Bloodland: A Novel Read online

  Jimmy nodded along to most of this, taken aback at the shift in mood and tone. Last night Maria had been subdued, circumspect, now she was … what? Ebullient? Irrationally exuberant? Off her meds? On her meds? He didn’t know. Maybe she was crazy. Though she didn’t seem to be. If he didn’t know any better – and actually he didn’t – he might have thought she was drunk.

  But then again, at the same time, she seemed quite … centred.

  Self-possessed.

  Maybe she was just sold on the idea all of a sudden.

  Maybe he’d done a better job last night than he was giving himself credit for.

  Plus … it was as if she …

  As if –

  But he didn’t really have time to think here, or editorialise. She was talking too fast, covering too much ground, giving him in broad strokes what they would have to go back over later on, but in excruciating, forensic slo-mo – Susie the wild schoolgirl, for instance, in her white blouse and plaid skirt (replete with tell-tale residues, cigarette smoke, vodka, Red Bull, bubblegum, cum), Susie on the modelling circuit, alternating between blind ambition and almost existential despair, Susie’s first line of coke, first magazine cover, first potential husband, then that audition for Phoenix Road and how her personal input into the character of Sharon O’Dwyer transformed a bit part into a pivotal one, a whiny young drug-dealer’s girlfriend into a semi-tragic gangland widow … a pretty face on TV into nothing less than a national sweetheart, all of which was followed by an increasingly desperate need to escape the role and take her career to what everyone around her, agents, publicists, showbiz columnists, insisted on calling, maddeningly, ‘the next level’. Which would be what? A presenting gig on TV? A part in a movie? She didn’t know, but on the road to this chimerical future there always seemed to be one more opening to go to, one more reality show to take part in – the last of these being the ill-fated Celebrity Death Row, in which Susie and seven others were to court the public vote in order to be spared a mock execution in the series finale. But accusations of bad taste and a frenzied debate over declining standards led to the show being cancelled after only two episodes, and hot on the heels of that came a messy break-up with corporate executive, Gary Lynch, number five in Susie’s usual-suspects line-up of potential husbands. The last few weeks of Susie’s life, therefore – and this seemed to be emerging as Maria’s central thesis – were extremely difficult ones. OK, she was out of control, taking too many drugs, smoking too many cigarettes, operating on little more than seething resentment and the energy rush that comes from a suppressed appetite – but she was also suffering at a much deeper level … she was miserably, profoundly unhappy and didn’t have the first clue what to do about it …

  Watching Maria as she tells him all of this, Jimmy is struck by how animated she is, but also by how beautiful – and not in that overly obvious, cosmetics-model way that Susie had, it’s something more natural than that, and more vivid. In fact, it’s as if Maria has come alive, as if all along, despite appearances, each sister had been playing the other one’s role, and now in the quickening light of an outsider’s attention these roles were reversing, reverting.

  Susie no longer alive.

  Maria no longer dead.

  As he drains his espresso, Jimmy is acutely aware of how twisted and fucked-up it is of him to be thinking like this, how unprofessional – but that’s what can happen when you leave the second-hand stuff on your desk and engage directly with a source, the game sometimes changes.

  You lose your bearings.

  Maria drains her espresso now, too. Looking around her in silence, she seems a little dazed from all the talking.

  Jimmy studies her face – the devouring eyes, the pale skin, the freckles around her nose.

  Then she starts up again. ‘So. Told you I was a talker. It feels good, though, and I suppose it means I trust you, Jimmy. Or that I’ve decided to trust you. Or something.’

  He smiles. ‘That’s great, Maria, because as far as I’m concerned the more you talk the better it’ll be. But more talk will also mean more work.’ He gives a little back-and-forth flick to his hand. ‘More meetings like this one. Because up to now I’ve been focusing on the last chapter.’ He pauses. ‘The idea was to kind of … to try and get that out of the way first, and then –’

  ‘I understand,’ Maria says. ‘But don’t…’ She hesitates. ‘Look, in a weird way the crash should be the focus of the story. It’s what it builds up to. And it’s almost like the perfect metaphor. I mean, we’ll never know exactly what happened, but everything in Susie’s life seemed to be … inclining towards that moment.’

  Jimmy swallows, then nods in agreement.

  He wants to remind her that the metaphor mightn’t quite work for the other victims, but he holds back. It’s a tricky enough point – and maybe on one level Phil Sweeney is right – but they’ll find a way around it.

  He’ll find a way around it. It’s his job.

  Maria picks up her phone and looks at it. ‘I have to get back to work.’

  ‘Sure.’

  Outside on Dawson Street they chat for a bit and seem reluctant to separate. At least that’s how it feels to Jimmy. After they do say their goodbyes, and Jimmy is heading along Duke Street – in something, it has to be said, of a dreamy haze – his phone rings.

  He pulls it out and looks at the display.

  Shit.

  He hesitates, but then answers it. ‘Hi, Phil.’

  ‘Jimmy, how are you doing? Look, I’ve been feeling bad since yesterday. I didn’t mean to put you on the spot like that, I really didn’t, it was a terrible thing to do, and I’m sorry.’ Jimmy slows down, doesn’t say anything, waits. ‘So I thought of you today when something else came up, a job you might be interested in.’

  ‘I’m already working on a job, Phil.’

  ‘There are jobs, Jimmy, and there are jobs. This is a fucking job.’

  ‘But –’

  ‘Just listen to me for a minute, will you? The Susie Monaghan book, dress it up whatever way you like, it’s only fluff, it’ll cause a blip in the Christmas market if you’re lucky and then that’s it, no one’ll ever hear of it again. But what I’ve got –’

  ‘Jesus, Phil –’

  ‘No wait, and don’t hang up on me, Jimmy, please. What I’ve got – and this only came up today, I swear to you – is a substantial piece of work. It’s something your old man would have loved.’

  Jimmy stops.

  ‘It’s political. A political memoir. You’d get to shape something that’ll be read and mulled over and put in reference libraries.’ He lets that hang for a second, then goes on. ‘Larry Bolger, yeah? He’s supposed to be putting his memoirs together, but the man can’t write to save his life, he needs help, someone who can organise his notes, interview him, someone who can turn a decent phrase … a fucking writer.’

  Jimmy stands there, outside the Bailey, with the phone up to his ear.

  He doesn’t speak.

  Sweeney goes on. ‘You get access to his private papers, details of his meetings with Bush, Putin, the Pope, everyone, plus all the domestic stuff, the heaves and backroom intrigues, all that shit you love.’ Another pause. ‘Plus. Plus. It hasn’t been worked out yet, hasn’t been finalised, but what might actually turn out to be the most substantial part in all of this is the fee. Larry’s got a big contract, so you’d do pretty well out of it. Might even get to pay off that mortgage of yours…’

  He leaves it there.

  Jimmy’s insides turn. He stares down at the pavement. People pass in both directions, but no one gives him a second glance. Nothing odd in that, not anymore – man standing alone in the street, hand up at the side of his head, staring into space.

  ‘Jimmy? You interested? There’s a clock running on this. He’s already missed one deadline.’

  Still nothing.

  ‘Jimmy? Jimmy? You there?’

  After a long pause, Jimmy exhales loudly.

  ‘Yeah, Phil,’ he says,
‘take it easy.’ He closes his eyes. ‘I’m here.’

  3

  BOLGER’S MOUTH FEELS LIKE THE BOTTOM OF A BIRDCAGE. He’s slumped in the armchair and suspects he has been asleep, though he can’t be sure. There weren’t any dreams, which for him would be weird, because his brain usually manages to concoct some twisted combination of … of …

  Of what? He can’t even think of an example. His brain won’t oblige.

  He looks around.

  Oh fuck.

  What time is it?

  The plan was to clean up and then go for a nap. There are at least two empty glasses he can see from here, one on the dining table and the other on the arm of the sofa. The drinks cabinet looks like a bomb site. He can also smell cigarette smoke. There was an old packet of Silk Cut he found in a bag in the wardrobe. It must have been there for, what, six, seven years?

  He takes a deep breath.

  What time is it?

  Mary will be home soon.

  Then he hears a sound from the kitchen, a clattering of implements, and realises that Mary is already home, and that he was asleep. He looks over at the door.

  ‘Mary,’ he says, in a loud voice, louder than he intended, ‘what time is it?’

  There is silence.

  After a moment she appears in the doorway. Bolger can’t be sure from this distance, but her eyes look a bit red.

  Oh Jesus.

  It’s then, too, that he remembers leaving a message on James Vaughan’s answering machine or voicemail or whatever the fuck it was.

  He groans. Feels a hot flush of shame and humiliation. Why did he do this? What on earth drove him to it, what could possib—

  Oh yeah.

  Of course.

  He remembers now.

  Couple out walking their dog. Body in the woods. Paranoia, anxiety … traceability, rogue pig farmers …

  Pig farmers?

  What is he, still drunk?

  Mary steps forward from the doorway. ‘Larry, I don’t … I –’

  ‘WHAT FUCKING TIME IS IT, WOMAN?’ he roars.

  In that same moment he sees what time it is on the display of the digital decoder box. Then, as he watches Mary cower in shock and retreat into the kitchen, he remembers something else: what a mean fucking drunk he was.

  Is.

  The thought lingers for a moment, becomes unstuck and dissolves. Some time passes, a minute, maybe two. During this brief period his mind remains blank. Then he struggles up out of the armchair, feeling twenty years older than he did when he got out of bed that morning. His head is splitting. The room shifts slightly, its relationship to gravity and fixed points seeming like a loose enough arrangement.

  He walks over to the dining table and leans on it with both hands. Next to the empty glass there is a saucer. In it is a dirty pile of cigarette ash and four stubbed-out butts.

  He groans again and puts a hand up to his head, as if that will ease the pounding.

  It doesn’t.

  He looks in the direction of the kitchen.

  How is he going to finesse this with Mary?

  When he packed in the drink all those years ago certain promises were made, behaviours renounced, habits eschewed.

  Not that she knew the half of it.

  But it was a serious pledge nonetheless, and he meant it. So what he has done now by taking a drink is not only an act of stupidity – which it patently is, look at the state of him – it is an act of betrayal as well.

  And shouting at her just now? What was that an act of?

  He shakes his head. He could rationalise it on the grounds that he was groggy, and had just woken up, that it didn’t have anything to do with the booze.

  But –

  When’s the last time he raised his voice at her?

  Exactly.

  He lifts his hands from the table and as he straightens up what feels like a current of electricity shoots through his skull. It’s five o’clock in the afternoon and he’s this hungover?

  Classy.

  He did have his reasons, but the curious thing is these don’t seem quite so urgent anymore, or relevant. Also, the anxiety and paranoia have receded. Somewhat. Because Dave Conway was probably right, the truth is they weren’t actually involved. So why get all worked up about it?

  What hasn’t receded, though, is this seemingly permanent fog of insecurity he’s been living with, insecurity about his legacy, about his future – and, OK, getting drunk and leaving inappropriate messages on people’s machines may not be the optimum solution here, but what is?

  What it’s always been, work.

  It’s just that as an unemployable ex-premier the only job opportunity he has right now is this stupid book he’s supposed to be writing.

  And isn’t.

  Which sparks something … a vague …

  Does he remember sitting down at his desk earlier on? All fired up and ready to get started? Possibly. Yes. But didn’t he then go off straightaway to do something else?

  His usual m.o.

  He walks over and looks through the door of the study, for confirmation – and indeed there it is, his cluttered desk, un-touched, exactly as it has been for days, weeks.

  He could sit down now and get started. If he didn’t feel nauseous, that is. If he didn’t have to devote whatever shred of energy he might be able to muster over the next few minutes to mollifying, or attempting to mollify, his wife. If he knew how to string two coherent sentences together.

  He turns around and heads over to the kitchen. No point in delaying the inevitable.

  He stands in the doorway. Mary has her back to him. She’s at the counter and appears to be busy, chopping or peeling something. After a moment, she turns around. The look she gives him is withering.

  ‘How dare –’

  And then the phone rings. It’s beside her on the counter.

  ‘Jesus.’

  She picks it up. Incapable of not.

  ‘Hello?’

  This is a reprieve for Bolger, but not one that lasts.

  ‘Yes.’ Tight-lipped. ‘Hello, Dave.’

  When she looks away for a split second, Bolger rolls his eyes. This micro movement sends a shockwave of nausea through his system. He puts one hand on his stomach and holds the other one out in front of him, flaps it frantically, indicating to Mary that he’s not here.

  ‘Yes, Dave, he’s here. Sure. I’ll put him on.’

  She approaches quickly, holding the phone up. It looks like she’s about to strike him with it. He recoils, but still ends up taking it in his hand, Mary gliding past him out of the room, mouthing something he doesn’t catch.

  * * *

  Clark Rundle gazes down at Madison Avenue from the window of his tenth-floor suite in the Wilson Hotel. It is just after two in the afternoon. That’s eight in the evening in Paris, which means it’ll be nine by the time Nora is leaving, so if he hasn’t heard from J.J. by then he’ll have to call someone at the hospital and demand that they put him on.

  Below, traffic flows silently along Madison, only the occasional honking of a horn or wail of a siren making it through the thick glass of the hotel windows. It is a beautiful spring day in Manhattan, cold, crisp and sunny, but inside here it is warm and the atmosphere, along with every nerve ending in Rundle’s body, tingles with expectancy.

  There is a gentle rap at the door.

  He turns and crosses the room, which is a refuge of elegance, with its embroidered drapes and silk wall coverings, its mahogany furnishings and marble floors.

  He opens the door and in she glides.

  Nora is twenty-four years old and very beautiful – extraordinarily so, in fact – with exotic colouring, perfect bone structure and eyes so dark and mysterious they could bring down an empire. She is from Haiti, so her name probably isn’t actually Nora, but Rundle has never got around to asking her about this, or about a whole lot else for that matter. When he’s with her he tends to talk about himself. He was going to say that it’s cheaper than therapy, but actually i
t isn’t. Nora is very expensive. He’s had an account with Regal Select for over five years now but has spent more in the last eighteen months since Nora showed up than in all of the time prior to that put together. He doesn’t feel guilty about this, nor is he stupid enough to have fallen in love with her, but he does regard their time together as essential, each appointment as a sort of pit stop, something entirely related to the rhythms and requirements of his working life.

  It’s not just that he’s paying for her to leave, as the conventional wisdom runs. It’s a bit more complex than that. He’s paying for what sociologists have recently taken to calling ‘relief from the burden of reciprocity’.

  In other words, he already has a wife.

  Nora removes her coat. She places it on the back of a chair. She then does a half turn and glances at Rundle, coquettishly, her lips glistening, her tongue just visible.

  Hard-on in place, check.

  She can do this every time. Just walk into the room. What wife can do that?

  More than once J.J. has begged Clark to hook him up with Regal, but of course that’s never going to happen.

  J.J. doesn’t get to do this.

  Especially since he’s on the brink of submitting to the most rigorous vetting process known to man. Even before the media get involved, he’ll have to offer himself up on a platter to the party handlers: his education and employment histories, every tax return he’s ever filed, every investment made, every gift received … his medical records, and all of them, copies of lab results, bloods, electrocardiograms, even down to such stuff as the size of his prostate and how much Pepto-Bismol he uses.

  So no room for peccadilloes.

  ‘How are you, Nora?’

  ‘I’m good.’

  She walks over to the window, though it’s more like sashays. He follows. Puts his hands on her shoulders, applies pressure, breathes in her scent – nose in her hair, hard-on nuzzling against her ass.