1999 (18 page)
Authors: Morgan Llywelyn
“Keep your voice down, she'll hear you and she has enough on her plate right now. The news about Séamus hit her very hard.”
“That's right, worry about Ursula. Worry about everybody but me, I'm just your wife, your slave.”
“Don't be ridicuâ”
“One thing I'm not is a trained nurse. That commode chair, for instance. I don't even know how it's supposed to work.”
“It's quite simple,” he said. “Ursula sits in the chair and when she's finished, you empty the bowl underneath the way you'd empty a chamber pot.”
Barbara was indignant. “I've never used a chamber pot in my life.”
“By you, I meant one of us.”
“How is she going to get into the chair?”
“One of us will have to lift her in.”
Barbara's voice grew more strident. “I cannot possibly lift your mother.”
“Ursula's nothing but skin and bone,” Barry said. “You won't have any trouble, you weigh almost twice what she does and you're a strong young woman. Please, sweetheart, don't let's row about this. The only way Ursula can make further progress is if she's at home with the people she loves around her.”
“How long will that take?”
“I don't know.”
“Well, what did the doctor say?”
“He doesn't know either.” Out of fairness, Barry was forced to add, “He doesn't think she'll ever get much better.”
Once again Barry found himself facing a furious woman. “Well, that's just wonderful, isn't it?” Barbara cried. “That's just God damned wonderful!”
August 9, 1974
U.S. PRESIDENT RICHARD NIXON RESIGNS TO AVOID IMPEACHMENT
In spite of her condition Ursula tried to be a participating member of the family. She urged Barbara to leave little Brian with her while she was busy elsewhere in the house.
“You can't possibly look after a toddler,” Barbara said as she propped the older woman up on her pillows. “He'll be away in a minute and into all sorts of trouble.”
“Put him on my bed,” replied Ursula, “and give us a chance.”
“But he'll hurt you.”
“He won't hurt me. Please.”
With reluctance, Barbara set her squirming son on the bed beside Ursula. The child immediately began to crawl onto the interesting range of hills beneath the covers. “Not there, Brian,” Ursula said. “That's my territory.” Taking his small face between her hands, she looked squarely into his eyes. In the calm, confidant voice used for her horses, she said, “Now you and I must agree on your territory.”
“For God's sake, Ursula, he's only a baby, he doesn't know what you're talking about.”
Ursula ignored her. “Brian, you can go anywhere on this bed that's flat.” She patted the flat part to demonstrate. “That's your territory.”
He stared at her solemnly.
“Your kingdom,” Ursula elaborated. “Where you can do what you like. Do you know what a king is?” He watched in fascination as she took a sheet of paper from the bedside locker and folded it into a little cap. Placing the cap atop his head, she pronounced, “I crown thee King Brian!”
Brian looked toward his mother. When Barbara broke into laughter he laughed too. “Cwow?” he enquired, reaching up to touch his head.
“That's your crown and I am your Nana,” said Ursula.
“Nana,” he repeated with a broad grin.
He spent the better part of an hour on his grandmother's bed, chattering away in his own language while she talked to him in hers.
That night an amused Barbara told Barry, “I'd swear they understood each other.”
The next time Brian was left with Ursula he set out to explore her room. She made the same arrangement with him, pointing to various things. “That's your kingdom, you can go there. That's my kingdom, leave it alone.”
Amazingly, the scheme worked, though elsewhere in the house the boy was into everything. Barbara was exhausted running after him.
She found a brief respite in brewing tea and carrying a tray into Ursula's room. While the two women drank their tea Brian pottered contentedly around them. “I don't understand it,” Barbara remarked. “When you say âno' he stops whatever he's doing. I shout at him until I'm blue in the face and he ignores me.”
“Precisely,” said Ursula.
She was always glad to see the little boy but did not particularly enjoy his mother's company. Barbara was too self-absorbed; she had to be the central feature of every conversation. When Ursula made an effort to introduce a more interesting topic, the resignation of the U.S. president, Barbara said, “I don't know anything about it, I'm apolitical.”
“But one has to care about politics. It affects every aspect of our lives.”
“Not mine,” Barbara insisted. “Mom wrote to our congressman I don't know how many times, trying to get me into one of the best music schools in New York, but he never answered.”
“That's no surprise,” said Ursula. “Politicians are designed for transmission, not reception.”
Privately she thought the same applied to her daughter-in-law.
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Barry offered to buy a small television set for his mother's room but Ursula declined. “I don't even need a radio,” she said. “I'll get well sooner if I have a little peace and quiet. When I was growing up we may have had opinions but we kept them to ourselves. Some people didn't even dare to think for fear the priest would find out about it.
“Now every crank and critic not only has opinions, but broadcasts them far and wide. We are treated to interminable discourses on anything from the latest rock music to British royal scandals to traffic problems in Dublin. Spare me for a while.”
But she could not lie alone in a silent room day after day, Barry told himself. Not Ursula, who had led such an active life. She must have company as well as medical care, so he hired a private nurse to come to his mother two days a week. In order to meet the added cost he began working longer hours in the darkroom, and accepting assignments that took him farther and farther afield. He did not like leaving the women alone and did not want to ask the boarders to keep an eye on them, so he asked Philpott to stay in the house when he was away. The little man agreedâprovided he was allowed to use the bedroom and private sitting room he had occupied when he owned and ran the boardinghouse himself.
That would mean temporarily relocating one of the better-paying boarders, who might leave if he had to accept reduced quarters. The loss in income could be substantial.
“There's an easy solution,” Barbara told her husband. “Stay with us yourself.”
“I can't do that and work too.”
“Then give up photography.”
“It's my career, Barbara. I've spent years building it up, you can't expect me to walk away.” But Barry knew photography was more than his career. The camera had become his weapon in the unfinished revolution. Pictures could demonstrate more clearly than words the reasons behind the ongoing struggle of the IRA.
Barbara thrust her jaw forward belligerently. “I gave up my singing career for you!”
“You didn't give up your career, it gave you up.” Barry tried to hold his temper but she was pushing him too far. Pushing him into another lie. “I gave up the Army for you.”
“You never did! If you had your way you'd be in the north with Séamus right now. And here's something else I know: as soon as your mother gets a little stronger you'll abandon us in a flash and leave me to cope with everything alone!”
That last accusation was so unfair it left Barry speechless.
Ursula knew they were fighting; knew it was about her.
If I wasn't here I suppose they would row over something else
, she told herself. The presents she had purchased that fateful day in Dublin had vanished, together with the handbag she was carrying. Fortunately she already had cashed the cheque from the sale of the horses and hidden the bulk of the money in the lining of her suitcase. Early in life Ursula had learned the importance of having cash put by.
“If money's a problem,” she said to Barry, “perhaps I can help.”
“You need what you have for the farm. We have to keep everything ticking over down there until you can go home.” He said the words though he did not believe them.
Ursula did.
Until I can go home.
Within six weeks of being released from prison Ãamonn MacThomáis was arrested againâon the same charge. His wife was warned he could receive as much as five years. MacThomáis was convinced they had to release him; being tried for the same offence on which he had completed serving his sentence was ludicrous. At his trial in the Bridewell he shouted to Rosaleen in the gallery, “Get steak and onions, I'll be home for dinner.”
MacThomáis was found guilty and sentenced to three more years in Portlaoise Prison. When he heard the verdict he visibly crumpled. Paddy Cooney, the minister for justice, later told him, “You took
An Phoblacht
from a monthly to a weekly and we were afraid you were going to make it a daily. You had to be stopped.”
1
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On the twelfth of September supporters both of jailed republicans and of loyalists demonstrated in Belfast, protesting the poor quality of food in the prisons and the lack of parole.
In Belfast four days later a judge and a magistrate were killed by the IRA.
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The nurse whom Barry hired was a middle-aged widow, a big woman with a generous spread of lap. She walked with her toes pointing toward eleven o'clock and two. Her sons and daughters had emigrated to London and Liverpool and Manchester; to New York and New Jersey and New Zealand. To Ursula's relief she did not use the imperial “we.” She spoke in a whispery voice that prompted her new patient to ask, “Were you ever a nun?”
Breda Casey Cunningham laughed. “Oh dear, Mrs. Halloran, I was never a nun, I couldn't be that good for five minutes.”
Before the day was over they were calling each other by their Christian names.
One morning the nurse and the postman arrived at the front door at the same time. He handed Breda the day's post, which she carried inside and put on the hall tableâwith one exception. Barbara was busy upstairs, so she showed the questionable envelope to Ursula. “Is this for anyone here?”
The envelope was addressed in pencil to “F. L. Halloran.”
Finbar Lewis,
Ursula thought.
How many people know that's Barry's full name? Or have to do their writing in pencil?
She opened the letter.
Here I am again, Seventeen. This is a great place for a holiday. I can write to you and you can write to me. Address below.
Just to fill you in, I was seized on suspicion and interned for an indefinite period. Some loyalists have been interned the same as republicans, but the two groups are kept in separate Cages for the sake of their health. The Oranges are classified as “detainees” while we are “internees.” The rest of the Cages are occupied by sentenced prisoners, whether they are republicans, loyalists, or ODCsâthat's Ordinary Decent Criminals to you.
When they checked me into this hotel they searched me from my ears to my tail. The screwsâprison guardsâmade me bend over naked while one of them called “the stargazer” squatted behind me and shone an electric torch up my arsehole. He didn't find anything because I'd had no time to hide anything. Some of the boys have really clever ways of hiding things, but that's another story.
The Belfast Brigade of the IRA has four battalions. Three are on active service. The Fourth Battalion comprises the Volunteers in Long Kesh. We are organised along military guidelines with the usual chain of command. Every republican Cage has its own O/C
*
and adjutant, and because we are political prisoners our leadership meets with the prison authorities on a regular basis.
A Cage holds between seventy-five and eighty men divided amongst four or five huts. The doors of the huts are opened at seven-thirty in the morning and don't close until ten at night. During that time we can walk around outside, but inside the Cage. We tend to walk anti-clockwise. I don't know why.
We're not just serving time in here the way the Oranges are. In addition to military drillâwe carry dummy rifles carved out of old timber some of the guards gave usâwe do a lot of reading. Those republicans who didn't get much education on the outside are making up for it now. We have lectures on Irish history, revolutionary politics, and how to escape from prison. Under international law every POW has a duty of escape.
On the football pitchesâwe have a big one and a smaller one, interconnected by gatesâwe can talk with Volunteers from the other Cages. I've come across old friends and made some new ones. There's one in particular I'm impressed with, the O/C in Cage Eleven. He's thirty years younger than me and doesn't have any more education than me, but his mind goes clickety-click all the time. Men like Gerry are the future of republicanism.
There are some advantages to my situation that you would not expect. Example. We all get the same lousy prison grub, but detainees and ODCs get a slice of Dawn margarine cut from a long roll. Republican internees get real butter. I told you it was a great place for a holiday.
Also, as prisoners of war we can wear our own clothes. Some of our lads even have uniforms consisting of Italian army coats and berets. There are layers upon layers of rules in the Kesh but a lot of them are broken for us because of our political status. A whole rake of Provos who never thought about politics before are seriously interested in the subject now. The authorities are beginning to be afraid we'll politicise the ODCs, especially the blacks. We suspect they're trying to plant a spy in every Cage. If we catch one I leave the rest to your imagination.
I envy the boys with Italian army coats. All I have are the clothes I was lifted in, and it's cold here even on warm days because the place was built on a bog. Damp, windy, misty, miserable. The men with wives and girlfriends on the outside get them to smuggle sweaters in by wearing them. They also smuggle cigarettes and razors and so forth in their knickers. God love the women.
Yours,
Séamus
Ursula sat holding the letter in her hands.
God love the women
. She was motionless for so long the nurse began to worry. “Is it bad news? Here, let me help you lie down for a while.”
“Not bad news, Breda; just a message from a friend. A dear friend.” Ursula briefly brushed her hand across her eyes as if to remove a stray wisp of hair. “In that wardrobe over there you'll find some clothes. If there are any woollen jumpers, wrap them up in a parcel for me, will you?”