Though the Heavens Fall

by Anne Emery

  “He recognized the car because it had been behind him on his way into Dublin, and it passed him on the road about twenty miles north of the city. He was asking himself why the fellow was in such a hurry. He was a little annoyed with the driver, which is likely why he turned to glare at the car when it went by. MacAllan was in the back seat, passenger side, and our man got a good look at his face. And he had no trouble recognizing that face when he saw it again.”

  “But Garda Sullivan says MacAllan was out of the country at the time.”

  “In America with his wife, attending some big hooley or revival meeting. Television preacher. Hiram somebody.”

  “That would be Hiram B. Stockwell. He’s a celebrity over there.”

  “That’s it.”

  “And the records show he entered the U.S. well before the bombing and was not back on Irish soil until two days after it. You’re not saying he was just one of the organizers of the attack; he was delivering one of the car bombs.”

  “I believe my man who made the sighting.”

  “But, Ronan, papers would tend to be more conclusive than an eyewitness.”

  Monty agreed but said nothing. Long experience in the courts of law had taught him about the vagaries of eyewitness testimony. And even when it wasn’t vague or unreliable, he could convince a jury that it was.

  “I believe the papers were forged by the authorities in Belfast to give him an alibi. Don’t be giving me that look, Brennan. It’s well known that a lot of these UVF and UDA types were being run as agents and informers by British security forces, military intelligence, the RUC . . . there’s no room for doubt on the question of collusion in that bloody place.”

  “Sure you could sing it. I know. But how are you going to prove MacAllan wasn’t at the Stockwell rally?”

  Ronan stared into the stagnant waters in his glass and said nothing.

  There was nothing to be gained by piling it on for Ronan about the difficulties of proving his case, so Monty decided to change the subject. Slightly, anyway. “How long ago did you leave Dublin, Ronan?” He looked around at the grand old pub and the convivial company within its walls. “Why, if you don’t mind my asking, would you want to leave here for the war-torn North of Ireland?”

  “I left in the summer of 1970. Heard the news about the Battle of Saint Matthew’s. You know, the church where Tomás was married. The Provisionals’ first major battle of the current war. That was the turning point for me, after sitting on my arse here in Dublin while our brothers and sisters in Belfast and Derry were being burnt out of their houses and batonned by police when they held peaceful demonstrations. They had long been denied housing, employment, and equal voting rights. And what had I been doing? Drinking and chasing women and mitching off my classes at the university. So when news came of the boys defending the church and the wee nationalist enclave of the Short Strand, I packed my bags, promised my ma I’d write, and I hitched a lift to Belfast.”

  “Much drinking and chasing women up there?”

  “Cinnte. That, and fighting a war for the last twenty-five years.”

  “And now you’re trying to bring that war to a conclusion.”

  “If it can be brought to an honourable conclusion.”

  “Retreat with honour?”

  “Not a retreat.” Monty could hear steel in his voice now. “We could keep fighting into the long, dark, indefinite future. The Brits can’t defeat us. They never will.”

  “Yet, they’re still there.”

  “Our hope has always been that if we caused enough damage to their military installations and their commercial interests, the pain of that would become greater than any advantage they would have in staying on. A war of attrition.”

  “But they haven’t reached that point yet.”

  “Surprising, the amount of death and destruction they’re willing to accept to keep their Unionist lackeys happy.”

  “Or to keep them safe.”

  “The Unionists have nothing to fear from a united Ireland.”

  “I doubt they see it that way.”

  “Well, in my clandestine talks with some of their representatives, some of the Loyalist spokesmen and paramilitary leaders, I’m trying to convince them of exactly that.”

  “How’s that going for you?”

  “What do they say in diplomatic circles? We’ve had a ‘full and frank exchange of views.’”

  “I see. How are your fellow, um, Republican activists taking it?”

  “We have a saying in the North, about our strategy. A ballot box in one hand and an Armalite in the other. That’s not the exact quote, but that’s the most familiar version. You get the picture.”

  “That sets it out very neatly.”

  Darkness had fallen by this time, and Brennan said he wouldn’t mind lining his stomach with something solid, a process known to others as having an evening meal. He was a little past the lining stage. Be that as it may, they left Doheny & Nesbitt’s and stood outside on Baggot Street, trying to decide what they wanted to eat. They started to cross the street but a car that had been idling at the curb moved ahead. It then stopped to let them cross. Monty saw Ronan looking at the car. There were three young men inside. After they had crossed, the car moved off slowly.

  “North of Ireland registration,” Ronan said.

  Well, whoever they were, they drove off out of sight, and Monty thought no more about them.

  Ronan suggested that a cup of Bewley’s coffee would be just the thing, so they made for Grafton Street. They had a fine scoff at Bewley’s and then started back to the car. Brennan stopped to light up a smoke, and so did Ronan. Monty kept going and turned into Ely Place. Then he heard rapid footsteps behind him. He turned around just in time to see two men reach Ronan and Brennan and try to pull them down. Monty took off towards them at a run. By the time Monty reached them, the two Burkes had the two young attackers on the ground. Ronan had his assailant face down with both arms wrenched behind his back. Brennan’s man was lying on his side with one hand clutching his stomach in pain, the other hand gripping a knife but motionless under Brennan’s foot.

  “Who the fuck are you, you shower of shites?” Ronan demanded. The dark blue eyes glared down at the young thugs.

  “We only . . .”

  “You only what?”

  “We only wanted to get a few quid for a drink. Or some fags, like. We weren’t going to hurt youse.”

  “Well, now,” responded the former IRA gunman, “we have to decide whether we’re going to hurt youse. And if so, how badly.”

  “No, please! We’re sorry!”

  “All right. Get up and get the hell out of here. And don’t be acting the maggot with anybody else on these streets.”

  Ronan and Brennan released their captives, who hightailed it down the street and out of sight. Brennan kicked the knife away. His expression was one of disgust, Ronan’s one of relief. Not an assassination squad out of Belfast.

  Brennan spoke up then, in the tones of Winston Churchill, “Nevah, in the field of human conflict, have two young gurriers been so fortunate to have northside Dublin accents.”

  * * *

  They arrived back at the car and Ronan said, “You wouldn’t mind opening the boot, would you, Monty?”

  “Not at all.” He stuck the key in the trunk and pulled up the lid. Ronan reached in and took out the sports bag. He opened it to reveal a device with a black rod and a grip. He pulled on the retractable rod until it was around three-and-a-half-feet long, then took it to the side of the car. Monty saw a round mirror at the end of the pole. Ronan swept it under the car and angled it so he could see.

  “Not the best light, but I think we’re grand here.” He shortened the thing again and put it away. “A little extreme perhaps but you can’t be too careful. Sinister cars have been known to travel here from north of the border, as we know all too well. No
w I can tell my minders I used this yoke, and they’ll be relieved.” Satisfied that there was no bomb under the car, Ronan directed Monty to the flat in the working-class Liberties district where the Burkes were staying with a relative. They got out and gave Monty directions to Maura’s place on the north side of the city, and he nodded as if it was perfectly clear.

  In fact he took a few wrong turns, but he successfully negotiated his way to St. Brigid’s Road Lower in Drumcondra, where his family had settled in. It was a nice little house with a bright blue door recessed inside an archway, which created a little porch. Dominic had immediately declared the porch his castle. It was only a short walk to the Royal Canal, and the kids were determined to assemble a fleet of paper boats to deploy in its waters.

  He and Maura spent the night in her tiny but comfortable room in the house. He got to enjoy a bit of morning time with Normie before she went off to school. She was at an age when you’d be a little apprehensive about starting in a new school, so Monty was anxious to see how it was going. Back home in Halifax, she was a student at Father Burke’s choir school, and he had found her a place in a similar establishment only a few blocks from the house they had rented.

  “How is it?” he asked her now.

  “Great! I’ve got a couple of really good friends and we do good music and I like the uniform. Do you like it?”

  The uniform was a bright red sweater over a white shirt and a dark-coloured tartan kilt.

  “Love it. You look wonderful in red. I’m glad it’s all going well for you, sweetheart.”

  Once she was off to school, Monty had some fun playing with little Dominic and his emerging fleet of paper boats and planes. Then the nanny, Orla Farrell, arrived and the little fellow squealed, “Orla!” He pointed out the young woman to his dad, in case he had no idea who had just walked in the door. Dominic went over and gave her a proprietary hug. He was a boy in love, and he was not (yet) too afflicted with manly sangfroid to express it.

  All this of course brought home to Monty how lonesome he would be for his family when he returned to Belfast. But the idea of Maura and the children living in a city where bombs had been going off and bullets flying only months before was just not on. The university district where Monty was living had been fairly safe, but he would not be at ease with his wife and kids out and about in the troubled city, ceasefire or no ceasefire. Maura, by no means a nervous type, readily agreed that Dublin would be best for Normie and Dominic.

  Monty drove Maura to the law school on the south side of the city. From there he went to the Liberties to pick up Brennan and Ronan.

  They drove out of the city and headed north. Just past Dundalk, Monty saw a British Army checkpoint ahead. “This again,” muttered Ronan in the back seat. The soldiers of course knew immediately who he was, and they made the best of it, calling over a couple of RUC cops, who conducted a thorough and leisurely search of the car, not saying a word and not paying any heed to the long line of traffic stopped behind them on the road. Ronan was seething, as was Brennan, but they kept their cool. When they were finally released, they travelled for a couple of miles in absolute silence. Finally, Ronan said, “Almost enough to make me renounce my renunciation of the physical force tradition!”

  “I can understand that.”

  “I must tell you about my experience here a few years ago. Well, not a few years. Mid-1970s. It’s comical, looking back on it. Not so funny at the time.”

  Monty tuned in to the story.

  “I got lifted with a couple of other lads and thrown in the Kesh. I’ll spare you the details of the prolonged and ferocious beatings we endured following our capture.” He fell silent then, and Monty didn’t push him. Eventually Ronan resumed his tale in a lighter tone of voice. “From day one, I was planning my escape. After eight months in the cage, I got my chance. If they ever make the film, you’ll see me as the dashing hero, scaling the walls, running to freedom in my clean and nicely pressed clothing, my shining locks of hair ruffled by the breeze, running into the arms of my one true love. Except that she was at home with our three children, aged one to three. And as if Gráinne didn’t have her hands full with them, she was taking in other people’s washing and sewing to earn a few quid to put food on the table — and her with a university degree in chemistry. But anyway, in my film I will be the handsome hero home from the wars.”

  “But the film will have romanticized the scene a bit?”

  “A wee bit, sure. I in fact made my escape in a bin lorry. I seized the moment and leapt up into the lorry and hid by covering myself with rubbish, much of it wet rubbish, and I waited in the filth and the stink until the lorry driver returned to the vehicle and started it up and took forever to get away from the grounds of the prison. And if that wasn’t enough to take the shine off my big moment, it had been a hot, humid week and there were clouds of midges outside, and a swarm of them had got into the lorry and found me amidst the rubbish and converged on me and were biting every inch of my flesh, and I could barely move of course; couldn’t risk attracting the notice of the driver. Have I mentioned that I have a particularly strong immune reaction to insect bites? So I knew my eyes and my mouth — my mouth! — were getting all puffed up. And I nearly went mental with the urge to scratch myself.” He did a comic turn as a bug-ridden man twitching and scratching and going mad.

  Monty couldn’t help but laugh. “That’s the film you should make, Ronan. A comedy perhaps instead of a war adventure, but every single person in the audience will be feeling your pain, feeling that itch. This may be just the propaganda tool you need to bring people onboard for the peace initiative.”

  “The lorry made a stop out on the motorway, and I decided to bail. Shook off the rotting fish and vegetables and leapt out onto the side of the road. Then I had to entice someone going by to take a chance on me and give me a lift.”

  Monty was about to sing some lines of the Doors’ song about a killer out there on the road. Before he opened his mouth, he realized it might be a little too close to the truth. He settled for “Warning: do not give this man a lift. He could be armed and dangerous. Or, well, infectious.”

  “And bloody well looked it. A slew of cars went by, some slowing down so the drivers could take a good look at me, which made me even more of a nervous wreck because of course the news would be out about the peelers on the lookout, et cetera. One car stopped, and I looked inside and I could tell straight away it was a pair of Loyalist paramilitaries. So I doubled over and started retching. Made them think I would be boaking all over their car seats if they let me in. They drove off in disgust. A few minutes later, unbelievably, a woman stopped for me. Lady in her fifties. Must have been the motherly instinct in her. When I got in, I thanked her for stopping, and she said, ‘You’re the saddest wee thing I’ve ever seen. Can’t leave you out here or a pack of dogs will eat you. And the flies will take what the dogs won’t touch. What happened to your face?’ I looked at myself in the side mirror. My face was a mass of lumps and blotches. My eyes were red and swollen and nearly shut. I barely looked human. ‘You smell like a rubbish tip,’ she said. ‘You know that, do you?’”

  “‘Sure, I’m always like this,’ I said to her, and she gave me a sideways look. Probably heard Dublin in my speech. Then she asked me, ‘Where would you like me to . . . dispose of you?’ I said, ‘I don’t suppose you’re going to Newry today?’ And she told me the last thing on her mind on any day of the week was to go to Newry. But she looked over at me, and it was clear to me that she found me absolutely pathetic and in need of charity. At that point she turned on the radio and fiddled with the dial. ‘There will be all kinds of talk about the football,’ she said. ‘Do you follow the football?’ I knew what she was getting at. The All-Ireland GAA match at Croke Park. She was signalling to me that she was a Catholic, a Nationalist, which she figured I was from the way I talk. I answered her, said something about Jimmy Barrett’s winning goal. I said it in Irish, and she
turned and smiled at me. I said, ‘Dundalk?’ and she nodded. She was going to take me across the border.”

  Monty looked at the handsome, well-turned-out Ronan Burke of 1995, and tried to picture the spotty, smelly young man who had made his undignified exit from Long Kesh in a heap of garbage.

  “So then we chatted about football, about the war a bit, about her grownup sons and daughter, till we got close to Newry, and I got nerved up all over again. The news would have got out and the road to Dundalk was a typical escape route, and there would be Brit soldiers out on patrols. A bit of a no man’s land between Newry and Dundalk. She knew why I was going quiet on her, and she said, ‘Let me do the talking.’ Not much more than a minute later, two British Army Jeeps came up behind us. One of them passed and motioned for us to pull over. Oh, Jesus, Mary and Joseph, I prayed, don’t let this happen. Back in the Kesh, beaten and abused again. No choice of course except to pull off the road and wait for doom to fall.

  “Two squaddies get out of the first Jeep and come to our window. One of them has a rifle trained on us; the other asks us to identify ourselves and to say where we’re going. And my lady says, ‘We’re on our way to Dublin. And I’ll ask you not to hold us up.’ She jerked her head towards me in the seat and went on, ‘Have to get this wee lad to hospital.’

  “So I put a sick-man expression on my face, not that I needed it with all the swelling and red blotches.

  “‘There’s hospitals here in Ulster,’ one of the squaddies says. ‘What’s his trouble, that he has to go all the way to Dublin?’

  “‘He has to see an immune system specialist there, allergies and all that.’ They don’t look convinced. Then she leans towards the men at the window and whispers, though I can hear it, ‘Saint Patrick’s.’ The mental hospital in Dublin. They look me over and obviously find it credible that I’m in need of psychiatric treatment. At the very least, I’m clearly harmless. They let us go. They have more urgent business after all. You never know when an armed and dangerous escaped IRA man might come barrelling down the motorway.”