The Hunger Within

by J. M. Hewitt

  “I’m going to follow her home,” she said, in a stage whisper, gesturing towards Kathleen who had continued walking. “Will you be all right?”

  Bronwyn had nodded, yes, with Connor’s hand planted firmly on her back, a guiding support and show of solidarity. Yes, if he and his hand were there she would certainly be all right.

  Alia trotted off after Kathleen and with an unspoken agreement, Bronwyn and Connor turned left and started off towards Kidds Road.

  At the end of Milltown Street Bronwyn glanced over her shoulder. Mary stood at the gates, alone, and Bronwyn flicked her head back to face front, shuddering from the expression in Mary’s eyes.

  *

  With Connor sated and dozing on the sofa, Bronwyn dresses quickly and quietly leaves the house. Standing on the doorstep she looks around the street. The weather has turned a little bit, it is a few degrees warmer than it has been and a few of the street’s residents are out in their gardens, plucking weeds and chatting over the fences. She doesn’t want to give them the chance to have a go, so putting her head down, she strides purposefully down the road towards the bus that will take her to The Maze.

  Chapter 30

  April 28th 1981

  It’s a big day today; the personal secretary to Pope John Paul II is visiting Bobby. Prison life carries on as normal, but outside is a hive of activity as the public await Father Magee’s arrival. I have a visitor of my own however, and as she approaches, I watch her warily.

  She’s looking damn good. I know I look like hell, and it’s like all the fervour that I had a few months ago has been sucked out of me and passed to her. I turn my head away as she sits in the chair by my bed. I can smell him on her.

  “How are you, Danny?”

  So it’s true. Mary Dean’s words were the truth and I want to hurt Bronwyn so badly. Three months ago I would have smacked her, I would have knocked some sense into her. Now I’m so weak I couldn’t even slap my own face. I could cry right now, but I can’t waste precious fluid that I’ve tried so hard to get inside me in the first place, so I stay quiet.

  “I need to talk to you,” she carries on, regardless of my silence. “I need to tell you something.”

  “I already know,” I say. I hadn’t meant to speak so soon. “I know it all, Bronwyn.”

  She cries a little at that and I watch her as she drags her sleeve across her eyes. Since Mary told me I’ve been holding my fury in, but now that my wife is here, I can’t seem to dredge it up.

  “It was the shock, of Rose,” she pauses and looks at me through red rimmed eyes. “You know she killed herself?”

  “Shock, fucking shock!” I hiss the words at her. “The fucking pig saw you at it before he even knocked on the door with the news.”

  She hangs her head and I laugh then. She looks at me with unease. And as much as I know I shouldn’t say anything, my remark tumbles out of my mouth. “She didn’t kill herself, it was a hit. Come on, Bronwyn, Rose wouldn’t have the guts to do something like that. And you,” I spit as I jab my finger towards her. “You’ll be next if you carry on with that prod bastard.”

  She stares at me, the tears drying on her face, her mouth a questioning circle. She’s trying to work out whether I’m serious or not. I clamp my lips together to prevent me saying anything else. She shifts, tosses her hair over her shoulder.

  “They’ve been speaking to me about medically intervening,” she says. “And I won’t, you know. I’ll let you go.”

  I raise my eyebrows at her and realise I’m almost enjoying our little exchange. This is what we are, sparring partners, roiling rows that ended up in sex. This is what we were.

  “Good,” I say. “That’s all I wanted to hear and you should applaud yourself, you’re the only next of kin who is willing to let their man die. Good for you.”

  My words come out petty and spiteful, childish even, but I do mean them.

  “Who put out a hit on Rose?” she asks, suddenly, as though my earlier statement has only just impacted her. “Were you pissing around when you said that? I know it wasn’t you, Dan, you had nothing against her, you shot Connor, you wouldn’t go after her.”

  There’s an itch at the top of my spine and I lift my right hand but it’s too awkward, I’m too weak and I feel like my arm might snap in two. “Get that for me, Bron, will you?” I ask and heave myself over to my left side.

  I can feel her staring at my paper thin skin. No doubt she can count every knob of my spinal cord. The silence and inactivity hangs around us like a bad smell. After a while I hear the rustle of her movement, then her weight as she sits on the bed. She hits the spot straight away, raking her nails up and down like I’ve had her do so many times before. In all those times I’ve never felt her tears drip onto my skin the way I do now.

  I shouldn’t have had her do this because I’m no longer dying in a prison hospital, but I’m at home, in my own bed in my own room in my own house. Moaning that it’s too cold and Bronwyn is scratching at me, putting her head close to mine, giggling, “I know how to warm you up...”

  And we’ll never have that again and maybe for the very first time it hits me what I had with Bron, our house, my old job, Alia even. They were constants, no matter what happened, they would always be there and one by one I’ve ditched them all.

  “I will intervene,” her voice cutting through the quiet and my melancholy, startling me. “I’ll make them feed you, Danny Granger.”

  I roll over onto my back and she pulls her arm away. I shake my head. “Please, don’t. There’s no point in all this if you do that.”

  “There’s no point in any of this!” she cries out. The spell is well and truly broken.

  Summoning every last bit of strength I have I grab her arm and pull, yanking her over to me.

  “There can be other hits, you know, Bronwyn,” I hiss. “I’ve got nothing to lose any more.”

  She tears her arm free and she’s gone. Just like with Mary I can hear the doors slamming shut all the way down the hall.

  Chapter 31

  April 28th 1981

  Mary gave it long enough to see if anything would happen. A week is more than enough time for him to have his fill and come sloping home with his tail between his legs. But seven days have passed and still he is there, with her.

  She takes the mid-morning bus to The Maze because enough is enough. She gets off the bus and finds herself in a throng of people that she has to battle her way through.

  “The Pope is coming!” shrieks a woman in Mary’s face.

  Mary wrinkles her nose, looks down at the near hysterical woman and shakes her head. You’d think it was the fecking Beatles or Elvis who were expected here today.

  And it’s not quite the Pope, Mary discovers by listening in on other conversations, but his envoy on the Pope’s orders to try and find a resolution to the hunger strike. It is rather impressive, concedes Mary, but probably a waste of time given the stubbornness of the men involved.

  When she’s led through to the same hospital wing as her previous visit, she’s relieved to find Danny Granger is still alive, breathing and conscious. The room is as bare as ever, and she can see people moving around the corridors beyond. Doctors, she assumes, ready to leap in lest one of their charges suddenly goes downhill.

  “Mrs Dean,” he drawls as she pulls the chair close to his bed, “Fancy seeing you here.”

  He’s on better form than her last visit, though he’s not looking like he’ll last much longer. Nobody has died yet on the hunger strike, but from listening to the reports on the BBC she knows it won’t be much longer and they’ll be dropping like flies.

  “My son is living with your wife,” she snaps, getting straight to the point. “I want this stopped, it’s going to put him in danger and he’s had enough of that.”

  His face darkened upon hearing her words and he pinches his lips together. “I know.”

  “Well, Christ, what are you doing about it?” she asks. “Don’t you think they’re not laughing at you? Do
n’t you think they’re taking you for a fool? He has spent every night in your home, in your bed.”

  “Shut up,” he replies, and though his words are sharp he looks like he’s on the verge of going to sleep.

  “You get your man in to do what you had him do the last time, okay?”

  He regards her for a long time without speaking. His stare is so intense that she looks away first.

  “Another hit, that’s what you want, yes?”

  Mary nods solemnly. “Do whatever you have to do, to her, you leave my boy alone and let him come home where he belongs.”

  “Can you leave now, Mrs Dean?” he asks and she sits up straight, expectantly.

  “I’ll do anything you need, whatever you want.”

  He looks at her again. “Don’t beg, Mrs Dean, it’s not becoming.”

  “Come on, she deserves it, she’s humiliated you, she doesn’t care about you.”

  He holds his hand up. “Enough,” he says, so softly that she can barely hear him. “There will be another hit. Now leave me alone.”

  She stands, bobbing her head, almost curtseying to him as she backs towards the door. Before she leaves the room she looks back to him. He has already fallen asleep, his chest rising and falling very slightly underneath the thin sheet that covers him. She takes a deep breath, blinks back unexpected tears. She knows she won’t come here anymore. She knows that she’ll never clap eyes on Danny Granger again.

  Chapter 32

  May 7th 1981

  With Emma’s stones in one hand, a bottle of wine under her arm and the three bar fire in the other hand, Bronwyn goes into the living room and settles herself down on the sheepskin rug. She’s alone again, but although it stabs at her heart she knows she has done the right thing.

  Bobby Sands died two days ago, and today she can hear hundreds and thousands of people lining the streets for his funeral.

  At least Connor won’t come knocking at her door today, his face is well known now and he won’t risk a beating or another bullet by trying to get through the crowds.

  She shivers and it reminds her that she brought the fire in. She plugs it in, angles it towards her and sits cross legged in front of it. No more wood burning in the open range. Those days are well and truly over now. She pops the cork on the wine and lines Emma’s stones up in front of her as she drinks from the bottle. No need for wine glasses anymore either. And as the fire warms her cold flesh she leans back against the sofa, closes her eyes, and lets herself think back nine days ago when she dared to dream that she could be happy again.

  *

  Nine days ago.

  She almost lost her resolve when she walked back in the front door and found him cooking in the kitchen. Had it been Danny, he would have still been asleep on the sofa where she left him when she went out.

  “Hey, did you get everything done that you wanted to?” Connor asked as he heard the front door close behind her.

  He must have been out too as he was cooking bacon, sausages and she spotted a carton of eggs on the side. A pile of bread was buttered and waiting in the middle of the table. It should have smelled great, but her appetite had vanished along with hope when she left Danny’s bedside.

  “I need you to leave,” she said as she stood in the doorway to the kitchen. “Don’t ask me any questions, just go, right now.”

  She couldn’t bring herself to look at his face because if she did she would weaken. I mustn’t let him touch me either, she thought, because his touch is just as dangerous as his face.

  But he had touched her, he switched the gas off and was by her side, in her face, grabbing her shoulders, demanding to know why, what had happened, who had she seen?

  She batted his hands away, backed off down the hall, still looking at the ceiling, the floor, anything except him. “Just go,” she babbled. “I’ll contact you, I promise I’ll explain it all, but you just need to go, you just need to leave, just for a while.”

  He didn’t have any stuff, he’d walked her home from Rose’s funeral and simply stayed. At some point he had taken a pair of jeans and a shirt from Dan’s wardrobe, and she had pretended not to notice. He was wearing Danny’s clothes now, and pushing him out of the door was like getting rid of Danny all over again.

  *

  He had been back every day, knocking on the door, the window, coming around the back, hoping to find her down by the railway tracks, no doubt. But she had remained firmly inside, curtains drawn.

  He had shouted through the letterbox that she’d promised to explain her actions, but she had never had any intention of doing so. How could she even begin to explain it? That even if they stayed together and were eventually accepted as a couple by those who judged them, that she could never forgive herself for kicking Danny in the teeth as he lie dying, and fucking Rose’s man while she was busy committing suicide. And Danny’s strange threat of another ‘hit’ had played on her mind. The thought of it doesn’t scare her, she’s beyond any fear now, but if he were to send someone around, best that she be on her own. That way, nobody else will get hurt.

  Feeling a little sick she puts the bottle of wine on the fireplace and stands up. She risks a peek outside and sees hordes of people making their way down Kidds Road.

  I could join them, she thinks. Everyone is looking for Sands’ coffin, nobody will look at me today. Unplugging the fire and slipping a couple of Emma’s stones into her pocket, she pulls her coat on and leaves the house for the first time in over a week.

  At the end of Kidds Road she finds herself standing next to Sue, her neighbour from a couple of doors down. Sue greets her cordially enough and rolling a cigarette she offers it to Bronwyn. Bronwyn accepts it gratefully.

  “What’s going on with your Dan, then?” asks Sue, as she lights Bronwyn’s cigarette. “I ‘spect you don’t much care, given what happened and all.”

  Supergrass. That’s what Sue means, but her words are not cruel, she is genuinely interested.

  Bronwyn shrugs. “He’s still inside, he’s on the hunger strike, you know,” as she speaks the words she feels a strange sense of pride. Danny’s actions are stupid as far as she’s concerned, but he’s striving for something, which is more than most people in Newry are doing, including herself.

  “I know,” Sue says as she nods sagely. “My Joe works there, doesn’t he? You know, our Michelle’s eldest boy.”

  Bronwyn didn’t know it, but why would she? Apart from a ‘good morning’ or a polite nod, she and Sue rarely speak. And what a shame that is, thinks Bronwyn now, we could have shared a cuppa and a fag anytime.

  “He wonders if that’ll be his mother coming to visit him? Who’s getting the power of attorney then, you or her? And what are you going to do?” Sue’s eyes gleam with gossip as Bronwyn gapes, open mouthed at her.

  “He hasn’t got a mother,” she replies, eventually. “He was in foster care since he was a boy.”

  “Oh.” Sue looks sidelong at her. “Who is she, then, the one who keeps coming to visit him?”

  Could it be Alia? Her mother has treated Danny like one of her own for as long as they’ve both known him, but surely she would have said if she was visiting him. “What’s she look like, this woman?”

  “Tall, redhead, fiery thing our Joe says,” replies Sue. “My Joe thinks she was that Dean woman, but I told him not to be so stupid, it was her son that Danny got put away for, wasn’t it?”

  Sue continues talking, coming to her own conclusions, not noticing that Bronwyn has frozen, roll-up cigarette hanging off her lip. Why would Mary be visiting Dan? She never knew him and Sue is right, it would be stupid of her to go to him seeing as Danny did indeed shoot Connor. All the times that Mary pressed Bronwyn to go and visit him comes to mind, she had thought it odd at the time, something that Bronwyn could never make sense of.

  “Sue, I’ve got to go,” she says, snapping back to the present. “Thank you for the chat, and the fag.”

  And she blends away through the crowd, not heading towards home, but to t
he bus stop.

  Chapter 33

  May 7th 1981

  My heels have cracked from the constant rubbing on the sheets. I still walk when I can, but I’m stooped over like an old man. It’s getting harder and harder to drink the amount of water that I’m supposed to and very quickly things are going downhill. Bobby has gone, slipped away two days ago. He was the first to commence the strike so it makes sense that he was the first to go, but it was a massive blow. I quivered when I heard the news, lay shaking in my bed as my body seemed to go into some sort of shock. And underneath the pain is the disbelief that the Brits actually let him die. If they let him die, it doesn’t bode well for the rest of us.

  Seany looks at it differently, that now he’s gone there will be mass rioting and our people won’t allow this to happen to the rest of us. I don’t know if I believe him but I respect his attitude.

  It’s time for me to get up and walk around my bed, but I can feel myself drifting off. I fall asleep to my favourite sound: Bronwyn’s voice.

  I can feel the sheet moving up and down my arm, it’s irritating me, disrupting my slumber, and I open my eyes, flicking my arm to shake it off.

  “Danny, you’re awake,” her voice is filled with... relief? I can hope, can’t I?

  Then the cogs turn, rusty as hell in my mind. She’s here, actually here talking to me, and it is her stroking my arm, not the sheet, moving of its own accord, as I’d thought.

  “Oh, hello,” I say, delighted that in amongst all the doom and gloom and shitty smells my wife has come to me again.

  “Are you all right to talk?”

  I nod, though I’d rather just listen, talking is hard.

  “Has Mary Dean been coming to visit you?” she asks, and she doesn’t seem angry, in fact, I’ve never heard her speak so gently.