Civvies (24 page)

‘I said, for that much, love, I’d swing from a chandelier naked! An’ that’s how it started, like it was just a laugh, you know…’ Trudie threw back her blonde head and laughed, everything shaking and jiggling, including the dragons dangling from her earlobes. Wally was well into another of his interminable tales that never seemed to have a point or a punchline: ‘…an’ then the C.O. caught us red-handed — what you two friggin’ think you’re playin’ at? We’re collectin’ information on the opponents’ military capabilities, sir!’ ‘So we raided the house, small terraced job, opposite the suspect
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house.’ A Full Screw — corporal — from 3 Para was holding two young Toms enthralled. ‘An’ we get into the loft, then we get a slate off, use the old elastic band gig, an’ we…’ he crouched down, using his hands for binoculars ‘… were stuck in there for fourteen fuckin’ days!’ ‘No, listen,’ Harry said, hanging onto the bloke next to him, because if he didn’t he’d fall over, ‘Harris — Steve —he turns to the arsehole, says to him — Sir, I wasn’t doin’ any field signal, I was tellin’ that bugger behind me to get a friggin’ move on! Laugh …!’ Dillon, in the middle of five, had one of his best stories rolling. He’d gone from keg bitter via Newcastle Brown, with a brief detour for a Grolsch or three, to Famous Grouse, and he was feeling on top of the world, no muzziness, no whirling pit, dandy, just great, fantastic. ‘… so Jimmy says, Sir, I know how we can get our bearings — compass was lost, see — so he takes out this razor blade, starts stroking it against the palm of his hand, an’ this prat of an officer looks on. What the hell you doin’, Hammond? Magnetising the razor, Sir. He ties this piece of cotton round it, and it worked. Next day there’s this prat with a bandaid round his hand — an’ we know…’ Dillon broke off, gasping with laughter ‘… we know the stupid bastard’s gone an’ tried it!’ From the kitchen doorway, standing with Helen and Shirley, Susie watched her husband’s face. His eyes had nearly gone, that was easy to tell, but she didn’t mind. It was the first time since he’d come out that he’d allowed himself to relax, really let go. She knew the strain he was under, trying to make a go of things. Things had been tough at first, no proper job to slot into (not much call in Civvy Street for Fieldcraft — weapons handling, camouflage and concealment, surveillance of enemy firebase), and on top of it, the trouble with Taffy and Steve. But now, fingers crossed, things were looking up. Not just a job, any old job, but his very own business, and money to back it, thanks to Mr Marway. Feeling a bit guilty that she was neglecting them, Susie looked round for the couple, but they seemed to have drifted off somewhere. Hardly surprising in this bedlam. Her own head was starting to throb, and a fixed look of long-suffering exhaustion was stamped on Helen’s face, like one of those TV adverts for premenstrual tension. Tina Turner had replaced Buddy Holly, her raucous, strangulated voice belting out Simply the Best. A drunken chorus took it up, and Dillon was hauled onto a chair, glass in hand, to lead the community singing. Halfway through the mind-blowing din, Harry turned the sound low and gave Dillon a broad sweaty grin and the thumbs-up. ‘Thanks — thanks for coming…’ Dillon beamed down on them, on top of the world, his voice hoarse with singing and the emotion of the moment. ‘This is a big day for me, for Stag Security — so pass, it on to any of the lads comin’ out into civvies — we got work for ‘em!’ He stuck his fist in the air, pumping it in a victory salute. ‘We’re simply the best!’ Cheers and shouts turned into a chant of ‘Dance! Dance! Dance!’ which was all the encouragement Dillon needed, if he needed any. A space cleared, and Dillon and Tina went for it, a circle of clapping hands and stamping feet, the singing almost loud enough to drown out the stereo. On the fringe of the crowd, Susie shrank away, embarrassed at the spectacle Dillon was making of himself. He was gone, in a world of his own, shirt stuck to his body as he spun round and round, arms up, fingers clicking, hips swaying, performing fancy side-steps and sensuous shimmies. Then she thought, he’s not at all bad. In fact he was good. Hellfire, he was brilliant! Helen had had enough, both of Dillon’s gyrations and Tina Turner’s shrill vocals. She leaned over and shouted in Susie’s ear, ‘Can somebody change that bloody record! You know the neighbours have been at the door — next thing they’ll call in the police. Turn it down!’ Susie nodded, put her glass down on the sideboard and slid open a drawer; she had something else in mind. Frank was enjoying himself and she wasn’t going to spoil his fun, not tonight of all nights. She knew it was here somewhere, amongst their collection of EPs, some of them as old as the Ark. Rummaging through, she pounced, triumphant. ‘Found it!’ She held up the record in its tattered paper sleeve for Shirley to see. ‘This used to be his favourite — he’s always loved dancing to it.’ There was no way she could get near the stereo. ‘Harry!’ Susie waved to attract his attention, handing the record to him over the heads and crush of bodies. ‘Will you put this on, it’s his…’ pointing to Dillon, still lost in the music ‘… it’s his favourite.’ Harry yelled, ‘Cliff! Cliff!’ and passed the record on to Cliff at the turntable, then went back to his monologue on the art of warfare that even Tina Turner couldn’t disrupt: ‘I mean, a stun grenade, mate, it’s what — fifteen centimetres high and ten centimetres round, weighs 250 grams, you pull that ring, you get one helluva bang that ignites the magnesium — that’s what creates the flash-bang effect…’ Cliff had missed his way as a deejay. There was barely a break in the music. One moment Dillon was whirling and singing along to Simply the Best in the middle of a bopping, heaving crowd. In the very next, four heavy pounding piano chords pummelled the air. BAM-BAM-BAM-BAM! You shake my nerves and you rattle my brain — BAM-BAM-BAM-BAM! Too much in love drives a man insane — The crowd bopping and heaving around him, Dillon stood frozen to the spot, hair plastered to his scalp, sweat dripping off him. Something in his face seemed broken. His throat worked. Wild-eyed now, his expression ugly, demented, Dillon barged forward, roughly thrusting bodies out of the way. He reached out, hands like claws, swiped the playing arm, an horrendous screeeeech as the stylus skidded across the record. ‘Which bastard put this on!’ Panting, staring round, eyes out of kilter, mad-looking. Harry was there in a trice, a bulky, comforting arm around Dillon’s shoulder. ‘Outside, come on, old son. Let’s have a breather…’ Numbed by the suddenness and shock of it, Susie watched her husband being led away, shoulders hunched under the protective shelter of Harry’s arm. As for the third or fourth time that night Tina Turner began yet another rendition of Simply the Best.

Some of the crowd had spilled from the flat onto the outside landing. They were getting to the silly stage, fizzing up bottles of lager and squirting one another, laughing like drains. Farther along, neighbours were poking their heads out, and when they didn’t get much change, slamming back inside. Harry sat on the concrete steps. He offered a cigarette to Dillon and they both smoked for a while, the thump of music, shouts and screams of laughter issuing from the flat. Leaning against the brick parapet, Dillon stared off into the darkness, a million light-years away. He hardly heard Harry’s angry, ‘I’ll whop that idiot Cliff! Guess he didn’t know, Frank.’ As if voicing a private thought, Dillon said, ‘I don’t understand, it’s only since I been in civvies it keeps on comin’ back…’ A bottle went over and splintered in the courtyard below. From somewhere, a man’s enraged shout about this time of night, pack it in or else. Dillon dragged deep, let the smoke out with a sigh. ‘Yeah, I know, you think I want to get involved?’ he said. The question was addressed as much to himself as to Harry. ‘He says they’re in London.’ ‘Yeah, an’ maybe Wally’s contact’s a load of crap,’ Harry said. ‘Right now, we got an opportunity to give a leg-up to our lads comin’ out. They all need work.’ He stood up and flicked his cigarette end away, the red ember sailing off through the dark air. ‘Let’s go back in, I don’t want one of those buggers pullin’ my blonde.’ The music was even louder now, hysterical screams mixed in with it. Another bottle went crashing down. The men outside the flat were booming out ‘Here we go here we go here we go. Here we go here we…’ full-throated baritones and basses. Dillon made a small gesture. ‘Yeah, go on, gimme a few minutes.’ Harry moved off. He looked back over his shoulder. ‘Not our war any more, Frank,’ he said, and carried on, shouting at the drunken scrum outside the flat to bloody well keep the noise down. From the landing below a woman’s voice screamed up, ‘I’m gonna call the police! You hear me? I’ve got two kids tryin’ to sleep, you got no right! Stop it!’ She was standing in the concrete stairwell, built out from the main block, strained white face staring up. A thin woman with straggling hair, she clutched the fur-trimmed collar of a long coat to her throat, a night-dress underneath, fluffy slippers on her bare feet. She spotted Dillon at the parapet and shook her fist at him. ‘You bastards think you own this estate! I got two kids scared out of their wits… !’ Dillon stared back down into the venomous face, pinched with fury. He was used to faces like that, women’s faces especially. And their eyes. It was their eyes that haunted him. Eyes that looked at him as if he’d crawled out from under a stone and left a trail of slime behind him. As if he wasn’t even human. As if he wasn’t any kind of life-form at all.

Border checkpoint. County Tyrone. October 1987. It is dusk, the poor light made worse by the drizzle sweeping in across the fields and the isolated clusters of farm buildings, their red corrugated roofs shining slick-wet. A line of vehicles, cars and vans, most of them old and beat-up, all of them mud-spattered, wait at the striped barrier. The squaddies are in no hurry. They are here till changeover at twenty-one hundred, so it makes no difference to them. Four men form a semi-circle round the car at the barrier. They wear flak jackets over their
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uniforms, with special non-slip shoulder pads for their rifle butts. At the hip, trained on the leading vehicle and ready to fire, they hold L1A1 rifles, fitted with thirty-round magazines. The sling of the weapon is attached to the right wrist so that it can’t be snatched off in a scuffle. While these four keep watch, three men and a corporal search the car and its occupants. In this instance, a single occupant, a young man of about twenty, twenty-one. Suspect age group, late teens, early twenties, so he is made to stand, hands on head, just a shirt and pullover, in the grey drizzle. Two soldiers check the inside, one has a sken in the boot. As they re-group the young man mutters under his breath, ‘You bastards do this, ya know it’s the greyhound meetin’. You do this every meet.’ The squaddie nearest him raises his rifle and smacks the butt into the side of his head. That shuts him up. The young man bends over, hands on head, cowering. He is bundled in the car, the door slammed shut on him, waved on. The next car takes its place at the barrier. Dillon and his squad — Jimmy, Harry, Taffy and six Toms — stand next to the guardpost, watching. They’ve been out for four hours, ‘tabbing around the cuds’ as the Paras call patrolling the countryside, and they are good and wet and miserable, and to add further insult, the Bedford RL hasn’t shown up, which is a real pisser. Dillon glances at his watch, unnecessarily, for the third time. The truck is two minutes later than it was the last time he looked. He says to Jimmy, ‘Go check where our ruddy transport is, it’s half-past seven!’ The next car is a real old banger, more rust than bodywork, two teenagers inside. Same procedure as before. Made to stand, hands on heads, away from the vehicle, four rifles trained on them while the search team go to work. To vary the monotony, however, this time they decide to chuck everything inside the car, including clothing and personal belongings, onto the muddy road. A green plastic holdall is tipped out — gym kit, Adidas trainers, bodybuilding magazines, CDs, videos, a Japanese computer game and cassette tapes. The glove compartment is swept clean, the boot emptied. Then the boys are shoved up against the car, arms spreadeagled on the bonnet, legs kicked apart, while they are body searched. The drivers waiting in line are becoming impatient. One or two hanging out, waving and cursing, others sounding their horns. This makes the same difference as before, which is nil. Twenty-one hundred hours is approaching at its own sweet pace, and a few curses and car horns won’t make it get here any quicker. One of the teenagers says something, or is thought to have said something, or perhaps he just happens to have that kind of face. He gets a rifle butt in the kidneys and slumps to his knees, clutching his back. The three soldiers stand in a tight circle around him and his companion, crowding them a little, as if egging them on, as if eager for an opportunity, waiting in hopeful expectancy for a show of retaliation, no matter how feeble. Meanwhile the drizzle comes down, the light fades by the minute, the car horns toot, and Dillon and his lads stamp their feet to keep the circulation going. Jimmy returns, a sour expression under the streaky brown camouflage cream on his face. ‘It’s broken down, ‘bout five miles back,’ he tells Dillon disgustedly. ‘We can start on foot, they’ll pick us up soon as they got a replacement.’ ‘Shit!’ Dillon shakes his head. ‘Okay, right lads, fall in.’ Moaning and cursing, the squad forms two lines and moves out from the guardpost. As they pass the soldiers on duty, a barrage of friendly, filthy insults is exchanged; there isn’t much love lost between the regular infantry and the Paras, but they have to keep up the appearance of unity for the sake of the locals. Bringing up the rear, Jimmy bends down and lets the air out of one of the car’s front tyres, gives the two boys a cheery wink, and goes on his way.

Capes glistening, the squad trudges on, rifles at forty-five degrees pointing to the ground, gloved hands curled round the trigger guards, ready for action. The gloves have padded knuckles and fingers, except for the trigger finger, to allow maximum feel and sensitivity. There is dissension in the ranks, grumbles and moans, and Dillon is getting a mite fed-up with it. He bellows over his shoulder: ‘It’s not my fault the ruddy truck’s broken down — we just gotta head back to base, there’s no changeover!’ He’s ready for a shower and a hot meal as much as any of them, but if they’ve got to tab another five miles, that’s all there is to it. No point the fat knackers grousing. Peering ahead into the gloom, Dillon raises his hand, makes a gentle up-and-down motion. In taking a corner too fast, a dilapidated old farm truck with a few bales of hay in the back has skidded on the muddy road and got its front offside wheel bogged down in the ditch. A coat held over her head, a woman stands watching two young lads stuffing their sodden jackets under the wheels to provide traction. She gets up into the cab, and with a grinding of gears, revving like crazy, tries to reverse onto the road. The wheels spin, mud flying, and it’s clear that if the woman perseveres till Doomsday, she’s not going to make it. Dillon inspects the hedgerows on either side of the lane. He fans his arm, and the squad splits into two. ‘Just check it out, lads. If it’s okay we can bum a lift back. Jimmy, take the rear.’ Dillon waves Harry on. ‘Left side… you lads to the front.’ The two young farm boys turn as the squad warily approaches. Hair stuck to their heads like shiny black caps, they stare at the men with flat, expressionless eyes. Dillon walks past them to the cab. He waits for the nod from Harry, gets it, and the thumbs-up from Taffy. All clear. The woman looks down at him. She has long greying hair, darkened to the roots by rainwater, limp strands trailing over the collar of her saturated coat. ‘You want a hand, love?’ Dillon holds up four fingers, motions four of the Toms to the front of the truck. Two down in the ditch, two on the road, they put their shoulders to it, the woman pressing down hard on the accelerator. The truck shifts a few inches, rolls down again, and with a final heave judders out of the ditch and onto the road, belching blue smoke. If Dillon is expecting a nod, or even a word of thanks, he is sadly mistaken. The woman jerks her head to the two farm boys, holding their sodden jackets like bundles of wet washing. ‘Can you give us a lift, about five miles up the road, love?’ Dillon asks, pleasantly enough. The woman ignores him. ‘Get in,’ she tells the boys. ‘Now!’ ‘Bitch!’ Jimmy says, standing at Dillon’s shoulder. And as the two boys move to the cab, gives a muttered, ‘Frank, you see their drivin’ licence?’ Dillon puts his hand out, restraining one of the boys as he’s about to climb aboard. ‘Just a second, son, how old are you?’ The boy tenses, looks down at Dillon’s gloved hand. For a moment nobody moves, the clinging veil of drizzle shrouding the motionless figures of the two boys and the soldiers in grey murk. Nothing is said, no overt action taken, but a change has taken place. Everyone senses it. The farm boys are edgy, eyes flickering nervously. The Toms have spread themselves out in a circle, weapons raised, training them on the truck. This is bandit country and the enemy is everywhere, and it doesn’t pay to forget it, not even for an instant. As
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training for a tour of the Province has drummed into them so they can recite it in their sleep: ‘Why learn from your own mistakes when you can learn from the mistakes of others?’ Stepping back, Dillon makes a sign. It is a standard drill, and the men perform it as an automatic reflex. It is rapid, short, brutally efficient. Without ceremony the boys are manhandled against the side of the truck, faces bashed into the wooden slats, arms twisted behind their backs, legs kicked apart. Dillon steps back in, grabs a full fistful of hair, yanks the boy’s head around. ‘Check inside the truck,’ he orders Jimmy, and to the boy, whose terrified eyes are rolling in their sockets, showing the whites, ‘An’ you look at me, look at me\ Name, age, address. Now!’ Dillon unhooks his thirty-four-centimetre long metal flashlight and hits the boy in the face with it, then shines the light directly into his eyes ‘Leave him alone, dear God!’ the woman screams from the cab. She leaps down, coat billowing around her. She kicks out at Dillon, face twisted in a rage of anguish that is pitiful in its sheer helplessness. ‘Dear God, just leave us alone, they’re just kids…’ Dillon lets go of the boy and with the back of his hand slaps the woman so hard across the face that she is knocked reeling into the side of the truck. He grabs the boy by the collar, drags him to the front of the truck. Harry and Taffy are sorting out the other one. They have him pinioned between them, a shrimp between two whales, an arm apiece, their two faces an inch either side of the boy’s, shouting into his ears, ‘Name age address, Name age address, Name age address.’ Dillon has the young boy bent backwards over the mudguard, arm across his throat. The boy is choking, turning blue. In a croaking whisper he gasps out, ‘Lee Farm, I’m sixteen… what have I done, leave us alone… Ronan… me name’s Ronan Shaw…’ With two Toms covering him from the road, Jimmy has climbed up into the back of the truck. Rifle up in the firing position, he unclips his flashlight and shines it over the bales of straw. He crouches on one knee, directing the beam into the gaps underneath and between the bales. Jimmy stiffens as he sees something move. Not a trick of the light, not just a shadow, he’s damn sure of that. Vaulting backwards off the truck, Jimmy rams the rifle butt into his shoulder and pumps off half a mag. The shots crack and reverberate over the empty dark fields, rolling away like distant thunder. Something shrieks. Dillon appears at the run, eyes dark, glittering, under the leather rim of his Red Beret. ‘Jimmy?… Jimmy?!’ A thin, shrill yelping sets their teeth on edge. Holding onto the side of the truck, the woman swings her face towards them, mouth bleeding, and starts screeching, ‘Bastards, bastards, it’s the dog, you filth, you scum, it’s the dog!’ In the flashlight beams the long narrow head lifts up and falls back. It tries again, gets its head up, paws scrabbling feebly, and slides down again, slipping in its own blood. The rough rope halter around the dog’s neck, tied to the back of the cab, gleams wet and dark red. ‘It’s their dog, Jimmy,’ Dillon says in a low voice. ‘What the fuck have you done?’ ‘It moved!’ Jimmy retorts indignantly. ‘It was hidden under the straw.’ ‘Put it out of its misery. Do it!’ Dillon glares at him, and then his grim face suddenly cracks in a smile. ‘They should’ve given us a lift, so sod ‘em.’ He walks back to where the woman is tending to the farm boys, dabbing at their cuts with a soiled rag. Both are scared witless, both crying openly. The woman gives Dillon a look of venomous hatred. He shoves her towards the cab, signals the three of them to get in. From the back of the truck the piteous whimpering of the dog is cut short by a single shot. Dillon wafts his hand. ‘On your way, go on, get moving.’ The engine roars, and as the truck moves off, the woman leans out. Her face has a wild, tortured look, framed by long grey hair straggling in the breeze. ‘I hope you all die of cancer,’ she says into Dillon’s eyes, and spits at him. Dillon runs alongside the truck, keeping pace, shouting up at her, ‘I remember your face, bitch! You hear me, move, go on, get out!’ The truck disappears into the gloom, its single faulty tail-light flickering dimly. The squad trudges on through the heavy drizzle. Only four miles to go. Jimmy catches up to Dillon. After a minute or so, sloshing side by side through the mud, he says, ‘They must have been headin’ for the Lifford.’ Dillon looks at him. Jimmy nods, an impish smile lurking at the corner of his mouth. ‘The dog, it was a greyhound!’ ‘Be in their stew tonight,’ Dillon says, eyes straight ahead, ploughing on. ‘Animals all of them.’ Ten minutes later the best sight of the night, a Bedford RL lumbers into view. Everybody yells, fists in the air, Dillon included, and all give the driver their choicest repertoire of foul abuse as he rumbles up, flashing his lights.