Aloysius Tempo Read online

  The old soldier is arriving, right on time, 6 PM as always. I see the chestnut skin hanging from him, see how it looks like he is being vacuumed out of himself.

  The old man in red Bermuda shorts is rolling out his blue mat now, stretching his arms. He’s starting his pensioner yoga, all slow pulls and pushes for those who’ve done all their pushing and pulling. It makes him feel comfortable, helps ease the flow, makes him feel better inside.

  He twists his grey head up to either side, looking over now right at where I am, staring solidly into the trees, and I am still as stone as he releases his neck and turns away.

  The old man, his stomach hanging like a deflating balloon, walks to the blue pool now. He carefully puts one foot on the little aluminium ladder, takes a good grip, begins to climb. He pauses as his feet touch water, as the temperature meets him, and lowers himself more now. He slides quietly beneath, barely troubling the water, and he starts to hold his breath.

  I check my watch again. Just gone 6 PM in Faro, just gone 6 PM in Ireland, and I was born right about now forty years ago. I’m forty years from the womb yet this Portuguese tree I’m sitting in has more plans and promise for the future than I do. I’m forty years breathing and I reckon humans have no business being this age, that thirty is a good enough number at which to drop dead in order to keep the human race ticking along. I’m forty and I reckon thirty is just enough to get the breeding and raising and fighting done, before the stupefying too-late wisdom sets in, before you get to the stage where you’re an old man with a sack for skin, getting into a pool.

  And I realise I haven’t breathed in a while, that I’ve been holding my breath along with the old man in the pool.

  So now I’m breathing in the beginning of a whole new year of this life, now life begins.

  And I’m thinking how, under that water, that sunned old goat looks, more than anything else, like a huge shite.

  Chapter Six

  June 2016

  I’M BEING smiled at by Sunflowers, their faces and lashes lifted joyfully in front of me. There’s a bunch of people nearby but, for a few moments, I’m the only guy alive looking at this thing, these shaky, rough, vivid blooms.

  And that’s what I’m thinking about now, that’s what I’ll take away from this latest Van Gogh visit – the shallow consideration that I sat down on a bench and had this world-famous thing to myself for fifteen seconds.

  Some guy sits beside me now and I say to myself, ‘Grand,’ get up to leave.

  The fifty-odd guy goes, ‘He got joy when he painted them. He painted joy into them.’

  I say, ‘Aye,’ and go get a bowl of chunky soup.

  *

  I’m in the sunny city, taking in its pushed-together buildings, its high narrow streets, its deadpan browns and greys.

  A woman on a bridge with a striking, well-organised Dutch face, is talking on a phone and wants the call to end. She looks into my peripheral vision, and I look at her. She waits a beat before she turns away, unimpressed. It’s the unimpressed face we do to each other, a face that signals she is controlled and confident.

  Or is it that, in this comfortable but Farmer-Joe shirt, in these off-trend trousers which no longer have an arse, I am some kind of brief spectacle for someone who is fed up with it all?

  And all I’ve got now is two numbers, twenty-nine and thirty. I’ve got instinct asking me to choose, asking me to pick one as it hurls other stuff at me. Instinct says, ‘She’s single, lives close, likes to swim, can think in English, has a hundred million photographs on Instagram,’ but I cannot know if somewhere deep down I’m just making it all up.

  There’s the clank of an old bell on a new tram, and I go get a malty Belgian beer in chunky glass at a Gravenstraat bar. I watch people – local, foreign, stoned, embarrassed, secret – and I count and count.

  My phone rings, shivering in an inside pocket, and I’m thinking, Who the hell is that?’I pull it out, see it’s an Irish number, press ignore. I scroll through the website, the nihilistic Danish website I work for, to see what’s happening with comments on my pictures.

  They hire me, these mental Danes, every few months. They pay me to go and get images, to get stuff they say takes people apart and cuts and levels pockets of humanity.

  Last year they sent me to Belfast to get pictures of drunk Loyalists pissing against walls, dressed in well-pressed band uniforms on 12 July.

  They send me to European capitals to get shots of small-hour sex acts beside tourist sights, of women forcing drugs onto their unborns in train stations, of men’s faces as they leave jails. They send me to hospitals and parties to get shots of people curled up in balls. They loved it when I came back with shots, for example, of a man trying to force a tablet into a bubbling wound he carved on his wrist.

  The website – it’s called ‘People Are Clowns’ – goes crackers for stuff that doesn’t make sense, that’s ironic or fucked-up. Its tease is to reduce, to boil the shit out of lifestyles, of human performances, until they’re just bones. It says, ‘Come and get it, come and see the bare truth, the bare arse of who we are.’

  The screwball who owns it wants me to throw spears at matadors in Spain and come back with the pictures. He wants me to find druggies for a street party where everyone’s dressed as Muhammed. He wants me to get lifelong teetotallers blocked and make them marry each other.

  I like doing crazy shit for him, but it’s getting to be a lot of work for very little cash, and I have a future that, sooner or later, I need to think about.

  *

  Walking home, I pass an Irish pub. Some guys, between twenty-nine and thirty-two, Derry GAA shirts, are finishing pints, ready to go find, lose, invent some memories, to look through red windows, argue over cash, make jokes about their closest companions.

  I look past them, see a reflection of myself in the window – Aloysius among shamrocks, Aloysius walking alongside an arse-baring leprechaun, Aloysius, thirty-nine, with too much hair.

  A guy, thirty, goes, ‘Here, Worzel Gummidge. Want me to get ye a mirror?’

  The whole crew of them laugh. I’m thinking not the city, thinking south County Derry.

  I smile now, wave a hand and go, ‘Enjoy your day boys.’

  He goes, ‘Aye, fuck off.’

  I think how today I’ve seen both sunflowers and flashing neon shamrocks.

  Whatever.

  I put the phone to my head.

  One message.

  ‘Aloysius,’ it goes, ‘it’s Martin Gird. You maybe remember me – I was one of the team in Dublin who helped you resettle in Ireland. Give me a ring when you can on this number. Something interesting to ask you. Right. All the best.’

  *

  In thirty minutes I’m sitting on my sofa and drinking a bottle of water.

  The phone rings again, same number.

  I can barely remember who this guy Martin Gird is and have no idea what he wants.

  ‘Aloysius?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Sounds like he’s in a pub.

  He goes, ‘Give me just one … sorry … sorry … so how’s life with you? Long time no see.’

  I read the long Dutch label on the back of this water, reading how the stuff in this bottle refreshed warriors of old on summer days. I’m reading how they splashed it through their dirty guts and declared war, how they got thirsty in the first place by romping with young maidens.

  I go, ‘Aye, long time indeed. What do you want, Martin?’

  He goes, ‘Listen carefully, okay?’

  And I go, ‘Okay.’

  He goes, ‘I want to introduce you to someone who can end this pointless fucking existence of yours. Do you understand me?’

  I take another drink.

  Chapter Seven

  June 2016

  NINETY MINUTES to kill before boarding, and I’ve never had a haircut in an airport before. I sit down, look away from myself as she crops, as she finishes off with a straight razor.

  She goes, ‘Where are you flying to?’ a
nd I say, ‘Dublin.’ She says, ‘On business?’ and I say, ‘I don’t know, to be honest. Just one of those go-with-the-flow things.’

  On board and I have barely enough elbow room to spring open a can of Coke. I rub against the overweight man beside me.

  I look to him, fast-breathing and sweating in his seat, and take a stab at forty-six, a stab at a five-digit BMI. I stab again that he has spent the weekend paying demanding Amazonons to adore or despise him, one of the two.

  ‘Sorry about the squeeze,’ he says, eyes closed, processing recent memories. ‘I should’ve bought two seats.’

  I take a Modafinil, wash it down with the Coke and watch as he grins to himself.

  ‘You’re grand,’ I say.

  I freshen up in Dublin Airport, brushing teeth and spraying under arms in the toilets. I see the mirror and select forty-one, run my head under a tap, paper-towel away the scratchy clippings from the back of my neck. The way the hair sits now, with these eyes whacked open, I’m a bit surprised to see I look almost like I should.

  A taxi takes me to St Stephen’s Green and I ring Martin, tell him I’m where I’m supposed to be. He picks me up nine minutes later in a fat Mercedes and I can’t even guess what is going on here.

  We turn corners quickly, a confident but stop-start route, as he pilots through busy, overworked, way-too-narrow streets.

  He goes, ‘Cars are like cholesterol, eh?’

  I nod.

  He says, ‘Do you know Dublin?’

  I go, ‘A wee bit. What age are you Martin. About fifty-eight?’

  ‘Jesus, great way to greet someone!’

  ‘Aye, well, I’m out of practice being nice. Far off?’

  ‘Fifty-six, so not too far off. Old before my time.’

  Two years is pretty far off.

  Martin’s surrendered in the weight battle but is smart in a new suit and clean shoes, a gaunt yet round happy face, the look of the country in the city. He has eyes that once twinkled, now stained where they were white. He looks like a man who has smiled and winked his way through a few situations.

  He helped me out a few years back, helped reconnect me with Ireland after years of travelling, helped me formally become a citizen before I left again.

  I remember he was a good guy, a man who helped with complicated shit when he didn’t have to bother.

  There’s no words for a while, and he goes, ‘You working these days, Aloysius? Over there in Holland?’

  I go, ‘I’m living, as you told me, a pointless fucking existence.’

  He goes, ‘Yes, that’s right. And that weird website you’re working for! “People Are Clowns”. Ha! Someone told me you were named as a snapper on that. I took a look before I called you. Jesus. People are clowns, that’s for sure.’

  He grins at me, says, ‘Didn’t hurt your feelings did I?’

  I smile, ‘You surprised me with your insight.’

  He likes that.

  He goes, ‘You were in Belfast for all the marching and pissing then?’

  ‘I was indeed.’

  ‘All the drumming and shouting and the cops dressed like fucking starship troopers. Mad stuff, eh?’

  And I say, ‘Aye.’

  I look into a wing mirror at the thick traffic behind.

  ‘Are you going to tell me any more about this woman I’m going to meet?’

  ‘No,’ he says. ‘I’ll let her do that. And don’t fucking ask her age whatever you do.’

  He says that and I’m thinking mid-fifties.

  *

  We’re on some broad, anonymous, well-tended D4 street when he pulls over, clipping a parking cone and urging me out. It’s like there’s a rush. He dashes around the car and I see no reason for it.

  ‘I don’t want to be late,’ he says.

  A converted Georgian house, three decks of offices, a front garden under cement. Number 39. The formidable black wooden door buzzes and clicks open.

  ‘I like to be as early as possible,’ he says as it closes behind us, its locks re-gripping.

  ‘Fair enough.’

  ‘Come on.’

  We walk to the back, passing a main staircase, to where the floor creaks and the light fades. We pass instructions about fires and a room that smells of microwaved plastic.

  A narrow flight of spiral stairs, some iron back entrance to the top floor, Martin first. No oncoming shiny patches on his arse, telling me the suit is reasonably new, or he’s on his feet a lot.

  Up top there’s a bland, white landing, half as deep as the building. A huge window looking out over the backs of homes and offices.

  One white wooden door – the only door – is to our left.

  It hosts a black plaque: ‘Shinay Associates, Ireland.’

  Opposite the door, on the wall to our right as we step onto the landing, a painting – rich green-and-brown woods on the left, a dusty grey road sweeping off to the right. Straight ahead, a field rising up from the horizon, a deep, bright few acres, and what looks like a distant red mountain sitting on top.

  I look once, now twice.

  ‘Here,’ he says, and pushes the door handle down. There’s a beep, then a buzz. It releases.

  A little reception room, a lean, bob-haired, secretary, thirty-three, just going for a pot of steaming coffee, smiling like a stewardess.

  She nods at us, takes the pot and walks the short distance to the door at the back of her office, holds it open.

  ‘Thanks Eunice,’ says Martin, and we walk through.

  The door closes, the sound of a firm, secure connection with the frame.

  This room is big and bright, white walls and bookshelves and a globe, and two long, wide windows. The scent of cigarettes, of coffee, of people talking, the must of long hours. There’s a fish tank in one corner, with no visible fish. In fact, there’s no water in it.

  A woman, fifty-nine, stands with hands together like a yoga instructor, looking hard at me. Her straight, lean face breaks into an easy smile. I smile back. She steps from behind her desk, walks to us. A blue skirt and blue blousy top: an outfit she’s worn many times, an outfit on the turn.

  Martin goes, ‘Aloysius, Imelda. Imelda, Aloysius.’

  She reaches out a hand and I reach for hers. Soft, bony. She has these nice blue eyes, this nice moisturised skin, some kind of silver-grey thing going on with her disorganised hair. She drinks, she works out, she works a lot. She’s maybe sixty-five.

  ‘I’ll see you later then Aloysius,’ says Martin.

  ‘Thanks Martin,’ we both say to him.

  The door clicks open and he passes Eunice. She’s bringing over two steaming cups on a tray. She smiles at no one in particular as she places it down, a little biscuit on the side of each white saucer. She lifts the coffees to the table, lifts the tray away and leaves.

  Imelda raises both her hands, moves them around, inviting me to take a good look at the place. The solid clicking of the door seems to indicate the start of this, suggests Imelda clicking into place.

  I smell soap now, some fresh air waving it around, maybe one of those home smells that you can buy in a can, one you spray when you’re having a visitor.

  There’s a Gaelic pitch outside, behind where she sits, beyond the open window, and some urgent shouts from the field are carried now into the room.

  ‘Martin tells me you’re interesting,’ I say.

  ‘Good afternoon,’ she says.

  Maybe sixty-three, a maintained sixty-three.

  ‘And what is it you do, Imelda?’

  She has me sit down and takes her brown leather chair, her power seat to my lesser, wooden, padded piece. She takes a sugar cube, looks at it, drops it, stirs. She pushes a laptop out of the way, clearing the deck.

  ‘Did you have a nice journey over?’

  South-western accent in there somewhere, a touch of the Cork, but well marinaded in Dublin.

  I say, ‘Fine, thanks.’

  ‘Get to Dublin much?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘It’s a good
city,’ she says, ‘has more than its fair share of fuckers though.’

  I nod and say, ‘Everywhere has that honour.’

  ‘Thank you for being here,’ she says, taking a sip, looking around my face, examining my hair, my neck, the bag I’m still holding, that I now put on the floor.

  She says, ‘You asked what I did?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I assess people.’

  ‘For?’

  ‘Work. Different sorts of jobs. What is it you do, Aloysius?’

  ‘I assess people too.’

  She laughs at that, raises her eyebrows and nods as if to say something more, but doesn’t voice it. I think she put lipstick on for this meeting, but she wasn’t bothered about doing anything with the undone hairdo. Maybe she got caught in a wind.

  Some guys on the pitch outside yell in unison, some victory or crisis on the grass, some act of violence or other.

  She goes, ‘And what do you assess people for?’

  ‘Pictures, mostly,’ I tell her. ‘I’ve drifted into this sort of … ’

  ‘I know,’ she says. ‘Sort of providing sort of dangerous but levelling sort of photography for a sort of nihilistic website. It keeps you out of trouble, etcetera. Is that sort of it?’

  I don’t move.

  She goes, ‘It’s called “People Are Clowns”. And they pay you wages that a disabled Bangladeshi child could earn. Is that sort of right?’

  I don’t move again, and I don’t like her.

  She goes, ‘I admire your commitment to your art, Aloysius, but I do wonder where your ambition lurks.’

  It’s not a question.

  I notice that her arm hurts, maybe her shoulder, as she drinks again from her cup.

  I reach for my cup, take a sip.

  Some silence as our cups and saucers meet again, as I get my ducks in a row.

  ‘You had your hair cut,’ she says.

  It’s like she’s drilling into me, into my head. Or at least trying to, to cut through the usual, to get me to say something unexpected, to start measuring me by my responses.