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“They’ve got dual-language signs here, look,” Tony says, gesturing to a street sign.
Ringsend Road, it reads, Bóthar na Rinne.
“I have to admit, even though it caused all those problems for us back in the day, it really is a nice language,” Alastair says, “Remember?”
“Don’t remind me,” Tony says. “That was the rise. The fall? Everything after. Would we have believed it, then, that that was the acme of our careers?”
“Ah, stop,” Alastair says, “The podcast is going pretty well for me.”
Tony laughs, a quiet sound.
With a quick glance up and down the street, there’s nobody in Belfast to see them. Alastair quickly presses a kiss to Tony’s white hair, as paranoid of being caught as he was in secondary-school.
It’s worth Tony’s smile. “We should see the Titanic museum,” he says, suddenly. “I’ve been wanting to see it for ages, Cherie and the kids went, but I didn’t have time… We have to, come on.”
“For God’s sake, Tony, that’s on the other side of the city, we were just there.” Alastair tries to sound annoyed, but it’s hard when he’s so relaxed. The wonders of Sertraline. He just can’t bring himself to be mad, there’s nothing to be cross over, nothing to worry him. In one of those moods where he just can’t be arsed to care anymore, he’ll either kill someone or remain callously mellowed.
“Come on,” Tony says, “We’ll get the bus, it’ll be fun.” And curse Tony’s strange, siren-like charm, but Alastair is almost convinced. Belfast’s public transport system is abysmal, even worse than Edinburgh’s. Dire, really.
Alastair glances at his watch, then back at Tony. "You're lucky I don't have anything better to do," he mutters, shoving his hands into his coat pockets. “You do realise the bus takes forever, though?”
Tony grins, his eyes twinkling with that familiar spark of mischief that Alastair has seen far too many times before—usually just before he’s roped into some sort of nonsense. “All the more time to catch up. It’s been a while since we’ve had a real conversation.”
“A real conversation? Is that what you call it now?” Alastair raises an eyebrow.
“What do you call it?” Tony is smiling, all teeth.
“You fucking making me listen to your egotistical, self-serving, and nonsensical rambles,” Alastair says.
Tony just shakes his head. "You’re a rubbish partner.”
Alastair wonders if those prisoner releases in a year are still ongoing. He’d very much like to strangle Tony. But instead, he just sighs and gestures down the street. “Alright, Christ. But I swear, if we end up waiting for some bus that never comes, you owe me a drink.”
Tony flashes that same grin again. “A non-alcoholic one.”
There’s a bus stop across the street, with a very battered shelter that looks like it’ll collapse with the slightest gust of wind.
They pass a mural that depicts a hunger striker from the 1980s. Alastair doesn’t know his name and doesn’t really fucking care, but he feels a familiar unease creeping up his spine as he glances at the bold, defiant images. “I don’t know how people here live with it,” he mutters. “The past is everywhere you look.”
Tony nods, following Alastair’s gaze to the mural. “It’s strange, I don’t know how they can commemorate the people without feeling weird. But it’s beautiful art, isn’t it?”
“You’re the only person in the world,” Alastair says, “That looks at abject misery, and finds something for your own pleasure in it. Oh, three thousand people died, but it’s alright - because Tony thinks the art is pretty.”
“It was you who said it was a good thing I manage to stay positive,” Tony says, looking unconcerned.
Alastair wrinkles his nose. “When the fuck did I ever say that?”
“I don’t know,” Tony says, “I just know that you said it.” Alastair doesn’t remember that, and it’s a bit too sappy for his taste, but he might’ve said something akin to that in the past. It has, after all, been thirty years.
They arrive at the bus stop, getting a better look at it, and - Christ. The sign is barely hanging on, the paint peeling, and some annoying teenager has scribbled out the number. Alastair glances at the railing, where a weathered sticker of the red hand of Ulster is half-hidden by a layer of grime. “Are we sure this thing’s still in service?”
Tony pulls out his phone, fiddling with it for a moment. “It says the next one should be here in about ten minutes.”
“That’s optimistic,” Alastair mutters, glancing around at the empty streets. He shifts his weight from foot to foot, feeling the slight chill in the air, before sitting down. Well, leans, more. Fucking anti-homeless architecture.
It’s cold. Alastair’s glad he’s brought a coat, but he half-wishes Tony had brought a thicker one. Tony runs cold - very, very cold, he’s like a bloody vampire in bed at night.
He’s snapped out of his thoughts as Tony gestures down the road, the bus appearing on the horizon. “Look, our chariot arrives. See? Told you it would come.”
“I stand corrected,” Alastair says, imitating surprise. “Miracles do happen.”
The bus rattles to a stop, and they climb aboard. Alastair pays their fares, while Tony, the fucking freeloader, smiles at the bus driver, and asks her if this bus serves the Titanic stop. It does.
There’s two lads on the bottom floor of the bus, one with his shoes on the opposite seat. They’re blasting their godforsaken tiktoks, so Alastair and Tony sit upstairs, finding seats near the front.
As they settle in, the city starts to roll by outside the windows, its mix of modern architecture and historical remnants blurring together. The further they get from the centre, the quieter it becomes, and Alastair finds himself sinking into the rhythm of the journey. They pass old warehouses and closed factories. Unemployment’s lower here than it is in Britain, but the North’s traditional industries are dead.
Even the pavement is battered, cracked and in desperate need of repair. It’s like the people here have just given up on wanting any better for themselves. It wouldn’t be tolerated in any other major city in the UK, but they let this urban decay happen because it’s Northern Ireland.
Peace has settled in like a blanket, but so has something else with it, something uglier - this endemic sense of hopelessness that feels permanent, this unrelenting feeling that nothing better can ever be achieved.
Not so different from Alastair’s life. Tony is a kind of peace, long-enduring and ceaseless, but Alastair’s grown used to the security of stability, even if that same stability has long since soured from the sweetness it once was.
The bus creaks and whines and cries, the generator at the back of the bus unnervingly loud. The windows still have signs from 2020 - Keep Windows Open, and below it, smaller, scribbled under in permanent marker - Coimeád an Fhuinneog Oscailte.
“So, tell me about the podcast,” Tony says after a while, breaking the comfortable silence.
Alastair chuckles. “What, you mean you haven’t listened?”
“Of course I have,” Tony says, “but I want to hear about it from you. It’s your baby, after all.”
“Well, it’s been good,” Alastair admits. “It’s interesting with Rory, cause-”
“Are you shagging him?”
“What?”
“Rory Stuart, Mr Nice Tory. Are you shagging him?”
“He’s married, Tony.”
Tony swears, to Alastair's mild surprise. “That always gets in the way.”
“Never stopped you before,” Alastair says, and Tony smiles, smug, self-satisfied. Big blue eyes, ever bright.
Alastair doesn’t realise he’s staring until Tony asks him, “What are you looking at?”
“You need to cut off that mullet,” Alastair says, suddenly. “Alright, it was a laugh during lockdown, but it’s terrible. It’s scary! You need to cut your hair.”
“I think it suits me,” Tony says, running a hand through it.
“It doesn’t.”
They lapse back into silence, the steady hum of the bus and the city outside filling the space between them.
He absent-mindedly brushes some lint off of Tony’s coat’s shoulder, then adjusts the collar so it looks right. Thirty years of this. Of waiting, of sticking it out because it’s the right thing to do, even when all Alastair wanted to do was bow out and take his leave.
It’s like what Tony said, all those years ago, when Alastair was considering leaving, really, really considering it - “You’ll never find anyone better than me.” But Tony hadn’t said it in the way abusive men say it to their wives - he had said it with something desperate, raw, open. Something that had managed to poke just the right nerve in Alastair’s battered brain that convinced him to stay, stay even when all he wanted to do was leave.
It’s not worth it to cut Tony off of him, he’d be cutting off a piece of himself. He likes what he has, he doesn’t want to give it up. Tony is too important to keep, and Alastair isn’t willing to take the gamble that he could have something better without him. He needs Tony, and Tony needs him.
Christ, it’s fucked, but it’s what they have.
As the bus approaches their stop, Tony suddenly perks up, his enthusiasm renewed. “Here we are. Titanic Quarter.”
The bus comes to a halt, and they step off, the cold air hitting them as they take in the vast, open space around them. The iconic Titanic Belfast building looms ahead, its jagged architecture reminiscent of the ship’s hull. It’s imposing, modern, and starkly beautiful against the grey sky. Alastair can see the two cranes, named after the Biblical figures he can’t remember.
“Looks like the bloody iceberg that crushed it,” Alastair mutters, squinting up at it.
“Fitting, don’t you think?” Tony says, leading the way toward the entrance. “Come on, let’s have a look inside.”
The museum is as impressive as its exterior promises, filled with interactive exhibits and immersive displays detailing not just the sinking of the Titanic but also the city’s industrial history and its shipbuilding legacy. Alastair has to admit, it’s surpassed his expectations.
There’s a sign mimicking the posters of the Protestant Ulstermen in the early 1900s - ‘Home Rule is Rome Rule.” Alastair points at it, “Look, it’s you.”
“That’s anti-Papist,” Tony says.
There’s a sweet little exhibition showing the first, second and third class rooms. They all look reasonably nice, especially for the 1900s.
“There’s something poetic about this place. Ulster put her all into the Titanic, made her the largest and most beautiful ship at the time, but it didn’t matter - it sank anyways.”
Tony glances at him. “Yeah, but Alastair, they didn’t just… give up. Belfast didn’t stop building after the Titanic sank.”
There’s a pause, longer than is appropriate. Then Alastair says, almost quietly, “They’ve stopped now.”
Because Alastair remembers, suddenly - Harland and Wolff is shutting down. Northern Ireland used to be Great Britain’s rock in the rough sea of wars, wars, wars, but now… Well, they just don’t need her anymore, do they? She’s more trouble than she’s worth.
“They might start again,” Tony says, but sounds unconvinced even to Alastair. Lost cause.
They continue walking, taking in the rest of the museum in comfortable silence, both lost in their own thoughts. By the time they leave, the sky has darkened, and the city is bathed in the soft glow of streetlights.
Alastair shivers slightly as the wind picks up. "Well, that was worth the trip, I suppose."
Tony smirks. "You enjoyed it."
"Maybe," Alastair concedes, "but you still owe me that drink."
Tony laughs, pulling his coat tighter around himself. “Fair enough. Let’s find a pub, then. Somewhere quiet.”
They wander through the Titanic Quarter, the modern buildings giving way to older streets as they make their way back toward the heart of the city. They finally stumble upon a small, cosy-looking pub tucked away on a side street, its windows glowing warmly in the dim evening light.
Inside, the pub is quiet, with only a few patrons scattered around. They find a booth near the back and order their drinks—whiskey for Tony, non-alcoholic Guinness for Alastair. The bartender gives them a nod of recognition but doesn’t say anything, a silent acknowledgment that they’re not just any tourists.
“Back in ‘98,” Alastair says, “I really thought that we could fix it. New dawn, and all that shit. The peace dividend. Never quite worked out that way.”
Tony shrugs. “The violence stopped.”
“That’s all we managed to do. Stopped the violence, but we didn’t dress any of the wounds.”
“Northern Ireland wouldn’t let us. They prefer it this way, they enjoy picking their scabs and watching old wounds bleed.” There’s nothing bitter or recriminatory in Tony’s voice. He says it like he’s long accepted it.
Alastair leans back, looking at Tony with a wry smile. “That’s convenient for us.”
“But it’s true,” Tony says, and Alastair knows that he genuinely believes that. He doesn’t know what he believes, not really. He knows what to say - how to sell it. “We did all we could. Trust me - the Northern Irish wouldn’t have it any other way.” Tony’s voice is so assured.
But Alastair doesn’t know what he believes, and it’s hard to believe in anything when you face the ragged, worn-down city of Belfast, the best of Northern Ireland. The poor here are poorer than the mainland Britons, and poorer still than their Southern counterparts, snug in the Republic.
Poor Northern Ireland, always one step forward, two steps back. How it’s shackled to its history, like a ball and chain so heavy it’ll break their ankles if they pull too hard. Northern Ireland knows what it is; it knows its faults better than anyone.
But for all the misery, all the broken streets and broken promises, this is the best Northern Ireland believes it ever will be. It’s the same saddened refrain that everyone repeats, be they Catholic, Protestant or Dissident - the British don’t want them, the South can’t afford them.
Yeah, the peace is fragile, imperfect, half-measures patched over old wounds that never healed right, will never heal right. But tearing it apart, trying to build something new? That feels impossible. Christ, even imagining it feels impossible. Because if you strip all that away—the grudges, the grief, the only way of living you’ve ever known - you’re back to square one, and nobody wants that, not really.
The peace process never delivered what it promised, alright, and yeah, it’s fucked, and okay, paramilitaries still stand where there should be police.
But it’s better than it was before.
The two of them sit in companionable silence for a while longer, the noise of the pub around them fading into the background. It’s strange, Alastair thinks, how life has a way of circling back on itself. Here they are, after all these years, in this godforsaken city. Trimble’s dead, so is Hume, so is Paisley… Alastair stops right there, this is getting depressing.
Eventually, Tony glances at his watch and sighs. “I suppose we should be getting back. Can’t stay out too late—don’t want to give Cherie anything to nag about.”
Alastair grins. “Always the dutiful husband, eh?”
Tony smirks but doesn’t reply, standing up and slipping his coat on. Alastair follows suit, and they step back out into the crisp night air.
As they walk back toward their hotel, the city quiet around them, Alastair feels an odd sense of contentment. This isn’t the life he’d expected, but it isn’t so bad. He glances over at Tony, who’s walking with his hands in his pockets, deep in thought.
“Hey,” Alastair says, breaking the silence. And just because he can - “We did alright, didn’t we?”
Tony looks over at him, a small smile tugging at his lips. “Yeah,” he says softly. “We did alright.” He pauses. “Well, except for the war crimes, of course.”
God bless his soul, but Alastair has known Tony his whole life, and he genuinely does not know if he is being serious or not.
Fucking enigma.