Two days after Christmas, there were RUC men on the doorstep over at the Laverys’. When Kathleen opened her front door, she saw Roisin with her hand over her mouth and Eilish across the way the same. Mrs Lavery was down on her knees. They had to drag her inside, like hauling a dead body.
Her son, Eammon, had been trying to bomb a police station in East Belfast. He had thrown the bomb up at the fence but it had come back at him and exploded. He was eighteen. A council dustman had been seriously injured as well, trying to stop the boy.
They sat in with Mrs Lavery for the morning, making the phone calls to her family for her. Sheila called round the next day to say that the wake would be on the Monday.
‘Where the heart lies, the feet wander,’ Mrs Lavery liked to say, and so she asked that the funeral be held at the church where they lived before, when the children were all young. But the priest there refused to give funerals to IRA volunteers, would not allow the tricolour flag into the church. Father Pearse agreed to perform the necessaries at her own house before the procession to Milltown Cemetery, on the last day of the year, on the Monday.
Father Pearse and the neighbours came in through the front door. Sean Moran was overseeing those that were to come in by the rear. Men came singly or in twos down the alleyway between the houses, hopped over the short fence into the Laverys’ back garden. Sean shook hands with them, using both of his hands, his hair slicked back, a cigarette on low burn. He wore a black armband. He, Sammy McCann, and the oldest Lavery boy were the stewards.
Liam and Owen had been sent down to the Whiterock to keep an eye on RUC and army movements, and one or the other came back from time to time to report. It was normal for funerals to be postponed a few times due to the RUC stopping the procession, splitting up the mourners, arresting attendees. Two of Mrs Lavery’s grandsons were covering the Upper Springfield entry to the street. Mrs Lavery’s family were in the front room.
The women came in through the front door bringing with them tea or coffee or biscuits or a bottle of drink. They had a word with Mrs Lavery then made to find a task in the kitchen, elbowing themselves in, fiddling about, glancing at the clock.
Sheila and Kathleen got there at nine and Mrs Lavery was in the kitchen with them for an hour or more going back over the boy’s life, like a prosecuting barrister, bringing out, piece by piece, the evidence for herself being responsible for Eammon’s death.
‘When I think I used to let him play at it when he was a wean – the Brits and the ’Ra, the Brits and the ’Ra. And going and getting upset in front of him. We wasn’t able to get ourselves a home at the time, you see.’ Whenever they went to interrupt her, to comfort her, she pushed aside their gestures, starting up with a fresher, angrier memory.
‘We always talked about the Prods this and that. Och I knew there was something going on. Him and your Sean all the chat until you walked in. And then that fella Mickey, friend of yours, Sheila, up in Eammon’s room with him, the door closed. And him going away down south for a couple of weeks and me just praying they didn’t get caught. Well and I got what I wanted. He didn’t get caught.’
‘We have to defend ourselves round here,’ said Sheila. ‘Your Eammon—’
‘I wish he’d been caught.’
There was nothing they could offer Mrs Lavery; their children were still alive. Sheila sat with her weak coffee, stirring it, her face discontented. Kathleen carried on spreading margarine on to baps, making each surface yellow and even with her knife, saying nothing.
‘You can’t expect anyone else to love your sons like you do,’ said Mrs Lavery. ‘You’ve got to do it yourself.’
One of her grandsons put his head round the door. ‘Seems like it’s fine to go ahead, Granny, if you want.’
‘Aye,’ she said, and she took up her apron and hid her face in it.
The boy came over to her. ‘Come on then,’ he said. He put his arms around her until she said she was fine and he asked her if she was sure and she nodded and they went out into the front room.
Sheila put the coffee mugs in the sink. ‘If mothers hadn’t always sacrificed their sons for what was right, things would never have stood a chance of getting better.’
‘Wasn’t it you that night my Liam was taken off that said you should have moved away for the sake of the kids?’
‘We all get our weak moments.’
The front room was dark, the curtains were closed and had been that way since the body was brought home the day before. The grandfather clock in the corner had been stayed and covered with a cloth; a mirror had been turned to face the wall. The young man was in an open white coffin on a put-up table near to the front windows. There was a candlestick at each end. At the bottom of the coffin was the tricolour flag with a black beret and black gloves neatly folded on top. Mrs Lavery stood by the coffin a while, one hand on it, like a mother at a cradle, looking out towards the mountains through a crack between the curtains.
Martin Lavery, the father, went around with a bottle of whiskey, pressing people to take one; kindly eyed, worried that everyone had a drink. He fussed over those that had to take their drop from a mug, apologizing and saying, ‘It ought to have been a glass, if we’d had a moment to get ourselves together you’d have had a glass.’
Sean went into the front room and drew the curtains closer together. Mrs Lavery started to sob and her hand was taken by one of her daughters and kissed. Her oldest son stood behind her with his hands on her shoulders. Father Pearse asked whether he should begin.
Liam and Owen were taking occasional glimpses behind the curtains. The grandsons chose to go and stand at the back door, watching. When one of them came and tapped Sean Moran on the shoulder, Sean stepped back out of the room, finger to his lips, ostentatious in his apparent desire to go unnoticed, and was heard to give hearty greetings.
Four men entered wearing black sweaters, trousers, berets and dark glasses. They took their places, two at either side of the coffin. Father Pearse began the mass, a hand on Mrs Lavery’s shoulder.
Kathleen saw Liam looking at the volunteers. Three more men entered, dressed in combat fatigues and balaclavas. Her husband was standing close to them, and thinking his son was looking at him, he gave him a dignified nod.
Mrs Lavery’s elderly mother had a hearing aid that went off with a buzz and a whirr occasionally, and the group was trying its best to ignore both its noise and her loving chiding of the equipment. It was likely that she’d soon be coming to live with her daughter and son-in-law, going into Eammon’s room that was.
As the father gave the mass, Kathleen looked over at Liam, his eyes moving between the window and the volunteers, almost oblivious to the corpse.
She looked at the coffin, the pale, serene face of Eammon, his slim body in a suit that he’d never worn in his life. She looked at her neighbours and friends. She looked at her husband and then she looked back at Liam. She thought, ‘Who can I trust to love you like I do?’ No amount of death, no church, nothing could breach the gap between love for one’s own son and love for another’s. She looked down at the mother, whose hand was inside the coffin, fingertips on his collarbone.
The mass ended abruptly. Sean looked at his watch. Father Pearse smiled with relief and went to bless Mrs Lavery who was on her knees crying with abandon.
People moved apart and spoke in low voices. Mr Lavery asked everyone to help themselves to the food in the kitchen and then he went to find the whiskey for refills.
The cortège would stop where the Whiterock met the Falls, Sean explained to the three men in fatigues. The coffin would be placed on a wooden stand on the roadway and on his signal they should appear from behind the shop at the corner and fire the volley.
‘You’ll see Bernie Curran’s sister, Gràinne, waiting where you come. The guns will be in her pram. She’s gone down ahead. The father will get the bullets to her now and she’ll load them up.’
Pushing past him to go out to the kitchen and bring in some food, Kathleen bumped into Brendan Coogan in the hallway. He was wearing a brown leather jacket, zipped up, and his face was unshaven.
‘Hello Kathleen.’
‘It’s terrible, terrible for her, she’s broken up, her life’s over. How can any of it be worth it.’
His face hardened as it had when she’d used the wrong word for the executions of the prison officers.
She was forced towards him a little as someone passed behind her. She put a hand on one of his and moved her fingertips between the hard knuckles. She didn’t know why, afterwards. Then Eilish Purcell was upon them, a hand on each of their backs, asking if they would come to a meeting the next week.
‘We’ve got to press on with the youth centre. Young people need something besides the war. It’s occasions like these that make it all the more required,’ she was saying, and Kathleen saw Mr Lavery, who’d been making in their direction with his bottle, hunch his shoulders, wheel around and move off in another direction. Mrs Lavery was being steered through to the kitchen. Coogan excused himself.
‘I’ve got to be away now. I’m sorry for your loss, Mrs Lavery.’
In the front room someone stood on the cat’s tail and a screech rang out, causing a frisson of silence and a little relieved, tremorous, laughter and chit chat.
Kathleen’s husband touched her lightly on the arm, asking her for a word. His breathing was laboured and he looked stressed. She wondered if it wasn’t that he badly wanted a drink. She followed him towards the back door and he stood in front of her, his hands at his sides.
‘I am not my father,’ he said. ‘I was always wanting to be the big man. Like my brothers. But now I don’t care about him or any of them at all.’
‘All right.’
‘Aye, that’s how it is.’
‘You’ve just to be yourself, Sean.’
‘That’s right, Kathleen, aye,’ he agreed, then asked her, ‘What do you want me to be?’
Father Pearse came back into the hallway, shaking out his raincoat and trying to find the armhole in it, with Collette behind him trying to help him get it straight, the pair of them apparently at odds.
‘Thank you, thank you,’ he was saying irritably. ‘We need to be getting a move on, Sean, I’ve to press ahead now.’
‘The bullets!’ said Sean to Kathleen, suddenly panicked. ‘I meant for the father to take them down with him. Oh Jesus, where did I put the bloody things? They’re in the fucking biscuit tin!’
He leapt into the kitchen with Kathleen following. ‘What shall I put them in?’
‘Here,’ said Kathleen, picking up a carrier bag on the counter top. ‘I’ll stick a bap in it as well.’ Sean threw his handful of bullets in on top.
‘I’ll see you out, Father!’ called Kathleen, going quickly after him with the bag. ‘I’ve got your dinner here!’
There were two RUC constables on the doorstep, looking nervous. Father Pearse assumed an expression that was both supercilious and exasperated. ‘We must do the holy mass where we can these days.’
‘Would there be any paramilitary trappings in there?’ the older of the two asked, apple cheeked.
‘Ach, no, for God’s sake, no,’ the father protested roughly.
‘Now just you wait a minute there,’ said the younger one, hand out.
‘Excuse me.’ Kathleen was propelled forwards by those behind her. The four men in uniform emerged first, each in gloves, sunglasses and berets. The first of them had the tricolour folded over his forearm. The three men in combats and balaclavas followed. Sean Moran was behind, saying blindly, ‘All clear, lads, all clear.’
The RUC men stood back, surprised, speechless, short on ideas.
With a hand making a small wave, Father Pearse made his way down the street at a smart pace; in the other hand he held a carrier bag in which there was an egg bap and some bullets.