Divorcing Jack by Colin Bateman Read Free Book Online Page B

been?'
    'Fine.'
    She opened a door and showed us into a small viewing room. There were a couple of musty-looking settees, a colour TV, and a tray of sandwiches and some bottles of beer and a bottle of wine on a small table in the corner. The TV was switched on. I could see Brinn having make-up applied to his face.
    'They're due to start recording in about twenty minutes,' Kay said to Parker, 'and it should last about half an hour. I'll come back towards the end. If you have any questions then about the programme I'll be glad to answer them.'
    Parker shook her hand again. 'Thank you for your help,' he said.
    'No trouble at all.'
    She closed the door behind her without looking at me.
    'Good friends, are you?' Parker asked.
    'She doesn't like what I write about her programmes.'
    'You a TV critic?'
    'An everything critic'
    'And what do you say about her programmes?'
    'That they're all crap.'
    'I can see why she mightn't like you.'
    I shrugged. 'Par for the course.'
    I walked over to the table and opened a couple of bottles of Harp. I handed one to Parker, then tapped the TV screen lightly with my own. 'And this, God bless him, is our next prime minister.'
    'Yeah, I recognize the face. Mark Brinn. Leader of the Alliance Party. Widely seen as the best hope for Northern Ireland: an acceptable compromise to both the Unionists and Nationalists. That's what my file says. What do you make of him?'
    'It doesn't matter much what I make of him. That's not why I'm here.'
    'You're a Unionist writer, I'd be interested in the Unionist view.'
    I took a seat in front of the TV and a slug from my beer. 'Who told you I was a Unionist?'
    'My file.'
    'Must be some fucking file if it has me in it.'
    'Hey, I'm a journalist. I'm paid to know these things.'
    'Keen as well.'
    He shrugged his shoulders. 'Well?'
    'You want a personal opinion I'll give it to you. If you want one from your official guide I'll give you the official opinion.'
    'The official opinion I know. He's the good guy.' Right.'
    'You don't agree?' I don't disagree.'
    'But?'
    'Personally speaking, off the record?'
    'Of course.'
    'I just love him to bits.' Brinn had finished having his make-up applied now and was staling patiently into the camera. He had a thin face, sallow despite the make-up. His nose was long, slightly bent, but he was not unattractive in a middle-aged successful executive kind of way. 'I love him because he's such a salesman. Politically and literally. What do you know about his background?'
    'Uh . . .' Parker thought for a moment, his eyes dulled and then suddenly bright as if he'd just remembered an awkward date in a history exam. 'Right . . . born in Cookstown, County Tyrone...' He pronounced it Tie-rhone.
    Tyrone . . . pronounced Ter-own . . .'
    'Yeah, whatever, Ter-own ... to Protestant father and Catholic mother, educated locally . . . didn't go to college . . . into business, successful, injured in a terrorist bomb attack on local restaurant 1974, in which eight people died, suffered severe burns . . .'
    'Although you wouldn't know it.'
    '. .. spent six months in hospital, on release resumed business and joined Alliance Party. His status as victim and peace campaigner quickly catapulted him into the limelight, became local councillor and then Member of Parliament in 1980. Elected leader of the party in 1987.'
    'Dead on. You want to know what says more about him than any of that, than any speech or anything you'll hear him say in a minute?'
    'Of course.'
    'His name.'
    'Brinn? Mark Brinn? What about it?'
    'Your file probably has this, if it's any good, but doesn't understand it. Nobody understands it, 'cept me of course.'
    'Which makes you the smartest man in the country, or the stupidest.'
    'Exactly.'
    'Okay, so what about his name?'
    'Until 1972 his surname was O'Brinn. 1972 was one of the worst years we've had. Major death and destruction. O'Brinn is ostensibly a Catholic name. When he opened his first furniture shop in 1972 he had his name changed by deed poll