by Bateman
‘Fair point,’ I said. ‘I thought it was a puddle-jumper.’
He grinned. ‘Aye, well, it felt like a fucking 747.’ He drained his glass and said, ‘Anyway, so how’s Trish, how’s the kid?’
‘Divorcing and dead, respectively.’
‘Fuckin’ wise up.’
‘I’m serious.’
‘You’re fuckin’ not.’
‘I fuckin’ am.’
‘Jesus Christ.’
‘And he was no help.’
We stared at our drinks for a while. There was barely another soul in the lounge. In the good old bad old days it would have been full of foreign journalists covering the Troubles and local reporters making a mint selling them stories so that they didn’t have to leave the safety of their drinks. It was a vicious circle and I’d been part of it. That’s where I’d met Mark Corkery. There are some journalists you describe as old school. Corkery was very definitely reform school. He knew every trick in the book, and it was frequently a stolen book or a banned book. He was known as the King of Crap. He was everyone’s friend and had everyone’s ear and he had complete freedom to write, spread or print lies about anyone or everyone without fear of being sued or kneecapped because the lies he wrote, spread or printed invariably weren’t half as bad or dangerous as the truth. He made a fortune over the course of twenty-five years, and lost it over a different kind of course. He was a fiend for the geegees. He bet every penny he ever had and nobody had ever seen him celebrate a win. The cessation of the Troubles (ish) had seen the work dry up for all of us, but it had hit Corkery the hardest. The bad guys had gone legit, the good guys had moved on or passed on, now it was all about grey men in grey suits talking talks about talks, and the only thing they agreed on was that they didn’t want to talk to the likes of Corkery any more. As far as anyone knew he’d retired, or been retired. He still had a kind of a swagger about him, but it was quite sad standing with him in that empty lounge, like having a drink with the oldest swinger in town, knowing that he too would go home lonely and unloved at the end of the night. I told him about Trish and Little Stevie. Gave him more detail than I’d probably given to my wife. I wouldn’t have opened my mouth in the old days because it would have ended up on every front page in the land. But times had changed and I’d already jokingly searched him for a tape recorder. He finished his drink and ordered us another and said, ‘That’s awful.’
I said, ‘I thought you’d know. It’s been in all the papers.’
‘I don’t read that crap.’
I raised an eyebrow. He didn’t notice.
‘Anyhow,’ he said, ‘I’ve been out of the country.’
‘Let me guess. Dublin.’
He smiled. ‘Skin-gatherers, the lot of them.’
‘Meaning . . . ?’
‘If they could sell the flakes of skin that fell off your arse in the street they would.’
‘Ahm, one might describe that as a sweeping generalisation.’
‘It’s a fucking fact, lad,’ he snapped. His whiskey arrived and my pint. I was handling them better these days. There’d been a few years where I’d gotten out of practice and could be legless by six, but now I could easily hit double figures without making a complete fool of myself. It wasn’t much of an achievement, in the grand scheme of things, but it was something.
‘So,’ I began, starting what I’d been putting off for an hour, ‘you were thinking of offering me some work.’
‘Oh. Aye. I was. The thing is, Dan, I’m having trouble with the IAR.’
I took a sip of my drink. I ran my eyes over him. He was in his early to mid fifties and despite what I knew there was no obvious crack in his head. He wore a faded black trenchcoat and had dirty silver hair. He had stubble to match mine, although on both sides of his face. He did not appear to be any more inebriated than I was.
‘That’ll be the IRA,’ I said.
‘What?’
‘The IRA are after you.’
He glanced behind him. ‘Are they? Why for?’
I glanced behind him. Clearly they weren’t. They’d all retired anyway and taken up gardening, although they were careful not to dig where the bodies were buried. I took another drink. ‘Perhaps we could start at the beginning again. You’re having trouble with . . .’
‘The IAR.’
‘I think that is the source of our problem. The I . . . A . . . R . . . ?’
He nodded, then smiled abruptly. ‘Dan, for Jesus’ sake, you of all people should know. Dan the Man.’
‘Why thank you.’
‘Dan . . . Dan the Man.’
‘Why thank you again.’
‘For fuck sake, Dan the Man.’
‘Can we get back to the subject of this concussion, Mark? Did you think of asking for a second opinion?’
He looked at me, shook his head, then took another drink. ‘Dan. For fuck sake. Do I have to spell it out to you?’
‘Thus far your spelling hasn’t––’
‘Shut up, would you? Listen. What do you know about horses?’
‘Horses?’
‘Horses.’
I thought for a moment. I shrugged. ‘Brown. Four legs. Eat grass. Sleep standing up. Lester Piggott. Champion. Trigger. Dick Francis. Princess Anne.’
‘And gambling on horses?’
I shrugged again. ‘Nothing. When I was eight my dad put a couple of shillings on Fearless Fred for me in the National and he fell at the first. I was inconsolable for days. I haven’t had a bet since.’
‘You lucky bastard. What about Geordie McClean?’
‘What is this, twenty questions?’ He raised an eyebrow. ‘What about Geordie McClean? You know what I know. You gave me most of my info when I was doing my book on Fat Boy.’
‘I mean, what about him these days?’
‘Nothing. Still runs some boxers, but his big chance has come and gone. Strictly small potatoes. Or croquette potatoes. Or should that be crooked po–– Sorry, this could go on all day. What should I know?’
‘That he got out of boxing because there were too many fucking meaningless titles to make it worth his while. Because half his boxers are either thick as shite or have had the sense knocked out of them.’
‘And?’
‘So he got into a sport where once you have a winner you not only make a fucking fortune off him, you can also bottle his sperm and make ten times as much selling it on.’
‘He’s into football?’
‘Dan.’
‘Okay. He’s into horses. What’s the big––’
‘He’s making millions. He’s the man behind Irish American Racing––’
‘IAR. At last.’
‘You have heard of Irish––’
I shrugged. ‘I’ve been lying low.’
‘He’s been shaking up the system. He’s been doing a Murdoch. He’s been making enemies left, right and centre.’
‘Okay, but what has this got to do with the price of fish?’
‘Dan, you didn’t happen to see the racing on Channel 4 on Saturday?’
‘I was probably on the other channel. Nature documentaries, that kind of thing.’
‘One of Geordie McClean’s horses won. An eight-year-old gelding called Dan the Man. He named it after you.’
We adjourned to the Crown Bar across the road. It was one of the oldest pubs in the city. The National Trust owned it. It was all snugs and big mirrors and liked to promote the fact that the James Mason IRA movie Odd Man Out had used it as a location way back in the fifties, whereas anyone who cared to check would find that the movie had actually been made in a London studio with a set mocked up to look like the Crown. Not that it mattered. Not that anyone cared. Not that you could tell the difference from the stills on the wall. It was just an interesting fact. There was no TV and no juke box, but there was a cigarette machine. The condom machine in the toilets gave out empty crisp packets and elastic bands. Or should have.
We were hiding in plain sight. Better to talk seriously in a crowded
pub than whisper in an empty lounge. Corkery had moved on to the Guinness. ‘Geordie McClean has three injunctions out against me. I’m on the run, but he won’t get me.’
I’ve never been able to stomach Guinness. I switched to cider, mostly because I’d no wife any more to tell me to grow up. I said, ‘Why is he after you?’
‘Because I’m the Horse Whisperer.’
‘Uhuh.’
‘You must have heard of the Horse Whisperer.’
‘Uhuh. Nicholas Evans. Book. Robert Redford. Film.’
‘No! Not that cak. The internet site.’
I looked at him. I was surprised he’d even heard of the internet. I’d always thought of him as a man who’d find a ballpoint pen new and fangled. ‘I’m sorry,’ I said, ‘you’ve lost me again.’
‘Jesus Christ!’ He fumed into his pint for several moments. ‘Okay. All right,’ he began again, ‘sorry’n all. Sometimes you get immersed in a world and you start to presume everyone knows what you’re talking about, you can’t see the wood for the trees. And I forgot your knowledge of racing amounts to brown horses and Trigger. Okay. All right. It still might work. Okay. All right. Dan, I’m the Horse Whisperer. That’s the name of my internet site. It’s the inside track on the racing game. News, gossip, rumours, all sorts of shit. Everyone who’s anyone reads it, everyone feeds me info; just like it was here with the fighting. The powers that be would like to present a nice PR job on the racing, y’know, all nice happy families and pretty horses, when the truth is it’s the most vicious fucking thing I’ve ever been involved in, and that’s including the ‘Ra. Cut-throat, Dan, fucking cut-throat. Bribery. Corruption. Doping. Nobbling. Stable lads feed me, jockeys, trainers, the man who sells the feed, the man who collects the shit, the man who pilots the helicopter, it all comes through the Horse Whisperer, and not a one of them knows who the fuck I am. That’s the magic of it. It’s completely anonymous. I mean, to look at me you’d think I was the type who’d consider a fountain pen new and fangled, not running a fucking internet site.’
‘Nah, Mark, I always knew you had your finger on the pulse.’
‘Anyway, they haven’t a clue it’s me.’
‘Who’s they?’
‘The money men, Dan, who else? Up to now they’ve been taking it in the arse but haven’t had the wherewithal to do anything about it. But now Geordie McClean’s muscling in, bringing his Sandy Row wide-boy mentality with him. A few innocuous stories about him and he’s slapped out a cartload of injunctions on the site; it’s been thrown off half a dozen servers already, but if you know the internet you know there’s more servers out there than you can fucking count, so he’s not going to close me down that way. The only way he’s going to do it is find out who I am and then sue me for libel. And that’s what he’s trying to do now.’
‘So that’s why you’re on the run.’
‘Exactly.’
‘And where do I come in?’
‘I need to fight fire with fire. Because his is a new set-up, because he’s brought in a lot of American expertise, because he runs the tightest fucking ship in the harbour, I’ve not been able to get a man on the inside. Nobody is feeding me info. I know he’s up to something because you don’t get to where he is in such a short space of time without tramping on toes. You know him, Dan, he’s not Mister Nice Guy. I’ve got to find out what he’s up to, but I can’t do anything while he’s chasing me from pillar to winning post. He has stables north of Dublin. I need you to go down there, ingratiate yourself and find out what the fuck he’s up to.’
‘Is that all?’
‘Dan. I need you to do this for me.’
‘I can’t.’
‘Why not? I’m paying. Better than you’d get here.’
‘I haven’t done any journalism for a long time.’
‘Well you should. You’re bloody brilliant.’
‘I’ll take that as a compliment, coming from the King of Crap.’
‘You are. I always had time for you, Dan. And I did you more than a few favours.’
‘I know that, but . . .’
‘But what? Look at the state of you, lad, you look like you’ve been dragged through a hedge backwards, your clothes are hanging off you, you’re whiter than a ghost and you smell like a fucking dump.’
‘Thanks. Can you put that in writing?’
We looked at each other for a while. I tried not to think about what he was telling me, though I knew already it was the truth. I’d known it for weeks.
‘Dan. You’re a journalist. It’s in your blood. I’m sorry for your circumstances, but you need to do something about them. You need to get out of here, you need to get your teeth into something and it might as well be Geordie McClean. He named a horse after you and it’s worth a fucking mint. I happen to know he loved the book about Fat Boy, tell him you want to do one on Dan the Man. He’ll lap it up. He’s a vain son of a bitch.’
‘Geordie or the horse?’
‘I can’t vouch for the horse. Will you do this for me, son? It would mean an awful lot to me.’
I sighed. Everything had been going downhill for months. Like skiing down a mountain, it was rather good fun right up to the point where you came to the edge of a cliff, and the trouble was there was so much snow about you never quite knew where it was or when you’d reach it, there was just that absolute certainty that you would.
I looked at myself in the mirror behind the bar. I was not a pretty sight. The clothes . . . the hair . . . the beard . . . If Patricia had walked into the bar right then she would hardly have recognised me. How was I ever going to win her back looking like this, living like this? Corkery was right. I should get out. Get out now. Do something positive. I knew bugger all about horses but I knew a lot about Geordie McClean. Why not fuck him up rather than myself? What had he ever done to hurt me? Not much, but since when did a journalist ever need a reason to fuck someone up? Besides, he’d named a horse after me.
I took a deep breath.
‘Okay,’ I said, ‘I’ll do it.’
It wasn’t quite St Paul’s conversion on the road to Damascus. If I’d been walking that road I’d have seen the light and then got flattened by a chariot. But it was a start.
3
You can upset your whole system by indulging in sudden, radical changes of lifestyle. People die from crash diets. They smack their cars into lampposts when they forsake nicotine. I had to edge myself into sobriety sideways. I woke that first morning of the new era with the dry bokes and a throbbing head, the predictable legacy of the cider I’d drunk long into the night, long after Mark Corkery had departed for what he described as his latest safe house.
The peculiar thing about a cider hangover is that you think you’ve escaped it completely right up to the point where you have to move your head off the pillow. It’s at that point that your neck turns to concrete, your forehead into Spaghetti Junction and your stomach into that toxic waste lorry that has jackknifed in the fast lane, spilling its contents.
Oh shit, a knock at the door.
I rolled up into a sitting position. Then I rolled back into a lying-down one. If it was important they would come back, or break it down. It couldn’t be the rent, the Government paid that direct. A survey. A charity collector. A boy scout. Another knock, another thunderbolt; I bent the pillow around my head like a horseshoe.
Horse.
Dan the Man.
The banging came again. ‘What do you want?’ I groaned. ‘I have no money to give you. I haven’t eaten for a week. If you have any food for me please slip it under the door.’
Then I remembered and dropped the pillow. My jacket was on the floor, the lining spilling out of it like a clot. The hangover was momentarily forgotten as I delved into the one pocket that remained stitched – nothing; I cursed and tried the other, bottomless one; my hand extended through the lining and up into the downy material along the back and . . . aha!
I pulled out an envelope. I’d unsealed it in the bar, of course, after he’d gone,
but I’d not gone nuts with it, most of it was still there: £500, an advance, just to get me at least as far as the bus stop for Damascus.
‘Dan? Are you in there?’
Shit!
‘Stop playing silly buggers and open the door.’
‘Trish,’ I said.
There was a silence.
‘Are you going to let me in, Dan?’
‘I’d like to, but I can’t. There’s been an accident. What do you want?’
‘To see you. What kind of an accident? Are you okay?’
‘I . . . I think . . . I think it’s broken . . .’
‘What is?’ she asked urgently.
‘My heart.’
There was another silence. Then, ‘Oh for fuck sake, Dan. Just open the door.’
I looked about me. My room looked like a hurricane had passed through it, and I looked like the one with the snooker cue had taken me drinking. ‘No,’ I said, ‘not here. Somewhere neutral. Somewhere public.’
‘Public house, you mean.’
‘Are you trying to pick a fight already?’
‘No, Dan, I . . .’
‘There’s a cafe at the end of the road. I’ll see you there in twenty minutes. I need to finish this story, I need to phone it in. Okay?’
There was another silence, then an ‘Okay.’ Footsteps started to recede.
‘Trish,’ I called.
The footsteps stopped. There was a blunt ‘What?’
‘You suit that colour.’
I could hear her fuming.
My luck was in. As Patricia went out the front I went out the back. There was a row of shops immediately behind my palace and I went through them in minutes, pausing only to vomit. I’ve always been a one-stop shopper. In the old days I could do the family shopping and be home with my feet up in the time it would take Trish to compose a list. It might not exactly reflect what she was after, but what it lacked in variety it made up for in ease of preparation and storage. Or to put it in Patricia’s words, ‘Just because they advertise Heinz 57 varieties, you don’t have to buy them all.’ This time I wasn’t after food: a clean razor, a pair of black jeans, a fresh shirt; purchased, back home, showered, shaved, aftershaved, dressed and down that road in twenty minutes. Some kind of a record.
