Torn Water

I am not afraid, only puzzled. I had thought that the big jackdaw was my friend and I cannot understand why he is suddenly so aggressive with me. Clouds come and go like floury fists. Small thrusts and swirls of air play and tug at the soft flesh of my neck, and my feet bob and tick on the ends of my legs, like fishing floats. At first I recognise the countryside below me, and grin as I see my school rush by, its playing-fields like long green tablets, glistening in the morning sun. I even believe I see my aunt Teezy's house, small grey puffs of smoke rising from its short fat chimneys, and I wave. But then the countryside gets darker, and the wind fresher, and small dots of falling hail sting my eyes. We are flying through heavy, dense mist and I lose all sense of time. All I can hear is the swooshing beat of the bird's wings and the loud patter of my heart.

Suddenly, below me, the mist parts and I can see a mountain rising up to meet us, and in the middle of this mountain's peak is a large foul-smelling mouth. Ireland's mouth. I realise with horror that I am going to be fed to it. All around the fringe of the mountain's peak I see dismembered limbs and old bones: they cover the ground below me like forgotten stones. As the bird drops me, I realise that this is where all the young men of Ireland go; this is where my father went. As I hurtle through the air, the mountain opens its mouth and I see the blood and guts of a nation's men rushing to meet me.

6. The Bomb (#ulink_f90c8555-f9d9-5fd6-9510-ee1dccc9f729)

The following Saturday morning a bomb goes off in the town. James and his mother had driven the three miles from the estate, and were on the small roundabout at Carrick Street when they heard the blast. James thought it sounded like a giant punching a huge fist into the Earth's mantle. The buildings that lined the street vibrated momentarily and some of the shop windows spewed broken glass on to the pavement. Ahead at the top of the street, just where it rounded into Canal Street, James can see a white puff of smoke rise; it reminds him of the knot of smoke that the Vatican uses to announce a new pope. A shop alarm sounds, its discordant wail puncturing the eerie silence that had settled in the aftermath of the explosion.

That means his town will be on the news tonight, James thinks. He can see the reporter standing before the tangled mass of shop frontage and buckled vehicles, cement dust falling like papery rain into the camera lens.

Two cars ahead of them have collided, the front of one pushed back on itself like a discarded paper cup. The drivers stand by the doors of their vehicles, a lost look on their faces, like children whose sweet ration has just been stopped. James's mother hasn't moved since the blast occurred. Her hands have left the steering-wheel and frozen midway to her face. She is gaping as if someone has just skewered her through the chest.

For what seems an age, the traffic, with its cargo of shoppers and children, sits where it is, the ball of smoke ahead seeping like squid ink into the sky. He hears the whine of sirens somewhere behind him, and turns to see a phalanx of blue lights fighting their way through the backed-up traffic. James looks again to his mother, and notices that her body is shuddering, and that two long tears are working their way down her cheeks.

Suddenly a fire-engine fills their rear-view mirror, like a colossal red whale, its siren squealing. The driver inches it closer and closer to their car, pressing the horn with hard, sharp bangs of his hand. James can see the co-driver wave his arms, furiously gesturing for them to get out of the way. ‘Mum, please …’ he says.

His mother grabs the steering-wheel and shunts the car out of the way, mounting the pavement with an ungainly thump. They watch the fire-engine stream past, followed by two police Land Rovers and a couple of army Saracens. Other drivers take advantage of the sudden slipstream of free road to shoot through, leaving James and his mother stuck, tilted on the high pavement.

His mother parks at the other end of town in a rundown car park, squeezing the car between two vans, cursing loudly as she bumps the side of one, then looking around nervously to see if anyone has noticed. For a moment she sits there, her hands laid out flat, knuckle up on the rim of the steering-wheel.

He wonders if anyone has been killed in the explosion, and about the threshold they might have passed across as they died. What was it like, he wondered. Did the souls of the victims leave the earth as they passed over? Did the sky peel back like ripped plastic sheeting and did their spirits hurtle through the opened heavens into the blackness of space? There, did the souls orbit each other, like fireflies, in the starry wastes of the universe?

‘I've a couple of things to do,’ his mother says.

‘Right.’

‘Will you be all right?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘I don't want you going near that mess over there.’

‘I'm not a baby.’

‘That's not what I meant.’

‘I'll be fine.’

‘You're not listening,’ she says.

‘What?’

‘Stay close to this part of the town. Do you hear me?’

‘Yes, I hear you.’

‘Look at me! I said, look at me.’

He looks at her. She seems so lost, so frightened. ‘OK,’ he says.

‘Right. I'll meet you back here in an hour,’ his mother says, and gives him a fifty pence piece.

He begins to cross the small bridge that spans the canal, heading towards the shops on the other side. He looks back towards the car park and watches his mother cross the road. He sees her pause outside Campbell's bar. Then she casts a quick look back in the direction of the car park before she is swallowed by the dark of the bar's doorway. So that was why she didn't want him with her: she wanted her booze. Suddenly all the compassion he had felt for her leaves him. If she doesn't care, then neither does he. It's that simple.

Go on, he thinks. Go on, drown yourself.

The billow of smoke from the explosion has subsided: it now throws up only faint fumes, like the embers of a dying cigar. Using it as a guide, James begins to work his way to the site of the bomb, his legs pumping down the streets. As he gets closer he can smell charred wood and incinerated rubber, and hear the shouts of the men from the emergency services. People pass him by, their faces pale with fear. He feels as if he is running into the opened mouth of hell. He can see the beginnings of fires, on the rims of car tyres, licking at the wooden frames of doorways.

Suddenly he feels something whip by his ear, and sees what he thinks is a small tick of light, or a firefly hover in the line of his vision, then flit furiously down the street away from him. As it passes it warms his heart, and he can feel long fingers of heat work along his gut and a smile begin on his lips.

Ahead, he can see a line of RUC men. They straddle the mouth of the street where the bomb has gone off, ushering frantic figures through their human cordon, shouting for everyone to clear the area. He looks for the dot of light but it has gone, as quickly and as mysteriously as it arrived. He tells himself that it was nothing but sunlight bouncing off car glass or a shop window.

He slips down a side-street that runs parallel to Hill Street and the site of the bomb, avoiding the line of policemen, hoping to grab a quick look at the devastation.

He rounds the corner and is facing on to the middle of Hill Street. He stands and looks down the alleyway and sees a car lying in pieces on the ground. Behind it, the figures of two people are staggering back and forth across the mouth of the alleyway. One, a man in his forties, is shirtless, and his vest hangs in torn lips of cloth from his body. His left arm is bloodied and the left side of his face is matted with dirt and blood. He shuffles aimlessly across the alleyway, his arms weaving strange loops in the air, his mouth uttering soft moans of protest. The other person is a young woman. At one point she sits on the torn ridge of the car door and rests her head tenderly in her hands, her bone-thin shoulders quivering, her hands dotted with blood.

In the background people stream past, their heads fixed downwards, their limbs tightly held, as if they still wore the roar of the blast on their bodies. Firemen drag huge hoses, their heads upturned in the direction of a rogue blaze. Soldiers fill the sides of the main street, their short, spiked guns half cocked on their arms.

A man stands at the beginning of the alleyway. James hasn't seen him arrive, hasn't seen him round the corner, and the sight of him brings a shiver to his skin. He seems to be cut from the dense cloth of the alleyway's shadows, and so tall that James has to crane his neck to get a look at his face. The deep navy pinstriped suit looks familiar, as does the fist-sized knot of his tie. He is strangely untouched, his suit immaculate, his hair finely neatened, his clear eyes gazing unwaveringly at James.

It is the man from the photograph Teezy had told him was his father. It is the man of half-remembered fragments, the man he had been told was dead.

James steps forward. The man seems to beckon him. The noise and panic of the morning are falling away, and he feels as if he is walking across a shimmering sheet of light towards the man's hands. He opens his mouth to speak, but the words leave him like mute birds, flapping away into the smoky air. Still the man beckons, his eyes filled with the soft passion of someone who has waited a long, long time.

Perhaps he is alive: perhaps he has secretly lived his life and is now returning to reclaim him. Perhaps Teezy lied to him. Perhaps he has lived a life of quiet patience, biding his time before coming back for him.

As if released from a strong, invisible web, his body starts forward. His legs move towards the figure. A hard cry falls from his lips. As he shoots forward he snags his foot on a piece of thrown car metal. He sees the ground of the alleyway rush to meet him. He feels the breath leave his body in a winded gasp, and he scrabbles desperately to right himself.