“It’s interesting,” Silvio said, knowing well that neither Lucy nor Kathleen were the least bit interested, “how that song references some of his earlier songs. All performers eat their young. Metaphorically speaking, of course.”

“Dylan certainly looks like someone has taken a few bites out of him,” Lucy said, as the ginger waiter poured too much wine in a slim businesswoman’s glass. “Not enough, though.”

“People always feel challenged when a performer is breaking new ground.”

“Sounds more like he’s breaking wind,” Kathleen laughed.

“Have you been shopping?” Lucy asked, looking down at Kathleen’s bag. “Or are you going to a party? Hopefully, it will be a bit livelier than the party I had in my apartment those weeks ago.”

“I actually enjoyed that evening,” Kathleen smiled, glancing at Silvio. “At least, until I realised that Bill was drooling comatose on the couch. You can’t take him anywhere without him breaking down!”

“So, have you treated yourself to something, Kathleen?” Lucy raised her eyebrows, obviously intrigued. “Sometimes, you just decide that it’s time to spoil yourself a little.”

“Yes.” Kathleen laughed, awkwardly. “It’s very important to love yourself once in a while.”

“You know, I sometimes think that love is like a wild horse that we can never hope to tame,” Silvio said. “It throws you in every conceivable direction and all you can hope for is to hold on for dear life. Because if we let go, it’ll throw us off and run away from us just as suddenly as it caught us.”

“Silvio, you really know how to spin the bullshit,” Kathleen laughed. “I haven’t heard such nonsense since Bill tried to explain why his had his hand on that little blonde tart’s poxy knee at the Christmas party.”

The ginger waiter was glaring at them, tapping his watch.

“Me and Bill are taking part in... well, I suppose you could call it... a party.” Kathleen shrugged. “Sort of a... fancy dress party.”

“What are you,” Lucy asked, “going to dress up as?”

“I was thinking of dressing up as Cinderella. And Bill wanted to be Prince Charming, which would have been a fucking joke. One kiss and he’d turn back into a frog. I’d have to take him home in my handbag. And then maybe flush him down the toilet. He’d probably block up the pipes, though, just to spite me...”

Kathleen stared into her empty cup, apparently debating with herself.

“Okay, I’ll tell you the truth.” She shook herself out of her reverie. “My relentless boyfriend has had another big idea. He wants to spice up our love life. Yet again!”

“Really?” Lucy’s eyes widened. “You can always rely on Bill to put an unusual spin on things. My conversation with him at the party that night was… enlightening.”

“You know what he’s like once an egg hatches in his head,” Kathleen sighed. “He was on one of those bullshit teamwork training seminars with his work crew last week. This particular training involved role playing. Now, Bill has been reading a book called Fun-filled Fidelity recently. It’s all about adding sparkle between the sheets at home so that you don’t have to go looking for it elsewhere.”

“Sounds like an interesting book,” Silvio laughed.

“So Bill is reading this book. I’m hoping it might inspire his jaded loins. And he is attending a seminar involving role playing. Needless to say, the hen lays an egg. Role playing! He has now become completely obsessed with the idea, as only he can. So I’ve decided to try it out. I suppose it won’t do too much harm. It’ll be fun to see Bill’s mouton dressed up as lamb, so to speak.”

“I’m sure,” Silvio said to her, “you’ll have fun.”

“Yes,” Kathleen shrugged. “It should be... hilarious. Anyway, we all have to do mad things every now and then... if only to prove that we still can. Dig out the old magic and see if it still works.”

“The magic’s always there,” Lucy said, finishing her coffee. “We were talking about that before you arrived. You look back over life and see nothing but magic and mystery at work in it.” 

Silvio frowned. He hadn’t realised that that was what they had been talking about. He wondered if he had been paying enough attention to Lucy. 

“I’d best be going,” Kathleen said. “I think that young waiter is going to get the bouncers to evict us or eat us or something, the way he’s staring at us. God knows what’s happened in the office since I left. Someone has probably sent forty glow-in-the-dark dildos to St Gerard’s monastery. Wouldn’t surprise me after this morning’s fun and games.”

The young waiter looked relieved when he saw Kathleen standing up to leave. He then glared at Silvio and Lucy when they showed no intention of getting up.

“You know, Silvio,” Kathleen smiled, “you’re a really interesting person. There was always something about you that intrigued me.”

“In other words,” Silvio replied, “you thought I was a bit odd.”

“God, no!” Lucy looked mortified. “What I meant was...”

“That’s okay. Everyone thinks I’m as odd as hell. And I am, in some ways”

“Well, I’m sure you’re no odder than most people. Your comment about wild horses struck some chord with me.”

“You know,” said Silvio, his heart pounding uncomfortably, “I think we really should... I mean, if you want to... do this more often. We seem to enjoy each other’s company... and it would be nice... to do it again some time soon.”

Lucy smiled. Her whole face relaxed, her eyes shining with warmth.

“Silvio, I’d love to do this again. It’s nice to sometimes share some time with someone, isn’t it?”

“It is.” Silvio’s heartbeat returned to a more comfortable rhythm. “It has been very pleasant. Better than staring at a wall or trying to talk in a crowded pub.”

They drank their coffee while the radio continued to gently play in the background. The ginger waiter noisily swept the floor around them.

“What are you thinking about, Silvio? You look like there’s a herd of those wild horses stampeding through your mind.”

“Oh, nothing much,” Silvio lied. “I was just thinking about how nice the day is.”

“Really?” Lucy’s raised eyebrows showed she didn’t believe him.

“As you know, Lucy,” Silvio said, glancing into his coffee, “I’ve been more or less a loner since I came to Ireland. Back in New York, Clara and I used to go for a meal every Thursday evening to O’Sullivan’s on 32nd Street. That was what really introduced me to Irish culture. There were always some interesting characters in that joint. And Clara was completely taken with Irish music.”

“You still think about your wife a lot, don’t you?” Lucy gently said.

“Yes,” Silvio sighed. “Even after all these years. Isn’t that pathetic?”

“No, not really. Gerry was taken from me four years ago. There’s not a day goes by that I don’t find myself thinking something like ‘I can just imagine what Gerry would say if he saw that.’ The ones who matter are always there, sleeping in the back of your mind, waiting to be called.”

Silvio looked at Lucy. There was pain flickering in her eyes.

“That’s a nice way of putting it, Lucy. It’s amazing how hard it is to forget the past.”

“Well, life rolls on over you, no matter how important you think what’s happened to you is.” Lucy gently tapped the side of her coffee cup, staring into it. “God doesn’t stop the world to give us a chance to catch our breath. Eventually, you realise that you have to pick yourself up, brush yourself down and keep on going. No matter how much you ache, the world eventually gets bored with your pain...”

The ripples rolled across the surface of Lucy’s coffee as she tapped the cup. Silvio found the movement of the ripples hypnotic. The ripples glanced up at him before disappearing into the edges of the cup.

A few more customers left. The waiter aggressively moved his sweeping brush after their feet.

“It isn’t easy, Lucy,” Silvio sighed. “After Clara left me, I was convinced that I could never be happy again. That I didn’t deserve to be happy again... Not until she left did I realise how completely I had messed up my life. It took me years to begin to rise above it, to just hold my head above water. Some days were good. Some were bad. Some days, you sink and sink and sink and think you’ll never find your way to the surface again...”

Silvio could find no words in the coffee ripples. He looked up at Lucy. She was staring at him, intently. He realised that she knew what he was talking about. She didn’t know his pain, but she understood it. It was in her eyes. It was in her motionless lips. It was in the tapping of her fingers on the coffee cup.

“That’s the past, Silvio.” Her voice was barely audible. “We can’t change what happened. No one can. Not even God. I spent months cursing God for taking Gerry away from me. Then I cursed myself. Was it my fault that he got drunk that night and smashed the Ford into a tree? No. But I still could find reasons to blame myself. Did I disappoint him in some way? Maybe. But then again, you can’t live up to anyone’s expectations. It’s hard enough living up to your own! We just have no control over all that stuff.”

“But I did have control.” Silvio could see the raging Manhattan skyline reflected in the coffee ripples. “I just lost it.”

“You can’t change what happened. No matter how often you relive it in your mind.”

“So maybe,” Silvio smiled, looking into Lucy’s eyes, “we are all just blowing in the wind.”

“Maybe,” Lucy smiled back. She stopped tapping the cup. “Who knows?”

Silvio looked at her, his heart pounding. He wanted to kiss her. To take her in his arms and kiss her forever.

But he knew he wouldn’t. No matter how long they stared at each other, he would not kiss her. Not today. Maybe never. But not today.

Their friendship had entered a new stage. He wanted to enjoy that stage before he moved on to any others.

“Anyway, Silvio” Lucy laughed, “I think we should head on before we move on to any more philosophical discussions. We’ll be trying to solve the world’s problems next.”

“I’m sure we could,” Silvio said, standing up.

They ignored the waiter’s loud sigh of relief as they left.

In the end, my dear sweet friend,
I’ll remember you.
                   "I’ll Remember You" Bob Dylan

Sitting on the bed, Dylan was wearing a grimy hooded top and scuffed blacked jeans. His boots were caked in the mud of a thousand concerts. Despite the gloom of the bedroom, he wore dark sunglasses. He cradled a well-worn acoustic guitar as if it were a precious child.

Silvio watched his hero, listening to each aching chord strummed on the dusty guitar. “Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right” never sounded so broken. It was no longer an exuberant, self-confident “fare thee well” to fickle love. It was now a funeral dirge for a dying relationship, all parties too shattered to try to understand what was happening to them.

Dylan sang softly, lingering in the pauses. His voice croaked at the end of some lines, leaving the melody unspoken. This was not a self-confident young rooster crowing triumphantly into a microphone. It was the baffled musing of an older man, looking back, unsure what he is looking for and afraid of what he might find. A broken man saying goodbye to his dreams and pretending he didn’t care.

He barely whispered the words, apparently thinking that they were so fragile, they’d shatter in his mouth if he sang them too forcefully. Many times in the past, he had thrashed those very words in front of bewildered audiences all over the world. Strangers who looked at him and frowned. And then walked away, shaking their heads. Today, he gently caressed the words, begging their forgiveness.

“The lunch with Lucy was very pleasant,” Silvio said, stretching out on the old armchair. “Kathleen joined us for a while.”

“Speaking of lunch,” Dylan drawled. “I had a row with the manager of the Italian restaurant down the road. I had to give him a pizza my mind. Ha ha ha. Is Kathleen that that fiery woman you once told me about? The one with the mixed-up boyfriend?”

“The very one,” Silvio smiled. “I’m trying to help her to understand her relationship with her boyfriend.”

“You offer your hand to some people,” Dylan replied, “and they take your whole arm off and some of your shoulder.”

“They’ve got involved in role playing and fancy dress.”

“Fancy dress?” Dylan plucked a few random strings. “I wrote the book on that game. It’s hard enough being yourself without trying to be someone else. There are only so many costumes you can hide behind, man.”

“Lucy also was in fancy dress.” Silvio frowned, taking a cigarette from his packet. “She’s always hiding behind something.”

“That sounds like one hell of a lunch.” Dylan stopped plucking the strings. “Give me one of those cigarettes. By the way, I parked the motorcycle out back. I tried to park in the hospital car park. However, an official said ‘You can’t park here. It’s badge holders only.’ I told him that I did have a bad shoulder, but he chased me outta there.”

Dylan lit up, blowing a slow cloud of smoke to the ceiling. The smoke dispersed around the light bulb as the strings began chiming again. It then swirled around Dylan like an angry wife, refusing to let him ignore its presence. The more he tried to wave it away, the more it stung his eyes.

“Sometimes, you pull off the disguise and find another one underneath,” Dylan said, smoke curling around his mouth. “Other times, the greasepaint just can’t be washed away.”

Lighting his own cigarette, Silvio wondered whether Robert Zimmerman longed to throw away his Bob Dylan disguise.

There was no sound in the room for some minutes, except the gentle strumming of the guitar.

“It’s all a mystery,” Silvio sighed. “I’ll never understand women.”

“Neither will I,” Dylan shrugged. “And I’ve had plenty of experience.”

“Right,” laughed Silvio. “You’re fighting them off you.”

“Hey, a lot of women think I still have plenty of sex appeal.”

“True, Bob, but those women also think they’re Marie Antoinette and spend their days in an institution writing sonnets to Napoleon.”

Dylan idly plucked random strings, waiting for the melody to assert its presence. Until then, each sound vibrating from the strings would exist in isolation, meaningless, waiting for its companions to justify its existence. Each note, on its own, failed to stir even the most delicate soul. However, combined with others to form chords and melodies, it could become a thing of stirring beauty.

“Must you make such a racket, Bob?”

“I’m just waiting for the muse to strike.”

“She’ll probably strike you across the head and tell you shut up.”

Dylan continued to play for some minutes. Silvio listened, getting lost in random memories. Seeing Clara. Seeing Madison Avenue. Seeing baby Daniel. Smelling the ink in Albert & Stone. Feeling the heat of Julia Cummings’s bedroom in Flushing. Hearing “New Morning” on the radio. Seeing Nigel Penn celebrate being awarded the Courtyard contract. Seeing Dylan hidden beneath a hood in the RDS Arena. Hearing him sing “Every Grain Of Sand”. Hearing Carla yell at him. Feeling the coffee splash against his face. Trying to find meaning in it all. Any pattern.

Maybe Lucy was right. Maybe it is all a mystery.

“Got it!” Dylan played a confident melody. “This song has been rattling in my head all day. Do you remember ‘Tight Connection To My Heart’? I really kicked that one back to life in The Supper Club in ‘93.”      

Dylan began playing an upbeat, assured rendition of the song, whipping up a cloud of dust from the strings. The melody shook with the dazed memory of age. Wondering where on earth his love was, an air of unfulfilled desperation hidden in the words. And the bruised tenderness of a Humphrey Bogart character.

Silvio listened to the guitar strings, and all the mystery no longer seemed to matter.

“So, Silvio,” Dylan said, when he had finished, “tell me why you are still sweating and fretting over the mysteries of life and the universe and all that cosmic bullshit you can’t do nothing about?”

“I don’t know,” Silvio sighed, causing the smoke to flee from his lips. “I’m not sure I have the energy for this game any more.”

“You’ve got to play with the cards you’ve been given, man.” Dylan tapped the guitar neck, beating some secret Morse code to his muse. “Some days, you want to bet your life on just one hand. Go for it in a really big way. Other days, you’re afraid to look at your cards. There are nights when you just don’t trust the dealer. You spend all your time looking for the hidden mirrors.”

“Have you recently joined Gamblers Anonymous, Bob?”

“Everyone’s a gambler. Some play to win. Some play to lose. Some play just to pass the time on a rainy afternoon.”

“Tell me,” Silvio said, trying to shift the focus of the conversation away from him, “are you writing any new songs these days? Or do you just doodle aimlessly on the strings like today?”

“I’m always writing new songs.” An impish smile lit up Dylan’s face beneath the hood for a second. “Every time you have a conversation, you write a song. Every time you see someone on the street, you write a short story. It’s just that you don’t always get around to completing them. You throw all these ideas into a notebook and hope they’ll mate and produce something worth giving birth to.”

As Dylan tried to find the chords to “Seven Days” on his guitar, his hands indiscriminately trashing the strings, Silvio thought about Lucy’s smile. The way it shot through him every time he saw it. That warm buzz that he thought he could no longer feel.

“Lucy’s an interesting woman,” Silvio said, hoping to put a stop to Dylan’s slaughter of the guitar strings. “I imagine that in a previous life, she was a warrior goddess, or some mystic Egyptian princess.”

“Or maybe she was the wife of a Victorian chimney sweeper and she sold rotten fish down in the market.” Dylan gave up his search with a glare at the guitar fret, as if blaming it for not knowing where the chords were hidden. “That stuff doesn’t really matter, Silvio. We’re both like a bowl of fruit now. We’ve lived to a ripe old age. We’ve moved beyond all that nonsense.”

“I can sometimes see the flowers in her hair.” Silvio knew it sounded ridiculous, but he didn’t care. Dylan wouldn’t judge him. “They’re like a halo around her head.”

“Maybe it’s just dandruff. You know, sometimes the twinkle in someone’s eye is just a cataract.”

Dylan took off his sunglasses and rubbed his eyes. His eyes were indeed bluer than robin’s eyes. Today, however, they were bloodshot and tired. The weary eyes of a dying camel lost in the desert.