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I called Noy to tell her my plan. She hadn’t got a clue what I was on about, beyond the bit where I said that if things worked out I would be back in Thailand in weeks. I didn’t go into details about what would happen if I made a balls of it.

I’m sure the IRA lads where used to people approaching them with suggestions, but I doubted whether they’d heard the like of what I had to say too many times. A one-to-one where I had a proper chance to get my pitch out without interruption was my best bet, so I needed to schedule a meeting. I decided to approach Fíonn – a bad, feral bastard of about 35 – basically, because he knew me well. His son was a good mate of mine and I had been in his home tons of times. He also had a drink problem – that problem being that he was a total fucking dippo. He’d often corner me in a boozer and drunkenly warn me off drugs with angry, slurred threats. They would be terrifying affairs. I’d try desperately to reassure him that I wasn’t the type for that shit and he’d flip schizophrenically between offering me big brotherly advise on the dangers of narcotics, and threatening to knee cap me in my front garden if I gave any hint that I’d as much as smoked a joint. The positive, usable side of our little chats was that when I’d see him sober he’d throw me a meek, apologetic nod.

I strolled into the local at Sunday lunchtime while a Celtic vs Rangers game was on the telly and sure enough, Fíonn was at the bar pushing down his first pint in an apparent effort to shake of the dregs of the previous night’s efforts. I ordered an orange juice, apparently to the chuckling barman’s glee, and grabbed a seat beside the bar’s howling poker machines.

Fíonn sat there taking shaky sups of his pint while I ran over what I had to do. I’d prepared for this approach. I’d spent hours sprawled out on my bed and running it over in my head. Unfortunately, none of that did me any good because I was still shitting myself. Fuck it. If I wanted to see Noy again I would just have to grow a pair and fucking well do it.

Eventually, Fíonn stood up and began to shuffle through the predominantly unemployed clientele towards the toilet. As soon as the door swung closed behind him I took an gulp from my drink, jumped off my stool and followed behind crunching anxiously on a lump of ice. After pushing my way though the grubby daytime customers I shoved open the toilet door and walked inside.

A large mirror hung on the opposite wall above a single wash-hand basin into which Fíonn flicked the excess water from his hands. I glanced around the rotting room before looking back towards him. His reflection stared at me.

“I need to talk to someone. I’ve got some information I think yis could use.”

“Oh aye?” he said, looking weary, but somewhat curious.

“I’m not talking about it here.”

“That’s nae bother big man,” he answered, in his heavy west Belfast drawl.

He was a bit rattled from the drink alright. When he stumbled in here for a curer I’d say the last thing he expected was to have me lobbing mystery rendezvous at him. I fucking feasted on his discomfort. I threw another look over my shoulder at the door behind me and walked right up him until I could nearly taste the stale gargle that seeped out of his pores. I leered at him like a rapist does a to a victim and he fucking well knew I meant business. We arranged a meeting for the following evening and he slapped me on the back with inappropriate force as he pulled the door open and left. I stood there for a while without moving. Adrenaline was tearing up and down my spine. The wheels were in motion and there was no going back now.

******************************

The next day I jumped off a bus at the stop we arranged to meet at and he was standing under the shelter surrounded by damp, murmuring students. I got a strange feeling when I spotted him. Like the one you get when you’ve been caught writing on a desk by a teacher or something. It had just stopped raining and it was freezing out. His nose was red from the cold. Fíonn was fairly tall, and quite thin and he had a long face that seemed to hang off the bottom of his bald head. He was a scary looking fucker really.

“There you are Michael,” he said cheerily.

“Alright Fíonn” I said, praying I could attach enough confidence to the avalanche of bullshit that was about to pour forth from my gob to make it believable.

A second bus pulled-up and I looked at Fíonn to see if we were supposed to be getting on or not. He turned away and started absently kicking a ragged crisp packet on the ground as everyone else shuffled on. Then it was just me and him.

“Right then! What the fuck have you dragged me out in this poxy weather for then son?” said Fíonn, with an almost manic smile.

Whenever I had gone over this in my head it had seemed perfectly plausible, but when it dawned on me that I would actually have to say the words it seemed fucking ludicrous. I stood there looking at him blankly for a second and I could feel my confidence deserting me. It was like I was realising for the first time that the only reason I had believed in the viability of this mental plan was because I had wanted to, and that there was zero applicable logic to what I had actually concocted. I dragged a picture of Noy into my head but for some reason – probably because I was standing at the side of a dank road with a hungover, fabulously dangerous man peeling back the skin from around my eyeballs with a stare – it seemed Noy couldn’t possibly exist in the same world I had found myself in. Some how, by the strength of God, I pulled myself together. And started to talk.

 

To be continued

 

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