I got so sick of seeing The Quiet Man, Patricia says. Every time it was on he was dragging me there to see it. Now I’ll never be able to watch it again.

Remember, I says to her, remember when Como had his Christmas special and he has John Wayne on there? They were singing the Christmas carols together, Patricia says, and Tommy’s stood up in front of the TV, singing along. Mind that? I says to her. The three of them together? That was special, that was, she says. It should’ve been Tommy, I says to her. I don’t even know what I was trying to say, but she understood me anyway. I know, she says to me. It should have been him, not us. We’re no match for them, she says. It was a different world. When? I says to her. When was it a different world? Yesterday, she says. Every day till now, she says. When John Wayne was alive, she says. And we both sat there in silence with the traffic going by on Adelaide Street and the windows steamed up. John Wayne’s looking for Tommy in heaven as we speak, she says, and once Como gets up there, he’s going to find that Tommy has stolen his thunder. We laughed a bit. Patricia cried a little. I didn’t have the nerve to tell her that Tommy was already up there, singing. Listen, I says to her. I’ll see you right. I’ll look after you. I’ll make sure nothing happens to you. No, she says, no, I’m alright. I could never have another man after my Tommy. But thanks all the same, she says. I phone her a taxi and I kiss her on the cheek and I get a last smell of that perfume and then I never see her again, except for once, and that wasn’t in real life, but wait till I tell you.

*

They called it the Daddy’s Little Girl Tour and there was another picture of your man Del Brogan on the poster with his mortified daughter in a headlock. Cunt’s raking it in, Barney says to me. His shows are selling out. Cunt’s big news. He’s playing this wee place in Donegal and we decide to go and pay him a visit, though really it was a holiday for me and Barney and we took Moira and Wee Robin with us cause they were best pals by this point but we never told your man Del Brogan we were going, cause we thought we would just shop up, sit there in the front row and scare the living shite out him. He knew I had my suspicions about him and I’d say it to his fucking face, cause I’m not scared.