Absolute Zero Cool (9 page)

Lady Erin was erected to commemorate the insurgents who rose against British rule in 1798. Over the years, the descendants of said insurgents have vandalised Lady Erin, by repeatedly breaking off her upright arm.

I sympathise with her, as I sympathise with Diana, who still peers down horrified from Olympus as Herostratus burns her temple to the ground in order that posterity might afford him a footnote.

I think about how women who are enlightened enough to realise that men probably won’t be interested in what they have to say have mined a nugget akin to a glass diamond.

‘So what do you think?’ Cassie says.

‘About what?’

‘You weren’t listening, were you?’

‘Not to you, no.’

‘Who then?’

‘Diana.’

She blinks, then cocks an ear to the stereo. ‘Diana Ross?’

‘Diana. The goddess who had her temple burned down by a man who wanted to be remembered.’

‘What has that to do with anything?’

‘Isn’t that why we’re together? So I can eventually destroy your temple and be remembered?’

‘What’re you talking about, temples?’

‘The body is a temple, Cass. A child’s passage through the vaginal canal is an act of destruction. Hips crack, abdominal plates split. There is sundry ripping and tearing. All so my name can percolate down through the generations.’

I use the word ‘percolate’ because we are in a coffee shop.

Cassie stares at me for a long time, then turns away to gaze out at Lady Erin. She spoons the cream in her cappuccino and says, ‘K, how come you have to make everything more difficult than it really is?’

‘Nothing’s more difficult than it really is, Cass. The myth that something can be easier than it really is was invented by Hoover salesmen.’

‘You know your problem?’ She shakes her head despairingly. ‘You don’t have the imagination to see how things can be better.’

Cassie’s problem is that she thinks I only have one problem.

My line for today comes courtesy of Dame Iris Murdoch: You can live or tell; not both at once.

•

‘If you’re aiming for reverse psychology,’ I say, ‘you’re laying it on a bit thick.’

‘What’s the best way to get a woman’s attention?’ he says, putting down his sheet of paper.

‘Pretend you don’t care.’

‘Treat ’em mean,’ he says, ‘keep ’em keen.’

‘There’s mean,’ I say, ‘and there’s being an antisocial bastard.’

‘Relax, it’s a first draft. I can always go back in and kill any babies you don’t like.’

The quality of our entente cordiale is somewhat strained. Billy is adamant he had nothing to do with Rosie crawling into the shed, that he would have nothing to gain and everything to lose.

‘Put it this way,’ he’d said. ‘You’re a bit fragile about the writing as it is. How would you feel about it if anything happened to Rosie?’

‘Writing wouldn’t come into it. I’d be struggling to get out of bed in the morning.’

‘Exactly. And where would that leave me?’

‘In limbo, I know. All I’m saying is, it’s a bit of a coincidence that something happened to Rosie after we had that chat about killing babies.’

‘You’re reading too much into it, man. Besides, if memory serves, you’re the one who was up for killing babies.’

‘Only as a metaphor. You’re the one planning to blow up a hospital.’

‘Only as a metaphor.’

‘It’s not the same thing.’

‘Isn’t it?’

Billy believes that I am Neville Chamberlain, waving the pages of the latest manuscript around to convince myself that he and I have peace in our time.

I prefer to think of myself as Churchill in the early months of 1940, boozing away the phoney war and wishing the Japs would hurry up and bomb Pearl Harbour.

I’m under no illusions. It’s only a matter of time before his blitz begins.

The Big Question: which of us will get to split the atom first?

‘So what’ve you got?’ he says, nodding at my side of the table.

‘You meet the old guy for the first time.’

‘Yeah,’ he says softly. ‘I liked him.’

•

‘Being old is like being hung-over all day, every day,’ the old man says. His voice crackles like a dusty ’78. ‘The worst hangover you’ve ever had. So bad you wanted to do nothing but cry but you were afraid snuffling your snot would split your skull. Imagine that all day, every day,’ he says.

This man is seventy-nine years old. In theory, he should be dead. In Ireland, statistically speaking, men die at seventy-two and women at seventy-five. This is nature’s way of affording women the opportunity of covering every possible conversational gambit vis-a-vis the latest manifestation of male betrayal.

‘People don’t get how someone might want to die,’ the old man says. He has recently had his leg amputated at the knee, lest the gangrene that began with an infected ingrown toenail spread like bushfire through dry kindling. ‘They don’t understand that everything winds down,’ he says. ‘They don’t want to face the fact that all engines wear out.’

The will to live is an invisible engine, with its own pumps and valves and in-built obsolescence.

The old man chooses a peach-flavoured yoghurt and a bar of plain Dairy Milk chocolate from the trolley. ‘You know you’re old when you can’t eat the Fruit ‘n’ Nut anymore,’ he says.

‘The nurse tells me you were a mechanic,’ I say.

His hands shake, so that his fingers can gain no purchase on the chocolate’s gold foil. I take the bar, peel back some of the wrapper, hand it over. He’s nodding his head. ‘That’s right,’ he says, ‘for near on forty years.’ His chest rumbles when he breathes. He begins sucking on a corner of the Dairy Milk. ‘Cars today, who’d be arsed fixing them up?’

I note that he has to buy his own chocolate and yoghurt from my concession cart. That his pyjama collar is grimy. These things tell me that visitors come rarely, if at all. His hair is lush, white as the pillowcase on which it flares. His face is deeply lined, but softly, so he resembles a post-coital Beckett. The eyes are rheumy, red-limned.

‘Something I’ve always wanted to ask a mechanic,’ I say.

The faded blue eyes sparkle. ‘Is that a fact?’ He pats his leg. ‘Fire away, son, I’m going nowhere.’

‘See, in the movies, when someone cuts a brake cable halfway through, so the car only crashes later. Does that really work?’

The bushy eyebrows flicker, then mesh. ‘Is there someone you don’t like, son?’

I laugh, quietly, so as not to disturb the other patients. ‘Not at all,’ I say. ‘I’m a writer, I’m working on a short story where a car crashes. I just want to know if that brake cable thing works. I don’t want any mechanics reading the story and not taking it seriously.’

He doesn’t believe me. But his eyes sparkle. He’s looking at one last opportunity for mischief with no possible repercussions. ‘Tell me the story,’ he says, ‘and I’ll let you know if it sounds wrong.’

I sketch the outline of a story involving a fatal car accident. He sucks on his chocolate. When I’m finished, he nods. ‘That sounds alright,’ he says. ‘I mean, there’s nothing wrong with the actual details. But the story’s rubbish.’

‘That’s what’s wrong with the world today,’ I say. ‘Everyone’s a critic.’

He laughs, but it collapses into a rumbling cough. His whole body shudders. The plastic tubes rattle like a ship’s rigging in a gale. When the spasm passes he gasps, ‘What’s wrong with the world today, son, is mechanics don’t read short stories.’

‘Maybe you’ve a point at that,’ I say. ‘See you tomorrow night.’

I leave the ward, the cart’s wheels squeaking like uppity slave mice. I’m thinking about how the will to live is an invisible engine, with its own pumps and valves. I’m thinking about how engines can be jump-started if only you can pump enough juice through the leads. I’m thinking about how engines can be scuppered with something as simple as a handful of sugar.

I meet Frankie for a coffee in the hospital canteen. We chat football for a bit, talk up the Rovers’ chances against Shams on Friday night, but Frankie seems distracted, irritable.

‘Don’t suppose you’ve seen Tommo?’ I say. ‘I’ve a couple of books for him in my locker, he was supposed to pick them up yesterday.’

‘Tommo got the boot,’ he says. ‘Austin too.’

‘No way.’

He nods, glum. ‘I got in a load of shit for being away from the desk, covering for those fuckers. So I had to write a report.’

‘What’d you say?’

‘Nothing. Just that the boys were out sick that day, and I had to cover the monitors.’

‘And they got the boot for that?’

‘It wasn’t just that. When they checked the records, they realised the boys were out sick about five days in every forty. So they got sent for a check-up, standard procedure, to make sure they didn’t have some long-term infection that could screw the patients.’

‘So?’

‘So they had to take a pee test.’

‘Ouch.’

‘Fuckin’ A. The guy doing the test got stoned off the whiff of their piss.’

‘Half their luck.’

‘Tell me about it. And with the cutbacks, the non-recruitment of non-essential staff, they’re not taking on any replacements.’

‘So who’s doing their jobs?’

Frankie jabs a thumb into his chest. ‘They’ve given me a promotion,’ he says, ‘made me Divisional Representative. Whatever the fuck that is.’

‘So now you’re a supervisor with no one to supervise.’

‘That’s about it, yeah.’

‘Okay. But if it’s Tommo and Austin’s work you’re doing, you’ll hardly break a sweat.’

‘I know.’ He drains the dregs of his coffee. ‘But still, the boys were mates.’ He glances at his watch, then stands up. ‘C’mon,’ he says, ‘we’d better get back or we’ll be next for the heave-ho.’

‘If you want a pint later on, have a chat, just give me a buzz.’

‘Will do.’

•

‘Is that it?’ I say. ‘You’re dumping Tommo and Austin?’

Billy, nibbling on a hangnail, just shrugs.

‘So how’s it feel?’

‘Not good,’ he says. ‘Like Frankie says, the boys were mates. And the way things are these days, it’s not like they’re going to just waltz into another gig.’

‘It’s tough out there, alright. But look, Billy, it’s not your fault the boys were stoners.’

‘I could’ve had them get their act together, pack in the dope.’

‘Except the object of the exercise was to cut them dead, see if you could face wiping out a whole hospital.’

‘I know, yeah.’

‘So what d’you think?’

‘I dunno. I need to absorb this one first, see how it goes.’

‘Not easy, is it?’

‘No,’ he says. ‘Austin, okay, he’s a bit of a dick. Tommo’s a good bloke, though.’

‘Was,’ I say. ‘Past tense.’

He stares. ‘I only got them sacked,’ he says. ‘It’s not like I killed them off or anything.’

‘Same difference, though, isn’t it? I mean, they’re gone now.’

‘Gone from the hospital, yeah.’

‘What,’ I say, ‘you think they’re just going to hang out in their apartment getting blitzed?’

A hunted look in his eye. ‘How’m I supposed to know what they’ll––’

‘They’ve just lost their jobs, Billy. How will they buy weed? How’ll they pay rent? I mean, there’s consequences. Every action an equal and opposite reaction, all that.’

‘Fuck.’

‘Cut off without even a redundancy payment . . .’ I’m enjoying this now, Billy’s hangdog expression. ‘Those boys want to work again, they’ll be off to Canada, Australia. Except they’re unskilled, they’re hospital porters. Who’s going to want them?’

‘What would you have done?’

‘If I’d wanted them gone?’ I shrug. ‘I don’t know. If I liked them, they just weren’t useful anymore, I’d have taken care of them. Put them in car accident or something, Austin’s driving, he’s bliftered . . . Nothing too serious, mind. Just enough to put them in wheelchairs, get them a disability benefit, so they could sit around toking all day.’

‘Not much of a life, that,’ Billy says.

‘Depends on who you are. I’d say Austin’d be okay with it.’

‘Maybe.’

‘Still,’ I say, ‘at least your way they won’t be going up in flames when the hospital blows.’

‘True enough.’ He straightens up, crumples the sheet of paper, tosses it on the pile. ‘I’ll have another bash at it tonight.’

‘That’s the spirit. What else have you got?’

He draws another sheet of paper from his folder. ‘I’ve had another go at the Cassie novel.’

‘I thought we were dumping that.’

‘Bear with me,’ he says. ‘I think I might be on to something.’