Conor’s expression changed from one of self-pity to alarm.
Sinéad, recognising Ruairí’s lack of tact, cut him short.
“Ruairí, give over!” she admonished.
Anto butted in, excited. This was something he knew about.
“Let me tell you about when they came for me.”
He pulled up a chair at the table, happily anticipating an audience. “Let me tell you the inedible truth, as my oul man used to say.”
Conor laughed – unconvincingly, but breaking the tension somewhat. “You mean the inevitable truth.”
“No, this is hard to swallow, never mind stomach,” Anto wisecracked.
Sinéad spoke with a hint of reprimand in her voice, but she was half-smiling. “Anthony…”
Anto ignored her and continued.
“Well, they didn’t have much to mess up – our place is always a tip; the way our Maria looks after it, I mean. She’s laying on the sofa reading some pop junk mag as usual; then the knock comes to the front door. ‘My da’s forgot his key again,’ she says; ‘let him in’, but I’m already moving to the kitchen, toward the back door. Like, four of them kick it in before she knows what’s happening – ski masks, boiler suits, baseball bats, the works – well, I’m away on it, so I am; not hanging around. She says the big one goes to the middle of the room, takes out a piece of paper and starts reading it. ‘Third Brigade Provisional IRA find Anthony Francis Gatusso guilty, blah, blah blah’ – ya know what our Maria says? ‘Wise up, Sledger.’
Anto burst out laughing at the thought.
“Wise up, Sledger! I love it… he’s probably doing a redner under the mask. He thinks about slapping her, but just says, ‘Tell Anto we’ll be back later to pick up our pizza’, then the fuckers all burst out laughing… I mean, I don’t think that’s so funny…”
Seemingly stung by this regularly used slight to his family name and origin, he looked at Ruairí for vindication. “Do you think that’s funny?”
Ruairí just smiled.
Anto concluded, tailing off, deflated. “So before they leave, they do a good job of trashing the place anyway.”
Conor McVey was far from reassured.
“No, no… they won’t – they wouldn’t touch my people. That has to be some rogue outfit operating out there; Sinn Féin would never sanction it.”
Finding that no-one was speaking up in his support, he tried harder to convince them and himself. “Sure everybody knows the war’s as good as over.” He stood up from his seat and paced the room, shuffling the deck of cards all the while.
“You’ve all heard it on the radio and I brought you in the newspapers; we’re trying to get Amnesty interested – Amnesty International, for God’s sake! Everybody’s watching; watching right here, to see what happens…”
He suddenly stopped and looked at the picture of the Mother and Child icon, high up on the wall above them.
“You’re on sacred ground – church ground; holy ground, for Christ’s sake!”
Anto sarcastically let it slip out of the side of his mouth, “Aye, dead on.” He pushed himself back on the two legs of the chair and crossed his feet on the table top.
“Look, nobody gives a fuck about this… about us. Everybody thinks we’re hoods. Everybody thinks we deserve what we get.”
He laughed ironically. “Sacred ground? Do you think that means anything to that crew?” He gestured toward the window. “The war’s over? Give me a break.”
Sinéad buried her face in the towel and wept softly.
Ruairí glowered at Anto and made a gesture for him to cool it.
Conor McVey rubbed his wrist so that he might look at his watch covertly.
He was thinking to himself, I’ve done my shift… now get me the fuck out of here, but instead he announced unconvincingly, “Well, we’re FAIT – we’re Families Against Intimidation and Terror, and that’s what we do; we won’t let you down. That’s why volunteers will keep a vigil with you.”
His eyes dropped awkwardly – apologetically – down to the floor. “I’ll be heading off in a little bit…”
They all suddenly looked at him in panic, revealing their bluster for the sham it truly was. McVey noticed it. “… But a fella called Barnard will take the watch from me.”
Anto was first to recover himself and shot back, “Oh, well that’s alright then. For a moment there I thought we were in trouble. Aye, you pop off on home now.”
Again the noise outside seemed to rise and fall.
Sinéad balled her hands into small fists, the knuckles going white. The walls seemed to close in just a little more.
Ruairí looked around, and accepting the role of alpha-male, tried to break the tension.
“Anto, tell Conor how Tootsie Molloy got his nickname.”
Anto, warming to this, smiled.
“Oh aye, that wee prick. When we were at St. Malachy’s, well, our class used to go to the swimming baths every week. When Molloy was in the changing booths he used to look under the gaps at the bottom of the door, at women’s feet…”
Anto looked around the group to monitor their engagement. Delaying his punch line.
“… and jerk off! Dirty wee bastard!”
Sinéad was smiling now and wiping tears from her eyes. Conor and Ruairí were smiling also.
“Tell him about the nail varnish,” prompted Ruairí.
“Oh aye.” Anto was in the groove now.
“So the ejit comes home and boasts about this – actually boasts about it to Sledger’s entire mob. Of course they destroy him; make out he’s queer and that, like. So he comes back in a month or so and says everything’s alright now: he only wanks off to feet with nail varnish on them, so that way he can be sure that it’s a woman, like!”
They were all laughing now. Perhaps louder and harder than the story merited, but grateful for the release of tension it provided.
Even Mrs Connolly, who typically feigned ignorance on such matters, allowed herself a titter.
“That way he figures to convince them he isn’t bent and so they’re to stop with the slagging!”
Ruairí pitched in for effect. “And so Tootsie was born.”
Conor giggled guiltily. “And the moral; the moral of the story is…?
Sinéad provided it. “When you’re in a hole, stop digging.”
25
Newry bound, he was driving at a steady speed.
One hand on the wheel and one scanning the radio stations for news.
Pale green electroluminescence leaked from the dashboard, lighting the car’s interior.
Night and a late summer rain were beginning to fall.
According to the reports he could pick up, the parish priest and the bishop of the diocese could not be contacted for comment regarding the standoff in the cathedral.
Much to his surprise, Eban seemed to be enjoying some sensation of associated celebrity.
The fella in the big picture.
That he himself was heading straight into the top news story of the hour.
To be part of it.
It seemed to afford him an opportunity for professional exasperation with the whole thing.
Eban spoke tetchily, aloud to himself. “Does anybody know who’s in charge down there?”
The closer he got to the cathedral however the more his thoughts turned uncomfortably to the worst-case scenario.
He had earlier spoken to McVey on the phone.
Conor had told him, “It’s mostly to take a stand really; the press have got interested. Nobody actually believes the guys outside will try to go in after them – ‘sanctuary’ and all that. It’s a church for Christ’s sake!”
McVey had managed to convey the fundamental human rights angle of the ordeal to him and he reflected on this seriously for the first time that night.
Eban allowed himself a little buzz of liberal feel-good.
Perhaps Amnesty International would become involved?
Maybe he’d be asked for a comment.
<
br /> They were all on the side of the angels, were they not?
Newry Town Centre – 3 Miles said the sign, suddenly thrown up in the headlights.
UVF – Kill ‘em all… Let God decide was spray-painted across the bottom of it.
He had reached the Loyalist estates that skirted the town.
These dark hills and market towns were contested country.
The unwary traveller slid in and out of tribal boundaries denoted only by brightly coloured paving stones and ragged, flapping standards tied to lampposts.
He’d been strangely melancholic of late.
Still unsure that his recent return from London had been the right thing to do.
Listening to Van Morrison’s Into the Mystic on his Walkman on the deck of the ferry as it choppily ploughed up Belfast Lough in the mist and rain.
All the pseudo-Celtic bullshit he had fed himself about the holy ground.
About the loss of homeland equating with the loss of self.
About the spiritual thirst of the exile.
Had he really meant any of it?
Or was it simply another device to squirm out of expectations, obligations, responsibilities?
Back from self-imposed exile.
Back to… this.
How quickly, how easily one forgets.
The rain now necessitated the use of his wipers.
A light mizzle turned to a steady fall.
Good, he thought to himself. It might keep the lunatics off the streets.
26
A chartered bus pulled up outside the cathedral.
Air brakes hissing and fold doors flapping.
Several men from outlying areas piled off in high spirits.
Drink had been taken.
They immediately made their way over to Sledger and Tootsie, who were standing around a roaring brazier, sparks disappearing up into the night sky.
Greetings and mock-unpleasantries were exchanged in the way that young men announce themselves to one another.
Sledger said something.
The group exploded with laughter.
It was an affirmation of pack order; invited, affirming and welcome.
They had kept up a level of agitation for the past few nights, increasing this with a wall of sound around the time that they expected those trapped inside might be considering sleep.
If bin-lids, bodhráns and whistles were again employed effectively, there would be no rest for the besieged.
They imagined all those gathered inside the vestry of the cathedral physically wincing as the metallic clanging began again.
They knew it would peck away at their nerves like some Chinese water torture.
Relentless. Incessant.
No-one was going anywhere.
The tense semi-silence that had fallen on the brightly lit vestry would increase a notch further.
27
Eban was stopped at the last set of traffic lights.
The spire of the illuminated cathedral was now plainly in sight.
He could hear the whistles, the shrieking and the clattering even from this distance.
Even with the car windows up.
He turned off the radio.
The noise sounded strangely primitive, barbaric, otherworldly.
His stomach clenched.
This was front-line stuff.
Not normally his territory.
People get hurt, he thought.
Now he could see a crowd.
Not huge, but more than he had expected.
Beside them a TV crew were setting up for an outside broadcast.
During the day the police had been there and thrown up a light cordon of aluminium barriers around the cathedral and its car park area. But now they didn’t seem to be trying too hard.
One armoured Land Rover sat in a poorly lit corner of the car park, at a distance from the crowd.
Its occupants wary no doubt, of providing an easy target.
Eban pulled the car to a halt beside them.
*
The back door opened and two officers alighted, putting on their caps and pulling down the flak jackets that had ridden up while they had been sitting in the back of the vehicle.
Rolling down the window, Eban smiled and tentatively offered his council identity card, half-expecting them to laugh.
The two seemed disinterested, exchanged a few words and pointed to the main area where the crowd had gathered.
He pulled into the main car park.
Climbing out of the car, he moved around to the boot, lifting out two swollen plastic carrier bags full of groceries.
An increase in the volume of abuse momentarily startled him.
Something had happened to incite them.
The crowd were much closer to the cathedral entrance than he’d originally noticed, and he was taken aback by their intensity of purpose.
Then in horror, he realised.
The abuse was immediately audible and clearly directed at him.
“Stop protecting that fuckin’ scum!”
“If you’re goin’ in… then send the bastards out!”
He panicked.
Felt disorientated.
Spun around quickly.
Then, moving fast – by fear more than design – bumped his groin sharply into the wing mirror of his car.
He doubled up momentarily as it had the effect of winding him.
Tins of tuna and packs of eggs fell loose, clunked and cracked on the tarmac.
A collective jeer went up, the volume of which again took him aback.
Suddenly feeling sick and exposed, he inexplicably managed an automatic smile between embarrassment and incredulity.
They can’t be shouting at me? he thought in disbelief.
Stumbling away from the vitriol, he noticed a handwritten sign reading Vestry.
Quickly pushing open a small doorway leading to a set of dimly lit, winding stone stairs, he half-jogged up them, only to be stopped in his tracks by an enormous, solid wooden door at the top.
Out of breath, he was surprised to note that he was already wet and sticky with cold sweat.
Eban paused momentarily to compose himself before knocking.
Thirty-two years old and wheezing like a retired asthmatic. For fuck’s sake… get a grip!
28
Inside the Cathedral Vestry
12.02am
Eban Barnard’s knock on the heavy oak door seemed to explode around the room with exaggerated volume.
Gradually, the large metal handle rattled and grated as it turned.
All turned in trepidation toward it as it creaked slowly and tentatively open.
Ruairí leapt forward brandishing a heavy candleholder in both hands.
He screamed angrily, “Christ, Anto – I warned you to keep it LOCKED!”
Sinéad allowed a feeble whimper to escape her lips as the young man moved defensively in front of her.
The door opened with a long, low creak and a bemused-looking man in his early thirties, wearing chinos and a tweed jacket, tentatively pushed himself through the gap.
He appeared a little crumpled, perhaps even defeated.
And across his eyes there rested something like a shadow.
As if he were still not reconciled as to the reasons for whatever disappointments life had dealt him.
He was carrying a small holdall and two plastic bags full of provisions, and appeared to be out of breath and sweating.
His shoes squeaked comically as he crossed the polished wooden floor.
He spoke apologetically. “Umm… sorry, I didn’t mean to…” Eban held the bags aloft and smiled weakly. “Is there a Conor McVey here? He sent a list – shopping and that. I’m here from the peace and reconciliation people… to take over the night watch…”
Anto sat back down in his chair. “Christ, it’s the cavalry.”
Ruairí set his cudgel down and took the bags from Eban, who rubbed his hands in an attempt to promote circulation.
&nbs
p; “Nahh, it’s only the Pony Express,” he said sarcastically and began to rummage through the contents.
Conor McVey walked toward Eban, hand outstretched. “I’m McVey; we spoke on the phone. You must be… is it Eban Barnard? You’re very welcome.”
“I’m afraid the barbarians are still at the gates.” Eban could think of nothing else to say. It came out sounding stilted.
Mrs Connolly had stirred from her cot and – perked up by the prospect of entertaining guests – was collecting up tea mugs for washing.
She glared admonishment at Anto and Ruairí.
“Never mind them fellas Mr Barnyard; they’ll cut themselves on their tongues one of these days. Will ye have a wee drop a tea?”
“Lock the door.” Sinéad was oblivious to all else and stared at the open, unattended portal.
Mrs Connolly scolded her, “Will you let the man get his coat off first?!”
Eban spoke. “No, she’s right… I was stopped at traffic lights a good half-mile away. I could hear the shrieking and clattering from a distance. It sounded bloody primal. They’re like some medieval mob out there!”
Conor had his hand in the small of Eban’s back and was trying to guide him toward the sacristy. “Ahh… could I just have a quick word?”
Sinéad was suddenly, anxiously interested in news from the outside. “How many?”
Eban, ignoring Conor, turned back toward her. “Big – there’s a big crowd gathered out there, and a TV crew…”
Sinéad dropped her hands to her pregnant bump, where she rotated a silver ring repeatedly around her finger. “And police…?”
“A few… but they only seem interested in the overtime.”
Conor raised his voice a little, adopting a more authoritative tone.
“Barnard – Eban – look, I’ll have to ask you to—”
Sinéad moved toward Eban, tugging his coat sleeve.
Her eyes were wide. “What were they shouting? What did they say?”
Eban’s adrenaline was still up.
It fired again as he recounted the incident. “I don’t mind telling you, I panicked… it was scary… ‘Fuckin’ scum! Send them out!’ – I nearly fell over. Thank God I kept moving; I thought they were going to lynch me!”
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