Back to Main Page Bernard MacLaverty: CAL Back to Main Page Bernard MacLaverty: CAL
The story "CAL" by Bernard Mac Laverty takes place in Northern Ireland (Ulster). The young Irishman Cal lives alone with his father Shamie (both are Catholics) in a town near Belfast in which mainly Protestants live. Cal's mother died when he was 8 years old.
Life
there isn't easy for Cal. Additionally, Cal sympathizes with the IRA (= Irish
Republican Army).
Together with his friends Crilly and Skeffington,
who are members of the IRA, too, Cal plans criminal acts.
Another problem for him is being out of work. So he has time
enough to visit the library.
One day when he's there to borrow
a book he sees a woman, Marcella. He falls in love with her and must always think of
this woman. Marcella is much older than Cal, she is a widow and
has a daughter.
Because of being unemployed Shamie offers Cal a little job: he
asks him to sell some wood. Cal accepts and so he tries to sell
as much wood as possible. Cal drives to a farm which belongs to
the Mortons. There a woman buys the trees or rather logs and asks
him to cut them into smaller pieces.
A bit
later the woman turns out to be Marcella's mother-in-law. The
Mortons offer Cal a job on the farm. He has a chance to see
Marcella every day!
With working on the farm he gets more and more in contact with
the Morton family and falls in love with Marcella. But there is
something threatening in the air: Cal took part in the murder of
her husband by driving the car for the murderer. Nobody knows
this.
Time passes and Cal tries to separate from his
"friends" Crilly and Skeffington and the IRA after
having been the driver for some of their illegal activities.
Later in the story Shamie's and Cal's house is burned down by
militant Protestants, so Cal lives secretely in a derelict
building on the farm. When the Mortons discover it, he's allowed
to stay there.
At the end of the story Marcella falls in love with Cal and both
become lovers until finally the police arrest him.