“Anderson, did you say?” asked Tim.
“Aye.”
“Did he arrest you?”
“At first.”
“On what charge?”
“Possession of narcotics.”
“Is that all he wanted off you?”
Kevin hesitated. The need to tell someone of his near miss was strong but instinct told him to mind his tongue. “Aye,” he said instead.
“Were you kept overnight?”
Kevin shook his head.
“Why not?”
“Something wasn’t right with the evidence.”
Tim whistled. “You’re a lucky bloke.”
Sean spoke up. “Luck has nothing to do with it. He’s that posh lawyer’s son. No one would dare arrest him.”
“His da wasn’t a favorite of the RUC,” Tim said quietly. “He defended Catholics in Diplock courts.”
Kevin stared at the lean, serious boy standing beside him. “That was a long time ago. How do you know so much about my da?”
“Everyone knows about Patrick Nolan, lad. He’s a bloody legend.” Tim bent over the billiard table and positioned his cue. “Now let us finish our game and don’t forget to ask your grandda for his car on Wednesday.”
From across the dinner table Kate watched her son mix his carrots and potatoes together into an unappetizing eddy and wished, not for the first time, that her Catholicism was less intellectual and more spiritual. It would be so reassuring to believe that God was sympathetic to the pleas of desperate mortals, that He actually listened to and answered the prayers of the helpless and muddled who couldn’t manage their own lives without divine intercession. But she wasn’t that kind of believer.
Kate had never been what the nuns called strong on faith. She believed in God, of course, and in the divinity of Christ and she would never be anything but a Catholic. Tradition and the sacrifices of her ancestors were too strongly entrenched in her history. But that was as far as it went. Even as a small child of seven, dressed in her first communion veil, she had known that something wasn’t quite right. It had to do with her instinctive dislike of fairy tales. How could God listen to so many people who wanted different things and, more to the point, why would He want to?
She would have preferred the kind of faith her schoolmates had, unconditional, unquestioning, the kind that welcomed conflict, bolstered the faithful and took upon itself life’s heaviest burdens. But somehow, that deep immersing of the spirit had eluded her from the very beginning and still did.
Watching her son struggle with his personal demons, she was once again consumed with frustration. Where had she gone wrong and why was Kevin paying such a dreadful price?
She forced herself to ask what she thought was a benign question. “Grandda said you drove his car today. Where did you go?”
Kevin flung his head back. His eyes burned brightly. “Where do you think I went?”
Kate’s hand tightened around her fork. “For pity’s sake, Kevin, I was only making conversation,” she stammered. “It isn’t important.”
Her answer incensed him even more. “Why are we always talking about me?” he shouted. “I must be your favorite topic of conversation. Is there anyone in the entire town who doesn’t know everything about me?”
Struggling for patience, Kate lifted her glass of water and forced herself to sip it slowly. Mentally she counted to ten, set down the glass and wiped the corners of her mouth with her napkin. When she spoke, her voice was measured, controlled. “If you are the topic of anyone’s conversation, it is your doing, not mine. You, of all people, should know me well enough to believe me when I tell you that I have never discussed your personal problems with anyone other than Grandda and Deirdre. If that bothers you, I’m sorry, but I’m not going to promise you it won’t happen again. Sometimes I’m not the most impartial observer. I need the advice of people to whom you matter.” She pushed away her plate. “Can you understand that, Kevin?”
“Aye,” he said sullenly. “I understand well enough that it will take years before you trust me again.”
Kate was silent for a full minute while digesting the accuracy of Kevin’s statement. “I don’t think it will take years, Kevin,” she said at last. “But it may take more than a few weeks. I’m sorry.”
He shook his head. “One mistake,” he said bitterly. “One mistake and I’m cooked. Didn’t you ever make a mistake, Mum? Don’t you believe in second chances?”
“Yes, I’ve made mistakes and of course I believe in second chances. You’re not exactly a prisoner, Kevin. You have quite a bit of freedom. All I asked was a simple question.”
Kevin stirred the food on his plate. “I drove the Coast Road and then came back to Cleary’s Pub to watch Sean and Tim play billiards.”
Kate was familiar with Tim Murphy and Sean Payne. She disliked them both but decided to let her antipathy pass without comment. Kevin was touchy enough. Any criticism of his friends might alienate him completely. Instead she smiled. “I hope they were suitably impressed with your new status.”
He stared down at his plate. “I suppose so.”
Kate recognized that they’d reached the point where nothing would improve either Kevin’s mood or their conversation. She stood and picked up her plate. “Have you finished?”
“Aye.”
She reached across the table and cleared his plate. “I’ll finish up here.” Refraining from asking about his homework, she walked into the kitchen, breathing a sigh of relief. Meals with Kevin, anything with Kevin, had become the most stressful part of her day.
The bleeping of the alarm stunned her into instant wakefulness. Groggily Kate fumbled for the off button, lifted her head to check the time, groaned and flopped back onto the pillow. Wednesdays, her one-day a week in Belfast, came too quickly. Allowing herself another five minutes, she stretched her toes and slowly worked her eyelids into the open position. It wasn’t yet six o’clock, still dark, too early for anyone to expect a normal human being to rise. Still, Belfast could be as much as four hours away in morning traffic. Exercising all the discipline she could muster, Kate threw back the comforter, tested her toes on the floor and walked into the bathroom.
The showerhead was a new one, large and round with a myriad of spray sizes. Turning on the tap, Kate waited for the water to heat, stepped out of her nightgown and into the liquid warmth.
Ten minutes later, her head wrapped in a towel, she belted her robe and walked down the hall to knock on Kevin’s door. No answer. She turned the knob and looked inside. No Kevin.
Alarmed, she ran down the stairs. “Kevin,” she called on her way down, “where are you?”
“Here.”
The voice came from the kitchen. Kate turned on the light. Kevin sat at the table holding a mug.
“Why are you up so early?”
“Grandda said I could take his car today. I couldn’t sleep.”
She smiled. “I imagine it must be exciting to drive yourself to school for the first time.”
He shrugged. “I suppose so.”
She crossed the kitchen, bent down and kissed his cheek. “I’m off to dress. Drive safely, love. If I don’t see you before you leave, have a lovely day.”
“Thanks, Mum.”
Humming to herself, Kate climbed the stairs. It was grand to see Kevin happy. Perhaps things could be normal again after all.
Nine
Liam Nolan scratched his two-day-old beard and squinted at the document on the table. He pointed to the location of a large munitions deposit on the north end of Ardoyne. “This doesn’t look good, lad,” he said to his brother. “Perhaps we’d better leave it alone. The risk of moving it in this climate is too great.”
Dominick leaned back in his chair and shook his head. “We haven’t a choice in the matter. This one is big. Special Forces is close to finding it. We’ll smuggle it through the city and relocate it somewhere in Antrim. I’ll ride along on this one.”
Liam’s expression turned skeptical. “I don’t
like it. Kate is in town on Wednesdays. She might see you and wonder.”
“I’ll take the risk.”
“She could be blamed if anyone connects you to Patrick.”
Dominick stared at his brother. Kate’s reputation was irreproachable. The Virgin Mary would have more of a chance at blame than Kate Nolan. “Are you mad, Liam? No one in his right mind would blame our Kate for anything. She’s pure as the Madonna. For Christ sake, look at what she’s done for the country. They’ll be genuflecting to her before this mess is over.”
“Times aren’t what they were, lad, not with Neil Anderson in Belfast. We can’t take anything for granted.”
“You’ve been an old woman ever since Deirdre told you he pulled Kevin in. Anderson wants nothing from us. He’s in the drug business.”
“It’s all one and the same. You know that.”
“The past is over, Liam. Kevin is safe at home. Kate is out to save the Peace Accord and we’ll do what we must.”
Liam pulled a pack of cigarettes from his breast pocket, struck a match, lit the unfiltered end, drew in deeply and exhaled. “Do you ever wonder what it would be like to end all this, Dom? We could go back into the antique business, travel the world, see New York City and Boston. I’d like to see America.”
“You’ve seen it.”
Liam shook his head. “You know what I mean.”
Dominick’s blue eyes narrowed. “You aren’t goin’ soft on me, are you, lad? Have you forgotten Patrick?”
“Patrick lived in a different Ireland. There’s little sympathy on either side for those who Step outside the law.”
Dominick’s thin, handsome face hardened. “It’s justice I want, not sympathy. When we’re treated the same as everyone else, I’ll live inside the law.”
Liam sighed. The conversation wasn’t a new one and Dominick’s mind was set on one goal. He wouldn’t be swayed by anything less. “The first minister’s gone to Italy to study organized crime. Too many of the lads are falling into a nasty business, Dom.”
“They’ve nothing else.”
“Nothing but homes and families.”
“They’ve no cause, Liam. Nationalism was their cause. Now that it’s been taken away, what’s left to them?”
“Are you sayin’ what I think you’re sayin’?”
“You heard me.”
“Are you tellin’ me our lads are turnin’ to crime because there’s no longer any fighting to be done?”
“Aye.”
Liam stared at his brother thoughtfully. When had their roles reversed? Dominick was the youngest. For how long had he taken the lead? Liam couldn’t remember. Somehow, after Patrick died, he’d stepped aside, comfortable with his subservience, relieved that Dominick had assumed the dominant role left vacant after their oldest brother’s murder.
Liam knew he wasn’t clever, not like Dominick, certainly not like Patrick whose brilliance had been obvious from the moment he could speak. Patrick had been a light never to be replaced. Liam’s strength was his perseverance, his dogged relentless tenacity that saw a project through to the finish. That, and his die-hard belief in the Nationalist cause, a united Ireland, had earned him a reputation he was proud to carry, until lately. Liam saw no dishonor in breaking the law. Up until now it was a Protestant law, created and enforced by a Protestant police force against a Catholic population. Bad laws, he reasoned, were meant to be broken.
But recent events had raised questions in his mind. Since the Peace Accord sides were no longer so black and white nor strictly Protestant or Catholic. Everyone wanted peace and, oddly enough, the Loyalists had voted for equal rights for all citizens along with the Nationalists. It was perplexing, particularly for a man who’d never in his life called a Prod a friend.
Perhaps it really was different now. All factions were tired of war. Both sides wanted a fair sharing of power.
Dominick was poring over the document in front of him as if it were a treasure map. His younger brother was single-minded. Derry City’s Battle of the Bogside was as firmly entrenched in Dominick’s mind as if it had happened yesterday. At every opportunity he argued convincingly against compromise unless the Loyalists made concessions first. His logic was effective. Never again would Catholics of the Six Counties depend on British troops to help them against their antagonistic Protestant neighbors. Never again would they be forced to their knees, burned out of their homes, murdered in the streets while praying for the arrival of the Protestant-infested Royal Ulster Constabulary, Northern Ireland’s police force. Sinn Fein could promise whatever they wished in the name of diplomacy, but Liam knew that as long as Dominick was in charge of munitions, there would be no disarmament, no turning over of weapons, until all of the terms of the Peace Accord had been met.
The sticking point was integration of the RUC with proportionate numbers of Catholics. Some believed it was impossible. Liam was not one of those. The single qualifying factor for his optimism was his sister-in-law’s role in bringing about that very result.
Kathleen O’Donnell Nolan had qualities that normal women did not share. From the moment Patrick brought her home, Liam, renowned for the accuracy of his first impressions, could see that she was something out of the ordinary. Kate was intelligent, of course, and lovely in the black-haired, blue-eyed, creamy-skinned way of women who hailed from the far west of Ireland. He could not imagine Patrick with a woman either simple or unattractive. But Kate was more than either of those. One had only to engage her for the space of a few sentences before realizing that not only was she direct and dignified in a way that women no longer were, she was incapable of nothing less than absolute truth.
Liam was aware that this singular attribute had been the root of Patrick’s many sleepless nights. During the turbulent seventies and eighties, frustrated Catholics, trapped by prejudice in British-dominated Ulster, supported Sinn Fein and the Irish Republican Army. Patrick was no exception. Because of his education and chosen profession, expectations for Patrick were high. What he’d intended to be minor involvement turned into something much more. During the final years of his life, the bulk of his law practice was confined to defending those convicted of terrorist acts against the government.
Kate knew all that. What she didn’t know, what her husband dared not tell her, was the nature of his role in the organization most of the western world considered to be terrorists.
For Liam, what all the facts boiled down to now was confusion. He was no longer sure of anything. Where once he’d harbored no doubts at all about the propriety of his actions, he now had serious ones. His world was tilted at an uncomfortable angle and the righting of it would not be left to those who rowed against the popular tide.
Liam didn’t approve of the new direction taken by the youths of Belfast’s working class. In his day a lad had but three choices: emigrate to America or to the factories of Manchester and Liverpool or, more likely, live on alcohol and the dole like his father and grandfather, or join the ranks of the guerilla forces of the Irish Republican Army.
The latter allowed a man to keep his pride, stay home and win the respect and appreciation of his community. This had been Liam’s choice and Dominick’s and finally, Patrick’s, although his education kept him on the sidelines for a very long time.
Their world had changed. Dominick was right. Today, lads had nothing to strive for or believe in, nothing to dull the edge of their pubescent tempers. And so, where once the IRA policed the Catholic communities of Andersonstown, the Falls and Clonard, keeping them free of petty crime, now drug dealers haunted street corners and every schoolchild knew where to find items sold through the black market.
As little as five years ago, elderly women could walk the streets without fear of purse-snatchers and muggers. Now, lads bent on mischief did what they would do, never mind that they stole from their own. Not that Liam had actually approved of the methods the IRA chose to emphasize their lessons. A bullet in the knee or banishment were a bit extreme but he couldn’t deny they were an
effective deterrent.
He could not see the point of gaining a say in the direction of a society if that society wasn’t worth belonging to. His dilemma was further muddled by his late brother’s wife.
Kate Nolan was, in Liam’s mind, closer to sainthood than any human he had ever known. She was also a woman of rare insight. If she supported the Peace Accord, he had more than a slight suspicion that he should be supporting it as well.
“I’d leave this one alone, lad,” he repeated. “Let them find the weapons. Better yet, offer them up. It will put them off for a while and quiet the rumors that we won’t decommission. It will also make Kate’s job easier.”
Dominick lifted his head and quirked an eyebrow. “What does Kate’s job have to do with anything?”
“She’s in a hard spot.”
“That’s her problem.”
“Do you have something against our Kate, Dom?”
“She did nothing to smooth out Patrick’s life.” Liam stared at his brother incredulously. “She was everything to Pat.”
“She didn’t support his life, not like the other wives.”
“You can’t blame her for that. He didn’t tell her what he was.”
“And why couldn’t he do that, Liam?” Dominick shot back. “If you ask me, there’s something wrong with a marriage when a man can’t be honest with his own wife.”
“She wouldn’t have approved.”
“Why not? Does she think she’s too good for us?”
Liam struggled to explain. Words didn’t come easily for him. “She didn’t marry into it, Dom. She wasn’t expecting it. Patrick wasn’t involved when they married. He never told her when things changed for him. You can’t blame Kate for that. The fault is Patrick’s. In the end she and the children paid dearly for what he believed.”
Dominick frowned. “Don’t go putting Kate on a pedestal, Liam. She’s a mortal woman, a fine one, but a woman all the same.”
“She’s our family,” Liam reminded him. “She’s Deirdre and Kevin’s mother.”
“I’m not forgetting that. She may not want to be forgetting, either.”
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