The Troubles Read online

  “Ya all right? I heard ya acting the maggot from way afar?’’ With a jest I intrude into the conversation. The strange, boisterous fellow grins a Cheshire grin of thoroughly improperly cared for, tobacco stained teeth. His deep-set ruddy eyes dart from Lanary to myself with little discernment and without much scrutiny, he quickly extends his hand. Presented before me is a workingman’s hand, with gnarled arthritic knuckles, sunburnt leathery skin and a girth only daily exercise would produce. “Me apologies I was earwigging,” I say and grasp the hand before balancing the now squirming animal in a sort of clumsy bear hug.

  ’’Me name’s Jamie. Jamie Egerton.’’ He has a slight lisp to his deep bellowing brogue. “Was just having a chat with yer mate here. A fierce fella Mr. O’ Sloan is.’’

  ‘’Aye, that he is,” I agree politely.

  “Ya got yerself a pet, Mr…?’’

  “Oh, I’m sorry, that’s Alastar Taggart and no, well, she just popped in on me in the loo.”

  “Well let’s have a gander at ya?’’ Jamie struggles to find his focus and looks over my features from my angular moss green eyes that have a penetrating quality to them, to my clenched muscled jawline. My siblings share my pleasant smile, as I bring a beleaguered grin to face.

  “Well a feek looking man ya are, Alastar Taggart.’’

  His words tumble out with no apprehension or embarrassment of stating the obvious. The shell of my body flinches with awkwardness and quickly deflects from the second compliment of the day from the drunkard. Lanary smirks at me with a telling, ‘’I told ya with enough whiskey even the lads fancy ya.” I begin to vacillate back and forth and attempt to stammer a response with a distinct furrow of distrust on my brow and change the direction of this most bizarre of conversations.

  “So Lanary, ya must be getting knackered at yer advanced age? Have ya mentioned to Mr. Egerton here, we’re on a trip to Dublin?’’ I ask.

  Jamie interrupts before Lanary has a chance to answer. “Y’all from Norn Ireland aren’t ya?’’ This is not a question but is stated almost as an insult. “It’s all shite ain’t it?’’ The man’s sentence trails off.

  “Well is all right, we might be not the full shilling but...’’ I lower my voice, “the Oglaigh na Eihreann's doing a fine job with what the damn UVF left fer us.’’

  “Oh right.’’ Sarcasm and liquor drips sardonically from this man’s unappealing gaping mouth, his breath reeks of stink. “Was here in ‘66 when those ‘peace marches’ came through making their way from Dublin to yer Belfast.’’ He looks at me aggressively then at Lanary who has been quietly observing us in an expressionless manner allowing space for our exchange. “Lot’s a good that’s all done.’’ Jamie snarls this statement with certitude of his conviction and as I regard this man with his thin lips curled exposing aging pink gums, I recognize that now is not the time or the place to have a debate or try to convince a stranger that perhaps he is in the wrong opinion.

  “Okay, well shall we see if there’s another train that’ll be leaving this afternoon?’’ My question is directed to both Jamie and Lanary. “Sir. Jamie…uh, Mr. Egerton, excuse me mate, we really must get to Dublin with some urgency?’’ I have a polite manner though my desire is to flee this small-minded man rustled in this small village of underdeveloped, scrupled and principled town folk. The cat I have nabbed attempts to get out of my strong grasp.

  “What are ya gonna do with that creature, Alastar?’’ Lanary is now getting to his feet as I athletically wrestle and pet her enthusiastically in an attempt to sooth and calm the agitated nerves of the sensitive feline.

  “Let’s get ya something to nosh on!’’ I say to my newfound pet.

  Jamie interrupts us both slurring his words into one long breath. “Won’t be a line coming in a donkey’s year. Shite, outta luck ya tom’s!’’

  ‘’Shut yer bake, before something clem happens.’’ Lanary grits his teeth so powerfully, I hear them gnash painfully from my position across from him and as his face turns cold, his jaw though barely visible, goes taut underneath his beard.

  ’’Lanary, we could get help from this bogger.’’ I am now by Lanary’s ear and have wrangled the hastily christened Coraline into my rucksack allowing me time to decide how to care for her. “Might he have a vehicle we could meander?’’ My question seems to deescalate the impending confrontation, as Jamie seems oblivious to the fact that we might have been offended in the first place.

  “Well for ‘bout fifteen pounds and some sorta agreement, I’ve got a busted up red Fiat 500 that’ll b’fheidir make the mission.” The man is so scattered from liquor he is more than willing to be taken advantage of by two strange men of opposite allegiance. I have no empathy for such foolhardy stupidity.

  CHAPTER 11: Fear gu apis, is bean gu bas (A son is a son until he comes of age; a daughter is a daughter all her life)

  Kiera Flanagan… Ena had photographed me on the side of the Lagan, my hair slick to my head and a look of exhilaration illuminated in my silver eyes, though the candid image will remain undecipherable to all but us, as it is our story to capture.

  Judgment will be there to greet me or so I anxiously imagine, as Ena and I walk hand in hand scampering lightly across aging cobblestone as though we are small children and not the foolish looking women we have grown into overnight. My apprehension is mounting after having been so severely disciplined. This is my most prevalent fear, which has surfaced unannounced, throughout my day’s events like a repeating loop from my favorite record. Although Ena has just reminded me, we must each lie to our prospective parents about the failure of truancy to our day’s obligations, my heart skips a beat along with the damned track.

  “Ya know that Bionn ciuin ciontach? Well if the quiet are guilty then ya would be sin free and I’d a been hanged a long while ago for me cam ways.’’

  ‘’Is mise, le meas Ena. Should I say anything? Perhaps Mother would understand I needed the day off from the toil of the Short Brothers plant?’’

  “Ya’ll be a fool to say it.’’ She is right. Capital is a rare commodity in both our households and we so flippantly, were brazen enough, to risk losing our jobs, for a laugh by the Lagan. Attempting levity, she laughs. “There’s no sore ass, like yer sore ass.’’

  “Ena!’’ I scold her as I am momentarily taken aback by my friend’s openness and lack of feminine charm and manners.

  “Ya’ll not mention it again Kiera or I will be the one to have yer arse!’’

  After the debasement I experienced from my parent’s last form of discipline, there is a rebirth to my resolve that I must conceal my true actions or resist punishment with more zeal. “All right ya little puss. What class shall we spake bout me Lord?’' As she winks and creases her face into a joker grin, I am reminded that she seems oblivious to how beautiful she is and if there is any awareness of it, her humility usurps any ugly vanity.

  Light is beginning to set early at this late fall hour and the air loses any warmth the sunshine might have given it. My breath is forming smoke clouds of frigid moisture as my lungs inhale and exhale rapidly with exhilaration and adrenaline. We are at least five long city blocks from Cambrai Street and the wind, using city streets like tunnels to increase speed, is tearing through our threadbare clothing. “Let’s run Ena! Come on, have at it.’’

  Lower Shankill is in the horizon of our field of vision when to my right in not so distant earshot; I hear boyish voices sharing exploits. “We’ve been throwing bricks at the peelers! Hush. Don’t announce that ya daft boggin’.’’ One of the voices breaks above the rest blanketing their immature excitement. A percussion of noises cuts through the shaded dusk as Ena and I hear a rush of stampeding, clodding feet and the frantic angry shouts of men. The voice of the British Army, the very paramilitary that has been keeping the peace are unyielding in their threats, to what I now assume, are a group of school age boys.

  ‘’Quick get out of sight.’’ I push my friend and we clamor to hide ourselves from view. We both are crou
ched behind a broken down ancient wall which crumbled years ago and no longer serves any use to the cityscape, but to us now, it is a private refuge. My heart is beating through my chest so loud I fear the clashing clans can hear it as clearly as the beat of drum, even though we are several yards away and for the moment out of sight. My blood has rushed so quickly to my brain, I feel faint and put my head down in between my crouched legs to catch my breath. Oh my Lord, not another incident. Thoughts flood my mind and I do not wish to be a witness to murder yet again.

  Pushing down any resistance and cowardice I truly possess, I summon the courage to look through small crack in our embankment. I can barely see anything through the dim light. Could that be one of the familiar faces of my church? The outline of a man’s jawline and the shadows of his face appear recognizable to me. I shudder from the image that the known shadowy figure is present amongst such fear inducing Ulster Protestants, who have now divided the lines to preserve Northern Ireland's attachment to the British monarchy and have resorted to a supposed defensive violent tactic to oppose a united Ireland. The UVF paramilitary officers sound like wolves that have now stealthily hunted down and corralled a pack of feral scrawny dogs. I hear the youngsters screaming from agony and indignation as batons and hard steel tipped boots connect with the delicate supple bodies of the young self-governing anarchists. “We must do something.’’ My words are caught by the burgeoning biting wind that is beginning to spit it’s rain upon us and my desperate words lose any validity or strength as Ena clasps my hand tightly in sad resignation.

  “No.” She mouths the command and she is right for to disclose our position to either the British Officers or potentially the British Loyalists that are familiar to us could put us and our kin in an unknowable jeopardy.

  The boys are aborting volume in their pathetic screams and as the may hem of the assault is lessening, the crunching impact of limbs quiets after what feels an eternity. The men have succeeded in the onslaught of their one-sided savagery and quiet whimpers are now heard as condescending laughter replaces the cruel threats and empty anger. All I can hear now is my pulse spitting its deafening drumming into my ears and the wind howling in purposeful inharmoniousness as though it’s the musical accompaniment to the harsh blow of whistles. I turn away from my friend and wipe salt- fresh tears from my red cheeks. I am embarrassed by my sudden sadness and feel paralyzed by the crushing cyclone that is enclosing around me and around all of the citizens of this segregated isle. The abject denigration is truly palpable now and ignorance cannot be afforded anymore and even though I am Protestant of descent, I feel anything but safe. Ena pulls me back toward her and hugs me tightly into her slender frame. Her embrace comforts me and she smells of fresh rain and lavender soap. She whispers into the wind behind me, quietly, “may the road rise up to meet ya, may the wind be always at yer back, may the sun shine warm upon yer face, the rains fall soft upon yer fields and until we meet again, may God hold ya in the palm of His Hand.’’ The Gaelic blessing warms through our threadbare clothes as our entwined connection envelops me with a newfound resolute strength.

  “Alright?’’ We separate from our protective cocoon as my sister and amended guardian, warmly regards my face without any judgmental discrimination to her examination. Simple concern belies her touch.

  “Fine. I’ll be fine…I was just reminded of last week when I by chance, was privy to the attack on Melvern Street. Oh Ena, it couldn’t have been more awful to see that boy’s demise, whomever he is, bless his heart.” Sweat has now coolly beaded down my exposed neck and my lower back feels soaked as I anticipate how quickly I will feel the raw bite of the gathering North Atlantic chill. My teeth have begun to chatter so loudly I fear they might be out of my control and bite of my tongue.

  “Ena, see if the coppers are still there…won’t ya?’’ In consternation with a ghoulish mask of fearful trepidation marring her arresting beauty, she stands up; easing her aching knees and squints her gaze through the same opening I had looked through. I am now so cold that all I can manage to do is curl into a ball like an infant and rock myself back and forth in an effort to self-sooth while distracting from the visceral chill that is crawling from the tips of my extremities upwards like worms burrowing into earth.

  “Holy shite!” Ena has clasped her arms around my petite torso as she pulls me up to an unsteady standing position. As I find my footing I stutter out my question with a harsh earnestness I rarely hold for her.

  “Tell me they’re gone?’’

  “The coppers have fled the scene,” she says with obvious contempt, “but there’s a lad still out there and he must have a banjaxed foot…all others seem to have gone. He’s just lying there! What are we to do? Can’t just leave him to freeze the night? This is savage for sure! What if the peelers come back?’’ Reflecting a searing adrenaline, her eyes are glowing black pits of tar in the dimming light.

  “Poor boy.’’ The young man’s whimpers are steadily increasing volume and he begins to bellow pitifully alone in the storming eve. I walk on the numb pads of sore feet following Ena’s shadow as we move towards the figure that is moaning and shrieking like a forlorn animal caught in a trap awaiting the final blow. Through his faucet of unrelenting tears and snot, shaded, distinctly green eyes, plead up to us, as we bend down gently to appease him of any fear of he might have. “Hush child!” Ena, right now, the stronger of the two of us, has put one arm on the brick sidewalk as the other hovers, awaiting permission, over the point of injury, his right ankle.

  Through gulps of jagged breath, the boy, who is clearly not as young as we had thought from our vantage point, anxiously explains. “We didn’t mean it. We were just haven’ a gaff. They put a baytin on us right away. Didn’t even give a shite we’re just young lads!’’

  “I know son.’’ I am now facing the young man with the brilliant frightened eyes shining in the dark. “Don’t need to explain, we saw it all.’'

  CHAPTER 12: Da fhada an la tagaan an trachnona. (No matter how long the day, the evening comes)

  Quinn Taggart had started that day with a conviction that his brother Alastar would be his safeguard against the foul world that had been storming beyond their four walls. ‘’Take care of Da while I’m in Dublin,’’ Alastar had whispered early morning, breaking Quinn’s rest.

  “Aye,’’ the boy had responded, his brain still full of sleep and cobwebs though his young mind gleaned from the sudden admiration he felt for his older sibling. He wished he was as capable of the valiance and bravery Alastar subconsciously possessed, but alas, he was the youngest of the Taggart clan and was overindulged and coddled by every one of his older siblings and whether he needed the extra attentiveness or not he was unsure. He was unsure of a lot of things these days. Being a boy of eleven, every day of his short life in the insular world of Belfast had been marred by hostile neighbors, police combativeness and the abject plague of religious strife that had infiltrated every facet of Quinn’s routine day-to-day life. For any young boy this would be the formulaic pressure cooker for an implosion or explosion. Therefore he was confused. Can one simultaneously feel as though they are fragmentizing in a million shards and yet wish to perpetuate that same destruction upon an unknowable target of convenience?

  Without waking his siblings, two of whom were deftly slumbering in the same room as Quinn, his eldest brother crept down the midway stairs, pausing carefully before the top step with the creaky floorboard. The young man hurriedly made a sandwich and within two minutes he soundlessly left the cramped, aged abode. Quinn crept into the kitchen avoiding the squeaky floorboard in the staircase striving not to alert his whiskey drained father as he snored off the fumes. He quietly drank some of the leftover coffee Alastar had brewed, not because he liked the taste or the stimulant but because he usually liked to imitate his eldest sibling. He had made up his mind the day before, after he had met with his brother, at Harland and Wolff Shipyard that today would be his act of defiance within the neighborhood outfit of boys that ranged in
ages nine to twenty-five years. Alastar had made his own ruling that after years of passive inactivity, the stakes for the Taggarts was too egregious for him to be a bystander anymore. Quinn was so proud and exhilarated by his brother’s participation; it had spurred him to finally do the same. The sanguine Bobby Sands had been in his ear most every day. He was Alastar’s age but Alastar had avoided a true intimate connection with him. ‘’We’re not the same, he’s of a more hostile heart than I,’’ was the only explanation for Quinn’s brother’s lack of friendship with his neighborhood peer, yet Quinn thought of the martyr as Jesus Christ.

  Mr. Sands had hair reminiscent of his surname, the color of sun kissed golden sand and it flowed long past his shoulders. The youth spoke often of a peaceful revolution in Ireland with a truly genuine conviction. Why Alastar was avoiding the soft-spoken young man who had written poetry to cope with his own personal persecution, Quinn did not understand. The fact that Bobby who had always greeted Quinn with an ironic smile, had conversed with him in the same manner he would with an adult, was inconsequential to Quinn today for it was not why Quinn was devoted.

  There was little trepidation as he walked relaxed, whistling an old Irish tune that his father had whistled in happier times, so long ago now that Quinn was surprised he recalled the melody. Bobby had given him and a few of his schoolmate’s specific directions and the boy was gleeful to have finally been handed his first covert mission. “Come by Alexander’s Coach Works in the morn. I’ll be starting me shift. It’ll be but a minute for us to talk ‘cause me colleagues will…” Bobby had trailed off, his light disposition visibly marred by the memory of how his co-workers had confronted him the week earlier. He had recounted to Quinn that he had been finishing up his workday all too relieved to be leaving his dreadfully sour place of employment when a group of surly men surrounded him. What he had first noticed was that a local Protestant loyalist gangs tartan armband adorned their arms with controversial colors. This had immediately sent him awash with fear. That apprehension grew as they had held Bobby at gunpoint and had warned him that he was never to return to Alexander’s Coach Works again because he was ‘’Fenian scum’’ and if he would they would kill him. He had bravely returned to work aware their eyes and comments trailed him with contempt as he labored. He was now a changed man as their violent threat was the catalyst and he was plotting his reprisal. There would not be violence in Bobby Sand’s measure but a pen to paper and he would broadcast to the world this mistreatment.