‘It does, but people get screwed, Paddy, they get indicted, they go to fucking prison.’
Norton remains silent.
‘Here’s the thing, OK? Mr V. doesn’t want to shake this guy’s hand one week and then have to watch him doing a perp walk on TV the next.’
‘I know.’
‘It’d look bad.’
‘Yeah. I know.’
Norton chews on his lower lip.
As a possible future prime minister of the only English-speaking country in the Eurozone, and with a six-month stint as EU Council President also in prospect, Larry Bolger would undoubtedly be useful to the Oberon Capital Group – he’d be a handy point man to have in terms of regulatory influence and the awarding of contracts.
‘And he liked him,’ Sullivan is saying. ‘He did. So let’s hope you’re right. Let’s hope it is going to blow over.’
‘It is, Ray, trust me.’
‘OK,’ Sullivan then says. ‘Where are we on naming rights?’
‘Ah, yes,’ Norton says, thinking, sly move. ‘I’m glad you brought that up.’
‘So?’
Naming rights is an inexact science if ever there was one, and very easy to get wrong. The future marketability of a building, for example, will often hinge on how its original name resonates. In this case, the Docklands Regeneration Commission has pretty much decided that the neutral-sounding, location-specific Richmond Plaza works best in the context of urban renewal. Ray Sullivan, on the other hand, has been arguing that Amcan, as anchor tenant, should have exclusive rights in the naming of its shiny new European headquarters.
So… the Amcan Building.
It’s not how Norton imagined it, and certainly the last thing he needs right now is another protracted tussle with the Docklands Regeneration Commission, but the smart move here is probably just to cave in to Sullivan’s demands and bring the negotiations to a head.
Besides, given the current economic uncertainty, locking them in like this mightn’t be such a bad idea.
‘Very well,’ he says. ‘Let’s put some numbers together. And talk later.’
‘OK, Paddy, excellent.’
After the call, Norton sits in silence, staring across at a weather update on the TV.
He shakes his head. How and when – he wonders – did Larry Bolger become central to all of this? How and when did he go from being a sweetener, the icing on the cake, to a deal point?
When ads come on, Norton flicks the TV off with the remote.
So perhaps he should be maintaining a closer watch on Bolger. He seemed fairly composed at the press conference there, but he is under a lot of pressure, and anything could happen. Norton knows how that works after all – how the tipping point can just creep up on you.
He picks his mobile phone up again. With his other hand he reaches into his jacket pocket, leans a little to the side and rummages around for his silver pillbox.
4
‘Mark, you look dreadful. What’s… what’s the matter?’
‘Nothing.’
As he strides across the kitchen, Mark can see the alarm in Aunt Lilly’s eyes. When he gets to where she’s standing, over by the sink, he doesn’t do what he usually does, which is bend down and peck her on the cheek.
He just stands there.
Driving out here from town Mark rehearsed what he was going to say. Out loud. These days, of course, you can do that and not have to worry about seeming deranged. You can be alone in your car, even stopped at traffic lights, and talk, shout, make hand gestures, wave your arms about – because for all the guy in the next car knows, you could be barking at your stockbroker or on a conference call to head office in Tokyo.
Or blubbering to your analyst.
But looking into his aunt Lilly’s eyes now, Mark feels the rage and indignation draining out of him. Suddenly, it doesn’t seem fair, or appropriate, to subject her to what would be, in effect, an interrogation.
‘What is it, Mark?’
At the same time, he can’t let it go. He has to ask her something.
‘Aunt Lilly, did…er…’
As he was flying out along the coast road, this was the one question that he held in reserve, that remained in his head, unrehearsed and unarticulated.
‘Yes?’
‘Did…Dad…’
But he doesn’t get beyond that second syllable, which is not a syllable he has used – on its own, out loud – in as long as he can remember. Using it now finishes him off. His eyes well up again.
‘Oh Mark… Mark…’
He turns away. Through the door leading into the living room he can see that the TV is on. As usual, the sound is either off or pitched so low that he can’t hear it.
‘Aunt Lilly,’ he says, ‘are we really…’ There is an ad on for mobile phones. He stares at it. ‘Are we really sure that Dad… that the accident was his fault?’
He turns back and looks at her.
She is ashen.
Mark has never talked to Aunt Lilly about this before. When his uncle Des was alive, he never talked about it to him either. Any time Mark’s circumstances were alluded to over the years, which was usually for practical reasons, it was in a kind of code, it was hushed and hurried, as though mere contemplation of what had happened might be perilous to mental, even physical, health. Mark’s own understanding of what had happened derived mainly from conversations he overheard in the days and weeks following the crash. Some of these, even at that early stage, were hushed and hurried. Others – looking back on them now – were pretty careless, and really shouldn’t have been conducted in his presence. It was as though people thought that because Mark was so small he wouldn’t understand what they were saying, or take anything in, or remember.
But he was five; he wasn’t stupid.
He recalls, for instance – it was in a crowded sitting room or a kitchen – one man loudly whispering to another, ‘I hear poor Tony had drink taken.’ Now Mark may not have grasped the full import of these words at the time, but he certainly took them in and he certainly remembered them. In fact, he will never forget the day some years later – and it was seemingly out of the blue – when the phrase came into proper focus for him, when sufficient context had accrued around it for its meaning to light up suddenly and explode inside his head.
Tony had drink taken.
He recalls hearing the word Bolger, too – from the days right after the crash – hearing it repeatedly, incessantly, until it took on an obscure, elusive kind of significance for him. Much later, there was a moment when the context around that word clicked into place as well.
The thing is, when Mark was growing up, his adoptive parents never told him anything about what was, up to that point, undeniably, the central event of his life, and he, in turn – assuming there was a good reason for their silence – never asked. He did feel that some attempt at a conversation about it was inevitable though, and as a confused, solipsistic kid he often tried to imagine this. It was something he looked forward to, craved even, but as he got into his teens, and as the silence deepened and thickened, it dawned on him that no such conversation was probably ever going to take place. Then, as he got older – and as his retrospective impressions coalesced into a kind of horrifying revelation – he started to dread that one still might, and he did all in his power to demonstrate to his aunt and uncle that he neither needed nor wanted one.
Mark knew what had happened, he believed – and they knew – so what was there to say about it? Why subject themselves to the embarrassment and the shame?
It was the perfect conspiracy of silence.
Looking at his aunt Lilly now, at the confusion in her eyes, Mark sees the breadth and reach of that conspiracy, and is prepared to bet that she has nothing useful to tell him, not because she chooses not to remember, or because she doesn’t remember, but because she doesn’t know, not anymore.