After Iona Road..

I had a call tonight from Mick. He's a rare old friend of mine, a boy I grew up with that I see only once or twice a year.

He was raised on Iona Road and we became known to each other through some other pals of mine who went to school with him.

I never considered us close.

He was a very straightforward, GAA-playing sort of a fella. He held no truck with shades of grey. "Lads, we need a plan of action, and we need to stick to it!" he'd say. And he thirteen. And I just wanting to pick my nose and ruminate on the mystery of breasts. And...

As we got older we got to more separate worlds. College and summers spent abroad placed an even greater distance between us, to the point where I felt I barely knew him as our mid-twenties gave way to the threat of our thirties.

He got married last September to Fiona and the wedding passed off well. I was in Spain at the time so I couldn't attend. I texted a message to be read out with the telegrams - something about a teapot - and thought little more of it.

In January we were in the Gravediggers raising pints to Ronan, another wedding in the offing, when Mick showed up.

He sat beside me and told me that he really wished we'd met up more often, he recounted a number of episodes from our childhood/adolescence that I'd long since forgotten, he told me that that 'telegram' meant an awful lot to him and he said that he'd be in to me for tea and biscuits and the chat we'd been threatening to have since we were 12.

I left that night telling myself I'd make more time for him in my life, I really was touched by the fact that he had secreted away artifacts from our childhood that had barely made an impression on me but I never called him. I missed another couple of nights out since.

Last week I got a text saying Fiona had given birth to baby Sean and Mick had become the first of my childhood friends to have a kid himself.

The next morning I wrote back a generic congratulatory text and thought nothing more of it until tonight when I took a call from him, exhausted, saying he was only now getting around to phoning his mates in response to their messages.

I told him I'd phone him for a pint as soon as I got back to Dublin.

He gave a half laugh, a knowing at my line, before saying it was good to talk and he'd catch me soon.

I felt...

1) Like a complete cock, again, and...

2) That you never know the affect you have on someone. You just never do.