1998 - Round Ireland with a fridge (27 page)

As they dropped me in Listowel, Pat got out and signed the fridge whilst Michael remained glued to the passenger seat, checking my movements in the rear mirror, in case I made a last minute attempt to overpower Pat, grab the keys and drive him to my hideout and begin the torture process.

‘Well, good luck,’ said Pat, shaking my hand.

‘Thanks.’

And from the front of the car I just made out a mumble from Michael, ‘Yeah, good luck to ya.’

This was one very relieved man.

A quick pint was in order, to celebrate the successful negotiation of a tricky part of my journey. Pat had recommended a bar called John B Keane’s, belonging to the author of
The Field
, which had been made into a film starring John Hurt and Richard Harris. As I walked down the bustling main street towards it, I passed a sign with an arrow pointing to a CASUAL TRADING AREA. What was this? A place specifically for the buying and selling of casual clothes? Would I turn the corner and see stall upon stall packed with slacks, corduroys and Hushpuppies? Or was it a place where the
approach
to trading was casual? Stallholders lolling about in reclining chairs, reading books and only occasionally giving attention to customers between chapters. John B Keane’s was quite busy for five o’clock in the afternoon. My first impression as I looked around was there were so many contenders for Resident Drunk here that I must have walked into a Resident Drunks’ convention. Spirits were high, and the introduction of a stranger with a rucksack and a fridge caused an increase in volume, excitement and laughter.

Val, a thin fellow in his fifties with glasses, moustache and with a peaked blue cap on, was the most vociferous. He announced that he was a plain-clothes policeman and required some questions to be answered.

‘What’s in the fridge?’

‘A couple of pairs of shoes.’

It was true. That morning I had struggled to get my shoes stuffed into the top of the rucksack, so what better place to put them?

‘No one keeps shoes in a fridge,’ said Val, logically enough.

‘I do.’

‘Let me see. I’m a policeman.’ Then he announced to the room, ‘I have to see what is in that fridge, there may be a bomb.’

His authority was strongly questioned by those who knew him, and he was lambasted with remarks like ‘Leave the poor fella alone’ and ‘If Val’s a policeman, then my arse is president’.

‘No, it’s all right,’ I declared, ‘I have nothing to hide. I respect that the police are simply doing their job.’

Big laughs. Val got down on to his hands and knees and prepared to open the fridge door.

‘There’s no way anyone would keep shoes in a feckin’ fridge!’

As he opened the door an expectant crowd gathered round. To Val’s dismay, a pair of brown shoes fell out on to the carpet. Huge cheers. Val turned to me, ‘Where are you from?’

‘London.’

‘Where in London?’

‘Wimbledon.’

‘Ah Wimbledon. So you’re the Wimbledon Wanderer. What’s your name?’

‘Tony.’

‘Tony who?’

‘Tony Hawks.’

‘Hawks. Hawks. like the hawk in the sky. Hawkeye. You’re a good man. Anyone who keeps shoes in a fridge is a good man.’ He turned to the barmaid, ‘Elsie, get this man a pint’

I wifl never again in my life earn a pint in such a way.

The fridge sat centre-stage on the carpet in the middle of the saloon bar’s floor, and drinkers filed past paying homage to it like it was some kind of holy relic. Two old women called Finola and Maureen were fascinated by the whole business of the bet, and fired off question after question. Laughs greeted each reply, and the questions became more outlandish.

‘Do you sleep in it as well?’

‘Of course I do. It’s like the Tardis in there. Open up that door and you go into a two-bedroom flat. Two bathrooms, one en suite from the main bedroom.’

Maureen, who was waving a large whiskey around in front of her like a lantern, started to tell me something about this being writers’ week in Listowel and that she was on the committee, and then she started to ramble on about her son in New Zealand, but a combination of her accent, slurring, and Val intermittently shouting at her to shut up, made her difficult to follow.

‘Shut up Maureen! Leave Hawkeye alone,’ Val would cry.

I had only been in the pub half an hour and already I had a nickname. At last I had discovered one area where the Irish move quickly.

‘Where are you staying, Hawkeye?’

‘I don’t know, Val. I haven’t even decided if I’m going to stay here in Listowel.’

‘Well, if you do, you can stay at my place. It’s a big house on the hill—very quiet and peaceful. You will be in the bed of tranquillity.’

I appreciated his attempt at lyricism, but he made the proposed place of slumber sound too much like a final resting place for me to jump at the offer.

‘That’s very kind of you. If it’s all right, I’ll see how things pan out.’

‘Pan away. Pan away. Hawkeye. Hawkeye, the Wimbledon Wanderer.’

A very old man at the bar who sounded like a male equivalent of my first landlady in Donegal Town, only with an even slower delivery, announced that he was eighty-four. Sometimes that is enough for an old person conversationally, but he had more to add. He looked down at the fridge and said, ‘That fridge has the spirit of the nomadic urge in it.’

There was clearly no generation gap involved in embracing the concept of a travelling fridge.

Maureen insisted I sat down next to her whilst she wrote out the address of her son in New Zealand. She handed me a piece of paper on which I could just make out the number 7, but not one word was legible. I promised to look him up if I was ever in New Zealand, although I anticipated that 7 Gty$a RelT Broi⁄9unter, GoptS-yyi, might be a difficult address to locate.

On the other side of me two ill-groomed ne’er-do-wells were sat with their feet up, enjoying the show that everyone else had been putting on for them.

One of them, the one with a moustache and marginally less grime all over his clothes, leant towards me and asked, ‘Are you a bachelor?’

This was not a question I had expected.

‘Yes I am,’ I replied, a little suspiciously.

‘Course he is,’ said the other, ‘you don’t think a wife would let him take off round Ireland with a feckin’ fridge in tow would you?’

An aspect of married life that I had never considered.

‘Why do you want to know?’ I asked, defensively.

‘Well, there’s a bachelor festival in Ballyduff tonight, and we were just talking and saying how it might be a laugh if you entered. You could enter the fridge too, unless the feckin’ thing is married.’

I had no idea really. I assumed that when you buy a fridge brand new, it’s single. That’s the danger of buying a re-conditioned number. You’ve no idea how many acrimonious divorces it may have been through.

‘Maybe it’s married to him,’ said the one with the moustache. ‘They’re travelling together aren’t they? Maybe they’re on their honeymoon.’

The pub clientele were in fits of laughter. It was time to set the record straight.

‘The fridge and I aren’t married. We are just good friends and there is nothing going on between us.’

As a witness to this, I wouldn’t be calling Ann-Marie, the landlady who had seen me drag it from my bedroom dressed in a wetsuit.

These two jokers were Brian and Joe, who laid hardwood floors for a living, and appeared to get most of the glue involved in the process over themselves rather than the floors. Both were married and so weren’t eligible to enter the bachelor festival themselves, but they knew the owner of Low’s Bar where the event was taking place and were sure they could get me in as a late entrant The general consensus in the pub was that I should go with them and try my luck, and even though I had no idea what a bachelor festival was, or what might be required of me, it sounded more appealing than a night at Val’s.

Driving off with two slightly dodgy-looking characters who I had known for fifteen minutes was the biggest risk I had taken so far. Were I never to be seen again, then justifiable questions would be asked about the wisdom and judgement I had shown in those last hours.

The fridge was deposited in the back of the van and I climbed into the cabin and put my seatbelt on, knowing that it might mean the difference between survival and a bed of tranquillity. We sped off towards Ballyduff.

My mobile phone rang. Extraordinarily, it was my agent calling from London.

‘Hi Tony, it’s Mandy. Whereabouts are you?’

Honestly of all the unnecessary questions! Isn’t it obvious? I’m speeding down the road in a Transit van on my way to the Ballyduff bachelor festival with two hardwood flooring guys, where do you think?

‘Oh hi Mandy, it’s a little difficult to explain exactly where I am. I’m in transit.’

‘But you’re in safe hands?’

Huh.

‘Sort of.’

‘Radio Four have phoned and asked if you can do
I’m Sorry I Haven’t A Clue
next Thursday. Will you be back in time?’

‘I don’t think so, and even if I am, I doubt my brain will be in any condition for the delivery of ready wit and repartee.’

‘What shall I tell them then?’

‘I’m sorry, I haven’t a clue.’

Brian and Joe called out ‘Hi Mandy! How ya doing?’ and the phone’s signal disappeared as we bumped our way round another bend some where in the heart of County Kerry. Poor Mandy, she must despair of me at times.

§

Career successfully on hold, it was time to get on with the more important business in hand.

‘So, what exactly will I have to do at this bachelor festival?’

‘Oh, a bit of an interview, maybe a party piece.’

‘And what happens if I win?’

There I was deluding myself again.

‘You win a week at the Ballybunion bachelor festival.’

And I suppose if you won that, they packed you off to another one somewhere else. No wonder they marry young in Ireland—purely to avoid this endless circuit of bachelor festivals.

I’m not sure whether Ballyduff is a town which figures greatly on any tourist map, and there was unlikely to be a wide range of choice in the field of accommodation. In fact, a field might be the best it had to offer. I had no worries though because Brian’s wife and kids were up visiting relatives in Northern Ireland, and he said it wouldn’t be a problem to stay at his place.

It was quite a plush residence built on one storey, which suggested to me that smearing glue over his clothes all day provided him with a very reasonable income.

Perhaps it had been the conversation with Willy Daly about the history of the matchmaking festival which ted me to believe that mis also might be a time-honoured event, steeped in convention and revered by single women from miles around who came to peruse the eligible with a view to pouncing. (Unlike Lisdoonvarna, I reckoned that it probably didn’t have a reputation to attract Americans yet, so saw no reason to black out any teeth.)

When we arrived at Low’s Bar at around nine, it was too early, and the only evidence that there was going to be a bachelor festival in the pub was a small sign saying ‘BACHELORFESTIVAL TONIGHT’. The pub itself wasn’t the old, traditional hostelry I was expecting, but a large newly refurbished establishment with TV screens everywhere, a dancefloor with a DJ, and staff in matching uniform. This pub belonged in the town centre of Swindon, not in a tiny rural outpost in the west of Ireland. It had another thing in common with a pub in the town centre of Swindon—it was virtually empty. We were told things wouldn’t get going till around midnight, and withdrew to the small pub over the road where the music wasn’t blaring and we could converse without doing lasting damage to our vocal chords.

Several pints and an unstimulating game of darts later, we returned to find Low’s Bar heaving with young people. The DJ was announcing the imminent commencement of the bachelor festival. Festival? I looked around me and saw nothing to justify the use of the word festival. The atmosphere was exactly that of a nightclub where audience interest in the stage was fuelled by a desire to watch a few drunken friends and acquaintances humiliate themselves. The men outnumbered the women, which suggested that the women folk of Ballyduff were either already sorted or knew of better ways to go about getting so. The imbalance in the sexes certainly wasn’t the result of a huge entry for the bachelor festival.

There were six of us.

The DJ kicked off proceedings with a booming announcement through the PA in an Irish version of the mid-Atlantic accent all disc jockeys use. The first two young men he invited on stage were fat and drunk. They mumbled incomprehensibly into the microphone and sang like pining dogs. The audience shouted encouragement at them which sounded like general abuse.

In one sense I was heartened—the competition so far wasn’t up to much, but on the down side, the audience weren’t the most sophisticated I had ever witnessed. I still had absolutely no idea what I was going to do when I was called up there. I turned to Joe who was stood alongside me like a supportive personal manager. ‘What shall I do?’

‘Oh, just tell a couple of jokes.’

This, given my profession, ought to have been an area in which I could excel. I felt pretty confident that none of the other bachelors had the experience of a Royal Gala under their belt (unless the King of Tory held one), and I knew that this should give me the edge over them, but hard as I tried, I couldn’t recall any section of my act which I felt would satiate the baying rabble who made up the audience.

A guy called John was before me. He was a considerable improvement on the previous two entrants. He wasn’t drunk and he sang rather well. For the first time I began to feel some nerves. Finally it was my turn, and the DJ began his intro.

‘And now we have a late entry, he’s a young man who is travelling round the country with a fridge. You may have heard him on
The Gerry Ryan Show
, ladies and gentlemen—Tony Hawks!’

Cheers and whistles as I made my way to the stage. I still had absolutely no idea what I was going to do or say. The microphone was handed to me by an unusually slim assistant who fixed me with a demented smile.