After the Lockout

by Darran McCann

  ‘This isn’t a scheduled stop,’ Charlie says.

  The train starts moving again, chugging its last mile or two, and I hear compartment doors being slid open up the hallway. I peek out. Two soldiers stand in the hallway a few compartments down smoking cigarettes and pointing their rifles to the ground. A third soldier, tall and slender and wearing an eye-patch, comes out of the compartment, and they move on to the next one. They’ll be in on top of us in a moment.

  ‘I’m not even home yet and already the harassment starts.’

  ‘I’m sure they’re not looking for you, Victor.’

  ‘When you’ve been lifted as many times as I have, Charlie, you know fucken tyranny when you see it.’

  ‘Don’t start now.’

  ‘I bet you the officer puts on an English accent. Wait till you see.’

  ‘Victor, please.’

  There’s no way the train will get to the station before they get to us, snailing along like this. I lie back on the seat and pull the hat down over my face and a moment later, I hear the compartment door slide open.

  ‘Right, wake up, we need to take a look at your …’ the officer begins – he is putting on a sort-of English accent – ‘Charlie Quinn! Get up and let me shake your hand,’ he cries, sounding fit to burst.

  ‘I’d like to, Hugh, but’ – Charlie makes a tap, tap, tap – ‘I’m not as good on my feet as I used to be.’

  ‘Oh. Of course, I’m sorry.’ Hugh slumps down into a seat and sighs. I’d love to get a look at this fellow, but I stay hidden beneath the hat.

  ‘How’s the eye?’

  ‘Doesn’t bother me at all. I got away very lightly compared to some.’

  ‘True enough. Poor old Frank Jennings lost half his face. And you heard about Bob Morrow?’

  ‘No justice, is there?’ Hugh rises and stands over me, close enough that I can smell the tobacco off him. I fidget. ‘This fellow with you?’

  ‘Cousin of mine. Name of John Swift. Why, who are you looking for?’

  ‘Just keeping our eyes open.’

  ‘I’ll wake him up and check him,’ says another voice, a Scottish accent this time.

  ‘Let him be, Hugh,’ Charlie says calmly, ‘he had a lot to drink earlier.’

  ‘Shut it, you,’ the Scottish accent snaps.

  ‘Stand down, Campbell,’ Hugh barks. ‘This man deserves your respect and with God as my witness, he will have it.’ The train hits the buffers with a jolt of sufficient violence to wake any man except John Swift. I tense up, waiting to be unmasked. But instead I hear first Campbell, then Hugh, apologise to Charlie. They leave.

  ‘Jesus Christ, Charlie,’ I say when I come out from under my hat.

  We disembark the train. Not more than a handful of people are in the station, so there would be nowhere for us to hide, but the soldiers aren’t on the platform yet. We move as quickly as we can out of the station and into the refuge of the shadows. The night is still and calm and the full moon lights up the empty street. It’s late. In a few hours the mills around here will be thronged. Up ahead, lights flash and an automobile splutters beneath a street light. A military vehicle. Behind us Hugh and his men exit the station. I drag Charlie into the shadow of the arches at the front of the station and we watch the soldiers pass by, no more than a few yards from us. Hugh talks to the driver of the truck, and they climb into the back. The truck retreats into the distance and I breathe again.

  It’s quiet now. I see a horse and buggy idling outside a large red-brick house at the top of the street, and as we move cautiously in that direction I pull the hat down across my face and try to make out the features of the man sitting on the trap. When we get close, the faceless horseman says: ‘Is it him?’

  Alarmed, I look to Charlie. He nods. ‘You got my telegram.’

  The horseman claps his hands together and cries gleefully: ‘Welcome home, Victor. Erin go fucken bragh!’

  ‘Ssssshhh! Keep it down, will you? The Baptist minister lives in there,’ says Charlie, pointing to the red-bricked house. Curtains twitch in the upstairs window. The horseman giggles and tells me to throw my suitcase on board. I hesitate. He’s late thirties, tall and strong-looking, with the floury face of a man too fond of the drink. He’s familiar. A Madden man presumably. Damned if I can place him. Charlie senses my confusion.

  ‘I sent a telegram ahead asking for Turlough to come and pick us up,’ he says.

  Of course. Turlough Moriarty. I was in school with his younger brother Sean. Big, strong fellow too, Sean was, if a bit soft in the head. Turlough was the smarter of the two, relatively speaking. All dead-on people, the Moriartys. I climb onto the buggy and thank Turlough for coming. He gives the horse a light lick of the whip and we’re on our way. We go up over Banbrook hill past the pubs at the Shambles, up English Street with its proud, polished shop fronts, the gleaming terraces of Market Square and Thomas Street, the huckster shops of Ogle Street and onto poor Irish Street. Not a sinner to be seen. We cut through the slums of Culdee and pass the long sail-less windmill of Windmill Hill, and soon reach Droim Gabhla at the edge of the town. I tell the lads about something a great, wise and knowledgeable man once told me: how the official name for this little hamlet is not Drumgola, as would have been the logical Anglicisation, but Umgola, because some careless clerk somewhere made a balls of it and left out the ‘Dr’. This little Irish townland has a name straight out of deepest, darkest Africa because of the tin-eared ignorance of the foreigners who took it upon themselves to rename our country. We share a bitter laugh. I look back to the little town, the tiny city of Armagh, lit by a moon bright as a cool blue sun. ‘Crazy place to build a town, the whole place is hills,’ I say.

  ‘Built on seven hills,’ Turlough sings, beginning the chorus to the old Armagh song.

  ‘Like a little Rome.’

  After a few miles we turn left and the lights of Madden village glow softly, down below us in a hollow. The horse snorts tiredly. Somewhere in the distance is a fast, throbbing hum, faint but growing louder, like it’s coming from under the ground. Madden looms. I make out the chapel spire first. Then the Parochial Hall. A handsome if not beautiful façade of plain rose window above double doors. At the top of the town, the Parochial House, proud and immoveable as a Papal Bull. The three Church buildings all sit on slightly higher ground than the rest of the village, which is why they’re the only buildings in Madden that have never flooded. The National School is the only other building in town worth a damn, and it too is controlled, if not owned, by the dog-collars. Same story in every town in Ireland. But I see in the gaslight that flags, yes, red flags, are draped from every window, and bunting stretches across the street. Everything red, red is the colour. My God, Charlie said I was a hero, but the place looks like Paris in ’48! The subterranean throbbing is identifiable now. It’s a drum. There’s fiddles and accordions too, coming from the Parochial Hall. We move towards the music.

  ‘They’re holding a dance in your honour,’ Charlie says.

  ‘People’s awful proud of you, Victor,’ says Turlough. We stop outside the Parochial Hall, its grey façade is broken by splashes of frenetic colour behind the steamed-up windows. The noise is cacophonous. ‘Come on, we’re very late.’

  A young priest with a mop of blond hair emerges from the Hall. He nods and hails me with a toothy smile. ‘You must be Victor?’ I nod. He takes his watch from his pocket and fidgets with it in a way that reminds me of Alfie Byrne, then looks distractedly up the street towards the Parochial House. ‘Thank goodness you’re here, we’re supposed to finish up at eleven and it’s past that now.’

  ‘Gone half past, I make it,’ I say, glancing at my watch. The others look at theirs, then back at me confusedly.

  Of course, they’re all twenty-five minutes behind me, I keep forgetting. They didn’t bother to tell us in Fron Goch about the so-called Daylight Saving Hours. Apparently we’re in line with Greenwich now. After being released I walked around for weeks not knowing about it.

 
‘I seem to be ahead of everyone. My watch still gives Dublin Mean Time,’ I say.

  When we get the Republic we’ll fix the clocks, and no more of this Greenwich nonsense. How supine are people who allow the government to overrule the clock – the clock? It’s frustrating, though, that everyone else’s watch is slow. Being right is cold comfort when the whole world is wrong. ‘I’ll be in directly,’ I tell the priest.

  He nods and turns but as he opens the door he is almost knocked over by a boy of maybe seventeen, who staggers out and around the side of the building. Out of sight, he retches violently. The priest shakes his head and goes inside. I take my suitcase around to the other side of the building, looking for a shadow so I can change back into my uniform. When I’m changed, I spit on my hands and pat down my hair. A shave would be good, a bit of soap could do wonders, but perching the sloped hat on my head, I suppose I probably look all right.

  ‘Come on, you’re gorgeous,’ Charlie calls, and I step into the light just as a tall figure all in black strides past Charlie and Turlough, ignoring them as they call out their salutes. He walks with an impressive sprightliness, gripping his cane like Phil Shanahan grips a hurl, and throws open the door of the Parochial Hall without breaking his stride. The old bastard looks like he hasn’t aged a day.

  Maggie answers the door with a grimace of condolence but her expression gives way to horror when she sees the battering you have taken. She rushes you inside the house, scattering her younger brothers and sisters with matriarchal authority, and lies you down on the sofa by the range. It’s warm and smells of baking bread. Maggie’s father is perched in his usual armchair. God knows what he makes of you; one eye lolling madly is the only sign he’s alive at all. Maggie goes out into the scullery and comes back with her father’s old leather medical bag, towels and two bowls of water. She puts one bowl on the range and heats it.

  ‘Look up at the ceiling, we have to keep the wound elevated. If we can’t stop the bleeding you’ll have to go and see a proper doctor.’ She immerses a towel in hot water, wrings it out and sets it against your eyebrow. ‘Help me apply pressure to the wound.’

  From your good eye you look at the graceful curve of her neck and want to take a bite out of it. She’s wearing a red and brown dress with little lace frills at the edges. She’s close enough that you can smell her distinctive smell.

  ‘I told you to look at the ceiling,’ she says. Her father’s daughter.

  When the bleeding stops she washes the wound with a soft wash-cloth. You grip the sofa tightly and grit your teeth while she pours liquid from the spirit bottle over the cut – ‘Isopropyl. It’ll prevent infection,’ she says – and uses tweezers to remove what she calls debris. She makes up a dressing with surgical adhesive tape and gauze. ‘But it won’t be enough,’ she says. ‘The broken skin won’t knit together on its own. You need stitches.’

  You nod quiescently. You’re so tired. You ask if you can sleep in her shed. You are grateful she doesn’t ask for an explanation.

  ‘What will you do tomorrow?’ she asks.

  ‘I’ll bury my mother.’

  ‘Afterwards?’

  You’re too tired to think. ‘I know if I stay here I’ll kill him.’

  From his window Stanislaus watched everyone arrive. He had a dusty volume of theology in his lap, lit by a single candle, but it was a mere prop. It took two hundred people to fill the Parochial Hall and from early on, the place was full. The cheering and clapping from the Parochial Hall grew louder and rougher as the night got later, and Stanislaus was relieved as eleven o’clock approached and the guest of honour hadn’t appeared. The moon, full and large in the cloudless sky, shone across all but the darkest corners of the parish, so Stanislaus would have seen him. But eleven o’clock came and went and there was still no sign of things winding up. Eventually Stanislaus rose and readied himself to intervene, but he wobbled and sat back down. He gripped the arms of the chair. His vision swirled before him. He held his face in his hands and felt the cold sweat on his brow. But this was not a stroke and it soon passed. He looked at the bottle. It didn’t seem like he’d had all that much to drink. He had gone for years of his life without a drink, it wasn’t something he was a slave to, but it was true that he had acquired a taste for brandy in his old age.

  Outside in the distance the light of a lantern appeared and as it grew bigger Stanislaus made out three figures atop a buggy, drawing closer. Charlie Quinn’s leg stuck out in silhouette. Hulking Turlough Moriarty drove the buggy. Typical. The Moriarty boys were perennial foot-soldiers, from their grandfather, a locally famous Fenian of the sixties, on down. It was no surprise that they would regard Victor Lennon as a great fellow altogether. The third man sat between Charlie and Turlough with the brim of his hat pulled low over his face. It had to be him. He watched Father Daly emerge from the Parochial Hall and speak to the men on the buggy. They spent a moment looking at their watches. Obviously Father Daly was explaining the time, and that the dance was over. The third man got down from the buggy. Father Daly made to go back inside but as he opened the door he was almost knocked aside by Aidan Cavanagh, who dashed round the corner and heaved up his guts on the wall of the Parochial Hall. Stanislaus gripped his stick in his fist and bounded furiously down the stairs. By the time he reached the Parochial Hall Aidan was gone and only Charlie and Turlough sat on the buggy. They called their greetings but he didn’t stop to acknowledge them.

  Inside, smoke, sweat, music and colour blasted Stanislaus’s senses. Musicians clattered ever faster, all aggression and artless volume, and the wood floor vibrated like the skin of a drum under thudding feet and bodies crashing to and fro. It barely passed as dancing, this hauling and mauling. Overhead was a banner fashioned from an old green tablecloth that read Erin Go Bragh Welcome Home Victor. Stanislaus felt suddenly vertiginous. Standing near the door, tapping his foot and observing passively, was Father Daly. He turned white when he saw Stanislaus.

  ‘Is this how you supervise an event? I said teetotal,’ Stanislaus seethed.

  ‘I haven’t seen anyone taking drink.’

  ‘Open your eyes, man.’ People would always come up with schemes for concealing liquor but a good priest would be wise to them. Stanislaus tutted disgustedly at the curate’s failure. ‘It’s well past eleven.’

  ‘Victor has just arrived. I thought another few minutes wouldn’t be any harm.’

  Stanislaus stalked away. Further discussion would only aggravate him. He moved towards the stage at the top of the hall, and word of his arrival spread perceptibly as he moved through the crowd. The dancers became less frenetic, then stopped altogether. It was like water dousing a flame. As Stanislaus ascended the stage, the musicians stopped playing and held their silent fiddles and banjos and bodhrans guiltily. Standing centre stage, he didn’t have to wait long for silence.

  ‘It’s very late. The dance is over. Don’t anyone make any noise on your way home,’ he said. The crowd looked back dumbly. ‘I said this dance is over. Good night to you all.’

  ‘Victor is here!’ cried a voice from the back of the hall.

  Everyone turned. The hall seemed suddenly bigger with two hundred people facing away rather than towards him. Men wrestled past each other, women too, to converge on the doorway, where Victor Lennon now stood. He wore a tattered military uniform, bandolier and big sloped hat. Had he changed his clothes? Shrewd. He was a striking sight in the uniform.

  ‘I’m sure the bishop won’t object to another few reels, since I’ve just arrived,’ Victor called out, crisp and clear, the voice of a man who knew how to project. A musician ran a bow across fiddle strings and waited to see what would happen. Stanislaus and Victor locked eyes on one another over the heads of the people. ‘Sure you wouldn’t, Your Grace?’ said Victor, jabbing the words mercilessly precisely. The dizziness was returning to Stanislaus. The fiddler scratched the opening notes of some fast reel, and the other musicians joined in. People clapped the rhythm and quickly the floor filled with dancers. It wa
s as though Stanislaus wasn’t there. People queued up to shake Victor’s hand and shower him with kisses.

  ‘Are you all right, Your Grace?’ whispered Father Daly, climbing onto the stage.

  ‘For all you care, seminarian,’ said Stanislaus, mustering his strength to walk off the stage, beating a path through the people with his stick. Father Daly took hold of his elbow, and though he tried to shrug him off, there was little force in his protest.

  ‘You don’t look well, Your Grace.’

  As they passed him in the doorway Victor Lennon nodded, smiled and gulped heartily from a huge bottle. He laughed as he looked at the bishop. Stanislaus wanted to stop him, to insist that the event was teetotal, but his knees buckled beneath him. Had Father Daly not held him up, he’d have crumpled.

  ‘Are you all right, Father?’ said Charlie Quinn, smoking a cigarette with Turlough Moriarty by the door.

  ‘I’m surprised at you, Charlie Quinn, I’d have expected better,’ Stanislaus wheezed as Father Daly helped him into the street. ‘There would’ve been no problem if you’d ended proceedings when you were supposed to. If you only …’ Stanislaus said to Father Daly, but hadn’t the breath to finish.

  ‘You just need rest, Your Grace, you’ve been overdoing it lately,’ said the curate.

  ‘If you’d made sure it was over by eleven like you were supposed to,’ Stanislaus said again as they arrived at the Parochial House, suddenly more weary than angry now that he was inside his own front door. Almost immediately, his eyelids started to droop. ‘Victor Lennon may be the only layman in the parish who knows how to address me correctly. Isn’t that funny? Isn’t that awful?’ he said.