Absolute Zero Cool (28 page)

I hope you are not disappointed. Perhaps you presumed I would incinerate all patients, staff and visitors along with the hospital building itself. But this would not be a logical move. The point of a terrorist bomb, as is the case with a land mine, is not to kill per se. A good novel and the terrorist bomb have this much in common: they are about questions, not answers.

The terrorist bomb is the first wave of paratroopers parachuted in to establish a bridgehead on a front page near you, behind whom arrive the justifications, the context and the irresistible moral relativism. The point of the terrorist bomb is to force a crack in the façade of the status quo, through which trickles those all-essential rumours of suffering, agony and victimhood.

I have no desire to annihilate those who are already suffering. If I had I would have helped the ex-mechanic to die. I would have bludgeoned the non-contributing homeless with lump hammers. I would have suffocated old Mrs McCaffrey with her embroidered pillow. But I did not.

It is my fervent wish that the hospital is evacuated before the silane rips through the superstructure, igniting every atom of oxygen it encounters. It would be utterly illogical to create a pantheon of counter-martyrs to my cause.

Of course, the hasty evacuation of the hospital may result in collateral damage, a.k.a. the untimely demise of certain patients who are currently hooked up to the various machines sustaining them. This is unfortunate and regrettable, although in time those men and women may come to be revered as the first martyrs in the cause of rejuvenating the ruthless streak that has sustained the human race for over a million years now.

I expect no thanks for this.

No thanks, please.

•

While Debs adds a few more strokes of blusher to the masterpiece-in-progress that is her perception of herself, I get Rosie settled in the spare room of my parents’ house. I powder her bum and apply a little cream to a red patch, then get her nappy on snug and slip her into the one-piece with the picture of Pooh Bear and Piglet on the chest. Then I sit on the edge of the bed and cradle her, her head nestling in the crook of my arm, and bounce gently left and right while she sucks on her bottle. Some nights it can take ages to send her off, as Rosie struggles to drink her bottle on a wheezy chest. Tonight, though, it’s as if she senses that her Mum and Dad need her to go down quietly. She lies in my arms virtually inert, her blue eyes unblinking, while I croon my version of the lullaby:

Rock-a-bye baby, in the tree-top

When the wind blows, the cradle will rock.

If the bough breaks, the cradle will fall,

And down will come baby, Daddy break your fall.

Halfway through the fifteenth rendition, her eyes finally close and the almost empty bottle falls away from the tiny pink lips. I raise her up in my arms to allow my nose to touch the warm peach of her cheek, listening for any sound of wheezing, but tonight she is calm, untroubled.

I lay her in the cot and place Sleepy Bear beside her, outside the blanket so that its weight prevents her from tossing the covering off, but close enough for a snuggle if she reaches out in her sleep.

Then I watch her until Debs decides we are fashionably late for our own date. I decide that the childless ascetics may preach until their tongues fall out, but a sleeping baby is the warm lie to their truth of free will.

•

One of the benefits of being a hospital porter is the freedom that comes with being systematically underestimated. Thus, for example, no one will suspect that a hospital porter might possess two computers, the better to hide incriminating material, such as evidence of a hasty departure from the country. Thus no one suspects that a hospital porter might have the wit and wherewithal to secure two passports, one of which he can hand in to the police when requested to do so.

I ring Yasmin.

‘Hello?’

‘It’s me,’ I say.

‘Shit.’

‘We have a problem.’

‘What’s wrong?’

There’s a faint sibilance, a slight slurring, that suggests Yasmin has been drinking.

‘It’s your laptop,’ I say.

‘What about it?’

‘I hid it at work where no one would find it. At the hospital, I mean. Down in the basement.’

‘So?’

‘They’re about to find it.’

‘Fuck.’

‘You heard about the hospital?’

‘No. What about it?’

‘There’s some kind of bomb alert.’

A low moan. ‘A fucking bomb?’

‘They’re pretty sure it’s a hoax but they’re evacuating everyone anyway. Then they’re going to search the whole building.’

‘Fuck. Fuck-fuck-fuck.’

‘I want that laptop, Yasmin. And you’re going to get it.’

‘But if they’re evacuating the––’

‘Who’s going to notice you? One more guy in all that confusion.’

Right now, if I were Yasmin, I’d be weighing the pros and cons. The main con, obviously, being that the bomb is real. The main pro being the opportunity to destroy all evidence of his life-ruining perversion.

It is all I can do not to murmur that it’s all a con.

‘But how would I get in?’ he says.

‘That’s the easy bit, Yasmin.’

‘Stop fucking calling me that.’

‘You’d rather I called the cops instead, left an anonymous tip?’

Even over the phone I can hear his teeth grinding.

‘So where is it?’ he says.

‘A janitor’s cubbyhole, in the basement, it looks like some kind of old bunker. There’s a light-switch to the left when you go in. The laptop’s on the top shelf, the shelves against the back wall. Look for the cardboard box with Granny Smith apples on it. Got it?’

‘Granny Smith, yeah.’

‘Good. Now listen, this is how we get you in . . .’

September 15th

Dear Cass –

I appreciate that you will understand my suicide to be an admission of guilt, as will the police. But I did not rape you.

Yes, I took advantage of your generous nature, and yes, I undressed you and placed you naked in the bed that was once ours. Yes, it is true I forced you against your will to become my unwitting accomplice. But I did not do anything else you might construe as immoral, physically invasive or humiliating.

You should also know that my suicide has nothing to do with the failure of our relationship. Neither has it anything to do with the hospital.

I choose suicide as the only logical option open to a sentient creature in a meaningless universe. By the time you read this I will have already chosen suicide. In effect, you are reading the words of a dead man.

There is no reason you should consider this a ghoulish experience. The novels of Durrell, Golding, Hemingway and Joyce are all suicide notes written by dead men. Words only truly come alive, if they ever do come alive, when their author is dead.

To paraphrase Norman Mailer, it’s tough to dance when your father is watching.

At this point I would like to apologise for all those actions of mine that caused you pain and grief. Unfortunately, I can’t. I say this knowing that honesty is wasted on the living. It is possible to be truly honest only to the dead, and the dead could care less about what we believe to be truth.

I say these things because I know that your narcissism will not allow you to leave this letter unopened. Yours is the narcissism of the age, which demands that everyone see their reflection in everyone else’s mirror too. It is the narcissism that has stunted the collective imagination to the point where you cannot envisage the world existing without your presence to inspire it. In every mirror you see the fulcrum upon which the universe turns.

It is for this reason that the novelist hesitates before printing his final full-stop. The good novelist is all mirror. A good novel is an indefinitely protracted suicide.

I am not, sadly, a good novelist. Hence my suicide.

Cassie, believe me when I say that I did not rape you. Believe me too when I say that I would have murdered you and every last one of the seven billion liars to be considered a good novelist.

But then, where would I have found the time to write?

Yours,

K

•

Debs finds my Billy dilemma amusing.

‘If you didn’t want to meet him for a pint,’ she says, ‘why didn’t you just say so?’

‘You don’t know Billy. He’d think I’m ashamed to be seen out with him or something.’

As is usual in these straitened times, the restaurant is only half-full, despite it being a Saturday night. Conversations murmur, tiny streams filtering into a placid pond. Deborah swirls her red wine. ‘No reason you should be,’ she says, ‘just because he’s some fruitcake who wants to blow up a hospital.’

I’ve spent the evening bringing her up to speed on the latest developments. She’s particularly fascinated by the idea that Billy wants to evacuate the hospital before he blows it for real. ‘Albert Schweitzer, this guy,’ she reckons.

‘If he rings,’ I say, ‘we can say we’re on our way home, Rosie got sick.’

‘No way,’ she says. ‘Don’t you dare tempt fate like that. And what if we bumped into him afterwards? Unless you think we should actually go home early, on the first night out we’ve had since God was a boy?’ She shakes her head, sets her napkin aside. ‘If you want to meet him,’ she says, ‘then meet him. But we’re not going home early, and you’re not to use your daughter as an excuse. Hear me?’

She crosses the restaurant, goes out through the glass doors and turns towards the Ladies. I wait until she is out of sight before turning on my phone, which she has asked me to switch off so that we can enjoy our rare night out in peace.

A beep-beep tells me I have a text message. It’s from Billy.

It reads: ‘The shark has jumped. Repeat: THE SHARK HAS JUMPED.’

The shark?

The phone vibrates in my hand, letting me know I have a missed call. I dial 171, hear my father’s voice.

‘Son? Son? Shite, it’s his answering thing . . . Listen, Rosie’s took sick, she’s . . . she’s turned blue. She was wheezing bad, and now she’s hardly breathing. We’re on our way to the hospital now, so ring us as soon as you get this.’

For a moment I go blank. When the waitress asks if everything is alright, I even say, automatically, ‘It was lovely, thanks.’

And then I see the expression on her face, something wary about it, and I realise where I am, what it is she must be looking at. I scramble out of my chair and rifle my pockets for money, telling the waitress that there’s an emergency and my wife is in the Ladies and would she mind telling her we need to leave immediately, please?

Debs sees me from the Ladies and sprints back to the table. ‘What?’ he says. ‘What is it?’

‘Rosie. Mum and Dad have taken her to the hospital, they’re saying,’ I choke up, ‘they’re saying she’s turned blue.’

‘Fuuuuuuck.’

Down the stairs, out to the street, hail a taxi.

‘The hospital?’ the guy says. ‘No can do, chief. They’re evacuatin’ it.’

‘They’re what?’

‘Evacuatin’.’ He enunciates each syllable, relishing it. Cabbie gossip doesn’t get any juicier than this. ‘A bomb scare. Fuckin’ Real IRA, they’re sayin’. Bastards.’

‘Just get us as close as you can. There’s a fifty in it.’

The guy takes us up Connaughton Road, past the tinkers’ caravans, and drops us within sight of the hospital’s entrance. It’s chaos. A hovering helicopter whump-whumps overhead, its backwash sending up mini-cyclones of dust and paper wrappers. A steady stream of patients come out, squinting against the blasting dust, on crutches and swathed in bandages, some limping and supported by others, all dressed in pyjamas and dressing gowns, some pushing wheeled frames and holding aloft IV drips. Porters push beds while nurses direct the traffic. Cops in fluorescent yellow jackets try to clear a path, to allow the patients out while keeping the swelling crowd back. Walkie-talkies crackle. Blue lights flash, ambulances and fire engines. Despite the chopper’s clattering, Eileen Magner bawls her breathless schtick to an RTE camera. I’m screaming at a cop that our daughter is in there but he’s not listening.

‘There!’ Debs points over my shoulder, and I see Mum and Dad being herded away, funneled by the surging mass. They’re shouting something at the nearest cop but he’s turning away, his broad back a solid wall.