Alan Glynn - Winterland

Or is it even worse than that?

After another lap of the table, Norton finds himself wondering if he shouldn’t give in and call Fitz. As before, they agreed no contact, but by this stage of the morning he really needs to know what’s going on. Because until he gets word from someone, Fitz or whoever, or hears something on the radio, he simply won’t be able to shake off the feeling that things are spinning out of control.

He’s a few paces into the next lap when his mobile rings.

Spring, winter, whatever.

He stops and fumbles at the pocket of his dressing gown. When he eventually gets the phone out, he stares at the number on the display for a second, then presses Answer.

Gina has her phone on the table, neatly lined up beside her cappuccino and her notebook. Willing the damn thing to ring, she glares at it every chance she gets. But she’s not getting too many chances, because Tom Maloney, sitting opposite her in this small café on Dawson Street, is one of those intense people who insist on maintaining unbroken eye contact as they speak. He also has bad breath and an even worse habit of using it to state the obvious.

‘Look, it’s OK if your version one point zero is a little rough around the edges: what’s crucial is to get it out there, get it launched, get it known -’

How could he think she doesn’t know this?

‘- and then you can work on landing the marquee customers.’

Gina realises that what they’re talking about – strategy, the future of the company – is important, but at the moment she couldn’t care less about any of it.

‘And of course,’ Maloney is saying, ‘it may even turn out that your best customers aren’t the ones you expect them to be -’

Her phone rings. She whips it off the table. It’s P.J. She’s disappointed, but doesn’t show it. She looks at the time: 11.25.

Short meeting.

‘Hi, P., listen -’

‘Hey, Gina, so that was pretty useless, and I -’

‘Can’t talk now, P.’

She says it so firmly that P.J.stops in his tracks. ‘OK.’ He then says, ‘You all right?’

‘Yeah. I’ll talk to you later.’

‘OK.’

She puts the phone down, aware that Maloney is probably flattering himself about how riveted she is to what he’s been saying. But what she’s actually thinking is Get me out of here . Because if she’s not going to talk to P.J. -

Her phone rings again.

As before, she whips it off the table, but this time she stands up, having seen from the display that it’s Yvonne.

She turns away from the table, doesn’t indicate anything to Maloney and heads for the door.

‘ Yvonne? ’

It’s noisy out on Dawson Street, with traffic, tourists, a plane passing overhead.

‘ Gina? ’

‘Yes.’ She stares at the pavement. ‘I’m here.’

‘OK, Gina, listen to me.’

‘ Yvonne, what’s wrong? ’

Gina presses the phone to her ear. Oh God, here it comes.

‘It’s Noel.’ Yvonne pauses. ‘ Our Noel.’ Gina closes her eyes. ‘He was killed last night. His car ran off the road.’

‘ Oh God .’

‘Somewhere in Wicklow.’

‘ Wicklow? ’

Yvonne is sobbing now, and Gina can’t make out what she’s saying, or even if she’s saying anything at all.

A dozen questions occur to Gina, and as quickly it occurs to her that none of them matters.

‘Oh Jesus,’ she whispers, ‘poor Jenny.’

‘I know, I know.’

‘Where -’

‘They brought the body to Tallaght Hospital. Jenny’s on her way out there now.’ Yvonne then says something incoherent about ‘the two Noels’ and starts sobbing again.

Gina nods along. She doesn’t know what Yvonne has said exactly, but the impact of putting these three words together is as much as she can deal with.

She swallows. A raw, uncomfortable lump has formed in her throat.

After a long and painful silence, the sisters somehow manage to get practical for a few seconds and make an arrangement. Yvonne says that because Catherine has just come back from identifying young Noel’s body and is naturally inconsolable she and Michelle will stay with her for the time being. Gina says that she’ll go out to Tallaght. They can talk later on the phone, or text.

As her arm drops to her side, Gina realises that she won’t be having that chat with Noel over the next couple of days, the one he seemed so anxious to have. She realises that she won’t be seeing Noel again, ever.

She looks around. The sun is shining now. Dawson Street looks beautiful, as it always does in the sunshine, and she wonders what is to stop him from just showing up here ? What is to stop him from appearing, this minute, on the pavement in front of her, striding down from St Stephen’s Green, say, or up from Trinity College?

She shakes her head, slowly, as the lump in her throat approaches critical mass.

Where is he?

Gina walks back into the café. She retrieves her notebook from the table and her bag from the floor.

‘Have to go,’ she says, not looking at Maloney.

Outside again, she turns right and heads in the direction of the taxi rank halfway up the street, her eyes filling with tears.

‘Joining me now from our Dáil studio is the Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment, Larry Bolger. Good afternoon, Minister.’

‘Sean.’

Waiting for his first question, Bolger stares at a point on the wall directly opposite him.

‘Minister, a four-hundred-million-euro investment package, over three hundred and fifty new jobs. In these straitened times it doesn’t get much better than that, does it?’

‘No, indeed, Sean, it certainly doesn’t,’ Bolger says, taking off like a greyhound, ‘and days like today make my job worth doing, I can tell you. Paloma Electronics is a global player, and the fact that they’ve chosen to invest here, in the current economic climate, is a vote of confidence in our skilled workforce. But you must bear in mind, too – and it’s always the case in these matters, be it HP, Intel, Eiben-Chemcorp, Pfizer, Amcan, whoever – that we did face stiff competition for this, both from other locations in Europe and from further afield.’

Bolger shifts in his seat and at the same time adjusts his headphones slightly. He’s done countless radio interviews over the years, but he’s never liked them. He gets restless and fidgety. TV is better, he thinks, because it’s more of a full-on performance. Besides, radio presenters tend to grill you a little harder.

‘In your view, Minister, what does today’s announcement mean for the Waterford area?’

Though some interviews, like this one, he could do in his sleep.

‘Well, Sean, I don’t think it’s overstating it to say that the investment we’ve just announced will go a long way towards mitigating the fallout from recent job losses in the south and south-east. Paloma is going to employ upwards of four hundred people at the plant, but many more jobs will be created in surrounding communities. So there’s no doubt about it, this is win-win economics.’

And win-win press coverage, too, Bolger thinks.

‘OK, we’ll leave it there, Minister,’ the interviewer says after a few more questions. ‘Thank you for joining us.’

Bolger takes off the headphones, nods at the production assistant who’s working the console to his left and gets up from the table.

He needs to take a leak. He leaves the little studio and makes straight for the men’s room down the corridor. He had a press conference before this radio slot, and after lunch he has a couple of newspaper interviews to do. Then he leaves for an appointment in Athlone and a reception this evening in Tuam. His PA, advisers and media handlers will all want a piece of him, and at every stage, even as he gets something to eat, so taking a leak – or even better, a crap – is about the only way he can find a moment to himself these days.