Free The Railway Station Man by Jennifer Johnston

books, the pictures, football. Squeeze another few dollars out of the buggers. Squeeze.’ He laughed. ‘There’s one thing they forgot though.’
    â€˜What’s that?’
    Damian drooped one of his eyes and said nothing.
    Jack thought for a moment.
    â€˜Oh. That.’
    â€˜Aye, that. It’s a good thought that no matter how hard they try neither Church nor State can stop people doing that.’
    â€˜They do their best.’
    â€˜I 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 don’t really amuse you, do I?’
    Jack looked down at the table.
    â€˜Never mind,’ said Damian, ‘I amuse myself. You can’t do better than that. Be amused by your own codology.’
    â€˜Manus …’ began Jack.
    Damian put his glass down on the table and frowned.
    â€˜What of Manus? The great God Manus. I can see you’re dazzled by his very name.’
    â€˜You haven’t a notion …’
    â€˜And keep your voice down. Do you want everyone for miles round to know your business?’
    Jack felt his face going red.
    â€˜I’m sorry,’ said Damian. ‘I speak a bit too quick at times. You shouldn’t pay any heed. What’s on the bugger’s mind?’
    â€˜Well …’
    â€˜Well …’ Damian mimicked.
    â€˜He’s not too keen on the way things are going up here. There’s a sort of … ah … casual attitude to things. I think he’s not too happy about.’
    Damian smiled.
    â€˜He said to tell you he’d be up. He’d have to come up.’
    â€˜Aye,’ said Damian. ‘Let him come up. That would be best. No messengers.’ He groped in his pocket for a moment looking for his cigarettes and then remembered. Anything else?’
    â€˜We need a staging post here. Somewhere stuff can be stored, adjacent to the border. Somewhere secure. It’ll only be for a few weeks at the most You’re to find us somewhere secure. Quite quickly. No messing about.’
    Damian nodded.
    â€˜How much space?’
    â€˜Quite a bit of space.’
    Damian rubbed his finger up the side of his glass.
    About,’ suggested Jack, ‘the size of a goods shed.’
    â€˜Bugger off,’ said Damian.
    He lifted the glass and took a long drink.
    â€˜Think 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 isn’t around when we’re moving stuff. You’ll be there to keep an eye on things. Think about it.’
    Damian put the glass down carefully on the table and wiped his mouth with the palm of his right hand. He didn’t speak.
    â€˜What the hell are you doing in the Movement anyway?’ asked Jack after a long silence.
    â€˜I’m not in it. I’m sort of alongside it. I’m not cut out to be a soldier.’ He laughed. ‘My mother’s old man was a Connaught Ranger.’
    He took another drink and wiped his mouth again with his hand. ‘There 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€˜That’s …‘
    â€˜Listen. Will you listen. You don’t speak anything but crap and you don’t 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. She’d do more for your grandaddy than she’d 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