“Bad job,” said Katrina.
“Well, I’m sorry to-”
“And the men, they do not pay.”
“Do they not?”
“Of course. Sometimes. We agree price. They come back-they’re eating dinner or drinking-and the man asks me how much money. And I say we agree twenty pounds, twenty-five pounds. For looking after their children! But he does not want to pay. And even after midnight when it is more money. And he gets-” She indicated something with her fingers.
“Calculator,” said Israel.
“Yes. Calculator. And the wife, she is gone. In bed. And the man says he will pay me ten pounds.”
“I see.”
“Or he says he will pay twenty pounds, but I have to do something for him.”
“What?”
“Sex!” The man on the bed laughs.
“Yes,” agreed Katrina. “He means sex with him.”
“Oh god.”
“His wife is bed, upstairs,” said Katrina.
“That’s terrible,” said Israel. “I’m so sorry.”
She blew smoke up toward the ceiling. “Is not your fault.”
“No, but…”
“What do you want to know about Lyndsay?”
“Well, I don’t really…Anything, really.”
“She was nice.”
The man on the bed nodded his head in agreement.
“I like her. She help me with things.”
“And did she have any boyfriends, or…”
“Yes, of course. Boyfriends. She is pretty.”
“Yes. Anyone in particular?”
Katrina looked at the man. The man looked back.
“You don’t know anybody we know this.”
“No. No. Of course.”
“We think Gerry.”
“Gerry who?”
“The boss.”
“She was friendly with the boss?”
“Yes. He used to give her a lift home.”
“I see.”
“In his Mercedes.”
“Oh.”
“He pick her up, night she disappear.”
“In his Mercedes?”
“Yes.”
“You saw him pick her up?”
“I see the car,” said the man on the bed.
“Are you sure?”
“Mercedes.” The man nodded his head.
“Did you tell the police?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“I don’t want to lose my job.”
“But what if Lyndsay’s been…”
“What can I do?” said the young man.
“What’s he like, this Gerry?”
Katrina hesitated in her answer.
“He’s a bad man.”
“Really?”
“Bad,” piped up the young man on the bed.
“I see.”
“DVDs. Computer things. His other business. Illegal. Friend of ours. He was caught by police. He go back to Romania.”
“That’s terrible.”
“Did you tell the police?”
Katrina laughed.
“We’re just immigrants.”
“And you’re a librarian!” said the man on the bed, laughing.
“In Romania, I study literature,” said Katrina. “One day, I think I believe I will become great playwright! Like Ionesco. And look! Here I am! You know Ionesco?”
“No. Not really. I mean, I know-”
“Rhinoceros? Everybody knows Rhinoceros.”
“In Romania, everybody knows Rhinoceros,” echoed the man on the bed. “Schoolboys!”
“Here,” said Katrina. “Nobody knows nothing.”
“Anything,” said Israel.
“What?”
“Nobody knows anything, that’s the…”
“Nobody knows anything!”
“Yes. Well, thanks.”
“Nobody knows anything!”
“‘Les morts sont plus nombreux que les vivants. Leur nombre augmente. Les vivants sont rares,’” said Katrina.
“Yes,” agreed Israel, assuming that she’d told him a joke. “Very good.”
As he left the building he could still hear them laughing.
He returned to his chicken coop.
Rang Gloria.
No reply.
Lay on his bed.
Wept.
Decided it was time to go and see a doctor.
15
While Israel was doing his best for the cause of international relations, Veronica was doing her best with Tumdrum’s Independent Unionist candidate for Member of the Legislative Assembly, Maurice Morris.
Maurice’s office was on the High Street in Rathkeltair, a street that boasted more clubs and takeaways than any other comparable small town in the north of the county. Which was quite a claim to fame. High Street had helped transform Rathkeltair into a weekend mecca for the young and hungry and thirsty of the north of the north of Ireland. On High Street, in just a few hundred yards, you could sample the culinary delights of pizzas, kebabs, chips, Chinese, and Indian food, some of it actually cooked by people from China and India or countries thereabouts. Stumbling out of or into one of the town’s renowned clubs-Club Foot, the Water-front, or the Destination-you could choose to eat in or out at the Great Wall, or the Pooh Ping Palace, or Yum Yums, or in Billy’s Fat Subs, the Bakehole, Gobble and Go, Nachos, Little India, Taste of the Taj, or half a dozen others of lesser renown. Indeed, some young people took it as a challenge on a Friday or Saturday night to eat in all of Rathkeltair’s popular eateries, often ending up in the Thai Tanic, a Thai restaurant and karaoke bar with a Titanic theme, which served, it was said, the best Thai curry chip in the whole of Ireland-evidence of such being often available on Saturday and Sunday mornings, before the road sweepers got to work clearing last night’s fun.
Maurice’s office was up at the untakeaway end of the street, above Dennis McIlhone’s, the podiatrist, who advertised his business with a large pair of plaster of paris feet in the window, and below Alison Arden, the dentist, who advertised her business with a banner showing a blonde, lipsticked woman smiling with perfect white teeth. Maurice had chosen as his party symbol a heart, which had been produced in large sticky graphics and pasted up on the window. The building looked like a bizarre art installation.
The big heart had been Maurice’s idea. As an Independent Unionist, according to his campaign literature, Maurice believed in Strong and Safe Communities, and in Quality Public Services, and Protecting the Environment and Maintaining the Union. But above all, Maurice believed in people. Or rather, Believed in People. And he had A Big Heart for the people of Rathkeltair and Tumdrum and county.
In the reception area of Maurice Morris’s office (open 8:30-4:30 Monday to Friday) there were fluorescent and halogen lamps, beech-effect filing cabinets, a large wall-mounted plasma screen TV set on the usual magnolia walls, a vase containing some sad little drooping tulips, a laptop computer, a printer, and a shredding machine set up on furniture that looked as if it had been bought yesterday from a catalog-it had little tufts of plastic in hard-to-get-at corners. There were certificates and photographs on the wall, and a map of the area with ominous looking Post-it notes attached.
Veronica was sitting on a bright blue office chair. Next to her-worryingly close to her-was Mickey Highsmith, a small, stout, tense man with an uneven mustache, prominent bulging eyes, and the active hand movements of an ex-smoker, who was Maurice Morris’s election agent and handler. He was briefing her.
“Now, before you go in, you understand that this interview with Mr. Morris is a feature piece?” he said, his mustache bristling wonkily.
“Sure,” said Veronica.
“You’re in no doubt about that.”
“None at all,” said Veronica.
“You’re going to keep it fairly light.”
“Of course.”
“Not funny, though. You’re not going to try and be funny.”
“I don’t do funny, Mr. Highsmith.”
“Good. Maurice Morris doesn’t like journalism that’s more about the interviewer than the interviewee.”
“Me neither,” she lied.
“So no questions about…economics.”
“Fine.” She didn’t have a clue about economics.
“Or the war on terror.” It was difficult to see what she might ask Maurice Morris about the war on terror.
“You’re not recording this, are you?” asked Mickey.
“You don’t want me to record it?”
“Definitely not!” said Highsmith. “When I spoke to the paper, I said-”
“I’m not recording it,” said Veronica.