The Hunger Within

by J. M. Hewitt

  Bronwyn dries her hands on the tea towel and sits down at the table. “It’s nothing to do with me.”

  “But you knew what he was doing, right?” Alia persists. “You knew what he was mixed up in.” She stops, plants her hands on the table and shakes her head. “He’ll lose his job over this, he’ll be inside for God knows how long.”

  At this Bronwyn looks up. “He lost his job a month ago. They had to let him go.”

  “Oh, my God,” Alia exclaims. “How are you getting on for money? What bills do you owe?” She reaches for her handbag and Bronwyn grabs her hand.

  “No, please, it’s fine.”

  “You should come and stay with me, or we’ll go away somewhere else.” When Bronwyn doesn’t reply Alia bangs her hand on the table. “You could be in danger, the British Army are everywhere, looking for people just like him. Like you, by association. Bronwyn, come home to mine, just until it’s all sorted out.”

  Bronwyn barks a short laugh. “It’s not going to go away, he’s in it for life, you just said that yourself. And it doesn’t matter anyway, he won’t be coming back here.”

  Bronwyn sweeps out of the kitchen and Alia hears her thumping up the stairs. She puts her head in her hands and drags her fingers through her hair. What a mess, and it’s been a mess for a long time. She hasn’t admitted it to herself before, not really, but she’s watched for years as Bronwyn has faded away, just existing to do Danny’s bidding, and now, though she hates the circumstances, she can’t help but grab hold of the tiny bit of hope blooming in her heart that Bronwyn is coming back, taking control.

  She gets up and goes to the bottom of the stairs. “I’m going now,” she calls. “I’ll come back later, okay?”

  Alia waits while she puts her coat on. When it is clear she’s not going to get an answer she leaves, slamming the door forcefully behind her.

  *

  Rose is waiting in the lounge when they get back and when she hears the front door open, she stands up, wringing her hands. Connor comes into view, awkward on his crutches. She waits for a beat to see if Mary will appear behind him, and when she doesn’t she goes over to him.

  “I’m so glad you’re home,” she says. “How’s your leg?”

  “It’ll mend,” he replies and sitting on the couch he pulls her down next to him. “How are you?”

  Lonely, scared, worried, she wants to say. Instead she shrugs. “Okay.”

  “And how are you doing with…,” he tails off and she guesses he means his mother.

  “This is a nice home,” she says, lamely. “You’re very lucky.”

  “But why didn’t you have dinner with her last night?” Connor asks. “She just wants to get to know you.”

  Rose blinks at him. Was she offered dinner last night? She thinks back, doesn’t remember Mary mentioning food. As if in answer her stomach rumbles and she covers it with her hand. She actually can’t remember the last time she ate anything. She doesn’t want to say that to Connor though, she can’t tell him that his own mother has offered her nothing because of course she has, a roof over her head and a bed beneath her body.

  “We’ll eat together tonight, we’ll all help in the kitchen.”

  She is hopeful at his words, now that he’s here he can be the buffer between her and Mary. With Connor home, maybe they can finally figure out a way to all live together. She puts her arms around him and buries her face in his neck. He smells like the hospital, of disinfectant and clean bandages.

  They are still holding each other when the brick crashes through the front window, landing inches away from their feet. Glass glitters, seems to hang suspended as they pull apart and Rose stares at the shower of shards that follow. Feet thud in the hallway as the front door is opened.

  “Bastards!” Rose hears Mary yell.

  Connor, pale and silent, struggles to get up as Mary comes into the room. Rose stands, using her hands to push herself up and inadvertently cuts her palms and fingers. As she clenches her fists she feels the tiny pieces of glass cutting into her palms and she winces, holding her hands to her chest as the blood oozes out.

  Nobody speaks and Rose looks to Mary, for help, for guidance, for comfort.

  Mary is staring at the hole in her window, the net curtain flapping against the cold February air. Finally Mary looks at Rose, then at the shattered glass adorning her living room. She raises her eyes to meet Rose’s and Rose blanches.

  There will be no living together here, she knows that now. And very slowly she sinks back onto the sofa, sitting amongst the glass, almost primly, and stares down at the glittering carpet.

  Chapter 8

  February 1981

  They’ve moved me to Long Kesh, and for this I’m relieved. I know a lot of my men are here and even though we may not be in the same cell, I know that they are nearby. It takes my mind off my wife and the constant wondering on why she has not made contact. The only conclusion I can arrive at is that she has been arrested as well. She wasn’t anything to do with the attack on her friend’s man, even the police will know that, but with relation to the haul they found in my garden shed, well, that, she could have quite easily have been a part of, seeing as it was at our home, which was stupid, I know, but the storage was only supposed to be temporary. Nobody will tell me anything about Bronwyn, she doesn’t answer the phone on the scarce times I’m able to make a call, and the duty appointed lawyer (who looks like he just got out of school) gives me a blank look whenever I mention her.

  I can ask some people in here though; they will get word to their wives who in turn will find out what the hell is going on. In the meantime, I’m ready for duty. I know what the plans are in the ‘H’ Blocks, which is where I am headed. Last year my comrades here held a hunger strike which was called off after little more than a month when the British Government appeared to comply with the demands that were set. The requests – that my men are treated as political prisoners as opposed to criminals – were not met. We have five demands for the reinstatement of our Special Category Status; the right not to wear prison uniform or carry out prison work, free association with other prisoners, one letter, one parcel and one visit per week and full restoration of remission lost through the protests. Thatcher fucked with us again, so we’re going to do it again. It’s already started actually, many of the men are already on the blanket and the ‘no wash’ protest, and I’ve given my name to volunteer.

  As soon as we reach the ‘H’ Block I’m ordered to strip and change into the prison uniform.

  I take a deep breath, face forwards and begin to speak. “I am a prisoner of war. I will not wear a prison issued uniform, nor will I conform to any prison rules.”

  The screw sighs; he’s heard it all before.

  He throws me a blanket and leans back against the wall, his arms crossed. I am relieved; I’d heard about the beatings that the guards gave here and I know I’m lucky not to be having the shit kicked out of me right now. So I take my clothes off where I stand and pick up the blanket. I am ordered to walk down to H2 and with my head held high, I don’t cover myself with the blanket. Instead, I carry it at my side. I won’t show any weakness, of that I am determined.

  The H2 wing is comprised of twenty-four cells, a dozen on each side. As I walk down the corridor to my own cell I see my men hanging out of the windowless cell doors, cheering me and banging whatever implements they have to hand. The racket cheers me and takes my mind off the terrible stench.

  The odour comes from the men who are already on the ‘blanket’ and the ‘no wash’ protest. And it went a lot further than simply not washing. I had been told, we all had, what was happening in the event that any of us on the outside ended up here, inside. They were not slopping out their chamber pots, they were urinating and defecating in them and then flinging them out of the cell bars. They were smearing their excrement on the walls inside using torn pieces of their mattresses as an artist’s brush.

  As I’m led into my cell I find I am the only occupant and I sit down on the concr
ete floor. For a moment I feel like I might falter and as my eyes begin to water, maybe from the stench, I bury my face in the scratchy material of the blanket. I’ve been preparing for this for what seems like all my life, but now it is here it hits me I’ve not prepared at all. I’ve read all about the protests and listened as I’m told. But to do it, that’s a whole other thing.

  As the sound of the screw’s footsteps vanishes into the distance, there is a moment of silence. A voice, low, strong and proud, begins to sing. Someone tells the singer to shut up, and then the questions come, thick and fast.

  “Who are you, boy?”

  “What’s your name?”

  “Where are you from?”

  And then, finally, “Danny Granger, boy, is that you?”

  I recognize the voice and I call back. “Sean, is that you?”

  It was one of my own mates from my I.R.A cell back in Newry. I didn’t even know that he was here, let alone why. And it was irrelevant, why we were here. Getting out wasn’t important. We had work to do, and for once, that work wasn’t on the outside.

  No more talking, just action.

  *

  When the doorbell rings Rose jumps in her seat. It has been an epic failure of a dinner. They cooked it together, as Connor had suggested, but Mary was stony and silent throughout. Rose had tried to ignore the sting on her wounded palms as she washed the potatoes, and Connor kept up an inane chatter throughout the procedure, which only served to annoy Rose and which Mary ignored.

  At the sound of a visitor, they all look up.

  “I’ll go,” Mary says, her mouth set in a grim line.

  Rose knows she is thinking of the earlier vandals and her heart pounds as she puts down her fork and waits. When she hears Bronwyn’s unmistakable voice asking for her she pushes her chair back and runs out into the hall.

  “Bronwyn,” she says and reaches around Mary to draw her in. “What are you doing here?”

  Bronwyn flicks her eyes in Mary’s direction. Mary, blocking the door, steps back.

  “Dan was arrested,” says Bronwyn, dully. “He was the one who shot Connor, him and some others.”

  “WHAT?” Mary’s shout makes Rose jump and before she can act Mary has flung her hand out and grabbed Bronwyn vice-like around her throat.

  My God, she’s going to strangle her! Rose thinks, but Bronwyn is strong and she bats Mary’s hand away. They tussle in silence as Rose watches uselessly. Finally, Bronwyn shoves Mary hard and they stand apart, panting.

  And then Connor is there, nudging Rose aside as he stands between his mother and Bronwyn.

  “Her man shot you!” Mary shouts, glaring at him now.

  “Yeah,” Connor answers and looks to Bronwyn.

  Rose notices Bronwyn’s face flushing a deep red under his stare. “I told on him, I called the police,” Bronwyn pauses and looks at all three of them in turn. “I had to tell you, I didn’t want you to hear it from anyone else. I’m surprised you hadn’t already heard. I’m so sorry.”

  There is silence now as they all look at her. How would they know? There are no friends who call here to keep Mary in the loop, and nobody speaks to Rose. She looks sharply over at Connor. He didn’t seem shocked, had he heard who the gunman was? Did he know at the time? Or has Bronwyn been back to visit him in the hospital without telling her? Rose narrows her eyes, looks back to Bronwyn and tries to take in what she has confessed to doing. You don’t call the police on your own husband, not even if the victim is the wife herself, but especially not when it is something that didn’t concern her, when it was men’s business. Suddenly she is filled with admiration for her best friend, mixed with envy. Bronwyn has always been the bold one, never one to conform to the norm. Danny thought he had knocked that behaviour out of her but it’s back.

  She’s done this for me, thinks Rose. She’s chosen me over her marriage. She cares about me.

  A hidden memory tries to surface, of Bronwyn looking at Connor in the hospital. Rose pushes it away.

  She did this for me.

  Chapter 8

  Mary stands and washes up the dinner things while the other three sit at the table and talk quietly. She’s not sure how Bronwyn came from scratching at her like an alley cat to being a dinner guest, but she listens intently as Bronwyn talks about how her husband, Danny Granger, is in the I.R.A and how Bronwyn herself pretty much ignored his comings and goings until now. How he’s being accused with not only Connor’s attempted murder but also a charge of concealing weapons, which the police found in the shed at home. How he was taken to the Newry jail but has now been moved to The Maze.

  Mary sneaks a look over her shoulder at the woman. Why now? Yes, she’s Rose’s best friend and all that, but would anyone risk their marriage or their life for this mouse?

  Connor did, her mind whispers. And she can’t understand it, not one bit, not at all. The James girl isn’t even pretty. She’s not smart or motivated or any of the things that would normally turn a man’s head.

  Her thoughts are more on the husband though, this Danny. Mary realises that she wants to confront him very much. She never had a chance to come face to face with Connor’s father’s killers. And since then she’s stayed well out of it, well away from any trouble and indeed, any people. She has let nobody in for twenty-three years and now the James girl has bought it all to their doorstep and it needs to be stopped. It must be stopped before it goes too far.

  She hears a dull crack and she looks down into the washing up bowl. A china cup has cracked in her grip and she lets it go, watches it float around the soap suds.

  It’s Monday tomorrow. The girl has already stated that she will be going back to work and Connor intends to go to his work, also. Mary has her own plans. Mary is going to sort out a visiting order and take a trip to The Maze.

  *

  When Bronwyn leaves the Dean house it’s very dark. She pulls her coat tighter around her and rubs her hand over her still cramping stomach. She didn’t tell Rose about the miscarriage. She doesn’t want anyone to know, not even Danny. It was her baby, her loss.

  And she wonders about the irony of it, of this almost-baby coming along now. Why couldn’t it have been five years ago, when they were happy together and eager for a family? And when did things change so utterly? She thinks back, back to the excitement of their first home, the plans and the ideas that they shared. They set up camp in the living room while they discussed what to do with the rest of the house. They began work on the kitchen straight away, ripping out all of the old worktops and cupboards. Danny had come home one evening with a van full of pine wood worktops and cupboard doors.

  “Where did you get it?” She had breathed as she ran her hand over the varnished wood. “Can we afford it?”

  He had winked, told her not to worry about it, said that they were going cheap from a friend of a friend.

  They had worked solidly all through the night for a week. They used the skeleton of the old cupboards and affixed the new doors, cut and sanded the worktops until they were exactly the right measurements. Spurred on by Bronwyn’s delight at her modern kitchen, Dan had pulled up the lino on the floor and cleaned and scraped and sanded and polished until the natural floorboards looked like something out of a showroom.

  One week after the kitchen was finished the ‘friend of a friend’ found them. His name was Kevin, and the kitchen had belonged to him. He hadn’t given it away or even sold it, Danny and his mates had broken into the man’s house while he and his wife and family were away and removed every cupboard door and worktop. Her pride and joy was a stolen kitchen.

  They had been asleep when Kevin had forced his way into their home, still using the living room as a bedroom, as apart from the kitchen it was the only other habitable space. When the wood splintered on the front door Bronwyn had sat bolt upright, shaking the sleeping Danny’s shoulder and whispering urgently in his ear.

  Kevin stalked past them, not even giving them a glance as he walked through to the kitchen. He had two heavies with him,
one who stood, arms folded, just inside the front door, the other covering the back door. When Kevin evidently saw what he needed to, he returned to the living room and reached for Dan. He battered at him with his fists for such a long time that sweat dripped from Kevin’s face. When his arms tired, he uses his heavy boots. All the time Bronwyn screamed, pushing herself back into the corner of the room. She had no fear for herself, but was sure the man wasn’t going to stop until Dan was dead.

  But stop he did, and as he stood over Danny’s bloodied form, he spat down at him. “My men will be back to collect my kitchen tomorrow.”

  Bronwyn had wanted to take Danny to the hospital, but he refused, so she did her best with salt water and a flannel. His ribs were broken, she was sure of it, and his eyes the next morning were so swollen they were closed. And in the cold light of the next day, she had to watch as piece by piece her new kitchen was dismantled and taken away.

  She still had hopes, hopes for her home and her marriage and for the family that would surely come along. Spring had arrived and a new, old fashioned ‘make-do’ kitchen had been assembled. Bronwyn had started to turn her attention to the garden. She sat outside with a pencil and sketched her ideas for the various sections. Danny didn’t want to discuss it, she thought he was still sore from the kitchen debacle and she felt that in his eyes their home had been tainted. So the garden would be her project, a place where she could grow herbs and plant flowerbeds and just sit in the evening sun.

  In the first week of April back in 1974 Alia had needed a minor operation, just on her knee with which she had suffered pain since a break years ago had set badly. Bronwyn had elected to stay with her mother upon her release from hospital for a few nights, just to help her out while she grew used to limping around. She remembers the return walk to her own home so well. The sun had come out in force, the evenings were lighter, and as she walked she recited the names of the plants that she had learned and which she was going to grow.