The Troubles (4 page)

     I can see glints of green in my periphery as I make my way past her demolished home. I gravitate to see that weeds, which breathe life, are breaking through the gravelly debris and sediment of silt. There are dark, green shamrocks, which she would have declared to be good luck, and pale pink meadow cowslips and yellow oat grass camouflage the concrete and broken brick rubble. “Aunt Maura…” I mutter through cold steamy morning breath. “I see that the Otherworld has ya and that ya’ve left bits and pieces of yerself.” 

     This is the powerful faith in ancestral afterlife I have grown to trust in. The Otherworld is a realm thought to exist underground in the ‘sidhe' or westerly of Ireland, parenthetic to the Fortunate Isles, a place where fairy folk and beings of supernatural nature dwell, enticing the living to join them within the divine in an eternity of merriment and lark. It is believed, an otherworldly woman can present as an apple or an apple branch to the living and as I am looking directly at the budding life thriving through the debris of this broken structure, my eyes suspect Aunt Maura, is presenting a gift to me as a small apple tree sapling reveals itself. There is solace in my visualization that she is living in happiness without the human afflictions of illness, where mortality and time elapses in such way those one hundred years feels but a day.

     The cue of my place of employment stretches deep in front of me as my coworkers stand like sheep and deal amongst themselves with idle chatter. I am in no mood for the polite social niceties that we Irish people pride ourselves on as I cast my grey eyes down to the comparably toned concrete road. With the defining whirr of an insect I feel a warm static brush to the back of my hand. Spinning around with adrenaline pumping into my temples causing them to ache, I am startled by the laughing woman facing me who happens to be my best mate lest only friend in my world. 

     “Let’s go out for a wee dander.” Her Northern Irish brogue is thick like sweet honey as she extends her r’s and her question presents as one long word.

     ’’Ena!’’ I laugh brazenly loud though ignored by the fray of voices that have begun to annoy me like nails upon a chalkboard. “Do ya think I came down the lagan in a bubble? Ya know if we don’t make roll call we’ll be docked our wages?’’ My friend just stands there like a startlingly, beautiful gem with rare olive skin that looks polished, black hair the color of pitch and virile deep set amber eyes which seem to signal to me without words. She has been in my life for as long as I can remember, as our families are close neighbors in the Shankill suburb and have become friends beyond the geographical bond. She has always been the more gregarious of the two of us and the extrovert to my own introvert.  After middle school she had also used her family’s good standing name to unknowingly join me in working the backbreaking hours at the Short Brother’s factory and for this I cannot be more indebted to her, for to have a companion is priceless. There is extreme solidarity to our relationship and an understood willingness on either side to protect the other at all costs. She might be my first love if I took the pagan doctrine of love literally in which there is no distinction between feminine or masculine desire, that lust or lack of defines love.

     Ena has brought levity and sometimes misplaced humor to my own growing disillusionment and melancholy perspective in our universe. She has not seen me since our house had been made a marked target of the IRA but reading her expression she has been told of the attack.

     ‘’Ya are me sham and there is much to to be discussed. Let’s take it to the Belfast Lough.’’ She grabs me hard twisting me free from the cue.

     “Shut yer bake Ena. Don’t be a tool!’’ But I am not serous in my resistance and almost immediately fall in rehearsed line next to her. With my back turned to the heavy weight factory gates I smile at my friend and struggle with stilted breaths to explain all that has transpired in the last few days. The first words that spill of my mouth are that I have become utterly captivated by the young man with the green eyes, the same color as the banks of the Lagan in spring.

CHAPTER 8: An te a luionn le madai, eiroidh se le dearnaid (He who lies down with dogs, gets up with fleas)

     Alastar Taggart…I had gotten up before the rest of the household, this unexceptional morning November 3rd 1971. My worse for wear father had been sleeping off his drink when I had looked in on him. In his state of narcosis he looked more like a corpse than a forty-five-year-old man. I was appalled by the bedroom scene with its hoarded liquor bottles and strewn laundry but I allowed my frustration to propel me to take on the daunting motions the next few days were to hold with a newfound gumption. I had looked into my sibling’s bedroom and found two sisters sleeping soundly with drool upon their parallel pillows but as my gaze set on my slumbering brother Quinn, his eyes shot open as though he had been waiting for me. In the still hour of predawn, he mouthed quietly with a childish lisp, “Da’s still buckled isn’t he? Ya don’t need to tell me. I know I must stay here at our gaff. Good slainte be with ya Alastar.” I gave a reassuring smile to Quinn, indicating that all would be well and I would be back as the informal head soon, despite the fact my heart was pumping so loudly through my ribcage I had feared I would wake everyone up in the small room.

     Lanary is sitting in the cool morning breath, content, at Belfast Central when I arrive with my proper Sunday jacket cloaking me. Slung over my shoulder is my lunch bag brimming with the essentials for our journey to Dublin. The crowded Belfast-Dublin Railway line is the only cross borderline going from Northern Ireland to the Republic of Ireland and is as deafening as a stampede of cattle, but no matter the chaos or anger around this masterly man, his meditative state permeates through his surroundings assuring accomplices that this is his defining quality.

     As we both slide effortlessly into the small passenger booths I turn and address my companion. “Thank ya for taking the time to go to Dublin with me, Lanary.” There is a quiver of unease in his expression but his words deftly console me.

    “There’s no concern, Alastar,’’ he calmly states while staring out of the clouded window pane onto the intersecting throngs of passengers on the platform. “Ya should have company to meet Mr. Goulding. He ought to be a mighty tricky fella.”

     I push the uncertain confrontation to the far reaches of my mind and watch transfixed as the cityscape rapidly transforms into the grassy hills that box Belfast in. My stomach aggressively lurches as we descend at a perilous angle into the wet peat lands of Northern Ireland’s countryside. The formidable scent of tobacco gusts by as Lanary has pulled out his rolling papers and with unsteady worked fingers, the result I suspect of a lifetime of stimulants, he has rolled a smoke. Taking a long drag through the orifice that peaks through his unkempt alabaster beard he gives me his colloquial eye wink from his left eye though all I can focus on are his exposed hands which look like gnarled tree trunks, his knuckles protruding arthritically with his veins wrapped like vines strangling his fingers.

     To the right of the hard bench we are sitting on is a twenty something, considerably unattractive woman and she has been peering at us from underneath teal blue horn rim glasses. She has an expression of distaste cast upon her sunken features as though Lanary and I are offensive to her sensibilities. I am in such a state of absurd paranoia that I eyeball her rudely in retort. As her face flushes with the awareness she has been caught, she hastily readjusts her stocky frame and fervently stares out her window as though something in the landscape has suddenly captivated her attention. I immediately look to Lanary to see if he has caught this bizarre exchange, but to my chagrin he seems blissfully unaware, putting the butt of his cigarette back into his pocket.

     I do not know if she is following us as an inept spy. Could she be a UVF paramilitary member? Are Catholics now being marked and targeted if they cross border lines into the Republic of Ireland? I second-guess our expeditious mode of transportation. Perhaps we should be travelling more inconspicuously. I know by making this trip, my further dealings, whatever they may be, will have to be done in a plotted and clever covert manner.

     Forty-five minutes have gone by quickly and the train is slowing down as we have now reached the small town of Lurgan. The woman again stares right at me and her skittish toothy grin greets me as she gathers her belongings to unexpectedly exit the train car. For an extended second I hunger neurotically for the ample woman to manifest into the hauntingly, beautiful girl I had seen in the midst of the street fight weeks ago. Lanary sitting by my left, acknowledges me curiously, “She must have fancied ya. Couldn’t take her eyes off ya.’’ I had not been conscious that I had been tensing every fiber of my muscles and was holding my baited breath deep in my abdomen.     “Haah.”  I breathe out all my superfluous tension and sink back into my seat embarrassed that my effect on women is obviously unapparent to me and that my paranoia has caused me to fail as a judge of character.

     Last night was spent deliriously rearranging my thoughts in a failed attempt to minimize the guilt I was feeling for leaving our Father, who at this point, is even less responsible than my younger siblings. I surreptitiously lie to myself that I am doing this for my family and not out of any vengeful feelings I might have concerning Reardon’s death. I pride myself on being a pragmatic, overly logical, but generally honorable man and though I have not axiomatic until now, the raging aggression my people have carried like the bricks of Belfast since 1912 has finally broken my calm reserve.

     My eyelids are gathering luxurious weight and although uncomfortable in my seat, I seamlessly fall into a deep sleep. There are no dreams this time; just the dark but kind reprieve of day-to-day life. Unwillingly with a quick temper, I open my eyes to sudden commotion. I cannot tell how long I have been asleep as the light shining in the windows bares the same height of the earlier shadows. Could the train be turned to the west therefore the sun is filtering in from a different direction? I have little time to establish the hour as Lanary strongly pulls me up on my feet with surprising force. I am still unsteady with sleep’s drunken stupor and I trip forward onto his back, twisting my ankle painfully. He is strong, much more formidable than his lanky form suggests and he does not succumb to my lethargy as he drags me down onto the crowded platform with a sign overhead prominently announcing the small town, Newry. 

       There is a mid-morning crowd pushing its way onto the train and Lanary and I are lost in the throng momentarily. I finally catch my breath and demand from him an answer to this forceful hijacking.     ‘’What is wrong?’’ I address him in a reserved respectful tone, as he is not typically over reactive. “Lanary, did ya think we were in danger? Are we okay?”

     He takes a prolonged moment to respond as he watches the Belfast-Dublin Railway Line ease out of the Newry train station and finally, as it gathers speed he says in a hushed rough timbre, “There was a man two cars back that had boarded with us in Belfast. When you were sleeping he came to sit where yer female beau had been. I could tell from me time in the service that he too was a fellow solder. I did not wish to chance that we would be tailed by the paramilitary so I assumed if we departed the carriage, I would be certain one way or another if he was in pursuit of us.”

     “Well?” I ask him hurriedly, “Was he?’’

     “Must have been.’’ Lanary swivels his gaze to the train again. I turn back to the delayed car anxiously. I am heated now. My blood fevered and I uncomfortably sense a blush creeping up my neck.

     “Did he get off here at Newry? What does he look like?’’ I query.

     “Nay, son, nay.” Lanary is already making his way off the platform and onto the meager sidewalk of the cracked cement street and I have to run to match his long limbed gait.

     “Wait!” I yell, but there is no response as he marches quickly, seemingly, with a veiled mission on his mind propelling his march forward. I haven’t been made privy to where exactly he plans to go and how he plans to get us to Belfast.

    “Stop Mr. Sloan! Let’s take a moment here.’’ At once with the mention of this man’s dreaded surname he slows to match my pace. He looks reticent and a little sullen that I have drudged up the moniker from his past profession as a secondary school history teacher.

     Year eight of secondary school at the bare as bones Ashfield Boys Catholic High school had been a vexing year for me. Mother had been gone for one and a half painful years and while my deserted family did not have many resources we still were looking for her and to this day when I catch a glimpse of a raven haired woman from a distance my heart hopefully skips a beat. I was losing hope in ever finding her and had thought her to be dead, as her own parent’s did not know where she was or were not willing to tell my drunkard father the truth. My father though, still able to work, was starting to show fissures in his mental stability and had spent more days on his favorite tattered chair than at the shipyard. His evenhanded firing was just a matter of time.  I had been a fine student to this point and though I was a normal size for my age, my classmates like animals smelling blood, began to harass me about my household’s hardship as gossip fettered through the schoolyard like a lice infestation. One day in the middle of a particularly ugly confrontation, I had come apart at my seams, snapping into a blind rage and had assaulted my attacker to the point of him pleading and erupting into tears. “Me da will knock yer bollix in,” I had screamed at the boy again and again while punching him in his face, sprays of blood spouting from his cracked nose. This was the pertinent and fateful moment I had met our year nine History professor, Mr. Lanary Sloan.