Now and in the Hour of Our Death (14 page)

“I didn't want to see Davy, but he phoned, and when I heard his voice…”

Windy
lurched. Fiona's wineglass fell, and as she bent to pick it up, she saw the spilt wine flowing across the walnut and rosewood decking. “Give me a cloth,” she said, straightening. At least she'd stopped crying.

“Leave it. I want you to finish.”

“Finish? All right. There's not much more. We had tea together in the tea shop where we'd first met. He told me he wanted me back … and if you could have seen that man's face, crumpled, exhausted, your heart would have bled for him. He kept rubbing one fist in the palm of his other hand. He didn't plead, just came right to the point. He loved me. He would leave the Provos.

“I thought that it was Christmas and all my birthdays come at once … and I knew just how much I loved him. Then he told me there was a condition. He'd given his word to go on one more mission for the Provos. Davy was a terrible man for keeping his word. If I'd wait for him until the job was done, he'd come to Canada with me. That was in 1974.”

“And after the mission he had a change of heart?”

Fiona thought that she could detect a hopeful note in Tim's voice.

“The mission was a failure. He was captured. Put in the Long Kesh Prison…” Tears welled and hung from her eyelashes. “That was when Jimmy's daughter lost her love…”

“Siobhan?” Tim stumbled over the pronunciation. “The blonde woman?”

“Siobhan. She'd fallen for a young man who called himself Mike Roberts.”

“Jimmy talked about him last night.”

“His real name was Richardson. Lieutenant Marcus Richardson. He was a British undercover agent. He was with Davy in a farmhouse on the last attack. The Security Forces knew about it. Richardson had told them. They set an ambush. Davy was in an upstairs room. There was a lot of shooting. Richardson was killed, but not by Davy, more probably by a random shot. Davy
had
killed a soldier, no question of that, but the British forensic people said that the bullet that finished Richardson couldn't have come from Davy's weapon. Losing the boy was very hard on Siobhan. She loved him very much.”

She brushed away a tear. “Sometimes I think it would have been easier for me if Davy had been killed, too.”

Tim drew the web of his hand from under his nose down below his mouth and chin and said, almost to himself, “Perhaps it would.”

“Not Davy,” she said softly. “I didn't really mean it like that.”

“Look.” He stared into her eyes. “Losing someone you love is like a death.” He lowered his gaze. “When Carol and I were divorced, that's what it felt like.”

Tim hardly ever mentioned his ex-wife.

“And what do people do when someone dies?” said Tim.

“Have a funeral? Bury them?” Where was this going?

“That's not all.”

“I don't understand.”

He reached out and took her hand again. “They mourn. They grieve … and in time they get over it.”

It all sounded very logical. Very matter-of-fact.

“After my divorce, I used to find myself picking up things, like a drinking glass, and thinking, Carol used to leave lipstick on the rim, or looking in a mirror and remembering how she'd sit at it and brush her hair … and leave loose hairs all over the dresser. But after a while, the glass was just a glass with a clean rim. There were no loose strands on the dresser. It was like … like pulling apart a kid's LEGO construction, piece by piece, until they were all gone and back in their box … as if the construction had never existed except in a faint memory.”

Fiona felt herself being jerked backward.
Windy
must have ridden up to her anchor and then fallen back to the extent of the anchor rope and been suddenly and forcibly pulled up short. The boat rocked as Fiona recognized Tim had rocked her.

“I don't think you've done that … and when you saw Jimmy at Bridges…”

The old wounds had opened. Wide. Tim was right.

“It's not just Davy. It's Belfast. You're right. I haven't—what did you call it?—grieved for him … or for Ireland. And they both come back to haunt me.” She hesitated. “I had the dream on Thursday night.”

“Dream?” Tim put his head to one side like a robin looking for a worm.

“It keeps coming back. I was nearly blown up by a bomb, and I see the blast and the hurt and dead people. I smell the explosives. Taste them. And I go home to Davy and…” She felt a tear slip down her cheek and moisten her lip. “I've never told anybody about it.”

Tim stood.

She noticed that
Windy
seemed to be riding much more comfortably. The shrieking of the wind in the rigging had fallen to a muted piping.

He moved around the table and stood over her. Put an arm under her shoulder and lifted her to her feet. He held her, made no attempt to kiss her but stroked her hair and, with a finger, pulled the tears from under her eyes. He made soft noises in his throat.

Fiona held on to Tim. What had he said? “That anchor would hold the
Titanic.
” Tim was like an anchor.

“The dream's awful when it comes,” she said. “It leaves me shaking.”

“I'm glad you told me,” he said.

And she looked up at him and saw the truth of it in his grey eyes. “Kiss me, Tim.”

He did, without heat, without passion, but with softness and comfort. She pulled away but remained in his arms.

He was smiling. It was a small smile.

She tried to smile back. “I've said a mouthful. You've given me an awful lot to think about … and … and you don't mind? About Davy?”

His eyes became very serious. He lowered his voice. “I love you, Fiona. As I see it, your Davy is hanging between the pair of us like a bead curtain between two rooms. Not blocking the way, but there. He … and Belfast … are ghosts we'll have to lay, but”—and his smile returned, broader than before—“between us I think we can manage.”

“I'll try,” she said. “I promise … but I'm going to need a bit of time.”

His smile faded. “I'm afraid I'm going to have to give you at least a week. I have to leave tomorrow for a medical convention in San Francisco. But I'll phone you. And we'll talk about this when I get back.”

“I'd like that.”

Overhead, the rigging was silent. Sunlight coming through the port light made her screw up her eyes. The last tear fell.

Tim turned and said over his shoulder, “Feels like the squall has passed. I'll go and start weighing the anchor. You fire up the engine.”

“Aye, aye, skipper.” She managed to force a smile.

“It's two o'clock,” Tim said as he climbed up the companionway. “Time we were moving along.” The steps creaked under his feet.

 

CHAPTER 12

TYRONE. SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 18, 1983

The broken springs of the sofa creaked when Sammy McCandless moved. He balanced a half-eaten plate of fried bacon, eggs, and soda farl, a late supper, on his lap. The eggs tasted like rubber and the bacon grease had congealed. No bloody wonder. His three-roomed labourer's cottage was always damp. The turf fire in the grate in the corner looked cheery but was bugger all use for heating the place. Sammy shivered.

He'd not be sorry to see the back of this place when Spud came through with that witness-protection business. Not if, but
when
he came through. He'd better get a move on.

From overhead came the sound of helicopter rotors. Bloody Brits. These days there were as many choppers roaring about over Tyrone as flies on a heifer's arse.

The nine o'clock news ran on an old black-and-white television, the newsreader's face blurred by horizontal lines that straggled in never-ending sequence from the bottom to the top of the screen. Reception was bloody awful tonight.

“… The body of a man was found in a construction skip on Cupar Street in Belfast. He had been shot in the head. The police suspect foul play…”

Bunch of fucking Sherlock Holmeses. Did they think the poor bugger had crawled in there and done it to himself?

“… A woman was admitted to the Belfast City Hospital with gunshot wounds to both knees…”

Sammy rose, shoved his plate into the sink, and switched off the television. He had to live with this shite every day, and the last thing he needed to be reminded of was the punishments handed out by the Provos to people they decided had committed a crime against the organization. That woman might have done nothing worse than have a bit of slap and tickle with a British soldier. The bugger in the bin? Had he been a “source”—like Sammy?

The folks round here said, “You can rape your best friend's wife and be forgiven, but if your grandfather informed to the British it would
never
be forgotten.”

Sammy turned on the tap over the sink and waited for the warm water to make its way through the rusty pipes.

Memories were long in Tyrone. He'd been taught as a child about the history of insurrection against the British that went back centuries, to the times of the great Irish patriots, the O'Neills of Tyrone—
Tir Owàin—
the land of Owen.

And he'd learned the history of treason.

In 1681, Redmond O'Hanlon was betrayed to the British for one hundred pounds by his foster brother, Art O'Hanlon, who shot Redmond as he lay in bed; in 1744, Mollie MacDacker, for fifty pounds, sold Seamus McMurphy to the English constable John Johnston.

Mollie MacDacker had drowned herself because she could not live with the shame. He could understand how the woman must have felt, and he knew, too well, that today the Provos didn't rely on remorse to put paid to touts. The Provos took care of informers—permanently.

Maurice Gilvarry, Belfast Brigade, January 19, 1981, shot dead at Jonesborough—informer. Seamus Morgan, East Tyrone Brigade, March 5, 1982, found shot dead on the Carrickasticken Road—informer. Eric Dale, May 7, 1983. Sammy could recite the list of names—a list he did not wish to join—as well as he could say his Hail Marys. If he was found out, “Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and in the hour of our death” would be his last words—the Provos were very decent about letting a man make his peace with God—just before they “nutted” him.

Sammy
had
to get out of Ireland, and he wasn't going to do that on his fucking Raleigh bicycle. Spud had to deliver—and soon.

The water from the tap was, as usual, lukewarm. Sammy put the plug in the sink, squeezed in a few drops of detergent, and waited for the sink to fill before turning off the tap. The dishes could soak for a while. He needed a drink. Badly.

There was a nearly finished bottle of John Powers whiskey in the cupboard. He took it out along with a chipped glass and poured until the bottle was empty. The spirits were sharp on his tongue. Bloody drink. That's what had got him into this mess in the first place. Ever since the night he'd got into that stupid fight in a pub.

Sammy remembered how the peelers had lifted him and taken him to the Strabane police station. There wasn't a day that he didn't remember.

He fished a Park Drive out of a packet on the counter and lit up, returned to the couch, and sat.

The peelers had charged him with grievous bodily harm. They'd left him alone in a cell for hours, and then a man in plain clothes had come in. A big man. All smiles. Open packet of Silk Cut in one hand. He'd sat opposite Sammy. The plainclothes man had CID written all over him.

“Have a fag, Sammy.”

Sammy had been well indoctrinated by Cal about what to do if he found himself being interrogated. You never said
nothing
to one of those bastards.

He refused to meet the man's gaze, and turned away.

“I'm having one.” The man lit up, smoked the cigarette until it was finished, then crushed it out.

It seemed as if a lifetime passed before the stranger said, “You've six months coming.”

Sammy stared at the ceiling. He stared at the floor, the drab green walls.

“I could get you off.”

Sammy couldn't help himself. He didn't want to go to jail. He let himself look at the big man's eyes.

“Easy as pie. You'd be out of here in no time.”

Sammy bit his lower lip. Say
nothing
.

The man offered the packet of smokes. “Go on, man. They won't bite.”

Sammy knew he shouldn't, but he took a cigarette, accepted a light, and fixed his gaze on the acoustic tiles of the ceiling. He counted the holes. One hundred and ten. One hundred and eleven …

It was awkward trying to smoke with his hands cuffed. They'd handcuffed him after they'd taken away his jacket and shoes, and the belt that held up his trousers. The cell was cold and damp. The only warmth there'd been in that cell was in the big man's voice—at first.

“You don't have to go down, you know.”

What was the bugger after? One hundred and thirty-one …

“Not if you'd do a wee job for me.”

For a peeler? No fucking way. One hundred and fifty-six …

“Of course, if you don't want to…”

Sammy didn't. Six months with time off for good behaviour would soon be over. Once he got involved with the coppers … one hundred and … shit. He'd lost count. One, two …

“I could make things a lot worse for you than doing a bit of porridge.”

What the hell was he talking about? Sammy glanced at his tormentor.

“Got your attention?”

“Fuck off. What could you do?” The words slipped out. Say
nothing
.

“You don't think it was just bad luck that you got picked up tonight.”

Sammy did think that.

The big man laughed. “It wasn't bad luck, Sammy. I know you're a Provvie, so I wanted to have a wee word with you. I arranged to have you lifted.”