Authors: Morgan Llywelyn

1972 (20 page)

BOOK: 1972

9.28Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub

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Maybe later. Everything's “maybe later.”

But there is something I can do now.

He paid only a brief visit to the farm before heading north again. This time he left Ned Halloran's notebooks in a bank vault in Ennis.

His destination was Derry, which he remembered from his early days in the Army. He arrived in Derry on a fine afternoon in early summer. The sky was swept free of clouds by a fresh wind. Sun-kissed light percolated through narrow streets where laughing children played the games of children.

From the moment he arrived, Barry was taking photographs.

Derry was situated in a valley traversed by the River Foyle and surrounded by gentle hills. Once, those hills had been mantled by oak trees, part of the primordial forest which had been destroyed during the Elizabethan conquest. To the north of the city glimmered the broad waters of Lough Foyle. The lake narrowed dramatically at the head, providing protection from the often violent sea off the northern coast.

“Derry” was derived from the ancient Irish word
daire,
meaning oak; a name the Irish continued to use although the city officially had been renamed Londonderry by the English. As a result of this Derry/Londonderry identity, the town was also known as “Stroke City.” The nickname reflected its dual nature in more ways than one. Derry lay within County Londonderry, one of the Six, but a short distance out the Buncrana Road was County Donegalâin the Republic. Donegal considered itself as outside both the Six and the Twenty-Six. Although the people were emotionally committed to the Republic, they found much to admire in Northern Ireland. They abhorred sectarianism but appreciated the straightforward honesty of ordinary Protestants.

Like Belfast, Derry was a city divided. But in Derry the majority was Catholic. Unionist landowners and politicians made certain the Catholics never forgot they were inferior. They were contained in virtual ghettos, encircled by Protestants like thirteenth-century Marcher lords holding back the Welsh tide.

The Bogside district, which lay just below and to the west of the ancient walled city of Derry, covered nine hundred acres and was occupied by more than twenty-five thousand Catholicsâhalf the total population of “Londonderry.” Although there were some newly constructed flats, for the most part the Bogside and the nearby Creggan district, also Catholic,
consisted of slums and tenements; substandard rental accommodations for people who could never hope to own their own homes.

If they did not own their homes, they could not vote in local elections.

In the Bogside, Barry chatted with unemployed men on street corners and women on their front stoops. Their humour was wry and irreverent, but there was a sweetness, a gentleness, about them in spite of generations of hardship.
They deserve better than this. God knows, they deserve better than this.

Toward evening Barry was walking along Eastway Road in the direction of the Creggan when he heard someone shout his nameâhis real nameâand turned around in surprise.

U
RSULA returned the snaffle bridle to its peg and massaged her shoulder, wincing as her fingers encountered a particularly sore spot.
Damn it to hell
, she thought resentfully. Her back, her knees, even her neck were often stiff in the morning, she who had been so agile. The right shoulder was the worst, though, a deep pervasive ache that robbed her arm and hand of strength.

The two young geldings were the best horses produced on the farm in years. With their powerful hindquarters and bold way of moving, they would appeal to wealthy Americans looking for show-quality hunter prospects. If she could have them schooling over low rails by the time of the Royal Dublin Horse Show, perhaps she could sell them both for high prices.

The geldings had been backed in the spring and accepted the saddle without major resistance, but they needed a lot of roadwork to muscle them up. More than that, neither one had much of a mouth yet. She would have to spend long hours in the saddle, fingering the reins with consummate skill, giving and taking and giving again, making constant microscopic adjustments of pressure until each horse understood the telegraphy she was transmitting. Somewhere along the wayâbecause they were young and strong and full of lifeâone or both would rebel. If they did not have enough spirit to challenge her authority they would not have enough heart for a long day's hunting.

There had been a time when Ursula exulted in the feel of a young horse coiled like a spring beneath her. Matching her skill against his will. Using a subtle combination of strength and guile to convince the animal that resistance was useless. Then praising, rewarding, demonstrating the fun they could have together as long as the horse was obedient.

Such training required that the rider be in top physical condition. A horse could detect the slightest weakness and take advantage.

Ursula rubbed her shoulder again.

There was no one else she could entrust with the two geldings. Their quality demanded a talented trainer, something more than a local farm lad who would be willing to trot them down the road.
If only Barry were home
â¦

He was not as gifted with horses as Ursula, but under her expert eye he could have done the work. Instead she had just spent half an hour on the chestnut gelding, trying to convince him that she was in charge. But he knew better. He kept flicking an ear back toward her as if to read her mood, then setting himself against her hands. There was not enough strength in them to hold him. She had given up and turned him out into the paddock rather than risk an all-out battle that she was destined to lose.

Slowly she trudged back to the house.

Perhaps the shoulder would be better tomorrow.

A
s consciousness returned Barry received messages of distress from the outposts of his body. His mind was adrift with pain. With a deliberate effort he plunged back into the dark pit, and escape.

When he next opened his eyes he saw a balding man with the furrowed face of a bloodhound leaning over him. “How're you feeling then?”

“Fine as feathers,” Barry croaked in a voice he did not recognise as his own. When he tried to sit up, fire shot along his leg and exploded in his chest.

The man eased him back down onto the bed. “You'll not be going anywhere for a while. Just lie still, you're safe enough for now.”

Split lips and an aching jaw made it an effort to speak. “What happened?”

“I was hoping you could tell me. I found you lying all in a heap in a doorway. At first I thought you were dead, but when you groaned I brought you straight here, I couldn't leave you in the street. A job I had of it too; you're a mountain, you are.”

“Where are we?”

“My house. It's only a stone's throw from where I found you.”

Focussing on the man bending over him, Barry saw a clerical collar. “You're a priest?”

“I am a priest. Father Aloysius at your service.” The man smiled, causing his face to fall into still more pleats. “From your accent, I'd say you're from the south.”

“County Clare.” Barry closed his eyes for a moment.

“Clare. And your name is â¦ ?”

My name is
â¦ A cognitive struggle. “Finbar. Finbar Lewis.”

“Shall I fetch a doctor, Finbar? Or would you rather go to hospital?”

“No hospital,” Barry said quickly.
Helpless in a hospital in Northern Ireland? No way.
“How bad am I hurt?”

“I think you have some broken ribs, there's an almighty lump on the side of your head, and your left leg looks like it's smashed.”

“Jaysus.” A momentary nausea racked Barry. “It feels like that too. Plus there's a terrible pain in my back.”

“Do you want me to have a look?”

“Please.”

Father Aloysius eased Barry onto his side and pulled his clothing out of the way. Even the slightest movement hurt, but Barry gritted his teeth and made no sound.

“Almost the whole of your back is black and purple,” the priest reported. “And there are some marks â¦ you've been kicked in the kidneys by someone wearing steel-toed shoes, I've seen it before. They probably knocked you in the head, then battered you as you lay on the ground. It looks like you put up a fight before you went down, though. Your knuckles are badly bruised. All in all, I'd say you're lucky to be alive. A weaker man might have died from a beating like this.”

Barry's stunned mind was beginning to work in fits and starts. He recalled hearing his nameâ
My real name!â
and
then several menâhalf a dozen, maybe seven, not wearing uniformsâcame running toward him.
B-Specials?
The nausea was growing worse.
I fought back
. He held on to that small consolation.
I fought back!
In his mouth there was a taste of blood. “Perhaps you'd best fetch a doctor,” he whispered to the priest.

“Will you be all right if I leave you alone for a few minutes? My housekeeper's away for a couple of days, but I'll lock the door and be back as soon as I can.”

“Thanks,” Barry murmured as the darkness engulfed him.

The next time he opened his eyes two men were bending over him. One was the priest; the other was a stubby little man with a nose empurpled by broken veins. “Back with us, are you?” he asked in a curiously lifeless voice. His teeth were bad and his lustreless eyes looked like dirty marbles.

Barry felt an immediate aversion for him.

Father Aloysius said, “This man's a GP. He's come to help you.”

“I don't need help. Just let me rest awhile and I'll â¦”

“You'll do nothing,” said the doctor, “until we see to your injuries. JohnâFather Aloysiusâtells me you don't want to go to hospital. Is that right?”

“Right.”

“Listen to sense, young man. You may be concussed and you definitely have a couple of broken ribs. The leg's the worst, that's a compound fracture. We could set it here, I suppose; John could help me. But you'd be much better off in hospital whereâ”

“No hospital,” Barry growled through clenched teeth. “I mean it.” He glared at the doctor.

“All right,” the man said reluctantly, “but you may regret it. There are fractures both above and below the knee. A shard of bone's actually pierced your trousers. Looks like they beat you with clubsâor an iron bar. I can't think how they missed shattering the kneecap. Maybe there was so much blood, they thought they had.”

Barry made another desperate effort to get up. The two men gently pushed him back down. “None of that now.”

How do I know this man's a doctor? I have only the priest's word for it, but is Father Aloysius really a priest? Wearing a dog collar doesn't prove anything. I could buy clerical garb myself.
Barry's head was swimming. There was a maddening buzzing in his ears.

During the ordeal of straightening the bones and setting the leg, he fought with all his strength to remain conscious. At last the doctor stepped back and mopped his forehead. “Now don't move until that plaster hardens, young man. I believe there's some ligament damage, but I'm hopeful it will heal itself along with the bone. We're not out of the woods yet, though. With an injury like yours there's always a chance of infection. There's also a possibility that the blood could form a pool in your calf muscle, in which case we'd have no option but to put you in hospital. You could lose your leg.”

“I love good news,” Barry croaked.

Damn it all. Damn it all to hell. Damn them all to hell.

Much of his body was now either bandaged or encased in plaster. His head was swathed in gauze with only his eyes showing.

“Your own mother wouldn't know you,” Father Aloysius told him.

My own mother. God, I can't let her see me like this.
“I can't stay here, Father. People are expecting me.”

“And where would that be? Clare?”

“No.”
Whatever you say, say nothing.

“You'll not be fit to travel for a while, I'm afraid,” the priest said. “But you're welcome to stay here as long as needs be.”

What if he knows the men who attacked me? What if he's only waiting to turn me over to them?
“I don't want to be any trouble.”

“Ministering to the sick is part of my work, and anyway May Cooganâshe's my housekeeperâwill be back soon. She's good at nursing. Meanwhile, do you want me to send word to your family?”

“I don't have any family.”
What a fool I was not to tell someone where I was going.

“What about the people who're expecting you?”

“Just acquaintances. Not important.” Barry closed his eyes. With a sense of relief he heard the two men leave the room.

BOOK: 1972

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