From: The Dangerous Edge of Things

Perry Street, Dungannon, County Tyrone

From: The Dangerous Edge of Things

 

Our interest’s on the dangerous edge of things.

The honest thief, the tender murderer,

The superstitious atheist.

Robert Browning: Bishop Blougram’s Apology

 

 

It was nearly twelve o’clock. Uncle Joe wouldn’t be back the night. No Andy Bap either. All good then. He had his hands in the soapy water of the kitchen sink when the window in front of him shook once, faintly. It would be a bomb somewhere in the town. It didn’t sound large. He had to get up in the morning. He washed another plate and put it on the rack. He wiped down the sink and turned off the light and went up the stairs.

He was walking up and down the landing in the dark brushing his teeth, looking down at his ivory feet on the lino. When he went past the landing window there was a shimmering glow on the glass. The sky outside wasn’t grey and black. It was a vivid wavering red. He went into his bedroom and opened the window and leant out over the street. The red sky had dark clouds rippling through it. There was a crackle sound in the air. As he looked up a piece of grey ash drifted down towards him.

‘Hello you, there,’ a voice called up to him.

Standing under the lamppost across the street, lighting a cigarette, was his Uncle Billy.

Tommy threw his toothbrush into the bathroom, went downstairs, put on his shoes and coat, and went out the door. His Uncle Billy was a few steps up the street. He turned at the sound of the door being locked.

‘I thought you might be up and about,’ said Uncle Billy. ‘That could have been why I was lighting that fag there.’

‘I haven’t seen you for ages,’ said Tommy.

‘The same thought I had myself,’ said Uncle Billy. ‘Is all all right?’

‘As good as it could be,’ said Tommy. ‘What’s the red stuff in the sky about? What’s on fire now?’

‘It’s like it’s up in the Square,’ said Uncle Billy. ‘We could go on up and see. Have a juke.’ They turned and walked on. ‘It’s great to take a wander again,’ he said. ‘You and me knocking about, like in the olden days.’

‘It is,’ said Tommy. ‘It is. Old days.’

They kept on going up Park Road and Church Street, the sky overhead spectacular, living, dotted with sparks, scented with burning wood and the destruction of something. A building. The rushing, crackling sound grew. They turned the corner into the Square.

‘God. It’s the picture house,’ said Uncle Billy. He went further up the street. Tommy, his lips parted, followed him. ‘That’s shocking,’ said Uncle Billy.

In the Square thirty or forty people of all ages and both religions stood together watching the Castle Cinema burn down. A fire engine was opposite The Wine Shop. Firemen in wide yellow trousers, big helmets, moving like boys dressed as full-sized men, pumped water in from a distance. Two policemen stood out in the street. An Army patrol sheltered here and there in shop doorways. An ambulance was pulling away. There was no siren on.

‘What do you say, Tam?’ said Uncle Billy. Tommy, his eyes wide, licked his lips, and said nothing. He was listening to the talk around him. A man and woman had been injured as they passed the doors of the cinema. There were no names.

Somebody said, ‘I hear there was a wee bang.’

‘Aye, you never know,’ said somebody else quickly. ‘Whatever it is.’

The roof of the cinema was still on and the walls standing, but the flames were shooting up higher than the walls. Black smoke poured out of the shattered front double doors and straight away took a sharp turn towards the sky.

‘See there?’ said Uncle Billy. He was pointing. ‘The emergency exit’s open.’ Down the alley at the side more black smoke poured out. ‘It’s an emergency all right.’

The small men-figures were spreading more hoses across the Square below the war memorial.

‘I remember seeing Darby O’Gill and the Little People there,’ said Uncle Billy. He was looking up at the flame and smoke and sparks in the sky. ‘The banshee riding in the night sky.’

‘Did it look a bit like that?’ said Tommy.

‘It did. Right like that.’

‘I used to like all them oul Westerns,’ said somebody behind him. ‘They were great, so they were.’

‘I haven’t been for years now,’ said somebody else.

Another voice said, ‘Maybe that black smoke’s coming from oul classics like Buster Keatons and Laurel and Hardys. All them men.’ It was a younger voice than the first.

Tommy stood picturing ancient celluloid flaring up into light for the last time. When he turned round to see who had spoken there was a face covered thick in freckles, somebody a couple of years older than himself. He had seen him before, talking to Damien the Castle Cinema projectionist. The man with the face of freckles had a big grin on. He didn’t seem that troubled that his friend hadn’t a job any more.

‘It might only be George Formbys. Or Norman Wisdoms,’ said Tommy. ‘It wouldn’t matter that much then.’ The face of freckles looked straight back at Tommy and the smile went away and the mouth said nothing. They examined each other. Tommy turned away again.

‘Is that right?’ said the young freckled man, loudly, closely, into the back of Tommy’s head.

‘Come over here for a better look,’ said Uncle Billy. He took Tommy’s elbow, steered him half a dozen steps away to the side. ‘I think that black smoke’s the same you always get at these things,’ said Uncle Billy. ‘This stuff’s the oul carpet and seats and wooden floors and walls thick with nicotine and paint burning. Forty years of cigarette butts down the back of the chairs. I don’t think it’s the gems of Hollywood lost for ever.’ He searched his jacket pockets again for cigarettes, took out his packet of Silk Cut and held it still. ‘That boy with the freckles is worth a watching,’ said Uncle Billy. He lit a cigarette. ‘But there’s no harm in Damien the brother.’

Across the road the roof collapsed and there was a roar of timber falling and the rush of hot air escaping and firemen scuttling back. There were cheers and jeers from the crowd. The firemen came back to pump water over what was left. The flames roared higher than ever.

‘This’ll be a bitter night for being out and about at this hour,’ said somebody. ‘Once we’re away from this good fire.’ There was a laugh.

‘It’s a night for lying sleeping and scratching yourself,’ said somebody else. ‘I’m going home there now. All over bar the shouting.’

‘Who do you think it was, Uncle Billy?’ said Tommy.

‘Aw, it could just have been an accident,’ said Uncle Billy.

‘It could have been anybody,’ said Tommy. ‘The Protestants could have done it because of who owns it. Or it might have been the IRA to make the government pay the compensation. Or maybe it was for the insurance. There’s less people going in there all the time. The television.’

‘Sure it was just a gas cylinder exploding or something,’ said Uncle Billy. ‘Nothing. We’ll go away on home to our beds ourselves.’ He took Tommy’s arm again and steered him another half dozen steps away from the crowd, back down the Square towards Church Street. ‘I can hear the lorry and the Cappagh bins calling me already.’ He bent over. ‘You don’t want to be doing that sort of thinking out loud here,’ he said.

Somewhere down Church Street he spoke again. ‘There is one thing we can be sure about after tonight,’ he said. ‘It’s that now it’s the telly vision or nothing.’

‘And that it’s not going to trouble Uncle Joe much,’ said Tommy.

Uncle Billy looked at him for a while. He nodded. ‘Right,’ he said.

 

He heard Uncle Joe come in sometime towards morning. There was the sound of staggering, of shuffling feet, and he waited for the sounds of Andy Bap. But Uncle Joe was alone. Tommy turned over and lay there. He closed his eyes.

Inside his head he saw a raven. A shadow on the bedroom floor. There was a tapping…

He opened his eyes again. Uncle Joe, and Andy Bap, and the Castle Cinema. He lay going over and over his thoughts. He didn’t sleep any more.

He got up early, and when he came down Uncle Joe was at the kitchen table. His face was flushed and the eyes and cheeks had matching red threads of veins. There was a smell in the room like a sick dog’s breath. Uncle Joe was drinking coffee.

Tommy didn’t know what to say to him. There was still no sign of Andy Bap.

‘I drank too much last night,’ said Uncle Joe. Tommy moved back to the doorway. ‘I started at half six and sat here all evening just keeping going on the Bush.’ Tommy said nothing. ‘Then I went to bed about eleven. I watched television before that, but I can’t remember what was on.’ Tommy was silent. ‘WHAT THE FUCK WAS ON?’

‘Kung Fu,’ said Tommy. Suddenly he was in tears.

‘Grow up, you cry baby,’ said Uncle Joe. ‘I just shouted.’

Tommy face was pale. He put a hand to his mouth.

‘What are you crying for?’ said Uncle Joe. ‘You know nothing about anything.’

Tommy walked out of the kitchen and back up the stairs.

‘You’re all right, I tell you,’ called Uncle Joe after him. Tommy closed his room door and sat on the edge of his bed. There was another call. ‘Make me some breakfast. Make me some fried eggs. Or something.’

Twenty minutes later Tommy came down the stairs again.

‘I need my breakfast,’ called Uncle Joe as Tommy came near the kitchen door. ‘There’s work to be done.’

Tommy went on past the kitchen and out of the front door.

 

On his way home from Dawson’s in the black wet evening he crossed John Street to the bottom of Lower Scotch Street as he always did. Across the road in the closed doorway of Duggan’s the bookies was Uncle Billy in the big boots and donkey jacket, standing in out of the rain. He waved Tommy over.

‘I was watching out there for you,’ he said. ‘Wasn’t that crack the other night?’

Tommy stood there. He had nothing he could say. He watched the drips of rain fall from the bottom of Uncle Billy’s donkey jacket.

‘The water’s running out of you,’ he said eventually. ‘You never have a cap.’

‘Aye. Well,’ said Uncle Billy. He didn’t seem to have anything to say himself now.

‘Out in all weathers and you never have a cap,’ said Tommy again.

‘Plenty of thatch,’ said Uncle Billy. ‘You’ve no cap yourself.’

When Tommy looked up Uncle Billy was watching him closely, the bushy straw eyebrows meeting, his lips tight. ‘You’re not asking as many questions the day,’ he said.

‘No,’ said Tommy. ‘No.’

‘I see,’ said Uncle Billy. He ran his hand over the front of his long wet hair, moving the fringe around. ‘You know the way of it then.’

After a while he said, ‘Did you hear about the couple took away in the ambulance?’ They both watched a car approach. It keep going, slowly, a swish of water under its tyres. ‘They were coming down from cleaning solicitors offices on up the Square,’ said Uncle Billy. ‘The O’Reillys from Lisnahull. The pair of them.’

Tommy cleared his throat. ‘There’s both of them dead,’ he said. ‘I heard that. I heard that at work.’ He was making an effort. ‘Maybe they came over to see what was on in the pictures,’ he said.

‘I suppose they did,’ said Uncle Billy. ‘More than likely.’

‘That’s all it takes,’ said Tommy.

‘All it takes,’ said Uncle Billy.

‘What’s to be done, Uncle Billy?’ said Tommy.

‘It’s the way things are,’ said Uncle Billy. ‘But I wanted to say…’ He stopped. ‘Listen. You know there’ll be a payback, don’t you?’ Tommy was looking at Uncle Billy’s lips moving. ‘One of them tit for tats.’ Tommy was hearing every word Uncle Billy was saying, and at the same time he was somewhere far away. ‘Some Protestant getting out of the car at his house’ll get it. Somebody walking to work, maybe. Somebody opening the door to a rap. People who likely enough had nothing to do with this. You have to be careful.’

‘I always am,’ said Tommy. The rest of his mind was still elsewhere. All these things he knew already. Everybody knew already.

‘But more than usual,’ said Uncle Billy. ‘Do you hear me? Joe and his friends’ll be canny enough. They’ll be staying out of The Purple Heather and The Bucking Bronco for a while.’

‘I’ll be fine,’ said Tommy. ‘It’s you up round Cappagh, emptying the bins.’

‘I’ll be rightly. They know me up there…’

‘That’s worse,’ said Tommy. ‘You have to watch yourself. Take a day or two off.’

‘Naw, naw. It’s you going across to Dawson’s,’ said Uncle Billy. ‘Walking to and from every day. Near the Donaghmore Road.’

They stood on there for a while side by side in the bookies doorway, looking out at the empty street, the wet auras of streetlamps, the rain, each thinking about the other one.