Galway Girl

Come the end of June and a third heat wave on the way.

In Galway.

They were forecasting a shortage of CO₂ (no, me neither).

Which is what puts the kick, fizz, varoom in beer, soft drinks.

Ireland without beer, in a heat wave.

In line with this madness, the World Cup kicked off in Russia with the Spanish manager being fired twenty-four hours before kickoff.

Ronaldo scored a goal of such beauty for Portugal and we watched with wonder. It brought his European tally to eighty-five.

Messi missed a penalty that allowed Australia to look creditable.

Iceland nearly beat the hot favorite, France, which sent that little country into wild jubilation.

And Trump

Caused chaos with the policy of taking children from their immigrant parents and placing them in separate camps. Worldwide condemnation had him reverse the policy but the photos of the distraught children would haunt for a long time.

Melania visited the camps with a jacket that had the large white message:

   I

    Really

      Don’t care.

         Do you?

Back home Drumm, the architect of the seven billion frauds for AIB, had been hiding out in the U.S., then served five months in high-security jail there and that seems to have prompted him to risk his chances with the Irish legal system.

I mean, how bad could it be?

This asshole was on tape pouring scorn on people, wishing he could punch the finance minister in the face and making other taunts that epitomized his contempt for the people who would lose everything.

On the day Drumm was to be sentenced the press spent hours attempting to see the title of the book he was buried in.

It turned out to be a book about war journalists.

Go figure.

He was sentenced to six years.

Plenty of time to finish that book.

Much speculation, too, on what Trump and the North Korean leader had for lunch the day of their historic meeting.

Popcorn and ice cream.

I was grabbing some sun on Eyre Square when a man approached, gave me a long look, then put out his hand, said,

“I’m Gerry Dunne. Could I talk to you?”

He was mid-thirties, wearing chinos, crisp white shirt, moccasins, no socks, shades perched in his wavy black hair, the new Irish cool generation.

His face was tanned and in a certain light he might pass for good looking save for the air of seriousness that hovered round him, like a priest in civvies.

He checked,

“You are Jack Taylor?”

“I am.”

He had an English accent and it sounded like Manchester, like Oasis tone. I asked,

“What’s your problem?”

“My wife, she’s missing.”

Before I could form some sort of reply, he said,

“See, thing is, it was kind of a whirlwind gig.”

More and more like Oasis.

He continued,

“I was in a club in Manchester and this girl, she asked me to dance.”

Sense of wonderment in his voice.

Added,

“It was like fate, the Ed Sheeran song was playing.”

Even I could guess at that one, hazarded,

“Perfect?”

He looked vaguely annoyed as if I wasn’t keeping up, snapped,

“‘Galway Girl.’”

And the alarm began to ring in my head. He said,

“I’m not an impulsive guy but, phew, we were married within six months.”

Then head down, shamed, he said,

“She skipped town with our — well, really my — entire savings.”

He produced an envelope, said,

“These are her details.”

I asked,

“What’s her name?”

“Jericho.”

Took me a moment to digest this, then I asked,

“When you decided to hire an investigator, how long were you figuring it would take to find your wife, or how long were you prepared to pay for the time looking for her?”

He scratched his head, said,

“Depends on the daily rate.”

Cute.

I said,

“Your rock-bottom guy, the very cheapest dude, would run to at least two hundred a day, plus he’d run you for expenses. So, again, how long could you afford to pay?”

He was torn: he didn’t want to look like a cheap fuck but, on the other hand, how reckless was he prepared to be? He tried,

“Two weeks?”

I took out my notebook, wrote in it. He guessed I was doing the math. He guessed wrong. I said,

“Found her.”

He was as close to speechless as it gets, then,

“How?”

I said,

“This is her address.”

I stood, began to move off, he said,

“I don’t know what to say.”

I said,

“Thanks never hurts.”