This Man's Wee Boy Read online

  Shouts and cheers of victory rang out from the rioters, and from the teenage girls watching from Moore Street.

  ‘Your ma’s back from work. Your Karen’s calling you,’ said Johnny Barbour in the midst of the happy cheering.

  ‘C’mon you, boy, me ma’s looking for all of us,’ said Karen as she approached.

  ‘I’m staying here. Tell her I’ll be in later,’ I said, turning away.

  ‘Git you up to that house. I’m not going back without you or I’ll be killed,’ she said, grabbing me by the arm.

  The sound of more rubber bullets firing sent us all back with our hands over our heads.

  I had allowed myself to be taken from the riot by my big sister. The rest of them stayed on, spectating. It just wasn’t fair. We lay in bed that night and could hear another riot outside and down towards the corner. The sounds were the same except for the occasional loud explosion, which rattled the windows and doors, and made the house shake.

  ‘What the fuck is that?’ our Patrick asked Karen in the dark.

  They were in the bed across the room. There was real fear in his voice.

  ‘Must be bombs of some sort,’ she replied and we returned to our dark, scared silence.

  * * *

  One day, when me and our Paul were returning from school, we decided for some reason to go down the Folly instead of Bishop Street towards home. A small crowd of boys and girls had gathered on the corner where Hamilton Street met the top of Anne Street. As we got closer, we saw a group of five men sitting against the corner house wall with guns across their laps. They had masks over their faces with badly cut eye holes; some had a huge opening for one eye beside a tiny opening for the other, which made them look oddly distorted. They wore an assortment of green army coats and jeans. The guns weren’t the same as the BA’s guns; they were mostly wooden with only a few metal pieces.

  Gutsy was there before us.

  ‘Are yous the IRA, hi?’ he asked one of them.

  ‘Aye, we are,’ was the reply.

  ‘Are yous goney shoot the BA?’ asked Gutsy.

  ‘G’won away, Gutsy, and mind your own business,’ said another.

  ‘How do you know me, hi?’ asked Gutsy.

  ‘Never mind. Just stop asking questions,’ he said.

  ‘Is that a 303 you have there, hi?’ Gutsy persisted.

  ‘Aye it is, now g’won away,’ he replied.

  ‘Ach, hi, I’m only askin’,’ said Gutsy, offended, as he moved along the line.

  ‘Your man there has a carbine,’ said Gutsy, pointing to a smaller-looking wooden rifle with a tiny magazine, which looked like a toy.

  ‘How do you know?’ I asked, jealous that he knew all this stuff.

  ‘I just know,’ he said, brimming with confidence and in his element. ‘That there wan is a Thompson,’ he added, pointing to the man at the end holding a machine gun upwards with the butt on the pavement. His mask was made of grey wool and tied at the top with an elastic band.

  Coming home from school by the same route a few days later we found that a concrete barricade had been built into the road at the top of our street. There were steel girders and poles sticking out of the concrete, as well as a farm gate. That night the Vigilantes kept everyone away from the concrete until it hardened. The Vigilantes were local men who guarded our street and other streets at night. They were not the IRA. The women in the street brought them tea and sandwiches and biscuits while they stood guard or patrolled up and down the street. At the other end of the street a huge pile of soil and rubble had been pushed onto the road. You could still walk on the pavement but not the road. An old lorry had been pulled across the road up in Moore Street. The BA drove slowly up and down Foyle Road in Ferrets, Pigs and Sixers.

  * * *

  It was a Saturday. Word got round that all the wains were to go to the Mex barracks in the afternoon for something the BA was going to do.

  No one questioned it. None of us had ever been in the Mex before. We usually only went as far as the gate for the messages, and there had been fewer messages in recent times with the rioting. There was no rioting today. The road was clear. The gates of the Mex were open and we went through them.

  Soldiers stood around in their shirtsleeves looking a bit unsure of themselves. We were guided into a large hall that had a snooker table and a table laden with cakes, buns, biscuits and lemonade. There were around twenty-five children there. A film was being projected onto a large screen against the wall – M*A*S*H. Soldiers were sitting on wooden fold-out chairs watching the film and looking round to watch us as well. We all sat or stood between the food table and where the soldiers were seated. On the screen there was a lot of blood as someone was being operated on. We had cake, and lemonade in large white plastic mugs. Paddy Brown and our Paul had green metal army helmets on their heads and were laughing and messing about with the soldiers. The sound of helicopters on the screen was very loud. A couple of wains were playing snooker with the soldiers. Another group of soldiers were standing at the doorway talking to the officer and looking out the door towards the gates.

  Suddenly something hit the metal roof above us and bounced across it, followed by another. The soldiers, only slightly distracted, went back to watching M*A*S*H. Then there was another clump and clang on the roof. And another. The soldiers at the door grew nervous and called the officer over. The film was brought to a stop and the lights went on. More stones bounced across the roof. It was time to go. We filed out the door along the concrete path towards the locked gates. A large group of adults – parents and teenagers – were standing on the outside looking in. Some of the teenagers were throwing stones onto the roof, but they stopped firing when they saw us. The soldiers at the gates opened them as we approached.

  Me ma and da were there. Me da, red-faced, went up to the officer walking with us and grabbed him with both hands by the shirt. The officer was about a foot taller than him. Other men grabbed me da from behind and pulled him away. We walked through the large group of parents and impatient rioters, and me ma and da followed us in silence up the street towards the house. As we walked along we looked at each other, wondering what the consequences were going to be. But when we got back to the house no one mentioned the Mex, not even me ma and da, and it was never spoken of again.

  * * *

  Me and our Paul went up to Moore Street to see Paddy Stewart. He always gave us money when he saw us. As we approached the green door of No. 6 we saw Paddy standing at the foot of the street with a group of older men. They were just standing, looking. It was a bright, warm, sunny day. Behind them, the river was a silvery blue.

  ‘Hello, boys,’ said Paddy with a smile as he saw us coming. He had his flat cap on, and he was wearing a dark purple cardigan with a shirt and tie.

  ‘Hello, Paddy,’ we said back, but he had stopped looking in our direction.

  The group of older men seemed to be waiting for something to happen. There was something in the air.

  Suddenly, a small open-backed truck with low sides came down Bishop Street and swung left onto Foyle Road. There were long-haired men wearing dark glasses and clutching machine guns squatting in the back of it. As it drove slowly up Foyle Road away from us, one of the men shot at a billboard advertising Special K that stood by the roadside. You could see the smoke coming out of the barrel. The sharp sound of the machine gun – it was a Thompson – startled us, but no one dived to the ground. So that’s what Paddy and his muckers were waiting for! The woman in the Special K advert was left with holes in her face and through her perfect white teeth.

  ‘Cowboys!’ said one old man.

  ‘Boys-a-boys-a-boys!’ said another.

  ‘Cowboys? More like Comanches!’ said another. ‘He shot the Special K woman for Ireland!’

  The old men laughed to themselves and the truck continued on down Foyle Road and out of sight. Boys the same age as us, Bishies, ran onto the road in front of the billboard and started picking things up. Me and Paul ran over to see as well.
One boy had a number of small brass things in his hand.

  ‘What’s that, hi?’ asked our Paul.

  The boy held one up between his finger and thumb. ‘They’re bullet shells. That’s what comes out of the gun after it’s fired. Now fuck off back to Hamilton Street where yous belong!’ he said and shoved our Paul in the chest.

  ‘Hi boy. Leave the wee fella alone,’ Paddy Stewart shouted over from the corner of the street.

  ‘Aye, leave him alone,’ I repeated, putting myself between him and Paul.

  The Bishie looked at me, him with snotters caked to his upper lip and nostrils, and glanced over at Paddy Stewart and the group of men standing at the corner with their flat caps on.

  ‘I’ll get you later, you wee Hammy fucker!’ he said and turned and headed back down Foyle Road with his gang, and a handful of brass bullet shells.

  I wasn’t wee at all. I was the same size as him.

  * * *

  The bankin’ is flat at the top and a bit bumpy here and there. We decided we wanted to dig a hut for ourselves, and so a small army of Dohertys, Barbours and McKinneys headed to the bankin’ with spades and shovels twice the length of us.

  ‘We’ll dig straight down,’ said Terry McKinney, ‘in a square.’

  There was some corrugated tin lying at the back of Moore Street, so we gathered it up for our roof. The digging lasted the whole day. It had been raining, so the top sods were easy cut, but underneath the soil was hard and compacted. We sat the grassy sods to one side to use later. As there were too many of us, we took turns to dig. Someone brought biscuits and a milk bottle filled with water; there was a track of congealed milk on it. We ate the biscuits – Custard Creams and Ginger Nuts – and passed the bottle of water around. By the time it got to me – the third person, there were yellow and brown floaters in the water. No one mentioned it. We were dry so we drank. Down we dug in the hole, scooping out the brown soil with the shovels. The soil grew like a small hill beside the hole. Soon the workers were belly-height with the top of the hole.

  ‘We have to be able to stand up inside it,’ said Terry McKinney.

  Terry knew everything, so the digging continued and the diggers sank further and further into the ancient bankin’ until only their heads and shoulders could be seen at the top.

  ‘A wee bit more and we’re finished,’ Terry said.

  Soon the digging stopped and the hill of soil dumped at the side had become two hills. The rusty corrugated tin sheets were brought over to make the roof. A wooden post was loosely hammered into the rock-hard ground in the centre of the hole and the corrugated tin was placed on top in overlapping layers, with the wooden stake propping the whole lot up in the middle. The sods we’d cut earlier were placed back over the corrugated tin, camouflaging our hut from unwelcome visitors. A gap was left in the corner so we could get in and out, like a submarine.

  As soon as the last layer of tin went on we all climbed in and sat around the sides of the hut, staring in wonder at the fruits of our labour. That’s what the hut was made for – to sit in. A shower of sunlight came in through the nail-holes and gashes in the rusty tin sheeting. Our hands and faces, clothes and shoes were boggin’ with dirt. This was luxury. This was what we’d made for ourselves. But it was nearly teatime, so we decided to leave the hut and go home, and to come back after our tea with candles and matches.

  When we gathered there again after our tea, some of us had been washed clean by our mas; others looked like they’d tried to wash themselves and not made a good job of it. We all slid back into the hut. It wasn’t as bright now, so we lit the candles and played cards in the dry dirt.

  I was busting for a pee so I slid out of the hatch and walked a few yards away to do it. The light was fading and a dark grey pall was replacing the earlier brightness. After peeing I began to ease my way back into the hut, feet first. With only my head and shoulders at bankin’ level, I looked up and saw two banshees emerging from the semi-darkness in the direction of St Columb’s College and running towards us. By banshees I mean The Real Thing – white-sheeted bodies with black eyes.

  ‘Jesus, Jesus!’ I cried out as I heaved myself out of the hut again. ‘There’s two banshees running down the bankin’! Get out quick!’

  There was a scramble of panicked movement as bodies emerged through the gap.

  ‘Jesus! So it is!’ said our Paul as he looked up to check. ‘Get t’fuck out!’ Our Paul never cursed.

  Suddenly the sods and tin sheeting lifted from the other end of the hut and one of the Barbours scrambled out onto the grass. The banshees were about fifty yards away and closing fast, their billowing white bodies growing larger the closer they got. Everyone was out and running. There was panic and fear in our breath as we ran down the steep bankin’ away from the banshees, who were very good runners.

  Michael McKinney, brother of Dooter and Terry, slipped on the dirt track that led from the bankin’ to the rear of Moore Street. The banshees were right behind him and I could hear his panicked squeals. As I ran I looked over my shoulder to see the banshees grabbing Michael as he tried to get up. They’d got him!

  We ran like mad around the corner and down the lane towards the McKinneys’ house. Hearing the commotion outside their front door, Maisie and Cecil McKinney came out to see what was going on.

  ‘Our Michael’s been kidnapped by banshees,’ said Terry, out of puff and with real fear in his voice. ‘They have him up the bankin’.’

  Cecil looked at his wife and then took off around the corner towards the bankin’.

  ‘Stay yous all here and tell me what happened,’ said Maisie as we went to follow him. There was a hint of suspicion in her voice as if she thought we were up to something.

  ‘What do think they’re doing on him?’ I asked Maisie, panting and ignoring her question. ‘Do they just eat you?’

  ‘I’m sure it’ll be all right,’ was all she said, looking towards the corner and waiting for Cecil to reappear.

  It was now dark and the streetlights had come on. Around that corner, though, it was still dark, in the shadows of the last house in the terrace. Sure enough, a few minutes later – it seemed like a lifetime – Cecil and Michael came around the corner, Cecil with a hand on Michael’s shoulder and Michael crying. We rushed towards them to see what the banshees had done on him. He had muck on his face, but he wasn’t torn apart or anything.

  ‘What did they do, Michael? What did the banshees do on you?’ we asked.

  Michael didn’t say anything.

  ‘G’won yous on home a’ that. It doesn’t matter what happened. He’s all right now,’ said his da, steering Michael in through the front door. ‘C’mon yous in,’ he said to Dooter and Terry.

  The front door closed after them. We were left out in the dark, unknown world and made our way under a cloud of wonderment along Hamilton Street to our own houses. The kidnapping was never mentioned again.

  A week or so later the BA came to the hut on the bankin’. Terry said there was a major and some soldiers. The major had climbed into the hut, asked one of the soldiers to give him his rifle and aimed it out towards the Line and the Mex. Then he declared the hut an IRA observation post and ordered his soldiers to fill the hut in. When we came up later, after Terry told us, the hut was gone. The tin sheets were strewn to one side and a small mound of newly dug soil like a new grave was all there was to see.

  ‘Me da said we shouldn’t dig it up again – for a while, anyway. The soldiers’ll just come back and fill it in again,’ said Terry, as we stared at the ground in disbelief.

  ‘Limey bastards,’ said our Paul as we turned, our heads low, to dander back down the hill towards the street.

  One day I found myself walking alone from school along Hamilton Street. There were two men ahead of me, one on either side of the road. They were wearing green army coats and jeans and had long hair. They were talking to each other across the street. I couldn’t hear what they were saying, but they were IRA men – you just knew. There was no one els
e on the street but us three. The one on the right, the one with dirty fair hair, reached into his side pocket and all of a sudden there was a small, dark gun in his hand, which he pointed across the street at his friend. They both laughed. The man with the gun saw me walking behind them and looked away, but he kept the gun in his hand pointing downwards towards the footpath. They walked past our house towards the corner with Foyle Road and then stopped. They looked back at me and I disappeared into the house to do my homework.

  * * *

  A lone soldier was on top of the high wall of the Mex, building a sangar with sandbags. The wall was about thirty feet high. He was working close to the edge and it looked dangerous. It was a hot day and he was wearing his shirt open with no flak jacket. He had fair hair and was red-faced.

  ‘Hi, d’ye want anything in the shop?’ I shouted up at him from the road below.

  I was on my own. I had no intention of coming back with his messages. That game was up but I thought I’d chance my arm.

  ‘No thanks, moyt,’ he shouted down at me while he continued stacking the sandbags.

  ‘The shop’s only round the corner. I could be back in five minutes for you,’ I called up.

  ‘No, thanks. I have all I need,’ and he went on working.

  ‘Where are you from, hi?’ I shouted up to him.

  ‘Leeds.’

  ‘My brother Paul supports Leeds,’ I replied. ‘But they’re shite,’ I added, disappointed at not getting any money.

  He laughed, looked down at me for a second and continued working. He wasn’t interested. I dawdled about below the high wall in the heat for a few minutes and, deciding there was no point in making my offer to run to the shop again, I headed back up Foyle Road towards our street. As I passed the metal gates to the Mex a loud shot rang out. I hit the deck and kept my head down. It was aimed at the Mex; I could tell. It was fired at the soldier I’d been talking to; I just knew. They had been waiting for me to go away before they fired; I knew that as well. No more shots followed and none was returned. There was only silence and heat.