Now and in the Hour of Our Death

by Patrick Taylor

  Eamon stood up and peered at the window in the entrance door. There she was. About bloody time.

  The screw let her in. She sat opposite Eamon.

  “What kept you?”

  “Body search. The ould bitch noticed a piece of string hanging out of me.”

  “She didn’t…?”

  “Not at all. I told her I was on my monthlies.”

  “Good lass. I’ll get it from you in a wee minute.” He turned to where another inmate sat several tables away, ignoring the woman opposite, staring at Eamon, who nodded.

  The man turned to his visitor, smashed his fist on the tabletop, leapt to his feet, and yelled, “You fucking slut, you’ve been screwing Sean Molloy.”

  “Have not.”

  “I’ll fuckin’ well kill you. I’ll kill you dead.” The man rose to his feet, spittle flecking his lips.

  Two warders rushed to restrain him.

  “Now,” Eamon hissed. “Now.”

  Erin passed him the package under the table. It slid through his fingers, clunked on the floor and slithered into plain view. He froze like a rabbit in a car’s headlights. Erin slipped off her chair, scooped up the package and thrust it at him. Eamon dropped it down the front of his shirt and tried to control his breathing.

  “Jesus, you done good, love.” He had to raise his voice to be heard over the yelling of the decoy.

  “Aye,” she said, and ran her tongue over her upper lip. “And I hope you’ll do good for me soon.”

  What was it about women? Eamon wondered. Was it fear that made Erin horny? “Soon, love.”

  “Now would be good,” she said with a grin. “I’m not wearing no knickers.”

  He laughed and felt the package slip down under his shirt, the gun hard against his belly. It wasn’t as hard as the bulge in his pants.

  “I’ve to go now,” he said. “But it won’t be long. You just bide.”

  “I will.”

  “Right. And, Erin?”

  “What?”

  “Don’t be wearing any panties that day either.” He smiled and blew her a kiss, rose, and walked over to the nearest screw.

  “’Scuse me, sir. Permission to go to the lavatory?”

  “Go on.”

  Eamon headed for the toilet. His smile faded. To get back to his cell, he’d have to pass a body search. He knew there was only one way to do that. Pushing the Vaseline-lubricated package into his own rectum was going to be a real pain in the arse.

  CHAPTER 2

  VANCOUVER. THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 15, 1983

  Fiona Kavanagh looked out over Burrard Inlet. White sails and multihued spinnakers studded English Bay, the yachts’ hulls tiny among the lines of moored cargo ships. Beyond Point Atkinson, Bowen Island tumbled down to Cowan Point and was etched against a sky as colourful as a Fair Isle sweater. Across the Strait of Georgia, the sun behind the mountains of Vancouver Island slipped into the Pacific Ocean and dyed clouds pink and mauve and scarlet.

  The air was redolent of salt and drying seaweed, the sand of Kits Beach warm between her bare toes. Fiona let the evening’s peace wash over her. Kits Beach was her “Lake Isle of Innisfree,” where “peace comes dropping slow,” and for her reflected everything about the tranquility of her new country. Vancouver was a far cry from tiny, self-absorbed, war-torn Northern Ireland, where the Troubles, the civil war, had ground on remorselessly since 1969.

  She shook her head.

  She’d sworn to put Belfast and the senseless slaughter behind her when she’d left that city in 1975 to come to Canada. The shootings, bombings, riots, and maimings were things to be forgotten.

  She made it a point to turn off the sound of the newsreader’s voice when the images of armoured cars on the streets, yelling youths hurling Molotov cocktails, and police and troops in body armour appeared on the television screen. Canadians always seemed to ask as soon as they found out where she had come from, “What is really going on in Northern Ireland? Is it ever going to end?” She would deflect the question by saying, “It’s just the next chapter in a row that’s been going on for eight hundred years. I’m from there and I don’t understand it.” That was a damn sight easier than trying to explain the convolutions of Irish politics, and allowed her to move the conversation away from a subject she preferred not to discuss.

  A line of darkness crept up the North Shore Mountains. The west wind strengthened. Fiona bent, slipped on her shoes, and headed for her apartment in the big old house on Whyte Avenue.

  Canada had been a new start for her—a new country and a new life. And, she thought, she’d succeeded fairly well in trying to become a Canadian, but, even after eight years, she couldn’t completely escape from her heritage.

  And why should she?

  Ireland, Northern Ireland, was where she’d been born, raised, educated, where she had family and friends. Northern Ireland had formed her, made her what she was today.

  Before the Troubles it had been a grand wee spot. A place to be remembered with affection, even if, after eight years, the memories were fading.

  Most of the memories. Not all.

  She’d fallen in love there in Belfast, not once but several times, and she half-remembered with affection those men. All save one. He still lived somewhere deep in her—but he was there and she was here.

  Since coming to Canada, she’d had a number of short romances—but the right man? Perhaps Tim Andersen. She’d been seeing him for eight months, and he was meant to phone tonight. There might be a message waiting for her on the machine. She walked faster.

  She nearly bumped into one of the great driftwood logs at the edge of the beach. “Watch where you’re going, stupid.” She’d better stop talking to herself. Back home, folks used to say that to do so was the first sign of madness.

  Home? Dammit all, Vancouver was her home now. She had a good job, vice principal of Lord Carnarvon Elementary School, friends, new and interesting things to do. There was Gastown to visit, Stanley Park. The Gulf Islands were a short ferry ride away. Theatre, and her particular joy, the opera. And she could go where she pleased without being body searched, having always at the back of her mind the nagging worry that at any moment the day could be ripped apart by an explosion.

  She crossed Arbutus Street onto Whyte Avenue, fumbling in her pocket for the front-door key. At home, McCusker would be waiting for supper.

  She smiled as she thought of the overweight tortoiseshell cat. In her Belfast life, she’d had a ginger McCusker. He’d been kicked to death by a British soldier. Poor McCusker. Why, she wondered, had she given the same name to the stray kitten that’d appeared on her doorstep four years ago? Sentimentality? Had she needed something from her past to hold on to as a frightened child clutches a teddy bear? She opened the front door of the building.

  She heard McCusker yowling, hurried down the hall, opened her door, and a spherical tortoiseshell hurled himself at Fiona’s shins, the cat’s howls changing to a basso rumbling.

  Fiona bent and scratched the animal’s head.

  “Did you miss me?”

  “Aaarghow.”

  “No, you didn’t. You’re missing your grub. Come on.” Fiona walked into the kitchen, took out a bag of Tender Vittles, and poured the pellets into a bowl. McCusker attacked the food as if he hadn’t eaten for weeks.

  “Time you went on a diet.” Fiona glanced down. “Maybe it’s time I went on one myself.”

  She left the kitchen and entered the small living room, parquet-floored and two-thirds covered with two Persian rugs. They’d cost her a fortune, but apart from McCusker, who had she to spend her money on?

  Through the tall bow windows, over the houses opposite, she could see the neon glare of the downtown towers and, beyond them, the lights of the Grouse Mountain ski run. They’d be getting it ready for the ski season.

  She switched on a floor lamp and drew the curtains. It wasn’t cold enough to light the false-log fire that sat flush in the wall flanked by two floor-to-ceiling bookcases where she kept her re
cords segregated as classical or pop in the lower racks. She glanced at her books—old friends from Ireland and new Canadian acquaintances.

  She looked over to a telephone and answering machine. No flashing red light. So Tim hadn’t called and—no, she’d not call him.

  She shrugged, selected Carmen, and slipped it onto the turntable. Modern science, she thought, is a wonderful thing, as she turned off the speakers in the room and turned on those in the bathroom. She’d done the wiring herself after she’d read about the option in an interior-decorating magazine.

  The overture was finishing as Fiona switched on the bathroom light, threw a capful of Vitabath into the bathtub, and turned on the taps. At the sound, McCusker stuck his head round the door.

  “Too hot, McCusker.” The silly cat loved to drink from a running tap. Steam filled the room. Fiona slipped off her shoes. She inspected herself in a full-length mirror. She rubbed a patch clear.

  Deep-set, dark almond eyes, slightly slanted and set between little fans of laugh lines peered back at her. She turned to see herself in profile. Nose straight, not too big; lips—she pouted—full but not too full. Chin firm. Forehead smooth—well, two shallow creases, but not bad for a woman of forty-three. A few more silver streaks in the raven-black hair that was cut to frame her face. Tim had asked her not to dye the silver. Said he liked it. To tell the truth, she’d been pleased. Why should she try to pretend to be younger than she was?

  She stripped off her clothes. The room was warm and steamy, just like Kiri Te Kanawa’s Carmen, who was beginning to seduce Plácido Domingo’s Don José. “Près les ramparts de Seville…” She hummed along and examined her naked body in the mirror. “Not the girl you were ten years ago—but you’ll do.”

  The telephone in the living room rang. “Go … away,” but then it might be Tim. She hauled open the bathroom door and raced for the phone.

  “Hello?”

  “G’dye.”

  It was Tim. She’d know that Aussie accent anywhere.

  “You all right? You sound a bit out of breath.”

  “I’d to run to get the phone.”

  “And I thought talking to me made you that way.”

  “If you could see me now, you’d be that way yourself.”

  “Why?”

  “I’m naked.”

  “Yeah. Right.”

  The room was cold. She felt the goose bumps starting. “And you’d better tell me what you want. I’m going to freeze.”

  “You really starkers?”

  “I told you. I’m freezing.”

  “I could nip over. Warm you up.”

  “Not tonight you won’t. I’ve an early staff meeting tomorrow.”

  “Bugger. I’m working on Friday night. How about Saturday?”

  “Love to.”

  “Seven?”

  “OK.” She heard the sound of a kiss and replied in kind.

  “Remember that old song ‘put on your high-heeled sneakers’? Get a bit swank, and I’ll take you to Bridges.”

  “Fine.”

  “Now go and get warm.” She heard him chuckle.

  The phone went dead. She hung up, shivered, and scuttled back to the bathroom, into the tub and under the bubbles. Plácido sang, “Parles à moi de ma mere…” The water was warm and soothed her. God, but she was getting sleepy. Early to bed tonight.

  * * *

  Fiona rolled on her side, pulling the duvet under her chin. McCusker was curled in a ball at her feet. Sleep came softly, floating in on the pastel red and maroon clouds of tonight’s sunset.

  In her dream, she was wrapping herself in the sky’s softness when lightning screamed over a black cloud that rose from a shattered building. One eye-searing flash, one single roar punctuated by the screaming of police sirens made Fiona thrash. She saw people running, silently openmouthed, faces grimed and bloodstained. There was shattered glass all over the street.

  She flexed her sleeping legs and tried to run from the bed as she had tried to run on that day when she’d been shopping on Ann Street, not two hundred yards away from the blast. Above the street she saw the angel of death hovering, his tattered robe woven from the smoke of the burning building.

  Her mouth opened, saliva dripping on her pillow. A low keening struggled from her lips. Her fists clenched and unclenched as she struggled awake, panting, the sweat clammy on her face.

  She hadn’t had that nightmare for more than a year. Why had it come tonight? She switched on her bedside light, her breathing slowing as she recognized where she was.

  But why, safe in her own bedroom, could she still smell the smoke of the blast and hear the moaning of those left alive, see herself, hurrying away?

  Fully awake she knew that her dream had been of the bombing of Belfast’s Abercorn restaurant in 1972. The IRA explosives had killed two young women, ripped the right arm and both legs off Rosaleen McNern and wounded 130 others. And she hadn’t stopped or tried to help. She’d hurried away to the house on Conway Street where she’d lived with Davy McCutcheon for four years.

  She could remember letting herself in, tumbling into Davy’s arms, sobbing on his chest. Big Davy, strong Davy, gentle Davy—Davy McCutcheon, the man she loved—Davy, who made bombs for the Provisional IRA.

  “What’s wrong, love?” She heard the concern, felt his hand stroking her hair.

  “Everything.”

  He waited. Whenever she was upset—which wasn’t often—he would be patient, listen, find the right words, hold her.

  “Another bomb.” She felt him stiffen. Why, she asked herself, why do I, a committed pacifist, stay with Davy when I know what he does? Why don’t I just leave him, this house, and the whole of Northern bloody Ireland? Because—she felt his hand rubbing her back, insistently, comfortingly—because … She turned her face up to him. “Davy, Davy, I love you.”

  “It’s all right.”

  But it wasn’t.

  “It’s all right. Here.” He gave her a handkerchief.

  She dried her eyes but began to tremble.

  “I’ll get you a cup of tea.”

  Oh, Christ. Tea. The Belfast answer to every crisis from accidentally breaking an egg to just missing being blown apart. “I don’t want a cup of bloody tea.” She heard the pitch of her voice rise until she was almost screaming. “I want out of this.” Before she could stop them the words came tumbling out. “I don’t think I can go on living with you.”

  He flinched as if she had struck him. “Don’t say that.”

  “Not unless you leave the Provos.” She saw him flinch again. “Look, I’ve asked at Canada House. I can get a job as a teacher in Canada. We could go together. Start over.” She saw his face harden.

  “You didn’t tell me.”

  “Why should I? I was just asking. Just…” She moved away from him.

  “Fiona, I’ve never lied to you. You’ve always known what I do.”

  “Yes, but in the beginning you and the rest fought to protect the Catholics from the Protestant mobs when they started rioting, coming here to the Falls Road, burning houses. I didn’t like it then, but I could understand. I’ve tried to close my mind to what you do. Just like a wife whose husband beats her. Pretend it’s not really happening. But now…? God knows how many people were killed today, maimed, shattered. I could have been one of them. I was on Ann Street.”

  “Oh, Christ…”

  “… and it could have been one of your devices.”

  “It wasn’t.”

  “But it could have been.”

  “It wasn’t.”

  “Get out, Davy. Get out and take me with you.”

  “I can’t.”

  “Why can’t you?”

  “You know why.”

  “Because you believe? Because you gave your word?”

  “That’s right. I believe in Irish freedom. My da believed in Irish freedom. He died for it. I owe him and…” He put his hands on her shoulders. “And I owe it to myself. I promised.”

  “Jesus, Mary,
and Joseph … You promised. You’re just being stubborn.” She made a fist and struck his chest. And she knew that one of the reasons that she loved him so was because his seeming stubbornness was merely the reflection of an integrity so deep that it was in his bones.

  “What are we going to do? Davy, I do love you but I’ve had enough.”

  He pulled her to him.

  She could smell the old smoke of his Woodbine cigarettes. She didn’t like his smoking, but she put up with it. It was as much a part of Davy as his devotion to Celtic Football Club, his friend Jimmy Ferguson, Davy’s love for Jimmy’s daughter Siobhan, for all children, his acceptance of Fiona’s decision that there’d be no children for the pair of them until the lunacy of the civil war was over, his unshakeable belief that if his bloody Provos could just make one more effort that they would win, that Ireland would be one country again, and that he and she could go back to living a normal life. She knew he was a dreamer, but she loved his simple dreams. “Davy. Davy…” And her resolve faded. She kissed him.

  He took her through to the parlour, and she followed obediently. She let him stroke her, kiss her, caress her until her need for him grew and, fumbling at each other, urgency rising, they made love on the old chesterfield that she knew, but Davy thought that she didn’t, stood over the secret place under the floorboards where he hid his equipment.

  They went into the kitchen when it was over. Davy made a cup of tea. He always did that—after—and in the mornings for her before she rushed off to work, and he—she’d not think about that now.

  Davy carried over her cup, and as he did he broke wind. They laughed together. They were on what her father used to call “farting terms,” and Daddy had said no couple was really in love until they’d reached that state of comfort one with the other. And she saw that while she and Davy enjoyed sex—more than just enjoyed it—she loved him most for the little things.