Hol

What an excellent chapter ending. I laughed for quite some time!

In 2004, on the 150th anniversary of the charge at Balaclava, the Daily Express ran a two-page spread with the glorious headline ‘Triumph of the Light Brigade’. It reported that Terry Brighton, curator of the Queen’s Royal Lancers regimental museum – descendants of the 17th Lancers who were in the vanguard of the charge – ‘rejects the notion that the charge was a failure. Instead he says that it was an amazing success’: ‘The brigade advanced down the valley in perfect formation despite being fired on by cannons to the front and on all sides,’ he said. ‘Many saw comrades to the right and left fall from the saddle and were splattered with the blood of horribly shattered men. Yet they not only reached the Russian guns and took a terrible revenge on the Cossack gunners, they then pursued the Russian cavalry behind the guns. This was not a charge that failed.’41 In 150 years’ time the same, no doubt, will be written of the amazing success of Brexit.

If there is on the one hand a need to think of oneself as being invaded and colonized and on the other hand no tangible enemy to fulfil this need, the job has to be given to somebody more visibly present. Who is doing the invading? It is the tens of millions of Turks, Iraqis and Syrians who are, in the mendacious pro-Brexit ads, about to head straight for Britain after the imminent accession of Turkey to the EU. Who is doing the colonizing? Those Poles who moved in up the street. What has been transferred once – the guilt of Empire – is free to be transferred again. The old empire appropriates the pain of the subject peoples and then transfers the guilt of invasion and colonization to the immigrant.

The fight had started when Nurse Brigit Conroy had punched ‘Diane’ right in the face for no explicable reason. Dr Sinha liked Brigit and wanted to believe this behaviour was out of character for her, but this week alone she had punched him in the face and been suspended from work for taking a naked colleague hostage. A trend was beginning to develop.

Gerry: Caller, you’re on the air.

Caller: (Distorted) My name is Tyler Durden, and I am the official spokesman for the Púca. This is the day that never comes. Prepare yourself for the revolution.

Gerry: Right, well, Mr Durden, before we go any further with this conversation, I should point out that we’ve a very sophisticated call logging system here at the station that records the numbers of all calls we receive.

Caller: (Distorted) Ehm… what?

Gerry: And obviously we will be passing that information directly to the Gardaí.

Caller: (distorted) Ah Jaysus, don’t do that, me ma will kill me!

"This is probably an odd time to ask, but why are you doing this?" Brigit asked.

Dr Sinha shot her a nervous smile. "Well Nurse Conroy—"

"Brigit."

"Brigit," he repeated. "Throughout my whole life I have been a good boy, a studious boy, a boy who has kept his head down and stayed out of trouble."

"OK."

"I thought it was about time I did something a little… how would you say it? Badass."

Brigit laughed. "You're like… Clint Eastwood meets Gandhi."

"Thank you," he said grinning, "that is precisely what I am going for."

"I'm really not a violent person."

"Of course not, Nurse Conroy," said Dr Sinha, without any trace of irony as he briefly held the wad of blood-soaked tissue away from his nose to examine it.

"Right," said Paul, "look alive. Hartigan is alone and – please God – hungry for love."

"I dunno," said Phil. "Is he really going to be trying to get his hole? I mean, his friend has just died and that. Seems a bit disrespectful."

"True. On the other hand, he is a narcissistic monster who destroyed countless people for personal gain so, y'know…"

"He might be horny?"

"Precisely."

"Oh and Wilson… good work."

"Thank you, ma’am." He allowed himself a slight smile of relief.

"I want you to remember I said that, when you close that door and realise that your fly has been open this whole time."

"Yes, ma’am." 

It was powerful stuff, some old-school fire and brimstone. Suddenly his parish church in the Liberties went from a third-full on a Sunday to rammed to the rafters every morning. The Church was delighted. This was the new face of modern Catholicism, reconnecting with their lost congregation. Franks was all of that, right up until he started preaching that it was sinful how the Church and the religious orders owned billions of euros worth of property while so many slept homeless on the street. Then he questioned why the Bishop of Rome lived in a golden palace, while so many went hungry around the world. Why the life of a child was sacred right up until the point it was born.

"Are you following this poor bloke about with one of those long-lens cameras? Invading his privacy?"

"Oh," said Paul, he'd not thought of that. "Is there anywhere around here that sells cameras?" He could use his phone but that'd be limited. Plus he could never figure out how to zoom in with the bloody thing.

"You make me sick," said Lianne.

"I get that a lot."

The doorbell rang again. "I'm coming, ye prick!" OK, easy now. The delivery guy had done nothing wrong. Well, assuming he was a bloke, he almost certainly had… but not to her.