The Journeyman Tailor

7

She saw him flinch from her.

Siobhan Nugent held the Building Society book out in front of her face, in front of his eyes.

"What's this?" Her hand trembled in her anger.

It was only a spitted whisper because the children were in the sitting room across the hall. There was a moment when she thought he might try to snatch it away and then she saw that he was afraid.

"I can't…"

"You feckin' well will."

"Don't ask me."

"What's this? It's?500 a month, first of every month. It's interest paid every year. Two years and more…"

"Don't ask me."

"It's money we don't dream about. It's more than fourteen thousand feckin' pounds. When did we have fourteen thousand feckin' pounds?

When did we have?500 paid in each month, clockwork?"

"Siobhan, don't ask me."

"Correction, not 'we'; when did Moss Aloysius Nugent have fourteen thousand pounds and more?"

"It's not for talking of."

"I want to know, I've the right to know. I darn the heels of your socks. I turn the collars of your shirts so's you can go on wearing them. I buy cheap. Damn you, I've worried myself sick about money, and there's fourteen thousand feckin' pounds… Who's paying it?"

"You don't need to know."

"Why's they paying it?"

It was the twelfth year of their marriage. Her own mother, rest her soul, had told her she could have done better. A new life, a good life, in England, six years of it, and then he had insisted that they come back to bloody Ireland. Nearly six more years of living cramped in his mother's bungalow, because they had no money for a place of their own, and the Housing Executive list stretched away above them because they had been away and lost places on the ladder.

"I want to know, damn you." She stood her full height. She felt her lips against her teeth.

"Best you don't ever know."

"Is that your last word?"

"You can't be told. You'll not be helped by knowing, believe me.’’

She heard the pitch of her own voice rising. "What do I believe?' 1 find a Building Society book that has been kept a secret from me, fourteen thousand feckin' pounds. What should I believe…?’’

There was the click of the front door. There was his mother's voice, and the babble of the kids and the loud laughter from the television. She saw his face lighten, as if his rescue had come. His hand reached out and he took the building Society book from her.

His face seemed to say that he was safe, that he had seen her off, that she would not raise her voice now that his mother was back. He slid the Building Society book down into the hip pocket of his trousers. Her hand was in the pocket of her trousers. Her fingers were round the shape of the box. His mother called out, to let them know she was back, that she was putting on the kettle. He went to go past her. She stood in front of the closed door of the bedroom. His hand was on her shoulder and she felt the gentle pressure as he eased her sideways.

"And what's this?"

She held it in front of his face.

They were very close, almost touching

She held in front of him the small steel box that was the size of a cigarette packet.

"What's this, then?"

The blood colour running from his face. ‘’Give it me.’’

Her thumb rested over the red button that was recessed into the box.

"Tell me, what is this?"

"Don't, for the love of Christ, please, feck you, don't…"

There was his mother's voice again, penetrating into the room, telling them that their tea would be ready in a minute.

She felt her power.

"What happens if I press this…?" Her thumb lay across the red button.

"Don't…"

"Is it a bomb switch…?"

He shook his head. It was as if his voice had died, and him never short for words.

"Is it a warning bell…?"

She saw the fear in his eyes.

"Do they come running? Who'll come? The slob that you bloody jump for? The Devitt boy? The half-wit Riordan kid? The little Brannigan bastard…?"

Again the shake of his head. The smoothness of the red button was under her thumb. He would have known that he could not wrench it from her, not before she had pressed the button.

"Who comes running when little Mossie presses the button…?"

His mother was outside the door. Siobhan leaned against it. His mother said that the tea was poured. The door was pushed against her back.

Siobhan's weight took the pressure. She called, the loving daughter-in-law, wheedling voice, that they would be out in a moment. She heard the footsteps shuffle away.

"Who comes running?"

"Please, Siobhan, you can't know."

"Or I press the feckin' thing…"

"Don't!"

"I press it."

She held the steel box right in front of his face, where it would have filled his eyes. He was breathing hard. His face was white.

"You don't know…"

"I press it,"

He crumpled against her, pushing her against the door. The steel box was driven into his cheek. She had destroyed him. She did not know how, nor did she know why. Her arms slipped round his neck. She held the box against the frayed collar of his shirt.

His voice was in her ear, in her hair.

"It's the army that comes running, or the police. I'm theirs, I belong to them…"

For a long time she held him, fearful for herself, fearful for him. His breathing had slowed and steadied.

"You're a tout?" she said, still not believing it. "You tout for the Brits?"

"Since way back." She wondered if, before, he had ever been near to telling her.

She had no more anger, only fear.

"Jesus, Mossie, you get killed for touting."

Siobhan gave him back the steel box. She put it into his hand and closed his fingers round it. She had seen the helicopter land in the field that evening between her home and the home of Attracta Donnelly. She had seen the soldiers bent low under the flailing rotors, running to the farmhouse. The box was her husband's link to those soldiers. There was a woman in the village, and her son not more than ten years older than her Francis and the boy had been shot dead by the army. And she knew the woman and made small talk with her after Mass or in the queue at the Dungannon supermarket cash desks. There was another woman in the village, Her husband had been killed by his own bomb, detonated by the electronic sweep of the army. She knew the woman, and thought she was lovely and brave, and talked with her at the school gate before Doloures and Patrick came out.

Her arms slid from his neck.

‘’The book’s your give away. You take a risk with the book."

Mossie said. "We goes to Belfast four times a year, right? We all go, you and me and the kids; that's known, you tell everyone that’ll listen that we go to Belfast four times a yearfor the big shop, and I get my new brushes… Everyone Knows – And I leaves you, because you and the kids don't want to buy paint brushes, right? I buy the brushes and I get the entries marked up into the book

"You's bloody stupid, Mossie, keeping the book here.’’

"I need it."

"That's idiot talk, Mossie. Why's the book not in a bank safe, why's it not in Belfast?"

"It's all I have. It's the future. The bleeper box, that's feckin' present.

It's a future that matters. Yours, mine, the little ones'."

"You carried it all with you, you poor love."

"I thought you'd hate me, if you knew."

"God, why?"

"For turning, for being turned."

She blazed her eyes at him. "You think I'm a Provo? You think they matter to me? Do you know nothing of me?"

"I didn't think you'd want it told you that your man was a tout."

"If we're going out tonight, we'd better be changing," she said.

Through all those days and months and years of marriage, he had lived in fear with his secret. He was still slumped against the door. ..

Just madness, but she could have giggled. For all she had known she might have been living with a child-molester or an adulterer or a rapist.

Could have been worse, her husband was only a traitor against his community. She giggled because she remembered the story of Ann Flaherty, gone with Maeve who was her friend, to see her boy sent down for eight years at the court in Belfast for possession of explosives and kidnapping. Eight years, and not past his nineteenth birthday, and Ann Flaherty coming out of the courthouse and dabbing her eyes, and her friend Maeve who had travelled up on the bus from Dungannon with her had said, "Don't be upsetting yourself, dear, could have been worse, could have got eighteen months for thieving…" The whole of Altmore knew what Ann Flaherty had been told by her friend Maeve.

She should have cried, and her eyes were dry.

His mother minded the kids.

They sat in the shadow of the bar, sheltered from the music and the laughter. He wore his suit, and Siobhan wore her best frock. She shared her Mossie’s secret. Sometimes, during the long evening, she put her hand and gently touched his rough hands.

He drank pints of Guinness, fast. She toyed with gins and bitter lemon, slowly.

Men sidled through the noise of the band, came to bend close to her Mossie's ear, ignored her and whispered to him, and moved away.

The secret was now hers, and the weight of it pinioned her. If it were known then Siobhan would be without a husband and Francis and Doloures and Patrick and Mary would be without a father.

The drink going faster and the music louder and the laughter talk fiercer. It was where they were born and where they belonged.

Her secret was that her Mossie was a traitor.

She leaned forward. Her lips were against his ear. The noise was a wall around them.

"We don't need their money."

"They'll never let me go."

"Tell them you want out."

"You tell the bitch."

"Is it just a woman who has you on the end of her string?"

"I tried once…"

"What happened?"

"It's not the place to talk… What happened? The bitch, she doesn't let go…"

The band played. It was the "Mountains of Pomeroy", it was the song of Altmore mountain. It was the celebration of a highwayman from far back, who had no teeth. Shane Bearnagh Donnelly's song… She tugged his hand and pulled him to his feet and took him to the floor that was clear of tables for dancing.

'Fear not, fear not, sweetheart,' he cried,

Fear not the foe for me,

No chain shall fall, whate'er betide,

On the arm that would be free!

Oh, leave your cruel kin and come

When the lark is in the sky;

And it's with my gun I'll guard you,

On the Mountains of Pomeroy

She sang as she danced. She sang so that he would hear her voice.

'An outlawed man in a land forlorn, He scorned to turn and fly, But kept the cause of freedom safe Up on the mountain high.'

She had dragged it from him. She must live with his secret. In her arms she felt his fear and his weakness. The secret pounded in the mind of Siobhan Nugent. She thought that she knew every man and woman and youth and girl in the bar. She had been brought up with them, she had lived with them for every year of her life excepting the six that she had spent with Mossie across the water. She knew the tightness of the society that was her home. And her Mossie was a tout…

It was not anything that he said, but it was the look of the man. It was in the middle of the Sunday afternoon, and they were alone in an underground carriage on the Circle line. It was where they could talk and know that they were not overheard, and where they had the best chance of seeing if there was a tail on either of them. The courier didn't think that the big man had slept, not for two nights at least, He was haggard and unshaven and bowed at the shoulder, It was the first time that the Limerick boy had been in England. He was shocked from the time that he had first seen the big man shambling down the platform towards him. He had travelled by train through the night from the ferry.

His only fear, before, had been when he had to pass the Special Branch officers at Hollyhead. And he had walked straight past them and gone to the waiting train. It was the appearance of the man that unnerved the courier. It was like the man was hunted, like the pressure had weighed on him. He had not, of course, been told the man's name, only where he should meet him.

When the courier had arrived at Euston mainline railway Station, he had telephoned to Dublin from a pay phone. He had been told what else he should tell the man when he met him He put off as long as possible what lie had been told to tell the man.

The courier handed him four envelopes. The courier watched the man, dirty hands shaking, open the envelopes and skim with red-rimmed eyes from the first a wad of bank notes, in the second a newly-made birth certificate, in the third a long list of names and addresses and from the last a handwritten letter.

It was what he had been sent to do. Later the courier would stay overnight with his married sister in Wandsworth to solidify his cover, and then travel back to the ferry.

The courier gulped, breathed deep.

"What I was told to tell you… was that your home was done again last night, searched by the army. Your woman's alright, and your boy's alright, they said, but there was powerful damage to your home. They said you wasn't to call home."

He was too young to say that he was sorry for what had happened.

He watched the anger in the man's eyes, burning through the tiredness.

And then they were coming into a station and the man stood and said,

"Thanks for the letters. Safe journey home, son."

And then the big man was gone, lost on the platform as the train carried the courier on.

Howard Rennie thought that Cathy must have been shopping around She’d have preferred her escorts from what he called the Hereford Gun club, If she could have had them. Must have been turned down or she wouldn't have come to him.

She was frank enough with him, what he'd have expected of her. He was right. Special Air Service had a full programme of stake out and surveillance, couldn't deliver… Sunday afternoon they were standing on the doorstep of Rennie's home, his wife was in inside buttering the bread for the tea. He was in his carpet slippers and the out -of-shape cardigan, and his pipe nestled in the palm of his hand. He towered over the girl. He'd fix the back-up, of course he would, but only because it was for her. A hell of a way for her to be spending her Sunday. She'd have traipsed round the Hereford crowd, and then she'd have been up to I. isburn to the headquarters and tried to gel a car load or two of the "Dets" the army’s mob, those Detached In Special Duties and they would have found a dozen more excuses. Nobody liked Five.

Five was a pain in the arse in the Province. Five was the intruder who didn't share, too bloody high and mighty. Hobbes was Five, and Hobbes typified them. But if Cathy asked Rennie, then she'd get her back-up.

She looked bloody awful. She needed a bath and needed a rest and needed half a day in a hairdresser's chair. The pair of them stood on his front doorstep.

There wasn't any point in asking her in to take tea with his wife and daughters. He asked her anyway and she said no, for both of them. Of course she shouldn't have come to his home. She'd just said she was arriving and rung off, and he'd taken his pistol out of the drawer in the living room, slipped it under his coat and walked to the top of the cul-de-sac, and back and quartered the road. She wouldn't come into the hall, hadn't been inside the house since Christmas morning, and then for half an hour and one glass of sherry. She'd declined a place at the lunch table. He didn't know where she had eaten her Christmas lunch.

She was folding the map. It was a great smile she had with her.

When it was dark he'd be in front of his television, probably asleep and perhaps snoring, his wife would be knitting, and Cathy Parker would be out in the bloody jungle, off to meet her tout. His daughters might have stayed in and they might have gone to friends, and Cathy Parker would be chatting up that lump of pig shit they called Song Bird.

"You need a damn good holiday, get the hell out. Go on, get away for a bit. Give yourself a break."

"Oh yes, Mr Rennie, and where?"

"Anywhere a long way away. Anywhere you can forget all about us.

"Never seems the right time," she said.

He played the older man. "You can't win it on your own…"

She'd told him a bit ago, she didn't hold back from him, what it had been like when she had last gone home, and her mother had had a few of the local better families round for sherry. Cathy had told him it had been just a super-scale disaster. He doubted she talked with many others, not the way she talked with him, confidences. She’d told him about Sunday morning drinks in the English countryside across the water. All quiet, parked in the corner and watching every new fool and his wife come in and wondering why they had to shout so loud and laugh so much. She had stood away from the window and facing the door, her training. Her mother had dragged her to meet the guests. How was she? Where was she working? Going alright for her, was it?

Nothing she could answer… and nothing said by her mother and father after the guests had gone, just their unhappiness and anxiety paraded in front of her.

"Leave it to you buggers and we'll never win," she said.

He laughed with her and closed the door. In the drawer in the hall was the secure phone. He arranged for two back-up cars.

He didn't really think that this was women's work, but then he was only an old-fashioned copper. He settled himself at the end of his table and ate his tea.

She had followed him round the bungalow. All he had told her was that he was going to be out in the evening. She followed him round like she knew he was going to see the handler. He could have counted the words she had said to him that day on the fingers of one hand, and his mother had never stopped her bleating, and Francis had kicked Doloures on the knee, as if to show that he was affected by the strain between his father and mother.

If he went into the bedroom then she followed him. If he went into the sittin room to sit down in his chair then she was hovering behind him. If he went out into the back garden to fill the basket with wood for the fire then she was waiting halfway down the path for him.

It was as if she didn’t believe him, was waiting for him to say that it hadn't been real, just a feckin' nightmare.

Mossie had just gone into the bedroom to change his shoes, put on a clean shirt, when the doorbell rang. He heard the voices, and his name called.

Patsy Riordan was in the doorway.

The boy was always used for messages.

It was how it would end, he knew that.. It would end with a call to a meeting It was what they always did.. They called the tout to a meeting, and they kicked him inside and they had the hood over his head, the tout's head, and the twine round his wrists, the tout's wrists, and the beating would start… That was how it would end.

"Yeah, no problem, tell him I'll be right down."

A few minutes later he was gone out into the night and Siobhan had followed him right to the car.

Her father was down with his drill to get the shelves back on the walls.

Her mother, with a needle and strong thread, worked to repair the ripped fabric of the chairs. Melvin had been and gone, satisfied himself that the wiring in the roof had not been damaged. Mrs Rea, from the far end of the village, had brought new plates and new mugs, her own spares. Gerry Brannigan had hammered the floorboards down hard where they had been lifted, and muttered all the time that, so help him, the 'boys' would make the bastards pay for this. Help poured through her door, comfort was Attracta's company, and the priest after Mass had held her hand longer than usual and then put the same hand on Kevin's shoulder and called him a fine young fellow, and smiled on mother and son.

Now Attracta laughed.

Il was the first time she had laughed, smiled even, since the soldiers had been.

The whole of Altmore laughed with old Sean Hegarty.

Two plastic hip joints, and a waddling walk, Hegarty had breezed into the farmhouse half hidden by the television set he carried. Up in his barn over the crest of the mountain Hegarty stored enough appliances to fit out half of a new housing estate.

"Is the cooker working, missus, did the feckers break the cooker?"

"cooker's fine, Sean."

" 'Cos I've cookers when you need one."

"Not this time, Sean."

If she'd wanted a tumble drier, she had only to ask. If the refrigerator was damaged, she had only to say. Hegarty would have it She laughed out loud.

Hegarty was the most popular man on the mountain, no doubts. He could bring down from his barn the oldest and dirtiest cooker, and if he was asked he had the skills to make it spark like it was a death trap. Not last year, would have been the year before, Hegarty had carried around his pride and joy, his very worst cooker. Fourteen families had taken in the cooker in the one twelve-month, and then gone down to the Department of Social Security in Dungannon, and demanded the Inspector come out, and had received the grant for a new cooker. The Inspector had caught on after seeing the cooker only twice, but he didn't want his car torched so he signed the grant papers. The original cooker back in place, Hegarty back up the mountain with his filthy dirty cooker; money for the bar and the horses or for a deposit on a new car.

It was said that Hegarty was the best-read man on the mountain, and not a day of college education in him, and that when he could be bothered, he went down to the priest's house and beat the man at chess.

She made tea for all those who were in the house and helping her.

Jon Jo's name was never spoken. It was Attracta's surprise that kind Mossie Nugent had not been back that day.

As the darkness fell across the mountain she waved them all away from her door. Her parents, and Mrs Rea and Gerry Brannigan. and Sean Hegarty. Hegarty tweaked her cheek with his sharp fingers.

" They’ll be an answer for this, Missus, there'll be a debt paid." She kissed the rough stubble of his cheek.

Attracta shut the door, she leaned back against it, her eyes were closed. Kevin was beside her, not touching her and not crying. Kevin had never cried since his father had gone away. She yearned for Jon Jo’s return… God forgive her, and she yearned for the body of a soldier, dead, torn, bleeding, brought to her door as payment.

They were in the shed at the back of the Riordan house, where Jimmy Riordan kept his caged cannaries.

The O. C paced as he talked, and twice when he faced away.

Nugent had stolen a glance down at the watch on his wrist, because time was running out.

The O.C. talked fast.

"… If there's a tout here then they'll think we'll lie down. They'll think we'll go to ground. It's the best time to hit them, you with me, Mossie? There's a 50-calibre coming up from Monaghan. Look at the map, see, we can get inside the house and we're right across from the barracks. The big house in the barracks is where they're at for lunch.

And the beauty of it is, the house is right in the middle of the estate, what's they going to fire back at? You and me knows, no other beggar.

No one else has the picture, Mossie. The lads who do the shooting, the drivers, they won't have the target and the routes out until my say so.

You'll be in charge of the house, Mossie. Just you and me, Mossie, we're the only ones who'll know. Tight as a duck's arse, that's how it'll be. You with me?…" The door opened.

Patsy Riordan came in. He smiled. He held two mugs of tea. He put the mugs on the bench where his father kept the canary seed. He let himself out.

There was the O.C.'s savage glance at the closing door. "How long was that little bastard there…?"

Fifteen minutes later and Mossie was away, driving fast because he was late.

There were two unmarked cars assigned, three men to each car. They were parked up now. There was a disused quarry near McCready’s Corner off the Armagh road. The radios of both cars were tuned to the frequency that had been given them. They knew the drill. One car was north of the quarry in the direction of Blackwatertown the second car was off the winding lanes to Bally-troden, to the west. The policemen, heavy in their anoraks and waterproofs, smoked in the cars. No talk. To have talked might have meant missing the call on the radio frequency.

They thought the quarry was secure. They had driven past it twice, each of them, and they had cruised the lanes and seen nothing that was suspicious. It was part of the work of theE. 4 section of the R.U.C. that they should provide back up for handlers out in the night to meet a player. The engines turned over quietly. It would have taken the one car four minutes to reach the quarry if the handlers' panic button had gone, it would have taken the second car forty seconds longer. Tense, quiet, waiting.

Bren had heard the car a long way off, coming at speed.

The bastard had not shown. Because Bren was frightened then Song Bird was the bastard. He hated to be afraid, had done all his life.

Bren had pulled the Browning from his pocket, checked the safety. A black and cold night, rain in the air, and Cathy's hand had fallen on his wrist and she had muttered that it was Song Bird's car, she knew it was Song Bird's car because she could hear the distributor problem and the missing of the engine. The car had swept into the quarry, too fast, and skidded to a halt, and for a moment he and Cathy had been lit by the headlamps. He'd cringed and she'd cursed when the light beam had found them. The lights had died, the engine had been cut.

She had gone forward, Bren had been left beside their own car. He was conscious of the tautness of his arm that held the Browning.

She was ten, twelve, paces from him. Bren could see the outline of their bodies. The man seemed to dwarf Cathy. Bren's arm was rigid at his side, the Browning was clamped in his hand. He couldn’t hear what was said. The wind swirled down from the dead bracken above the quarry.

'Come here, come on."

Her sharp command.

He went forward.

He was blinded by her torch light. The beam was straight into his face. He held the pistol behind his back. Then the darkness again, and he blinked to find his vision.

"That's him, got the face? That's Gary. Gary, this is Song Bird."

Bren couldn’t shake hands, if that had been the proper thing to do, because he had a Browning pistol in his hand.

Cathy said quietly, "You want me and I'm not on the line then you'll get Gary."

"If you say so."

"It's what I say… What's the bloody fidgeting about? You need to piss, then get on with it."

The soft Irish of the country voice. "I want an answer, I want to know how long."

Cathy said gently, "As long as I say, Song Bird, that's how long."

"It's my neck…"

Cathy whispered, "Fuck me about, and I promise it'll be your neck."

"What I told Siobhan, you're a hard bitch."

Cathy chuckled, "Always had a way with words, didn't you, Mossie?"

"What I told Siobhan…"

"Shut up, Mossie…" She had turned to Bren. "He's been crying on his Missus' shoulder. Good thing or bad thing? Take time to tell. She'll have told him to quit…"

"Don't you understand anything, Miss?"

Cathy had her hand up in front of his face. Bren watched. The snap was in her voice. She would count the points off on her fingers. "One, you've nowhere to go without my say so, if you quit and run then they'll find you, nut you. Two, you're damn well paid, and you will continue to be well paid, and you're set up for the future when I agree you can split. Three, you mess me and you're into Crumlin Road court, and P.I.R.A. intelligence officers tend to be looking at twelve years minimum. Four, you've missed the amnesty and don't forget it, you go and ask for your own crowd's protection and tell them you're sorry, you wouldn't last a week, and when you're pushing up daisies the lovely Siobhan and your kids will be ostracised with a traitor's stain.

Five…"

Her finger yanked at her thumb, "… Five, you know I'll look after you, Mossie, you know with me you're safe."

He was sheepish, she'd clattered the fight out of him. "So what do I do?"

"What I've told you to do, just that. And you wear the bloody clothes I've told you to wear."

Bren listened. He understood only a little of what was said. They talked names and places, sharp questions from Cathy, rambling answers from Song Bird. He could make little of it. The names were Attracta Donnelly and Vinny Devitt, and Patsy Riordan with mugs of tea, and the Brannigan kid. There was O.C. and Q.M. Talk of a hide being dug that would hold a flame-thrower if they could get it up from the south.. . She dominated Song Bird. She could make him laugh and she could make him cower. Song Bird was Cathy's marionette…

She had him in the palm of her hand. At the end, the bastard thanked her.

He was gone, his car coughing away into the darkness.

Two miles down the road, when she told him to, Bren used the radio to pull off the back-up cars.

Bren said, "You were pretty hard on him."

She turned her head away, as if she didn't want to hear him. "Just trying to keep him alive."