Of Blood and Honey (Fey and the Fallen) (13 page)

Less than a week later, two of the guards who’d put Liam in the infirmary met with bad ends. One was shot by a sniper in the car park outside the prison, lost a leg and his job in the bargain. The other burned alive in a house fire. When Gingernut vanished the rumors started up again—mistreat the scrawny kid from Derry and bad luck is sure to follow. The prison
scéal
had it that Gingernut had been in a terrible car accident and had broken both legs. He wouldn’t be walking for months, and thus, wouldn’t be back at Malone for some time. None of the prisoners were sorry to hear it—Liam in particular.

When he was released from the infirmary, he was glad of it. The place was filthy and stank of death. Most of the time there was no doctor, only Murphy who’d once been a medical assistant at a hospital in Belfast. Two prisoners died while Liam was recovering. One expired in the cot next to him and no one came for the body for two days. Liam had to pull the covers over the man’s head himself. He didn’t know a proper prayer for the dead. So, he said an “Our Father” and hoped it’d be enough. The other died on the way up to the treatment room. The guards abandoned the dead man in the stairwell, and since Murphy hadn’t been able to make it back to the infirmary for almost a week the body wasn’t removed until the stench became unbearable. Liam begged Murphy to let him go back to his cage, and as soon as he could move without wanting to scream, Murphy relented.

Liam returned to his school work, spending most of his time in the study huts with Frankie. It took him the remainder of his stay at Malone to pass the exam without cheating—more than two years—but pass he did, and when Liam was released in February of 1975, Jack kept his end of the bargain. Six weeks later, the Provos arranged for Liam to begin work as a cab driver in Belfast.

When he got the news he called Mary Kate. He was in the kitchen, and his mother was just around the corner in the sitting room, watching television. It was the best time to call. The little kids were outside playing, and his stepfather wasn’t due home for a whole hour. He could hear Eileen in the next room listening to her Bay City Rollers records. A muffled version of “Angel Baby” filtered through the wall for the third time in a row. He waited while one of Mary Kate’s many flatmates called her to the phone.

“Liam? Has something happened?”

“I’ve good news.”

“What is it?” She was shouting to be heard over her flatmates who were arguing over whose turn it was to make a call. It sounded like there were fifteen of them and all of them were hopping mad.

Les McKeown was permitted to reach the end of his song and then doomed to repeat it for a fourth time. Liam wished Eileen would let the damned album go to the next song.

“I’ve work,” he said.

“That’s wonderful. Look, can I call you tomorrow?”

“No,” Liam said. His heart was now pounding in his ears fit to compete with the ruckus on the other end of the line. “I’ve a question to ask you. It’s important.”

“Are you sure it can’t wait?”

“I’m sure!”

His mother appeared, giving him a look that said,
Do you have to shout?

“Will you give me a half moment?” he asked Mary Kate. “This is not the kind of question you rush.”

His mother blinked.

Mary Kate paused. “Hold on.” Her hand must’ve gone over the receiver because he heard muffled screaming and then everything went quiet.

“Okay. You can ask now.”

He swallowed. “It’s about the work. I’ve a cab. The job is in Belfast.”

“Oh.” Mary Kate sounded disappointed. “Are you coming here?”

“Yes,” he said. His heart was really going at it now. Was she unhappy about him moving to Belfast? Is that what he was hearing? Had she met someone and simply not told him? “I was wondering if you’d….” His voice gave out on him.

“If I’d what? Liam, I can’t hold up the line. It’s not my day for the phone and—”

“I was wondering if you’d… still want to marry me.” He got the last out in a rush.

His mother screamed.

“What?” Mary Kate asked on the other end of the line.

“Marry me. Do you still want to marry me?”

There was only silence on the other end of the line, and his heart stopped jumping about and then dropped somewhere around his ankles. Between his mother’s hysterical cries he thought he could make out what sounded like weeping.

“Mary Kate?” he asked. “Is something wrong?”

“I thought you’d forgotten.”

It was his turn to gape. “I said I wanted to get work first. I’ve work now. Have you, have you met someone?”

“No. Oh, Liam.”

“No, you won’t marry me? Or no—”

“Yes! I mean, no, I’ve not met anyone. Yes, I’ll marry you!”

His knees turned to jelly. “Oh, thank God.”

“What did she say?” his mother asked.

“She said yes, Ma. She’ll marry me.”

There was an entire chorus of squeals on the other end of the phone. “When?” Mary Kate asked.

“When would you like? It’ll have to be soon if we’re to have it at St. Brendan’s. But if you’d rather—”

“Let’s set it for the moment I get home from Uni for the summer. I don’t want to give you a chance of getting away from me again.”

“When?”

“A calendar! I need a calendar! Hurry!” He heard a chorus of giggles and shuffling and pages being flipped. “Here. May. Got it. All right. How about the 11th?”

“Sure.”

“What did she say?” his mother asked.

“Can you not wait until I’m off the phone?” he asked her.

His mother’s lips pressed together in a hard line. “I must know. How am I to get the planning started?”

“The 11
^th
of May,” he said. “It’s a Sunday.”

“No. No. No,” his mother said. “Not May!”

“Ma says it can’t be May.”

“What? Why not?” Mary Kate asked.

“She wants to know why not?”

Frowning, his mother said, “May is a terrible month to get married. It’s a bad omen, it is. I’ll not have it.”

“Ma says—”

Mary Kate sighed. “I heard her. You tell her this is our wedding, and we’re getting married on the 11th of May. Liam, it has to be. I don’t want to wait. We can’t wait. We’ve waited long enough.”

“I know. I know.” He moved the receiver from his mouth. “Ma, it has to be the 11th of May. Please. It means a lot to Mary Kate.”

“Marry in May and rue the day,” his mother muttered. She sighed. “She’s the bride. It’s her wedding.”

Liam decided he didn’t care what his mother said. He was twenty years old, and it was one of the happiest days of his life.

Chapter 11

Londonderry/Derry, County Londonderry, Northern Ireland

30 April 1975

Liam found Father Murray in front of the parochial house. The priest was on his knees and digging in a flowerbed under a window. The sun was out, and it was warm. Liam had gone for a run earlier and as a result felt more relaxed than he had in some time, and yet the tension between his shoulder blades wouldn’t let up. He didn’t understand it. This was without a doubt one of the happiest times of his life. Still, he couldn’t sleep, and his stomach had been in a knot for three days. He was happy to see Father Murray enjoying the weather, though. The air smelled fresh and clean with a hint of the ocean. Liam decided he was going to miss Derry when it came down to it. For a moment he wondered if Belfast was going to be as beautiful in the spring.

“Hello, Father.”

Father Murray turned, looking over his shoulder. “Ah, it’s you, Liam. How are you on this fine day?”

“I’m well. You’re in a good mood.”

“I am,” Father Murray said, returning to his digging.

“Do you have a wee bit of time, Father?”

“Is it going to require vestments?”

“Not at the moment. Well, eventually, yes. Mary Kate and I are getting married, Father. And I was wondering if you’d do the honours.”

Freezing, Father Murray didn’t move for what seemed a whole minute. Then he set the little spade he was holding deep into the earth. He didn’t turn around. “Married.”

“Yes, Father.”

“You’re quite sure about this?”

“There’s never been anyone else. You know that.”

Father Murray took a deep breath and released it. “And what does your mother say?”

“I’ve not seen her from the minute I told her. Spends her time with Mrs. Gallagher, and they’ve been on the phone with Mary Kate. I think between the three of them they’ve the thing planned already. As I understand it, all I’m to do is show up, and if they had a way to make a plan of that, they’d have done that too.”

Turning at last, Father Murray dusted off his hands. “I’m sensing a bit of frustration.”

“I spent three years in Malone, having almost no say over virtually anything you can name. So, why is it I feel I had more control over my life then than I do now?”

Father Murray smiled. “Let’s have a drink.”

Liam followed Father Murray inside. Standing on the runner, Liam looked into the sitting room. Father Michael glanced up from the book he was reading and nodded a greeting. Light from the window reflected off his reading glasses.

“We’ll go to the back garden,” Father Murray said, placing a hand on Liam’s shoulder. “That way we’ll not disturb Father Michael.”

They went through the kitchen, stopping long enough to collect two glasses and a bottle and then exited to the back garden. Father Murray sat on the bench in the shade of the ash tree. Liam breathed in the scents of flowers and recently turned earth and instantly felt better. The garden was a good idea. He put a hand against the ash tree while Father Murray poured.

“It seems I’m forever drinking your whiskey,” said Liam.

“Not to worry. I don’t get much use out of it otherwise.” Father Murray held up a glass. “Here,” he said, “for the nerves.”

“Frankie said women live for this shite and that I should get used to it.”

“Who’s Frankie?”

“A friend. From Malone. He’s my best man.”

“Ah. So, you did get a say in something, I see.”

“That and in you, I’m hoping. Mary Kate wants you to marry us too. But Mrs. Gallagher is set on Father Michael doing it, and Ma won’t go against her.” Liam drank the whiskey and was feeling much better by the second short. “You’ve been a friend to us, Father. I’d rather it were you.”

“So,” Father Murray said. “You’re marrying Mary Kate.”

“I am.”

“Are you thinking of having children?” The question sounded uncertain. Father Murray’s expression was unreadable.

“We are, Father,” Liam said. He hesitated to say the rest. He wasn’t sure how Father Murray would react. He knew exactly how his mother would handle the news—she wouldn’t, and Mrs. Gallagher would no doubt feel the same. “Mary Kate is thinking she’d like to wait until after she’s done with Uni.”

Father Murray nodded. “And what do you think?”

“I don’t really know. I mean, I’m not in a rush, but….” Liam shrugged. “I want to get my feet under me first. Be at the job a while. I got a job, you know. In Belfast.”

“Congratulations.”

“Thank you, Father.”

“That’s quite a lot of change all at once.”

“Don’t I know it,” Liam said. He didn’t say that half the reason he’d been awake at night was worrying over the volunteering, what it meant and what would be expected. He couldn’t tell anyone what he’d done—not even Mary Kate. The IRA was an illegal organization, and as such, membership meant serious prison time. Never mind there was a truce on and had been on and off since January, but it wouldn’t last.

“How are you holding up?”

“Well enough.”

“But?”

“It’s my stepfather.”

“Is there something I can do?”

“It’s nothing I can’t handle,” Liam said. “But he won’t lay off. And it’s getting to a point where I have to spend most of my time away from the flat when he’s around. It’s worse when Ma isn’t there. Calls me jailbird and such when he knows she won’t hear. As if he knew fuck all about anything. Ah. Sorry, Father.”

“I understand your anger. Have you tried talking to him?”

“Talking? To Patrick? Are you mad?”

“You never know, Liam. Talking can go a long way to resolving problems. Maybe he’s upset that you’re leaving—”

“Oh, right. More like not leaving soon enough.”

“This is a big change for him too. Maybe he’s feeling threatened by the amount of attention and time your mother is devoting to the wedding.”

“I don’t care.”

“Promise me you’ll be as patient with him as you can.”

Liam sighed and shut his eyes. “I will, Father.” He set the empty glass on the wooden bench. “So, do you think you can marry us?”

“I would be honored,” Father Murray said. “However, I would like to speak to Mary Kate before I make it definite.”

“Yes, Father. Sure, Father. Whatever you say, Father.”

“Calm down,” Father Murray said. “The wedding is a whole three weeks away.”

“That isn’t nearly soon enough.”

Mrs. Foyle’s organ music filled St. Brendan’s Church to the brim, threatening to push the very roof off the building. It was so loud that the windows rattled, and Liam fought an urge to prop one open only to let out some of the excess noise before the building collapsed around one and all. It hurt his ears, but he knew she was playing out of a favor for his Ma and was only giving it her best. So, he kept the wincing to a minimum.

Dressed in a new yellow suit, his Ma sat in the front pew with Patrick. She’d already cried half her makeup off and was clutching Patrick’s arm tight enough to bruise. She sniffed and smiled up at him with an expression that made him want to hug her. This was it, she’d told him the night before, she was losing her little boy to the wider world. Never mind, that he’d been away in prison for a good part of his life. He wasn’t going to come home at all anymore and complain of school or fight with his stepfather. She was happy for him, and proud, but everything would be different. The flat would be emptier without him. He’d tried to console her, but it hadn’t exactly worked.

Sitting next to her, Patrick stared straight at him. His stepfather’s face was as expressionless as fresh concrete. To Liam’s surprise, Patrick had paid for a night at a small inn on the edge of town. Liam was grateful but found it hard to believe the burst of generosity wasn’t due to coercion.