'General Sam.'
I shrugged. 'As you know, I don't have any opinions of my own, I come to you for that.'
'Well, is he offering to pay you for what he wants you to do?'
'We didn't get into it.'
'But he must be pretty keen on you doing this job, whatever it is, or he wouldn't have travelled up to meet you knowing what he did to you.'
'I suppose.'
'So whatever it is, he knows he's going to have to pay you well for it.'
'I suppose.'
'So why not take the job, get paid up front, and then tell him to fuck off.'
'Because then he'd sue me and then we'd be in even worse financial straits than we are now.'
'Okay. Good point.' She thought for a moment. 'Then do the job, but do it badly. Nobody can prove you did it badly. You'll still get paid.'
'But wouldn't that be rather cold and calculating?'
Patricia nodded. She looked rather beautiful standing there like a builder. She loved me dearly but didn't know what to do with me. And likewise. She took a first sip of her beer.
'This tastes odd,' she said.
'I know,' I said, 'but we must persevere.'
3
We went to the Virgin cinema on the Dublin Road. Sam and I. He bought the tickets. I insisted on a large salted popcorn, a bag of Opal Fruits and a vat of Diet Coke. He smiled knowingly. We sat in a double seat. Others smiled knowingly. We ignored them. We weren't there to relax. We were there to work. It wasn't exactly working down a coal mine or ritually slaughtering cattle for the lucrative eastern markets, but it was doing something I didn't want to do and getting paid for it, and to my mind that was work.
The lights went down, the music went up. It was a modern cinema and the sound was deafening. I sat with my fingers in my ears. I could see Sam looking at me out of the corner of his eye. I knew what he was thinking. That I was going soft. That I, who had cranked out the Clash past the pain barrier, was cowering down because of a mere movie soundtrack. Perhaps he had a point. I was out of the loop. Music, drink, sex. Once you lose them, you lose them big. Only strong will and determination could get you back in. And I am nothing if not strong willed. Although I would settle for two out of the three at any one time, and in any combination.
The movie was called Light Years from Home and it was a science fiction effort starring Sean O'Toole. Our Sean. From just down the road, a hop, skip and a jump away. We tended to talk like that though we didn't know him from Adamski and he hadn't lived here since year dot. He had no training as such, just done a few stunts, a few walk-ons; he'd played a heavy in some local TV drama, nothing much more than a bit part, but he'd been spotted by a vacationing Hollywood casting director, and within a year he was a leading man in an action adventure which grossed $150 million, and he was made. Sean was, is, a big, attractive man girls swooned over, but the thing I liked about him was that he didn't come off with any of the usual wank about his art; he made it clear that he went to Hollywood for the money and the fact that out there 'it doesn't rain all the fucking time'. He seemed to enjoy a drink and the company of glamorous women, and I could relate to that. Patricia could be glamorous when she didn't have cement on her face.
We settled into the film. After fifteen minutes of alien insects exploding into green slime I whispered to Sam, 'Why are we watching this farrago of shite?'
'Sean O'Toole.'
'Yes, I gather that.'
'For purposes of comparison.'
'With what?'
'I'm just getting to that. Shall we adjourn to the bar?'
They were words lifted directly from my gravestone, but I wasn't giving him the satisfaction of knowing that. I stifled a smile and came out with something gruff and macho, although actually it was popcorn stuck in my throat. As we stood up he nodded down at the half-ton of popcorn and the Diet Coke and the Opal Fruits and he hissed, 'You're not leaving them, are you?'
'Of course not,' I said, and reached for them, deliberately kicking the popcorn over in the process, which in turn tumbled the Diet Coke. For good measure I accidentally slapped the Opal Fruit bag off the arm of the seat and they spilled out into the growing lake of Diet Coke on the carpet. 'Oops,' I said.
I can be a cruel man, when I try. Mind, at this rate it would take me thirty-four years to pay off the £60,000 he owed me.
We crossed the foyer silently and emerged back out on the Dublin Road. Morrisons was just across the road. It was a new bar made up to look old. The BBC building was opposite so there were a lot of familiar media faces sitting at the bar complaining about bureaucracy. We found a corner table and I looked at Sam expectantly for several moments until he got the hint and went to the bar. He didn't ask what I wanted, though he could probably tell that if he came back with a Diet Coke I would kill him.
He brought one pint of Harp for me and a bottle of Corona with a slice of lime wedged into the top.
'If that was ever fashionable, Sam, it certainly isn't now.'
'Who cares? I like it.'
'A commendable attitude.' It was an attitude that clearly extended also to his wardrobe and haircut. I have never been particularly fashionable myself, but I usually try to avoid flying in the face of it. Sam was a sartorial rebel, but I suspect he wasn't even aware of it. One also has to take into account the lack of stylistic judgement which goes hand in hand with Sam's country of origin, i.e. the twenty-six counties of Ireland which are not yet British.
'So,' I said, 'Sean O'Toole. You want a book on Sean O'Toole.'
He nodded.
'Surely there are already books on Sean O'Toole?'
He nodded.
'So what's the angle?'
He removed the slice of lime from the top of his bottle and took a slug. Then he set the bottle down and wiped his fingers deftly across his lips. He fixed me with a professional look and said: 'I want one to coincide with his funeral.'
'What is it?' I asked, familiar with the territory. 'Cancer?'
Sam shook his head.
'Heart? Aids? MS?'
'Bullet.'
'He's been shot?'
'No, but he will be.'
'You mean you're planning on having him shot?'
'No, of course not.'
'Then why so sure?'
'Because I've just read the script of his new movie. And people aren't going to be happy.'
'Who, exactly?'
'Well now.' He took another drink. I looked out of the window. It was starting to spit again. Patricia would be starting to curse. The crazy paving would never get finished. It would be like that house in Petrocelli. I took another drink. 'Sean is like most actors who earn a lot of money, he wants respect, but all Hollywood respects is box office. Sure, he gets pampered and paid an obscene amount of money, but you can only get so much and then it starts to become meaningless.'
'I can relate to that.'
'Don't start, Dan.'
I shrugged.
'The best most actors like Sean can hope for is an honorary Oscar if they manage to avoid dying before they're eighty.'
'So?'
'So if they're looking for respect they go down one of two routes. A, they appear in low-budget indie movies and hope to sneak an Oscar nod . . .'
'Like Bruce Willis in Pulp Fiction . . .'
'Yeah, or Stallone in Copland . . . and usually fall flat on their faces, or they direct. The history of Hollywood is littered with the carcasses of actors who thought they could direct. But occasionally a little gem turns up. Kevin Costner cleaned up with Dances With Wolves . . .'
'And had to give it all back with The Postman . . .'
'Warren Beatty did it with Reds.'
'And then apologised with Love Affair and Dick Tracy.'
Sam smiled. 'We know our movies. The lesson being . . .'
'Do it once, accept your award, get out while the going is good.'
'Exactly'
'So Sean wants to direct.'
'No, Sean is directing.'
'Really?
I hadn't heard.'
'He's raised the money independently of the studios, so there's been no real need to publicise it. He started shooting three weeks ago. It's called The Brigadier. Wrote the screenplay, stars, directs. Makes the fucking coffee for all I know.'
'So what's the problem, who wants to kill him?'
'The Brigadier is based on the life of Michael O'Ryan.'
'Oh! Right. I see.'
And I did see, and suddenly it was clear why Sam was interested in a biography of the soon-to-be late Sean O'Toole. Michael O'Ryan was one of the biggest mass killers known to patriotism. Since the peace deal had gone through he had been living in quiet retirement in Wicklow, but nobody doubted that he still had his fingers on the pulse or the throat of whatever went down in Northern Ireland.
'Wasn't Michael O'Ryan known as the Colonel?' I asked.
'He was. The Brigadier is an attempt to fool him into thinking it's about somebody else.'
'I see. Fooled me.' I lifted my drink again. 'I take it Sean's film isn't an affectionate pen portrait?'
Sam shook his head. If Sean O'Toole had the balls to make a film about Michael O'Ryan then fair play to him, and I would make sure my funeral pants were pressed.
4
The Belfast-Dublin Express has this much in common with the Orient Express: it's a train.
It takes two and a half hours. It used to take four back in the days when you could break up the only rail link between the two countries by placing a bomb on the line, prompting immediate panic, mass evacuation and international condemnation. You pass through Newry, then cross the border – although the only indication of a frontier is the sadly vacant army watchtowers that straddle it – then stop briefly at the former IRA stronghold of Dundalk before passing over the beautiful Boyne River and on to Drogheda where Oliver Plunkett's head sits mouldering in the cathedral before finally pulling into Connolly Street Station in the centre of Dublin. Somewhere along the line you have to get your Queen's shillings changed into De Valera punts. To the international traveller there aren't many other differences. The accent is softer. You will have to keep your eye open for occasional signs in a dead language. And you have to watch you don't step on the beggar mothers with their black-faced children who sit cross-legged on the bridges over the Liffey. It can be lovely and ethereal, equally bleak and frightening. There is heroin and poverty on a scale not dreamt of in Belfast. But it's a town you can get pissed in without having to look over your shoulder. In Belfast you turn into Mr Paranoid. Ireland is filled with artists, musicians and writers. Not just because it's green and mystical, but because there are really good tax breaks for artists, musicians and writers. The most prosperous artistes live in splendid fortified mansions just along the coast from Dublin in and around the picturesque little village of Killiney. Rock stars like U2. Chris de Burgh. Even Damon Hill. (There is an art to driving a racing car.) And, of course, Sean O'Toole.
I took a taxi from the station to Jury's Hotel in Ballsbridge and checked in. They asked me how I would be paying and I told them that if past experience was anything to go by probably with my life and the thin girl with the thick spectacles reached deep into her soul for a smile and repeated the question. I said cash and she asked if she could take a swipe of my credit card anyway and I told her truthfully that I didn't have a credit card.
'You don't have a credit card?' She fixed me with the sort of glare that I usually reserved for gypsies and Christians.
'No,' I said.
'That's most unusual,' she said.
'I'm an unusual man,' I said, helpfully.
'Are you here on business?'
I nodded.
'But you don't have a credit card?'
'The judge said it wasn't safe to give me one. Not after the mix-up with the elephants.' She opened her mouth, but before anything could come out I said: 'Joke. If it's a problem I can pay a deposit.'
She looked me in the eye and said: 'No, Mr Starkey, that won't be a problem.'
I smiled gratefully and filled in the paperwork. She gave me an electronic key and told me my room was on the eighth floor. I thanked her and said I was expecting a call from Sean O'Toole. 'Aren't we all,' she said.
I barely had enough time to establish that there was no mini-bar in the room when the phone rang and the same receptionist said, 'Sean O'Toole for you, Mr Starkey.'
I thanked her. I would have expected her to say 'somebody claiming to be Sean O'Toole for you', but then I heard his voice and realised that there was no mistaking it. It was a voice that defied mimicry. Soft yet hard. Smooth yet tough. Ladies and gentlemen, but mostly ladies, Sean O'Toole.
I said: 'Sean, I've told you to stop bothering me.'
There was a pause, and I was about to jump in with an apology when there came a long low laugh, like a morning fog rolling over a peat bog, followed swiftly by: 'Dan Starkey. I used to read your column. Whatever happened to it? Bigger and better things, yeah?'
'Smaller and worse,' I said. I thanked him for calling. It was unusual for a star of his magnitude to call anybody directly. I had been expecting a flunky. Sam had said I would be contacted. It was a don't-call-us-we'll-call-you situation. Security around Sean was tight generally, because he was a STAR, and now doubly so because of the subject matter of his new movie. 'How's filming going?' I asked.
'Slowly,' he said. 'The bastard director doesn't know what he's doing.'
I laughed. 'How long have you known Sam?' I asked.
'Too long,' he said.
I was warming to him. 'So how come you've agreed to cooperate on this biography thing?'
'Because he offered me three quarters of a million pounds.'
'Do you need three quarters of a million pounds?'
'No, but The Brigadier does.'
'Brigadier the person or brigadier the movie?'
'The movie. We had a shortfall in the financing. Sam called at just the right time.'
'So Sam's financing the movie, but doesn't know it? Nice one.'
'It was either that or put my own money into it, and I'm not that bloody stupid.'
'So,' I said, 'when can I come and see you?'
'Come down to the set. Hang around. We'll play it by ear.'
'And is there anything you won't talk about?'
'My wives. My girlfriends. The drugs. The Jewish conspiracy in Hollywood.'
'Are you serious?'
'Rarely.'
We chatted for a couple more minutes. Sean – look, first-name terms already – said it would take a while to clear things with his security people, so I should come along to the set first thing in the morning.
When I put the phone down I lifted my travelling bag and set it on the bed. There were three shirts and four T-shirts inside, enough to do me six months, folded by her own fair hand and thus there was no need to unpack them. Keeping them flat was a Voyager II laptop computer.
I plugged it in, then found the phone socket and connected the modem. In seconds I was hooked into the Internet and typing Sean's name into the Yahoo search engine. I was instantly offered 35,000 documents to choose from. I logged into the newsgroups and found 335 sites dedicated to news and gossip about my friend Sean. It was so easy. It was so not me to be able to cope with it. I had withstood the march of progress for many years; calculators, light bulbs and electric toothbrushes had all outfoxed me in their time, but my portable computer was a delight. I loved the idea of being able to write on the hoof and then send a story down the line, although usually to the wrong person. I loved the idea of being able to research a complete book without leaving the sanctity of my hotel room. If I wanted I could do it all from here. I could perform an electronic paste and scissors job on Sean and more than satisfy Patricia's criteria for accepting Sam's job: doing it badly.
There was only one thing stopping me. The lack of a mini-bar. And, I suppose, deep down, buried under great mountains of regrets, dishonesty and empty tins, my conscience.
I exited the web and shut down the computer. There was t
oo much to take in at one sitting. It needed to be sifted through at leisure, and on somebody else's phone bill. It was a remarkable way to get information, and also vaguely unsatisfying. It was too easy. It was like being given the key to the sweetie shop, when the real joy lay in saving your money and buying that one special chocolate bar. It would have taken me a year to gather that much info on Sean in the real world, a year of investigation, subterfuge and sweat. But with this there was no sense of achievement. Perhaps journalism was dying in cyberspace. Or maybe it was just becoming something else.
I lay back on the bed and closed my eyes. I thought about Patricia for a while and how she'd stuck by me even though I was a wanker. We'd been through thick and thin together, but mostly thin. I'd had an affair and she'd had at least two in revenge. There was a child by one of those affairs, a child with ginger hair, Little Stevie. I'd only been gone a couple of hours and I missed him already.
I called her up. I didn't say anything smart. I just said, 'Hello.'
She said: 'What's wrong with you?'
'Nothing. I miss you.'
'You're sure nothing's wrong?'
'I just called to say I love you.'
'Listen, Stevie Wonder, what are you up to?'
'Can I not call and express my love without you accusing me of something?'
'I didn't accuse you of anything.' She paused for a moment. Then, 'I miss you too.'
'Are you sure?'
'Yes, I'm sure. Have you met him yet?'
'I spoke to him on the phone. He seems very nice.'
'He's gorgeous.'
'I'll reserve judgement on that. What're you doing now?'
'I finished the crazy paving. At last. I'm going to have a bath. With my boy.'
'I wish I was there.'
'Hey, you're in Dublin, you're in a hotel, some expenses paid. Relax.'
'I know. I should.'
'But be good.'
'I'm always good.'
'You know what I mean.'
'I know what you mean. Don't worry. I'm going to order some room service, watch some TV, get a good night's sleep. Give Little Stevie a kiss for me, okay? I'll call you in the morning.'
Shooting Sean Page 2