Lionel Shriver - Ordinary Decent Criminals

“But can’t you use it, Enniskillen? Peace PR?”

“Not really. We’re unlikely to get this referendum together for a year yet. I predict? Gordon Wilson jokes. In a year all of Fermanagh will detest him, even the Catholics—for not having the integrity to detest them back. And once the hand-clasping hoopla clears, the Prods will look around them and notice, Bloody hell, those wankers took out eleven of our side . They’ll feel vengeful and persecuted, as always. Constance, how many times have you heard, these are the last caskets we will carry, now we’re all going to be matey and damp-eyed? Now we will understand one another, albeit from separate schools and different sides of town? Of course you murdered my whole family last night, that’s perfectly all right, you were just doing your job? The Peace People may have we-shall-overcomed the multitudes but without Taigs or Prods to bash we’re at each other’s throats after six months; now the office barely limps from week to week with American volunteers. No, Enniskillen will have no effect on the North whatsoever. Like everything else in the last twenty years.”

“Including you?”

“Oh, aye. Especially me.”

“Then why are we working eighteen hours a day?”

“I do not believe anything I do will make the slightest difference. I do it anyway.”

Then you understand me , thought Constance grimly. Why I phone the same number hours on end until I get through because you said “imperative.” Why I meet your planes on early Sunday mornings. Why I bring you cups of hot water and filled rolls you let dry out. Why I clip your piles of newspapers when you’re finished not reading them, why I collect city council minutes from Derry and Strabane when normal women are shopping for pumps: I do not believe any of this will make the slightest difference. I do it anyway.

She took his hand; that was permitted. They had sorted out the rules, even stretched them—he could put his arm around her, kiss her cheek. In tight spots with only a single available they had slept side by side in the same bed. He would curl against her. It was nice. She didn’t even find it painful. And they often held hands.

“I have a story you’re not going to like.”

“Shoot.” He did not sound nervous. Farrell preferred bad news to no news. He loved a turn of the wheel.

“You know Roisin St. Clair?”

“The name.”

“Don’t be coy. Why didn’t you tell me she was doing the nasty with Angus MacBride?”

Farrell pulled up sharply. “Says who?”

“Says herself.”

“You’re right, I don’t like this story.”

“And I’m hardly her best friend, Farrell. Lord knows who else she’s told. For all we know, she’s leaking like a Divis tap.”

Farrell dropped her hand and paced off the bridge. The sun ruddied his face; his eyebrows looked on fire. Now it was hard to keep up with him.

“I have warned and warned him!” Farrell railed. “How are we to kick this place into shape if he’s splayed in a two-page spread in the Sunday World ? Look at Papandreou! Carrying on with that blonde is toppling his whole government!”

“You figure Unionists care that much about a wee bit of philandering?”

“Are you serious, it’s all they care about! The North is 64 percent Protestant, 36 percent Catholic, 100 percent gossip. As MacBride knows perfectly well, and still the bugger gropes over Antrim as if he were on holiday in Hong Kong. You must have noticed, he even flirts with you!”

“Even me,” said Constance. “Is the trouble that he’s married, or that she’s Catholic?”

“Either is dangerous, both are poison.”

“Find yourself another softhearted Prod.”

“No, I need the UUU behind this referendum, or it won’t fly. Angus MacBride is the UUU. He’s been coddling the party toward power-sharing for years. Half the lot will balk because they’ll boycott any initiative unless the Agreement is scrapped. And when we’re through lacing the proposition with Nationalist perks, there will be enough links with the South that the right-wingers in the UUU could easily label it an all-Ireland solution.”

“Bye-bye, Border Poll.”

“Better believe it. And it’s Angus keeps that rabble together; they do as he says because they like him. But he’s got to keep his nose clean. Bollocks—!”

“You’re not overreacting?”

“I take my prediction back: a year from now Gordon will be old hat. Angus MacBride jokes in the back pages of Fortnight are passing before my eyes.”

“Cross your fingers. Nothing’s in public yet.”

“When you have a leaky pipe, you don’t turn up the radio and pretend everything’s all right. People lose whole basements that way. No, the problem must be plumbed. Caulked tight.”

“How is a woman like a kitchen sink?”

“That’s the riddle, my dear. Now, tell me about Roisin St. Clair. What’s she like? Pretty?”

Wouldn’t that be the first question. “Rather. Well preserved, anyway. Thirty-five or so. Brilliant with clothes. Thin; I’d say from nerves. And if that lady ever hits the big time, some psychiatrist has it made.”

“Because of her father?”

Constance shrugged. “That’s the easiest answer. But it’s the mother she whinges on about. Roisin’s the only daughter. And the family is—old-fashioned.”

“Low expectations?”

“Where have you been? No expectations. Considering, she’s done well.”

“She a good poet?”

“Lord, I couldn’t say. I can’t bear any of that palaver, you know that. But at least it’s her one original interest, and she’s followed through.”

“In contrast to—?”

“Roisin St. Clair is one of those people with enthusiasms,” Constance explained. “A bit of a dabbler. I met her when we were setting up that integrated entrepreneurial support scheme with Father Mahon. Och, she threw herself into it with a right frenzy—late nights helping Catholics stuff teddy bears, Prods bottle mayonnaise. Then one day she disappeared.”

“What happened?”

“I suppose they broke up.”

“With Father Mahon—!”

“No, no, she and whoever gave her the idea. Roisin goes through phases, so she does—”

“You mean men.”

“I suppose the interest is genuine enough once it sparks. But your woman never lights her own fire.”

“Romantic history?”

“Nightmarish, protracted. She takes a long time to get the message.”

“Politics?”

“Reactive. Depends on whom she’s browned off with—and sooner or later, that’s everyone she’s ever laid eyes on. I’ve wondered if she’s carrying on with MacBride to spite her mother. She’d never tell her ma outright. But it might satisfy Roisin if the news slipped under the back door.”

“Republican?”

“You’re not getting the picture. Sure, stuck on the right boyfriend, she’d smuggle bazookas in her boot across the border with the best of them. With Angus I expect she’s stitching Union Jacks for the Apprentice Boys.”

“You don’t seem to think much of Miss St. Clair.”

“I’m getting catty. It isn’t attractive, is it?”

“No, it’s entertaining, but I’m beginning to wonder what MacBride sees in her besides the obvious. And the affair’s been on for a couple of years.”

“She is nice to look at. She’s no dozer once you get her intrigued. And with all that resentment, well—she can get scrappy in a corner. I imagine Angus likes a good fight.”

“As long as he can win.”

“Exactly. Besides, there’s a beguiling frailty to Roisin. One of those women who can spend all day in bed. I don’t know if she gets migraines, but she should. She makes you want to take care of her.”