| First Chapter |
|
| |
| available october
1st 2005: |
| |
| the island |
| |
| price: special offer £5.67 (RRP £6.99) adult
fiction book: paperback size: 128 x 197mms |
| |
| number of pages: 206 isbn number: 0-9549066-0-8 |
| |
| CHAPTER ONE |
| |
| Outside it poured. The room in dull grey light
seemed more of a cell than an office. The gentle ticking
of a clock on the far wall was the only reminder that
the working day would end. The tired silhouettes of the
subs on the late shift suggested that time was unwinding
in slow motion. |
| |
| The office, in dull grey light, resembled a cell. The ticking of a wall clock brought some relief: a gentle reminder that there was an end to the working day. But the tired silhouettes of the 'subs' on the late shift suggested time unwinding in slow motion. |
| |
| Jenkins was fighting off the lethargy of a long day. He had a piece to finish for Thursday's paper that looked like it might not be fighting for space 'til the weekend. Dedication had already prolonged his captivity well beyond the departure of the nine to fivers. He had smoked on through the evening and into the night, struggling to tease the appropriate words onto the screen before tiredness tied his head in knots. There were few words to describe drug trafficking in Northern Ireland that he hadn't used before. The mainstream politicians had nothing new to say. The RUC press office had supplied the same gloomy statistics. The paramilitaries had issued their usual denials. |
| |
| The emergence of the drugs market was a story that needed to be told repeatedly, but was one which no one wanted to hear. Not now. Not in Belfast where people were preoccupied with avoiding bombs and bullets. Not in Westminster where the Government was preoccupied with breaking the unions. By four in the morning however, Jenkins had found an angle he reckoned he could flesh out and that his editor would print. His feature might keep the story alive a little longer. He hoped it would satisfy his sources and wouldn't get him shot. But for a large man he was a very small target. |
| |
| The later the hour, the harder to leave. No matter how much he wanted to be home it was easier to find some small task to keep him at work. The cage door was open, but he couldn't seize the opportunity of escape. When his rolling head jerked him awake from a doze over the keyboard, he decided he'd had enough. He transferred his copy over to the subs' desk, switched off his computer and grabbed his coat. |
| |
| "Yous got any change?" A voice croaked from a crumpled tower of cardboard boxes. "Sorry mate," Jenkins lied. He hated lies. He crossed the road, slightly bemused. Tramps were a rarity in Belfast. That part of Belfast. Outside the Telegraph in particular. It was dry on the street. A relief. Rain had marred much of May. Maybe June would be better. Dawn was coming. A rising sun; salmon pink on an azure blue sky. Jenkins squeezed in behind the steering wheel, shoved in a cassette and headed for home with a jingling of jazz saxophone for company. |
| |
| A thin mist hung at head height on the Cullybacky bypass. The bypass avoided the boxlike sprawl of Cullybacky new town on the drive out of Belfast along the Ards Peninsula. The road, by day a busy commuter link, was deserted now. Clean and black and flattered by the dawnlight, it looked new. Almost photogenic. |
| |
| As Jenkins approached the last section of dual carriageway before his turnoff, he wound down the window to let in some air, which instantly became a vent for stale smoke rather than an inlet for the ripe air of a spring morning. |
| |
| Jenkins hugged the roundabout as if steering a scalectrix car: delicate hands, tempo steady. The fat tyres hummed. |
| |
| As he crossed the junction for the back road to the seaside town of Fellrock something on the little traffic island caught his attention. Some rags... no... a body... maybe. Jenkins brought the car to a halt alongside the island. Engine idling, the tape machine clicked off, interrupting Charlie Parker mid brake. Evan's nudged the drivers' door with his shoulder. The door popped open as if caught by a sudden gust of wind, then stopped abruptly when its bottom lip bit into the pavement with a gravely crunch. The force was enough to shake off some dust and reveal that the grey car, a battered Zodiac, had been cream in a former life. |
| |
| A cloud of cigarette smoke billowed through the open door and hung about Jenkins like ectoplasm. Jenkins emerged: a massive bulk, baggy-clothed and tottering. It took a huge effort to reach the pavement and unfold. He stretched and staggered a step, then another, yawning as if to swallow the sky. Then a lollop across the short distance to the island where he could now see that the mystery bundle was a man, slumped at an alarming angle - half sitting, half lying against the white plastic bollard, centre stage. |
| |
| "Oh, God! It's you, McDaid..." Yawn. "What the hell are you doing here?" |
| Jenkins' Home Counties accent filled the morning air with a volume and enthusiasm that easily irritated. It irritated McDaid, the local tyre fitter. |
| "Hey seriously, are you OK, McDaid?" Jenkins continued. "Can I give you a lift home?" |
| No answer. |
| "A lift?" This time louder. |
| "Nagh," McDaid replied after a long pause and whose Northern Irish brogue which was barely audible. |
| "What's up, McDaid? Have we been overdoing it a little? Are we a little the worse for wear?" |
| "Nagh." |
| "What's wrong?" |
| "Arseholes like you, Mr Jenkins. Arseholes like you keep pestering me." |
| "Ah." |
| "You're the third already this morning ...and the least bloody welcome." |
| "Oh." |
| "The first was a stupid little dog who tried to piss over me, and the second was a milkman who wanted to know if I'd seen her float." |
| "Her float?" |
| "Her float." |
| "Why?" |
| "It's been nicked." |
| "I thought that kind of thing didn't happen round here..." |
| "She's probably covering her tracks." |
| "What?" |
| "It's probably an insurance job, you idiot. The float's probably twenty feet under water in a dock somewhere, where her mate pushed it. She's still got to be seen to be looking for it." |
| Jenkins sat down, leaning against the bollard at a right angle to McDaid. He assumed McDaid's slump and lit a fag. |
| "I hope you're not thinking of staying too long, Englishman." |
| "Fag?" Jenkins asked, rattling the packet at McDaid. |
| "No." |
| "Well, McDaid- " |
| "Look. As I was about to say, why don't you piss off and give my head peace, Englishman?" |
| "I'm Welsh, actually." |
| "You don't sound it." |
| "My dad moved to London before I was born. He's from Cardiff. Barry Garden Suburb. My grandfather had an icecream parlour on Barry Island. I think he invented an icecream called the- " |
| "Am I supposed to be impressed? Anyway, you sound English to me." |
| "My name's Ieuan... Ieuan Jenkins. Not very English is it?" |
| "No... Bloody stupid. Anyway, I can smell the blood of an Englishman a mile off and you smell like one to me." |
| "Thanks very much," Jenkins said flicking his cigarette - a short stub - halfway across the street. |
| "Fee fie fo fum... I smell the blood of an Englishman..." McDaid sang in a slow and spooky voice. |
| "Right. I'm off. Do you want a lift or not, McDaid?" |
| "No." |
| "Oh, come on... It's too far to walk." |
| "Look Iiiiiiiieuan, I'm not going anywhere." |
| Jenkins grimaced. He'd never heard his name sound so ugly. |
| "Oh come on, McDaid. What's the matter? You haven't broken anything have you?" |
| "Do I really look like I've broken something? Don't you think I'd be moaning a little, at least?" |
| "So why can't you move?" |
| "None of your business." |
| "So be it... This is your last chance..." Jenkins said, rolling to his feet, prising himself off the ground with two hands and using the bollard as a lever. McDaid looked away. |
| "Bye, McDaid." |
| Jenkins hobbled back towards the car, whose engine was still purring at the kerbside. |
| "Bye, Englishman." McDaid snapped, making the words sound like an accusation. |
| |
| Jenkins yanked the driver's door shut behind him, gritting his teeth as its bottom edge scraped across the kerb. He rested his forehead on the steering wheel to re-focus, then with a loud "Fuck it!" turned the engine off, fought his way out of the car again and waddled back towards McDaid. |
| |
| "How long have you been sitting here, McDaid?" Jenkins asked crouching down on his haunches. |
| "What's it to you?" |
| "Come on... How long?" |
| "Since midnight." |
| "OK. Why? You can't be very comfortable." |
| "What's it to you?" |
| "Oh, for Christ's sake! Just tell me." Jenkins pleaded, clasping his hands to his face in frustration. |
| "I'll tell you if you promise to piss off and leave me alone." |
| "OK. Will do. Now, tell me why you're here?" |
| Silence. |
| "OH, COME ON, FOR CHRIST'S SAKE!" |
| "Well, I'm sitting down." |
| "Yes... I can see that, you goon... Well?" |
| "Look. You wouldn't understand... Anyway I'm not bloody telling you, if you're going to take the Mick." |
| "Oh, for Pete's sake, tell me, McDaid, and I'll go away." |
| "No, no. I can't. I'd feel stupid." |
| "Well, you kind of look stupid, anyway- " |
| "IT'S A FUCKING SIT DOWN PROTEST... ALRIGHT?" |
| "OK, OK.. There's no need to shout, McDaid. Mmm. Ah, so... a sit down protest, hey? ...Very Parisienne." |
| "Oh, fuck off." |
| "So what brought this on, McDaid? Bored with suburbia?" |
| "I thought you were going to- " |
| "Well, let's face it, you don't strike me as being one of the world's great political leaders, McDaid." |
| "go... Look. I'm being serious here. It was the shooting on Monday? The bookies?" |
| "Yeah, I read about it. Seven murdered? The Antrim Road?" |
| "God, it does my head in." |
| "Nasty. But aren't you used to that stuff by now, McDaid?" |
| "Don't be stupid." |
| "Look, I'd have thought that if you're going to make a political gesture- " |
| "This isn't political." |
| "Well, if you were going to make a political gesture this would be a crap place to make it." |
| "What the fuck would you know?" |
| "Look, if you want to make a political point (and anyway, McDaid, all protests are political), you've got to do it where you can be seen and heard... somewhere where people will take notice of you. Somewhere like the City Hall or Stormont. Not on an insignificant traffic island on one the country's ugliest bypasses leading nowhere and definitely not at four or five in the morning when everyone else is asleep. ...And another thing, you need at least ten people, preferably a hundred or a thousand ...and you need them sitting on the road, or lying on it. You know, a major obstruction... stop the traffic. Look, basically, you need to be able to block a major artery and give the state a coronary, not create a small irritation in the middle of no-fucking-where. To anybody passing by right now, you look like a drunk or the victim of a violent crime - maybe a mugging... not the generalissimo of a major new political campaign." |
| "I told you... This isn't political ...And it isn't a campaign. It's a fucking protest." |
| "OK, so what's your wife going to say, when she notices that you haven't come home?" |
| "What would you know about that?" |
| "...And you'll be due in at work in about four hours time, I presume." |
| "Look man... not that it's any of your business, but... I'm not going back to work." |
| "Oh." |
| "Don't patronise me, OK? If you don't like what I'm doing then piss off. This is a personal protest. I'm not budging until somebody does something about the violence, OK? It's that simple." |
| "McDaid, if you want to sit here all day and have dogs pee on you, then go right ahead. But thank God it's the summer, that's all I say. Look, are you absolutely sure I can't give you a lift?" |
| McDaid shook his head. |
| "Right. Bye then... Oh, and by the way McDaid, did you phone the press? Have you informed the media... the RUC?" |
| "Fuck off and leave me alone. For God's sake, pleeeez, just go!" |
| "Very well... I bid you goodnight McDaid, (or is it good morning?) and wish you farewell. Oh, and just before I do go... I think my offside rear has got a bit of a slow. I've been pumping it all week. Could I drop the car in tomorrow afternoon... about five, maybe?" |
| "Fuck off!" |
| |
| Jenkins pushed himself upright and walked back to the Zodiac. After a little more clunking and scraping, the engine started and the car crawled away exhaling a slim, vapor-like trail of fumes. However, before the car had travelled no further than seventy or eighty yards, it stopped, stood still for a few seconds, and then reversed until alongside the little island again. More clunking and scraping was followed by the reappearance of the giant-sized silhouette of Iuean Jenkins who proceeded to walk round to the back of the car, open the boot and lift out a brown paper bag. Having checked the contents, Jenkins tucked the package under his arm and walked over to McDaid (still slumped against the bollard). |
| |
| "I'm sorry McDaid, but you really are starting to interest me." |
| McDaid, sighed heavily, with renewed agitation. |
| "What?" |
| "This isn't Mississippi, McDaid." |
| "What?" |
| "This isn't Mississippi." Jenkins paused for further effect. "It might be very pleasant hanging out on the street on a warmer than average night in June... waiting for the Sandman to come and escort you off to the land of Nod, but what happens in January when it's minus two? Not very conducive to sitting out all night protesting then?" |
| "What are you on, Englishman?" |
| "All I'm saying McDaid is that you haven't planned this sit in... sit down... demo... or whatever, very carefully, have you? You haven't told the press. You haven't told the police... I bet you haven't told your family, either-" |
| "they KNOW!" |
| "And you've picked the wrong place - you should be in the city centre, you've picked the wrong country - your balls are going to freeze in the winter, and- " |
| "Look, if yous don't like the weather here in Northern Ireland, then piss off back to England." |
| "I don't think you really understand what I'm trying to say, McDaid.. but I bet you wont be here by tomorrow night... probably this afternoon. In actual fact, I'll give you until breakfast, when your Ulster fry is due." |
| "Look, you bastard, if I wasn't doing a fecking sit down for peace, I'd stand up and knock your bloody block off!" |
| "That's more like it McDaid. Fighting talk. That'll help you through those cold winter nights. For that I'll give your protest until tomorrow lunchtime." |
| McDaid had no reply and no fight left, exhausted by Jenkins' incessant chatter. |
| "Look, McDaid. If you are really going to make this work, you've got to have a strategy. You're going to have to find out how to use the system... you know, make contacts. You're going to have to write to people. Put your case on radio. Get on TV. Write articles. Make people, hear you. Debate, observe, articulate. Develop your voice." |
| "You're wrong, Englishman." |
| "Why?" |
| "I've got something much more powerful than talk." |
| "What's that, then?" |
| "Passion." |
| Jenkins paused to think and light another cigarette. |
| "I've got something even stronger, McDaid." |
| "What's that?" |
| "Spirit." |
| "What?" |
| "Spirit... You know... 14 per cent... Black Bush... One bottle of... And... By the way..." |
| "What?" McDaid asked, reaching a hand sideways to accept the bottle as it was pulled from the paper bag like a magician's rabbit. |
| "I'm not English." |
| McDaid took two or three long gulps. Then wiped his mouth on his sleeve in a graceful violinists sweep. |
| "You still sound like one to me... Sliante!" |
| |
|
|
| |
|
|
