CAL
Bernard Mac Laverty
'Call' was written by Bernard Mac Laverty. It was first
published by Jonathan
Cape in 1983.
Bernard Laverty was born in Belfast,
where he worked for ten years as a medical laboratory technician before
studying English at Queen's University. He then moved to Scotland and
taught for a number of years.
He now writes and lives in Glasgow.
He has written two novels, Lamb and Cal and three collections of
short stories, Secrets, A time to dance and The
great Profundo. Both Lamb and Cal have been made into
successful films. Bernard Mac Laverty has been consistently well reviewed in
the press.
The main character of this novel is Cal McCluskey. He is 19 years old.
He loves music and plays the guitar. When playing the guitar, he shakes his
head from side to side and his long hair covers his face, screening him from
the world. Because of his hair the length it is, he has had to develop some
female gestures like holding it back to prevent it getting in his cup.
Cal's mother died when
he was eight and sometimes he thinks of her and of what have said to him in
this of another situation. His father, Shamie, tried to replace her, but he
failed.
Cal has no friends.
There is Crilly, but he is not Cal's
real friend. Cal
doesn't like him, he tries to avoid him, without
success. He is afraid of Crilly (and Skeffington).
Cal lives with his
father in a Protestant estate. Shamie works at the abattoir and they are the
only Catholics still living there. Fear has driven out the others long ago, but
Shamie doesn't leave. He is stubborn, 'No Loyalist bastard is going to
force me out of my home. They can kill me first.' Cal doesn't fear a single bastard,
it is the accumulation of them which makes him afraid.
He has once worked at the abattoir, but he doesn't like the smell in
there, so he left. He now is unemployed.
At the library he meets Marcella Morton who has started working there.
He has never met her before, but he knows her name. He learned her name at an
incident which he'd rather forget.
Cal falls in Love with
Marcella, but the memory o what has happened prevents him to get closer to her.
And there is Crilly, his 'friend'. Crilly is an unscrupelous
man who obviously is a member of the IRA. Cal has to drive the van when Crilly has to
rob a shop or to move 'dangerous goods' from one house to another. He
doesn't like Crilly and he wants out, but he has no courage to leave. They
would kill him.
So during the day he works at the Morton's farm where he had the chance
to get a job which allows him to be near Marcella. At night he drives the van
for Crilly.
One evening, just coming home from work, Cal notices a burning house. He realizes
that it is the house of him and his father. It is no accident that the house is
burning. Some 'Loyalist bastard' has set fire.
Shamie can stay with a relative of him. Cal uses the chance to escape. He hides in a
cottage at the Morton's farm. Only Marcella, her family and the foreman know
where he is staying. Cal
gets closer to Marcella and she also falls in love with him.
When Cal
goes to town at Christmas to buy some presents, he bumps into Crilly who
immediately takes him to Skeffington. They are asking him where he now lives.
They want to have control over him. Suddenly the police arrives and arrests
Crilly and Skeffington. Cal
escapes, but the next day, Christmas Eve, he is also arrested.
For Cal
some of the choices would have been simple. Work at the abattoir that nauseates
him or join the dole queue? Brood on his past or plan a future with Marcella?
His choice about the first question went right, but the second was rather
difficult for him. He couldn't forget his past. If Cal had told everything Marcella, he would
have been able to manage his
past.
Bernard Mac Laverty describes the Situation of young people in Northern Ireland.
It is difficult for the youth not to get involved in this bloody and violent
war between the Protestants and the Catholics. If one ever joins one of the
groups, it is hardly possible to escape, to get out.
'What's this price you're talking of?'
'We want to know where you are staying - so we can get in touch
with you if we need you.'
'So the price of getting out is staying in? And if I refuse?'
'This is not a game we're playing, Cal.'
'Cal'
is not only the story of a young man between two parties who just wants to be
left in peace. Springing out of the fear and violence of Northern Ireland, 'Cal' is a sad love story in a land
where tenderness and innocence can only flicker briefly in the dark.
I liked the book very much. It is not a book which you read for joy and
when you've finished it you put it away. 'Cal'
fascinated me, I had to read it till the end and afterwards I was thinking
about Cal's
destiny. The author describes the lives of his characters with tremendously
moving skill. He knows how to increase the tension and with the open end of his
story he asks the reader to have a critical look at the conflict.
I followed with great interest the actions, because of these I could
learn a lot about the characters. The flashbacks have been very important for
me to understand Cal himself. Because of them I understood why it was so
difficult for him to live his own life.
Bernard Mac Laverty's novel 'Cal'
is a remarkable story of a doomed love affair and an account of the
impossibility of living in the circumstances of that province, without
redemtion and without punishment.
