Twenty minutes and a few more swallows of whiskey later, and the feeling was considerably eased. The man named Robin chatted amiably as he drove through sleeping neighborhoods. He seemed nice enough, just another working-class swell from the streets of East Belfast. His dad, he said, was a member of the local Orange Lodge, marched in the parades and beat the drums but himself, he didn’t go in for that sort of thing. Live and let live was his motto.
“Would ye boys would be interested in a party?” Robin asked, lighting a new cigarette off the remains of the old one. “I’ve a friend lives out Ballymena way. The place’ll be hoppin’, plenty of girls, three to an arm if ye’ve the inclination.”
“Ach, don’t be tryin’ to tempt Sandy with girls,” Neil said, “he’s got himself a sweetheart back home, he’s devoted is our Sandy.”
“Are ye then, Sandy? It’s a lucky man who finds a good woman to love him.” Drunk as he was Sandy didn’t miss the slightly sneering undertone in the man’s voice. He didn’t let it bother him; man had likely had a few bad experiences with women and now thought none were to be trusted. But he’d known Fiona all his life and had loved her for half that. He trusted her with his very existence.
Fog was beginning to settle into the streets, long floating tendrils of it, the lights coming fewer and far between as they reached the outer perimeters of the city.
Robin slowed the car slightly. “Look up there will ye lads? It’s quite the sight isn’t it?”
The three soldiers obligingly looked up to the left where Robin’s eyes were trained. Sandy had seen it before; one could hardly miss it, nor help but hear the legends that surrounded it and the man that lived within it. Kirkpatrick’s Folly, lit like a brace of candles against the dark sky, on its lonely hill.
“I used to gaze at it when I was a boy, an’ wonder what it was like to live in such a world,” Robin said, a strange note in his voice, an emotion closely related to unquenched yearning, but somehow darker. He shifted the car down, reducing their speed to a near crawl. Sandy had the odd sense of drifting, like a ship lost at sea without anchor. As if the whole world were no more than liquid black sky, with nothing solid to gain purchase upon.
“Is he as handsome as they say?” Donny asked, neck cricked into an unnatural position in an effort to see the house more clearly.
“Aye,” Robin laughed, a stream of smoke accompanying his words, “most bloody gorgeous bastard yer likely to see in yer lifetime.”
“You’ve seen him then?” Neil asked, and Sandy wondered rather fuzzily when he’d started smoking.
“Aye, I’ve seen him,” Robin said, but there was no laughter in his voice this time. Sandy shivered at the tone, even though he was having difficulty keeping his eyes open. He felt the car shift up to a higher gear, was blurrily aware of their speed picking up and the fairy lights of the Kirkpatrick house melting into a brilliant, stinging stream.
He’d one last twinging thought, as the night swallowed the lights of the house on the hill, that he was past the point in his consumption of alcohol where a man was capable of making decent judgements.
Within a minute he was fast asleep.
INSIDE THE PUB, Denny cracked one last skull for good measure then surveyed the wreckage in front of him. Broken glass, cracked table legs, blood and ale mixed in gruesome pools, and plenty of groaning and moaning amidst the carnage.
“Billy,” he said sharply to his son.
Billy looked up from where he was neatly piling glass in a dustpan.
“Where’d the three young soldiers go?”
“They left with the punter that started this damn mess.”
“What? When?”
“Don’t know,” Billy replied, “maybe twenty minutes ago, not much more.”
“Oh Jaysus,” his father said, bat sliding to the floor, “I should ha’ known.”
Billy cocked a sandy eyebrow. “Known what Da’?”
“The whole thing,” he gestured helplessly at the mess that surrounded him, “’twas done on purpose.”
Billy looked at his father quizzically. “Don’t worry Da’ we’ll find the bastard an’ make him pay for the damage.”
Denny shook his head. “Send the bill to the local Sinn Fein office then, I hear that’s where the IRA is pickin’ up their mail these days.”
“Ye think he was IRA?” Billy asked, the full ramifications of the situation suddenly dawning on him.
“Aye, an’ those poor lads went with him. May God have mercy on their souls.”
SANDY WOKE TO THE DARKEST night he’d ever known, bladder uncomfortably full, mouth feeling as though it was filled with damp cotton and the smell of cigarette smoke strong in his nostrils. It took a moment or two to clear the fog in his head, to realize where he was and how he’d gotten there.
Ahead of him the tip of a cigarette glowed hot red, like a coal in a cave. The car was going slow through a series of large potholes.
Where the hell were they? The thought was accompanied by a surge of nausea and he had to swallow back a hot stream of bile that bit at the back of his throat. Behind them the headlights of the other men had disappeared.
“Where are we?” he asked, the words emerging in a dry croak. Beside him Donny’s head lolled against the seat, his red hair visible even in the dark.
“Shortcut to Ballymena,” their driver replied, swerving abruptly to avoid something in the roadway. He must have the eyes of a cat on him to see anything in this light, Sandy thought, putting a hand out to steady himself against the swaying car.
“Pull over would ye man?” Neil said from his position in the front passenger seat, “I’ve got to piss somethin’ terrible.”
“Are ye certain ye can’t wait? My friend’s place is just up head of the lane here.” Robin said, casting a quick smile across one broad shoulder at the inebriated Scot directly to his left.
“No, I can’t wait.” Neil grunted slightly to emphasize his point.
“Alright then, if ye say so.” Robin stopped the car and as the engine died, the uneasy coil slipped its knot in Sandy’s belly once again, for the night seemed terribly quiet. Still he’d a cramp in his bladder that was only going to depart along with the water and whiskey he’d consumed. Donny slid across the seat and out the door, catching his boot on the frame and lurching forward into a ditch.
Sandy’s first impression was that it was considerably colder outside than had been the cramped quarters in the car’s back seat. His second was that it was black as the devil’s thoughts out here away from the city lights. Dark and silent. A shiver pressed itself like a spasm of quicksilver up his spine, and spread frost-like out along the sheathes covering his nerves. The primal brain telling the conscious mind what it should have known all along. That something was very, very wrong with this situation.
It was then that he saw the other two men; the two he’d thought had given up following and gone home. The men who stood now, in the dark, mere shadows, rifles slung taut over shoulders, leveled at waist height, fingers blunt on the triggers.
Robin had gotten out of the car. Sandy could see the flash of his teeth in the dark and hear Neil’s zipper grate as he fumbled it down. The taste of fear, hot and bitter as scorched iron, flooded his mouth. The three of them were unarmed, their senses dulled by drink. He thought he might be sick and then swallowed the nausea. He didn’t want to be found covered in his own vomit. His parents deserved better and so did Fiona.
He gave his last thoughts to her, even as he heard the slick hiss of a pistol emerging from cloth. He hoped she’d find a good man to marry, someone solid in a low-risk profession, not, please God, another soldier. Then he remembered the way the hair at the nape of her neck was like duck down and smelled softly of the scent she wore.
The first report from the pistol was muffled and Sandy felt the air beside him crumple as Neil fell first to his knees, then face forward into the brittle heather that covered the ditch. He’d given Fiona an armful of the summer’s first heather only last July, how many mo
nths ago was that?
Donny was screaming now. Poor kid, he was only eighteen. Just a baby. They shouldn’t let babies into the army; they didn’t understand the risk. Then just as suddenly Donny stopped, mid-scream, his last words on earth ones of piteous terror. That left only himself. Sandy swallowed hard and straightened his back.
The barrel of the pistol slid cold into the soft and fragile hollow where the spine, with its ropes of blood and spiralled strings of vessels, exploded into ten thousand million nerve cells. But Alexander didn’t scream, nor beg for mercy. There would be none to witness it, but for his own sake he would die as a soldier, asking no quarter, knowing there would be none granted.
He waited for the click of the trigger, wondering if he’d hear it, or if the bullet would do its work first. And then realized somewhere through the terror that had jumbled his senses that the man behind him was singing. The song came to him slowly, confused as he was by the odd turn of events.
‘The breeze of the bens
Is gently blowing,
The brooks in the glens
Are softly flowing;
Where boughs
Their darkest shades are throwing,
Birds mourn for thee
Who ne’er returnest.’
“Come Sandy, do ye not know the songs of yer homeland? Sing the chorus with me man, for sure ye know it.”
The man’s compatriots had seemingly melted back into the night, for he knew without being able to look that they were alone and that the cat had, for some unaccountable reason, decided to play with the mouse. Sandy knew he was not dealing with an ordinary madman, but one who enjoyed the kill for its own sake and not just the political statement.
“I said sing with me, Sandy. Ye know we can make this hard or we can make it quick. It’s yer own choice. Die standin’ with yer dignity intact, or die beggin’ for mercy in a pool of yer own blood. I’m inclined to the former as I’ve other places to be, but if ye’d prefer it the other way I’ll spare the time.”
If Sandy had no one to consider but himself he thought he would have taken the second option just to inconvenience the bastard, but for the sake of his mum and dad and Fiona he’d take the quick death. He didn’t want them to carry the double burden of knowing his death had been long, drawn-out, and painful. And so he sang.
‘No more, no more,
No more returning,
In peace nor in war
Is he returning;
Til dawns the great Day
Of Doom and burning,
MacCrimmon is home
No more returning.’
Its dirges of woe
The sea is sighing,
The boat under sail
Unmoved is lying;
The voice of the waves
In sadness dying,
Say, thou are away
And ne’er returnest.
“One more time Sandy for the chorus, ye’ve a decent voice for the music. If ye’d been born on Irish soil we might have made somethin’ of ye.”
Sandy swallowed hard over the bile in his throat, willing it to keep working, willing himself to keep standing.
Above him the night was bitter and black with not a star to be found. Inside his boots his feet were aching with cold, toes already numb. Cold toes were an odd thing to worry about, he thought, when he knew he’d be dead within seconds.
‘We’ll see no more
MacCrimmon’s returning,
Nor in peace nor in war
Is he returning;
Till dawns the great day
Of woe and burning-,’
Alexander McCrorey, a lieutenant in Her Majesty’s Royal HighlandFusiliers, did not hear the shot, nor did he hear Robin Temple, voice arcing sweet and aching into the night, finish the song they had sung together.
‘For him, for him
There’s no returning.’
Turning back toward the road the man with the forget-me-not eyes crossed himself and walked away from the still warm bodies of the three young Scots behind him. He did not look back.
Chapter Nineteen
Home Again, Home Again
THE WEST BELFAST YOUTH CENTER, which admittedly only existed in a theoretical sense, stood on the fringes of the Beechmount Housing Estates. In previous incarnations the building had housed a cobbler shop, a grocery and, most recently, a storage facility for repossessed furniture and electronics. It was rundown, bought for a song, and needed more repair work than the Coliseum. It did, however, possess the benefits of a wee apartment above stairs and was, for the foreseeable future, the place Pamela and Casey called home.
Casey was, at present, cursing volubly at the doorframe leading into the tiny kitchen, having just hit his head on it for the second time that morning.
“Jaysus Murphy, did a midget build this damn place? Last night I got tangled up in my damp shirts.” He fixed his wife with an affronted glare. “Anyway woman what possessed ye to hang them over the stove?”
“There isn’t anywhere else to hang them,” she said, kissing his bare shoulder as he squeezed past her to the table, where eggs, sausage, and toast were awaiting his attention.
Pamela waited for the tea to finish steeping before joining him. Under the tiny table their knees bumped. Casey sighed. “It’s like bein’ friggin’ Gulliver in the land of the Lilliputians. I don’t know how much longer I can manage this. I’m bruised from head to toe.”
The table, where they sat eating their breakfast, was flush to the wall and next to the only window that graced the north side of the flat. It was a small window, likely the original from when the building was constructed. Despite its squatness, and a peculiar wavy quality to the glass, it provided an unobstructed view of Kirkpatrick’s Folly, the ancestral home of James Kirkpatrick, so named for its hodgepodge of architecture. A Georgian front and Victorian rear, not to mention the Edwardian study; it was the result of a marital dispute several generations previously over design. Casey had merely given the view a gimlet eye. Pamela took this as her cue to leave the topic of Jamie alone, though she found herself stealing surreptitious glances out the window several times a day.
The morning was particularly clear and she could see the western corner of the house, where Jamie’s study sat. From this vantage point she could only see the spire that adorned its roof, but could picture the entirety of it plainly in her mind. Built completely of glass and wrought iron, in the fresh morning light it would sparkle like a trapped star.
She poured out Casey’s tea, and pushed the cream jug toward him. “Drink your tea man, it’ll restore your spirits.”
“Will it then? I don’t think there’s room for them in here.”
Despite damp spirits, Casey set to his breakfast with a hearty appetite. He’d found a temporary job on a construction site and was working long hours.
She munched absently on her toast, watching the morning sun gild the topmost chimney of Jamie’s house a soft gold. The grounds would be fully awakened from their winter sleep now, and everything would have that shimmery green mist of spring about it.
“Are we goin’ to talk about it then, or are we goin’ to pretend the man doesn’t exist?” Casey asked suddenly, breaking in on her reverie.
“What?” she asked startled into slopping her tea onto her plate.
He gave her a pointed look from under dark brows.
“I’m not blind, an’ there’s only the one house on that hill.”
“Sorry,” she said ruefully, “it’s only I feel awkward not having gone to see him yet.”
“Ye needn’t worry on that score,” Casey said, helping himself to more eggs. “He’s only just come back the three days ago. Pat said he was going up to see him night before last.”
“Oh...well then perhaps I ought to wait.”
“For what?” Casey asked practically. “Yer the nearest thing to family the man has. I think he’d be insulted if ye stood on ceremony. It’d be rude not to go an’ see him Jewel, I understand that. I might not particularly l
ike it, but I understand it. He must know we’re here by now, he and Pat are pretty tight these days. Why don’t ye do it today, ye’ve no other plans, do ye?”
“Not as such.” She looked around the flat, which she’d planned to tidy into some semblance of order. If escape was being offered she was more than happy to take it.
“Then go.”
She eyed him as he stood and retrieved a shirt from the clean stack near the radiator. He neatly avoided her gaze though, shrugging into his shirt and buttoning it up. Jamie wasn’t quite the point of tension he’d been early in their marriage, but the mention of him could still make the air vibrate with the words that weren’t being spoken.
She stood and skirted the table to where he stood. Sliding her hands down the front of his shirt, she savored the smell of his freshly bathed skin.
“Does it bother you that Pat and he have become good friends?”
“Mm—well I’d be a liar if I said no—but he’s kept an eye out for the wee bugger these last years, an’ I appreciate that.”
“You’re going to have to accept the fact that Pat’s a grown man, entitled to get into trouble if he wants to.”
“Aye well, even when he’s gray as a goose he’ll still be my little brother. He’s our daddy’s stubbornness. Has to right wrongs whenever he sees them.”
“Oh, and you wouldn’t have any experience with that yourself?”
He made a derisive noise deep in this throat as he tucked his shirt into his jeans and reached for his coat. He took a last long slug of tea from the cracked mug he favored, and then bent over to kiss her.
“I’ll be back late tonight—promised Pat I’d come to the meeting with him—so I can get a better idea of the plans for the drop-in center.”
In exchange for the use of the tiny flat, Casey had agreed to run the drop-in center on a temporary basis. Or it might be more accurately stated that Pat coerced him into it, after plying him with several glasses of Connemara Mist the third night they’d been back in Belfast.
Mermaid in a Bowl of Tears (Exit Unicorns Series Book 2) Page 21