‘Wouldn’t count on it, from what I saw last night,’ said the baroness. ‘Right. I know where we stand now. Just one last question. Simon, what crime did you commit to be put in charge of this aspect of cultural relations?’
‘I was insufficiently idealistic for the world of Anglo-Irish relations, where you will appreciate that to suggest that reality should intrude is to be recognized as a cynic, a nay-sayer, a person with an anti-peace agenda. Though God knows I can’t imagine why any official with ambition should set out with an anti-peace agenda since the only way promotion is won in our world these days is to chant mindless peacenik mantras in response to every difficult question. Suggest that any of our feathered friends—loyalist or republican—are anything other than peace-loving democrats who need their confidence built up and a blank wall comes down.’
‘So it was punishment…’
‘…for innumerable heresies and tasteless jokes. Now, if you’ll forgive me, I’ve a quick call to make before nine o’clock.’
***
‘Tough luck,’ said the baroness to Amiss, as they walked towards the seminar room. ‘It was mean of the minister to take that piece of crumpet back to Dublin. You’ve missed your chance now.’
Amiss sighed. ‘I certainly didn’t expect him to be such a killjoy as to take off in the middle of the night. You’re all right, though. Have you had your evil way with Aisling yet? Or is she remaining stoutly heterosexual?’
‘Early days, Robert. Early days. She needs a little time to wake up to her bisexuality. I don’t expect success for another day or two.’ She snorted vulgarly. ‘Night or two, I should have said.’
‘Why don’t you try a man for a change? Simon seems keen on you.’
She sighed. ‘I’ll have a go if Aisling fails me. But it has to be faced that there aren’t that many younger men who fancy someone of my age and weight…’
‘Especially when you throw it around all the time.’
‘They do seem to find me a bit frightening, though I’m buggered if I know why. No, apart from the faithful Myles, male lovers are a bit thin on the ground these days. Women, however, are still a happy hunting ground.’ As Aisling came around the corner, the baroness smirked. ‘And I’m still happily hunting.’
***
It was ten minutes past nine and several participants were still absent. ‘I’m not going to wait any longer for the layabouts,’ said the baroness. ‘It’s time we addressed ourselves to the rebarbatively titled issue of…’ She looked down at her papers and wrinkled her nose. ‘…“Parity of Esteem: seeing others as they see themselves.”’
She threw a lustful glance at Aisling, who was busily talking into a microphone. ‘Now apparently every delegation is to show a film that’ll make the rest of us…’ She looked at her brief and snarled, ‘…culturally aware. There’s seven of them to get through so we’d better get cracking. Who wants to go first?’
‘Ba mhaith linn bheith ag an…’ said Laochraí.
Steeples interrupted. ‘Are you going to speak in Irish?’
‘Aisling, más é do thoil é,’ said Laochraí. Aisling looked up from her microphone. ‘Laochraí wants me to translate from English into Irish as well. What Mr Steeples said was “An bhfuil tú chun Gaeilge a labhairt?”’
‘Tá mé.’
‘That means “yes,”’ said Aisling.
‘Is anyone else intending to speak Irish?’ asked the baroness.
‘An bhfuil aon…’
‘Hold it, Aisling, just for a minute.’ The baroness narrowed her eyes to read their name cards. ‘Father O’Flynn, do you want to speak in Irish?’
‘Er, no.’
‘Can’t or don’t want to?’
He cleared his throat. ‘I entirely agree with Laochraí that proceedings should be conducted in what is Ireland’s first national language, and if that requires translators, so be it.’
‘But you don’t speak it.’
‘That is neither here nor there.’
‘And Mr MacPhrait?’
‘I agree with Cormac.’
‘It would be an outrage to do anything else,’ said Kelly-Mae.
‘Do you know a word of Irish?’
‘I know “Chuckee or law,”’ she said proudly.
‘Tiocfaidh ár lá,’ said Aisling. ‘Our day will come.’
‘The slogan of the IRA,’ said Gibson.
The three MOPEs looked at the ceiling in embarrassment.
‘So no one here understands Irish,’ said Steeples, ‘except Miss de Búrca and the interpreter.’
Okinawa pointed to his nose. ‘I also,’ he said. ‘Though my English is better.’
‘And of course,’ said Charles Taylor, ‘it may be that Mr O’Farrell and the other Irish representative might wish to speak it.’
The baroness shot him a look of such venom that he gazed at the table for the rest of the debate.
Steeples looked around the table. ‘The only reason this woman wants to speak Irish is that people like me can’t understand it.’
‘Tá teangeolaí anseo,’ said Laochraí.
‘There’s an interpreter here,’ contributed Aisling.
‘This is a shocking waste of time and money and it’ll hold everything up,’ said Steeples.
Aisling murmured into her microphone.
Hamish Wallace peered through the red foliage that enveloped most of his face. ‘I’m wi’ you, Gardiner,’ he said.
Laochraí looked around her defiantly. ‘Caithfidh sibh é a dhéanamh.’
‘You have to do it,’ translated Aisling.
‘I don’t mind,’ said Billy Pratt. ‘We have to recognize each other’s needs.’
Amiss observed with interest that Joe was manfully signing busily though no one ever looked at him.
‘This is preposterous,’ snapped the baroness.
‘Nae doot,’ said Steeples slowly. ‘Nae nae doot. Thon scunners me. They’re owre ocht thran gat.’
There was complete silence for a moment, until Wallace peered through his hair again, smiled broadly, turned towards the MOPE contingent and said, ‘Ay. Gie it a bye, will ye. Ye’r that constermacious.’
The baroness looked at Aisling, who shook her head. ‘Sorry. I can’t help. I don’t do Ullans or Lallans, which is what we seem to have here.’
Steeples burst into fluent speech. ‘An syne tha wickit winnae staun in tha big soartin oot tae cum, an wrangdaers wull no win ben tha maetin o tha guidleevin.’*
It was the sight of Wyn Gruffudd plucking up her courage and uttering what seemed to be a long string of disjointed vowels that galvanised the baroness into speech. ‘This is most impressive,’ she said. ‘We can set ourselves to take this to its logical conclusion by throwing Hindi and Japanese into the melting-pot, along, I expect, with some Latin, Greek and a few modern languages, thus ensuring that no one can understand anyone. Is this what you have in mind, Miss de Búrca?’
As Laochraí looked at her impassively and turned to Aisling for a translation, Kapur broke in. ‘A suggestion I would like to make, Madam Chairman,’ he said gently. ‘Could we have your kindly agreement to a short adjournment? An idea I have to put to some of our friends.’
‘By all means. We need the wisdom of the East brought to bear on this. Just say whom you want to talk to and the rest of us will go outside and await instructions.’
Kapur nodded at Okinawa. ‘Please kindly to stay, Mr Okinawa. And Miss de Búrca and your two colleagues also be so good, please.’
Led by Gardiner Steeples, who marched purposefully out of the room, the others trailed out silently.
***
‘My God, we could do with Plutarch,’ said the baroness, as she and Amiss conferred in a corner. ‘It’d be much better to have her here beating up MOPE than pining in those kennels into which you so callously thrust her.’
‘You know I don’t believe that you can deal with troublesome elements by bringing in one even more troublesome.’
‘My career demonstrates that the t
ruth lies the other way about. Most of my success can be attributed to my being more troublesome than the people I was brought in to sort out.’
‘You are the exception that proves the rule, Jack,’ said Amiss, with a certain froideur. ‘In any case, you are not a cat.’
‘If I were an animal I’d be a big cat. Bigger even than Plutarch. I’d be a king of the jungle.’
‘Jack, may I once more display my pedestrian tendency and drag you from your egotistical fantasies to the more mundane level of timetable adjustments which may be necessary in the light of this delay.’
She snorted. ‘The trouble with you is…Good grief! Here’s Lucrezia already.’
Laochraí walked over to them and addressed them without a flicker of expression. ‘We have decided as a confidence-building gesture and in the interests of reconciliation that we will for the moment cease to speak in Irish.’
‘What do you mean “we?” It was only you.’
Laochraí glared. ‘My colleagues and I have decided as a confidence-building gesture and in the interests of reconciliation that we…that is, I, will for the moment speak English if everyone else does.’
‘Well that’s hardly likely to be a problem,’ said the baroness irritably. ‘None of them ever wanted to speak anything else in the first place.’
Amiss scowled at her. ‘Thank you, Laochraí. The gesture is much appreciated.’ Pausing only to throw a dirty look at the baroness, Laochraí strode back towards the conference room.
‘Jack,’ said Amiss, ‘for Christ’s sake, do you have to alienate them needlessly?’
‘Look, I alienate them just by existing. And vice-versa.’
‘Yes, and I see both your points of view. But try not to let your antipathy show so obviously, will you?’
‘I’ll try,’ she growled. ‘But the world would be a better place if it was still possible to transport people like that to the colonies. Speaking of which, here’s the miracle worker. How did you do it, Chandra? And why were you talking like a Delhi greengrocer?’
Kapur smiled. ‘It seemed appropriate. They had to be nice to a poor native.
‘What happened was that after a word with Okinawa, who can’t stick MOPEs, we explained to them that they might not come out of it well if he released his film to the television news. They weren’t sure at first, but when we said that sadly we would be obliged to express our disappointment that they had wrecked the conference, they caved in. It would not look good, they realized, to be criticised by a yellow and a brown man.’
‘Cunning old oriental devils,’ said the baroness delightedly. ‘We should get you over to outwit them in Northern Ireland. Now we’d better get started again.’
As she was about to move, Aisling arrived. ‘I’ve just heard,’ she said. ‘Well, that’ll make your lives easier. However, it requires me to say goodbye.’
‘What!’ said the baroness.
‘You don’t need me now.’
‘We certainly do.’
Aisling shook her head. ‘Sorry, Jack, but rules are rules. Interpreters have no role other than interpreting.’
‘We can soon change that.’
‘We can’t. The department wouldn’t wear it. I’m really sorry, but I have to go. And the signer’s going too. He’s mutinied. Says his job is to help the deaf, not to make an idiot of himself at the behest of pillocks.’
The baroness jerked her head towards the door. ‘Come with me, Aisling. Let’s talk this over.’ It was five minutes before she returned. ‘What a disaster,’ she moaned to Amiss. ‘I feel like a cat who’s seen the canary fly out the window.’
‘Join the club,’ said Amiss bitterly.
Chapter Nine
‘All right, let’s get this show on the road,’ said the baroness. ‘And no playing silly buggers this time. Who’s going first?’
‘I’m afraid the English are supposed to,’ said Charles Taylor apologetically. ‘Not that I mind. I’d be happy to make my presentation at any stage of the proceedings, but at Robert’s instigation we had a sort of lot-drawing thingie earlier and I…’
‘What the hell are you apologizing for now? Just get on with it, for Pete’s sake. Give us your hooray for English culture.’
Taylor flushed, took a video tape from his briefcase and handed it to Amiss, who had appointed himself technical assistant for the morning. ‘I’ll let the video speak for itself, but I’m obviously happy to answer questions later.’
Amiss lowered the blinds and started the tape. Within a few minutes it became clear its contents had been determined by a committee bent on offending no one except perhaps white native English. The coverage of the joys of multi-culturalism included West Indians leaping about at the Notting Hill Carnival, Neasden Hindus celebrating Diwali, Birmingham Muslims at prayer, the opening of a Buddhist temple on the Thames, and shots of various Irish, Welsh and Scots in London hostelries respectively celebrating St Patrick’s Day, St David’s Day and Burns’ Night. The only sightings of native English culture were a dozen elderly Morris dancers, a shot of Shakespeare superimposed on Stratford upon Avon, a Charles Dickens pub sign and an aerial shot of the Dome.
After it came to an end and Amiss had opened the blinds, there was a long silence.
‘Taylor’s contribution hasn’t done much to liven us up, has it?’ enquired the baroness. ‘Has no one a comment or did you all fall asleep?’
‘Ah now, Madam Chairwoman,’ said Sean O’Farrell with a smile, ‘you’re very hard on us all and especially on poor Charles here. I thought that was grand.’ He paused and added uncertainly, ‘Oh and very inclusive. Yes. Most inclusive.’
‘Huh,’ said the baroness. ‘I’d be more impressed with that judgement if I hadn’t seen you sneaking in halfway through.’
Completely unabashed, O’Farrell grinned. ‘There’s no hiding anything from you, is there? You’re a real divil.’
There was a half-hearted interjection from Laochraí to the effect that this was unduly cosmetic and failed to showed the sad plight of the Irish in Britain, but her heart wasn’t in it. Silence fell once more.
The baroness glared down the table. ‘Chandra. Any reactions?’
‘Madam Chairwoman, I am a little surprised at the absence of the indigenous English,’ said Kapur, who had clearly abandoned his poor-Indian routine. ‘I admire the English for their great hospitality to foreigners and their kindness to strangers…’
An attempt by Laochraí to break in indignantly was quashed by a ‘shut up’ from the baroness and Kapur continued smoothly ‘…but to the best of my knowledge the vast majority of that country is still occupied by white people who are English by birth and culture. Could we not have seen, for instance, something of the House of Commons? Surely the mother of all parliaments deserves acknowledgement?’
‘Anyone else?’
‘Yes,’ said Steeples. ‘I wonder what the grunts on the ground would say if they saw that. It was no more to do with English culture than my calves have to do with line-dancing. Typical government sell-out. And a waste of money at that, so it is.’
The baroness looked more cheerful. ‘Any other comments? Robert?’
Amiss shook his head.
‘Rollo?’
Pooley shook his even more vigorously. For about twenty seconds there was complete silence. ‘Well then, Charles. What have you to say to Chandra and Gardiner?’
‘Just that while I hadn’t actually seen the film before now, I have to say I thought it got the balance right. We have to look to the future not to the past.’
The baroness looked at him with ill-concealed contempt. ‘Is that it?’
He nodded.
‘Right then.’ She looked at her list. ‘Let’s abandon this wasteland and see if the Taffies have done a better job.’
Wyn Gruffudd looked at her nervously. ‘Now see, I know nothing about this,’ she said. ‘As I was telling Robert earlier, I am here at short notice, and I said, when they asked me, that I would not come if anyone thought…’
&nb
sp; ‘Got you. We won’t hold you responsible.’
The Welsh contribution was more entertaining and anything but inclusive. It took the company at a gallop through Welsh history, stopping here and there to contemplate anti-English avenging heroes like Owen Glyndower. Plenty of attention was given to the sufferings of coal-miners, but there were also clips from some great orators, a great deal of superb scenery, a fair amount of singing in pubs and at rugby matches and a nod to the new Welsh assembly. The presenter then plunged into Welsh (with subtitles), there were a few recitations, a bit more singing and then five minutes of an eisteddfod with people in white robes and hoods installing a new Druid. After a sentimental verse about forefathers from the valleys and another blast of song, it ended with another shot of declaiming Druids.
Kelly-Mae burst in. ‘That’s outrageous. You’re showing the Ku Klux Klan like they were OK!’
Wyn flushed. ‘Look you, Kelly-Mae, now you have to see that…’
‘Miss O’Hara,’ cut in the baroness icily, ‘you are an observer. Observers observe. They do not speak if they are so ignorant that they confuse old Celtic ceremonies with southern white supremacist lynch mobs.’
Kelly-Mae looked towards MOPE for support, causing Laochraí to interject with some embarrassment, ‘Kelly-Mae’s reaction was very understandable. However, Kelly-Mae, this is a fine Celtic ceremony which deserves the respect of all of us, being neither imperialist nor anti-nationalist.’
Other than false praise from Sean O’Farrell and Charles Taylor, no one could summon up enough interest to say anything, so Amiss put on the Scots film. This was an altogether more lively affair, full of caber-tossing and bagpipes and Scottish reels and clips from films of martial Scots swarming over the Highlands in variously coloured kilts. There was no denying, however, the triumphalism and implicit anti-Englishness with which the 1999 establishment of the Scottish parliament was described. ‘Scotland-the-Visionary faces the future looking towards Europe and away from the narrow Whitehall-driven agenda of the past,’ was the last line.
When the strains of ‘Scotland the Brave’ had died away, there was a general murmur of approval, including a ‘jolly good’ from Charles Taylor that caused the baroness to snarl that clearly nationalism was OK for everyone except the English.
Anglo-Irish Murders Page 9
