Is she a terrorist now? Can you be a terrorist and an informer at the same time, or are you only ever one or the other?
She hasn’t really defected. The leaders of her organization are in peace talks with the government, Marian is trying to safeguard those talks. Except what she’s doing hasn’t been sanctioned by anyone in the IRA. If they find out, the internal security team won’t spend time parsing her loyalty. She’s a tout. They kill informers execution-style, with a bullet at the back of the head.
Her life has been in danger, in one way or another, for seven years. I don’t understand how she never told me, in all the time we’ve spent together.
We went to France together last year. We flew into Bordeaux, rented a car, and drove south into the Languedoc. During the hottest hours of the day, we sat under the shade of the arbor with cups of coffee, newspapers, paperbacks, and bowls of Castelvetrano olives. We swam in the pool and lay on the slates to dry. It had been cold and damp for months at home, and I felt like the sun was scouring me clean. At night we sat outside in the dark, the stone fortifications of the town floodlit on the hill above us, talking.
I want to know what she was thinking then, and as we drove back to the airport, passed through security, waited at the gate. She could have turned to me at any moment and said, There’s something I need to tell you.
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.