Whether in song or in silence, Shane MacGowan exuded the very essence of life

Shane MacGowan and I sat in near silence for two hours last year. We were at his home, just outside Dublin. I’d been warned by his wife, the writer Victoria Mary Clarke, that he was depressed and anxious, not really in the mood to talk. But nothing could prepare me for this. He scoffed at my questions or snorted with contempt. He looked at Victoria despairingly when I asked about his mix of Englishness and Irishness. “God, these questions are fucking …” He decided the sentence wasn’t even worth finishing. I tried to talk about his most famous song, Fairytale of New York. “It pisses me off when people always talk about it,” he said in that famous mumbled slur. I asked if people were right to refer to him as a genius. “Probably, yeah,” he said. What made you a genius? “God! Fucking ridiculous question!” He had a point.

Sometimes he just laughed, like a snore. “Chhhhhhhhhhhhhh.” Throughout, he slurped his gin and tonic noisily from an oversized glass. Schhhhhhlrrrrp.

He’d not talked to a British newspaper for 10 years. Now I knew why. It was the slowest two hours of my life. And also, weirdly, the fastest. When I left, I phoned up my editor and said he hardly uttered a word. “Should we ditch the piece?” she asked. No, I need more space, I said. That’s the kind of man MacGowan was. He said more in his silences than most stars would say in a week-long, warts’n’all confession.

MacGowan, who has died aged 65, had always been difficult. He prided himself on his acidic truculence and fuck-you contradictions. But he also had a soul – boy, did he have a soul.

Shane MacGowan and Sinéad O’Connor in 1995. Photograph: Des Willie/Redferns

Like his great friend, Sinéad O’Connor, who we also lost this year, he seemed bent on self-destruction. They could have been siblings. He must have drunk the Liffey in Guinness over the years, and that was before he got on to the shorts. Then there was the heroin. His teeth told the story of his addictions: rotten stalactites and stalagmites he eventually replaced with a pair of pearlers that gave him a disarming smile, by turns sweet and satanic. Sinéad dobbed him in to the police when she feared he was killing himself with heroin. Victoria thanked her. Perhaps the surprise is that he lasted so long rather than that he died so young.

Like O’Connor, he was a poet. He adored language. As a schoolboy, his creative writing won him a scholarship at the prestigious public school Westminster. For a purple period of around five years in the 1980s, with his punk-folk band the Pogues, he wrote wonderful songs of yearning (A Pair of Brown Eyes), exile (Fairytale of New York), and protest (Streets of Sorrow/Birmingham Six). His lyrics referenced literature, music, Gaelic mythology and the Bible, and the best of them were gorgeous vignettes of street life.

He was both very English and very Irish, though his detractors called him a fake and said he exploited the drunken stereotype. Certainly, he changed his accent to embrace his Irishness. What he symbolised, and became a spokesperson for, was the Irishman in exile – or more specifically the “London Paddy”. But because it was MacGowan, there were also the unapologetic paradoxes to boot: the Irish nationalist and IRA supporter who wore a union jack jacket and wept when the Queen died.

When we met last April, it was to talk about his huge book of art that was coming out – 1,000 copies were to be published at £1,000 each. Victoria hoped it would provide enough cash for his care. Money was a real worry. But Shane didn’t want to talk about the book. Or anything else.

Shane MacGowan and wife Victoria Clarke. Photograph: Ellius Grace/The Guardian

“Shane, is there anything you’d like to talk about?” Victoria asked gently.

“Not really, no. Chhhhhhhhhhhhhh,” he replied with a snore-laugh.

“Shane, you’re looking at him as if he’s here to kill you or torture you, but he’s not,” she said. “He’s here ’cos he’s interested. And he’s trying his best. Come on – you’re not making it easy.” She was as talkative as he was taciturn.

MacGowan looked as if he’d not seen daylight for a decade or so. He had perfect skin, but it was ghoulishly sallow. He led me a merry/unmerry dance. It was a humiliating rejection. And yet for all his wilful silence, there was a twinkle in his eye. His terseness seemed more teasing than sadistic. Somehow, despite everything, he was likable. Very likable.

The mantelpiece was crammed with religious icons. Victoria said MacGowan didn’t see many people, but the priest popped round regularly, and he was very chatty. I asked MacGowan about his faith. It almost became a conversation. He said he’d lost it a few times, but never for long. He briefly became animated when I suggested that people thought he had a death wish. He was appalled at the idea. “Of course I like life,” he exploded passionately.

“That’s not always a given,” Victoria said.

“Well, I like life!” he said adamantly.

Eventually we called it quits. It had been a nightmare, but by now I kind of loved him

He wanted to live for as long as possible, he said. The only other time I witnessed that fervour was when he talked about Victoria. “She lights up my life,” he said.

Eventually we called it quits. It had been a nightmare, but by now I kind of loved him. Victoria asked if we’d like her to take our photo. “No thanks,” we said simultaneously. Both of us burst out laughing.

I told him that I’d like to say it had been a pleasure.

“Chhhhhhhhhhhhhh,” he snore-laughed.

Victoria gave me a T-shirt with his mug on the front. I thought I’d never wear it. But I do. I treasure it. She drove me back into Dublin. On the way out we came across one of their friends. He could see I looked battered. “Ah, you got the Shane treatment then,” he said knowingly.

The following night I got a call at around 11pm. It was Victoria. “I’ve got Shane here. He wants a word,” she said.

“It’s Shane,” he mumbled. “I wanted to ask you a question. I just wanted to know if you have faith.”

I told him that I have faith in people, not so much in a god. I thought that finally we were going to talk.

“What about you?” I said, though I already knew the answer.

“No, I just wanted to know about you,” he said. “God bless.” And the line went dead.