by John Steele
There was a murmured fuck’s sake behind, then quick footsteps. Rab appeared next to him a moment later, scowling at the old lady, who took that as her moment to move on. More people peered in at them. Rab took in the spectators scattered about the pavement and turned back to Maguire, who stood gripping the counter for support, tears in his eyes.
‘You’re a lucky bastard,’ said Rab, ‘but I’ll not let this go. You’ll not be making a living at anything by the time I’ve finished with you.’
With that he made the shape of a gun with his hand, aimed it at Maguire, then walked out of the shop, blood dripping from his fingertips.
#
As they strode away, Rab whirled on his heel and began walking back. ‘Fucking wanker, I’ll fucking have him!’
‘Rab, wait,’ said Jackie. He grabbed Rab’s arm. Simpson turned on him with a snarl.
‘You can’t touch him. Everyone on the road’s seen you in that shop. Plus, you’ve just shouted all over the Cregagh that you’ll fucking do him.’
Rab seethed, breathing hard.
‘Leave it for now and act later when we’ve had a chance to think it through.’
Rab’s lips were drawn back in a grimace, gums and teeth exposed like a shark in attack mode. But he was thinking. He looked down at the hand on his arm and stared at it hard. Jackie left it there for a couple of seconds. Just enough to prove he wasn’t that intimidated.
Rab said, ‘I’m away for a drink. Coming?’
‘No, mate, I have to do some stuff for my da. Sure I’ll see you the night, in the Tartan Star Club.’
Rab nodded and headed off with a backward wave.
Jackie considered going back to check if Maguire was okay – as okay as you could be after a violent psychopath has tried to blind you in one eye – and reason with the guy. But it wouldn’t look good to the boys if he was seen and his stock was high at the moment. Walking back to his Ford, parked a couple of streets away, his face reddened. He breathed deeply and thought of his mother. Being seen in such company, in such circumstance, by his mother’s friend. Such shame.
He knew there were plenty who whispered to his father: ‘Terrible about your Jackie with that crowd. It’s not your fault, Sammy, sure there’s nothing you could have done.’
You could have stayed off the bottle and had a go at being a father once my mother left us, thought Jackie. You could have been a bit less unbearable so our Sarah wouldn’t be living with her boyfriend’s family now.
As he turned the corner onto a side street he spotted a young lad checking out his car. The teenager was in a T-shirt, despite the biting chill in the air. He saw Jackie and made off at a run, disappearing into the rabbit warren of streets between the Cregagh and Castlereagh Roads. Jackie couldn’t work up the enthusiasm to give chase, burned out after the violence in Maguire’s shop, but he had recognised the young lad. It was Shanty McKee.
#
Groups of uniformed kids wandered the city centre like regimented gangs. The City Hall was ringed with commuters waiting for buses, always late, to North, South, East and West Belfast that branched across the spider’s web of thoroughfares from the central hub of City Hall, to the outskirts that stretched like a giant pincer, snaking up the Antrim and Down shores of Belfast Lough and clinging to the banks of the Lagan River in the south; and the trunk of the city in the Lagan Valley, stretching up to the Castlereagh Hills to the east, and hugging the Black and Divis Mountains to the west. Above it all, a couple of Army helicopters kept vigil.
Jackie had driven in, fast and smooth, and parked in a multi-storey. Last week, traffic had been disrupted on a daily basis with those in the east facing RUC and British Army roadblocks on all the major bridge crossings into the centre. Today, aside from a couple of RUC sporting rifles outside a chocolatier, Belfast could have been any regional city in the UK or Republic.
He walked past Virgin Megastore on the corner of Castle Court, bloated with schoolkids and university types, and thought James Maguire had his work cut out. Strolling through the shopping mall, he made for a brace of public phones out the back of the complex, next to Smithfield Market.
He dialled. On the fifth ring a smooth, rich voice answered.
‘It’s me,’ he said. ‘Can you talk?’
‘I’m alone for the next half an hour or so.’
‘I’ll be in the Tartan Star tonight. Will you be there?’
‘Just to show my face. He likes me to show my face, for appearances’ sake.’
‘Who can blame him? It’s some face.’
‘It’s not my face you’re interested in.’
‘No, it’s your generosity of spirit and engaging conversation. When’s he away?’
‘He’ll be in Glasgow in two days. Business and a football match, so it’s overnight.’
‘Can we meet?’
He was careful not to sound needy or desperate. She wasn’t a woman to counsel a man she thought weak or grasping.
‘I’ve already told him I’m going shopping in Dublin while he’s away. I said I might stay overnight.’
‘I might see you tonight and I’ll ring you tomorrow about where to meet.’
‘Make it the afternoon, he’s playing golf with a couple of his friends.’
She hung up. He felt his face flush and his blood quicken. Then he remembered the real reason why he was there at the bank of phones, and his face went pale.
He hit the redial button and punched in a number committed to memory.
#
They were all there in the Tartan Star Club: Sam ‘Ruger’ Rainey, Rab ‘Homer’ Simpson and the quiet man, Tommy. Jimmy Love, East Belfast Brigadier, was in deep conversation with a wiry, long-haired man high-ranking in the UVF.
Jackie was usually happy to have a couple of pints and leave it at that. He liked a drink, but he’d known plenty who liked it a bit too much, his own father included. The others drank for Ulster. Sam Rainey, in particular, was a Rolls-Royce. The other reason Jackie was pacing himself walked in the door at about half eight. Eileen Tyrie strode into the bar in front of her husband Billy, turning every head. The other women gave her side-glances and forced greetings. The men worked hard at not staring. Jackie caught Rab clocking her over the rim of his pint glass as he took a swig. Rainey was having a laugh with a guy from the shipyard workers’ union at the bar, but he cocked a sly glance at her legs as she eased her way through the drinkers. Tommy was enthralled, although what was going through his mind was probably best not known.
And Jackie just thought she was the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen.
He couldn’t understand how she could have married Billy Tyrie, but that never dampened his desire for her. Eileen wasn’t your typical Colleen by a long shot. She was around five feet five inches and slim, lithe. At least 4 feet of her height seemed to be taken up by her legs, which were sheathed in black stockings and perched on simple black heels. She was radiant in a short black skirt and mustard sweater under a long winter coat, now open. Her hair was the colour of her shoes, a brush-stroke of inky black, her skin a beautiful olive hue.
Like pale gold, thought Jackie. He was convinced that the Spanish Armada, shipwrecked on the coast of Ireland, left more than their treasure behind. The fine nose, full lips and dusky eyes of Eileen Tyrie were living proof. She was in her early twenties, a decade younger than her bullish, sweating husband.
‘Can I get you a drink, pet?’ said Rainey. As oldest and ugliest, the others felt it prudent to leave the offer of a drink to him.
‘Vodka, thanks, Sam.’
Jackie felt stupid and awkward, and hated himself for it. In bed with her, he was powerful and confident, free yet in total control of himself, of the moment. Now he felt like one of the schoolkids he’d seen slouching around that afternoon.
She laughed with and indulged the men around her while Tyrie, gorged on her presence, sought out mates and connections from the organisation. Jackie watched, fascinated yet sickened when he thought of her with Tyrie. Not just his age a
nd sweating bulk, but the ugliness of his brutality. Nausea at the thought of her with Tyrie was his edge, what kept him from tripping up and committing a fatal error that might expose their affair.
He knew Eileen was strong, self-sufficient and beautiful. She was sexually aggressive and intoxicating. But he didn’t idealise her. If she could be with Tyrie, she wasn’t a woman you could spend your life with. God, but he wanted her though.
‘Do you want her?’
‘What?’
‘Do you want her?’
His stomach contracted. Rab swayed before him, all crooked smile and hungry eyes.
‘Leanne?’ said Rab. ‘Fuck’s sake, are you with us?’
Eileen, in mid-flirt with an older man connected to brigade staff, flashed him a look like a slap across the face. It brought him back to the moment.
‘Sorry, Rab, I was up late last night and the drink’s making me a bit slow.’
‘That wee girl over there, Leanne. Youse went to school together, didn’t youse?’
Across the room stood a pretty girl in a denim skirt in a group of young women drinking halves. He remembered her from his days in high school.
‘She’s interested in you,’ said Rab. ‘You should go over and talk to her.’
Jackie shrugged. ‘Maybe later.’
As he turned from Rab, he caught sight of Eileen’s back as she headed for the door, this time unaccompanied. Billy was chasing a pint of lager with a shot of whiskey and howling at one of Ruger’s jokes. For a moment Jackie thought of offering to walk her back to her house, but thought better of it. She needed no escort: no one was going to mess with Eileen Tyrie on the streets around Ravenhill, day or night.
He felt a blaze of desire as he watched her slip out of the club.
#
Later, he felt a blaze of guilt as the image flashed through his mind again, Leanne’s face contorted below him as she struggled not to cry out, her body bucking under him. His knees were stinging on the carpet of her living-room floor, her parents asleep upstairs. He hesitated, afraid he might be hurting her, but she grasped for him and clutched his head, pulling his face to her. She kissed him hard, her tongue fierce in his mouth. Her lips widened in a silent scream and he came.
Later again, he slid the key in the door of his father’s home. The house he lived in but a home no longer, on Bendigo Street. He was spent, a wave of fatigue washing him into the hallway like a lazy tide. The drinking, the violence. The desire, always frustrated. Using Leanne, the girl silly with excitement, stirred by the promise of more.
Just a surrogate for his own grubby desire. The fetish of another man’s wife.
He needed to talk, to vent. He wanted someone to listen to him, to the real Jackie Shaw. To tell him that everything would be okay. He was tired of living in his head and he craved a confessional. As he shambled to the door of the small living room he found himself hoping, for once, that his father would be awake.
I can make him a wee cup of tea, thought Jackie, just talk with him. It’s been so long since we just talked.
But he knew from the smell of booze and the low hum of the unwatched TV screen, that his da would be passed out on the other side of the door.
CHAPTER 10
Friday
It’s a good day for a funeral, dry but with a slate-grey sky, the city brooding beneath. He dons the black suit, the shirt crisp and scratchy with starch. Jackie feels he shouldn’t be comfortable. He should suffer on the day his father is laid to rest.
Also, he isn’t comfortable because there is a Smith & Wesson .357 Magnum now nestled at the bottom of his suitcase, delivered by Tyrie’s man as promised. A revolver: old-school. Very Billy. And another pre-paid phone. He’ll be needing extra pockets. Billy’s phone has an address on Ardenlee Avenue in its contact book. Rab Simpson is living among the herbal tea and coffee-morning set now. There is an instruction to await further instructions.
As he sips the coffee he’s made with the room’s facilities, Jackie drinks in the solitude with the hot liquid. He’s always enjoyed hotel rooms for this very reason: they segregate and seclude. He tries to remember the face of the old guy at the memorial on the Ravenhill Road, walking his dog. It seems likely the old man is on the UDA payroll. It also seems likely that, whoever he is, he doesn’t know Tyrie and Simpson are in the midst of a clandestine war and plotting bloody murder on each other. An old hand like that is hardly a player in the drug trade.
The other question is what happens when Jackie executes one of the hits. They are both happy to give him firearms but he’s a loose end and he can’t imagine them not wanting to see him disappear on a more permanent basis. He considers going to Hartley, reaching out through the authorities and telling all. But he knows enough about the Spooks to trust them only marginally more than the paramilitaries. MI5 will use him, exploit him, and put his sister’s family in danger in the process; or they’ll ship him out on the next available flight and put his sister’s family in danger in the process. Either way, it ups the stakes even further at this point. He knows his people, Belfast people, and that these men will cut Sarah’s throat at the first hint of security force involvement.
And, much as he hates to admit it, he wonders about Eileen. Is Billy really ignorant of their affair? Twenty years is a long time; plenty of opportunities for the truth to out. Where is she in all of this? Not with Billy if the poor bastard in Tyrie’s boot is anything to go by. How many others have ended up in a bog or shallow grave because of her? And they have kids?
He shakes his head and despairs of himself. Not the time to be mulling over old liaisons.
Now is the time to mull over old regrets.
#
The church is small. Sarah calls it compact. There is a smattering of mourners from down the road but the numbers can easily be accommodated on a couple of pews. Sarah is there with Thomas and her kids, Daniel and Margaret. The funeral church staff are along the walls, professionally solemn and swelling the numbers. The minister is from the Presbyterian church, but his father hadn’t set foot over its threshold for some twenty-five years or more. Sarah’s kids are putting in a good shift, looking suitably grave, but Sammy Shaw was a virtual stranger to them too. He had a title, Grandfather, like the Duke and Duchess of Gloucester or the Executive Vice Chairman of the board, a meaningless office held in their family for a man as distant as an absentee landlord.
The minister, an earnest man, sincere and decent, does his best to circumnavigate a life that began with much promise, lived through the Second World War and the Belfast Blitz, then kindled with the love of his mother, the angel in the room. Two children followed, says the minister, offering a smile to Jackie and Sarah. He can feel its warmth glowing from the small, polished pulpit at the front. Sarah came first, then Jackie, both the pride and joy of their loving parents. His mother often said how his father would call him my ‘son, moon and stars’, and neighbours had laughed at how Sammy had danced in the street when he heard he had a boy. Jackie had been the quieter of the children, while Sarah was a boisterous child and a light sleeper. Samuel Shaw, a welder in the shipyard and a true rough and ready Belfast man, had crept downstairs with his young daughter and indulged her in fantasy tea parties, or shopping trips, in the middle of the night when she couldn’t sleep.
And then, in their teenage years, the horror of the Troubles was trumped by the personal terror of the cancer that claimed their mother. Like the leaves of St Patrick’s shamrock, they’d fallen apart without their anchoring stem. Sarah had clung to a caring man who could offer her a comfortable life and the family she craved. Jackie had begun to run wild, travelling abroad followed by a short-lived spell in the Army. And Samuel had escaped to the bottom of whichever bottle, pint or shot glass he could lay hands on at the time.
The minister says, ‘Friends, God remembers. He has a memory far beyond you or I, a memory far longer than the lifespan of the oldest among us. And He remembers the victims, the meek.’
He leans forward on the pulpit an
d says, in true Presbyterian style, ‘And He remembers the guilty, friends. He remembers the guilty and He will bring them to account. He will punish the sinners, and none shall escape His wrath.’
#
They are leaving the small church, Jackie with the casket on his shoulder, Sarah’s husband Thomas on the other side. The Ormeau Park is across the road. The trees along the railings sway gently in the gathering breeze. He can see people huddled on the pavement to watch and recognises some. It is impossible to read their expressions, these ‘ordinary’ people from down the Raven, but he knows that they must be burning with questions. He is here, in the flesh, Lazarus returned from the dead.
His father had an old friend, Harry Clarke, whose daughter was one of the schoolkids murdered in the East End bombing. But a heart attack took him some years ago and his surviving son moved to Canada. Few of his parents’ generation remain on the road. But there is Mrs McCauley.
And Jackie is back on the Cregagh Road for a moment, shouting through the window to spare a young shop-owner from Rab Simpson and his psychotic whims.
The coffin in the hearse, Jackie gently takes the old woman’s arm. Her look is stoic, but she manages a perfunctory, ‘Jackie.’ She nods. ‘Sorry about your daddy.’
‘Thank you, Mrs McCauley. I can promise you I’m not the man you think I am. Or was.’
‘Jackie, it’s not for me to judge you. As the minister said, we’ll all be brought to account when our time comes.’
‘You’ve no reason to help me, Mrs McCauley, and you’ve every reason to think I’m a waster. But I am trying to be a better man and put the past behind me and there’s people here won’t let me alone.’
Then he describes the older man at the memorial to the nine innocent souls taken at East End Video all those years ago. He describes the man’s weathered face, his clothes and the mangy wee terrier with him. Mrs McCauley listens, stern-faced, then says, ‘From what you tell me, and that wee skitter of a dog he had with him, it sounds like McKee.’
His face has always been dangerously easy to read, and his surprise is scrawled all over it.
