Matt McGuire - Dark Dawn

‘Why can’t you sleep, Joe?’

‘You tell me, Doc.’

‘That’s not how it works.’

Silence.

Burton stopped speaking. He wasn’t going to chase Lynch. If someone wouldn’t meet you halfway, he knew there was no point.

The silence hung in the air for ten seconds, then twenty. It was a stand-off, neither man wishing to blink. After a minute Lynch spoke.

‘So what do you know about me, Doc?’

‘Nothing.’

‘MacSorley must have sent a file.’

‘No.’

‘How come?’

‘Works better this way.’

‘So you’re telling me you have nothing?’

‘Joe Lynch. Monday. Eleven o’clock.’

For a moment Lynch imagined himself as a blank page. No marks. No scars. Free to be whatever he wanted. Free to. .

In the Maze they had tried to use psychologists. Rumour had it the room was bugged and there was someone from Special Branch taking notes next door.

Burton continued. ‘Why are you here, Joe?’

‘MacSorley made me come.’

‘Made you come? What are you, six years old?’

‘I’m not sleeping.’

‘You’re not sleeping.’

‘I wanted a prescription. It came with strings.’

‘You could have gotten sleeping pills from anywhere. They’re not exactly hard to come by.’

Lynch looked at the dark wooden bookcase along the wall. The Effect of Trauma. The Invisible Injury. The Psychology of Conflict.

‘I haven’t suffered a trauma.’

‘I never said you had.’

‘That’s what you do though. Isn’t it?’

‘Among other things.’

‘Do you see peelers?’

‘None of your business.’

‘Soldiers?’

Silence.

‘Not much of a talker, Doc. I thought that is what this was all about. Talking. Feelings.’

Burton turned it back on him.

‘How do you feel, Joe?’

Lynch paused, turning his gaze inwards. He groped around, trying to get hold of something. He rummaged in the dark. He was tired. No, exhausted. More than that though, he had no idea how he felt. There was a kind of emptiness. A hunger. It was as if he had lost something, but he couldn’t remember what it was.

Burton waited, watching Lynch’s eyes search the empty space in front of him.

Lynch snapped back to the room, remembering where he was. He stood up and walked to the window, looking down on the street. A woman rushed through the rain. A couple huddled under an umbrella. A homeless man sheltered in the doorway of the Ulster Hall. The fifteenth floor was high. It gave a sense of perspective, made things seem smaller, less difficult somehow. Lynch looked out over Belfast, as it sprawled into the distance.

‘Why are you-’

‘Where do you live, Doc?’

Burton raised his eyebrows.

‘OK then. What car do you drive?’

‘Audi.’

‘That’s my point.’

‘That’s your point,’ Burton repeated sarcastically.

‘The car. The house. The suburbs. Stranmillis. Dunmurray. The leafy streets, the grammar schools, the university degrees. You took the tests, passed the exams. Dinner parties, drinks with friends. The wife. The kids.’ Lynch was gathering momentum. ‘The books, the office, the view. My point is: what the fuck could you possibly know about me? About where I come from. About what I’ve seen. About what I’ve done.’

Lynch took a breath, letting his words hang in the air between them.

‘A hundred pounds an hour. Listening to a bunch of rich pricks. Their colleagues don’t respect them, their kids won’t talk to them, their wives won’t fuck them. And when you get bored with that, you go for a bit of Troubles tourism, a wee holiday in someone else’s misery. A bit of gritty realism, like reading a book about it. And all from the safety of the fifteenth floor. It’s cosy cushions and pretentious paintings by cunts that can’t draw to save themselves.’

Lynch stared at Burton. The doctor held his gaze, allowing the silence to hang between them. Burton waited. He wasn’t intimidated.

‘Impressive, Joe.’ His voice was calm, almost monotone. Lynch had become more animated the more he tried to dismiss Burton and everything he stood for.

‘Were you practising that on the way over? The self-righteous indignation. Gives you an edge, I’ll bet. A bit of purchase. I’ve known you for twenty minutes and you’re right. What the fuck could I possibly know? About you. About where you’ve been. What you’ve seen. What you’ve done.’

The doctor paused.

‘I’ll tell you what though, Joe. It still doesn’t answer the question: why can’t you sleep?’

Lynch paused, knowing he hadn’t thrown Burton off and that they were back where they started.

‘Thousands of people don’t sleep.’

‘We’re not talking about thousands. We’re talking about you.’

Joe glanced at the clock on the wall. 11.25. Burton saw the look and knew they were coming to the end of the session.

‘OK. Since you don’t want to tell me anything, Joe, I’ll try to tell you something. What could I know? What could I possibly know about you? About your world? Let me give it a shot.’

Lynch held the psychologist’s eyes.

‘You’re a Catholic. Working-class. Did well at school. Didn’t get on with the teachers though. Authority, you see. Bit too much to say for himself, our Joe. Left school early. Tried to get work. Late seventies. Not a lot of that going. Even less for a Catholic in Belfast. The dice were stacked. The courts. The police. Housing. Jobs. It pissed you off. But you could take it. Discipline, you see. Not easily got to. Sure there was the harassment, the taunting, the abuse. The stop and search. Where you from? Where you going? The Brits. The RUC. Not a bother. Sure, they’re cunts. But you’re Joe Lynch. It doesn’t go away though. Day after day, week after week, month after month. Drip. . drip. . drip. . Then it happens. Or rather something happens. You take a hiding. The police kick your door in. They intern your brother. Your da. Your uncle maybe. Some off-duty soldiers have a go, want to fuck up a Fenian. They put you against a wall, put a gun in your mouth. . ’

Lynch’s gaze sharpened and began boring into Burton.

‘. . was that it, Joe? They put you against a wall? Put a gun in your mouth?’

Burton paused, letting the memory come washing back up from wherever Lynch had buried it.

‘You can probably feel it now — as if it was yesterday. The metal against your teeth. The oily taste in your mouth. Your palms are sweating, just thinking about it.’

Lynch’s heart thundered in his chest. His hand was still though. It had always been that way. He stared at the man opposite.

‘You’ve read the books, Joe. Religion, history, politics. All the talk. All the theories. Theories are all well and good, until they kick in your front door one night. Until they put you up against a wall. Going to blow your fucking Fenian head off. None of the theories mention the taste though, right? That cold steel. The metal. The oil.’

Burton stopped and took a breath.

‘They backed you into a corner. What were you going to do? Sit there and take it? No, not you. Not our Joe. People round here have been sitting taking it for years. Look where that’s got them.’

Lynch stared at Burton, wondering where he was going to go next. Burton stopped talking, letting the atmosphere cool for a few seconds. He looked away, breaking eye-contact, defusing the tension. Slowly, Lynch’s pulse began to calm.

‘That was then, Joe. This is now. Things have changed — or so they tell us. Agreements have been signed. The war is over. Decommissioning? Decommission a gun, sure. But how do you decommission someone’s head? You see, you’re out there, Joe. You’re still out there. You want to know if it’s possible to get back. You’re not even sure what getting back would look like.’