The Art of Breathing Underwater

Chapter 22

The next time I saw Robbie, he had changed. Not full 360-degree change, like Keith. But, there were subtle differences in his appearance. Gone was the ubiquitous leather jacket, replaced by a natty cardigan. Unlike the type my Granddad used to wear, this was more in keeping with what Kurt Cobain wore on MTV unplugged. With him being a Nirvana fan, I suspect that's where he gleaned the inspiration.

He wore the knitted cardy unbuttoned, revealing a black tee bearing the legend Dun Kno in large white lettering. Robbie explained it was Jamaican patios, meaning, I know.

A red, green, and yellow striped crochet beanie hat adorned his head, pulled down over his forehead. Around his neck hung an expensive-looking Japanese camera, the type a professional photographer might own. When I asked him about it, he said, it had a sigma autofocus seventy-millimetre lens. As he ran through its other features, all I could think of was that sigma sounded like the name of the frat house in a teen-comedy I'd seen.

We meandered through the city centre, Robbie stopping to snap off a shot at something that caught his eye. Graffiti on a wall. An overhead train bridge. A decrepit building. I passed these structures every day. But I had never really seen them. I guess you need an artist's vision to appreciate the world around you. I'd always been more interested in its inhabitants and their stories. After a while, I lost interest and patience.

It took us almost an hour to make the fifteen-minute walk to Grafton street. I entered the newly opened designer-fashion shop with one objective in mind; Find what I wanted, and get out. Don't get sucked in by the futuristic décor, the Cardigans CD pumping from the speakers, or the pleasant ambient scent, all designed to connect with the shopper on an emotional level, enticing you to linger longer.

I approached a pretty sales assistant with cherry-red lipstick and a genial smile. I knew what I wanted; a pair of white cotton drawstring pants. Similar to the ones David Beckham wore in a celebrity magazine shoot. She said they had some in stock and led me across the floor. Robbie trudged behind us wearing a face like a hippie trapped in the seventh lair of commercial hell.

Our amiable assistant failed to mention that the stock in question was tailored for her gender. Despite her blushing assurances that the pants were uni-sex, the size/label on the waistband begged to differ. I cocked an eyebrow.

"Trust me, it's not an issue, nobody cares anymore," she said, before adding with a wink, "besides, if you don't tell anyone, who's to know."

I left the store clutching my purchase with slight regret. Eighty euros seemed a scandalous amount of money to squander on one item of clothing.

As we crossed the O'Connell bridge, the store's signature scent implanted in my mind, I spotted a man I saw regularly. Sat on a damp piece of brown cardboard, head and torso rocking back and forth, he rubbed his bare blueberry feet. Had his limbs become that colour as a result of illness? Or prolonged exposure to the elements? On the odd occasion, I had deposited change in the styrofoam cup by his mottled toes; I had never asked.

A sudden sense of shame slithered over me. I reached into my pocket and took out the remaining ten-euro note and handed it to the man as we passed.

His unshaven face creased into a smile, and he thanked me for my kindness. I nodded back, embarrassed. The charitable act wasn't borne from benevolence, so much as to assuage my guilt. As I walked away, I thought to myself, 'we both gained from the deal, so I suppose it's okay.' That failed to ease my conscience. He looked about five years older than me. I wondered what his story was, even though I knew I'd never ask.

A group of girls of a similar age stopped to talk to Robbie. They recognised him from TV and circled him, quizzing him at length, in a manner a Hollywood reporter would have been proud of. Scratching compulsively under his beanie, he answered their barrage of questions in a quiet voice. Behind us, the homeless man continued his oscillations, jabbering to himself. Visible but invisible.