“No, no…I didn’t.”

One of my embracing poems is Howl by Ginsberg. Nobody I ever told ever seemed surprised. I guess they’d heard me howl too often. It travelled back from London in the pocket of my jacket. The other travel book was The Hound of Heaven. It had been a collectors’ item, bound in calf with gold trim. When I told Tommy Kennedy of my career choice – the guards – he’d been bitterly disappointed. My farewell present from him was the Thompson book. Nights of drunkenness had marred that beautiful volume.

Charlie Byrne’s comes close to Tommy’s ideal. Some years before, I’d been lurking in the crime section. A student had a beautiful American edition of Walt Whitman. He was peering at the price. Charlie, passing, said,

“Take it with you.”

“I haven’t enough.”

“Ary, settle it some other time.”

AND

Handed him The Collected Robert Frost, adding,

“You’ll want this, too.”

Class.

Vinny Brown was surfing the net, looked up, said,

“You’re back.”

The hardcore team: Charlie, Vinny and Anthony. I’d introduced Anthony to Pellicanos, and in return he’d given me the complete Harry Crews. An American, he seems to understand the pace of Galway. I still don’t. Vinny asked,

“How was London?”

I’d recently ploughed through London: The Biography by Peter Ackroyd. Trying not to sound too smart-ass, I said,

“ London is chaos, an unknowable labyrinth.”

Took Vinny a time, then he ventured,

“Ackroyd?”

I don’t know about serendipity. I don’t mean Sting’s atrocious song but coincidence. When God is playing a lower profile. There was a travelling woman in the children’s section. Weighing the difference between Barney and The Velveteen Rabbit. I nodded and she said,

“Mr Taylor?”

That “Mr” is a killer. I asked,

“You doing OK?”

“There’s the replay on Sunday.”

“There is?”

“I said a prayer we’d beat the Kingdom. Do you think that’s all right?”

“Against Kerry, I’ll go and light a candle myself.”

She gave me the full look. It’s no relation to inquisitiveness, but it has everything to do with concern. She said,

“You grew the beard.”

“I did.”

“Suits you.”

Thomas Merton in his journal, written six months before his Asian journey:

I realise that I have a past to break with – an accumulation of inertia, wrong, foolishness, rot, junk. A great need of clarification, of mindfulness, or rather, of no mind. A need to return to genuine practice, right effort. Need to push on the great doubt. Need for the spirit. Hang on to the clear light.

A freak electrical accident in Bangkok would kill him, midway through the trip.

Aura of the lost.

In London, I tended to hang with the fallen. My aura of eroding decay was a beacon to those travellers of the road less survived. The drunks, dopers, cons, losers, dead angels. Come to me, all ye who are lost, and I’ll give you identification. Two people I cultivated most. They belong on the fringe of the group I’ve outlined. Detective Sergeant Keegan was a pig. Worse, he was proud of it. Of murky Irish ancestry, he was based in south-east London, Brixton and Peckham being his beats of choice.

A loud vulgar bigot, he was coasting on dismissal from the force.

I was drinking on the Railton Road, nursing a hangover and the need to coke connect. The clientèle was predominantly black. Some whites, of course, who’d taken a wrong turn. The choice of booze was black rum with coke or without. Bob Marley was giving it large. A dreadlocks had offered to sell me a Rolex. I said,

“I don’t do time.”

“Yo, man, y’all be giving it to yer lady.”

“No lady.”

He threw back his locks, joined with Bob in “No Woman, No Cry”.

I love that song.

Through the smoke, over the music, I’d heard guffawing. Glanced over my shoulder, saw a fat large man standing over a group of people. His suit jacket was lying on the floor, a pot belly had burst the buttons on his shirt. He’d a scarlet face, ruined in sweat. Mid-joke, he was gesturing obscenely. I muttered,

“Redneck.”

Maybe louder than I intended, as the dread caught it, said,

“Yo no be messing with dat man.”

I was a rum past caring, asked,

“Why’s that?”

“Dat be Keegan. Dat be mujo trouble.”

“Looks like a fat fuck to me.”

The dread looked into my eyes, said,

“Yo be Irish, mon.”

And fucked off. I signalled for more drink. It was a tad sweet for my taste, but went down like a smooth lie. I looked again at Keegan. He was singing now, “Living Next Door to Alice ”. I definitely heard the words blow job in there, which is some achievement, albeit a pointless one. I figured, he’s one of two things, connected or cop. Not that they’re mutually exclusive.

In my head, I was trying to remember the words to “Philosopher’s Stone”. Later, in my shitty bedsit, I’d attempt Marianne Faithful’s version of “Madame George”. Now that’s a torch song.

A shoulder knocked against me and I spilled my drink, went,

“What the fu…?”

Heard,

“Sorry, pal.”

Turned to look into Keegan’s face; sorry he wasn’t. His actual words carried the sense of “screw you”. He gave me the look, calculated, said,

“You’re a cop.”

“Not any more.”

“An Irish cop. Well, fuck me…the Garda Chikini.”

“Síochána.”

“You what?”

“The pronunciation, you have it arseways.”

For a horrible moment, I thought he was going to hug me. The thought danced round his eyes, faded, then,

“I love the Irish; well, some of the buggers anyway.”

“Why?”

He gave a huge laugh. Heads turned, then away. Everything about him shouted animal, redneck, ludrimawn. But the laugh, you could forgive him lots on that. Came from way down and was sprinkled with graft and pain. He said,

“I had a holiday in Galway once, it was the races, but I never saw one bloody horse.”

“I’m from Galway.”

“You’re having me on.”

No one claims to be from there; you either are or you aren’t. I knew I could shut down the whole deal right there and then, simply say,

“We don’t like the English.”

Maybe it was his laugh or the rum or even blame Brixton. I put out my hand, said,

“I’m Jack Taylor.”

He shook, said,

“Keegan.”

“Nothing else?”

“Unless you count Detective Sergeant.”

He whistled to a woman; she sashayed over. No amount of rum would ever call her pretty. What she oozed was sex, lashings of it. He put his hand on her arse, asked,

“What’s your name again, darling?”

“Rhoda.”

“Rhoda, this is Jack Taylor, on undercover work for the Irish guards.”

She gave an encompassing smile. She’d heard every tired line a parade of tired men ever pedalled. He slapped her arse, said,

“Go powder your nose, hon. This is guy stuff.”

He watched her walk away, then asked,

“So Jack…want to ride that?”

London offers nigh on most things a person could crave. E.B. White wrote of New York,

“Above all else, it offers you the chance to be lucky.”

London doesn’t quite make the same pitch, but it’s in the neighbourhood. It never ceases to surprise. I wanted education.

My reading, expansive if not exhaustive, was haphazard. I wanted it formalised. Enrolled in night classes at London College. Taking literature and philosophy. At least I had a beard. Got a scarf in Oxfam and I was in the student mode. I wasn’t the oldest, but I certainly appeared the most battered. London in November is a rough deal. Walking up Ladbroke Grove with that wind howling in your face, you are deep frozen. My bedsit was the last word in forlorn. A bed, a chair, electric heater and a shower. Oh yes, a hot plate. It had flock wallpaper, I kid you not. To compound the misery, I’d been reading Patrick Hamilton, Hangover Square. Grim fare. He wrote, “To those whom God has deserted is given a gas fire in Earls Court.” I could have hacked Earls Court.