Two Kinds of Blood

by Jane Ryan

  Chapter 30

  2003

  Gavin got out of prison on a grey March morning at eleven, in keeping with the Governor of Mountjoy’s procedures. He hadn’t wanted to be collected, hadn’t wanted anyone standing on the North Circular Road with a cheery smile and conversations about how well he did his time. He knew how well he’d performed in prison. Still, his grandmother was there on the side of the road, waiting.

  Sheila Devereux was a barrel of a woman on spindly legs and always wore a baggy coat, no matter the weather. Seeing her there, as though she had popped out for a sliced pan, was an unceremonious end to Gavin’s six years in prison. Over the last 2,190 days he had been told when he could eat, when recreation was allowed, when he could go to the gym, when he could sleep. He stood in the shadow of Mountjoy, misplaced. He smelled of prison – boiled vegetables and bleach – an aroma even diesel exhaust fumes from passing cars couldn’t rid his nostrils of. One of the men he had walked out with ignored everyone else and ran down the road, a dog pulled by the scent of rotting meat. The other two looked at Gavin, waiting for some sign, which he didn’t bother to give them.

  Gavin’s grandmother called to him.

  ‘Hello, Gavin love!’

  ‘Hi, Nana,’ said Gavin.

  There were no shows of emotion from either, but her eyes looked into Gavin’s, trying to find her grandson in this new version of himself.

  ‘You’ve put on another bit of weight since I saw you last month.’

  ‘It’s muscle, Nana.’

  She cocked an eyebrow at him. ‘I used to meet your grandfather here – well, not in this spot. The prison was smaller then. I can’t believe how much building is going on, cranes everywhere. You won’t recognise East Wall – the financial thing has eaten up half of it. Some would call it progress.’

  She looked frail and her aging was strange to him, a deliberate cruelty of life moving forward while he’d lived the same immutable moment in prison.

  ‘Did you see your father?’ she asked.

  ‘Yeah,’ said Gavin.

  ‘And?’

  She stopped walking, her head to one side, reminding him of a turkey, gobbling for choice titbits.

  ‘He’s at war with the world,’ he said. ‘Been banged up for nineteen years and not getting out any time soon either. He’s barrier-handled wherever he goes.’

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘Screws have riot shields, make a circle and put him in the centre – then they walk.’

  ‘That’s new,’ she said.

  Gavin saw her put it into a memory bank, to bring out when she sat on the steps of the nearby flats, drinking with her friends.

  ‘He told me to stay away from you.’

  ‘Did he now?’ said Sheila.

  They moved off and she gave a smoker’s chesty laugh. ‘Fool of a man half killed a guard. Hope the bitterness consumes him. I knew you’d see through him. I wrote to your mother. Told her you were getting out.’

  She waited for his reaction, giving him a sideways glance.

  ‘She’s in Australia now and thought you might fancy a spell out there?’

  ‘Would I get a visa, Nana, fresh out of the Joy?’

  ‘Do you think she’s there legally? Ways and means, Gavin. If you want to go say the word.’

  Gavin moved his hand to his chin, amazed at the hope in his grandmother’s voice. ‘This would be the wan put me in a Mother and Baby Home and left me there for the first eight years of my life? You think I’d be making my way over to her, do you, Nana?’

  Sheila batted the air. ‘She was on the bad thing then, Gavin. You can’t judge her. She’s clean now. And didn’t I come and get you off the nuns soon as I knew?’

  ‘You did, Nana. Soon as she told you.’

  They lapsed into silence, Sheila having to double-time to keep up. Gavin was a stranger to her with his prison-gym body and all the teenage gabble gone from him, burned out by a light hotter than her cigarette tip. She fumbled in her pocket and brought out a single, sticking it to the wet membrane of her bottom lip. A match flared.

  ‘Want one?’

  Gavin shook his head. ‘Still smoking singles, Nana?’

  ‘Cost a bloody fortune with all the tax now, so I’m back buying ones and twos. None to be had at the market. Guards raided the fellah I buy from.’

  They kept walking, passed the Mater Misericordiae Hospital – inmates were brought there if the prison hospital hadn’t the expertise to cater for them. Gavin touched his side where a white lumpy piece of tissue reminded him of emergency surgery after he was shanked in the yard.

  Had his trial been scheduled one month earlier his imprisonment would have been different. Gavin had turned eighteen while on remand in St Patrick’s Institute for Young Offenders. For his birthday the Department of Justice transferred him to the adult male Cloverhill Prison, and he had the misfortune of appearing in the Central Criminal Court alongside Larry Dunne. He was tried as a member of the Dunne crime organisation by Mr Justice Vincent Harney, a justice making a name for himself in the State’s fight against organised crime. Had Gavin been seventeen at the time of his trial, he would have been tried as a minor, in the in-camera world of the Children’s Courts – shorter sentences and back to Saint Patrick’s Institution for Young Offenders, a softer landing. Instead he was sent to ‘The Joy’, where the Governor described the spiralling threat of gang violence as unquantifiable.

  ‘You didn’t snitch, Gavin,’ said Sheila. ‘It’ll give you your place in the outside world. Men will know you can be trusted, and they’ll approach you. Wait and see.’

  She didn’t say she was frightened of the changes in Gavin. She knew prison men, her family was littered with them, and much as they looked hard when they came out, sometimes it was for the better. Her uncle had come off the drink in Mountjoy thirty years ago and never taken a drop since, but Gavin was different. Something had been obliterated during his time locked away and in its place a thing with thorns had grown.

  ‘It should’ve been Seán Flannery in there, not you,’ said Sheila. ‘You went down for six years because of those baggies. Not to mention those godless Guards, may they die roaring for putting you in with the Dunne gang as an accomplice.’

  ‘That was the Judge’s doing, Nana.’

  ‘Bastard.’

  She quietened. The pressure of her mind working filling the air around them. ‘But the road is long where he’s concerned. How is Larry Dunne faring inside?’

  ‘You know.’ Gavin shrugged. ‘He’s a Dunne, being waited on hand and foot.’

  ‘The fucking Dunnes, God forgive me for swearing, but Larry’s the runt of the litter. Pure fool they let roam around the city when he’d be better with a bullet in his head.’

  ‘I’ll know for next time, Nana.’

  Sheila snorted in agreement, then a sharp fear poked her as she understood Gavin’s meaning. The last thing she wanted was a war with a family as violent as the Dunnes.

  ‘No, Gavin, leave the Dunnes alone. I spoke out of turn.’

  ‘Where’s Seán?’

  ‘I wouldn’t let him come with me. The drugs were his idea and he ran off like a yellow streak of piss when the Guards came. We should shop him to the Dunnes, they’d soon –’

  ‘Stop, Nana – we’re not snitches, and I’ve heard this at every visiting time for the last six years.’

  ‘You only let me visit you once a month.’

  ‘Them’s the rules, Nana.’

  ‘Do you think I came down in the last shower? I’ve been visiting that prison since before you were born. You’re allowed two visits every four weeks. Who did you give the other visit to? It wasn’t Flannery. I’d have heard if it was him.’

  Gavin said nothing but ran his finger around the inside of his shirt collar. It was too formal and constricting. His biceps strained against the brushed cotton of the shirt and the suit jacket wouldn’t button over his chest.

  ‘Sorry, love, the suit I sent in is a bit small. Got it in Cle
rys. Wonder if they’d take it back.’

  She was laughing. Gavin knew his grandmother shoplifted the clothes, getting a small pleasure at the thought of the screws handling stolen goods.

  ‘You know Flannery owes you – he has a few quid now and I know people – your family – who can make him pay up,’ said Sheila.

  He was ever surprised at his grandmother’s vitriol towards Seán. No one knew where Seán’s mother came from, but it was assumed he was part of their community. An enclave of criminal Dublin for decades, family feuds, robberies and beatings on a regular basis, but they never turned against one another. However, his grandmother had set her face against Seán.

  They walked with distance between them, wary of one another. Sheila was the first to reach across.

  ‘It’s good to have you home, son. Be nice to have some company in the house. I’m sick of Flannery hanging around outside, asking me how you are –’

  ‘It’s the last time I’m going to say it, Nana. It wasn’t Seán’s fault. There was no reason for the two of us to get pinched.’ Gavin held up his hand to stop her speaking. ‘And I owe him. I will always owe him.’

  Sheila grunted then threw up her head before speaking, a nervous tic. ‘So you’ve said, although you’ve never said why.’

  ‘Is Seán at the house?’

  ‘Yes, I let him in before I went.’

  ‘Where’s he been staying?’

  ‘Some place on Castleforbes Road, down a little terrace, nice enough though. Where would he have got the money for that?’

  Gavin shook his head, refusing to be drawn.

  Sheila took it as invitation enough and nattered about her neighbours on East Wall Road, their comings and goings, who was picked up by the gardaí, who’d had a baby, who had more money than they should.

  Gavin let it wash over him.

  Seán waited in the small galley kitchen. The old linoleum had lifted at the edges but was carbolic-clean. He’d set out the foldaway table, dressed it with a tablecloth and Sheila Devereux’s best china, sugar in a bowl not the bag, and fresh cream doughnuts from the corner shop. Gavin wouldn’t want cake, but it was a gesture. He stood in the middle of the kitchen and counted aloud, the sound of his own voice keeping him from overthinking. He and Gavin had communicated once at the start of his sentence, a single letter where they agreed no further primary contact. Let the gardaí believe the association had ended. They communicated through an intermediary. Seán had organised a girl to pose as Gavin’s girlfriend and she delivered messages. Seán hadn’t heard Gavin’s voice in six years.

  Through the girl, they worked on their future plans post Gavin’s release. Seán had made new contacts and would buy direct from Fuentes cartel via Amsterdam. Dublin street cocaine was twenty-percent pure at best. Seán was going to deal at forty-percent pure for wholesale and thirty-percent at street level. To keep his levels this pure he’d need an army of enforcers. To find those enforcers Seán had supplied Gavin with drugs when he was in prison. Many of the inmates had people throw packets over the wall while they were in the exercise yard but the screws found most of these. Seán had used a racing pigeon he favoured and she’d dropped small cannisters in to Gavin, never a huge amount of product, but enough. And Seán could supply any pills to order, steroids were the most popular. Gavin would give these out to any man he wanted to recruit.

  Seán heard the key turn in the lock and an echoing twist inside his chest.

  ‘What’s up?’ said Gavin.

  ‘Yeah,’ said Seán.

  ‘C’mon.’ Gavin stood in the doorway, beckoning Seán out into the street.

  They left Sheila open-mouthed in the doorway.

  ‘Cakes on the table for you, Granny Dev,’ said Seán.

  Gavin strode in the direction of the Port. ‘Can’t be inside or anywhere. Need to look at the sea – come down the Basin with me?’

  They walked toward the Grand Canal Basin, built in the 1790s by the Lord Lieutenant of Dublin as an area to dock pleasure boats – that hadn’t worked out so well and the Basin was known as Dublin’s ‘forgotten pond’ for centuries. In recent times property developers had moved in.

  ‘Building apartments and such down there now,’ said Seán. He noted Gavin’s long strides. Gone was his childhood friend, in his place a rangy man with a permanent darkness to his eyes. Seán had no sense of loss, rather preferring this hardened man, who no longer needed anyone’s protection.

  ‘Got what you needed.’

  ‘Yeah?’ said Seán.

  ‘Army of blokes coming out over the next six months. At least fifteen. So you’d better have that fucking supplier lined up. And don’t tell me I’m letting myself down by swearing or you’ll be eating your teeth.’

  Seán smiled. Prison had been Gavin’s university.

  Chapter 31

  2019

  There was a fusty, stale taste in my mouth. It was Wednesday and that meant crisp tacos in the canteen. I pictured the freshly made guacamole. Anything to keep from analysing the emotions surging off Paul. We walked to the coffee cart. He was plumb straight in a pinstripe suit complete with Windsor knot and Garda tie pin. I hadn’t seen one of those since I graduated from Templemore. Over the last months I had come to the painful realisation I didn’t know much about Paul. More often than not our social life was unscheduled – a coffee in work, drinking in Dicey Reilly’s at the end of a long day, or my knocking on his door in the middle of the night. Whether it was his charm or the intimacy he could create, on each occasion I’d overshared without it being reciprocated.

  We walked in silence. I had no words to crack the glass between us, every bon mot in my mouth tasted banal.

  ‘You’re quiet,’ he said.

  ‘Don’t know what to say.’

  ‘With me?’ His eyebrows moved up and bracketed his face.

  I walked with my head tilted towards the afternoon sky, low winter sun illuminating a tuft of clouds.

  ‘Listen –’

  ‘Look –’

  We spoke at the same time, a Safe Cross Code of confusion. I laughed and he gave a tight smile.

  We’d reached the coffee cart and had something to occupy ourselves with, memories of another time in the hot June sun came back to me, of Paul doing all his tricks to make me smile. Not so today.

  ‘Two Americanos,’ he said.

  I fished in my pocket for shrapnel and slung out enough coins to pay for us. My movements were jerky and the nail on my middle finger was still tatty from tearing it on the car door with Liam weeks ago. I curled it away, holding the coffee cup self-consciously. A premonition made me want to stall him, tell him there was no need for this conversation. Leave me that feathered thing in my soul.

  The expression on Paul’s face was formal, buttoned-up and tolerating no familiarity. He turned towards the station and we walked back in double time. He had worked out how long our conversation would take and the premeditated nature of his action chipped away at my confidence.

  ‘I asked you to meet me to make sure everything’s OK?’ he said.

  ‘Yes, if it isn’t I’m not aware.’

  I pulled out a shop-worn smile. For a moment wanting to tell him the truth, that my mother fading from sight was tiny rips on an already tattered page and the brutal combination of Fuentes and Flannery terrified me.

  ‘You’re distant,’ he said.

  His shoes had the crisp click of new soles and he had a sweet sea-salt smell of some expensive aftershave.

  ‘Still, I suspect you’re right. I wanted to make sure we were OK about the last time we slept together. I value your friendship and don’t want to use you. I’m not sure we’re a match, relationship-wise.’

  He spoke to the air and faced forward. I put one foot in front of the other, but the ground beneath me was flimsy and unconvincing. My mind threw up legions of arguments to contradict him, but they backed up behind my teeth, choked off by his glittering hard smile.

  ‘I understand that,’ I said.

  I
had a lingering suspicion when a man told you he valued your friendship it was because he didn’t fancy you. The girl part of me, the small people-pleaser from my youth, wanted Paul to find me attractive. I didn’t like that girl and could be unkind to her.

  ‘It’s not going to help our careers, that’s for sure,’ I said.

  He looked at me and I had no idea what was going on in his head.

  ‘You’re right to be so ambitious, Bridge. And we’ve violated a code about fraternisation in the handbook.’

  ‘Oh well, we can’t have that!’

  We were at the front door of Harcourt Square and he gave me a smile-wave combination as he rushed for the stairs in five long strides. I was uncomfortable with the strength of my physical attraction to Paul, finding myself slipping into easy chemistry rather than the effort and time of meeting new people and finding a proper relationship. Still didn’t stop the hurt at the relief in his face when he thought I wasn’t looking.

  Chapter 32

  2005

  Seán wore oxblood leather slip-ons and a smart suit straight from a high-fashion low-cost retailer that boxed above its weight. He didn’t waste money on something he couldn’t wear daily, but his look today was important. He had to fit in, an office worker, one of the drones on his way to the colony. He pulled the collar of his suit jacket up against the cold wind whipping down Anglesea Road and passed a hotel, its flags flapping out a Morse code of distress in the icy March breeze. He made his way towards Donnybrook, a car horn blaring at some hapless driver thrown by the oblong and obelisk masquerading as a roundabout. Seán skipped through the traffic and crossed the road. Knots of genuine bank clerks and office workers made their way to buses, with convivial banter as they recognised one another. Seán wasn’t familiar with social friendships. Now well into his second decade, he compared himself to Gavin and his mob of friends. Apart from his years in prison – and, even then, he’d made plenty of friends – Gavin always had a bunch of lads to hang out with. Sure, Gavin’s crowd had pared down over the years, until the hardest wood was left, but Seán had one friend only. Gavin. He’d cut himself off from others when he knew what he was – the black beat of his desires lay under his consciousness and the hunger rarely left him.