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Sheila didn’t come. She was waiting on the Falls Road, a flag in her hand, along with thousands of others. A guard of honour that would make up the funeral cortège.

—He who was lost has been found again, Father O’Donnell said during the funeral Mass.

Tom Williams, the prodigal son. It was here he was baptized. Here, also, as children that we’d come to speak of serious things while pretending to pray.

—Tom has come home again, and we welcome him joyfully ...

I was looking at his coffin. It was wavering before my eyes in the dim light. The tricolour had been nailed to the pale wood. Sometimes priests would refuse to have Republican symbols, such as the black beret and gloves of the fighter, enter the church. Then we would have to negotiate, or chase off the priest and impose one of our own. But today, there was no need. Tom had been hanged for that flag. Ireland’s earth ought to welcome them together, and the Clonard priest was in agreement.

I lowered my head, closed my eyes and opened them again immediately to stop myself from toppling over. I could feel the embarrassed looks, the compassion, the nauseating fraternity surrounding me. On leaving the ceremony, dozens of hands were held out to me, like Hitchcock’s birds. Soft, firm, affectionate and timid handshakes, gentle nudges and brushings. I couldn’t feel my legs or arms. Inside my head I was screaming. The scream of a torture victim. When the coffin left, I cried. An old man’s dry tear. A trail of clear alcohol on my leather. The crowd was so thick it frightened me. I was miming, pretending to rejoice. I put on a victorious expression by imitating other people’s happiness. It was cold and dry. I had awaited this day for fifty-eight years and it was killing me. My face was inscrutable in the midst of all that celebration.

The IRA had laid down its arms. The first child to be born in peacetime was called Samuel Stewart. He arrived on 31 August 1994, several minutes after the ceasefire was declared. The last British soldier killed by our men was Stephen Restorick, cut down at the age of twenty-three by a sniper, in the final death throes of the struggle.

Our political prisoners had been released, all of them. Some had entered local councils, civil service and government departments. Smile, Tyrone, for God’s sake! Look at Tom’s coffin being carried on men’s backs through the city centre. How many times have you woken up wishing that dream would come true? What’s that? You’re suspicious? But of course you’re still going to feel suspicious! Everybody knows that, Tyrone. The fear that exists between the two communities? Yes! Naturally that remains. The difficult work of grieving, the anger, the hatred, even. And also the feeling of impunity that wounds the victims’ families. But regardless of all that, this is your father’s dream, Tom’s, Danny’s. Peace, Tyrone! It’s what you’re in the middle of experiencing right now!

In a few weeks, Waldner will return to England, the red-haired handler will be directing traffic at a crossroads, Honoré will be teaching Irish history, and everything will be over. Look around you, Tyrone Meehan! People are cheering you with their eyes. Nobody knows. Nobody suspects. You’re going to get away with it, my old friend! It’s been months now since you’ve given the enemy any information. And besides, what could you give them? There is no need any longer for a secret meeting place in a graveyard, for climbing up a double-decker bus. The war is no longer in the headlines, Tyrone. Yesterday your OCs were giving orders to bomb 10 Downing Street with mortars. Today, they’re having tea with the British prime minister. The old IRA members and the former Protestant paramilitaries are queuing in the parliament cafeteria, both of them demanding their extra bread. The last time you met them, Waldner was listening to you out of habit, and Honoré was glancing at his watch. You’re no longer of any use to them, Tyrone. That’s it. It’s done. It’s over. They’re going to forget you. You’re going to forget them. Everything can be forgotten.

I turned to face a wall and took a desolate swig of vodka.

—Tyrone?

They were asking me to carry the coffin. The veterans had already done so, our OCs had relieved them. Go on, it’s your turn now, Tyrone Meehan. Take the head of the bearers. Six of them, three on either side. Go on, Tenor, make your English friends smile. A photo in tomorrow’s newspaper? Danny’s killer bearing Tom. I wasn’t breathing. I have never breathed well. I always knew that the air would run out. Two young men helped me support the burden on my right shoulder. I was staggering a little. They looked at each other wordlessly. On the other side of the coffin was a man from Derry. He put his hand around my neck and I gripped his. We moved forward with slow steps under the weight. I could feel the
sliotar
through my trouser pocket. I looked up at the winter sky. I was in anguish. I hadn’t recalled the weight of the sorrow. I was looking at the crowd lining the streets, honouring us.

I knew every face. I could name them all. Tim, who had returned home after eighteen years of prison, now a stranger to his wife and children and experiencing such difficulty with finding himself a father again that he slept curled alone on the edge of their big bed. Wally, who spent his time explaining to kids on the street that they no longer needed to throw rocks at the armoured vehicles, ever, that that was before, when children used to die for throwing rocks. The McGovern brothers, officers of the 3rd Battalion who had returned to face unemployment with so much courage. Paul, who had stopped his hunger strike and who would cough, limp and fall into a doze while waiting for death. Terry, Alan, Dave, Liam, who were now taxi drivers, barmen, bouncers and carpenters. We weren’t a country, or even a city, just an intense family. I was returning winks, waves, nods. I tried to return to everyone the pride they were offering me. I was acting, cheating, lying. I no longer had the dignity left to respond.

I had awaited this day for fifty-eight years, and it ended up turning me into someone else. Even if everyone forgot me, I wouldn’t forget myself. After these few hours, there would be nothing else. I wasn’t walking with my people, I was leaving them. I was no longer from here, no longer one of them, no longer one of us. When I saw Sheila, looking so beautiful, I closed my eyes. Cathy, Liz, Trish: the fighting women were at her side. They would bless themselves at the passing of the coffin, their hearts racing. The children were there in school uniform in their hundreds, standing with their teachers, who would repeat Tom Williams’s name, spelling it out on the blackboard.

When they asked me if I wanted to give up my place, I refused violently. I pushed the next bearer away with a kick as I spat on the ground. Tom Williams was mine. He had settled my burned mattress in our new house on Dholpur Lane in January 1942. He had shaken my hand and asked me to call him by his first name. I kept watch over our streets, for him. For him, I had learned my country’s history, I had boxed in the ring on Kane Street, I had attacked the enemy. It was he who had placed the first bullet in the palm of my hand. It was with him that I had fought, with him that I had given up the coloured Fianna uniform for the bloody clothes of a soldier. So let me be. Let me carry him another while, a few more metres, leave me be! It’s not just Tom in that coffin. Nobody knows that, eh? One evening I went to bed a scout in short trousers. The following morning I was this old man. And between the two, almost nothing. A fistful of hours. The smell of gunpowder, shit, turf and fog. So clear off!

I carried Tom. I bore my leader on my back, my friend, my brother. I brought him home. I was going to open his bed of earth and throw my childhood into it.

21

On 2 December 2006, we were invited to Deirdre’s wedding. She was the granddaughter of Pat Sheridan, another Kesh veteran. Something wasn’t right from the moment I walked in, the silence behind some looks. When I arrived with Sheila, the young bride was dancing on a pub table, arm in the air and glass raised. The room was packed. I went to sit down at our usual table. Our places had been kept. On the stage, a band was playing Sixties tunes. We had missed the national anthem, the father of the bride and husband’s speeches, and I wasn’t wearing a tie.

When she saw me, Deirdre beckoned, laughing.

—Tyrone! At last! Ten minutes later and you’d have been attending my divorce!

I winked and gave her the thumbs up. I hadn’t wanted to come. I was actually about to go to bed when Sheila insisted. She had slipped into her green velvet party dress with white frills and cuffs, and pierced her grey hair with a large black comb.

—Nobody will understand, Tyrone. And besides, I don’t want to lie to them.

I had complained of a pain in my head, then in my stomach and then I’d given up. I simply didn’t wish to go. Sheila placed my grey suit on the bed, smiling the while. So I got dressed, and then I followed her.

The pub had closed its bar for the evening. Everyone had come with their own drink. In my paper bag were six cans of Guinness and a flask of vodka. Sheila had brought a small bottle of gin and a large one of tonic water. Fruit juices were lined up on the bar so people could help themselves. There were two people at our table, Divis residents. Chairs arrived for us, passed from hand to hand over people’s heads, brushing against the white paper flowers bedecking the ceiling. Several minutes after we walked in, Sheila took off her shoes to dance. Just like that, stone-cold sober, with a slightly ridiculous enthusiasm. She was catching up on the evening, her drunken friends. When I went to the jacks, I bumped into the groom’s brother. We had been imprisoned together.

—Some night, eh Gerry? I said out of politeness while pissing loudly.

He was doing up his buttons.

—If you say so.

Gerry Sheridan had never been too talkative. In the Kesh, the screws called him ‘the Oyster’. He didn’t give them anything, not a word. He didn’t speak to us, either. But his face was made for smiling. That evening, Gerry didn’t turn his head. It was the first time. Maybe he was making me pay for being late.