1998 - Round Ireland with a fridge (38 page)

‘Tony,’ announced Brenda formally, ‘Ireland now pronounces you its Fridge Man.’

The crowd cheered, the music from
Ben Hur
reached its crescendo, and I bowed before Brenda like a victorious Olympic athlete as she placed the mayoral ribbon around my neck. I looked out at the unlikely scene before me and waved to the smiling and laughing onlookers with genuine affection and gratitude.

To my surprise, a tear was rolling down one cheek.

For Sale: Fridge, One Careful Owner

I
t was a case of the Emperor’s new clothes. Once the radio broadcast was over, so too was the fantasy which had sustained it. All of a sudden the Fridge Man felt rather ordinary. The feeling of triumph had disappeared into the ether as quickly as the airwaves. It had all been great fun, a bit of a laugh all right, but it had all been a bit silly and now the silliness was over. The crowd dispersed almost immediately. People had meetings to attend, jobs to go back to, or children to collect from school. No one could afford the time that had been granted to me on the rest of my travels. City life didn’t permit such obeisance to whimsy.

The finale might have been fakery, but everything which had preceded it had not For me this was real. The journey may not have changed the lives of the people of Ireland, but it had changed mine. I was a different, a better person. I had made discoveries, learned some important lessons. From this day forth I was going to stop for hitch-hikers, laugh along with happy drunks in pubs, and respect the right of the bad guitarist to play along with the rest I had learned tolerance, I had learned that you could trust in your fellow man for help, and I had learned a new and pleasurable way of acquiring splinters.

§

Of course, in an ideal world
The Gerry Ryan Show
would have been an evening radio show and we would have had the night ahead of us to keep on partying. But it wasn’t. It finished at twelve, midday.

‘Are you up for a quick drink?’ asked Brenda.

Was I up for a quick drink? I was up for twenty-four hours of non-stop parrying.

‘Yes, that would be nice.’

‘Just give John and me ten minutes to sort a few things out and well be right with you.’

‘Right.’

I stood there feeling lost. I felt lonely too. I had spent a month travelling on my own and I hadn’t once felt lonely until now. I wanted my new Mends to be with me. I wanted to see Andy and his family from Bunbeg. I wanted to see Geraldine, Niamh, Brendan and all the gang from Matt Molloys. I wanted to see Bingo with his surfboard, Tony from Ennistymon with his accordion, the Mother Superior, Brian and Joe the hardwood flooring boys, and my friends from Cork and Wexford. I wanted to hug them all. I wanted to see someone who had been touched in the same way as I had by this fanciful and fantastic experience. Someone who
understood
.

There was such a person here.

‘Tony? How the hell are you?’ said a woman’s voice.

It was Antoinette, from the the
Live At Three
TV interview I had done in the first week.

‘Antoinette! I’m just fine, how are you?’

And I gave her just the biggest hug. It was my hug for everybody, but poor Antoinette had to endure it Rather shaken, she freed herself and introduced me to Kara, who had kindly organised the mobile phone for me.

‘We heard you on the radio,’ said Antoinette, ‘and it sounded so amazing, we just had to leave work and come down here.’

‘You should have come on the march. Why didn’t you come on the march?’

‘What, and make eejits of ourselves? Not likely—we leave that stuff to you.’

The difference between their jobs and mine, summed up rather neatly.

‘I’m going for a drink now,’ I said, ‘with Brenda and John, will you join us?’

‘We’d love to. Are you all right, you look a little confused.’

‘I am a bit. It all feels so odd—it having finished. Such an anti-climax. I think I might go to pieces.’

‘Oh, I’m sure you’ll be fine.’

The journey may have been over, but one consistent theme endured. Someone being there to save the day. This time it was to be Antoinette and Kara. As the low-key celebration drink drew to a close Antoinette turned to me.

‘What are you going to do now?’

‘In all honesty, I haven’t got a clue.’

‘Why don’t you come with us?’ said Kara. ‘Mary from the office is leaving and we’re going to her leaving lunch.’

‘I’d love to, but I can’t just crash it.’

‘You can and you will.’

§

It had been an odd way of celebrating my achievement, crashing someone else’s do, but it had served the purpose and taken my mind off the fact that it was all over. After the meal had finished I took a cab to Rory’s, the bed and breakfast where I had stayed when I had first arrived, thus giving my journey a nice symmetry.

There seemed to be traffic everywhere. Everything seemed to be happening quickly and lots of people seemed to be doing it. It was a shock after the calm of rural Ireland. In those quiet backwaters I had discovered a direct correlation between the pace of life and the amount of time it took a barman to serve you with a pint of stout It was most endearing because although it might take the barman an age to spot you, serve you, fill the pint glass three-quarters full and then wait an age for the head to settle; when you were passed that pint, it came with an introduction into their conversations, and into their lives. That probably existed here in Dublin too if you were in tune with things, but I wasn’t ready to readjust, I was so unsettled by the sheer volume of people. If Dublin was a shock, how was I going to feel when I hit London?

In the cab I changed my mind about staying on. Formerly, I had planned on remaining in Dublin for a few days, taking a look around and generally wallowing in the glory. However, now it didn’t seem right, partly because the job I had come to do felt like it had been done, and partly because there wasn’t sufficient glory for satisfactory wallowing. Wouldn’t it be better to go home, recharge the old batteries, and come back to look up old friends refreshed and reinvigorated? That was decided then, I would sort out a flight in the morning and head off in the late afternoon.

One question remained. What was I going to do with the fridge? Again I had another rethink. My first idea had been to try and sell it I was amused by the idea of taking out an ad in the local paper:

FOR SALE: FRIDGE, ONE CAREFUL OWNER, LOW MILEAGE, TRAVELS WELL, POSSIBLE SEA WATER DAMAGE, NEVER PLUGGED IN, MUST BE SEEN.

My second idea had been to get Gerry Ryan to auction it off on air and to donate the money to charity. This was the most noble course of action and probably what ought to have been done, but the trouble was I was too damn close to the thing now. When I looked down at it I felt a genuine affection for it. I knew that these weren’t normal feelings to have towards a fridge, but I simply couldn’t let it go. We’d been through too much together. This wasn’t any ordinary fridge, this was Saiorse Molloy, completely covered from top to bottom in signatures from well wishers and friends. These were my memories. I would keep it in my office at home. After all, a bottle of mineral water would become holy water when it was placed in a fridge which had been blessed by a Mother Superior. And late at night I could drink the odd toast by mixing it with a drop of distinctly unholy spirit.

§

Rory was pleased to see me.

‘Ah, you made it then. Can I sign the fridge?’

‘If you can find room.’

He scanned its surface and could find no available space.

‘Ill have to sign it underneath,’ he said, and lifted it up and did just that.

‘You’ll be out tonight having a big celebration I suppose.’

‘Not really.’

‘Why not?’

‘Well, it hasn’t really come together, and I don’t think I really want to do any celebrating tonight.’

Rory looked at me much as he had when I had first arrived ajl those weeks ago with a fridge in tow. like I was mad.

I could have gone out and made a night of it, Antoinette and Kara had been kind enough to invite me to join up with a group of friends for a drink, but I simply wasn’t up to it. Instead I went for a walk, ate a quiet meal alone and returned to watch TV in my room.

Things had fizzled out rather.

I found myself watching a political debate between Bertie Aherne and John Bruton, the two contenders for the top job in Irish politics. With only a few days of the election campaign to go, the two of them slugged it out with the same accomplished caution that I’d seen only a month ago in the British general election. There was very little to choose between them. Both were smarmy and both were brilliant at manipulating and evading questions. Were they like this all the time I wondered?

‘How are you today, Bertie?’

‘I’d like to answer that question in two parts if I may, but first let me deal with the question you asked last Thursday…’

It was by no means ideal, spending my last night in Ireland watching TV in my hotel room, but nothing else had transpired and I simply didn’t have the energy or will to force anything to happen. Maybe this was good for me. This was ‘back down to earth’ time. I had been living a fantasy and now it was time to re-enter the real world where smug politicians slugged it out on TV for the votes which would enable them to shape our futures. The real world, the future. Where fridges stayed in kitchens.

I tried to lift my spirits with a phonecall before I finally turned in for the night. I rang Kevin to tell him that he owed me a hundred pounds. He was out. I wasn’t having much luck tonight. Then I rang Saiorse’s family at Matt Molloys in Westport to let them know of their relative’s success. I spoke with Niamh. She was thrilled.

‘I can’t wait to tell the others. Well have our own little celebration. Thanks a million for calling,’ she said.

I could turn in for the night now, knowing that somewhere someone was as excited as I was about having accomplished something quite this silly.

You can always count on family. I went to sleep with a warm feeling in my heart.

Rory’s establishment must have gone up in the world because breakfast was cooked by a member of staff, and the improvement was considerable. So too was my general mood when I received a call on my mobile from Deirdre, one of the team on
The Gerry Ryan Show
.

‘Tony, I think with all the excitement yesterday, we forgot to mention that we want you to come to lunch with us today. We thought you might like to meet Gerry and the team. We’d certainly like to meet you.’

‘That would be wonderful, thanks.’

Maybe things weren’t to end quite as unceremoniously as I had expected.

§

In the cab on the way to the restaurant, I started trying to guess what Gerry Ryan looked like. It was strange to have spoken to someone so much over the course of a month, but not to have any idea what their appearance might be. He and his team were probably equally intrigued as to the nature of my physical characteristics, but at least for them I would be easy to recognise. Unless anyone else entered the restaurant pulling a fridge behind them, there was unlikely to be any mix up.

The waiter informed me that the Gerry Ryan party of eight were at the rear of the restaurant. I made my way through and a little cheer went up from the relevant table as soon as the fridge was spotted. The man at the head of the table immediately got to his feet and came forward to greet me.

‘Tony,’he said,’it’s great to meet you at last.’

It was weird because Gerry was exactly as I had pictured him—slightly receding reddish hair, trendy glasses and a light stubble.

‘Gerry, it’s great to meet you too,’ I replied.

‘I’m not Gerry, I’m Willy. That’s Gerry over there.’

I looked across. Gerry stood up. How odd. He wasn’t supposed to look like that. He was tall, well built with a healthy head of black hair, and the beginnings of a slight paunch.

‘Tony,’ he said, coming forward to shake my hand. ‘You look great. You have no right to look so well, not after what you’ve been through.’

I was introduced to the rest of the party, all of whom I had spoken to on the phone at one point or another. Willy, Paul, Jenny, Siobhan, Deirdre, Joan and Sharon. I was invited to open the champagne. I struggled with it, I always do, but eventually out popped the cork and the celebration began that I had so longed for yesterday.

At one point Gerry leant forward, filled my wine glass with the beginnings of yet another bottle of white wine, and said, ‘Tony, there’s one question I’ve been longing to ask which I couldn’t ask you on air. Did you have sex at all on your travels?’

Giggles and teasing whoops and hollers greeted the question.

‘Well, I finally started to get a little more attention than the fridge after I reached Cork, but you’ll have to read the book to find out’

‘You’re going to write a book about this?’

‘Yes, I decided that last night.’

‘Good idea,’ said Gerry. ‘I suppose that means I’ll be in it You’d better be nice, and don’t mention this.’

He smiled and patted the beginnings of his slight paunch.

‘I won’t,’ I replied with all the sincerity I could muster.

‘Hollywood will probably make a film about it one day,’ said Paul.

‘Yeah, if they do, who do you think they’ll get to play Tony?’

Deirdre’s query prompted furious debate. Johnny Depp was a favourite choice, as was Mel Gibson, but most votes went to Bruce Willis. Yes, I could see that working. I had always seen myself as a kind of Bruce Willis who didn’t rush around and blow things up quite so much.

After dessert I invited the party to join me at the fridge for photos.

Then I tore off the ‘Mo Chuisneoir’ sign which had adorned the door of the fridge since Donegal, allowing the signatures and messages of Gerry and the team to have pride of place on the front of the fridge where they belonged. After all, without their help it might have been a different story.

Gerry looked down at Saiorse.

‘I can think of easier ways of making a hundred pounds,’ he said.

‘I know, but can you think of a better one?’ I replied.