The Dog. Joseph O’Neill

       Hi Sandro – One more thing. You may be tempted to act on one of your many capricious and baseless threats to fire me. So be it. Cookies crumble. But please bear in mind that (1) Oliver holds your happiness in his hands; (2) he is my best friend.

      In accordance with our routine, I was first put in the care of one of Ollie’s very pretty assistants. She led me to the Human Touch™ massage chair and pressed the buttons that set into motion the marvellous robotic devices, contained within the upholstery, whose actions are designed to approximate the touch of a highly skilful human massage therapist. (I have come to know this particular chair well and like it very much – and I speak as something of an amateur of such chairs and as the owner of a Pasha Royale X400™, perhaps the most ‘intelligent’ chaise de massage in the world. I always feel a tiny, absurd pang of infidelity about giving myself to a massage chair other than my Pasha.) After a fifteen-minute Human Touch™ rubdown, I soaked my feet. Then Ollie showed up in the very white, very medical jacket he wears at work.

      He gave me a rapid pedicure. ‘You’re in pretty good nick, actually,’ he remarked, and I wondered if he meant that I was pushing my luck, dropping in on him with healthy feet. But rather than showing me the door, Ollie asked if I would mind if he tried out a new treatment. He produced a small paintbrush and began to coat my skin (from toes to knees) with green enzymic goo. He looked more scientific than ever. He explained to me that an enzyme was a catalyst of chemical reactions, then explained what a catalyst was, then exactly described which enzymes he was using and which particular catalysis they were promoting. This excess of information was so soothing I nearly fell asleep. Little wonder: I’d been lulled into a soporific feeling of all going well in the world, of clever men and women in unseen laboratories toiling and tinkering and steadily solving our most disastrous mysteries, of benign systems gaining in efficiency, of our species progressively attaining a technical dimension of consciousness, of a deep and hitherto undisclosed algorithm of optimal human endeavour coming at last within the grasp of the good-doing intelligences of corporations and universities and governments and NGOs, of mankind’s most resilient intellectual/moral/economic foes being routed forever and the blockheads and bashibazouks and baboons running for the hills once and for all.

      Ollie said, ‘Oh yeah, listen to this.’

      To paraphrase him: A friend of a friend, an Iranian, goes to Dubai International Airport. It’s his intention to fly home for a funeral. After he passes through security, the Iranian realizes that his return visa is not in order. What to do? He cannot go back through passport control into Dubai, and he cannot fly to Bandar Abbas for fear of not being allowed to return. The Iranian decides to stay where he is, in the huge duty-free area known as Concourse 1, until his travel documentation is put right. (I’m familiar with Concourse 1, even though these days I’m a Terminal 3 man and we have our own, I think better, concourse.) Unfortunately, this takes longer than anticipated. A week passes, then another. Still he is stuck in no-man’s-land. His predicament comes to the notice of the mutual friend. The mutual friend is worried. He asks Ollie to check in on the marooned Iranian next time he flies out, maybe buy the poor guy a drink and a bite to eat. You bet, says Ollie.

      Ollie said, ‘So we meet in the Irish Village. I buy him a Coke and a beef pie, which he just gobbles up. He doesn’t say anything. He’s just eating and chugging down the Coke. I’m thinking he doesn’t really speak English. He’s just wolfing everything down. Then he burps – I mean, it’s this really loud, kind of contented burp – and starts to tell me about his new life. Mate, you wouldn’t believe it.’