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СКАЧАТЬ you,’ said Ted to Israel. ‘Ye bad-mannered bastard.’

      ‘Come on now,’ said Minnie. ‘Let me squeeze you in the wee huxter here, and I’ll see if I can’t bring Maurice over for a wee chat. I’m sure he’d love to meet you.’

      ‘No!’ said Israel.

      ‘I’ll be back in a minute for your orders,’ said Minnie, bustling away.

      ‘Maurice Morris,’ said Ted. ‘Well, well, well. The Man With The Plan.’

      Maurice Morris, The Man With The Plan: Independent Unionist candidate for Tumdrum and District, out on the stump, one of Northern Ireland’s most popular politicians, admired by all and loved by many, until he’d fallen from favour and had been defeated—crushed, humiliated—by the Democratic Unionists at the last election, not because of any policy or political crisis, but because of the small complicating matter of his affair with one of his constituency workers, and the accompanying slight whiff of financial impropriety, which never came to more than a whiff, but which was more than enough for the good people of Tumdrum, the scone-and-coffee crowd, who could smell a rat when they saw one and who had turned their car-coated backs to him and set their po-faces against him. It had taken Maurice years to patch things up and make himself anew and only now was he seeking to regain his seat, which is why he was here in Zelda’s, the very heartland of Tumdrum, busy working the crowd, jacket off, sleeves rolled up, receding hair swept boldly back from his vast, lined but deeply untroubled forehead, looking every thickset square inch the comeback politician. In his campaign literature Maurice liked to draw attention to his confidence-inspiring six-foot-five-inch frame and his well-cut suits—suits for which he was, according to his campaign literature, renowned Province-wide. His Savile Row pinstripes and his Jermyn Street shirts and ties, he believed, spoke for themselves, and they most certainly did; they told you everything you needed to know about Maurice Morris, or M ‘n’ M, as he prefer red to be called. His sparkling white teeth and his perma-tan spoke eloquently also—they sang out on his behalf—as did his reputation as North Antrim’s most successful independent financial adviser. What M ‘n’ M did not know about mortgages, repossessions and trusts in kind sim ply was not worth knowing: Maurice was the man, the big man in the big picture, financially, politically and socially; this was a man who had been photographed consistently, for over a decade, in the Ulster Tatler, and the Belfast Telegraph, and the Impartial Recorder, with every Irish and Northern Irish celebrity, major and minor, excepting Bono, who was still on his wish list. Maurice was not just a politician, or a businessman: he was a brand and a celebrity, and he was not a man to be underestimated, overlooked, doubted, mocked, questioned, queried, or in any other way challenged. Maurice Morris had been blessed at birth—by whimsical, apparently homonymic and possibly crossword-puzzle-minded parents—with his own surname for a first name, and he had known from an early age that this somehow made him impregnable and unassailable, like God with Jesus and the Holy Spirit. Maurice was like New York, New York. He was entirely in and of himself; he was, according to his campaign literature, The Man With The Plan. His ostensible plan was accountable government, investment in jobs, reform of the planning process; all of the usual. His actual plan was to win back power by any means necessary. He’d done his penance; he’d made his apologies; and now he wanted back in. Israel had followed Maurice’s charmless charm offensive on the many hoardings of County Antrim as he drove in the van every day, Maurice Morris’s shining face staring down at him: dominant; necessary; and appalling.

      ‘So what is it, gents?’ said Minnie, returning to take orders. ‘Two coffees and two scones of the day?’

      ‘Aye,’ said Ted.

      ‘Right you are,’ said Minnie. ‘And I’ll make sure Maurice comes and has a quick word with you.’

      ‘I heard he’d had a cafetière fitted,’ said Ted.

      ‘A cafetière?’ said Israel.

      ‘Aye.’

      ‘A cafetière is what you make the coffee in,’ said Minnie.

      ‘Not a cafetière, then,’ said Ted. ‘Something like that.’

      ‘A catheter?’ said Israel.

      ‘Well, I don’t want you asking him about that,’ said Minnie.

      ‘I don’t want to meet him anyway,’ said Israel. ‘Thanks.’

      ‘The man running to be your own elected representative?’ said Minnie.

      ‘Sure, you probably vote for the Shinners,’ said Ted.

      ‘The whatters?’ said Israel.

      ‘Now!’ said Minnie. ‘We’re one big happy rainbow nation these days, Ted.’

      ‘Does he have any actual policies, Maurice Morris?’ asked Israel.

      ‘Aye,’ said Ted. ‘The same as the rest of them. Snouts in the trough and selling the rest of us down the river. I tell ye, I’ve some questions for Mister Morris if he comes over.’

      ‘That’s fine,’ said Minnie, beginning to walk away. ‘Healthy democracy and all that—just you make sure you go easy on him, Ted. I don’t want any trouble. Nothing personal. I’ll be back in a minute.’

      ‘Nothing personal!’ said Ted. ‘Adulterating so and so.’

      ‘Ex-adulterer,’ said Minnie, as a parting shot.

      ‘Ex-adulterer?’ said Israel.

      ‘A leopard doesn’t change its spots,’ said Ted.

      Israel watched, fascinated, as Maurice slowly worked his ex-adulterating way from wipe-down gingham tableclothed table to wipe-down gingham tableclothed table, firmly shaking hands with the men, and hugging the ladies, and kissing the babies—grandchildren, mostly—and grinning and winking with utter conviction, as though there were no other place on earth that he’d rather be right now, a-grinning and a-winking, than right here, in Zelda’s Café. In his years out of office Maurice had read a lot of books about communication, and persuasion, and entrepreneurial self-realisation and reinvention, and during his time in the wilderness he’d learnt that in life generally and in politics in particular, no matter how you felt or what your circumstances, you needed to appear always as though this really mattered—this coffee morning, this photo-shoot, this meeting, this community liaison event. Even if it didn’t. Which it didn’t. Maurice had become, even more than he was previously, an of the and in the moment kind of a guy. When Maurice Morris went out campaigning around Tumdrum and District he put all thoughts of himself, of his many personal successes and achievements, from his mind and focused instead on the little people and their problems and difficulties, and the amazing thing was, it worked. They flocked to him, the people, because he, Maurice Morris, was in the moment. He was the moment: he had presence, you couldn’t deny it, and right now, at this moment, middle-aged and elderly women who should have known better were in the moment with him, giggling and photographing each other, posing cheek-to-cheek with him, using the cameras on their mobile phones, many of them for the first time, delighted that they’d upgraded, as their daughters and the suited salespeople in the Carphone Warehouse in the Fountain Centre at Rathkeltair had wisely suggested. There were mega-pixel flashes, and much automatic red-eye reduction, and laughter, and good-natured banter and repartee, and even though it was Zelda’s, and even though it was a Friday morning in September, and even though it was softly raining outside, it felt like a glittering gala event. Maurice Morris was about as glamorous as it got on the North Antrim СКАЧАТЬ