Ballycarson Blues Read online

  So it was that Cary was sent as the third musketeer to the ramparts of Ballycarson’s Loyalist defences. Just as the red hand on the bridge was being refreshed, Cary arrived on the scene. He was carrying three large American flags.

  “What are you doing here?” asked William Henry.

  The response indicated that international matters had moved on further and faster than anyone had expected.

  “Big David wants these put up on the bridge. He doesn’t want our end of Ballycarson left out when the Yanks turn up and the big presidential visit goes ahead.”

  The flags were handed up to Billie King, who inserted them into the three vacant flag holders. Since 1922, these had been symbolically left unfilled to represent the Ulster counties of Monaghan, Cavan and Donegal that had been “lost” to the Irish Free State.

  Surely the filling of these long-empty flag holders compromised the traditional position of Unionist solidarity with the small remnant of their brethren just over the international border? Maybe not. Perhaps it was, as Big David expressed it, “only a temporary renunciation of a legitimate territorial claim to parts of the Irish Free State”. But it was a political gamble that had to be taken in these difficult times to secure a greater and more immediate end.

  With political pressure like this, the leader of the Free World was bound to cave in.

  CHAPTER 10

  STEAMING AHEAD

  True to their collective name, the members of the Red Army were colourful characters. Their family nickname and local fame arose not only because of their ginger hair colour. Their clothing, shirts, trousers, jerseys and socks (the last being now more apparent as the trouser legs had shrunk by several inches) had all taken on the homogenous, reddish-purple colour associated with the repeated boil-washing of every item of apparel in the same load. Yet far from shrinking from involvement with washing machines, it was clear that the members of the Red Army were buying up every washing machine thrown out or dumped in Ballycarson. A keen observer would have noted that they had a particular fondness for washer-dryers of the older German variety. These were the ones with no condenser and a long plastic hose requiring the kitchen window to remain open to extract the steam.

  In addition, every one of the brothers had a face that bore the obvious signs of attempting to shave too quickly, or rather too early. As teenagers only too eager to get on in life, each of them had tried to force their advance into the adult world. Even before a hair had appeared on any of their faces, all of them had tried to dry shave, leaving them all with fiery facial rashes and one or two reddish scars. With the constant irritation, the shared skin condition had never really settled down, despite repeat applications of medication. It was almost a metaphor for the political situation in Ballycarson itself. At least that was the frequently expressed view of their uncle Councillor Robinson Sydney Milliken who maintained that the family skin irritation was something about which nothing could be done. It was just a condition they all had to live with. Indeed they should make a positive merit out of the affliction. When one of the brothers looked in the mirror every morning he would know for certain that the beaming reflection could not be that of anyone else. They would all know that they belonged to each other in some deep and unexplained way. In a very real sense they were all wearing their colours. It was just like those annual colourful demonstrations of public loyalty to a particular cause. By this stage in the family’s political lesson of the day, everyone, except the speaker, had given up listening. Indeed, apart from the speaker, they had already left the house. There possibly was more to be learned from the subtleties of the political philosophy of Councillor Robinson Sydney Milliken, but noone had waited around long enough to learn it.

  Ignorant of the true facts and unconvinced that even the most routine acts of facial hygiene and daily cleansing could be explained in terms of politics, their worried mother had taken her five sons along to the local surgery on repeat occasions. Dr. Magda Todstein, one of the local G.P.s, had explained to Mrs. Grant that this sort of problem usually settled down as the boy in question became a man. But somehow or other it appeared that these five lads remained perpetual juveniles even after progressing into their twenties and thirties. Recently, however, their father reported that all five had improved slightly in regard to their shaving habits. They no longer shaved into a beer glass in the front seat of the transit van on their way to work. Instead, they stopped in a lay-by and used the wing mirrors to improve their aim with the blade. However, the ongoing facial skin irritation continued to puzzle the local medical specialists.

  Perhaps this family skin condition is worth a letter to The Lancet. There might be a genetic cause just like with the local politics.

  So thought Dr. Todstein out-loud as she drove to work one Friday morning.

  “It might even be worth a research paper written by me. Yes, I could be someone once again. I could be invited to give talks at the university instead of lunchtime chats with those dim-witted social workers. Why do they always look so displeased when I turn up instead of my male colleagues?”

  The doctor’s inquisitive musings were interrupted as some white foam blew onto her windscreen. She had just stopped at the T-junction opposite the lay-by beside the pub that had once been known as the King’s Hotel. She used her wipers to clear the material on the windscreen, but it only made a greater mess. Slightly irritated, she employed the wash-wipe for additional power. That was the great thing about these German cars – they were prepared for every eventuality. That was engineering with foresight. She was sure that these words of wisdom would sound better in German. Before she could move off, however, more foam landed on the windscreen. She wound down the side window to see where it was coming from only to have some more of the floating substance hit her square in the face. She wiped it off and looked at the assaulting material. If she was not mistaken, and as a former pathologist in the former D.D.R she was not usually mistaken, it contained small traces of hair and had a slight perfume redolent of a soap of some sort. As this was not the usual form of product of the weather in mid summer, even in Ireland, the doctor pulled her car onto the verge and stepped out to investigate further. It was in the lay-by that she discovered the source of the outbreak of the sweet-smelling foam.

  This was the very lay-by on the Loyalist east side of town that had been the subject of repeated international controversy over a series of years. Dr. Todstein had heard of it even whilst she lived in the D.D.R. Its reputation had breached the iron curtain. First, it was because of the travelling fish. Then, there was concern about the effects of the imported liquid pollution found there. Thereafter came the notoriety because of the spectacular fall off in trade and the impact on businesses in the town. And, lastly, the repeated futile attempts on the part of the Council to twin it with similar venues elsewhere in the world as a site of special scientific interest. So much history in a small sheet of tar beside a public road! It was a wonder the Council had not put up a plaque to celebrate the locale. Oh, it seems they have, thought the doctor as she noticed the sign in question with a lot of small print – a clear sign of a Council sign.

  By sheer good fortune and a pleasing concatenation of geographic and political phenomena, Ballycarson had been a strategically placed town and this lay-by was itself strategically placed just outside the town. The complex history of the lay-by was clearly related to this doubly strategic role. As the main town just north of the official international border crossing, Ballycarson had provided a convenient stopping-off point for lorries passing from the west-coast ports in the south to the east-coast ferry crossings in the north. Yes, all corners of Ireland met here just as if it were the centre of the St. Patrick’s cross. However, it was a crossing point the long-distance lorry drivers had to bear simply due to a lack of alternatives, at least that was until the building of the Ballycarson bypass. But during the period of time in which Ballycarson had maintained its primacy as a crossing point – or a bottleneck, depending on one’s perspective – there had been a
paucity of hostelries to cater for the throughput of lorry drivers. Indeed the only overnight accommodation in the town had come in the form of two army camps. They were already fully occupied and outsiders unwelcome. So the lorry drivers had resorted to sleeping in their lorries parked in the two roadside lay-bys at the edge of the town. Yes, after failing to find any suitable foreign twinning candidates, the Council had simply twinned the one layby on this side of town with the other at the far side of town. Fortunately, each of the lay-bys was located beside one of the two town pubs, respectively the former King’s Hotel owned by the twin brothers the Unionist councillors James and Wilburt Morrow and the Irish Presidential Hotel run by the mother-inlaw of Nationalist Councillor Eugene O’Driscoll. Here was an example of keen cross-community commercial competition enhanced by personal animus. The relationship between the two sets of publicans had been poisoned at an early date during the Unionist hegemony when the owner of the Irish Presidential Hotel had applied for a liquor licence. A typing error in the Council offices had led to the licence being issued in favour of the “Irish Presidential Hovel”. Councillor Eugene O’Driscoll took this confusion of consonants to be a deliberate slur, indeed an attempt to defame, issued by the lackeys of British imperialism incited by his mother-in-law’s commercial rivals, councillors James and Wilburt Morrow. The animosity had never grown weaker as the years passed and Councillor Eugene O’Driscoll waited for time to take revenge.

  It was the first of these lay-bys on the Loyalist side of town that had come to the attention of the Russian spy satellites. After the fall of communism the operators of these unseen tools of world supervision had diversified into commercial and academic ventures just to stay in business. One of these new opportunities was the tracking of basking sharks in the Atlantic just off Galway Bay for one of the forward-looking universities in Scotland. Each shark in the grand experiment had been fitted with a brightly coloured, waterproof tracking device. The transmitting apparatus was attached to a little orange collar with a badge advertising the corporate sponsor, a chain of burger bars in Aberdeen wishing to diversify into fish cakes, and identifying the university department in question. In a three-page feature on this novel application of Scottish science to preserve Irish wildlife, the local newspaper in the Gaeltacht commended the cross-jurisdictional Celtic cooperation. The happy, uplifting story was prefaced with a headline that was picked up further north by the Provincial Observer and, for the benefit of English-speaking readers (i.e. everyone likely to pick up the paper), translated as follows:

  “Orange Collarettes Worn by Sharks”

  The inevitable row in the northern counties erupted when the headline was read to grandmasters of the local lodges. A boycott of the university in question was threatened and the entire relationship between indigenous Scots and the Ulster Scots was threatened. This unthinkable tragedy was narrowly avoided only when the professor of Scottish Gaelic at the relevant university confirmed that the original newspaper words used could also be loosely translated as:

  “Orange Collarettes Worn by Big Fish”

  Yes, that was a more flattering term. The grandmasters were contented in that they knew they were indeed the big fish, albeit, admittedly, the pond was quite small. So the muddied waters were cleared. Academic freedom was preserved. The university experiment continued and the west-coast sharks continued to be tracked.

  Shortly afterwards the same university received a phone call at an odd time of the day when none of the academics were at work. It was half past two on a Friday afternoon and the call was taken by the university porter. The foreign-sounding caller informed the university that he had found a dead shark washed up on a Connemara beach. It was presently being eaten by seagulls but quite a lot remained untouched. When the finder of the fish had phoned the experiment-sponsoring burger bar named on the collar worn by the fish, they had informed him that they did not as yet have a demand for so big a fish, although it was still fresh enough for human consumption if suitably prepared. The seagulls were no use as it was outside the period in which they sold their special deep fried Christmas gull-flavoured nuggets. “Phone the university instead. Maybe their refectory could use the stuff.” So advised, the caller contacted the natural history faculty of the university using the number conveniently stamped on the orange collar. The message was taken by the porter who said he would get the professor to call back on Monday. Days later the problem was resolved when the professor’s research assistant duly called. She was interested in those sea eagles. How many were there? Only after a few minutes of pointless discussion at cross-purposes did it become clear that the sea eagles were the product of the porter’s mishearing of the reference to seagulls. Eventually the main point of the call was addressed. “What does the university want me to do with this shark?” asked the west-coast Irish man once again. Yes, he could arrange for it to be transported to the university if they provided the funds and a suitable finder’s fee. But he could not send the seagulls too unless they provided him with a net. Oh, that wasn’t necessary; the university had plenty already. And he would phone again if he did see any sea eagles.

  And so it was that the decomposing shark was loaded onto a lorry and sent north to Scotland via the bottleneck at Ballycarson. Just as the lorry passed through Ballycarson the university in Scotland received a second call, this time from Russia. To their total disbelief the practised operators of the satellite had tracked a shark leaving the Atlantic and progressing over land at a speed of fifty miles an hour to a place called Ballycarson. What sort of fish existed in Ireland? Could some of their Russian scientists come to have a look at this amazing creature? Were Irish sharks evolving into some form of high-speed amphibian or bird? What sort of fowl was this fish?

  When the news of the telephone exchange became public, the Provincial Observer ran a supplementary special edition bearing the headline:

  “As We Told You Before:

  Sharks in Ballycarson.”

  With a trail blazed by this first pioneering shark, a trade route grew up. The product for transport was shark liver from Connemara to be manufactured into some sort of mysterious medicinal panacea in Scotland. After a day’s hard driving, the fish-carrying lorry drivers would arrive at Ballycarson wishing for a stop and refreshment. They wished to empty a bottle down their necks at the bottleneck. The owner of the Irish Presidential Hotel soon realised the importance of fostering this trade – but not, most definitely not, at her establishment. What had convinced her more readily than any words could was the attendant smell. As each lorry remained parked in the lay-by, a dark, oily, offensively stinking liquid seeped out of the transported shark liver, ran down the side of the lorry and onto the tar where it collected in large, evil-smelling pools. Difficult though it may be to speak of such matters, it must be done. The resultant smell resembled that of two- or three-day-old urine, only immensely more powerful and considerably more persistent. Realising the effect of this obnoxious stench that continued for days and could not easily be washed away, the owner of the Irish Presidential Hotel paid the lorry drivers to park at the far side of town at the lay-by immediately beside the rival establishment, the King’s Hotel. The loyalty of the regulars of the King’s Hotel evaporated as readily as the pungent foul smell did not. Erstwhile unqualified loyalty to the King was transferred forthwith and, without a second thought, to the Irish President. The grass on the other side of town may have been greener, but at least the beer could be drunk in comfort and without holding one’s nose.

  The unfair trade advantage continued until the councillors Morrow decided they would have to destroy their own business forever. This was quite acceptable as long as, at the same time, they could watch the destruction of that of their rival, Councillor Eugene O’Driscoll, and his mother-in-law. The big idea of the Ballycarson bypass was put forward. “Release us from this stench! These decomposing bodily fluids are not our lifeblood! Not in our backyard or lay-by!” These were the convincing arguments presented to the Northern Ireland Office in a f
ormal presentation by the then Unionist-run Ballycarson Council. Nobody bothered to think of the implications beyond the personal vendetta of the councillors Morrow. The building of the dual carriageway was duly funded as an exceptional gesture of humanitarian aid and the passing trade for Ballycarson dried up entirely. So too did the evil-smelling pools in the lay-by. So not everything was bad. One must get things into perspective after all.

  As she got out of her car at the lay-by in the Loyalist side of town Dr. Todstein immediately gained the impression that international science had yet again found something of interest in this special location. The evil smell had gone and indeed had been replaced by something else vaguely resembling that encountered in a second-rate washeteria. The location was a busy place too. Five vans were parked in the lay-by and something was definitely going on. At a distance Dr. Todstein first thought that the team of five men, each with a large white hose attached to a large white machine, was somehow cleansing the area. Maybe it was a repeat of an exercise like that on the island of Gruinard off the west coast of Scotland when scientists have to come back every so often to make sure the underlying contamination of anthrax has gone. As she got closer, however, the picture became clearer. The operation on site did indeed involve cleansing but of another and unexpected type.

  In the lay-by, parked in a line, Dr. Todstein could see five red transit vans. Standing beside each van was one of the five Grant brothers – the entire male contingent of the Red Army – each holding up to his face the open end of a long, white, corrugated, plastic tube. Fearing a collective suicide attempt, the doctor raced forwards to administer first aid. Her alarm, however, was misplaced. In each case the plastic tube was the extractor vent from a German washer-dryer and, as the doctor moved round the side of each van, she saw the five machines in question were plugged into the electricity supply feeding the public street lamps. All the machines were running and hot moist air was blowing out of the tubes. Small amounts of shaving foam blew across the road. This indeed was the source of her windscreen problem.