Heaps of Trouble (24 page)

To a certain extent I could also accept the parents' bitter disappointment at the lack of ‘compo' and the way they had taken refuge in the bottle. But there were still certain episodes I would never understand on my own, and about which, one day, I would have to confront them. I could not help feeling that somewhere along the way they had abandoned me, acting in a manner that was self-centred, bordering on grossly careless and neglectful. I felt that I had been reborn at the age of ten; a rebirth which had turned me into a completely different person. I was now a complete loner with a cavalier attitude towards life in general. What this new person would eventually become, well, I could only wait and see.

As for the parents, I knew now that they would never find inner peace or come to terms with what had happened. I believed they were fated to spend the rest of their lives blaming each other for something that was not their fault. Always assuming that they didn't kill each other in the meantime; if I remembered correctly, there was at least one more statue of some saint or another knocking about the house. Finally I realised, with a conviction that surprised me, that I could never move back into their environment again.

I had spent the last five months working as a dock runner for a shipping company operating out of Bluebell Industrial Estate and, while the job was interesting because I had visited some of the shadier pubs in Dublin's docklands, the money was terrible. Which reminded me, I had a job interview coming up the next week with a shipping company on Eden Quay and they were offering £27 a week to the lucky candidate. All I had to do was to ensure I got the job by being more creative at the interview than the other candidates and I would be able to get a flat in Rathmines. Meanwhile, I would call David to see if he could offer me a room until I sorted myself out.

And that brought me back to my problem with Gina. I had seen her twice in the last six months and, when we had met, it had been as if nothing had changed between us. It was the time apart that was destroying us and there wasn't a lot I could do about that for the present. But there was a bank holiday coming up and I would write to her this day to see if she was free to meet up with me.

Somewhere out there had to be a solution. I felt within myself a vast ability and a positive energy force crying out to be released, if only I could find the right catalyst.

*

Disappointment was something to which I was well-accustomed by now. When I called David, he said he couldn't oblige me with a room or, to be more precise, his parents couldn't. Gina wrote back immediately to say that she was busy for the weekend. Then, to cap it all, I suddenly remembered that the fellow who got me the job interview had also warned me to turn up wearing a suit. That meant I would have to get myself into Burton's on Dame Street and buy one on the never-never.

It was a lovely, sunny Friday evening and, instead being halfway to County Cork, I was sitting at the traffic lights at the bottom of Talbot Street. I was pondering my problems and feeling sorry for myself when my eye caught the smiling face of a gurrier astride a 350cc Triumph – he was clearly after a dice. As I stared at his leering face, it suddenly seemed as if he were to blame for all of my problems. So, when the lights turned green, I slipped the clutch and shot up the street like a bullet fired from a gun. Who the hell did he think he was anyway, trying to take on a BSA 500?

Feck, he was still there on my inside as the noise from the two machines on full throttle reverberated up and down the road causing heads to turn. I was still accelerating, determined to reach O Connell Street before him, and we were just entering the narrow section at the junction of Marlborough Street when a flash of red entered my peripheral vision to the right.

I came to, crumpled up against the entrance doors of a pub about a hundred yards down Marlborough Street with a bunch of Moore Street vendors peering at me. For a fleeting moment I thought they were going to flog me some bangers.

‘Jaysus, Sonny, are youse all right? Me and Mary thought the bleeden' pub had been hit by a corporation truck, put the fear of the Lord God into us. Jaysus, was youse in that crash?' She reached up and adjusted the multi-coloured rollers sticking out from under the scarf that held them in place.

‘I don't know, I just got here myself.' It was the only reply I could come up with on short notice, as my head was reeling from whatever had hit me. ‘What happened?'

‘Holy God, would youse look, there's bleeden' carnage up there, bodies everywhere. Here take this brandy, t'will do ya good. I couldn't touch it now mesel' as me nerves are gone.'

My right hand wouldn't work, so I took the proffered drink with a shaking left hand. Amazingly my crash helmet was still attached to my head, but the chinstrap had broken.

She continued with her crash report. ‘Jaysus, ha, ha. Youse can always say that youse ran into an important person, ha, ha, isn't that rite, Mary? That's Maureen Potter youse lot crashed into and her on the way to the Gaiety. I'm glad I don't have tickets for her show tonight. Ahh, but God love us, have ya seen the other two poor craturs? Jaysus they'd be better off dead.'

The other two, I wondered? Where did this third person come from? Using the wall for support, I pulled myself up slowly to a standing position and took stock of what the two women were ranting on about. For the first time I could see the ambulance parked only a few feet from me, but the attendants were busy over in the middle of Talbot Street, bending over two stretchers. A red car was embedded in the wall of a shop front at the junction and I could see my bike's front wheel buried in the now demolished passenger door. But how I had ended up down this street I had no idea. There were police, doctors and firemen everywhere as if a bomb had gone off and the car looked as if it had been run over by a steamroller.

‘Sonny, are youse going to drink tha' bleeden' brandy after I gave it ya, or just sniff it? Haw.'

Before I could think of a suitable answer, a man who had rushed down the street wearing a pair of cycle clips joined us. But before he could open his mouth to say a word he was accosted by one of my minders.

‘Jim, are them two dead or wha'?'

Before Jim answered her, he gave me a look of sheer amazement and asked, ‘Jaysus young fella, was youse driving the big bike sticking outta the car door? How d'ya end up here anyway? Fuck, youse are bleeden' lucky to be alive. Youse wanna see the other two.'

There they were again with the other two. ‘What other two?' I roared, as my head was still ringing.

‘Jaysus sonny, will youse let him talk. Shure, can't youse see he's busting to tell us. Go on, Jim, tell us. This fella looks alrite for the moment, are you feeling alrite, Sonny?'

‘Well the poor fecker driving th'other bike landed up in O'Connell Street, and him with his right leg missing. Look at it, lying there against the front of the car.'

‘Jaysus, Mary and Joseph,' chimed the two women in unison and simultaneously blessed themselves as if they were controlled by the same puppeteer.

‘Agh Jaysus, Jim, I need another ball of malt.' And with that Janie roared back in through the pub doors. ‘Billy, bring us out three whiskeys, quick. Before I get an attack of me nerves again. Young fella, d'ya want another brandy?'

‘But that's only the start of it,' continued Jim, ‘The driver of the car…'

'That's your wan, ya know, the axtress,' interrupted Mary.

‘Jaysus, will you bleeden' let him finish before the amblenance men take the lot of us away and lock us up in the mental hospital?' retorted Janie, as she took the new drinks from the barman who had joined us on the street.

‘Well, after she was hit by the two bikes…'

‘What do you mean – hit by the two bikes?' I spluttered in exasperation. ‘She came flying out of the street up there, straight through the stop sign without stopping.'

‘Well, that's as may be, but it didn't stop her from swerving across the road, mounting the footpath and crushing another poor fella against the shop wall just up there, and I think that fella's had it. Shure, they've sent for the priest an' all.'

‘Ah, God love us, look, look, Mary, they're stretchering them down now. Quick Sonny, youse better get in the amblenance as well. Youse don't look too good, youse've just gone a funny colour.'

A funny colour? While I had been listening to the story I had undertaken a self-examination. My collarbone was broken and popping up and down under my fingers. My right arm was definitely broken and the wrist didn't feel any better. As I started walking towards the back of the ambulance I couldn't help feeling a bout of self-pity. ‘Janie, thanks for the drink, I owe you one. It's just the perfect bloody ending to the fecked up week I've had. It's been nothing but one problem after another. I suppose, on the bright side, I had no place to stay – but the last place in the fecking world I thought I would end up is a bed at St James' hospital.'

As the ambulance sped away with the sirens going, I had to smile for the first time in agreement at Janie's response.

‘Jaysus Sonny, youse think youse're hard done by? Look at them poor souls lying there alongside ya, they're definitely having a bleeding bad week. Agh sure, God love ‘em.'

Coming soon on E Book:

Heaps Of Opportunity