Dublin 1

March 7, 2020

Pudding Lane Apartment, West Essex Street, Dublin. My windows look directly into the windows of the Gaiety Acting School and further down onto West Essex. Across the street used to be a table where I wrote The Beautiful Johanna one happy Irish summer. The flight was mostly sleep, but the wait in the airport until I could pick up the key to the room was long and weirdly eventful. I fell asleep. A man woke me by tapping my shoulder. He said, “Don’t you remember me?” I did not. “Martin,” he said. “I work with Steve.” I guessed it was SS, and he said it was, that he was the lighting guy for the theater. I wondered briefly why I had no recollection of this. He asked where I was staying, and when he told him, he knew the individual Markhams of Ennis by name. He said he had lost his bank card and was in desperate straits for the moment, so I got 200 euro out for him. Thinking back, I wonder if I fed him information the way a really good con-man can make you do, and I handed money to a complete stranger. I did supply details where he was vague, setting the hook set more firmly in my mouth Oddly, the first time I tried to get the money the ETM turned me down, and took my card. I tried calling the bank to complain and get my card back, but it was Saturday and nobody answered. But when I looked in my wallet later, there the card was. It was very strange. I blamed my thin blood. SS answers that he knows no such person. I am conned every time I come to Ireland—usually by sexy street boys—but this, I think, was the big score. How did he manage to pick me out of the crowd? I’d say “live and learn,” but I don’t really seem to learn. I am so anxious for a chance meeting to be a real miracle. Anyway, S Markham looks beautiful, as ever, and far happier than the last time I saw him. He spent two years in Australia without my knowing he was gone. The books I sent him sit here in the guest room bookshelf.  I’m waiting for Ireland to kick in. Right now I feel the same as I would this hour in my house, except this is infinitely less comfortable.            

            

Saw a play at Project Arts, The Spider’s House, a creepy thriller with some flaws but much to admire, especially the dedication of the actors. Thrilling at points, but I always think it’s cutting too many corners to postulate madness at the outset.