We flew Qantas business class to London. Patrick had grown a beard and had his hair cut short so that more grey showed. With that and his smarter clothes, we didn't look as much like the Bobbsey Twins as before. We hung around London for a few days. We'd both been there before and we went off separately renewing old memories. In fact we didn't spend much time together. He was a late sleeper and I'm an early riser. I used buses to get around and he used the tube. We had dinner together only one night, but here again our preferences were the same-Indian in Old Brompton Road, with hot curries, plenty of naan and cold beer.

The dollar was fairly strong against the pound but neither of us was economising. We'd arrived in May and the weather was warm, much warmer than I'd known it to be there before.

'They'll be having to take their socks off and just get around in their sandals if this keeps up,' Patrick said.

'When were you here last, Pat?' I asked.

'About twenty years ago.'

'Doing what?'

'Why?'

'Just curious.'

He ate another mouthful before answering with another question. 'How about you?'

I shrugged. 'Twelve years back. Missing persons case.'

'You find him?'

'Her. No.'

'I was dumb,' he said. 'I missed the army when I left. The marriage had finished and I was pretty pissed off. Would you believe I signed up in Sydney with a mercenary outfit?'

'That was dumb.'

'Yeah. A bunch of us came over here. Did some training in Yorkshire and the word was we were going to Angola. I'd wised up a bit by then. It was a gimcrack mob, half pisspots and half psychopaths. I went to Australia House, dug out some newspapers and read up on the civil war in Angola. There was no way I was going to get into that.'

'So what did you do?'

He laughed and took a big swig of lager. 'I fuckin' deserted, mate.'

We took the train to Liverpool and caught the ferry to Ireland. It was a rough, four-hour crossing and we spent most of the time in the bar.