— Quick! A glass for Tyrone Meehan or he’s going to desert! shouted the bride.
A guy handed me a pint of the black stuff. Five more were waiting, flat from sitting too long. The Sheridan girl sat on my knee.
— Why the long face, Sheila’s wee man!
From calling me that in front of people, my wife had managed to spread the word around the neighbourhood, then the city and perhaps even the whole country. I apologized. You know, young lass, I’m eighty-one years old all the same. The days are long when you near the end.
— The end? But sure you’ll live to a hundred, Tyrone Meehan!
She laughed, and hugged Sheila who was making her way back to the table. I met Mike O’Doyle’s unpleasant look. A hundred? I could swear he shook his head to say no.
The following day was a Sunday. My mobile phone rang shortly before eleven in the morning.
— Tenor? It’s Dominik.
I was in the living room reading the Sunday World. I spilled my coffee.
— Cemetery at midday.
Not another word. He hung up.
It had been a long time since I’d seen the red-haired handler. A long time, too, since I’d been to Henry Joy McCracken’s grave. I got up without a word. Sheila was at Mass. I no longer went. They had forbidden me Communion so I refused them my prayers. I took a taxi, not my car. Sunday. The rain, the grey facades of the city’s north side. I went around and around on foot, the newspaper in my hand to give me a role. I had put on my cap, my dark glasses and a scarf pulled up over my mouth.
On my third circuit of the neighbourhood, the red-haired cop was standing there against the railings. Once he saw me, he got into a car and opened the passenger door. I looked around, the misery of the seventh day. I got in and he drove off.
I instinctively lowered the sun visor to hide my face. He headed for the motorway. I was angry. We had said that I’d be the one to call. Me, always. No question of ringing for me like a servant. I wanted him to speak first. I turned towards him, he was watching the road.
— It’s over, Tyrone.
My breath was cut short.
— What’s over?
Still that absent gaze.
— You, me, Dominik, Tenor, all that shit.
I let myself sink back into the seat. I had forgotten my seatbelt, I put it on. I think I was smiling. Over. So that was it. I was going to live again.
— And why is it you who’s come to tell me this? Waldner isn’t around?
Silence. The cop jerked his head.
— You know, Tyrone, the English…
— What about them?
— He’s gone back to London. His mission is over.
— And Honoré?
— Gone back to his studies.
All the better. Two fewer of them.
— And me? What’ll become of me?
— We have a deal to offer you, Tyrone.
— A deal?
We were right in the middle of a Protestant enclave. The British flag was painted all over the walls. Pictures of William of Orange, conqueror of the Catholic armies in 1690. Some paramilitary frescos in homage to their battle cry: ‘No surrender!’
The handler stopped the car beside a park.
— Let’s walk for a bit, Tyrone.
My heart was in turmoil, my legs jelly. And I was so thirsty. My palate felt like cardboard and my tongue was rough. I had no voice left. I was waiting. I watched his slow steps, the way he lit a cigarette, handed me one, met my eyes over the flame.
— You’re going to have to leave, Tyrone.
— What’s going on?
A very old man’s voice.
— First, we’re going to put you under cover somewhere and then we’ll extract you.
— Answer me, for fuck’s sake. What’s going on?
The handler inhaled the smoke. He was buying time.
— We’re going to provide you with a new identity. You’ll also get a house and £150,000, to keep you going a bit while waiting.
I caught him by the sleeve.
— I don’t want any of your money. I’m Irish and I’m staying in Ireland.
— You don’t have a choice, the handler replied gently.
I looked at him. I’d never seen him so calm.
— My cover is blown, is that it?
— That’s it.
I whacked the park railing with my newspaper.
— Fuck! But how is this possible? What happened?
— The ceasefire has moved the boundaries…
I grabbed him by the shoulders. He was taller than me, younger than me, he could have thrown me to the ground with a look, but he let himself be manhandled.
— You didn’t do that? Damn it! You haven’t sold me?
— Not us, no. Not the Ulster police, Tyrone.
— MI5? That dog, Waldner?
The policeman shook me off. He put his hands in his pockets.
— What did you think would happen, Tyrone? Really? How did you think this was going to end?
— Why the fuck couldn’t you leave me in peace?
— Precisely because this is peace, Tyrone. You were useful during wartime, you’ll be useful in peacetime, too.
— I don’t understand any of this! Any of it!
I was shouting. He calmed me with a hand on my arm.
— Sinn Féin is reaping the fruits of the peace process. You’re scoring points everywhere, you’re going to become the first political party of Northern Ireland, and that, well, that’s pissing them off, Tyrone.
— What have I to do with any of that?
— London doesn’t like you, and neither does Dublin. You’ve laid down your arms, so they can no longer shoot at you, but they can still harm you.
— What are you saying?
— A traitor chucks a community’s morale out the window. It’s like a grenade exploding. It tosses out little splinters in every direction. Everyone is wounded when a traitor is discovered, and it’s difficult to heal those wounds.
— Fucking pigs!
— I came to warn you.
— When are they going to inform on me?
— It’s done.
I found it hard to breathe.
— They’ve sold me to the IRA?
— Not sold, Tyrone. A gift. And they’re also going to claim that they had three agents in your movement’s command.
— But that’s bullshit!
The handler smiled.
— Maybe, Tyrone, but the IRA aren’t going to content themselves with your opinion. Everyone will suspect everyone, and that will create disorder.
— You shower of bastards!
I turned my back and walked towards the avenue.
— Tyrone?
He caught up to me at a run.
— Don’t mess around, Tyrone. They’re going to come looking for you, you’ll be interrogated. You know well what they do with traitors!
— It’s the peace process. They won’t touch me.
I carried on but I hoped he’d catch up to me again, talk to me, explain how it had worked for the others. What do you do after treason? What becomes of you? Where do you go? Die in England like an apostate? Go into exile in the United States? Australia? False papers, false address, fake job, fake friends, fake life? And then, of course, the IRA finds its traitors. No matter where, it always finds them, even a long time afterwards. Sixty or so grasses had been executed, hundreds of others chased from our towns.