The Troubles (11 page)

     Another hand reaches down from behind me and I know this is not Ena’s touch. I stiffen quickly and flinch 160 degrees to face the unfamiliar friend or foe. “Hun, ya and yer mate over there were whist banjaxed when ya came in. Bloody lucky ya made it in the nick of time.” A handsome woman in her mid-forties smiles, her kind, honey brown eyes reserving any pious judgment as they seem to implore their wisdom while they methodically scan my body. “Yer feet and hands will make it but by the look of things those toes were but minutes away from frostbite. This winter has been a skully perishing one as the Northern Channel has brought the icy wind upon Belfast with her squalls. Yer kin Ena, over there, told me husband and I ‘bout what ya did for Quinn. Didn’t even know the snapper. Ya could have left him to die in the street.” She is still touching my hand and with innate reasoning I question her relation to Quinn as her voice had quaked when she mentioned him.

     “That’s all right mam. I wouldn’t have let a dog die in that awful place. How is the lad by the way? Will he walk again?” She hesitates as though it pains her to think of the teenager’s condition.

      “So many questions child. Tis too early to tell ‘bout the foot but thanks to ya and yer youngwan, Ena, he won’t die. His brother would be bloody banjaxed if he did.”

     “His brother?”

     “Aye, Alastar Taggart.”

CHAPTER 17: Briseann an duchais tri shuile an chat (The true nature

of someone’s character is revealed through their eyes)

     Alastar Taggart…. St. Anne’s Park is a lush, expansive estate that all Northern Dublin suburbs share as their recreational fortress with its colorful history being as infamous as its proprietor Benjamin Lee Guinness who established the protected property in 1835. Whatever the Amber Ale’s tycoon’s true intentions were with the land, one cannot assume, but perhaps reality supersedes expectation, as it is truly grand in its natural beauty.

     It is at this park where we meet a lean man with the most shockingly unnatural color of red hair and a fowl grimace to match.  Our conjoining spook character, ironically, stands out like a bulletin board for all that is the Irish stereotype with the obvious brazen burnt hair, the stout face of an alcoholic and the arrogant empirical stance of a righteous soldier, though intuitively, I assume this will serve in our favor. Who would be so brazen as to broadcast their disloyalty in such a public place? One would assume we are serving the Queen and not the Republic. We will do our business in the open and not draw any suspicion simply by our uniformity with the rest of the nation.

     We have relinquished our immediate need for our borrowed red Fiat and are now weaving and bowing by foot past the quaint and tranquil Naniken River, which is across, the ten follies that serve in my mind as reminders of ancient druidic temples. The far-reaching park has so many features and exhibits of copious species of fauna that someone with my romantic temperament could get absorbed here and lose passage of time. Thankfully, I have this fearsome foot soldier guiding a similarly stern Lanary and my wistful self out of the park and into the adjoining northern suburb of St. Anne’s Park.

Ranehy enclave is past, in but a blink of an eye we are finally at the end of our harrowing journey and in the adjacent Clontarf is our daunting destination. Damn!

     Our nameless soldier has manifested more stilted trepidations than the ornery robotic gyrations of his leading march as he has lead us into the gaping mouth of a multi storied building.  The evaporated remnants that coat the long past, white walls smells of moist mold and masculine, testosterone excrement and the sharp corridor that we trudge down gives our fatigued brains the illusion of a narrowing, enclosing effect, as it looms dark before us. Our silent guide abruptly stops in front of us and veers left as we go deeper into the maze of the mammoth building. We walk further and further into the awaiting catacomb. I numbly am aware that not one word has been spoken over the last thirty minutes. I peer quietly behind at Lanary and he gives me a cold, distant, twinkle of faux cheer and immediately my stomach resumes it nauseating cycle in its admonishment that Lanary may not be here to facilitate a peaceful settlement but perhaps he is here to observe my demise.

     The unsettling lack of trust I am feeling is instantaneously overshadowed by a bored nasal voice. “Mr. Goulding is still in a meeting. Wait here,” and as I look around I can see we are in a sterile hallway with a stark, black door to our right. There is no place to sit, so Lanary and I lean against the yellowed wall. Without much of a declaration, a ruffian proceeds, to do a full physical arms search on Lanary and myself.  His huge, overworked hands search crudely through my cotton, long sleeved shirt with a swiftness that demonstrates his expertise in the task and I become somewhat discombobulated while his fingers pry into my sweaty crevices for any illicit weapons. I let out my breath in a hefty release when it is over as he moves on to Lanary and as I watch the man apply the same techniques to my companion, I notice beneath Lanary’s beard, his jaw muscle clench with his particular tell of tension. From inside his belt behind his back, the IRA subservient draws out a tarnished black handgun; a particular model that has recently been made illegal by our government for fear of vigilantism during these terrorizing times.

     “Lanary! What the hell are ya doing with that pistol?” I hiss blind-sided, as I am completely dumbfounded. How could he be so daft as to carry an illegal weapon? It would surely jail us had we been searched by the paramilitary at any of our preceding junctions. Furthermore, why was he being discreet and potentially treacherous with me? I do not have time to interrogate him on yet another one of his quirky offenses to my trust.

     Two men, or perhaps in the dim light, boys, recede abidingly and timidly out of the dark, small room with its door that now sits ajar as I pick up haggard breathing from within.  “All right ya two. Be gone with ya! Do the deed and be done with it finally.” As we clumsily cross paths I ascend forward into the poorly lit, approximately fourteen by twelve foot room. There is a desk of laminate splintered wood placed in the furthest corner and in an unassuming chair is Cathal Goulding. The air has all been but vacuumed from the enclosed space and my eyes dart fastidiously around in search of a ventricle to alleviate my anxiety driven claustrophobia. I am left alone, as Lanary, from his lapse in judgment or perhaps intentional oversight, has been sidelined to wait outside. The chief of staff of the Official Sinn Feinn Worker’s Party of Ireland is seated guardedly before me, motioning with apathetic movement for me to sit before him. My eyelids are heavy with supplicant humility and perhaps the fatigue from my hefty voyage is finally weighing heavy on my young metabolism.

     “Sir I…” Again the overgrown, middle-aged man gestures with a posturing hand and immediately I shut up. The years that this man has spent imprisoned are worn on every inch of him, as I finally am emboldened enough to consider his appearance. It is not only the hardening and strength that prison burns into you, but also the animalistic predatory alertness that one must assume for survival. This Cathal Goulding is a consummate criminal and it is apparent from his boorish prowess how his title came to him. The labored breathing that had greeted me earlier becomes more forceful as he deliberately pronounces my name, eschewed at the mercy of his once broken jaw.

     “Alastar Taggart.” It comes out neither threatening nor introductory, just cold and distant.

     “Aye sir. Tis I. Ya summoned me to Dublin.” The words tumble from my lips in one failed swoop and I grimace at my young sounding voice.

     “Tis true I did. Ya have a fair idea why that is?’’

     “Well, I suspected it had something to do with Reardon Sloan’s death and me involvement with all that.’’

     “Is that what ya think?” Well, I think what else could it be? He looks at me and I stare reticent back at the man because I understand his violence and do not wish to be on the earning end. “Do ya know who Bobby Sands is?” The question darts at me prematurely and my face reddens with acknowledgement.

     “Aye Sir, me brother and I are mates with him.”

CHAPTER 18: Vi Thuigeann an Seach an Seang (You can’t understand what you haven’t experienced)

     Kiera Flanagan…I am in an audience with Ena and the McGurk’s, warm and sheltered, before a charismatic and poetic Quinn Taggart. Our vestiges are lost memories and as the introspective recollections dissolve with the pain, kindly human nature is to regulate oneself back to normalcy. “So Quinn ya think that all the bloodshed has been worth it?” Ena politely questions the teenager without judgment being genuinely curious of his conclusion. He has been regaling us with tales of his infamous, pacifist friend, Bobby Sands, and conversely, his highly contentious acquaintances in the rebellion.

     “What choice do I have? We are not free men, never have been. Tis worse and worse in Belfast and if we live in this shite, why shouldn’t we fight and die for this shite?”

     “Seems awful extreme, Quinn. Innocents are caught up in the fight and then we are all named murderers.”

     “Aye, Miss Kiera, but the damn peelers blame us when they instigate violently most of the time.”

     “Do ya wish for peace then Quinn?” The boy’s tired grey eyes flicker concernedly as he registers my question and I realize that the notion of a just treaty to him in his young life appears to be elusive, as he has seen the worse of the bloodshed and corruption.

     “Can’t say I exactly know what ya mean. How ‘bout just liberty from oppression. Tis a lofty goal that one. I’d say independence would cease the wicked nature of me kinfolk.”

     I youthfully smile an illuminating appeasement to the boy. “I’m afraid all I can give ya is me hand in proper motions for equality, but it ain’t much.’’

    “It’s enough that we’re having a gaff all together,” Ena chimes in and as I regard the eleven-year-old young man before me there is something familiar to his stoic expression when he gazes directly into my eyes. To place the odd notion that I have seen him previously to this serendipitous encounter is plaguing me into the furthest recesses of my mind. His dark hair gleans as the artificial light of oil lamps bathes us as all in their warm glow.

     “Quinn, ya will spend the eve and ya lasses might as well too, as it is too cold to walk and ya’ve been through enough,” Mrs. McGurk warmly insists as she directs the three of us to their apartment above the pub.

     “Aye Mrs. McGurk we’ll be grateful too.”

    Ena has once again wrapped her arms around Quinn and myself and with much less trepidation than our earlier embrace we head up the single file stairway with Quinn limping between us.

     The following mid-winter days since my encounter with my own ruination had been adequately filled with terse words of warning from my respective father as apparently my twenty-four hour absence in the height of the scrimmage in and near Shankill Road had heightened his security measures. To once again be in the newly stripped comfort of my bedroom was consolatory and therefore I had chosen to forget that I was grounded and even though I am the age of an adult, with of age responsibilities, I would not resist my father’s imprisoning. I now had a vivid, bitter taste of why he was deathly afraid. There was reason to be.

     Frost was biting my new window in crackling snowflake formations and still my eye was drawn down to the treacherous floorboard. It too had been removed, as soot and fire damage had licked their fury into every corner of the room. The pungent smell of kerosene and wood smoke vapors indelibly permeated the once effeminately perfumed private refuge and my small bed was no longer in its previous location. I lay down only to find myself maladjusted to the rough redecorating that had paid little heed to the previous furnishings. ‘Just breathe, Kiera ya are in the bosom’, I remind myself.

     I must have slept past dawn, which is rare for me, as I have been conditioned to rise with my parents when the sun would rise. To rest past their awakening would be disrespectful. I had not done so since an introduction to my monthly menstrual cycle when I had not only felt the contracting and pulsating warm blood pour out onto the bedding and had laid in absolute shame unable to remove myself from the human matter that was, supposedly my own sin at the formative age of thirteen. Menstruating, being yet another repercussion of my mother’s phobia-inducing interpretation of her Protestant Bible.

     It is December 3
rd.
The year of ’71 will soon be over and the rapture be done with it. How more further gruesome can it get? My diary has been destroyed as my father thought my words to be too incendiary and provoking to remain in penned calligraphy. Perhaps what he feared most was his fellow Protestants somehow finding proof that his only daughter was traitorous with compassion for the opposing side. Creeping into my mind is the ridiculous notion that the paranoia now is so rampant that freedoms of beliefs are dangerous.

     I still have remnants of the bitter cold imbedded in my fingertips as I wash in our porcelain bathroom basin. I scrub my hands roughly as though I am washing away any sin I might have been complicit in. The clock rings hard and true in the hallway and my heart jumps violently as I realize my skittish reaction is one of posttraumatic stress. Mother and Father are at early morning mass and as grateful I am to have not been coerced into attending the exceedingly dull and political attendance, I am wary of being alone in the home that was not so long ago attacked, for no other reason than my parent’s devotion to their church.