1998 - Round Ireland with a fridge (18 page)

The honour of being the first person to sign the fridge was bestowed upon Bingo when we had dropped him back at the Strand pub. With a green marker pen, the words ‘Cheers! Love Bingo’ heralded the process of transforming an ordinary household fridge into a personalised oddity.

The irrational need to watch a game of football had left me with a deadline, and I had been forced into the unusual position of needing a game plan.

‘I thought you didn’t have game plans,’ said Antoinette, as I outlined it to her.

‘I don’t, but today is different.’

It wasn’t actually. It was exactly the same as the previous day, in that I had to be somewhere by three o’clock.

By rushing away from the beauty and peace of the Glen, and denying the soles of my feet the luxury of a good massage, I had freed up enough time to grab a quick bite to eat before the match. So when we reached the centre of Sligo and I got out of Antoinette’s car for the last time, my intention was to find Abrakebabra, claim my free lunch, dump my fridge with them, and go and watch the game in the nearest pub. It was a good plan, although I was the only person in the car who thought so.

Antoinette and I hugged and wished each other good luck.

‘Thank you for the most surreal weekend of my life,’ she said and then drove off back to Dublin and relative normality. In stark contrast, I turned, hauled my rucksack on to my back and wheeled my fridge through the hordes of hurried shoppers in Sligo’s city centre.

Abrakebabra turned out to be a fast food restaurant, and although it wasn’t quite what I had imagined, the ‘fast’ element of its service was going to be crucial, since time was ticking away. The boss, who had come up with the magnificent marketing ploy of donating a free lunch to anyone who wheeled a fridge into his establishment, wasn’t there, but a confused lady called Mary honoured the agreement and allowed me to leave my fridge and rucksack around the back.

At two minutes to three I rushed out on to the street, steak sandwich in hand, and went into the first pub I saw. It was empty, and the reason soon became apparent. It wasn’t showing the match. Time was running out. I dashed outside and there were no pubs in sight. What was it to be, left or right? I went left.

Turning left was a mistake, and led me into the only populated square mile in the whole of this country which had no pubs, but I ran my heart out and made it to one in a time which, had it been in a formal athletics event, would undoubtedly have been a personal best. It had a big blackboard outside advertising ‘Chelsea vs Middlesbrough’. I looked at my watch and saw that it was one minute past three. Not bad. Not bad at all.

Well, that is in normal circumstances. In normal circumstances both teams cancel each other out for the first forty-five minutes in a dull and nervy first half, the game coming alive in an enthralling last twenty minutes which makes the whole experience worthwhile. On the day when I was one minute late—one miserly minute late, Chelsea scored after thirty-five seconds. Thirty-five seconds! That never happens, not in a cup final. I was furious. I badly needed some reflexology to calm me down. Instead, I chose a far less healthy relaxant, and sat back, occasionally sipping at it, hoping that the early strike might open the game up and we might be on for a goal fest.

The pub was large and it looked like three separate rooms had all been knocked through to create an open-plan effect. Two large screens at each end provided the focus for everyone’s attention. Everyone that is, except for the resident drunk. Actually, I think this man was a guest drunk, possibly on loan from another pub, with a transfer fee under negotiation. Confetti in his hair and a smartish suit suggested that he had come straight from a wedding reception. Presumably he had drunk the free bar dry, and his hand had been forced into carrying on his good work elsewhere. At this precise moment this man was the most drunk man in Ireland, and the lead he held over his rivals was a substantial one. Using his tie as a microphone he stood at one end of the pub, just belqw the TV screen and sang his interpretation of Bob Geldof’s ‘I Don’t’Like Mondays’. It was tuneless, loud, and unpleasant. Too close to the original for my taste. He then began jumping around as if someone had put five thousand volts through his body. If it hadn’t been for his exclamation, none of us in that pub would have had the faintest idea what he was doing.

‘EAT YOUR HEART our MICHAELFLATLEY!!’ he bellowed at the top of his voice.

Ah, that was it then. He was doing
River Dance
. His exertions were such that I thought he was going to have a heart attack there and then. Instead he took a huge swig from his pint mug and distributed an equal share of the beer within it, between his mouth and his suit.

This man was creating an enormous distraction for the majority of those, like me, who were in the pub primarily to watch a game of football. But there wasn’t a sign of any antagonism towards him. The drinkers simply smiled, laughed or shook their heads good-humouredly. This hadn’t been my natural reaction, but I soon realised that the best way to diffuse my irritation was to smile along with the rest If you can’t beat them or join them, laugh at them.

I was grateful to him really. He was more entertaining than the football and his ‘songs’ helped to drown out the commentators’ bland analysis. I could just make out the distinctly nasal tones of Trevor Brooking.

‘That’s five times that Ravanelli’s been offside, and it hasn’t even been marginal—he’s comfortably off.’

I should say he’s comfortably off, I heard he was getting £20,000 a week.

Chelsea won 2-0. They scored their second goal when I was in the toilet. I felt a little for Middlesborough; after all, their season had involved them getting to two cup finals, losing them both and being relegated from the Premier league. What does a manager say to his players after a string of such devastating failures? I’m not aware of there being a satisfactory euphemism for ‘you are a bunch of losers’.

I bet it wasn’t as bad for the players as the fans. Most of the players would be transferred to another club within the week, but the fans would continue to live in Middlesborough with their shattered dreams. It’s probably just as well they don’t have the Death Notices on local radio up there.

As I sat in this Sligo pub I momentarily forgot what I was doing here in Ireland, such was my empathy with the Middlesborough fans. I knew the pain. I had been there. The last team to lose an FA Cup final and be relegated in the same season had been Brighton and Hove Albion. I had been to Wembley and seen my side lose 4-0 to Manchester United, the largest margin of defeat for any club since the second world war. Frankly it had been an embarrassment. Still, at least I hadn’t taken along a toy machinegun.

When I left the pub, the most drunk man in Ireland was increasing his lead over any potential rivals, having just lost a head to head race to down a pint of beer, and was now shouting at the bar staff, demanding two large brandies. He must have had a strong constitution—but few would deny that it was in need of some reform.

At Abrakebabra, I collected my stuff, said I had enjoyed the football even though I hadn’t really, and ordered a taxi on my mobile phone.

‘Could you drop me on the road to Ballina?’ I had said.

‘No problem, it will be about five minutes,’ they
replied
.

I waited outside Abrakebabra for twenty minutes. Eventually a thickset man in his twenties, who I had seen eyeing my fridge with interest, approached me.

‘Were you on the television yesterday afternoon?’

‘I was.’

‘I thought I recognised y—…well, the fridge. Where are you headed?’

‘I’m waiting for a taxi to take me out to the road to Ballina where I’m going to start hitching.’

‘Wait here, I’ll go and get my van. I’ll take you out there.’

Excellent. I had mastered my art to such a degree that I could get lifts now without even hitching.

§

Kieran made fruit and veg deliveries. (But in his busy daily schedule he obviously found time to watch daytime television.)

‘I was just on the way home when I saw you. I had packed up for the day but then I realised I had forgotten to deliver six cucumbers, so I had to get the van back out again.’

All part of the stresses that go with the job. So, I owed this lift entirely to six cucumbers. Tick that one off—another first.

‘It’s very kind of you to drive me out here like this.’

‘Ah it’s a pleasure. You don’t meet an eejit like you every day.’

Fair point.

Kieran drove me about five miles out of Sligo past the beautiful Ballysodare Bay.

‘Look at that,’ he said, ‘God’s television.’

We arrived at a fork in the road where the smaller N59 branched off to Ballina, and it was time for me to get out and set myself up on the roadside. It was just after five thirty, and I was on the road again. Literally. I didn’t know what was coming next. I was getting hooked on the unpredictability of this whole fridge experience. There was only one thing I could be sure of, and that was that it wouldn’t be long before one of the agreeable drivers in this agreeable country plucked me from the roadside and bore me ever onwards.

Roisin

A
n hour and a half later I was still waiting, and I was beginning to feel rather low. With an over-confidence bordering on arrogance, I had thought that I could just leave a town whenever I felt like it and pick up a lift with great ease, but the reality was that in another hour it would be dark and I would have to give up and get a taxi back to Sligo. Could my liver handle another night in the Strand? I slumped down on to the fridge, tired and despairing.

Two very young children, a little boy and a little girl, walked past. The boy viewed me with some interest and asked, ‘What are you doing?’

It was a question I had begun to ask myself.

‘I’m hitch-hiking.’

He nodded. He seemed satisfied even though he clearly didn’t know what ‘hitch-hiking’ was.

‘Are you just after coming from school?’ the little girl asked.

I shook my head, more in disbelief than in answer to the question. What cross circuit of wires in her brain had caused her to arrive at a question like that? A complete absence of the application of any logic whatsoever. She would have a great future in this country.

Finally a car stopped. But the driver got out and crossed the road to the Convenience Store.

Tease.

For the next ten minutes all the drivers seemed to be solitary lady drivers, and for obvious reasons, solitary lady drivers don’t stop. Especially on a Saturday night and when the hitcher has a fridge. A priest went by, but he made a signal with his hand, pointing to the left, meaning that he was turning off very shortly. Quite a few drivers had done this and I respected it as a courteous gesture, even if nine times out of ten it was probably a downright lie.

Another twenty minutes dragged by. Clutching at straws, I decided what I was lacking was a card to hold up with my destination written on it. Up until now I hadn’t bothered with this hitch-hiking accessory since I had no real need for one. It didn’t matter particularly where I ended up, any kind of lift, provided it was in roughly the right direction, was good enough for me. The nice lady in the Convenience Store provided me with a piece of cardboard, and after a little creative work with the marker pen, I went back to my hitching with renewed vigour, and with a ‘BAL-UNA’ sign held proudly aloft.

It didn’t make a scrap of difference. Well it did actually, now the drivers knew exactly where it was that they weren’t going to take me. It was almost half past seven. I decided twenty more minutes and then I would give up and call for a taxi to take me back to Anne Marie’s. Three unsavoury looking youths turned the corner and headed towards me. For the first time on my trip I felt a little uneasy. It was Saturday night, they looked a tough lot, and I was something of a target for those in search of alternative amusement. Would they say anything? Worse still, would they do anything? I held my breath and closed my eyes, but they passed by without a word. Quite whether I was all too confusing a proposition for them, or whether they were simply law abiding, upstanding citizens, I do not know. Perhaps the fridge made me look hard.

I was about to give up, and had just started to gather my irregular belongings together when a Vauxhall Cavalier pulled up. I watched it suspiciously, expecting the driver to get out and go across to the store, but he remained in his seat and looked over his shoulder at me. I ran to the car window.

‘Are you going to Ballina?’

‘I am too.’

I had lucked out again.

§

Chris had been at a goat fair earlier that day, and afterwards had made a brief visit to friends in Sligo for early evening drinks. He had seen me on the way into town and identified me as the strange fellow he had heard talking about his fridge journey earlier in the week. He hadn’t been surprised when I was still by the roadside as he headed out of town again. He had hitched around Ireland himself many years ago and had found that one of the longest waits he had endured was when he was trying to leave Sligo. He reckoned that Limerick was another difficult place to get out of, so I logged that useful information away in my foggy, weary brain.

One of the more tiring aspects of hitching is a need to be sociable and make conversation with whoever is driving you. It would be considered poor form to accept a ride, hop into the passenger seat and then simply to crash out until you reached your destination. How I longed to do just that, but instead I chatted merrily away, energy ebbing from me with each sentence, until Chris dropped me at the address of the lady who had offered me free B&B.

One of the more tiring aspects of accepting an offer of free accommodation is a need to be sociable and make conversation with whoever has offered it to you. It would be considered poor form to turn up, dump your bags, crawl into your bedroom and order an early morning alarm call. How I longed to do just that, but instead I chatted merrily away to Marjorie, energy ebbing from me with each sentence, until the tea was drunk, the cake was eaten and I finally plucked up the courage to mention just how exhausted I was. I apologised and said that I simply had to grab a couple of hours sleep, and Marjorie understandingly showed me to my room.