Shooting Sean Read online

  We made kissy noises and I put the phone down. Three minutes later I was downstairs in the bar.

  She told me to relax.

  5

  I was on pint three when a woman settled onto the stool beside me and purred to the barman, 'Calypso coffee, two sugars.'

  He had one eye on the racing high up on the wall behind her. He reeled it back in, smiled and said, 'Certainly, madam,' but the look said thanks a bunch. He peeled a damp betting slip off the bar and toddled off to prepare her drink. There is a certain knack to calypso coffee, but it is more time-consuming than difficult. Tia Maria, sugar, hot water, cream, mixed with a final sprinkling of coffee. Best not drunk by the pint.

  She was tall, maybe just under six feet. She'd short blond hair and an asymmetrical Julie Christie kind of a face. She wore a skirt that was half an inch north of decent. Three-inch stilétto heels and a short white leather jacket. Just enough white teeth to suggest she would bite if cornered, or approached. I should have folded up my gratis newspaper and returned to my room, but when the drink's in the wit's out, as my old uncle once said, shortly before he was crushed by a piano. In my heyday three pints would have been a drop in the ocean, but I was so long out of practice, it was the ocean, or at least a reasonably unpolluted inland sea with a small but impressive tourist trade.

  I smiled round at her. Why not? It was my first real opportunity to practise the lingo, to make sure I could blend seamlessly into my surroundings if the need arose. Top of the mornin' to ya,' I said in my finest Quiet Man brogue. She managed a short smile and an almost imperceptible nod. It was, of course, a come-on. But I wasn't coming on. I was just messing about. It's what I do. It rarely gets me into trouble. 'What's a fine filly like yerself doin' in a den of iniquity the like o' this?'

  'Ordering a drink.'

  'Aye, well, you're in the right place for that.' I leaned back in my chair and took a good look at her legs. 'You've a right set of pins on ya, girl, d'ye know that?'

  Her eyes narrowed. 'I'm sorry,' she said coolly, 'are you on some sort of drugs?'

  'No,' I said.

  'Well, your accent's all over the place.'

  The barman arrived back with her calypso coffee. 'Will I charge it to your room?'

  'No, I'll pay cash.' She had a small leather purse tied about her midriff. No room for cigarettes or make-up. Not even a fork for stabbing obnoxious drunks.

  Or money, it appeared. Her face reddened slightly as she tried to make a show of delving into the darkest corners of her purse.

  'Let me,' I said magnanimously. She looked up. Gratefulness wasn't exactly etched on her face, but she was in a corner. 'Charge it to my room,' I said.

  The barman looked to her for approval. She gave a short nod and a shorter smile and lifted the glass.

  'Thanks,' she said.

  'No problem. Are you, ahm, working here?'

  'Excuse me?'

  'I just thought, y'know, the short skirt . . .'

  'Thanks for the drink,' she spat, 'now fuck off.' She turned sharply away. I rolled my eyes at the barman; he ignored me. I unfolded my paper and tried to make like it was water off a duck's back.

  And then I was slammed off my seat and my lips were sucking the polished wooden floor. It smelt of Flash. Flash cleans floors fast without scratching. I rolled and looked groggily up at the woman looking angrily down.

  'What gives you the fucking right to insult me like that? You fucking prick.'

  'Wanker, actually,' I murmured.

  'What?'

  'Nothing. I'm sorry.' I pulled myself up to my knees. 'I was only raking. I overestimated your sense of humour.'

  'It wasn't funny.'

  'It would have been if you were sitting over there.' I pointed across the bar. She followed my finger. There were a couple of elderly ladies sitting at a table laughing at us. 'They run a street theatre company, I was auditioning for a part. My humblest apologies.'

  I scrambled to my feet. She looked from me to the ladies, who looked away. I put my hand out.

  'You are talking the biggest load of shite,' she said, her eyes no longer quite as angry.

  'No, honest native American. They're two of the leading lights in Dublin street theatre.'

  She shook her head once, then strode across to a small table a couple of yards behind me. She sat down and cupped her fingers around her hot drink. She glowered angrily across at the old women, who looked away. There was a framed photo of Brendan Behan above her head, one I hadn't seen before, and my eyes lingered on it. She thought I was watching her. So I did, and I gave her a little smile. She looked away again.

  'Sorry,' I said.

  She ignored me.

  'You're from up north,' I said. 'Accent like that, you could cut butter with it.'

  She shrugged.

  'So am I.'

  Her eyes snapped towards mine. 'So we should bond and face the world together?' she spat. 'Northerners are the last people who should meet up in other countries.'

  'At least you're acknowledging it's another country. We have that much in common. Northern Protestants against the black Irish hordes.'

  'Get a life.'

  I was on a bar stool. She was sitting down. I was perched at least three feet above her. I lifted my pint. I said, 'Do you mind if I come down to your level?' I nodded at the table.

  'After what you said?'

  'I was only joking. Misplaced. I'm sorry.'

  She rolled her eyes, but she didn't object when I sat down. 'You pack a mean punch,' I said.

  'You have to in my business.'

  'Oh yeah. What's that?'

  'Not what you think, anyway.'

  'I apologised for that. Go on. What do you do?'

  She let out a sigh. I nodded, raised my eyebrows. She sighed again. Finally she smiled impatiently and said: 'Guess.'

  'Do you have to dress like that for your work?'

  'No. But it helps. Sometimes.'

  'But it's not essential?'

  'No.'

  There was a sudden shout and we both looked up. The barman was shaking his fist triumphantly at the television. 'Forty to one! Forty to fucking one!' He let out a raucous laugh then looked carefully about the bar. He said, quietly, 'The drinks are on me,' and I was up there like a shot.

  'Pint of Harp,' I said, 'and . . .'

  'Tequila, if you're asking,' my new friend said.

  'Bit of luck on the gee-gees,' I said.

  The barman smiled as he poured. 'First this year. You must be good luck.'

  The old women, the only other drinkers in the bar, looked hopefully across, but the barman ignored them and they soon returned their attention to each other, neither of them willing to admit that they might be hard of hearing.

  I took the drinks back to our table. As I sat I said: 'You're in public relations. It's kind of expected that you dress a bit sexily, but you've gone a little further than that, so you're connected to the entertainment business, any other branch and you'd be considered over the top. But you're obviously not the kind of dodo that just smiles and gives out free T-shirts, so you're an executive of some description. Probably you own your own company, you have some high-profile clients. Pop stars. Possibly they live here as tax exiles, maybe out at Killiney.' I took a sip. 'Close?'

  She smiled properly for the first time. It was kind of cute, if you were in the market. 'Maybe. What about you?'

  'You tell me.'

  She looked as much of me up and down as she could with me sitting behind a table. A finger went to her lip, pulled slightly on the bottom one. She was absolutely beautiful.

  'Drunk and lecherous,' she said. 'But I guess that's no way to earn a living. I'd say you were a reporter.'

  'Jesus. Is it that obvious?'

  She nodded. 'I work with a lot of reporters. What're you down for?'

  I shrugged. 'This and that.'

  'Northern Protestants don't travel down here for this and that. And they don't stay in Jury's and charge drinks for people they don't even know to
their room. So you have an expense account.'

  I held up my hands. 'Fair enough. I'm down to interview Sean O'Toole.'

  'Seriously?'

  I don't know. Was I trying to impress her? Dropping his name? I told myself not. If she worked in the PR business surely she wasn't going to be that thrilled by my meeting a movie star. Yet her eyes were suddenly wide and starry. She reached forward and lightly clutched my knee. 'What's he like?' she gasped.

  'Don't know yet. Spoke to him on the phone. Seems okay.'

  'God, what did he say?'

  I shrugged. 'Nothing much.'

  'God, where are you meeting him?'

  'Not sure, he's to call back.'

  'I love Sean O'Toole. Isn't he making a movie down here?'

  'Yeah. I think so.'

  'Do you know what it is?'

  'Not really, no. Dare say I'll find out.'

  'You don't give much away.' She took a long sip of her drink. She looked at the table. Then she turned her eyes on me, slightly narrowed now, dark and penetrating. Her lips seemed redder, fuller, the glint of bone-white teeth ever so slightly cannibalistic. 'I'd do anything to meet Sean O'Toole.'

  I laughed. I took a drink. Beams of sunlight shone through the bar's single window. It was one of those old Irish pubs, all dark panelling and ancient artefacts. It had probably been knocked together by a specialist theme pub company and was about as authentic as the Turin shroud. It didn't matter to thick American tourists, and it didn't matter to me. What mattered to me was the beautiful girl opposite with her calculating eyes.

  'I mean it,' she said.

  'I'm sure you do.'

  'My company's going through a rough time. If I had a client like Sean O'Toole, even just for his Irish stuff, I'd be made.'

  'Well,' I said.

  'Take me with you. To meet him.'

  'Sorry,' I said. 'I can't.'

  'Go on, please.'

  'Really, I can't.'

  'I'll pay you if you want.'

  'Really, I can't.'

  'A thousand quid. Just for an introduction. Just to get me onto the set.'

  'Sorry,' I said.

  'Please.'

  'I can't.'

  I took another drink. She had changed in a minute from a gorgeous, intense, self-confident woman into a teenybopper.

  She leant forward across the table. I felt an urgent need to check out the table. The fact that her small breasts were almost perfectly exposed by her new position was incidental. Or coincidental. Or occidental. Words were not easy to come by. She whispered. 'I can make it worth your while another way.'

  I cleared my throat and held onto my pint for safety.

  'I'll take you upstairs and give you the best fuck of your life.'

  I smiled bashfully.

  'Anything you want.'

  The smile widened.

  They were the hardest words I ever had to say. 'I'm sorry no.'

  She sat back, taking her perfectly formed breasts with her. Her lips pursed. 'You won't do this one little thing for me? What harm's it going to do?'

  'None probably.'

  'What about coke? Do you take coke?'

  'Diet Coke,' I said.

  'You're a fool,' she said. 'You have to cut the best deal you can in this world.'

  'Maybe so. Maybe I am.'

  'Is there anything I can do?'

  'Do you have a complete collection of Spiderman comics? Not for me, you understand, but for my son. Especially the difficult to get . . .' I smiled as I trailed off. 'Sorry. If I could I would. But I can't. Sorry. That probably means you don't want another drink.'

  She nodded once and stood up.

  'Sorry,' I said again.

  'Congratulations,' she said.

  She opened her purse and the tips of her fine thin fingers crept in. I had noted before that there was no room for a fork or money, but it didn't preclude the possibility of there being a tiny pistol, an eye-piercing hat pin or a fingernail's worth of Semtex inside waiting for me. I tensed.

  Instead she produced a small plastic card and set it on the table before me.

  'This is your security clearance for the set. A car will pick you up at ten tomorrow morning. Sean sends his regards.' She picked up her drink and drained it. 'After a shaky start,' she purred, 'you pulled it back. Sean likes to be sure about these things. See you tomorrow, and thanks for the drink.'

  And then she was gone.

  6

  I showered, I shaved, I took six paracetamol. I had not remained in the bar a great deal longer. Paranoia and drink do not sit comfortably together, and I could not sit there comfortably thinking I was going to be tested again. When people spoke to me I ignored them, when I went to the gents I locked myself in a cubicle. They'd been sneaky and I didn't like it. I adjourned to my room and ordered half a dozen bottles of Becks on room service and drifted off to sleep watching fat black women punch each other on a cable re-run of Jerry Springer. On a cool, grey morning I phoned Patricia and told her more or less what had happened and she said, 'You poor lamb.'

  'There's no need for sarcasm.'

  'If you'd stayed in your room like you'd said, it wouldn't have happened.'

  'She approached me.'

  'Aye.'

  'She offered me all sorts of sex and I turned it down. You should be congratulating me.'

  'Dan. You're married. It should go without saying that you turned it down. You don't get a Blue Peter badge for that.'

  'Put Little Stevie on, I'll get more sympathy from him.'

  I didn't, of course. He asked what toys I was bringing him home. I explained to him that he didn't get a toy every time I went away and that he had hundreds of lovely toys already. He put the phone down.

  I dabbed on some aftershave, purchased some Polos in the shop downstairs and then waited outside the hotel door for the stretch limo. It was three minutes before ten. Of course nobody had mentioned a stretch limo. I had just thought. Movies. Hollywood. Big star. So for a few moments I presumed that the small bearded guy sitting in the rusting Ford Fiesta was waving at somebody else. It was sitting about twenty yards away in a parking space. I ignored him and popped back inside to buy a newspaper. The Irish Times. When I came back outside the car was right outside the door and the bearded bloke was sitting on the bonnet.

  He nodded at me, I nodded at him and rested back against the pillar and tried to find the sports section. When I lowered the paper he was staring at me. I said, 'You're not . . .?'

  'I am.'

  I looked at the car. 'I expected . . .'

  'You obviously haven't worked on a low-budget movie before.'

  'I haven't worked on any movie before.'

  He opened the door for me. I climbed in. There was a yellowing Sun sitting on the passenger seat. I pushed it off. I put my feet gingerly on the floor. It was thick with hairs, like a cat had been shaving.

  He put his hand out. 'Davie. I'll be your driver.'

  I put my hand out. 'Dan. I'll be your long-haired lover from Liverpool.'

  He nodded. We drove out of Ballsbridge and back towards the centre of Dublin. 'I'm writing a book on Sean,' I said.

  'Aye, I know.'

  'Known him long?'

  'About six weeks.'

  'What's he like?'

  'Don't really know. Nice enough.'

  'Good director?'

  'I'm just the driver, not Barry fucking Norman.'

  'Fair enough.'

  I concentrated on the Irish Times. I couldn't make head nor tail of the politics, so I started to leaf through the property section. There were no prices on the houses. But none of them looked like you'd get much change from a million quid. All were for sale by auction. They did things funny, south of the border. We did things serious, up north. We had peace, but they had prosperity. We had laid down our lives in the fight against Hitler and they'd never fired a shot in anger. They had the youngest population in Europe and we had Alex Hurricane Higgins. They had money, ambition, and political refugees, we had no mone
y, little ambition and politicians we wished were refugees. We had George Best, they had U2. It wasn't comparing like with like, and I wasn't quite sure who had the best deal.

  We pulled into an industrial estate. Davie drove between broken bottles and shattered breezeblocks. We came to a large warehouse. It was surrounded by a high fence with barbed wire on top. There were two security guards on the gate. I flashed my pass. They told me to do it more slowly.

  Davie drove round to the back of the warehouse, and it was like driving onto the Shankhill Road. They'd mocked up a section of Belfast's most notorious – or welcoming, depending on your point of view – Protestant enclave and were about to start shooting a gun battle. It was my first time on a movie set. There was a big camera, a crane, a lot of lights, and about fifty people. Most of them seemed to be just hanging around, but they probably all had something to do. Sean O'Toole, with baseball cap and jacket, sat in a director's chair staring at a video monitor. There was a drape being held over the top of the monitor to block out the glare of the sun. An assistant director was shouting at extras not to move from their positions. I stood with my arms folded and tried not to look impressed. Davie asked if I wanted a coffee and I said Diet Coke. He rolled his eyes and muttered something but went off to look for it nevertheless.

  Nothing much seemed to be happening. Twice I was asked for my security clearance. Sean disappeared for several minutes and when he reappeared he was dressed in Belfast chic circa 1985, a purple-and-white shell suit. He was carrying a gun. As he spoke to the other actors he pulled a balaclava over his head. What little of his face that was visible was then touched up by a make-up girl. I resolved to speak to her. Make-up girls, legend had it, were the ones to talk to if you wanted the real lowdown on how the stars behaved. Then the assistant director warned everyone to cover their ears and shouted action. After a couple of moments Sean burst through the door of a mocked-up taxi office, shooting left and right. A policeman fell, wounded. Sean paused long enough to shoot him in the head where he lay, then ran off to the left. The AD shouted cut. Everybody clapped. Sean, still in balaclava, hurried across and watched a replay of the scene on the monitor, conferred quietly with the director of photography – the cameraman to you or me – and then called for another take.