1.53am
Anto spun away from the window and stalked around the room in a rage.
He resembled a caged animal.
Stripped to the waist, his wiry body tensed, his muscles like cables, tightened and protruding.
His tattoos swelling.
Eyes wide in fury and fists clenched, he paced the length of the walls looking for something to punch.
To hit out against.
Finding nothing but brick, he yelled at the top of his lungs, ‘ARAGGGHHH!”, pushed his fist into his mouth and bit down hard to staunch the emotion.
Eban Barnard pointed lamely with one hand at the gunmetal-grey coin box mounted on the wall; the other rummaging for fifty pence coins in his pocket.
“Shouldn’t we phone someone… let them know?”
Sinéad shook her head. “Disconnected.”
Ruairí didn’t move. He looked puzzled. “My ma… she must have known. Why didn’t she tell us?”
“She told me,” Sinéad whispered, almost to herself.
She sounded frightened.
Ruairí spun around enraged, incredulous. “She told YOU?”
He stood over her threateningly. “What exactly did she say?”
Sinéad took a sheet of A4 paper from the waistband of her leggings and unfolded it.
It bore a black-and-white picture of Ruairí. “She didn’t want you to see this, or know about Dinny and Spud.”
All three men moved around the table to look at the poster.
Ruairí read it aloud disdainfully. “Wanted for Crimes Against the Community.”
He laughed ironically. “That’s a joke… fuckin’ hypocrites!”
Sinéad explained. “They’re all over the town… sent them to the papers, and the TV.”
Anto seemed disappointed. “Didn’t they do one of me?” he asked, perplexed.
Eban wanting something to contribute, could only manage, “It’s not a very good likeness.”
Ruairí turned on him. “Is that all you can say? Is that all you’ve got to offer?”
“What do you want me to say?”
Anto craned his neck and looked again. “He’s right… doesn’t look like you.”
“Read the back,” said Sinéad.
Ruairí turned over the sheet and read.
“Statements from gang members Brian ‘Spud’ Murphy and Denis Clancy confirm their involvement in a catalogue of crimes and antisocial behaviour, identifying Ruairí Connolly as the gang leader and Anthony Gatusso as his lieutenant.”
Anto was again perturbed. “If I’m a lieutenant, how come they don’t have a picture of me on it?”
“Enough, Anto!” Ruairí snapped.
Turning to Eban, he asked, “Is this gonna make a difference… I mean, to your lot?”
“I don’t… my lot?”
“You know: the dinner party crowd; the chattering classes… will yez give up on us now?”
Eban seemed surprised. “I think most people thought you did it anyway.”
Anto and Ruairí looked at each other.
For a moment Eban thought they might punch him to the ground and stamp on his head. Instead, they both exploded with guffaws of laughter.
Anto was disbelieving. “You mean they don’t care whether we did it or not?”
“I shouldn’t think so.”
“Just as long as we don’t rob their houses, right Eban?” Ruairí was scathing.
Anto fell back into his chair, cackling. “Yeah, let us know when you’ll be taking your holidays, will you Eban?”
Both were convulsed with laughter.
It was incongruous given what had just taken place.
Eban recognised it as a coping mechanism.
A pressure valve release.
He began to laugh as well.
Sinéad pulled the plug. “Dinny’s not laughing.”
The hilarity trailed off.
Anto took it like a slap in the face.
He called to her defiantly, “Yeah… what would you know about it?”
She shouted back at him, “You’re not on the poster cuz yer head’s too big for the fuckin’ page!”
Eban wondered if he should try to get his head down or whether there was much point now.
It would be dawn in a few hours.
He would be out of here and back to South Belfast with its wine bars and convenience stores. Its boutiques and ethnic takeaways.
He could grab a pint of milk and a loaf and maybe be in bed by midday, with the curtains drawn and his ear plugs in.
He smiled to himself.
Never had the mundane and the familiar had such appeal.
He might phone in sick and stay in bed for the rest of the week.
Why the fuck not?
Perks of public service.
Let them all go fuck themselves!
Sinéad was asleep on the couch, only her hair visible above a tartan rug.
Anto sat at the table, face down.
His forehead resting on his forearms.
His breathing was rhythmic, save for the occasional gag or snore.
His back rose and fell in time.
A small pool of drool had gathered at the side of his open mouth.
Ruairí had disappeared into the sacristy some time ago.
The radio was on low in there.
Tuned to some all-night station for insomniacs and shift workers. Like me, Eban thought.
“Psssst…”
The sound came from the direction of the closed curtain.
When he looked up Eban saw Ruairí Connolly beckon him over before the drape closed again.
Passing through the curtain he found Ruairí seated in one of the deck chairs.
He was swathed in tartan blankets.
He had his feet raised on a stool. His hood pulled up over his head.
He looked comfortably settled in.
The small space was lit by two paraffin storm lanterns which bathed the room in a warm orange glow.
It seemed inviting of intimacy and introspection.
A confessional.
A haven against what had gone before.
An oasis of calm.
Eban Barnard felt exhaustion swell up in him.
It flooded his brain and forced together his eyes.
Perhaps it was the womb-like warmth of the small room.
Perhaps the distinctive smell of the heated paraffin, something he always associated with his childhood.
When Ruairí Connolly indicated that he should join him in the other deck chair, Eban didn’t hesitate, gathering up the end of the rugs there and enveloping himself in them.
When he had snuggled down into a comfortable position, he looked across at Ruairí.
“I always hate this time of the morning. Too late for yesterday… too early for tomorrow.”
The young man said nothing.
Eban tried again. “I feel like we should be on the deck of a ship.”
Ruairí twisted his mouth into that ironic smile that Eban had already become familiar with. “I might be on one soon enough.”
There was an awkward silence.
“England?”
Ruairí tugged his hood back so Eban could now see his face properly. He thought for a moment that the young man might have been crying.
“Scotland. I’d like to go to London but she has an aunt in Dundee. If things don’t… well… I’d probably head for there.”
“Will you miss it… home I mean?”
Ruairí’s face hardened again. “Did I say I was leaving?” he shot back angrily.
“I just meant—”
“Anyway, what’s to miss?”
“You’re asking the wrong man. I was away myself for ten years.”
“But you came back.”
Eban was remembering his own exile, but his fatigue had softened his memory.
It made him wistful.
“Yes… I came back. Believe it or not, I came back for the people… for the Mourne mountains and the Antrim coast… for the potato farls!” He laughed to himself.
Ruairí wasn’t buying it. “Home’s an imaginary place. You were homesick for some place that doesn’t exist.”
“It’s the people that make a place a homeland.”
Ruairí pushed himself up in the chair and pulled his arms out from under the rugs.
He fixed Eban with a withering glare of cynicism and disdain. It wasn’t the first time that Eban Barnard had misread him this evening. “The people! Are you fucking serious?”
Eban was backpedalling again. “Well… I only meant—”
“Don’t give me that ‘into the mystic’ crap. I got all that from my da. The best people in the world; the fourth green field; the faith of our fathers… any green fields around here have burnt-out cars in them.”
“You’re young; you’ve never been away. Sometimes you have to travel to find out where home really is.”
“And you’re sitting there now, telling me that you’d rather come back to this hole than be swanning around the West End with some blonde on your arm or catching the tube on a Saturday to see Arsenal play? Are you fucking mad?!”
Eban was floundering. Falling back on his older, man-of-the-world persona, he wasn’t confident.
“It must seem that way to you, and I know that there’s still a lot wrong with this place… but home’s home.”
“You’re breaking my heart.”
“Look, I know there’s more to it than that; than I’m making it sound. If I’m being honest with you, sometimes I think that when I’m there I want to be here, and when I’m here I want to be there.”
Ruairí pounced immediately. “Then get a job on the Larne-to-Stranraer ferry!”
Abruptly, he laughed at his own retort.
Eban did too.
It seemed to create a brief respite in what had quickly established itself as a generational chasm, across which both looked on the other with mistrust and trepidation.
Eban smiled. “Okay, sure – a young man could have a great time across the water.”
Again, Ruairí bristled.
“I didn’t say I was going… besides, how much craic will I have with a ready-made family?” He nodded at the room next door.
He turned around fully to face Eban.
As if he had something to say that needed to be understood.
“If I do go, it’ll be on my terms… not for her…”
He was becoming angry.
“… and not because I’m gonna run from Sledger and that scum… just so as you know.”
He dug into the folds of his sweatshirt and from beneath the blankets pulled out a small pack of rolling tobacco. He adroitly rolled a cigarette, lit it and offered it to Eban.
Eban caught the whiff immediately. “Is this what I think it is?”
“A little of what you fancy does you good.”
He hesitated. “Ah… I’m not sure. It’s been a while.”
Ruairí felt the balance swing back to him.
“Listen, dope will get you through times with no money, but money won’t get you through times with no dope. How d’ya think we’ve managed to stick this place for over a week without losing the plot completely?”
He proffered the joint again to Eban, who took it and slipped back down in the chair.
The young man seemed to embrace a more affable manner now that the ritual of passing the hash had begun.
“What exactly was it you did over there anyway, Eban?”
Eban took a draw on the joint and tried hard to appear nonchalant. “Ah, they don’t pay me for what I do; they pay me for what I know.”
Ruairí smiled again.
This guy was easy. “The money’s crap then?”
Eban couldn’t help but laugh at his rapid-fire wit.
He could feel the marijuana hit immediately. Like an old friend who had been away for a long time.
He handed the joint back to Ruairí.
“I was a teacher. Kids about your age; inner city.”
He closed his eyes to help himself remember. “Christ, they used to torture me for my accent.”
Ruairí seemed eager to talk about something removed from the shit storm he found himself in. Happy to go piggyback on someone else’s reminiscence.
“What kinda things did you get up to over there?”
“Well, I used to hang around with these guys from home, who were in a band over there. They found me somewhere to live in Cricklewood, near Kilburn. Big Irish community. Rent allowance, social welfare payments… the quids from gigs were nothing more than tokens for blow, beer and pool for those boys.”
“Sweet.”
“Nobody seemed to bother about religion there. If you came from the North, then other expats seemed to get it that it was kind of uncool to introduce anything into the conversation that might offend or embarrass anyone, like.”
“They must have knew you were a Protestant. I mean, fuck sake… look at ya!”
Eban understood now how the young man liked to parley.
By always trying to get a rise out of the teacher, the priest, the authority figure.
He’d known kids like this when he’d taught in Neasden.
They were invariably the smartest in the class, but always unremitting ball-breakers!
He ignored the bait.
The joint moved back and forward between them.
“The only people who bothered about any of that were the sad ones who congregated in the pubs on Saturday nights. You always knew them: covered in cement dust from the sites and holding sodden fish suppers. They were like rubber men… gyrating with the drink… when the rebel songs started up, tears ran; thin lines through the dust and dirt on their faces.”
The weed had loosened him up.
He attempted a passable Cockney accent, “‘Fuckin’ Paddies innit,’ the barman used to say. ‘To listen to them, the only thing they won’t do for their fuckin’ country is live in it!’”
“And nobody ever tumbled you for an Orange bastard?”
“Hey, easy on!” Eban feigned offence.
“I’m only messin’ with ya.”
Both men seemed comfortable in each other’s company for the first time.
“There was this one night.” Eban smiled at the memory. “I was on my way back from last orders. The band in the lounge bar struck up The Soldier’s Song. Well, you know how it works: everybody drew their conversation to a close and rose to their feet; stood to attention, hands over their fucking hearts. The works! Well, it threw me a bit – Ireland’s national anthem for fuck sake, right here in the middle of the great metropolis, the mother of Parliaments, heart of the empire!”
Ruairí seemed unimpressed. His trademark cynicism returned. “It makes me proud. What did you do?”
“Well, that’s it… what do you do? I’m balancing three pints and two shorts; to stand still and look at the floor was the wisest option and one I took gladly.”
“You bottled it. Some Prod you are.”
“Maybe… anyway, the music ended and a cheer went around the bar. When I was passing the lounge door I looked in. The band were still on stage. The Boys of Erin; I never forgot that… they’d been stoking the punters all night with rousing ballads of uprising and rebellion – well, didn’t they all look lovely in their crushed velvet lounge suits, lace-fronted shirts… and turbans!”
“Fuck off!”
“I’m tellin’ ya – every last one to a man… Sikh! Listen, Ruairí: that town has a way of fucking with your certainties.”
They both laughed.
Ruairí proffered the joint again. “So why are you back here?”
Eban stiffened somewhat. His mood changed. “Unfinished business,” he said tetchily. “My business.”
He took the joint hungrily and pulled hard on it.
The young man seemed offended. As if a growing familiarity had suddenly been extinguished.
He lashed back. “Chill… I don’t give a fuck.”
Eban was immediately disappointed with himself.
Embarrassed at his careless abandonment of something that he had been building.
He tried to make amends. “Sorry. Look… maybe… I… you see, I’m… I come from a pretty rough area myself – Loyalist area, I mean – and sometimes—”
Connolly was having none of it. “Now everybody’s a war baby. How’d you like to be where I’m sittin’ right now?”
Eban came down with a crash.
The exhaustion flooded back in.
The awfulness of the situation they found themselves in had not alleviated one iota.
He yearned for sleep.
Instead he was trapped somewhere in a world of half-wakefulness.
A twilight zone of blurred lines.
He hadn’t really noticed the radio playing in the background until now.
It had been cackling away with a playlist for long-distance lorry drivers and nighthawks. But now the room seemed to be filled with some plaintive Irish ballad.
The uillean pipes swelled in a mournful refrain.
He felt an overwhelming need to clarify.
To be understood.
He tried again.
“If you would just let me explain… it’s difficult for me to explain. You try to find good things… I mean, sometimes… sometimes there can be beauty; sometimes there can be more, you know? We lived on the peace line, near where the city ended and the countryside began…”
It was clearly difficult for him. He had to close his eyes.
To concentrate.
To force back the memory.
“There isn’t much good to say about it really, but one winter, after the whitest winter and close to the thaw, four horses clip-clopped by my bedroom window, down from the hills; through fields… they woke me from my sleep.”
Eban put his face in his hands and rubbed his eyes, the better to focus.
“They were ponies really… they echoed down the empty tarmac, under the glare of street lamps… all brown. They shimmered… all black… they shone in the neon light.”
It was as if he were alone in the room.
As if Ruairí Connolly need not be there to listen.
He was talking to himself.
“Indecisive at the junction, I heard them stop… then turn… then wait… then move off far into the distance, out of hearing… out of sight…”
Eban paused.
He looked puzzled.
As if trying to make sense of something.
Ruairí could see that the older man was close to tears.
Abhorring such weakness, he pounced.
“Here.” He reached out for the joint. “Give me that back!”
Eban flinched.
“Who pushed your wacko button?” he said disparagingly. “I mean, so what? So-fucking-what?”
He was merciless.
“Let me tell you a story – and you can ask Anto if you don’t believe me. When I was a kid, I liked horses too. Oh yes… used to go up and feed the travellers’ nags up on the halting site all the time. Eventually, they moved on, but they left an old donkey – left it to die, I expect. Scrawny oul thing it was – bag o’ bones – but every day, rain or shine, I was up there brushing its coat, bringing it carrots and sugar and that… until I got up there one Sunday morning – morning of my confirmation as it happens – and somebody had put an iron bar through its eye and out through the back of its head – AN IRON BAR THROUGH ITS FUCKING EYE!”
He stood up and bent low, level with Eban’s gaze.
Spitting words into his face.
“Now you tell me: why would anybody want to do that?”
His anger was withering. “The people… you came back for the people? Cop on – they eat their young round here!”
The older man cringed.
There was nowhere to hide.
Not in this young man’s realm.
His blowtorch scrutiny of things.
His unforgiving edifice of suffering and pain.
Eban was diminished by his unrelenting cynicism.
He broke his gaze and looked at the ground.
A whistle blew somewhere.
The relentless tattoo outside started up once again.
The walls closed in a little tighter.
Eban Barnard felt like he might scream.