The Dead Republic

  My alligator boot was under the bed - the boot I’d left in the wreckage, with the leg. It had been polished too, and looked fresher than it had when the alligator had owned it. It made the other one look dull and ordinary, the skin of a local animal. I looked at them now, downstairs on the bus. I was wearing odd boots. I’d work on the dull one when I got home. I’d exhaust myself doing it.

  I had no key, and no idea where it was. In the gutter on Talbot Street, in a box back at the hospital - which hospital? - I hadn’t a clue. I went through my pockets again. I’d the remains of a fiver, and nothing else.

  But I knew: I was being looked after. And for some reason - no reason - it didn’t scare me.

  I went to the back door of the priest’s house. The housekeeper gave me a house key, newly cut, and the pay I was due for the week I’d worked before the bomb. There was no money for the time in hospital; I didn’t ask about it. The priest wasn’t my landlord but he had the key to my house. I didn’t ask about that either. She handed me the fistful of school keys too.

  —You’re glad to be back, I’d say, she said.—Are you?

  —I am, yeah.

  —Out of that place.

  —Yeah.

  It was the first real time she’d spoken to me.

  —I hate those hospitals, I do, she said.

  —Ah, sure.

  —And I seen you in the paper.

  —Did you?

  She was a Dublin woman, and that seemed unusual. The priest’s housekeeper should have been a culchie, a peasant, bred to be a slave. I wondered was he riding her. I guessed he was - there was something too meaty about him - but I didn’t care. She was a skinny thing, standing there, trying hard - too late - to be nice.

  —Yeah, she said.—I read all about you.

  —Was there a picture?

  —There was, yeah. You in the bed.

  She was looking down at my legs, trying to guess which was the wooden one. I gave her no help.

  —And there was an old one, she said.

  —Old one?

  —You, out in 1916, she said.—In your uniform and all. A handsome young lad.

  —Which paper? I asked.

  There was no photograph of me in 1916. I’d been cut out of the only photograph.

  —Father’s Independent, she said.

  —You don’t still have it, do you?

  —It might be in Father’s office, she said.

  —Any chance—?

  —I can’t go in there. It’s locked.

  —Grand, I said.

  I wasn’t going to charm her; I wasn’t going to try. I wanted to get home.

  —It’s Father’s golf day, she said.

  From another woman, that might have been an invitation. I’d have been up that step in an oul’ lad’s flash. But this was the priest’s housekeeper. I wasn’t going to mess with the boss’s secret missis. Even if she was looking better than she had been a minute or two before.

  —He got a good day for it, I said.

  —He plays off ten.

  She didn’t know what that meant, and neither did I. She was trying to lure me into the kitchen, to take her into the stuffy dark of Father’s office. She’d find the key - I’d wear his slippers. I was seventy-two; she was a girl in her forties. She was looking at the man who’d been in the G.P.O.

  —Good for him, I said.—I’ll be seeing you.

  I went down the deep step, put there to prove I was a cripple. But I was fine; I kept my hands in my pockets. I went around to the front of the house. There were no eyes holding me up now, so I was dog tired, exhausted. But I made it down the hill. The new key worked, and there was fresh bread and milk on the table, and a packet of Wholegrain.

  I was being looked after.

  There was a copy of the Irish Independent. It was open, folded, on page 9 - an old, grainy photograph of a skinny kid in a Volunteer uniform, standing out in his parents’ back garden. It wasn’t me, and it was the wrong uniform. I was still right. I’d been sliced out of the only photograph.

  I slept all night; I didn’t dream.

  I went to work. It was the last week before the summer holidays.

  —Good man, Henry, said Strickland.—You’re back from the wars.

  I shrugged, and smiled.

  —That was a dreadful thing, he said.

  —It was, yeah. Terrible.

  —I should have been in to see you.

  —You’re grand, I said.

  —Father Devine said you didn’t need visitors, he said.—But you’re alright?

  —I am, yeah, I said.—I’m grand.

  And I was. I was a bit stiff, but I was grand. And I knew why. The secret was out. I was Henry Smart again. I was side by side with the boy I’d been in the G.P.O. People knew what I’d been and what I’d done. They looked at me and saw their country.

  The kids in the yard played near to me.

  —I’m Henry.

  —No, I am!

  —Fuck off, you. It’s my turn.

  They played 1916, a yard full of Henrys knocking fuck out of the British.They fell dead.They got up and died again.They wanted me to see it, their readiness to die for Ireland. To shoot a gun, to die and live, forever.

  The teachers knew they’d been right all along. They grew as they came up to me. They nearly fuckin’ saluted. One of them definitely genuflected. He kept going and pulled his socks up while he was down there.

  I saw Strickland looking, trying to figure me out. Why wasn’t I in the Dáil, a shadow minister, the father of the opposition? (There was a coalition of Labour and the Blueshirts in power in 1974.) Or an old diehard, a last link to the country’s birth and death, living up a country lane where the electricity hadn’t gone, or in a flat in Ballymun, refusing the respectability that could have been my due? He knew his history - why hadn’t he known about me? Why was one of the country’s heroes the caretaker of his school? No one liked questions they couldn’t answer, and there was a line of the things waiting in the corridor every time he opened his door. He kept a new distance. He didn’t stop to chat.

  Women kept their distance too, but it was different. They looked at me in a way that hadn’t been familiar for a long time. They stared at the man I’d been, and they could see some of him in my current features. They were curious, but it was more. I made sense now - the scars, and the leg. I was Celtic mythology walking towards them. I was fuckin’ biblical. I was the quiet man, and suddenly a fine man. The women smiled.

  I was being looked after.

  9

  The smile was big, but controlled. Everything about him was under tight control. The beard, the eyes. The teeth were perfect, too big and even.

  Whoever grabbed hold of me just kept going, pushed me ahead.

  I’d been locking up the school, hauling myself upright after bending at the keyhole. There was the pain, tangled and old, across my shoulders. I took my time, breaking through the ache. I was nearly there, when the blow came and I was being brought across the yard. By a strong man. I wasn’t given the time to turn and face him. But he wasn’t being brutal.

  And he wasn’t trying to hide himself.

  —There’s a man wants to meet you, Henry, he said.—Sorry about the drama.

  I knew who was shoving me towards the van that had now appeared at the mouth of the yard. It was McCauley, the man who’d taught the scholarship boys before they’d brought in the free secondary education. It was mad McCauley, but he was suddenly someone else.

  The back door of the van swung open. I didn’t fight or try to. There was more strength in the fist holding my jacket than I’d have been able to manage. The door kept swinging my way, but McCauley didn’t slow me down or help me dodge it. I walked right into its swinging path. It caught me, and hurt.

  —Sorry, Henry.

  I shut my eyes against the pain - more fuckin’ pain - and felt the hood go over my head. Warm cotton, a pillow or something; it wasn’t clean. I vomited. A hard hand pushed my head down, as McCauley kept shoving
me into the van. I fell in, onto my stomach - I didn’t have time to use my hands - and I was pulled and pushed the rest of the way, across a metal floor that stank of rust and oil.

  —Sorry about this.

  It wasn’t McCauley who spoke this time. Someone put a knee on my back. His feet were huge, right at my face. He was climbing over me, to pull the door closed - I thought. The van was moving - it had started while I was being dragged into it. I felt it turn left when it got to the front gate. The knees and weight were off my back. A hand took one of mine, and guided it to some sort of handle or grip. I held on as the van took quick corners - I lost count; I never started - and then got going on a straight stretch of road.

  My hands weren’t tied. I wasn’t a real prisoner.

  —I’ve been sick in here, I said.

  No one answered.

  I’d no real idea where we were; I’d been driven off my map. We weren’t heading east; that was the sea. And we weren’t going south, into town, because the van picked up some speed and didn’t slow down for quite a while. I was being brought away from the city, west - or north. The rest of the country.

  There was only one other man in the back of the van. McCauley hadn’t come with us. I knew, and was pleased I knew: I hadn’t heard the van’s front doors being opened, at the school. McCauley hadn’t got in. There was me and the man who’d put the hood over my head, and the driver - and maybe a passenger beside him.

  I guessed we’d been going for ten minutes. But I’d been stepping out of time all summer, since the bomb. Wandering in the dark. Waking up, not having gone asleep. I could have been in the van for hours. But the smell in the pillow was consistently desperate; it got no worse or better.

  —I’m after vomiting in here, I said.

  —Won’t be too long now.

  It was a Dublin accent, and it wasn’t delivering a death sentence. I’d been kidnapped, but I was still being looked after.

  —How long?

  —Not too long. You’ll be able to clean up in a wee while.

  It was a Dublin accent but it belonged to a man who’d spent time in the company of men who said wee. We were heading north, up to the wee six counties. We wouldn’t be stopping soon. Or, if we did, it would only be to change vehicles. The small bits of news I’d listened to in the last four years had been full of abandoned cars.

  The van turned, and we were off whatever main road we’d been on. There was no real slowing down; I had to hold on as the van took the swerves and potholes of the smaller roads. My guess was North Dublin - Man o’ War, the Naul - wild places I’d known a bit more than fifty years before.

  The puke was crusting, cementing my head to the pillow, sealing the pores of the cotton.

  —I can’t breathe in here, son.

  —We’ll be changing in a minute.

  —Changing?

  —Swapping cars - vans.

  I was right: we were driving out of the Republic. I let go of the handle - whatever it was I’d been gripping.

  —I’m taking this thing off, I said.

  —That wouldn’t be wise, said the voice.

  The words were plain, but there was no threat in the tone. I started to pull at the hood.

  The van was still moving when I woke. My head was on the floor, bouncing as the van bounced. Beating the pain in deeper. I’d been whacked.

  My hands were still free.

  I thought I’d been whacked.

  I managed to sit up. I wasn’t sure - my whole body was agony. Was it even the same van?

  —That shouldn’t have been necessary.

  I’d been whacked. It was official. Most of the pain was new, and real.

  But the experience was old. I’d dragged men into the mountains. I’d hit them across the head with the gun-butt and told them not to struggle; it wasn’t necessary. Then I’d put the gun to the backs of their heads and shot them.

  The same hand took mine and guided it back to the handle.

  —Thanks.

  —You’re welcome.

  —Where are we going?

  Get them talking.

  No answer.

  —Who am I meeting?

  No answer. I went back to the easier question.

  —Where are we going?

  —Can’t tell you.

  —How long?

  —Not long. Nearly there.

  —Where?

  No answer. Then the voice.

  —Don’t worry.

  The van was slowing; the left-side wheels were off the road, on a ditch or something. It stopped.

  The man in the back with me pushed against me - getting past me, I guessed. I still wasn’t tied. I heard the driver’s door open. One door. Only the driver. The passenger was staying put, or wasn’t there.The driver and the man in the back. I’d been whacked, and it hadn’t been a fist. I’d been hit with the back end of a gun.

  Two men and one gun.

  The back door opened. I felt the breeze. Sea air.

  —Out you get.

  He grabbed the wrong leg.

  —Fuck, sorry.

  —No problem, I said through the cotton and puke.

  I was able to fumble my own way. I was given the space to do it. I felt soft ground under my foot. Had I been brought to a field? Or the edge of a wood? I could hear and smell the sea. But we weren’t in sand dunes. I was pretty sure we weren’t near mountains. It was a long drive to any mountains north of Dublin, and we hadn’t been going uphill. It was still a hot day. I could feel the sun burning through the hood. Heating the vomit.

  —This fuckin’ thing, I said.

  —Right.

  The voice was new, and hard.

  —You’ll have to keep your eyes shut, said the old voice, the one I’d travelled with.—It’s important.

  —Okay.

  I felt his hands - both hands: he wasn’t holding the gun - as he grabbed the cotton at my neck, about to pull.

  —Here goes.

  I screamed - I didn’t. The pillow did. It ripped as he pulled and took half my face with it.

  —For fuck sake!

  It was years since I’d heard myself laugh. I’d be laughing as they shot me.

  I’d kept my eyes shut.

  There was something against my hand, being pushed against it.

  —Clean yourself.

  The hard voice. The accent belonged to a man who’d spent long periods of his time in different places, or pretended he had. Belfast, England, the east coast of the States. They were in the layers of each syllable, and no layers were fat enough to hide the fact that this was a man who had killed and believed he’d done the right thing. It was a voice from way back, although the man who used it was young.

  I put the cloth to my face, and kept my eyelids locked. It was velvety and thick, too heavy to be an old shirt or pillow. It felt like well worked leather. I smelt the polish before I buried my face in the cloth. It was a shammy, a chamois leather, for polishing a car or van. My quick guess was that it hadn’t come out of the van. The polish was fresh, still there in the leather. The hard man had been going at the paintwork while he’d been waiting for me.

  I polished my neck and face. I stank of old Goldgrain and beeswax.

  —We have to change cars, said the hard man.

  —We didn’t have to do that in my day, I said back.

  The silence was brief, respectful.

  —Right.

  The hard man.

  —We’d better get going.

  I held out the shammy. It was taken.

  —Am I supposed to keep my eyes shut? I asked.—Or d’yis have a clean bag or a pillow?

  —It’s for your own good, said the man who’d travelled with me.—The less you know and that. You know yourself.

  The bag went over my head. A plastic bag.

  —You’re fuckin’ joking.

  —It’s all we have.

  —It’ll smother me!

  —I cut wee holes in it.

  Wee again.

  A hand gr
ipped my elbow, a gentle shove.

  —It’s just over here. Flat ground, don’t worry.

  The plastic bag was dreadful. It was a hot, wet lick every time I inhaled.

  —No, I said.

  I stopped walking. The hand pulled at my elbow, then stopped.

  —Get into the car, said the hard man.

  —No.

  —Get—

  —This fuckin’ bag.

  —Get in first, and I’ll put something else over you. I’ve a jumper in the boot.

  The car door opened. The hand protected my head, gently pushed me down, and in. I was their guest. The I.R.A. - I knew it was them.

  I was out of touch, and I regretted it.

  Someone climbed in beside me.

  There were two I.R.A.s. The Provisionals and the Officials. There’d been a split - another one - a few years back. I knew that much, but that I was all I knew.

  —Shut the eyes again, Henry.

  He ripped through the bag; it fell away from my head. And he hung the jumper over my head. It belonged to a man who smoked forty a day.

  —Can you see anything?

  —No, I said.

  I felt the engine fight, and the car moved; it was climbing off a soft slope. Then we were going. I didn’t know which I.R.A. had taken me. I didn’t ask.

  —D’you like Planxty, Henry?

  The hard man - driving.

  The man beside me laughed. I didn’t answer.

  —I have the album here, said the hard man - he was talking to the man beside me, talking to someone he knew.

  —Good man, said the head beside me.

  —I’ll stick it on, said the hard man.—See what Henry thinks. I heard a click - all clicks sounded like triggers being cocked. Then the car was full of diddley music.

  —What d’you think of that, Henry? the hard man shouted.

  I knew the right answer.

  —Good.

  The two lads laughed. By the time the hard man stopped the car I’d heard the thing, the whole long player, three times through. I’d given up trying to position the car on the map. I might have slept; it didn’t matter. They’d brought me north. Either that, or the north had come to me. I knew that much: the I.R.A. had migrated north since my day. And this was I.R.A. business.