We took our time on the return trip, followed the coast north and crossed into Northern Ireland. Patrick said he wanted to get to the place in Belfast where Van Morrison got his start and that was okay by me. We'd bought CDs of Moondance and Tupelo Honey in Galway and played them all the way. We never found the Maritime Hotel, but we heard some great music in other places.
My image of Belfast came pretty much from the film The Boxer, which proved to be fairly accurate. The city had a grim look and feel, although the military presence that had aroused such hatred was much reduced.
'One of the blokes in that bullshit mercenary outfit I told you about was ex-British Army,' Patrick said. 'He reckoned the Brits kept the trouble here on the boil as a cheap way of training troops.'
'Wouldn't surprise me,' I said. 'Nothing more useless than an idle soldier.'
'That's true. That's very true.'
We stayed in Belfast for longer than I'd have wanted and then Patrick insisted on going back to Dublin.
'The Malloys told me there's a terrific bookshop with everything ever written about the Travellers. I have to go there, Cliff. D'you mind?'
What could I say? I put it partly down to him apparently being reluctant to leave Ireland. We stayed at the same hotel as before and I used the gym and a heated indoor pool to try to stay in shape, given the beer and the amount of food you inevitably eat on a holiday. Patrick said he'd found the bookshop specialising in works about the Travellers.
'They let me sit and read there,' he said. 'It's marvellous.'
'You'll have to lash out and buy something eventually.'
'I will. When I'm ready.'
'When d'you want to head back, Pat?'
'Never, mate. No, don't look like that. I'm joking. Pretty soon, pretty soon.'
That sounded a bit strange, as if he had a definite schedule to meet that I wasn't aware of. That made me curious. Also, I was getting bored and that's probably another reason why I decided to follow Patrick one day when he set off after telling me he was skipping our usual breakfast at the hotel.
I'd spent years watching for changes of behaviour in people and then watching them as they moved about. It was my stock in trade and I couldn't resist the urge to give it a go in Dublin town.
'I'm off to the bookshop,' he said. 'Buying something today, and we should talk about a flight. Okay?'
I skipped breakfast, too. I picked him up in the street, staying on the other side and keeping close to other walkers. I told myself I was seeing if I still had the old skills.
Patrick didn't go anywhere near the stretch that featured the city's many and varied bookshops. Dublin had an efficient light rail system that I'd used a few times. Patrick bought his ticket at a stop where there was a fair-sized crowd waiting. I hung around on the fringes and bought my ticket when the double car swung into view. Patrick got into the first carriage and I got into the second.
It was a tricky situation; if he was the only one to get off at his stop and turned back he'd spot me. I'd have to go on to the next stop and hope to catch him when I doubled back. But I was in luck; he got off in the midst of a bunch of passengers and all ofthem moved forward so that I could hang back again. It was raining, a plus-hurrying people and umbrellas are always a help.
Patrick turned into an arcade and tracked the shop numbers as he consulted a slip of paper. He opened a door and went in. I waited before I moved past. The place was a veterinary clinic. I kept going and took shelter from the rain in a pub.
I'd enjoyed the exercise. It looked as if Patrick was getting serious about horses.
Patrick was quiet that night, almost morose. Just to make conversation I asked him if he had any ideas about what business to get into when he got home. He sparked up a bit.
'Have you got a proposition?'
'Me? No.'
He nodded. 'I have a thought or two.'
We flew from Dublin to London and caught a connecting flight home. During the stopover Patrick shaved his beard off because it was itching. So we looked very alike again. We were in the bar at Heathrow when Patrick grinned over his third whiskey.
'Want to have some fun, Cliff?'
'I might.'
'Let's swap passports and tickets. See if we can get away with it.'
I'd had a couple myself and was tempted, just for the hell of it. He took out the documents and waved them.
'Show them their security's not worth a pinch of shit.'
I looked around and took in the warnings about leaving baggage unattended, the urgings to report anything suspicious and the security men standing about, bristling with firearms and communication equipment.
'It's not worth the risk,' I said. 'Level of paranoia's too high.'
He sighed and put the papers away. 'Guess you're right. It's a terrible time to be getting old in, to be sure.'
On the flight Patrick sent and received text messages and I asked him how his business was doing.
'Running like clockwork. I'm selling it, didn't I say?' 'No. And then…?' He shrugged. 'Something'll turn up.' My grandmother's grand-nephew repeating her words. He said he'd given up the flat he'd been renting and would be looking for something to buy. I offered to let him stay at my place while he looked and he accepted.
Patrick moved into the spare room with little more than the light luggage he'd taken on the trip, apart from a fiddle he bought in Ireland and the duty-free Jamesons, of course. He said the rest of his possessions were in storage and that he knew what sort of flat he wanted and in what area, so the business wouldn't take long. I was glad of the company and, as we were both more or less in limbo, I thought us bouncing ideas about our different futures off each other might be useful. Patrick was determined to learn to play the fiddle, but I wasn't up for that.
I lent him the Falcon to get around in because most of the places I wanted to go-the gym in Leichhardt, Megan's place in Newtown, the bookshops and eateries in Glebe and Newtown-I could reach on foot or by bus. After the damp of Ireland it was good to be back in a spell of crisp, dry Sydney winter days-while they lasted. I paid some bills, caught up on some films, visited Frank and Hilde and took my meds. I found life a bit flat, politics boring, and time hanging heavy, but Patrick was amusing and he never scraped away at his fiddle beyond 9 pm.
I got back from a gym session in the mid-morning, opened the door and knew something was wrong. A smell, a sound, or just a feeling?
'Pat?'
There was no answer. Nothing was out of place in the living room or the kitchen. It was moderately untidy like always, but the back door was wide open and the cordite stink was unmistakable. I pushed open the door to the back bathroom and the smell and the sight rocked me back and had me grabbing for the doorjamb for support. Patrick Malloy didn't look like me anymore. He didn't look like anyone. Most of his head had been blown away; an arm was hanging by a thread and his chest was a mass of raw meat and splintered bone. He'd been torn apart. The plastic curtain was shredded, and the walls in the shower recess were like a mad abstract painting in red and grey.