trail of sapphires

Dinner with Roman Patrizia in the Cafe Moka near Stephen's Green.
An evening of rare mystique and strange high drama.
"James," sez she, "I want to ask you something."
The lights were low.
Her tone was intimate.
I told her to ask anything she liked, and at this moment I actually meant it.
"I want you," she said, "to help me write a letter to Bono."
Well bold readers.
It was a classic of the genre.
A classic of the genre known as Patriziaism.
Only she could engineer a moment quite like it.
Not even Hoddlebun in her heyday, not even Hoddlebun with all her infernal instruments of big haired feminine manipulation, not even Hoddlebun in her glory I say, ever came up with such an exquisite torture.
So there in the middle of the cafe we drafted Patrizia's fan letter to Bono.
She described for me, in that parody of the English language she uses, the various egregiously excessive compliments she wished to pay the great wet blouse, and I translated them into the English of Shakespeare, Keats and Healy.
That is to say I translated her compliments for Bono into verily the most pure melodic poetic English possible.
No mean trick, considering the subject matter.
All this time my face was a mask.
Only my eyes might have told you all was not well.
For my eyes held a certain poignant sadness.
Each time she enumerated another aspect of Bono's greatness, the sadness in my eyes deepened ever so slightly.
How I wished she felt the same about me.
Towards the end of the evening I took her hand.
"Patrizzers old pal," quoth I, "someday I'm going to put this scene in a film."