Now and in the Hour of Our Death

by Patrick Taylor

  Davy put his gear away and headed back to his cell.

  Mr. Smiley yawned and looked at his watch. “I’ll be out of here in another couple of hours.”

  “I’ll not,” said Davy.

  Mr. Smiley tutted. “You keep up the good behaviour, keep getting remission, and the time’ll go by, so it will. You never know. Maybe they’ll declare an amnesty one day. Let you lot out. Maybe both sides’ll see a bit of sense and pack it up.”

  “Aye. Did a leprechaun tell you that? Let us out early? Pack it up? Not at all.”

  “You never know, Davy.”

  “I suppose, Mr. Smiley, you don’t just believe in leprechauns, you think there’s fairies at the bottom of your garden, too?” Davy shook his head. He knew he’d not get away with a remark like that to any of the other screws.

  “No, but while there’s life…”

  “There’s hope. I know.” Davy scratched his hand. The bloody thing itched like buggery.

  “How’s that paw of yours?”

  “I had the stitches out today. The doctor’d not want to be coming in on Saturday to do the job. Linfield’s playing, and he’s a Blues supporter.”

  “Playing Celtic tomorrow?”

  “Aye.”

  “I might take a run-race over and see the game myself. I’ve the morrow off, so I have. Back here on Sunday.” Mr. Smiley looked at his watch. “Anyroad, time I was off.”

  “Fair enough. If you go, make sure and cheer for Celtic now.”

  Mr. Smiley laughed. “I’m a Blues man myself.”

  “Go on, you Prod git. Celtic’ll beat the ears off them, so they will.”

  “And you think I’m the one that believes in fairies? Celtic couldn’t beat the skin off a rice pudding.” Mr. Smiley laughed.

  Davy laughed with him, for a moment his imprisonment unimportant. He was a decent man, Mr. Smiley. Even if Celtic was a Catholic team and Linfield, the Blues, Protestant, the pair of them, sectarian differences forgotten, could be sitting over a couple of jars the way Davy and Jimmy used to do, pulling each other’s legs. Davy shrugged and watched the guard walk away.

  Davy returned to D-16. Soon be time for lunch. Eamon came in. He’d gone off to see some of his mates earlier in the morning.

  “Here y’are, Davy.” Eamon skimmed an envelope across the cell. “One for you in the post this morning.”

  Davy made an attempt to field the letter, but his wound made him clumsy and the envelope slipped through his fingers.

  “Sorry about that.” Eamon bent and picked it up. “Here.”

  “Thanks.” The envelope had been opened. All the prisoners’ mail was. Security. He glanced at the back. Canadians had a peculiar habit of putting a return address there. Sure enough it was from Jimmy Ferguson. Funny that. Davy’d been thinking about wee Jim just a few minutes ago. “It’s from Canada.”

  “Canada? I hear it’s not such a bad place. I’ve a cousin in Winnipeg. Says it’s bloody cold in the winter and the midgies is something fierce in the summer.”

  “Right enough, when Jimmy was in Toronto he said the same … but he’s out in Vancouver now. Not a mosquito in the place.” And I wonder, Davy thought, where Fiona is?

  “Are you not going to have a wee read of it?”

  “Aye.” Davy fished inside and pulled out sheets of folded blue airmail letter paper. As he opened them, something fell out and fluttered to the floor to be retrieved by Eamon.

  “Have you a girlfriend out there, Father?” Eamon was looking at a photograph. “She’s a right corker, so she is.”

  Probably Siobhan. Jimmy had written before to say he was expecting his daughter to come for a visit. “Give it here.” Davy held out his good hand and took the snap.

  “Oh, Christ … Jesus Christ…” Davy sat heavily on his cot. “Holy Mother of God.” The letter slipped onto the cot.

  “You all right, Davy?”

  “Just a wee minute.” Davy’s hands shook. He felt his eyes fill. He stared at the picture. It was her. Fiona. He blinked. “It’s … Oh, Christ…” He felt Eamon’s hand on his shoulder and looked up to see the man’s face, concern written in every line. Davy sniffed. “Look … if you don’t mind, I’d like to be…”

  “Fair enough.”

  Davy was hardly aware of the cell door closing as Eamon left.

  Davy told himself to take a grip. It was only a fucking photo, for God’s sake, but—he looked again. It was her.

  She hadn’t changed her hairstyle. It was still black and shiny, framing her face, the silver streaks that had always made him think of a stoat’s tail tip in winter—there were more of them now. She looked surprised. Maybe Jimmy had caught her unawares when he’d taken the picture. Her almond eyes were open wide, her lips slightly apart.

  Davy rocked back and forth. He held himself, picture forgotten. All the memories of her. Lord God, he could hear her voice, her laugh—the feel of her and the taste of her and the—the Fiona of her—and—fuck it. Fuck it. He stood, stared at the cell wall. She might as well be on the far side of the moon for all the good it did him.

  He rose and started to pace. Three steps one way, three steps the other. His world. And she was in the world. But not in his world. What’s the use? he asked himself. Don’t look at the bloody picture again. He started to tear it apart, but his hands refused to obey. He tried to look at her again, but the light at that end of the cell made it difficult for him to see. Davy moved to where a thin ray spilled in through the little barred window.

  “Lord, girl, but you’ve not changed one bit.”

  The way Jimmy had taken the picture, Davy could see that Fiona was sitting at a table. Knives, forks on a white tablecloth. A half-full glass in front of her had reflected part of the camera’s flash and a split-second diamond of light sat frozen for eternity at the glass’s rim. Was that water or wine in the glass? She only ever took a drink of sherry back here in Northern Ireland and only on special occasions. Of course she’d have changed. Nine years was a long time, and why shouldn’t she have a glass of wine if she fancied one?

  She was wearing a white blouse, open at the neck. He could see the shadow between her breasts—Davy closed his eyes—he’d not think of her breasts, of the night they’d made love on the old settee in the parlour of his wee house off the Falls Road. He’d often wondered if she’d known that the sofa anchored the rug over the secret place in the floor where he hid his detonators.

  But the softness of her breast, the firmness, and the way she’d shuddered when he’d taken her nipple—stop it, he told himself. Stop it.

  He looked at the cot, trying to banish the images, and saw Jimmy’s letter. Maybe if he read that it would help. He picked it up and started to read.

  Dear Davy,

  How’s about ye ould hand?

  Jimmy always wrote as he would have spoken. His penmanship was in very untidy scrawls.

  You’ll never guess who I seen last night. You will if you look at the enclosed snap. Ha ha. Me and the Missus and Siobhan, she’s out with us on her holidays like I told you, was at this place for our supper and there she was bold as brass not five tables over—your Fiona. I took her snap. Siobhan says I shouldn’t send it to you, it might upset you like, but I said not at all, Davy’d like to know.

  Were you right, Jimmy? Davy wondered, looking at Fiona’s eyes again.

  So it’s in the letter. I thought she was looking smashing so I did. We had a wee jar in the bar after with her and this Doctor fellah she was with. Calls himself Tim Andersen, some highheejin at one of the hospitals here.

  Davy examined the snap. He’d not paid attention before, but there was a man’s torso, cut off at the neck across the table in the background. So she had a boyfriend. Maybe a husband. So why was he getting himself all worked up? It was over. He knew it was over, but when he looked at her eyes on the glossy paper he felt as he had the first day he’d seen her when she’d stumbled on the old towpath beside the Lagan.

  A stranger to him, she’d tripped on a root, h
e’d reflexively grabbed for her, been thanked, found out her name, and asked her to have a cup of tea with him. He’d loved her since that day.

  Him and her’s not married nor nothing, but they’ve been walking out for about six months or so.

  So she hadn’t married—yet—but six months?

  She was a wee bit quiet when I tried to talk about the old days. Maybe she’s like the rest of us out here and wants to forget all that shite, but I took a flier and I brought your name up, Davy, once or twice. She never said much but once I seen her hands and do you know? They were all quivery. I don’t think she’s forgot you.

  So I got hold of her phone number. It’s 604-555-7716. I don’t know what you’d dial from Belfast to get Canada. Can you use a phone in there? Anyroad, she’s living in Vancouver like us. I asked her to come over for her supper so maybe I’ll be seeing her again. I’ll let you know when I do.

  Vancouver? Fiona was in Vancouver? Only eight thousand miles away and a jail sentence still to run. He knew it was stupid, but the thought made Davy smile. And by the tone of Jimmy’s letter, she was well and that was good.

  Anyway, that’s about all my news, and I was never a great fist with a pen so I’ll close now. Hope all is right with you there, Davy. We think of you often and I don’t mean it in the old way, Tiocfaidh àr la. Your day will come.

  Yours until pigs smell like violets, ha, ha.

  Jimmy

  Davy looked at her picture as a Dominican priest might stare at the Shroud of Turin: as if the shroud was mysterious, distant, but, in the mind of the priest, the face of the thing he loved best in this world and the hereafter.

  “Fiona,” was all he said. He forced himself to recognize the reality. She was there and he was here. As he slipped the photo inside the letter to put them back inside the envelope, he noticed the telephone number. Her telephone number. Shite. What the hell use was that? Davy could just see himself. “Excuse me, Mr. Smiley, could I make a telephone call to Canada?” The guard would give himself a rupture laughing, say something like, “Sure you wouldn’t like me to book you a plane ticket while we’re at it?” It would be different if he were out of here. He slammed his left hand against the side of the cot and instantly regretted it. The wound in his palm screeched in protest. Stupid bloody chisel. Stupid bloody Eamon and his stupid bloody escape. “When the boys get out, would you come with us, Davy?”

  Davy unfolded the letter, took out the picture, saw her eyes, and thought, “Come with us, Davy?” If Eamon and his friends would have him, Davy’d go, all right. He’d ask Eamon as soon as he could see him.

  CHAPTER 16

  TYRONE. SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 24, 1983

  Moonbeams backlit the granite-block church and softened the outlines of the tombstones in Ballydornan churchyard. A Celtic cross supported by rusty iron braces leaned over the lesser grave markers. Its once deeply cut ogham script had been weathered by the centuries of cold Tyrone rains. Moss grew thickly on the cross’s north side and covered the older, smaller headstones.

  Jars of cut flowers, some fresh, most wilting forlornly, stood by more recent gravesides. Some of these headstones were half-obscured by plastic-encased, black-framed photographs of the young men interred beneath. Below each picture was printed, “Here lies [the man’s name was given] a volunteer of the Tyrone Brigade, Provisional IRA. Murdered by the British forces of occupation.”

  The wind rattled in the branches of a blackthorn and whispered in the unkempt grass between the graves.

  The moon’s shadow of the cross slipped over a weed-grown gravel pathway and darkened a ditch. Sergeant Buchan of D Squadron, 22 Special Air Services Regiment (SAS), crouched beneath the bank of the ditch. At one time, he knew, the SAS had been commanded by an Ulsterman, Colonel Blair (Paddy) Mayne, from Newtownards, but that had been back in the Second World War, when Ulstermen could be relied on to support Britain. Not like the present lot. Half of them would be as likely to cut your throat as smile at you.

  Sergeant Buchan grimaced as he tied the neck of a plastic bag and pushed the thing into a clump of ferns. He hoisted his camouflage pants, frowning at the rustling noise his movements made. He’d been huddled in this ditch since he and the rest of his “brick,” the four-man tactical unit of the SAS, had been inserted by helicopter in the early hours of the morning.

  The chopper had been one of a flight of three. The natives were inured to the constant coming and going of helicopters, and, with the clattering of so many rotors, nobody would have noticed that one of the machines had briefly touched down.

  He and the other men had crawled for half a mile along the duckweed-scummed ditch so no trace of their entry would be visible near the target area. Once in place, he’d burrowed into a clump of briars and lain there, muddy, cramped, and damp for the remains of last night, today, and on into tonight.

  That had been the second time on this mission that he’d had to shit into a plastic bag. Standard operating procedure for SAS men out on an “observation post/reactive,” the regiment’s euphemism for “ambush.” Once in place, there was no nipping out to attend to the calls of nature. These waiting jobs could last for days, and without the bags, the “lurk” would become fouled, and the smell might give away its position.

  This one shouldn’t take much longer. His captain had briefed the sergeant yesterday.

  “I want you to take your lot out tonight. We’ve just had word from Tasking and Coordination in Londonderry that the bad lads have an arms pickup tomorrow night. Some bloke in the Special Branch sent the word up from one of his touts. The brass in Londonderry seem to think the gen’s reliable, so take your boys and put them in here.” The captain indicated the position on a 1:250,000 scale map.

  “Sir.”

  “We’d like prisoners.”

  “Sir.”

  “You’ll have a Quick Reaction Force as backup in here. In that outbuilding.”

  “Any idea how many men will make the pickup?”

  “Sorry. Probably not many. It’s a small shipment.”

  “Right, sir.”

  “Do try to get at least one alive. We want to pump him. The brass need to know who’s in the local Active Service Unit. They’ve a pretty good idea, but it has to be confirmed. Sometimes,” the captain smiled wearily, “sometimes we can even turn a man. Have him work for us. HUMINT’s bloody important.”

  Human intelligence? Sergeant Buchan thought, as he wiggled his toes in his boots. His socks were soggy, and his feet felt like blocks of ice. How intelligent was anyone who thought that shooting British squaddies was some kind of sport? Well, there’d be one or two less of the thick bastards after tonight was over, and they’d be short of whatever was under the lid of an aboveground sarcophagus that lay not ten yards from his position. With a bit of luck.

  Luck was always important on jobs like this, but it was no substitute for good preparations. Sergeant Buchan had placed his men carefully. A trooper crouched in the ditch ten yards away. A corporal and another trooper were inside the church. The fields of fire from three ArmaLite AR-4 rifles and his own Heckler and Koch HK 53, 5.56 mm automatic would overlap in the “killing area” around the only raised grave between the ditch and the Celtic cross. It was the raised grave that the captain had stressed. He’d said that it was how the Special Branch man’s tout had identified it.

  Sergeant Buchan knew he should have posted “cutoffs” to intercept any of the terrorists who tried to make a run for it, but he didn’t have the manpower. He hefted a small radio transmitter. At least he could summon the QRF, but hoped that he wouldn’t have to.

  A shriek cut through the night, sudden then dropping to a whimper before fading into the night’s stillness. The sergeant shivered as though a goose had walked over his grave, then realized that he had heard a rabbit dying in the talons of an owl.

  * * *

  “For God’s sake, Fiach, would you sit still? You’ve been going round all day like a bee on a hot brick.” Erin O’Byrne shifted her chair at the kitchen table
and grinned at the shape of her younger brother, outlined by the moonlight that spilled into the room. She had turned off the lights so his night vision wouldn’t be harmed. She knew how excited the sixteen-year-old would be. She was excited for him.

  Fiach plumped himself down in an armchair, muttering something about being pumped up, like just before the whistle blew at the start of a hurling match, that it was his first time, for God’s sake.

  “Aye, well,” she said, “just you bide.”

  Cal, the idle skitter, had gone up to bed hours ago. Now, she told herself, she was being unfair. Cal and Fiach had been working like Trojans since she had come back from visiting Eamon on Thursday. Eamon had told her to get the old tumulus ready.

  The men had spent all day yesterday running in underground electrical cables from the byre. The cables would power a couple of lightbulbs, a small convection heater, and an electric cooker. The neolithic grave was always musty and damp. Eamon had asked her to put in four camp beds and a small chemical toilet. The old tumulus would be a regular home away from home for Eamon and his friends. And the Security Forces could search the O’Byrne farm ’til hell froze over. They’d never find the hiding place. Nor would they find the guns and Semtex that Fiach would stash there as soon as he got back.

  Fiach was asking her something.

  “What?”

  “I said, do you not remember your first time?”

  “I do indeed.”

  “Go on then.” Fiach badgered her. “Tell us about it.”

  Telling him would help pass the time. “All right,” she told him, “I went out with Eamon.”

  Over the border into Donegal, halfway between Clady and Strabane, Eamon lay at her left shoulder behind a drystone wall close to the narrow B85, a road that a British patrol used regularly—stupid buggers. They hadn’t recognized back then that consistency of troop movements was an open invitation to snipers or to the Provos to set remote-controlled bombs in culverts under a well-used road.