by Louise Dean
‘Is it true?’
‘We stopped in Genoa in ’66 and I walks into a shop and says to a man, I want to buy a gun. He started speaking Italian, yabber, yabber, yabber, leads me to understand he wants to see my passport. I brought out a wee photo I had of me in my pocket and I shows that to him and pointed at it saying “that’s me”. He gave me the gun and it cost four pound so I says I’ll have another seven. Lugers and 45s. I brought them back and took them down to my cousin in Omeath. You’ll have heard of Shorty O’Hagan. Aine, will you let go of my arm if you don’t mind. Of course it’s true. It’s all true.’
‘No I’ve not heard of him. But there’s always been men, like yourself, willing . . .’
Kathleen was standing shaking her head by the kitchen. When the kettle could be heard boiling and rattling the loose cutlery on the kitchen counter, she told Liam to turn it off. Two more tea-bags into the bin, thud, thud. Genoa sinking . . .
Liam came out with two mugs of tea, one for his sister, one for himself and his mother followed, gave Brendan Coogan the mug he’d drunk from just before, offering him the handle.
‘That’s what you call a clean cup,’ he said, glancing at her chest. ‘Do you always take a bath when you do the washing-up?’
‘She, herself there, the wife, she was ever the good Republican.’ Sean sat up as his wife came to him holding his mug by the handle and offering him the body of it. ‘Aye, it’s a Republican family in this house, no bones about it. Jesus shite that’s awful hot Kathy! She won’t say as much but she’s as strong a Republican as anyone. When it came to the curfew, off she went with the other women, all with their prams loaded with bread and milk and what have you, singing, hundreds of them weren’t there, and when she was going down Leeson Street they pulled the pram into a doorway, grabbed our Aine here out the pram, put guns in underneath her and sent the missus down to Divis with it loaded up. She didn’t bat an eyelid.’
‘Well and that was a cockup. Some was bringing guns out, some was taking them in.’ She looked over at Coogan and made a face.
‘I was sitting on guns? D’ye hear that, Liam? I was sitting on guns.’
‘You more than likely pissed on them and rusted up the mechanisms.’ Liam stood, hands on hips, chest out, waiting to be seen.
‘Kathleen, get a drink for the man,’ said Sean, edgy with all the interruptions.
‘We’ve no drink in the house.’
Sean started to stutter, chicken-necked, bum sunk, ‘Oh now, don’t come that with me. You manage to find some for your fat-arse sister, but there’s none for your man here.’ He turned to Brendan, raising a finger and slowing the moment as if to allow the man an important insight into his life.
‘I won’t take a drink thanks,’ said Brendan.
‘Aye, well I never did myself when I was on an operation.’
Kathleen snorted and laughed, glanced in the mirror, glimpsed the lipstick lying below it. Her fingers rolled it, covered it, concealed it in the palm of her hand. She looked again at Brendan who smiled warmly, complicit.
‘We goes back down to Omeath, me and Finbar at the end of ’69. We was living in Ardoyne then. Finbar’s sister lived on Bombay Street. Don’t they say now the Orangies had more than a hundred-thousand guns! What did we have? One or two. What they did to defend St Comgall’s that alone would have got medals . . .’
‘I was there myself that night.’
‘Were you? Were you there too? I knew it! I myself was there for the early part. Any chance of another cup, Kathy? More than twenty years and she still short changes me and never thinks to put in the sugar. Well, now Finbar and I takes his car and we goes to this cousin of mine and we get the floorboards up and get the stuff out. My cousin O’Hagan was the man himself in Omeath. He’d got a lot of hardware there and he says, sure you lads are suffering take what you need. There were two bags of gelignite . . .’
‘Away!’ Kathleen pointed to the stairs. Liam and Aine protested, then went. There were exaggeratedly heavy footfalls on the stairs and then the sly creaking noise as they tiptoed back down.
‘I didn’t like blowy ups you know. Not like you young boys. I say wait it’s wet, and I opened it with a knife and it was weeping something awful so we decides to ditch it in the river. I says to him, be careful, go steady like. He says I’ll take it as he knew my wife was pregnant then with our Aine and the kids were young; his were all grown up. It must have gone out to sea. I put the rest of the stuff in bags, revolvers, rifles even some hand grenades. He comes back and says to me put one in your pocket for yourself, so I did. I knew a thing or two about guns, so I had no problem with that. We drives up to the border and I says to Finbar, if he stops us we’ll have to shoot him, so he’s shiteing himself and the fella says – a customs officer, nice man – he says, Where’ve you fellas been? I says we’ve been doing our Christmas shopping but couldn’t find a thing. All so dear. He says, I could have told you that myself, so I could. Mind, it was pitch black and we’d only been an hour or two over there. We drive back up the Dublin Road and then we can’t get into bloody West Belfast for all the barricades with soldiers and RUC and what have you. We drives up Clonard and this fella comes up to me and says, Where are you coming from? and I says it’s none of your business and he says, Open the boot. Just an ordinary lad, younger than us. No sense. We says open your gate and Finbar puts a gun to his head and he says, Sure, there’s nothing wrong with yous.’ Sean laughed and wiped his eyes with the back of his hands. ‘Sure, there’s nothing wrong with yous! He says. We were only bringing in an arsenal!’
‘I’m sure half of it has a grain of truth to it,’ said Kathleen.
‘Don’t listen to her. Now the reason I’m telling you this, Brendan, is historical. We were supposed to take it over to the Stickies. But I says to Finbar I’ve changed my mind, we need to use this stuff, not bury it. So we goes round to this man I knew was gone over to the Provisionals, Calhoun. You know him, he’ll tell you the same story. My heart was with the Provisionals, you see. Even then. His mother came out and I says, send Mickey out I’ve got some stuff for him. He looks in the back of the car and I says, take what yous need. He took what he wanted and the rest I took round to the Stickies. Just a couple of rifles. See the Stickies didn’t know their arses from their elbows when it came to guns.’
Brendan nodded, swallowed the last of the cup and rose. ‘I’m away now.’ Kathleen took his mug from him. ‘Thanks for the tea,’ he said.
‘Well that’s how the Provies were founded really because they couldn’t have been doing anything without guns.’ Sean was following him to the door. ‘There’s a history to it.’ He touched Coogan on the shoulder and put his head next to his saying in low tones, ‘This has always been a good Republican home and always will be. I’m still a fit man. Now Sean’s away, they’ll be taking their eyes off us a wee bit, what I’m saying is, it’s a safe house, if you want to pass that on to the boys.’
‘You’ve done your share, Mr Moran.’
‘Can’t do enough. My boy Sean. Same cloth as me. I knew when he got involved. I come in one day and hear, click, click, click and I knew what that sound was, I went upstairs and looked through the crack of his door, he’s sitting on the bed, taking a gun to bits, putting it back together. I said to him, I know what you’re about, watch yourself. He said to me, I’ll die for a united Ireland, Daddy, I’ll die for it.’
‘That’s a powerful feeling.’ Brendan was looking down at his feet.
Sean looked pleased. ‘Let me get you a bap to take with you. I’ll bet you’ve not eaten your dinner.’ He went back in the house calling for Kathleen.
‘I have to be going.’
Kathleen came back to the front door saying, ‘Let me ask him then.’
‘No, I don’t want anything, thanks.’ Coogan dropped his voice to say to her, ‘Thanks for the tea there. I hope I’ve been some help. I’ll keep an eye out for your Sean, Kathleen.’ Then in a louder voice, ‘Thanks for the yarn, Mr Moran.’
; ‘Good to see you. Look after yourself,’ Sean called back, offering a wave and then hurtling up the stairs in pursuit of the sound of screaming and swearing and then his own screaming and swearing took over. ‘FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, WE CAN’T HAVE FIVE MINUTES OF GROWN-UP CONVERSATION WITHOUT THE PAIR OF YOUS . . .’
Kathleen stepped out after Brendan. It was chilly. She crossed her forearms under her breasts ready to watch him away, but he turned and faced her.
‘Just a thought but Sheila McCann and her brother, across the way there, well I’m sure you know, they’re very active in the Relatives Action Committee. You said you wanted to get more involved. Well, we’re having a meeting there Wednesday night. Would you be interested in coming along, maybe helping out?’
She looked across the road at the McCanns’ house. A cold wind whipped up through her porch way and sent her hair all over her face. When she had unhooked it from her ears, eyebrows and nose, pushed it back behind her ears, she opened her eyes and saw that he was waiting for her answer.
Chapter 12
The Principal Officer in charge of visits was known as Jaws due to his many visible silver coloured fillings. He displayed them quickly, then rapped his knuckles on the desk. A handful of prison officers sat before him.
‘When yous’re bringing a con down here, in particular one of those on the protest don’t talk with him. Not a word. Your Provies were trained in the cages, before we had this fine establishment. It was a university for terrorism and a holiday camp. Those days are gone. You bring the con down for his visit, and you expect the worst of him and you’ll be right. When they’re not in their cells they’re a danger. I used to have to walk into the Nissen huts in the old place every morning to count heads, and every other morning I’d be given a right pasting. I got a seeing to one time that near put me in hospital. That’s how we learnt what you call jailcraft. Three words. Stay on top.’
They were sitting in an overheated staff room on the visiting block after the usual lunch: meat and potatoes, pudding and custard. A couple of pints.
‘The sort of thing I’m talking about lads is the way you handle them when they’re not in their cell. You won’t find it in any book, but you’ll pick it up. We used to have them “running the gauntlet” when we moved them, we’d have them legging it between two rows of us to get to the van, and just to keep them on their toes like we’d egg them on with our batons. Your man, SO Dan Dare says to us, give it to them hard. Now when this one fellow, Taggart, gets through us, the van’s full. So he has to run all the way back down the line and gets a good second helping. Jesus. Laugh. I tell yous. You’ll hear some of the old crowd saying “you’ve the luck of Taggart”’
He was sat up on the desk, enjoying himself. Perry Como. Dunn could see him dedicating the next number to the ladies working at Armagh.
‘Ma-gic Mo-ments . . .’
Jaws put on his glasses and took a look at his clipboard. ‘The point is, you keep them where you want them when they’re not locked up. It’s not all fun and games though. Where’s Mr Dunn?’
‘Here,’ said Dunn raising his arm. Dunn had been detailed visits runner for the block that day.
‘Smart as a carrot,’ said Jaws, looking over his glasses for effect, making the others laugh again. ‘You’ll be accompanying me today Mr Dunn, learning the ropes. I take Mr Gilligan’s and Mr Garvey’s deaths personally. I knew Garvey. Nice a fella as you’d ever meet. If you’re in the visiting room, you stand over the prisoner and his visitor and make sure they can’t say a thing you don’t like. If they do – visit over. You remember what’s at stake here now. No talking to the visitors, or the prisoners, for Christ’s sakes. Don’t laugh. No listen, lads, listen up. Where’s Dawson? Young Mr Dawson there, are you standing on a box, Dawson, you’re the bloody Jolly Green Giant are you not? Listen! He was caught having a wee chitter chatter last week and he won’t be doing it again. Says, that fellow used to work with my daddy. I know that if you don’t know someone in here you must have led a very sheltered life, fellas, but remember what uniform yous’re wearing. All right, now. I’m going to start with the appeal visit. We’ve got that Fenian lawyer Mr Bernard in today, on his “human rights” bullshit. Wouldn’t want to keep him over long would we? Come on Officer Dunn.’
With his stature and gait, in his dark uniform, Jaws moved from side to side like a refuse bag on the march. Dunn followed him through the prison, grille after grille, until they came to Bolton’s block. Jaws pulled in his chin as they were admitted via the main entrance to the block.
‘The stink of it, Dunn, turns your stomach.’
‘Must be hell.’
Jaws stopped in his tracks. ‘Hell? Hell is after you’re dead, Dunn. That’s coming to us quicker than it is for them.’ They were waiting at the circle for the class officer. ‘You keep your feelings for your own, Dunn.’ The class officer came out of the mess, wiping his hands on a teatowel. ‘All right Jaws?’
Jaws went ahead of Dunn and shook his head. ‘New boy feels sorry for the streakers.’
He was sickened. He had never put a foot wrong that way in the army. There was no personal point of view. There was agreement and silence and both meant agreement in any case. By being there, by wearing the uniform you were in agreement with it all. You were a fool if you put it on and you were not. You only had to take it off.
The class officer looked unimpressed. ‘Oh aye,’ he shook his head.
‘Does he feel sorry for that lad Garvey as well?’
Jaws went off with the class officer, leaving Dunn alone.
He stood looking about him – at the viscose floor, the white reflective walls, the pale-green painted grilles glimmering under neon. His vision was on the blink in one eye, like a migraine coming. His thoughts struggled. His heart faltered. His chest went tight. He put a hand on the desk. Even a baby knows how to find breath.
He forced himself to exhale. He was worried someone would see him. He looked up and down, swallowed, blew out. He heard sudden laughter from the mess behind him, the refrain of a football chant. He glanced over at the grilles ahead that contained silence. Terrorists. Men and boys, all thinking their thoughts, killers on the quiet, minds like clocks that needed no winding. What were they remembering, what were they learning? Was killing educational? Perhaps briefly, as a generation is brief. The young sowed horror in their springtime with high hopes for the crop and it rotted down through a long summer. They harvested grief in the autumn of their lives. And did they believe, even as they held their grandchildren, that there would be an end to it all? After a hard winter killed what was left of them off, it came again, this human season, this springtime of hatred. The young went to it because it was in their nature. Could a father teach his son to go against his nature? Could a son learn such a thing from his father? He didn’t know.
The click-clack of Jaws and his mate called him back to attention. He tried to grasp his thoughts again but it was too late, the feeling of brilliance, of naked understanding had gone and he felt his usual anxious boredom return and remembered what he’d said. He didn’t want to be caught out. He’d never been caught out before. He’d always been able to close down all the parts of himself he didn’t need. He’d got himself to the point where he could even forget about killing people.
Jaws put his paperwork down on the desk for the class officer to see.
‘Legal Visit for O’Malley? Oh aye. Officer Owen give me a hand here.’
A young man came across, his hat over his eyes, as Dunn had seen Frig affect. ‘Step down with me then, Jaws – and your new boy.’
The class officer went down the wing swinging his keys. He called out
‘Legal Visit for 2350 O’Malley. Want the visit, O’Malley?’
‘Aye,’
‘You’ll need to do the search O’Malley, and put on the uniform.’
‘I’ll wear it.’
‘And submit to the search?’
The grille guard joined Officer Owen in cell twenty-six, with Dunn and Jaws wa
iting outside.
‘Just squat will you, I’m not doing this for my enjoyment. Squat or by God there’ll be no visit, O’Malley. I’m going to need a hand here, Harries, in your own time. Hold him.’
There were a few shouts from the other prisoners.
‘Give us a hand in here, new boy?’
Dunn went into the cell. O’Malley was naked facing the far wall and Owen was pulling ineffectually on one of his arms. The grille guard was standing by with gloves on, looking nervous. O’Malley glanced behind at Dunn and looked him in the eyes.
‘Squat!’
‘For fuck’s sake Dunn! Get him into a squat!’
Dunn placed his hands on O’Malley’s shoulders and the man flexed his knees. In truth he had decided to concede. Dunn looked away. The grille guard crouched down. His fingers were rubber gloved but he simply shone the torch between O’Malley’s legs.
‘All right you, get the begs on,’ said Owen quickly. ‘Come on with you, you’re losing your visiting time. Thank you Mr Dunn.’
Jaws flashed a smile at Dunn when he came out of the cell, absently, as if he’d just come off the same ride. ‘Right . . .’. He stood scratching the back of his head under his cap. He looked at his fingernail, used his thumbnail to eject some white matter from it. ‘What do you drink, Dunn?’ he said, as if they were elsewhere.
‘Beer.’
‘I’ll buy you a pint teatime, I always buy the new lads a drink.’
The prisoner emerged with trousers that were loose, and boots that were too small. O’Malley was storing the grievance, his chin was awry, but he moved forwards. Dunn and Jaws accompanied him in silence through all the grilles and gates, and then for a ten-minute walk around the cell block and over to the visiting block, where he was taken into a back room and given a rub-down body search. Dunn and Jaws waited outside. When he emerged, he stood looking straight ahead as if they weren’t there, waiting. He was signed in at the back desk. 2350 O’Malley, appeal visit.