No Comebacks

  He took a sheet of glass from the bedside table and slipped it carefully between the lid of the cigar box and its deadly contents before opening wide. Through the glass he saw the viper going round and round inside. It paused and stared with angry black eyes back at him. He pulled the lid shut, withdrawing the pane of glass quickly as the box top came down.

  'Sleep, little friend,' he said, 'if your breed ever sleep. In the morning you will do Shakti's bidding for her.'

  Before dark he bought a small screw- top jar of coffee and poured the contents into a china pot in his room. In the morning; using his heavy gloves, he transferred the viper from the box to the jar. The enraged snake bit his glove once, but he did not mind. It would have recovered its venom by midday. For a moment he studied the snake, coiled and cramped inside the glass coffee jar, before giving the top a last, hard twist and placing it in his lunch box. Then he went to catch the works truck.

  Big Billie Cameron had a habit of taking off his jacket the moment he arrived at the work site, and hanging it on a convenient nail or twig. During the lunch break, as Ram Lai had observed, the giant foreman never failed to go to his jacket after eating, and from the right-hand pocket extract his pipe and tobacco pouch. The routine did not vary. After a satisfying pipe, he would knock out the dottle, rise and say, 'Right, lads, back to work,' as he dropped his pipe back into the pocket of his jacket. By the time he turned round everyone had to be on their feet.

  Ram Lai's plan was simple but foolproof. During the morning he would slip the snake into the right-hand pocket of the hanging jacket. After his sandwiches the bullying Cameron would rise from the fire, go to his jacket and plunge his hand into the pocket. The snake would do what great Shakti had ordered that he be brought halfway across the world to do. It would be he, the viper, not Ram Lai, who would be the Ulsterman's executioner.

  Cameron would withdraw his hand with an oath from the pocket, the viper hanging from his finger, its fangs deep in the flesh. Ram Lai would leap up, tear the snake away, throw it to the ground and stamp upon its head. It would by then be harmless, its venom expended. Finally, with a gesture of disgust he, Ram Lai, would hurl the dead viper far into the River Comber, which would carry all evidence away to the sea. There might be suspicion, but that was all there would ever be.

  Shortly after eleven o'clock, on the excuse of fetching a fresh sledgehammer, Harkishan Ram Lai opened his lunch box, took out the coffee jar, unscrewed the lid and shook the contents into the right-hand pocket of the hanging jacket. Within sixty seconds he was back at his work, his act unnoticed.

  During lunch he found it hard to eat. The men sat as usual in a circle round the fire; the dry old timber baulks crackled and spat, the billycan bubbled above them. The men joshed and joked as ever, while Big Billie munched his way through the pile of doorstep sandwiches his wife had prepared for him. Ram Lai had made a point of choosing a place in the circle near to the jacket. He forced himself to eat. In his chest his heart was pounding and the tension in him rose steadily.

  Finally Big Billie crumpled the paper of his eaten sandwiches, threw it in the fire and belched. He rose with a grunt and walked towards his jacket. Ram Lai turned his head to watch. The other men took no notice. Billie Cameron reached his jacket and plunged his hand into the right-hand pocket. Ram Lai held his breath. Cameron's hand rummaged for several seconds and then withdrew his pipe and pouch. He began to fill the bowl with fresh tobacco. As he did so he caught Ram Lai staring at him.

  'What are youse looking at?' he demanded belligerently.

  'Nothing,' said Ram Lai, and turned to face the fire. But he could not stay still. He rose and stretched, contriving to half turn as he did so. From the corner of his eye he saw Cameron replace the pouch in the pocket and again withdraw his hand with a box of matches in it. The foreman lit his pipe and pulled contentedly. He strolled back to the fire.

  Ram Lai resumed his seat and stared at the flames in disbelief. Why, he asked himself, why had great Shakti done this to him? The snake had been her tool, her instrument brought at her command. But she had held it back, refused to use her own implement of retribution. He turned and sneaked another glance at the jacket. Deep down in the lining at the very hem, on the extreme left-hand side, something stirred and was still. Ram Lai closed his eyes in shock. A hole, a tiny hole in the lining, had undone all his planning. He worked the rest of the afternoon in a daze of indecision and worry.

  On the truck ride back to Bangor, Big Billie Cameron sat up front as usual, but in view of the heat folded his jacket and put it on his knees. In front of the station Ram Lai saw him throw the still-folded jacket onto the back seat of his car and drive away. Ram Lai caught up with Tommy Burns as the little man waited for his bus.

  'Tell me,' he asked, 'does Mr Cameron have a family?'

  'Sure,' said the little labourer innocently, 'a wife and two children.'

  'Does he live far from here?' said Ram Lai. 'I mean, he drives a car.'

  'Not far,' said Burns, 'up on the Kilcooley estate. Ganaway Gardens, I think. Going visiting are you?'

  'No, no,' said Ram Lai, 'see you Monday.'

  Back in his room Ram Lai stared at the impassive image of the goddess of justice.

  'I did not mean to bring death to his wife and children,' he told her. 'They have done nothing to me.'

  The goddess from far away stared back and gave no reply.

  Harkishan Ram Lai spent the rest of the weekend in an agony of anxiety. That evening he walked to the Kilcooley housing estate on the ring road and found Ganaway Gardens. It lay just off Owenroe Garden and opposite Woburn Walk. At the corner of Woburn Walk there was a telephone kiosk, and here he waited for an hour, pretending to make a call, while he watched the short street across the road. He thought he spotted Big Billie Cameron at one of the windows and noted the house.

  He saw a teenage girl come out of it and walk away to join some friends. For a moment he was tempted to accost her and tell her what demon slept inside her father's jacket, but he dared not.

  Shortly before dusk a woman came out of the house carrying a shopping basket. He followed her down to the Clandeboye shopping centre, which was open late for those who took their wage packets on a Saturday. The woman he thought to be Mrs Cameron entered Stewarts supermarket and the Indian student trailed round the shelves behind her, trying to pluck up the courage to approach her and reveal the danger in her house. Again his nerve failed him. He might, after all, have the wrong woman, even be mistaken about the house. In that case they would take him away as a madman.

  He slept ill that night, his mind racked by visions of the saw-scaled viper coming out of its hiding place in the jacket lining to slither, silent and deadly, through the sleeping council house.

  On the Sunday he again haunted the Kilcooley estate, and firmly identified the house of the Cameron family. He saw Big Billie clearly in the back garden. By mid-afternoon he was attracting attention locally and knew he must either walk boldly up to the front door and admit what he had done, or depart and leave all in the hands of the goddess. The thought of facing the terrible Cameron with the news of what deadly danger had been brought so close to his children was too much. He walked back to Railway View Street.

  On Monday morning the Cameron family rose at a quarter to six, a bright and sunny August morning. By six the four of them were at breakfast in the tiny kitchen at the back of the house, the son, daughter and wife in their dressing gowns, Big Billie dressed for work. His jacket was where it had spent the weekend, in a closet in the hallway.

  Just after six his daughter Jenny rose, stuffing a piece of marmaladed toast into her mouth.

  'I'm away to wash,' she said.

  'Before ye go, girl, get my jacket from the press,' said her father, working his way through a plate of cereal. The girl reappeared a few seconds later with the jacket, held by the collar. She proffered it to her father. He hardly looked up.

  'Hang it behind the door,' he said. The girl did as she was bid, but the jacket had n
o hanging tab and the hook was no rusty nail but a smooth chrome affair. The jacket hung for a moment, then fell to the kitchen floor. Her father looked up as she left the room.

  'Jenny,' he shouted, 'pick the damn thing up.'

  No one in the Cameron household argued with the head of the family. Jenny came back, picked up the jacket and hung it more firmly. As she did, something thin and dark slipped from its folds and slithered into the corner with a dry rustle across the linoleum. She stared at it in horror.

  'Dad, what's that in your jacket?'

  Big Billie Cameron paused, a spoonful of cereal halfway to his mouth. Mrs Cameron turned from the cooker. Fourteen-year-old Bobby ceased buttering a piece of toast and stared. The small creature lay curled in the corner by the row of cabinets, tight-bunched, defensive, glaring back at the world, tiny tongue flickering fast.

  'Lord save us, it's a snake,' said Mrs Cameron.

  'Don't be a bloody fool, woman. Don't you know there are no snakes in Ireland? Everyone knows that,' said her husband. He put down the spoon. 'What is it, Bobby?'

  Though a tyrant inside and outside his house, Big Billie had a grudging respect for the knowledge of his young son, who was good at school and was being taught many strange things. The boy stared at the snake through his owlish glasses.

  'It must be a slowworm, Dad,' he said. 'They had some at school last term for the biology class. Brought them in for dissection. From across the water.'

  'It doesn't look like a worm to me,' said his father.

  'It isn't really a worm,' said Bobby. 'It's a lizard with no legs.'

  'Then why do they call it a worm?' asked his truculent father.

  'I don't know,' said Bobby.

  'Then what the hell are you going to school for?'

  'Will it bite?' asked Mrs Cameron fearfully.

  'Not at all,' said Bobby. 'It's harmless.'

  'Kali it,' said Cameron senior, 'and throw it in the dustbin.'

  His son rose from the table and removed one of his slippers, which he held like a fly swat in one hand. He was advancing, bare-ankled, towards the corner, when his father changed his mind. Big Billie looked up from his plate with a gleeful smile.

  'Hold on a minute, just hold on there, Bobby,' he said, 'I have an idea. Woman, get me a jar.'

  'What kind of a jar?' asked Mrs Cameron.

  'How should I know what kind of a jar? A jar with a lid on it.'

  Mrs Cameron sighed, skirted the snake and opened a cupboard. She examined her store of jars.

  'There's a jamjar, with dried peas in it,' she said.

  'Put the peas somewhere else and give me the jar,' commanded Cameron. She passed him the jar.

  'What are you going to do, Dad?' asked Bobby.

  'There's a darkie we have at work. A heathen man. He comes from a land with a lot of snakes in it. I have in mind to have some fun with him. A wee joke, like. Pass me that oven glove Jenny.'

  'You'll not need a glove,' said Bobby. 'He can't bite you.'

  'I'm not touching the dirty thing,' said Cameron.

  'He's not dirty,' said Bobby. 'They're very clean creatures.'

  'You 're a fool, boy, for all your school learning. Does the Good Book not say: "On thy belly shalt thou go, and dust shalt thou eat..."? Aye, and more than dust, no doubt. I '11 not touch him with me hand.'

  Jenny passed her father the oven glove. Open jamjar in his left hand, right hand protected by the glove, Big Billie Cameron stood over the viper. Slowly his right hand descended. When it dropped, it was fast; but the small snake was faster. Its tiny fangs went harmlessly into the padding of the glove at the centre of the palm. Cameron did not notice, for the act was masked from his view by his own hands. In a trice the snake was inside the jamjar and the lid was on. Through the glass they watched it wriggle furiously.

  'I hate them, harmless or not,' said Mrs Cameron. 'I'll thank you to get it out of the house.'

  'I'll be doing that right now,' said her husband, 'for I'm late as it is.'

  He slipped the jamjar into his shoulder bag, already containing his lunch box, stuffed his pipe and pouch into the right-hand pocket of his jacket and took both out to the car. He arrived at the station yard fives minutes late and was surprised to find the Indian student staring at him fixedly.

  'I suppose he wouldn't have the second sight,' thought Big Billie as they trundled south to Newtownards and Comber.

  By mid-morning all the gang had been let into Big Billie's secret joke on pain of a thumping if they let on to 'the darkie'. There was no chance of that; assured that the slowworm was perfectly harmless, they too thought it a good leg-pull. Only Ram Lai worked on in ignorance, consumed by his private thoughts and worries.

  At the lunch break he should have suspected something. The tension was palpable. The men sat in a circle around the fire as usual, but the conversation was stilted and had he not been so preoccupied he would have noticed the half-concealed grins and the looks darted in his direction. He did not notice. He placed his own lunch box between his knees and opened it. Coiled between the sandwiches and the apple, head back to strike, was the viper.

  The Indian's scream echoed across the clearing, just ahead of the roar of laughter from the labourers. Simultaneously with the scream, the lunch box flew high in the air as he threw it away from himself with all his strength. All the contents of the box flew in a score of directions, landing in the long grass, the broom and gorse all around them.

  Ram Lai was on his feet, shouting. The gangers rolled helplessly in their mirth, Big Billie most of all. He had not had such a laugh in months.

  'It's a snake,' screamed Ram Lai, 'a poisonous snake. Get out of here, all of you. It's deadly.'

  The laughter redoubled; the men could not contain themselves. The reaction of the joke's victim surpassed all their expectations.

  'Please, believe me. It's a snake, a deadly snake.'

  Big Billie's face was suffused. He wiped tears from his eyes, seated across the clearing from Ram Lai, who was standing looking wildly round.

  'You ignorant darkie,' he gasped, 'don't you know? There are no snakes in Ireland. Understand? There aren't any.'

  His sides ached with laughing and he leaned back in the grass, his hands behind him to support him. He failed to notice the two pricks, like tiny thorns, that went into the vein on the inside of the right wrist.

  The joke was over and the hungry men tucked into their lunches. Harkishan Ram Lai reluctantly took his seat, constantly glancing round him, a mug of steaming tea held ready, eating only with his left hand, staying clear of the long grass. After lunch they returned to work. The old distillery was almost down, the mountains of rubble and savable timbers lying dusty under the August sun.

  At half past three Big Billie Cameron stood up from his work, rested on his pick and passed a hand across his forehead. He licked at a slight swelling on the inside of his wrist, then started work again. Five minutes later he straightened up again.

  'I'm not feeling so good,' he told Patterson, who was next to him. 'I'm going to take a spell in the shade.'

  He sat under a tree for a while and then held his head in his hands. At a quarter past four, still clutching his splitting head, he gave one convulsion and toppled sideways. It was several minutes before Tommy Burns noticed him. He walked across and called to Patterson.

  'Big Billie's sick,' he called. 'He won't answer me.'

  The gang broke and came over to the tree in whose shade the foreman lay. His sightless eyes were staring at the grass a few inches from his face. Patterson bent over him. He had been long enough in the labouring business to have seen a few dead ones.

  'Ram,' he said, 'you have medical training. What do you think?'

  Ram Lai did not need to make an examination, but he did. When he straightened up he said nothing, but Patterson understood.

  'Stay here all of you,' he said, taking command. 'I'm going to phone an ambulance and call McQueen.' He set off down the track to the main road.

  The ambulan
ce got there first, half an hour later. It reversed down the track and two men heaved Cameron onto a stretcher. They took him away to Newtownards General Hospital, which had the nearest casualty unit, and there the foreman was logged in as DOA — dead on arrival. An extremely worried McQueen arrived thirty minutes after that.

  Because of the unknown circumstance of the death an autopsy had to be performed and it was, by the North Down area pathologist, in the Newtownards municipal mortuary to which the body had been transferred. That was on the Tuesday. By that evening the pathologist's report was on its way to the office of the coroner for North Down, in Belfast.

  The report said nothing extraordinary. The deceased had been a man of forty-one years, big-built and immensely strong. There were upon the body various minor cuts and abrasions, mainly on the hands and wrists, quite consistent with the job of navvy, and none of these were in any way associated with the cause of death. The latter, beyond a doubt, had been a massive brain haemorrhage, itself probably caused by extreme exertion in conditions of great heat.

  Possessed of this report, the coroner would normally not hold an inquest, being able to issue a certificate of death by natural causes to the registrar at Bangor. But there was something Harkishan Ram Lai did not know.

  Big Billie Cameron had been a leading member of the Bangor council of the outlawed Ulster Volunteer Force, the hard-line Protestant paramilitary organization. The computer at Lurgan, into which all deaths in the province of Ulster, however innocent, are programmed, threw this out and someone in Lurgan picked up the phone to call the Royal Ulster Constabulary at Castlereagh.

  Someone there called the coroner's office in Belfast, and a formal inquest was ordered. In Ulster death must not only be accidental; it must be seen to be accidental. For certain people, at least. The inquest was in the Town Hall at Bangor on the Wednesday. It meant a lot of trouble for McQueen, for the Inland Revenue attended. So did two quiet men of extreme Loyalist persuasion from the UVF council. They sat at the back. Most of the dead man's workmates sat near the front, a few feet from Mrs Cameron.