Gurriers (62 page)

“No fuckin’ way! I’m noh havin’ tha’ for a fuckin’ second! Yer noh goin’ an’ that’s that!”

“I’m going to Le Mans. Ye can have my bag and radio if you want, but I’m going!”

“What are you doin’ this to me for?”

“It’s not about you. I’ve never been on a bike holiday before so I’m going on this away mission and that’s that!”

“Fuckin’ Le Mans! I knew tha’ there was sum’in’ up wi’ the way you were working. I knew tha’ there was a reason for the fuckin’ lack of whingin’ an’ whining’ ou’ of ye!”

“Do ye want my bag an’ radio?”

“Just get the fuck out of my sight!”

I gladly complied and sat with the lads.

“What’s up with bollicky balls?”

“I’ve just told him some bad news.”

“Ye wha’?”

“Just told him that I’m goin’ to Le Mans.”

“Gowan, the Shy Boy! You fuckin’ beauty ye! Ye’re goin’ to fuckin’ love it, man! Deadly!”

“Jaysus. Maybe I’ll give it a bash myself!’

“Don’t be silly, Spunky, you know ye’d be fucked overboard on the way over!”

I deliberately kept my back to the hatch while the lads celebrated the news, but I could almost feel the glare of my base controller in the back of my head. It did mean genuine hardship for the man to be down another courier for a week when he was already missing some of his best and a little voice of guilt inside my head implored for a little empathy on his behalf. This little voice, however, was easily drowned out by a much louder and heartfelt sentiment, “Fuck him. I’m going to Le Mans!”

Once Aidan was told and my plans were out in the open, I began to look forward to the trip properly. I felt positively giddy that afternoon, despite heavy downpours and the wrath of a pissed off base controller.

It was a quarter to seven by the time I got home, courtesy of a stinger of a late job to Naas and I was well soaked – balls and all – but I skipped merrily up the stairs to be greeted by the welcoming smell of the dinner that Vinno had on.

“Guess what Vinno?”

“Yer comin’ to Le Mans with us.”

Of course, he would have heard already!

“You better believe it, buddy! My first away mission with the boys!”

“Ye could’ve trusted me enough to tell me.”

“Yeah, sorry about that, but I had to make damn sure that Bollicky Balls heard it from me at the appropriate time, especially after takin’ time off sick the other week.”

“Ye’re probably rie. It was him tha’ told me. Givin ou’ fuck about ye he was.”

“Stung me with a fucker of a late job, some private gaff on the back roads of Naas. That grub smells lovely. What are we havin’?”

“Spaghetti bollick naked. Get a whiff o’ tha’.”

“Oh yeah! There’s a lot there, are we havin’ people over?”

“Nope. Me and you are goin’ to scoff the lot of this. The
preparations for Le Mans start here.”

“What d’ye mean?”

“I mean we’re goin’ to fatten ourselves up before we go to France.”

“Are you serious?”

“Serious as brake failure, man. We’re gonna have us a hell of a session for eight days or more, dependin’ on how long we stay with our buddies in Wexford on the rebound an’ we’re probably gonna eat fuck all except the odd jambon and fromage baguette. If we use our heads and stuff our faces between now an’ then we’ll be better able for it.”

“Do they not have cooked food on the campsite?”

“Yeah. Horse! And not even the nice bits of the horse either, if there is such a thing. Trust me, man, don’t have any fuckin’ delusions abou’ French cuisine where we’re goin’. The best way for us to feed ourselves is shoppin’ in the supermarkets and preparin’ the grub ourselves on the campsite, an’ we’re goin’ to be out of our heads an’ enjoyin’ ourselves way too much for any shi’e like that!”

“Fair enough, Captain. Dish it up!”

When people have a big event ahead of them they tend to use that event as a deadline for other events in their lives that they should do or want to get done, getting the house decorated for Christmas and such like.

Ever since I had been sick, it was becoming increasingly more apparent to me that there was something in my life that needed taking care of and looking forward to Le Mans developed into a deadline for me to get it sorted before departure.

Being nursed by Joanna and cradled in her ample bosom while at a low point served as a bonding experience between us, but more so for her than for me. I had never led her to believe that we had a future as a couple – quite the opposite, in fact. From the beginning I had portrayed myself as damaged goods, less than a year from having my whole life planned with the girl that still held the title “love of my life.” In my own head, at least, she was the woman that I would marry and have kids with and all that. We never had gotten around to discussing it or getting
engaged or anything, but I had always felt that someday I would do the whole big proposal thing, with an engagement ring being presented to her in the middle of a dessert or something.

Ever since I had needed her and she had been there for me, poor Joanna had convinced herself that there was hope that the damaged goods had been mended by her kindness. The signs were obvious. More and more terms of endearment were used in conversation with me, most of them in possessive content and the word love was being applied to anything and everything about me (not directly to me, of course, she must have known that that would have been fatal).

It was things she said such as, “I love the way you stomp around in your motorbike boots, my darling”, “One egg or two, my love?” and “I love lying here just looking at you, my biker boyfriend.”

My reaction was always the same cold smile, acknowledging but not reciprocating the sentiment, doing little to mask the combination of sympathy and guilt that I felt inside that she could have recognised if her own feelings got out of the way. Her own feelings, however, longed so much to be reflected back at her that she convinced herself, as so many people do in that situation, that they could be. The pleading affections increased when they would have served her better to cease and keep things as they were instead of a futile attempt to advance what was never going to advance. Dear, sweet, Joanna held on so tight that she pushed me away.

It wasn’t fair. She didn’t deserve it. She had done no wrong. I genuinely wished that it didn’t have to be that way but there was no alternative. I had to be free of Joanna by the time I went to Le Mans.

“What are we doing for Paddy’s Day, my love?”

It was time to say those cold harsh words to her and face the music. “We?”

“Me and you. It’ll be the first time we’ve both been off on a weekday since we started going out.”

“It’s a bit of a tradition for the lads to have a session on
Paddy’s Day.”

“I’d love to meet your friends, my darling, would that be possible?”

“You probably have met most of them. Young’s send stuff into you all the time.”

“They might recognise me as a receptionist, but they’re never met me as your girlfriend.”

“Joanna, I’m not really in a position to become anybody’s boyfriend.”

“Well what are we then?”

“I don’t know…em.”

“We get along so well together, don’t we?”

“Yeah, but-”

“I think of you as my boyfriend.”

“Maybe that’s not wise.”

“Not wise? What do you mean by that?”

“You could be disappointed.”

“Are you seeing someone else?”

“No.”

“How am I going to be disappointed then?”

Oh God, I remember thinking. Here goes nothing. “I just don’t have the feelings to be your boyfriend.”

“That is so cruel, especially since I’ve fallen in-”

“Don’t say that!”

“Love with you.”

“Joanna please don’t cry.”

“I can’t help it. I can’t help my feelings.”

“I told you from the start I was damaged goods.”

“Damaged goods! What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

“It means I’m not going to fall I love with you. It’s a warning.”

“It’s because I’m fat, isn’t it?”

“No! Absolutely not! Don’t think that for a second. The same thing happened with the last two girls I was with, and they were-”

“Not fat?”

“No….”

“So they were fat?”

“No.”

“Make up your mind, Sean!”

“Size wasn’t an issue, and it isn’t with you, Joanna. You’re great company and a lovely person and if I could pick somebody to fall in love with it would be you, hands down. Above the last two girls that I was with, even above the one that broke my heart.”

“Really?”

“Really. I wish that I had met you before her, when my heart was free and I could have fallen in love with you.”

“But if you were with me first you would have dumped me for your biker garda girl.”

“No, Joanna. I’m sorry but you’re only going to get hurt more if you let your hopes build up.”

“So what, we just carry on the way we’re going?”

“Actually, no.”

“What then?”

“I think relationships only work properly if the people in them have the same feelings towards each other, like an emotional scales of sorts. If two people love each other, great. If two people like each other, but aren’t in love, that would also work. With us, however there is an imbalance. The relationship won’t work, so it has to end.”

“Are you dumping me for falling love with you?”

“I’m not dumping you. It’s just not fair on you for us to see each other when I don’t have the same level of feelings for you as you do for me.”

“I don’t care. I don’t want to lose you.”

“That’s the part that isn’t fair, Joanna. You deserve an equal relationship with a balanced scale of feelings and, I’m really sorry, but you’re never going to get that with me.”

“Me and my big mouth. Just forget everything that I said today and let’s carry on as we are. Okay?”

“It was going to come to this someday, Joanna. The most important thing for you to know, and really know it, is that you have done nothing, and I mean not a little thing, wrong in all the time we have spent together. You will make some
man a great girlfriend, and – provided he’s the right man – wife someday. I hope your time with me will help you realise what a wonderful woman you really are.” My words of comfort didn’t stop her crying though.

“Oh, Sean, I’m sorry, I can’t stop crying. I don’t know what to say.”

“Say thanks for the memories, sweet Joanna and kiss me goodbye.”

“Th…th…thanks for the memories, Sean.”

I find it quite fitting that in my whole self centred, self absorbed existence, the first tears that I ever shed genuinely on behalf of somebody else trickled down my face on the way home from doing that damage to Joanna. I hope and pray that some day she gets the happiness that she truly deserves.

Paddy’s Day fell on a Friday that year, which meant two days to recover from the session we had, which meant we had a session that took two days to recover from!

We went mental. The first beers of the day were cracked open at eleven o’clock, watching the parade on TV. Six of the single and childless couriers joined me to get things started and set the pace for the rest of the proceedings.

Vinno was at the parade with Aoife and her mother.

We were half cut by four o’clock when we rendezvoused with the daddies and mammy, with Dolores making a rare appearance on the rip with us, in the local.

The first class A’s were necked before six o’clock and my first vomit happened before nine. To my credit, I made it to the toilet which, stinking as it was in our local, was a good place to puke. The vile stench there made damn sure that once a body started with oral evacuation of the stomach, it kept retching uncontrollably until the stomach was totally empty, usually followed by several dry retches just to be sure. All the while the mantra of the day danced its merry way around my convulsing head, “It’s a great day to be Irish.”

The suffering I endured that weekend is indicative of the af
ter effect of like minded people who enjoy each other’s company so much and revel in the consumption of alcohol and narcotics being given time off work and having the occasion of celebrating the intrinsic Irishness that they were all lucky enough to be blessed with.

Recovering from Paddy’s Day, however, planted a small seed of doubt in my mind about Le Mans. A one day binge at home, with my own duvet just a short taxi ride away, available to be crawled under within minutes, was one thing, but a week long session across the water with nothing more comforting than a sleeping bag in a tent at my disposal was another kettle of fish altogether.

This dread stayed with me over the few weeks between Paddy’s Day and Le Mans (as I ate a lot more food than usual), though lessened greatly by assurances I made myself that all I needed was a little bit of self control to modify my behaviour accordingly when there was danger of suffering too much. At times I even had myself convinced that this would be possible!