The Truth Commissioner (12 page)

‘I have an idea,' Sweeney says, smiling. ‘About Lassie.'

‘And what's that?' he asks, slipping the book back in his bag.

‘We could borrow one of the army's sniffer dogs – they couldn't be doing much this weather. Get it to sniff Lassie out. What
do you think?'

‘Very funny,' he says flatly as he stands up and smooths his jacket. ‘When I'm in this meeting watch how they look at each
other when I'm talking. Watch what they say with their eyes.'

Sweeney nods and busies himself with the diary and stub of a pencil that makes him sometimes look like a race-track bookie.

‘Do you not think you should go a bit more high tech?' Gilroy asks him. ‘A laptop or at least one of those hand-held things.'

‘Computers are what they love more than anything else. They understand them, how to hack into them – everything. Might as
well just write it on your face. A computer is like an open book no matter how clever you think you've been. And anyway, who's
ever going to be able to make sense of my writing?' he says, holding up a page of hieroglyphic scrawl.

‘Like an army of worms wriggled across the page,' Gilroy says, narrowing his eyes to take it in. ‘But don't ever let Crockett
see it. Now, do I look all right?' he asks, straightening himself for inspection.

‘Like the dog's bollocks.'

‘Good, so let's go, and remember what I said.'

Slow time all day. A snowstorm of papers, agendas and drafts. White paper cold to the eyes and to the touch. He stumbles snow
blind through the rest of the day, always trying hard to find familiar landmarks to guide his way, to bring him to the warmth
of some friendly hearth. But sometimes his mind begins to drift no matter how hard he tries to focus and he finds himself
thinking of an escape, an adrenalin-fired break-out like that day from the Kesh. The west coast of Ireland, perhaps, where
the only sounds in his ears are the throaty break of the surf and the only white is in the jagged-tipped teeth of the waves
and the scattering of gulls hovering weightless on the salted currents. Others are planning it, others have stashed away nest
eggs, so why not him? Marie is right – perhaps he has spent too long wearing a hair shirt, too intent on escaping any accusation
of feathering his own nest or the taint of self-interest. His finances are an open book for anyone to examine and God and
the bank manager know it wouldn't take very long. After this wedding is paid for he will almost be cleaned out.

Crockett conducts the meetings, his elegantly moving pen the baton that directs the score to the beat of his PowerPoint and
his overheads, his appendices and his statistical analysis. And it's his voice that takes the solos with his, ‘Perhaps the
Minister might consider … ' or ‘It might be of advantage to point out …' but in this particular game all the advantages
reside in one pair of hands and as Gilroy watches the pen start to slowly change tempo and move like a metronome he feels
as if he is in danger of being hypnotised and has to blink his trance away.

If he's to make any money it has to be through his own transparent efforts that are purer than the driven snow. As they pause
for a tea break he wonders if he could write a book, the story of his life, but knows that he would be damned for the truth
and damned for what he left out. He tries to engage the tea lady in a meaningless conversation about the weather but she only
simulates a smile and serves him with scrupulous politeness. It's not what he wants from her. Her hair is short, dyed blonde
like the mother and daughter he spoke with earlier, and her eyes are a delicate pale blue. It's the only colour in a face
where sadness lingers lightly below the surface, disguised by the lined weariness of work. He wants to hear words from the
thin-lipped purse of her mouth that recognise him as a person, that allow him to ask about her family, to tell her the terrible
news that soon he will give his only daughter away to a man he barely knows and doesn't like. But when he returns the empty
cup and saucer to her she almost curtsies as she takes it and her eyes avoid looking into his.

Crockett and his team have not returned yet. Sweeney is studying an oil painting of some obscure servant of the state like
a prospective purchaser at an auction. Perhaps there could be access to a lecture circuit. He smiles to himself as he suddenly
has the bizarre idea of a partnership with the retired head of the RUC. Doing America together, good cop bad cop, both sides
of the coin. A symbol of reconciliation. They must be putting crazy pills in the tea. Not in anyone's wildest dreams. He wanders
about the room and loosens his tie – it is always too warm in the building. Pausing before Crockett's place at the table he lifts the pen and lets it rest in his hand. Lighter than he expected. Inexplicably beautiful. For a second he slips into a dreain of somewhere else, some place that exists in its own perfection behind a kind of veil. His hand wants to reach out and tear it away, to step fully into this place he's never been, but which he now believes exists, a secret whose revelation has been denied to him. There are footsteps in the corridor and he starts, lets go of the pen and resumes his seat, lowering his head as if poring over the documents in front of him. When he glances up the civil servants are grinning at each other. Perhaps they've just shared a smutty story in the gents' or some piece of juicy office gossip across the sparkling white urinals that you can't use without having to think of the people who have stood in the same place.

The day drags slowly on to its conclusion in an unrelenting sequence of point and counterpoint, of people arguing a case,
their voices tightly edged with the conviction of their correctness. He feels the clammy fingers of their self-righteousness
clinging to his consciousness, battening itself to his increasingly weary being. He thinks of his conversation with the American
painter who in his twenty minutes talked of Che Guevara and the Sandinistas, of September the eleventh and political iconology.
Of how he works from photographs so long hours are not wasted in sittings. He asks himself now what he has to lose. But he'll
let Sweeney check him out and then make a decision. He looks round the panelled walls with their portraits and thinks that
one day his own might join them. His eyes drift to the windows but already outside there is a wash of grey and the bright
burn of electric lights. Soon it will be time to go home. The thought spurs him to one last burst of energy and full concentration.
He notices how even Crockett looks a little weary, his face greying with the fading light outside, blue dregs of colour pooling
under his eyes. It feels like being back in school and sneaking glances at the clock to see how long it is to the final bell.
His stomach rumbles and he presses his palm against it to smother the noise. He wants his tea but knows that even that is
a long way off and that first he must endure the wedding-suit torment.

When the time finally comes and he climbs into the back of the car dusk has dropped suddenly over the city and the night air
pinches at his face. Micky has the windows down and he wonders why until he catches the unmistakable smell of fast food.

‘Hell's bells,' he says. ‘It smells like a burger bar in here. Have you been at McDonald's again?'

‘Sorry, Francis, I got a bit peckish,' Micky says, trying to fan the smell out through the open window. ‘I had a cheeseburger
with bacon. Did the business like. Filled the hole.'

‘I want you to drive us back up there again and I want you to get me one.'

‘Very cultured,' Sweeney says.

‘So you'll not be wanting one then,' he says. ‘And give that joke a rest, will you, it's wearing a bit thin.'

‘What about the cholesterol then? Clog your arteries that stuff will,' Sweeney says. ‘And if we get caught in traffic we'll
be late for the fitting.'

‘It'll only take ten minutes and Micky'll nip in for us. If we don't get something to eat now it'll be after seven before
we get fed. I can't wait that long. My stomach thinks my throat's been cut.'

As the car drives off the lights in Stormont seem to burn sharper in the gloom. Down below the road is hung in parallel strings
of amber beads. They are hitting the rushhour traffic and they have to wait a while to find a gap. His head is sore and he
feels his breathing becoming shallower so he sits back in the seat and shades his eyes with his hand.

‘You want me to arrange an appointment with an optician?' Sweeney asks.

‘I don't know,' he says. ‘Maybe I'll give it a while longer, see how it goes.'

‘It's not as if anyone's going to call you Specky or anything,' Micky says, half glancing over his shoulder.

‘Shut up, Micky, and just drive the car,' Sweeney tells him and his voice is suddenly sharp-edged. ‘And turn on the news.'
Then in a whisper he asks Gilroy if he's feeling OK.

‘Just a bit tired,' he answers. ‘Who would have thought that sitting on your arse all day and listening to people rabbit on
could leave you done in?'

‘Maybe you need a rest – get away from it all for a week or so. Let some of the younger ones take up the reins for a while.'

‘You trying to pension me off?' he asks as he shades his face again, this time to block the gaze of a motorist sitting alongside
in slow-moving traffic. ‘They'll think I'm not up to it, think I'm too old. They're like a bunch of vultures waiting for the
first sign of weakness. What did any of them ever do in the struggle? Nothing to get their hands dirty. Too busy getting their
university education and all their fancy degrees. Some of them weren't out of nappies when we were putting everything on the
line.'

‘I know,' Sweeney says. ‘There's no respect for the past any more from anyone. And if you fall over they'll put me out to
pasture as well. But maybe you need a rest, maybe it would help.'

They pause and listen to the radio report of the day's session of the new Truth and Reconciliation Commission. A rural killing
of an off-duty UDR soldier. They look at each other but there is no recognition of the name or the story. It reports the statement
of the volunteer who killed him. Both men chorus the words over the radio's voice. ‘I was a soldier fighting in a war. At
that time I believed the victim represented a legitimate target in that war. I deeply regret the pain and suffering caused
to his family …'

‘You'd think they could think up some variations just to make it sound spontaneous,' Gilroy says. ‘This was always a bloody
stupid idea.'

‘Don't know why we ever signed up to it,' Sweeney says.

‘Because we had to. Because we sang so loud about having the truth on everything they ever did that we stumbled blindly into
the net and then it was too late to get ourselves out when they turned round and asked for our truth. Maybe it's time to let
the dead stay dead, move on instead of digging them back up every day. It's like having a ghost permanently on your shoulder.
You've heard of
Hamlet,
haven't you?' Sweeney nods. ‘Well apparently there's this thing in it about being blown up by your own bomb – hoist by your
own something. What's that guy looking at?'

‘What guy?'

‘The one driving the Renault.'

‘He just recognises you, that's all. He's on his way home from the office, no worries. Are you sure about this burger?'

He nods, even though the idea already seems a bad one, but increasingly he feels the need to kick back against his day and
there is, too, a sudden crazed sense of frustration at having so many limits imposed at the very moment when he should be
able to embrace his freedom most fully. They reach the McDonald's opposite the hospital and the car swings into the busy car
park. There are people everywhere, family groups, teenagers in football shirts.

‘I think we should make this quick,' Sweeney says.

‘No probs,' Micky answers, steering the car into the drive-through.

‘Where the hell are you going?' Sweeney shouts, pushing himself forward on the seat.

‘The drive-through's the quickest,' Micky says, his eyes flitting in and out of the mirror.

‘Don't be so bloody stupid!' Sweeney shouts as he places both his hands on the back of the driver's seat. ‘Get out of here.'

But it's too late, already a car has entered behind them and so there's no way forward or backwards. Gilroy says nothing at
first but slumps back into the seat, then says, ‘Funny to be killed over a burger. Especially one you didn't get to eat.'
The pinpricks of pain behind his eyes are growing sharper, deeper.

‘At least there's not far to go to get to a hospital,' Micky says, drumming his fingers on the wheel while the car in front
sits motionless.

‘Micky, do me a favour,' Sweeney says, ‘let someone with half a brain do the jokes.' Then glancing sideways at Gilroy he adds,
‘Tomorrow he can start looking for stolen dogs.'

‘It was my fault,' Gilroy answers, ‘don't take it out on him. Keep your eyes open, Micky, and as soon as it's clear get us
out of here. Forget the burger. Just foot to the floor.'

An arm stretches from the serving window and hands a bag in to the driver. The car moves slowly forward and they follow it
bumper to tail until they are out in the car park and then they cut sharply on to the main road.

‘Micky, turn up the radio,' Sweeney orders and when the volume has risen asks quietly, ‘Francis, are you all right?'

‘I don't know,' Gilroy says, pressing his thumb and first finger to his eyes. ‘Just a little tired, maybe.'

‘You need to see a doc. I'll arrange it if you want. We can find the right person.'

‘I'll let you know. Something to eat and a good night's sleep would go a long way to seeing me right.'

Twenty minutes later they're entering the city centre. The car radio has been switched off and a brittle silence has settled, separating each from the other and making them loath to be the one to break the fragility of its hold. Their eyes stare blankly out of the car at the city which has almost drunk the day and finds its final dregs laced with a lingering sadness. It rises through the dusk and haloes the motionless heads of those travelling home on yellow-paned buses; it drifts aimlessly in the blurred slur of neon that skims the pavements and roads and brushes the pale faces of those whose hurried weariness reveals nothing but the imprint of their longing for home. Gilroy tries to look up beyond the frazzling fretwork of neon, past the offices where moon-faced ghosts sit still frozen at computers, and tries to see the sky but the buildings are too close together, too garishly dressed in their own light, like the young women who will link arms and claim these same streets in a matter of hours.