Robert Wilson - Eureka Street - A Novel of Ireland Like No Other

I saw some kids with milk-bottle petrol bombs. They stood on the side of the street and chucked their bombs at cop LandRovers as they whizzed up the road. After all the cops had passed, the kids had one petrol bomb left. They looked at each other in confusion until the kid with the bomb just threw it at one of his mates. I suppose he had to do something with it. They all laughed but at least they helped pull the burning jacket off the bombed boy.

I watched two chunky policemen hold a young rioter down by the hair while they both kicked him repeatedly in the face. The cops kept losing their balance but always leapt up quickly and resumed their work.The sound was distinct amongst all the clangour, a horrible wet repetitive sound. I headed over there through the crowd, but by the time I crossed the road, cops and rioter had disappeared.

I saw two masked men with guns rob their local off-licence, completely unnoticed amidst the chaos. I saw an old lady being mugged by a plump young skinhead. He punched her to the ground and ripped her handbag from her hands. I saw a big heavy, who looked like one of the just Us stewards, jump on the skinhead and beat him to the ground in his turn. The guy then took the handbag and sloped off.

I saw the cutting edge of Northern Irish self-determination.

I was attacked a couple of times myself. I put both my guys down without too nuich trouble. Rioters were never much cop at actual fighting and I was, by now, in a very bad mood. I didn't go mad or anything. I just put them down. They were very neutral events, more like callisthenics than combat. I found a tooth lodged in the elbow of my jacket later but that was hardly my fault.

What was this riot about? There had to be a reason. This was Catholic Land. The war was over. These guys were supposed to have won. Why, then, were they so pissed off?

I learnt later that the riot had been caused by the early release of a British soldier, who had shot a couple ofjoy-riders dead a few years before. The squaddie had been convicted of murder, untypically, but had only done about ten minutes for it. It had been a tactless move but the reaction surprised me. The IRA themselves routinely shot young folk who stole cars and were always campaigning vigorously that all their imprisoned members who had murdered and maimed people should be released. Everyone seemed to have a very shaky grasp on jurisprudence these days. I wondered what the old lady who'd had her head bashed and her bag stolen would have said.

I wandered around hopelessly as the riot faded away. I was wrong about rioting, it wasn't really like riding a bicycle. It had been a pretty crap riot. Everyone had looked a little embarrassed, slightly existential. Several motorists had been badly beaten up by people who wanted to disguise their uncertainty and confusion.

I wandered but Chuckie was nowhere to be found. On the wasteground by Leeson Street, some people had gathered round a couple of burning cars, making something almost festive out of the night's events. I asked a few if they'd seen any fat, balding Protestants. Only in uniform, they replied good- naturedly. The heat seemed to have gone out of these people. They were now normal citizens again, far from atavistic.

I heard some of them gossiping about a kid who'd been given a baseball-bat beating by the boys down at the bottom of Leeson Street. He'd broken into a senior IRA man's car at the beginning of the riot. He hadn't driven it away, he had simply urinated on the driver's seat.

I knew it had to be Roche. That was his style. I skipped down Leeson Street as fast as I could. By the time I arrived, two paramedics were already shunting the victim into the back of the ambulance. I stopped them and had a peep. One eye was beaten closed and much of the upper part of the face and head was matted with old blood but it was definitely ugly and stunted enough to be Roche.

I was impressively calm for quite a long while. In the ambulance I was calm. All the way to the hospital, as Roche lapsed in and out of consciousness, I was calm. In Accident and Emergency, I was placid as Roche waited his turn for treatment. The riot had produced one or two serious injuries, including a lorry driver who had had bleach poured down his throat while his truck was hijacked (what were they doing with bleach?). I was even-tempered when one of the nurses told me that Roche had a broken leg, a broken arm, cracked ribs and a fractured skull. I was composed as I waited to be allowed in to see him. All in all, I was serene, collected, tranquil.

But when I saw the TV crews arrive. When I saw the Amnesty International man arrive. When I saw Aoirghe arrive. When I heard they'd all come to see a senior Just Us councillor who'd been arrested after the incident with the bleach and endured a four-stitch head wound. When I heard that this man's car had been vandalized and urinated on by the police. When I heard the Amnesty guy start prosing on about humanrights violations to the TV cameras.

Well, what do you expect? It was me. I flipped. I lost it.

Laudably, I didn't hit anyone, but one of the nurses told me that the things I screamed at these people didn't include any recognizable forms of human speech. I bellowed. I frothed and champed. Several people looked like they wanted to go home.

I grabbed the Amnesty guy by the lapels and gave him some nuclear lip about why he should be monitoring the right of twelve-year-old boys not to have the crap beaten out of them. It was pointless, however. He couldn't understand a word I said. I couldn't understand a word I said.

By the time I'd finished, my voice had dried to a scraped-out croak. Sweat dripped off my face onto my shirt. I grabbed the back of a nearby chair to steady myself. Everyone stared at me in aghast silence. Then they moved off muttering and went to visit their wounded political hero. Only Aoirghe remained. She looked me full in the face. Her expression was different — something I couldn't associate with her. She came closer to me and put her hand on my arm. I flinched.

`What are you doing here?' she asked.

I had no excuse. I'd never done the like before but I grabbed her by the front of her shirt and dragged her to the booth where Roche lay tubed and bandaged. The kid looked awful, his face was mutant and swollen. To Aoirghe he must have looked as though he were dying.

I didn't scream this time. I did unleash a torrent of extraordinary abuse in Aoirghe's direction but I tried to keep the volume down. I said dreadful, unforgivable things to her. I had had a lot of experience with people telling me what the trouble with me was. I gave it a go from the other end.

When I paused for breath and cardiac massage, I saw that she was crying. It was an amazing sight. She crumpled shirt had been ripped by my wrathful hand. Some people can look pretty when they cry. Most people just look like wet snails. Aoirghe was one of those who didn't look their best. Her nose ran, her eyes were red and her face was creased like a clam. She looked pitiable. My heart might then have misgiven me and I might have stopped shouting at her.

What did I do? I did what all the unjustly angry really fucking went for her. I piled on in.

After a few minutes, she ran out into the corridor, sobbing. I followed her all the way to the exit, abusing her viciously. She fled the building. As the swing doors banged shut behind her, I stopped shouting and tried to be calm. I knew I should have felt much better but I didn't. I shook my head like a dog. It didi 't help.

I waited for hours there. The cops had gone to fetch Roche's parents but Roche's stepfather (or whoever he was) had told them to fuck off, that the kid didn't interest them. A social worker was coming in the morning to try to sort out a foster home or something for him. Meanwhile I waited.

I called Peggy and she told me that Chuckle had arrived home about an hour before. He was talking now, apparently. It seemed that the silent routine was over. I wanted to give him a piece of my mind for leading me into the riot so I asked Peggy to put him on the blower. She thought it was better if I waited until he calmed down a little. She said he was manic. She asked me to call the next day. I could have sworn she blew me a kiss as she hung up.