Free Wandering in Exile by Peter Murphy

just made mad, passionate love to you and what do you do? You almost vomit on her.
    “Danny. Open the door. I’m getting worried.”
    Danny checked himself in the mirror again. He was still white but he wasn’t so clammy anymore. He rinsed with mouthwash and put on some more deodorant and reached for the door.
    Jazus, Boyle. Ya smell great. You smell like a bunch of roses that someone got sick on.
    “Fuck you.”
    “Danny. Did you say something?”
    He didn’t answer but fumbled with the handle and slowly opened the door as Anto disappeared.
    “Are you all right?” Billie’s voice was edged with concern and she reached out and took his hand in hers.
    “I’m fine now.”
    “You’re white as a ghost and you’re shivering.”
    She led him back to bed and covered him with her warm body and pulled the covers around them. She laid her head across his chest and touched his skin with her fingers. “Your heart is racing.”
    “I’m fine, so don’t be worrying. It must have been something I ate.”
    “Danny?” she rolled away and sat up, holding the bedcovers against her. “You’d tell me if there was something wrong?”
    She looked so concerned he was mad at himself for not being able to hack it. He felt like a lightweight. She had matched him drink for drink. And she toked up too. She must think he was a real bummer.
    “I told you. I’m fine. I just felt a bit sick but I’m fine now.”
    He tried reaching for her but she moved back. “Not now, Danny. Go to sleep.”
    “I just want to know that you are here beside me, that’s all.”
    She moved closer, but after he fell asleep, she moved back to the edge of the bed.
*
*
*
    Still, she knew she was beginning to fall in love with him. It started the night he was on stage at the Irish Centre, when she had been dragged along for moral support. He looked so lost and alone she wanted to reach out and put her arms around him. She never told him that. He liked to act all tough—like nothing really got to him—but she was beginning to notice things.
    It wasn’t just his shyness. There were things he just never spoke of. He didn’t mention Deirdre anymore. It was like she had been erased. And he never told her why he left Ireland even though he had often talked about growing up there and finding out that all he once believed had been lies. He didn’t complain about it, though. He made it all seem so matter of fact, like he was grown-up enough to know that everyone fucks up. Even his granny.
    Billie wanted to know more and always encouraged him to talk about himself.
*
**
*
    “But I don’t want to bore you with all my shite,” he’d argue.
    “You’re just like my father. All you Irish are the same. You’re all bound up so tight. Nothing can ever penetrate. Even Freud said you were all impervious to psychoanalysis.”
    “You say that like it’s a bad thing.”
    “Isn’t it?”
    “We don’t need a doctor to tell us we’re fucked in the head; we’ve got clergy who’ll do it for free.”
    “But you say you don’t believe in them.”
    “I also don’t believe there is such a thing as well-balanced or well-adjusted. It’s all shite. Do you really think we’re supposed to be tuned like radios every time what passes for reality changes?”
    “So you think we should all run around mad?”
    “We do anyway. That’s why the Irish drink so much. We’re the only ones who know how mad we really are. That’s why we make such good poets and all.”
    “God’s gift to humanity?”
    He laughed at that and tried to hide behind self-effacement but she was beginning to know him better than that—big and bruised, shy and awkward.
    “Well I wouldn’t go that far. I’m just saying that we know what’s really going on—just like the blacks. That’s given me an idea for a song, the ‘Growing up in Dublin blues.’ And in my first album notes, I’ll mention that it came to me while I was talking to you. You’ll be famous, too.”
    She couldn’t help