White Church, Black Mountain

by Thomas Paul Burgess

  The Loyalist paramilitaries had worked out that if the Provos couldn’t protect their own people, then the fear of sectarian murder attacks – in reprisal for IRA operations – would begin to take its toll.

  ‘A reactive deterrent’ they had come to coin it, in the parlance of Ulster euphemism.

  Soft targets: bookie’s shops, crowded bars, unsuspecting lovers in parked cars.

  Catholics shot; two, four, six at a time.

  And anyone else who got in the way.

  You shoot one, we shoot four.

  They claimed it as a legitimate tactic of war… legitimised it.

  And it worked.

  Brought those Fenian scum, if not to their knees, then to the negotiations table.

  Ended the war.

  And for what?

  Joint government.

  A shared future.

  The RUC scrapped.

  Orange marching routes banned.

  The flying of our own flag in our own country curtailed.

  Millions spent on enquiries and commissions.

  Public apologies from a succession of whinging British Prime Ministers.

  All of whom were probably out walking their Labradors in the Home Counties when we were being murdered in our beds.

  ‘Careful, Cecil, he thought. Mind the old blood pressure… you’ve been warned.

  Herringshaw smiled to himself. When he shuffled off this mortal coil, he’d be taking a lot of collateral with him.

  He knew where all the top brass bodies were buried, for sure.

  Knew who had been up to Kincora Boys’ Home, having it away with guttersnipes and waifs.

  Had been Chief Procurer for undersecretaries, bishops and senior civil servants.

  Arranged lavish parties in remote Fermanagh country houses.

  Watched them on CCTV as, two and three at a time, they held the innocents down and rutted them mercilessly.

  *

  For a man of his ruthless guile and reach, Dan Watson had been just too easy.

  The old ‘honey trap’ rarely fails.

  He was up her faster than a rat up a drainpipe!

  A man his age.

  In his position.

  Contemptible.

  Mobile phones; wonderful things.

  Cameras.

  Videos.

  Who knows what else?

  A resourceful girl like Helen Totton.

  Build up a portfolio. That’s what he’d told her.

  No need for bluntness or crudity.

  Approach it all professionally.

  Money in the bank.

  And when the time comes…

  When Detective Inspector Watson wants to try for Chief Superintendent Watson…

  Well, we’d just have to see about that now, wouldn’t we?

  But more immediately.

  More pressingly.

  What if he intended proceeding with investigations into security force collusion?

  Well, how would Danny-Boy like pictures of his sorry cock and balls plastered all over Facebook for his wife and kids to see?

  Top Cop Goes Down On Unknown Woman Police Officer While Dressed in Full Regalia.

  In a Hilton hotel room.

  Following some awards ceremony.

  A few whiskies too many, Dan?

  Christ,he’d even let her film it on her phone!

  “For later,” she’d said. When she was alone, so she could call him and play with herself.

  What a fuckin’ ego!

  The man wasn’t fit to wear the uniform.

  Bring back the bloody B-Specials.

  *

  It had all been going so well.

  And now this.

  It was the not knowing.

  What the fuck was Alex Barnard’s brother doing locked in a room with Watson?

  What in the name of God were they talking about?

  And why wasn’t that stupid wee whore doing what she was put there to do?

  Cecil thought about ringing her again, but decided against it.

  She’d be in touch when she had something.

  She was good like that.

  “Just get in the room or get lover boy out of it. Failing that, get a look at those files,” was what he’d barked at her.

  “Either way, I need to know what they’re talking about!”

  36

  Inside the Cathedral Vestry

  August 1991

  1.53am

  Anto spun away from the window and stalked around the room in a rage.

  He resembled a caged animal.

  Stripped to the waist, his wiry body tensed, his muscles like cables, tightened and protruding.

  His tattoos swelling.

  Eyes wide in fury and fists clenched, he paced the length of the walls looking for something to punch.

  To hit out against.

  Finding nothing but brick, he yelled at the top of his lungs, ‘ARAGGGHHH!”, pushed his fist into his mouth and bit down hard to staunch the emotion.

  Eban Barnard pointed lamely with one hand at the gunmetal-grey coin box mounted on the wall; the other rummaging for fifty pence coins in his pocket.

  “Shouldn’t we phone someone… let them know?”

  Sinéad shook her head. “Disconnected.”

  Ruairí didn’t move. He looked puzzled. “My ma… she must have known. Why didn’t she tell us?”

  “She told me,” Sinéad whispered, almost to herself.

  She sounded frightened.

  Ruairí spun around enraged, incredulous. “She told YOU?”

  He stood over her threateningly. “What exactly did she say?”

  Sinéad took a sheet of A4 paper from the waistband of her leggings and unfolded it.

  It bore a black-and-white picture of Ruairí. “She didn’t want you to see this, or know about Dinny and Spud.”

  All three men moved around the table to look at the poster.

  Ruairí read it aloud disdainfully. “Wanted for Crimes Against the Community.”

  He laughed ironically. “That’s a joke… fuckin’ hypocrites!”

  Sinéad explained. “They’re all over the town… sent them to the papers, and the TV.”

  Anto seemed disappointed. “Didn’t they do one of me?” he asked, perplexed.

  Eban wanting something to contribute, could only manage, “It’s not a very good likeness.”

  Ruairí turned on him. “Is that all you can say? Is that all you’ve got to offer?”

  “What do you want me to say?”

  Anto craned his neck and looked again. “He’s right… doesn’t look like you.”

  “Read the back,” said Sinéad.

  Ruairí turned over the sheet and read.

  “Statements from gang members Brian ‘Spud’ Murphy and Denis Clancy confirm their involvement in a catalogue of crimes and antisocial behaviour, identifying Ruairí Connolly as the gang leader and Anthony Gatusso as his lieutenant.”

  Anto was again perturbed. “If I’m a lieutenant, how come they don’t have a picture of me on it?”

  “Enough, Anto!” Ruairí snapped.

  Turning to Eban, he asked, “Is this gonna make a difference… I mean, to your lot?”

  “I don’t… my lot?”

  “You know: the dinner party crowd; the chattering classes… will yez give up on us now?”

  Eban seemed surprised. “I think most people thought you did it anyway.”

  Anto and Ruairí looked at each other.

  For a moment Eban thought they might punch him to the ground and stamp on his head. Instead, they both exploded with guffaws of laughter.

  Anto was disbelieving. “You mean they don’t care whether we did it or not?”

  “I shouldn’t think so.”

  “Just as long as we don’t rob their houses, right Eban?” Ruairí was scathing.

  Anto fell back into his chair, cackling. “Yeah, let us know when you’ll be taking your holidays, will you Eban?”

  Both were convulsed with l
aughter.

  It was incongruous given what had just taken place.

  Eban recognised it as a coping mechanism.

  A pressure valve release.

  He began to laugh as well.

  Sinéad pulled the plug. “Dinny’s not laughing.”

  The hilarity trailed off.

  Anto took it like a slap in the face.

  He called to her defiantly, “Yeah… what would you know about it?”

  She shouted back at him, “You’re not on the poster cuz yer head’s too big for the fuckin’ page!”

  2.47am

  Eban wondered if he should try to get his head down or whether there was much point now.

  It would be dawn in a few hours.

  He would be out of here and back to South Belfast with its wine bars and convenience stores. Its boutiques and ethnic takeaways.

  He could grab a pint of milk and a loaf and maybe be in bed by midday, with the curtains drawn and his ear plugs in.

  He smiled to himself.

  Never had the mundane and the familiar had such appeal.

  He might phone in sick and stay in bed for the rest of the week.

  Why the fuck not?

  Perks of public service.

  Let them all go fuck themselves!

  Sinéad was asleep on the couch, only her hair visible above a tartan rug.

  Anto sat at the table, face down.

  His forehead resting on his forearms.

  His breathing was rhythmic, save for the occasional gag or snore.

  His back rose and fell in time.

  A small pool of drool had gathered at the side of his open mouth.

  Ruairí had disappeared into the sacristy some time ago.

  The radio was on low in there.

  Tuned to some all-night station for insomniacs and shift workers. Like me, Eban thought.

  “Psssst…”

  The sound came from the direction of the closed curtain.

  When he looked up Eban saw Ruairí Connolly beckon him over before the drape closed again.

  Passing through the curtain he found Ruairí seated in one of the deck chairs.

  He was swathed in tartan blankets.

  He had his feet raised on a stool. His hood pulled up over his head.

  He looked comfortably settled in.

  The small space was lit by two paraffin storm lanterns which bathed the room in a warm orange glow.

  It seemed inviting of intimacy and introspection.

  A confessional.

  A haven against what had gone before.

  An oasis of calm.

  Eban Barnard felt exhaustion swell up in him.

  It flooded his brain and forced together his eyes.

  Perhaps it was the womb-like warmth of the small room.

  Perhaps the distinctive smell of the heated paraffin, something he always associated with his childhood.

  When Ruairí Connolly indicated that he should join him in the other deck chair, Eban didn’t hesitate, gathering up the end of the rugs there and enveloping himself in them.

  When he had snuggled down into a comfortable position, he looked across at Ruairí.

  “I always hate this time of the morning. Too late for yesterday… too early for tomorrow.”

  The young man said nothing.

  Eban tried again. “I feel like we should be on the deck of a ship.”

  Ruairí twisted his mouth into that ironic smile that Eban had already become familiar with. “I might be on one soon enough.”

  There was an awkward silence.

  “England?”

  Ruairí tugged his hood back so Eban could now see his face properly. He thought for a moment that the young man might have been crying.

  “Scotland. I’d like to go to London but she has an aunt in Dundee. If things don’t… well… I’d probably head for there.”

  “Will you miss it… home I mean?”

  Ruairí’s face hardened again. “Did I say I was leaving?” he shot back angrily.

  “I just meant—”

  “Anyway, what’s to miss?”

  “You’re asking the wrong man. I was away myself for ten years.”

  “But you came back.”

  Eban was remembering his own exile, but his fatigue had softened his memory.

  It made him wistful.

  “Yes… I came back. Believe it or not, I came back for the people… for the Mourne mountains and the Antrim coast… for the potato farls!” He laughed to himself.

  Ruairí wasn’t buying it. “Home’s an imaginary place. You were homesick for some place that doesn’t exist.”

  “It’s the people that make a place a homeland.”

  Ruairí pushed himself up in the chair and pulled his arms out from under the rugs.

  He fixed Eban with a withering glare of cynicism and disdain. It wasn’t the first time that Eban Barnard had misread him this evening. “The people! Are you fucking serious?”

  Eban was backpedalling again. “Well… I only meant—”

  “Don’t give me that ‘into the mystic’ crap. I got all that from my da. The best people in the world; the fourth green field; the faith of our fathers… any green fields around here have burnt-out cars in them.”

  “You’re young; you’ve never been away. Sometimes you have to travel to find out where home really is.”

  “And you’re sitting there now, telling me that you’d rather come back to this hole than be swanning around the West End with some blonde on your arm or catching the tube on a Saturday to see Arsenal play? Are you fucking mad?!”

  Eban was floundering. Falling back on his older, man-of-the-world persona, he wasn’t confident.

  “It must seem that way to you, and I know that there’s still a lot wrong with this place… but home’s home.”

  “You’re breaking my heart.”

  “Look, I know there’s more to it than that; than I’m making it sound. If I’m being honest with you, sometimes I think that when I’m there I want to be here, and when I’m here I want to be there.”

  Ruairí pounced immediately. “Then get a job on the Larne-to-Stranraer ferry!”

  Abruptly, he laughed at his own retort.

  Eban did too.

  It seemed to create a brief respite in what had quickly established itself as a generational chasm, across which both looked on the other with mistrust and trepidation.

  Eban smiled. “Okay, sure – a young man could have a great time across the water.”

  Again, Ruairí bristled.

  “I didn’t say I was going… besides, how much craic will I have with a ready-made family?” He nodded at the room next door.

  He turned around fully to face Eban.

  As if he had something to say that needed to be understood.

  “If I do go, it’ll be on my terms… not for her…”

  He was becoming angry.

  “… and not because I’m gonna run from Sledger and that scum… just so as you know.”

  He dug into the folds of his sweatshirt and from beneath the blankets pulled out a small pack of rolling tobacco. He adroitly rolled a cigarette, lit it and offered it to Eban.

  Eban caught the whiff immediately. “Is this what I think it is?”

  “A little of what you fancy does you good.”

  He hesitated. “Ah… I’m not sure. It’s been a while.”

  Ruairí felt the balance swing back to him.

  “Listen, dope will get you through times with no money, but money won’t get you through times with no dope. How d’ya think we’ve managed to stick this place for over a week without losing the plot completely?”

  He proffered the joint again to Eban, who took it and slipped back down in the chair.

  The young man seemed to embrace a more affable manner now that the ritual of passing the hash had begun.

  “What exactly was it you did over there anyway, Eban?”

  Eban took a draw on the joint and tried hard to appear nonchalant. “Ah, they do
n’t pay me for what I do; they pay me for what I know.”

  Ruairí smiled again.

  This guy was easy. “The money’s crap then?”

  Eban couldn’t help but laugh at his rapid-fire wit.

  He could feel the marijuana hit immediately. Like an old friend who had been away for a long time.

  He handed the joint back to Ruairí.

  “I was a teacher. Kids about your age; inner city.”

  He closed his eyes to help himself remember. “Christ, they used to torture me for my accent.”

  Ruairí seemed eager to talk about something removed from the shit storm he found himself in. Happy to go piggyback on someone else’s reminiscence.

  “What kinda things did you get up to over there?”

  “Well, I used to hang around with these guys from home, who were in a band over there. They found me somewhere to live in Cricklewood, near Kilburn. Big Irish community. Rent allowance, social welfare payments… the quids from gigs were nothing more than tokens for blow, beer and pool for those boys.”

  “Sweet.”

  “Nobody seemed to bother about religion there. If you came from the North, then other expats seemed to get it that it was kind of uncool to introduce anything into the conversation that might offend or embarrass anyone, like.”

  “They must have knew you were a Protestant. I mean, fuck sake… look at ya!”

  Eban understood now how the young man liked to parley.

  By always trying to get a rise out of the teacher, the priest, the authority figure.

  He’d known kids like this when he’d taught in Neasden.

  They were invariably the smartest in the class, but always unremitting ball-breakers!

  He ignored the bait.

  The joint moved back and forward between them.

  “The only people who bothered about any of that were the sad ones who congregated in the pubs on Saturday nights. You always knew them: covered in cement dust from the sites and holding sodden fish suppers. They were like rubber men… gyrating with the drink… when the rebel songs started up, tears ran; thin lines through the dust and dirt on their faces.”

  The weed had loosened him up.

  He attempted a passable Cockney accent, “‘Fuckin’ Paddies innit,’ the barman used to say. ‘To listen to them, the only thing they won’t do for their fuckin’ country is live in it!’”

  “And nobody ever tumbled you for an Orange bastard?”

  “Hey, easy on!” Eban feigned offence.