Ashes to Ashes

"What the Hell happened?" Oisin asked when they'd got back into the built-up areas of Belfast. Darragh shook his head, gasping.

"Just keep driving," he muttered, the deep cuts in his palms and on his upper arms throbbing painfully. Oisin stopped the car as they reached the Ardoyne area.

"Out," he said, glancing round.

"For God's sake," Darragh muttered, forcing himself to get out of the car. Oisin got out as well and Darragh hid he gun away in his bag again and Oisin poured petrol in through the car windows, lighting a match and throwing it in. The car went up in a sheet of flames, and the two young men didn’t hang around to watch. They turned and quickly hurried away down the road, ducking through several alleys in case they'd been spotted, and heading back to Diarmuid's house.

"Well?" Diarmuid asked shortly as Oisin rapped on the door and it was pulled open. "Oh, for fuck's sake!" he groaned as he saw the state of Darragh, who was covered in blood and swaying on the spot slightly.

"Thanks for the feckin' sympathy," Darragh muttered. Oisin pulled one of Darragh's arms round his shoulders and helped him over the doorstep and into the house.

"Did youse cock up again?" Diarmuid asked as soon as he shut the door.

"No, thank you very fucking much," Darragh said, bad tempered as he always was when he was in pain.

"So he's dead?"

"I'm fine, thanks, Diarmuid," Darragh hissed, diliberatley sitting on the sofa so that blood got to as many places as possible. Diarmuid glared, but didn't move him while the fiesty Volunteer had an AK-47 in his bag.

"All right, Darragh." Diarmuid muttered. "Stop feeling sorry for yourself. How did it go? What happened? Why are you covered in blood?"

"He had a gun." Darragh explained. "He started firing at me because his wife – God, she was a bitch – yelled that I was there. I managed to get behind the table, but one of the bullets skimmed my head. And then the guy locked the door and she wouldn’t let me out, and the police were on the way and so I had to dive out of the window. Hence all these." Darragh signalled to his gashed hands with an annoyed nod.

"You dived through a window?" Diarmuid repeated bluntly.

"Yes, I dived through a bloody window!" Darragh spat. "I'm sorry it wasn't the chilled-out approch you conconcted in your brain, but it doesn't work like that in real life!"

"And what do you mean by that?"

"I mean that you have these stupid ideas that you just walk in, shoot them and then walk out again. Well it's not like that! I didn’t fancy behind shot myself and the bitch wouldn't let me out, so what else was I supposed to do? Ask her nicely and then get myself a cup of tea while I waited?"

"You could have shot her."

"Ah, come on, Diarmuid." Oisin said in his typical way, quietly and softly. "You can't expect to ask Darragh to orphan children on Christmas Day."

"And why not? He left them fatherless."

Darragh jumped up instantly and slammed Diarmuid up against the wall, so unexpectedly that Oisin didn't have time to try and restrain his best friend.

"I've had just about enough of you now, Feeny!" he yelled, ignoring the stabbing, sickening pain in the cuts in his hands. "You can just stop fucking asking us to do things you won't do yourself! It's not that God damn easy, is it? You make it sound so bloody simple! It's not like that! You should know that! Perhaps you should get the Hell out of your armchair and pick up a gun again and stop making it sound like a walk in the fucking park, eh?"

"Darragh, come on," Oisin put his hand on Darragh's shoulder, encouraging him to let go of Diarmuid, but Darragh was having none of it.

"You don’t know anything, Feeny!" he said to him. "You don't know anything at all! Think about it! Christmas Day, it is, and you're speaking about such things so easily!"

"Does the words "IRA man" mean anything at all to you, Callaghan?" Diarmuid asked Darragh coldly.

"It means everything to me! But I don’t want those British bastards to be able to twist everything around and call us terrorists!" Darragh yelled. "We're soldiers! SOLDIERS! NOT TERRORISTS!" Darragh pushed him away and then stormed out of the house.

After a couple of seconds of Diarmuid glaring at Oisin for reasons which Oisin could not work out, Oisin hurried after his best friend.

"Darragh, what was that?" he asked as he caught up. "DARRAGH!"

Darragh stopped and turned and faced Oisin, and for one brief second Oisin though Darragh was going to hit him. He didn’t – instead he punched the wall as hard as he could, and then cried out in pain again and gripped his hand.

"That idiot," he muttered.

"What''s up with you?" Oisin asked gently.

"I'm so God damn annoyed, that's what's up!" Darragh groaned. "I don’t know what to do with him … he just seems to think he knows it all, doesn't he? I mean, he thinks it's easy to do that to someone, especially on a day like this! I know Henderson's a scumbag like the rest of them but the British will be rolling in the propaganda they'll get from this! I'm fed up of him making us seem like terrorists! We're not, and it's his fault that they can say we're acting like them!"

"I know, Darragh." Oisin said gently. "Look, there's nothing you can do at the moment. Come on back to my house and get yourself cleaned up. When you've calmed down you can have a word with him. He's not worth you getting so wound up over."

"I just want to get home! I spend less and less time there everyday and I'm getting fed up of that as well."

"You can't let Grainne and the children see you in this state, Darragh." Oisin pointed out. Darragh looked down at himself.

"You're right. Come on, then."

Darragh went straight up to the bathroom to get himself sorted out when they arrived at Oisin's house. Oisin was still single, although he did have the attentions of a young girl he'd known for several years, who was named Mairead. Darragh was fond of winding them up over their clear attraction towards each other.

Darragh winced as he put his hands under the cold tap, feeling the water stinging his gashed hands. The cuts were pretty deep when he finally saw them, but didn't look as though they'd need stitches. Darragh patted them dry and then threw on the spare clothes Oisin had leant him. They had to borrow each other's clothes so often that half of Darragh's wardrobe belonged to Oisin, and vice versa.

He got dowstairs and sat down on the sofa next to Oisin, who smiled at him.

"You all right?"

"As well as I could be." Oisin gave a soft laugh.

"Good tidings we bring, eh?"