Bog Child (22 page)

Forty-seven

The funeral under the great Scots pine was a quiet affair. Even the Provos’ final salute seemed muted. After it was over, the people of Drumleash dispersed in silence. Mam and the girls put on a spread back at the bungalow, but only the Sheehans and the Caseys came. They just had the one sandwich and went home. Of Harry, the publican of Finicule’s, where Uncle Tally had lived and worked down the years, there was no sign. People said he’d gone to ground, others that he’d fled the country under a new identity.

Three weeks later, Fergus loaded his rucksack into the boot of the Austin Maxi. Mam gave Theresa instructions for getting the tea. Da looked up from the
Roscillin Star
and smiled sadly.

‘Fergus,’ he said. ‘So you’re leaving us?’

‘Yes.’

‘It’s what your Uncle Tally always wanted for you. We’d two boys, a soldier and a student. He promised us never to say a word to you. And he kept that promise.’ Da’s eyes filmed up. ‘Tally never kept a gun in his room at Finicule’s. I want you to remember that, Fergus.’

‘I know, Da. You keep saying. And I’ll remember.’

Da put a twenty-pound note in his hand and turned away. Theresa and Cath stood waiting to say goodbye at the front door. Cath gave him a collage she’d made on a page of A4. Dalmatian dog spots danced all over it. She’d cut them out from Joe’s old coverlet that Mam said was worn out and only good for dusters. She’d glued scrunched-up bubblegum wrappers amongst them.

‘What’s it supposed to be?’ Fergus said.

‘It’s the skin of a patient. Somebody with the plague
and
chicken pox.’

‘God help them. And God help me.’

Theresa said she’d no card, only some advice.

‘What’s that?’

‘Be prepared.’

‘Be prepared for what?’

Theresa leaned forward and whispered in his ear, ‘I saw the condoms. In your bedroom.’

‘You little snoop—’

‘I know all about it.’

Fergus stared, then laughed and put a finger to his lips. ‘You’re wise beyond your years, Theresa McCann.’

‘I know. Good luck, Dr McCann.’

Fergus got behind the wheel of the Maxi while Mam put the learner plates up. He groaned. Uncle Tally’s death had meant he’d missed the chance to take his test and now he’d to wait until the Christmas holidays. He backed out of the drive as the girls waved frantically, hooted the horn and drove off down the close. Mam and he said little as they crossed the rolling plains and hills of the North. They came at last to Antrim and to Larne and descended into the brightly lit harbour. Fergus pulled up on the dockside, close to where the ferryboat was moored. He hefted the rucksack onto his back and together they walked over to the departure point.

‘Have you everything?’ Mam fretted. ‘The cake, the papers, the directions?’

‘Yes. Everything.’

‘Because all I can see from here are those.’ Mam shook the new trainers that dangled down, knotted to the drawstring at the top of the rucksack. He’d bought them with the money from Rafters’ ‘operation’. ‘Watch they don’t come loose.’ They were top-of-the-range, springy, with pumas racing off the edges.

Fergus smiled. ‘They’re safe enough.’

They came to the barrier where he had to go through and she couldn’t. She’d her lips between her teeth. Her eyes glistened. Her sunglasses sat on her head and he’d never seen her look so happy or so sad. ‘Oh, Fergus. They’ll make a fine doctor of you.’

She pulled him into a rough hug. Eighteen years of scoldings, nudgings, goadings, praisings and teasings were in it. ‘What will I do without you?’

‘You’ve Theresa trained up now, Mam,’ he said.

‘Get along with you.’ She released him from her arms.

He was about to go when he thought of something. ‘Mam?’

‘What?’

He rolled up his sleeve and took off Joe’s watch. ‘Take this.’

‘Why give that to me? Didn’t Joe give it to you to mind?’

‘I don’t want to risk losing it, Mam. It said in the brochure to keep valuables to a minimum in the halls of residence. Besides…’

‘Besides what?’

‘I reckon they’ll let Joe out soon. Early.’

‘D’you really think so?’

‘Yes.’

Mam took the watch and put it on her own wrist, smiling. ‘He’s coming along grand, the doctors say. Maybe he’ll even be right as rain.’

Fergus suppressed a shrug. What he’d seen of Joe was hardly grand. ‘He’s definitely improved,’ he said. He gave Mam a final hug. ‘You’ve one son going and another returning.’ He quickly went through the gate, showing his ticket.

‘I’ll be waving from the car,’ Mam called.

Fergus turned. ‘See you at Christmas,’ he called back.

He was down the ramp and up the steps to the top deck in a few minutes. He went to the boat’s starboard and found a space by the railing. There was the old Maxi, and Mam beside it, her trouser suit a neat navy and her hair let loose. She waved the giant pot of Marmite she’d bought for him at the last minute but forgot to add to his rucksack, where there was no room anyway. He opened his two hands, grinning, and the funnel gave its boom of departure. Imperceptibly, the boat moved. He grabbed the rail and waved. Mam leaned on the bonnet, waving, smiling, and although he couldn’t see from so far away, he knew that she was crying. She was saying something that he couldn’t make out. Perhaps it was
Study hard
, or
Write often
, or maybe,
Don’t forget to go to mass
. He nodded and the boat pulled away. A rope unspooled. The gap between the boat’s flank and the massive rubber tyres of the dockside turned from a foot to a man’s length, then a tennis court. Still Mam waved. He threw his arms wide as if sending a last hug over the water, and the boat began turning. Mam stood up and opened the car door, blowing a kiss. He watched the coast slip away. Larne retreated, as he’d imagined it the day of Lennie Sheehan’s funeral, then Antrim, then the five other counties in all their throes. The summer of the bog child was over. Mel’s living, laughing face, as drawn by Cora, now framed and in his rucksack, would go with him wherever he went. But the old Fergus of that time would never return. Cells would die and be born. New places and faces would jostle with the old. Letters would go back and forth bringing news and conversation. The Fergus who’d return at Christmas would already be different. He’d years of the changing to come. The studying, the books, exams, arguments, theories. The jokes and pints, laughter, kisses and songs. Life was like running, ninety per cent sweat and toil, ten per cent joy. The small figure of his mam got back into the car. Soon the Maxi flashed silver and brown as it climbed back up the hill. He turned away and walked across the deck to the other side.

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank my beloved friend Helen Graves, who sifted through the final MS with deftness and aplomb. Dr Conor Carville lent me his acute Northern Ireland ear. I would also like to thank my publisher David Fickling for his inspirational belief from the outset in this story and, as ever, Bella Pearson, Annie Eaton, Kelly Hurst and Sophie Nelson for their invaluable input. The story’s first reader was Hilary Delamere, my agent, and as ever she held the ball of wool steady while I walked into the labyrinth.

I also owe a massive debt to BBC/Open University’s
Timewatch
for its inspirational programme on recent discoveries of bog people in Ireland and to the classic
The Bog People: Iron-Age Man Preserved
(Faber and Faber Ltd, 1969) by P. V. Glob. Maximum thanks are also due to Yoko Ono and the estate of John Lennon for the use of Lennon’s song lyrics from
Imagine:
indeed, all the songs from this album provided a mesmerizing soundtrack while I worked.

Finally, I would like to thank my husband Geoff Morgan for lending me his old physics A-level exercise book and cheering me along every step of the way.

Copyright Acknowledgements

School’s Out
Words and Music by Alice Cooper and Michael Bruce © 1972 by Third Palm Music (BMI) and Ezra Music Corp–all rights administered by Third Palm Music, California, USA–Copyright Renewed–All Rights Reserved–Reproduced by kind permission of Carlin Music Corporation–London NW1 8BD

Suspect Device
written by Burns/Ogilvie. Published by Complete Music Ltd/Universal Music Publishing MGB Ltd. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Extract from
The Bog People: Iron-Age Man Preserved
by P. V. Glob: used by kind permission of Faber and Faber Ltd.

Extracts from
Oh Yoko!
and
I Don’t Wanna Be a Soldier
written by John Lennon. Copyright © 1971 Lenono Music. Used by kind permission of Lenono Music

Every effort has been made to obtain permission to reproduce copyright material, but there may have been cases where we have been unable to trace a copyright holder. The publisher would be happy to correct any omissions in future printings.

A DAVID FICKLING BOOK

Published by David Fickling Books an imprint of Random House Children’s Books a division of Random House, Inc. New York

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Copyright © 2008 by Siobhan Dowd

All rights reserved.

Originally published in Great Britain by David Fickling Books, an imprint of Random House Children’s Books, in 2008.

David Fickling Books and colophon are trademarks of David Fickling.

Visit us on the Web!
www.randomhouse.com/teens

Educators and librarians, for a variety of teaching tools, visit us at
www.randomhouse.com/teachers

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Dowd, Siobhan.

Bog child/Siobhan Dowd.—1st American ed.

p.                   cm.

Summary: In 1981, the height of Ireland’s “Troubles,” eighteen-year-old Fergus is distracted from his upcoming A-level exams by his imprisoned brother’s hunger strike, the stress of being a courier for Sinn Fein, and dreams of a murdered girl whose body he discovered in a bog.

1. Ireland—History—20th century—Juvenile fiction. [1. Ireland—History—20th century—Fiction. 2. Political prisoners—Fiction. 3. Bog bodies—Fiction. 4. Family life–Ireland—Fiction. 5. Political violence—Fiction. 6. Terrorism—Fiction.] I. Title.

PZ7.D7538Bog 2008

[Fic]—dc22

2008002998

Random House Children’s Books supports the First Amendment and celebrates the right to read.

eISBN: 978-0-375-89154-0

v3.0