My Father's Sin

 The night air is disturbed by a cracking sound. It’s like a wet tea-towel being slapped onto a work surface.

 And then there is silence. 

My Dad will never forgive himself.

I’ll never forgive my Dad. 

But Donnachadh Brophy has forgiven him already.

 Dad and Brophy are brothers-at-arms. They were serving Royal Ulster Constabulary officers at the height of the Troubles that plagued Northern Ireland. Everyone in the Force knew Brophy and O’Driscoll. They were so closely intertwined that they became like a pair of scissors. One half is no use without the other. Brophy was the archetypal police inspector, top of his game, well-respected by his peers who found him puzzling and amusing in equal measure. Dad was his standard variety beat bobby assistant, always there to make his tea and be a sounding board for his plethora of hypothetical theory. Together they were a special branch within special branch.

 Brophy is an enigma. There is the man and there is his mind, two elements combining within one human to create a forcefield of energy so strong that every room he enters buzzes with energy. He is scruffy, he is poetic, he is static, he is fluid, he is righteous and he is sly. He is normal and he is paranormal. But it is Brophy’s mind that is the real magic. His genius fizzes around him like TV snow. It would be perfectly natural to wonder if some of that brilliance might conduct itself into your soul if you were to reach out and touch him. It would also be perfectly natural to wonder how the man isn’t perpetually exhausted by a brain capable of six or seven trains of thought at once. His wit is as sharp as a lemon and little escapes his keen observation.

 Dad is the opposite, the calm in the storm, the comfort they turned to when the horrors of war made them scream in the still of the night. While Dad needed Brophy’s quick wit, Brophy needed Dad’s adaptability. Their strengths and weaknesses dovetailed perfectly. There were times when they witnessed such depths of human cruelty that both of their stomachs roiled in protest against the anguish of conflict. It was always Dad’s gentle hand on Brophy’s back that gave the Inspector the still he needed to vomit. It’s ok, Sir, said Dad’s hand, bring it up. It’s only me, I won’t tell anyone. It’s not a weakness to be sick.

  Their office was small with only enough space for the two of them, though being so different from each other the office naturally became two rooms in one. Dad’s half was neat and tidy, everything in its place. He’s never been one to tolerate mess and chaos. Such things upset his intrinsic need for order and efficiency. At the end of every day he would tidy away his notebooks and pens and polish down his desk so that it was nice and clean for the next morning. Brophy’s half of the office was the contrary. It was like his mind - an explosion of thoughts, ideas and concepts. His desk and shelves were bursting with books, notepads, photos, papers, sticky notes. Brophy had a noticeboard on which he tacked photos of the latest Prov IRA line-up with which he and Dad played a never-ending game of cat and mouse. I’d look up at their cold, unsmiling faces and shiver. These men were capable of bomb plots and torture. The fear kept me awake at night for years, rendering me unable to sleep until I heard Dad’s key in the door.

“Don’t they scare you, Uncle Donnachadh?” I asked.

“Do they feck!” Brophy laughed.

“I get scared they’ll kill you or Dad,” I admitted.

“Never!” Brophy laughed again and knelt down so that he was eye-to-eye with me, “listen, Deaglan. These bastards are amateurs. They’ll never get me or your Daddy because we’re the police. We’re the professionals. These clowns don’t know what they’re doing. They don’t scare me and they don’t scare your Daddy. They shouldn’t scare you either.”

 Dad looked up from the statement he was writing. I could tell by the way his eyes slowly dropped back down to his paperwork that he didn’t fully share Brophy’s sentiment. It was the only time I ever saw my Dad show any sort of fear. But then Dad had his reasons.

He was himself was a bit of an enigma in those days. He was a Catholic boy born to a Republican family. He broke all the rules when he joined the Loyalist police force. His family disowned him when he signed up. Siding with the enemy, they called it, and turned their backs on him. Gone were his family Christmases, the wedding invitations, the lads nights out with his brothers, the comforting arms of his mother. Uncle Kieran couldn’t let the matter drop. He was the oldest and considered it his business to protect the family reputation. He joined an IRA Brigade and made it his personal mission to rid the streets of Dad’s influence. He hunted his own brother down for years, looking to execute my Dad for bringing disgrace on the O’Driscoll name. My Catholic Dad was worth two Protestant men. Any man taking him down could enjoy a shower of glory.

 Brophy responded to Kieran O’Driscoll’s mission with his own crusade to seek justice for Dad. It took him two years to nail my uncle Kieran down but he did it. When he returned to the station after the big arrest Brophy opened a bottle of champagne and toasted my Dad’s safety. Uncle Kieran served eleven years up at the Maze thanks to Brophy’s efforts and life moved on. Eventually our dynamic duo focused their efforts on other IRA volunteers. Kieran, rotting away in his cell, was resigned to the rolodex of history that was Brophy’s memory.

But Kieran never forgot Brophy.

 I was twelve when the brilliance of Brophy’s mind finally tired him out. Dad came home one night feeling more tired than usual. He took his hat off his head and set it on the table with a poignant quietness I couldn’t help but notice.

 “What’s up, Da?” I asked.

“Ahh nothing, son,” he tried to raise an unconvincing smile.

 “Has something happened at work?”

 “It’s Uncle Donnachadh,” he told me after a long pause. My heart pounded.

 “Is he dead, Da?” I asked.

“No, no…” Dad held up his hand, “but I am worried about him. He’s not stopped talking all day.”

“He always talks a lot.”

“No, it was more than usual. It was relentless. Like he couldn’t stop. And there was a look in his eye that wasn’t quite right,” Dad took a sip of his tea, “like he was wired.”

“Wired?”

“If I didn’t know him better, Deaglan, I’d say he’d taken drugs,” Dad’s eyebrows were raised, “but he wouldn’t be that stupid. And the office mess…it’s getting worse.”

“He’s always messy!” I frowned. I was confused. I didn’t understand what he was saying.

“I’m sure it will be fine,” Dad reassured me, “it’s just that he made today feel very tiring. Now how was school?”

 Things weren’t fine. When Dad went to work the following morning he found Brophy slumped over his desk, still wearing yesterday’s clothes, frantically working on a new theory. His hair was raised in tufts on his head, his eyes wild, his tie loose, a coffee-stain splashed down his shirt. There were mugshots and papers everywhere, notes messily written on memo sheets. A frantic energy filled the room. The electricity from Brophy’s mind was almost tangible, like a high-pitched siren cutting through the air. It made Dad want to cover his ears and cower.

 “O’Driscoll! You’re late. What time do you call this?” Brophy asked as he looked up from another manic scribble on a sheet of memo paper.

“It’s 8 O’Clock, Sir,” Dad told him, “I’m thirty minutes early.”

“You’ve taken your time, lad,” Brophy frowned, “when there’s so much work to do!”

“Did you go home last night, Sir?”

“How can I go home when there’s so much work on?” Brophy asked. He was irritable, snappy, as if Dad’s questions were irrelevant, “Get these notes together, type them up. That lot on your desk there is an operation plan. Operation Drogheda.”

 Dad looked at the confetti of note paper that littered the office. He picked up a page or two and squinted at the content. Brophy’s handwriting was illegible scribble and the only words Dad could read spelt out the ramblings of a mad man.

“Operation Drogheda, Sir?”

“The new Operation me and you are going to spearhead!” Brophy announced excitedly, “come on, O’Driscoll, get with it. I’ll have each and every one of those Prov bastards in the cells. All of them, O’Driscoll. By the end of today.”

“That’s…that’s impossible, Sir. There aren’t enough cells. There isn’t enough space in the prison,” Dad told him.

“What defeatist bollocks!” Brophy shouted, “are you saying that we’ll never win this war, O’Driscoll?”

“No, Sir, I just don’t think we can arrest them all in one day,” Dad told him calmly, “let’s not get over-excited, Sir.”

Brophy threw down his pen in an unprovoked rage and stood to square up against his closest friend.

“I’ll have you on report, O’Driscoll,” he raged, “for disloyalty to the Force.”

“What?” Dad gasped.

 “You’re a mole, O’Driscoll,” Brophy growled, “an IRA spy! I’ve been duped all these years! You’re feeding those bastards all my theories!”

“Sir, I am offended by your accusation!” Dad said strongly.

 Dad’s eyes soaked up the illegible notes, the frantic talking, the staying up all night. Brophy wasn’t a well man.

“We can single-handedly win this war, O’Driscoll. Just me and you,” Brophy pleaded.

“No,” Dad shook his head.

Despite their friendship and all their years of working together Dad always respectfully called Brophy ‘Sir’ as his rank demanded. Dad liked rules. But on that day Dad broke one as he gently took Brophy’s arm.

“Donnachadh,” he said softly, “I think you need to rest, now.”

Brophy was detained under Section 2 of the Mental Health Act that afternoon. Dad had kept his cool throughout the harrowing experience. Brophy wouldn’t listen to the pleas of other officers to calm down. He refused to go home. The doctors and social workers had to come to the police station where he was assessed while lying face down in the office mess, crying for his sanity. Dad had watched this hell unfold with his quiet dignity but when he got home the tears came.

“My friend,” he whispered, “my mate, Donnachadh.”

 Brophy was taken to a hospital where they made him wear pyjamas all day and ensured he stuck to a strict daily routine of washing, mealtimes and fingerpainting. He hated it.

Dad took me to visit once. They had cut Brophy’s silver hair. His eyes were sunken and yellow. The electricity of his mind was gone, dulled by the medication they fed him like mints. I didn’t visit again. It was too much.

 When Brophy went back to work he tried to rediscover his passion for the Force but with the drugs still dulling the magic in his brain he couldn’t find his identity within an ever-changing organisation. He tried his best but when I was sixteen he gave in to early retirement on medical grounds. His last day was like a funeral. He and Dad both cried as they carried his boxes of mess out of the station, though neither let the other see his tears.

“Pint, Sir?” Dad asked when the car was loaded with Brophy’s belongings.

“Don,” Brophy told him, “it’s Don now, Matthew, lad.”

 “Don,” Dad smiled.

  Brophy tries to adapt to life without work as his passion. He turns his brilliance into artwork and starts painting watercolours for sale at art fairs. He enjoys it but the lion in his heart yearns for more. He manages just eighteen short months before he becomes unwell again. Dad and Brophy's wife Tressa work hard to keep him at home, taking it in turns to care for him.

Dad is exhausted. Work isn’t the same without his best friend. He doesn’t like his new colleagues much. They are too messy for him, they leave dirty cups on their desks and never empty the bin. He never says it out loud but they could be the tidiest people in Ireland but they aren’t Brophy. In Dad's mind they could never match up to his old boss’ legend. He finishes work and goes to sit with his friend over a cup of tea and to admire his latest watercolour painting. And then comes home, a crummy flat in a neglected tower block, to me, a disgruntled, hormonal and argumentative seventeen year old boy with the wisps of a beard on my chin and no sense of direction in my life.

 It happens late one Monday night in February as the rain pours. The only light in the street outside are the yellow halos around the streetlamps. Dad is on his way home. I’ve got some beans and chips cooking for his tea. He’ll take his plate and sit in the lounge, eating chips and spooning beans robotically into his mouth while gazing at whatever is on the TV. He won’t take any of it in. His mind is too busy unwinding after a rough day at work and an hour with Brophy, who has been talking about setting up his own answer to the IRA. The Custodians of Peace. The COPs, no less.

 I expect Dad at eight o’clock. He’s fifteen minutes late. That makes me a bit anxious. He might be stuck in traffic, he might just be having a laugh with Brophy, but I can’t help that old sneaking worry that the IRA volunteers have got him. They’d ambush him, bundle him into the back of a van and take him to a secret location to torture Police secrets out of him before blowing his brains into next week. The risk isn’t as bad as it was years ago but still. I worry.

 The door flies open at eight-thirty. Dad is in a panic. He pushes me out of the way on his way to the bedroom, his face red, his lungs barely able to catch a breath. He dives under his bed and pulls out his police-issue gun. I yelp.

“Dad!” I cry.

“It’s Brophy!” Dad tells me, “he went missing this afternoon. I’ve just found him. He was outside this flat the whole time, painting a fucking mural on the side of the betting shop.”

“Why do you need a gun?” I ask.

 Dad ignores me. He cocks the gun and runs outside onto the balcony of our tower block. Sure enough there is Brophy. He’s painted the outline of a mural on the wall. Political murals are common in Northern Ireland. Both sides, Republican and Loyalist, paint incredible pictures illustrating their position on every available wall surface to spread their message. Brophy he has decided to join those ranks with some artwork of his own. It’s two men shaking hands beneath a rainbow. It’s a symbol of peace. It’s also sign of that he is once again very unwell.

 He bends down to put his paintbrush into a tin of white paint. He must be mad to paint in the dark and the biting cold rain but the compulsion in his heart is too strong. He won’t listen, Dad tells me, he won’t come inside. He’s hell-bent on painting his fucking picture.

“But why do you need the gun?” I ask him again, this time more urgently, but Dad can’t answer.

 A red van screeches around the corner. Three lads jump out of the back. They’re all dressed in dark clothing, their faces covered in balaclavas.

“Dad!” I scream.

 The lads make a semi-circle around Brophy. They’re telling him to go with them. He won’t stop painting. They don’t know he’s unwell. They think he's being obstructive. Two lads take him by the arms. He’s still holding his paintbrush. He begs to be allowed to finish the dove he was painting above the figures of peace. He cries. He’s not frightened. He doesn’t know who these men are. He’s crying only because he wants to finish his art.

“Kieran!” Dad’s voice echoes around the tower block courtyard.

 A man in a balaclava looks up. I know it’s my Dad’s brother, fresh out of prison and keen to exact his justice over the man who arrested him. Kieran tells his boys to hurry the fuck up because they’ve been spotted. They rush to put Brophy in the back of the van. They’re going to take him away. They’re going to torture him. Then they're going to kill him.

“DAD help him!!” I scream.

“I can’t help him, it would be five against one,” Dad shouts, “they’ll get me and then they’ll come for you.”

“It’s Brophy, Dad!”

I’m crying. Wailing. I want my Dad, the hero, to make it all ok again. Dad looks to the heavens, the blanket of navy stippled with rain. There are tears in his eyes too.

“Oh Lord God,” he begins.

“Dad stop fucking praying!” I screech, “that’s not going to help! Dad they’re TAKING HIM!”

“My Lord forgive my sins and understand my position. This is a mercy mission, Lord. Hear my prayer.”

 He cocks the gun. The night air is disturbed by a cracking sound. It’s like a wet tea-towel being slapped onto a work surface. And then there is silence.

Brophy slumps to the floor, the bullet that cut through his head lodged into the dove of peace on the wall behind him. He dies instantly. His passing is painless and peaceful.

Dad will never forgive himself.

I’ll never forgive my Dad.

But Donnachadh Brophy has forgiven him already.