Country

by Michael Hughes

  He said he’d be there too for the first few days, on the sofa, just to keep an eye. She said he didn’t have to. He said in fact he did, those were his orders. She told him she meant on the sofa. He didn’t have to. If he didn’t want.

  They sat looking at each other.

  He said that would be very unprofessional. She said she wouldn’t tell anybody if he didn’t. It would just be to keep her company. She was feeling awful scared.

  They sat looking at each other again.

  She said it was up to him, and went in to bed. She must have fallen asleep, because next thing she felt the mattress sinking, and his big strong arms folding around her.

  He was very gentle. Totally different than Brian. He took his time. Kept asking her if it was okay. She told him she didn’t want the football commentary, she just wanted to screw. But she liked it, kind of. And then him holding her after. God, that was nice.

  27

  She knew they’d be awful worried at home, so she took the risk and phoned her ma. She told her she’d met an English fella. He worked for the army, and she knew that was no good for the family, so she was moving over to England to be with him, and that was the end of it. Her ma roared and cried for a while, and then she wised up.

  Her ma said she wouldn’t lie, that Brian had been ringing up asking. It seemed he’d had some friends pay a wee visit to the cousin in Liverpool, and she knew nothing about it, said she hadn’t seen Nellie in a couple of years. Which was true.

  Nellie told her ma to say what she liked. She was finished with Brian, and she wasn’t coming back. He might as well know the truth. Tell him she was another man’s woman now, and there wasn’t a damn thing he could do about it.

  Talk about a red rag to a bull.

  28

  Alex came in one night with three other men. One of them was Special Branch, she’d met him before, one was army, because he said he was, and the one in a good suit and shiny shoes never said a word. Probably MI5, she reckoned. Or some other crowd she’d never heard tell of.

  They told her they had information they’d like her to corroborate, and then they would see about moving her to a better place, and finding her a job. She said she’d need to know exactly what she was getting.

  A flat with rent paid for six months was what they offered. She got them up to a year. A new identity. A decent job, and it had to be in London.

  They agreed.

  29

  The next week, Alex told her it was going to happen. She was going to get a grilling from the big cheese, Lieutenant Colonel Bernard King. He was in charge of the area in question.

  She was shitting herself. He said not to worry. Bernard was a decent sort. She’d be looked after. She wished he’d said that he would look after her. But he never.

  On the day, Alex drove her to an army base. She would be taken in to see the old man, and he would show her some pictures, and she would identify the individuals.

  He asked Nellie was she ready. She said she was.

  Was she fuck.

  She was sat on a plastic chair in a plywood hut, behind a trestle table, Alex beside her. He didn’t look at her. She didn’t want him to. The big cheese was sitting at the other side.

  ‘Are they looking after you?’

  ‘Yes, sir, thank you, sir.’

  He gave her a wee smiley frown that said, You really don’t need to call me sir. And she gave him a wee smiley frown back that said, Och I know, but sure old habits die hard after eight hundred years of oppression. Sir. And at least he had the good grace to blush, kind of, and look away, and have a wee cough to himself.

  ‘Well,’ he said. ‘To business. I should introduce myself. Lieutenant Colonel Bernard King, and I’m taking personal charge of your debrief, at the request of the powers that be. You know why you’re here, I take it. I’m going to show you some photographs, and I’ll ask if you can identify the men in the pictures. Do you understand?’

  ‘I do, aye.’

  ‘These men are all watched closely. They’re suspected to be the main players in the area. We’ve had intelligence that these players are up to no good. We suspect they’re a threat to the current political situation, which has been very hard won, and we need them off the scene immediately. That’s where you come in. All it takes is your word that they’re members of PIRA, and then we can put them under surveillance, and when we have enough evidence, move to arrest them.’

  ‘Members of what was that you said?’

  ‘I beg your pardon?’

  ‘Pyro, something like that.’

  ‘PIRA. The Provisional IRA.’

  ‘I never heard it called that before.’

  He laid out the pictures on the desk. Mostly black and white, a few colour.

  ‘Can you name these men?’

  ‘Give me a wee minute.’

  It freaked her out seeing them there. She knew every one of them.

  ‘Let’s start here. Do you know this man?’

  ‘That’s Ned Rice.’

  ‘Is he a member of PIRA?’

  ‘He is, aye.’

  ‘Anything else you can tell us about him?’

  ‘He’s the old timer in the area. They keep him around out of respect, mostly, although he looks at the cars for them. He never shuts up once he starts. But he gives them a kind of kudos. And his son Anthony does wee jobs now and again.’

  ‘Good. Thank you. This one?’

  ‘Diamond McDaid.’

  ‘Can you give us his real name?’

  ‘Wait till I think. It might be Adrian. I’m not sure. Everybody calls him Diamond.’

  ‘And is he a member of PIRA?’

  ‘He is. And he’s a fucking head-the-ball. Excuse me. You don’t want to cross him. They used to say he’d go off and do his own operations sometimes. Nobody dared to say a thing, because he was a law unto himself. The only one he listened to was the boss man. They used to say if anything happened, Diamond was to take over, but I think they were all shit-scared of the idea. But the boss man liked him, so he kept him around.

  ‘This one? Seamie Macken. Yes, he’s a member of the IRA. He works as a vet, and he used to patch them up if they ever couldn’t get to a doctor. His brother has the pumps near the border. They sometimes used his big shed out the back to make the mix. The last bomb in London was got ready there, I heard. They’d load it into bags, and hide them under hay in the back of a trailer. It would be kept over the border until it was needed. They’d take it over on the ferry, and drive it to where they needed it. That’s what I heard, anyway.

  ‘The curly haired one is Sid. He’s a member of the IRA, do I have to keep saying it? These here in these pictures are all members of the IRA, so they are.’

  ‘Thank you, but I’d be grateful if you would continue to identify them individually. Can you give me his real name?’

  ‘Vincent Little, but they call him Sid Little after that eejit on the TV, because he wears glasses. I’ve known Sid for ages. He’s the brains of the outfit. Could have been a priest or a teacher or anything. He was the one plotted and planned the jobs. Nothing would get past him. He’s a lovely fella, but you wouldn’t want to say the wrong thing either. A proper republican. He could talk the history at you all night. It was an education listening to him.

  ‘This one’s Jack Slevin, and he’s a member of the IRA. Except he isn’t really called Jack. He’s Dermot, I think. He has a scar on his face where a car fell on him when the jack failed. And then about three months later the same thing happened again. He was lucky both times. So they always called him Jack, because it drove him fucking nuts. The boys loved getting a rise out of him. But then when he joined up with Budd, they started calling him the Other Jack, because Budd’s name really is Jack.

  ‘This one is Budd. Because of the wee runner with the bare feet, you know? Zola Budd. He was called Zola first, from school, I don’t know why, probably something off the TV, and then it got made into Zola Budd, and then just Budd. He’s a fucking giant, and he’s all muscl
e. Including between the ears, if you ask me.’

  ‘And his real name?’

  ‘Like I said, Jack. Or John Hughes, he was christened. And he’s a member of the IRA.’

  ‘Thank you. Now then. These two are the last.’

  She was quiet for a minute.

  ‘Is everything all right? Would you like a glass of water?’

  ‘No, thanks. Sorry. That’s Shane Campbell. He’s a member of the IRA. He’s the boss man, the OC in the area. He’s known as Pig, because he farms pigs and smuggles them, and because he’s very stubborn, some people say. And also, he’s a fucking pig. But the whole family has that. The da was known as Horse, because he had a big long face, and he always kept horses. And the granda before him, he was called Bull, I think because he had a quare temper. And probably a bull as well, I don’t know. Maybe he was always talking shite.’

  ‘And this man?’

  ‘His brother. Brian Campbell. Everybody calls him Dog.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘And what?’

  ‘Is he a member of PIRA?’

  She was looking at her nails. They needed done.

  ‘I’m afraid we do need a positive identification in every case.’

  ‘Fine. Yes.’

  ‘Yes, he’s a member of PIRA?’

  ‘Fuck sake. Sorry. Yes he is. Is that it finished now?’

  The big cheese gave her another one of his wee smiley frowns.

  ‘We’ve barely started, my dear. Nothing you’d like to add, before we move on?’

  She shrugged her shoulders.

  ‘Let me be more direct. What is the nature of your relationship with Brian Campbell?’

  ‘Fuck sake. Do we have to? You know rightly.’

  ‘Even so, I’d be grateful if we could hear it first hand. Just for the record.’

  ‘Fine, suit yourself. I’m his wife. Happy?’

  Dog

  30

  The feelers were out, at the highest level. Letters were shuttling back and forth between London and Sinn Fein, with the usual suspects acting as go-betweens. There was a mountain to climb, for sure, but it wasn’t going to happen until somebody got a pick in the ice.

  Were they serious about wanting peace? Was either side? That was the question in the air at the talks. Can we still wind it down, if we’re agreed on the destination? Dublin it was who let the cat out of the bag. If Sinn Fein and the IRA accept any deal that falls short of a united Ireland, then what the fuck had the last twenty-five years been for? Was it all a waste, the agony and the bloodshed these men had inflicted, never mind what they’d suffered themselves?

  Now, any fool could see the answer was a big fat Yes, but there was no way they were selling that to the rank and file. Dublin tried to paint the picture. The one thing that had held the IRA together so far was the blind belief in armed struggle as the only viable means to achieve full thirty-two-county independence. Many of the higher-ups in the movement had long ago tumbled to the fact that all it had achieved was delaying the very thing they wanted to bring about, but admitting this would bring on a kind of madness. They couldn’t even bring themselves to speak it. They had to bull on regardless, and keep talking the talk, trying to turn the ship around so softly that nobody on board would notice a damn thing.

  London asked the question, what have the British done that makes us worthy of this savage hate? A lot of nudging went on under the table, but nobody spoke. So it was smoothed over. But this issue can’t afford to take over our agenda, was the next thing. There are far more important questions on which our two nations have to be united. On trade, on human rights, on the economy, on Europe. But there was a stern message for Dublin all the same. If we let you have your way on this, you’ve got to return the favour, and don’t kick up a fuss when we disagree on some pet project of yours.

  Dublin had no issue with that. No such thing at all at all, to be sure to be sure. They had no hint of a problem with any of it, they were just pointing out what would be acceptable to the republican movement itself. The stories we tell ourselves are just as important as the facts. And this side of the equation needed a story that they could spin into victory over the British, to prove to themselves that they hadn’t surrendered, and they hadn’t been wasting their time. Otherwise, nobody was dancing. That was all there was to it.

  London took the point. Politics was politics.

  They’d pass the word to the MOD. Keep it softly softly on the ground. Helmets swapped for berets. Fewer patrols, less hassle for the locals. Behind-the-scenes is the new upfront.

  31

  Barry Ross was smacked in the face by a cricket ball during basic training, and his eyes came up in two perfect black circles. So his brick started calling him Panda, because that’s what he looked like. It stuck. He was glad. You had to be called something in this outfit, and he’d heard a whole lot worse.

  The army was a bit like school, and Panda used to love school. The mucking about. Bending the rules. The banter. Constantly, constantly taking the piss. He didn’t mind that it was mostly at his expense. He took it well, and that made him popular. He was let join in. He’d spent his whole life learning how to do it, and this was no different. Comparing shit tats in the showers. Sneaking a fag on duty. Chucking clingfilmed jobbies out of the chopper over the town. Having wee private ways of taking the piss out of the officers to their face, and they never knew. Except a few of them probably did. You had to feel sorry for some of those bastards. Not all of them, though. No way.

  Sometimes it got to you, though. On patrol, trying to suss out every loner hanging around. Setting up a VCP, shining your torch on the licence, radioing through the details, waving them on. Keep it cold. Be civil, but never smile. Don’t let your guard down. Any of them people could be trying to kill you. One or two of them would definitely love to. Most of them just wanted to get on with their day, right enough, but not a single one of them didn’t wish you would go home and leave them the fuck alone. He knew they all hated him being there. So he tried his hardest to hate them back.

  The IRA was getting inside his head. He could hear them, just daring him to come at them. He felt like a coward. He knew he was getting wobbly, and he was sure the rest of his brick could see it. Hard to know how to handle it. His CO was one of the touchy-feely types. Wanted to get him counselling.

  Brass said it wasn’t that bad. If every wobble gets a man home, they’ll have no one left. These boys aren’t dim. Everybody wants a way out, as long as they can save face. No one actually wants us here. Least of all us.

  The messages started when he was out on patrol. He thought it was the radio first, but the rest of his brick never heard them. He said it must be his set was faulty.

  But he figured it out pretty fast. It was coming direct to him. He’d had his wisdom teeth out during training, and he’d never felt the same since. Now he knew why.

  They’d put a transmitter in his head, to get him messages direct from London. Sneer all you want, but he’d read about this sort of thing. It was well known. Documented. The Americans did it a lot. Special individuals they picked out for special missions. And his was to take out the enemy, single-handed.

  That’s right. Even up the score.

  I’ll be hung out to dry. A patsy like Oswald.

  No. We’ll take care of you. The cover-up is already arranged. You’ll be a hero.

  Panda felt sort of floating. Like everything was behind glass. That feeling of being in the back of the car when you’re a kid, and the world is a wee bit muffled, and you’re safe in your bubble.

  Do you think it’s right that he’s walking the streets?

  What can I do about it?

  The same thing they do. Take on the enemy, any chance you get.

  Panda felt like everybody knew. They were all staring at him. Whispering about him. He couldn’t take much more of it. He was sinking. Going under. Weird fucking dreams waking him every couple of hours.

  He’d have to go easy on the LSD. This new chef was doling i
t out. He was sure brass must be across it, but they didn’t do a thing.

  Jelly told him it was an experiment. The Americans did it in Vietnam. Specially modified acid, to increase aggression. Stig told them both it was nonsense. The brass were so naive they could take coke in front of them and they wouldn’t know. Or care. They’d no idea what was going on in the real world.

  These lads were coming in from towns where everybody was eating E like sweets. You could get it here as easily as there. Easier, for the paramilitaries sold it and protected the markets. There were whole multiples out that were totally mashed. Probably PIRA doing the same. Imagine that. Shooting at each other, both sides off their tits.

  When he had leave, Panda drove around. He knew who. Watched the house. Waiting.

  The third night, there he was. Brian Campbell. Panda could see him moving about behind the curtains. The bastard. He was going to come back some night and slot him.

  Why come back?

  Don’t be thick. You can’t just walk in and shoot.

  They do it all the time.

  But they’re the bad guys.

  You wouldn’t think so, to watch the news.

  And like he’d made a wish, the man stepped out of the house, into his car. Without stopping to think, Panda was after him.

  This is it, he thought. I’m going to do it. I’m going to do it.

  Attaboy. Do it. Do it now.

  It was too easy. The man stopped in the wee car park by the library. Nobody else there. He stepped across into the bookies. Panda waited.

  Out again, slip in hand. He sat in the car, poring over it.

  This is it. I’m going to do it.

  Yes you are. This is it. Do it.

  I’m going to do it. This is it.

  Panda drew the car up alongside. Kept it ticking over. Loaded his weapon down low, heart thumping. One round in, two, three, four. Another for luck.