The Troubles (15 page)

    “Kiera Flanagan.  Is that ya? Poor dear bure.’’

     His voice sounded distinctly intimate as the rough texture peeked my memory and with excitement I immediately recognized my former history professor. “Mr. Sloan! Oh my, excuse me! Hello!’’ I stood, blood rapidly rushing to my already throbbing head. ‘’What are ya doing here?” My voice broke loud and slightly accusatory in the grim calm of eve in the graveyard.

     “Well Ms. Flanagan, I am here to pay me respects.’’ Immediately I convulsed and the sob within that was no longer buried deep bellowed out in an uncomfortable response.

    “Aye, of course ya were. Why else? Why else?’’

     “I can only tell ya, me dear, that I am with ya, to find a way to the other side of this fire and brimstone.’’

      Two years ago with my history professor, Lanary Sloan, as my guide, I had partaken with my own terra offerings in respect to the Tuatha de Danaan, which I had retrieved from the natural, landscape surrounding the earthly shrine buried deep in the Hill of Tara. Trust and my own verdant earnestness for knowledge had developed over time, as the man had revealed in quiet moments during our study sessions, that he was a high priest of the Order of the Verdant River. His crafted sanctuary of pagan worship had been manifested by his determined unwavering devotedness to Ireland’s entirely rich pagan narrative, perhaps the only truly authentic recording of the land’s history.

      “Do ya suspect beora, yer Ma and Da are to entice ya to down the down below?” He gestured to the darkened hard turf that bulged below. ‘’Is that where they are Kiera? Or is it that they are now atoning for their sins at the gates of Heaven?’’

     “Oh God, Lanary. I haven’t a clue to whom I pray for me kin’s spirits. Am I to herald them with me test of faith into some purgatory between where their souls will never rest?’’

    True familiar blue eyes beckoned and coaxed the answers from me. ‘’They are where they are meant to be. Aye child Piaris and Una Flanagan are truly sacrosanct and ya will be gifted as their familiar for ye’re devotion. Ya’ve always been me most devoted pupil.” Offputtingly notes of intimidation flickered briefly between the comforting sentiments as I violently shivered, quaking from the strange tone in my Professor’s conciliation and also from the freezing mist particles that billowed like soft clouds throughout the graveyard. The dense fog rested and shrouded the gravestones blanketing and obscuring the ornate crosses, which lined every site, allowing the heavy carved stone crucifixes a hallucinatory floating effect. “Shall we have at it then, Kiera Hi? Let’s take ya to yer gaff.’’    That word rung like a booming church tower bell and I sorely winced my headache only worsening.

      “Aye, Mr. Lanary Sloan. Would ya be so kind? I’m knackered.’’ Walking arm in arm with the courteous man who dwarfed my petite figure with his presence, in my soon to be forgotten footprints, I left the haze of the graveyard and the ceaselessly long day behind me.

CHAPTER 26: Ni mar a shiltear a bhitear. (Things aren’t as they seem)

     Alastar Taggart…December 12
th
1971, two weeks until Christmas.

     A bedraggled Bobby Sands had slammed on the front door, vibrating the thin windowpane, which barely hid the souls within from the ghouls outside, clamoring loudly for me to accompany him to Malvern Street in the chiefly Protestant Shankill Road area.   ‘’Alastar get the hell down here!’’ He had desperately crowed from the stoop into the still dawn as I had pulled up my stiff blue jeans over taught angular hips glancing at the clock that irritatingly chimed in the center of the sparsely decorated wall. It had been barely 6 am. I had hurried down the upstairs hallway passing by my sibling’s two conjoined bedrooms while the assaulting pounding wakened two out of the six inhabitants in our house. The sleeping quarters embodied a strong aroma of pubescent male musk and feminine perfume, which collided with the humid dampness the declining walls, could barely contain.

     “I’ve got the door. Don’t ya worry and go back to sleep!’’

      “Alastar, do ya think it’s Quinn?’’ asked our sister, Talulla. Quinn had been absent for a week and a half and all inhabitants were equally distressed and all anxiously awaiting news of him.

    “I hope it is. He might be hurt, ya never know, but I promise ya, if this is not him, I’m to bring him home!’’ My little sister’s sleepy, clouded eyes tried their best to bestow belief in my hollow sounding words, but in the climate of the day, her fear stared stiff back at me.      “Why don’t ya make Da a pot of tea, Talulla?’’ As she turned away, I caught a glimpse of the rush of tears that were threatening to pour down her porcelain, pale cheek.

     “Do ya think I came down the Lagan in a bubble, Alastar?’’ Before I could proceed to comfort our youngest sister, Bobby Sands made his unsolicited entry into our home and seized my navy jacket, which was draped over the staircase, and then he gripped my wrist with talon-like strength.

    “Damn it, Alastar.  We must go!  He’s there… it’s yer brother!” He hissed, spitting through gritted teeth and as noiselessly as we could, we left my childhood home, in all appearances for the last time and stepped into the gray dawn.

     ‘FENIAN SCUM’ were the scrawled words carved crudely across the naked, bony torso of our mutilated fifteen-year-old brother. His face was so beaten and blackened that he only was recognized and identified by the simple gold watch he had worn proudly, a reminder and heirloom from my Father of more prosperous times, the gift a glimpse into our humble childhood. Indicative, was that his clothing was stripped, but the precious valuable gold left on his dainty wrist as an ambiguous message. He was clearly murdered for his religion and all else of his physical being, disposable, as the sadistic graffiti on his bare skin was designed to imply, he was the scum to be eradicated. The smell of putrid rot and early decomposition hit me like a wall of Biblical locusts baring down and grinding into every exposed pore and orifice. An ashen-faced Bobby and the now growing crowd stammered with astonishment. “Holy Shite. There’s no blood. The boy has been stick like a pig and drained.’’

     ‘’The poor child, who is that ragin’ feen by his side?’’

     ‘’Me name is Alastar Taggart and this child...’’ I had sarcastically drawled out the sentence with derision, for all the spectators to hear, my coldness overtly declaring action against my unknown enemies. “This youngin’ is Quinn Taggart and he will be avenged!’’

     Like the broken rag doll my sister had carried her entire childhood, he had lain limp in my strained, powerful hold. I tied me jacket around me nose and mouth to suppress the stink of decaying flesh as cold air rushed like a phantom over my body, cursing me with its fowl breath. I was now a mythical dragon and permeated deep within was a fire so hot that the sharp, cold’s nipping sting, incited little reaction as I forged forward, carrying my virgin brother. He looked up at me with open, clouded and vacant gray eyes , his throat slit, bloodless, as in a sick, Cheshire smile.

     I sunk to my knees as Lanary Sloan and Bobby Sands took the weight of my brother, but his metaphysical touch lingered and I lay grounded. He was now being shrouded in a gauzy linen cloth and being ushered in a private hearse to beyond Belfast’s perimeter. I could not bear the notion that he would not be guided into Valhalla as beyond anyone I have ever known and loved, this boy, had been a righteous foe and had earned the right to fight alongside the warriors in Valhalla and Folkvangr.   He would assist the gods in the foretold battle, which was prophesied to occur during Ragnarok, the momentous apocalyptic war that would occur at the end of the age of all gods and of mortal man. Had his death been a natural occurrence, his soul, potentially, could have gone to rest in The Summerland, to experience sensual pleasures and blissful happiness before reincarnating as an evolution of sorts or there was the possibility on the virtue of his young age and therefore untarnished spirit, he would forever rest in the blessed realm, either across the water, or under the earth which is the land of eternal youth, also known as the Otherworld, the Tir na n’Og.

     As I uncomfortably rested on a gelid ashen-gray cragged and scabrous boulder, my mind reeled in torrential perpetuity from the fateful events of this day’s dawn. Searing my own skin was the sinister message, forged in blade and my heart and mind grappled with the threat I had clearly been meant to receive.  Why had such an innocent teenage boy been killed in such a grotesque and indiscreet method? Was he in the wrong location and the perfect, weak vulnerable victim of circumstance? Or was it likely, his exuberance and zeal for the cause, had drawn the attention of the wrong people as he had been discarded in the street, agnate to fearsome conquering warriors hanging their enemies in plain view for all to see and quake in submission.

     ‘‘Ya have a cut appearance, me sham. Is there anything I can do Alastar, to appease it all?’’ Bobby had seated himself next to me on the icy-cold boulder perhaps too closely as he threatened the sanctity of my otherwise, imperceptible, personal space. I am at once in a rage with the wispy-haired, seemingly, phlegmatic man. Why had Cathal Goulding inquired about the relationship between Bobby Sands and myself, though most troubling, Quinn’s name had been placed upon his lips and now my brother was dead.

   “Nay Bobby. Ya’ve done enough already!’’ My voice trembled as I turned my face away, not wishing to disclose my suspicion and anger with my brother’s mentor as there was no evidence to give it substance. My conscious sensibility declared loudly that Bobby Sands was a protester who lived in the margin between the apathetic and those who fought unscrupulously as terrorists, but most pertinent, in my logical deduction, was that he had been a competent paramour for Quinn.

     ‘’Aye Bobby, forgive me! It’s just too much gawk shite, I can’t wrap me noggin around all the rubbish that I’ve seen and heard.’’ Again I was referring to the implication that the leader of the IRA had an interest in Bobby and if I had not taken his offer, he had not so discreetly, threatened Quinn with enlistment. “Bobby do ya suspect at all, this wasn’t the work of the Protestants?’’ His brown eyes were warm as he strained in the sharp light of the mid-morning sun to maintain eye contact and yet my weariness caused me to shy away from his friendly intonations with cautious suspicion.

    “Alastar me mate, ya know Quinn was like me little brother and while the IRA is using some pretty fowl tactics, I could not imagine they would murder their own, and all that knew Quinn damn well knew he was their own.’’

     ‘‘Then this murderer was a fucking Protestant, is that what ya are tryin’ to say?’’

     ‘’Aye Alastar.  Must be.’’ Bobby’s attention cast away onto the dew-crested hillside that ballooned pregnant from centuries of formation on the left and simultaneously we both gazed into the August horizon before us. The sunlight sparkled with silver and golden streams filtering down upon the wild, unbridled forest sunken under our elevation, lighting the jade overgrowth of leafy trees whilst they eclipsed the existing life below. A gentle wind blew and stirred a cascade of miniscule undulations upon the forest ceiling and in our still, blanketed moment I could smell the familiar scents of my childhood, those untouched nurseries of plants and wild climates of my homeland. From this distant, earthly paradise, unlocked a jailed memory that assaulted me with visions of the girl with the wild, cherry-wood mane and the stoic, calm, gray eyes. With these thoughts, my heart lurched at the prospect of hopefulness, momentarily appeasing the sorrow of my loss.

     Lanary came to stand by our side as he relayed his favored quotation in a calm authoritative demeanor. ‘‘Conas ata tus. Lads, religion is about creation and for that reason religion should be about the earth.’’ I recognized the author as Lanary’s often quoted, Laurie Cabot.

     “Aye Lanary.  We are going to be fine and I do agree with ya and will not forget it.’’ I wholly did agree with him and due to my recent exposure to the horrors of religious sanctimoniousness, which relied heavily upon power and government to inspire faith, I was as far from that fray of worship as one could be.

    “We will have a Celtic rite with other believers to give passage to yer brother and all others who have lost their lives and need our prayers to guide their spirits as they make their way to whatever destinations the gods will.” His hooded, blue eyes looked both fatigued and strangely ethereal as though he was in his most natural element. In my heightened spiritual awareness I could sense the internal mechanisms of this man buckling, and concealing and again my skin’s flesh rippled with a shiver of dread.

CHAPTER 27: A chuisle mo chroi (O pulse of my heart)

     Kiera Flanagan…Absently, my feet step onto the roughly formed passageway with a buoyant lightness and a youthful abandonment that I have yet to perceive since Sunday December 3
rd
1971. I am mindful that my translucent spirit is causing those that deal with these cruel, mournful times enraptured in festering gossip, akin to the spreading of a disease, to view me as an ungrateful and unrepentant parasite, one whom does not deserve to share my Father’s name lest live as a single woman with his hard-earned meager inheritance as my sole income.

     ‘‘Dear girl, if ya don’t repent and admonish yer demon pagan protest, ya will be treated like the rubbish ya believe in.’’ My ostensible first cousin removed, gravely declared, sitting on her misshapen posterior, whilst cavalierly sipping my mother’s preferred black tea in my parent’s treasured parlor, the family’s preferred sanctuary.

     “Aye, Miss Alannah, but what is it ya’ve been told ‘bout me then?’’ I dared the woman whom was barely ten years my senior. Before I was to make my declaration of what I believed and perhaps more vital what I did not, I would need to gather a formidable alliance to give me strength to forge forward as I was no longer a daughter but a woman. The evening ahead was planned for such a countenance and with a new fortitude I lay in wait.

    As Ena and I make our way in the darkened oak and white birch tree forest at the midnight hour, we both come to an opening of a hilltop plateau, one so shrouded by the overgrowth of the dense forest perimeter it clasps around our twosome like a cocoon of privacy. Bats fly above in the dance of the hunt, their frenzied cyclone perfectly instinctual. The stark cool radiance of the full pregnant moon above, baths the surrounding lofty canopy with murky, yet surprisingly inviting, veiled shadows. Directly in the center of the oblong field are three obscure figures. I can make out that they are masculine by their stance and ruler like straightness, which unyielding men tend to possess.

     ‘‘Kiera, bout ya, me child?’’ The tallest outline of the ambulatory shapes walks towards us, leisurely paced, as the ground’s footing swells and dips in the black of the night and the tall timothy grass sways and parts as the he comes into proper sight.

    “Lanary this is, Ena.’’

     ‘’Aye, I recognize ya, though I did not have the privilege of teaching ya.” In the dim moonlight, he takes Ena’s right hand graciously. “But ya are more than welcome to receive what this night is to give.’’ She oscillates ever so slightly by my side as I too quiver nervously. ’’Me name is Lanary Sloan and I s’pose yer mate has told ya what we are doing in the black of midnight ten miles away from the city lights.’’                                                              “Aye Sir, she has and well I am more than curious to finally partake.’’   As my friend and meself both stare up, anxious and exhilarated, the face that welcomes us dramatically recasts from somber aging veteran to an inviting joyous host and his smile gleams in the night that we stand within. We reciprocate, my fog of mourning disintegrating as I follow this man to the other two strangers.

     As I come into full view to the other men I can see they are but a few years my senior. The more broad of the two quickly extends a hand in moonlit darkness as I hear a deep steadfast, assured voice, ‘‘Bout ye, me name is, Alastar Taggart.’’ Quite aggressively, I feel an instant percussion of all my senses alight and as I grasp the hand before me, my eyes travel up the young male’s angular form to land upon his highly illuminated green eyes that are glowing in the moonlight. This enticingly handsome man, to my chagrin and bewilderment, is the mortal man of flesh, in the street fight that had entranced and bewitched me so much that I had been cursed to dream nightly of him and had as much accepted I would never have the chance meet him. The electrified space between us has become molten hot and I gasp aloud as a radiant flush of heat scorches my lungs. I try to utter my given name and cannot. My mind’s commands simply stall as all reasoning and propriety abandons me and lustful attraction emblazons my very being.  I can feel, I mean really feel, my heart as it awakes perhaps from a hibernation and beast with a flurry of life into an Irish march.’’

    “Alastar? Would your brother be Quinn Taggart?’’ Ena mindfully questions the young man, yet he remains clutching my hand like he too had become petrified in stone.

   As he observes the odd connection and feels the all too powerful exchange unfold, Lanary politely chimes in, “Aye, tis the boy’s brother. Ya lasses haven’t been properly informed…this tis why we are gathering tonight… to give Quinn a proper goodbye.’’

     ‘’Goodbye?’’ Ena sounds aghast.

      “Aye, the boy was murdered.’’ As though a projectile of the fiercest magnitude hits my pounding heart and speedily recapitulates the irregular contractions of my grandest of muscles, I regain discipline over my limbs and snatch my hand back as though a searing poker has branded it and subconsciously cradle it over my chest. The circle came about and as the events and encounters unfolded neatly into place I whisper to Alastar, “I’ve seen ya before.  We were the ones to come upon yer brother in the alley before he...’’ The man again looks at me with those ornamentally, clover-green eyes while he scrutinizes my face methodically, as though he is extracting every detail and savoring the view like insufficient morsels of a favored dish.

      “I had no idea Quinn, knew ya lasses and aye, how could I not recall ya! Though I’m ashamed that ya had to witness what happened upon that fateful morn’.”

      For an unknown reason I feel incredibly embarrassed that I have witnessed this stoic, luring man with the stance of a proficient soldier, in what has been such a state of panic and duress. Yet, it has strangely lent to an intimacy as we have already been in the eye of the hurricane together and survived. “Alastar, I am so sorry for yer loss. I am here tonight to pray for me parents who are the latest victims of that God forsaken city.” I gesture angrily to the pale yellow glow of Belfast in the valley below.

    “Aye, I was told of yer loss. Forgive me. I did not recognize yer name as the woman Lanary had mentioned whose family had been taken.” Suddenly guilt spread over his quiet face as he looked down. The conversation drifted into silence as I started to walk forward. Unexpectedly, we heard the distinct cry of an animal. The instinctual sound seared the air swiftly and Lanary stepped abreast with a perfectly, camouflaged feline held high above the sodden earth. She too had the same starburst green eyes as the man whose eyes bore heavily at my back with his presence both unnerving and titillating me. I didn’t mention the creature as I grabbed Ena’s forearm aggressively and we marched unsurely over the rolling grass to greet the final man, seemingly waiting, as a host, preparing for his guests.

      “Ya have met that bloke before, Kiera?’’ Ena’s question burns my earlobe bright red and hot.

     “Aye, not properly but we have seen one another. It was while he was in the most compromising and brutal of times. Do ya recall I had mentioned to ya that I had come upon the paramilitary batin’ upon a few, perhaps, IRA boys? Well, he was one of those boys… I mean men. Shite Ena this tis all too strange that I happen upon Alastar Taggart and we happen upon his brother in the exact same fashion and now one is dead!’’

    ‘’Aye Kiera, the gods have brought us all together,’’ she murmurs as we arrive upon a blue-lit flaxen haired man, so calm he looks to be catatonic. His eyes appear to flutter slightly as we near yet he remains in a peaceful, meditative stance of inner reflection. I throatily cough, socially anxious, as it hits me like a ton of bricks, that Ena and I are alone on some hidden hilltop refuge with one man I barely know and two other somewhat strangers. If a wicked twist of fate were to befall us and we are murdered there would be no one to search for me, to mourn and pray for my spirit. I am truly alone and I either should flee or stay in this pitch of the night, encompassed by my intended intentions of prayer for Mother and Father and face down the demons of female inferiority my psyche has unleashed upon me.

CHAPTER 28: Cha sgeul-ruin e s flos aig triuir air (It’s no secret if three know it)

      Alastar Taggart… With unwavering laser-like focus, I watch the shadowed slight, ultra-feminine figure all the while my mind races with all the gray-clouded imagery of our encounter. What could this captivatingly unique girl have been privy to? I cascade through the images like scenes of a movie, analyzing my actions for what had been the shameful appearance of overt, animalistic, aggression in that bloody street brawl. For some reason what Kiera thinks of me matters greatly. I struggle to maneuver my legs from their embalmment of imagined concrete constructed by the unforeseen surprise and speedily increase my gait to flank the tangerine scented young woman. This very real flesh and blood girl has been a recurring demanding memory, one to perhaps shield me from my troubles.  Serendipitously, the absolutely human, organic, real version of her stands but a foot to my right. Alas, I am without direction, a man lost in a storm with no inclination of romantic formality, as the only relationship I have ever been privy to was Mother and Father’s one of abandonment and regret. I perchance had only witnessed a longing look that my Mother had given my Father as she had walked out of the kitchen back door to never return neither for her offspring nor to her husband. As the years have passed, I have gradually surmised that the tender gaze was one of loss echoing what could have been for her and what never was meant to be.

     Towering before our small group are large spherical stones piled high, looking both characteristically adapted to the multitude of similar erect stones that are either remnants of long forgotten altars and places of worship or forged from earth’s tireless evolutionary upheaval, cracking and bending as time’s force erodes. A lone candle bathes the rocks with deeply sentimental formations. The man made construction deviates enough from the topography of the hilltop, that we know the altar we have constructed, will remain as a substantial reminder of the lives that have departed and have made passage through that earthly portal.

     Both of the girl’s hair begins to blow madly in the unsheltered, elevated, vantage point and Bobby and I both move closer to the women as to shield them with our bodies from the tangible sea salt encrusted gusts. ’’We should be done with this quickly, aye folks?’’ I state rather than question.

     ‘‘Well we are here to testify to the gods, the name Quinn Taggart, brother to Alastar Taggart.” Lanary begins the tradition of validating in spoken words the deceased names for all to hear. “Piaras and Maura Flanagan now are the heavenly guardians to Kiera Flanagan.’’

     A suspiciously radiant candle sits enclosed by three stones which allows unfettered curls and wisps of incandescent figures to dance upon the five masked faces that stand awkwardly close to one another each seeking asylum from the now spitting rain that is building in veracity. The split second in which I have a complete glance to Kiera’s full appearance the giving light of the candle is snuffed and I am left regretting not taking my eyes off of hers and exploring her fair, exposed skin. She had confidently held my eye as if she too desired her own exploration. 

    “Well, there’s a bloody monsoon arising. I feel it.” Bobby’s opening inaugural statement catches us all off guard and I begin to hear Coraline fussing in the grip of Lanary. The downpour hits straight down like a sheet of ice water barely above 0% degrees as pellets of hail ferry with it. There is a ricocheting chorus of vigorous grunts and feminine gasps as the water hits us all simultaneously. If one has never been to the island of Ireland they could doubt the veracity of our winter thunderstorms. I had been twelve years old when the tropical cyclone Debbie, beyond all weather system odds, had hit and destroyed much of Northern Ireland’s power lines, thousands of trees and had provided extensive losses to our much needed corn, wheat and barley crops. With it had come 95 km/h wind gusts and while she had only remained in full-fledged force from Sept 3
rd
to Sept. 19
th
, 1961, she had unfortunately claimed eighteen Irish souls. I had been a best schoolmate with one of her young victims and this had born into me, an interest in the breadth and danger of the elements and an all-encompassing respect.