Bog Child

by Siobhan Dowd

  A sod fell by Fergus’s foot. He had to half hop, half skim over it, trying not to shake his corner of the bier.

  ‘Mark that spot, where the earth fell.’

  ‘Oh my God.’ It was Felicity’s voice. ‘Her face. Part of her face.’

  ‘Keep going, team. There’s a shower coming in.’

  More helpers arrived to take the strain. There were ten or twelve of them now, shouldering the strange load. Gingerly they picked their way over the bog. Fergus could see only the patch of ground ahead of him and the feet of the bearers, army boots on some, trainers on others. He and Owain had taken the head-end of Mel, but somehow they’d ended up at the back of the team.

  When they got to the waiting truck, it was as if Professor Taylor’s and Felicity’s command yielded to that of the army officer. Rope was fed under the tin. On his count, they lowered her. Then the soldiers took over, manoeuvring her into the waiting crate on the open-topped truck.

  ‘She’s landed.’

  It started to spot with rain.

  Fergus was flushed with exertion. There was sweat between his shoulder blades.

  Felicity came up beside him, her hand on his shoulder. ‘Fergus, look at her. The peat fell away from part of her head when we shifted her. I think she really is a girl.’

  He saw first the smoothness of a cheek. The skin around the jaw was wrinkled, as if pressed by the centuries. But the nose was strong and Roman, and the lips shut, pursed, as if ready to kiss. The one visible eye was shut, and over her head was part of a bonnet made of something like wool. She was like a girl of the last century in a nursery story, tucked up for the night. How dainty she was; he’d never seen a more peaceful expression.

  ‘It’s as if she just lay down and fell asleep,’ he whispered.

  Felicity nodded. ‘That’s what the Victorians used to put on people’s graves. She fell asleep. I always thought it a silly euphemism for death. But here, it seems quite apt.’

  ‘She’s unbelievable. She’s sweetness itself.’

  Cora was crying by his side. ‘Oh, Mam. Fergus. Look. Beneath her chin.’

  Fergus peered. What he’d taken for a bonnet string was thicker, more like a slender coil of rope, neatly made and extending down by her folded arm.

  ‘God have mercy,’ Felicity whispered.

  Fergus stretched out a hand, as if to touch her. ‘Mel?’ he said. The crowd was silent. Rain fell in earnest. ‘Oh, Mel.’

  The rope was a noose.

  Somewhere a car engine started. An order was given. A soldier unfurled the truck’s khaki canvassing, hiding her from view.

  Part II

  SECOND SIGHT

  Fifteen

  When I told Boss Shaughn’s message to Da, Mam drew her shawl around herself and the new baby, saying nothing.

  ‘The payment’s unfair and should be resisted,’ Da argued. ‘The winter’s the cruellest I’ve ever known. Our stores will never last out until spring if we make the payment.’

  The baby cried. Mam hushed it, her own eyes filling. ‘We should send Brennor away,’ she said. ‘Let him take a boat over the lough, away from this. Southwards. There at least he’d have a chance.’

  Da shook his head. ‘This is Brennor’s home. He’s too young to go.’

  He saw me listening and shooed me out the door. I found Brennor outside, eavesdropping.

  ‘Mam wants me gone,’ he whispered, his face a zigzag of hurt.

  ‘No,’ I whispered back. ‘She wants you alive.’

  ‘When Boss Shaughn comes tomorrow,’ Brennor said, turning the shaft of his boy-sized spear in his hand, ‘he’d better watch out.’

  ‘Brennor,’ I said, ‘you’re too young to remember what happened three years ago. When Boss Shaughn came, he and Da shouted and shook their weapons. Then they went up the bog road to fight it out. Then they made a pact and came down again. Boss Shaughn’s payment was deferred to the summer.’

  Brennor shook his head. ‘Da knows and I know.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘The payment isn’t fair in the first place.’

  I frowned. ‘What is fair? Is it fair that we hunt wild things and eat them up when they’ve done nothing to hurt us?’

  Brennor laughed and tickled me under the arms and on the belly, which is what very annoying younger brothers do the minute they’ve outstripped you in size and strength. I pinched him hard above the kneecap and he jumped in the air like a laughing stoat.

  ‘I’m off to hunt down a deer. I saw some earlier through the mist, over by Inchquinoag forest.’

  ‘Happy hunting,’ I said. He ran off, spear in hand.

  I turned to where on a fine day you could see a view of the lough. ‘Fat chance you’ll catch anything in this murk,’ I muttered. I bit my lip. In the swaths of mist, I saw Rur’s face, staring into the middle distance. And whatever way I looked into the coming weeks, I saw death. But whose, I did not know.

  Fergus shook himself awake. Christ. He’d dozed off during the exam with only half of his multiple choice questions done. He looked at Joe’s watch then breathed out in relief. He’d only lost ten minutes. But that left twenty questions with only thirty-four minutes to tackle them in.

  His tongue felt furry, his brain slow. Ahead of him ten lads worked, heads down in a slant of afternoon sun. The air rippled with concentration, shuffles, sharpenings, creaks. Mr Dwyer, invigilating at the top desk on the dais, was intent on the New Scientist. What Fergus would have given to swap places.

  He’d a hundred and two seconds per question.

  Get your act together, stupid.

  His pen had rolled onto his lap. He picked it up.

  In multiple choice, you’d five possible answers. Two were usually way-out wrong, one could be excluded after a moment’s calculation, but the last two were close contenders. One trick would be to identify the two and make a guess between them. That way, he could hope for a percentage of 50 on the second part. If he’d scored 70 per cent in the first half, he’d have 60 per cent overall.

  Good, but not good enough for his place in college.

  His stomach tightened. He stared at the calculation he’d been stuck on and guessed Answer B.

  Nineteen left.

  Joe. Eleven days of starving.

  He knew about the focal length of a lens. He quickly checked the box which said: Gradient = 0.119.

  Yesterday he’d read in the newspaper what one of the other strikers had said. You drink four pints of water a day. Every time you drink, you retch. Your stomach cramps up like you’ve poisoned it with bad mushrooms. The water’s cold. You’re freezing. No amount of blankets can keep you warm.

  Another lucky question, about measuring the refractive index of a glass block, but he’d to guess the next two.

  Fifteen left. He checked the time. Ninety seconds left a question.

  He dug his knuckles into his eyelids. Joe, I am banishing you from my thoughts.

  He speed-read the remaining questions and found five he could do. He did them and then began using his principle of guesswork for the last ten.

  ‘Time.’ Mr Dwyer said it quietly but every soul heard. Every pen went down. Fergus checked E in the last box without looking at the question at all. He dropped his biro.

  He sat in his chair, waiting for the command to leave. He was in the last column, at the back. The first column of candidates filed out. He heard their voices in the corridor, urgent but subdued, growing louder as the footfalls faded.

  Mr Dwyer nodded at the column next to Fergus’s. They got up, leaving their work behind them. Fergus saw his friend Padraig ambling past the desks, sneaking a glance at the abandoned exam scripts.

  ‘The last column may rise,’ Mr Dwyer said. He made it sound like a last stand in battle. They all stood up and filed out. Fergus felt dizzy with the need to be out of there. He saw somebody had ticked A for the last question where he’d ticked the E. A or E. Pass or fail. Leave Ireland or stay. Perhaps that one tick in that one box would fix his groove into the fu
ture. As he passed the dais, he saw Mr Dwyer smiling down at him, a brow raised. Fergus shrugged a So-so.

  Outside, Padraig was waiting. ‘How d’you find it, Fergus?’

  ‘Dunno.’

  ‘I thought it was OK.’

  ‘Did you?’

  ‘Yeah. I like multiple choice. You only have to tick a fecking box. It might be the wrong box. But the ticking bit’s easy.’

  Fergus chuckled. ‘Too right. We’ll both get a hundred per cent for the ticking of the boxes.’ They approached the male toilets and Fergus paused. ‘And d’you know another good thing?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘The exam is ended. Go and piss.’

  Padraig slapped his knee. ‘Thanks be to God,’ he quipped. They yelped and fell about the corridor like mad buffoons, then reeled into the toilets. Fergus laughed so hard he’d to grip his side. His eyes watered. He half collapsed against the wall, groaning.

  ‘Go and piss,’ Padraig shrieked over the urinal. ‘Thanks be.’

  A moment later, Fergus felt the laugh go out of him. He realized he’d got the one on Young’s Modulus the wrong way round. It was stress over strain, not strain over stress. He wiped away a film of sweat from his forehead and laid his arm flat to the wall. His head collapsed against it. ‘Bugger,’ he said.

  ‘’S anything wrong?’ Padraig asked.

  ‘No,’ he said, swallowing. ‘Nothing.’

  ‘Fergus?’

  ‘Catch you later, Padraig.’

  He walked out of the toilets and down the corridor, seeing the boxes and the ticks, the grooves into the future and Joe on the narrow prison bed with the blankets over him, retching up nothing. Somewhere off in the distance, under the old Scots pine of the churchyard, a dark funeral party was huddled and, stress over strain, a coffin was being lowered.

  Sixteen

  Michael Rafters was waiting for him by arrangement at the chip shop, a newspaper bundle of chips in hand. ‘Hey there, Fergus.’

  ‘Hi.’

  ‘Did it go OK?’

  ‘The exam?’

  ‘No. The—’ Michael tilted his head. ‘You know what.’

  ‘Oh, that. Yeah. Fine.’ Fergus had been up the mountain that morning at 6. As instructed, he’d picked up a packet from an old lorry tyre lying thirty yards off the bridle track in the Forestry Commission and exchanged it for a packet in a loose rock in a dry-stone wall a mile around the other side of the mountain. Then he ferried the second packet back over to the tyre in the Forestry Commission. Both ways, he’d avoided the sentry post on the dead-end road. Pick up. Drop off. See nobody. Talk to nobody. Don’t even think about what’s in the packets. Don’t even ask what they’re for. Not a word to anyone. The packets consisted of a small brown jiffy bag, soft, not too heavy. They were done up securely with gaffer tape. There was no address on them or writing of any kind.

  ‘Have a chip.’

  ‘Thanks. I’m starved.’

  They munched, turning off Roscillin’s main street and into the park. There was a bandstand in need of paint, some wilted pansies in the beds and a children’s play area, empty. Michael headed over there, climbing over the low railing. They finished the chips sitting down on the children’s swings.

  ‘I’ve put the word through,’ Michael said. ‘About Joe.’

  ‘About time. Joe’s in a desperate state. I don’t see how he’ll ever last sixty-six days like Bobby did.’

  Michael sighed. ‘The problem is, Fergus, the lads in Long Kesh are following their own rules. Your man McFarlane’s in charge there. He and Bobby had a plan drawn up, a rota for starving. He meant there to be a death at regular intervals.’

  ‘Jesus.’ He’d heard as much from the media coverage of the strikes, but hearing it from someone in the know chilled him.

  ‘There’s no shortage of volunteers like Joe and Len. They’re mad to starve in there.’ Michael shrugged. ‘I’m having to go right up to the top on this one: the IRA Army Council. And that takes time.’

  ‘Time?’ Fergus swung on the swing, watching his black shoes, the school trousers over them, thinking of how, if you were Einstein, you could maybe find a way to bend time.

  Time was the enemy. At home, Mam was white and drawn, her own appetite gone. Fergus was eating as if for two, incessantly hungry. Theresa and Cath were fractious, fighting every other minute. Da was grim and calm. He kept saying, like a broken record, how Joey was a grown man and this strike was his right and he for one was proud of him. He may as well have punched Mam in the belly. She didn’t argue with him, but her silence spoke anguish. The girls were sent down to play at the Caseys’ after school and weekends. Mam and Mrs Sheehan were off to the prison most days or to meetings with mothers of the other strikers. Fergus was told he could not come. Mam said he’d to do his exams and put Joey out of his mind. The house was a stricken place. The only bright speck on the horizon was the prospect of Felicity and Cora. They’d returned to Dublin after the bog child was safely delivered to Roscillin’s abattoir, but were due back tomorrow, when the archaeological investigations were to begin. They’d not been told about the strike.

  ‘Fergus,’ Michael urged. ‘There is hope.’

  ‘What hope?’

  ‘Some members of the Council think the strike should end.’

  ‘That’s not enough, Michael. I can’t go on with these packets. Like I said, it’s not my scene.’

  Michael reached over and gave Fergus’s swing a playful yank. ‘Sure you can. For old times’ sake. You remember “We Three Kings”, right?’

  ‘Selling condoms, tuppence a pair. Yeah.’

  ‘It’s a small thing, the packets.’

  Fergus put his foot to the ground to stop the swing dead. ‘So what’s in them?’

  Michael shook his head. ‘Don’t ask. Don’t even wonder.’

  ‘Do you know what’s in them?’

  Michael glanced about, dropping his voice. ‘I know what the mission is. But not every last detail.’

  ‘The mission?’

  ‘The target.’

  ‘It’s not a civilian target–is it?’

  Michael said nothing.

  ‘Is it?’

  ‘Shush. No. It’s a legitimate target.’

  ‘I don’t want to be part of killing anybody innocent, Michael.’

  ‘There is no such thing as innocence any more, Fergus.’

  ‘There is. Children are innocent. Our Theresa and Cath. They’re innocent.’

  ‘They’re part of a war, Fergus. This is a nation at war. But the target’s not a child. Or a woman. Or anybody that doesn’t deserve to die. I promise you.’

  ‘It’s a military target?’

  Michael nodded. ‘Now forget everything I’ve said.’

  A woman approached the play area with a buggy and a young toddler.

  ‘I’ll say nothing,’ said Fergus.

  ‘But you’ll keep on with the packets?’ Michael whispered. ‘There’s another planned for tomorrow.’

  Fergus groaned.

  ‘It’s only a few more, Fergus. Then that’s the end of it.’

  ‘And what about Joe?’

  ‘He’ll be hearing from the top, don’t you worry. When the word comes, he’ll have no choice but to come off the strike.’

  Michael got up from the swing as the woman and child entered the play area through a little gate. He hopped over the low railing and Fergus trailed after him. They stopped at the bandstand. Michael rested a hand on the flaking red paint of the round dais. ‘It’s only a matter of time, Fergus.’

  ‘Time,’ said Fergus. He looked down at Joe’s watch. It said 13:10.

  Michael smiled. ‘Joe’s watch?’

  Fergus nodded.

  ‘Will you be seeing him?’

  Fergus shrugged. ‘Dunno. I hope so.’

  ‘How’s he doing?’

  ‘How would you be doing in his place?’

  Uneasiness flickered over Michael’s face. He shook his head. ‘Same time, same place, Fergus? Can we
rely on you?’

  ‘OK. For now.’

  ‘Good man.’ Michael saluted and walked briskly off, tossing the chip wrappers into the rubbish bin as he left the park.

  Seventeen

  When Fergus got home, the house was empty. There was nobody to ask him how his exam had gone. He got a packet of Jaffa cakes out of the biscuit tin and munched through the lot, standing at the window, staring out at the washing as it dried in the wind. Mam had hung up the sheets for the twin room in readiness for Felicity and Cora’s return the next day. Then she must have gone out prison-visiting. Pegged up next to the sheets was the coverlet Cath had inherited from Joe, the one he’d loved as a kid with the 101 Dalmatian dogs plastered all over it. Fergus smiled then felt a sob threaten to convulse him.

  He shut himself into the front room. Three Bs and you’ve a place for medicine, Fergus McCann. A whole new life. He put on London Calling by The Clash at top volume. He sat head in hands at the drop-leaf table where his textbooks were piled. Then he opened his Nelkon and Parker.

  But after a few minutes he gave up. Instead he took a fresh piece of paper and started to write.

  He tore the paper up, threw it in the wastepaper bin and restarted on a fresh page. The bin was filled with crumpled balls of paper and London had been calling three times over by the time he was done.

  He looked at what he’d written.

  Dear Margaret Thatcher,

  My brother would not want me to do this so I cannot tell you my name. My brother is a hunger striker and I do not want him to die. You say that crime is crime is crime and there is no such thing as political crime. But there are times when we’ve no choice but to fight. My brother believes this is one of them. I don’t know if he’s right. I just don’t know. But one thing is sure. This is a time of hate and it’s getting worse.

  There are no winners in this strike, just losers. My brother will lose his life. I will lose my brother. On the streets, more lives are being lost every day. You will lose votes and supporters, maybe even your place in history. And hope–we’ll lose that too. All of us. Is there no way out?