She directed him through Dungannon. They crawled in the traffic jam up Irish Street and turned at the big school building, and again at the second church.
Small town anywhere. Crowded pavements loaded. Bright shop lights.
People bent with their shopping bags,
She told him where to turn.
Nothing ordinary about the army fortress.
Tall iron sheeting as far as he could see, and high above the iron screens were the watchtowers. The sentries had the car number and Cathy flashed a card. The spiked chain across the road into the barracks was dragged back and they were waved through.
There was a sudden tiredness on her face.
She told him where to park. She led him to the open sand weapons pit, cleared her weapon, waited for him to do the same.
The colonel wrapped his big arms round Cathy and kissed her forehead as if she were his favoured cousin. The adjutant had brought the tea and his eyes had lingered on Cathy, as if she was God, and had left reluctantly. Bren was introduced, perfunctorily, the decent thing and nothing more, and gestured to sit down by the wall furthest from the electric fire.
'You poor old love, how are you?'
Cathy was flopped in an armchair, legs spread, knees wide. 'Tell you what, that bloody mountain is arse- bendingly cold at night.'
'Hoped you'd call by…'
'Been showing my new man the countryside.'
'And the other fellow…?'
'Gone home. The player who was head-jobbed was his. Asking for trouble if he'd stayed. Looking very pretty up there this afternoon
…'
Bren thought she was fighting to keep her eyes open. The colonel sat on the carpet in front of the fire and refilled Cathy's mug and stirred in the sugar.
'How's your mother?'
'Haven't heard, not in the last couple of weeks. She's not riding any more. I suppose she's petrified.'
'Yes, well… Your father managing?'
'It's getting him down. I've told him to put in a manager. He’d get a top man there. But he won't hear of it. You know the trouble, I know it. He still thinks that one day I'm going to jack this lot in and take over.'
'One day,'
'Never the right day, is it? Can you imagine walking away from here?'
'Not ever out of my mind. I dream of dear old Scotland. No newspapers, lousy television reception, walking and fishing and stalking. You should come up in August.'
Cathy smiled sadly, 'I'd love to.'
'How are they when you go home?'
'They look at me, big spaniel eyes, pleading. You know Rupert, 'course you do, Rupert did the damage. After his prostate last year he went down there to rest up, and spilled the beans. Stupid prat, told them what I did. Still…'
'You could do worse.'
Cathy snorted. 'Certainly, be a regular at the Bath and West, trot all round the west country with the Charolais bull trying like buggery to win Best of Breed again? It would kill me… You can chase your grouse round Cromarty and do the John MacNab tiling. I could do that for about, well, once, and then I'm bored rigid…'
'Their loss, our gain.'
'For Christ's sake, don't go soft.'
'OK, OK… when are you back down?'
'He using the hide…' She jerked a thumb behind her. 'get the new boy familiarised. Meet the player and so on.'
The colonel pushed himself to his feet.
'We’re doing the Donnelly place tonight…'
Her eyes glinted, she seemed to throw off the relaxation 'Oh? Why?'
Orders from on high.'
She’s done nothing, Attracta.'
'Orders.'
'Why dosn’t anyone at Curzon Street ever ask me why we are loathed in this goddamn corner. God, I could tell them. She just happens to be married to the man.'
‘’And away a long time. So it's harassing women and kids that I’m now paid for .’’There are some right pillocks we have to work for, jonny,,’’
The colonel said, 'I had him in here once. A patrol had lifted him on Charlie One. He was here for an hour before the Branch came to run him down to Gough. I rather liked him. It was his attitude that tickled me. I mean, he despised me, he probably had a little plan for me, he'd have been very happy to see me blown away, yet… He seemed to regard himself as my equal. Two officers, two armies. As if. .. well, if we'd met in a bar somewhere a thousand miles away, we'd have had a good chat, beefed over our mutual tactics, broken a bottle open. What I thought at the time, he'd have made a very good company sergeant major in a good regiment. He wasn't frightened of me, and I don't mind saying it, I'm glad he's someone else's headache.'
'Great mug of tea. Thanks. Come along, Brennard, I need to be driven home to kip.'
She walked to the door. Bren followed. For a short moment the colonel's arm was round her shoulder, ushering her to the door.
Outside the door, she turned back to him. It was the great winning smile.
'You know what they say about you?'
'Who? Curzon Street?'
'No. The kids up on Altmore. We picked it up on one of the bugs.
They say, 'What's the last thing that'll go through Colonel Johnny’s mind?' It's their crack.'
'What's the last thing that'll go through my mind?'
' They say it’s an A.K. bullet. Bye, sunshine.'
'Cow.'
Thought you'd get it.'
She didn’t look back. There was just her muffled laugh into the anorak collar that she held tight across her face. The colonel, Jonny, caught Bren’s jacket as he made to follow her.
‘’Look after that lady. Don’t ever think of taking a liberty with her safety. If anything you did, or didn't do, endangered her, then I'll break your back,'
The officer commanding East Tyrone brigade knew, so did his intelligence officer. But by that Saturday afternoon, the word of danger had shimmered down the mountain and through the bungalows and farmsteads and Housing Executive homes. Word too travelled fast, whispered mouth to straining ear, of new risks to the men who had sworn the oath, Every man and woman on Altmore would have been able to recite the Constitution of Oglaigh na hEireann, would have known General Order 5, Part 5… 'No Volunteer should succumb to approaches or overtures, blackmail or bribery attempts… Volunteers found guilty of treason face the death penalty.'
There were few amongst the bungalows and farmsteads and Housing Executive homes who could have denied involvement, strong or tenuous, with the Organisation. There were sons, nephews, cousins, the children of neighbours, who were dead or imprisoned or 'away' or active. It was the life of the mountain, in the twenty-second year of the present war, that no man and no woman knew whom they could trust.
Fear ruled. See nothing, hear nothing, know nothing, was the order of survival. The men took comfort in the village bars, their women more often sought the help of Valium and librium. But drink and sedatives gave only noisy or drugged solace. Willing or dragged screaming, the community was involved. There was a family on Altmore. .. the son shot dead by the covert Special Forces, father interned in the fifties, grandfather active in the twenties and thirties, great-grandfather shooting until the barrel of his rifle was red-hot in Dublin in 1916, great-great-grandfather a part of the closed group seeking Home Rule a full century before the young man was buried under the grey cloud
