Legacy (13 page)

Part Three
Tales from my childhood

Chapter Twenty Nine

When I was younger an old lady enquired about my Dad, when I told her that he had died she said, “Sure what you don't have you'll never miss.” That annoyed me. Does a starving child who doesn't have food not miss it? Does a draught ridden country not miss rain? Or even a bankrupt not miss having money? In losing Dad my family lost our link to Nigeria, half of our roots. My sisters and I became mixed race girls brought up in a world of only one race. Identity problems throughout childhood and into later life damaged us all. The one person who could have helped us had been taken away.

The bomb meant that we didn't just loose a Dad and any identity we could have wished to have, but we also lost our Mum. She was still there in body but her mind was far, far away. Sometimes she came back to us, but when she did realisation of her situation hit her again and she retreated back into herself away from the here and now and away from us. So when someone tells me what I don't have I'll never miss I know they are wrong. I miss my Dad and what he could have taught me and most of all from an early age I missed my Mum. The implication of not having our Dad and being left with shadow of a Mum blighted all our lives and perhaps affected the people we all became.

In the years immediately following Dad's death Mum never got a chance to quietly grieve. She was to go through the ordeal of a public court case which revealed all the gory details of the death. It was in these early days that Mum was to realise that her life would never be the same again. For years after bombing different aspects of it regularly appeared in the papers and the news, constantly reinforcing to Mum that there could be no escape.

Mum doesn't remember much of the first year after Dad died, she describes these times as being simply blackness, a deep waking sleep in which events unfolded around her that she could only watch from a distant place in her mind. It was as if in that distant place she found a safe harbour somewhere she could frequent often when she felt the necessity.

I was very young, no more than preschool age when I first sensed something was very wrong in the house. I just knew that something was amiss; I could feel it in the air. On the days when I felt this, Mum would take to her bed where she could remain for weeks at a time. As I grew older I realised that the thing I sensed was very real, it was Mum's friend who I later dubbed ‘Misery'.

In the early years Misery's arrival was triggered by the court case and details surrounding my Dad's death. In the future a bomb, a shooting, even a bomb scare dragged Misery back to our home and initiated Mum's confinement again.

I always felt it was easier for the prisoners, the killers. They had a release date they could serve their time and move on. They had the one thing they callously stole from others, life. Their victims were not as fortunate those left behind could not move on. Each event, each death and subsequent televised funeral, right through to the emergence of the Historical Enquires Team and the Peace Process was to send Mum back to her own ordeal, to open the door and allow Misery in again. Now we know that many of the victims suffered from the condition of post-traumatic stress, but it was only in recent years that Northern Ireland's victims and survivors were deemed worthy of the disorder. Had this been addressed and treated early maybe things could have been different for my family and so many others.

I don't remember the court case but I have listened to my Mum's accounts of it and researched what I could find in the press archives. I do however remember Mum smashing cups and plates against the gable wall. I'm not an expert on grief but between spending days in bed and smashing plates surely someone must have noticed that this behaviour, especially after three or four years wasn't normal.

No one ever did.

When the court case was over and compensation dished out Northern Ireland washed its hands of my Mum and by doing so us. Nowadays when someone is killed it is about more than compensation, grief therapy is offered to family members and they are counselled through it. Back then however Mum was left to rot; “You are a young woman with a profession” the judge had said. In other words get back to work and get on with it.

If only things were that easy.

Chapter Thirty

During the next year my family saw many changes. We were moved to Mum's home town of Strabane immediately after the death. Mum's parents had sold and packed up the Belfast home and moved her back to theirs. This was a time when she couldn't be alone, she would need their support. Alison was enrolled in the local school and the bedrooms doubled up to accommodate us. Only now Mum wasn't a child, this time she had three small children in tow. This time she was a mother, she was 28 years of age and she was widowed. She had unwittingly, through no fault of her own, become a single parent.

By this stage Mum had become well and truly acquainted with Misery; they were inseparable. Misery's friendship was all consuming. They spent all their time together and performed every task together even when it came to us. Mum performed her duties in a perfunctory manner; her eyes blank and lifeless, she was always somewhere else. She had surrendered her body and spirit and let Misery take her away, away from the coffin, away from the grave and away from the pain. Misery was a clingy friend constantly clutching and grasping at Mum, she liked to keep her close and away from us. Yet now and again they became separated and Mum was granted tiny moments of reprieve. During these moments, when Misery loosened her grasp ever so slightly, Mum would wonder where Dad was, for she knew he would never leave her. Mum believed love didn't die, that it was eternal. Dad had been so alive, full of ideas and plans for his wife and his girls that he couldn't just vanish; he had to be somewhere. But when she looked for him, when she futilely tried to find him, Misery reached out her hand and Mum grasped. Misery was her friend now, she understood.

I'm told that Mum's friend Ann travelled from Belfast to see her once. She hugged Mum and they both cried. The last time they had hugged was on her wedding day. Misery joined them both that day making a grasp at Ann too, for as she cried she talked of her sorrows, about her fears for Mum and how would she cope.

Ann's sobbing was uncontrollable; Mum couldn't discern a word she was saying until she composed herself controlling her tears.

“Gabrielle, I saw this you know, that night when I read your tealeaves, I saw that something bad, something really bad was going to happen.”

Mum stopped her as she was reminded of the woman in green that she had met the day before Dad's death. She knew that many would not believe the incident, too many people were sceptics, but Ann was open minded, she would at least believe. Mum recounted every detail she could remember to a silent Ann.

Before they could say anymore or try and analysis the visit her mother came in and all conversation ended. Yet a seed of doubt had been planted and in Mum's more lucid moments and indeed until this day she often thought that it was too coincidental to have seen that thing, to have been told those words and then have her husband killed. Mum still maintains that Dad shouldn't have been on that train, what if IT had made him finish his audit in one day; witnesses say he had just made the train before it took off. A matter of mere seconds had sealed my Dad's fate. What if those few seconds, seconds that delayed the trains' departure, had been caused by a more powerful force? Had IT somehow engineered for Dad to be on that train.

Mum was assailed by anguish. Her thoughts turned to us girls, by losing our father, we too had been cursed. That creature had certainly achieved its goals, IT had been teasing her choosing its location well, for IT knew Dad would die on a train. I believe it was easier for Mum to apportion some blame to something mythical. It was easier to believe this, it prevented her questioning the capability of humanity and what man could do to fellow man.

Chapter Thirty One

As always when a killer is found he or she is brought to some sort of justice, usually by trial. The surviving bomber was no exception. Mum the innocent party was put through the ordeal of a trial and facing the man who was responsible for her husband's death.

Over the next year Mum would be dragged to Belfast over and over again; they always insisted she came. It would bring closure they told her.

For Mum no trial would change the facts. Her husband was gone; nothing would bring him back. In the meantime she had no home of her own, three small children and to all intents and purpose was dead inside. To prove she was alive that she hadn't joined a league of the living dead, Mum began a process that would last throughout my childhood, the smashing of plates (and every piece of china she could see). She hurled each one into her parents' garden, letting it smash to smithereens. I imagine that she found something therapeutic in this, for her life resembled those broken shards of china. Her life was shattered and beyond repair and like the china it would never be put together again.

On the day of the court case Mum didn't anticipate that it would actually be held. The surviving bomber, the escapee had been severely burned. He was too ill to stand trial, which meant that so far each date that was set had been cancelled. Mum was made to prepare for court; they would drive all the way to Belfast, only to find that the bomber was still too ill. She didn't expect this particular day to be any different. Yet her father as always insisted that they drove to Belfast anyway, as it may just be the day that justice would be served. On this occasion he was right.

On this day the court case was not postponed, she would now see the man who blew her husband up and destroyed our family. She recalls not being prepared for this; it was something she could never have been prepared for. She made her way into the court room accompanied by family, friends and press and waited for the accused, one Patrick Flynn, to be placed in the dock.

I don't like to think that I'm opinionated but when it comes to some of the verdicts administered in Northern Ireland for terrorist cases I am ashamed to find that I am. I have always found it difficult to reconcile the outcome of my Dad's court case with my sense of right and wrong. I am no judge nor do I have any right to judge any other human being. Yet I do not understand how anyone found guilty of any terrorist atrocity or any activity that steals life for that matter, can be given such light sentences and even worse serve so little of them. Northern Ireland's justice over the years had caused great controversy with many terrorists serving sentences that do not reflect the gravity of their deeds, even worse in the post Good Friday Agreement those who were still incarcerated simply walked free. I am sure my family weren't the first to suffer from our judicial system it is something that all the victims simply had to accept. No one listened to them.

Mum's description of the trial never fails to upset me. She tells me that her little gathering seemed pathetic when compared to the bomber's huge gathering of support. She remembers feeling afraid and intimidated when she realised that so many of his friends and family had come to support him. To them he was a hero. Incidents like this did not help my Mum's future prognosis and I can easily see how Misery took her hold. It must have been difficult for her to understand why people seemed to be celebrating her husband's death, could they not see that by killing my Dad and a teenage boy that they had achieved nothing?

Mum remembers Flynn's entrance being announced, the old doors of the now derelict Crumlin Road court house rumbling and groaning as they spat him out accompanied by two guards. His appearance was to send an audible gasp around the court room; low murmurs from spectators filled the air until the judge silenced them all with one swoop of his gavel.

Mum knew his appearance would illicit sympathy, and became angry. He was alive, no matter what he looked like, he was alive. He had taken life yet he kept his. I believe that Mum was joined by a new friend that day, a louder more forceful friend than Misery. That day she was introduced to Anger.

Anger was aggressive and intent on destruction, Anger knew Mum was faced with the man who had destroyed her friend's life, the man who had left three little girls lives changed forever. Anger like any loyal friend not only stood by Mum, she did more than that, and she positively exceeded herself. She took control of the whole situation and possessed Mum's body, telling her that this man took innocence he preyed on all that was pure. Anger told her that this man had marks on his face that matched his soul. He was a killer and all could see. Forever anyone who enquired about his appearance would learn what he had done.

Anger now in total control of Mum's movements and thoughts, steered her and even spoke through her so that together they could attack. Anger wanted this man dead, wanted this man in the ground where he belonged and Anger would stop at nothing until she had succeeded.

Mum's family tried and failed to restrain her, it took two policemen to hold her now seven stone frame back and prevent her and Anger from achieving their goal. When they finally restrained and captured Mum she was led out. As she was escorted from the courthouse, Anger left her and her friend Misery was to return. They clung to each other and they shook and cried. A kindly policewoman sat with them in a small bleak room, until justice had been served.

Back them Mum wanted him locked away, shut away from humanity forever. I am thankful that the United Kingdom no longer sanctioned corporal punishment because I know Mum would have wanted to the kick the box beneath the gallows. Luckily her father did not share her opinion. Whilst she waited in the little waiting room; her father had taken to the stand and was pleading for leniency. He felt that this man, the killer had suffered enough. He did not see how a tough sentence would bring his son-in-law back. Mum had always loved that her father was a man of peace, yet on this day for the first time in her life she took exception to those feelings.

Whether her father's pleas were heard or not remains unclear but the judge obviously had similar thoughts on the sentence. The accused was given just ten years for each manslaughter and seven years for the use of explosive devices to be served concurrently.

“I am satisfied beyond reasonable doubt you were one of the bombers. I am satisfied you and your associates did not intend to kill. Nevertheless, the explosion and fire caused the death of three people in most horrific circumstances. In sentencing you I am conscious you have suffered severe burns and scars, for the rest of your life which will be a grim reminder to you of the events of that day.”

Misery was heaved aside by Anger, ten years for each life it didn't seem fair. In ten years from now the children would still be in school and wouldn't have their Dad. What about their secondary school days, their university days and their marriages; they would have no Dad for these days. To add insult to injury Mum knew that most prisoners never served their full sentences; back then Northern Ireland's jails were so full that most served just under half.

From that day on Mum had two friends fighting for her attention Anger and Misery; Anger had the loudest voice so in the main she won out. Little did Mum know that half a sentence was optimistic as a mere six years later Flynn was released.