Matters of Life & Death

by Bernard Maclaverty

  by the same author

  SECRETS

  LAMB

  A TIME TO DANCE

  CAL

  THE GREAT PROFUNDO

  WALKING THE DOG

  GRACE NOTES

  THE ANATOMY SCHOOL

  This eBook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.

  Epub ISBN: 9781409016632

  Version 1.0

  www.randomhouse.co.uk

  Published by Jonathan Cape 2006

  2 4 6 8 10 9 7 5 3 1

  Copyright © Bernard MacLaverty 2006

  Bernard MacLaverty has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs

  and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the author of this work

  This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not,

  by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out,

  or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior

  consent in any form of binding or cover other than that

  in which it is published and without a similar condition

  including this condition being imposed on the

  subsequent purchaser

  First published in Great Britain in 2006 by

  Jonathan Cape

  Random House, 20 Vauxhall Bridge Road, London SW1V 2SA

  Random House Australia (Pty) Limited

  20 Alfred Street, Milsons Point, Sydney,

  New South Wales 2061, Australia

  Random House New Zealand Limited

  18 Poland Road, Glenfield,

  Auckland 10, New Zealand

  Random House South Africa (Pty) Limited

  Isle of Houghton, Corner of Boundary Road & Carse O’Gowrie,

  Houghton 2198, South Africa

  The Random House Group Limited Reg. No. 954009

  www.randomhouse.co.uk

  ‘Cheek to Cheek’: Words & Music by Irving Berlin © 1935 Irving Berlin Music

  Corp. All rights administered by Warner/Chappell Music Ltd, London W6 8BS.

  Reproduced by permission.

  A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

  ISBN 978-0-224-07785-9 (from January 2007)

  ISBN 0-224-07785-6

  Papers used by Random House are natural,

  recyclable products made from wood grown in sustainable forests;

  the manufacturing processes conform to the environmental

  regulations of the country of origin

  Typeset in Sabon by Palimpsest Book Production Limited,

  Polmont, Stirlingshire

  Printed and bound in Great Britain by

  Mackays of Chatham plc, Chatham, Kent

  In memory of my mother

  and for Maddy Skye Macdonald

  CONTENTS

  On the Roundabout

  The Trojan Sofa

  Matters of Life & Death 1

  Learning to Dance

  The Clinic

  A Trusted Neighbour

  A Belfast Memory

  The Wedding Ring

  The Assessment

  Up the Coast

  Matters of Life & Death 2

  Visiting Takabuti

  Winter Storm

  ON THE ROUNDABOUT

  I suppose it’s about doing something without thinking. But it was nothing really. Anybody’d’ve done the same.

  We were driving back into Belfast – we could have been in Omagh or Enniskillen – visiting Anne’s aunt maybe. But that’s not important. It was the early seventies and that is important. Not long after Bloody Friday – nine dead, God knows how many maimed – all courtesy of our friends, the Provos. So everybody was a bit hyper.

  It was beginning to get dark. I hadn’t been all that long at the driving and I was feeling the family man – Anne in the passenger seat, the two kids in the back – like something outa Norman Rockwell. Seat-belts weren’t compulsory but we were seat-belt kinda people. Clunk, click every trip – remember that? I’m thinking about what we have to do before we can relax – get the kids ready for bed – I remember all this very vividly, the way you remember just before a crash. Tell them a story maybe. They were the age for stories – wee Kate was anyway – at that time she made you get every word right. Any deviation and she’d have been up in arms. Sean was just talking and no more. The other thing was that the car radio was on and they were saying that the UDA were out in force in certain places – stopping and searching.

  So I’m driving into that roundabout, the one at the bottom of the Grosvenor Road – the one that used to be Celtic Park – and there’s this guy hitching, trying to get a lift before the cars go on the motorway. And there’s a bunch of the UDA appear, about half a dozen of them, wearing khaki. And they go up to talk to the guy who’s hitching. I’m about fourth or fifth in the queue onto the roundabout and I’m keeping an eye on the cars edging ahead and the UDA guys. You can never tell with them. There’s one guy – he’s wearing a black scarf – and he produces a claw-hammer. And he whacks the guy hitching in the face with it. And down he goes. And they start laying into him for all they’re worth – boots, the hammer, the lot. There’s only a couple of cars in front of us now and they scarper – away like the clappers – they don’t want to know. And Anne is screaming did you see that? And her hands are up to her face. I put the boot to the floor, gunning the engine like, and before I know what I’m doing I’m driving up the pavement straight at the UDA. And they scatter. And they’re laughing – I’ll always remember that – laughing their heads off, especially the guy with the black scarf, the one with the hammer. I’m doing this before I know I’m doing it. But it’s like we’ve rehearsed it. Anne pops her seat-belt, leans over and opens the back door. I get out and manhandle the poor bastard onto the floor of the back seat. He’s not unconscious but he’s not fully with it. He’s bleeding all over the place. It’s coming out of his eye and hitting the ceiling. Wee Kate is crying because she knows something’s very wrong. The UDA guys are hanging back, still laughing. Maybe they think I’m the law or something. The Army maybe. Anyway I just want outa there. And I’m driving back onto the roundabout trying not to hit anything. I have a shammy for the inside of the windscreen and Anne’s back kneeling on her seat, leaning over, pressing it up against the guy’s face trying to stop the blood spouting all over the place. And I’m lucky because without knowing I take the exit to the Royal. He keeps going unconscious and I’m shouting to Anne keep him awake, keep him awake. And she’s yelling at him what happened? What happened? And both the children are crying now, yelling their heads off. And he says he was just hitching home to Lurgan and they said are you a Fenian and before I could even fucking answer them I’m on the deck. Anne’s saying hold that there, hold it. To stop the bleeding. And he’s falling about but he’s still talking. He can’t understand. A minute ago he was trying to get home. He says the funny thing is I’m Presbyterian. I start laughing at this, looking over my shoulder. A Presbyterian? Even he thinks it’s funny. Jesus. Then he falls backwards and his mouth opens and there’s blood inside that looks black in the street lights. He begins jerking and passing out. Anne holds him up trying to steady him, holds the shammy to his wound – a hole between his ear and his eye the size of a ten-pence piece. He comes round again shouting I’m dead – they’ve killed me. The cunts have killed
me. By this time I’m driving up the wrong side of the road with my hand on the horn. Get out of my fuckin way – everybody thinks I’ve taken leave of my senses. Anyway we eventually get into the hospital and the staff take over.

  It’s only then I start to get angry. I try to give my name and address but the doctors and nurses don’t want to know. There’s a Brit soldier there with his gun and he doesn’t want to know either. I’ve just witnessed an attempted murder and nobody wants to know. And Anne’s carrying Sean and pulling at Kate. Come on, come on. She’s looking ahead to me in the witness box facing the UDA across the court. We know your registration, we know your whole family.

  The kids weren’t affected. Sean doesn’t remember a thing about it – he was too young – but wee Kate does. She was really scared and timid for a long time.

  Anyway that’s what Belfast was like at that time.

  But about two months later there was a long letter in the Belfast Telegraph. The guy was outa hospital and he was trying to thank the Good Samaritan family who’d helped him on the roundabout that night. Wasn’t that good of him? To tell the story.

  THE TROJAN SOFA

  It’s dark – pitch black – and everything’s shaking and bumping. I’m not scared – just have some what-if knots in my gut. What if they have a dog? That would be me – well and truly. Or a burglar alarm – with laser beams like they have in the movies. And when you walk through the beam, which you can’t see, the alarm goes off in the nearest cop shop. But my Da would’ve asked all these questions when he was selling. He sells all over the place – fairs, car boot sales, a stall in the Markets – but quality stuff or as much of it as he can get. He’s good – friendly – knows what he’s doing.

  ‘This is a good piece – worth quite a bit – as you well know.’ And he’d laugh with the customer who had just paid up. ‘If you’d more stuff like this you’d want to have an alarm in the house.’

  ‘I don’t like alarms,’ or ‘I’ve already got the best on the market.’ And that’d be my Da clued in. ‘You wouldn’t want dog hairs all over good fabric like that.’ ‘I don’t have a dog,’ and that would be my Da clued in a bit more. He’s a dab hand at getting people to tell him things.

  I’m on my left-hand side – the side I sleep on at night – because I know there’ll not be much turning round in the foreseeable future. My knees bent only slightly. I’ve all my bits and pieces.

  ‘You’ve bugger all to do except keep your wits about you and open the door. In this case two doors.’

  I’m in my first year at grammar school. Got the eleven plus – no problem. Even though I hadn’t reached eleven. That’s good for a boy from the Markets. When my Da went up to the College the President told him I got the highest marks of anybody in Northern Ireland. Smart boy wanted. My Da sells anything and everything – bric-a-brac, furniture – you name it. I can hear his voice now talking to Uncle Eamon.

  ‘Two flights of stairs and you’re outa puff already?’

  ‘It’s the bloody smoking,’ I hear Eamon say.

  ‘Why don’t you give it up? It was no problem for me.’

  ‘Your right hand down a bit. Take it easy.’

  I can hear the bumping of their feet on carpeted stairs.

  ‘It weighs a fuckin ton,’ says Uncle Eamon.

  ‘Watch your tongue in front of the boy,’ says my Da. I hear them both laughing.

  He has very strong opinions, has my Da. A war is two sides, one against the other, he says. It’s as simple as that. ‘The wrong done to this country was so great that we can do anything in retaliation.’ If it’s done against the Brits it’s OK by him. ‘A broken phone is a British liability,’ he says. ‘So’s a burnt bus. They’re things that have to be replaced – by the English exchequer.’

  That’s why he likes to deal with the other side. I was there one time when he sold a three-piece suite to this guy – the most Orangeman-looking man I’ve ever seen. You could tell what he was from a mile away – the big fat jowls, the moustache, the accent. ‘Your address, sir?’ When he says the part of the town where he lives my Da looks at Uncle Eamon as if to say wouldn’t you know?

  ‘Yes – we can deliver free,’ says my Da. So the next day I’m into the sofa with my gear and the hessian is stapled back onto the frame. It’s usually an overnight. Next morning when everybody’s away to work and the place is quiet I Stanley knife my way out and open the door. My Da and Uncle Eamon are sitting there in the van smiling. And in they come. The sofa’s the first thing they lift because it has all the evidence in it – where I’ve bed and breakfasted. The modus operandi. Then they clear the place. And it’s one up for old Ireland.

  Before we did it for the first time my Da said to me, ‘It’s up to yourself. You can say yea or nay. I’d never force anybody to do something like this – never mind one of my own. But I must say it is for Ireland.’

  ‘Ireland the Brave,’ says Uncle Eamon from the sidelines.

  What I’m in at the moment – so I’ve been told by my Da, the expert – is a Victorian sofa. It smells of dust, dry built-up-over-the-years dust. It’s worse because we’re on the move and everything’s getting shaken up. Sneezing’s a danger. There’s a bump against something and I bang my head.

  ‘Be careful,’ says my Da to Eamon. ‘The Major’ll be none too pleased if his property comes damaged.’

  ‘Niall won’t be too happy either,’ says Eamon.

  That’s me he’s talking about. Niall. Niall Donnelly. Sometimes my Da calls me Skinny-ma-link. They set the sofa down and I hear a bell ringing in the distance. The door opens and a new English voice starts talking. This whole thing is like a play on the radio. You can hear everything but see nothing. And then a woman’s voice joins in. There’s a lotta bumping and angling so’s they can get through the doorways – so much so that, when it goes upright, I have to hang on like grim death to the wooden frame. Like the ladder thing in the park you go hand over hand on.

  ‘Here?’ says my Da.

  ‘There, with its back to the wall,’ says the woman.

  My Da rabbits on a bit with the Major and there’s a lotta laughing while my Uncle Eamon goes for the clock. I can just see my Da, the way he throws his head back and opens his mouth wide enough to see his fillings. And Eamon smiling on his way down the stairs back to the van. He seems to take for ages. It’s so bad the Major actually says, ‘He’s taking his time.’

  ‘He’ll be having a fly fag.’ When Uncle Eamon does come back they all listen to the chimes and the Major sets it to the one he likes the best. He also chooses it to chime at quarter hours. They set the right time by their watches and there’s the tickety sound of the clock being wound up. Eventually they go and I hear their voices getting weaker and the slam of the main door of the flat. I feel the vibration through the floor. There is silence now and I become conscious of my breathing – making sure my nose is clear. The man says something I can’t hear to the woman. She laughs. I guess they are looking at the sofa. Then they go away.

  I hear knives and forks and plates rattling in another room. A radio is switched on but it’s posh music. They must be eating their tea. There’s a great smell which makes me hungry. Bacon or meat of some sort. Or onions – I love fried onions.

  It’s very hard to know how much time has passed. My Da says I’m far better without a watch. You’re more aware of time passing if you’re always looking to check. Anyway I couldn’t see a watch it’s so dark. But it might be a kinda comfort to know how much longer I’ve gotta be in here. When I hear them actually talking in the other room I change my position. Move my leg a bit – change where the frame is biting into my backside – move my pillows around a bit. I’ll eat my sandwiches in the middle of the night when they’ve gone to bed. My older brother says when I eat, it sounds like an army marching through muck. ‘Keep your mouth closed.’ Then I hear the clock chiming again. It does those chimes you hear on the news over a picture of Big Ben and Westminster. Then it bongs eight times.

  My Da
and Uncle Eamon had stopped the van out in the country to look the place over before they staple-gunned me in.

  ‘How can you be so sure he’s a Major?’

  ‘Instinct,’ says my Da. ‘Maybe not a Major. But Army of some sort. All upper-crust Brits are. And they’re as obvious as punks. Instead of a Mohican, a tweed cap. Leather shoes and that voice, that cut-glass voice.’

  ‘If you were a Brit would you allow furniture in without checking it?’ My Da didn’t say anything. ‘That’s where they put fire bombs in the shops – down the sides of sofas.’

  I’d gone over the hedge for a last pee – after drinking a can of Coke. I could see the house was a huge mansion with turrets and stuff, in among trees and gardens. It was about a mile away up a tarmac drive. My Da said the house had been turned into about ten flats by some developer. And he went on and on about the olden days and how could any one man have lived in such a place – to have it all to himself with servants tugging the forelock and kowtowing to him. Uncle Eamon spat out the van window.

  When the Major and his woman finish their tea they switch off the radio and come into the room. Then the piano playing starts. Sort of rhythmic stuff. No point to it. Was it him or was it her playing? I was just glad there was something to listen to – to pass the time. I knew it was actual playing and not a radio, because sometimes the notes would stop and the same bit would be played again. Better. After a while the playing stopped. Someone was clapping – pretend applause. Clap, clap, clap.

  ‘Bravo,’ said the Major. ‘Play me the Mozart.’

  The piano started again. And went on and on and on. With that kinda music, you know when the end is coming. It winds itself up. After that everything goes quiet.

  I know they are in the room but I can’t hear anything. So I start mouth breathing. It’s quieter. I can sense someone sitting on the sofa, then getting off again. They’re speaking very quietly – sorta murmuring. This goes on for ages and then they start exercising – sometimes on the sofa, sometimes on the floor. In school they have this crazy bastard of a gym teacher who has a yelpy voice. ‘Running on the spot. Go!’ ‘Ten press-ups. Go!’ And he reserves the highest and loudest note for yelping the word ‘go’. Before the Major and his woman eventually stop the exercising and the gasping the penny drops. They’re doing sex. Having a ride. Not two inches away. And I can’t see a thing. And then they go back to the murmuring. I can’t make out a single word. The clock chimes nine and the TV is switched on. The music is for the News. Somebody sits down on the sofa. The news is the usual boring stuff. When it comes to the Northern Ireland bit there are two murders. A prison officer who worked at the Maze tried to start his car and it blew up and he got killed. Boo-hoo. Lend me a hanky. The other was a drive-by shooting on the Antrim Road. A boy of seventeen had been shot and died on the way to hospital. If it’s the Antrim Road he’ll be one of ours. There was three explosions but nobody got hurt because there was warnings.