Black Albert - This Mortal Boy

October 1955. If Albert Black sings to himself he can almost see himself back home in Belfast, the place where he came from. He begins it as a low hum in his head, but words start tumbling out louder and louder I am a wee falorie man, a rattling roving Irishman. Hes not sure what falorie means, but his da has told him he thinks its about sorrow, which at this very moment he is feeling. A falorie man is harmless, just likes a bit of mischief, his da had said. Shut up, Paddy, a voice shouts, and other voices start clamouring in unison, Shut the shite up, Paddy. I can do all that ever you can he sings. Shut up, not really meaning it for him, its just something to scream about when men are locked in stone cells behind steel doors, they shout and they scream day and night and their voices are the one thing they have, their voices that the warders cant control I can do all that ever you can for I am a wee falorie man. The trains that run past the west wing of the prison have been rattling all night, first the express that runs down south, then the goods trains, their long banshee wails trailing behind them. The morning train passes and he raises his voice louder and louder to drown it out Im a rattling roving Irishman like its a yodel now.

No youre not, the man in the next cell calls, youre a no good ten-pound Pom, why dont you go back where you came from?

Thats me, Paddy thinks, as he straightens his clothes out as neat as he can, for there are no mirrors in this cell. Neither fish nor fowl as far as these men are concerned. He speaks like an Irishman, he calls himself an Irishman, but hes from that No Mans Land that calls itself the United Kingdom. But its there, Sandy Row, Belfast, the street crowded with shops and life and people going about their business. Hes no culchie. There are said to be one hundred and twenty-seven shops in the Row, although hes never counted them. The corner shop with all the items of groceries his mam buys to make their tea, the rag shop, the barbers shop, the pubs where his da spent money they didnt have. Theres the picture theatre and the butcher and the sweet shop and the stall that sells double-decker candy apples with coconut on top. Funny how you can go from one place to another in the blink of an eye. Theres the chance, in the situation he now finds himself, he could be sent to the gallows. He sees himself standing on a platform, the audience waiting for the last act of the play. The platform will actually be a trapdoor. He will be fit and well, standing up straight, the next minute hell be down the way, dropped from one level to the next, in a different state, that of the dead. Thats what hell be doing, going from one world to another, his past and his future all rolled into one. All the people in this play will still be alive, but he might not. Who is to know what will happen next?

He allows himself a pace or two back and forth, puts his eye to the slit in the door. The cell, around ten feet by six, consists of a slatted steel bed screwed to the floor, covered by a mattress of canvas and straw that still stinks from the piss of the last man who slept on it; a bench with three shelves where he keeps his notepaper and a book, the cigarettes his friend Peter in the south has sent to him; a bucket to shit in that is due to be taken away, but the man who collects it is always late, as if the task that lies before him must be delayed for as long as possible.

And sure enough, as he sets his eye to the aperture, theres an officer coming, the one called Des, a skinny little man with an out-thrust jaw, keys dangling in his hand. He lets Albert pass through the door, hands him his tie. They havent given it to him in the cell in case he strings himself up. Hes not ready for that, not yet. He fumbles a Windsor knot as he is hurried towards the outside world.