34
“You can’t ascribe our fall from grace to any single event or set of circumstances. You can’t lose what you lacked at conception. It’s time to demythologise an era and build a new myth from the gutter to the stars.”
James Ellroy, American Tabloid
*
As I left the café, the owner said,
“Ciao.”
I didn’t answer him. It wasn’t my day for fostering European unity. As I walked up Eyre Street, coming to Roches, I didn’t meet a soul I knew. Not that there weren’t people. The paths were crowded. Galway had become a city. As a child, if I walked down the town, I knew every single person. Not only that, I knew all belonging to them.
Part of me welcomed the new anonymity, but I felt something had been lost. Not so much familiarity, more a comforting intimacy. Finally a man said,
“Jack?”
A g
