Perfidious Albion, Chapter Eleven
Friday, January 18th, 2019 06:14 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
challis_2070 posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
mindcrackloveOnwards to Chapter Eleven! Also known as "People are finally talking. Maybe."
Link to Chapter Ten- https://mindcracklove.dreamwidth.org/1183154.html#cutid1
They had all decided that it was slightly uncomfortable enough talking about the past that adjourning to the living room had seemed to be a most spectacular idea.
Pyro settled down on the couch, thinking at once of the last time he had curled up on a couch and talked about the past. He winced at the thought and shoved it aside, waiting for his mother and father to get settled into the loveseat across from him. Looking at her get comfortable, he knew where he got his propensity to curl up into furniture from.
“Pól, mo leanbh1, I think we ought to talk about things that none of us want to talk about.” Maybe he’d agree to answer questions if they would answer his questions in return?
“Perhaps we could say, um.” He chewed on his lip working out what he wanted to say and what he wanted as a result. He tried to flatten out his hair as a soothing gesture, even though it never really stayed smooth. Maybe it was the point, he could just keep flatten it again and again and it would always be there.
“What?” Tom tilted his head slightly and listened to what his son had to say.
“Perhaps if I tell you some things, you’ll answer some things for me as well?” Tit for tat, as it were, he supposed. He might finally get answers to some of his questions. For the first time in a while, he looked mildly pleased at the thought of talking. Answers, at least, might be forthcoming.
“That…that would be agreeable to me, what about you, Tom?” Both of them had things they couldn’t really talk about, but at least they’d all know where the lines were in that case.
“I…I guess so. There is some stuff I can’t actually talk about, you know…” Or that he shouldn’t talk about, maybe.
”Not that it ever really stopped you when we met, honey.” She mumbled quietly under her breath at him, thinking about how they had met and what he had talked about then. A brief moment of wonder on whether or not her comrades had actually acted on the information, before she squinted as he mumbled back at her.
”I can hear you just fine.” He hissed at her, annoyed. He’d been badgered enough about that in the past!
”I know.” Of course he could, that’s why she had said it!
“Are you whispering about me??” He squinted at his parents, mildly annoyed at their sniping at each other. At least they weren’t really sniping each other, but still.
“Oh, no, not at all Pól. Sorry.” She dipped her head in embarrassment and patted her shawl smooth.
He could wager a guess on what they were talking about, but it was still really rather rude of them.
“Right. So. When I was twelve. Right. Oh lord. Just, what do you want to know?” He didn’t want to ramble on, but he also wasn’t sure just how much they wanted to hear him whine on about the past.
“Your therapist did tell you that talking about would help, you know.” She was seeing the same therapist and they had a joint session as well. Well, they had had one joint session thus far, but still.
“I know. Doesn’t make it any more pleasant, though.” He grumbled under his breath about the injustice of it all.
“Of course not. Ah, shall we ask questions maybe and you can answer and ask ones in return, maybe?” Make it easier on everyone involved. Tom nodded in agreement at her.
“That could work. Ah-hum, ask one then?” He dipped his head at them, encouraging them without actually wanting to say as much.
“Right. You were there from Tuesday to the following Wednesday, right?” She wrung her hands, wanting to start off on something they all knew.
“Yup. When did you hear about us getting taken away, Da?” He had been wondering about that for a long time. Just how long had they kept him in the dark?
“On that Friday. They wanted to wait until Monday, but the lieutenant at the time insisted I be told even though I couldn’t even start on getting to you until that Monday. Then I tried to punch him and he proceeded to take over for me that Monday, instead. Honestly for the best, it probably would have taken me longer given how angry I was about it.” The lieutenant had to step in and keep him from being court-martialed for the attempted punching. He had spent the weekend locked up himself, regardless.
“Pól…were you put in general population?” With the prisoners, she meant. She didn’t know how they were separated out or even if they were. That prison, while small, was large enough for that, in any case. And she bloody well hoped that they had been separated out.
“What? Oh, um, with the prisoners there? No. There was a subset of those who were interned already or who had just been brought in for internment. The actual um, the prisoners, the criminals, I mean, were in a different wing. We did see them across the yard bit, but they kind of um, left us the hell alone.” He chewed on his lip thinking about what he wanted to ask in return. “So. Uh. Were you actually on duty? I mean, um. How to word this. Was I released, or did you take me under the assumption you’d transfer me?”
“I…am not sure what exactly you are trying to ask, Paul.” A look of confusion passed over his face.
“Okay. Let me see how to explain it better. Um. Did they release me and you pick me up, or was I handed over to the military?” Did anyone process his bloody release papers, is what he meant, but he didn’t want to just flat out ask if his father had stolen him back or not.
“Oh. I think I understand what you’re asking. You were handed over to the military, ie, me, and the military, sometime during the drive back to the house, processed the release papers for you. By the time we got home, I was no longer ‘escorting’ you and was just taking you back home. I had the papers already, they just went into effect during the drive when the lieutenant stamped them, basically.” He had gone and taken pictures of the release papers once he got back on base to make damned sure they couldn’t just ‘mysteriously’ disappear in the future.
“Oh. Okay.” That more or less answered his question or would at least have to do for now.
“Why do you ask?” He suspected the reason why his son would ask such a question.
“I was um, I was kinda worried that um, I hadn’t actually been, um released and that you had kinda, um, stolen me back.” If he wasn’t understanding the question, then he might as well be as direct as he could be. At least they didn’t get all passive aggressive when he did that unlike some parents he had met of classmates.
“Oh. No, the lieutenant did things properly…though he still deserved to be punched. They wouldn’t have handed you over if I didn’t have the papers, though I probably could have scared them into it, it went easier with the paperwork all done.” He’d heard of that done before, but he wanted it to be on the up and up. And not have to second guess if his son might get interned again, as well.
Lasairfhíona nodded slightly, gathering her thoughts. “Were you searched?” She knew, logically, that he had to have been, but she didn’t like it one bit.
“Yes, um, three times total? One when they brought us there, one on that Friday, and then on that Wednesday when they released me. It was thoroughly unpleasant.” He hissed at the memory of it. “Oh. Um. Why did you send your old colleague to watch me when I was here last month?”
“Because I couldn’t watch you myself and your father and uncle are terrible at making regular phone calls.” They could come back to this damned topic later. She did want to know why her son seemed to so dislike the man. He was off-putting, but she wasn’t sure what part of him was so off-putting to her son and she was curious to know.
“We called you as often as we could.” Well, he had, most certainly. Now his brother on the other hand…
“As often as you could. Your brother could have certainly called more often.”
“I will grant you that much. We can ask him about that later.” Or walk over there tomorrow to find out what had happened when their son was here. Maybe uh, have another horrifying discussion. He loathed talking. The counselor said it was good. Well then.
“Er, some of that might honestly be because he was a bit overwhelmed, but I dunno, honestly.” He wasn’t sure why he was defending his uncle not calling his da.
“Regardless. Did they hurt you?” Right. Get to the point, get to the point and we can work through this faster.
“At the prison?”
“Yes, we’re not talking about the protest. Not yet, at least.”
“Then that really kind of depends on what you mean by hurting me.” He didn’t want to dodge the question, but well, it really did depend.
“Ah, lord, Paul. Right. Did the guards kick or punch you?”
“No. They grabbed me and picked me up off the ground. Since they could do that really easily, I guess that they didn’t feel that kicking or punching was really required.” He shrugged slightly. That was the least of the issues he had had.
“Hell. Do you have scars from then, Paul?” He wasn’t getting the information he needed, time to be as clear as he could possibly be.
“Oh. Faint ones.” He rubbed his forehead slightly and winced. “They swung us into the cells, I kept hitting my forehead and my back or back of my head. Landy, um, one of the other prisoners who was with me, he was um, seventeen? He said that I was bleeding but he didn’t want to touch me cause of how young I was. He handed me one of the clothes and told me to put it on my back and lay down on it to make it stop faster.” He had really not wanted to touch him. The guards had mocked him for it and had shoved Pyro at him a couple of times. Landy had sworn at them about how he wouldn’t touch a child and how f-ing dare they try to make him so they could use that against him as well. He had said after that, that the guards had been talking about using Pyro to frame some of the prisoners so they could move them over to general population and ‘free up’ space. The guards, in his opinion, were entirely insane.
“How…’nice’ of him.” He really really didn’t like to think of his son talking to ‘proper’ internees. Well. His wife had been one. He really needed to shake that thought. The man was probably perfectly normal or as normal as an Irish republican could be in his opinion.
“He was perfectly nice, albeit very creeped out that they had brought a twelve year old there.” He wasn’t sure why he was defending a man he would probably never see again.
“Any other injuries, Paul?” He wanted to get back at the damned task at hand. All of them would have to sort through this in days to come, might as well keep going now!
“Errr…not really? Bruises and stuff. They, um, the guards, um, they kept mumbling about how my age wouldn’t protect me, but they seemed to be trying to rile up the other prisoners…” Probably. Probably all they meant by it. Probably. He could pretend.
“That’s still f…god damned horrible of them!” If she had the energy to jump up, she would have, but instead she slapped the arm of the loveseat she was sitting on.
He knew perfectly well what his mother had intended to say, but didn’t want to press the point. “Yes, and so. Um. Other injuries…no. One of them slapped me when they were taking me to you and they were laughing about how I was being given to the military and how the military was worse than they were…um. Were they telling the truth?”
Lasairfhíona and Tom shared a look. “Sort of. Worse physically, yes. Mentally, the military doesn’t spend much time trying to um, trying to mess with your head.” Well, he’d use a different word, but mess would work well enough. And it was mostly true. They didn’t try to fuck with your head, they either killed you or handed you over to other people for their ‘fun’ but rarely partook in it themselves anymore. He knew they used to but was never sure when the culture had shifted, he was just thankful it had. “Um, I hate to say it Paul, but they probably did mean to harm you later, but either they didn’t think they could get away with it or their boss was running interference with them, knowing that the military was looking for you.”
“You…oh you were, yes.” Right, he had just said that it had been processed through quite properly.
“It would have been clear at that point most likely, if it was after Friday.”
“They said that when they were processing us, um, searching us on that Friday, yes.”
“So they had probably just heard that and were pissed off that you were going to be taken from them and that the rest of the internees were not.” Made more work for them, basically and would have upset them. Not that it made it right, of course, but he couldn’t go back and punch them, either.
“Right. Mother. Can you um, um, um, not ask that colleague to watch over me?” He’d been wanting to ask that since the first time he had met the man, really. He was just so….un-nerving.
“Certainly, but um, why? Has he done anything?” She bloody well hoped not, but the man was…not entirely stable. Pot calling the kettle black, she thought grimly.
“Not really. He’s just really un-nerving. I think he might have a death wish or something.” He wasn’t sure that was a real thing, but that’s certainly the air the man put off, that he was terribly unconcerned about him dying. He did at least seem concerned enough to keep Pyro alive, just…not himself. Which was honestly baffling.
“Erm.” She stared blankly ahead as she gathered her thoughts.
“…Honey?” Tom looked at her when she didn’t answer and instead stared off into space.
“Pól, I’d say you’re a bit young, however.” She sighed softly. “Yes, yes he does. He’s asked before that if we look like we’re going to get a peace that I’d like, that if I would, please, remove him.”
“What. What the hell.” Pyro looked faintly ill at the thought. He knew that his mother must, of course, *know* how to eliminate people, but that was the last possible thing he ever wanted to think about. Well. No. The last thing he wanted to think about was how his parents had created him.
“Because he trusts me. He takes a bit too much risk. That’s why I stopped working with him long before I stopped um.” They were getting in territory that she didn’t really want to elaborate on. She didn’t think Tom would want to know, either.
“Uhuh.” She was going to pull the ‘I’m just a politician now, of course and nothing else’ card on him, he just knew it.
“I’m a politician now, honey.”
And he was right!
“Yes. And you are the war council, as well.” Well, that was the bloody rumor, in any case. His colleagues thought it was hilarious, this thought that he was married to some IRA bigshot of sorts. He personally was highly unamused by it…and doubted it was true. He probably would have been actually shot, not just threatened, then…Though it was possible, of course, that she was the first in her family to become that important or high ranking…
She laughed out loud at that, and almost doubled over. “Oh hell no. I’ve never met them. They want me to stay ‘clean’.” Relatively. Clean enough.
“Not now maybe, but surely before…” Before they had met, he meant.
“No. I mean sure, I could have met people on the war council, but not, you know, officially. While I was high enough, by the time I could have, I was well, pregnant, and I was asked, via normal enough channels, if I wanted, perhaps, to start into politics. I agreed, and they said that they wanted me to stay the hell away from anything uh…’upper level’ and terribly sorry about lack of advancement now, but you can certainly advance as a politician and we’re really glad to have a politician that has college experience in it even, and they’d keep me in the loop, but through normal channels, etc etc etc. I finally told them to shut up and start training me on how to be a proper politician.” She had almost punched that messenger for being a babbling idiot.
“How’d you take that?” While they were supposed to be asking and answering things with their son, they had gotten slightly sidetracked now.
“I told him to shut up, as I said. The messenger was babbling and annoying.”
“OKAY THEN. Anything else you wanted to talk about???” He knew they must have more questions, but lord, just let us continue with it and get it the hell over with!
“Oh. Yes. Sorry. Um.” She smiled weakly at her son, knowing that they needed to keep talking and not get so sidetracked.
“Now son, about that protest…”
Notes, Translations, etc
1 My baby (intentionally babying him)
Chapter Twelve- https://mindcracklove.dreamwidth.org/1183540.html#cutid1
Link to Chapter Ten- https://mindcracklove.dreamwidth.org/1183154.html#cutid1
They had all decided that it was slightly uncomfortable enough talking about the past that adjourning to the living room had seemed to be a most spectacular idea.
Pyro settled down on the couch, thinking at once of the last time he had curled up on a couch and talked about the past. He winced at the thought and shoved it aside, waiting for his mother and father to get settled into the loveseat across from him. Looking at her get comfortable, he knew where he got his propensity to curl up into furniture from.
“Pól, mo leanbh1, I think we ought to talk about things that none of us want to talk about.” Maybe he’d agree to answer questions if they would answer his questions in return?
“Perhaps we could say, um.” He chewed on his lip working out what he wanted to say and what he wanted as a result. He tried to flatten out his hair as a soothing gesture, even though it never really stayed smooth. Maybe it was the point, he could just keep flatten it again and again and it would always be there.
“What?” Tom tilted his head slightly and listened to what his son had to say.
“Perhaps if I tell you some things, you’ll answer some things for me as well?” Tit for tat, as it were, he supposed. He might finally get answers to some of his questions. For the first time in a while, he looked mildly pleased at the thought of talking. Answers, at least, might be forthcoming.
“That…that would be agreeable to me, what about you, Tom?” Both of them had things they couldn’t really talk about, but at least they’d all know where the lines were in that case.
“I…I guess so. There is some stuff I can’t actually talk about, you know…” Or that he shouldn’t talk about, maybe.
”Not that it ever really stopped you when we met, honey.” She mumbled quietly under her breath at him, thinking about how they had met and what he had talked about then. A brief moment of wonder on whether or not her comrades had actually acted on the information, before she squinted as he mumbled back at her.
”I can hear you just fine.” He hissed at her, annoyed. He’d been badgered enough about that in the past!
”I know.” Of course he could, that’s why she had said it!
“Are you whispering about me??” He squinted at his parents, mildly annoyed at their sniping at each other. At least they weren’t really sniping each other, but still.
“Oh, no, not at all Pól. Sorry.” She dipped her head in embarrassment and patted her shawl smooth.
He could wager a guess on what they were talking about, but it was still really rather rude of them.
“Right. So. When I was twelve. Right. Oh lord. Just, what do you want to know?” He didn’t want to ramble on, but he also wasn’t sure just how much they wanted to hear him whine on about the past.
“Your therapist did tell you that talking about would help, you know.” She was seeing the same therapist and they had a joint session as well. Well, they had had one joint session thus far, but still.
“I know. Doesn’t make it any more pleasant, though.” He grumbled under his breath about the injustice of it all.
“Of course not. Ah, shall we ask questions maybe and you can answer and ask ones in return, maybe?” Make it easier on everyone involved. Tom nodded in agreement at her.
“That could work. Ah-hum, ask one then?” He dipped his head at them, encouraging them without actually wanting to say as much.
“Right. You were there from Tuesday to the following Wednesday, right?” She wrung her hands, wanting to start off on something they all knew.
“Yup. When did you hear about us getting taken away, Da?” He had been wondering about that for a long time. Just how long had they kept him in the dark?
“On that Friday. They wanted to wait until Monday, but the lieutenant at the time insisted I be told even though I couldn’t even start on getting to you until that Monday. Then I tried to punch him and he proceeded to take over for me that Monday, instead. Honestly for the best, it probably would have taken me longer given how angry I was about it.” The lieutenant had to step in and keep him from being court-martialed for the attempted punching. He had spent the weekend locked up himself, regardless.
“Pól…were you put in general population?” With the prisoners, she meant. She didn’t know how they were separated out or even if they were. That prison, while small, was large enough for that, in any case. And she bloody well hoped that they had been separated out.
“What? Oh, um, with the prisoners there? No. There was a subset of those who were interned already or who had just been brought in for internment. The actual um, the prisoners, the criminals, I mean, were in a different wing. We did see them across the yard bit, but they kind of um, left us the hell alone.” He chewed on his lip thinking about what he wanted to ask in return. “So. Uh. Were you actually on duty? I mean, um. How to word this. Was I released, or did you take me under the assumption you’d transfer me?”
“I…am not sure what exactly you are trying to ask, Paul.” A look of confusion passed over his face.
“Okay. Let me see how to explain it better. Um. Did they release me and you pick me up, or was I handed over to the military?” Did anyone process his bloody release papers, is what he meant, but he didn’t want to just flat out ask if his father had stolen him back or not.
“Oh. I think I understand what you’re asking. You were handed over to the military, ie, me, and the military, sometime during the drive back to the house, processed the release papers for you. By the time we got home, I was no longer ‘escorting’ you and was just taking you back home. I had the papers already, they just went into effect during the drive when the lieutenant stamped them, basically.” He had gone and taken pictures of the release papers once he got back on base to make damned sure they couldn’t just ‘mysteriously’ disappear in the future.
“Oh. Okay.” That more or less answered his question or would at least have to do for now.
“Why do you ask?” He suspected the reason why his son would ask such a question.
“I was um, I was kinda worried that um, I hadn’t actually been, um released and that you had kinda, um, stolen me back.” If he wasn’t understanding the question, then he might as well be as direct as he could be. At least they didn’t get all passive aggressive when he did that unlike some parents he had met of classmates.
“Oh. No, the lieutenant did things properly…though he still deserved to be punched. They wouldn’t have handed you over if I didn’t have the papers, though I probably could have scared them into it, it went easier with the paperwork all done.” He’d heard of that done before, but he wanted it to be on the up and up. And not have to second guess if his son might get interned again, as well.
Lasairfhíona nodded slightly, gathering her thoughts. “Were you searched?” She knew, logically, that he had to have been, but she didn’t like it one bit.
“Yes, um, three times total? One when they brought us there, one on that Friday, and then on that Wednesday when they released me. It was thoroughly unpleasant.” He hissed at the memory of it. “Oh. Um. Why did you send your old colleague to watch me when I was here last month?”
“Because I couldn’t watch you myself and your father and uncle are terrible at making regular phone calls.” They could come back to this damned topic later. She did want to know why her son seemed to so dislike the man. He was off-putting, but she wasn’t sure what part of him was so off-putting to her son and she was curious to know.
“We called you as often as we could.” Well, he had, most certainly. Now his brother on the other hand…
“As often as you could. Your brother could have certainly called more often.”
“I will grant you that much. We can ask him about that later.” Or walk over there tomorrow to find out what had happened when their son was here. Maybe uh, have another horrifying discussion. He loathed talking. The counselor said it was good. Well then.
“Er, some of that might honestly be because he was a bit overwhelmed, but I dunno, honestly.” He wasn’t sure why he was defending his uncle not calling his da.
“Regardless. Did they hurt you?” Right. Get to the point, get to the point and we can work through this faster.
“At the prison?”
“Yes, we’re not talking about the protest. Not yet, at least.”
“Then that really kind of depends on what you mean by hurting me.” He didn’t want to dodge the question, but well, it really did depend.
“Ah, lord, Paul. Right. Did the guards kick or punch you?”
“No. They grabbed me and picked me up off the ground. Since they could do that really easily, I guess that they didn’t feel that kicking or punching was really required.” He shrugged slightly. That was the least of the issues he had had.
“Hell. Do you have scars from then, Paul?” He wasn’t getting the information he needed, time to be as clear as he could possibly be.
“Oh. Faint ones.” He rubbed his forehead slightly and winced. “They swung us into the cells, I kept hitting my forehead and my back or back of my head. Landy, um, one of the other prisoners who was with me, he was um, seventeen? He said that I was bleeding but he didn’t want to touch me cause of how young I was. He handed me one of the clothes and told me to put it on my back and lay down on it to make it stop faster.” He had really not wanted to touch him. The guards had mocked him for it and had shoved Pyro at him a couple of times. Landy had sworn at them about how he wouldn’t touch a child and how f-ing dare they try to make him so they could use that against him as well. He had said after that, that the guards had been talking about using Pyro to frame some of the prisoners so they could move them over to general population and ‘free up’ space. The guards, in his opinion, were entirely insane.
“How…’nice’ of him.” He really really didn’t like to think of his son talking to ‘proper’ internees. Well. His wife had been one. He really needed to shake that thought. The man was probably perfectly normal or as normal as an Irish republican could be in his opinion.
“He was perfectly nice, albeit very creeped out that they had brought a twelve year old there.” He wasn’t sure why he was defending a man he would probably never see again.
“Any other injuries, Paul?” He wanted to get back at the damned task at hand. All of them would have to sort through this in days to come, might as well keep going now!
“Errr…not really? Bruises and stuff. They, um, the guards, um, they kept mumbling about how my age wouldn’t protect me, but they seemed to be trying to rile up the other prisoners…” Probably. Probably all they meant by it. Probably. He could pretend.
“That’s still f…god damned horrible of them!” If she had the energy to jump up, she would have, but instead she slapped the arm of the loveseat she was sitting on.
He knew perfectly well what his mother had intended to say, but didn’t want to press the point. “Yes, and so. Um. Other injuries…no. One of them slapped me when they were taking me to you and they were laughing about how I was being given to the military and how the military was worse than they were…um. Were they telling the truth?”
Lasairfhíona and Tom shared a look. “Sort of. Worse physically, yes. Mentally, the military doesn’t spend much time trying to um, trying to mess with your head.” Well, he’d use a different word, but mess would work well enough. And it was mostly true. They didn’t try to fuck with your head, they either killed you or handed you over to other people for their ‘fun’ but rarely partook in it themselves anymore. He knew they used to but was never sure when the culture had shifted, he was just thankful it had. “Um, I hate to say it Paul, but they probably did mean to harm you later, but either they didn’t think they could get away with it or their boss was running interference with them, knowing that the military was looking for you.”
“You…oh you were, yes.” Right, he had just said that it had been processed through quite properly.
“It would have been clear at that point most likely, if it was after Friday.”
“They said that when they were processing us, um, searching us on that Friday, yes.”
“So they had probably just heard that and were pissed off that you were going to be taken from them and that the rest of the internees were not.” Made more work for them, basically and would have upset them. Not that it made it right, of course, but he couldn’t go back and punch them, either.
“Right. Mother. Can you um, um, um, not ask that colleague to watch over me?” He’d been wanting to ask that since the first time he had met the man, really. He was just so….un-nerving.
“Certainly, but um, why? Has he done anything?” She bloody well hoped not, but the man was…not entirely stable. Pot calling the kettle black, she thought grimly.
“Not really. He’s just really un-nerving. I think he might have a death wish or something.” He wasn’t sure that was a real thing, but that’s certainly the air the man put off, that he was terribly unconcerned about him dying. He did at least seem concerned enough to keep Pyro alive, just…not himself. Which was honestly baffling.
“Erm.” She stared blankly ahead as she gathered her thoughts.
“…Honey?” Tom looked at her when she didn’t answer and instead stared off into space.
“Pól, I’d say you’re a bit young, however.” She sighed softly. “Yes, yes he does. He’s asked before that if we look like we’re going to get a peace that I’d like, that if I would, please, remove him.”
“What. What the hell.” Pyro looked faintly ill at the thought. He knew that his mother must, of course, *know* how to eliminate people, but that was the last possible thing he ever wanted to think about. Well. No. The last thing he wanted to think about was how his parents had created him.
“Because he trusts me. He takes a bit too much risk. That’s why I stopped working with him long before I stopped um.” They were getting in territory that she didn’t really want to elaborate on. She didn’t think Tom would want to know, either.
“Uhuh.” She was going to pull the ‘I’m just a politician now, of course and nothing else’ card on him, he just knew it.
“I’m a politician now, honey.”
And he was right!
“Yes. And you are the war council, as well.” Well, that was the bloody rumor, in any case. His colleagues thought it was hilarious, this thought that he was married to some IRA bigshot of sorts. He personally was highly unamused by it…and doubted it was true. He probably would have been actually shot, not just threatened, then…Though it was possible, of course, that she was the first in her family to become that important or high ranking…
She laughed out loud at that, and almost doubled over. “Oh hell no. I’ve never met them. They want me to stay ‘clean’.” Relatively. Clean enough.
“Not now maybe, but surely before…” Before they had met, he meant.
“No. I mean sure, I could have met people on the war council, but not, you know, officially. While I was high enough, by the time I could have, I was well, pregnant, and I was asked, via normal enough channels, if I wanted, perhaps, to start into politics. I agreed, and they said that they wanted me to stay the hell away from anything uh…’upper level’ and terribly sorry about lack of advancement now, but you can certainly advance as a politician and we’re really glad to have a politician that has college experience in it even, and they’d keep me in the loop, but through normal channels, etc etc etc. I finally told them to shut up and start training me on how to be a proper politician.” She had almost punched that messenger for being a babbling idiot.
“How’d you take that?” While they were supposed to be asking and answering things with their son, they had gotten slightly sidetracked now.
“I told him to shut up, as I said. The messenger was babbling and annoying.”
“OKAY THEN. Anything else you wanted to talk about???” He knew they must have more questions, but lord, just let us continue with it and get it the hell over with!
“Oh. Yes. Sorry. Um.” She smiled weakly at her son, knowing that they needed to keep talking and not get so sidetracked.
“Now son, about that protest…”
Notes, Translations, etc
1 My baby (intentionally babying him)
Chapter Twelve- https://mindcracklove.dreamwidth.org/1183540.html#cutid1
