Torn Water

Mr A. G. S. Shannon is James's English teacher, ‘a force for literature’, as he likes to call himself. James can remember the first time Shannon had stood before him in classroom G14, seven years before, giving his new English lit charges the once-over. He wore moccasins and James can remember their slap on the floor as he paced, his heels making a small sucking noise as his feet travelled back and forth. His hair in those days was a Brylcreemed black with a kiss-curl that fell daintily across his wide forehead. It was his belly, though, that fascinated James: it was large; it seemed to begin at his sternum and end at his groin. James thought it looked as if it had been grafted on to his body for it seemed at odds with the relatively slender man that carried it.

‘My name is Mr A. G. S. Shannon and my business is literature, and your business is to make it your business.’ Then he had lifted his head and raised an index finger to his chin. ‘If you have knowledge of language, my boys, you have a shot at the truth. Without it you will remain in your Neanderthal twilight, grunting and pawing your way through life.’

Some boys had burst out laughing, some had let out a snort of protest, but James and a couple of others had held the thought he had given them as if it were fashioned from gold. He was different from the rest of the teachers. He didn't seem to have the same cranky dedication to authority, or the constant need to flex it. James would often hang around at the end of class, waiting to catch his eye, to be fed a small morsel of his attention. Sometimes he would put his arm across James's shoulders and walk him from the class. They would amble down the corridor, Mr Shannon's rich quotes from Shakespeare weaving seamlessly with the strong blades of sunlight streaming through the windows.

Rehearsals are in an old two-storeyed townhouse off Canal Street. The front door lies open, revealing a long, narrow hall lit only by a solitary lightbulb, with a wooden staircase at the end. They climb to the top floor, Shannon sometimes taking two, three steps at a time. Two men he has never seen before stand by a fireplace. Shannon guides him towards them, his hand delicately placed between the boy's shoulder-blades. The men look up from two tattered scripts; one wears a Paisley cravat.

‘Gentlemen, may I introduce you to young James La very? He is our Martini. La very, this is Cathal Murphy.’

The man wearing the Paisley cravat extends his hand, and James shakes it shyly.

‘And this reprobate, Lavery, is the inestimable Oisin “Chin Chin” Daly.’

Oisin “Chin Chin” Daly is at least six feet tall, with long, greasy, heavy hair. He has brown eyes that flicker watchfully from behind a pair of wire-rimmed glasses. ‘Mr Lavery …’

‘Mr Chin Chin – sorry, Oisin.’

‘No, man, you scored the first time.’

Suddenly two women are in the doorway. One is small with red, short-cropped hair and a freckled face; on her shoulder is a green duffel bag with white trim. The other rummages furiously in one of two plastic shopping-bags. She is plump and short with greying brown hair.

Shannon eyes her imperiously, left eyebrow arched. ‘Ah, Nurse Ratshit at long last.’

‘Ratchet, Nurse Ratchet, you bollocks. Where the f—ing hell are my car keys?’ Suddenly she notices a set hanging from her friend's hand. ‘For Chrissakes, Patricia, why didn't you pipe up? And me making a complete arse of myself.’

‘You gave them to me not two minutes ago, Kerry, in case you lost them.’

The play they are there to rehearse is One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. James has been roped in to play Mr Martini, a paranoid character who spends most of the play talking with an imaginary friend. Mr Shannon had crept into the physics class the week before and asked permission from Mr Bennett to steal James for ten minutes.

‘Of course, Mr Shannon, have him for as long as you'd like.’

As they stood in the science corridor, Shannon had dug a thin book out of his briefcase, and held it skyward, an awkward grin of triumph spreading across his lips. ‘Do you know what this is, Lavery? Do you have any idea?’

‘No, sir.’

‘An American classic, Lavery, a modern classic from the New World.’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘I want you to peruse it.’

‘Sir?’

‘Read it.’

‘Why, sir?’

‘Because you are going to be in it.’

‘Me?’

‘Yes. Your part is Martini. Rehearsals begin next Tuesday afternoon after school. Performance in the amateur drama festival at the Opera House, Belfast, one month from now.’

‘Why me, sir?’

‘Why not you, La very? Pray, why not you?’

James had watched as Shannon walked away from him, backside swaying, head held high. Just before he turned the corner he raised the fingers of his right hand and wiggled them.

Back in the physics class, he had turned the booklet over and over in his hands.

‘What's that?’ Seamus Byrne, the boy next to him, had asked, when Bennett wasn't looking.

‘A play.’

‘A what?’

‘A play.’

‘You poof.’

A week later, against his better judgement, there he is. With everyone now seated and settled, Mr Shannon calls for order, his briefcase resting on his knees. A curt businesslike smile announces that their evening's work is at hand. Behind them is the fireplace, full of debris, half-burnt parish circulars and cigarette packets. Barely at first, James sees the shape of something else lurking in it, blacker than shadow, a dead crow, its head wrenched and twisted back on itself, its beak frosted with ash.

‘Now, business of the first order … We have a new addition to our ranks, Master Lavery from Carrickburren. Lavery will be playing Martini.’

All faces are smiling at him. Cathal Murphy gives him a playful dig in the ribs, the two women whisper to each other and one blows him a kiss. Most excruciating of all, he can feel the doting beam of Mr Shannon's stare.

‘As you can probably surmise, we are a little short-staffed at the moment, due to teaching commitments, babysitter shortages … and downright laziness. But do not despair, all will be well – once I've broken a few heads.’

A siren wails outside. Shannon tries to speak but swallows his sentence, letting the noise bleed through and out of range. ‘Well, after that rather apt fanfare, let us get down to business. Mr Lavery, let us take a bold step. I would like us to begin this evening with the nightmare sequence involving your character, Mr Martini, and his brutal, painful memories of a particular airborne dogfight. Martini is sleepwalking, running, believing he is immersed in a very nasty gun battle alone, thousands of feet in the air and very, very frightened. You, of course, know the sequence I mean?’

James is confident that he does, despite the slow rush of blood he can feel building in his cheeks. He has read the play between homework assignments, sitting at the kitchen table as his mother fussed and cleaned.

‘What's that you're reading?’ his mother had asked.

‘Nothing.’

He had looked at her. He knew that mood, that brittle hung-over mood. She and Sully had been out until late the night before. They had woken him up when they got back. All day she had been in bad form, giving James that I'm-watching-you stare.

‘Don't give me that! What is it? You've been stuck in it for hours.’ She grabbed the play and began to read it. He made a lunge for it but she moved away. ‘Is this to do with your English studies?’

‘Sort of.’

‘Either it is or it isn't.’

‘Mr Shannon asked me to be in it.’

‘In what? In this?’

He nods. She hands back the play. ‘You mean appear in it?’

‘Yeah.’

She doesn't say anything, just looks at him. Then she says, ‘I'm not happy about it.’

‘Why?’

‘I'm not.’

‘Why, Mum?’

‘I'm your mother and I'm not happy. Mothers get to say things like that. OK?’

He had gathered up his books and stormed out of the kitchen. His mother had followed him to the doorway shouting after him: ‘I don't want you reading that thing. I don't like that Shannon one, I never did. He's far too smooth for my liking. Did you hear what I said?’

After that he had brought the text to bed with him and used a torch to pore over it in case his mother caught him. It was there that he had first glimpsed the world of the play. As the night had worn on he grew bored of the text and threw shadows on the wall by the bed. It was there that the characters had begun to live.

McMurphy, Shannon's character, had loomed before him, in hard dark lines. Chief Bowden had lurched across the wall, his arms and legs long timbers of shadow. Billy Babbit, the stuttering kid of the asylum, was a shake of the torch, so that its spilling light seemed to dance him into life. Then suddenly, with the force of a dark fist, his character Martini had come to life. It had thrust itself across the wall like a big black jigsaw bird, its beak James's trembling knuckles, its eyes two dark holes that seemed to drink the light.

‘When you are quite ready, Lav—’

Before Shannon can even complete his surname, James turns in his seat and, reaching into the fireplace, grabs the dead crow. In one movement he lifts it above him, raining ash all over Chin Chin's head. In his mind he sees his character perched in a helicopter gunship and the dead crow's wings its churning blades. With the bird now rotating above his head James runs round the rehearsal room shouting, ‘Bandits at three o'clock! Bandits at three o'clock! May Day! May Day!’

The two women scream.

‘Ratatat! Ratatat! Ratatat! I'm hit! I'm hit!’

The bird makes an eerie swishing sound in his hand. A hush falls across the room as he runs to and fro, the wings of the dead bird flapping above his head. Eventually exhausted he slumps to his knees. ‘May Day … This is Martini. May Day.’

The crow's glazed eye looks up at him, and feathers float down all around him. Slowly, he finds himself back in the room once more. He looks around him. He sees their stunned faces. He wants to tell them about the big jigsaw bird that had flown out of the shadows on to his bedroom wall the other night. He wants to say that it had seemed right to use the crow. He wants to say many things. He wants to understand the roar that had risen in him as he had run round the room, the hard bright anger that had bolted from his gut. He wants to tell them that his father had died for Ireland, and that Ireland didn't give a shit.

‘Sssh.’

That was what Teezy had said when she had secretly given him the photograph, her finger raised to her lips.

‘Here … your father died for Ireland … sssh …’

‘Sssh.’

He gets to his feet. The room is silent. Patricia peers from behind her fingers, Kerry's hands are over her mouth. Cathal Murphy's Paisley cravat is now hanging from his fingers. Chin Chin is nodding, a smile gleaming in his eye. Mr Shannon takes a deep breath, his eyes narrowing in concentration. ‘Hmmm … I think the accent needs a little work, La very, but full marks for the inventive use of available props.’

When the rehearsal is over Shannon asks James to stay behind. They sit in silence for a moment or two, James gazing fiercely at his shoes, not daring to meet Shannon's gaze.

‘I'm not going to bite, La very.’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Sean … Call me Sean.’

‘Sean.’

‘It was very imaginative, what you did earlier.’

‘Yes, sir … Sean.’

‘Don't be so hard on yourself, Lavery. You did nothing wrong, far from it. You used this.’ He taps his forehead and winks. ‘Now, off you go. See you on the morrow.’

‘Thank you, sir … Sean.’

‘No – thank yow, James.’

As he steps out into the night air, his chest swells with pride as he makes his way up Joseph Street. As he rounds the corner on to Hill Street he taps his forehead with his fingers in self-congratulation.

Death by Being Dropped into Ireland's Greedy Endless Mouth

The big black jigsaw bird has me. I can see the scuttling of the people below me, their small, scurrying shapes bumping and jostling each other. Above me I feel the heavy swoosh of wind from the bird's wing thrusts; I feel the steel bite of its claws along the run of my back. I can smell the stench of old carrion from its warm, sickly breath. Higher and higher I am lifted until the ground below is a distant memory. I think of the look of surprise on my mother's face when the bird swooped and gathered me in its vice-like grip, its large head cutting skywards. I remember how her scream broke the crisp morning air, and her hands flailed at the departing bird as if she was trying to deter a troublesome wasp. I heard my name fade on her lips, and I was sure I caught the glint of a falling tear.

I am not afraid, only puzzled. I had thought that the big jackdaw was my friend and I cannot understand why he is suddenly so aggressive with me. Clouds come and go like floury fists. Small thrusts and swirls of air play and tug at the soft flesh of my neck, and my feet bob and tick on the ends of my legs, like fishing floats. At first I recognise the countryside below me, and grin as I see my school rush by, its playing-fields like long green tablets, glistening in the morning sun. I even believe I see my aunt Teezy's house, small grey puffs of smoke rising from its short fat chimneys, and I wave. But then the countryside gets darker, and the wind fresher, and small dots of falling hail sting my eyes. We are flying through heavy, dense mist and I lose all sense of time. All I can hear is the swooshing beat of the bird's wings and the loud patter of my heart.

Suddenly, below me, the mist parts and I can see a mountain rising up to meet us, and in the middle of this mountain's peak is a large foul-smelling mouth. Ireland's mouth. I realise with horror that I am going to be fed to it. All around the fringe of the mountain's peak I see dismembered limbs and old bones: they cover the ground below me like forgotten stones. As the bird drops me, I realise that this is where all the young men of Ireland go; this is where my father went. As I hurtle through the air, the mountain opens its mouth and I see the blood and guts of a nation's men rushing to meet me.

6. The Bomb

The following Saturday morning a bomb goes off in the town. James and his mother had driven the three miles from the estate, and were on the small roundabout at Carrick Street when they heard the blast. James thought it sounded like a giant punching a huge fist into the Earth's mantle. The buildings that lined the street vibrated momentarily and some of the shop windows spewed broken glass on to the pavement. Ahead at the top of the street, just where it rounded into Canal Street, James can see a white puff of smoke rise; it reminds him of the knot of smoke that the Vatican uses to announce a new pope. A shop alarm sounds, its discordant wail puncturing the eerie silence that had settled in the aftermath of the explosion.

That means his town will be on the news tonight, James thinks. He can see the reporter standing before the tangled mass of shop frontage and buckled vehicles, cement dust falling like papery rain into the camera lens.

Two cars ahead of them have collided, the front of one pushed back on itself like a discarded paper cup. The drivers stand by the doors of their vehicles, a lost look on their faces, like children whose sweet ration has just been stopped. James's mother hasn't moved since the blast occurred. Her hands have left the steering-wheel and frozen midway to her face. She is gaping as if someone has just skewered her through the chest.

For what seems an age, the traffic, with its cargo of shoppers and children, sits where it is, the ball of smoke ahead seeping like squid ink into the sky. He hears the whine of sirens somewhere behind him, and turns to see a phalanx of blue lights fighting their way through the backed-up traffic. James looks again to his mother, and notices that her body is shuddering, and that two long tears are working their way down her cheeks.

Suddenly a fire-engine fills their rear-view mirror, like a colossal red whale, its siren squealing. The driver inches it closer and closer to their car, pressing the horn with hard, sharp bangs of his hand. James can see the co-driver wave his arms, furiously gesturing for them to get out of the way. ‘Mum, please …’ he says.

His mother grabs the steering-wheel and shunts the car out of the way, mounting the pavement with an ungainly thump. They watch the fire-engine stream past, followed by two police Land Rovers and a couple of army Saracens. Other drivers take advantage of the sudden slipstream of free road to shoot through, leaving James and his mother stuck, tilted on the high pavement.

His mother parks at the other end of town in a rundown car park, squeezing the car between two vans, cursing loudly as she bumps the side of one, then looking around nervously to see if anyone has noticed. For a moment she sits there, her hands laid out flat, knuckle up on the rim of the steering-wheel.

He wonders if anyone has been killed in the explosion, and about the threshold they might have passed across as they died. What was it like, he wondered. Did the souls of the victims leave the earth as they passed over? Did the sky peel back like ripped plastic sheeting and did their spirits hurtle through the opened heavens into the blackness of space? There, did the souls orbit each other, like fireflies, in the starry wastes of the universe?

‘I've a couple of things to do,’ his mother says.

‘Right.’

‘Will you be all right?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘I don't want you going near that mess over there.’

‘I'm not a baby.’

‘That's not what I meant.’

‘I'll be fine.’

‘You're not listening,’ she says.

‘What?’

‘Stay close to this part of the town. Do you hear me?’

‘Yes, I hear you.’

‘Look at me! I said, look at me.’

He looks at her. She seems so lost, so frightened. ‘OK,’ he says.

‘Right. I'll meet you back here in an hour,’ his mother says, and gives him a fifty pence piece.

He begins to cross the small bridge that spans the canal, heading towards the shops on the other side. He looks back towards the car park and watches his mother cross the road. He sees her pause outside Campbell's bar. Then she casts a quick look back in the direction of the car park before she is swallowed by the dark of the bar's doorway. So that was why she didn't want him with her: she wanted her booze. Suddenly all the compassion he had felt for her leaves him. If she doesn't care, then neither does he. It's that simple.

Go on, he thinks. Go on, drown yourself.

The billow of smoke from the explosion has subsided: it now throws up only faint fumes, like the embers of a dying cigar. Using it as a guide, James begins to work his way to the site of the bomb, his legs pumping down the streets. As he gets closer he can smell charred wood and incinerated rubber, and hear the shouts of the men from the emergency services. People pass him by, their faces pale with fear. He feels as if he is running into the opened mouth of hell. He can see the beginnings of fires, on the rims of car tyres, licking at the wooden frames of doorways.

Suddenly he feels something whip by his ear, and sees what he thinks is a small tick of light, or a firefly hover in the line of his vision, then flit furiously down the street away from him. As it passes it warms his heart, and he can feel long fingers of heat work along his gut and a smile begin on his lips.

Ahead, he can see a line of RUC men. They straddle the mouth of the street where the bomb has gone off, ushering frantic figures through their human cordon, shouting for everyone to clear the area. He looks for the dot of light but it has gone, as quickly and as mysteriously as it arrived. He tells himself that it was nothing but sunlight bouncing off car glass or a shop window.

He slips down a side-street that runs parallel to Hill Street and the site of the bomb, avoiding the line of policemen, hoping to grab a quick look at the devastation.

He rounds the corner and is facing on to the middle of Hill Street. He stands and looks down the alleyway and sees a car lying in pieces on the ground. Behind it, the figures of two people are staggering back and forth across the mouth of the alleyway. One, a man in his forties, is shirtless, and his vest hangs in torn lips of cloth from his body. His left arm is bloodied and the left side of his face is matted with dirt and blood. He shuffles aimlessly across the alleyway, his arms weaving strange loops in the air, his mouth uttering soft moans of protest. The other person is a young woman. At one point she sits on the torn ridge of the car door and rests her head tenderly in her hands, her bone-thin shoulders quivering, her hands dotted with blood.

In the background people stream past, their heads fixed downwards, their limbs tightly held, as if they still wore the roar of the blast on their bodies. Firemen drag huge hoses, their heads upturned in the direction of a rogue blaze. Soldiers fill the sides of the main street, their short, spiked guns half cocked on their arms.

A man stands at the beginning of the alleyway. James hasn't seen him arrive, hasn't seen him round the corner, and the sight of him brings a shiver to his skin. He seems to be cut from the dense cloth of the alleyway's shadows, and so tall that James has to crane his neck to get a look at his face. The deep navy pinstriped suit looks familiar, as does the fist-sized knot of his tie. He is strangely untouched, his suit immaculate, his hair finely neatened, his clear eyes gazing unwaveringly at James.

It is the man from the photograph Teezy had told him was his father. It is the man of half-remembered fragments, the man he had been told was dead.

James steps forward. The man seems to beckon him. The noise and panic of the morning are falling away, and he feels as if he is walking across a shimmering sheet of light towards the man's hands. He opens his mouth to speak, but the words leave him like mute birds, flapping away into the smoky air. Still the man beckons, his eyes filled with the soft passion of someone who has waited a long, long time.

Perhaps he is alive: perhaps he has secretly lived his life and is now returning to reclaim him. Perhaps Teezy lied to him. Perhaps he has lived a life of quiet patience, biding his time before coming back for him.

As if released from a strong, invisible web, his body starts forward. His legs move towards the figure. A hard cry falls from his lips. As he shoots forward he snags his foot on a piece of thrown car metal. He sees the ground of the alleyway rush to meet him. He feels the breath leave his body in a winded gasp, and he scrabbles desperately to right himself.

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