A Son Called Gabriel

by Damian McNicholl

  “Forty-eight hours, if they can’t pin anything on him.”

  I considered my next words. “It’s over between us.”

  “Don’t say that.”

  “What was I thinking? You’re the enemy!”

  He grabbed my hands. “Look me in the eye and say that.”

  Belligerent, I looked into his unblinking turquoise eyes. He was not my enemy. He was cannon fodder.

  My eyes watered. My head felt it would explode there was so much pressure. “What are we going to do, Richie?”

  “It’ll be over soon.” He put his arms around my waist, pulled me against him, and kissed me. I could taste his blood. English blood tasted the same as Irish.

  As Richie predicted, the government released Father the following day. Wan and tired, he limped into the living room.

  “Jesus, I’m stiff,” he said. “The bastards made me stand eighteen inches from a wall. They had me spread-eagled and leaning into it with just two fingers for support.” He laughed. “But they couldn’t break me. They got no admission from me.”

  Mammy went to him and he kissed her on the mouth. Nuala, Caroline, and I looked at one another, so unusual was it to see a public display of affection between our parents. Nuala ran up and kissed him.

  I went to him. “I’m happy you’re home, Daddy.”

  He embraced me and patted the back of my head. “So am I, son. So am I.”

  Classes at school were now finished and the A level examinations were due to begin in fourteen days. I’d been studying at home ever since, but it was now Friday evening and I was taking a break. Richie and I were on the beach. We couldn’t use his friend’s caravan as a couple from England was using it for the weekend. We’d bought sandwiches, apples, and sodas at a grocery and picnicked on the sand, sitting on towels he’d brought while listening to pop music on his transistor radio. Though after nine o’clock, the weather was unseasonably hot and we peeled off our clothes on a whim and went swimming in our underpants in the brisk water. It was magical, the sun a crimson ball sliding slowly toward the distant horizon, the sky swatches of indigo and burnished copper, the sea grass on the dunes swaying lazily in the breeze. A short distance away, a man stood admiring the seascape from the dune nearest the public road, undoubtedly also surprised to see people bathing in late May when the Atlantic water wasn’t yet warm.

  After we came out of the surf, the water droplets gleamed on Richie’s tanned skin and reminded me of the beautiful man I’d watched changing years ago on the beach as a kid. I wondered if he’d married the girl who’d scolded me for rolling beneath the towel to peek at her boyfriend’s privates. Even as a six-year-old I’d known I was a different. Noticing me watching him, Richie leaned over and kissed me.

  “Stop. That man on—”

  “He’s gone.” He laughed. “You think I’ve got a death wish?”

  A low rumble commenced, like the sound of far distant thunder. A man and woman riding two sleek horses, one dappled gray and the other black, galloped toward the water. We watched them skirt along the water’s edge, jets of water kicked up by the horse’s hoofs, and finally merge with the gathering dusk.

  We collected our things and headed back toward our cars. At the foot of the last dune, we embraced. This would be the last time we saw one another until exams were over.

  “Nothing less than As, mind,” he said, as we started up the dune hand-in-hand.

  “Understood, taskmaster.”

  He’d have left the army and would be living in London by the time my results were posted in mid-August. Though I could live with him in his one-bedroom apartment in London and travel to the LSE from there by the Tube, we’d decided I should live in the University Halls of Residence for the first year, as all freshmen did. That way, I’d make friends and enjoy a fuller university life. In the second and third year, I’d live with Richie in Chiswick.

  Richie tossed the damp towels into the back seat of his car. Though the curtains were drawn in the houses on both sides of the quiet street and no one was around, we didn’t want to take chances, so we pretended we were two buddies taking our leave.

  “Good luck,” he said, and we shook hands.

  “Thanks.”

  “See you at the caravan last Friday in June.” He climbed into the driver’s seat. “I’ll have some ice-cold beers ready to celebrate, so make an excuse to your parents and stay overnight.”

  “Easier said than done.”

  He started the car. After checking up and down the street, I leaned my head in through the car window and kissed him quickly.

  I watched until the taillights of his car disappeared around the corner before driving off.

  During the ride back to Knockburn, I thought about my future with him in London and the exams and how so much depended on getting the required grades. About a mile from home, the headlights of an approaching vehicle blinded me and forced me to slow down. I reached up to adjust the rear view mirror as a white van overtook me. It came to an abrupt stop thirty yards ahead, forcing me to brake sharply to avoid crashing into it.

  Two men in black masks ran toward me. They opened my door and dragged me out.

  “What’s going on?” I said.

  They didn’t speak. I knew from stories I’d heard that this was the IRA. The taller man twisted my arm behind my back and frog-marched me to the van. The doors opened and they pushed me inside, where another man was waiting. The shorter man who’d helped take me to the van climbed inside. His companion, also masked, bound my hands behind my back.

  “My father’s car . . .” My mouth was dry with panic. “What are you going to do to me?”

  Visions of my bloodied body lying in a ditch crowded my mind.

  The van took off at high speed. Still, no one spoke.

  “Please . . . tell me. My parents will—”

  “They’ll be told where to find you.”

  The last thing I remembered was the looming butt of a rifle and then the crack as it crashed against my face.

  When I came to, my head was pounding and I felt a scalding sensation inside my nose. They removed my hood. I sat on a parlor chair, my torso bound to it with a rope tied so tight I could scarcely breathe. A Tilley lamp lit the bulging whitewashed walls. An ancient dresser with broken drawers stood in one corner. Scraps of newspaper and feathers littered the wooden floor. Dampness as thick as butter permeated the air. A star twinkled through a hole in the roof. It was clear that no one had lived in this cottage for years.

  I could hear men talking in another room. In front of me, the taller of the men who’d kidnapped me, still hooded, sat on a chair. He screwed the top on a small brown bottle and placed it in the pocket of his green parka jacket.

  “Where am I?” I asked, moving my arm to try and rub the side of my aching head.

  He didn’t answer.

  “Are you the IRA?” I swallowed hard but my mouth was still dry. “I’ve done nothing wrong.”

  “I’ve never had to deal with a queer before,” said the man. “First time for everything, I guess.”

  “I want to go home.”

  “Aye, in a brown box after we’re done with ye.” He coughed. “You’re disgusting. How can you have sex with men?” He spat on the floor. “Real Irishmen don’t do that.”

  “Please let me go.”

  “Did you tout on your own father and the other men?”

  “I’m no informer. I’d never do that.”

  The man hit me hard on the cheek with his big hand. “Don’t fucking lie. Tell the truth and we’ll finish you off mercifully.”

  A shiver ran up my spine. “I didn’t inform on anybody. I swear.”

  “You’ve been doing the dirty with a fucking British soldier.”

  My mouth opened, but I couldn’t speak.

  “How much does the army pay for a tout? Or is him fucking you pay enough?”

  “Please, I beg you . . . we never talk about what’s going on. It’s a rule we have.”

  “You think I was bor
n yesterday?”

  A door opened behind me. The floorboards creaked as someone walked up the room. The person drew up behind me. I turned to look. Though also masked, I recognized his hands first, and then the way he cupped the cigarette so the lighted end faced toward his palm. He’d been smoking that way since he was a teenager, the way the so-called “hard men” smoked when we’d been at Saint Malachy’s.

  “Connor!”

  He didn’t speak.

  “Connor, tell him I’m not a tout.”

  His hand hesitated and then he put the cigarette to the mouth hole of the mask and took a long drag.

  “I know it’s you,” I said. “Please tell him.”

  “Give me a minute with him,” Connor said to the man. “I’ll get it.”

  The man rose, spat at the floor in front of me again, and walked out. Connor sat and took off his mask. We looked at one another without speaking for a long time.

  “What is it you’re to get?”

  “A confession.”

  “I’ve no information. You’ve known me my whole life, Connor. You know I’d never inform on anybody.”

  “I thought I knew you’d never screw with British soldiers.”

  “I’m not screwing. We’re together. He’s leaving the army soon. And he’s a Catholic. Granny made him tea once.”

  A car door slammed and the engine started. Lights shone through the small window as it drove away. Connor walked over to the window and looked out at the darkness.

  “There’s only one way you can make this right,” he said, lighting a fresh cigarette with the old one as he made his way back to me. He took a long puff. “You have to find out when the soldier’s unit next patrols around here and let me know.”

  “So you can kill him?”

  Connor shrugged.

  “We never talk about his work. And I wouldn’t do it even if we did.” My voice cracked. “He and I are together and I’m no tout.” I met Connor’s frigid stare. It used to be my cousin couldn’t look you in the eye. Had the IRA trained him to hold a person’s stare? “After what we’ve done together . . . you know exactly who I am, Connor.”

  His eyes flitted toward the door. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “You know exactly.”

  “Why’d you tell Uncle Harry and Auntie Eileen what you are?” He shook his head. “Some things you keep to yourself.”

  “I didn’t want to live a lie.”

  “You’re talking crazy.”

  “I can help you, Connor. Auntie Celia will understand. And Martin supports me.”

  “What the fuck are you trying to say?” He fumbled in his jacket pocket, took out a revolver, and put its icy snout to my temple. His hand shook. It was surreal. I shut my eyes.

  The door opened. “You get it?” the tall man asked, as he strode up the room.

  “He’s not a tout.” Connor jammed the revolver back in his pocket. “He’s a fucking poof, but no tout.”

  “He’s been having it off with a British soldier,” the man said. “That’s punishable. He pays the same price any Catholic woman fucking a soldier pays when she’s caught.”

  “I’m not getting involved in that,” said Connor. “Our orders were to get a confession and he’s got nothing to confess.” He walked away.

  The man yelled for someone to come and help him. Grabbing my hair, he pulled back my head so fiercely I thought he was trying to tear my scalp off. Someone rushed up the room and hands started cutting my hair. The scissors were blunt; the ends of the blades dug into my scalp. After the man finished, they bundled me into the van again. We drove for twenty minutes or so and then the driver must have pulled into a ditch as the van went slightly lopsided. The doors opened from the outside and I was pulled out and tied to the same telephone pole where I’d helped Daddy hoist the Irish flag a year ago. The flag was tattered now. One of the men poured a bucket of thick black paint over my head and shoulders. Seconds later, a blizzard of white and brown feathers enveloped me. The men jumped into the van, blared the horn five times and drove off at high speed.

  Everything was deathly silent and then I heard running footsteps.

  “Oh, sweet Jesus,” Mammy cried.

  She, Caroline, Nuala, and Granny ran up.

  “What have they done?’ Granny said, as she tried to untie the rope around my chest.

  She couldn’t do it and Nuala took over, biting at it with her teeth to loosen the knots when she couldn’t succeed with her fingers.

  “You poor thing,” Mammy said. “What possessed you to consort with a soldier, Gabriel?”

  “Now isn’t the time,” Granny said. “We need to get him cleaned up before Harry gets home.”

  Daddy was in the living room when I came in after bathing. I was too tired to be nervous. My dark, glossy hair was ruined. The only thing Mammy could do to make me look respectable was shave off what tufts remained with an electric razor, which she had. There were abundant cuts and scratches where the scissors had punctured my scalp. My forehead was swollen and my cheeks blazed from scrubbing off the tar-like paint.

  “A fuckin’ soldier?” Daddy said.

  “I didn’t tout on you to the British soldiers like they accused me of doing.”

  His mouth pursed in disgust.

  “I want you gone from here by tomorrow.” He smashed his fist down on the arm of his chair. “You have no home here.”

  Mammy rose off the sofa and stood before me. “He’s not going anywhere. His exams begin—”

  “He’s out,” said Father, looking from face to face.

  “Daddy, please,” Caroline said.

  “It’s not his fault he likes a soldier,” Nuala said.

  James watched from the door, his face also contorted. How alike he and Father looked when angry.

  “His being homosexual is one thing,” said Father. “I could live with that. But sharing a bed with the fucking British enemy . . . !”

  “Dead right, Daddy,” said James. “He might as well shoot Catholics.”

  “You’re angry and I understand that,” said Mammy. “But Gabriel’s not a murderer.”

  “He’s out,” said Father, looking at me with murder in his eyes. I’d never seen such hatred in his face. “How can you go with a soldier, the people that shot those innocent people dead in Derry?”

  “He’s not a paratrooper,” I said.

  “They’re all murderers. Every fucking one.” He tucked his fingers into his palm and formed a tight fist. “I want you gone by tomorrow evening.”

  “He’s got nowhere to go,” Mammy said.

  “You can leave with him if you want, Eileen,” Father said. “He’s not in this family anymore. He and I are finished.”

  Mammy, Caroline, and Nuala started crying.

  “That’s enough, Harry,” said Granny.

  “Have yous lost your wits?” Daddy said, and banged the arm of the chair again. “He’s bedding a fucking English soldier—scum.”

  Granny leaped up. “Come on, darlin’.” She crossed the room and pulled me out of the chair. “You’ll stay with me until your daddy comes to his senses.”

  For a woman of eighty-three, her grip was astonishingly firm as she led me out the door.

  Despite Granny’s hopes and Mammy’s pleas, Father did not relent. Granny said I would stay with her until I left for England. I reviewed for my exams at her home and ate lunch and dinner with Mammy, but always took care to leave the house before Father returned from work. My brother tolerated my presence, but my dating Richie was something he could not condone.

  In a weird way, I understood both my father’s and brother’s anger. Many Catholics were dying and suffering at the hands of the police and army, including the fourteen murdered victims of Bloody Sunday. My parents had attended the protest against internment in Derry that day and had had to crawl on their hands and knees along the streets when the soldiers started firing live bullets. I still remembered Mammy’s bloodied knees. Richie was Father’s and my brother’s enemy. T
hey despised him more than they despised my homosexuality. They’d never understand how Richie was just a cog in the British Army, that he didn’t make decisions. They’d never understand that he was cannon fodder.

  It also proved impossible to see Richie anymore. It was too dangerous. I was sure the IRA watched my every move. We’d spoken on the phone and I’d told him what had happened, though I didn’t disclose the incident with the paint and feathers. What was the point in causing him unnecessary distress? We resolved to meet again in London in early October, when I would arrive to attend Fresher’s Week at the LSE.

  Thirty-Three

  The person I called first after the exam results posted two months later was Richie. He was now finished with the army and living on the three years of wages he’d saved during his Ulster tour as he decided whether he wanted to go to night school or find a job. I urged him to attend night school to take A level courses and then go on to university. He was too intelligent to work in an electronics store selling TVs, or something of that ilk.

  Within two weeks of the results, I received a letter from the LSE confirming I was accepted to study law. Neighbors, friends, and my family congratulated me—even James, albeit begrudgingly. I took it.

  My joy was doused only by Father’s refusal to acknowledge my success, never mind my existence. It wasn’t extinguished entirely by his response, because I knew I was not responsible for his bigotry. Though I wasn’t sure Mammy’s maxim that time healed all wounds would apply to my father.

  Before I left for England, Uncle Brendan sent me three thousand pounds and promised to send more throughout the year. Granny gave me four thousand.

  “It’s your lifetime supply of lambs for market,” she said, “now I know you’ll never be a farmer.” My mind flashed back to my lamb, Bonnie, and how innocent a time childhood was, how so much had happened in my life since then.

  At the docks while awaiting the ferry to England a week later, Mother embraced me so tightly the pressure on my upper arms lingered after she pulled away.