Andrew O'Hagan - The Illuminations

‘We won’t be long,’ he said.

‘I wasn’t with the Caledonians,’ Luke said, sitting down. ‘I was a captain with the Royal Western Fusiliers.’

Mr McNulty stared.

‘We have a long tradition of combat. Fighting in war zones all over the world.’

‘What is this, a careers talk?’

Luke wasn’t sure what to say. He wanted to open up with something official and grand, providing a dignified context to the condolences he intended to offer. It was hard to do this after all the drink. ‘It’s a long tradition, Mr McNulty and … many men have given their lives.’

‘Oh, aye. Very good. And do you have a long tradition of taking twenty-one-year-old boys off the beaten track and having them murdered by people on your own side?’ The man was red with anger, his hand shaking over his glass and then quickly wiping his mouth.

‘Mr McNulty, we were ambushed. There was nothing we could do. He was a brave soldier.’

‘Oh fuck off.’

‘We …’

‘Just fuck off. Brave soldier. He was a silly wee boy who thought he could see the world. Fucking running into bullets since he was about eight years old. And then he really ran into one, didn’t he? They say he wanted a square-go with the Taliban and next thing he’s back here in a box. Broke his mother’s heart. He’s over in the graveyard, Captain. My wee boy’s over in the graveyard and you can tell me whenever you’re ready what it was for, because they sent some medals, but maybe you can explain them to me, each one, the silver one, what was that for?’

‘I’m sorry, Mr McNulty. This isn’t the place.’

‘It’s as good as any place.’ He looked up at the two behind the bar and shouted out, ‘Hey, Brian. I didnae realise you were inviting the British army into the bar these days!’

Luke was staring at the man and he tried not to think about his own father and how he had died for Ireland. ‘I’m not going to

argue with you, Mr McNulty. I’m just very sorry. Your son was a brave man and it shouldn’t have happened.’

‘Oh, he was a fucking pest. Joining the army. I don’t know where you’re from but we’re not army people. And he goes and gets himself fucking killed into the bargain.’

‘He did his best.’

‘No, he didn’t. He died, son. He died for nothing. And people like you can say what you like. You sent my boy back in a box and now you’re drinking in my pub.’

Luke stood up.

‘He didn’t die for nothing, Mr McNulty.’

‘He was a fucking idiot.’

IF U B WEIRD WITH ME I’LL B ANGRY

How easy to go from being one with responsibilities to being nothing at all in a nightclub queue. A man who was boss of a platoon section out there in history, an officer, yes, making decisions in the hot fuckery of life, now swaying in the line for the Metro with a nearly dead iPhone in your hand and surrounded by people ten years younger.

If u b weird with me I’ll b angry.

That’s what the text from Lennox said.

And to the clubbers you’re just a pissed guy with no friends. You’re a dude in the wrong clothes. So you start a conversation with them and they’re a bit embarrassed at first but they pass you the joint. And after a while in the queue you buy some coke off

the boy in the white high-tops and you stick it in your boxers and get past the bouncers by straightening up. You expect nothing of the kids but they surprise you by proving you right. Inside the club they veer off into a red pumping chasm of secret belonging and you wander to the bar where some boys gather and you find it hard to believe they’re the same age as Dooley.

You drink sambuca. Jägerbombs. And then the girl Kelly comes out of the smoke all sweaty from the dance floor. You kiss her and she says ‘you’re really nice’ but she can’t put her number into your phone because your phone is dead and anyway the laughter. She pulls you onto the dance floor and she whoops and you say ‘I don’t dance’ and yet the lights bring you out and you find some version of yourself you didn’t know. You try to talk him down and then you give in to the lights and the girl is lost and you’re still there.

Oh, Luke. You never put in the hours. And then a minute comes that brings you out of yourself. You see the girl again and she’s laughing big-eyed and you like how it feels and you tell her to follow you up to the bogs. You snort two more lines each and then you fuck in the cubicle, the girl talking ten to the dozen with the music deep below. Her legs are balanced on your forearms and you’re fucking her standing up and kissing her neck and she says something good. You’re back downstairs, you see the lights again, the kids with their hands in the air. You hear the old dark emptiness behind you and you turn and smile, feeling for one mad moment you’re at home in the beat. The music is beautiful and you take a mouthful of water, so cold you could drink the sea, and suddenly you’re outside the club. You float over the pavement and crouch by the door of Cancer Care, puking your guts up, and then you suck from the bottle in your jacket pocket, rub some coke on your teeth and think of Scullion.

ARRAN

A box was sitting in the doorway of the charity shop. It contained books and shirts and a small fire extinguisher covered in stickiness and dust. He took it. When he walked down Windmill Street he felt exposed again as if the mirrors of the cars were conscious. He looked round to see a closed chippy and a washing-machine repair shop, and there, in darkness, facing the sea, was the Army Careers Office. He didn’t look in or think about anything much, he just raised the fire extinguisher above his head and threw it at the window. He expected an alarm but the glass didn’t break and he staggered away.

A boat was roped to an orange buoy. The water came in around it and a bird stood on the prow, the boat rocking, the bird looking into the night and cawing, as Luke sat on the wall. It was perfectly dark out there. The bird would attempt the crossing if she could be sure to make it. Luke just stared at the creature and willed her to go, as if, with a surge of courage, she might conquer the reality of sky and whatever else.

Lochranza Court was behind him. He looked back, seeing a dim light. The corridor was never dark and it amazed him suddenly to think what stories the building must contain. His gran was there and the lady next door, Maureen, the one who wrote the letters, she must be asleep, also. He wondered if the women slept well, or did their experience keep them awake? He could still see his mother in the restaurant the day before, the worry on her face as she spoke about never knowing who she was. For the first time in his life he felt sorry for his mother and wanted to know more about what had estranged her from the woman who lived across the road. Once the war is over, what is there but life? He pulled the jacket around his ears and looked at the building, just thinking of them.

When he visited earlier that day, he’d found his gran beside the window in the laundry room, and he’d been sure she was speaking to something in her handbag, perhaps the rabbit. She looked up and called him Harry and then she remembered his own name. She took his hand and said yes, of course, he was Luke and he had been away. Just sitting in the room, he realised there was so much to find out about her, so much to do for her. And perhaps for all of them. He said he was home now and she brightened. ‘That’s really nice,’ she said. ‘I want to go on a journey with you.’

‘Where?’

‘To Blackpool.’ She rubbed his hands by the window and touched the object in her bag and said very clearly to both of them that life was only what you made it. ‘They were our best years. Lovely times. I think there are photographs down there in Blackpool.’