Though the Heavens Fall Read online

  He and Maura had agonized over whether she and the children should accompany him. They settled on Dublin for her and the two youngest kids, Normie and Dominic. Normie was eleven going on twelve and Dominic was three. The oldest boy, Tommy Douglas, was attending university at home in Halifax. Maura had arranged a leave of absence from her job as a professor at Dalhousie Law School in Halifax, and she had been taken on as a part-time lecturer at the University College of Dublin’s law school. The family had been in Ireland before, but law courts and law books had not been part of the earlier trip.

  Monty had spent three days in Dublin, at the little row house Maura had found on the city’s north side, before he headed north to Belfast to start work. He had leased a nifty little Renault hatchback from Burke Transport, and he left the city with assurances that the family would all be together again soon. It was a pleasant two-hour drive through rolling green fields. He was stopped at a border checkpoint, but the army — that being the British Army — did not detain him long.

  Ellison Whiteside was a firm of solicitors specializing in civil litigation, and the arrangement was that Monty would work a few cases for the firm in addition to his work for Canadian Earth. This provided an interesting change of focus. In Halifax, he was a defence lawyer trying cases in the criminal courts. Or representing defendants and their insurance companies in civil trials, taking the position that the person claiming injury was barely hurt at all, that there was nothing wrong with the plaintiff beyond a few minor aches and pains, and that he or she was not entitled to retire from the workforce at the defendant’s expense. Now, here in Belfast, he worked mainly on the plaintiff side. Now he’d be the one claiming that the injured party would never work again, My Lord, because of the pain in his back, neck, leg, head, or little finger. He had to admit that the work wasn’t as exciting as winning acquittals in high-profile murder trials, but the sojourn in Belfast would be an adventure, he was sure.

  There was somebody else who had a hand in this whole scheme, and that was Father Brennan Burke. The priest was practically a part of the Collins-MacNeil family now. Born in Dublin, he had a big extended family in Ireland. Although he was a frequent visitor to the country, he had always wanted to spend a longer stretch of time here. Brennan had originally intended to stay in Dublin but with prompting from some of his northern Republican relations who had never recognized the border — “It’s all Ireland, Brennan” — he decided on Belfast. That way, he said, “I can make sure that Monty will continue to receive the sacraments. And he’ll never be alone when it’s time to raise a glass after hours.” So he signed on to assist the other priests at a church in the north part of the city, and he would be staying with a cousin by the name of Ronan Burke.

  * * *

  Monty had made plans to go for an early pub supper with Brennan. Brennan expressed an interest in seeing Monty’s new residence, so they met there. He had the downstairs flat in a typical red-brick Victorian terrace house with projecting bay windows, on Camden Street near Queen’s University. They headed out from there, walked through the university district, and came to the shore of the River Lagan. Fortunately, the weather had changed, as it did frequently during any one day in Belfast, and the river shone in the setting sun, reflecting the flame-coloured sky above. They kept to the Lagan’s bank for a while and then turned into the streets of a neighbourhood Brennan called the Markets. A Nationalist area of brick houses with Republican murals and the green, white, and orange Irish tricolour, which would most likely be described here as green, white, and gold. People were out of their houses chatting and enjoying the late afternoon warmth. Monty and Brennan greeted them and were greeted in return.

  They then left the residential area and found themselves on a busy street fronted by an imposing Portland stone building with columns and multi-paned windows. Monty had had a glimpse of the building on a short trip to Belfast three years earlier; it was a sight you wouldn’t forget. It was the High Court, its noble elevation marred by the enormous concrete blast wall that surrounded it. When would they be able to dismantle the wall? When would they deem it safe from car bomb attacks? Was there really a chance that peace would prevail at last?

  “Some of our greatest buildings are those dedicated to the ideal of justice and the rule of law,” Brennan said.

  “And rightly so,” Monty agreed. “Fiat justitia ruat caelum.”

  “Well, we’re in a place now where justice and the rule of law have been taking a thumping for over twenty-five years.”

  “Longer than that, I suspect.”

  “Much longer indeed. Centuries. But you’re an officer of the courts now, Collins. You’ll put things to rights.”

  “Yeah, with my trip and fall cases. Those are my files these days when I’m not sorting through cartons of papers from the equipment manufacturer. At least these cases won’t get me killed. Or so I would hope.”

  “Nothing too thrilling yet, I guess?”

  “Could be worse.”

  He and Brennan continued on their walk, keeping an eye out for a place to enjoy some pub food for supper, and they found what they were looking for at the Garrick, a beautiful old bar with dark wood and gleaming fittings, dating back to Victorian times. As they sipped their pints and waited for their meal to be served, Monty asked, “So you’re settling in at your cousin’s place? You don’t miss rectory life and Mrs. Kelly?” Mrs. Kelly was the priests’ housekeeper in Halifax. A nervous, fussy woman, she made no secret of her disapproval of Father Burke for reasons too numerous to mention.

  “I imagine the screws in the Crumlin jail would be easier to take than Mrs. Kelly,” he said. “But all that aside, it’s lovely staying at Ronan and Gráinne’s. Plenty of room. Aideen’s the youngest; she’s at university in Galway. Tomás is about to be married and is living just around the corner, so he calls in for visits. Lorcan is rooming with some other lads in a flat off the Falls Road. I’ve a nice, comfortable room upstairs at Ronan’s, so it’s grand.”

  “I understand Ronan works for Burke Transport, northern division?”

  “He does. Part-time, a few mornings a week. He used to run it but he was, well, away for a stretch of time. Or two.”

  “I see.”

  “So somebody else runs the place and he’s there about half the time. His son Tomás is full-time, though. Does the books. Studied business and accounting, all that, in college. But Ronan wouldn’t be able to devote all his time to the transport operation anyway. He has other activities that are taking up his energies.”

  “His name pops up frequently in the news.”

  “He’s in the thick of things with the ceasefire and with some extremely delicate machinations that are going on, to try and get a peace agreement.”

  “Good luck to him.”

  “He’ll be needing it. To the Unionists, any accommodation with us papists is a surrender. And one of their mottos, as you’ve seen on the murals, is ‘No Surrender!’”

  “Unionist,” Monty knew, meant union with the United Kingdom, not with the rest of Ireland.

  “They are already calling the process a sell-out. Sull-ite. But they can’t have been sold too far down the river, because the Republicans are calling it a sell-out, too. Or they assume it will be, from what they’ve heard to this point. So you can imagine the rocky road ahead of the fellas trying to strike a deal. Here’s Ronan, with the best intentions in the world, and he’s getting as much resistance from his own people as he is from their age-old enemies.”

  “He’d better watch his back,” Monty remarked.

  “God bless him and keep him.”

  It was a familiar phrase, uttered frequently and without much thought. Not this time. Father Brennan Burke had the look of a very worried man.

  Chapter II

  Monty

  Monty was all set to meet Ronan Burke and his family a week after arriving in Belfast. At least, he would meet them whenever he located Saint Mat
thew’s church on the city’s east side. Brennan had extended to Monty, Maura, and the kids an invitation to the wedding of Ronan’s son Tomás on Saturday, January 28, and Saint Matthew’s was the parish church of the bride’s family. Monty had crossed the River Lagan in his Renault and found himself on the Newtownards Road. So far so good, according to the directions he had been given; this was the road. But something wasn’t right. They were looking for a Catholic church, yet all they were seeing were Union Jack flags and murals celebrating Loyalist paramilitaries. The murals called death down on the Irish Republican Army, and more than one bit of graffiti vowed “No pope, no surrender!”

  To state the obvious, this was not a Catholic neighbourhood. And it was Belfast, so that was no minor distinction. Monty didn’t even want to roll down his window and ask for directions. Especially since, as Brennan had told him, Saint Matthew’s had been the scene of one of the earliest battles of the Troubles. In 1970, Loyalist gunmen attacked the church with petrol bombs, and the Provisional IRA took up rifles and defended it, and thereby wrote themselves into the modern history of the island. It was considered the first major action by the Provisionals, who had split from the Official IRA, partly because they believed the Officials had failed to take up arms to defend Catholic neighbourhoods from attack. With all that history in mind, Monty wasn’t about to stop in front of a Loyalist mural and ask for directions to an RC church.

  But Brennan had said the turnoff came soon after the bridge, so perhaps Monty had missed it. He got himself turned around. There. A large stone church with a steeple on the side. Hard to miss. He must have been distracted on his first attempt by the towering yellow shipyard cranes visible from the street. The cranes loomed over the Harland and Wolff yard where the Titanic had been built. The turn Monty wanted was Bryson Street. He drove in and parked. They were now in the Short Strand. The flags on display here were the green, white, and gold Irish tricolour, the murals Nationalist-Republican. As the family walked to the church, little Dominic pointed out the nearest IRA mural with great delight.

  “Boys will be boys,” his mother groused. The little fellow seemed particularly interested in the barrel of a rifle, which was pointed over the heads of observers of the mural. Monty assumed the gun was pointed at the Loyalist population that surrounded this tiny Nationalist enclave in east Belfast. As if to emphasize the point, there were several men dressed in bulky jackets, standing in the churchyard looking outwards and making no move to go inside for the ceremony. It was a mild sunny afternoon so nobody else had heavy clothes on, nothing like what the Collinses and MacNeils would have been wearing for a January wedding at home in Canada.

  Brennan was just inside the door as they entered the church. He was in his Roman collar and was wearing a white alb over his clerical suit. Monty knew he was one of the soloists for the wedding Mass.

  “Are those extra choirboys I see out there, Brennan?”

  “Let’s hope we won’t have to hear from them.”

  “Especially any bursts of percussion, eh? Are there bodyguards at every Mass at Saint Matthew’s?”

  “It wouldn’t surprise me, given that we papists are outnumbered in this area ten to one. They could push the lot of us off the bank and into the river if they were of a mind to. But of course the muscle have to be here on this occasion anyway, for Ronan.”

  Monty caught Maura’s eye. In her mind surely, as in his, was the word ceasefire followed by a question mark.

  They took their seats in the middle of the church. The place was packed and there was a lot of socializing going on across the pews, hands being shaken, laughter bursting out as wisecracks were exchanged. The bridal couple came in together, the bride in a pale pink suit, the groom in a navy suit, white shirt, and tie. Tomás Burke was a young groom, young for these times, at twenty-two. His bride, Aoife, was a few years older. Brennan had said she was a widow with two little children. Tomás was tall, over six feet, with black hair and dark eyes, like his cousin Brennan. Aoife was black-haired as well, petite with a pretty, friendly face. Glorious coloured light beamed down on the congregation from the ruby, sapphire, and emerald stained glass windows.

  The only thing more heavenly than the light in the church was the music. It was not difficult to detect the hand of Father Burke in the selections. The choir sang a simple, exquisitely beautiful Gregorian Mass; a soprano gave a haunting performance of the ancient Irish love song “Eibhlín a Rún,” and Brennan himself sang the Bach-Gounod “Ave Maria.” Father Burke’s musical talents had not only landed him a job as choirmaster in his adopted home of Halifax, Nova Scotia, they had put him on the short list for a one-year stint as a choirmaster in Rome, beginning in the fall. But this was not the time for Monty to badger him for news about that. There was enough to occupy everyone’s attention here and now in Belfast.

  The party afterwards was at the home of Ronan Burke on the other side of the city, in Andersonstown. There was no formal reception at or near the church. In Brennan’s words, “We can’t have everyone loosened by drink, wandering onto the Newtownards Road.” NEWT’n’ards. Not an option. So the father of the groom had offered to host the party. Monty drove across the city and pulled up at the given address, a two-storey red-brick house at the end of a terrace. He parked behind a black car with two men inside, and he and his family got out. Normie took Dominic by the hand and skipped ahead. Monty saw her turn and peer into the black car and raise her free hand in a wave. Monty looked at the car and took note of the stone-faced occupants. They may have waved at Normie, but there was no wave for Monty.

  The door of the house opened then, and their host emerged to welcome his guests. Ronan Burke was in his mid to late forties, in good shape. His hair was a mix of black and iron grey, his eyes blue but dark, almost a navy blue. He called out, “Welcome to Andytown!” and then stood aside as the guests piled in through his front door. He appeared to take no notice of the men in the car.

  Monty introduced himself and his family, and Ronan shook hands with the adults and crouched down to greet the children. He whispered something in Normie’s ear. Her eyes widened, and she responded, “Yeah! I mean, yes please.” He pointed her in the direction of the back of the house, and she took off like a shot, pulling her little brother along behind her.

  “The little ones are all out in the back garden. One of the young fellas is in from the country with a pony and cart. Not the usual way he gets around — he usually drives a sporty little car. But he knows the children love Rocket, the pony. Now what can I get for you? Gráinne has a lovely dinner spread out, but I’m the barman. What will you have?”

  Monty spied bottles of beer and stout on a table, with glasses, and said he would help himself. He poured a Smithwick’s for Maura and a Guinness for himself. Ronan was empty-handed, so Monty picked up another bottle and gave him an inquiring glance.

  Ronan put up his hand and said, “None for this boyo. Come and meet Gráinne, my wife.”

  He led them to the mother of the groom, who was just coming in with a pot of what appeared to be stew. Mrs. Burke was tall and auburn-haired, with lively brown eyes. Ronan spoke in what Monty recognized as a strong Dublin accent, and he remembered Brennan saying Ronan had left Dublin for Belfast as a young man. Gráinne sounded like Belfast, born and bred.

  Monty circulated through the party, making small talk with the people around him, then wandered out back where the kids were having a grand old time. Normie was chatting with Orla Farrell. She was a relation on Gráinne’s side of the family, now living in Dublin, and Brennan had arranged for her to sign on as a daytime nanny for Normie and Dominic when Maura was lecturing at the law school. Normie was very fond of the young nanny. The fact that Orla had red hair and glasses was another plus. These were features that Normie was self-conscious about at times; turns out they were not so isolating after all. Not in this part of the world. Normie and Orla had their eyes on two little girls sitting in the pony cart with a couple of toddler
s on their laps; the little ones were urging Rocket the pony to go, go, go! But the ambitiously named animal would have been hard put to move, there were so many children sitting on his back. The pony’s head was turned towards Monty, a stoic expression on his face.

  “Sure, the creature has the patience of a saint,” said a woman standing at Monty’s side.

  Someone called from the house, saying it was time for family pictures. This was met by a groan from all the kids outside. Debate raged back and forth, and the children won out. “All right, we’ll take them out there.” That was Tomás, leading his bride by the hand.

  “We’ll do some more inside,” Aoife said, “so try not to get too much pony shite on your good suit.” She gave her new husband a playful swat and came outside. Soon the yard was filled with people in their wedding finery, and they posed beside and behind the kids and the pony, and the kids laughed uproariously and the photographer snapped away.