books, the pictures, football. Squeeze another few dollars out of the buggers. Squeeze.â He laughed. âThereâs one thing they forgot though.â
âWhatâs that?â
Damian drooped one of his eyes and said nothing.
Jack thought for a moment.
âOh. That.â
âAye, that. Itâs a good thought that no matter how hard they try neither Church nor State can stop people doing that.â
âThey do their best.â
âI reckon if they put their minds to it they could come up with some system. A computer implanted under the skin of every growing boy. Monitoring bad thoughts, sinful acts. At the end of the year you get a bill from Dublin. Five pence for a bad thought. A pound for self-abuse and a couple of quid every time you go the whole way. The country would be solvent in five years. I donât really amuse you, do I?â
Jack looked down at the table.
âNever mind,â said Damian, âI amuse myself. You canât do better than that. Be amused by your own codology.â
âManus â¦â began Jack.
Damian put his glass down on the table and frowned.
âWhat of Manus? The great God Manus. I can see youâre dazzled by his very name.â
âYou havenât a notion â¦â
âAnd keep your voice down. Do you want everyone for miles round to know your business?â
Jack felt his face going red.
âIâm sorry,â said Damian. âI speak a bit too quick at times. You shouldnât pay any heed. Whatâs on the buggerâs mind?â
âWell â¦â
âWell â¦â Damian mimicked.
âHeâs not too keen on the way things are going up here. Thereâs a sort of ⦠ah ⦠casual attitude to things. I think heâs not too happy about.â
Damian smiled.
âHe said to tell you heâd be up. Heâd have to come up.â
âAye,â said Damian. âLet him come up. That would be best. No messengers.â He groped in his pocket for a moment looking for his cigarettes and then remembered. Anything else?â
âWe need a staging post here. Somewhere stuff can be stored, adjacent to the border. Somewhere secure. Itâll only be for a few weeks at the most Youâre to find us somewhere secure. Quite quickly. No messing about.â
Damian nodded.
âHow much space?â
âQuite a bit of space.â
Damian rubbed his finger up the side of his glass.
About,â suggested Jack, âthe size of a goods shed.â
âBugger off,â said Damian.
He lifted the glass and took a long drink.
âThink about it. You said yourself that no one uses it. Manus only wants it for a couple of weeks. You can see that the Englishman isnât around when weâre moving stuff. Youâll be there to keep an eye on things. Think about it.â
Damian put the glass down carefully on the table and wiped his mouth with the palm of his right hand. He didnât speak.
âWhat the hell are you doing in the Movement anyway?â asked Jack after a long silence.
âIâm not in it. Iâm sort of alongside it. Iâm not cut out to be a soldier.â He laughed. âMy motherâs old man was a Connaught Ranger.â
He took another drink and wiped his mouth again with his hand. âThere was soldiers. He caught a shark when he was sixty-eight. Out one day in a half-decker between here and Tory Sound. I remember that.â
âThatâs â¦â
âListen. Will you listen. You donât speak anything but crap and you donât listen either ⦠except perhaps to Manus. He lived with us for six years after my gran died. All the way up from Connemara he came. He found it hard to settle. She thought the world of him. Sheâd do more for your grandaddy than sheâd ever do for me, my father used to say. She has all the books of old brown photographs ⦠and his medals. He went to Dublin a