‘Em… in a manner of speaking.’

He gave a huge laugh, threw back his head and went with it. Ever see or hear Dyan Cannon laugh? Yeah… the whole shebang, light on a dark street, like that.

‘Aw Jaysus Coop, you’ll kill me. The English are a race apart, what d’ya do, talk dirty to her.’

‘OK… OK… so… we had intercourse.’

‘Intercourse, what…? By the Lord Harry did ye study first… what goes where… after you dear… no, no… I insist… put it where you desire. No wonder ye like Carry On pictures.’

‘You’re a big help Doc.’

‘And lifted the pistol did she, the heathen bitch… bit careless were you?’

‘Hey, she slipped me a Mickey Finn.’

‘And you slipped her… OK… sorry.’

‘Have you heard of MacNeice then?’

Doc had done the English piss-take in a haughty law-di-daw. Now he switched to what I’d heard him call his West-Brit accent.

‘I come from an island, Ireland, a nation built upon violence and morose vendettas. My diehard countrymen like drayhorses, drag their ruin behind them, shooting straight in the cause of crooked thinking. Their greed is sugared with pretence of public spirit, from all of which I am an exile.’

I didn’t know was this Doc or MacNeice till he said, ‘He was like me, said,

“In short we must keep moving

to keep pace

or else drop into limbo

the dead place.”’

I threw up my hands.

‘What the fuck is this, everyone’s doing recitations, did I miss something. Who is this fuck.’

‘Take it easy Coop, I also do Yeats… how about a nice bit of Browning?’

‘Fuck off.’

‘’Course you crowd adore Rupert Brooke, all that romantic dying and heroism with a hint of buggery:

“And some corner of a foreign field

shall be forever England”

Yeah, well he got his wish, they bloody buried him in it. Let’s get a drink, I’m parched.’