Eden Burning Page 4
Next day at two in the afternoon, with the rain still thumping on her pink umbrella, Molly took a right turn off Royal Avenue into Cornmarket. No-one knew why. She had told Paddy that she was going to Sinclair’s to buy a dress. Why did she not keep walking down Royal Avenue? Sinclair’s was on the right, far away from Cornmarket. Instead, she splashed through a few puddles of rainwater, her shoes now soaked through, her hands mottled blue, purple and white by the cold northerly wind, making it hard to grip the handle of the umbrella. She stopped to fasten the bottom button on her raincoat which flapped open, allowing the rain to seep into the hem of her grey woollen dress as if it were blotting paper. Her left high heel caught in a drain as she stepped onto the pavement, heading towards Brands and Normans on the corner. She bent over, her left foot bare, wrestling with the stiletto. She had just managed to free the heel when the IRA bomb exploded.
Molly didn’t see the car bomb. Her head was down; her right hand clutched the patent leather stiletto, the fourth finger wrapped around the heel, as she tugged it the last inch from the drain. She heard the roar and rush of the explosion, the push and pull of the air around her. Everything moved except Molly, who stayed still. She lifted her head. Everything was in slow motion. Glass splintered from the shop windows in front of her, cascading onto the ground, showering around her like an exploding supernova. There were no voices, no screams. Did Molly scream? She didn’t know. It’s was as though all sounds were sucked into the roar around her. Everything trembled, slowly shuddered, crumbled, breaking apart, disintegrating, as Molly loosened her grip, falling into stillness.
Paddy was alone in his bedsit when the telephone rang downstairs. Anne wiped the flour from her hands onto her white apron. She was making scones for afternoon tea. She lifted the phone.
“Please God no! How can I tell him? Is there any way it can be a mistake? Are you sure it’s Molly?”
There was silence. Anne replaced the receiver slowly, like a priest laying the Host to be consecrated on the gold paten. She stepped back, her eyes still on the telephone as she blessed herself, removed her apron, and hung it on a hook in the kitchen, taking time to catch her breath, wiping the trailing beads of sweat with a cotton handkerchief as she climbed the stairs to knock on Paddy’s door.
Paddy never cried when his parents died. Like Tom’s mother he had never shed a single tear in his life. When Anne told him the news about Molly, the tears burst onto his cheeks like a geyser opening in a newly discovered oil field. He sobbed uncontrollably, throwing himself on top of the bed, crying until the white pillow case was sopping wet. He turned the pillow over, felt the coolness of the dry cotton bring a fleeting sense of comfort, before waves of tears gushed and overwhelmed him once again.
Anne sat with him for fifteen minutes, hands on her lap, on the armchair beside the television, watching him lying on the bed, face down, hands covering his ears as though someone who he didn’t want to hear was talking to him. It was Anne’s voice that he heard, saying “Molly’s dead. Molly’s dead.” Anne sat silently but her voice repeated in his head. “Molly’s dead.”
“Please leave me alone Anne,” he whispered in a muffled voice, “leave me alone, if you don’t mind.”
Anne prised herself awkwardly from the armchair and made her way to the door, patting Tom firmly on the back the way you would pat a horse. The patting made his feet flap. Hanging over the end of the bed were two long, shiny size eleven shoes which flapped helplessly up and down like a fish treading water with its tail. She opened the door gently, turned the knob reluctantly, hesitating as she turned to look at his heaving shoulders, his feet now unmoving, suspended in silence over the edge of his warm winter quilt.
“I’ll make you a pot of tea and a fresh scone. It’ll do you good.”
Paddy didn’t reply. He was unmoving. The tray of tea and cherry scones arrived and sat on the table in front of the armchair by the television until Anne took them away the following morning as Paddy showered.
After showering, Paddy prepared to put on the clothes he had planned to wear to take Molly to the Crawfordsburn Inn for her birthday. He softly touched the wool of the navy blue pinstripe suit, opened the new white shirt from its cellophane wrapping, spread it on the bed, and then searched for the silver cufflinks – a present from Molly – and found the light blue silk tie with its pink scattering of hearts and gold stars. He knelt naked on the floor beside the bed, spreading his arms over the clothes resting his head on the shirt and tie.
“Molly. Can you hear me Molly? Are you there?”
He remembered his father saying, “I don’t believe in a life after death. No-one has come back and told me about it. It’s a load of nonsense.”
His mother stayed silent. She believed in a God who loved her, who had counted the hairs on her head, who loved her into being, who named and chose her in the womb. She believed in a Holy Spirit who moved through her, bringing her peace, giving her patience, making her gentle and opening her to love.
Paddy pressed his head into the shirt, sinking into the quilt, believing in a God and not believing in a God. The love he knew from his mother and from Molly was from God. He believed that love needed his mother and Molly to be held – the way you need a cup to hold tea or clouds to cover sky or the sky to hold the emptiness of space – to hold the universe. He was able to drink the love of God from the cup of his mother and from Molly. Now that the cup was gone, where was the love of God? Paddy knew that the love of God was in him. For a fleeting second, he knew that it was also imprisoned in the hearts of whoever killed Molly. Paddy imagined that love, intangible, gently trying to escape from the impenetrable hardened hearts of Molly’s killers. Couldn’t they feel its movement? Didn’t they recognise it? Couldn’t they feel it at night when they lay in bed, struggling to be free?
As he lay with his head on the bed in silence, these thoughts were his prayers. He wondered whether now that the cup of Molly was broken maybe her love was free, pouring around him, flowing over his body.
Paddy let his thoughts ramble like this because that is the way he prayed to God. Molly was a beautiful china cup that had been smashed. All of the plans he had for their future were now shattered, scattered into space.
He asked God why He didn’t allow Molly to appear in the room. He made her once, He could make her again. He could perform miracles. He thought that He heard God telling him (or was it only his own thoughts?) that Molly could never die. God whispered to him in the beating of his heart, that the love he drank from the cup he thought was Molly could never die.
He pulled himself heavily to his feet, and slowly put on the clothes draped over the bed. He opened the drawer beside his bed, removing a small jewellery box. He slowly flicked open the golden clip revealing Molly’s engagement ring, a heart shaped solitaire diamond, half a carat, size J.
He had prepared a speech for Molly which he planned to say beside the open burning fire in the Crawfordsburn Inn. As he wrote it, he imagined a cold November wind howling outside, the logs crackling and spitting inside, sending the most wonderful woody perfumed incense, cleansing his soul, as he asked Molly to marry him.
He took the solitaire from its box, clutching the ring tightly in his hand, closing his eyes, squeezing them tight. He licked the last salty drops rolling onto his lips, placing the heart solitaire into his trouser pocket, sitting on the edge of the bed in silence.
• • •
It was only a few months since Father Anthony had buried Molly. Paddy continued to work as a security guard at Flax Mill, working one week on nights, the next on days. He dreaded nights. He told Father Anthony in confession, “Once the rioting starts, I am caught in the middle. I stay in the security hut. I need the money. What can I do? I need to pay the bills. I bring a book and brew a pot of tea or listen to the radio. I’m frightened, Father. I’m terrified.”
Father Anthony replied, “It’s only human to be afraid. Christ is within you. You’re not on your own Paddy”
“I feel alone.”
Father Anthony patted Paddy’s head. “Even Christ felt alone. There is a difference between being alone and being on your own.”
Kneeling in the confessional on the 12th January, Tom reminded Father Anthony. “Do you remember what happened then?” Tom’s glasses steamed up. He removed them again, took the cotton handkerchief from his pocket, and wiped the glasses slowly in a clockwise direction, remembering the night before Paddy was murdered.
“Tom, will you have the other half?” Paddy had asked. Tom shook his head, laughing. “Sure it was a full pint Paddy, it wasn’t a half. Lily will be expecting me home. But go on then. I can’t be late though.”
Tom scratched an itch on his left leg waiting for Paddy to return with the pints. They sat on the plastic black sofa and Paddy took Molly’s ring from his pocket. He touched the ring the way he caressed his rosary crucifix.
“Tom, there isn’t five minutes of a day goes by when I don’t think of her. I carry this ring with me everywhere.”
Tom took the ring from Paddy and looked at it.
“Yes, I can see this on Molly’s hand. She would have loved it.”
“How do I keep going Tom?”
“It will get easier Paddy. I know it doesn’t feel that way now, but it will get easier. You will enjoy life again. It will be possible.”
At seven-thirty Paddy rubbed his mouth with the back of his hand, the creamy top of the Guinness still frothy on his moustache. Tom thought that he saw him wipe away a tear. He wasn’t sure because Paddy quickly took his hand and shook it. It was a strong handshake, as if he was off to America or Australia and he wouldn’t be seeing him for a long time.
“Tom, Happy New Year and be sure to tell Lily and Rose I was asking for them. Tell Rose, I want to hear her New Year’s Resolutions. I need some inspiration. It’s been one hell of a year.” His long black lashes blinked twice as his famous slow smile spread across his face. “Sure you die if you worry and you die if you don’t, so why worry?” He gave him another half-smile, holding him in a long, steady gaze.
It was ten to eight on the evening of Sunday 2nd January 1972. A bitterly cold northerly wind battered through the Grove, whipping leaves across the Crumlin Road. Black ice shone like the oily back of an enormous cockroach as Paddy wiped a drip from the end of his nose with the sleeve of his woollen jacket. He searched in his pocket for a handkerchief, retrieving a tissue, coughing and spitting out phlegm as he walked past Herbert Street, his metal-capped security boots clicking on the pavement. He sighed as he looked down the Crumlin Road. “Not far to go now.” He whispered. The silence enveloped him in a thick blanket. There were no lookouts on the street corners, no-one scouting for soldiers or police; no-one trying to start a riot by throwing bricks at the sentry post above the chapel. He glanced at his watch, five to eight. He was on time. A car screeched to a halt behind him.
Paddy hadn’t time to run into Flax Street or to knock on a door on the Crumlin Road. Before he knew it the back door of a black taxi swung open. The front door followed. Cedric jumped out from the passenger seat wearing a black leather jacket, black gloves and blue jeans. He stood in front of Paddy, his arms by his sides – deep blue eyes, shoulder length black hair. He looked calmly at Paddy, smiling. “Where do you think you’re going?”
“Work,” whispered Paddy, hands in pockets, fingering the rosary beads in the right pocket and Molly’s solitaire in the left.
“Not till after we’ve had a little chat. I don’t think you told us everything we needed to know. Get in the back.”
Paddy’s stomach heaved as he stumbled into the back seat beside Peter, sturdy, pale faced with balding strawberry blonde hair – some might call red – light blue eyes and almost no eyelashes or eyebrows giving his face a babyish look. Peter wasn’t there the week before when Paddy was picked up and interrogated by Cedric and William. Now a voice in his head screamed, ‘Let me out of here.’
He tried unsuccessfully to swallow, struggling for air. It wasn’t fear in his body, but terror. His body tingled all over, confusing terror with bliss, or awe – every nerve in his body vibrated with anticipation. Currents of electricity shot up and down from his toes to the top of his head. He sensed Peter beside him looking at him then quickly looking away. William, the driver pressed the accelerator to the floor. The car sped past the Mill where Paddy was due to clock in, down the Crumlin Road, past the Mater Hospital, slowing to the speed limit as it approached the Crumlin Road jail. William swung the taxi sharply right, almost lifting it onto two wheels at Carlisle Circus and headed for the Shankill. Peter was thrown against Paddy. He pulled himself away, shrivelling as though Paddy was acid. Paddy wondered for a moment whether it was worth opening the door and risk throwing himself from the taxi at forty miles an hour. If he tried to escape, would it make matters worse? After all, didn’t they let him go last week? Maybe he could make a run for it when they stopped – that’s if they didn’t kill him first.
He couldn’t block the memory of Brendan McKee’s nineteen stab wounds. Nineteen. Why did he not die from the first one? They said that Brendan didn’t die in the taxi. Worse was to follow.
“I’ll run for it when they stop,” Paddy whispered to himself. “I’ve nothing to lose.” He gripped the rosary in his right pocket. He searched in his left pocket for the heart solitaire. Without moving his left hand from his trouser pocket, he managed to squeeze the ring over his small finger. He got it all the way up to his knuckle but no further. He touched the diamond with his thumb.
Paddy knew what happened to people taken by the drivers of black taxis. Few escaped. He tried not to remember the Ardoyne gossip about how they died. “This is what it feels like,” he thought. “It’s not real,” he told himself, “someone is going to stop the film. There’s going to be a commercial break. I’m going to get out of this car and I’m going to be told it’s a bad joke or a nightmare.”
After Molly died, Paddy had nightmares almost every night. He dreamt that he was trying to lock up and go home from the Mill, but he couldn’t get the front door to close. He didn’t want anyone to think that he had left it carelessly open. That would cost him his job. He rushed to find Andrew, his boss, to explain that the door wouldn’t close. Andrew walked with him in the darkness to the front door of the Mill, tried to close it and saw for himself that what Paddy was saying was true. It was simply impossible. They nodded at each other, shrugged their shoulders, left the door open and walked away.
The dream morphed. Paddy was alone on his way to work, walking towards the front door. The glass door swung slowly open outwards. He stopped. Something was inside waiting for him – he saw a deliberateness in the way the door opened, as though whatever was in there knew that he was only few steps away. What did it want of him? His body filled with fear, terror, energy rippling, zapping, vibrating bubbles shooting from head to toe as his feet were rooted to the ground. The fear wakened him. His heart beat wildly as he opened his eyes in relief. “It’s only a nightmare”. His pulse returned to normal as he comfortingly took in the familiar view of his small bedsit – the table set for breakfast next morning, teacup upside down on the saucer. Chivers marmalade with a small teaspoon on top of it, a bottle of HP brown sauce and one of Heinz tomato sauce. A white teapot covered with the red tea cosy Molly had knitted for him. Anne knew that he liked to be alone in the morning so she brought his cooked breakfast to his room while the other lodgers ate downstairs in the dining room. As he surveyed the comfort of his breakfast table, he wondered why the fear in his nightmare was worse than any fear experienced when awake. Is it God opening the door for me or the Devil? He wondered was he shaking with awe and terror at the mystery of an unknown God waiting for him, or was it the terror of the unfathomable evil of the Devil? He wasn’t sure.
Now in the taxi he traced the rough outline of Christ’s body on the crucifix of his rosary with his fingers. He prayed, “Jesus, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.” The same prayer said during nights in his security hut. The Jesus Prayer o
f the third century Desert Fathers fleeing into the solitude of the Egyptian Desert to find God within. Paddy repeated the Jesus Prayer until he didn’t hear the sound of the taxi changing gears, until all he heard were the words in his head. Then the words were a pulse beating in his heart and there was silence. He kept repeating, “Jesus, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.” The taxi stopped, Cedric jumped out from the passenger seat, opened the back door where Paddy was sitting, pulled him onto the pavement outside the Black Beetle pub.
“Take him to the lock up.” Cedric said to Peter.
Paddy fell to his knees, his legs buckling under him. This was his last chance to escape, where he was meant to run, not kneel. William opened the driver’s door, walked slowly around the front of the car where the headlights still shone. He handed Cedric a long rectangular box. Cedric caught the wooden box like a rugby ball, its bronze clip closed, and he swung the box at Paddy, hitting him on the neck. Paddy groaned, folding to the ground, both feet caught by Peter who dragged him, head bumping on the rough pavement past the Black Beetle.
• • •
“Kill me! Please kill me!” Screamed Paddy, his words faintly heard in the semi-darkness of a neighbour’s bedroom. The room smelt strongly of polish. A white net curtain filtered the light from the streetlamp outside, casting moving shadows onto the wall to the left. The neighbour opened her eyes with a start, lying perfectly still, sweeping the room with a glance from left to right to see if anyone was there. The next day The Irish News reported that an unnamed neighbour heard Paddy O’Connor’s plea to be killed at four in the morning. Hearing his cries, the neighbour didn’t call the police, or run out of the house and knock on the door of the lockup garage next door. She sat up in bed, listened carefully to make sure she hadn’t imagined it. “Kill me. Kill me,” Paddy repeated in a lower voice, weeping. His voice floated into the room, this time as a ghostly shimmer of a sound, which wouldn’t have wakened her if she had been asleep. Reaching over to the bedside table she switched the radio on. Then lay back in bed, breathing deeply. She concentrated on Frank Sinatra singing ‘My Way’. She needn’t have bothered because Paddy never spoke again. Those were his last words.