The Troubles (21 page)

    ‘’Aye I see, but ya’d like to see me again?’’

     ‘’Aye, of course! I just have to see to Ena.’’

   ‘’Is there anything I can do?’’ I press her further trying to ingratiate myself into her life.

        She smiles her teeth bright like polished pearls. “Perhaps. Thank you Alastar.’’ As she rolls her tongue over the guttural vowels of my name I am reminded of our night’s honeyed words.

      “Kiera, did I hurt ya?’’ I am suddenly scared the answer could rip at the fabric of our harmonious union. She breathes in deep and I too breathe in with her.

      ‘’Nay not physically.

       “But the blood…”

         She cuts me off maroon with embarrassment. “Not physically, but this….” Her fingers glaze across my collarbone, “might be too fast for us, for me.’’

     ’’Aye, okay.’’ I am gruff and raw as the pain that sentence has dealt is too irrefutable to deny. I take one final fleeting look at the bedroom in the truth the day’s light uncovers, like walking upon a mirage in the desert to only have it evaporate with your proximity and like the illusion in the soft, ethereal edges of the moon’s glow. The truth is that all of Northern Ireland’s light holds some kind of eerie illusionary quality. The fog betrays the brightest of sunrises and though it may be only mid-afternoon the constant dull drum of overcast shadows gives the streets the calm atmosphere of the witching hour. The semblance of one’s daily lifestyle obscures patterns with climactic temperament.

     I walk alone and full of contradiction as I amble down the steaming cobblestone alley ways avoiding human contact both satisfied and in love but unsure and with trepidations of responsibility. Cleverly navigating behind busy street ways my legs take me to the eight-foot fencing at back of my childhood home. Etched with a longing that only one’s family can induce, I stare at the grimy and weathered brown brick two story home sandwiched claustrophobically and attached to an identical dwelling both to the right and the left. There is a tendril of acrid, dark smoke from coal burning curling from the unkempt chimney that is centered directly upon a highly cantilevered roof. There are three windows on the second story, not large enough to gain sight into the home, but I know, as my vantage point has consistently been an internal one, that their light and views have given breath and relief to my families living quarters.

     I can hear yelling and immediately I duck and perch myself on bended knees waiting to have my hiding place exposed. How sad and ironic that I am lurking in the shadows, behind a home that every morning I would scour, in an attempt to quell the exponential growth of dirt my siblings would dispense, as their brawls over rationed potatoes would literally smash dishes as if the children were young bulls in a china shop. Quinn had always been there in the center of the melee with a chipped tooth as penance, because no matter how boisterous and arrogant his swagger, his lithe, scrawny limbs simply could not answer for his smart mouth.

     I am here to retrieve a weapon buried in the earth beneath a mosaic of chipped, decades-old, stonework. The guns that come with the IRA come hand in hand with coerced indemnification. After the busted attempt for Gerry Adam’s penance concerning Bloody Sunday I have since been relegated to the sheathed, sharp blade shepherded safely in the leather backing of the inner membrane of my ankle boots. The physical amalgamation of Kiera Flanagan and I, has navigated me through the intermediary roadblocks one would face in the throes of establishing a courtship and I now feel affronted with a profound and weighted obligation for her safety. No, I am not a hero, nor a gentleman having scoffed at women’s pleas that they were damsels in need of rescue, which insinuated they were not the weaker of the species but the more manipulative. Kiera has shown me glimpses of cunning and perhaps I have just fallen under a black widow’s spell. She is, I discern, very alone in fact and most certainly in need of assistance.

     Sounds of children at play drift from the bedrooms of the house as my three younger siblings have returned from either school or the unsupervised extracurricular activities Belfast children fall prey to. I try to appease my guilt of having abandoned them by this small respite that at least they are home. Deep in my conscious I know my father, in surly stages of inebriation, is not much a safeguard against the streets allurement. I lurk in the shadows as the electric lights turn on inside our home, giving the darkness more girth. I feel safe here in my vantage point. I will wait until they have all gone to sleep and then I will retrieve the pistol for I take my place as a practiced spy.

     ‘’Would ya like me to give ya another shiner?’’ My littlest brother’s distinctive lilt barrels through the open window and into the brisk backyard air. Our sister, born eleven months after this brother squeals with mischievous delight. “Do yer best but ya’ve got nothin’ on Quinn, he’s a brute compared to ya.’’

      Killian growls as I strain to hear his response. “Don’t say his name or ya will join him!’’ I am appalled by his veiled threat and hold myself back from rushing in and thrashing the boy to his senses. This desire quickly absolves itself, as my guilt is too powerful, for I have abandoned every one of my siblings.

      My eavesdropping unearths what can only be surmised as an infinitesimal elfin snivel as my kin of the female persuasion, has begun to wail. “Shut yer bake Killian! How dare ya! Da will knock yer ballix in!’’

     ‘‘Da will do no such thing, he’s as drunk as a rank scumbag and nay Quinn nor Alastar are here to stop me from scalping ya!’’

     The little girl’s whimpering begins to fizzle like a fuse on a blustery day as I hear Killian declare, asserting himself at the age of eight, that she is to get some shuteye and as the muscles in my neck strain and ache with the damp, cold of murky fog that has coiled around dusk, I can no longer hear their infantile quarrel and my mind has inadvertently become downcast and conscience-stricken. I look down at gloved hands and rub them together maniacally attempting to bring life into numb fingers. In one fail swoop I leap over the fence with nimble athleticism never failing to surprise me and I take the given blade from its sheath. For a moment, I admire the shine of silver as it reverberates blazingly in the spilling deluge of the interior lighting’s canopy and instantly the flashing silver, reminds me of the last night when Kiera’s cylindrical irises glowed radiantly in the apex of our ascendancy. Face to face colors saturate and fragrances bloom with deeper bouquets.

     The knife cuts into the ground’s solid winter permafrost and I have to clench numb fingers so they don’t fail with the thrusts and slip to slice themselves on the razor-sharp metal, the metal ore indiscriminate in its objective of self-defense. As I crouch and look at the small hole in the ground punctured beneath me, I mistakenly see Quinn’s shrouded body covered in brown dirt and as I gasp in gulps of air to vanquish fatigue, the scent of humid clay, soaked in rain, elicits another vision as though conjuring a spirit on Hallows Eve. I swipe my brow as though the physical gesture can vanquish my brother’s apparition. There is at least no malevolence to his ghost and this brings me relief. I can feel in the ground, the 9mm before I have sight of it and I quickly bring it up to my jacket to polish the wear of erosion.   I kick at the dirt haphazardly to fill the hole and with one swift, final glance at the condensation on the kitchen window, ten feet before me; I manage to make an unremarkably discreet and pitiful exit into the night.

     The housing development feels saturated, both in the incapacitating rank of unkempt men and also in the decrepitude of declining brickwork with subsequent mold and leaks sprung throughout. I have done my best to take shallow breaths, as the two distinctly pungent smells battle perpetually to expunge the other. With no respite available and routine acceptance of the interior’s human pollutants, I have become accustomed to being woken up by splashes of cool rain water on my brow and have evolved sleeping habits along with my housemates, to pulling heavy woolen blankets over my face. Initially the claustrophobia had resulted in my waking up panicked and gasping for breaths, but over time I have grown accustomed to these lesser living conditions. I am a soldier, along with the boy sleeping but two feet next to me, and I am a comrade to the father of five on my right. We are all making the same sacrifice and no one dares complain.

CHAPTER 38: An te a thabharfas sceal chugat tabharfaidh se dha sceal uait (The person who comes with a story to you will bring two away from you)

     Kiera Flanagan…”Treat the earth well: it was not given to you by your parents, it was loaned to you by your children. We do not inherit the Earth from our Ancestors; we borrow it from our children. We are more than the sum of our knowledge, we are the products of our imagination.” –Ancient Proverb

     My belly presents itself as bountiful and slightly swollen, a gentle naked curvature just above my pelvis, not yet noticeable whilst I’m clothed. I stand fully naked before the bathroom vanity mirror, the billow of steam from a freshly drawn bath glistening over the slight bows of my peachy skin, like dewdrops in a morning dawn. My fingers caress my perceptively round and fertile breasts and shudders erupt as pregnancy hormones amplify the feather light pleasant feelings. The sensations are both maternal and erotic and with a woman’s confidence, I grasp the protrusion of my crescent moon stomach and directly regard the woman in the mirrored glass; she smiles back at me with delight and mischievous, parroted satisfaction. Yes, I am filled with a delirious joy; perhaps all the ecstasy filled encounters when Alastar calls upon me have left me drunk. My hardened earnestness to leave Belfast in the horizon has been replaced by a incessant desire to lie on freshly-loved-upon bed sheets and have frivolous, foolhardy chats about my mates profound love for felines or my affinity for clumsy accidents with all delirious conversations erupting into giggles and further interrogations from a bemused naked man and a his blushing paramour.

    ‘’Why do you not touch a drop of whiskey to dull the ache, Alastar?’’

     ‘’Ya are intoxicating enough Kiera.’’ My naked man pulled me on top of him with an obvious desire.

      ‘’When we are apart, Alastar, we must not lose ourselves in loneliness.’’ I am concerned that our love affair will soften and distract him when he is exposed and most vulnerable.

     ’’I understand the sentiment love, and will compel meself to remain strong in yer absence.’’

     ‘’When we are apart we must turn to our gods.’’ I had whispered. “They are the only absolute in this world.’’

      It is now February and although spring is but months away, the day’s dawn is delayed in darkness and our shared breakfasts are yet to be had in daylight. I return to the kitchen and just watch as Alastar cracks two brown speckled eggs into a cast iron frying pan. His shoulders are hunched and although his back is to me, my forearm hair prickles with an electric current just his presence gives me. I tip toe with socked feet across the bowed floor and fork one hand around his taught abdomen, snaking the other in an attempt to circumnavigate his taught girth. As I clasp my fingers together he rests his lazy left hand against mine brushing his thumb across my knuckles. I rest my cheek in the concave space between his shoulder blades, rocking forward to allow him to support all my weight. “Mo chuisle how was yer bath?’’ His eggs have scrambled in the brief moment of our embrace as without much effort he pulls me before him with my back to the stovetop. With his empty hand he turns off the gas burner and takes a bite out of his breakfast. Suddenly, the sulfuric scent of eggs makes my stomach queasy and as he absently places his wet mouth upon mine I feel a panicked surge of bitter bile erupt. With no food in my empty stomach acrid bile scours my esophagus and my taught abdomen curls and wretches like a python strangling a much larger prey. ‘‘Aghh bloody hell that smarts.’’ My words are warbled and shaky as I steady myself over the kitchen sink and deposit morning sickness down the corrugated maze of drainpipe my father had once installed.’’ Thank the Lord, Da fixed these pipes when he did or we’d have a mighty fine mess.’’ Da had retrofitted and renovated every faulty plumbing line in such an efficient fashion that my pride for his competency had not revealed itself until now, as tears dripped from my eyes onto the bile soaked basin drain.

    “Kiera what is wrong, love?’’ The blackened cast iron pan thudded to the ground reverberating in a ringing clang and floorboards cracked from the forceful impact with strewn bits of messy eggs scattered across the freshly sanitized flooring.

    ’’Ya are goin’ to be a Da Alastar!’’ His green eyes ignited with both surprise and a touch of suspicion.’’ Ya don’t believe me?” I exclaim bewildered.

    “Nay, it’s just that it hasn’t been so long…’’ he mumbles obviously blindsided

      ‘’Ya must be daft!  It only takes one time, mate!” I am now flushed crimson hot both from the vomiting and my irritation.

     “Please Kiera, calm yerself down.  Ya just laid it quick, but mo shiorghra, I love ya and…’’ He places his large palm upon my burgeoning belly bump. “I thought ya were just getting’ plump.” I smile and pummel him playfully on the chest.’’ Kiera, I’m being moved to West Derry. Ya know, I’ve quit me job at Harland and Wolf Shipyard.  What are we to do for money?’’

     ‘’I don’t know, Alastar. Why are ya being moved to West Derry? This ‘tis news ta me. Why didn’t ya mention that earlier?’’

     His eyes look distant as his gaze solemnly is directed through the kitchen window into the enclosed backyard. “I’m sorry me love, but I didn’t know we were with child.’’