Free Bog Child by Siobhan Dowd

putting him off his exams.’
    ‘I’d never want to hurt you.’ Joe reached a hand to the glass. ‘Oh, Fergus. Mam. Never.’ Fergus saw a tear start from his brother’s eye. He held his breath in hope.
    ‘Isn’t every moment I think of you starving yourself a torment?’ Mam said.
    Joe leaned back and Fergus bit his lip.
    ‘Come back to us, Joe,’ Mam blurted, her face pressed to the glass. ‘Please.’
    A spasm of something crossed Joe’s face. His eyes and nose scrunched up. But then the moment evaporated. His forehead smoothed out like clean paper. ‘I am in no pain, Mam. The hunger’s nothing. It comes and goes and then it vanishes for good. And then you’re bright and clear. Fasting is what holy men have done for centuries. All around the world.’ Joe stretched his arms out like a bird. ‘They say the second week’s like floating. Flying and floating.’
    ‘Joe,’ Fergus called. But Joe had shut his eyes and was shaking his head, as if rubbing out all the arguments. The moment of possibility had passed.
    Fergus put the slice back in the foil and wrapped it up. ‘It’s no good, Mam. He’s not listening.’
    Joe opened his eyes. He looked tired and sad. ‘I’m listening, Fergus. It’s you who’s not listening to me.’
    Fergus looked at his brother. He thought of the bog child, the archaeologists, the driving lessons and the exams. They no longer existed in this place. He opened his mouth to say something, then gave up.
    ‘What were you going to say, Fergus?’
    ‘Nothing. Only another thing John Lennon wrote.’
    ‘What?’ Joe’s eyes opened again.
    ‘
I don’t wanna be a soldier Mama, I don’t wanna die
.’
    Joe laughed. ‘You’re a card, Ferg. Just a song. Written in another place, another time.’ His eyes shut again. ‘Pacifism’s a luxury, Ferg. It’s not for the likes of us.’ He was leaning back, arms dangling, humming the tune.
    Fergus stood up and touched Mam’s shoulder. ‘Let’s go,’ he whispered.
    ‘Have you no more arguments, Fergus? There must be another argument.’
    ‘I can’t think of one.’
    ‘Oh, Fergus. And we nearly had him persuaded.’
    The prison guard came forward as Fergus stood up. ‘You’re ready to go?’ he asked.
    Fergus nodded. ‘We’re ready to go.’
    Mam buried her head in her hands. He’d to reach down to help her up from her chair.
    ‘Come on, Mam.’
    ‘Say your goodbyes now,’ said the guard.
    ‘Can we leave the tart for him?’ Mam pleaded.
    ‘If you wish. There on the side.’
    They called a goodbye to Joe, who opened his eyes and waved. ‘See you,’ he said. ‘Drop in for tea again, won’t you? Be my guest. Any time.’ He smiled, shrugged his shoulders and crossed his arms over his belly. His eyes stared past them without focusing.
    ‘Bye, Joe,’ Mam managed. The guard ushered them out, with Mam looking back over her shoulder.
    ‘And him a reed at the best of times,’ she moaned.
    Fergus shook his head. Joe was a reed no more: like he’d said himself earlier, he’d put on weight in jail and that might stand him in good stead now. But Mam was weeping, quietly. Fergus steered her down the bleak corridors and through the gated doorways. When they got back outside, with the last door closed behind them, Fergus made a sound like a horse blowing out through its muzzle.
    ‘Jesus. It’s like
Alice in
Bloody
Wonderland
in there.’
    Mam held him by the crook of the elbow as if she was sixty, not forty. ‘Take me home, Fergus.’
    He helped her into the passenger seat of the car. He fixed the mirror and reversed out, concentrating hard. Then he drove back the way they’d come. Miles, villages and houses rolled by and the Troubles were everywhere, in the barricaded police stations, the hunch of people’s shoulders on the pavements, and even in the ragged shards of light. Mam said nothing the entire journey, not even when Fergus speeded up to seventy-five miles an hour on a long straight strip of A-road. She sat