The Truth Commissioner

by David Park

  On his own he has already toured the area and found it freakishly attractive, a bit like visiting some windswept tundra of history where each year leeches off another little bit of what must have been, leaving only the silted dry docks and the swathes of cracked concrete from which sprouts every type of wild flower. Leaving, above all, the infinite desolate sense of space emptied of whatever begat it. A few of the flowers he looked at bore no resemblance to any that he had ever seen, as if they were phantom mutations of raw metal, sparked into life by some long-dead welder’s fiery fantail, their filaments as if iron: their stamens the shred of steel. When he arrived there had been no sunlight and the waters of Belfast Lough and the sky had met in a seamless meld of grey. Now the river has weakened and the sky lifts itself a little higher and tries to imprint the water’s surface with a new pattern but it resists and seems to hug its own coldness. The lurid yellow of the enormous cranes strikes an attempt at defiance but they look like nothing so much as giant hurdles waiting for a Finn McCool to jump them.

  And already they are talking of restoring this place in the city’s favourite passion of self-consoling mythology. It will, no doubt, be a giant theme park where they will build a facsimile of the great ship, construct hotels and exhibitions, hope to bring in the tourists from Japan, from America, from everywhere, for an exclusively virtual experience. It saddens Stanfield to think of the vulgarity that will be unleashed, the way he imagines this place will become the equivalent of some casino town in the Nevada desert. There is one memory from his childhood that he suddenly recalls and it’s being in his father’s car on the other side of the river and following an open grain lorry, pigeons swooping on it. The sour sweet smell of the grain. Swinging around across the bridge and more birds. Great shifting parabolas of starlings shading the sky in charcoal. It must have been at the end of the afternoon for suddenly the bridge itself is black with the released shipyard workers, lunch boxes in their hands, heels clacking, voices calling like the boys selling newspapers on street corners.

  The curse of memory. Scabs on the soul. Even with most of his life behind him he thinks only of the future, of what can still be savoured. Of what experiences still await. He looks across the water and smiles. Nothing amuses him quite so much as the city’s gauche attempts to reinvent itself as a cosmopolis, nothing makes him smile more genuinely than to see its newest makeover. So on the other side of the river, in front of the wasteland of book depositories, tyre depots and warehouses, and on the water’s edge, sit some of the city’s more recent buildings, styled with features that echo Venetian palazzos but look as if they have been constructed out of a child’s building set. Behind him Beckett coughs and he remembers his driver doesn’t have the benefit of a coat as he turns to look at him. Beckett’s face has reddened in the wind as if worn raw and his hair is a sudden flash of colour as if a match has been struck in the greyness of the morning.

  ‘It’s cold,’ Stanfield says, ‘we’ll drive back round and watch the arrivals.’ Beckett doesn’t answer but simply nods and holds the door open for him to get into the back of the car. Stanfield notices the broad wedding ring on his finger but in the car he can’t be bothered to attempt further conversation.

  The arrivals are in full flow now with the files and papers being carried into the building where they will be catalogued and stamped with their delivery date. Some come in file boxes but most are in manila or green folders tied with string. A few have clearly been rehoused inside new covers but most wear the marks of their age and use and are badged with grubbiness – the circles of cups, the scribble of ballpoint, the greased or sweated fingerprints of those who perused them. Some of them bulge at the seams and corners of papers loll like tongues out of mouths. Some are carried inside plastic bags – the type used to remove evidence from crime scenes. He feels a desultory randomness about it all, a sense of fragmentation that bodes badly for those charged with putting it all together, for those whose job is supposed to be to shape it into meaning.

  One of the policemen stumbles and a file is spilt to the ground. There is a communal gasp as if they are watching an urn spill its ashes and, as the first pages flutter into the air, rushing hands grasp for the escaping paper. One evades the frantic clutches and mischievously scampers momentarily above head height before wallowing slowly to earth and grateful capture. ‘Gentlemen, careful please!’ Matteo’s authoritative voice rings out as he steps forward with his arms outstretched, shepherding the deliveries to the door. Stanfield silently congratulates him – it’s always good to see someone exercise authority and he believes that it’s what marks the led from the leader. There are always those who despite their abilities don’t have what it takes when the testing moment comes, who, in the mysterious vocabulary of the young, don’t have ‘bottle’. He commends himself for the leadership he has already shown in demanding, upon the entirely genuine threat of resignation, that all files and case notes be removed from their diverse locations and centrally stored under the Commission’s independent protection. After a third file mysteriously, and no doubt conveniently for those charged with its protection, went missing, it was obvious that immediate action had to be taken. Faced with the full welter of reluctance and obstruction from the local apparatchiks, he led the entire team of commissioners to the Prime Minister’s door and, with the prospect of an international embarrassment, the demand was finally granted.

  So now on a grey Belfast morning they are gathered in, brought to this place in guarded convoy from secret prearranged rendezvous. All of them, dating from over three decades, even including those whose families have declined to take part in the process. Over a quarter fall into this category, some because they have already buried the past and choose not to relive it, some because they prefer not to have made public aspects of their particular case, and inevitably others from both sides who denounce it as a whitewash, a conspiracy. He has even met a few individuals already who have clearly become emotionally dependent on their grief, who have jerry-built a kind of lop-sided, self-pitying life out of it and are unwilling to risk having even that taken from them, in exchange for their day in the sun. Good on them, he thinks, because he has no wish to extend his tenure any further than necessary.

  He looks at the faces of those standing outside the drawing office. The wind has whipped their cheeks so that they look as if they bear thin tribal incisions cut in their flesh. And after all, what was it really, except some rather pathetic and primitive tribal war where only the replacement of traditional weapons by Semtex and the rest succeeded in bringing it to temporary attention on a bigger stage? Now the world doesn’t care any more because there are bigger wars and better terrors and all that remains is this final tidying up, this drawing a line, this putting to bed – the euphemisms he has had to endure are potentially endless – but as he takes one final look at the sealed tightness of the sky and then tells Beckett to drive him to the office, there is only one image that he nurtures and it’s of an old manged, flea-infested dog returning to inspect its own sick.

  ‘Everything go OK?’ Laura asks him as he removes his coat.

  ‘Everything went fine apart from one of the files being dropped and almost blowing into the Lough.’ She isn’t sure whether it’s appropriate to laugh until she sees him smiling. ‘Matteo’s keeping a good watch on things. Another hour or so and everything should be in place. Any chance of a coffee? It was very cold down there.’

  ‘Sure,’ she says.

  ‘And, Laura, get one for yourself and then we’ll go through today’s meetings.’ He watches her leave the room. She’s wearing a blue trouser suit with a short bolero-type jacket and a pink silk scarf at her neck. He wonders if her Neanderthal fiance has been biting it. For the first time he notices the slight swell of her hips. Hips that will shell children like peas. He looks again at his mobile but as always there’s no call from Emma and he’s a little cross with himself that he continues to divert valuable emotional energy from his own needs, that he continues with this charade of unackn
owledged birthday and Christmas cards. If she doesn’t want to be his daughter, he should accept that, respect her decision. He tells himself that life goes on, that perhaps it’s better in the long run to live unencumbered, that travelling lightly gives him the freedom he needs.

  He would rather Laura could find a cup and saucer to serve his coffee in, instead of a mug with a ridiculous slogan, but accepts it politely. She sits on the other side of his desk and when she takes her first sip from her mug leaves a little smudge of lipstick on the rim. There’s something already about her that begins to disappoint him a little.

  ‘So who’s first up?’ he asks, already knowing the answer.

  ‘It’s Connor Walshe’s mother and sister.’

  ‘Right, and you’ll take notes?’

  ‘Yes. Do you want tea and biscuits?’

  ‘No, I think we’ll forgo that, so many to get through today. We don’t want anyone to stay longer than they need to or we’ll end up with a backlog.’ He watches her nod and studies her face as she tilts it upwrards. She’s wearing a little too much make-up and it puddles on her cheekbones but her eyes are bright and – he can think of no other word than sparkly. Sparkly like the ring on her finger. But he is always the optimist and he has not quite yet given up all hope. Who knows what working closely together in emotionally intense circumstances for an extended period might bring?

  ‘So you’ve read the file?’ he asks her.

  ‘Yes, and I think it was the right decision to deal with the disappeared first of all. They’ve had to wait so long for answers.’

  ‘Yes, I’m sure it was,’ he says, savouring her approbation. ‘Only right, only right. But of course we have no absolute guarantees that the necessary answers will be forthcoming.’

  ‘What can be gained now by withholding the truth?’

  For a second he thinks of trying to explain that the truth is rarely a case of what will be gained, so much as a case of what might be lost, but the phone rings and a secretary tells him that the Walshes have arrived.

  ‘They’re early but that’s no matter. Will you meet them and bring them to the chamber?’ He watches her leave before turning his eyes to the file on his desk. Its contents make him nervous because the possibilities are so starkly flagged and coming so early in the process it has the potential to be portrayed as a symbolic success or a failure that will throw a long shadow over the Commission’s credibility. He needs a body. Simple as that. Other types of cases can be fudged, blurred at the edges, but this one, like all those of the disappeared, requires an entirely tangible outcome and he’s not convinced as yet that he can pull it off. Still, if he succeeds it will be a real feather in the cap and preclude any of the other commissioners stealing an early advantage. It’s a risk he has no choice but to take.

  With the file under his arm, he walks down the long corridor of the city-centre building that was formerly Church property, past the leaded windows and into the large chamber room which at its far end also contains two large windows. The stained-glass portrayals of Christ walking across the storm-tossed sea towards the terrified disciples and healing the blind man are abstract enough to be considered art rather than religious proselytising. They were also protected by a preservation order so they had to stay but everything else in the room has been neutralised with walls and ceiling painted in creams and whites and a new concealed lighting system introduced. The specially commissioned desks and chairs are made from a light-coloured ash and there’s a new sound system and facilities for translation into Irish and Ulster Scots if required.

  He sits at one of the smaller side tables and opens the file. Its grubbiness contrasts with the pristine surroundings. Part of him feels repelled by what he has to touch, worried by what viral strains and spores might linger in the bruised patina of the pages, and he wonders, in private at least, if he should wear gloves. He tells himself that it could be seen as the reverence that scholars display when they study venerable and valuable manuscripts in museums but, as he ponders this, the door opens and Laura leads two women into the room. It’s clearly mother and daughter, the mother holding nervously to the younger woman’s elbow. He welcomes nervousness, finds it so much more malleable than anger or aggression. The size of the room alone will intimidate them and as he stands to greet them, he launches into the agreed protocol, but allowing himself to show his disregard for templates by embellishing the given one with his own personal style.

  ‘I’m very pleased to meet you,’ he says. ‘It’s very good of you to come. Please take a seat.’ The older woman reciprocates by nodding her head but the younger one sits impassively, staring intently at his face. He senses something in her unrelenting gaze that makes him a little uneasy but she says nothing as he launches into his explanation of the process, then outlines the people who will be called and how they will be questioned, about their entitlement to free legal advice, about their right to counselling, about whether to have the press present or exclude them. As he talks, Stanfield looks at the younger woman who he already gauges is the dominant of the two and tries to weigh her up. She is about forty, not unattractive in a plain sort of way, with narrowed blue eyes that seem fastened on his face and thick black hair pulled back too severely in a clasp. He glances at the mother occasionally as a kind of relief but when he looks back, her daughter’s gaze is unwavering and gradually his words fade into an inconclusive silence. It’s as if she knows him from somewhere else, that she’s met him before. He looks at Laura and she smiles reassuringly back but before he can continue, Mrs Walshe speaks.

  ‘All we want is Connor back so we can bury him,’ she says and her voice is a deferential whisper. She clutches her daughter’s hand and doesn’t look at him as she speaks. ‘We just want him home so we can put him to rest. That’s all we want. We don’t want any trouble; we just want him home where he belongs.’

  ‘Of course, of course,’ he says. ‘It’s been a terrible experience for you.’

  ‘They told us that he was gone away, that he was living in Dublin or England, but we don’t believe it. Connor didn’t know how to live anywhere other than here and if he was alive he would’ve got in touch with us. A phone call or a letter – he would’ve sent us something.’

  ‘And you’ve heard nothing in all this time?’

  ‘Nothing: not a single word.’ She dabs at her eyes with a paper handkerchief and then stares at her hands. They are thin-fingered and blue veins already push against the shiny tightness of the skin. Prematurely old hands. The rings look as if they’ve been bolted on. She looks much older than her age. He thinks that perhaps the tea would have been a useful distraction, a counterbalance to the unsettling pull of grief.

  ‘And you’re happy with the list of people we’ve called?’ he asks, studying the list of names drawn up by the secretariat.

  ‘No, we’re not.’

  The voice is strong, sure, and when he looks at her she meets his eyes defiantly. She has let go of her mother’s hand and sits straight on the chair.

  ‘You’re not happy, Miss …’ He searches for her name in his papers.

  ‘Mrs Harper,’ Laura tells him.

  ‘Please, Maria – we don’t want any trouble. We just want Connor back, we’re not looking for trouble.’ Then turning to him the mother says, ‘The rest of the family don’t want us to go through with this – the oldest boys especially. They say we’re just stirring up more trouble for ourselves.’

  ‘Why are you stirring up trouble?’ he asks.

  ‘Because of what they said about Connor. They don’t want it all brought up again in public.’

  ‘It wrould be best if all the family were of a single purpose in this. Experience elsewhere tells us this. But you want to go ahead?’

  ‘What other way are we going to get the truth? What other way are we going to get him back? But I don’t want any trouble.’

  ‘Mum, this is the only way to get him back. I’ve explained it all before. We’ve been through it a dozen times.’ Her voice is edged with frust
ration and when Stanfield looks at her he sees her blue eyes are fired with an intensity that makes him nervous. It’s something he’s seen at different times in women’s eyes and never has it been the harbinger of anything that was good for him. It’s the fire that burns when they have fled like refugees into some different country, a landscape contoured mostly by bitter anger and loathing as they finally realise whatever they have decided is the truth of him. In this limbo world he knows they have journeyed beyond the reach of any enticement, that they have had a surfeit of whatever future it was they thought he could give them. He saw it in Martine’s eyes in the moments after she had received the final diagnosis and the unbearably young doctor’s awkward benediction of sympathy. In the car afterwards as she sat in unbreachable silence, he felt it was him, rather than her illness, that she reserved most hatred for. And what was the cause? That he should carry on living when she was going to die, that she deserved life more than him? That for all his infidelities, his selfish trespasses of the flesh, she was going to be the one to be punished? That must have been the moment when the seed was sown and afterwards behind the closed bedroom door when she and Emma shut him out to share their private grief, the moment when their daughter came to the belief that somehow his sins had the miraculous power to grow an insatiable malignant tumour.