“Have you any idea what he looks at, Maria?”
“How would I know? He wouldn’t tell me. And anyway, he doesn’t want anyone to know. There was a scene when Conor was over last week and wanted to look something up. Marty said his computer was his private property and no one must ever touch it.” She smiled. “It was so good of you to buy it for him. You’re too generous. That boy worships you, you know.”
Depression settled on O’Gorman. “I’d prefer if he’d have more to do with people his own age than an oul’ fella like me.”
“Go on with you, Joe. Aren’t you a fine man and wouldn’t any woman be proud to have you? Time you found one and settled down and reared your own children.”
“I’m a bit busy for that at the minute.”
“So you’ll be picking Marty up on Sunday again? Where are youse off to this time?”
“Just Ardoyne.”
“It’s for another wee lad, isn’t it? Marty’s got a new photo of a lad in a leather jacket.”
“That’ll be Thomas Begley. Remember the Shankill Road fish shop twenty years ago? His bomb went off early.”
Mrs. O’Gorman crossed herself. “God have mercy on their souls. There were a lot of them, weren’t there?”
“Bootsy Begley and nine others.”
“Some mothers’ children” she said automatically. “Well, I hope the weather keeps fine for youse.”
* * *
“I’ve got to give all this up, Paddy. It’s not just that I can’t get through to Marty but I’m wondering myself if there was any point to all that dying for Ireland. What did we achieve?”
Paddy McCarthy threw his arm around O’Gorman. “Living for it’s certainly a lot more fun.”
“Marty wouldn’t agree. All the way back he was reciting what was on the plaque. Ending with: It takes courage and devotion to your people to take the hard road to freedom. A quote from Seamus Twomey.”
“Never heard of him.”
“He was a hard bastard, so he was. Did terrible things when he ran the Belfast Brigade. But Marty thinks he was great. He wouldn’t have sold out, he said.”
“So he really does agree with those dissidents.”
“He won’t let me use the word. Says they’re the people who’ve kept the faith and it’s Sinn Féin who are the dissidents. He had some long quote from Patrick Pearse about how you should never compromise.”
“Doesn’t sound good, Joe. Are you afraid he’ll join up with those gutties?”
“I’d say he’s too odd for them to take on. He’s no team player. That poor lad Begley was a bit simple, but he’d have followed orders all right. Anyway, it’s my hope they wouldn’t have him. But I’ve tipped off a few of the lads I can trust to keep an eye out for him hanging round with anyone suspicious.”
* * *
Marty had intensified his researches into his band of heroes and had identified Bobby Sands as the greatest of them. He had long been familiar with the huge portrait of him on the side of the Sinn Féin shop on the Falls Road, and had absorbed the accompanying quote: “Everyone, Republican or otherwise, has their own particular part to play. No part is too great or too small, no one is too old or too young to do something.”
Having read a lot about Sands on the dissident websites, Marty had come to the definite conclusion that Sands hadn’t died for Sinn Féin to be governing a part of the United Kingdom.
“We must see our present fight through to the very end,” he had said, and for Marty that meant a united Ireland. He cried out in anger and frustration when he read Sinn Féin leaders saying the war was over. How could it be? How could they betray Bobby like that?
Gradually, Marty came to realise that the part he must play was to target members of the apostate Sinn Féin party. His inspiration was Thomas Begley, who had intended to eradicate the leaders of the Catholic-killing Ulster Defence Association that Saturday afternoon. He’d had bad information—which was why he’d got civilians instead—but Marty was doing his own briefing. He identified a forthcoming commemoration in the Milltown graveyard that was guaranteed to have at least one member of parliament and three members of the assembly. And with the help of his pocket money from Uncle Joe and instructions from the Internet, he had the materials and the know-how to build a bomb and the rucksack to put it in. On a long canvas he had carefully written out and illustrated Pearse’s line, “Life springs from death; and from the graves of patriot men and women spring living nations,” which was now decorating the top of the wall facing his bed and which he looked at last thing before he switched off the light. I’m going to die for Ireland, he would tell himself in the watches of the night. And my name will live forever.
Marty knew that Uncle Joe disagreed with him, but he didn’t want him hurt so he rang him to say he had too much homework to do that Sunday and couldn’t go, and Uncle Joe said that was fine by him as he’d a sick friend he urgently needed to visit.
“Great news on two counts,” O’Gorman said to McCarthy. “Marty’s putting school work ahead of freeing Ireland—which gives me hope he’s cooling a bit—and we can have a lazy Sunday together after all.”
* * *
Marty left the house while his mother was at Mass and joined the parade as close to the front as he could get. He felt vulnerable on his own, but he wore his headphones, which helped him block out disturbing sounds. He was halfway to Milltown when his mother rang her brother-in-law to say she’d come home to an empty house and to ask if Marty was with him.
“No. Wasn’t he doing homework? Maybe he’s gone to the library.”
“It’s not open on Sunday.”
“Or the shops?”
“He won’t go to the shops except on a Thursday.”
“Is he not answering his phone?”
“It’s in his bedroom. And Joe, he didn’t lock it. That never happens.”
“I’m sure he’s just gone for a walk. He’s a big boy, Maria. Don’t worry, he’ll be back soon.”
O’Gorman wandered to the kitchen window and tried to think what would make his nephew behave so out of character. “I don’t like it, Paddy. When Marty says he’s going to do his homework, homework is what he does.”
“You’re fussing,” said McCarthy. “Get on with your breakfast. That plateful was fried with love and it doesn’t deserve to get cold.”
Ten minutes later, though, O’Gorman stopped eating. “I can’t relax, Paddy. Just let me call a couple of the lads in case he decided to go to Milltown.” A couple of phone calls later, he stood up from the table. “Sorry, Paddy. I don’t get it, but Marty’s been sighted in the crowd walking toward Milltown. I’ve got to go after him.”
“When you’re halfway through brunch? Why?”
“Because he’s never done this before alone and he could get into a terrible state.”
“There’s got to be a first time, Joe. Maybe the lad wants a bit of independence.”
“Maybe he does, and if he looks okay I’ll keep my distance. But I can’t take the risk something’ll happen and he’ll get into a row and do someone harm. Jesus, Paddy, prison would kill him.” He grabbed his coat, muttered apologies, and ran for his car.
* * *
When crowds blocked the road, O’Gorman parked hastily and began trying to push his way through. Helped by another couple of calls, he knew Marty was now at the front, in the centre of the line just after the leading bands. He didn’t sight him until the Tannoy was relaying speeches. It was seeing Marty wearing a beret that turned O’Gorman’s worry into fear. “Do you have to be a volunteer to wear a beret, Uncle Joe?” was a question that the boy had asked only a few weeks back. The rucksack was unsettling. What could be in that? He thought of all Marty’s chatter about the Begley bomb and he fought panic.
He was almost within arm’s reach of his nephew when Marty jumped the wall that protected the dignitaries. As O’Gorman scrambled after him, his sister-in-law, her hand clasped to her mouth, was trying to grasp the implications of a montage that now had at i
ts centre a photograph of Marty, wearing a black beret with a green, white, and orange badge that said, Free Ireland, and a smile of pure happiness.
PART II
CITY OF WALLS
LIGATURE
BY GERARD BRENNAN
Hydebank
I can’t breathe.
Too many people here, sucking up the air. We’re on top of one another wherever we go. Even the library seems full today. There’s a buzz among the inmates and I can hear somebody crying. I follow the sobbing to the corner nearest the librarian’s counter; away from all the rest of them. It’s one of the girls, like me. She’s not my friend or anything, but we’ve seen each other outside the counsellor’s office now and again. Both of us are having trouble adjusting. We don’t usually talk, me and this girl, but I think we could understand each other if we did.
“Hey. Hey you.”
She snuffles, watery and loud. I feel bad because she disgusts me.
“Dry your eyes a second, will you? What’s happening?”
The crying girl answers, her voice far too loud for the library: “A boy. There’s a wee boy dead over on the young offenders side. Hung himself, so he did.”
I know the word should be hanged. Meat’s hung, people are hanged. My ma telled me that one time, before she left us. I don’t correct the crying girl, though. She’s too loud and I know she’ll get us in trouble, but I want to hear everything before they make her pipe down.
“He used a ligature,” she says. “What’s a ligature?”
I wrap the cord of my trackie bottoms around my index finger. “Just anything, really.”
“I can’t hear you,” she says. “Speak up.”
I spy a screw coming up behind her. One of the big, dour male ones who reminds me of the Bible-thumpers who used to hang around Corn Market waving signs with aborted babies on them, scaring the life out of you. Something about his eyes, maybe. One time I nearly told him that I didn’t want a fucking abortion anyway. He gives most of the girls the creeps. I turn away to show him I’m not involved in the disturbance.
“You know, don’t you?” Yappy-hole asks again. She just won’t let it go. “What’s a ligature?”
“It’s nothing,” I hiss. “Look, just shut it!”
I don’t watch as the crying girl is led off by the big Bible-thumping creep, no doubt for a lecture where he’ll tell her that abortions are wrong and that she needs to do something about her leaky lamps before somebody hits her a punch in them.
Or, he might be telling her just to chill out.
Everybody needs to chill out.
Especially on the boys’ side.
Another one of them dead, like.
Doesn’t seem that long ago since that first wee boy killed himself over there. It must be crazy on their side. They’re all wee teenagers without an ounce of sense.
Sometimes they shout at us through the fence. It doesn’t bother me as much as it bothers some of the others. I know what wee lads can be like, especially when there’s a pack of them. Street-corner craic, like. But the eejits who work here take it all so serious. They say they have a duty of care, but they only care about themselves. Cover their own backs first, then tell us what’s good for us.
Our side of the fence is for women, but we call ourselves the girls. Most of us are only out of our teens, like. They’re the boys, we’re the girls. And at their age the boys are all gagging for it. Sex. Attention. Love. All of that shite.
My head’s filling up with too many thoughts.
I need to move. Do something.
So I take a dander to the common room. Don’t even know why I went to the library now. The librarian doesn’t have much time for me and I never liked books anyway. But then, when I get to the common room, I don’t know why the fuck I came here either.
All the usual cliques are in place.
And I don’t like the way that one bitch is staring at me.
“What’s your fucking problem?”
It’s out before I can prevent it. Too quick with the aggro.
I’m going to get in trouble again. Always being taught lessons, never learning them. At least it isn’t a screw this time. It’s the pretty blonde. Helen. She came in here last month and made friends with everybody. I don’t know how she did it. It was like a magic trick or something. All of a sudden the loud girls wanted to talk to her. They never spoke to me before then, so it’s not like I lost friends or anything, but I’m still annoyed about it.
“What’s your problem?” I say it louder this time.
Helen wears “going out” makeup every day. That’s the last thing any of us should be thinking about here. It’s like she can’t admit to herself that she’s going nowhere. She probably thinks she’s better than the rest of us.
The stuck-up bitch looks at me and touches her earlobe with her middle finger. Jangles a long earring. Can she not bloody hear me? Is that what that’s supposed to mean? Or is she giving me a sneaky finger?
My palms are sore. I should have cut my nails last night. How am I supposed to swing a decent dig when my nails are so long? I could scratch her.
But I should probably just calm the fuck down.
In through the nose, out through the mouth.
Like the counsellor taught me. Silly bitch.
Blondie’s smiling at me now. Looking me right in the eye. There’s them other girls behind her, but they’re creeping backward like shadows retreating from the sun; leaving the bitch to fight alone. And I’m white hot, ready to turn her to ashes.
“You girls all right in here?”
It’s the big SO. I didn’t know she was behind me. Like a lot of heavy women, she’s very light on her feet. Dainty. I’m not going to look at her. She has a mean stare. Mean little black bead eyes. She didn’t like it when I told her I hated the way she looked at me that time. Hate’s a strong word, apparently. But that’s fine. I’m no wee weakling, like.
“What’s happening, Jo?”
She’s pretending to be nice, but I’m not falling for it. I know I got her in trouble at the last landing meeting because I complained that she was smoking where we weren’t allowed to. It doesn’t matter that it was outside. If the staff can smoke anywhere then we should be able to as well. I didn’t want them to stop the big SO from smoking outside, like. It would have been fine with me if we could all smoke in the same place at the same time. The principal officer agreed with me and said it was double standards.
“Jo!”
The SO’s getting closer to me and Helen’s sort of smiling like something bad is going to happen.
I won’t turn around. They can’t make me. Nobody can. Not even—
A hand on my shoulder.
I shrug it off like I don’t care. The SO shouldn’t touch me if I haven’t done anything wrong. That’s not fair. That might be a double standard too. I do fucking care, but you can’t ever let on. That gets you in trouble. Blondes get you in trouble too. I remember my daddy said that once and I didn’t understand it then. It makes a bit of sense now.
“She’s nuts,” Helen spoke first. I should be okay now. If she started it, I can’t get in trouble.
I’m going to point at her and say: You can’t let her talk to me like—
The SO’s holding my wrist.
“Ow. That’s my sore arm.”
I peel back my sleeve and the SO flinches.
A wee part of me cheers, but only on the inside.
“Ach, Jo, you didn’t? Not again, love.”
“I told you she was nuts. Didn’t I tell you?” Helen says, and looks at all the loud girls for confirmation. They’re quiet now, though. Keeping their heads down. Another wee win for me. I’m clocking them up today, so I am.
“You look like a pigeon on the footpath, Blondie.”
She doesn’t understand what I mean, but she does look like that. Her head’s all bobbing about like she’s looking for a dropped pasty that an oul’ drunk eejit couldn’t hold onto. God, I’d kill for a pasty bap from our chippie. Any
thing from the outside, from Belfast.
Somebody’s sniggering now. I hate that kind of laugh. It’s sneaky and mean and for bullies. Best way to take care of bullies is to slap them. They’re never expecting that. I spin around like Mickey Marley’s Roundabout on Royal Avenue. If I catch the bully sniggering at me they’re dead.
As soon as I know who I’m supposed to hurt I’ll hurt them and then I can stop hurting myself. Easy.
But it’s just the SO there, and mean as she is, she never sniggers. I hold up my hands to show her I’m sorry. The SO knocks them to the side.
“Don’t touch me!”
“Settle down, Jo.”
“I wasn’t doing nothing.”
The sniggering’s behind me again. It was Helen. She threw her voice over my head the first time. Fucking bitch. I never liked playing piggy-in-the-middle. They made me be the pig every time. My eyes are hurting and it’s like crying in the playground again. Somebody sniggered that day too.
God, I’m so sick of it. So sick of all this bullshit.
I’m done with it.
Helen. That fucking blonde bitch!
Now she’s crying. Blondie’s crying. No, worse . . . she’s screaming.
Everybody’s screaming now, except for me. But even though all of this is hurting my arms it’s the good kind of hurt. Like when a blister gets ready to pop and you feel the sting and the nice at the same time.
I don’t even care anymore that my nails are too long.
I feel them tearing something.
Clothes, skin, mine, hers, theirs . . . it doesn’t matter.
More hands clamp my arms and legs. They heave me up into the air. More blisters pop and old scars split. I’m lighter than a feather now. That’s another good feeling. It never lasts, though. I remember one time when my da let me stay home from school even though I wasn’t really sick. I had to lie in bed because he thought I might be faking. That was okay with me. Bored in bed was better than bored in school. And he changed the blankets when I was still laying there, his mouth all straight because he was pretending to be hard, but his eyes were soft like the sheet floating down on me. Nice to have that feeling back again. I never feel like that anymore.
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