Tony

On the way home from leaving mum into the respite unit in Dalkey, I dropped down to Dalkey harbour to see what the sea was up to. Incoming dark, brought on more swiftly by the purplish unsettled clouds. I met a man on the little quay, near where it seems to morph into those large, granite mounds out of which they made the harbour. He had one of those interesting, live-in faces, so when we began to discuss photography I asked him if he'd mind me taking his portrait, inside the little fisherman's cabin that I've always wanted to enter. He didn't mind at all, in fact was extremely welcoming. Like his face, the room was wonderfully lived-in, lined like a nest with keepsakes, photographs, bottles, posters, a flatscreen TV, bottles (of whiskey, HP sauce, etc.)... a warm yellow cube of cosiness through whose open door evening was turning a more opaque blue. I asked how long he'd worked here and he replied simply 'Forty'. He pointed to a shelf near the ceiling where there framed photographs, the left one of coloured faces bleached almost white, the other of a man in a flat-capped sailor's hat. This, Tony told me, was 'the high wall'. Everyone on it was dead. He asked if I'd join him in 'a drink'. I yes, but added that I was driving: 'I didn't ask if you were driving.' So I sipped on a small measure of whiskey (which was delicious). We nattered away as I moved about trying to find a good angle. He posed me a question I didn't understand at first. Pointing to my camera, he asked: 'Out of a hundred, what would you get?' How many good pictures in other words. I answered that I'd be lucky to get one. Before I left I spotted a kind of store-room with fishing rods and this crucifix and he agreed to pose beside them. May be the one, or maybe not.