Two Walls and a Roof (49 page)

We were all being told of the delay
,
but not the reason
. O
bviously he had overheard the cabin staff talking, and it tur
ned out to be the truth
because when I finally got my bag delivered to me as it had ‘vanished’ in the transfer, it smelled of fuel and all my stuff inside of it was destroyed. Somehow I feel that I was not supposed to leave America after the dawn of the new era, but I had to, and wit
h Kyrl’s help and encouragement
I convinced myself that a day would come when this would all be a memory
,
or more likely a nightmare.

After 2000
i
t became more and more difficult to afford to go to see JoAnn. I did manage to go with Lynda
,
and we returned to Hannibal on that trip. I know that we surely had a great time
,
but it’s a blur to me now.
 
I am sure that the next time we met was on my brother Kyrle
’
s fiftieth birthday in June of 2001. We decided as a family to give him a great party, which was to be held in Glasgow
,
Scotland. Here
,
for the first time, JoAnn would finally meet all of the mad Cahills in one place, including my mother. She managed to bring her eight year old daughter Johnnie Rae to Ireland
,
and subsequently we flew on to Glasgow for the party. Hugh had flown in from Australia with his wife Celestine
,
and Eunice and Lill had arrived from the Isle of Man with the
i
r two husbands Seamus and Philip
. M
y sister Tishie and John her husband arrived last, even though they only lived down the road in Dalkeith. The birthday boy and his wife Emer were already holed up in the hotel we were all using as a focal point, and around five o’clock
in the evening
we all finally met. JoAnn was scared to death that my family might not like her, but she need not have worried
. S
he was a big hit
,
as was her daughter. It became a great weekend. We ate and drank
,
and chatted and argued
, and mother just loved every
thing about this beautiful American from the Midwest. Hugh tried to get her into an argument about some ecological issue, but she gave as good as she got, and out of fear, or sheer politeness, he pulled back from making her really mad. Later I was codding her about taking on the smartest Cahill in a heated argument, and she confided that
,
while she did not doubt that he was the smartest, she also felt that he was the softest
;
a point well proven to me often over the years.

On that same weekend I saw a hilarious thing happen with Johnnie Rae.

This little chubby girl had a very pleasing round little face with eyes that seemed to draw you into them. She was also as innocent as they come
,
and when we were shopping in Glasgow’s High Street she spotted a set of toy bagpipes and believed they were real. Nothing would convince her otherwise, and she began pestering and pleading with her mother to buy them for her. Eventually this pestering won out, and she got the toy. Almost immediately she began to blow into it and a God awful
squeaking
noise came forth
. W
e could not get her to stop it. The noise was so bad that JoAnn asked me to take her outside into the street so that she could continue without embarrassment. I took this American bagpipe prodigy outside and parked her in front of the shop, telling her to be quiet, but she flatly refused. Then as she continued her
squawking
, and fearing a migraine,
I put some distance between us
and I sat on a waste paper bin nearby. Johnnie became lost in the awful sounds she believed were music, and she played and played until she got tired from standing.  Eventually she sat down outside the shop
,
putting her purse beside her, and played her little heart out. It was both sad and wonderful to see her try so hard, to bring music from a toy, and as I stared at her so did some others.

After a while an old lady and her husband began to look lovingly at her, and felt she was an orphan. “Och eye isn
’t she a darling Ha
mish, give her some money, poor thing”. He dropped a few coins onto her purse and a big smile came forth from Johnnie Rae, and she blew even louder. Shortly after that a
nother few people stopped by to look,
smiled and passed on
,
throwing in another coin or two. I was flabbergasted at the generosity of the Scottish people, especially the old people. JoAnn finally arrived out from her shopping and Johnnie Rae
,
by then all excited, jumped up with her coins in hand, and with a hug
e smile she said to her mother,
“
Look mom, I can play, and I got money
. From now on
I’m playing all of the time”
.
I nearly f
a
inted with that news, and as more noise emanated from the pipes I felt that I might have to resort to se
rious measures later that night
and puncture the bag, but I didn’t.
 
Today
that prodigy still remembers that day, and now has two very small prodigies of her own,
so
as soon as possible I’m buying both of them a set of toy bagpipes in revenge
. L
et Johnnie Rae beware.

Once again JoAnn had to return to the USA
,
and a new ray of hope for my millions began with Hugh finding the solution to the deadly condition known as Deep Vein Thrombosis or DVT. This invention was beginning to look great
. W
e had formed a company and a prototype was under construction
, when later that September
‘
9
-
11
’
hit the world, and the big airline companies had other things to worry them besides passenger health issues. It looked like JoAnn and I were destined to remain apar
t for
ever. Then in desperation
,
and with her marriage finally over and becoming
bitter, she left home for good
with the help of a shelter grou
p for women
. A
turning point had arrived in JoAnn’s life
.
She had little money and decided to rent a small house on the edge of town
. She also got
a job to support herself
,
as I was also struggling at that time.
 

She began working in a factory that made leather goods
,
and her job was terribly hard on her hands. This woman
,
who had almost
ev
erything in her life before,
now
had
to give up her children, and she was reduced to doing factory work that was killing her hands from a condition known as
carpal t
unnel
syndrome.
I felt so helpless and guilty about it all.
 
The only ray of light was I do remember her telling me that she loved her little house. She had taken little from her previous home
,
and as her parents were feeling that she had made a terrible mistake, they were
no help at all at the time, and they used to pass her door almost every day without calling to see her. JoAnn was then virtually alone in the world at a time when she needed support most of all, and worst of all, it would be almost a year before we could meet again.  With no choice, JoAnn continued to work and to damage her hands,
and I began both my d
ivorce proceeding and my house refinancing.

During those days I came to believe that the only way we could
ever
be together was if I could somehow become incredibly rich suddenly
,
and while the search for millions has
always
been an ongoing part of my life
,
it took on a new urgency
especially in those days. Today
I don’t care about millions because I have learned
life’s
great secret, but back then I was almost frantic with the searching.

A Butt
evant girl called Martina Coughlan
used to work with me in the radio station
,
and she always impressed me with her drive and sheer
go-ahead
attitude about life, and over time we became
good
friends. She was also a very well educated girl and at that time I was after writing the third version of this book
,
complete with a zillion spelling and grammatical errors,
and
you might think its bad now, but you have no idea how bad version three was.

One day while having
tea in our canteen
at work,
I was telling Martina about some story or other about our hometown and she fell around laughing so much that she said” John, you just have to write a
book”. I said that I had
written one,
but it was going nowhere
because
I could not correct it
,
nor could I afford to have it professionally edited
either
. To Martina’s great credit
,
she said “I’d be glad to correct it for you for free
, I have time at night to do it
and I would hear more stories
”
,
and so I agreed to give her my manuscript. After a week or so Martina rang me and said we needed to go
over
the book
,
as she was both constantly laughing and crying
,
and having to explain this to her little daughter. When she would tell her child some story from the book the little girl would demand she take her to see the places in the book
,
and in a joking way she said I was costing her a fortune. I arrived at her house and she made coffee and we chatted for a long time fixing and arguing over how I write things. It was getting late and there seemed to be
little progress made so we agreed to meet once a week and progress the book properly
, as Martina utterly believed in it
.

During these winter nights we shared both of our ideas for millions as she had the same drive for them as I did
,
and
then
one night right out of the blue Martina says to me, ” John I have an idea that I cant shake from my mind”
. I said tell me and
she went on to describe her belief that it has to be possible to use a ‘beer mat’ for advertising or giving out information. She said that if you watch people in bars, especially when they are alone, they are always twirling and turning the beer mat. It
’
s being read over and over
,
with people tearing it and playing with it
,
and surely that’s got to be ‘in your face advertising’. Martina was a marketing expert and I don’t think either of us realized it then.

I got an inspiration immediately and said “Why don’t we design an electronic
version of a ‘
beer mat
’
and sell it to the breweries
for millions
”. I remember Martina just holding the kettle in mid air as the idea flew around
inside
her head
,
and she said that’s it, that’s how we will become rich. An air of total excitement took over
the two of us,
and our minds went into a kind of overdrive. The electronic mat would have a small screen
,
be connected to the bar computer
for updating,
and it would constantly display
messages advertising
interesting facts and bar games
,
as well as promotions. Martina saw it being used on
airplanes
when they bring you the little drink and
it would carry their specific promotions
and flight information
. She saw it used as a novel promotional idea for car launches where it could be given out as a timer
which
would be blank initially, but on launch day, it
would suddenly come alive in
the hands of the winner of a new
car. She had a hundred great ideas
,
and my job was to design it. The best I could do back then was to do the conceptual design, the
Chinese would do the manufacturing, and a Cork company who were
far
better than me,
would do the complete prototype design
s
. To say that we were on a high was a great understatement, because we
could
see the millions as clear as
we could see
each other. We put a patent on the idea within a week and Martina came up with the brilliant name ‘Infomate’.