Mermaid in a Bowl of Tears (Exit Unicorns Series) (37 page)

He smiled, his one dimple creasing in his dark whiskers. “I’ll try, but perhaps ye could remind me of it a few times a day, just so as I won’t forget when himself on the hill is around.”

She kissed his forehead and nose. “Now that I can do.”

THERE WAS A DEFINITE DEMARCATION LINE in Belfast Housing. After the riots in August of ’69, those lines became glaringly evident. Near to six thousand families had begun an exodus out of their neighborhoods, out of fear or through intimidation. Adequate housing to accommodate these people simply did not exist and so gave rise to people camping out with relatives and friends or squatting illegally as they sought housing where they would feel safe. The end result being that the two communities became more polarized than ever.

Pat firmly believed that as long as Protestants and Catholics lived behind their own lines, the strife and violence was only going to grow worse. Though he knew it would be naïve to think full integration of the two cultures was possible in the short term, he thought that small inroads were crucial. In theory it should have been fairly simple, in practice it was anything but. He’d understood that going in, and knew that his victories would be small ones, and often only temporary, but if one out of every ten relocations worked, then it was gain enough for him to keep persevering.

It was a tough go, though. As the violence in the city had escalated the divide had grown into a chasm that was very dangerous to straddle. More than one threat had been delivered to his doorstep and he knew he was on the security forces watch list. If the rumors of impending internment amounted to anything, he knew he could fully expect to be lifted.

He had spearheaded the allocation of a small chunk of land to the west of the city, where he thought a community of detached houses could be built. This community could serve, he felt, as a model for integration of the two cross cultures. It was still in the drafting stages, but already the problems were mounting. Paramilitary organizations, whatever their affiliation, were wont to intimidate building contractors if they couldn’t graft off them. Then there was the sectarian divide within some of the trades. A Protestant electrician wasn’t likely to do the job if his union had advised him not to.

As to himself, the Loyalists saw him as a Republican agitator and the Republicans as a traitor to his own, one who was trying to force them to live with the enemy. There really was no winning that war, so he kept his head down and pushed ahead one step at a time. He felt akin to Prometheus laboring up the endless mountain with the rock blocking his view to the top. He wasn’t entirely alone though, any push that money and time could provide, Jamie had willingly given him. The man was funding all the advertising and promotional costs out of his own pocket.

It had been with some reservation that Pat had suggested using Pamela as a photographer. But Jamie had merely said, ‘Why not? I’m sure she could use the work.’ And that had been that. If Pat had expected to read some sort of tale in the man’s features he’d been sadly disappointed. Not that he suspected Jamie of still harboring a latent passion for Pamela.

Over the two years that his brother and Pamela had been gone, Pat had developed a friendship with Jamie that included, but was in no way exclusive to, their business together. It was a rare week that Sylvie and himself didn’t have dinner at least twice at the Kirkpatrick table. He had come to care a great deal for the man. It would have taken an extremely strong will
not
to succumb to the charm, but when one got past it to see that there was a very fine, intelligent, compassionate human being beyond the façade, then it was next to impossible. He wasn’t entirely certain what his brother would make of this friendship. If anyone was likely to be immune to Jamie’s charms, it was Casey. Though even he admitted to a grudging respect for the man- granted that had been when there was an ocean between the two men. Belfast was a small town as such things went, and Pat only hoped it was big enough to contain the both of them. He was a little surprised that Pamela had agreed to take on this assignment, being that her paycheque would be coming out of the Kirkpatrick coffers.

What he wanted from Pamela was a pictorial essay on the housing situation that could be used both for publicity purposes and so that he could present more than cold facts and figures when dealing with the city council. He needed to put a human face on the crisis, because getting the real flesh and blood humans to come and speak to their need was proving very difficult. Many were outright afraid of dealing with anyone that they perceived as being in power.

For better or worse, he was the link between those with all the power, and those with none. He only hoped he would prove equal to the task.

PAMELA WAS READY AND WAITING outside the doors of the youth center for him. The building was a squat utilitarian piece of real estate, which hadn’t been chosen for its aesthetic appeal, but rather its location and bargain price. It was near the always volatile Falls Road area but was effectively in neutral enough territory that the disenfranchised young of both tribes should feel safe enough to come through its doors.

She slid into the passenger’s seat with a smile, and the smell of strawberries and green things flooded his senses. He smiled back with a sudden sense of complicity; they had shared many adventures in the past and it was natural to feel that sense of expectation whenever he spent time with her. He pulled away from the curb, navigating the narrow streets without thought.

Pamela glanced at his profile as he drove. In the two years that Casey and she had been in Boston, Patrick had come into his own. He was a man now, with only traces of the boy who had been her first friend here in Belfast. A fine-looking man, who resembled his father Brian, more and more with the passing of time.

“So where are we going?” she asked, adjusting the camera bag between her feet.

“A young couple, both raised as Travellers, but she’s due to have a baby any day and I think I may have found a place for them. It’s not grand, but it’s a sight better than a trailer without water or heat.”

South of Belfast the country unfurled in neatly farmed squares, ribboned with narrow, twisting rivers. Out here one saw the country of legend—misty, verdant, with swift sweeping rains that were often followed by a soft pour of sunlight that bejeweled the grass and trees, fence posts, and the empty milk cans left at the gate. The decay of the cities had not bled to the countryside, though by Western standards, most farmers were living on the fine edge of poverty.

Not the sort of poverty that the Travellers were accustomed to, however. Pamela wasn’t sure what they’d be facing, but having lived at Jamie’s for some time, was used to the comings and goings of the Travellers that he hosted every spring on his land.

The nomadic lifestyle was an ingrained part of Traveller culture, but it often left these people on the fringes of society without adequate access to medical care, education or housing, whether it was land to park their wee trailers on, or a chance for a more permanent situation. Pat was taking a risk in setting these people up in permanent housing, as many often found it too confining and were back on the roads within the month.

Pat sketched out the details for her as they drove, the countryside streaming past the car windows in brilliant green and lesser shades of brown, with the occasional flashes of scarlet where the first fuchsia of the season had begun to bloom amongst the hedges.

“There’s a farmer who’s let them park for the last few weeks on the edge of his land, but he’s impatient to have them gone now and Victor—that’s the husband—wants to be settled before the baby arrives. Impending fatherhood is makin’ him nervous. I was a wee bit surprised that he wanted permanent housin’ to be honest, but it’s all I can manage for them. Ideally there should be sites set up across the country with electrical hookups, an’ access to water, but I don’t see that happenin’ for a good while yet. These two came to me out of pure desperation.”

Pat was quiet then, navigating the narrow twisty roads of South Armagh. It was a county of unparalleled beauty—of green rolling hills and isolated stone farmhouses with pastures thickly banded by high hedges. Every now and again a tiny, quaint village would emerge from the green, a small clump of houses gathered like chicks about the breasts of Church and pub. And yet something about the area had always chilled her soul. It was a bit too isolated somehow, as though you could disappear into one of those high hedges and never be found again.

It was to the edge of one such farm that Pat drove them, the road narrow and pocked, ending in a copse of thick oak that ringed a small clearing. Within it sat a small caravan that had seen better years and two mongrel dogs that were scrounging in the dirt for stray food.

A thin-faced man sat outside the caravan on a stump, arms crossed against his chest, head down. He didn’t seem to register the sound of the car pulling up, nor the two of them opening and shutting the car doors.

Pamela glanced about the small clearing. Things looked normal enough. A line of clothes moved idly in the cold breeze, a cast-iron pot swayed gently over the dead ashes in the firepit, and a baby cot lay tipped over by the steps. Yet the stillness was unnatural, as if the energy had been pulled out of the air, leaving a leaden atmosphere in its wake.

“Victor,” Pat said quietly.

The man raised his head slowly. A blank gaze greeted them, as if he couldn’t quite take in the sight of them.

“Where’s Emily?”

“Inside,” the man said dully, his gaze having returned to the ground.

“Alright then,” Pat took a deep breath. “In I go.”

He opened the door and stepped up into the dark interior. She heard him let out a breath, “Oh Christ.”

Her heart dipped to the vicinity of her toes; she knew that tone and that it didn’t bode well for what was to be found inside the dank trailer.

“Pamela, could ye come inside?”

She stepped up, following him into the narrow interior. The smell of soured food assaulted her nose at once. She stifled a gag and blinked rapidly, trying to adjust her eyes to the dim light. The terrible stillness was even more palpable than it had been outside.

Ratty shades were pulled down over the tiny windows, and flies buzzed irritably in the folds. There was a rank under-note to the miasma that she recognized immediately. It was the particular scent of recent death.

When her eyes made the shift from light to dark, she saw Pat leaning over the form of a woman in a tangle of dirty sheets. Lank brown hair hid a narrow face. She appeared to be clutching a dirty bundle of laundry in her thin arms. Pamela didn’t need to look any closer to know the woman was dead, and that whatever she clutched so tightly in her lifeless arms wasn’t laundry, but was equally lifeless.

Pat felt the woman’s wrist and then turned back the rumpled blanket in her arms.

The baby was a delicate mottled blue, as still and perfect as though it had been carved from lichen-filmed marble. Breath held, she leaned forward and touched a finger to the still form. The soft flesh was cold to the touch. The baby had been dead for some time, the kind of chill it emanated took hours to set in.

Pat reflexively crossed himself. “It’s a wee laddie,” he said, voice low with shock.

Pamela drew the dirty blanket back around the tiny infant, leaving it to the shelter of its mother’s arms, then retreated outside. The fitful sunlight that had characterized the day seemed suddenly overly bright and harsh. Pat followed her a moment later. The man sat in the same position, though now he was rocking back and forth, a low keening coming from his mouth.

“Victor,” Pat said gently, “we’re goin’ to have to find ye some help here. Ye can’t leave Emily an’ the babe there any longer. Do ye understand what I’m sayin’?”

The man nodded, a barely perceptible movement of his head, but an affirmation nevertheless.

“Is there anyone in particular ye’d like us to call?”

Victor nodded again, somewhat more vigorously this time. “Emily’s parents—they’re settled people. Didn’t want her to marry me, an’ I guess they were right.”

“Can ye give us the number then?”