The Nightside of the Country

by Meaghan Delahunt

  And so the next Saturday I find myself returning to that house. I decide to give X the benefit of the doubt. I turn up for work, my biggest mistake, and then all doubt is taken away.

  It’s late evening. This is where it gets hard to find the words. Time speeds up and then slows. He comes back with his wife from a dinner at the pub. They both go up to check on the kids. I tell them the wean has been sound asleep, peaceful all night. They come back down and at the door of the kitchen X kisses his wife good night, pats her on the backside, looks at me over her shoulder to see that I’ve seen him do this. The good husband. The good father. His wife is sayin she’s all done in, puts her hand lovingly to his face and thanks me and says she’s away to her bed. He gives her another hug and then calls to her that he’ll be right up he just has to have a cup of tea, sober up a bit; pay the babysitter, like. He does not refer to me by name. He never calls me by my name.

  And then he carefully shuts the kitchen door. I see him check the handle. I see him check the snib. He moves slowly, deliberately around the kitchen, and I sit up straight in the chair, alert, waitin for him to say something. The silence stretches. He turns on the kettle and the radio, adjusts the volume, starts humming to himself, his back to me. He asks if I’d like a cup of tea. I say yes, and relax my shoulders. I let down my guard, keep tellin myself it’s all fine because his wife is upstairs. I watch him open the cupboard door and reach for the cups, reach for the saucers. I watch him open the cutlery drawer and see him pause for a second. I watch as he picks up a knife, holds it to my neck, and rapes me on the kitchen floor.

  ✳

  THAT NIGHT IN THE LONG AGO

  I shut my eyes for a moment. I’m down at the Port on this island, watching all the pilgrims, waiting – for what, I can’t be sure – but my mind runs to the long ago. I stayed in the Movement, after all what happened, and now, of course, I question why. I became a Quartermaster and threw myself into the work, to prove myself, to save myself, to distract myself, who can say? I ran guns and people. What’s the point of making amends, taking stock, calling yerself to account? It’s a question that will not let me be. Certain things return.

  Another night in the long ago, for example.

  I mind the drive across the border, and how I delivered Callum, my childhood friend, to the dark. How I left him there and kept driving. And what would it even mean, to call yerself to account? I’m thinkin all this as I wait at the Port and watch the ferries come in. Waiting at the Port, not sure who or what I’m waitin for. There’s a young boy with his father. He keeps his head down as he swipes at a small screen. A teenage boy. Could be the age of my son and grandson, if I’d been such a woman to be goin down such a route. Sometimes I’m caught out like this with my thoughts straying to a different life. Because, after I’d drove over the border with Callum, after that particular night, I kept on. To Dublin. Then London. And then to the clinic, and after it was all over, I woke up in a room with five other girls. Pale, all of us, with our hair fanned around the pillows, like Victorian ladies.

  After, it took a while to recover. I bled for a month. I wasn’t well, not at all well. I saw signs and portents everywhere. I saw infants’ clothes in the trees outside the kitchen window. It was not an easy decision, with my background and all, despite what the men with placards and the men in pulpits would have ye believe. It’s never an easy decision. But to have the child? A child by X? Like many women before me, in this situation, I would’ve had to kill myself first.

  But getting back to that night; the drive over the border. It was a test, I knew this at the time. To see if I had what it takes, to test my commitment, to see what I was made of, and it was nine weeks after, and I’d told no-one yet, not my boyfriend, not my family, and I knew I was with child, as they say, and that I needed to get to London, so I said to Callum, I’ll meet you at the church, I’ll pick ye up after the cards. There was nothin unusual in that. We’d all been friends since we could walk. And every Wednesday night, Callum and my brother Brendan and the card game at the priest’s house. For years, it’d been a fixture. There was a meeting down south, I said. We’ll go together, drive back next day. And Brendan hugged Callum before he got into the car, I mind that, the light above the Presbytery door, the long shadows cast: it lacked only a crow of the cockerel, the palm of silver. Callum folded his big frame into the car, an overnight bag at his feet, its leather strap wound tight around his wrist, not looking at me, looking straight ahead even when I took the unfamiliar route from town, he didn’t protest, and he could’ve done something, what with my brother and that rough embrace – and Callum knew the score, knew what was what and when I drove over the border and slowed the car and the men stepped out from the trees, he looked at me, direct, ‘Brighid’, he said, using my full name, formal-like. ‘I know.’ He was twice my size; could’ve taken the wheel, taken me by the throat, even. But I delivered Callum to the sure red-dark and the men with the guns. Was he a tout now, or was he not? The words like a rope round his neck and there was no way that state of affairs could continue – an informer? – that kind of uncertainty. Not with the Army on the streets. Not with a war goin on.

  I was in London for a visit, this is what the family told everyone. I was in London to see the relatives. When I came back, I wrote to the Movement about X and what he done to me and what could be done, then the questions began. The Movement weren’t happy. Not at all happy – with me – they were not at all happy with me, as it turned out.

  It was a tout what did for me. Some years after the business with X. I got caught, along with five others, with a bag of ammunition and a map and no alibi, Nothin more to be said, yer Honour. And then I done my time. Certain things stay with you. Inside, I mind we’d take turns with the radio. We had small crystal radios smuggled in and that’s how we got the news. Ye’d set the radio on the water pipes, back of the cell, and wait for it to warm up, to get a signal. There was one day, and I felt it in my bones when I woke: something not right. I hesitated, not wanting to get up. But I set the radio, waited for the news. I leant in low to hear, then sat for a minute, tried to gather myself, then knocked the walls either side of me. He’s gone, I tapped out to the girls. I couldn’t believe it myself. Yer man – the Hunger – it’s over.

  Inside, there was the strip search. The remand prisoners – and I was one of them – got taken out to court every week. And every Monday night you’d be in bed thinking to yerself, oh god, oh god, oh god. I’ve got to get through all that again. It was never a question of security. It was only to degrade us and shame. You were taken down and stripped of your clothes. Two screws as escort. Times I was left with the blood down my legs, time of the month and the screws stood there, pointing to the floor, Look at that mess you’re makin. You were taken to the court house and the men put you in a cell, ye were in court two minutes then back escorted to the van. Every week the same story.

  It got to the point where us women decided, right, we need to do something. We need to take some control. So we took off our own clothes and stood there with the blanket over us, waitin for the screws to come, just so’s we wouldn’t have to go through all that again. You have to stay strong in the mind. Because whatever they do, they can’t control your mind, they can’t get inside and that’s their problem.

  Many of the screws were men. Did I mention that?

  In the prison, we were on hunger strike before the men. We were on the no-wash protest. But a starved-thin woman in a shit-smeared cell? Who can reckon with that? And male journalists are only interested in men’s stories. War is, above all, about men’s stories. That’s the topic of interest, that’s what sells. A story of men is of general interest. And what is a story of women?

  In the interrogation room they kept me for several days. There was a bed and a chair chained to the ground. There was no window. They questioned me non-stop and slapped me about. I saw a doctor once a day. A solicitor once a day. The doctor declared me fit. My back played up with all the beatings and I started to limp. My h
ip was fractured. My neck hurt all the time.

  If I’m nervous, they’ll think I’m weak.

  If I cry they’ll think I’m weak.

  When all this was happening, I’d go back in my mind to that safe house with my cousin and the Big Man and the Short Man and X. The way time bends and the mind bends with it.

  After the Peace, I got a letter to say I’m no longer a wanted person. But if I returned I’d be done for things that happened before the Peace. The letter made it clear: these are not get out of jail free cards. These OTR – on the run letters – these letters do not protect a person from arrest or prosecution. Especially if more evidence turns up. Especially if it’s a civilian what finds the evidence. If a civilian trips over a bit of cloth, say, a bit of bone, say, on a beach in County L—, say, the police could press charges and investigate.

  Let me be clear here. All what I know. All that I done and what was done to me, I view it differently now. And I know there’s no excusin myself here. That’s not what this is about.

  But in this Time of the Felled Men, I view it all differently.

  ✳

  INTERROGATION #1

  That first time, when they come for me, I leave a note under the pillow. It’s several months since what happened. In this letter, folded under my pillow, I tell my ma and da that I’ve been taken away and if I don’t come back…before this, no-one knew what’d happened, exactly. My parents knew when I got to London, after it was all arranged. Until then, everything was a big secret. They thought I’d gone with a boy; gone with my boyfriend and got into bother. Now, I put it in writing. I name X. They didn’t know I’d sent a letter to The Big Man. But my ma and da had been worryin at me since I got back from London. They’d worried at my silence and the weight loss and the tiny scars on my arms. Worried enough to send me to a shrink, a counsellor, to get help. But always with the counsellor I was very careful. Always, I was on my guard. It’s a small community, who’s connected to who and who knows what, and everyone knew X.

  A woman drives up in a small white car. I recognise her – she’s a cousin – second cousin removed on my da’s side. I see her at weddings and funerals, baptisms and anniversaries. She’s ages with da and she’s always been friendly. Now she’s cool, guarded, as if we’ve never met, as if we’re not blood-related. She drives me to a flat in the west of the city. I try to keep my wits about me. I try to memorise the street names, and where we’re headed, but my sense of direction has never been strong. She’s quiet and calm, but I’m taut on the edge of my seat. I trail behind her up to the door of the flat. She has her own key and the flat has that empty smell and feel of a place where no-one stays for very long. People are only passing through here on their way to somewhere else. When we get inside, she says, Let’s get the kettle on, and I can only nod. She turns the dial on the radio so the volume is down low. I bite my lip. I draw my knees up to my chest as I watch the kettle boil. I will it not to boil. I fear that this woman, my cousin, my blood relation, will pour the hot water over me. That she will take this kitchen object and use it against me. I hear the whistle of the kettle and the radio on low and I’m back to that night: a girl on a floor; X’s hand on my mouth, a knife at my throat. All roads lead back to X.

  My cousin knows where everything is in this house, her hand is certain, she moves confident when opening the drawers and cupboards. She knows where the light switches are. She’s done all this before. She knows where the fridge is, concealed near the sink, and even how to open it and close it firmly with one hip. It never closes proper, she’s saying, more to herself than to me. She takes down two mugs and two tea bags and a pot and makes a pot of tea because she prefers it proper-like, she says, a proper brew. She smiles at me as she says this. The first smile she’s given me. She then opens the cupboard again and takes down another teabag, For luck, she says, and turns to look at me, to make the point, For luck, she repeats, not smiling this time, one for the pot.

  I watch that kettle boil and the sound of the radio down low and it’s apparent that things have went so far now, there’s nothin I can do. Since X, nothin in my life is as it was before. I sent a letter to the Big Man and now this. I’m 21 years old and everything has changed.

  She taps the lid of the teapot and keeps the silence and then, out-of-the-blue she says: So – ye cut yerself ? Ye’re a cutter. She indicates my forearms, hid beneath the jumper. How often do ye cut yerself now?

  I’m not expecting this. How could she even know? I’m done with that, I say, defensive, pulling the sleeves down further.

  That’s not what I heard.

  From somewhere, I get the courage to back-chat: Don’t believe everythin ye hear.

  With a sigh, she crosses one leg over the other. She turns the teapot three times, to let the tea draw. The tea likes it, she smiles. Then the smile disappears and she leans forward and starts right in: Well, now. What do we have here? A wee girl who cuts herself, a wee girl who perhaps is a bit down, now? Who’s seen the shrink and all but who’s still not right in the head. A girl who’s makin things up, perhaps? A girl who went with a boy, ruined herself, and then made up a tale?

  My cousin’s voice as she says all this is soft, not threatening, cool. She pours the tea and her voice pours over me as she pushes the cup in my direction. She asks if I want milk, a biscuit, as if this is just an ordinary afternoon. I start to think that maybe I can handle this if it’s just me and her.

  There’s no made-up story, I look her straight in the eye. And the cutting and all – that’s over with.

  She leans back, eyeing me hard. Yer man here. These allegations, now. He’s a family man. A good man. One of the best volunteers…

  I curl further into myself, draw my knees right up to my chest: That’s just it, I say. He’s not good. He’s the livin, breathin opposite of a good man.

  My cousin leans back in her chair. Well, now. This is why we need to see ye, ask some questions, like, to see if what ye’re sayin is the truth. We need to see the body language.

  The body language? My body language could betray me, I think. It could be used against me. Curled tight in the chair, knees to my chest, I’m a tight ball; I’m shielding myself, as if I could roll that self away from this room, this house, this whole situation; roll right away from her. With difficulty, I uncurl and try to sit up straight.

  Don’t let her see ye’re nervous.

  Don’t let her see ye’re afraid.

  I lift the teacup and my hand trembles and I decide to forego the milk because my hand is not level and at that exact moment there’s a loud knock and my cousin gets up from her chair, she backs away, all the while keepin an eye on me, her body angled towards mine, as if I might try to make a run for it, and briefly she looks through the spyhole, and opens the door and two men walk in. I know these men by sight. Oh god, I think. Oh god. Oh my god. Now it’s all on.

  It’s herself, he says, Young B. The first man, The Big Man, addresses me in a loud voice. And then The Short Man chimes in: We need to have a talk now…

  My cousin interrupts, looks from me to The Big Man. She puts a hand on my knee and I flinch. Friendly, like. Just a talk, B, nothin to worry about…

  For the next six months, the same sequence of events: my cousin, the white car, the same safe house at the edge of the city. The Big Man and The Short Man. Sometimes several times a week. At night, early morning. Sometimes late afternoon or in the evening. There is the element of surprise, this I know. Dragged from sleep, sometimes my pyjamas on under the coat. There is the idea of catchin me out. The same questions, to see if I’ll give the same answer or go falling to pieces; a jigsaw of myself across the floor. The safe house. The house where I feel the opposite of safe. I get to know that house so well: The lack of furniture, the walls a blank stare. The kettle. The radio. The questions each time: always the same questions.

  When, where, and what? Why are ye sayin all this? These are serious allegations here . The repetition: Yer man now is a good man. One of the best. But you, Youn
g B, are ye a good girl now? Can it be really be said that you’re a credit to yerself? To yer parents? Can it really be said?

  Each time, the same answers. I’m aware of my body language. I’m attempting to sit straight in the chair and answer all the questions straight. I rub cream into my arms to fade the scars. I wear long sleeves, always, even as the weather turns warm.

  And after, I come home each time to my parents sat vigil with the lamp and the television and the relief that flows through them, each time I’m home in one piece. I kiss them wordlessly goodnight.

  It’ll be over soon, I say, trying hard to reassure them. But who knows, truly, when it’ll be over?

  And then, after six months, it ends, without warning. There’s the final visit to that flat with my cousin and the men. And then, as quickly as it began, it’s all over.