1998 - Round Ireland with a fridge

by Tony Hawks; Prefers to remain anonymous

  ‘Who came fifth?’ He repeated his extraordinary question but this time he felt it would be better bellowed. For the first time that night, (and I suspect for a number of years) the bar’s customers were completely silent. No one knew what crossing of wires in the drunk’s brain had caused this enquiry, when ‘Who came second?’ had been the more relevant and ‘Help’ the most suitable. More importantly there was silence because no one actually knew who came fifth. When discussions finally got under way to solve this mystery Brendan and I decided it was a signal to turn in for the night. Our ‘one for the road’ had turned into ‘three for the road’ and there was a danger of granting the road too much respect.

  In the morning, I successfully completed a shower in a much quicker time than that taken for the previous day’s explanation of how to use it, and got dressed with extreme difficulty standing on the narrow stretch of carpet between bed and door. This was quite literally a bedroom. Just room for a bed. Any additional space was there simply to accommodate the opening of the door. As I headed on to the landing, the sudden introduction to wide open spaces frightened me as it would an agoraphobic.

  At the foot of the stairs I was a little taken aback to see that the fridge had gone, but it hadn’t been stolen, as the lady of the house painstakingly explained at breakfast.

  ‘I……put it……in…the…………shop……for…………safety.’

  I wasn’t sure what this meant but decided that I would find out sooner by not asking. I was joined at my table by the only other guest, a travelling salesman who had one eye which looked at you and one which didn’t. The trick was deciding which one to focus on. Whilst eating my cereal I plumped for the left eye but by the time I was on to my toast I had switched allegiance to the right, although I was starting to have doubts about that In the end I gave up and focused on his nose, which was quite an unnatural thing to do and had an adverse effect on my appetite. The man was a souvenir salesman and he spent most of breakfast moaning about how souvenirs were hard to sell when it was rainy and cold, as it was at the moment. I felt that it was more likely to be an ocular thing which was frustrating sales.

  The previous night Brendan had offered to take me the forty miles or so to Letterkenny after he’d done his morning’s business in Donegal Town, but after that he would be heading back to Northern Ireland, and once again I would have to subject myself to the uncertainties of the roadside. Whilst he made his morning calls I had enough time to visit the tourist office and establish the best method of getting out to Tory Island. I was told that a mail boat left every morning at 9.00 am from a place called Bunbeg, and so reaching there became my goal for the day.

  As it turned out, my fridge had been placed ‘for safety’ in the butcher’s shop next door. Why, I don’t know, because when I went round to collect it I found that ‘safety’ had involved it being set down on the customer’s side of the counter in a totally unmanned shop. I coughed to gain attention in the hope that the butcher might appear in anticipation of a major pork chop sale, but to no avail. So I lifted the fridge on to its trolley and headed out of the shop, at which point the butcher emerged, ‘Is that your fridge?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Oh. Very good.’

  My God, security was sophisticated here. If the fridge hadn’t been mine and I hadn’t been able to come up with that clever answer, my life of crime would have been over.

  ‘How much did you pay for that?’ the butcher added.

  ‘A hundred and thirty pounds.’

  ‘Ah, we paid roughly the same. We have one like that upstairs in the flat.’

  ‘Are you happy with it?’

  ‘Oh Jesus, yeah. They’re great for a wee place.’

  Before we could become involved in the kind of conversation about fridges that motorcycle enthusiasts have about motorcycles, I bad him farewell and he wished me luck, happily reassured that the Donegal branch of Fridges ‘R Us hadn’t ripped him off. I hoped that this knowledge would give him the extra tonic he’d need to make it through another stressful day as Donegal Town’s premier butcher, and watched him as he disappeared out the back to carry on doing whatever butchers do when they’re not out the front.

  Brendan, brilliant Brendan, waited patiently in his car whilst, from a phonebox in the square, I gave The Gerry Ryatt Show a quick update on my first day. He was most impressed by my progress so far and declared that Donegal Town by the end of Day One was ‘absolutely bloody marvellous’. I explained my plans to reach Bunbeg and then Tory Island and he told drivers to look out for me just north of Letterkenny in around an hour’s time. This really was most kind of him, and given the threatening rain clouds above, could make the difference between good health and a lengthy hospital stay for pneumonia. At the end of our interview, I was told that someone had called in whilst we’d been on air and offered me free accommodation in Bunbeg, and I took down the details, staggered that my quest was being greeted with such a positive response. I hung up the phone and looked nonplussed, but with underlying gratification. It was a difficult face to do.

  I read somewhere that Letterkenny has the only set of traffic lights in the county of Donegal, which is either a measure of the remoteness and tranquillity of this province or yet another example of the denial of basic human rights to people in side roads. If it was the former, which could be more likely, then hitching around these parts mightn’t be that easy. When Brendan dropped me on the roadside just north of Letterkenny, I was mightily relieved that it coincided with a temporary respite in the continuous heavy rain which had accompanied the drive there. Having already rehearsed the goodbyes once, they were performed proficiently, and Brendan said he’d come back to see if I was still stranded there after he’d finished his business in town. Quite what he was going to do if I was still there other than offer commiserations, I didn’t know.

  Fortunately I never found out. I had just arranged myself in an appropriate position for hitching and was considering what course of action to take in the event of the next imminent downpour, when a huge truck, and I mean huge, slammed on its brakes and came to a standstill forty yards ahead. Leaving my stuff, I ran ahead to see if it was stopping for me or to avoid running something over. The truck was so big, I could only just reach the handle of the cabin door. I opened it and the driver said, ‘Are you Tony?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Well, go and get your fridge.’

  Things were going rather well.

  6

  Bunbeg

  It was a long way up into that truck, and the cabin was surprisingly small, its crampedness compounded by a fridge wedged behind my seat The lack of space seemed a little ironic given that we were pulling a forty-five-foot trailer behind us.

  After formal introductions (well, as formal as they could be in this situation), I learned that I was in the company of Jason, a man beaming with excitement, in his early twenties who wasted no time in peppering me with questions.

  ‘What are you doing with that fridge anyways?’

  ‘Well, I’m travelling with it to win a bet with someone.’

  ‘You’re mad. I was listening to you on the radio this morning and I was in stretches.’

  I wasn’t sure what stretches were, but Jason was smiling so I assumed they were good.

  ‘I was just on the way down to Donegal Town when you were saying you were going to be starting in Letterkenny, so I’ve been keeping an eye out for you.’

  ‘Brilliant. That’s very kind of you.’

  ‘I didn’t know who you were until I saw that fridge, and then I thought…’

  Laughter took him over for a while, before he managed, ‘Ah, it’s all a good laugh.’

  Good, he understands.

  I took a moment to digest all that was happening. The fridge, far from being a hindrance, had become a positive boon, and the protagonist in; an excursion which was growing ever more surreal.; From the haven of the truck’s cabin I watched the driving rain I pelt against the windscreen and felt somehow invincible,
especially I when Jason announced that he was going to my chosen destination—Bunbeg. All right, I’d have to wait while he did some deliveries but I I didn’t mind that. Why should I? Yesterday I’d done toiletry sales—today groceries, deliveries thereof. And I was seeing at first hand what makes the world tick over—good honest labour.

  Our first stop was McGinleys in Dunfanaghy, and watching Jason struggling with boxes and crates, I felt as heartened by the sight of his dogged industry as I was reassured by my own lack of involvement in it. It looked hard. Some people are born for this kind of work and others are born to watch it I had no difficulties in identifying to which of these two categories I belonged. For many years I had measured success in my chosen career in terms of how little heavy luting I had to do. Heavy lifting is good for the soul but bad for the back, and tends to interfere with lolling about.

  The Mace supermarket in Dunfanaghy suitably replenished with groceries, we embarked on a journey through some of Ireland’s more wild, unkempt and windswept scenery. Austere grey mountains towered over dark tranquil loughs, boglands and streams bordered the apology for a road, and stubborn sheep blocked the route wherever and whenever they felt the urge. Never mind that there was a bloody great lorry hurtling towards them, they were going to move as and when they were ready, and not a moment before. As far as I could see, there were miles and miles and miles of open spaces all around these sheep offering excellent grazing facilities and yet they still chose to congregate in the middle of the road. You’re not telling me they don’t take some perverse pleasure in the inconvenience that this causes. Sheep aren’t stupid. They’re petty, spiteful and bloody minded. Well, fuck ewe’ I thought as the truck was forced to a standstill for the umpteenth time, deciding there was a case for popping mutton on the menu that night.

  Somehow we left the sheep ‘conference area’ behind us and Jason made headway through the ten gears of his giant lorry until we started to experience something like its top speed. A lot of European Commission money has gone into the improvement of the roads in Ireland but there was exiguous evidence of any of it having been lavished on the road surfaces of Northern Donegal. Jason had his own particular method for dealing with the road’s over plentiful relief, his policy being to accelerate into the bumps.

  When we crashed over the bigger ones, I took off, my arse momentarily liberated from all things solid, and I was rewarded with an all too brief taster of unassisted flight. The uncomfortable downside came a fraction of a second later in the form of landing, and was immediately followed by the sharp top left-hand corner of a small fridge impacting at force with my defenceless shoulderblade. On each occasion this happened, which regrettably was about every twenty seconds, I tried not to recoil in pain and instead smiled at the unflinching Jason, unflinching because he had the advantage of knowing where the bumps were, and was spared the fridge slamming into shoulderblade’ pain which I had to endure.

  ‘That fridge all right behind you?’ said Jason.

  ‘Yes, fine,’ I lied.

  I didn’t want to make a scene.

  §

  Naturally by the time Jason let me off in what he called Bunbeg and what most of us would call a stretch of road, it had stopped raining completely. Around me there was a hotel, a couple of houses, a lot of open space and a lovely view of a sandy bay. My free accommodation had been offered at Bunbeg House which the radio people had told me was down by the harbour. Enquiries in the hotel produced directions and my first piece of bad news. In polite conversation I had allowed it to become known that I was headed for Tory Island and this was greeted with a shake of the head and, ‘But you won’t be able to get out there until Friday.’

  It turned out that once a year the ferry was taken down to Killybegs for a complete refurbishment, and it had gone for this year’s earlier that morning.

  The ferry was out of action for three days. Oh dear. Oh dear, oh dear. A setback of substantial proportions. Getting to Tory Island was a condition of the bet and just at this moment, spending three days in a stretch of road seemed a bit too long. So I did what everyone should do when their nerves are tested, I sat down and had a good meal. Given the absence of mutton from the hotel’s lunch menu, I had pie and chips and followed it with jelly and ice cream, which was comforting in that it was the kind of treat my mother would have produced in a time of crisis. Jelly. I hadn’t had jelly since Mark Evershed’s party. A strange thing to find at a fortieth birthday bash, but life’s full of surprises. Not least the non-running ferry.

  The twenty-minute walk down a narrow tortuous lane to the harbour was to be the stiffest test so far for the fridge’s trolley. Until now it had coped adequately enough with everything that had been asked of it, but this was over a mile and hardly similar terrain to a station platform for which it had been designed. We set off, me and the team of rucksack, fridge and trolley, and soon created an intriguing and not altogether pleasant rattling sound as the wheels of the trolley rolled over the uneven surface of Bunbeg’s Highway #1. The fridge acted like a soundbox, amplifying the noise so as to draw more attention to someone, who without this extra assistance, was already quite a conspicuous figure. It prompted a reaction from an American tourist outside the hotel. At least I assumed he was an American tourist because he was wearing those check clothes that say to you ‘I’m an American tourist’.

  ‘You got your own fridge with you?’ he said in an accent which confirmed the accuracy of my assumption.

  ‘Yes, I have.’

  ‘That’s the way to travel.’

  ‘It is.’

  ‘I hadn’t thought of that. That’s real cool.’

  I trundled on, unmoved by his facetious approbation, and five minutes down the road reached a spot where the view of the bay to my right demanded a photo. I perched my camera on a fence and began organising myself for a self-timer photograph. This should have been straightforward given that the camera I have is a idiot-proof one on which everything is automatic. However, in the commercial marketplace, the need to produce a camera which is small and simple has run concomi-tantiy with the need to provide extra features. Extra features mean extra knobs and buttons. Consequently the best model on the market is the smallest, easiest camera to use with the most number of buttons and knobs on it. The one I have. So, when I pressed what I thought was the button for the self timer, the film rewound itself back to the beginning and in the ensuing confusion I managed to do something which erased all the photos I had taken so far. Since I’d just had a good meal and therefore had done what everyone should do when their nerves are tested, I did the next best thing and swore.

  ‘Bollocks!’ I shouted, at just enough volume for the distant American tourist to look over, to whom I responded rather ungenerously, ‘And bollocks to you too!’

  There had been no need for that, but the camera cock-up had been my fault and I knew it, so I’d had to look around for someone else to blame and American tourists are ideal for this.

  Bloody camera. As with all new purchases I had completely ignored the accompanying booklet with ‘Please read these instructions carefully’ boldly written on it, and had jumped in at the deep end, confident that common sense and a healthy slice of good fortune would be enough to ensure a long and fruitful relationship with this particular piece of Japanese shite.

  ‘Bollocks, bollocks, bollocks!’

  The American tourist was beginning to feel relieved that he hadn’t pursued our relationship beyond a light-hearted exchange. I sat down on my fridge, angry with myself, the camera, and the world’s desire to make things smaller, failing to appreciate that it was the world’s desire to make things smaller which had afforded me the very luxury of sitting on a fridge.

  A car pulled up and a window was wound down. ‘Whereabouts are you headed?’

  Oh no, the driver thought I was hitching. He must have registered my look of disconsolate despair and perceived it to be that of a marooned hitch-hiker. I tried to let him down gently.

  ‘Well, I’m not really hi
tching, I was—’

  ‘You’re the guy who’s bringing a fridge round Ireland, aren’t you?’ I could only manage a nod. ‘I heard you on the radio yesterday, now where are you heading?’

  ‘Bunbeg.’

  The man, in his forties and a smart suit, hesitated for a moment. ‘But this is Bunbeg.’

  ‘Is it? Splendid, I’m done for the day then.’

  ‘What are you doing in Bunbeg? There’s nothing here.’

  ‘I’m going to get the ferry out to Tory Island.’

  ‘I don’t think it’s running. Isn’t it in Killybegs being re—’

  ‘—furbished, yes. I think it is.’

  It suddenly occurred to me that there might be little point in my staying here, Tory Island was inaccessible and that was that It wasn’t as if Kevin was going to hold me to the very letter of the bet. I elected to find out whether this fellow, who looked like another travelling salesman, could be any help to me.

  ‘Where are you headed?’

  ‘I’m heading down to Dungloe and then I’ll be going on to Donegal Town. Jump in, I’ll give you a lift.’

  My journey was a celebration of the ridiculous, and I the champion of it, but even given that proviso, I couldn’t accept the absurdity of having spent an entire day hitch-hiking only to end up by nightfall at exactly the same spot where I’d started in the morning. It was for this reason, and this reason alone, that I decided to hang on here and see if there was any other way of getting out to Tory Island. I thanked the driver and he drove off looking at me much in the same way as the Cavan bus driver had. I felt surprisingly free of guilt My goodness, life on the road was making me pretty damn hard, I just didn’t mind who I rubbed up the wrong way.

  The sun almost came out as I hauled my load down a small hill and made a right after a pub, admirably shunning its hospitality. I was now on a particularly quiet lane, the reverberations of a fridge in transit echoing through the surrounding hills in an audio tribute to incongruity. I turned a corner and there in the distance was a derelict house with what looked like two ladies stood painting at easels in front of it I drew ever closer becoming more and more fascinated by what their reaction might be to the bizarre spectre with which they were about to be confronted. They looked up, startled by the distant rattling sound and, as I edged closer, their interest in the subject of their paintings became secondary. Finally I drew up alongside them, one elderly and a younger attractive lady.