Herself Alone in Orange Rain Page 13

  Back in the kitchen Cathy and Aiden are drinking tea, smoking. She pushes her pack across as I sit. The lines around her mouth deepen as she takes a drag; she brushes frazzled brown hair off her forehead. Her roots are grey. She stares at me but doesn’t ask my name which I guess means Aiden’s already told her.

  ‘Do I want to know?’ she asks Aiden.

  ‘You don’t.’ He taps ash off the end of his cigarette. ‘Can you get a message across town for us?’

  ‘Aye, tomorrow.’ She sighs. ‘I’ll get yous some blankets for the sofa.’ She shuffles out.

  ‘Are you alright?’ he asks, reaching for my hand.

  ‘Fine.’

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘Weren’t you watching?’

  ‘Thought I saw something up the road. Next I knew he was by the car and…’ He takes my hand again. ‘He was going up in a few hours anyway.’

  ‘It wasn’t him.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘It was some ould fella. I didn’t see until after…’

  ‘Shite. Who then?’

  ‘I don’t know. Maybe his da? Is this going to get me disciplined?’

  ‘Ach, no. You had to get away. You’re no use in jail.’

  ‘I’m no use out of it if I’m shooting the wrong people.’

  ‘Don’t think that. We don’t know who he was. You were reacting to a developing situation,’ Aiden reassures, gripping my hand.

  I rub at the ache in my forehead.

  ‘You want me to see if she’s got any pills?’ he offers.

  I tell him yes, but two Aspirin aren’t going to make this better.

  We doss down in the living room, me on the sofa, Aiden in an armchair with his feet, still in their boots, on the coffee table: next to the gun. The night plays on a loop in my head. I see the man’s face, the eyes reading mine, the mouth open to plead, and the second face, staring sightlessly. The before and after images alternate, faces on a spinning coin. I lose whichever way up it falls.

  When grey dawn finally filters through the faded curtains, I get up. Cathy is in the kitchen, wearing a plain brown skirt, flat court shoes with scuffed toes and a bobbly white jumper with a lace collar, her greying hair pulled into a knot. At the table is a boy about ten wearing a school uniform, the tie clumsily knotted and his shirt cuffs threadbare. Limp cornflakes float in a milky sea.

  ‘If you’re not eating that away to school,’ Cathy says and he puts a spoonful into his mouth with a grimace. ‘Tea?’ she asks me.

  ‘If there is some.’

  ‘There’s always some, even when there’s nothing else,’ she replies and tips last night’s dregs into the sink. ‘Was it Kelly sent yous out or McKearney?’

  Panic and saliva fill my mouth.

  ‘It’s alright, love, I’ve been there myself,’ she says. ‘Kelly was it?’

  ‘Yes.’

  She nods and snatches away the half-eaten cornflakes.

  ‘I was eating them, Mammy,’ the boy says.

  ‘You’ll be late. I need you to run to Mr Kelly’s on your way. Tell him to call round this morning. You know where I mean, Callum?’

  ‘Yes, Mammy.’

  ‘Go then.’

  Callum stands but doesn’t leave.

  ‘Well?’ Cathy demands.

  The kettle starts screeching.

  ‘You’ve not given me my dinner money,’ Callum says, studying the trailing laces of his scabby shoes.

  ‘I’ll make you a sandwich.’

  ‘Can’t I have the money?’ he pleads.

  ‘I can’t give you what I’ve not,’ she snaps.

  I dig in my pocket for some change.

  ‘Here.’ I offer him the coins but Callum looks to his mum for permission.

  ‘There’s no need,’ she tells me.

  ‘It’s only a couple of quid. Let me.’

  She sniffs but gives Callum the nod. ‘And mind your manners, mister,’ she warns.

  He stares at me, his eyes large, brown and smiling. ‘Thank you.’

  ‘Tá fáilte romhat,’ I reply.

  He blushes and drops his gaze.

  ‘It’s Irish, ‘you’re welcome’.’

  ‘Oh.’ He braves a second glance at me. ‘Cool. What else can you say?’

  ‘Never you mind,’ Cathy orders, shoving him from the kitchen.

  While she’s packing him off, I empty the kettle into the tea pot and scrub two mugs. When I turn around with them full of tea Cathy is in the doorway, scowling.

  ‘We don’t speak Irish here. It’s asking for trouble.’

  ‘Sorry, I didn’t…’

  She snorts, ‘You wouldn’t.’ She casts her eyes over me, inspecting. ‘So you’re the Finnighan girl.’

  I nod.

  ‘Heard you’d come back,’ she says. ‘What’re you doing messing in this anyways?’

  I clatter the mugs down, slopping tea onto the Formica. ‘I’ve the same right to serve as anyone.’

  ‘So I used to think.’ She drops into a chair and lights a cigarette. ‘’Til they threw me out for having a baby and no ring on my finger. A disgrace, they said.’

  ‘Who?’ I think of Kelly.

  ‘Those stuck up Cumann na mBan bitches,’ she retorts. ‘With their holy of holiest vows of virginity.’

  I sit across from her. ‘I’m not in the Cumann na mBan.’

  ‘Good for you. I hope the ’Ra treat you better but don’t be expecting it. Equality: they’ll talk it plenty but when it comes to acting, hmph! Now I’m stuck at home, doing them favours when there’s no one else.’ She sighs, expelling rage and regret. ‘They’re fond of saying how the Six Counties is one big jail that the boys are born into ’til they get sent up the road to the smaller jail. But this,’ she gestures to the peeling wallpaper, grubby lino and mismatched chairs, ‘is my own wee prison. It’s a life sentence I’ve got myself, so it is, just for being an unholy mother.’

  Her fury forces me into a no-comment position. We sit in silence, tea and anger cooling. Cathy’s comments about the Cumann na mBan stir up a question.

  ‘Did you know my mum?’

  Cathy puts her mug down. Stares at me.

  ‘I wondered, maybe you served together?’ I prompt.

  She smiles tightly. ‘We did more than that. I knew her, aye. She was a solid comrade and an even better friend.’ Cathy nods. ‘It was terrible what happened to her.’

  I don’t want to hear that. ‘Tell me about her, just something ordinary. What was she like?’

  ‘Great craic,’ Cathy says, ‘but serious when she had to be.’ Her smile grows as she pulls memories to the surface. ‘A terrible cook but she could make amazing soda bread. If you played cards with her she’d always cheat unless you played for money. She was a terrible singer but that didn’t stop her when she’d had a few whiskeys, which wasn’t too often. She was the only person I knew who could put our Nora in her place, formidable so she was, and when she…’

  The door inches open. Aiden enters, rubbing sleep from his eyes. ‘Is there tea?’ He reaches for the pot.

  Cathy’s face switches back to surly. ‘Men, sure, you’re all the bloody same,’ she barks, standing as Aiden helps himself. ‘I’m away to collect this week’s handout. I’ve sent the lad with a message. Someone’ll be round for yous later. Clean up after yourselves.’ She bangs out.

  Aiden shakes his head. ‘Sorry. She’s like that sometimes but I couldn’t think where else to go.’

  ‘It’s OK. We were starting to chat before you interrupted.’

  ‘Aye, what about?’

  I don’t want to share those precious fragments, not even with Aiden.

  ‘Nothing much. Who is she anyway?’

  ‘Mammy’s sister. We only see her Christmas and Easter, keeps to herself since she had the wee ’un.’

  A car collects us mid-morning. A young lad drives, eyes welded to the road, while Kelly rages at me from beside him.

  ‘That fella you shot was the screw’s bleeding father-in-law. And
they found the fu… the bomb before it went off.’ He faces me. ‘You’ll not be doing any more ops here. It’s alright yous running messages but, catch yourself on, you’re useless at proper jobs.’

  ‘That’s not fair,’ Aiden bleats. ‘She…’

  ‘Don’t you say fuck all to me, boyo. Letting your lass do your job, you’re a fucking shower,’ Kelly barks.

  His chivalrous sexism, how he curses Aiden instead of me because he won’t swear at women, makes me long to call him a cunt just to shut him up, make him wither, but I’m in too much trouble to risk it, even for Aiden. I reach for Aiden’s hand. He tears it free. I don’t know who he’s mad at; Kelly, me or himself.

  I fix on the scrolling view, throat tight, eyes stinging. To Kelly the shooting is a chance lost, justification for his macho bigotry. To me it’s a line crossed.

  ‘You’re away back south,’ Kelly grins smugly at me, ‘where you can do no more damage.’ He rakes mucus up from his lungs. ‘So much for ould man Finnighan’s kin.’

  I wash up in Dublin and find myself lost in my own house. I pace the rooms, searching for something to settle on. Seeing Daideo’s Cúchulainn painting above the fireplace, I stand in front of it. The angry army pours perpetually into the valley; the boy warrior waits eternally to face them, believing, against sense and reason, that he can defeat them. Slumping onto the sofa, I stand myself in his place, feeling the ford’s icy torrent snaking my ankles, the wind whipping my hair, the fear in my heart: the weapon in my hand. But it’s not a gae bolga, Cúchulainn’s terrible death spear, it’s a handgun. I fire until each man’s face is bloodied: tattered. They keep coming, despite their wounds. I claw my way out of the daydream, sweating and shaking, the real gun on the couch next to me. Sinking under the fallout I forgot to hand it back and Kelly, too busy bollocking me, forgot to ask for it. Another fuck up, more Kelly’s than mine, his responsibility, but he’ll blame me, adding it to his ‘against’ list. I go into Daideo’s bedroom and hide it under his bed, a problem buried in shifting sand.

  I drift, sleepless and exhausted, drinking through my misery and the savings Daideo left me, tramping the streets, looping back and round, checking off places on a list someone binned long ago; Northumberland Road, Mount Street, St Stephen’s Green, Dublin Castle, Phoenix Park, the GPO: places that don’t matter anymore to the people here. They got rid of their enemy. The Free State, Eire, the Republic; they don’t have a cause to fight for anymore. Their world is nine to five, Croke Park on Saturday, church on Sunday and close their own front door with no worries of it being kicked in by squaddies or burnt down by Loyalists. They stopped being victims long enough ago to forget how much it hurts. I want to slap them, wake them to the reality they’re sleeping through. But I can’t so I keep walking, to keep myself awake. I’m afraid of the nightmares that’ll come with sleep.

  On the first day of term I loiter by the bus stop opposite the college, reviewing what I’ve given up, watching students carrying their shiny new portfolios through the entrance. I try painting myself into the scene but every time I’m carrying an Armalite, not an art set. Mr Walsh appears on the steps. I leave.

  At home I get my sketchpad. Frustration drives my pencil, drawing lines that shape a Belfast house on a rubble-littered street. The house’s corner pose shows only part of the front door and windows but all the gable end which tapers away up the street. The gable wall is patriotically painted; a large tricolour daubed high and, beneath it, the comforting greeting ‘Welcome to Provo Land’. Suddenly a figure appears in the composition, standing, back to the viewer, facing the graffiti. The figure’s clothes are neutral, jeans and a jacket. It’s the blonde hair dripped half-way down her back that gives me away. That and the gun drawn in my hand, the one now hidden under Daideo’s bed. What do you do when the choice you made has been unmade for you? By you? I slide the pad into a drawer.

  After a week of battling the tide, when I’m knackered enough to crave drowning, the phone rings in the middle of the night. It’s Aiden.

  ‘How’re ya?’ he asks.

  ‘OK. You?’

  ‘Aye, ya know.’ There’s a pause. ‘How are you really?’

  ‘Bloody terrible. Are you coming down soon?’

  ‘I can’t. They’re sending me to Glasgow.’

  ‘What! Why?’

  ‘Ah, they’re saying they need me there.’

  ‘But?’

  ‘It’s that prick Kelly.’ Aiden’s voice hardens. ‘He’s gobbing on that us being together’s messing up my head.’

  ‘Is it?’

  Aiden grunts. ‘It’s not being with you that’s messing me up. Jesus, I’d skin him if I could get hold of the bollocks.’ He sighs. ‘I’m sorry, Caoilainn, but there’s nothing I can do.’

  ‘When are you going?’

  ‘In the morning. Shite, I’m running outta money.’ The phone pips. ‘We’ll sort this. I love you.’ The line dies.

  It’s the first time he’s said that. I didn’t have chance to reply. If I had would I’ve been brave enough to say it back?

  I buy a canvas, 3ft x 2ft, and transfer the Belfast street sketch onto it, using it profile instead of landscape so my one house reaches from edge to edge but leaves me space above for an oppressive sky. Then I start painting; blue jeans, brown bricks, white words.

  Aiden’s mother invites me up for Christmas, even though Aiden can’t be there. In the last few months I’ve had half a dozen postcards from him, pictures of men in kilts, the Saltire, thistle covered hillsides. They’ve held me together, just about. I tell her I’ll think it over; I’m not sure I want to be there without Aiden. At least here on my own I can ignore thoughts of him, cravings for him, on good days anyway. Up there I’ll be staring at photos of him, hearing his name, sleeping in his old bed, the one he can’t use because he’s on the Brits’ list. She rings twice more, worries at me, tells me I’m family. Uncertain I can refute that, I pretend someone’s at the door, hang up and go back to spackling in the rubble littering my new painting’s pavement.

  Two days later the phone rings at dawn. I dive out of bed and skid into the hall to answer it.

  ‘Hello?’

  ‘How’re you?’

  It’s Aiden. Pain splits my head, tears scald my eyes.

  ‘Are you OK?’

  ‘Aye, grand. I’ve not long though,’ he says, pausing. ‘I need you to do me a favour.’ He sucks in a breath. ‘Go to me ma’s for Christmas.’

  Nora’s been on at him.

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘I’m fine on my own.’

  ‘Moping won’t help. You need to be with family.’

  His words bite; I swipe at the stinging. ‘My family’s dead.’

  ‘Catch yourself on; we’re your family. Jesus, what’s wrong with you? You don’t have to tough everything out alone.’

  ‘It’s what I’m used to.’

  ‘Then start changing ’cos that’s no way to live.’ He sighs. ‘Just go to me ma’s, please. I don’t want you on your own.’

  ‘Then come home.’

  There’s a silence, a sniff and a clattering.

  ‘Aiden?’

  ‘Wouldn’t I love to?’ he says, words broken and raw.

  Fuck. I’m hurting him. What the fuck is wrong with me? ‘Sorry. I know. I’ll go.’

  ‘Grand.’ He sniffs again. ‘You might even enjoy it.’

  I doubt it, with him missing, but I’ll try, for his sake. I lean against the wall and find myself staring into the living room at my almost finished painting. We say hurried goodbyes and he’s gone again. I go into the front room and open the curtains. Heavy rain clouds are slung across the sky but along the horizon they’ve torn, letting through a thin line of dawn light that turns the downpour orange in the east. It’s the sky I didn’t know I was looking for until I saw it. I drag my easel to the window, squeeze red and yellow onto my pallet and blend until the sky’s bitter burnt orange is in my palm.

  A week later the
painting is finished. A fair-haired woman stands on a road in ruined West Belfast, gaping at a graffitied gable end, gun gripped tightly. I leave it on the easel to dry and get packing, cramming Christmas parcels in my bag; whiskey for Frank, chocolates for Nora, soaps for Cathy, Ireland jerseys for Danny and Callum. One box, gift-wrapped with reindeer paper and green ribbon, clunks heavily. Inside it is the gun I shouldn’t still have; I have to confront my failures and take the consequences. Before leaving I write the title on the back of the canvas, ‘Herself Alone in Orange Rain’, and sign off.

  Belfast—23rd December, 1981

  Frank meets me at the bus station. Brits in battledress stamp by as he kisses my cheek and takes my bag.

  ‘OK?’ he asks as we get into his car.

  ‘Fine. You?’

  ‘Better now Connor’s on the mend.’

  ‘He’s alright then?’

  ‘Filling out. You look as though you could do with feeding up some.’

  ‘I’m fine.’

  We drive through the drizzle in silence, passing grey Land Rovers, a Saracen, more foot patrols. I stare out the window; dreary buildings draped with soggy tinsel bleed into the rain-soaked day like watercolours on soggy paper.

  As we park outside the house Frank squeezes my arm.

  ‘You didn’t mess up. You did just fine. There was a problem; you handled it. And got away.’

  ‘To do what?’ I pull free. ‘Sit on my arse in Dublin while things carry on the same up here?’

  ‘See what the new year brings,’ he says, winking.

  Hope relaxes me. ‘What’s that mean, Frank?’

  ‘Ah, sure, I’ve still a wee bit of influence with the boys.’