by Eoin Dempsey
“What if he came with us? He wants to be a part of our lives. I want him to be a part of our lives.”
“So, you are in love with him.”
“As much as one person can be with another, but you knew that. You’re still the number one man in my life though, and you always will be.”
“I’m finding that hard to believe right now.” He finally looked at her, his eyes raging torrents. She put her arm around him again.
“I’ve loved you more than anything in this world since the first time I laid eyes on you. You’re the most beautiful, wonderful thing in my life, and if you don’t want Mick in our lives, he won’t be, but you shouldn’t make that judgment yet. He deserves a chance.”
Jason leaned forward, hunching his back, his elbows on his thighs. Feelings crashed inside him like waves on the rocks, over and over. He turned around to look at his mother’s loving, earnest face. The touch of her hand on his back was warm and welcome. He closed his eyes, searching for the right way to feel.
“Who is this guy? Why haven’t I ever met him before? If he’s so interested in being my dad, where’s he been for the last sixteen years of my life?”
Melissa leaned back, her spine cracking ever so slightly. The question bounced around inside her head. She’d done her best to keep Jason away from the rhetoric her father still espoused from time to time at awkward dinners and trips to the countryside. But there was no doubting that Jason was a Protestant from a unionist background. Most of his friends were as non-political as he was. But there were some who spoke of the ‘Fenians’ and the ‘Taigs’ in the Catholic community, who leaned toward prejudices that she had tried to hide him from. Shielding a child was impossible. Guidance was all that she could provide. But Jason had to accept that Mick was his father, his judgment had to be colored by that one inalienable fact. It was better that he found out from her. Now.
“He was in prison.”
Jason turned his head to her in a flash, his eyes wide. “What?”
“We met in 1971. Things were different then. That was the worst time to meet a Catholic boy, even more so than now, and we had to see each other in secret. I met his family for the first time in January 1972, on the civil rights march that led to Bloody Sunday.”
“You were there? On Bloody Sunday, when they shot down the terrorists?”
Melissa raised both hands to her face, rubbing her eyes. Jason’s words were like needles. “They didn’t shoot terrorists, only innocent people. I was there. I saw it with my own eyes. The soldiers just mowed them down, for no other reason that I could see than asserting their control or as some kind of perverted sense of punishment for daring to challenge the government. Mick and Patrick’s father, Peter, was one of the people killed that day.”
“Why did Mick go to jail then?”
“He and Pat waited for the official report on the march to come out but when they saw it and the whitewash that it was they joined the IRA. They did it to serve their community. They saw it as no different from joining the army to defend your country in a time of war.”
“And you were still with him then?”
“I was, but we broke up when I found out. It was too much for me to take.”
“What did he go to jail for, did he kill someone?”
Melissa blew out a breath, deep and hot from the pit of her lungs. Did he need to know all the details? But what if he found out himself somehow? If he got a hold of old newspapers or spoke to someone? She’d take the chance.
“Something horrible happened and Mick stepped forward to take responsibility for it, to ensure that his brother and everyone he loved stayed safe. He sacrificed his freedom and turned himself in for a crime he didn’t commit.”
“Why didn’t he tell the RUC he didn’t do it?”
“It was his brother and his friends, and there were threats toward people he loved. Everything happened so quickly. He didn’t feel he had any other choice. Pat swore to leave the IRA after that and has been working to promote peace ever since with his prisoner rehabilitation program and his work with the SDLP. Mick, your father, went to jail for sixteen years. I didn’t even know he’d gotten out until last September when you were fifteen. I didn’t think he ever would. I thought he was lost to you forever. I didn’t see the point in either of you knowing about each other. I thought it’d only be fuel to the flames of the pain within you both.”
“What did he do?”
“He didn’t do anything. He didn’t commit the….”
“What was he sent to jail for?”
“The murder of three British soldiers.”
She stopped dead, the silence deep and full. She was staring at the side of his face as he leaned forward and away from her, looking for some emotion. But there seemed none there.
“This is who you want to be with? An IRA murderer?”
The words stung, but she understood and pressed on. “He never killed anyone. He made some mistakes, but he left the IRA as soon as he realized who they were. It was a different time then. Catholics thought the only recourse they had was joining the IRA. He and Pat saw their father die in front of them, shot down by British soldiers. Try to understand. He’s finished with that life now. We all are. This is the time for us to be happy. He’s going to come to Dublin with us, to get a job as an engineer. He wants us to be a family. So do I. I love you more than anything in the world, but I want you to be happy for me.”
He turned to her and saw the tears running down her face. He put his arms around her, felt the warmth of her against him, trying to imagine his own father in the IRA. It was just as well they were leaving. If some of the boys he knew found out about this, they’d kill him themselves. But maybe it was time for his mother to be truly happy, not the carbon copied, diluted happiness she’d pretended to have with John. He’d never seen her like she was around Mick, not in his whole life. He hugged her closer, her breath caressing him to calm.
Chapter 26
Weeks passed with still no word from Tony. Mick and Sean sat mostly in silence at lunch now; too afraid to talk about what they knew was coming, unable to go to anyone but each other for a grain of comfort. Fifteen thousand marchers were readying themselves for the Apprentice Boys parade. Mick thought back to the same parade when he was a boy, the bottles and stones thrown at the marchers, back and forth, back and forth. No point to any of it. It still went on and it always would. Young men marched with their fathers and grandfathers. The indoctrination of young Protestant males was seen as a priority. The Catholics had their parades too, but the Protestants, the loyalists, were the ones who invested most in these shows of power and pride in the face of what they saw as republican aggression. This was their way of showing solidarity with one another and proclaiming their loyalty to a government in London who’d likely be rid of them, and everything else associated with Northern Ireland, if it could. But that was politically impossible, so the loyalists marched, inflaming old hatreds, reinforcing prejudices, all in the name of protecting their way of life and their precarious hold on power in this in-between place.
The call came on Thursday the 10th of August. Mick felt all the strength draining from him as Tony’s words came through the receiver as if his true fate was finally being revealed. Somehow he knew that he wasn’t going to survive this, that his plans to move to Dublin with Melissa and Jason would never come to be. The Troubles would take him, as they’d taken his father and those British soldiers by the side of the road who still haunted his dreams. Tony didn’t say much on the phone. He would meet him on the corner of Fahan and Rossville streets, same as last time. Mick kept the phone to his ear after Tony had hung up, frozen in the reality of the moment and of what he’d committed himself to do. Why couldn’t he have left this behind? What redemption was there in an agonizing death at the hands of a psychopath like Tony Campbell? He went to the window of his apartment, put his hand against the cold glass of the window and peered down onto the street below. He tried to imagine his father, tried to see him in his own e
yes in the reflection in the glass. He took a deep cold breath down into the pit of his stomach, breathing condensation onto the glass in front of his face. He had only minutes to get to the rendezvous with Tony.
His whole body was shaking as he left the apartment. The bottom of the stairwell came, and he pushed his way out into a warm sticky night. The thoughts in his head were devoid of love or hope. Melissa seemed like a dream from another life. He came to the phone booth just down the street from his apartment. He thought to call Sean, to see what he knew but didn’t risk it. Who knew if he was being watched? The five-minute walk seemed like hours, and he felt physically ill as he arrived. The car moved to meet him as before, the window rolling down to reveal Tony’s face. Mick got in, and they drove in silence for thirty seconds before they pulled over.
“This is it.” Tony’s words were tinged with excitement. “We’re nearly there. Everything’s in place, are you ready?”
“Ready for what?”
“Never you mind for now.”
“How am I meant to know if I’m ready for something when I’ve no idea what it is and when it’s taking place?”
“We’re going tomorrow night. I’ll need you ready at nine o’clock. I’ll meet you here again.”
An icicle of fear slid down Mick’s spine. “What’s the operation? What are we going to do?”
“I’ll brief you fully when you need to know,” Tony smirked. “Don’t take it personally, it’s not that I don’t trust you, it’s that I don’t trust anyone. This is too important, and I’ve put too much into this to have it destroyed by some tout.”
Mick had to work hard to hide the river of frustration flowing through him.
He’d hoped for some information here so that he wouldn’t have to go on the operation, but what choice was there now? Only to take this upon himself or to deny it, to pawn it off on someone else or to hope that the dead could forgive him.
“All right, I’ll see you back here tomorrow night.”
“Wait and see, we’re going to be held up as heroes for this.”
Mick nodded, although he doubted there’d be any streets named after Tony Campbell. “I’ll see you here tomorrow night then.” He thought to ask about Sean but decided against it, climbing out of the car into the warm night air instead. Tony drove away, and he was alone once more.
His immediate instinct was to go to her, to tell her, to seek counsel or comfort, but, before he realized, he was walking back toward his apartment again. His feet were oblivious to the turmoil in his mind. He passed the monument to those killed on Bloody Sunday, right on the spot where he, Pat and Melissa had cowered together, twenty feet from where his father had been murdered. He looked at each name in turn, pausing on Jimmy and Noel’s names before coming to his dad at the bottom, the last person who’d died that day. Nothing had changed. This was his chance to do something. It didn’t matter if no one ever recognized him for it. His father would.
A fitful night of sleep ended with the dawn, and his limbs were heavy as he hauled himself out of bed. She was the first thing he thought of, but it wasn’t long before the creeping fear followed in her wake, pushing her out. He made his way to the bathroom mirror, examining his face. The wrinkles around his sunken, gray eyes were like tiny lines drawn in the sand of his skin. He tried not to think too much; thoughts would only lead to worry and worry was a waste of emotion. He brushed his teeth. A single line of red blood stained the bristles on his toothbrush. He washed it off and placed it back.
The worksite was a fifteen-minute walk away, but he made it there in less than ten, immediately searching for Sean as he arrived. Robbie Morris, a former IRA man who’d done time on kidnapping charges, was on the first floor putting a window frame in place.
“Morning, Robbie, have you seen Sean?”
“He called in sick,” Robbie said without looking up. “Your brother was asking for you a few minutes ago though. I think he’s up on the second floor.”
“All right, thanks,” he murmured as he turned away, an enormous pressure building within him. He had to speak to Sean. The stairwell was empty as he made his way up, and Pat was there, working on a wall in the corner. He put the hammer down as he saw Mick.
“Jesus. You don’t look good, brother. Rough one last night?”
“Nah, I didn’t sleep much is all.”
Pat turned back to work on the wall again. “Well, we need all hands on deck today, Sean called out sick.” Mick nodded, trying to keep it together. “I’ve got to get out of here in a bit, and I’ll be gone all day, but how about a drink after work? I’ve been missing you all week.”
“All right, I’ll talk to you later.”
Mick walked away from his brother, each foot like lead. He made his way back downstairs to begin the day’s work. Sean had called out sick. Had he run? Was he on the mission already? He’d said nothing when Mick had seen him just the day before, had given no indication that anything was amiss. The prospect of facing down Tony without Sean was something he’d never contemplated. Had Sean done the sensible thing? Maybe he’d found out what the mission was, and had called the authorities already. A phone box sat two hundred yards down the street.
“I’m popping out for a minute,” Mick said to nobody in particular though several of the men wandering in heard him.
As soon as he was out of sight, he began to run, pushing past morning commuters on their way to work and soldiers idling on the street, their automatic weapons lazy in their arms. The phone booth was covered in graffiti, the glass scratched with teenagers’ initials and hearts with arrows through them expressing loves likely long forgotten. He reached into his pocket for a coin, dropping it in his haste to shove it into the slot. He got another and dialed the number. Sean lived with his girlfriend in Creggan. She worked as a nurse, mightn’t be home. The number rang and rang. He hung up and dialed again, and then again. The cold realization that he was alone saturated him, and he hung up the phone with a shaking hand. How could he do this without Sean? Ragged breaths pushed in and out of his lungs, and the panic inside was almost unbearable. People stared as they shuffled past, but no one stopped. It took him several minutes to calm down enough that he could return to work, and once he did, holed up the corner speaking to no one.
Time drew out more slowly than he thought possible, each minute like the cold drip of water torture on his forehead. He tried Sean’s phone twice more but the result and his conclusion, was the same; Sean had run. Perhaps it was the thought of betraying his brother. Perhaps it was the same fear that was infesting Mick like a swarm of locusts. Either way the result was the same. He was gone, and Mick was alone.
Mick was upstairs, the light of the evening sun casting his shadow long across the unfinished floor when Pat found him.
“You ready to knock off? Up for a pint? We won’t have too many more chances before you leave to go down south.”
Mick nodded, knowing that this might be the last time he’d ever see him. “Just give me a few seconds to clean off my hands.” They were out on the street making their way toward the pub when Pat began to speak.
“Are you all right? You’ve been off all week. I’ve meant to speak to you, but you’ve been hard to get a hold of. Everything good with Melissa?”
“Yeah, everything’s great.”
“What about Jason? Baby steps, right?”
“Yeah, he’s starting to come round. We’re almost back to how it was before he knew I was his father. We have a ways to go yet.”
“You’ll make it. I’m sure of that. He’s a great kid, he just needs time.”
“We all do.”
They made their way into the pub, packed with after-work drinkers, and some who’d been in since lunchtime. The mahogany-brown wood panels of the walls shone brightly behind them, and the smell of smoke and stale beer hung thick in the air. They found a place at the end of the bar beside some young student types. Somehow Mick managed to conceal his feelings for an hour as they talked about football and the kids and work,
but every minute was a minute closer. Glossing over it in his mind was not escape.
Mick excused himself to go to the pay phone in the corner. Sean’s phone rang off again. He tried Melissa, wanted to see her.
“Hi,” he said.
“How are you, stranger? I was wondering when you’d call.” Her voice was like ice water on a deep burn. “Are you coming over?”
“I just wanted to stop by for a little. I’m pretty tired. I’m going to get an early night. I’m just having a pint with Pat and I’ll be over around seven or so. How’s Jason?”
“He’s getting there, little by little.”
Mick said goodbye and hung up the phone. Pat greeted him with a smile and a fresh pint as he came back. Mick so wanted to tell him. Pat’s innocent eyes were too much to take. “I just wanted to thank you, Pat, for everything you’ve done for me, taking me in and giving me this job and for all the support you’ve given me. I’d be nothing without you.”
Pat paused for a second. “Of course, what else would I do? You’re my brother, the other half of who I am. I had to do something to make up for what I did to you.” He tried to hide the crack in his voice, but Mick turned around to face him as he heard it.
“What are you talking about, Pat?”
“For everything that’s happened to you. It’s all my fault.”
“I made my own choices.”
“You went along with me, to support me. You never should have been the one to go to prison. I was too much of a coward to take responsibility for what I’d done. You atoned for my sins, gave your life for mine.” The tears came so quickly that Pat barely had time to turn his head, ashamed of himself in front of his brother and the strangers bustling around him. He felt Mick’s hand on his shoulder. “I’m sorry, I just lost the run of myself there for a second.”
“No, it’s fine. We’ve been through a lot, and with Jason now.”
“It’s just that….” It was hard to find the words. He’d hidden them so deep that they were hard to retrieve. “I know that everything that’s happened to you is because of me. If it weren’t for me, you’d be living with Melissa and Jason and probably your other kids now. If I hadn’t….”