The Horse With My Name

1

I was shaking hands with the vicar in the rain when the phone rang. I dried off on that week's towel and crossed the bedroom. A voice at the other end said, 'Dubliners are skin-gathering showers of shite.'
I said, 'Excuse me, you might have a wrong number,' and put the phone down. I flipped the answer machine on so that I wouldn't be disturbed again, but by the time I got back to the shower the water had run cold, the vicar had gone and my headache had returned.
I believe you actually have to have the shower in a small, separate room to be able to describe it as en suite; this one sat in the corner beside my bed, the plastic curtain hanging off the railing. You never know quite when the urge to shake hands with the vicar will come on you, so to speak, and this time it had come halfway through shaving in the shower, so I was left with a five-day growth on one side of my face and the other side cut and bleeding from a six-week-old razor which had, according to the packaging on the floor, been cut from the hull of the Ark Royal. There remained three inches of water at the base of the shower which was draining away a drop at a time; only with the power off could I hear the weird sucking sound it made as it battled to escape. It had been a while since I'd experienced a weird sucking sound so I decided to investigate. I had two fingers down the drain when the phone rang again, and the machine clicked in. The voice said, 'I'm serious, Dan, they are. But give me a call anyway, I might have some work for you.' He left me his number, no code, so I presumed it was Belfast. I recognised the voice, but couldn't quite place it; I was still running possible names through my head when I came up with the remains of a leg of chicken from the drain, the sucking sound ceased and the water started to gurgle appreciatively away. I took a nibble at the leg. It tasted vaguely spicy. I gave some thought to the possibility that I might have stumbled on the Colonel's secret recipe, but not a lot.
I sat on the bed and warmed myself before the three-bar electric fire with the glowing coal-effect façade. In the absence of a television in my little bedsit palace I had taken to watching the façade and been pleasantly surprised at the standard of programming. You couldn't always pick up the Liverpool game but you got a great view of the mountains at sunset. However, I'd managed to put my foot through it a couple of nights before while trying to locate the equally unsweet toilet in the blackness of a heavy session and now it sat dark and cracked like a fellated Krakatoa; from technicolour to black-and-white movies with one drunken footstep. It wasn't my only entertainment, of course. There was a pub round the corner and my laptop, though I used one more than the other. Somehow, the words wouldn't flow, but the beer always would. It had something to do with a little white coffin and the fact that my life was a disaster. I had tried to commit suicide by putting my head in the fridge, which was just about the standard of everything I attempted in life. There was a biography of a fat boxer which had cost me thousands in libel payments, there was a thin novel about a teenage messiah which had been remaindered within six weeks, there was a making of book about a hit Hollywood movie which was not, and there were a thousand and one columns taking the pish out of the fighting Northern Irish, except they were now the ones taking the pish out of me. Jobless, hopeless, loveless; generally less everything.
I listened to the message again, but still couldn't fit the voice to a name. I finished a can and sat thinking about things for a while, and then remembered why I'd gone to the expense and trouble of showering. I groaned and stood up. I still had my one suit hanging behind the door, but the knees were green from playing football in the park; I couldn't turn up to marriage guidance like that; I would look like a loser. That and the big sign on my head which flashed a neon LOSER every time I breathed in. There were tracksuit bottoms and some scuffed trainers under the bed; there was a greyish-white T-shirt with Harp written in the corner I'd won in the pub movie quiz; there was my bomber jacket with the lining hanging loose, although you could only tell that if it was unzipped. I'd get there and Patricia would be wearing her wedding dress, just to rub in the fact that she had a date for the divorce hearing.
Fuck it. What was the point? She'd got some big promotion in work and seemed to be rolling in it, but I loved her too much to sue her for alimony. I had a bill in my bottom drawer for a little white coffin, but I wasn't going to bother her with that. What were they going to do, repossess? Over my dead body.
I walked into the centre. It was only about twenty minutes. For once in my life the rain stayed off. There is a Buddy Holly song about raining in my … but the last word wouldn't come to me. It seemed like it should be soul, but I wasn't convinced. Something with s: suit, soap, soup. It's raining in my soup. I liked that. It wasn't right. But I liked it.
Belfast was buzzing.
That was the slogan they used after the ceasefire. In Stormont they were doing the familiar two steps forward, three steps back, but there was a kind of peace, the kind that involved shootings, kneecappings and riots, about which a lot of reformed terrorists did a lot of tutting and shaking of heads. There was a similar kind of peace about to settle over the headquarters of the Presbyterian Church where the counselling was scheduled to take place. Patricia, in her despair, had found solace in the church, despite our experiences on Wrathlin. Some might argue that I had found solace in a bottle, but I couldn't afford a bottle; solace in a can. The ring-pull mountain sat in one corner of the room; there was no longer any benefit in keeping them; the standard of my beer had dropped with my circumstances and I could no longer delude myself that I was drinking only to attain those air miles, that World Cup football or that outside chance of a Mini Metro. If the men at the ring-pull factory went on strike or some lager version of Auric Goldfinger cornered the market in world ring-pull supplies then I might be in a position to cash in, but in the meantime my ring-pull mountain wasn't enough to convince the bank manager that I was a safe bet on a mortgage, an ATM card or even an account.
I walked through the doomy doors of Church House and told them I was looking for sanctuary. They told me sanctuary was only available on Tuesdays and Thursdays between six and eight p.m., and could I come back. I wasn't sure if they were joking. There were two of them, sisters from the looks of them (although, of course, not sisters in the habit and revolver sense), and they wore identical hats and looks of disdain and told me that I'd gotten the wrong day for the AA meeting. I set my can down on the counter and said I was here for marriage guidance, but I could come back for the other one. I suggested to them that they should form a larger organisation called the AAAA, for drinking drivers, but they didn't know what I was talking about.
They pointed me in the right direction, which was any direction which took me away from them, and I heard them fussing and whittering to each other as I headed for the stairs.
There are no elevators in church buildings. It's a fact. Not even for the disabled. I suppose it's something to do with ascending to heaven, or hell in the case of the marriage guidance office three flights up. It wasn't called marriage guidance any more, of course, that was too old-fashioned; there was a proper organisation called Relate, somewhere, but that would have been too straightforward for Patricia. This was my third visit and they should have called it Relate To This You Misanthropic Bastard. Instead they called it Providence. I'm sure there was a reason. It was run by a woman called Mary Boland. When I first met her I told her one of my favourite books in primary school was The Forest of Boland Light Railway and she told me to sit down and be quiet or I'd be kept behind. She gave us a lot of guff about love and God and problems and God, all the time Patricia nodding and me staring at Patricia. That was the first time. The second time Patricia slapped me and I pulled her hair and Mrs Boland had to call in a passing curate to separate us. This third time I slouched in and took my seat and smiled at Mary Boland and apologised for last time. She nodded and made a note. Patricia had not yet arrived.
I asked if I could smoke and she said no.
'Drink?'
'No.'
'Drugs?'
'No. Mr Starkey?'
'Call me Clive.'
She looked at her notes. 'Clive?'
'I'm thinking of changing my name. Although I'm more Clive Dunn than Clive of India.'
She blinked and said, 'Dan, Patricia called. She won't be coming.'
'What?'
'She thinks it's pointless. She's decided on the divorce.'
I nodded. 'You could have called me. Let me know.'
'It was only half an hour ago. I tried to leave a message.'
'You have to give at least twenty-four hours for the dentist.'
'I'm not a dentist, Dan.'
'Aren't you?'
I sighed.
She sighed. 'Dan, I know this is all very painful for you …'
'Not half as painful as …'
'Don't say it, Dan. That was one of her big complaints, that you never take anything seriously.'
'Au contraire. Or on the contrary. I take everything seriously. If I happen to be hilariously funny in my responses it's just my way of covering up the hidden pain. It's more of a cry for help than anything. Tears of a clown, as Smokey said.'
We looked at each other for several long moments. Actually she wasn't a bad sort, she was trying to help, she just happened to be blinkered by religion. She had short dark hair and a thin aquiline nose. She wore pale lipstick and a shirt buttoned right up. She closed her file of notes. 'I very rarely say this, Dan; in fact, I'm not meant to. But you know I've been having one-to-one sessions with Patricia, so I happen to know that she loves you. The problem is that you won't talk to her about what happened …'
'About dead kid.'
'Dan … all you really need to do is go round and talk to her about it. I think you'll find that once you take that first step, things will change. You do have to talk to her, Dan, you know that, don't you?'
I nodded. 'I don't know where she lives any more. The court … the police … well, you know …'
She took a deep breath. 'This could get me sacked.' She opened the file again. She turned it round so that I could see and pointed at Patricia's name and her address on Windsor Avenue. 'On the condition that you won't go round there and throw stones through her windows again.'
I shook my head. 'Nor potatoes.' Her brow crinkled. I shrugged. 'Deal,' I said. She smiled. I stood up. I reached across to shake her hand; she hesitated, suspecting, I suspect, that I would suddenly withdraw it and stick my tongue out like a child, but then she grasped it.
We shook. I held on to her hand.
'I understand your pain, Dan. I had a nephew who--'
I stopped her. 'You don't understand the meaning of the word pain until you've had your pubic hair caught in the rotorblades of the Action Man canoe.' I nodded and let go of her hand. I walked out of the office and down the stairs and out into the street. It was raining.
Raining in my heart …
I smiled. Buddy. My wife had thrown in the towel, although unlike me she undoubtedly had more than one. Windsor Avenue. It was only a hop, skip and a jump away. People forget how small Belfast is. You can walk almost anywhere worth walking to. I set off. I felt suddenly hungry and stopped off at a Pret A Manger but everything they had left seemed to involve avocados or peaches so I made do with a packet of Tayto Cheese and Onion from the newsagent next door. It wasn't raining so badly that I was in danger of getting soaked. It was vaguely pleasant walking up through the shoppers, the office workers and the tourist.
Fifteen minutes took me to the foot of Windsor Avenue, and then I was standing opposite her house. It was a three-storey terrace on a pleasant leafy street. There was no sign of her car, although she might well have changed it. The likelihood was that she was at work. I contemplated breaking in and shitting in her shoes like a burglar, or just making do with the toilet and forgetting to flush it so that she'd know I'd been there, but I couldn't decide which was more appropriate; not for the first time I was falling between two stools. So I decided what would be would be and rang the doorbell. There was nothing for quite a while. I was just turning away when there came the sound of bolts being drawn back and the door finally opened. I turned back to a tall man with a short beard and fashionably rectangular glasses. He had pale skin and a copy of the Daily Mail in his hands, held open with one finger to the page he was reading. He looked me up and down with the blind indifference of a mortician in retirement week.
'Oh, hello,' I said. 'She doesn't take long.'
'Pardon me?'
'I said, would you be interested in a copy of The Watchtower?'
'Excuse me?'
'Or double glazing? I find it much more practical to double up. You can look into the window of your soul and be nice and snuggly at the same time.'
'I'm sorry … I … not today, thank you.'
He closed the door. I rang the bell. 'Only raking,' I said when he opened it a fraction. 'Is Trish in?'
'Patricia?'
'That's the one.'
'No. I'm sorry. She's at work. You … ?'
'Oh. Just a friend. Passing by, y'know?'
He nodded. 'Can I give her a message?'
I nodded. 'Tell her that I still love her. That I will always love her. That I have done terrible things to her and we have suffered a terrible loss but that if we just give it a real chance we can work it out, we can go back to what we had, what was beautiful and fun and sexy and just the greatest thing since sliced bread. Tell her she can go ahead and divorce me, that doesn't make any difference, it's only a piece of paper, if she needs time, sure, she can have more time, if she needs me to promise things, I will promise them and this time I will mean it, but just please God don't throw us away. Tell her I want to talk, I really want to talk, I've seen the light and I want to get it all out in the open. I want to talk. Talk is what I want to do. Talk, and everything will be okay.'
He had closed the door halfway through, but I continued just in case he was still listening.
I turned away. Normally I harbour feelings of violence when Patricia takes a new lover, but there was nothing. I was above it, or beyond it, or beneath it. I started to walk. I was about a hundred yards from home when it finally came back to me whose voice it was on the phone; I knew immediately that I shouldn't call, that it would mean nothing but trouble. And I knew just as immediately that I would.
For Trouble is my middle name.

2

Actually it's James.
We were standing in the first-floor lounge bar of the Europa Hotel. Me and Mark Corkery. Or Mark Corkery and I. He was drinking shorts and I was on pints. He had recovered sufficiently from his opening, 'Jesus, you look rough,' to concentrate on the catalogue of physical disasters that had befallen him in the past year. There was a car crash, a skiiing accident, a train derailment and then in December a decrepit Shorts Skyvan on the way to an air show outside Dublin had deposited part of its landing gear on Corkery's house, demolishing the top floor and inflicting on him what he described as a severe concussion, and what someone less charitable might have described as brain damage. 'They think my personality's changed. They say I'm moody and bad-tempered and I've lost interest in sex. You'd be fucking moody and bad-tempered if you'd broken your leg, your arm, three ribs and your skull in the past twelve months, and you wouldn't be particularly into sex if the landing gear of a Boeing 747 had landed on your arse while you were giving your girlfriend a fucking good seeing-to, would you?'
'Fair point,' I said. 'I thought it was a puddle-jumper.'
He grinned. 'Aye, well, it felt like a fucking 747.' He drained his glass and said, 'Anyway, so how's Trish, how's the kid?'
'Divorcing and dead, respectively.'
'Fuckin' wise up.'
'I'm serious.'
'You're fuckin' not.'
'I fuckin' am.'
'Jesus Christ.'
'And he was no help.'
We stared at our drinks for a while. There was barely another soul in the lounge. In the good old bad old days it would have been full of foreign journalists covering the Troubles and local reporters making a mint selling them stories so that they didn't have to leave the safety of their drinks. It was a vicious circle and I'd been part of it. That's where I'd met Mark Corkery. There are some journalists you describe as old school. Corkery was very definitely reform school. He knew every trick in the book, and it was frequently a stolen book or a banned book. He was known as the King of Crap. He was everyone's friend and had everyone's ear and he had complete freedom to write, spread or print lies about anyone or everyone without fear of being sued or kneecapped because the lies he wrote, spread or printed invariably weren't half as bad or dangerous as the truth. He made a fortune over the course of twenty-five years, and lost it over a different kind of course. He was a fiend for the geegees. He bet every penny he ever had and nobody had ever seen him celebrate a win. The cessation of the Troubles (ish) had seen the work dry up for all of us, but it had hit Corkery the hardest. The bad guys had gone legit, the good guys had moved on or passed on, now it was all about grey men in grey suits talking talks about talks, and the only thing they agreed on was that they didn't want to talk to the likes of Corkery any more. As far as anyone knew he'd retired, or been retired. He still had a kind of a swagger about him, but it was quite sad standing with him in that empty lounge, like having a drink with the oldest swinger in town, knowing that he too would go home lonely and unloved at the end of the night. I told him about Trish and Little Stevie. Gave him more detail than I'd probably given to my wife. I wouldn't have opened my mouth in the old days because it would have ended up on every front page in the land. But times had changed and I'd already jokingly searched him for a tape recorder. He finished his drink and ordered us another and said, 'That's awful.'
I said, 'I thought you'd know. It's been in all the papers.'
'I don't read that crap.'
I raised an eyebrow. He didn't notice.
'Anyhow,' he said, 'I've been out of the country.'
'Let me guess. Dublin.'
He smiled. 'Skin-gatherers, the lot of them.'
'Meaning … ?'
'If they could sell the flakes of skin that fell off your arse in the street they would.'
'Ahm, one might describe that as a sweeping generalisation.'
'It's a fucking fact, lad,' he snapped. His whiskey arrived and my pint. I was handling them better these days. There'd been a few years where I'd gotten out of practice and could be legless by six, but now I could easily hit double figures without making a complete fool of myself. It wasn't much of an achievement, in the grand scheme of things, but it was something.
'So,' I began, starting what I'd been putting off for an hour, 'you were thinking of offering me some work.'
'Oh. Aye. I was. The thing is, Dan, I'm having trouble with the IAR.'
I took a sip of my drink. I ran my eyes over him. He was in his early to mid fifties and despite what I knew there was no obvious crack in his head. He wore a faded black trenchcoat and had dirty silver hair. He had stubble to match mine, although on both sides of his face. He did not appear to be any more inebriated than I was.
'That'll be the IRA,' I said.
'What?'
'The IRA are after you.'
He glanced behind him. 'Are they? Why for?'
I glanced behind him. Clearly they weren't. They'd all retired anyway and taken up gardening, although they were careful not to dig where the bodies were buried. I took another drink. 'Perhaps we could start at the beginning again. You're having trouble with …'
'The IAR.'
'I think that is the source of our problem. The I … A … R … ?'
He nodded, then smiled abruptly. 'Dan, for Jesus' sake, you of all people should know. Dan the Man.'
'Why thank you.'
'Dan … Dan the Man.'
'Why thank you again.'
'For fuck sake, Dan the Man.'
'Can we get back to the subject of this concussion, Mark? Did you think of asking for a second opinion?'
He looked at me, shook his head, then took another drink. 'Dan. For fuck sake. Do I have to spell it out to you?'
'Thus far your spelling hasn't--'
'Shut up, would you? Listen. What do you know about horses?'
'Horses?'
'Horses.'
I thought for a moment. I shrugged. 'Brown. Four legs. Eat grass. Sleep standing up. Lester Piggott. Champion. Trigger. Dick Francis. Princess Anne.'
'And gambling on horses?'
I shrugged again. 'Nothing. When I was eight my dad put a couple of shillings on Fearless Fred for me in the National and he fell at the first. I was inconsolable for days. I haven't had a bet since.'
'You lucky bastard. What about Geordie McClean?'
'What is this, twenty questions?' He raised an eyebrow. 'What about Geordie McClean? You know what I know. You gave me most of my info when I was doing my book on Fat Boy.'
'I mean, what about him these days?'
'Nothing. Still runs some boxers, but his big chance has come and gone. Strictly small potatoes. Or croquette potatoes. Or should that be crooked po-- Sorry,this could go on all day. What should I know?'
'That he got out of boxing because there were too many fucking meaningless titles to make it worth his while. Because half his boxers are either thick as shite or have had the sense knocked out of them.'
'And?'
'So he got into a sport where once you have a winner you not only make a fucking fortune off him, you can also bottle his sperm and make ten times as much selling it on.'
'He's into football?'
'Dan.'
'Okay. He's into horses. What's the big--'
'He's making millions. He's the man behind Irish American Racing--'
'IAR. At last.'
'You have heard of Irish--'
I shrugged. 'I've been lying low.'
'He's been shaking up the system. He's been doing a Murdoch. He's been making enemies left, right and centre.'
'Okay, but what has this got to do with the price of fish?'
'Dan, you didn't happen to see the racing on Channel 4 on Saturday?'
'I was probably on the other channel. Nature documentaries, that kind of thing.'
'One of Geordie McClean's horses won. An eight-year-old gelding called Dan the Man. He named it after you.'

We adjourned to the Crown Bar across the road. It was one of the oldest pubs in the city. The National Trust owned it. It was all snugs and big mirrors and liked to promote the fact that the James Mason IRA movie Odd Man Out had used it as a location way back in the fifties, whereas anyone who cared to check would find that the movie had actually been made in a London studio with a set mocked up to look like the Crown. Not that it mattered. Not that anyone cared. Not that you could tell the difference from the stills on the wall. It was just an interesting fact. There was no TV and no juke box, but there was a cigarette machine. The condom machine in the toilets gave out empty crisp packets and elastic bands. Or should have.
We were hiding in plain sight. Better to talk seriously in a crowded pub than whisper in an empty lounge. Corkery had moved on to the Guinness. 'Geordie McClean has three injunctions out against me. I'm on the run, but he won't get me.'
I've never been able to stomach Guinness. I switched to cider, mostly because I'd no wife any more to tell me to grow up. I said, 'Why is he after you?'
'Because I'm the Horse Whisperer.'
'Uhuh.'
'You must have heard of the Horse Whisperer.'
'Uhuh. Nicholas Evans. Book. Robert Redford. Film.'
'No! Not that cak. The internet site.'
I looked at him. I was surprised he'd even heard of the internet. I'd always thought of him as a man who'd find a ballpoint pen new and fangled. 'I'm sorry,' I said, 'you've lost me again.'
'Jesus Christ!' He fumed into his pint for several moments. 'Okay. All right,' he began again, 'sorry'n all. Sometimes you get immersed in a world and you start to presume everyone knows what you're talking about, you can't see the wood for the trees. And I forgot your knowledge of racing amounts to brown horses and Trigger. Okay. All right. It still might work. Okay. All right. Dan, I'm the Horse Whisperer. That's the name of my internet site. It's the inside track on the racing game. News, gossip, rumours, all sorts of shit. Everyone who's anyone reads it, everyone feeds me info; just like it was here with the fighting. The powers that be would like to present a nice PR job on the racing, y'know, all nice happy families and pretty horses, when the truth is it's the most vicious fucking thing I've ever been involved in, and that's including the 'Ra. Cut-throat, Dan, fucking cut-throat. Bribery. Corruption. Doping. Nobbling. Stable lads feed me, jockeys, trainers, the man who sells the feed, the man who collects the shit, the man who pilots the helicopter, it all comes through the Horse Whisperer, and not a one of them knows who the fuck I am. That's the magic of it. It's completely anonymous. I mean, to look at me you'd think I was the type who'd consider a fountain pen new and fangled, not running a fucking internet site.'
'Nah, Mark, I always knew you had your finger on the pulse.'
'Anyway, they haven't a clue it's me.'
'Who's they?'
'The money men, Dan, who else? Up to now they've been taking it in the arse but haven't had the wherewithal to do anything about it. But now Geordie McClean's muscling in, bringing his Sandy Row wide-boy mentality with him. A few innocuous stories about him and he's slapped out a cartload of injunctions on the site; it's been thrown off half a dozen servers already, but if you know the internet you know there's more servers out there than you can fucking count, so he's not going to close me down that way. The only way he's going to do it is find out who I am and then sue me for libel. And that's what he's trying to do now.'
'So that's why you're on the run.'
'Exactly.'
'And where do I come in?'
'I need to fight fire with fire. Because his is a new set-up, because he's brought in a lot of American expertise, because he runs the tightest fucking ship in the harbour, I've not been able to get a man on the inside. Nobody is feeding me info. I know he's up to something because you don't get to where he is in such a short space of time without tramping on toes. You know him, Dan, he's not Mister Nice Guy. I've got to find out what he's up to, but I can't do anything while he's chasing me from pillar to winning post. He has stables north of Dublin. I need you to go down there, ingratiate yourself and find out what the fuck he's up to.'
'Is that all?'
'Dan. I need you to do this for me.'
'I can't.'
'Why not? I'm paying. Better than you'd get here.'
'I haven't done any journalism for a long time.'
'Well you should. You're bloody brilliant.'
'I'll take that as a compliment, coming from the King of Crap.'
'You are. I always had time for you, Dan. And I did you more than a few favours.'
'I know that, but …'
'But what? Look at the state of you, lad, you look like you've been dragged through a hedge backwards, your clothes are hanging off you, you're whiter than a ghost and you smell like a fucking dump.'
'Thanks. Can you put that in writing?'
We looked at each other for a while. I tried not to think about what he was telling me, though I knew already it was the truth. I'd known it for weeks.
'Dan. You're a journalist. It's in your blood. I'm sorry for your circumstances, but you need to do something about them. You need to get out of here, you need to get your teeth into something and it might as well be Geordie McClean. He named a horse after you and it's worth a fucking mint. I happen to know he loved the book about Fat Boy, tell him you want to do one on Dan the Man. He'll lap it up. He's a vain son of a bitch.'
'Geordie or the horse?'
'I can't vouch for the horse. Will you do this for me, son? It would mean an awful lot to me.'
I sighed. Everything had been going downhill for months. Like skiing down a mountain, it was rather good fun right up to the point where you came to the edge of a cliff, and the trouble was there was so much snow about you never quite knew where it was or when you'd reach it, there was just that absolute certainty that you would.
I looked at myself in the mirror behind the bar. I was not a pretty sight. The clothes … the hair … the beard … If Patricia had walked into the bar right then she would hardly have recognised me. How was I ever going to win her back looking like this, living like this? Corkery was right. I should get out. Get out now. Do something positive. I knew bugger all about horses but I knew a lot about Geordie McClean. Why not fuck him up rather than myself? What had he ever done to hurt me? Not much, but since when did a journalist ever need a reason to fuck someone up? Besides, he'd named a horse after me.
I took a deep breath.
'Okay,' I said, 'I'll do it.'
It wasn't quite St Paul's conversion on the road to Damascus. If I'd been walking that road I'd have seen the light and then got flattened by a chariot. But it was a start.

3

You can upset your whole system by indulging in sudden, radical changes of lifestyle. People die from crash diets. They smack their cars into lampposts when they forsake nicotine. I had to edge myself into sobriety sideways. I woke that first morning of the new era with the dry bokes and a throbbing head, the predictable legacy of the cider I'd drunk long into the night, long after Mark Corkery had departed for what he described as his latest safe house.
The peculiar thing about a cider hangover is that you think you've escaped it completely right up to the point where you have to move your head off the pillow. It's at that point that your neck turns to concrete, your forehead into Spaghetti Junction and your stomach into that toxic waste lorry that has jackknifed in the fast lane, spilling its contents.
Oh shit, a knock at the door.
I rolled up into a sitting position. Then I rolled back into a lying-down one. If it was important they would come back, or break it down. It couldn't be the rent, the Government paid that direct. A survey. A charity collector. A boy scout. Another knock, another thunderbolt; I bent the pillow around my head like a horseshoe.
Horse.
Dan the Man.
The banging came again. 'What do you want?' I groaned. 'I have no money to give you. I haven't eaten for a week. If you have any food for me please slip it under the door.'
Then I remembered and dropped the pillow. My jacket was on the floor, the lining spilling out of it like a clot. The hangover was momentarily forgotten as I delved into the one pocket that remained stitched - nothing; I cursed and tried the other, bottomless one; my hand extended through the lining and up into the downy material along the back and … aha!
I pulled out an envelope. I'd unsealed it in the bar, of course, after he'd gone, but I'd not gone nuts with it, most of it was still there: £500, an advance, just to get me at least as far as the bus stop for Damascus.
'Dan? Are you in there?'
Shit!
'Stop playing silly buggers and open the door.'
'Trish,' I said.
There was a silence.
'Are you going to let me in, Dan?'
'I'd like to, but I can't. There's been an accident. What do you want?'
'To see you. What kind of an accident? Are you okay?'
'I … I think … I think it's broken …'
'What is?' she asked urgently.
'My heart.'
There was another silence. Then, 'Oh for fuck sake, Dan. Just open the door.'
I looked about me. My room looked like a hurricane had passed through it, and I looked like the one with the snooker cue had taken me drinking. 'No,' I said, 'not here. Somewhere neutral. Somewhere public.'
'Public house, you mean.'
'Are you trying to pick a fight already?'
'No, Dan, I …'
'There's a cafe at the end of the road. I'll see you there in twenty minutes. I need to finish this story, I need to phone it in. Okay?'
There was another silence, then an 'Okay.' Footsteps started to recede.
'Trish,' I called.
The footsteps stopped. There was a blunt 'What?'
'You suit that colour.'
I could hear her fuming.

My luck was in. As Patricia went out the front I went out the back. There was a row of shops immediately behind my palace and I went through them in minutes, pausing only to vomit. I've always been a one-stop shopper. In the old days I could do the family shopping and be home with my feet up in the time it would take Trish to compose a list. It might not exactly reflect what she was after, but what it lacked in variety it made up for in ease of preparation and storage. Or to put it in Patricia's words, 'Just because they advertise Heinz 57 varieties, you don't have to buy them all.' This time I wasn't after food: a clean razor, a pair of black jeans, a fresh shirt; purchased, back home, showered, shaved, aftershaved, dressed and down that road in twenty minutes. Some kind of a record.
I would tell her about it, one day, when we were back together. We'd laugh about it. She'd say, 'You silly fool,' and tweak my cheek, then kiss me. Admittedly the look she gave me when I sauntered confidently through the door of La Belle Epoque owed more to dismemberment than tweaks or kisses. I slipped into the chair opposite and smiled at her. A waiter came by before we had a chance to fire the opening salvos and I ordered a hot chocolate to complement her own.
When he'd gone I said, 'There's no use begging me to come home, I have my own life now.'
She looked at me steadily. 'Wise up, Dan,' she said.
I shrugged. 'So who's the new guy? He looks like a psycho.'
'It's none of your business.'
'Oh you think not?'
'No.'
'You do think not or you don't think not?'
'I … oh shut up, Dan. You're so fucking annoying. I want to be angry with you but you just … oh nothing.' She sighed, then took a sip of her chocolate. There was a spot of fresh cream on the end of her nose when she looked up again, but I decided not to mention it. It was probably a fashion thing. She'd always followed the latest trends. Perhaps creamy noses were in. 'Are you okay?' she asked.
'Do I look okay?'
'You look okay. Are you eating?'
'Occasionally.'
'Dan …'
'I missed you at Weight Watchers the other d-- I mean, marriage guidance. You might have called me.'
'I … look, I was going to … then … Why did you say Weight Watchers?'
'No reason, just a slip …'
'You think I've put on weight.'
'No I don't. Besides, you suit a little …'
'I have not put on weight. I'm on a diet. I go to the gym every--'
'Only joking, kiddo. Lighten up. You look great.' My own hot chocolate arrived and I took a sip, being careful to keep my nose out of it. We smiled pleasantly at each other for half a minute. It was too good to last. 'What's he like in bed, then? Does he take his glasses off? Or his beard?'
'Dan …'
'I think it's fascinating when you get a new man. Of course they never last long. No one measures up.'
'Dan, they all measure up.'
'So how come they don't stay?'
'Maybe I don't measure up.'
'Maybe you don't.'
She sat back. She stirred her chocolate with a spoon. 'If you're trying to undermine my self-confidence, you're doing a good job.'
'Good. Come home. Or let me come home.'
'Dan, I don't love you any more.'
'Yes you do.'
'I think I would know best.'
'It's the baby, isn't it?'
'It's everything.'
'But it's mostly the baby.'
She shrugged. 'Please don't come around to the house any more. I'm trying to make things work with Clive …'
'Clive?' She nodded. I burst out laughing.
'What's so funny?'
'Nothing.' I sucked in, quelled it. 'Sorry. Clive.'
'Dan, just don't take the piss any more, okay? I've met a new man, you're not going to like him, but that's tough shit. I love him. We're going to make it work. But it doesn't help having you hanging around like a sore head. Just leave us alone. We're over. We're finished. I don't want to end up despising you. I loved you once, it was good, then it went bad. There are too many bad things, Dan, things I can't forget. So let's leave it, okay? Get on with your life. You'll meet someone. You'll be fine if you give yourself a chance, but you need to get me out of your system.'
I looked at her. And unheralded, a tear sprang from my eye. I wiped it. I didn't look at her. When I spoke, I spoke quietly. 'But what am I supposed to do?'
'It's your life. You're a free agent. Do anything you want to do.'
'Eddie and the Hot Rods.'
'What?'
'Nothing.' I sighed again. She pushed her chair back and stood up. She looked at me for several moments, then extended her hand. I looked at it. 'Please don't do that to me,' I said.
She withdrew it quickly. 'Sorry,' she said. There was a hint of a nod, then she turned and headed for the door.
I shouted after her and she turned. I pointed to the end of my nose. Her brow furrowed. I pointed again, then the penny dropped and she glanced at herself in the mirror behind the cash desk. Then she turned and glared back at me. The word she mouthed might have been bastard, but it might not. She followed it with a slim little smile, and then she was gone. Out of the restaurant, out of my life.

I sat in that window seat for half an hour. The waiter looked at me once in a while, but every time he did I took a little sip of my cold chocolate. I was in the frame of mind to make it last for days. My favourite pub's side door was just visible a couple of hundred yards up to the right. I watched a pair of young girls, laughing between them, pull the door open and enter it. I could almost smell the alcohol.
But no.
Dan the Man.
Damascus.
Things were going to change.
I was going to turn my life around. I would win her back. She would see me on stage accepting a massive cheque for Brown Beauty, my literary novel on the life of a thoroughbred horse, and come running to me. She just needed to see that I could do it, that they weren't the usual hollow promises.
Things were going to change.
The waiter was at my elbow. 'Can I get you anything else, sir?' he said, whipping the empty cup out from under me.
I glanced longingly back down at the pub, then nodded up at him. 'Another hot chocolate,' I said. There was a hint of a curl to his lip as he wrote it down. As he turned I said, 'Oh, and do you have any liqueurs?'

I spent the next two or three days purging my system of alcohol. It involved copious amounts of health drink Diet Pepsi and a trunkload of chocolate digestives. I bought daily copies of the Racing Post and hung around in bookmakers' offices trying not to breathe in. They'd brightened up considerably since I'd watched my dad back his losers all those years before; now there was satellite television on a bank of screens, a coffee bar, nice comfortable seats, friendly staff in crisp uniforms ready with a heartfelt good afternoon and good luck; but no matter what, they still stank of smoke and existed in a kind of timeless haze. Any one of them could have been a contender for the annual services to passive smoking award. But they weren't bad places, just hopeless. They should have suited me fine. I studied the form, I placed bets, I read the news and the profiles and the tipsters and I watched a hundred races from Down Royal to Listowel to Punckestown to Navan, and by the end of it I still didn't have a clue what it was really all about.
It was Greek.
It was half a dozen brown horses jumping over hedges.
It was munchkins in saddles with whips, and I could rent that from the video store without getting lung cancer.
I wouldn't know where to start a conversation about a bloody horse, let alone investigate Geordie McClean's shady dealings. Two or three times I tried the mobile number Corkery had given me, but it was always out of service. I was going to tell him to forget it. Thank him for the five hundred, tell him it had changed my life, but not my wife, and that I'd pay it back to him from my first pay cheque, because I was going to get a proper job, right away, first thing tomorrow, or maybe the day after. The last person I needed to get involved with was Geordie McClean. I was trying to sort my life out, not complicate it. A court reporter. I could do obituaries. Or the movies. Yeah, the movies. But God protect me from Geordie McClean and his infernal, eternal machinations.
On the fifth day after my final showdown with Patricia I was feeling fit and thinking positive. I'd given my palace a spring clean. I'd not touched more than a few drops. I dry-cleaned my suit and polished my shoes. I invested in a portable TV and visited a second-hand book shop. Patricia had thrown me out without my books and I'd gotten out of the habit; so I bought something heavy and something light to see me through the long, largely alcohol-free nights; the light for its entertainment value, the heavy in case someone tried to steal my portable TV while I slept. It was that kind of neighbourhood.
Despite having been out of the loop for some considerable time, I'd absolute confidence that I'd be able to land some work; maybe not staff, immediately, but there was plenty of freelance stuff out there if you didn't mind looking for it, and I'd never minded that. It wasn't like I was starting from scratch either; I'd taken a sabbatical from journalism to write my books, so my personal problems would not be common knowledge amongst my potential employers. Besides, most of the reporters I'd grown up with were now happily ensconced in senior positions as editors, publishers or television producers and therefore ideally placed to give me a leg up. I had my contact book. I started calling.
It wasn't the morning to phone.
The first was out of the office, the second at a funeral, the third had the day off, the fourth was also at a funeral. I thought maybe they were avoiding me, so I stopped giving my name, but it was just the same. Two more had called in sick, six others were at a funeral. I began to doubt that any newspaper or television programme would make an appearance that day. I didn't want to phone Mouse. He was my oldest friend, and arguably the best placed of all of them to give me some work, but he'd been giving me a wide berth for months; he'd pulled me out of the deep end once too often. My problem was, every time somebody threw me inflatable armbands I ended up putting them on my feet and going straight back to the bottom. I suppose eventually we all have to sink or swim by our own efforts.
It could be avoided no longer. His name was the only one I hadn't tried. If I was to get anywhere that day, and it felt important that I did, there, then, before something else knocked me back, then I had to call him. I paced the room for a while, wondering what to say, how to approach him, whether to apologise or pretend that nothing had happened. I knew why he'd dropped me and he'd every justification, but still. He was Mouse. My friend. He knew what I was like. You expect a little loyalty, or, indeed, a lot. Had I not been there for him, every single time? Well, I would have been if there'd ever been any need. But he was as solid and dependable and unadventurous as a rock. He should have been called Rock. My friend Rock. If only Hudson hadn't gone and spoilt the name for all time.
I punched in the numbers. He was now editor of the Belfast Evening News. 'I'm sorry,' his secretary said, 'he's at a--'
'Funeral.'
'At a funeral. Yes. He won't be back until--'
'Just answer me one thing. Who the hell is so important every friggin' journalist in the city is going to make sure he's dead?'
There was a little bit of a giggle at the other end. 'Do you know, I said exactly the same thing. I've been working here for five years and I've never heard of this fella Corkery.'