Born & Bred (3 page)

They stood in a row, pissing up against the boles of trees, careful to stand with the wind behind them. Danny stood next to Scully and had almost relaxed when the Driller stepped up behind them and popped two shots into the back of Scully’s head.

Scully fell forward, his own piss still dribbling between his fingers. He twitched a few times and then grew still. Anto approached and nudged him with his foot before looking into Danny’s face. “It wasn’t personal, Boyle, ya know that? It’s just business. We have to maintain loyalty. Scully knew that, ya know?”

Danny didn’t speak and just nodded as he kept one eye on the Driller who still held his gun ready.

“And now we should commit our dear departed friend to the ground,” Anto continued like he was saddened by what had just happened. “And, when all the fuss has died down, we’ll come back and put up a nice little cross, or something. Scully used to be a good mate; it’s the least he deserves. Did you bring the shovel?” he asked the Driller who was still standing over Scully, ready to shoot again if he moved.

“No! Fuck-me. I left it in the car. Here,” the Driller held out the gun, cold and hard in the softness of his damp leather gloves. “Hold this while I get it.”

Danny fingered the cold metal, still reeking of death, and thought about it. He could pop them and get the fuck away without anybody knowing. He’d always wanted to be a hero—just like his grandfather who had fought off the Black and Tans.

**

“He would have been so proud of you, Danny boy,” his granny had reminded him the day he was Confirmed. “I’m sure he’s boasting about you right now with all of his old friends and comrades.”

She had brought him to the Garden of Remembrance because that’s where his spirit lingered. It was where she came to talk with him when the spinning of the world got too fast. He never spoke to her, she wasn’t crazy—like some people—but she always said that she found peace and calm in his silence.

She wanted to share that with Danny but he was too young still.

And too full of wonder, as he stared into the pool, at the mosaic on the bottom, ancient Celtic weapons, forever beyond use.

He watched his granny’s reflection walk to the other side of the cruciform, and, with the sunlight reflecting on the water and the brilliant white fluffy clouds just beyond her shoulders, she looked like a guardian angel. But he could tell that she was tiring. The long bus ride from Rathfarnham and the short one across the river and up to the “Square” had taken their toll.

When he looked up she rearranged herself and beckoned: “Come on now and sit down with your granny and enjoy a little bit of the peace and quiet they all died for.”

The sun was flittering through the fresh green trees and Dublin rumbled by outside without deference as Danny nestled in beside her and stretched his legs in front of him. He admired the sharp crease on his long pants. His shoes were a bit dusty and his socks had rolled down to his ankles. His ribbons fluttered under his nose, tickling as they passed. He was almost a young man now, almost ready to make his own way in the world, still clutching the envelope that Granny had given him on the bus.

“Go on,” she smiled. “You may as well open it now. Only give it back to me afterwards so I can keep it safe until we get home. It’s not much now, but it’s the least you deserve.”

Danny nearly piddled when he saw the two five-pound notes tucked in the folds of a handwritten letter that said how proud she was of him; how he was the reason that she was happy to get up every morning even though everything else she had loved had been taken from her. Her handwriting never varied and flowed until it carried him along to where she reminded him to stay close to God—that the Devil was never far away.

Danny read it slowly and deliberately before putting it back in the envelope which Granny tucked into the folds of her bag and looked at all the memories that swirled around them.

“When I was a girl the English opened their jails and sent their murderers over here to plunder and pillage, and, some say, defile any young girls who might be out at night.”

She fanned herself with her glove before continuing. “They were the Devil’s spawn, all right, but some of the boys weren’t going to let them get away with any more of that. Your grandfather was one of those that stood up to them. Even killed a few of them, too, but he got absolution for that. The priest told him to pray for their souls, every day; for the rest of his life, as his penance.

“Not that he ever talked about it, mind you, but then those that did the most say the least and that’s the way the holy mother of God wants it. Maybe it was Her plan all along—that Bart would kill them and then pray for their souls. That way they could still get to Heaven. Don’t you see?”

Danny nodded in total agreement. His grandfather was his idol. He was going to grow up just like him, too, and become the man that won the North back. Granny often told him that he had it in him—not like the Gombeens down in Leinster House. “Free-Staters,” she called them and almost spat the words. “They were the ones who locked your grandfather up for being too much of an Irish hero—the bunch of scuts, every one of them, God forgive me.

“But your grandfather never held a grudge. ‘We all die for Ireland, someday,’ he always used to say when people got to arguing about it. He wasn’t one for making a hash of the past, especially with those who hadn’t even been a part of it.”

She then fell silent among her memories as the breeze rippled the water and the flags, and the fresh green leaves, as Danny wandered among his own daydreams. After he had done all the patriotic stuff, he’d play football for Ireland and help them win the World Cup. And they would win it fairly, too, not like the English. The parish curate was starting a new team and had asked Granny if Danny could play for them. They must know how good he was, although he had never really played much.

He’d have to get a pair of boots, though. He’d get his father to buy them the next time he was over. Granny wouldn’t know the right ones. He would ask his mother to ask him; she always knew how to get him to do things.

“Can we go see my ma now?”

“Sure of course we can, pet. We can get the bus just down the street and we’ll be there in no time.”

She rose slowly and headed toward the gate, trailing her fingers in the water for a moment before raising them to her lips, her heart, and across her shoulders.

***

“You like that, don’t ya Boyle? A gun gives a man real power.” Anto lit another cigarette and watched Danny’s face. “Why don’t ya keep it? It could come in handy, ya know?”

Danny hesitated. He could get one of them—but which one? Anto was always packing. He had lit his cigarette with his left hand. His right was still in his pocket, facing Danny. And the Driller was coming back.

Danny decided against it. He would have to raise the gun on both of them and he couldn’t be sure that he would actually fire it. He might pause and that would give one of them a chance to pop him. He held the gun in his hands, turning it around before handing it back to Anto.

“Thanks, but I don’t want it.”

“Are you sure, Boyle? It could come in handy.” Anto reached his gloved hand forward and took the gun away. “C’mon then, let’s get the fuck outta here.”

“But what about Scully?”

“Ah, fuck him. We’ll make a call when we get back. The cops can come and pick him up.”

“But won’t they figure out what happened?”

“Don’t worry, Boyle. They’ll never be able to trace it back to us. That’s why we wear gloves. C’mon, let’s get to fuck outta here.”

Danny sat in the back seat and looked at his bare fingers, now imprinted on the gun. Anto had him over a barrel and there was fuck-all he could do about it.

“By the way, Boyle,” Anto turned when they pulled up outside the Yellow House, close to where Danny lived. “Now that Scully is no longer with us, we’ll have a few things for you to do.”

“I don’t know if I can.”

“C’mon, Boyle. You’re perfect for the job. And,” he paused to pull his gloves off, “we know we can trust you. Think about it and we’ll be in touch.”

CHAPTER 2

Danny’s mother listened to the radio as she waited for the kettle to boil. The news was full of the Queen’s visit to the North and Jacinta’s heart grew warm with hope. They were all tired of the fighting, but her heart froze a little when the newscaster went on to report on the finding of a young man’s body up near the Hell Fire Club. He had been shot in the head and left like rubbish among the trees.

Danny had been out late and she couldn’t help but worry. He had become so shifty again, avoiding her eyes and any questions about how he was spending his nights.

“It’s just one less feckin’ drug dealer,” Jerry snorted as he sat down at the kitchen table and waited for his tea.

She had seen that look on his face before. He had worn it for years when she was in the hospital, when he tried to show that he wasn’t afraid. “The sooner they all kill each other the better, as far as I’m concerned. Besides, it’s got feck-all to do with us.”

“Maybe you’re right, but did you ever wonder where Danny is getting all his money from? Every time he goes out, he buys things for himself.”

“He’s probably making it busking.”

“Are you sure? He’s got nearly two hundred under his mattress.”

“Good for him. He’s getting great on the guitar and he has a good voice. If only he’d sing something good, like Buddy Holly. I’m sick of all the punk shite he does.”

“But he can’t be making it all from that.”

“He’s probably got a few fiddles going—down at the Dandelion—you know? Buying and selling shit. Fair play, I say. Anybody who can make any money in this country is a feckin’ genius.”

“You don’t think we should be worried?”

“Not at all. Danny is a good lad at heart. He’d never do anything stupid.”

But Jerry wasn’t so sure. If Danny was anything like him, he’d get himself into more trouble than he could handle. He was probably involved, somehow. It was the only way he could be making money like that. The Ireland that Jerry’s father had fought for had become a hard place and he and Jacinta hadn’t made it any easier for Danny. He knew what was going on. There were drug dealers everywhere like they didn’t fear anybody.

But there were those that the drug dealers feared and Jerry knew someone who knew someone who knew them all. They might be interested in helping—for Bart and Nora’s sake if not for Jerry’s. He’d have to convince them, though. He had blotted his copybook with them before.

*

Danny lay in his bed, listening to them. He had hardly slept. He didn’t dare. He was haunted by Scully’s bruised and swollen face, and that look in his eyes—like he was just resigned. And afterwards, he almost seemed relieved that all the running and hiding was over, lying by the bole of a tree as his blood trickled from his head and mingled with own piss still dribbling off down the hill.

Danny retched again but his stomach was empty but for the bile that churned like a knife. It had all seemed like a game up until now, playing the hard chaw. He wasn’t going to be like his father, catholically bowing and scraping to bishops, priests and all those that carried out their will. Beaten down from the beginning, but, in the back of the car, he had prayed like a sinner and made promises into the dark.

He was ashamed of that. Despite all of his posturing and protestations he was just like the rest of them, a craven Catholic to the core, trapped in the limbo of Purgatory, lost and alone now, betrayed by hubris and delivered to the Devil.

No one was ever going help him—no one ever had. His granny said she was but she was just doing it so everybody could say what a great woman she was, raising a child at her age. His prayers had never been answered and it was stupid of him to think they might. He was cut off from all that.

He wished he could go down and tell his parents what happened but they had never been the type of parents that could make things better. Usually they just made things worse. They had never really been parents to him when he was growing up. His father had been in England and his mother was in St. Patricks’ Mental Hospital, even when he was Confirmed. But his granny had taken him to see her, just like she said she would.

**

“He gave the little wealth he had,” they used to chant in unison as they approached the front door, almost skipping along the path.

To build a house for fools and mad
And showed by one satiric touch
No Nation wanted it so much
That Kingdom he hath left his debtor
I wish it soon may have a better.

Granny had taught him that verse when they first started to visit, when Danny was very young. It made it all a bit more normal and she always said that she loved to hear him laugh and sing. “The great Dean Swift left the money to build it when he died,” she had explained. She had given Danny a copy of
Gulliver’s Travels
, too. Sometimes he brought it with him and pretended to read while his mother and his granny stared at each in stony silence only broken now and then by banalities.

“Oh, Danny, pet! I thought you’d get here much earlier.” His mother was agitated and lit another cigarette from the lipstick stained butt of the last. “I was even starting to think that you might have fallen under a bus or something.” She wore a skirt and blouse and had her hair brushed out. And she wore makeup. Usually she just wore her worn out robe with curlers in her hair. “But I’m so glad that you’re finally here. Come here to me,” she beckoned, “so that I can hug the life out of you.”

Danny waited for his granny’s nod of approval before nestling into his mother’s arms, feeling her cold cheek against his, and the soft warmth of her tears. He wanted to say something that would make her happy but he was unsure. His granny told him he had to be polite to his mother but she didn’t want him to get too close—for his own sake. She told him that his poor mother was not well, God love her, and that she couldn’t be a real mother to him right now.

“So did you have a nice day?”

“I did, Ma, it was very nice.”