Being Alexander

by Diarmuid Ó Conghaile

  He pats the pockets of his jacket for his mobile, locating it in his left inside breast pocket, next to his heart. The screen is completely dark, sleeping. If there were any messages or missed calls, there would be a little sign interrupting the darkness. So he knows already when he presses the two-button sequence that unlocks the phone that there is nothing to check, but he checks nevertheless. It is necessary for him to wake up the phone, to see its normal screen in order to verify doubly that there are no messages, that everything is functioning normally and there are no messages for him.

  He slips his hand back inside his jacket and lets the mobile fall into the breast pocket. It is the perfect weight for such a fall, bouncing lightly when it hits the bottom seam.

  All means of communication thus checked, and each having yielded a zero return, Alexander wonders what to do next.

  Despite the fact that he ought to know better, every time he sees the flashing light on the phone, every time the PC utters the electronic sigh that signals the arrival of a new email, every time his mobile phone goes blup-blop, every time he gets a letter, his levels of cheerfulness rise a notch. And when the message turns out to be something mundane or impersonal, as it almost always does, he feels a brief disappointment and his mood drops – lower than originally – before gradually recovering. These are some of the infinitesimal psychological swings in the day. What does he expect? And why does he continue to expect it? That this new message will lead to something special, something that will change his life: an offer from a head-hunting company of a big job in South Africa; a new lover; a blossoming friendship? His expectation, though tangible, is never quite so specific.

  Alexander observes himself in the isolation of his office, surrounded by technological possibility. Within seconds, he could be in touch with someone in the South Pacific. But he has no one to talk to in the South Pacific. In fact, right now, despite having a SIM card loaded to the brim, he feels he has no one to talk to in Dublin, where he has spent his entire life.

  Obviously there must be something wrong with him. But what? And was it always like this? He doesn’t think so, but he can’t

  be sure.

  He re-observes within his modest desperation the small hope that even a moment ago flared up in a tiny way, sufficient for its extinguishment to be perceptible. He realises that, despite what he tries to tell himself, he is not resigned to his life of drudgery interspersed with minor fleeting pleasures. He wants something more, and is prepared to exert himself to get it, if only a little, in a half-hearted way, without any belief.

  He takes out his mobile phone again and calls Julia. Her phone switches directly to voicemail without ringing.

  ‘Hello, this is Julia. I’m not available at the moment. Please leave a message after the tone.’

  As he ends this call with a movement of his thumb, he has another flash from the night before, a picture, a physical memory: his back against the pebble-dash wall; his cock and scrotum in Grace Sharkey’s hands. His penis thickens now with lust.

  Alexander ventures out into the open-plan area between his office and George’s. There, amidst the jungle of yucca plants, felt-covered desk dividers, curved fake-wooden work-stations, endless, almost-useless documents and reports, personal colouredy bits, photographs, carefully selected screen savers, dusty PCs, overweight cabinets, piles of files, fans on stands, stacks of boxes of paper, a water cooler that is dripping down onto the carpet, creating a patch of rot . . . he finds his team.

  Luke’s work-station is the nearest, and Luke is also the friendliest on this sort of social call. When Alexander drops around just to say hello, as opposed to when he comes with specific intent, he tends to position himself at Luke’s station, talking mostly to Luke, but loudly enough that the others can hear, and turning his head sometimes to peek over the dividers and include them in the conversation.

  He gives a brief report of the proceedings of the Council, then asks – in as offhand a manner as possible, to guard against rejection – if anyone would fancy an early Friday-evening drink.

  Luke thinks this is a terrific idea and chuckles happily. Neville plays harder to get. He says that he is working on something he wants to finish and that he’ll join them later. Imelda copies this admirable affectation, saying she’ll follow them down. Dympna wishes that she had the time for such frivolity. Unfortunately, she has to go home to make dinner for her family and clean the house.

  ‘That’s unfortunate for them,’ Luke says under his breath.

  As Luke and Alexander stroll from the building across the open courtyard, which serves in the evenings as a meeting ground for prostitutes and their clients, Alexander tries to kick a used condom from his path. He does not succeed, even with two attempts, in dislodging this previously distended, now flattened item from the paving stone to which it has adhered itself. And then it is behind him. You don’t stop for these things, he narrates inwardly. You get it on the move or you leave it.

  ‘Never underestimate the sticking power of semen,’ Luke says.

  ‘Surely the semen is on the inside.’

  ‘The boys probably swim out overnight, desperately searching for ova as they tragically freeze to death, reflecting, collectively, in their dying moments: well, at least we can glue this condom to the ground; that will be our revenge for the fruitlessness of our existence. . . . Did you ever notice how none of the condoms you see around here has ribbing for extra pleasure?’

  ‘I confess this is a detail which has escaped me up to now. Next you’re going to tell me that none of them is strawberry flavoured, and I’m going to wonder: how can he know this?’

  ‘Hey, you’ve got to pay attention to the details,’ Luke exclaims pedagogically. ‘As an economist, I’m a perpetual student of human behaviour. So I’ll tell you why none of them has ribbing for extra pleasure. It’s because the hookers buy them and they’re not interested in extra pleasure.’

  ‘Are you saying that the punters would be buying the ribbed variety?’

  ‘The punters don’t buy any condoms at all – well, except for private use. The hookers buy the condoms and actively shun ribbing for extra pleasure. One – they don’t want the extra pleasure. Two – they’re keeping their costs down.’

  ‘I might buy a ribbed condom and plant it back there just to mess up your theory.’

  ‘You’d have to use it of course – one way or the other.’

  ‘I know how to use a condom,’ Alexander responds quietly, as though this might have been in doubt.

  A couple of minutes later they are standing at the bar in Sarsfield’s with two creamy pints of Guinness in front of them. They enjoy a moment of silent contemplation. Because they left early, the pub is not yet full, as it will be by six o’clock. Alexander raises his pint to clink glasses with Luke.

  ‘Cheers,’ he says.

  ‘Sláinte,’ Luke says.

  Luke is from Belfast. He always says ‘Sláinte’. Alexander likes Luke’s accent. Julia, also from Belfast, has a similar accent, and it was one of the reasons Alexander fell in love with her. On the few occasions when she and Luke meet, they swap news about people they have discovered they both know. There are quite a lot of them, even though they come from different parts of the city. At college, Julia used to trade a bit on being a rebel from the North, particularly when she was drunk, but in fact she never knew much about Northern politics. Luke – Alexander has gleaned gradually – is probably quite a serious republican, although one wouldn’t guess it at first because he likes to make fun of everything.

  ‘Any crack at the Council?’ he asks. ‘Any good jokes?’

  ‘The whole thing is a joke,’ Alexander responds sourly, too tired and undone to keep up any professional pretences.

  ‘Here, I’ve got a good one. It’s about this guy who loses both testicles in a tragic motorcycle accident—’

  ‘But is otherwise left intact?’


  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘That’s a pretty unique motorcycle accident.’

  ‘Yeah, it was a tragic and bizarre motorcycle accident, which resulted in the loss of both testicles, but let’s not labour the detail. . . .’

  One long thirsty gulp and Alexander is already halfway through his pint. This is pleasant. The atmosphere in the pub is congenial, relaxed. Everything is fine, in fact. His sex life is suddenly exciting. His marriage plans are brewing nicely. It’s Friday night. He’ll have a couple of hours in the pub, then Julia and he will drive out to Malahide for dinner at Helena’s.

  He inhales deeply on his cigarette, nodding as he does so to indicate that he is listening enthusiastically.

  ‘So, our man says to the foreman,’ Luke continues. ‘Before I take this job, there is something I want to tell you. I don’t want this getting around, but I lost both my testicles in a bizarre and tragic motorcycle accident. . . .’

  At this point in the joke, two things happen. Luke spots Imelda and Neville coming through the door, and waves them over, while Alexander, who is facing the other way, simultaneously notices Danny farther down the bar, the upper half of his body swinging backward off the fulcrum of the barstool. Only the back half of his skull is visible to Alexander, but the shape of it and the dark hair, which is due for a cut, are immediately and unmistakeably recognis­able. He hears Danny’s light, forced laugh, further confirming the identification.

  ‘Sonofabitch,’ Alexander says, his jaw clenching in anger. ‘Sorry, I don’t mean you. I’ve just seen a mate of mine.’

  ‘You’re obviously very fond of him.’

  ‘Press pause, Luke. I’ll be back in a minute.’

  Danny seems pleased to see him.

  ‘Ah, the very man, me heart and soul,’ he says slowly, carefully enunciating every word, and lazily embracing Alexander with his free arm. His other arm is parked on the bar, close to a three-quarters-full pint of Guinness, an unlit cigarette held limply in his hand. ‘This man is solid as a rock,’ he tells his overweight drinking companion on the next barstool. It is Dermot O’Hara, the journalist, Aoife’s cousin. Alexander endeavours to keep his countenance clean of any flicker of recognition.

  ‘Dermot O’Hara,’ says Dermot O’Hara easily, reaching out his hand, which Alexander takes and shakes firmly, as would be fitting for a man who is solid as a rock.

  ‘Alexander Vespucci.’

  ‘Good name.’

  ‘Yes, I made it up all by myself.’

  ‘Haven’t we met before?’ asks O’Hara, scratching his forehead to aid recollection. ‘I think I had a good chat with your girlfriend. She has long curly hair, right? What was her name again?’

  ‘I can’t recall,’ says Alexander.

  Danny titters. He lights his cigarette. It is a slow labour for him to accomplish.

  Apart from his deliberate but nevertheless slurred diction, there are a number of clues to indicate that Danny is deeply saturated in alcohol, that he has been drinking more or less non-stop for the thirty hours since Alexander last saw him. His eyes have a glazed and wounded sardonic partially blind appearance to them. His side vision is gone, physically and metaphysically. He is also clearly working at keeping his body upright. But the most telling sign for Alexander, which he knows and loves from previous benders of Danny’s, is the way Danny holds his cigarette, in his dirty shaky slow-moving fingers, with such a light grip – zero pressure – that seemingly it must fall. Friction alone is the force that keeps it in place against the pull of gravity.

  Danny is in open country, windswept, war-torn. He glides over the landscape, a good-humoured ghost, lingering by whim wherever some feature catches his interest. He is faintly warm hearted; slim, as all ghosts are; dark and elegant, as some can be; and subtly arch, like Lucifer. In his alcoholic condition, the nobility in Danny which first attracted Alexander is evident, however prismatically contorted. Alexander is too in awe of him to muster any outrage – right now at least.

  Danny removes his arm from around Alexander’s shoulders and marshals himself to light the cigarette in his hand.

  ‘Let me buy you a drink, Alex. What are you having?’

  ‘I’m with some people over there.’

  ‘Have a quick shot. I’ll get you a tequila. You’ve always liked tequila. Let’s have a round of tequilas.’

  ‘Count me out,’ says O’Hara, sighing as he shifts his heavy body off the stool to head for the toilet. He seems sober.

  While Danny is looking to attract the attention of the barman, Alexander sits up on O’Hara’s stool to take the weight off his feet. For a couple of moments, his buttocks squirm squeamishly at meeting the patch of intimate warmth that O’Hara’s arse has left behind on the cushioned seat.

  ‘You’ve spent the money.’

  ‘Sure, it was only a drop in the ocean of my need. It was gone by yesterday evening. I’m drinking here now on my tab. I know the owner.’

  ‘Even you can’t drink sixteen hundred euro in one day. You gambled it, right?’

  ‘I was trying to work it up. If you’d given me what I was looking for, I wouldn’t have had to gamble.’

  ‘I see.’

  ‘I was up to three and half grand by two o’clock this morning at the blackjack table. I was on a roll, but I got greedy, got burnt.’ Danny draws lightly on his cigarette. He takes his time, enjoying each tiny inflexion of movement. He exhales. The hand goes to the bar again for support. ‘Went down in flames. . . . I can tell you, it’s a remarkable torture.’

  ‘You make it sound like a fine wine. I can’t afford that sort of pleasure.’

  ‘You’d be surprised how much you can afford, if you make the effort. I could get more money out of you than you could possibly imagine.’

  Dermot O’Hara returns from the toilet. Alexander’s anger attaches itself to this new object. He moves to vacate the stool.

  ‘No, stay where you are. I was just leaving.’

  O’Hara lifts a light yellow V-neck – probably cashmere – from the back of the stool, locates the appropriate aperture and ducks his head into it. He’s vulnerable now, Alexander thinks. One good smack on the crown with the glass ashtray from the bar and he’d be banging off the furniture like a pinball.

  O’Hara’s head emerges from the neck-hole with his glasses awry and his hair stuck down on his forehead. He straightens his glasses.

  ‘I always forget to take off my specs before putting on the jumper,’ he observes, with the confidence and composure of one who assumes he is naturally witty and interesting. ‘You’d think I’d know better by now.’

  ‘It’s not really that cold,’ Alexander comments.

  ‘I’m recovering from a summer virus,’ O’Hara says. ‘You know the kind you just can’t shake off.’

  The barman arrives back with two shot glasses full of transparent tequila. A little slice of bar lemon is perched across the top of each. The pips in the lemon are turning brown.

  ‘I have a sensitive throat,’ O’Hara says. ‘I get this strep thing and I have to take antibiotics, which then wrecks the immune system and I pick up every dose that’s going.’

  ‘That’s quite interesting,’ says Alexander sarcastically. ‘Do you take any supplements?’

  O’Hara steps backward abruptly and squints at Alexander from behind his glasses, to reappraise him. Danny forces a bit of a laugh, a delayed reaction which is nevertheless tinged with genuine amusement.

  ‘I should have mentioned that Alex doesn’t always relate well to human beings,’ he says.

  ‘Which excludes journalists,’ Alexander adds cheerily. ‘But I hope I’m not expressing myself too freely. It’s just that I have a lot of pent-up opinions. For example, my road-rage levels astonish me. You wouldn’t believe the stuff I come out with. There I am, driving along, thinking I’m in a good mood, then some sonofabitch does something he should
n’t do and a frenzied stream of hateful expletives flows forth involuntarily from my mouth. I want to smash his car and mutilate him. Do you know what I mean?’

  ‘I’ll remember not to cut across you,’ O’Hara responds mildly.

  ‘Do you have any more items of clothing lying around?’ Alexander asks. ‘Perhaps I’m sitting on your hat and gloves.’ He makes a gesture of looking under his arse.

  ‘Fuck you,’ says O’Hara, less mildly. He turns pointedly to Danny, saying, ‘I might see you Sunday afternoon so.’

  ‘If body and soul are still together.’ Danny parks his cigarette in the glass ashtray. He reaches across with his infirm hand and shakes O’Hara’s. ‘Don’t mind this young man. He’s an economist. He loves your column.’

  ‘I’m a big fan,’ Alexander says.

  O’Hara nods to him reluctantly, nods again to Danny and makes for the door.

  ‘Here’s the salt, Danny,’ says the barman generously, as he pops an ugly little glass dispenser down beside the tequila shots.

  Alexander watches O’Hara’s back as he leaves. He passes Luke, Neville and Imelda, all of whom seem to be having a good time. Imelda is doing her braying laugh, then breaks into a squeal of excitement.

  ‘That’s exactly what I said to him,’ she says, loudly enough for Alexander to hear her. The three of them are laughing now, and Alexander feels they are laughing at him.