Though the Heavens Fall

by Anne Emery

  “And,” said Ronan, “the fellas at the Flag will know if something’s not right in there. They know who’s who and what’s what.”

  So they left the house, and Ronan made the introductions.

  “Brennan, this is Fegan. I’ve never heard more than one name for him. Thinks he’s a Brazilian footballer, is dócha.”

  Fegan said, “I took more kicks in the Castlereagh detention centre than I ever managed to execute on the football pitch.”

  “RUC torture centre,” Ronan explained. But there was no need. The reputation of the Castlereagh “interrogation” centre needed no elaboration.

  “Nice to meet you, Father.”

  “Same. Please call me Brennan.”

  Brennan thought that maybe he should have taken off his Roman collar, but, well, it wasn’t as if a priest was an unusual sight in the bars of Ireland. Not even in the North, at least on the Falls Road.

  They left Andytown just as the sun was setting and drove on to the Falls Road. Brennan recognized the long-established Republican drinking hole at the corner of the Falls and MacDonough Street; he had been there years before. Fegan pulled up in front of the place, let his two passengers out, and turned left up the next side street to park the Jeep.

  Brennan and Ronan entered the bar. Nothing had changed since Brennan had last seen the place. The once-banned Irish tricolour was proudly displayed on the wall, along with photos of the old and new IRA and of the ten men who had died on hunger strike in the H Blocks. The man on bar duty tonight was not Paddy Murphy, but a young fellow who didn’t look old enough to legally raise a glass to his lips, let alone purvey the stuff to others. Nearly every one of the punters had a greeting for Ronan.

  “Father Mathew! Did my good wife send you forth to get me off the batter?” Father Mathew had been the apostle of temperance in Ireland in the 1800s.

  “All hail the Prince of Peace!” someone else said and raised his glass to the man they all knew to be involved in the peace talks.

  “Ronan Burke, second in command of the, em . . . how are you filling your time now, Ronan, with nobody to command?”

  “I hereby command every man in this room, and every woman, to enjoy a jar on me. Put it on my account, barkeep. You know I’m good for it.”

  “I do, sir,” he responded and began filling the glasses of everyone in the room.

  “And when you’ve filled those orders, Jimmy, the usual for me plus a pint of Guinness for Fegan, and a pint of Guinness and a shot of Jameson for the sagart here.”

  “Coming right up.”

  There was an ancient man in a tweed jacket seated at a table by the window; Brennan thought he had been in the same place last time. How long was it now, six years? Brennan nodded to him, and Ronan spoke to him on their way to a table in the back. “Keeping an eye on things for us, Shammy?”

  “As always, Mr. Burke. All clear out there now.”

  “Good man.”

  Ronan chose a table up against a wall away from the windows and sat with his back against the wall. Brennan sat across from him.

  “And here comes Mr. Fegan,” Shammy announced.

  Fegan came in and was greeted by the regulars. He sat down with the Burkes, and Ronan told him his pint was on order.

  When all the other drinkers had been served, Jimmy raised a finger to Ronan. “I’ll get them,” Brennan said and went to the bar. The two pints were ready, and Brennan’s Jameson as well. Ronan’s libation was acqua minerale frizzante imported from Italy. More of a treat perhaps than the local fizzy water? Brennan doubted it. He returned to the table with the glasses, placed them before his companions, then lifted his pint and said, “Sláinte! ” He took a long, satisfying sip of his Guinness, and Fegan did the same. Fegan and Ronan chatted about people they knew, some of whom would not be free to join them for, it seemed, several years.

  Rebel songs played in the background, and a few of the punters sang along. One selection in particular was greeted with a roar of approval and a clinking of glasses. “The Helicopter Song” by the Wolfe Tones. The song celebrated the daring escape of three IRA prisoners from Mountjoy Prison in Dublin back in 1973. A helicopter had been commandeered and the pilot ordered to put the chopper down in the exercise yard of the prison.

  “Popular tune, written by Sean McGinley,” Ronan said. “It flew up to number one on the charts in the Republic despite being banned by the government!”

  “I’ll never forget the oul man over in New York watching the news on television,” said Brennan. “The story of the escape came on, and the smile on Declan’s face! And this even though he was on the outs with the bold boyos at the time, as you well know, Ronan.”

  “Sure I know it, Brennan. But your da, as a former inmate of the Joy himself, would appreciate the boldness of it nonetheless.”

  “We arranged for a copy of the record to be sent over for him for Christmas that year. Between him and the rest of the family, we nearly wore the grooves off it. The fact that the warders thought it was somebody from the government touching down in the yard made it even more priceless.”

  “You heard what one of our lads said in response to that?” Fegan asked.

  “No, what?”

  “The lad, one of the prisoners, he’s standing close to a prison warder and he hears the warder say, ‘I thought it was our new minister for defence arriving.’

  “So our lad says to him, ‘It was our minister for defence, leaving.’”

  “Good answer, one for the ages! A reference to Twomey, I assume.” Brennan knew Seamus Twomey had been chief of staff of the IRA.

  The three of them savoured the historic moment, Brennan the Burke deliberately putting out of mind for now what those prisoners might have done to get themselves arrested in the first place. Brennan the priest would wrestle with those thoughts later, as he so often did.

  Fegan announced that he had to be on his way. “The wife wants me home early because we’re flying out to Spain in the morning and I, well, I’m a little slow when it comes to packing for a holiday. I’ve not packed a thing, actually, though it has to be said I haven’t completely unpacked from my last multi-year sojourn away from home. Anyway I’m under orders to get home early and get it done. I don’t want to rush you lads.”

  “What do you think, Brennan?” Ronan asked him.

  Brennan was in no hurry to leave the ceol agus craic, the music and the good times in the pub, but he didn’t want to put Ronan on the spot. Before he could come up with a reply, Ronan spoke for the two of them. “I think we’ll stay on for a bit, Fegan. You go ahead.”

  So he said his goodbyes and was off. A young couple came in then and looked around for a table. Ronan pointed to the two empty chairs, and the couple joined them. The man offered to buy a round, and the offer was accepted with good grace. The newcomers were from Derry, so Ronan asked Jimmy whether “I Wish I Was Back Home in Derry” was in the pub’s collection of recordings. It was, and the Banned Flag’s punters gave a hearty rendition, all but drowning out the voice of Christy Moore. Somebody noted that the lyrics had been written by Bobby Sands, who had died in the hunger strike of 1981, so everyone stood and raised a glass to the portrait of Sands on the wall.

  When he was seated again, Brennan heard old Shammy at the window. “Ach, now, I don’t like the look of that.”

  “What is it, Shammy?” someone asked.

  “That fellow with his cap pulled down. His car’s still running and he’s coming . . . What the —”

  Before he could finish the thought, the door banged open. Something was thrown into the pub and clanked on the floor. The place began to fill with smoke. Brennan could hardly breathe.

  “Lads!” Jimmy cried from the bar. “Out! Now! Back door!”

  Chairs tipped and clattered to the floor, as every man and woman bolted from the room and ran to the back of the pub. Ronan and Brennan assisted Jimmy
in trying to get them all out in a safe, orderly manner. “Here, now, Agnes, you go on ahead,” Ronan said to an elderly woman who was well in her cups.

  “God bless you, Mr. Burke,” she said.

  With Ronan, Brennan, and the barman staying behind to man the door, everyone spilled out of the building, some with their glasses still in hand. There was a cacophony of voices as people shouted panicked questions across one another, expecting no answers. A few people ran off into the night; others simply halted, stunned and uncertain, in the alleyway behind the bar.

  Jimmy stepped inside again and quickly returned. “Is everybody out?” Brennan and Ronan asked, simultaneously.

  “All out,” Jimmy answered. “Go! Everyone! Keep going! Get clear of the place!”

  Ronan said to Brennan as they hoofed it down the alley, away from the building, “This is exactly the kind of thing I’m determined to —”

  He never got to finish. All Brennan heard was the crack of a rifle. He felt Ronan go down beside him. Another shot, and another. Jimmy cried out behind him. Brennan couldn’t see the gunman or gunmen, out there in the still, cold night. Ronan was flat on his back, silent, unmoving. Brennan fought down the primal fear, the overwhelming urge to flee from danger. Time slowed down. He dropped to his knees on the concrete beside his cousin. What did he have that was white, that could be waved as a flag of surrender? There, in Ronan’s jacket pocket, a white piece of paper. But then he remembered. Priests waving white handkerchiefs had been shot to death on more than one occasion here in Belfast, while ministering to people who were lying on the ground dying of bullet wounds. What could he do? Nothing but stay down beside Ronan and try to keep him alive. With his right hand, he checked for a pulse. He was no medic, but he found it. Slow but present. Blood was oozing from Ronan’s gut and his left leg. Shot down on the Falls Road, Belfast. Did you call for an ambulance with guns trained on you? Had the gunmen fled?

  “Get the ambulance!” Brennan shouted into the air. As if nobody else had thought of it.

  Then he began to pray. He prayed to God to spare Ronan Burke, a man trying to bring peace to his tormented country. But Ronan was fading before Brennan’s eyes. He needed Extreme Unction, the last rites. Father Burke had no oil, no holy water. He skipped ahead in the rite: “Almighty and eternal God, raise him up with Thy right hand, strengthen him in Thy might, defend him by Thy power . . .”

  He heard shouting all around him. How long had he been kneeling here? Mere seconds? No. He heard sirens approaching. Police, ambulance. It was all a blur after that.

  Chapter XX

  Monty

  Monty had spent Saturday afternoon and evening with Maura and the children, and they enjoyed treats and games and had a fine old time. He had been issued a notice that a number of his fellow lawyers would be meeting to take in a late-night session of traditional music at Morrisons bar, but he told Maura he would decline the invitation and stay home. She, however, urged him to go. His time as a solicitor in Belfast might feel endless to him, but he really had less than two more months here, and he might as well enjoy his new friendships while he could. So he hiked over to Morrisons and got in on the party. As a consequence — actions have consequences, my son — he was a little slow getting himself motivated, or even out of bed, on Sunday morning. His spouse, ever understanding, had left their bed with the words, “No point in trying to haul your sorry arse out into the land of the living, so I won’t even try.” He had fallen back asleep but now he heard her voice again, from the other side of the bedroom door. She kept repeating the same two words over and over.

  “Oh, God. Oh, God. Oh, God.”

  He bolted from the bed, yanked the door open, and saw Maura staring down in horror at the Sunday paper. Her face was grey. He moved to her side and read the headlines.

  Ronan Burke and Barman Shot Outside Pub

  Ronan Burke, well-known Andersonstown Republican, was shot at 8:35 last evening outside the Banned Flag pub on the Falls Road. Sources at the Royal Victoria Hospital would not give any details of his condition except to say that it is “serious.” James MacColgan, 24, barman at the Banned Flag, was wounded in the shoulder; he was treated in hospital and released. A priest with Mr. Burke, believed to be a relation, attended to the fallen man, as did staff of the Banned Flag until police and ambulance services arrived.

  Priest. Lots of priests around, but Monty knew it was Brennan Burke. Maura wasted no time wondering who it was. She knew.

  “Hospital?” Maura asked, making an obvious effort to keep her voice steady. “Or should we call Ronan’s family first? No, we can’t add to their distress.”

  “Hospital,” Monty replied.

  He got himself washed and dressed in five minutes, then conscripted a neighbourhood woman, with whom he had become friendly, to take care of the children along with her own three. She had heard about the shooting and assured him he could take all the time he needed. Then he was at the wheel of the car with Maura beside him.

  “Do you know where the hospital is, or should we ask —”

  “Just off the Falls Road,” he told her. “Brennan pointed it out.”

  Maura opened the paper and read the rest of the article. “Witnesses who declined to be named said a device was thrown into the pub just before the shooting; it was later identified as a smoke bomb. The witnesses say they saw a car speed away from the bar and travel east on the Falls Road. The shooting occurred outside, behind the building, reportedly as people evacuated the premises after the smoking device was thrown inside.”

  “Jesus Christ,” Monty said, “they ran right into the trap. That was probably on Ronan’s mind even as he was leaving the building.”

  “I’m sure it was. But when something’s thrown into a bar in Belfast and starts to smoke, what else are you going to do but hightail it out of there?”

  “Exactly. You know you’re running a risk either way. A bomb or a hail of bullets.”

  “Please, please, God, let him be all right!” Maura prayed.

  Monty echoed the plea, silently, then asked, “What else does it say, anything?”

  “At press time there had been no arrests, but an RUC spokesman said the police are following several leads. Mr. Burke is understood to have been, at one time, adjutant, or second in command, of the Provisional IRA’s Belfast Brigade. Recently, however, he has been an outspoken advocate of laying down arms and following a peaceful and constitutional path to resolution of the conflict. It has been speculated that he may play a prominent role if and when new governing institutions are established.”

  There was no need to state the obvious: that not everybody was ready to lay down arms.

  “Another headline on the front page: ‘Fragile ceasefire: will it hold?’ They’ve got quotes from various factions saying the ceasefire hasn’t been broken. It will hold.”

  The traffic crawled along, stopped and started, and Monty fought down the urge to swerve out and pass. The air in the car virtually crackled with tension. But finally they arrived.

  They knew they could not just walk in and see Ronan so they spoke to the nurse on duty, who directed them to a waiting area where the family were gathered. They found the two sons sitting on plastic chairs, knee to knee in intense conversation, oblivious to the newcomers. Gráinne was hunched over in her chair with a set of rosary beads in her hands. She got up when she saw Monty and Maura and came towards them. Her face was grim. Oh, God.

  “Gráinne, we are so sorry,” Monty said. “What’s the word? How’s Ronan?”

  “He had three bullets in him. He’s had surgery. He lost a lot of blood. Of course he’s still knocked out . . .”

  Monty wasn’t about to ask where the wounds were or what the doctors had said. But Gráinne continued her report, “They told me one bullet went through the outside of his left thigh, and that will heal. But two bullets ‘perforated’ the bowel. That says to me ‘ripped through.’ But they oper
ated on him. They said the bullets didn’t hit the liver or a major artery . . . They tried to sound reassuring, but they always do, don’t they?”

  Maura put her arms around the distraught woman and said, “We’re with you all the way, Gráinne, as you know.”

  “I know, Maura, thank you. Brennan was here, saying prayers and . . . prayers interspersed with curses. He’s gone for a bit of a walkabout. He’ll be back soon, I imagine.”

  “We’ll just wait over there for him.” Monty pointed to a line of chairs farther up the corridor. He didn’t want to crowd the family.

  “He’ll be needing a bite to eat, Brennan will. He’s been with us all night.”

  Monty and Maura moved off and sat without speaking. Brennan appeared a few minutes later. His face was white, his white collar smeared with blood.

  They got up and walked to him. Maura embraced him. “I don’t know what to say to you in this situation, Brennan.”

  He sounded a little hoarse, a little weary, but he came up with a response. “I can’t help you with that. The etiquette here is a little different from what you’re accustomed to in the peaceable kingdom of Canada. The word ‘ceasefire’ has shades of meaning here, as well.”

  A nurse came by then, and Brennan recognized her. He said, “How is he doing, Sarah, really?”

  “He received some serious wounds, Father, but he got through the surgery.”

  To Monty that sounded as if there had been some doubt that he would get through it.

  The nurse said, “We’re all looking forward to a good outcome. And this is the best place for him, to make that happen.” It was well known that, for obvious reasons, the hospitals in Belfast were world leaders in the treatment of gunshot wounds.

  The nurse went on her rounds. Monty heard the woop-woop and nee-naw sounds of emergency vehicles outside; another in the long line of catastrophes.

  “Have you had anything to eat lately, Brennan?” Maura asked.

  “Hospital food.”

  “So you’ve had something.”