Midwinter Break

by Bernard Maclaverty

  There was a long silence in the room which was broken by the noise of the brush beginning to move again through Stella’s hair.

  At the front desk while Stella talked to the clerk Gerry browsed the tourist rack of pamphlets. He took some to read later and put them in his shoulder bag. Stella was telling the clerk that there was a Catholic church in the heart of the red-light district called ‘Our Dear Lord in the Attic’.

  ‘Remember, Gerry, where we saw the horses.’

  ‘And a few other things.’

  ‘Would there be Mass there?’

  ‘No. I do not think so.’ The clerk shook his head. ‘It is now a museum.’

  ‘All religion should be in museums,’ Gerry said.

  The clerk tore off an area map and marked an X on the nearest Catholic church.

  ‘A Christian symbol as well as a direction,’ said Stella. The clerk said he did not know the times of the services.

  ‘Dank ya,’ said Stella and smiled at the clerk.

  Gerry led her towards the revolving doors.

  ‘I’d forgotten all about your PhD in Dutch,’ he said.

  ‘It’s about making an effort – however small.’

  When they were going out a gust of wind caught the revolving doors with such force that they were nipped one from the other. Stella stood until Gerry came catapulting out. She was holding the map flat against the wind.

  ‘I think this is the church we’ve already been to.’ Gerry looked over her shoulder.

  ‘The vomiting miracle one?’

  Stella nodded. In the daylight the block of ice looked mournful and a little dirtier than the day before. Gerry stooped to look at it more closely. There were silver streaks of air within it, like rising bubbles.

  ‘D’you think it looks blue?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘I have a theory it’s frozen piss from an aeroplane.’

  ‘Gerry, don’t be so . . .’ Stella said. ‘At least it’s not raining. How did we get to be this lucky?’

  ‘Luck?’ Gerry said. ‘I prayed for it.’ He looked up. The grey and white clouds were racing. There was blue sky in between.

  ‘If there’s a Mass I’ll go,’ Stella said. ‘But if not . . . I’m not so hidebound by rules . . . I’m a traveller – I’m exempt.’

  ‘A pilgrim.’

  Gerry walked with her as far as the dark passageway into the Beguine place. They went through in single file. When they came out into the green it was welcoming – a place they knew. There were a few people going into the church which didn’t look like a church.

  ‘A good sign,’ said Stella. ‘Mass must be starting.’ Gerry followed her into the doorway just to check. The candles were lit in the floodlit interior of the church. The robed priest was moving about at the altar. Stella arranged to meet Gerry outside in an hour.

  ‘You might need this,’ she said and pressed the street map into his hand. She finger-waved goodbye and walked to a seat. Gerry turned and left.

  He walked back through the passage. Church bells had begun to ring on the hour above the main streets. Real bells with a metallic tang to their sound. How best to fill an hour? The pubs were sure to be closed. He came across a music shop that was open and browsed CDs for a while. He worked out the currency difference from the price of Naxos. It was so advantageous to the pound that he bought a disc he didn’t have at home – one he had seen excellent reviews for. Seven Last Words from the Cross.

  Outside again he walked so that the wind was behind him, quickening his step. On the other side of the street was a flower market. It backed onto a canal because he could see the gunmetal colour of the choppy water between the stalls. He looked both ways and crossed. There was a huge range of bulbs and corms, tray after tray of purples and browns. Other things were onion shaped, octopus-like, with rhizomes and roots like tentacles – the colour of earth and mud and umber. A sign said,

  Don’t touch

  Non toccare

  Ne pas toucher

  Nicht anfassen

  Niet aankomen

  Things he couldn’t identify were like bunched knuckles, fists with hair on them, muddy starfish, white sprouting spears. They all looked so awful because their appearance played no part in their survival. These bits were underground. There was a Grow Your Own Cannabis starter kit. Everything seemed to be lying in wait for spring. Each wooden tray had a coloured picture of what its tubers would look like when they blossomed – petals of scarlet and yellow, cream and sepia. Optimism in action. Counting chickens. The canvas screens around him billowed and flapped in the wind. Stella would love some of these to plant in her perimeter garden. Gerry selected a red onion bag of mixed bulbs. Tulips and narcissi. Small enough to carry, big enough to be a present. The Dutch word for tulip was tulp. He approached a guy in a navy puffa jacket who wore an apron underneath. His English was okay. Good enough to tell Gerry that he was doing the right thing. There was no problem about taking the bulbs on a flight. They were much cheaper here than at the airport. At the airport they were all crooks.

  Gerry paid and put the bulbs in his shoulder bag beside the CD. The canal water darkened here and there under the wind, like a finger across suede.

  A coffee would go down well. The place he chose had a huge figure of Goliath with his helmet towering into the roof beams. A statue of David stood to one side, complete with slingshot, his head only reaching the hem of Goliath’s battle kilt. His grandson Toby would love this place. He’d be looking up Goliath’s skirt. On the menu he read in English that these wooden figures dated from the nineteenth century and had begun life as automata in park amusements. Internal machinery could make Goliath’s eyes roll and his head turn.

  The coffee was good and the first sip made him want a cigarette. His hand went to his pocket before he realised it was decades since he’d had a smoke. The desire came out of nowhere. He thought how foolish, how stuck in routine the body becomes. Would the same thing happen if he tried to give up the drinking? His shoulders went down. He stared at the Formica tabletop. Featureless, the colour of pale porridge. He found it difficult to break his gaze. He heard the sound of an ambulance in a Sunday Amsterdam street.

  He remembered a flashing light reflecting off the painted hospital walls. His mouth was dry – probably from all the smoking. He went to the water fountain in the nearby toilet and pressed the lever, drank at the arc of water. Coming out of the Gents he saw Mavis, the Pink Lady, sitting in the seat he had left. She beckoned him. Again she apologised for having no word about his wife’s condition. She told him that the hospital chaplain had been there when the ambulance brought Stella in. She’d had extreme unction given to her. Or was it holy viaticum? Mavis said that she was not Roman Catholic and begged to be forgiven for not being au fait with how to use the terms. Wasn’t it also known as the last rites? That was much simpler. But a Roman Catholic friend had told her that you could receive the last rites many times. To have received the last rites did not necessarily mean that you were going to pass. Gerry said that ‘anointed’ was what he would say. ‘She’s been anointed.’ He shrugged and told her that none of that mattered to him any more. He had ceased to practise, to believe. All that mattered was Stella. Mavis then asked him if he would like to see his son. He almost said that he didn’t have a son – that she had the wrong person, there’d been some mistake.

  He followed her in her pink overall down yet another corridor into another room – a temporary nursery, she called it. She said that the baby was perfect and they thought he would like to see it before they transferred him to the real nursery. The door squeaked when she opened it. The room was part office, part store. Black ring binders shared shelves with folded bed linen, a desk with a typewriter, grey filing cabinets and some deckchairs leaning against the far wall. The woman in pink pointed to a Moses basket beside the desk. Gerry approached it, had to look down into it because of its high woven sides. Jesus – there was a child in there. Not beautiful but so utterly and distinctly a boy. A face a bit like a bunc
hed fist. Asleep. Eyes closed. Swaddled in a white sheet. What hair he had was wet. His visible tiny hand by his ear. Miraculous survivor. Gerry asked Mavis if he could touch him. Why not, he’s yours, she said. He reached down and stroked the upturned baby’s cheek with the back of his finger. It was warm. Then the tiny face, gently so’s not to wake him, with fingertips. As if she was a mind reader Mavis said, ‘Don’t worry – you’ll not wake him. He’s been through a lot. Isn’t he gorgeous? The chaplain baptised him. Just in case.’ The baby’s skin had a purity to it. Took after his mother. Gerry found himself making a vow. You are mine and I will love you till the day I die. He kissed his fingertips and conveyed the kiss to the baby’s face slowly, as if it could be spilled on the way down.

  Inside the Begijnhof church there was a smell of extinguished candles and a blue haze in the air. In the silence Gerry could hear himself panting. Nowadays even hurrying produced a certain amount of breathlessness. The bright lights had been switched off and the place was lit only by small windows. Then there she was – Stella – the top of her head highlighted as she looked down, reading. It never ceased to amaze him the thrill he got at seeing her. Catching her unawares.

  ‘Hi,’ he said.

  ‘Hi . . .’ She looked up from what she was doing.

  ‘How was it?’

  ‘An awful lot of singing.’ She smiled and beckoned him. ‘I have something to show you. A small miracle in the Miracle church.’ She was being provocatively mysterious. She had the Book for your Prayers open in front of her. It seemed as if it had fattened since the last time they had browsed it.

  ‘I was passing the time waiting for you,’ she said.

  ‘Sorry I’m late.’

  ‘Look what I came across.’

  Gerry followed her finger. It was pointing to the looped unmistakable handwriting of the sad American girl. He leaned forward and read.

  Thank you, Lord. For your generosity in restoring my family. The father of my child and I are back together again. For how long only You know. He is not a believer but he is good and I am happy. Forgive me for doubting You.

  ‘Isn’t that great?’ said Stella.

  After breakfast on Monday morning Stella headed off to her meeting. Gerry went back up to the room. And he stood there for a long time, his hands in his trouser pockets. She had asked him to make a start on the packing. In his stare around the room he avoided the bottle in the bag on the sideboard. There was no point at this time. To feel bad about himself was the wrong way to start the day. His stomach felt taut. He threw the bedclothes back into the shape of a ‘made’ bed, then swung the big case onto the coverlet. The lid now yawned open. He gathered a polybag full of washing and stuffed it in. Pyjamas, no matter what colour they were, did not need folding. He threw them in, smoothed them flat with his hand. Her night things as well. At the bottom of the wardrobe was a scarf and a brightly coloured tie loosely parcelled in soft tissue paper – the kind of stuff that wrapped oranges in his childhood. There was a postcard with the items. A Rembrandt of Old Woman Reading. He turned the card over and read the back. ‘In Amsterdam for a few days. Hope you like the wee gifts. This is me reading in decrepitude while your father is out at the pub. Hope all is well with the three of you.’ Stella’s signature. He was surprised to see he had signed it too. Love Granda. He had no recollection of it but it certainly looked like his writing. There was a pen marked Hotel Theo on the desk. At first it wouldn’t work. To get it started he scribbled violently on a brochure. Then he wrote beside his greeting – Give my love to Toby.

  He folded and packed what he could find. A spare pair of shoes stuffed tight with socks and underpants. A maroon waistcoat he hadn’t worn. Stella’s clothes hung on hotel hangers – she could pack them to her own satisfaction. He would not be accused of causing creases. In the bathroom he lifted his medication, shaving kit and washbag and put them in his shoulder bag. One of the towelling dressing gowns was sprawled on a chair. He took it and hung it on the back of the bathroom door. Once he had stayed in a hotel in Zurich which had prominently displayed a note that the price of any items removed from the room would be deducted from the chambermaid’s wages. What bastards. He had actually complained before he left. Not verbally, but like a coward, on a piece of hotel notepaper dropped into their suggestion box.

  He filled the kettle and made himself a coffee – ‘a pour-over’ as the Americans call it – then gathered up newspapers and flyers and brochures and dumped them in the bin. The empty coffee sachet he also dumped. Diversionary tactics. He sat sipping his coffee warily, it was so hot. And bitter – a brand he’d never heard of. Champion Coffee. Like the Tyrone Superior of whiskeys. He began remembering the day they’d left Ireland. Sailing to a different accent. Every stick of furniture they had was in a removal van below deck. They’d just endured the embarrassment of it being brought into the sunlight and realised that the feeling was to be repeated when they arrived at their new place in Scotland. That is, if the sun would shine the next day. They’d been warned that, where they were going, good days came in ones. But they were from the north and were used to such bad weather. Later their tired furniture would be briefly on show to new neighbours from behind mainland curtains. Embarrassments, both fore and aft.

  The van driver and his strapping son were getting something to eat. They’d spent all morning packing the load. When they got to the other side they’d drive to the new place. Then sleep in the van and unload in the morning. It wasn’t a big firm – just a guy with his son who owned a van. Or maybe he’d just hired it. When anything was asked of the son, be it lifting a tea chest one-third full of books or giving him directions to somewhere or asking if he took sugar in his tea, he’d say, ‘Champion, sir.’

  When they came back after eating, Stella asked the strapping son to take a photo. Of the family, the three of them on deck – her holding the toddler in her arms and Gerry beside her. Behind them the ferry’s pale wake streaming out all the way to Belfast. A flock of seagulls trailing the boat, rising and falling against a blue sky.

  ‘Champion,’ the son said, handing back the camera.

  It was mid-July and the bars and lounges were packed with Scottish bands and Orangemen making their way home to Scotland after the Twelfth. The floors were wet and the noise deafening. They had the drinking places to themselves. Ordinary travelling families crowded into the quiet lounges or sunned themselves up on deck. Children, unaware of the situation, ran here and there in corridors or up and down the stairs. The toilet floors were awash. There was evidence of many people having been sick. Stella, putting the camera in her bag, said that, if she could, she would hold on for the bathroom until they reached the terminal at the Scottish side.

  Gerry stood looking back at the grey receding outline of the city. There was a column of black smoke rising into the air. Could be a fire or a bomb or a simple accident. The slight wind was from the south and it diluted the smoke until it formed a dark halo over the whole benighted, God-fearing place. A place which had been born in convulsions of sectarian hatred. One of the men in government – a prime minister, no less – said that he would not employ a Roman Catholic – and urged the rest of his cronies to follow suit. The country that came into being was ruled, or misruled, for fifty years by a right-wing, unchanging Protestant majority under the noses of the British. And when the time came for the Brits to sort things out, to unpick the knot they had tied so tightly over the centuries, they made a fearful bollocks of it. Bloody Sunday in Derry was an echo of previous British massacres committed to maintaining the Empire which had turned the maps of the world red.

  He tore a paper tube of sugar and spilled a little of it into his coffee to make it less acrid. Of course the nightmare of the whole thing – the thirty years war – could be shared equally. Which wing of the IRA, which loyalist branch of murderers, which politician or preacher – in some cases both under the same hat – was to blame? He imagined a deathbed scene with an old man surrounded by his family. ‘I leave you my hatred for
the other side. Don’t ever give it up. Keep it close to you like a knife all your days and pass it on when your time comes.’

  After the photograph on the boat he wondered how they would be received in Scotland. It didn’t seem all that long ago that the three Scottish soldiers, all of them in their teens, had been brutally murdered. Two were brothers. Young fellas, off duty, having a drink in a Belfast pub when they’d been enticed by girls to a non-existent party. They were driven out of town to some remote place and shot dead. If the end of human decency is the price of a United Ireland, Gerry wanted nothing to do with it. Bloody Friday was even worse. Killing people left, right and centre. Whatever their politics, whatever their persuasion.

  That lunchtime Gerry and an architect friend had been at a topping-out ceremony on the Lisburn Road, a building which was part of the City Hospital complex. It had been a balmy day and most people were glad to be out on the roof. It was a strange mixture of hard hats, yellow safety waistcoats and collars and ties. As always on these occasions, there were some women who were overdressed. Journalists and cameramen moved among them. There was laughter going on all the time. The kind of banter which happens when workers meet management and have to be polite to them. A table with a white damask tablecloth was loaded with drinks and dishes of nuts and crisps. The skyline was the Belfast hills – Black Mountain, Divis, Cave Hill. It was late July and the hills were green, almost emerald. There was a flock of birds doing the rounds. Gerry didn’t know what they were but anything could come in off the sea or from Iceland or Norway on a visitation, fly around – look and leave. Were they lapwings? His friend said he didn’t know. During the speeches Gerry watched them fly then turn in the distance, their wings black, their underneaths flashing white. They created a sense of space as they circled from horizon to horizon. Just as it created a sense of height to look down on flying birds. The sky was blue and the lough, where it could be seen, reflected the blue. Gerry said to his friend that the birds were like venetian blinds. They went thin when they turned.