by Kevin Brooks
‘There was a handful of Provos with us that night,’ William said. ‘And some of them were rumoured to have machine-guns. They were mostly local men, but the ones with the guns were a couple of big names who’d come down from the north to help us out … which, as it happened, only ended up making things worse …’ William sighed. ‘Anyway, we had a pretty good barrier up at the end of our street, and it seemed to be doing its job, and although there were plenty of RUC around, they weren’t really getting involved in anything, they were just kind of hanging around in the background – close enough to keep an eye on things, but not close enough to get petrol-bombed. So it looked for a while as if nothing much was going to happen, it was just going to end up in the usual stalemate. But then, around midnight, a couple of UVF guys turned up in a JCB – you know, one of those big road-digger things – and they just drove it straight through the barrier, and then all hell broke loose.’
William was sitting perfectly still now. His eyes were fixed blindly on the brick wall of the alley, and his face was pale and empty. His voice, when he spoke, was the bewildered voice of the ten-year-old child he’d been that night.
‘They just broke in … just kicked the door down and stormed into our house and started smashing everything up. I was upstairs in my room with Joe … we could hear it all going on – the stomping boots, the shouting and crashing, my dad yelling at them to stop … and Joe’s crying, and I’m trying to comfort him, and then we hear Mum’s sobbing voice downstairs – ‘Leave him alone!’ – and suddenly Joe goes running out of the room, calling out for Mum, and I run off after him, shouting at him to come back, but he’s halfway down the stairs now … and as I go racing down after him I see all these men in our house – big men, in hats and black coats – and some of them have got hammers and clubs, wooden clubs, pick-axe handles, and they’re smashing everything up – furniture, ornaments, windows, lights …’
William paused for a moment, swallowing hard, and then he went on. ‘They were in the front room, the two RUC men. They had heavy coats on, but I could see their uniforms underneath. One of them had a pick-axe handle and the other one had a pistol. When I went into the front room, Joe had run up to Mum and she was holding him tight, and they were both crying their eyes out and watching in horror as the cop with the pistol laid into Dad. Dad was being held from behind by two Loyalists, and the RUC guy was screaming questions into his face – ‘WHERE ARE THEY? COME ON, YOU FENIAN BASTARD! WHERE THE FUCK ARE THEY?’ Dad’s face was all smashed up and there was blood streaming from his nose, and when the cop began yelling at him again, Dad sniffed hard, drew his head back, and spat blood in his face. The cop went crazy then, cracking the pistol repeatedly into Dad’s head, and that’s when Mum went for him. She let out this piercing scream and grabbed a heavy candlestick from the mantelpiece and lunged at the cop who was hitting Dad, swinging the candlestick at his head … but the other cop, the one with the pick-axe handle, he was ready for her. He just shoved her at first, just kind of grabbed her and flung her back against the wall, but that didn’t stop her. I mean, she was strong, my mum … she was a fighter. She just … she just kind of stood there for a moment, shaking the dizziness from her head, and then she went for them both again, wailing like a banshee and swinging the candlestick over her head … and then this cop … the bastard who’d shoved her …’ William swallowed again, wiping a tear from his eye. ‘He just hit her … just like that. The fucking bastard … he just swung the pick-axe handle like it was a baseball bat and hammered it into her head … and I heard it … I fucking heard it … this terrible awful cracking sound … and Mum … she just … she just dropped, you know? Like a sack … she just dropped to the floor, her head all cracked open … and there was just nothing there any more. No life … just like that …’
William paused for a while then, just sitting there silently, breathing, thinking … lost in his memories. And I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t know what to say. What could I say? There was nothing that would mean anything. So I didn’t say anything. I just sat there, sharing the silence.
Eventually, after a minute or two, William straightened up, took the cigarette from behind his ear, and lit it. ‘They killed her, Lili,’ he said quietly. ‘Just like that …’ He clicked his fingers. ‘They killed her … and they got away with it.’
‘They got away with it?’ I said.
He nodded. ‘They said she just fell down the stairs … I mean, there was barely even an investigation. The police claimed to have information that we were harbouring known terrorists, and that during the search of our house my mother attacked an RUC officer, and as he tried to defend himself she stumbled and fell down the stairs … and that was it.’
‘But there were witnesses –’
‘No, there weren’t. According to the police, the only people present when it happened were the two RUC officers and us. And neither of the officers were armed. They even claimed to have found a loaded pistol in the house.’ William looked at me. ‘They kept my dad in custody for two days, beat the shit out of him, and promised him that if he didn’t keep his mouth shut about what really happened, he’d be thrown in jail, locked up for years, and me and Joe would be taken into care.’
‘Christ …’ I whispered. ‘So what did he do?’
‘He kept his mouth shut,’ William said simply. ‘What else could he do? He came back home, cleaned up the house … he spent hours and hours with me and Joe, talking to us, taking care of us … and a week later we all went to Mum’s funeral.’ William took a drag on his cigarette. ‘That night, after the funeral, Dad joined the Provisional IRA.’
Over the next few years, William went on to tell me, his father’s life became more and more bound up with the IRA. At first, he was only involved on a volunteer level – attending meetings, collecting and passing on information, running errands, hiding guns – but as time went on, and his capabilities became recognized, he gradually rose up through the ranks, and by 1974 he’d become an active member, at an operational level, of one of the three battalions that made up the Belfast Brigade. The IRA had become his whole life.
‘What exactly does “at an operational level” mean?’ I asked William.
‘Organizing and taking part in operations.’
‘Right, I see. And by “operations” you mean …?’
‘Everything,’ William said. ‘Bombings, shootings … you name it.’
‘Killing people?’
William looked at me. ‘It’s a war, Lili … them against us. You either lie down and let them stomp all over you, or you stand up and fight back.’ He shrugged. ‘It’s a war … people get killed in wars.’
‘And you think that makes it OK?’
‘It’s not a question of being OK or not. It’s just how it is. If you’re in the army, and your country’s at war, it’s your job to kill people.’
‘Yeah, but the IRA’s not a real army –’
‘Yes, it is. It’s the Irish Republican Army. The only reason the Provisionals split from the old IRA in 1969 was that the old IRA weren’t doing their job any more, they weren’t defending their people. And that’s what an army does.’
I was really quite confused about everything now. I didn’t know much about the history of the conflict in Northern Ireland. I didn’t know when it had started, or why … I didn’t even really understand what it was all about. All I knew was that almost every night there’d be TV news reports of another bombing, another shooting, another horrific terrorist attack … and now I was faced with the fact that William’s father was personally involved in such terrible atrocities. And that was really disturbing. But at the same time, I could kind of understand his motivation. I could, to a certain extent, sympathize with his hatred of the security forces, and his desire to avenge his wife’s murder …
And yet …
I knew in my heart that it was wrong. It’s wrong to kill people, no matter what. It’s just wrong.
I looked at William. ‘What’s he doing now?’ I asked. ‘Your father … I mean, is he still –?’
‘He’s dead.’
Joseph Bonney met Nancy Dougan in November 1974. A Belfast girl, born and bred, she was a nurse at the Royal Victoria Hospital, and when Joseph was rushed to the emergency ward one night with sudden appendicitis, Nancy’s was the first face he saw when he woke up after the operation.
For Joseph, it was love at first sight.
But Nancy had other ideas.
She came from the Falls Road area too, she’d lived there all her life, so she knew who was who, and what was what … and she’d heard all about Joseph Bonney. She knew what he was, and what he did, and she didn’t like it at all. In her job, she saw the bloody consequences of paramilitary actions every day. She saw the torn-off limbs, the shattered knee caps, the burned faces … she saw it all. And she didn’t want anything to do with a man who caused such suffering and pain.
So she looked after Joseph, she nursed him, she was even reasonably cordial to him, because that was her job. But that was as far as it went. She didn’t respond to his cautious smiles, his gentle jokes, his gracious manner. She wasn’t won over by his quiet ways, his kindness, his thoughtfulness. She didn’t let his crushing sadness cloud her perception of what he was … not at first, anyway. But gradually, as he slowly recuperated from his operation – and an infection that had complicated his recovery – Nancy found herself becoming inextricably drawn to him. She didn’t want to like him, and she tried her best not to, but she just couldn’t help it. And by the time Joseph had fully recovered, and was ready to be discharged, he and Nancy had spent countless hours talking to each other, often in the dead of night, and they both knew in their hearts that despite all the seemingly insurmountable difficulties, they were meant to be together.
It was as simple as that.
They just had to be together.
So, after Joseph had been discharged, they set about making it possible.
The first hurdle to overcome was Joseph’s membership of the IRA.
‘I can’t be with you if you stay with them, Joe,’ Nancy told him bluntly. ‘I can’t be with a man who wilfully hurts and maims people … I can’t live with a killer. I just can’t. And whatever your reasons are, whatever justification you think you have, right or wrong … whoever or whatever you’re fighting for or against, it doesn’t make any difference. I’d feel exactly the same if you were in the UVF or the UDA … they’re all fundamentally the same. They all try to solve problems with violence. And I’m not saying that’s intrinsically wrong, because I don’t think you can say that about anything, but it’s not right for me. I mean, I know that violence is never going to stop, and there’s nothing anyone can do to change that, but I have a choice, Joe. I can decide what’s right and wrong in my life. Do you understand what I’m saying?’
Joseph nodded.
Nancy looked at him. ‘I can’t have you in my life if you carry on doing what you’re doing. It’s as simple as that. You can either have me … or you can stay as you are. It’s up to you.’
Joseph didn’t say anything, he just smiled – a smile from his heart – then he took her in his arms and kissed her.
The next obstacle to overcome was the IRA itself, or – more specifically – the IRA’s unwritten membership policy of ‘once in, never out’, which basically meant that once you were a member of the IRA, you were always a member of the IRA. No matter how much you’d achieved or sacrificed for the cause, retirement simply wasn’t an option. So Joseph knew that he couldn’t just arrange a meeting with his brigade commander and tell him that he wanted out, because not only would his request be refused, but it would also mark him out as a potential security risk, and Joseph was well aware of how the IRA dealt with threats to their security.
So the only choice he had, as far as he could see, was to lie about his state of health. And that’s what he did. His recent appendectomy, he claimed, was still causing him serious problems. The infection had flared up again, it had spread to his small intestine, he was in so much pain sometimes that he could barely walk … there was simply no way that he could return to active service yet. If nothing else, he’d be a liability – a risk to his colleagues and to the operation itself.
‘And did that work?’ I asked William. ‘Did they buy it?’
‘Most of them did … for a while, anyway. There was no reason not to. The trouble was, there was a guy in Dad’s battalion who’d had it in for him for ages, a really nasty piece of work called Franky Hughes. There’d been a lot of talk going round that Franky was a grass, and Franky had got it into his head – mistakenly, as it turned out – that my dad was behind all these rumours. So he was always looking for a way to get back at him. And when Dad came out of hospital and began making his excuses, Franky decided to check him out, just to make sure that he really was as ill as he claimed. And, of course, he not only realized that he wasn’t, but he also found out that Dad was seeing Nancy.’
‘Why did that matter?’ I said. ‘I mean, I can see how it was bad for this Franky guy to find out that your dad was lying, but what did it matter if he was seeing Nancy? What did that have to do with anything?’
‘Nancy’s a Protestant,’ William said.
‘Oh, right … I see.’ Although, to be honest, I didn’t. Not really. ‘So is that why she made your dad renounce the IRA? Because she was a Protestant and he –’
‘He didn’t renounce the IRA,’ William corrected me. ‘He never stopped believing in the cause. He simply renounced his use of violence, that’s all. And Nancy didn’t make him do it either, she gave him the choice. And it was nothing to do with her religion, it was just her.’
‘OK …’ I said. ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t mean –’
‘Yeah, I know you didn’t,’ he said, half-smiling at me. ‘Sorry. It’s all right, it’s just … it’s me.’ He shook his head. ‘I can’t help it. Whenever I start thinking about Franky fucking Hughes …’
‘What did he do?’ I asked.
William sighed. ‘He bided his time, he waited … watching Dad, following him around, gathering evidence …’
‘Evidence of what?’
‘Well, some of it was genuine. Evidence that Dad wasn’t ill – photographs that showed he was perfectly healthy, pictures of him out and about with Nancy, smiling and laughing … but the rest of it, the stuff that really did for him, that was all false. Franky made it all up.’
‘What kind of stuff do you mean?’
‘Well, it turned out that Franky actually was a grass. He’d been passing on information to an MI5 agent for years, so he knew better than anyone what kind of evidence was needed to prove that someone was an informer, and all he had to do was provide it. I’m not exactly sure how he did it – although I wouldn’t be surprised if he got some help from MI5 – but a couple of months later he went to the brigade commander and presented him with enough evidence to prove beyond doubt that Dad was working for the British intelligence services and that Nancy was his go-between. There were forged documents, falsified records, doctored photographs, transcripts of non-existent telephone conversations …’ William sighed again. ‘Dad never stood a chance.’
‘What happened?’ I asked quietly.
‘They killed him … they killed them both, Franky and Dad.’ William’s voice was cold and empty. ‘Their bodies were found in a patch of wasteground about a mile from our street. Their hands were tied behind their backs, their eyes were taped shut, and they’d both been shot in the back of the head.’
‘God, William …’ I whispered.
‘He only went out to get some fish and chips,’ William went on, slowly shaking his head. ‘Me and Joe had just got back from school, and Dad hadn’t had time to make us anything to eat, so he just popped out to the chip shop instead … and he never came back. I thought at first … I don’t know. I thought maybe he’d stopped off for a drink
or something, but when he still wasn’t back by seven, I rang Nancy to see if she knew where he was, but she hadn’t seen him all day. When I told her that he’d been gone for hours, she knew straight away that something was wrong. She came rushing over to our place and we spent the next few hours ringing round, trying to find out if anyone had seen him, and then about ten o’clock the police turned up. We all knew then … as soon as we saw them, we knew what had happened.’ William shook his head again. ‘They told us to go upstairs,’ he continued, his voice edged with bitterness now. ‘The police … they didn’t want me and Joe to hear them breaking the news to Nancy, so they told us to go upstairs and wait in the bedroom. But we didn’t. We went upstairs and then sneaked back down and listened at the door. The police knew that it was an IRA execution from the way the bodies were found, and once they’d told Nancy what had happened, they immediately started asking her all these questions about Dad … I mean, they didn’t even wait for her to stop crying, the bastards. And I really lost it then. I went running into the front room, shouting and screaming at them, telling them to fuck off and leave us alone … and then Little Joe ran in and started laying into them too …’ William smiled sadly. ‘He actually bit one of them on the leg … just ran up to the bastard and bit him. They didn’t stay long after that.’
He paused for a moment, taking a drink from the bottle of wine, and then he sighed heavily again and carried on.
‘We didn’t stay very long, either. As soon as the police had gone, Nancy sat down with me and Joe and we all just cried our hearts out for a while, and then eventually, when the tears had begun to dry up, Nancy did what she had to do.’
Although Joseph hadn’t known that Franky Hughes was setting him up, he’d been well aware that the IRA would eventually find out that not only had he been lying about his health, but also that he was in a relationship with a Protestant woman, and while that probably wasn’t enough in itself to put his life in danger, the risk was always there.
