A Mad and Wonderful Thing (11 page)

I move on between the tall buildings of the works, and I enter the machine workshop through double doors. The building is wide and long, and its high walls support a multi-pitched roof. Around me are relics of a former purpose: overhead are pulleys and apparatus for belt-driven machinery, and rail-tracks are buried in the floor. I cross the workshop, passing the time-clock near the clerk's office. I am careful not to punch in or out other than standard hours. I walk to the south-east corner, where a large, separate unit is contained behind high, block walls that offer no windows to the rest of the machine shop. This former store for components is now the carpentry workshop — ‘Carpentry Corner', the men of the factory call it. I take a set of keys from the pocket of the Dunn & Co, and I open the lock of the steel door. I enter the workshop, trigger the switch for the low lights over the workbenches, and relock the door behind me. I settle at my workstation.

Only two workers are employed in the carpentry workshop — Jack Quigley and me. Jack is in his fifties, and has worked here for thirty years. He is a gentle soul. Jack isn't a carpenter at all; he trained as a fitter, and worked across the yard in the assembly plant. But fifteen years ago the carpenter died and the position needed filling. Jack enjoyed woodwork as a hobby, and built bird tables and dog kennels in his back shed at home. This was common knowledge — Jack supplied dog kennels to half of Dundalk. So when the vacancy arose, Jack was moved. Jack refers to it as the day of his great promotion, though technically that isn't so. Carpentry is incidental to the product of the engineering works — the demand for woodwork is restricted to odd jobs, and the making of frames and packing cases for shipping. Much of our labour in the workshop involves doing odd-jobs and making nixers for management and fellow workers. Mostly, we remain unbothered. It is perfect.

With just the two of us employed in the large workshop, each has an expansive space. I built my own in the first six months of my first year, and I took the whole south wall. I built a new dry-wall against the whitewashed brick, and on this I created shelves, racks, and tool-boards. Against this wall I built a large, square table, and two heavy benches. It took me six months. In the second six months I built my tool-chest. In fact, I built two, making one as a gift for Jack. The tool-chests are impressive pieces of work — over one metre in length, and half-a-metre high and wide. I modified an American design I'd found in a textbook, making the chests in oak and using complex and precise joints to ensure strength and durability. The chests have a deep space under a top-hinged lid, with various-sized drawers accessible behind a front panel. All the hinges, handles, and fittings are brass, and I fitted each chest with a secure lock. I lined all the internal spaces and drawers with a rich royal-blue felt cloth, and I finished the chests with a hand-rubbed Danish oil. So the chests could be pulled along like a trolley, I fitted each with a double-axle carriage and oversized wheels, and I attached a long foldaway handle at one end.

The tool-chests are a familiar sight around the plant as Jack and I pull them about on our various jobs. The men appreciate the craftsmanship — Jack says the chests are a work of art — and many ask me to help them build their own. I don't mind, and I am happy to help. In a way, it all adds to the deceit. All the tradesmen buy and maintain their own tools, so the bringing and the taking of tools to and from the premises is a common thing.

Once every two weeks I take the tool-chest home, taking a lift in Big Robbie's van. I make a point of stopping near the security office to open the chest and show off a new tool or some recent piece of work. Here, too, the tool-chest is a familiar sight: ‘There he goes with his box of tricks', the men say as I pass. And they are right: built into the dry-wall of my station is a secret space, and in that space is a third chest.

I take a large, folded felt cloth down from a high shelf. Slowly, I spread it out smoothly on the table I've built for this purpose. I take the third chest from the wall. I gather the lubricants, polish, and cloths required from the shelving. I have hidden them here in full view amid the fundamental supplements of an engineering workshop. Maintenance and care, the American taught me, are as essential as both bullet and gun. Before I open the chest, I walk to the steel door and check that it is locked.

Is this what you choose for your life? To be a killer?

I turn. Bob sits on the end of my bench, a red rag hanging loosely from a pocket in his green overalls.

Johnny?

I ignore him. I return to the table, open the top lid, and set to work.

Soldiers' Point

IN THE EARLY MORNING OF A JULY DAY, I WALK EAST ALONG THE
embankment
on the southern shore of the estuary. Che runs on ahead, stopping at intervals to check on me before running on again. The tide is ebbing, and the river is low as it empties into the wide bay. Below me the broad grey mudflats stretch and glimmer north to Bellurgan, Jenkinstown, Rockmarshall, and on east along the mountain peninsula. Herons hunt in the low tide and pools. The rivulets are populated with prowling oystercatchers, plovers, egrets, and grebes, and islands of green marsh are highlighted yellow before the rising sun.

I stop at the end of the embankment, at Soldiers' Point. I pull at the collar of the Dunn & Co and then push my hands into the deep side pockets. Inland, there is a terraced crescent of coastguard houses. There is no movement around the houses, and there is no one along the river — it is too early for early-morning walkers. I am alone.

Bob sits on a boulder that once belonged to a small jetty.
Hello, soldier
, he greets me.

I remember a day we sat at his oil-store workbench. It was summer, the door was open to allow a warm breeze in, and the bright light of the yard was framed in the doorway of the dark store.

Bob gestured to the doorway. ‘Out there, life — it's just one impossible mountain.'

‘A mountain, Bob?'

‘Yes, son, a mountain. We all get born at the foot of the mountain, uncontaminated and ignorant. Our goal, young man, is to try and climb the mountain.'

‘Why? What's on the top of the mountain?'

‘Who knows? The meaning of life? Answers? Happiness? Maybe … maybe nothing,' he laughed. ‘Who knows? Nobody knows anybody who has made it to the top and come back down. Anyway, it's the climb that counts.'

‘Do many make it, Bob?'

‘No, not many. It's a vicious mountain. Deadly. A person has to climb over all of existence just to keep moving up. The worst of humanity must be crossed: debauchery, savagery, greed. The relentless struggle slows you down, drags you back, stops you, swallows you up. Most settle for survival, and make camp wherever they can. The climb to the top gets lost.'

‘Doesn't sound good.' I commented. ‘Is there any hope at all?'

‘Some have no chance. Some find a rope to help pull them up.'

‘Hope on a rope, Bob. That's great.'

The old man took a drink from the teacup he held in one hand, and with his other hand he waved a slow finger to me.

‘So where do we find these ropes?' I asked.

‘Every man must find his own rope. They are found all around us, in the simple truths of life. But they are found, too, in our hopes and fears, and those need great care.'

‘Why?'

‘Without great care, a rope becomes a whip. The flesh of humanity is gouged deeply with the scars of those whips. Take care, my young friend, with what rope you take hold of in this life.'

I had no idea what the old man was talking about. ‘So what's the secret, Bob? How do we get to the top of this impossible mountain?'

‘You and your secrets, Johnny.' The old man looked to me. ‘There are no secrets.'

‘At a mad guess, then?' I pushed.

‘Well, at a mad guess, I'd say it's a pure heart.'

After our lunch, I walked out into the sunlight of the afternoon. Across the yard the large steel doors of the workshop were open, and from the shadow Grimes and McArdle along with O'Connell and Cooney — two other buffoons — stepped boldly into the light, their work coats and shirts removed and tied around their waists. The four amigos approached the empty yard in broad steps, like out-of-town gunslingers looking for trouble. I laughed as I watched them.

‘I know a problem we meet on that mountain climb of yours, Bob,' I said, popping back into the oil store.

‘Yes, son, what is it?'

I pointed to the workshop. ‘It's an avalanche of arseholes.'

On Bob's next birthday, I surprised him, replacing the ‘Oil Store' sign with an engraved brass plaque I had made in the workshop. It read:

THE PHRONTISTERY

ROBERT J HANRATTY

PURVEYOR OF LUBRICANTS AND OTHER MATTERS

The old man polished it every day. He polished it every day until the day he retired. And Bob Hanratty was retired for only one week when he dropped down dead.

I stand looking out into the estuary. ‘This is where they left from,' I tell him, ‘the starving Irish. They went from here to Liverpool and then on to God-knows-where. That's what they did to us, the English: starved us or ran us out of our own land. They brought hell itself onto Ireland. And they had no right to be here in the first place.'

That's a long time ago now.

‘Not really, Bob. And they are still here, still a pain in the arse. The partition they insist on is an open wound on this island. As long as it's there, it will fester and infect.'

But you'll make them pay, Johnny-boy. You'll see justice done. And who'll be next? The Vikings landed along this shore, and ransacked and plundered all before them. And the Normans sailed this very water, and what did they bring? Will you be off to Copenhagen and Oslo and Pembroke and London and Cherbourg next with that revengeful gun of yours? Don't you see, son? Once you start, where do you stop?

‘It's not about revenge. Anyhow, they are gone; the English are still here.'

But that's just it, Johnny-boy, they are not gone. They, too, are still here. They are part of you; they were part of me. And the English? To many, England has been a refuge. To many, England has been a bright light on a dark shore. And to many, they are welcome here.

‘They are not welcome,' I tell him, and the conversation ends as if it has dropped and fallen down the embankment and into the mud.

I find a stick on the shore and throw it far for Che to chase. I look out into the bay, where a boat sits at anchor and waits for the next tide.

You won't change anything,
Bob says
. And you cannot win.

‘Maybe. But we didn't start this. A people who allow themselves to be occupied are taken as suckers. They will exist only in the shallows.'

Occupation is a slanted view.

‘Slanted? We do not have an army over there, but they have one here. And by that, they force the Irish to be fighters or cowards. There is no other way; there is no middle way. Only the gutless apology of a politician.'

That doesn't mean anything. Do you think that you, Johnny Donnelly, can make a difference?

‘So should I do nothing? Like a coward? If we do nothing, they win and we lose. If we don't fight, no other outcome is possible. But if we fight, we may win and they may lose; and the worst that can happen is that we both lose. It's the Irish dilemma. But fighting will produce the most favourable result: once we fight, they cannot win.'

That's the spirit, Johnny. There's nothing like a bit of warped positivity.

I look out to the mud, the water, and the mountains. ‘By coming here, they started this whole thing. By bringing the gun into Ireland, they forced us, too, into lifting the gun. And by staying here, they take us all to hell.'

I summon Che and turn for home.

And what about herself?
he calls after me.
Would you drag that beautiful girl into your war? Who gives you that right?

Che runs on ahead as the sun climbs behind me, and I am walking into my own shadow. ‘It's not my war,' I bark back to Bob. ‘It is Ireland's war.'

I quicken my pace as if to get away from the annoyance of his questions, but it cannot be done. I try to push the difficulty of Cora away with every step, but, like my shadow below me, it remains connected and constant, and it too cannot be done.

Lifting mist in grey country

‘ “AN ACCIDENT HAPPENED”, WAS ALL SHE SAID THAT EVENING. “AN
accident happened.” And the next morning she didn't speak at all.' Gerry Flannery shakes his head as he drives the load of cattle-feed south and west on the N52. Ardee and Kells have slipped behind into the mist we lift from the wet road, and we are approaching Mullingar before he gets to the story he has brought me along to hear. The rain falls, and the wipers work to clear a view into the grey country. Gerry grips and turns and releases and grips the steering wheel again, pumping the pedals, pulling and pushing the gears, driving the truck forward, to brake and pull and grip again at the next bend.