And Joe would get up at six with Billy to let me sleep, and go off up to the Royal Canal Basin, just walking and singing. He loved Thin Lizzy because of Phil Lynott so he did, he saw the first concert Phil gave in the Abbey years before, Joe was there, Jaysus he couldn’t a’ been more than twelve, with his big sister maybe, he couldn’t a’ given a fuck about The Beatles in O’Connell Street, no, no, it was all Thin Lizzy, and he’d be singing ‘The Boys are Back in Town’ to Billy when Billy was about two months old, going up Blessington Street with the wheelier, and the bottle and the nappies and all in a little bag for themselves, should the need arise. And then there was the little ballad Phil wrote for his own daughter that time. Sara? (Singing.) ‘My Sar-a …’ Joe sung that too. In the nice clear light of a Dublin morning. And me sleeping. And the first steps that Billy took was along the Royal Canal, and Joe said he just stepped around all the dog turds like it was in his blood. A real Dubliner, you know? And one time when Billy was sick, I can see it now in the dark of the room, and Joe got up out a’ the bed, I was so tired I coulda slept through Hiroshima, and Joe hadn’t a stitch of clothes on him because it was summer then, and he lifted out Billy and Billy, the little gangster, he pukes into Joe’s mush, talk about a waterfall, and it goes all over him, from head to foot, and Joe standing there laughing, and he cleans off Billy, and then he cleans off himself, laughing the whole time, and sorta pleased, and I thought to myself in the bed, Joe’s a good father not be getting annoyed, I mean … And I said it to him, and I mighta said ‘Joe, you just won the lottery,’ Joe was that chuffed. See, love between a man and a woman, it’s – private. It happens where you never do see it. In rooms.

Light on Joe.

Joe   So you’re asking, what has me in here, the fucking Bon Secours?