Bishop's Delight E-Book

Patrick McGinley

• Herausgeber: New Island
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2016

Beschreibung

'All a politician needs to know about hacks is that the best story wins. They're only entertainers who've wrapped themselves in the flag of truth…' Taoiseach Jim Maguire has disappeared under suspicious circumstances. Two rival journalists, Kevin Woody and Tony Sweetman, struggle to find the best story to tell about Maguire's vanishing act. As Woody and Sweetman navigate their turbulent personal lives while trying to keep the story of Maguire's disappearance alive for another day, it begins to emerge that there may have been more to the missing Taoiseach than his political career. What is the truth about Maguire, and what is the mysterious Bishop's Delight? Bishop's Delight shows novelist Patrick McGinley at his mesmerising best, showcasing his formidable literary style, his ever-present dark humour and his uncanny ability to explore uncomfortable truths.

Leseprobe

Praise for Patrick McGinley

‘An imaginative, expertly turned dark comedy, informed by some splendid dialogue and a sensual feel for the claims of the soil.’ – New York Times

‘Patrick McGinley’s gifts for resonant dialogue, sexual frictions, graphic violence, and peripeteia have been well noted for over three decades by readers and critics who relish the extravagances of getting lost beyond the Pale.’ – Times Literary Supplement

‘If ever proof was needed that art is not a meritocracy, and success relies more on luck than talent, you’ll find it in Patrick McGinley’s Bogmail. First published in 1978, reissued by New Island, this is not just a great crime novel but a great work of literature.’ – Irish Independent

‘Patrick McGinley is a very gifted man. He knows his Irish bog as well as Isaac Bashevis Singer does the shtetl, and he can sing about it with something like the same magic.’ – New York Times

‘A perceptive, upmarket memoir, rich in exact recall and with ambition to social history.’ – The Irish Times

‘Mr McGinley is inventive and eloquent, his humour puckish and Paddy-wry; he has a fine command of comic irony … and his evoca­tions of landscape and seascape are successful, not simply as description, but as definitions of a mythic environment.’ London Review of Books

‘A rich and loving novel, Bogmail is full of wonder’ – New York Magazine

Also by Patrick McGinley

Goosefoot

Fox Prints

The Trick of the Ga Bolga

The Red Men

The Devil’s Diary

The Lost Soldier’s Song

That Unearthly Valley (memoir)

Cold Spring

Bogmail

Foggage

Bishop’s Delight

A Novel

Patrick McGinley

BISHOP’S DELIGHT First published in 2016 by New Island Books 16 Priory Hall Office Park Stillorgan County Dublin Republic of Ireland.

www.newisland.ie

Copyright © Patrick McGinley, 2016. Patrick McGinley has asserted his moral rights.

PRINT ISBN: 978-1-84840-491-5 EPUB ISBN: 978-1-84840-492-2 MOBI ISBN: 978-1-84840-493-9

All rights reserved. The material in this publication is protected by copyright law. Except as may be permitted by law, no part of the material may be reproduced (including by storage in a retrieval system) or transmitted in any form or by any means; adapted; rented or lent without the written permission of the copyright owner.

British Library Cataloguing Data. A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

New Island Books received financial assistance from The Arts Council (An Chomhairle Ealaíon), 70 Merrion Square, Dublin 2, Ireland.

For Mary and Howard

1

The two joggers slowed down as they came within sight of a seat under a beech tree. In making for it they overtook a pensioner on a stick who’d had the same idea. The shorter of the two flopped down on the seat and pulled a bottle of water from his belt. The tall one watched him drink.

‘You’re puffed, Bill,’ he said, sitting down next to his friend.

With legs outstretched, they observed the other joggers and walkers in silence. The park was a gift from a more spacious time; they met here for a jog once a week, and sometimes the taller of the two came alone because he set store by solitude. Approaching his fifty-eighth birthday, he still could be mistaken for a younger man. He had a full head of steel-grey hair, and he was inclined to think that, like his hero, Charles de Gaulle, he retained a military bearing. In looks he did not in the least resemble de Gaulle: his face was lean, the taut skin pale, and the eyes narrow and piercing. It was not the face of a man who could ever have been mistaken for a matinee idol. His porky friend was red-faced, and with his left bow leg cut a clumsy figure while jogging. They had known each other for over twenty years, and they helped each other when either needed help, as you would expect from close friends.

‘I came here for a stroll on Wednesday afternoon,’ the tall one said. ‘As I was passing a bench, a man with a dog waved to me and said, “Will you come and talk to me?” He turned out to be the most boring man I’d ever met. His conversation was a series of questions to which only he knew the answers. His first question was, “What is the area of this park in Irish acres?” and his next was, “Who first made soda water as a manufactured product?” Who else but a Dubliner called Augustine Thwaites in 1776, or so he claimed.’

‘And now you’re telling me, Jim!’ the porky man laughed. ‘Never talk to strange men. That’s what my mother told me as a boy.’

‘The quiz was only the start of it. He said he’d been hearing terrible stories about goings-on in government. “Everyone knows there’s a scandal brewing. There’s a new rumour every day of the week. What I’d like to know is where they’re all coming from.” ’

‘What did you say?’

‘There will always be rumours. It’s the nature of democracy, the nature of party politics.’

‘I’m sure he must have recognised you.’

‘I don’t think so. He wasn’t the cheeky sort, but in case my speaking voice might give me away, I thanked him for an interesting conversation and made my escape.’

‘Rumours come and go. I don’t pay any heed to them.’

‘These are different, Bill. They’re too close to the bone for comfort.’

‘There’s a libel law in the land. They wouldn’t dare publish what I’ve heard.’

‘Don’t you believe it. The age of decorum is dead. Modern journalists are happiest dishing the dirt. All they’re interested in is sex and scandal—and whatever someone somewhere doesn’t want to see published.’

‘While readers pay money to read trash, journalists will write it. We’re all part of the same vicious circle.’

‘It’s their high moral tone that gets me. The gutter journalists dig the dirt and the so-called serious journalists hold their noses and rehash the dirt the gutter journalists have already dished.’

‘We’ve both been here before. It will blow over.’

‘This time it’s different. I’ve even heard talk of photos. In the popular imagination, photos don’t lie.’

‘In these days of computers they can and do. Every problem has a price tag. Surely you’re not worried about the cost?’

‘What I’m worried about is my reputation, my political legacy.’

‘Your place in history! You may as well say it. What you need is a few quiet days to get things back in perspective. When life gets too much for me, I go down the country to do some hillwalking on my own. A day in the open is the best panacea I know. I come back to the village in the evening with my tongue hanging out for a pint. My father used to say, “There’s no ailment in life that a touch of nature can’t cure.” He was right.’

‘I might just take your advice. I need a few days to myself, looking at the sea and the sky with the mountains somewhere in the background. Do you ever feel used—soiled, I mean—as if you’d been looked at by too many beady eyes?’

‘I may feel used at times, but not because too many people have been trying to catch my eye. You’re a lucky man, Jim. You’re the centre of attention wherever you go.’

‘And you’re the only person I can talk to. Anna is away with the fairies, writing her children’s books and preparing talks for radio. If it weren’t for you, I’d go mad.’

‘We all need a sympathetic ear, a listener rather than a lecturer. Why don’t we do some sleuthing, investigate the source of the leaks?’

‘Too risky. In fact, it’s occurred to me that we should give up our Thursday jog. Anything that attracts the attention of cartoonists soon becomes a caricature of itself.’

‘I don’t suppose you’ve thought of retiring? Quitting while you’re ahead?’

‘There’s nothing the young Turks in the party would like better. In the past year I’ve seen off two attempts at a coup. The word “quit” isn’t in my vocabulary. No, I’ll stay and face whatever music is to be faced. I’m a fighter, not a quitter. Always do the unexpected. It’s the way to confound the enemy.’

The porky man got to his feet. He had obviously heard it all before. ‘I must be getting back,’ he said. ‘I’m taking Maggie out to dinner. It’s my way of keeping her happy.’

‘Dinner always works wonders. Whenever Anna feels unappreciated, I whisk her out of the kitchen. Wives are precious, but they need pampering to keep them from asking awkward questions.’

2

What other journalists wrote was only for the day; what Kevin Woody was writing was for posterity, or so he liked to tell himself. To keep body and soul together he had to write some things for the day, of course, but every evening he returned to his lonely house in Drumcondra to commit to paper the words that would give weight and substance to his magnum opus: the biography no one knew he was writing. He had spent the last ten years writing and rewriting, adding a paragraph here and deleting a sentence there; now all he was waiting for was the ending. For that he must outlive his subject, a requirement he sought to fulfil by taking good care of himself. He didn’t overeat, and unlike some of the other hacks he knew, he did not drink himself into a stupor every night of the week. Though he stood over six foot tall in his socks, he weighed only twelve stone four before breakfast. He went for a walk in the park from time to time and pumped iron at the gym once a week. For a man in his forty-ninth year he was in good shape, and, equally important, his mind was as sharp as ever.

His subject was none other than the Taoiseach himself, the battle-scarred Jim Maguire. He had been leader of his party for seventeen years, and Taoiseach for four terms in the coalition governments he was so good at putting together. He was now fifty-seven, eight years older than Woody, and in less than perfect health. It was rumoured that he had a mild heart condition. Last year he was admitted to hospital with arrhythmia, only to be released again after two days. Still, no one really knew the minute or the hour. It was rather exciting. You could say that all he was waiting for was the bellman’s signal to write the final appraisal. Meanwhile, he would carry on honing and making perfect.

His book, which he had provisionally called Political Magpie in acknowledgement of Maguire’s predatory and idea-thieving nature, was no common or garden biography. He had taken as his model Lytton Strachey’s Eminent Victorians, and nothing would convince him that he himself had not set an even higher benchmark in acerbic wit and stylishness. Although it was no part of his ambition to perpetuate Maguire’s memory, he felt certain that his book would be read for its literary grace long after its subject was forgotten.

He had known Maguire at university. They shared digs and went everywhere together. A mature student because of a polio setback, Maguire was stimulating company. He was reading history and French, but even then everyone knew that his future lay in politics. He was an accomplished mimic, a witty and resourceful debater, and a keen supporter of what more radical students saw as the Crooks’ Party. Some even joked that Maguire, like Milton, belonged to the Devil’s Party without knowing it. Not that Maguire cared. He was impervious to the jibes of lesser men; he used to say that a thick skin was the best legacy anyone could have from his parents.

After graduating, he and Maguire founded and edited a political monthly from a small basement office in Nassau Street, but from the start he could see that Maguire’s sights were set on higher things. He had been selected to contest his father’s old seat in East Mayo on behalf of the Crooks’ Party, which naturally their magazine supported. Then, in the midst of rejoicing, disaster struck. Their magazine was sued for malicious libel, and there was no money in the kitty to defend the case against them. After weeks of hard bargaining they settled out of court, which cost Woody every penny of his savings. Maguire said he needed whatever funds he had to fight the election. In coming to his rescue, Woody wasn’t being entirely selfless: he had told Maguire that the price he must pay for having his political life saved was to stay away from Anna Harvey, their attractive young secretary. Within weeks, the magazine folded. Maguire was elected to the Dáil, while Woody found himself jobless and penniless. Unbeknown to him, Maguire was still seeing Anna. They got married the following year.

He was badly bruised by Maguire’s perfidy, but he did not let Maguire or Anna see it. They invited him to their wedding, and he accepted their invitation. He even bought them a present he could ill afford. It was all part of his plan; he was in no hurry, he was playing a waiting game. Maguire’s career blossomed while Woody did his best to get by on a slender income derived from political journalism and occasional book reviewing. Though a bond of trust had been broken, he and Maguire still met for drinks because it was in the interest of both of them to keep the lines of communication open. Maguire found him useful when he wished to discuss a new policy or plant the germ of an idea in the public domain that would later blossom to the detriment of a political rival. Woody was more than willing to fall into his prescribed role because he was often the first recipient of the titbits that fell from Maguire’s table. In time he came to be respected by his colleagues for his prescience and confident analysis of complex political issues. He knew that he was being used, but still he smiled, telling himself that revenge is a dish best served cold.

Today he wasn’t thinking of Maguire. Instead, he was wondering why Tony Sweetman had phoned him with such urgency. They were in the habit of meeting every Friday to make what Sweetman in his uninspired way described as ‘an early start on the weekend’. Sweetman was a TV journalist, good for the memorable sound bite, the cocktail sausage and the canapé as opposed to a solid three-course dinner. He was a tireless networker; he knew everyone and trusted no one, and as a consequence no one trusted him. It was only Tuesday, so what was on his mind that could not wait till Friday? He wouldn’t show any curiosity. He would be his usual cool-headed, slow-spoken self.

They met upstairs in Neary’s because it suited their pockets and because it wasn’t a haunt of their fellow hacks. Sweetman had already arrived, looking his usual suspicious self, turning his head and stretching his neck like a vigilant cormorant on a rock. He was the type of man who was at his best on television. An envious colleague once observed that he never relaxed except in front of the cameras. Now he was seated at the corner table with his back to the window and the light. He was reading a paperback, which he slipped into his briefcase the moment Woody appeared at the door.

‘Reading something sexy?’

‘If only. I’m ploughing through a biography of de Gaulle. I’m just curious to know what Maguire can see in the cold-blooded old Froggy. They say he knows by heart every last one of de Gaulle’s bonsmots.’

When they’d ordered lunch and settled down to their drinks, Sweetman gave him a long look of cool appraisal. ‘When did you last see Maguire?’ he whispered, leaning forward conspiratorially in his chair.

‘Just over a week ago. He was his usual urbane and blasé self.’

‘When are you meeting him again?’

‘I don’t make dates with Maguire. His secretary rings me. The traffic is all one way. It could be months before I see him on his own again.’

‘A week, never mind a month, is a long time in politics, as another old twister once said. I’ll bet he won’t be as blasé next time. There’s a raincloud on the horizon that could drench him. I’ve had it from a little bird who had it from a bigger bird who shall be nameless. I thought I’d tip you the wink. It’s no more than you’d do for me.’

Sweetman actually winked at him as if he knew more than he was letting on. The purpose of the meeting had finally become apparent; he wanted to find out if Woody knew something he himself didn’t know. Woody thought it time to cast a few crumbs on the water to see what might rise to the bait.

‘We live in a world of rumours. I’ve heard one as well,’ he said.

‘Can we both have heard the same rumour, do you think?’

‘It’s all too possible.’

Sweetman looked around the room as if to establish whether anyone was eavesdropping on their conversation.

‘You can’t be too careful,’ he said, pulling out a little notebook from an inner pocket. Removing a page, which he tore in two, he pushed one half in Woody’s direction and kept the other half himself. ‘We’ll each write just two words about the rumour we’ve heard. We’ll exchange papers. That way no word will be spoken and no word overheard.’

Woody took a thin little pencil from his pocket diary and wrote two words. Sweetman extracted a biro from his jacket and also wrote two words, then pushed his scrap in Woody’s direction. Woody reciprocated and turned up Sweetman’s paper, on which the words ‘KINKY SEX’ were written in block capitals. He had written the words ‘BIG MONEY’ on his scrap.

‘We’ve heard different stories,’ Sweetman said, with an air of disappointment.

‘Not necessarily. We may have heard different facets of the same story.’

‘Money and sex, horse and cart. Now we’ll both be on the alert. Knowing what you’re looking for is half the battle. Share and share alike has always been my philosophy.’

After they’d eaten, they shared the bill before going their separate ways, Woody somewhat nonplussed and Sweetman with a spring in his step. He didn’t know what to make of Sweetman. Some said he was a bit naïve; others that the naïvety was a mask to mislead the unwary. He was troubled by the words Sweetman had written. Kinky sex was the last thing he would have associated with Maguire. Everyone knew of his interest in big money and in the kind of people who possessed it. He contrived to live in style. He had a mansion in Howth, a fine house in Mayo, and a desirable little cottage in Conamara. He owned two racehorses and a yacht in Howth Harbour for the entertainment of his cronies. In writing BIG MONEY he was giving nothing away. But why did Sweetman write KINKY SEX? Did he really know something, or was he chancing his arm to see how he’d react? No matter how he looked at it, it was worrying. If there was anything in the story, it would upset the balance of his book. He had portrayed Maguire as an ice-cold puritan whose only weakness was the love of money and moneybags. He would have to keep his ear to the ground. It was too early to write the last chapter. To use the time-honoured metaphor, the fat lady had yet to sing.

On the way home he paused outside what used to be the Pearl Bar, recalling the unswept floor, the hard benches, the grubby windows whose filtered light changed the colour of her wavy brown hair. They used to meet there after work. He still thought of her as Anna Harvey; he couldn’t bear to think of her as Anna Maguire. She was young then, no more than twenty. He had a photo of her leaning against a tree in the green. She wore a pale green blouse and purple dress that summer because, she said, everyone else was wearing white and pink. Again he heard her laugh: ‘I’m amused when shop assistants say, “Green doesn’t go with purple.” They don’t seem to understand. A friend of mine has a cat she calls Macavity. When I suggested she call him MacAlister instead, she told me to read T. S. Eliot. Some people are dull beyond belief.’ He had loved her then; he was young enough to see the city and the world through her eyes.

In O’Connell Street he turned a corner, seeking unavailingly the entrance to the vanished Prince’s Bar. It was long and narrow, so they used to meet in the far end, the Holy of Holies, as she called it. She liked talking to the old barman who came from Toomevara. Once when he happened to be late he found her on a high stool at the bar smiling at the barman’s stories of the turf. He had given her what he called a certainty. She put a bob each way on Jeroboam, and collected nineteen shillings and eight pence. That evening she went back to the Prince’s and bought the barman a large Jameson. That’s what she was like before she married Maguire, a girl of verve and sparkle, ready to act on impulse no matter how. At times he used to wonder what she’d come up with next. How could she have allowed it to happen, the long, sad dwindling into mediocrity? She was totally under his thumb. Maguire liked to think of himself as a great leader, a modern Dev without Dev’s blind spots, and of course he convinced her to begin writing stories for children like her predecessor, Sinéad, who had stayed obediently at home, enduring without complaint the great man’s icy demeanour. He decided to walk home because he liked walking and because he wanted to empty his mind of all memories of his meeting with Sweetman.

Just in time he remembered that he was supposed to be meeting Jane at five-thirty. She came straight from work, the picture of brisk efficiency. She worked for a firm of solicitors; what else could you expect? He told her she looked stunning because she liked to be reassured. The pub was quiet; the barbarians hadn’t yet arrived. There was an old couple across from them who were staring blankly into space. A young couple on the right were having an argument.

‘Would you rather be the silent old pair or the young hotheads?’ she asked.

‘Neither, I’m happy as I am.’

‘I think it’s time we got married,’ she said, for the tenth time that month. She said it at least twice, and sometimes three times a week.

‘You have no idea of the precarious state of my finances. I can barely support myself, let alone the two of us.’

‘I wouldn’t be a millstone round your neck. I’d bring home my share of the bacon. I could sell my flat. Your house is big enough for both of us.’

‘Property values are going down. It isn’t a good time to sell unless you’re buying as well.’

‘You’re never without an excuse, Woody.’

‘Trust me. I know what I’m doing. I’ve got something on the boil that could land us both in clover.’

‘Are you planning to win the lottery?’

‘I’m not stupid. I don’t do the lottery.’

‘Just think if you won the jackpot! What would you do with it?’

‘I’d take you on a cruise round the world. We’d have a whirlwind romance in the Roaring Forties and we’d get married in Tahiti, and I’d put a garland of flowers around your neck.’

‘You can never be serious. You haven’t got one serious thought in that high head of yours.’

‘I’m so serious that I’ve come full circle. The only thing in this ludicrous world I’m serious about is you.’

‘So when are we getting married then?’

‘We’ll get married when we’re both in step, without one bone of contention between us.’

‘What you’re saying is, “Stop chuntering, Jane.” Is that it?’

‘We’ll talk at the weekend. I’ve got a lot on my mind at the moment.’

‘What are you thinking about now?’

‘I was thinking that the inside of this pub looks like the interior of a church.’

‘There are times when I think you’re quite mad, Woody.’

‘I’m not mad. You see, the craftsmen who worked on the interior of the Dublin churches also did the furnishings of the old Dublin pubs. Look at those benches and the stained-glass windows.’

‘We’ll never get married at this rate,’ she said.

He reached for her hand. ‘Put today’s date in your diary. We’ll be married before it comes around again next year.’

3

Anna Maguire was enjoying a few quiet days on her own. Jim had gone to the cottage for a short break ‘to fish mackerel and think about things.’ He enjoyed rock fishing, but he also had a rowboat with an outboard for those quiet times when he wanted to be alone on the water. As a rule there was no one more gregarious than Jim. He loved good company and the cut and thrust of after-dinner conversation, but he often told her that solitude was the greatest luxury in his life and his greatest temptation. Politics was a bruising business. After a week in Kildare Street he needed a few days among rocks and sheep and seagulls to recover his natural bounce and eagerness for the battle.

He wouldn’t mind having to fend for himself at the cottage. A countryman born and bred, he wasn’t the helpless type; he would be glad of the opportunity to fish for his supper and then cook whatever he’d caught. He could fry a mackerel, boil a few potatoes and carrots or roast some parsnips, his favourite vegetable. One way or another he wouldn’t go hungry; she had packed a few tins of this and that to tide him over in case the sea was rough. She had offered to go with him, and she was pleased when he said that he didn’t want to take her away from her writing. She was putting the finishing touches to a talk she was giving to the ICA, and she needed to do some shopping in advance of the book launch on Thursday. Still, she couldn’t help being worried about him. There was something on his mind that he hadn’t shared with her. She knew him well enough to read the signs.

He used to say that ‘the politician who loses touch with his public is like an actor who doesn’t know when the play is over. It happens eventually to the best us. It happened to Dev and de Gaulle. In England it happened to Churchill and Thatcher. It won’t happen to me,’ he’d promised her more than once. ‘When my time is up, I won’t hang about. I’ll take rock fishing and cooking seriously.’

She advised him to give up while he was still on top, but like all politicians he was headstrong. ‘No, I’d like to win one last election outright, and hand over to the young Turks six months later. I’m not power-mad; power is a Dead Sea fruit, as that old fox Harold Macmillan once said. It’s ashes in the mouth once you’ve achieved it.’

If he had a weakness as a politician, it lay in his readiness to please journalists. He saw them as the connecting rod between him and the man in the street, the man in the drain, the man on the tractor, and the housewife doing the weekend shopping. He himself had begun his career as a journalist, and he still retained his ear for the colourful metaphor, the journalistic aphorism. He had divided journalists into two camps: those whose weapon is aggressive probing, and those who seek the Achilles heel by subtle flattery. Though wary of both, he never turned down an opportunity to pit his wits against either. He had his favourites, of course. Among the flatterers, he had a soft spot for Kevin Woody, and among the gladiators he respected Tony Sweetman for his slithery subtlety. ‘You needn’t worry,’ he’d said to her. ‘I can handle both. All a politician needs to know about hacks is that the best story wins. They’re only entertainers who’ve wrapped themselves in the flag of truth. No sense of history. No scale of values. The rise of an eagle and the fall of a sparrow are one and the same to them. There will always be another and a better story tomorrow.’

She had her own views. She could understand his closeness to Kevin Woody, but she questioned his acceptance of the wiles of Sweetman. Kevin Woody was an old friend. They both knew him. After all, it was Woody who’d brought them together. He was an odd man out among journalists. He had few friends, which was probably why Jim trusted him.

Jim himself wasn’t a typical politician, if only because he didn’t rate politics highly; he saw it as a debased pursuit, unworthy of a man with a really serious cast of mind. ‘What kind of man enjoys answering questions about the failure of the water pump in Ballyhuppachaun one day and rising unemployment and interest rates the next?’ I’m a politician because I have a second-rate mind. If I had a good mind I’d have devoted my life to enlarging the sum total of human knowledge.’

He was disappointed in his political career. Somehow or other he felt that the Irish people never quite saw him as one of themselves. ‘They respected me, but they didn’t trust me. They made my party the largest party, but they never gave me an overall majority. They condemned me to a life of wheeling and dealing, going cap in hand to lesser parties and lesser men. It was as if they wanted to teach me a lesson in case I got too big for my boots.’

She tried to reason with him to make him see the bright side. She told him that politics in a democracy was ultimately about persuasion, which was what he was good at. ‘So you see me as a salesman! I can only agree with you. Like all politicians, a salesman of other people’s ideas. Name me one politician anywhere with an original mind.’