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  “I’d have been charged with every robbery and shooting, every traffic offence and stolen car, every burglary ever committed and a lot not even committed if I’d gone back there.” He was asking for time to explain. He knew all these things about himself, but now he was going to have to put these facts into words — words a friend, an obviously disappointed and hurt friend, would have difficulty taking in. Cullen could live with himself. He knew the difference between his real self and the image that had been projected of him. He wondered if the others could live with him.

  “So,” he went on, deciding that the only way to face a problem was to face it. And if Doyle could do it, he thought, well fuck it, so could he.

  He explained, as clearly as he could, that he had digressed from the ideals which had originally motivated him.

  “After a while, you’re all the time running, or hiding. Looking over your shoulder. You’re mistrusting your friends and people who love you, then forced into situations where you have to trust idiots and rats who don’t know that truth exists and who would sell their mothers. You begin to wonder, when you walk down a street and you’re watching every face, every pair of eyes for a sign, that tell-tale sudden glance away that says someone’s recognised you. And then you’re in a cold sweat, wondering if they’ve got to a phone yet, or if they’re tailing you.”

  He paused and looked from the floor to Doyle.

  “You’re out in the fields at night, crouching from bush to ditch, in the pissing rain and wild winds, up to your hair in muck and cowshit. You’re sick with fear because you know they’ve patrols out and if they nail you, by Jayzus you’re a goner. You better hope they’ll shoot you,” he nodded in emphasis.

  “If they take you alive, you know and your mates know there’s no way people don’t talk when they’re caught on the job. No way.”

  He sighed then.

  “Anyway, that’s neither here nor there. They’re part and parcel of that kind of war. You join up and you take your chances along with the rest of the boys. It wasn’t that which put me off. It was the futility of it.” He leaned back against the closed door of the food locker. He was more relaxed, in charge of his explanation, felt Doyle was understanding him.

  “You know,” he went on, “we were caught one night. A patrol of five or six got three of us in a laneway. We’d no warning. It was summer, just before dark. We thought we were in safe country. There was Donie Brennan, Jim Sylvester and me.”

  He looked up. The frown and nod from Doyle told him he remembered the incident.

  “The two boys were behind me, I think they were talking about some fella’s wife that they’d both been with. All of a sudden, there was a ferocious shout. I dropped and rolled into the ditch. The shout was from behind, so they must’ve let us pass then decided to ambush. Donie had an Uzi, but it was strapped over his shoulder. He started to get it off, but you can imagine he hadn’t a hope. Jim pulled his gun, and I’m sure he was throwing it away, but the shots had started already. I’d just reached the ditch when a bullet missed me by an inch.”

  He sat up straight again at the memory.

  “By Jayzus, I was through that hedge and down along the field like a fucking hare. The shots kept coming, but not after me. They must have figured that I was still in the ditch. I went through two fields and came out at the end of the lane where it goes on to the back road. Well, I can tell you, I was out on that road and running like a fella in the Olympics. I must’ve covered the two miles to the main road in ten minutes or under. And that in full clothes and an AK 47 in my hand. I put the gun in a hedge and went into Lowery’s pub, just on the border there. One of the lads came and collected me and we got the gun back too. It was an hour later before we learned that the two boys had died instantly.”

  Doyle could feel the anger and sorrow in his friend.

  “It was shortly after that I decided I’d had enough. I’d been thinking for a while of course. Everyone gets doubts.”

  His voice hardened, defiance erupting through the sadness.

  “Fuck it. That wasn’t my night to go. It was for the two boys. But not mine. I’ll tell ya one thing. I know a warnin’ when I see it.

  “I asked myself, time and time again, if I really believed that the land I was born in, this island, was worth my life to me. I talked with some of the fellas about it. They understood. It happens all the time. But my ideas were passed to the top. Before I knew it, I was only on jobs where I’d no command and just put in explosives. I was also dropped from any policy decisions. Loud silences began to happen when I was around.”

  “Good God,” Doyle said softly. “They treated you like a traitor. After all the good work you’d done.”

  Cullen gave a snort.

  “I don’t know how they treated me. To be honest, I’d lost interest. A lot of fellas have over the years. It’s funny. You think you’re into something for life, you feel it in your heart, in your very soul. And then you start living the real thing, and the running and the shouting and the raids and, by Jesus, I can tell you, you think again. Do you know what I came up with? Do you know what I finally thought? I said ‘Fuck it, I’m no hero.’”

  He looked Doyle in the eye.

  “A lot of them are, you know. They’re not all mindless bastards gone mad with bombs and bullets. Some of those guys live lives so miserable, so deprived, so fucking lonely, you wouldn’t believe ’til you see ’em. There are some only twenty or twenty-two, and they look and sound like walking dead men.”

  He stopped short, shook his head as if trying to dislodge the idea from his mind, and said simply, “So that’s it. I’m not living that life or dying like that because I happened to be born in a particular place on this earth.”

  He looked closely at Doyle. The fisherman had a strange look, a sort of puzzled doubt as if he wasn’t sure what he was hearing.

  Cullen shrugged.

  “Don’t be so bloody upset. It’s the way you get after a while. My case of change is a mild one. At least I know what I’m saying. Some of the fellas I know don’t even know why they’re doing what they do anymore. They’re on automatic. All you have to do is wind ’em up and point ’em. They’ll go at the target then and do what they’re programmed to do.”

  He looked up at Doyle again, straightened, his attitude changing with the movement. It was like a whole new character emerged from the chair as the old one was shed and left aside. When he spoke again, his voice had taken a brighter, faster tone.

  “Ah, sure, what the fuck! All soldiers get tired. Even the tommies go on leave. That’s all that’s wrong, Sean. We get tired and no one bothers. Go on, they say, the fellas at the top. You’ve a war to fight. So we get on with it.”

  It was clear to him now. He wasn’t a traitor or a deserter or a turncoat. Nothing of the kind. He was a tired soldier. A fatigued warrior. Because he couldn’t take leave like his counterparts among the enemy, he was merely diverting himself with a little sleight of hand on the side. Soon, maybe, the Organization would see that, understand and ignore it, maybe ask him for a small donation and let bygones be bygones.

  “So we’ll just have to see, Sean. Play it by ear, as they say. I’ll have to see which way the land lies.”

  “Is that what you really think?” asked Doyle. “Do you think you can do what you did, say what you’ve just told me and that they’ll let you waltz in and out of military operations as it suits you?”

  Cullen smiled wryly.

  “No, not really. I think I know where I am.”

  Some of the doubt came back.

  “It’s just that it’s nice to try and kid yourself sometimes, to pretend you’re in an ordinary life with an ordinary problem.”

  He shrugged again with a quick self-conscious grin at Doyle.

  “So now you know. Now you see the hero.”

  Doyle said nothing. He turned to the small cupboard at his shoulder, opened it and took out another bottle. He snapped off the cap on the metal edge of the bread box and handed the bottle to C
ullen.

  “There’s more there if you want it,” he said. “I’ll drop around at about half eleven or twelve. I’ll see you then.” Slowly he turned and went to the ladder leading up to the deck. They said no words in parting.

  Chapter Three

  In the eleven years Eileen Doyle had been married to Sean, she had never been unhappy or regretful of their lives together. They had had rows and differences, but even these she looked upon as incidents of learning and openings to further insights. It was peculiar, she thought fondly, but the more you knew a person, the more you realised how little you knew him, or yourself, for that matter.

  Now, at thirty-three, when many of her friends had travelled, married, or gone to live outside the village, she thought it odd when she met them that it was they who appeared insular.

  She and her husband had no secrets from each other. There had been tense times earlier, when she had feared his involvement with an active nationalist organisation, but he had told her that, while he sympathised with their motives, he was not in agreement with their methods. However, he had occasionally helped one or two on the run from the north, or from a prison in the Republic. But he had never brought them to the house. He was only doing what any Republican-minded citizen would do. He had never held secrets, or details of the individuals involved from her. He had spoken freely, not because he wanted to involve her, but because he wanted to give word to his thoughts at these times and needed someone he could trust with his problems.

  It was a measure of their mutual regard that, within the space of minutes, their conversation could span politics, the local economy and the children’s progress at school, to the leak in the new bathroom, the cost of groceries and the planned colour scheme for their bedroom that summer, or autumn, or whenever.

  She often stopped in her day’s work and looked around her, in the back garden with its clear view of the harbour and the Atlantic, and made a simple prayer of thanks to a God she never doubted. She was careful not to blurt her contentment to Doyle. She showed it in different and subtle ways which were never lost on him. But she was wary of voicing her satisfaction with life. She had an intuitive regard for fate, thought that fate lurked around the corners of life like a malevolent joker waiting and always ready to trick the incautious. Twice she had tempted fate. Once when she had told Sean how well everything was in their lives when they had their first son, and once when she proclaimed to him that their lives were perfect because they’d moved to a cottage of their own. Their son died and the cottage was destroyed by fire. So she kept her guard up, quietly grateful for her smooth runs, watchful for the squalls and storms. But she had never let her wariness or experience turn to bitterness, so she and her husband calmly and carefully enjoyed their other two sons, new slate house with a bathroom, and the present and future prosperity their life suggested.

  When Doyle came in the front door, on the Sunday that he had brought the trawler home, Eileen had a meal ready for him. She also had the house clean and tidied, and left both their sons — sick with measles but convalescing — upstairs in the large back bedroom. She heard the key turn in the latch, listened for a moment to identify his opening of the door.

  By the time he had taken his shoes off, hung his suit jacket on the hallstand, and walked quietly to the kitchen at the back of the house, she had everything nearly ready.

  They brushed a kiss and he said,

  “How are they? Any better?”

  She laughed softly as she answered,

  “The sight at the pier did a lot to bring a big improvement. You can imagine how the binoculars became very important. I had to make them swap over every five minutes. They’d still be at the window if I had left them!”

  She placed his plate on the table in front of him.

  “Did anyone ask about me? I mean, why I wasn’t there?”

  He was aware of the quiet anxiety in her voice, knew that the assurance, not warranted, but so needed, would have to be provided.

  “Father Tom mentioned that it was sad that you were detained on such an occasion.”

  He paused as he felt her tension rise.

  “But he said that God did that to test the strong, and that would never have come about as a disappointment if we’d not secured the boat in the first place.”

  He gave a hint of a smile at her apparent relief and went on.

  “He said you can’t have it every way — to own a new fishing boat, then be on the pier in person to usher your husband into port with it.”

  She smiled, relieved, calmed and very proud.

  “God,” she said, “it was a wonderful sight from up here. Twice I took the glasses from the boys, just as you were coming in, and that time when Wally Malone stumbled on board.”

  They both laughed at that.

  “Aye,” he said. “Wally’d had a good few by two o’clock. Someone said he’d put a half bottle of the hard stuff away during the prayers as we were coming in.”

  He shook his head and added, in amusement but not without sympathy,

  “It’s getting a fair grip on him. I haven’t seen him sober on a weekend in a long time.”

  His voice took a serious tone.

  “Bill France says he’s all right at sea. Does his work, keeps an eye on things, and can fix gear or an engine like a trained man, but once he’s ashore, that’s it.”

  He stopped and looked at the food on his fork.

  “It’s a funny thing, but I remember Wally when we were about nineteen or so, and he’d be in the bar with the older fellows — I suppose he was about thirty then — and he used to sort of keep an eye on us and tell us not to get too fond of the drink. I never saw him drunk once and we all sort of looked on him as a man who could handle himself.”

  He added quickly,

  “Not just in a row or something, but in every way. Like a fellow in control all the time, y’know?”

  “Indeed,” she answered and, sighing briefly, said in a strong voice, “I don’t suppose that American one on ’er holidays here last August did much for him. Must’ve got a few ideas from her.”

  Doyle laughed quickly.

  “From what I hear, she was doing plenty for him, and not all of it normal by the sound of it. As for the ideas, I’d say from what’s said in Bannion’s Pub, that it was more than ideas she was giving him.”

  “Oh,” she laughed, “probably. But his head’s not right yet anyway and, from the way he’s gone for the past few months, she’s got a lot to answer for.”

  Her husband lifted and dropped his eyebrows in dismissal of the subject.

  “He’ll be all right. It’s just a phase. He’s not that foolish.”

  She looked at him shrewdly.

  “That’s as may be. But I wonder if you know as much sometimes as you pretend.”

  He swallowed a mouthful of meat.

  “Are the boys asleep?”

  “David is. John is probably still reading. Even the excitement of watching everything from the window was a lot for them. They’re not that well yet.”

  “What did Ray say?” he asked, referring to their family doctor.

  “What does he ever say? ‘Give them the prescription and keep them in.’”

  She half mimicked the doctor and Doyle looked up from his plate in mild annoyance. He had respect for experts, specialists in any field, gave them the credit of credibility, at least until they proved otherwise by their own ineptitude. It irked him to hear unfounded criticism. From any quarter. He said,

  “Everyone to his own. His ideas may be different, but that’s progress.”

  He softened his voice before continuing,

  “Well, he’s done well by them before. And by us all for that matter.”

  From the time it took him to eat his meal, stopping often to talk or listen, to sip milk, or wave a fork in quiet emphasis, the conversation ambled on, calming the two of them as they acquainted each other with the news and happenings of their day.

  The shadows lengthened in the big kitchen. The
noises on the road outside were more sporadic. Sean and Eileen Doyle talked on about their boat, the voyage from Dublin to Rinnemor, the night’s anchorage beyond the big headland, the gear and equipment on the vessel, how the man in Howth had shown Doyle how to work it, and how the boat was going to affect the fishing in their village.

  Eileen made tea, prepared a tray. They moved from the darkening kitchen to the big lounge that overlooked the pier and the Atlantic. Though the sun had set, there was a warmth in the early twilight that allowed them to keep the big bay window open. The night moved softly in on the world. For a while, they sat and looked quietly at their new ship tied up below them in the harbour. As darkness fell, lights blinked on below them on the pier. First at the top of the harbour, then flashing down along the back wall, until they flared in a steady glimmer all along the back of the breakwater, tracing the harbour’s confines against the darker shadow of the shifting sea beyond.

  When Eileen spoke, she knew, they both knew that what had to be said had been put off long enough. They were ready now. And they felt it in each other. She asked him,

  “Did you hear of Steven’s escape from Mountjoy on Thursday?”

  “Of course,” he answered. “On the afternoon of the day it happened, there were Garda cars up and down Howth pier all day. They didn’t board any boats. It just looked as if they wanted their presence felt and were putting on a show to make people think they knew something.”

  Without looking at each other, but within reach, they sat side by side on the old sofa. His stockinged feet stretched out to the big thick sill where the night lay on the sloping field in front of their house. She sat beside him calmly, hands folded on her lap, knowing he was going to tell her in his own way and his own time whatever the facts were.

  “They must’ve known something,” she put in. “The two who escaped with him were caught that very evening.”

  “That’s right,” he said. “But they missed your brother.”

  “Perhaps it’s as well,” she continued, “that mother and father are dead. I don’t think they would have been able for much of it. You know how they considered respectability. They’d never have faced the village.”