Now and in the Hour of Our Death (11 page)

“Nor you, Jimmy.”

“Still thick as champ.”

“That's creamed potatoes, scallions, and buttermilk, Tim.”

Tim's frown had deepened. “Pay no attention to me. You two carry on.”

“I'm sorry,” said Jimmy, “but her and me and poor ould Davy go back a powerful long ways.”

“How's Siobhan?” Fiona did not want any more mention of Davy. Not in front of Tim.

Jimmy's smile faded. He shot his lower jaw. “She's grand … now. It took her a brave while to get over that bastard, pardon my French, Richardson that called himself Roberts.” He glanced over to his table, then lowered his voice. “Sometimes I think she's still carrying a torch.”

Fiona felt the lump start in her throat.

“If it hadn't been for him shopping Davy, you and…”

“Let the hare sit, Jimmy.”

“Aye. Least said soonest mended. Anyroad, she got married to a Canadian lad. He does something in TV. They've two youngsters. He's working in Montreal. He couldn't get away, so she come out here by herself for a wee visit like. The youngsters are at home with a babysitter and…”

“Excuse me, sir.” The waiter stood, balancing their starters on a silver tray.

“Just a wee minute.” Jimmy produced a camera.

The flash dazzled Fiona.

“I'll run away on. Tell you what, could we get together after supper for a half-un in the bar?”

“Certainly,” said Tim.

No. Fiona shouted inside herself.

“Right.” Jimmy started to leave but turned to Fiona. “When I get this developed, I'll send one to Davy. He keeps on asking me if I ever run into you.”

“Thank you, sir.” The waiter served.

Fiona smiled at Tim with her mouth. Her eyes were lifeless. “Folks from back in Ireland. They
never
know when to shut up. You didn't have to agree to have drinks with them, you know.” She toyed with her oysters, appetite gone.

“He seemed like a decent enough chap.”

“I'm sure he did, but … Tim, I'd rather not talk about it just now.” It wasn't fair. Her nightmare had brought memories of Davy McCutcheon surging back to her two nights ago. Since then, she'd thought more deeply about Belfast than she had for months. She didn't need another reminder from, of all people, Jimmy Ferguson.

“Come on,” Tim said, a smile now on his face, “sounds like a bit of a mystery to me. ‘That bastard Richardson that called himself Roberts'? ‘Him shopping Davy'?” The smile faded. “I've never seen you look so rattled. Perhaps you should tell me about it.”

She could hear his concern for her. Dear Tim. She would tell him. Sometime.

She laid her fork on her plate. “I will, Tim, but … not just now.”

“Pity.” His voice was level. “I was going to ask you about this Davy fellow.”

 

CHAPTER 9

THE KESH. LISBURN. SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 18, 1983

“
In nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti, amen.
”

Davy and the men around him echoed the priest's final amen, the smell of the altar boys' incense heavy in the air. Another mass was over. He went not because of any deep faith but because there was a comfort in the service, the old well-remembered phrases learned as a skinny youngster at Saint Mary's Chapel just around the corner from his home on Conway Street.

“… Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and in the hour of our death.”

Going to chapel was something to do on a Sunday, a break from the everyday with its monotonous regularity.

Get up when you're told. Eat breakfast when you're told. Swab out the corridors and earn a little remission time. Eat lunch when you're told—and the food was always the same—grey meat that was so overdone you couldn't tell if it was pork, beef, or lamb. Soggy vegetables, hard, half-boiled spuds. Stale bread. Stewed tea. Back in your cell by two o'clock for the daily head count. The screws had become more insistent on that since 1981, when eight Provos had shot their way out of Belfast's other top-security prison, the Crumlin Road Jail.

Davy lingered in his pew, letting the other men push past him. The room was peaceful and spacious. Not like his eight-by-eight cell.

He watched the priest and his acolytes clearing away candles, crosses, and chalices, putting Communion wafers back in a pyx. They had to tidy up all vestiges of their brand of Christianity. There'd be a Protestant service starting here soon.

Any devout Protestant who was in jail for being a Loyalist paramilitary would think a crucifix was a sign that the Antichrist had been in the room. They were men who daubed the gable ends of the houses in Belfast's Sandy Row ghetto with slogans like “Home rule is Rome rule” and “Fuck the pope.”

But this was a multidenominational chapel.

At least that's what the authorities called it. He knew bloody well that once the needs of the Republican Catholic prisoners and the, almost to a man, Free Presbyterian Loyalists had been catered to, there wasn't much call for the place to accommodate any members of other faiths like Jews or Buddhists or Hindus.

He smiled and remembered an old one-liner.

A Provo grabs a man on a Belfast street. “Are you a Catholic or a Protestant?”

“I'm a Hindu.”

“Aye, but are you a Catholic Hindu or a Protestant Hindu?”

Black humour had always been part of the Irish way of dealing with disaster. The recipe for Potato Famine soup? “Take a gallon of water and boil it 'til it's very,
very
strong.”

Davy enjoyed a good laugh as much as anyone, and, God knew, there wasn't too much to laugh at in this place.

He looked across the room and saw Eamon deep in conversation with three men. Davy had no doubt about what
they
would be discussing. After Mass was a good time for Eamon to meet inmates from other H-blocks.

One of the three, a short, dark-haired man, carried his left shoulder higher than the other. He wore spectacles. In the past, that wee shite Brendan McGuinness had not even bothered covering up his empty eye socket. The Brits had given him a glass eye. Taken him out of the prison for a couple of days to the Royal Victoria Hospital to have the job done.

Davy wondered if they'd cleaned the bugger's teeth while they were at it. Back before the Brits had stuck McGuinness in here, there had always been a greenish tinge to the man's smile. The unholy bastard. Davy hated McGuinness.

That turd had been the architect of Davy's last mission, the one that had got him in here, and he'd be one of the ones that Eamon would be going with when the attempted jailbreak happened. Davy had no doubt that if the men did get out of the Kesh, they'd be rounded up in no time flat. McGuinness and his like were going to land Eamon in the shite up to his nostrils.

Davy didn't want to share the same room with the bastard.

He genuflected to the altar, crossed himself, rose, and limped down the aisle and back to cell 16. He'd have one more try to persuade Eamon to give up the stupid notion but was certain he would fail. Eamon Maguire, for all his seeming good nature, was, deep inside, as fanatical as any man in the place.

*   *   *

“
Tiocfaidh àr la
, Father Davy.” Eamon bounced into their cell.

To Davy it sounded like “chucky air la.” He knew that it was Irish for “our day will come” and was the standard greeting of one Provo inmate to another, so much so that they called themselves Chuckies.

“Right enough. That'll be the day we'll have to walk crouched over to avoid all the pigs that'll be flying about the place,” Davy said.

“Don't be at it, Father. One day”—Eamon plumped himself down on his cot—“one day there'll be a green, white, and gold Irish flag flying over the Belfast City Hall instead of a Union Jack.”

“And I suppose the Orange Order will have shamrocks and harps on their sashes and the Gaelic Athletic Association will switch from playing Gaelic football and hurley to rugby and cricket?” Davy sat on the chair. Symbols, he thought, shamrocks, harps, and orange sashes. Irish flags, British flags. Irish games, British games—symbols of the two tribes. But symbols as powerful as—as the Ark of the Covenant to a Jew, the Liberty Bell to an American, Mecca and Medina to a Muslim.

“You're in a great mood today, Father. Look. We're going to win. That's all there's to it.” Eamon lay back on his cot and put both hands behind his head. “
Tiocfaidh àr la
.”

Davy bent forward in his chair. “Eamon?”

“What?”

“I saw you talking to McGuinness after Mass.”

“Aye.”

“Would you not think again about what you and the other lads're up to?”

“Why?” Eamon sat upright as if he had a hinge at his waist. “We have thought about it. Thought about bugger all else for the last couple of years.”

Davy rose and closed the cell door before lowering his voice and saying, “Ireland's a very wee country. An island. Every peeler and every soldier'll be on the lookout. The airports and the harbours'll be closed. You'd not be safe in England. The Brits would have Interpol after you in Europe. There's those who'd inform as quick as look at you. I wish you'd not do it.”

Eamon laughed. “And I wish you'd come. Your stock's pretty high with the Officer Commanding since you done us that wee favour. I could still get you in on it. How is the paw, by the way?”

Davy held up his left hand so that Eamon could see the Elastoplast strip. “On the mend.”

“Good.” Eamon rolled off his cot to stand on the floor. “Davy, do you never feel as if some bugger had the walls of this place on some kind of ratchet and was squeezing them closer every day?”

“Of course.”

“And do you not want to get out? Fight on? You've been in the struggle since before I was weaned.”

Davy shook his head. “I'm done with it.”

“So you say, but I'll bet…”

“I want no more of it.”

“But you told me your da was in. He got you in.”

“And I stayed in because of him.” Davy limped to the wall, turned, stood and stared at Eamon. Should he tell Eamon about Da? Why not? Eamon was Davy's friend. Davy took a deep breath and blew it out through the hairs of his moustache. “Eamon, I killed my own da.”

“You
what
?”

“You heard me. Back in the fifties. I was learning bomb making. One went off by mistake. Killed Da and three other men. Fucked up my leg.” Davy massaged his left thigh. “It never healed right. That's why the bloody thing bust when I was trying to get away the day they caught me.”

Was it because he'd just returned from Mass with all its talk of redemption, forgiveness of sins, that he thought the second breaking of the bone might have been God's retribution—yet his own absolution for the deaths of all the people his bombs had killed or maimed—for Ireland?

“Your own da?” Eamon put a hand on Davy's arm. “Jesus Christ, that's ferocious, so it is.”

“Aye. Well.” Davy moved away from Eamon, discomfited by his touch. “I miss him yet. Just before he died, he made me promise to go on fighting. And I did. For years. Because I promised Da and because I used to believe, the way you believe, but … Eamon, I've had enough killing.”

Eamon folded his arms across his chest. “Davy, that's quite a mouthful you've just told me, about your da and all … and … like … I'm sorry for your troubles. I really am.” He walked away and turned under the cell's tiny window.

“It's not your problem, Eamon.”

“I know that, but, Jesus, man … we're friends.”

“Do you not think I know that?” Davy could still feel the warmth of Eamon's hand on his arm. “That's why I'm telling you not to go. Not with McGuinness.”

“Brendan's not such a bad head.”

Davy almost spat on the cell floor, but knew that if he had done he'd be the one who had to clean it up.

“Father Davy. I
know
you and him had your differences.” Eamon let his arms fall to his sides. “And I know you think I'm daft. But neither you nor Jesus Christ Himself nor all the saints could talk me out of it.”

“I tried.”

“You did, but I'm going. And Davy?”

“What?”

“Do you remember that old Beatles song?”

“What the hell are you on about?”

“Come on. Let's get some lunch.” As Eamon headed for the door, Davy heard his friend singing an old Beatles song. “It won't be long. It won't be looong.”

 

CHAPTER 10

TYRONE. SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 18, 1983

Sammy McCandless's confession and the act of contrition he'd been told to make had taken far too long. It had seemed like he'd never finish saying an Ave Maria and a Paternoster at all twenty-six Stations of the Cross. He was going to be late for his meeting.

He wheezed as he pedaled his bike up the hill to Point Alpha, a roadhouse on the outskirts of the town of Newtownstewart, smack in the middle of the area that the British Green Army, the regular, uniformed soldiers of the line regiments, called Bandit Country: territory so dominated by the Provos that troop movement was only safe by helicopter, never by road.

He'd returned the horse box to the O'Byrne's farm this morning, had a quick cup of tea with Erin and Cal and confirmed that the arms delivery had been made without any hitches. He was disappointed that no mention was made of the mysterious events that might happen at the Kesh, and Sammy had been smart enough not to ask questions. No point in arousing suspicion. He couldn't afford that. Not if he valued his life.

At that moment, as the rain sheeted almost horizontally against the raincoat that he wore back to front to keep the wind out, he didn't put too high a price on his existence. If he didn't die of fucking pneumonia out on a day like this, he'd be as good as dead if anyone saw him talking to the man he was to meet at the Royal Ulster Constabulary, E4A Special Branch (antiterrorist). Still, he tried to comfort himself, nobody in their right mind would go out today unless they had to, would they?