This Irish House (11 page)

He stared down at his plate. “I suppose so.”

Kate recognized that they'd reached the point where nothing would improve either Kevin's mood or their conversation. She stood and picked up her plate. “Have you finished?”

“Aye.”

She reached across the table and cleared his plate. “I'll finish up here.” Refraining from asking about his homework, she walked into the kitchen, breathing a sigh of relief. Meals with Kevin,
anything
with Kevin, had become the most stressful part of her day.

The bleeping of the alarm stunned her into instant wakefulness. Groggily Kate fumbled for the off button, lifted her head to check the time, groaned and flopped back onto the pillow. Wednesdays, her one-day a week in Belfast, came too quickly. Allowing herself another five minutes, she stretched her toes and slowly worked her eyelids into the open position. It wasn't yet six o'clock, still dark, too early for anyone to expect a normal human being to rise. Still, Belfast could be as much as four hours away in morning traffic. Exercising all the discipline she could muster, Kate threw back the comforter, tested her toes on the floor and walked into the bathroom.

The showerhead was a new one, large and round with a myriad of spray sizes. Turning on the tap, Kate waited for the water to heat, stepped out of her nightgown and into the liquid warmth.

Ten minutes later, her head wrapped in a towel, she belted her robe and walked down the hall to knock on Kevin's door. No answer. She turned the knob and looked inside. No Kevin.

Alarmed, she ran down the stairs. “Kevin,” she called on her way down, “where are you?”

“Here.”

The voice came from the kitchen. Kate turned on the light. Kevin sat at the table holding a mug.

“Why are you up so early?”

“Grandda said I could take his car today. I couldn't sleep.”

She smiled. “I imagine it must be exciting to drive yourself to school for the first time.”

He shrugged. “I suppose so.”

She crossed the kitchen, bent down and kissed his cheek. “I'm off to dress. Drive safely, love. If I don't see you before you leave, have a lovely day.”

“Thanks, Mum.”

Humming to herself, Kate climbed the stairs. It was grand to see Kevin happy. Perhaps things could be normal again after all.

L
iam Nolan scratched his two-day-old beard and squinted at the document on the table. He pointed to the location of a large munitions deposit on the north end of Ardoyne. “This doesn't look good, lad,” he said to his brother. “Perhaps we'd better leave it alone. The risk of moving it in this climate is too great.”

Dominick leaned back in his chair and shook his head. “We haven't a choice in the matter. This one is big. Special Forces is close to finding it. We'll smuggle it through the city and relocate it somewhere in Antrim. I'll ride along on this one.”

Liam's expression turned skeptical. “I don't like it. Kate is in town on Wednesdays. She might see you and wonder.”

“I'll take the risk.”

“She could be blamed if anyone connects you to Patrick.”

Dominick stared at his brother. Kate's reputation was irreproachable. The Virgin Mary would have more of a chance at blame than Kate Nolan. “Are you mad, Liam? No one in his right mind would blame our Kate for anything. She's pure as the Madonna. For Christ sake, look at what she's done for the country. They'll be genuflecting to her before this mess is over.”

“Times aren't what they were, lad, not with Neil Anderson in Belfast. We can't take anything for granted.”

“You've been an old woman ever since Deirdre told you he pulled Kevin in. Anderson wants nothing from us. He's in the drug business.”

“It's all one and the same. You know that.”

“The past is over, Liam. Kevin is safe at home. Kate is out to save the Peace Accord and we'll do what we must.”

Liam pulled a pack of cigarettes from his breast pocket, struck a match, lit the unfiltered end, drew in deeply and exhaled. “Do you ever wonder what it would be like to end all this, Dom? We could go back into the antique business, travel the world, see New York City and Boston. I'd like to see America.”

“You've seen it.”

Liam shook his head. “You know what I mean.”

Dominick's blue eyes narrowed. “You aren't goin' soft on me, are you, lad? Have you forgotten Patrick?”

“Patrick lived in a different Ireland. There's little sympathy on either side for those who Step outside the law.”

Dominick's thin, handsome face hardened. “It's justice I want, not sympathy. When we're treated the same as everyone else, I'll live inside the law.”

Liam sighed. The conversation wasn't a new one and Dominick's mind was set on one goal. He wouldn't be swayed by anything less. “The first minister's gone to Italy to study organized crime. Too many of the lads are falling into a nasty business, Dom.”

“They've nothing else.”

“Nothing but homes and families.”

“They've no cause, Liam. Nationalism was their cause. Now that it's been taken away, what's left to them?”

“Are you sayin' what I think you're sayin'?”

“You heard me.”

“Are you tellin' me our lads are turnin' to crime because there's no longer any fighting to be done?”

“Aye.”

Liam stared at his brother thoughtfully. When had their roles reversed? Dominick was the youngest. For how long had he taken the lead? Liam couldn't remember. Somehow, after Patrick died, he'd stepped aside, comfortable with his subservience, relieved that Dominick had assumed the dominant role left vacant after their oldest brother's murder.

Liam knew he wasn't clever, not like Dominick, certainly not like Patrick whose brilliance had been obvious from the moment he could speak. Patrick had been a light never to be replaced. Liam's strength was his perseverance, his dogged relentless tenacity that saw a project through to the finish. That, and his die-hard belief in the Nationalist cause, a united Ireland, had earned him a reputation he was proud to carry, until lately. Liam saw no dishonor in breaking the law. Up until now it was a Protestant law, created and enforced by a Protestant police force against a Catholic population. Bad laws, he reasoned, were meant to be broken.

But recent events had raised questions in his mind. Since the Peace Accord sides were no longer so black and white nor strictly Protestant or Catholic. Everyone wanted peace and, oddly enough, the Loyalists had voted for equal rights for all citizens along with the Nationalists. It was perplexing, particularly for a man who'd never in his life called a Prod a friend.

Perhaps it really was different now. All factions were tired of war. Both sides wanted a fair sharing of power.

Dominick was poring over the document in front of him as if it were a treasure map. His younger brother was single-minded. Derry City's Battle of the Bogside was as firmly entrenched in Dominick's mind as if it had happened yesterday. At every opportunity he argued convincingly against compromise unless the Loyalists made concessions first. His logic was effective. Never again would Catholics of the Six Counties depend on British troops to help them against their antagonistic Protestant neighbors. Never again would they be forced to their knees, burned out of their homes, murdered in the streets while praying for the arrival of the Protestant-infested Royal Ulster Constabulary, Northern Ireland's police force. Sinn Fein could promise whatever they wished in the name of diplomacy, but Liam knew that as long as Dominick was in charge of munitions, there would be no disarmament, no turning over of weapons, until all of the terms of the Peace Accord had been met.

The sticking point was integration of the RUC with proportionate numbers of Catholics. Some believed it was impossible. Liam was not one of those. The single qualifying factor for his optimism was his sister-in-law's role in bringing about that very result.

Kathleen O'Donnell Nolan had qualities that normal women did not share. From the moment Patrick brought her home, Liam, renowned for the accuracy of his first impressions, could see that she was something out of the ordinary. Kate was intelligent, of course, and lovely in the black-haired, blue-eyed, creamy-skinned way of women who hailed from the far west of Ireland. He could not imagine Patrick with a woman either simple or unattractive. But Kate was more than either of those. One had only to engage her for the space of a few sentences before realizing that not only was she direct and dignified in a way that women no longer were, she was incapable of nothing less than absolute truth.

Liam was aware that this singular attribute had been the root of Patrick's many sleepless nights. During the turbulent seventies and eighties, frustrated Catholics, trapped by prejudice in British-dominated Ulster, supported Sinn Fein and the Irish Republican Army. Patrick was no exception. Because of his education and chosen profession, expectations for Patrick were high. What he'd intended to be minor involvement turned into something much more. During the final years of his life, the bulk of his law practice was confined to defending those convicted of terrorist acts against the government.

Kate knew all that. What she didn't know, what her husband dared not tell her, was the nature of his role in the organization most of the western world considered to be terrorists.

For Liam, what all the facts boiled down to now was confusion. He was no longer sure of anything. Where once he'd harbored no doubts at all about the propriety of his actions, he now had serious ones. His world was tilted at an uncomfortable angle and the righting of it would not be left to those who rowed against the popular tide.

Liam didn't approve of the new direction taken by the youths of Belfast's working class. In his day a lad had but three choices: emigrate to America or to the factories of Manchester and Liverpool or, more likely, live on alcohol and the dole like his father and grandfather, or join the ranks of the guerilla forces of the Irish Republican Army.

The latter allowed a man to keep his pride, stay home and win the respect and appreciation of his community. This had been Liam's choice and Dominick's and finally, Patrick's, although his education kept him on the sidelines for a very long time.

Their world had changed. Dominick was right. Today, lads had nothing to strive for or believe in, nothing to dull the edge of their pubescent tempers. And so, where once the IRA policed the Catholic communities of Andersonstown, the Falls and Clonard, keeping them free of petty crime, now drug dealers haunted street corners and every schoolchild knew where to find items sold through the black market.

As little as five years ago, elderly women could walk the streets without fear of purse-snatchers and muggers. Now, lads bent on mischief did what they would do, never mind that they stole from their own. Not that Liam had actually approved of the methods the IRA chose to emphasize their lessons. A bullet in the knee or banishment were a bit extreme but he couldn't deny they were an effective deterrent.

He could not see the point of gaining a say in the direction of a society if that society wasn't worth belonging to. His dilemma was further muddled by his late brother's wife.

Kate Nolan was, in Liam's mind, closer to sainthood than any human he had ever known. She was also a woman of rare insight. If she supported the Peace Accord, he had more than a slight suspicion that he should be supporting it as well.

“I'd leave this one alone, lad,” he repeated. “Let them find the weapons. Better yet, offer them up. It will put them off for a while and quiet the rumors that we won't decommission. It will also make Kate's job easier.”

Dominick lifted his head and quirked an eyebrow. “What does Kate's job have to do with anything?”

“She's in a hard spot.”

“That's her problem.”

“Do you have something against our Kate, Dom?”

“She did nothing to smooth out Patrick's life.” Liam stared at his brother incredulously. “She was everything to Pat.”

“She didn't support his life, not like the other wives.”

“You can't blame her for that. He didn't tell her what he was.”

“And why couldn't he do that, Liam?” Dominick shot back. “If you ask me, there's something wrong with a marriage when a man can't be honest with his own wife.”

“She wouldn't have approved.”

“Why not? Does she think she's too good for us?”

Liam struggled to explain. Words didn't come easily for him. “She didn't marry into it, Dom. She wasn't expecting it. Patrick wasn't involved when they married. He never told her when things changed for him. You can't blame Kate for that. The fault is Patrick's. In the end she and the children paid dearly for what he believed.”

Dominick frowned. “Don't go putting Kate on a pedestal, Liam. She's a mortal woman, a fine one, but a woman all the same.”

“She's our family,” Liam reminded him. “She's Deirdre and Kevin's mother.”

“I'm not forgetting that. She may not want to be forgetting, either.”

“What do you mean?”

Dominick shrugged. “It may be nothing.” He stood and stretched, a tall black-haired man, lean, with the tight, ropy muscles of a boxer. “Go home now, Liam. There's nothing more to do here. I'll be along shortly.”

“Will you leave this one, Dom?”

“Perhaps. I'll think about it.”

Only partially satisfied, Liam walked through the back door and out onto the broken pavement of the car park. He decided to walk home instead of giving his car the usual tedious inspection for explosive devices, a precaution required for an automobile parked outside of Sinn Fein headquarters.

Kevin had never been to this part of West Belfast before. Until the Peace Accord, the Catholic ghettos of Andersonstown and the Falls were located behind the barricade. His mother considered these areas too unpredictable to allow her children anywhere in the vicinity, not even to visit Dominick and Liam.

“Turn here,” said Sean.

“Park at the end of the street.” Kevin obeyed, parking at the end of a dark close.

Tim clapped him on the shoulder. “Come inside with me. Sean can wait for us here.”

Kevin followed Tim inside a house that looked fairly normal for a working class neighborhood, gray wood, peeling paint, a crumbling porch. But on the inside all semblance of normalcy ended.

There was no kitchen, no sitting room or bedrooms. All the walls had been gutted revealing rotting rafters and exposed electric wires. Boards were nailed across broken windows and over potholes in the floor. A single lightbulb suspended from the ceiling threw a feeble glow over a small aluminum table in the middle of the room. Filthy blankets, pillows and stained sleeping bags covered the floor. Herb, powder, colored capsules, drug paraphernalia, bongs, joints, clips, ashtrays and beer bottles cluttered the table, the floor, the corners. People came and went. Bodies in various stages of cleanliness and drug-induced haze lounged around, smoking, drinking, talking, sleeping in whatever space was available. The smells of urine and vomit permeated the air.

Kevin's stomach heaved. He tapped Tim on the shoulder. “I'll wait outside.”

Tim gripped his arm. “Not yet.”

“I'll be sick.”

Tim thrust something at him. “Hold this and stay away from the door.”

The bag was light. Kevin looked inside and his eyes widened. “I can't do this. Not again. They'll send me up this time.”

“No one's going to know.”

Kevin shoved the bag back in Tim's face. “I can't risk it, not again.”

“Steady now, lad. Calm down. Just take it for a minute. Here.” He pressed Kevin back into a corner. “Sit down.”

Kevin pulled away. “I'll wait outside in the car with Sean.”

“All right. Relax. Give the bag to Sean. I won't be long.”

Breathing a sigh of relief, Kevin turned and made his way toward the door. He reached out to turn the knob when a loud pounding sounded, followed by a crash and a splintering of wood. Men in green uniforms kicked open the door, pushing him back, filling the room. Another man in street clothes lifted a megaphone to his lips. “Police. Don't move. Everyone is under arrest.”