Chapter 25: Alternative Perspectives

In the bar of the Pride of Éireann, Norm and Danny were enjoying a drink with Patsy.”How was it going back to your old hunting grounds?” Danny asked Norm.

“Nerve wracking. I’m not cut out for intrigue and undercover work.”

“Well, you know, I think that makes you the ideal man for it. You got the cards in and you got yourself out. We got paid and everybody’s happy.”

“I’m not so sure about the lot in Mudchute,” Norm responded.

“It sounds like that whole set up was a shambles,” Patsy chipped in. She looked no less dishevelled than when Norm had first seen her at Dublin airport. He’d become used to the fact that she didn’t see why she shouldn’t give her opinion at any opportunity. Danny seemed to be happy to put up with it and Norm was happy to have her around. She’d spent most of the drive back from Dublin explaining why the current crop of Irish singers weren’t a patch on the ones that she’d grown up with. For Norm it had been a refreshingly normal experience not to be regaled with this or that political issue.

“Maybe. There’s some people there that know what they are doing. I wasn’t impressed by the speed with which Gerry took off at the first sight of trouble though but Jack – the lad I took up the river seemed to be a bit brighter than the rest; once he got over the shock of the MCF turning up on their raid. I mean, I know sod all about this sort of thing but even I could tell they were rank amateurs.”

“Now that’s where we have the edge,” Danny said. “A fine long tradition of knowing when to keep your head down and when to stick it up. And a nose for who you can rely on and who you can’t. From what you’ve said, I think that lot in Mudchute have got a leak, the same as our friends had over the border. They need to get that plugged before they get completely taken apart. It’ll start off with events like the ExCel thing getting disrupted and then one morning they’ll all wake up to find an MCF officer hammering on the door.”

“And, of course, Danny, you just do it for the cash. No complicated moral compass to mess with your judgement, eh?”

“Now, that’s unkind, Patsy. Accurate, but unkind. Whoever’s funding that lot in Mudchute ought to be looking to get better value for money though.”

“You don’t suppose it’s the government themselves? As a sort of ‘let’s set up an incompetent dissident group to make all protestors look bad’ thing?”

“You’re a cynical soul, Norm Hailman,” Patsy downed the last of her Guinness. “Which is a good way to be, believe me. I suppose I could ask a stupid question like, ‘Do you want another drink?’ but I’m guessing you do.”

Norm nodded and Danny did too. Patsy took the three glasses off to the bar.

“That sounds a bit smart for most of the governments that I’ve come across. No, there will be a bad apple somewhere in Gerry’s circle. He’ll need to convince me he’s fixed that before we do any more business with his group.”

Norm nodded. He wasn’t sure if Danny was right but he wasn’t in any rush to head back to the UK.

Danny smiled, “Sure, we can forget about all that for a while, though. Our friends over the border are looking to take another consignment of those magazines. They might not overturn the government with them but it would be good to let them have a bit of fun. Anyway, you seem to have hit it off with Patsy. She usually can’t be bothered to hang around after doing one of her taxi jobs. I reckon you could be in there. She’s a sucker for an English accent. How the devil you managed to pass yourself off with an Irish passport, I’ll never know.”

Norm was surprised. He couldn’t remember that last time that he’d be ‘in’ anywhere. Perhaps things were picking up after all.

...

Catherine was looking at the map view of her data.

Well, she thought, that’s interesting. Two of her “person of interest” dots were in the same spot in central London. It wasn’t Victoria or Mudchute as she had expected. This was a new location, not far from the British Museum. Somewhere called Phil’s Place on Woburn Walk, according to her maps. It could be worth exploring further she said to herself, making a note to discuss it with Aileen the next day.

She closed her laptop and looked at her watch.

It was time for the small island of peace that she gave herself everyday by taking tea late in the afternoon, It wasn’t quite the ritual event that her mother and grandmother had known but she always took time, and care, and thought over it. It was something completely unrelated to the rest of her life. It gave her escape.

She took down the small teapot that had been passed down to her from her great grandmother as she knelt on the floor as her mother and countless generations before her had done. Great grandmother had used the teapot in Hong Kong but it had been old when she had acquired it, a fine piece made for a grand Imperial family. It was precious. It had been passed on to each daughter in turn, cherished and used by each.

Great grandmother had stolen it, according to family tradition in recompense, from the house of the Englishman that she had worked for as a servant in the 1930’s. He had raped her, the story went. It hadn’t been violent; rather it had been done almost casually in the way that those who feel entitled to something cannot see why it should not be theirs - but rape nonetheless. The teapot, great grandmother had said, had been more than compensation for such an insignificant event. The Englishman had noticed the theft and reported it but could not identify the woman that he thought had stolen it. That had amused great grandmother still further.

Catherine looked at the teapot. It was too fine a thing to have been owned by a guaillou anyway, she thought. He would never have appreciated the fineness of the dull brown clay it was made from or the way its squat form was designed to encourage the best from the leaves that would be steeped within. She poured the steaming, almost clear, liquid into the fine porcelain bowl she always used. The act of pouring was relaxing of itself. The fragrance of the tea added to her sense of well being.

The foolish Englishman would probably have imagined the bowl to be more valuable than the pot but he would have been very wrong. The bowl might be fine and elegant and the pot might be dull and squat but the pot’s age, its material and the skill of its manufacture meant it would command a high price from those that cared about such things. The teapot was a good reminder of the stupidity of men and the selfishness they could sink to if they were allowed. It made her feel that her work was all the more worthwhile.

...

Gerry was meeting with Jack Toven, Ashran and Spencer Hames in Phil’s Place.

“I was pretty pissed that you legged it from the house in Mudchute,” Jack didn’t feel inclined to shrink away from his feelings about Gerry’s response to the failure of the ExCel raid. If that Irish bloke, O’Neill, hadn’t been there, I’d have been stuffed.”

“Yeah, well, what can I say. I thought you’d be OK. As it turned out I was right. I still don’t know what went wrong. At least we gave the Home Secretary a bit of embarrassment. And we did get a dozen out of the detention centre and plenty of debate on the papers about what those bloody detention centres are for.”

“Yeah and you’ll have some experts on what goes on in them when Terry and Greg finish their sentences,” Jack sounded bitter.

Spencer tried to build some bridges.”Look at least we’re still in a position to try to do something about the way men have been knuckling under.”

“And unlike that Safewords lot, we’re still able to function. And we’ve still got most of those ident cards that O’Neill brought over, thanks to you Jack.”

Jack downed his drink. “Yeah, well, there is that I suppose,” he said, continuing to sound begrudging. It really didn’t sound like they had the first idea of how to really resist, reject and reverse. It didn’t encourage him to stick his neck out any further than he had done already. “All I know is that whatever you plan next, you’d better keep it a whole lot quieter or else everybody involved is going to end up getting a work over from the MCF.”