Bloodland: A Novel Read online

  But what is this bullshit now with Phil Sweeney? Did he even understand it correctly? Was Sweeney asking him not to do the book? To drop it? It seems incredible, but that’s what it sounded like.

  Jimmy glances over at his desk.

  The advance. How much is it? I’m sure we could come to some –

  Oh God.

  – to some what? Some arrangement?

  On one level, Jimmy shouldn’t even be questioning this. Because it’s not as if he doesn’t owe Phil Sweeney, and owe him big. He does. Of course he does. But dropping a story? That’s different. Being paid to drop a story? That’s fucking outrageous.

  And why?

  He doesn’t understand. Is Phil representing someone? An interested party? A client? What’s going on?

  Jimmy walks over to the desk.

  All of the materials laid out here – transcripts of interviews, old Hellos and VIPs, Google-generated printouts, endless photos – relate directly to Susie.

  He selects one of the photos and looks at it.

  Susie in a nightclub, champagne flute held up, shoulder strap askew.

  She looks tired – wrecked, in fact – like she’s been trying too hard and it’s not working anymore.

  But Jesus, that face … those eyes.

  It didn’t matter how tawdry the setting, how tacky or low-rent the gig, Susie’s eyes always had this extraordinary effect of making everything around her seem urgent and weighted and mysterious.

  As he replaces the photo, Jimmy wonders what the sister will be like. He’s spoken to her on the phone a few times and they’ve exchanged maybe a dozen e-mails – his focus always on getting her to say yes.

  To talk to him.

  The primary operating system of the universe.

  Jimmy sits down and faces the computer. He looks at the words on the screen. Drums his fingers on the desk. Wonders how he got from investigating a ministerial expenses scandal, and doing it in a busy newsroom, to writing about a dead actress, and in a one-bedroom apartment he can barely afford the monthly repayments on.

  But then something more pressing occurs to him.

  How did Phil know what he was working on in the first place? Who did he hear it from? In what circumstances would Phil Sweeney be talking to someone – or would someone be talking to Phil Sweeney – where the subject might possibly come up?

  Jimmy doesn’t like this one bit.

  Nor is it the kind of thing he responds well to, being put under pressure, nudged in a certain direction, told what to do or what not to do. And OK, an unauthorised showbiz biography isn’t exactly Watergate, or uncovering My Lai, but still, he should be free to write whatever he wants to.

  That’s how it’s supposed to work, isn’t it?

  He stares for another while at the block of text on the screen.

  But he’s no longer in the mood.

  He checks his coffee. It has gone cold.

  He looks back at the screen.

  Shit.

  He reaches over to the keyboard, saves the document and puts the computer to sleep.

  * * *

  ‘I watch a lot of TV.’

  He just blurts it out.

  It’s not how he’d answer the same question if it came from a journalist, but God, could he not dredge up something a little more interesting for Dave Conway? Travel maybe? Or a bit of consultancy? The Clinton Foundation? Bilderberg?

  Standing at the window, phone cradled on his shoulder, Larry Bolger gazes out over the rooftops of Donnybrook.

  Usually when a journalist asks him how he’s spending his time these days he’ll say he’s serving on various boards, which is true, and then add that he’s started writing his memoirs, which isn’t. But at least he gives the impression of being busy. And that’s important.

  Or is it?

  Maybe not.

  Serving as a corporate director, in any case, doesn’t take up that much time, and not writing your memoirs doesn’t take up any time at all … so, yeah, big deal, he does have a lot of time on his hands. But is it anyone’s business how he chooses to spend it? No, and if that means he watches six episodes of CSI in a row, or a whole season of Scrubs, or the Hermann Goering Week on the History Channel in its entirety, well then, so be it.

  Because there’s no manual for this, no seven-step recovery programme, no Dr Phil or Deepak-whatshisname bestseller. If you’re an ex-head of state, and you don’t have anything lined up on the jobs front, then that’s pretty much it, you’re on your own.

  ‘What,’ Conway asks, ‘like Primetime, Newsnight?’

  ‘Yeah, that kind of thing. Current affairs.’

  ‘Keeping ahead of the curve?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  Bolger throws his eyes up. He didn’t phone Dave Conway for this, for a chat.

  ‘So listen,’ he says, ‘this week some time, are you free?’

  ‘Er, I’m –’

  ‘I won’t keep you long.’

  ‘OK, Larry. Sure.’

  They make an arrangement for the following morning. Here in the hotel.

  After he hangs up Bolger trades the phone for the remote. He stands in the middle of the room and points it at the 42-inch plasma screen on the wall.

  When he read that thing in the paper last week, he wasn’t sure what to make of it – though it certainly put the shits up him. What use talking to Dave Conway will be he doesn’t know either, probably none, but he needs to talk to someone. He needs reassurance. Besides, he hasn’t had much contact with any of the old crowd since leaving office over a year ago and he’s been feeling isolated.

  He fiddles with the remote.

  It’s amazing, he thinks, how quickly you get cut out of the loop.

  He even swallowed his pride and tried phoning James Vaughan a couple of times, but the old fucker won’t return his calls. They haven’t spoken for about six months, not since that debacle over the IMF job Bolger had been up for and really wanted. Vaughan had championed his candidacy in Washington, or so it had seemed at the time, but then without any explanation he’d blocked it.

  It was awful. Bolger had had everything mapped out, his trajectory over the next ten years – a solid stint at the IMF to hoover up connections and kudos, then a move to some post at the UN, in Trade and Development or one of the agencies or maybe even, if the timing was right, Secretary General. Why not? But if not, Trade, Human Rights, Aid, whatever. It was his dream, his 4 a.m. fantasy, and when Vaughan chose for whatever reason to snuff it out, Bolger was devastated. Because it wasn’t just that job, the first phase of the trajectory, it was the whole fucking trajectory. The thing is, you don’t survive getting passed over like that, it’s too public, too humiliating, so you may as well stuff your CV in a drawer and dig out your golf clubs.

  That is, if you play golf.

  The former Taoiseach, the prime minister, in any case, reckons that James Vaughan owes him at least a phone call.

  But apparently not.

  Bolger often thinks of that lunch in the Wilson Hotel, what was it, four, five years ago now?

  How times change.

  He goes into ‘My Recordings’ on the digital box, which is still clogged up with movies and documentaries he hasn’t got around to watching yet. He flicks down through everything on it now, but nothing catches his eye. He turns over to Sky News and watches that for a bit.

  They appear to be having an off day.

  The news is scrappy, unfocused, nothing with any real heat in it. They need a good natural disaster, or a high-profile sex scandal, or a child abduction.

  Get their juices flowing.

  Bastards.

  He turns the TV off and throws the remote onto the sofa.

  He looks around the room. Bolger likes living in a hotel, it’s convenient and private. You don’t have pain-in-the-arse neighbours to deal with. He and Mary have had an apartment here since they sold the house in Deansgrange, and with the girls in college now it suits them just fine.

  He looks at his watch, and then over
at the drinks cabinet.

  Mary is out.

  Bridge night. He could have gone with her, but he can’t stand the fucking chatter. All these people in their late fifties and early sixties sitting round playing cards. It’s too much like some sort of a retirement community for his taste. His excuse is that he’s absorbed in writing his memoirs and has little or no time for socialising, something he even has Mary believing – and to look at his desk in the study, with all the papers laid out on it, and the permanently open laptop, you’d be forgiven for thinking it was true. Which of course it should be. Because working on his memoirs would be good for him. It’d keep his mind occupied, keep him out of trouble.

  But he has no idea how to write a book – how he should structure it or where he should even begin. He’s actually sorry now he signed the contract.

  He looks over at the drinks cabinet again.

  Ever since last week – Monday, Tuesday, whatever day it was – Bolger has been acutely aware of this piece of furniture in the corner of the room. Prior to that, it was just an object, albeit a beautiful one, with its art deco walnut veneer and sliding glass doors. It never bothered him in any way. He liked it. When required, he even served people drinks from it. But then he saw that report in the paper and something happened. It was almost as if the damn thing came to life, as if the bottles inside it, and the various clear and amber liquids inside them, lit up and started pulsating.

  Gin, vodka, whiskey, brandy.

  Fire water … water of life …

  Burning bright.

  He has no intention of doing anything about this, of course. He won’t act on it. Not after all these years. But it isn’t easy.

  He stares at the door leading to his study, and hesitates.

  Then he goes over to the sofa again, sits down and picks up the remote control.

  * * *

  Dave Conway has a headache.

  He’s had it for a couple of days now and it’s driving him up the wall.

  He’s taken Solpadeine and Nurofen and been to the doctor. But apparently there’s nothing wrong with him.

  It’s just tension – he’s exhausted and needs a rest.

  And to be told this he has to pay sixty-five euro?

  It’s ridiculous.

  He pulls into the gravel driveway of his house and parks in his usual spot, next to the stables. The spot beside it is empty.

  Which means Ruth isn’t home yet.

  As he gets out of the car, Conway feels a dart of pain behind his eyes – the sudden convergence, he imagines, of half a dozen little pulses of anxiety: there’s the ongoing disaster that is Tara Meadows, the fact that his liabilities now exceed his assets, and the possibility that one of the banks he’s in hock to may seek to have a liquidator appointed in a bid to seize control of his company.

  Conway approaches the house.

  There’s also this gorgeous French au pair inside he has to look at now and talk to without weeping, without feeling drab and ashen and like some agèd minion of Death …

  How many is that?

  There’s his children, seven, five and two, disturbed, speculative visions of whose unknowable futures haunt his every waking hour, to say nothing of the sleeping ones.

  He puts his key in the front door.

  And then there’s just … dread. A general sense of it. Vague, insidious, nameless.

  He opens the door.

  Always there, always on.

  As he steps into the hall, Molly is emerging at high speed from the playroom.

  He refocuses.

  She’s clutching the Sheriff Woody doll.

  ‘It’s mine –’

  ‘I had it first –’

  He watches as Molly heads in the direction of the kitchen and disappears.

  A distraught Danny, outmanoeuvred once again by his kid sister, can be seen through the open door of the playroom, burying his face in the beanbag. Standing behind him, the baby – they still think of Jack as the baby – looks on, serene as usual, taking notes.

  Corinne appears at the door, in hot pursuit of the dragon lady. For once, she looks flustered.

  ‘Oh Dave, sorry, I –’

  Stepping forward, he holds up a hand to stop her.

  ‘It’s OK, don’t worry, she’s fine.’

  ‘I think there must be a full moon or something. They’re acting like crazy today.’

  ‘Didn’t you know? There’s always a full moon in this house.’

  Dumb joke, but Corinne smiles.

  Dave’s insides do a little flip.

  They’re standing next to each other, almost framed in the doorway, and it’s a little overwhelming – Corinne’s scent, her perfect skin, her searching eyes that –

  Oh enough, Conway thinks, and steps into the playroom.

  He winks at Jack, and hunkers down in front of the beanbag. Danny turns around, tears welling in his eyes, and says, ‘Where’s Mommy?’

  ‘She’ll be home soon,’ Conway says.

  ‘I had it first.’

  ‘I know, I know. We’ll get it back in a minute. Come here.’

  He reaches across, retrieves Danny from the bean-bag, hitches him over his shoulder and stands up.

  This manoeuvre used to be so easy, so natural, but now that Danny is bigger and heavier it requires a lot more effort. He squeezes his son’s still-small frame in his arms, and then breathes him in, like a vampire, waiting for that familiar emotional rush.

  ‘I’ve just changed Jack,’ Corinne is saying. ‘It was quite loose. What’s that word you use … splatty?’

  ‘Yes,’ he says. ‘Splatty. A splatty poo. Very nice.’

  Or not.

  Or surreal. Or whatever.

  Before Conway can say anything else, his phone rings. He lowers Danny to the floor and gets the phone out of his jacket pocket. He nods at Corinne. She bends down to distract Danny.

  ‘Come on,’ she says. ‘Time for dinner.’

  As Conway moves away, he raises the phone to his ear.

  ‘Yeah?’

  ‘Dave? Phil Sweeney.’

  ‘Phil. How are you?’

  ‘Good. Listen, have you got a minute?’

  ‘Yeah.’ Conway heads for the door. ‘What’s up?’

  ‘Just something that’s come to my attention. Thought you should know about it.’

  ‘OK.’

  As Conway listens, he walks across the hall and into the front reception room.

  Phil Sweeney is an occasional PR consultant. He does strategic communications, perception management, media analysis. He identifies and tracks, Echelon-style, issues that might have a bearing on his clients’ companies.

  Or lives.

  Like this one.

  ‘And the weird thing is,’ he’s saying, ‘I actually know the guy. His old man and I worked together, back in the early days of Marino.’

  ‘Right.’ Conway is confused, unsure if he’s getting this. ‘Susie Monaghan, you said?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Jesus.’

  Susie Monaghan.

  Drumcoolie Castle.

  Conway lets out a deep, plaintive sigh here, as always happens whenever this comes up, each of the sighs like an instalment, a staged payment against the principal, itself a lump sum of a sigh so great that to release the whole thing in one go would be enough, he imagines, to kill him.

  ‘So what is this guy,’ he says, ‘a journalist?’

  ‘Yeah. Young, very smart. But he needs the work. That’s part of the problem. He got laid off back when all this meltdown shit started. So I suppose he sees it as an opportunity.’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘But look, don’t worry. I’ll talk him out of it.’

  ‘OK,’ Conway says, nodding. ‘Or maybe, I don’t know…’ He pauses. ‘Maybe we could find something else for him to do.’ A signature Dave Conway technique. Misdirection. He’s been in business for over fifteen years and it always seems to work. If there’s a problem with staff, some kind of dispute or disagreement,
redirect their attention. Get them thinking about something else.

  He walks over to the bay window.

  ‘Yeah,’ Sweeney says, ‘I did offer to buy out his advance, but –’

  ‘No. Jesus.’ With his free hand Conway massages his left temple. ‘That’s not going to work.’ He looks out over the front lawn. ‘Not if he’s young. Not if he thinks he’s Bob fucking Woodward.’

  ‘Yeah, you’re probably right. But he does owe me. So we’ll get around it one way or another. I just wanted to let you know.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  ‘I’ll keep you posted.’

  ‘Yeah.’

  After he hangs up, Conway stands for a while staring out of the window.

  Susie Monaghan.

  OK. Fine.

  But doesn’t he have other, more pressing shit to be concerned about?

  Yes.

  Like Conway Holdings going down the tubes, for instance.

  Unquestionably.

  So why then does he have a knot in his stomach? Why is the pounding inside his skull so much more intense now than it was five minutes ago?

  * * *

  Jimmy Gilroy is sitting at the quiet end of the bar. Arranged in front of him on the dark wood surface is an untouched pint of Guinness, some loose change, his keys, his phone and that morning’s paper.

  It’s like a still life, familiar and comforting.

  Take away the phone, replace it with twenty Major and a box of matches and this could be any time over the last fifty years. In fact, Jimmy could easily be his old man sitting here – or even his old man.

  He takes a sip from his pint.

  Though you’d definitely need the cigarettes and matches. And he’d need to be wearing a suit.

  And they wouldn’t be Major, they’d be Benson & Hedges. Senior Service in his grandfather’s case, as he remembers – and not matches, a gold Ronson lighter.

  Shut up.

  And the paper. The paper would be crumpled, having been read from cover to cover.

  Sports pages, obituaries, letters to the editor, classifieds.

  Leaning back on his stool, head tilted to one side, Jimmy looks at the scene again. But the argument for continuity seems even thinner this time, a little less authentic. And it’s not just the lack of smokes, or the mobile phone, or that USB memory stick attached to his key ring.

  It’s the unread paper.

  He bought it on the way here, in the SPAR on the corner, but the truth is he’d already read most of it online earlier in the day.