Divorcing Jack

by Colin Bateman

  'It doesn't sound harsh, it sounds stupid. Think of her as the country. Save her, maybe you save the country.'

  'Now who's being cryptic?'

  'Fuck cryptic, Brinn. Make your mind up.'

  'Okay. Okay.' He moved thin fingers up to his brow and rubbed at it vigorously for several long moments. He shook his head again. He folded his arms. He looked at the door. At his books. Out over the lawns again. Down at the photo of the peace rally. At me. At my denims. At my hair. In my eyes. Finally he stood up. The moment of truth. 'Wait here,' he said quietly. 'I need to ask my wife.'

  He stopped as he opened the door. 'If I pay, do you think that'll be the end of it?' He asked. His hands were trembling.

  ‘I don't know.'

  He nodded slightly and left.

  I phoned Coogan. 'He wants to sleep on it.'

  Coogan laughed. 'Just who the fuck does he think he is? Sleep on it!'

  'He has a lot to think about.'

  'Well, sleeping won't fucking help that.'

  'It's a turn of phrase, Coogan. I don't think he'll be doing much sleeping. Give him a break for God's sake.'

  Alfie Stewart showed me to a bedroom. He didn't say much. I didn't say much. The room was as spartan as rarely used guest bedrooms are, an artificial tidiness failed by a thin layer of dust. Alfie didn't wish me a good night. I lay on the bed and watched the dawn come up over the marina, grey to blue. Several times I heard raised voices, too distant to distinguish them properly other than as male and female, but it wasn't difficult to guess who they belonged to. I felt dirty and it wasn't just from lack of a shower.

  Patricia and Lee were hostages to a gangster and their fate lay in the hands of a bomber, all because of an adulterer. Coogan would dispatch them with the same callousness with which Parker had entered the next world. Brinn had to deal.

  Alfie had told me to stay in my room. He didn't want me wandering about Red Hall in case anyone not in the know came across me. As a precaution he locked the door.

  But it was more to keep strangers out than me in. Not that I could have picked the lock, but the window was open and it wasn't much of a jump to the ground below. And I still had one good leg to land on.

  It was still early when Alfie entered the room. 'Knock, knock,' he said, closing the door behind him. He had a tray in his hands. 'Breakfast is served,' he announced with a flourish and set it down on the bedside table. He looked like he'd been up all night. 'And don't worry, I didn't spit in it.'

  ‘I wish I could believe you, Alfie.'

  'Of course you can, Starkey, I'm in politics.'

  I pulled myself up from the bed. 'Well?' I asked. 'Any word. Do you bring me tidings of great joy?'

  'No, I bring you scrambled eggs and Brinn'll be down in a minute.'

  He hovered by the bed as I poked at the food.

  'You make this yourself?'

  'Sure.'

  I left it. 'I've not much appetite. Sorry.'

  'No skin off my nose, Starkey.' I shrugged.

  'He's told you about the tape?'

  'He has.'

  'And you're sticking with him?'

  Alfie nodded. 'Through thick and thin.'

  'You must have wavered.'

  'Maybe. But I've made my decision. I don't change my colours that quickly, Starkey.'

  'Brinn did, bomber to politician.'

  'Don't try to provoke me.'

  'I'm not. I'm just saying. You must have thought about it.'

  'I'm here, aren't I? Doesn't that tell you everything?' He lifted the tray and left the room. It told me everything. Everything about a man shown a glimpse of power reluctant to let it go. Brinn left me for another half-hour. Cars began to arrive outside: party workers for the most part, but also TV crews for their final pre-election interviews. The BBC and Ulster Television were there, ABC and NBC from the States, French and Italian. I recognized a couple of newspaper reporters, hanging around in the car park looking victimized. I thought briefly about opening the bedroom window fully and shouting my story to the world. But only briefly.

  When Brinn appeared he looked even worse than Alfie. His eyes were puffy, like he'd been in a fight, his customary pallor had deepened; it would have frightened a mortician. A bone in his bent nose shone white against the bridge, as if illuminated from within. He was wearing a pale-grey suit that didn't do him any favours.

  ‘I have a busy day ahead of me,' he said quietly. 'Final preparations. Interviews. I'm even going walkabout in the city centre.'

  I nodded.

  'I've been up most of the night,' he continued. 'So I heard.'

  'Yes. As you might suspect, she's not very happy with me.'

  I nodded again.

  'But she's sticking with me.'

  'So's Alfie. Two out of two isn't bad. So far.'

  'So far, of course.' He fell silent and we watched each other for half a minute. Finally he said: 'I've decided to take the chance. Pay the man. It's all I can do. Agnes agrees.'

  I gave him a little reassuring smile. ‘I think you're right,' I said simply.

  ‘I have to trust it's the only copy of the tape.'

  'You will.'

  'Which isn't easy.'

  'No.'

  'It'll take me a while to get the money together. I'll have to arrange it in such a way that it doesn't arouse suspicion.'

  'Of course.'

  'Let Coogan know then.'

  I let Coogan know. 'Time?' He asked, bluntly. 'Yeah, time. It's a lot of money.'

  'Not for him.'

  'Still.'

  'Yeah. Okay. Tomorrow then.'

  'Tomorrow.'

  I got Alfie to call Brinn in after the first of his TV interviews. He was wearing make-up. It wasn't much help.

  'Tomorrow. He wants you to hand it over in person.'

  'Me?'

  'You.'

  'Tomorrow? But it's election day, I. . .'

  'But nothing

  'Yeah. Yes. Okay. Tomorrow.'

  'Tollymore Forest. At dawn.'

  Brinn shook his head, but, again, it wasn't a negative response. 'He's being a bit melodramatic, isn't he? Dawn in a forest?'

  I nodded. 'I think it's his style. He has a Hollywood approach to things. A meeting in a forest at dawn between two historical characters has a certain epic quality to it. It's The Prisoner of Zenda. It's The Thirty-Nine Steps. It's The Godfather. He's creating the Legend of the Paper Cowboy.'

  Brinn looked at Alfie, who shook his head. He turned back to me. 'What?'

  30

  One of my legs was blue.

  Cold sweats, hot sweats. Too much perspiration does things to denim. Metaphorically I wasn't attached to my adopted look at all, but, literally, my jeans were becoming attached to me. I peeled them off and scrubbed at the dye under a hot shower. The bullet wound was healing nicely. Alfie brought me some replacements. Not new, of course, someone else's again, but light and refreshing. Grey slacks, a sports jacket, a white shirt, a paisley tie which I rejected. Alfie didn't say who they belonged to. It was good of him to bring them, seeing as how he hated me. Perhaps Brinn told him to.

  Both of them were away for the day. Alfie insisted that I stayed in the upper, barely populated part of Red Hall, so I had access to Brinn's library, but I didn't have the concentration to read more than a few lines of anything. I kept thinking about my wife. And Lee. And Margaret. And everything. Agnes called on me towards lunchtime and asked if I wanted to go out into the garden.

  ‘I don't think I'm supposed to,' I said. She was wearing a light summer frock. Her hair was clean again, her mouth composed and inviting. 'I might be recognized.'

  'Sure it doesn't matter much now, does it?'

  I shrugged. The world's press might have their cameras trained on the garden, Agnes.'

  'There's a secluded wee bit round the back no one can see into but the birds. Even the guards can't see in. There's only a couple of the staff about anyway. They follow him about like an Indian encampment. I thought you might like some fres
h air.'

  ‘I could do with it, right enough.'

  'Well, come on then.' She turned. I followed. She led me down the stairs and out through the slippery-tiled kitchens to an enclosed yard at the rear of Red Hall. It was crazy-paved, which suited me down to the ground. There were two sun loungers already laid out and between them a table with a little sun-shade umbrella clipped to it. There was an icebox with the Coca Cola logo on the table. The sun was pouring down. She had prepared everything. I took my jacket off and straightened the back of one of the loungers and sat upright. There's nothing so ridiculous as a man sunbathing fully clothed. But there was no point in lying back. I wasn't about to disrobe because my leg was still partially blue. Agnes took off her dress. She wore a deep-blue one-piece swimming costume. She lay back on her lounger. I gazed studiously away from her figure. Everything was quiet. No seagulls laughing. No lap of the waves. No tapping of the masts.

  'Have a beer,' Agnes said, waving at the icebox.

  'Don't mind if I do.' I stood up and opened the box. There were about half a dozen cans of Harp. I lifted two. I offered her one. She had on very dark sunglasses. She didn't respond. Her head was pointed in my general direction but I couldn't tell if she was looking at me.

  'Do you want one?'

  'What? Oh, no. No, thanks. I'm trying to lose some weight.'

  'That's okay,' I said. 'I'm trying to gain it.'

  I took both cans and sat down again. I should have put one back, to keep cool, but I'd had enough things taken off me in the last few days when I thought they were safely in my protection not to trust letting go of it for an instant: Margaret, the tape, my wife.

  'Nice and quiet, isn't it?' I opened the can and took a long drink. Nice, I heard you, last night. Shouting.'

  She lifted her sunglasses up to look at me, then dropped them down again. 'So?'

  'Nothing. Just saying.'

  High up, a seagull circled. If it had been Africa it would have been a vulture, which would have been altogether more appropriate.

  ‘I thought you might have gone with him today,' I said, 'on his rounds.'

  She lifted her glasses again, looked at me for a moment, then took them off completely. She folded the arms in and reached up to set them on the table, 'I see,' she said with a slight sigh, 'that you don't believe in keeping the peace.'

  I shrugged.

  'No,' she continued, 'I didn't go with him today. He has too much to do, too much to worry about. And I don't make a very convincing liar, so I would have had difficulty speaking at all. So I'm at home holding my tongue. She made a little pretend play at holding her tongue and smiled across at me. I smiled back. 'Everything we do from here on in is a lie, isn't it?'

  'That's a matter of opinion,' I said, and her eyes half-crossed in mild despair. The great journalist sits on the fence. 'I mean, everyone lies. It only matters to those who're caught out.'

  'And you think we won't be caught out? Come on, Starkey.'

  ‘I don't imagine your husband has gotten as far as he has without having some sort of plan up his sleeve. I think he's unlikely just to keep paying Coogan money for the rest of his life. But then Coogan will have thought of that, I presume.'

  I picked up my second can and offered it to her again. She reached out to take it. She pulled back the ring-pull and tossed it onto the crazy paving. 'My diets never did last very long,' she said. She took a sip, then a longer slug, and set the can back on the table.

  'Are you relaxed?' She asked.

  'No,' I said.

  'Neither am I.'

  I nodded.

  'Maybe I should get out of this swimsuit.'

  I let that one sink in for a moment. I wasn't looking anywhere near her, but I could feel her eyes on me and I could feel redness inching up my cheeks like a sponge cake rising in an oven. I took another drink. It was cold. It turned to steam. I turned to her. She hadn't made any effort to strip. I pointed up into the bluest of blue skies. 'See that bird?'

  She followed my gaze. 'What, the gull?'

  'Whatever.'

  'Yeah. What of it?'

  ‘I have reason to believe that that may not be a gull at all, but a CIA robot bird equipped with a spy camera designed to take incriminating photographs of the wives of important politicians.'

  ‘I see,' she said. 'Perhaps I shouldn't then.' She took another long drink of her beer, this time resting the can beside her sun lounger. She looked across at me thoughtfully. I dredged up the gumption to look back, although not quite directly into her eyes. Into her lids, which was close. 'But if it was the CIA,' she queried, her brow scrunched up, along with her lids, 'wouldn't it be much better for them just to have a tape of that important politician confessing to a horrific bombing?'

  I nodded. 'Of course.' She was quite right.

  We drank the cans and she got six more and a bottle of wine. Political offices are always well stocked with alcohol.

  The sun remained hot and after a couple of hours I had my shirt off and my trousers rolled up to my knees, well short of the blue smudge on my thigh. I made Agnes promise not to take her costume off. I wasn't sure if I was disappointed or not when she agreed. It was neither the time nor the place for any of that nonsense, which meant it was in a crazy-paving kind of way.

  The promise didn't stop the straps from slipping off her shoulders, revealing a little more than was comfortable of her breasts. Comfortable for me, that was. There wasn't really anywhere else to look. An enclosed courtyard shorn of decoration; a blue sky with only a blinding sun and the occasional gull. Her sunglasses were back on and her head was turned towards me, but again I couldn't tell if she was looking at me; but she could tell when I was looking at her; she could tell when my eyes darted to those big hints of breasts every few minutes. I felt like I was thirteen. Fourteen. Fifteen. And on.

  Her head was getting a bit loose on her shoulders. It lolled back from time to time as she laughed and seemed to have some difficulty coming forward again.

  'What will you do if it doesn't work out, Agnes?'

  She moved her whole upper torso forward and the head came with it. She bent her knees and rested her head on them, turned towards me so that I could see one glassy eye through the side of her sunglasses. 'What will I do?'

  'Yeah.'

  'What does it matter about me? It's him you've to worry about. There's not a hell of a big gap between being most loved and most hated guy in the world, y'know. I expect he's about to find out how small it is.'

  'But what about you?'

  ‘I'll keep the home fires burning. Which is a pun to be proud of, is it not?' She giggled. A nice girlie giggle. 'You know I used to be a journalist, Starkey?'

  'You did? When?'

  'Oh, way back when ...' She hiccupped. 'Oh dear.' She took her sunglasses off and dropped them carelessly on the ground, then sucked in a deep breath and held it for longer than seemed advisable, then let it out with a big rush and breathed sharply up through her nose. 'That should be it,' she said, still holding her breath, squeezing the words out between her teeth, like cheese through a grater. Then exhaled. 'Aaaaaaah.' She took another drink of beer. Then a sip of wine. 'Yeah, me, a journalist. Oh, not for very long. I worked for a weekly paper. That's where I met the love of my life. He was only young. Just starting out.'

  'On bombing?'

  She giggled. 'That's uncalled for, Starkey. On politics. Just making his way. But he was very charming. I knew he'd go far. Although I didn't let him go too far that first date.' The giggle developed into a big throaty laugh. Then she clamped her hand over her mouth. 'Sorry!' She hissed, her eyes wide and moist but still brimming with laughter.

  'He is a bit of a charmer though, isn't he?' Her hand fell away from her mouth, her lips tightened. She nodded. Tears sprang from her eyes. I took another slug of beer. Her eyes were imploring, drunk, suffocated, depressed, maudlin, mesmerizing. The only place to look was her breasts, which was less than gentlemanly under the circumstances. I was too drunk to look at her lids. She pushe
d her arm across her face, smearing the stream of tears. 'I'm sorry,' she said.

  'It's okay. I understand.'

  She sniffed up, a big man's snorter. Half giggled at it, half cried. She apologized again. I shrugged. 'He told me about your wife.'

  I shrugged again.

  ‘I remember, a long time ago, days now, I met you in the garden and asked you what was troubling you. You should have told me.'

  'I was a bit confused.'

  'And you're not confused now?'

  'Oh, I'm still confused, but so's everyone else. It's nice to have company.'

  'Yeah. Confusion reigns. Nice way to launch a new country, isn't it?'

  'The only way.'

  She pulled the straps up on her costume. It was about time. 'You love your wife?' She asked. 'Yeah.'

  'But you were having an affair with Margaret McGarry.'

  'Yeah.'

  'So you couldn't have loved your wife.'

  'I don't follow your reasoning.'

  'You couldn't love your wife if you wanted to go off and have sex with someone else.'

  'Love isn't quite as clear-cut as that, Agnes. You love Brinn?'

  'Yes. Of course.'

  'And you've never been unfaithful?'

  'No.'

  'What about threatening to take your costume off earlier? What do you call that?'

  'Sunbathing.'

  'Ah.' So?'

  'What about dear Brinn? Has he never been unfaithful?'

  'No. Of course not.'

  'Not Mr Charming himself? Who has half the women in Ulster eating out of his Y-fronts?'

  'He wouldn't.' She shook her head and took a hasty gulp of her wine. There wasn't much left, in glass or bottle. 'I would know,' she stated flatly.

  'Like you knew about the bomb?'

  She snapped the glass down sharply on the crazy paving.

  It shattered. She stared at me. I stared at the interesting red brick wall that surrounded us on three sides. Then at the blue sky. 'That's not fair,' she said. She got up from the lounger. I tensed. I was going to get whacked. She towered over me. Blocking out the sky. That only left the wall to glare at. 'I'm going for a pish,' she said quietly and strode unsteadily away. The sun put his hat back on again.