Belfast Confidential

by Bateman, Colin

  He said later that it was the death of my own son that prompted it all. As a newsman he had dealt with violence day in day out for twenty years, but the murder of my boy just as peace was descending on us had brought home to him the fragility and shortness of life and a sudden, crushing awareness that it was passing him by, that it had passed him by. The Jet Ski was almost an unconscious decision to do something about it. The changes that followed were more calculated. Much to the consternation of his wife, he jacked his job in and took over an internet horse-racing gossip site called The Horse Whisperer. 'A midlife crisis,' said his wife. 'Away and fuck yourself,' said Mouse. Much to everyone's surprise, The Horse Whisperer was a huge success. Inspired, Mouse then came up with the idea for Belfast Confidential – initially another internet site specialising in localised celebrity gossip, insider business news and hard-hitting tabloid-style exposés. It was like a hybrid of Hello, Private Eye and the News of the World, the kind of magazine that could be astonishingly fawning towards you one week, and stick the knife in the next, without feeling awkward about it at all.

  Again it was an instant hit – but whereas The Horse Whisperer relied on copious amounts of free gossip, Belfast Confidential needed journalists to ferret out its stories, and journalists need feeding – or at the very least, watering – which meant that Mouse needed advertising. Belfast businessmen are a cautious lot, however, and they weren't convinced of the effectiveness of internet advertising, so Mouse launched a print version of BC. And it was massive from issue one. It just struck a chord. A weekly magazine which lampooned and celebrated the rich and famous and successful in equal amounts. At least part of the secret was that it was a regional production, that the celebs were locals made good, that the business shenanigans were happening just down the road and round the corner. Advertisers, until now restricted to old-world titles like the Ulster Tatler, flocked to it.

  It was a big, bright, glossy hit, and pretty soon Mouse started to become big and bright and glossy himself. He got a new hairstyle. He shaved his beard. He started a diet. He went to a gym. Muscles. Definition. A month after he had had a nose job, photos of himself began to appear in his own magazine. He appeared at launches, parties, on local television quiz shows. He became the voice of Belfast Confidential, and to some extent, the voice of Belfast; a cultural and topical news commentator. A master of the soundbite. And then he came up with the Power List.

  We were eating Dublin Bay prawns with chilli and garlic in Cayenne. He chose. He seemed to know what he was doing. I would have settled for a ham bap. He asked for the wine list and discussed grapes with the maitre d' for a while. I've grown up a lot, and don't let people down in public so much any more, so I just took it as it came. I didn't even say anything when Mouse sent the first bottle of wine back, saying it was too dry for his palate.

  At other tables, ash trays were whisked away from smokers and replaced virtually between puffs. It was very impressive. But Mouse tutted, because he didn't smoke any more and didn't see why anyone else should. Belfast Confidential had thrown its weight behind a campaign to have smoking in bars and restaurants banned, just as it was across the border in the Republic. The Government was taking it seriously, and had indicated that Northern Ireland might be used as a dry run for introducing the ban across the UK. Mouse was pleased with this. I wasn't so sure. The Government had a tradition of trying out unpopular policies at a safe distance from its voters. Like proportional representation and internment.

  'So,' I rasped, chilli sauce burning my throat, 'how's wife number two, or are you already onto number three?'

  'Very funny, Dan.'

  'You know, Patricia's not forgiven you yet.'

  'She seemed all right today.'

  'Well, she's two-faced. You should hear what she says behind your back.'

  Mouse gave me a look. 'Yeah. Right.'

  'Swear to God, mate. I mean, you can't blame her, Wendy's her best friend.' I concentrated on my prawns for several moments. I sipped my wine.

  Mouse said, 'What does she say?'

  'She says you're a bastard for throwing Wendy over for some mail-order bride.'

  'She's not a mail-order bride.'

  'I know that. But she's from that part of the world – it's an easy mistake to make.'

  'What're you talking about?'

  'Mouse. Come on, she's from the Philippines.'

  'She's from Thailand.'

  'Same neck of the woods. And you know, she suddenly appeared and now you're married and . . . well, I mean, I don't want to tar them all with the same brush . . .'

  'You don't, or Patricia doesn't?'

  'Patricia, obviously. She thinks if your new woman's from the Philippines or wherever, she's more'n likely a mail-order bride. You know, because with all your money, you've gone a bit that way lately – you see it in a catalogue, you buy it. New car, new nose, new wife.'

  Mouse shook his head in disbelief. 'You really think that?'

  'Me? No, mate, you don't have to convince me. It's Patricia you have to bring round.'

  Mouse blew hot chilli air out of his cheeks. 'She's not a mail-order bride. I didn't order her out of a catalogue.'

  'I know that. I saw the wedding snaps in Belfast Confidential. Lovely beach. She's beautiful. She must be about eighteen. No reason why an eighteen-year-old beauty wouldn't find a forty-two-year-old man with a face like a bag of Comber spuds attractive.'

  'She is beautiful, and she's thirty-two.'

  'Seriously?'

  'Yes, Dan. And she does happen to find me attractive.'

  'Well, there you go. Still, she must be enjoying her new life. Nice big house. Flashy car. The holidays.'

  'Dan, she married me. Not a house or a car or a holiday.'

  'If you say so.'

  'Dan, we're in love.'

  'Not me you have to convince.'

  'I don't have to convince anyone.'

  'Fair point. But Patricia thinks you flew out there looking for a teenage sex bomb, and she saw an easy one-way ticket out of a straw hut in a swamp. Or maybe it was one of those go-go bars where they shoot ping-pong balls out of their holes. Either way she thinks you got suckered into it, being a horny middle-aged man suffering an identity crisis.'

  Mouse took a very deep breath. His nostrils were flared, his brow furrowed, his eyes cool.

  'And this is really what Patricia thinks?'

  'Yes, it is.'

  'And you – what do you think?'

  'None of my business. Long as you're getting a ride, mate, I'm happy for you.'

  He was gripping the side of the table now. His knuckles were showing white against skin. Colour was rising up his cheeks like a petrol gauge. 'You just can't stand it, can you?'

  'Stand what, mate?'

  'Seeing how well I've done. Seeing me happy.'

  'Mouse, wise up.'

  'You can't. You're jealous. I'm rich, Dan. I've a beautiful young wife who loves me. You're jealous.'

  'I don't think so.'

  'Well, what is it then?'

  'What is what?'

  'All this attitude. This fucking backstabbing.'

  'What attitude? What backstabbing?'

  'All this mail-order shite. All this cold shoulder.'

  'Cold shoulder? Mouse, we're sitting here having lunch.'

  'Have you invited us round, once?'

  'We were moving house.'

  'Not for the last six months you weren't.'

  'Yes, we were. She's been packing and organising the whole time.'

  'Right. Did you call to see us? Did you welcome us home? Did you make the fucking effort, Dan?'

  He had a point. 'No,' I said. 'You're right. We should have made the effort. But it's nothing against your wife. We're just lazy. Didn't I call you to help me to move house?'

  'No, Dan, I called you.'

  'You did?'

  'Yes, Dan, I called you and before I could say anything you asked me to come and help you move fucking house.'

  'So I did. Well, what's
the difference? Aren't we here now, having fun?' He put his knife and fork down and gave me another hard look. He dabbed at his mouth with a cloth napkin. I decided to defuse the situation. 'Are you going to finish your chips?' I asked.

  He glowered at me for a further moment, then snapped, 'They're not chips. If you'd read your menu you'd know that they were sautéed Irish potatoes with a glazing of garlic and tarragon paste and then rolled in an egg and sunflower batter.'

  Our eyes locked.

  The restaurant was packed, but there still seemed to be as many staff as customers. The talk was hushed, the music subdued. It was harder not to listen to us.

  'So have you finished with your chips or not?'

  'When did you turn into such an arse, Dan?'

  'Might it not be the other way round?'

  'What, that you've always been an arse and I've just never noticed before?'

  I smiled. 'Maybe you should lighten up, Mouse.'

  He looked at me for a long time. Then he said, 'Yeah.'

  I was happy enough to get a taxi. There was no point in rushing home. It would be like hurrying to your own execution. I should have phoned and let her know I'd been waylaid by Mouse. She would have said, 'You're old enough to make your own decisions.' But it was too late now. I could phone and say, 'Are you not finished the unpacking yet?' I suggested this to Mouse, and he advised against it. He was good with advice, especially now that he'd cooled down. We were like that, quick to explode, just as quick to make up. Like lovers really, without the sex or soppy cards or whining about the toilet seat being left up. So when I huffily suggested getting a taxi Mouse said, 'Wise up,' and led me to the car. There was a crowd round it, staring. Mouse said, 'Back off.'

  We went into Lavery's for a pint. It was on the way.

  'Jesus,' I said, looking around. 'You're not the only one's changed.'

  It was much brighter and the thugs were better dressed than we remembered. I asked if I could peruse the beer list, then ordered Harp. I tried to send it back because it tasted like piss that had been passed through a soda stream. Then I remembered that that was why everyone liked it. So we sat down, and after a while Mouse said, 'You're right to be a bit strange with us. It must have come as a shock.'

  'You bet. We'd Wendy round our place every night for weeks, crying her lamps out. We thought you had the perfect marriage.'

  Mouse blinked at me. 'You're joking.'

  'No, seriously, mate. You know Trish and me, always fighting the fucking bit out, but there was never a cross word between the two of youse.'

  'Oh bollocks, Dan. Don't you know those are the ones you have to watch?'

  I hadn't quite thought of it like that. 'I suppose,' I said.

  He took a long drink. 'Dan, I married Wendy because . . . well, I didn't think I could do any better.'

  'Mouse—'

  'No, wait, let me say this.'

  I glanced around the bar in case the locals were listening. The music was loud and the chatter was incessant, but it didn't mean they weren't listening with as much attention as in Cayenne. I was happy to let Mouse prattle away, but if he broke down and asked for a hug, I'd deck him.

  'Okay. Just, you know, keep it down.'

  He had a big, booming voice. He notched it down a couple. 'I just want—'

  'Do you know sign language?'

  He smiled and lowered it further. 'I just want you to understand, Dan. I've never had much luck with girls. You know that. So when Wendy came along, I knew she wasn't the prettiest or even the nicest, or to tell you the truth, the most faithful, but she liked me and I made do with that, Dan. I settled for what I thought my level was. But things have changed. I feel like I've seen the light, Dan – and I saw Wendy for what she is: a fucking moaning fat old cow.'

  'Don't beat around the bush there, Mouse.'

  'She made my life miserable, Dan, so I did what I've been dreaming about for years. I told her to fuck off. And she did. And I've never been happier.'

  I raised my glass to him. 'Fair enough then.'

  He nodded, happy to have gotten whatever it was off his chest.

  I took a long sip. 'So where did the mail-order Philippino bride come into it?'

  'Thai,' he said.

  'Thai. The postage must have been horrendous.'

  'Do you want to know where we met?'

  'You were on a busload of sexed-up Western saddoes, and she was sitting behind glass waiting for her number to be called.'

  'We met at Oxford.'

  'Oxford?'

  'We were both attending a symposium of magazine publishers.'

  'What, like porn magazines?'

  'No, Dan,' Mouse explained patiently. 'She is the daughter of one of Bangkok's leading publishers. She was Chief Executive of her father's company, responsible for twenty-six different titles with a net worth of over a billion dollars. She also managed her family interests in satellite television and computers.'

  'God, it must be difficult to fit in the hooking on the side.'

  He continued to smile. It seemed that now nothing I could say would stop him.

  'You're serious?' I asked.

  'Completely. She fell in love with me, Dan. She gave up her job and her family to come all the way across the world to become my wife, because she loves me absolutely and I love her absolutely. It's fantastic.'

  I gave him a slow, searching look. How long could he keep giving me all this bullshit without cracking?

  3

  The cat was in a black binliner and we were tiptoeing through the grass seeds. Mouse had the torch, I had the shovel. We had a can of beer each, and I also had a small paper funnel of seeds to cover the area of soil we were about to displace. We found a spot down near the hedge at the bottom, then checked the eyeline up to the neighbours' house. The fence blocked out the kitchen, but the two upstairs bedrooms had a nice view of our nocturnal burial site. However, the lights in both rooms were out.

  It had been a long walk down from the back door, so we popped our cans and each took a drink. I glanced back up the garden to our new bedroom. The light was on, but the curtains were closed. When we finally arrived home Patricia had shouted down, 'I'm having a doze.' I knew by her tone that only politeness towards Mouse was saving me. It was the lull before the storm. And, inevitably the longer the lull, the bigger the storm.

  'How deep?' Mouse asked.

  'How would I know?' I pushed the shovel blade into the ground. It sank in easily. We'd had a delivery of topsoil the week before. Patricia got the idea that our own soil wasn't good enough, so we got rid of it and brought fresh soil in. She had read about this in a book entitled Your Little Garden of Eden by a local crackpot called Liam Miller; she claimed to have found a copy on a park bench. After the soil, she'd spent ages deciding on the type of grass we needed. I had thought there was only one, the green variety, but Liam Miller's manual went into considerable detail on about twenty-seven. Their consistency. Their hardiness. The fucking shades of green that might best match the colour of our house.

  Well, at least the fresh soil was easy to work with. In five minutes I'd dug down about two feet. There was sweat on my brow and my shirt was stuck to my back. It was like being on a chain gang. A very lazy one. And they probably didn't get to wear Lynx 24-7 to cover up the smell.

  'Come on, hurry up,' said Mouse. His eyes were darting anxiously about.

  'Doesn't this make you feel at one with Nature?'

  'No,' he said.

  I gave it another couple of digs, then I stepped out of the hole. Mouse picked up the bin bag and threw it in. It hit the bottom with a dull clump.

  I said, 'Please, show some respect for the dead.'

  'Let's just get it over with.'

  I said, 'How much would a photo of this be worth?'

  Mouse looked about him, suddenly panicked. 'You're not . . . ?'

  'Mouse, get a life, would you?'

  'Just hurry up then, please. Here, let me.' He reached for the shovel. That was the agreement. But I held onto i
t.

  'We should say a few words.'

  'It's a dead cat, Dan.'

  'I know, but we can't just . . .'

  Mouse sighed. 'Okay, say something then, anything.'

  I stood over the hole. 'Here lies Toodles,' I said, 'killed by a Mouse.' I looked up at the stars. 'I didn't know Toodles well, but by all accounts . . .'

  'Oh, for fuck sake!' Mouse grabbed for the shovel again, and this time I let it go. He quickly began to throw in the topsoil. I drank my beer. When he'd finished he patted it down flat so that it looked like the rest of the garden. Then I sprinkled some of the leftover seeds on top.

  'There,' Mouse said, shining the torch across the uniform earth. 'You'd never know.'

  'No, Mouse,' I said, shaking my head grimly. 'We'll always know.'

  'Oh, fuck off.'

  We laughed. We returned the shovel to the garage, then went back into the house. We sat at the kitchen table and opened another couple of beers. There was still no sign of Patricia. I was working on the assumption that as long as Mouse remained, she would stay upstairs. I was also working on the assumption that Mouse wanted to talk. We were the best of friends, but we hadn't been in touch in months, then he'd called me out of the blue. He'd hung around all day waiting for the right moment. He was clearly pissed off that neither Patricia nor I had made any effort to welcome his new wife to Belfast, but we'd been through that earlier in the day and here he still was, so it must be something else.

  I took a sip of my beer. He took a sip of his. I took a sip of mine. He took a sip of his. A pattern was emerging. I took a sip of mine. He took a sip of his. I looked at him, he looked away. He looked at me, I looked back. He looked away. When he looked back I was still looking. He said, 'What?'

  'Awkward silence.'

  'What?'

  'Awkward silence. We never have awkward silences, Mouse. If you've something to say, just say it.'

  'I don't have something to say. Do you have something to say?'

  I shook my head. I took another sip. He took another sip. We sat for another three minutes. Then there was a clump-clump-clump from the stairs, and Patricia appeared in the doorway. Her cheeks were red and her eyes were wide and she was just about to launch into me when she saw Mouse. 'Oh!' she said. 'Mouse – it was so quiet, I thought you were away.'