The boy is back in town. As the coach pulled into Galway, Thin Lizzie was loud in my head. One of the great solo blasts from Gary Moore. I saw them at their last gig in Dublin. I had pulled crowd duty for the biggest concert of the year. Phil Lynott, head to toe in black leather, coked to the gills. He stalked that stage like Rilke’s panther. He’d never stalk a stage again. Me neither. His premature death coincided with my own career crash. I’d been booted out of the guards for slapping a TD in the mouth. I’d never regretted that. Only wish I’d hit him harder. My dismissal led into a spiral of slow descent towards alcoholic hell. Settling in Galway, I’d become a half-assed private investigator, causing more havoc than the crimes I’d been investigating. Now I was bringing back from London a leather coat and a coke habit.

I would have come home sooner, but for the old Irish imperative of having to stay gone. At least look like you tried. I don’t know whom I was trying to impress. It had been a long time since I’d impressed a living soul, least of all myself. A near miracle had happened. My departure from Galway had been a sober one. It was such a revelation. To be clear in my mind and free from the habitual sickness was amazing. I could think without the need to swill booze at every opportunity. Reading books returned to being the pleasure it had once been. I truly believed I was about to start anew.

Now I was back to being what they call a conscious drinker. When I was conscious, I was drinking. A fellah I met on the Kilburn High Road had asked me if I was a social drinker. I’d said,

“No, what about yourself?”

“I’m a social security drinker.”

I’d gone to London with a plan. There are few things more lethal than an alcoholic with a plan. Here was mine. Go to London and get a flat in Bayswater. As near to the park as it gets. Preferably with a bay window. Watch those grey squirrels along the Serpentine. In the plan, the woman I’d loved would come to her senses and realise how much she missed me. She’d fly to London and, somehow or other, she’d find me. Just one fine day, it would have to be a fine day, she’d miraculously find me, and happiness would be sealed. All I had to do was wait and she’d show. Or if I stayed away long enough, a letter would arrive from her, telling me how much she missed me and would I please take her back?

What I got was a bedsitter in Ladbroke Grove. Consoled myself with delusion. I’d been weaned on Van Morrison’s “Astral Weeks”. Among a richness of great songs, “Astral Weeks” stood out. Told myself I was living it. The reality was as close to nightmare as you get. The grove is now a long stretch of urban decay. The human wreckage vies for space with the garbage. A mix of aromas hits you as soon as you begin to venture along it. From the inevitable curry through urine to that pervasive stench of abandonment.

Leaving Galway, I’d left behind a string of deaths. My case had involved the apparent suicide of a teenage girl. The investigation had led to -

Witness this:

Three murders.

Four, if you count my best friend.

My heart being hammered.

Tons of cash.

Exile.

Imagine if I’d been competent.

Oh yeah, and there’s the possibility that my involvement caused the death of a teenage girl. I had to bite down and swallow hard lest I add my own name to the list of fatalities. I could trot out the sickest defence line of the decade:

“I meant well.”

I didn’t.

I was too drunk most of the time to mean anything.

As the coach approached the outskirts of the city, I’d mouthed a mantra:

“Attempting to give back to the world a portion of its lost heart.”

The quotation by Louise Brogan, it gave me a sense of longing I couldn’t ever expect to realise.

Getting off the coach at Fair Green, the first thing I saw was the headline:

MORE GARDAÍ FOR GALWAY ’S VIOLENT STREETS

Next I noticed the hotels. Four more in Forster Street. This used to be the arse end of town. Nothing grew here ever. Of course, Sammon’s was long gone. The pub of my youth. Liam Sammon had played on the team that won three All Irelands.

Count them and weep. At least when the pub went, we’d still had the carpet showroom A sign in the window said “Moved to the Tuam Road ”.

Jesus.

You could no longer say,

“Everything’s gone to hell.”

Hell and everything else had moved to the Tuam Road.

Before my departure, I’d found a new pub. No mean achievement in a city that had barred me from every worthwhile establishment. I knew it was my kind of pub from the sign in the window.

WE DO NOT STOCK BUD LIGHT.

Jeff, the owner, had been part of a heavy metal band. Big in the eighties, in Germany. He wrote the lyrics. You go…what lyrics?

Exactly.

He’d hooked up with a punk rocker who odd times helped me. Cathy Bellingham, a Londoner ex-junkie, she’d washed up in Galway. I’d introduced them and withdrawn. They’d be my first port of call.

I’d flown from Heathrow to Dublin, caught the noon coach west. The driver said,

“Howyah?”

I knew I was home.

A reformed smoker, I’d started again. It’s a bastard. The new world is designed for non-smokers. It’s near impossible to do coke and not smoke. It blends so fine. When that first rush hits, you want to wallop it with nicotine. As if you’re not bad enough. I don’t know is it when that ice numbness jells or later, but you’re reaching for that soft red pack. Try smoking at Dublin Airport or any airport. Good luck. Talk about segregation. Small pockets of isolation where the shamed smokers congregate. Like lepers of the modern wasteland. You’d nod guiltily at each other, crank the lighter and suck the poison in. You’d need your head examined to bring drugs through Dublin Airport. These guys are lethal. Boy, do they see you coming. Get you and you are going down.

I chanced it.

My need was greater than my fear. I could envision the headline:

EX-GARDA BUSTED AT AIRPORT

Wouldn’t that launch a homecoming?

Phew-oh.

On Forster Street the urge to snort was massive, but I held it off. Outside Nestor’s a guy in a filthy white suit was singing,

“You’re such a good-looking woman.”

A battered cap was at his feet. It had collected all of 50p. I checked my pockets, put a few coins down. He said,

“Spit on me, Dickie.”

From Joe Dolan to Dickie Rock, without missing a beat. I laughed and he added,

“That’s sterling.”

“Sorry.”

“Ary, you meant well.”

He launched into “The House with the Whitewashed Gable”.

A lone sentry at the bar. He exclaimed,

“Jaysus, look who’s back.”

Irish people across the board will greet a returnee with exactly the same expression,

“You’re back.”

Jeff was behind the bar, nodded, asked,

“What’ll it be?”

“A pint.”

The question was large in his eyes:

“You’re drinking again?”

Fair fuck to him, he didn’t ask it. A song was playing, something I didn’t recognise. I asked,

“What’s the tune?”

He smiled, said,

“You’re not going to believe this.”

“Jeff, it’s Ireland; I’ll believe anything.”

“It’s ‘I Saw a Stranger’ by Tommy Fleming.”

Leaving the Guinness to settle, he came round and said,

“Gimme a hug.”

I did.

Not easily or with much flexibility. Us Irish guys don’t do hugs. Not without a lingering mortification. He looked good. His trademark black 501s were spotless. A granddad shirt, cowboy boots and a black suede waistcoat. A ponytail tied tight. Like me, Jeff was knocking on fifty. He didn’t look like an aging rocker. An ease in his movements gave class to whatever he wore. I said,