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My guards were unarmed. The ceasefire protected me. Years ago, before everything changed, I had escorted a grass to be interrogated. There were five of us, dressed in yellow security outfits with grey reflective bands and piled into a van disguised as a road-service vehicle, with orange emergency lights and road-works signs piled on the roof rack. All the authorities saw were road cleaners, so they didn’t pay us any attention. We passed two armoured cars, Land Rovers belonging to the RUC, and were waved through a road block. The traitor was stretched out on the floor under a construction tarpaulin, blindfolded, his hands tied behind his back and our feet resting on his body. For miles I sat there leaning over him, the barrel of my gun pressed into the green fabric. A car led the way ahead of us. We were linked up by radio. A south-Armagh unit was waiting for us at the border. It was dark. The guy was led away by three men. His name was Freddy, he was nineteen. I read about it in the newspaper when the gardaí found his body.

When we arrived in Dublin, Eugene asked me if I wanted some water.

—That man isn’t thirsty, the driver answered.

—But Tyrone told me he was ...

—Tyrone is dead, the other interrupted.

The Bear Cub put the cap back on the bottle. I still had my hand outstretched. Ireland was refusing me its water. I was smuggling its air. This country had nothing left to give me.

After dragging me through a press conference, the Republican party handed me back to the IRA. During the interrogation, I wasn’t tied up, I wasn’t blindfolded. I could look them in the eye. They were always unarmed, their faces uncovered. I knew they weren’t going to execute me, but I repeated it to myself over and over. Across from me was Mike O’Doyle, who was now acting as judge. An older guy with a Dublin accent was standing next to Mike behind the table. Mike called me Tyrone, the other just called me Meehan. It was at that point that I understood. First I had lost my country, and now I had also lost my Christian name, my fraternal identity. I was alone.

—What information did you hand over to the enemy, Meehan? the stranger asked.

A camera was watching me, and I decided not to respond. Not another word.

That’s the way the older Irish guard had just addressed me – frostily, like an IRA man. My first name still hovered timidly on the younger man’s lips, but the older man was already throwing my surname at me like an insult. I was no longer of this land, or this village, either. Padraig Meehan had given Killybegs a traitor. After the monstrous father came the disgraceful son. Our line was cursed. This guard would turn a blind eye when death came looking for me. He’d show death the way through the forest, open my door for it, point me out with a jerk of his chin. I disgusted him. He knew that I knew it. My silence clearly told him as much. The younger guy asked me three more feeble questions and the older man’s eyes never left me. He listened to my eyes, not my responses.

—What’s your name?

I asked him, just like that. My fear forgotten in the face of his contempt.

—Seánie, the guard answered softly.

—That’s my brother’s name.

He smiled. A real one, a lovely smile.

Then he handed me a folded piece of paper.

—Here’s the telephone number where you can reach us any time.

And all my impressions were turned on their head. His face was no longer the same, his brow looked troubled. He was worrying about me, quite simply. A gallant keeper of the peace, a country guard, harmless, genuine, wanting to get home to his loved ones. I had got it wrong. After so much lying I no longer knew how to read men.

—Be careful, Tyrone, Seánie said.

Everything lurched around me. My chin trembled slightly, barely noticeable. Just a leaf shaking on the end of a branch.

I went back in and locked the door behind me, pushed the latch across, habitual gestures. The fire was dying. I poured myself a large glass of vodka. The light was fading behind my curtains. I looked at my hands, I don’t know why. They were ruined after too much life. Battered, gnarled, rough and stiff. I feared time.

—With fingers like that, you’d be better off holding a gun than a violin!

I smiled. I thought of Antoine, the Parisian violin-maker I had met in Belfast thirty years before, that silent Frenchman who had one day declared himself an Irish Republican. He thought like us, lived like us, dressed like us and fought to make a place for himself between our dignity and our courage.

On Saturday, Sheila told me that he had called her. He asked her if he could meet me. What did the wee Frenchie want? To judge me? To understand me? Or to claim his portion of the treason?

6

Killybegs, Tuesday, 26 December 2006

The owner of Mullin’s had never been well disposed towards me. Since the gardaí’s visit, though, he has become hostile. Yesterday, after I left, he moved the round table where my father always sat and placed a coat stand in its place. The pub was packed when I went in this evening. The heads turned towards me, silently, the barman pulled an ugly, disgusted face. His crossed arms told me that this spot no longer belonged to me. My survival was at stake. This dark and sour chapel was Padraig Meehan’s final Station of the Cross. His last sanctum while still living. It was from here that he’d left to die in winter. If the sea had taken him, this dark corner would have been his grave. And I couldn’t let these people desecrate it.

I walked through the pub paying no heed to all the looks. I took off my rain jacket and hung it on the coat stand, then I moved the coat stand. I dragged it over to its usual spot on the other side of the room, scraping its curved feet over the greasy floor. After that I lifted my father’s table with my Meehan arms. The same as his, fists at the end. I took a chair from a pile by the door. I didn’t carry it, I dragged that along too, slowly. I propped its back against the wall, as it had been since my childhood. Then I took out my mobile phone and plugged it into the wall to charge. I took electricity wherever I found it. And then I went to the bar. Two Guinness straight off. Not a word. I just tapped twice on the Guinness tap with my index finger. The barman shot a questioning look at the owner who shrugged his shoulders before disappearing down to the basement to change a keg. So the barman carefully pulled my pints in two stages, the glasses tilted in his farmer’s hand. His eyes never left me. Over the thick liquid, the white frothy cream, our eyes locked. My forehead was raised but I wasn’t challenging him. I was Padraig and Tyrone, with the dignity of one and the weakness of the other. I was calmed. I went back to my father’s table and drank the first pint in one go, a hearty swig of earth.

Father Gibney was watching my reflection. Sitting on his barstool, back to the room, his eyes had followed me in the flecked mirror that hung over the bar. Séamus Gibney, a huge priest who did the rounds of the pubs every day after the Angelus to remind the men that there was Mass on Sunday. He had only to raise his voice to break up a scuffle, had only to tell each man off to get them to shake hands.

But that evening the priest didn’t have to raise his voice. After I arrived, nobody had touched the coat stand or the table, and none of those men had come to challenge me. The pub had gradually returned to its usual state.

Séamus Gibney was sitting in front of a forgotten glass of whiskey when the door opened. He instantly swivelled on his stool to face the door.

—Well would you look who it is! Joe McCann! Good old Joe!

The other slapped his cap against his thigh, cursing the heavens to have arrived in the pub at this particular time.

The priest’s loud voice was directed at the crowd.

—I’ve a good one for you, Joe, listen to this ...

McCann knew what to expect. When a Mass deserter ventured into the pub, the priest would welcome him with his glass raised, call him by his first name, tell him the joke of the day and then the reproaches would begin.

—So here it is: Joe McCann’s walking out of the church and bumps into Father Gibney. ‘Did you like my sermon?’ the priest asks him. ‘Oh yes, Father. Thanks to you, I learn about new sins every Sunday!’

The priest burst out laughing, and the room with him.

—Come on, Joe ... have a seat.

McCann moved towards the bar and the priest’s open arms, ready to be chastised.

—I was worried, Joe, you know? You have to check in from time to time.

The priest reflected while miming the pulling of a pint to the barman.

—It must be, what? Two, three months since we’ve seen you at the office?

A cheerful voice piped up from a corner of the pub.

—Maybe even longer!

—Maybe even longer, Joe. Maybe even longer.

The priest laughed and handed Joe his pint of Guinness. Then he clinked glasses with him. The sinner with his pint of ink, the priest with his glass of gold.

—And if you were to come to Mass tomorrow? If you were to come along with Nelly and the children? Hmm? What do you say, Joe? Isn’t that a good idea? And of course you’ll sit up in the front row because of your ear, okay?

The arm on the shoulder, a sugary smile, a quick glance towards the ceiling.

—And you know, I believe He’s been missing you, too ...

Joe nodded and smiled dolefully before bringing the glass to his lips. I lifted mine. It was almost empty and the barman filled the next one.

That’s when Father Gibney got down from his stool. He took a chair and sat opposite me.

—May I?

—You may.

He had brought his drink with him. He drank it down in one go.