by Siobhan Dowd
The strikers won’t budge. I have visited my brother and seen his face. He is happy to die. You are the only person who can save him, Mrs Thatcher. It may go against what you see as your principle. But you will save his life and many others, and isn’t this a better principle than not giving the strikers the special category status they want?
Every death makes peace more distant. Every funeral makes more hate. Save us from this violence, this despair. My mam prays to God every Sunday in church, ‘Only say the word and I shall be healed’. Please. Over there in Westminster. Say the one word. ‘Yes.’ You will never regret it. Never.
From a sincere citizen.
Fergus stared at the words. Death. Peace. Hate. Principle. Crime. It was as if an older, more seasoned Fergus from twenty years into the future had bent time and returned to the brain of his younger self to write this letter. Surely it was persuasive. Surely anyone would think twice on reading this. Surely—
Put it in an envelope. Address it to the House of Commons. Before you change your mind.
Then he thought of the long corridors of power, of the secretaries screening everything, of mailbags groaning with letters from sincere citizens, the manifold pleas of the kingdom; and the grating, intransigent voice of the woman herself.
She’d never see it. Let alone be moved by it.
Send it anyway.
He frowned at the words ‘a sincere citizen’. He crossed them out, thinking of the running he was doing for Michael Rafters. What was sincere about that? And what country was he a citizen of? Britain? Ireland? Who was he? What had he become?
He dropped the pen and tore up the letter. Then he took the bin with all the drafts out into the garden and burned them to ashes. When the flames died, he upended the ashes over the flowerbeds, cursing under his breath.
‘What on earth are you doing, Fergus?’
It was Mam, back from wherever she’d been, standing at the back door, the lapels of her shell-pink jacket flapping, her eyes troubled.
‘Nothing, Mam.’
‘That’s ashes you’ve flying about everywhere. What have you been burning?’
‘Just notes, Mam. Old revision notes.’
‘But you might need them, Fergus. You should’ve kept them.’
‘Not those, Mam. They were rubbish.’
She nodded as if she believed him. ‘OK, Fergus. Come on in. I’ll make some tea. We’ll have something sweet on the side.’
‘Oh, Mam. I’m sorry. The biscuit tin’s empty.’
‘And I only bought a fresh supply yesterday.’ She shrugged. ‘Just the tea, then.’
She made a pot for them both and they drank it in silence at the table. The telephone rang. Fergus was about to answer it, but Mam shook her head.
‘It’s that man from the Roscillin Star, I bet you. I told him already we’d no comment.’
No comment. Mam and Da didn’t agree on much nowadays, but they’d agreed on those two words. Neighbours, newsmen, friends: If they don’t ask, say nothing. If they do, say ‘No comment.’ A freak gust of wind shook the washing on the line outside. Dalmatian dots danced in the air.
‘I forgot to ask. How was the exam, Fergus?’ Mam stretched out her hand and placed it on his, leaning towards him. He could see miniatures of himself reflected in her eyes. The smile she attempted cracked her haggard face in two.
‘It was a breeze, Mam. A breeze.’
Eighteen
He was up at six o’clock the next morning for another run, courtesy of Michael Rafters. He put on the trainers and stretched. His limbs were like lead.
He let himself out the front door and stood for a moment, breathing. The sun was up and shining. Mam’s roses were at their height. The mountains looked as if they’d been freshly created overnight. It was the kind of day to put springs in your legs. But as he jogged down the street, the thought of the packets weighed him down.
Joey, he thought. I’m doing this for you. So help me God.
His breathing was uneven and the pavements jarred his knee joints. It was a relief when the tarmac ran out and packed earth and weeds took over.
The first mile was always the worst, but this was hell. His throat raged with thirst. Maybe it was the smoked kippers Mam had made for tea last night. The sun burned his forehead. His stomach felt rough.
The hunger striker nearest to death was nearly forty days into his strike. Going by the average of those who had already died, he was almost two-thirds of the way to his death. Joe at twelve days surely had a long way to go. Anything could happen. Anything-huh-huh. Happen-huh-huh—
He nearly tripped on a rock on the path. He staggered, then saved himself.
Get a grip, McCann.
He drew up to the gate into the Forestry Commission. Normally he vaulted it. Today he clambered over, puffed. Once in among the trees, he stopped. He panted, feeling the sweat trickling down between his shoulder blades. The peace of the place unfurled around him. The dark-green shades were friendly ghosts. The smell of resin calmed him.
He strolled to the tyre and took out the waiting packet, stuffing it down his front.
I am doing this for you, Joe. I am running for your life.
He started up again, getting a better rhythm. He thought of Felicity and Cora–the Dublin ladies, as he called them–coming today: Cora with her boyish clothes over and sleek girlishness under, Cora with a lacy Warner bra on. He smiled. Mel was waiting, with all her secrets. We’ll be going over every inch of Mel’s skin, Felicity had promised. We’ll be photographing, measuring, assessing. It’s not for the faint-hearted. But maybe we’ll find out how she died. Maybe she’ll tell us her story. Maybe. You’re welcome to join us, Fergus. We’d be honoured.
He broke from the cover of the forest. He came up to the place where he always turned, running on the spot, to look back. Today there was no haze. Beyond the tops of the sunlit firs the valley sprawled: the jumble of buildings that was Drumleash, his home, and the lough, clear and flat, the patches of fields and dark ribbons of roads.
Whatever way I looked into the coming weeks, I saw death.
He shook his head. Wherever had those doom-laden words come from? He started running again. He came to the point where he normally cut off from the road to avoid the sentry hut. It meant missing the little stream and he was parched.
What the hell. He ran straight up the road. The stream was just a trickle but he managed to get some scoops of water down him and felt better. The border checkpoint, the tiny hut in the middle of nowhere, would surely be empty. The British soldiers had better things to do in these tense days of the strikes. Sure enough, as he drew close, he saw it was locked up, abandoned as if for good. He grinned. He’d saved himself half an hour at least of rough terrain.
He ran on, over the line of the ridge where Leitrim appeared. He made for the wall, dislodged the loose stone with the dab of white paint on it and exchanged packets.
Why don’t they just drive it over? He sighed. The answer was obvious. All the signed-up Provos in the area were probably suspects by now. Their movements were watched. He put the second packet into the waistband of his underpants and let his puma sweatshirt hang loosely over it.
What was in them? Don’t ask. Don’t even wonder.
He started jogging again, looking about. No living thing was in sight save some sheep, baaing as if they thought he’d come to feed them.
‘Baaa,’ he called back to them.
He remembered the question he’d got wrong in the multiple choice. Stress over strain, not the other way around. He felt his calf muscles taut and firm as he jogged back the way he’d come. But maybe he’d got it right after all. He frowned, trying to remember. His brain was addled with all the questions in all the papers. And he’d only one more exam to go, but it was the one he was dreading most, Applied Physics. On this side of the border, the exams were over and the schools were closed for the summer already. Cora had her university all sewn up, no doubt.
Mam and Dad, he thought. Why didn’t you move
down south when the Troubles started? Why?
He came back up over the top and the answer came with the view. Because of this. All this. It’s home. He reached out a hand as if he could touch the round, brown shrubs that crawled up the far hillsides like giant hedgehogs. He imagined it was Cora’s hair he was touching, smoothing it off her face, ready for a kiss. Her eyes were slanting upwards at him, and she was singing ‘Will Ye Bury Me on the Mountain’. Not pretty. Sentimental more like, Fergus. They were nose-to-nose, then lip-to-lip.
Over beyond the Forestry Commission he glimpsed a stark flash: a lens, glinting. Bird-watchers. Or man-watchers, more likely: the Provos, training their binoculars on him.
He was nearly back at the sentry hut. It seemed deserted still. He slowed, considering. Then he looked at Joe’s watch. He’d made bad time today. It was 7:15. He pressed on.
He drew level with the hut just as the squaddie called Owain drew up the hillside behind the wheel of an army Land Rover. Fergus’s right ankle gave with the shock. He stumbled for real this time. He landed flat on his belly in the middle of the road.
Maybe he blacked out briefly or maybe time bent in on itself. The next thing he knew, Owain was standing right over him and he’d an uncanny feeling of déjà vu.
Frantic, he checked the packet was still secure in his waistband. Then he rolled over and half sat up.
‘Hey there,’ said Owain, offering a hand. His rifle was over his shoulder, its long line truncating the sun. There was a sizzling in Fergus’s ears and a sick feeling in his stomach as if he was going to faint. He swallowed. He took Owain’s hand and heaved himself up, and then quickly doubled over. Yellow streaks danced in his eyes. Slowly he straightened up. He stretched out his sweatshirt and fanned his belly with the hem.
‘Thanks,’ he said. Blood trickled down a knee. His right ankle throbbed.
‘D’you want to sit down a minute?’ Owain offered.
‘I’m late as it is.’ He tried to walk but a stabbing pain shot up his calf. ‘Youch.’
‘Come over to this rock and sit for a bit.’
He’d no option but to hobble over with Owain supporting his elbow. He sat down on a boulder and stretched out his leg.
‘I’ll get the first aid,’ Owain said. While he was back at the Land Rover, Fergus checked the packet again, shoving it down further. He sat forward so that his sweatshirt hung loose down his front. There was sweat pouring off his forehead. He was shivering.
Owain was back with an antiseptic wipe at the ready.
‘I’ll do it myself,’ Fergus insisted. He took the wipe and cleaned up his leg. The cut was superficial.
He scrunched up the used wipe, wondering what to do with it. He looked out across the valley as if there might be an answer there. There was no glint of a lens, but somehow he still felt on public display.
‘How’s the ankle?’
‘’S nothing. A small sprain.’
‘I could run you down the mountain, maybe, only—’
‘You’d be abandoning your post?’ Fergus suggested.
Owain smiled. ‘Something like that.’ He looked out across the emptiness. ‘Not that anybody’d notice.’
‘Don’t you soldiers get shot at dawn for things like that?’
‘Not these days.’
They sat in silence, watching the advance of the morning.
‘I heard the archaeologists saying it was you who found her,’ Owain said.
‘Sorry?’
‘The child. In the bog.’
‘Oh, that.’ Fergus shrugged. ‘Word gets around.’
Owain smiled. ‘Normally, we hear nothing of what you locals get up to. It was just when we were carrying her on that piece of tin, I heard the talk.’ He sighed. ‘One day we’re helping out with a bit of archaeology, shoulder to shoulder with you lot. Next day we’re out escorting the coffins of the hunger strikers and we may as well have been beamed in from another planet. Everyone treats us like freaks. And before you know it, the petrol bombs and stones are flying.’
‘And the plastic bullets,’ said Fergus.
‘And the plastic bullets.’ Owain raised his hands palm upwards. ‘And as far as my unit’s concerned, you’re the taigs. A crew of mad, bad Irish bog-men, straight out of the Stone Age.’
Fergus snorted. ‘That’s us all right.’
‘But that dead child, she really is Stone Age, isn’t she?’
‘Iron Age.’
‘What’s the difference?’
‘Stone Age is older than Iron Age. Iron Age is only two thousand years ago.’
‘Plenty old enough for me.’
‘I couldn’t get over her bonnet,’ Fergus said. ‘Did you see that?’
‘That hat thing? Yeah. And her legs, chopped off.’
‘That was the JCB.’
‘Christ.’
‘She was already dead. Very dead.’ Fergus stretched out his own leg.
Owain wandered over to the edge of the track, looking down on Drumleash. ‘You come from down there?’
Fergus nodded. ‘My father’s family’s lived there for generations.’
‘It rains a lot.’
‘It’s the saddest place in the northern hemisphere.’
‘Not as sad as the Valleys.’
‘The Valleys?’
‘In Wales. Where I’m from.’
‘Oh, yeah. Well, they can’t be as wet as here. They’re further south, aren’t they?’
Owain took his rifle from his shoulder and looked through its iron sights, turning on his heel, as if following the arc of an invisible bird. ‘Less rain,’ he said. ‘But more soot.’
Fergus checked the packet again while Owain was turned away.
‘Slag heaps and streets of miserable houses, ready to slide down the hill. Krepow.’ Owain mimed firing the gun.
‘Some rifle.’
‘It’s the latest SLR.’
‘SLR?’
‘Self-loading rifle. Krepow. That’s the Valleys I’ve just shot down. The Rhondda. The Sirhowy. The whole bloody lot.’
‘You don’t sound homesick.’
‘No.’
‘You were glad to leave?’
‘Telling me.’
‘Is the army any better?’
Owain’s shoulders slumped. He turned to face Fergus. ‘It’s the short straw, being sent to Ulster.’
‘And the Irish are meant to be so welcoming.’
Owain laughed. ‘At least I’m not underground all day.’
‘Underground?’
‘In a coal mine. That would finish me. I’m claustrophobic.’ He slung his rifle back on his shoulder. ‘The army or the mines. That was the choice.’
Fergus considered, trying to rotate his sore ankle. ‘At church, we had a priest visit a few weeks ago. And he was just back from the hill tribes of Laos.’
‘Laos?’
‘You know. The country near Cambodia. In Asia. Anyway, your man had visited this remote village and the people there cooked a mammoth feast in his honour.’
‘They weren’t cannibals, were they?’
‘No. But when it came time to serve up, he was offered a choice of two dishes to eat.’
‘What?’
‘Dog or rat.’
‘Yuck. What did he go for?’
‘Rat, on account of his boyhood memories of his wee springer spaniel. What would you have gone for?’
‘You had to choose one?’
‘Yep. Or starve.’
‘Dog.’
‘Dog?’
‘They’re cleaner. They don’t go down the sewers.’
‘They lick their asses, though.’
‘’S true. Still. A dog.’ Owain wrinkled his nose. ‘Did the priest say what the rat tasted like?’
‘He said it was delicious. Like chicken. That was the whole point of his bloody sermon. What’s made with love tastes of love.’
‘Yuck times three.’ Owain turned back to see the view. ‘Priests, reverends, they’re all the same. What
would you have gone for?’
Fergus considered. ‘Rat.’
Owain slapped his thigh. ‘You Irish. Pied pipers, the lot of you.’
There was a faint drone of a car, climbing the mountain from far below.
Fergus stood up. ‘I really must go.’ He limped, winced, limped again.
Owain watched him. ‘You need a stick.’
‘I’ll find something in the Forestry below.’
‘You sure you’re OK?’
‘Course. It’s nothing.’ Twinge. He grabbed his middle to protect the package. With all the talk, he’d nearly forgotten about it. He’d a vision of it falling down through his Y-fronts.
‘Sure you’re OK?’
‘Sure as sure.’
‘Bye then, Mr Ratty.’
‘Bye yourself, Mr Bow-Wow.’
Owain rattled his gun in mock anger. ‘You watch what you say, you miserable taig. Or I’ll be setting my sights on you.’
Fergus put a hand up in mock surrender.
‘So long, Fergus.’
Fergus glanced back, surprised the squaddie had remembered his name. ‘See you, Owain.’
He hobbled fast down the road and was relieved when he turned a corner.
‘Shit,’ he whispered to himself.
His heart was hammering it. ‘That was chancy,’ he gasped. He stumbled down the road, a stitch in his side. The oncoming car was an armoured Land Rover. It passed him without stopping. ‘Christ Jesus.’
The place was crawling with British soldiers.
He got into the cover of the forest and collapsed on a log. He retched, but nothing came up. Then his heartbeat slowed. The silence of the trees calmed him. Feeling better, he got up and found a stick. He hobbled over to the rubber tyre and flung the packet in.
There you have it, Michael Rafters. Hate you. Hate this place. Hate everything.
He limped with the stick back down the hill, swung himself over the gate on his belly and staggered back to Drumleash. The morning cool was gone. The sun was glaring down.
He stood on the outskirts of the village. It was the worst run he’d ever had. He looked back up the stark, blameless mountain. I’m not doing it again, he thought. No more packages. I don’t care if the Provos take a gun and shoot me through the head.