by Tom Bradby
She never got anything, because, after putting the kettle on, he came back, leaned over the sofa and began to kiss her. She didn’t want him, but she didn’t say no. She let him carry her upstairs to the dirty, unmade bed, where the sheets looked like they’d not been changed since the last time he’d brought a woman back.
She took off her trousers and managed to restrain him whilst she removed her knickers. She lay back on the bed as he turned off the light.
He thrust his hand between her legs to stimulate her, but the foreplay was brief and quite rough. She held the base of his penis and tried to rub it around her vagina before he entered, but he was impatient and strong and he pushed hard. There were a few moments of pain when he entered her.
She shut her eyes. She clenched her knees to the man’s side and thrust her pelvis upwards. She clenched the top of his hairy buttocks and pretended she didn’t care that the gap between them was clammy. She told herself she enjoyed being fucked.
He let out a low groan. She whispered. ‘Please, wait…’
His voice was husky. ‘Aaaaaah … Christ, Colette, you’re … gorgeous.’
Afterwards, she gathered up her clothes and left without saying goodbye.
The Falls was more or less deserted, though a black taxi sped past her as she turned out of Beechmount. The temperature had dropped further and she could see her breath on the air as she walked.
She was sore between her legs and she reflected that it had been almost a year since she’d last had somebody inside her. She wondered what in the hell she’d been doing.
Perhaps, she thought, it was self-punishment. She certainly felt inexplicably better.
She opened the door to the house in Leeson Street and stood in the hall for a few moments, enjoying the silence. The familiarity of her surroundings seemed less offensive and she looked up the stairs to the landing. The lights were off and she assumed Ma must be in bed and asleep.
She walked into the front room. The curtains were open and the light was spilling in from the street. She ran her foot round the hole in the floor, and the violence it represented seemed ugly.
Ahead of her, she could just about make out the picture of the Madonna and child and she found herself wondering at her mother’s faith and conviction. She thought of that young boy – Jesus – and the pain he’d endured on the Cross. For what?
She thought that whatever you made of the Bible and whatever you thought of Jesus, there was no doubt that the man had died in horrible, terrible pain. If you took it at its worst – as Gerry had always done, for example – the reality of that death was still there. Whether He was the Son of God or not (how could you believe in God?) the reality was that He was a good man who had died for His beliefs.
A good man trying to make a better world. But what were you supposed to make of that?
She turned round and walked back upstairs to bed. As she opened the door to her room, she saw the two mattresses laid out neatly on the floor. Ma had made up all three beds and she found herself sighing with a mixture of gratitude and irritation.
She looked out of the window to the empty alley below and then suddenly yanked down her jeans and knickers and peered at them. She couldn’t see them clearly and she leaned over to turn on the light. She stepped to the side of the window and looked down again. They were damp, but she couldn’t see any blood.
She leaned back against the wall. How long had it been? Her body was so sensitive.
Well, at least she wouldn’t be pregnant – though she’d thought that when Mark had been conceived.
She thought of Mark and Catherine and made a decision. She pulled up her jeans and turned off the bedroom light. It took her only a couple of minutes to walk round to Margaret’s house, where she gingerly knocked on the door.
She stepped back and looked up at the bedroom windows, but there was no response. A dog began barking close by and then others followed suit. She knocked again – louder this time – and stepped back to see a light go on upstairs. The window opened and she saw Margaret’s grey hair.
‘Margaret, it’s me,’ she said in a loud whisper.
‘Colette?’
‘I just wanted to get the kids.’
A pause. ‘It’s the middle of the night.’
‘I know, I’m sorry.’
Another pause and then the window was pulled shut. Colette watched as a light went on in the hall and the front door opened. She stepped in.
‘I’m sorry, Margaret. I know it’s late.’
Margaret was in a tatty old blue dressing gown and her eyes were still half shut against the light. She didn’t reply and Colette shot up the stairs and into the room on the left. It was dark inside, the curtains tightly drawn, and it was a few seconds before her eyes adjusted. She began to make out the beds and she bent down to touch the one on the right. She felt a body and whispered quietly, ‘Mark?’
‘Mammy?’ It was Catherine’s voice to her left.
‘It’s me, love. We’re going home.’
She traced her hands along the body beneath her until she got to a head. ‘Mark, love,’ she said.
He stirred, but didn’t speak. She shook him gently. ‘Mark.’
He groaned and turned over. She leaned down to kiss him and he smelled clean, his skin warm and soft. ‘Mark,’ she said.
She could see Catherine sitting up in bed now and she picked her up and hugged her. Like Mark, she smelled clean and soapy. Colette went over and turned on the light and, for a moment, they were all blinded. Eventually, Mark sat up in bed and looked at them. ‘Where are we going?’ he asked.
‘Home.’
Silence. He rubbed his eyes. ‘I don’t want to go home.’
Colette was still carrying Catherine. ‘Come on, Mark, just put on your tracksuit.’
She put Catherine down and began to gather up their clothes which littered the floor.
‘I don’t want to go,’ Mark said.
She sat down on the bed and tried to hug him, but he pushed away her arms violently.
‘Right,’ she said. ‘You can stay. We’ll go.’
She bent down again and packed their clothes into a bag. She helped Catherine into her tracksuit and went into the bathroom to get their toothbrushes. When she came back, Mark hadn’t moved.
‘Come on, Mark,’ she said.
She bent down and tried to pick him up. He pushed her away once or twice, but then gave up. She got him out of bed and into his tracksuit and then tried to hold both their hands as they went down the stairs, which was difficult with a bag over her shoulder.
It took only a few minutes to get back home and Colette put them both straight to bed. She went to brush her own teeth and then stripped to her knickers and T-shirt before shutting the curtains. She lay down for a few minutes and listened to the sounds of them sleeping.
She found herself resenting Mark for a moment for not understanding. But then, of course, she knew kids didn’t understand and didn’t want complications. She felt guilty at her inability to provide simplicity, or consistency for that matter.
Guilt had been her companion for so long, she’d forgotten what it was like to live without it. She stood up again and fractionally pulled aside one of the curtains. The alley behind was deserted.
She looked down and enjoyed the silence.
She thought about the Brit and found herself breathing in deeply and asking herself, what have I done?
Suddenly, a light came on in the house opposite. There was a loud crash – sounded like saucepans or something metal. She heard Mickey Gibbs shout, ‘Bitch!’ and she realized he was drunk again. She pulled the curtains shut and tried to close her ears to the row and the screaming.
She lay down and tried to listen to Mark and Catherine. They didn’t seem to have been woken.
She looked up at the ceiling. She thought there was a lot to be said for the argument that all men were the same. All fucking useless.
For the first few minutes, Grant stuck to small talk. ‘Got yourself sorte
d out? Said goodbye to the girlfriend?’
The room was warm and fairly dark. Grant never had the overhead lights on and the room was illuminated now by the desk lamp, which was pushed right down against the leather top it sat on. The curtains behind the desk were drawn, but the light from the street below was just spilling in through the middle. Ryan could hear the hum of the traffic.
The left-hand wall of the room was covered with books, except for an old oil landscape in the middle, which Ryan knew concealed Grant’s safe. Anyone wanting to find it would have located it in seconds.
Grant was head of ‘T’ branch, which dealt with all counter-terrorism. Jenkins was head of the Provisional IRA source unit and answered to Grant.
Grant himself was standing by the window now, his glasses in his right hand, with one of the arms in the corner of his mouth. He’d always liked Ryan, right from the start, and the feeling was mutual. There was a pregnant pause.
‘We have every confidence in you, David. I want you to know that.’
Then why the need to say it, Ryan thought.
‘And I don’t want to bore you endlessly with things I know you’ve heard many times before.’
Ryan was listening carefully. Grant’s reputation was second to none.
‘But always remember, always keep at the front of your mind, the fact that the characteristics that make someone a good agent, and a good terrorist for that matter, are not the characteristics that make someone a decent individual. Deviousness, cunning, manipulative ability, absence of fear, courage, one might even say the ability to divorce oneself from the consequences of one’s actions – all these characteristics make an individual totally unreliable. These are people who live life at the extremes, in a world that nothing in our training and background can ever really prepare us for. We need these people, but we have got to stay ahead of them. We have to think ahead of them – not on our terms, but on theirs.’ Grant paused and came round to sit on the front of the desk, blocking the pool of light. He was still sucking one of the arms of his glasses and Ryan thought he looked old.
‘So, what I am saying is, however much you think you are in control, however much you think you have a relationship with your man – or in this case woman – always remember, always, that they could be lying. Never trust them. Never take what this woman says at face value. Ask yourself why she is saying this or that. What are her motives …’
Ryan thought of Colette in her prison cell. Alone, apparently defeated.
‘I’m concerned about the nature of the recruitment…’
Ryan realized that was a question. He cleared his throat and put one hand to his mouth in a gesture of thoughtfulness. ‘I don’t think …’
‘The coercion, I mean.’
Ryan paused. He thought about it. ‘I can’t be sure, but I don’t think that played – I mean, I would strongly suspect that she was expecting us and that she …’
‘You don’t think she bought the idea that she was going to prison?’
‘I don’t know. She might have done, but I think somewhere in there is a separate motivation – one she hasn’t really admitted to herself…’
‘To get out?’
‘I would say so, yes. I don’t think I’d have gone ahead otherwise. I think she realizes – well, let me put it this way, what future does she have otherwise?’
Grant didn’t reply. He pushed himself off the desk again and wandered back round to his chair. Ryan wondered again at the contrast between the man’s reputation and the shuffling, intellectual figure who stood before him. With his thinning white hair, ageing brogues and trousers that were too short, it was very hard to think of Grant in the front line of the war against terrorism.
Grant stood behind his chair now and stroked the leather upholstery – a distracted gesture that was actually rather odd. He put on his glasses again, the thick dark frames ageing his face still further.
‘One other thing you’re going to have to bear in mind; operating with the RUC isn’t going to be easy and you’ll need to be on your guard there too. I’m sorry about that, but it is for reasons decided above both of us.’
Grant pulled the seat back and sat down, pulling himself up to the desk and picking up one of his pens.
‘The RUC are very good and we certainly need them, but their motives are somewhat different from ours, if you take my meaning. This woman seems to me to present quite an opportunity. She is close to the heart of PIRA – or at least very close to those that are – and in the current shenanigans over all this peace talk, she could be quite an asset. But I’m afraid our ways are rather different to the RUC, as you know. We look to the long term – a slow build-up – they are, not surprisingly, often concerned about the immediate short-term threat. I think you know what I’m saying. Watch out, but remember we need the RUC and this is all about bridge-building, so you’ll have to be at your most diplomatic.’
He sighed, pushed back his chair and stood up. ‘You’ll need to see Personnel before you go. I’ve arranged for you to be picked up by one of our people, and I’ve arranged for the RUC to issue you with a personal weapon.’ He stretched out his hand. ‘Good luck. Don’t let us down, eh?’
Ryan shook his hand and turned to go.
‘Oh, and, David, be careful – and don’t take it personally, any of it. It’s a job, remember?’
As Ryan left the office in Gower Street, he could feel the fear in the pit of his stomach.
Outside, the air was cold and there were a few light drops of rain. Ryan waved at an approaching taxi and asked the man to take him to Latchmere Road. As they pulled away, the man half turned and said, ‘That’s the MI5 building, then?’
‘Is it?’ Ryan asked with an air of genuine interest.
‘You one of them?’
‘Not the last time I looked.’
The man laughed and turned back to concentrate on the road ahead.
The journey took about twenty minutes and, as Ryan opened the door of Latchmere Road twenty minutes later, he heard Claire’s voice and felt slightly disappointed. He wanted to be on his own. She was on the phone, so he got a beer out of the fridge, sat down and lit a cigarette. Claire finished and came and sat opposite him. ‘You look tired,’ she said.
‘I’m going to be away for a while.’
‘What are you doing?’ She laughed. ‘You could tell me, but you’d have to kill me?’
Ryan smiled and she looked at him carefully. ‘Is it a big deal for you?’
‘It’s a big break. Something I’ve done before, but the first time I’ve had the lead, if you see what I mean – the first time it’s been my responsibility. Before I’ve always been assisting. Not everyone thinks I’m ready for it, so there’ll be a bit of pressure.’
‘Who doesn’t think you’re ready for it?’
‘The guy above me.’
‘The one who gives you all the grief?’
Ryan nodded. ‘The one above him thinks I am and it was his call, so it’ll be all right.’
‘It’s hard not being able to talk about it all, isn’t it?’
He smiled, pulled out his handkerchief and blew his nose.
‘What about Isabelle?’ she said.
‘That’s over.’
‘You said.’
‘Well, it is.’
‘Definitely, completely, irreversibly?’
‘Permanently.’
‘Shame. I liked her.’
‘So did I.’
Ryan took a last drag of his cigarette. ‘We kind of agreed we shouldn’t see each other for a while anyway, so maybe this is for the best.’ He stood up. ‘I’ve got to pack now and I may not see you tomorrow.’ He bent down and kissed her.
‘Good luck,’ she said as he walked away.
In his bedroom, Ryan pulled the grip down from the top of the cupboard and mechanically began to load his clothes. He went into the bathroom to get his razor and toothbrush, and then came back and sat down on the bed. He shut his eyes and found himself thinking back to th
e previous summer and a holiday at Claire’s parents’ house in Provence. It had been lazy, hot and peaceful, with long days spent lying out on the grass or beside the pool. He hadn’t invited Isabelle, of course, and had been sorely tempted to have an affair with Claire. But it would have been tacky, and it wasn’t really his style. He’d never been unfaithful to anyone.
It had been fun, though, as a holiday. Now, it seemed a long way away.
CHAPTER SIX
COLETTE FELT SOMETHING WAS WRONG, BUT IT TOOK HER A FEW seconds to place it. The room was dark, but the door to the landing was open and she could hear the murmur of voices below.
In fact, it wasn’t that something was actually wrong, she thought, it was just simply that … that what? Something had changed. Mark and Catherine almost always woke her by crawling into her bed.
And there was something else too; an acrid smell that had once been familiar. She got up and fumbled for her dressing gown at the end of the bed. She turned on the light and leaned over Mark’s mattress. She pulled back the duvet and saw the large damp patch in the middle. She cursed quietly.
Downstairs, Mark and Catherine were kneeling on the floor drawing with crayons on large white pieces of paper. Mark was wearing his favourite Spiderman pyjamas and, as she put her arms around him, she smelled the urine and saw the damp patch. She picked him up and carried him upstairs to the bath. He didn’t complain, in fact, he didn’t make a sound.
She ran him a bath and left him to wash himself. She carried his pyjamas downstairs and put them in the ancient washing machine in the kitchen. As she went back upstairs, Catherine followed her. In the bedroom, she looked for their clothes in the old plywood chest of drawers, but couldn’t find them. Catherine said quietly, ‘Grandma doesn’t keep them there any more.’
She took Colette’s hand and brought her back down to the kitchen. She pointed to the cupboard above the boiler. Sure enough, they were all there, neatly pressed.
Colette went upstairs to put Catherine in the bath too, only to discover that Mark had put soap all over the bathroom mirror and walls. It was everywhere. Without speaking, she stood him up and hit him once across his backside. He began to cry and to shy away from her, but she pulled him out of the bath and wrapped him in a towel. He scuttled past her into the bedroom.