Now and in the Hour of Our Death

by Patrick Taylor

  “I’m sorry.” Jimmy flicked his lower jaw to one side. “The missus always says I never know when to keep my trap shut, so I don’t.”

  She smiled. “I was going to say it was more like a bombshell, but it is all right. Honestly. I was rattled when I heard your message first.” He opened his mouth to speak, but she carried on. “But I’d’ve found out anyhow, and you’ve given me time to think about things. Thank you.”

  Jimmy rubbed his hands along the tops of his thighs. “Aye, well. Now look, what’s between you and Davy’s your own business, so it is, but … but I just wanted you to know that me and the missus is always here. Sometimes the likes of us immigrants need some of our own kind to have a bit of a blether with.”

  She felt a lump in her throat as she recognized the truth. “I hear you, Jimmy, and I promise I will take you up on the offer.”

  “Anytime. Anytime at all.” Jimmy turned and shouted, “Are you picking them tea leaves in China, Siobhan?”

  “Coming, Dad.” Siobhan appeared carrying a tea tray. She set it on a low coffee table. “I’ve just a few scones to butter and I’ll be back.”

  Jimmy rose. “I’ll need to be running away on.”

  “Thank you for being here, Jimmy,” Fiona said.

  “Not at all. My pleasure.” He started to walk down the hall, then turned. “Do you know,” he said, “there’s another wee thing I was thinking about.”

  “Oh?’

  “Aye. I’ll bet you’re all worried about what Davy’d do for work in Vancouver.”

  “Well, I did wonder…”

  “He’s been learning to be a carpenter in the Kesh. He told me in his letters, so he did.”

  “A carpenter? Davy’s taking woodworking lessons?”

  “Aye. And with Expo coming to Vancouver in ’86, there’s more work for chippies than you could shake a stick at. And me a painter. Don’t I know half the job foremen? I’d get him fixed up in no time flat.”

  “That would be kind of you, Jimmy. I’m sure he’d appreciate it.” She pictured Davy’s big, square hands touching her. She could feel the roughness of them, hardened by manual labour. Davy’d been no stranger to unskilled work, shoveling, pushing wheelbarrows, carrying hod loads of bricks—when he hadn’t been making bombs for the Provos. She could see him now, proud of his new skill, using it to build instead of to destroy. He would like that.

  “Kind me arse … I’m sorry, Fiona, that just slipped out. If I’m for having a pint with my oul’ mate, he’s going to have to pay his whack, so he is.” Jimmy hee-heed again. “There’s only one wee snag about him and me going down the pub, though.”

  Fiona frowned. Was Jimmy going to tell her not to get her hopes too high, that Davy might never get here at all?

  “Aye. I just hope I’ll be able to understand him now he’s a very learned man.”

  “He’s what?” Her left eyebrow rose. Davy? Learned?

  “You’d not know, of course. My God, if you could see some of the big words he puts in his letters, and it’s all your fault. You started him on the reading away back…”

  The kitchen in Conway Street, her standing over Davy as he asked what a certain word might mean.

  “… I doubt if there’s a book our Davy’s not read in”—Jimmy hesitated—“in the Kesh place.”

  She liked that, “our Davy.” “Yes,” said Fiona, “our Davy.” And she laughed for the first time since she’d learned the news, and Jimmy laughed with her.

  “There you go,” he said. “You’d a face on you like a Lurgan spade when you come in here, and now you’re having a wee chuckle. I told you, us folks needs to stick together.” He bent and picked up his cap from the top of a coffee table. “Anyroad, I’ve to be off. The missus is at her work so you and Siobhan can blether away in peace.” He headed down the hall. “Now mind, don’t you be a stranger. Do you hear me?”

  “I won’t, Jimmy. I promise.”

  “And the minute I hear anything, I’ll give you a call … if that’s all right with you?”

  “Of course it is, Jimmy. I’d appreciate it if you would.”

  “Never you worry,” he said. “One of these days, Davy’s going to turn up, right as rain. You wait and see. And I’ll tell you another wee thing. He’ll be shot of the Provos, too.” He opened the door. “I should’ve shown you what he said about that the last time he wrote, but I can’t find the letter nowhere.”

  “Dad, would you come in or go out? There’s a draft in here that would blow your hat off.”

  “Right. I’m away on,” Jimmy said, closing the door behind him.

  Fiona blew out a long breath. She’d badly misjudged wee Jimmy Ferguson. She smiled. If he ever gave up house painting, the man could get a job in the diplomatic corps. It had been decent of him to wait to see her and try to allay her fears.

  “Just a few scones,” Siobhan announced, as she carried a plate into the room and set it beside the tea tray, smiling as she said, “That dad of mine would talk the hind leg off a donkey.”

  “I was happy to have a chat with him. In the North, they’d say your dad’s a ‘sound man.’ I will be seeing more of him and your mum after you’ve gone home.”

  “He’d like that. He misses Belfast and the Belfast folks.” Siobhan glanced at Fiona’s empty cup and tutted. “He may be a sound man, but he hasn’t a clue about entertaining. You’ve not got a cup of tea.” She poured. “Milk and sugar?”

  “Just a bit of milk, please.”

  Siobhan handed Fiona a cup and saucer with a buttered scone balanced in the saucer, the way all hostesses would do in Belfast, settled comfortably in one armchair, and crossed her legs.

  They sat opposite, neither quite meeting the other’s eye. Fiona wondered what the next step was in this ritual getting-to-know-each-other dance of women who were virtual strangers. “I’d love to hear about Montreal and your kiddies,” she said.

  Siobhan smiled. “I’ve snaps here.” She opened a handbag that Fiona had not noticed in the chair. “That’s Rory; he’s three, and Caitlin will be two next month.”

  A tall dark-haired man pulled a toboggan load of two laughing children across a white field with dark, snow-dusted pines in the background.

  “They’re lovely,” she said. “The youngsters, I mean. And that’s your husband? He’s a handsome lad.”

  “Jean-Claude’s a sweetheart,” said Siobhan, with the whisper of a sigh.

  Fiona wondered if the younger woman’s marriage might be under some strain or if Siobhan still harboured feelings for the young British lieutenant. “Your Jean-Claude’s French Canadian?”

  “Pur laine.”

  Fiona frowned and tried to remember her schoolgirl French. “Pure wool?”

  “It’s Québécois. It means his family go right back to the original settlers of New France.”

  “That’s what, three hundred years?” Fiona set her cup on the table. “It certainly makes you and me a couple of newcomers.”

  “That’s what his mother said.” Siobhan grinned. “I don’t think she was too impressed when her boy brought home an immigrant Anglo. Mind you, it did help that I’m Catholic.”

  “Not like back in Belfast. It wasn’t an advantage back there.” Fiona kept the bitterness from her voice but could feel it in her throat.

  Siobhan stood, walked to the window, and stared down. The glass rattled as a stronger gust battered the low-rise.

  She turned back to face Fiona. “Poor old Belfast.” She folded her arms across her chest. “I don’t know how you feel, Fiona, but I’m well rid of the place. Dad does miss it, but he’s better off here.”

  “We all are. I don’t miss the violence, who would? But I can understand your dad, too. There were good times. I really miss some of the people.”

  “You mean Uncle Davy.”

  Fiona nodded. “You and your brother called him that when you were little, didn’t you? He was a great man with children. He used to love to meet me at the school, kick a ball around with the bigger boys.” And
back in their terrace house on Conway Street, he’d never held it against her that she’d refused to start a family. Not as long as the Troubles went on and on.

  “When he’d come round to take us to a soccer game or the cinema, he always had a bag of sweeties. I think there was a bit of the kiddy in Uncle Davy and that’s why he got on so well with the wee ones.”

  “Do your youngsters like dinosaurs?” Fiona asked, remembering an afternoon when she and Davy had visited the Ulster Museum on the Stranmillis Road.

  “Do they?” Siobhan picked up the snaps she’d left on the coffee table. “Rory won’t go to bed without his stuffed brontosaurus.” She looked at the snap. “God, I miss them.”

  “I took Davy to see a dinosaur’s skeleton once. You should have seen the look in his eyes. He said, and you could hear the wonder in his voice, ‘Boys-a-boys, but there’s a brave bit of architecture about that big lad. I never knew nothing about them animals.’ He shook his head when I told him they’d been wandering all over the North millions of years ago. Then do you know what he said?”

  “No.”

  “He looked so serious, but he’d a twinkle in his eyes. ‘There’s still the odd one about the place. Just you think of that Reverend Ian Paisley.’ As they say back home, I laughed like a drain.”

  “Oh dear, oh dear.” Siobhan chuckled. “People who didn’t know him often thought he was dour, but Uncle Davy wasn’t. I know that.”

  “And you’re right about him still being a bit of a child. Can you imagine what he’d say if he went to see the orcas at the aquarium?” And Fiona knew his delight would be tempered by sadness. Davy was a sensitive man, and if anyone could sympathize with a creature’s captivity, it was Davy McCutcheon. “He’s a lovely man,” she said.

  Siobhan plucked at the cuff of her sweater, then said, “Fiona, we hardly know each other, so if I’m being a bit tactless, tell me. But the way you talked about him just now … you still miss him, don’t you?”

  “Yes. Yes I do. Very much.”

  “I know,” Siobhan said. “I know because I love Jean-Claude … I really do … but I miss Mike.”

  “I understand,” Fiona said softly.

  There was a tear on her lower lashes. “Mike won’t go away, and that’s not fair to Jean-Claude or the kids.”

  “You must have loved him very much.”

  “I did, and it’s crazy. I hardly had a chance to get to know him properly.” Siobhan wiped away the tear. “One night, not long after we started going out together, Mike took me to the cinema. The Loyalists had booby-trapped the place, and we all had to get out in a rush. The explosion wrecked the place. Mike saved a girl who was too shocked to move.” She looked into Fiona’s eyes. “Poor old Belfast. There seemed to be nothing but bombs in those days. Were you like the rest of us and tried to ignore them?”

  Fiona shook her head. “How could I? Your dad must have told you what Davy did for the Provos,” she said, thinking of the fatherless daughters of a railway-ticket collector and the explosion in the Abercorn restaurant she saw in her nightmare. “Sometimes I still can’t get away from them.”

  “Bombs, I hate them.” Siobhan hesitated. “But I think it was after the one in the cinema…” She looked into Fiona’s eyes. “I think … I think that’s when I started to fall in love with Mike.”

  “A stranger grabbed my hand when I’d tripped and was going to fall.” Fiona smiled. “I fell for him, for Davy, when he took me to a tea shop.”

  “Tea?” Siobhan managed to smile, and sipped from her cup. “It sounds very ordinary.”

  “It was. But it was very special, too.”

  Siobhan frowned. “Fiona, do you ever wonder if maybe people fall in love more quickly, more deeply when their world’s going to hell all around them?”

  “I’m sure they do.”

  “It’s what happened to Mike and me,” Siobhan said. And her voice became very soft as she whispered, “Then he was killed.”

  Fiona hurried to say, “It wasn’t Davy who … who shot him.”

  “I know, but we both lost someone we loved that day.” She lightly touched Fiona’s arm. “I’m sorry for you. I really am.”

  Fiona felt the warmth of the young woman’s hand and patted it with her own.

  “But at least your Davy’s still alive.” Siobhan stood and turned away.

  Fiona saw the girl’s shoulders tremble, and as she would if one of her pupils was upset, rose and hugged her. “It’s all right. It’s all right to cry.” She could feel Siobhan’s body shake, heard the sobs. “Wheest. Wheest,” she murmured, feeling Siobhan’s pain as her own, comforted that she was not alone; Siobhan, like her, still ached.

  “I’m sorry, Fiona, but I’ve had this bottled up in me for all those years. Dad says we should put it all behind us. Mum, bless her, does what Dad says. They won’t talk about the Troubles anymore. There’s been nobody … until today … who understands, who’ll listen.”

  Fioana stroked Siobhan’s hair and then took her hand. “Come and sit down.” She led Siobhan to the armchair, waited for her to sit, and stepped back.

  Siobhan looked up and tried to smile. “I’m sorry about that. Sometimes. Sometimes…”

  “Sometimes it just hits you. I know.” And Fiona pictured dolphins streaking from the depths and the ripples left on the water in an aquarium tank.

  “Do you think…?” Fiona saw pleading in Siobhan’s eyes. “Do you think I’ll ever get over him?”

  Fiona paused. The truth, at least her truth, so clear to her now, would hurt both the tearful young woman and herself. “I’ve tried to forget Davy. I really have,” she said. “But I can’t.” She rubbed her upper arm with one hand, tucked her head toward her shoulder. “You know he’s escaped and your dad thinks he’s coming here?”

  “Yes. I hope he makes it for your sake.”

  “Oh, Lord, so do I. I need him to come. I need him so much. I want him back, Siobhan. God help me, I want him back.” And the saying of it aloud made the truth of it shine.

  Fiona wondered why Siobhan was smiling. “I thought you’d say that, Fiona, just because of what Dad’s told me about you and Uncle Davy, how much he loves you, the way Mike loved me. I think … I think you’re lucky he’s alive.” Siobhan clasped her hands in front of her. “I envy you,” she said quietly.

  “Perhaps you shouldn’t.”

  “Why not?”

  “You have a husband who loves you, and the wee ones. You just said how much you miss them. Just suppose your Mike could come back. What would you do?”

  “I don’t know. I honestly don’t know.”

  “Could you live with yourself, knowing the hurt you’d cause if you left them?”

  Siobhan shook her head.

  “Well, I’m going to have to, because”—the words rushed out—“because I’ll have to abandon someone, and I’m going to have that on my conscience for a long time.”

  “The doctor with you in Bridges?”

  “Tim Andersen. That’s right. It’ll be hard.” She swallowed and bowed her head, but looked up when she felt Siobhan’s arms round her.

  “Wait for Davy, Fiona,” Siobhan said. “Do what you must with Doctor Andersen … It’ll be hard for you, I know, but do it … and pray. Pray hard for Davy.”

  Fiona nodded and, over Siobhan’s shoulder, saw through the window to where a sudden hole had been torn in the storm clouds and a ray of light forced its way through to flash and blaze on the tangled waves below.

  CHAPTER 39

  TYRONE. TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 27, 1983

  Flames danced from the top of the range as Erin fed in pieces of turf. They vanished when she dropped the cast-iron lid with a clang. Davy savoured the unfamiliar smell of burning peat. It wasn’t like the well-remembered, eye-watering fumes of a coal fire banked with damp slack.

  It was cosy in the farmhouse’s big, comfortable kitchen, but for him the atmosphere was as chilly as the air in the neolithic grave they’d left at eleven o’clock.

  He�
��d kept to himself while Cal and Erin told Eamon about the arrangements for Fiach’s funeral on Thursday. They would be attending, Eamon couldn’t, and it was family business, none of Davy’s, but poor wee lad, he thought. The boy had only been sixteen, practically a child, but youth had never been a hindrance to the Provos. Davy well remembered the snotty-nosed ten-year-olds on the Falls Road, screaming and chucking Molotov cocktails at armoured cars. They should leave the kiddies alone. The cause was a grown-ups’ war.

  He sat in an armchair as Eamon, McGuinness, Cal, and Erin huddled round the table discussing their plans for the attack on Strabane. Let them. Davy knew exactly where he stood. He’d not had any doubts since Eamon had coerced him into agreeing to drive the van to the shed, back to Clady, and on to Lifford. He’d have to do that much, but when it came to the bombing and the killing, he’d leave it up to the O’Byrnes and Eamon and McGuinness. If they thought they could force him to do more, he’d not give an inch. The thought made him smile wryly. “Not an inch. No surrender,” was one motto of the Orange Order. He wasn’t supporting the Provos anymore, true enough, but he’d not gone as far as embracing the ideals of the Protestant side, even if he had, for a second, stolen one of their catchphrases.

  Davy had become too realistic in his appraisal of all that had been achieved, or rather had not been achieved, by both sides in the years since the Troubles started. The raid that his companions were so enthusiastic about, the probable deaths of some RUC men, the possible deaths of some of the attackers, wouldn’t bring a united Ireland one inch closer.

  His commitment was to keep his promise to himself and to Fiona never to kill again, to get to Canada and to her. If he must live with feeling resentful of Eamon, be stuck at close quarters with Brendan McGuinness for a few more days, so what? Davy’d managed to survive nine years in the Kesh. A few more days were nothing.

  He felt drowsy but forced himself to stay awake. Surely to God they’d finish soon and he could get back to his cot?

  Eamon called, “Come here, Father, and take a wee gander at this.”

  Davy shook his head.

  “Please?”