17
I took a last gulp of the bay and turned towards town, the final line of Padraig Pearse’s poem … sorrowful. Stopped at Grattan Road and felt a melancholy as deep as false memory. Remember the massive hit Foreigner had with ‘I Want to Know Where Love Is’? On a rock nostalgia programme, I caught the version with the gospel choir singing shotgun. Man, that rocked. I was humming it all the way through the Claddagh.
Evening was in and at the hotel I nodded at Mrs Bailey.
She said,
“My, you look healthy, a glow in your cheeks.”
Windburn.
She handed me an envelope, said,
“I don’t know who left it. I wasn’t at the desk when it came.”
On the front was “Jack Taylor”. Typed. I opened it, read,
“Jack, can you meet me at 9 p.m. at the Fair Green?”
