A breeze passed over her as the rain withdrew. She was exposed kindling tinder. The flame from the tinder burst into an immense penetrating flame. She burned inside with a sweet, intense fire. Her body felt on fire. She didn’t care. She was no longer aware of breathing – the burning was her breathing. In the midst of the fire within, she felt the touch of peace, a cool, smooth, round pearl of stillness forming in her stomach. It grew and spread throughout her body – with a shiny, silk, white, beauty – a stopping of time within a pearled peace.
A Saracen tank screeched up beside her. A soldier jumped from the tank, cutting the ropes. Rose slid to the ground. “Thank you.”
He caught her hand. She noticed that his hand was gloveless, soft and warm.
“Did you know them?”
“Yes.”
Rose could hardly breathe never mind explain how she knew Matt, Max and Edward. How they called themselves the Crouch Brothers because they spent more time on their knees than walking. Matt the tallest with dark black straight hair, blue wide eyes, a wide nose, thick lips, broad shoulders, square hands. He radiated solidity and strength. Max, at least six inches shorter than Matt, with light brown hair, green eyes, always a little bit nervous, with a slight stutter. Edward was the smallest, fine boned, frizzy blonde hair, hazel eyes with a trace of blonde eyelashes and a delicate small mouth. He had the best sense of humour of them all. He had a way of looking at you with eyes that stayed so still, unblinking, that seemed to grow larger with every second of watching. He smiled at Rose with those wide open eyes which Rose couldn’t help laughing into. Her laugh was infectious and before you knew it Max was holding his stomach and Matt patted Max several times on the back, as though he was a horse who had won a first place rosette.
The first time she had seen the three of them had been only three months before, yet it seemed a long time. They were on duty for the first time on the school patrol run, guiding the girls from the Convent of Mercy as they walked down the Ballysillan Road onto the Crumlin Road into Ardoyne. They were having fun with each other and it was infectious – Rose laughed out loud and Matt turned and looked at her and winked. Rose remembered that her face blushed crimson and she looked at the pavement for at least ten minutes before she looked up again. Matt hadn’t stopped looking at her. He winked again. Rose was careful that Clara and the others walking in front didn’t see her smile back at him. From that day she had always walked the first stretch of the journey home at the back of the group. Matt and she learnt to communicate without words. They looked at each other the way horses do. They didn’t talk, didn’t tell lies, didn’t cheat but saw something in each other below the surface which was real. Rose’s heart pounded in her chest in anticipation of seeing Matt when the last school bell was rung each day. Sometimes, as they neared Ardoyne, Rose would give Matt a knowing look and move forward to have a few words with Clara so no-one would guess what was going on. By the time she crossed Brompton Park, onto the Crumlin Road, she rarely looked back at Matt, but looked straight ahead, more often than not finding herself singing.
“One survived.” The soldier lowered his eyelids and dropped his chin onto his chest.
“Who?”
“Matt.” The soldier rubbed his mouth with his glove.
His face went hazy in front of Rose. He reached forward, grabbing Rose by the elbow as she fainted. When Rose opened her eyes, she saw the soldier holding a bottle of water to her lips. She sipped, closing her eyes, listening to him.
“We need to get out of here. Emotions are running high. They will bring the snipers out.” He shook his head as though he could read her thoughts. “It was never straightforward. There were too many civilians. We did our best.”
Rose climbed into the Saracen tank and a soldier handed over her abandoned schoolbag. “We found it by the front door. Matt said it was Rose’s. You are Rose, aren’t you?”
“Yes. I am.”
“Where do you want us to take you?” The driver asked.
“To Holy Cross Church. The Woodvale Road side. “
A young eighteen year old soldier with thin lips, wide open blue eyes, holding his rifle between his legs, looked steadily at Rose as the Saracen moved along the Falls Road.
“Thanks for what you did. Matt talked about you. He was right about you.”
The Saracen tank moved slowly up the Shankill Road, passing the Black Beetle, then along the Woodvale Road, to pull to a halt at the back of Holy Cross Church. Rose stared at the floor, only moving her eyes to the soldiers’ boots which didn’t move an inch in thirty minutes.
Before she stepped down from the Saracen, a soldier handed Rose a white cotton towel to cover her head. She turned it into a turban, took off her coat and folded it over her arm and then jumped from the back of tank. She watched for a moment as the Saracen moved slowly around the roundabout, turning onto the Crumlin Road. She quickly climbed the stone wall with its iron railing into the grounds at the back of the church. She had never been so far back in the Grove before. It was easier than she thought to push through the brambles, the lime and oak trees, to emerge close to the front door of the monastery. There was no-one round. Once she reached the familiar pathway leading towards the Crumlin Road, she ran. There wasn’t anyone at the bus stop. As she opened the gate, she rested her gaze momentarily on the Saracen waiting outside the bookies, before fumbling in her pocket for her key and twisting it in the lock. She slammed the door shut behind her. The towel dropped to the floor.
“Lily. Lily. Are you home?”
She ran along the hallway opening the sitting room door.
Lily sitting on the sofa dabbed Prussian blue oil onto a canvas. She was absorbed in filling the upper left corner with gentle brush strokes creating an evening sky. She leaned forward and touched the canvas with her right hand, making circles in the paint, breathing gently as Rose threw open the door. Lily jumped to her feet, leaving the canvas quivering on its easel. The paintbrush fell from her hand. “Mother of God, what on earth happened to you?”
• • •
Tom lay in bed listening to Lily’s gentle breathing. The wind howled outside the window and the tarpaulin flapped agitatedly trying to free itself from the roof. He hadn’t yet managed to have the slates replaced on the roof after the car bomb attack on New Year’s Eve. He shivered, turning on his side to curl up beside Lily, stretching his arm across her to gently grip her shoulder. She didn’t waken. He pressed his face into her back and then moved his head to the right so that he could hear Lily’s heartbeat. The rhythmic thump of her heart and the occasional gurgle of liquids within her body comforted him. Yet they couldn’t quite calm the anxiety which flooded his stomach, rising to his heart and attempting to surge into his head. It was a sensation of nervousness and uncertainty which gripped him – like a thirsty wasp attempting to drink water from the frothing waves of a stormy lake. Or the way a fly buzzing with friends might feel when trapped in a spider’s web it watches the eyes of the spider rapidly approach.
For the first time in his life Tom felt afraid. It wasn’t only in his stomach and heart that he felt afraid, but in his mind. It felt as though everything that had held him together in his head had snapped. Everything that had kept him sane had gone. Ping. Ping. Ping. His sanity snapping like an elastic band pulled to its limit, breaking, of no use anymore. He was disintegrating, falling apart. There was no ground beneath his feet – yet he had to walk. He had to act, to do something. His body shook uncontrollably but gently, a vibrating rhythm matching Lily’s heartbeat. What would happen to Rose? What should they do about Matt? If the IRA found out about Matt, Rose would be killed. It was of no comfort to know that Ciaran wouldn’t kill her, not after his conversation with Tom on Sunday. But there were others who would kill Rose without a second thought. In one hour he would be expected to get up, get dressed and be good old Tom. He didn’t know who that was any more.
He knew what Tom did. He cut wood. He polished it, shaped it, smoothed it and turned it into tables and chairs. He reme
mbered the touch of the wood – the feel of it against his fingers, the warmth of it against his body as he held it close. More than anything he wanted now to have the trunk of pine or an oak tree resting in his arms. He wanted to smell the incense of branches on a fire, to hear the crackling of wood in the heat of a burning flame, to see the smoke rise again to the heavens in a cloud of blue and to soar with his spirit upward, to infinity beyond the pull of earth.
Over tea and toast Tom declared that Rose shouldn’t go to school.
“We need to get your hair sorted. It has to look like you’ve decided to cut it short, not like you have been tarred and feathered.”
Lily ruffled the hair on the top of Rose’s head. “Well we have managed to remove the tar. But you are right, it needs a proper cut. I will ask Susan to come to the house and give you a decent haircut. We can trust her not to say anything.”
“Please can I go to school tomorrow? I need to see Matt.”
“Tom, we have to get back to normal as soon as possible. People will ask questions if Rose doesn’t go back to her old routine.” Lily brought a fresh pot of tea to the table and put her hand over Tom’s noticing how wrinkly and old it looked, like a crumpled paper bag beside the toast. She lifted his hand and kissed it gently and sat it down on the table again.
Tom was motionless. He gazed at Lily. She was smiling at him the way you would smile at someone in a hospital bed who you knew couldn’t help themselves – a tender, warm smile. She wore navy blue slacks and a long white and navy blue striped tunic with flat pumps. She had pulled her hair into a ponytail and her face was radiant. To Tom she seemed very far away although was sitting beside him. He felt he would have to shout to her to be heard and so although he whispered to Lily he thought was shouting,
“Why don’t you give Rose Catherine’s ring? It’s her birthday on Thursday. It has been blessed by Father Anthony. “
Lily looked at Rose. “Would you like Catherine’s ring? It was your mother’s also.”
Rose felt her eyes prickling with tears as she nodded. “Yes, thank you. On my birthday.”
• • •
Father Anthony opened the curtains of his bedroom and watched the branches of the oak tree sway in gale force winds. It was still dark and the stars could be seen twinkling overhead. The moon was hidden behind a puffy grey cloud. It was going to be a lovely day. A thunderstorm was forecast for the afternoon. Father Anthony loved thunderstorms. As a child he had frightened his parents by dangling his legs from the second floor upstairs bedroom window to get a better view of the storm approaching their farmhouse in the country. He watched black rolling clouds get closer as the wind picked up and announced the proximity of the storm. His parents shrieked with fear that he would either fall from the window or be struck by lightning. He had only felt exhilarated by the whole event.
Before getting dressed he sat on the bed, closed his eyes, resting his hands on his knees. He felt deeply peaceful, triggered by a sense of gratitude for life. He realised that he had felt this way for quite some time – peace and gratitude for life. With his eyes closed all he could see behind his eyelids was a peaceful blank screen. There was no internal chatter in his head and his body was empty of emotion. He realised that this was peace this absence of emotional hurly burly in his body.
As he sat opening himself up to a sense of contentment he felt his body beginning to flow like waves in the deep sea and the restful screen behind his eyelids also started to flow into waves of increasing brightness. He was aware of his breathing – deep and slow – until that too disappeared. He was flowing like a river. “Peace is flowing like a river.”
Time had disappeared. When he opened his eyes and became aware of the room once more, the sun had come up and the room was lightened by the softest glow. Sparrows were chattering outside, crows turning in the air and caw-cawing. Never had he heard a more beautiful sound. He remembered the words of the Rector from many years before when they were talking about Father Anthony’s crisis of faith.
“Is it emptiness or is it angst?”
He remembered the Rector laughing and then saying, “One gives birth to the other. Find out which does which and you will be more than half way there.”
Father Anthony thought that he now knew. “Angst leads to emptiness.”
He thought that the other half of the truth which the Rector wanted him to learn was emptiness leads to angst.
He smiled to himself. It was all OK. Angst could be purified in the emptiness of love. It could be burnt up in the flame of emptiness.
He looked through the window to find someone to share this moment with and a large black crow fluttered awkwardly onto the small windowsill. It turned its head to one side. It lifted one leg, falling off the window sill and flapping left towards the oak tree with a loud caw-caw-caw.
chapter 12
Wednesday 12th January 1972
On Wednesday at two thirty in the afternoon, William and Cedric were in the Black Beetle watching Sammy P play cards. “We’ll leave you to your cards, Sammy P, but don’t forget tomorrow’s plan. We need you. What’ll you be having?”
“Make it a double whiskey.”
Sammy P slowly separated the cards into four bundles of fourteen – spades, diamonds, clubs and hearts. He shuffled them, his foot tapping on the ground, biting his lower lip, turning the first card face up – the ace of clubs – the remaining six cards he placed face down in a horizontal line. He quickly slapped another row on the table, one face up and the remaining five face down. A peat fire smoked in the corner, struggling to spark into life. Jinny was the favourite to win the two-thirty at Newbury. A cheer went up from three bobbing heads beside the TV in the corner when Jinny won. Alex limped across the bar from the toilets, slapped Sammy P on the back.
“How are you getting on, Sammy P? Are you winning?”
Sammy P looked up and stared at Alex, deck of cards in his right hand.
“I’m telling you now, I’m warning you, don’t talk to me when I’m playing cards. Do you get it? Never talk to me when I’m playing cards.”
Alex patted him again on the shoulder, “No harm meant, Sammy P.”
“Don’t speak to me. I’ve told you once. Now I’m telling you a second time, don’t talk to me when I’m playing cards. If I have to tell you a third time, you’ll be hearing from my lawyer.”
Alex winked at Cedric and William, making a sign with his right hand to say that he had zipped his mouth and hobbled to the counter to order a drink.
“A pint of Harp, Billy.”
William leant on the counter beside him.
“Make it a double whiskey, two pints of Harp and an orange juice. Cedric’s on the juice today. He’s driving Jenny back to Lurgan.”
William pulled his trousers up over his small paunch and pulled his v-neck jumper down over the trousers. He limped back to the table.
In silence Alex set the two pints of Harp on the table, the orange juice in front of Cedric and the double whiskey beside Sammy P who dealt his cards. Sammy P lifted three cards, turning the third face upwards. It was a red seven. He looked carefully at the cards turned face up. His hand moved to place the seven of hearts on top of a red eight of diamonds. Alex slid onto the bench beside William and Cedric, clutching his pint of gold.
“Now you know you can’t do that, Sammy P. I know you’re playing on your own, but you can’t cheat.”
Sammy P raised his eyes to look at Alex, who smiled at him, taking a sip of his beer.
“I warned you once not to talk to me when I’m playing cards. I told you twice not to talk to me when I’m playing cards and I warned you that if you did it a third time, that I would have to get my lawyer.”
Sammy P gathered all fifty two cards together, placed them into a neat pile, squashed free from the table and walked slowly to the back of the pub. Alex winked again at Cedric, or was it a nervous twitch? Three minutes passed without any sign of Sammy P. Three and a half minutes later Sammy P appeared, running towards the table wie
lding a black Shillealeah – a black shiny stick of oak, rubbed in butter and cured in a chimney for two months – used for settling disputes in what was called a gentlemanly manner. On reaching Alex’s table he swung the Shillealeah like a golf club and cracked it into Alex’s ribs. Alex threw himself onto the red tiled bar floor but Sammy P made a second connection with Alex’s ribs.
“Don’t talk to me when I’m playing cards! Now do you get it?”
“Right, Sammy P! Leave Alex alone and let’s talk about tomorrow’s plan.” William patted the bench. “Sit. If we don’t organise tomorrow properly you’ll be getting a little bit of what you dished out to Alex, if not more. Do you get what I am saying? I think Cedric and I have the advantage of imagination over you. We’re creative you know?”
Sammy P nodded, sliding onto the bench beside William and Cedric. Frank and Richard helped a groaning Alex to a quiet booth towards the back of the bar.
“What time will you have the car bomb ready?”
“Around five.”
“Good. We leave here at six. That gives us plenty of time. You drive in front. We follow. Anything you don’t understand?”
Sammy P shook his head. William patted him on the shoulder. He lifted what was left of Sammy P’s whiskey and drank it.
“No drinking and driving Sammy P.”
“I’m off to see Jenny.” Cedric slid back his chair. “See you later William and see you tomorrow, Sammy P.” He waved at Frank who was still tending to Alex at the back of the bar, mopping his forehead with a damp white cotton facecloth.
• • •
Fifteen minutes before they arrived at the Nurse’s Home in Lurgan, Jenny told Cedric that she no longer wanted to see him.
“This has something to do with Peter, hasn’t it?” Silence. “What’s changed?”
“We’re too different. I don’t want to waste your time. You will find someone else. You need to work out what your dream really is and who would be best to be in it with you. It’s not me.” Jenny stared straight ahead, feeling her stomach tighten and her breathing quicken. What else could she say? How could she tell him it was all a mistake right from the start?
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