After the Lockout

by Darran McCann

  ‘Victor, please put down the gun,’ Maggie keeps repeating, ‘put down the gun and come away with me and we can get married, we can go straight to the priest and he can marry us tonight, he can marry us right now.’

  ‘It’s not in my hands, Maggie, the world doesn’t work that way.’

  She stamps her foot on the ground. ‘This is the world, right here,’ she cries, and slaps her hand hard against her chest. ‘This is where you make your mark. I am the one you have to fight for.’

  A support stanchion falls, taking another stanchion with it in a howitzer-like cacophony, enough to make me fear for my hearing. The last few stanchions endure, but they too will be smouldering wreckage soon. I look at Maggie. Her glistening eyes are bulbous with tears that stain her beautiful face. ‘Maggie, you are perfect. I’d have to be perfect to be worthy of you. Well, I’m not perfect. I’m not even good. I’m so sorry.’

  The last, flimsy pillars of my creation burn away under the heat and I can hardly hear the gunshot over the terrible noise of things falling apart.

  There wasn’t any hope, he had lost too much blood. He was babbling, could say nothing coherent. His pain was terrible but his release would come soon. ‘You don’t have to speak out loud, Pius, God knows your sins. You need only ask His forgiveness. God is merciful. You have nothing to fear, my son,’ Stanislaus told him, but he looked terrified as the end came. Stanislaus heard his last breath. It was always the same sound, like a door being sucked shut in the wind. Stanislaus closed over his eyelids. No-one needed to see the terror in his eyes. He looked much more at peace this way.

  After the last of the barn collapsed Victor stalked towards Stanislaus and Pius with gun in his hand and murder in his eyes. Women screamed. The second motorist was motionless now.

  ‘Did you give him his Last Rites?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘He would have wanted that.’ Victor looked at his father, and it seemed he might weep. He looked away, as though the sight was too terrible.

  ‘Let me say some prayers over those other men,’ said Stanislaus.

  ‘They’re not men, they’re dead,’ said Victor, his finger twitching on the pistol by his side, latent and terrifying. Victor looked at Margaret Cavanagh, who knelt sobbing and wailing, then looked back to Stanislaus.

  ‘Get her out of here. Get all of these people out of here. Get them all back to their homes. I don’t want to see anybody. I’m going to bury my father.’

  Father Daly slammed down the telephone hurriedly when Stanislaus came in. He was shaking. ‘I had to place a telephone call,’ he said.

  ‘Good man, you called the police?’

  ‘Uh, yes, that’s right. I called the police.’

  ‘What did they say? Are they coming straight away?’

  ‘Uh-huh. I saw it all. Is there a gun in the house? He’s out there with a gun and I have no gun. I mean, I think we should have a gun.’

  ‘Tim, calm down. What’s wrong with you?’

  ‘He’s quite mad. He could come here and try to kill us. We need to be able to defend ourselves. Have you a gun or not?’

  ‘You know very well I don’t. Why would he come here? Compose yourself, Father.’

  ‘Keep the lights off. If he comes looking for me, you haven’t seen me, right?’ said the curate, before dashing out the door.

  Stanislaus went to his chair by the window and watched through the gloom. Every curtain in Madden twitched but Victor was alone in the Poor Ground, save for the dead bodies lying on the barren turf and the damned souls beneath. Only the angry red glow of the smouldering wreckage lit the scene. Victor worked like a demon though he had no shovel, no implement but his hands and planks of wood that were lying around. All the spades and shovels and loys he could want lay up the street in Charlie Quinn’s smashed window, but Stanislaus supposed the boy wasn’t really thinking clearly as he threw himself at the soil. Victor’s laboured grunting was the only sound that punctuated the silent terror sitting over the parish, until he saw Father Daly’s car pull out from behind the Parochial House and hurtle recklessly down the street and out of Madden. He realised that the curate was a man with secrets, and that the dead men had been no motorists. There was a rumour that there were two curates in Tyrone and another in Limerick mixed up with the IRB, and he supposed that if there were three young fools out of three thousand clergy, there could be four or seven or twelve …

  Stanislaus stopped himself from thinking about it any further. He was getting close to articulating something he was determined not to know, so he told himself that exposure to violence affected people differently; that it was a time of blood, that Victor Lennon was a man of blood and that poor Father Daly was only a youngster who had been scared out of his wits. At most, he had been naïve, but hadn’t people once said the same of Stanislaus himself? The darker rumours had never been true, not really, but he had flown closer to the flame than he should have. Poor Father Daly had been taken in by unscrupulous men claiming to be motorists, and his flight proved only his terror at the killer in the Poor Ground. Yes, that was it, that was the truth and there was no other.

  Stanislaus closed the front door and moved as quietly as he could down the street to Quinn’s General Stores. Victor didn’t even notice him pass. The shattered glass crunched under his feet on the paving outside the shop. He reached into the window and picked out a shovel, took coins from his pocket and left them on the display where the shovel had been. When he reached the Poor Ground he waited a moment at the wall for Victor to spot him. The boy stood upright from his work. Stanislaus held up the shovel. The Victor fellow stepped closer and reached out to take the shovel. Stanislaus saw that his hands were torn to shreds.

  ‘Will you come back tomorrow and bless the grave? For my father,’ Victor said.

  Stanislaus nodded. Pius deserved it. As he let go of the shovel to let Victor take it, Stanislaus was struck by something, something he had not seen before. Victor was so young-looking. Hardly more than a boy.

  ‘Thank you,’ said Victor, cradling the shovel in his hands.

  Stanislaus retreated to the Parochial House, to his study, to watch Victor dig deeper and deeper till he disappeared into the hole. He watched the boy gather his father with extraordinary gentleness and grace, making light of Pius’s fifteen or sixteen stone, and lay him beside his mother with the care of a priest with a relic. He watched him put back the fresh-dug earth, probably believing he had reunited his parents, and a single hot tear trickled down Stanislaus’s cheek. The poor boy. It was all for nothing. The commingling of remains was meaningless. This was no reunion, unless Pius Lennon too was in hell. Then Stanislaus watched Victor Lennon leave his parish for the last time.

  When the job is done I throw down the shovel and stand over the grave. It’s strange: I have little memory of digging it. A couple of images in my mind, like photographs snatched from a scene, but otherwise, blank. The sound of the gunshot started something. And ended something.

  I have no idea of the time but I can tell it is near dawn. I still have the train ticket. It’ll take me away from Madden, that’s the main thing. There is only blood and pain here now. I must go to my fate, even if it means I’ll be in the shallow soil of the Wicklow Mountains soon, unremembered and unmourned. There’s no-one here for me to talk to, to preach at, to persuade. I’m alone. There is only prayer. So I pray. Pius would want me to. Let it be one last act of superstition for the superstitious old bastard. Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil, Amen. There. Are you happy now? An old reflex kicks in. Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou among women and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death. Amen. Rest in peace, Mammy.

  Benedict has courage, it has
to be said. I wish he was here again to pray for my parents. I wish he would hear my confession. Not that I believe in that stuff, it’s just that, well: I think I might be ready to tell the truth, if only there was someone to tell it to. I might tell him I envy Charlie, and all like him put on this earth to follow orders. I might tell him I wish I could surrender my judgement and my conscience to other men, and wade through fields full of men’s brains and guts and evacuated bowels and merely feel, not think. But thoughts suck the blood from me like midges on a summer’s day. I might tell him how the revolution was fun at the start. We were tweaking the lion’s tail. I might tell him how I see the starving children whose fathers I recruited to Larkin’s union in my sleep. Their emaciation is wildly exaggerated – eyes withdrawn into their heads, ribs sticking out from their chests, like something from an old daguerreotype taken during the Famine – but the sacrifices others endure for your sake are the hardest to take. I might tell him I had no choice but to get in deeper after the lockout.

  I brandish the revolver prominently as I leave the Poor Ground, in case anyone thinks of approaching. I leave the smouldering remains of the People’s Hall, pass the locked doors of the Parochial Hall, the triumphal spire of the chapel. McGrath’s the post office. Kane’s. Murphy’s. McDermott’s. The other Murphy’s. The Harte house, bringing the whole tone of the place down. I reach the top of the town and stop at Cavanagh’s, the only naked window in a street of twitching curtains. Inside stands Maggie, and though it’s dark I can see her clearly. Her face is wet with tears, I am responsible, but she is only the more beautiful for her distress. Every microscopic detail etches itself into memory. She has always been a dream. She pulls the curtain and becomes a memory.

  Behind me I hear footsteps on broken glass. Charlie stands inside the smashed window of his shop. He regards me silently, without malice. There is nothing I can say to him. I simply leave.

  When I’m a quarter mile out I look back down into the hollow at Madden for the last time. My eye is drawn to the Parochial House. He’ll be watching me, as he watches always. The black sheep he will watch drift away. The bishop will rejoice over the one that is lost, for the hundred that might be saved.

  A mile up the road a horse and cart idles at the crossroads. I keep the gun by my side and move slowly.

  ‘It’s all right, Victor, it’s me, Ida. Ida Harte. Where are you headed?’

  I scan around, in case anyone lurks in the darkness. ‘Dublin,’ I say at last.

  ‘Will there not be people there looking to kill you?’ I don’t answer her, but she perseveres. ‘Have you not packed any things? You have no belongings with you.’

  ‘I don’t suppose I’ll need any.’

  ‘We can get the boat and start a new life somewhere else,’ she says. She pats the seat beside her in the cart. ‘Come on, climb up here. I’m coming with you.’

  She must sense my bewilderment at the suggestion. Her hair is hideous. Her face is lamentable. Her eyes are so black they seem as mere voids in the darkness. ‘Damnit, Ida, do you not understand? I don’t want you.’

  ‘You have to choose me, you have no other choice. You can’t have the schoolteacher. You can have me,’ she says with bizarre assurance.

  I walk away, hoping my silence will be her answer, but for miles and miles she trundles after me. I refuse to choose her. I refuse to have the choice forced on me. I refuse to accept that which must be accepted. I refuse the world and I refuse God. Let them all kill me; I’m never letting go. Let them put me in my grave; but let it be carved on my headstone, and let the words forever be associated with my name: I refuse, I refuse, I refuse.

  Stanislaus woke in his chair with an empty brandy glass on the floor beside him and its former contents sticky on his clothes. He had been waiting for the police to arrive but must have fallen asleep. It was daylight now and they still hadn’t come. He heard someone clear their throat, and he slowly became aware that he hadn’t merely stirred. Mrs Geraghty was shaking his shoulder, and she looked nervous as a kitten. Stanislaus looked up. Cardinal Logue sat across the desk from him, leaning forward and turning his cane in his fist. Stanislaus blinked and made to rise, but the Cardinal sat him down with a wave.

  ‘Things have gotten out of control, Stanislaus,’ he said. There was no possible reply. ‘Your curate has told me about the agitator,’ the Cardinal continued, and Stanislaus saw Daly skulking sheepishly by the door. ‘I know about the building of the hall. I know about the fire. I understand a man was killed. A parishioner. The father of the agitator.’

  ‘What about the others?’ said Stanislaus.

  ‘What others?’

  It was clear to Stanislaus that the Cardinal didn’t know. The curate had told him nothing about the motorists, whoever they had been. Stanislaus glanced out the window. The bodies were gone from the Poor Ground.

  ‘Bishop Benedict is confused, Your Eminence,’ said Daly.

  ‘Shut up, curate,’ the Cardinal snapped. He paused a moment. ‘Stanislaus, I have placed a telephone call to Inspector Truman of Dawson Street, he will be here soon. My information is this: there was a fire here, probably started deliberately, and a man died fighting the fire. Is my information complete and correct?’

  Daly stood in the shadows shaking his head. ‘Yes, Your Eminence, it happened just as you say,’ Stanislaus said.

  The Cardinal looked relieved. ‘Where is the body?’

  ‘Buried.’

  ‘Already?’

  ‘What Bishop Benedict means, Your Eminence,’ Daly interrupted, ‘is that the burning structure collapsed on top of poor Pius and he was buried beneath it. There are no remains.’

  The Cardinal looked to Stanislaus for confirmation of Daly’s damnable lies. Stanislaus knew his silence implied assent but he couldn’t bring himself to speak. The Cardinal looked at Daly with unconcealed disgust and told him to leave the room. When the curate was gone, the Cardinal rose and walked to the window.

  ‘It’s not your fault, Stanislaus. Your curate has a lot to learn. Young men always do. He’ll be missioning to the lepers in Matabeleland this time next month. He’ll learn a lot there.’ He paused. ‘The world is a mess, Stanislaus. Goodness knows what the future holds. What do you think? About the future?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Of course you don’t know. I’m asking what you think.’

  ‘I don’t think. I have no opinion on the future. It’s the past that scares me.’

  The Cardinal smiled scornfully. ‘You were always good at saying things that sound profound but that don’t actually mean anything at all.’ As he looked out the window, it seemed his mind was far away. ‘I wish I didn’t have to worry about the future. I wish I had that luxury,’ he said.

  ‘You’re seventy-seven years of age. The future is not your business.’

  ‘The red hat makes it my business.’ He peered into the distance. ‘You can see the river Blackwater from here. Where County Armagh ends and County Monaghan begins.’ He paused. ‘They’re going to partition the country, you know.’

  ‘That’s just talk, a scare tactic.’

  ‘It’s not scaring anyone nearly enough. They’re going to force each other into places neither of them wants to be. You know better than anyone how these things go.’

  ‘Yes, I know how these things go,’ Stanislaus said. After the war in Europe the British would return to what they called, with all their imperial arrogance, the ‘Irish question’, and simple people would see in Victor Lennon and the likes of him a Ribbonman poking the English in the eye. It was in the nature of events to spiral. The rising had flushed out the specificities, and the capacity of the existing order to offer advantage to those who would serve it was already diminishing. ‘Men like Victor Lennon always emerge when Englishmen kill Irishmen in Ireland,’ Stanislaus said.

  ‘They’re going to partition the country and we are going to be on the wrong side of the line. We are going to be a minority locked inside a Protestant holdout,’ said the Cardinal. />
  ‘You’re describing a nightmare.’

  ‘It will be our responsibility to provide leadership to our people. Sometimes leadership is about knowing where people are going, and getting out in front of them.’ He paused. ‘I understand the problems started when you refused the local football team use of the Parochial Hall?’

  ‘Gaelic football, Mick.’

  ‘I know, I know. But it does seem to be very popular.’ The Cardinal went to the door. ‘If they’re going to partition the country, we must make our presence felt in every institution open to us. Even the unedifying ones. Let them use the Parochial Hall. Tonight. Under your supervision.’

  ‘Yes, Your Eminence.’

  The Parochial Hall was two-thirds full. A good turnout, considering. People danced and music played and Stanislaus moved through the room noting with approval that everyone seemed to be behaving themselves. The photographer was setting up. A young fellow from Armagh, paid for by the Cardinal. There was great excitement among the footballers that they were getting their photograph taken. The photographer organised the young men and the team officials into rows: one seated, one standing behind the seated row, and a third standing on chairs at the back. Charlie Quinn handed the trophy to Sean Moriarty and said Sean should sit in the middle and hold it, since he was the team captain. Charlie took up a spot in the middle row, where the camera wouldn’t see his leg.

  ‘Are you sure you’re fit to stand?’ one of the young lads jeered good-humouredly.

  ‘Och, very funny,’ Charlie said, slurring slightly. He was clearly merry but Stanislaus wasn’t going to cause a scene. Better to give the lad special dispensation on the happy occasion. He might just gently remind him he had a big day ahead, and eight o’clock came early. It seemed Miss Cavanagh had decided, sensibly, to stay at home and prepare for the ceremony.

  The photographer took down the names to go with the faces, and when he had finished he called them out, back row first, from left to right, to make sure there were no mistakes. Everyone was where they were supposed to be.