People in Season (11 page)

It’s a narrow escape. On the street, the anxious editor rummages through her bag, desperate for her glasses to give the world a recognisable shape again. She’s trying to explain this to Ava as a motorbike rumbles by.

‘I didn’t do anything wrong,’ Ava says.

Joanne, curiosity screwing up her features, searches for some guilt in the statement but finds none. It irritates her. She’s being told she’s in this on her own. ‘Oh, you’re completely innocent Ava. So was I,’ she says, sarcastic. ‘It’s in hiding the mistake we’re becoming guilty of something. That’s your choice, isn’t it? Hide it or let the world know. We’re in it together now.’ She’s confident that Ava is happy to obscure the origins of their story, though Ava doesn’t acknowledge that she heard what Joanne said at all. There’s nothing there to read, but there are gears turning underneath, and as they leave each other outside the coffee shop, Ava turns to reassure her.

‘I’ll see you Monday.’

It won’t be until later that night, as Joanne opens a bottle of sparkling wine with a pop, she’ll realise there was nothing reassuring about those words at all, and come to think of it, it sounded vaguely like intimidation.

When Ava returns to her apartment, it’s empty, the bedroom door ajar and the bare kitchen cabinets left open. At least he kept the fridge closed, only when she opens it she discovers he drank the last of the milk. Stepping out of her shoes she walks to the makeup stand in her room. Now, listen to this. In the time it’s taken Alistair and Ava to agree that they’re in love, he has shown up at her work, threatened her, played with her like a cat plays with a mouse, physically intimidated her, attacked a taxi driver and almost introduced himself to Joanne – but all of that is forgivable. Seeing the gold watch absent from the bed stand though, and the black-silver one conspicuously left behind, is a line drawn in the sand that she can’t abide. When she sees it sat there in a hoop, she stops in her tracks, incensed, and stomps over to the bed stand to grab thing. Though she knows he’s long gone, she goes to window in search of the man on the road below. And when she can’t find him, she screams, the jagged knife edge in her voice cutting like the empty howl of a banshee. Then, the sound stops as suddenly as it starts. She has other errands to pursue, and a snitch to meet. Nobody in the newsroom hates her, but there is one man who would see her strung out to dry nonetheless. He’s not in work today. She learns that much from calling ahead. She does, however, know exactly where to find him.

When Barry first moved to Dublin he’d gotten to know the city by walking it. A car, so far as he was concerned, a bus, earphones, even a bicycle, were all incubators that would keep him from inhaling the town’s life and in turn, breathing his own into it. So he walked. From the morbid stillness of Dundrum on the south side to the stark grey of Santry on the north, he’d pick a pub on the map, memorise the route, and march. The walk was important of course. It allowed him to learn the feel of these postcodes he would be writing about. But his primary objective was to choose a spot to settle in, and the pubs, they were to be the decider. Stumbling into drinking holes, he’d judge the establishments by the friendliness of their bar staff. He likes to be chatted with, Barry Danger, not handled. Quiet days were important, busy evenings a must. The clientele should be despicable. When he found the pub he liked, a square trad bar on the edge of Harolds Cross where the terror of Crumlin all of a sudden goes flat, he moved from the hostel he’d been living out of and rented a room near his chosen tavern. In time he’d gotten his name in enough bylines that the pub garnered a quiet reputation for being his local. The decisive test though, one which he’d neglected to take into account, was how the staff would deal with customers who didn’t like his articles.

‘Barry, y’English prick, this guy wants to know what you’ve got against the taxi union.’ Stood beside a slouched drunk with a pulsing red head, the barman asks, ‘You don’t let drivers nap on the job in London?’

But then, nowhere could be perfect.

Barry, hunched over a browned paperback and an empty pint glass, replies, ‘If I was working in London I’d be bitching that they don’t get enough sleep.’

The barman chuckles and returns to his place by the register.

‘Mercenary.’

Barry holds up his wallet and nods for another drink, ‘What does that make you?’

Chin buried in neck, the barman pulls a pint of Guinness and stops halfway to let it settle.

‘You ever heard of Johnny Carson?’ Barry takes a much needed break from his book and waits for a shake of the barman’s head. ‘Johnny Carson was a chat show host in the states way back when you only had a choice of two sources of information, channel-A or channel-B. Simpler times right?’

‘I’m a channel-B man meself.’

‘Well, one night, during his little comedy routine, Carson thought it’d be funny to make a joke that the city was running out of toilet paper and that the shops only had left what was on the shelves. It got a bit of a giggle but there wasn’t any punch line. Not until the next day anyway. Half the city was running down the shop to stock up on toilet paper. Fighting over it at the counters, pure mayhem. So what does Carson do? He apologises for causing the chaos the following night, says he was just joking, that there wasn’t a toilet paper shortage and that it wasn’t meant to be taken seriously. He gives it a beat for comic timing,’ Barry smacks his lips, ‘and he goes on to say, In other news, there is now a toilet paper shortage in the city.’

The Englishman’s eyes go two directions as he rattles off a wild laugh. Snatching the money he extends, the barman suppresses a grin.

‘You should have been a chat show host.’

Then, Ava is standing at the door, coiled like a snake and ready to spring.

‘Oh it’s fun enough where I am.’

If Barry wears the bar like a pair of well worn shoes, Ava examines it like a rag she’s been handed. The stale smell of the previous nights session ferments in the musky interior. Smoke, spilled drinks, the bleach used to clean them, and the vague scent of urinal cakes, all stir together in a noxious odour for her to consider. Taking careful steps into the sweaty room, she watches as the barman tops off Barry’s pint before diplomatically walking away.

‘What do you think you’re doing?’ she demands.

‘Having a pint. If that’s alright with you.’

‘You’re supposed to be in the newsroom. You could answer my calls couldn’t you?’

‘Sure I could,’ Barry closes his book, ‘but then I wouldn’t have got you out for a drink, would I? It’s nice having you here, down on the proles level.’

‘Don’t pretend it wasn’t you.’ Taking the provocateur’s stance, Ava is refusing to acknowledge that he might have something over her. Answers she wants, and answers she will get. ‘Tell me why you did it.’

‘I have no idea what you’re talking about.’ Barry does his best to keep a straight face, but cracks under Ava’s intense gaze. Breaking into peals of laughter, he tries to catch his breath between bursts, palm firm against his chest. ‘I’m sorry. Really, I was going play dumb for a while, but you should see the look on your face.’

‘You want my job.’

Barry places a bony hand over hers, ‘That’s the last thing I want, sweetheart.’

Grinning over his shoulder, he leads Ava to a booth tucked away at the back of the pub. Dressed in shadow, it’s been prepared to host their confrontation.

‘You must want something,’ she says. ‘Get to it.’

‘Nah, me? I just like seeing you flounder.’

Ava stands, set on the exit, and Barry raises his hands in surrender, bowing for her to sit down. Nostrils flared, she waits for a reason to stay.

‘I can understand why you didn’t check your facts. The riot happened on Westmoreland street, not Grafton, a fifty metre difference, who really cares? But materialising a girl to push the story? Why were you so desperate to get it on our homepage in the first place? What was in it for you?’

Ava perches on the stool, engaged with him but ready to leap. ‘Does there have to be something in it for me?’

‘With you? Yes. No question about it. You benefited from it somehow, O’Dwyer, I don’t doubt that,’ he considers his pint as he says this. ‘I kind of admire you for it actually. Pure selfishness. It’s something to behold, seeing a person go for what they want with all the certainty of a heat seeking missile.’

‘And all I get to see is you wallowing in the mud. You’re going to let this fact checking thing blow over if I tell you why I pushed the story? Is that it?’

‘I suppose it depends on how interesting your answer is.’

‘You think I’m untouched,’ she sets the accusation on the table, sure that he’ll claim it. ‘That’s why you think it’s alright to mess around like this. You wouldn’t turn the screws on any other journalist, scrutinise every minute detail of their stories. It’s alright to do it to me though. Give somebody a label and you can toy with them however you want. They’re not human, right?’

‘No-no,’ he lectures with a wiggling finger. ‘Less of the victim act, please. Let’s get something straight here, UPD or not, you’re guilty. That’s what this is about.’

Ava ignores the distinction. ‘You’re the untouched one, thinking like that. Relishing every minute of this. You’re a vampire, feeding off other people’s misery.’

Barry’s face folds in on itself, embarrassed for her. ‘You’re accusing me of that as if I’d be bothered by it. You think I’m afraid of getting scanned because that’s what you’re afraid of.’

‘I’m not afraid of anything.’

‘That’s hardly an appropriate defence,’ he taunts. ‘You don’t like being cornered, do you? Walls are closing in and you’re running from one to the next, scrambling for a way out. What are you going to do when there’s no more room? When you’re about to be squished? Oh, I just want to see it,’ bouncing up and down on his stool, he inhales excitedly. ‘I just need to see what happens when you’re caught in the trap. You don’t think you’re untouched. I don’t think I am either. And the number one rule about anybody who thinks they’re not untouched is – DING DING DING – they’re untouched. What a world, eh.’

‘If you spread anymore rumours about my story–’

‘You’ll what? I’m the one with the leverage here sweetheart.’

‘And what are you going to use it for?’

‘Entertainment,’ Barry says dourly. ‘I’m going to tell our friend, Agent Mullen.’

‘Mullen? What does it have do with him?’ she spits.

‘I think our social agent is a little constipated by a clog of ideas. He could do with some assistance in getting the mental bowel movements back on track. I reckon a fabricated and published story might do the trick. Never mind the cover-up. It’s been a lark watching you and Joanne slink around the place trying to dodge him, and I’d hate to see the show end so soon, but, one must take chances when they’re there for the taking. I want to see you scanned.’

‘That’s all,’ Ava almost sounds relieved.

Barry, wiggling his eyebrows, takes a long sup of his pint. A thick moustache of cream is left to dribble down his chin.

Repulsed, Ava stands again. ‘If I knew that’s all you were up to I wouldn’t have bothered coming down here.’ There’s not much for her to worry about. So long as it doesn’t occur to him to release the accusation publicly, start a campaign against her within the community, true or not, something like that might knock her career out of its upward trajectory. Francis though, Francis she can handle.

‘I’ll give him a call then.’

‘Do whatever you want,’ Ava walks by, and swinging her handbag onto her shoulder, narrowly misses the side of his head. ‘Don’t be absent another day or I’ll have the newsdesk give you a warning. You probably don’t think that’s much of a concern, but keep this in mind Barry: Joanne is going to be retired someday, and you’re not exactly a prospective candidate set to replace her. The things you do now will be remembered. However far down the road it is, there will be consequences. Try to think more than two steps ahead for once, you might last another while.’

When she’s gone Barry wipes the sloppy moustache off with the sleeve of his shirt and wanders over to the bar, taking the stool where he’d left his book. The nosey barman manages to count to thirty before he saunters over, steps echoing on the hardwood floor as he cleans imaginary stains along the way. ‘So are you going to call him? The social agent?’

‘Hm?’ Perplexed, Barry leaves his glass down and watches the foam billow into a head. He’d never shown an interest in landing Joanne’s job. Never demonstrated a desire to improve his career prospects on any but the most concessionary levels. Ava had insinuated that she could take it all away from him, years from now, if he didn’t play it smart. The threat was preposterous and she seemed equally bemused by the suggestion that he inform Mullen of her antics. The interaction was so disjointed, it’s as if he’d been talking to the woman from another plane – they’d taken swipes at each other only for their balled fists to pass through thin air. A smile grown, he wonders if there was something more to her comment that he hasn’t perceived, and contented to be left with the curiosity, takes another long sup of his pint, because besides all that, he laughs, ‘I called him an hour ago.’

Laughing all the harder as the barman walks away, Barry’s head wobbles so much it almost snaps off. Balancing once more, he manages to grab the bar just in time and saves himself from the fall.