Back to life, back to work...

I dove back into APoS-New World For Old and am pumping up Brendan's sense of loss, dislocation and confusion when he regains consciousness in his aunt's home in Houston. I'm through chapter three, so far.

He's ensconced up in an attic room and it's six months after the bombing. Step by step, he's returning to normal, back to smoking, regaining his need to repair things in order to feel in control, and finding his aunt's two daughters are holy terrors.

Bernadette and Brandi. Ten months apart, in birth, but seeming like twins. They argue with each other all the time, except when they're harassing Brendan, whom they call Bren. Everyone calls him Bren. He thinks nothing of it, but in the next chapter is when he finds out it doesn't stand for his actual name.

I'd been dancing around him being told everything, but that's nonsense. He needs to know who and what he is in America so he can maintain the pretense. He's now a third cousin to Aunt Mari who was in a horrific accident in Donegal that set off heart trouble. He's in Houston to be treated by a specialist, on a medical visa under the name Brennan McGabbhin. Also orphaned, thanks to the accident.

This was done as an agreement to keep Bren alive. Mairead, Aunt Mari and Ma forced a deal down the throats of PIRA, with Uncle Sean's reluctant help. But part of that deal is Bren must be kept away from Derry because the British are seeking him for questioning. They believe he knows who set the bomb that went off. It's that or he goes in a grave, and there are some in PIRA who would prefer that.

So he's given a new name, removed from Ireland, completely, and the word is Brendan Kinsella left Derry before the bomb went off. Which no one really believes, despite his note saying that was what he was doing and the train ticket he bought. He's exiled...and it thrills him.