Laochraí, however, had a concern. ‘That was a good film,’ she said, ‘but you avoided the issue of sectarianism and the discrimination under which the Catholic and particularly the Catholic Irish people in Scotland have lived and still live.’
Wallace peered through his foliage. ‘Ach, we cannot always be harping on the past. These days we Scots are full of bounce.’
‘We could have done with a wee parade in there,’ said Steeples. ‘There are 60,000 in the Scottish Orange, so there are.’
‘Since you both feel that the issue of sectarianism should be addressed,’ put in Taylor brightly, ‘in a very real sense, Gardiner, you and Laochraí are in agreement.’
‘We are not,’ said Laochraí and Steeples in unison. And as they both broke into indignant and competing speech the baroness looked at her watch. ‘This debate, I suspect, will be more appropriate to the next session. Now we stop for coffee.’
‘That’s it,’ she said to Amiss as they left. ‘Now I know the United Kingdom is finally finished. And I don’t know that I’m sorry. We’re better off without all the bloody Scots and Welsh. If we could only keep the modernisers and the wimps out of England and bring the decent Prods over from Ireland to join us, we could have quite a cosy time.’
***
No expense had been spared on the film from the Irish cultural group, which was essentially a highly professional marketing exercise. Awash with pop stars, fashion designers, models and internet whizzkids, it was full of lively music, vivid images of glorious scenery and merry people. Mellifluous voices declaimed the prose and poetry of winners of great literary prizes and the travelling Irish were seen skipping and laughing and singing their way around the world. ‘Irish culture,’ explained the presenter in conclusion, against a background of the inevitable mystical Celtic pipes, ‘has enriched the world for centuries and nowadays is everywhere welcomed for its style, exuberance and cosmopolitanism.’
‘Wonderful, wonderful,’ said Charles Taylor. ‘What it is for a vitiated culture like ours to see the magnificent vibrancy and spiritual openness of all that is great in the Irish. What I find so moving and yet energizing…’
As the baroness began to swell like a bullfrog, the Sailor’s Hornpipe sounded. ‘Hello,’ whispered Amiss. ‘Yes of course. I’ll be right out.’ He fled thankfully.
***
The florid man with a halo of white hair chatting happily with the porter looked to be in his mid-fifties. Amiss approached him with his hand out. ‘Hello. I’m Robert Amiss.’
The man took his hand and wrung it enthusiastically. ‘Pascal O’Shea. Jaysus, I was just telling Pat here what a desperate journey I’ve had. What time is it now?’ He looked at his watch. ‘Christ’s teeth, it’s six feckin’ hours since the car arrived for me. Six in the morning! What sort of time was that to expect a fella to leave home! And we’ve been crawling through the lashing rain ever since. God, I need a drink.’
‘You wouldn’t like to look in at the conference, would you? It’s in its last hour for this morning. It’d give you a chance to say hello and get a sense of how things are going.’
‘Robert Amiss, are you completely mad? You might drag me in this afternoon, though I’m making no promises. But Simon Legree himself wouldn’t have expected a fella to spend six hours on the road and then go straight in to listen to a lot of tosspots banging on about cultural awareness.’
‘I’m sorry, Pascal. I didn’t mean to be unwelcoming. Of course I’m very grateful to you for standing in for Theo at such short notice…’
‘For Theo? Are you telling me I’m standing in for Theo Mathew?’ He roared with laughter. ‘They didn’t tell me that. That’s a laugh and no mistake.’ He clapped Amiss on the back. ‘Well, you can accuse our side of lots of things, but you can’t accuse them of lacking a sense of humour. The only thing that’d be funnier than replacing Theo by me would be replacing me by Theo.’
Amiss looked at him nervously. ‘Would you mind awfully if I just pop back in to the conference? I’m afraid the bar won’t be open yet, but let me organize a drink for you now.’
‘Not at all. You get back in there and forget about me. I’ll be grand. Pat here’ll see me right. And I’ll stand you a drink when you’re free. How’s it going anyway?’
‘Bit early to say.’
‘The minister left, I hear.’
‘Called away.’
O’Shea clapped him on the back again. ‘God love you,’ he said. ‘God love you. Now get back to them and I’ll see you soon.’
Chuckling, he moved unerringly in the direction of the bar.
***
Laochraí was in full denunciatory mode when Amiss returned. ‘A disgrace. The whole thing was a disgrace. Not a word about the national struggle or the suffering of our people.’
‘Or inequalities and impoverishment created by the deliberate international capitalist policy of underdevelopment,’ added Father O’Flynn.
‘Which sought to weaken the poor by exacerbating sectarianism,’ added Billy Pratt.
‘Ah, now lads,’ said O’Farrell, ‘in the interests of peace and mutual understanding, would y’ever give us a break? Sure we don’t want everything to be doom and gloom. Can’t we cheer up a bit?’
‘Anyway I’m sure you’ll more than make up for the lack of whingeing with your film, Miss de Búrca,’ interpolated the baroness acidly. ‘Now, since no one seems to have anything else to say about that piece of ersatz Paddywhackery, I suppose we might as well get your contribution over with.’
***
The MOPE film was as ghastly as Amiss had feared: the difference between it and its predecessor being akin to that between a graveyard and a nightclub. It opened with a lengthy dirge which accompanied heart-rending Victorian sketches of Famine victims, then took the audience briefly back to earlier woes like the penal laws, Cromwell’s sack of Drogheda and mass hangings after the 1798 rebellion. Then back again to the Famine (referred to as a holocaust and the worst act of genocide ever known to man), then a leap forward to the 1916 rebellion, complete with heroic pictures of Patrick Pearse and his comrades in the General Post Office being bombarded by British guns and culminating in the sound of rifle-fire over the pictures of those later executed. A quick leap through the war of independence followed, and then the focus went on to accounts of discrimination in Northern Ireland, sectarian oppression and what were euphemistically described as spontaneous outbursts of anger by the nationalist people. There were shots from a play showing brave women being battered by evil gloating policemen and the whole thing finished with one of them holding up a clenched fist and declaiming: ‘We may be the most oppressed people ever, but we’ll proudly gain our freedom in the end.’
Most of the participants gazed at the table after the film came to an end. The baroness looked enquiringly at Steeples, who shrugged. ‘If that’s culture, I’m the Pope, so I am.’
‘Yet,’ said Billy Pratt, ‘it is a most constructive aid to the process by which we all come to feel each other’s pain.’
Laochraí beamed at him. There was another silence.
‘Do you feel, Rollo,’ the baroness asked icily, ‘that that was a fair account of Anglo-Irish history?’
‘I couldn’t possibly comment,’ said Pooley. ‘I’m too new to all this.’
‘Charles?’
‘All I can usefully do is apologize for the wrongs done to Ireland by my ancestors.’
‘Not just your ancestors,’ interjected Laochraí. ‘You’re still doing it.’
‘Of course, for any continuing injustices also.’
The baroness surveyed him. ‘Pusillanimous Albion,’ she said. ‘Why don’t you admit to genocide and be done with it.’
Taylor looked at her nervously. ‘Well…’ He cleared his throat.
‘Spit it out, man.’
‘I think I should say…’ his tone was hesitant, ‘…that is maybe for the record I should point out that the British didn’t actually make the Famine happen on purpose.’ He cle
ared his throat. ‘Essentially, it was bad management.’
‘Cock-up, Laochraí,’ said the baroness. ‘Not conspiracy. Can’t you get that into your thick heads?’
Loud MOPE dissent dominated the next few minutes until the baroness restored order by asking for a comment from Kapur.
He smiled his gentle smile. ‘Ah yes. That was most interesting. Though I think perhaps it is a pity to concentrate always on the negatives. There are things to be grateful for too. Where would you be without the English language, whose literature your countrymen have adorned with such distinction? And as Professor Reilly pointed out last night, would you really rather have been occupied by any other colonial power you can think of? For occupied you would have been. And, you know, the history of the world shows that those places occupied by the British were peculiarly blessed.’
As the storm broke, his smile remained intact.
***
‘Well, Jack, I have to admit that Chandra Kapur was an inspired recruit,’ said Amiss after the session, as they clustered in a corner with Simon Gibson. ‘I could almost feel sorry for the MOPEs. They’re so used to presenting themselves as the friends of oppressed people everywhere that a brown imperialist is really hard going.’
‘Yes,’ said Gibson. ‘I particularly liked the way in which he simultaneously pointed out to them that Indians have suffered infinitely more than the Irish while also explaining the virtues of the British regime. I thought Kelly-Mae was going to have a seizure.’
‘It was also particularly nice,’ added Amiss, ‘when Okinawa put in that he had to admit that the Japanese record on the cruelty front was a lot worse than the Brits.’
‘And when Wallace added that the Scots could have gone on about the devastation caused by the Highland clearances, but they didn’t think wallowing in past miseries was the way forward.’
‘Not to speak of Wyn Gruffud’s lengthy contribution about how Welsh was doing much better under the British than the Irish language in the Republic.’
‘Don’t go overboard on the self-congratulation,’ said the baroness. ‘The shits are still in the ascendant. Now, who exactly is that unspeakable little jerk who talks like a mediator’s handbook?’
‘Billy Pratt? You know about him. He’s one of the DUPE spokesmen—you know, the peace-loving loyalists.’
‘It’s a vague term. You mean those Prod proles whose idea of showing their loyalty to the state is to knock off the odd Catholic or blow up policemen.’
‘That’s about right. Though these days Billy would describe such activities as “unhelpful.”’
‘Why doesn’t the other one speak?’
‘It’s his first conference, I think, and he doesn’t know what to say.’
‘There’s nothing to choose between Pratt and the MOPE shower, as far as I can see,’ said the baroness. ‘In fact he’s always jumping in obligingly to help them.’
‘Apart from the little matter of the DUPEs wanting to stay in the United Kingdom and the MOPEs wanting a United Ireland, of course there’s no difference between them,’ said Gibson with a hint of impatience. ‘For most purposes they’re the best of buddies. Under all that rubbish about dialogue, moving forward and saying yes to peace, they both want Northern Ireland to be carved up into fiefdoms which their particular chums can rape and pillage to their hearts’ content.’
‘I’m close to the stage,’ growled the baroness, ‘that if anyone else mentions the word “peace,” I’ll reach for my gun.’
‘I got there long ago, Jack. It’s just that I don’t have a gun.’
‘Any chance that they might learn something from Chandra and Oki?’ asked Amiss.
Gibson and the baroness looked at him pityingly. ‘You’re such an optimist, Robert,’ she said. ‘That shower would rather die than surrender their highly-honed sense of victimhood.’ She rubbed her hands. ‘All this is giving me an appetite. Let’s see what Philomena advises for lunch.’
Steeples caught up with them. ‘How’s it goin’?’
‘Fine,’ said Amiss. ‘And how are you?’
‘I’m the best. But I’m looking me dinner. I’m starving.’
‘Did you miss breakfast?’
Steeples looked at him as if he were mad. ‘I did not. Why would I miss me breakfast? But I haven’t had a bite since then. There were no biscuits with the coffee, so there weren’t.’
‘See that that deficiency is remedied in future, Robert,’ said the baroness. ‘We owe Gardiner a great debt of gratitude for stymieing Laochraí this morning.’
‘What time is tea?’ asked Steeples.
‘Four o’clock,’ said Amiss.
‘That’s a bit early, isn’t it? We’ll be famished by bedtime, so we will.’
‘Sorry, Gardiner, I mean tea and biscuits will be served at four. Our next meal—what the hotel calls dinner—will be at eight.’ Steeples looked at him aghast.
‘I always have me tea at six.’
‘But we had dinner at eight o’clock last night.’
‘Yes, but I had me tea on the way here, so I did.’
‘I’m really sorry,’ said Amiss, ‘but I can’t help you with this one, except to suggest that you pocket some biscuits this afternoon.’
‘If that’s the way it’s got to be, so be it,’ said Steeples. He accelerated towards the dining room.
***
Apart from a warning against the chicken, Philomena was too enraged to be of much help. ‘This is more than flesh and blood can stand. She wants to know the sodium content in the salad and then she says there’s nothing she can eat on the lunch menu and to get her a take-away pizza, cos she needs American food. Glory be to God and his Holy Mother, I may be only an ignorant country waitress, but even I know pizzas come from Italy. And I don’t know what sodium is but I bet there’s plenty of it in a pizza. And then to follow she wants two chocolate puddings, but she says they have to be low-cal. Can’t you turf her out of your conference and back on a plane home? She’ll have me in the loony-bin.’
The baroness grunted sympathetically. ‘You could just say no, Philomena.’
‘No is against company policy. We had image consultants.’
‘What?’
‘People who tell you how to present yourself better, Jack,’ said Amiss. ‘You could do with them.’
‘The country’s full of them,’ said Philomena. ‘All image and no feckin’ reality. Anyway they said we had to find the yesness in us—which turned out to mean that we have to put up with anything from the feckin’ guests if there’s any way of meeting their needs at all. Though if I had my way with this one, I’d have her doing press-ups on a diet of raw carrots.’ She paused. ‘Raw lite carrots, that is. Now what did you say you wanted, Jack?’
‘A dry Martini first, Philomena, straight-up.’
‘Shaken not stirred, I suppose?’
‘And make it a large one. We’ve got a rough afternoon ahead.’
Pascal O’Shea materialised suddenly and introduced himself. ‘I’ve a note for you, your ladyship. From Sean O’Farrell.’
‘Jack,’ she said. She scanned the letter, laughed and tossed it across the table to Amiss. ‘Dear Jack,’ it read, ‘I’m ever so sorry but I’ve been called away suddenly and didn’t even have time to say goodbye. Still, you’ll be in safe hands with Pascal and won’t miss me.
‘It’s been a great conference so far and I’m really sorry to miss the rest of it. Keep up the good work.
‘Be seeing you,
‘All the best,
‘Sean.’
Amiss didn’t trust himself to speak.
‘May I join ye?’ asked O’Shea. ‘God, I’m so hungry I could eat a nun’s arse through the convent gates.’
‘Pull up a chair by all means, Pascal,’ said the baroness. ‘But I have to hope that Philomena will have a more gastronomically attractive prospect to offer us for lunch.’
Chapter Ten
‘We didn’t know you could get money for doing this,’ said Gardiner Steeples,
‘so I got someone to do a wee compilation from existing tapes.’
Called ‘For Bible and Crown,’ the Steeples video mainly consisted of rather badly-shot parades and hymn-singing. There was much emphasis on banners showing William of Orange and other Protestant heroes, but some of the band music was good and Amiss found himself absent-mindedly tapping his feet to the beat of the drums. It ended, predictably enough, with a rousing chorus of ‘God Save the Queen.’ The MOPE contingent sat stony-faced, but Kelly-Mae could not be contained. ‘Racists,’ she said.
‘We’re not.’
‘Yes, you are.’
‘I knew someone would say that,’ said Steeples, ‘so I brought this, so I did.’ He handed Amiss another tape, which turned out to be a cheery procession of black Africans wearing Orange regalia and singing hymns.
Laochraí rallied. ‘You’re sectarian, which is just as bad.’
Kelly-Mae brightened. ‘That’s right. You’re sectarian. You can’t be a Catholic and join the Orange Order.’
Steeples looked across the table at Kelly-Mae. ‘Do you parade on St Patrick’s Day in America?’
‘I most certainly do. I march proudly in New York.’
‘And whose parade is it?’
‘The Ancient Order of Hibernians.’
‘And what do you have to be to join that besides being Irish?’
There was a pause.
‘Catholic,’ said Hamish Wallace.
‘Dead on,’ said Steeples smugly. ‘So why’s that all right and the Orange isn’t?’
There was a snore from Pascal O’Shea so loud that he woke himself up with a start. ‘Whassat?’
‘Nothing of consequence, Pascal,’ said the baroness. ‘Just a little tiff. Don’t let us disturb you.’
He closed his eyes again.
There was another pause. ‘Haven’t I read that they don’t let gays and lesbians walk in the New York parade?’ enquired the baroness.
‘Quite right too,’ said Kelly-Mae.
Anglo-Irish Murders Page 10
