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—I promise you.

He had understood.

Then I leaned over the table and took his face between my hands.

—You wee insignificant volunteer.

Thomas McElwee died on 8 August 1981, at twenty-four years of age, after sixty-two days of hunger striking. Micky Devine went on 20 August after sixty days of fasting. He was twenty-seven.

That’s when the family of a hunger striker asked for an end to the suffering. A father and a mother, sitting at the bedside of death, warming up the hands of their lifeless statue with their own hands. Their son had fallen into a coma. They gave their consent to have him fed. Then another mother gave in. And another. And another. And another eight mothers who each refused to lose her child.

The hunger strike officially ceased on 3 October 1981 at half past three. One hundred volunteers were signed up to join the protest in turn. Some had secretly pushed their names up the list to start sooner.

Several days later, the prisoners were given authorization to wear civilian clothes, but not to claim they were political prisoners.

Margaret Thatcher never yielded, it was said.

Antoine had followed the martyrdom step by step. He was infuriated by his powerlessness. He observed our distress as a witness kept at a distance.

—You don’t think that the Frenchman might be useful to you?

I hesitated, looked at Waldner.

—Which Frenchman?

The British agent gave me a pitying look.

—Ah now, Tenor! None of that between us, come on.

I remained silent. I didn’t know what he knew.

—Antoine Chalons, the name doesn’t ring a bell?

We were walking along the street, sheltered under a large umbrella.

—Nobody wishes him any harm, this Antoine of yours.

He looked at me, smiling.

—On the contrary, in fact, Meehan. On the contrary.

I had my hands in my pockets. I was squeezing my left thigh between my thumb and index finger so hard I could have screamed.

—You were right to advise him to quit his stupidity, but that doesn’t suit us at all.

I looked at him.

—He has nothing to do with all that.

Waldner stopped dead. I met his gaze.

—Nothing? He’s hiding terrorists, he’s moving dough around, and you call that nothing?

—You’re bluffing! You haven’t any proof.

—The French police have everything they need. His workshop is under surveillance, and I’m suggesting to you that we place him under protection.

He had started walking again. I threw him a foolish question.

—What do you want?

Waldner lit a cigarette while keeping an eye on the street.

—The French are watching him but we’re going to reassure them. We’ll tell them that we need this guy. That they shouldn’t take him in.

That day, I refused to enter the cemetery. Pretending to pay homage to a hero in the company of the enemy was killing me. Waldner was courteous, as usual. He didn’t give any orders, he made suggestions. He asked me to use the end of the strike to appear to change my mind regarding Antoine. I’d have to see him again. Invite him into our secret circle. Ask him for his key.

—But you and you alone will make use of it, Meehan. There’s no question of him putting anyone else up or transporting anything. He will be your alibi.

—I have no reason to be in Paris for the IRA.

—You’ll find one, Tenor. Your imagination is already legendary.

Antoine arrived in Belfast two days later, on 11 October 1981.

I took him by car to the upper part of the city.

—Do you still want to serve the Irish Republic?

He looked at me. He was astonished. There was laughter in his eyes. Want to? Absolutely! Of course he wanted to! When? Immediately! Whatever I needed of him. I calmed him down with a look. We passed some armoured vehicles. He smiled at the helmeted soldier sticking up out of the open turret, cheek crushed against his rifle butt.

—Pan! Pan! Pan! the wee violin-maker kidded. Rapid fire in French, a good-humoured onomatopoeia uttered through the windscreen.

He would give me the key the next time he came over. No, he’d never ask me anything. Yes, he’d come to meet me at the airport and leave me back there at the end of each trip. It’s a promise, Tyrone. A secret between the two of us, Antoine?

—Not even Jim?

—Just you and me. A mission requiring the utmost trust.

He looked at me, suddenly anxious.

—You’re not going to strike in France?

Never, my wee toy soldier. You don’t spill blood in a country that supports your cause. You love it, you protect it, you respect it. The IRA would never touch your soil. It is sacred to us.

—Alright, son? Will we keep it like that?

We would keep it like that. Of course. If he had been less cramped, he would have taken out his violin to celebrate the great news. Antoine was entering our ranks once more. He was leaving his loveless life for the love of our lives. I felt strange, neither shameful, nor guilty, nor remorseful. I looked at him. I didn’t regret a thing. By using him, I was making amends for his foolhardiness. He would play at war without risk or injury. I was going to protect him. He had his eyes closed, his hands crossed behind his head. He was the picture of happiness. And I was happy for him.

—Pan! Pan! Pan!

Bent over the tape recorder, Waldner jumped. He gave me a questioning look.

—We were passing an armoured car.

He nodded, smiling.

—A real terror, your little Frenchman.

Three months before, they had installed a miniature recording device and microphone in my glove compartment. Every Saturday at the Castle Place post office I would write a postcard on the counter that was always covered in scraps of paper. The tapes were in a closed envelope, sellotaped to the inside of the
Belfast Telegraph
. Waldner would come in, approach the counter and take the newspaper. Not a word exchanged, not a glance. It was convenient. As if he wasn’t who he was, as if I wasn’t myself.

I became acquainted with Honoré. A little like the way you learn to recognize a French wine. I observed him for a long time before tasting him. He was different to Waldner or the red-haired handler, who had stayed behind in Belfast, with their military questions. When they met me, they were waging war. Honoré, on the other hand, was not a soldier, but rather a student who works hard at his course. And I was the subject of his study.

We met at the Jussieu Campus in Paris. Unlike Belfast, the gates of the institution were not guarded, the stairways were clear and the classrooms often left open. Only once, after violent incidents between students from the left and right, did campus police screen everyone. Honoré asked me for a passport photo to make me a university staff card in case that should happen again, but the guards had disappeared the following day. On fine days, we sat out on the flagstones on chairs borrowed from a classroom. I’d talk, he’d take notes. From a distance we looked like a professor and his student. In the cafeteria, at the back of a deserted amphitheatre or sitting on tables in a deserted space, we looked like the ghosts surrounding us. We would eat sandwiches and drink soft drinks. No alcohol during our talks. He’d asked me that as a favour. So I’d come to the meeting with my flask in my pocket and I’d drink behind the Englishman’s back.

The first time I saw Honoré, he was wearing a civil-servant suit, but in Paris, with me, he preferred jeans, polo-necks and trainers.

To begin with, he asked me unimportant things. I think he was warming up. He wasn’t interested in what the IRA was up to.

—What I want to know is what it’s thinking.

What the IRA was thinking? He wanted to get a picture of who gave the orders within the army, the politicians or the soldiers. If there were dissensions in that respect and who made up the different factions. He asked me questions about Irish current affairs. At the last Sinn Féin Ard Fheis, which public speaker had been wildly applauded by the crowd, and which had practically cleared the room when they took the platform? Why? And what impact did it have on the movement’s strategy? Discussing that kind of thing seemed fairly harmless. But his way of taking notes reminded me who he was. As he wrote, he didn’t stop watching me for a moment. He never lowered his gaze to his notebook. He’d scribble his letters by guesswork, instinctively putting sentences together. Between my eyes and his eyes was the thread, and he was afraid of breaking or losing it. He knew that while I was looking at him, I’d almost forget he was writing. From time to time, Honoré would nod, blink, offer me a sign of understanding. When I hesitated, he’d encourage me with a frown. Two friends chatting, the older seeming to captivate the younger. Never, in all my life, had anyone ever listened to me like that.