The Ghosts of Belfast (The Twelve)

McKenna, his right hand ready.

McKenna took a step back and jabbed at him with a grubby finger. “Just you watch yourself, right?” He turned and ran in the opposite direction.

The next day, McKenna stopped Fegan in the playground and demanded to see his hand. Fegan showed him the purple and brown blood-blossoms on his palm.

“Fuck me,” McKenna said. “Is it sore?”

“What do you think?” Fegan said.

“Looks it. Do you want to meet up later?”

“What for?” Fegan asked.

Lines appeared on McKenna’s forehead as he shuffled his feet. “Just, you know, for a laugh and stuff.”

Fegan thought about it for a few seconds. He didn’t do that kind of thing. No harm in trying, though. “All right,” he said.

He made many friends that summer. His mother didn’t approve. She reminded Fegan that Michael McKenna’s older brother was doing time in Long Kesh for having a gun. Fegan didn’t care. It felt good to have friends.

Most of those friends were now in McKenna’s mother’s house, swapping stories of the old days, and Fegan dreaded listening to them. He stepped back from the coffin and crossed himself once more.

The quiet in the room faded to utter silence. Fegan became aware of his own breathing and a presence behind him. He turned and saw a woman, ash-blonde and pale, tall and willowy, in the doorway. She was dressed simply and elegantly in a black trouser suit and white blouse. Fegan stepped aside as she approached.

She extended her hand to the coffin, stopping when her fingertips were within millimeters of its glossy sheen. Her grey-blue eyes fixed on something Fegan couldn’t see, something far away. A small ache entered his heart as he wondered if she would weep at some memory of the man inside the box. She inhaled as she came back to herself. She blinked once and mouthed four words. Fegan’s ache turned to something darker when he traced the shapes her lips made.

You had it coming.

As she turned from the coffin, her eyes caught his and she froze, locked in Fegan’s knowledge of her words.

You’re right, he wanted to say. He got what he deserved. Instead, he gave her the smallest of nods.

Her cheeks flushed and she headed for the door. One of McKenna’s three sisters stood by it, watching the blonde woman. When Fegan saw the hate in Bernie McKenna’s eyes he knew who the woman was.

Marie McKenna, daughter of Patrick and Bridget McKenna, niece of the late Michael McKenna. Seven years ago, at around the same time Fegan was first getting to know his followers, Marie McKenna had scandalised her family by taking up with an officer of the hated Royal Ulster Constabulary. Even worse, he was a Catholic cop at a time when joining the police was still an act of treachery. She was already in poor favor amongst many Republicans as she wrote for one of the Unionist rags, the Telegraph or the Newsletter, Fegan couldn’t remember which. A romance with a peeler cut her off from all but her mother.

Gossip, shunning, even death threats against each of the couple were not enough to separate them. But pregnancy was. When Marie’s belly began to swell two years into their relationship, the cop made his excuses and left. For the sake of Bridget McKenna, Marie was begrudgingly allowed back into the family. Had she accepted an offer, made in kindness, to sort out the absent father, then perhaps the community would have opened its arms a little wider to her. As it stood, she was a pariah.

Fegan could see the loneliness, the isolation, on her skin, just as he felt it on his own. The ache in his heart returned, heavier than before.

Marie kept her eyes focused down and forward as she left the room. Her aunt scowled as she passed, and Fegan heard the word “Bitch!” hissed after her. Heads turned to follow her progress through the bodies packed on the landing, and whispers cut the thick warm air.

Fegan felt an inexplicable, irresistible urge to go after her. He fought it for a moment, but its strength dragged him to the door and out onto the landing, cutting the same path through the gathered people as she did. He was a tall man, but still he struggled to see over the mourners. There, between two shaved heads, he caught a glimpse of blonde hair, turning at the top of the stairs. He made it to the banister and watched Marie struggle down the steps for a second before he resumed his attempt to follow her. By the time Fegan reached the top step, she was at the bottom. He began picking his way down, watching her as she embraced McKenna’s mother, then seeing the mother’s mouth curl as Marie headed for the door.

He lost her in the sunlight as he neared the bottom, and was making for the street when a hand caught his upper arm. Startled, Fegan turned, his weight on both feet, ready to fight. A bolt of bright pain flashed in his temple.

“Jesus, Gerry,” laughed Vincie Caffola. “I thought you were going to split me then.”

Eleven shadows moved between the mourners, taking shape, dissolving again. Two came alongside Caffola, the vague forms of their arms lifted to aim at his head. Turn away and be quiet, Fegan thought.

He focused on the bald-headed thug’s eyes. “What do you want?”

Caffola smiled and put a hand on his shoulder. “Me and some of the boys are going to the pub after. You fancy it?”

The two UDR men made guns with their fingers. Fegan tried hard not to see them.

“All right,” he said. “Look, I’ll see you later. It’s too crowded here for me.”

“You should hang around a bit,” Caffola said. “McGinty’s coming over soon. He was saying he hadn’t seen you in ages.”