The Bogside Boys

by Eoin Dempsey

  “I don’t know. All I’ve heard about them is to do with killing other republicans in that feud.” Pat reached into his pocket for a pack of cigarettes. He offered one to Mick, who refused.

  “I always said I’d give up when I got out. It was easy to say that. I never thought I was going to.” He laughed. “But today is day one.”

  “Good for you, brother. I won’t have one either then.” He put the cigarettes back into his pocket.

  “It’s hard to express how good it is to speak to you without guards and other prisoners listening in, without fear of saying the wrong thing or feeling the wrong way about something. It’s almost too much for me right now. I’m getting into this freedom thing again. I've got a feeling I’m going to like it.”

  “You will. We’ll make sure of that. Did the other prisoners know your feelings about what was going on outside?”

  “They did and they didn’t. The best way for me to get along was to toe the party line. I always promoted the cause of not killing people to whoever would listen although we didn’t sit around having great political debates for hours on end.”

  “It took what you did to make me see another way.”

  “I’m glad something good came of it. I tried to show some of the younger prisoners the futility of the anger they felt and that the Protestants weren’t behind all the evil in the world.”

  “I know you did. Your old cellmate, Sean Campbell’s doing great. He’s looking forward to seeing you at work.”

  “Sean’s a good kid. He was lucky that he had you to give him a job. All the ex-prisoners you employ are.”

  They sped past a sign for Londonderry. All the street signs read Londonderry, the official name, changed by the British, hated by the Catholics who lived there.

  “Derry’s changed, certainly from what you knew. The last time you saw Bogside it was Free Derry.” Pat stopped talking for a few seconds, staring out into the past. “That seems like a thousand years ago. It only lasted a few more weeks after you turned yourself in. The troops rolled in like it was an invasion, and I suppose it was. Everything changed. The soldiers and the RUC came back, but it didn’t improve anything. Things only got worse.”

  “How is it now?” Mick asked.

  “It’s OK. It’s not the beautiful utopia we all wish it were, but you coming back should improve the place a bit, for a few ladies at least.”

  “I’m very eager to improve the lives of any ladies I might run into, believe me.” As he spoke Melissa came to him. He seldom thought of her anymore. He had trained himself to put her out of his mind but this time the picture of her stayed with him. He wondered what she looked like now. She could only ever be a different version of beautiful, and would be for the rest of her life, no matter how age tried to wither her. He wanted to ask Pat about her, even though he knew he’d have no clue. He wanted to talk to someone else who’d known her, just to mention her name in conversation. It was so ridiculous. He hadn’t seen her in almost fourteen years, since she’d come to put an end to any thought of him in her life. He needed to forge his own way, to forget about the past, no matter how it tugged at him. There was a place for him in this new world, a place no one else could know about, not even Pat. Not yet.

  *****

  Flags and signs to welcome him home tinseled the outside of Pat’s house. “Welcome home, Mick,” Pat said. The sound of the car caused a tsunami of children to pour out of the house. It was hard to believe that they all could have fitted inside. Pat’s oldest son, Michael, was first to reach Uncle Mick as he got out of the car. Mick took him in his arms. He was heavy now, almost nine years old. His younger brother Peter was right behind him, with Pat’s daughter Siobhan toddling behind. The other kids were cousins, neighbors and children of old friends. None of them had been born the last time he’d seen this street. His mother was standing at the door and the tears began down her face as she walked toward him, her arms extended. He hugged her. She fit perfectly underneath his chin. She was older now, but her beauty remained undimmed. The thought of the pain he’d caused her was like broken glass inside him.

  “I’m so sorry, Ma. I’m so sorry for what I did to you.”

  “That’s all in the past now. We’ve got the whole rest of our lives to look forward to.”

  Her French accent warmed him. It sounded like home.

  Pat’s wife, Pamela, came through the crowd of kids and embraced him as she would have had they known each other properly. She was from Creggan, was three years younger and had been around when they were growing up and though Mick couldn’t remember her, he always pretended to. Mick picked up his niece, Siobhan. She was four. He’d met her only once. She squirmed in his arms, reaching out to her father. So many people mixed them up, but she wasn’t going to be fooled. Pat tried to let her settle in Mick’s arms, but she wouldn’t. Pat took her, and she threw her arms around his neck, burying her face on his shoulder. Mick turned away. He shouldn’t have felt the bitter sting of her rejection, but he did.

  “Welcome back, Mick,” Pamela said. “How does it feel?”

  “God, I don’t know yet. It feels good. It feels great. It’s all so different.”

  “A lot of things have changed since ’72,” Pat said.

  “I just hope I can catch up.”

  “You’ll be okay. We’ll make sure o’ that,” Pamela said, and hugged him again.

  Several of his aunts and uncles were outside now. Mick hugged each of them in turn. They greeted him as a returning hero. They didn’t seem to care what had happened, what he had supposedly done. His crime had been buried by countless other murders and bombings. So much had happened since then. Brutality had become banal. He was still officially IRA and scanned the crowd for fellow volunteers. He’d never done anything to revoke his membership. Despite his unspoken differences with them, the question of publicly snubbing the IRA had never been a realistic consideration. They had been his support system inside, his protection. He’d stayed away from the hardcore sectarians, and there had been plenty, but there were also many young men like him, caught in the fog of a dirty war. He had been a respected man inside. The older, hardcore IRA men admired him for the audacity of the murders he’d been convicted for, while the younger men looked up to him, craved the guidance he offered. He’d been valuable inside. He had negotiated for the hunger strikers in ’81, had helped save some of their lives. What would he be here, on the outside?

  Mick still had his arm around his mother as they went back into the house. He greeted Armand, her new husband, by shaking his hand at the door. He was tall and thin with gray hair and glasses. He’d never met him before, his own stepfather. It was hard to describe him as new – they’d been married for eight years, but he was new to him, and Mick suspected he always would be. But his mother was happy and that was enough. The inside of his Pat’s house was foreign to him. He peered around, taking in the colors of the wallpaper, the lamp on the hall table, the carpet beneath their feet, the curtains rustling in the breeze.

  Pamela had laid food out on the dining room table inside. He picked up a sandwich – the first non-prison food, other than packages, he’d eaten in almost sixteen years. Pat handed Mick a beer and their mother a glass of wine. She had her arm around Mick’s waist as if it was stuck there. Pat got himself a drink and came back to stand beside them.

  “Thanks so much for letting me stay with you. I know it’s a bit of a tight squeeze here at the best of times with the kids. I’ll get my own place as soon as I can. You don’t need me in your hair.”

  “You stay as long as you want, little brother. It’ll be a pleasure to have you around.”

  “You say that now. What about when I start walking around in my underwear and scratching myself?”

  “Just give us a bit of warning on that and we’ll at least try and get the women and children out of the house first. That kind of trauma could have a permanent effect on them.”

  They talked for a while before Armand came over. He was a businessman in Paris. He w
as smart and witty, just as Pat had said. He was scared of Grand-père too.

  The afternoon faded into night. Mick’s hand ached from shaking one hand after another. He’d spoken to as many people in the ten hours since he’d gotten out as he had in the entire time he’d been inside. His voice was almost hoarse. He wasn’t used to talking this much anymore and felt that everything he said should have been profound or memorable. The kids outside were dragged home and Pat put his to bed, all in one room now, thanks to their Uncle Mick. But they didn’t complain and even Siobhan made some kind of effort to hug him after her father forced her.

  “Don’t worry. She’ll be used to you in no time,” Pamela assured him before carrying her up the stairs. Armand took their mother back to the hotel they were staying in at about eleven o’clock. Pamela had already gone to bed half an hour before. Some of the uncles and cousins stayed another hour or so before leaving to stumble the walking distance home. Hardly anyone he’d grown up with had left Derry, other than those dead or in jail. With everything that had happened, they’d all stayed. Everything had changed yet was somehow completely the same.

  Hours passed. They were alone in the living room. Pat rolled the whiskey around the tumbler he held in his hand, staring into it. Mick felt the gentle hand of sleep come over him, was barely awake now.

  “Oh my God, this is incredible. I never want to get off this couch.”

  “We were thinking about getting a new one. That’s getting a bit old now.”

  “Give this to me if you do. I’ll pitch a little tent over it to keep the rain off. I’d be happy.”

  “You can do better. You’ll be surprised at how comfortable the world outside of prison can be.”

  “This is one of many pleasures I intend to partake in over the coming weeks and months.”

  Mick was expecting an answer to his quip, but the room went quiet. Pat’s head had dropped. He was staring out in front of him. There was no sound from upstairs. They were all asleep.

  “Mick, I…just wanted….” Pat fumbled the words as if they were wet fish in a bucket. Mick raised his head. “I just wanted to apologize for all this. I feel like…I feel like I stole those years from you.”

  Mick let his head fall back and closed his eyes. “It’s not your fault,” he said and spiraled into the contentment of a deep sleep.

  Chapter 18

  Mick started work two days after getting out of jail. Pat had wanted to give him the week off, but Mick insisted on starting on the Monday. Something had broken within him and he didn’t want to feel useless anymore. Sixteen years was long enough. The children would be gone during the day, even little Siobhan, still scared of her new uncle even after they’d spent Sunday together, would be in pre-school. Pamela worked part time in a local café. His mother and her husband had flown home the night before, with a promise from Mick to visit in the summer. The Doherty boys were up at seven and at the job site at half past, a new office block in the city center. Mick was installed as a laborer, at least until he enrolled in college at night and had a chance to use the degree he’d earned inside. He attacked the work. It felt good to be working toward something, not just counting hours. He didn’t see Pat much during the day and had lunch with the other laborers. Several of the other laborers and plumbers were ex-IRA men. Pat made a point of hiring former volunteers trying to turn their lives around. Mick had met several of them inside.

  Sean Campbell, a twenty-three-year-old from Bogside, who had spent three years sharing a cell with Mick, was sitting beside him at lunch. He lit up a cigarette before offering one to Mick, who refused with a smile.

  “This beats the last place we were hanging out in,” Sean said.

  “Yes, it does, even in this weather.”

  The rain was spraying the windows in front of them, the wind rustling the tarpaulin over the gaps in the wall. The sandwich that Pamela had made for him tasted good. He reached for his flask of tea.

  “Your brother was very good to me. He’s been good to all of us.”

  “He’s a great guy,” Mick said, taking a sup of tea. It was too hot, and he blew on it, fluttering steam. “I’d never have gotten out without him and the lawyers that he hired. I’m sure that’s where half the profits of this company went over the last few years.”

  “Aye, I reckon so.” Sean had only been out less than a year, working for Pat around six months. There was no one else around, but he still lowered his voice. “Now that you’re out, have you decided what you’re going to do with yourself?”

  “It’s early yet.”

  “I mean have you given any more thought to what we talked about inside?”

  Mick eyed him. “You haven’t told anyone about that, have you?”

  “Of course not. I would never.” Sean looked insulted at the notion.

  “If you told Pat….” A tiny spike of anger rose within him, but it disappeared. “I said those things without knowing that I’d ever get out again. At that stage, there was no prospect of me seeing the light of day for another ten years at least. I had no idea I’d be sitting here with you now.”

  “That doesn’t change the things you said.”

  “No, it doesn’t. What about you?” Your brother’s still active isn’t he?”

  “Aye, he’s in the thick of it. Still talking about the next big operation to blow this all open.” Mick nodded; he’d heard it all before. “I have a girl now, Martina,” Sean continued. “She’s from the south. We’re thinking about moving down there, getting away from all this.”

  “The weather’s no better down there.” Mick smiled.

  “Aye, but there’s no war there.”

  “I’m delighted for you,” Mick raised his flask and tapped it against Sean’s. “Here’s to you and your girl and here’s hoping I find one myself soon.”

  “You will, old man, you will.”

  “Right, let’s get back to work,” Mick said, raising himself to his feet.

  Sean screwed the top back onto his flask and followed his friend across the floor to the wall they’d been working on.

  *****

  Days turned into weeks and weeks into months. It was June by the time Mick finally moved out. Every time he had mentioned even the prospect of moving in the preceding weeks, Pat and the boys had shouted him down, but he knew he had to leave eventually. The day came, and Siobhan cried, holding onto him like a life raft as he tried to say goodbye. Pat and the boys came with him to help him move into the new apartment in the city center; just a few minutes walk away. In truth, he barely needed them, as he had so little stuff to move, but the fact that they wanted to be there for him reinforced his sense of belonging, that he was somebody outside. They stayed for an hour or so after they’d moved in the mattress and the sofa that he’d bought himself until the boys grew restless, and Pat took them home. Mick hugged each of them, promising to be over for dinner the next day and then they were gone, only silence left behind.

  The news report on his small television told of a bomb in Lisburn that had killed six off-duty British soldiers. They had been on a charity run when an IRA unit planted a bomb under the van they were traveling in. The other news story was of the murder of a member of the Ulster Volunteer Force in Belfast. It was thought that he’d been killed in retaliation for the murder of three Catholic civilians by the UVF in a bar in Belfast a few weeks before. Mick let his face come down into his hands, his warm breath rebounding onto his cheeks. The emptiness of knowing that nothing had changed spread through him. The killings he’d gone to jail for, so reviled at the time, had faded into an ocean of blood and misery. He’d wanted to make an example of himself, but no one had paid attention. They’d just carried on hating and killing. He thought of the soldiers murdered in that van, and the killings of the Catholic men as they drank a pint in their local pub a few weeks before. What had they achieved? What had any of the killings achieved? He was thirty-seven in a few weeks. The flower of his youth was gone, tossed away for nothing. Many of the republicans he’d known insid
e thought as he did. They saw the futility of the violence the province was soaked in, but they were a minority. But the majority came out even more committed to the cause than ever. And there were always more young boys and girls, disillusioned with their own lives and their treatment by the Protestants or the Catholics or whoever the other side happened to be. There was a steady stream of young people willing to destroy themselves for a cause that could never succeed.

  The view from the window showed the street, a hundred feet below. He had to get out, had to do something to relieve the immense pressure building inside him. It was easy to make plans inside, but carrying through with them on the outside, in the real world, was a different matter. Did he have the courage to do this, to truly make a difference? Rain scattered down from above onto the street below, licking the window. It didn’t matter. He had to get out. He picked up his jacket and hurried to the front door, slamming it behind him. The marble staircase was old, the steps worn from years of use, and he was on the top floor. The lift was out of order but going down was easy.

  He’d been out a few times with girls he’d met. Several people had tried to set him up, but he’d always refused. He didn’t want to disappoint anyone, didn’t want to be held responsible for what might happen if he wasn’t ready to settle down or if he wasn’t ready yet for what Pat had.

  It took a minute to reach the bottom of the staircase. The rain was still coming down outside but now as a thick mist. He stepped into it, felt the moisture wash against his face. After sixteen years with hardly any exposure to the elements, the rain felt almost as good as the sunshine. Wind felt nearly as beautiful as a rainbow. He looked forward to the coming of a cold winter and the layers of stunning white that it might bring. Without anywhere to go, he raised his collar as he walked into the wet. He just walked, up along Foyle Street and toward the Guildhall. It was ridiculous, but this area still evoked the memories of when he’d met Melissa. He could see her face as she looked that day as clearly as if she were in front of him now. He’d never seen anything quite so gorgeous as her. It was hard to believe that beauty like that existed, particularly in a town like this one. He remembered feeling comforted just at the sight of her as if merely seeing her was enough to change him. And then she dropped her wallet. It was like Christmas morning.