And she had had no intention of sneaking round behind Eamon’s back. There were plenty of lads in the village, secure in the knowledge that Eamon wouldn’t be around for a very long time, who’d be happy to accommodate her.
She looked over at the table where Cal and Sammy were in deep conversation. That Sammy would be up her leg like a ferret up a rabbit hole if she gave him the slightest encouragement. She smiled at the stupidity of the thought. That would be a cold day in August.
Cold as the day she’d driven to the Kesh to tell Eamon it was over. She’d got colder still when she’d had to pull the car over to the ditch, get out, and throw up, her stomach knotted by the thought of what she was going to do.
She’d still been shivering when she’d gone into the visiting hall.
He was all pleased to see her, and she felt like hell, knowing what she was going to tell him.
“Eamon, I need to talk to you.”
“And I need to talk to you.”
“Well…” She’d rehearsed what she was going to tell him. That she still loved him but couldn’t wait forever. That it wasn’t fair to him and wasn’t fair to her. That they’d get over it. That she’d still go on fighting with the Provos. She couldn’t find the words to begin.
Maybe she would say nothing about it today, write him what the Americans called a “Dear John” letter? No. That would be a sleekèd thing to do to anybody, never mind Eamon. He’d said that he wanted to say something? That would give her a short reprieve. “All right. You go first.”
“Lean over. I’ve to whisper.”
She’d frowned and bent her head toward him.
“In about a year, me and some of the other lads are getting out.”
She sat back in her chair. Out?
“Did you hear what I said?”
“I did, too.”
“Will you wait for me?”
“What do you think?” Thank Christ she’d let him go first. “I love you.”
“Great.” He leaned forward. “I may need a wee bit of help.”
And she’d given him that help two days ago. She’d just have to wait a little longer, and Eamon would be out. Here in Tyrone there were plenty of places to hide a man that the Brits could never find. Jesus, Mary, and Joseph—she glanced over at the table—but it would be grand to have him sitting there again.
Cal grinned back at her. “Are you churning that butter?”
“Take your hurry in your hand, Cal. It’s ready. Here.” She carried the tray to the men. “Help yourselves.” She joined them and half-listened as they talked about the weather, the things that needed to be done on the farm.
Quite the rustic scene, she thought. Any strangers asked to join them would be charmed, unaware that they were sitting with three of the most committed Provos in County Tyrone.
Perhaps Sammy wasn’t, but he was a damn good armourer who manufactured their explosives, procured their weapons, stole cars, and that was all that mattered. She and Cal were completely dedicated.
Had been from the day Da started telling them his stories of the Irish and the English. He wove tales of Ireland that went back to prehistory: of Finn McChuaill, and Princess Macha, Cu Chulainn and his Knights of the Red Branch, and Maeve and Deidre of the sorrows. He told the children of rebellions that always ended in the glorious defeat, Fiach McHugh in 1580, the United Irishmen in 1789, the Easter Rebellion in 1916. He’d sung them the songs, songs that kept the folk memories sharp, the bitterness honed like a bright pike blade. Da had told them over and over that one day—one day Ireland would be free. Not just the twenty-six counties of the Republic but the six here in the north that still paid homage to the English Crown, that twenty-six plus six made one. Thirty-two counties, but one Ireland.
She chewed her buttered wheaten bread.
Never mind Da telling them things. He’d shown them.
He’d been a volunteer with the IRA since 1922. She could remember the nights he’d not been home and Ma had sat by herself in the kitchen—waiting, sometimes crying quietly to herself, once helping him in through the door—the bottom half didn’t stick then—stripping his bloodstained coat and shirt away, binding the bullet wound in his right arm. Burning the bloody clothes in the range. Telling the frightened children they must never—never—say a word about it to anyone.
Ma yelling at constables of the Royal Ulster Constabulary to get off the O’Byrne lands the night they’d come looking for Da.
Erin, five-year-old eyes wide, had clung to her mother’s skirt as soon as the pounding on the door started, did as she was bid when Ma said quietly, “Erin, get you under the table.”
Peering out, she saw Ma open the door, and outside there were three big, beefy, red-faced RUC men in their bottle-green uniforms, black harps for their cap badges, rifles in their hands.
“You’ve no right to come in…”
“Out of the fucking way, you Fenian bitch.” A sergeant shoved Ma aside. Ma fell, then sat up, stared at Erin, and held one finger to her lips. There was a trickle of blood from the corner of her mouth.
Erin crept farther under the table. All she could see were green-trousered legs, black muddy boots. She heard the crashes as furniture was overturned, the clumping of boots rushing upstairs, thundering through the bedrooms overhead. Shards of broken crockery skittered across the kitchen floor.
“Come out of there, you wee hoor.” The man’s face was upside down as he peered under the table. “Get out. Don’t have me come in to get you.”
She scuttled across the floor and clutched at Ma, who held her tightly. Ma was dry-eyed. Scowling.
Boots clumped down the stairs. One of the men had nine-year-old Cal by the ear. The sight of his tears brought on Erin’s own.
“Nobody upstairs, Sergeant, except this wee skitter.” The constable shoved Cal across the room, sucked his hand, then spat on the floor. “The wee cunt bit me, so he did.”
Another constable said, “You’ll need to get that disinfected. Them Fenians’ bites is poisonous, so they are.” He laughed.
Cal hurled himself at the man.
“You leave my ma and my wee sister alone.”
He got a backhander across his face. One eye started to close.
The sergeant walked across the room and stood over Ma and Erin. From where she sat, Erin thought that he looked like a giant.
“All right. Where the fuck is he?”
Ma let go of Erin and stood. “Where you won’t find him.”
Erin could see the fire in Ma’s eyes.
“Constable. Grab that wee lad.”
She watched the man who’d been bitten grab Cal, twist his arm up behind his back. Cal struggled and then began to whimper. “You’re hurting me. Stop it.”
“I’ll not ask you a third time,” the sergeant said. “Where the fuck is he?”
“Let my Cal go,” Ma yelled.
Cal’s cries grew louder.
“All right,” Ma said. “He’s across the border.”
Cal gave a high-pitched yelp.
Ma tried to go to him, but the sergeant held her back.
“I told you. He’s across the border. In Ballybofey.”
The sergeant released Ma and turned to the constable. “Let him go.”
Cal made no attempt to join them. He just stood there nursing his arm.
“We’ll be going now, missus.” The sergeant and the other two marched to the door. “We’ll be back,” the sergeant said. “Maybe you and your brood should get over the border, too, take the rest of the fucking Fenians with you. And stay there.” He slammed the door.
After Ma had tended to Cal, she took out a bucket, filled it with soapy water, got down on her knees, and started to scrub the place where the constable had spat. Ma hadn’t cried, just scrubbed and scrubbed. And, Erin resolved, the bloody Brits would never make her cry either.
And they hadn’t. Not since that day. She glanced across to the crack between the floor tiles where, eighteen years ago, Ma had scrubbed her fingers red-raw.
After that night, it had been no wonder that Cal had joined Da in what the pair of them called “the family business.” The other brother and sisters had taken a different tack. They’d got the hell out of Northern Ireland. Fiach hadn’t been born back then. As soon as she’d been old enough, she’d asked Cal if women could join the Provos. He’d told her that girls weren’t allowed to. They had to join the Cumman na mBan, the woman’s auxiliary. The hell they had to.
She’d found that out when she was at the university. There were women who were full members of Active Service Units. They mostly came from the poorer districts of Belfast, Derry and towns like Coalisland in East Tyrone, where sectarian oppression had flourished for centuries, and they fought as tenaciously as the men. All of them were driven by one goal—the fight to free Northern Ireland. And why shouldn’t she join? She wanted a free Ireland as much as, maybe more than, the next person.
She soon persuaded Cal to get her in, and anyway, County Tyrone wasn’t like Belfast with its formal structure of brigades and battalions. Down here there was a brigade, but the Provos were organized into independent cells. Only one member of any small group was known to a single man from another. If the Security Forces penetrated a cell, the chances of the Brit buggers finding out about another Active Service Unit were slim. Cal had sent word up through the chain of command. Erin had been in, and proud to be in for—she had to think—five years now.
She finished her tea.
The men were still going on about a broken fence in the back ten acres. She looked fondly at her brother, the big lig, as he held a teacup in a fist like a ham. He was one of the best, and she loved him dearly. Not the way she loved Eamon but for his humour, his ability to put off any job, like fixing the kitchen door, his way with the horses, and for always being her big brother.
“You’re back, are you?” Cal grinned at his sister. “You were away off on a powerful daydream.”
“Daydream? Listening to you two craic on would put anyone to sleep. I know that the fence needs fixing in the back ten acres.”
“I’ll do it on Monday, Erin,” Sammy said. His tone was ingratiating. “We’ve to see to the horses today.”
She could see his gaze resting on the front of her blouse. Let the wee bugger look. He’d never said a word, never tried to touch her, but she knew that Sammy McCandless wanted her. If it was Sammy’s desire for her, not a commitment to Ireland, that kept him in the Active Service Unit, who cared?
Anyway he was in, and, as the Provos were fond of saying, “The only way out is feetfirst.” They meant you either died in battle or, if you showed the least sign of disloyalty—and wanting out, except under very special circumstances, like an illness, was considered to be disloyal—they’d take care of you themselves. Permanently. Sammy was in whether he liked it or not, and as long as he did his job right—and fair play to Sammy, he was a damn good armourer—he’d nothing to worry about. And that was really why he was here this morning.
“So, when are you going to do the other thing, Sammy?”
Sammy hesitated and glanced at Cal.
“Tell her, Sam.”
“I’ll need your Land Rover and the horse trailer tonight. I was going to steal a car in Derry, but I nearly got lifted. Bloody great peeler come over and asked me what I was about.”
“Damn,” said Cal. “I’d rather you weren’t using ours. You have to get across the border, and there’s a checkpoint. We’ll need to change the number plates.”
“Stay here for your supper,” Erin said, “and the three of us can see to that after.”
“Fair enough.”
“Usual suppliers in the Republic?” she asked.
“Aye. I’ll pick up the shipment in Ballybofey, run it over at Clady, and take them up to the churchyard at Ballydornan. The ArmaLites and Semtex won’t come to any harm in the grave, and if the Brits do happen to find them it’ll throw them off the scent about this place.”
Cal growled. “Don’t get caught. Not in our ’Rover.”
“I’ll not get nicked.” Sammy grinned.
Watching him grin, Erin thought that she’d been wrong about Sammy looking like a ferret. He was more like a weasel.
“See you don’t,” she said, “or you’ll end up in the Kesh.”
“If I do, I’ll get to see your Eamon.”
“Don’t be too sure of that. He’s…” She bit her lip and saw Cal sharply shake his head. They hadn’t told Sammy about the impending jailbreak. Informers had been the curse of every Irish independence movement.
“He’s what?” Sammy asked.
Erin gave him her most come-hitherish smile. “Nothing.”
“Come on, Erin. Something’s going on, and you won’t tell me? Do you not trust me?”
Cal rose and looked down on Sammy. “Listen. You know the rules. The less folks know, the less they can tell.”
“I’d never tell nothing.”
“That’s what we thought about that shite Christopher Black. Bloody supergrass, singing his head off like a fucking canary. Thirty-five of our lot lifted on his word.”
Sammy stood and leaned, taking his weight on his hands that were splayed out on the tabletop. “Don’t you make me out to be like Black. You think I’d turn informer?” There was spittle on his lips. “Fuck you.”
Erin put her hand over Sammy’s. “Not at all, Sam. It’s just the way we do things. You know that. We will tell you when the time’s ripe.” She looked up at Cal. “Sit down, the both of you. You’re like a pair of strange roosters in the one barnyard.”
“Jesus, Sam,” Cal said, “if we can’t trust you, who can we trust?”
Sammy seemed to be satisfied. “I’m sorry I lost the rag there, Erin, but…”
“Never mind.” She squeezed his hand. “We trust you, Sam, and we’ve to rely on you tonight.”
Sammy forced a smile. “The night? Just you wait ’til you see. It’ll be easy as playing marbles.”
CHAPTER 6
VANCOUVER. SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 17, 1983
From her window, the grass of the playing fields of Lord Carnarvon Elementary School shone dew-sparkle bright. The four baseball diamonds looked like pieces cut from the same brown pie. On the verges of the avenues surrounding the fields, the birch trees’ September leaves had the dusty, dying look of pages in a book left too long on a library shelf.
Fiona leaned back in her chair and looked around her office. Bookshelves ran from floor to ceiling on two of the walls of the little room. Files of minutes of meetings, textbooks that were being used by her classes, books about pedagogy, chief among which was a battered copy of Bloom’s Taxonomy, filled the available space.
Her desktop was cluttered with memoranda, current files, letters awaiting her signature, and next week’s schedule. In her in-box, the pile of paperwork she must deal with before Tuesday crouched like a bad-tempered cat, daring her to reach out her hand and risk being clawed. At least the pile wasn’t growling at her. Och, well, “Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.” Tuesday was next week.
Three chairs stood in front of her desk. She had a parent-teacher interview scheduled this morning with the Papodopolous family. Young Dimitris was a holy terror, and his parents, both Greek immigrants, had not a word of English between them. The family should be here soon.
The high-pitched shouts of the Little League baseball teams playing a postseason recreational game outside sought no permission before intruding through the open window.
“Batter, batter, batter.”
“Good eye. Good eye.”
Fiona had learned enough about the game to understand that “good eye” meant one team was encouraging their batter not to swing, in the hope that the opposing pitcher would throw a fourth ball and give the batter a walk to first base.
To her ear, the words sounded very like the “g’dye” that was Tim’s standard greeting. Australian for “good day.” It was funny, she thought, how little things, like the ballplayers’ cries, could bring him to mind. Sh
e often found herself thinking of him at incongruous times. His image had a habit of popping up like an unexpected scene in a Bergman movie. Totally unexpected, yet always welcome.
“Good eye. Good eye.”
“G’dye.” That’s what Tim would say when he picked her up tonight to go to Bridges—which was where he’d taken her on the January day they’d first met. She let herself savour thoughts of seeing him tonight and of how they had met.
The weather then, she thought, looking at dust motes shimmering in a visiting sunbeam, hadn’t been as pleasant as today’s, and the last thing she had been expecting was to meet a new man, especially one like Tim Andersen.
She rose, walked to the window, and watched as a little lad took an almighty swing at the ball—and missed, lost his balance, and sat down heavily right in the middle of home plate.
“Go on,” she said, knowing that he couldn’t hear her, “pick yourself up and have another go.”
It was advice she could have used herself not so very long ago.
She’d started seeing a writer last July. He was younger than she was, a bit bohemian with his beard and ponytail and complete disregard for the establishment. God, but he’d made her laugh. Some of his friends were weird by her standards, yet there was always an excitement in their company. He’d made her feel ten years younger, until, quite by chance, she had discovered that he was married. That had come to light in November. She’d told him to go to hell, never seen him again, decided to give men a rest for a while and to be satisfied with her own company and that of her immediate circle of friends.
Three months later, her anger and disappointment, her sense of betrayal, had faded sufficiently, and she could smile at herself for being so easily taken in.
One Saturday, feeling housebound, she’d decided to go to the Art Gallery. She’d walked from Kits to Granville Island, intending to take the water-bus across False Creek and walk down Burrard Street to West Georgia.
It had been a day when the January clouds had seemed to be welded to the tops of the North Shore Mountains. The sky had opened.
Despite the warmth of the morning sun today, just thinking of how suddenly soaked she had become made her shiver.
Now and in the Hour of Our Death Page 5
