Northern Spy(28)

In bed, I try to calm myself by picturing Finn asleep in his travel crib at his grandparents’ house in Ardara. My sunny baby. I miss his sounds, his expressions, his warm hand resting on top of mine while I give him a bottle.

It’s almost four in the morning. I’d expected three full nights of sleep while Finn was away. I’d expected the sleep to act like a blood transfusion, for my body to work properly again afterward. I hate Marian for keeping me awake, for letting me think she’d been abducted, for lying to me.

At St. George’s market, Marian carried Finn away from me into a service corridor, opened her backpack, and set a bomb down, inches away from him. All of my fury with her keeps returning to this one point, like a lightning rod under a massive storm.





16


NICHOLAS BUYS ME A COFFEE in the canteen on Monday morning. We should be making notes for our program this week, but neither of us has written a word. I look around at the reporters and staff sprawled at the other tables, talking and gesturing with their paper cups, and envy their ease. A part of me was relieved my badge still worked at the entrance this morning. My sister is in the IRA, I shouldn’t be allowed in here.

My face was burning when I walked into the news meeting this morning. I’d thought more than usual about my outfit, choosing a striped shirtdress, ironing it, trying not to look like a terrorist’s sister.

“You don’t need to tell me anything,” says Nicholas, “but are you all right?”

“Yes.” His face creases with concern, and I resist the urge to tell him everything. Someday, maybe. “Has everyone been talking about me?”

“Oh,” he says, “don’t worry about that. The gossip has already moved on.”

I don’t believe him. Everyone in the building knows that my sister performed an armed robbery on Thursday. They might think that I’d already known she was in the IRA, that I’d been covering for her for years.

“I had no idea Marian had joined,” I say. “I would have tried to stop her.”

“I know you would have,” says Nicholas.

“Am I going to be fired?”

“No, Tessa. Of course not.”

“How can anyone trust me?”

“Well,” he says, “to start, you’re not your sister.” He says this simply, and I nod while thinking, Yes I am.



* * *



—

On the bus home, late sunlight pours through the windows. I rest my face against the warm glass as we drive through the fields, yellow wheat sweeping away in all directions. We pass two men working in the field, with long hoods of sweat down their shirts. The sunlight turns the backs of my eyes a warm red, and I start to drift. I feel crumpled by the day, my dress wrinkled, my feet swollen from the heat, my head heavy from trying to focus.

My mother rings me as I’m unlocking my front door, dropping my bag, levering off my shoes. “Listen to this,” she says.

When she was at work earlier, she went out to the road to bring the bins in, and Marian was standing there.

They fell into each other’s arms, then my mam said, “Wait here.” The Dunlops were inside, they couldn’t catch sight of Marian, so my mother went back to the house, returning with the labradors, and they walked into the woods. My mam already knew about our conversation in Greyabbey yesterday, but Marian still told her everything. Afterward, my mam brought the dogs inside. She took the dinner she’d made for the Dunlops, macaroni and cheese with crispy breadcrumbs and parsley, from the oven and smuggled a large portion outside to Marian.

“Are you not angry?”

“With Marian?”

“Yes, mam. With Marian.”

“You don’t understand. She could have been dead.”

“If it were me,” I say, “you’d be angry.”

“Oh for god’s sake.”

“You would. You were always tougher on me.”

“I had to be, Tessa. Do you mind yourself as a teenager?”

“Because I wouldn’t go to Mass? I never built bombs, mam.”

My mother makes a clucking sound, like it was inappropriate of me to mention the bombs. It is one small consolation to consider how furious the Dunlops would be if they knew that Marian had been to their house, that a member of the IRA had held their dogs’ leashes, had been given part of their dinner.

“Do you forgive her?” I ask.

“Yes.”

A silence falls between us. I know she is thinking that her forgiveness is beside the point, it is for god to forgive. She won’t say it aloud, though.

“She’s a terrorist,” I say.

“Not anymore. She wants peace.”

“She lied to us for seven years, mam. We don’t even know who she is.”

“Oh, I know exactly who she is,” she says. “And who you are.”



* * *



—

The funny thing, I think later, is that our mother sounded clear-eyed and proud, even though one of her daughters is a terrorist and the other is a bystander.





17


AFTER WORK THE NEXT DAY, I sit on my front step, my chin propped in my hand, waiting for Tom and Finn. When they arrive, I skip forward, elated to see Finn, but he refuses to meet my eyes.