Sean's mouth went dry. A reporter! Reporters earned three pounds a week and expenses on top. Reporters had a chance to build assets.
Macaffety tilted back in his chair and scratched his stomach. "Well, as you are still with us - filling in time before going on to better things no doubt -I thought we'd maybe ask you to do a bit of reporting. That's if you've a mind to oblige, of course -"
"That's wonderful, Mr Macaffety. Tremendous -"
"Only if you can do it. You think you're ready to write a news story yet?"
"News stories - features - headlines -"
"My God!" Macaffety threw up his hands. "Wouldn't you know I'm redundant. This tired old hack who served his time in London's Fleet Street -"
"Ready to learn. That's what I meant, Mr Macaffety. Ready to learn how to -"
"Will you please not interrupt!" Macaffety slapped his hands over his ears and peered mock fearfully across his desk. "Your mouth has shut so I take it you've stopped talking. Now will you listen for a while. If you understand that nod your head, then maybe this business of teaching you might start."
Sean nodded vigorously and remained silent as Macaffety rose and shambled across to a filing cabinet. He poured himself a whiskey, returned the bottle to the drawer, slumped back behind his desk, and started. It was rare for Dinny Macaffety to deliver a lecture on newspapers, but compulsive listening when he did. Sean sat glued to his seat. Newspapers were food and drink to Macaffety, life itself - printer's ink ran in his veins and his heart beat to the clacking of the litho-machines. At one point he growled at Sean, "You've got something. I don't know what it is yet, nor do you I suspect. I doubt you will ever make a really great newspaper man, you don't want it badly enough. You've an itch to do something with your life though, and that's commendable. But if you're to go about Dublin as a Gazette reporter you will at least be competent, or you'll answer to me. You understand that much, don't you?'
Macaffety did not wait for an answer - "Being a newspaperman is the best training for life there is, so you'll get that out of it. It will open your eyes. You'll learn twice as much as you write. You'll find out who owns who among the gombeen men, who owes whom - who can't pay his bills, and the ins and outs of every crooked deal in town. You'll watch the politicians, which should be easy for you, but you will find out a hell of a lot more than who's sucking up to your father in Fine Gael. You can watch Dev for me, and that takes some doing. You'll learn who's running the IRA this week and who is trying to take over, and keep quiet about both if you value your knee-caps. You'll hush-up abortions for fear of the bishops. And when a bride's waist is thicker than it should be you will turn a blind eye. You'll keep regular at mass every Sunday, along with the rest of us ..." He paused to smile wolfishly across the desk, "even your Da has to suffer that. Besides, it's not such a hardship for watchers of men like us. That's when you see them for the hypocritical bunch of bastards they are - all standing up for the good father when they've spent the week stealing and drinking, or shoving their hands up the skirts of other men's wives. Yes, sir, you will learn a lot working for me."
So Dinny Macaffety delivered his lecture, a strange mixture of newspaper lore and philosophy, each wedded so close to the other that separating them was impossible. Not that Sean tried. He was too absorbed, but he jumped when Macaffety mentioned the rules. "There are precious few rules in this business. But you'll learn to live by some. Never write what you don't know to be true. Never write what isn't clear in your mind - don't even start unless it is. Don't rat on your sources, don't ever do that. Anyone asks you to reveal a source, you send him to hell - including me, and I'll ask often enough, but you keep a tight mouth if you want to work here. There's not a lot else. Don't take cheap gifts. Don't be bought. And don't kiss any man's arse - not that you've shown an inclination to do that."
All of which happened about eighteen months after Sean returned from Coney Island with his father. At sixteen, but looking older, Sean Connors was a junior reporter on the Gazette, earning two pounds ten shillings a week. During the early hours of a Saturday morning he made love to his mistress - and late on a Saturday night he rubbed shoulders with the power clique of Ireland. Life was perfect, or would have been but for two things. First was the Riordans. True, they stayed away from Dublin, but Sean feared their return. He still had nightmares in which he saw Matt Riordan's white face in the darkness. But most of all Sean worried about Tomas. No matter how busy they were, both Sean and his father kept in touch with Tomas and the family. Sean visited every week. The family seemed to be falling apart. Tomas had never really recovered from the loss of Brigid and Maureen - Dary and Cooey and the others were making their own, rather unsatisfactory lives, and only Michael seemed to retain his mother's values. Tomas tried to keep the family together - but without Brigid's devotion to their individual needs the unity of purpose had gone.
So Sean visited out of loyalty, while nursing a secret plan. He had made himself a promise when Brigid and Maureen were killed. He would never be able to repay Brigid for her love - but he could do the one thing she would have wanted, which was to send the family to Australia, something Tomas had always dreamt about. Of course it would be different now, Sean realised, for Tomas to sail into Sydney Harbour without Brigid and Maureen - but at least those children still left to him would be at his side. It would re-unite the family.
Sean wrote to his uncles - Uncle Rory in California and Uncle Mike in Perth. Both replied offering help, but not enough help, that was the problem. It cost a fortune to transport five people to Australia, and although both uncles could contribute, Sean was still looking for the enormous sum of five hundred pounds. But how was he to raise it? He could never save it. He might have done once, when the donkeys were working for him, when he had assets - but now, on a salary of two pounds ten shillings a week, it would take years. "And Tomas will be dead by then," he told himself sadly.
The Widow O'Flynn had the money, as Sean knew from his knowledge of her financial affairs - and once, when he was more than usually worried about Tomas's failing health, Sean was tempted to ask for a loan. But something warned him against the idea.
Time passed - weeks, months - then an unrelated incident occurred which was to bring the elusive five hundred pounds nearer. In fact it began with the Widow O'Flynn. Sean was in her bed during the early hours of a Saturday morning, warm and snug after making love, when she said - "I've something exciting to tell you."
Sean made an effort to rouse himself - "Haven't I had all the excitement I can stand for a while. Will you let me rest."
She giggled and poked him in the ribs - "Stop acting like an old man and listen to me. I'm selling the farm - there now - what do you think of that?"
They made tea and sat on the bed to discuss her news, Maeve O'Flynn clad in that wonderful dressing-gown, and him totally naked. He was not completely surprised, Maeve O'Flynn had married a farmer to escape poverty, not through a love of the land. She had often spoken of her dislike of the farm - it was lonely, she had no company, the life was miserable - especially for a young woman with money in the bank and hot blood in her veins.
"I'm going to open tea-rooms in Dublin," she announced. "Doesn't that sound exciting?"
In a way it was a brilliant idea. Maeve O'Flynn lacked business training, but she was shrewdly intelligent and attractive as well. She would surely make a success of some tea-rooms.
"And you are going to help me find the premises. I thought in King Street perhaps, or maybe even Grafton Street itself. Will you start looking on Monday?" she pleaded - and Sean promised he would, adding yet another job to an already overcrowded schedule.
If Sean's life in Dublin was full and exciting, Matt Riordan's life in Belfast was a nightmare. Matt's misery had plumbed the depths since the day the Riordan family home had been destroyed by Pat Connors. Arriving in Belfast had been traumatic. Matt's mother had wept non-stop through the journey. His own nerves were in tatters by the time the train reached Belfast. Matt had never been north b
efore. His father had been born there, in a tiny terraced house near the Falls Road - which was where they went from the station, to be given an uncertain welcome by Matt's grandmother. She had wept at their story and grown angry, pulling her hair and beating herself with shrivelled red fists. Matt had been hard-pressed to think straight, what with his grandmother keening and his mother shrieking. He had ached for his father, even though he would be accused of standing by when he should have stopped the Connors gang singlehanded - but he was ready to face even that for a chance to talk things over with a man instead of two wailing women. But Matt's father was away. He was mostly away, Matt found out, on secret business for the IRA. It was a fearful blow. Matt had buoyed himself up throughout that awful day with the thought of reaching his father. His father would know what to do. His father would take some terrible revenge. But when Matt arrived in Belfast his father was not to be found. And worse was to follow. After a traumatic day came a terrifying night. They went to bed early, simply because they had nothing left to say to each other. Matt slept in the narrow cot sometimes used by his father, while the two women camped down in the only other bedroom. Matt tossed and turned, his mind alive with the day's events. The only scene which restored some spark of pride was when he had spat into Sean Connors' face ... at least he would be able to tell his father about that.
Then, at about an hour after midnight, eerie sounds filled the street outside - a growing chorus of screams and high-pitched keening. The cry "M-u-r-derr-eh" was repeated over and over again. It rose to a crescendo, accompanied by the metallic banging of what sounded like every pot and pan in Belfast. Matt flew to the window. It was pots and pans; women were rushing from doors all down the street, to beat the walls and kerbstones with pots and pans and dustbin lids. Suddenly two trucks rounded the corner and skidded to a halt. Armed men leapt out and rushed into the houses, knocking people aside, kicking doors open, charging up stairs ... charging up the stairs in Matt's house! Two men crashed into his room, waving guns and ordering him against the wall.
The mattress was torn from the cot and ripped open. Floorboards were lifted. Then they saw the suitcase behind the door - the suitcase Matt had brought from Dublin. "No!" he screamed as they wrenched open the cashbox. A rifle butt caught him full in the face. His mouth filled with blood, choking him. He staggered, then flung himself at his attackers. They beat him senseless. They might have kicked him to death but for his mother who wrapped herself round one man's leg and clung on like a leech. Seventy houses were raided that night in a search for hidden arms. None were found, but when the B Specials drove away an hour later, the Riordans' life savings went with them.
Liam Riordan arrived at dawn to find his wife and mother tending his son. He listened with incredulity to the catalogue of disaster. To be wiped out - to be wiped out in a day! Everything gone, home, businesses, and now their savings too! He swore. He swore revenge, swore with anger, swore at God, swore at the British and the black-hearted Prod bastards who had beaten his son senseless. In temper he struck his wife so hard that she fell and cut her head. He swore at his mother who whimpered in a corner. He seethed and ranted. Then he left, stopping just long enough to throw some coins at his wife, enough money to feed them for a few days, and pausing to promise that one day they would take their revenge - on Pat Connors for a start, and then every murdering Prod bastard in Ireland.
That was Matt Riordan's introduction to Belfast. He learned much about the city in the following years, but little to his liking. He thought it black and ugly compared to Dublin, the buildings less grand, the streets half as wide and the squares not so gracious. There were even parts where Matt feared to tread - Donegall Road, Sandy Row, Newtonards Road - and the Shankill of course - no Catholic set foot in the Shankill without a dozen mates ready for trouble. Unless Matt was on a specific errand he stayed close to home - in the Catholic ghetto which stretched from the Lower Falls up to Lenadoon, flanked by the Springfield Road one side and Andersontown on the other. Later Matt was to visit other Catholic families in the Short Strand, or up by the New Lodge Road but in his early days he only relaxed in the relative security of his grandmother's house, located as it was in the middle of the largest Catholic ghetto in Belfast.
He made friends - being beaten up by the B Specials on his very first night gave him immediate fame. Boys of his own age visited to sit at his bedside and commiserate about his bruises. They exchanged backgrounds, each intrigued by the other's accent. The Belfast boys gasped when they learned what had happened to Matt in Dublin. What shocked them most was that the outrage had been perpetrated by Catholics. They would have dismissed that had not Matt's grandmother sworn the story was true. Even so, it was hard to believe that no black-hearted Prod bastard was involved.
Matt waited for his father to return. It was all he could do, just wait. Each day his body ached a bit less, while his hatred for the Connors festered more. He wondered if his father was already back in Dublin, making the Connors re-build the Riordan home a brick at a time. Certainly his father would extract a terrible revenge, Matt was sure about that.
Then, on the eleventh day, his father returned, but not in the way Matt had expected. It was early in the morning, at just after dawn. Matt woke with a start to find a man with a revolver standing at the window in the bedroom. Then Matt's father entered the room, carrying a Webley pistol which he slid into his belt. "Get up," he whispered, "and keep quiet we don't want the whole street knowing we're here."
Downstairs his mother poured hot water over the tea. Men took up positions around the house, one in Matt's room overlooking the street, another guarding the back door. Matt's grandmother took them a cup of tea. Matt's father sat at the kitchen table with two other men, to whom he seemed to defer, which surprised Matt who had never seen his father show respect to any man. Another chair was drawn up to the table and Matt was told to sit down. His mother sat against the wall behind him. Matt looked expectantly at his father - but it was the man in the middle who opened the proceedings. "This is a court of enquiry," he said quietly, "conducted by officers of the IRA. We wish to learn of the events which made you homeless. You have nothing to fear by telling the truth. Do you understand that?"
Matt said he did and looked at his father for encouragement. They made him tell them the whole story. His mother broke down and started to sob, but a sharp word from his father ended that. Mostly it was Matt telling them what had happened in Dublin. Everything was written down. When it was over Matt was asked to swear it was true and sign his name at the foot of every page. His mother signed too and was asked if she had anything to add, but she shook her head and said Matt had remembered everything - as if he would ever forget.
The quietly-spoken man looked Matt in the eye. "This is all we can do for the time being. You won't like it any more than your father does, but that is the way it must be for now. There is too much at stake elsewhere -"
"At stake?" Matt interrupted, forgetting they were armed, forgetting he had been frightened earlier. "What do you mean at stake?"
"Shut up!" his father shouted, then lowered his voice. "Shut up, for God's sake."
The quietly-spoken man stared at Matt. "There's no time for explanations. Your father has other work to attend to - work of the highest importance. You should be proud of him. Nothing is more urgent than the work he has in hand now."
Matt could barely believe it. He swung back to his father. The Connors were going to get away with it? Just because this man said so.
"Enough!" his father hissed, throwing a warning look. He tapped the notes on the table. "This is a death warrant for Connors. Just think of that. Every man in this room is wanted both sides of the border - they risked their lives to get this statement. You bite your tongue and ponder on that!"
Matt was lost for an answer. He had no time for one anyway because his father was talking past him to his mother - "I'm going away, maybe for a long time. Money will be sent here, and this is where you will stay. You're to make no attempt to go back to Dubli
n until I return -"
"How long? How long will you -"
"God knows. A year maybe - maybe even -"
Sudden footsteps sounded on the stairs. A man rushed in, "Quick. There's a patrol at the end of the street."
Guns appeared in every hand as the men dashed out of the back door. Matt's grandmother fell to her knees and began to pray. Matt's mother wept, Matt himself sat in a state of shock. The wailing erupted outside - "M-u-r-derr-eh" - accompanied by the beating of pots and pans. Shouts were heard in the far distance. Matt flinched for the sound of a shot. But no shots were fired. The IRA men escaped. The Royal Ulster Constabulary rushed up and down the street, and went away. Another day had started in Belfast.
After that, days dragged into weeks and weeks to months, time lost all meaning for Matt. It was ages before his surroundings meant much. But neighbours called every day and gradually their talk got through to him. He was appalled when it did - he was bitter about his own circumstances, but his past had been spent in paradise compared to the lives of his new friends. Most of their fathers were unemployed, some drawing Poor Relief, others drawing nothing - disqualified from official help by some rule or other, and kept from the workhouse only by the charity of friends. Even Poor Relief was a pittance - thirty shillings a week, irrespective of maybe ten mouths to feed and nine shillings and eight pence of that went on the rent. Matt had never known real hunger, not the aching gut-gnawing emptiness to which his new friends were accustomed. It was a way of life for them, sometimes a way of death. Officially 70,000 men were unemployed in Belfast, but Matt soon learned the real figure was over a hundred thousand, and almost all were Catholics - which was not surprising when he discovered that the bastard Prods kept the jobs for themselves. The Government took care not to employ Catholics. The Minister of Agriculture, Sir Basil Brooke, even gave speeches about it - "Roman Catholics are endeavouring to get in everywhere ... I recommend those people who are Loyalists not to employ Catholics, ninety-nine per cent of whom are disloyal ..."
Ian St James Compendium - Volume 1 Page 95