brief encounter

 

Blustery cold and merry Yuletide lights on the main street of Kildare Town.

Evening shoppers swirl.

The crowd parts.

I am looking at the politician Alan Dukes out walking his dog.

He is a famous man, a former Minister in government, leader of a political party, and at one stage Chairman of a bank.

He has known the corridors of power and the rarified drawing rooms of what passes for high society in Ireland.

Who am I that he should know me?

A failed journalist, a failed civil servant, a failed actor, a failed insert name of another profession that I've failed at here.

(Bookmaking? - Ed note)

(Shu'up - Heelers note)

This evening Alan Dukes in retirement, freed from the hurly burly of parliament, looks relaxed and happy with his little dog.

An affable gentleman out for an eveing stroll.

His greatness sits easily on his shoulders.

I had always opposed his political vision, as well as his acceptance of the appointment of himself to the stewardship of what I regarded as an IRA mobster bank, and of course his verbal attacks on the Catholic Church.

I suppose too there is a possibility I somehow subconscioulsy blamed him for the Ireland of abortions, condom culture, easy divorce, mutilating sex change operations, and what have you.

But without rancour.

I am not his judge.

I do not casually disrespect such people.

We live in the Ireland he shaped. That's all.

This evening our eyes met.

Neither of us said anything.

Behind us just off the market square, the ancient round tower of Kildare rose in the misty evening.

Ahead of us on the path, a group of teenagers of mixed ethnicities thronged near the doorway of a cannabis shop.

The round tower and the cannabis shop.

Symbols of traditional Ireland and new Ireland meeting in the topographical labyrinths of a small Irish town.

Like me and Alan Dukes.

We're both still here.

Without a word I wandered off through the coldness of evening.

And so did he.