After he leaves, I put on a pair of headphones and listen to a speech Rebecca Main gave last week at a school in Carrickmacross. She has only been the justice minister for a few weeks, but she’s already drawing large crowds of supporters and protesters. “The United Kingdom will never bend to terrorism,” she says. I stop the clip, leaning forward. She is wearing a bulletproof vest. You can just make out its shape under her suit.
Rebecca Main lives in a house in south Belfast with a panic room and a security detail outside. I wonder if either helps her feel safe. I wonder how she feels about being constantly under threat.
It was exciting in the beginning, when the unrest started. No one wants to admit that, but it has to be said. In the first few weeks, when the protests and riots and hijackings began, the conflict was disruptive, rippling across ordinary routines. You couldn’t take your usual routes. Certain intersections would be barred by a crowd—mostly young men, mostly shouting, some with their shirts off, some throwing rocks—or by a bus that had been tipped on its side and set on fire. Sometimes we stood on the roof of Broadcasting House and watched black flags of smoke rising around the city. While working, or traveling across Belfast to my flat, I felt resourceful and competent simply for doing what I’d always done.
One morning a news crew from America was in the café around the corner from my flat. The reporter wore construction boots, jeans, and a bulletproof vest. I watched him with curiosity and scorn at his precautions, his self-conscious air of bravery. I thought, You’re only flying in, you don’t live here like I do.
I’ve often wondered what it would be like to live during the Blitz, and now I think I know. At first, the fear and adrenaline were sharpeners, they did make you more awake. Happier, even. Nothing was dull anymore. Every act—stringing up wet laundry, buying a bottle of beer—felt significant, portentous. It was a relief, in a way, to have larger things than yourself to worry about. To be joined by other people in those worries.
I recently read a scientific paper that said that murder victims, before they die, are flooded with serotonin, oxytocin, hormones that create a sense of euphoria as the body tries to protect itself from the knowledge of what’s happening. That’s how I think of myself during those first weeks now.
* * *
—
At my desk, I write Nicholas’s introduction for Rebecca Main. I polish the rest of the running order, call press officers, and answer emails, with one eye on the news bulletins flowing in from our outside sources. One says that the power stations are concerned about blackouts. The thunderstorm is expected to reach land by evening. I think of Marian, watching the storm come in. The clouds might have already started to darken at the north coast, over the fishing boats in Ballycastle harbor, the rope bridge, the sea stacks. She might be swimming, if the sea isn’t already too rough. We always joke about being part selkie. I check my phone, though she hasn’t written back yet.
Before our guest arrives, I sit outside on the fire stairs eating a Mars bar and drinking a cup of tea while Colette smokes a cigarette. She’s from west Belfast, too, Ballymurphy. She knows my cousins, my uncles.
“How’s Rory doing at school?” I ask.
“He still hates it. Who can blame him?”
“Is it the kids or the teachers?”
“Both. He says he wants to go to St. Joseph’s, can you credit it?”
“Jesus, things must be bad.”
Colette sighs. “I’m thinking about getting him a dog.”
Last summer, Colette was walking down the Falls Road when a car bomb exploded. She was thrown to the ground by the blast, but made it home with only bruises. At work the next day, she looked at Esther like she was mad for suggesting some time off.
“Who’s on Politics tonight?” she asks.
“The justice minister, Rebecca Main. Have you ever had her?”
Colette is the makeup artist for all the guests on the evening news, politicians, academics, actresses. They often end up telling her their secrets in her makeup room, her wee confessional.
She nods. “I liked Rebecca.”
“Did she tell you anything?”
“No. She’s cleverer than that.”
Colette stubs out her cigarette. We pull ourselves to our feet and she keys in the security code for the fire door.
* * *
—
The justice minister arrives, with two close protection officers. She shakes Nicholas’s hand, then mine. Our runner wheels in the trolley and sets about pouring her a coffee from a silver carafe. I don’t ask her officers if they want anything. They always say no, even to sealed bottles of water.