My Mother's Children: An Irish family secret and the scars it left behind. by Annette Sills (epub e reader .TXT) 📗

Chapter 12

I met Joe Doherty on a day cratered in the minds of most Mancunians. It was Saturday, the 16th of June, 1996. The day the IRA bombed our city.

The skies were cobalt blue and cloudless when Tess and I caught the early bus into town that morning. We were on a mission to find an outfit for her for a wedding. Rose O’Grady’s eldest Sinéad was getting married the following Saturday at St John’s Church in Chorlton, followed by a reception at Chorlton Irish. Tess, Mikey and I had all been invited.

That weekend the city had been infected by a serious case of football fever. The Euros were in full swing, England versus Scotland was being shown in the pubs that afternoon and Russia versus Germany was being played at Old Trafford the following day. The hangover of the football hooliganism of the eighties still lingered and when we got into town just after nine a large police presence hovered everywhere. Vans blocked side streets and officers in short sleeve shirts and helmets stood on corners, radios at the ready. A group of German fans got on the bus at Deansgate and a couple of England shirts at the back splayed their arms like wings and started to hum the Dambusters tune.

Tess shook her head. “Gobshites,” she said and I laughed.

We got off at the Arndale bus station and headed across the road for Marks and Spencer’s and the reduced rail. We soon found the perfect outfit, a fuchsia trouser suit and white satin blouse. With her slender figure and ash-blonde hair piled high, Tess received a lot of admiring glances in the changing room. She was in great form that day. She didn’t get invited many places and she was excited about the wedding. I watched, enchanted, as she charmed the shop assistants, making them laugh. On days like that when the mist of her illness lifted, she filled the world with colour and light. It was a joy to see but at the same time it pained me because it gave a glimpse of how different life might have been if she was like that all the time.

We left the store via the Corporation Street exit at about ten. The streets were humming with shoppers taking advantage of the good weather. Father’s Day gifts filled shop windows. I felt a yank on my heart. Eighteen years on, I still missed Dad desperately. When we stepped outside, Tess said she wanted to go to Kendals on Deansgate for some lipstick to match her outfit. So off we went. Neither of us remembered seeing the white van parked on the double yellow lines on the corner of Cannon Street. Or the flashing lights or the parking ticket slapped on the windscreen. It was only later that evening as we watched the news unfold on TV that we realised we’d walked right past the bomb itself.

We’d been in Kendals for about twenty minutes when a burly security guard with dreadlocks and a gold front tooth started telling everyone to evacuate. His face had an expression of mild annoyance, like someone had interrupted him when he was on his break. Tess had wandered off and I looked around, unable to see her anywhere. I walked up and down the aisles of the make-up department in the mist of perfume and women in white frocks, some of whom were also heading for the exit. I wasn’t unduly worried but then I heard someone say something about a bomb being defused in the Arndale and I started to panic. I ran up and down shouting out Tess’s name with the security guard at my heels yelling at me to leave. Eventually I found her at the front of the store by the revolving doors. She was chatting to a man of about my age in a khaki shirt and jeans.

I glared at her. “Thanks,” I said. “She’s mine.”

Tess tutted and patted the stranger’s arm. “She’s terrible for wandering off, so she is.”

I gritted my teeth and grabbed her elbow. The three of us squeezed into the revolving doors, the last to leave the store.

The man gave me a coy smile. “She was getting worried. My parents are Irish too. From Cork.”

He had a soft London accent and he sounded a bit Marc Bolan. In the confined space I could smell apple-scented aftershave and mints. I looked closely at his reflection in the glass door. A round face with boyish features, all spaced pleasantly apart, startling blue eyes and a steady gaze. His face was slightly tattered, suggesting a lot of late nights, which I liked, and he had a sturdy frame. But he was at least two inches shorter than me. For a woman of five feet ten those inches mattered. I’d only ever dated one man shorter than me and it was uncomfortable, like wearing the wrong-sized shoes.

The three of us were spat out into sunshine and chaos. Policemen with sweat pouring down their faces were shouting and waving the crowds away from the Arndale. Cars and buses were turning round and retreating and a group of teenage girls in crop tops and shorts with Walkmans were linking arms and running down the middle of the road.

“I’m Joe Doherty, by the way,” he said as we joined the flow of people.

I linked arms with Tess. “Carmel Lynch and this is Tess.”

He walked alongside us on the edge of the pavement, his body turned slightly as if shielding us.

“I was never in Cork.” Tess’s voice was high-pitched and nervous. She gripped my arm, her eyes darting around.

Strangers exchanged worried looks, others fixed their eyes on the ground. We quickened our pace. I caught Joe Doherty looking at me. He smiled shyly and seemed nonplussed by what was going on around us. Behind him on the other side of the street I saw a young bride running down the pavement