‘What,’ Conway asks, ‘like Primetime, Newsnight?’
‘Yeah, that kind of thing. Current affairs.’
‘Keeping ahead of the curve?’
‘Yeah.’
Bolger throws his eyes up. He didn’t phone Dave Conway for this, for a chat.
‘So listen,’ he says, ‘this week some time, are you free?’
‘Er, I’m -’
‘I won’t keep you long.’
‘OK, Larry. Sure.’
They make an arrangement for the following morning. Here in the hotel.
After he hangs up Bolger trades the phone for the remote. He stands in the middle of the room and points it at the 42-inch plasma screen on the wall.
When he read that thing in the paper last week, he wasn’t sure what to make of it – though it certainly put the shits up him. What use talking to Dave Conway will be he doesn’t know either, probably none, but he needs to talk to someone. He needs reassurance. Besides, he hasn’t had much contact with any of the old crowd since leaving office over a year ago and he’s been feeling isolated.
He fiddles with the remote.
It’s amazing, he thinks, how quickly you get cut out of the loop.
He even swallowed his pride and tried phoning James Vaughan a couple of times, but the old fucker won’t return his calls. They haven’t spoken for about six months, not since that debacle over the IMF job Bolger had been up for and really wanted. Vaughan had championed his candidacy in Washington, or so it had seemed at the time, but then without any explanation he’d blocked it.
It was awful. Bolger had had everything mapped out, his trajectory over the next ten years – a solid stint at the IMF to hoover up connections and kudos, then a move to some post at the UN, in Trade and Development or one of the agencies or maybe even, if the timing was right, Secretary General. Why not? But if not, Trade, Human Rights, Aid, whatever. It was his dream, his 4 a.m. fantasy, and when Vaughan chose for whatever reason to snuff it out, Bolger was devastated. Because it wasn’t just that job, the first phase of the trajectory, it was the whole fucking trajectory. The thing is, you don’t survive getting passed over like that, it’s too public, too humiliating, so you may as well stuff your CV in a drawer and dig out your golf clubs.
That is, if you play golf.
The former Taoiseach, the prime minister, in any case, reckons that James Vaughan owes him at least a phone call.
But apparently not.
Bolger often thinks of that lunch in the Wilson Hotel, what was it, four, five years ago now?
How times change.
He goes into ‘My Recordings’ on the digital box, which is still clogged up with movies and documentaries he hasn’t got around to watching yet. He flicks down through everything on it now, but nothing catches his eye. He turns over to Sky News and watches that for a bit.
They appear to be having an off day.
The news is scrappy, unfocused, nothing with any real heat in it. They need a good natural disaster, or a high-profile sex scandal, or a child abduction.
Get their juices flowing.
Bastards.
He turns the TV off and throws the remote onto the sofa.
He looks around the room. Bolger likes living in a hotel, it’s convenient and private. You don’t have pain-in-the-arse neighbours to deal with. He and Mary have had an apartment here since they sold the house in Deansgrange, and with the girls in college now it suits them just fine.
He looks at his watch, and then over at the drinks cabinet.
Mary is out.
Bridge night. He could have gone with her, but he can’t stand the fucking chatter. All these people in their late fifties and early sixties sitting round playing cards. It’s too much like some sort of a retirement community for his taste. His excuse is that he’s absorbed in writing his memoirs and has little or no time for socialising, something he even has Mary believing – and to look at his desk in the study, with all the papers laid out on it, and the permanently open laptop, you’d be forgiven for thinking it was true. Which of course it should be. Because working on his memoirs would be good for him. It’d keep his mind occupied, keep him out of trouble.
But he has no idea how to write a book – how he should structure it or where he should even begin. He’s actually sorry now he signed the contract.
He looks over at the drinks cabinet again.
Ever since last week – Monday, Tuesday, whatever day it was – Bolger has been acutely aware of this piece of furniture in the corner of the room. Prior to that, it was just an object, albeit a beautiful one, with its art deco walnut veneer and sliding glass doors. It never bothered him in any way. He liked it. When required, he even served people drinks from it. But then he saw that report in the paper and something happened. It was almost as if the damn thing came to life, as if the bottles inside it, and the various clear and amber liquids inside them, lit up and started pulsating.
Gin, vodka, whiskey, brandy.
Fire water… water of life…
Burning bright.
He has no intention of doing anything about this, of course. He won’t act on it. Not after all these years. But it isn’t easy.
He stares at the door leading to his study, and hesitates.
Then he goes over to the sofa again, sits down and picks up the remote control.
Dave Conway has a headache.
He’s had it for a couple of days now and it’s driving him up the wall.
He’s taken Solpadeine and Nurofen and been to the doctor. But apparently there’s nothing wrong with him.
It’s just tension – he’s exhausted and needs a rest.
And to be told this he has to pay sixty-five euro?
It’s ridiculous.
He pulls into the gravel driveway of his house and parks in his usual spot, next to the stables. The spot beside it is empty.
Which means Ruth isn’t home yet.
As he gets out of the car, Conway feels a dart of pain behind his eyes – the sudden convergence, he imagines, of half a dozen little pulses of anxiety: there’s the ongoing disaster that is Tara Meadows, the fact that his liabilities now exceed his assets, and the possibility that one of the banks he’s in hock to may seek to have a liquidator appointed in a bid to seize control of his company.
Conway approaches the house.
There’s also this gorgeous French au pair inside he has to look at now and talk to without weeping, without feeling drab and ashen and like some agèd minion of Death…
How many is that?
There’s his children, seven, five and two, disturbed, speculative visions of whose unknowable futures haunt his every waking hour, to say nothing of the sleeping ones.
He puts his key in the front door.
And then there’s just… dread. A general sense of it. Vague, insidious, nameless.
He opens the door.
Always there, always on.
As he steps into the hall, Molly is emerging at high speed from the playroom.
He refocuses.
She’s clutching the Sheriff Woody doll.
‘It’s mine -’
‘I had it first -’
He watches as Molly heads in the direction of the kitchen and disappears.
A distraught Danny, outmanoeuvred once again by his kid sister, can be seen through the open door of the playroom, burying his face in the beanbag. Standing behind him, the baby – they still think of Jack as the baby – looks on, serene as usual, taking notes.
Corinne appears at the door, in hot pursuit of the dragon lady. For once, she looks flustered.
‘Oh Dave, sorry, I -’
Stepping forward, he holds up a hand to stop her.
‘It’s OK, don’t worry, she’s fine.’
‘I think there must be a full moon or something. They’re acting like crazy today.’
‘Didn’t you know? There’s always a full moon in this house.’