* * *
—
The next day, Tom is about to leave after dropping off Finn when my phone sounds. “Sorry, Tom. Could you stay with Finn for a few minutes? I’ve to run an errand.”
“What errand?”
“Oh, chemist’s. It’s about to close.”
On a lane behind Mount Stewart, I stop the car and Marian climbs in. No one comes here. It looks like a private road through the woods, hidden under mature oaks and elms. This forest might have been part of the manor once. Somewhere past the trees are the vast lawns, the ponds, the mansion itself, columned and covered in ivy.
The season has started to change. The ivy on Mount Stewart has turned red, and color is seeping through these woods. Above the lane, the oaks and elms are russet, and you can smell woodsmoke in the air. From the car, I watch the light slanting through the trees. In a different life, Marian and I might be meeting here to pick blackberries.
“An estate agent at Fetherston Clements is letting the IRA use their properties as safe houses,” says Marian. She tells me that the IRA members are shown into empty flats, like prospective tenants, and then left alone to hold meetings.
“Which broker?”
“Jimmy Kiely.”
“Okay, I’ll tell Eamonn.” I wait for Marian to climb out of the car.
“How’s Finn?” she asks.
“Good.”
“Can I see a picture of him?”
I press my temples. Marian stopped asking to visit Finn a few weeks ago, but the last time we met, she brought a set of sippy cups for him, since she’d read that he’s old enough for them now.
I’m so tired of being angry with her. It’s exhausting, having these endless arguments with her in my head.
“Do you need to get back to Belfast?” I ask.
“No,” says Marian, “not yet.”
“Wait here.”
When we return, Marian is standing in the exact same place, like she hasn’t moved a muscle in the last fifteen minutes. She must have been nervous that I’d change my mind. I open the back door and Finn turns toward me from the car seat, clutching his plastic toy buffalo, a blanket over his legs.
I open the snaps and lift him out into the cool air, and he swivels his head to study this new place, the leaves drifting in the wind. When he catches sight of Marian, surprise blooms over his face. His cheeks round and his eyebrows lift.
“Here we are,” I say, and she takes him in her arms. He beams at her with the tip of his finger in his mouth.
Marian is smiling and crying. I remember her in the waiting room at the maternity ward, holding her hand to her heart as she leaned toward him.
I watch my son lower his chin and mouth the tweed shoulder of her coat. I watch my sister close her eyes. She walks him in a slow circle, like they’re dancing.
23
THE WEEKS PASS. Marian tells me about robberies, arms drops, call houses, and I give the information to Eamonn. I meet with him on the beach for about five minutes, two or three times a week, ten or fifteen minutes in total. It’s nothing. I spend more time every week folding baby clothes.
Finn is nine months old. Everything about him is more emphatic now. His preferences, his stubbornness, his humor. He likes to play peek-a-boo with me, his small head popping up above the mattress on the far side of the bed. I’m woken every morning by a firm voice saying baba in the other room. When I carry Finn into the kitchen, he points at the fridge and says baba again, looking back to be sure I’ve understood.
The light behind his eyes is growing brighter every day. He can walk now, unsteadily. When he sees his teddy bear, he crows with delight and tackles it to the floor. He shakes his head to say no. He doesn’t enjoy all foods anymore. In his high chair, he will lift a piece of pasta and give it a good shake to dislodge any spinach stuck to it.
I understand now how agents can live in deep cover for years and years. You can get used to anything. You can turn your attention elsewhere.
As the autumn swell rolls in, the waves have grown stronger, and the sea has turned baltic. Eamonn comes to our meetings in a fleece jacket zipped to his chin, and I bring a wetsuit. Afterward, I stand in the car park, rolling the wetsuit down my body an inch at a time, and wonder if this is when I’ll be shot. Underneath the thick neoprene, my stomach is pale and softened from the water, making me feel doubly vulnerable.
Except for those moments in the car park, though, I’m less scared now than I was before becoming an informer. My position in relation to the IRA has shifted. I’m studying them now, working against them, not waiting to become one of their victims.