Enter the DarknessChapter 17 Rocky Road to Belfast
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Memories Of My Return To Belfast free porn video
Occasionally, a story has to be written. This one is mostly true. The incidents really happened much as portrayed. For my loyal readers, this story has been in my head for a number of years waiting for its time. Its time is now. Hopefully you will understand it and the bitter memories I have carried most of my life.
*
‘Have you heard from Sean? He was arrested in ’79.’
Jenny shook her head. That was all she could do. So many dead or arrested. Arrested was the same as dead back in those days. That meant Long Kesh Prison or, if you were lucky, transferred to London’s Newgate. But that seldom happened. Long Kesh was for ‘terrorists,’ as the British thought of them, while Newgate housed common criminals. The Irish thought of the inmates at Long Kesh as political prisoners or maybe even freedom fighters. It all depended on your point of view.
Staring toward the windows that fronted The Fountain Inn at the corner of Castle Lane and Fountain Street, Jenny thought back to those days. Belfast was much different then. Many of the corner pubs were burned out shells from the bombs. Occasionally, one could hear a car bomb explode or gunfire and wonder who had died, hoping it was a Brit and not a brother. British soldiers, heavily armed, stalked the streets continuously both in groups on foot and in armored vehicles. It was a frightening time.
On the 23rd of May in the year 1976 Jenny had been shot in the abdomen by a British soldier while sitting with Sean in the Castle Pub. Tensions were high. Fear was ruler of Ulster in those days. After surgery and a three week hospital stay, the Jackson family decided to leave Belfast.
Jenny looked up at Linny, knowing both her parents had been killed in a car bomb in ’76. That same day, the government put her in an orphanage and changed her life so much. Jenny supposed she had been more fortunate. Her father had been arrested and hanged in Long Kesh as a terrorist. Unjustly so in her mind. But enough of this. Jenny’s mind shifted back to Sean. They had been young then. They were in love and talked about a future together. But that was only another heartbreak in a long series it seemed.
Thinking back she could hear her grandfather and mother coaxing her. ‘Hurry up. We have to go.’
‘Go where? This is our home.’
‘Not any more. The provos and the soldiers…’
‘To hell with them. We haven’t done anything.’
‘Neither had your father but look what happened. They don’t care about your guilt or innocence. Just that you’re Irish.’
‘I’m not going. I have friends her,’ Jenny said defiantly.
‘Friends like Sean. He’s with the Ulsters. They’ll hang him.’
Reluctantly, she went. First a long train ride to Dublin, then a car at night to Wexfprd where money changed hands and we boarded a fishing boat for England. Ultimately we got to Liverpoole and boarded a ship bound for New York. Grandpa had some money in his pockets, but we had little else.
The Jackson family stayed in a boarding house in the Harlem slums for a few days. Every day, grandpa went to the Western Union office to send telegrams to our relatives in Washington State asking for money. Eventually an uncle sent us train fare.
Those were the horrible days of Jenny’s life. Those were the days of adjustment and loss. The days passed slowly and the memory of them would burn into her mind forever.
Jenny was certain her mother had been right. Sean had been hanged along with so many others inside the walls of Long Kesh. What happened during those turbulent times was a crime against, not just the Irish,, but humanity itself.
Eventually she did adjust and push those memories to the back of her mind and lock them away in a dark, private place. In time even her brogue began to fade – but not entirely. Idiom would still sneak in. Things like ‘me’ instead of ‘my’ as in, ‘I saw me mother at the store.’ Even now that sounded right to her ears, even though she knew it was not correct English.
A lorry passed on Castle Lane and turned north onto Fountain Street bring Jenny back to the present.
‘Jenn? Are you all right?’
‘Yes. Yes. I was just thinking.’
‘About Sean?’
‘About those days. How it was, you know.’
Linny reached out and touched Jenny’s hand. ‘It was a long time ago, baby.’
‘I know.’ Jenny was silent for a moment. ‘Have you asked the McDermotts about Sean? They seem to know everything,’ knowing in her heart that Sean was lying in some unmarked grave east of the city along with the other terrorists killed back then.
‘They haven’t heard either,’ Linny said with a frown. ‘I asked them about a lot of people we knew. They showed me a list on the internet. I started to go through it but I couldn’t. So many we knew are dead.’
‘Patty Murphy? Charlie?’
‘Both. Patty in a pub bombing. Charlie murdered in an alley behind Lukey’s pub.’
‘Others?’
‘Yes. But I couldn’t read much more. I started to cry.’
Jenny reached out and picked up her glass from the table and took a long draught. The whiskey burned her throat but it was a welcome feeling. The burning quenched the tears that were beginning to well in her own eyes.
Jenny looked up into Linny’s eyes. ‘And now Mattie.’
Linniy shook her head. ‘Yes. Now her too.’
‘I remember her dancing. It was almost as if her feet flew. She was so light on her feet. And that smile. And her laugh. I can still hear her laughing. What was that? A month ago? Two? It seems like only yesterday.’
‘Two months,’ Linny said sadly. ‘When she went home she said she didn’t feel well.’
‘I know. But…? That’s not right. She was so…’
‘Full of life,’ Linny finished the thought.
‘Is it time? I want to get this over with soon. I’ll be stinking drunk otherwise.’
Linny smiled. ‘I’m not so sure Mattie wouldn’t have appreciated that, Jenn.’
Jenny sat upright, steeling herself. ‘Alright then. One more for the road.’ She waved her nearly empty glass at the barkeep.
‘Alright, Jenn. Then we have to go.’
Presently, another glass of heavy irish whiskey was delivered to the table. Jenny picked it up, raised it high in the air. ‘To Mattie McDermott. Best friend a girl ever had.’ Then Jenny tossed the whiskey down in a single gulp and stood.
Together the two women left the pub and began the walk down Fountain Street to the church. Just a block down the street they caught up with Mattie’s daughter Sarah who was walking slowly ahead of them.
‘Ah, Sarah, me darl’n,’ Linny said putting her arm around Sarah’s shoulders. ‘Tis a sad day, indeed.’
Sarah turned her head toward Linny. ‘She loved you well, Linda. And you too Jenny.’
Jenny reached out and took Sarah’s hand to squeeze. ‘And we loved her too, me girl.’
At the corner, the three stopped to look at the church. ‘What will ye do now, Sarah?’
‘I don’t know,’ she said sadly. Then straightening her back, ‘Maybe I’ll travel and see the world.’
Jenny squeezing her hand said, ‘Come back to the States with us, love. We would love to have you.’
Sarah smiled. ‘Maybe I will for a while. There is nothing to keep me here.’
Linny leaned in and kissed Sarah’s cheek. The three women crossed the street and climbed the thirteen steps to the door of the church, opened the door and disappeared into the gloomy darkness inside to say farewell to a life long friend.
Nanette
- 09.12.2022
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