At Cobh Port a final clutch. A wild-eyed terrified cheerio over the canvas tensa-barrier. SECO. Ordinarily a terse gruff man. Little truck with humanity and only a bark for his battalion of Gherkins. I signed off earlier that day with the crew box-office. Relinquished my Bit Of Plastic. My badgengun. Twelve Years. Like Starskey & Hutch, that episode where they throw their badges into the sea. Seco was the sort of man who was disinterested in everything, disinclined towards anything. Ex-copper. Missed nothing. He produced my laminex from his crisp pressed top pocket. With a look gravely gave me it. He knew it was the last time. He had guessed it would be just me and him on that black Queenstown jetty at midnight. He had put it in his crisp pressed pocket for me. As Artemis started her engines and I turned myself towards a bleak hotel room I relied upon that strange and lovely kindness to propell me up the quay.
Kindness of Strangeness
