Summary

In Chapter 6, as Gerry Fegan went to work restoring an old Martin guitar, he remembered Ronnie Lennox, the Loyalist ex-ship’s carpenter who had taught Gerry in the Maze Prison carpentry shop. Ronnie’s hands had reminded Gerry of the hands of his father, an alcoholic carpenter who could never get work due to his Catholic faith. Gerry’s father had died when he was nine, and Gerry’s mother had caught him speaking to an empty room. He claimed to have been talking to his father, and she slapped him and told him that people would think he was mad if he continued with this “devilment” (44). She told Gerry that if he was “quiet,” the spirits would leave him alone, and that he should “turn away from them and be quiet” (45).

As he worked on the guitar, Fegan hoped to learn to...