Bog Child

by Siobhan Dowd

Fergus stared at the boundless blue, numb.

  ‘I’m glad you’re getting out of the North, Fergus. Believe me. We’ll miss you. But we’ll breathe easier when you’re gone.’

  When I’m gone. Yes. You could say there’s safety where I’m going.

  ‘Unk. Let’s head back.’

  ‘You sure you don’t want to get out and walk?’

  Fergus shook his head. ‘I’ve seen as much as I need to.’

  ‘You sound tired. Shall I drive?’

  ‘Would you?’

  As they got out to swap seats, Fergus felt the wind in his hair. He’d not cut it since his exams and it was shoulder-length, like a girl’s. He wet his finger to judge the wind direction. It felt as if it was coming from everywhere at once. He strained to hear the sea over the sound of the wind. He made out the softest of whispers, like a memory of a memory, an irregular heartbeat.

  They drove back the way they’d come. In the wing mirror, Fergus could see the green hedges retreating, the final inlets, and then the sky behind, turning orange, then pink. Ahead, the evening thickened. After they passed back over the border, he broke a long silence. ‘Unk, d’you know what Semtex looks like?’

  Uncle Tally missed a gear change. The car nearly stalled. ‘Semtex?’

  ‘Yeah. You know. The explosive.’

  ‘Why d’you ask?’

  ‘Just curious. After that bomb last night up in Derry.’

  ‘How d’you know that was Semtex?’

  ‘Dunno. Just assumed.’

  ‘I wouldn’t assume anything. Could have been old-fashioned TNT.’ Uncle Tally’s hands briefly raised themselves off the steering wheel. ‘I’d say that wasn’t a Provo job.’

  ‘That’s what someone else told me. So, Unk, you don’t know what Semtex looks like?’

  ‘Haven’t a clue. Isn’t it in your science books?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘You’d have to ask a demolition expert. Or a soldier.’

  Fergus smiled. A soldier. As they looped around the lough, the sun seemed to draw up close to them. It was bulging out of itself, a pulsating disc of crimson.

  ‘Only look, Unk.’

  The road was deserted, so Uncle Tally pulled up. They watched the sun as it sank below the mountain with a final flare of green. Colour drained away from the land. The lough turned grey and the trees black. Uncle Tally restarted the car. Fergus sat back and shut his eyes, listening to the hum of the tyres on the road and imagining the sound as the endless lapping of the sea. An eternity, Fergus. A reminder. In the quiet of the twilight, with the familiar presence of his uncle, something like peace came down on him.

  Thirty-six

  On my last night I sat like a queen on a throne of bound straw in one of the settlement’s barns, receiving visitors. My heart pumped. My eyes stared into the dark. I could hear the low murmur of the guards talking to one another outside.

  First Mam came, offering me her beautiful bangle. It had come from over the water years ago and was passed on from oldest daughter to oldest daughter in our family. Mam slipped it over my hand onto my wrist next to the rope they’d used to bind me. She kissed my cheeks. ‘Oh, Mel,’ she said. ‘My first baby.’ She knelt and threw her arms around me.

  ‘Don’t cry, Mam,’ I said. ‘It’s the one way we all go.’

  She stroked the bangle. ‘They say if you wear this when the baby’s seed is sown, the baby will come out perfect. And look what happened.’

  ‘You got me,’ I quipped.

  ‘Yes. And you are perfect. My own Mel. Always busy, always cheerful. The house will fall to pieces without you.’

  Then Da came and knelt beside Mam. ‘Mel,’ he said. ‘You’re not the child time forgot. Nothing or nobody could ever forget you.’

  I smiled and combed out my fringe with the fingers of my bound hands, until Da reached over and took them in his. ‘Go carefully, Mel. When you get to the other side, take comfort. I’ll be close on your heels.’

  It was only then that I saw how pale and thin Da had become in that endless winter and realized how he’d been denying himself food on our behalf.

  ‘Oh, Da,’ I murmured. ‘You too?’

  ‘Me too,’ he said, chafing my hands. He put a forefinger to my cheek and wiped away a stream of sudden tears.

  When the alarm went off next morning, Fergus awoke, rubbing his smarting eyes. He groaned and flattened the alarm face-down on the bedside table. Today is the day. The last of the packets.

  He waited a few seconds and then got out of bed. He changed and did some ritual stretching. On his way down the hall, he stopped on an impulse and opened the door to the girls’ room. Theresa was flat on her belly on the top bunk, with an arm dangling down over the edge. Cath, in the lower bunk, was tangled up in the Dalmatian dots of Joe’s old coverlet. She was chewing the corner of it in her sleep. The sound of the two girls breathing was like the pulsing of tiny bird-wings. As he moved to close the door, Cath’s eyelids fell open. She blinked and moaned, then turned to the wall.

  He stretched a hand out towards them, then shrugged. Then he tiptoed away.

  Outside, the day was cool and grey, the breeze chilly. A curtain of haze hung over the hills. On the grass verge of the close he stretched his hamstrings, rocking on his heel. You must be fit for the Olympics by now. His calves were solid, his speed never better. But he’d only ever run on rough ground, not on a track. He’d no idea how close to the professional mark he was, but he’d been treasuring the idea of joining an athletics club at university. It doesn’t matter now. Nothing matters.

  He started down the close. Drumleash was quiet, but from down the street he heard the rasping sound of somebody opening an old-fashioned sash window. Only Finicule’s Bar had windows like that. Maybe Uncle Tally was awake early too. He turned off up past the school and started the climb.

  In the Forestry Commission, he got the last packet from the tyre. ‘Don’t even think of looking, Fergus,’ Rafters had said. Despite that, he’d often been tempted to open them and see what was inside. But the gaffer tape was always secure. Re-closing it without it being obvious he’d been spying would have been impossible. Unless, he thought, I brought another jiffy bag, my own gaffer and scissors. Why did I never think of that?

  It was too late now. He ran on up the mountain. He lifted his eyes to the white mist swirling overhead. The ceilings, Fergus. They dripped with blood and gore and gold. The memory of Cora’s voice took him back into bed with her, lying like two question marks. Kissus maximus resumus. There was nobody to hear him, so he shouted her name. COR-R-R-A. Amazingly, the tip of his tongue vibrated on the roof of his mouth. The ‘r’ rolled. Perhaps she could hear him, somewhere in Dublin, asleep in her bed. In the middle of a dream, Cora. In the middle of a dream I call your name.

  He jumped over the stream but didn’t stop to drink. The going got hard. His thoughts tuned out to the white noise of running. He was aware only of the anaerobic rhythm of his breath, the poundings of his trainers, the heat. Ahead loomed the sentry hut. He stopped and turned back to see the view.

  ‘You’re not the child time forgot, Mel. Nothing or nobody could ever forget you.’

  I’m seeing the land, Mel, Fergus thought. Through your eyes. Settlements, cattle, fields. It’s cold. And the lough’s down there somewhere. You can glimpse it only when the clouds shift. And it’s beautiful, an acquired taste: a beauty that takes a lifetime to understand.

  He skirted the sentry hut and ran the last few furlongs to the dry-stone wall. This time, he didn’t swap the packets. He took the waiting packet out, added it to the one bulging in his waistband and ran back the way he’d come.

  Joe’s watch said 6:58, early yet. He paused, panting. The familiar sun rose, a pale disc behind a bank of cloud. The North spread out before him, sleeping in the mists, untroubled. Behind him was the green of Leitrim. His watch crawled to 7:05. Somewhere in Long Kesh, he pictured Joe as he was now, his arm dangling over the edge of his cot, like Theresa’s had: but Joe’s forearm w
as like that of a starving child. His body lay curled like a foetus. Even the remotest part of Joe’s brain, the part that dreamed, was quiet. In that quiet, guarded place, Fergus, I kept my final vigil.

  Fergus stood up, checked his packages and began his final run.

  He didn’t loop the long way round, but headed straight to the sentry hut. He listened for a trombone but could hear only the telegraphic calls of skylarks.

  Perhaps nobody would be there. Perhaps if nobody was there, that would be a sign. A sign that he should just take the packets and post them through the door of the police station in Roscillin and wash his hands of it.

  Perhaps…

  He drew up to the hut, and in the doorway was a slender silhouette: half a rifle, half a cigarette, half a torso. For a moment the figure looked taller than Owain. Fergus froze. He’d never once considered the possibility that somebody other than Owain might be on duty.

  The figure turned and peered, shading its eyes. ‘Fergus. I’m glad it’s you. It’s a good cool day for running.’

  Fergus’s heart leaped, then fell again. He swallowed and walked forward. ‘Owain.’ He walked into Owain’s sights and raised his hands.

  Owain raised two eyes to heaven. ‘Hello, Mr Terrorist.’ He rattled the rifle on his shoulder. ‘How’s the insurrection going?’

  Fergus scrunched up his eyes. ‘I’m serious. I’m handing myself in.’

  ‘Great. So what am I supposed to do? Frog-march you all the way to Roscillin?’

  ‘Owain. Honest. I’ve two packages here.’ Fergus slowly drew a brown jiffy from his waistband. Owain made no move. He looked on with a wondering smile. Fergus put the packet on the ground at Owain’s feet. He placed the second packet alongside it.

  ‘There. All yours.’

  Owain’s cigarette burned down to the stub. He flicked it away. ‘What’s in them?’

  ‘Dunno.’

  ‘You’re pulling my leg, Fergus. Like that rat and dog story. I figured out afterwards. It was an Irish tease.’

  ‘No, it wasn’t. A priest really did tell me that story.’

  ‘Ha-ha.’

  They both stood still, watching each other. Owain grinned. ‘OK. So tell me more about these packets.’

  Beads of sweat trickled down Fergus’s back. ‘Can I sit on that rock?’

  ‘Feel free.’

  Fergus sat down on the rock where he’d rested his twisted ankle in June. He stared at the mountainside without seeing it. ‘You know the brother I told you about last time? The one I said was in Rome?’

  ‘Yeah. The lucky bugger. What about him?’

  ‘He’s not in Rome.’

  ‘No?’

  ‘He’s in Long Kesh.’ The words were like a door slamming shut, the end of the chatting and the camaraderie.

  Owain frowned as if puzzled. ‘You mean the Maze?’

  ‘Yes. Our Joey’s in there and he’s on hunger strike. Day fifty.’

  ‘Day fifty?’ Owain echoed.

  Fergus nodded.

  Owain’s rifle stayed slung on his shoulder. His face muscles puckered. ‘I’m sorry, Fergus.’

  ‘Yeah. Me too.’

  ‘Is he—?’

  ‘Conscious? Kind of. We expect to hear he’s gone into a coma any day.’

  They said nothing. Fergus pressed his palm into a crevice in the rock, hard.

  ‘So what’s that got to do with these?’ Owain tipped the rifle nozzle towards the packets on the ground. One bulged, the other was slim. Blank and gaffer-taped, they sat waiting. Grass blades poked up around them like miniature sentinels.

  ‘The Provos approached me. Don’t ask me who. I can’t say.’

  ‘The Provos?’

  Fergus nodded. ‘They asked me to ferry these back and forth over the border. And that’s what I’ve been doing. All summer long.’

  ‘So you haven’t exactly been training for the Olympics?’

  ‘No. I did run before the packets. But the Provos caught on to me. They saw their chance.’ Fergus wrung his hands. ‘Believe me, Owain, I didn’t mean to get involved. But they said if I did this for them, they’d send in the word to Joey to order him off his strike.’

  ‘And you believed them?’

  Fergus’s cheeks were on fire. ‘Yes. At first.’ He wiped the sweat off his forehead. ‘Then nothing happened. Joe said the Provos were right behind him. So I stopped believing.’

  ‘But you kept going with the packets?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Why?’ Owain’s rifle had slipped from his shoulder down to his elbow crook.

  Fergus was silent.

  ‘Why, Fergus? Did they threaten you?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Your family?’

  ‘No.’ He looked up.

  Owain stared at him, his face pinched.

  Fergus gulped. ‘You. They threatened you.’

  ‘Me?’

  Fergus nodded. Tatty-bread, dead.

  Owain whistled through his teeth. He heaved the rifle back onto his shoulder. ‘You’re not having me on?’

  ‘Swear to God. They said it would be the easiest thing in the world to come up here one morning and shoot you through the head.’

  ‘Christ Almighty. It would.’ Owain looked around as if a marksman might be lurking in the gorse. ‘But why pick on me?’

  Fergus sighed, sick to his stomach. ‘I told them about you. How we’d got talking. And your being from Wales. He said you’d have been better off staying down a mine.’

  ‘He?’

  ‘I can’t say who. It’s more than my life’s worth.’

  Owain shielded his eyes. ‘God. This bloody place.’

  ‘Telling me.’

  They looked at each other, then eyed the brown packets.

  ‘Owain?’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘What’s Semtex like?’

  ‘Semtex? Is that what’s in there?’

  ‘I think so. Your man said it was for a target. A military target. He didn’t say what.’

  Owain prodded one of the packets with the end of the rifle. ‘Hell.’ He stooped over and picked up the one that bulged. ‘Semtex comes in different forms. Often greyish, like plasticine. It smells like almonds.’ He put the packet up to his nose. ‘It would be well wrapped, of course.’ He turned it over in his hand, feeling the weight. ‘It’s hard to combust. Safe to transport.’ He ran his finger along the darker brown of the gaffer tape. ‘You’ve been back and forth with these all summer?’

  ‘Twelve times.’

  Owain whistled. ‘That’s some Semtex. What are they planning on doing? Blowing up half Ulster?’

  Fergus got off the rock and turned away to face the valley, the curl of the lough, the pale gleam of the North behind. ‘It makes me sick. After that bomb on Saturday night.’

  ‘The one in Londonderry?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘It was nasty, that. Those women out celebrating.’

  Fergus stared at the untroubled land below. ‘Awful.’

  ‘So what d’you want me to do, Fergus?’

  ‘Shoot me. Arrest me. I don’t care. I just want out.’

  ‘Fergus?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Do you really think I’d shoot you?’

  Fergus angrily brushed the hem of his sweatshirt across his eyes. ‘No. S’pose not.’ He turned back again.

  ‘Don’t know what to do with you.’ Owain leaned his rifle up against the hut. He stood with his hands in his pockets, biting his lip.

  ‘Those packets, Owain. Somebody out there’s received the ones I’ve already delivered. They’re putting together a bomb, I know it. You have to turn me in. I can’t stand the guilt. It’s killing me. I’d rather go to prison. Serve time. Like I said, I want out.’

  Owain picked up the packets from the ground and placed them on the rock where Fergus had been sitting. Together they stared at them. ‘Tell you what, Fergus. We’ll open them.’ Owain got a Swiss army knife out of a pocket and opened up a narrow silver blade.


  ‘Right.’ Fergus winced as the blade went in. It was like seeing Da open the champagne last Christmas. He’d the bottle pointed straight at the glass cabinet and Fergus had found himself covering his ears, waiting for the pop. ‘Christ. Be careful.’

  Owain paused. ‘You don’t think it’s booby-trapped?’

  ‘They never meant it to get into your hands, did they?’

  ‘No.’ Owain took out the blade and stared through a tiny slit. ‘There’s no wires or anything.’

  ‘Phew.’

  ‘Fergus, I don’t know if I am going to turn you in.’

  Fergus stared at Owain, wide-eyed. ‘What?’

  ‘You’re in one trap, I’m in another.’ As he spoke, Owain sliced the silver blade roughly through the tape. Grey fluff from the bag’s padding floated out. ‘You and me–we’re like two rats in two cages looking across at one another.’

  Owain held the bulging jiffy open. Together they peered inside. Fergus could see polythene, little more. He became aware of Owain’s hand on his elbow, his breathing, shallow and fast.

  ‘What is it?’ Fergus whispered. ‘What’s in there?’

  Owain put his hand in. Fergus gasped. He pulled on a strip of polythene. As Owain drew it out, dozens of small neat sachets erupted, silver, with perforated edges, spangling the light like square coins. Following them came green oblong sheaths with small dots going around in a ring–Mon-Tue-Wed-Thur-Fri-Sat-Sun chased around the edge.

  Fergus swayed, gripping the rock. ‘Christ alive.’

  ‘Bloody Nora.’

  ‘Condoms.’

  ‘And the bleeding Pill,’ Owain laughed. ‘Microgynon.’

  Fergus bent double, choking. Owain thumped him hard on the back. He spluttered, spat, groaned.

  ‘You’ve been fucking teasing me,’ Owain hooted. ‘All along. You bloody bog-eyed Irish taig. I’ll give you a bollocking.’

  Fergus screeched, half squealing. He slid off the rock, sending the packets at his feet flying. ‘Condoms!’ He clutched his side. ‘Selling condoms tuppence a pair. Michael Rafters, I will kill you. You bastard. Condoms.’

  Owain gave his shoulder a playful kick. ‘You didn’t know?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘You really thought it was Semtex?’