Field of Blood (39 page)

`Did you want to do that?'

Ì doubt it.'

`But you did it?

'My father was pretty keen that I should get to the Grammar School.'

`Why didn't you tell him to fuck off ? Why didn't you do what you wanted to do?

'Because where we lived wasn't like Turf Lodge, Gingy,' Ferris said.

They walked on. If they paused and looked back, then the view beneath them was spreading. The clouds were thickening over to the west and Dungiven and Claudy, and there was the grey blue pencil line of the mountains of Donegal. The

going wasn't hard for Ferris, but he was anxious for McAnally. McAnally didn't 212

complain. The track wasn't wide enough for the two of them, and McAnally led,

as if that were important to him.

`What's your Da do, Mr Ferris?

'He manages a bank.'

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**`What does he make?

'I don't know, I suppose about fifteen thousand.' `What's that in a week?'

`That's about three hundred a week.'

`Jesus, when I was at home, on the Assistance I pulled in less than sixty.'

`He's been with the bank a long time,' Ferris said lamely. `Do you get extra if you

shoot a Provo?

'No.'

McAnally turned momentarily to Ferris, his face was cut with disappointment.

`We heard you got extra, that's what we were told.'

Ì wouldn't have thought either of us gets overloaded with the truth.'

Three sheep burst from shelter in front of them and stampeded, frightened and

clumsy, away from their approach.

McAnally had stopped. He swung round to face Ferris. `Would Rennie lie to meet

'What about?

'I said to him that I'd heard in the papers that a tout was paid fifty grand, he said that was just Provo propaganda. He said that with Roisin and the kids with me that I'd get more than a hundred a week. He said without Roisin and the kids I'd

get forty a week. He said that was private, between us, that I wasn't to say about

it ... He said that I'd be found a place to live, that I wouldn't have to pay for anything myself, like the electricity ...

Ferris couldn't look at him. Jesus Christ, was that what it was about? Was it about

forty pounds a week, and free electricity?

`He said that I'd have people to look after me, after I'd given evidence, and that

they'd buy the food, pay for everything. That'd be my spending money, forty pounds a week ... Would he lie to meet

'Mr Rennie wouldn't have lied about that.'

Ferris looked at the mud‐smear over his boots. Forty pounds a week, the pieces

of silver. Touts came bloody cheap.

They achieved a tiny plateau, just a few yards square, and the sheep had cropped

the grass short. At the side of this oasis of level ground were old scorch marks of

a camp fire. They were open to the wind and to the first spitting pricks of hail on

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their faces, against McAnally's thin anorak and Ferris's camouflaged tunic. Ferris

thought of Rennie warm in his bloody car with the radio on, and probably with a

bloody hip flask, and he'd have a bloody great grin on his face as the hail tattooed on the windscreen. He heard McAnally squeal in laughter.

McAnally had bent down, examining something at the edge of the plateau,

where it merged into the dead, dropped bracken. Now he stood, and held out between his fingers was a condom sheath. McAnally was cackling with laughter.

He put it to his lips and blew hard and filled it like a balloon and let it go and it soared away into the wind and died

and dropped in the undergrowth. Ferris swallowed. He felt sick. Kiss a used Frenchie, and you'd kiss any arse in the world, Ferris thought. McAnally was excited. He patrolled the perimeter of the grass.

He found a plastic football. It was caved in, where it had been punctured before

being thrown away.

The storm hit them. The hail pellets whitened the ground. McAnally kicked the ball at Ferris. Ferris caught it, threw it back to him to kick it again. On the middle slopes of Mullaghmore, Ferris and McAnally played football, with a soft ball, and

Ferris was the 'keeper and McAnally was the striker.

Ferris was the 'keeper because McAnally had to score ‐ the poor bugger had to win something. Ferris remembered when he had been at Junior School, and they

had played kick‐about football, and there had always been a line in front of the

'keeper over which the strikers couldn't come, so that scoring should not be too

easy ... There was no line on the mountain slope of Mullaghmore. The laughter

was gone from McAnally, his face was closed in concentration and effort.

McAnally dribbled the ball towards Ferris. He came forward, across where the line should have been, and no shot. Fuck the bugger, because he was coming so

close that he couldn't miss, had to win, fuck him. Ferris dived forward, over the

ball, cannoning his shoulder into McAnally's legs. McAnally fell, half across Ferris, and his legs were thrashing to get his toe to the ball that was in Ferris's arms and tight against his chest. And their faces were inches apart, and the fury exploded

in McAnally, and his hands surged to Ferris's throat. Eye to eye, mouth to mouth,

face to face, and the hail lashing down on them ... and McAnally sagged away, and his fingers loosened from Ferris's throat. He took the ball from Ferris and punted it away, hard and high, and set off towards the summit, blurred in the hail.

Ferris followed him, trotted to catch him.

`Forget it, Gingy.'

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McAnally's head was tucked down onto his chest and he had pulled up the hood

of his anorak over his short hair. Ferris spoke from the side of his mouth.

`Don't be bloody stupid, Gingy.'

They went on in silence. The winds hit them, reeled and crashed against them, as

they stumbled forward towards the cairn of stones at the summit. They left the

bracken and the grass and scrambled on their hands and knees over the stone scree to the top of Mullaghmore. Neither man would ask the other to turn back,

head for the shelter of the cars. They were dripping from the storm, chilled to the

skin.

Ì'm wrecked,' McAnally said flatly. Ì'm bloody gone.'

Ferris was shielding his face from the rain. They were huddled close to each other, each trying to gain the protection of the squat cairn of rocks.

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**`You have to go on with it.'

`There was a reason for touting when I had Roisin, and my kids. I did it for them.'

`You asked about lies, Gingy. That's a lie. You did it to stay out of gaol.' Ferris shouted at him across the wind.

Ì did it for my wife and my kids.'

Ìf you're wrecked, Gingy, you've no one to blame but yourself.' `Don't fucking shout at me, don't play the big, bloody Brit with me.' `Facts, Gingy, you did it because you hadn't the bottle to go to gaol.' Ì don't have to go through with it.'

`You're going to give evidence.'

'Smart‐arse Brit, you can't touch me, I've got bloody immunity.' `Try walking out,

Gingy.'

McAnally pulled himself to his feet. His hand was on the cairn to steady himself.

He yelled down to Ferris, and his arm was waving towards the distant ribbon of

the main road. Ì can walk out on you, I don't have to listen to your Brit shit, I can go my way.'

`Go where?

'Where I don't have a fucking Brit officer preaching at me.' `Go where, Gingy?'

McAnally said, `Go anywhere, anywhere I bloody want to ...'

`You've nothing for a passport, you've nothing for bloody money. How far'll you

go without a passport, without money ‐ you've got to earn your precious forty pounds a week.'

Ì'll go down south.'

`Like nothing's happened?

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'Like that.'

`But something has happened,' Ferris said.

There was a frost in McAnally's hair, an ice on his anorak from the hail and the sleet. Ì made a statement, others have made statements and retracted. If I walk

out, they walk out too ‐ the Chief, Ollie and Joey and Tom McCreevy, they all walk out ...'

`You told them about a man in Monaghan, a man who mended watches.'

The fear slipped again over McAnally. `What if I did?

'You named him. He's dead. He burned to death ... Gingy, you think that wouldn't

get known, you think Rennie would just wave you goodbye? You think Rennie wouldn't let it be known how they fingered the man in Monaghan? Gingy, don't

give me that crap about walking out.'

McAnally slid down to sit beside Ferris. He was shivering and squeezing his arms

against his body for warmth.

`Would Rennie tell?

'You're a big clever boy, Gingy. Do you think he'd tell? You named a man, Rennie

passed on what you said, the man was burned to death.

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That's Rennie's way, that's how far his claws are in you. That's why you won't walk out on him. Don't ask me if I think he'd tell.'

Ferris pulled McAnally to his feet. Into the teeth of the wind they started down

the mountain.

,You made me a promise.'

Ì did.'

`You promised you'd stand in front of me.'

`Let's hope it doesn't happen.'

`Was that just bloody words?'

,it was a promise, Gingy.'

Ferris held McAnally's arm, to steady him, all the time of the long descent to the

picnic lay‐by.

Half way down the hill Ferris saw the bird that hovered in the driving wind away

to his right. The bird was trying to hold a position through the buffeting. He yelled in McAnally's ear, and pointed to the bird. McAnally looked at the fluttering wing beat of the hunting kestrel. He gazed with a longing at the bird,

then ducked his head down and pulled Ferris forward.

When they reached the lay‐by, Rennie wound down his window.

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Ì managed to fix the indicator light. You had a good walk?'

They had done a round dozen of bars between the Sperrins and Thiepval

Barracks.

Drunk in charge of two cars were a detective chief inspector of the Royal Ulster

Constabulary and a platoon commander of 2 Battalion Royal Regiment of

Fusiliers and two detective constables and a supergrass. There was a line of parked cars in Antrim that were paint‐scraped from Rennie's tail bumper, and a

lorry coming away from the airport had done an emergency stop as Prentice cut

him up. Otherwise it hadn't been a bad journey, and McAnally had shown that he

could sing.

Prentice and Goss manoeuvred McAnally into the house.

Rennie said, `You chirped him right up. Bloody well done.'

Since breakfast Ferris hadn't eaten and he had drunk twelve Blackbush and he felt sick.

`Thanks.'

`What did you tell him?'

Ferris swayed in his seat. Ì said that if he didn't quit every Presbyterian Minister in the Province and all the Church of Ireland bishops would sing psalms of gratitude for the arrival of Gingy McAnally.'

`Don't pull my pisser, sonny.'

Ì said he was better off alive with forty quid a week of yours in his

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**pocket, than with his pockets empty and a Provo bullet packing his head.'

Ìs he going to hold up?

'I don't know ‐ perhaps, perhaps not.'

Ì'll drop you back,' Rennie said.

The man filled the doorway.

The ceiling light in the hallway shone over Roisin's shoulder and onto his face. It

was a grim face, pocked and without kindness. She saw the hole in his throat where the stitches had knitted the skin back, a blotch on a white throat.

Ìt's Roisin . . . ?T

'Yes.'

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`We'll try a few drinks first, then a few words.' `My baby's in the bath.'

`Your Ma'll do your baby.'

`What's your name?

'Frankie ... You'll want your coat ... Frankie Conroy.'

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There had been singing in the Bar, two young men and a pair of guitars and the

amplifiers turned high enough to give them a chance over the talk and the crack.

She wouldn't have chanced her luck on her own, but she'd seen the sour faces soften when Frankie was seen to be her escort. He drank pints of stout, she had

three vodka and orange, without ice, because there never was any bloody ice, and he had talked about everything that was nothing to do with Gingy McAnally,

her man, going supergrass. Where Frankie sat he held court. Men came to him and nodded to her and then whispered in his ear, and bent their heads down so

that Frankie could whisper his answer back. She had known Frankie for many years, since she was young, since before Gingy and the children, everyone knew

everyone in the 'Murph and the Whiterock and the Turf Lodge. She had known

Frankie when he was a gangling courier of messages for the Organization, when

he was a growing man in the Provos, when he came out of the Kesh after the sentence for attempted murder. She had known him as a part of the movement,

but she had never before

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seen the respect that was accorded him that night. The protection of Frankie Conroy was gold dust to her. She recognized that. And she was irritated that she

hadn't taken the time to go upstairs at her Ma's and make her face, that she had

just slid on her coat and gone with him.

When Frankie took her out of the Bar, he held her arm and steered her between

the drinkers. He made a display of her, as if to say that Roisin McAnally had come