But yesterday wasn’t my day. I got flagged down by a cop on the motorway near the railway station. I decided to wait until they’d all gone off duty after rush hour. I started out but the bike went a mile and stopped. I primed it again — there was plenty of petrol — and it stopped once more after 400 yards. In this manner I got half way home, then gave up. What to do? All I had was the 5d. I rang Kevin.

Kevin came out with my tools, which I’d left at his place when I started at the hospital, and we tried to fix the bike, but the battery wouldn’t turn the engine over, although the headlight shone brightly. I pushed it to a garage, where I handed it over to a mechanic. I borrowed some money from Kevin and came on to the hospital.

Kevin is often exasperating, but he’s a friend and a real friend. If you’re part of his tribe he’s very loyal. I’m sure he enjoyed helping me last night, and not from any egocentric motive, but from an impulsive generosity that I wish I shared.

He thinks a lot of me. He told Jackie I was a brother to him.

§

For reasons I can’t remember I suspected that Kevin had had a few run-ins with the justice system, and that it was his wife who’d put him on the right path in life, in which case she’d done a good job.

It turned out that he knew one of our patients.

§

Paddy

On my first day I wrote about a patient “rotten with alcohol and full of bitterness”. That was a bit tough, and I must have been talking about Paddy, who was discharged at his own request on Tuesday or Wednesday morning.

Last night he was plucked from the gutter and taken to Casualty with cuts and abrasions and in a profound alcoholic stupor. Where he is now I don’t know. Prison, perhaps, or back in the park where he regularly sleeps out.

§

A few days before he was discharged, there‘d been an article about Paddy in New Zealand Truth — “Paddy Pines for the Park”. The article, even tougher, said:

This aging master of vintage, this walking keeper of dead pubs’ hearts, has kept the rain off many a square yard of sidewalk asphalt.

There was little doubt in the minds of [the] legal fraternity that [Paddy] was the reluctant ruler of the Countless Convictions mob…

But 30 years of graduating from hops to whisky to meths haven’t helped the old boy’s reflexes, and a few months ago he was involved in a motor accident. And the sobered King of the Bums is now impatiently awaiting his discharge from hospital — waiting for his broken leg to heal.

At 74 last birthday these things take time.

“40 years ago I could’ve sat back and waited and been happy,” Paddy told the reporter. “Now I’m always in a hurry.”

“Listen mate,” he said, “I’ve used that Penny Dreadful of yours to cover my face in more parks than there’s cops down at the shop.”

§

What the article says about Paddy is fairly accurate so far as it goes, but much is missing.

He’s extremely religious. He’s the type of Roman Catholic who is a complete bigot about his religion without his bigotry making the slightest difference to the way he lives. Paddy sits and tells his beads often during the day. He stretches back in his geriatric chair, spreads the rug over himself, lifts one hand out of the blanket with the beads in his fingers, closes his eyes, and moves his lips quietly in prayer. If you disturb him, he opens his good eye and answers you, that’s all.

Then he reads his prayer book. He sits up, fixes the tray to his chair, sits round wire glasses on his nose and reads from the book, which is written in big print on very small pages.

§

When he’s not drunk or drying out, Paddy is remarkably patient and pleasant. His patience with the emotional and garrulous man in the next bed far exceeds mine. Most of the time he’s so polite to us it hurts.

I don’t know what he’s like drunk but he’s livid when drying out — or “when his skin is cracking” as Barry says. He moaned incessantly when he went through the process a few weeks ago. I got so annoyed I nagged back at him after a while and he threatened to do me over.

It turns out that Kevin has done time for burglary and receiving, and knew him in prison. Kevin says he’s a dirty fighter, and aims for the groin and will kick you while you’re down. Paddy was a little violent when he first came in, but soon became amiable, although he still managed to get in his share of scuffles. He liked prison. He did odd jobs, cleaned the drains, swept the yard like a professional, pocketed any butts that he found.

He’s also rather musically inclined. He limps down to the day room and chants his prayers with obvious enjoyment. He sings along with the radio, embroidering the melody with harmonies for a little variety. Apparently he was fairly talented.

§

A few days after the article in Truth was published, Paddy had his plaster off and immediately began pressuring us to get out. When he was found in the gutter and taken to Hospital, he kept muttering about us, and the Casualty team thought he must’ve run away from our hospital. Luckily, before shipping him back someone rang us. We promptly declined any responsibility for him.

On Friday morning, I think, he was brought up before the court, charged with being drunk and disorderly, convicted and discharged. He told the court he was living with his niece. His family refused to have him however. His family, by the way, is quite prominent, and his sister is a nun. Likewise, the Catholics washed their hands of him. So did the Salvation Army. Nobody could accuse them of failing to try.

But Paddy was without a home. What to do? On Monday morning he arrived back here and was put back in his old place. He’d hardly been gone. It only defers the problem to send him back here. He can’t stay forever.

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