The Wake - Table of contents

The Wake - afters (28)

Wherever she was she wasn’t there. I saw marchers scrambling over the ditch into the field to our left and the Prods going after them. Some of them had grabbed ones and were holding them up by the hair the way Indians in cowboy pictures hold up paleface scalps. A boy standing, fifteen, sixteen, different looking from the others, neatly dressed, denim jerkin on him, an ashplant in his hand like you’d have seen an old man with, not sure what to do, standing at the ditch wondering whether to follow maybe, then struck out at the shins of someone running past him.

“That’s my banner!”

“What?”

“That’s my banner!” Frank was reaching for the door handle. Christ. There he was right in front of us, the major himself, Major Ronald Bunting, the guy that led the singing of The Sash outside Belfast city hall on the first, there he was dragging his feet back and forward as if he was wiping the mud off them on top of a banner lying tangled on the road, then jumping up and down laughing and dancing like a madman. He looked like he was singing too part of the time but I couldn’t hear with the doors and windows closed. I didn’t see Frank going but suddenly there was a rush of shouting in my ears and the car door slammed and the shouting stopped and he was gone. Next thing I saw him through the silent screen in front of me pushing Bunting away and then I couldn’t see right, people were blocking my view and somebody was lying on the bonnet and I was rocking from side to side. Then my door flew open and I thought, I’m for it now, they’re going to drag me out.

“Here are the keys. Take the wheel.” It was Frank and his face was covered in blood. He was rubbing at his eyes with one hand and giving me car keys with the other. They were slippery. I took them, jerked myself out and let him in. The odd thought occurred to me, I think it was then or maybe it was later, hard to know, that I wasn’t covered to drive someone else’s car, in other words once I sat behind the wheel I’d actually be breaking the law and in front of I don’t know how many policemen too.

How I got round the front to the driver’s side through the milling attackers and marchers was weird. I don’t remember it all but I remember the cop and the club. I bumped into the back of a cop and said sorry. Sorry. I told him I was sorry. He didn’t move, he didn’t turn, and I had to go round him. There was a club with two nails in it on the road next to his feet and I picked it up. I think maybe I was thinking this might puncture our tyres but it could have been some instinct was working there somewhere, like nobody was going to go for me with that in my hand, none of the marchers anyway and none of the attackers, definitely not. So for whatever number of seconds it took me to get through the mill and the mayhem I was near enough untouchable. And the funny thing is, to this day I couldn’t tell you what I did with the club. I know I didn’t take it into the car with me but I don’t remember dropping it.

“I’m sorry to put you through this.” He’d got a towel out of somewhere and had it on his head. “Could you drive me to the hospital?”

“Okay. Sure.” The cop was in the way. The keys were sticky and slimy at the same time and I dropped them twice before I managed to switch on the engine, found the horn and sounded it. The cop turned round. I smiled apologetically for giving him a start. He looked at me frowning. I smiled again, eyes open wide, eyebrows raised artlessly, trustingly. Let us through please, I smiled, we’re innocent travellers, we’ve just come on this unfortunate whatever it is and we need to get through. If you would be so good. Somebody outside my window screamed “Please! Please don’t! No! No!” I raised my right hand respectfully to the cop, gave the suggestion of a wave and hoped my demeanour was right. Respect above all else, respect was what was needed here. He turned and began to walk slowly backwards, waving us towards him like he was on point duty, looking to right and left, saying some things to men with clubs. I moved forward in first, car jumping as I struggled to get used to the clutch. Don’t let it cut out, I cried to myself.

“My God, look at that poor girl.”

I mechanically followed Frank’s gazing direction and saw a heavyset woman that looked like Mussolini in drag being beaten with fists and her nose spurting. It was Frances. I looked around for Aisling but she wasn’t there. The cop was staring quizzically at me, beckoning away at me, and I found I wasn’t moving. I raised my hand smiling cringing and drove slowly on.

“Here, stop. Help her into the car.”

“I can’t. If I try and do that we’re finished. They’ll get me and that won’t help any of us.”

He didn’t answer, saw the sense in what I was saying I suppose or maybe decided he was in the hands of a heartless bastard.