He hitches his jacket up on his shoulders. Onwards. Away. He is sixth off the plane. He allows the others to go ahead. His body still vaguely belonging to the cabin. That air in the back of his calves.
Halfway down the corridor he is surprised by a hand on his elbow. Bombing? Murder? Broken ceasefire? But it’s a young man, blue-eyed with a nose ring. Must have been sitting at the front of the plane. Vaguely familiar. Maybe a pop star of sorts. Or someone from the movies. Good luck, Senator, we’re praying for you. In an English accent. Odd to think of the young man praying at all. Mostly it was the older women of Northern Ireland who said that to him. Adjusting their hairnets. Wrapping their fingers white with beads.
He shakes the young man’s hand and strides along the corridor. But Lord, he hates this walk. Who will be there to meet and greet him? What sort of security detail? It always gets heavier on this side of the pond. Simply to walk him to another terminal. He can make out their shapes at the end of the walkway. A young woman with short blond hair lifts her hand in greeting: he recalls her name though he has only met her twice. Lorraine. And two new security men. Coming towards him briskly. No news on their faces, no sudden collapses. No apparent grief. Thank God for that.
— How was your flight, sir?
— Wonderful, thank you.
A small lie of course, but why whine? She’ll hardly whisk out a pillow for him. They move swiftly down the stairs, out to the waiting car, towards Terminal Two.
— Sorry, sir, but your next plane’s delayed thirty-five minutes, she says.
Lorraine has, on her belt, space for three phones. She juggles them with style and grace, hooks her fingers under the belt: the Wild West of telecommunications.
In the British Midland lounge they have reserved an area for him. Tea, pastries, yogurt. She hands him a memo and he scans it quickly. A report on Ahern and Blair. Concessions on the proposed North-South bodies. A clause in the Framework Document from three years ago. The status of the Council and the source of its authority. They are, it seems, approaching a tentative agreement on Strand Two.
For a moment he allows himself the luxury of a smile. Two o’clock in New York. Heather and Andrew will be sleeping.
THE NORTH, BELOW, is stunned with morning sunlight. Patches of bright yellow on the mud flats. The fields so wide and grassy. Lake and water-meadow. A silver estuary and a huge lake. One small cloud, cast out by the herd, limps away to the west. The plane banks and the city of Belfast appears, always smaller than he expects it to be. The high cranes of the shipyards. The maze of side streets. The soccer pitches. The flats. The fretful desolation. Then out over the fields again, the incredible depth of green. He has never quite seen the land so bright before: a clear day through the morning clouds. He is used to its gray edges, its laneways, its high walls. They pull in over Lough Neagh. A vague sadness on touchdown, a tensing of the throat.
On the grass below, the shadow of the plane is squeezed down to its own size, then is gone. Welcome to Belfast International. Contents in the overhead bin may have shifted during flight. The stewardesses fuss with his jacket. He is whisked through security once more, out past the small café and the newsagent’s where he takes a quick glance at the newspaper headlines on the small metal racks. Nothing of damage. A good sign.
Outside, the vague smell of farmland manure hangs on the air. Three cars waiting. Gerald, his driver, greets him with a nod and a lift of the case.
In the car Gerald passes back a sheet of numbers. A small jump in his chest that it might be bad news, but it’s the baseball scores, copied from Reuters, handwritten. He scans them quickly. Opening day. Ah, yes. Hail and hallelujah. The Sox have won.
— A good start, he says.
— Aye, Senator. Oakland? Where’s that now?
— Way, way out there. California.
— Out in the sunshine.
— Keep the good news coming, Gerald.
— We’ll see what we can do, Senator.
The convoy pulls out through the airport, towards the M2, a wide motorway. Fields and hedges and scattered farms. Not much traffic until they get closer to the city. He could, quite possibly, be in any large American town, until he looks out to see the flags fluttering over the housing estates, sketching the skyline, claiming it, coloring it. The Unionists go for the Star of David, the Republicans fly the flag of the Palestinians. Small wars, large territories.
Written on a wall on the road out near Ballycloghan, in large white letters against the gray, a new piece of graffiti: We will never ever forget you, Jimmy Sands.
Which brings a wry smile to even Gerald’s face as they drive past, since it was of course Bobby they would never forget.
IN THE EARLY days — when the process was fresh — he would drive to the Stranmillis Tennis Club along the banks of the Lagan.
Nine or ten outdoor courts, all artificial turf. Sprinkled with gritty sand. Tough on his ankles. But he liked to get out and knock the ball back and forth: he played with the younger civil servants. They were careful at first not to try to beat him until they learned that there was a sort of unbeatability about him. He was relentless, he hung on, a backcourt player, he slid along the rear line, returning the ball safely over the net, time after time. The photos belied it, but he was sprightly.
The luxury of age was the giving up of vanity: he could play for hours on end in the Irish drizzle. He wore white shorts and long tube socks and a blue tracksuit top. Afterwards he would take the opportunity to laugh at himself in the changing-room mirror.
He was surprised early one morning to come off the northernmost court to see a group of women gathered together on the courts at the front of the club. He wandered quietly in amongst them. Signs were hung on the rear of the benches: ALL IRELAND WOMEN’S TOURNAMENT. He liked that notion. At least in tennis they could play together. He was taken by the sight of an elderly woman who piloted her wheelchair along the back of the courts. A thick-boned woman with striking gray hair. She must have been ninety, but she carried herself quite well in the chair. A generosity to her. She stopped at the back of each court and marked the clipboard with a pencil, then called out to the players and the umpires. She had a singsong voice. He thought he heard an American accent, but wasn’t sure.
He came back later that day after a series of plenaries in Stormont. The usual bickerings. The day had sapped the fire from him. The tournament was still in progress. He loosened his tie and took off his jacket and slid in amongst the crowd to watch the final game.
The woman in the wheelchair was positioned at the back of the court. She wore a plaid wool blanket over her lap. She nodded at each point, and clapped at the end of the games: large, loud, animate. He couldn’t tell what side she was supporting, if any. Every now and then she let out a long laugh, and put her head on the shoulder of a younger woman alongside her. Small ripples of applause slipped across the evening.
These were the moments he liked the most. The refuge of the anonymous. The ordinary bits and pieces. Ireland unwarred.