*

The arms stash – forgive me, son – the supposed arms stash, was meant to be buried round the back of this sewage works outside of Carnagh. We pull up in the evening, just as the light is settling. We left Barney behind to look after the caravan and so as we could give him a shout once the hole was ready. We couldn’t have a Mickey Mouse caravan full of arms parked up at a sewage works in the dark. So me and Tommy borrow a car from an old pal that ran the taxis and fill the boot with turfs of peat. We park the car round the back and leave the boot open so as anybody can see what we were up to. Then we crack out the spades and get stuck in.

We were waist-deep when we struck shite. The stuff was leaking through the ground from the sewage plant, and it was green, green shite, come squelching out. First it’s a trickle, then it’s a full jet. Ah, we’re bollocksed, I says to Tommy. Light some fags, he says to me. This is his solution. Smoke like fucking troopers, he says to me, it’s the only way we’re going to get through this. So as we clamp a set of fags between our teeth, and we keep to the digging. We’re going to end up with fucking trench foot before the night’s out, I says to Tommy. Soon we’re waist-deep in liquid shite. Right, Tommy says, enough. I climb out and I pull him up after me. This is the perfect cover, he says to me. Who the fuck else would even come here?

We drop the car back at this guy’s house, we’ll call him Jackie, this boy Jackie, and of course his car is covered in shite. What in the name of all that’s holy did you two just do, Jackie says to us, go to a gay disco? He took it well, considering. We called Barney and had him pick us up a few streets away. He didn’t take it so well. If youse two get into this fucking caravan with those clothes on we will never get the stench out of this van, he says to us. Take off your clothes, he says, then youse can get in.

Don’t fuck with me, Tommy says to him, and he goes to open the door. But Barney peels off and stops further down the street. I mean it, Barney says to us, youse are only getting in if youse take your fucking clothes off first.