by Alan Glynn
It’s not even true.
The old man turns to him and their eyes meet.
In the next couple of seconds, Bolger feels a rapid succession of things: he feels accused, rebuked, ridiculed even. He wants to say, ‘What?’
‘They’re in the cupboard,’ the old man whispers.
Bolger leans forward, as though he’s been thrown a lifeline, something he can work with.
‘The cupboard? What’s in the cupboard, Dad?’
The old man’s watery eyes widen, revealing crimson rims. He doesn’t look tranquil at all. He looks terrified.
‘That’d be telling you.’ He shakes his head. ‘Do you think I’m a fool? That’s what they want.’
Bolger swallows. He’s lost here. He says nothing. He studies the old man’s face and sees flickers of himself, flickers of Frank. He thinks of the questions he came out here to ask … and all of a sudden asking them seems about as plausible as asking a two-year-old to explain string theory.
But he decides to ask them anyway, to throw a curve ball of his own. Maybe it’s a brutal thing to do, but he figures he might be able to shock the old man up onto some higher level of awareness.
‘Dad,’ he says, hunching forward, ‘I want to ask you something. The night … the night Frank died, was he responsible for what happened? Did he cause the accident?’
There.
He remains hunched forward, tense, waiting for a response.
The old man stares at him.
Bolger feels strangely liberated. They’ve never talked about this before. In fact, all they’ve ever talked about over the years is constituency stuff, or the North, or Gaelic football.
But as the seconds tick past, Bolger begins to suspect that nothing is going to happen here, that the grenade words Frank and accident might still be lying on the floor of his father’s mind, undetonated.
‘Dad?’
‘They’re in the cupboard, you eejit. I told you.’
Bolger sighs. He leans back in the armchair, resigned, impatient.
‘What are, Dad?’
The old man bends forward.
‘The paratroopers.’
The word is delivered in a loud whisper, and with such urgency and desperation that Bolger is alarmed. But what can he do?
After another twenty minutes or so, most of which passes in silence, he stands up. He says goodbye, trying hard to make leaving like this seem normal. He avoids eye contact with anyone as he crosses the lounge area.
Walking back to reception, along the corridor, he is upset and distracted, and has to make a huge effort to compose himself when he hears someone calling out his name.
‘Hello Gina, come in.’
Claire Flynn holds the door open and Gina steps into a narrow hallway. The two women proceed through a door on the left into the living room. Claire takes Gina’s jacket, invites her to sit down, offers her something to drink – coffee, tea. It’s all very formal and awkward. Gina can hear voices from another part of the house – young voices. The girls?
‘I’ve been drinking coffee all day,’ Gina says, ‘so maybe just a glass of water?’
‘Fine.’
Claire retreats. Gina sits down in an armchair and looks around. It’s an attractive room, with wooden floors, an old-fashioned fireplace, a coffee table and a very comfortable three-piece leather suite. It’s also very much a family room. There are a couple of beanbags, bookshelves in an alcove and a home cinema system in the corner. From what she can see the DVD collection is dominated by Disney and Pixar titles.
There are double doors leading to another room, but these are closed.
Claire returns carrying a glass of water in one hand and a mug of tea in the other. Gina reaches up and takes her water. Claire steps backwards and sits on the sofa, nestling in at one end, resting her mug on the edge.
‘So,’ she says.
Gina nods and half smiles. She takes a sip of water from her glass. This is the first chance she’s had to focus, to get a proper look at Claire Flynn, who’s probably about the same age as Gina is, but seems slightly older. Is this because of that extra little touch of seriousness and maturity that comes – Gina imagines – from being a married woman and a mother? And now a widow? Maybe. She’s a redhead in any case, pale, with freckles and green eyes. It’s a very particular look – and Gina’s prepared to bet that if she gets to see either of the daughters, it’s a look she’ll see replicated. Dermot Flynn, as she remembers – a little uncomfortably now – was fairly nondescript-looking, featureless.
‘Thanks for agreeing to see me,’ she says.
‘I didn’t have a choice, really. After what you said.’
Gina nods. ‘I’m sorry about your husband. You have my sympathies.’
This is something she hates saying, and hates hearing, but it’s a formula and a necessary hurdle to get over.
‘Thank you.’
‘How are your girls?’
‘OK. They don’t really understand yet. I’m trying to keep things as normal as possible for them, at least until the removal tomorrow. And then the funeral.’ She shakes her head. ‘After that, I don’t know. It’s going to be hard.’
‘Of course.’
There is an awkward pause.
Claire says, ‘I’m sorry about your brother.’
Gina looks into her glass. ‘Thanks. I haven’t come to terms with it yet. I haven’t even started. The thing is, since it happened I’ve been in the grip of this awful suspicion I mentioned to you on the phone. Though it’s more than a suspicion now, a lot more, which is why I wanted to talk to you.’ She looks up. ‘But I’m getting ahead of myself. Let me try and explain.’
Claire nods. She takes her mug of tea, wraps her hands around it, and holds it in front of her.
Gina unconsciously does the same thing with her glass of water, then notices and shifts position again.
She starts talking.
It’s an edited version of what she told Sophie, with a slight change of emphasis. She leaves out Mark Griffin and Paddy Norton. She leaves out most of last night. She concentrates on Terry Stack, on the two Noels, on Fitz, on BCM – the essentials, context.
‘So look, Claire,’ she says, finishing up. ‘I don’t know. If you have any grounds for suspicion, any grounds at all, it should be possible to get to the bottom of this.’
Claire stretches forward and puts her mug, untouched, onto the coffee table. As she’s leaning back, tears come into her eyes. She makes a sound, a sort of primal whimper, and all of a sudden she’s crying.
Gina watches. She feels awful, but at the same time knows there’s nothing she can do. She demonstrates her understanding, in fact, precisely by doing nothing – by not moving, by not resorting to the false comfort of easy words. The impulse to join in, to cry herself, is immense, but she resists. Instead, she drinks the water in her glass, finishes it in one go, and then stretches forward to put the empty glass onto the coffee table.
Eventually, the tears subside. Claire extracts a tissue from the sleeve of her sweater and blows her nose. When she has finished, she looks at Gina.
‘What you’re saying is … it’s horrible.’
‘I know.’
‘I mean, does stuff like this really go on?’ There’s still a tremor in her voice and she’s doing her best to suppress it.
‘Because I’m as capable of being cynical as the next person, I really am, but I mean … Christ.’
Gina shrugs, as if to say I know, me too.
‘But Claire,’ she then says, leaning slightly forward, nowhere left to go with this. ‘Your husband’s death? Is there anything that makes you think it wasn’t an accident?’
‘There is now,’ Claire says at once. ‘Absolutely.’ Her eyes widen. ‘In the context of what you’ve just told me. I mean, I just thought I was … well, I didn’t know what I thought. But I’ve kept it to myself. I haven’t told anyone.’
‘Haven’t told anyone what?’
‘In the two weeks before the accide
nt, before the … the …’ – she waves it away – ‘before he died, Dermot was not himself, he was acting weird, he was hyper, he was distant, he was evasive, I even thought he was … I even thought he was’ – the second time she utters the phrase, her voice cracks slightly – ‘having an affair. Which was ridiculous.’ She emits a quick, mirthless laugh to show just how ridiculous. ‘I loved Dermot, Gina, but he wasn’t the type. Women scared him. He wouldn’t have known where to begin. But anyway, looking back, I think he was freaked out about something, and that breaks my heart. That I couldn’t help him. That he couldn’t tell me, because we told each other everything –’
‘Freaked out about what?’ Gina says, jumping in here, trying to pre-empt the next surge of emotion.
‘I don’t know. Jesus. If I knew. But –’
‘Yeah?’
‘The other weird thing, and I’m only connecting it up now, is that there was some …’ – she seems barely able to say the word – ‘… cash. Hidden in a box at the bottom of the wardrobe. Ninety-something thousand euro.’ She pauses. ‘I found it yesterday. I also found some jewellery, earrings and a gold chain. Still with the receipt. Worth over two grand.’
They leave that hanging. Gina tries to square it up in her mind with everything she knows.
But can’t.
‘What about the way he died,’ she then says, ‘the actual … the …’
‘Again, that’s weird,’ Claire says. ‘On the face of it he was crossing the road and was run over. But I’m sorry. What was he doing there in the first place? In that laneway? It’s not a route he would ever take. Coming out onto Bristol Terrace? On his way home? It makes no sense.’
‘Any witnesses?’
‘No. Just the driver. Who said Dermot was running.’ She pauses. ‘But why would he be running? He never had occasion to run. He wasn’t the running type.’
‘What about work? BCM? Did he mention anything unusual going on there?’
‘No. He didn’t talk that much about work. It was very technical what he did, so it wasn’t stuff we chatted about. But still …’
‘What?’
‘In the last month or so he seemed to be doing a lot of extra work. And not at the office. At home.’ She points at the closed double doors. ‘In there.’
She gets up off the sofa, walks over and opens the doors. Gina gets up as well.
‘This was originally a dining room,’ Claire says. ‘But we made it into a study. For Dermot.’
They go in.
The room is small and cluttered. It is lined with books and there are piles of magazines on the floor. There is a desk – an old-fashioned escritoire – above which there is a poster for some kind of design exhibition.
Lying on the desk is a laptop.
Gina stares at it. ‘That,’ she says to Claire, pointing. ‘His laptop, have you … checked it out?’
Claire gives a quick shake to her head. She is obviously very uncomfortable standing here.
‘In that case,’ Gina says, ‘would it be OK if I took a look?’
Claire turns to her, brow furrowed. ‘Why?’
‘There was something going on at BCM, Claire. It’s what links them, Noel and Dermot. It’s the key to this. I don’t know. Maybe I can find something … a clue, relevant information.’ She shrugs. ‘I know my way around computers. I work in software.’
Claire considers this, and nods. She holds a hand out. ‘Please.’
Then she turns around abruptly and leaves the room.
Gina hesitates. She feels a bit like an intruder, but she goes over to the desk all the same, sits down and opens the laptop.
Bolger looks around.
Coming towards him along the corridor of the nursing home is a man in an electronic wheelchair.
‘I’m right,’ the man says, ‘amn’t I? It’s Larry Bolger?’
Bolger nods, ever the politician, and extends a hand. It’s only at that point that he recognises who this is.
‘Romy?’
The man in the wheelchair shakes Bolger’s hand vigorously and then refuses to let it go. ‘Jesus, Larry,’ he says, smiling. ‘Look at you. Come a long way, what?’
Jerome Mulcahy. Contemporary of the old man’s.
Bolger smiles, too. ‘Yeah’, he says, ‘it’s been a long road, right enough.’
‘I just heard the news,’ Romy says. ‘At lunchtime. It’s looking good for you.’ His smile disappears and is replaced by a frown. ‘But it’s a pity,’ he says, flicking his head in the direction Bolger has just come from, ‘it’s a pity that His Nibs is in no condition to appreciate it.’
‘Indeed.’
Bolger tries, but fails, to retrieve his hand.
‘You see, the thing is,’ Romy goes on, ‘physically, I’m fucked, but I’m grand mentally. He’s the opposite. Cruel, isn’t it?’
‘It is, yeah, but I have to say, that’s quite a grip you have there.’
The smile returns. The hand is released.
‘He can walk and eat and go to the jacks, but he couldn’t tell you his own name. I’m stuck in this yoke, all I can eat is puréed vegetables, and I’ve got a bag attached to my arse. But I could repeat to you conversations I had twenty years ago, and practically fucking verbatim.’
Bolger stares at him. ‘How about twenty-five years ago?’
‘Try me.’
Bolger had forgotten, but this place, the Glenalba, was a sort of unofficial rest home for party members of a certain vintage, mainly the old Talbot Road gang. Quite a few of them had passed through here and he imagines that Romy and his father must be among the last. He remembers the two of them, along with a few others, and his uncles – even from when he was a kid … meetings at the house, summers in Lahinch, Paddy’s Day parades, All Ireland finals. They really were a gang. And later on, when he came back from Boston, they really were, at least at a local level, the party machine, too.
‘Is there somewhere else we can go, Romy?’ Bolger asks, glancing up and down the corridor.
‘Over here,’ Romy says, whirring his wheelchair around and heading for a door to Bolger’s right. ‘This used to be the smoking room. That’s a laugh.’ They enter what looks like a waiting room in a dentist’s surgery. ‘They’ve done nothing with it since the ban. It’s like a shagging mausoleum.’
Bolger looks around. There are a couple of low tables in the middle of the room with empty ashtrays on them. He walks past these and sits down in a hard plastic chair, one of several lined up against the back wall. Romy follows and positions himself directly in front of Bolger. Despite his obvious frailty and limited mobility, this pale, stick insect of a man is restless and full of nervous energy.
‘So,’ he says with a smirk, his eyes like tiny caged animals. ‘What do you want to know, Taoiseach?’
Bolger gives the barest nod of acknowledgement to this, liking the sound of it – at any rate allowing himself for half a second, in the safe confines of this private room, to like the sound of it.
He clears his throat.
‘The night Frank died,’ he then says, jumping right in – and knowing he doesn’t have to say much more than that. ‘Er …’
‘What about it?’
In the pause that follows, Romy’s demeanour changes. Proximity to power, this unexpected blast from the past, the little bit of company – whatever it was that was animating him a moment before is now gone.
Bolger speaks very quietly. ‘I was never really told what happened.’
‘You never asked.’
‘I did, and was told, but I don’t think I was told the truth.’
Romy makes a face. ‘The truth? Would you fuck off, would you?’
‘Romy, you were around at the time. I wasn’t.’ He leans forward. ‘Did Frank cause that accident? Was all that talk about the other fella being drunk just a … just a –’
‘Jesus Christ, are you out of your mind?’
Bolger shakes his head. ‘Romy –’
‘What are you asking me this for? And toda
y of all days? We may not have had spin doctors back in my time, Larry, but even I can tell you that asking a question like that …’
‘I’m asking you, Romy, not some journalist.’ He waves an arm around, indicating the empty room, the empty chairs. ‘I’m not posting this on the bloody Internet. I wanted to ask my father … but it seems …’
Romy studies him for a moment, then says, ‘What difference does it make anyway?’
‘Well, who knows, but maybe there could have –’
‘No, no, Larry, no. It doesn’t make any difference. And let me tell you why. I don’t know what happened, I really don’t, I wasn’t at the actual scene, you’d have to look up the, the what’s it, the toxicology reports for that, but even if Frank was the one who was drunk, it wouldn’t bring anyone back, it wouldn’t change a fucking thing.’
‘I mightn’t have got elected.’
‘There you go.’
‘But would that have been so bad?’
‘Ah, for –’ Romy jerks his head backwards in a gesture of disbelief. ‘I think you’re the one who’s fucking drunk now.’
Bolger takes a deep breath. ‘Listen, I know it broke Dad’s heart when Frank died. I know all his real hopes, his ideals, died with Frank, and that I was only –’
It’s the look on Romy’s face that stops him.
‘What?’
Romy shakes his head. ‘What are you talking about?’
Bolger pauses, unsure of himself now. ‘I thought –’
‘Of course it broke his heart,’ Romy says. ‘Jesus Christ, his son died.’ He hesitates. ‘But the fact of the matter is, Larry … Frank broke your old man’s heart a long time before that …’
After about fifteen minutes, Gina turns the laptop off and closes it. She unplugs its various cables, lifts it up and carries it into the living room. There’s no one there. She goes out to the hallway and there’s no one there either. But she can still hear voices coming from the back of the house. She walks along the hallway to a door, which is ajar, and nudges it open.