The Truth Commissioner

by David Park

  When he wakes, for a few seconds he doesn’t quite know where he is and the voices he’s gradually aware of seem to come from somewhere inside his head. His mouth is dry as bone and his eyes blink uncertainly as he tries to shrug his mind clear of what sounds like radio static. The voices are layered and then gradually he understands that amidst those coming from the television are those of Marie and Sweeney. He goes to call out but stifles it as their words press a clearer shape in his senses.

  ‘I’m worried about him, Ricky, I’ve never seen him like this. I think he’s depressed.’

  ‘Maybe we need to get him checked over by a doctor. We could go private – find someone sympathetic to the party who knows how to be discreet. If he’s depressed maybe we need to get him prescribed some happy pills.’

  ‘I don’t think he’ll go.’

  ‘Why now? That’s what I don’t understand. Why now when he’s sitting at the table, when we’ve finally climbed the mountain? He should be singing and dancing.’

  ‘I don’t know why any more than you. It’s like the bucket went to the well and one day the well was dry. And the wedding - that seemed to really take it out of him. I don’t understand because I thought it would bring him out of himself but if anything it made him worse.’

  Gilroy blinks his eyes and stares at the screen where celebrity cooks compete to concoct exotic dishes out of mundane and meagre ingredients.

  ‘The wedding?’ Sweeney says. ‘The icing on the cake as you might say. But listen, Marie, the first thing I think we should try before we start shovelling pills is a holiday – a good old break can work wonders. Blow the cobwebs away. Put a bit of lead in the pencil.’

  ‘So where’re we going?’ Gilroy says, standing in the kitchen doorway. Marie blushes and Sweeney scratches the back of his neck. ‘You could just take me straight to the old people’s home, have done with it.’

  ‘We’re worried about you, Francis,’ Marie says and he can see the concern shaping her face into an expression that causes him shame that he has caused it.

  ‘I’m OK, just a little tired, that’s all. I’ll be right as rain.’

  ‘Could we not go away, even for a weekend?’ Marie asks.

  He hesitates, caught on the hooks of her love, unable and unwilling to struggle free from anything that she says. ‘Is there a space in the diary?’ he asks Sweeney.

  ‘I’ll find one,’ he says, ‘I’ll find one.’

  ‘Well that’s that then. Any chance of a cup of tea? I’ve a bake like the bottom of a bird cage.’

  ‘Very poetic,’ Sweeney says and Marie smiles as she lifts the kettle.

  ‘But I’m not getting on a plane and I’m not going to Bundoran – it’s like you’re still in West Belfast.’

  ‘We’ll find somewhere,’ Marie says. ‘Somewhere nice and not too far. I know what you like. You leave it to me.’ And then she starts to root round in the tins for a biscuit or a chocolate bar.

  What she finds is a weekend in a Donegal hotel that is about to close for the winter. It sits overlooking a bay adjacent to a long dune-backed strand and is about five minutes’ drive into the village. They’ve been here before once and it suits Gilroy that there are few other people staying and there’s a quiet, subdued atmosphere. It feels like a house where the owners are packing up to go on a long holiday and as they sit in the lounge in front of a turf fire and have a drink from the bar, there’s little to distract them from their mostly silent gaze out to sea. Most of the young staff have returned to university or college and already there’s a drowsy sense of rest settling everywhere like dust. They are grateful that the chef has not decamped and although they are required to take their evening meal in the bar, the food is good and the owners attentive. No one intrudes, no one comes up to shake his hand and inform him of his Republican family tradition in which inevitably some relative manned the barricades in 1916. No one shouts abuse or leaves a room when he enters even though most of the cars in the car park have northern registrations.

  ‘Lots of new houses since the last time we were here,’ he says to Marie when one of the silences extends slightly too long.

  ‘It’s been a long time since we were here.’

  ‘It’s northern Prods,’ he says, ‘buying every house on the market, or building on every plot of land that comes up for sale. The guy in the bar says the prices have gone through the roof in the last five years – the locals can’t afford to live here any more.’

  ‘Maybe we should’ve tried to buy something when things were cheaper – something for our old age, somewhere to retire to.’

  ‘You’re right but we never had any money and what we did have went on the kids,’ he says without resentment. ‘It’s hard to beat a real fire. The smell as much as anything.’

  ‘Maybe we could still do it,’ she says. ‘If we could put a bit of money together.’

  ‘Maybe, but by the time we gathered it up, the prices would be even worse.’

  ‘Could you not ask the boys who did the Northern Bank for a loan?’ she says and then laughs at her own joke.

  ‘I wouldn’t ask those bastards for the skin of their teeth. It’s funny though with Prods – they’d fight to the death to avoid a united Ireland and cut your throat for a holiday home in it.’

  When it’s not raining they walk along the strand and huddle together like lovers against the squally, fractious wind that forces Marie to hold a hand to her hair to stop it being massacred beyond recognition. The sea, too, is whipped by anger and the waves throw up white-crested running and breaking funnels of foam that sometimes suddenly spume about their feet and make them scurry and scamper further up the beach. Once to their amazement they see a surfer in the sea, a black figure hunched and stiff arms spread as his board dips and pulls through the water like a needle stitching the hem of the waves.

  But in bed they aren’t lovers. He tries twice but each time it fades like the afternoon light, collapsing into nothing, and even though he refuses to accept it’s happening and tries to fire himself into passion there’s only the spent rush of his breathing.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he says, the words and his broken breathing whispering in her ear, and she says, ‘Shush, shush,’ and runs her hand through the back of his hair and tells him it doesn’t matter.

  But it matters to him and after the second time he stands at the window and looks out at the opaque band of grey. Down in the car park there is a car with its lights and radio on and a young woman he recognises as one of the waitresses is leaning in at the open window and then he sees her kiss her boyfriend before he drives off. Later Gilroy imagines he will return for her and he thinks of them driving somewhere quiet along the coast road and parking the car and as a light spray blows off the sea effortlessly sinking into each other’s arms. But he feels no sense of envy or bitterness, only a sadness that the world belongs no more to him but to this young couple and all the others like them who struggle to make their way and search for a love that will sustain them. He thinks of Christine and worries that she’ll be happy, worries that London’s too big, that he’ll lose her in its magnitude.

  ‘Come to bed, Francis,’ Marie whispers to him but he stands on staring out at the darkening sky. ‘The bed’s cold without you.’

  ‘Cold with me,’ he says.

  ‘It doesn’t matter – you’re tired, that’s all. No one could have gone through everything that you’ve gone through and not be tired. It’ll be all right. Everything will be all right.’

  ‘I’d like to live here, Marie. You’d like it, too?’

  ‘Yes, I think so. For the first time in our lives away from it all. Maybe, Francis, it’s time to think of letting the younger ones do some of the struggling. You’ve given your whole life to it. Now come back to bed.’

  ‘I’ll make you a cup of tea,’ he says as some kind of compensation.

  ‘I don’t want a cup of tea; I want you to come back to bed and hold me. Do you think you can do that?’

  He turns away from the window
and stumbles over his shoes then awkwardly climbs into the bed and falls silently and thankfully into the outstretched arms of her tight embrace.

  After his return to the city, he tells himself that he carries the freshness of the sea air in his lungs, promises himself that this part of his life will be a finite one and that if he finds the right moment he will launch out in a new direction. It’s never too late, no one would have the right to criticise him, but as he calls to mind everything he’s endured and what’s been achieved, he knows it won’t be easy to walk away. And why should he give up these first fruits of victory and resign his place at the table to someone who hasn’t shared any of the sacrifices? He needs to stay, even as a figurehead, during this period of transition and he tells himself that when things have finally bedded down there might be a better moment. There are still important things to do before he puts himself out to grass.

  So when he meets Sweeney after he gets back he greets him as a man who’s found some new sense of resolution and purpose.

  ‘So the break did you good?’ Sweeney asks as he stands at the doorway to his office.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ Gilroy asks as he sets his briefcase on the table, glancing at his colleague’s face and then at the pile of papers on his desk. His life has been bound so closely and for so long to Sweeney’s that he registers even the slightest changes. There was a time when in the isolation cells they spoke to each other only through the tapped messages on pipes and now, regardless of the jaunty timbre of his words, Gilroy hears something that makes him apprehensive. ‘You think I should have stayed away for longer?’ He half smiles but then looks quizzically at Sweeney who stares back at him silently and then closes the office door.

  ‘We shouldn’t talk here.’ Sweeney’s voice is expressionless, almost monotone. When Gilroy looks at him he sees the flush of embarrassment in his face.

  ‘Is there a bug?’ he asks and sweeps his eyes round the room, then for a few seconds lapses into a wordless speech, asking questions with his face and gesturing with his hand.

  ‘Probably no more than usual. But better to go somewhere else – somewhere we can talk and not be interrupted.’

  ‘I don’t like the sound of this,’ Gilroy says, glancing again at his desk as if the answer might be found there.

  ‘I’ll have Marty bring the car round to the front door. When we go out of this room we’ll just say that something’s cropped up. If we’re needed for anything important we’ll tell them they can contact us on the mobile.’

  Gilroy nods and feels another stir of apprehension. Swee­ney is not given to theatricals so he resists the temptation to ask any further questions and does as he’s told. When they get in the car Sweeney tells their driver to take them to Clonard Monastery and Gilroy sinks back in the seat.

  ‘Confession time?’ he asks.

  ‘Not quite,’ Sweeney says, then they sit in silence during the short journey and when they reach their destination he tells Marty to go back to the offices and he’ll ring when he’s needed.

  ‘Are we meeting someone?’ Gilroy asks.

  ‘No, just you and me. We need to talk. Good place to do it.’

  ‘Only God listening,’ Gilroy says as they pass through the outer and inner doors to enter the great arched vault of the church. As always he feels an unwelcome sense of intimidation as he’s confronted by the Gothic interior with its side chapels and red granite columns, its imposing high altar and the coldness of marble. He’s never liked this place; he feels bullied by it, that he’s expected to bow the head and knee without question. ‘Could we not do this somewhere else? It’s always freezing here. And it looks like that choir is about to start rehearsing.’

  ‘That’s good,’ Sweeney says, sliding into one of the polished back pews. ‘Let them sing their hearts out. There’s some concert here at the weekend. The more noise the better. I don’t know if you know it or not but I was an altar boy here once.’

  ‘You kept that one a secret,’ Gilroy says, slipping in beside him. ‘Can’t imagine it.’

  ‘They threw me out after a month – I got in a bit of a scrap with a couple of the other boys.’

  ‘So have you got any other secrets you’re about to reveal? Hell’s bells, Ricky, you’re not about to tell me you’ve been working for the Brits for the last twenty years?’ Gilroy asks wide-eyed, but his voice is laughing.

  ‘No, I’m probably the only one who hasn’t been. Though I hear there’s a good pension scheme goes with it and a one-way ticket to the country of your choice. Maybe I missed out.’

  At the front of the church the members of the choir shuffle into their places – there appears to be some confusion as to where everyone should be standing and there’s some coughing and clearing of throats. The conductor is speaking to them but his words don’t carry fully to the back of the church.

  ‘So what is it you wrant to tell me, Ricky?’

  ‘Maybe it wasn’t a good idea to come here. Maybe we should listen to the music for a while.’

  Gilroy goes to swear but stifles it on his lips. The choir breaks into song, their voices suddenly rising and quivering into the great arc of silence that seems shocked by the intrusion. ‘Spit it out for God’s sake.’

  ‘You remember Connor Walshe?’ Gilroy doesn’t answer but lightly reaches out his hand and rests it on the pew in front. ‘His case is coming up at the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. They’ve sent out letters. They’re calling people.’

  ‘Am I called?’

  ‘No, you’ve not been called.’

  ‘How long have you known about this?’ Gilroy asks, looking up at the ceiling as if he might see the musical notes skirmish in the hidden spaces above them.

  ‘A while, a while. I didn’t want to say anything before. You haven’t been good, Franky. I didn’t want to give you something else to worry about.’

  ‘Does Marie know?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘And should I be worried?’ He turns his eyes to Sweeney and sees him shrug.

  ‘I don’t know. I hope not. We’ve people working on this, it could be trouble.’

  ‘Who for, Ricky?’

  ‘For you, for the party. For all of us.’

  The conductor stops the music but a few stray voices carry on for some seconds before they falter into silence. Gilroy glances up at the stained glass and the light that seems to bleed colour into the dust motes hovering in the air.

  ‘Connor Walshe. After all this time. Who would have thought it?’

  ‘You remember him, Francis?’

  ‘Of course,’ Gilroy says as he rubs a finger across his bottom lip. ‘Connor Walshe. I remember him.’ He turns his head away from Sweeney for a second and looks to the far side of the church. ‘You still practise, don’t you, Ricky?’

  ‘Lightly. For my ma, for old time’s sake. You know how it is.’

  ‘You go in the box and confess?’

  ‘Once in a blue moon. When I feel the old ticker might be giving out or when I think I’ve been good. If I was a hypochondriac like you I’d probably never be out of it.’

  Gilroy smiles but slumps a little in the pew. The choir starts up again. ‘I haven’t done it since before I joined up.’

  ‘Must be a good backlog piled up by now. A bit like never emptying your email box. All that junk mail piling up day after clay.’

  ‘Nice to be able to press a delete button.’

  ‘You thinking of going now?’ Sweeney asks.

  ‘No, I’ve finished with it. And anyway if you’re going to confess something, why not do it direct, cut out the middle man?’

  ‘You’re talking like a Prod, Franky.’

  They sit back and listen to the music. It sweeps out from the front of the church and then slowly encompasses them in its rising and harmonic power.

  ‘It’s beautiful,’ Gilroy says, slowly gesturing into the emptiness of the air. He lets his hand linger there for a second, the way a child might hold a hand up to falling snow as if to catch some of its pe
rfection. ‘What is it?’

  ‘It’s not the Wolfe Tones or Christy Moore – I know that, but beyond that I can’t help you.’

  ‘Walshe’s family still live local? Has anyone spoken to them?’

  ‘They’ve been spoken to – respectfully like, nothing heavy – and the brothers don’t want it, don’t want to know. None of them wants all this dragged up again. But they’re not the ones driving it – it’s the sister Maria.’

  ‘Anyone spoken to her?’ Gilroy asks, trying to listen to the music and Sweeney’s words at the same time.

  ‘She’s moved away. It’s too delicate now to risk anything. We can’t take risks with this thing or it’ll blow up in our faces.’

  Gilroy shades his eyes for a second and in that second he sees his daughter’s face and the face he imagines her unborn child will have. But then another face intrudes and he blinks them open again.

  ‘I don’t need this, Ricky.’ He turns his head and looks directly at him. ‘I don’t need this. Whatever needs to be done let it be done. You understand what I’m saying?’

  ‘I understand, Francis, believe me I do. There’s people working on it, pulling out all the stops, but best we don’t talk about that. We need to trust them now.’

  ‘So who has been called?’

  ‘They’ve found Michael Madden – he’s been living in America. He’s coming home.’

  ‘He was only a kid, too. He can’t be too keen to come back here after all this time.’

  ‘Don’t believe he was but things have been explained to him. He had no choice in the end. There’s only him left now. Someone has to stand up and say something. We’ll make sure that the right things are said. Now I’ve told you, you need to put all this as far away from you as possible. You need to know as little as possible, we don’t need to talk about it again – we shouldn’t talk about it again.’