‘Only because she’s never met me before.’
‘Has anyone ever told you that you’re quite repellent when you smirk?’ She giggled with pleasure.
Amiss groaned. ‘And that one of the most irritating things about you is that it’s almost impossible to find any insult that you don’t interpret as a compliment?’
She giggled again. ‘Just as well, isn’t it? Now tell me about this pretentious little jerk who is presumably about to bore the arse off all of us.’
‘Why do you automatically assume he’s a jerk?’
‘Because of the title of his talk. “Silence and narrative: Heaney and the Peace.” Bullshit personified.’
‘I tend to agree with you,’ said Gibson, ‘but the Irish don’t. McGuinness was pushed strongly by the Department of Foreign Affairs, who say he’s intellectually red-hot.’
‘That’s because they’re a bunch of spoiled writers and academics—like most of the Irish.’
‘No one could accuse you of shirking the sweeping statement,’ commented Amiss.
‘So what’s the alleged purpose of this session anyway?’
‘He’s to broaden our minds, we’re told,’ said Gibson, ‘not to speak of extending our horizons, accessing our sensibilities, wringing our withers…all that sort of stuff. Inter alia he’s looking at our cultural divisions from a European perspective in the context of our universality, or something like that.’
‘Can’t wait. Anyway why isn’t the little bastard here by now? We kick off in half an hour.’
‘He is here,’ said Amiss. ‘Even as we speak I expect he is rehearsing in his room. He told me with immense solemnity that it had been hard to sandwich us in between his lecture to the Strasbourg Friends of the Peace Process and the Regional Hegemony Working Party in Stuttgart.’
‘Oh God, he’s one of these travelling academics. They’re the worst. They talk multi-lingual balls.’
As the Sailor’s Hornpipe began, Amiss retreated into a corner. ‘Hello?’
‘I’m on my way,’ cried an excited Pooley.
‘Great. Hang on a minute.’ Amiss left the bar and found a quiet corner.
‘Go on.’
‘It’s completely off the record as far as work’s concerned. I’m supposed to be taking time off to visit a sick relative.’
‘What’s your cover? What I suggested to Jim?’
‘No. Don’t like the civil servant idea. Can I get away with being the employee of a mysterious American millionaire who wants to set up a similar conference which would involve flying all your participants to the US?’
‘Ellis, you’re a genius. Apart from anything else, that should put the shits on their best behaviour. There’s nothing they like better than trips to America where they can bewail their terrible lot in great luxury to tumultuous applause. Are you happy to keep your name?’
‘Surname, yes. First name, maybe better not. I wouldn’t like it on the record. Use my second name. Even though I hate it, it’s one lie fewer.’
‘What is it then? Stop being so coy.’
‘Rollo.’
‘Ellis, why did your parents do that to you?’
‘It’s to do with ancestors,’ said Pooley stiffly. ‘There are penalties attached to being born into the aristocracy, you know. Anyway, I can’t hang about any longer. I’ve finished packing and am off to the airport. Should be at Knock at ten.’
‘I won’t be able to meet you, but I’ll send a taxi.’ Amiss paused and looked cautiously around him. ‘Ellis—I mean Rollo—you do realise that this might be dangerous? Especially if somebody really wants to knock off Brits.’
‘Of course I do,’ said Pooley impatiently. ‘That’s half the attraction. If you spent as long as I’ve spent in the last few months trawling through financial records you’d offer yourself for active service in Afghanistan. See you.’
Amiss punched in some numbers. ‘My friend Rollo Pooley is on his way. What do you think, Inspector? Who should know his true identity?’
‘Not one single fecker except ourselves, if you ask me.’
‘Lady Troutbeck has to know since she knows the bloke well.’
‘Fair enough. But is there any reason to tell anyone else?’
‘I’d be a bit unhappy not telling Simon Gibson. He’s become a good friend and a very useful source of information since he knows everyone.’
‘One thing I’ve learnt in a long career is that every person you tell anything to will pass it on to at least one more. As the fella said, “A secret shared is a secret blown.” Mr Gibson may be decent and trustworthy as they come but you can’t be certain that he’s one hundred percent discreet.’
Amiss shrugged. ‘I suppose you’re right. It’s just that I feel I’m rather letting him down by hiding anything from him. But now that you mention it, discretion isn’t what he’s best known for.’
‘Thanks for that. Anyone else you have to tell?’
‘No one else. And incidentally, you needn’t worry about Lady Troutbeck. She may be tactless and insensitive, but when she wants to be, she’s as tight with information as an anal-retentive.’
Chapter Seven
Two minutes into Dr Gerry McGuinness’ lecture Amiss thought things couldn’t get worse. Three minutes later he realised that yes, indeed, they could. And what was more, they had. By now he had given up trying to extract any meaning and just let the words sweep over him. ‘Syntactical hierarchy…resemblance and analogy…metonomy and the rhetorical treatise…temporalist discourse…audacity of the metaphor…elucidation of the enigma…seismatic patterns…utilitarian reality…referential poeticity…enigmatic signifiers…co-existentialism…revenge of rhyme on the reasoning paradigm…totalitising effect…intertextuality…condensing and contextualising the elliptical.’
He tried to allay his boredom by studying the audience. Gardiner Steeples and Sean O’Farrell were asleep, Okinawa was busy filming, Kapur seemed to be in another world and everyone else looked bored and shifted a lot in their seats. Although Aisling talked steadily into her microphone, the signer, a beefy chap with a hunted expression, had largely given up and seemed to be confining himself to translating the word ‘one’—which, admittedly, occurred frequently.
Thirty minutes in, McGuinness looked gravely at the audience. ‘Now I will address myself to the association of cultures and civilizations with lexicogenetics and corpus linguistics. In Heaney’s aspiration that “hope and history rhyme” one can see the semantic parallels, but…’
The baroness cut in. ‘Dr McGuinness,’ she announced benignly, ‘you are probably too young to remember, but in vaudeville there was an excellent tradition that when the performer had outstayed his welcome, a long pole would emerge from the wings, its hook would be attached to his collar and he would be dragged off. My hook is only one of those metaphors of which you are so fond, but it will have to do. Your time is up.’
McGuinness looked at her incredulously and the suddenly revived audience gazed hopefully. ‘But I have a great deal of ground still to cover.’
‘I fear you won’t be covering it. Not here anyway. Bugger off. We’ve had enough.’
McGuinness picked up his papers. ‘I’ve never been so insulted in my life.’
‘Pity.’ She guffawed. ‘At least I’ve got you to utter one comprehensible sentence.’ She picked up her pipe. ‘I need a drink,’ she told the audience, ‘and I bet all you do too. So let’s go to the drawing room for the Irish government’s reception.’ The audience, studiously avoiding looking at McGuinness, followed with alacrity.
O’Farrell sidled up to Amiss. ‘We’ll probably have to register a formal complaint, but you know we won’t really mean it. That little bollix had it coming. Sometimes I think half the EU budget is spent on sending arseholes all over the shop to talk shite at each other.’
Gibson joined them and smiled a jaded smile. ‘I think Yeats might describe Baroness Troutbeck as “a terrible beauty,” don’t you? Do you know, for the first time, I am beginning to look f
orward to an entertaining weekend?’
***
The wine and spirits flowed lavishly. Since McGuinness had stormed off to the airport, there was no spectre to inhibit the light-hearted from character assassination. Amiss’ consultation with the baroness about Father O’Flynn’s request to sing grace was terminated with a quick ‘Tell him to fuck off’ as she reached over to the next group and pulled Aisling out of it. ‘What did you think of that?’ she asked.
Aisling shook her comely head. ‘Worst yet professionally, and that’s saying something. “Why am I here?” That’s all I kept thinking. Why am I supposed to be translating an avalanche of pretentious and virtually incomprehensible words for which there are no known Irish equivalents?’
‘How did you solve that problem?’ asked Amiss. ‘Sounds pretty insuperable.’
‘Fortunately the two people I was translating for weren’t actually listening to me since their English is considerably better than their Irish. So I knew that their earpieces were half-out and that I was going through this charade just so they could make a political point and nuisances of themselves.’
‘Can’t see the point of Irish myself,’ said the baroness. ‘If the only people who want to speak Irish are MOPEers trying to get back at the Brits, why do you collude with them?’
‘Because I love Irish.’
‘But it’s dead.’
‘So are Latin and Greek.’
‘But they’re different.’
‘How?’
‘Bases of the culture of western civilization.’
‘So is Irish. It’s a rich, wonderful language with a rich and wonderful literature and I for one believe it worth saving. Or are you one of those people who think that because it’s not modern it should be discarded as uncool?’
Amiss sniggered. The baroness sucked her lower lip. ‘I thought it was just political.’
‘No, it isn’t. Most people who love the language hate those who hijack it. It was nearly eradicated because for generations it was beaten into children as a political act. Now there’s a chance it might survive among people like me if we can keep it out of the hands of those opportunistic bastards who anyway mostly speak dreadful Irish they half-learned in prison.’
The baroness beamed. ‘Let’s sit together at dinner, Aisling.’
‘Jack,’ hissed Amiss. ‘You’re supposed to be between the minister and Gardiner Steeples.’
‘Bollocks to that. Aisling’s sitting with me.’
Cursing under his breath, Amiss went out to break the bad news to Father O’Flynn and alter the seating plan.
***
Although Wyn Gruffudd, Liam MacPhrait and Kelly-Mae O’Hara proved to be teetotal, they were the exceptions. By seven thirty, when the participants moved to the dining room, most were in a genial mood. Amiss soon recovered his good humour, for he was beside the minister’s private secretary, who was both attractive and indiscreet.
‘You’re spot on, Robert. Dublin thinks this has turned into a farce. The last straw is that the only nationalists from Northern Ireland are MOPEs and the only unionists are two loyalists and an Orangeman. Yer man was livid when he was told to stand in for the Minister for Foreign Affairs. Tried everything to get out of it.’
‘He’s putting a brave face on it,’ observed Amiss. ‘In fact he seems to be having a high old time.’
‘That’s Packie for you.’
‘Paki? I thought his name was Patrick?’
‘It’s short for Patrick.’
‘How do you get “PAKI” from Patrick, Siobhán?’
She gurgled. ‘Fortunately it’s spelled “Packie” rather than what racists shout at Pakistanis. Still it sounds bad, but this is Ireland and we didn’t know an Asian from a Roumanian until very recently. In fact it’s only a few years since someone in the Department of Education caused deep offence by innocently sending to a Birmingham Irish language school boxes of books about the exploits of Packie and Máire.’
‘It’ll add greatly to the gaiety of nations if he becomes taoiseach. What’s he like anyway?’
‘Like all of them. You’ll know yourself, having been in the civil service and all, that politicians will be slapping you on the back one minute and stabbing you in it the next.’
‘Will he stay for the weekend?’
‘He will in his arse stay for the weekend. There’ll be an urgent summons from somewhere or other quite soon and in the morning he’ll leave for Dublin in the Merc with the crocodile tears pouring down his face. Now tell me more about yourself. How did someone as clever as you get dragged into this shite?’
To Amiss’ chagrin, it was at this moment that the baroness stood up and clapped her hands. Her first couple of words were both hesitant and apparently incoherent. She bent down and whispered to Aisling, who whispered back and then left the table to return to her translating duties.
Spotting Amiss’ anxious look, Siobhán whispered, ‘It’s OK. I think she’s trying to say “A cháirde.” It’s the Irish for “friends.” Aisling must have been tutoring her.’
‘A cardie,’ boomed the baroness with a little more confidence. ‘I’m sorry to do this to you, but it’s time for the speeches.’ Appearing to realise this was less than tactful, she offered a hasty amendment. ‘That is to say, I can see you’re all enjoying the sound of your own voices, but now it’s time to listen. First, here is the Irish Minister for Culture, Mr Packie Barrett, who wants to welcome you on behalf of his government. I hope he’ll also be apologizing for what developers have been allowed to do to this castle.’
She sat down and beamed triumphantly in the direction of Aisling, who was now sitting behind Laochraí and Liam MacPhrait talking into her microphone. The signer was gesticulating vigorously at the end of the room, watched intermittently by the idly curious.
Siobhán had warned Amiss he wouldn’t understand the first few sentences. ‘We have a quaint convention known as the “cúpla focal”—the couple of words—which requires our politicians to gabble a few words of usually execrable Irish at the beginning of their speeches,’ she had explained. ‘This is to keep up the pretence that they can speak what is technically our first national language.’
Having lived up to her prediction, the minister produced in deeply sincere tones some rather incoherent flannel about his joy in being present at such a worthwhile coming together of hearts and minds from neighbouring cultures and his pride in being chosen to convey his government’s deep commitment to the concepts of cultural diversity and parity of esteem for all. Even if everyone wasn’t happy with the architectural innovations at Moycoole Castle, he said with some embarrassment, he knew they would be comfortable and well looked after with true Irish hospitality. And he ended by handing over ‘without further ado to our gracious and distinguished hostess, the Baroness Troutbeck, whose inspired leadership will, I have no doubt, make this a conference to remember.’
‘Thank you, Minister,’ she said. ‘Wasn’t there a film about the Titanic called A Night to Remember?’ She caught sight of his face. ‘Sorry. Joke. Right, we have two speakers tonight, and though I’ve never heard of either of them, I’m told they’re very entertaining in their way.’ She pointed down the table. ‘There’s the first of them, Kevin Barry.’
The pairing of Kevin Barry and Paddy Reilly had been billed by the Irish as a lively look at Irish nationalism from two perspectives. Barry was a well-known controversial journalist of combatively nationalist views, while the historian Paddy Reilly was of a breed known in Ireland as ‘revisionist.’ Depending on your point of view, Gibson had explained to Amiss, revisionists were traitors selling out their glorious heritage or people who had the courage to challenge simple-minded nationalist ideology and seek instead objective truth. Irish ministers and officials mostly fence-sat on the issue.
Barry and Reilly had both been asked to speak for fifteen minutes on how they saw the history of Ireland since partition. Barry proved to be small, venomous and voluble. The Northern Ireland he described was one in w
hich Catholics had ever feared to walk the streets lest they be beaten up by the constabulary or murdered by a passing loyalist. Their daily persecution had been orchestrated by the ruling unionist/Protestant class who hated them for their religion and who, having no culture of their own, were consumed with jealousy for the richness of the Irish tradition and so oppressed the Catholics viciously, until heroically, in the era of civil rights—goaded beyond endurance—they rose to claim what was rightfully theirs.
As for the other part of Ireland, while he had some rude remarks to make about the Roman Catholic church, on the whole the story was of a plucky little nation emerging from under the long shadow of the British occupying forces to forge an identity as a creative and vigorous outward-looking democracy which was now the envy of the world.
After thirty minutes, with a final rhetorical flourish about the far-flung gallant Irish diaspora who, though driven from their native land by the tyranny of their foreign oppressors, had earned respect and love the world over, he looked at his watch, mumbled a vague apology and sat down to applause which varied from the minimum consonant with politeness to the prolonged and thunderous.
Neither Gardiner Steeples, who had stared stonily at the nearest wall throughout Barry’s harangue, nor the baroness, who was scowling, clapped. When the noise died down, she stood up and said coldly, ‘I had not realised your brief was to be so enthusiastically partisan. I hope your fellow countryman says something sensible.’ Amiss put his head in his hands.
Paddy Reilly was large, scornful and equally voluble, the scorn being mainly directed at Irish historians who sought to perpetuate what he described as that ‘ignorant, snivelling and self-pitying MOPE version of Irish history that collapses under any decent intellectual scrutiny.’ All countries were colonized by stronger neighbours. The truth was that as colonial occupiers went, the British had been benign.
‘Brit-lover,’ cried Kelly-Mae.
Reilly ignored her and moved on to Northern Ireland, which he saw as a place blighted by Catholics being bad losers who demanded separate schooling and tried to wreck the state. There had been discrimination, but nothing as bad as Protestants had suffered in the south, where through murder, intimidation and cultural and religious oppression they had been almost eradicated.
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