Return to Killybegs

20

I dreamed of this day. For fifty-eight years I never stopped believing it would come. Hanged on 2 September 1942 at the age of nineteen and buried like a dog in a common grave within Crumlin Gaol, Tom Williams’s body was finally returned to us on 19 January 2000.

His family and last remaining brothers in arms were present when he was disinterred. Some companions had asked me to be there but I was unable to face it. I had been drinking the night before, all night. In the morning I was still drunk. Sheila dressed me for the ceremony.

— It seems strange to honour a guy who used to kill our boys while we were off fighting the Nazis, Waldner had said.

— Ireland is more important than everything else, is that it? Honoré asked me.

That was it, yes. I no longer wished to respond. Neither to him, nor to the other one. That day, at that hour, when I went into St Paul’s chapel in Clonard, I was suddenly just the kid to whom Tom had given his leather ball. I had it in my pocket when I entered the church. I was stumbling from all the alcohol in my system. They were there, all of them, sitting in the front row. Nell, his fiancée for all time. John, who had been condemned to death with him and then pardoned. Billy, Eddie, Madge and Joe, the members of his unit. Joe raised his crutch to me in greeting. He asked the others to push up a bit. I declined with a smile and a wave, miming a man drinking, hand around an invisible pint lifted to my lips. I’m pissed, my friends. Steaming. I have blood in my alcohol and I’m sweating beer. Joe looked at me sadly, shrugged and turned back. I sat beside the aisle, not quite in the last row, but almost: the appropriate place for a nobody.

Sheila didn’t come. She was waiting on the Falls Road, a flag in her hand, along with thousands of others. A guard of honour that would make up the funeral cortège.

— He who was lost has been found again, Father O’Donnell said during the funeral Mass.

Tom Williams, the prodigal son. It was here he was baptized. Here, also, as children that we’d come to speak of serious things while pretending to pray.

— Tom has come home again, and we welcome him joyfully…

I was looking at his coffin. It was wavering before my eyes in the dim light. The tricolour had been nailed to the pale wood. Sometimes priests would refuse to have Republican symbols, such as the black beret and gloves of the fighter, enter the church. Then we would have to negotiate, or chase off the priest and impose one of our own. But today, there was no need. Tom had been hanged for that flag. Ireland’s earth ought to welcome them together, and the Clonard priest was in agreement.

I lowered my head, closed my eyes and opened them again immediately to stop myself from toppling over. I could feel the embarrassed looks, the compassion, the nauseating fraternity surrounding me. On leaving the ceremony, dozens of hands were held out to me, like Hitchcock’s birds. Soft, firm, affectionate and timid handshakes, gentle nudges and brushings. I couldn’t feel my legs or arms. Inside my head I was screaming. The scream of a torture victim. When the coffin left, I cried. An old man’s dry tear. A trail of clear alcohol on my leather. The crowd was so thick it frightened me. I was miming, pretending to rejoice. I put on a victorious expression by imitating other people’s happiness. It was cold and dry. I had awaited this day for fifty-eight years and it was killing me. My face was inscrutable in the midst of all that celebration.

The IRA had laid down its arms. The first child to be born in peacetime was called Samuel Stewart. He arrived on 31 August 1994, several minutes after the ceasefire was declared. The last British soldier killed by our men was Stephen Restorick, cut down at the age of twenty-three by a sniper, in the final death throes of the struggle.

Our political prisoners had been released, all of them. Some had entered local councils, civil service and government departments. Smile, Tyrone, for God’s sake! Look at Tom’s coffin being carried on men’s backs through the city centre. How many times have you woken up wishing that dream would come true? What’s that? You’re suspicious? But of course you’re still going to feel suspicious! Everybody knows that, Tyrone. The fear that exists between the two communities? Yes! Naturally that remains. The difficult work of grieving, the anger, the hatred, even. And also the feeling of impunity that wounds the victims’ families. But regardless of all that, this is your father’s dream, Tom’s, Danny’s. Peace, Tyrone! It’s what you’re in the middle of experiencing right now!

In a few weeks, Waldner will return to England, the red-haired handler will be directing traffic at a crossroads, Honoré will be teaching Irish history, and everything will be over. Look around you, Tyrone Meehan! People are cheering you with their eyes. Nobody knows. Nobody suspects. You’re going to get away with it, my old friend! It’s been months now since you’ve given the enemy any information. And besides, what could you give them? There is no need any longer for a secret meeting place in a graveyard, for climbing up a double-decker bus. The war is no longer in the headlines, Tyrone. Yesterday your OCs were giving orders to bomb 10 Downing Street with mortars. Today, they’re having tea with the British prime minister. The old IRA members and the former Protestant paramilitaries are queuing in the parliament cafeteria, both of them demanding their extra bread. The last time you met them, Waldner was listening to you out of habit, and Honoré was glancing at his watch. You’re no longer of any use to them, Tyrone. That’s it. It’s done. It’s over. They’re going to forget you. You’re going to forget them. Everything can be forgotten.

I turned to face a wall and took a desolate swig of vodka.

— Tyrone?

They were asking me to carry the coffin. The veterans had already done so, our OCs had relieved them. Go on, it’s your turn now, Tyrone Meehan. Take the head of the bearers. Six of them, three on either side. Go on, Tenor, make your English friends smile. A photo in tomorrow’s newspaper? Danny’s killer bearing Tom. I wasn’t breathing. I have never breathed well. I always knew that the air would run out. Two young men helped me support the burden on my right shoulder. I was staggering a little. They looked at each other wordlessly. On the other side of the coffin was a man from Derry. He put his hand around my neck and I gripped his. We moved forward with slow steps under the weight. I could feel the sliotar through my trouser pocket. I looked up at the winter sky. I was in anguish. I hadn’t recalled the weight of the sorrow. I was looking at the crowd lining the streets, honouring us.

I knew every face. I could name them all. Tim, who had returned home after eighteen years of prison, now a stranger to his wife and children and experiencing such difficulty with finding himself a father again that he slept curled alone on the edge of their big bed. Wally, who spent his time explaining to kids on the street that they no longer needed to throw rocks at the armoured vehicles, ever, that that was before, when children used to die for throwing rocks. The McGovern brothers, officers of the 3rd Battalion who had returned to face unemployment with so much courage. Paul, who had stopped his hunger strike and who would cough, limp and fall into a doze while waiting for death. Terry, Alan, Dave, Liam, who were now taxi drivers, barmen, bouncers and carpenters. We weren’t a country, or even a city, just an intense family. I was returning winks, waves, nods. I tried to return to everyone the pride they were offering me. I was acting, cheating, lying. I no longer had the dignity left to respond.

I had awaited this day for fifty-eight years, and it ended up turning me into someone else. Even if everyone forgot me, I wouldn’t forget myself. After these few hours, there would be nothing else. I wasn’t walking with my people, I was leaving them. I was no longer from here, no longer one of them, no longer one of us. When I saw Sheila, looking so beautiful, I closed my eyes. Cathy, Liz, Trish: the fighting women were at her side. They would bless themselves at the passing of the coffin, their hearts racing. The children were there in school uniform in their hundreds, standing with their teachers, who would repeat Tom Williams’s name, spelling it out on the blackboard.

When they asked me if I wanted to give up my place, I refused violently. I pushed the next bearer away with a kick as I spat on the ground. Tom Williams was mine. He had settled my burned mattress in our new house on Dholpur Lane in January 1942. He had shaken my hand and asked me to call him by his first name. I kept watch over our streets, for him. For him, I had learned my country’s history, I had boxed in the ring on Kane Street, I had attacked the enemy. It was he who had placed the first bullet in the palm of my hand. It was with him that I had fought, with him that I had given up the coloured Fianna uniform for the bloody clothes of a soldier. So let me be. Let me carry him another while, a few more metres, leave me be! It’s not just Tom in that coffin. Nobody knows that, eh? One evening I went to bed a scout in short trousers. The following morning I was this old man. And between the two, almost nothing. A fistful of hours. The smell of gunpowder, shit, turf and fog. So clear off!

I carried Tom. I bore my leader on my back, my friend, my brother. I brought him home. I was going to open his bed of earth and throw my childhood into it.