As if you’re not bad enough. I don’t know is it when that ice numbness jells or later, but you’re reaching for that soft red pack. Try smoking at Dublin Airport or any airport. Good luck. Talk about segregation. Small pockets of isolation where the shamed smokers congregate. Like lepers of the modern wasteland. You’d nod guiltily at each other, crank the lighter and suck the poison in. You’d need your head examined to bring drugs through Dublin Airport. These guys are lethal. Boy, do they see you coming. Get you and you are going down.

I chanced it.

My need was greater than my fear. I could envision the headline:

EX-GARDA BUSTED AT AIRPORT

Wouldn’t that launch a homecoming?

Phew-oh.

On Forster Street the urge to snort was massive, but I held it off. Outside Nestor’s a guy in a filthy white suit was singing,

“You’re such a good-looking woman.”

A battered cap was at his feet. It had collected all of 50p. I checked my pockets, put a few coins down. He said,

“Spit on me, Dickie.”

From Joe Dolan to Dickie Rock, without missing a beat. I laughed and he added,

“That’s sterling.”

“Sorry.”

“Ary, you meant well.”

He launched into “The House with the Whitewashed Gable”.

A lone sentry at the bar. He exclaimed,

“Jaysus, look who’s back.”

Irish people across the board will greet a returnee with exactly the same expression,

“You’re back.”

Jeff was behind the bar, nodded, asked,

“What’ll it be?”

“A pint.”

The question was large in his eyes:

“You’re drinking again?”

Fair fuck to him, he didn’t ask it. A song was playing, something I didn’t recognise. I asked,

“What’s the tune?”

He smiled, said,

“You’re not going to believe this.”

“Jeff, it’s Ireland; I’ll believe anything.”

“It’s ‘I Saw a Stranger’ by Tommy Fleming.”

Leaving the Guinness to settle, he came round and said,