Bobby had accepted bringing the first fast to a halt, so it was up to him to take the lead in the second. The anguish of having been deceived added to his determination. He began his hunger strike on 1 March 1981, others followed, one per week, and the living men took over from the dead.
But not Aidan. Not him. I don’t know why I made him promise. There, between those walls, I had no authority to give him orders. Officer on the outside, the barbed wire and watchtowers had made me a simple soldier. Nobody could ever persuade Bobby Sands to quit his hunger strike. Not the Irish Republican Army Council, not all our leaders, not all our priests, not all the prayers of the women in our streets, not his sister, not his mother, not the tears of Gerald, his seven-year-old child. And yet I was begging this young lad to live. I asked him to do it for me.
— You stay alive, I said to Aidan Phelan.
He promised me as a son. And he kept his word.
13
On 8 January 1981, at four in the morning, three of the army’s Saracen armoured cars, two British-army Land Rovers and a dozen soldiers invaded Dholpur Lane. It was me they wanted, nine hours after I’d been released. I was sleeping, Sheila woke me abruptly. They were forcing in our front door with a battering ram. I ran into the stairwell in pyjamas and bare feet.
— Tyrone Meehan?
It wasn’t my name. It was a challenge. The soldier was at the bottom of the stairs, cheek stuck to his gun butt. I nodded, my arms in the air, waiting to be searched. One policeman grabbed me by the hair, another by the nape of my neck. The door was smashed, torn from its hinges. Sheila was shouting.
— He only got out yesterday! For the love of God, leave him! He’s just got out!
I arrived on the street broken, arms twisted back and chin forced down against my chest. The grey armoured car was up against the front of our house, door open. Barely ten paces from my doorway to its wire-covered steel. Dholpur Lane rose up once again. The convoy departed amidst shouting, stones and bottles. I was pinned on the floor of the vehicle, hands bound at my back. A peeler slid a black plastic bag over my head. I panicked. I thought they were going to suffocate me. Three policemen kept me from moving with their shoes, crushing my neck, my legs and my back. I saw Aidan again, the cell, the putrid floor, our walls covered in excrement. I wanted to die. I didn’t want to go back to prison.
An officer knelt down, his mouth against my ear. He stank like a sewer.
— So, Paddy! Freedom nice, was it? A little too long though, no? You got out, what was it? Ten, twelve hours ago?
I didn’t answer.
Since crossing the border in 1941 with Mother and Uncle Lawrence, I had learned when to challenge and when to lower my head. One day when threatened by a patrol, my brother Seánie placed his arms in front of his face, wincing like a peasant who fears his master’s stick. The soldiers laughed. He had a gun and two grenades on him.
— The enemy underestimates us, that’s its weakness, he used to say.
When he’d come across British patrols, he’d often pretend to be retarded. He’d limp heavily, stick his lips out, jut out his chin, stare wide-eyed and put on the lantern-jawed look of Irish caricatures published in the English press. He’d do it for me, giving me a surreptitious look from the corner of his eye. And there was always a soldier who’d say to the others: ‘Oh that one! He’s perfect!’
We weren’t going to the holding centre in Castlereagh, the journey was too long. Neither was I going back to the Kesh. We weren’t on the main road, but small, winding roads. My right cheek was squashed against the ground. There were no projectiles hitting the van, no bricks or clods of earth. No sudden accelerations to shake off swarms of hostile children. We were in a Protestant zone.
I got out of the Land Rover blind, the bag still covering my face. There were hands supporting me, but not shoving me around. Men’s and women’s voices. A door, then another. No iron gates, no bolts slamming shut, no keys, either, a corridor of free men. I sensed the enclosed acoustic of a small room. The cell had taught me the sound of that space. A chair against my calves. A hand pressing down gently on my shoulder. A radiator’s warmth. I sat down.
When they released my wrists and lifted the hood, I kept my eyes half-closed for a moment. The neon light was unpleasant. On the walls were a flaking painting of a hospital and the poster for Alfred Hitchcock’s film The Birds. The window was covered with wire. It looked out on unfamiliar buildings. The rain was pressing against the panes.
— Tea?
I was facing a large table and there were three of them. No uniforms: plain clothes. I recoiled. I had thought they were Loyalists at first but their accent was English.
— Coffee, maybe?
The one speaking took off his anorak without breaking eye contact. He had very red hair, a bushy moustache, and his left eye was sunken in its socket. The second guy was skinny. The third had white hair. He was looking out the window. Watching my reflection in the glass. Our eyes met.
— Why am I here?
I was accustomed neither to the chair nor warmth from my enemy. I had learned how to protect my head from blows, how to survive in prison, how to endure being insulted and shouted at. I knew how to bear their violence, not their calm. The skinny guy handed me a cup of tea. He was watching for my reaction. I drank, ignoring the queen smiling from the blue china.
— We know everything about you. Now it’s our turn to give you some information.
The man at the window turned around. He sat on the edge of the table.
— My name is Stephen Petrie and I’m an agent of MI5, British counter-intelligence.
I stood up.
— I don’t want to know anything.
He smiled.
— Sit down, Tyrone, everything’s okay.
He pointed at the man who’d served the tea.
— May I introduce Willie Wallis from the Special Branch.
The other man gave a slight nod.
— And this is Frank Congreve, officer of the Royal Ulster Constabulary.
Same polite gesture from the redhead.
— But to keep it simple, you can call us ‘the agent’, ‘the hunter’ and ‘the handler’. Or ‘the RUC’ if you want to be polite.
I had remained standing.
— I have no reason to know you or to call you anything. If you have nothing to charge me with, let me go.
I was surprised by how calm I was. They weren’t afraid of me, I wasn’t afraid of them. I felt we were on an even footing. The agent sat in an empty chair to my left. It was him talking.
— I’m going to tell you a fairy tale, Tyrone.
I crossed my arms.
— Children like fairy tales, don’t they? Elves, pixies, all that kind of thing…
The agent turned towards the red-haired handler.
— You’re from these parts, what do they call pixies around here?
— Leprechauns.
— That’s it, the leprechauns.
I absentmindedly closed a button on my pyjamas.
— And then when he grows up, the Irishman dreams of martyrs and heroes.
The agent pushed an ashtray towards me.
— Heroes are essential in this country, isn’t that right? Am I mistaken, Tyrone?
I didn’t answer. He looked at the red-haired cop.
— And what about you, Frank? Do you think the hero is important in Ireland?
— Vital, Stephen, vital.
— An Ulster Protestant’s word, the agent said.
He addressed the hunter.
— Willie?
The other tipped his chair back.
— I have the feeling that our friend is getting impatient.
The agent, the hunter and the handler were swopping roles, questions, geographical positions in the room. Sometimes one would finish the other’s sentence. Or they’d cut across one another. It was as if they had even allocated the silences. They were forcing me to look from one to the other, follow one question after another. I had to constantly turn my head to maintain eye contact. I was surrounded. I felt dizzy, with the nausea of rough journeys rising to my lips.