Kevin Barry - City of Bohane

Ol’ Boy took the child’s hand and stroked it gently.

‘Tell as much as you can, son.’

Child was stronger now by quick degrees. He was feeding well off slugs of the Beast and off the attention also.

‘Polis blockin’ all roads out,’ he said.

Low whistles caroused the turf-smoked inn.

‘High Boreen?’ Ol’ Boy prompted.

‘Cordon up, sir,’ said the child.

‘How’d ya get out, son?’

‘Came crossbog.’

Shivers in the room at the thought of the runner-child coming crossbog in low winter. That would be a trial for a fit and grown man. Wonder a swamphole hadn’t devoured the wee cove. Big Dom happily flushed as he sketched notes for a Vindicator colour-piece.

‘Way’s she blowin’ in there now, child-o’-mine?’ the newsman whispered.

Runner shut his eyes and slowly he let the story come.

‘All the night through bonnas is leppin’ off the Rises like dogs for the lick of a bone, sir.’

‘Ah sure we know that,’ said Ol’ Boy. ‘Sure the bonnas were seen from as far back as the plantation road.’

‘Come first crack?’ said the child. ‘First the Norrie whistlers marched out, then the fife drums…’

‘Uh-oh.’ Big D was loving it.

‘Then the Norrie chanters came down, sir. An’ as many as never’s been heard!’

‘Go on, runner. More.’

‘Nex’ thing I seen? An’ with me own peepers, like? Seen… an… an… an…’

‘Say it, child!’

‘I seen an… an eight -family descent, sir.’

The inn collapsed into delirium, wailing, tears. And the Big Nothin’ drinkers, as at all times of Trouble, turned immediately to religion:

‘Oh mother o’ the Sweet Baba!’

‘Oh Sweet Baba won’t ya come down an’ protect us!’

‘SBJ be good!’

‘SBJ be faithful!’

‘Oh Baba don’t forsake us said don’t forsake us now!’

‘Baba-love be with us!’

‘Baba-love always be with us!’

‘Ah shush it, will ye, for fucksake!’ cried Ol’ Boy. ‘Herd o’ bleatin’ fuckin’ lambs!’

He leaned down close to the runner-child.

‘Speak to me now, son, please. Twas an eight-family mob, you’re sure of that? You counted eight , like?’

‘Eyes Cusack, sir? He got the McGroartys, the Lenanes, the Dillons–’

‘That’s not news at all. He’s always got them fuckers.’

‘But he got the Halpins, sir, he got the Fitzhenrys, he got the Lenihans too–’

‘Sweet Baba-love don’t desert us now!’

‘Baba come down among us! Said Baba come down!’

‘Please!’ cried Ol’ Boy. ‘Will ye lay off the bollockin’ Baba-love! Baba won’t help ye now!’

Runner-child’s eyes focused on Ol’ Boy’s, and locked, and Ol’ Boy knew it was truth the child spoke.

‘An’, sir? He got the McGraths an’ all, y’check me?’

‘That’s the eight.’ Big Dom whistled low and made the note – eight (8) – and confirmed it with a tick mark.

Ol’ Boy Mannion didn’t like the sound of this one bit. All around him in the inn there was disbelief, awe, terror. Tell ye this for thruppence: many a yella moon had shone on the glorified pig’s mickey that is the Bohane peninsula since we had seen the likes of an eight-family mobbed descent off the Northside Rises.

‘Eight families…’ said Ol’ Boy, calculating. ‘That could mean anything up to… I dunno… what are we talkin’, Dom… a hunnerd an’ fifty latchiko headjobs?’

‘Easy,’ said Big D.

‘At least that, sir,’ said the runner-child, ‘if’n yer to go by what these peepers ha’ seen.’

‘That’ll be plenty to take the Trace,’ said the innkeeper.

‘I’d nearly want to be thinkin’ about a thirty-two-page special,’ Big Dom sighed.

‘Shush, will ye?’ said Ol’ Boy. ‘Let the child tell it.’

‘Happens they gots the Trace awready, sir.’

Consternation in the inn at this, and more wailing, but Ol’ Boy raised a firm hand to stop it.

‘What’re you sayin’, son?’

‘Hartnett deserted the Trace, sir… He left it to ’em!’

Shock at this, and hisses of anger, but Ol’ Boy smiled.

‘Fancy’s where?’

‘Ain’t seen it meself, sir. But it’s said the Fancy’s mobbed yet ’cross the S’town footbridge.’

‘And he has the Trace all locked down, am I right?’

‘Every las’ tenement in the Trace shut and bolted agin the Norrie assault since before first crack, sir. Fancy didn’t send a sinner out to meet ’em, sir.’

‘I see,’ said Ol’ Boy. ‘Looks like the Long Fella wants the Norrie mob to blow itself out.’

‘You’ve lamped it in one, Mr Mannion,’ said Big D. ‘He’s lullin’ ’em!’

‘At least that’s what we hope, Dom. You get a look on the families close up, child? It have the look of a mob that means business?’

‘Blackthorns. Hatchets. Hammers,’ said the child. ‘Dirks flashin’ and bricks being lobbed. They’s layin’ into anythin’ that moves Trace-side but not much does move, sir. Bar a few dogs an’ drunks, like.’

‘Ain’t it shockin’,’ said the innkeeper, ‘for this manner a caper to be goin’ on in Bohane an’ we oney three days to the birthday o’ the Sweet Baba Jay? What do be wrong with us at all?’

‘There are those, ma’am, who’ll say it carries in off that river…’ Big Dom mused.

‘Stow it!’ barked Ol’ Boy. ‘Go on, child.’

‘Cusack’s mob is makin’ shit o’ the Trace, sir. Smashin’ it up bad now. Startin’ fires in the squares.’

‘And they’re on the rant already, I suppose?’

‘An’ hard on it, sir. Suckin’ at carry-sacks o’ moscato and batterin’ the herb-pipes goodo. Gots some o’ their wenches down awready and havin’ a lash off the jiggy in plain view o’ the wynds.’

‘Oh they’ve got no class!’ cried Dom Gleeson.

‘Norries can’t even rent it,’ Ol’ Boy concurred.

‘Bohane sliced in twain,’ sighed the innkeeper, and she too was loving every minute of it.

‘An’ is Hartnett prepped, y’reckon?’

Child paused for a slug of the Beast. Wee fecker had a tongue got for it so he had.

‘Is said it’s the man-chil’ Stanners is callin’ the Fancy to order.’

‘Ah,’ said Ol’ Boy.

‘No sign o’ Long Fella hissel’ just yet. Is said the ginge gots the Fancy about eighty strong and mobbed beneath the colours. Waitin’ on a whistle is all.’

‘They’re beneath the colours, they are?’

‘The purple and the black, sir.’

‘Indeed,’ said Ol’ Boy, and as he felt the full horror of the day, he felt also the great pride of it.

‘Polis tactic?’ Big Dom enquired.

‘Cordon gone up every which way, sir. Everythin’ Trace-side o’ Dev’s a no-go zone.’

‘They’re trying to contain,’ said Big Dom. ‘Good luck to ’em with that.’

‘Could it spread to Nothin’?’ The innkeeper was fearful now.

Ol’ Boy considered.

‘That’s a tricky call to make, ma’am. We know what Big Nothin’s like. Sympathies out here might switch with a lick of the hardwind. A lot of us got peoples in the Trace but a lot of us got peoples on the Rises too. My gut’s read? It won’t spread bogside till one or other of the mobs is suffering an’ suffering bad.’

The runner-child had by now greatly recovered. He was placed on a stool by the fire and was coddled there. He was fed hot milk and further slugs of the Beast. Big Dom leaned in close and coaxed from the child some further background detail. There was great pride in the child at having witnessed the outbreak of a Bohane Feud. And the inn this winter’s day had suddenly about it a most festive and excited air.

Ol’ Boy left the crowd to its gossiping and its chirruping and he took a quiet high stool in a snug. Was it wise, he wondered, for the Long Fella to allow the boy Stanners such a prominent role upfront of a massed Fancy?