Childhoods of Confinement

“We’re locked in,” said Karen, sullenly.

“What’s new?” asked Phil, picking at the bobbles on the fabric of the seat. It'd had a speckled texture to it when it was new, but it hadn’t aged well.

“Something exciting might happen, you never know.”

“Does anything exciting ever happen?”

Karen peered out the window. There was no one around them, except a few vacant cars with no other passengers locked in the back seats. Driving to the pub wasn’t unusual then, neither was driving home.

“What do they do in there for so long?” Karen asked.

“Drink themselves silly and talk about everything we aren’t allowed to hear.”

Karen picked up her battered comic. She’d been reading the same one for several months and the print was starting to fade in places, but she knew it off by heart anyway. Her comics were her best friends. Despite the fact that she and her brother were stuck in the same confinement, they were enemies more often than they were friends.

She felt her tummy rumble and wondered what time dinner would be on the table at that day. They’d been promised a trip to the beach that weekend, but Dad had had a rough week in work, so here they were, at his usual resting place.

They’d come to loathe the look of The Winfield pub. It was in one of those old red brick buildings with a wooden sign – one that had never been changed and the letters were fading away. It didn’t need to be labelled; the regulars knew where they were going, drunk or sober. There wasn’t much happening in that area: no kids, no life, just a lone pub. Now and again, they’d see an old drunk stumble out of it and make their weary way down the road. Their minds would make up stories about the person, like minds tend to do in their deepest state of boredom. Unremarkable people suddenly became interesting characters in their mind’s creations.

Philip held onto his tin car. He drove it over his knee and up the back of the empty driver’s seat. He drove it across the window, weaving around the waterdrops that fell every day in Belfast; at least, it felt like they did. It was a suitable accompaniment to the mood of their lives. Everything was grey, dreary and uninspiring. It felt like they would never escape their imprisonment in that cell of a car. If it wasn’t the car, it was their bedroom. Most of the time, they just went back and forth between the two places. The most excitement they got was whenever the neighbourhood kids got together in the street and made a rope swing on the lamppost. That kept them busy for hours. They were very civilised about it, taking it in turns and waiting patiently. Time was meaningless in days as lengthy as that and none of them were spoilt. Nobody could afford to spoil their kids – at least not anybody that they knew personally.

Karen traced her finger around the raindrops on the window, making pictures with her imagination. She chased a few with her index finger as they slid down the glass, meeting them at the end of their path.

“What time do you think they’ll come out at today?”

“What’s the point in asking me that? If you count every second it’ll feel like forever.”

He was getting irritable with her. She could sense it like hounds hear change in the air. He reminded her of her dad when he got like that: short-tempered and snappy. Everyone deals with stress differently. Karen buried her head in her magazine again, getting lost in the safe worlds of her favourite cartoons. She often wished she could climb inside the pages and stay tucked in there, becoming part of a better story. The kids in her comics had a voice. They got to be cheeky to adults and push the boundaries. She’d never dared do that. Even when she was faultlessly polite and respectful, she still always ended up in trouble.

It was the era of “children should be seen and not heard,” and making any sort of fuss only attracted unpleasant attention. She willed her parents to come back, but simultaneously, treasured the peace while it lasted. Either way, she felt unbalanced, like something dangerous could happen at any moment.

The pub door opened. It stayed open for a minute without exposing the person behind it. They sat, feeling anxious and hopeful, mixed together in one big ball they carried in their little stomachs. That ball was always there and they never got a chance to forget it, unless they got lost in a child’s game to the point that they forgot reality. Karen and Philip had more in common than they knew how to express. They were too young and emotionally ill-equipped to express it, to learn that the other one was having the same waves of emotion at the same time. They weren’t alone, but they couldn’t have felt more alone, sitting side by side. Being unable to communicate with a sibling isn’t much different to being an only child.

After their long moment of anticipation, a man appeared through the door. They knew him by face but not by name. He must have frequented the pub as much as their parents did. There were only ever locals at that time. Everyone stayed in their own pockets of Belfast, safe with what they knew. The Troubles were in full force, and everything was always tumultuous. You weren’t even safe in your home, never mind in the other side’s business or in their area. That added a thread of tension to everything. Even whenever things were settled at home, they were still anxious about the next thing that would kick off. Inside their small terrace, or outside in their carefully contained world – it was all equally stifling and terrifying.

For five minutes, there was silence in the car and silence outside. Not a person passed. Not a single sound came from the roads. And then the blast came – the unfathomable blast that blew out the pub front. They couldn’t make sense of it. The shock kept them strapped in their seats, even without seatbelts. No one bothered with them then. Their parents were inside that building. Bad people or good, their guides in life were right at the heart of the blast.