I talked to Bono's father about this side of the son he refuses to call Bono, and a real paternal pride began to crack through the hard surface

523

of the old Dub: "I remember one day distinctly saying to him, 'I hope you appreciate that this could be very transient. In six months you could be a has-been.' From what I know of the rock & roll and entertainment business, that's what happens. You're up today and gone tomorrow. He said to me, 'Dad, if we were to be gone tomorrow, I would accept it all. I'm quite prepared.'

"Now, whether he is or he isn't, I don't know. I think the last couple of years have been a change. I remember when they started off. ... I could give you an idea, I have a letter he wrote to me."

And with that, Bob Hewson went off to search for something he'd been saving since 1980. He rummaged around for a while and came back into his parlor with a handwritten letter of several pages in a yellow envelope. He sat back down in his chair and unfolded it with a care that, were he not such a gruff character, could almost be called sentimental.

"This is when they started off," he explained. "Very early. Might give you an insight. He doesn't even know I have this bloody letter. " 'Hello, Father . . .

" 'Just a letter to let you know your son is well and at least learned how to write at school. I started this letter in a hotel in Birmingham. ... It's a bit of a mess. It's hard to know why people would want to live in a place like this. Even the houses look like small biscuit tins. Anyway we're here, another stop on the motorway. I'm looking forward to tonight's concert as the tour goes on. The band are getting tighter and tighter. The nights at the Marquee are very successful. Each Mon­day the crowd gets bigger and bigger, a situation that hasn't occurred in the Marquee on a Monday night for a long time. We did three encores last week. The single sold a thousand copies and for the first time we are getting daytime radio play on Radio One. We have four deejays behind us now. It is only a matter of time. We did two radio sessions as well. That means we go to a BBC studio and did three songs for ra­dio. ....

" 'Paul McGuinness is in America at the moment planning our moves over there. We now have a rough schedule of what we're doing for the next year.' "

Bob laughed and said, "One of the dates here he says, 'November twelfth—Start the second leg of the Battle of Britain.' "

He flipped over to the next page and then read: " 'So as you can see, what was once a dream is now very real. But understand that underneath

524

the gloss there is a lot of hard work ahead, and I hope a lot of fun. I miss home, you, Alison Stewart, sausages, and even the occasional dis­agreement.

" 'You should be aware that at the moment three of the group are committed Christians. That means offering each day up to God, meet­ing in the morning for prayers, readings, and letting God work in our lives. This gives us our strength and a joy that does not depend on drink or drugs. This strength will, I believe, be the quality that will take us to the top of the music business. I hope our lives will be a testament to the people who follow us, and to the music business where never before have so many lost and sorrowful people gathered in one place pretending they're having a good time. It is our ambition to make more than good music.

" 'I know that you must find this a ludicrous ambition, but compared to the task of getting ourselves from where we were to where we are, the rest is easy.

" 'Being older and wiser I know you must find it hard to accept what I'm saying. But all God wants is a willing heart and for us to call out to Him. Being young and troublesome can be an advantage in that you start questioning things around you. The Bible says seek and ye shall find, knock and the door will be opened. As people grow older they can grow cynical. They stop asking questions. ....

" 'I don't think you have stopped asking questions. Neither do I expect you to believe I have all the answers. I haven't and I keep making mistakes. . . . But I am trying and God is great. Anyway, as you can see, I'm having a good time.' "

Bob Hewson stopped reading and carefully refolded the letter. "I haven't a date on that but it's a good many years ago," he said. "It's what I was talking about earlier; they had this thing where they were commit­ted Christians. They believed in what they were doing and they pre­sented this image, particularly, to the American public. And I think that, perhaps, has been lost in the transition between then and now. I believe it's a bad thing."

I told Bob that perhaps U2 had not lost their sense of God's plan for them. Nothing they've done has contradicted their early faith, though they may have become less obvious in professing it, and yeah, even walked a long way into the shadows to see if they could find their way back to the light.

525

Bob shrugged. "You mentioned God's plan," he said. "There's some­thing I'd forgotten that my sister-in-law reminded me of recently. Years ago, before either of the boys were born, my wife and I went down to Sligo for a week. She went to a fortune-teller and the fortune-teller told my wife that she would have two children and one of them would have the initial P and he would be famous in whatever life he took up. Isn't that extraordinary? I'd forgotten about this for years and my sister-in-law reminded me of it a few months ago."

I said that maybe Bono's mother remembered and gave Paul a little extra encouragement. Bob thought that was baloney. "Nah," he snorted. "that would be pushing it a bit. In fact, one of my regrets is that she never lived to see this. But maybe she's still looking down at him." He shrugged. "We don't know."

He sat and looked out his window at the silver Irish sea. I figured it was time for me to hit the road. Then Bob said, "I remember when he was about three, only a toddler. He was out in the back garden. He went over to a flower with a bee. He put out his finger, lifted the bee up, talked to the bee, and put it back again. He probably doesn't remember it, I don't think I ever mentioned it, but I can remember to this day the horror of my wife and myself. He could go from flower to flower picking up bees and never get stung."

Bono's father looked off, as if he were watching his exasperating child in the garden again, and he said, "Amazing, isn't it?"

Acknowledgments

Ellen Darst brought me into U2's world in 1980 and worked at keeping me there forever after. Thank you, Ellen. Special thanks also to everyone who made me feel at home on the road: the sultry Sheila Roche, the lovely Suzanne Doyle, dependable Dallas Schoo, unflappable Regine Moylett, steady Dennis Sheehan, balanced Joe O'Herlihy, Soulful Willie Williams, Fightin' Fintan Fitzgerald, Mysterious Morleigh Steinberg, and the Rosencrantz and Guildenstern of Windmill Lane—Ned O'Hanlon and Maurice Linnane.

Thanks also to those night owls Ossie Kilkenny, Eilenn Long, Bret and Theresa Alexander, Bill Carter, Nassim Khalifa, Helen Campbell, lan Flooks, Anton Corbijn, Sharon Blankson, Tim Buckley, Kerry Anne Quinn, Bob Koch, Laura Jean Ferentz, Paul Oakenfold, Des Broadbery, and the security squad—Jerry Mele, Eric Hausch, David Guyer, Darrel Ives, Tim Ross, and L. Scott Nichols.

In Dublin—thanks for the help and hospitality to Garvin and Gwenda Evans, Dick Evans, Ali Hewson, Bob Hewson, Sebastian Clayton, Mr. & Mrs. Gavin Friday, Flood, Brian Eno, Willie Mannion, B. P. Fallon, Derek Rowan (Guggi), Fachtna O'Ceallaigh, Jim Sheridan, Sinead O'Connor, Paul Barrett, Lindsey Sheehan, Candida Bottaci, Sandra Long, Barbara Galavan, and everyone at Principle. A special genuflection in the direction of Anne-Louise Kelly, without whom none of this would be possible and I'm sure she often wished it weren't.

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