by Thomas Waugh
“No, I am fine on that front. But I appreciate the offer. Your grandfather would be proud of you. You’re a good lad. For all of the bravado around not one step back and no retreat, no surrender, I’ve decided to disappear. Better to be safe than sorry. A friend of mine has offered me use of his villa in Portugal. Perhaps I’ll finally bow to the inevitable and take up golf. The plan will be to find a senorita to put up with me enough during the night so that she will stay and cook me breakfast in the morning. I will also get in touch sooner or later and invite you and Grace over. We both know how dull peace and retirement are. I would rather get shot than die of boredom. Or if you visit without Grace, you could have even more fun.”
“I am a changed man, Jack. Although I am unsure if I have changed for the better,” Marshal replied.
“Surely you must have strayed and had at least one affair to keep you happy, if you have stayed with Grace this long?” Foster asked, in slight disbelief. The soldier even paused when bringing his pint glass up to his lips. He knew Marshal, he went through relationships like the MOD went through budgets, from overspending on consultants. It was not just due to the drink that Foster had got the names of Marshal’s girlfriends wrong in the past, after being introduced to them. They changed with the seasons. His young friend once said that he was more likely to meet Elvis than Miss Right.
“To my shame, I have been as faithful as a Jihad and as reliable as a Kalashnikov.”
“I can think of worse fates than being married to a fashion model. And who am I to give expert advice on love and relationships? I can offer you some valuable advice on pre-nups now, though. But don’t let my experiences, or those of others, put you off taking things forward with Grace.”
“They won’t,” Marshal said, lying. How long would it be before he cheated on Grace, after they were married? Man was not the most naturally constant creature in the animal kingdom. We are arrant knaves, all. Get thee to a nunnery. Why would’st thou be a breeder of sinners? How long before he grew so distant, that she could not recognise him anymore? How long before Grace found his gun? The honeymoon period always comes before the marriage. Before each marriage, Foster had promised that he would be a good husband, that he would change his ways. Marshal remembered how one of his friends in the army, Percy Norton, had slept with one of the hotel receptionists the night after his wedding. At the time, Marshal did not know whether to admire the Guards officer or be appalled by him. Everything is born to die, including relationships. Marshal remembered how his mother and father’s marriage had ended. His mother’s expression was uncommonly serene when she received the last rites. Marshal’s boyish face was contorted in pain, his fists clenched in anger. He had felt so much torment because he had felt so much love. It was tantamount to a mathematical equation. Marshal later concluded that if you did not invest yourself in a relationship then you could avoid becoming bankrupt when things collapsed.
Either he was suffering from indigestion, or the dull ache in Marshal’s stomach had returned.
4.
Both men ordered the steak for lunch. Not wishing to discuss Albanians, IRA terrorists or failed relationships any longer, Marshal and Foster joined Jason and Michelle for a drink after their meal.
“What did you do in the navy?” Foster asked, after being introduced to the regular.
“I mainly played rugby and broke up, or started, various barfights down in Plymouth. What did you do in the army?”
“I made a killing,” the ex-special forces soldier remarked, with a twinkle in his eye and a whisky tumbler in his hand. Rather than being an occupational hazard during his career, there were occasions when the soldier considered that killing was a perquisite to the job. Some people deserved to die, he judged.
Marshal and Foster had a couple of cigarettes outside and then said their goodbyes. The old friends didn’t look back as they strolled off in opposite directions. They also both failed to look across the road and notice a couple of youths sitting on a bench, eating their lunch whilst keeping a covert eye on the veteran soldier. The youths - Connor and Sinead - held hands like lovers as they walked down the street, following Foster. But they were brother and sister, the niece and nephew of Sean Duggan.
Marshal smoked another cigarette. Ironically, the smoke felt purifying. He briefly closed his eyes in satisfaction, imagining he was elsewhere. The streets were crowded, the noise deafening. Too many people were saying too many inane things on their mobile phones. Too many people were dressed in ill-judged vest tops. There were too many cyclists, with garish shorts and even louder opinions, riding past – usually through red lights. Marshal fancied that they were even more self-righteous than a Liberal Democrat - if that was at all possible.
Marshal put on his headphones and turned up the music which he had downloaded onto his smart phone. Dylan, again.
“It's now or never
More than ever
When I met you, I didn't think you would do
It's soon after midnight
And I don't want nobody but you.”
He welcomed the message from Grace as he walked home. She was an island of something in an ocean of nothingness.
Have just landed. I am going to pop by the bookshop and see Emma to catch-up, before getting to you. I hope you had a nice lunch with Jack – and it wasn’t just a liquid lunch. How are you?
Marshal replied:
My heart’s aching for you of course, but it’s a welcome distraction from my burgeoning sore head.
Another odious cyclist ran through a red light. An odorous traffic warden spat out gum, striking the calf of an elderly woman walking in front of him.
Grace replied:
The skirt I am wearing will distract you even more, I imagine. Get some sleep. Do not worry about cooking dinner later. We can eat out. Love you. Xx
Grace had first uttered those two words several months ago. They had just had sex. Trust, intimacy and lust had ebbed through their limbs, fingertips and mouths. They were breathless. Chests rose and fell in unison. Her hair and skin smelled better than cigarettes or cask strength whisky. Grace had given something of herself, more than just her sinuous body. Her head lay on Marshal’s left breast, their legs entwined. Her fingers played with the cross around her neck.
“Despite all the gossip on websites and photos of me walking out of restaurants with various actors and celebrities, I have not been with many men. Most of those dates were set up by publicists as photo opportunities. We acted shocked and that we craved privacy, but the press were tipped off as to where we would be. If you define those stunts as dates, then I have probably dated more gay than straight men over the years. Actors can be even more self-obsessed than fashion models. I was a trophy, an ornament, on a professional or personal level, when I lived in New York. I was living in a beautiful bubble, a gilded cage. My career was everything, I told myself. But it was nothing too. I had to smile so much at parties that the corners of my mouth began to ache. Some men want to possess women. Their idea of romance is to put a line of coke on a glass table and then ask you to dress up as a secretary or schoolgirl. Once isn’t enough. It’s too much. We all seem to play a part in life. All the world’s a stage. But I can be myself when I’m with you, James,” Grace remarked, her voice a mixture of vulnerability and candour, her eyes glistening with tears. But not tears of sorrow. “I feel free. You make me laugh. I am not sure if I have ever been happier. I love my home, I love my bookshop, and I love you. I must sound foolish.”
“Socialists are foolish. Extinction Rebellion protesters are foolish. Bono is foolish. You’re not foolish,” Marshal replied, drily and reassuringly.
The following day, when out together for lunch in central London, the couple approached Westminster Cathedral in Victoria. Marshal remembered how Grace told him, after only knowing him a few days, that he should enter the next Catholic church he encountered, instead of just passing by. It would be good for his soul. He took her by the hand, and they entered behind a gaggle of American tourists.
Grace genuflected in a floral, summer dress. He bent his knee too. Submitting. The smell of incense was still familiar from when he was a boy and attended mass. The decorative marbles were bold but elegant. Shafts of sunlight expunged most, but not all, of the gloom. Remarkably, the tourists failed to annoy him. Marshal paused before each stone image of the Stations of the Cross. Melancholy and reverent. The statues and images of Christ seemed to follow him around the chamber. He wanted to feel God. Fill a grave-sized hole. While Grace visited the giftshop Marshal found a quiet corner, knelt, bowed his head, clasped his perspiring hands together and prayed, like a ring rusty boxer. Guilt washed over him, at first. He was a sinner, like the next man. Like every man. The soldier asked for God’s forgiveness, as though He still existed. His feelings of guilt were still stronger than those of absolution, however. Marshal also spoke to his mother, as if she still existed. He believed that she would have liked Grace. He joked to himself that he felt like he had just been in a therapy session, except that God did not charge by the hour. Marshal wiped the tears from his eyes and steadied himself as he got to his feet. Grace pretended that she had not noticed Marshal praying. Her bronze skin glowed in the candlelight. Holy and beautiful. They unwittingly came together at the end of the aisle of pews, as if they were a bride and groom.
“I stupidly forgot to say this last night. I love you too,” Marshal sweetly remarked – and meant it.
Love was nourishment for the soul. Love was evidence of the existence of the soul. But the word could also sit like a stone tablet on Marshal’s chest. He found it hard but not impossible to love, like his stomach found it hard but not impossible to break down the steak he had eaten for lunch. He was outside, but still he felt like the walls were closing in. His thumb hovered over the buttons of his Blackberry, seemingly frozen. His skin felt flushed, like his blood wanted to escape from every pore. He was on the cusp of being out of breath. But then he nearly laughed at himself – and breathed out. He thought how he had not even suffered a panic attack when under fire in Helmand. Marshal also pictured Grace’s eyes, which were a window into her kind, Catholic soul. Grace was proof of God’s existence.
Marshal replied:
Love you too. Xx
Motes of dust swirled around in the room like insects. Marshal pulled the curtains across. The light began to hurt his eyes - drill into his pupils. He poured himself a brandy and swished the elixir around in a special glass Grace had bought for him. She arranged for it to be engraved. “When you’re going through hell, keep going. Winston Churchill.” He switched on the television to take a cursory look at the news, but quickly turned it off. Marshal did not quite know what made him more nauseous, the news or the newsreaders. The world was going to hell in a handcart still. He did not expect anything else. He closed his eyes and sank deeper into the chair, but sleep was still proving elusive. He picked up a book from the coffee table. There was a pile of half a dozen hardbacks and paperbacks, fiction and non-fiction. The titles included Max Hasting’s Armageddon, Roger Moorhouse’s The Devil’s Alliance, Jane Austen’s Emma and Richard Foreman’s Jerusalem: Kingdom of Heaven. Marshal selected the following: Russian Roulette: The Life and Times of Graham Greene, by Richard Greene. A quote from The Quiet American leapt from the page and fleetingly increased his sore head and tightened the small knot in his stomach. “Sooner or later, one has to take sides. If one is to remain human.” The usually voracious reader soon found it difficult to concentrate – and he put the book down.
Marshal felt a calling. He covered the kitchen table with newspaper and cleaned his gun. With Grace spending more time at his flat, he was mindful that he might not be able to attend to the Glock for a while. It was good that Grace was living with him more. But it wasn’t all good. Nothing is all good. Including God. He sometimes liked to have the flat all to himself. Do nothing and sleep. Turn himself into a block of stone. Feel nothing. Drink. Get lost in a novel. Remember or forget Helmand. Smoke with the window closed. He liked to leave the house and not tell anyone when he would be back. He sometimes liked unemptied ashtrays and not placing his glass on a coaster. He liked filling the wine rack with bottles of vodka and whisky. The ex-Para did not want his life to feel regimented, like he was back in the army again.
He checked his watch, a silver Breitling Chronomat. It was a Christmas present from Grace. She had engraved the back, with a quote from Coleridge.
“To be beloved is all I need
And whom I love, I love indeed.”
Marshal opened all the windows - and cooked some bacon - in order to oust out any lingering smell of gun oil in the air. He tidied the flat, ready for Grace’s arrival, and finally fell asleep.
5.
His fellow republican – and rival – Gerry Adams started to call himself the “Big Lad” in the seventies, partly because Michael Collins had been known as the “Big Fella”. And so, not to feel he was being left behind, Mullen demanded that those under his command named him the “Big Man”.
Mullen sat at his large mahogany desk, at his office on the top floor of a plush complex in Mornington Crescent. The Irish MP resembled a less avuncular Brendan Gleeson – with greyer hair and glassier eyes. His combover did its best to disguise his thinning hair. But its best wasn’t good enough. He had once been told that the only true cure for baldness was castration. But it was the only price that was not worth paying for getting his hair back. Diamond studded cufflinks peeped out of sleeves. The cuffs covered a Cartier watch, a present from Aung Sang Suu Kyi. Mullen wore an expensive Savile Row suit, which had fitted better a year ago. Muscle had turned to flab over the years, although he could still appear physically intimidating. When he snarled and snorted, Mullen still resembled a bull of a man. He confessed to have been living “the good life” over the past decade or so. He no longer had to hunker down in safe houses, eating baked beans or watery Irish stew. His chubby digits looked like uncooked sausages. His index finger could barely fit through the trigger guard of an old Browning pistol he still owned.
Two colour photos – one of his mother and daughter, the other of his deceased son – stood on the left side of his desk. On the other side stood two faded black and white photographs. The first was of Colm Mullen, a republican legend - arrested and executed for leading a campaign to bomb police stations and hospitals in London during the second half of the nineteenth century. The second was of Liam Mullen, John’s grandfather. Liam Mullen was part of a delegation which met with senior members of the Third Reich during the Second World War. The plan was to put the Irish state at Hitler’s disposal, to have the British fight on another front and weaken their position. Many Irish were ashamed and condemnatory of Eamon de Valera’s actions, that he went too far. For Liam Mullen, however, de Valera did not go far enough in aiding the Nazis against their common enemy. After the war, Liam would spit every time he had to mention de Valera and lament missed opportunities. “Better Hitler and the Germans, than Churchill and the British,” he would pugnaciously argue.
A computer, ashtray and large measure of Bushmills were also regular features on the desk – as well as a few boxes of pills. Metformin, for his diabetes. Warfarin, which helped thin his blood to prevent strokes. And Viagra.
The sound of the air conditioning hummed in the background. The bulletproof glass blocked out the noise of the busy street below.
A colourful landscape by Jack Yeats hung above a Terence Conran leather sofa. Mullen was not particularly fond of the artwork. Although he did appreciate that he had purchased the investment as a tax write-off. On the wall opposite the sofa were rows of photographs, hung at eye level, of Mullen pictured with the good and great, often shaking hands or embracing. The Clintons, Angela Merkel, Bob Geldof, Nicolas Sarkozy, Neil Kinnock, Bono, Tony Blair, and Donald Tusk hung side by side, like a well-attired version of a rogue’s gallery. Occasionally a space would open-up on the pale blue wall, as a photo was removed. But the photos of Brian Epstein and Lance Armstrong were soon replaced by shots taken with other celebriti
es and statespersons. Mullen boasted that a picture of Thatcher was conspicuous by its absence, explaining that he had refused to be photographed with her - although the truth was that Thatcher had denied his request to be snapped with the terrorist.
John Mullen pursed his lips and tapped his foot beneath the desk, as he stared at the burner phone. Waiting for it to chime.
Nolan needed to call soon, he impatiently thought. He would be called downstairs within the hour, to give a talk in the conference space of the building to a group of business leaders. Mullen would give his usual spiel about conciliation not conflict, choosing the future over the past. Despite having given the lecture a hundred times before, Mullen had the gift of oratory and could make it sound fresh and sincere. His audience would believe that he had composed the speech just for them - they had after all paid him extra to deliver an original lecture. The fee had been paid – and they would not dare ask for their money back. Mullen took part in at least four speaking engagements each month. As much as crime paid, as much as terrorism had paid, Mullen still needed additional, legitimate, revenue streams to fund his lifestyle. His wife – and mistress – did not come cheap, unfortunately. Similarly, the lawyers he retained wanted their pound of flesh and his staff costs, those officially on his books and those who worked for him more informally, were a weeping sore on his finances.
There was another reason, aside from the fee, why Mullen was keen to honour the engagement. It would provide him with an alibi. After the event he would take a few of the participants for drinks at a nearby hotel, where he would drink until the bar closed and stay the night. He would call room service in the dead of night and be first downstairs for breakfast in the morning, appearing on the CCTV cameras of the establishment. He would be accompanied by his Head of Security, Sean Duggan.