After lunch, the nurse on duty phoned Lilly and reassured her that there was no change, and that Mark was stable. A ten-year veteran of the ICU, this nurse has always found that the word ‘stable’ has a remarkably stabilising effect on those who hear it.
In any case, she prefers it when there are no visitors – because they get in the way. It’s not called intensive care for nothing.
Staring at Mark now, she wonders if he is aware of her presence. His eyelids flutter on occasion, but they don’t open, so she can’t be sure. It’s one of the recurring mysteries of her job.
She chooses, nevertheless, to talk to him.
‘It’s me again,’ she says. ‘Helen. How are you? I’m going to take your temperature now, if that’s all right.’
It seems to be.
Outside the room, sitting on a bench in the corridor, a full-time guard is on duty. He is listening to a news update on his small pocket radio.
He stares at the floor.
There’s a breaking story.
After a moment, he looks up, takes in the calm, anodyne surroundings of the hospital, and sighs.
He can’t believe this.
He’s stuck here and right now, in that new skyscraper down on the quays – apparently, according to the bulletin – there’s a full-blown hostage crisis unfolding…
5
And in the twenty-four hours following this so-called crisis, the clip of an Irish property developer’s breathtaking admission – caught on a camera phone during the crisis – has been viewed all over the world, on computers, on mobile phones and on TV news bulletins. The incident is seen as the latest example of how digital technology is driving the definition, generation and delivery of today’s news content. Outside of Ireland, the story has a kind of train-wreck fascination, and proves irresistible to cartoonists and joke writers. But at home the whole business is seen as something altogether more urgent – because as far as the public at large is concerned, and despite numerous assurances to the contrary, this shiny new forty-eight-storey glass box is, in the words of one vox pop contributor, ‘just sitting there waiting to keel over’.
So it’s no surprise that action is taken quickly. On Saturday afternoon, the tower and surrounding area are evacuated and cordoned off. Emergency meetings are held. The nature and cost of the repairs are discussed and hammered out. Schedules are drawn up, with work to start almost immediately.
Then on Sunday morning, in the papers and on blogs and radio phone-ins, the affair is parsed endlessly for its cultural and sociological significance. It becomes a kind of template for everything that is wrong with the country, a forum for pofaced investigations of national identity, a vessel for people’s moral outrage, for their feelings of powerlessness and disenfranchisement.
On the lunchtime news, Taoiseach-in-waiting Larry Bolger says that although he’s been personally assured there’s no immediate danger, he nevertheless regards it as appalling and unconscionable that such a thing could have been allowed to happen in the first place.
The individual involved, he says, must be held accountable.
And naturally enough, it is on this ‘individual’ that most of the media attention is now heaped. Who is he? What other buildings has he put up? Where does he live? How rich is he?
The degree of media attention Gina receives, by contrast, is surprisingly limited. In all, the ‘hostage crisis’ lasted less than an hour, so the story didn’t have time to breathe. No sooner had coverage started than the whole thing came to a head – only to be superseded by the business with the camera phone.
Legally, she’s not in as much trouble as she expected to be either. She learns on Sunday evening that for some reason Paddy Norton is refusing to press charges, and that the same goes for Phil Mangione. It turns out that Mangione, whose injury was not serious – the bullet just grazed his shin – has already left the country, accompanied by James Vaughan and Ray Sullivan. So the only thing Gina is charged with in court on Monday morning is illegal possession of a firearm.
She is then released on bail.
Outside the courthouse, flanked by Yvonne and Michelle, she manages to get away and down the street without having to stop and talk to any reporters. The three sisters go to the lounge of a city-centre hotel, where Gina does her best to give a clear account of what happened. But it’s not easy. Yvonne and Michelle are sceptical. They’re also, to some extent, embarrassed. It reminds Gina of when she was a teenager and they were in their twenties.
Except it’s different.
Except it’s not.
Leaving the hotel after about an hour – frustrated and tired – Gina gets a call on her mobile. It’s from Jackie Merrigan. Where is she? Can they meet? Can they talk? She says she needs to go back to her apartment, that she hasn’t changed her clothes in more than four days – but that yes, they can meet.
How about later? Early afternoon?
They make an arrangement for two o’clock.
Over in Government Buildings, at around the same time, Larry Bolger is preparing for a meeting of the parliamentary party at which it is expected his colleagues will choose him as their new leader. This will automatically qualify him to become Taoiseach. He will then travel to Áras an Uachtaráin in the Phoenix Park and receive his seal of office from the President.
Sitting at his desk, in his best suit, he feels the way he remembers feeling when he was about to make his First Holy Communion – stirred by the promise of plenty, and yet uneasy about it all, vaguely humiliated somehow.
He’d love a drink.
His secretary buzzes in to say he has a call from Paddy Norton on line one. Bolger hesitates and then says he’ll take it – unlike all the other calls from Norton he’s declined to take since Friday.
He has to speak to the man sometime.
He picks up the phone. ‘Paddy?’
‘The individual involved? The fucking individual involved? Is that what I am now?’
Bolger throws his eyes up. ‘Hold on there, Paddy, what did you expect?’
‘What did I expect? A bit of loyalty, that’s what.’
‘Oh come on, be realistic. With all this stuff going on, and all these questions being asked… no public representative in his right mind would -’
‘And what does held accountable mean?’
Bolger stares at a folder on his desk.
‘I think that’s pretty obvious, Paddy, isn’t it? There’s a lot of hysteria at the moment, a lot of anger, and even if it is all bullshit, there’s an election coming in the next twelve to eighteen months. People need to see some action, you know? They’re not going to let this slide.’
‘So you’re going to give them my head on a plate, is that it?’
‘It’s not me.’ Bolger laughs. ‘I think you’ve taken care of that yourself.’
There’s a pause.
‘Fuck you, Larry.’
Bolger says nothing.
‘You’re a two-faced bastard, do you know that?’
‘Right.’
‘If it wasn’t for… Jesus, I put you where you are today.’
‘Of course.’ Bolger clears his throat. ‘Listen, I have to go. I have a meeting, a pretty important one, as it happens.’
‘Grand, keep your distance, don’t answer my calls, cut me off, be a prick, fine, but I can ruin you, Larry. There’s all that financial stuff, going way back, the loans, the dig-outs. And that’s just for starters.’ He pauses. ‘I can, and I will.’