Pray for Us Sinners
Living as a slum Catholic for the last month had been an eye-opener. Marcus could understand now why Captain Warnock had said it was more attractive for men to be PIRA volunteers than unemployed greyhound walkers.
And Mike had new friends, big Eamon and wee Jimmy, and an avowed interest in joining the Provos. He had fallen hopelessly for Siobhan Ferguson, but was the kind of man who would be too proud to go begging her to reconsider what she had repeated three days ago when he had brought her back from Gransha, that she thought it better if he didn’t come round anymore.
Never mind Mike Roberts. Marcus Richardson loved Siobhan, and she was wrong about him. He knew he was a different Marcus from the apolitical ATO who had come back to Ulster. He hadn’t been able to ignore the daily carnage in the streets of the city. His city.
He’d felt completely at home on Gransha, with its peace and its memories—or had until she’d knocked his world askew. His Ulster roots went deeper than he had recognized. And he’d come to understand from what he saw daily, and from his conversations with Eamon and Jimmy, that the situation in Ulster was more complex than a simple Catholic-versus-Protestant-faction fight with the army in the middle. Great wrongs had been done to the Catholic minority. The scars and the wounds went back so far, and recent history was nothing to boast about. Since partition in 1922, the Orange Order had ruthlessly kept the Fenians in their place. There had been anti-Catholic discrimination in jobs and in housing. Gerrymandering—the redrawing of electoral boundaries to ensure that the Catholics could never form majorities—was rampant.
At first sight, it seemed simple to characterize the Protestant Loyalists as evil men. They weren’t. They were scared men, terrified of the prospects of a united Ireland in which they would become a minority in a Catholic country. Scared men do evil things. They were wrong to try to cling to power like the white South Africans, but, like the Boers, the Protestants had been in the country for hundreds of years, and it was as much their home as it was the Catholics’. Loyalist paramilitary organizations, the Ulster Volunteer Force, the Red Hand Commandos, and the Ulster Freedom Fighters had been formed to oppose the PIRA and to keep Ulster part of Britain.
The violence was the work of a small number of hard-liners on both sides of the sectarian divide. The great majority of the population abhorred the killings and wanton destruction, wanted to live in peace and find a politically workable solution. But no one could see what that solution might be. Marcus certainly could not. He still wanted to nail the bomber and his superiors, and not just so he could hold the major to his promise about the SAS. It wouldn’t halt the war, but he was convinced that, however the conflict was to be resolved, bombings were not the way to achieve political ends.
Marcus had known fear when the van bomb blew in the Falls. He’d had to force himself to go under the cinema marquee. It had been hairy enough defusing the pub bomb, but at least he was trained for that kind of work. Civilians weren’t, and they must live with fear every day of their lives.
He ran a hand through his hair. What a cock-up. Ulster and its complexities, Siobhan gone, and as far as his mission was concerned, he was getting nowhere. Meeting McCutcheon had been promising, but that fizzled out when McCutcheon had had his questions answered. He’d said he might ask about, but how close was Marcus to meeting senior Provos? He hadn’t a clue. Certainly he hadn’t learned enough to bother making an appointment with the Dr. Kennedy who was to be Marcus’s contact with the major.
Marcus stood up and toyed with a photograph that lay on his table among the books about Alberta and the green folder. The Mike Roberts folder. That face in the snap, he looked at it closely, belonged to the man the major thought was one of the M62 bombers. There’d been no sign of him in the pubs or bookies’. No Provos, no idea when or if he’d hear from McCutcheon again, and no Siobhan. Bugger it.
He looked over into the corner where he had piled his dirty clothes. He really should take them to the launderette. He’d get them washed on his way to the pub. He’d have to go down there again tonight and pretend to be enthralled by Eamon’s repartee. Maybe Jimmy would be in. He’d not been for the last couple of nights. Marcus could at least ask him how Siobhan was. Maybe enquire obliquely about McCutcheon. And then what?
He moved to the window, pushed aside the grey net curtains, and peered down the length of narrow Robina Street. A young woman was walking toward number 10. She had long blond hair, and—he sighed—for a moment she reminded him of Siobhan. He watched her approach, seeing her hair—wishing. Christ. It was Siobhan.
Marcus dropped the curtain. He grabbed his notes and the photographs from the table. He shoved the papers under his bed, reached into the corner of the room, and stuffed his dirty clothes in after the green ring binder.
Someone knocked on the door. “Coming.”
The bloke who had been pissed off because Mike had been too long in the bathroom stood there. “Roberts?”
“Aye.”
“There’s a bird to see you.”
“Thanks.” He pushed past and saw her standing on the pavement. “Siobhan?”
“Can I come in?”
* * *
Two miles from Robina Street, the air in another room was warm and muggy. A chlorine stink filled Brendan McGuinness’s nostrils. He sat on a slatted, backless wooden bench dressed in nothing but a damp towel that bore the slogan, “Ormeau Baths. Property of Belfast City Corporation.” He had difficulty seeing because the humidity fogged the lens of his spectacles. His feet rested on duckboards, and he had an uncomfortable feeling that he might catch athlete’s foot.
He squinted through the fog. None of the changing cubicles was occupied. A fat man with sagging breasts, his torso as hairy as a gorilla’s, rotated under a freshwater shower. The sound of the spray echoed from the tiled walls. Brendan had not expected the place to be busy on a Wednesday. He’d been right.
The door of the changing room opened and a towel-clad newcomer crossed the duckboards and sat on the bench beside Brendan. He carried a second towel and began to dry his short-cropped hair, the towel over the sides of his head effectively shielding his face from the man in the shower.
Brendan had to strain over the splashing of the water to hear the newcomer’s words.
“Wilson hits Thiepval at ten on the eighteenth. They’ll take him by a roundabout route to Hillsborough, but he’ll have to cross the Ravernet River. The convoy’ll be two army Saracens and an armoured Mercedes. He’ll be in the Merc. He’ll be on the Ravernet Bridge between eleven thirty and twelve.” The short-haired man stared at the floor as the fat man left the shower and went into one of the cubicles, closing the door behind him. Then he asked, “Any sign of Roberts?”
“Roberts? The Brit? Aye. The information officer of Second Battalion and me had a word.”
“What about?”
“One of our New Lodge fellows, Colin Heaney”—
“Lad with a cleft lip?”
“Aye. He’d reported to his battalion IO that some fellow in New Lodge, back from Canada, was an explosives expert. He defused a bomb in their pub. Heaney wanted to know if he should try to recruit him.”
The short-haired man grunted. “And?”
“The IO said to hang on ’til he’d spoken to me. I told him to tell Heaney to keep an eye on Roberts but to keep away from him for a wee while.”
“Fair enough. Now you know where he is, you can sort him out whenever it suits us.”
“He’ll keep ’til I’m ready.”
“Right. Now, Ravernet Bridge, eleven thirty to noon on the eighteenth.”
Brendan nodded once to indicate that he had heard clearly, then rose and walked to a cubicle. As he dried his left foot, he peered balefully at a bunion and hoped to God he had not picked up any fungus in these grotty public baths.
* * *
Marcus tried to apologize because his room was so dingy, but she brushed aside his protestations. He took her coat and hung it behind the door. She’d taken the armchair, leaving him nowhe
re to sit but on the bed.
“Would you like a cup of tea?” he asked, hoping she’d say yes.
“No thanks.”
“Oh.”
“I didn’t come for tea.”
“I’m glad you came.”
She shook her head and he wondered how many times he’d seen her toss her bright mane.
“I had to talk to you,” she said. “It’s stupid.”
“No, it’s not.”
She crossed her legs, folded her arms, put a hand on each shoulder, and leaned her face against a forearm. “I shouldn’t have come.”
“Siobhan.”
She looked into his eyes. “Damn you, Mike Roberts. I’ve cried myself to sleep every night.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. I’m the one that should be sorry.”
“Why?”
“Because I thought I meant what I said, except I didn’t get it quite right.” She unfolded her arms and rubbed the back of her neck. “I said I could fall in love with you.”
He slipped off the bed and stood close before her. “I love you, Siobhan.”
“I know. I know.” He saw her tears start.
He bent and kissed her and the kiss was returned.
“I love you, Mike.” She stood and he held her to him, lips on hers. His hand found her breast, soft through the stuff of her blouse, the nipple hard beneath his palm. He felt her teeth on his lower lip and her breath sweet on his.
She stepped back and he watched her undress, without coyness, without false modesty, baring her body for him: alabaster skin, coral nipples—pink reefs in the shining sea of her long, gold hair. He brought her to him, soft against his shirt, and brushed her lips with his, tasting her, the sweet and the salt of her, breathing the perfume of her, feeling her yield to his touch. He put his mouth to her nipple, taking in the firmness of the rosebud and soft strands of her hair. She shuddered and pulled his head against her breast.
“Siobhan,” he murmured, “Siobhan,” as he stripped and, naked himself, enfolded her, holding his hardness against the softness of her belly.
She surprised him with the ferocity of their first lovemaking, pulling him to her, onto her, into her, ravenously wanting, taking until both were spent, humid and drowsy, lying on the small bed. She surprised him with the tenderness of their second lovemaking, seeking, exploring, learning, finding out. Languorous, rhythmic, timeless.
He lay, head on her breast, fondling the curve of her hip, looking at the beauty of her, taking her in with all his senses. He knew, beyond doubt, with a certainty that scared him, that life without Siobhan Ferguson would be no life at all. “I love you,” he said.
When she said, later, that she really must go home, they dressed, and he walked her to her house, held her, and kissed her, feeling their parting like a physical pain, knowing then that he would never find, nor want to find, another Siobhan.
He wandered back to Robina Street, thoughts flogging like a headsail with a broken sheet. He knew he must stop lying to her, prayed that she would understand when he eventually explained who he was. Had she really meant what she had said on Gransha, that she wouldn’t care if he was a British soldier?
FORTY
TUESDAY, APRIL 9
Davy leaned against the wall beside the makeshift bar, sipping his stout. He looked at the other men in the room, seated at tables or standing in knots around the walls. It was the same old crowd and some younger ones he hadn’t seen before. There was no sign of the singer.
One of the newcomers, a lad of nineteen or twenty, with a pasted-on sneer and a ferocious squint, harangued the rest of his party, declaiming his loyalty to Ireland and his hatred of all things British. The little shite would ignore his disapproval when it came to accepting his dole money.
Jesus. Words. The country was drowning in words. Davy ignored the tirade.
Through the smoke haze he could see tears in the wallpaper where strips hung down, limp and ragged. Someone had tried to brighten the place up by tacking posters to the walls. A man with muscles like an ox held a surprised-looking carthorse above his head with one hand on a poster proclaiming: “Guinness is good for you.” It is, Davy thought, in good company.
He was here because his house had become cramped and empty all at the same time. Cramped because for the last week, since he had met young Roberts, he had seen, more clearly than ever before, the narrowness of his own horizons. It was something the youngster had said about Canada. “No one there gives a shit if you’re Catholic or Protestant.”
The Cause and all that went with it; hard men in luxury flats, ammonium nitrate, urea nitrate, dynamite, nitro, blasting caps, ArmaLites, constant guard, skulking and subterfuge, death and maiming … dead ten-year-old girls. Even now, the Land Rover raid more than a fortnight gone, he could hear her “pleeease…” in the small lonely hours of his nights.
The hollow times between the action. Nowhere to go but the backstreets of the Falls or an unlicenced drinking den full of broken-down relics refighting battles of a forgotten, failed war, men with whom he had nothing but a past to share. No friends except Jimmy and a scruffy ginger cat. No contact with the rest of his battalion save Sean and Brendan McGuinness.
Days spent in a cramped, two-down-two-up, empty house—empty because Fiona wasn’t there. He had lost count of the number of times he had set out, determined to phone her. And he had reason now. He’d do the big one. His mind was set on that. It might win the war, but even if it didn’t, it would be his last.
He would call her when it was over and done with for good. Next time he saw Jimmy, he’d find out more about Canada. That Roberts lad knew an IRA man who’d moved there.
Davy was impatient. Impatient for the summons from Myrtlefield Park. Until then, he had no way of contacting the CO. No way of getting it over with. And now, now that his mind was made up, he wanted it finished.
He was impatient to talk to her again, face-to-face, not on the impersonal telephone. Maybe they could start a new life in Canada. He wasn’t too old. She would have to enquire at the Canadian consulate if her teaching certificate from Stranmillis College would be good enough for a Canadian school.
He shifted the weight from his bad leg. Dream on, Davy McCutcheon. What if she says, “No, I don’t want to go to Canada”? He’d not think about that now. He’d dream. You’re good at dreams, Davy, he thought—dreams of Celtic Twilight, dreams of a new life in a new country, dreams of Fiona. He hawked, the spit bitter in his throat. Dreams, Davy. They’re all you’ve got.
He swallowed Guinness, the bottled beer more bitter than the draught he preferred. He wondered if he would be able to get a decent pint in Canada. He should have asked Mike Roberts. He’d been living there for years. Or so he said. The youngster certainly knew his explosives. As soon as Davy got the word and the plastique from Sean, he’d have Roberts round. Forget buggering about with learning on putty; Roberts could make the real thing. There was no need to mention anything to Sean Conlon. Roberts could fix the Semtex charges, and Davy would deliver them. The Active Service Unit would go out well equipped, and Davy would have kept his promise to Sean, with that shit McGuinness none the wiser. The plan seemed watertight and pleased Davy.
And then—Fiona. He hugged the thought, a smile playing on his lips.
* * *
Sean Conlon had no smile on his face as he paced up and down the big drawing room. “Fuck it, Brendan. We can’t go ahead without permission from Army Council.”
Brendan sat in an armchair beside the carved fireplace. “As far as I know, we’ve got it.”
“How the hell can you tell? Turlough was meant to bring back the word from Dublin.”
“He can’t, can he, Sean?”
“How the hell did the Brits know he’d be crossing the border at Dundalk yesterday?”
“You tell me.”
“Jesus, Brendan, Turlough’s the third OC Belfast Brigade they’ve lifted.” He counted on his fingers, “Adams, Bell, and now Turlough.”
> “Yes,” said Brendan, “and you’d better have a look at this.” He handed Sean a piece of paper. “It’s from Army Council. They’ve confirmed me as OC, Belfast Brigade.”
Sean stopped pacing and scanned the note. “Congratulations,” he said coldly as he handed the paper back.
“I’m sure we’ll work together very well. I’ll carry on as IO until we find a new one. It won’t interfere with my duties as OC, and I say we’re going ahead.”
“On the British prime minister?”
“Jesus, Sean, at the first meeting of Provisional Army Council they said that action could be left to the discretion of local leadership.” His voice hardened. “And that’s me.”
And likely to stay that way, Sean thought, if you pull this one off. Pity the PIRA doesn’t hand out medals. You’d like that, Brendan, wouldn’t you? Sean let his head bow. “All right.”
“Great.” McGuinness stood. Just for a moment Sean wondered if McGuinness had had prior knowledge of Turlough’s impending arrest and kept quiet about it, either to improve his own chances of promotion or to ensure that there would be no interference with his plans to go after Harold Wilson. He could be devious, but surely not that devious.
“We need another big victory. Remember what Chairman Mao said about power coming from the barrel of a gun? We’ve got our tails up now. Look. Peter McMullen, the ex-para, got four bombs into Claro Barracks in Ripon in Yorkshire on March 26; we set off fourteen bombs in London stores on April 6, aye, and two in Manchester and three in Birmingham. Incendiaries took out half the city centre in Armagh yesterday. Ten shops gone in Market, Scotch, and Thomas Streets.”
“And you think wasting Wilson would help?”
“Yes, for fuck’s sake. You know what our New Year’s message said?”
Sean quoted, “We look forward with confidence to 1974 as a year in which the British rule in Ireland shall be destroyed and the curse of alien power banished from our land for all time.”