But he was a good man. He came from the fertile chalklands of Wexford, around Bantry Bay, where they spoke in softer tones, and faces were more given to smile. He liked a drink, and would stand you a pint if he fell into conversation with you at the Crown Bar, but he wouldn’t hesitate to tell a man when he’d had enough, and he’d tipped more than one out onto the street before he’d drunk his fill. The man’s father and the priest had come to blows over that; he’d taken to drinking after he lost his job on the shipyard. Father O’Brien had kicked his da out of that bar every night for a fortnight, until on the last day, his da got murderous mad. He swung wildly at Father O’Brien, out on the street, but the priest ducked and dodged, light on his feet, deflecting and blocking, until at last, dizzy and exhausted, his da had sunk to the pavement and wept.
“Ten thousand men work at the Belfast shipyard, Father,” he’d said, his words sloshing out of his mouth. “And just four hundred Catholics among them. You’ve a good education: can you tell me what makes a Protestant better at lugging sacks of grain than a Catholic? Is there some calculation that adds up the worth of a man and subtracts a measure of humanity because he was born a Catholic?”
Father O’Brien didn’t have an answer, but he sat with the boy’s father on the kerb, until he’d raged and wept the anger out of him, and then the priest walked him home. He knew this to be the gods-honest truth, for the man had seen it with his own eyes, as a boy of fourteen.
Father O’Brien didn’t preach taking up arms against the oppressor. He wasn’t affiliated to the IRA, nor even Sinn Féin. “My only affiliation,” he would say, “is to God Almighty; my only obligation is to my flock.” Which was how he came to die. Not in a hail of bullets, but in the stupidest, most pointless way imaginable. A macho squaddie — a bad driver trying to impress his oppos — lost control of his vehicle turning a corner. Father O’Brien had been visiting a house in the next street, delivering the last sacraments to an old man dying of the cancer. The armoured vehicle skidded, clipped the opposite kerb, spun one hundred-and-eighty degrees, and smashed into the end of a terrace decorated with a painting of the Irish tricolour. Father O’Brien was pinned against the wall and died instantly.
He had been a gentle man, and a modest one, yet the violence and futility of his death had made a spectacle of him: a thing to point to as evidence of the British army’s lack of respect; a dread event for old men to sigh and shake their heads over; a lurid tale for children to whisper in the playground, of the priest who was cut in half by an armoured car. Father O’Brien was no longer remembered for the good he’d done in life — only for the notoriety of his death.
The man had meant to deliver a message: that Father O’Brien’s death would not go unpunished, and in failing in his mission he had failed Father O’Brien.
Vincent and Cathy stand in the porch. It’s just shy of seven o’clock, and the sun is shining hot through the top light of the front door. Cathy’s face is pale.
“You know what you have to do?”
He nods, but he has a lump in his throat as big as a bottle-washer ollie, so he can’t speak.
She straightens his tie and combs her fingers through his hair, staring solemnly down at him. He doesn’t squirm; in truth, he wouldn’t complain if she took him by the hand and walked with him down the street in broad daylight, because he does not want to do this alone.
She seems taller, today. Grown up.
“I’ll tell Mum you had to go early to rehearsals.”
He frowns, wishing he hadn’t skipped rehearsals the day before, thinks that dancing in an animal mask seems small humiliation, compared with what he has to do now.
“I’ll tell Miss Taggart you’ve got a tummy bug, in case it takes a while, so you’ll have to make yourself scarce for the rest of the day. All right?”
He nods again.
She hands him the small blue carry-all and blinks tears from her eyes.
He hefts the bag and squares his shoulders, setting off down the street like a soldier off to war.
The car is parked outside the hotel, but he waits an hour, and still the man hasn’t come out. Another half hour, and the manager appears on the doorstep.
“What’re you up to?” he asks.
“Is the man here — the one that owns the Morris Minor?”
The manager is broad faced, with small eyes. He jams his hands in his trouser pockets and says, “What’s it to you?”
He’s wearing grey flannel trousers and a matching waistcoat to hide his soft belly; Vincent reckons he could easy out-run him, but his great sin burns his soul like acid, so he stills his itchy feet, and composes his face into an approximation of innocence.
“Got something for him.”
The manager lifts his chin. “That it?” He holds a hand out for the bag. “I’ll make sure he gets it.”
Vincent tightens his grip on the carry-all and takes a step back. “Is he in?”
“Went out early,” the man says. “Missed his breakfast.”
“I’ll wait.”
“Not here, you won’t — you’re making my guests nervous, loitering outside.”
“You can’t stop me. It’s a free country.” He feels a pang of guilt: he promised Cathy he’d mind his manners.
“We’ll see what the police’ve got to say about that.” The man narrows his eyes. “Anyway, shouldn’t you be in school?” His small eyes fasten on Vincent’s blazer pocket. He’s forgotten to pin the SFX badge over the real one. He clamps his hand over his pocket and the man comes at him, pitching forwards as he comes down the steps. Vincent turns and flees.
He pelts up the hill and cuts right into Rodney Street up, then dodges left into the Scotch Churchyard, and ducks behind one of the gravestones, hugging the bag close to his chest. He can’t stop shaking. The gardens of the convent back onto the graveyard; he’ll catch his sister in the grounds during break. He checks his watch — playtime won’t be for another hour-and-a-half. He sits down behind McKenzie’s pyramid to wait.
He would have gone — in fact, he was already on his way. If the bus hadn’t been diverted. If the driver hadn’t turned down Shaw Street. If the new route hadn’t taken them through Everton. If he’d looked out of the window to his left, rather than his right.
If, if, if... He would have stayed on the bus and been picked up in Manchester and made his ignominious way home. But in Everton, Orange Lodge and Catholic sectarianism was as strong as on any street in Belfast. A long stretch of grey wall ran beneath the new high-rise blocks on Netherfield Road. If he had turned away, just for a second, bored by the monotony of grey concrete and dusty pavements... But something had caught his eye; he glanced right and had seen the insult, daubed in orange paint on a grey wall — illspelt, angry, hatefuclass="underline" ‘THE POPE IS A BASTERD’.
He recoiled like he’d been spat at. All morning, a rage had smouldered, built from the tinder of grief and loss, fuelled by the shock of finding the device gone and, yes, by the mortification he had suffered in telling his commander. Now it sparked and flared, and he blazed with righteous fire.
He lurched from his seat to the front. “Stop the bus,” he said. The driver didn’t even take his eyes off the road. “It’s not a request service, Paddy, lad.”
“Oh, good — ’cos this is not a request.”
The driver swivelled his head to look at him. “And who d’you think you are?”
The man took hold of the driver’s seatback and leaned in, allowing his leather jacket to fall open just enough to show the revolver tucked in his belt. “I’m the Angel of Death, son.”