It was not his fault. No, it was definitely not Conor’s fault. Whatever happened, they would not be able to say it was his fault. He’d had it referred to the Environmental Committee, they’d put the contract out, black and white. Twenty committee members with their fingerprints on it. And where were they now? Where were they?
Conor could see, from the office window, the badgers in the field beyond. Bigger numbers this time. Organised. Black shapes emerging from mounds of rubbish. No, it was not his fault. It was not his fault that a hundred badgers were marching on County Buildings from Duignans’ Field.
Conor was calmed, for a moment, by the ascension of hot air rising from a grille beneath his feet. It rose up his leg, to his balls, and he thought of going home. The kids would be in bed, Sinéad would bring him in two bottles of that nice 7% IPA, they’d watch an episode of It’s Always Sunny. Maybe some tapenade. Why, for Christ’s sake, was he still here? Conor realised he had been looking through the windows of the mayor’s office for some time now. He reminded himself that he was mayor.
Conor would deal with it. Conor would deal with it and be seen to deal with it. The only thing worse than doing something was doing nothing at all.
And that was if he kept the other thing quiet.
Mmmmph
Grrrrr Cracksnapcrackkkkk
Head belly legs moving: sniffsnort up. Big Digger followed his nose to the Above-Place.
The attacks were unprecedented and the Council could not have foreseen them. The badgers attacked shoppers outside the retail park Lidl, ravaging their bags for food. One viral video later and the place was a media circus. Paddy Fennessy, the local bag of nerves, described a redness in their eyes. Pure bloody murder, he told the Six One. Others recalled discolouration on the mouth, bottle-caps on fur, pasta wrappers, ring-pulls. There had been at least two journalists camped outside County Buildings since.
Da was raging. Fucking embarrassment! He was the brains behind the retail park. Had a knack for seeing the future. Convenience, he said. No-one gives a fuck about tradition when you can’t park there. A few people made a lot of money. In the pub they’d say, Dunne and Son, TD, and Da would say, The family business.
The council made every effort to monitor the situation. They brought in an independent ecologist who made a site visit and expressed her alarm. Badgers, she told them, are protected under the Wildlife Act, 1976. The illegal dumping at Duignans’ Field was in clear violation, causing considerable damage to the badgers’ setts. The animals had been disturbed. The ecologist described the attacks as ‘unprecedented’ in a statement to the press. She was in the process of filing her report.
Big Digger followed the way
of the Before Ones to the Above-Place.
The others, he could smell. Twister and Fontanstill, Everdore Large, Slackjaw, Napharilops the Younger–
tunnelling.
Conor received special media training from Claudia, a comms specialist. Be concise. Soundbites are good. Show them you care! There was going to be a media clusterfuck, Claudia said. Conor was going to be fucked by a cluster of media professionals. A cluster of media professionals would fuck him, and he had to be ready.
Conor wondered what he would do when he went outside to face the badgers. He would make a statement, he supposed. Reassure the press. He watched Fionnuala Nerney of The _Mid-Leinster Leader_stalk the car park. She’d
been a busybody since their schooldays. Where was Claudia? Where was Da? He wanted to smash that glass trophy for Successful Implementation of the Green Schools Programme against the fucking wall!
Because it was not his fault, none of it was. It was not his fault because if you went back, he thought, searching for his coat, if you went all the way back: he had not chosen any of this, not a single thing.
Stop thinking about it. Prioritisation, Conor, please prioritise the matter at hand. He looked for his coat, Enzo Bugatti or something, beige, Sinéad liked it. An appropriate coat, given the task at hand.
Concentrate. One, two. The physio told him physical issues are often the manifestation of mental ones. My approach is increasingly holistic, she said. Three, four. Picture a calm place, she said. So Conor pictured a line, five, six. A heart monitor, flatlining. He counted seven, eight… but he could not reach nine, and the line fell into darkness.
Wait–did this mean he was worse than dead?
Clay rubbed smooth on tunnel’s turn up to the Wandering Lines.
Eatings on the Wandering Lines:
thickbitter slimysnail, elderberry cures bellyache.
Here is where the earthworms are,
mounds: ants. Snails are good to eat, slugs not so– Slugs eat poisonous mushrooms.
It was not his fault because if you traced it all the way back, right to the very beginning, he had not chosen any of this. Da called him into the Good Room, and he had to go. Conor was down for the weekend, he was working for TableMate then, and himself and Sinéad were in that place on the South Circular, ‘nesting’ as they called it; he liked the word. Mam had gone out after dinner and Conor was doing the washing up, and he was wearing an apron. They had eaten a roast and Da had taken seconds and gone in to watch the sport, Gowran Park, or the Curragh. And Conor thought Da just wanted him to clear his plate, so he went in, and Da’s plate was sitting on the arm of his chair, and the fire was blazing–it was May for God’s sake–and Da was
watching the racing on mute with the sports round-up on the radio. TableMate were going to pay for him to do an MSc that time. The thought of it.
Conor went to take Da’s plate but Da brushed his hand away gently. Strange, they never touched. He said, The mayoral elections are coming up, it’s not a big job, but the name alone would take you far. Conor tried to say no but Da said, You’re hardly surprised, are you? Conor started to explain: it wasn’t the right time, Sinéad, the flat, his job… but no good answer would come out of his mouth, and the apron strings were tied around him, and for fuck’s sake why couldn’t he get them loose!
Da looked up from the chair with his big, pink, clever face, and grinned. Conor looked anywhere but at Da. And as he readied himself to go outside, what Conor remembered now was the horse in the painting above the mantelpiece. Across from Da. That was what he’d been looking at. The grey horse: silvery, dappled white spots along the back, the first thing you noticed when you came in the room. Tall and strong, with muscles rippling all the way down its legs, and a big vein along the belly. In the background a village where happy townspeople lived.
Well, said Da. Are you serious about Sinéad? Those new-builds in the Paddocks would make for a great start.
A figure, Conor remembered also, in the right-hand corner, that a visitor would barely notice. Hunched and buckled, a little old man, leading the horse by a bridle. His face looked out, and his skin was the colour of clay, and his mouth was stretched into a wide, hungry grin. The Groomsman, Da called him. The Groomsman won’t like it if you don’t finish your dinner. The Groomsman watched always. Grinning like he knew something you didn’t. And the Groomsman led the horse.
Stop thinking about it Conor. An emergency situation is unfolding. The coat! He found the coat. A mayor who wears a coat. A mayor who wears a beige coat because he is doing so much for his constituents, often in bad weather.
New things up in the Above-Place, things that make you sick–
Tuna in brine! STREPSILS fajita mix HOTDOGS (100% POLYMEAT)
Colon Cleanse Scrubdaddy Fusilli Pasta Twists Help! There’s a HEINEKENBEER on my snout!
Derrynaflan Drive was built so quickly no one bothered to sort rubbish collection. As mayor, Conor took on the fight. Some of these people had paid four hundred K for a semi-d in the commuter belt. A captive market, Da winked.
Conor raised the issue at the monthly meeting, and had it referred to the Environmental Committee. The Environmental Committee set up a working group to identify the solid waste disposal needs of the residents, and a tender document for the waste management of the Derrynaflan Estate was drawn up, inviting applications.
The applications came in. And the committee was surprised. Indeed, the committee formally registered their surprise at their monthly meeting that, despite extensive advertising across local and national newspapers, in trade journals and online noticeboards, only one application met the pre- qualification criteria: the application from the newly re-established Duignan & Duignan Environmental Services, Ltd.
Siskeltrick the Magic had told him: In Bad Times there will be a Holy Upright
all in white.
Offer yourself to the Upright in the Time of the Urge.
He has the power to change fortunes.
Conor was at the stairwell, in the beige coat, and he advanced downwards. He would tell the press a full statement would be made tomorrow. It was premature to make a statement on an unfolding situation. A brief statement, in full, would be made to the press in the morning.
He texted the ecologist and Claudia and Da: ‘sorry to disturb emergency at work (badgers again) get here now if poss sorry GENUINE emergency’
He followed it with another message to Da: ‘thats us fucked’ Then quickly deleted it.
Big Digger wailed, remembering insects jig-jagging the river
dawn spilling yellow like a bird’s egg cracked. Belly full: he would’ve died happy then.
Conor had not agreed to meet Hughie Duignan. He had not actually said ‘yes’ when Da rang him, he had said ‘fine’, which was not the same thing as saying ‘yes’, it was different to saying ‘yes’, it was going along with something but not actually agreeing to it. In a court of law this might be called diminished responsibility, and it was worthwhile to consider these things in legal terms– necessary, actually–to imagine the absolute worst legal outcome of this situation, because as long as that remained even remotely conceivable, this was merely a precautionary and therefore necessary measure. He must get his story straight: Da had not explained a single reason why Hugh Duignan wished to see him.
It was fair to say he did not understand the circumstances. No, he was taken by surprise, right from the off, when the door to Huntstown, the big house on the stud farm where Hughie and his sister Anne lived, was opened before he had even knocked. And he did not expect Hughie to pull him into a bear hug, smelling of mustard and wet dog and hotly breathing, The mayor’s in town! into his neck. He remained in a state of surprise when Hughie led him down the hall, down steps into a vast kitchen, basically an entire 1970s bungalow grafted onto the back of the old house. And this state of surprise was heightened, intensified even, when he arrived to the kitchen and saw Da sitting at the table in golf windcheater and golf gloves, two slices of buttered fruit cake before him.
The mayor’s in town! Hughie announced again. Da greeted him, The Big Man!
Hughie sat Conor down and presented him with a slim bottle of sparkling San Pellegrino. He was all smiles, the easy manner of an entertainer, a warmth to his soft, ruddy cheeks. He was the Duignans’ public face.
You’ll have to forgive the short notice, said Hughie, whisking up his slacks to sit in a cushioned wicker chair. Busy busy! But I don’t have to tell you that!
Some place you have here, said Conor.
Only the lodger! Hughie replied. All credit to the sister.
Hughie had moved to Huntstown three years ago, after the original business folded. The whole town knew the Duignans’ story: Anne, who spied money in quarrying the parents’ farm, convinced Hughie to go splits on a £70 loan and a Bedford lorry. The builders’ merchants made them their first million; ten years later it was petrol stations and travel taverns. Then Caspian time- shares and mega-pubs. Then, the Crash, and the banks came: complicated shareholder arrangements, unpaid loans. Bankruptcy petitions; half the town unemployed overnight. And Hughie, with imminent divorce proceedings and no better option, arrived at Huntstown in a Range Rover filled with bed linen.
The men sat facing the windows of a sunroom, looking out onto the garden, and beside it a stable yard. Surrounding the garden and stables were rich green fields, themselves enclosed by a high perimeter wall. Inside, the house was cosy: a blazing range, an American fridge-freezer combo, an ornamental carriage wheel. A Wurlitzer played Brendan Shine.
Big Digger stopped by the edge of the field,
lifted his snout and sniffed:
Friends! A quick scratch for luck
on the scratching tree. Oh yeah! Rubbin’ the rump!
Hughie asked after Ava and Fiachra, and Sinéad, whose names he remembered. How were the whole crew down at the Paddocks?
Chipping away, Conor told him. Ava’s finishing third, Fiachra’s in high infants. We’ve our hands full.
Good houses, the Paddocks, mused Hughie. You bought at the right time. With a helping hand, said Da.
Conor smelled a tang of fried meat and the dampness of old teabags. The siblings were alone in the house apart from a stablehand, it was said, an older man born to a maid of the previous owners, Protestants, and kept on by Anne out of charity.
How’s the sister? asked Conor.
Hughie sighed, and locked hands where a gold belt buckle tightened over his belly. Ah, poor Annie, he said. The past few years have taken their toll.
Down from the grass onto hard ground
past tracery of slug trails, ant lines,
mouse-prints.
Big Digger sniffed again, the others smelled it too:
Uprights.
Crushed foods, mushed and soft. Violence.
Milky smell of death.
Conor was outside now, at the top of the steps, and looking down at the car park. He was lit by halogen lamps from below like a demagogue. He could not see the animals in the glare, but he knew they were coming. There it was: the smell of freshly cut grass on a warm spring night. Sports days and barbecues! Suffering Jesus! Ordinary life! What cursed him to be here?
They needed help, these Uprights,
smashing and bashing, pumping slodge into the ground.
But oh. Into the light. Up, above, higher!
It was always our dream, said Hughie, to do something for the town. And I wouldn’t be sitting here today were it not for the goodness of my neighbours. Now I know you’re a reasonable person. So you’ll listen to a reasonable proposal.
Hughie wiped his lips with a handkerchief.
While I was licking me wounds down here, he began, right after it all went to hell, I did some reading. First time for everything, says you. Well–I’m not as daft as I look. You see, I was reading that China had stopped taking Irish plastics. You couldn’t blame them, the Chinese, he said. We’d been sending them tonnes of stuff for years. But one day the Chinese said enough is enough, this country’s bursting with Irish plastic. The Irish can sort it themselves.
So me and Annie, you knows us. Where others see difficulty, we see– Opportunity, Da finished.
Correct.
Hughie’s navy slacks had ridden up his crotch, and Conor avoided looking at the resultant bulge. He was talking, his lips moving, thicker and wetter than a person’s usually were, and never fully closed. Incinerators! he said. That’s the job. Green incinerators! Burn the waste and sell the energy. The circular economy. Hughie smoothed the crease of his trousers. Green jobs, right here! Give the town back its pride. But we need to start small. A pilot scheme. Figure it out, then scale it up. Hughie gazed out the window a moment, and turned back to Conor.
I won’t bullshit you Con, he said. I need a favour. When the Derrynaflan contract goes out, I want you to make sure the Duignans get it.
No better man, said Da.
The Holy Upright all in white, like Siskeltrick told him: Paws raised to the sky.
Now, in the Time of the Urge Hot grip between the legs Make your Offering– set things right.
Sitting in the chair in the Duignans’ sunroom, looking out over the fields, Conor knew what Hughie had asked of him was wrong. Wrong and illegal. Conor knew that Hughie wanted to use him, to exploit their connection, to further the Duignans’ interests. As mayor, it was his duty to stand against it.
Take your time Con, have a think.
Corruption, plain and simple. Da must be in on it too. Well, Conor had gone to training days for situations like this. He knew the protocol. He would report Duignan & Duignan Environmental Services, Ltd. for breach of the county’s Procurement Guidelines. He would inform the authorities about a serious violation of the Criminal Justice Act. He would take it to the courts, and he would seek justice, for the good of this county and the people in it.
This man was a great help to us when the chips were down, said Da. Let the boy take his time, Hughie said.
Conor could not speak. He understood quickly, with a feeling that was like invasive surgery, that a moral decision of extreme significance was required this instant. The situation was clear. The whole thing was wrong, and the wrong-doers must be stopped. Conor realised that what he did in this moment would, in all truthfulness, be the summation of his entire existence.
Come on now, Con, smiled Hughie. We’ll keep it under the sombrero, of course–
Hughie frowned. A sound in the distance drew his attention. He turned. The patter of a horse’s hooves. Hughie’s eyes roved to the stable buildings. Then he turned back to Conor with a flustered smile.
Excuse me a minute, gentlemen, awfully sorry. Back in a flash.
Hughie rose with surprising agility, and slipped out the door, and walked briskly down the garden path. His slacks bunched tightly around his arse as he went.
From outside, Conor heard the twist of a tap, then water drumming on metal. In the stable yard, a hunched figure pulled a grey horse by the bridle. Conor saw the horse leaning to drink from a bucket. The figure, small and thin, leaned against the stable wall.
What are you playing at? hissed Da.
Hughie had reached the end of the garden path and opened a gate into the yard. The figure, in a paint-spattered jersey and low cap, turned to greet him. Conor saw a leathery face marked with deep grooves.
The horse lifted its head.
You’d want to keep Hugh Duignan on side, said Da. You would’ve been pulled out of that fancy school if he hadn’t stepped in when we needed it.
The blue ticker of Sky Sports News rolled endlessly on a nearby plasma. Why was Hughie talking to the stablehand? Horses were temperamental, Conor supposed. In the green fields, shadows of clouds passed over a single stone post. Conor did not know what the post was for, but he imagined that the Duignans had planted it. That it was there forever and was impossible to move.
Conor? Are you listening to me at all?
Conor would not let them win. No he would not. He would stand his ground and he would make sure that Hughie Duignan, and Da, knew exactly who he was. He would tell them this was wrong and unthinkable, and he would report them to the authorities. They could not touch him. They could not touch him because the things that mattered in his life were his kids, and Sinéad. These were the things he had chosen and the things they could not take away. Conor knew that if he believed in these things, in family, in legacy, he would stand up to them. He knew that if he did not stand up to Hughie Duignan in this moment, even if his kids did not find out in the future: they would know. They would smell it off him, and they would get the full measure of him. Sinéad too.
Outside, wisps of cloud passed over. The sun was revealed, so that it shone down powerfully, bursting open the fields with colour. Conor saw too many things: too many events happening all at once. He felt the noise of it, the relentless clanging of life. He felt he would be split open if his skin didn’t hold him in.
Conor’s eyes returned to the horse’s shiny coat. He saw the stablehand laughing with Hughie, his mouth stretched into a grin. Conor knew that face,
that grin. The stablehand was looking back into the house. He was looking at Conor. Da was beside him. Stablehand, horse. Da, Groomsman, big strong horse.
Everything took on an awful clarity, bright and sharp. Conor wanted to drive straight home to Sinéad. They could leave the town together, kids and all, and nest on the South Circular Road. In a way, he was already there. But he was also in the Good Room, and he was in the Duignans’ sunroom, and he could see the entire span of his life, and not a single bit of it was his.
Sorry about all that! Hughie’s waist at Conor’s eyeline. Quick word with Anne. She likes to keep up.
Anne? Conor asked.
Aye, Anne. The sister. Sure you know Annie. He sat back down in the cushioned wicker chair and smiled. Now. Have you an answer for us?
Conor watched clouds pass over the stone post. Da cracked the leather of his golf gloves. Conor summoned all of his courage, every last bit of it.
It’s yours, he said.
Up the stone steps
one two seven eight– almost there.
*
On a warm spring evening at dusk, Fionnuala Nerney stands outside County Buildings. She is chief reporter with The Mid-Leinster Leader, and she is waiting. For a long time, nothing happens. Then mayor Conor Dunne passes through the building’s front-doors. He stops at the stone platform at the top of the steps. He is wearing a beige coat, made white by the lights below.
Beside Fionnuala is her photographer colleague, Stephen Grace. They see the mayor, at first going to greet him, then they hesitate. The mayor is holding his arms out. He is making shushing sounds. Fionnuala and Stephen take a few steps back and Stephen places his finger on the shutter of the camera.
Added to this tableau, and unbeknownst to the journalists, is the advancing armada of badgers. There are a hundred of them, maybe more, and they are coming from the direction of Duignans’ Field by the retail park. They approach the steps.
The mayor begins clapping his hands frantically. Fionnuala and Stephen turn to see what is happening. Fionnuala screams. Stephen points his lens and snaps. A flash! It does nothing to stop their march.
The first of the badgers climbs the steps, then a second, then more. Some are dirty, with yellowy beards, and litter stuck to fur. Some are limping. They seem to be moving in formation. One by one, they climb.
Fionnuala raises her phone and begins filming. Stephen checks his battery.
The badgers pay them no heed.
The badger at the front is leading. He is the biggest, and the bravest. He grips each step and pulls himself up with surprising speed. The mayor claps and shoos. Away!
The big badger is on the platform and makes for the mayor. The mayor does nothing. The mayor is thinking about animal rights violations. He is petrified. The badger climbs the mayor’s leg and hugs it.
The big badger begins: first a rub, then a bop. Then a full-on baby-making thrust to the mayor’s leg. The mayor lets it happen. What else can he do?
The big badger shakes like Elvis. He dances the lower half of a 3-a.m. tango.
He scratches the worst itch the world has ever seen. Damn! He can move!
Fionnuala is writing tonight’s article in her head.
Bumping, then grinding. Then grinding some more. The big badger starts to slow. It’s the last song of the night, and he hugs the mayor’s leg like he wants to grow old with it.
The big badger stops moving. He loosens his grip and falls backwards.
Fionnuala wonders if he’s dead. He looks dead. Is he dead?
He is not dead.
It is a red dusk, and in the hush of a commuter-belt town at evening, Stephen’s camera flashes. It illuminates a perfect moment: the arc of Big Digger’s semen, flying through the clear night sky.