Michael and Sarah stood outside the 32 Counties Bar. It was a large street-corner public house. Green-fronted. Just fifteen minutes by cab from the Europa Hotel. The bar front covered an area the width of several shops, and as a weekday lunchtime approached it was beginning to fill up.
‘Michael, we have to go in.’
Sarah spoke softly. They had been outside the bar for several minutes. In that time Michael had not moved. He had simply stared at the sign above the door.
Sarah’s quiet words broke through. Michael turned. Their eyes met and Michael registered his prolonged daydream. The sight of a childhood landmark had hypnotised him.
A deep breath shook off the feeling. He flashed Sarah a smile.
‘I know.’ The tone of his voice undermined the smile. Michael was nervous. ‘Come on.’
Michael took a deep breath and together they walked through the main doors.
The view that met Michael’s eyes was not the one he remembered. The room used to be much smaller, the furniture sparse and low-cost. The bar itself had always been grim. Under-lit.
All of that had changed.
This room was at least twice its former size. The bar had expanded over the years, taking over the shops that had once been its neighbours. It was also now expensively furnished. The polished wood and brass would rival anything Michael was used to in London. Belfast’s years of affluence had not passed the place by.
Michael’s eyes moved slowly as they took in his surroundings. He was seeing the past, only now in more prosperous surroundings. When Michael left it had been just another rough Catholic bar. His father’s bar. Opened at the height of the Troubles, it was where Michael had grown up. And it was from where he had fled.
‘Come on.’
Sarah seemed to recognise the effect it was having. She took Michael’s arm with her free hand and pulled him forward, towards the long bar that stretched along the room’s right-hand wall.
Michael allowed himself to be guided. He enjoyed the feeling of Sarah’s hand on his arm. It felt right. But he did not allow himself to be distracted. He signalled to one of the bar staff.
‘What can I get you, pal?’
It was the nearest barman. Tall, thin, dark-haired and somewhere in his late twenties. He spoke with the broad accent that Sarah was growing used to.
Michael did not answer. His attention had been caught by a collection of photographs on the wall behind the bar. Sarah followed Michael’s eyes.
The faces that stared back were unmistakable. Four photo frames in all. One showed two young boys aged around nine and twelve, dressed in their Sunday best. At least twenty-five years had come and gone since the day captured in the photograph. But the younger boy – the one with the shock of blond hair – could be no one but Michael Devlin.
Michael’s eyes, though, were drawn to something different. They had bypassed both the first picture and the frame beside it. It was an older photograph that had transfixed him. Black and white. It showed a large, powerfully built man, with his gnarled left hand on the shoulder of a blonde girl no older than nineteen. The 32 Counties Bar – the bar as Michael remembered it – was behind them.
Michael felt the burn in the corner of his eyes as he stared at his father, Sean Casey, and the mother he had never known: Katie Devlin. The picture had been taken years before Michael’s birth and he had grown up with it on display. He had his own copy, in fact. Kept under lock and key like all his memories of home. Seeing it now? Seeing it here? It was almost too much.
‘I asked what I can get you?’
The barman’s voice ended Michael’s daydream.
Michael snapped out of his semi-trance. He remembered why he was here.
‘I’m here to see Liam Casey.’
‘Liam’s not here.’ The barman’s tone said that his answer was to be accepted, accurate or otherwise. ‘Now, can I get you and your lady friend a drink?’
‘Look, mate, I know he’s here.’ Michael was in no mood for games. ‘Now go and get him.’
The thin man’s attitude shifted. His previous friendliness disappeared. Replaced by a more threatening presence.
Michael watched as he revealed himself to be more than just a barman.
‘I’ve told you he’s not here. Now I think you need to leave before you cause a scene.’
‘Listen, mate,’ Michael said, his voice low, ‘because I’m not telling you again. I want to see your boss so you get your arse behind that bar, go into the back room and tell Liam that Mikey’s here to see him!’
‘Do you really not know who you’re dealing with here?’
The barman’s words were plainly the precursor to a threat, but their effect was broken by the words of a woman until now unseen behind him. A woman visibly shaken by the sight of Michael.
‘Jesus Christ! Mikey Casey?’
The barman turned to meet the eyes of the speaker, his sneer replaced by a look of shock. He had heard the name ‘Mikey Casey’ before. Many times. And much more recently than Michael had.
The man’s movement to his right gave Michael a clear view of the short, striking redhead who had spoken.
‘Mikey, is that you?’ Tears welled in her sky-blue eyes as she spoke again.
Michael felt his thumping heart beat harder as he registered a face from his past.
‘Anne?’ Michael barely managed to choke out the words. ‘What are you doing here?’
‘What am I doing here? Jesus, Mikey, you’ve been gone twenty years and you want to know what I’m doing here? What are you doing here?’
Michael’s gaze was fixed on Anne Flaherty. Both his oldest friend and the long-term partner of his brother Liam. For some reason Michael just had not expected to see her.
Sarah seemed to sense the history between them. She remained quiet as the two old friends just stared at one another.
‘Why have . . . what . . . what have you come back for, Mikey?’
Anne was the first to speak again. An attempt at formality, but a bad one. Her joy at Michael’s return was etched across her face.
‘I’m in trouble, Anne. I need his help.’ Michael’s voice carried no pride.
‘Well you look like shite, alright. The other fella’s looking worse though, yeah?’
‘It’s not that simple, Anne. And I can’t speak about it out here. Is he in?’
‘He’s out the back.’ A tilt of her head indicated a door at the end of the bar. ‘But he won’t be pleased to see you, Mikey. You know that, right?’
‘I don’t want to be here any more than he wants me here. But I don’t have a choice. I need to see him.’
Anne nodded her head at Michael’s last comment. She accepted it without explanation.
‘Well then you two had better follow me.’ Anne turned towards Sarah. ‘But I think you should introduce me first, Mikey, don’t you?’
Michael’s eyes followed Anne Flaherty’s and settled on Sarah. They lingered, just for a moment. He placed a hand on the small of Sarah’s back and guided her forward. A small intimacy; one which Sarah did not reject.
‘Anne, this is Sarah Truman. She’s, erm, she’s a very good friend of mine.’ Michael turned to Sarah. ‘And, Sarah, this is Anne Flaherty. My oldest friend in the world.’
Sarah reached out and took Anne’s hand. The gesture was returned with a warm, genuine smile, and then an indication for Sarah and Michael to follow.
Anne showed them through the door at the end of bar. It led from the large room into a narrow corridor. The corridor seemed to stretch further backwards than the building itself seemed to, at least from the outside. Its walls were lined with photographs of boxing legends from the first half of the twentieth century. They hung at regular intervals along both sides, giving the space a masculine edge as it led to the closed office door at its far end.
As she reached the door Anne put out her hand and gripped the doorknob. Without turning her wrist she looked towards Michael.
‘You sure you want to do this?’
‘I’m sure I don’t,’ Michael replied. His heart was racing. ‘But what other choice have I got?’
Anne responded with a nod. She turned back to the door, opened it and stepped inside the next room.
‘Liam, you’ve got a visitor.’
Anne’s voice seemed distant as Michael’s heart thumped ever harder.
The office looked exactly as Michael would have imagined. Sparse and masculine. A reflection of Michael’s own style. Something he and his brother shared.
From the doorway he had a clear view of his brother, who was sat behind a desk with just his upper body visible. And not for the first time he thought that no one would ever question their parentage. Liam Casey really was just another version of Michael. Shorter certainly. Bulkier, yes. And with receding black hair in place of his brother’s thick blond locks. But for all that they still looked remarkably similar.
Michael did not have long for those thoughts. Liam Casey had glanced up at their arrival and was already rising to his feet. The curiosity that had initially coloured his face had transformed to livid surprise.
Looking at the brother he had not seen in eighteen years, Liam spat out the first words to pass between them in all that time:
‘And just what the fuck do you want?’