Dancing in Limbo

‘If you ever cross my path again, so help me Jesus I’ll personally brain you,’ Magee said softly. He lifted McCoy off his feet and brought him close, so close that their faces were nearly touching. Then he head-butted him, suddenly and savagely between the eyes. The crunch of bone on bone could be heard across the room. McCoy fell against the counter, the blood already spurting from his nose. Magee turned defiantly to the rest of the company, inviting by gesture anyone who wanted trouble to step forward. There were no takers. He surveyed the silent tableau for a moment, spat on the floor, turned on his heel and walked out. Through the frosted glass of the window they could see his silhouette swinging a last kick at the battered chassis of the Salvation Wagon before heading off up English Street.

Though careful not to get too involved, the drinkers in the bar sensed that McCoy would want to restore his dignity by standing a few more rounds. As long as the hard man had really gone there would be no harm in humouring him. It wasn’t every day that the Reverend was in the chair. They winked their approval of the way he had handled himself and allowed Billy to refill their glasses.

‘Sing me a wee song about Portadown,’ shouted McCoy. ‘Does anyone know a Portadown song, for if they do they’re a better man than myself!’ His voice was nasal, for the blood had congealed beneath his swollen nose.

‘That’s a good one all right,’ said Billy the barman, helping himself to a double scotch and most of the change.

‘Portadown!’ shouted McCoy above them in his best pulpit voice. He spat blood across the floor. Already he was feeling a lot better. ‘Do you know what the trouble with Portadown boys is? They’re always trying to be more Protestant than the rest of us. The meanest crowd of shites on the face of the earth …’ he was warming to his topic now as the crowd quietly urged him on ‘… I’ve seen me and the wee girl reduced to begging round the doors, but do you think the hoors would give you as much as a cup of water? They wouldn’t give you the smell of their fart if they could help it! But I’ve turned my back on Portadown, I’ll tell you straight. I shall wipe Jerusalem as a man wipeth a dish, wiping it and turning it upside down …’

But at the memory of his daughter the tears sprang into his eyes. His hand had begun to tremble, and the whiskey he was clutching spilled over the bar. He turned grey. A glazed look came stealing over his face. Billy leaped across the counter, cursing, but he was too late to stop McCoy collapsing on the floor. He writhed in the sawdust in the throes of a fit, turning up the whites of his eyes and gasping for breath. Billy hauled him roughly to his feet and dragged him towards the door. McCoy put up no resistance, allowing himself to be thrown without further ceremony into the alley outside. A few of the drinkers peered out after him, staying well back in case Billy took umbrage and began barring wholesale. They saw his convulsions in the gutter, and saw that the turncoat McGuffin had crept out from under the van and was coming to his aid. Leave well enough alone, they thought, stealing back from the window to finish their pints.

But the evening’s entertainment was over. Billy was in truculent mood. Any day now the GPs would reappear, taking over his back room, doling out their unique form of justice. He didn’t want to be too closely associated with McCoy when questions were asked. He swept what was left of the bunting money off the bar and into his pocket, and began roaring at the company to finish their glasses and go home to fuck.

The groans of the dying faded as the day wore on. One by one their souls shuffled off their withered bodies and, free at last, sped upwards to the throne of mercy. Frank lay silent at his mother’s side as her life blood trickled away. His temple gaped open and his legs were twisted grotesquely beneath him. Night came slowly and the cold settled over the dead. A slow dawn broke. Night fell again. For three days he lay among the dead, drifting occasionally into fitful consciousness before lapsing into coma. Once he woke and the moon was out; he thought there was someone moving silently among the corpses. He wanted to call out to whoever or whatever it was but he drifted away again into troubled sleep. On the morning of the third day he cried out for water. Again he thought he heard someone nearby, someone hovering above him. He heard voices. He forced himself into awareness. He opened his eyes and raised himself up on one elbow, calling for help. A face bent down towards him, blotting out the light. He tried to speak but no words would come. He concentrated again on the grotesque yet familiar face that hung above him. Slowly his head began to clear, he began to focus, to remember, to recognize. He found himself staring into the cold grey eyes of his employer, Schnozzle O’Shea.

The Sisters had dug a shallow grave by the side of the road and were burying the dead. Though a Special Operations Unit, the elite of the Order under the command of Sister Concepta, they were edgy and nervous, eager to be on their way, fearful that a renewed attack might happen at any moment. Two of them crouched in the ditch beside the jeeps, their faces blackened, their rifles pointing up the road. Another had taken up position on the roof of the nearest farmhouse, her eyes anxiously scanning the misty hills above. Schnozzle pulled Frank clear of the corpses and beckoned one of the Sisters over. ‘There’s one more here,’ he shouted, ‘half dead, but with God’s help he’ll make it.’ Frank could see his stole of authority under the flak jacket and saluted automatically. The Archbishop turned to Frank and studied him for a few seconds. Then the penny dropped. ‘My God! It’s Master Feely! Francis Xavier Pacelli Feely.’

‘Yes, Your Grace.’

‘I must say you have an uncanny knack of finding trouble. I hardly recognized you in that state. Is your poor mother among this crowd?’

‘Yes, Your Grace.’

‘God have mercy on her soul. You have no brothers or sisters?’

‘No, Your Grace.’

Schnozzle reached into an inner pocket and produced a large handkerchief, stained with the evidence of repeated and copious use. ‘Wrap that round the boy’s head,’ he ordered his aide de camp. ‘Can’t you see he’s been bleeding like a stuck pig?’

As the tourniquet tightened on his temple, his brain began to clear. He remembered now the horror of the crossroads, the men with the knives and clubs, doggedly passing through the crowd; the screams of one half of them for their services, the screams of the others for mercy. ‘No!’ he wailed. ‘No! No! No!’ He was chanting the word, over and over, trying to fend off the memories that were crowding in on him. ‘It’s not true!’ he started to tell them, denying the evidence that lay all round. ‘Show me it’s not true! It can’t have happened,’ he pleaded with them, softly at first, then louder as the terrible truth of the massacre sank home, then screaming it till it reverberated from the surrounding hills. ‘It’s not true! Tell me it never happened!’ he pleaded, clutching at the unyielding figure by his side. Sister Concepta pushed him roughly away from her. He felt himself fainting, falling again on to the corpse of his mother. In his head he could hear the screaming of the multitude of victims. He saw the face of Chastity. He saw her face, the way he had glimpsed it in the cathedral, under the white veil. But they were leading her to an altar on top of a pyramid of stone where a priest with a butcher’s knife awaited her. Suddenly she was Chastity no more, but it was the face of the Madonna herself, and he started to laugh, for he knew it would be all right; and then in his delirium the features changed again and it was the face of an Aztec virgin, screaming in terror as they led her to her sacrifice before the God of the Sun.

Sister Concepta slapped him hard and he stopped screaming. His mother’s corpse was stiff; he saw them lift it and hurriedly throw it into the common grave. He wanted to go to her one last time, but Concepta held him firmly by the shoulder. ‘Get into the bus, boy,’ she ordered. ‘Don’t stand there. Move!’ A battered charabanc had been drawn up across the road, loud with the wailings of orphans. Their confused, tear-stained faces crowded every window and as the engine revved they began to scream. ‘That’s the lot, Your Grace!’ shouted the Sister with the shovel. ‘We’re sitting ducks here. Could I suggest with respect that we get our skates on!’ Concepta gave a signal to the lookout and she scrambled down from the roof and climbed on top of the coach, automatic rifle at the ready. Schnozzle looked icily at the scene for a moment, then raised his hand in perfunctory blessing over the mass grave. ‘Eternal rest grant unto them O Lord, and may perpetual light shine upon them.’

‘May their souls and the souls of all the faithful departed, through the mercy of God, rest in peace.’

‘Amen,’ he said.

Sister Concepta was reaching the end of her tether. ‘Get in the bus, boy, like I told you to,’ she yelled from across the bridge. But Schnozzle had other plans. He took Frank by the collar and led him across to one of the jeeps. ‘I’ll take care of this lad myself, Sister, if it’s all the same to you,’ he told her. He pulled open the door and pushed Frank inside. They settled themselves on the hard seats and he gave the order to move out. ‘I think we may safely assume that that’s the last we’ll hear from the Donatists,’ he said.

‘Until the next crowd of head-the-balls get some similar idea into their heads,’ Concepta added bitterly.

‘At least their prayers were answered,’ scolded Schnozzle gendy. ‘And perhaps something good has come out of it after all. I don’t blame you not recognizing this young man and the state he’s in. But look closer and you’ll see that under all the grime is Master Francis Feely. Master Frank works in the scullery, under the eye of the major-domo, and has done since the death of his father.’

‘So he’s an orphan now?’

‘I’m afraid so. Alone in the cruel world.’

Concepta gave him a caustic look but said nothing.

‘Maybe not quite alone, however. Master Frank,’ Schnozzle whispered by way of explanation, ‘is one of the children of the Dancing Madonna. One of the privileged few to whom Our Lady has spoken personally, if we are to believe what we’ve been told. It’ll take more than a rabble of Portadown louts to kill Master Frank. That’s why he has been spared the slaughter in which all the others have perished. Our Blessed Lady is saving Master Frank for something greater.’ He took another handkerchief from his pocket, spat on it and wiped the caked blood from Frank’s face. ‘His father was a decent enough man in his way, but he failed in his mission. Somehow I don’t think Master Frank is going to fail us! Are you, Master Frank?’

‘No, sir.’

‘I think the time has come for this lad to move out of the kitchen and on to something better. Mr MacBride has done all he can for him.’

Sister Concepta grunted. ‘What had you in mind?’

‘Something tells me that this poor lad here might have the makings of a great wee priest. He’s got the perfect pedigree for it.’

‘A few real priests are sorely needed at the moment, that’s for sure,’ Concepta muttered with ill-concealed distaste.

‘Never doubt the wisdom of God. He never closes one door but He opens another.’ He settled the travelling rug round his knees and produced his rosary beads. ‘He’ll make a great priest, mark my words. One that will lead the Irish people out of the dark ages and back to the true church. I feel it in my bones. A year or two under the unique services of the good men in Derry, in their bracing northern climate, will make a man of him.’

‘You might be right.’ She sounded doubtful.

‘Of course I’m right,’ he snapped, closing the conversation. ‘I’ve never been wrong yet.’

The outriders hung on grimly as the charabanc swung round in the road, righted itself and the convoy moved off through the lanes. Frank was wedged between Schnozzle and Concepta, unable to move a muscle. A lethargy beyond tiredness, beyond hunger, was stealing over him. The conversation of the Archbishop and his bodyguard seemed to be coming to him from across an echoing chasm. Their words reverberated in his head, fighting for his attention with other noises that he was powerless to control. He could feel the enormity of what had happened welling up inside his brain. He fought the images away, forcing himself to stare at the scenery, to concentrate on the words of the rosary he was chanting automatically.