Notes from a Coma

by Mike McCormack

  The following week when I read through the outline of the Somnos project I thought of that story. I didn’t blink or wonder at it because I knew then it doesn’t matter whether it’s biodegradable cardboard coffins or prison ships in Killary harbour. It’s all politics, a job of work to be done and the sooner you get over your astonishment the sooner you can do something about it.

  I knew straight away that the sticking point of the whole project was never going to be the expense or the environment or other factors—it was the idea itself that would prove difficult to sell. A penal experiment in a county with the lowest crime figures in the country and the country itself with the lowest crime figures in the entire EU—this was the paradox which had to be sold to the electorate, the Irish people. It had to be put to them as starkly as possible; they had to be made see the necessity for it.

  The fact that the Irish taxpayer was underwriting the whole thing gave me a degree of leverage. I thought I saw a loophole. Reading through it I couldn’t see why the volunteers had to be exclusively prisoners—there was nothing in the original proposal stipulating that this had to be exclusively the case. Enquiring into it I found there was nothing in the constitution to prohibit someone who was not a prisoner from volunteering. That made me think. When I mentioned it at committee stage there was, what can only be termed, a sharp intake of breath among the other members. Don’t even think of it was the unspoken plea. But I did keep thinking. The other participating countries were already well ahead of us in terms of finalising their nominees. All the logistics were in place, everything was ready to go. Already in some quarters we were seen to be dragging our heels despite the fact that we were underwriting the whole thing. All the time though I was thinking about that loophole in the protocol.

  * … the total valid poll divided by the number of seats plus one, plus one …

  Fifteen years teaching fractions and percentages in a two-room national school have given Kevin Barret a keen appreciation of the division of notional entities. The breakdown of votes in this marginal constituency is of a piece with such abstract divisions. Against history and demographics, reasoned analysis and projections, he has successfully waged three general elections on a core vote which has risen and dipped like a cardiograph within a bandwidth of plus and minus two points. And each victory has come narrower than the last; all of them late-night dogfights into the early hours, eighth and ninth counts, Kevin transferring from independent and single-issue candidates till that hushed moment when the returning officer mounts the rostrum and announces him elected to the fifth and final seat in this, the most far-flung and sprawling of all Irish constituencies.

  And he has now risen without trace. Dáil records show that while his attendance is exemplary the same records have no memory of him ever having tabled a question, participated in a debate or served on any of the committees or subcommittees which make up the day-to-day business of government; his presence is little more than spectral. However, with an eye to the upcoming general election the party’s director of elections drew up a list of likely seat losses and, for the first and only time in his political career, Kevin Barret’s name headed a list of likely candidates. Securing this marginal seat at the price of a junior ministry was thought to be a fair exchange.

  It was not a popular decision. The night of the cabinet reshuffle, deputies with longer and more distinguished party service drank sullen pints and said they couldn’t understand it. A rank outsider like Barret, a man with no form or pedigree coming from the back of a quality field, now finding himself being rubbed down in the winners’ enclosure … They were right but not in the way they thought. They could not understand Kevin’s game and even if they had they would, more likely than not, have baulked at the degree of nerve and patience needed to play it to this end. Had they been in his kitchen the night he’d received the party nomination and watched him dividing up an Ordnance Survey map of the constituency with a ruler and pen they might have had some inkling.

  “It’s not power, Sadie,” he said to his wife. “That’s not what this is about. Power is compromise and horse trading and that’s all bullshit. What I want is influence, the word in the ear, the private audience. Nothing on paper, no comebacks or queries but the job getting done just the same. Nothing to show you ever had a hand or part in anything but a letter in the post telling them that the road will be fixed, the medical card is in the post and thanking them for their support in the future. That’s what I want, Sadie, getting things done without getting bogged down.”

  And that’s how Kevin Barret found himself standing as one of four new junior appointees on the steps of the Dáil, fielding questions from the poll corrs of the national press.

  “Mr Barret,” a voice called. “What is your reaction to this surprise appointment? Coming to a department which is widely seen to be in chaos? Today’s editorials say this appointment may be something of a poisoned chalice.”

  At this moment Kevin was thinking of his one-time football career. At his peak, a nip-and-tuck corner forward, he had once scored a goal and two points in a Connaught final. Two years later his career was cut short by a torn cruciate ligament in his left knee which to this day leaves him with a slight limp. His ambition to play in an All Ireland final would never be realised. Now he mused absently.

  “When I was a footballer I always liked to get a few wallops early on in a game. That always woke me up. Then I knew I’d always go on to get three or four scores.”

  SARAH NEVIN

  It was through JJ that I met Owen and got to be a part of what they were together. And of course like everyone else I knew that JJ and Owen were like brothers. It was common knowledge that JJ had been reared in Owen’s house and that they had sat together in the same desk right from their first day at school together. But one look at them and you knew straight off they weren’t real brothers—JJ with his sallow skin and dark eyes and Owen with his fair hair and summer freckles. But even so there was an uncanny closeness about their friendship and I was wary about stepping into it as I did. It worried me that I might drive some sort of wedge between them and then both of them would end up resenting me and I would end up the loser on both sides. But it didn’t come to that. Owen just moved aside and let me move into the vacant space beside JJ as if he’d been keeping it warm for me all the time. There was no jealousy there, no awkwardness—that’s how open-hearted Owen was.

  Ten minutes in their company and you’d know why they got on so well together. People have it that JJ was the one with all the brains, the sharp one who read all the books and anguished over things. Owen on the other hand was the direct one, the one who refused to tie himself up in knots over anything. That’s the way everyone saw it: JJ the tortured brainy soul and Owen the man who lived in the moment with no care for broad metaphysical speculation as JJ put it. But that’s only half the story. It tells you nothing of Owen’s sharpness and common sense and it tells you less of how JJ envied him this laid-back attitude. JJ’d read some sprainbrain book or see something on telly and he’d be full of it for days afterwards, arguing it and discussing it and gnawing at it like a dog with a bone. Owen might see the same thing but he’d refuse to get bogged down in it, he’d make some comment and pass on. In those moments I always thought he was the smart one, the one with a sense of his own limitations. He’d be the first one to tell you he didn’t have JJ’s brains or learning but if you ask me he was the wiser of the two. The awful thing is that this difference, the very cornerstone of their friendship, was the very thing that came between them in the end.

  When it was all over JJ told me he was convinced Owen had blundered into someone else’s death. The way he saw it Owen should have lived a long happy life, married with a wife and kids, carrying on into old age and complaining of damp weather and arthritis. One night he’d lie down beside his wife and die in his sleep, passing over to the other side as calmly as he had done everything else in his life. If you’d known Owen you’d have known what he meant.

  It was the
summer after I got out of hospital and if there was something on that night I cannot remember what it was. Myself and JJ had spent that whole year together and we were happy. Sometimes we’d meet up in the evenings in one of the pubs in town; on this particular evening we were sitting in Thornton’s when Owen came in. One look at him and I knew he was in bad form. Work—he was driving a tractor for Peter Monk that summer—was hard and the hours were long; he was still in his working clothes. He was limping as well, a football injury from earlier in the week, and it was still sore. But his main trouble was woman trouble. Earlier that summer he’d fallen for one of the American students who come to Louisburgh each year to do some module in Irish studies. Her name was Mary Gee, a blonde toothy girl from Minnesota who, as JJ said, smiled like she was advertising some new feminine hygiene product. Owen had fallen for her and was broken-hearted when she’d returned to America at the end of May. She’d left Owen some vague promise of returning in August and his hope was that she’d stay in his house for a month or two. He wrote to her every second day but her responses had been fitful at best. All he knew was she was now working in a bookshop in Duluth, hardly making the sort of money that would finance a return trip to Louisburgh. He’d sent her some money but there was no mention of that in any of her letters and he was beginning to get the feeling he didn’t figure so much in her plans any more. And of course he was taking it hard. Most of JJ’s friends would’ve had flings with these American students and most were glad to see the back of them when they returned to the States in late May. But Owen wasn’t like that. He was seriously lovestruck and visibly pining. If you got him on his own with a few drinks on him it was nothing but Mary G this and Mary G that and Mary G the next thing. When he joined us that evening he was very down in himself.

  We had a few drinks together and tried to cheer him up, but by closing time, he was no happier than when he came in. We were standing outside the chipper and JJ was making ready to walk me home. One look at Owen and my heart went out to him, I didn’t want him going off on his own. I suggested we go back to the chalet; it was only just after twelve, there was bound to be some drink lying around. The two boys were up for it—with a few pints on them they had a lip for more drink.

  The chalet is just back the road near to the pier. Dad rents it out in the summer so it’s always a good bet for having a few bottles lying around. I remember as we walked in the gate the outside light came on. JJ swore.

  “I hate it when it does that,” he said. “No one asked it to do that.”*

  Sure enough there was loads of drink in the kitchen: a half-bottle of vodka in the cupboard, a bottle of wine on the worktop and a couple of cans in the fridge. But Owen wasn’t interested in the cans or the wine. He’d found a bottle of Wild Turkey at the back of the cupboard and he took it with a pint glass into the sitting room. JJ reminded him he had an early start in the morning.

  “Fuck the start,” Owen said. “Let’s see how wild this turkey really is.” He tipped a third of the bottle into the pint glass and I knew then he was going to drink himself into oblivion.

  “Jesus, this knee.” Owen winced and shoved JJ to the end of the couch with his boot. “Push over till I stretch out this leg.” He bent forward to massage his knee. “Peter better get the clutch adjusted on his tractor or I won’t be able to walk the rest of the summer.”

  We talked and drank for about an hour, Owen firing back the whiskey and getting steadily drunker, myself and JJ sharing an armchair across from him.

  We fell quiet then, fatigue and the lateness of the night getting the better of us. Owen was leaning off the end of the couch, shading his eyes with his hand and nursing the glass on his knee. JJ was smoking away beside me, lost in his own thoughts. It was just the sort of mood for thinking out loud and of course JJ couldn’t let it pass.

  “Suppose you found out your life was an experiment,” he said, to no one in particular. “Someone else’s experiment.” Owen groaned. “Not this shite this hour of the night.”

  “I’m only saying,” JJ said.

  “No you’re not. This is the old story, the world versus JJ O’Malley.”

  “Yeah, yeah.”

  I could feel JJ rising to the hint of an argument. I tried to head it off. “Don’t butt heads with him, Owen. You know how he is.”

  “Yeah, Owen, I’m the one with the horns, remember.”

  Owen turned over on his side and settled his leg under him. “OK,” he said, “it just so happens that I’m in the mood for a row. Bring on the prosecution. Who’s at the head of the queue tonight, JJ?”

  Fatigue and annoyance had emboldened Owen. I had never seen him squaring up to JJ before.

  “Go on,” he said. “This court is now in session, the Honourable Sarah Nevin presiding.”

  JJ leaned forward in the chair. There was no stopping him now. “He comes up to you in the street, someone you’ve never met before. He offers to buy you a drink …”

  I raised a hand. “I thought this fella stood for the prosecution.”

  “It goes towards motive, Your Honour.”

  “We haven’t all night, counsel, get to the point.”

  “Yes, Your Honour.” He turned back to face Owen. “He takes you into Thornton’s, into the front bar and buys you a pint. Just when you’re supping your pint and wondering what this is all about he pulls out a sheaf of notes and shows you your life. It’s all down there in black and white, your whole life in one long narrative. It contains every dream and thought you’ve ever had, every hope and injury you’ve ever had, everything right down to the fillings in your teeth. It’s all there including the pint in front of you on the table, and the man across from you with the sheaf of notes who bought you the pint.”†

  “I’m getting dizzy. Where the hell is this going?”

  Owen’s patience was running out already, an angry heat flush rose over his cheekbones.

  “He has bad news for you.”

  “What sort of news?”

  “He’s come to tell you that you’ve failed.”

  “Failed what?”

  “You’ve failed generally. He doesn’t have to go into the details.”

  “Talk about broad strokes. Failed what, the whole human race I suppose?”

  JJ shrugged. “Yes, if you want, the human race, the mental handicap over a life and two furlongs. You’ve been a big disappointment. Certain people had expectations; you’ve failed to meet them and now they’re washing their hands of you.”

  Owen swung his feet off the couch and tipped more whiskey into the glass. He waved the bottle in a wide arc.

  “Back up a second. How do I know this fella is talking to the right fella? How does he know he’s talking to the right fella? I can’t just take him at his word.”

  “I’ve told you, he has your life story, everything about you down in black and white.”

  Owen shook his head. “He has nothing, it’s purely circumstantial, on its own it will never get a conviction.”

  “Not on its own, but he has the forensics to support it. You’ve been sloppy, you’ve left traces all over the place—fingerprints, dental impressions, retinal scans, genetic signatures … It all corroborates the written evidence.”

  Owen guffawed. “He could be showing me anything. My dental impressions—oh yes I’d recognise them anywhere … I don’t think so.”

  “What you recognise is neither here nor there. They can all be objectively verified. The margin of error in any single one of them is almost small enough to establish his case beyond reasonable doubt. All of them together pointing in the same direction … I’m afraid you’re fucked.”

  “Bollocks! And he’s only a bollocks as well.”

  I held up my hand. “The jury will disregard that last remark. Once more, counsel, and you will be in contempt.”

  “What about motive? So far the prosecution has failed to establish any reason for this whole charade. No motive whatsoever.”