Herself Alone in Orange Rain

by Tracey Iceton

  ‘Come on.’ I walk towards the epicentre, the stench of burnt death guiding me.

  A flimsy police-tape barrier protects the desecrated memorial. The square is flooded with rubble. Uniformed men guard forensic examiners in white coveralls who kneel, finger-picking through the wreckage, to gather a rotting harvest. Brown stains patchwork the ground.

  Instinctively Danny and I falter at the sight of peelers. I rationalise, we’re not known here and my new hairdo has proved an effective disguise so far.

  ‘We need to see this.’ I tow him to the tape.

  The nearest peeler wanders along.

  ‘You can’t come through,’ he says, the shadow from his cap peak hiding his face, his feelings.

  ‘We just want to see what the bastards have done,’ I reply.

  ‘You can do that, alright,’ he says, stepping back.

  Red poppies are swirled among the rubbish. Old death and new death mingle; a shoe, a wooden cross, a pair of glasses, a posy, a walking stick, a memorial card, a child’s dummy. Danny reaches for my hand. His fingers are ice-cold, his grip crushing. We stand there, staring, imagining, knowing, memorising, hurting. The enemy through our own fault is one we ourselves create through our collective conduct of the struggle.

  I turn away. Walk. Danny trails me. We get on the bike. Ride home.

  We don’t speak; words can’t pull us from this sinkhole. At seven o’clock Patrick’s car rumbles along the lane. Danny and I are slumped on the sofa, the air thick with smoke, dirty mugs littering the coffee table. The slamming car door wakes us from our private nightmares, throwing us into a shared one.

  ‘You meant that, didn’t you?’ Danny says. ‘ ‘What the bastards have done’, you meant it.’

  ‘I did, aye.’

  I have no dreams about Enniskillen; my terrors visit during the day, consciousness denying me the escape of waking. Patrick begs me to talk; I can’t. There’s no way to legitimise or rationalise or justify. I pack Daideo’s rucksack, spend four days tramping the hills, four nights dossing under hedges and in ditches, sleeping cold-soaked, waking covered in diamond frost. I walk due south, deep into Monaghan’s empty quarter. I contemplate turning east, walking into the turbulent Irish Sea, letting the waves wash me out of my life. But all the tides only carry me back to Ireland. The time I needed to think, to watch and hope to float is up now. The box has been opened for me; to see the dead-or-alive truth I only have to look inside. On the fifth morning I hitch a lift into Carrickmacross and call Patrick who collects me. When I see him I don’t know which of us has had it worst; his eyes are ringed with sleepless worry and three day’s stubble grizzles his chin. He wipes mud from my face and kisses me. I hate myself for hurting him.

  ‘Told you, you didn’t deserve being lumbered with me,’ I mutter into his crumpled shirt.

  ‘Just promise you won’t do this again.’ His voice quivers with relief.

  I say nothing.

  His hands slide away from me. ‘Caoilainn, please, this is enough. You have to walk away before there’s no where left to walk to. You can’t do anymore. It’s another game now, the rules are changed.’

  ‘Broken, you mean.’

  I should call Liam but, the wound of our last meeting still raw, I can’t. Our friendship has been maimed by the very war that made friends of us. If we’re both standing on quicksand it’s better I don’t disturb the ground; that way there’s a chance we won’t both be sucked under. Instead I contact Brendan, rationalising it will be easier with him: just business.

  Ballygawley—18th November, 1987

  Hughes and I sit at my kitchen table. Light from the window shows the pallor beneath his swarthy complexion. I don’t know what’s sickening him but I’m worried it’s a contagious form of anxiety. He strokes his moustache and lights a cigarette, clearing phlegm from his throat before speaking in that unusual voice, soft tones and harsh accent.

  ‘Where are you?’

  ‘Depends on what you’ve got to tell me.’

  ‘You’ve questions, sure, everyone’s got questions,’ he mutters.

  ‘Only one: was it deliberate, part of this plot you’re suspecting, a way of discrediting the armed struggle?’

  He exhales twin funnels of smoke from his nostrils. ‘I’ve no proof.’ He settles dark eyes on me. ‘Put it this way: I didn’t clear it and I’m Head of Operations.’

  I get up to boil the kettle, putting some space between us. More doubts, more circumstantials, that’s all he has.

  ‘So it could’ve been a mistake, inexperienced volunteers…?’

  ‘Some bloody mistake,’ he interrupts. ‘Did you hear Bono calling us murderers on stage? Even Gaddafi’s condemned us for this and it was his shagging Semtex.’

  ‘Do you blame them? There’s no justifying this, Brendan.’

  ‘Maybes that’s the point.’ He knocks ash off his cigarette with a trembling finger. ‘I don’t know how deep this vein runs but if we tap it, it’ll be our blood pouring out. You need to think on that.’

  His words are bad dialogue from a Jack Higgins thriller. Reality is reduced to a spoof of the fiction that’s too serious to be funny, too ridiculous to be credible.

  I wet the tea and fetch it.

  He blows across the surface of his mug. ‘You haven’t answered my question: where are you?’

  ‘Where do you want me?’

  He gulps the tea, wincing as it scalds his mouth, then produces a hipflask and tops up his mug. ‘That’s your choice.’

  ‘You think I should get out? Will you take your own advice?’

  He looks up, eyes unblinking. ‘I will not. I’ve doubts, aye, but there’s still a war to be fought as far as I’m concerned, more so now.’

  ‘I thought the new strategy was political? Mairead was talking about negotiating: peace. If we can we’ve got to try, surely.’

  ‘You think we’re in any position to negotiate a fair peace deal after last week?’ he demands. ‘The only way I see us recovering from this is if we launch military attacks on legitimate targets, remind the Brits what they’ll lose if they keep fighting us and force them to the table from a position of strength. Our goal should still be ‘Brits out’.’

  Should? I stare through the fog of cigarette smoke and uncertainties, longing for one clear answer, a switch that can only be flicked on or off.

  He ducks my gaze. ‘You’ve to consider our position now.’

  ‘How can I when I don’t know what it is?’

  ‘What if I said there’s a mission planned, a legitimate military target?’ he asks, heavy brows raised.

  Knowing my answer would be a breath-draining ramble of sinking, floating, drifting, swirling, bobbing-just-out-of-reach thoughts about whether I can/can’t, should/shouldn’t, will/won’t I say nothing.

  Brendan bumps me towards a reply. ‘I’d like you involved. I trust you and this is a chance to show anyone with reservations about the military campaign that it has a role to play. We pull this off and we’re demonstrating our ability to engage the enemy in a war they can’t win meaning we can command a better peace deal later. It’s leverage on all fronts.’

  He’s naïve if he really believes one big bang will solve the problems we’ve been fighting for centuries.

  He’s full of himself if he actually thinks he can, single-handed, win us the war and the peace.

  He’s a drunk, ruined by his years of struggle, left clinging to the old ways: engage the enemy; attack and counter-attack; die in battle.

  He’s a military genius, a tactician to rival Churchill, Napoleon, Genghis Khan, Michael Collins.

  Fuck sake, which is it?

  ‘You’ll have to tell me what you’re planning before I decide anything.’

  ‘It’s a bombing on a British overseas territory. You’ll need an explosives expert: Tommy? Mairead’ll be on it, too, and another couple of lads.’

  ‘I thought she wasn’t doing anything active.’

  ‘We were after sending another girl but she thin
ks she’s suspected so Mairead stepped up.’

  ‘But Mairead’s a known face. That’s a massive risk.’

  ‘When isn’t it?’ Brendan asks, adding, ‘ach, we’ve plenty of counter-security measures in place.’

  ‘It’s far too dangerous for her,’ I insist.

  ‘There’s no one else.’

  ‘Did Mairead volunteer or was she put forward?’

  ‘When she heard Siobhan had worries she volunteered.’

  I wonder what, who, made Siobhan worry.

  ‘So?’ he asks.

  If Mairead’s in for it that means she thinks there’s no other option; something has convinced her this is too important not to do it. If I’m looking for the safety of certainty that’s where I find it: in Mairead. It’s a simple answer because the question is not what am I fighting for but who.

  ‘Fine. I’m in.’

  ‘Grand.’ Brendan grins. ‘How’s your Spanish?’

  ‘Nonexistent.’

  ‘Get a phrasebook. I’ll be in touch.’

  Madrid, Spain—1st March, 1988

  Tommy and I clear customs as a holidaying couple with nothing but beachwear and suntan lotion in our suitcases. Outside the arrivals door a young woman, dark hair flowing in glossy waves over tanned shoulders, holds up a sheet of white paper, stark against the glow of her browned hands. It reads: Mary Parkin + John Oakes. We introduce ourselves in guidebook Spanish:

  ‘Hola. Me llamo Mary.’

  She smiles, showing very white teeth, and offers a warm dry hand.

  ‘I am Gloria,’ she says in English. ‘I have car. Come, please.’

  She swishes to the exit, the pink and yellow print skirt swaying around her knees as she moves with the rhythm of a flamenco dancer, her sandals slapping out the beat.

  ‘Jesus, she’s a looker,’ Tommy murmurs, admiring the smooth skin exposed by the halter-neck top, trailing his gaze down to her narrow waist and plump arse.

  ‘Don’t shit where you eat,’ I hiss.

  He grins. ‘Aye, right.’

  Gloria gets into a blue SEAT car. Tommy jostles me for the front passenger door, beating me to it. Hoping that Gloria’s got more sense than him over intertwining business and pleasure, I make do with the back seat.

  Heat blasts out as I get in. I wind the window down. Gloria starts the engine. We set off through Madrid’s maze, Tommy valiantly attempting a chat-up, his mix of Spanish phrases and Ulster-English bamboozling Gloria’s textbook language skills. I listen, amused, to his dogged patter, as the sunlit metropolis morphs into whitewashed villas, high-walled and flat-roofed, potted cacti abundant on verandas, palm trees lining the roads. Gloria steers with the palm of her hand, spinning the wheel with a casual flick, navigating roundabouts and junctions with Mediterranean flare, finally bumping off the main road and onto a gravelled path cutting through a citrus grove.

  The SEAT curls up the track and through the opened gates of a villa. Gloria parks on the shady side of the building and I step out into the coolness of a Spanish hilltop. Below, Madrid sparkles in the sunshine, light winking off glass and steel, the city stretching, brash and vast, over the quilted green and brown countryside.

  ‘What do you think of our safe house?’ Gloria asks, waving a lithe arm at the columned entrance and arched windows of the sand coloured façade that fronts the ETA base that is our temporary hideout.

  ‘Aye, grand,’ Tommy grins. ‘Bet there are plenty of bedrooms, eh?’

  ‘Yes. Come, I show you,’ Gloria declares, bounding up the terracotta steps to the veranda that encircles the house.

  She takes us inside, introducing us to Alazne, a petite blonde whose chestnut skin makes her light hazel eyes and fair hair glow. Beneath her tanned features and the vibrant reds and greens of her dress, she is pale, sick from an old, still festering wound that makes her avoid our gaze and duck our questions, answering, when she must, in whispers. Gloria sends her for drinks and she skitters over the tiles like a kitten, claws scrabbling for grip.

  ‘Do not mind Alazne. She has suffered at the hands of those Spanish pigs.’ Gloria spits, a gob of phlegm splatting onto the stone floor with an obscene plop. ‘They lock her up for days, no food or water. They beat her, rape her, to make her talk. Of course she breaks. Who wouldn’t?’

  Tommy glances at me. I look away.

  ‘Now she blames herself for her two comrades, who were convicted by words pulled from her like teeth by those filthy bastards.’ Gloria spits again, an actor avoiding the curse for naming Macbeth. ‘She will not be active for ETA again but she must help. If you want food or drink she will make for you. Come, we sit until Felipe arrives with your merchandise.’

  Felipe, when he comes that night, doesn’t introduce himself and scowls when Gloria addresses him by name. He’s accompanied by another lad, much younger. They arrive in a van and a black Fiat, both of which get parked behind the villa, hidden from traffic that doesn’t pass anyway. Paranoia is clearly an internationally mutual terrorist trait. When we meet them Felipe shakes Tommy’s hand.

  ‘You have found everything good?’ he asks.

  ‘Aye, grand,’ Tommy replies.

  ‘You have the money?’

  ‘Sure.’ Tommy glances to me.

  Gloria slaps Felipe’s arm and douses him in furious Spanish. His face blackens and he strokes the dark curls that cling to his scalp. Gloria faces me.

  ‘I tell him he is idiot. It is you he should speak to. You are in change, yes?’

  ‘Yes,’ I reply with a grin.

  ‘He is sorry. Felipe, sorry?’ she demands.

  ‘Apologies, señorita. I did not know,’ he mutters, scuffing at the parched ochre earth.

  ‘Pah, men,’ Gloria scoffs, giving him a second whack.

  ‘I show you what we bring,’ Felipe says hurriedly, clapping his hands at the young lad who leans against the Fiat, smoking.

  The lad jumps to attention, darts to the van, flings open the doors and lifts down a crate.

  ‘We have everything you ask,’ Felipe declares.

  The lad opens the case. Inside, packed in neat rows, are long creamy rolls, each labelled ‘Goma-2 Eco: PELIGRO EXPLOSIVO’. I prod one. It’s squishy.

  ‘How volatile is this?’ I ask.

  Felipe shrugs.

  ‘A big bang?’ I smack my hands together.

  ‘Very big. Is made for mining, they blow holes in our countryside with it.’ He frowns. He means Basque country. ‘Then we take and blow bigger ones in theirs.’ His expression switches to a grin.

  ‘Will you be OK. with this?’ I ask Tommy.

  ‘Sure, it’s like Semtex. Jesus, though, there’s a fair lot of it.’ He points to the van, where two more crates await inspection.

  ‘How much is there?’ I ask.

  ‘Sixty kilos,’ Felipe replies.

  Tommy whistles. I jab him with my elbow.

  ‘Also guns.’ Felipe nods to the lad who produces two handguns from under his leather jacket.

  I shake my head.

  ‘You no want?’ Felipe asks.

  ‘No. Thanks.’

  Tommy mutters, ‘Maybe we should… for Mairead and the boys, as backup.’

  ‘Hughes said no.’

  ‘But…’

  ‘I don’t like it either but it’s an order.’

  ‘Why you no take guns?’ Gloria demands.

  ‘Our boss says we don’t need them and it’s worse if we’re caught armed. But thanks.’ I smile at her and nod to Felipe.

  Pouting, the lad tucks the guns under his jacket.

  Tommy sighs as they disappear. ‘Hughes better be right.’

  About this, aye, about everything else I fucking hope not. But I can’t deal with that until the mission’s done and we’re all safe home. ‘Check everything; I’ll settle up,’ I tell Tommy. Facing Gloria, I gesture to the crates. ‘This is OK.’

  She smiles. ‘How you say, grand?’ She winks at Tommy.

  For two nights Tommy and I work on the bomb. The Goma-2 resembl
es Plasticine; it regresses me to childhood. I ball it between my palms, squish it into cubes, shape it into flowers, hearts, wings, a bunny rabbit. Smirking, Tommy teases this’ll be the prettiest bomb he’s ever made; I stop playing and pack it into the canisters while he attaches fuse wire and makes the detonator, a radio controlled device similar to the Hyde Park one, small enough to fit into Mairead’s handbag, carried as she watches the changing of the guard outside the Convent, the official residence of the Rock’s governor. As we work Alazne supplies us with coffee, black and sweet, her eyes, frightened and yearning, locked on the wire coils and explosive sausages.

  On the third day, while Tommy loads the boxes into the Fiat, she brings coffee, bread and a bowl of olive oil. She sets the tray on the step, stares for a moment then retreats. I call her name; she halts but doesn’t turn so I go over.

  ‘Thank you.’ I nod to the food.

  She twists her head, viewing me over her shoulder.

  ‘You welcome,’ she replies and moves to leave.

  I catch her arm. ‘They hurt you, la policía? Daño?’

  She drops her gaze. ‘Sí.’

  ‘Mí también.’

  Her head snaps up, eyes wide. I squeeze her arm.

  ‘You have to be strong, fuerte. Don’t let them win. No los dejes ganar.’

  ‘Thank you. I try,’ she says, nodding.

  ‘I’m done,’ Tommy calls.

  Alazne scuttles into the house.

  ‘Fine, let’s get some sleep. We’ve a long drive tomorrow.’

  On Saturday morning, our cases sitting on the bomb, we say goodbye to Gloria and Alazne. Gloria shakes my hand.

  ‘Bietan jarrai,’ she says.

  ‘Tiocfaidh ár lá,’ I reply.

  Then she throws herself on Tommy, kissing him with Latino passion.

  I look to Alazne, rolling my eyes and jabbing a mocking thumb at the canoodlers. She smiles and inches over.

  ‘I be strong,’ she says, each word cut sharp.

  ‘It gets easier,’ I say, hoping she understands.