by Adrian White
“I don’t think so,” said Carmel.
“What do you mean – if I say I’ll be fine then I’ll be fine, surely?”
“Not necessarily; in fact, no, I don’t think so. Tell me to mind my own business if you like; as I said, you’re the boss – ”
“Stop saying that,” said Katie.
“Well you are,” said Carmel, “but the one thing you never do is insult my intelligence, so don’t start now. If you’ve had a shock or an upset, or if this person is bothering you, then it’s okay to ask for my help. Or take the rest of the day off to get it sorted, that’s all I’m saying. Everybody has shit going on in their lives; it’s bound to surface sooner or later, and you don’t necessarily want to be in work when it does. Do you hear what I’m saying?”
“I do,” said Katie. “I do.”
“After all, you are – ”
“ – the boss; yes, I know. Thanks, Carmel; really, thanks.”
“Just don’t . . . well, just don’t whatever, okay?”
“I won’t,” said Katie, “I promise.”
But as Carmel left the room, Katie still didn’t know what she would do about Mike. She knew it was pointless to stay in work – Carmel was at least right about that. There was nothing that couldn’t be left to another day. Katie’s attendance record was more or less perfect. Better to think this through at home than behind the closed door of her office.
But even then, she thought, nothing would be resolved without seeing Mike.
Damn him and damn whatever he was about.
Okay – think; breathe.
Mike would know that Bruno never collected the money. Mike would know everything because he always did – stop! There’s no way he could know about Bruno, so is that what he’s here to find out? Because if they’re looking for the money, they’ll be looking for Bruno and Mike doesn’t know where that might lead? And he wants to make sure it leads to Katie and not to Mike?
Fucking hell, Katie – come on; think this through. Nobody knows about Bruno. It was twenty years ago. If he was ever found, he couldn’t be recognised. If he could have been recognised they would have done so at the time and traced him to Katie and not to Mike. She was the one travelling with Bruno. She was the one sharing a room. They may have paid cash, but the hotel had Katie’s correct name from her passport. The airline had her travelling alone next to Bruno’s empty seat. It was so traceable a connection, it would have taken days – hours even – to find Katie. This case was closed; except maybe not now if they were looking for the money?
They had Mike; without Mike, would they find Katie? Did they know where the money had gone? Surely Mike was clever enough to move the money around to cover his tracks? Or was there a direct link between Mike and Bruno’s money? Take away Mike and what did they have on Katie?
What did she mean – take away Mike? Killing Bruno was one thing; even that she’d messed up, big time. Why did she take that stupid model of the MGM Grand back from the car to Bruno’s body? It was like saying – here, you probably can’t recognise this person, but I’ve left you this clue to let you know where he was staying. Oh, and by the way, that’s what I used to kill him!
Fucking idiot! Why? Bruno was still alive at the time; Katie thought he was dead, but he was still alive. He might have died out there in the desert, but there was nothing on Bruno – no passport, no tickets – so why did Katie go back to the body? It didn’t make any sense, unless it was to make sure – unless she had wanted to kill him.
Katie felt absolutely no remorse at killing Bruno; what she regretted was losing the run of herself at the time. It was like a maths equation – Bruno did this thing so Katie had to kill him – a simple equation with absolute logic. She knew she would do the same again; but if it was so straightforward, why did Katie mess it up at the time? She obviously wasn’t very good at it and here she was, thinking of doing it again.
Was her life that good? Was Katie so happy with the life she had that she’d do anything to keep it?
She wasn’t going to kill Mike. She’d only killed . . . she’d only killed Bruno because of what he tried to do.
Maybe it wasn’t her fault? Maybe what happened wasn’t her fault?
Katie checked in her bag for her passport. If she had to run away again then so be it, but she couldn’t just keep running away.
It made sense to see Mike first, to see what he knew. But was she strong enough? And did it leave her exposed?
Katie stood up; she’d made her decision. She had to find out why Mike was in Dublin. Once she’d done that, she could decide what to do next.
She picked up her coat and bag and walked out her office. She told Carmel she was leaving for the day; she could see that Carmel approved.
Leaving the Financial Services Centre during the day was like stepping from one world into another. Behind Katie were the banks and the offices and, further back, the enclosed apartments of the reclaimed docks – all very nice. To her left was the Customs House, isolated in its grandeur by the traffic that converged from several directions at once. The trucks still arrived from Dublin Port on the north bank of the river, looking to cross over to the south side and then on through town before heading west. They preferred to pay the charge for travelling through the city than to take the tunnel in the wrong direction and queue to pay a toll. Traffic from Amiens Street waited to cross the river; traffic from Gardiner Street waited to cross the river; traffic from the north quays did a loop-the-loop around the Customs House, and waited to cross the river. You couldn’t have dreamt it up; such a crazy scheme could only have evolved over many years, and nobody ever seemed to ask why.
In front of Katie was Busáras, the award winning building that housed the bus station – only the SIPTU building was as ugly. She crossed over the road and cut behind the station on to Gardiner Street. The street was dominated by Bed and Breakfast businesses that sold themselves on being so close to the city centre. If you checked their location on a map, you would see they were right but you wouldn’t see why they were so cheap. This was where a lot of visitors to Dublin stayed, and this was where a lot of visitors to Dublin were mugged; it’s what they called a tourist industry. Up Gardiner Street to the right and you were in Summerhill; up to the left and you were on to Parnell Street – one of the nastiest places Katie had seen in the world, let alone in Dublin.
She crossed over the road and walked up Talbot Street towards O’Connell Street. Loudspeakers announced the bargains to be had inside the shops, proud of their tackiness and sure of their market. Piles of refuse sacks stood outside the fast food joints; a guy walked past pulling an open cart of collected rubbish, but he didn’t do the sacks – that was someone else’s job. Another guy with a huge vacuum cleaner thing made his way along Talbot Street in the opposite direction, but still the street was filthy. The path was splattered with discarded chewing gum – how long before the dirty white stuff, spat from people’s mouths, was allowed to cover the whole pavement?
Katie turned into O’Connell Street.
This city is a shit-hole, she thought.
What was wrong with her? This wasn’t why Katie had come to live in Ireland. She used to love this country.
Katie stepped into the Gresham Hotel; here at least was some escape from the toilet that was Dublin. She crossed over to the reception desk, but saw Mike towards the back of the foyer, sat in an armchair reading the paper. He still looked like Mike, a little fuller perhaps but with the same fresh, young man’s face. She always associated Mike’s face with the Antrim coast above Belfast – not that she’d ever been there, but still that was how she thought of him.
As Katie walked across towards Mike, she could see he was lost in thought and not in the newspaper; but then, knowing Mike, he could have seen Katie and was putting on an act.
“Hey, Maguire,” she said.
Mike looked up and smiled. The greeting was the same one he’d called over to Katie when he’d first seen her walking along Oxford Road, on her way to the library
in the middle of the night.
“Hey McGuire,” he said. “How are you?” Mike stood up from the armchair and they hugged.
Katie was surprised by how much Mike put into the hug; she was a little ashamed that she didn’t feel the same rush of emotion.
“Thanks for coming,” said Mike. “I appreciate it, really, I do.”
“You gave me little choice,” said Katie, and sat down.
“Can I get you anything – a drink, or a sandwich maybe?”
“I’m fine for now, thanks,” she said. Katie was determined not to stay, or rather, to stay only as long as she needed to. She was uncomfortable with this and said as much to Mike.
“We had a deal,” she said, “and you broke it.”
Mike looked down at the ground.
Still so young, thought Katie.
She might have had only a couple of years on Mike, but there was something refreshingly naïve about how easy he was to read – a terrible face for a card player, when you got right down to it.
“You’ll see why,” he said, “when I tell you. And I’m not putting you in any danger by being here. Gosh, it’s good to see you.”
“Gosh?” asked Katie.
“Yes, gosh,” said Mike, and smiled. “You look well, very well in fact.”
“Thank you,” said Katie. She decided it was pointless to rush this. She realised her emotions were all over the place – what else could explain that agitated walk from the office? She needed to gather herself here.
Katie called over to a passing waiter.
“I will have a drink, after all,” she said to Mike. “I’ll have a vodka and orange,” she ordered, “and . . .?”
“Just an orange juice, no vodka,” said Mike.
“Are you driving?” she asked, once the waiter had left them.
“No, just a long day ahead and yes, I suppose, when I get back to Manchester I have to drive home from the airport.”
“You moved back to Manchester, then?” asked Katie.
“Yes,” said Mike. “More or less immediately after college. I was never going to settle in Belfast, so a few months after Vegas I decided Manchester was . . . ”
“The place for you?”
“The place I felt most comfortable with.”
The mention of Vegas came too soon – neither Katie nor Mike were ready to talk about why they were here just yet.
“What about you?” asked Mike. “When did you move to Ireland? I thought you had that job lined up in London?”
Katie suspected that Mike knew exactly where she’d been for the past twenty years; she was tempted to say as much to him, but she let it go.
“Yes,” she said, “I took that job in London. I actually delayed starting work for a few months so I could travel a bit – make up for lost time, maybe.”
“So where did you go?” asked Mike.
“Oh, mainly around Europe at first, throughout that summer after college, but then further afield once I’d started work. It came to be my thing – you know, extended holidays to far off places. I used to take the bulk of my holiday allowance in one go; it was all I needed it for anyway.”
“So,” asked Mike again, “where did you go?”
“Oh, India, Africa, Australia, Asia; some places were nicer than others.”
“And do you still travel to the same extent?”
“No,” said Katie, “I’ve kind of stopped ever since moving to Ireland. Living here seemed to soothe the travel itch. But I’ve been thinking about South America recently; it feels like I might be picking up the bug again. I’d want to do it properly though, learn the languages and everything, and stay for long enough to make it worth my while.”
“And when did you move to Ireland?” asked Mike.
“At the end of the Eighties. I’d really done the London thing and I liked the sound of what they were trying to do here – you know, setting up the Financial Services Centre, kick-starting the economy again, that sort of thing. It was either here or New York and . . . ”
And she wasn’t going to set foot in North America again, was what she’d thought at the time. She let it go now without saying as much to Mike.
“I’d changed companies a few times by then,” said Katie, “and I was offered the chance to set up an office here.”
“It sounds as though you’ve done well,” said Mike.
“We all made a lot of money, if that’s what you mean. But I was ready for a change; I was sick of England and everything it had become.”
“They were pretty nasty times,” said Mike.
“Nasty times, yes,” said Katie. “Fairly clear-cut times, as well; it seemed you were either on one side or the other, and I didn’t really like the side I was on.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, at the time of the Poll Tax riots, for example, I was living in London watching this pitched battle on TV; it was just a few miles away, but for all the world like it was on another planet.”
“You mean you had money and they didn’t?”
“No,” said Katie, “it wasn’t just that. It was – well it wasn’t a riot for a start. It wasn’t even a pitched battle. It was mounted police charging and batoning crowds of people – unarmed people, disenfranchised people if they didn’t pay the tax and I didn’t like it. So, as I say, fairly clear-cut times.”
“It wasn’t pleasant,” agreed Mike.
“I didn’t feel as though I belonged to either side,” said Katie. “Certainly not with the police and the government. I just didn’t like the way things were going.”
“So you got out?”
“Something like that; only now I don’t know whether it was England I was fed up with or London. I do know I was glad to leave when I did.”
“And there was me thinking Maggie’s Britain would suit you just fine.”
“The money suited me,” said Katie, “but I didn’t like what it was doing to society.”
“There’s no such thing as society, remember?”
“Who could forget?”
“And will you stay in Ireland?” asked Mike.
“Who knows?” said Katie. “Where’s he gone with our drinks, do you think? I’m ready for my vodka now.”
“He’s probably still trying to open the carton of orange juice,” said Mike. “Have you seen those new openers – where you have to twist off the top and it rips your hand to pieces?”
Katie laughed.
“I mean, how difficult can it be?” asked Mike.
“To design an opener that actually works?” said Katie. “And pours out the juice without spilling and dripping, everywhere but into the glass? Come off it, Mike – you ask for too much.”
“Maybe he’s squeezing fresh oranges for us?” suggested Mike.
“Right,” said Katie, “this is Dublin, remember?”
“Here he is now.”
The waiter placed down the drinks and handed Mike the receipt. Mike paid for the drinks.
“I thought of you,” he said to Katie, “when I was paying for the taxi fare on the way in to town. The driver was friendly enough; no racism though, and I thought maybe you’d been exaggerating the case in your articles.”
“And then?”
“Well, the fare was over nineteen euro, which I thought was a bit steep, to tell you the truth. I gave your man a twenty and he started taking an age to find the change, obviously waiting for me to say forget it, twenty’s fine. But I didn’t think twenty was fine, so I waited to see how long he’d play the change game, and it went on until he became so pissed he just gave me the money. No more friendly taxi driver – he drove off without a word of goodbye before I’d even shut the door.”
“Welcome to Dublin,” said Katie.
They clinked glasses.
“I enjoy reading your pieces in the paper,” said Mike.
“Hmm,” said Katie. “I think it’s got a little out of hand.”
“What do you mean?” asked Mike.
“I enjoyed it at first,” said K
atie, “and, you know, it made me feel important, but now I’m not so sure.”
“What do you mean?” asked Mike again.
“Well, the early stuff was very much aimed at the government and how they’re running the economy. Like, I’ve lived through Thatcherism once; I don’t need to live through it again.”
“But Ireland’s done well, surely?”
“From a distance, maybe – just like the Eighties were great in Britain if you didn’t have to live there.”
“But is it really Thatcherism that they’re doing here?” asked Mike.
“No,” said Katie, “they don’t even have the balls for that. At least you knew where you were with Maggie – she’d send in the troops to get what she wanted, or seize your funds in the courts, or whatever.”
“And here?”
“Here they’re still stuck into gombeen politics. They talk of things like zero tolerance, but then they don’t enforce it.”
“Would you want them to?”
“No,” said Katie, “but anything would be better than these incompetents; all they’re good at is looking after their own and staying in power.”
“So,” said Mike, “maybe that’s why your editor keeps asking you to write for the paper?”
“I’m tired, Mike,” said Katie, “really tired. I feel like all I do now is bellyache about the shit things I see. They’ve got used to me and put me in a box and sure, they let me have my say, but I’m becoming a caricature of myself.”
“I think you’re better than that,” said Mike.
“Have you read that Nick Hornby book, How to be Good?”
“I’ve seen it, but not read it,” said Mike.
“Yes, well, there’s a character in it – he writes a newspaper column, and calls himself the Angriest Man in Holloway. I feel like that; once I start off on my rant, I can’t seem to get off it.”
“But you obviously do it well.”
“I know,” said Katie, “but I think it’s time to call it a day. It’s all people have come to expect off me, and their reaction always comes back to the fact that I’m English. No matter what I talk about, it’s my Englishness – or my non-Irishness – that they’re interested in, and not the issues.”