Ahoy for Joy (5 page)

Michael struggled and cursed, his energy quickly sapping away as the big lad's grip, firm and resolute, held him fast. His face grew red with desperation as the endless humiliation showed no sign of abating. At last, Danny rose from his seat and grabbed Jackson roughly by the hair and tightening his grip slowly to the sounds of shrieks and protests withdrew the paper from his grasp. He then handed it to Michael, who had just now been released by his co-tormentor who had been astute enough to see the situation change.

“The coach is here already. You have ten minutes to get this to wherever it's going,” he said.

Michael grabbed the letter, his face red with anger and stress, his composure long since gone and ran full pelt from the marquee to the sounds of further jeers and whistles. Outside he folded it quickly and placed it in the envelop he had planned to use for his parents letter and wrote ‘Anna' on the outside.

He ran down the hill, his trembling legs feeling like they might give way at any time. By the time he reached the tents of the Dutch visitors, he was quite out of breath and could hardly call her name. At first there was no reply from inside but at last he heard the reassuring sound of the zip un-fastening and Grietje stuck her head out. She didn't look at all pleased to see him.

“She's not here.” she said. “She's gone to get the breakfast with Geert. He's not that happy with you. Thinks you spent the night here.”

“Ok, ok,” said Michael at last. “Well can you give this to her?” He produced the envelope from his pocket. Grietje's face lit up at once as she put her hand out from inside the entrance.

“Ah” she smiled, “that looks a lot like a letter! How very
interesting
.”

“Can you give it to her?
Please
,” Michael implored, the serious look on his face leaving her little room to doubt his resolve. Grietje giggled rather aware of the strength of her position but without any gain she felt able to lever from the situation, she agreed. Michael handed over the letter and thanked her gratefully and got up to go. He stopped suddenly. “Did she mention me at all?” he asked. She shrugged and smiled once more.

“I'll see she gets it” she added reassuringly.

In the distance Michael could hear the diesel engine of the large coach ticking over and the logistical commotion of getting more than 50 unruly boys on board. He was just about to leave when Fred arrived, he too out of breath.

“Ah Mr Chips!” smiled Grietje playfully. Fred didn't respond;

“You've got to come. Adjutant's pretty pissed off.”

With that the two boys headed, running once more up the hill to the main camp. The bus was almost full and Fred arrived first, jumping on quickly and taking one of the few remaining seats. Michael entered to more jeers and whistles, although there were also a few claps, the meaning of which he was unsure. He looked around for an empty seat but the only one he could see was next to little Johnny. The lad looked expectantly at Michael as he sat down, his face still red and swollen from the emotion and stress of the last hour or two.

The little words of encouragement that people receive from time to time. The little comments that make us feel okay about ourselves and our decisions sometimes come from quite unexpected sources. Life can be like that, just when we doubt ourselves the most, when our fears have invaded our consciousness, when our limitations seem to have been breached and our thoughts are at their lowest ebb, a little light shines. Michael didn't want to talk but he could feel little Johnny's eyes piercing a hole in the side of his cheek. Eventually he looked over. The little chap who turned up infrequently with no explanation of previous absences, sometimes bruised, emaciated, a sad little wretch who seemingly had nothing at all to offer the world looked back at him.

“Them words you wrote,” he paused. “Thems the bestest words I ever heard.”

Michael glimmered a smile. He sat back in his seat and relaxed a little.
Yes, they were quite good weren't they,
he thought to himself. He had to pull himself together. He hoped she'd write, but even if she didn't he had given it his best shot. He had done everything he could. He could do no more. There was satisfaction in that.

He looked over again at the young boy who was now busy gazing out of the window. His hair was matted at the back and his tiny shoulder blades made sharp little humps in his shirt. Who was he to whimper of his sorrow when others lived so tough a life, hardly knowing the warmth of a mother's love or the firm guidance of a father's hand? He thought back to Anna once more and suddenly, unexpectedly felt his heart lift. Maybe there was a good side to love. Maybe there was a salvation in the mental motivation he could now feel. Maybe he
was
worthy. Maybe she felt it too. Maybe she
would
write. He lingered on the positive possibility and tried to banish the negative fear from his mind, but it wouldn't go. So, he nodded to himself in acceptance once more. Fear would indeed have to be his bedfellow for now, but he would banish it. Or at least he would tame its power. He felt resolve in his mind. One way or another, he would prevail. Already he felt it weakening. The grip it had had on his life was not as frim, not as resolute, not as uncompromising as it had been and a chink of light, the first he could remember, shone in Michael's dark mind.

The remainder of the camp passed unremarkably and by the end Michael's unusual foray into the world of girlfriends had mostly been forgotten. Later when the officers were scouting around for stories, jokes and of course accounts of the usual holiday romances for inclusion in the camp publication, Michael declined to comment claiming to have forgotten the girl. For some reason, Fred said he couldn't remember her name, perhaps confusing her with Grietje.

“Just some foreign name” he couldn't recall, he had maintained. In the end there was no lasting record of the meeting at all, apart from Fred's new nickname of
Chips
that lasted the holiday out.

The warm weather that the North West of England had enjoyed for most of the week was just fading when they left Lancashire and as the Heysham boat docked back in Belfast, Michael could see the reason why. Heavy rainfall was already soaking the county Antrim coast and outside, the raindrops danced on the pavements before wicked squalls once more whipped the rain into frenzied swirls before drenching the streets once more.

Somehow the weather seemed to mirror Michael's state of mind for, following his incursion into a more elevated emotional condition, his sensitivity was now heightened. The sight of the grey city with its patrolling soldiers, security searches, barbed wire and road blocks suddenly seemed more foreboding than it had done before. He thought back to the camp with its choirs of birds and rustling leaves, dappled sunlight and spongy grass below his feet. He thought back to the great white tents, the basic food, the hymns and praise and even the boisterous interaction with the other boys. He smiled briefly, his heart elsewhere as he looked out through the rainy wet window of the minibus, but there was no escape. He was home. He scanned the ominous dark buildings surrounded by high walls topped with glass shards set in cement that sought to cordon off the passenger terminal waiting zone. He thought back to the Dutch visitors, their different ways and casual warmth and to Anna, whose image had hardly left his mind since they met. Suddenly it all seemed a long time ago.

Outside the terminal, groups of parents stood already awaiting their children's return. Some greeted them with a matter of fact ‘hello' while others enthusiastically hugged their sons, relieved to have them safely home again in the darkness of those uncertain days. Some of the smaller children had already resolved
never
to go to BB camp again and shyness would in no sense impede the bliss of the mother's arms they had fantasised about since the first day away. But, time has a way of healing and development at that age is rapid. Despite the abuse and the bullying, for most, forward steps had been taken on the sometimes challenging path as childhood prepares slowly for adulthood. Many would still return the following year and perhaps for a few, one summer in the future, they too would have a
good
camp that would define their lives.

Michael's life had changed and permanently. The camp had a way of forcing interaction between individuals. People who would never normally become involved with each other were placed in positions where cooperation was a necessity, not an option. It was like a university team exercise, building a raft or planning a fictional village fete and such a model was a specific part of the purpose of the Boys' Brigade. For Michael Coglan, this was anathema, yet he had survived and had to some extent enjoyed himself. He had spoken and functioned socially with the others around him more in the last week than he had done in the entirety of the last twelve months. His little flirt with the Dutch girl had shone a light in his life and it still flickered in the background waiting for a letter to fall through the front door and fan the flames of a love that was currently holding its breath.

Michael returned home, the way he left, in the minibus driven by Danny, but first a number of other boys had to be dropped off. When they arrived at little Johnny's house, the place was in darkness, the blackness of the windows, somehow blacker than the night itself. Danny approached the door, his arm around the young boy and knocked, but there was no answer. It took several further knocks before a light appeared upstairs and to the sound of shouts and curses, the front door was finally unbolted. The small boy, held his wide eyed gaze on Danny's as long as he could, but was finally ushered inside. Not a word was spoken.

It was late at night when Michael was finally delivered back to the little house where he lived with his parents in the north of the city. It was in an area of council housing where the residents would always have been of poor stock. In the early part of the 20
^th
century, as traders and factory owners established their businesses, it would have been populated with busy workers and noisy children. Today, it was mostly populated by the workless, the workshy and those of dubious intent, but the noisy children were still present and roamed the streets in small intimidating groups.

The building was in an only adequate state of repair with a slate roof and red bricks of the Victorian era, many of which had been affected by water freezing in the pores causing the faces to crumble and fall away, leaving concave shapes missing in the walls. At the back was a small walled in yard which the previous inhabitants had covered with corrugated plastic panels providing a sheltered outdoor area. Here bicycles and other paraphernalia, which the Coglans had previously stored in the garage of their old house, were kept clear of the rain. It did have a small bay window at the front though, with a little garden stocked with a variety of small bushes and shrubs that Michael's mother tended together with flowers and herbs she planted in spring each year. Her efforts jollied up the appearance of the street but sadly, these were often trampled or pulled out and tossed in the street, a pointless act by vandals who can surely not have considered the sadness it caused Michael's mother, Susan. The plot, if such a term can be used for so small a terraced property, sloped upwards a little from front to back, so there were two steps that rose to the entrance making the street appear a little more grand than the others nearby, where the front doors opened literally onto the footpath. To one side of the door, and extending underneath the bay and up the wall between the neighbour's house was a hawthorn bush. With its sturdy branches and razor sharp thorns, it grew stronger every year and was never troubled by the vandal's incursions. But, for Michael, it was home.

Before the minibus had even stopped the front door was thrown open and a dark haired woman with a light blue ribbon in her hair, whose tired appearance hardly concealed her attractive features, launched out onto the pavement. She threw her arms wide and her smile teamed with a mother's love. She hugged him warmly causing jeers from those remaining in the vehicle and while she knew her embrace caused him some mild upset, her relief to have her only child safely back at home was always too much to thwart the impulse. As the front door closed, the minibus drove off, splashing through a puddle, providing an unexpected extra watering for the little flowerbeds at the front of the house. The BB camp of 1978 was over.

Michael's parents' relationship was what is known in Northern Ireland as a
mixed marriage
. His father Brendan or Branny as he was known, was a Roman Catholic, while his mother, Susan a Methodist Protestant. In other societies in the world, a mixed marriage may perhaps mean a greater diversity in terms of culture and religion or even race. In Belfast, even in the relative calm of the 1950s when they met, there was no diversity greater than that between the two Christian denominations that made up the vast majority of the population.

Branny had left school aged fifteen and been apprenticed to a plumber, who taught him well. He completed his training in the scheduled four years without bother, but the bustle of the city recovering from the hardship of the war offered much interest and excitement for the young man, and he became more interested in his social life than mastering his craft. He quickly took to participating in Belfast's lively nightlife, drinking beer and courting girls. He was a good-looking young man whose subtle wit and easy charm made socialising easy and friends abundant.

In those days there was still a good degree of segregation between Belfast's religious groups. Although there was little in the way of actual trouble and people did mix, it was still a small community and everyone did know who each other were, or more accurately,
what
they were. Most people preferred to keep to their own sort finding comfort and security in that familiarity, but for Branny the
other side
, for want of a better term, offered an array of intrigue and fascination he couldn't quite find amongst his own people.

So Branny took to heading south in the evenings and courting the more adventurous girls from the leafy suburbs of Stranmillis and Malone. He was charmed by their orderly culture, the posh schools they attended, hockey games, ballet lessons and the like. Maybe it was the differences, maybe it was the tacit danger, maybe it was the guilty pleasure he felt in the betrayal of his own kind or his slightly unwelcome incursion into this other world. He didn't really know for sure and was not disposed to consider particularly, but he found a thrill there that he couldn't quite find back at home in the narrow cobbled streets of Belfast's Catholic heartland. Although he was sometimes looked at with suspicion, for he never made particular quiet of his own background, he was adept at getting people on side and had honed and adapted his charm, cleverly disarming scepticism with flattery and wit. He knew when to talk, when to smile and importantly when to stay silent.

It was around this time that he met Susan. She was the youngest of three daughters of a solicitor in the town. She was cultured, educated and accustomed to the finer things of life. To her, Branny was a good old rough diamond. For sure, she never meant to fall in love with him. He was just a bit of risky entertainment, to show her friends she could be adventurous or perhaps he represented a slightly rebellious reaction against the staid conformity of the life her parents had planned for her. But, fall in love she did. While always problematic, these relationships were not that uncommon and she hoped her parents would grow to love Branny as she did. They were not particularly understanding and campaigned for a breakup in the relationship, but rather predictably, the more they campaigned the more resolute the young couple became about their feelings.

In 1955 they were married at a little Methodist church just outside of Belfast. There were few guests. Susan's father attended, but bizarrely declined to give his daughter away, a compromise he and Susan's mother had negotiated that ended up being more hurtful than his absence might have been. Both Susan's older sisters now lived in Australia. One had married a soldier she met while working in France as a nurse in 1944. The other had simply upped sticks and gone to a new life and the opportunities the new world offered. Neither had particularly kept in touch with Susan although irregular letters were exchanged with her parents. While both sisters had been invited to the wedding, neither had elected to come, citing the high cost of travel from Australia.

Branny was in still less contact with his family. His father had died in the Easter Tuesday air raid of 1941 and his mother died soon after of tuberculosis, a problem aggravated by the poor living conditions that were still rife in those days. Branny's two older brothers had also died this way. A sister and another brother had emigrated to Canada or the US, Branny wasn't quite sure which. That left only Branny and his youngest sister to be raised by their Grandmother. The sister did come to the wedding and seemed altogether fine with the event, but they quickly grew apart and when she later married a staunch Republican, all contact between them ceased.

Still, the marriage was a happy one and they rented a small house on the outskirts of town, where there was less sectarian segregation. They were a popular couple, involved socially and intellectually with those around them but in the meantime, Branny's occupation had had something of a reality check. His pay as a plumber's mate might have been enough for a decent social life for a single man, but it would hardly provide for a wife and the children they hoped for. Also, having lost touch with his plumbing skills a little he now took to doing more basic labourer's jobs, moving from site to site, from job to job, taking on various little tasks. However, he did manage to buy a small van and invariably would be sent to the builders' yard or hardware store to pick up bits and pieces, always receiving payment for the goods; a bit for his time and a bit more for his petrol.

Branny cottoned on to this and started to carry various useful tools and other items in demand in his van on an on-going basis. Standard plumbing connectors and joints he carried all the time. They always needed them. Then the carpenters needed screws. 1 ¼ No.8 woodscrews were by far the most common in use, yet they continually ran out of them, so Branny always kept a few boxes on hand. He bought a selection of small tools, hammers, trowels, buckets, saws, chisels, screwdrivers and the like and could supply these instantly when required for a small mark up. Before long, Branny's little van was crammed to the gunnels with every small item a builder, plumber, carpenter, plasterer or ground worker could want. As his jobbing work diminished, he spent more and more time going from site to site, checking what was required. Before long, he had developed a price list and negotiated wholesale rates from the suppliers. By the time the swinging sixties arrived, life was looking pretty sweet for Branny and Susan Coglan.

In the spring of 1962, Michael was born. They had always planned to have children, but for years nothing had happened, so Michael was in the end quite a surprise. By this time, they had been married for over seven years and while contact with Branny's family had mostly been lost, they did see Susan's parents, albeit irregularly.

Neither Susan nor Branny attended church any longer. Early in their marriage they had sat down together and decided they wouldn't involve themselves in any organised religious activity outside of accepting any particular invitation they might receive to events such as baptisms and weddings. Susan's mother had been appalled by the decision, rather unusually claiming that even Catholicism would be better than nothing at all. However, when the baby Michael came along, the whole issue came to the forefront once more. In the end, Susan's mother asked that she should be allowed to bring the child to church on Sundays so that he would have the benefit of Christian instruction and could then make his own decision from an informed point of view once older. It was a valid argument and both Susan and Branny agreed.

So, baby Michael was baptised into the Methodist church, one in the north of Belfast where Susan's mother had grown up and where she still attended. Susan's father never saw the child. In late 1960, he developed lung cancer and was given only months to live. He made his peace with his estranged, now pregnant daughter in the way that dying people do and living people should, but despite his best efforts passed away only a few weeks before Michael was born.

By then, the van deliveries were doing great business and together with a loan from Susan's mother, they opened a shop in the north of the city called HARDWARE by Branny Coglan. The business was a great success. Branny redeveloped the van deliveries with their small stock, and the drivers took orders for larger items for delivery the following day. By the mid-sixties, Branny had five vans running and fifteen staff in total. The shop was never empty and there were up to eight staff serving at any one time, providing just about everything the building trade needed.

The family moved to a large detached house flanked by a glorious garden full of rose beds and apple trees. Susan could often be seen, secateurs in hand, pruning the roses or weeding the beds. When it became time for Michael to attend school, he was enrolled in a fee paying prep school in a glorious setting in the outskirts of the city.

War, violence and political upheaval are not usually good for the local economy and Branny's little business was no exception. He had always found it easy to operate in both communities, but increasingly this became difficult. Unconnected sectarian incidents became reasons to move business away and the building trade became even more segregated than it had been in the past. There was also the rise of a mafia style protection racket operated by the terror groups that effectively taxed Branny's operation. With the descent into lawlessness, vans were often broken into or vandalised. Threats to drivers and even physical attacks on them were not uncommon and every incident set the business back a little more.

In the turmoil, margins were squeezed and one crisis led to another. Branny tried to keep staff, but the financial pressures grew. Adept at building the business, Branny found himself wanting in contracting it. While he had made every decision in advance of its needs as the business expanded, he made every decision just a little too late in contraction. He kept too many vans too long. He kept too many staff too long. He found himself horribly over committed in a falling market.

Eventually, the debts piled up at a rate that astonished even Branny and in November 1971, as the building trade contracted for the winter months, it became clear that the business would be unable to service its debts. The receivers were called in and the business closed. To make matters worse, once the dust settled and Branny and Susan had had a chance to check on their own personal finances, they realised they would have to sell their home having re-mortgaged it to supply working capital for the business. But the troubles had not been kind to property values in the province and there was still a considerable shortfall. It was early in 1972 when Branny met with his accountant who maintained that he had no choice but to declare himself personally bankrupt and be released from his obligations to his creditors. Branny resisted and sought instead an
individual voluntary agreement
which would allow him protection from his creditors while paying them off at a rate he could afford through a legally approved intermediary. This would have the advantage of assuaging the humiliation of his predicament and would also leave him free to start a business again in the future without the fetters and restraints on his activity that a personal bankruptcy would involve. All he needed was a job with a decent salary for a few years and he would be free.

In Northern Ireland in the 1970s work in private industry had become increasingly scarce in an economy that had become in practical terms dysfunctional. Former mighty employers like the shipyard became dependent on government aid in one form or another and despite efforts to revitalise the economy with generous subsidies for foreign direct investment, jobs were few and far between.

However, there was still one employer, larger than all the others who were expanding its activities in the city. With every tragedy, every bomb detonated, every misery and every slight, the security services manned a thin line between chaos and anarchy. The most notable of these was the police who, provided you had no criminal record and could successfully pass the fairly rigorous training, could offer a rewarding career, as well as an attractive salary. Branny saw this as a viable option. From Susan's point of view, it was no option at all.

“They'll kill you,” she had screamed when Branny broached the subject. “They'll booby trap your car, they'll bomb your home, our home, they'll shoot you in the street and leave you to die. You'll never sleep a good night's sleep again.”

Branny had rather felt she was over exaggerating the situation, hugging her closely and reassuring her that he wouldn't make any move she would not support, but deep down, he knew there were not too many other options. It was only weeks later, when still jobless and the pressures of life without any more than unemployment benefit sat on the hall table in the form of red utility demands, when Branny came home one evening, brimming with a new idea.