Eden Burning

by Deirdre Quiery

  The Glenbryn district bordering Ardoyne was a mixed district where both Catholics and Protestants lived together for a while peacefully. Lily’s best friend was Anne Ramsay whose husband Sammy was a Protestant and a policeman. Anne showed Lily how to make wheaten bread, soda bread, and rough puff pastry for apple cakes and mince squares. Sammy walked Rose to the top of the street to see the bonfires being lit for the Twelfth of July celebrations.

  Sammy explained to Rose, “The Orangemen march on the Twelfth to commemorate the Battle of the Boyne in 1690 when the Catholic King James and the Protestant King William confronted one another’s armies on the banks of the river Boyne. King Billy won. When King William went into battle with his Dutch Blue Guards, he also had many Dutch Catholics fighting on his side. It was King William of Holland who flew the papal banner, not the Catholic King James. King William was supported by the Vatican and when his army had victory over King James, ‘Te Deum’ was sung in praise at the Vatican. There’s not many people know that.” Sammy was a regular visitor to the Belfast Library in the City Centre.

  He stood with her, holding her hand as she looked into the fire crackling with life, the flames dancing high into the starry night, the logs collapsing, hissing and spitting sparks into the warm summer night. The next morning Rose wakened to hear the drums of the Orange band. She climbed out of bed, pulling back the curtain as the pipe music whistled on the early morning breeze, the drums rolled loudly into a crescendo for ‘The Sash My Father Wore’. The men wore dark blue uniforms with gold braid. They carried tall orange banners with scenes of a triumphant Protestant King William sitting astride his white stallion. The bands paraded down Glenbryn Park, turning right at the bottom and right again, marching up Alliance Avenue. Rose listened until the music from the bands faded into the distance and the Orangemen made their way along the Crumlin Road.

  • • •

  Sammy and Anne knocked on the door on the evening of the 12th August 1969. “Have you heard?”

  “It’s not good news?”

  “They say the UVF are assembling machine guns on the Bone. They’re planning to invade Ardoyne. They’re talking about a bloodbath.”

  “Come in.”

  Lily opened the box in the outhouse with the Sunday china and placed five cups and saucers on the table in the sitting room, with the matching piece plates. She rummaged in a second box and found three candles and in a drawer in the kitchen five white linen napkins.

  “I’ll be back in a minute.”

  She lit the three candles.

  “Turn the lights out.” Anne asked.

  “A piece of Battenberg cake?” Lily looked at Anne and Sammy as the kettle whistled.

  “What about apple pie?” Shouted Sammy.

  “I was keeping that for someone special.” Lily got to her feet and squeezed Sammy’s shoulder. She returned with an apple pie and cheese and tomato sandwiches with the crusts cut off.

  Rose, Lily, Tom, Sammy and Anne looked at the candle quivering on the table and then into each other’s eyes. In the silence their faces glowed and shimmered. Sammy coughed. “You know, if they make it difficult for you – you can stay at our place. We’ll make sure nothing happens to you.”

  Lily pushed back her chair, hugging Anne and Sammy. “Thank you. That means a lot to us.”

  “Human beings are violent. That’s the problem. It’s in our nature.” Sammy mumbled with apple pie in his mouth.

  “Sammy, come on now. That’s very negative. We can be very kind as well.” Lily interrupted. “Don’t generalize. Look at me,” Lily teased.

  “We’re violent.” Sammy thumped the table in mock anger. “We like being violent. We like being miserable too.” His shoulders shook with laughter. “We also enjoy hurting one another”. Sammy tapped his head with his knuckles and shrugged. “Pythagoras gave us the word “philosophy” meaning a “love of wisdom” and he had his house burnt to the ground for being interested in what is the Truth.”

  Lily brought a fresh pot of tea into the sitting room.

  “Didn’t they say, Sammy, that Christ’s closest friends thought he was mad?” Sammy held his cup out for a refill of tea. “History is full of examples of where being wise doesn’t end up well for you in this life. Look at Socrates and the trouble he found himself in for asking a few questions about what life is about.”

  Sammy shook his head.

  • • •

  On the 15th August 1969 – which was the Feast of the Assumption of Our Lady into Heaven, and yet another infamous rioting day in Northern Ireland – Tom shaved in the bathroom, foaming his face with his badger hair shaving brush.

  “Turn up the radio Lily,” Tom shouted from the bathroom as he whipped the shaving foam on his chin with a badger bristle brush. “It’s the six o’clock news.”

  Lily ran into the hallway and breathlessly climbed the stairs.

  “Tom, the British Soldiers have been sent in. They’re here. They’ve arrived.”

  “Thanks be to God!” Tom shouted from the landing with his shaving brush in hand, “We will sleep tonight.”

  Lily danced with Rose in the kitchen, twirling her around and spinning her across the floor into the outhouse as the toast jumped from the toaster. Lily caught it before it fell onto the floor. “It’s going to get better.”

  The British soldiers arrived that day in Northern Ireland. At six thirty in the morning, Lily, Tom and Rose walked up Glenbryn Park on their way to seven o’clock morning Mass in Holy Cross Church. Turning left at the top of Glenbryn Park, they walked along the Ardoyne Road with the bus depot on their left and Everton School on their right.

  The soldiers, rifles by their sides, lay sleeping like small green hills on the pavement, one beside the other, in combat uniforms. Two soldiers stood on guard nodding as Tom, Lily and Rose stepped over the sprawling legs.

  “What have they been doing all night?” asked Rose.

  “There was trouble again last night on the Crumlin Road.”

  • • •

  Two years later, in July 1971, Lily wakened from sleep to the words, “Fuck the Pope and the Virgin Mary.” Someone shouted the words a second time, even more loudly a few doors away. Lily climbed out of bed being careful not to waken Tom who lay on his side, snoring gently. She knelt on the floor beside the window and without moving the white lace curtain, peered through it. She could make out a police jeep at the bottom of Glenbryn Park surrounded by an angry mob. The street lights were out. The jeep’s lights flickered to life as it moved slowly up the street. The crowd followed behind. The jeep stopped. The crowd moved around it like a swarm of bees, and then the crowd split in two with one half moving towards a house in the middle of a terrace, while the other half stayed circling the jeep. Lily couldn’t hear what they were saying although it was easy to hear the rising and falling of angry voices. Then there was the sound of glass breaking. She looked at the bed. Tom was still sleeping. He had to work tomorrow and would be up early at six. Did she need to waken him? She looked again through the curtain. The jeep had turned around in the middle of the road. It started to drive slowly down Glenbryn Park, still followed by the crowd. It turned right, towards Alliance Avenue and into the Ardoyne.

  The next day Tom suggested, “Should we put the milk and lemonade bottles upstairs on the windowsill?”

  “God Tom, what use will they be against guns?” Lily shrugged.

  Nevertheless, Rose lined five empty milk bottles, empty orangeade, cream soda and coca cola bottles on the bedroom windowsill.

  “Let’s get some sleep.” Lily suggested.

  “Rose, sleep with us tonight. You get into the bottom of the bed and Tom and I will sleep at the top. Sleep with your clothes on.”

  Lily pulled back the blankets at the bottom of the bed, placed a pillow for Rose at the bottom. Rose crawled into the bed and Lily blessed Rose’s forehead with Holy Water before slipping into the top of the bed with Tom.

  “Night, Rose, sleep tight,” Lily whispered from the top of the
bed.

  “Don’t let the bugs bite,” Rose laughed from the bottom of the bed.

  “If they do, bite them back.” Tom pinched Rose’s toes.

  They slept for an hour before wakening to muffled single shot gunfire.

  “Where is it coming from?” asked Lily sitting up. Her heart thumped in her chest and she felt a pulsing pressure moving into her ribs, down her back and into her stomach.

  “Has to be Alliance Avenue,” whispered Tom. He felt a knot of panic in his throat.

  “What’s happening now?”

  Voices chanted “Out. Out. Out,” in unison, getting louder and more insistent.

  “They’re in our street.” Rose pulled the sheet over her face and pressed her hands over her eyes.

  “Fuck the Pope and the Virgin Mary. Taigs out.”

  “They’re coming closer.” Rose pushed away the blankets sitting upright.

  “Will I take a look?”

  “Careful. Don’t move the curtains. Look through them.”

  Rose climbed out of bed and slithered across the floor on hands and knees, reaching the white lace window curtain. There was a police jeep six houses away. It was followed by over fifty bobbing bodies some waving sticks in the air and cursing. The police jeep stopped. The crowd circled around it and then opened the circle to allow it to slowly advance again.

  “Come back to bed.” Lily shouted.

  “There’s a really big crowd out here and a police jeep.” Rose jumped into the bottom of the bed and lay back pulling the sheet over her face.

  Tom and Lily glanced at one another.

  “What are they doing?” Lily asked Tom.

  “We’ll find out.” Tom pressed Lily’s hand.

  A window shattered a few doors away. A burst of machine gun fire in the street outside was so close that the bedroom windows rattled. There was a menacing cheer from the crowd and then more crashing splintering glass.

  “God, that’s downstairs. It’s our house.”

  Tom leapt out of bed. There was a shriek of laughter outside, more cheering and glass continued to fall onto the garden path. Tom swung open the upstairs window, knocking over a cocacola bottle and two milk bottles into the garden below as he pushed his head out and shouted.

  “What do you think you are doing? What do you want?”

  “Oh, what do I want? Let me tell you. Get the fuck out of the house. Now! Do you understand or are you deaf? Get you and your fucking family out. You’ve got twenty four hours. If you aren’t out when we come back, there is a name on a bullet for the three of you. Maybe you want to hear what it sounds like? Maybe you need a little help to get the message?”

  The man wearing a balaclava, combat jacket and jeans, fired three shots into the air.

  Tom stepped back, quickly closed the window and turned to Lily and Rose hugging each other on the bed. “That’s it. Tomorrow we’re out of here.”

  Lily and Rose threw on warm jumpers before going downstairs. They found Lucky hiding in a box in the outhouse. The front windows had been shot through and bullets lodged in the sitting room wall below the mirror. Lily found a brush in the outhouse and started to brush up the glass. Rose stroked Lucky. Her bushy tail only returned to normal when Tom hammered a piece of wood over the windows. There were two brisk knocks at the front door.

  “Who is it?” Tom shouted. Rose and Lily stood behind him.

  “Anne and Sammy.”

  Lily opened the door. “God love you. You shouldn’t have come here with all that’s going on.”

  “We were worried sick about you. Are you OK?”

  “We’re fine.”

  “We heard the cursing and then the shooting.”

  Lily touched Anne on the arm. “Come in.” Lily pulled Anne gently into the sitting room.

  Tom slapped Sammy on the back.

  “What a nightmare.” Sammy lifted Lucky who purred around his ankles and cradled her in his arms.

  “Do you want a cup of tea or something stronger?” asked Tom.

  “The latter.”

  “Take care where you sit, there are splinters of glass everywhere.”

  As Tom filled glasses with sherry, Sammy asked,

  “Where will you go?”

  “I don’t know. We’ll have to find out in the morning. Last night I heard that they were putting people up in temporary beds in Holy Cross School.”

  “Won’t you stay with us until you find somewhere?”

  “It would be dangerous for you if we do that. It is very kind of you to offer.” Tom gulped his sherry.

  “This is your home. You can’t walk away from it.” Sammy reached his glass to Lily for to top up.

  “You walk away when you can still walk.”

  “Sammy, what were the police doing?”

  Sammy shook his head. “I don’t know.”

  Lily nudged Tom.

  “Put a record on. We need music. Let’s enjoy the next few hours. Didn’t they do that when the Titanic was sinking? If we’re going down, we might as well do it to music.”

  Tom slowly pulled himself to his feet and walked to the corner of the room where he opened the record player.

  “What would you like to hear? Jim Reeves, ‘I Hear the Sound of Distant Drums’?”

  Lily and Anne laughed as Sammy said, “For sure we’ll be hearing them in the morning.”

  “How about ‘There Goes my Everything’ by Elvis – the King himself?” Lily shouted across to Tom.

  “That’ll do. I’ve got it here.”

  It was after three in the morning when Sammy and Anne eventually left. Lily lay back in bed, holding Tom’s hand. Rose lay at the bottom of the bed. Lily closed her eyes and images of tripods being pulled open and machine guns with belts of bullets falling from them being slotted into place appeared in her mind. She imagined the cold touch of heavy metal against soft skin of the gunman’s hands, the gunman pulling the trigger and a shower of small, shiny brass metal bullets piercing someone’s skin, maybe ripping through their stomach. She saw blood spurting out at high pressure like a garden hose and spilling all over the ground. She heard him cursing as he held the trigger – the curses also like bullets spraying into the air. She saw him looking pleased that he had killed someone. She watched as he walked into the pub and the same soft skin held a pint of Guinness to his lips saying, “Cheers.” The same soft skin would hold someone close in bed that night, stroking her body gently, saying “I love you.” Her heart raced and she breathed quickly. Rose didn’t move in bed. Tom lay silently unmoving, holding Lily’s hand.

  Next morning Tom left Rose and Lily packing as he set out to investigate what was happening in Ardoyne and discover where they might be able to stay. As Tom turned onto the Crumlin Road, lorries flying the Irish Tricolour, stacked high with beds, mattresses and chairs raced along the Crumlin Road. Others flying the Union Jack and full with precariously placed wardrobes, tables and chairs, swerved towards the Woodvale Road. He walked up the curved road through the Grove to the monastery front door. He asked for Father Anthony.

  “What do you think Father? What’s our best option?”

  “Do you remember the Mullan’s?”

  “Dr Mullan and his family?”

  “Yes. They lived in 463 facing the church. They’ve moved out this morning. They’ve emmigrated to Australia. You could stay in their house. It’s available.”

  “Can I have a look at it?” Tom edged to his feet.

  “Of course you can.” Father Anthony lifted the keys from a box in the bookshelf.

  “I don’t want to put a dampener on it but you know the downside of living on the Crumlin Road don’t you? It’s no Peace Line that’s for sure.”

  “I know. But maybe even for a few months it could do until we have time to find somewhere else.”

  “A lot can happen in a few months. There’s many a man who has said ‘Give me six months’ only to find himself six foot under. You don’t need me to tell you that.” Father Anthony jangled the keys in front of Tom�
��s eyes.

  “Are you sure you want these? What about Rose getting to and from school?”

  “There will be an army patrol for Rose and her friends going to the Convent of Mercy. Sister Anne organized that.”

  Tom took the keys from Father Anthony’s hand and put them in his pocket.

  “Well, let’s have a look then.”

  • • •

  Back in Glenbryn Park, Anne and Sammy helped Lily and Rose pack two suitcases.

  “Will you be able to take furniture with you?” Anne folded jumpers into a suitcase. Lily shook her head.

  “No. It will be these two suitcases, the cat and the radio.”

  “Here’s Tom.” Lily spotted Tom turning the corner at the top of the street into Glenbryn Park. She waved at him. He hurried down the street. Tom opened the gate and Lily threw her arms around him.

  “We were worried about you. What’s it like on the Crumlin? What’s the news?”

  “We’ve got a house. We’ve somewhere to stay.”

  “Great.” Lily kissed him on the cheek. “I knew you would find somewhere. Where is it?”

  “On the Crumlin Road opposite Holy Cross Church.”

  “On the Peace Line?” Anne shook her head worriedly.

  “It’s safer there than here for now Anne. It’s a roof over our heads.”

  “It scares me you going there.”

  “Anne, we are not even going to be thirty minutes away from you. If anything happens you will have us knocking on your door.” Lily hugged Anne.

  “You know you can do that at any time of the day or night.” Anne looked over Lily’s shoulder straight into Tom’s eyes. “Don’t forget that. We mean it.”

  They walked up Glenbryn Park with two suitcases, the radio and Lucky the cat. Further down the street houses were on fire. The sky fomented dark grey clouds of smoke. Flames crackled and leapt furiously into the sky. Slates popped like champagne corks into the now orange tinged edges of the clouds.