!’ she said, still with the fag in her mouth, and confirming for me what the likely punishment would be for destroying the new mint-green knitted jumper. ‘Your mother had them knitted for yous three. You’d better get home and tell her anyway,’ she said turning back towards her neighbour.

  ‘Aye, the poor critter. Run over on the street by the army. We’ll be ready for Gransha surely. Our nerves will never houl out to it.’

  I headed back down the street with a heavy heart. Who would be at home – me ma or me da? What should I say? Should I cry first in the hope that I don’t get thumped? Should I run away? By the time I reached the dark green door of 15 Hamilton Street I had it worked out. The front door would be open and I’d just run upstairs, take the jumper off and hide it in the press. Dead simple.

  The dark green door was locked. Oh Jesus, what will I do? I thought. I rapped the door with the brass knocker. After a few seconds, the door opened and me ma stood waiting for me to come in.

  ‘I’ve a wile sore stomach, Mammy,’ I said, holding my arm across my belly as I brushed passed her and went upstairs.

  ‘Ach son, I’ll get you some Milk of Magnesia from the kitchen,’ she said, appearing not to notice anything untoward.

  As soon as I reached the landing the jumper came off and I stashed it at the back of the press under a pile of bedclothes. I went to our bedroom, put on a t-shirt and ran downstairs.

  ‘I thought you said you had a sore stomach, Tony?’ said me ma. ‘Did you change your clothes?’

  ‘Aye, I have, Mammy,’ I said, holding my arm across my belly again. ‘It started getting sore out the Line.’

  ‘C’mon over here, son, and take some of this,’ she said, clutching the big blue bottle in her hand.

  * * *

  The next morning me da woke me up.

  ‘Tony, get up out of bed and come downstairs,’ he said and went downstairs himself.

  I realised he hadn’t woken anyone else; the rest of them were still asleep in their beds.

  Before I went down I noticed that the press door on the landing had been opened, but I hadn’t the nerve to look in. I’m caught here, so I am, I thought to myself as I slowly descended. The fire was lit, despite it being summer, and had been going for a few hours. Me da was in the scullery and I eyed him through the crack in the door to see if he was in an angry mood. There was no sign of the jumper.

  ‘How many boiled eggs do you want, Tony – one or two?’ He didn’t turn round from the cooker.

  What’s he at? I thought to myself. If I’m caught, I’m caught. G’won, just get on with it, will ye!

  ‘I’ll take two, Daddy,’ I said and sat down at the table already set with a cup, a plate and a spoon. We had only recently got two chairs for the kitchen table, so it was a novelty sitting down to eat.

  ‘I hear yous we
re out the Line chopping for the bonfire last night,’ he said.

  ‘Aye, we were all out. We chopped a wile pile of wood and dragged it all back in the road. It was class, so it was.’

  ‘Your mammy tells me you had a wile sore stomach when you came back in. Is that right?’ he asked.

  ‘Aye, it was wile sore, so it was, but me mammy gave me medicine and it went away. I’m good at taking medicine, aren’t I, Daddy?’

  ‘You are surely, Tony. You’re good at taking your medicine and your oil.’

  ‘Aye, I am, Daddy, so I am,’ I replied, slightly worried about the ‘taking your oil’ bit.

  When the boiled eggs were done he brought them over in their egg cups along with two rounds of warm toast.

  ‘There you go, son. Eat up!’ he said as he placed the breakfast in front of me, the egg cups held between the gold-brown fingers of his smoking hand. His fingernails were black from his work as a plumber’s mate at Du Ponts. This was the first time I’d seen his face since I came downstairs and he was annoyed. Had he discovered the jumper? I wondered as I dipped my egg soldier into the perfectly cooked and salted egg. And why was everyone else still in bed and me the only one at the breakfast table?

  The teapot was steaming from its long spout on the cooker. Daddy lifted it and poured tea into my cup, then his. There was a glass sugar bowl on the table. He lifted the spoon to sugar the tea.