The Wake (And What Jeremiah Did Next) (15 page)

A car drew up alongside of me and I heard the voice asking “Are you one of the marchers?” Frisson of fear. What do I say?

“I’m okay thanks.” That should do. Walk on. Look straight ahead. I walked on and looked straight ahead. He came after me, easing up towards the footpath, first time in my life I’d been curbcrawled.

“Here, hop in.” Legs wobbly below the knees and a rush of something all the way down inside. I looked behind me. I couldn’t see anyone, not a soul in sight, it was as if Claudy had emptied. Christ.

“I see you’re limping. You were in the march, weren’t you? With Aisling O’Connor? Hop in and we’ll catch up with them in no time.”

“How do you know Aisling O’Connor?”

“Aisling? I met her in the Grandstand Bar in Derry one time before the fifth of October march. There were representatives from about half a dozen political organizations there I think but she sort of stood out. Fiery girl. I’m in the Civil Rights Association.” He reached his hand across towards the open window. “My name’s Frank Gogarty.”

I looked at him properly for the first time. Clean-cut, friendly, gentlemanly. He was trying to help me. I shook his hand.

“Thanks, I will take a lift if you don’t mind.” I opened the door and got in. “Sorry for being so suspicious. It’s just that, you know …”

“Don’t apologize. You’re right to be careful. Having trouble with the feet?”

“It’s my own fault. I didn’t come prepared. I’m Jeremiah Coffey by the way.”

The car eased off. “Pleased to meet you. I don’t think any of us did. Come prepared. How could you in this country?”

The seat felt so good I could have slept on it. The radio was playing soft music, volume low. Something from Brahms maybe, I love Brahms, didn’t get a chance to listen right with him talking though.

“I drove down from Belfast this morning just to keep an eye on what’s happening. I think these students are amazing. Are you a student?”

“Naw, that’s all behind me. I came because I …”

Why had I come? Not for civil rights anyway. For Aisling. The whole lot of the rest of them could go to hell.

“I think we all come at this from different directions. One of the spurs or I should say two of the spurs for me were Conn and Patricia McCluskey.”

“Right?” I’d never heard of them.

“Yeah, they started the Campaign for Social Justice you remember. They’re an example to us all so they are. Never give up, that’s their motto. And always thinking outside themselves.”

I was nodding knowingly, not wanting to let on.

“How did you know I knew Aisling O’Connor?”

“I saw you with her when I was getting petrol in Claudy.” There was a smile in his voice. He’d waited for me to come out of the chemist’s and sat watching me probably when I was trying to fix my feet. Why had he done this? I was nothing to him.

“There they are,” he said. “They’ve made good progress.”

We eased up behind them and some people at the tail end turned their heads to us. One of them waved. Left hand side of the road, orderly march, solid citizens, you wouldn’t have thought some of them were out to bring down the state.

“I could let you out now but if you wouldn’t mind I’d like to go on ahead a bit to see something. I’m nervous to tell you the truth about what might be up the road and I want to check it out. I’ll come back then and drop you. Is that okay?”

“Okay.” A lazy lassitude had settled on me, delayed reaction probably to my night with Aisling and the backlog of lost sleep, and I was so comfortable I felt like I might have to be winkled out of the seat when the time came.

We overtook the marchers then with some toots of the horn and inside of about five minutes I saw something that got me sitting up straight. Just across the road from the bridge at Burntollet there was a line of RUC jeeps and a couple of men with big sticks in their hands were standing talking to four or five cops.

“What about that,” Frank Gogarty whispered, driving on trying not to make it obvious he was looking at them but they couldn’t have missed his head turning. We went on up the hill at normal speed and when we got round the next bend he did a quick reversing job into a laneway and headed slowly back down towards Burntollet.

“We’d better let the marchers know,” I said and it was Aisling I was thinking of.

“Hold on, they won’t be here for another while yet.” And he stopped near the top of the hill, pulling into the left where we could see the men talking to the cops. The thing was, if we could see them then they could see us.

“They can see us,” I said. “Maybe we’d better go.”

“Take your time. Here, I’m going to get out of the car now to look at the engine. You come with me.”

He leaned forward and pulled a lever somewhere and the bonnet gave a nervous jump. The cops and the guys holding the sticks were only about a hundred yards away. Was he mad? We got out of the car and he lifted the bonnet, fixed it carefully on its stand and peered down at the engine.

“Looks all right,” I said standing there on my nerves.

“Looks anything but all right. Turn your head round a bit past me. Two o’clock. See up behind where the jeeps are? Can you see? Two o’clock. Can you see the people up there?”

I gave a quick look. The ones I saw were more like matchstick men, hurrying back and forward carrying things. I didn’t know what they were until this big jagged-looking stone, more like a middle-sized rock it was, dropped out of one of their arms.

“Christ, that’s ammunition. That could kill somebody. And the police know I’ll bet you. They must know. We have to stop the march. ”

“Right, we’ll go now. No point in delaying.” He dropped the bonnet with a crash and I nearly wet myself. We got back into the car. I sat waiting, wondering why Frank wasn’t starting the engine. Then I understood why. One of the police jeeps was crawling up the hill towards us. Time seemed to slow to the speed of the thing.

The music was still playing. Brahms’ Lullaby, unmistakable. Must be a tape. The jeep took a breather, then changed down a gear. Funny the things come into your head. I was sitting there quaking waiting for the front of the march to come over the brow of the hill behind where the cops were and at the same time I was embarrassed for Frank because I could hear the frightened wheeze in his chest but then when I held my breath to check for certain I realized it was coming from me.

“The marchers will be here any minute,” I said.

“It’ll be all right. They couldn’t possibly make it in that time. We have to wait anyway to see what our friend wants.”

The jeep juddered to a stop right in front of us and a cop got out in stages, deliberately maybe, maybe he was trying to put the shits up us, one leg, then the big bottlegreen ass, then the other leg, gun in holster swaying, baton tucked handy. I couldn’t see right but I think there was someone in the passenger seat.

Frank touched my arm. “Say nothing.”

“Having a spot of bother there?” I didn’t see the face, didn’t look at it to tell you the truth.

“No, we’re fine,” said Frank. “We were just about to head back to Claudy.”

“Oh?”

“Yes, I left something behind there, at the petrol station.”

“What would that be then? What did you leave in Claudy?”

“My gloves.”

“Gloves?” Pause. “Would that not be them there now?”

“Sorry?”

“On the dashboard. Them look like gloves to me.”

In case we couldn’t see them he reached his hand in the window and touched a pair of leather gloves sitting in front of Frank’s face.

“Ah, those are my spare ones.”

“Hm. Very good. And what was it in the engine was bothering you?”

“What?”

“You were looking at the engine there.”

“Ah, it was okay actually. I heard a knocking sound and I thought I’d better see.”

That would have been my heart.

“But everything seems to be in order.”

“It’s as well to be sure about these things sir. License?”

“Pardon?”

“License please. May I see your license?”

Two men in civvies walked down past the car and one of them called out “All right Bob?” The other one had some kind of a rod under his arm. I saw it better as they walked on. It was a fucking poker.

“Hi lads. Take it easy now. Thank you sir. Let’s have a look here.” He perused the license for what seemed like about two minutes and then peered at Frank’s face. “You’re something in this so-called civil rights thing, aren’t you, Mister Gogarty?”

“That’s right. I’m vice-chairman.”

“And the Wolfe Tone thing, society is it they call it? You’re in that too?”

“I am. Good Protestant Irishman.”

“Well now, are you a Protestant? I wouldn’t have thought that now.”

“No, I mean Wolfe Tone was a good Protestant Irishman.” Smiling. Trying to smile.

“I’ll let that pass sir. And who would your friend be?”

“Ah, this is Jeremiah Coffey.”

“I’d like your friend to speak for himself if you don’t mind please. Name?”

“Jeremiah Coffey.”

“ID?”

I already had my license out nearly sticking to my hand and leaned over to give it to him. Another minute or maybe two, eyes darting back and forward between me and the license. Then

“Carry on.”

We were away. As we drove down the hill towards the clutch of people standing opposite the bridge I could see that the number of civilians had grown. Ten, fifteen maybe, chatting, some among themselves, others to policemen. Frank gathered speed after he passed them, saying nothing. The plum-soft Sperrins lay ranged to our right, undulating and peaceful like on a picture postcard. Normally they’d be coated white this time of year but now they were more like a purple haze.

“They must be close,” he said. They were close all right, round another bend, struggling up a hill, two tired banners fluttering. Frank stopped the car and got out, spoke to Michael Farrell and someone else, seemed to remonstrate with them and after a minute came back.

“They’re going ahead,” he said as he got into the car. He started up the engine, waved to the marchers as he passed them and stopped a couple of hundred yards down the road pulling over to the side just beyond a wide laneway. As he reversed he said, “I can understand why. Some things have to be done. People have to know what sort of a society we’re living in.”

We chugged in low gear behind the march and when we got to the top of the hill above Burntollet I said, “Can we lock the doors?”

He didn’t answer and I felt foolish. No, not foolish, I felt like a heel. Aisling was out there and I’d want to be able to open the door quickly and pull her in. One of those rocks thrown down from the field could kill her. So could a police baton or a beating by one of these boys that looked as if they were going to be let run riot. I was in the middle of whispering a Hail Mary into myself when it all started to happen. Everything was calm one second and the next it was like we’d arrived in the middle of it. Marchers were being hit with sticks and there were stones flying across in front of the windscreen from our right. A girl was on the ground in front of us out for the count and this bullnecked man was still laying into her with something that looked like the leg of a chair.

Where was Aisling? If I’d got out I’d have been no help, they’d have beaten me to a pulp. You could see them coming in legions now carrying cudgels, these weren’t sticks, these were big heavy clubs, past the cops standing there with their batons hanging out of their hands. And then the next shock. I was jolted forward and suddenly we were stopped, blocked, we couldn’t move, we’d nowhere to go. Wherever she was she wasn’t there. I saw marchers scrambling over the ditch into the field to our left and the Prods going after them. Some of them had grabbed ones and were holding them up by the hair the way Indians in cowboy movies hold up paleface scalps. A boy standing, fifteen, sixteen, different looking from the others, neatly dressed, an ash-plant in his hand like you’d have seen an old man with, not sure what to do, standing at the ditch wondering whether to follow maybe, then struck out at the shins of someone running past him.

“That’s my banner!”

“What?”

“That’s my banner!” Frank was reaching for the door handle. Christ. There he was right in front of us, the major himself, Major Ronald Bunting, the guy that led the singing of The Sash outside Belfast city hall on the first, there he was dragging his feet back and forward as if he was wiping the mud off them on top of a banner lying tangled on the road, then jumping up and down laughing and dancing like a madman. He looked like he was singing too part of the time but I couldn’t hear with the doors and windows closed. I didn’t see Frank going but suddenly there was a rush of shouting in my ears and the car door slammed and the shouting stopped and he was gone. Next thing I saw him through the silent screen in front of me pushing Bunting away and then I couldn’t see right, people were blocking my view and somebody was lying on the bonnet and I was rocking from side to side. Then my door flew open and I thought, I’m for it now, they’re going to drag me out.

“Here are the keys. Take the wheel.” It was Frank and his face was covered in blood. He was rubbing at his eyes with one hand and giving me car keys with the other. They were slippery. I took them, jerked myself out and let him in. The odd thought occurred to me, I think it was then or maybe it was later, hard to know, that I wasn’t covered to drive someone else’s car, in other words once I sat behind the wheel I’d actually be breaking the law and in front of I don’t know how many policemen too.

How I got round the front to the driver’s side through the milling attackers and marchers was weird. I don’t remember it all but I remember the cop and the club. I bumped into the back of a cop and said sorry. Sorry. I told him I was sorry. He didn’t move, he didn’t turn, and I had to go round him. There was a club with two nails in it on the road next to his feet and I picked it up. I think maybe I was thinking this might puncture our tires but it could have been some instinct was working there somewhere, like nobody was going to go for me with that in my hand, none of the marchers anyway and none of the attackers, definitely not. So for whatever number of seconds it took me to get through the mill and the mayhem I was near enough untouchable. And the funny thing is, to this day I couldn’t tell you what I did with the club. I know I didn’t take it into the car with me but I don’t remember dropping it.