Those We Left Behind (17 page)

BALLANTINE DIDN’T SPEAK
as she drove back towards the motorway. Her silence grated on Flanagan more than a deluge of words would have.

‘What?’ Flanagan asked.

‘Nothing, ma’am,’ Ballantine said as she turned from the Malone Road towards Balmoral, and the M1 beyond. Flanagan would’ve taken the Hillhall Road, but she passed no comment.

‘Speak your mind,’ Flanagan said. ‘I can hear you biting your tongue. You’ll chew it off if you’re not careful.’

‘It’s just . . .’

‘Just what?’

‘He’s strange,’ Ballantine said.

‘You don’t know the half of it.’

Ballantine stopped the car at a pedestrian crossing, waiting for the light to change.

‘It’s not just that he’s quiet,’ she said. ‘He’s strange in himself, all right, but . . .’

As the car got moving again, Flanagan said, ‘For Christ’s sake, just say what you’re thinking.’

‘What’s strange is the way he was with you,’ Ballantine said. ‘The way he looked at you. Like a schoolboy with a crush. But deeper than that. When you took his hand, it was like he got an electric shock.’

‘Well, I guess he hasn’t seen many women over the last few years. It’s hardly surprising he gets a little doe-eyed when he comes face to face with one.’

Ballantine stopped again at the junction with the Lisburn Road, the railway bridge at the other side. Flanagan looked down at her hands, saw the red light reflected there.

‘It seemed like more than that,’ Ballantine said. ‘And ma’am, if you don’t mind me saying, you didn’t seem to discourage him. And the way you touched him . . .’

The red turned to green. The diamond on Flanagan’s engagement ring caught the light in its prism.

‘I do mind you saying. I mind very fucking much. Move, for Christ’s sake, the light’s changed.’

As Ballantine accelerated away from the junction, she said, ‘Sorry, ma’am.’

Regret bit at Flanagan’s heart, and she might have apologised for her harsh words, but her anger won out. Anger at herself or Ballantine, it didn’t matter, it was there all the same, like a sore on her skin.

In truth, she had felt it as soon as she entered the hostel and saw Ciaran. Grown up now, handsome in his pale and shadowy way. And the way he looked at her. She had felt his gaze on her like fingertips.

And she did not turn away from it.

There, in that office, it would be a lie to say she found his attention objectionable. Even as she went to take his hands, she knew it was inappropriate. And the charge had coursed between them. They both felt it. Perhaps he was less conscious of it than she, twisted innocent that he was, but it had run from her palms through her arms, her chest, down to her belly, and further yet.

Flanagan felt herself blush as Ballantine climbed the slip road up onto the motorway, and was glad of the dimness in the car.

CUNNINGHAM LAY IN
bed, the small flatscreen TV lighting the room, some dreadful rom-com playing, the sound muted. Angus lay curled beside her on top of the duvet, his legs twitching as he chased dream-rabbits. Her laptop open on her thighs. Even now, she was still refreshing the BBC Northern Ireland news page every few minutes in case anything had changed. Daniel’s story remained the lead item, the rest of the headlines made up of another fuel laundering operation that had been raided, bickering between politicians over the violence that had erupted with tiresome predictability over the summer, all of them rushing to blame each other without offering anything resembling a solution.

From outside she heard the rumble and clatter of the last Bangor-bound train, the line running by the end of her street. That and the proximity of the City Airport were the only reasons she had been able to afford to buy this house.

Cunningham’s emotions had tumbled all day, pity for Daniel Rolston and his miserable end turning to anger at him for not leaving the brothers alone, resentment at his coming to her home. The first she felt reasonable, the others unfair, but she had long since stopped looking for logic in her feelings. The irrationality of emotion is what makes us human, a counsellor had once told her. How else to explain why a person might simultaneously love and hate another? Accepting the absence of logic in one’s heart is a key step towards happiness. Counsellors and therapists made their living spouting such bullshit, placebos for the mind, designed to soothe their clients. Cunningham had little time for them. But still, that one point rang true for her.

A half-full bottle of white wine sat on the bedside locker, and an almost full glass. She had taken the bottle from the fridge on her way to the stairs, but found her usual thirst lacking. Perhaps she should have been glad of it, but instead she felt a mild disappointment.

Cunningham’s eyelids had drooped, her head nodding forward, when Angus stirred. She jolted awake, a sickly feeling as the room aligned itself around her. Angus rose into a sitting position, his ears erect, a low rumble in his chest.

She reached over and scratched his back, weaving her fingers through his coat.

‘It’s all right, boy, just someone walking past.’

A single bark, high and anxious.

‘Settle down,’ she said. ‘No one’s there.’

Then he leapt from the bed, nails scrabbling on the floor, a stream of yelps melding into one. He stood on his hind legs, pawed at the door handle.

‘For God’s sake, Angus, all right.’

Cunningham set her laptop aside and got out of bed. She tripped over her shoes, stumbling against the wall, and steadied herself as she went to the door. It was barely open a crack before Angus forced his nose through, pushed it open, and bolted onto the landing. She followed as his paws hammered down the stairs.

She caught a glimpse of a piece of paper wedged into the letterbox in the centre of the front door before Angus seized it, shook it in triumph like some prey he’d hunted down.

‘Christ,’ Cunningham said as she descended the stairs. She cursed whoever had been leafleting at this time of night. A takeaway menu, a bin cleaning service, some religious tract. Or worse, one of many pages she’d had put through her door telling her foreigners weren’t welcome and no property on the street should be rented to them.

At the bottom of the stairs she cornered Angus in the darkness, grabbed his collar with one hand, and the page with the other. ‘Leave,’ she said. Angus huffed and held on. She said it again, more firmly, and this time he obeyed.

Cunningham felt the dampness against her skin, assumed it was from the dog’s mouth, then she saw the dark stains on the paper. She reached for the hall light switch. Her mind struggled for a few seconds to make sense of what she held in her hand, Angus whining and pacing a circle, watching the door.

Then she understood. She released the page from her grasp and it fluttered to the floor. Angus sniffed at the paper and she swatted him away, shouted at him to leave. She could still make out the text, printed black on white.

Customer Details:

Name: Paula J. Cunningham

DOB: 26
^th
May 1979

Her address. Her car make, model and registration. Everything Daniel Rolston had needed to find her. Written by hand, blocky capitals in blue ink, across the page: KEEP YOUR NOSE OUT BITCH.

Outside, a car engine revved, tyres screeching. She ran for the door, pulled it open, ran onto the path, ignored the cold sting of the concrete on her bare soles. Lights raced along the faces of the houses, the car hidden by those parked the length of the street. She reached the gate, opened it, out into the road. The red of the car’s rear lights disappeared around the corner, no time to identify the vehicle.

Angus followed her onto the tarmac, ran in circles, yelping at the excitement.

‘Bastard,’ Cunningham said, her anger and adrenalin threatening to turn to tears. ‘Fucking bastard.’

CIARAN IS THE
first from the hostel to get into the van. As he approaches it, the passenger window whirrs open, revealing the driver and two other men. The driver calls across, ‘You the new boy?’

‘Yeah,’ Ciaran says.

‘In the back.’

Ciaran slides open the door on the side. Three other men are inside: one looks only a couple of years older than Ciaran, the other two middle-aged. Their clothes are all worn and dirty. So are their boots. Ciaran climbs in and sits beside the younger man.

‘Where’s your lunch?’ the young man asks.

Ciaran sees the plastic tub in the young man’s hands.

‘I didn’t know I was supposed to bring any.’

The young man laughs, says, ‘Eejit. Who do you think’s going to feed you?’

‘Dunno,’ Ciaran says.

‘I’m Emmet,’ the young man says.

‘Ciaran.’

Emmet grins and says out loud, ‘Ah, Jesus, boys, we’ve got another Fenian. We’ll have youse outnumbered soon.’

The rest of the men jeer.

Emmet leans in and nudges Ciaran. ‘Don’t worry,’ he says, ‘you’ll be all right. These’uns are a good crowd. Even the Prods.’

A group of boys walk out of the hostel gates. The sun in Ciaran’s eyes obscures their faces. The men in the van jeer again.

‘Watch out, lads,’ the driver shouts, ‘here’s the bad boys coming.’

‘Up your hole,’ one of the boys answers.

The men laugh. Ciaran smiles, a strange feeling in his belly.

‘Oh fuck me,’ the driver says, ‘look at the cut of this. Who did that to you, Robbie? Your granny?’

Ciaran feels the smile fade on his face.

Then the boys climb in, the first of them Robbie Agnew. His face still bruised, the cuts scabbed over, but the swelling gone. ‘Away and shite,’ he says to the driver. Robbie sees Ciaran as he goes to take his seat at the front. He freezes there, staring.

‘I hope you at least got a dig in,’ the driver says.

Robbie doesn’t answer. The two boys behind push him into his seat so they can take theirs. They notice Ciaran too, exchange glances. Robbie turns his gaze to the window.

‘Everybody in?’ the driver asks. ‘Seatbelts on. You too, Emmet. I’m not getting pulled by the peelers again.’

Emmet buckles himself in. So does Ciaran.

Robbie doesn’t turn from the window as the driver pulls away from the kerb, the van’s engine roaring as it gathers speed.

Ciaran works hard through the morning, surprised at how good it feels. The exertion, the purpose, simply digging soil and turning it. Over and over, a square metre at a time, turning a marked-off section of patchy grass and weeds into a sheet of dark brown earth.

They had driven to the yard outside the city and waited while the driver hitched a large trailer to the van. Under Mr McClintock’s direction, they loaded up the trailer with tools: shovels, spades, rakes, other things large and small that Ciaran didn’t recognise. Another was loaded with pots of shrubs and blooming flowers, then attached to Mr McClintock’s big four-by-four.

The two men who’d been sitting beside the driver in the van’s cabin did not work. Instead, they smoked cigarettes and made jokes. Everyone laughed. Everyone except Robbie Agnew, who did not look at Ciaran. But his friends glared.

They drove in convoy for half an hour until they reached a sprawling housing estate between Lisburn and Belfast, tricolour flags hanging from lamp posts, murals on the gable walls of houses showing men long dead, their names written in Gaelic script, crude portraits bordered by Celtic knots. A patch of waste ground at the centre of the estate was being turned into a playground with a garden and benches at one end. Another contractor was building the playground, while McClintock’s men landscaped the garden.

Mr McClintock unhitched the trailer from his car and left. Before they set to work, the two men who had done none so far conferred with someone from the other company, shaking hands, slapping upper arms. Old friends, it seemed. A big BMW idled beside the site. All three men went to it and talked to the occupants. Some agreement was reached, envelopes were handed over, and with no signal Ciaran was aware of, everyone began their day’s toil. All except those three men, who smoked more cigarettes and played cards.

Now Ciaran digs.

Even with the thick gloves he’s been given, his palms sting, but he doesn’t mind. Nor does he mind the fatigue he feels through his back, shoulders and arms, or the sun in his eyes. Nothing in the world to think about.

Just dig and turn.

Dig and turn.

Dig and turn.

Once a square metre is cleared, Ciaran drops to his knees and pulls weeds from the loosened earth, tosses them onto a pile. After a couple of hours, one of the older men – the foreman, Ciaran thinks – comes and inspects his work.

‘Good job, young fella,’ he says. ‘Come on and get yourself a cup of tea.’

An urn sits on the trailer’s tailgate, along with Styrofoam cups and a plastic bottle of milk. Ciaran pours himself a cup, lots of milk. He looks around at the other men sitting cross-legged on the ground. Emmet pats the earth beside him. Ciaran hesitates, then joins him.

‘How you getting on?’ Emmet asks.

‘Okay,’ Ciaran says.

Emmet watches him for a moment. ‘Fuck me, you’re wild crack, aren’t you?’

It takes Ciaran a moment to realise he’s being sarcastic. But not mean. Ciaran laughs and looks at the ground.

Emmet tears open the wrapper on a Twix bar. He looks at the twin fingers of chocolate and biscuit, sighs, then hands one to Ciaran.

‘Thank you,’ Ciaran says, meaning it.

‘S’all right,’ Emmet says. ‘You can have a bit of my lunch later, but bring your own tomorrow, right?’

‘Right,’ Ciaran says.

They eat and sip in silence. After a while, Ciaran nods towards the men who don’t work, and asks, ‘Who are they?’

Emmet turns his head to look at them, then quickly turns back. He glances around, makes sure no one is listening.

‘The fat one’s Sammy Mathers from the Shankill, the baldy one’s Paul Hughes from the Falls. UDA and IRA. I don’t know who the fella from the other company is, but he’ll be one or the other. Probably ’Ra seeing as we’re working round here.’

‘Why are they here?’ Ciaran asks. ‘They don’t do anything.’

‘The boss has to keep them on the payroll or he couldn’t do jobs like this.’

‘Why not?’

‘Most of his work’s in housing estates like this one, either republican or loyalist, so he needs an IRA or a UDA man, maybe UVF depending where it is, to smooth things with the local boys. The locals get a few quid for letting us work with no one getting threats for being a Prod or a Taig. Everybody’s happy. Well, except the boss, but he’s got no choice.’

Ciaran doesn’t remember the Troubles, the first ceasefires were before he was born, but he knows which side was which.

‘I thought the IRA and the UDA hated each other,’ he says.

‘They do. Unless there’s money to be made, then they’re best mates. Look, I didn’t say it made sense, it’s just the way it is.’

Before the break finishes, Ciaran walks to the portable toilet on the far side of the Portakabin that serves as the site office. He locks himself into the blue plastic cubicle and pees into the empty bowl, the sound of it resonating strangely in the small space. When he’s done and washed his hands, he lets himself out.

Robbie Agnew and the other two boys are waiting for him.

Ciaran tries to run, but there’s no time. Their hands grab at his clothes, drag him down to the ground. One of them falls on Ciaran’s back, crushing the air from him. Ciaran scrabbles on the ground, tries to get his knees under him, but the boy on his back is too heavy. A fist glances off his head, then again, the punches too wild to do any damage. A boot connects with his shoulder. Ciaran pulls his elbows into his sides, his hands covering his face. More kicks to his shoulders, to his thighs. Hard hands grip at his, try to pull them away.

Then a voice, hard and commanding.

‘Get the fuck off him.’

The blows stop, but the weight remains on Ciaran’s back.

‘I said get off him. Now.’

The weight vanishes, the boy on his back hauled away. Ciaran looks up through his fingers. The bald man, the one from the IRA, has Robbie by the hair. He slaps the boy hard across the cheek. Robbie knows not to fight back.

‘None of this shite on the site,’ he says. ‘Any more and I’ll have your knees, you wee bastard. You got me?’

Robbie nods. He’s close to tears.

The IRA man pushes him away. ‘Get back to work, the lot of you.’ He looks down at Ciaran. ‘You too, you long streak of piss.’

Ciaran walks back to his patch of ground, head down, and starts digging.

Soon he has forgotten Robbie and the other boys, and Thomas, and Daniel Rolston. Even Serena Flanagan burns less brightly in his mind.

All he does is dig and turn.

Dig and turn.

Dig and turn.