10
It was as Archie had said.
Eban was required to attend an evening meeting in North Belfast.
It was an unusual last-minute request from his boss, and something that Eban had assiduously worked to avoid for the entire duration of his time in the Department of Leisure and Tourism.
He had very bad memories of the last time he’d helped them out of a jam under similar circumstances.
But tonight it would be necessary because Brian Kelly had been in a car accident. His natural successor for this gig was Colin Foy, but he was at the City Hospital maternity department with a heavily pregnant wife.
So even for Eban, it would have seemed somewhat unreasonably disingenuous to decline.
And it was for these and for no other reasons that he agreed. But it sat badly with him.
Certainly he had no fear of censure or redress should he refuse.
For Eban had single-mindedly worked hard at remaining on the lowest grade point available to him within the Civil Service employment structure. Internal promotions initiatives and in-service training came and went. Transfers to different departments carrying higher-grade status were offered to him. Even length-of-service increments were proffered. Eban turned them all down, fighting tooth and nail to maintain his coveted, lowly Clerical Assistant Grade 1 status.
He printed out his job description and displayed it proudly and perversely on the filing cabinet next to his desk:
He did all this in anticipation of moments just like these.
And precisely so as he could tell Philip Walters, his line manager – in the nicest possible terms – to go fuck himself.
However, circumstances and happenstance seemed to get the better of him this evening and a date with the good citizens of Ballysillan Community Development Project lay ahead.
He dreaded it.
It had been a similar situation all those years ago.
A goodwill errand with unimaginable consequences.
His brief tonight was to say something encouraging about the possibility of funding and hand out grant forms for cross-community Good Relations projects.
He thought about phoning Emily in case she were wondering where he might be, but didn’t.
Something about that smacked of a shared domesticity that simply didn’t exist between them.
Above all, he was pissed that his ‘project’ would be put on hold for the evening.
Just when he was bringing it to fruition.
As the Silverstream bus rattled and rolled, Eban laid his head against the vibrations on the cool window pane and considered how long it had been since he was last in this neck of the woods.
When he was very young, North Belfast had been a much sought-after residential area. And for all intents and purposes, it still appeared to be so. But the leafy thoroughfares of the North Circular Road and the tidy privets of Cavehill hid darker truths, and during the Troubles had come to be known to journalists and punters alike as ‘The Killing Fields’.
The buildings were old, solid, semi-detached, red-brick feel-goods. A nice garden front and back. Built for the bourgeoisie who filed dutifully home from their management tasks in the linen mills and shipyards.
The Unionist merchant class who had seen their civil legacy go up in flames, but whose love of property and capital meant that a scorched earth policy was out of the question.
And so, resignedly, they abandoned these places of science, reason and commerce for comfortable homes in East and South Belfast, or maybe even further afield in Bournemouth or Torquay.
They sold them originally to the skilled labourers over whom they had for so long affected a smug superiority. Then to the new-money Loyalist trailer trash of the sink estates. And finally – unthinkably – to the rebel hordes of professionally educated ‘Fenians’.
Because now apparently there was peace.
Everyone said so, so it must be true.
Despite still-volatile interfaces and dividing walls suggesting something to the contrary.
The demographics and geography of the place meant that Catholic and Protestant areas interfaced and merged in ways that determined local knowledge as a prerequisite for survival. In the bad old days, random drive-by shootings and abductions were the norm.
Driving along now, Eban could see dark housing estates – lit up by piss-orange streetlamps – ominously fringing those affluent leafy avenues. Loyalist Glenbryn bordered the Republican Ardoyne, which stretched to the better-off Cliftonville. Catholic Ligoniel edged Protestant Ballysillan, which met the prosperous North Circular Road.
The whole territory was a bewildering maze of sectarian football supporters’ clubs, bookie shops, bowling teams, gardening centres and bridge fraternities.
All a mish-mash of poverty-fuelled resentment, swirled in along with affluent, palatial monuments to an acceptable level of violence.
Whether things were good or bad, the streets pretty much emptied after dark up here.
In the past that just led to the death squads phoning up taxi cabs and pizza deliveries from companies located across the sectarian dividing line.
Let your fingers do the walking.
Shit! Poor bastards!
Walking unwittingly up garden paths – pepperoni deep pan in one hand, garlic bread in the other – Crack! Crack! Crack!
Christ, he felt depressed.
It was all coming back to him again. In similar circumstances, the favour he had done so many years ago.
And what that had led to.
He should never have said he would do this.
He should never have come up here again.
11
Across town, on a cold, crystal-clear winter evening, the ornate exterior of City Hall twinkled in the lower south-western corner of its marbled white façade.
The city burghers were working late.
More cars than usual filled the parking area and the general services staff had been informed that due to the rescheduled address by the Historical Enquiries Team, Committee Room 2A would be in use until later than normal.
Anne Breslin – a harassed-looking woman in her late thirties, with troubled green eyes, alabaster skin and long, fiercely tamed jet-black hair – crossed the thick pile carpet of the mayoral reception area and began to climb the long winding staircase.
Her style of dress was perhaps a little old-fashioned for her age.
She rarely smiled.
Had she done so, her colleagues would have seen a face transformed.
The sleeves of her lilac cardigan were rolled up to the elbows and she furrowed her brow slightly in concentration, summoning up all of her hand -to-eye co-ordination. She carried a large tray overloaded with crockery, silver teaspoons, shortbread and a huge, bulbous teapot.
The crockery rattled with each footfall.
Every fourth step on the stairs brought the woman into eye contact with the portrait of a different first citizen.
Incumbents from the 30s to the present day looked down on her in their finery.
Pomposity and artifice were everywhere.
The elaborate chains of office; a fixed reference point in a changing, sartorial history.
Men with great Romanov beards.
Men with 70s sideburns, patterned shirts and flared trousers.
Men with tight perms and wispy moustaches.
Frail men, solid men, old men, all framed in a welter of brass and mahogany.
Everywhere, marble and brass and mahogany and deep pile carpet.
More like a museum, a library, a funeral parlour, than a place of civil business.
Here doors swished open and closed, staff whispered reverentially and volume ringtones on telephones were muted.
The deep tick-tock of the grandfather clock in the vestibule, neither dragging nor hurrying, offered a constant measure of things.
For some twenty years now, the woman had felt that the building, like its inhabitants, harboured an inflated sense of its own importance.
Acro
ss the span of that period, that feeling had grown from mild irritation to profound, silent loathing.
Her people.
The wounded.
The forgotten.
Her sainted mother.
Her poor crippled brother.
Still on the outside, still looking in.
Since she was a young girl, she had seen most of them come and go.
And as she reached the apex of the carpeted incline, it occurred to her, for the hundred thousandth time, that the bovine countenances peering down on her now all looked the same.
On reaching the top she paused momentarily outside the door of the committee room.
The muffled sound of voices, oaths, laughter and discord rose and fell.
Taking a deep breath, the woman turned 180 degrees and pushed against the door with her backside; the tray now wedged into her midriff.
The door gave way and she was immediately enveloped in the cacophony.
The committee room was sober and ostentatious all at once.
Important-looking green leather-bound, gold-leafed tomes stood piled high in bookcases against three of the walls. The fourth framed a large, ornate leaded window on which were depicted key events from the city’s mercantile past.
It looked out upon the perfectly manicured grounds.
The high ceiling amplified the acoustics.
Several men and one woman sat around a long, semi-circular conference table covered with papers and files. The room seemed dimly lit in comparison to the stairway and the air was filled with babble and expectation.
Anne Breslin paused at the shoulder of one of the men, hoping that someone would see her and clear a space on the table for the tray of refreshments she had brought to them.
She stood and stood… and stood.
Jackets hung on the backs of seats and ties were loosened.
She could see that the smell of money and influence that the American visitors exuded had excited the pack.
Eventually, it was the only other woman in the room who looked up and accommodated her.
The Mayor’s PA, a young woman, thanked ‘Anne from Catering’, as she was known, with a brief half-nod-half-smile.
Their eyes passed a succinct glance – pity perhaps – from one to the other.
The older women laid down the tray and turned to go.
The PA thought the look had said, Rather you than me, luv.
One small rotund man rose to his feet, hands raised in an attempt to garner order and credibility above the din.
“Gentlemen… gentlemen… please! Can we please keep sight of the business in hand? I’d remind the chair that this meeting was convened to address issues arising from…” – he looked quickly at his order of business – “…item seven on the agenda. Now, forgive me if I’m mistaken, but nowhere is there mention that we have to sit here and listen to the apologists for Republican murder gangs lecturing us – us – on our duties as elected councillors of this great city!”
His last words were swallowed up by a great wave of audible indignation from the bottom end of the room. When it subsided somewhat, a dark-looking, moustachioed fellow stood up, in an unhurried, gradual manner.
“Our right to be around this table as representatives of the Nationalist community is one which the British war machine in Ireland will never again deprive us of.”
Again, a confusion of noise and catcalling as the barracking recommenced across the table and around the room.
This time it was the Mayor himself who rose to his feet.
Councillor Ronnie Simpson of the Democratic Unionist Party was a dapper man, who was not easily fazed by the cut and thrust of local government power-sharing.
He basically opposed it.
No ifs or buts. Simple as.
With his high forehead, sharp nose, pointed silver goatee and centre parting, he might have passed for an Elizabethan courtier if decked out in doublet and hose.
He cleared his throat and pushed out his chest, hooking a thumb in his waistcoat pocket as was his style.
It had the desired effect.
The noise level fell considerably.
Ronnie Simpson was a man who had built a small commercial empire from nothing. He was a man who, in dealings with all and sundry, demanded respect; one of the reasons ensuring that he got this deference from the chamber sat beside him now.
Arms folded.
Scowling, self-contained, seemingly indifferent to Ronnie Simpson’s preamble.
Above all else, Simpson was a businessman. And he had business to conclude here this evening.
“I would remind members of last month’s meeting, when this chamber had to be cleared and the police called in to restore order. I will have no hesitation in resorting to the same measure if necessary.”
He tucked his thumbs in his trouser loops. It signified an ‘I’ll take on all comers’ bravado.
Audible rancour petered out.
“Furthermore, I have instructed Councillor Herringshaw…”
He gestured lazily with his head toward a rural bull of a man who sat beside him.
For all the world like some cattle baron who had just hired in muscle for a range war.
“… to act in his capacity as a former RUC sergeant… should the need arise.”
The big man was gazing down at the table.
He lifted his head slowly, like some carved stone grotesque. So low, he almost seemed to have been resting it there amongst the reports and minutes.
He appeared to be noticing the hubbub for the first time, and with the hint of a smile playing around his lips, theatrically pulled back the front of his tweed sports coat, ostensibly to replace a biro in the inside pocket.
There, in full view, the councillors could all see the large, legally held shoulder-holstered service revolver as he had intended.
Cecil Herringshaw, aka The Loyaliser, could hold an audience.
The discord had stopped completely now.
The Mayor, happy that he’d made his point, proceeded. Tapping a pen on the side of his water glass and clearing his throat, he went on.
“Now, the sooner we get through this business, the sooner we can all get home.” He replaced his glasses and read from a document he held in front of him.
“Ahem… Item seven: as part of this council’s continuing commitment to the principles, aims and objectives of a Good Relations policy…”
There was a good-natured, ironic ripple of derisive laughter from all around the chamber.
Simpson carried on regardless.
“… we are here to welcome our friends and colleagues from the US Special Presidential committee on Northern Ireland…”
An impromptu round of applause broke out. He adjusted his glasses for effect, appeared just a little unconvinced, and paused. Ronnie Simpson liked playing to the gallery.
“… to discuss the work of the Police Service of Northern Ireland’s Historical Enquiries Team.”
The Mayor waited for the expected gale of battle-hardened, cynical ridicule.
It didn’t come.
Instead, the creaking of chair-backs filled the moment, as elected representatives seemed to physically push themselves away from the table at the prospect.
Ken Strain, a colleague of Simpson’s, was the first to contribute. Wide-eyed, he slowly blew out his puffed cheeks in the manner of practised incredulity and world-weariness. Others rubbed their faces with their hands and looked like they needed something like this as much as they needed cranial ventilation. Some looked imploringly at Simpson, who shrugged his shoulders as if to disassociate himself from the idea.
“And of course, we’re also here to discuss with our esteemed American colleagues the allocation of future funds for such an initiative, as they are related to an increase in the Good Relations Budget…”
At the mention of unallocated revenue, pandemonium was reinstated.
Mobile phones were activated, red-faced men formed conspiratorial huddles, and the chamber resembled the trad
ing floor of a stock exchange or perhaps a bookie’s shop. Peace money from the EU; peace money from the UK; peace money from America.
Cross-party bidding had begun.
“… as members… will have… clearly… gathered,” Simpson wearily concluded.
All the while Chief Inspector Dan Watson sat on the sidelines, patiently awaiting his invitation to present.
The level of professional discourtesy and disrespect shown to him was appalling.
He could only imagine how it looked to the Yanks.
The Chief Constable had got wind of the general mood and as predicted, absented himself, leaving the entire presentation to Dan.
*
Later that evening, as councillors pulled on their car coats and tweed caps, the usual clandestine clump of connivers hugged the periphery of the walls around the room and the sanctuary of the gents’ toilets.
Ken Strain was worried and suspicious.
He screwed up his face into a map of creased, yellowing lines.
The cloying scent of wall-mounted air freshener was choking him and his bladder burned.
“What do we actually know about this fella Watson?” he hissed, searching deep in his open fly for a tug on flaccid skin.
His sometime election agent, Geoffrey Barnes, was eager to please.
“Well, I checked with personnel. Something of a career cop by all accounts. Lifer. Pretty dreary really. Wife… two grown-up kids… bit of a know-it-all by all accounts.”
“No… no… never mind all that. The name: Dan Watson. He’s one of ours, right?”
The lavatory door swished open and Leo Price, the Sinn Féin member, joined the other two at the piss trough.
Barnes and Strain fell quiet.
“Is this where all the big lads hang out?” he said cheerily.
“Aye… this is for the members’ members,” offered Strain with false bonhomie.
All laughed, but the echo off the tiled walls and the tinkling urine made the subsequent silence linger. It was all the weightier for that. At last Strain spoke, affecting good nature.
“You’ll see your ones do alright out of this Good Relations lark, Leo.”
He turned to Barnes whilst shaking and zipping.
White Church, Black Mountain Page 4
