Safe House (7 page)

Liam knows May Furlong. She once was a pretty girl: red hair and lovely gray eyes. Now she never goes out, unless it is dark.

His da says, “I thought we were talking about jobs.”

His mum helps herself to the salad bowl. “There are no jobs.”

Silence.

Liam thinks his mum's probably right about the jobs because his da puts up no argument. And she's definitely right about the way the British army treats them.

His mum thrusts the bowl at his da, “Have some more salad.”

“No thanks.”

“Liam?”

“No thanks.”

His mum takes the bowl back and finishes the little that is left. “If there were jobs in Belfast I'd have had one years ago. Mrs. McIntosh says…”

“Ah, don't be tellin' me about Mrs. McIntosh, Fiona darlin'. That old harridan has a tongue on her would clip a hedge. She sees only trouble and strife that one. If she ever smiled she'd crack herself in two.”

His da gets up from the table and Liam leaps up and throws his arms around his neck. “Da, let's never go to England, okay? We will always stay here, right?”

“Ah! No man ever wore a scarf as warm as the arms of a child,” his da says, laughing and hugging Liam and whirling him around and causing his mum to leap to her feet yelling for them to stop before something gets broken.

Liam is ten:

“There's almost as many Protestants out of work as Catholics, Joe. We ought to be working together to solve our problems, not fighting each other.”

Liam is standing in the street with his da and Joe Boyle, a neighbor.

Joe Boyle laughs. “You'll never see that, Daniel. Catholics and Protestants working together in the North of Ireland? You're dreaming, man, so you are.”

“Don't you be so sure, Joe. That so-called Peace Line?” His da points to the twenty-foot-high brick-and-steel wall dividing the two areas, the Catholic Falls Road and the Protestant Shankill Road. “That wall should be knocked down for starters. Should have been demolished years ago. They did it in Berlin. The Berlin wall came down, right? Well, what is stopping us from doing the same thing here? We should be opening our windows wide and shouting loud, ‘I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take it anymore!'”

“Listen to yourself talking,” says Joe Boyle, shaking his head. “A dreamer you are.”

“That wall divides us, Joe. How can we talk of peace if we keep a wall up between us? The Irish poet says, ‘Something there is that doesn't love a wall, that wants it down.' He's right, so he is. That wall must be pulled down, Joe, before we all kill one another.”

“Ah, never mind your Irish poet, Dan. You're a great one for talking. The fact is, Protestants and Catholics are like oil and water: They will never mix in a million years. The Protestants are the majority; they want to drive us out. The wall protects us. That's why we will always need the wall.”

While his da and Joe are talking, Liam stares at the wall and the clouds above it and tries to imagine what he would see if it suddenly disappeared. No wall? It is hard to picture. The Peace Line wall was there long before he was born. There are streets on the other side, he knows that, streets like the one he is standing in now, streets he has never seen, with British army bases and surveillance cameras and gun towers and razor wire. Streets with police stations like forts, plump sandbags piled high around them. With houses blind with boarded-up windows to prevent Prod and Catholic terrorist firebombs. With burnt-out shops and pubs. With wire mesh, iron gratings, and metal barriers for protection. With empty lots littered with piles of rubbish and wrecked cars. With graffiti everywhere. With heavily armed police and soldiers in combat gear and visored helmets, walkie-talkies constantly crackling as they mingle with shoppers in the street, guns at the ready.

West Belfast is a war zone.

What would life be like with no wall separating the two factions? It is impossible for Liam to imagine.

…girls, wild and audacious…

He lay on his bed in the safe house, his mind teeming with thoughts and his heart crowded with feelings. Mainly he thought about his mum and his da. Sometimes he thought of Nicole.

“She's wonderful,” says Nicole Easterbrook.

“Yeah, but she sure gets mad sometimes,” says Grace Newton.

The four friends, Liam, Rory Cassidy, Nicole and Grace, are in the Youth Circus lounge, taking their morning break one Saturday, drinking orange juice provided by YC, and discussing Madame Dubois, the director.

Madame Dubois is in charge of everything to do with the Belfast Community Circus.

“She scares me,” admits Grace. “She gave me a lecture in her office one time. Yoicks! I never want to go through that again.”

Rory laughs. “You must have done something pretty bad.”

“I skipped out an hour early to buy a U2 album. But I got back okay. for my mother to pick me up at the usual time, so what was the big deal? Anyway, Dubois was flaming mad. Threatened to throw me out of YC.” She turns to Rory. “What about you?”

“What about me what?”

“Madame Dubois. Has she ever yelled at you?”

“Of course not. I don't break rules. But if I did break a rule, she wouldn't yell at me: I'm so lovable.” He grins.

The others laugh. “Anyway,” Rory says to Grace, “Dubois is an old lady. You should show her some respect. She's got to be way over thirty.”

“Closer to forty,” says Grace. “But she looks younger. That's because she's still slim and muscular from her career as a trapeze artist.”

Nicole nods. “Very fit. I've watched her work out after most of the kids have gone home. She's amazing.”

Grace says, “Have you noticed that big poster in her office, the one behind her desk? Not the circus poster on the far wall. The one with the trapeze artist. That's Fay Alexander. Madame Dubois was coached by Fay Alexander. So she must have been really good.”

“Who's Fay Alexander?” asks Rory.

Nicole exaggerates her amazement; her mouth drops open and her eyebrows disappear under her dark fringe. “I can't believe you never heard of Fay Alexander!”

“She was a famous trapeze artist, in America,” Nicole explains. “She was the stunt flyer in a circus movie called The Greatest Show on Earth. It won the Oscar for Best Picture of 1952.”

“Wrong year,” says Grace. “Greatest Show was 1956.”

“Who cares?” says Rory. “It's ancient history.”

“Not so ancient,” says Grace. “Circus artists pass their skills down to the next generation. From Fay Alexander to Madame Dubois to us. What's so ancient about that? I think it's wonderful.”

“So do I,” says Rory. “But that's not what I meant…”

While Rory and Grace enter into a friendly argument, Liam asks Nicole, “Do you see many movies, then?”

“Not really. Just certain ones. Like circus stories.”

“Have you seen Trapeze? Burt Lancaster?”

Nicole nods, “I love Trapeze. I've seen it so many…”

Grace interrupts. “Who do you think was the technical adviser for the flying sequences in Trapeze?”

Rory laughs. “Not the famous Fay Alexander again!”

“You got it, smarty pants.” Grace flashes him a triumphant smile.

Grace's eyes are blue, in an oval face. Her manner is often haughty. Liam has already noticed that Grace doesn't mix much with the Catholic kids. Rory is an exception; she is not so haughty when he is around.

Nicole and Grace are Protestants

“Maybe we could watch Trapeze together sometime,” Liam whispers to Nicole as they leave the lounge and make their way back to the circus ring.

“I would like that.” Nicole's smile is warm and sincere.

“Relax,” she says.

He wobbles and then topples off the slender cable, a few feet off the floor “Yaa-aa!”

This is his umpteenth failure. “Wire walking is much harder than the balance beam,” he moans.

But Nicole is enthusiastic. “You're doing fine, Liam. Keep at it, but focus more as you look ahead. Keep your knees bent and your arms higher. You're too stiff. That's it. Relax your shoulders and breathe naturally as you get your balance. Watch me.”

Nicole jumps up onto the platform and walks out onto the wire, sure-footed as a watchmaker's cat, and so natural, almost like she's walking down the street. When she gets to the end of the wire she turns easily and walks back. “There. You see how easy it is?” She smiles at Liam. “Now it's your turn.”

Her smile is brilliant, but even when she's not smiling, her mouth tips up at the corners. He likes the way her green eyes twinkle. Her hair is short and fine, worn just below the ears, and kind of straw-colored.

Both Nicole and Grace are a pleasure to watch when they work. They are so good, not only on the wire but also on the trampoline. One of the purposes of the trampoline is practicing aerial figures and poses for trapeze work, or flying as it is called, including dismounting and falling to the safety net. Liam is aware that it is possible to break his neck if he does not land on the net or trampoline properly. The girls are wild and audacious, sometimes putting on an exhibition of somersaults and high leaps on the trampoline without their safety harnesses that look like they will go right through the roof. They perform these jumps when the trainers, often third of fourth year students, are taking their break. They never jump like this if Madame Dubois is around, for she becomes angry over the slightest breach of the rules. “I do not want to tell your mothers you won't be home today because you broke your stupid little necks,” she tells them. She thinks nothing of suspending kids from the program or even dismissing them from the circus entirely if the offense is serious enough.

Liam steps onto the platform, takes a deep breath and glides out along the wire once again. This time he manages to get to the halfway mark before falling.

Nicole applauds. “Good, you're improving. Just try not to be so stiff in the shoulders. Rub some more rosin on your shoes and try again.”

Circus shoes, or soft-soled moccasins, allow the feet to feel the wire. The rosin helps the soles retain contact.

Again he tries, but overbalances when he is only halfway across. “I'll never make it!” He is angry with himself.

“Yes, you will,” says Nicole confidently.

“I'm taking too much of your time.”

“Not at all. I want to see you do this, okay?” Her patience and her brilliant smile make him so much want to please her.

This time when he walks across the wire he concentrates on relaxing his shoulders. He makes it all the way.

“Good work!” Nicole laughs. “Now turn and come back.”

And he does.

He dismounts. “Great! You made it. Now it will be easier next time, and you will get better and better.”

“Thanks, Nicole.”

“Don't mention it.”

…locks and chains…

Dinner with the Grogans: chicken, potatoes, peas. This time there was dessert, a store-bought apple pie, no ice cream.

He suddenly remembered the smuggled potato peeler. He had forgotten to slip it back into the drawer. It was still in his room. Had Moira missed it when she was preparing dinner? There was probably a spare in the knife drawer; in fact, he was almost sure he had seen an extra one there.

Otherwise dinnertime was much the same as the evening before. No conversation beyond Fergus's polite question to Liam: “Everything goin' okay?” And to Moira Grogan to pass the salt and pepper.

Retreating to his room after kitchen cleanup, he opened his window and looked out at the rainy landscape. He felt better with the window open, felt himself less of a prisoner. He put his hand outside and felt the rain on his palm. The rules said he could not go outside but he could send out his hand to test the world, like Noah sending out a dove from the ark.

He closed the window, leaving a gap at the bottom, switched on the light, changed into his pajamas, and became absorbed in stretching exercises. Ribs still a bit tender. Foot okay though. It was a quiet house in a quiet area. No traffic noise here at the back of the house. After being stuck indoors for two days, the exercise relaxed him.

Exercises over, he collapsed onto his bed and reached for White Fang. He opened at the page where he had left off, where White Fang emerges from the darkness of his birth cave and sees the dazzling white world outside for the very first time. It is a second and different kind of birth for the wolf cub.

But he was unable to read: Thoughts of today's funeral keep crowding his mind. His mum and da were at this moment dead under the soil of Milltown Cemetery. They were in their coffins.

He closed his eyes and slept.

He slept for two days, Friday and Saturday and part of Sunday, not once leaving his room, barely remembering the Grogans trying to get him to come downstairs to eat. It was like a fever, except he had no sickness, only grief.

On Sunday afternoon, he got up and showered and went downstairs. Fergus Grogan was out. Moira Grogan asked him no questions except, would he like some lunch?

He sat and ate what was put before him and soon he felt better.

After kitchen cleanup, he told Moira he wanted to telephone his friend.

“What friend?

“Rory. He lives on my street.”

“Make it short.”

He slid his wallet out of his hip pocket and read the number. He had never telephoned Rory before; there had never been a need. He lived right across the street, and they were in the same class. They saw each other every day at school, except for right now in the summer holidays.

Delia Cassidy answered and recognized his voice. “How are you, lovey? Are you all right? How's your foot?”

“I just called to talk to Rory.”

“But you're all right, yes?”

“I'm fine, Mrs. Cassidy. Everything's fine.”

“We're just back from ten o'clock Mass. I'll get him, hold on.”