¹ . . . because he is now both stimulus and qualia. His name, blurting through the nation’s print and electronic media, is also one of those synapses at which the nation’s consciousness forms itself. Firing in debate and opinion polls, across editorial maunderings and the antiphonal call-and-response formats of radio phone-ins, his suspended mind is one of those loci at which the nation’s consciousness knows itself and knows itself knowing itself . . .

His existence—it is not too strong a word—is now a continuous incident report. Each day, the newspaper of record carries an abstract of his EEG tracings across a six-column spread inside the front page. All over the country children above and below the age of reason chart the peaks and troughs of his delta waves across the walls of their classrooms. Cast out over the earth’s cortex also a continuous stream of his MRI and EEG tracings. They have the appearance of meteorological reports from another star—troughs and banks of high pressure, depressions and tidal movements. Electronically flayed, these images are drawn down to our bedrooms and workstations, pegged out to dry across screens and monitors. Bootlegged already by the fashion and design industry they are now protected by retroactive copyright and patent legislation; the author has asserted his moral right . . .

He evokes a response and this is to our credit. Contrary to ongoing analysis the nation’s compassion reflex has not been habituated. There is real concern, a genuine anxiety beyond the compassion flash fires of the latest crisis de jour. He touches our soul and, in a happy congruence of myth and politics, the public interest is now of interest to the public. We are not entirely mindful of him but we do bear him in mind . . .

FRANK LALLY

My heart went out to Anthony that day, that’s no lie. Nearly twenty years ago now but I remember it like it was last week.

It was about two o’clock in the afternoon when the cars and the cattle truck came up the road. I followed them up and when I got to the yard the truck had reversed into the barn door and the vet and the bailiffs were already loading up the herd. Anthony was standing at the back of the house with the collar pulled up around his ears. I went over and stood beside him and said nothing. What could I say?¹

A dirty day it was too, pissing rain all morning and a wind blowing through the yard that would shave you. No one said anything but it didn’t take them more than twenty minutes to load up the whole herd—eight Friesian cows, a couple of yearlings and two calves. One by one they marched up that ramp without a bit of bother and I remember thinking we’d often had more trouble loading up two or three beasts of a Monday morning for the mart.

They pinned up the tailgate and moved off and I saw the sergeant, Jimmy Nevin, coming over to Anthony. But whatever was on his mind he thought better of it and stood off holding the gate for the truck. Anthony turned into the house without a word. I watched the truck down the bottom of the hill and saw it turn out on to the main road. Jimmy Nevin closed the gate and walked over to me.

“Before you go,” he said, “give him this.”

He handed me a brown envelope.

“It’s the quarantine order. Six months.”

Anthony got barred from Thornton’s that night and it was years afterwards before he could have a drink in it.

Скачать книгу