Brendan begins to understand...

I got through chapter five of NWFO and Aunt Mari has told Brendan he's not himself, anymore. He was brought over from the South of Ireland as a third cousin with a heart condition, for treatment by a specialist in cardiology. He's now on medication and his heart is much better. But it's still a shock and causes him to black out. He knocks his head, has blood on his shirt, but he's got an appointment with the doctor so goes upstairs to change.

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It wasn't till I reached the stairs to that attic room that my mind could focus on something like turning on the light in the stairwell so I could see. And turning left at the top before grabbing the handle on my door, to open it. No latch, so no key needed. The B-girls at school so no need for the chairs under the knobs. Just wander into the center of the dusty light. 

And there I stood still for a moment. Used a wooden chair to steady myself. Give my heart a chance to catch up to me. My head a chance to stop throbbing, at least a little. 

Everything about the room was the same as but an hour or so, ago, but now it was alien. Not Brendan's temporary abode, but the hideaway of an unknown lad named Bren. The bed unmade and staying so. A book half-read on the table, beside it. An ashtray half full. An empty cigarette packet next to it, with a folding book of matches. 

Those had been Brendan's, I thought. 

But no, they couldn't have been. They were Bren's, only. What else could that mean? 

I managed to half-stumble into the bath and hold myself before the mirror to check my wound. It was a nasty cut, still seeping a bit of blood. Some had trailed down my face and over my cheek. But then, I’d gotten worse from Da. 

Who was not my Da, now. 

A knot was already beginning to form, and there was nothing I could do to hide it. If I'd still had my old hair, I could have. But why did I care? I'd never made excuses for Da or Ma, over my injuries...except-- 

I was lying on the divan and told the ambulance attendant my bruising was because I'd fallen down the stairs, and he didn't believe me and-- 

I covered my eyes. The explanation Aunt Mari had offered to my family here--who was not my aunt, now, but a-a-a cousin? Did I understand that right? It almost seemed like no explanation had even been offered. Was that why I was only Bren and not Brendan, here for a doctor's care? Or merely a mad lad who's too-too sad? 

Oh, Christ, I couldn't keep my thoughts straight.  It was all I could do to think about washing my face and sticking some toilet tissue to the blood, to help it clot better. Faster. Something. Before pulling on a fresh button up shirt from the wardrobe. 

It's funny. This time when I looked at my old boots--boots that had cut deep into me but a few hours before--they were no longer my boots. Is that why I felt nothing at seeing them? 

The room was back to shifting under and around me, so I collapsed against the bed. Put the cloth of ice back to the cut. I noticed the hole in the jeans stained with blood, but it was so little, I hated even the thought of trying to change them. Instead, I just sat there and let my new world spin around me. 

I was now some lad from God only knew where who'd apparently seen his Da die and gone off his head. 

One of the men in suits said, in veddy-veddy British, "Yes, medical reports seem in order." 

"Immigration, too. His visa..." 

In Uncle Sean's voice? Still naught but flashes and nothing more. Nothing more to matter. 

Except I was banished. Cut off. Not merely from Ma and my brothers and sisters, but from the whole of Ireland. And it had been done to-to-to protect me? To protect my family? 

 "He belongs in a grave!" 

"You do that and I'll make your life hell!" 

"But he was there to warn his Proddy tart!" 

No! No. Anyone who knew me knew I never carried tales. I might have taken Joanna away from there to keep her safe, but nothing more. 

Oh, God, that returned to the understanding of what I could have done to keep her from being hurt. Which led into knowing, deep within understanding, that were her Da to be killed by PIRA or OIRA or any member of the alphabet she-she-she would have banished me. 

And that would have destroyed me. 

But even so--without question, I'd not have deliberately ruined the operation. 

I-I-I don't think I would have. 

But here I was in the minds of those who counted, connected to it in some way. Not by any who knew me. Never by any of them. Just luck of the draw, is all. 

Then how could the British have even known I was there, if I was carried off? How could they have known it was me caught in the bombing? In all that chaos? Could someone have heard me call to Danny, then added two and two? Were just the rumors about Joanna and myself all the evidence needed to link me to the bombing? Had they found my letters to her and come sniffing around for more Catholics to blame? Is that why my absence had been kept to the simplest explanation? That I'd already left to the South to find work? Or Scotland? Or London, where it would be easy to disappear? 

See, Brendan Kinsella couldn't be part of what happened. He wasn't here, so no need to waste your time, on him. 

Then where is he? 

How can anyone know what he was planning in that quiet head of his? 

A response anyone who knew anything about me would have acknowledged, to the peelers or the Brits. 

Was that why I'd been rebirthed? Seek him out, yourself, for the good it'll do you. And so what if never he's found? I'd been permanently vanished. 

Now that my head was returning to me, it was obvious that was more the reason because-- 

"He belongs in a shallow grave." 

"For what? Just bein' there?" 

"Seeing his Proddy tart, probably warnin' her." 

"How could he, when he didn't know?" 

"Then why was he there? Right then?" 

Christ, that made too bloody much sense. That's what they'd been considering. Arguing about. Just vanishing me. I was bad hurt but couldn't be taken to Altnagelvin for treatment. I was a liability and the smartest move would be to finish me off but-- 

Ma pressed a pillow over my head and I let her and it would all be fine but Danny pulled her back as she snarled, "Isn't this what you want?! Kill a lad who did nothin' to yous?" 

Nothing. Except exist. 

The swirling madness in my head was slowing down and I could see that, now. It came to me not so much in a flash as just, He's a danger to the cause and needs to be neutralized. It's gone or a grave. Just the way it has to be. And the story would remain the same--

He left and we don't know where. 

To help it, my note to Ma was in my poor handwriting, as would be easy to prove by notes I'd made at McCloskey's and from school. So no matter what, Brendan Kinsella could not legally be connected to what happened. Especially if one of them had used my passport to leave the country. It would have to be checked through at some point, wouldn't it? Unless I was to have remained in the UK. Off the train at Belfast. Ferry to Stranraer. Gone to London. Liverpool. Glasgow. 

"But you're nowhere, Brendan, so it's of no matter." Said aloud, possibly by me. 

I shrank a little. It now amazed me that I was still living.