Return to Killybegs

by Sorj Chalandon

  Wee man. Since childhood, she’d called me that when we were alone. Sheila was a head taller than me.

  I closed the cast-iron door.

  —There aren’t even any questions. It’s a draw!

  She sat down at the table.

  —Paris! Did you hear me?

  She read it out loud again, and then she filled in the competition form.

  I slipped into my jacket, put my cap on.

  —You’re going out?

  I told her I was. She never asked me where I was going or what time I’d be home. The war didn’t stop at our front door, she knew that. Every time I left her, we embraced without a word. Looking into each other’s eyes, her smile full of hope.

  —If you’re passing a letterbox, could you pop this in? You don’t even need a stamp.

  On the street, I unfolded the flyer. My wife’s writing.

  Sheila and Tyrone Meehan, 16 Harrow Drive, Belfast.

  Her small blue letters, the way she underlined our names. When I got to the Falls Road, I was no longer breathing. I had lit a cigarette and pulled the peak of my hat down over my eyes. I carefully tore our names from the flyer. I chewed the pieces of paper. Then I ripped the whole leaflet into pieces and threw them over the park fence. I went into the Busy Bee. The usual crowd. The faces, the looks. Friendly gestures, nods, a word in my ear, a hand on my shoulder.

  They didn’t see the traitor. But how could they not recognize him? That word felt like it must be engraved on my forehead. I had decided to drink. I remained alone at the bar, sitting on a high stool. Above the counter, next to a tricolour, was a poster. It was a photo of a Republican óglach in a camouflage jacket, with a balaclava over his head and a Thompson in his hand.

  Careless words cost lives

  In taxis

  On the phone

  In clubs and bars

  At football matches

  At a friend’s house

  Everywhere!

  Whatever you say, say nothing.

  I was well acquainted with these warnings. They were part and parcel of our daily existence. One day, I stopped a kid who was tearing one down. It turned out he wanted it for his bedroom, and the matter went no further. I drank my first pint almost in one go. And my second, and my third. Paul, the barman, was pulling the next beer when the first was only half-empty. I didn’t ask him for anything. He could see that this evening was set to be a drunken one. In a few hours, I was no longer capable of sorting out the change in my hand to pay for the last pint so he had to do it for me. We had been in a cell together in the Crum with Paddy Moloney, who was drinking his whiskey and reading the paper at the other end of the room. I met the gaze of the hooded soldier in the poster. I lowered my eyes.

  All my life I’d searched out traitors. All my life, truly. Until now, I had a sentry’s heart. When I entered the club, I’d scan the room with my eyes. It was always my initial reflex. Sheila would go and join our table, and I’d stay in the doorway. She knew what I was doing. I’d look at the faces one by one, and the groups, the behaviour. Then I’d go to the bog and bang on the doors to find out the names of anyone in the cubicles. When a stranger came in, I’d send a guy after him. It would often be foreign supporters, tourists favourable to our cause who had come to experience the war close up. Then I’d sit with my back to the wall. Since I had arrived in Belfast, I’d never turned my back to a door or a window. It was Tom Williams who had taught us that.

  —We should meet death head on, he used to say.

  And the whole evening, I’d continue to watch. I’d be drinking, laughing, chatting along with the others, but my mind would be alert and my gut tense. I enjoyed that tension. And the more time that passed, the stiffer my body became.

  Whenever the British entered the club, the Fianna would alert us.

  —Brits!

  I used to love when they’d come. It was a pure moment of defiance. The lookouts would have seen their armoured vehicles arrive. The doormen would leave them waiting a moment, under the white pub spotlights, behind the heavy iron grills. You could see them on the security screens, though not very clearly. While the electric bolt was slamming back into the striking plate, the glasses would rapidly change places on the tables. An IRA óglach on active service who had been sitting there bored by his orange juice since the start of the night would play the drunkard in front of the pints his neighbours had just slid over to him. The soldiers would observe all of it. The drinks, the interactions, the bags left on the ground. They’d move between the chairs, making out faces. They would look for the guys who had got away from them, the bad boys. We didn’t make eye contact. Sometimes they would poke a bit of fun.

  —You’ve got rid of the moustache, Jim? You look better like that.

  And Jim O’Leary would hold himself back from spitting on the ground.

  When the band wasn’t playing, the club would remain silent. An absolute silence. Not a single word, no laughter, not one more rustle. Just the enemy’s footfalls on the floor. But when the music was interrupted by the entrance of the uniformed men, the singer would move forward to the microphone.

  —Ladies and gentlemen, the Irish national anthem.

  And the room would stand. The young, the old, the priest passing through, the wee girls collecting for the school fête, the grouchy nationalists, the Sunday Republicans, the Catholics whose only belief was the Resurrection, the soldiers of the Republic, the women in charge of the sandwiches, the barmen, the kitchen porters, those who had been on their way out and were already at the exit: everyone would stand to attention. Our enemies would brush past our soldiers. And they knew it.

  Once, my eyes locked with one of them. A Scottish lad, wearing his forage cap with its red and white plume. His rifle was shaking. He was out of place, in the midst of silvery set hairdos, red lips, walking sticks, faded jackets, clenched fists, Saturday-night dresses. The serviceman gave me a long look and apologized with his eyes. I know it, I’m certain. He was sorry. He knit his brows and murmured something as he passed me by. His uniform looked like it was weighing him down. He was walking backwards, the way soldiers did when they were aiming at our windows. He knocked into a table. A glass fell. He picked it up. He joined the others, straightening his bulletproof vest.

  —Dirty monkey! a woman spat.

  I gave her a hard look. The soldier was black.

  Paddy Moloney had offered me one for the road, the shot you throw into the end of your pint of Guinness when the owner says it’s time to go home. I was drunk. I pissed in the street, between two cars. I was overwhelmed by my bitterness. It was dark. The wind had picked up. When I passed the park, I saw the torn pieces of paper promising Paris lying on the grass. Sheila was going to win her trip, I knew that. In a few days, a telephone call would announce it. She’d have her photo in the Andersonstown News, radiant, our plane tickets in her hand. She would pack our suitcase, worry about everything and yet everything would delight her. Sheila had never been abroad. Neither had I. All we knew of the world ended where our street did.

  I looked at the clouds on top of an Sliabh Dubh – the black mountain. Neither the city nor the sky was hostile. It was still my city and my sky. I could meet people’s gaze without having to lower my eyes. But I knew that in a few days, all that would end.

  I wanted to turn myself in to the IRA. And then again, I was afraid. But not of dying. I was living in the wake of Danny’s death, and to confess would have been asking his forgiveness. If I could be certain that the IRA was ready to follow me, and therefore judge me, to destroy that symbol along with me, to tear a glorious page from our history book, I would have done it. But I was convinced the opposite would be true. Our leaders would not risk the truth. I remembered the Army Council’s visit to my sickbed. Danny the martyr, Tyrone the hero. Above all, don’t get in the way of our history’s progress. That’s what I was afraid of. Afraid of confessing the truth for nothing, of begging for leniency for nothing. My enemies were making the most of the lie? That was in their na
ture. But I didn’t like to think my OCs would do the same.

  I would have found myself alone once more with the confession, without a soul to listen to it. The IRA would have kept me on a leash like the Brits were going to do. The Army Council would have forced me to collaborate with the enemy. It would have made me a double agent, lying to one side, lying to the other, in danger in both camps, and despised by both. That was my fear. To no longer serve the Republic out of conviction but due to blackmail. To go from soldier to victim.

  For several nights, I couldn’t sleep. Then one morning, on waking after having rested at last, my decision was made. I was going to deceive my people so that the IRA wouldn’t have to do so. In betraying my side, I was protecting it. In betraying the IRA, I was preserving it.

  —To accept the augur of betrayal.

  I was repeating this phrase as I stumbled towards the house. It was the black bead of my new rosary. I passed Jim O’Leary at the bottom of the Falls Road. Three lads from the 2nd Battalion followed him closely, as if they didn’t know each other. They were in a hurry. On active service. A wink in passing.

  I had to set the Brits conditions. No question of helping put Jim or those other three in prison. No arrests, no victims. I had to be contributing to peace, not suffering. I wasn’t a peeler, but an Irish patriot. I needed guarantees.

  —Guarantees. I want guarantees.

  I was speaking out loud. I felt the need to piss again. I shivered, thinking of the poster on the wall of the pub. This time, the words were referring to me. Traitor. Traitor. Traitor. I would have to find another word, or tell myself that a traitor was also a victim of war. I passed our front door, I kept going. Another walk around the block in the night. I heard the metallic crackling of a radio. The soldiers were lying in a garden, behind the hedges and the coloured dwarfs. They had smeared their hands and faces in shoe polish. Only their eyes glowed in the darkness. Hi guys. Welcome, my new-found friends.

  —If you agree to work for us, it’s to save your reputation, not to save your skin, the handler had said to me.

  He was right. I didn’t want to destroy the great Tyrone Meehan. I didn’t give a fuck about the IRA. That business of betraying so as not to betray was a fiction I was trying to tell myself. I took fright at the presence of the other in me. I disgusted myself. All my life I’d ferreted out traitors, never realizing that the worst of them all was hidden in my belly. I hadn’t seen that one coming. I’d never noticed him. With that face of his, his soft cap, his threadbare jacket. He was colliding with lamp posts. Laughing at nothing. Vomiting the evening up against a wall. Hurling abuse at the shadow who had come over to help him. He slipped and fell, getting up again with difficulty. He was singing the refrain of Danny’s song. He was already alone. He’d become a bastard, like his father. That is to say, in the end, a man of no importance.

  Another couple besides us had won the trip to France. Frank and Margaret lived in Larne, a port town in County Antrim.

  —Protestants, certainly Loyalists, but delightful, Sheila had said.

  We all travelled together on the plane to London, and then on the plane to Paris as well. Sheila was beside the window, as was Margaret in the seat just in front of ours. Since takeoff, she’d turn and lean on her elbows on the back of her seat to talk to my wife. She’d say a few words, tell a story, sit down again, and reappear with a smile on her lips.

  —She has a charming wee English accent, Sheila observed.

  She was so happy that nothing else mattered. Through the window we had watched our city, our dreary streets, the Harland and Wolff shipyard, our sodden fields and the low stone walls disappear, and then came the wide open sea. She thought she was reaching her hand out to me, but it was I who was gripping hers. This was our first flight. Margaret had given her a sweet to suck for takeoff.

  —So these two Belfast youths are on their honeymoon in Paris. One night, they’re walking along the Champs Élysées when, suddenly, four police cars, three fire engines and two ambulances appear with sirens blaring. The husband takes his young wife by the hand then and says to her: ‘Do you hear that love? They’re playing our song ...’

  Sheila laughed. It had been so long since I’d seen her laughing.

  —If she’s bothering you, feel free to tell her, her red-haired husband slipped in. That’s how I’ve been operating for twenty years.

  —Not at all, your wife is charming, Sheila replied.

  Away from our street, everything was charming to her. The sandwich on board was one of the best she’d ever had. Tuna and mayonnaise, absolutely remarkable. As we were going to France, she drank white wine that came in a little plastic bottle. So delicious she wanted to keep the bottle as a souvenir.

  —Call me Maggie, our travel companion suggested.

  It was Thursday, 2 April 1981. For thirty-three days, Thatcher had been letting Bobby Sands die.

  —I’m going to find that a bit hard, Sheila said, smiling.

  The other woman took my wife’s hands in hers.

  —My God, what was I thinking? Please forgive me!

  Charming, really. They agreed then that we wouldn’t talk about politics during the trip, or religion, either. How about visiting Notre Dame with us? Margaret spoke loudly. She told Sheila that they ought to organize a girls’ night out. Just the two of them. She asked her whether she liked opera. Sheila smiled. Yes, maybe, she didn’t know.

  When she discovered that she’d won the contest, Margaret had phoned her aunt who lived in a Parisian suburb. She wanted to find out what was playing on 4 April at the Palais Garnier opera house. It was Arabella by Richard Strauss, a lyric comedy she had seen performed in Germany on her honeymoon. In the last act, Arabella carries a glass of water to the man she loves. That’s how they proposed in Croatia. For weeks afterwards, Margaret carried a glass of water to Frankie, her husband. In the morning, in the evening, it was a private joke between them. When she found out that the same opera was playing in Paris, she asked her aunt to pick up two tickets, but Frankie’s response had been to inform her that he wasn’t going to Paris to lock himself up in a cinema.

  —An opera, Margaret had corrected.

  He had muttered a few words that amounted to ‘No’. So if Tyrone had no objections, and if Sheila wanted to, perhaps the two of them could go together while the two gents went to get some air in Pigalle or in a bar. Sheila gave the thumbs up. Yes! Definitely! Listen to music, see beautiful costumes, sets, lights, forget the bricks and the fear for a couple of hours.

  Frankie was delighted. He was getting out of going to an opera and also we’d have a couple of hours, just us lads. He bought beers for everyone. The air hostess gave him his change in francs. He looked at a shiny coin and handed it to Sheila.

  —You’re going to feel right at home in Paris.

  Sheila didn’t understand what he meant straight away. She took the coin.

  Republique Française.

  —Keep it. It’s a wee peace offering, whispered the red-haired handler.

  Sheila took off her safety belt. She got up and kissed him on the cheek.

  —If that’s the reward, I’ll give you a ten-franc note!

  He burst out laughing, along with Margaret, and Sheila.

  My stomach was in knots. The big Sanderson Store lottery was a fraud, a war plan, a lure. No new department store would ever be built in our ghetto. Hundreds of fake flyers had been printed by the British, but the winners were fixed from the start.

  The plane flying towards Paris had a Northern Irish RUC officer, a female Special Branch inspector, a future traitor and an honest woman on board. It was an MI5 idea. And I had accepted. When I arrived home, when I placed that flyer next to the telephone, I was betraying Sheila for the first time.

  On Saturday, while the two girls went to the opera, I would become a British agent. I felt like the entire aeroplane had been chartered by the secret services. I saw spies everywhere, soldiers everywhere, traitors behind every newspaper.

  —Our first re
al contact will take place in Paris. It’s safer, more anonymous. And it means you’ll get a holiday, the agent had said.

  He also explained I’d have to go back there from time to time.

  —Tyrone?

  My wife’s hand on my arm. She was pointing out the ground, between the gaps in the clouds. She had tears in her eyes. The plane was banking over Paris. The city shimmered under the wing. I fastened my belt. Our eyes met. She was silently questioning me.

  —Something wrong, wee man?

  —Everything’s fine, tall woman.

  She brought her lips close to my ear. A murmur.

  —I love you.

  And I said I loved her, too.

  The British had decided that we’d lose ourselves in the crowd. They knew there were demonstrations going on in Paris that 4 April 1981. We joined the noisy procession. It didn’t look like one of our marches. No children, no funeral wreaths, no soldiers, either. There were balloons, whistles, songs. Some men were wearing girls’ hats, and some women had men’s ties around their necks. I wasn’t terribly comfortable, but neither was I embarrassed. With my cap, my trousers that were too short, my tweed jacket and my padded anorak, I was simply out of place in this city.

  The red-haired handler was on my left, the agent to my right. We were speaking normally, our foreign language unnoticed thanks to the din. It was sunny. My two enemies were wearing sunglasses.

  —You’re not in a position to negotiate, Tyrone. But we have reviewed your requests.

  It was the agent speaking.

  —Nobody becomes a good agent through blackmail or coercion. Those who have been threatened crack by their second assignment. We want to establish a different relationship with you.

  —We want you to benefit from it, the handler added.

  —Me to benefit?

  I shrugged my shoulders. A boy was playing the trumpet as he marched.

  —You to benefit, yes. I’m not suggesting you’ll enjoy it, but maybe you’ll find some satisfaction.

  —Your collaboration will not lead to arrests or victims. Your information will serve to save lives, not to waste more.