The Mountain Shadow

Holding my hand between his, Jibril assured me that his daughter was feeling much better, and invited me to take tea with him and his family in their home.

I thanked him in return, and invited him to join us for a glass of chai. He declined, apologising for the refusal, and hurried off to an appointment with a grain merchant who supplied feed for his horses.

‘You see what I mean?’ Concannon said, when I sat down again. ‘These people like you. They don’t like me. And I don’t want them to. I don’t want to eat their food. I hate their bloody food. I don’t want to watch their movies. I don’t want to speak their fuckin’ language. But you do. You understand them. You communicate with them, and they respect you for it. Think about it. We’ll be unbeatable. We could take over this part of the city, you and me.’

‘Why would we want to do that?’ I laughed.

‘Because we can,’ he said, leaning in close to me.

Because We Can: the motto of power, since the idea of power over others was born in our kind.

‘That’s not a reason, that’s an excuse.’

‘Look around you! Ninety-nine per cent of people are just doin’ what they’re told. But you and me, we’re in the one per cent. We take what we want, while the rest of them, they take what they’re given.’

‘People rise up.’

‘Aye, they do,’ he agreed, his pale blue eyes gleaming. ‘From time to time. And then the one per cent take all their privilege back from them, and usually their pride and dignity for good measure, and they go back to being the slaves they’re born to be.’

‘You know,’ I sighed, returning his stare. ‘It’s not just that I disagree with what you’re saying, it’s that I actually despise it.’

‘That’s the beauty of it!’ he cried, slapping his thighs with both palms.

He read my mystified frown for a moment, and then continued in a softer tone.

‘Look . . . me Ma, she died when I was just a baby. Dad tried his best, but he couldn’t manage. There was five of us kids, all under ten years old, and he was a sick man. He sent us to these orphanages. We were Protestants. The girls went to Protestant places, but me little brother and me, there was no place for us, and we ended up with the Catholics.’

He paused for a while, allowing his gaze to fall to his feet. The rain squalled again, striking the plastic awning of the chai shop with the sound of drummers at a wedding.

His foot began to scrape away at the earth slowly, his running shoe leaving a pattern of scrolls and whorls in the muddy ground.

‘There was this priest, you see.’

He looked up. Fractal patterns in the irises of his ice-blue eyes glittered around the pinpoint pupils. The whites of his eyes were suddenly red, as if burned by the sea.

‘I don’t talk about this,’ he said, lapsing into a leaden silence again.

His eyes filled with tears. He clenched his jaw, swallowing hard, and willing the tears away. But they fell, and he turned his head.

‘You’re a fuckin’ cunt, you are!’ Concannon snapped, wiping his eyes with the back of his hand.

‘Me?’

‘Yeah, fuckin’ you! This is what all your nice reasonableness does to people. You turn ’em into weak cunts. That’s the first time I’ve let a tear fall in many a long year, and it’s the first time I’ve talked about that fuckin’ priest in longer still. And that’s . . . that’s why we’d be so good together, don’t you see?’

‘Not . . . really.’

‘I got out of that orphanage when I was sixteen. By my eighteenth birthday I’d killed six men. One of them was that fuckin’ priest. Shoulda seen how he begged for his life, the miserable sick thing.’

He paused again, his mouth pressed into a bitter wrinkle. I was hoping that he’d stop talking. He didn’t.

‘I forgave him, you know, before I killed him.’

‘Concannon, I –’

‘Will you not hear me out, man?’

He seemed desperate.

‘Alright.’

‘I never forgave anyone, after that,’ he began, brightening with violent recollection. ‘I was a full ranked volunteer with the UVF. And I went on breakin’ heads, shootin’ Catholics in the knees, sendin’ pieces of the IRA cunts we captured to their widows, and a lot more. We worked together with the cops and the army. Unofficial like, of course, but we had a fuckin’ green light. Hit squads, killin’ and maimin’ on demand, no questions asked.’

‘Concannon –’

‘Then it all fell apart. It got too hot. I got too hot. Too violent, they said. It was a fuckin’ war. How can you be too violent for a war? But they sent me out. Scotland first, then London. I fuckin’ hated the place. Then I went on the road, and ended up here.’

‘Look, Concannon –’