by Tim Finch
There is a hammock, but I can’t be doing with that. Remember that one time? It wasn’t so much getting in as getting out. I am in one of the two easy chairs. Much safer. A pile of books beside me on a low table – and a long drink. A rum punch. And not my first. Bear that in mind. It is hot but without being stiflingly so. There is a sea breeze. I have had a snooze; I will be going for a swim. Then it will be ‘happy hour’ in the clifftop bar.
The horizon line – a solid colour block of sea blue aligned precisely with another of sky blue – is – according to Pythagorean Theorem (I have looked it up) – some ten or twelve miles distant from the eye. Yet beyond it lies not shipping lanes or the Venezuelan coast or more sea that I cannot see because of the infinitely subtle curvature of the planet. None of that. What lies beyond as I look out on it now is … as good as it gets. An intimation of the Ultimate, if you will. Or at least, the opportunity with some tranquillity of the mind – and the minimum of self-consciousness – to contemplate it. Though self-consciousness is doing what it does here, you’ll note, by dint of my referencing its near absence. This is the trouble with being in the quotation-marked or italicised now, I find. ‘Now’, you think, and it’s gone. Now, you think again, and it’s gone again. Of course, one is in it, but in saying that, one isn’t. Schrödinger’s cat comes into the equation, if I’m not mistaken. Which I very well might be. Anyway, before you know it, one is playing a game – or the cat is: picture its paw poised to strike – of Whac-A-Mole with now.
The philosophers and theologians, the gurus and mindfulness coaches, have been over this ground endlessly, I realise. The eternal and unattainable now. I tried mindfulness, by the way. And meditation, the same thing before the rebrand. In fact, they were both prescribed. By Caroline. I got them free on the NHS. (This was after the grief counselling.) And I am always returning to the philosophers and – to a lesser extent – the theologians. The problem, as ever, is concentration. I might pick up Cioran’s Tears and Saints – it is what I have beside me; it’s not especially apropos – only to put it down again moments later, some thought having occurred.
Back to the horizon. For a moment. Concentrate on that. I know, but we’re with the ancients on this one, aren’t we? Perhaps the mythological quality of the transatlantic flight has something to do with it. The Icarian colours and textures and moods. The flying through time and the weather. The chasing the sun. For exactly this.
At the very least, what’s out there, beyond the vanishing point, is some sort of transcendental catch pool, with an Escherian system of aqueducts circulating all this overspill of the mind. And I realise, of course, that all I am saying here is that the natural wonder which an infinity pool was designed to mimic looks … like an infinity pool. But then, there might be a certain profundity in the redundancy.
There is one of those here, inevitably: an infinity pool. One can swim up to the edge of it and look out on the real thing. With – if one cared to; the barman could surely fix it – a blue curaçao cocktail lapping right up to the rim of one’s plastic cocktail glass. For the Montaigne of mind, the connoisseur of pleasure in the moment, this is full-package-good-as-it-gets.
Not that I haven’t thought, as I always do in such situations, that as near perfect as it is, one day I will come back and the perfection will be complete. It used to be that I thought you were the missing piece. I was in some lovely place without you and I would think: one day I must come back with you and then …
But then I found you thought the same thing. By which I mean, we thought the same thing when we were in some lovely place together. Ghent, was it? The view of St Michael’s Bridge at night? We were hand in hand, a little drunk, a little horny, as happy as we had ever been and ever would be, and one of us said it. One day we must come back …
And don’t think I am going to fall into the trap of thinking the moment was perfect then if only we had known it.
As good as it gets is as good as it gets. It doesn’t get any better than that.
The first indication is the merest theoretical mercury drop. Point something of a degree, if that. Then not so much a wind, as a hint of one. A forewarning. Of herald clouds, grey rags in the blue wash. Then squadrons hurtling in. And before you know it, a wipe-out of sun and sky. A blanketing of grey. That ominous atmosphere. That mood-swing. That temperature crash. Wait for it … the first full, fat drop. Plop. Plop … plop, plop, plop. Then a hammering. An absolute hammering. Buckets full of nails hurled at tin rooftops. Dry gutters thrashing and splashing, desperate for breath, as the rain is sucked down drainpipes into gurgling drains and away. In an instant, the concrete footpaths down through the mountainside garden are in full sluice and spate. The whole complex is a water park. Flumes and chutes and half-pipes.
There’s a water-sheet fountain effect around my balcony. Surround sight and sound. I am totally water-curtained on three sides. And out there the tranquil swimming-pool sea is now Stygian. Turbulent with sea monsters. One shudders at the thought of being out in it, as some fishing and tourist boats are. Shudders? Okay, more of a delicious shiver, as one looks out from one’s dry prospect, with its precise configuration of pitches, overhangs and run-offs. Not a drop on the surfaces of the deck. All cosy and dry in here.
In the gardens, the bananas and palms and cannas are being whipped about, but hey, they’re in their plastic macs and cagoules. They’re in their high-concept wet-weather wear. The raindrops positively bouncing off them. But how do the tissue-paper flowers and crêpe leaves, the tiny budkins and tinkerbells, withstand the onslaught, as they seem to do, shrinking from, but then perking up as the sun, as it will – just wait – peeps out again?
Back from the murderous black of the sea, the beach has been strafed and has run for cover into the rain-deafened beach bars. The beautiful people, the tanned and lovely, now standing, damp towels wrapped around shoulders, all ashiver, under the ragged palm-frond roof of the sand-floor verandah, with their plastic pints of Red Stripe and bags of slightly damp tortilla chips. Not what they paid for. Though there’s camaraderie in this run for it and this stood there and looking out on it.
It’s really something, this electric one-act. In and out of here, like a flash mob of drama students. Rain, guys! Whip up a storm. Chuck the kitchen sink at it. And before they know what’s hit ’em, it’s a wrap.
But one moment. Didn’t I mislay the son et lumière, the thunder and lightning effects? Not necessarily. As often as not these rain dramas come and go without the full Wagnerian fireworks. It’s more Debussyan in build-up, tumult and slow diminuendo. Less a work in heavy oils, more in watercolours.
Within minutes the storm has squalled through, raced out to sea, and there’s a washing-on-the-line freshness and restoration in the air. Just some drip-drying to be done. And already the heat is returning, creeping out from under sodden bushes and stoking the brick oven. There is a return of insect static and bird twitter. Those delicate flowers are spangled with raindrops, pearl-centred, clinging fingertip to their upturned cups and bead lines.
Down on the beach I can see bathers flagging the damp sand with bright towels. It/they will be sun-baked in seconds. Pastel sarongs are being paraded again on the arms of the hawkers, hawkers with dozens of pairs of cheap sunglasses on their head – and half a dozen straw hats. The horizon line is back, freshly drawn. It will sharpen up soon. As I speak, you would never know. It is the brochure shot out there. The screen saver. The only evidence of the downpour – not visible from here – great red mud puddles in the potholed roads. The four-wheelers will be dropping into first, climbing in and out of the craters, back into second and away. Up the hill, and around the headland. On to the next resort.
All is somnolence again. The immense ennui of late afternoon in the tropics. (Or for that matter, at any latitude.) But the next big show will be along soon: the sunset experience. I jest, but one does get the sense sometimes that these are all staged as part of the tropical paradise package.
I will have that swim shortly.
Once mid-morning and then again late afternoon has been my schedule over these first three days. You could call it a routine. It is certainly the life. One other thing while I am at it. I am pleased to say I remembered to bring my binoculars. The ones you bought me for my fifty-fifth. Five hundred pounds they cost, as you were keen to remind me. And why exactly did I want them? I mentioned stained glass at the time, but the other thing was birdwatching. Not the greatest interest of mine, I will admit, but occasionally in Urke and now here.
Closest to me – and granted, there’s no need for the binoculars with them – are the hummingbirds. The gardens and balconies are festooned with feeders full of sugar water at which the hummers dart and dock, a kinetic blur of needle-point beak, pin-boned wing and iridescent coat. They are almost bumblebee tiny. Sometimes crested, sometimes fluffy-headed, sometimes more slicked back. All colours.
There are plenty of other bird types – flycatchers, bee-eaters, kingfishers. I am not too precise on the names and species, though there is a bird guide in the room which I consult from time to time. This is where the binoculars come into their own. It is immensely pleasing – and it centres the mind nicely – to bring a bird one has spotted into sharp focus, to hold it still, observe its tics and tiny mannerisms.
And out in the bay, endlessly circling the fishing boats and catamarans, coasting on the thermals, are pelicans and kites and other seabirds. I say endlessly circling: every now and again they hang on a breath of hot air and then plunge – at knifepoint – on a perfect vertical into the waves. The dives are not deep. Or at least, the diver surfaces quickly. Almost at once, they are bobbing on top. A shake of the head. One senses an air of bafflement, even embarrassment. ‘I could have sworn …’ They must spear a fish occasionally, I suppose. Or snag or scoop it, whatever it is they do. But I haven’t seen a kill yet. Perhaps I don’t know what I am looking for.
Whose idea was this? Ellen Peters. She and Mike had been out here at Christmas, loved it and thought it would be a perfect place for some (in her Edinburgh accent) ‘R and R’ after a few months snowbound in the Alps. I was in London for three days before I came out here, staying with Mike and Ellen at their house in Camden.
They organised a drinks party to mark ‘my achievement’, which I suppose was kind of them. And I won’t pretend I didn’t enjoy the fuss and congratulation, even as I was making light of my actual contribution. But I was glad too when the last few people left, when Mike and I could ‘retire’ to his study for a nightcap or two that we certainly didn’t need. We carried on drinking into the early hours. Eventually Ellen put her head around the door. Mike had to be in work the following day.
I am drinking too much, of course I am. That must have been obvious since I don’t know when. Did it affect my chairing of the talks? I don’t believe so. Had that happened it would have been unforgivable, not to mention unprofessional. I perhaps didn’t feel as fresh as I might have done at the start of the day’s sessions. But those early-morning mountain walks generally cleared my head. That and a trusty ibu or two. A plastic bottle of them beside my bedside with a big glass of water. I functioned well enough, I am sure. Functioning being the mot juste, perhaps. I am not entirely sure what a functioning alcoholic is, but I am perhaps an example of one. And I trust, high-functioning. Though no doubt it varies day to day.
‘A proper drink?’ ‘A proper drunk, more like!’ I suspect some of my team thought that. Indeed, I must once have overheard someone say it, as it is not one of mine. And goodness knows what the two delegations thought. A certain contempt, perhaps? Just as, let’s face it, I felt contempt for their blatant abstinence. There were no complaints made, anyway. I did a good job, I am confident of that. I am a good man, that is the fact of the matter. If the worst that can be said about me is that ‘Behrends likes a drink’, I can live with that. And the fact is that for all the good the counselling, the mindfulness, the meditation, the medication, the getting back to work, these peace talks, this talking to you … for all the good that all of this has done, I don’t know where I would be without drink.
‘Another?’
I am down to the largely ornamental piece of pineapple. I am not letting him have it, though. No, I’ll have that. I pick it out with the pointy end of my paper-and-stick cocktail parasol and pop it in my mouth. This is how I like my fruit: drunk on rum.
‘Please.’
I have abandoned ‘Why not’ or ‘Go on, then.’ There is no kidding my good friend the barman that I am even an iota reluctant. I am on my – what? – fourth since I arrived here? But what the hell! I am sat on a stool at the clifftop bar, the sun setting into the Caribbean, hummingbirds at the sugar water in silhouette. All of which can be appreciated without being inebriated, no doubt, but then I wouldn’t know!
The barman whips away my glass. Pulls out a fresh one. He starts mixing. Throws those moves they do with the cocktail shaker. I do a little shimmy on my stool and have to reach out to steady myself. I will stop after this one. Have a bite to eat.
All the resort staff are done out in the most garish Hawaiian shirts. Bright red with yellow bananas. Is this not borderline racist? I wonder. The barman is damned if he’s going to rise to it anyhow. It is probably over-the-border racist to suggest he could crack a watermelon smile if he wanted to, but no matter, because he doesn’t. I don’t know what the employment situation is on his island – pretty dire, I’d imagine – but this fellow isn’t going to pretend he is lucky or happy to be mixing cocktails for pissed rich white folks. Good for him, I suppose.
It is with proper vehemence that he spears a virgin chunk of pineapple with a cocktail stick and drops it into my glass. He takes out a new parasol, opens it ever so daintily and balances it, more daintily still, on the rim of my glass. I will have to remove it to take my first sip, of course. A little stand-off results. How long can I last before succumbing? He’s watching me. He’s going about his business, cleaning and drying glasses, serving others, but he is definitely watching me.
I adjourn with my cocktail to a now vacant table. It is suddenly dark. A night light flickers in a glass ramekin. I will definitely make this my last.
I find I am weeping. No one notices. Here, as everywhere, I’ve seen that look on people’s faces that says, ‘I know you, you’re …’ But where do you go with that knowledge? I’m not shunned exactly. Left in peace, more like. My privacy respected. But it’s dark now anyway. No one can see me sitting here in the dark, weeping. Happy hour is over. I am so happy. And at the same time, so sad. A confluence of the two. And I miss you so, so much. This place, the warm perfume of the night air, the effect of all these rum punches. I’ve been drinking them since before lunch. Goodness knows how many …
This is the life, though. The good life. I have had such a good life, haven’t I? I am so lucky. We were so lucky, weren’t we? So happy. Life is so short. But at the same time, it goes on so, so long. It is not so much all the years that have gone, as all the ones that are left. All these years and years ahead of me. What am I going to do with myself? More days and nights like these, I suppose. Not a bad way to live. I have so much to be grateful for. To be alive, and here, in a place like this, on an evening like this. And at the age one longs to be, the age of acceptance, of accomplishments, the age one never achieves. I am quoting from Salter here. From memory. I have always wanted to use that quote. Light Years. I might reread that when I get home. Wherever that is.
And I have helped end a civil war, don’t forget. I don’t know that I did very much, but still. People have been saying it is the pinnacle of my career. Downhill from here, then?
Did I tell you I am getting a knighthood? Sir Edvard and …
If only you were sitting beside me. I mean, here, not at the investiture. That. Oh, forget that! You would be complaining about something. Too hot, too cool, the mosquitoes, your drink, that couple over there. You would be annoying me in some way. But making me laugh. I am laughing now just remembering. Through the tears, so to speak. I am still weeping.
Goodness knows why, but this memory has come to me. This new guy in your office. Young fellow. At some point he asks, ‘Does anyone want to hear a joke?’ ‘Yes,’ you say. Cautiously. ‘Why does Noddy have a bell on his hat?’ he asks. Nobody knows. ‘Because he’s a cunt.’
I remember distinctly you telling me this story. You had just come in from work. We were having a glass of wine at the island in our kitchen. In the house we loved so much. I was cooking that night. Something simple. ‘Imagine telling a joke like that just days after you started working somewhere,’ you said. The nerve of it. We were crying with laughter. Tears streaming down our faces.
This is when I miss you most. Because he’s a cunt. Why is that so funny? Tears are streaming down my face. It is, though, isn’t it? Or we thought so. ‘Perhaps we are just very bad people,’ you said. The idea appealed to you. It was good to be a bit bad, you thought. I so wish you were here. I don’t really know what to do without you, that’s the problem.
A good cry, though. A power of good, a good cry. It’s a while since I’ve had one. And a good blow of the nose. A power of good, a good blow. My father, my mother. Both long dead. When was the last time I thought about them? Have I mentioned them at all? And a sister dead before I was born. Never talked about. To put it another way, I never asked. Not until very late. Another story. And your mother and father. And friends. And you. All dead.
I have many friends. I am so lucky. I have so much to look forward to. I so wish you were here. I know you aren’t. I am talking to myself. Inside my head. Peace talks. Where would I be without peace talks?