Belfast Noir

by Adrian McKinty

  I don’t think the bullet killed the guy. But the shock changed his day. He went all weak, and his forearm gave way, and he half fell and half got sucked out into the void. No sound. Just a blurred pinwheel as the currents caught him, and then a dot that got smaller, and then a tiny splash in the blue below, indistinguishable from a million white-crested waves.

  I stepped up and helped Carter wrestle the door shut. He said, “I guess he knew too much.”

  I said, “Way too much.”

  We sat down, knee to knee.

  * * *

  Carter figured it out less than an hour later. He was not a dumb guy. He said, “If the warhead was a dummy, he could spin it like entrapment, like taking a major opponent out of the game. Or like economic warfare. Like a Robin Hood thing. He took a lot of bad money out of circulation, in exchange for a useless piece of junk. He could be the secret hero. The super-modest man.”

  “But?” I said.

  “He’s not spinning it that way. And all those people died of cancer. The Robinsons, and the Donnellys, and the McLaughlins.”

  “So?” I said.

  “The warhead was real. That was an atom bomb. He sold nuclear weapons.”

  “Small ones,” I said. “And obsolete.”

  Carter didn’t reply. But that wasn’t the important part. The important part came five minutes later. I saw it arrive in his eyes. I said, “Ask the question.”

  He said, “I’d rather not.”

  I said, “Ask the question.”

  “Why was there a gun in the bathroom? The Special Branch guy was with us the whole time. You didn’t call ahead for it. You had no opportunity. But it was there for you anyway. Why?”

  I didn’t answer.

  He said, “It was there for me. The Special Branch guy was happenstance. Me, you were planning to shoot all along.”

  I said, “Kid, our boss sold live nuclear weapons. I’m cleaning up for him. What else do you expect?”

  Carter said, “He trusts me.”

  “No, he doesn’t.”

  “I would never rat him out. He’s my hero.”

  “Gerald McCann should be your hero. He had the sense not to use the damn thing. I’m sure he was sorely tempted.”

  Carter didn’t answer that. Getting rid of him was difficult, all on my own, but the next hours were peaceful, just me and the pilot, flying high and fast toward a spectacular sunset. I dropped my seat way back, and I stretched out. Relaxation is important. Life is short and uncertain, and it pays to make the best of whatever comes your way.

  TAKING IT SERIOUS

  BY RUTH DUDLEY EDWARDS

  Falls Road

  Ach, Marty just takes things a bit serious,” said Mrs. O’Gorman.

  “But it can’t be good for him to be stuck indoors all day, Maria. He needs to be with boys of his own age kicking a ball around the park.”

  Mrs. O’Gorman said nothing but bent her head and began to hunt for offending bobbles on her cardigan. As she located a couple and pulled them off, her sister Patsy, recognising they had moved into a familiar cul-de-sac, shrugged, gave her a peck on the cheek, got into her car, and drove away with a half-hearted wave.

  Mrs. O’Gorman went back into her house and looked at her younger son, who was still hard at work updating his montage of photographs. Not for the first time, she gave thanks to Jude, her favourite saint, that the days of screaming fits about the frustrations of glue or Blu-Tack or pins were over since his Uncle Joe had given him an infinitely flexible press-on and peel-off adhesive. Carefully, Marty plucked an image from the left-hand side and stuck it on the right, but after a moment’s consideration, he moved it back to where it had been. He showed no sign of knowing she was there.

  “Are you sure you wouldn’t like to go out for a wee while?” she asked eventually. “Aunty Patsy says your cousins’ll be there for another hour or two. And then youse could all go to McDonald’s. I’ll give you the money.”

  He didn’t raise his head. “Don’t want to.”

  Despite her better judgement, she persisted: “But you’ve no reason to be doing that now. Didn’t everyone say it was grand on Sunday?”

  “That was last Sunday.”

  “So what’s different?”

  “This is for next Sunday.”

  “But isn’t it only another wee procession?”

  He looked up and his face darkened. “Don’t call it that, Ma. They’re commemorations.”

  “Oh, sorry, son.” She paused and tried to get the language right. “I mean, why do you need to change your pictures about for another wee commemoration? Aren’t they all commemorating the same wee army?”

  The O’Gormans’ next-door neighbour was on the phone when she heard screaming and the sounds of breaking china. “That nutter Marty’s at it again,” she told her daughter. “Shouting and breaking things. Why can’t Maria just shut up instead of setting him off? If she’s not careful he’ll kill her one of these days.”

  * * *

  Mrs. O’Gorman used the spare key Marty didn’t know she had to sneak nervously into his bedroom. Although the taxi wouldn’t be dropping him home till three, she could never shake off the terrible memory of the day he’d found her sitting on his bed when he’d been sent home early after he’d lost it badly with the special needs teacher. They wouldn’t do that again without warning her, the head had promised, and since then she’d always had notice, but it would take only one mistake. It had taken weeks for her face to heal and for his wrist to mend that last time after he threw the laptop through the window. That had been a bit of a blessing, though, since he hadn’t the strength to do any more wrecking.

  She knew her need to check out his room every day seemed to be nearly as compulsive as one of his routines, but still, every morning at eleven, telling herself she shouldn’t, she did. Somehow, there was comfort in being in his place with his things around her, without him there to get hysterical in case she touched something she shouldn’t.

  As usual, everything was in complete order. Like she sometimes said defensively to Patsy, she wasn’t saying there weren’t problems with Marty, but wasn’t it a rare blessing to have a teenage boy who made his bed perfectly, hung up the clothes when she’d pressed them, coordinated his socks, kept his books and knickknacks neat, and didn’t go out getting drunk or taking drugs or running after girls? She hadn’t said “unlike your Conor,” but they both knew that was what she meant. And neither had she said how much handsomer and cleverer Marty was than any of Patsy’s three boys. Didn’t the school say if he held it together he’d get some great exam results in maths and science?

  The new version of the montage that had caused yesterday’s trouble was in its place over Marty’s wee shrine to his heroes. It was a miracle it hadn’t been damaged along with everything else that had been within his reach. Mrs. O’Gorman shook her head. Poor lad. It wasn’t his fault he had a syndrome. And now that she’d no wee treasures left, it didn’t really matter that a few oul’ mugs and plates got broke. Sure they were cheap to replace, so they were.

  She took a closer look at the montage. All around the edges were the familiar photos of Patrick Pearse and James Connolly and the others who had signed that thing in Dublin in Easter 1916 saying we were free. What was it called? She caught sight of one of the mugs that hung beside her. Oh, yes, there were the same men beside a document with a big headline saying, IRISH REPUBLIC. The Proclamation, that’s what it was. A dull-looking document she’d never read but she knew was like the Bible to Republicans. She should know what was in it, of course. Since Marty’d learned it off by heart he must have recited it to her a dozen times, but you couldn’t really listen. Wasn’t he always reciting?

  The fellas who had signed it weren’t much to look at, she thought. Not like that Big Lad, Michael Collins, swaggering in his uniform—now there was a fine figure of a man. Used to him being a constant, she was surprised to see him missing. In his usual place there was a skinny young lad in uniform with round specs she’d never se
en before. And in the middle—in pride of place—there was just one of Marty’s sketches, this time of a Celtic cross with white decorations; he’d written Seamus Harvey on one arm and Gerard McGlynn on the other. The names meant nothing to her, but she supposed they were two more young lads who’d died for Ireland. She recited her mantra—“Sure weren’t they some poor mothers’ sons”—and thought how lucky she was she’d never lost anyone that way. It was bad enough that she’d been widowed so early, but at least her husband had a peaceful end with that heart attack and he looked lovely in his coffin. Not the way he’d have been if he’d been shot or blown up or starved to death. Sure, Joe had done a spell in jail after he was caught with the guns, but it was a long time ago and being a community worker seemed to suit him. And though she was lonely for her Cormac since he’d gone to Canada, he was doing great and he was safe.

  Had Marty bought anything new? She looked along the line of mugs with tricolours and Sinn Féin and IRA logos and slogans and saw a bright green one with a harp that said: FENIANS. It brought back the memory of that terrible scene after that eejit of a cousin of his gave him a red mug for Christmas that said . . . what was it exactly? Oh, yes: I’m an unrepentant Fenian bastard. “I’m not, I’m not, I’m not a bastard!” Marty had screamed. “My ma was married to my da. Look at the photo on the sideboard.” “Sure it’s only a joke,” wee Conor had babbled, but a minute later he was on the ground with Marty biting and kicking him, and she trying to pull him off. That had ended in A&E and it was only because they were cousins that the police weren’t called.

  Mrs. O’Gorman sighed, got up, smoothed the bedspread so there was no sign she’d been there, closed and locked the door, and got ready to go to the pound shop to buy new tea cups.

  * * *

  Marty had been ready an hour early, his trainers spotless and his jeans as creaseless as his new black T-shirt, which bore the legend, IRA Undefeated Army. When his uncle arrived, he was proudly shown the montage, which he viewed with apparent enthusiasm. Privately, he had misgivings. Why had Mick Collins been replaced with Liam Lynch? The war of independence would never have been won without Mick, and whatever you thought about the rights and wrongs of the treaty, Liam Lynch was an intransigent diehard who hadn’t done the country many favours.

  Marty’s anxieties had ebbed on the journey to Castlederg. Uncle Joe had been on time, there wasn’t any mess in the car, the case containing the montage fitted neatly in the boot, he could see from the instrument panel that there was plenty of petrol and oil, the speed limit was adhered to strictly, and the traffic was so light that he nearly stopped worrying they might be late. He’d never been on such a long journey before, but the doctor had said he’d be okay if he took his medication. And he’d consulted Google Earth as well as his uncle, knew exactly the route they would take, what the village looked like, and where they’d be parking.

  All the commemorations he’d been to before were in Belfast, so this was very different. He’d read online that the Prods didn’t want it. He couldn’t understand why. “It’s a mystery to me, Uncle Joe.”

  As Joe O’Gorman knew all too well and was constantly tormented about, an awful lot of life was a mystery to Marty, and most mysteries couldn’t be explained to him. “You see, Uncle Joe, Seamus and Gerard weren’t trying to bomb Castlederg. The customs post they were targeting was three miles away. ” Having no sympathy anyway for those he considered Unionist cunts, O’Gorman wasn’t going to embark on the hopeless task of trying to explain to his nephew why the Protestant inhabitants of Castlederg—who had had a fair few fatalities in the past—might feel annoyed by an IRA commemoration, even of an event from three decades ago. He switched off as Marty began to recite detailed statistics about the frequency of Unionist parades and changing demographics in Castlederg. “So the Prods have parades all the time, Uncle Joe. So can’t they see it’s fair we should have some too?”

  “They’re different, son.”

  Marty’s face puckered. “I keep telling you I’m not your son, Uncle Joe. I’m your nephew.”

  As he saw the anxiety in the boy’s big green eyes, O’Gorman cursed his own absentmindedness. Would he never learn to avoid the most obvious pitfalls? “Sorry, Marty. It’s just that I love you as much as I would if you were my son.” And, hastily, “Now what else have you learned about Castlederg and County Tyrone?”

  As they drove into the village, Marty had almost finished reciting the dozens of names of Tyrone volunteers and dates of their deaths. O’Gorman parked, waited until he finished, and applauded.

  “Do you think they’ll play the ballad?” asked Marty.

  “What ballad?”

  “‘The Ballad of Seamus Harvey and Gerard McGlynn.’”

  “I never even heard of it.”

  “It’s on YouTube. I’ve learned it. Can I sing it to you?”

  O’Gorman listened patiently to Marty’s quavering rendition of what seemed like a tuneless dirge. “Very nice,” he said.

  “The song said they died trying to free our country, Uncle Joe. That was a long time ago. Why isn’t our country free yet?”

  “We’ll talk about that afterward, Marty. Now we should get going or we’ll be late joining the procession.”

  * * *

  A few months later, after another outing with his nephew, O’Gorman sat up in bed one morning. “I wish to God wee Marty had never got interested in Republicanism. It doesn’t suit people with literal minds when we’re at peace.”

  Paddy McCarthy turned over lazily. “Okay, tell me. Was there an outburst?”

  “No. He’s getting better in a lot of ways. For instance, he’s learned many of the tunes the bands play, so the familiarity helps him deal with the noise and the drumming. And if I’m there, he’s okay with crowds. And though he gets upset that people aren’t properly dressed or don’t walk in time to the music, he doesn’t shout at them.”

  “If that’s what he wants, Joe, maybe he should become an Orangeman.”

  O’Gorman’s playful cuff took both their minds off the subject, which they returned to much later, over a couple of pints in a discreet corner of the local pub.

  “So there were no disasters, but he’s getting fanatical, and I blame myself for getting him involved in the first place.”

  “Why did you?”

  O’Gorman took a reflective swig of Guinness. “I wanted to spend more time with him. The job takes me to lots of these events, and he could come with me. The lad is too much alone.”

  “You’re very close for an uncle and nephew.”

  “I was always fond of the wee lad, but when my brother was dying, I promised him I’d do my best to be a father to him.”

  McCarthy picked his words carefully. “He’s a bit of a handful, though. Must be tough.”

  “He’s that and all, but you couldn’t but love him. And he’s the nearest I’ll ever have to a son.”

  McCarthy checked there was no one within earshot. “You’re not planning on doing an Elton John, then? No surrogate mother to provide Joe O’Gorman with a kid?”

  “Jaysus, Paddy, the lads would stone me to death. That’s if their mammies didn’t get there first.”

  “So your Marty doesn’t know about you.”

  “Not him, not his ma, not his aunt. And I’m not planning on coming out soon. Not that it’s my biggest worry. What’s really bugging me is that the wee fecker seems to be turning into a dissident.”

  “How do you mean?”

  “He’s getting hung up on Irish freedom. He keeps asking why the IRA stopped before we got it.”

  McCarthy yawned. “You know I’ve no interest in this stuff, Joe. It’s just history to me. I don’t care what you did twenty years ago. I don’t even care what you believe.” He left the table and went to the bar. After he had come back with the pints and sat down he looked at O’Gorman. “You’re upset, aren’t you?”

  “Worried.”

  “Because he’s going on about Irish freedom. Isn’t that what your crowd ha
ve always gone on about? What’s different?”

  “He’s wearing a T-shirt that says, Britain Out of Ireland. He got that off a dissident website.”

  McCarthy shook his head. “But isn’t Brits out what you want?”

  “They believe in achieving that through armed struggle. We want it to happen through the ballot box.”

  “So they’re doing what you used to do.”

  “Yes, but circumstances have changed. We’re in government and they’re messing things up.”

  “Is that what you told him?”

  “No, of course not. I said those people died for equality and that’s what we’ve got.”

  McCarthy leaned over and patted O’Gorman’s hand. “Look, Joe, as I said, I’ve no interest in this stuff, but even I know that’s bullshit. Youse spent decades going on about a United Ireland and now youse pretend it was all about having road signs in Irish. Am I right?”

  O’Gorman lowered his voice. “Yes and no. We were tired, we had lost, and we had to pretend we’d won. And I for one am grateful as it got me out of jail after three instead of ten years. But Marty’s been reading about Irish history since 1916 and he’s on the side of the ones who never compromised.”

  “Is it a good idea to take him to commemorations then? Aren’t they mostly of people who died fighting?”

  “How can I stop now? It would break his heart.”

  McCarthy shrugged. “You’re stuck then. You’ll have to hope he discovers girls. Or boys. Now for God’s sake, lighten up and let’s talk about where we’ll go on holiday. I’d say Tel Aviv, but from what I’ve seen about how Sinn Féin view Israel, it’d probably have you court-martialled. Is Barcelona more like it?”

  * * *

  Mrs. O’Gorman was delighted to see her brother-in-law. “I was just passing, Maria, and wondered if there’d be time for a cup of tea and a yarn.”

  When they had settled at the kitchen table and caught up on general family news, there was a brief silence. Then he said, “And Marty?”

  “Doing well at school, but he spends most of his free time upstairs at the computer so I don’t see much of him.”