CONTENTS

PART ONE

LOVE

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

PART TWO

WAR

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

Chapter 36

Chapter 37

Chapter 38

Chapter 39

The tygers of wrath are wiser than the horses of instruction

—William Blake

To

Fiona, Siobhan & Sinead

PART ONE

LOVE

CHAPTER 1

I am back on the island.

I have served my time at Her Majesty’s pleasure. My only crime was to stick my neck out and strike a single minor, token blow for revolution. However, the authorities didn’t see it that way; I was branded a terrorist and put away for a long time. I had got caught up in the student political circles of the day; we were young and intelligent and sought a more humane and just society, that was all. We weren’t asking an awful lot really.

However, this is not a political or prison memoir. I offer you nothing more or less on these pages than my very own story, the life of Rupert Carr. In its own way it is, of course, inseparable from the history of my country. None of us is that unique; we are swept up in the events of the times in which we live.

I have ever been a thinker, a philosopher and a dreamer of fictional worlds; a revolutionary after my own fashion, but never naturally a man of social action. I was never intended for public life, I simply do not have it in me.

When I was young I considered the religious life, that I might follow in my maternal grandfather’s footsteps and be a clergyman. I remain a believer, at least to some extent and after my own fashion. But again, I knew in the end that I didn’t have what it takes for a churchman either—that is, much the same sort of practical social motivation as the revolutionary. I wondered whether in truth I lacked the love of humanity necessary to do those things well, to be either a politician or a parson. Perhaps it was that self-doubt got me into trouble in the end—I was trying to prove something, to be somebody I was not.

I always loved the world of books. I studied literature; that was good but I needed the real thing: to be a writer myself. From the age of five or six, as soon as I had learnt to read and write, I was scribbling away at my fictions in Woolworth’s school jotters.

What are you doing there, wee son? my mother enquired; I had gone very quiet.

Writing my wee stories! I replied happily.

The pen, or more literally, pencil and paper, had taken over from playing with my wee soldiers as a favourite pastime. Toy soldiers or words, it was the same idea: creating a story, inventing characters and manipulating their fate, presiding godlike over human destiny. It was utterly absorbing; time and anxiety disappeared as I was drawn into a world of imagination.

I took my inspiration from my reading: an old illustrated Kidnapped; the weekly boys’ comics with their fresh pulpy smell and long columns of print—Rover, Wizard, Hotspur and Adventure; and the Rupert Bear and Black Bob Christmas annuals.

For a few years, twixt the ages of seven and ten, I spent a lot of time in bed with the succession of childhood illnesses, measles, mumps, chicken pox and the rest. At the convalescent stage I sat up in bed and wrote and illustrated stories in my jotter. A small open fire was lit in the bedroom; the rosy, self-contained feeling in the room was heavenly. I looked up between sentences and was mesmerised by the passage of the clouds framed in the window. I imagined I could see God’s watchful long, white-bearded profile in the drifting, mountainous cumulus. For the small boy that was me, the act of writing on the page was intertwined with those ecstatic hours of convalescence; it was a spiritual experience.

The writing and the mysticism around it had stayed with me through life, coming and going depending on other commitments. In prison I had taken the opportunity permitted me to gain a higher degree in literature. That had really focused my intentions and built my mental stamina and I had gone on under my own steam to produce a handwritten, six-hundred A4 pages’ draft of an autobiographical novel. It was nothing less than my own experience, the life flowing through me, that inspired my writing, but it took the emotional intelligence of the novel form to convey it authentically.

And here I was, following my lengthy prison sentence, admitted back into society, back on the island again, typing and editing my novel. What a time it had taken me to get to this, the pure joy of the one and only occupation I had ever cared about.

CHAPTER 2

As I write here on the island now, it is autumn with its melancholic golden blend of beauty and sadness, like the slow dying of a poet. There is a freshness in the air, misty sunshine alternates with rainy days; the island hedges and trees change colour and are stripped of their foliage in the increasing squalls. The sea washing around our island coast looks and sounds ever more remote, cold and inhospitable.

A turf fire burns here in the cottage; the flames dance in the corner of my eye as I write at the table under the window framing a landscape of patchwork fields and the sea beyond. The old clock on the wall beats away stolidly the slow passage of time on the island. My wife goes quietly about her chores; I am never too absorbed in my writing to look up and admire the graceful sway of her hips and the elegance of movement she brings to the humblest of chores. As she brushes past me, I reach out my arm about her waist and hug her to me, resting my cheek on the curve of her hip, then pressing my face into the distension of her belly where our child is growing. And always she has time for me, to run her fingers through my hair and chirrup, Hello, you!

After elementary school here on the island, at sixteen, I was obliged to go and stay with my aunt on the mainland, in distant County Tyrone, to attend the grammar school there and prepare for entrance to university. I had scarcely been off the island since we came to live here when I was nine, only for shopping and the cinema in the quiet little town tucked in the crescent of bay across the Sound, or trips to the popular holiday resort a little way along the coast.

Afterwards I was always glad to get back on the island ferry, bumping out over the waves and watching the town diminish behind us. The mainland scared me now; it was where the big wide world began, which I’d gathered wasn’t a nice place. I was never truly relaxed till I had put the five miles of sea between the mainland and me and was setting foot on the island again.

The dappled light of the harbour water shone in the deep windows of the long, low Georgian manor house on the quayside. Home for two hundred years to the Greengage family, the island’s landlords, the manor welcomed you with its fixed, reassuring air of old world benevolent patronage. A little way west along the bay the small white church of St Comgall, where my grandfather had been curate, stood so close to the sea that the flung spray wet its walls.

Up the steep wooded brae behind the church was the island school I had attended from the age of five. All the island children were in there together, regardless of social class, gender or religious denomination. The master, Wallop Barker, kept order there with liberal use of the cane, and there were after-school grinds to help the brainy ones through the state examinations.

Grandfather, the Reverend John Barton, was long gone but our family still occupied the parsonage. From the harbour you cut a diagonal path inland, about a quarter-mile, to where the parsonage stood set apart, a single-storey, solid and substantial structure with whitewashed walls.

You passed through the door in the high garden wall, shut it behind you on the island road, the scattered houses around the bay, and you had entered a private, privileged sort of little paradise. I was the only male in that household and was adored, so I always felt, by the three women I lived with: Granny Molly the clergy widow, my mother Maria, and Amelia, a dear little sister, two years my junior.

Amelia and I had always been close, sharing our reading, like the Christmas annuals, her Mandy and Judy providing me with fascinating insights to the world of girl; our Billy and Bessie Bunter books, Just William and Violet Elizabeth; Enid Blyton’s Adventure series, and then all the wonderful children’s classics like The Coral Island, Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn, The Three Musketeers, Little Women, and more recently Wuthering Heights—oh, how we adored Emily Bronte’s book! I was Heathcliff and Amelia was Cathy; we imitated their undying love for each other, a pure thing of the soul, we imagined it. Brother and sister, we vowed to live together always, like William and Dorothy Wordsworth. We’d stay right there on the island together forever.

Then that summer when I had finished the island school there came the hot sunny day of the holidays we walked up to Doon Mor with our school friends, another older brother and younger sister, Robin and Colette Woodburn. We took a simple picnic, margarine and sugar sandwiches in a waxed Ormo bread-wrapper, and a large bottle of Kinahan’s red lemonade we picked up from the wee shop along the way.

Up on the high road the only sound besides our footfalls and chatter was the twitter of birds along the summer hedgerow; motorised vehicles were few and far between on the island. Little fields ran back to the clifftops. A small lake cupped the blue sky. We passed the shell of an abandoned cottage, one of so many marring the island with their unhappy tale of forced emigration. In a dip we crossed the wooden bridge over a down-rushing burn alongside a working farm.

Gaining higher ground, looking across the open fields to the north side, we had sight of our destination, the brooding hill of Doon Mor, The Great Fort, raised against the clear summer sky. We cut across the wide, flat field where the famous battle had been fought long ago; something of its chaotic psychic energy still present in the ground seemed to get into our blood and we ran at the grass rampart of the fort, whooping like warriors, and scrambled up on to the top.

The cake-shaped hill was some seventy feet high and two hundred and fifty feet in diameter. There were traces of perimeter walls and a long building inside them from the days when a palace built of the white island stone had surmounted the hill. Bogland guarded the fort on three sides. The murmuring of the sea below the north cliffs echoed up the glen.

On this fine day, across the calm summer Waters of Moyle, Sruth na Maol, to the north, the conical peaks of the Paps of Jura floated in the misty blue swim of sea and air. To our south, across the Sound, the cliffs and mountains of Antrim and Donegal stretched in a great arc. Beneath our feet the boomerang curve of the island raised its back from the sea like a green monster.

The shallow saucer of the hilltop with its wind-flattened, springy tussocks offered itself for our picnic in the sun. We spread the plaid blanket on the ground and plumped down in our close, familiar little group.

Who’s for a sugar sandwich and a slug of lemonade? Amelia called out, emptying the picnic basket.

Me, Ah’m starvin’! says I.

Och, it’s beauti-ful up here! Colette exclaimed. Just imagine living here when it was a proper royal palace ruling over the separate kingdom of our wee island! Them was the days!

Aye, three thousand years ago this fort was constructed: one thousand BC! I boasted. "Built by the Tuatha de Danaan—the Peoples of the Earth Goddess Danu."

I let the high-flown words roll off my tongue like the poetry they were, just to watch Colette’s eyes widen with wee-girl wonderment. I loved her ingenuous way, her complete openness to the world of imagination and romance.

A ‘lofty white palace’ they say it was then, visible for miles across the sea, I went on, laying it thick. Home to King Donn, descendant of the Great Dagda, and his daughter, the Princess Taisie!

"Taisie was said to be the most beautiful woman in the world, no less, Amelia joined in, her face shining with the glory of it. Long curling tresses, clear blue eyes and this melodious voice. A foreign king was after Taisie’s hand in marriage; he was Nabghodon of Hiruadh—what a name, probably a version of Nebuchadnezzar, King of Babylon. Ould Nabghodon was a heartbroken widower, desperate for a wife to cheer him up. He’d had reports of Taisie’s great beauty, and when ould King Donn wouldn’t grant him his daughter’s hand in marriage, Nab and his fleet sailed here to take the island and Taisie by force. But Taisie was betrothed to Conghal, son of the king of Ireland, and he was waiting to defend her in the great battle that was fought there on the field below."

She musta been gorgeous with them fellas fightin’ to the death over her! said Colette.

"Hi, Amelia, I reckon you could be the descendant of Princess Taisie!" Robin blurted out in a moment of unguarded romantic inspiration.

His soppy grin faded as we all turned our heads to stare at him and he blushed to the roots of his corn-coloured hair. The secret was out, we all knew now: Robin fancies Amelia, so he does!

Amelia flashed him a look of her clear blue eyes like Taisie’s and gave a wee flick and toss of her luxuriant strawberry-blonde hair back from her face, a gesture emphasising the fresh beauty of a young girl in transition to womanhood.

Robin was sixteen, the same age as me, six foot two, lean and long-legged in drainpipe sky-blue jeans and size 12 winkle-picker shoes. He was James Dean cowboy-handsome with small regular features and the crewcut fair hair.

His sister Colette was fourteen, the same age as Amelia. Colette was a very pretty, well-developed (as they put it) blonde, with a life-loving, ready, indulgent wee smile she turned on you, a kind girl and always up for the craic.

We sat round munching, crunching on the sugar sandwiches,Mmm, de-lish! and passing round the red sugary fizz in the long bottle, gulping it down in guzzling thirsty gobbling slugs.

I thought how nice and good it felt being in the company of girls. This was a new sensation. Robin and I were emerging from the last stage of boyhood, when we had been happy to go off on our boys’ own to wrestle each other in an empty meadow, or strip off and swim in one of the freezing dark freshwater loughs in the folds of the hills, while the two girls, our sisters, stayed in the house together trying on each other’s clothes and parading in front of the mirror, or took wee Davy, the publican’s cute toddler out in his pushchair over the island roads.

It was more fun now with boys and girls together, even little things like sharing the lemonade, pressing your lips to the mouth of the same gassy bottle. There were intimations of a new warmth and promise.

Robin and I lounged back on our elbows, our legs in faded denim sprawled before us on the grass. The girls sat up straight, legs neatly outstretched in the cotton frocks tucked around their knees, smooth bare calves curving into white ankle-socks. The sun shone hot on our laps. Butterflies criss-crossed the hilltop air.

Given our location, we should have sung an Irish folk song, and we knew plenty of those, but Amelia began, The weather here has been as nice as it could be… and we all joined in the chorus, But it might as well rain until September! The hit song off the wireless perfectly captured the pathos of the teenage summer love we were all ready for.

Amelia had got up and moved about a bit as if admiring the view and then repositioned herself seated next to Robin. Shyness was something my wee sister did not suffer from. Then with everyone singing away together it seemed perfectly natural when Robin slipped his arm around her shoulders.

Colette and I sat there like gooseberries. I couldn’t pretend she was only my mate’s sister, or just a pal; she was too gorgeous for that, like Bridget Bardo as the fellows said. Colette smiled at me and I gulped and looked away in an access of disabling shyness. I wondered in desperation would I ever pluck up the courage to kiss a girl. Then Colette was beside me, resting her head on my shoulder, her blonde tresses falling on my sleeve. I breathed her foreign warm girl-smell, fragrant and full, intoxicating. Not at all like her brother Robin’s cologne of fresh sweat, Lifebuoy soap and Brilliantine hair oil when I wrestled him on the grass.

With a beating heart, nauseous, I put my arm stiffly round Colette. I felt the soft flesh of her upper arm under my fingers, her hourglass curves pressed against my side. The excitement was stupendous; I was ready to faint.

After the singing died away there was only the sound of the wind blowing over Doon Mor, the gulls calling along the cliffs and the rhythm of the sea carrying faintly from below. Amelia and Robin were kissing; a couple now, lost to the rest of the world. My wee sister necking a boy! I’m telling Mammy!

Colette tilted her face up to me, a vague little smile poking out her cute chin, her fine nose wrinkling a little, a few pinhead freckles of childhood still dotted around it. Her curved, parted lips showed even, milk-white teeth. The sunny green eyes were pools of summer sea. She closed them, the lids trembling expectantly.

G’on and kiss me, Rupert! she breathed.

It was a dive from the clifftop, hurtling down through space into the dark water. I hit the surface, went under blindly, the sea roaring in my ears. As I surfaced again, struggling for breath, my lips were crushed to Colette’s, my heart pounding like a hammer.

As we kissed I had an out of body experience; I was up above, looking down on the hilltop of Doon Mor and the two courting couples on the grass. The image started to wheel and Doon Mor was the whole world spinning on its axis. The wind rose about it in a whirling cacophony, like an orchestra tuning up.

Colette and I drew apart; I opened my eyes and was back on terra firma. Her fair complexion was polished with a comely, delicate blush, her eyes dilated and glistening. I would never forget that first kiss, a rite performed and I could never be the same again.

I wanted to say something, tell the girl I loved her, but words seemed inadequate now, more a barrier to communication. Robin and Amelia separated and we all stood up, smoothing down our clothing.

We left Doon Mor as two courting couples now, each hand-in-hand, stumbling down the flanks of the old fort and crossing the hot open space of the battlefield. We were like victors from the battle now. What a difference an afternoon could make; we were new, grown-up people. Suddenly I was a man!

But back on the tar road we dissembled; the girls walked together in front as usual and it was as if nothing had ever happened between us at all.

CHAPTER 3

Amelia, Colette and Robin came to see me off on the early morning boat to the mainland. Wee Amelia started to cry, it was her we had to console; my anxiety about going away was forgotten in the process.

Sure Rupert will be back for the half-term in October, said Colette.

I might get back for a weekend before then, I said. I’m not going all that far away. And you must write me every week, little sis, do you hear me? I will be watching the post for your missives. I want to read about all your innermost thoughts and secret dreams in your letters, then I’ll feel you’re right beside me there at Auntie Ethel’s!

I’ll write every day! Amelia sobbed, and cried even harder. Guiltily, I was enjoying her tears over me; she loved me so, with what I thought of as the great love a girl feels for a boy.

I only wished Colette would look a bit more unhappy about my leaving. I reckoned I was in love with her now, and it wasn’t the sweet spiritual intimacy I shared with Amelia but, well, something more like sin, fearful and irresistible, a nausea.

Colette’s goodbye kiss glanced off my expectant lips, she smiled encouragement and bravery to me. I didn’t doubt her fondness for me but was it love, the magic word? More like another sister, I feared—well, one was enough.

Write to me too, Rupert, won’t ye? she said. I loved yer postcard from Portrush in July, I never seen so much writing squeezed on till a postcard and such a geg! Honest, you should write a book! I read that postcard over and over, laughin’ till I near wet meself!

The rude image of Colette sent a thrill piercing through me. Of course I’ll write to you, Colette, I said. That was it! I’d win her love with my letters; there was, they said, nothing mightier than the pen! The words of a Brenda Lee song came to me: Speak to me pretty—Speak to me sweet. Make like a fabulous poet each time we meet…

There was an older, good-looking fellow on the island, Kenny Lough, chasing Colette, and I feared she was quite keen on him. She looked and acted a lot older than her age. Kenny had a car and everything. How I hated him! But we’d just see! For one thing, he couldn’t write like me, that was for sure!

And don’t forget your ould mate! Her big brother threw his long arms around me.

How could I, Robin? We’re blood brothers, aren’t we? We’d done it with a penknife jabbed in our forefingers, when we were eleven.

Robin hugged me to his tall, wiry frame with the strong arms I knew so well from our wrestling bouts. I had sought to outwit him with moves culled from Teach Yourself Catch As Catch Can Wrestling. He had finished his education now and would be helping his da on the farm and the fishing boat. It was all so perfectly straightforward; Robin could stay on the island for the rest of his life.

The trio waved me off from the landing stage, their figures shrinking as the water widened, the lanky fair lad and the two long-haired girls, with the low manor house behind and the high grass banks above it, the pale semicircle of Church Bay receding. My world slipping away from me. Out in the open Sound, heading for the mainland, the sea grew choppy, the spray wet me, and I went and sat inside.

Carrying my one small, shabby grey cardboard suitcase, I walked up through the little seaside town to the Square. The railway had gone from this corner of Ireland; in its place a smelly green bus, wheezing and vibrating, took me out through the mountains and on to County Tyrone.

Feeling queasy from the long bus ride, I got down at the stone bridge that marked the stop for my aunt’s. In the strange middle-of-nowhere silence after the bus had gone, I took the narrow side-road that penetrated this green pocket of settler country.

Fifty yards or so along, I turned down the lane to Gortatragh. How I had always loved this little secret green loaning with its stripe of overgrown grass down the middle between the wheel tracks. The enclosing high hedges bulged inward, the trees forming a tunnel in