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Sheila had been stopped by the Garda Síochána as she was arriving. From her description, I recognized Seánie, the old guard who had come to see me, and the younger man who didn’t leave his side. Their car was parked farther up the road. Dublin had not appreciated the article in the
Donegal Sentinel
and they had been mentioning Killybegs on the television.

—Thanks to that damned journalist, the whole of Ireland knows where your husband is hiding.

—He’s not hiding, my wife answered.

All the same, I needed to be on the alert going out, doing my shopping, coming into town. I had to be cautious walking the mile or so between Killybegs and my cottage. I should avoid pubs, gatherings, everything that could put the locals at risk.

—The locals? Sheila asked.

—This isn’t our war, the older peace-keeper had responded. We’re not accusing anyone or defending anyone. We just don’t want the killers skulking around.

I asked her if they had been unpleasant. No. Not at all. Just worried about what was going to happen.

She told them that the following Tuesday she’d be coming back with a visitor, a friend, a Frenchman.

The gardaí responded that it wasn’t the French they feared, but all the Irish the world over.

—Do you think that the IRA could give him trouble? the younger guard asked.

—No. They’ll neither give him trouble nor stop anyone else doing so, Sheila answered.

—So it’s bad, murmured the old guard.

We got up from the table. The washing up could wait until next year. Sheila hesitated, came over to me. I took her in my arms, my face buried in her grey hair. It was the moment for making resolutions. We stayed like that for a minute, our shadows dancing on the wall.

—Good luck to us, my wife whispered.

—Good luck to you.

Her warmth, her autumn skin, the wood smoke in her hair. I hugged her sobs against me.

And suddenly, her voice, loud and abrupt.

—My God, Tyrone! What have you done to us?

It was a grief-stricken cry, not a question. I wrapped her even closer into me. I was crying, too, though my body didn’t give it away. An orphan’s grief. With nothing left, no mother, no father, no home, not even the earth to nourish him or the heavens to protect him. A terrifying solitude, silence ever after. And the cold for all time, such cold. I was disgusted with myself. I was crying on my own behalf.

—What’s to become of me? my wife asked.

I told her that there was Jack, her friends, her country.

—You were my country, wee man.

And she pulled away from me, masking her sorrow with her hand. She lay down, still wearing my jumper and her socks, and turned to face the wall and search for sleep. We had both lost it, this sleep. Her for the past ten days, and me for twenty-five years.

17

Since my release from the Kesh, the IRA had decided to put me into retirement. I was too visible, too well known. The Army Council asked me to behave as a political activist. I participated in peaceful protests, joined the marches beneath pictures of the hunger strikers. I would walk alongside the crowds, my wreath in hand. For the commemoration of the Easter Rising, I didn’t march in the black uniform of our soldiers, but in the rows of prisoners’ families. In the eyes of everyone, I was a veteran of the blanket protest, a veteran of the dirty protest. A former combatant.

One day, when I was drinking with Sheila in the Thomas Ashe, a British soldier approached our table and asked me my name. His officer came over to me, smiling.

—Let it go. Meehan’s retired at the moment.

And Sheila put her hand on mine.

—Let whatever happens happen, the MI5 agent had told me.

I didn’t influence anything. I didn’t provoke anything. I let events unfold. I told myself that perhaps having accepted treason would satisfy them. I was an agent in their eyes. But I hadn’t betrayed. Not yet. I hadn’t said anything, done anything, denounced anyone. Just that Parisian conversation that they took for a pact. I had a crazy idea. I hoped that it would all stop there. That they’d never ask me for anything, ever.

Prison had changed me. That’s what people murmured behind my back. Before the dirty protest, I used to drink. I’d empty my pint glasses same as anyone else on this island. But since I’d got out, I’d taken to the drink. It wasn’t the same thing. I knew some army mates like that. They’d drink on the sly, farther and farther from their ghetto. They’d get other people to order their vodka, they’d send a youth to the off-licence and let him keep the change. They’d miss meetings, forget orders. As soon as they became a security liability, the party would let them go. Then they’d pour their drinks down the drain, they’d make promises. They’d wear Pioneer pins on their lapels to be recognized as teetotallers. They’d drink soft drinks with the look of a drowned man on their faces. And they’d often go back on the drink again.

I had pains in my stomach, my joints, my head. Every morning, I limped when I got out of bed before being able to walk normally. I shook. Beer was my water, vodka my alcohol. I had bought myself a green leather and metal flask, calculating how much it could hold.

Twice, the owner of the Thomas Ashe had discreetly asked me to leave. On the third time, I called the bar to witness. This bastard was throwing out Danny Finley’s friend. I tore off the tablecloth covering the big sandwich table. I threw it over my shoulders like a prison blanket. I shouted from the middle of broken saucers and scattered bread. Didn’t that remind them of anything? Really? Would they like me to shit on the ground to jog their memories? Some IRA guys intervened. Everyone was going to calm down. It was in the street we were waging war, not in our pubs. I left the bar. And I came back the following day to apologize.

The IRA had advised me to do so. Waldner had ordered me to.

Even before I became a traitor, I was becoming troublesome. The MI5 agent wondered whether I might not be doing that just to be rejected by my community. To render myself out of order, useless. He reminded me that nothing had changed. I had killed Danny, Jack was in prison and Sheila was still vulnerable. I had to quit the rowdiness. It was an order. So I made myself drink less, and less again. Then to drink like before, when I felt like it.

But I knew that I was no longer in control.

Bobby Sands died on 5 May 1981, after sixty-six days of hunger strike. As he lay there dying slowly, he was elected an MP in Westminster, but that wasn’t enough. Francis Hughes died on 12 May, aged twenty-five, after fifty-nine days’ hunger strike. Patsy O’Hara and Ray McCreesh both died on 21 May, at twenty-three and twenty-four years of age, after sixty-one days’ hunger strike.

On 22 June, when the IRA Belfast Brigade decided to shoot down a Long Kesh warder, Joe McDonnell, Martin Hurson, Kevin Lynch, Kieran Doherty, Thomas McElwee and Michael Devine were about to die.

There was a black shroud over the whole city. The IRA had a duty to react.

Frank ‘Mickey’ Devlin had joined us upstairs in a brick house in the Divis Flats area. There were three of us sitting on the floor in the small bedroom.

Mickey tapped me on the back, pleased to see me again. He nearly got out a pen to tease me, but didn’t bother in the end. Catching sight of the crucifix, he crossed himself. And then he gave the pope a wink.

On coming in, he had asked our hostess for some tea. She knocked on the door and Jim O’Leary opened it to take the tray.

—The street is quiet, she said.

Then she left again without a sound.

—Tea, Tyrone? Jim asked.

—Tea, I replied.

Mickey took a few photos from under his shirt. Five snapshots taken from a distance. He lined them up on the carpet like a game of cards.

I went to pull the curtains and turn on the light.

The others were bent over the documents.

—Weird-looking guy, Jim said.

—His name’s Ray Gleeson. He lives close to Cliftonville, in a mixed estate.

—A Catholic? Jim asked.

—Yeah. He’s fifty-three. He’s been working for the prison service since 1962 and in the Kesh for the past four.

Jim handed me a photo.

—A friend of yours, Tyrone?

Popeye.

My screw. In civilian clothes. An oversized suit, a shapeless shirt, his bald head, his cigarette hanging from the corner of his mouth.

I went over to the bedside lamp, using the darkness as a pretext, turning my back to them. Popeye. My heart was pounding, my head, an anxious drumming that everyone must surely hear.

—Do you know him?

—No, I replied.

I bent down. I looked at the other images. Popeye inspecting the underside of his car as a precaution, Popeye walking in the city centre, Popeye stopped at a red light.

—Why him? I asked.

The question slipped out. A crazy question. I stopped breathing.

Mickey looked at me strangely. Without knowing it, he helped me bail myself out.

—Why a Catholic, you mean?

—Yeah. Why a Catholic.

Jim shrugged vaguely. He answered that the mixed neighbourhood would make the getaway easier.

The younger guy spoke. I barely knew him. He had a know-it-all air I didn’t like. He told me that hunger strikes were our priority and that the IRA should respond on this terrain.

I looked at him. I smiled coldly.

—Terry? It’s Terry, isn’t it? You’re not by any chance in the process of explaining the situation in prison to me, are you?