Northern Spy(48)

He’d been playing Fifa when I arrived. We could be in his student flat. He sets down the kerosene, clearing a space on the kitchen counter among old takeaways and empty tins of Harp.

“Is Marian here?” I ask.

“No,” he says, “they went out.”

“Does Marian not give out to you about this?” I ask, nodding at the dirty surfaces, the overflowing sink, the sticky floor, the cold, congealed trays of chicken tikka and lamb vindaloo.

“Oh,” he says, “no, she does. We made a rota.”

The rota is taped to the fridge. This week Seamus has to take out the bins, and I file this away to remember the next time he frightens me.

“You’re on washing up,” I say, and Niall nods, looking defeated. “Here, let me help.”

I scrape out the foil trays, and Niall squirts some dish soap onto the dirty plates in the sink. I already know that when the robbery is read out on the news tonight, it will be difficult for me to connect it to this moment. Surveillance footage might be shown of two masked figures holding guns. You’d never picture one of them, hours earlier, in his kitchen doing the washing up. They always seem to have appeared from nowhere.

“Do you want a cup of tea?” he asks abruptly, as if someone, maybe Marian, once told him you’re meant to offer.

“That would be lovely.”

We keep cleaning the kitchen, talking about football and the weather. We discuss the different takeaway options in the area, and Niall complains that Seamus would have them order from the same chip shop every single night if he could. He and Marian are excited about the new Korean place in Ballymurphy.

“I thought Damian liked to cook. Doesn’t he cook for you?” I ask.

“He’s been too busy,” says Niall. I sprinkle some Dettol over the kitchen surface and wipe it with a cloth, pretending not to be curious about what has been occupying Damian’s time.

“Do you get nervous before a robbery?” I ask.

“Yes. I didn’t used to,” he says.

“Why is that?”

“Just getting older, probably,” he says thoughtfully, and my heart breaks at how young he seems. I want to know how they recruited him, what promises they made. He was raised in foster care. I wonder if that made them target him.

We continue with our tidying. I lean over the sink, rinsing old chips and vinegar from plates.

“Do you know what Marian wants for Christmas?” he asks. He’s planning ahead, it’s only November.

“You could do a nice tin of hot chocolate,” I say. “Or scotch.”

“What kind?”

“Oh, um, Oban. Talisker.”

He takes out his phone and carefully types the names into his notes. I turn away, drying a plate with a towel, trying to control my emotion before it makes me either cry or tell him the truth. He thinks these people are his family. Soon we’ve finished the dishes and the surfaces, and he walks me to the door.

“Don’t tell Marian you helped me,” he says. “She’d lose the plot.”

I think about the two cakes Marian had for her birthday last year. The one at my house, and the one on their surfing trip in Mullaghmore. I picture Marian in the dark rooms, surrounded by two completely different groups of people, leaning toward two round cakes, one pink, one yellow. She must have felt more at home with one of the groups. One of them must have felt like her true family, who love her the most, who love her wholly. All this time, I’d been so sure it was us.





30


ITAKE A BUS BACK to the city center. It’s only two in the afternoon. I don’t need to collect Finn from day care for a few hours, so I walk down the Lisburn Road, to Marian’s street. I stop on the corner, looking down the terrace of brick houses. A pub sits at one end of her road, and the railway line lies at the far end. When her windows are open, she can hear the cooks in the pub kitchen and the trees thrashing along the railway.

Marian has only been a few miles away. I wonder if she fantasizes about coming here to rest in her own bed, or take a bath, or drink tea on her sofa.

She must be tempted. At the safe house, Marian is surrounded by other people, which must grate on her, not having any time to herself. She needs solitude. “A day without solitude is like a drink without ice,” she once said to me, quoting an old-fashioned book.

Last Christmas, Marian disappeared from our aunt’s house, and I found her outside on the back step, bundled in her coat, watching icy clouds shear past the moon. “Too noisy,” she said. Though maybe she doesn’t need a break from her unit, maybe being with them is as undemanding as being alone.

I haven’t been back to her home in months, and it has taken on a different aspect to me, like the headquarters from which she ran her two lives. Marian was both a civilian and a terrorist while living here. She hosted dinners for her friends, and prepared for operations.

She must have been exhausted. It must have taken so much organization and energy to manage two identities. When I complained to her about being torn between work and the baby, Marian sympathized with me. She said, “It’s always hard to decide the best use of your time.” I’d thought she had no idea what she was talking about, but for years, she’d had to divide her resources, her attention.

I try to allow for the possibility that Marian is more tired than me. There are nights when I have to work on my laptop for hours after Finn falls asleep, there are weeks when I set an alarm for 4:45 a.m. and settle at my desk for a solid stretch of work before he wakes, thinking everything’s going to be fine, everything will get done, then a few minutes later he is up, too.