“Terrible,” she says cheerfully. “Both boys had colds.”
We talk for a while about infant Calpol, hot broth, menthol compresses, and I become aware of a sort of prickling, all over my body, a delight in being here, in this room, with my son holding on to my knees.
* * *
—
At work, Clodagh and I are making tea in the staff room when a man sprints past the open door. From the other direction comes a thump, the sound of something heavy being thrown against the wall. The moment seems to freeze. Steam twists from our mugs, a plate rotates in the microwave. I wait for the lockdown alarm to ring. There might be a gunman in the building.
We should lock the door and hide under the table, but instead I follow Clodagh out into the hall, and we move slowly toward the newsroom. I feel the strap of the lanyard around my neck, and the teeth of the clip holding my hair in place.
We push open the heavy door to the newsroom, and noise rushes out. Everyone is up from their desks, standing in groups or shouting into their phones.
“What’s going on?” asks Clodagh.
Nicholas says, “The IRA just called a cease-fire.”
PART THREE
36
NONE OF US LEAVES the office, really, for the rest of the week, except to sleep for a few hours or record an interview. Nicholas begins showering at his tennis club, to avoid driving all the way home to Carnlough and back. Every day at five, I take the bus to Greyabbey, collect Finn from day care, give him dinner, and drive back with him to the office, where he sleeps in a travel crib next to my desk while I work.
We are all working flat out. Everyone is listening to our broadcasts now, we need to get this right. At schools, the normal lessons have been abandoned, and students are listening to us instead. Pubs are selling out of beer every night as people crowd in to watch the news, argue, celebrate.
It’s only a cease-fire, though. It only means the IRA has agreed to the government’s condition of a pause in the violence, so negotiations can proceed. At any moment, the cease-fire could fall apart.
And it might be a trick. The IRA might have announced the cease-fire out of war-weariness, they might be using this time to rest and reorganize, to resupply. I know from Marian that their weaponry is low, that the fishing trawler loaded with gelignite is currently moving toward Ireland. It might already be off the coast, though Marian can’t ask anyone. She said you never ask about an operation outside your unit.
At the office, we eat sesame noodles and fried rice, washed down with bottles of Coke. Senior politicians arrive to be interviewed before we can even sweep the mess of takeaway containers into a bin, and someone is often asleep on the sofa in the glass box. After midnight, I drive home with Finn tucked into his car seat, past the nighttime fields and orchards, feeling hopeful, expansive.
We broke the news of the cease-fire. We want to be the ones to break the news of a peace deal. Simon has a bottle of Taittinger on his desk, and we’re waiting for the moment to open it.
The clock keeps ticking. One day without the cease-fire being broken. Two. Soon we reach twelve days, the longest period without an incident since the conflict began.
Our program this week is a panel on what peace would mean for investment, for tourism, film shoots, the arts, though the panel members aren’t politicians, they’re students from Belfast secondary schools. Two of them have lost a parent in the conflict. One boy lost his little sister. On air, the students are thoughtful and wry and tough. One girl lives in Ardoyne, and she and her sister keep painting over the paramilitary murals on their road, even after some lads have threatened to kill them for it. They painted extra letters onto one mural, changing it from Join the IRA to Join the Library.
At the end, Nicholas says, “That’s all the time we have tonight, thanks for joining us on Behind Politics,” and then pushes his chair back from the microphone, looking at me through the glass with a dazzled expression. It’s the best broadcast of my career. Dozens of people call in to say they pulled over to listen more closely, or because they were crying too much to drive.
On Friday, the government and the IRA issue a joint statement. The negotiations are progressing but will take time. They ask for our patience.
Some people believe we’ll have peace by Christmas. Wishful thinking, maybe, but the two sides must be close to a settlement, or the talks wouldn’t have been made public.
We’re almost safe. Once a peace deal is announced, I won’t need to be scared anymore. No one will be chasing me, or Marian. We’ll have made it.
37
WHEN EAMONN APPEARS AT the far end of the beach, I move toward him, almost running, and say, “Was that it? Was that the trawler?”