Stormclouds

by Brian Gallagher

  Praise for Brian Gallagher’s books:

  Across the Divide

  ‘The atmosphere of a troubled city awash with tension and poverty is excellently captured’ Irish Examiner

  ‘A compelling historical novel’ Inis Magazine

  ‘Highly recommended’ Bookfest

  Taking Sides

  ‘An involving, exciting read … a first class adventure’

  Carousel Magazine

  ‘Gripping right from its first page…dramatic action and storytelling skill’ Evening Echo

  ‘Riveting’ Sunday Independent

  Secrets and Shadows

  ‘Story of friendship and suspicion, excitement and intrigue’ The Scotsman

  ‘Heart-stopping action likely to hold readers aged nine to teens in its thrall’ Evening Echo

  ‘deftly weaving historic fact and period detail into a fictional but nevertheless entirely credible story … nail-biting’ Books Ireland

  To my aunts, Joan and Pat, the matriarchs of our family.

  My sincere thanks to Michael O’Brien for his suggestion of a children’s novel set against the backdrop of the Northern Troubles, to my editor, Mary Webb, for her usual skilful editing and advice, to publicist Ruth Heneghan for all her efforts on my behalf, to Emma Byrne for her sterling work on cover design, and to everyone at The O’Brien Press, with whom, as ever, it’s a pleasure to work.

  I’m grateful to Cliona Fitzsimons for her support, and to Connor Kelly, Emer Geisser and Ciara Fitzsimons, three young readers who shared with me their views of an early draft of the story.

  My thanks also go to Hugh McCusker for his painstaking proof-reading, to Ken and Maureen Eccles, and Keith and Jane Adams for sharing their childhood memories of Belfast, to Jim Rodgers and Joan Eccles for help with maps of the period, and to Anne Maxwell for allowing me access to archive material in the Falls Road Library. The subject matter of this book is still sensitive for many people, and any errors, artistic licence or opinions expressed are mine and mine alone.

  And finally, the greatest thanks of all go to my family, Miriam, Orla and Peter, for their unflagging support.

  15 AUGUST 1969

  BOMBAY STREET, BELFAST, NORTHERN IRELAND

  Maeve wanted to scream. Instead she forced herself to make no sound. Determined not to reveal her whereabouts, she bit her lip and crouched back against the wall of her hiding place. She could hear the roaring mob outside on her street, and she tried to make herself even smaller as she hid in the dark cupboard space under the living room stairs, praying that they wouldn’t find her.

  The trouble that had been brewing in Belfast for months had finally erupted and now people from neighbouring districts were violently attacking each other. The air was rent with gunfire, screams, the smashing of glass and the roar of flames as house after house was set on fire. Maeve knew from the news on the radio that much of the city had turned into a war zone. It meant that she couldn’t count on the police to rescue her, and so she was trapped here alone, with no one to help her.

  Even though she was more frightened than she had ever been in her life, she was angry too. Why did people have to be so horrible and cruel to one another? Maeve had been living with her aunt and uncle in Belfast for three years now, but she still found it hard to understand why so many Catholics and Protestants hated each other. Her Uncle Jim said Catholic nationalists like themselves were a minority in Northern Ireland, where most people were Protestant loyalists – who wanted to stay in the United Kingdom. Uncle Jim said nationalists mostly wanted a united Ireland, though in the meantime lots of them would settle for a fair deal on decent jobs and houses.

  But it was one thing for Uncle Jim to explain how people felt, another to deal with the hatred that had erupted in the last two days. And just when she needed him most, her uncle was away working in Donegal. Aunt Nan hadn’t been able to get home either, and was now trapped in the Ardoyne district, a small nationalist area that was also under siege. Aunt Nan had gone there to visit a sick friend, only to find herself unable to get safely out again. She had sent a message to Maeve, via a neighbour who had a telephone, and had insisted that Maeve was to lock the front door and stay put, and under no circumstance to go out onto Bombay Street.

  As if I’d want to, Maeve had thought irritably. Being twelve years old she found it annoying when her aunt treated her like a baby – though just now she would have happily curled up in the comfort of Aunt Nan’s arms. Thinking of her aunt, Maeve began feeling tearful. No! she told herself, getting weepy wasn’t going to solve anything. She had to keep her wits about her and fend for herself.

  The gunfire and noise from the streets outside were getting even louder, and Maeve was glad that she had resisted the temptation to make a run for the nearby Clonard Monastery. It was a big building in its own grounds, and its basement had been used as a community air raid shelter during the Second World War. But the mob swarming through the streets was so crazed now that Maeve feared they wouldn’t see the Catholic monastery as a refuge to be respected, but might well see it as a target.

  Suddenly there was a loud thud from nearby, and Maeve started in shock. The sound came again and she realised that someone was pounding on the front door. Oh God, she thought, please, let the lock hold!

  The banging got louder, and Maeve bit her lip again. There was more banging, then a splintering sound, followed by the hall door being smashed against the wall. Maeve felt her heart pounding madly. She prayed that whoever had broken in wouldn’t think of looking into the small, dark storage space under the stairs.

  She held her breath as several people came clattering into the living room. There was loud laughter and whooping as the rioters violently overturned tables and chairs and smashed ornaments in the living room and adjoining kitchenette. Maeve felt sickened at the destruction, knowing how house-proud Aunt Nan was. Even as she thought it, however, part of her brain realised that none of that really mattered. Tables and chairs could be replaced. But if they found her hiding place there was no telling what might happen.

  Before she could worry any further she heard a harsh, drunken voice. It was startlingly close – just on the other side of the wooden door that separated under the stairs from the living room – and the man’s words were horrifying.

  ‘Take that can and douse upstairs, Davy! We’ll do here!’

  Maeve felt a stab of panic, even though she had known that the house might be set on fire.

  ‘My pleasure!’ answered the man with a drunken laugh, ‘my pleasure!’

  ‘And don’t skimp with the petrol, Davy!’ the first man cried, laughing as though it were all a great joke. ‘We don’t want the Taigs saying we short-changed them!’

  Maeve heard the man called Davy pounding up the stairs that ran over her head, then the rioters in the front room gave another whoop of triumph. Maeve realised that they had found the money that Aunt Nan kept in a tin on the mantelpiece. She heard them arguing over how to split it, and she willed them to continue their drunken dispute, hoping that it would distract them from opening the door to her hiding place.

  She heard more footsteps as someone else entered the room. The new man spoke. His voice was cold and hard and somehow more frightening for not sounding drunk like the others.

  ‘Any Taigs here?’ he asked.

  ‘Taigs’ was an insulting word for nationalists or Catholics, and Maeve felt her legs trembling at the thought of this man finding her. She wrapped her hands around her knees to keep them still.

  ‘Not down here,’ answered the first rioter. ‘Davy’s checking upstairs.’

  There was a pause, and Maeve imagined the new arrival noticing the door under the stairs and yanking it open. She held her breath, desperately anxious to do nothing to alert him to her presence.


  ‘OK, torch the place,’ said the new man.

  Maeve felt her mouth go dry but she forced herself not to panic. She had read an adventure story in which the heroine survived a fire by using buckets of water and a wet blanket to protect herself. Copying the girl from the story, Maeve had filled several buckets of water earlier and taken a blanket off her bed. Her hope was that even if the house was set on fire the stone walls wouldn’t collapse. If she could protect herself long enough with the wet blanket the rioters might pass through her neighbourhood, allowing her to emerge eventually.

  It was a frightening plan, but before she could think about it any more she heard a shout from the front room. ‘Let’s go, Davy!’ There was a sudden whoosh as the petrol-doused room was set ablaze. Maeve cowered against the back wall, feeling the heat through the thin partition that separated her from the burning room. The man called Davy must have set the bedrooms alight also, because there was another whoosh of flames from above, then the man shrieked with delight and pounded down the stairs.

  ‘That will warm their hearts!’ cried the first drunken rioter, kicking a chair against the wall in farewell as he made his way towards the hall door.

  Maeve felt a flood of relief that the men had left without finding her. The relief didn’t last for long, though. The rioters had left her house, but there was still mayhem outside. And in here the blaze was taking hold. Maeve could feel the heat coming down from the upper floor, and she quickly soaked the blanket in the first bucket of water, then wrapped it around herself. The cold, wet blanket felt horrible against her skin, but it could save her life, and she wet herself thoroughly, trying to ignore the terrifying crackle of the fire from the living room.

  Smoke was now coming in through the cracks in the cupboard door, and Maeve coughed, then pulled the wet blanket around her mouth and nose. She had originally thought that the rioters would use only petrol bombs to damage the house. She realised now that in dousing the individual rooms with petrol they had started a more serious fire. And if it continued spreading, the wooden partition wall between under the stairs and the living room would eventually go up in flames, exposing her to the full blast of the fire. But if she tried to make a run for it she risked not only the flames, but also discovery by the rioters – to say nothing of the shooting and fighting that was going on outside.

  Moving forward in the darkened space, she splashed water from the second bucket onto the inside of the cupboard wall. The smoke was getting worse now, and she found herself coughing again. Despite being wrapped in the wet blanket it was getting uncomfortably hot. She got another fit of coughing and began to wonder if she wasn’t making a terrible mistake. Supposing the fire didn’t burn itself out? Supposing it spread and burnt everything in the house to a cinder? She could hear the sound of the two upstairs bedrooms blazing now and she was racked with indecision. Stay, and hope to escape the rioters, but maybe get burnt alive? Or risk running through the blazing room and then taking her chances out on the battlefield that was her neighbourhood?

  She hesitated, wishing there was someone to help her. ‘Pray to Our Lady for guidance,’ Aunt Nan always said, and in desperation Maeve now prayed for help. No sooner had she finished a quick prayer, however, than she got another, worse, bout of choking from the thickening smoke. The rasping coughing hurt her lungs, and it didn’t seem like her prayer had been answered. But maybe it had, she thought. Maybe this was a signal that she shouldn’t stay here.

  Still she hesitated, terrified to face the blaze. But the darkened cupboard became hotter and brighter, as tongues of flame began to lick the door and outer wall. She couldn’t stay here. She was going to die, unless she got up the nerve to brave both the flames and the battle outside.

  Her mind suddenly made up, she doused the blanket again with water. She wrapped it around herself, then took the second pail and upended it over her head, so that she was soaked. She paused briefly, getting her nerve up. Then she steeled herself, drew the blanket up over her head, and pulled open the door to the blazing living room.

  Contents

  Reviews

  Title Page

  DEDICATION

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  PROLOGUE

  PART ONE ENCOUNTERS

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  PART TWO DEVELOPMENTS

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  PART THREE BOILING POINT

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  PART FOUR BREAKDOWN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  EPILOGUE

  HISTORICAL NOTE

  About the Author

  Copyright

  Other Books

  WANDERERS SOCCER CLUB, BELFAST.

  Dylan wished his mother was less of a hippy. He loved her, of course, but there was a time for being arty and a time for being normal. And right now, when he was being dropped off to football training with his friend Sammy, he wished Mom would be a bit more normal. Instead she was singing along to the car radio as she drove up to the sports ground in her new Ford Granada

  The song was her latest favourite, ‘Where do you go to my Lovely’ and, sitting in the back seat with Sammy, Dylan felt slightly embarrassed. Dylan had met Sammy’s mother – a Belfast woman who worked long hours in a mill – and he couldn’t imagine her singing along soulfully to Peter Sarstedt’s hit song the way his own mother was.

  ‘This will do us, Mom,’ he said as they drew up to the entrance to the sports ground.

  ‘It’s OK, I’ll drive right in.’

  ‘There’s no need.’

  ‘Relax, Dylan, it’s cool.’

  But it wasn’t cool, Dylan thought, as his mother drove confidently in through the entrance gate. Her flashy wine-coloured Granada simply highlighted how Dylan came from a different type of family to the other twelve-year-old boys on the team. If he hadn’t been friends with Sammy, who was admired as the best full back in the club, he would have felt even more of an odd-man-out.

  He raised an eyebrow now to Sammy, who gave him a wry, sympathetic grin. It was good to have a friend who was normal, though it also brought home to Dylan how much he himself was different. In the overwhelmingly Christian city of Belfast, Dylan, his twin sister Emma, and his father were Jewish. Not very religious Jews, but still Jewish, and therefore different. Blond, tanned, Jewish, from America – everything about them had seemed at odds with the locals when Dad had been posted to Belfast a couple of months ago. Dylan and Emma had been born in Leeds, however, and during the four years that they had spent in America they were known as the English kids. But now they spoke and thought like Americans, so they wouldn’t have fitted in back in Leeds either.

  Even though Dylan’s family had an enjoyable lifestyle and had rented a big, comfortable house on the Malone Road, he still envied Sammy in some ways. Sammy lived in a much smaller terraced house off Tate’s Avenue. It was a modest two-bedroomed redbrick home like countless others in Belfast, and unlike himself and Emma, Sammy wouldn’t have to make any effort to fit in, he would be just like all of his friends and neighbours.

  ‘OK, honey, play well,’ said Dylan’s mother now as the car came to a halt.

  ‘Thanks, Mom, see you later,’ he answered, opening the rear door and quickly nodding farewell, in case his mother tried to kiss him goodbye in front of the other players.

  ‘Thanks for the lift, Mrs Goldman,’ said Sammy.

  ‘You’re welcome, Sammy. Score a hat trick!’

&
nbsp; ‘He’s a full back, Mom,’ said Dylan.

  ‘Well, then … do what full backs do!’

  His mother grinned, revved the engine, then beeped the horn in farewell and drove off. It was typical of Mom, Dylan thought. She was totally at ease with herself and felt that she fitted in everywhere – even when she didn’t. Mom really was American, and came from a rich family that had lived for generations on Long Island, outside New York City. She had the confidence that came from money and status, and Dad sometimes laughingly called her a WASP, which Dylan knew stood for White, Anglo-Saxon Protestant. Not that Mom was very religious. And nobody in the family took seriously her recent dabbling in Buddhism, least of all Dylan, who thought this was just more of Mom wanting to be a hippy. Which was OK for his mother, but made him and Emma targets for jokes and snide comments.

  As the Granada drove off, he turned away, carrying his kitbag in one hand and a football in the other, and headed towards the changing room with Sammy. The room was a dilapidated Nissen hut that had an aroma of wintergreen ointment and perspiration. Dylan liked it, though, and felt it was somehow more real than the antiseptic changing room of his country club in America.

  As he drew near the entrance he saw Gordon Elliott, a tall, tough, heavily built boy who was the centre forward on his team. Gordon had a slight smirk on his face and he indicated the departing Ford Granada.

  ‘Did you give your chauffeur the night off?’ he asked.

  Dylan was aware that the other boy resented him. Because of his accent and clothes Gordon regarded him as a rich, spoiled American, but Dylan also suspected that it was to do with their different ways of playing soccer. Gordon was on old-style centre forward who relied on his bravery and brawn to bustle his way into goal-scoring opportunities. Dylan, however, was a winger who used his speed, trickiness and agility to out-manoeuvre opponents. ‘Sissy football’ he had heard Gordon describing it, which Dylan thought was really stupid. After all, the great George Best, the most famous player to come out of Belfast, was renowned for his skill and trickery, and he wasn’t a sissy.