Field of Blood (36 page)

Ìn a month's time will he be allowed out of sight of the house, in a year's time?'

He didn't know why she wanted to fight. He tried to smile, made a

play at not taking offence. Ì said that the boy can go out.'

Roisin called to Young Gerard, `You're allowed out, but not out of

sight of the house.'

Prentice saw the boy drift down the front path. Baby Sean was sleeping on the

settee. He could hear Little Patty scuffling on the floor of the upstairs bedroom,

playing.

It was warm in the living room, central heating on full. A side light was lit.

Prentice looked across the room at Roisin. She was in the arm chair, a large sagging chair. Her legs were splayed wide. There was shadow on her face. He couldn't read her expression. He could see her long thighs stretched out from the

cushions of the chair.

`You want to screw me, Mister Prentice?'

He heard the tinkle of her laughter. He sat on a chair at the table at the back end

of the room.

He looked out of the window, into the back garden.

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Ònly you wouldn't know what I'd do, if you got up out of your chair. You wouldn't know whether I'd give you a ride ... or whether I'd scream the bloody roof off. You wouldn't know what I'd do, would you, Mister Prentice?'

He saw Young Gerard's head appear behind the fence at the end of the garden,

then move off. He lost him.

`Don't bloody know, do you?'

Prentice stood up, walked through the room and out into the hall. He sat on the

stairs.

She came after him, stood in the doorway. She pushed her hair back from her forehead.

`Frightened I'd scream. I might just scream ... and then I might give you a bloody

good ride ... You're a big bloody disappointment to me. I thought you'd chance it

to find whether I scream.'

He was cleaning his nails with a used match.

`Would you be frightened of screwing a Taig woman? Would you be frightened

I'd be dirty? Have you ever screwed a Taig woman? Would you know if you had?

'Course you would. Taig women are different to your women, aren't they? Smell

different, don't they, and their eyes are closer together. You'd know if you'd screwed a Taig, wouldn't you?'

She came close to him, stood in front of him. Her stomach was in front of his eyes. She jutted her hips towards him. `Do we smell different to Protestant women?' She crouched so that her eyes were level with his. Àre they closer together than your Protestant women's eyes?'

`Keep going, if you want your arse kicked,' Prentice said quietly. `Proper gentleman,' she sneered. `Proper bitch.'

She sat on the floor. She put her hand lightly on his knee. He took

her hand in his fingers. It was a small hand, it would have been a delicate

hand before it was roughened from the work of keeping a house while

her man was running or in the Kesh or away in the South.

`We're all fucked, aren't we?' she said heavily. `Me and Sean and the

kids, we're bloody gone.'

`That's not true.'

Ì forgot myself last night. Because we'd had some drinks, because

you'd bought some decent food, I forgot myself. I thought it might

bloody work. Idiot bloody thought ... I thought it would work, and

Sean came upstairs, all he bloody talked about was the Brit officer. He

talked about the Brit officer like he was his bloody friend. The sun

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shone out of the Brit officer's bum. Sean was a right idiot last night ...

and I'd forgot myself, because I thought we might have a real life ...' He could talk to the tout, he couldn't talk to the tout's woman. `There'll be a new life.'

Ànd you'll be doling out the pound notes.' 'Sean'll be got a job.'

À job ... Sean's never bloody worked in his life.' Her derision spat

into Prentice's face. `He can't hammer a nail ... all he can do is shoot

people with a fucking R.P.G.... You going to get him a job doing

that? I'll make a pot of tea.'

Prentice let her hand drop, and she stood. `We're Republicans, we're Provos.'

Ìt'll get washed out of you,' Prentice said grimly. `When you live

amongst people who don't give a damn then it'll be scrubbed out of

your system.'

`You wouldn't understand.' `Go and make the tea.'

`You think we're better off, with you, than with our own? 'Your decision. You should make the tea.'

She went to the kitchen. He eased himself up from the stairs and

went to the front door. He looked out, and couldn't see Young Gerard

in the gathering darkness of the early evening.

She called from the kitchen. Ì don't think I would have screamed.' `Your eyes are

too close together,' he shouted back. He wondered

whether she heard him over the noise of the tap water bubbling into

the kettle.

*

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**He had seen the patrol approaching, and he had positioned his ambush.

There were five in the patrol and they moved carelessly. They were bunched too

close together, and they paid insufficient attention to the parked cars and the dustbins and they chattered amongst themselves, and there was no rear marker

walking backwards to cover the way they had come.

The patrol was as sloppy as anything that the urban guerrilla fighter had ever seen. He crouched behind a low hedgerow that had holes enough for him to watch the patrol drift closer. He could hear their voices. He hadn't the experience

to recognize where in Britain they came from, and it didn't concern him. They were accents from across the water of the Army of Occupation.

From his hiding place, he studied the faces of the patrol. Cheerful, happy faces,

faces without fear. He loathed each of the faces equally. He blamed each of the

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shock blasts that had entrapped his recent life on the faces of the patrol. There

were five in the patrol, and each one of them was a symbol of the disasters in his

life. He thought that if he achieved total surprise he could hope not only to smash

the smugness of the patrol, but also to capture a weapon. It was more than a week to Christmas, but already the members of the patrol carried shiny, bright weapons.

Young Gerard's weapons were half a brick and the broken corner of a cement building block that filled the palm of his hand. Two of the patrol carried silver chrome cowboy cap pistols. The leader of the patrol had a rifle with a crackling

sound for the pulling of the trigger and a battery operated light to flash in the muzzle. The boy behind the leader carried a wooden‐made Thompson sub-machine gun, put together by his father who was a Signals clerk at Headquarters.

The boy in front of the leader carried an Armalite reproduction, and the butt was

reinforced with sellotape because his sister's bicycle had run over it. There were

five of them to the one of him, but none of their weapons could compare with the

half‐brick and the corner of concrete block.

They were bigger than him, every one of them was older than his eight years, but

then the British army with all its numbers and tanks was bigger than the strength

of the Provies. Young Gerard could understand the war that his father had once

been a part of, could understand the imprisonment in the Kesh, and after that the

frequent disappearances of his father on active service. After a fashion he could

understand, too, his father's move away to the South. He had known that his father would come back, come back and belt the enemy, and he had seen the wreckage of the judge's car on the television. He had understood that his father

could be arrested, and he had stood by his father when the bastard army had smashed into their home and taken his father. All that he could understand. The

confusions began with his father's return at dawn to their home, and the packing,

and his Ma

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crying, and the drive in the armoured police landrover, and the life in the barracks, and the crash of the mortars and the amplified voice, and the helicopter

flight, and a bullet bouncing on the floor of the helicopter ,.. those were the confusions. Young Gerard could not believe that his father had gone supergrass.

A supergrass was the lowest thing that Young Gerard knew of. He thought there

must be a motive to what his father had done. He hadn't the age to work out 198

what his father's motive might be, but he had to believe there was a motive because otherwise he was left with nothing to hold.

He was trembling. For a moment he wondered if his father trembled when he held the R.P.G. on his shoulder.

He loved his father. Before his father had come back to their home with the police and the army, he had worshipped his father. Now he could not bring himself to speak to his father. Young Gerard thought that if his attack on the patrol was successful, that then he could talk with his father. He could sit on his

father's knee and talk with him, as he'd always talked with him.

Young Gerard rose up from his hiding place behind the hedge. With all his strength he hurled the half‐brick at the back of the second boy in the patrol. The

brick caught him sickeningly hard between the shoulder blades. As he yelped, he

fell. There was a moment of stunned amazement from the boys behind him who

saw him toppled over, saw his bright little pistol leap from his hand and into the

roadway. Before the source of the missile had been identified, Young Gerard thrust himself through the hedge. His target was the boy with the wooden S.M.G.

He battered the corner of the concrete building block onto the boy's shoulder. He

seemed not to hear the scream of pain and fear, again and again he hit the boy

with the rough edge of the block. He saw blood, when he hit the boy's ear, and

the boy crumpled. Young Gerard grabbed for the wooden S.M.G.

Too late he saw that the boy had learned from the television pictures of the patrols, that he had copied the technique of looping one end of the weapon's lanyard to his wrist. He was tugging the wooden barrel of the S.M.G. and the boy

was being dragged across the pavement, and the blood was pumping from the boy's ear, and onto his anorak, and onto the ground.

Because Young Gerard was too late in releasing his grip on the barrel of the S.M.G., they caught him.

The leader smothered him onto the ground. The two other boys dived on top, bursting the air from Young Gerard's lungs. They kneed him, bit him, punched him.

He didn't scream. He scratched back at them, hit back at them.

The boy he had hit with the brick was shouting, and the boy with the wooden S.M.G. was shrieking, and Young Gerard tried to cover his head and his stomach

from the raining blows and pains.

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**He thought of his father. He thought only that his father must be able to be proud of him.

He didn't hear his mother's voice, he didn't hear Prentice's pounding feet.

He was lifted to his feet. When the anger mist cleared from his eyes he realized

that the minder detective held him by the neck of his collar and lashed the other

boy's back, and his mother was trying to free him from the detective, and he kicked with his feet and punched with his hands at the body of the policeman. His

fist, small and tight‐clenched, hit the shoulder holster under the open jacket. His

fingers found the handle of the policeman's pistol and tugged it out.

And suddenly Young Gerard was alone, and Prentice had released him, and the

boys were backing and stumbling away from him, and his mother was wide‐eyed

and staring at him, and he held the pistol in his hand.

Prentice's hand smashed into the side of Young Gerard's head, spun him,

dropped him.

He heard his mother cry out.

`You didn't have to belt him.'

Ìt was armed.'

His mother was kneeling over him, and his hand was empty. `He's a child . . .'

Ìt was only on safety, he could have blown us away.'

His mother had her arms around him, protecting him. He felt the warmth and safety of her body.

He heard Prentice say, `Get him home, Mrs McAnally, just get him back to the house.'

Ì fought the Brit bastards.'

He saw that Prentice's shoe covered the pistol, and then the detective bent and

picked up the gun, and briefly checked it, and slid it back to his holster.

His mother lifted him up. His enemies were standing back from him, five of them,

hating him and frightened of him, as if they wondered if he could still strike once

more at them. One of the boys held a red‐soaked handkerchief against his ear.

His body hurt in every place as he walked away with his mother supporting him.

He was close to clinging to her.

Ì'm going home . . .' There was a choke in his mother's voice. `. . . I'm bloody going home.'

Between the street lamps it was dark in the street. Young Gerard whose father

was a tout, and his mother, and the minder detective, went back to the safe house.

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David Ferris was late for Sunray's evening in the Mess. He had been held up in the

Glen Road for an hour with a suspect car bomb, and Felix had been delayed in getting there to clear it. Ferris was in a dismal mood for a party. The guests were