Read Online The Mark and the Void by Paul Murray - Free Book Online

who made some forty billion euros of loans to property developers that then went bust – although next on the list would be the Minister himself, who has committed the country to paying off all of the money that Royal and the other banks owe. It’s hard to understand. In France, where if someone misses a coffee break there is a national strike, a scandal like this would have shut down the streets. Yet the Irish seem able to absorb any amount of punishment without complaint – like the drunk at the bar you expect any moment to topple off his stool, who instead keeps throwing back shots, his massive inebriation having become a kind of self-perpetuating system, a kind of replacement gravity …
    Just as I am thinking this, I hear Ish say, with a note of alarm, ‘Whoa! That guy looks a bit the worse for wear!’
    That’s putting it mildly: the gentleman in question, wearing a dark wool suit, has a bloody red socket where his left eye ought to be and a withered claw instead of a hand. We stop and watch as he lurches over the plaza and across the bridge, where he is greeted by five or six other similarly cadaverous figures.
    ‘Zombies,’ Jurgen says.
    The zombies have raised a tent on the riverbank opposite, around which they stagger, gesticulating at the traffic with authentically decomposing hands.
    ‘What’s this about?’ Paul says.
    ‘That building there was supposed to be Royal Irish’s new headquarters,’ I tell him, pointing to the concrete shell on the far side of the river. ‘They had just started construction when the crisis hit.’
    ‘Why the costumes, though?’
    ‘A zombie is what you call a bank that’s still trading even though it’s insolvent.’ The first revenant has produced a placard that reads DO NOT FEED THE ZOMBIES and is waving it about.
    ‘They’re saying that if the bank is finished, the government shouldn’t be giving it any more taxpayer money.’
    ‘But why would they give it more money?’ Paul asks. ‘If it’s dead in the water?’
    ‘They’re in denial. They still think it can be saved.’
    ‘Huh,’ Paul says, as one of the zombies’ arms falls off and under the wheels of a truck.
    ‘The Financial Services Centre brings in a lot of money,’ Ish says. ‘But the reason it does is that all of these international banks and funds and special purpose vehicles and God knows what else can come here and do whatever it is they want to do and they know they’ll be left alone. It’s a bit like a red-light zone, see?’
    ‘So …’ Paul is not quite making the connection.
    ‘So if a bank goes bust, it’s like if a hooker dropped dead. Suddenly there’s ambulances coming in, health authorities wanting to do blood tests, news crews demanding to know what’s happened. Even if you, Mr Sex Tourist, aren’t worried about catching whatever it is killed her, still, it’s not feeling so private any more. So you quietly pack your bag, and the next day you’re off to Luxembourg or Liechtenstein or the British Virgin Islands, or wherever it might be.’
    ‘You mean the Irish government want to cover it up because it’s bad for business.’
    ‘Who knows? Maybe they genuinely think Royal Irish is salvageable. Stick a few more billion in there, close your eyes and hope for the best.’
    ‘It is what in the bank we call “magical thinking”,’ I add. ‘It is more prevalent than you might expect.’
    Paul gazes at the cavorting zombies, the great financial memento mori that is the unbuilt bank hanging over the grey river. ‘They’re going to need it,’ he says.

And here is Life, dark and full of strangers, yelling at each other from their private intoxications like monkeys screeching through the bars of their cage. Music booms all around, prohibiting conversation at anything less than a shout; battalions of drones, haircuts modelled after the heroes of the day, neck their fizzy lagers, their syrupy alcopops, and perform the minimal courting rituals required before they have