A Mad and Wonderful Thing

by Mark Mulholland

  Delaney is shocked, and rattled, but recovers as I force him to talk through a trip to Toomevara.

  As he talks, I am thinking that whoever is listening is not far away, and, whatever information they came for, they now know that I am the shooter, and I am sure they will not let me go. Whoever is listening will already have called for back-up; I have to act now. My only option is to find them fast, and attack. I reach across and lift the newspaper from the floor beside his chair.

  ‘Hey, Chief, how about the crossword?’

  I lift a pencil from his bureau and write: New Neighbours?

  ‘Tricky,’ I say, handing him the newspaper.

  He writes and returns the newspaper to me. Yes, No. 5, two men. White Nissan Sunny.

  ‘Yes, tricky indeed,’ he says, rising. ‘Have a go from there yourself. I need to use the loo, being an old fogie and all that.’

  In the three minutes he is gone, I write the plan on the newspaper. Delaney returns, carrying two Glock handguns. The Chief is a believer in the Glock.

  ‘How did I do?’ I ask him.

  He reads through my work. ‘Not bad,’ he says. ‘It will do.’

  I leave and say goodbye to the Chief at the gate. He hugs me before I go. I watch him return to the house. I walk to the house next door, number seven, and invite his neighbours to a surprise anniversary party that I tell them I am organising for Mister and Missus Delaney. The elderly Missus McKenna doesn’t hear me at first but when I explain louder she thinks it a great idea and assures me of their attendance. I get the same response at number six. I approach number five, the first house in the block, without pausing. A white Nissan Sunny is parked by the pavement. From here on, I shall play it as it happens. If they are wise they will not answer, but they don’t know that we know who they are, and so might think that not answering will bring some suspicion. At worst, my coming to the door will stall and confuse them, and it will bring doubt. And in war, doubt — and indecision — will kill you.

  I press the doorbell. Nothing. No answer. I press the doorbell again and knock on the glass pane in the door. There is a gunshot. A man races into the hallway. He is raising a gun, but he is injured and slow, and I have the Glock ready. I shoot through the glass and he falls. I break through the door and I shoot him again. I hear another shot, and a second man falls into the hallway from the living room. He, too, is already injured and is on his knees. Delaney has shot them both through the back window. My Glock is still raised, and I shoot twice. I step over both men and take a towel from the rear kitchen. I meet Delaney at the back door, and he tells me to go, that he will take care of things.

  ‘They weren’t here for me, Chief. They couldn’t have known.’

  He nods, but he doesn’t reply.

  ‘It was you, Chief. Whatever it is, they were on to it.’ I was just talking. I wasn’t expecting a response — Delaney has kept me removed from the other stuff.

  ‘They must have some wind of the what, John. They came for the where and the when. It would have been a waste of time. The thing is already in play. And there’s no one I would have been talking to; there’s no one involved but the two fools.’

  ‘A sacrifice for the common good,’ I say, remembering again his speech about foot soldiers, but he is already lost to other thoughts. It is not like the Chief to talk of action, but he is bothered, and has slipped from his usual self. And I know it is not the killing of the two spies that has the Chief bothered — it is the source of the leak.

  Both neighbours from numbers four and six are in their backyards and approaching, but they quickly retreat indoors when Delaney gestures to them. People in Dundalk suspect who the Chief is, and nobody will have seen or heard anything. There is no movement from number seven. I guess old Missus McKenna didn’t even hear the shooting.

  He turns to me. ‘We cannot let the war die and leave them in place. What will be left will become the normal and the acceptable, and our long struggle will have been a waste. We must continue the fight with whatever we have.’

  ‘There’s no getting clear of it, is there, Chief? It pollutes like slurry tipped into a well.’

  He doesn’t answer, and I leave. I climb the garden wall and walk north before turning east along the river.

  I walk to Saint Joseph’s, enter, and take a pew near the Sacred Heart shrine. I revisit the events of the day, and I think about how a day that started out simple became another killing day; and how quickly the whole thing turned, and how easy. I try to think about what to do. My plan was to exit the war, to finish with the gun, to finish with Ireland. Instead, I killed two men. Another two men. I didn’t have a choice, I know. It was kill or be killed, wasn’t it? That’s what they say, kill or be killed. Like they ever knew anything about anything. But isn’t that just it — you can step into war whenever you like, but leaving it …? I consider my options, and, as I think about things, about a day that started out easy, I see their faces again, those young boys in Warrington, those faces I saw on the television.

  You wouldn’t get involved, Johnny, would you? What about those terrible bombs? You wouldn’t do a bad thing, would you?

  I look up and see Siobhán McCourt.

  ‘No,’ I answer. ‘I wouldn’t do a bad thing.’

  But Siobhán is gone, and a small girl stands by the shrine. I have seen her here before, I remember. The girl looks at me with her face held open. I look away, and when I look again to the shrine the small girl is gone, and an older girl is there, a good-looking girl, and this girl, too, I remember seeing once as she cleaned the windows of the chip shop.

  Those bombs, she says. Those bombs kill people, ordinary people, men like Gerry and Éamon, girls like Aisling and Cora, children like Cormac and Clara — kill them as they wait on a parade or do their shopping. Children, mothers, fathers. You wouldn’t allow that, Johnny. Would you?

  ‘No,’ I tell her. ‘I wouldn’t allow that.’

  But this girl, too, is gone, and another girl is there. She, too, is a good-looking girl. Her blonde hair is tied in a Grecian braid, her pretty face and clear skin show above the pulled collar of an American college jacket, and her arctic-blue eyes lock me and hold me to her. I remember her, too, that time I thought she was being friendly and saying hello, but she was selling sex.

  ‘You appear in strange places,’ I tell her.

  Well, I work in mysterious ways, don’t you know? she answers, and I raise my head and laugh up into the high church roof.

  I lower my head again and look on her. ‘Are you real?’ I ask her. ‘Or are you like Bob?’

  But this girl, too, is gone, and another girl is there, a girl with long, orange-red hair and pale-blue eyes in a white face.

  ‘Hello, Aoife Jensen,’ I greet her. ‘Welcome to me.’

  Who’s Bob? she asks.

  ‘Very funny,’ I say. ‘So who are you, really?’

  I am the mother of all living things; only from me does new life come.

  I think about her words for a while.

  Do you want to tell me your story?

  ‘No, thanks. And don’t you already know it? But it’s not too good for me, I guess, that you should show your face now. I’ll tell you something. I have known heaven, the days I spent with Cora. And I have known hell, these days without her.’

  She looks on me, but she does not reply.

  ‘I told my story to an angel once,’ I tell her. ‘But that turned out to be Aisling Flannery. Girls, they do things to you.’

  And why do you think you were mistaken?

  I laugh again. And as I sit there I see those two boys in England and I remember what Delaney said today about fools and foot soldiers and the common good, and I remember who he had been speaking of when he used those phrases before. I try to think. I have promised Aisling that we will build a life together — a new life for the three of us,
a life away from war. I have promised that we will be together. But I promised Cora that I wouldn’t allow a bomb. What was that I said about a bomb in a market place? And now I know about a bomb, and I cannot pretend ignorance. What do I do? If I go after that bomb, I am dead. The bomb might explode, and I might be near it. Or the British will take me, now they know I was the shooter. And if I escape all that, if I get to the bomb, if I get away from the Brits, the IRA will come after me for sabotaging the mission. Those are the rules of the game. What a fucking game.

  Take care, my young friend, with what rope you take hold of in this life, I remember Bob telling me in the oil store. Without great care, a rope becomes a whip.

  I decide what to do, and I make to tell the girl. But when I look up, no one is there — only the statue with the gentle face.

  It doesn’t take long to find Sloane. He is home alone. I kick his door in and shoot him in the leg with the Glock. Once you start, the shooting is easy.

  Sloane roars. I give him the towel I still carry, and tell him that I will kill him if he doesn’t answer my questions. His protests are short, and he cries when I put the gun to his leg.

  ‘I’m going to ask you some questions,’ I tell him. ‘And you are going to answer. Then you can call for an ambulance. Otherwise you will bleed to death. Are we clear?’

  He nods once.

  ‘Tell me about the bomb.’

  He doesn’t speak at first, and I move the Glock to his wound.

  ‘We’re sending those bastards a message,’ he says through a heavy breath. ‘We’re sending those bastards a big fucking message.’

  ‘When?’

  ‘Tomorrow, dickhead. You know something, Donnelly? You always were a bit fucked up.’

  ‘Where?’ I lift the Glock and show it to him, and then I press the gun into his wound.

  He doesn’t answer, and I press the gun harder into his leg.

  ‘Banbridge, cunt.’

  ‘Who is delivering the message?’ I ask, though I already know.

  ‘Boyd. Pitiful Bobby Boyd is going to be a star, a big fucking star.’

  It doesn’t surprise me that Boyd is being used. If it doesn’t work out, Boyd knows nothing. There’s a touch of self-protection in the plot. It has Delaney’s watermark through it. The weakness in the plan was involving Sloane in it.

  I look at Sloane. His resistance is gone; he’s tiring, and his blood crawls on the floor. ‘What time?’

  ‘Twelve o’clock rock, Johnny fuckhead Donnelly.’

  ‘Sticks and stones, Slime.’

  ‘You are too fucking late. He is on the road already. You can’t stop him.’

  ‘Where in Banbridge?’

  ‘Right in the fucking middle,’ he answers, suddenly fading.

  ‘What kind of car?’ I ask. But Slime Sloane has gone. I call for an ambulance and leave.

  I go home, shower, drink coffee, and make a plan. I drive the Renault north and arrive in Banbridge in the early morning. I walk through the town as the streets fill with Saturday shoppers. The main street is adorned with the union colours for the festival of the twelfth. The flag of the enemy is tied to every pole. I make some guesses. I guess Boyd will deliver the bomb as late as possible to minimise suspicion. I guess Delaney will not allow enough time to defuse the bomb — he will have arranged a phone warning only in the last hour. But I know Boyd. If something can go wrong, it will go wrong with Bobby Boyd. If Boyd gets that bomb into town, hell itself will release.

  At ten o’clock, I walk up and down a long main street that rises and falls over the crest of a steep hill. Because of the climb, a long central underpass has been cut along the length of the street. The underpass is built in granite and is open to the air but for a central tunnelled section that carries a bridge at a crossroads in the middle of the town. Along both sides of the underpass the original street climbs the hill, and cars park here by the pavement beside the town centre commerce. If Boyd has been instructed to go for the town centre, he will try to park the bomb here.

  I keep watch for an orange head. At eleven o’clock, I am standing on the bridge over the underpass. I scan every car that travels on either side. What if he has already delivered and gone? I have no idea what type or colour of car I am looking for. Every parked car looks like it could have a bomb in it. I have no real idea why I’m here. What lunatic thinking took me here? Cars arrive and park. Cars leave. I run to both sides of the street. I don’t see Boyd. I run to both ends of the street. I don’t see Boyd. I check my watch. How long do I wait? I see two policemen on the east side of the street. They are relaxed and chatting to each other. I guess Delaney hasn’t yet made the phone call. I am out of time. I have to tell them to clear the town.

  I walk across the bridge towards the policemen. One of them, a middle-aged, round-faced man, notices me approach. Suddenly, he reaches for his radio. Just then I see a blue Ford Sierra pass on the west lane. I see an orange head. I turn and run after the car. Boyd is driving slowly, searching for a parking place, but the available free spaces are all tight, and I guess Boyd is not confident enough to parallel-park with the bomb, and so he continues and the blue car with the orange head drives north to the end of the street and turns west and away on the Downshire Road. Shit and be fucked. I run to follow. I know Boyd will panic. I know Boyd will dump the car in the first easy place he can find. I run to the corner, but the blue Sierra is gone. Shit, Boyd could put that car anywhere. I am close to a full panic. I run two hundred yards along the Downshire Road and see the blue Sierra abandoned in front of a small stone lodge beneath the overhang of a broad sycamore. The lodge is some sort of Saturday school; children and parents are moving in and out. The school is open to the road, and that bastard Boyd has parked in the front yard. I look west to see an orange head hurry away. I run to catch him. Boyd is a slow mover. At another two hundred yards to the west, outside the Railway Inn bar, I close on him. He doesn’t see me coming. I hit him hard, from behind, and he falls. I fall on him, driving my knee into the back of his left lung. Boyd is hurt and he has lost his breath.

  ‘Key.’

  He doesn’t answer.

  I rise and drive my foot through Boyd’s leg, smashing his knee into the pavement. Boyd cries out. I search him and find the key in his jeans pocket, and I run to the car. I look back. Boyd doesn’t move. Ahead of me, people are running. People are running to me. I look and see shoppers running out from the main street. Shit and be double-fucked. I run on past the car, against the flow of people, and into the main street. I see the two policemen, one each side of the street, shouting and waving people out of shops and out of the street. People pass me as they run. They are running towards the bomb. I turn again and run back to the Railway Inn, where Boyd is still on the ground. Two men have come out from the bar and are helping him up. I burst between them and hit Boyd hard again in his back. I take his left arm.

  ‘How long?’

  He doesn’t answer. One of the men, a big, heavy man, is trying to push me away. The other man is running into the pub and calling for help. I break two of Boyd’s fingers. He screams. The heavy man now tries to grab me, and I hit him hard and fight him off.

  ‘How long?’ I shout to Boyd, driving my knee into him.

  ‘Fifteen minutes, cunt.’ And because my head’s all a bit messed up and excited, I am thinking that’s not fair — that’s the second time someone has called me that, and here’s me trying to do a good thing. It’s not really the time for this kind of pondering, but, like I said, my head’s getting all messed up.

  The heavy man attacks me, and I beat him off again as he tries to grapple me, and I run again to the car. I am tiring and short of air. I turn to see a group of men from the pub running after me. Shit and be treble-fucked. This whole show is going arseways: I have been outplayed by Bobby Boyd. I think of my options. If I shout a warning, what chance is there of
people believing me? Anyhow, I don’t have the wind to make a decent shout. The men from the pub are closing in — I could get dragged away before I get the story out. I have to do something. I have a mad idea. I decide that I have to get the bomb away. I get into the blue Ford Sierra and start the engine, and I am thinking this is when the car explodes, because that’s what happens in all the movies. But the car does not explode.

  I drive into the road and try to get away to the west, but the street is full of shoppers who have gathered there, and some cars have stopped and blocked the road. The men from the pub are reaching for the car. The only clear way is behind me. I turn the car and drive towards the main street. I try to calculate the time. How long is it since Boyd parked the car? Two minutes. Five minutes? Ten minutes? Fourteen minutes? I have no idea. At the junction, I look north across the river, but I see that people have congregated on the other side of the bridge and that traffic there, too, has stopped. I have no choice but to turn south into the main street. I know now what to do. The street is empty of people but for one of the policemen halfway up the rise. I drive towards him. I see it is the policeman with the round face, and he is running towards me, waving. I stop and open the window. I know he recognises me from the street. Suspicion and doubt and fear are held in his eyes.

  ‘Keep calm and do not speak,’ I tell him. ‘The bomb is in this car. It was parked back there. There is no time. I am going to put it in the underpass. Get on the radio and keep everyone away.’

  As I drive on, I notice a single dark shape swoop low overhead. I continue up the rise of the street. I straighten the car between the granite stone walls of the underpass. I look into the rear-view mirror and I see the policeman. He stands and watches me before lifting his radio to his mouth and running. Oh, sweet hallelujah, this is not good, this is not good at all. Suddenly, I notice someone beside me in the front passenger seat. It is Bob. But Bob is not in his green overalls. He is dressed in a white shroud, and by his side — where the red rag should be — he holds some kind of a lance of blue flame.