Aloysius Tempo (13 page)

December 2016

CHRISTMAS 2016 and I meet with Martin and Imelda at a Dublin restaurant made loud by office parties and garish, sparkling outfits.

Our wee bash isn’t so wild, but we are enjoying a fine meal and a few glasses of wine courtesy of the sozzled taxpayers all around us.

Martin has opened up a little, told me some of his story, how his daughter Kiera converted to Islam some years ago.

He’s told me it was a bombshell among the old school Catholics of his family, how he feels they gave her Irish-based French-Algerian husband the cold shoulder, told Kiera her new fashion tastes didn’t suit her.

It hasn’t ended well in that, after a time, she grew tired of the insults and dirty looks, cut all ties with her family and moved with her husband to what they saw as an emerging caliphate in Syria. They felt, they said, it would be the best fit for them.

‘Jesus,’ I say. ‘Hardcore.’

‘Aye,’ says Martin. ‘She told me she was Muslim first, Muslim before Irish. Can’t say that didn’t hurt.’

I go, ‘Right.’

He says, ‘I went to France to meet the man’s family and they were as shocked as we were. They’d no idea why. Just a couple of people who decided what was for them wasn’t what the rest of us would see as healthy.’

And I’m thinking how stories like that are already known to me, how the world is full of stories like that, of people who find comfort in labels they were not born with.

Says Martin, ‘We’ve come to terms with it in one way,’ he says, ‘me and my wife. We started out thinking she just needed a few wise words or a big bear hug, y’know? But we know now, from what we’ve heard from some of our American friends, that she’s way beyond that. Way, way beyond that. And we’ve accepted it. Basically she’s been swallowed up by this thing, this Islamic State world view, that fucking jihadi ideology, and she would by now expect the rest of us to want to give her a big hug, to want to tell her she’s wrong. And, y’know, she would be ready to resist that, ready to fight it. The truth is hugging her would only reinforce what’s already going through her head. There’s no way back.’

I say, ‘Have you lost her? Is that how it feels?’

He goes, ‘It’s like she’s dead, Aloysius. It would be easier if she was dead, to be totally honest with you. We could start grieving, start to stop thinking about her, y’know?’

Her story, says Martin, has been in all the newspapers, all of them focusing on the fact that she’s the daughter of a former senior civil servant.

‘They want me to talk about it over and over again,’ he says, ‘but I have nothing left to say. I have lost my daughter and the whole thing has broken up my marriage, taken pretty much all I had. The press have suggested, in their own little way, that I don’t say enough, that it’s as if I’m not fighting for her, but they have no idea. All of this is about as personal as you can get, but they don’t give a fuck. Imelda here has given me the best advice about how to deal with journalists you don’t want to talk to, and she would know.’

I wait for it, but the pair of them just cut into their steaks instead.

‘So, what’s the best way to deal with journalists?’

And they both chew, look around them, enjoy the dark, happy, seasonal craic of this low-lit, bouncing wee restaurant.

‘Ignore them,’ says Martin, not even looking at me. ‘Don’t complain, don’t explain. Don’t feed them, they’ll get greedy.’

And I’m wondering if he and Imelda have some wee trick going, some wee practical joke that fits the answer – if they ignored me on purpose.

‘You’re sure?’ I say.

Imelda looks at me, says, ‘What do you mean?’

‘Well,’ I say, ‘there’s truth in the idea that the best way to keep the focus on you is to ignore it.’

Imelda goes, ‘Maybe with people, not with the press. People don’t easily let go of what they are drawn to, but the press do. The press move on faster, have no emotional investment.’

Martin eats some more beef, wipes at his mouth. He’s slimmer than I have seen him, must have lost a stone or more, but is eating like a horse tonight.

He says, ‘Ignoring them is working for me. The lads reckon I shouldn’t speak about it all, so I just say I can’t talk about it when reporters call.’

‘What lads?’ I say.

‘The intelligence guys,’ he says.

‘Who?’ I ask.

‘Our own lads,’ he says. ‘The Americans as well. They all say to say nothing. It’s the Americans who get me updates on my daughter, but they don’t want anything bleeding into the press, y’know?’

‘What do you reckon to Irish intelligence?’ I say. Neither of them have spoken about any official agency in this land to me.

Martin nods, says, ‘G2? They don’t know about our work and we’re keeping it that way.’

I say, ‘How do you know?’

‘Because the Americans would tell me.’

Imelda isn’t responding. She’s drinking white wine to our red, looks well in the candlelight, looks somehow impressive when she eats, chews and swallows. I see how her neck is older than her face, but that it’s classy, petite, pleasing in its symmetrical perfection. This may be the first neck I have ever really noticed, I reckon.

She sees me and I turn away, back to Martin, and her full blue, candlelit eyes linger on my cheek and now I just want to look back at them.

He says, ‘The passing of Danny Latigan has brought a lot of joy to this town. Have you felt it, Aloysius?’

Imelda nods, takes a drink, ‘It’s been bloody good for the government too. Fifty million, he was worth, that fucker. Fifty million! They thought it was forty. Oh, and they kept the promise they made me.’

‘I read about that,’ I say. ‘A wee Christmas bonus on the way for thousands of ripped-off people by the sound of it. Ireland does Santa. It’s what you might call good PR, home and abroad.’

She laughs, ‘That’s right. It’s all about the PR. I told you that back when we first met, didn’t I?’

‘You did.’

She takes a drink, ‘It’s been a while since we had a bit of the feel-good around here.’

‘You’re not joking,’ says Martin.

They’ve put me up in an apartment near Shinay Associates, not that I’m encouraged to ever go to the office.

My role is to just be around, to stay fit, to stay out of trouble. I cannot, they say, be involved in any other work and I have, at least temporarily, removed the offer of my services from the Dark Net.

They advise very little drinking and no drugs. They advise keeping a low profile, they advise not making friends, not taking a lover. They advise reporting each and every suspicious thing I see or hear, keeping my eyes peeled for people watching, for who is coming and going into the places and spaces around me.

I don’t know any of their contacts in government, any of their contacts anywhere. I don’t know how deep they run, how high they go. I don’t know if the taoiseach has signed off on this gig, or if it’s all tight inside some black-ops department of the civil service or military. I don’t know anything about when or how often they talk with people, and I don’t really care. It’s separation of state and state assassin, and that’s the best way for everyone.

My glass is topped up again and I feel ready to drink some more. I’m tipsy, buzzing a little, feeling that lighter, happier, expectant, rolling mindset getting to work. I’m feeling I could drink a lot tonight, let my hair down a little, aim myself towards a nice, deep drunk and fall down laughing with my head spinning.

It’s been a long time.

I’ve been training hard at my posh little gym beside a posh big hotel, and I’ve been losing weight and remoulding muscles. I’ve been taking advice on what to wear, shopping on Grafton Street, smelling better and cutting dashes. I’ve bought a suit and some nail clippers, slippers and a good watch, and life has never felt as easy to live.

And tonight I’m drinking in the safest, smartest company I could be in. I reckon my blank face is smiling two or three times a minute, some kind of rhythm, all caught up in some kind of cheery conversational beat that is playing out in my body language.

I like it when Imelda says, as we talk about what next year might bring for us, for Ireland, that feeling happy ‘is a sign you’re growing.’

‘Yeats said it himself,’ she says, and I see Martin roll his eyes, bracing himself for another quote.

She says,

‘Happiness is neither virtue nor pleasure nor this thing nor that, but simply growth. We are happy when we are growing’.

Says Martin, ‘Or when we’re pissed.’

‘Aye,’ she says, ‘that too.’

We call it a night at 11:15
PM
. Imelda and I bid Martin a farewell in his taxi. We go the other direction, towards Ailesbury Road, where we will turn a corner, pass the office, stop at my apartment further along, and drop me off, and the cab will roll on to Imelda’s house.

‘Martin makes me sad,’ she says, watching him go, his jacket seeming almost too large for him as he wanders towards an imminent sleep.

‘How does he make you sad?’ I ask. ‘He’s the chirpiest, smartest man I know.’

‘He just does,’ she says. ‘He smiles through a lot of pain.’

And I think I can understand that a little.

Imelda taps the driver on the shoulder, tells him to pull over at the office. She pulls her laptop bag over her shoulder, asks me to go inside with her.

Keys and a code open the main door, a physically and mentally held security combination. She walks ahead of me on the back staircase, just the dark light of the winter sky clearing the route for us as we climb. I’m looking at her arse, her rounded maturity, her supple limbs pistoning as she climbs. And yet it feels like stealing, I feel guilty for nicking a boozy clock at my boss’s bottom.

The picture at the top of the stairs comes into view. It’s a moonlit night, the big wide full-fat yellow ball reflected in a peaceful pool, a pool shaped like a kidney, tiled by an artist. It’s the late Danny Latigan’s pool.

‘Fuck’s sake,’ I say, and she turns to me.

‘I know,’ she says, looking over her shoulder, ‘it’s sick as fuck. You have to laugh.’

Keys and a code open the office door and, walking through in the dark, she plugs in another code at the door to her office. A little stamp-size disc slides out of the wall and lights up her face in a swimming-pool blue. She places her index finger onto it, the plate vanishes back into the wall and the door unlocks.

We’re in, the room’s blinds already closed against the night, and it’s jet black when the door clicks shut. We stand there, momentarily, sensing the room, sensing each other, and I don’t know what is happening.

I hear her walk and a desk light at the far end of the room flicks on, spotlighting her workspace.

‘Coffee?’

‘No thanks.’

‘Me neither,’ she says. ‘There’s something I want to show you.’

I sit on the plush, soft leather armchair in the dark, back corner. This place intrigues me with its simplicity, with the crowded ordinariness hidden behind its smart security.

I have no idea who comes into this place, what gets said, what plots and calculations are made and how. I have no idea what kind of lists have been discussed and how, who, why and when. Who knows who gets the final say in matters of state discussed at the highest, quietest levels in a democratic republic?

All I know is the personal, the private, the what-works-for-me. I’ve learned the hard way that finding an ongoing thing to be, an ongoing thing to do, are among the best things a person can hope for in this world. For this world is not an easy place in which to do business over and over again, not a place in which to hunt for bargains, because the hidden costs can go sky-high.

Her back is to me and I hear the clunk of a thick bottleneck on a thick glass. I hear the glug. I hear it repeat.

She turns, walks, hands me a heavy tumbler, a harp engraved by an artist’s hand on the side. There’s a swinging whiskey in there that looks so clean you could drink it forever and feel better every day.

‘
Sláinte
,’ she says, taps her own against mine.

‘
Sláinte
,’ I say.

We drink and I look up at her, standing in front of me, her arm raised, her small, busy mouth catching the deep iron flavour of the long-aged drink.

‘It’s good fucking stuff,’ she says, meaning it, turning, going back to her desk, grabbing the guest chair and dragging it over to the sofa.

She sits on it, close to me, right in front. She crosses her yoga-strafed legs, lets her shoes fall from her feet with a perfect kick of her heels.

I want to look at those tights, I want to see where they go, into the blackness that begins halfway up those darkened thighs. I want to get in among those point-blank shadows, to do the thing right in front of me, to fumble and search for sticky answers, for that devil’s doorbell, for whatever hotspot of temptation I can find in there, and my instinct is saying to think very, very carefully about all of the above.

I interrupt myself, take a drink, enjoy the flavour, avert my eyes, stall the ball.

Yet I am thrilled at the idea of what type of underwear is on under there, and for a moment I picture some of those catapult pants, some pulled and tensed thong, and the image causes a fizzing in my groin.

‘Pay attention,’ she says, taking a drink, putting her glass down on the little coffee table to her left.

‘Yes,’ I say, and I prepare to clear my head.

She has a quality white envelope in her confident hands now, already been opened. She takes out a maroon document, a passport, and holds its face to mine.

I see the harp, that symbol which speaks of a musical, cultural, affable, extraordinary Ireland.

‘One Irish passport,’ she says, ‘belonging to one Irishman.’

She reaches down, takes another drink, says, ‘Funny that it takes a passport to make you real, isn’t it?’

And I’m watching her, her neck pulling the whiskey down.

‘Funny,’ she says, ‘that even a man like you needs one.’

I say, ‘A man like me?’

‘Yes,’ she says, ‘a man who is so very real, you know what I mean? A man whose presence can be felt in a crowd.’

And she doesn’t look at me, takes another drink, says, ‘So, you know what he’s called, this man?’