LITMIR.BIZ

      Brother Murphy appeared on the Shambles on Good Friday morning with a ladder, a cartload of flags and a dozen shivering orphans. He propped the ladder up against the Patriot’s gable and without as much as a by-your-leave ordered one of the lads up to check if the gutter would hold. The other boys clambered on to the roofs of the low houses at the top of Irish Street, hauling coils of bunting behind them. The work went on all morning, and by the time they had bedecked the south side of the square Brother Murphy had lathered himself into a right state. After the Angelus he retired to the Patriot’s snug demanding free drink, running out occasionally to kick the backside of any orphan he found slacking off.

      By nightfall the town was bedecked. The bunting fanned out from its epicentre in the Shambles down all the narrow streets of the Fenian quarter. The flags hung limply in the damp air the length of Thomas Street and Banbrook Hill; they doglegged into Dobbin Street, skirted one side of Callan Street and back over Windmill Hill. They faltered a little as they crossed into the mixed territory round Abbey Street, but when they took the left-hand bend into Irish Street again and ran its full length down to the Shambles they were a sight to behold. They fluttered and danced in the breeze, as numerous and promiscuous as the host of golden daffodils. A canopy of yellow and white arched over the entire street, transforming the familiar thoroughfare into something magical.

      The people stood on their doorsteps and gazed in wonderment at the metamorphosis. No Fenian had ever seen flags like these. There was no denying it, Mister Magee had done them proud. ‘Somebody’s got a right treat in store for us and no mistake,’ said Eugene, surveying the boys’ handiwork through the window.

      ‘There’d be no harm in inquiring what it’s all in aid of?’ asked Peadar, emboldened by drink. Brother Murphy began to turn red, the veins in his neck bulging like taut hawsers. As is often the way with the Christian Brothers, the drink had made him querulous and the sight of a past pupil had inflamed him with dim memories of unfinished business. He lurched across to Peadar, lifted him by the scruff of the neck and began to cuff him round the head. ‘You were a pup then and you’re still a pup! I see you’ve no more manners now than you had in Book Three!’ Eugene didn’t interfere. The bar was as good as empty anyway, even the Tyrone man having taken his custom elsewhere. A Christian Brother on the premises was always bad for business. He poured another rum, knowing the Brother would need it when he’d finished with the greengrocer. He made it a double. With God’s help Brother Murphy would pass out on the floor before long. He could see the foundlings standing outside in the rain, waiting to wheel him home.

      When he realized the extent of the Romanists’ preparations McCoy grew worried. It was one thing to sell the Fenians flags for special occasions. It was another thing altogether to have them turn the Shambles into the Papal States. This was a challenge that could not go unanswered. He sent for Magee post haste.

      ‘Suddenly we’re on all fours with the papists,’ Lily protested when she saw him parcelling up a jumbo-sized order of the red, white and blue. ‘You expect me to run the shop singlehanded while you gallivant off at McCoy’s beck and call!’ But she knew him too well to say any more. The Portadown soul loves to show the flag. The only thing that brightens the drab grey streets of his environment are the primary colours of the polyester triangles. But even Magee was unprepared for the show of Fenian defiance that greeted him when he hit Armagh. He stood at the door of the Martyrs Memorial Chapel and gazed with anger and incredulity over at the papist quarter. The Brothers’ boys had returned and were adding the finishing touches to their handiwork, fixing cardboard shields to the lampposts, portraying the emblems of the four provinces.

      Magee spat into the gutter. ‘A man of my age has more to do than running up and down ladders. Is there still no sign of that girl of yours?’

      ‘Another postcard. The Little Princess, Margaret Rose.’

      Magee turned his attention to the ice-cream van that was parked on the pavement behind them. Underneath it, up against the rusting exhaust pipe, Patrick Pearse McGuffin had fashioned a makeshift nest. Cardboard cartons had been torn in strips in an effort to keep the rain out, and there was a soggy mattress stuffed with discarded newspapers where the renegade now cowered. ‘Why keep a dog and bark yourself?’ Magee growled, striding towards the van.

      Patrick Pearse McGuffin too had been looking out on the sea of papal splendour and dreaming of happier times. He had been dreaming of Saint Matt Talbot’s, the parish on the Falls which he would never see again, and the people of the ghetto he could never meet again. He knew in his heart of hearts that he belonged on the Falls, among the warmth of his own people squabbling in the ladder of backstreets that led down to the no man’s land round the abandoned peace line. But there would be no going home for McGuffin. Not this year, not next, not ever! They had their own ways for dealing with touts and informers where he came from. And if they needed any reminding of his perfidy, Father Alphonsus was still there, still condemned to eke out his days in Matt Talbot’s; and as long as Father Alphonsus was there, McGuffin would never see the Falls Road again.

      But how much longer could he survive like this, away from his natural habitat? The Shambles was as foreign to him as Timbuctoo. It would never feel like home. These were not his streets. They had a different smell, a different sound. These were not his people either. Nor ever would be. He knew he was living on borrowed time, despite his insistence to any who would lend him an ear that he was now as good a Protestant as they, any day of the week. They could smell the Fenian on him still. He suffered daily ignominies, especially from the farmers when they had drink taken, or from the children in the gutters when he ventured out. He had learned to suffer their jibes and insults. He had learned too to live with his fear of the GPs who had left him alone so far. But he didn’t need McCoy’s reminder that they would eliminate him at the first hint of backsliding. The Protestants of Scotch Street might be

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