THE ’69

THE ’69

Chapter 1

A shaft of light poured through the little sash window, it penetrated the glutinous black of the night to find a solitary pear tree at the bottom of the walled garden. The fruit hung heavy and glistened on its branches. A scavenging fox scurried across the grass, she froze, captured momentarily in the light. The vixen raised her haunches and looked around her, staring hard into the shadows. She took off at a trot when there was no sign of danger.

The near perfect silence of the night was shattered by the metallic ring of steel on steel. The sharp noise followed immediately by the flutter of wings taking flight and the scratching sound of tiny feet fighting for traction in the long grass. Crickets fell silent, stunned by the interruption. Other creatures paused to consider if there was a threat to be faced, frozen mid stride as if caught in a game of musical chairs. A few moments passed, the night held its breath, then exhaled. Gods creatures were free to carry on as before, the ebb and flow of life and death could continue

The whitewashed walls of the two-storey farmhouse and the walls of the courtyard stood tall and incongruous against the lush green landscape of the farm and the surrounding hills. The house was visible from the far corners of the valley, its light and the warmth of its walls acted like a beacon to draw all manner of creatures to its bosom on the long winter nights.

The little garage, my haven, was nestled in a corner of the courtyard to the rear of the house. It was rarely in darkness, long fingers of light escaped through gaps where the top of the stone walls met the roof, they reached into the night sky like the searchlights that probed the sky over London during the blitz. Yet, where light escaped cold air could come in. Though the work often warmed us, we still felt the chill on those frosty nights when the windows glazed over with a thin sheen of ice.

We toiled away in our little sanctuary as if we were the only people left in the world, oblivious to the nightly life and death struggle that went on in the grass, the garden and the world beyond.

A black oily hand passed me a spanner. I looked at him and laughed.

‘Your mam will kill you if you go into the house with those hands.’

Michael turned his hands palms upward to the light, proudly examining his workman like hands. I threw him a rag.

‘Wipe your hands and be off for your supper. Tell her I’ll be up shortly.’

He took off for the house at a run. The darkness swallowed him up when he crossed the courtyard, then he re-appeared into the glow of the light that shone from the kitchen window. I heard the muffled sounds of herself lecturing him when he went inside, and I smiled. Still scolding the boy she stepped outside. There under the glow of the outside light she stood, legs apart, a dishcloth clasped in her hand, her floral patterned apron eternally soiled with a spattering of flour. Her figure was considerably fuller than it had been when we first met all those years ago. She’d been the belle of the valley, with a shock of unruly brown hair that refused to stay in place, dark brown eyes that would have made her look sad if it were not for a broad smile that rarely left her face. She was the apple of my eye. I have no idea what possessed her to choose me. We’d grown old together, and yet when I looked at her I only ever saw that same young girl.

She shook her head as she stared in my direction, a strand of hair fell down and frustrated her face. She brushed it aside with a quick swipe of her hand then laughed and wagged a finger at me. I was late...again.

I spent a few minutes gathering the tools that were strewn around the floor. There was very little order in the garage; I was not tidy in my work. When I took hold of a job, I attacked it with enthusiasm, tools were discarded as I went, thrown at my feet as the job went on. It was only when I stopped to take a breather that I would look back on the carnage around me and wonder how that happened. There are those who would condemn my ways, and there is a lot of merit in their argument. I have to concede it is indeed much easier to find a spanner carefully returned to its proper place than to spend an hour searching the floor and cursing. It confounded me, since I almost always worked alone, that the spanner I dropped at my feet the night before was not there on the floor the next evening, laying where I would have sworn I dropped it. Fairies are at it again, was my fathers explanation. I had followed his example in this and other things. A tidy workshop, is a quiet workshop he’d say, and so I was cursed to follow his habits.

My old armchair in the corner beckoned to me. I was late, I should have gone in but I found it hard to pass up on my ritual, a cold beer and a smoke before I called it day. I dropped the spanner in my hand, I grinned as the metallic clang echoed around the walls. I took a beer from the freezer, popped the cap off on the corner of the workbench and slumped into the chair.

‘Too late to change now,’ I said aloud, and raised the bottle in a toast to the old man.

I sighed; it wasn’t a tired, fatigued sigh. It was a sigh of satisfaction. It had been a long day and I was not a young man anymore, I should have been happy to retire to a chair by the fire in front of the telly for the evening, but my son, Michael, had brought in a car he hoped to bring back to life; I was not as optimistic. I hated to dampen his enthusiasm, but I found it hard to find a positive word to say about the rusty wreck I helped him push through the garage doors.

‘It’s her last chance,’ he’d laughed awkwardly, ‘The old girl will be for the breakers if we can’t bring her around.’ he’d pleaded., patting the roof affectionately like it was a faithful hound he was talking about.

‘More like last rites for her, Son,’ I laughed. ‘But we’ll see what we can do.’

In truth I was glad of the opportunity to spend a few precious hours with him. I hoped we could salvage the car, it would give him a bit of independence, but in the meantime I would savour our time together.

He was young, he was full of energy and I could not discourage that. I tried to remember how it felt to be young and full of hope, but it was too hard, and too long ago. I was old and we had little to bind us together but blood. I had felt the gap between us widen these past years, his teenage years. Difficult times for us both, an aging father and a confused teenager. Yet in this turmoil we struck on a common ground. We both had a passion for cars.

I wondered if this passion for cars could be genetically passed from one generation to another? My father was forever tinkering with machines, I had been too, and I saw it in Michael, a love of all things mechanical. However, the intuition that comes with this understanding of mechanical things had left us lacking in some basic social skills. When brains, looks and talents were being handed out he must have stood in the same queue that I had, because we shared the same failure to understand the social etiquette that seemed to smooth the way for others.

At seventeen Michael’s hormones were going off like fireworks inside a body that was battling with the transition from boyhood to manhood. He was also awakening to the attentions of the fairer sex. Spending time tinkering in a garage with his old man was nowhere near as appealing as a chance to spend a few hours with his friends, especially the young girls.

I knew what this renewed interest in the garage had stemmed from. This car would give him the freedom to pursue those same young ladies from the parish that were coming of age. He and his goals were no different to those of every young man that went before him. The circle of life continued.

I took a deep breath and turned my attentions away from Michael’s car. I exhaled slowly as I looked towards her, to the gray form at the back of the garage, resting under a dusty cover. The contours of her bodywork flowed like the curved lines of a fifties movie star.

‘Soon baby,’ I whispered. ‘He’s almost ready. Soon we will begin again.’

The two-storey farmhouse stood at the end of a long winding gravel lane. A long row of cypress trees stood tall and to attention all the way up to the house. A great courtyard with out-laying buildings stretched away from the house at the back. The Bluestacks, a mountain range that ran along the northwest coast of Ireland, rose high above the valley surrounding it on three sides. The Eany river spilled into the valley from the mountains above, it rushed angrily through the foothills, but by the time it reached the valley below it had mellowed. It was tame, it meandered slowly through the fertile plains and flowed all the way to the sea. The river ran right through the middle of the estate, dissecting it into two equal halves. The farmhouse sat in the centre of this valley, like a great pearl resting in the palm of a giant hand.

The house had been built in the early eighteen hundreds, though it was a great house at the time compared to the pathetic thatched structures that littered the valley, it was not as grand as it is now. Over time each owner stamped their mark on the property, extending the house upward and outward.

In a few weeks we would enter the twenty first century, a new millennium. The house would be almost two hundred years old.

The courtyard and surrounding buildings had changed a lot over those two hundred years, as did the countryside. Yet the stone walls that surrounded the estate remained unchanged, this perimeter, the boundary of the original estate could be traced back to the time of the plantation. The Estate had neither grown nor diminished in that time. It was one of the few constants in an area that had experienced dramatic changes over those same years.

The estate had once belonged to a great landlord who claimed direct lineage to the Crown. His family had reigned here for several generations. My father used to say the house was held captive by the British until his family set it free.

The truth was, the last owner, William Moore, was a benevolent soul, he had been good to his tenants, unlike a lot of his ilk. They fared well under his reign as landlord. Unfortunately his only son, George, did not have the same love of the land his father had. His head was filled with wild notions of what went on in the world beyond the valley. William blamed his mothers love of books. There was an extensive library on the second floor and just like the house it too had grown with each new owner. The shelves were filled almost exclusively with romantic tales of adventurers and explorers, colourful and exciting stories that were destined to turn the head of the young man.

Young George had been educated at home. His governess used to sit him on her knee and read to him from the thick volumes that lined the shelves of this great library. Awestruck by their exploits, he dreamed of following in the footsteps of the great explorers Shackleton and Scott. The daily grind of running an estate or tending to the farm held no appeal for him. There was nothing glamorous about dunging out manure from the stables or helping with a cow at calf, there was no glory in digging a ditch; his sights were set higher.

It was unfortunate for his father, and inevitably for George, that he turned sixteen in the summer of 1914, a few weeks before Gavrilo Princip assassinated Archduke Franz Ferdinand on the streets of Sarajevo. It was the spark that ignited the powder keg that was Europe at the time. Princips actions and those of the Kaiser dragged all of Europe into a bloody conflict.

William knew what to expect. Unlike his wife, he was quick to see that life on the farm was not for George. The boy had itchy feet. The newspapers were filled with stories of the young of men of England enlisting to fight the rising evil in Europe. Young George began reading the excerpts aloud at the breakfast table; he had never before taken an interest in current affairs. His father knew he was planting the seed. He tried to dissuade the boy as best he could, discounting the reports as patriotic propaganda, despite his pleas George could not be detracted.

Some weeks later, dressed in his Sunday best, young George made his way to the market town of Strabane for market day. There, with a host of young farm boys he enlisted, took the Kings half crown, and added his name to a long list of volunteers for the 36th Ulsters.

His father could do nothing more than use what influence he had to ensure he was fast-tracked to an officer. This it turned out was not hard to do, coming from an upper class family with ties, however thin, to the Royal family, he was promoted to Lance Corporal even before they set foot on French soil. George’s enthusiasm continued to ease him through the ranks. He was popular with the men, he was bold, confident, and like-able. The soldiers under his command would have followed him to hell, and that is exactly what they did.

After just a few weeks in the trenches he was promoted to the rank of Captain. George had joined the army to travel, to see the world, to become a hero. His eagerness to prove himself worthy of his boyhood heroes bordered on recklessness, he took foolish chances. His dream was to return a decorated hero, have his name in the local newspaper.

Hundreds of thousands of young men just like George boarded ships, excited at the prospect of going to war to rid the world of the savage Hun, they went forth to change the world. Not enough of them returned. Those that did would never be the same. The world they rushed off to change, to mold to their ideals of right and wrong had spat them back onto their home shores, though not all in one piece. Almost all of them came home broken in one way or another.

Three years at the front had aged the young man. He was changed in every aspect. The effects of the unspeakable horrors he’d witnessed were etched on his face.