‘This is all tripe you’ve been fed by those bloody Goldmans. I should never have let them near the place!’
‘I don’t need the Goldmans to know right from wrong, Da.’
‘You need to know where you stand, boy! I told you that this morning.’
‘You can’t be friends with somebody one minute and not care what happens them the next.’
‘You can if I say you can!’ said Da, rising from the table.
‘No, Bill, please,’ said Ma.
Sammy forced himself to stand his ground, still half expecting a blow despite Ma’s plea. Instead his father stopped and looked at him calculatedly. ‘Where does this girl live?’ he asked.
‘Bombay Street,’ answered Sammy, puzzled at this change in direction.
‘Good.’
‘How do you mean?’
‘Loads of trouble up there. She’s probably already been burnt out of it, or fled to Andersonstown like the rest of the Taigs!’
‘No!’ cried Sammy.
‘So put her out of your head.’
‘She’s my friend. I won’t just abandon her’
‘What are you going to do?’ said Da sneeringly ‘Ride to the rescue on a white horse?’
Da was being horrible and sarcastic, but his words made Sammy think. Maybe he could rescue Maeve if she was still in Bombay Street. What his father had been doing was wrong – but perhaps he could offset that by doing something right. It would be frightening to cross over into the nationalist Falls Road, and dangerous now that the area was a battleground, but he couldn’t bear to think of something happening to Maeve while he stayed home and did nothing.
‘Thanks, Da,’ he said. ‘You’ve made my mind up!’
‘What?!’
‘No, Sammy!’ said Ma.
‘I have to!’ he answered. He made to run out before they could stop him, but something caused him to pause. There could be bullets and petrol bombs flying where he was going, so just in case anything happened he reached out and squeezed his mother’s arm. He kissed her quickly on the cheek, then he turned on his heel and ran out the front door.
Maeve fought hard to keep panic at bay. She had been sitting in the kitchen, hoping that Aunt Nan might suddenly appear, or that the radio newsreader would report that the situation was calming down. Instead she heard the screaming and shouting from the nearby streets increasing in volume. Local men and youths had been manning makeshift barricades to try to keep out loyalist mobs that were causing havoc in the beleaguered streets of nationalist west Belfast. Maeve suddenly heard a loud guttural roar. It had an animal-like quality, and she feared that the barricades had been breached and that this was the sound of the mob pouring through. She had locked the doors and windows but that wouldn’t delay for long any attackers determined to break into the house. Her mouth went dry and she found it hard to swallow. She tried breathing deeply but the sound of the roaring crowd was growing nearer. Maeve wasn’t as religious as Aunt Nan or Uncle Jim but she made the sign of the Cross, bowed her head, and began to pray.
Sammy ran down Ebor Street, turned right and sprinted past the terraced houses along Broadway. He was safely on the loyalist side of the divide here, but his mind was racing. What would happen when he got to the flashpoint where the loyalist and nationalist areas merged? And how was he going to find his way past the barricades that had been erected around the streets off the Falls Road? His heart pounded, but he was fit from playing soccer and he settled into a steady pace. The further he got along the road the louder the sound of gunshots and explosions became. Men were on the streets, armed with pickaxe handles, rocks and petrol bombs, and there was an air of chaos as he reached the point where the loyalist area ended and gave way to a nationalist zone. Sammy could hear shouts from where fighting was raging nearby, but a plan was forming in his mind.
‘Back you go, sonny!’ cried a heavy-set man who was blocking the way. He was carrying a sharpened pole, and seemed to be the leader of a group of men who were arming themselves with clubs and rocks.
‘I have to get to the hospital!’ cried Sammy without breaking stride, ‘my ma is injured!’ The grounds of the nearby Royal Victoria Hospital stretched back all the way to the Falls Road, and Sammy’s impromptu plan was to make it to the hospital, find a way through its grounds and emerge out onto the Falls Road.
Sammy saw the heavyset man hesitate and, seizing his opportunity, he did a quick side-step and ran around him. He heard the man shouting after him but he sprinted as fast as he could and didn’t look back. After a while Sammy had to slow a little, his chest tightening. The air was thick with smoke from burning cars and houses, and he saw vicious fighting going on at the bottom of a nearby side street. This was the frontline, and he felt his stomach tighten in fear. But if he hesitated he might lose his nerve altogether, and then what might happen to Maeve? He steeled himself, put his head down, and ran steadily ahead.
The sound of shooting grew louder and Maeve quickly finished praying and blessed herself. Normally her prayers were for Dad’s safety in Cyprus, but today she had prayed fervently for Aunt Nan and herself. It took an emergency like this to bring home to her just how important her family was, and she wondered how the rioting mobs that were burning down family homes could live with themselves. Surely they too had families, mothers and fathers, brothers and sisters? How could they not see that the people whose homes they destroyed were just like them?
She heard a loud explosion from nearby and realised that it was time to stop reflecting and to act. Earlier she had made preparations in case the house was set ablaze. Following the lead of the heroine in an adventure book she had read, she had set up a wet blanket and buckets of water in her hiding place under the stairs. Time to go there now, she thought. She left the kitchen and opened the door leading under the stairs, then hesitated. Now that the moment had come she wasn’t so sure this was the right move. The idea of going outside was terrifying, what with gunfire, petrol bombs and the clamouring mobs that she could clearly hear. But the hiding place under the stairs suddenly seemed very claustrophobic, and she hated the idea of being enclosed there like a trapped rat.
Her heart was pounding, and she felt perspiration forming on her forehead as she stood, terrified, at the doorway under the stairs, uncertain what to do.
‘Will you take a risk?’ asked Emma, as she sat with Dylan in the sunlit dining room of their house. Even in the leafy suburb of the Malone Road, the distant sound of gunfire could be heard from town, and Mom had made them stay at home all day.
‘What sort of risk?’ said Dylan.
‘I’m going to try and reach Maeve. Will you come with me?’
‘Mom would have a fit!’
‘She needn’t know.’ Emma could see that Dylan was uncertain, and she tried to speak convincingly. ‘Look, you said it yourself to Dad. If we really can’t get through we turn back, but at least we’ll have tried. And if we do get through and Maeve is trapped, we get her in the car and bring her here. It could save her life.’
‘What car are you talking about?’
‘Mom’s car. We’d have to take it.’
She could see that Dylan was shocked, but she ploughed ahead. ‘It’s an automatic, so one of us could drive it and the other could try to find the way through to Bombay Street. What do you say?’
Her brother didn’t answer at once, and Emma looked him directly in the eye. ‘She’s our friend, Dylan. We’d never forgive ourselves if something happened to her.’
Dylan weighed it up, then he nodded. ‘OK. Let’s take Mom’s car and go get her.’
‘Are you out of your mind?’
Emma turned round in shock to find that her mother had entered the room.
‘I can’t believe you’d do this!’ said Mom angrily.
‘It wasn’t Dylan’s idea, Mom, it was mine,’ admitted Emma.
‘I don’t care whose idea it was! Dad and I have both forbidden you to get caught up in this madness. What part of that isn’t clear?!’
; ‘I’m sorry, Mom,’ said Emma, ‘but I don’t understand how we can do nothing.’
‘So you’d risk being killed, when you don’t even know for sure that Maeve is still in Bombay Street? I’m locking the house up, neither of you is leaving here till this is over.’
Emma went to protest but her mother raised her hand. ‘No more arguments, Emma! I really hope Maeve is all right – but you won’t die finding out!’
Her mother walked out of the room, and Emma lowered her head in despair.
Sammy ran out of the Royal Victoria Hospital onto the Falls Road. This was hostile territory. He felt scared, but he needed to catch his breath before continuing towards Bombay Street. The air was heavy with smoke from flaming vehicles and there was a smell of burning rubber, but Sammy gulped the foul air into his heaving lungs. The hospital was busy, with injured people being ferried in from all directions, and nobody had stopped Sammy as he had cut through its grounds.
He would have liked to rest a little more, but every moment might count, and he started off again. He ran along the Falls Road, passing Dunville Park. He was becoming oblivious now to the chaos of a city at war. The noise level was deafening, the streets were strewn with rubble, windows were smashed, vehicles were ablaze and barricades had been hastily erected.
Sammy ignored the upheaval and kept moving. Maeve’s street was behind the Clonard Monastery, and he ran in that direction, then came to a halt where a barricade blocked the road. Wild-eyed youths armed with baseball bats were manning the obstruction, and some of them were building it higher with sheets of wood, metal bed frames and anything else that was to hand. They were being instructed by an older man who raised a hand, stopping Sammy.
‘Where do you think you’re going?’ he asked.
‘Bombay Street.’
‘Forget it. The Prods have broken through, it’s murder up there!’
Sammy felt his stomach tighten. If anything had happened to Maeve it would be unbearable. ‘I have to get there,’ he said.
‘Why?’
‘I live there. I have to find my ma!’
Sammy had given the first answer that came into his head, and now the man looked at him appraisingly.
‘You’re from Bombay Street?’
‘Yes!’
‘What’s the street behind it?’
Sammy had no idea, and while he tried to think up a response the man locked eyes with him.
‘What are you, son, a wee spy sent by the Prods?’
‘No!’
‘We’ll soon find out,’ said the man, moving towards Sammy.
‘Petrol bomb!’ cried Sammy, swiftly raising his hands protectively to his head and face.
The older man instinctively followed suit, and while he curled up to save himself from the blast of the non-existent bomb, Sammy turned on his heel and sprinted flat out away from the barricade.
Maeve pulled the door firmly shut behind her. It was dark and cramped under the stairs, but the sound of the mob had grown frighteningly close, and in the end she had decided that she couldn’t possibly go outside.
Now she sank back against the wall and curled up in the furthermost corner. She didn’t know if the water and wet blanket would protect her enough if the place was set on fire. The house was built of bricks, though, and she hoped that even if the worst came to the worst and it was torched, the basic structure would stay standing and she could survive.
Unless the mob found her. If they broke in and discovered her hiding place there was no telling what would happen to her. But there was nothing she could do about that now. She had made her decision. She breathed out to try to calm herself, and crouched against the wall, waiting to see what would happen.
Dylan banged the dining room table in frustration. ‘I feel so helpless!’ he said.
‘I know,’ answered Emma. ‘I’ve been thinking, though. Mom said we can’t go looking for Maeve. But maybe we could get someone else to.’
‘How? Who would we get?’
Emma indicated the telephone. ‘We could ring the police.’
‘But it said on the radio they’ve been retreating to their barracks to defend them.’
‘Every policeman in Belfast can’t be in a barracks. There must still be some out on the streets.’
‘Even if there are,’ said Dylan. ‘What would we say to them?’
‘That there’s a twelve-year-old girl in danger in Bombay Street. Her uncle is away and her aunt can’t protect her.’
‘We’re not absolutely sure Maeve’s still there.’
‘It’s really unlikely she got out. And if she did, OK, the police would give out to us for wasting their time. But I don’t care, we can’t do nothing if she is trapped.’
Dylan thought for a moment. ‘There are people in danger all over Belfast. We need a reason for the police to rescue Maeve.’
‘Like what?’
‘Supposing we said she’d a health problem? Like a bad heart?’
‘But she’d tell them she hadn’t.’
‘So what? The city is in chaos, and there’s been a mix up. But at that stage the police would be at her house, probably in a Land Rover or an armoured car. On their way back out of the Falls they could take Maeve and her aunt with them.’
Emma looked thoughtful. ‘I don’t know, Dylan …’
‘I don’t know either! But it might save her life. And it’s better than doing nothing.’
‘Yeah … yeah, you’re right.’
‘OK’, said Dylan, moving briskly to the phone. ‘Let’s do it.’
Sammy watched in horror as a row of houses blazed furiously up ahead. After escaping at the barricade he had taken a route that brought him closer to the interface between the loyalist Shankill and the nationalist Falls. There was bloody hand-to-hand combat going on in these streets, and he had kept moving, eventually finding his way into the warren of back-to-back housing near the Clonard monastery. What he saw shocked him profoundly, with the triumphant loyalists burning and wrecking homes, while outnumbered nationalists fought rear-guard actions and tried to escape.
‘Which one is Bombay Street?’ asked Sammy of a man at the head of a group of loyalists armed with crowbars.
‘You mean which one was Bombay Street?’ said the man with a grin. ‘That’s it ahead – going up in flames!’
Sammy couldn’t believe it. He wanted to scream, but if he did the men might think he was a Catholic. Instead he just nodded in reply, then looked disbelievingly as the row of houses blazed furiously. The air was punctured with rifle and machine-gun fire, and he wanted nothing more than to run home, away from the madness and hatred. But he had come this far, and Maeve might still be here. He hesitated for a second, the horrifying sounds ringing in his ears, then he plucked up his courage and ran forward towards the mayhem that was Bombay Street.
Maeve kicked open the door under the stairs and burst out into the blazing, smoke-filled living room. She had survived the looters breaking into her house, but her plan of sitting out the riot had had to be abandoned. The looters had departed after torching the house, and the heat and the smoke had driven Maeve from her hiding place. Despite having wrapped herself up with the wet blanket Maeve felt almost overcome now by the wall of heat that hit her in the living room. The furniture was burning fiercely, but even worse was the thick, acrid smoke that made it impossible to see, and that brought on a fit of harsh, painful coughing.
Maeve felt that she was going to faint. She pushed out her right hand from within the blanket and steadied herself against the wall. It was hot to the touch, and she had to pull her hand away, but at least she had stayed on her feet. If she fainted now she would be fatally overcome by the fumes, and she tried desperately to get her bearings so that she could make for the hall door. She was weakened by another fit of coughing, however, and with the swirling black smoke she couldn’t see her way.
He throat felt cracked and her eyes stung horribly. She felt a rising sense of panic, and her stomach tightened in terror at the idea of bu
rning to death. No! She thought, she mustn’t give up. If she couldn’t see the hall door then she would have to feel her way along the walls. The walls might burn her hands but it was the only way. Steeling herself, she reached out again and stumbled forward, desperately trying to find the way to the door before she passed out.
‘It’s no good!’ said Dylan hanging up the phone. ‘The police aren’t going to help us.’
‘What’s the point of an emergency number if they fob you off?!’ snapped Emma. She felt angry, but she realised there was no point taking it out on her brother. ‘Sorry, Dylan,’ she said, forcing herself to be calm. ‘What did they say?’
‘Same as the last time. They’ve emergencies all over the city. They have to prioritise.’
‘Saving a twelve-year-old should be a priority!’
‘I know.’
Emma racked her brains. ‘Supposing we forget about dialling 999? Instead we ring her local police station. Maybe they could send someone to get her.’
‘It said on the radio that it’s war up around the Falls. Maeve’s local station is probably under siege.’
‘We have to try something! If her local station can’t help, we ring the next nearest one. We can’t just give up.’
‘You’re right,’ said Dylan, crossing the room to get the telephone directory. ‘I’ll start calling them.’
Emma watched as her brother quickly flicked through the telephone directory, seeking the listing for the police. Despite her brave words, she felt a rising sense of despair, and she bit her lip, trying to keep the gloom at bay. But deep down she sensed that the police wouldn’t be coming to the rescue. The thought sent a chill up her spine, and she turned from Dylan and looked away. She had never believed in ghosts, or premonitions, but for no reason that she could explain, she suddenly felt a strong sense of dread.
Stormclouds Page 14
