His voice was in her ear, in her hair.
'It's the army that comes running, or the police. I'm theirs, I belong to them…'
For a long time she held him, fearful for herself, fearful for him. His breathing had slowed and steadied.
'You're a tout?' she said, still not believing it. 'You tout for the Brits?'
'Since way back.' She wondered if, before, he had ever been near to telling her.
She had no more anger, only fear.
'Jesus, Mossie, you get killed for touting.'
Siobhan gave him back the steel box. She put it into his hand and closed his fingers round it. She had seen the helicopter land in the field that evening between her home and the home of Attracta Donnelly. She had seen the soldiers bent low under the flailing rotors, running to the farmhouse. The box was her husband's link to those soldiers. There was a woman in the village, and her son not more than ten years older than her Francis and the boy had been shot dead by the army. And she knew the woman and made small talk with her after Mass or in the queue at the Dungannon supermarket cash desks. There was another woman in the village, Her husband had been killed by his own bomb, detonated by the electronic sweep of the army. She knew the woman, and thought she was lovely and brave, and talked with her at the school gate before Doloures and Patrick came out.
Her arms slid from his neck.
‘’The book’s your give away. You take a risk with the book.'
Mossie said. 'We goes to Belfast four times a year, right? We all go, you and me and the kids; that's known, you tell everyone that’ll listen that we go to Belfast four times a yearfor the big shop, and I get my new brushes… Everyone Knows – And I leaves you, because you and the kids don't want to buy paint brushes, right? I buy the brushes and I get the entries marked up into the book
'You's bloody stupid, Mossie, keeping the book here.’’
'I need it.'
'That's idiot talk, Mossie. Why's the book not in a bank safe, why's it not in Belfast?'
'It's all I have. It's the future. The bleeper box, that's feckin' present.
It's a future that matters. Yours, mine, the little ones'.'
'You carried it all with you, you poor love.'
'I thought you'd hate me, if you knew.'
'God, why?'
'For turning, for being turned.'
She blazed her eyes at him. 'You think I'm a Provo? You think they matter to me? Do you know nothing of me?'
'I didn't think you'd want it told you that your man was a tout.'
'If we're going out tonight, we'd better be changing,' she said.
Through all those days and months and years of marriage, he had lived in fear with his secret. He was still slumped against the door. ..
Just madness, but she could have giggled. For all she had known she might have been living with a child- molester or an adulterer or a rapist.
Could have been worse, her husband was only a traitor against his community. She giggled because she remembered the story of Ann Flaherty, gone with Maeve who was her friend, to see her boy sent down for eight years at the court in Belfast for possession of explosives and kidnapping. Eight years, and not past his nineteenth birthday, and Ann Flaherty coming out of the courthouse and dabbing her eyes, and her friend Maeve who had travelled up on the bus from Dungannon with her had said, 'Don't be upsetting yourself, dear, could have been worse, could have got eighteen months for thieving…' The whole of Altmore knew what Ann Flaherty had been told by her friend Maeve.
She should have cried, and her eyes were dry.
His mother minded the kids.
They sat in the shadow of the bar, sheltered from the music and the laughter. He wore his suit, and Siobhan wore her best frock. She shared her Mossie’s secret. Sometimes, during the long evening, she put her hand and gently touched his rough hands.
He drank pints of Guinness, fast. She toyed with gins and bitter lemon, slowly.
Men sidled through the noise of the band, came to bend close to her Mossie's ear, ignored her and whispered to him, and moved away.
The secret was now hers, and the weight of it pinioned her. If it were known then Siobhan would be without a husband and Francis and Doloures and Patrick and Mary would be without a father.
The drink going faster and the music louder and the laughter talk fiercer. It was where they were born and where they belonged.
Her secret was that her Mossie was a traitor.
She leaned forward. Her lips were against his ear. The noise was a wall around them.
'We don't need their money.'
'They'll never let me go.'
'Tell them you want out.'
'You tell the bitch.'
'Is it just a woman who has you on the end of her string?'
'I tried once…'
'What happened?'
'It's not the place to talk… What happened? The bitch, she doesn't let go…'
The band played. It was the 'Mountains of Pomeroy', it was the song of Altmore mountain. It was the celebration of a highwayman from far back, who had no teeth. Shane Bearnagh Donnelly's song… She tugged his hand and pulled him to his feet and took him to the floor that was clear of tables for dancing.
'Fear not, fear not, sweetheart,' he cried,
Fear not the foe for me,
No chain shall fall, whate'er betide,
On the arm that would be free!
Oh, leave your cruel kin and come
When the lark is in the sky;
And it's with my gun I'll guard you,
On the Mountains of Pomeroy
She sang as she danced. She sang so that he would hear her voice.
'An outlawed man in a land forlorn, He scorned to turn and fly, But kept the cause of freedom safe Up on the mountain high.'
She had dragged it from him. She must live with his secret. In her arms she felt his fear and his weakness. The secret pounded in the mind of Siobhan Nugent. She thought that she knew every man and woman and youth and girl in the bar. She had been brought up with them, she had lived with them for every year of her life excepting the six that she had spent with Mossie across the water. She knew the tightness of the society that was her home. And her Mossie was a tout…
It was not anything that he said, but it was the look of the man. It was in the middle of the Sunday afternoon, and they were alone in an underground carriage on the Circle line. It was where they could talk and know that they were not overheard, and where they had the best chance of seeing if there was a tail on either of them. The courier didn't think that the big man had slept, not for two nights at least, He was haggard and unshaven and bowed at the shoulder, It was the first time that the Limerick boy had been in England. He was shocked from the time that he had first seen the big man shambling down the platform towards him. He had travelled by train through the night from the ferry.
His only fear, before, had been when he had to pass the Special Branch officers at Hollyhead. And he had walked straight past them and gone to the waiting train. It was the appearance of the man that unnerved the courier. It was like the man was hunted, like the pressure had weighed on him. He had not, of course, been told the man's name, only where he should meet him.
When the courier had arrived at Euston mainline railway Station, he had telephoned to Dublin from a pay phone. He had been told what else he should tell the man when he met him He put off as long as possible what lie
