Dancing in Limbo. Edward Toman
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The clouds of incense that hung in the air told him that every clerical dignity in the land was in the church that day, and the voice of the organ and the sound of the choir underlined how momentous the occasion was.
The procession moved out from the Lady Chapel, ranks of dignitaries leading the swaying and buckling canopy. Under the cloth of gold, closely flanked by Schnozzle resplendent in Pascal robes, Frank caught a glimpse of a frail girl in a white dress, her face hidden under a veil. A shiver of terror ran through him for what it might presage.
She was baptized in the Lady Chapel by the Bishop of Derry as the choir sang ‘Hosanna’. She was led to the confession box where the Bishop of Galway was waiting in the dark compartment; she confessed her sins and was shriven. At the High Mass that followed she made her first communion, receiving the melting host from the hands of the Bishop of Down and Connor. And then, as the carillon pealed out the news to the waiting city, she was led up to the great high altar and there formally confirmed in her new faith by Schnozzle himself.
On the grave of Big Mac the scarlet fuchsia round the Celtic cross burst forth miraculously into unseasonal blossom.
The congregation erupted from the cathedral and poured down the hundred steps into the Shambles, shouting and chanting and giving thanks for the miracle they had just witnessed. They swarmed into the Patriot’s, regulars and teetotallers alike, filling the bar with their chatter. A group of them broke away, and emboldened by the occasion, crossed the square to taunt McCoy with the news of his daughter’s perfidy. But McCoy didn’t need to be told. The Irish News, a special colour edition, had already hit the streets, with the story on its front page, in capitals six inches high.
‘And to think I nearly missed it!’ said Peadar for the tenth time, regaling the company with news of his good fortune in witnessing the conversion of Chastity McCoy.
‘It was a great day for the town all right,’ said a wee man from Drumarg who had been stranded in the bar since early evening. From somewhere further up the town there came the dull thud of another explosion.
‘Not that I saw a thing with the crowds, and the leg killing me after kneeling so long on the cold marble.’
The Tyrone man was at the window, cautiously peering out at the riot through a crack in the plywood shutters. ‘It’s as good as over, I’d say,’ he said.
‘Go off home then!’ Peadar shouted.
‘I will like fuck! Magee and that crowd will be out and about and they won’t rest till they’ve killed someone.’
‘They’ll be out searching high and low for her, no doubt about it,’ said the wee man from Drumarg.
‘The trouble’s only starting, if you want my opinion,’ Peadar said.
‘Aren’t we as safe as houses where we are,’ the Tyrone man insisted, ‘with Eugene on the roof.’
The Tyrone man had been right. The riot was as good as over, but Eugene stuck to his place. From the skylight in the attic he had control over most of the Shambles, a clear line of sight halfway down Irish Street in one direction and in the other, over the roof of the Martyrs Memorial the length of English Street. The Armalite felt good against his cheek again. Good too to smell the cordite and hear grenades once more at Easter. In the Shambles below him no one was moving. The square was littered with glass and cobblestones and strewn with coils of collapsed bunting. Beyond the concrete latrine he could make out the giant ice-cream cone on the roof of McCoy’s Salvation Wagon. He took aim and gently squeezed off a round. The shot echoed round the square. The bakelite shattered into jagged fragments. He laughed at the thought of McGuffin’s discomfort, lying like a dog under the van while some maniac took potshots at the ice-cream cone above. Eugene set the rifle down and groped for a cigarette. He’d loose off a round or two more and then call it a night.
There’d been wild rumours in the bar earlier that the Donatists were heading for the town looking for trouble, but there was no sign of them, thank God. Magee wouldn’t be bothering them any more tonight either. He’d seen the butcher and his cronies, bad-looking bastards, heading out of town and into the hills earlier. They’d be ransacking the high ground, plundering isolated farms, as much to vent their anger as in any hope of finding the runaway. He lowered his head before striking the match. From the bar below came the muffled sounds of querulous drinking, but it was oddly peaceful in the attic. At his side the figure of the Dancing Madonna silently surveyed the rooftops with a vacant, enigmatic stare.
Only two people in the whole of Ireland, himself and the Patriot, knew of her hiding place. Muire na nGael, Mary of the Gael, the Patriot had called her. She had been there since the night Frank’s father had returned with her from the Antrim plateau, the Patriot decreeing that she would never be subjected to such ignominy again. She would stay under his roof till her mission became clear. Some day, if you believed the prophecy, she would call the people together, planter and dispossessed, and we would be a nation once again. It was the Patriot’s last great hope, to be spared to see that day.
She was a small statue, crudely carved from weather-beaten timber, yet with a hauteur that distinguished her from the thousand other representations of the Virgin. It was hard to think sometimes that a thing so small, so insignificant, so patently manmade could be the cause of so much conflict. But it was ever so. The icon had long ago become what every man wanted her to become. To one side a symbol of the unbroken line of their faith, a repository for their aspirations. To the other side an object of fear and illicit fascination.
Eugene finished his smoke and carefully stubbed the butt out on the joists. There’d been enough fires in the town that night already, he didn’t want to go starting another one. Carefully he eased open the skylight and scanned the town below. All was quiet. He fired once more, in the general direction of Scotch Street, and ducked down. He waited five minutes. There was no return fire. The sniper who had pinned down the head of the town must have been disposed of all right. He fired once more and waited. All was quiet. He lifted the one-legged statue and slid it under the skylight. ‘Be a good girl and keep an eye on things for us for a while,’ he said, ‘while I oil, strip and grease the rod.’
Frank pedalled homeward through the darkness, sticking as best he could to the back lanes that wound up into the hills. He hadn’t dared leave till the rioting had died down. Even then there was no way through the Shambles, for there were snipers in Scotch Street covering every corner. Rumours of the unrest had been reaching the palace all afternoon, of three or four dead and others injured. He had heard it on authority that Magee had led a crowd into Irish Street, further up than they had gone in years, burning the Catholics out before them. Marooned on the hilltop he heard the sporadic crack of the Armalites, and saw the dull glow where the houses were ablaze. At midnight he decided to risk it. He would take a detour out by Blackwatertown and bypass the town through the maze of lanes his father had taught him, heading for the safety of the hills.
It was a dark night, the moon only a sliver, obscured behind angry clouds, but he didn’t dare risk even the flickering light of the dynamo. For an hour he had wandered through the Dark Lonen, unsure of his bearings, terrified of rousing the brutes of dogs that lurked behind each gateway, petrified of God knows what might be waiting for him around each corner. In the distance he could still make out the sounds of battle, the rattle of hailstones that he knew was automatic fire, the dull thud of grenades and incendiaries.
The scream of a gearbox! Dogs frantically giving chase! A sudden commotion on the narrow road a mile behind him! A car was coming through the darkness! More than one, at speed! Frank threw himself into the ditch and pulled the bicycle on top of him. In the nick of time, for round the corner raced a cavalcade of dark motors, one, two, three of them, at full speed, kicking up gravel and dirt, the tyres squealing on the narrow bends, rasping on the ditches and the overhanging bushes in the darkness. They roared past him. He lay without moving, listening till the noise of the engines had faded on the night air. When he was sure they were gone he quietly picked himself up. The bike