Only We Know Read Free Page B

international standing, in terms of
     international aid, we have never turned our backs on those whose need is greater than
     ours. Generations of Irish people have given to help the poor of other countries – from
     the Trocaire boxes during Lent, to Live Aid, and well before that. When it comes to
     putting our hands in our pockets to help our fellow man, this country has not been foundwanting. But now the storm clouds have
     gathered, and the bogeymen are here, the IMF, the Troika, and all we talk about is
     austerity, budget cuts, mortgage arrears, job losses. Fear has taken hold of Ireland.
     All around me I see people turning in on themselves. And the worst thing about the fear
     is what it does to us as a nation. It makes us insular. We no longer look out, we seek
     to protect ourselves, batten down the hatches and hold on to what we’ve got. To
     hell with everyone else. The fear extinguishes our generosity, it suppresses our
     collective conscience, it makes us hard, mean and grasping and that, to my mind, is not
     who we are. That is not who the Irish are.’
    On and on he went. The host and some of the
     others on the panel interjected with talk of job losses and creeping poverty, but Luke
     would not be silenced.
    ‘Jaysus, he’s getting a bit
     worked up,’ someone said.
    And it was true. I could see the colour
     rising in his face as he leaned forward in the seat, barely able to contain himself.
     Where had it come from, his passion, his social conscience? Like those around me,
     I’d had no inkling he held such strong principles or beliefs. As I watched, I
     noticed something else. Everyone had fallen silent. The whole pub was watching: pints
     were left untouched, each drinker’s attention arrested by the man on the screen,
     with his smart suit and his media-friendly features, pounding the table and berating us
     for our failings, urging us not to allow this depression to change our fundamental
     values, not to allow our human decency to crack under the strain. The studio audience
     had fallen silent, too, and I had a sudden flash of memory: Luke as a boy, waist deep in
     the river, vines hanging down from the trees overhead. I felt it thenas I watched him up there on the screen – the tightening
     about my throat – which was strange, because we hardly knew each other now, not
     really.
    He finished what he was saying and there was
     a pause. Into the brief silence, a man at the bar raised his pint to the telly.
     ‘Hear, hear.’ As the studio audience broke into applause, people around me
     raised their glasses, nodding, and for the rest of the night, it was all anyone could
     talk about.
    The next day, the airwaves were clogged with
     news of Luke and his
Late Late Show
performance. The papers were full of it.
     Unlike some stories that have a brief moment, then fade from the public consciousness,
     this one seemed to stick. It was no surprise when word came down from the
     editor-in-chief that someone had to write a profile of Luke for the paper. I just
     hadn’t realized the job would fall to me.
    I finish my drink, pick up my bag and go out
     into the afternoon sun. The rain has cleared and I have the half-formed intention of
     taking a walk along the canal, knowing that the fresh air and exercise will help clear
     my thoughts. Instead I sit at a picnic table outside the Barge and email the office,
     telling them I’ve gone home, sick. After that I switch off my phone and spend the
     afternoon sipping Coronas and eavesdropping on the conversation at the next table, until
     the shadows start to lengthen and the air grows chilly. Reggae drifts down from an open
     window nearby, with traffic noise rising from the streets beyond.
    This time yesterday I was applying make-up
     and pinning up my hair, a red dress laid out on the bed, with an evening bag containing
     my invitation. A fund-raiser at theMorrison.
     Not something I desperately wanted to go to, but Luke would be there, with some others