Stormclouds

by Brian Gallagher

  Some of the other boys laughed, but Dylan didn’t join in. Since he and Sammy had confronted Gordon there had been no further trouble. Gordon was distant with him, but despite having been threatened by Sammy also, the two of them were now back on reasonable terms.

  Sammy turned to the other boy with interest. ‘Where was Buckie fighting?’ he asked.

  ‘Unity Flats,’ answered Gordon. ‘They came really close to driving the Taigs out of their den!’

  The warren of Unity Flats was nationalist territory that bordered the fiercely loyalist Shankill Road. There had been pitched battles there over the weekend, and Dylan had heard from his father that at one stage the residents defending the flats had indeed almost been overrun. Dad had said that there could have been a bloodbath if that had happened, yet Gordon was treating the incident like it was a tight-run match that his team had almost won.

  ‘Catholics have to live somewhere, Gordon,’ said Sammy.

  ‘They don’t have to live on top of us! My da says the new flats should never have been given to Catholics; the Shankill’s always been Protestant.’

  ‘But the flats replaced old houses in Carrick Hill,’ answered Dylan. ‘And my father says that area was mainly Catholic.’

  ‘Anyway the fighting’s died down now,’ interjected Sammy.

  ‘Not for long,’ said Gordon confidently ‘The Apprentice Boys have a big march next weekend. If anyone tries to stop them marching through Londonderry there’ll be all-out war.’

  Dylan found Gordon’s attitude depressing. But he had heard his father saying that the situation in Derry was like a powder keg waiting to go up, and he feared the other boy might be right. ‘You sound like you can’t wait for people to get hurt,’ said Dylan.

  Gordon looked unperturbed. ‘If the Taigs want trouble we’ll give it to them!’

  ‘Supposing most people on both sides don’t want trouble?’

  ‘There’s going to be trouble anyway!’ said Gordon impatiently, then he pushed past Dylan and made for the dressing room door.

  The rest of the players headed for the pitch, but Dylan stood there a moment, wondering how it would affect his family and friends if, as predicted, the powder keg was ignited next weekend.

  Emma sat upright in bed. She had heard the sound of her father’s car pulling into the drive and she glanced at the fluorescent hand of the clock. Two in the morning. She had been in bed for several hours but sleep was impossible. Northern Ireland had descended into chaos, with serious fighting between loyalists, nationalists and the police, in Derry, Belfast, Newry, Armagh and many other places. Here on the Malone Road she felt safe, but she was really worried about Maeve, whose home in Bombay Street was perilously close to where the nationalist Falls area met the ultra loyalist Shankill.

  It seemed highly likely that there would be trouble there, and with Uncle Jim away in Donegal, Maeve and her aunt would be alone and vulnerable. Emma’s father had been out all day covering the fighting and doing radio reports, and she quickly climbed out of bed, threw on her dressing gown and ran down the stairs, anxious to hear the latest news.

  Her father was quietly closing the front door when Emma met him in the hall.

  ‘Emma, what are you doing up?’

  ‘I’ve been tossing and turning for ages.’ She looked at her father and saw the exhaustion in his face. ‘You look tired, Dad. Let me make you a cup of tea.’

  ‘That would be good.’

  Emma led the way into the kitchen and put on the kettle, while her father slumped down into his usual chair at the table.

  ‘Have you had anything to eat, Dad?’

  ‘Yeah, I got something earlier. Just the tea will be fine.’

  Emma set out a cup and saucer and got milk from the fridge, then sat with her father as she waited for the kettle to boil. ‘What’s the latest, Dad?’

  ‘It’s awful. Two people were killed by machine-gun fire at Divis Street. One was just a child of nine.’

  ‘Oh, no.’

  ‘Mobs are burning people out of their homes. Things are really out of hand.’

  After the recent Apprentice Boys march in Derry there had been a pitched battle between residents of the nationalist Bogside area and the police. The police had dispersed the Bogsiders, driving them back into their area, and had then tried to enter the area themselves. The battle had raged for over two days now and the Civil Rights Association had called for demonstrations elsewhere to help draw off police numbers from the Bogside. The call had been answered, but the result had been to ignite appalling violence right across Northern Ireland.

  ‘So what’s going to happen, Dad?’

  ‘I don’t know. The police are stretched too thin. It’s getting out of control.’

  ‘Yeah?’

  ‘It’s gone way beyond fist fights and stone throwing. It’s rifles, machine guns, petrol bombs, shops and houses burnt to the ground.’

  Emma felt sickened. ‘Why do people want to do that?’

  ‘Passions are high, and both sides assume the worst of each other.’

  ‘But they both have to live here. Why can’t they settle their differences without killing children and burning people’s houses?’

  Her father breathed out wearily. ‘Good question, Emma. I suppose the answer is fear, really.’

  ‘How do you mean?’

  ‘The loyalists fear that this is an organised rebellion and that the nationalists are trying to overthrow the state.’

  ‘And are they?’

  ‘No. Some of them would like to, but it’s not an insurrection. But loyalists I’ve talked to think it is. So they’re frightened and they’re enraged.’

  ‘What about the nationalists?’ asked Emma.

  ‘They’re afraid this is a religious pogrom. Catholics are outnumbered and surrounded here in Belfast. And they think the police are on the side of the Protestants. So they’re barricading their streets and fighting the loyalists and the police.’

  ‘Right.’ Emma made tea and poured it for her father, who drank it gratefully.

  ‘Dad, I’m … I’m really worried about Maeve.’

  ‘Have you rung her?’

  ‘They’ve no phone.’

  ‘Sorry, Emma, you told me that before. It’s been a long day, I’m not thinking straight.’

  ‘Bombay Street is close to the Shankill Road, Dad. Were you up there?’

  ‘I was in the general area.’ Emma picked up on her father’s unease.

  ‘Is it bad?’

  ‘It’s bad in that whole area. I could only get so close.’

  ‘I thought … I thought maybe Maeve could come and stay with us, just till things calm down a bit.’

  ‘I don’t think so, Emma.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Her family mightn’t want to be split up. Or they could have made their own arrangements.’

  ‘But if they haven’t? Could we go and ask?’

  Dad shook his head at once. ‘No, it’s much too dangerous. The Falls area is a battle zone, Emma, no one goes there who doesn’t have to. I’m sorry, love.’

  ‘So what can we do?’

  ‘We can only hope and pray that Maeve is all right. But the best thing I can actually do is my job. I’m telling the world the truth of what’s happening here, and I hope that helps end it.’

  Just then Mom came down the stairs in her nightgown. ‘David,’ she said. ‘You look exhausted, honey.’

  ‘I’m OK.’

  Emma left her mother to fuss over Dad, and thought again about Maeve. Everything Dad had said sounded reasonable. So why did she still feel like she was letting down her friend, by being safe while Maeve was in danger?

  ‘Please, Da.’ said Sammy, sitting at the kitchen table. ‘Please, don’t go back out.’

  It was breakfast time and Sammy had heard on the radio about the death the previous night of a nine-year-old boy in Divis Street, shot in his bed by a machine-gun bullet during a night of ferocious rioting. Sammy had listened with horror to reports
of Catholics being burned out of their homes at Divis Street, and of how two-thirds of the houses on Conway Street had been set ablaze. Homes and businesses had also been torched in Dover Street, Percy Street, and Beverly Street, and the nationalist Ardoyne area was completely surrounded by loyalists. And now his father was finishing breakfast and about to take to the streets again, having boasted that he ‘did his bit’ during the conflict last night.

  ‘Why wouldn’t I go back out?’ said Da as he pushed away his plate.

  Sammy had to tread carefully. Earlier he had heard Ma trying to reason with his father, who simply overruled her objections to his involvement in street violence. Ma was in the bathroom now, and his sisters were still in bed, so Sammy had to take this chance to sway his father.

  ‘We were all really worried about you last night, Da,’ he said.

  ‘Don’t you worry; I’m well able to look after myself. Or do you think I’m not?’ he asked challengingly.

  ‘No, Da, it’s not that.’

  ‘Then you’ve no need to worry.’

  ‘But Da, it’s not good, it’s–’

  ‘What’s not good?’

  ‘Burning people’s houses. A boy of nine was killed in his bed.’

  ‘I’m sorry about the wain being killed, but this is war, Sammy.’

  ‘Burning families out of their homes?’

  ‘Do you think they wouldn’t do it to us? Do you think the IRA have any qualms about petrol-bombing police stations?’

  ‘But that doesn’t make it right, Da.’

  ‘It has to be done. They want our jobs, Sammy, they want our houses, they want this city!’

  Sammy tried to think up a response, but his father ploughed on.

  ‘These Fenians are rising up. It’s armed revolution, son, and we’ve got to stop them. We’re British men and women. We won’t be ruled by Dublin, or the Pope in Rome!’

  ‘But if it’s really a rebellion, isn’t that a job for the army and the police?

  ‘The army are in their barracks. And the police can’t cope. They’re having to retreat to their stations, just to defend them.’

  ‘But burning down–’

  ‘Stop spouting that like a parrot!’ snapped Da. ‘We have to send them a message. We have to show them this is our country. And if that means burning every street off the Falls Road to the ground, that’s what we’ll do!’

  Sammy was horrified and he decided to throw caution to the wind. ‘Da, I’ve a friend who lives there.’

  ‘What?!’

  ‘Her name is Maeve Kennedy; she’s a good friend of Dylan’s sister. Her family are nice people; Ma met them at the art exhibition. They’ve nothing to do with the IRA; it can’t be right to attack families like that.’

  ‘I’ve told you already, this is war. You can’t be friends with people from the other side.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Because they’re the enemy. It doesn’t matter how nice they seem, they want to destroy our way of life and they’re the enemy.’

  ‘No, Da, it’s … it’s not that simple.’

  ‘It is! You can’t be friends with Taigs, get that into your skull. You’re on one side or the other, there’s no in-between.’ Da rose from the table and pushed the chair roughly back. ‘I’m going out to play my part. And I never, ever, want to hear you talking like this again.’

  Sammy sat unmoving as his father left the house, and he gripped the edge of the table, forcing himself not to cry as the tears welled up in his eyes.

  Maeve’s heart sank as she listened to the kitchen radio. The news from across Belfast was bad. She had hoped that the rioting would die down, but instead it was spreading and becoming even bloodier.

  Last night Aunt Nan had been trapped in the Ardoyne district where she had gone to visit a sick friend, and Maeve had spent a terrifying night alone in the house. Her aunt had rung a neighbour on Bombay Street and got a message to Maeve explaining her predicament. The neighbour had offered to let Maeve stay in her house, but Maeve felt she was too old to be babysat and instead had locked herself into her own home. Gunfire and petrol bombing, accompanied by screaming and shouting, had gone on long into the night and it was very late before Maeve finally fell into a fitful sleep.

  She had been praying that Aunt Nan would get home this morning, but the new day hadn’t brought any let-up, and local people were now battling it out on the streets with marauding loyalists.

  Maeve tried to filter out the noise of fighting and explosions as she listened to the news on the radio. The newsreader painted a picture of a city out of control, but Maeve’s heart started racing when he announced that two people had been killed in the Ardoyne district. The report described the police coming under attack and responding with machine-gun fire that resulted in two civilian deaths. Maeve felt her mouth go dry. Please God, she thought, let it not be Aunt Nan!

  Just then there was a loud bang nearby that Maeve suspected might be a car’s petrol tank exploding. She quickly brought her ear right up to the radio, desperate to know who the victims in Ardoyne were. A burst of gunfire rang out in the distance and Maeve had to strain to hear the radio. Her heart was pounding, then the firing stopped and she heard the newsreader clearly. He said that the victims of the shooting were two young men in their twenties, and Maeve experienced a flood of relief. No sooner did she experience it than she felt guilty. Two people were dead, and it would be a tragedy for their families, yet she couldn’t help but be relieved that it wasn’t Aunt Nan. She thought of her aunt, whose charitable nature had resulted in her being trapped in Ardoyne, and she wished that she were here now. Even in a situation as bad as this, Aunt Nan would know what to do. But Aunt Nan wasn’t here, nor was Uncle Jim or her father. She had chosen not to impose herself on neighbours, so she was on her own, and she felt a sudden stab of loneliness mixed with fear. Tears were welling up in her eyes, but she took a deep breath and steadied herself. Aunt Nan would get back as soon as was humanly possible. Meanwhile she needed to be brave and to weather the storm. Taking more deep breaths, she sat at the table, trying to make a plan that would keep her safe.

  ‘Come on, Dylan,’ said Mom, ‘I’m worried sick about Dad. I can’t take responsibility for Maeve as well.’

  It was Friday afternoon now, and Dylan’s father had left early that morning to cover the battlefield into which so many parts of Belfast had turned. Emma had failed to persuade Dad to rescue Maeve from her home at the frontline, and now Dylan was sitting in the drawing room with his mother, trying to get round her.

  ‘Dad will be fine,’ he said. ‘He’s a journalist; people know he’s just reporting.’

  ‘This isn’t a normal war, Dylan. There are thugs on both sides rioting for the sake of it. People like that could turn on a journalist.’

  ‘Dad’s smart, he’d know when to walk away. But Maeve has never known anything like this. And she’s on her own with her aunt. We can’t just turn our backs if there’s a chance of getting them out.’

  ‘What we can’t do, Dylan, is go into a war zone. I’m sorry, but my duty is to my own family.’

  ‘We don’t have to involve the whole family. If you just drove me nearby, I could run in to Bombay Street, find out if Maeve is all right, and run out again. And if it’s really a battlefield and I can’t get near, then OK, we turn back. But at least we’d have tried.’

  ‘Dylan … you’ve a really good heart, and I’m proud that you’re so loyal and caring about a friend. But I’m sorry, I can’t take that risk. This is not our fight.’

  Dylan was taken aback. ‘It’s not our fight? So we don’t care what happens?’

  ‘Of course we care. I’ve done everything I could for community spirit here. I exposed you and Emma to both traditions. I encouraged you to make friends from both sides of the divide. I invited Catholics and Protestants to my exhibition.’

  ‘Yes, but–’

  ‘But I’m your mother, and I’m responsible for you. So I’m sorry. But there’s no question of risking your life
. And that’s final.’

  Mom rose and walked out of the room, and Dylan stood staring into space, not knowing what to do next.

  Sammy tried not to let his anger with Da show. It was late afternoon, and his father had come back to the house, full of his own importance, and boasting of how he and ‘the lads’ had played their part in the battles raging between loyalists and nationalists. Ma hadn’t been able to get to work in the mill because of all the fighting, and she had tried to persuade Da not to become involved further in trouble, but he had blithely ignored her.

  Now he slurped his plate of stew as he sat at the kitchen table.

  ‘Nice stew, Rose,’ he said, ‘and by God, Taig-bashing gives you an appetite!’

  ‘No good will come of that, Bill,’ complained Ma, ‘no good at all.’

  ‘Enough of your wittering, woman!’ said Da, and he dipped a slice of bread into his bowl to mop up the last of the stew. ‘That was lovely,’ he said. ‘Almost as lovely as seeing the Taigs fleeing – and their houses going up in smoke!’ he added with a laugh. He looked at Sammy as though expecting him to join in, but Sammy stared back, stony-faced. How could Da think there was something to laugh at in any of this?

  Suddenly Da’s face darkened and he stared at Sammy. ‘What’s wrong with you, sonny? You look like you’ve sucked a lemon!’

  ‘I don’t like what you’re doing, Da,’ answered Sammy quietly.

  ‘You don’t like what I’m doing?! Since when do I need you to like what I’m doing?!’

  Sammy recognised the warning signs of his father’s rising temper, but he couldn’t bring himself to humour him today. ‘What happens if my friend is in one of the houses that’s burnt down?’ he asked.

  ‘Your friend? Some little Taig bitch!

  ‘Bill,’ said Ma sharply. ‘That’s uncalled for.’

  ‘Don’t tell me what’s called for. What sort of a traitor have we reared?’

  ‘I’m no traitor,’ said Sammy. ‘I’m for England and the Queen. But I don’t have to hate everyone who’s a Catholic, or a Jew, or different to us.’