Two Walls and a Roof (33 page)

The kids have now become so excited that the noise level rises to fever pitch, but I noticed that some of
them just stared at me as if I was
from another planet, while some others run round and round the kitchen table playing some strange kind of game.  The
woman of the house says to me, “
Ye
’
ll be staying for the dinner lads won
’
t ye, sure tis late as it is, and I
’
ll be cooking a few fish
. D
o you like fish yourself
?
” Immediately the reven
ge plan crystallizes in my mind
and I say
,
“God
no maam, to be perfectly honest
I’m actually allergic to all kinds of seafood, but I do love home baked bread
. D
o you have any
?
” I figured I couldn’t get food poisoning from flour, no
matter how old it was. She says, “
And be God so you’ll have plenty of it me boy, and what about himself upstairs
?
”  Before I can answer she says, “He’s a fine big man isn’t he, God Bless him”.  I see my opportunity now and say
, “I tell you what missu
s, he is a fine man alright, but he’s a real shy one as well. What’s more, he is always hungry and loves fish, but he will be too shy to ask for one
. H
e will be saying no thanks all the time, but that’s just an act
. H
e loves fish”. At that news she
was
ecstatic, “Be God he will have them fish so, and you’ll have my best curney cake, is that all right”.  I tell her that’s just perfect and go back to my wiring.

After about half an hour I can hea
r the fish frying away
and see her moving her black skillet back and forth on an old stove. I go up to Georgie and set the trap. I say
,
“Georgie, she’s insisting we stay for the dinner and that we will be paid by her husband after he finishes the dinner with us
. It will be ready soon
”
.
  He says, “Well I’m eating notten here, and I hope the husband or the dogs is getting them fish”
. I’m
smirking away as he says it. I say
, “M
e too
”
, and head off down again.  The farmer arrives in smelling of drink, and he is like a king to the children, causing the laughter an
d merriment to double in volume. I
t’s like a Christmas morning as he hugs and kisses his adoring children.  I see the wife calling him aside and pointing to the skillet and nodding in the direction of Georgie upstairs. He is all happy in himself and says out real loud
,
“Yerra don’t worry your head woman, sure I ate in the pub”. With that bit of knowledge, I know Georgie is definitely getting all the fish.

“Come on down here now will you, the dinner
’
s ready and I won
’
t take no for an answer
,
” she bellows up at Georgie. By then she has prepared the half of the table that’s usable, and two white plates are placed in front of us as we sit down. Georgie immediately says
,
“Maam I’m not a big eater and I’ll just have a mug of tea and a bit of your
curney
cake”. Wise to his tricks she says
,
“You’ll have no such thing, a fine big man like you
. Y
ou’ll have these two fine fish
,
” and at that she turns around from the stove and brings the skillet to Georgie
’
s plate. Then she scoope
d a fish right up
and landed it on his plate. The fish still had its head on, and its eyes were staring back at Georgie.  He lost it at that stage
, jumping up from the table and running
for the door clutching
his face. I quickly apologised
and ran out after him, followed by a line of the childr
en and the farmer. There he was,
up against the wall
,
puking his guts out. He was pale and in shock and could not speak, but glared at me as he vomited. I figured he knew I had set him up, but I could not hold in
the laughter.
I almost collapsed laughing and I simply could not stop
. T
hen the kids all started laughing as well, and then the farmer began laughing. We were all in stitches except Georgie. The farmer says to me, “Jezus he got the gawks real fast didn’t he
. W
as he on the piss or what?” I told him that the previous night he had been out celebrating at the Rose of  Tralee festival, and with that important bit of news the farmer gave me a knowing look and disappeared. The rest is vague as I think he came bac
k and gave Georgie a bottle of b
randy to swig on to settle his stomach.  We did finish the job but it was done in silence, and we did get paid as well, without Georgie speaking a single word to me for the rest of the work.

We left the farmer
’
s home, and as we drove away I again exploded laughing
. I
n rage
,
Georgie goosed the car
,
hitting a hug
e pothole and blowing out his ty
re as he did so. Of course he had no spare wheel as he had got another puncture the previous night coming home from Tralee. I began to feel that this might be a very long and uncomfortable night indeed.

We were close to the village of Hospital and a pub that in another lifetime may well have been the one Nannie had worked in.  After a phone call to Larry, where we told him about the wheel, he informed us that we should sleep in the car for the night. Georgie broke his silence in the pub and says to me, “I suppose its Lucozade you want, you ould bollix
,” and I think he ordered more b
randy. We sat down and I stared across at him
. T
hen he exploded laughing too, calling me the greatest bastard that ever lived on this earth and swearing revenge the first chance he got.  More phone calls and hours later, Larry arrived with another wheel, which wouldn’t fit, and after even more hours of boring the wheel holes with a brace, we managed to get the replacement wheel on th
e car, but it was on inside out
and we could only get three nuts onto it. It was at that point that the two brothers got into an argument as to which of them had the fastest car. They decided to race home to settle it. We took off at high speed and then
,
literally travelling at one hundred miles an hour, I
realize
d t
hat I was in the wrong car. Out of sympathy for Georgie for my tricking
I had opted to travel with him for the race,
and if any wheel was to fly off
it would be his one, killing us both for sure.

We sped into Mallow at about four am and never heard from the customers again. Next day Georgie refused to go to work, claiming he was traumatised by my trick, and so I ended up doing his calls as well as my own
. H
e had
a minor victory after all.

I caught Georgie again on another day while we were out doing our television calls.   We were to call to a very rich and precise customer in the west end of Mallow. This woman needed to have an aerial cable tacked around the skirting board in her living room, and on that day I persuaded Georgie to do the tacking while I helped because I didn’t trust myself to be neat enough for that woman.  I have always loved art and sculpture, and when we arrived to survey the room,
I noticed a little, open, three-legged cabinet
fitted into one of the corners of the room. This cabinet had three shelves full of ornaments, and one of them was the armless Venus de Milo. I knew G
eorgie wouldn’t know the statue
so I saw an opportunity for fun at his expense.  I stood in front of the cabinet so as to block his view of the statue, but I warned him about the ‘valuable ornaments’ in the cabinet behind me
. A
s I’m doing this I removed the Venus and hid it behind my back. Then I suggested he remo
ve the ornaments very carefully
while I got our tools and cable from the car.

When I came back in he had removed the cabinet from the corner, and all the precious ornaments were laid out carefully behind him on the floor. I placed the statue under the lower shelf of the cabinet and said nothing. I told Georgie that I needed to go back to the car for more tools and left
,
knowing he would surely find the statue after I left and go into a panic, and that’s exactly what happened. When I returned he was clutching the statue in his hand and searching all over the floor like a mad man. He looked ashen faced and says
, “Jesus John, look at this.
I must have dropped the statue and the arms are broke off and I can’t find them
. H
elp me
find em will you”.  I go into
‘
shock
’
and say to him
,
“Didn’t I warn you about these things, didn’t I tell you she had valuable stuff
? N
ow you’ll have to pay for it, and I bet it’s expensive
;
hundreds for sure”. He swears he never even saw the statue, and I say it doesn’t matter
,
we will be blamed for sure.  At that moment the woman comes back in to see the work, and Georgie quickly h
ides the statue behind his back
like a bold child wh
o is in trouble.  When she left
he says “I swear I never saw this bloody statue
,
” and I tell him to keep lookin
g around for the miniature arms
as they must be there somewhere. In seconds he’s back on his knees again looking e
verywhere, then all of a sudden
  he looks up at me and says, in all seriousness
,
“What will we do when we find em, Superglue is it
?
”  At that idea I just can’t hold it in any longer and I burst out laughing, telling him that in my opinion he is an ‘ignorant philistine’, and that this particular statue never did have any arms.  Poor Georgie was so relieved he almost hugged me.  It was pointle
ss describing this fun to Larry
as he wouldn’t have known the Venus de Milo either, so I let it drop. Some time later
,
on a return call, I did t
ell the woman what I had done b
ecause I had a suspicion that she saw me hide the statue originally, and maybe thought I was going to steal it
.
S
he fell around th
e place laughing, and said that
I should have let her in on it. T
hen she would have really made it worse for poor Georgie, before we left him off the hook of course. He took it well though and threatened revenge as usual.

Larry was no saint either, especially when it came to playing tricks on his brother. Every year at Christmas the Mitsubishi television company gave each
of us a large bottle of Cognac b
randy. At that time both Larry and Georgie were big into playing squash, and during a game both of them betted each other their bottle of brandy. Larry lost, and in typical form did not want to pay up, but Georgie bas
ically took the bottle from him
and left with it for his home, telling his wife Monica of his ‘great triumph’ over Larry.  Next morning Larry told me of the game and his loss, and once again we felt Georgie should suffer at our hands,
so
we came up with a plan to get Larry’s bottle back. As I didn’t drink at all, I still had the dregs of the previous year’s bottle in our cabinet at home and that was to act as the basis for our plan. Larry told me to fill it up with old tea or anything of the right colour
,
then seal it with the cork and covering from my new bottle.  Then when I got the chance, I was to swap bottles when I was next in Georgie’s house. Larry felt that Georgie was always getting up late in the morning, and that would be the best time for me to call and do the dirty deed
. H
e even arranged for an aerial job to make sure it happened for me.

I had an old thermos flask
half full of tea from a trip to the mountain, but it was about six months old, yet it looked perfect in colour, so I poured that into my bottle, added a bit of sugar, and felt that it would pass a cursory gla
nce as b
randy. Then I did a great job sealing the bottle, and all was then ready. I showed it to Larry, and even he was fooled, it looked so new. Next morning
,
as predicted, when I called for Georgie to do yet another aerial job, he was still in bed, and I exchanged bottles before he arrived downstairs. Later I gave Larry back his bottle and forgot about it all.

On Christmas Eve Georgie went to the pub and got sozzled. Arriving back home, he felt that a drop
from Larry’s ill gotten bottle
would add to his Christmas cheer, and half pissed he opened the bott
le and took a good swig. “That b
randy is poor this year Monica, I’ll have to complain
. T
hen again twas Lar
’
s, and I suppose I couldn’t have luck
,
” as he laughs out loud in triumph.  Over the Christmas period the next door neighbour arrives, and true to tradition, Mo
nica offers her a glass of the b
randy.  Oddly enough
the neighbour woman didn’t finish it either, an
d after taking just a small sip
she beat a hasty retreat to her home.  A few days later the coal delivery man arrives, and he too i
s offered a large glass of the b
randy.  He says
,
“
Be God maam
tis cold out
there, and sure I’d love a drop
just to keep the heat in me bones”. Again Monica poured a large glass, which he gulped down in one big swig, and then immediately she noticed him turn pale. He too beat a fast retreat for the door. As he’s leaving, Monica shouts after him
,
“And what about your helper, would he like a drop?”  The coal man was already rushing up the pathway, waving his hand in some wild gesture of re
fusal
while holding his other hand across his mouth
. S
till it did not dawn on Monica that an
ything might be amiss with the b
randy.