The Reckoning July 1970 Belfast
Colette Lynch
Baying, shrieking women in their slippers and curlers dragged the half- naked girl towards the lamppost. They had shaved her head, leaving bleeding nicks on her skull. She was sobbing, but did not try to break away. There was no point. The women, her neighbors, mothers, daughters, aunts, friends, enemies, spat in her face and stoned her. Solidarity in fear, a show of support for the men watching at the windows. Vilification is preferable to death.
This was the same street that only the night before she and I had strolled arm-in-arm, whispering our secrets. Now she stood unrecognizable, a warning to others foolish enough to contemplate following in her wake, an omen portending my future.
“Don’t hurt her,” I wanted to scream, but instead I jeered with the rest, a veiled attempt to disguise my sin.
They tied her to the post where she slumped, head lolling, her night dress slipping from her shoulders, a swollen breast revealed. Even though it was summer, it was freezing.
One woman, Mrs. O’Neil, who ran the sweet shop, took a bucket filled with hot tar and poured it over her. Another emptied a bag of feathers on her head. The feathers drifted around her, caught by the wind. Beautiful in their slowness, white against black, purity against wantonness. Some stuck to her body, while others fell in absolution to the ground. Her mother, visage set with emotionless determination, hung a sign around her neck.
‘SOLDIER LOVER’
She slapped her across the face, calling her a whore, and left her daughter screaming.
In the early morning when the street was clear, I went out to her. I held her hand and put a rug around her shoulders.
“I’m sorry,” I said.
“Don’t tell,” she said, thoughtlessly putting a hand on her belly. Sam had planned to take her to England. He told her he could sort it. No-one would know.
Her name was Maire, and she was my best friend. We should have been more careful. When the young men from another country came, exciting in their uniforms, our mothers embraced them as saviors. We were not to know that soon they would wish them dead, overstepping a line we had not seen drawn so preoccupied were we with adventure. Her soldier was called Sam and mine was Tom. We were in love.
As I left Maire standing alone in the mizzling rain, a sole wren in the dawn sang a sad lament for her and the other hidden heart, beating inside her. I sat on my bed, staring through the window and listening. Transfixed with grief and horror, sleep eluded me. So transported was I that the sound of my mother’s voice shocked me.
“Get up, Claire, you’ll be late for school.”
I slowly put on my uniform, but my numb fingers wouldn’t knot my tie, so I just left it. I came downstairs. Everyone except Colm, my eldest brother, was at the table. Gerard, a seven- year- old who never ceased talking was regaling my father with some story from school his already large eyes popping out of his head with excitement and the twins, as they would be referred to for the rest of their lives, were playing horsey on his knee. No -one mentioned Maire. She had been like a daughter to my mother and yet here she was frying bacon and sausages as if it was just a normal day. This is now it would be for me if they found out. I would be isolated, rejected, and scorned.
“Look at the state of you,” she said. “You’re meant to be an example to your brothers.”
“Ach leave her alone Geraldine. All this has been hard for her,” said my father, my supporter.
I was the apple of his eye, the one who would make good and go to university, changing the course of familial history.
“Here angel, he said. “I’ll do your tie for you.”
He pulled me to him, and it was like I was a child again. I wanted to throw my arms around his neck, smell his daddy skin and plead for mercy. He kissed me on the forehead, branding me with his love.
Colette Lynch has been writing for three years, producing four novels, several short stories and flash fiction. Currently living in Sweden but reared in Northern Ireland during The Troubles, a lot of her fiction deals with familial and psychological conflict. She was a finalist in the 2024 WOW Women on Writing prize, came second in the 2024 Anansi Short Fiction Competition and was published in The Berlin Literary Review and Litbreak Magazine. She was longlisted for Fiction Factory Short Story Competition 2024, First Pages USA 2024 and shortlisted for The First Page Darling Axe Competition 2024 and The Birdport Prize in Flash Fiction.