The Salesman Read online

  ‘O’Connor is a master of ripe dialogue and has a great eye for absurdity. Yet The Salesman offers much more; a ruthless expose of the pitfalls of taking the law into one’s hands, a love affair lost through drink; and the terrors of parent-hood. The Salesman is a glorious read – for those who loved Father Ted and Trainspotting’

  Express on Sunday

  ‘O’Connor has always been a superb storyteller … a style of forensic clarity reminiscent of Tobias Wolff or Robert Stone. What makes the book so impressive is its honest and painstaking focus on the feeling of the central character … In The Salesman Joseph O’Connor’s ability to get inside the skin of a fundamentally decent but lost middle-aged man and the power and control of the narrative confirm his progress to the front rank of Irish writers … The Salesman makes a fair claim to be the best Irish novel of 1997’

  Sunday Independent (Ireland)

  ‘Very near perfection … you’ll be on the edge of your seat … both tender and powerful enough to melt the hardest of hearts and cause tears to flow from the driest of eyes … The story is so compelling and believable that by page 200 with another 200 pages to go, you’ll be turning down all invitations in order to sit indoors and read … you’ll be making a big mistake if you don’t buy this book’

  Literary Review

  ‘[Joseph O’Connor] captures brilliantly changes of mood and unexpected quirks of behaviour’

  Guardian

  ‘The novel takes you on an emotional roller-coaster ride right up to the last page’

  Elle

  ‘A genuinely powerful and moving novel that only ever pauses to tighten its vice-like hold on the reader’

  Scotland on Sunday

  ‘O’Connor’s prose has a poignant intensity’

  Times Literary Supplement

  ‘The most unexpected and devastating tale you are likely to come across in 1998’

  Big Issue

  ‘The Salesman displays the customary blend of silky skills and gritty guile that would make him a definite for an Irish literary first eleven … A writer on top of his game, compelling, heartrending and constantly surprising … His prose resonates like a bell in the heart … At one point Sweeney wishes his words could freeze water. In this form, his creator could ice up the Liffey’

  The List (Glasgow)

  ‘O’Connor is an enviably talented writer … a very fine novelist. The Salesman is his best yet’

  Glasgow Herald

  ‘An intelligent, moving, remarkably human account … [with] the page-turning appeal of an airport whodunit’

  Maxim

  ‘The humour is bleak, the action is fast, the setting so real … Joseph O’Connor is onto a winner with this one’

  Ireland on Sunday

  ‘Very expertly achieved … with a real urgency to the story’s development, so that you really do want to know what happens next’

  Irish Times

  ‘The writing is excellent … the book is very well done’

  Irish Independent

  ‘O’Connor’s ease with his writing and affection for his characters is impressive … A literally captivating story of redemption’

  Sunday Tribune (Dublin)

  ‘O’Connor’s best work to date … A black humoured thriller that builds powerfully to an unforgettable ending … I loved this book. It’s funny, it’s touching, it’s thought-provoking. Read it’

  Evening Herald (Dublin)

  ‘A gripping contemporary story … All the time O’Connor gets a little closer to the secrets of love and hate’

  Image

  ‘O’Connor is a brilliant storyteller … an extraordinary tale of forgiveness and redemption’

  Ideal Home

  THE SALESMAN

  Joseph O’Connor was born in Dublin. He has written eleven books, including the novels Cowboys and Indians, Desperadoes, Inishowen, Star of the Sea, which won the Prix Madeleine Zepter for European Novel of the Year, and most recently Redemption Falls. His work has been published in twenty-nine languages. He has also written screen plays and stage plays.

  ALSO BY JOSEPH O’CONNOR

  Fiction

  Cowboys and Indians

  Desperadoes

  Inishowen

  Star of the Sea

  Redemption Falls

  Short Stories/Novellas

  True Believers

  The Comedian

  Non-Fiction

  Even the Olives Are Bleeding: The Life and Times

  of Charles Donnelly

  The Secret World of the Irish Male

  The Irish Male at Home and Abroad

  Sweet Liberty: Travels in Irish America

  The Last of the Irish Males

  Stage Plays

  Red Roses and Petrol

  The Weeping of Angels

  True Believers (adaptation)

  Screenplays

  A Stone of the Heart

  The Way Home

  Ailsa

  Collaborative Works

  Yeats is Dead! A Serial Novel by Fifteen

  Irish Writers (editor)

  JOSEPH O’CONNOR

  The Salesman

  This eBook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.

  Version 1.0

  Epub ISBN 9781446435847

  www.randomhouse.co.uk

  For Jonathan Warner, in fond memory

  Published by Vintage 1999

  10

  Copyright © Joseph O’Connor 1998

  Joseph O’Connor has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988 to be identified as the author of this work

  This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser

  First published in Great Britain in 1998 by

  Secker & Warburg

  Random House, 20 Vauxhall Bridge Road,

  London SW1V 2SA

  www.vintage-books.co.uk

  Addresses for companies within The Random House Group Limited can be found at: www.randomhouse.co.uk/offices.htm

  The Random House Group Limited Reg. No. 954009

  A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

  ISBN 9780099268383

  Contents

  Part I

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Part II

  Chapter Twelve

  Part III

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Part IV

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Acknowledgements

  PART I

  Prologue

  Glen Bolcain, Dalkey Avenue

  November 19
94

  When I open up my diary for those terrible months at the end of last year, my love, I see once again that the first time I ever laid eyes on Donal Quinn was that October morning in Court Number 29 of the Four Courts when the air reeked of mildew and dusty old leather-bound books. I was surprised when he came in. I suppose I must have thought that people would at least look up and fall silent when the three guards led him in and brought him up to the dock; but they didn’t, they just kept right on talking, the clerks and solicitors passing papers and thick folders to one another, the chuckling senior counsel for the defence unfolding a paper-clip with his teeth, the cops around the court softly laughing and nudging, or strutting about in a businesslike manner as though trying to get themselves noticed by somebody important.

  In he came, bold as you like, with the air of a man who owned the place and was not about to sell, the burly men in dark uniforms around him more like some royal retinue than prison officers. Father Seánie put his fingertips on the back of my wrist, told me to try and be calm.

  I think the first thing that struck me about him, as he climbed the steps to the dock, was his smallness. He had tiny hands and dainty, elegant feet. He moved quickly, jerkily, like a vicious little winter bird. He had on a blue tie with a pattern of melting black and white clocks, one of those chain-store suits that look good in a shop window but cheap and sad and saggy in the daylight, also a pair of battered old training shoes, which seemed a little odd to me, given the circumstances. He had sideburns. His arms were short and thick. There was something revoltingly efficient about him. He could easily have been taken for a boxer.

  His hair was much lighter in colour than it had appeared in the newspaper photographs: sandy red, poorly cut into an old-fashioned pudding-bowl style and slightly thinning at the crown. It looked like maybe he had cut it himself. He showed very little interest as the other three accused were marched up and put into the dock beside him. I did not see him glance over in the direction of the jurors – eight men and four women – even once. He sat looking bored, his shoulders slumped, listlessness personified, his head lolling a little to one side.

  Although it had rained for almost a week without stopping, it was a hot day for October. The courtroom was stuffy and airless, it felt like a place that was in some fundamental way dead. The plump registrar was sweating heavily in his bench below the judge, and I had the distinct impression that the tipstaff was actually asleep at the side door. I remember one of the lawyers asking the judge if anything could be done about what she called the atmosphere in the court and the judge did not know at first what she meant. When the lawyer made it clear that she was talking about the air supply, the judge smiled and adjusted his wig and made some kind of joke which I could not quite hear, although a few of the solicitors laughed in a whinnying, dutiful way. A cadaverous young garda had to go out and get a long wooden pole with a hook on the end to open the sky light. While all this was going on Quinn peered around, his eyes rapidly blinking, and waved to a girl in heavy make-up who was sitting up in the public gallery between two scrawny-looking youngfellas in sunglasses and green and white track suits. He blew her a kiss with his cuffed hands. He looked so harmless and far-away. I suppose he looked a bit like a movie star.

  I think it was around then that one of the prison officers ambled over to me and said hello. He was a large, pink, vaguely damp-looking man with a head like a bullet. ‘Isn’t it Billy?’ he went, ‘Billy Sweeney?’ He shook my hand, told me that I had changed his life and saved his marriage. Big toothy beam, breath smelling of meat. I did not know what he meant. He winked conspiratorially. I had sold him his satellite dish, he said, and he punched my shoulder; what the hell was I doing here?

  I don’t think I will forget the look on his face when I told him.

  As the hearing proper began and the garage manager went up to give his evidence, Quinn bowed his head and began to stare at the courtroom floor, resting his chin in his cupped palms. He must have sat like that with his gaze fixed on one spot for a whole half-hour. He seemed absolutely immune; if I tell the truth, some part of me almost envied him. Occasionally he would tap his fingertips against his cheek-bones as though he was listening to music. I remember a chubby little guard shoving him in the back at one point to make him stand up and listen to the judge. He was a bit jumpy from then on and I noticed that he had the habit of jerking his neck to snap his hair out of his eyes, which were small like the rest of him and quite narrow although they often took on an expression of surprise – or even shock – for no apparent reason.

  As the first hour wore on I studied him. I got to know the small things. A good salesman has an eye for the small things. Sometimes his lips would move as though he was speaking to himself; other times his teeth would gnaw at his top lip, or his darting tongue would lick at his thin moustache. In the days and weeks after that first time I would often find myself thinking about him, particularly very early in the mornings, for some reason. Often these would be the first things I would focus on when I awoke: the sharp-remembered sight of him licking his moustache, the image of his mumbling lips, the strange squeak his grubby sneakers somehow made as he ground them on the floor of the dock. It was odd. Sometimes I even found myself imagining that I was him. I suppose I must have wanted to know how he felt.

  Few things that happened during the whole trial would compare to the force of the first time I saw him. I stared at him, pet, that first time. I felt the hatred bubble up and fizz through my veins until it seemed to me that the rage was about to burst open like an egg in my stomach. It actually became interesting to me, almost as an objective thing, just how far that sensation would go. I felt such a pure clean contempt for him – it was like something boiled right down to its essence – that for a while I found it difficult to concentrate on anything that was being said, by the lawyers, by the officials, by Father Seán beside me; even the judge’s occasional words were quite impossible to connect with, they seemed to come echoing from some distant place that did not include me. I could not stop looking at Donal Quinn. But I don’t think he even noticed me once.

  Just before lunch he beckoned his solicitor over to the dock. I could see him nodding furiously and squinting his eyes at her, I could hear the hiss of his voice. She went to the front of the court then, a slim and intense-looking young woman with thick dark hair and a Northern Irish accent.

  ‘My Lord,’ she said. ‘Excuse me. I’ve a request in relation to my client.’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘My client has been in extreme pain for some days, my Lord. With his wisdom teeth.’

  Someone giggled in the public gallery. The judge peered down at the solicitor and took off his glasses, an expression of disbelief in his hooded eyes.

  ‘My client is in great distress, my Lord. He tells me he can’t concentrate on these proceedings with the pain. I’m respectfully asking your Lordship to grant an adjournment of one day so the matter can be attended to.’

  The judge sighed, his ancient face hawklike against the wine-red curtain behind him. ‘Have the State anything to say about this?’ One of the main prosecution solicitors shook his head. The judge drummed on his wrist with a pen for a few seconds. Then he turned to the dock, looking flushed and uncomfortable, as though he wished that he were somewhere else. He seemed to stare at Quinn for a moment or two before glancing back down at the file on his desk.

  ‘Wisdom-tooth pain is very severe, my Lord,’ the solicitor said. He ignored her and continued flicking irritatedly through his papers.

  ‘I see here that your client is serving with the armed forces, Miss Harding. I thought Irish soldiers were trained not to whinge about a bit of pain. God help us all now if we’re ever invaded.’

  More people laughed at the back of the court. Quinn’s face was dark with anger. ‘Well?’ said the judge.

  ‘May it please your Lordship,’ the solicitor said, ‘my client had the rank of private in the defence forces and indeed served a three-month tour of duty in the Lebanon,
as part of the United Nations peace-keeping mission to that country. But he’s no longer with the army, my Lord.’

  Someone made a loud scoffing sound at the back of the court. The tipstaff awoke with a jolt.

  The judge nodded and wrote something down. Then he glared towards the dock again, his scarlet face shining and moist. ‘I’m going to let you see a dentist, Mr Quinn. Officer, take the accused out and make the appropriate arrangements, will you? I’ll grant an adjournment until tomorrow morning at ten o’clock.’

  ‘Thank you, my Lord,’ the solicitor said. ‘I’m obliged to the court.’

  The judge’s face was inscrutable. ‘I’m sure we’re all happy to safeguard the constitutional rights of your client’s wisdom teeth, Miss Harding. And happy to hear he’s possessed of some wisdom at any rate.’

  ‘Yes, my Lord. Thank you, my Lord.’

  Quinn glanced up at the ceiling and I thought I saw in his glazen eyes a faint, almost embarrassed smile.

  I now believe that was the moment I decided I would kill him.

  Chapter One

  Since these things must begin somewhere, I suppose I should start with the first time I met your mother. You will remember my telling you that Seánie and I and some of the other lads from Ringsend had a little skiffle band when we were kids. We were called the Raytown Rhythm Kings, if you don’t mind, and we were going to be huge. A fat lad called Noel Bascombe played the drums. Buckets Bascombe, everyone called him. We used to tell Buckets that he was huge already. He could have worn his stomach as a kilt.

  I played the piano whenever we could find a piano; other times I strummed on an old banjo or a big battered guitar with a terrible action and thick steel strings that made my fingertips ache and bleed. Seánie Ronan – Father Seán – played this beautiful semi-acoustic red Hofner guitar which he had ordered from a catalogue sent him by an aunt who lived in Chicago.