track was muddy and Patrick's opting for a 4WD proved to be the right decision. The Travellers clan had campervans and trailers rather than anything resembling gypsy caravans, but they'd decked them out and painted them in ways no ordinary tourers ever would, with banners and slogans proclaiming their identity.
Sean Malloy, the winning farrier, had a grip of iron and bore a few boxing scars. So we talked fighting and over cups of strong tea and door-stop sandwiches we roughly established the relationship of us both to the thirty or so people in the camp. Then it was off to a nearby tavern for the adults where a ceilidh was scheduled, with a few of the Malloys slated to sing and play.
For me, the evening was a bit of a blur, not so much from the drink, but from fatigue and the noise and the smoke. The tavern was an old cottage, gutted so that there was a long open space with a bar at one end and chairs and tables scattered about. The night was cold and the windows were closed so that a thick fug of tobacco smoke, sweat and alcohol fumes quickly built up.
We weren't allowed to pay for anything, which kept me going slow with the grog. The music was heady, emotional, traditional stuff that touched off tears and joy in everyone present, especially when old Paddy played the fiddle to a tenor lament from his nephew Sean. But that mood was quickly replaced by jigs and reels in which Patrick and I joined with nothing like the lack of inhibition of the locals. I opted out and went to find a corner to gather my breath and my wits.
'Hello, Aussie,' a woman sitting nearby said. 'Conked out have you, mate?'
The accent was genuine Australian.
'I'm buggered,' I said. 'A bit old for this.'
She pointed with a long, thin arm at where the dancers were. 'Your mate's doing okay.'
'He's a bit younger. I'm Cliff. You are?'
'Angela Warburton, from Coogee.'
We shook hands. 'Know it well.'
She was fortyish, dark, with a mass of red-brown hair, green eyes and a strong face. I was a bit drunk and I took out my mobile phone, still experimenting, and snapped a picture of her. Just for fun I pointed the lens here and there and took some more pictures.
'They'll be lousy in this light,' she said, 'and you should've asked permission. I'm a photo-journalist and I'm trying to do a spread on the Travellers. They're sensitive about photos. I have to go carefully.'
'You're right. Bad manners. We should be going if I can drag Pat away.'
She handed me a card. 'Look me up if you come back through London. You can tell me how Coogee is these days. I've been away for seven years.'
'I can tell you a decent house costs most of a million bucks.'
She shrugged. 'Would you believe it's getting to be the same over here.'
I put the card in my pocket and located Patrick sitting down after a dance and deep in conversation with old Paddy. When I said we should be off, Paddy wouldn't hear of it. We ended up staying another hour in the tavern and bedding down in sleeping bags in one of the vans.
Patrick spent four days with the Travellers. After being politely interested for the first day, I got bored with the talk of horses and which Patrick was related to which Michael. I caught a bus into Galway, booked into a hotel and spent the time walking around the town and its outskirts, fossicking in the second-hand bookshops and visiting various pubs. There were black and Asian faces in the streets and I got the impression that the immigrants were opening businesses and that Galway was in for some big changes.
Despite the Irish heritage, I didn't feel a particular connection to the place, unlike Patrick. My paternal grandmother was French, and I wondered whether I'd feel more at home in Paris where I'd never been. Perhaps next time.
I finished the Stanley biography and traded it in for a biography of Rimbaud. My taste was for the stories of people who led creative and active lives, and Rimbaud fitted the bill.
On a grey morning, Patrick collected me in the SUV and we stopped at the first bank for him to cash some traveller's cheques.
'I wouldn't say they bled me,' he said, 'but they didn't refuse my generosity. I said your goodbyes.'
'Thanks, Pat. It was interesting, but a bit rural for me. You going in for horses when we get home?'
'I don't know what the fuck I'm going to do. But it was grand.'
'It was,' I said.
We both laughed as we sprinted to get out of the rain.
4
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.
