Matters of Life & Death Read online

  The programme about Donegal came on and Maureen ironed and glanced up every so often following it.

  ‘It’s lovely,’ she said. ‘You can nearly smell the turf smoke.’

  ‘Do you want me to do some?’

  ‘It’s OK.’

  ‘I can only do square things. Hankies and towels.’

  ‘Junior Infants ironing,’ Maureen said. ‘I’m not going to bother doing these sheets.’ She made him stand and take one end of the cotton sheet and pull it taut. Still she watched the television. They folded and pulled again and again. She advanced folding the sheet neatly. When they came together he kissed her on her averted cheek and she smiled. She made him kiss her on the mouth. ‘For the look of the thing’ she ironed the top and bottom of the folded sheet.

  The last time Ben had seen Dawson was about a month ago. He was hardly recognisable, his face swollen up with steroids. But the moustache was there and, hidden in the pale orb of his shaved head, a distant likeness to his old self. Ben was in the Royal Victoria Hospital to visit his Aunt when a trolley with someone on it was pushed past him in the corridor. He was sure it was Dawson but the poor bastard was aware of nothing, just lolling there. The trolley turned into a private room where a uniformed RUC man stood on guard.

  The other thing that stayed with him that day was the girl in the bed next-but-one to his Aunt. She was about fourteen, a child with long dark hair – very pale, very still, sitting straight up, not propped on her pillows. He asked about her. It looked like she had measles or chickenpox.

  ‘No,’ said his Aunt, lowering her voice. ‘She was near that bomb in King Street.’ The girl turned to look at Ben. The other side of her face was pale and without a mark.

  ‘She knows we’re talking about her,’ Ben said.

  ‘She knows nothing of the sort,’ said his Aunt. ‘She hasn’t heard a thing since she came in here, God love her.’ It was remarkable, the way her face was pocked and pitted on one side but not the other. Like blizzard snow on one side of a tree-trunk. ‘That’s what broken glass can do to you. Compliments of the Provos,’ said his Aunt.

  The reason he knew someone like Dawson was because they’d been next-door neighbours at one time. When Ben and Maureen were first married they’d lived in a small student flat off the Ormeau Road. Their family grew – two girls came in the space of three years.

  ‘Very Roman Catholic,’ the guys in the department had kidded him. The flat became too small. Maureen had saved some of her Civil Service gratuity – in those days married women had to leave – and Ben got a promotion at work. They managed to put enough together for the deposit on a red-brick semi in a mixed Catholic and Protestant area.

  Several months after they moved into the house Ben discovered what his next-door neighbour, Dawson Orr, did for a living. Their two wives had swapped the information across the chicken-wire fence which separated their properties. When asked what her husband did, Mrs Orr was somewhat hesitant. She said something about the Civil Service. Maureen laughed at the coincidence and said that she, too, had worked in the Civil Service before she was married – what branch was her husband in? Reluctantly Mrs Orr admitted, almost under her breath, that her husband was in the police.

  Maureen thought her attitude entirely reasonable. She’d have done the same thing if she’d been in her shoes. The situation in Northern Ireland in those days was appalling. People being driven out of their homes by one side or the other. You wouldn’t like to advertise the fact that you were even vaguely connected with the security forces. Explosions and petrol bombings, snipings, doorstep killings. But the area where they had bought their house was utterly quiet. All the trouble seemed to be happening on television.

  Both neighbours had young families – the three Orr children were a year or two older than Ben’s. And at that age such a difference is crucial. Their not playing together had nothing to do with them being a different religion.

  Sometime after that conversation between the wives Ben and Dawson shook hands over the fence. Ben’s impression was that he had just clasped a bunch of warm sausages. Dawson Orr was a big man – in middle age – between forty and fifty with a round face and double chins. He had a little moustache which he was forever touching – sometimes a stroke with his fingertips, sometimes with an upward movement of the back of his knuckle as if he was trying to shape it into handlebars.

  ‘I’m very easygoing,’ he would say. ‘But don’t try to put one over on me. I don’t have any degrees but then you don’t need them in my line of work. Because you’re up against boyos as thick as two short planks. I can run rings round most people.’ Then he laughed. He had a nice laugh, his face all creased and his eyes were dancing in his head.

  The next morning when Ben was walking the long avenue to the bus terminus he heard the deep-throated rumble of a motorbike behind him. Dawson pulled up in the grey light.

  ‘Want a lift?’

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘A Norton.’

  Ben swung his leg over and sat balancing. The bike took off shakily. ‘You’ll have to learn to ride pillion,’ Dawson shouted over his shoulder. ‘Lean with the bend. Relax. Don’t fight it.’ Ben put his hands lightly on Dawson’s back and sensed the big body beneath the clothes. When they hit the main road Dawson pretended to be a commentator with an American accent. ‘And Artie Bell is going flat out – doing the full fuckin hundred down the Seven Mile Straight. Are you OK?’ He had to shout to be heard. ‘Try as far as possible to keep your shit internal.’

  The lift didn’t happen every morning but was an occasional thing. Sometimes, according to what the weather was like, Dawson wore a belted creamy gabardine, sometimes a black leather jacket. ‘You can put your arms around me. Or if you don’t fancy that – join your hands behind your back.’ If Ben kept his eyes fixed ahead then he discovered that his body naturally adopted the correct angles. There were fat horizontal creases in Dawson’s neck. He couldn’t imagine putting his arms around him and yet he hadn’t enough bravado to hold onto nothing. So he put his hands on Dawson’s back, up near the shoulders. He thought he was aware of a ridge or strap beneath the clothing and wondered if it was a holster. Policemen carried guns, didn’t they? ‘Your instinct’s to lean the wrong way. Remember the Wall of Death.’ If they went into a corner and Dawson felt that Ben was resisting he’d laugh and shout ‘The Wall of Death – fuck ya.’

  Dawson never wore a uniform so Ben assumed that he must be a detective of some sort. Maybe even Special Branch. Neither did he wear a motorcycle helmet. If he was stopped by the police he would just say who he was. If it happened on a morning when Ben was on the back he hoped Dawson would get his pillion passenger off the rap as well.

  Dawson also had a car, a big red Cortina parked at the side of the house. The Orrs’ garage was like Smithfield market – stacked to the door with junk and abandoned toys and washing machines that no longer functioned. Ben couldn’t work out when or why Dawson used which method of transport. When he drove past him in the car he never offered a lift, even if it was pouring. Then one morning Ben was just turning out of the avenue onto the main road when he saw Dawson driving the Cortina and taking a right turn – and driving out of town.

  The only time Dawson visited was late at night. Usually he was a bit drunk.

  He didn’t ring the doorbell but just tapped the lit and curtained window with the tip of his car key. It was a small sound but it always scared the shit out of Ben. At times like these. Someone outside. Ben would switch on the outside light and see the bulky figure through the full-length ribbed glass. Then open the door.

  ‘I see you’re not in bed yet.’

  ‘Not yet.’

  Dawson lowered his shoulder and made to step in. Ben could do nothing but swing the door open. Dawson proceeded into the living room where Maureen smiled up at him and turned off the television. He sat in Ben’s warm armchair by the hi-fi, the car keys still in his hand. His leather jacket creaked when he moved.

  ‘I’m just on my
way to bed,’ she said. Dawson grinned, his eyes heavy.

  ‘You don’t wait for the Queen, then?’

  ‘Does anybody?’

  ‘You’d be surprised.’ Dawson laughed.

  Maureen lifted two empty cups and a crumb-covered plate. Now that the television was off she lowered her voice and looked up meaningfully at the ceiling.

  ‘If you waken those children, I’ll kill the both of you.’ Ben was sitting down. ‘Don’t be too long – you’ve your work in the morning, Ben.’

  ‘What about me?’ said Dawson.

  ‘Yeah, you too.’

  When Maureen left the room and could be heard turning on and off taps in the kitchen Dawson said, ‘Have you any drink in the house? Eh?’

  ‘There’s a bottle of home-made wine there. But the only reason it’s there is because it tastes so awful. Elderberry.’

  ‘No beer?’

  ‘No. If there’s drink in the house it generally gets drunk the same evening.’

  Dawson reached into his pocket and produced a flat half-bottle of Bushmills. There was already some out of it.

  ‘Do you fancy a wee Bush?’

  ‘Aye.’

  ‘It’ll help you sleep.’ Dawson held out his arms. ‘A glass and some water is all we require. Civilised standards must be maintained.’

  Ben went into the kitchen and Maureen raised an eyebrow to him. She was holding an empty hot-water bottle in her arms waiting for the kettle to boil.

  ‘He’s got some whiskey,’ Ben whispered.

  ‘Keep him quiet. No big laughing.’ Ben got tumblers and a milk jug full of water and went back into the living room where Dawson was twisted in the chair tilting his head trying to read the spines of Ben’s LPs. Ben poured and watered the whiskey.

  ‘Cheers,’ said Dawson.

  ‘Sláinte.’

  They clinked glasses. Dawson drank half his tumbler in one go and smacked his lips.

  ‘A Protestant whiskey for a Protestant people,’ he said. ‘What kinda music are you into at the minute?’

  ‘Miles Davis.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Trumpeter – jazz. Very cool.’

  ‘Fuck that. There’s nobody like the King. The greatest thing since sliced bread. There’s nobody to touch him.’ It was too much of an effort for Dawson to get up so he moved his pelvis in the chair a little. He began to croon the words of ‘Are You Lonesome Tonight’. Ben shushed him, pointing upstairs. Dawson stopped and launched into a conspiratorial whisper.

  ‘Sorry. Forgot myself.’ He looked at the shelf beside him. ‘Who likes the ceilidh music?’

  ‘Maureen. She’s a country girl.’

  ‘Diddley-di music – that’s what I call it. All very same-y. I couldn’t be bothered with it. That’s not a criticism. It takes all sorts, eh? We are all thrown together whether we like it or not. Gotta make the best of it. You’re a nice guy.’ Dawson winked at him. Ben could hardly believe it. ‘It’s good to have you next door. I mean it could be anybody – any Tom, Dick or Harry. Or Shaun or Seamus. If only they were all like you.’

  ‘What are you on about?’

  ‘You know . . . in my . . .’ He shrugged his shoulders and the leather of his jacket made a sound. Was that bulge made by his gun? ‘A trusted neighbour is an important thing.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘You could go to anybody. Shop me.’

  ‘If that’s what you think . . .’ Ben stared at him.

  ‘I don’t mean you. One’s next-door neighbour. Would be in a position . . . kinda thing.’

  ‘Who would I shop you to?’

  ‘One’s friends.’

  ‘I have no friends like that.’

  ‘Oh I know, I know. I’m only speaking in general.’ He drank off what remained in the glass. ‘A word here and a word there – it might get around.’ He refilled his glass. ‘I see you’re not ready yet.’

  Ben looked at his watch and turned on the News on the radio. Another body had been found hooded and shot through the head on the Seven Mile Straight.

  ‘Why’s it always the Seven Mile Straight?’ said Ben.

  ‘You can see headlights coming from a long way off. Gives you time to take cover or tidy up. Put the finishing touches to whatever you’re doing.’

  The next morning Ben got a lift on the back of the bike. Neither of them spoke a word. Dawson dropped him at his work on the Lisburn Road and then sped on through the traffic, his arm raised in a wave.

  Around about the time Dawson started calling late at night there was a colleague, Paul Magill, who’d come into work in a terrible state one day. He lived in a dodgy mixed area somewhere up near Alliance Avenue and he’d been threatened by Loyalists. They were going to burn him out. If not tonight, then some night soon. Their windows had already been broken twice – and somebody had fired a shot at the house, gouging a hole in the brickwork. He and his family were going to have to move – he had two wee boys. He said he was going to stay at his parents’ place until they got somewhere. But in the meantime they had nowhere to put their stuff.

  ‘I’ve a garage,’ Ben said. ‘And no car.’

  That evening Paul drove up in a borrowed lorry. The open back was full of his furniture. ‘When you see this stuff in the light of day . . . it seems hardly worth saving.’

  There was a butcher’s smell of fat and raw meat off the wood. Bloodstains were on the walls and tailgate.

  ‘Jesus who owns the transport?’

  ‘Charlie the hide man’s. It was this or nothing.’

  ‘I thought you’d been out murdering.’

  Paul had his brother, Vincent, with him. He said, ‘That’s in the future.’

  They unloaded everything into the garage. It had all been thrown together in great haste. Cardboard boxes full of things that shouldn’t have been together. In one, cups and glasses and a yellow duck and a telephone directory. Another with saucers and fire-irons and tasselled cushions, doily mats and enamel-backed hairbrushes which were obviously family heirlooms. There were sad, intimate things like a scarlet brassiere and suspender belt which Paul, when he noticed they were on show, covered with a pillow. Sagging sofas and bicycles and bed-heads and scuffed armchairs. All three of them were needed to lift the old-fashioned, heavy bed frame with its springs which clashed and shivered when they set it down on the concrete floor.

  Next door Mrs Orr came into her kitchen to do the dishes and watched the unloading. She smiled and waved.

  When everything was stored in the garage Ben pulled down the door and they went into the house for a cup of tea. Maureen was very concerned for Paul. She laid her hand on his shoulder as they sat at the kitchen table.

  ‘You poor thing,’ she said. Paul nodded – agreeing with her.

  ‘It’s unbelievable,’ said Vincent.

  ‘How can it happen,’ said Maureen, ‘in this day and age – that the police can’t protect you in your own home?’

  ‘Because the police – as you call them – are even worse.’

  ‘They’re practically ushering the bastards through,’ said Vincent, ‘pointing out the Catholic houses. Can I light your petrol bomb for you, sir? May I draw your attention to number fourteen, sir – so far it’s gone completely unscathed.’

  ‘Aw come on. It’s not as bad as that,’ said Maureen.

  ‘Did you not see them at Burntollet? Siding with the ones that stoned us.’

  ‘Us?’ said Maureen.

  ‘Vincent’s been on every Civil Rights march so far,’ said Paul, smiling.

  ‘They were standing around chatting up Loyalist guys wearing armbands who were openly organising the stone throwing.’ Vincent’s voice rose in pitch, then dropped again. ‘All very lovey-dovey.’

  ‘I don’t distinguish between them any more.’

  ‘There’s bigots and bigots in uniform.’

  ‘But every state must police itself,’ Ben said. ‘Law and order is important.’

  ‘Their law . . . their idea of order . . .’ Vin
cent snorted. ‘If I knew where a cop lived . . . I swear to God I’d . . .’ His fists were knotted on the table and around his mouth had become pale. ‘Maybe not me but . . . He’d be dealt with. I’d make sure of it. Fuckers like that . . .’

  ‘Careful with the language,’ said Maureen. She listened to hear where the children were playing. Vincent put up his hands in admission. Ben looked at Maureen and their eyes met and held for a moment. Paul grinned.

  ‘The family firebrand. Is it any wonder he’s on the pirate radio.’

  ‘Shut up Paul.’

  ‘Which one?’

  ‘Well it’s not Radio Orange or the Voice of Ulster.’

  ‘I can never find any of them on the dial,’ said Maureen.

  ‘They’re jamming them all the time now.’

  It was a Saturday some weeks later when Dawson and Ben coincided at their back doors. Ben was going to the garage for a hammer.

  ‘Hi,’ said Dawson. ‘That’s a pisser of a day.’

  ‘Aye.’ Ben bent to open the garage door. The up-and-over mechanism screeched as the door went up.

  Dawson came closer to the fence and stood smiling.

  ‘Who’s is all the stuff?’ He nodded into the dark garage.

  ‘A mate at work.’

  ‘Is he in there too?’ Dawson laughed.

  ‘Naw – he was threatened out of his house.’

  ‘Where was he living?’

  ‘Ardoyne.’

  Dawson gave a low whistle. He came right up to the chicken-wire fence and stared into the open garage.

  ‘How long have you to keep it for?’

  ‘Until he gets another place.’

  Dawson was trying to figure out what he was seeing.

  ‘Filing cabinets and everything,’ he said, shaking his head.

  ‘I don’t know what’s in there,’ said Ben.

  ‘Are there papers and stuff?’

  ‘Anything and everything,’ said Ben. ‘D’you mean newspapers?’

  ‘Naw – documentation.’

  ‘I’ve no idea what’s there. I’m just doing him a favour.’

  ‘If he’s living in the Ardoyne he must be keen.’