Mike McCormack - Solar Bones

jacket hung on the chair behind me and the cuffs of my shirt rolled up, I swept my gaze over the desk with its computer and its clutter of papers and envelopes and straight away I lined up five jobs for immediate attention — a penstock outside the village of Kilasser which needed to be opened quickly if the recent heavy rainfall was not to build up on the road surface — a procurement order for six hundred tons of polished granite from Roadstone had to be sorted, a couple of invoices to be signed and passed on to the accounts department and lastly, a message on my answering machine from Charlie Halloran that I should give him a call as soon as possible, a message logged at twenty-two minutes past seven, which was early even by Halloran’s standards and which I knew immediately signalled nothing but bad news and while I toyed for a moment with putting it off till later in the morning, I thought to hell with it, better get it out of the way early and not have it hanging over me the whole day, so I dialled him up and cut across him with my cheeriest tone before he could start, saying

Councillor, you’re on the ball early this morning

I’m early every morning

he said bluntly

which caused me to sit up immediately because there was no doubt now but that he was on the warpath as he said

you’re not the only one who knows what a day’s work is –

what can I do for you, Councillor

I’ll tell you what you can do for me — Keeva Bridge, what’s the story with it, I passed by it yesterday — or rather I didn’t pass by it yesterday, I had to turn back, what’s happening with it

you know yourself what’s happened with it, two months’ rain has washed it away, undermined the piers and the whole thing came down under its own weight — there’s a crew onsite, it will be repaired in less than three weeks so –

there was a sour guffaw on the other end of the line

it will take a lot longer than three weeks if things are moving at the pace I saw them yesterday

what did you see

I saw damn all, that’s what I saw, certainly nothing that resembled work that’s for sure, a whole crew of men standing around in hi-vis jackets smoking and talking into their mobiles, that’s what I saw at three o’clock yesterday afternoon so

that put me on guard, the frustration in Halloran’s voice was sharper than our normal exchanges, the man was obviously riled so I said cautiously

in the middle of the afternoon, they were probably having a tea break

tea break my arse, one lad sleeping in the van with his boots up on the dash — I wound down the window and had a word with another lad leaning on a Stop/Go sign, he put the elbow on the roof and leaned in like he had all the time in the world, all talk, he said there was some sort of hold up, something about the delivery of concrete slabs, I couldn’t make out what the hell he was on about so

I had no clue what he was talking about either but I couldn’t let Halloran know that so I had to let the conversation spin out till it became clear what exactly he was referring to, saying

there’s been a small delay but the men will be on top of it in a day or so and

what I want to know is, are there any arrangements for a temporary bridge — there are eight families in the townland of Aughawill cut off from civilization

we’ve decided against a temporary bridge, the time and expense

what time and expense — you don’t have to be reminded that the bank holiday is coming up and the first tourists of the year will be driving around in that part of the world and

the new bridge will be done in a few weeks, well in time for tourists, it’s a single arch bridge, it’s not a listed monument so

it better be done for that weekend, I don’t want to have to go on Midwest Radio explaining why there are holdups on that narrow road or seeing pictures of the people of Aughawill ferrying their kids to school across the river in a transport box, making their local representative look like an idiot and

if they’re that intent on making you look bad you might want to remind them that they would still have their bridge if their sheep hadn’t overgrazed those hills above the river and

oh yes Marcus, I’ll remember that, Halloran said with dry sarcasm, better still, the next time I’m canvassing that whole area you can come with me and lecture those people on hill-grazing and crop rotation and whatever else is bothering you, we’ll see then how you get on, one last thing — has the Legislator been on to you about this

Moylette

yes

no, Deputy Moylette hasn’t been onto me about it yet, at least not so far as I know

it’s only a matter of time, that whole area is right in his heartland, I’m surprised you’ve not had a concerned call about it from him — how about Lavelle, has he called, I’ll bet he’s called

no

it’s not like him to be so slow, I would have bet on him being on to you by now

well, I look forward to calls from those two men

yes, ok, I’ll leave it at that — do what you can about that bridge, get it sorted

I’ll look into it, thanks for calling

bye

bye

and the line went dead as he hung up and I sat back in my chair, gathering my thoughts because Halloran the fucker had now given me something to think about — what the hell was happening out on the bridge, what delay was he talking about and how come Keville, the site engineer hadn’t contacted me about it — these were the thoughts I sifted through after that conversation, taking my time before making a phone call because I knew well from past experience that the worst thing I could do at that moment would be to lift the phone and start bollocking someone at the other end, no surer way of fucking things up or of making a bad job worse, so I sat back in the chair and closed my eyes and considered the problem from as many angles as possible — first of all from the engineering angle and what exactly this hold-up was and then the political one, that aspect which specifically concerned Halloran with his vigilant need to keep his own patch tended and to keep himself positioned in such a way that any credit for its repair and restoration would come to him because it was well known that Halloran’s ambitions beyond a council seat made him a real threat to Moylette, the sitting deputy, and it was only when I put the two names together in my head that I knew I would have to contact

the site immediately because the last thing I needed now was a call from another politician, talking to him without the full story, so I dialled up Keville and got him after a few rings

hello, yes

Keville’s voice rising over a barrage of background noise, an engine roar swelling nearby as a jackhammer kept up a series of short metallic bursts with Keville yelling again

hello, hello

hello Andy, Marcus here

Marcus, how’s it going, give me a second till I move away from here and

I could envisage the whole site now as it was only a few days since I had driven out to it so it was still clear in my mind, the bridge cordoned off behind orange mesh wire, the machines and the crew in hi-vis jackets with the smell of raw stone and concrete and diesel coming down the phone towards me and

Marcus

yes

can you hear me

Keville yelled, with some distance between himself now and the jackhammer so

Andy, I said, is there some sort of a delay on the job, have I heard right, to which

there followed then a fragmented story which did indeed confirm the gist of what Halloran had told me, there had been a single day’s delay due to a power outage in the Roadstone yard that had knocked out their concrete production for a full twenty-four hours — and no, they had no backup generators — but that he’d got an assurance that they would deliver the pre-cast slabs later today and that the mobile crane was already in place and ready to go so there would be no time lost on that and no surer thing, he had been onto Roadstone already this morning and they had given him their solemn word that they would be there this afternoon at the latest and