1998 - Round Ireland with a fridge (30 page)

When I arrived at the ‘hub’, someone must have dismantled the neon lights and advertising hoardings and sent the hordes of partying jetsetters home, because all was quiet. There were two pubs and absolutely nothing else. Both of them were empty. I took a drink in one and was eventually joined by an Englishman who told me that he brought his family to the island every year for the walks and the birdwatching. Tonight he’d left them indoors so that he could taste some of the crazy nightiife alone.

‘Have you played tennis on that tennis court?’ I asked.

‘Oh, don’t talk to me about tennis,’ he complained, ‘my kids have been dying to have a game ever since we got here, but they can’t’

‘Why not?’

‘There aren’t any tennis balls on the island.’

‘You’re joking.’

‘I’m not. Not one. The shop’s run out and the guy who was supposed to bring some out from the mainland forgot’

Island life encapsulated.

On the walk home the sky was clearer than any sky I had ever seen before. The stars twinkled like teeth in a glitzy TV toothpaste ad, and the Fastnet lighthouse lit up the island every six seconds almost as if it was strobe lighting slowed down to match the pace of life here. On reaching Eleanor’s, I looked out to the horizon and conceded to myself that this was a unique place indeed. It wasn’t for me though, and I would be leaving on the nine o’clock boat in the morning. For some, this isolated tranquillity would be a boon but I had learned that although I enjoyed peace and quiet, I liked to have access to an alternative. Call me whacky, but I needed to be someplace where you could get tennis balls when you wanted them.

§

Unexpectedly, I travelled to Cork by taxi. I met an English couple who had been on the island to attend the first protestant wedding there for over one hundred years. They had viewed me with some amusement as I had lifted my fridge on to the ferry, and after some initial English reticence they informed me that they had booked a taxi to take them and their elderly aunt to Cork airport, and if I wanted to squeeze in I was more than welcome. It was a tight fit and the taxi driver was a mite unsure of what to make of a man who had taken a fridge to a wedding. He said nothing, partly because his hands were more than full with the slightly eccentric aunt who kept him busy chatting in the front.

‘This road is very tidy,’ she said pointing ahead of her.

The taxi driver nodded non committally, a response he was to rely on more and more as the journey progressed.

‘Did you enjoy the wedding?’ the aunt asked me.

‘I didn’t go, I wasn’t a guest, I’m just travelling around the country.’

‘Oh. How lovely. What you should do is go to Seattle, and then head up the coast from there.’

She appeared to think we were on the west coast of America. I thanked her and said that I’d give it some thought after I’d reached Dublin.

After I’d spilled out of the taxi in front of the City Hall in Cork and waved it goodbye, I looked with some satisfaction at the considerable traffic and substantial buildings around me. It had been some time since I had been anywhere with this much vitality. Although it didn’t strike me as being a particularly beautiful city, nonetheless I had a good feeling about it I was just considering my next course of action when I was approached by a middle-aged Scot.

‘You must be Tony, and that must be your fridge,’ he said forthrightly.

‘It is and I am. I mean, I am and it is.’

I was making no sense, but he didn’t mind. He had been following my progress on the radio and kept insisting how wonderful an idea it had been to travel with a fridge. Then, two minutes into our acquaintance, came the offer.

‘K you’ve no sorted anywhere to stay, ye can come and stop with me and me wife Sheila. Well sort ye out, give ye a chance to clean up, do your washing and all the rest of it’

‘That’s very kind…er—’

‘Dave. The name’s Dave Stewart.’

‘Thanks, Dave. It’s just that I haven’t made any plans just yet I thought I might head to a pub called Westimers.’

‘Oh aye. Do you know someone there?’

‘Not really, it’s just that on the first morning I spoke to Gerry Ryan, they called in and said if I ever came to Cork, they’d throw a fridge party for me.’

‘Oh aye. I heard that Good idea.’

Dave gave me directions to Westimers and wrote out his address and phone number should I want to take him up on his kind offer. I crossed the road and a student came rushing out from inside a pub demanding to sign the fridge. I had re-entered the world of the ‘splendidly off kilter’, and I liked it.

At Westimers there was much surprise that I had responded to an offer which had been made nearly three weeks previously.

‘Eric will be sick that he’s missed you,’ said Alan the barman.

Eric, the boss and original instigator of the offer, was away on a fishing trip in County Mayo and couldn’t be contacted. Still no matter, that was no reason for the rest of the staff not to make a fuss of me, and I was given drinks and the now standard free lunch. The decor of the pub explained its rather odd name, Westimers. The Wild West was its theme and the walls were adorned with saddles, stetsons and gun wielding cowboys. Perhaps it was his love of the American West that had originally caused Eric to take
my
pioneering quest to heart.

I had just begun talking with a lunching businessman at the bar about how I was considering making a trip down to Kinsale, when Alan interrupted, ‘Tony, there’s a phonecall for you.’

This was weird. No one knew I was here. Correction, one person did.

‘Hello Tony, it’s Dave here. You know, Dave you just met on the pavement Now stay where you are, I’ve been on to my mate who is the features editor at the
Evening Echo
. Don’t go anywhere because they’re sending a reporter down to meet you.’ Things moved fast in Cork.

One newspaper interview later, I returned to my pint and was soon approached by a young man who told me he could take me to Kinsale in quarter of an hour. Things moved fast in Cork.

Everyone in Westimers thought it was a good idea if I used Cork as a base for a few days’ sightseeing, not least because that meant if Eric phoned they could tell him of my arrival and see if he waited to go ahead with the fridge party. There was much amusement amongst the staff as they watched me pack my fridge as an overnight bag, a role that hadn’t been asked of it since my jaunt to Tory Island.

Okay, the quarter of an hour was closer to an hour, but just as he had said he would, Barry was soon transporting me to my next destination. It was somehow in keeping with the vein of my trip that he should turn out to be a sales rep for Caffreys, and that his first call at the Hole In The Wall pub in Kinsale necessitated my drinking complimentary pints whilst he went about his business. The fridge and beer had developed a truly symbiotic relationship, and together they were unstoppable. Things happened.

A canvassing Labour politician marched past the pub garden with his entourage, and spotted me and the fridge holding court with a number of intrigued fellow drinkers. He obviously felt the notoriety that this fridge had gained in his country meant that being photographed alongside it could genuinely enhance his chances of election. His aides hastily organised a photoshoot, and suddenly there was Michael Calnan with his arm around me, beaming unnaturally and toasting the fridge with a pint of Caffreys, supplied by the equally opportunistic Barry. Kieran, the owner of the pub, was just attempting to usher all of us round to the left so that the name of his pub formed the backdrop, when Barry noticed that a traffic warden was putting a parking ticket on his car. There then followed an extraordinary scene in which Barry attempted to get the ticket rescinded, for which he produced in his defence, a Labour politi-, cian and a man pulling a fridge behind him. Against such formidable opposition, the meter maid put up a sterling effort at insisting that the ticket should stand, but when the chorus of drinkers in the pub garden chimed in with a chant of ‘Let him off, let him off, he’s driving the man with the fridge!’ she finally capitulated. There was no doubting that the politician had borne little influence, and that it had been the fridge which had swayed things. You’ve heard of ‘People Power’, well now please welcome ‘Fridge Power’. Already it had got someone off a parking ticket—there was no knowing what meritorious cause of downtrodden citizen against oppressive State it would embrace next.

When the fridge and I returned from our political struggle, we learned that Kieran hadn’t been idle. He had organised a boat trip, for the next morning around Kinsale’s harbour, and complimentary accommodation at the White House Hotel opposite. Barry then went about arranging me a free bar meal with another Caffrey’s customer, a restaurant just around the corner called the Blue Haven.

Honestly, what a day! I hadn’t been able to put a foot wrong since I had stepped on the ferry at Cape Clear Island. It was as if a spell had been cast in which I could have anything I wanted. It was just a shame the magic had worn off by the time I made my clumsy and slurred advances towards Brenda, the Blue Haven’s waitress. Her haven, whatever colour it was, remained firmly off limits.

Fridge Party

P
at Collins’ little fishing boat did us proud. I wondered what instructions Kieran had given to Pat the previous night because he quite happily gave up an hour and a half of his morning, and entirely without motive he was taking a man and his fridge on a tour of the harbour, indicating any points of interest. He helped me on and off the boat with the fridge, and even posed for a photograph with his arm round it, but saw no reason in wasting any time enquiring as to what the hell I was doing with the bloody thing. I suppose he felt that those were questions for a younger man to ask.

As we headed out to sea along the estuary of the Bandon River we passed Charles Fort on our port side. This star-shaped bastion fort was built by the British in the seventeenth century to protect Kinsale harbour from naval attack. However, William of Orange had the bright idea of attacking it by land and took it rather easily, with all its defenders looking out to sea. The Japanese had done something similar to the British at Singapore in the second world war. Simply not cricket At the mouth of the estuary, Pat pointed out the spot where a German submarine torpedoed and sank
The Lusitania
. Also not cricket. History seemed to demonstrate a tremendous unwillingness by people to play by the rules. Still, as long as the great Umpire in the sky was taking note…

The sea out here was decidedly more choppy, and our small vessel began rocking and rolling like someone’s Dad at a wedding. From the helm Pat turned around and gestured behind us, ‘You want to watch that fridge,’ he said.

I smiled, delighted by Pat’s concern, and the gentle absurdity of his words. ‘
Youwant to watch that fridge
.’ It was almost as if the fridge had a reputation for profligacy and philandering. God forbid. It hadn’t even been plugged in.

§

Kieran was a thick-set man in his thirties with an admirable desire to help me out When I got back from the harbour tour he had organised for me, he said he’d drive me back to Cork. On the way, we called at the ‘Moving Statue of Ballinspittle’, a grotto with a large statue of the Virgin Mary, so called because thousands of people claimed to have seen it move. But hang on a minute, Kieran knew exactly where the statue was, and without hesitation drove us straight there. Surely if the Moving Statue lived up to its name, no one would be entirely sure where it was going to be. Wouldn’t enquiries have to be made? Didn’t the local radio station have the latest ‘Moving Statue news’?

‘The Statue was last seen outside a supermarket in Bandon and was rumoured to be heading towards Clonakilty. We’ll be bringing you more Moving Statue news later—now, on with the Death Notices—Rory O’Brien was tragically taken from us when a statue moved in front of his motorcycle on the R600…’

§

Back in Cork I bought a newspaper and discovered that I had made the front page of
The Cork Evening Echo
, just alongside a Welsh groom who had finished his stag night in hospital after falling through the glass in a greenhouse. Evidently yesterday hadn’t been a particularly newsworthy day. Never mind, I was the beneficiary, because there it was—a full-page picture of me and Saiorse, just beneath the headline;

HERE’S A COOL IDEA!

There followed a pun-packed article which continued on page three, where there were a further two photographs. Evidently yesterday had been a spectacularly un-newsworthy day. In Cork I was big news. I had made the front page of the
Evening Echo
, without even having to fall through any greenhouses.

I checked into a hotel which Westimers had booked for me. Apart from the lift being out of action, the bathroom door having no handle, the shower curtain falling down, the window not opening, and the phone providing no outside line, it was just fine. Eric had authorised its booking, having phoned in from his fishing trip and learned that I was in town. He was cutting his fishing trip short especially so that the Fridge Party could be scheduled for the following night. I still had no idea what this party would involve. Whenever I broached the subject, those that I asked shrugged stylishly.

Eric and his wife Caroline were unable to throw any light on the matter when I met them for a drink that evening.

‘We’ll just see what happens,’ said Eric.

Eric explained that he had called into
The Gerry Ryan Show
on that first day as something of a joke because he had been having some problems with the guys who did the refrigeration in his pub and the suggestion of a fridge party was a way of winding them up.

‘So the joke’s backfired on you now I’m here,’ I said.

‘Not at all. We’ll have a great night.’

It was decided that I should make tomorrow a tourist day, and Eric promised to take me and the fridge to kiss the Blarney Stone. This, as legend would have it, would confer on us a magical eloquence, an area in which for at least one of us there was room for improvement. Most of the Irish I had met needed little assistance in this regard. For myself, I was looking forward to being asked how I had found the whole Blarney Stone experience: ‘It was so moving, I was lost for words,’ was going to be my witty reply.