Gurriers (64 page)

The thumbs up and the teary eyed smile sent me on my way to the bar. It was ten past one. That left us plenty of time for a leisurely lunch and a couple of pints followed by the same mileage again in time to board the four o’clock boat.

Fifty minutes, two pints, three joints and a magnificent gammon ham lunch later, Shay once more led the sunset flock in the direction that Mad Tom had set off in ten minutes previous, waved on by the three super fast colleagues ( Leo had decided to stay with the other two because the VFR had run so sweetly this far), each of whom still had half pints in front of them.

I had never been to Rosslare port before so I made sure to stay more towards the centre of the pack for the second leg of the journey – needlessly as it happened since everybody stopped for petrol at the petrol station two minutes away because of the more expensive petrol in France. It would have taken a particular plonker to go wrong, but I didn’t know that and it was better to be safe than sorry!

Most of us were at the Irish ferries terminal by twenty past three, booked in and skinning up by half, talking loudly about how great the journey down was and how lucky we were with the weather. The last one to arrive – surprisingly not Mad Tom – was Leo’s cousin, Mick who had had some kind of problem with his luggage and had had to unpack and then re-pack the lot. We were all delighted to see him even though nobody knew him.

“That’s it, Shy Boy,” Gerry beamed at me. “We all made it this far – no matter what happens every fuckin’ one of is goin’ aboard.”

“Mad Paddy’s on the continent ’98!”

“For sure, man! Here, there’s a drag left on this.”

Securing a bike onto a ship was a new and slightly unnerving experience for me but there were plenty of helpful crew on hand to help us with the positioning and the straps and whatever as well as the experienced ones among us.

“Is yer bike in gear?...Make sure ye wrap a bungee around yer front brake lever… Ye’re on this bucket for twenty hours – leave yer boots a’ the bike an’ wear yer light shoes... Make sure ye don’t leave an’in tha’ ye need on yer bike ‘cos ye can’t come back down here...Put one of yer gloves on the seat under tha’ strap to protect it.”

Advice was dispatched hard and fast from a variety of directions towards the eight of us that were making this trip for the first time. Advice that was heeded and appreciated!

Leo led the laden down pack from the exhaust–smokey bowels of the ship up the steep, narrow stairs to the Molly Malone bar at the very back of the ship and on to the lads’ regular spot, facing towards the bar in the far corner at a raised level beside the little used reading room. It was a splendid little snug about ten feet square with sofa seats along the sides, one of which had a window with a wide ledge behind it, perfect for putting bags, helmets and jackets out of our way and, more importantly, out of the way of the beer spillages.

There were four French students lounging in this area talking rapidly and excitedly in French - too rapidly for me to pick up any, but they didn’t stay too long – despite the fact that all anybody said to them was a gutteral “Bonjewer”, as we all dumped our gear on the table, windowsill and floor.

“Let the session commence,” declared Paddy when we were all seated.

Everybody cheered, but I had my reservations about a session before teatime when I already had a belly full of beer and a head full of hash.

“Anybody gettin’ cabins?” I asked Vinno this, reflecting on my concerns about how long I was going to stick the pace.

“No. They’re a fuckin’ rip off. Cost more than a five star hotel for a prison cell. You stick with me; I have a timeshare option for us.”

“Timeshare?”

“Just wait on the nod and get a joint together.”

“Here?”

“No go up on fuckin’ deck an’ do ih in the wind and spray. We have this trip sussed, where we go, what we do and where we sleep. Have a little faith, brother Sean. Are ye worried abou’ gettin’ fucked off ah the next stop or sum’in’? Look, Leo and Paddy are way ahead of ye.”

“Do they not mind?”

“Maybe they do but they turn a blind eye. Up here we’re out
of the way of everybody an’ noh’ encouragin’ the students or an’ in. There seems to be lots of them on the boat today though, and lots of everybody else, might be tricky with the timeshare. Anyway, do ye need skins?”

I got the nod about an hour after that. Vinno and I proceeded down to deck six to the two bed cabins. He stopped at one of the doors.

“Okay, we’re lookin’ for our mate, Jimmy, yeah?’

“Sure.”

He knocked hard on the door three times “Jimmy!” As he roared the name he fished around in his pocket, producing his keys. One more knock and call and then to my surprise he put one of his keys in the lock and the door opened. He flung the door open quickly and put his head in the cabin.

“Bingo, unoccupied. Come in quick.”

It turns out that he had acquired the key three years previously, when they used to leave the cabins open with the keys hanging from coat hangers inside, before they copped on that people used to go along the cabins checking for open doors. Nowadays they hung one key on the coat hangers, locked the door and kept the other at reception for collection on payment of charge or production of appropriate documentation. That stopped the door checking chancers from gaining entry to the unbooked cabins but not the ones who had been sharp enough to hang onto keys in previous years - the “Timeshare” gang.

Vinno grabbed the key from the coat hooks and handed it to me with a smile, “Welcome to the timeshare gang, man.”

“Let’s get the gear down here.”

It didn’t go that smoothly for all of them. Some French schoolteacher opened the door at Daves’ timeshare when he knocked on it. Luckily enough Dave didn’t have the key in his hand and also had the smarts to say “wrong deck” instead of wrong cabin because the teacher stood at the door and watched as Dave drunkenly wobbled away.

Leo and Mick had an even dodgier episode with their one. They followed the appropriate procedure as Vinno had and didn’t open the door until knocking and calling twice. Leo
knew as soon as he opened the door that the room was occupied. Problem was that at the very same instant the occupant was opening the bathroom door, having been on the crapper, to see who was knocking on his door. This was the worst case scenario for the whole timeshare plot but the lads were doubly lucky.

Firstly, it was a student and not an adult and secondly it was an Irish student on the way over and not a French student on the way back. He understood perfectly that he was safe as long as he said nothing but that he’d be thrown overboard if there was any crap and he wouldn’t even be able to lock himself in his cabin because they had the key for it.

Gizzard, Paddy, Gerry and Mad Tom had no problems with the Gizzard’s four bed double cabin on deck two in the bowels of the ship. That left six beds among 19 of us; something had to be done and the longer we left it, the more stoned and drunk and likely to make a balls of it we were.

Leo was giving out shite when I gingerly made it to the table with two pints.

“I’m comin’ here too fuckin’ long to be wakin’ up in the crèche with the kids pointin’ at me an’ cryin!”

“The crèche?” I couldn’t help myself.

“Most comfortable place to sleep on the fuckin’ boat apart from the beds – all them spongey bits to stop kids hurtin’ themselves. Here, Shy Boy, you’re a virgin on this trip, why don’t you sacrifice your bed to a seasoned old veteran?”

“Why don’t you suck my cock?”

“Cos I don’t do smaller than four inches! Come on, hand over the key.”

“Fuck off, Leo, ye chancer.”

“Come on, lads, no crap between us. We’ll work something ou’!” Then Vinno had a brainwave “Leo, why don’t ye grab one of those spongey things and sleep on the floor of the cabin.”

“Yeah I s’pose.”

“Good thinking, man, we can get a few onto our floor also.”

Seamus and Macker, who had been gone for a while, bounced eagerly, albeit with a stumble or two, up the steps to our area.

“Accommodation for the boys!” Macker belted out, as he threw four keys on the table. Leo was the first to snatch one.

“Wha’ the fuck…?”

Seamus elbowed his workmate out of the way to take the reins.

“We were walkin’ along behind this bird in a uniform, admirin’ her arse…”

“As ye do,” Macker butted in, who was rewarded with a frown before the other continued.

“When the key dropped out of her pocket. Onto it like a shark...”

“I was!”

“With this monkey, who nearly gave it back to ‘er.”

“Me bollix I held it up to look at it ‘cos I copped...”

“I copped that there was no number on it when I took it off him.”

“Ye bleedin’ snatched it off me an’ nearly made her cop tha’...”

“So yiz got a master key an’ used it to get a load a rooms?”

“Well done, boys!”

“Big hand for the lads for savin’ the day!”

“Nice one, boys!”

The accolades were showered upon the Urgent boys for two reasons: they had saved the day, and people were sick of them arguing.

With cabins sorted out the mood of the group improved even more. That meant more buzz, more pints and joints. That also meant more stumbles, falls, sloppiness and more consternation from fellow passengers. Shay made a speech to us all about the rhythm of the boat and how walking along a moving boat was like dancing with it and that most people danced better when they were drunk so therefore with the right attitude drunk people should stumble less on a boat. Everybody took heed, including me and most agreed that the speech had helped them
apply a better attitude, which helped their confidence which did actually help their balance. I found it a great help myself and actually giggled when I caught myself counting one, two, three in my head on the way back from the bar ten minutes later.

Sadly for him, though to the great amusement of everybody else, Shay fell flat on his face in the middle of the bar area in front of everybody within the hour. We all laughed long, loud, hard and raucous at that one, all the more because he was on his way to the bar and not from it and there was no liquid catastrophe involved in his tumble.

A cabaret act started up about nine o’ clock beside and below us on the dance floor area. I immediately felt sorry for the duo in advance for the hard time I felt sure that my travelling companions were going to give them. After a couple of numbers my sympathy turned to shame at myself for assuming the worst of my buddies, who actually gave the act more encouragement than anyone else on the boat, appreciating the fact that we had music; music of surprising high quality!

Soon after that the class A’s were entered into the equation. Shay suggested that Kevin should keep his pills for the race when he produced a money bag containing ten ecstasies, but Kevin said he had a separate bag put by for Le Mans.

“I like to sail and fly at the same time, my man!” He popped one in his mouth with a grin that turned into a chemical grimace as he chewed.

I turned down the offer when the bag was passed in my direction. I was already more drunk than I ended up on a normal night out, round about the time that I would normally be going out! I did accept a line of coke from Joe, one of the XBR drivers who I barely knew to see, hoping that it would sober me up a bit. It didn’t, it just made me drink faster and talk more and louder. Within an hour, as the effect of the coke waned, I waned with it.

Twenty minutes after that I put on my jacket as if to go up on deck for some air and slipped off to the cabin to crash out.

“You’re going to get some stick for this!” Was my last conscious thought, about two seconds after my head hit the pil
low.

Next thing I remember I was waking up with a cracker of a hangover in a confined space aware of alien movement and noise. I lay there comatosed for some time before recalling that the movement was that of the ship that I was on and that the noise was Vinno snoring in the bunk below me. I continued to lie hungover, slowly gathering my wits about me for an indeterminable amount of time, slowly piecing together events of the previous day and plans for the coming week.

Le Mans! I was en route to Le Mans - the much revered pilgrimage among my kind that had spawned so many mouthwatering stories of adventure. This year’s adventure was going to feature me! I turned over in my bunk grinning into my pillow, relishing what I imagined lay in store for me.

The sharp knocking on the door startled me so much that I leapt up, banging my head off the ceiling. It was up to the freshly awakened Vinno to answer the knock, occupied as I was clutching my previously sore on the inside, now sore on the outside also, head with both hands and grunting with pain.

“Yeah, woh?” Vinno sounded considerably less than impressed at the rude awakening. I would have been afraid if I had been on the other side of the door.

“Here to clean the cabin, we’ll be docking in two hours.”

“Can ye come back in a while, give us a chance to get dressed.”

“I’ll be back in ten minutes.”

“Fuckers! Every year the fuckin’ same.” Quieter into his pillow, then louder, aimed up at me